Rinsai Rossetti · 290 pages
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“He had an extraordinarily casual air about him. I'd noticed that before, when he had tossed himself out the window.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings
“I frowned. Evidently, Sangris wasn't a cat who could shape-shift. It was more difficult than that. He was a nothing who occasionally pretended to be a cat. "I wish I could know what it's like for myself, that's all," I said. I felt rather the way a jail inmate would if a bird flew up and shouted through her window bars: This freedom thing? Yeah, not so great.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings
“I used to come here to think," he told me, landing beside the tree. It was so short that my head was only a few inches above his.
"Sangris," I said in shock, "you think? When did this start?”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings
“Then I got to my feet, and, taking my arms, he drew me out of my picture frame, into the darkness and the heat, to a place where the ground was frighteningly, thrillingly far away, and the sunless sky was burning and trembling all around us.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings
“I rely on a backbone of books and, for the most part, it's enough to keep me quiet, half-drugged with dreams of imaginary worlds.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings
“Ah, Robert?”
“Shhhh, not while I’m praying,” he said, momentarily losing his place before he started again, “thank you for letting us survive that trip from hell. Thank you for ignoring my prayers for a quick death when I didn’t think that I’d be able to survive another day of starvation,” he said, making her roll her eyes in annoyance.
“You were given three full meals a day just like everyone else,” she pointed out, not bothering to mention the fact that, on most days, he’d received second helpings. She sat down on a bench near their luggage, wondering just how much longer he was going to keep this up.
“I’m sorry for all the cursing that my wife forced me to do while I was on that boat,” he continued, ignoring her even as he amused her. “As you know, she’s been such a bad influence on me. Thank you for pulling me from near death and somehow giving me the strength to survive.”
“Near death?” she asked, frowning. “When were you near death?”
“When was I near death?” he asked in stunned disbelief as he opened his eyes so that he could glare at her.
“How could you forget all those times that I could barely move? When I struggled to find the will to live so that I wouldn’t leave you a young widow? Did my struggle for survival mean nothing to you?” he demanded in outrage, terrifying the people that were forced to walk past him to get to the docks and making her wrack her brain as she struggled to figure out what he was talking about.
“Do you mean those few times when you had a touch of seasickness?” she asked, unable to think of anything else that he could be talking about since he’d been the picture of health during the majority of the trip.
“A touch?” he repeated in disbelief. “I nearly died!”
― R.L. Mathewson, quote from Truce
“Time is to clock as mind is to brain. The clock or watch somehow contains the time. And yet time refuses to be bottled up like a genie stuffed in a lamp. Whether it flows as sand or turns on wheels within wheels, time escapes irretrievably, while we watch. Even when the bulbs of the hourglass shatter, when darkness withholds the shadow from the sundial, when the mainspring winds down so far that the clock hands hold still as death, time itself keeps on.”
― Dava Sobel, quote from Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
“We are one. Man, horse, lance, we are one beast of blood and wood and iron.”
― George R.R. Martin, quote from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
“Almost all voyages, from that of Noah’s Ark to the sending of the ships to Troy, have been marked by interminable delays, with false starts and turning wind and tide; perhaps the schooner Ringle was too slim and slight to count as a worthy adversary, because she gently sailed her anchor out of the ground and then bore away a little east of north with a wind that allowed her to spread every sail she possessed, other than those reserved for foul or very foul weather.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from Blue at the Mizzen
“Something from out in the dark brushed her throat, damp
fingers smearing her with warm wetness. She started, raising a hand against it, but touched nothing.
A teasing whisper in her ear – no, more a thought. Come to me …
She glanced around to see if anyone else had heard, but those near her gazed eagerly ahead. Except the Riper; he watched her.”
― Marianne de Pierres, quote from Burn Bright
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