“And if we know how to light a fire, why do we carry tinder around with us?"
Because you're humans," the little one explained serenly. "You're stupid.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“You don't just choose a name at random. A name is a name. A major responsibility.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“Quando uno ha troppa tristezza, la magia ci annega dentro, come le persone dentro l'acqua. Però nonna sapeva come si fa. Se pensi forte le cose, loro diventano vere. Ma, se dentro hai la tristezza, tutto quello che ti esce dalla testa è la tristezza.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“Quando tutto ti fa paura, hai bisogno di un sogno ancora più che di qualcosa da mangiare.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“The Human was extremely tall. On its head it had yellowish hair coiled like a rope. It had no hair on its face. And yet his grandmother had been very categorical about that. Humans have hair on their faces. Its called a beard. Its one of the many things that distinguish them from elves. The little elf concentrated, trying to remember, then it came to him.
"You must be a female man," he concluded triumphantly.
"The word is woman, fool," said the human.
"Oh, sorry, sorry, woman-fool, I be more careful, I call right name, woman-fool"....”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“In human language, selling a smoking pot for three gold pieces is called a 'swindle,'" the man said, narrowly escaping a kick in the shins.
"In Elfish language it's called 'genius,'" the little elf replied cheerfully...”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“Il piccolo elfo ebbe l'impressione di essere diventato meno orfano. Era una sensazione curiosa. Come se la solitudine fosse un muro di vetro che per la prima volta mostrava incrinature e crepe.
Era l'ultimo di una stirpe distrutta, ma dal passato gli arrivava un po' dell'affetto che il presente gli negava.
Le sue dita passavano e ripassavano sugli oggetti: erano stati fatti per lui; gli erano stati lasciati. Qualcuno gli aveva voluto bene mentre li faceva, mentre glieli lasciava.
Sperò che Morte fosse un posto da dove il suo papà potesse vederlo.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“Lei era Rosalba, la luce con cui rinasce tutti i giorni la speranza di un giorno buono.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“L'importante non sono le cose, ma il senso che noi diamo alle cose. Prima o poi la morte attende tutti. Più importante del rimandare la morte è darle un senso.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“Era lui l'ultimo elfo. [...] Il più grande, il più potente e l'ultimo, quello dopo cui non ci sarà nessun altro.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“Per qualche motivo, tutto sommato, lo avrebbe di nuovo voluto neonato. Squittente e catastrofico, e che lo guardasse con occhi adoranti.
Adesso non squittiva e non bruciava, ma come adorazione era senz'altro sullo scarso.”
― Silvana de Mari, quote from The Last Dragon
“I drove back home. I missed her already.”
― Durjoy Datta, quote from Our Impossible Love
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from Uljas uusi maailma
“One of the supreme paradoxes of baseball, and all sports, is that the harder you try to throw a pitch or hit a ball or accomplish something, the smaller your chances are for success. You get the best results not when you apply superhuman effort but when you let the game flow organically and allow yourself to be fully present. You'll often hear scouts say of a great prospect, "The game comes slow to him." It mean the prospect is skilled and poised enough to let the game unfold in its own time, paying no attention to the angst or urgency or doubt, funnelling all awareness to the athletic task at hand.”
― quote from Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball
“If the components of the body were organs and veins and cells, then the components of thought and language were words and grammar.”
― John Burnside, quote from The Dumb House
“His colleagues at the Bar called him Filth, but not out of irony. It was because he was considered to be the source of the old joke, Failed In London Try Hong Kong. It was said that he had fled the London Bar, very young, very poor, on a sudden whim just after the War, and had done magnificently well in Hong Kong from the start. Being a modest man, they said, he had called himself a parvenu, a fraud, a carefree spirit.
Filth in fact was no great maker of jokes, was not at all modest about his work and seldom, except in great extremity, went in for whims. He was loved, however, admired, laughed at kindly and still much discussed many years after retirement.”
― Jane Gardam, quote from Old Filth
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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