Quotes from The Lost Girl

“I’d rather spend the rest of my life without ever seeing you again,” he says, “than watch them destroy you because of me.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“If you expect the worse, you're only denying someone a chance to be better”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“But maybe that's what the dead do. They stay. They linger. Benign and sweet and painful. They don't need us. They echo all by themselves.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“You,” he says, before the door closes all the way. “I often dream of you.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“You exist by the Weavers' grace. Only as long as you are what they expect of you. Do not understand how fragile that is? But if you replace your other, you might be safe. You might make your familiars happy, and then they will always keep you. So if only for my sake, child, hope that happens."

"I don't wish for her to die!"

"Then I will wish it," she replies ruthlessly.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“I’d rather spend the rest of my life without ever seeing you again,” he says, “than watch them destroy you because of me.” His hand slips to the back of my neck, skimming over my Mark, and stops in my hair. He leans down and kisses my forehead. I long to reach up, close my fingers over his arm, keep him here. He pulls away but not by much. His mouth lingers on my forehead and then, as if with an effort, he straightens.
“Want him,” he says, his face hidden in shadow, “not me. He’d love you more than I could.”
Then he leaves me alone.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“You have to be a two people; a saint and a sinner”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“That's how I feel every single day," he say brokenly. "Every day, Eva. Your life is dangling by a thread. And I'm scrabbling to hold on, but it keeps slipping through my fingers.I'm here because I can't stand not to be. It's not some big noble sacrifice. I want to be here. I don't like the world without you. I need you to be alive.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“...We’d be like Cathy and Heathcliff. Harry and Hermione. Liam and Noel.”
...
“Well, I’m not sure they’re the best example anyway,” Sean points out, handing me a coffee. “Nor are the others. None of them exactly ended up together.”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is what they did together, what they could achieve side by side. We’d be unstoppable if we were together.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“I want to be human so badly it hurts.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“Amarra used to read books about battles. Great heroic battles. Swords and shields and knights and honor. Battles like that don't happen anymore, yet I feel like I am caught in one. Once I may have hoped to fight for my life with all those things: swords and shields and knights and honor. But I don't have a sword. My shield is broken. I don't know what is and isn't honorable anymore. And now I've sent my knight away.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“If Sean's voice is layers of wood, and Mina Ma's is the voice a copper pot, then Mathew Mercer's is the voice of a wild animal. I suddenly think of a movie Ammara and I loved when we were little, and I think of Scar, the lion who murdered his brother to become king. That kind of voice.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“Come on," I say, "let's go be star-crossed lovers and court disaster.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“He can see what move I'm planning to make in chess and counters before I can do it. He always knows who the killer is in a detective story. I think he could make a career out of detecting, but he wants to write plays for theater. Maybe he could be a Shakespeare instead of a Sherlock. He could be anything. Anything he wants to be.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

“For someone who died," I mutter at an imaginary Amarra, "you've done a very good job of hanging around."

But maybe that's what the dead do. They stay. They linger. Benign and sweet and painful. They don't need us. They echo all by themselves.”
― Sangu Mandanna, quote from The Lost Girl

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Popular quotes

“You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

“There are moments in life that change us irreparably. Sometimes those moments are grand and dramatic, tragic or beautiful in their intensity. Sometimes those moments are quiet and small, like footsteps fading behind a closed door. The subtlety of those moments can sometimes camouflage their impact. And sometimes the impact is felt profoundly, but the quietness of the moment is lost on everyone else around you, adding loneliness to the equation.”
― Samantha Young, quote from Moonlight on Nightingale Way

“Maria, lonely prostitute on a street of pain,
You, at least, hail me and speak to me
While a thousand others ignore my face.
You offer me an hour of love,
And your fees are not as costly as most.
You are the madonna of the lonely,
The first-born daughter in a world of pain.
You do not turn fat men aside,
Or trample on the stuttering, shy ones,
You are the meadow where desperate men
Can find a moment's comfort.

Men have paid more to their wives
To know a bit of peace
And could not walk away without the guilt
That masquerades as love.
You do not bind them, lovely Maria, you comfort them
And bid them return.
Your body is more Christian than the Bishop's
Whose gloved hand cannot feel the dropping of my blood.
Your passion is as genuine as most,
Your caring as real!

But you, Maria, sacred whore on the endless pavement of pain,
You, whose virginity each man may make his own
Without paying ought but your fee,
You who know nothing of virgin births and immaculate conceptions,
You who touch man's flesh and caress a stranger,
Who warm his bed to bring his aching skin alive,
You make more sense than stock markets and football games
Where sad men beg for virility.
You offer yourself for a fee--and who offers himself for less?

At times you are cruel and demanding--harsh and insensitive,
At times you are shrewd and deceptive--grasping and hollow.
The wonder is that at times you are gentle and concerned,
Warm and loving.
You deserve more respect than nuns who hide their sex for eternal love;
Your fees are not so high, nor your prejudice so virtuous.
You deserve more laurels than the self-pitying mother of many children,
And your fee is not as costly as most.

Man comes to you when his bed is filled with brass and emptiness,
When liquor has dulled his sense enough
To know his need of you.
He will come in fantasy and despair, Maria,
And leave without apologies.
He will come in loneliness--and perhaps
Leave in loneliness as well.
But you give him more than soldiers who win medals and pensions,
More than priests who offer absolution
And sweet-smelling ritual,
More than friends who anticipate his death
Or challenge his life,
And your fee is not as costly as most.

You admit that your love is for a fee,
Few women can be as honest.
There are monuments to statesmen who gave nothing to anyone
Except their hungry ego,
Monuments to mothers who turned their children
Into starving, anxious bodies,
Monuments to Lady Liberty who makes poor men prisoners.
I would erect a monument for you--
who give more than most--
And for a meager fee.

Among the lonely, you are perhaps the loneliest of all,
You come so close to love
But it eludes you
While proper women march to church and fantasize
In the silence of their rooms,
While lonely women take their husbands' arms
To hold them on life's surface,
While chattering women fill their closets with clothes and
Their lips with lies,
You offer love for a fee--which is not as costly as most--
And remain a lonely prostitute on a street of pain.

You are not immoral, little Maria, only tired and afraid,
But you are not as hollow as the police who pursue you,
The politicians who jail you, the pharisees who scorn you.
You give what you promise--take your paltry fee--and
Wander on the endless, aching pavements of pain.
You know more of universal love than the nations who thrive on war,
More than the churches whose dogmas are private vendettas made sacred,
More than the tall buildings and sprawling factories
Where men wear chains.
You are a lonely prostitute who speaks to me as I pass,
And I smile at you because I am a lonely man.”
― James Kavanaugh, quote from There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

“This means that if boys and girls grew up on a deserted island with no organised society or parents to guide them, girls would still cuddle, touch, make friends and play with dolls, while boys would compete mentally and physically with each other and form groups with a clear hierarchy.”
― Allan Pease, quote from Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It

“Lucien bent and searched through the scraps of paper at Loki’s stone feet for the blood-kissed prayer Dante had placed among them. Finding it, he plucked it from the pile and straightened.
The fading essence of creawdwr blood magic tingled against his fingers. Unfolding the liquor store receipt, he read the words scrawled in Dante’s lefty slant:
Watch over her, ma mère. S’il te plaît, keep her safe. Even from me.
Lucien reread the prayer until the words blurred. He closed his fingers around the receipt, the paper crinkling against his palm. He had no doubt who she was — Special Agent Heather Wallace.
Wounded, his child, yes. Damaged, yes. But Dante’s heart was whole and in love, it seemed, with a mortal. Perhaps Heather Wallace could bind Dante and help keep his sanity from unraveling.
Insanity. The fate of an unbound creawdwr.”
― Adrian Phoenix, quote from In the Blood

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