“Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice-- they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."
"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.
The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."
"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.
"Learn the guitar.”
― Henry H. Neff, quote from The Maelstrom
“The Lover's Maxim
'If you can'r be handsome, be rich. If you can't be roich, be strong. If you can't be strong, be witty'
'What if you can'r be witty?'
'Learn the guitar.”
― Henry H. Neff, quote from The Maelstrom
“You have the courage and will to overcome your fear and do what's required.”
― Henry H. Neff, quote from The Maelstrom
“In the common room, they found Emer dozing in her chair, Lila scratching at the door, and Mine stirring a large pot and peering at its contents with an anxious, irritated expression. With a groan, the Archmage strode across the room and flung open the windows.
"It just needs more basil," Mine assured him. "No, it does not," Bram declared. "It needs less garlic. Didn't I tell you to follow a recipe?"
"I did follow a recipe!" Shouted Mine, defiantly flinging the rest of the basil into the pot.
"Show it to me, then."
"I threw it in the fire!"
"What have I told you about lying, child?"
"To get better at it!”
― Henry H. Neff, quote from The Maelstrom
“Sorry, Toby," said Max, plucking up the smee by one end. "This will have to do." He unceremoniously dunked the creature into a nearby pitcher of water. "Better?"
"Invigorated," groused the smee. "And now I will ask you to kindly put me down and never to grab me by that particular part of my anatomy again."
Horrified, Max promptly dropped the smee onto its pillow.”
― Henry H. Neff, quote from The Maelstrom
“I believe anyone could light a cigarette from the sparks that fly from your eyes!”
― Enid Blyton, quote from Five on a Treasure Island
“three minutes later.
“That’s it!” yells Teague. “You’re almost there. Nice!”
I straddle my feet from rock to rock until, by some major miracle, I reach the other side (wrist unbroken, clothes dry, major feelings of affection).”
― Megan Shull, quote from Amazing Grace
“My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, quote from Being Peace
“I cannot stress enough the perils of your friends marrying or becoming court inventors. One day you are all a society of outlaws, adventurous comrades and companions who will be pushing off somewhere or other when things become tiresome; you have all the world to choose from, just by looking at the map… And then, suddenly, they’re not interested any more. They want to keep warm. They’re afraid of rain. They start collecting big things that can’t fit in a rucksack. They talk only of small things. They don’t like to make sudden decisions and do something contrariwise. Formerly they hoisted sail; now they carpenter little shelves for porcelain mugs.”
― Tove Jansson, quote from Moominpappa's Memoirs
“the intention of every man acting according to virtue is to follow the rule of reason, wherefore the intention of all the virtues is directed to the same end, so that all the virtues are connected together in the right reason of things to be done, viz. prudence,”
― Thomas Aquinas, quote from Summa Theologica, 5 Vols
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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