“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 would rather feel contrition than know how to define it.”
― Thomas à Kempis, quote from The Imitation of Christ
“No,” he muttered, running a hand through his copper hair. “No. No. There are dozens.”
“Kell?” she asked, moving to touch his arm.
He shook her off. “Dozens of ships, Lila! And you had to climb aboard his.”
“I’m sorry,” she shot back, bristling, “I was under the impression that I was free to do as I pleased.”
“To be fair,” added Alucard, “I think she was planning to steal it and slit my throat.”
“Then why didn’t you?” snarled Kell, spinning on her. “You’re always so eager to slash and stab, why couldn’t you have stabbed him?”
― V.E. Schwab, quote from A Gathering of Shadows
“The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire a man's happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and to him only to whom the divinity has [guaranteed] continued happiness until the end we may call happy.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, quote from Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
“As I took a step toward him your eyes met mine and I saw the silent pleading for forgiveness or acceptance. I wasn't sure which. All I knew was you were Sawyer's now. My best friend was gone. I envied him and hated him for the first time that day. He'd finaly won the one prize I thought was mine.”
― Abbi Glines, quote from The Vincent Boys
“Memory is a funny thing. It tricks you into believing that you've forgotten important moments, and then when you're raking your brain for a bit of information that might make sense of something else, it taps you on the head and says, "Remember when you told me to put that memory in the green rubbish bin? Well, I didn't, I put it in the black recycling tub, and it's coming your way again.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Saving Francesca
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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