Quotes from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“Lips that taste of tears, they say,
Are the best for kissing.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“When asked by her publisher why her work had not been submitted while on her honeymoon: "I've been too fucking busy or vice versa”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“Every love's the love before
In a duller dress.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

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Popular quotes

“How rough your hands still are.”

Embarrassed, she made to pull them away, but he held them fast. “Yet never have I longed to kiss any woman’s hands as I long to kiss these.”
― Julie Klassen, quote from The Maid of Fairbourne Hall

“On a breath, he leaned forward. It was such a small space to close. Such an infinite distance to cross.”
― Meredith Duran, quote from The Duke of Shadows

“Elm

BY SYLVIA PLATH

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, this big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches?——

Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from The Collected Poems

“I awoke to a warm embrace, a frowning countenance, and Keir’s voice in my ear.

“You are not to leave this bed today.”

The day deteriorated from there.

Marcus was cranky from lack of sleep. Keir was wound tighter then he had been the night before, if that were possible. I was upset because my arm ached, Marcus was cranky, and Keir was impossible.

He ordered me to stay in bed.

I refused.

He ordered me to stay in the tent.

I refused.

He ordered me to accept an escort of my guards, Rafe and ten more men to the tents, have my assistants check my arm, and return to his tent.

I refused. I asked to go into the city with him to see Warren.

He refused.

During our discussion, we bathed, dressed, and ate. And discussed the matter at the top of our lungs.

Finally, Marcus emerged from his area and roared “Enough!” We both stopped talking, and turned to glare at him.

Marcus glared right back. “You.” He said, pointing at Keir. “Go to the city with some men and find out what Warren has learned.” He turned and pointed at me. “You. Go to the tents with your guards.” He glared at both of us. “Damned fools.” He stomped off. “And don’t come back ‘til after my nap!” he yelled from the back.

Keir grabbed up his cloak and sword, and stomped out. I glared at the tent wall as I finished my kavage, then grabbed up my cloak and stomped out. Epor and Isdra were waiting outside, and they eyed me with trepidation as I walked past them. They fell into step behind me, and were smart enough to stay quiet as we walked.”
― Elizabeth Vaughan, quote from Warprize

“You mortals arose from the possibility she made and, though she always liked to think so, are consequently not of her direct design.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Superior Saturday

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