“It seems to me them that sees an evil thing unfold and don't do nothin' to prevent it, are just as bad as them that does the evil.”
― Kate Constable, quote from The Singer of All Songs
“all the gods are the same unknowable mystery, just as each face of a jewel strikes light in a different direction”
― Kate Constable, quote from The Singer of All Songs
“...There is a tale, as old as the Ancient Ones themselves, that one would arise who has that gift: to sing all the chantments, the high notes and the low, the swift rhythms and the slow. And this person would be more powerful than even the Ancient Ones were, as powerful as the gods themselves.”
― Kate Constable, quote from The Singer of All Songs
“Calwyn stopped in her tracks, and her song faltered on her lips. For the space of a heartbeat she thought she must be dreaming; the steady chantment she’d been singing without pause since dawn jerked almost into silence.”
― Kate Constable, quote from The Singer of All Songs
“Calwyn felt suddenly very solemn and serious. Usually during lessons and lectures she felt only a fierce desire to be elsewhere or an irresistible urge to fidget, but now she sat as still as a statue, sensing that what Marna was about to tell her was more important, and certainly more interesting, than herb lore or weaving patterns.”
― Kate Constable, quote from The Singer of All Songs
“FOXFIRE NEVER SAYS NEVER!
By the time the kidnapped turquoise-and-chrome car overturns--turns and turns and turns!--in a snow-drifted field north of Tydeman's Corners Legs Sadovsky will have driven eleven miles from Eddy's Smoke Shop on Fairfax Avenue, six wild miles with the Highway Patrol cop in pursuit bearing up swiftly when the highway is clear and the girls are hysterical with excitement squealing and clutching one another thrown from side to side as Legs grimaces sighting the bridge ahead, it's one of those old-fashioned nightmare bridges with a steep narrow ramp, narrow floor made of planks but there's no time for hesitation Legs isn't going to use the brakes, she's shrewd, reasoning too that the cop will have to slow down, the fucker'll be cautious thus she'll have several seconds advantage won't she?--several seconds can make quite a difference in a contest like this so the Buick's rushing up the ramp, onto the bridge, the front wheels strike and spin and seem at first to be lifting in decorous surprise Oh! oh but astonishingly the car holds, it's a heavy machine of power that seems almost intelligent until flying off the bridge hitting a patch of slick part-melted ice the car swerves, now the rear wheels appear to be lifting, there's a moment when all effort ceases, all gravity ceases, the Buick a vessel of screams as it lifts, floats, it's being flung into space how weightless! Maddy's eyes are open now, she'll remember all her life this Now, now how without consequence! as the car hits the earth again, yet rebounds as if still weightless, turning, spinning, a machine bearing flesh, bones, girls' breaths plunging and sliding and rolling and skittering like a giant hard-shelled insect on its back, now righting itself again, now again on its back, crunching hard, snow shooting through the broken windows and the roof collapsing inward as if crushed by a giant hand upside-down and the motor still gunning as if it's frantic to escape, they're buried in a cocoon of bluish white and there's a sound of whimpering, panting,sobbing, a dog's puppyish yipping and a strong smell of urine and Legs is crying breathlessly half in anger half in exultation, caught there behind the wheel unable to turn, to look around, to see, "Nobody's dead--right?"
Nobody's dead.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, quote from Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang
“Sooo, I'm tired of people thinking I'm a freak. I know you can't relate to that but -"
"Get over it already, will ya?" Candace stood. "You're not Smellody anymore. You're pretty. You can get hot guys now. Tanned ones with good vision. Not geeky hose jousters." She shut the window. "Don't you ever want to use your lips as something other than veneer protectors?"
Melody felt a familiar pinch behind her eyes. Her throat dried. Her eyes burned. And then they came. Like salty little paratroopers, tears descended en masse. She hated Candace thought she had never made out with a boy. But how could she convince a seventeen-year-old with more dates than a fruitcake that Randy the Starbucks cashier (aka Scarbucks, because of his acne scars) was a great kisser? She couldn't.”
― Lisi Harrison, quote from Monster High
“Aspirar a algo que no tendrás jamás, ¿es ésta la agudeza del más generoso entre los deseos?”
― Umberto Eco, quote from The Island of the Day Before
“Maera lay still, his head on his arms, his face in the sand. He felt warm and sticky from the bleeding. Each time he felt the horn coming. Sometimes the bull only bumped him with his head. Once the horn went all the way through him and he felt it go into the sand. Some one had the bull by the tail. They were swearing at him and flopping the cape in his face. Then the bull was gone. Some men picked Maera up and started to run with him toward the barriers through the gate out the passageway around under the grandstand to the infirmary. They laid Maera down on the cot and one of the men went out for the doctor. The others stood around. The doctor came running from the coral where he had been sewing up picador horses. He had to stop and wash his hands. There was a great shouting going on in the grandstand overhead. Maera felt everything getting larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then it got larger and larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then everything commenced to run faster and faster as when they speed up a cinematograph film. Then he was dead.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from In Our Time
“You were right about the swords,” Royce said. “You really do need three.”
“You sound drunk.”
“I feel drunk-and I hate being drunk. Nothing works the way it’s supposed to. And it makes me act stupid … like you.”
“You’re aware I’m in the process of trying to save your life, right?”
“What part of stupid don’t you understand?”
― Michael J. Sullivan, quote from The Crown Tower
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