“I follow his stare at the speckles of stars. Suddenly I wonder, "Aren't you guys supposed to, like, sparkle or something?" And immediately wish I hadn't. Frederik stands up so quickly that he doesn't disturb the sand. He grabs the front of my shirt and growls--his eyes are black as the night sky along the horizon, and red veins fray against the white of his eyes. His sharp canines are exposed. "I.Don't.Sparkle." He lets go of me and becomes regular bored Frederik again, no fangs, no bloodshot eyes. Just a dude sitting on the beach at night.”
― Zoraida Córdova, quote from The Vicious Deep
“Maybe his shifting isn't just physical. Maybe it applies to his feelings too, because I don't see how he can walk around eating candy at Luna Park as we take my English teacher practically hostage.”
― Zoraida Córdova, quote from The Vicious Deep
“Some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. —Willa Cather”
― Zoraida Córdova, quote from The Vicious Deep
“Don't listen to him," Thalia interjects. "Our court is more civilized than whatever happens on land."
"Tell that to the guy stuck to the ship with electric tape."
Kurt points a finger at Marty. "I don't know who you are. I assume you're part of the peace treaty, but I will not have you besmirch the king on our own land."
"Whoa, easy. I kid. I joke. I make funnies.”
― Zoraida Córdova, quote from The Vicious Deep
“How rude of me. This is Roaan Recklit." We shake hands. Good grip, good grip. "Sorry," he says, releasing my hand. "I forget my own strength.”
― Zoraida Córdova, quote from The Vicious Deep
“What do you call a thirteen-year-old mermaid?” I shake my head and Layla shrugs. “What?” “A merteenie!” He slaps his knee and wipes a fake tear from the corner of his eye.”
― Zoraida Córdova, quote from The Vicious Deep
“She licks her lips, and then there is darkness.”
― Zoraida Córdova, quote from The Vicious Deep
Zoraida Córdova
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“The hills below crouched on all fours under the weight of the rainforest where liana grew and soldier ants marched in formation. Straight ahead they marched, shamelessly single-minded, for soldier ants have no time for dreaming. Almost all of them are women and there is so much to do - the work is literally endless. So many to be born and fed, then found and buried. There is no time for dreaming. The life of their world requires organization so tight and sacrifice so complete there is little need for males and they are seldom produced. When they are needed, it is deliberately done by the queen who surmises, by some four-million-year-old magic she is heiress to, that it is time. So she urges a sperm from the private womb where they were placed when she had her one, first and last copulation. Once in life, this little Amazon trembled in the air waiting for a male to mount her. And when he did, when he joined a cloud of others one evening just before a summer storm, joined colonies from all over the world gathered fro the marriage flight, he knew at last what his wings were for. Frenzied, he flied into the humming cloud to fight gravity and time in order to do, just once, the single thing he was born for. Then he drops dead, having emptied his sperm into his lady-love. Sperm which she keeps in a special place to use at her own discretion when there is need for another dark and singing cloud of ant folk mating in the air. Once the lady has collected the sperm, she too falls to the ground, but unless she breaks her back or neck or is eaten by one of a thousand things, she staggers to her legs and looks for a stone to rub on, cracking and shedding the wings she will never need again. Then she begins her journey searching for a suitable place to build her kingdom. She crawls into the hollow of a tree, examines its walls and corners. She seals herself off from all society and eats her own wing muscles until she bears her eggs. When the first larvae appear, there is nothing to feed them, so she gives them their unhatched sisters until they are old enough and strong enough to hunt and bring their prey back to the kingdom. That is all. Bearing, hunting, eating, fighting, burying. No time for dreaming, although sometimes, late in life, somewhere between the thirtieth and fortieth generation she might get wind of a summer storm one day. The scent of it will invade her palace and she will recall the rush of wind on her belly - the stretch of fresh wings, the blinding anticipation and herself, there, airborne, suspended, open, trusting, frightened, determined, vulnerable - girlish, even, for and entire second and then another and another. She may lift her head then, and point her wands toward the place where the summer storm is entering her palace and in the weariness that ruling queens alone know, she may wonder whether his death was sudden. Or did he languish? And if so, if there was a bit of time left, did he think how mean the world was, or did he fill that space of time thinking of her? But soldier ants do not have time for dreaming. They are women and have much to do. Still it would be hard. So very hard to forget the man who fucked like a star.”
― Toni Morrison, quote from Tar Baby
“A utopia I would join in a minute is a society which could be communist or capitalist, anything, except that no woman member of it ever underwent sex unless she was hot. Pretending to be hot bears a distinct resemblance to self-rape, but it’s a rape accompanied by boredom instead of fear.”
― Norman Rush, quote from Mating
“If life is not intoxicating, it's nothing. Here it's burn or rot.”
― Saul Bellow, quote from Humboldt's Gift
“Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work - the writer might have died long ago.”
― Jasper Fforde, quote from First Among Sequels
“But I did it because you can't constantly be afraid of what might happen. If you do, you lose control of what is happening, and all the joy and pain it holds for you”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Birthright
Aesop's Fables
The Forever War
North and South
About a Boy
Freedom
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