Quotes from These Shallow Graves

“That was what people did when they wanted to stop a girl from doing something—they shamed her.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Why is it, she wondered now, that boys get to do things and be things and girls only get to watch?”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“We who have means and a voice must use them to help those who have neither. Yet how can we help them if we don't even know about them? And how can we know about them if no one writes about them? Is it so wrong to want to know things?”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Sir, no amount of money, no matter how vast, could induce me to stroll, perambulate, promenade, or engage in any form of locomotion with you whatsoever. Good evening.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“As a child, she’d thought all the noise and commotion was the most wild, wonderful game, but as she’d grown older, she understood why everyone rushed around so: they were chasing a story.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Headstrong is just a word, Katie - a word others call you when you don't do what they want.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“No. I meant stay with me today. And tomorrow. And every day after.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“I’d wish you good luck, but you won’t need it. You get to write your own story now. Nothing’s luckier than that.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Fac quod faciendum est,' " Jo read aloud. "Do what must be done.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“And besides, I couldn't stay at the party. It was too dangerous. I nearly died."
"From what?"
"Boredom.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“The thing is, you can't ever really know how rotten someone will turn out to be.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“We who have means and a voice must use them to help those who have neither.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Sometimes you have to do wrong to do right.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“He was a flame and she’d gotten burned, and the pain was terrible, yet it didn’t make the fire any less alluring.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Murder is not a suitable topic of conversation for a young lady.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Her fear was strong, but her need for the truth was stronger.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“But you are a different sort of girl. Not at all what I expected you to be. And this is a different sort of time. And so I am hopeful for all the things you may yet find.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“If you're going to bury the past, bury it deep, girl. Shallow Graves always give up their dead.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“«Ένα ποτό, ένα τσιγάρο, καμία υποχρέωση να ευχαριστήσεις οποιονδήποτε άλλον εκτός από τον εαυτό σου. Ελευθερία. Αυτή είναι η απάντησή μου. Η ελευθερία να είσαι εσύ το καλύτερο πράγμα που σου συνέβη».”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“To have a purpose in life--what does that feel like?”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Headstrong is just a word--a word others call you when you don't do what they want.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“If only she could be bold enough, and brave enough, to claim the things she wanted: love, a purpose, a life. But could she be?”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Asking questions, demanding explanations—these things always led to trouble”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“The truth can be a hard thing, Jo. It's often best left hidden.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

“Don't let the darkness that's been visited upon this family pull you in so deeply, you cannot get out. Turn back from it, darling Jo... he'd warned her. He didn't seem to understand that turning your back on the darkness didn't mean the darkness would turn its back on you.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from These Shallow Graves

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“Li Gui called out, "Sir, if you kill me you will kill two persons."

"How do you make that out?" asked Li Kui, staying the blow.

"At home I support my mother who is ninety years of age, and this is my only means of helping her in her old age," said Li Gui. "I never injure people, but only make them afraid. If you kill me, my old mother will die of starvation."

Li Kui who never twinkled his eyes in chopping off people's heads, paused and thought when he heard this. "Here am I trying to succour my old mother, and yet killing a man who supports his old mother. Heaven will not allow me to live if I do this. No! No! I will forgive this man.

(J.H. Jackson translation)”
― Shi Nai'an, quote from Outlaws of the Marsh

“like the big bed it was enclosed in a permanent canopy of heavy netting. Mosquitoes were the least of the creatures this net was intended to exclude; its absence, at any time, night or day, would have been an invitation for snakes and scorpions to make their way between the sheets. In a hut by the pond a woman was even said to have found a large dead fish in her bed. This was a koimachh, or tree perch, a species known to be able to manipulate its spiny fins in such a way as to drag itself overland for short distances. It had found its way into the bed only to suffocate on the mattress.”
― Amitav Ghosh, quote from The Hungry Tide

“There is a dark resource within all of us, a reservoir of hurt and pain and anger upon which we can draw when the need arises. Most of us rarely, if ever, have to delve too deeply into it. That is as it should be, because dipping into it costs and you lose a little of yourself each time, a small part of all that is good and honorable and decent about you. Each time you use it you have to go a little deeper, a little further down into the blackness. Strange creatures move through its depths, illuminated by a burning light from within and fueled only by the desire to survive and to kill. The danger in diving into that pool, in drinking from that dark water, is that one day you may submerge yourself so deeply that you can never find the surface again. Give in to it and you're lost forever.”
― John Connolly, quote from The Killing Kind

“Kaden still influenced almost everything I did. He was on my mind constantly yet I had learned to control him, push him to a corner where I could merely observe and feel his presence.”
― quote from Screaming in the Silence

“Susie: Hi Calvin! Aren't you excited about going to school? Look at all these great school supplies I got! I love having new notebooks and stuff!

Calvin:All I've got to say is they're not making me learn any foreign languages. If English is good enough for me, then by golly, it's good enough for the rest of the world! Everyone should just speak English or shut up, that's what I say!

Susie: You should maybe check the chemical content of your breakfast cereal.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Revenge of the Baby-Sat

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