“The worst pain in our lives comes from the mistakes we refuse to acknowledge--the things we've done that are so our of harmony with who we are that we can't bear to look at them.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“The person I think I am is terrified of the person I really am, terrified of what others would think of that person. What would they do to me if they knew the person I really was? Better to be safe! Better to hide the real person, starve the real person, bury the real person!”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“What he took he will give, when he gets what he gave.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“For her, people in general were a plus, a source of positive stimulation (with exceptions such as the predatory Sonya Reynolds). For Gurney, people in general were a minus, a drain on his energy (with exception such as the encouraging Sonya Reynolds).”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“It was a curious thing about the past--how it lay in wait for you, quietly, invisibly, almost as though it weren't there. You might be tempted to think it was gone, no longer existed. Then, like a pheasant flushed from cover, it would roar up in an explosion of sound, color, motion--shockingly alive.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“The purpose of life is to get as close as we can to other people.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“Eis uma coisa curiosa acerca do passado: a forma como jaz à nossa espera, silencioso, invisível, quase como se ali não estivesse. Podemos ter a tentação de julgar que desapareceu, que já não existe. De repente, como um faisão espantado para fora do seu esconderijo, erguer-se-á numa explosão de som, cor e movimento: escandalosamente vivo.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“The mind is a mass of contradictions and conflicts. We lie to make others trust us. We hide our true selves in the pursuit of intimacy. We chase happiness in ways that drive happiness away. When we’re wrong we fight the hardest to prove we’re right.” Caught”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“Hardwick was showing the frustration of a man trying to hold his groceries inside a ripped bag.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“No hay peor dolor que tener a dos personas viviendo en un cuerpo”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“El conflicto más simple es el conflicto entre la forma en que nos vemos nosotros mismos y la forma en que nos ven los demás. Por ejemplo, si estamos discutiendo y tú me gritas, vería la causa en tu incapacidad de controlar tu temperamento. En cambio, si yo te grito a ti, no veré la causa en mi temperamento, sino en tu provocación, algo en ti frente a lo cual mi grito es una respuesta apropiada.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“How many bright angels can dance on a pin? How many hopes drown in a bottle of gin? Did the thought ever come that your glass was a gun and one day you’d wonder, God, what have I done?”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“But how could he stop being what he was? However much he cared for her, however much he wanted to be with her, however much he wanted her to be happy, how could he become someone he wasn't?”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“Sherlock Holmes, "İmkansız olanı elerseniz,elimizde kalan ne kadar mümkün görünmese de doğrudur," derdi.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“That boulder is your image of yourself, who you think you are. The person you think you are is keeping the person you really are locked up without light or food or friends. The person you think you are has been trying to murder the person you really are for as long as you both have lived.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“So what are you saying?” Gurney”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“The personal collisions that upset us the most, the ones we seem powerless to let go of, are those in which we played a role that we are unwilling to acknowledge. That’s why the pain lasts—because we refuse to look at its source. We cannot detach it, because we refuse to look at the point of attachment.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“We each seem to be wired to believe my situation causes my problems but your personality causes yours. This creates trouble.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“El problema con los ojos radicaba en que éstos, más que ninguna otra de las facciones de la cara, captaban la tensión, la contradicción: la indiferencia reservada, salpicada con una pizca de crueldad, que Gurney había discernido con frecuencia en los rostros de los asesinos con los que había tenido la oportunidad de pasar a tiempo a solas.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“The fact that no one was dead persuaded him that he was on the right track”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“Eso es lo que tiene el alcohol: cuando te emborrachas tanto como lo hice yo, pierdes el miedo a las consecuencias. Tu percepción se deforma, tus inhibiciones desaparecen, tu memoria se apaga, y actúas por impulso: instinto sin control.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“En esos sueños veía con una claridad que superaba las palabras que el pozo de tristeza era pérdida, y la mayor pérdida de todas era la pérdida de amor.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“The mind is a mass of contradictions and conflicts. We lie to make others trust us. We hide our true selves in the pursuit of intimacy. We chase happiness in ways that drive happiness away. When we’re wrong we fight the hardest to prove we’re right.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“La mente es una masa de contradicciones y conflictos. Mentimos para conseguir que otros confíen en nosotros. Escondemos nuestro verdadero ser en una persecución de la intimidad. Perseguimos la felicidad de formas que nos alejan de ella. Cuando nos equivocamos, luchamos a brazo partido por demostrar que tenemos razón.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“Darás lo que has quitado
al recibir lo dado.
Sé todo lo que piensas
sé cuando parpadeas
sé dónde has estado
sé adónde irán tus pasos.
Vamos a vernos solos
señor 658.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“Gurney se maravillaba de que una persona tan espontánea pudiera también llevar una vida tan regida por los principios. Era lo que la hacía ser como era. Era lo que la convertía en un faro en el cenagal de su propia existencia.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“La atención de Sonya era agradable, gratificante para el ego, incluso quizás un poco excitante, pero conllevaba un precio excesivamente alto, era demasiado peligrosa para cosas que importaban más.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“Madeleine, la luz que casi había perdido. La luz que había puesto en peligro.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number
“We’re an adaptable species,” she said, refusing to be stopped, “but it’s wrong to inflict suffering just because your victim can endure it.” “Learn”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Lilith's Brood
“Keep in mind always the present you are constructing. It should be the future you want.”
― Alice Walker, quote from The Temple of My Familiar
“Every man would fall in love with their voice, their lovely appearance, but no man would ever get past that. They'd never really know the girls for who they actually were, never really love them. It would be impossible for any of the four girls to ever really fall in love and be genuinely loved in return.”
― Amanda Hocking, quote from Wake
“He touched the sword he had taken from the ambush. "Aside from this and the trio of juggling stones, I've nothing but the clothes on my back."
Well then, tomorrow we'll go-"
"No. Prince Ryne told me to make sure you stay in the manor."
"It's just into town to buy you a few things. Surely there won't be any danger at the market." I sensed a softening. "And we'll take along Saul or Odd."
No. We'll send one of the caregivers with a shopping list," Flea said.
"Hey, that's..."
He waited.
I huffed. "A good idea. But don't be so smug. You're not going to win every argument."
"Oh, yes, I am."
"Oh, no, you're not."
Flea straightened to his full height. When did he get so tall? He rested his hands on his hips. "I am. Prince Ryne trusted me with the task of keeping you safe. And I'm not going to disappoint him."
I crossed my arms. "You sound like Kerrick."
"Thank you."
Uh-huh. You do know I disobeyed almost all of his orders. Right?" I suppressed a grin.
"I do. But I'm smarter than Kerrick."
"You are?"
Oh, yes. I know the magic word."
"And what would that be?"
"Please.”
― Maria V. Snyder, quote from Scent of Magic
“kinds of disguises and dance to all sorts of tunes to make myself Harry’s addiction. If he had not been fatally flawed, early corrupted by the brutality of his school, I should never have been able to keep him from Celia. I knew I was a hundred times more beautiful than she, a hundred times stronger. But I could not always remember that, when I saw the quiet strength she drew on when she believed she was morally right. And I could not be certain that every man would prefer me, when I remembered how Harry had looked at her with such love when we came back from France. I would never forgive Celia for that summer. Even though it was the summer when I cared nothing for Harry but rode and danced day and night with John, I would not forget that Celia had taken my lover from me without even making an effort at conquest. And now my husband bent to kiss her hand as if she were a queen in a romance and he some plighted knight. I might give a little puff of irritation at this scene played out before my very window. Or I might measure the weakness in John and think how I could use it. But use it I would. Even if I had felt nothing else for John I should have punished him for turning his eyes to Celia. Whether I wanted him or not was irrelevant. I did not want my husband loving anyone else. For dinner that afternoon I dressed with extra care. I had remodelled the black velvet gown that I had worn for the winter after Papa’s death. The Chichester modiste knew her job and the deep plush folds fitted around my breasts and waist like a tight sheath, flaring out in lovely rumpled folds over the panniers at my hips. The underskirt was of black silk and whispered against the thick velvet as I walked. I made sure Lucy powdered my hair well, and set in it some black ribbon. Finally, I took off my pearl necklace and tied a black ribbon around my throat. With the coming of winter, my golden skin colour was fading to cream, and against the black of the gown I looked pale and lovely. But my eyes glowed green, dark-lashed and heavy-lidded, and I nipped my lips to make them red as I opened the parlour door. Harry and John were standing by the fireplace. John was as far away from Harry as he could be and still feel the fire. Harry was warming his plump buttocks with his jacket caught up, and drinking sherry. John, I saw in my first sharp glance, was sipping at lemonade. I had been right. Celia was trying to save my husband. And he was hoping to get his unsteady feet back on the road to health. Harry gaped openly when he saw me, and John put a hand on the mantelpiece as if one smile from me might destroy him. ‘My word, Beatrice, you’re looking very lovely tonight,’ said Harry, coming forward”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from Wideacre
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