“But the bigots always see those whom they hate as morally corrupt, as if they confuse their own aesthetics of disgust and fear with actual ethical critique, rationalizing their emotional response, and enforcing their moral certainties with passion, establishing them-selves, subtly or brutally, as arbiters of reason.”
― Hal Duncan, quote from Vellum
“In that time while he was still aware, which was the worse, I wonder: the agony of his physical torture or the horror of their utter hatred, of their moral certainty that he was so beyond the bounds of what they could accept that he deserved not just a death but one of such brutality, such inhumanity, as would make the seraphs who burned Sodom bow their heads in cold respect? What is it like, I wonder, to learn the full capacity of hatred in a lesson hammered home with bone broken on wood and skin ripped on barbed wire?”
― Hal Duncan, quote from Vellum
“She has to be written out of history and written into myth.”
― Hal Duncan, quote from Vellum
“A burning map. Every epic, my friend Jack used to say, should start with a burning map. Like in the movies. Fucking flames burning the world away; that's the best thing about all those old movies, he said - when you see this old parchment map just… getting darker and darker in the centre, crisping, crinkling until suddenly it just… fwoom”
― Hal Duncan, quote from Vellum
“Come Neti, my chief keeper of the gates of Kur, and listen carefully to what I say: Lock up and bolt the seven gates of Kur, then, one by one, open each gate and let Innana enter through the crack. Bring her down. But as she enters, take her regal costume from her, take the crown, the necklace, and the beads that fall across her breast, the golden breastplate on her chest, the bracelet and the rod and line. Strip her of everything, even the royal robe, and let the holy priestess of the earth, the queen of heaven, enter here bowed low.”
― Hal Duncan, quote from Vellum
“- Come Inanna, enter, Neti said to her, and as Inanna entered the first gate, the sugurra, crown of the steppe, was taken from her head.
- What is this? asked Inanna
- Quiet, Inanna, she was told. The customs of the city of the dead are perfect. They may not be questioned.”
― Hal Duncan, quote from Vellum
Hal Duncan
Born place: in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland, The United Kingdom
Born date October 21, 1971
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“He could easily imagine what people would say if they could see him now: exactly the same thing they'd say if someone had told them that Ray from work was a transvestite or that Ted from next door had anonymous gay sex at highway rest stops. They'd shake their heads with their heads with the standard combination of amusement, pity, and smug superiority, and say, Ha-ha-ha, poor Ray. Ho-ho-ho, poor Ted. At least I'm not like that. But we want what we want, Richard thought, and there's not much we can do about it.”
― Tom Perrotta, quote from Little Children
“Whatever you say, old boy. Just look after yourself. And whatever you do, don't swallow the gum!”
― Anthony Horowitz, quote from Skeleton Key
“Success is not about never falling, but about rising every time you fall”
― Michelle Cohen Corasanti, quote from The Almond Tree
“I thought this was a game,” I remind him.
“Not anymore and you know it. Everything else in my life is all fucked up. This is the only thing that’s real.”
― Nyrae Dawn, quote from Charade
“People like you must create. If you don't create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.”
― Maria Semple, quote from Where'd You Go, Bernadette
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The Call of the Wild...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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