“
Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.
”
”
Charles Lamb (The life, letters and writings of Charles Lamb Volume 3)
“
I like you; your eyes are full of language."
[Letter to Anne Clarke, July 3, 1964.]
”
”
Anne Sexton
“
What's that?" he snarled, staring at the envelope Harry was still clutching in his hand. "If it's another form for me to sign, you've got another -"
"It's not," said Harry cheerfully. "It's a letter from my godfather."
"Godfather?" sputtered Uncle Vernon. "You haven't got a godfather!"
"Yes, I have," said Harry brightly. "He was my mum and dad's best friend. He's a convicted murderer, but he's broken out of wizard prison and he's on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though...keep up with my news...check if I'm happy....
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
“
Clary,
Despite everything, I can't bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more then I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other. I'm leaving you our family ring because you have as much right to it as I do.
I'm writing this watching the sun come up. You're asleep, dreams moving behind your restless eyelids. I wish I knew what you were thinking. I wish I could slip into your head and see the world the way you do. I wish I could see myself the way you do. But maybe I dont want to see that. Maybe it would make me feel even more than I already do that I'm perpetuating some kind of Great Lie on you, and I couldn't stand that.
I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and I would let you. You could ask anything of me and I'd break myself trying to make you happy. My heart tells me this is the best and greatest feeling I have ever had. But my mind knows the difference between wanting what you can't have and wanting what you shouldn't want. And I shouldn't want you.
All night I've watched you sleeping, watched the moonlight come and go, casting its shadows across your face in black and white. I've never seen anything more beautiful. I think of the life we could have had if things were different, a life where this night is not a singular event, separate from everything else that's real, but every night. But things aren't different, and I can't look at you without feeling like I've tricked you into loving me.
The truth no one is willing to say out loud is that no one has a shot against Valentine but me. I can get close to him like no one else can. I can pretend I want to join him and he'll believe me, up until that last moment where I end it all, one way or another. I have something of Sebastian's; I can track him to where my father's hiding, and that's what I'm going to do. So I lied to you last night. I said I just wanted one night with you. But I want every night with you. And that's why I have to slip out of your window now, like a coward. Because if I had to tell you this to your face, I couldn't make myself go.
I don't blame you if you hate me, I wish you would. As long as I can still dream, I will dream of you.
_Jace
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
“
Remember He is the artist and you are only the picture. You can't see it. So quietly submit to be painted---i.e., keep fulfilling all the obvious duties of your station (you really know quite well enough what they are!), asking forgiveness for each failure and then leaving it alone.You are in the right way. Walk---don't keep on looking at it.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963)
“
In these times I don't, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don't want what I know and want what I don't know.
”
”
Marsilio Ficino (The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, Vol. 3)
“
Live your life. Be happy as you can be, let go of the things that don't matter, and fight.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
The Story of Solomon is the only way I know how to explain.
And then, in smaller letters:
Forgive me.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Requiem (Delirium, #3))
“
This letter has gotten foolish, and I think you know how I detest looking like a fool. But still I do. For you.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
May I ask why you’re passing notes to Aiden?” He eyed the letter like it was a bomb.
“It’s a love note. I’m asking him to circle ‘yes’ or ‘no’ if he likes me.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Deity (Covenant, #3))
“
I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.
”
”
Jack Kerouac (The Portable Jack Kerouac (Portable Library))
“
Everybody was strange. In a fit of frustration, she scratched out strange and wrote the word CRACKPOTS in big letters.
”
”
Kristin Cashore (Bitterblue (Graceling Realm, #3))
“
While Leo fussed over his helm controls, Hazel and Frank relayed the story of the fish-centaurs and their training camp.
'Incredible,' Jason said. 'These are really good brownies.'
'That's your only comment?' Piper demanded.
He looked surprised. 'What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies--'
'I know,' Frank said, his mouth full. 'Try them with Ester's peach preserves.'
'That,' Hazel said, 'is incredibly disgusting.'
'Pass me the jar, man,' Jason said.
Hazel and Piper exchanged a look of total exasperation. Boys.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
“
I… What are you saying, Zsadist?" she stammered, even though she'd heard every word.
He glanced back down at the pencil in his hand and then turned to the table. Flipping the spiral notebook to a new page, he bent way over and labored on top of the paper for quite a while. Then he ripped the sheet free.
His hand was shaking as he held it out. "It's messy."
Bella took the paper. In a child's uneven block letters there were three words: I LOVE YOU
Her lips flattened tight as her eyes stung. The handwriting got wavy and then disappeared.
"Maybe you can't read it," he said in a small voice. "I can do it over."
She shook her head. "I can read it just fine. It's… beautiful."
"I don't expect anything back. I mean… I know that you don't… feel that for me anymore. But I wanted you to know. It's important that you knew.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #3))
“
I sent a lot of publishing ideas to my publisher, about 30 of them. Each time except 3, i got a "rejection letter". This is basically what a rejection letter is like:
Hello Pathetic Moron,
We read your book. It sucked. Don't send us another one. If you do, we will run over your grandmother with a bus. Don't Do It.
From, Your Publisher
”
”
James Dashner
“
Kitty's always saying how origin stories are important.
At college, when people ask us how we met, how will we answer them? The short story is, we grew up together. But that's more Josh's and my story. High school sweet-hearts? That's Peter and Gen's story. So what's ours, then?
I suppose I'll say it all started with a love letter.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
“
I am not a believer in love at first sight. For love, in its truest form, is not the thing
of starry-eyed or star-crossed lovers, it is far more organic, requiring nurturing and time
to fully bloom, and, as such, seen best not in its callow youth but in its wrinkled maturity.
Like all living things, love, too, struggles against hardship, and in the process sheds
its fatuous skin to expose one composed of more than just a storm of emotion–one of loyalty
and divine friendship. Agape. And though it may be temporarily blinded by adversity,
it never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth and
time–while its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off to
find the next real thing.
”
”
Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
“
Comamandering is not a word.
It has letters, doesn't it? Sounds like a word to me.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3))
“
That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (The Purloined Letter (C. Auguste Dupin, #3))
“
Weren’t all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!
”
”
Cornelia Funke (Inkdeath (Inkworld, #3))
“
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.
”
”
James Madison (Letters and Other Writings of James Madison Volume 3)
“
Aria: I went to Hollis. Because I was looking for...you know. Her. She was teaching an art class, so I ran inside, grabbed a paintbrush, and painted a scarlet A across her chest. You know, like that woman in The Scarlet Letter? It was awesome. She didn't know what hit her. And then I said, 'Now everyone will know what you've done'.
Ella: Do you realize that Hester Prynne is supposed to be a sympathetic character?
”
”
Sara Shepard (Perfect (Pretty Little Liars, #3))
“
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
[Letter to William Bradford Jr. April 1 1774]
”
”
James Madison (Letters and Other Writings of James Madison Volume 3)
“
She read and read and read, but she was stuffing herself with the letters on the page like an unhappy child stuffing itself with chocolate. They didn’t taste bad, but she was still unhappy.
”
”
Cornelia Funke (Inkdeath (Inkworld, #3))
“
Jude. You are in no mood for games, very well. I am in no mood for them, either. Let me write it outright; You are pardoned. I revoke your banishment. I rescind my words. Come home. Come home and shout at me. Come home and fight with me. Come home and break my heart, if you must. Just come home.
”
”
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
“
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.
{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816]
”
”
John Adams (The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams)
“
If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.
[Letter to the London Packet, 3 June 1772]
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (The Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin)
“
Before I could say anything, Jamie began writing giant letters over the words with his index finger.
F-U-C-K Y-O-U.
My sentiments exactly.
”
”
Michelle Hodkin (The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3))
“
How can I explain to this woman—I thought—that from the age of six I've been a slave to letters and numbers, that my mood depends on the success of their combinations, that the joy of having done well is rare, unstable, that it lasts an hour, an afternoon, a night?
”
”
Elena Ferrante (Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels, #3))
“
Jude,
Since I cannot imagine there is much in the human lands to interest you, I can only suppose your continued absence in Elfhame is due to me.
I urge you: come be angry at a nearer distance.
Cardan.
”
”
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
“
Any more packages for Solange?”
“Twelve letters, three packages, and a box of puppies.”
I winced. “Puppies?”
“They’re fine. Isabeau took them all.”
“Good. Who eats puppies?” I shook my head.
“Yeah, Isabeau swore in French. A lot.”
“Hot.”
“Yeah, Logan nearly went cross-eyed.”
"Chapter 12
”
”
Alyxandra Harvey (Out for Blood (Drake Chronicles, #3))
“
That letter was your whole future, you daft prince."
"It was my past. I lost that the night my parents died. But I found you, Deryn. Maybe I wasn't meant to end the war, but I was meant to find you. I know that. You've saved me from having any reason to keep going."
"We save each other. That's how it works.
”
”
Scott Westerfeld (Goliath (Leviathan, #3))
“
I suppose I'll say it all started with a love letter
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
We would report the exact details of her letter to her modiste, but we fear you would be overcome. Suffice to say, the money outlaid upon hats rivals the annual income of a large estate or small country; We fail to see why one small woman needs so many hats. She is unlikely to be concealing additional heads upon her person.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
“
It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Govt. from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.
[Letter to the Reverend Jasper Adams, January 1, 1832]
”
”
James Madison (Letters and Other Writings of James Madison Volume 3)
“
I've pushed your love away and I've run from you, sometimes I've checked out, but this is the reason. I just couldn't understand what we have. I mean we have never met in real life, yet we've loved each other for over 3 years.
”
”
Chimnese Davids (My Unrequited Love Letters)
“
The only strange thing about Jackson was the tattoo on the inside of his forearm - a trident as dark as seared wood, with a single line underneath and the letters SPQR.
He'd told me the letters stood for Sono Pazzi Quelli Romani - those Romans are crazy. I wasn't sure if he was kidding.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3))
“
Jude,
You are in no mood for games. Very well. I am in no mood for them, either.
Let me write it outright: you are pardoned. I revoke your banishment. I rescind my words. Come home.
Come home and shout at me. Come home and fight with me. Come home and break my heart, if you must.
Just come home.
Cardan
”
”
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
“
Jude,
Not even responding to my missives is ridiculous and beneath you and I hate it.
Cardan
”
”
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
“
Rule #1: You may bring only what fits in your backpack. Don’t try to fake it with a purse or a carry-on.
Rule #2: You may not bring guidebooks, phrase books, or any kind of foreign language aid. And no journals.
Rule #3: You cannot bring extra money or credit/debit cards, travelers’ checks, etc. I’ll take care of all that.
Rule #4: No electronic crutches. This means no laptop, no cell phone, no music, and no camera. You can’t call home or communicate with people in the U.S. by Internet or telephone. Postcards and letters are acceptable and encouraged.
That’s all you need to know for now.
”
”
Maureen Johnson (13 Little Blue Envelopes (Little Blue Envelope, #1))
“
There are only two four letter words that are offense to men. The words don’t and stop. Well, unless they are used together.
”
”
Christine Zolendz (Scars and Songs (Mad World, #3))
“
Could it be that to truly love a thing is not to desire it, but to desire happiness for it?
”
”
Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
“
Names.
What’s in a name, really? I mean, besides a bunch of
letters or sounds strung together to make a word. Does a
rose by any other name really smell as sweet? Would the
most famous love story in the world be as poignant if it was
called Romeo and Gertrude? Why is what we call
ourselves so important?
”
”
Julie Kagawa (Summer's Crossing (Iron Fey, #3.5))
“
A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life:
1. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day.
2. Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.
5. Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves.
6. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
7. We never repent of having eat too little.
8. Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.
9. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
10. Take things always by their smooth handle.
11. Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.
12. When angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100.
”
”
Thomas Jefferson (Letters of Thomas Jefferson)
“
But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.
”
”
Malorie Blackman (Checkmate (Noughts & Crosses, #3))
“
Unwrapping the paper carefully so it doesn’t tear, I find a beautiful red leather
box. Cartier. It’s familiar, thanks to my second-chance earrings and my watch.
Cautiously, I open the box to discover a delicate charm bracelet of silver, or platinum
or white gold—I don’t know, but it’s absolutely enchanting. Attached to it
are several charms: the Eiffel Tower, a London black cab, a helicopter—Charlie
Tango, a glider—the soaring, a catamaran—The Grace, a bed, and an ice cream
cone? I look up at him, bemused.
“Vanilla?” He shrugs apologetically, and I can’t help but laugh. Of course.
“Christian, this is beautiful. Thank you. It’s yar.” He grins.
My favorite is the heart. It’s a locket.
“You can put a picture or whatever in that.”
“A picture of you.” I glance at him through my lashes. “Always in my heart.”
He smiles his lovely, heartbreakingly shy smile.
I fondle the last two charms: a letter C—oh yes, I was his first girlfriend to
use his first name. I smile at the thought. And finally, there’s a key.
“To my heart and soul,” he whispers.
”
”
E.L. James (Fifty Shades Freed (Fifty Shades, #3))
“
I'm sure he is fine," Kenji is saying to me. "He probably just got hung up doing whatever it is he's doing. You know, commandering and shit."
"Commandering isn't a word."
"It has letters, doesn't it? Sounds like a word to me.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3))
“
As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (The Purloined Letter (C. Auguste Dupin, #3))
“
Reading list (1972 edition)[edit]
1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey
2. The Old Testament
3. Aeschylus – Tragedies
4. Sophocles – Tragedies
5. Herodotus – Histories
6. Euripides – Tragedies
7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War
8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings
9. Aristophanes – Comedies
10. Plato – Dialogues
11. Aristotle – Works
12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus
13. Euclid – Elements
14. Archimedes – Works
15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections
16. Cicero – Works
17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things
18. Virgil – Works
19. Horace – Works
20. Livy – History of Rome
21. Ovid – Works
22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia
23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic
25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion
26. Ptolemy – Almagest
27. Lucian – Works
28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations
29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties
30. The New Testament
31. Plotinus – The Enneads
32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
33. The Song of Roland
34. The Nibelungenlied
35. The Saga of Burnt Njál
36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica
37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy
38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks
40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly
42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
43. Thomas More – Utopia
44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises
45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel
46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion
47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays
48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote
50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays
53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World
55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan
57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
58. John Milton – Works
59. Molière – Comedies
60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light
62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics
63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education
64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies
65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics
66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology
67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe
68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal
69. William Congreve – The Way of the World
70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge
71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man
72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws
73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets
”
”
Mortimer J. Adler (How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading)
“
A man's worth isn't measured by a bank register or diploma... It's about integrity
”
”
Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
“
Please follow these instructions:
1. Stack the pages of this letter neatly.
2. Roll the pages up into a cylinder.
3. Smack yourself over the head with it.
4. Repeat. You complete ass.
”
”
Leah Thomas (Because You'll Never Meet Me (Because You'll Never Meet Me, #1))
“
The first two letters of her name were M and E and I thought, Yes! Finally, a name I can relate to.
”
”
Jarod Kintz ($3.33 (the title is the price))
“
Valek smiled. “Good. First, send Kade a reply, asking
him not to come.” He pointed at the unopened letter on the table. I had forgotten about it. Sealed with wax, the message appeared
to be secured. Valek shrugged. “I was bored.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Spy Glass (Glass, #3))
“
Incredible,” Jason said. “These are really good brownies.”
“That’s your only comment?” Piper demanded.
He looked surprised. “What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies—”
“I know,” Frank said, his mouth full. “Try them with Esther’s peach preserves.”
“That,” Hazel said, “is incredibly disgusting.”
“Pass me the jar, man,” Jason said.
Hazel and Piper exchanged a look of total exasperation. Boys.
Percy, for his part, wanted to hear every detail about the aquatic camp. He kept coming back to one point: “They didn’t want to meet me?”
“It wasn’t that,” Hazel said. “Just…undersea politics, I guess. The merpeople are territorial. The good news is they’re taking care of that aquarium in Atlanta. And they’ll help protect the Argo II as we cross the Atlantic.”
Percy nodded absently. “But they didn’t want to meet me?”
Annabeth swatted his arm. “Come on, Seaweed Brain! We’ve got other things to worry about.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
“
[But] I have come across anything so painfully beautiful as that kiss. I wish it was something I could save and share with the world so I could tell the universe: this is what it's like; this is how it feels when you fall.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
December 26, 7:40 p.m.
Dear America,
I’ve been thinking of our first kiss. I suppose I should say first kisses, but what I mean is the second, the one I was actually invited to give you. Did I ever tell you how I felt that night? It wasn’t just getting my first kiss ever; it was getting to have that first kiss with you. I’ve seen so much, America, had access to the corners of our planet. But never have I come across anything so painfully beautiful as that kiss. I wish it was something I could catch with a net or place in a book. I wish it was something I could save and share with the world so I could tell the universe: this is what it’s like; this is how it feels when you fall.
These letters are so embarrassing. I’ll have to burn them before you get home.
Maxon
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:
1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...)
2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...)
3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts.
4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...)
5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...)
6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...)
7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...)
8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano.
And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings.
[From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]
”
”
Anton Chekhov (A Life in Letters)
“
From our first babblings to our last word,
we make but one statement, and that is our life.
”
”
Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
“
By the time you read this letter, these words will be those of the past. The me of now is gone.
”
”
Fennel Hudson (A Writer's Year: Fennel's Journal No. 3)
“
Legend did not believe in endings.
For most of his immortal life, he believed his world would come crashing down if he fell in love and became human. Instead, his world had become more precious, particularly the pieces involving her.
He stifled a laugh as he read her letter again. Tella wouldn’t like it if she knew he was laughing, but she was one of the rare things he found funny.
It was one of the many reasons he loved her.
”
”
Stephanie Garber (Finale (Caraval, #3))
“
Die," I repeated.
"Yeah."
"Not disappear, not wouldn't come back, not suffer defeat."
"Nope. Die. Or more accurately, three letters, starts with D."
"Not dad then," I suggested. "Or dog.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo, #3))
“
She had no recollection, later, of having decided what to do next, or of having hunted for something to wear, but somehow she was hurrying down the stairs, dressed in shadowhunter gear, the letter in one hand and the chain with the ring clasped hastily around her throat.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
“
This exchange marked the beginning of Mr. Malfoy's long campaign to have me removed from my post as headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort's Favorite Death Eater. My response prompted several further letters from Mr. Malfoy, but as they consisted mainly of opprobrious remarks on my sanity, parentage, and hygiene, their relevance to this commentary is remote.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Hogwarts Library, #3))
“
* *Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for.*Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.
”
”
George Orwell (As I Please: 1943-1945 (The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters, Vol. 3))
“
Gabriel gazed at his reflection in the mirror. To his shock and dismay, he was clad only in his underwear, a cheeky pair of boxer shorts that had the phrase 'Medievalists Do It in the Dark (Ages)' printed all over them in phosphorescent lettering.
”
”
Sylvain Reynard (Gabriel's Redemption (Gabriel's Inferno, #3))
“
Hogwarts didn't even send me a letter and I haven't actually forgiven them for that. Wait until I go to London and find Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters and slip through to the other side and unleash my rage. I'll make Voldemort look like a sock puppet. And I'll make-out with Draco. And I'll train a bunch of house-elves to fan me and bring me grapes -
”
”
Sara Wolf (Brutal Precious (Lovely Vicious, #3))
“
Ruby, what does the future look like?” Nico asked. “I can’t picture it. I try all the time, but I can’t imagine it. Jude said it looked like an open road just after a rainstorm.”
I turned back toward the board, eyes tracing those eight letters, trying to take their power away; change them from a place, a name, to just another word. Certain memories trap you; you relive their thousand tiny details. The damp, cool spring air, swinging between snow flurries and light rain. The hum of the electric fence. The way Sam used to let out a small sigh each morning we left the cabin. I remembered the path to the Factory the way you never forgot the story behind a scar. The black mud would splatter over my shoes, momentarily hiding the numbers written there. 3285. Not a name.
You learned to look up, craning your neck back to gaze over the razor wire curled around the top of the fence. Otherwise, it was too easy to forget that there was a world beyond the rusting metal pen they’d thrown all of us animals into.
“I see it in colors,” I said. “A deep blue, fading into golds and reds—like fire on a horizon. Afterlight. It’s a sky that wants you to guess if the sun is about to rise or set.”
Nico shook his head. “I think I like Jude’s better.”
“Me too,” I said softly. “Me too.
”
”
Alexandra Bracken (In the Afterlight (The Darkest Minds, #3))
“
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE JUDE
PLEASE JUDE
”
”
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
“
It took us most of the morning to put together the letter she sent to the Frontier Management Department, and I learned a lot about how to be frigidly polite and still leave somebody feeling like they'd been spanked.
”
”
Patricia C. Wrede (The Far West (Frontier Magic, #3))
“
My Dearest Breena,
They will remember us. Long after these wars have been mourned and then forgotten long after Summer and Winter fairies lay aside their rancor for one another and forget that they have ever tasted hatred they will remember – Summer fairies and Winter too – of a fairy king who loved his queen.
”
”
Kailin Gow (The Fairy Letters (Frost, #3.5))
“
It is often during the worst of times that we see the best of humanity–awakening
within the most ordinary of us that which is most sublime. I do not believe that it is circumstance
that produces such greatness any more than it is the canvas that makes the
artist. Adversity merely presents the surface on which we render our souls’ most exacting
likeness. It is in the darkest skies that stars are best seen.
”
”
Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
“
To the High Queen of Elfhame,
Above me is the same silvery moon that shines down on you. Looking at it makes me recall the glint of your blade pressed against my throat and other romantic moments.
I do not know what keeps you from returning
to the High Court—whether it is vexation
with me, or whether, having spent time in
the mortal world, you have come to believe
that a life free of the Folk is better than one
ruling over them.
In my most wretched hours, I believe you will
never come back.
Why would you, save for your ambition?
You have always known exactly what I am
and seen all my failings, all my weaknesses
and scars. I flattered myself that at moments
you had feelings for me other than contempt,
but even were that true, they would be but
watered wine beside the feast of your other,
greater desires.
And yet my heart is buried with you in the
strange soil of the mortal world, as it was
drowned with you in the cold waters of the
Undersea.
It was yours before I could admit it, and yours
it shall ever remain.
Cardan
”
”
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
“
December 27, 11:00 p.m.
My Dear America,
I’ve never written a love letter, so forgive me if I fail now. . . .
The simple thing would be to say that I love you. But, in truth, it’s so much more than that. I want you, America. I need you.
I’ve held back so much from you out of fear. I’m afraid that if I show you everything at once, it will overwhelm you, and you’ll run away. I’m afraid that somewhere in the back of your heart is a love for someone else that will never die. I’m afraid that I will make a mistake again, something so huge that you retreat into that silent world of yours. No scolding from a tutor, no lashing from my father, no isolation in my youth has ever hurt me so much as you separating yourself from me.
I keep thinking that it’s there, waiting to come back and strike me. So I’ve held on to all my options, fearing that the moment I wipe them away, you will be standing there with your arms closed, happy to be my friend but unable to be my equal, my queen, my wife.
And for you to be my wife is all I want in the world. I love you. I was afraid to admit it for a long time, but I know it now.
I would never rejoice in the loss of your father, the sadness you’ve felt since he passed, or the emptiness I’ve experienced since you left. But I’m so grateful that you had to go. I’m not sure how long it would have taken for me to figure this out if I hadn’t had to start trying to imagine a life without you. I know now, with absolute certainty, that is nothing I want.
I wish I was as true an artist as you so that I could find a way to tell you what you’ve become to me. America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-warm day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion.
You are not the world, but you are everything that makes the world good. Without you, my life would still exist, but that’s all it would manage to do.
You said that to get things right one of us would have to take a leap of faith. I think I’ve discovered the canyon that must be leaped, and I hope to find you waiting for me on the other side.
I love you, America.
Yours forever,
Maxon
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
Life's greatest philosophy is not handed down in stoic texts and dusty tomes, but lived, in each breath and act of human compassion. For love has always demanded sacrifice, and no greater love is there than that for which our lives are traded. And in this great cause of spiritual evolution we are all called to be martyrs, to die each of us, in the quest of a higher realm and loftier ideals, that we may know God. And what if there is nothing else? What if all life ends in the silent void of death? Then is it all in vain? I think not, for love, for the sake of love, will always be enough. And if our lives are but a single flash in the dark hollow of eternity, then if, but for the briefest of moments, we shine - then how brilliantly our light has burned. And as starlight knows no boundary of space or time, so too, our illumination will shine forth throughout all eternity, for darkness has no power to quell such light. And this is a lesson we must all learn and take to heart - that all light is eternal and all love is light. And it must forever be so.
”
”
Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
“
Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do. (1) Things we ought to do (2) Things we've got to do (3) Things we like doing. I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of these three reasons, things like reading books they don't like because other people read them.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Letters to Children)
“
... You are the closest I will ever come to heaven, either here on Earth or in the afterlife, and I will not regret it, not even at the cost of your tears.
So I go to my grave an unrepentant sinner, I’m afraid. There is no use in mourning one such as I, dearest...
-Simon to Lucy in a letter before the last duel.
”
”
Elizabeth Hoyt (The Serpent Prince (Princes Trilogy, #3))
“
I watched, enthralled, as he painted a large silver heart with flames edging one side. The whole design was Celtic in style. It was beautiful.
"Where did you get that from?" I asked in awe. I'd seen a lot of his work but never anything like this.
His eyes were on his heart, completely caught up in his work. "Just something kicking around in my head. Reminds me of you. Fiery and sweet, all at the same time. A flame in the dark, lighting my way." His voice... his words... I recognized one of his spirit-driven moments. It should've unnerved me, but there was something sensual about the way he spoke, something that made my breath catch. A flame in the dark.
He swapped out the silver paintbrush for a black one. Before I could stop him, he wrote over the heart: AYE. Underneath it, in smaller letters, he added: HONORARY MEMBER.
”
”
Richelle Mead (The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines, #3))
“
She remembered her letter confessing every thing to Arin. I am the Moth. I am your country’s spy, she’d written. I have wanted to tell you this for so long. She’d scrawled the emperor’s secret plans. It didn’t matter that this was treason. It didn’t matter that she was supposed to marry the emperor’s son on First-summer’s day, or that her father was the emperor’s most trusted friend. Kestrel ignored that she’d been born Valorian. She’d written what she felt. I love you. I miss you. I would do anything for you.
”
”
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
“
It must be nice to have someone to write to. I’ve never had the luxury of love letters,” Maxon said, a sad smile on his face. “Has she kept her word?”
Aspen was moving pillows from the other bed to prop under my head, avoiding eye contact with either Maxon or myself.
“Writing is difficult,” he said. “But I do know she’s with me, no matter what. I don’t doubt it.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
According to the evidence provided by the Wasp Trap files, the Fleet Street newspaper proprietor was introduced to, among other prominent Nazis, Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, in 1934. Speer was also Hitler’s closest military adviser just before the war. Evidence from a letter allegedly from Speer to the Fleet Street newspaper proprietor, thanking him for information about the Paris defences and the Free French army. A photograph of a letter allegedly from the Fleet Street proprietor, also included in these discovered files, advises Force Yellow – the German invading army – to avoid the Maginot line entirely and invade through neutral Belgium and the other Low Countries. There is no evidence that totally confirms these letters are genuine, or, indeed, from Speer or the Fleet Street newspaper proprietor.
“In June 1940, when the Nazis occupied Paris, the Fleet Street newspaper proprietor was back in London and became liaison executive between the secret services in Britain and agents in France. It is possibly no coincidence that the invading Nazi forces occupied a house in Avenue Foch, Paris, owned by the newspaper proprietor’s family. The house was then used for the entertainment of senior Nazi officers. The Wasp Trap files document that the Fleet Street newspaper proprietor had allegedly been credited with over thirty British agents and Free French operatives being captured, tortured and killed.
”
”
Hugo Woolley (The Wasp Trap (The Charlotte's War Trilogy Book 3))
“
I've seen so much, America, had access to the corners of out planet. But never have I come across anything so painfully beautiful as that kiss. I wish it was something I could catch with a net or place in a book. I wish it was something I could save and share with the world so I could tell the universe: this is what it's like; this is how it feels when you fall.
These letters are so embarrassing. I'll have to burn them before you get home.
Maxon
”
”
Kiera Cass (The One (The Selection, #3))
“
Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. 3. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about. And in reading of many books is distraction.
”
”
Seneca (Letters from a Stoic)
“
He’d dreamt that watch for Adam when he left for Harvard. It was the closest he could come to a love letter; the language of affection had never felt right to Ronan. Clumsy. Overblown. False. Ronan speaking the language of another country, vocabulary learned from watching films on YouTube. But the watch—the watch told the time for whatever time zone Ronan was in, and it said exactly what Ronan meant to say.
Think of where I am, it said. Think of me.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Greywaren (Dreamer Trilogy, #3))
“
Let us define our terms. A woman who writes her lover four letters a day is not a graphomaniac, she is simply a woman in love. But my friend who xeroxes his love letters so he can publish them someday--my friend is a graphomaniac. Graphomania is not a desire to write letters, diaries, or family chronicles (to write for oneself or one's immediate family); it is a desire to write books (to have a public of unknown readers). In this sense the taxi driver and Goethe share the same passion. What distinguishes Goethe from the taxi driver is the result of the passion, not the passion itself.
"Graphomania (an obsession with writing books) takes on the proportions of a mass epidemic whenever a society develops to the point where it can provide three basic conditions:
1. a high degree of general well-being to enable people to devote their energies to useless activities;
2. an advanced state of social atomization and the resultant general feeling of the isolation of the individual;
3. a radical absence of significant social change in the internal development of the nation. (In this connection I find it symptomatic that in France, a country where nothing really happens, the percentage of writers is twenty-one times higher than in Israel. Bibi [character from the book] was absolutely right when she claimed never to have experienced anything from the outside. It is this absence of content, this void, that powers the moter driving her to write).
"But the effect transmits a kind of flashback to the cause. If general isolation causes graphomania, mass graphomania itself reinforces and aggravates the feeling of general isolation. The invention of printing originally promoted mutual understanding. In the era of graphomania the writing of books has the opposite effect: everyone surrounds himself with his own writings as with a wall of mirrors cutting off all voices from without.
”
”
Milan Kundera (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting)
“
I imagine you could send letters, though.”
“Never with enough postage.”
“No, faxes,” Gansey corrected himself. “Pretend I didn’t say letters. Faxes is funnier.”
Blue laughed into the pillow. “Okay, that was all.”
“All what?”
“All I had to say.”
“I’ve learned a lot. I’m glad you misdialed.”
“Well. Easy mistake to make,” she said. “Might do it again.”
A very, very long pause. She opened her mouth to fill it, then changed her mind and didn’t. She was shivering again, even though she wasn’t cold with the pillow on her legs.
“Shouldn’t,” Gansey said finally. “But I hope you do.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle, #3))
“
I wrote a letter to you when I was in the capital. So stupid, to put it all in writing. Every thing I’d done. The information I passed to Tensen. The way I worked against the empire. What I felt. My father read it. He gave it to the emperor.” She was weeping. “And I know, I know that it hurt him, that I broke something, that he felt it break. Maybe I wasn’t me anymore, to him. Do you understand? Not his daughter. Not anyone he knew. Just a lying stranger. But how could he? Why couldn’t he love me most? Or enough. Why couldn’t he love me enough to choose me over his rules?
”
”
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
“
Lara Jean and Peter's amended contract
*Peter will write a letter to Lara Jean once a week. A real handwritten letter, not an e-mail.
*Lara Jean will call Peter once a day. Preferably the last call of the night, befero she goes to bed.
*Lara Jean will put up a picture of Peter's choosing on her wall.
*Peter will keep the scrapbook out on his desk so any interested parties will see tha he is taken.
*Peter and Lara Jean will always tell each other te truth, even when it's hard.
*Peter will love Lara Jean with all his heart, always.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
Are you missing the library again?" Seth asked, startling her as he walked into the room.
Kendra turned to face her brother. "You caught me," she congratulated him. "I'm reading."
"I bet the librarians back home are panicking. Summer vacation, and no Kendra Sorenson to keep them in business. Have they been sending you letters?"
"Might not hurt you to pick up a book, just as an experiment."
Whatever. I looked up the definition for 'nerd' in the dictionary. Know what it said?"
"I bet you'll tell me."
" 'If you're reading this, you are one.' "
You're a riot." Kendra turned back to the journal, flipping to a random page.
Seth took a seat on his bed across from her. "Kendra, seriously, I can sort of see reading a cool book for fun, but dusty old journals? Really? Has anybody told you there are magical creatures out there?" He pointed out the window.
"Has anybody told you some of those creatures can eat you?" Kendra responded. "I'm not reading these just for fun. They have good info."
"like what? Patton and Lena smooching?"
Kendra rolled her eyes. "I'm not telling. You'll end up in a tar pit."
"There's a tar pit?" he said, perking up. "Where?
”
”
Brandon Mull (Grip of the Shadow Plague (Fablehaven, #3))
“
There are a number of things a woman can tell about a man who is roughly twenty-nine years old,
sitting in the cab of a pickup truck at 3:37 in the afternoon on a weekday, facing the Pacific,
writing furiously on the back of pink invoice slips. Such a man may or may not be employed, but
regardless, there is mystery there. If this man is with a dog, then that's good, because it means he's
capable of forming relationships. But if the dog is a male dog, that's probably a bad sign, because
it means the guy is likely a dog, too. A girl dog is much better, but if the guy is over thirty, any
kind of dog is a bad sign regardless, because it means he's stopped trusting humans altogether. In
general, if nothing else, guys my age with dogs are going to be work.
Then there's stubble: stubble indicates a possible drinker, but if he's driving a van or a pickup
truck, he hasn't hit bottom yet, so watch out, honey. A guy writing something on a clipboard
while facing the ocean at 3:37 P.M. may be writing poetry, or he may be writing a letter begging
someone for forgiveness. But if he's writing real words, not just a job estimate or something
business-y, then more likely than not this guy has something emotional going on, which could
mean he has a soul.
”
”
Douglas Coupland (Hey Nostradamus!)
“
Will looked at his sister. “And you don’t care about being a Shadowhunter. How is this: I shall write a letter and give it to you if you promise to deliver it home yourself — and not to return.”
Cecily recoiled; she had many memories of shouting matches with Will, of the china dolls she had owned that he had broken by dropping them out an attic window; but there was also kindness in her memories: the brother who had bandaged up a cut knee, or retied her hair ribbons when they came loose. That kindness was absent from the Will who stood before her now. Her mother had used to cry for the first year or two after Will went; she had said, in Welsh, holding Cecily to her, that they — the Shadowhunters — would “take all the love out of him.” A cold, unloving people, she had told Cecily, who had forbidden her marriage to her husband. What could he want with them, her Will, her little one?
“I will not go,” Cecily said, staring her brother down. “And if you insist that I must, I will — I will —”
The door of the attic slid open and Jem stood silhouetted in the doorway…
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
“
I remember the first time I saw you,” Allie said.
“I thought you smelled me first.”
“Right,” said Allie. “The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed…. But that wasn’t it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn’t that funny?”
“Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!”
They embraced and held each other for a long time.
“Don’t forget me,” Nick said. “No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there’s nobody there, maybe it’ll be me.”
“I’ll write to you,” said Allie, and Nick laughed. “No really. I’ll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough it will cross into Everlost.”
“And,” added Nick, “it will show up as a dead letter at that the post office Milos made cross into San Antonio!”
Allie could have stood there saying good-bye forever, because it was more than Nick she was saying good-bye to. She was leaving behind four years of half-life in a world that was both stunningly beautiful, and hauntingly dark. And she was saying good-bye to Mikey. I’ll be waiting for you, he had said…. Well, if he was, maybe she wasn’t saying good-bye at all.
Nick hefted the backpack on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be heading off to Memphis?” he said. “You’d better hit the road…. Jack.” Then he chuckled by his own joke, and walked off.
”
”
Neal Shusterman (Everfound (The Skinjacker Trilogy, #3))
“
He tries again, swallowing hard to ease away the painful lump in his throat. "It's just important. I love you. I'm yours. I need people to know."
"Alright," Lindsay says suddenly. He leans down to grab at Pip's bag, throwing stuff out onto the carpet, his iPod and phone and wallet and gloves and Attitude magazine until he finds what he's looking for, a green marker pen, and holds it between his teeth while he starts tugging at the hem of Pip's t-shirt. Pip's too surprised to do anything but submit, he lets Lindsay peel off his t-shirt and throw that on top of all the things from his bag then just watches as Lindsay pulls the pen out of the cap in his mouth and signs his name in big green letters on the side of Pip's stomach. He holds his breath, trying not to suck in the belly fat everybody else keeps telling him is imaginary. "There, you're mine, are you fucking happy now?" Lindsay snaps, and throws the recapped pen across the room to get lost in the bookcase somewhere.
”
”
Richard Rider (No Beginning, No End (Stockholm Syndrome, #3))
“
I believe that if one person is watching a huge calamity, let’s say a conflagration, a fire, there are always three principle options.
1. Run away, as far away and as fast as you can and let those who cannot run burn.
2. Write a very angry letter to the editor of your paper demanding that the responsible people be removed from office with disgrace. Or, for that matter, launch a demonstration.
3. Bring a bucket of water and throw it on the fire, and if you don’t have a bucket, bring a glass, and if you don’t have a glass, use a teaspoon, everyone has a teaspoon. And yes, I know a teaspoon is little and the fire is huge but there are millions of us and each one of us has a teaspoon. Now I would like to establish the Order of the Teaspoon. People who share my attitude, not the run away attitude, or the letter attitude, but the teaspoon attitude – I would like them to walk around wearing a little teaspoon on the lapel of their jackets, so that we know that we are in the same movement, in the same brotherhood, in the same order, The Order of the Teaspoon.
”
”
Amos Oz
“
I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous
because we’ never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told
us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
Ty,
I’ve thought so many times about what I would say to you if you reappeared suddenly. If I was walking along the street and you popped out of thin air, walking along beside me like you always used to, with your hands in your pockets and your head tilted back.
Mom used to say you walked celestially, looking upat the sky as if you were scanning the clouds for angels. Do you remember that?
In your world I am ashes, I am ancestors, my memories and hopes and dreams have gone to build the City of Bones. In your world, I am lucky, because I do not have to live in a world without you. But in this world, I am you. I am the twinless twin. So I can tell you this:
When your twin leaves the earth you live on, it never turns the same way again: the weight of their soul is gone, and everything is off balance. The world rocks under your feet like an unquiet sea. I can’t tell you it gets easier. But it does get steadier; you learn how to live with the new rocking of the new earth, the way sailors gain sea legs. You learn. I promise.
I know you’re not exactly the Ty I had in this world, my brilliant, beautiful brother. But I know from Julian that you are beautiful and brilliant too. I know that you are loved. I hope that you are happy. Please be happy. You deserve it so much.
I want to ask if you remember the way we used to whisper words to each other in the dark: star, twin, glass. But I’ll never know your answer. So I’ll whisper to myself as I fold this letter up and slide it into the envelope, hoping against hope it will somehow reach you. I whisper your name, Ty. I whisper the most important thing:
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Livvy
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices, #3))
“
Before, Sazed had looked at the doctrines themselves. This time, he found himself studying the people who had believed, or what he could find of them. As he read their words over again in his mind, he began to see something. The faiths he had looked at, they couldn't be divorced from the people who had adhered to them. In the abstract, those religions were stale. However, as he read the words of the people—really read them—he began to see patterns.
Why did they believe? Because they saw miracles. Things one man took as chance, a man of faith took as a sign. A loved one recovering from disease, a fortunate business deal, a chance meeting with a long lost friend. It wasn't the grand doctrines or the sweeping ideals that seemed to make believers out of men. It was the simple magic in the world around them.
What was it Spook said? Sazed thought, sitting in the shadowy kandra cavern. That faith was about trust. Trusting that somebody was watching. That somebody would make it all right in the end, even though things looked terrible at the moment.
To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe. It was a conundrum, one Sazed had wrestled with. He wanted someone, something, to force him to have faith. He wanted to have to believe because of the proof shown to him.
Yet, the believers whose words now filled his mind would have said he already had proof. Had he not, in his moment of despair, received an answer? As he had been about to give up, TenSoon had spoken. Sazed had begged for a sign, and received it.
Was it chance? Was it providence?
In the end, apparently, it was up to him to decide. He slowly returned the letters and journals to his metalminds, leaving his specific memory of them empty—yet retaining the feelings they had prompted in him. Which would he be? Believer or skeptic? At that moment, neither seemed a patently foolish path.
I do want to believe, he thought. That's why I've spent so much time searching. I can't have it both ways. I simply have to decide.
Which would it be? He sat for a few moments, thinking, feeling, and—most important—remembering.
I sought help, Sazed thought. And something answered.
Sazed smiled, and everything seemed a little bit brighter. Breeze was right, he thought, standing and organizing his things as he prepared to go. I was not meant to be an atheist.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3))
“
Cold flu looks nothing in front of cancer...complications in our personal life is like a flu and killing people on name of God or borders or countries is cancer...you can help this planet...there are ways...willingness is an action
We are one...the only difference is ...few are awake, few are ready to wake up and few are just ignorant and time is coming when there will be no choice for those who is ignorant because of suffering and pain ....
Bigger EGO is always drawn to Bigger Ego so many times Bigger ego ignores the important message being delivered by not a famous person.
Love heals...Love not from mind...deep from heart....Mind brings games and play around with relationships...Something sacred deep from heart....L ♥ V E...Unconditional...No business of give and take....unconditional giving....
Don't be afraid and run away from loneliness and start seeking securities....Try to enjoy every part of it and then you will see ...Loneliness turned into something which we never want to loose....investigate your feeling when you feel lonely
We always want something in return...we have made LOVE a business...I did it too in the past that's why I know it...this is the reason that we should change...you change, I change....everyone should think again on the way of living life and thinking and specially who thinks they know what life is.
2 births in the same life....physical and spiritual....you break the bondage (psychologically) with physical attributes of life ( detached state of mind) and try to find real "maksad" (purpose) of your existence as Being not Doing
If you want to enjoy your relationship with your special one then please keep these tools handy:1) Patience2) Trust3) Freedom4) Honesty5) Respect
we are all stars... twinkling with love and when there is love then there is no conflict
4 letters L ♥ V E ..imagine these letters on your hand and try to feel the deep meaning and power of these letters...feel the love you have for this life...start from there and spread love to everyone you see or meet...LOVE
”
”
Neeraj Sabharwal
“
Pudge/Colonel:
"I am sorry that I have not talked to you before. I am not staying for graduation. I leave for Japan tomorrow morning. For a long time, I was mad at you. The way you cut me out of everything hurt me, and so I kept what I knew to myself.
But then even after I wasn't mad anymore, I still didn't say anything, and I don't even really know why. Pudge had that kiss,
I guess. And I had this secret.
You've mostly figured this out, but the truth is that I saw her that night, I'd stayed up late with Lara and some people, and then I was falling asleep and I heard her crying outside my back window. It was like 3:15 that morning, maybe, amd I walked out there and saw her walking through the soccer field. I tried to talk to her, but she was in a hurry. She told me that her mother was dead eight years that day, and that she always put flowers on her mother's grave on the anniversary but she forgot that year. She was out there looking for flowers, but it was too early-too wintry. That's how
I knew about January 10. I still have no idea whether it was suicide.
She was so sad, and I didn't know what to say or do. I think she counted on me to be the one person who would always say and do the right things to help her, but I couldn"t. I just thought she was looking for flowers. I didn't know she was going to go. She was drunk just trashed drunk, and I really didn't think she would drive or anything. I thought she would just cry herself to sleep and then drive to visit her mom the next day or something. She walked away, and then I heard a car start. I don't know what I was thinking.
So I let her go too. And I'm sorry. I know you loved her. It was hard not to."
Takumi
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
“
Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him, and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the state of his own mind--or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary duties of directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate the most useful human characteristics, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.
2. It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual', that is is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rhuematism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards are her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother--the sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's soul to beating or insulting the real wife or son without any qualm.
3. When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face whice are almost unedurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy--if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbablity of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters)