An Enchantment Of Ravens Quotes

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Why do we desire, above all other things, that which has the greatest power to destroy us?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
The ability to feel is a strength, not a weakness.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
No. You surpass us all." Beside me she looked colorless and frail. "You are like a living rose among wax flowers. We may last forever, but you bloom brighter and smell sweeter, and draw blood with your thorns.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Ah, but you were not a pawn. All along, you have been the queen.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Walking along a blade’s edge was only fun until the blade stopped being a metaphor.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Isobel. Isobel, listen. The teapot is of no consequence. I can defeat anyone, at any time.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Isobel, I love you wholly. I love you eternally. I love you so dearly it frightens me. I fear I could not live without you. I could see your face every morning upon waking for a thousand years and still look forward to the next as though it were the first.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
When the world failed me, I could always lose myself in my work.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
If you must stare at something for hours on end, I’d prefer it to be me alone.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
And we wouldn't live happily ever after, because I don't believe in such nonsense, but we both had a long, bold adventure ahead of us, and a great deal to look forward to at last.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Frankly, I had no idea how anyone knew if they were in love in the first place. Was there ever a single thread a person could pick out from the knot and say “Yes—I am in love—here’s the proof!” or was it always caught up in a wretched tangle of ifs and buts and maybes?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I quite like eggs,” I replied firmly, well aware that the enchantments he described would all turn strange and sour, even deadly, in the end. Besides, what on earth would I do with men’s hearts? I couldn’t make an omelette out of them.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
One raven for uncertain peril. Six for danger sure to arrive. A dozen for death, if not avoided. The enchantment is sealed.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
But isn’t absurdity part of being human? We aren’t ageless creatures who watch centuries pass from afar. Our worlds are small, our lives are short, and we can only bleed a little before we fall.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
They looked like a pair of cupids who had decided they liked shooting people with real arrows better. They were horrible. I loved them so much.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I was alive in a way I never had been before, in a world that no longer felt stale but instead crackled with breathless promise.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Are you in love with me?" I blurted out. A terrible silence followed. Rook didn't turn around. "Please say something." He rounded on me. "Is that so terrible? You say it as though it's the most awful thing you can imagine. It isn't as though I've done it on purpose. Somehow I've even grown fond of your - your irritating questions, and your short legs, and your accidental attempts to kill me." I recoiled. "That's the worst declaration of love I've ever heard!
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Soft and sharp at once, an aching tenderness edged with sorrow, naked proof of a heart already broken.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
But that was the problem with the old me, I was coming to realize. She'd accepted that behaving correctly meant not being happy, because that was the way the world worked. She hadn't asked enough - of life, or of herself.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Isobel." He swept down to his knees and kissed my hand, gazing up at me in devotion. "I love you more than the stars in the sky. I love you more than Lark loves dresses.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
What a pretty bird you are," I crooned. His struggling slowed, then stilled. I felt him cock his head. "What a lovely bird," I repeated in a syrupy voice. "Yes, you're the loveliest bird." I stroked his back. He made a pleased muttering sound in his breast. Soon his smug silence indicated that he was quite content to remain as he was, so long as I continued my praise.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Rook's heart beat against my fingertips through his soft feathers, and my eyes sank closed as I murmured drowsy endearments to the spoiled prince nestled against my stomach, warm within a nest of blankets.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Our worlds are small, our lives are short, and we can only bleed a little before we fall.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Yet no matter what they were doing, everyone in the forest waited with an indrawn breath, waiting for the taste of autumn, the smell of change, the first news of a king and queen unlike any the world had known before.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
He was astonishingly vain even by fair folk standards, which was like saying a pond is unusually wet, or a bear surprisingly hairy.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
You are like a living rose among wax flowers. We may last forever, but you bloom brighter and smell sweeter, and draw blood with your thorns.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Didn't they realize their lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly man?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
After he left, I couldn’t shake the notion that he’d insisted on ravens for a reason. I was almost finished cleaning up by the time the explanation occurred to me. My cheeks warmed, and a wistful pang plucked a sweet, sad chord in my stomach. It was simple, really. He didn’t want me to forget him once he’d gone.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
What must it be like? To meet someone, to forge a connection, all in the span of one golden afternoon—only to find out that for her, each passing minute was a year. Each second, an hour. She would be dead before the sun rose the next day. A keen, quiet pain twisted my heart.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Then he strode right over and, in one smooth motion, insinuated himself into the bed next to me, facing me, under the covers, with the bold and unselfconscious vanity of a cat sitting down on an open book.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Ah, I see. In that case, well-behaved ravens. They will mind their manners.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Once, a Whimsical poet died of despair after finding himself unequal to the task of capturing a fair one's beauty in simile. I think it more likely he died of arsenic poisoning, but so the story goes.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
This wasn't like me. So many years of being cautious, and in a matter of minutes I'd started slipping up.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I wiped off my fingers, but it wasn't the mold or maggots making my stomach revolt... No, it was the knowledge that all around me sat empty people in rotting clothes, nibbling on flyblown trifles while they spoke of nothing of consequence with fixed smiles on their false faces.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I couldn’t decide whether the idea owed itself to vanity, a depressing lack of creativity, or both.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I wondered if my head and heart would ever reconcile, or whether I'd just cursed myself to relive this moment for the rest of my years, half assured I'd made the only choice available to me, half always whispering if only, the whole of me filled with bitter regret.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
We were in the autumnlands. Dim as it was, the forest glowed. The golden leaves flashing by blazed like sparks caught in the updraft of a fire. A scarlet carpet unrolled before us, rich and flawless as velvet. Rising from the forest floor, the black, tangled roots breathed a bluish mist that reduced the farthest trees' trunks to ghostly silhouettes, yet left their foliage's luminous hues untouched. Vivid moss speckled the branches like tarnished copper. The crisp spice of pine sap infused the cool air over a musty perfume of dry leaves. A knot swelled in my throat. I couldn't look away. There was too much of it, too fast. I'd never be able to drink it all in...
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
And yet looking at Rook I imagined a cat proudly bringing its master dead chipmunks, only to watch the two-legged oaf lift these priceless gifts by the tail and fling them unceremoniously into the bushes. Before I knew it I'd dissolved into laughter. Rook shifted, torn between uneasiness and anger. "What?" he demanded. I sank to my knees, the hare on my lap, gulping in air. "Stop that." Rook looked around, as if concerned someone might witness him mismanaging his human.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Isobel, I love you wholly. I love you eternally. I love you so dearly it frightens me. I fear I could not live without you. I could see your face every morning upon waking for ten thousand years and still look forward to the next as though it were the first.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
An extra twenty-four hours was nothing. Yet, it was everything. I might live more tomorrow then I did all the years of the rest of my life combined.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil! — Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted — On this home by Horror haunted 
Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven)
If an unfamiliar dog follows you at night, don't stop to look at it. If you wake up to find a cat you don't recognize sitting in your yard, watching your house, don't open the door. And most of all, if you see a beautiful horse near a lake or the edge of the forest, never, ever try to ride it.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I didn’t want to listen to Rook offering me roses whose perfume would make me forget all my childhood memories, or diamonds that would make me care for nothing but gems ever after, or goose down that would steal away my dreams. I knew that part of him existed, but I didn’t want to see it. And that sentiment was more dangerous than all the enchantments he could offer me combined.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Kate’s eyes grow dim as the past envelops her, pulling her into the silent black void of the desolate mother and her winged emissaries.  Rustling their feathers, the ever-vigilant ravens sink their claws into the deepest recesses of her mind as they seek control of her consciousness.
Kathy Martone (Victorian Songlight: The Birthings of Magic & Mystery)
I saw thee once - only once - years ago: I must not say how many - but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber, Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared stir, unless on tiptoe - Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love-light, Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death - Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That smiled and died in the parterre, enchanted By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half reclining; while the moon Fell upon the upturn'd faces of the roses, And on thine own, upturn'd - alas, in sorrow! Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight - Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,) That bade me pause before that garden-gate, To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven! - oh, G**! How my heart beats in coupling those two words!) Save only thee and me. I paused - I looked - And in an instant all things disappeared. (Ah, bear in mind the garden was enchanted!) The pearly lustre of the moon went out: The mossy banks and the meandering paths, The happy flowers and the repining trees, Were seen no more: the very roses' odors Died in the arms of the adoring airs. All - all expired save thee - save less than thou: Save only divine light in thine eyes - Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. I saw but them - they were the world to me. I saw but them - saw only them for hours - Saw only them until the moon went down. What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres! How dark a wo! yet how sublime a hope! How silently serene a sea of pride! How daring an ambition! yet how deep - How fathomless a capacity for love! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into a western couch of thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go - they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. They follow me - they lead me through the years. They are my ministers - yet I their slave. Their office is to illumine and enkindle - My duty, to be saved by their bright fire, And purified in their electric fire, And sanctified in their elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope,) And are far up in Heaven - the stars I kneel to In the sad, silent watches of my night; While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still - two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven and Other Poems)
You are empty,” I said, my throat working, “and cruel.” “Ah. Yes, now that is true. Would you like to know the greatest secret of fairykind?” When I didn’t answer he continued, “We prefer to pretend otherwise, but truly, we have never been the immortal ones. We may live long enough to see the world change, but we’re never the ones who changed it. When we finally reach the end, we are unloved and alone, and leave nothing behind, not even our name chiseled on a stone slab. And yet—mortals, through their works, their Craft, are remembered forever.” He turned us gracefully through the crowd without missing a step. “Oh, you cannot imagine the power your kind holds over us. How very much we envy you. There is more life in your littlest fingernail than in everyone in my court combined.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
According to an ancient and common tradition in the kingdom of Great Britain, this king did not die, but was transformed into a raven by the art of enchantment and, in the course of time, he shall return to rule again and regain his kingdom and his scepter.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
I stood gaping at Gadfly until a puzzled smile crossed his lips and he extended his pale hand in my direction, perhaps trying to determine whether I'd died standing up, not an unreasonable concern, as to him humans no doubt seemed to expire at the slightest provocation.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Very few things escape my attention in the springlands—even the plucking of a flower.” I looked at the cowslip guiltily.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Now stop making me feel things
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Perfect subjects make for less interesting work.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I enlisted Rook’s help in wedging myself up into the corner of the settee, because I wasn’t sure I could sit upright on my own, and determinedly pretended I didn’t have a bright red face and a snotty nose.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
The thought of seeing judgment - or worse, disappointment - on her face when she looked at me next made me want to curl in on myself and never face the world again. I had no way to prove that the love Rook and I felt for each other was real and that we deserved every desperate, foolhardy inch of it, and I was already tired, so tired, of bearing its weight as a failure. A crime.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
And the sea was very stormy. Monsters churned in the ley line beneath them. A forest grew through the hands and eyes Adam had bargained away to Cabeswater. And Ganseywas supposed to die before April. That was the troubled ocean – Glendower was the island. To wake him was to get a favour, and that favour would be to save Gansey's life. This enchanted country needed an enchanted king.
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
You mean the connection’s never occurred to you before? Do you have any critical thinking skills at all?” He stared straight ahead in full hauteur. “Of course I do. I am a—” “Yes, I know. You’re a prince. Never mind.” I got the distinct feeling he’d never heard the term critical thinking before in his life.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I love you wholly. I love you eternally. I love you so dearly it frightens me. I fear I could not live without you. I could see your face every morning upon waking for ten thousand years and still look forward to the next as though it were the first.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
My twin sisters weren’t precisely human. They’d begun life as a pair of goat kids before a fair one had had too much wine and enchanted them on a lark. It was slow going, but I reminded myself that at least it was going. This time last year they hadn’t been house-trained. And it worked in their favor that their transformative enchantment had rendered them more or less indestructible: I’d seen March survive eating a broken pot, poison oak, deadly nightshade, and several unfortunate salamanders without any ill effects. For all my concern, March jumping off cabinets posed more danger to the kitchen furniture.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
We need to talk about what you said last night.” “I hate it when people tell me that,” he replied. “It’s never good.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I’d always scoffed at stories in which maidens pine for their absent suitors, boys they’ve hardly known a week and have no business falling for. Didn’t they realize their lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly young man? That there were things to do in a world that didn’t revolve solely around their heartbreak? Then it happens to you, and you understand you aren’t any different from those girls after all. Oh, they still seem just as absurd—you’ve simply joined them, in quite a humbling way. But isn’t absurdity part of being human?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I seized the dagger from him. Having no idea what to do with it afterward, I lifted the cushion I was lying on and shoved it underneath, then threw my weight back on top. "Stop being melodramatic! I am not going to kill you in my parlor!" He stared at me in disbelief. "Did you just sit on it?" "Yes," I said mutinously.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
This was a look that would make time stop, if it could. Soft and sharp at once, an aching tenderness edged with sorrow, naked proof of a heart already broken. Here I stood in a dragonfly dress, holding his arm, and he knew our time was almost over.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I snorted, completely unsurprised. “Fair folk are impossible.” “That’s irregular, coming from a human who can’t even eat a raw hare.” Hastening along behind him, trying to keep up with his long strides, I decided not to argue about the hare. I was coming to realize that the Craft was so enigmatic to fair folk I might as well have refused to eat meat unless it had been bathed in widow’s tears under a new moon. Realizing that your own magic held more mystery to fair folk than theirs did to you was a peculiar experience. I felt like some sort of wizard with delicate and arcane indispositions, not an artist and a perfectly ordinary person
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I guess I think differently than most folks. I think the reason the world is a mystical, enchanting place, is because of the cycle of life. My body will decompose, but maybe some little element of it will be transformed into a particle of dirt, over years and years,and then a glorious flower will be nurtured by this particle of dirt. Then this flower will nourish a random bumblebee, who in turn will be eaten by a raven. So, in some future life, I'll be able to fly. I look forward to that. I've always admired the freedom of birds.
E. M. Crane
The day stretched on. Each portrait was a single stepping-stone, the sum of which would form a path home. I lost count of how many portraits I did, marking them only by the emotions I used: curiosity, surprise, amusement, bliss. The pigments dwindled in their teacups.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
It was all the answer Rook needed. He plunged his hand into the soil, long fingers grasping down. This was no offering to the earth, but a command to it, and the forest surged around us. Bramble roots as wide around as kitchen tables heaved up from the ground, bristling with thorns longer and more wicked than any sword. When they reached their full height they branched, heaving higher, knotting together, until they gathered us up in a fortress like something out of an old tale, a place where a cursed princess slept imprisoned. I was gladdened by the sight of those vicious thorns more than I could say, and wondered whether the stories would have gone any differently if the princesses had been the ones telling them.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
An extra twenty-four hours was nothing. Yet, it was everything. I might live more tommorow than I did all the years of the rest of my life combined.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Rook" - she lowered her voice even further - "do you ever wonder what it would be like to be something other than what we are?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Walking on the edge of a cliff is only fun until the blade stops being a metaphor.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
It may be cruel, but it is also fair
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
You are like a living rose slipped among wax flowers. We may last forever, but you bloom brighter, smell sweeter and shed blood with your thorns.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
enchanted
Shannon Hale (Raven Queen's Story (Ever After High, #0.2))
A flower blossomed inside me, a soft, rare bloom aching for light and wind and touch. In another world, it might have been our last kiss. In this one, I wouldn't allow it.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I was no longer certain that what I'd felt for Rook back in the parlor truly had been love. It had felt like it at the time. I'd never experienced anything like it before. But I'd hardly known him, even though in my feverish infatuation I'd felt as though we'd been confiding in each other for years. Could you really love someone that way, when all they were to you was a pleasant illusion?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
i can see that," Emma said calmly, picking her way into the room with the twins clutching both her hands. "There are holes in the walls. March, whatever you just picked up, don't eat it." "Too late," said May.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
None of this was set in stone, of course. The future never is. It's like a forest, you see, with thousands upon thousands of paths running through it, all branching off in different directions. Some things can change up until the very end.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
his inhuman scent enveloped me: a ferny green fragrance of spring leaves, the sweet perfume of wildflowers. Beneath that, something wild—something that had roamed the forest for millennia, and had long spidery fingers that could crush a human’s throat while its owner wore a cordial smile.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
It felt like over an hour passed; it might have been less. Something clattered loudly in the hallway. "Wretched teapot!" Rook's voice exclaimed in vexation. Just like that, my fear melted away. My chest shook with laughter at the image of Rook staggering, drunk and affronted, through the labyrinth's crowded hallways, being assaulted by falling teapots. "Rook," I whispered, trusting he would hear me, "are you all right out there?" A mortified silence. Then, coolly: "I haven't the faintest idea why I wouldn't be all right." "That's true," I said. "You slew a Barrow Lord, you shouldn't have any trouble with a kettle.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him—the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under his command—go, count the drops of water that are in the Uske River. But if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy matter, for Eos hung the walls of it with Dawn and Sunset. He lit it with the sun and moon. There was a well in it called Ocean. And nine churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which Eos might hear Mass; and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so enchanting was the melody. Then was great bliss in all the regions of the fair folk. But Eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. What, then, did he do? Nothing less than this. He divested himself of all his glories and of his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the sweetness of the faery melody. And all the other birds said: "This is a contemptible stranger." The eagle found him not even worthy to be a prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be uttered. In short never was anyone so despised as was Eos by all the chorus of the birds. But wise men heard that song from the faery regions and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who were bards in the Isle of Britain.
Arthur Machen (The Secret Glory)
Now let me tell you something. I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers. I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten. I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends. I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes. I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things. But— All this I did without you. This was my loss. All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain. All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever-surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.
Gerald Durrell
I have many lovers. Where ever I look, I find them. There is no place devoid of them. They are everywhere: In the enchanting Cottonwood trees, The rivers, the rocky roads, the hills, the mystic trails, The snow capped mountains, The skies, the clouds, the soaring Eagles, The blackness of night, as black as the Raven, The absolute brave Cactus, Listening to me, and the whispers I breathe. Where ever I, look I find them. There is no place devoid of them. My lovers are everywhere. They are everywhere: In the rains, the freezing winds, The sun, the moonlight, The darkness of despair, The days of pain and sorrow, They never leave me, or betray me, Or ever forsake me, Even in my unfaithfulness, They remain mine. Am I blessed, crazy, or blind? However much I dare, Even in those careless moments; they care. Where ever I look, I find them, There is no place devoid of them, My lovers are everywhere. They are everywhere: I close my eye’s, I see them, They appear to me patiently, like some ancient melody, in my waking dreams, they are like wise prophets, twirling in compassionate dances of forgiveness. Allowing me my mistakes of existence, They give me, ‘me’, Reach for my fears, cradle and hold me. They are everywhere. I will regenerate, and shine through their presence. Through their guidance, from their quiet empowerment, I will gather myself, pick up my pride, Understand ‘life’, and remember reality. Finally, when my ‘being’ remains not with me, they will once again redefine, re-collect me, recreate the aura around me, find another place to replant me. They are everywhere. No place is devoid of them. Countless lovers. Their love: Omnipresent. Only if one can ‘see’, These lovers are everywhere .
Ansul Noor (Soul Fire- A Mystical Journey through Poetry)
Frankly, I had no idea how anyone knew if they were in love in the first place. Was there ever a single thread a person could pick out from the knot and say "yes - I am in love - here's the proof!" os was it always caught up in wretched tangle of ifs and buts and maybes?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I don’t appreciate being used as a pawn in your game, sir.” He looked at me a long moment in silence. “Ah, but you were not a pawn. All along, you have been the queen.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I am not very good at—declarations,” he went on, after a hesitation. And then he hesitated some more, looking down at me, absorbing the sight, and seeming to forget whatever it was he had on his mind. “I know,” I assured him fondly. “I seem to remember you insulting my short legs the first time, among other things.” He drew up a bit. “In my defense, they are very short, and I cannot tell a lie.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Beneath the heavy brows his eyes searched through an eternity of years, seeking the present, looking for an hour and a day less significant to him than a single mote of dust suspended in the air among uncountable thousands.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!’ Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’” — Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven
K.A. Riley (Recruitment (The Resistance Trilogy #1))
What did you say?” Rook inquired frostily. Of course fair folk had impeccable hearing. “Nothing.” “You did say something, but whatever it was, I’m certain it’s beneath me.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
I’m not enchanted with this little girl. For one thing, she’s awfully pretty. Her hair is raven black and flows freely to her waist. Her skin is pale and porcelain smooth. She needs no white magic to perfect her appearance, she will naturally grow into a breathtaking beauty. It isn’t fair.
Anita Valle (Sinful Cinderella (Dark Fairy Tale Queen, #1))
Perhaps you ought to know," I added harshly, "because it's over and done with now, that two days ago I thought I was in love with you.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
The Dragon-fire!" cried Twigleg, "I read about it in that book. The book the professor gave you. It can--" "It can turn enchanted creatures back into their real shapes," said Barnabas Greenbloom, looking thoughtfully up at the sky, "Yes, so they say. But what makes you think those are enchanted ravens, my dear Twigleg?" "I...I..." Twigleg sensed Sorrel looking at him distrustfully. He made haste to climb back on Ben's shoulder. But the boy, too, was looking at him curiously. "Yes, what makes you think so, Twigleg?" he asked. "Is it just their red eyes.” "Exactly!" cried the homunculus, in relief. "Their red eyes. Precisely. Everyone knows that enchanted creatures have red eyes." "Really?" Vita Greenbloom looked at her husband. "Have you ever heard such a thing, Barnabas?" The professor shook his head. "You have red eyes yourself," growled Sorrel, looking at the manikin. "Of course I do!" Twigleg snapped back at her. "A homunculus is an enchanted creature, right?
Cornelia Funke (Dragon Rider (Dragon Rider, #1))
There is magic in names.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
... it's a small price to pay for the power and beauty of immortality. Yet it does make one wonder, doesn't it? Why do we deserve above all other things, that which has the greatest power to destroy us?
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Seeing a confession of live in his eyes was nothing like hearing it declared aloud. This was a look that would make time stop, if it could. Soft and sharp at once, an aching tenderness edged with sorrow, naked proof of a heart already broken.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Siempre deseamos lo que tiene el poder de destruirnos.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Aside from the evil nature of the witch figure in mainstream society, the pre-Christian depiction of the witch is different in key ways. Over time the witch was transformed from a sorceress calling upon a goddess of witchcraft to a deviant worshipping the Devil. The latter obliterated the earlier model and fixed the public mind on a new enemy of Christian society. The fictional witch of pre-Christian literary tradition was thereby reshaped into the fictional witch of popular Christian culture. This was reinforced with transplanted ideas about witches and witchcraft from theologians and other agents of the Church. The Christianized image of the witch is a cultivated one. It came along hand in hand with the vilification of pre-Christian deities, practices, and beliefs that were contrary to the theology of Christianity. With the resources of the Church, and a multitude of individuals devoted to converting pagans, the culture and spirit of the pre-Christian European people were beaten into submission. The campaign is what I refer to as spiritual ethnocide, which targeted not only beliefs and practices but also the enchanted worldview of paganism and its adherents. The witch, as she or he was once known, became one of the many casualties. Duni
Raven Grimassi (Old World Witchcraft: Ancient Ways for Modern Days)
Veuillez cesser de me faire éprouver des choses", me demanda-t-il comme si j'en avais le pouvoir.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
You must trust me on this,” Jack answered. “Ravens may carry messages to the lairds by day, and trade cog may glide on the first of the season, but the best time to cross is at night, when the ocean reflects the moon and the stars.” When the spirits of the water are easily appeased, Jack added inwardly.
Rebecca Ross (A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1))
Ah, but you we're not a pawn, All along you have been the queen
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
The words—they don’t always make sense, but I need them anyway, you see. It’s as though there’s something I’m looking for. I always think, once I have just one more, it will be enough . . .
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
As loath as I am to admit it, I’m better off taking my chances with you.
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
Golden feathers began to fly through the air, and the wedding guests could not at first make sense of it. The oíche sidhe kept whacking and whacking until the serving girl split apart like an overripe plum and became what she had been long ago, though neither she nor the mother who raised her had guessed it---a golden raven, one of the three enchanted birds that the prince had released to bring strife to the kingdom. The serving girl flitted out the window, free at last, while the oíche sidhe dusted their hands and went smilingly back into hiding. They stopped pomading chickens and turning pajamas into evening wear, which was ultimately a relief to the duchess, who had been down to her last nightgown. As for the prince, the serving girl's disappearance finally gave him a purpose in life. He retreated to the wilderness to learn magic from witches and any Folk who would teach him. Eventually he succeeded in turning himself into a raven, whereupon he flew off in search of his beloved. In the northeast of Ireland it is said that he is still searching for his golden bride to this day, and that if you listen closely, you can hear her name in the croaking of the ravens.
Heather Fawcett (Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1))