Arden Quotes

Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.

There are no monsters in the world, and no saints. Only infinite shades woven into the same tapestry, light and dark. One man’s monster is another man’s beloved. The wise know that.

All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. Please. Please let me help you.

Every time you take one path, you must live with the memory of the other: of a life left unchosen. Decide as seems best, one course or the other; each way will have its bitter with its sweet.

Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.

If you always make the right decision, the safe decision, the one most people make, you will be the same as everyone else.

Wild birds die in cages.

I carve things of wood because things made by effort are more real than things made by wishing.

She bent forward to breathe into his ear: "Never give me orders." "Command me, then," he whispered back. The words went through her like wine.

Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya. And both are mine.

I do not understand “damned.” You are. And because you are, you can walk where you will, into peace, oblivion, or pits of fire, but you will always choose.

But yes,” he said wearily. “As I could, I loved you. Now will you go? Live.” “I, too,” she said. “In a childish way, as girls love heroes that come in the night, I loved you.

Think of me sometimes," he returned. "When the snowdrops have bloomed and the snow has melted.

I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me.

As I could, I loved you.

The world is what YOU think of it, so think of it DIFFERENTLY and your life will change.

He is full of desire. Desire and fear. He does not know what he desires, and he does not admit his fear. But he feels both, strong enough to strangle.

I have plucked snowdrops at Midwinter, died at my own choosing, and wept for a nightingale. Now I am beyond prophecy.

Vasya felt cold despite the steam. “Why would I choose to die?” “It is easy to die,” replied the bannik. “Harder to live.

I did not know I was lonely, she thought, until I was no longer alone.

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe That seems to draw—but it shall not be so: Let all be well, be well.

I do not like half answers.' 'Stop asking half questions, then,' he said, and smiled with sudden charm.

I gave everything for you, Vasilisa Petrovna.' 'Not everything,' said Vasya. 'Since clearly your pride is intact, as well as your illusions.

It is a cruel task, to frighten people in God’s name.

Now hear me. Before the end, you will pluck snowdrops at midwinter, die by your own choosing, and weep for a nightingale.

Love is for those who know the griefs of time, for it goes hand in hand with loss. An eternity, so burdened, would be a torment. And yet—” He broke off, drew breath. “Yet what else to call it, this terror and this joy?

Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you go, and fix it along the way…

The breath hitched in his throat. His hand caught hers, but he did not untangle her fingers. "Why are you here?" she asked him. For a moment she thought he would not answer, then he said, as though reluctant, "I heard you cry.

We who live forever can know no courage, nor do we love enough to give our lives.

If you spend all your days bearing the burden of unforgotten wrongs you will only wound yourself.

Solovey will take me to the ends of the earth if I ask it. I am going into the world, Alyosha. I will be no one's bride, neither of man nor of God. I am going to Kiev and Sarai and Tsargrad, and I will look upon the sun on the sea.

You cannot take vengeance on a whole people because of the doings of a few wicked men.

It's better to regret what you have done than what you haven't.

Great people have great egos; maybe that's what makes them great.

Magic is forgetting the world was ever other than as you willed it.

Everything we do we choose. So what is there to regret? You are the person you chose to be.

Who is to say, in the end, that the three guardians of Russia are not a witch, a frost-demon, and a chaos-spirit? I find it fitting.

Things are or they are not, Vasya,” he interrupted. “If you want something, it means you do not have it, it means that you do not believe it is there, which means it will never be there. The fire is or it is not. That which you call magic is simply not allowing the world to be other than as you will it.

There is no magic. Things are. Or they are not.

How? I am a demon and a nightmare; I die every spring, and I will live forever.

You are too attached to things as they are,” said Morozko, combing the mare’s withers. He glanced down idly. “You must allow things to be what best suits your purpose. And then they will.

Mornings are wiser than evenings.

I have been running through the dark, trying to save all who have need of me. I have done good and I have done evil, but I am neither. I am only myself.

Only boys and fools think men are first in courage. We do not bear children.

Start taking bad decisions and it will take you to a place where others only dream of being.

Every time you take one path, you must live with the memory of the other: of a life left unchosen.

It is time to put aside dreaming. Fairy tales are sweet on winter nights, nothing more.

That love of maidens for monsters, that does not fade with time.” He looked weary. “But the rest—I did not count on that.

Be your own worst critic. When things go wrong it's tempting to shift the blame. Don't. Accept responsibility. People will appreciate it, and you will find out what you're capable of.

DO IT, THEN FIX IT AS YOU GO.

His voice was like snow at midnight.

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

You left me this mad girl, and I love her well. She is braver and wilder than any of my sons.

Has the world run dry of warriors?' She asked. 'All out of brave lords? Are they sending out maidens these days to do the work of heroes?' 'There were no heroes,' said Vasya between her teeth. 'There was only me.

I’d rather my sons living, and my daughters safe, than a chance at glory for unborn descendants.

If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules

But I think you should be careful, Batyushka, that God does not speak in the voice of your own wishing. We have never needed saving before.

Irina, for God’s sake, praying will not keep her warm. Make soup.

It is not for men and women to presume what the Lord wishes. That way lies evil, when men put themselves too high, saying, I know what God wants, for it is also what I want.

He picked her up and sank onto the warm oven-bench with her in his arms. He was gentle. His breath was the winter wind, but his flesh was warm, and his heart beat under her hand.

If I wanted to imprison someone until the end of days, would it not be best to use a prison that he has no desire to escape?

Many people say ‘Better to die’ until the time comes to do it,” Morozko returned.

You don't control their minds, ma fifille, you control their hearts" - Cosette

You might get to know characters in books, Ollie thought, but getting to know a human was an entirely different thing.

As an artist, if your work doesn't inflame at least part of the audience, then you might as well call it quits and sell insurance... The world needs more boundary pushers, not more boundary creators.

Men make themselves afraid," the Bear told her, smiling. "Imagining is worse than anything they actually see.

having too many ideas is not always a good thing.

it's wrong to be right; it's right to be wrong.

If this is the last decision I can ever make, at least it is my decision. Let me go, Alyosha. I am not afraid.

You were such a sweet child, when I first met you by this very tree,” remarked the Bear. “What happened?” His voice was mocking, but she could feel the tension in him when she began to undo the golden clasps. “What happened? Love, betrayal, and time,” said Vasya. “What happens to anyone who grows to understand you, Medved? Living happens.

Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have. Without having a goal it’s difficult to score.

He" —she stumbled, finished—"He has been a joy to me." And, drily, "Also a great source of frustration.

Risks are a measure of people. People who won't take them are trying to preserve what they have. People who do take them often end up having more. Some risks have a future, and some people call them wrong. But being right may be like walking backwards proving where you've been. Being wrong isn't in the future, or in the past. Being wrong isn't anywhere but being here. Best place to be, eh?

The more one knows, the sooner one grows old,” Midnight returned cheerfully.

If you have ever met someone who rarely reads, then you will understand the blank look Moti gave me. For nonreaders, life is simply what they touch and see, not what they feel when they open the pages of a play and are transported to the Forest of Arden or Illyria. Where the world is full of a thousand colors for those who love books, I suspect it is simply black and gray to everyone else. A tree is a tree to them; it is never a magical doorway to another world populated with beings that don’t exist here.

i wish means: would it be nice if.. i want means: if i want it enough i will get it.

Live,” she said. “You said you loved me. Live.

I loved her, and a curse made me forget. But she came for me and broke the curse and now I must go.

Be unfashionable. Take risks.

Cada persona brilla con luz propia entre todas las demás. No hay dos fuegos iguales. Hay fuegos grandes y fuegos chicos y fuegos de todos los colores. Hay gente de fuego sereno, que ni se entera del viento, y gente de fuego loco, que llena el aire de chispas. Algunos fuegos, fuegos bobos, no alumbran ni queman; pero otros arden de vida con tantas ganas que no se puede mirarlos sin parpadear, y quien se acerca se enciende".

Don't be afraid of silly ideas.

You shouldn’t have told them I was a girl. Then they might have believed that I was dangerous.

Try the meditation of the trail, just walk along looking at the trail at your feet and don’t look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by. Trails are like that: you’re floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and fluteboys, then suddenly you’re struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak… just like life.

The world is wide, and the road will take us anywhere.

She is not afraid, Konstantin thought dourly. She does not fear God; she fears nothing. He saw it in her silences, her fey glance, the long hours she spent in the forest. In any case, no good Christian maid ever had eyes like that, or walked with such grace in the dark.

The more one knows, the sooner one grows old,” snapped the domovaya

Am I a child? Always someone else must decide for me. But this I will decide for myself.

Would you like to meet him?” Vasya asked suddenly. “I?” Olga asked, sounding shocked. Then her lips firmed. “Yes. Even a girl in love with a devil needs someone to negotiate for her.

With that sapphire, he bound your strength to him, but the magic did what he did not intend; it made him strong but also pulled him closer and closer to mortality, so that he was hungry for life, more than a man and less a demon. So that he loved you, and did not know what to do.

Es el primer beso del que ambos estamos plenamente conscientes. Ninguno está debilitado por la enfermedad o el dolor, tampoco desmayado; no nos arden los labios de fiebre ni de frío. Es el primer beso que de verdad hace que se me agite algo en el pecho, algo cálido y curioso. Es el primer beso que me hace desear un segundo. [pp. 319]

I want Dmitrii's admiration. I want a victory. I even want power, over princes and chyerti. I am allowed to want things, winter-king.

Being right is based upon knowledge and experience and is often provable. Knowledge comes from the past, so it's safe. It is also out of date. It's the opposite of originality. Experience is built from solutions to old situations and problems. The old situations are probably different from the present ones, so that old solutions will have to be bent to fit new problems (and possibly fit badly). Also the likelihood is that, if you've got the experience, you'll probably use it. This is lazy. Experience is the opposite of being creative. If you can prove you're right you're set in concrete. You cannot move with the times or with other people. Being right is also being boring. Your mind is closed. You are not open to new ideas. You are rooted in your own rightness, which is arrogant. Arrogance is a valuable tool, but only if used very sparingly. Worst of all, being right has a tone of morality about it. To be anything else sounds weak or fallible, and people who are right would hate to be thought fallible. So: it's wrong to be right, because people who are right are rooted in the past, rigid-minded, dull and smug. There's no talking to them.

Do not seek praise. Seek criticism.

Life's all about 'me' anyway

I am a witch,” said Vasya. Blood was running down her hand now, spoiling her grip. “I have plucked snowdrops at Midwinter, died at my own choosing, and wept for a nightingale. Now I am beyond prophecy.” She caught his knife on the crosspiece of hers, hilt to hilt. “I have crossed three times nine realms to find you, my lord. And I find you at play, forgetful.” She felt him hesitate. Something deeper than memory ran through his eyes. It might have been fear. “Remember me,” said Vasya. “Once you bid me remember you.

I will see the world beyond this forest, and I will not count the cost.

Close your eyes," he said into her ear. "Come with me." She did so, and suddenly she saw what he saw. She was the wind, the clouds gathering in the smoky sky, the thick snow of deep winter. She was nothing. She was everything. The power gathered somewhere in the space between them, between her flickers of awareness. There is no magic. Things are. Or they are not. She was beyond wanting anything. She didn't care whether she lived or died. She could only feel; the gathering storm, the breath of the wind.

I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks,” he said. “I salute you, magician.” He swept her a bow from horseback. Vasya did not return the bow. “To small minds,” she told him, spine very straight, “any skill must look like sorcery.

The image of a wood has appeared often enough in English verse. It has indeed appeared so often that it has gathered a good deal of verse into itself; so that it has become a great forest where, with long leagues of changing green between them, strange episodes of poetry have taken place. Thus in one part there are lovers of a midsummer night, or by day a duke and his followers, and in another men behind branches so that the wood seems moving, and in another a girl separated from her two lordly young brothers, and in another a poet listening to a nightingale but rather dreaming richly of the grand art than there exploring it, and there are other inhabitants, belonging even more closely to the wood, dryads, fairies, an enchanter's rout. The forest itself has different names in different tongues- Westermain, Arden, Birnam, Broceliande; and in places there are separate trees named, such as that on the outskirts against which a young Northern poet saw a spectral wanderer leaning, or, in the unexplored centre of which only rumours reach even poetry, Igdrasil of one myth, or the Trees of Knowledge and Life of another. So that indeed the whole earth seems to become this one enormous forest, and our longest and most stable civilizations are only clearings in the midst of it.

Sasha looked at his sister. He had never thought of her as girlish, but the last trace of softness was gone. The quick brain, the strong limbs were there: fiercely, almost defiantly present, though concealed beneath her encumbering dress. She was more feminine than she had ever been, and less. Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.