β
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5))
β
... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Sometimes you have to be apart from people you love, but that doesn't make you love them any less. Sometimes you love them more.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien
β
I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
β
β
Plato
β
You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.
β
β
Oscar Wilde
β
Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
He is half of my soul, as the poets say.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
You are the answer to every prayer I've offered. You are a song, a dream, a whisper, and I don't know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Mom says it's because she has PMS.
Do you even know what that means?
"I'm not a little kid anymore. It means pissed-at- men syndrome
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when it's morning again, they'll wash away
Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
β
I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
β
β
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship)
β
I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
β
β
Pablo Neruda (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)
β
Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youβve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you canβt wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid itβs like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didnβt exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long dayβs work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, thereβs no need for continuous conversation, but you find youβre quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that thereβs a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure thatβs so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
β
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
β
β
Pablo Neruda (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)
β
I am made of memories.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It's not overrated. There's a reason for all those songs.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)
β
You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
β
β
Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)
β
Winter is coming.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Life, he realize, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)
β
We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire, 5-Book Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice & Fire 1-5))
β
When you play a game of thrones you win or you die.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your or the world, that one song says the same, just like that moment.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)
β
Truth only means something when it's hard to admit.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
you have to love something before you can hate it.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Why do beautiful songs make you sad?' 'Because they aren't true.' 'Never?' 'Nothing is beautiful and true.
β
β
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
β
People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side?
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
You don't love a girl because of beauty. You love her because she sings a song only you can understand.
β
β
L.J. Smith (Secret Vampire (Night World, #1))
β
The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
β
The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.
β
β
Stephen King (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption)
β
Iβm glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone.
β
β
Dr. Seuss
β
People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.
β
β
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)
β
Once youβve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
He smiled, and his face was like the sun.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
That is β your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
I told you. You don't love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.
β
β
L.J. Smith
β
And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
And all the books you've read have been read by other people. And all the songs you've loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that's pretty to you is pretty to other people. and that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing 'unity.
β
β
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β
I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.
β
β
Willa Cather (The Song of the Lark)
β
I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.
β
β
Jack London (The Turtles of Tasman)
β
Quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times, a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.
β
β
Margaret Wise Brown
β
What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
β
β
Jim Henson (Favorite Songs From Jim Henson's Muppets)
β
If I look back I am lost.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
You didn't kill him. He would have killed you, but you didn't kill him."
"So? He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.
β
β
Tamora Pierce (In the Hand of the Goddess (Song of the Lioness, #2))
β
There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
You're like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception (Books of Faerie, #1))
β
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
I just want to break that song into pieces and love them all to death.
β
β
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
β
Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
β
β
Jule Styne (The Songs of Jule Styne)
β
Songs are as sad as the listener.
β
β
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
β
When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
In the end you should always do the right thing even if it's hard.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing β desire.
β
β
Willa Cather (The Song of the Lark)
β
Nothing burns like the cold.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
β
Every man must die, Jon Snow. But first he must live.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
β
And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person.
β
β
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β
Don't criticize what you can't understand.
β
β
Bob Dylan
β
Laughter is poison to fear.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Wherever you will go,
I will let you down,
But this lullaby goes on.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)
β
He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
Power resides only where men believe it resides. [...] A shadow on the wall, yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
What do we say to the Lord of Death?'
'Not today.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
I have faith that God will show you the answer. But you have to understand that sometimes it takes a while to be able to recognize what God wants you to do. That's how it often is. God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
You're beautiful and sad," I said finally, not looking at him when I did. "Just like your eyes. You're like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again." For a long moment there was only the whirring sound of the tires on the road, and then Sam said softly, "Thank you.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1))
β
Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
β
The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5))
β
Who are you?
Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies?
Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them?
I have. I am fucking crazy.
But I am free.
β
β
Lana Del Rey
β
Name one hero who was happy.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
I was always an unusual girl.
My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean.
β
β
Lana Del Rey
β
Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.
β
β
Shel Silverstein
β
Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
I had a boyfriend who told me Iβd never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped Iβd fail. I said to him, βSomeday, when weβre not together, you wonβt be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.
β
β
Lady Gaga
β
Please Mia," he implores. "Don't make me write a song.
β
β
Gayle Forman (If I Stay (If I Stay, #1))
β
Every flight begins with a fall.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S.
"Go," she says. "He waits for you."
In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4))
β
Live not for Battles Won.
Live not for The-End-of-the-Song.
Live in the along.
β
β
Gwendolyn Brooks (Report from Part One)
β
Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
β
β
Pablo Neruda (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)
β
My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That's why I read so much Jon Snow.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
For I have known them all already, known them allβ
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (T. S. Eliot Reading: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Others (Caedmon1045))
β
I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
He was ordinary in a world that loved the extraordinary.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, or There and Back Again)
β
Life is not a song, sweetling.
Someday you may learn that, to your sorrow.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
funny how a beautiful song could tell such a sad story
β
β
Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β
I had no illusions about love anymore. It came, it went, it left casualties or it didn't. People weren't meant to be together forever, regardless of what the songs say.
β
β
Sarah Dessen
β
The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye, the story of love is hello and goodbye...until we meet again
β
β
Jimi Hendrix
β
I was his and he was mine, and we were the beginning and middle and end. We were a song that had been sung from the very first ember of light in the world.
β
β
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
β
This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, solemn as an owl at lessons. This and this and this. So many moments of happiness, crowding forward.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
β
You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. Youβll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. Sheβs the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? Thatβs the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
Sheβs the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because sheβs kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the authorβs making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyceβs Ulysses sheβs just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
Itβs easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, sheβs going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. Sheβll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time sheβs sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasnβt burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then youβre better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
β
β
Rosemarie Urquico
β
Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I'll sleep more easily by night.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.
β
β
John Donne (The Poems of John Donne (Volume 1); Miscellaneous Poems (Songs and Sonnets) Elegies. Epithalamions, or Marriage Songs. Satires. Epigrams. the Progress of the Soul. Notes)
β
you're an expert at sorry and keeping the lines blurry
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I feel like I could eat the world raw.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don't want to cry anymore, you don't listen to that song anymore.
But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.
β
β
Jay Asher (Thirteen Reasons Why)
β
I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.
As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.
βPatroclus,β he said. He was always better with words than I.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Noah: "You wanna dance with me?"
Allie: "Sure. Now?"
Noah: "Mmm Hmm"
Allie: "You're not supposed to dance in the street."
Noah: "You are supposed to dance in the street."
Allie: "Yeah, but we don't have any music."
Noah: "Well, we'll make some... Bum bum bum bum bum bum..."
Allie: "You're a terrible singer."
Noah: "I know."
Allie: "And I like this song.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
β
He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.
β
β
Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
β
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.
β
β
Walt Whitman (Song of Myself)
β
Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.
β
β
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
β
Would you destroy Something perfect in order to make it beautiful?
β
β
Gerard Way
β
I've always thought people would find a lot more pleasure in their routines if they burst into song at significant moments.
β
β
John Barrowman
β
When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.
β
β
Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time)
β
It was at that age
that poetry came in search of me.
β
β
Pablo Neruda (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)
β
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.
β
β
Walt Whitman (Song of Myself)
β
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
β
β
W.H. Auden (Collected Poems)
β
The man who fears losing has already lost.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.
β
β
Walt Whitman (Song of Myself)
β
Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
β
β
Bob Marley (Bob Marley - Legend)
β
Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn't a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their song instead.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys)
β
Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
β
A bruise is a lesson... and each lesson makes us better.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
The things I do for love.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
You're mine," she whispered. "Mine, as I'm yours. And if we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first, we'll live.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
β
What she needs are stories.
Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.
Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books.
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand livesβor to find strength in a very long one.
β
β
Victoria Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
β
He liked her; it was as simple as that.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
We all shine on...like the moon and the stars and the sun...we all shine on...come on and on and on...
β
β
John Lennon
β
It was November--the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.
β
β
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
β
Valar Morghulis.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
One of the remarkable things about love is that, despite very irritating people writing poems and songs about how pleasant it is, it really is quite pleasant.
β
β
Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)
β
We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.
β
β
Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See)
β
The pieces all fit together. Yet everything was falling apart.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
Letβs make this a fight worthy of a song.
β
β
Sarah J. Maas (Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7))
β
because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. no matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment.
β
β
Sarah Dessen
β
Walls have ears.
Doors have eyes.
Trees have voices.
Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain.
Beware the snow.
Beware the man
You think you know.
-Songs of Sapphique
β
β
Catherine Fisher (Incarceron (Incarceron, #1))
β
Emotions come and go and can't be controlled so there's no reason to worry about them. That in the end, people should be judged by their actions since in the end it was actions that defined everyone.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
It doesn't matter what you did or where you were...it matters where you are and what you're doing. Get out there! Sing the song in your heart and NEVER let anyone shut you up!!
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
I mean, most people want to escape. Get out of their heads. Out of their lives. Stories are the easiest way to do that.
β
β
Victoria Schwab (This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity, #1))
β
He who hurries through life hurries to his grave.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
She was a stranger now, but she'd been a friend once, and that was enough for him.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book⦠or you take a trip⦠and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin (The Diary of AnaΓ―s Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)
β
I fell for her in summer, my lovely summer girl,
From summer she is made, my lovely summer girl,
Iβd love to spend a winter with my lovely summer girl,
But Iβm never warm enough for my lovely summer girl,
Itβs summer when she smiles, Iβm laughing like a child,
Itβs the summer of our lives; weβll contain it for a while
She holds the heat, the breeze of summer in the circle of her hand
Iβd be happy with this summer if itβs all we ever had.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1))
β
The Doctor: Doctor Song, you've got that face on again.
River: What face?
The Doctor: The "He's hot when he's clever" face.
River: This is my normal face.
The Doctor: Yes it is.
River: Oh, shut up.
The Doctor: Not a chance.
β
β
Steven Moffat
β
Woman?β She chuckled. βIs that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man.β Dany met his stare. βI am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogoβs riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
β
I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1))
β
Demon pox, oh demon pox
Just how is it acquired?
One must go down to the bad part of town
Until one is very tired.
Demon pox, oh demon pox, I had it all alongβ
Not the pox, you foolish blocks,
I mean this very songβ
For I was right, and you were wrong!"
"Will!" Charlotte shouted over the noise, "Have you LOST YOUR MIND? CEASE THAT INFERNAL RACKET! Jemβ"
Jem, rising to his feet, clapped his hands over Will's mouth. "Do you promise to be quiet?" he hissed into his friend's ear.
Will nodded, blue eyes blazing. Tessa was staring at him in amazement; they all were. She had seen Will many thingsβamused, bitter, condescending, angry, pityingβbut never giddy before.
Jem let him go. "All right, then."
Will slid to the floor, his back against the armchair, and threw up his arms. "A demon pox on all your houses!" he announced, and yawned.
"Oh, God, weeks of pox jokes," said Jem. "We're in for it now.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
β
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
β
β
John Lennon (Imagine)
β
The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.
Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?
We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth.
β
β
George R.R. Martin
β
I Wanna Hold Your Hand.β First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. Thatβs what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have a feeling that they canβt hide.
β
β
Rachel Cohn (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist)
β
Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear?
Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet
deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long
night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children
are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and
hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
β
β
Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)
β
So many vows... they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. Itβs too much. No matter what you do, youβre forsaking one vow or the other.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."
"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.
β
β
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
β
You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's a hint - ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy - all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know - this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtships. They want to know immediately.
β
β
David Levithan (Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (Dash & Lily, #1))
β
She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make?
β
β
Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)
β
Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Itβs the same with people who say, βWhatever doesnβt kill you makes you stronger.β Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesnβt kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesnβt kill you makes you incredibly annoying.
β
β
Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time)
β
Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.
β
β
George R.R. Martin
β
Do you want a cookie?
- What?
- A cookie. Like an Oreo. Do you want one?
- No.
- How can you not want a cookie?
- I just don't.
- Okay, fine,let's say you did want a cookie. Let's say you were dying for a cookie, and there were cookies in the cupboard. What would you do?
- I'd eat a cookie?
- Exactly. That's all I'm saying.
- What are you saying?
- That if people want cookies, they should get a cookie. It's what people do.
- Let me guess. Dad won't let you have a
cookie?
- No. Even though I'm practically starving to death, he won't even consider it. He says I have to have a sandwich first.
- And you don't think that's fair.
- You just said you'd get a cookie if you wanted one. So why can't I? I'm not a little kid. I can make my own decisions.
- Hmm. I can see why this bothers you so
much.
- It's not fair. If he wants a cookie, he can have one. If you want a cookie,
you can have one. But if I want a cookie, the rules don't count. Like you
said, it's not fair.
- So what are you going to do?
- I'm going to eat a sandwich. Because I have to. Because the world isn't fair
to ten-year-olds.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
β
The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.
β
β
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel)
β
Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, 'Life in the Fast Lane?' That's what they're saying right there? You think, 'why have I been singing 'wipe in the vaseline?' how many people have heard me sing 'wipe in the vaseline?' I am an idiot.
β
β
Ellen DeGeneres (My Point... And I Do Have One)
β
I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing. And if that meant she wasn't entirely mine, what of it? I would be the one she could always return to without fear of recrimination or question. So I did not try to win her and contented myself with playing a beautiful game. But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool.
β
β
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
β
You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche...or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful song of the past fifty years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding.
β
β
David Levithan (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist)
β
Doubt as sin. β Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature β is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.
β
β
Friedrich Nietzsche (Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality)
β
To me, βFEARLESSβ is not the absence of fear. Itβs not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though youβve been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over againβ¦ even though every time youβve tried before, youβve lost. Itβs FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you canβt breathe without them. I think itβs FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though heβs in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things theyβll never stop doing, I think itβs FEARLESS to stop believing them. Itβs FEARLESS to say βyouβre NOT sorryβ, and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alrightβ¦ThatβsFEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. Thatβs why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Achilles was looking at me. βYour hair never quite lies flat, here.β He touched my head, just behind my ear. βI donβt think Iβve ever told you how I like it.β
My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. βYou havenβt,β I said.
βI should have.β His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. βWhat about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?β
βNo,β I said.
βThis surely then.β His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. βHave I told you of this?β
βThat you have told me.β My breath caught a little as I spoke.
βAnd what of this?β His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. βHave I spoken of it?β
βYou have.β
βAnd this? Surely I would not have forgotten this.β His catβs smile. βTell me I did not.β
βYou did not.β
βThere is this too.β His hand was ceaseless now. βI know I have told you of this.β
I closed my eyes. βTell me again,β I said.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.
β
β
Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)
β
I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.
β
β
Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)
β
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.
For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.
The pines were roaring on the height,
The wind was moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.
The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, or There and Back Again)
β
If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.
β
β
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
β
You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister."
"Am I?" the dwarf replied, sardonic. "Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure."
"I don't even know who my mother was," Jon said.
"Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are." He favored Jon with a rueful grin. "Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs."
And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune.
When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain⦠Or so says the legend.
β
β
Colleen McCullough (The Thorn Birds)
β
Why do I read?
I just can't help myself.
I read to learn and to grow, to laugh
and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I've never
been exposed to.
I read when I'm crabby, when I've just
said monumentally dumb things to the
people I love.
I read for strength to help me when I
feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.
I read when I'm angry at the whole
world.
I read when everything is going right.
I read to find hope.
I read because I'm made up not just of
skin and bones, of sights, feelings,
and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm
also made up of words.
Words describe my thoughts and what's
hidden in my heart.
Words are alive--when I've found a
story that I love, I read it again and
again, like playing a favorite song
over and over.
Reading isn't passive--I enter the
story with the characters, breathe
their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're
about to do something stupid, cry with
them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a
friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.
β
β
Gary Paulsen (Shelf Life: Stories by the Book)
β
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
β
β
Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends)
β
No killing,β Jordan said. βWeβre trying to make you feel peaceful, so you donβt go up in flames. Blood, killing, war, those are all non-peaceful things. Isnβt there anything else you like? Rainforests? Chirping birds?β
βWeapons,β said Jace. βI like weapons.β
βIβm starting to think we have a problematic issue of personal philosophy here.β
Jace leaned forward, his palms flat on the ground. βIβm a warrior,β he said. βI was brought up as a warrior. I didnβt have toys, I had weapons. I slept with a wooden sword until I was five. My first books were medieval demonologies with illuminated pages. The first songs I learned were chants to banish demons. I know what brings me peace, and it isnβt sandy beaches or chirping birds in rainforests. I want a weapon in my hand and a strategy to win.β
Jordan looked at him levelly. βSo youβre saying that what brings you peace β¦ is war.β
βNow you get it.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
β
Once upon a time, there was a girl who talked to the moon. And she was mysterious and she was perfect, in that way that girls who talk to moons are. In the house next door, there lived a boy. And the boy watched the girl grow more and more perfect, more and more beautiful with each passing year. He watched her watch the moon. And he began to wonder if the moon would help him unravel the mystery of the beautiful girl. So the boy looked into the sky. But he couldn't concentrate on the moon. He was too distracted by the stars. And it didn't matter how many songs or poems had already been written about them, because whenever he thought about the girl, the stars shone brighter. As if she were the one keeping them illuminated.
One day, the boy had to move away. He couldn't bring the girl with him, so he brought the stars. When he'd look out his window at night, he would start with one. One star. And the boy would make a wish on it, and the wish would be her name.
At the sound of her name, a second star would appear. And then he'd wish her name again, and the stars would double into four. And four became eight, and eight became sixteen, and so on, in the greatest mathematical equation the universe had ever seen. And by the time an hour had passed, the sky would be filled with so many stars that it would wake the neighbors. People wondered who'd turned on the floodlights.
The boy did. By thinking about the girl.
β
β
Stephanie Perkins (Lola and the Boy Next Door (Anna and the French Kiss, #2))
β
Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. βNo man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.β
βBut what if he is your friend?β Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. βOr your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?β
βYou ask a question that philosophers argue over,β Chiron had said. βHe is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone elseβs friend and brother. So which life is more important?β
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Unending Love
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -
And the songs of every poet past and forever.
β
β
Rabindranath Tagore (Selected Poems)
β
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββand dress them in warm clothes again.
ββββββββββHow it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
ββββββββββββββββββββItβs not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
ββββββββββitβs more like a song on a policemanβs radio,
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββhow we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββto slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means itβs noon, that means
ββββββββββwe're inconsolable.
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββTell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββTell me weβll never get used to it.
β
β
Richard Siken (Crush)
β
1. Iβm lonely so I do lonely things
2. Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
3. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood.
4. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home.
5. Youβre a ghost town Iβm too patriotic to leave.
6. I stay because youβre the beginning of the dream I want to remember.
7. I didnβt call him back because he likes his girls voiceless.
8. Itβs not that he wants to be a liar; itβs just that he doesnβt know the truth.
9. I couldnβt love you, you were a small war.
10. We covered the smell of loss with jokes.
11. I didnβt want to fail at love like our parents.
12. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay.
13. Iβm not a dog.
14. We were trying to prove our blood wrong.
15. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things.
16. Yes, Iβm insecure, but so was my mother and her mother.
17. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot.
18. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me.
19. You were too cruel to love for a long time.
20. It just didnβt work out.
21. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back.
22. I canβt sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth.
23. I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home.
24. The women in my family die waiting.
25. Because I didnβt want to die waiting for you.
26. I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me.
27. Youβre the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick.
28. He sent me a text that said βI love you so bad.β
29. His heart wasnβt as beautiful as his smile
30. We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.
31. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.
32. Iβm a lover without a lover.
33. Iβm lovely and lonely.
34. I belong deeply to myself .
β
β
Warsan Shire
β
I want you to tell me about every person youβve ever been in love with.
Tell me why you loved them,
then tell me why they loved you.
Tell me about a day in your life you didnβt think youβd live through.
Tell me what the word home means to you
and tell me in a way that Iβll know your motherβs name
just by the way you describe your bedroom
when you were eight.
See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate,
and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.
Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain
or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman,
would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms
or would leave your snowman armless
for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would,
would you notice how that tree weeps for you
because your snowman has no arms to hug you
every time you kiss him on the cheek?
Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?
Do you sleep beside them when theyβre sad
even if it makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion
or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?
See, I wanna know what you think of your first name,
and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your motherβs joy
when she spoke it for the very first time.
I want you to tell me all the ways youβve been unkind.
Tell me all the ways youβve been cruel.
Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old
beating up little boys at school.
If you were walking by a chemical plant
where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds
would you holler βPoison! Poison! Poison!β really loud
or would you whisper
βThat cloud looks like a fish,
and that cloud looks like a fairy!β
Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you donβt believe in miracles, tell me β
how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?
See, I wanna know if you believe in any god
or if you believe in many gods
or better yet
what gods believe in you.
And for all the times that youβve knelt before the temple of yourself,
have the prayers you asked come true?
And if they didnβt, did you feel denied?
And if you felt denied,
denied by who?
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
on a day youβre feeling good.
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
on a day youβre feeling bad.
I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty
could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.
If you ever reach enlightenment
will you remember how to laugh?
Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me
if I told you Iβve lived my entire life a little off-key?
And Iβm not nearly as smart as my poetry
I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me
who have learned the wisdom of silence.
Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do β
I want you to tell me of a meadow
where my skateboard will soar.
See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living.
I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving,
and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes
from other peopleβs wounds,
and if you dream sometimes
that this life is just a balloon β
that if you wanted to, you could pop,
but you never would
βcause youβd never want it to stop.
If a tree fell in the forest
and you were the only one there to hear β
if its fall to the ground didnβt make a sound,
would you panic in fear that you didnβt exist,
or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
And lastly, let me ask you this:
If you and I went for a walk
and the entire walk, we didnβt talk β
do you think eventually, weβdβ¦ kiss?
No, wait.
Thatβs asking too much β
after all,
this is only our first date.
β
β
Andrea Gibson