Ember Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Ember. Here they are! All 100 of them:

β€œ
She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.
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Sarah J. Maas (Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4))
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Your hair is winter fire January embers My heart burns there, too.
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Stephen King (It)
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Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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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.
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Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
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Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after. Such moments are tests of courage, of strength.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
β€œ
There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that's a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged but it's there. Don't let them take it from you.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
β€œ
You are an ember in the ashes, Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
β€œ
You are full, Laia. Full of life and dark and strength and spirit. You are in our dreams. You will burn, for you are an ember in the ashes.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
β€œ
The field of battle is my temple. The swordpoint is my priest. The dance of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
β€œ
You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while.
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Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1))
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Your emotions make you human. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. Don't lock them away. If you ignore them, they just get louder and angrier.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
β€œ
I am a descendant of Ranthia Drahl, Queen of Embers. She is with me now and I am not afraid. My friends are behind me, and I will protect them.
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Sarah J. Maas (House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1))
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All the beauty of the stars means nothing when life here on earth is so ugly.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don’t notice it, but, out of the blue, it’ll flare to life.
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Maria V. Snyder (Storm Glass (Glass, #1))
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When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?' 'You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.
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Jeanne DuPrau (The People of Sparks (Book of Ember, #2))
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So long as you fight the darkness, you stand in the light.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back.
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Samuel Beckett (Krapp's Last Tape & Embers)
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Failure doesn't define you. It's what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
β€œ
There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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I'd rather die than live with no mercy, no honor, no soul.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Don't lock yourself away from those who care about you because you think you'll hurt them or they'll hurt you. What point is there in being human if you don't let yourself feel anything?
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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Emifal firdaant. May death claim me first.
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Sabaa Tahir (A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4))
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Laia is curled in a ball on the other, one hand on her armlet, fast asleep. "You are my temple", I murmur as I knee beside her. "You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release."- Elias
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
β€œ
Sometimes the embers are better than the campfire.
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Stephen King (The Green Mile)
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Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be. Too much fear and you're paralyzed. Too little fear and you're arrogant.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren't the master of yourself anymore. Anger is. And when anger is the boss, you get unintended consequences.
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Jeanne DuPrau (The City of Ember (Book of Ember, #1))
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I Think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost . The body sluggish, aged, cold, the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again.
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Walt Whitman
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door β€” Only this, and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; β€” vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow β€” sorrow for the lost Lenore β€” For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore β€” Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me β€” filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door β€” Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; β€” This it is, and nothing more." Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"β€” here I opened wide the door; β€” Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" β€” Merely this, and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice: Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore β€” Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; β€” 'Tis the wind and nothing more." Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door β€” Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door β€” Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore. Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore β€” Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaningβ€” little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door β€” Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore.
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Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven)
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Nan always said that as long as there is life, there is hope.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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It will get better. You'll never forget them, not even after years. But one day, you'll go a whole minute without feeling the pain. Then an hour. A day. That's all you can ask for, really.” His voice drops. β€œYou'll heal, I promise.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
β€œ
She was the heir of fire. She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.
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Sarah J. Maas (Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4))
β€œ
But you, Helene Aquilla, are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night - if you dare to let yourself burn.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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You are my temple. You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don't let it control you. Don't let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Fools pay attention to words in a fight. Warriors take advantage of them.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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I think you cannot root out love entirely. I think where there has been love, there will always be embers, as the remains of a bonfire outlast the flame.
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Cassandra Clare (Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2))
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I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.
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Rae Carson (The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns, #2))
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In the night, your loneliness crushes you, as if the sky itself has swooped down to smother you in its cold arms.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Just because he's a good leader doesn't mean he's a good person.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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I wish I could live a thousand lives so I could fall in love with you a thousand times
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Sabaa Tahir (A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4))
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Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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There is so much darkness in Ember, Lina. It's not just outside, it's inside us, too. Everyone has some darkness inside. It's like a hungry creature. It wants and wants and wants with a terrible power. And the more you give it, the bigger and hungrier it gets.
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Jeanne DuPrau (The City of Ember)
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You are broken. But it is broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is broken things that are the most unexpected, and the most underestimated
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Sabaa Tahir (A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4))
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We are not the ashes of our past, but embers burning towards a future fire.
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Steven Bruce (White Knuckle)
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Exhaustion is temporary. Pain is temporary. But Helene dying because I didn't find a way to get her back on timeβ€”that's permanent.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Your hair is winter fire, January embers. My heart burns there, too.
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Stephen King (It)
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Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged, but it's there. Don't let them take it from you, Elias.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Hope is stronger than fear. It is stronger than hate.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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But I’m not strong. I’m weak, and I’m sick of pretending I’m not.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Remember what you must do when they undervalue you, when they think your softness is your weakness, when they treat your kindness like it is their advantage. You awaken every dragon, every wolf, every monster that sleeps inside of you and you remind them what hell looks like when it wears the skin of a gentle human.
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Nikita Gill (Wild Embers: Poems of Rebellion, Fire and Beauty)
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Ember, you're the only piece of me I have left. Everything else-my family, my home, my soul- they're all gone. I don't know who the hell I am anymore. If it weren't for you... I don't know.
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Kristen Simmons (Article 5 (Article 5, #1))
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Skies save me from the men in my life and all the things they think they know.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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I do not doubt, I do not hesitate. I am the Lioness's daughter, and I have the Lioness's strength.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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You could burn down the entire kingdom until it’s nothing but charred rubble, and I would crawl over the embers with glee, so long as I could worship at your feet.
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Emily McIntire (Scarred (Never After, #2))
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Perhaps I have become so accustomed to the burden of secrets that I do not notice their weight until I am free of it.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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Don't look so worried. Most successful missions are just a series of barely averted disasters.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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As long as there is life, there is hope.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Would that we all knew the cracked terrain of each other’s broken hearts. Perhaps then, we would not be so cruel to those who walk this lonely world with us.
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Sabaa Tahir (A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4))
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The best lies come from the truth.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Once, I'd have wanted that. I'd have wanted someone to tell me what to do, to fix everything. Once, I'd have wanted to be saved.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Elias and Laia are each other’s countermelodies. I am just a dissonant note.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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You got there first my love, I envy you so, for how will I endure without you?
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Sabaa Tahir (A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4))
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Youβ€”you were like me. You were a child. A normal child. And that was taken from you.” β€œDoes that bother you?” β€œWell, it certainly makes you harder to hate.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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The field of battle is my temple. I mentally chant a saying my grandfather taught me the day he met me, when I was six. He insists it sharpens the mind the way a whetstone sharpens a blade. The swordpoint is my priest. The dance of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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And Chaol was afraid, but not for himself. He was afraid of what would come when Aedion and Aelin were reunited. For he'd seen in her that same glittering ember that made people look and listen. Had seen her stalk into the council with Councilor Mullison's head and smile at the King of Adarlan, every man in that room enthralled and petrified by the dark whirlwind of her spirit. The two of them together, both of them lethal, working to build an army, ignite their people... He was afraid of what they would do to his kingdom.
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Sarah J. Maas (Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3))
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The main thing to do is pay attention. Pay close attention to everything, notice what no one else notices. Then you'll know what no one else knows, and that's always useful.
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Jeanne DuPrau (The City of Ember (Book of Ember, #1))
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He put a hand on his throat, as though trying to stop the words, but they came anyway. "You're home. To me.
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Kristen Simmons (Article 5 (Article 5, #1))
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All her life, she had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches. Sparks leapt like fleas and spread as rapidly; a breeze could carry embers for miles. Better to control that spark and pass it carefully from one generation to the next, like an Olympic torch. Or, perhaps, to tend it carefully like an eternal flame: a reminder of light and goodness that would never - could never - set anything ablaze. Carefully controlled. Domesticated. Happy in captivity. The key, she thought, was to avoid conflagration.
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Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere)
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The flames sawed in the wind and the embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerate upon the ground before them and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, and the first fire and the last ever to be.
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Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
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True suffering lies in the expectation of pain as much as in the pain itself.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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How much pain exists in the world because we cannot get past what has been done to us, because we insist on inflicting pain right back?
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Sabaa Tahir (A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4))
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Love. I sigh. Love is joy coupled with misery, elation bound to despair. It is a fire that beckons me gently and then burns when I get too close. I hate love. I yearn for it. And it drives me mad.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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Will closed his eyes. He could not hear Jem go, not anymore; he did not want to know the moment when he left and Will was alone, did now want to know when his first day as a Shawdowhunter without a parabatai truly began. And if the place over his heart, where his parabatai rune had been, flared up with a sudden burning pain as the door closed behind Jem, Will told himself it was only a stray ember from the fire.
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
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It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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A quarterstaff is not very subtle. Or handy. If an kidnapper comes at me, what am I supposed to do? Say, 'Excuse me, my lord, while I pull my enormous quarterstaff out of my bodice?
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Rae Carson (The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns, #2))
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I don't need to believe in the supernatural, not when there's worse that roams the night.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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She chuckles again. β€œBecause sane plans never work, girl,” she says. β€œOnly the mad ones do.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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She is alone. And oh how brilliantly she shines.
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Nikita Gill (Wild Embers: Poems of Rebellion, Fire and Beauty)
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I wonder if my entire life will be a series of moments in which I realize I’m an idiot long after I can actually do anything about it. Will I ever feel like I know what I’m doing?
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
β€œ
Children are born to break their mothers’ hearts, my boy.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
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Safety is an illusion never to trust.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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Laia and Helene: They’re so different. I like that Laia says things I don’t expect, that she speaks almost formally, as if she’s telling a story. I like that she defied my mother to go to the Moon Festival, whereas Helene always obeys the Commandant. Laia is the wild dance of a Tribal campfire, while Helene is the cold blue of an alchemist’s flame. But why am I even comparing them? I’ve know Laia a few days and Helene all my life. Helene’s no passing attraction. She’s family. More than that. She’s part of me.
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Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
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You deserve someone who lets you glow in every way you need to.
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Nikita Gill (Wild Embers)
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Given a choice between my life and yours, I will choose mine. Every time. Without hesitation.
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Rae Carson (The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns, #2))
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Needing protection is not a weakness. Refusing to trust your allies is.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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My song is not one of peace. It is one of failure and pain. My song is one of battle and blood, death and power. It is not the song of Helene Aquilla. It is the song of the Blood Shrike.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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Strange, how silence can speak as loudly as a scream.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
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Emifal Firdaant,' I say to him. 'You've said that before. What does it mean?' I cannot quite look at him when I say it. 'May death claim me first.' 'Ah, no, my love.' He gathers me close. 'You cannot go first. I could not make sense of the world if you did.' With that, he closes his eyes, but I cannot sleep. I stare up at the peak of the tent and listen to the rain drum down on the canvas. Emifal Firdaant, I beg the skies. Emifal Firdaant.
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Sabaa Tahir (A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4))
β€œ
This is what you do. If you feel low, you stand tall. You mess up, you move on. You want to try something, try it, and if it was a stupid thing to try, you look it in the eye. There's no turning back. You apologize if you're sorry, but know that the nimblest, strongest hands can't rebuild a bridge out of embers, so cut new wood. Start from scratch. You love with your whole heart. If you're jealous, talk yourself from the ledge. If you can't talk yourself down from the ledge, have a good time up there, looking down on the world. If you have to lie to make everything true again, lie like you mean it. If you find yourself in a cage, reach out through the bars for the key, unlock the door, and run away. If running away gets dangerous, run home. If home doesn't mean what it used to mean, decide what home will be in the future. If your best friend says she doesn't trust you, hold her jaw in your hand until it hurts, and make her face you. Thats all it takes. If you think you love a guy, see how his hand looks in yours, thats all it takes. If you get exiled into a new land, then go discover it. And if you feel like you're drowning, go swimming.
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Hobson Brown
β€œ
My wife's the reason anything gets done, she nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us until they're finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised--not one day. This show is proof that history remembers. We live in times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall and light from dying embers--remembrances that hope and love last longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. I sing Vanessa's symphony. Eliza tells her story. Now, fill the world with music, love, and pride.
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Lin-Manuel Miranda
β€œ
Because it begins to seem to me at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in real life, because it has seemed to me that I have lost all touch, all instinct for the actual, the real; because at last I have cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful! Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in the vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men living in reality; you see that life for them is not forbidden, that their life does not float away like a dream, like a vision; that their life is being eternally renewed, eternally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as another; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to vulgarity and easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the idea, the slave of the first cloud that shrouds the sun... One feels that this inexhaustible fancy is weary at last and worn out with continual exercise, because one is growing into manhood, outgrowing one's old ideals: they are being shattered into fragments, into dust; if there is no other life one must build one up from the fragments. And meanwhile the soul longs and craves for something else! And in vain the dreamer rakes over his old dreams, as though seeking a spark among the embers, to fan them into flame, to warm his chilled heart by the rekindled fire, and to rouse up in it again all that was so sweet, that touched his heart, that set his blood boiling, drew tears from his eyes, and so luxuriously deceived him!
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (White Nights)
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No, the secret is that there's no reward and we have to endure our characters and our natures as best we can, because no amount of experience or insight is going to rectify our deficiencies, our self-regard, or our cupidity. We have to learn that our desires do not find any real echo in the world. We have to accept that the people we love do not love us, or not in the way we hope. We have to accept betrayal and disloyalty, and, hardest of all, that someone is finer than we are in character or intelligence.
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SΓ‘ndor MΓ‘rai (Embers)
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Regardless, you ask why I did not greet you. Well, let us assume that I had acted as you suggest I should. Upon your approach, you would have had me gush over you?” β€œNaturally.” β€œYou would have me point out how stunning you appear in that gown?” β€œI wouldn’t complain.” β€œMention how your dazzling eyes glisten in the fireworks like burning embers?” β€œThat would be nice.” β€œExpound on how your lips are so perfectly red that they could leave any man breathless with wonder, yet drive him compose the most brilliant of poetry each time he recalled the moment?” β€œI’d be flattered for certain.” β€œAnd you claim you want these reactions from me?” β€œI do.” β€œWell blast it, woman,” Lightsong said, picking up his cup. β€œIf I’m stunned, dazzled, and breathless, then how the hell am I supposed to greet you? By definition, won’t I be struck dumb?” She laughed. β€œWell, then, you’ve obviously found your tongue now.” β€œSurprisingly, it was in my mouth,” he said. β€œI always forget to check there.
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Brandon Sanderson (Warbreaker)
β€œ
You are cruel, Elias,” she whispers against my mouth. β€œTo give a girl all she desires only to tear it away.” β€œThis isn't the end for us, Laia of Serra.” I cannot give up what we could have. I don't care what bleeding vow I made. β€œDo you hear me? This is not our end.” β€œYou've never been a liar.” She dashes her hands against the wetness in her eyes. β€œDon't start now.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3))
β€œ
It was you," I say softly. "It's always you I think about." The intensity in his gaze took my breath away. I could feel him. Every part of him. His soul was sewn to mine. His heated blood flowed through my veins. I'd thought that I had been close to my mother, and I was, but not like this. Chase and I barely touched- our hands, mouths, knees- but there was no part of me that was not his.
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Kristen Simmons (Article 5 (Article 5, #1))
β€œ
Sonnet LXXXI And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream. Love and pain and work should all sleep, now. The night turns on its invisible wheels, and you are pure beside me as a sleeping ember. No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go, we will go together, over the waters of time. No one else will travel through the shadows with me, only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon. Your hands have already opened their delicate fists and let their soft drifting signs drop away; your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move after, following the folding water you carry, that carries me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny. Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.
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Pablo Neruda
β€œ
The thing I admire most about you is no matter how hard, or how much the world has tried to beat you, break you, destroy you, and throw you to the wolves you are still here, turning all your pain all your suffering into armor, into determination, into weapons and earning the respect of that same pack of wolves that were meant to rip you limb from limb.
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Nikita Gill (Wild Embers: Poems of Rebellion, Fire and Beauty)
β€œ
Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.
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Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
β€œ
Dandelion, staring into the dying embers, sat much longer, alone, quietly strumming his lute. It began with a few bars, from which an elegant, soothing melody emerged. The lyric suited the melody, and came into being simultaneously with it, the words bending into the music, becoming set in it like insects in translucent, golden lumps of amber. The ballad told of a certain witcher and a certain poet. About how the witcher and the poet met on the seashore, among the crying of seagulls, and how they fell in love at first sight. About how beautiful and powerful was their love. About how nothing - not even death - was able to destroy that love and part them. Dandelion knew that few would believe the story told by the ballad, but he was not concerned. He knew ballads were not written to be believed, but to move their audience. Several years later, Dandelion could have changed the contents of the ballad and written about what had really occurred. He did not. For the true story would not have move anyone. Who would have wanted to hear that the Witcher and Little Eye parted and never, ever, saw each other again? About how four years later Little Eye died of the smallpox during an epidemic raging in Vizima? About how he, Dandelion, had carried her out in his arms between corpses being cremated on funeral pyres and buried her far from the city, in the forest, alone and peaceful, and, as she had asked, buried two things with her: her lute and her sky blue pearl. The pearl from which she was never parted. No, Dandelion stuck with his first version. And he never sang it. Never. To no one. Right before the dawn, while it was still dark, a hungry, vicious werewolf crept up to their camp, but saw that it was Dandelion, so he listened for a moment and then went on his way.
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Andrzej Sapkowski (Miecz przeznaczenia (Saga o WiedΕΊminie, #0.7))
β€œ
There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold.
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Tom Robbins