β
There's no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup, only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imagination
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4))
β
Twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Thank you for nothing, you stupid reptile.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
But then I have always been somewhat of a square peg in a round hole.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
β
Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak.
Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4))
β
The past is another land, and we cannot go to visit. So, if I say there were dragons, and men who rode upon their backs, who alive has been there and can tell me that I'm wrong?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon, #2))
β
I was not a natural. . . . This is the story of becoming . . . the Hard Way.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Wartihog put up his hand. "What happens if we can't read, sir?"
"No boasting, Wartihog!" boomed Gobber. "Get some idiot to read it for you.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Oh, for Thor's sake..." said Hiccup. "I thought that was just a story..."
"Stories come from somewhere," said the witch. "The past haunts the present in more ways than we realise.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
β
But how can we know that dragons did not exist? We have never actually BEEN to the Dark Ages.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6))
β
Remember, there is nothing wrong with a healthy sense of self-respect.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
That is a terrible plan."
"Hiccup's plans are always t-terrible."
"Hey! You're still here, aren't you?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
β
Being frightened is not the same as being a coward.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
The thing about grown ups is that they're always wanting you to be this Great Hero and Leader. What's wrong with being NORMAL, for Thor's sake? What's wrong with just being SO-SO at stuff? They're just totally unrealistic...
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I donβt mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swordsβ¦I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.
And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work togetherβ¦and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
β
There were dragons when I was a boy.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5))
β
The Hero cares not for a wild winter's storm. For it carries him swift on the back of the storm. All may be lost and our hearts may be worn, but a Hero fights forever.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5))
β
I NAME THIS LAND TOMORROW, FOR IT SHALL LAST FOREVERMORE!
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
β
Because: Love Never Dies, What is Within is More Important than What is Without, The Best is Not Always the Most Obvious and Once You've Loved Truly, Thor, then You Know the Way
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
Books were despised by the Viking Tribes, as they were seen as a horrible civilizing influence and a threat to the barbarian culture.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6))
β
It is a lot easier to be brave when you know you have no alternative.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
The past haunts the present in more ways than we think. It certainly scares the living daylights out of ME"~ Old Wrinkly
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
β
Always sailing, sailing, sailing...never quite reaching.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Ride a Dragon's Storm (How to Train Your Dragon, #7))
β
A Chief must show no fear, no worry... A Chief is a leader first, and a man second...
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
GO FOR HIS EYES! OR BITE HIM ON THE NOSE! DRAGON NOSES ARE VERY SENSITIVE!"
Oh, very helpful, Camicazi, very helpful...thought Hiccup. What if he doesn't obligingly hold me up to his nose? What if the only part I get close to is the TEETH?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
β
But sometimes the bravest thing a Hero has to do is not fighting monsters and cheating death and witches. It is facing the consequences of his own actions.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
There may yet come a time when Heroes are needed once more.
There may yet come a time when the dragons will come back.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Every morning the maple leaves.
Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts
from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big
and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out
You will be alone always and then you will die.
So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog
of non-definitive acts,
something other than the desperation.
Dear So-and-So, Iβm sorry I couldnβt come to your party.
Dear So-and-So, Iβm sorry I came to your party
and seduced you
and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.
You want a better story. Who wouldnβt?
A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.
Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.
What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.
Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly
flames everywhere.
I can tell already you think Iβm the dragon,
that would be so like me, but Iβm not. Iβm not the dragon.
Iβm not the princess either.
Who am I? Iβm just a writer. I write things down.
I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,
I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow
glass, but that comes later.
Let me do it right for once,
for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,
you know the story, simply heaven.
Inside your head you hear a phone ringing
and when you open your eyes
only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.
Inside your head the sound of glass,
a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.
Hello darling, sorry about that.
Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we
lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell
and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.
Especially that, but I should have known.
Inside your head you hear
a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes youβre washing up
in a strangerβs bathroom,
standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away
from the dirtiest thing you know.
All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly
darkness,
suddenly only darkness.
In the living room, in the broken yard,
in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport
bathroomβs gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of
unnatural light,
my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.
I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,
smiling in a way
that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,
up the stairs of the building
to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,
I looked out the window and said
This doesnβt look that much different from home,
because it didnβt,
but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.
We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,
smiling and crying in a way that made me
even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I
just couldnβt say it out loud.
Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. Itβs like a religion. Itβs
terrifying. No one
will ever want to sleep with you.
Okay, if youβre so great, you do itβ
hereβs the pencil, make it work β¦
If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window
is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing
river water.
Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently
we have had our difficulties and there are many things
I want to ask you.
I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,
years later, in the chlorinated pool.
I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have
these luxuries.
I have told you where Iβm coming from, so put it together.
I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.
Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.
Quit milling around the yard and come inside.
β
β
Richard Siken
β
Sometimes a King has to do terrible things in order to protect those he has sworn to look after. When the stakes are so high, dreadful decisions have to be taken. It is the responsibility of a King to take on that burden, that guilt.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
The only GOOD Roman is a DEAD Roman,β said Camicazi.
Hiccup sighed. βThat isn't true. I'm sure there are LOADS of good Romans. But all the good Romans are probably quietly minding their own business back in Rome.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
β
CHAPTER THE FIRST
(AND LAST)
The Golden Rule of Dragon Training is to...
YELL AT IT!
(The louder the better,)
THE END.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Human hearts are not made out of stone.
Thank Thor.
They can break, and heal, and beat again.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5))
β
Most of us are lucky not to be Kings and Heroes, because we do not have to make the choices that Kings and Heroes have to make.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
βMAKE RED YOUR CLAWS WITH HUMAN BLOODβ¦OBLITERATE THE HUMAN FILTHβ¦β
βOoh, thatβs a nice song,β said the Hogfly, ever polite.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
K-k-keep your helmet on. T-t-toothless doing his BEST.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon, #2))
β
Are you the stuff that hero's are made of? Or are you a jellyfish in a skirt?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
Everything we do, you see, has its consequences and repercussions, every kind act, and every bad, every friend we make, and every enemy. Everything is connected.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
I have never cared for Castles
or a Crown that grips too tight,
Let the night sky be my starry roof
and the moon my only light,
My Heart was born a Hero,
my storm-bound sword won't rest,
I left the Harbour long ago
on a Never-ending Quest,
I am off to the horizon,
where the wild wind blows the foam,
Come get lost with me, love,
and the sea shall be our home!
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
Sometimes it is not until the Final Chapter that you realise what a quest has REALLY been about all along.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4))
β
And this was the surprising thing about life on Berk. It was a bit like the sea itself. One minute it was all storms, and shipwrecks, and desperate escapes from deadly dragons, the next it was as calm, and peacefully restful, as if these things had never happened.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6))
β
There are some Questions, some battles, some Hiccups that are worth losing a world for. And perhaps even when all ends in disaster, you cannot do the wrong thing, if you do it out of love.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
February turned into March and Hiccup was still thinking. A few flowers made the mistake of appearing and were immediately blasted out of existence by a couple of hard frosts that had kept themselves back for this very purpose.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in, even against those you love, and that can be harder than you think.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
If I was living in a happier place," said Eggingarde, "I might tell stories with happier endings.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
You cannot fight time itself, slay the minutes and hours with your blade, wipe the bleeding seconds on your shirt. Time cannot be fought.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
History is a ghost story. My own childhood has passed into history, and the ghosts I find there are the ghosts of Heroes and dragons and Berserks and witches, and it has become fashionable not to believe in these things anymore. But I believe, for I was there.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
β
You can Cheat a Dragon's Curse.
You do not have to accept the hand that Fate has dealt you.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4))
β
If it doesnβt end well, then it isnβt the end.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
We all make mistakes. We all need second chances and even third, fourth, and fifth chances.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
Tomorrow. There was something hopeful, even about the word.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
It is always a mistake to underestimate the little people of the world, for it is often they who tip the balance.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
Sometimes time cannot tick backwards. Sometimes you cannot put a dragon back in a forest, nor a witch back in a tree-trunk, nor the breath back into a friend when all the breath has gone.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
I myself grew up to be not only a Hero, but also a Writer. When I was an adult, I rewrote A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons, and I included not only some descriptions of the various deadly dragon species, and a useful Dragonese Dictionary, but also this story of how the book came to be written in the first place.
This is the book that you are holding in your hands right now.
Perhaps you even borrowed it from a Library?
If so, thank Thor that the sinister figure of the Hairy Scary Librarian is not lurking around a corner, hiding in the shadows, Heart-Slicers at the ready, or that the punishment for your curiosity is not the whirring whine of a Driller Dragon's drill.
You, dear reader, I am sure cannot imagine what it might to be like to live in a world in which books are banned.
For surely such things will never happen in the Future?
Thank Thor that you live in a time and a place where people have the right to live and think and write and read their books in peace, and there are no need for Heroes anymore ...
And spare a thought for those who have not been so lucky.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6))
β
You can't put': Hiccup in charge, sir, he's USELESS.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
If you're going to start a new life, you might as well start it NOW.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5))
β
The world will need a Hero, and it might as well be you.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
The past has a way of catching up with you.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
And long after Kings are forgotten, and their names have fallen into dust, the good deeds and the actions of the Heroes live on in glory.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
Oh for Thor's sake,' said Camicazi in exasperation. 'Have you not hung around with him for long enough to know that you never give up hope until you are presented with actual Hiccup skeleton, solemnly registered and verified by the Valkyrie Death Committee as completely authentic?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
The thing is, we are all, in a sense, supper. Walking, talking, breathing suppers, that's what we are. Take you, for instance. YOU are about to be eaten by ME, so that makes you supper. That's obvious. But even a murderous carnivore like myself will be supper for worms one day. We're all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Please do not blame the story.
The story cannot help itself. We do not realize it at the time, but sometimes the story we are all a part of is not just a story about Vikings and islands and dragons.
It is a story about growing up.
And one of the things about growing up, one of the inescapable, inevitable laws, is that one day...
One day... one day...
It is going to happen.
I am sorry, but it's true.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
You see how good and evil are twisted together?
Like a golden dragon bracelet snaking brightly about a person's arm.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5))
β
Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his ankles in snow.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
How can you make a fresh start in a New World when you are carrying with you on your boat all the same problems, the same frustrations and inequalities of the Old World?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
β
If you were a fanciful person, you might have said that it was almost as if that box was looking for Hiccup.
But we are not fanciful people, and that would be ridiculous.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon, #2))
β
I dream of an Heir who shall be a Dragon-Whisperer, a Swordfighter, a Man who talks with Monsters and who will harness the power of Thor's thunder itself...
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon, #2))
β
You were not my first love, Stoick the Vast," said Valhallarama. "But you are my lastβ¦
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
Wodensfang, you're paranoid," said Hiccup, yawning.
"It's only paranoia," whispered the Wodensfang, "if things aren't out to get you...
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
What is within is more important than what is without.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (How to Train Your Dragon, #9))
β
Being frightened is not the same as being a coward. Maybe he was as brave as anyone else there, because he went to catch a dragon despite knowing what dragons are like.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1-9))
β
Betapapun kecilnya kita, kita harus memperjuangkan apa yang kita percayai. Bukan berjuang dengan kekuatan pedang atau kepalan tangan kita, tapi kekuatan otak dan pikiran dan mimpi kita.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
β
Imagine if you had spent the whole first part of your life trying to walk on your hands. The clumsiness of it, always falling over, always stumbling, always the last at everything. Imagine the joy of discovering that in fact you could walk on your feet after all.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon, #2))
β
Who is to say that your friend's life is worth more than a Dragon's?' said One Eye, who was taking up most of the deck.
'It's worth more to me,' said Hiccup. 'Because I didn't know the Doomfang personally.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4))
β
However bad things seem to be, they can always get worse!
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
What you g-g-gonna do, tough guy? Tickle Toothless to d-d-death?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
β
The Supper is still singing.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon, #1))
β
Isn't Fate artistic?
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5))
β
The past never really leaves us.
And now I am an old, old man. I hover over my childhood self, as if I were a dead mother, and I am anxious for Hiccup's future because I already know it, and I want to protect the boy from the pain.
But I am happy too because I know the future is a curious mixture of joy and sadness.
So suddenly I throw away my fear, and I no longer shout "Stop!" I am shouting something slightly different now.
Walk on, Hiccup!
Have Courage!
Walk on to Tomorrow...
And I will meet you there at Hero's End...
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
β
But the winds will still blow when I am no longer here. The storms will still rage, and the forces of Empire and oppression, be they Roman or otherwise, will still be waiting at the corners of the ocean.
The fight goes on for the Heroes of the Future.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
β
History, you see, is like the interlocking wheels turning in a ticking-thing. Something unexpected happens, some sort of hiccup... the wheels are jogged... and then they set off again, beating out the time in a new pattern.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
β
Follow me, reader, if you dare. Take my hand, for we can fly swifter than the Deadly Shadow; we can follow the sound of ticking teeth faster than they can, and trace the Hero back to where he lies, on the little isle of Heroβs End.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
β
Come on, Fishlegs,β whispered Camicazi, whistling happily. βYou know we have to do this. Besides, I feel like a bit of exercise. Weβve been cooped up in that hideout for way too long.β
Frankly, at this point, Camicazi had grown so fed up that if Hiccup had suggested hang gliding off the toe-talons of the dragon Furious sheβd have been up for it.
βA bit of exercise?β blustered Fishlegs. βA bit of exercise? This is not some kind of Viking version of Girls Keep Fit!
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak. Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4))
β
Happy and giggly and bustly, the Hogfly ignored Hiccupβs strangled cries of:
βHoglfy! Come back here, Hogfly!β
βOoh!β it squeaked in delighted confusion. βYou all look so lovely! How am I to choose which one of you to be my friend?β
It perched on the sinister swoop of the Razorwingβs nose.
βWhereβs my biscuit? Are you married? Be my valentineβ¦β
βI canβt bear to watchβ¦β groaned Fishlegs.
It was like seeing an enthusiastic bunny rabbit trying to make friends with a heavily armed, bunny-eating cobra.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
A HERO... IS... FOREVER.
Adieu, Snotlout.
I could not have done this without you.
I carry you with me, every step I take, every decision I make. You are part of my blood, and I would never have gotten this far without you.
We shall meet again, in a better world than this one.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
β
I have never cared for castles or a crown that grips too tight,
Let the night sky be my starry roof and the moon my only light,
My heart was born a Hero,
My storm-bound sword won't rest,
I left this harbour long ago on a never-ending quest.
I am off to the horizon,
Where the wild wind blows the foam,
Come get lost with me, love,
And the sea shall be our home.
β
β
Cressida Cowell (How to Break a Dragon's Heart (How to Train Your Dragon, #8))
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Perhaps I am a foolish, fond old dragon who never learns from his own mistakes. But I have to believe that the humans and the dragons are capable of living together. I have to hope that the impossible can be possible. I have to trust in the boy and hope for the best...
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Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
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There's no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup,' snorted Old Wrinkly, 'only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imaginations... and I used to think of you as an imaginative boy. Give up, if you want to... but I used to think of you as the sort of boy who would NEVER give up, however bad things looked.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (How to Train Your Dragon, #4))
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Sometimes our little human splashings are not enough. However hard we try, however strong our heroic human wills (and us humans have such a capacity, such a heroic capacity for believing that the impossible might be possible), sometimes our ridiculously puny human arms are too weak. Sometimes the world is just too big for us, the hurricane too wild, the sea so huge, that it wears out even the bravest of hearts, the strongest of wills.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (How to Train Your Dragon, #10))
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You, dear reader, I am sure cannot imagine what it might be like to live in a world in which books are banned.
For surely, such things will never happen in the Future?
Thank Thor that you live in a time and a place where people have the right to live and think and write and read their books in peace, and there are no need for Heroes any more...
And spare a thought for those who have not been so lucky.
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Cressida Cowell (A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon, #6))
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Once we love, we cannot forget, though the flesh hardens around the wound that once bled, though it be buried in one hundred years of chains and twisted round with the cruel growing thorns of the choking forest. A door opened in the Dragonβs mind that the Dragon had been trying to keep closed for many long years so that he could carry out his Rebellion. When it finally opened, it did so with the same sudden force with which Hiccupβs memory had returned in the ruins of Grimbeardβs Castle. And now it had opened, even just a crack, it was impossible to shut it once again.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
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Great things are only made out of love and out of pain. A great sword must be made out of the very best steel. But what truly makes the sword great, is what happens to the sword after it is made. We call this the 'testingβ of the sword. The sword is bashed and hammered and hollered into shape by the bright hammer. It is thrust into the fierce heat of the fire, where it softens, and then it is quickly quenched in water, where it hardens again. The higher the temperature, the fiercer the fire, the tougher and the greater the sword eventually becomes. The whole testing process can make a sword, or break it. The same could be said for the making of a Hero.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How to Train Your Dragon, #11))
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However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don't mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords. That has always been the problem with us Vikings. I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.
And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work together like the numberless armies of Ziggerastica, and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Speak Dragonese (How to Train Your Dragon, #3))
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Once, when I was a child, I dreamed that Grimbeard the Ghastly, on the deck of his ship The Endless Journey, threw the sword Endeavor up into the air. Up and up it spun, through the inky blackness, across the cavernous span of a hundred years, until, entirely of its own accord, my own left hand sprang out of space and stars and never-ending time and caught it. Now that I am so very old, I am dreaming once again. And in my dream, I am the one throwing the sword. It is spinning now, in the black starlit waters of my dream, right above your head, dear reader. A sword that may look second-best, and secondhand, but but carries the memories of a thousand lost fights, a history lesson in itself. Reach out, and catch it by the hilt. Swear by its name, Endeavor, to do your utmost to make the world a better place than when you arrived in it. For look! There will be dragons all around you, as camouflaged as a Stealth Dragon.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
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The dragon bracelet that Humongous created, out of misplaced love and gratitude, in the hellish nightmare of the Lava-Lout Jail-Forges is exquisitely made, for he was a far better goldsmith than he was a singer.
It curls around my arm, its shining wings folded back, as if about to unfurl and take off, and now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying.
It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at their darkest.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (How to Train Your Dragon, #5))
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One, the search for the fang-free dragon taught me that fear and intimidation might not be the best way to train dragons. Two, the sword: that sometimes best is second-best. Three, the shield: that sometimes freedom must be fought for. Four, the ticking-thing: that when you fight for your friend, you are also fighting for yourself. Five, the ruby heartβs stone: that love never dies. Six, the arrow from the land-that-does-not-exist: that you must make things right in the Old World before you go looking for the New, and sometimes the things that you are looking for are right at home. Seven, the key-that-opens-all-locks: that accidents happen for a reason. Eight, the Throne: that power can corrupt. Nine, the Crown: that you have to keep on trying even though you are beaten before you even star. And Ten, the dragon Jewel," finished Hiccup. "You need to know what it is to be a slave, before you can be a King.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
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One, the search for the fang-free dragon taught me that fear and intimidation might not be the best way to train dragons.
"Two, the sword: that sometimes best is second-best.
"Three, the shield: that sometimes freedom must be fought for.
"Four, the ticking-thing: that when you fight for your friend, you are also fighting for yourself.
"Five, the ruby heartβs stone: that love never dies.
"Six, the arrow from the land-that-does-not-exist: that you must make things right in the Old World before you go looking for the New, and sometimes the things that you are looking for are right at home.
"Seven, the key-that-opens-all-locks: that accidents happen for a reason.
"Eight, the Throne: that power can corrupt.
"Nine, the Crown: that you have to keep on trying even though you are beaten before you even star.
"And Ten, the dragon Jewel," finished Hiccup. "You need to know what it is to be a slave, before you can be a King.
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Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragonβs Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
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XXIV.
And more than that - a furlong on - why, there!
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,
Or brake, not wheel - that harrow fit to reel
Men's bodies out like silk? With all the air
Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
XXV.
Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood -
Bog, clay and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth.
XXVI.
Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's
Broke into moss, or substances like boils;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
XXVII.
And just as far as ever from the end!
Naught in the distance but the evening, naught
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom friend,
Sailed past, not best his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap - perchance the guide I sought.
XXVIII.
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains - with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me - solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.
XXIX.
Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick
Of mischief happened to me, God knows when -
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts - you're inside the den.
XXX.
Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While to the left a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!
XXXI.
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
XXXII.
Not see? because of night perhaps? - why day
Came back again for that! before it left
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, -
Now stab and end the creature - to the heft!'
XXXIII.
Not hear? When noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers, my peers -
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
XXXIV.
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! In a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.
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Robert Browning