“
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Complete Essays, Vol. II: 1926-1929)
“
There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.
”
”
Albert Dietrich (Army GI, Pacifist CO: The World War II Letters of Frank Dietrich and Albert Dietrich)
“
Women may fall when there's no strength in men.
Act II
”
”
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet (Arden Shakespeare Second))
“
What are you doing here?” [ndr prison]
Selling Girl Scout cookies,” I said. “Want some? The Samoas are terrific.”
(Max II to Max)
”
”
James Patterson (Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride, #3))
“
The future starts today, not tomorrow.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
Hey!" said the guy in the video. "Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I'm the..." He looked off screen and yelled: "What's my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or-"
A girl's voice yelled back, "Repair boy."
"Very funny, Piper," Leo grumbled. He turned back to the parchment screen. "So yeah, I'm...ah..supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we're gonna be sailing towards you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We'd appreciate it if you'd not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out!
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
“
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
”
”
W.H. Auden (The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Prose, Volume II: 1939-1948)
“
Of all the wonders that I have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
(Act II, Scene 2)
”
”
William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
“
Okay. Then...I can talk. Ask me something."
"Okay." He laughs shakily in my ear. "Why is your heart racing Tris?"
I cringe and say, "Well, I...I barely know you. I barely know you and I'm crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?"...
"Maybe you were cut out for Candor," he says, "because you're a terrible liar.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
“
Bob says hello," He told the stars.
The Argo II sailed into the night.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus, #4))
“
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
“
Nite Owl II: But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?
The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it.
”
”
Alan Moore (Watchmen)
“
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.
”
”
Kristina McMorris (Bridge of Scarlet Leaves)
“
Sighing, she gave a brief nod. “I was supposed to win. I was supposed to finish you off. They never counted on you winning. And then you didn’t kill me. It was awful.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, feeling fresh anger ignite. “I’ll try not to humiliate you by letting you live next time.”
(Max II to Max)
”
”
James Patterson (Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride, #3))
“
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
...I want to be fearless and free. It's just life, Will. It'II be over before we know it.
”
”
Rachael Lippincott (Five Feet Apart)
“
fiction:
the ocean
i dive
headfirst
into
when i
can
no longer
breathe
in
reality.
- a mermaid escapist II.
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1))
“
Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
“
Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.
”
”
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
“
The future belongs to crowds.
”
”
Don DeLillo (Mao II)
“
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
”
”
Samuel Johnson (Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II)
“
And so I wait. I wait for time to heal the pain and raise me to me feet once again - so that I can start a new path, my own path, the one that will make me whole again.
”
”
Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II)
“
Love is not vain because it is frustrated, but because it is fulfilled. The people we love turn to ashes when we posess them.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past: Volume II - The Guermantes Way & Cities of the Plain)
“
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
”
”
Samuel Johnson (Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II)
“
Comment dis-tu 'Oh my God, I don't know nearly enough French to pass French II' en français?
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
“
Samuel Beckett once said, "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness."
...On the other hand, he SAID it.
”
”
Art Spiegelman (Maus: A Survivor's Tale II: And Here My Troubles Began (Maus, #2))
“
Without dignity, identity is erased.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
“
Because you let our love just fall apart
You no longer have my heart
”
”
Boyz II Men
“
The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
Depression is a painfully slow, crashing death. Mania is the other extreme, a wild roller coaster run off its tracks, an eight ball of coke cut with speed. It's fun and it's frightening as hell. Some patients - bipolar type I - experience both extremes; other - bipolar type II - suffer depression almost exclusively. But the "mixed state," the mercurial churning of both high and low, is the most dangerous, the most deadly. Suicide too often results from the impulsive nature and physical speed of psychotic mania coupled with depression's paranoid self-loathing.
”
”
David Lovelace (Scattershot: My Bipolar Family)
“
Just when you think this war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.
”
”
Ruta Sepetys (Salt to the Sea)
“
Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
I plead with you--never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.
”
”
Pope John Paul II (Pope John Paul II: In My Own Words)
“
A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain. Louie thought: Let go.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
“
As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.
”
”
Iris Chang (The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II)
“
In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.
”
”
Arthur C. Clarke (Rama II (Rama #2))
“
time made me stronger, you're no longer on my mind
”
”
Boyz II Men
“
It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.
It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
...we're dealing with two devils who both want to rule hell.
”
”
Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray)
“
Exercise II.
Write a diary, imagining that you are trying to make an old person jealous. I have written an example to get you started:
Dear Diary,
I spent the morning admiring my skin elasticity.
God alive, I feel supple.
”
”
Joe Dunthorne (Submarine)
“
I-I am going to be a storm-a flame-
I need to fight whole armies alone;
I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms;
I feel too strong to war with mortals-
BRING ME GIANTS!
”
”
Edmond Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac)
“
A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use.
”
”
Pope John Paul II (Love and Responsibility)
“
Know what you are talking about.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
Readers may be divided into four classes: I. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied. II. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. III. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. IV. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare and Some of the Old Poets and Dramatists: With Other Literary Remains of S. T. Coleridge. Volume 1)
“
He wanted to fuck her loudly on a hard bed with rain beating on the windows.
”
”
Don DeLillo (Mao II)
“
I inhale hope with every breath I take.
”
”
Sharon Kay Penman (When Christ and His Saints Slept (Plantagenets #1; Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, #1))
“
A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter; Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police spies.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
Two things result from this fact.
I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be in itself a power.
II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Specter of Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.
”
”
Karl Marx (The Communist Manifesto)
“
Faith and Reason are like two wings of the human spirit by which is soars to the truth.
”
”
Pope John Paul II (Fides et Ratio: On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason)
“
…she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime.
”
”
Sharon Kay Penman (When Christ and His Saints Slept (Plantagenets #1; Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, #1))
“
I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day—spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free. (...) I want, I think, to be omniscient… I think I would like to call myself "The girl who wanted to be God." Yet if I were not in this body, where would I be—perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I—I am powerful—but to what extent? I am I.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Letters Home)
“
It was a movie about American bombers in World War II and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
“
On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir (Le deuxième sexe, Tome II)
“
I—I didn't think—"
"That," said Professor McGonagall, "is obvious.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2))
“
They sped by a pack of sea lions lounging on the docks, and she swore she saw an old homeless guy sitting among them. From across the water the old man pointed a bony finger at Percy and mouthed something like 'Don't even think about it.'
"Did you see that?" Hazel asked. Percy's face was red in the sunset.
"Yeah. I've been here before. I...I don't know. I think I was looking for my girlfriend."
"Annabeth," Frank said. "You mean, on your way to Camp Jupiter?"
Percy frowned. "No. Before that.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
“
The worst prison would be a closed heart.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
All that is not God is death.
”
”
George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III)
“
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Richard II)
“
No!" Leo yelled.
"Uhhh," Nico groaned from the floor.
"Piper!" Jason cried.
"Monkey!" Frank yelled.
"Not monkeys," Hazel grumbled. "I think those are dwarfs."
"Stealing my stuff!" Leo yelled, and ran for the stairs.
”
”
Rick Riordan
“
I...I sang," she whispered, "if that matters," and Karou felt her heart pulled to pieces. This Misbegotten warrior, fiercest of them all, had crouched in an icy stream bed to sing a chimera soul into her canteen, because she hadn't known what else to do.
The singing wouldn't have mattered, but she wasn't going to tell Liraz that. If Ziri's soul was in that canteen, Karou would happily learn whatever song Liraz had sung and make it part of her resurrection ritual forever, just so that the angel would never feel that she'd been foolish.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #3))
“
And Meredith and Bonnie, who's going to bend some spoons for us next. I'm going to throw you down a rope… that is, unless Bonnie can levitate you out.
”
”
L.J. Smith (The Struggle (The Vampire Diaries, #2))
“
Why are you here? Did you come to try to kill me again?” “Oddly enough, no. I—I had a bad dream. I needed to talk to someone.
”
”
Kendare Blake (Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna, #1))
“
What God asks of men, said [Billy] Graham, is faith. His invisibility is the truest test of that faith. To know who sees him, God makes himself unseen.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
“
As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
If we will but let our God and Father work His will with us, there can be no limit to His enlargement of our existence
”
”
George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III)
“
Nico had proven himself in other ways. He'd kept the camps' secrets for the best of reasons, because he feared a war. He had plunged into Tartarus alone, voluntarily, to find the Doors of Death. He'd been captured and imprisoned by giants. He had led the crew of the Argo II into the House of Hades…and now he had accepted yet another terrible quest: raking himself to haul the Athene Parthenos back to Camp Half-Blood.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
I…I was just excited.”
“Yeah, I’d say you were,” Dee said, grinning like an idiot.
Daemon was staring at me like he’s just won the lottery. “I kind of like this level of excitement. Makes me think of—“
“Daemon!” both of us shouted.
“What?” He grinned, tousling Dee’s hair. “I was only suggesting—“
“We know what you were suggesting.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Onyx (Lux, #2))
“
And I don't want to look at you every day, to see you naked,to watch you wandering around the annexe in your crazy dresses and not...not be able to do what I want with you. Oh, Clark,if you had any idea what I want to do to you right now.And I...i can't live with that knowledge. I can't. It's Not who I am. I can't be the kind of man who just...accepts.
”
”
Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
“
You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Richard II)
“
I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them
”
”
Adlai E. Stevenson II
“
He changed us both." She seemed to struggle for words. "I think of you, all that you lost, who you were, what you were forced to be, and might have been, and I—I have become this, this person, unable to—"
She shut her mouth.
"Kestrel," he said softly, "I love this person.
”
”
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
“
I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off.
”
”
Willa Cather (O Pioneers!)
“
The one who forgives never brings up the past to that person's face. When you forgive, it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.
”
”
Louis Zamperini (Devil at My Heels: A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II)
“
A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
“
When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption)
“
You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
He climbed up behind Hazel. Arion took off across the water, the nymphs screaming behind them, and Narcissus shouting, "Bring me back! Bring me back!" As Arion raced towards the Argo II, Leo remembered what Nemesis had said about Echo and Narcissus: Perhaps they'll teach you a lesson. Leo had thought she'd meant Narcissus, but now he wondered if the real lesson for him was Echo--invisible to her brethren, cursed to love someone who didn't care for her. A seventh wheel. He tried to shake that thought. He clung to the sheet of bronze like a shield. He was determined never to forget Echo's face. She deserved at least one person who saw her and knew how good she was. Leo closed his eyes, but the memory of her smile was already fading.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
“
I. Those of us born by water are never afraid enough of drowning. Bruises used to trophy my knees from my death-defying tree climb jumps. Growing up, my backyard was a forest of blackberry bushes. I learned early nothing sweet will come to you unthorned.
II. At twelve your body becomes a currency. So Jenny and I sat down and cut up all our clothes into nothing. That year I failed math class but knew the exact number of calories in a carrot stick. I learned early being desired goes hand in hand with hunger.
III. The last time I tried to scream I felt my father climbing up through my throat and into my mouth.
IV. There is a certain kind of girl who reads Lolita at fourteen and finds religion. I painted my eyes black and sucked barroom cherries to red my tongue. There was a boy who promised Judas really did love Jesus. I learned early every kiss and betrayal are up for interpretation.
V. I think he must have conferenced with my nightmares on exactly how to hurt me.
VI. He never broke my heart. He only turned it into a compass that always points me back to him.
”
”
Clementine von Radics
“
How to be a Poet
(to remind myself)
i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity…
ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensional life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
”
”
Wendell Berry (Given)
“
Favorite Quotations.
I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue.
The worth of a book is measured by what you carry away from it.
It's not over till it's over.
Imagination is everything.
All life is an experiment.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.
”
”
Pat Frayne (Tales of Topaz the Conjure Cat: Part I Topaz and the Evil Wizard & Part II Topaz and the Plum-Gista Stone)
“
The other Max looked at me, and her eyes narrowed. 'They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,' she said snidely. 'So I guess you're really sucking up.'
'Who are you?' I gasped, my eyes wide. 'You're an impostor!'
'No she isn't.' The little creepy one, Angel, turned to look at me. Her arm was still bleeding where Ari had bitten it. 'You are.'
I swallowed my anger. Who did she think she was, her and her stupid dog? I gave a concerned smile. 'But Angel,' I said, sincerity dripping from my voice, 'how can you say that? You know who I am.'
'I think I'm Angel,' she said. 'And my dog isn't stupid. You're the stupid one, to think that you could fool us. I can read minds, you idiot.
”
”
James Patterson (School's Out—Forever (Maximum Ride, #2))
“
When the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as “Mother” Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of “Devil’s Advocate,” in order to fast‐track still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
You saw a ghost, didn't you?" he said.
To my relief, I managed to laugh. "Hate to break it to you, but
there's no such thing as ghosts."
Huh."
His gaze traveled around the laundry room, like a cop searching
for an escaped convict. When he turned that
piercing look on me, its intensity sucked the backbone out of me.
What do you see, Chloe?"
I -I-I don't s-s-s-"
Slow down." He snapped the words, impatient. "What do they
look like? Do they talk to you?"
You really want to know?"
Yeah."
I chewed my lip, then lifted onto my tiptoes. He bent to listen.
They wear white sheets with big eye holes. And they say 'Boo!'" I
glowered up at him. "Now get out of my
way."
I expected him tosneer. Cross his arms and say, Make me, little girl.His lips twitched and I steeled myself, then I realized he was smiling.Laughing at me.
He stepped aside. I swept past him to the stairs.
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (The Summoning (Darkest Powers, #1))
“
Incredible,” Jason said. “These are really good brownies.”
“That’s your only comment?” Piper demanded.
He looked surprised. “What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies—”
“I know,” Frank said, his mouth full. “Try them with Esther’s peach preserves.”
“That,” Hazel said, “is incredibly disgusting.”
“Pass me the jar, man,” Jason said.
Hazel and Piper exchanged a look of total exasperation. Boys.
Percy, for his part, wanted to hear every detail about the aquatic camp. He kept coming back to one point: “They didn’t want to meet me?”
“It wasn’t that,” Hazel said. “Just…undersea politics, I guess. The merpeople are territorial. The good news is they’re taking care of that aquarium in Atlanta. And they’ll help protect the Argo II as we cross the Atlantic.”
Percy nodded absently. “But they didn’t want to meet me?”
Annabeth swatted his arm. “Come on, Seaweed Brain! We’ve got other things to worry about.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
“
When he endures nothing but endless miseries-- What pleasure is there in living the day after day,
Edging slowly back and forth toward death?
Anyone who warms their heart with the glow
Of flickering hope is worth nothing at all.
The noble man should either live with honor or die with honor. That's all there is to be said.
”
”
Sophocles (Sophocles II: Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes (Complete Greek Tragedies, #4))
“
This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I suppose?
Algernon. Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. The most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life.
Jack. Well, you've no right whatsoever to Bunbury here.
Algernon. That is absurd. One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
“
True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
”
”
Pope John Paul II
“
This is what it's all been about with you," he said in an even tone. "All the fear, all the running. The nightmares." When she nodded, he said, "You called him the devil."
"He is." What are you thinking, Scot?
"But you... married him?"
MacRieve's disgusted with me. "Basically? Yes."
"Ceremony and everything?"
She swallowed. "He tricked me into it. I-I was only sixteen."
A muscle ticked in his cheek and his irises grew pale. "Then know this..."
She stopped breathing.
"Lass, I'm about to make you a widow--
”
”
Kresley Cole (Pleasure of a Dark Prince (Immortals After Dark, #8))
“
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
”
”
William Shakespeare (Richard II)
“
A BILL OF ASSERTIVE RIGHTS
I: You have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself.
II: You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behavior.
III: You have the right to judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems.
IV: You have the right to change your mind.
V: You have the right to make mistakes—and be responsible for them.
VI: You have the right to say, “I don’t know.”
VII: You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them.
VIII: You have the right to be illogical in making decisions.
IX: You have the right to say, “I don’t understand.”
X: You have the right to say, “I don’t care.”
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY NO, WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY
”
”
Manuel J. Smith (When I Say No, I Feel Guilty: How to Cope - Using the Skills of Systematic Assertive Therapy)
“
If through no fault of his own the hero is crushed by a bulldozer in Act II, we are not impressed. Even though life is often like this—the absconding cashier on his way to Nicaragua is killed in a collision at the airport, the prominent statesman dies of a stroke in the midst of the negotiations he has spent years to bring about, the young lovers are drowned in a boating accident the day before their marriage—such events, the warp and woof of everyday life, seem irrelevant, meaningless. They are crude, undigested, unpurged bits of reality—to draw a metaphor from the late J. Edgar Hoover, they are “raw files.” But it is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer in Act II there will be some reason for it, and not just some reason but a good one, one which makes sense in terms of the hero’s personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him.
”
”
Bernard Knox (The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone)
“
I was not staring at you,” he told his plate.
I leaned over. “Did you hear that, Dingane’s lunch? He was not staring at you.”
He looked up at me crossly. “I was not staring at you.”
“I never said you were.”
“I was merely explaining that Henry was exaggerating. I did not stare at you.”
“Okay,” I stated, implying in my tone that he had done just that.
“I didn’t. I-I wasn’t.”
“I believe you,” I told him
“I may have looked at you a few times to make sure you were doing your job.”
“Oh, I see then.”
“But I certainly wasn’t staring.”
“We’ve established that you were not staring.”
He breathed deeply a few times, his eyes burning into mine. “Good.”
He’d definitely been staring.
”
”
Fisher Amelie (Vain (The Seven Deadly, #1))
“
This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
”
”
William Shakespeare (Richard II)
“
You just couldn’t wait to get me naked, could you, Princess?” Loki asked tiredly. I started to pull my hand back, but he put his own hand over it, keeping it in place.
“No, I—I was checking for wounds,” I stumbled. I wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“I’m sure.” He moved his thumb, almost caressing my hand, until it hit my ring. “What’s that?” He tried to sit up to see it, so I lifted my hand, showing him the emerald-encrusted oval on my finger. “Is that a wedding ring?”
“No, engagement.” I lowered my hand, resting it on the bed next to him. “I’m not married yet.”
“I’m not too late, then.” He smiled and settled back in the bed.
“Too late for what?” I asked.
“To stop you, of course.” Still smiling, he closed his eyes.
”
”
Amanda Hocking (Ascend (Trylle, #3))
“
I know I want you," he heard himself say, all his vows and his honor all forgotten. She stood before him naked as her name day, and he was as hard as the rock around them. He had been in her half a hundred times by now, but always beneath furs, with others all around them. He had never seeen how beautiful she was. Her legs were skinny and well muscled, the hair at the juncture of her thighs a brighter red than that on her head. Does that make it even luckier? He pulled her close.
"I love the smell of you," he said. "I love your red hair. I love your mouth, and the way you kiss me. I love your smile. I love your teats." He kissed them, one and then the other. "I love your skinny legs, and what's between them." He knelt to kiss her there, lightly on her mound at first, but Ygritte moved her legs apart a little, and he saw the pink inside and kissed that as well, and tasted her.
She gave a little gasp. "If you love me all so much, why are you still dressed?" she whispered. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. Noth---oh. Oh. OHHH."
Afterward, she was almost shy, or as shy as Ygritte ever got. "The thing you did," she said, when they lay together on their piled clothes. "With your...mouth." She hesistated. "Is that...is it what lordss do to their ladies, down in the south?"
"I don't think so." No one had ever told Jon just what lords did with their ladies. "I only...wanted to kiss you there, that's all. You seemed to like it."
"Aye. I...I liked it some. No one taught you such?"
"There's been no one," he confessed. "Only you.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
”
”
W.H. Auden (Another Time)
“
A moth goes into a podiatrist’s office, and the podiatrist’s office says, “What seems to be the problem, moth?”
The moth says “What’s the problem? Where do I begin, man? I go to work for Gregory Illinivich, and all day long I work. Honestly doc, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t even know if Gregory Illinivich knows. He only knows that he has power over me, and that seems to bring him happiness. But I don’t know, I wake up in a malaise, and I walk here and there… at night I…I sometimes wake up and I turn to some old lady in my bed that’s on my arm. A lady that I once loved, doc. I don’t know where to turn to. My youngest, Alexendria, she fell in the…in the cold of last year. The cold took her down, as it did many of us. And my other boy, and this is the hardest pill to swallow, doc. My other boy, Gregarro Ivinalititavitch… I no longer love him. As much as it pains me to say, when I look in his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I… that I catch when I take a glimpse of my own face in the mirror. If only I wasn’t such a coward, then perhaps…perhaps I could bring myself to reach over to that cocked and loaded gun that lays on the bedside behind me and end this hellish facade once and for all…Doc, sometimes I feel like a spider, even though I’m a moth, just barely hanging on to my web with an everlasting fire underneath me. I’m not feeling good. And so the doctor says, “Moth, man, you’re troubled. But you should be seeing a psychiatrist. Why on earth did you come here?”
And the moth says, “‘Cause the light was on.
”
”
Norm Macdonald
“
I
Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! -
From the molten - golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale - faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who tolls: -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: -
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells: -
To the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe
“
It’s not your fault,” Alec was saying. He sounded weary, as if he’d been through this sort of thing with his sister before. Clary wondered how many boyfriends she’d turned into rats by accident. “But it ought to teach you not to go to so many Downworld parties,” he added. “They’re always more trouble than they’re worth.”
Isabelle sniffed loudly. “If anything had happened to him, I—I don’t know what I would have done.”
“Probably whatever it is you did before,” said Alec in a bored voice. “It’s not like you knew him all that well.”
“That doesn’t mean that I don’t—”
“What? Love him?” Alec scoffed, raising his voice. “You need to know someone to love them.”
“But that’s not all it is.” Isabelle sounded almost sad. “Didn’t you have any fun at the party, Alec?”
“No.”
“I thought you might like Magnus. He’s nice, isn’t he?”
“Nice?” Alec looked at her as if she were insane. “Kittens are nice. Warlocks are—” He hesitated. “Not,” he finished, lamely.
“I thought you might hit it off.” Isabelle’s eye makeup glittered as bright as tears as she glanced over at her brother. “Get to be friends.”
“I have friends,” Alec said, and looked over his shoulder, almost as if he couldn’t help it, at Jace.
But Jace, his golden head down, lost in thought, didn’t notice.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))