β
Every good story needs a villain.
But the best villains are the ones you secretly like.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.
β
β
Jeanne d'Arc
β
I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.
{His teacher was the legendary philosopher Aristotle}
β
β
Alexander the Great
β
Every story has four parts - the beginning, the middle, the almost ending, and the true ending.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
The incident with Dawn hadn't been one of my finer moments. I honestly hadn't expected to break any bones when I shoved her into a tree. Still, the incident had given me a dangerous reputation. The story had gained legendary status, and I liked to imagine that it was still being told around campfires late at night. Judging by the look on the girl's face, it was.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
β
Gold shimmered no matter what, but few people could make darkness glitter the way he did.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
So,β she said cautiously, 'is all this your way of telling me youβre the villain?β
His chuckle was dark. 'Iβm definitely not the hero.β
'I already knew that,β Tella said. 'Itβs my story, so clearly Iβm the hero.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.
β
β
Dorothy Day (The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist)
β
Not everyone gets a true ending. There are two types of endings because most people give up at the part of the story where things are the worst, where the situation feels hopeless. But thatβs when hope is needed most. only those who persevere can find their true ending.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Legends were supposed to be better than the truth.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
If you can convince yourself it's true, you can convince anyone.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Her heart was still a little heavy, but she'd decided carrying it around would only maker her stronger.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
His mouth was crashing against hers. He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
You're the starlight to his darkness, and if you feel the same about him, you should give him another chance.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Tella was the sister who would destroy the world if anything happened to Scarlett, but Scarlettβs world would be destroyed if anything happened to Tella.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Qhuinn stopped breathing, focusing everything he had on the male who had been his best friend and his never-been lover⦠and the ever-after that was never going to happen.
Even after all the things that had gone on between them, and all the fuckups on his end, which were legendary, Blay still had his back.
βI love you,β Qhuinn blurted into the silence.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #10))
β
This was why love was so dangerous. Love turn the whole world into a garden, so beguiling it was easy to forget that rose petals were as ephemeral as feelings, eventually they would wilt and die, leaving nothing but the thorns.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
What's so dangerous about my arms?' he murmured.
'For me, everything.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Aja gave Loor an up and down once-over. She then said, "Is Loor a man's name or a woman's name?"
Ouch.
Loor answered, "It is the name of a legendary hero on Zadaa. A woman."
Really?" Aja said. "What did she do that was so heroic?"
She killed her enemies and ate them.
β
β
D.J. MacHale (The Reality Bug (Pendragon, #4))
β
Dante had wings. And, holy mother of saints, they were beautiful-soulless jet-black with midnight-blue veins, the color of lost wishes and fallen stardust.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
When she loved, she did it as fiercely as she lived.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Postmen have a legendary aura. A ring at the doorbell may inflame a sense of expectation, suspense, secrecy, hazard or even intrigue. Ringing twice may imply a warning that trouble is on the way or an appeal to make the coast clear. Not all mailmen, though, will ring twice and await an eye-catching Lana Turner, whom they can whisper: "With my brains and your looks, we could go places.β ("The postman always rings twice")
β
β
Erik Pevernagie
β
She loved the feeling of doing something bold enough to make her future hold its breath while she closed her eyes and reveled in the sensation that sheβd made a choice with the power to alter the course of her life.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
There were shipwrecks more graceful than Tella.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
The air tasted like wonder. Like candied butterfly wings caught in sugared spiderwebs, and drunken peaches coated in luck.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
She gasped. In his eyes, in just a heartbeat or two, she saw herself for what she was: a creature of this broken world, herself bearing the burden of the breaking.
β
β
Jack Borden (The Lost City: An Epic YA Fantasy Novel (The Tixie Chronicles Book 4))
β
John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you arenβt a failure until you start to blame. What he means is that you can still be in the process of learning from your mistakes until you deny them.
β
β
Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)
β
It was the sort of kiss she could have lived in. The sort of kiss worth dying for.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Invite the lie to play until you become so comfortable with it that it feels like the truth.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Maybe itβs not as clear-cut as that. Maybe itβs the very presence of one thing β light or darkness β that necessitates the existence of the other.
Think about it, people couldnβt become legendary heroes if they hadnβt first done something to combat darkness. Doctors could do no good if there
werenβt diseases for them to treat.
β
β
Jessica Shirvington
β
Why arenβt you dressed like a leopard with butterfly wings, or a unicorn?β
A sliver of a grin. βNot even Legend could make me dress like a unicorn.β
βBut unicorns are magical, and then all the ladies would want to pet you.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
There were many beautiful young men in the world, but Tella believed that none of them could be trusted with something as fragile, or valuable, as a heart.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Thomas had very nice shoulders. Legendary shoulders, in fact.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Chain of Iron (The Last Hours, #2))
β
You know the old saying: 'one riot, one Ranger.'"
The saying stemmed from a legendary event in the past. A minor fief had risen up against their cruel and avaricious lord, with hundreds of people surrounding his mano house, threatening to burn it to the ground. The panicked nobleman's message for help was answered by the arrival of a single Ranger. Aghast, the nobleman confronted the solitary figure.
They sent one Ranger?" he said incredulously. "One man?"
How many riots do you have?" the Ranger replied.
On this occasion, however, Duncan was not inclined to be swayed by a legend. "I have a new saying," he replied. "One daughter, two Rangers."
Two and a half," Will corrected him. The King couldn't help smiling at the eager young face before him.
Don't sell yourself short," he said. "Two and three-quarters.
β
β
John Flanagan (Erak's Ransom (Ranger's Apprentice, #7))
β
He looked like a freshly woken storm, or a beautiful nightmare come to life so he could personally haunt her.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
I kept coming back to you, not because of Legend, or the game. But because youβre so real and alive and fearless and daring and beautiful and if whatβs between us isnβt real, then I donβt know what is.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
This must be the legendary Yankee rudeness
β
β
Charlaine Harris (All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #7))
β
As they reached the concert grounds in front of the Great Pyramid, Dani was captivated by the magic of the entire scene. A full moon was rising, casting a gentle shine over the entire area. Spotlights shone on Cheops, the Sphinx, Khafre, and Menkaure, and a vast swarm of hundreds of bats swooped above the stage, devouring mosquitoes as if they were protecting the legendary band from harm at this site of ancient power.
β
β
Steven Decker (Time Chain)
β
Saying something was for someone elseβs own good was almost always another way of justifying something wrong.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
I had hoped to hear everyone discussing how much they missed my altruistic qualities, my legendary skills as a fighter and as a lover." He leered. "Instead, you're making plans for tomorrow. Interesting how life goes on in spite of itself.
β
β
Maria V. Snyder (Fire Study (Study, #3))
β
She tried to smile then. She was finally the hero. All it had cost her was everything.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
...most people give up at the part of the story where things are the worst, where the situation feels hopeless. But that's when hope is needed most.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
It is people who are important, not the masses.
β
β
Dorothy Day (The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist)
β
Why do we even try when the barriers are so high and the odds are so low? Why don't we just pack it in and go home? It'd be so, so much easier.
It's because, in the end, there's no glory in easy.
No one remembers easy. They remember the blood and the bones and the long, agonizing fight to the top. And that is how you become... Legendary.
β
β
Amelia Shepherd
β
...judging her based on a moment like that is the same as reading one page from a book and assuming you know the whole story.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
If Legend wants something, heβll go beyond the ends of this earth for it.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible. I myself felt invisible for a period of time, incorporeal. I seemed to have crossed one of those legendary rivers that divide the living from the dead, entered a place in which I could be seen only by those who were themselves recently bereaved. I understood for the first time the power in the image of the rivers, the Styx, the Lethe, the cloaked ferryman with his pole. I understood for the first time the meaning in the practice of suttee. Widows did not throw themselves on the burning raft out of grief. The burning raft was instead an accurate representation of the place to which their grief (not their families, not the community, not custom, their grief) had taken them.
β
β
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking)
β
The Prince of Hearts. A symbol of unrequited love and irrevocable mistakes that never ceased to fill Tella with both dread and morbid bewitchment.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
The air was full of salt and secrets.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
For it was also said the Prince Of Hearts was not capable of love because his heart had stopped beating long ago. Only one person could make it beat again: his one true love. They said his kiss had been fatal to all but her - his only weakness - and as heβd sought her, heβd let a trail of corpses.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
What have I always told you about the future?"
"Every person has the power to write her own.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
It's fine, Mencheres. Though if you'd told me I was about to meet such a legendary vampire, I would have grabbed the nicer silk drapery to wear instead," she replied, meeting Vlad's coppery green gaze with an arched brow.
β
β
Jeaniene Frost
β
When you truly care about someone, aren't you supposed to be honest, even if it means you might lose that person?
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
That infamous weirdo, the laughingstock of the three realms, the legendary Royal Highness the Crown Prince, heβ¦heβ¦heβ¦he fucking ascended again!
β
β
ε’¨ι¦ιθ (Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu (Novel) Vol. 1)
β
Fate is only an idea, but I think by believing in it we turn it into something more.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
We've all heard about people who've exploded beyond the limitations of their conditions to become examples of the unlimited power of the human spirit.
You and I can make our lives one of these legendary inspirations, as well, simply by having courage and the awareness that we can control whatever happens in our lives. Although we cannot always control the events in our lives, we can always control our response to them, and the actions we take as a result.
If there's anything you're not happy about--in your relationships, in your health, in your career--make a decision right now about how you're going to change it immediately.
β
β
Anthony Robbins
β
Neat rooms were easy to rifle through and search undetected because it was simple to put carefully placed things exactly where they'd been. But messes, on the other hand, were difficult to recreate.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary cofounder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls βthe torture.β Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, βI didnβt quit.
β
β
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
β
BECAUSE EVERY DAY IS STILL A BLANK PAGE, WAITING TO WRITE ITSELF.
β
β
Dave Grohl (The Storyteller: Tales of Life and MusicβA Memoir of Dreams, Music and Legendary Collaborations)
β
History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.
β
β
Victor Hugo (Ninety-Three)
β
The people who lived in the portal were often compared to those legendary experiment rats who kept hitting a button over and over to get a pellet. But at least the rats were getting a pellet, or the hope of a pellet, or the memory of a pellet. When we hit the button, all we were getting was to be more of a rat.
β
β
Patricia Lockwood (No One Is Talking About This)
β
Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualitiesβa certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosityβbut they also share one other defining attribute. They have a lot of hobbies.
β
β
Steven Johnson (Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation)
β
Suppressing his relief, Valek asked, βCan you please tell this Lieutenant who he has arrested?β
βCan do,β Janco said with a smile. βLieutenant Darren, let me be the first to congratulate you on capturing the elusive and legendary Kelav. Heβs been wanted in Ixia for years on multiple counts of espionage.
β
β
Maria V. Snyder (Ice Study (Study, #3.6))
β
Arrogant. Overconfident. Vain. Impossible. She hated the way he refused to leave her alone, how he took her insults the same way other boys might take a compliment, and that his interest in her was clearly only part of his role. And yet she could never seem to push him away.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
If you think Iβm nice, you really need to spend time with better people
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Scar, I don't know what you're thinking, but I swear there is nothing going on between Dante and me. You know how I feel about boys who are prettier than me.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
She shook Neil's hand. "I'm Rose."
"Neil," he said, with a formal bow of his head. "It's a great honor to meet you. Your heroics with Dimitri Belikov are legendary."
"Um, thanks," she said. It was nice to see one woman finally immune to that accent. That wasn't to say Rose wasn't a sucker for accents. She just preferred hers from the other side of Europe.
β
β
Richelle Mead (The Fiery Heart (Bloodlines, #4))
β
The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry wrote: βI have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.
β
β
Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People)
β
We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.
β
β
Dorothy Day (The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist)
β
Your future can be whatever you wish. We all have the power to choose our own destiny.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
If she were Scarlett, someone would have come to her rescue by now. Julian would have probably flown in on a hot-air balloon, and then sprouted wings to soar down and carry her away. Unfortunately Tella wasn't the sort of girl people saved - she was the one they left behind....But she was also the sort they underestimated.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
I've got no reason to live, but a lot of reasons to die...this is just the best one.
β
β
Ammar Habib (The Legendary Wolf)
β
Fate had already decided no one she loved would ever love her back.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Once you bid farewell to discipline you say goodbye to success
β
β
Alex Ferguson (Leading: Lessons in leadership from the legendary Manchester United manager)
β
she was beginning to understand how hearts could be slowly given away, without a person even realizing.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Every story needs a villain, but the best villains are the ones you secretly like.
β
β
Stephanie Garber
β
Be a part of the world, but never in it. Because of what we do, we have to interact with people. But we must be unseen shadows who move among them. Never let anyone know you. Never give them a chance to realize you donβt age. Move through the darkness ever watchful, ever alert. We are all that stands between the humans and slavery. Without us, they all die and their souls are lost forever. Our responsibilities are great. Out battles numerous and legendary. But at the end of the night, you go home alone where no one knows what it is you have done to save the world that fears you. You can never bask in your glory. You can never know love or family. We are Dark-Hunters. We are forever powerful. We are forever alone. (Acheron)
β
β
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Embrace (Dark-Hunter, #2))
β
Don't be like me and settle for the ease of an almost-ending, when you could have the true ending.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
I'm sure the makers of Downy would be pleased to know that their product makes even mummified human skin soft and fragrant.
β
β
William M. Bass (Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales)
β
He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels and bottles of fresh moonlight.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
The very thing he'd done to keep her was the very thing that had broken them apart.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
She liked the thrill that came with taking risks. She loved the feeling of doing something bold enough to make her future hold its breath
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Nothing about him was soft. His chest felt like a block of marble and yet she could have closed her eyes, curled up against him, and gone to sleep forever.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
For centuries the Fates were locked away, but now they wish to come out and play.
If they regain their magic the world will never be the same, but you can help stop them by winning the game
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
You have it all wrong.β Dante stole the cord's other end. βWe're going to have to remove the rope and retie it.β
Tella snatched both ends back and took a wobbly step away. βYou can't take apart my dress on these stairs.β
βDoes that mean I can take it apart somewhere else?β His low voice oozed dark promises.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
Tella claimed she didnβt want loveβshe liked to say love trapped and controlled and ripped hearts apart. But the truth was she also knew love healed and held people together, and deep down she wanted it more than anything. She enjoyed the kisses, but a part of her always wished that whenever she walked away from a boy heβd run after her, beg her to stay, and then promise heβd never leave.
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
What makes something real Tella?' Dante hooked a finger into the rope around her waist. 'Does seeing something make it real?' He tugged on the rope and pulled her closer, until all she could see was his face. 'Or does hearing something make it real?' His voice turned a little rough. 'What about feeling something, is that enough to make it real?
β
β
Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
β
We have great cities to visit: New York and Washington, Paris and London; and further east, and older than any of these, the legendary city of Samarkand, whose crumbling palaces and mosques still welcome travelers on the Silk road. Weary of cities? Then weβll take to the wilds. To the islands of Hawaii and the mountains of Japan, to forests where Civil War dead still lie, and stretches of sea no mariner ever crossed. They all have their poetry: the glittering cities and the ruined, the watery wastes and the dusty; I want to show you them all. I want to show you everything.
β
β
Clive Barker (Galilee)
β
My storyβthe story of the son of Jainulabdeen, who lived for over a hundred years on Mosque Street in Rameswaram island and died there; the story of a lad who sold newspapers to help his brother; the story of a pupil reared by Sivasubramania Iyer and Iyadurai Solomon; the story of a student taught by teachers like Pandalai; the story of an engineer spotted by MGK Menon and groomed by the legendary Prof. Sarabhai; the story of a scientist tested by failures and setbacks; the story of a leader supported by a large team of brilliant and dedicated professionals. This story will end with me, for I have no belongings in the worldly sense. I have acquired nothing, built nothing, possess nothingβno family, sons, daughters.
β
β
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Wings of Fire)
β
If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it.
β
β
George Orwell (1984)
β
THE UNICORN: The saintly hermit, midway through his prayers
stopped suddenly, and raised his eyes to witness
the unbelievable: for there before him stood
the legendary creature, startling white, that
had approached, soundlessly, pleading with his eyes.
The legs, so delicately shaped, balanced a
body wrought of finest ivory. And as
he moved, his coat shone like reflected moonlight.
High on his forehead rose the magic horn, the sign
of his uniqueness: a tower held upright
by his alert, yet gentle, timid gait.
The mouth of softest tints of rose and grey, when
opened slightly, revealed his gleaming teeth,
whiter than snow. The nostrils quivered faintly:
he sought to quench his thirst, to rest and find repose.
His eyes looked far beyond the saint's enclosure,
reflecting vistas and events long vanished,
and closed the circle of this ancient mystic legend.
β
β
Rainer Maria Rilke
β
The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-DΓ»r would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
β
Several yards away β closer to the cathedralβs legendary carved doorways β Anna and St. Clair are standing on top of Point ZΓ©ro. Itβs been hand-brushed clear of its dusting of snow. Point ZΓ©ro is the bronze marker, a star, which designates the official centre of France. There are at least two superstitions about it. One is that anyone who stands on the star will return to France. The other is that you can use it to make a wish.
βWait for it,β Josh says.
Lola stands straighter, excited. βNo!β
βYes,β Cricket says.
Iβm the last one in the dark, until β suddenly β it happens. St. Clair removes something from his pocket. And then he gets down on one knee.
Annaβs entire body lights with shock and joy and love. She nods a vigorous yes. St. Clair places the ring on her finger. He stands, she throws her arms around him, and they kiss. He spins her in a circle. They kiss again. Deep, hungry, long. And then he turns to us and waves β with the biggest smile Iβve ever seen β clearly aware that weβve been standing here the whole time.
β
β
Stephanie Perkins (Isla and the Happily Ever After (Anna and the French Kiss, #3))
β
I felt that the Church was the Church of the poor,... but at the same time, I felt that it did not set its face against a social order which made so much charity in the present sense of the word necessary. I felt that charity was a word to choke over. Who wanted charity? And it was not just human pride but a strong sense of man's dignity and worth, and what was due to him in justice, that made me resent, rather than feel pround of so mighty a sum total of Catholic institutions.
β
β
Dorothy Day (The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist)
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At last, Sturmhond straightened the lapels of his teal frock coat and said, βWell, Brekker, itβs obvious you only deal in half-truths and outright lies, so youβre clearly the man for the job.β
βThereβs just one thing,β said Kaz, studying the privateerβs broken nose and ruddy hair. βBefore we join hands and jump off a cliff together, I want to know exactly who Iβm running with.β
Sturmhond lifted a brow. βWe havenβt been on a road trip or exchanged clothes, but I think our introductions were civilized enough.β
βWho are you really, privateer?β
βIs this an existential question?β
βNo proper thief talks the way you do.β
βHow narrow-minded of you.β
βI know the look of a rich manβs son, and I donβt believe a king would send an ordinary privateer to handle business this sensitive.β
βOrdinary,β scoffed Sturmhond. βAre you so schooled in politics?β
βI know my way around a deal. Who are you? We get the truth or my crew walks.β
βAre you so sure that would be possible, Brekker? I know your plans now. Iβm accompanied by two of the worldβs most legendary Grisha, and Iβm not too bad in a fight either.β
βAnd Iβm the canal rat who brought Kuwei Yul-Bo out of the Ice Court alive. Let me know how you like your chances.β His crew didnβt have clothes or titles to rival the Ravkans, but Kaz knew where heβd put his money if he had any left.
Sturmhond clasped his hands behind his back, and Kaz saw the barest shift in his demeanor. His eyes lost their bemused gleam and took on a surprising weight. No ordinary privateer at all.
βLet us say,β said Sturmhond, gaze trained on the Ketterdam street below, βhypothetically, of course, that the Ravkan king has intelligence networks that reach deep within Kerch, Fjerda, and the Shu Han, and that he knows exactly how important Kuwei Yul-Bo could be to the future of his country. Let us say that king would trust no one to negotiate such matters but himself, but that he also knows just how dangerous it is to travel under his own name when his country is in turmoil, when he has no heir and the Lantsov succession is in no way secured.β
βSo hypothetically,β Kaz said, βyou might be addressed as Your Highness.
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Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
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Tella often imagined she knew what people thought when they saw her. One look at her honey-blond curls, her girlish smile, and her pretty dresses, coupled with the fact that she liked to enjoy herself, and people dismissed her as a silly girl. Tella might have been many things, but she was far from silly or worthless or whatever labels people liked to affix because a person was young and female. Tella liked to think that was where much of her strength came from. She was bold. She was brave. She was cunning. And she was going to come out of this triumphantβno matter the cost.
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Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
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Already, Cullum felt a stirring of interest. The name Horace and the mention of an oakleaf symbol struck a chord in his memory. Sir Horace, the Oakleaf Knight, was a legendary figure in Araluen, even in a place as remote as Norgate. Of course, the more remote the location, the more garbled and fantastic the legends became. As Cullum had hear tell, Sir Horace had been a youth of sixteen when he defeated the tyrant Morgarath in single combat, slicing the head off the evil lord's shoulders with one might strocke of a massive broadsword.
Then, in the company of the equally legendary Ranger Halt, Sir Horace had traveled across the Stormwhite Sea to defeat the Riders from the East and rescue Princess Cassandra and her companion, the apprentice Ranger known as Will.
Will! The significance of the name suddenly registered with the innkeeper. The jongleur's name was Will. Now here he was, in a cowled cloak, festooned with recurve bow and a quiver of arrows. He looked more closely and saw the hilt of a heavy saxe knife just visible at his waist. No doubt about it, Cullum thought, these cheerful young men were two of Araluen's greatest heroes!
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John Flanagan (The Siege of Macindaw (Ranger's Apprentice, #6))
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Werenβt you the one who said you see girls the same way we see party dresses, only to be used once?β
βClearly I view you a little differently.β He reached for one of her errant curls and wound it around one tattooed finger, the black rose on the back of his hand spinning until it turned red beneath the ruby starlight. With every turn he drew her closer. He made it easy to ignore her achy legs and her dying heart. He twisted the hair around his finger in the same way she imagined he wanted to wrap her around his finger. As if she would ever let him.
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Stephanie Garber (Legendary (Caraval, #2))
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Tolstoy went on to observe,"This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skillful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.
"Washington was a typical American. Naopoleon was a typical Frenchmen, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country--- bigger than all the Presidents t,ogether. We are still too near to his greatness, " Tolstoy concluded, "but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when it's light beams directly on us.
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Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln)
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Poetic Terrorism
WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. ...
Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc.
Go naked for a sign.
Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty.
Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, Xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement...
The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails.
PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now.
An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE.
Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you.
Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.
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Hakim Bey (TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone (New Autonomy))