“
In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
You are in every line I have ever read.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
Life... is like a grapefruit. Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.
”
”
Douglas Adams (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #4))
“
Pip wished she was strong enough, but she’d learned that she wasn’t invincible; she too could break.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
I’m irrationally serious.” Pip smiled, holding the Tupperware out to him. “And I made muffins.” “Like bribery muffins?” “That’s what the recipe said, yeah.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
He kissed her, and she glowed with that feeling. The one with wings. “You bring the rain down on them, Pip.” “I will.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
She wanted to go back. SHe wanted to run to him, fall into him, be Team Ravi and Pip and nothing more. Tell him she loved him in all the secret ways they had, hear him speak all those names he had for her in his butter-soft voice.
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen.
”
”
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Five Orange Pips (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, #5))
“
And in the dead silence of the night, Pip whispered, “Who’s taking the picture?
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
Are we squad goals?” Ravi whispered to Pip. Cara heard and snorted.
”
”
Holly Jackson (Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #2))
“
Aragorn: Gentlemen! We do not stop 'til nightfall.
Pippin: But what about breakfast?
Aragorn: You've already had it.
Pippin: We've had one, yes. But what about second breakfast?
[Aragorn stares at him, then walks off.]
Merry: Don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.
Pippin: What about elevensies? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?
Merry: I wouldn't count on it Pip.
”
”
Peter Jackson
“
Pip knew a great many things; she knew that hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia was the technical term for the fear of long words, she knew that babies were born without kneecaps,
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
I cannot overstate the benefits of a busy day for an anxious mind or a lonely heart.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
You scared of that pip-squeak? Dude, you got a lot to learn. Freakin' Newbies.
”
”
James Dashner (The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1))
“
Pip looked back, over her shoulder, through the trees. Ravi was on his knees in the leaves, face hidden, bawling into his hands. It hurt more than anything, to see him that way, and her chest opened up, reaching out to him, trying to drive her back. Hold him, take the hurt away and let him take hers.
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
Hello, pickle!” her dad said loudly as Pip and Cara made their way downstairs. “Lauren and I have decided that I should come to your kilometer party too.” “Calamity, Dad. And over my dead brain cells.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
Some words are more than letters on a page, don't you think? They have shape and texture. They are like bullets, full of energy, and when you give one breath you can feel its sharp edge against your lip.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
There were never any romantic feelings between Pip, Jason and me. But what we did have -afriendship of many years- was just as strong as that, I think. Stronger, maybe than a lot of couples I knew.
”
”
Alice Oseman (Loveless)
“
I had found a new friend. The surprising thing is where I’d found him – not up a tree or sulking in the shade, or splashing around in one of the hill streams, but in a book. No one had told us kids to look there for a friend. Or that you could slip inside the skin of another. Or travel to another place with marshes, and where, to our ears, the bad people spoke like pirates.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
A vulgar word, well placed and said with just enough vigour, can express far more than its polite equivalent.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
You are the maximum amount of Pipness that any Pip could be. The Ultra-Pip. I’m going to introduce you to my family this weekend as Pippus Maximus
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
Hi," Pip said. "I'm Pip."
"H-Hi," she said. "I'm Andie."
But she wasn't
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
Pit bull,” Pip said. “It’s pit bulls that don’t let things go.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
My petal.
Westminster’s toy had tea issues. Thank Biffy and Lyall. Toodle pip.
A.
”
”
Gail Carriger (Changeless (Parasol Protectorate, #2))
“
Dona Crista laughed a bit. "Oh, Pip, I'd be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice."
I imagine. I imagine it feels like bathing in ice to the person touching her. But how does it feel to her? Cold as she is, it must surely burn like fire.
”
”
Orson Scott Card (Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2))
“
HERE LIES THE MYSTERY PISSER
P.I.P.
”
”
Wendelin Van Draanen (Flipped)
“
According to Pip, the hallmarks of realising you’re a lesbian were: firstly, getting a little intensely obsessed with a girl, mistaking it for admiration, and sometimes thinking about holding their hand, and secondly, having a subconscious fixation on certain female cartoon villains.
”
”
Alice Oseman (Loveless)
“
Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants - use it to get into their heads.
”
”
Scroobius Pip
“
Words are like stories ... They change as they are passed from mouth to mouth; their meanings stretch or truncate to fit what needs to be said.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
He Looked and smelt like Autumn's very brother, his face being sunburnt to wheat-colour, his eyes blue as corn-flowers, his sleeves and leggings dyed with fruit-stains, his hands clammy with the sweet juice of apples, his hat sprinkled with pips, and everywhere about him the sweet atmosphere of cider which at its first return each season has such an indescribable fascination for those who have been born and bred among the orchards.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (The Woodlanders)
“
I do not know what you are supposed to do with memories likes these. It feels wrong to want to forget. Perhaps this is why we write these things down, so we can move on.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
Women," Mat declared as he rode Pips down the dusty, little-used road, "are like mules." He frowned. "Wait. No. Goats. Women are like goats. Except every flaming one thinks she's a horse instead, and a prize racing mare to boot. Do you understand me, Talmanes?"
"Pure poetry, Mat," Talmanes said, tamping the tabac down into his pipe.
”
”
Robert Jordan (The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12))
“
My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
”
”
Louis MacNeice
“
Pip had always been so curious about what was back there, the sort of wonder that dies a little more each year you grow older.
”
”
Holly Jackson (Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #2))
“
How did everything go with you?” Pip asked, leaning forward to press her forehead against his, in the way he always did to her. To take on half her headaches, or half her nerves, he said.
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
Her judgement day would come, but for now, Pip walked and she promised. That's all. One foot in front of the other, even if she had to drag them, even when the hole in her heart felt too big to keep standing. She walked and she promised and he was with her, Ravi's fingers slotting in between hers in the way they used to fit, fingertips in the dips of her knuckles.
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.
”
”
Scroobius Pip
“
You see a mousetrap; I see free cheese and a fucking challenge!
”
”
Scroobius Pip
“
I don’t see the logic in putting a nose hole in your nose hole,” said Pip. “Another Pip quote for the books.” Cara feigned writing it down in midair. “What was the one that got me the other day?” “The sausage one.” Pip sighed. “Oh yeah,” Cara snorted. “So, Laur, I was asking Pip which pajamas she wanted to wear, and she just casually says, ‘It’s sausage to me.’ And didn’t realize why that was a weird response.” “It’s not that weird,” said Pip. “My grandparents from my first dad are German. ‘It’s sausage to me’ is a German saying; just means ‘I don’t care.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
It's and odd thing, but however much an oficionado one may be of mysteries in book form, when they pop up in real life they seldom fail to give one the pip.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse
“
Josh! Why is the dog wearing my shirt!” Pip’s dad shouted, the sound floating upstairs.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
I've been thinking', Pip said, turning to face him. 'All Stanley wanted was a quiet life, to learn to be better, to try do some good with it. And he doesn't get to do that any more. But we're still here, we're alive.' She paused, meeting Jamie's eyes. 'Can you promise me something? Can you promise me you'll live a good life? A full life, a happy one. Live well, and do it for him, because he can't any more.
”
”
Holly Jackson (Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #2))
“
Well,’ Pip smiled, ‘I’m still me.’ She hoped that was true.
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
Or maybe Ravi Singh’s itchy head was the equivalent of Pip’s useless facts: armour and shield when the knight inside was squirming.
”
”
Holly Jackson (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #1))
“
Part 3: The Fifth member
a) Find them
b) Lure them in
c) Shakespeare doc gets approved as a full society
d) SUCCESS
'Lure them in?' I said.
'Yikes,' said Pip.
Jason chuckled. 'Sounds like we're trying to persuade people to join a cult.
”
”
Alice Oseman (Loveless)
“
It’s not about forgiveness, Essymay. We can’t always make the choices we’d like, but we can try to make the best of what we must settle for. Take care not to dwell.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
I feel like a dandelion just before the wind blows.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
Look at all the life in this," she said. "Every pip could become a tree, and every tree could bear another hundred fruits and every fruit could bear another hundred trees. And so on to infinity."
I picked the picks from my tongue with my fingers.
"Just imagine," she said. "If every seed grew, there'd be no room in the world for anything but pomegranate trees.
”
”
David Almond (Skellig (Skellig, #1))
“
Some of us are born Gladys Knights, and some of us are born Pips.
”
”
Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time)
“
Thomas was frowning. “My aunt Tatiana is mad. My father has often said so, that his sister was driven to madness by what happened to her father and her husband. She blames our parents for their deaths.”
“But James has never done anything to her,” said Christopher, his eyebrows knitting together.
“He’s a Herondale,” said Thomas. “That’s enough.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Christopher said. “It is as if one was bitten by a duck and years later one shot a completely different duck and ate it for dinner, and called that revenge.”
“Please do not use metaphors, Christopher,” said Matthew. “It gives me the pip.”
“This is bad enough without mentioning ducks,” said James. He had never fancied ducks since one had bitten him in Hyde Park as a small child.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Chain of Gold (The Last Hours, #1))
“
How do you know you wont find someone one day?"
This was the question that had been plaguing me for months but when Pip asked me it then, I knew the answer. finally.
" Because I know myself. I know what I feel and what I have the capability to feel. I mean how do you know you wont fall for a guy one day?"
Pip made a face.
"yeah, exactly. You just know that about yourself. And now I know too
”
”
Alice Oseman (Loveless)
“
...convention [is] the most subtle but oppressive dictator.
[Edith 'Ditte' Thompson]
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
Dreams are nervy things—all it takes is for one stern word to be spoken in their direction and they shrivel up and die.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
Pip, dear old chap. life is made of ever many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith and one's a whitesmith, one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
...I realized that the words most often used to define us were words that described our function in relation to others. Even the most benign words- maiden, wife, mother - told the world whether we were virgins or not. What was the male equivalent of maiden? I could not think of it. What was the male equivalent of Mrs., of whore, of common scold?... Which words would define me? Which would be used to judge or contain?
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
Some words are more important than others—I learned this, growing up in the Scriptorium. But it took me a long time to understand why.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
A Prayer was like a tickle.Sooner or later God would have to look down to see what was tickling his bum.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
[Esme] 'And then I was born and then she [her mother Lily] died.'
[Edith 'Ditte' Thompson, her godmother] 'Yes.'
'But when we talk about her, she comes to life.'
'Never forget that Esme. Words are our tools of resurrection.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
It struck me that we are never fully at ease when we are aware of another's gaze. Perhaps we are never fully ourselves. In the desire to please or impress, to persuade or dominate, our movements become conscious, our features set.
[Esme Nicholl]
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
Twinkle the Destroyer wasn't alone, it seemed. There were more gnomes than I thought. Pip the Bringer of Pain, Chauncey the Devourer of Souls, Cuddly the Inexplicable, Gnoman Polanski, Pith the Bitey, Gnome ChompSky, Gnomie Malone, Chuck the Norriser- the list went on.
'It's like a mishmash of violent imagery, TV, an political references'
'I told you they like TV. I'm not sure the understand everything they see, though, so they don't fully grasp what they're stealing their names from. Like, I think Gnome ChompSky just thought it sounded tough and Chuck the Norriser came from watching too many episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. They believe Chuck Norris is a demigod'
'Who doesn't?
”
”
Lish McBride (Necromancing the Stone (Necromancer, #2))
“
In school I ended up writing three different papers on "The Castaway" section of Moby-Dick, the chapter where the cabin boy Pip falls overboard and is driven mad by the empty immensity of what he finds himself floating in. And when I teach school now I always teach Crane's horrific "The Open Boat," and get all bent out of shape when the kids find the story dull or jaunty-adventurish: I want them to feel the same marrow-level dread of the oceanic I've always felt, the intuition of the sea as primordial nada, bottomless, depths inhabited by cackling tooth-studded things rising toward you at the rate a feather falls.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments)
“
I often wondered what kind of slip I would be written on if I was a word. Something too long, certainly. Probably the wrong colour. A scrap of paper that didn't quite fit. I worried that perhaps I would never find my place in the pigeon-holes at all.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
Right then," Campbell began, his tone so civil it was offensive. "May I have your name for the record, Miss...?"
"Eliza Braun," Eliza sneered. "Here, I'll spell it for you -- B-U-G-G-E-R-O-F-F.
”
”
Tee Morris (The Janus Affair (Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, #2))
“
Dreams are private, she said. And she is right. A dream is a story that no one else will get to hear or read.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
Pamela realizes for the first time in her life that she hadn't made the wrong choice at all. Nor had she made the right choice. She had simply made a choice. And somewhere along the way, she had lost the courage to live by it.
”
”
Pip Karmel
“
My mother came into the kitchen. "Whose car is that parked in front of our house?"
"That's Stephanie's new car," Grandma said. "Isn't it a pip?"
One of my mother's eyebrows raised in question. "Two new cars? Where are these cars coming from?"
"Company cars," I said.
"Oh?"
"Anal sex is not involved," I told her.
My mother and grandmother both gasped.
"Sorry," I said. "It just slipped out."
"I thought only homosexual men did anal sex," Grandma said.
"Anybody with an anus can do it," I told her.
"Hmm," she said. "I got one of them.
”
”
Janet Evanovich (High Five (Stephanie Plum, #5))
“
He caught her staring: at the fall of his dark hair, at the dimpled line in his chin where her little finger fit, at his dark eyes and the flame dancing inside them from her mom's new Autumn Spice candle. His eyes were always bright somehow, dazzling, like from within. Ravi Singh was the opposite of dead- eyed. The antidote. Pip needed him to remind herself of that sometimes. So she watched him, took him all in, left none of him behind.
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
Stories have a job to do. They can't just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
We can't always make the choices we'd like, but we can try to make the best of what we must settle for.'
[Lizzie Lester]
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
The past came towards me, and I closed the book.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
You did this!” he screamed in her face, spit flying. “You did this somehow!” He pushed harder, grating Pip’s head against the brick. She didn’t fight him off; her hands were free but she didn’t push him away. She flashed her eyes back and whispered quietly, so only Max could hear: “You’re lucky I didn’t put you in the ground too.
”
”
Holly Jackson (As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3))
“
LOSS
'Sorry for your loss, they say. And I want to know what they mean, because it's not just my boys I've lost. I've lost my motherhood, my chance to be a grandmother. I've lost the easy conversation of neighbours and the comfort of family in my old age. Every day I wake to some new loss that I hadn't thought of before, and I know that soon it will be my mind.'
Vivienne Blackman, 1915
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
We have all lost our possessions and many of us our homes," he said. "But these losses, severe though they may seem, remind us of what no person can take, and that is our minds and our imaginations.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
As we watched the soldiers and the Rambo disappear I remember feeling preternaturally calm. This is what deep, deep fear does to you. It turns you into a state of unfeeling.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
It is context...that gives meaning.
[Harry Nicholl]
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
I could have run after him. I could have asked politely for some clarification. But I didn’t I knew what I preferred, and that was—I didn’t want to know. Rather, I wanted to believe.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
Valentine clears his throat. "So. Why can't you just say it?"
"Say what?"
"You know what."
"It's hardly the time or place."
"It is if you're dying."
"I can't."
"You're a dick. Just fucking say it!"
"I can't! I'm... English."
"What am I, a Martian? I say it all the time. I know you love me, why can't you say it?"
"If you know, then why do I have to?"
"You're missing the point a bit."
"I took your bullet, you little twat, don't you dare question whether I love you."
"Yeah, but you could say it."
The throb of the gunshots is pounding all down his arm and body. The pain's so bad he wants to cry, like he's five and he's skinned his knee coming off his bike.
"Je t'aime," he says, through gritted teeth, to shut the kid up. "Je ne sais pas pourquoi. Tu es... complètement bête, tu t'habilles comme une pute travestie, je hais ta musique, tu es fou, tu me rends fou, mais je suis fou de toi et je pense à toi tout le temps et je t'aime, oui. Tu comprends? Je t'aime. Seulement... pas en anglais. Je ne peux pas."
Valentine's shifting about like he's uncomfortable. "I ain't got no idea what you just said but I think I need to change my pants."
"Maintenant, ta gueule.
”
”
Richard Rider (Stockholm Syndrome (Stockholm Syndrome, #1))
“
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The war has made the present more important than the past, and far more certain than the future. How I feel right now is all I can rely
on. And after all that you’ve told me, I think I love you more.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
I was eleven when my father left, so neither of us really knew our fathers. I’d met mine of course, but then I only knew my dad as a child knows a parent, as a sort of crude outline filled in with one or two colors. I’d never seen my father scared or cry. I’d never heard him admit to any wrongdoing. I have no idea what he dreamed of. And once I’d seen a smile pinned to one cheek and darkness to the other when my mum had yelled at him. Now he was gone, and I was left with just an impression—one of male warmth, big arms, and loud laughter.
”
”
Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
Over the weekend, Bruce introduced me to the game of backgammon, which was enjoying almost cult-like popularity in Los Angeles. He told me about a private club called PIPS that held tournaments on the weekends and was all the rage. Though I had never played the game before, something about backgammon brought the two hemispheres of my brain together, as Stuart had described.
To win at backgammon, one needs strategy and luck. Bruce reveled in the role of playing teacher, and I knew if I put my mind to it, I could learn the game and become a fierce opponent, which I hoped would amuse Bruce and help keep a roof over my head. We stayed awake until dawn, snorting coke and playing backgammon. I don’t know if it was the game or the cocaine, but something made me intent on becoming the best.
”
”
Samantha Hart (Blind Pony: As True A Story As I Can Tell)
“
He tries again, swallowing hard to ease away the painful lump in his throat. "It's just important. I love you. I'm yours. I need people to know."
"Alright," Lindsay says suddenly. He leans down to grab at Pip's bag, throwing stuff out onto the carpet, his iPod and phone and wallet and gloves and Attitude magazine until he finds what he's looking for, a green marker pen, and holds it between his teeth while he starts tugging at the hem of Pip's t-shirt. Pip's too surprised to do anything but submit, he lets Lindsay peel off his t-shirt and throw that on top of all the things from his bag then just watches as Lindsay pulls the pen out of the cap in his mouth and signs his name in big green letters on the side of Pip's stomach. He holds his breath, trying not to suck in the belly fat everybody else keeps telling him is imaginary. "There, you're mine, are you fucking happy now?" Lindsay snaps, and throws the recapped pen across the room to get lost in the bookcase somewhere.
”
”
Richard Rider (No Beginning, No End (Stockholm Syndrome, #3))
“
Me needlework will always be here,” she said. “I see this and I feel…well, I don’t know the word. Like I’ll always be here.” “Permanent,” I said. “And the rest of the time?” “I feel like a dandelion just before the wind blows.
”
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Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
You are correct in your observation that words in common use that are not written down would necessarily be excluded. Your concern that some types of words, or words used by some types of people, will be lost to the future is really quite perceptive.
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
For six days I didn’t get up except to make a cup of tea, or fry an egg, or lie in the skinny bath gazing at a cracked ceiling. The days punished me with their slowness, piling up the hours on me, spreading their joylessness about the room.
A doctor would have said I was suffering from depression. Everything I have read since suggests this was the case. But when you are in the grip of something like that it doesn’t usefully announce itself. No. what happens is you sit in a dark, dark cave, and you wait. If you are lucky there is a pinprick of light, and if you are especially lucky that pinprick will grow larger and larger, until one day the cave appears to slip behind, and just like that you find yourself in daylight and free. This is how it happened for me.
”
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Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
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We had bought a kilo of cherries and we were eating them as we walked along. We were both insufferably childish and high-spirited that afternoon and th spectacle we presented, two grown men, jostling each other on the wide sidewalk, and aiming the cherry-pips, as though they were spitballs, into each other's facesm must have been outrageous. And I realized that such childishness was fantastic at my age and the happiness out of which it sprang yet more so; for that moment I really loved Giovanni, who had never seemed more beautiful than he was that afternoon. And, watching his face, I realized that it meant much to me that I could make his face so bright. I saw that I might be willing to give a great deal not to lose that power. And I felt myself flow toward him, as a river rushes when the ice breaks up.
”
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James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)
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Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s been any fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if you think me in forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope I’ve beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so God bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, God bless you!
”
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Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
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When we bound these books, I thought, they were identical. But I realised they couldn’t stay that way. As soon as someone cracks the spine, a book develops a character all its own. What impresses or concerns one reader is never the same as what impresses or concerns all others. So, each book, once read, will fall open at a different place. Each book, once read, I realised, will have told a slightly different story.
”
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Pip Williams (The Bookbinder of Jericho)
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I like walking round London at night, I do it all the time. Not for no reason, just cos... it's home, innit? It's brilliant, you can't ever get bored of London cos even if you live here for like a hundred and fifty years you still won't ever know everything about it. There's always something new. Like, you're walking round somewhere you've known since you was born and you look up and there's an old clock on the side of a building you never seen before, or there's a little gargoyley face over a window or something. Don't you think it's cool?
”
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Richard Rider (No Beginning, No End (Stockholm Syndrome, #3))
“
[Esme Nicholl] 'Morbs, Mabel? What does it mean?'
[Mabel O'Shaughnessy] 'It's a sadness that comes and goes... I get the morbs, you get the morbs, even Miss Lizzie 'ere gets the morbs, though she'd never let on. A woman's lot, I reckon.'
'It must derive from morbid,' I said to myself....
'I reckon it derives from grief,' said Mabel. 'From what we've lost and what we've never 'ad and never will. As I said, a woman's lot....
”
”
Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words)
“
Well, Pip,’ said Joe, ‘be it so or be it son’t, you must be a scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon his throne, with his crown upon his ed, can’t sit and write his acts of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted Prince, with the alphabet – Ah!’ added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of meaning. ‘and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z. And I know what that is to do, though I can’t say I’ve exactly done it.’
There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged me.
‘Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,’ pursued Joe reflectively, ‘mightn’t be the better of continuing for to keep company with common ones, instead of going out to play with oncommon ones – which reminds me to hope there were a flag, perhaps?’
‘No, Joe.’
‘(I’m sorry there weren’t a flag, Pip.) Whether that might be or mightn’t be, is a thing as can’t be looked into now, without putting your sister on the Rampage; and that’s a thing not to be thought of, as being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can’t get to be oncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked. So don’t tell no more on ‘em, Pip, and live well and die happy.’
Chapter 9
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
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Let’s all do it,” said Mr. Watts. “Close your eyes and silently recite your name.”
The sound of my name took me to a place deep inside my head. I already knew that words could take you into a new world, but I didn’t know that on the strength of one word spoken for my ears only I would find myself in a room that no one else knew about.
“Another thing,” Mr. Watts said. “No one in the history of your short lives has used the same voice as you with which to say your name. This is yours. Your special gift that no one can ever take from you.
”
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Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
“
Everyone always knows what they're doing," he says abruptly, still not looking up from his hands, the little plastic pot and the old tattoo and the new white dressing on his left wrist. "You know what you're doing, you got your work and your friends and everything and miserable headfucky little teenage girly boys think you're amazing and, I don't know, you might've saved my life, who knows? I might be dead if it weren't for you and Olly but people can't keep looking after me all the time cos that ain't healthy neither, that's just as bad as people not giving a fuck at all. And, like... I'm trying to sort my head out and be a proper grown-up and get my degree and go to work and look after them kids and make sure my dad ain't kicking my sister round the house like a football but it's just so hard all the time, and I know I ain't got no right to complain cos that's just life, ain't it? Everyone's the same, least I ain't got money worries or nothing. I just don't know what I'm doing, everything's too hard. I can try and try forever but I can't be good enough for no one so what the fuck's the point?
”
”
Richard Rider (17 Black and 29 Red (Stockholm Syndrome, #2))