Piracy Quotes

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Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold.
Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)
Because women don't have to be men's equals to be considered contenders; they have to be better. That's the lie of it all. You have to be better to prove yourself worthy of being equal.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
You deserve to be here. You deserve to exist. You deserve to take up space in this world of men.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
It is not a failure to readjust my sails to fit the waters I find myself in.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
No one calls a girl spirited or opinionated or intimidating or any of those words you can pretend are complimentary and means it to be. They’re all just different ways of calling her a bitch.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Piracy is our only option.
Emma Thompson (The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film)
I think piracy is a bit like drinking. You want to stay out all night doing it, you pay the price the next day.
Scott Lynch (Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gentleman Bastard, #2))
Everyone has heard stories of women like us—cautionary tales, morality plays, warnings of what will befall you if you are a girl too wild for the world, a girl who asks too many questions or wants too much. If you set off into the world alone. Everyone has heard stories of women like us, and now we will make more of them.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
You're trying to play a game designed by men. You'll never win, because the deck is stacked and marked, and also you've been blindfolded and set on fire. You can work hard and believe in yourself and be the smartest person in the room and you'll still get beat by the boys who haven't two cents to rub together. So if you can't win the game, you have to cheat. You operate outside the walls they've built to fence you in. You rob them in the dark, while they're drunk on spirits you offered them. Poison their waters and drink only wine.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Your beauty is not a tax you are required to pay to take up space in this world.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I'm learning there is no one way for life to be lived, no one way to be strong or brave or kind or good. Rather there are many people doing the best they can with the heart they are given and the hand they are dealt. Our best is all we can do, and all we can hold on to is each other.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Percy sees me off at the door with more affirming words but no hug or even a pat upon the shoulder. Thank god for friends who learn to speak to you in your own language rather than making you learn theirs.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
The room is warm and smells like dust, and just the presence of so many books makes it easier to breathe. It’s remarkable how being around books, even those you’ve never read, can have a calming effect, like walking into a crowded party and finding it full of people you know.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
And thank God, because I don't want simple. I do not want easy or small or uncomplicated. I want my life to be messy and ugly and wicked and wild, and I want to feel it all.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I do not need reasons to exist. I do not need to justify the space I take up in this world.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
...she studied his clothes, his top hat. “And you’ve just come from Parliament? How are you finding that?” “It’s much like piracy. You tell your enemies that if they don’t fall in line, you’ll leave them to die.
Meljean Brook (The Iron Duke (Iron Seas, #1))
Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn’t mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold.
Lemony Snicket (The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #5))
[...] I am a wildflower and will stand against the gales. Rare and uncultivated, difficult to find, impossible to forget.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Jean grinned down at her, and she handed him something in a small silk bag. 'What's this?' 'Lock of my hair, ' she said. 'Meant to give it to you days ago, but we got busy with all the raiding. You know. Piracy. Hectic life. ' 'Thank you, love, ' he said. 'Now, if you find yourself in trouble wherever you go, you can hold up that little bag to whoever's bothering you, and you can say, "You have no idea who you're fucking with. I'm under the protection of the lady who gave me this object of her favour. "' 'And that's supposed to make them stop?' 'Shit no, that's just to confuse them. Then you kill them while they're standing there looking at you funny.
Scott Lynch (Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gentleman Bastard, #2))
I have spent so long building up my fortress and learning to tend it all myself, because if I didn’t feel I needed anyone, then I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there. I couldn’t be neglected if I was everything to myself.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.
Tim O'Reilly
In the company of women like this— sharp-edged as raw diamonds but with soft hands and hearts, not strong in spite of anything but powerful because of everything— I feel invincible. Every chink and rut and battering wind has made us tough and brave and impossible to strike down. We are mountains— or perhaps temples, with foundations that could outlast time itself.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
When war is not just it is subsequently justified; so it becomes many things. In reality, an unjust war is merely piracy. It consists of piracy, ego and, more than anything, money. War is our century's prostitution.
T.S. Eliot
There is a unique sort of agony to entering a party alone.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Back before the internet we had a name for people who bought a single copy of our books and lent them to all their friends without charging: we called them "librarians".
Charles Stross
Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government, and therefore sound economics and perfectly all right.
Terry Pratchett (Witches Abroad (Discworld, #12; Witches, #3))
It would be so much easier if I did not want to know everything so badly. If I did not want so badly to be reliant upon no soul by myself.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Thank God for friends who learn to speak to you in your own language rather than making you learn theirs.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
And you should not be frightened of the darkness, but instead be sure that the most frightening thing in it is you.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I like curling my hair and twirling in skirts with ruffles, and I like how Max looks with that big pink bow on. And that doesn't mean I'm not still smart and capable and strong.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I think I want a house of my own," I start, the words a discovery as they leave my mouth. "Something small, so I don't have much housework, but enough room for a proper library. I want a lot of books. And I wouldn't mind a good old dog to walk with me. And a bakery I go to every morning where they know my name.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
For me -- for pretty much every writer -- the big problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity.
Cory Doctorow
I do not want to know things, I want to understand things. I want to answer every question ever posed me. I want to leave no room for anyone to doubt me.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
my problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity
Cory Doctorow (Makers)
Marriage and piracy do not go together.
Daphne du Maurier (Frenchman's Creek)
How can you know that if you've never had anyone?" "How do you know you want to?" I reply. "I've never drunk octopus ink, but I don't feel the need to. Or like I'm missing anything in not having tasted it.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
There was, in fact, a street sign to that effect—the first I’d seen in all of Devil’s Acre. Louche Lane, it read in fancy handwritten script. Piracy discouraged. “Discouraged?” I said. “Then what’s murder? Frowned upon?” “I believe murder is ‘tolerated with reservations.’ ” “Is anything illegal here?” Addison asked. “Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that’s just for paperbacks.” “There’s a library?” “Two. Though one won’t lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable.
Ransom Riggs (Library of Souls (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #3))
You are a shield and spear to all the things you love. I'm glad to be among them.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
In the company of women like this - sharp-edged as raw diamonds but with soft hands and hearts, not strong in spite of anything but powerful because of everything - I feel invincible.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I don’t know what you’re referencing, madam,” the chairman says, his voice raised over mine. “I’m talking about menstruation, sir!” I shout in return. It’s like I set the hall on fire, manifested a venomous snake from thin air, also set that snake on fire, and then threw it at the board. The men all erupt into protestations and a fair number of horrified gasps. I swear one of them actually swoons at the mention of womanly bleeding.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Every time you rolled your eyes and every little smart remark you made about how silly it was for girls to care about their looks. You refused to let me--or anyone!--like books and silks. Outdoors and cosmetics. You stopped taking me seriously when I stopped being the kind of woman you thought I had to be to be considered intelligent and strong. All those things you say make men take women less seriously--I don't think it's men; it's you. You're not better than any other woman because you like philosophy better than parties and don't give a fig about the company of gentlemen, or because you wear boots instead of heels and don't set your hair in curls.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Let me dream that there is something unquestionably pure in this world.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I've learned not to walk in with pistols drawn, but rather to keep them hidden in my petticoats with a hand surreptitiously upon the heel.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Of course, the moment I get around other females my own age, I end up socializing with the dog.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Anything can be a compliment if you take it as one.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Organized labor is organized to take control of an asset away from its rightful owners without paying for it. Organized labor is organization of property by those who don't own it. Organized labor, by driving up the costs of production through coercive means, destroys industries. Organized labor is piracy without the boats and eye patches. Why would anybody want to celebrate organized labor?
Douglas Wilson
Piracy is robbery with violence, often segueing into murder, rape and kidnapping. It is one of the most frightening crimes in the world. Using the same term to describe a twelve-year-old swapping music with friends, even thousands of songs, is evidence of a loss of perspective so astounding that it invites and deserves the derision it receives.
Nick Harkaway (The Blind Giant)
The Hispaniola still lay where she had anchored; but, sure enough, there was the Jolly Roger--the black flag of piracy--flying from her peak.
Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island)
Maybe everyone has hunger like this - impossible, insatiable, but all-consuming in spite of it all. Maybe the desert dreams of spilling rivers, valleys of a view. Maybe that hunger will one day pass. But if it does, I will be left shelled and halved and hollowed.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Some men seem to think that if a lady behaves in a way that they consider unbecoming of her sex, they are justified in speaking in a way that is unbecoming of theirs.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Yes, we have quite literally followed you to the end of the earth," Monty replied, "And there was only mild complaining
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Industry is the ceaseless piracy of the rich against the poor.
Emma Goldman (Anarchism and Other Essays)
in Just- spring          when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles          far          and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far          and          wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and           the                     goat-footed balloonMan          whistles far and wee
E.E. Cummings (Tulips & Chimneys)
Girls like me are meant to have books instead of friends.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
There are many things that make this book fiction, but the roles women play within it are not. The women of the eighteenth century were met with opposition. They had to fight endlessly. Their work was silenced, their contributions ignored, and many of their stories are forgotten today. Nevertheless, they persisted.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I was born a girl but too stubborn to accept the lot that came with my sex.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I'm not sure anyone is all good when you break us down to raw materials," I say. "Max is all good." "Max is a dog." "I don't see how that changes anything. He's a good dog.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Prickly?" I say. "I'm not prickly." "Felicity Montague, you are a cactus.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
You’re being sarcastic.” “No, actually I was being flippant, but I can do sarcastic if you’d rather.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
All those thing women are made to believe they are strange for harboring in their hearts. And I want to surround myself with those same strange, wicked women who throw themselves open to all the wondrous things the world has to offer.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Let us consider," I said, "a boatload of sailors. Among them, some are undoubtedly worse than others. Some exult in rape and piracy, but others are newly come to it and scarcely have their beards. Some would never imagine robbery, except that their families are starving. Some feel shame after, some do it only because their captain commands it, and because they have the crowd of other men there, to hide among." "And so," he said, "which do you change, and which do you let go?" "I change them all," I said. "They have come to my house. Why should I care what is in their hearts?" He had smiled and lifted his cup to me. "Lady, you and I are in accord.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
Then at once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep - but an intruder came, now, that would not "down". It was conscience. They began to feel a vague fear that they had been doing wrong to run away; and next they thought of the stolen meat, and then the real torture came [...] So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing. Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously inconsistent pirates fell peacefully to sleep.
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten [...], and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispanola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden with crimes and riches.
Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island)
Reading in excess causes the female brain to shrink.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
It's my whole childhood, being sneered at by watery girls for a joke I didn't understand because I was reading books they could never understand
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I’d rather not be glimpsed by men. Perhaps we can set up some sort of trap so that they fall off a cliff if they try to pluck me from the ground.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Come on, you enormous wrinkle.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I'm learning there is no one way for life to be lived, no one way to be strong or brave or kind or good. Rather there are many people doing the best they can with their heart they are given and the hand they are dealt.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
If “piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission- if “if value, then right” is true- then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of “big media” today- film, records, radio, and cable TV-was born of a kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last generation’s pirates join this generation’s country club-until now.
Lawrence Lessig (Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity)
If you can't win the game, you have to cheat.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Then I brace my feet against the casements and rescue myself.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
We look at each other. The city boils around us. I want to strike flint and set it aflame. Burn everything from the sky down and start the world over.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Our best is all we can do, and all we can hold on to is each other. And, zounds, that is more than enough.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I have spent so long building up my fortress and learning to tend it alone, because if I didn’t feel I needed anyone, then I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
That’s the lie of it all. You have to be better to prove yourself worthy of being equal.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
But I am a wildflower and will stand against the gales. Rare and uncultivated, difficult to find, impossible to forget.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I do not want simple. I do not want easy or small or uncomplicated. I want my life to be messy and ugly and wicked and wild, and I want to feel it all. All those things that women are made to believe they are strange for harboring in their hearts. And I want to surround myself with those same strange, wicked women who throw themselves open to all the wondrous things this world has to offer. Perhaps I’m spiraling into sentimental prose, but at this moment, I feel that I could swallow the world whole.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
He tried to go over the plan with the captain, who interrupted him with a dismissive flick of the hand. “That’s not a plan. That’s simple piracy. You needn’t teach me that.” Arin was taken aback. “Before the war, the Herrani were the best at sea. We gained wealth through sea trade. We weren’t pirates.” The captain laughed and laughed.
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
It was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice, her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until the same year that the United States of America abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats. Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: 'Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.' Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed. Think of it. With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.
Robert G. Ingersoll (The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child)
Mythology is all shite anyway,' she says. 'It never has stories about people like us. I'd rather write my own legends, or be the story someone else looks to one day, build a strong foundation for those who follow us.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
If you have the indecency to steal my book, at least have the decency to write a review.
Grea Alexander
If a creative person steals your idea, he’s killing his creative ability, if he steals your art, he’s killing his art, if he makes it available to the world, it won,t create de impact you could have created, because it wasn’t from the right source.
Michael Bassey Johnson
I have challenged fate to chess and am now attempting to keep all my confidence from puddling in my boots. What if I’m the only one betting on myself because everyone but me can see I am not suited to play at all?
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Felicity Montague, you are a cactus.” “Debatable.” My knees are aching against the hard floor, so I stretch out on my stomach parallel to her, propping my chin on my hands. “My botanical equivalent would more likely be . . . what are those plants that shrivel as soon as you touch them? I’d be one of those.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
You're trying to play a game designed by men. You'll never win, because the deck is staked and marked, and also you've been blindfolded and set on fire. You can work hard and believe in yourself and be the smartest person in the room and you'll still get beat by the boys who haven't two cents to rub together. So if you can't win the game, you have to cheat. You operate outside the walls they've built to fence you in. You rob them in the dark, while they're drunk on spirits you offered them. Poison their waters and drink only wine.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
But it would be broadcast, and in the great public theatre of his age; that unregulated market of braying narcissists, that Wild West of disinformation and fraud, that infinite sea of piracy, the great electorate where the constituency of billions voted their approval with a click of a mouse. The internet. It brought governments down and rewrote history...
Adam L.G. Nevill (Last Days)
But you seem very bright. Or if not bright, you’re at least confident. And often people can’t tell those two things apart.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
She does not look toward me but rather tosses her scarf showily over her shoulder and makes her way to the desk. The ruffles of yet another ridiculous dress whisper against the floor behind her. Not ridiculous, I correct myself. Softness can be an armor, even if it isn't my armor.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
A year is nothing!” I protest. “I’ve had dresses I wore for a year and then woke up one morning and thought, ‘Why am I wearing this insane dress that makes me look like a terrier mated with a lobster?
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
When Callum and I first met, I had been lonely enough to not only accept his employment, but also the companionship that came with it, which gave him the idea that men often get in their heads when a woman pays some kind of attention to them: that it was a sign I want him to smash his mouth—and possibly other body parts—against mine. Which I do not.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I think I want a house of my own," I start, the words a discovery as they leave my mouth. "Something small, so I don't have much housework, but enough room for a proper library. I want a lot of books. And I wouldn't mind a good old dog to walk with me. And a bakery I go to every morning where they know my name." "And you don't want anyone with you?" Sim asks, raising her head. "No family?" "I want friends," I say. "Good friends, that make up a different kind of family.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Another storybook hero to swoop in and rescue a girl from a dragon or a monster or herself - they're all the same. A woman must be protected, must be sheltered, must be kept from the winds that would batter her into the earth. But I am a wildflower and will stand against the gales. Rare and uncultivated, difficult to find, impossible to forget.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
It was a monumental achievement that the serpentine tc'a had once upon a time gotten the knnn to understand the concept of trade: so nowadays knnn simply contacted a station, rushed onto its methane-dock and deposited whatever they liked, grabbed whatever they wanted and left. This was an improvement over their former behavior, in which they simply looted and left.
C.J. Cherryh (The Kif Strike Back (Chanur, #3))
One of the few things left in the world, aside from the world itself, that sadden me every day is an awareness that you get upset if Boo Boo or Walt tells you you're saying something that sounds like me. You sort of take it as an accusation of piracy, a little slam at your individuality. Is it so bad that we sometimes sound like each other? The membrane is so thin between us. Is it so important for us to keep in mind which is whose... For us, doesn't each of our individualities begin right at the point where we own up to our extremely close connections and accept the inevitability of borrowing one another's jokes, talents, idiocies?
J.D. Salinger
Everyone wants things,” Monty says. “Everyone’s got a hunger like that. It passes. Or it gets easier to live with. It stops eating you up inside.” I scrunch my nose and sniff. Maybe everyone has hunger like this—impossible, insatiable, but all-consuming in spite of it all. Maybe the desert dreams of spilling rivers, valleys of a view. Maybe that hunger will one day pass. But if it does, I will be left shelled and halved and hollowed out, and who can live like that?
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Or maybe I would be a flower. But a really tough flower." "A wildflower," Sim says. "The kind that are strong enough to stand against wind, rare and difficult to find and impossible to forget. Something men walk continents for a glimpse of." I wrinkle my nose. "I'd rather not be glimpsed by men. Perhaps we can set up some sort of trap so that they fall off a cliff if they try to pluck me from the ground.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
How can you judge for certain, this heart is rotted and this one good? What if you make a mistake?” I had been warmed that night by wine and fire, lured by the flush of his regard. “Let us consider,” I said, “a boatload of sailors. Among them, some are undoubtedly worse than others. Some exult in rape and piracy, but others are newly come to it and scarcely have their beards. Some would never imagine robbery, except that their families are starving. Some feel shame after, some do it only because their captain commands it, and because they have the crowd of other men there, to hide among.” “And so,” he said, “which do you change, and which do you let go?” “I change them all,” I said. “They have come to my house. Why should I care what is in their hearts?” He had smiled and lifted his cup to me. “Lady, you and I are in accord.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
I feel strange suddenly, the old itch of fear that I am a feral girl in a domesticated world, watched by everyone with pity and concern. There are men like Monty, with perverse desires, but they find each other and carve out small corners of the world, and likely women too who find themselves only drawn to the fairer sex. And then there’s me, an island all my own. An island that sometimes feels like a whole continent to rule, and sometimes a cramped spit of land that sailors are marooned upon and left to die.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I had lost sight of the fact that I want to do work that matters. I want to understand the world, and how it moves and how the intricate strings of existence weave together into a tapestry, and I want to weave those tapestries with my own two hands. I am filled suddenly by that wanting, to know things, to understand the world, to feel myself in it. It floods me with a ferocious strength. This world is mine. This work is mine. If it is selfish to want, then selfishness shall be my weapon. I will fight for everything that cannot fight for itself. Block the wind and keep away the wolves and put supper on the table. I am suddenly swollen with more than wanting to be known—I want to know.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
The charge that Anarchism is destructive, rather than constructive, and that, therefore, Anarchism is opposed to organization, is one of the many falsehoods spread by our opponents. They confound our present social institutions with organization; hence they fail to understand how we can oppose the former, and yet favor the latter. The fact, however, is that the two are not identical. “The State is commonly regarded as the highest form of organization. But is it in reality a true organization? Is it not rather an arbitrary institution, cunningly imposed upon the masses? “Industry, too, is called an organization; yet nothing is farther from the truth. Industry is the ceaseless piracy of the rich against the poor. “We are asked to believe that the Army is an organization, but a close investigation will show that it is nothing else than a cruel instrument of blind force. “The Public School! The colleges and other institutions of learning, are they not models of organization, offering the people fine opportunities for instruction? Far from it. The school, more than any other institution, is a veritable barrack, where the human mind is drilled and manipulated into submission to various social and moral spooks, and thus fitted to continue our system of exploitation and oppression. “Organization, as WE understand it, however, is a different thing. It is based, primarily, on freedom. It is a natural and voluntary grouping of energies to secure results beneficial to humanity. “It is the harmony of organic growth which produces variety of color and form, the complete whole we admire in the flower. Analogously will the organized activity of free human beings, imbued with the spirit of solidarity, result in the perfection of social harmony, which we call Anarchism. In fact, Anarchism alone makes non-authoritarian organization of common interests possible, since it abolishes the existing antagonism between individuals and classes. “Under present conditions the antagonism of economic and social interests results in relentless war among the social units, and creates an insurmountable obstacle in the way of a co-operative commonwealth. “There is a mistaken notion that organization does not foster individual freedom; that, on the contrary, it means the decay of individuality. In reality, however, the true function of organization is to aid the development and growth of personality. “Just as the animal cells, by mutual co-operation, express their latent powers in formation of the complete organism, so does the individual, by co-operative effort with other individuals, attain his highest form of development. “An organization, in the true sense, cannot result from the combination of mere nonentities. It must be composed of self-conscious, intelligent individualities. Indeed, the total of the possibilities and activities of an organization is represented in the expression of individual energies. “It therefore logically follows that the greater the number of strong, self-conscious personalities in an organization, the less danger of stagnation, and the more intense its life element. “Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence,—the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all. “The germ of such an organization can be found in that form of trades unionism which has done away with centralization, bureaucracy, and discipline, and which favors independent and direct action on the part of its members.
Emma Goldman (Anarchism and Other Essays)