“
We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
Opening yourself up to making mistakes and being vulnerable is what makes it beautiful and special with the person you love.
”
”
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
“
With someone you like that much, the lows are as low as the highs are high. Does that make sense?'
It does. It also makes me sound bipolar.'
Love will do that to a person.
”
”
Simone Elkeles
“
Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them?
”
”
Sierra D. Waters (Debbie.)
“
Distance makes the heart grow fonder.
”
”
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
“
Your body is not a temple.
Your body is the house you grew up in.
How dare you try to burn it to the ground.
You are bigger than this.
You are bigger
than this.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
Nothing truly wild is unclean.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
My body is a dead language and you pronounce each word perfectly.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
I loved you head over handles
like my first bicycle accident —
before the mouthful of gravel and blood,
I swore we were flying.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
Whatever happens after this, I just want you to know that this was worth it. You were worth it. You were worth everything.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.
”
”
Sierra
“
A veces la vida era como una canción. Durante tres minutos, perfecta.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra
“
God is bigger than our sins. God wants you as you are—stumbling, sinning, confused.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Writing a list of ways I could be better
and writing a suicide note
are the same thing
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
People think what they want. That's what I've had to accept," he says. "I can fight it, but that's exhausting. I can feel hurt about it, but that's torture. Or I can decide it's their loss.
”
”
Jay Asher (What Light)
“
The names of the cerros and the sierras and the deserts exist only on maps. We name them that we do not lose our way. Yet it was because the way was lost to us already that we have made those names. The world cannot be lost. We are the ones. And it is because these names and these coordinates are our own naming that they cannot save us. They cannot find for us the way again.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (The Crossing (The Border Trilogy, #2))
“
You are a souvenir shop, where he goes to remember how much people miss him when he is gone.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
You are enough. You are so enough. It is unbelievable how enough you are.
”
”
Sierra Boggess
“
You wonder why I don’t
answer your 3 a.m. phone calls.
When you say “I miss you”,
I begin to undress myself out of habit.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
It was Thomas Edison who brought us electricity, not the Sierra Club. It was the Wright brothers who got us off the ground, not the Federal Aviation Administration. It was Henry Ford who ended the isolation of millions of Americans by making the automobile affordable, not Ralph Nader. Those who have helped the poor the most have not been those who have gone around loudly expressing 'compassion' for the poor, but those who found ways to make industry more productive and distribution more efficient, so that the poor of today can afford things that the affluent of yesterday could only dream about.
”
”
Thomas Sowell
“
Find whatever love is left in your life and hold on to it tightly. And one day, things will have gotten less gray, less dull.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
My sister told me a soul mate is not the person
who makes you the happiest but the one who
makes you feel the most, who conducts your heart
to bang the loudest, who can drag you giggling
with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in.
It has always been you.
-Love, Forgive Me
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
And your life,' Katie said to Christy, 'is turning into a rather predictable romance. Girl meets boy. Boy is a dork for four years. Girl blossoms into a gorgeous woman. Boy finds his brain. Girl turns into starry-eyed mush head.
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (In Your Dreams (Sierra Jensen, #2))
“
If you believe something will make the world better, then it's always worth a try, even if you fail.
”
”
Sierra St. James (Masquerade)
“
Your body is the house you grew up in. How dare you try to burn it to the ground.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
He had gone to the higher Sierras... [about Ralph Waldo Emerson's death]
”
”
John Muir (Our National Parks)
“
How many spanks have you had, Julia?” Damien asked.
“Two, Sir.”
“What colour are you on?”
“Mortification,” she mumbled.
”
”
Sierra Cartwright (With This Collar (Mastered, #1))
“
I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really scary reality TV show. I have one reality show that would really make your hair stand on end: "C-Students from Yale."
George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences.
To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete's foot . . .
PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose! . . .
So many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick. They have taken charge of communications and the schools, so we might as well be Poland under occupation.
They might have felt that taking our country into an endless war was simply something decisive to do. What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin' day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reasons that they don't give a fuck what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
“
Para eso se es joven, para probar cosas, para experimentar. Para eso y para desafiarlo todo.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Campos de fresas)
“
Today she looked menacingly into the mirror and said: “I’m Sierra María Santiago. I am what I am. Enough.” She sighed. These days were spooky enough without her talking to herself. “More than enough.
”
”
Daniel José Older (Shadowshaper (Shadowshaper Cypher #1))
“
Sierra, it's Christmastime. Put a stupid mistletoe over his head and kiss him already!
”
”
Jay Asher (What Light)
“
Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn't even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear.
”
”
Sierra D. Waters (Debbie.)
“
The pain of one-sided love, of knowing that I had loved her more than she had loved me
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
BDSM is about dropping the pretenses; I want you completely exposed.
”
”
Sierra Cartwright (With This Collar (Mastered, #1))
“
I want a man who is sunny-side up, with a large sausage, and two hot buns.
”
”
Sierra Cartwright (With This Collar (Mastered, #1))
“
Mi médico decía que todos tenemos pesos en el alma, y que esos pesos son difíciles de quitar, así que lo que nos toca es hacer más fuerte el alma.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Quizás mañana la palabra amor...)
“
Then Circled by the golden light of God's Presence and His promise, Paul and Sierra walked side by side along the trail that lead tward the campus and on tward their Future
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (Take My Hand (Sierra Jensen, #12))
“
A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
And mostly, I’m furious that I live in a world that has the power to make me feel ugly and unlovable because of my body.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures Book 18))
“
On Climbing the Sierra Mountains again after 31 years
Range after range of mountains
Year after year after year.
I am still in love.
”
”
Gary Snyder
“
if this was what love was, then I didn’t know how anyone could bear the weight of it.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that God is a very creative author, and He writes a different story for every person. No two lives or stories alike.
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (With This Ring (Sierra Jensen, #6))
“
Intimidated, old traumas triggered, and fearing for my safety, I did what I felt I needed to do.
”
”
Sierra D. Waters (Debbie.)
“
...the Sierra, a region so quiet and pristine that we have the sense of being the first human beings ever to set foot in it. We fall silent ourselves in its midst, as if conversation in a place of such primaevl solitude would be like talking in church.
”
”
Jim Fergus (The Wild Girl)
“
Technology causes problems as well as solves problems. Nobody has figured out a way to ensure that, as of tomorrow, technology won't create problems. Technology simply means increased power, which is why we have the global problems we face today."
(Interview, Sierra Magazine, May/June 2005)
”
”
Jared Diamond
“
Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.
”
”
B. Traven (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)
“
Beauty beyond thought everywhere, beneath, above, made and being made forever.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
Si vis amari, ama," you tell me. If you wish to be loved, love.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
A man and a woman wanting each other is by far one of the least sinful things I've seen
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Me siento tan sola que si tuviera lágrimas lloraría.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Rabia)
“
Except for the sound of the rain, on the road, on the roofs, on the umbrella, there was absolute silence: only the dying moan of the sirens continued for a moment or two to vibrate within the ear. It seemed to Scobie later that this was the ultimate border he had reached in happiness: being in darkness, alone, with the rain falling, without love or pity.
”
”
Graham Greene (The Heart of the Matter)
“
Sierra felt full of hope and confidence in God. She knew who she was. And she knew Whose she was.
Whatever mysterious plan God had for her life, it would be an interesting one. As Christy had said earlier, God writes a different story for each person. Sierra decided hers might not be a bestseller or even a thriller. It certainly wasn't a romance. But it was turning into a fine mystery. And she could live with that.
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (Sierra Jensen Collection, Vol. 2 (Sierra Jensen, #4-6))
“
Todos tenemos una imagen de nosotros mismos, pero nunca coincide con la tienen los demás. Y debemos entender la de los demás, aunque sin dejar de ser nosotros mismos.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Las chicas de alambre)
“
When I feel myself falling out of love with you,
I turn the record of your laughter over, reposition the needle.
I dust the dirty living room of your affection.
-Love, Forgive Me
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
Todo el que crea un monstruo, tarde o temprano ha de destruirlo, o el monstruo le destruye a él.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Las chicas de alambre)
“
One day, you might find that you have a life again. A life that makes you happy.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
- Siempre has sido especial, no voy a mentirte.
- Yo me siento diferente, pero no especial.
- Diferentes somos todos. Especiales hay pocos.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Quizás mañana la palabra amor...)
“
In the beauty and grandeur of individual trees, and in number and variety of species, the Sierra forests surpass all others
”
”
John Muir (Our National Parks)
“
How do they not hear the trickle of my heart’s blood dripping out of my chest, how do they not see the scooped-out pain in my eyes, how can they not hear every desperate plea and every rasping sob I’ve let out in the last twenty-four hours?
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King)
“
Every morning, arising from the death of sleep, the happy plants and all our fellow animal creatures great and small, and even the rocks, seemed to be shouting, "Awake, awake, rejoice, rejoice, come love us and join in our song. Come! Come!
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.
”
”
Ishmael Beah (A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier)
“
Perhaps Embry’s always had the part of me that wielded the sword, but she… she’s always owned the part that wears the crown.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King (New Camelot Trilogy, #3))
“
El tiempo siempre suele dar una perspectiva distinta de las cosas...
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Las chicas de alambre)
“
Soy diferente. Me gusta ser diferente, quiero ser diferente, verme diferente, sentirme diferente. No quiero que me pongan un número, ni que me den órdenes. No quiero que me anulen, ni formar parte de la masa. Quiero ser yo, porque soy todo lo que tengo.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Rabia)
“
The first step to understanding anything—whether it’s the Bible or Fifty Shades of Grey—is acknowledging that we come to it with agendas of our own. We want it to mean something, we are biased whether we know it or not, and usually what we walk away with is what we want to walk away with.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
But I’m so susceptible to this kind of touch; I bloom like a rose when I’m handled like a weed,
”
”
Sierra Simone (A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel, #1))
“
It's not what you know, it's when you know it.
”
”
Kathy Sierra
“
Could a vow be not all the way broken? Could a sin be not all the way committed?
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I cared about her as a person, as a soul, and I wanted to fuck her, and that was the recipe for something much worse than carnal sin. It was a recipe for falling in love.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Fifteen minutes later, Betsy came thundering down the stairs. "I'm going to the mall with Sierra to see a movie."
Michael leaned forward, switched off the television. "Can you please rephrase that in the form of a question?"
"Sure. Can I have some money?
”
”
Kristin Hannah (Home Front)
“
And if I ever thought Ash held all the power in their relationship, I see it clearly now. Embry holds my husband’s heart in his hands and he doesn’t even know it. He’s too busy looking at the details of Ash’s faces to see the expression, too busy being in love to see how loved he is.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
Colchester, Ash, my captain, staking my body with his cock like a conqueror, like a king.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
There was life after fucking up, after all, even for those who lived without fucking.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
She was indeed the perfect package on the surface…but below it, I sensed she was so much more. Messy and passionate and raw and creative—a cyclone forced into an eggshell.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I will always be your husband and your king and your master, and it doesn’t matter who I let you fuck, you’ll always belong to me, understood?
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King (New Camelot Trilogy, #3))
“
I loved you head over handles
like my first bicycle accident—
before the mouthful of gravel and blood,
I swore we were flying.
-Cycle of Abuse
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
God dwelled in sex and marriage just as much as He dwelled in celibacy and service,
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Leer siempre la había relajado. Era un privilegio. Sumergirse en una buena novela equivalía a penetrar en otro mundo, olvidar, sentir, experimentar emociones únicas.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Quizás mañana la palabra amor...)
“
Is it weird to pray during sex? Maybe it is, but sometimes it happens. I’ve tried to accept that it’s who I am—a man who loves God, and who loves fucking, that I can be dirty and holy all in the same moment.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Midnight Mass (Priest, #1.5))
“
Because suffering is the bible she was sworn in on. Because self-doubt was the ferry she took to get here and yes, it did get her here, but she never knew she could swim.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (New Shoes On A Dead Horse)
“
And to be seen—really seen—was the most terrifying thing I’d ever felt.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
I’ve hoarded
your name in my mouth for months. My throat
is a beehive pitched in the river. Look!
Look how long this love can hold its breath.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)
“
El amor es lo único a lo que no se puede renunciar, porque está ahí, siempre. Aparece y desaparece a su antojo sin que puedas hacer nada...Las personas buscan el amor lo mismo que las plantas al sol.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Las chicas de alambre)
“
I want to build a tower around you, and then build a castle around that tower, and then dig a moat around that castle, and then I want to guard you like a dragon. Burn anyone who tries to hurt you into ash and then scorch those ashes a second time.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Sinner (Priest, #2))
“
God can warn me all he wants, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
...Fate forced me to become a two-man woman. But there was no effing way I could be a four-man woman.
Even metaphysics couldn't keep that from being whorey.
”
”
Sierra Dean (A Bloody Good Secret (Secret McQueen, #2))
“
Los que no sentían el arte, los que no se emocionaban leyendo un libro o lloraban ante una obra de arte, estaban muertos.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra
“
So many networks of love and heartbreak, so many deep folds and layers to a person’s heart.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
tonight
in yoga, I realized for the first time
that breathing is not the process of being filled
and emptied: breathing is the act
of actually making love to the whole world
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)
“
I see the beginning.
And I see the end.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King (New Camelot Trilogy, #3))
“
It is not a single crime when a child is photographed while sexually assaulted (raped.) It is a life time crime that should have life time punishments attached to it. If the surviving child is, more often than not, going to suffer for life for the crime(s) committed against them, shouldn't the pedophiles suffer just as long? If it often takes decades for survivors to come to terms with exactly how much damage was caused to them, why are there time limits for prosecution?
”
”
Sierra D. Waters (Debbie.)
“
Detective Castilla, your Secret is safe with me." She blinked with surprise, and I groaned. "God, Holden. How long have you been waiting to use that line?"
"About three years."
"And in three years you couldn't find any room for improvment?
”
”
Sierra Dean
“
Many signs point to the fact that the youth of the Third World will no longer tolerate living in circumstances that give them no hope for the future. From the young boys I met in the demobilization camps in Sierra Leone to the suicide bombers of Palestine and Chechnya, to the young terrorists who fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we can no longer afford to ignore them. We have to take concrete steps to remove the causes of their rage, or we have to be prepared to suffer the consequences.
”
”
Roméo Dallaire (Shake Hands with the Devil)
“
I hug him. I close my eyes, press my face into his already strong and heavy shoulder, and I thank God for this unexpected grace. This undeserved mercy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King)
“
For many years, Sierra had compared the Holy Spirit to the wind, as it said the the Bible, noting that it was always there, no matter how faint the breeze. The wind went where it wanted to go, and its path was easy to detect because it moved objects and people. But no one had ever seen the wind.
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (Open Your Heart (Sierra Jensen, #7))
“
When he sleeps,
the snoring does not bother me:
the rhythmic growl, gravel shoved
across the sidewalk of his throat.
It is the grasping, desperate way
in which he takes in air—his gulping lungs
as if every dream is filled with water
and he is trying to inflate
the life jacket under his skin.
I babble in my sleep. He believes
I am trying to tell him how my heart works,
says he will translate the manual one day.
I want to ask him: am I the ocean?
Are you drowning in everything
I don’t say when I’m awake?”
—Heart Apnea
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (The Bones Below: Poems by Sierra DeMulder)
“
….So much crueller than any British colony, they say, so much more brutal towards the local Africans, so much more manipulative after begrudgingly granting independence. But the history of British colonialism in Africa, from Sierra Leone to Zimbabwe, Kenya to Botswana and else-where, is not fundamentally different from what Belgium did in the Congo. You can argue about degree, but both systems were predicated on the same assumption: that white outsiders knew best and Africans were to be treated not as partners, but as underlings. What the British did in Kenya to suppress the pro-independence mau-mau uprising in the 1950s, using murder, torture and mass imprisonment, was no more excusable than the mass arrests and political assassinations committed by Belgium when it was trying to cling on to the Congo. And the outside world's tolerance of a dictator in the Congo like Mobutu, whose corruption and venality were overlooked for strategic expedience, was no different from what happened in Zimbabwe, where the dictator Robert Mugabe was allowed to run his country and its people into the ground because Western powers gullibly accepted the way he presented himself as the only leader able to guarantee stability and an end to civil strife. Those sniffy British colonial types might not like to admit it, but the Congo represents the quintessence of the entire continent’s colonial experience. It might be extreme and it might be shocking, but what happened in the Congo is nothing but colonialism in its purest, basest form.
”
”
Tim Butcher (Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart)
“
I am light and stardust in his hands.
”
”
Sierra Abrams (The Color Project)
“
We only carry what we think we need,
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (New Shoes On A Dead Horse)
“
Her eyelashes made me hard. That was a new benchmark for me, I had to admit.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I want to go the brink of not knowing myself, I want someone to take me there and hold me by the neck and make me stare at an entire reckless realm of possibility.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
She was formed for sunshine and pleasure, but fuck if darkness and pain don’t look beautiful on her—
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King)
“
I will love her until the stars burn themselves out and hang like cold rocks in the lightless sky.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King)
“
Sometimes the best decisions were the ones with the most short-term unhappiness
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
was the only halo I ever wanted again, a circle of wicked wants and devilish delights.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I take it that's where you met Todd.'
'Yep. Almost five years ago. Can you believe it?'
'Five years! You and Todd should be the poster couple for the 'Love Waits' campaign.'
Christy laughed. 'It didn't seem that long. A lot has happened during those five years. But I do agree that true love is worth the wait. I'd wait another five years for Todd if I had to. He's the only man for me. Ever.
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (Don't You Wish (Sierra Jensen, #3))
“
And right there on the soft grass, in the warm sunlight, our three hearts beat as one once again and we share every breath, every kiss, every single drop of our love.
Equal and alive.
Three.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King (New Camelot Trilogy, #3))
“
We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
If volleyball was easy, they would call it football.
”
”
Sydney Sierra
“
Do we focus on pruning out all evil, or do we focus on growing love?
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I thought, this is what it’s like to be torn apart for love. This is what it means to be reborn.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Memories aren’t meant to be torments, Brother Patrick,” Brother Connor says in a too-casual voice, the one that means he’s guessed what I’m thinking about. “They are gifts.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Saint (Priest, #3))
“
«Los poetas levantan castillos en el aire, los locos los habitan, y alguien, en la vida real, cobra el alquiler».
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Kafka y la muñeca viajera)
“
Sean, faith and belief are the practices of committing a life in the face of no answers. God is and always will be outside of human comprehension.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Sinner (Priest, #2))
“
Worry is a sin, even I know that, yet I am more than just a lily of the field. I’m a lily that’s been plucked from the ground and laid at your feet. When it comes to you, I’m rootless and helpless and at your mercy for sunshine and water. And I’m not even supposed to be yours. How can I not worry?
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Christy said. "It's just weird, your seeing him like that. What are you going to do?"
"Nothing. What can I do?"
"Maybe he'll call you to see if you're okay," Katie said.
"No," Christy said, "in the movies he would have told his friend to stop the car, and he would have run back to you with an umbrella and walked you the rest of the way hoe, and you would have made him a pot of tea."
Sierra laughed. "I am drinking tea right now," she said. "Maybe my life is a low budget 'B' movie, and all I get is the tea. No hero. No umbrella."
"Yeah, well then my life is a class 'Z' movie," Katie said. "No tea. No hero. No umbrella. No plot--"
"Yours is more of a mystery," Christy interrupted cheerfully. "The ending will surprise all of us.
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (In Your Dreams (Sierra Jensen, #2))
“
Decían que el tiempo lo curaba todo. Y era cierto. Y era falso. Los vivos no se curan. Los vivos no olvidan. Solo se recolocan. Aprenden a vivir de otra forma, aceptando el dolor como parte del nuevo presente y el nuevo futuro.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Quizás mañana la palabra amor...)
“
she was the kind of woman who couldn’t live without meaning, powerful and real meaning, in her life.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I’m not asking either of you,” my husband answered sharply. “I expect you to mount her. I expect you to fuck her. I expect you to make her come. And I expect her to let you.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
You can’t put a Band-Aid on open-heart surgery.
”
”
Sierra Rose (My Despicable Ex (The Ashly Roberts Saga, #1))
“
If you were the last person on Earth, Abilene, then I would learn to love sheep instead. Get the fuck out of my house.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
Tell me you’re eighteen,” he whispered. “I’m not.” “Damn you.” And then he tilted my face back up to his, and his mouth came down over mine anyway.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
I am the leaf skating across the pond again, simply blowing where her words take me, and I can just watch with exhilarating clarity how much she enjoys
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King)
“
The secret he keeps, the lies he tells.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
Tonight in Yoga
I realized I have been afraid of meditation
my whole life, which is to say,
I have been afraid of myself my whole life
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)
“
Is there no way to be both completely woman and completely good?
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I love you, little prince,” is all he says.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King (New Camelot Trilogy, #3))
“
I want the memories to be worth the sins.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Saint (Priest, #3))
“
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do…for I have the desire to do what is right, but I cannot carry it out. What a wretched man I am.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
It was the purest heavens in the midst of the worst hell, and I loved every minute of it, even though it was all underpinned by a lie--my lie—and I knew one day it would burn down around me.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
Japhy,' I said out loud, 'I don't know when we'll meet again or what'll happen in the future, but Desolation, Desolation, I owe so much to Desolation, thank you forever for guiding me to the place where I learned it all. Now comes the sadness of coming back to cities and I've grown two months older and there's all that humanity of bars and burlesque shows and gritty love, all upsidedown in the void God bless them, but Japhy you and me forever we know, O ever youthful, O ever weeping.' Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said 'God I love you' and looked up to the sky and really meant it. 'I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other.'
To the children and the innocent it's all the same.
And in keeping with Japhy's habit of always getting down on one knee and delivering a little prayer to the camp we left, to the one in the Sierra, and the others in Marin, and the little prayer of gratitude he had delivered to Sean's shack the day he sailed away, as I was hiking down the mountain with my pack I turned and knelt on the trail and said 'Thank you, shack.' Then I hadded 'Blah,' with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world.
”
”
Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)
“
Think about it. These guys have far more reasons to pull a prank on Doug than they do me. I kind of wished we had changed clothes, though.'
'There wasn't time,' Katie said. 'Your true love is in desperate need of your assistance. How can you think of changing into the appropriate attire for a rescue?
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (With This Ring (Sierra Jensen, #6))
“
God is bigger than our sins. God wants you as you are—stumbling, sinning, confused. All He asks of us is love—love for Him, love for others, and love for ourselves. He asks us to lay down our lives—not to live like ascetics, devoid of any pleasure or joy, but to give Him our lives so that he may increase our joy and increase our love.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
And sometimes I misbehave on purpose."
"Seriously?!"
"It's called being a brat. Ben will sometimes indulge me [and punish me], but occasionally I have to listen to a lecture about asking for what I want. And those times, I get sent to bed without an orgasm.
”
”
Sierra Cartwright (With This Collar (Mastered, #1))
“
God, I wanted to marry this woman or collar her or cage her; I wanted to own her, make her, take her; I wanted us on this old carpet forever, with her hair coming undone and her nipples hard and her naughty pussy milking my dick for everything it was worth.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Pues...-se hizo la indiferente-,porque aún no he encontrado a mi chico, porque soy muy especial, porque soy muy difícil, porque no quiero tener novio por tenerlo, como si estar sola fuese malo, y por un montón de razones más, todas por el estilo. También es cierto que espero algo muy diferente, una persona que me entienda y me siga, que me acepte.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Rabia)
“
You are not my possession. You’re going to be my wife. My wife who kneels at my feet, who presents her cunt to me without question when I demand it, who trusts me with her heart and soul and future. You think it is either/or that you belong to yourself or you belong to me, but I’m telling you right now that it’s both/and. You belong to yourself and you belong to me, and I don’t fucking care that it seems to be a contradiction because we both know it isn’t. Now if you can’t accept that, then say my name right now and we will step back and renegotiate our relationship. But if you are willing to submit to the fact that I will move fucking heaven and earth to keep you from harm, then say yes, Sir.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
Sometimes the forbidden fruit is just too sweet not to bite.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
I’d seen enough grief as a priest to know that people never really moved on, at least not in the linear, segmented way our culture expected people to.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Solo hay dos formas de estar solo. Sin nadie cerca o en medio de una multitud
”
”
Javier Sierra (El maestro del Prado)
“
I wanted to show her all of my burdens and have her lift them from me with her clever mind and her elegant compassion.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Love is a beautiful man bearing caffeine.
”
”
Sierra Dean (Deep Dark Secret (Secret McQueen, #3))
“
Escribir es el orgasmo contínuo
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra
“
She was speaking in tongues?"
"What da f**k else she gonna speak with?" Veda rolled her eyes. I saw no reason to explai, so I let her go on.
”
”
Sierra Dean
“
Not ambitious,” he said, dark eyes searching my face. “But often careless. Not cold, but sometimes distant. Passionate, intelligent, dreamy…and too easily hurt.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
As always, she had both of us under control when she surrendered her control to me.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I think you're starved for it."
He opens his eyes and looks at her. "I'd starve for you.
”
”
Sierra Simone (A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel, #1))
“
In our best times everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church and the mountains altars.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
I don't know if everything will be okay . It may not be. You may think you are the lowest point now and then look up one day and see that its gotten so much worse.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
I can’t tell what’s the best way to love you, whether it’s trying to catch you or to let you go.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King (New Camelot Trilogy, #3))
“
No, most people don’t guess, do they? That sometimes the people who laugh the loudest and reach for life the hardest are the ones closest to darkness.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Saint (Priest, #3))
“
I know how to make sin feel like heaven.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Sinner (Priest, #2))
“
Hay palabras que antes de ser escritas ya están muertas. Hay palabras que antes de ser pronunciadas ya están gastadas. Hay palabras que antes de ser oídas ya son mentiras. Palabras.
”
”
Jordi Sierra i Fabra (Rabia)
“
Eugenia’s mouth formed an O shape, her eyes wide and a little wet.
Now I had not only told her Santa wasn’t real, I’d told her the Easter Bunny went on killing sprees to eat the children who didn’t find his eggs.
”
”
Sierra Dean (Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen, #4))
“
I am trying to teach poetry in school districts
that only know how to starve. I am trying
to show my students, who don't know
how to spell, how to write their lives
in anything but blood. I am trying to learn
how to give and foster forgiveness in a body
that wants none of it.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)
“
I bring you the dance. I bring you the idea that is going to revolutionise our entire epoch. Where have I discovered it? By the Pacific Ocean, but the waving pine-forests of Sierra Nevada. I have seen the ideal figure of youthful American dancing over the top of the Rockies. The supreme poet of our country is Walt Whitman. I have discovered the dance that is worthy of the poem of Walt Whitman. I am indeed the spiritual daughter of Walt Whitman. For the children of America I will create a new dance that will express America. I bring to your theatre the vital soul that it lacks, the soul of the dancer. For you know...that the birth of the theatre was the dance, that the first actor was the dancer. He danced and sang. That was the birth of the tragedy, and until the dancer in all his spontaneous great art returns to the theatre, your theatre will not live in its true expression!
”
”
Isadora Duncan (My Life)
“
I want you to know that the idea of deserving something you want is only ever going to be an incomplete qualification. You’re far more likely to remember the reasons you shouldn’t have something you want than the reasons you should, and you’re far more likely to let shame steer you than joy.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Saint (Priest, #3))
“
So here’s to our blistered feet. Here’s to my whimpering knees, your weary shoulders. Here is the foreclosure of my shame and here is our brokenness. Look at us being so damn human: yes, it happened, yes, it was not our most graceful unfolding, and yes, we were both so present the whole time.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
The little prince in the book is so wise but so sad. Has so much to offer this world and yet he can’t stop pining for the one he loves.”
Colchester looked right into my eyes and I could not look away.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
Sounds a little like my quote for the week. Do you want to hear it? This is by Augustine: O soul, He only who created thee can satisfy thee. If thou ask for anything else, it is thy misfortune, for He alone made thee in His image can satisfy thee. That's rich, isn't it?
”
”
Robin Jones Gunn (With This Ring (Sierra Jensen, #6))
“
If education really educates, there will, in time, be more and more citizens who understand that relics of the old West add meaning and value to the new. Youth yet unborn will pole up the Missouri with Lewis and Clark, or climb the Sierras with James Capen Adams, and each generation in turn will ask: Where is the big white bear? It will be a sorry answer to say he went under while conservationists weren't looking.
”
”
Aldo Leopold (A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There)
“
The story of my birth that my mother told me went like this: "When you were coming out I wasn't ready yet and neither was the nurse. The nurse tried to push you back in, but I shit on the table and when you came out, you landed in my shit."
If there ever was a way to sum things up, the story of my birth was it.
”
”
Sierra D. Waters (Debbie.)
“
Whether it is North Korea, Sierra Leone, or Zimbabwe, well show that poor countries are poor for the same reason that Egypt is poor. Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where the government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty)
“
the wilderness should be preserved for political reasons. We may need it someday not only as a refuge from excessive industrialism but also as a refuge from authoritarian government, from political oppression. Grand Canyon, Big Bend, Yellowstone, and the High Sierras may be required to function as bases for guerrilla warfare against tyranny...The value of wilderness, on the other hand, as a base for resistance to centralized domination is demonstrated by recent history. In Budapest and Santo Domingo, for example, popular revolts were easily and quickly crushed because an urbanized environment gives the advantage to the power with technological equipment. But in Cuba, Algeria, and Vietnam the revolutionaries, operating in mountain, desert, and jungle hinterlands with the active or tacit support of a thinly dispersed population, have been able to overcome or at least fight to a draw official establishment forces equipped with all of the terrible weapons of twentieth century militarism.
”
”
Edward Abbey
“
I Won’t Fly Today
Too much to do, despite the snow,
which made all local schools close
their doors. What a winter! Usually,
I love watching the white stuff fall.
But after a month with only short
respites, I keep hoping for a critical
blue sky. Instead, amazing waves
of silvery clouds sweep over the crest
of the Sierra, open their obese
bellies, and release foot upon foot
of crisp new powder. The ski
resorts would be happy, except
the roads are so hard to travel
that people are staying home.
So it kind of boggles the mind
that three guys are laying carpet
in the living room. Just goes to
show the power of money. In less
than an hour, the stain Conner left
on the hardwood will be a ghost.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Perfect (Impulse, #2))
“
I love salmon. Of all my fishy friends, I love salmon the best. Or trout. Or tuna. Or smelts. Oh heck. I love them ALL! But I have such fond memories of salmon. See, my dad was a fisherman. I mean a fanatic fisherman. Fishing was probably what he liked to do most (along with gardening and riding horses and camping in the Sierra and bowling and… ) But honestly, folks, fishing was probably the winner for leisure-time activities.
”
”
Mallory M. O'Connor (The Kitchen and the Studio: A Memoir of Food and Art)
“
Why are some countries able, despite their very real and serious problems, to press ahead along the road to reconciliation, recovery, and redevelopment while others cannot? These are critical questions for Africa, and their answers are complex and not always clear. Leadership is crucial, of course. Kagame was a strong leader–decisive, focused, disciplined, and honest–and he remains so today. I believe that sometimes people's characters are molded by their environment. Angola, like Liberia, like Sierra Leone, is resource-rich, a natural blessing that sometimes has the sad effect of diminishing the human drive for self-sufficiency, the ability and determination to maximize that which one has. Kagame had nothing. He grew up in a refugee camp, equipped with only his own strength of will and determination to create a better life for himself and his countrymen.
”
”
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President)
“
There was a beat of perfect completeness, a moment where I felt as if I could pluck each and every atom out of the air, where magic and God and something sweetly beyond complete understanding was real, completely real.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Oh come on, haven't you ever known you shouldn't do something,but you couldn't help yourself?" Nataly's voice turned smooth and lulling. She smiled catlike. "The temptaion , the lure of a few moments of ecstasy is just too much to resist, and give in, even though you know you shouldn?"
Yes," Clarissa said, "I have those moments, They're called 'eating chocolate.
”
”
Sierra St. James
“
We took a bowl each and started eating. He went back into the little room, and by the time he returned to the table with his own bowl of food to eat with us, we had already finished. He was shocked and looked around to see if we had done something else with the food.
”
”
Ishmael Beah (A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier)
“
Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
The path to God has become binary: you find God as a monastic or clergy, or you find God as a layperson. There is precious little in between. Oblation comes close but is still only one thread when there used to be an entire tapestry.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Saint (Priest, #3))
“
I promise you, Lieutenant Embry Moore, I’ll let you fuck me someday.” “When?” I asked, my eyes raking along the thick, hard lines of his naked body. Even sated and asleep his cock was heavy and impressive, curved along his thigh. “When you’ve earned it.” “Am I close to earning it?” He smiled. “Not even.” Well, shit.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
Jealousy is a word with too many meanings. It’s a TARDIS of a word, bigger on the inside, a small, mean thing on the surface, but a complicated dance of emotions and negotiations within. I’m suffering with every single meaning of the word jealous.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
I have calculated the total number of hours
we spend sleeping beside each other in a week
and I wanted to tell you it could be considered
a full-time job. We could be eligible for healthcare
benefits, could probably even pay for a mortgage
by now. I remind myself of this, in daylight, when
I miss you and cannot reach across the bed
for the comforting filling and refilling
of your chest. Such a strange affair
we are having on each other; these hours
that I have not lost but do not remember.
This cannot be the best of love: to drool
on someone’s collarbone or inhale an elbow to
the jaw or be woken by the most ungraceful sounds
of the body. But what is it if not the softening
of grips? A letting go of. Your heart
finally slowly that stubborn, lonely march.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder
“
Great laughter rang from all sides. I wondered what the spirit of the Mountain was thinking; and looked up and saw jackpines in the moon, and saw ghosts of old miners, and wondered about it. In the whole eastern dark wall of the Divide this night there was silence and the whisper of the wind, except in the ravine where we roared; and on the other side of the Divide was the great western slope, and the big plateau that went to Steamboat Springs, and dropped, and led you to the eastern Colorado desert and the Utah desert; all in darkness now as we fumed and screamed in our mountain nook, mad drunken Americans in the mighty land. And beyond, beyond, over the Sierras the other side if Carson sink was bejeweled bay-encircled nightlike old Frisco of my dreams. We were situated on the roof of America and all we could do was yell, I guess - across the night, eastward over the plains where somewhere a man with white hair was probably walking toward us with the Word and would arrive any minute and make us silent.
”
”
Jack Kerouac (On the Road: The Original Scroll)
“
She took a sip of the coffee and then said, “Manna. Thank you, Sir.”
“Now I really do know how to punish you.”
She curled both hands around the mug. “You wouldn’t take away my coffee!”
“Only if I feared for my life,” he said, carrying food to the table.
”
”
Sierra Cartwright (In the Zone)
“
A number of years ago I had some experience with being alone. For two succeeding years I was alone each winter for eight months at a stretch in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Lake Tahoe. I was the caretaker on a summer estate during the winter months when it was snowed in. And I made some observations then. As time went on I found that my reactions thickened. Ordinarily I am a whistler. I stopped whistling. I stopped conversing with my dogs, and I believe that the subtleties of feeling began to disappear until finally I was on a pleasure-pain basis. Then it occurred to me that the delicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words. Can its reverse be true- a man who has no one to say anything to has no words as he has no need for words? ... Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.
”
”
John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley: In Search of America)
“
Belief is this. Praying when you don't feel like it, when you don't know who or what is listening; it's doing the actions with the trust that something about it matters. That something about it makes you more human, a better human, a human able to love and trust and hope in a world where those things are hard.
That is belief. That is the point of prayer. Not logging a wish list inside a cosmic ledger, not bartering for transactional services. You do it for the change around you; to the point of it is...itself. Nothing more and nothing less.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Sinner (Priest, #2))
“
Being a McKettrick meant claiming a piece of ground to stand on and putting your roots down deep into it. Holding on, no matter what came at you. It meant loving with passion and taking the rough spots with the smooth. It meant fighting for what you wanted, letting go when that was the best thing to do.
”
”
Linda Lael Miller (Sierra's Homecoming (McKettricks, #5))
“
Every time you gave me your trust, your obedience, and your surrender. Every time you fought me knowing you would lose, every time you carried me when I couldn’t limp along myself, and every breath and kiss you ever shared with me—it was all you saying yes, every moment of it. You’ve said yes to me so many times I’m surprised I could even hear the word no.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American King (New Camelot Trilogy, #3))
“
Bennie's corner of Brooklyn looked different every time Sierra passed through it. She stopped at the corner of Washington Avenue and St. John's Place to take in the changing scenery. A half block from where she stood, she'd skinned her knee playing hopscotch while juiced up on iceys and sugar drinks. Bennie's brother, Vincent, had been killed by the cops on the adjacent corner, just a few steps from his own front door. Now her best friend's neighborhood felt like another planet. The place Sierra and Bennie used to get their hair done had turned into a fancy bakery of some kind, and yes, the coffee was good, but you couldn't get a cup for less than three dollars. Plus, every time Sierra went in, the hip, young white kid behind the counter gave her either the don't-cause-no-trouble look or the I-want-to-adopt-you look. The Takeover (as Bennie had dubbed it once) had been going on for a few years now, but tonight its pace seemed to have accelerated tenfold. Sierra couldn't find a single brown face on the block. It looked like a late-night frat party had just let out; she was getting funny stares from all sides--as if she was the out-of-place one, she thought. And then, sadly, she realized she was the out-of-place one.
”
”
Daniel José Older (Shadowshaper (Shadowshaper Cypher, #1))
“
This was love, this was sacrifice, the opposite of sin, and maybe it was fucked up to feel like God was here with us in the back room of a strip club, but I did, like He was bearing witness to this moment where Poppy opened herself to the worst of me and erased it with her love, just like God did for us sinners every moment of every day.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Was it truly so terrible for a man of God to have sex? The Protestants had been doing it for half a millennium and they seemed no more hell-bound than the Catholics for it. And was it so wrong to want both? I wanted to lead this church, I wanted to help people find God. But dammit, I wanted Poppy too, and I didn’t think it was fair that I had to choose.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Priest (Priest, #1))
“
Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
His eyes search mine. “So why did I want to meet you today? Because I haven’t been able to stop wanting to meet you for ten years. Because I want you. I want to kiss you again. I want to learn everything about you, everything about what you love and hate, what you study, what you want for your future.” He reaches up, his thumb brushing against my lower lip. “I want you to be mine.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1))
“
You’re as intoxicating quiet as you are laughing. And you’re as beautiful serious as you are silly. And you are altogether more potent like this, more powerful, more stirring, and maybe it’s because silliness and contemplation are so much the same thing. Maybe it’s because no matter what you’re doing, you’re reminding me that I’m here and alive and that there’s more to living than work. That sometimes we can sleep in or play or pray and have nothing to show for it.
”
”
Sierra Simone (Saint (Priest, #3))
“
The snow on the high mountains is melting fast, and the streams are singing bank-full, swaying softly through the level meadows and bogs, quivering with sun-spangles, swirling in pot-holes, resting in deep pools, leaping, shouting in wild, exulting energy over rough boulder dams, joyful, beautiful in all their forms. No Sierra landscape that I have seen holds anything truly dead or dull, or any trace of what in manufactories is called rubbish or waste; everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons. This quick, inevitable interest attaching to everything seems marvelous until the hand of God becomes visible; then it seems reasonable that what interests Him may well interest us. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
”
”
John Muir
“
Mantra to Overcome Depression
Vitamin D. Sunlight. Go
outside. Get a good night
of sleep. Not too good.
Not shades drawn forever
good. Not like you used to.
Open the windows.
Buy more houseplants.
Breathe. Meditate. One day,
you will no longer be
afraid of being alone
with your thoughts.
Exercise. Actually exercise
instead of just Googling it.
Eat well. Cook for yourself.
Organize your closet, the
garage. Drink plenty of
water and repeat after me:
I am not a problem
to be solved. Repeat after me:
I am worthy I am worthy
I am neither the mistake nor
the punishment. Forget to take
vitamins. Let the houseplant die.
Eat spoonfuls of peanut butter.
Shave your head. Forget
this poem. It doesn't matter.
There is no wrong way
to remember the grace of your
own body; no choice
that can unmake itself.
There is only now, here
look: you are already
forgiven.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)
“
Today Means Amen
Dear you, whoever you are, however you got here,
this is exactly where you are supposed to be.
This moment has waited its whole life for you.
This moment is your lover and you are a soldier.
Come home, baby, it's over. You don't need
to suffer anymore. Dear you, this moment
is your surprise party. You are both hiding
in the dark and walking through the door.
This moment is a hallelujah. This moment
is your permission slip to finally open that love
letter you've been hiding from yourself,
the one you wrote when you were little
when you still danced like a sparkler at dusk.
Do you remember the moment you realized
they were watching? When you became
ashamed of how much light you were holding?
When you first learned how to unlove yourself?
Dear you, the word today means amen
in every language. Today, we made it. Today,
I'm going to love you. Today, I'm going
to love myself. Today, the boxcutter will rust
in the garbage. The noose will forget
how to hold you, today, today--
Dear you, and I have always meant you,
nothing would be the same if you
did not exist. You, whose voice is someone's
favorite voice, someone's favorite face
to wake up to. Nothing would be the same
if you did not exist. You, the teacher,
the starter's gun, the lantern in the night
who offers not a way home, but the courage
to travel farther into the dark. You, the lover,
who worships the taste of her body, who is
the largest tree ring in his heart, who does not
let fear ration your love. You, the friend,
the sacred chorus of how can I help.
You, who have felt more numb than holy,
more cracked than mosaic. Who have known
the tiles of a bathroom by heart, who have
forgotten what makes you worth it.
You, the forgiven, the forgiver, who belongs
right here in this moment. You, this clump
of cells, this happy explosion that happened
to start breathing, and by the grace of whatever
is up there, you got here. You made it
this whole way: through the nights
that swallowed you whole, the mornings
that arrived in pieces. The scabs, the gravel,
the doubt, the hurt, the hurt, the hurt
is over. Today, you made it. You made it.
You made it here.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)
“
Nonsense. Everyone knows Canadians are a peaceful people.” He was laughing now.
“Tell that to the White House circa 1812,” I told him.
“Oh? Why?”
“Because that’s the year the peace-loving Canadians burned it to the ground.”
Dominick grabbed an empty bottle and jumped onto his chair. The room got silent in an instant as everyone paused to look at him. “Cheers to 1812.” He lifted his empty bottle.
The whole room whooped and raised their full glasses, howling in unison.
I could barely hear over the sound of my own laughter.
”
”
Sierra Dean (Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen, #4))
“
I lean down and drop a kiss on the top of his head. “Goodbye, Achilles,” I whisper, and I leave Maxen Ashley Colchester alone with his head in his hands. I leave and get in my car and go back home, remembering the feel of his hair on my lips.
I will break from loving him, I think. I will split with it, burn with it.
And yet, for the first time, I know what I have to do. I know that I’m a good man, I know that I’d be a good leader. I know that I can stop Melwas and keep Greer safe. I know how to do it.
I have to become more than a prince.
I have to become a king myself.
”
”
Sierra Simone (American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy, #2))
“
I've often wondered what people mean when they talk about an experience. I'm a technologist and accustomed to seeing things as they are. I see everything they are talking about very clearly; after all, I'm not blind. I see the moon over the Tamaulipas desert--it is more distinct than at other times, perhaps, but still a calculable mass circling around our planet, an example of gravitation, interesting, but in what way an experience? I see the jagged rocks, standing out black against the moonlight; perhaps they do look like the jagged backs of prehistoric monsters, but I know they are rocks, stone, probably volcanic, one should have to examine them to be sure of this. Why should I feel afraid? There aren't any prehistoric monsters any more. Why should I imagine them? I'm sorry, but I don't see any stone angels either; nor demons; I see what I see--the usual shapes due to erosion and also my long shadow on the sand, but no ghosts. Why get womanish? I don't see any Flood either, but sand lit up by the moon and made undulating, like water, by the wind, which doesn't surprise me; I don't find it fantastic, but perfectly explicable. I don't know what the souls of the damned look like; perhaps like black agaves in the desert at night. What I see are agaves, a plant that blossoms once only and dies. Furthermore, I know (however I may look at the moment) that I am not the last or the first man on earth; and I can't be moved by the mere idea that I am the last man, because it isn't true. Why get hysterical? Mountains are mountains, even if in a certain light they may look like something else, but it is the Sierra Madre Oriental, and we are not standing in a kingdom of the dead, but in the Tamaulipas desert, Mexico, about sixty miles from the nearest road, which is unpleasant, but in what way an experience? Nor can I bring myself to hear something resembling eternity; I don't hear anything, apart from the trickle of sand at every step. Why should I experience what isn't there?
”
”
Max Frisch (Homo Faber)
“
I kind of was beginning to feel like I was being underutilized [as Teen Ambassador to the UN]. I mean, there were a lot more important issues out there for teens that I could have been bringing international attention to than what kids see out their windows. I mean, instead of sitting in the White House press office for three hours after school every Wednesday, or attending International Festival of the Child concerts, I could have been out there alerting the public to the fact that in some countries, it is still perfectly legal for men to take teen brides -- even multiple teen brides! What was that all about?
And what about places like Sierra Leone, where teens and even younger kids routinely get their limbs chopped off as "warnings" against messing with the warring gangs that run groups of diamond traffickers? And hello, what about all those kids in countries with unexploded land mines buried in the fields where they'd like to play soccer, but can't because it's too dangerous?
And how about a problem a little closer to home? How about all the teenagers right here in America who are taking guns to school and blowing people away? Where are they getting these guns, and how come they think shooting people is a viable solution to their problems? And why isn't anybody doing anything to alleviate some of the pressures that might lead someone to think bringing a gun to school is a good thing? How come nobody is teaching people like Kris Parks to be more tolerant of others, to stop torturing kids whose mothers make them wear long skirts to school?
”
”
Meg Cabot (All-American Girl (All-American Girl, #1))
“
God Bless Your Fingers
Ten sugar-dipped strawberries. Ten humming sailors. Let the church say amen. Let the chapel doors open and open again. Ten gentle explorers who found my body buried inside itself. Who can see in the dark. Who can baptize me from across the continent. Let the church of my legs say bless. Let the church of my breasts say oh god. You have found the presents I hid from you. You have grown in me a basin I can never fill. Ten wise men. Ten pilgrimages across my stomach. Ten lit candles. Ten holy ghosts. I am a séance. I am a séance.
”
”
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)