Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly.
Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.
Things that are unsightly: birthmarks, infidelity, strangers in one's kitchen. Too much sunlight. Stitches. Missing teeth. Overlong guests.
I hope, in years to come, I shall hold my heart up and it will be a pane of clear glass, through which I see all, but nothing is distorted.
It is harder, usually, to find a person who wants to walk the streets of me, to taste the teas of my country, to... immigrate, you could say.
It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.
Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.
Well, very splendid and very frightening. But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all.
Everybody's strange everywhere. Most of the trick of being a social animal is pretending you're not. But who do you fool? Nobody worth talking to.
War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving.
She knew herself, how she had slowly, over years, become a cat, a wolf, a snake, anything but a girl. How she had wrung out her girlhood like death.
No, not like this, when I have not seen you without your skin on, when I know nothing, when I am not safe. Not you, whose name all my nightmares know.
When little ones say they want to go home, they almost never mean it. They mean they are tired of this particular game and would like to start another.
It is true that novelists are shameless and obey no decent law, and they are not to be trusted on any account, but some Mysteries even they must honor.
And if they thought her aimless, if they thought her a bit mad, let them. It meant they left her alone. Marya was not aimless, anyway. She was thinking.
But this is a story, and in a story there is always someone beautiful enough." - 'The Girl with Two Skins' from A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects
So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.
Her father’s shadow looked sadly down at her. “You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war either.
I try to hurt myself, to sprain something, writing every novel and story, because I'm stretching for something new and difficult that I haven't done before.
I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.
…everything has a narrative, really, and if you can’t understand a story and relate to it, figure out how you fit inside it, you’re not really alive at all.
You cannot escape where you come from, September. Some part of it remains inside you always, like the slender white heart in the center of the thickest onion.
If I stop, I shall sink and die. That's the way I'm made. I have to keep going always, and even when I get where I'm going, I'll have to keep on. That's living.
I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like to get lost, because then I'd know where I was going, you see.
If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life.
First, the avid student must be aware that when the world was young it knew only seven things: water, life and death, salt, night, birds and the length of an hour.
I'm very touchy feely with my fandom, in part because they've never done me wrong or hurt me in any way. This is an awesome balance. I hope it stays that way forever.
Stories,' the green-eyed Sigrid said, unperturbed, 'are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words.
... but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying.
Slowly, without taking his eyes from hers, the man in the black coat knelt before her. ”I have come for the girl in the window,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears
Woman! Come out! I have—" She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. "I have come to rescue you," she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.
Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles—and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut.
As all mothers know, children travel faster than kisses. The speed of kisses is, in fact, what Doctor Fallow would call a cosmic constant. The speed of children has no limits.
It appeals to the higher nature of the self to put aside food which once lived - I do not consider myself food, why should I ask all other creatures to consider themselves so?
We all have someone we think shines so much more than we do that we are not even a moon to their sun, but a dead little rock floating in space next to their gold and their blaze.
I am a practical girl, and a life is only so long. It should be spent in as much peace and good eating and good reading as possible and no undue excitement. That is all I am after.
You were so near death that ghosts crowded around you, weeping silver tears, waiting for you with such smiles. You humans, you know, whoever built you sewed irony into your sinews.
Do you know, Masha, how revelation comes? Like death. So sudden, though you knew all along it must occur. A revelation is always the end of something. It might even be cause for grief.
The smell of loving is a difficult one to describe, but if you think of the times when someone has held you close and made you safe, you will remember how it smells just as well as I do.
That's Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It's nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night.
... relationships required such vigilance, such attention. You had to hold them together by force of will, and other people took up so much space, demanded so much time. It was exhausting.
Everyone is a criminal! We are beset on all sides by antirevolutionary forces. Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught.
Truly, Autumn is my season,” the scarlet beast chorted. “Spring and Summer and Winter all begin with such late letters! But Autumn and Fall, I have loved best, because they are best to love.
There is no such thing as a people who are all wicked or even all good. Everyone chooses. But even they, even they looked at people and saw only tools. No one is a cup for another to drink from.
September had never been betrayed before. She did not even know what to call the feeling in her chest, so bitter and sour. Poor child. There is always a first time, and it is never the last time.
She who invented words, and yet does not speak; she who brings dreams and visions, yet does not sleep; she who swallows the storm, yet knows nothing of rain or wind. I speak for her; I am her own.
She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons, like wineskins. Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.
At the snowy summit of all these things, however, is the fact that you simply cannot go about locking your siblings in towers when they misbehave. It is unseemly and betrays a sad lack of creativity.
All stories must end so, with the next tale winking out of the corners of the last pages, promising more, promising moonlight and dancing and revels, if only you will come back when spring comes again.
Some girls have to go to college to discover what they are good at; some are born doing what they must without even truly knowing why. I felt a hole in my heart shaped like a dark door I needed to guard.