Quotations
Things Read
"A lie, for Weasel, was a mirror. It reflected truth turned the other way round."
--The Beggar Queen, Lloyd Alexander
"Dear Mother: I am doing well. Stop worrying about me."
--Anonymous Egyptian, 1000 B.C.
"...everything that passes unattempted is impossible."
--The Illearth War, Stephen R. Donaldson
"Those who value peace above all things are the last to obtain it."
--A Wayside Tavern, Norah Lofts
"What rat-faced sludge of turtle spawn has beslimed this chamber uninvited?... Were you not hairless, brainless, ancient, and badly addled, I would stir myself to be annoyed with you. Since your mother was obviously a kitchen drain and your father a festering rag, I must assume you do not know you have been rude. You may beg my pardon or remove your presence and its unbearable odor from the room."
--Nameless Magery, Delia Marshall Turner
"Whenever she returned to it Froniga found fresh delight in her home. When she got up on fine mornings she would find her window covered with frost flowers, with behind them the fires of the rising sun. She could not see the sun, she could only see the flame that seemed sparkling and crackling just behind her window, and she would stretch out her arms and laugh with joy. The fire on her hearth had never seemed to burn so merrily. The apple logs had blue and yellow flames, the cherry logs smelt like flowers and the burning fir cones were edged with the same color that had sparkled behind the frost flowers on her window. She would kneel before the hearth, warming her hands and singing, and Pen her white cat would weave round and round her purring and vibrating. But Pen was not so white as the snowflakes that fell outside her window, sometimes singly, like the feathers of a white swan that had passed overhead, sometimes in dense masses of falling light. Her room too was then so full of light that the flames on the hearth paled and did not come into their own again until dark came and she drew the curtains, and sat with her spinning wheel before the fire."
--The White Witch, Elizabeth Goudge
"A cannon ball makes only two thousand miles an hour; light makes two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."
--Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
"Second thoughts can generally be amended with judicious action; injudicious actions can seldom be recovered with second thoughts."
--Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
"Cast your eyes on the ocean,
Cast your soul to the sea;
When the dark night seems endless,
Please remember me."
--Loreena McKennitt, "Dante's Prayer"
"My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it."
--Ursula K. Le Guin
"Don't turn away: it's only love,
Quietly coming to you,
Whispering through you.
Take my hand -- it's only love.
Let it come through you slowly.
Don't be afraid --
it's only love."
--The Scarlet Pimpernel (show not book)
"The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit - this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden."
--Goethe
"There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from unseen roots of all created being."
--Thomas Merton
"Nothing is so good it lasts eternally;
Perfect situations must go wrong --
But this has never yet prevented me
Wanting far too much, for far too long..."
--"Chess"
"The heart cherishes secrets not worth the telling."
--Stephen R. Donaldson
Q: What's your view on life?
A: I think, on the whole, it's infinitely better than the alternatives.
--Neil Gaiman
Things Heard
"Geniuses are supposed to be temperamental, but someone should tell the world that being temperamental doesn't make you a genius."
--Amy
"I like my food the way I like my jokes -- not too old, and not too cheesy."
--zLaNa
"But I like all sorts of people. They are so pretty and neat-lookin'. Big people, little people, round people."
--Amber
"Good morning!" "We don't deal in value judgments before noon."
--Auntie Katie and Daddy
"I mean, I thought Enjolras' whole goal was to stop people from screwing [Patria], not screw her himself."
--Jeni, on Enjolras Romances
"Wise man once say: teach a man to steal a loaf of bread, he eat for one day; teach him to BAKE a loaf of bread, he feed France's urchins for very short lifetime."
--Ben
"Guillotines are just comforting."
--Meghan
"Don't make fun of my sugar intake, you dork!"
--zLaNa
"You're channelling the PIZZA?!?"
--Me. Long story.
"This [webpage] has more java than the local Starbucks. No wonder it froze my computer..."
--Laura
"There's very little I don't know... another matter entirely is if what I know is correct."
--Petri Peltonen
Laura: "Shakespeare had more contradictions and metaphors than you could shake a stick at."
Amy: "Yes, but he and Marlowe were the only literate people in England at the time, so they could do what they liked."
"Hell hath no fury like a woman released from her job."
--Ben
"Slash, meaning boys gettin' it on. Except they don't, because I can't write smut."
--La Corneille
"Spelling, ma petite chou, is sexy."
--Laura
"Plotless vignettes have infinite utility."
--attributed to Amy-Chimara
"Don't look at me like that." "I'm not looking at anybody! I haven't got my eyes on!"
--zLaNa and Maman
"Just imagine if everyone treated their hobbies like some of these [fanfic] writers. Sheesh. You'd have a lot of injured people."
--La Corneille, taekwondo enthusiast. *g*
"The trouble with flaying people is it's kinda with the messy."
--zLaNa
"By the libidinous rope burns of Mars and Venus!"
--Darcel Grantaire
"'Yeah, sure he can shoot people and fight really well and spy and do surgery and speak many languages, but -- Stephen, don't touch that! Jesus! Somebody come look after this man while I do important boat things!'"
--afrai on the Aubrey-Maturin dynamic