Submitted Quotes that Give You Joy :
It was Aileron who saw the light blaze in Arthur's face. The Warrior leaped from his horse down into the road and, at the top of his great voice, cried 'Cavall!'
Bracing his legs, he opened wide his arms and was knocked flying, nonetheless, by the wild leap of the dog. Over and over they rolled, the dog yelping in intoxicated delight, the Warrior mock growling in his chest. . . .
This is' asked Aileron with gentle irony, 'your dog?
– The Fionavar Tapestry : The Wandering Fire
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this, at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has, or had, a problem, which was this. Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans.
– The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“You looked a god in the eyes and bore witness for me, by which alone I am preserved.” She took a deep breath, through his mouth. “You looked a god in the eyes. And spoke for me. There is nothing in my power that I will ever refuse you, after that.”
– Penric's Demon
"The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off—and they are nearly always doing it.
Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic in her Ayah’s stories, and she always said that what happened almost at that moment was Magic."
– The Secret Garden
"Fulton Lorings wore a gray uniform decorated with enough brass and buttons and gold braid to make him look like he'd caught fire. He had a sword and pistol buckled over the top of a red sash around his middle. Crimson stripes ran down the sides of his trouser legs and into the boots shiny enough to see yourself in. The stars-and-bars cloth I made for him was wrapped around his face. Everything about him looked lean and razor-edged and magical. My heart ricocheted around inside my rib cage and I found it difficult to locate a breath.
Fulton held out a gloved hand. "Miss Merrell, you look lovely."
– Dark Angel
"Puck floated down to her, his wings flapping softly enough to allow him to hover.
"I bet you think this is hilarious. Look what you did to me with your stupid pranks. I have a tail!" she raged.
Puck's face was trembling. "I'm sorry."
"What?" Sabrina said blankly.
"I almost killed you. I'm sorry, Sabrina," he said, rubbing his eyes on his filthy hoodie. He lifted her off the tower and set her on the ground.
"Since when do you care?" Sabrina said, still stunned by the boy's apology."
– The Sisters Grimm : The Everafter War
"In their flight across the sky, they stirred up the winds and trampled the clouds, and as Thor coursed over a lonely fjord, he spied a single nanny goat below. Though old, he could see she was a noble beast, and had given her long life in service to her masters. And as her reward, berserker men were about to slaughter her for meat.
"Thor descended in his chariot but did not reach the warriors in time to save her. So the Thunderer waited until after she was butchered and then gathered up the nanny goat's skin. With it, he flew to his father Odin's great hall. And there he laid the skin upon the ground, and with Mjollnir restored to him, he used the hammer's power to fill the skin with flesh and bone and bring her back to life.
"And as soon as the nanny goat leapt to her feet, she pranced right up to one of Odin's enormous hall doors and butted it with her head, asking to be let in."
At that image of my Hilda, I laugh, this time with tears.
"And behold," Alric says. "The great doors opened, the goat was welcomed, and in she walked to find a place to sleep among our fallen heroes who wait in Odin's hall."
– Icefall
"Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride."
– Little Women
"That does me good, that's worth millions of money and pecks of praise. Oh, Marmee, I do try! I will keep on trying, and not get tired, since I have you to help me."
– Little Women
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
– The Twits
And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.
– The Perks of Being a Wallflower
HEY, BOWL, YOUR SHAPE IS INANE! FOOD PROBABLY FALLS OUT OF YOU ALL THE TIME! I BET YOU DON'T EVEN STACK WELL IN CABINETS! YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE THE WORST!
– Wings of Fire: Darkness of Dragons
Perhaps it is always restful to be around someone who does not expect anything from you beyond what is in your nature.
– Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
“Why are you sitting here beside me, then?'
'Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be.”"
– Jamaica Inn
"We do bones, motherfucker."
– Gideon the Ninth
“Slowly, Anna put up a hand to his muzzle and began to scratch that spot behind the ear where large dogs keep their souls.”
– A Countess Below Stairs
“Elliot was trying to teach himself trollish via a two-hundred-year-old book by a man who’d had a traumatic break-up with a troll. This meant a lot of commentary along the lines of “This is how trolls say I love you. FOOTNOTE: BUT THEY DON’T MEAN IT!”
– In Other Lands
Strange, isn’t it? To love a book. When the words on the pages become so precious that they feel like part of your own history because they are. It’s nice to finally have someone read stories I know so intimately.
– The Starless Sea
You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.
– The Night Circus
Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.
But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.
– The Wise Man's Fear
Fox squeezed past him, feeling his warmth like a home.
– Mirrorworld: The Golden Yarn
Well, if this band hates the establishment that much, then I doubt they’ll care about me making up my own words. They can’t oppress me with their “correct lyrics.” Fuck the system.
– Wayfarers: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
I love learning. I love history. But there's history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It's not limited to libraries and museums. I think people who spend their lives in school forget that sometimes.
– Wayfarers: A Closed and Common Orbit
I am seventy-nine years old. If I want dessert twice ... I get dessert twice.
– Wayfarers: Record of a Spaceborn Few
Take my day, they sang, but give me the night. Feed the hearth and ready the brew, for I am coming home to you.
– The Vanished Birds
So stop worrying about the past. The past is for ghosts. We’ve all done things that we regret. It’s what’s ahead of us that counts.
– Lockwood and Co.: The Screaming Staircase
Wrong. I’m not alone. I have my friends.
– Lockwood and Co.: The Whispering Skull
We were a total mess. We'd been up all night. We smelled of ectoplasm, salt, and fear. We looked at one another, and grinned.
Then we began laughing.
– Lockwood and Co.: The Hollow Boy
But Holly the gun-toting, wild-haired madwoman of the night before was in there somewhere, I knew. It made me look upon her with fond affection.
– Lockwood and Co.: The Creeping Shadow
She was a story, not an epilogue.
– Wayward Children: Every Heart a Doorway
You're nobody's rainbow.
You're nobody's princess.
You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.
– Wayward Children: Every Heart a Doorway
She had tried to make sure they knew that there were a hundred, a thousand, a million different ways to be a girl, and that all of them were valid, and that neither of them was doing anything wrong.
– Wayward Children: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
But children, ah, children. Children follow the foxes, and open the wardrobes, and peek beneath the bridge. Children climb the walls and fall down the wells and run the razor’s edge of possibility until sometimes, just sometimes, the possible surrenders and shows them the way to go home.
– Wayward Children: Beneath the Sugar Sky
She discovered the pure joy of reading for pleasure, and was rarely - if ever - seen without a book in her hand. Even in slumber, she was often to be found clutching a volume with one slender hand, her fingers wrapped right around its spine, as if she feared to wake into a world where all books had been forgotten and removed, and this book might become the last she had to linger over.
– Wayward Children: In an Absent Dream
Hope is a vicious beast. It sinks in its claws and it doesn't let go.
– Wayward Children: Come Tumbling Down
So that is where we will leave them, Hiccup and his friends: forever young, forever hopeful, singing their hearts out on the island of Tomorrow. Because… If it doesn’t end well, then it isn’t THE END.
– How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury
I never wanted to be a hero, but that doesn't mean I'll let you turn me into a villain.
– Wayward Children: Where the Drowned Girls Go
"Sometimes, you don't need a key", said Sumi. Her smile verged on feral. "Sometimes, a crowbar is good enough."
– Wayward Children: Where the Drowned Girls Go
It doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s yours, it’s enough.
– Wayward Children: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known
"Hello, Drowned Girl," said the turtle Vasyl. "Have you had a grand adventure?"
"I don't think so," said Nadya. "I had a journey, but I didn't have an adventure, not really. I didn't save anything important or find anything that had been lost."
"You saved yourself," said Vasyl. "I would think that is the most important adventure of all.
– Wayward Children: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear
"Go to bed, you fool," Calcifer said sleepily. "You're drunk."
"Who, me?" said Howl. "I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober." He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him.
– Howl's Moving Castle
"More about Howl? Sophie thought desperately. I have to blacken his name! Her mind was such a blank that for a second it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! 'Well, he's fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical,' she said. 'Half the time I think he doesn't care what happens to anyone as long as he's alright--but then I find out how awfully kind he's been to someone. Then I think he's kind just when it suits him--only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don't know, Your Majesty. He's a mess."
– Howl's Moving Castle
"Tell me of this wizard Howl of yours."
Sophie's teeth chattered, but she said proudly, "He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to do anything."
"Indeed?" asked Abdullah. "Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies."
"What do you mean, vices?" Sophie asked angrily. "I was just describing Howl!"
– Castle in the Air
Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?
– Anne of Green Gables
YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
– Hogfather
“We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.”
– Contact
It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. A person ignorant of the possibility of failure can be a half-brick in the path of the bicycle of history.
– Equal Rites
There should be a word for the microscopic spark of hope that you dare not entertain in case the mere act of acknowledging it will cause it to vanish, like trying to look at a photon. You can only sidle up to it, lookong past it, walking past it, waiting for it to get big enough to face the world.
– Mort
Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.
– Pyramids
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
– Guards, Guards !
Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.
– Reaper Man
Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out.
– Reaper Man
What have I always believed?
That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.
– Small Gods
It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
– Men at Arms
"Well, basically there are two sorts of opera," said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. "There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh I am dyin', oh oh oh, that's what I'm doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely.
– Maskerade
WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.
– Feet of Clay
"Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”
“Sir?”
“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”
– Feet of Clay
"You are in favour of the common people?” said Dragon mildly.
The common people?” said Vimes. “They’re nothing special. They’re no different from the rich and powerful except they’ve got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit. So I suppose I’ve got to be on their side.
– Feet of Clay
And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
– Carpe Jugulum
Maybe someone would write a play just for me, one where a real woman could fight with her sword, and had many fine adventures and changes of costume.
– The Privilege of the Sword
"Mistress,” the minstrel frowned, “if you were any sharper, we could sell you at the fair for scissors.
– Thomas the Rhymer
All you can do, Rosemary – all any of us can do – is work to be something positive instead. That is a choice that every sapient must make every day of their life. The universe is what we make of it. It’s up to you to decide what part you will play.
– The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
When I see the ocean, I feel calm. It makes me want to’ – to keep eating candy – ‘to keep going. To keep trying new things. To keep living.
– A Closed and Common Orbit
We’re made out of our ancestors. They’re what keep us alive.
– Record of a Spaceborn Few
"Knowledge should always be free,’ she said.
– Record of a Spaceborn Few
I'm an observer, not a conqueror. I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.
– To Be Taught If Fortunate
When the world turns chaotic, we must be the better part of chaos.
– All the Birds in the Sky
He went to make coffee. Because when you have just heard about the possible transformation of the human race into feral monsters you need to be doing something with your hands and creating something hot and comforting for another person.
– All the Birds in the Sky
Kneeling on St. Mary’s stone floor she had envisioned the candles and the cold, but not Lady Imeyne, waiting for Roche to make a mistake in the mass, not Eliwys or Gawyn or Rosemund. Not Father Roche, with his cutthroat’s face and worn-out hose.
She could never in a hundred years, in seven hundred and thirty-four years, have imagined Agnes, with her puppy and her naughty tantrums, and her infected knee. I’m glad I came, she thought. In spite of everything.
– Doomsday Book
The future, she thought, could not be predicted, and the shape of things could not be divined. To think otherwise was absurd. But they were young that morning, and they could cling to hope. Hope that the world could be remade, kinder and sweeter.
– Mexican Gothic
Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn't ask for anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly. Love, truth, beauty, wisdom and consolation against death. Who had said that? Someone else who loved books.
– Inkheart
Writing stories is a kind of magic, too.
– Inkheart
The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages.
– Inkheart
Dustfinger closed his eyes and listened.
He was home again.
– Inkspell
Stories never really end...even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.
– Inkspell
A reader doesn't really see the characters in a story; he feels them.
– Inkdeath
He held up a book then. “I'm going to read it to you for relax.”
“Does it have any sports in it?”
“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest Ladies. Snakes. Spiders... Pain. Death. Brave men. Cowardly men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.”
“Sounds okay,” I said and I kind of closed my eyes.
– The Princess Bride
Besides, no ghost in history had ever been treated in this manner. Accordingly, he determined to have vengeance, and remained till daylight in an attitude of deep thought.
– The Canterville Ghost
I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.
– The Catcher in the Rye
I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.
– The Catcher in the Rye
I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
– To Kill a Mockingbird
"Atticus, he was real nice."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.
– To Kill a Mockingbird
His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears.
“Hey, Boo,” I said.
– To Kill a Mockingbird
When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends.
– Northern Lights
Girl, every choice we make is a new tomorrow. Whole worlds waiting to be born.
– Ring Shout
A DEFINITION NOT FOUND
IN THE DICTIONARY
Not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children.
– The Book Thief
A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.
– The Book Thief
Stories aren’t always merely stories, you know.
– The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.
– Matilda
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
– Emma
Three words, large enough to tip the world. I remember you.
– The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
I love watching old movies. I watch the faces of long-dead actors on the screen, and I think about how they'll never truly die. I know that's a cliché but it happens to be true. Not just the famous ones who everyone knows, the Clark Gables, the Ava Gardners, but the bit players, the maid carrying the tray, the butler, the cowboys in the bar, the third girl from the left in the nightclub. They're all immortal to me.
– Station Eleven
'You hardly know me. Why do you want me to come with you?"
"Who knows? Perhaps you remind me just a bit of—"
"Someone you used to know?" Alec interjected skeptically.
"Someone I used to be."
– Nightrunner: Luck in the Shadows
As the staggered lines rushed past him, he thought about the space between what we remember and what happened, the space between what we predict and what will happen. And in that space, Colin thought, there was room enough to reinvent himself – room enough to make himself into something other than a prodigy, to remake his story better and different – room enough to be reborn again and again….There was room enough to be anyone – anyone except whom he’d already been, for if Colin had learned one thing from Gutshot, it’s that you can’t stop the future from coming. And for the first time in his life, he smiled thinking about the always-coming infinite future stretching out before him.
– An Abundance of Katherines
"At first I was protecting you two because I promised. Now even if I hadn't promised, I would. You two are like kittens to me. I won't fail you again."
– The Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid
"I'm not going to die," she said. "Not till I've seen it."
"Seen what?"
Her smile widened. "Everything."
– Shades of Magic: A Darker Shade of Magic
He would see her again. He knew he would. Magic bent the world. Pulled it into shape. There were fixed points. Most of the time they were places. But sometimes, rarely, they were people. For someone who never stood still, Lila felt like a pin in Kell's world. One he was sure to snag on.
– Shades of Magic: A Darker Shade of Magic
Would it help to break something else?'
She was breathing hard.
'Maybe.'
Darlington rose and opened a cupboard, then another, and another, revealing shelf after shelf of Lenox, Waterford, Limoges-glassware, plates, pitchers, platters, butter dishes, gravy boats, thousands of dollar's worth of crystal and china. He took down a glass, filled it with wine, and handed it to Alex.
'Where would you like to start?'
– Alex Stern: Ninth House
Victor Vale was not a fucking sidekick.
– Villains: Vicious
She wasn't interested in telling other people's futures. She was interested in going out and finding her own.
– The Raven Cycle: The Raven Boys
In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.
– The Raven Cycle: The Dream Thieves
Gansey strode between the pews as Adam's father stared at him. He went directly to the bench, straight up to the judge. Now that he stood directly beside Adam, not looking at him, Adam could see that he was a little out of breath. Ronan, behind him, was as well. they had run.
For him.
– The Raven Cycle: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny.
– Wicked
You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.
– The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The villages were lighting up, constellations that greeted each other across the dusk. And, at the touch of his finger, his flying-lights flashed back a greeting to them. The earth grew spangled with light signals as each house lit its star, searching the vastness of the night as a lighthouse sweeps the sea. Now every place that sheltered human life was sparkling. And it rejoiced him to enter into this one night with a measured slowness, as into an anchorage.
– Night Flight
Angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves.
– The Singing Hills Cycle: The Empress of Salt and Fortune
"I meant," said Ipslore, bitterly, "what is there in this world that makes living worth while?"
Death thought about it. "CATS, he said eventually, CATS ARE NICE."
– Sourcery
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
– Lord Peter Wimsey: Gaudy Night
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
– The Little Prince
She could love Charles Wallace.
– A Wrinkle in Time
It's hazy, but she remembers Jane telling her about drag shows she used to go to in the '70s, the balls, how queens would go hungry for weeks to buy gowns, the shimmering nightclubs that sometimes felt like the only safe places. She lets Jane's memories transpose over here, now, like double-exposed film, two different generations of messy, loud, brave and scared and brave again people stomping their feet and waving hands with bitten nails, all the things they share and all the things they don't, the things she has that people like Jane smashed windows and spat blood for.
– One Last Stop
After a long silence, Dodge cleared his throat. "I think I speak for all of us when I say, 'Huh?'"
– The Looking Glass Wars : Seeing Redd
Curiouser and curiouser !
– Alice in Wonderland
Not everything about the Wind was bad. Sometimes it blew through the little voids and crevices of the Statues and caused them to sing and whistle in surprising ways; I had never known the Statues to have voices before and it made me laugh for sheer delight.
– Piranesi
Carey liked the fact that Michelangelo had had his nose broken as a teenager, for being too much of a smart mouth; a reminder that he was human. A badge of imperfection.
– Bridge of Clay
I didn’t need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back.
– Paper Towns
MESSENGER: My lord, your brother John has been detained
And brought with an armed guard back to Messina."
– Much Ado About Nothing
"After the shock of Mary Frances's metamorphosis, each of the girls in my class got our first periods over the next two years, one after another. We learned to anticipate, to steer girls toward the bathroom when the time came, to be quick with a cardigan to tie around someone's waist when the back of the skirt began to darken. We started carrying purses with us, and learned to keep something extra to help a girl out in her time of need. We carried aspirin, and gum, and maybe even a little clutch of tissues. We looked out for one another. Even when we weren't particularly good friends. We all learned that this was the sort of thing that superseded friendship-- it was deeper, and older, and more important. We knew that each girl-- no matter how many had gone before-- would spend time in shock when they changed. From the pain of it. From the redness and abundance of the blood. From the inexorable assault, month after month, whether we wanted it or not. We knew that such shock needed care and understanding.
For me, it happened at school at the very end of sixth grade. Two girls whisked me to the bathroom and clucked and preened over me, speaking softly and soothingly as they helped me clean up. These girls were not my friends before this day, and would not be after. I would still never sit with them at lunch, nor would I be invited to their daily game of foursquare. I was unbothered by any of this. This sort of interaction, I knew without being told, was deeper, and older, and more important than friendship. One girl dabbed my face with a cool cloth while the other showed me how to construct a makeshift belt using shoelaces and a sock to hold sanitary napkins and how to fasten the whole thing with a series of clever knots under my clothes. It was uncomfortable, but it felt secure enough.
"You should probably tell your mother when you get home," one said-- her name was Lydia-- as she reapplied her lipstick. We weren't allowed to wear lipstick at school, so she wore a shade that was so close to the color of her own lips that it didn't look like she was wearing lipstick at all. I asked why, and she said, "Practice.""
– When Women Were Dragons
"That's love for you. It's why we're all here, after all. And why we hang on."
– When Women Were Dragons
"I see what you think of me," said he, gravely; "I shall make but a poor figure in your journal to-morrow."
"My journal!"
"Yes; I know exactly what you will say:- Friday went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings- plain black shoes- appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense."
– Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
"Now it was over. Ended forever. I was made anew. Ella. Just Ella. Not Ella, the slave. Not a scullery maid. Not Lela. Not Eleanor. Ella. Myself unto myself. One. Me."
– Ella Enchanted
"I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play."
– The Hunger Games: Mockingjay
Humans cannot fly, but they can get the flying feeling. All they need to do is go out at night into a wild storm where the thunder roars like applause and the lightning throws itself in daggers of light at your bare feet and you suddenly find you are not afraid.
– Caddy Ever After
As I looked out, a young coyote came slowly out of the trees, delicately lifting and shaking each paw before gingerly putting it down again in the snow. Step, flick, pause ... step, flick, pause.... There was an expression on its face of such great disgust that I laughed. Startled, it looked up and saw me on the porch, and then I swear it sneered at me. It turned slowly on the spot and went back into the trees the way it had come, trying to step in its own tracks, still step-flick-pausing as it went.
– The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Though her eyes glittered she was not crying; in fact she pulled a smile from somewhere. Her hair was roped back in a French braid from which it was very winningly coming loose, and she held before her a picnic basket with a clasped lid. For heartening sights nothing beats a well-packed picnic basket. One so full it creaks. One carried by a lady you would walk on tacks for. Does all this make her sound beautiful to you? Because she was-- oh, yes. Though she hadn't seemed so to be a week before, when she turned and faced us I was confused at her beauty and could only scratch and look down at my shoetops, as the dumbfounded have done through the centuries. Swede was wordless too, though later in an epic fervor she would render into verse Roxanna's 'moment of transfiguration.' I like the phrase, which hasn't been thrown around that much since the High Renaissance, but truly I suppose that moment had been gaining on us, secretly, like a new piece of music played while you sleep. One day you hear it-- a strange song, yet you know by heart.
– Peace Like a River
