Quotedump: Broken Empire Series

 I find it's the coldest threats that reach the deepest.

Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it. Heroes on the other hand, they make terrible torturers. They don't see what motivates a normal man.

Terror and entertainment are weapons of statehood.

I lived in a world of soft things, mutable truths, gentle touches, laughter for its own sake.

Assassination is just murder with a touch more precision.

Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak.

Sometimes a bit of pain's just what we need: to cauterize the word, burn out the infection.

When in doubt, reach for the wisdom of others.

When in doubt, let your hate lead you.

Never trust a lettered man.

There are few things more satisfying than taking out your frustrations upon the bearer of bad tidings. 

Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you’ll find an edge to cut you.

I looked into my own darkness. I knew what it was to be trapped, and to watch ruination.

Each day the memories weigh a little heavier. Each day they drag you down that bit further. You wind them around you, a single thread at a time, and you weave your own shroud, you build a cocoon, and in it madness grows.

You sit here with your yesterdays queuing at your shoulder. You listen to their reproach and curse those that gave you life.

Hate will keep you alive where love fails.

It was a defeat, resorting to crude threats in a game of subtlety, but sometimes one must sacrifice a battle to win the war.

Is revenge a science, or an art?

There's something brittle in me that will break before it bends.

The road may ever go on, but we don't:  we wear out, we break. Age makes different things of different men. It will harden some, sharpen them, to a point.

Hold to a thing long enough, a secret, a desire, maybe a lie, and it will shape you.

I held to my anger, drank from my well of poison.

We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretense of understanding.

The biggest lies we save for ourselves.

Some pain you can distance yourself from, but a headache sits right where you live.

There's something magical about a departed headache. It's a shame the joy fades and you can't appreciate not having one every moment of your life.

We're brittle things, us men.

When a game cannot be won, change the game.

With enough hurt, we all sound the same.

Wounded is good. Sometimes wounded is better than dead. The wounded cause trouble. If you let them.

A man who's got no fear is missing a friend.

To know thyself must be terribly dull.

We die a little every day and by degrees we're reborn into different men, older men in the same clothes, with the same scars.

As a child, there's a horror in discovering the limitations of the ones you love. The time you find that your mother cannot keep you safe, that your tutor makes a mistake, that the wrong path must be taken because the grown-ups lack the strength to take the right one... each of those moments is a theft of your childhood, each a blow that kills some part of the child you were, leaving another part of the man exposed, a new creature, tougher but tempered with bitterness and disappointment.

Trust is a fine thing but try not to build plans upon it.

When pain bites, men bargain.

The thing about the path less travelled is that it is often less travelled for a good reason.

Anger always opens a new reserve, a little something you'd forgotten about.

So much in life is simply a matter of timing.

Disguise lies in how you move.

You can't present your good side to the whole world.

Sometimes you can only win if you're prepared to sacrifice everything.

After all, getting everything you wish for is nearly as dire a curse as having all your dreams come true.”

No half measures. Some things can’t be cut in half. You can’t half-love someone. You can’t half-betray, or half-lie.

We're fashioned by our sorrows - not by joy - they are the undercurrent, the refrain. Joy is fleeting.

I maintain a balanced view of the world, but that balance is always in my favor.

Hurt spreads and grows and reaches out to break what’s good. Time heals all wounds, but often it’s only by the application of the grave, and while we live some hurts live with us, burning, making us twist and turn to escape them. And as we twist, we turn into other men.

There are hard paths and there are the hardest paths.

Too much soft living and peace can choke a man sure as any rope.

Sin doesn't stick to a child's skin the way it clings to a man's.

When age speaks to youth, it goes unheard.

Too much cleverness can be a torment to a man, setting his wits against his faith.

Even clever men could be fools.

A married man is always outnumbered.

The world eats good men for breakfast.

Fear and ambition, a good combination.

Lesson in life -- keep moving.

Men have far more to fear than boys.

Though I might walk where angels fear to tread, I try not to rush in like a fool.

We all carry the seeds of our own destruction with us, we all drag our history behind us like rusted chain.

A man who can't make sacrifices has lost before he starts.

If you must run, have something to run toward, so it feels less like cowardice.

Alea iacta est. The die is cast.

It's an unsettling business having to re-evaluate your world view.

It's an irony of our times that men seeking peace must make war.

The worst traps are the ones we lay for ourselves.

My anger is never more than a moment away. It makes a fool of me more times than I can say.

My whole life has been a series of dangerous choices wrestled around to better outcomes.

Dark times call for dark choices.

Men to die with rather than for.

There's a power in the telling of a truth.

Whilst the holy man may fail in any moment, the damned may in any moment reach for redemption.

Quotedump

Seducing Mr. Knightley - Maya Rodale

Life takes a strange turn upon occasion, does it not?

He would talk. They always did with the hangman's noose swaying in the not-too-far-future.

Funny, the power of an almost kiss.

Cool verging on cold.

Did love really require grand gestures? Wasn't true love to be found in the little things, like holding one's hand or sitting comfortably around a gentle fire?

(Like) the world had met her low expectations.

That was the problem with longstanding friends -- they felt utterly free to go too far and to enjoy every step they took over the line.

He drank, as a man is wont to do when confronted with his innermost emotions, particularly ones pertaining to the heart.

I think you might be absolutely mad, but that is always what they say of the most courageous.

We might as well go for broke.

There was something wild and exciting about a man who might be imprisoned. It meant he was bold, daring, adventurous, as if he could be a hero or a villain in equal measure.

Fools will persist in their madness, will they not?

It involves a lover, of course, as all great gossip does.

Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman

The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun longs for something dark and deep.

Desire had a way of making people oddly courageous.

The most dangerous thing of all in matters of love was to be granted your heart's desire.

Some people cannot be warned away from disaster.

Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn't let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake.

Goodness, in their opinion, was not a virtue but merely spinelessness and fear disguised as humility.

Sometimes the right thing felt all wrong until it was over and done with.

Crossed knives set out on the dinner table means there's bound to be a quarrel.

Everything goes wrong if you give it enough time.

A white lie doesn't count if you cross your fingers behind your back, or if you tell it so that someone you love will stop crying.

If a woman is trouble, she should always wear blue for protection.

People want to ignore what they can't understand.

Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more.

Unrequited love is so boring.

Two sisters cannot live in the same house and ignore each other for long.

It's easy to forget what you do in the dark, if you need to.

Grief is all around; it's just invisible to most people.

Pride is a funny thing; it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure.

You can usually uncover the truth, or a version of it at any rate, if you ask enough questions.

The greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself.

There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs

The easiest kind of lying is when you leave things out of a story rather than make them up.

When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking.

A supernova in miniature.

What an unchallenging life it would be if we always got things right on the first go.

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.

How To Tame Your Duke - Juliana Gray

Beware the man who has nothing at all to say for himself.

Is it not strange that love borders so much open hate? But this wicked love is not like the true virtuous love, to be sure: that and hatred must be as far off, as light and darkness. And how must this hate have been increased, if he had met with such a base compliance, after his wicked will had been gratified.

How To Master Your Marquis - Juliana Gray

Only a man with something to hide kept his face from revealing anything at all.

Pain didn't exist in finite quantities that could be transferred to someone else. Pain was elastic, it stretched and grew.

Perhaps it was true, that in suffering for another's sake you achieved some sort of absolution for your own sins, uncounted and unpunished.

The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton - Miranda Neville

When a gentleman offers advice, pretend to consider it before doing whatever you originally planned.

The tyranny of affection is hard to withstand.

Dismiss the follies of your youth and hope others are equally forgetful.

When it comes to a book, the good bits are always worth reading again.

It's easy to be brave when nothing threatens you.

Quotedump

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Helen Fielding

Poleaxed by pain, as though a great stake was ramming me to the bed, straight to the heart, unable to move in case I disturbed the pain and it spread.

KBO: Keep Buggering On.

Better to die of botox than die of loneliness because you're so wrinkly.

It's always nice when things go badly for other people. Especially when they've just been rude to you.

You see, this is the trouble with the modern world. If it was the days of letter-writing, I would never have even started to find a pen, a piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp, and Leatherjacketman's home address and gone outside at 11:30pm with two children asleep in the house to find a postbox. A text is gone at the brush of a fingertip, like a nuclear bomb or Exocet missile.

THE DATING RULES:
* Do not text when drunk
* Always be classy, never be crazy
* Be on time
* Use Authentic Communication
* Do not go to the wrong place
* Do not confuse him. Be rational, congruent, and consistent.
* Do not obsess or fantasize.
* Do not obsess or fantasize when driving.
* Respons to what is actually going on, not what you wish was going on.
* On first date just go along with whatever he suggests (unless Morris dancing, dogfight, obvious booty call, etc.)
* Be sure he makes you feel happy.
* Try to retain some vestige of objectivity.
* When he comes, we welcome. When he goes, we let him go.
* Don't get stoned or pissed out of brain.
* Be calm smiling goddess of light.
* Allow things to unfold like a petal at their own pace, e.g. do not demand to make third date in insecure panic in middle of sex on second date.
* Wear something sexy but that you feel comfortable in.
* Stay calm, confident, and centered re: whole thing -- consider meditation, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, antipsychotic medication, etc.
* Don't come on too obviously strong, but do do sensual things like stroking stem of wine glass up and down.
* Don't pre-arrange first-time sex.
* Don't try to have sex too soon.
* Don't make him feel caged.
* Never mention any of the following: exes, how fat you are, how insecure you are, problems, issues, money, cellulite, Botox, liposuction, facial peels/ lasers/ microdermabrasion, etc., control undergarments, possible shared parking permits when married, seating plans for wedding reception, babysitters, marriage/ religion (unless you've just realized he's a polygamous Mormon, in which case get blind drunk and bring up all of the previous in one hysterical gabble and excuse yourself because you feel fat and have to get back for the babysitter).
* Create beautiful memories.
* Do not text while drunk.

There's nothing nicer than a friend who claims her own children are more badly behaved than your own.

It's an interesting thing, the ages at which men and women want each other more than the other does:

TWENTIES: Women have the upper hand because pretty much everyone wants to shag them so they have a lot of power. And twenty-something men are super-horny but haven't made it in their careers yet.

THIRTIES: Men definitely have the upper hand. Thirties is the worst possible time for a woman to be dating: whole thing increasingly loaded by biologically unfair ticking clock: a clock which will hopefully soon be transformed, by the perfection of Jude-style egg-freezing, into silent digital clock with no need for an alarm. Meanwhile, men sense it like sharks scenting blood and are also simultaneously perfecting their careers, so the balance tips more and more in their favor until...

FORTIES: Not sure about this because I was with Mark most of the time. Maybe about equal? If you take babies out of the equation. Or maybe men think they're on top because they think they want younger women and think age-equivalent women want them. But actually secretly the women equally want younger men. And the younger men like the older women because they're refreshingly not looking to them to be breadwinners and not thinking about babies any more.

FIFTIES: It used to be the age of Germaine Greer's "Invisible Woman", branded as non-viable, post-menopausal sitcom fodder. But now with the Talitha school of branding combined with Kim Cattrall, Julianne and Demi Moore, etc. is all starting to change!

SIXTIES: Balance completely shifting, as men realize they've got as far as they're going to get in their careers and that they've never really made friends in the way women do, but just talked about golf and stuff. And women take better care of themselves -- look at Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley!

SEVENTIES: Definitely women have the upper hand, and still do themselves out nicely, and make a nice home and cook and --

Love feeling that there is someone else out there who cares about all the little things you yourself get excited about.

The fantastic thing about texting is that it allows you to have an instant, intimate, emotional relationship giving each other a running commentary on your lives, without taking up any time whatsoever or involving meetings or arrangements or any of the complicated things which take place in the boring old non-cyber world.

After a certain age, people are just going to do what they're going to do and you're either going to accept them as they are or you're not.

There was such a rush of joy and relief that we were back with that secure feeling of knowing someone cares, and understands your sense of humor, and it wasn't all cold and empty and over, we were still there.

We do not wallow. We do not descend into feelings of being crap with men. We do not think that everyone else's life is perfect except ours.

It only takes a really bad thing to nearly happen to make you appreciate what you have.

**

Allegiant, Veronica Roth

She is a woman of muscle twisted around bone.

Chaos and destruction do tend to take away a person's dating possibilities.

When you kill someone you love, the hard part is never over. It just gets easier to distract yourself from what you've done.

Confidence alone can get a person into a forbidden place.

The dauntless serum gives hallucinated realities, Candor's gives truth, Amity's gives peace, Erudite's gives death, Abnegation's resets memory.

Dauntless: brave but cruel
Erudite: intelligent but vain
Amity: peaceful but passive
Candor: honest but inconsiderate
Abnegation: selfless but stifling

People can't really be trusted to lie consistently.

Tricking someone into grief is one of the cruelest tricks a person can play.

Desperation can make a person do surprising things.

Knowledge is power. Power to do evil... or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.

It's not always wise to strike as hard as you can at the first opportunity.

If someone offers you an opportunity to get closer to your enemy, you always take it.

Such a grim view of human nature you have.

When you control information, or manipulate it, you don't need force to keep people under your thumb. They stay there willingly.

I am wary of desperate people.

There's bravery and then there's masochism.

I used to think that when people fell in love, they just landed where they landed, and they had no choice in the matter afterward. And maybe that's true of beginnings, but it's not true of this, now... I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.

Don't confuse your grief with guilt.

When someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing -- the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.

It's not often you encounter the real person behind a good-natured mask, the darkest parts of someone. It's not comfortable when you do.

Maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories, until time dulls the hurt and the anger, and the wrong is forgotten.

A fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.

Life damages us, every one.

**

Firefly Lane, Kristin Hannah

Drama, she'd learned, was like good punctuation: it underscored your point.

Here's what they didn't teach you in college: Get into the middle of it. Wade in.

You want a lot from this world. Me, I just want you.

No one bruised as easily as a believer.

That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make you cry and break your heart, but in the end, when the chips were down, they were there, making you laugh even in your darkest hours.

They'd loved each other. With the wisdom of time and the passing of years, she knew that. She knew, too, that love didn't evaporate. It faded, perhaps, lost its weight like bones left out in the sun, but it didn't go away.

Keep lighting the world on fire. Those words were both an encouragement and an indictment.

Motherhood at times like this - most times - was about the steel in your spine, not the bend.

That was the sly, ruinous thing about motherhood, the thing that twisted your insides with guilt and made you change your mind and lower your standards: giving in was so damn easy.

**

Let It Snow, John Green Maureen Johnson & Lauren Myracle

Proximity doesn't breed familiarity.

Behind every facade of perfection is a writhing mess of subterfuge and secret sorrows.

He wasn't flawless. He had no single amazing feature. Instead, he had a confluence of agreeable aspects that were accepted by one and all add up to one very attractive whole, perfectly packaged in the right clothes.

Something about me has always liked the drama and inconvenience of bad weather. The worse the better, really.

A taste so profound and complex that it can't even be compared to other tastes, only to emotions.

I always had this idea that you should never give up a happy middle in the hopes of a happy ending, because there is no such thing as a happy ending. There is so much to lose.

**

Queen of Babble in the Big City, Meg Cabot

To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends. - Benjamin Franklin

Love and Scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. - Helen Fielding

**

Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, Meg Cabot

Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same. - Emily Bronte

It's a really good show, he says, I mean, if you're ever in the mood to examine one of the bleaker examples of the depraved depths to which we as a society have sunk. Or at least the depraved depths to which the entertainment industry is determined to make us think we've sunk.

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
- John Donne

**

Queen of Babble, Meg Cabot

It's much easier to walk away than it is to have to explain to someone that you never want to see them again.

The dawn of the twentieth century is often referred to as la Belle Epoque, or "the beautiful age".

**

The Sum of All Kisses, Julia Quinn

Hearts didn't sink so much as they did a tight panicky squeeze.

I find awkward conversations to be very diverting.

I have found that happy people are dull.

A man had to take his triumphs where he could.

In general, it was never good to deny something that was indisputably true.

**

Emma, Jane Austen

The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having too much her own way, and a disposition to think too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.

Success supposes endeavor.

What is passable in youth is detestable in later age.

Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do.

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable.

One cannot love a reserved person.

I would much rather have been merry than wise.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. - You hear nothing but truth from me. - I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure.

It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.

**

An Abundance of Katherines, John Green

He wanted to draw out the moment before the moment - because as good as kissing feels, nothing feels as good as the anticipation of it.

That smile could end wars and cure cancer.

Myopia. He was nearsighted. The future lay before him, inevitable but invisible.

The mysterium tremendum et fascinans - that stomach-flipping mix of awestruck fear and entrancing fascination.

They like their coffee like they like their ex-boyfriends: bitter.

Schadenfreud, finding pleasure in others' pain.

The great and terrible awe.

You can never love a person as much as you can miss them.

Books are the ultimate dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they'll always love you back.

Je pense que je t'aime. I think that I like you.

**

Attachments, Rainbow Rowell

Second verse same as the first.

"You're done with the future?" "I'm tightening my focus."

I believe that worrying about a bad thing prepares you for when it comes.

The whole point of clothing is to hide your shame.

Things get better - hurt less - over time. If you let them.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" "I don't know, do you believe in love before that?"

**

Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell

Gym was an extension of hell.

She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.

There are 2 kinds of girls: the smart ones and the ones boys like.

**

Dusk With A Dangerous Duke, Alexandra Hawkins

The dowager did not believe in false praise or coddling. In her opinion, it fostered weakness.

"What lady concerns herself with honor?" "One worth fighting to keep."

There is no such thing as freedom, my girl. Not the sort you are dreaming about. We are all tethered in numerous ways: family, duty, expectations of our neighbors, need to fill you empty belly...

Greedy hostesses are reluctant to allow wealthy bachelors to slip through their fingers.

Only a weak-minded fool would allow a woman to dictate his life.

Truth is as deadly as a double-edged sword.

You would provoke the devil himself to violence.

Your confidence in your fellow man astounds me.

**

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

My eyes flipped open at exactly six a.m. This was no avian fluttering of the lashes, no gentle blink toward consciousness. The awakening was mechanical. A spooky ventriloquist-dummy click of the lids: the world is black and then, showtime! 6-0-0 the clock said - in my face, first thing I saw. 6-0-0. It felt different. I rarely woke at such a rounded time. I was a man of jagged risings: 8:43, 11:51, 9:26. My life was alarm less.

Should I remove my soul before I come inside?

The late 90's, the last gasp of the glory days, although no one knew it then.

My kind of writers: aspiring novelists, ruminative thinkers, people whose brain don't work quick enough to blog or link or tweet, basically old, stubborn blowhards.

Suicide is painless.

There's something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.

Oh, here is the rest of my life. It's finally arrived.

I contain and I compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me.

My wife had a brilliant, popping brain, a greedy curiosity. But her obsessions tended to be fueled by competition: she needed to dazzle men and jealous-ify women.

Dad is always a proponent of a good indulgent sulk.

Most beautiful, good things are done by women people scorn.

The bankruptcy matched my psyche perfectly. For several years, I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense, blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself a derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time.

The thing that makes me want to blow my brains out is: the second hand experience is always better.

It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters.

In the space of a vengeful second.

The worst feeling: when you just have to wait and prepare yourself for the lie.

Lovesick words, hateful intentions.

All those things that spineless women say, confusing their weakness with morality.

Most men have sports as the lingua-franca of dudes.

The iceman melteth!

You sleep the sleep of the damned.

Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous.

On Millennials

"I am a millennial. Generation Y, born between the birth of aids and 9/11 give or take. They call us the Global Generation. We are known for our entitlement and narcissism. Some say it’s because we’re the first generation where every kid gets a trophy just for showing up. Others think it’s because social media allows us to post whenever we fart or have a sandwich for all the world to see. But it seems that our one defining trait is a numbness to the world, an indifference to suffering. I know that I did anything I could to not feel — sex, drugs, booze. Just take away the pain. Take away my mother and my asshole father and the press. Take away the boys I loved who wouldn’t love me back. Hell, I was gang-raped, two days later I was back in class like nothing happened. I mean that must have hurt like hell, right? Most people never get over stuff like that, and I was like, ‘Let’s go for Jamba Juice.’ I would give everything I have or have ever had just to feel pain again. To feel hurt." - AHS

Quotedump: House of hades

'Choices' said Hecate. 'You stand at the crossroads, Hazel Levesque. And I am the Goddess of Crossroads.'

'He would have you believe that all choices are black or white, yes or no, in or out. In fact, it's not that simple. Whenever you reach the crossroads, there are always at least three ways to go... four, if you count going backwards.'

Spes, Goddess of Hope.

The greatest heroes didn't get happy endings.

Cocytus. The river of lamentation.

In the old days, people called the seventh month the ghost month. That's when the spirit world and the human world were closest.

All great warriors are afraid. Only the stupid and the delusional are not.

There wasn't much difference between longing and greed.

Love is no game! It is no flowery softness! It is hard work - a quest that never ends. It demands everything from you - especially the truth. Only then does it yield rewards. - Cupid

Love was the most savage monster of all.

'Oh, I wouldn't say Love always makes you happy.' His voice sounded smaller, much more human. 'Sometimes it makes you incredibly sad.'

Misery is eternal.

The woman was beautiful in a timeless, regal way -- like a statue you might admire but could never love. Her eyes sparkled with malice.

War

"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sorts of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is, without question, the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous."

- American Gods.

Beginnings

As 2012 draws to a close, I share with you some of my favorite beginnings...

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK (2008), by Neil Gaiman

"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (1998), J.K. Rowling

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

NEUROMANCER (1984), William Gibson

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES (1980), John Kennedy Toole

"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."

GRAVITY'S RAINBOW (1973), Thomas Pynchon

"A screaming comes across the sky."

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1971), Hunter S. Thompson

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

THE BELL JAR (1963), Sylvia Plath

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

FAHRENHEIT 451 (1953), Ray Bradbury

"It was a pleasure to burn."

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (1951), J.D. Salinger

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

ANNA KARENINA (1877), Leo Tolstoy

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1859), Charles Dickens

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

MOBY-DICK (1851), Herman Melville

"Call me Ishmael."

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1813), Jane Austen

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Woody Allen

"In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!"

Workaholic

Just to give you guys an overview of what lies ahead in the next 5 days for me:

Thursday:
7am - (Which is 2 hours from now), Divisoria with Jewel to buy more things for Sharing Is Caring.
12 noon to 5pm - Skinny Sweets
6pm onwards - Pack more loot bags & give-aways with Jewel and Loiss

Friday:
6am to 12 noon - Skinny Sweets
1pm to 5pm - Meeting at MOA
6pm onwards - Finalizing things for Sharing Is Caring

Saturday:
12 noon to 2pm - Meet with the head volunteers for run-through of Sharing Is Caring
4pm to 12am - Skinny Sweets and Lomography Manila

Sunday:
10am - Head to Mandaluyong for ingress of Sharing Is Caring
11am to 12:30pm - Briefing of volunteers
1pm to 5pm - Event proper
8pm onwards - Afterparty for Volunteers

Monday:
Skinny Sweets the entire day.

**

Words that get me through the day:

Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work. - Gordon B. Hinckley

Of course women don't work as hard as men... they get it right the first time.

Work so that one day your "signature" will be called an "autograph"

Your best work is just ahead of you.

Don't quit.
You're already in pain.
You're already hurt.
Get a reward from it.

Good work takes hard work.

Work hard & be nice to people.

Dreams don't work unless you do.

The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.

It's not the end of the world that your feet hurt. Push yourself. - Henry Cavill

Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life a champion. - Muhammad Ali

Being weak is a choice. So is being strong.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Work smarter, not harder.

Live, work, create.

**

Words I take to heart, and life:

Look like a girl. Act like a lady. Think like a man. Work like a boss. Repeat.

**

And for horrible days:

Mother's Day

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.


Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.


All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895


God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.
- Jewish Proverb


A mom reads you like a book, and wherever she goes, people read you like a glowing book review.


Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.


One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.


That best academy, a mother's knee.


Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.


There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it.

TO ALL THE BEAUTIFUL MOTHERS IN THE WORLD... Happy Mother's Day! Your beauty both in and out knows no limits. Your love no bounds.

Love,
Each and every child.

Sh*T My Dad Says

"All I ask is that you pick up your shit so you don't leave your bedroom looking like it was used for a gang bang. Also, sorry that your girlfriend dumped you."

"Well, what the fuck makes you think Grandpa wants to sleep in the same room as you?"

"No, you can't go getting mad at people because they're shitty. Life will get mad at them, don't worry."

"Why would you throw a ball in someone's face?... Huh. That's a pretty good reason. Well, I can't do much about your teacher being pissed, but me and you are good."

"Listen, I don't want to stifle your creativity, but that thing you built there, it looks like a pile of shit."

"Are you wearing perfume?... Son, there ain't any cologne in this house, only your mother's perfume. I know that scent, and let me tell you, it's disturbing to smell your wife on your thirteen-year-old son."

"Well, I'll just say it's never a good sign when a fat kid laughs at you."

"I'm sorry I had to be so hard on you, but I don't want people thinking you're a lying sack of shit. You ain't. You're a quality human being. Now go to your room, you're grounded."

"Listen, I know you hate playing with that chubby kid because his mom's a loudmouth, but it's not that kid's fault his mom's a bitch. Try to be nice to him."

"There's chips in the cabinet and ice cream in the freezer. Stay away from knives and fire. Okay, I've done my part. I'm going to bed."

"You always have the right to be an asshole -- you just shouldn't use that right very often."

"No, I'm gonna stay home. You can take a family vacation, and I'll take a vacation from the family. Trust me, it'll make both of our time more enjoyable."

"Snausages? I've been eating dog treats? Why the fuck would you put them on the counter where the rest of the food is? Fuck it, they're delicious. I will not be shamed by this."

"Remember that face. That's the face of a man who hates himself."

"Oh spare me, being stuck in your bedroom is not like prison. You don't have to worry about being gang-raped in your bedroom."

"You got good friends. I like them. I don't think they would fuck your girlfriend, if you had one."

"Your penis betrayed you, son. Made you think stupid. It won't be the last time that happens."

"Nobody likes practice, but what's worse: practicing, or sucking at something?... Oh, give me a fucking break, practicing is not worse than sucking."

"What in the hell is the matter with you? This is the third time! You know, at this point I think it's the neighbor's fault... No not really, it's your fucking fault, I'm just in denial right now that my DNA was somehow involved in something this stupid."

"No one wants to lay the guy who wouldn't lay himself."

"Yeah, democracy ain't so fun when it fucks you, huh?"

"People are always trying to tell you how they feel. Some of them say it outright, and some of them, they tell you with their actions. And you have to listen."


***

I just finished reading Justin Halpern's new non-fictional novel, Sh*t My Dad Says. What started out as a twitter page by 28 year old Justin Halpern dedicated to random statements and words of wisdom his character of a father spews out has now turned into a New York Time's bestseller.

I have to say, never have I laughed so hard in one novel. The relationship and bond enclosed in those pages tug at the heart and is a must read, especially for children who share close connections to their father (which should, as a matter of course, be everyone).

In this heart warming novel, Justin chronicles the random musings of his father coupled with anecdotes of the time he said them. We see how Justin and his 2 brothers were brought up, and how they came to be the people they are today because of their father and his undeniable (tough) love for them.

If you want to read more hilarious quotes from Justin's father, Sam, go to Shit My Dad Says @ Twitter

More From The Walking Library

Here's another quotedump for all of you quote-a-holics. Yes, I do compile and jot down quotes that I favor from the books I read.

ONE DAY, David Nicholls

The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at... something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. Eat sensibly. Stuff like that.

The attraction of a life devoted to sensation, pleasure and self would probably wear thin one day, but there was still plenty of time for that yet.

You can't throw years of your life away because it makes a funny anecdote.

Welcome to the graveyard of ambition.

Failure and unhappiness is easier because you can make a joke out of it.

I know from your letters and from seeing you after your play that you feel a little bit lost right now about what to do with your life, a bit rudderless and oarless and aimless but that's okay, that's alright, because we're all meant to be like that at twenty-four. In fact, our whole generation is like that. I read an article about it, it's because we never fought in a war or watched too much television or something. Anyways, the only people with oars and rudders and aims are dreary bores and squares and careerists like Tilly-bloody-Killick or Callum O'Neill and his refurbished computers.

This letter builds to a life-changing climax. I wonder if you're ready for it yet.

Envy was just the tax you paid on success.

Don't keep fighting battles that are already lost.

They spoke very little of their mutual feelings: pretty phrases and warm attentions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. - Thomas Hardy, Far From the Maddening Crowd

Happy in that they were not over happy.

"Live each day as if it's you last", that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with you passion and your electronic typewriter and work hard at... something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.

THE CARRIE DIARIES, Candace Bushnell

How far would you go to get what you wanted?

There are 2 ways of getting what you wanted in life: forcing people to give it to you, or making them want to give it to you.

You don't want to peak in high school. If you do, the rest of your life is a disaster.

I have this theory: If you forgive someone, they can't hurt you anymore.

And like a newborn child, I enter my future in darkness.

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, Lisa Kleypas

Sometimes silence could wound someone nearly as badly as a bullet.

There is comfort in ritual, isn’t there?

1. Any food is fair game until it is actually swallowed by someone else.
2. Take a nap whenever you can.
3. Don’t bark unless it’s important.
4. Chasing one’s tail is sometimes unavoidable.

One could never put a price on each life that had been damaged or lost.

The air was charged with the promise of... something.

Bad enough to love a man who didn’t love her. But it was exponentially worse to love a man who actively disliked her.

One had the sense that no matter what she beheld of the sinful world, she would never be jaded.

I've always thought there's a fair amount of dishonesty involved in politeness.

Dreams have a way of eclipsing reality.

To err is human, to forgive, canine.

We love silent guests - it allows us to talk all the more. By all means, sit and say nothing.

There was nothing so trying as pretending you were happy when you weren't

Boldness be my friend - William Shakespeare, Cymbeline: Act 1, Scene 6

"He's a man, dear," Amelia explained kindly. "Sustained thinking is very difficult for them." "As opposed to women," Leo retorted, "who have the remarkable ability to make decisions without doing any thinking at all."

The trick was forgetting about what she had lost... and learning to go on with what she had left.

Jealousy is quite unfashionable these days. One must have the sophistication to be amused by the attentions paid to one's wife.

And before I tell you about it, I want to make it clear that there is only one reasonable side of the issue. Mine.

THE DUKE'S CAPTIVE, Adele Ashworth

A gem unpolished is just another rock.

A lot can change in a very short time.

PROMISE ME TONIGHT, Sara Lindsey

That was the problem with trying to wound someone you loved. In the end, you were only hurting yourself.

In a household full of women, men must stick together for survival.

So we shall be one, and one another's all. - John Donne, Lovers' Infiniteness

TEMPTING THE MARQUESS, Sara Lindsey

So we shall be one, and one another's all. - John Donne, Lovers' Infiniteness

A will forged of iron.

Love is every bit as destructive as war.

I have found life is much simple if one ceases to have expectations.

Leave thy vain bibble-babble. - William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: Act IV, Scene 2

Thank you for that astute observation. Your ability to state the obvious by means of circuitous logic never ceases to amaze me.

Libri quosdam ad scientiam, quosdam ad insaniam deduxere. - Petrarch
[Books lead some to knowledge, some to madness.]

An insult in a foreign language is still an insult.

They don't call it the parson's mousetrap for nothing.

Unrequited lust.

Was home truly where the heart was, adjustable to wherever a person's loved ones might be? Could a person have more than one home in which he or she truly belonged? Or was a person meant to have just one home, but that home changed over time just as people changed over time?

Let the battle begin.

Men and women are rarely capable of lasting friendship. Someone always wants something more than the other can give.

That spectacular failure of a kiss.

Mind battled body and for today, at least, mind won out.

I would rather be a cynic and have my feet firmly planted on the ground than be a hopeless dreamer drifting among the clouds.

He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. - William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: Act II, Scene 3

Could she admit that desiring a fallen angel had greater appeal than worshipping one on high from afar? Was it possible for love to be at once sacred and profane?

Was he willing to abandon a lifetime of virtue for a bit of pleasure?
Absolutely.
There you had it.
How low the mighty had fallen.

Damn the treacherous hearts of women.

Journeys end in lovers meeting - William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: Act II, Scene 3

This was why she hadn't wanted to fall in love. She's known it would end in disappointment, but oh, how it hurt to be right.

The course of true love never did run smooth. - William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act I, Scene 1

A KISS AT MIDNIGHT, Eloisa James

So... rain rather than blinding sun.

Beddable would be nice; biddable was a necessity.

One never asks a lady to set her own price. If you have to ask, the answer will always be more than you can afford.

If that's love, I want nothing to do with it.

It must be your beauty. It brought out that rare moment of truth in me.

He's male. I've noticed that sometimes the brains simply get left out of the package.

He felt as if the whole world held its breath for that second.

[ENGLISH] People favor uncomfortable truths.

Never from this palace of dim night will I depart again. - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet: Act V, Scene 3

One should never hope that men will rise to the occasion; they don't, as a matter of course.

THE CHAMBER, John Grisham

A bleeding heart.

Boom goes the dynamite.

The horror of death row is that you die a little each day. the waiting kills you. you live in a cage and when you wake up you mark off another day and you tell yourself that you are now one day closer to death.

Their dreams sustained them from one miserable day to the next.

The journey will be rough, but the rewards will be worth it.

The actual act of dying would not be too terrible.

The idea was Adam's brainchild.

Where do you hide when you're running from life?

Give 'em hell.

How in the world could you have become anything other than yourself? you never had a chance.

What a heartbroken bunch of people.

I'm not afraid of death, but I'm afraid of dying.

The waiting is cruel.

The end came quickly.

How can you be lost when you don't know where you're going?

HIGH FIDELITY, Nick Hornby

What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music hascaused unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives.

My genius, if I can call it that, is to combine a whole load of averageness into one companct frame.

It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.

Lonely people are the bitterest of them all.

WINTERGIRLS, Laurie Halse Anderson

I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the library aide who hides in Fantasy.
I am the circus freak encased in beeswax.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

I am contagious.

It's called a wake but nobody really wants the dead to rise.

Suspended animation isn't much of a life.

There you have it, folks. Enjoy! I hope you take the time and pick up some of the books I've stolen these quotes from.


Peace,
Essa.

Reading Crisis Averted

I've been reading a lot again these past few days, so rather than telling you all how I laze about the house everyday, reading to my heart's content, I'll just post some quotes from aforementioned reading material that struck a chord.

Obviously, a quote dump.

And.... Go.

FIGHT CLUB, Chuck Palahniuk:
If you don't know what you want, you end up with a lot you don't.

Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new
character... Would you slow down? Or speed up?

Remember this, the people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life.

We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact. So don't fuck with us.

I felt trapped. I was too complete. I was too perfect.

And a moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

On a long enough time line, everyone's survival rate drops to zero.

Only in death will we have our own names since only in death are we no longer part of the effort. In death we become heroes.

Evacuate soul, now.

That old saying, about how you always kill the thing you love, well, it works both ways.

CHOKE, Chuck Palahniuk:
You had to risk your life to get love. You had to go right to the edge of death to ever be saved.

Art never comes from happiness.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

The truth is, every son raised by a single mom is pretty much born married.

Orgasms flood the body with endorphins that kill pain and tranquilize you.

Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against.

The truth was, if Christ had laughed on the cross, or spat on the Romans, if he'd done anything more than just suffer, the kid would've liked church a lot more.

Torture is torture and humiliation is humiliation only when you choose to suffer.

When somebody saves you, the first thing you want to do is save other people.

There's an opposite to deja vu. They call it jamais vu.

More and more it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself.

We've taken the world apart but we have no idea what to do with the pieces.

We use criticism as a fake participation.

Parenthood is the opiate of the masses.

Nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in you head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.

Everybody wants more excitement from their life than they'll ever get.

The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.

What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better.

DIARY, Chuck Palahniuk:
The weather today is increasing concern followed by full-blown dread.

By the time you read this, you'll be older than you remember.

If you're reading this, welcome back to reality. This is where all that glorious, unlimited potential of your youth has led. All the unfulfilled promise. Here's what you've done with your life.

The weather today is an increasing trend toward denial.

The bourgeois daydreams of some poor white trash kid.

You have endless ways you can commit suicide without dying dying.

A couple drinks. A couple aspirin. Repeat.

Just for the record, the weather today is partly soused with occasional bursts of despair and irritation.

What you don't understand you can make mean anything.

Everyone's in their own personal coma.

Today's weather is partly furious with occasional fits of rage.

Just for the record, the weather today is partly suspicious with chances of betrayal.

Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.

Just for the record, today's weather is nervous disgust with tentative apprehension.

Just for the record, the weather today is bitter with occasional fits of jealous rage.

The weather today is partly angry, leading to resignation and ultimatums.

These days even the best part of any city is just a deluxe luxury suite in hell.

You people with your ex-wives and stepchildren, your blended families and failed marriages,
you've ruined your world and now you want to ruin mine.

You can find fresh pain every time you discover what you pretty much already know.

Just for the record, the weather today is increasing turmoil with a possible physical and emotional breakdown.

Just for the record, the weather today is calm and sunny, but the air is full of bullshit.

The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness.

We have no scar to show for happines. We learn so little from peace.

Just for the record, the weather today is slightly maudlin.

THE HUNGER GAMES, Suzanne Collins:
Stupid people are dangerous.

Pity does not get you aid. Admiration at your refusal to give in does.

These are the Hunger Games, and ordinary isn’t the norm.

Promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece of time we call today.

Remember, we’re madly in love, so it’s all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.

CATCHING FIRE, Suzanne Collins:
You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know.

SOMETHING BORROWED, Emily Giffin:
I don't break up. I trade up.

Maybe I am just a bad person. Maybe the only reason I have been good up to this point has less to do with my true moral fiber and more to do with the fear of getting caught. I play by the rules because I am risk-averse. I didn't go along with the junior-high shoplifting gags at the White Hen Pantry partly because I knew it was wrong, but mostly because I was sure that I would be the one to get caught. I never cheated on an exam for the same reason. Even now I don't take office supplies from work because I figure that somehow the firm's surveillance cameras will catch me in the act. So if that is what motivates me to be good, do I really deserve credit? Am I really a good person? Or just a cowardly pessimist?

We were both driven less by the desire to succeed than by an all-pervasive fear of failure.

Nate was my escape. And sometimes that can feel an awful lot like love.

There is emotion, and then there is what you do about it.

The world is not black and white. There are no moral absolutes.

This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren't as devastated.

I had a best friend. There was such security in that, such a sense of identity and belonging.

It's just a little heartbreak. You will get over this. I think of all the hearts breaking at this moment, in Manhattan, all over the world. All of the overwhelming grief. It makes me feel less alone to think that other people are getting their insides torn to tiny bits. Husbands leaving wives after twenty years of marriage. Children crying out, "Don't leave me, Daddy! Please stay!" Surely what I feel doesn't compare to that kind of pain. It was only a summer romance, I think. Never meant to last beyond August.

What's your pleasure?

The jig is up, baby.

When you're in love, sometimes you have to swallow your pride, and sometimes you have to fight to keep your pride. It's a balance. But when the relationship is right, you find that balance.

But I have learned that you make your own happiness, that part of going for what you want means losing something else. And when the stakes are high, the losses can be that much greater.

SOMETHING BLUE, Emily Giffin:
After all, there is nothing like a mother telling you that you're making a bad decision to convince you that what you are doing is the absolute best course of action.

I'd like to say it was strength of character and good morals, but it also had a lot to do with stubborn pride.

10 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT YOU, Julia Quinn:
I can imagine no greater bliss than to lie about, reading novels all day.

You're very hard on your fellow man, Miss Winslow.

Were it not for misunderstandings, we would be sadly lacking in great literature.

What would life be without bleak moments?

That had been his moment. His very own point of division. He wondered if everyone's lives had a dividing point. A moment which sat clearly between before and after.

THE RED PYRAMID, Rick Riordan:
You shouldn't lie to children!

Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same, Fairness means everyone gets what they need. And the only way to get what you need is to make it happen yourself. Do you understand?

From sand they come, and to sand they return.

This is not school, Sadie. You cannot learn magic by sitting at a desk and taking notes. You can only learn magic by doing magic.

Maybe being homeschooled, Carter didn’t realize that “test” is normally a bad thing.

Ammit the Devourer, cute little thing.

It’s a rare thing when an adult admits they are wrong to a child.

It takes strength and courage to admit the truth.

She was beautiful the way an atomic explosion is beautiful.

Men Ask for Directions (and Other Signs of the Apocalypse)

“Sadie,” he said forlornly, “when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children’s. Your mother and I have set the stage. But it is
your stage.

Have you ever noticed how parents can go from the most wonderful people in the world to totally embarrassing in three seconds?

MARRIED BY MORNING, Lisa Kleypas:
We all have regrets. It's why I cling to my bad habits. One doesn't have to start regretting
something unless one stops doing it.

Virtue in a woman is like pepper in the soup. A little makes for a nice seasoning. But overdo it, and no one wants very much of you

There are some experiences in life they haven’t invented the right words for.

There’s nothing more tedious than people who like to talk about themselves.

Revenge is the act of a despicable and petty character. Which is no doubt why I’ve always enjoyed it so much.

You really should discard your inhibitions. They could get in the way of yielding to temptation.

One isn’t improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb.

"You … you are so…” She couldn’t even think of a suitable word. “I know. Woefully primitive.” Laughter threaded through his voice. “But I must be tolerated, because I’m a man and I really can’t help it.”

I’m waging war, love. And the only way to win this kind of war is to make you want to lose.

In the face of a love this vast, a man could only surrender.


END

So here's a question for you, dear reader, do you ever get that feeling, that moment of clarity, that rush of excitement, that epiphany right when you read a line so perfect you hear the wheels turning in your head making you go "Yes, that's it exactly!" and once you do... commit it to memory (or, more efficiently, write it down somewhere so that you may return to it in the future when time has weathered your brain and made you more forgetful)?

I've recently started doing that since deciding it's high time I re-read all of my books as well as read some new ones. It's therapeutic. I recommend it to all who have free time.

Happy reading,

Essa.