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.

We.

"We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. 

We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving.

We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins.

We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers.

We are the daughters of the feminists who said “You can be anything” and we heard “You have to be everything.""

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters.

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!"

The Cynics

A year later and I still have nothing good to say about the Romantics. The entire film was a disappointment, save for this one bright light: the most honest cinematic conversation of the year.

Isolation

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it in tact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

-- C.S. Lewis

Freedom

"Freedom is just a pretty way of saying that you've gone off the grid: for better or worse, you're out of options. But we call it freedom.. we write songs about it, you probably crank them in your car, never thought about it much. Some people think it's exhilarating, not having your future mapped out. Others start to drown in all that nothing.. maybe you'll enjoy for a moment, the purity of doing what you want, when you want - beer for breakfast, sex in the afternoon but obligations sneak up: duty, moral code. Some of us are wired to put ourselves back into cages. Freedom is just that moment of calm before the dread sets in. Because no matter what you freed yourself from, you only get so far down the open road: Car windows down, music blasting before you are forced to make a turn. Make a choice and sentence yourself to the next adventure."

Words To Remember

God

Favorite speech ever. Behold, I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves.

FIGHT

Hello, March.

Solitude

So therefore I dedicate myself to myself, to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labors, my suffrances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger - because I cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being.

- Jack Kerouac.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Rules

RULES FOR DOGS THAT ARE APPLICABLE TO HUMANS:

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.

Friend Zone

"A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired."

Dreamers & Realists

“There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You'd think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not, the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists, well, without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.”