Top 463 Quotes & Sayings by Libba Bray - Page 6

We don't look at each other anymore. Not really. Not since I pulled him from that opium den. Now when I look at him, I see the addict. And when he looks at me, he sees what he would rather not remember. I wish I could be his adored little girl again, sitting at his side.

The wind picks up. It sends leaves scurrying for cover until a softer breeze blows through, settling them down again as if to say, Shhh, there, there, it's all right. One leaf still dances in the air. It spins higher and higher, defying gravity and logic, stretching for something just out of reach. It shall have to fall, of course. Eventually. But for now, I hold my breath, willing it to keep going, taking comfort in its struggle.

There is never any turning back Gemma. You have to go forward. Make the future yours.

No person has ever held all the power. There must be a balance between chaos and order, dark and light. With the Temple magic bound to you, the realms are no longer in balance. The power could change you... and you could change the magic.

Because you can't keep up the illusion forever," I say. "No one has that much magic.

The sun has blessed you," Sarita used to say. "Look how he has left his kisses on your face for all to see and be jealous." "The sun loves you more," I said, rubbing my hands over her dry arms, the color of an aged wine gourd, and she laughed. But this is not India and we are not prized for our freckles here. The sun is not allowed to show his love.

There are always rebels and radicals, I suppose,' McCleethy allows. 'Those who live on the fringes of society. But what do they contribute to the society itself? They reap its rewards without experiencing its costs. No. I submit that loyal, hardworking citizens who push aside their own selfish desires for the good of the whole are the backbone of the world. What if we all decided to run off and live freely without thought or care for society's rules? Our civilization would crumble. There is a joy in duty and a security in knowing one's place...It is the only way.

Forget your pain. It was what I said when I took Father's hand in the drawing room yesterday, what I repeated again tonight. But I didn't mean this. I must be careful. Yet what bothers me isn't the power of the magic or how, to a person, they've all accepted it as truth. No, what unsettles me the most is how much I want to believe it too.

Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if we first know where to look without flinching.

Will you punish me forever?

All morning, Spence has been a well-oiled machine of activity. Everyone doing her bit, quietly and efficiently. It's strange how deliberate people are after a death. All the indecision suddenly vanishes into clear, defined moments--changing the linens, choosing a dress or a hymn, the washing up, the muttering of prayers. All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day.

Why is it that some secrets can drown you while some pull you close to others in a way you never want to lose?

Pippa's laugh is bitter, tinged with tears. 'Ha! Why do girls think being beautiful will solve every problem? Being beautiful just creates problems. It's a misery. I wish I were someone else.

A gentle breeze catches in the branches then and I hear it, soft and low, a murmured prayer--Gem-ma, Gem-ma--and then the leaves bend down and trail delicate fingers across my cold cheeks.

Simon, would you still care for me if you discovered I was not who I say I am?" What do you mean?" I mean would you still care for me, no matter what you came to know?" What a thing to ponder. I don't know what to say." The answer is no. He does not need to say it. With a sigh, Simon digs at the fire with the iron poker. Bits of the charred log fall away, revealing the angry insides. they flare orange for a moment, then quiet down again. After three tries, he gives up. I'm afraid this fire's had it." I can see a few embers remaining. "No, I think not. If..." He sighs, and it says everything.

It's so laughable that it's somewhere beyond comedy and right into tragedy again.

What Hamlet suffers from is a lack of zombies. Let us say Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up—Ho-HO! Now you’ve got something that stirs the, um, something that stirs things that are stirrable. BOOM! A pack of ravenous flesh-eaters breaks open their heads and sucks out their eyeballs. No need for iambic pentameter because they are grunting, groaning annihilators of humanity with no time for meter. You’re not asleep in the back of English class anymore, are you? This is what I’m talking about. Zombies. Learn it, live it, love it.

You are working up to Mr. Fantastic Fiction levels of Zombie Expert, which is like playing Guitar Hero on some level that actually melts the guitar controller, burning your fingers with searing hot plastic till you scream in pain. Only with words. And zombies.

What happens if your choice is misguided, You must try to correct it But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t? Then you must find a way to live with it.

I shan't ever understand your willingness to lie down and die," Felicity bars. "If you won't at least try to fight, I have no sympathy for you.

There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.

Around us the night creatures have their say. We are surrounded by a symphony of crickets and frogs. Neither of us feels the need to speak, and I suppose that is one of the qualities I find comforting in Kartik. We can be alone together.

But you've changed,' I whisper. 'Haven't you?' It is the scorpian's nature to sting. Just because he has no opportunity doesn't mean that he cannot.

The vicar, whose name is Reverend Waite, leads us in prayers that all begin with 'O Lord' and end with our somehow not being worthy-sinners who have always been sinners and will forever more be sinners until we die. It isn't the most optimistic outlook I've ever heard but we're encouraged to keep trying anyway.

I had thought Felicity dangerous a moment ago, when she felt powerful. I was wrong. Wounded and powerless, she is more dangerous than I could imagine.

Centuries of fighting, and for what? I say. "Today it ends. I can't live in fear any longer. I've cursed this power. I've both enjoyed and misused it. And I've hidden it away. Now I must try to wield it correctly, to marry it to a purpose and hope that is enough.

My cholera's acting up again.

Learn to master yourself-to understand both your fears and your desires. That's the key to magic. Then, no one shall have any hold over you. Remember... the magic (sic)... is a living thing, joined to whomever it touches and changed by them as well... You must come to know everything-even your darkest corners. Especially those...Everything has its price.

We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic.

You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?" "Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life.

And for a moment, I understand that I have friends on this lonely path; that sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it.

There are times when I wish I could go back and change the course of my life. Make different choices...But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on. Do you remember that I told you that at Spence?

Heaven's brightest and best-loved angel, who was cast out for inspiring a rebellion against God. Having lost Heaven, Lucifer and his rebel angels vowed to continue fighting here on earth." "I don't understand why he had to fight. He was already in heaven." "True. But he wasn't content to serve. He wanted more." "He had all he could ask for, didn't he?" Ann asks. "Exactly." Miss Moore states. "He had to ask. He was dependent upon someone else's whim. It's a terrible thing to have no power of one's own. To be denied.

Kartik places a sovereign in the lady's cup, and I know that it's likely all he has. "Why did you do that?" I ask. He kicks a rock on the ground, balancing it nimbly between his feet like a ball. "She needed it." Father says it isn't good to give money to beggers. They'll only spend it unwisely on drink or other pleasures. "She might buy ale with it." He shrugs. "Then she'll have ale. It isn't the pound that matters; it's the hope...I know what it's like to fight for things that others take for granted.

That's what living in their world is-a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.

The mere suggestion of fame and fortune casts a glamour all its own. It is rather alarming how quickly people will turn someone else's fiction into fact in order to support their own fictions of themselves.

It is how it has always been. We will accept the legacy of our ancestors,' Asha says, smiling, and in her smile I do not see warmth or wisdom; I see fear. You're afraid of losing your hold on them,' I say coolly. I? I have no power.' Don't you? If you keep them from the magic, they will never know what their lives could be.' They will remain protected,' Asha insists. No,' I say. 'Only untested' -page 569

They don't know what they're in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who'll nod and smile and take her tea but who isn't really here.

She was chosen,' Mae insists. No, you're wrong,' I say. 'She was only a girl.'... She was gone for some time. You were the only force that kept her from turning completely. That's magic. Perhaps the most powerful I've seen.' -In response to Felicity's love for Pippa keeping her from turning into a Winterland creature.

Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.

We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead.

Don't you? if you keep them from the magic, they will never know what their lives could be.' They will remain protected,' Asha insists. No, 'I say. 'Only untested.

The beast attempts a beautific look that could be mistaken for a bout of painful wind.

I am no longer content to be the scared, obedient schoolgirl. Who are you, a stranger, to tell me what I can and cannot do?

When I dream, I dream of him.

Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent." "Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But...she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.

The night's chilly breath tickles up my neck and finds my ear, whispering secrets only the wind knows.

Felicity and I watch the dancers moving as one. They spin about like the earth on it's axis, enduring the dark, waiting for the sun.

No one asks how or what I am doing. They could not care less. We’re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they’d like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance. A fissure forms in the vessel. I’m cracking open.

She shrieks above the din. "If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.

I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father-" "The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl." He sounds bitter and sad. "If the world will not forgive me," I say softly, "I shall have to learn to forgive myself." He nods in understanding. "And how will you marry? Or do you intend to marry?" I think of Kartik, and tears threaten. "I shall meet someone one day, as Mother found you.

The ladies pass the timee with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom- gime and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength.

We've barley stepped into the bright glow of the realms when everything goes dark.

I'm sorry,' he says simply. 'People make mistakes, Gemma. We take the wrong action for the right reasons, and the right action for the wrong reasons.

I run after her, not really giving chase. I’m running because I can, because I must. Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.

The key holds the truth

All things are possible.

War." Gorgon spits the word. "That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus and shall always be so.

Tell my brother to remember his heart in all things. That is where his honor and his destiny will be found. Tell him.

How can my ankles and arms be obscene?