Vertie Sieradski > Vertie's Quotes

“Who was she to question the fantastical? She was an invisible naked chick off to steal a magic sword.”
― William Kely McClung, Super Ninja: The Sword of Heaven

“Jamie’s eyes gleamed. “God forgive me, I want there to be a murderer after the Falconer family so we in the College feel less to blame.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“The seclusion of this ranch house threatened to take her breath away, but she managed to smile. So this is what it’s like to be a country girl.”
― Cricket Rohman, Colorado Takedown

“To catch a wild animal, you have to use the right bait.
What happens to the bait? I haven't decided yet.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“...the simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers to productivity...What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Couples stray,” said Edgar. “Part of the breaking-in process.”

“Not breaking in, breaking.” Nicola differed sharply. “You can glue people together again. But then your relationship’s like any other repaired object, with cracks, blobs of epoxy, a little askew. It’s never the same. I can see you haven’t a notion what I’m on about, so you’ll have to take my word for it.”

“Christ, you’re a babe in the woods.” Edgar stopped slicing tomatoes. “You got it ass-backward. A marriage perched like porcelain on the mantelpiece is doomed. Sooner or later grown-ups treat each other like shit. You gotta be able to kick the thing around, less like china than an old shoe—bam, under the bed, or walk it through some puddles. No love’s gonna last it if can’t take abuse.”
― Lionel Shriver, The New Republic

“I believe that half the trouble in the world comes from people asking 'What have I achieved?' rather than 'What have I enjoyed?' I've been writing about a subject I love as long as I can remember--horses and the people associated with them, anyplace, anywhere, anytime. I couldn't be happier knowing that young people are reading my books. But even more important to me is that I've enjoyed so much the writing of them.”
― Walter Farley, The Black Stallion

“It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had a first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.”
― Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons

“because justice is a judgement that is both fair and forgiving. Justice is not done until everyone is satisfied, even those who offend us and must be punished by us. You can see, by what we have done with these two boys, that justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them.’ I knew those words by heart. I”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“For you will find, as women have found through the ages, that changing the world requires a lot of free time. Requires a lot of mobility. Requires money, and, as Virginia Woolf put it so well, “a room of one’s own,” preferably one with a key and a lock. Which means that women must be prepared to think for themselves, which means, undoubtedly, trouble with boyfriends, lovers, and husbands, which means all kinds of heartache and misery, and times when you will wonder if independence, freedom of thought, or your own work is worth it all. We must believe that it is. For the world is not good enough; we must make it better.”
― alice walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

“I walked past Malison, up Lower Main to Main and across the road. I didn’t need to look to know he was behind me. I entered Royal Wood, went a short way along a path and waited. It was cool and dim beneath the trees. When Malison entered the Wood, I continued eastward. 
I wanted to place his body in hallowed ground. He was born a Mearan. The least I could do was send him to Loric. The distance between us closed until he was on my heels. He chose to come, I told myself, as if that lessened the crime I planned. He chose what I have to offer.
We were almost to the cemetery before he asked where we were going. I answered with another question. “Do you like living in the High Lord’s kitchens?”
He, of course, replied, “No.”
“Well, we’re going to a better place.”
When we reached the edge of the Wood, I pushed aside a branch to see the Temple of Loric and Calec’s cottage. No smoke was coming from the chimney, and I assumed the old man was yet abed. His pony was grazing in the field of graves. The sun hid behind a bank of clouds.
Malison moved beside me. “It’s a graveyard.”
“Are you afraid of ghosts?” I asked.
“My father’s a ghost,” he whispered.
I asked if he wanted to learn how to throw a knife. He said, “Yes,” as I knew he would.  He untucked his shirt, withdrew the knife he had stolen and gave it to me. It was a thick-bladed, single-edged knife, better suited for dicing celery than slitting a young throat. But it would serve my purpose. That I also knew. I’d spent all night projecting how the morning would unfold and, except for indulging in the tea, it had happened as I had imagined. 
Damut kissed her son farewell. Malison followed me of his own free will. Without fear, he placed the instrument of his death into my hand. We were at the appointed place, at the appointed time. The stolen knife was warm from the heat of his body. I had only to use it. Yet I hesitated, and again prayed for Sythene to show me a different path.
“Aren’t you going to show me?” Malison prompted, as if to echo my prayer.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“A lie is still a lie
even if it’s disguised
as the truth.”
― Sherman Kennon, Chase The Wind: A Book Of Poetry

“Maybe it won’t come as too much of a surprise that a certain amount
of alcohol was involved with this Darwin Award candidate of an idea,
and though someone must have considered it ahead of time or the parachute
and camera wouldn’t be there, it’s still pretty certain that the onset
of this little adventure was preceded by something similar to the above
mentioned collegiate death sentence:
“Hey man, watch this!”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“I need a minute.”
― Andri E. Elia, Yildun: Worldmaker of Yand

“You speak rabbit?” asked Princess Sophie.
“Of course,” said Lady Ariana. “And cat, dog, mouse, pig, and chicken. Fish, too. I am a magician, after all.”
― Mike Martin, Princess Sophie and the Christmas Elixir

“The fuck is this shit?" it says. "Can you bloody believe this shit?" "No, honey," I say. "This is absolutely ridiculous." "Aren't you pissed the fuck off?" "Someone really should do something about this." "Why don't we bloody do something about it?" "Yeah, why don't we?" I say. "But how." "Well, we find whatever prick is in charge and give the fucker a piece of our minds, of course." ”
― Adam Scott Huerta, Motive Black

“Falconers,” she continued, sternly. “Pull yourselves together. People are dying. The police don’t have the family history to solve murders forty years apart.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“Feeling space around me, people’s emotions and lives, and running on the path of their destinies led me to experience the oneness of Korea.”
― Raz Mihal, Just Love Her

“Let your actions defend you, not your words.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings
and soar with them above a common bound.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Rayford realized that Jesus was whom his soul had been seeking since he was old enough to think and reason. Jesus was the source and the point of all life.”
― Tim LaHaye, Glorious Appearing: The End of Days

“It is an irony of history that the great powers should have discovered the unity of nations at Cairo in 1943. The geese of the world have had that notion for a longer time, and each March they stake their lives on its essential truth. In the beginning there was only the unity of the Ice Sheet. Then followed the unity of the March thaw, and the northward hegira of the international geese. Every March since the Pleistocene, the geese have honked unity from China Sea to Siberian Steppe, from Euphrates to Volga, from Nile to Murmansk, from Lincolnshire to Spitsbergen.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Edward breathed in the sweet fragrance of the dogwood blossoms. The delicious air came into his lungs and passed into his blood, coursing through his veins with euphoric energy that he’d never experienced. He felt as strong as a hundred men as they passed out of the dogwood coppice and began the ascent up the hill. Their pace was leisurely. Edward could have run all the way to the top if he wanted, but no urge to do so imposed itself on him. For the first time in his life, Edward felt peace, down to the marrow of his bones.”
― Steven Decker, One More Life to Live

“I’m fucking asking you!” The man stood his ground.
From the corner of his eye Adam could see the other man getting up from his chair. It was time to go. Adam head-butted the first man who was blocking his way, and then kneed him in the groin for good measure. As the man doubled up, Adam pushed past him.”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“Make no mistake: You will be challenged at some point in time. We all are. That’s just life.”
― Vernon Davis, Playing Ball: Life Lessons from My Journey to the Super Bowl and Beyond

“Forget professional,” Penny said. “Tonight, you and I are just man and woman like Adam and Eve, Tarzan and Jane.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“If one does not react to gossip, the informer hushes more quickly.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“The so-called “socialism” exceeded the mangiest recommendations of Keynes! Such a regulated state capitalism, such an intervention of the state in the economy like “socialism” does, Keynes had not even dreamed possible! The exceptional assistance of the state for the monopolies and their coalescence in a constitution—still after the receipt of Keynes! There is no better application of Keynes’s doctrine than the “socialism” of the twentieth century! Keynesian doctrine is an ideology of étatism, which strangely, was proclaimed as an essence of socialism! Keynes—the ideologist of the national debt, of the chronic budgetary deficit, and the inflation! His idea is the militarization of the economy, increasing workmen’s taxes, regulation of incomes through a “moderate inflation” in favor of the rich and the “solution” of the economic crises by regulation of the money circulation. All that was so well carried and applied in the “socialist” system that Keynes himself would have to wonder and to be proud of his “communist” disciples! Actually, Keynes, by observing the Soviet Union, had understood well the role of the state and the monopoly of the capital and sincerely recognized, by contrast with Stalin and the others after him, that they were used in a wonderful manner for the confirmation and for the perpetuation of the sovereignty of capitalism but not for its abolition. His “planned capitalism” is the same “planned socialism” of the twentieth century!”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face