Dawn's quotes

(showing 1-50 of 55)

"Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eighteenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men. "
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

tags: historical, romance
32 people liked it

"A hedgehog? And just how does a hedgehog make love?" he demanded.

No, I thought. I won't. I will not. But I did. "Very carefully," I replied, giggling helplessly. So now we know just how old that one is, I thought. "
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

tags: historical, romance
26 people liked it

"'Then the room relaxed in cheers and babbling, and she turned in his arms to kiss him hard and cling to him, and he thought perhaps it didn't matter that they faced in opposite directions - so long as they faced each other.'

Roger Wakefield {Drums Of Autumn}"
— Diana Gabaldon (Drums of Autumn)

3 people liked it

""When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time." "
— Diana Gabaldon

8 people liked it

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
— Mark Twain

tags: lies, lying, memory, truth
9,712 people liked it

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
— Albert Einstein

tags: humor, insanity, life
9,885 people liked it

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

tags: books, soul
11,485 people liked it

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
— Albert Einstein

tags: einstein, human, humor, infinity, nature, philosophy, science, stupidity, universe
12,476 people liked it

"So many books, so little time."
— Frank Zappa

tags: books, humor
9,630 people liked it

"Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution."
— Mae West

tags: marriage
93 people liked it

"I use to be Snow White, but I drifted."
— Mae West

tags: decadence, fairy, purity, snow, tales, virginity, white
87 people liked it

"I'm single because I was born that way."
— Mae West

tags: singleness
73 people liked it

"Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache."
— Mae West

44 people liked it

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

tags: books, classic, humor
5,697 people liked it

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
— C.S. Lewis

tags: friendship
7,762 people liked it

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."
— Jim Henson

tags: humor
5,894 people liked it

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."
— Robert A. Heinlein

tags: cats, humor, women
3,941 people liked it

"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand."
— Charles M. Schulz

tags: humor, mankind, people
3,313 people liked it

"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards."
— Robert A. Heinlein

tags: writing
57 people liked it

"Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector...and miss."
— Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough for Love)

tags: inspirational
23 people liked it

"Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just
as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how
well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to
me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth."
— Robert A. Heinlein

8 people liked it

"Truth and trust are the means by which civilization holds off barbarism."
— Mercedes Lackey (Alta)

tags: power
16 people liked it

""The road to disaster is ordered by the righteous, planned by the well-meaning, and paved with their good intentions."- Shin'a'in proverb."
— Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon

14 people liked it

"If it is stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
(a Shin'a'in saying)"
— Mercedes Lackey (Owlknight)

tags: stupid, stupidity, trying
41 people liked it

"I will have but one mistress and no master"
— Elizabeth I

2 people liked it

"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed."
— C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew)

tags: stupid
174 people liked it

"Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably."
— C.S. Lewis

tags: eating, reading
164 people liked it

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
— C.S. Lewis

tags: freedom, morality, politics, wisdom
112 people liked it

"Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

tags: life, pain
661 people liked it

"When I was your age, television was called books."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

tags: book, fantasy, humour
113 people liked it

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

tags: best, life, love, mistakes, out-of-control, truth, worst
11,276 people liked it

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up."
— Neil Gaiman (The Sandman Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones)

tags: love
2,818 people liked it

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
— Winston S. Churchill

tags: history, humor, writing
638 people liked it

"I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

tags: fantasy, fiction, tolkien, writing
164 people liked it

"Books... are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development."
— Dorothy L. Sayers

tags: books
21 people liked it

""I entirely agree that a historian ought to be precise in detail; but unless you take all the characters and circumstances into account, you are reckoning without the facts. The proportions and relations of things are just as much facts as the things themselves." -Gaudy Night"
— Dorothy L. Sayers

4 people liked it

"The great thing about fantasy is that you can drag dreams and longings and hopes and fears and strivings out of your subconscious and call them 'magic' or 'dragons' or 'faeries' and get to know them better. But then I write the stuff. Obviously I'm prejudiced."
— Robin McKinley

tags: fantasy
22 people liked it

"I don't put up with being messed around, and I don't suffer fools gladly. The short version of that is that I'm a bitch. Trust me, I can provide character references."
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

tags: humor
18 people liked it

"The story is always better than your ability to write it."
— Robin McKinley

tags: writing
14 people liked it

"One of the biggest, and possibly the biggest, obstacle to becoming a writer... is learning to live with the fact that the wonderful story in your head is infinitely better, truer, more moving, more fascinating, more perceptive, than anything you're going to manage to get down on paper. (And if you ever think otherwise, then you've turned into an arrogant self-satisfied prat, and should look for another job or another avocation or another weekend activity.) So you have to learn to live with the fact that you're never going to write well enough. Of course that's what keeps you trying -- trying as hard as you can -- which is a good thing."
— Robin McKinley

tags: writing
12 people liked it

"Oh, aye, Sassenach. I am your master . . . and you're mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own."
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

tags: romance
18 people liked it

""What was that?" Belgarath asked, coming back around the corner.

"Brill," Silk replied blandly, pulling his Murgo robe back on.

"Again?" Belgarath demanded with exasperation. "What was he doing this time?"

"Trying to fly, last time I saw him." Silk smirked.

The old man looked puzzled.

"He wasn't doing it very well," Silk added.

Belgarath shrugged. "Maybe it'll come to him in time."

"He doesn't really have all that much time." Silk glanced out over the edge.

From far below - terribly far below - there came a faint, muffled crash; then, after several seconds, another. "Does bouncing count?" Silk asked.

Belgarath made a wry face. "Not really."

"Then I'd say he didn't learn in time." Silk said blithely."
— David Eddings (Magician's Gambit)

tags: humor
17 people liked it

"Established religion is like established anything else. It's easy. It offers answers you can get prepackaged and predigested, right off the shelf, and the same for everybody. No thinking required, much less hard thinking. Like a board game--you follow the rules, you go to heaven. That's why established religion gets the assholes. They aren't "good" Christians. I rather doubt they ever gave up a thing they valued for any reason or anybody. People like that aren't good anything. What they believe, they believe because it's appropriate; it's what everybody believes because it's the right thing to do--in short, it's easy. Our way isn't easy. We get assholes too, but they usually give up and get out, or get it knocked out of them."
— Mercedes Lackey (Burning Water)

3 people liked it

"Some must be warriors, that others may live in peace. "
— Mercedes Lackey (Exile's Honor)

tags: war
7 people liked it

"
Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women. "
— Nora Roberts

14 people liked it

"I want to do something splendid…
Something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead…
I think I shall write books."
— Louisa May Alcott

tags: books, writing
61 people liked it

"I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen."
— Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)

tags: authors, challenges, keys, writing
42 people liked it

". . . for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole."
— Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)

12 people liked it