As You Wish > As You Wish's Quotes

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact 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, The Four Loves

“I know your soul. Everything else is just an ornament.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Star-Touched Queen

“Wild birds die in cages.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Mother Earth cannot simply be reduced to the industrial binary of profit and garbage.”
― Arthur Manuel, Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I need a love that is troubled by injustice. A love that is provoked to anger when Black folks, including our children, lie dead in the streets. A love that can no longer be concerned with tone because it is concerned with life. A love that has no tolerance for hate, no excuses for racist decisions, no contentment in the status quo. I need a love that is fierce in its resilience and sacrifice. I need a love that chooses justice.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“Some things I can heal. But I cannot heal gently.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm. Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir

“When a woman is assaulted, one of the first questions people ask is, Did you say no? This question assumes that the answer was always yes, and that it is her job to revoke the agreement. To defuse the bomb she was given. But why are they allowed to touch us until we physically fight them off? Why is the door open until we have to slam it shut?”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir

“I used to shrink at harsh tones, used to be afraid. Until I learned it takes nothing to be hostile. Nothing. It is easy to be the one yelling, chucking words that burn like coals, neon red, meant to harm. I have learned I am water. The coals sizzle, extinguishing when they reach me. I see how, those fiery coals are just black stones, sinking to the bottom.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“They seemed angry that I’d made myself vulnerable, more than the fact that he’d acted on my vulnerability.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“We force her to think hard about what this will mean for his life, even though he never considered what his actions would do to her.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“What was unique about this crime, was that the perpetrator could suggest the victim experienced pleasure and people wouldn't bat an eye. There's no such thing as a good stabbing or bad stabbing, consensual murder or nonconsensual murder.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“What we needed to raise in others was this instinct. The ability to recognize, in an instant, right from wrong. The clarity of mind to face it rather than ignore it. I learned that before they had chased Brock, they had checked on me. Masculinity is often defined by physicality, but that initial kneeling is as powerful as the leg sweep, the tackling. Masculinity is found in the vulnerability, the crying.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“I didn’t know that money could make the cell doors swing open. I didn’t know that if a woman was drunk when the violence occurred, she wouldn’t be taken seriously. I didn’t know that if he was drunk when the violence occurred, people would offer him sympathy. I didn’t know that my loss of memory would become his opportunity. I didn’t know that being a victim was synonymous with not being believed.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“I always wondered why survivors understood other survivors so well. Why, even if the details of our attacks vary, survivors can lock eyes and get it without having to explain. Perhaps it is not the particulars of the assault itself that we have in common, but the moment after; the first time you are left alone. Something slipping out of you. Where did I go. What was taken. It is terror swallowed inside silence. An unclipping from the world where up was up and down was down.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“If you woke up to a robber in your home, saw him taking your stuff, people wouldn’t ask, Well why didn’t you fight him? Why didn’t you tell him no? He’s already violating an unspoken rule, why would he suddenly decide to adhere to reason? What would give you reason to think he’d stop if you told him to?”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir

“Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor.”
― Cory Doctorow, Little Brother

“The truth,” said Amar, taking a step closer to me, “is that you look neither lovely nor demure. You look like edges and thunderstorms. And I would not have you any other way.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Star-Touched Queen

“Wouldn’t it be easier keep your victim faceless?”
I shuddered. “Not a victim.”
“What else do you call one hemmed in by fate?”
“Human,” I said, bitterness creeping into my voice.
“What about guilt, then? Why open yourself to pain?”
“Guilt is what makes you accountable.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Star-Touched Queen

“In my experience , big words ornament bad news.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Star-Touched Queen

“We who live forever can know no courage, nor do we love enough to give our lives.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya. And both are mine.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“The world is wide, and the road will take us anywhere.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“She is ugly, thought Konstantin, and then wondered at himself. What was it to him if a girl was ugly?”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“Blood is one thing. The sight is another. But courage—that is rarest of all, Vasilisa Petrovna.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale