Lulu [at] Reckless Reading > Lulu [at] Reckless Reading's Quotes

“Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. ”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“Evil is a point of view. We are immortal. And what we have before us are the rich feasts that conscience cannot appreciate and mortal men cannot know without regret. God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man's will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”
― Bram Stoker

“But I have made a study of Shadowhunters now, over the past century, and let me tell you that we are more human than most human beings. When our hearts break, they break into shards that cannot be easily fit back together. I envy mundanes their resilience sometimes.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

“[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“I have a little theory that I'd like to air here, if I may. What is it that you think makes you magicians?" More silence. Fogg was well into rhetorical-question territory now anyway. He spoke more softly. "Is it because you are intelligent? Is it because you are brave and good? Is is because you're special?

Maybe. Who knows. But I'll tell you something: I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength.

Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“Sure, but real life’s not actually like that,” Quentin went on, fumbling after what he was sure was an important insight. “You don’t just go on fun adventures for good causes and have happy endings. You’re not going to be a character in a story, there’s nobody arranging everything for you. The real world just doesn’t work like that.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“No one gets punished for anything. We do whatever we want, and that's all we do, and nobody stops us, and nobody cares.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don’t change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart — reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“He was obviously one of those people who felt at home in the world-he was naturally buoyant, where Quentin felt like he had to dog-paddle constantly, exhaustingly,humiliatingly, just to get one sip of air.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“How wrong to have been so negative, how wrong to have been so gloomy, how wrong to have run away from life, how wrong to have said no, again and again, instead of yes.”
― Jonathan Franzen

“There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
’Neath every one a friend.”
― James Russell Lowell, Anthology of American Literature, Volume 1: Colonial through Romantic

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“i have a history of staying in places i’ve long outgrown. you see, i was always told to stay as small as possible— even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it hurts. from this day forward, i vow to let myself bloom freely— even if others see me as an annoyance, even if they see me as a weed. —wild violet.”
― Amanda Lovelace, Flower Crowns & Fearsome Things

“I got my heart's desire, and there my troubles began.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. ‘Some”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

“Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion