Christie Dorko > Christie's Quotes

“It doesn’t matter how smart you are or what you know; if you learn to put those two things together, to let your pain drive your talent, you can become the best at anything you do in life.”
― Vernon Davis, Playing Ball: Life Lessons from My Journey to the Super Bowl and Beyond

“Just now he was on a mind-blowing adventure and it was rapidly spiralling out of control, and this is what he needed to concentrate his mind on. How could he squeeze Daley to get the book back; that’s if Daley had it in his possession in the first place? The next few days were going to be crucial.”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment. 
The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become.
As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper. 
She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale.
Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?”
I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.
 “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”
            I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”
 I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank.
“Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”
  I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”
  So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“I suggest you write I love you in your daily diary when we hang up so that you can refer to it should you ever develop that need to read those words again.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“Environmental factors cause them to go extinct, or they destroy themselves or their planet, such as what Earth would likely have done had we not intervened. Some civilizations are destroyed by AI because they fail to properly manage the power of AI to learn. Left unchecked, AI will always destroy its creators.”
― Steven Decker, Gods of Another Kind

“Julia used to say, 'Poor Sebastian. It's something chemical in him.' That was the cant phrase of the time, derived from heaven knows what misconception of popular science. 'There's something chemical between them' was used to explain the overmastering hate or love of any two people. It was the old concept of determinism in a new form. I do not believe there was anything chemical in my friend.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“Perhaps the early indicators of the end times were not birthed in these later events. But were rather the symptoms of a fundamental flaw in the human condition.”
― Rohith S. Katbamna, Down and Rising

“Half a page --- and the morning is already ancient.”
― Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family

“It's like my garden, love. Everything grows. Including love. And with that growing everyday how can you expect missing her to ever fade away? Everything builds, including our ability to cope with it. That's how we keep going.”
― Cecelia Ahern, Thanks for the Memories

“It is phenomenologically absurd to speak of the phenomenon as if it were something behind which there would be something else of which it would be a phenomenon in the sense of the appearance which represents and expresses [this something else]. A phenomenon is nothing behind which there would be something else. More accurately stated, one cannot ask for something behind the phenomenon at all, since what the phenomenon gives is precisely that something in itself.”
― Martin Heidegger

“Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. 'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage.”
― Leon Uris, Qb VII

“Adrian blew his whistle and shouted, “Attack and put too death all those who oppose the fatherland!”
― Michael G. Kramer, His Forefathers and Mick

“Buying loyalty can be as effective as fear when one’s rival is poorer than oneself.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“The image of the sensual, sleep-laden Naomi made him smile. And wish he’d been lying on the pillow next to her when she’d opened her eyes. Lucky pillow.”
― Lotchie Burton, Gabriel's Fire

“I have a question for you Water. What happens to the water in my body if I get angry at someone or if someone gets angry with me?”

“A very good question,” said Water. “In either case, the water in your body gets upset and causes you to not feel very well. You feel sad, or maybe you will cry. Crying is good because it puts good endorphins into your body, and you will start to feel better. They help the water in your body to recover.”
― Ellen J. Lewinberg, Joey and His Friend Water

“I realized that if you avoid the sin, you will also avoid the fun.”
― Rebecca Harlem, The Pink Cadillac

“Love was the quiet hum of a lullaby slipping past sleeping ears on a late November evening.”
― J. Rose Black, Chasing Headlines

“When pain and talent mix together, that’s when you’re able to persevere in your goals in life; the pain gives your talent something to feed into.”
― Vernon Davis

“The Word of God tells us this: “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11 NLT).”
― Kathryn Krick, The Secret of the Anointing: Accessing the Power of God to Walk in Miracles

“You want to go play with your new friends back there? The really pale ones with the taste for plasma? --Shane”
― Rachel Caine, Lord of Misrule

“Let the generations know that women in uniform also guaranteed their freedom.”
― Ammar Habib, Mary Edwards Walker: America's Only Female Medal of Honor Recipient

“Damn it," I muttered.

"What?" asked Adrian.

"I hate when you're the sane one. That's my job."

"Rose," he said, forcibly trying to keep a serious tone, "I can think of many words to describe you, sexy and hot being at the top of the list. You know what's not on the list? Sane.”
― Richelle Mead, Spirit Bound

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Well, now
If little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you
Little by little
If suddenly you forget me
Do not look for me
For I shall already have forgotten you

If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life
And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots
Remember
That on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms
And my roots will set off to seek another land”
― Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems

“I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women