esther grace > esther's Quotes

“Where is Aelin.
Where is my wife?”
― Sarah J. Maas, Empire of Storms

“One blink for yes. Two for no. Three for Are you all right? Four for I am here, I am with you. Five for This is real, you are awake.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom …”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“You do not yield.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“There are no gods left to watch, I’m afraid. And there are no gods left to help you now, Aelin Galathynius.'
Aelin smiled, and Goldryn burned brighter. 'I am a god.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“Live, Manon. Live.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“To whatever end,” he whispered.
Silver lined her eyes. “To whatever end.”
A reminder—and a vow, more sacred than the wedding oaths they’d sworn on that ship.
To walk this path together, back from the darkness of the iron coffin. To face what waited in Terrasen, ancient promises to the gods be damned.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“Let’s make this a fight worthy of a song.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“And far away, across the snow-covered mountains, on a barren plain before the ruins of a once-great city, a flower began to bloom”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“I am here, I am with you.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“We are the Thirteen,” she said. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“And it was not darkness, but light—light, bright and pure as the sun on snow, that erupted from Asterin.
Light, as Asterin made the Yielding.
As the Thirteen, their broken bodies scattered around the tower in a near-circle, made the Yielding as well.
Light. They all burned with it. Radiated it.
Light that flowed from their souls, their fierce hearts as they gave themselves over to that power. Became incandescent with it.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“Death had been her curse and her gift and her friend for these long, long years. She was happy to greet it again under the golden morning sun.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash

“There's an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists."

So God just leaves?"

No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering."

Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it."

But the sparrow still falls.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“The Jewish sages also tell us that God dances when His children defeat Him in argument, when they stand on their feet and use their minds. So questions like Anne's are worth asking. To ask them is a very fine kind of human behavior. If we keep demanding that God yield up His answers, perhaps some day we will understand them. And then we will be something more than clever apes, and we shall dance with God.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“You see, that is my dilemma. Because if I was led by God to love God, step by step, as it seemed, if I accept that the beauty and the rapture were real and true, then the rest of it was God's will too, and that, gentlemen, is cause for bitterness. But if I am simply a deluded ape who took a lot of old folktales far too seriously, then I brought all this on myself and my companions and the whole business becomes farcical, doesn't it. The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances," he continued with academic exactitude, each word etched on the air with acid, "is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“I believe in God the way I believe in quarks. People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they've learned, I'd find quarks and God just like they did.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“See that's where it falls apart for me!" Anne cried. "What sticks in my throat is that God gets the credit but never the blame. I just can't swallow that kind of theological candy. Either God's in charge or he's not...”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“You know what's the most terrifying thing about admitting that you're in love? You are just naked. You put yourself in harm's way and you lay down all your defenses. No clothes, no weapons. Nowhere to hide. Completely vulnerable. The only thing that makes it tolerable is to believe that the other person loves you back...”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“...I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“The sparrow still falls.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“The poor you will always have with you,' Jesus said. A warning, Emilio wondered, or an indictment?”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“He's not a bad guy, John. It's human nature. He wanted it to be some mistake I made that he wouldn't have made, some flaw in me that he didn't share, so he could believe it wouldn't have happened to him. But it wasn't my fault. It was either blind, dumb, stupid luck from start to finish, in which case, we are all in the wrong business gentleman, or it was a God I cannot worship.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“She had challenged him on this point one night at Anne and George's, inhibitions weakened by Ronrico: "Explain this Mass to me!"

There was a silence as he sat still, apparently looking at the dinner plates and chicken bones. "Consider the Star of David," he said quietly. "Two triangles, one pointing down, one pointing up. I find this a powerful image—the Divine reaching down, humanity reaching upward. And in the center, an intersection, where the Divine and human meet. The Mass takes place in that space." His eyes lifted and met hers: a look of lucid candor. "I understand it as a place where the Divine and the human are one. And as a promise, perhaps. That God will reach toward us if we reach toward Him, that we and our most ordinary human acts—like eating bread and drinking wine—can be transformed and made sacred.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“God will break your heart.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“On December 7, 2059, Emilio Sandoz was released from the isolation ward of Salvator Mundi Hospital in the middle of the night and transported in a bread van to the Jesuit residence at Number 5 Borgo Santo Spirito, a few minutes' walk across St. Peter's Square from the Vatican.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“As many as thirty or as few as ten years later, lying exhausted and still, eyes open in the dark long after the three suns of Rakhat had set, no longer bleeding, past the vomiting, enough beyond the shock to think again, it would occur to Emilio Sandoz to wonder if perhaps that day int he Sudan was really only part of the setup for a punchline a life-time in the making. It was an odd thought, under the circumstances. He understood that, even at the time. But thinking it, he realized with appalling clarity that on his journey of discovery as a Jesuit, he had not merely been the first human being to set foot on Rhakhat, had not simply explored parts of its largest continent and learned two of its languages and loved some of its people. He had also discovered the outermost limit of faith and, in doing so had located the exact boundary of despair. It was at that moment that he learned, truly, to fear God.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren't human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“Harrow said, “But you're God.”
And God said, “And I am not enough.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“You do not yield.
Aelin slammed her hand into the lid. Cairn paused. Aelin pounded her fist into the iron again. Again. You do not yield. Again. You do not yield. Again. Again. Until she was alive with it, until her blood was raining onto her face, washing away the tears, until every pound of her fist into the iron was a battle cry. You do not yield.
It rose in her, burning and roaring, and she gave herself wholly to it.
Over and over, she pounded against the lid. Over and over, that song of fire and darkness flared through her, out of her, into the world. You do not yield
And when she awoke chained on the altar, she beheld what she had done to the iron coffin. The top of the lid had been warped. A great hump now protruded, the metal stretched thin. As if it had come so very close to breaking entirely.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash