Malene > Malene's Quotes

“A society cannot make a man a monster, Diago. But it can give him the excuse to become one.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“The oldest argument for doing something wrong is that everyone is doing it. To dismantle what they have built would have required the agreement of every man who had spent his life building it," agrees my father softly. "It would have required them to give up all they have striven their entire lives to gain. And they would have needed to do it, largely, for the benefit of those at whose expense it originally came.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“She told me that a child needs to hear and truly understand only three phrases from their father as they grow up. ‘I love you.’ ‘I will help.’ And, ‘I don’t know.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“Rule a man, and he will do whatever you can imagine. Befriend him, and he will do more.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“Grief, my mother once told me, is love’s most honest expression.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“FEAR, MY FATHER ONCE TOLD me, is simply our realisation of a lack of control. And that is why when we are afraid, sometimes the only way we can cope—the only way to dull the edge of that lack—is to put our faith in those who appear not to suffer it.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“Grief, my mother once told me, is love’s most honest expression. The last and hardest aspect of truly, truly caring for someone. She said it at her own mother’s funeral rites, tears in her eyes even as she tried to comfort a boy too young to understand why he was so sad, why his grandmother couldn’t be there anymore. She explained through choking sobs that without grief, love would be meaningless. Because it is impossible to truly love something that cannot be lost.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“Grief walks hand in hand with love,” I say with my entire chest. “I know it’s tempting to cut away the pain, but that rib-cracking ache is proof that something good came first. Something worth remembering.”
― Sarah A. Parker, The Ballad of Falling Dragons