Jan > Jan's Quotes

“The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present — they are real.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour

“I just inhaled kimchi ramen. Nose on fire. Next chapter may be obscured by tears.”
― MCM

“Reading is an intelligent way of not having to think.”
― Walter Moers, The City of Dreaming Books

“When the watermelons were as large as a child's head, the women boiled them, but they collapsed into a tasteless green mush that no one could eat, not the children, not the cow.”
― Annie Proulx, Accordion Crimes

“You can take the barbarian out of the tavern, but he can take the blood out of your body.”
― Greg X. Graves, Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes

“Someone with an obsession for arranging things in alphabetical order was an abcedist, whereas someone with an obsession for arranging them in reverse alphabetical order was a zyxedist.”
― Walter Moers, The City of Dreaming Books

“In my profession it isn’t a question of telling good literature from bad. Really good literature is seldom appreciated in its own day. The best authors die poor, the bad ones make money — it’s always been like that. What do I, an agent, get out of a literary genius who won’t be discovered for another hundred years? I’ll be dead myself then. Successful incompetents are what I need.”
― Walter Moers, The City of Dreaming Books

“He focused on the inspector, instead, though she didn't want him watching her. But Rhys liked the way she looked, particularly when her expression suggested that she'd prefer to have a gun aimed at his head rather than sit across from him in a private railcar.”
― Meljean Brook, The Iron Duke

“...she studied his clothes, his top hat. “And you’ve just come from Parliament? How are you finding that?”

“It’s much like piracy. You tell your enemies that if they don’t fall in line, you’ll leave them to die.”
― Meljean Brook, The Iron Duke

“You get irritated when I say I'm not angry and you get irritated when I say I am angry. I can't win."
"Because you just saying whatever you think will shut me up," he accused me.
"Aye, but it's not working."
"Argh!" was his response, and he charged on down the street.”
― Moira J. Moore, The Hero Strikes Back

“Time is fluid, so the moments where everything feels perfect pass in a wink, and those where you're on your knees in despair drag on like the death of a thousand cuts.”
― Ann Aguirre, Wanderlust

“I need a Stetson, so I can ride you like a cowgirl" - Mercy to Riley”
― Nalini Singh, Branded by Fire

“Every choice has a consequence, every consequence another choice. Little agonies waiting to be embraced. Only the moment before the choice really weighs anything. Very heavy moments, exploding into nothing.”
― MCM

“I'm Canadian, so I'm an expert at mundane fatalism.”
― MCM

“We who are dominant tend to think of that aspect of being a werewolf as rank: who is obeyed, who is to obey. Dominant and submissive. But it is also who is to protect and who is to be protected. A submissive wolf is not incapable of protecting himself: he can fight, he can kill as readily as any other. But a submissive doesn't feel the need to fight -- not the way a dominant does. They are a treasure in a pack. A source of purpose and of balance. Why does a dominant exist? To protect those beneath him, but protecting a submissive is far more rewarding because a submissive will never wait until you are wounded or your back is turned to see if you are truly dominant to him. Submissive wolves can be trusted. And they unite the pack with the goal of keeping them safe and cared for.”
― Patricia Briggs, Cry Wolf

“Have you ever met someone and felt . . . I don't know how to describe it, felt a chance at having something that eluded you? I don't know . . . Forget I said anything."
I knew what he meant. He was describing that moment when you realize that you are lonely. For a time you can be alone and doing fine and never give a thought to living any other way and then you meet someone and suddenly you become lonely. It stabs at you, almost like a physical pain, and you feel both deprived and angry, deprived because you wish to be with that person and angry, because their absence brings you misery. It's a strange feeling, akin to desperation, a feeling that makes you wait by the phone even though you know that the call is an hour away. I was not going to lose my balance. Not yet.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Bites

“Yes. What is it, guilt, revenge, love, what?”
I swallowed. “I live alone.”
"And your point is?”
"You have the Pack. You’re surrounded by people who would fall over themselves for the pleasure of your company. I have no one. My parents are dead, my entire family is gone. I have no friends. Except Jim, and that’s more of a working relationship than anything else. I have no lover. I can’t even have a pet, because I’m not at the house often enough to keep it from starving. When I come crawling home, bleeding and filthy and exhausted, the house is dark and empty. Nobody keeps the porch light on for me. Nobody hugs me and says, ‘Hey, I’m glad you made it. I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried.’ Nobody cares if I live or die. Nobody makes me coffee, nobody holds me before I go to bed, nobody fixes my medicine when I’m sick. I’m by myself.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Burns

“Every time I think you’ve reached the limits of arrogance, you show me new heights. Truly, your egotism is like the Universe—ever expanding.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Strikes

“Kate short-circuits my brain. In my head we always have these clear coherent exchanges, but once we meet, what comes out it is, “Kate, do what I say or I’ll kill you.” Her default reply is, “Fuck you!” and we go downhill from there.”
― Ilona Andrews

“I ripped my left arm out of his hand and slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. He exhaled in a gasp. I lunged for the dagger and sat on top of him, my knees pinning his arms, my dagger on his throat.
He lay still. “I give up,” he said and smiled. “Your move.”
Er. I was sitting atop the Beast Lord in my underwear, holding a knife to his throat. What the hell was my next move?”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Strikes

“It took a qualified wizard to detect a summoning in progress. It required only a half-literate idiot with a twitch of power and a dim idea of how to use it to attempt one. Before you knew it, a three-headed Slavonic god was wreaking havoc in downtown Atlanta, the skies were raining winged snakes, and SWAT was screaming for more ammo.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Bites

“Andrea raised her hand. “This is the hand that slapped Aunt B.”
“Maybe you should have it gold-plated.”
“Here, you can touch it, since you’re my best friend.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Slays

“Sometimes limbs must be re-broken to set properly, her heart too needed to shatter anew before it could truly heal.”
― Sherry Thomas, Not Quite a Husband

“The Castle. He’d seen this expression far too many times during their marriage. The Castle was Bryony drawing up the gates and retreating deep into the inner keep. And he’d always hated it. Marriage meant that you shared your goddamn castle. You didn’t leave your poor knight of a husband circling the walls trying to find a way in.”
― Sherry Thomas, Not Quite a Husband

“No matter how interminable something feels, there is always, always an ending. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's bad; sometimes it's a matter of indifference, and sometimes it's heartbreaking, and your life is never the same thereafter.”
― Ann Aguirre, Grimspace

“We’re both so fucking broken that I understand our strange attraction, a push-pull magnetism born of similar scars.”
― Ann Aguirre, Grimspace

“With so many willing, complex women in the world, he had little respect for men who fixated on girlishness. Innocence was, by definition, an absence of experience—character—knowledge. To desire that absence seemed rather deviant.”
― Meredith Duran, Wicked Becomes You

“It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“Just as I was flung over the threshold, I embraced Grigoire the Swiss Fiancé in a rugger grip, determined that smug cockatoo was coming with me...Stone steps and icy pavements bruised my own flesh as black as his, banged my elbows and hips just as hard, but at least mine was not the only ruined evening in Bruges, and I yelled, kicking his ribs once for each word, before half-running, half-hobbling off on my whacked ankle, 'Love hurts!'
”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas