L.R. Lam > L.R.'s Quotes

“The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . . . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing. ”
― Robin Hobb

“People trust their eyes above all else - but most people see what they wish to see, or what they believe they should see; not what is really there”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“The circus collects the outsiders like a flame tempts moths.”
― Laura Lam, Pantomime

“The circus had been unlike anything I could ever imagine and I could not walk away. I wanted to be a part of the magic, create it and wield it with such skill that it looked effortless. I wanted to fly.”
― Laura Lam, Pantomime

“They say love and hate are closely tied, that they can turn at a moment’s notice.”
― Laura Lam, Pantomime

“Love? Love is like holding water in your hands. You might have it for a time, but it escapes, leaving you with nothing.”
― Laura Lam, Pantomime

“When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice

“She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.”
― Kate Atkinson, Case Histories

“The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories.”
― Kate Atkinson, Human Croquet

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The difference between stupid and intelligent people – and this is true whether or not they are well-educated – is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. ”
― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

“The misapprehension about gender performativity is this: that gender is a choice, or that gender is a role, or that gender is a construction that one puts on, as one puts on clothes in the morning, that there is a 'one' who is prior to this gender, a one who goes to the wardrobe of gender and decides with deliberation which gender it will be today.”
― Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex"

“I’d rather go and make my own way than have it decided for me.”
― Laura Lam, Pantomime

“Secrets, once spoken, have a way of running away from you. They cannot be gathered in again.”
― Laura Lam, Pantomime

“The first draft of anything is shit.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Is it ghosts that truly haunt us, or the memory of our own mistakes that we wish we could undo?”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“Never are we as honest as at night, alone with thoughts and nightmares.”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“There is no one way to be a magician any more than there is only one way to be human.”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“Your whole life, you are told what is right and what is wrong. What you should do and what you should not do. What makes a good citizen and what makes a traitorous one. What happens, then, when you do everything you are not meant to do? Break down each and every barrier? Find out how good you are by how evil you can be?”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“A magician creates magic and mesmerizes the audience. But it is a pantomime, and the audience knows that it’s a ruse. It’s in the name: a “magic trick”. They play along when the magician tugs his sleeves to show there is nothing hidden within them, or that the top hat is empty of a rabbit, or eggs, or flowers. Beneath the façade there is only sleight of hand, wires and contraptions, misdirection at a key moment.
“But what the audience does not realize is that it’s not always trickery. Or at least, not quite.”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“So many men and women I have wronged, reduced to ghosts and shades. They surround me, but I can never let them know I regret what I have cost them, both the living and the dead.”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“A good magician’s performance tells a story. Each act should build on the next, becoming ever more engaging to fill the audience with wonder. It’s a bud that unfurls into a flower, meant to woo the audience.”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“You two are children almost grown. Your hearts have not hardened to the realities of the world. Your dreams have not fallen through your fingers. You still know hope.”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Every woman is the architect of her own fortune.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Her bank account was little more than lint and a prayer.”
― Laura Ambrose, A Hidden Hope

“Rumour has it he’s hot,” Emma said. “That’s about all I know. Supposed to be fiercely private, and a bit of a dick. In that half-exasperating, half-arousing way.”

“A half-aroused dick doesn’t sound that great,” Natalie said, dryly.”
― Laura Ambrose, A Hidden Hope

“So many words went through her head, but none of them were the right ones. It was like being stuck on the next plot point of a story. She’d lost the voice.”
― Laura Ambrose, A Hidden Hope

“The crew of the Atalanta were only five women out of all of humanity, but they could still found a whole new place for humans to flourish. Sometimes you only need one tiny proportion of the population to enact change”
― Laura Lam, Goldilocks