Nina > Nina's Quotes

“A stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY”
― Roald Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World

“I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.”
― Roald Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World

“Sometimes men want what they don't have because they don't have it. Even if everyone offered to share, they would only want the share that wasn't theirs.”
― Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

“Faith is believing in something even without proof, because you know it in your heart to be true.”
― Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

“They’d need no reason!” shouted Arbeely. “Why can’t you understand? Men need no reason to cause mischief, only an excuse!”
― Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

“Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.”
― Sue Grafton

“According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can."
Grover cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?"
Zoe blinked. "Yes. What is funny?"
"Nothing," Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. "I could use some dam french fries."
Even Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom."
...
I started cracking up, and Thalia and Grover joined in, while Zoe just looked at me. "I do not understand."
"I want to use the dam water fountain," Grover said.
"And..." Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam t-shirt.”
― Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse

“With great power... comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later.”
― Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Deadlines just aren't real to me until I'm staring one in the face.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Wow," Thalia muttered. "Apollo is hot."
"He's the sun god," I said.
"That's not what I meant.”
― Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse

“People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can't be fixed.”
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth

“Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die.”
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth

“Go on with what your heart tells you, or you will lose all.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Can you surf really well, then?"
I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.
"Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried."
He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn't answer that one.) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)”
― Rick Riordan

“Hades raised an eyebrow. When he sat forward in his throne, shadowy faces appeared in the folds of his black robes, faces of torment,as if the garment was stitched of trapped souls from the Fields of Punishment, trying to get out. The ADHD part of me wondered, off-task, whether the rest of his clothes were made the same way. What horrible things would you have to do in your life to get woven into Hades' underwear?”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Golem's Eye

“Freedom is an illusion. It always comes at a price.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Bartimaeus Trilogy Boxed Set

“Watch where you leave your victims! I stubbed my toe on that.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand

“That did it. I'd gone through a lot in the past few days. Everyone I met seemed to want a piece of me: djinn, magicians, humans...it made no difference.I'd been summoned, manhandled, shot at, captured, constricted, bossed about and generally taken for granted. And now, to cap it all, this bloke is joining in too, when all I'd been doing was quietly trying to kill him.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand

“Believe me, I know all about bottle acoustics. I spent much of the sixth century in an old sesame oil jar, corked with wax, bobbing about in the Red Sea. No one heard my hollers. In the end an old fisherman set me free, by which time I was desperate enough to grant him several wishes. I erupted in the form of a smoking giant, did a few lightning bolts, and bent to ask him his desire. Poor old boy had dropped dead of a heart attack. There should be a moral there, but for the life of me I can't see one.”
― Jonathan Stroud

“A typical master. Right to the end, he didn’t give me a chance to get a word in edgeways. Which is a pity, because at that last moment I’d have liked to tell him what I thought of him. Mind you, since in that split second we were, to all intents and purposes, one and the same, I rather think he knew anyway.”
― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

“Minor magicians take pains to fit this traditional wizardly bill. By contrast, the really powerful magicians take pleasure in looking like accountants.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand

“I warn you," the boy went on. "I am a magician of great power. I control many terrifying entities. This being you see before you" - here I rolled my shoulders back and puffed my chest up menacingly - "is but the meanest and least impressive of my slaves." (Here I slumped my shoulders and stuck my stomach out.)”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Golem's Eye

“Despite his crimped shirts and flowing mane (or perhaps because of them) I had seen no evidence as yet that Nathaniel even knew what a girl was. If he'd ever met one, chances are they'd both have run screaming in opposite directions.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Golem's Eye

“Even strength must bow to wisdom sometimes.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Percy: Don't I get a kiss for luck? It's kind of a tradition, right?
Annabeth: Come back alive, Seaweed Brain. Then we'll see.”
― Rick Riordan