Debrac2014 > Debrac2014's Quotes

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”
― Alice Walker

“Is it just me or is this like a bad TV sci-fi show?”
― John Ringo, When the Devil Dances

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“WAGs... That's a technical term we engineers use. It means 'Wild-Assed Guess'.”
― David Weber, On Basilisk Station

“One must be ruthless with one’s own writing or someone else will be.”
― JOHN BERRYMAN

“By lifting Widget up, Law had given her the power to help others. They were daisy-chained together; acts of goodwill looped back around. Law had saved Windwolf. He had protected her without even knowing how much he owed her. Tinker saved the tengu, and they in turn protected Usagi and her children. Around and around, kindness being paid forward until it returned. It was what Pittsburgh needed. What Elfhome needed; people helping one another without concern of clan or race or species.”
― Wen Spencer, Project Elfhome

“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

“Barabas placed a stack on the table and held the chair out for me. “For you.”
“I’m hungry and I don’t have time for this.”
Barabas’s eyes held no mercy. “Make time, Alpha. You have two hands. You can eat and sign simultaneously.”
Curran grinned.
“Enjoying my suffering?” I asked.
“I find it hilarious that you’ll run into a gunfight with nothing but your sword, but paperwork makes you panic.”
Barabas put a thicker stack in front of him.
“This is yours, m’lord.”
Curran swore.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Rises

“what Kamele’s state of mind might be at this point in her relationship with Theo’s father, he found himself reluctant to imagine. As she was a woman of great good sense, it was likely that she wanted to murder him—for which he would blame her not at all.”
― Sharon Lee, Ghost Ship

“And do you know what that goal is?"
I went for the most obvious choice: "Creating microburst hypnotropic flash-spam on a global scale?"
"Immortality, Mr. Cséjthe!" he exclaimed.
Oh, too bad . . .
Tell me that you've invented the next big marketing technology of the twenty-first century and you've got my attention. But "Immortality"? Why not throw "World Domination" in and cackle like a demented madman?
Demented madman—now there was a nice redundancy . . .”
― Wm. Mark Simmons, Habeas Corpses

“Cozy place you got here,” he said, looking around the office. “You read all them books?” “I fear not. But one cannot simply get rid of books, you know. Especially books which have reposed so long on the same shelf.” “Reckon they’re good insulation,” Yulie said, nodding at the shelving stretching from floor to ceiling along the interior wall.”
― Sharon Lee, Neogenesis

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
― Albert Einstein

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Roarke had to deal with her moods. It was in the marriage rules.”
― J.D. Robb, Obsession in Death

“There was Kir, red hair combed back and That Expression on his sharp face. Even his freckles looked serious. I'd given up wondering how a freckle-faced teenager could look so much like a disapproving granny.”
― Lilith Saintcrow, Jealousy

“Hearing wulfen howl is... well, it's horrible. The sound is glassy, hovering at the upper ranges of hearing, and it's full of paws on snow and running with the icy wind hitting the back of your throat like stares. Underneath the glassy edge is the song of flesh ripped apart, the sweetness of hot blood, and the savagery of crunching bones with sharp teeth.

The worst part is how it climbs into your brain, pressing itself like a hard sharpness into the soft folds, and drags open the doors socialization slams shut to keep the howling ravening thing down inside down and tame.

The thing on four clawed legs that lives in all of us.”
― Lilith Saintcrow

“She's more worried about losing a sub than her own life," Galloway said. "I am going to cover that girl in medals. So help me God.”
― John Ringo, Under a Graveyard Sky

“You ever see Star Wars? The original ones?” “Don’t tell me—” “Yep. It looks like we landed on fucking Hoth. Except I see two itty bitty suns and a huge-ass moon.” “Not Hoth,” Liz yells. “It was the sixth planet from its sun, and I don’t recall it having a moon.” “Okay, nerd,”
― Ruby Dixon, Ice Planet Barbarians

“It was like having two children in the car with her. Okay, one child and a young adult that
kept backsliding. Hal, of course, was attempting to prove he was really only eight years old.
Taggart could resist the taunting part of the time. Nigel was the senile grandmother who never
noticed that the children were fighting. He sat in the backseat, smiling serenely at the passing
landscape. What made things worse was that Taggart called shotgun so he could film through the
front window. That made it so she couldn't reach Hal to swat him into silence. She found herself
tempted to hit Taggart just because he was beside her. And because he'd changed into a dark blue
silk shirt and cologne that smelled so good she just wanted to roll in it.
"I can kill us all," Jane growled, gripping the wheel tightly, and resisted the urge to drive the
production truck into the ditch to prove her point.
Somehow they reached downtown without her killing anyone.”
― Wen Spencer, Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden

“But you're stuck filming crap now." Hal snorted. "Chased by monsters? Better be damn good
at running."
"And exactly how do you get hurt filming a landscaping show?" Taggart retorted.
"If it can't kill us, we don't film it," Jane said, to stop the fighting before it could start. "There's
a lot of dangerous flora and fauna in Pittsburgh and it doesn't stay beyond the Rim. It comes into
people's backyards and sets up shop. We teach our viewers how to deal with it, but it means we
have to actually get close enough to get hurt."
"Deal with, as in kill?" Nigel seemed flabbergasted.
"This isn't Earth. These aren't endangered species. This morning we were dealing with a very
large strangler vine in a neighborhood with lots of children. There's no way to 'move' it to
someplace where it isn’t a danger, especially while it's actively trying to kill anything that
stumbles into its path. Pets. Children. Automated lawnmowers."
"That one is always amusing to watch but it always ends badly for the lawnmower," Hal said.”
― Wen Spencer, Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden

“Taggart finally broke the pattern. "Can you at least explain why?"
Jane growled. God, she hated being outnumbered. This was like riding herd on her little
brothers, only worse because "I'll beat you if you do" wasn't an acceptable answer. "First rule of
shooting a show on Elfhome." She grabbed Hal and made him face each of the two newbies so
there was no way they could miss the mask of dark purple bruises across Hal's face. "Avoid
getting 'The Face' damaged. Viewers don't like raccoon boys. Hal is out of production until the
bruising can be covered with makeup. We've got fifty days and a grocery list of face-chewing
monsters to film. We have to think about damage control."
"Second rule!" She let Hal go and held up two fingers. "Get as much footage as possible of the
monster before you kill it. People don't like looking at dead monsters if you don't give them lots
of time seeing it alive. Right now we have got something dark moving at night in water. No one
has ever seen this before, so we can't use stock footage to pad. We blow the whistle and it will
come out of the water and try to rip your face off – violating rule one – and then we'll have to kill
it and thus break rule two."
"Sounds reasonable," Taggart said.
"Would we really have to kill it?" Nigel's tone suggested he equated it to torturing kittens.
"If it's trying its damnest to eat you? Yes!" Jane cried.”
― Wen Spencer, Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden

“We thought we should list all legendary animals," Nigel explained – apparently without
realizing it – why they had visa problems. "Can't hurt to ask. Dragons are real, right?"
"Elves say they are." Jane desperately wanted a scotch but if she had one, Hal couldn't resist
needing one, and she didn't want go back down that road. "This list is suicidal if you're not
willing to defend yourself. This isn't Earth, where you can sit in your Jeep and take picture of
lions, or go sit in the middle of a bunch of apes. Most of these things will peel open an SUV like
it’s a can of sardines and make a snack of everything inside."
"It would be amusing to watch but it would end badly for you," Hal murmured. It was hard to
tell if he was making a play on his previous statement or if he didn't realize he was repeating
himself.
"The list is a starting point." Nigel leaned forward, face lighting up with inner fire. "To get us
in the door. What we want is all of Elfhome. To revel in all that it has to offer. The virgin iron
wood forest. The beautiful immortal elves. The strange and magical beasts. And the humans that
live peacefully side by side with all this."
Jane shook her head, trying to resist the power of a TV host beaming at her one-on-one.
"Don't snow job me."
"I've seen this kind of shit before," Taggart said with quiet intensity. "When a country goes
dark, its means someone has something it's trying to hide. And often what they're hiding is
horrible war crimes like mass graves and attempted genocide. Someone is keeping the media out
of Pittsburgh.”
― Wen Spencer, Project Elfhome

“Jane snorted out in disgust. "Okay, the good news is spotting the saurus just got a hell of a lot
easier. Plus we've got a ton of free bait."
"The bad news?" Taggart asked.
"Smart boy. Cookie for knowing that there's bad news." Jane eased her SUV across the worn
divided line to drive along the berm. "Bad news, Pittsburgh beef cows are the meanest son-of-abitches."
"So, we have to dodge several tons of pissed off sirloin while filming one hungry dinosaur?"
"Welcome to Pittsburgh.”
― Wen Spencer, Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden

“I couldn't seem to remember much of anything else, either, including who the hell I was. But that still wasn't the problem.

No, the problem was that I'd woken up next to a vampire.

One who was maddeningly hard to kill.

"If you would but listen to me for a moment," he said, as I slammed his pretty red head against the concrete floor for the SIXTH FREAKING time.

"Okay," I panted, wondering what the hell his skull was made of. Granite? "Let's chat."

Of course, that would be difficult since I'd just changed tactics, grabbing his throat & squeezing for all I was worth.”
― Karen Chance, Fury's Kiss

“Chinny. My brother. Let’s clear up two points right now. First? If my wife decides that she wants to do something, I will let her do it. Why? Because I want to live. Because she will cut me down in the prime of my youth if I dare to suggest that I have control over her, and I’m not that stupid. I mean, I have stupid moments, but that? Ordering her to not do something? Grade A stupid.”
― Honor Raconteur, Remnants

“The faeries are kind of Switzerland with a big stick.”
― Rebecca Zanetti, Fated