Becka the Book Girl > Becka the's Quotes

“Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious. They are like water, which gives life and growth and refreshment, but because it has always been abundant, we treat it cheaply. We waste it; we pollute it, and doctor it. Later we blame the quality of the water because we have misused it.”
― Katherine Paterson

“Changes in language often reflect the changing values of a culture.”
― Ravi Zacharias

“Our powerful hunger for myth is a hunger for community. The person without a myth is a person without a home...To be a member of one's community is to share in its myths...”
― Rollo May

“Other people's stories may become part of your own, the foundation of it, the ground it goes on.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin

“The very act of story-telling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative, is by definition holy. We tell stories because we can't help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us.”
― James Carroll

“True openness is the accompaniment of the desire to know, hence of the awareness of ignorance. To deny the possibility of knowing good and bad is to suppress true openness.”
― Allan Bloom

“Error is indeed our enemy, but it alone points to the truth and therefore deserves our respectful treatment.”
― Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

“If writers write not just with paper and ink or a word processor but with their own life's blood, then I think something like this is perhaps always the case. A book you write out of the depths of who you are, like a dream you dream out of those same depths, is entirely your own creation. All the words your characters speak are words that you alone have put into their mouths, just as every situation they become involved in is one that you alone have concocted for them. But it seems to me that nonetheless that a book you write, like a dream you dream, can have more healing and truth and wisdom in it at least for yourself than you feel in any way responsible for.”
― Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets: A Celebrated Author's Candid Memoir of a Father's Suicide and Its Influence on a Son and Minister

“Whatever you are physically...male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy--all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“Of course you can have a true Shadowhunter name," Will said. "You can have mine."
Tessa stared at him, all black and white against the black-and-white snow and stone. "Your name?"
Will took a step toward her, till they stood face-to-face. Then he reached to take her hand and slid off her glove, which he put into his pocket. He held her bare hand in his, his fingers curved around hers. His hand was warm and callused, and his touch made her shiver. His eyes were steady and blue; they were everything that Will was: true and tender, sharp and witty, loving and kind. "Marry me," he said. "Marry me, Tess. Marry me and be called Tessa Herondale. Or be Tessa Gray, or be whatever you wish to call yourself, but marry me and stay with me and never leave me, for I cannot bear another day of my life to go by that does not have you in it.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“If there's a thing I've learned in my life it's to not be afraid of the responsibility that comes with caring for other people. What we do for love: those things endure. Even if the people you do them for don't”
― Cassandra Clare

“You speak of sacrifice, but it is not my sacrifice I offer. It is yours I ask of you," he went on. "I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain. But I love you enough to hope that you wil not care that I am being selfish in trying to make the rest of my life - whatever length - happy, by spending it with you. I want to be married to you, Tessa. I want it more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life." He looked up at her through the veil of silvery hair that fell over his eyes. "That is," he said shyly, "if you love me, too.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die -"
She put her hand against his chest, just over his heart, and felt its beat against her palm, a unique time signature that was all its own. "I only wish you would not speak of dying," she said. "But even for that, yes, I know how you are with your words, and, Will- I love all of them. Every word you say. The silly ones, the mad ones, the beautiful ones, and the ones that are only for me. I love them, and I love you.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“Heroes aren't always the ones who win," she said. "They're the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“Temper us in fire, and we grow stronger. When we suffer, we survive.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“Sometimes," Jem said, "our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It's those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered-- that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine, or even really remember, how things were before.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“There are a hundred trillion cells in the human body, and every single one of the cells of my body loves you. We shed cells, and grow new ones, and my new cells love you more than the old ones, which is why I love you more every day than I did the day before. It’s science. And when I die and they burn my body and I become ashes that mix with the air, and part of the ground and the trees and the stars, everyone who breathes that air or sees the flowers that grow out of the ground or looks up at the stars will remember you and love you, because I love you that much.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“When you love someone, they become a part of who you are. They're in everything you do. They're in the air you breathe and the water you drink and the blood in your veins. Their touch stays on your skin and their voice stays in your ears and their thoughts stay in your mind. You know their dreams because their nightmares pierce your heart and their good dreams are your dreams too. And you don't think they're perfect, but you know their flaws, the deep-down truth of them, and the shadows of all their secrets, and they don't frighten you away; in fact you love them more for it, because you don't want perfect. You want them. You want—"

He broke off then, as if realizing everyone was looking at him again.

"You want what?" said Dru with enormous eyes.

"Nothing," Julian said. "I'm just talking.”
― Cassandra Clare, Lady Midnight

“It is as great a thing to love as it is to be loved. Love is not something that can be wasted.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“Whoever loves you now—and you must also love yourself—will love the truth of you.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“Magnus took a deep breath and spoke gently. “Will. You asked me for my wisdom, as someone who has lived many lifetimes and buried many loves. I can tell you that the end of a life is the sum of the love that was lived in it, that whatever you think you have sworn, being here at the end of Jem’s life is not what is important. It was being here for every other moment. Since you met him, you have never left him and never not loved him. That is what matters.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would, as long as life was mortal. In every meeting there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in everything parting there was some of the joy of meeting as well.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“Sebastian never does anything just for fun.” Jace took Clary’s hand and pulled her toward him. “But I do.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

“Only mundanes say they're sorry when what they mean is "I share your grief,"' Jace observed.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us. And there is a beauty that brevity alone provides.” He dropped his gaze, then raised it to hers. “I would give you everything of myself,” he said. “I would give you more in two weeks than most men would give you in a lifetime.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“Family isn't blood. It's the people who love you. The people who have your back.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“When two souls are as one, they stay together on the Wheel. I was born into this world to love you, and I will love you in the next life, and the one after that." ~Jem Carstairs”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“His beauty did not blaze like Will's did in fierce colors and repressed fire, but it had its own muted perfection, the loveliness of snow falling against a silver gray sky.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince