Torrin > Torrin's Quotes

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Only boring people get bored.”
― Ross A. McCoubrey, One Boy's Shadow

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
― Lao Tzu

“Stories never really end...even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

“That taught us how to block a sword with two knives. But what if an ax man's coming at me?"
Gilan looked suspicious. "An ax man? I don't recommend trying to block an ax with two knives."
But Will wouldn't take no for an answer. "But what if he's charging at me?" Horace walked over.
Gilan looked away. "Uh...shoot him."
Horace intervened. "Can't, his bowstring's broken."
Gilan gritted his teeth. "Run and hide."
Will kept on him. "There's a sheer cliff behind me."
Horace caught on. "There's a sheer cliff behind him, and his bowstring's broken. What should he do?"
Gilan thought for a moment. "Jump off the cliff, it'll be less messy that way.”
― John Flanagan, The Burning Bridge

“But what if I make a mistake?' Will asked.

Gilan threw back his head and laughed. 'A mistake? One mistake? You should be so lucky. You'll make dozens! I made four or five on my first day alone! Of course you'll make mistakes. Just don't make any of them twice. If you do mess things up, don't try to hide it. Don't try to rationalize it. Recognize it and admit it and learn from it. We never stop learning, none of us.”
― John Flanagan, Erak's Ransom

“If you take a book with you on a journey," Mo had said when he put the first one in her box, "an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories. And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it. It will all come into your mind with the very first words: the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it... yes, books are like flypaper—memories cling to the printed page better than anything else.”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

“Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them.”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

“What Rangers do, or more correctly, what Rangers’ apprentices do, is the housework.”
Will had a sinking feeling as the suspicion struck him that he’d made a tactical error. “The…housework?” he repeated. Halt nodded, looking distinctly pleased with himself.
“That’s right. Take a look around.” He paused, gesturing around the interior of the cabin for Will to do as he suggested, then continued, “See ay servants?”
“No, sir,” Will said slowly.
“No sir indeed!” Halt said. “Because this isn’t a mighty castle with a staff of servants. This is a lowly cabin. And it has water to be fetched and firewood to be chopped and floors to be swept and rugs to be beaten. And who do you suppose might do all those things, boy?”
Will tried to think of some answer other than the one which now seemed inevitable. Nothing came to mind, so he finally said, in a defeated tone, “Would that be me, sir?”
“I believe it would be,” the Ranger told him, then rattled off a list of instructions crisply. “Bucket there. Barrel outside the door. Water in the river. Ax in the lean-to, firewood behind the cabin. Broom by the door and I believe you can probably see where the floor might be?”
“Yes, sir,” said Will, beginning to roll up his sleeves.”
― John Flanagan, The Ruins of Gorlan

“Halt waited a minute or two but there was no sound except for the jingling of harness and the creaking of leather from their saddles. Finally, the former Ranger could bear it no longer.
What?”
The question seemed to explode out of him, with a greater degree of violence than he had intended. Taken by surprise, Horace’s bay shied in fright and danced several paces away.
Horace turned an aggrieved look on his mentor as he calmed the horse and brought it back under control.
What?” he asked Halt, and the smaller man made a gesture of exasperation.
That’s what I want to know,” he said irritably. “What?”
Horace peered at him. The look was too obviously the sort of look that you give someone who seems to have taken leave of his senses. It did little to improve Halt’s rapidly growing temper.
What?” said Horace, now totally puzzled.
Don’t keep parroting at me!” Halt fumed. “Stop repeating what I say! I asked you ‘what,’ so don’t ask me ‘what’ back, understand?”
Horace considered the question for a second or two, then, in his deliberate way, he replied: “No.”
Halt took a deep breath, his eyebrows contracted into a deep V, and beneath them his eyes with anger but before he could speak, Horace forestalled him.
What ‘what’ are you asking me?” he said. Then, thinking how to make the question clearer, he added, “Or to put it another way, why are you asking ‘what’?”
Controlling himself with enormous restraint, and making no secret of the fact, Halt said, very precisely: “You were about to ask me a question.”
Horace frowned. “I was?”
Halt nodded. “You were. I saw you take a breath to ask it.”
I see,” Horace said. “And what was it about?”
For just a second or two, Halt was speechless. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then finally found the strength to speak.
That is what I was asking you,” he said. “When I said ‘what,’ I was asking you what you were about to ask me.”
I wasn’t about to ask you ‘what,’” Horace replied, and Halt glared at him suspiciously. It occurred to him that Horace could be indulging himself in a gigantic leg pull, that he was secretly laughing at Halt. This, Halt could have told him, was not a good career move. Rangers were not people who took kindly to being laughed at. He studied the boy’s open face and guileless blue eyes and decided that his suspicion was ill-founded.
Then what, if I may use that word once more, were you about to ask me?”
Horace drew a breath once more, then hesitated. “I forget,” he said. “What were we talking about?”
― John Flanagan, The Battle for Skandia

“Ow!" said Horace as the Ranger's fingers probed and poked around the bruise.
Did that hurt?" Halt asked, and Horace looked at him with exasperation.
Of course it did," he said sharply. "That's why I said 'ow!”
― John Flanagan, The Icebound Land

“I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.”
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
― Stephen King, Different Seasons

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”
― Sigmund Freud

“I ask for trust. It is a lot, I know; it isn't easy to give. But it is all I ask.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Hawksong

“I’m not asking for anything beyond your company in sleep. Just let me rest with the sound of your heartbeat beside mine.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Hawksong

“People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity.

Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves.”
― Ruskin Bond, Best Of Ruskin Bond

“Anyway, the point is that you guys really need to get out more.”
― Hitori Nakano, Train Man

“[from The One and Only Official Mr. Gum Official Glossary That Tells You What Words Mean by Explaining Them Using Other Words] :

Cups of tea: People in England are always drinking cups of tea. "Oh let's have a cup of tea " they say. "That will prove we are English and not American." Sometimes American people try to have cups of tea to pretend they are English but forget it We can always tell you are faking it”
― Andy Stanton, You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum!

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn't try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn't need others' approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
― Lao Tzu

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”
― Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption