Mandy > Mandy's Quotes

“Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Chronicler shook his head and Bast gave a frustrated sigh. "How about plays? Have you seen The Ghost and the Goosegirl or The Ha'penny King?"
Chronicler frowned. "Is that the one where the king sells his crown to an orphan boy?"
Bast nodded. "And the boy becomes a better king than the original. The goosegirl dresses like a countess and everyone is stunned by her grace and charm." He hesitated, struggling to find the words he wanted. "You see, there's a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be."
Chronicler relaxed a bit, sensing familiar ground. "That's basic psychology. You dress a beggar in fine clothes, people treat him like a noble, and he lives up to their expectations."
"That's only the smallest piece of it," Bast said. "The truth is deeper than that. It's..." Bast floundered for a moment. "It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story."
Frowning, Chronicler opened his mouth, but Bast held up a hand to stop him. "No, listen. I've got it now. You meet a girl: shy, unassuming. If you tell her she's beautiful, she'll think you're sweet, but she won't believe you. She knows that beauty lies in your beholding." Bast gave a grudging shrug. "And sometimes that's enough."
His eyes brightened. "But there's a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you..." Bast gestured excitedly. "Suddenly the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn't seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Chronicler snapped. "You're just spouting nonsense now."
"I'm spouting too much sense for you to understand," Bast said testily. "But you're close enough to see my point.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“There is a face beneath this mask, but it isn't me. I'm no more that face than I am the muscles beneath it, or the bones beneath that.”
― Steve Moore, V for Vendetta

“That boy hardly needed a mask when his naked face was already impenetrable.”
― Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

“And the touch of her own mask, at first cool and clammy leather, but quickly like a second skin, and the play it gives her, herself a stage, her every breath a performance, and yet (herein lies the magic) also and entirely true. Every game, every lie flirting and cruel - and the house is full of them, games and lies - is real as knives, for the masquerade has come to define the night. The false face of everyday, that hides reality beneath flesh and skin, is itself hidden beneath the fantasy that, because it is a product and reflection of the mind, is an honest facade. Sadie has lived a wary, defensive life, always urged by that self-preserving instinct to stay small, hidden, safe. She did not know she had an imp inside her until she wore it on her face.

("One Of The Hungry Ones")”
― Holly Phillips, Best New Horror 17

“In the vaults of our hearts and brains, danger waits. All the chambers are not lovely, light and high. There are holes in the floor of the mind, like those in a medieval dungeon floor - the stinking oubliettes, named for forgetting, bottle-shaped cells in solid rock with the trapdoor in the top. Nothing escapes from them quietly to ease us. A quake, some betrayal by our safeguards, and sparks of memory fire the noxious gases - things trapped for years fly free, ready to explode in pain and drive us to dangerous behavior...”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.”
― Anne Rice, Servant of the Bones

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
― Elizabeth Appell

“The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can't.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eragon

“Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.”
― Sarah Kay

“I think she was afraid to love sometimes. I think it scared her. She was the type to like things that were concrete, like the ocean. Something you could point to and know what it was. I think that's why she always struggled with God. And I think that's why she also struggled with love. She couldn't touch it. She couldn't hold on to it and make sure it never changed.”
― Carrie Ryan, The Dead-Tossed Waves

“A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against.”
― chuck palahniuk

“No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“We'll be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“The idea that I can't share my problems with other people makes me not give a shit about their problems.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“It's all mirror, mirror on the wall because beauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Find good in what the world says is evil.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Besides, it happens fast for some people and slow for some, accidents or gravity, but we all end up mutilated. Most women know this feeling of being more and more invisible everyday.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“You only ask people about themselves so you can tell them about yourself.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“The most boring thing in the entire world is nudity. The second most boring thing is honesty.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Skin, bones, blood and organs transplant from person to person. Even what’s inside you already, the colonies of microbes and bugs that eat your food for you, without them you’d die. Nothing of you is all-the-way yours. All of you is inherited.
Whatever you’re thinking, a million other folks are thinking. Whatever you do, they’re doing, and none of you is responsible. All of you is a cooperative effort.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“That's what I love about fire, how it would kill me as quick as anybody else. How it can't know I'm its mother. It's so beautiful and powerful and beyond feeling anything for anybody, that's what I love about fire.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Terry was cool, cooler then Ig would ever be, but he was afraid. His fear narrowed his vision so that he couldn't see anything except what he stood to lose.”
― Joe Hill, Horns

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God