Betsy Cornwell > Betsy's Quotes

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#1

“It is the mission of each true knight...
His duty... nay, his privilege!
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong.

To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!

This is my Quest to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I'll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!”
― Joe Darion, Man of La Mancha

tags: chivalry, quest

117 likes

#2

“Funny how "question" contains the word "quest" inside it, as though any small question asked is a journey through briars.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Under in the Mere

tags: journey, quest, question

48 likes

#3

“I believe home is where the heart can be open and loving with a sense of security. It must not be a place of fear.”
― Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem, Questing Home: A Safe Place for My Holy Grail: Personal Growth Through Travel

21 likes

#4

“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.

In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.

I liked the Irish way better.”
― C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman

tags: hospitality, humor, ireland, tea

783 likes

#5

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
― C.S. Lewis

4761 likes

#6

“There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

600 likes

#7

“It's the colors that will make you stray. They sing to you, the not-blue and the searing light, and no matter how tightly you tie yourself to the inbetween, eventually you will break free.
No one swims only in the shallow water.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Tides

tags: blue, colors, inbetween, light, mermaids, ocean, sea, selkies, swimming, tides

20 likes

#8

“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.”
― Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater

tags: comfort, tea, warmth, winter

217 likes

#9

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

tags: adventure, carpe-diem, enjoy-life, experience, inspirational, life, live-in-the-moment, purpose-of-life

3349 likes

#10

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
― Edward Abbey

tags: adventure, advice, living

1214 likes

#11

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

tags: buddhism, gratitude, joy, mindfulness, zen

4837 likes

#12

“There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

John Steinbeck in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”
― John Steinbeck

40 likes

#13

“There was a house we all had in common and it was called the past, even though we'd lived in different rooms.”
― Angela Carter, Wise Children

tags: past

106 likes

#14

“There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”
― Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968

tags: hope, light

3044 likes

#15

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

6599 likes

#16

“The winds were warm about us, the whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love.”
― Harriet Prescott Spofford, The Amber Gods and Other Stories

726 likes

#17

“One must always account for the vagaries of truth.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

tags: advice, invention, realism, reality, truth

0 likes

#18

“I’m an anchor and he is the sea and I sink into his tenderness as he presses my hand to his heart.”
― Sarah Noffke, Awoken

tags: love-quotes, love-story, men, swoon

5 likes

#19

“I have to believe it’s right to be a warm voice, a companion if I can be, as soon as ever I find a friend.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

tags: cinderella, companionship, compassion, fairy-tale-retellings, friends, friendship, kindness, love, steampunk, warmth

3 likes

#20

“When your heart is broken, it’s easier to follow rules”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

tags: depression, fairy-tales, heartbreak, love, mechanica, obedience, rules, sadness

10 likes

#21

“Everything was a broken line for me in those days. I was slipped into the empty spaces between words.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

tags: cinderella, depression, grief, line-breaks, mechanica, mourning, steampunk, storytelling

10 likes

#22

“The cracks grew over him like vines, faster and faster. At first he bucked, whinnying metallic screeches. Then he gradually stilled, looking up at me with frightened glass eyes.
He was growing.
New, molten glass leeched out between his fissures, cooled and hardened only to crack again and make room for more liquid glass. The gears inside him moaned and creaked, and metal filings gathered at the base of his transparent stomach, only to fly up again and form more joints and chains and gears. Black smoke poured from his nostrils.
Soon he was the size of a large dog, then a man, and still he grew and grew until he towered over my bed, as big as any plow horse I’d ever seen. Glass dripped down his flanks like sweat, a few rivulets still glowing with molten heat.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

tags: dreams, horse, horses, magic, mechanica, mechanics, steampunk, steampunk-fables, steampunk-fairy-tales

2 likes

#23

“I brought my hand to the back of his neck and leaned into him, sliding my fingers into the curls at his nape. His arms clasped tighter around me. I sighed just a little against his mouth, feeling that it was almost too much, all this newness, this feeling that there was space and light inside me I’d never noticed before. Every part of me down to my fingertips felt like reworked glass, melting into some new shape, my edges beginning to glow. I wanted to do nothing but change this way, pressed against his body, his warmth and goodness, forever.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

tags: betsy-cornwell, first-kiss, inventor, kissing, love, mechanica, romance, steampunk-fairy-tales

5 likes

#24

“Children’s and YA books are about being brave and kind, about learning wisdom and love, about that journey into and through maturity that we all keep starting, and starting again, no matter how old we get. I think that’s why so many adults read YA: we’re never done coming of age.”
― Betsy Cornwell

tags: adolescence, adulthood, adults-reading-ya, age, childhood, children-s-books, coming-of-age, kids, kids-books, learning, literature, maturity, reading, wisdom, ya, young-adult-books

10 likes

#25

“It's true that when you read YA you rarely have to read about middle-aged men having affairs. Personally I consider that a plus.”
― Erin Bow

tags: affairs, reading, ya, young-adult-books

13 likes

#26

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”
― Edith Sitwell

tags: comfort, home, winter

2369 likes

#27

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
― Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg

tags: nature, spring

2280 likes

#28

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

tags: books, fire, star, universe

4493 likes

#29

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

tags: vulnerability

1058 likes

#30

“I had rescued myself entirely.”
― Betsy Cornwell, Mechanica

tags: cinderella, damsel-in-distress, empowerment, fairy-tales, feminism, girl-power, happy-ending, hea, hero, heroines, heroines-journey, independence, rescue, steampunk, steampunk-fairy-tales

5 likes

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