Amy Kuivalainen > Amy's Quotes

“Your thorns are the best part of you.”
― Marianne Moore

“Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue. (from "Instructions")”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“You better be able to turn yourself off if you think you’re coming back into my house,” she said. The bird gave her another dubious look before stamping one foot and the flames disappeared leaving long gold and red feathers.
“Oh,” Anya said embarrassed. “I suppose you can.”
― Amy Kuivalainen, Cry of the Firebird

“Oh Jesus, oh Zeus, oh Odin,” Anya dropped the stick and started shaking. “Oh shit.” The bird spread out its wings, which slowly transformed back into arms and the rest followed until it was a man once more.”
― Amy Kuivalainen, Cry of the Firebird

“Anya had never seen a house uglier house than Baba Yaga’s. It was made entirely of mouldy bones in the same interlocking design as a log cabin. A thorny garden grew as high as the fence and skulls, bleached white by the sun, capped each fence post. Two enormous scaly chicken legs came out on either side of the house. Anya snorted in amusement and disgust. Yvan, she noticed, had turned an interesting shade of grey.”
― Amy Kuivalainen, Cry of the Firebird

“The shiny black nose of a fox appears through her door before the rest of it steps tentatively across the wooden floor to where she’s cooking. A pile of children’s clothes lie discarded in a corner of the room. The fox knows what she is cooking and holds back a shudder. There are some things even foxes know better than to eat.”
― Amy Kuivalainen, Cry of the Firebird

“Tuoni takes her by the shoulders and turns her to face him. “Remember this Anya. Dreams have power; they show old truths you are too blind to see on waking. They make you remember memories that are lost in the blood flowing through your veins. Remember her magic. Remember what she did when you wake,” he says before he pushes her off the cliff.”
― Amy Kuivalainen, Cry of the Firebird

“What are you reading?” she asked as he poured himself scotch and her a vodka. She looked over to the deserted volume. “Stories and Legends of Pagan Russia,” she read aloud. “Are you catching up on Yvan’s biography?”
― Amy Kuivalainen, Cry of the Firebird

“Vasilli had often wondered if the secret of Ladislav’s power was, like Samson, held within his hair. And what would happen if he shaved it off.”
― Amy Kuivalainen, Cry of the Firebird

“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don't cheat with it.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I am so happy that I made someone cry today - don't worry I'm a writer. It's when they make me cry that it's a problem.”
― Tina Smith

“Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart." [on Lord of the Rings]”
― C.S. Lewis

“Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“We never know the quality of someone else's life, though we seldom resist the temptation to assume and pass judgement.”
― Tami Hoag, Dark Horse

“Time and I have quarrelled. All hours are midnight now. I had a clock and a watch, but I destroyed them both. I could not bear the way they mocked me.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“The Darkling slumped back in his chair. “Fine,” he said with a weary shrug. “Make me your villain.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“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

“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.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“To honour its first creation, no sound was permitted within the home of Muse for a full year, no sound save that of its Art: the slow, crisp, click of polished brass gears, the sensual hiss of pneumatic release, the insidious sibilance and decisive thud of a withdrawing and thrusting piston, and the soft groan of the boy held within the cube as each rod ran him through, over and over and over.
Powered by this action, the music box played.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down...
And another piston rammed home.
A mechanism of intricate complexity exchanging great pain for a little beauty. This, here, then, was Life.
Muse was fulfilled.”
― Cameron Rogers, The Music of Razors: A Novel

“Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.”
― Edmund Burke

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed (Albert Einstein)”
― Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches

“Magic is desire made real.”
― Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches

“I wanted to know how humans came up with a view of the world that had so little magic in it. I needed to understand how they convinced themselves that magic wasn’t important.”
― Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches

“If you truly love someone, you will cherish what they despise most about themselves.”
― Deborah Harkness, The Book of Life

“I trust my wife's judgement... That's what Philippe says about Granny, just before all hell breaks loose.”
― Deborah Harkness, Shadow of Night

“Welcome to this ugly, maddening world in all its beauty. Grow and learn, so that you'll someday be able to help others in turn.”
― Kore Yamazaki, The Ancient Magus' Bride, Vol. 4

“You are mine,I am yours; you may be sure of this. You've been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay. ”
― Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle

“I am more than my scars.”
― Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle

“To survive, you must tell stories.”
― Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before