Elizabeth > Elizabeth's Quotes

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”
― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

“Hung on my bedroom wall is a quote attributed to Joan of Arc: "I am not afraid. I was born to do this." However my life unfolds, goes my thinking, is how I am meant to live it; however my life unspools itself, I was created to bear it.”
― Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays

“Let that be a lesson to you: If you are too good and too quiet for too long, it will cost you. It will always cost you, in the end.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“Maybe all powerful men are cowards at heart, because in their hearts they know power is temporary.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?”
― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

“I wanted wide-open horizons and worn shoes and strange constellations spinning above me like midnight riddles. I wanted danger and mystery and adventure.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“the place you are born isn't necessarily the place you belong.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“They always end up alone in the stories—witches, I mean—living in the woods or mountains or locked in towers. I suppose it would take a brave man to love a witch, and most men are cowards.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“You’re not weak because you can’t read. You’re weak because you’re afraid of people seeing your weakness. You’re letting shame decide who you are. […] It’s shame that lines my pockets, shame that keeps the Barrel teeming with fools ready to put on a mask just so they can have what they want with none the wiser about it. We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that eats men whole.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“Greed is your god, Kaz."
He almost laughed at that. "No, Inej. Greed bows to me. It is my servant and my lever.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“God said: GOD MADE YOU. GOD DOES NOT CARE IF YOU ARE "GUILTY" OR NOT. I said: I CARE IF I AM GUILTY! I CARE IF I AM GUILTY!... God was silent. Everything was SILENT.”
― Frank Bidart, Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016

“Godhood is just like girlhood: a begging to be believed”
― Kristin Chang

“I killed a plant once because I gave
it too much water. Lord, I worry
that love is violence.”
― José Olivarez, Citizen Illegal

“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.”
― Richard Siken

“Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“Kill me," he rasped at Clear Sky. "Kill me and live with the memory. Then tell the stars that you won.”
― Erin Hunter, The First Battle

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.”
― richard siken

“Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.

I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“She would have to be a saint because that was the occupation that included everything you could know; and yet she knew she would never be a saint.... but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”
― Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

“Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.”
― Bonnie Burstow, Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence

“You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it, it’s all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Of all creatures that can feel and think,
we women are the worst treated things alive”
― Euripides, Medea

“Write your routine, Ronan. Now. While I watch. I want to see it."

7:45 A.M.: The most important meal of the day.
8:00 A.M.: Feed animals.
9:30 A.M.: Repair barns or house.
12:00 P.M.: Lunch @ that weird gas station.
1:30 P.M.: Ronan Lynch's marvelous dream emporium.

"What does this one mean, Ronan?"

It meant practice makes perfect. It meant ten thousand hours to mastery, if at first you don't succeed, there is no try only do. Ronan had spent hours over the last year dreaming ever more complex and precise objects into being, culminating in an intricate security system that rendered the Barns largely impossible to find unless you knew exactly where you were going. After Cambridge, though, it felt like all the fun had run out of the game.

"I don't ask what you do at work, Declan."

6:00 P.M.: Drive around.
7:15 P.M.: Nuke some dinner, yo.
7:30 P.M.: Movie time.
11:00 P.M.: Text Parrish.

Adam's most recent text had said simply: $4200.

It was the amount Ronan had to send to cover the dorm room repairs.

*11:30 P.M.: Go to bed.
*Saturday/Sunday: Church/DC
*Monday: Laundry & Grocery
*Tuesday: Text or call Gansey

These last items were in Declan's handwriting, his addendums subtly suggesting all the components of a fulfilling grown-up life Ronan had missed when crafting it. They only served to depress Ronan more. Look how you can predict the next forty-eight hours, seventy-two hours, ninety-six hours, look how you can predict the rest of your life. The entire word routine depressed Ronan. The sameness. Fuck everything.

Gansey texted: Declan told me to tell you to get out of bed.

Ronan texted back: why

He watched the morning light move over the varied black-gray shapes in his bedroom. Shelves of model cars; an open Uilleann pipes case; an old scuffed desk with a stuffed whale on it; a metal tree with wondrously intricate branches; heaps of laundry curled around beet-read wood shavings.

Gansey texted back: don't make me get on a plane I'm currently chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Call Down the Hawk

“You are being self-pitying."
"I'm nearly done. You don't have much more of this to bear."
"I like you better this way."
"Crushed and broken," Gansey said. "Just the way women like 'em.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“How do you feel about helicopters?"
There was a long pause. "How do you mean? Ethically?"
"As a mode of transportation."
"Faster than camels, but less sustainable.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“Are you really going to work in that?" Maura asked.

Blue looked at her clothing. It involved a few thin layering shirts, including one she had altered using a method called shredding. "What's wrong with it?"
Maura shrugged. "Nothing. I always wanted an eccentric daughter. I just never realised how well my evil plans were working.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys