Andrew Ashling > Andrew's Quotes

“Above the entrance hung a banner. It read, “Welcome to the Computer Fiar.” Compliments of the people who write the code for our computers.”
― Andrew Ashling, Stories on the Go: 101 Very Short Stories by 101 Authors

“Believe me, you need that shower after Jason has given you a massage.”
― Andrew Ashling, Stories on the Go: 101 Very Short Stories by 101 Authors

“Dav­el­lon may be a vil­lage, but the Dav­el­lon House can be any­thing you make it. No­bil­ity has to start some­where. It might as well start with you. Let no­body look down on you, for what­ever rea­son, My Lord. Ti­tles are granted or in­her­ited, no­bil­ity isn't.

~Tenaxos I to Landar Parmingh, Baron Davellon”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit

“War, they say, is the answer of those who have no arguments left.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Hands - Part 2: Castling

“A while ago?” Anaxantis asked. “Yes, he raped me a while ago. Exactly nine months and two days ago. What's that? Nine months or nine minutes. It's the same. And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that?”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“I will give you a few guarantees of my own, Mukthar. I guarantee that before the sun sets, even if you win, even if my cold, dead body is lying on the field, you will rue the day you ever set foot in the Plains. For every inch you advance I'll exact gallons of Mukthar blood. I guarantee that there will be not one family of the Bear Mukthars or they will mourn at least one of theirs. I guarantee that even if you are triumphant the fruits of victory will taste like dust in your mouth. I guarantee that if you fail to kill me today, you will meet me again. You will meet me at the Ximerionian border. You will meet me at every city, town, village, and hamlet. You will meet me on every Amirathan crossroad, on every hill. I will fight you with every sword at my command, with every arrow, with every dagger. I will fight you with pitchforks. I will fight you with the very rocks of the land you try to conquer. I will never, never, never give up.

~Anaxantis, before the Battle of the Zinchara (May 29th, 1453 aed)”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 3: Bonds of Blood

“Deal with all this, live with myself, you mean? I honestly don't know. I stand often enough at the abyss of my soul, asking that same question, looking down into the dark crevices where the black monsters dwell on the bottom. They gaze up at me, and I look them in the eyes. “This also you are,” they say, and I almost fall into the void.”
“And then?”
Anaxantis shrugged.
“And then? I turn around and go do what needs to be done. What else is there?”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Why, Andrew, why would it irritate me? Do you think that being loved by you is something to be ashamed of? I don't.”
― Andrew Ashling, A Dish Served Cold

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
― Plato

“The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Those who tell the stories rule society.”
― Plato

“Books are immortal sons defying their sires.”
― Plato

“A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient; nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in a fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient; and looking upon them only as sick and extravagant.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“He is so beautiful," she thought, aching from the sadness that she saw in his eyes. In the late-afternoon sunlight, those eyes were almost green. She took his face in her hands and pulled him to her, claiming the kiss she had so desperately wanted the day before but had forgotten in the heat of the moment. She closed her eyes and felt him respond to her mouth, his tongue seeking hers.”
― Shira Anthony, From the Depths

“I cannot come with you, my prince," he said with great tenderness, as he kneeled over the sleeping Neriah and placed the chain around his neck. "But perhaps, when you sleep, you will dream of me." He touched his hand to Neriah's forehead and whispered, "Now, forget me.”
― Shira Anthony, The Dream of a Thousand Nights

“He climbed on the bed, lay back and raised his knees back to his chest, hoping that Francis' first sight on entering the curtain would be Joe’s hole inviting him in.
Maybe it was a reaction to shock or the close proximity of death or anticipation of Francis’ return, but Joe had never felt so turned on.”
― James Austen, Raw Food

“Did Anton try the carrots?”
“I believe so. Flavio seems happier, at least on that count, and I have noticed now that Anton shudders whenever he sees anything vaguely resembling a carrot. Which I think is rather sad, as they are a beautiful root vegetable.”
“Yes,” said Joe seductively, remembering the huge carrots back on the kitchen table.”
― James Austen, Raw Food

“We are all accidents waiting to happen..." RH”
― Alex A. Akira

“The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.”
― Ross McDonald

“Regrets... Regrets are bootless. A vain trick of the mind. An impotent raging against what cannot be changed anyway. A distraction from the moment.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 3: Bonds of Blood

“Hey," Anaxantis protested. "Oh," he added, when the Muktar prince took his member in his mouth. "Oh... that's what you meant by servicing." He laughed softly.

"Aw, aw, teeth, teeth, no teeth," he hissed suddenly.

"Sowwy," Timishi, mumbled with his mouth full. "Towd you it wouldn't je jood.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 3: Bonds of Blood

“What? Oh, of course. Siuria, you mean. No, no, Tinka's leg fell off. Tinka, Siuria's doll. So she brought her to the doctor. As she should. Bright young thing.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Just don’t stare at my ass, Landemere,” he added.

“I wasn’t staring at your ass,” Arranulf, who had been staring at his ass, said.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“It's sobering really," she thought, "how easy it is to reduce a human being to the state of an animal. You just take away some paraphernalia like clothing and put him in another environment. I bet that if I were to keep him there for a few months he would simply adapt to the swine lifestyle. A pity, but I haven't got time to experiment. But a few days, well, they are necessary to take his hope away and mollify his spirit.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate

“Of course he was afraid of war. Only fools are not. Anaxantis was no fool. He was fully prepared to fight, but only as a last resort.”
― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit

“History doesn't remember gardens.
…
You forgot the wise administrators, those who kept the peace, those who brought prosperity. You needn’t feel embarrassed, though. So did history.”
― Andrew Ashling

“Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed." -Unknown”
― Caddy Rowland

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
― Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein: The Human Side

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids, or the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature’s law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations