SereneReads > SereneReads's Quotes

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass

“A SMALL PIECE OF TRUTH
I do not carry a sickle or scythe.
I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold.
And I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“When he invited me to come for the Winterfair season I wasn't sure if it was hunting or social. and whether I should pack weapons or dresses."
Lady Vorpatril's smile sharpened. "Dresses are weapons, my dear, in sufficiently skilled hands.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Winterfair Gifts

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot the ambassador?"
"You gave me the gun," protested Sounis.
"I didn't mean for you to shoot the ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him.
"Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus.
"You shut up!" said Gen, laughing.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don't for one second think that I am one of them”
― Sherlock BBC

“Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge. "Watson" he says, "look up in the sky and tell me what you see."

"I see millions of stars, Holmes," says Watson.

"And what do you conclude from that, Watson?"

Watson thinks for a moment. "Well," he says, "astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meterologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignficant. Uh, what does it tell you, Holmes?"

"Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!”
― Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein

“That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
‘You appear to be astonished,’ he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. ‘Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.’
‘To forget it!’
‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man’s brain is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.’
‘But the Solar System!’ I protested.
‘What the deuce is it to me?’ he interrupted impatiently: ‘you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage”
― Hero Shade

“Those who do not know the danger of wielding power will, before long, be ruled by it.”
― Twilight Princess

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
― James D. Nicoll

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
― Oscar Wilde

“My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“THERE IS NO JUSTICE" said Death "JUST ME”
― Terry Pratchett

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Just remember you’re not alone here.” I never know what to say to that. I am actually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.”
― Martha Wells, Network Effect

“If I got angry at myself for being angry I would be angry constantly and I wouldn’t have time to think about anything else.) (Wait, I think I am angry constantly. That might explain a lot.)”
― Martha Wells, Network Effect

“Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“There are no happy endings.
Endings are the saddest part,
So just give me a happy middle
And a very happy start.”
― Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It

“So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.”
― George Lucas

“Justice is merely the construct of the current power base... There is no justice, no law, no order—except for the one that will replace it.”
― Darth Maul, Dave Filoni

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.

So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

“First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”
― Cecil Day Lewis

“What's past is prologue.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest