Liz Parker > Liz's Quotes

“Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.”
― William Strunk

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

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

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”
― Anne Lamott

“I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their own validity no matter what.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“To be truthful, some writers stop you dead in your tracks by making you see your own work in the most unflattering light. Each of us will meet a different harbinger of personal failure, some innocent genius chosen by us for reasons having to do with what we see as our own inadequacies.
The only remedy to this I have found is to read a writer whose work is entirely different from another, though not necessarily more like your own—a difference that will remind you of how many rooms there are in the house of art.”
― Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
― Mark Twain, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse

“A witch’s house is a living, breathing thing. When magic is as much a part of a person as air or water or blood, it refuses to stay in narrow, well-drawn lines. It infuses board and beam. It winks in windows and mirrors. It seeps out with every candle burned and every card turned, until, given enough time, it takes on a life of its own.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“Florence hadn’t used her magic since her mother’s death. No longer did she set flame to wick and pull her desires into the world like the threads of tangible things. If her tarot reading thirteen years ago was to be believed, giving up her magic was the only way for Florence to stop the deaths that had plagued her family for almost a century.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“For a Caldwell witch, the power of their magic was twofold—the creation of the candle with the intentions they poured into each dipping of string in wax, then the release of those intentions once they set the wick to flame.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“Even if she hadn’t grown close to him yet, she could feel desire turning the pages of her heart, and she feared that would be enough to make him a target for her family’s curse.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“Honeysuckle House sat staring out over the fall leaves. Dusk had long since turned to dark. Inside, it felt empty and alone. It creaked the floorboards and rattled the pipes in an attempt to block out the silence, but it didn’t help. Every sound it made was a reminder of the sounds it lacked.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“The warmth of Tillie’s skin through the soft fabric of her shirt blazed hotter than any magic Violet had ever burned into the world. If the intention she poured into her candles were spells, this love—this woman—was sorcery.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“With her magic, tarot showed her what she most needed to see and, when asked, provided insight into what was to come. If her power could pull the future from a deck of cards, could it also connect her to the past?”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“What had happened to her wasn’t one moment of darkness, one act that separated Florence’s life between before and after. It came in minutes and hours and days. One moment, her mother would tell her the world was a better place because she was in it, the next that her family would be better off without her—if only the curse had taken Florence instead of her father or her grandmother. It was the shift from a tender brushing of Florence’s hair to a sharp tug, making Florence’s eyes sting. It was a warm cup of chamomile to help Florence sleep, offered with love in her mother’s eyes, then the hot water pouring down her throat as Linda pushed the cup into her face after her first sip.
Of course it was trauma.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House

“We can’t always fix the things other people break. All we can do is find a way to live with the pieces that are left behind.”
― Liz Parker, Witches of Honeysuckle House