Ella > Ella's Quotes

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles W. Eliot

“There is in the soul a desire for not thinking.
For being still. Coupled with this
a desire to be strict, yes, and rigorous.
But the soul is also a smooth son of a bitch,
not always trustworthy. And I forgot that.”
― Raymond Carver, All of Us: The Collected Poems

“And so, from the first, we separated our pleasure. She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamors for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

“Faith has become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices, aye prejudices too which degrade man from rational being to beast. Which completely stifle the power of judgement between true and false. Which seem in fact carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark of reason.”
― Thomas Cook, Baruch Spinoza

“[...] we must recognize that in our own experience of emptiness, that even though one feels "empty", one must have a self in order to feel this emptiness; a loss cannot be felt unless what is missed is really a lost part of the self. Unwholeness is a feeling which belongs only to a being born whole and somehow denied access to this whole self. A being born "unwhole" would be whole in that partiality, happy with that cavernous state, and feel no emptiness, miss nothing, feel at home in a vacuum of identity. It is precisely because we have selves that we mourn.”
― Susan Griffin, Pornography and Silence: Culture's Revenge Against Nature

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Is this the part where you start tearing off strips of your shirt to bind my wounds?"
"If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have just asked.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
― Joseph Conrad, Chance

“Jesus!" Luke exclaimed.
"Actually, it's just me," said Simon. "Although I've been told the resemblance is startling.”
― Cassandra Clare

“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“Sometimes you have to be apart from people you love, but that doesn't make you love them any less. Sometimes you love them more.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

“Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after. Such moments are tests of courage, of strength.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that's a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged but it's there. Don't let them take it from you.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“You are an ember in the ashes, Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“You are full, Laia. Full of life and dark and strength and spirit. You are in our dreams. You will burn, for you are an ember in the ashes.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“All the beauty of the stars means nothing when life here on earth is so ugly.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“Nan always said that as long as there is life, there is hope.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“The field of battle is my temple. The swordpoint is my priest. The dance of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“But I’m not strong. I’m weak, and I’m sick of pretending I’m not.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“Laia and Helene: They’re so different. I like that Laia says things I don’t expect, that she speaks almost formally, as if she’s telling a story. I like that she defied my mother to go to the Moon Festival, whereas Helene always obeys the Commandant. Laia is the wild dance of a Tribal campfire, while Helene is the cold blue of an alchemist’s flame.

But why am I even comparing them? I’ve know Laia a few days and Helene all my life. Helene’s no passing attraction. She’s family. More than that. She’s part of me.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“No matter what happens, no matter who turns on me, no matter what pompous swine thinks he has power over me, I am still me. I will always be me.”
― Sara Raasch, Snow Like Ashes

“Some thought magic came from the mind, others the soul, or the heart, or the will. But Kell knew it came from the blood.

Blood was magic made manifest. There it thrived. And there it poisoned. Kell had seen what happened when power warred with the body, watched it darken in the veins of corrupted men, turning their blood from crimson to black. If red was the color of magic in balance—of harmony between power and humanity—then black was the color of magic without balance, without order, without restraint.

As an Antari, Kell was made of both, balance and chaos; the blood in his veins, like the Isle of Red London, ran a shimmering, healthy crimson, while his right eye was the color of spilled ink, a glistening black.”
― V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

“You don't understand," gasped Eli. "No one understands."
"When no one understands, that's usually a good sign that you're wrong.”
― V.E. Schwab, Vicious