An Honest Puck > An Honest Puck's Quotes

“Man sets his hand to games of power and influence, he quests for far horizons and wealth beyond imagining. He thinks to own what cannot be possessed. He hews the ancient trees to broaden his grazing lands; he mines the deep caves and topples the standing stones. He embraces a new faith with fervor and, perhaps, with sincerity. But he grows ever further from the old things. He can no longer hear the heartbeat of the earth, his mother. He cannot smell the change in the air; he cannot see what lies beyond the veil of shadows. Even his new god is formed in his own image, for do they not call him the son of man? By his own choice he is cut adrift from the ancient cycles of sun and moon, the ordered passing of the seasons. And without him, the Fair Folk dwindle and are nothing. They retreat and hide themselves, and are reduced to the clurichaun with his little ale jug; the brownie who steals the cow's milk at Samhain; the half-heard wailing of the banshee. They become no more than a memory in the mind of a frail old man; a tale told by a crazy old woman.”
― Juliet Marillier, Child of the Prophecy

“We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“Books, too, had hearts, though they were not the same as people's, and a book's heart could be broken: she had seen it happen before. Grimoires that refused to open, their voices gone silent, or whose ink faded and bled across the pages like tears.”
― Margaret Rogerson, Sorcery of Thorns

“I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable. Oh, and sorry I fell in love with you for a while there.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“Can you hear me? Sighing. You were right. My requiem is well prepared. Still to be written is the poem that is never complete, an endless rubbing on the ink block, an endless dipping of the pen, an endless swoop over the white paper, the poem of my life. I will try to write it down. Soon, no, now, I will try. The first line. I called him Necktie. I will write: He taught me to see with eyes of feeling.”
― Milena Michiko Flašar, I Called Him Necktie

“No matter what I said, we both knew the hard truth. We do our best. We try. And usually, it makes no difference at all.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“Na razrusha'ya. I am not ruined. E'ya razrushost. I am ruination.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“I hope you weren’t looking to me to be the voice of reason. I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Aleksander," I whispered. A boy's name, given up. Almost forgotten.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“We wait for death. We hold our breath. We know it's coming, and still we flinch when it claws at our throats and pulls us under.”
― Shea Ernshaw, The Wicked Deep

“You don't need to be gifted with a blade. You are your own best weapon.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Kiss

“He did not want her to know.
He did not want her to see.
But:
Look at me, he found himself thinking furiously at her. Look at me.
She lifted her eyes, and did.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Crime

“There was dishonor, she decided, in accepting someone else’s idea of honor without question.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Crime

“But I'm always dreaming, even when I'm awake; it is never finished.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“Ink and parchment flowed through her veins. The magic of the Great Libraries lived in her very bones. They were a part of her, and she a part of them.”
― Margaret Rogerson, Sorcery of Thorns

“I’m like a doll darned with patches of child and woman alike. I don’t know how to undo those stitches without unraveling myself whole.”
― Libertad Delgado, La visita del Selkie

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“What is your name?' she asked.

The youth ignored her, lowering his eyelids against the sun. She repeated her question. Again he ignored her, so she touched his arm, and he turned his head and looked at her, suddenly back from his own world, his eyes wary, half afraid. But he saw no anger in her; only the stains of tears, and an awful despair. His face changed, and a look of profound sorrow and compassion came over him. Very slowly he lifted his hand and wiped the tears from her cheeks. No other man could have touched her that morning; but the mad youth, with his extraordinary tenderness, gave such a depth of consolation that she found herself leaning her cheek against his hand, and sobbing. He wept with her, and there wove between them an understanding, a unity deep and poignant and powerful.”
― Sherryl Jordan, The Raging Quiet

“Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Remember this when you are queen,” he whispered hoarsely. “I moved the earth and the water for you.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“That's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you'd have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I savor bitterness--it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You, too, must learn to prefer it. After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“You look like a winter night", he had told her when he had given it to her. "I could sleep inside the cold of you".”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Swallow Daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep inside your soul, hide them 'til they've time to grow. Close your mouth upon the power, curse not, cure not, 'til the hour. You won't speak and you won't tell, you won't call on heav'n or hell. You will learn and you will thrive. Silence, daughter. Stay alive.”
― Amy Harmon, The Bird and the Sword

“But you know the truth of magic. The greatest power springs only from suffering.”
― Margaret Rogerson, Sorcery of Thorns

“When terrible things have happened to you, sometimes the promise of something good can be just as frightening.”
― Margaret Rogerson, Sorcery of Thorns

“If there is anything for you to learn, it's only that you should not be ashamed. Don't be ashamed to be a person with feelings. No matter what it is, feel it tenderly and deeply. Feel it more tenderly, feel it more deeply. Feel it for yourself. Feel it for yourself. Feel it for others. And then: Let it go.”
― Milena Michiko Flašar, I Called Him Necktie