L > L's Quotes

“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“Are you badly hurt?"
"Hideously," said the king, without sounding injured at all. "I am disemboweled. My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“No 'Glory shall be your reward' for me. Oh, no, for me, it is, 'Stop whining' and 'Go to bed'.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Relius looked away. "He said that you...cried," he said softly.
"But not that he cried as well," said the queen, amused at the memory. "We were very lachrymose... would you like to hear more romance of the evening? He told me the Guard should be reduced by half, and I threw an ink jar at his head."
"Is that when he cried?"
"He ducked," said Attolia dryly.
"I had not pictured you for a fishwife."
"Lo, the transforming power of love.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Will there be poppy juice in it?"
Phresine shook her head.
"Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT!”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Your Majesty, you just-" Costis stopped.
"Just what?" the king prompted wickedly.
Nothing would induce Costis to say out loud that the king had almost fallen from the palace wall and that Costis had seen him manifestly saved by the God of Thieves.
The king smiled. "Cat got your tongue?"
"Your Majesty, you are drunk," Costis pleaded.
"I am. What's your excuse?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Costis bowed stiffly. “I am here to make sure that you stay in bed, Your Majesty, because if this offends you and you order me summarily executed, it is no loss. Politically speaking.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“I'm sorry, Dite."
Dite shrugged away the apology. "You have spared my brother when you could have killed him and you have offered me escape from the cesspit of my family and this court. You know what it means to me, to make music in the court of Ferria. You've put a purse and an impossible dream in my hand. I don't know why you should apologize."
"Because I am exiling you, Dite. I intend to raze your patrimony and salt its earth. You emphatically do not need to thank me.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Wrong arm, dear.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“I didn't really care much about anything, so I guess I felt fine.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief

“I am a master of foolhardy plans.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief

“Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do.”
― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Anyway, if you stop tellin' people it's all sorted out afer they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. ”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours - he was incredibly good at it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying 'Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?'
26 And the Angel said, 'I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.'
27 And the Lord did not ask him again.”
― Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird-"
-"What little bird?" said Aziraphale suspiciously.
-"This little bird I'm talking about. And every thousand years-"
-"The same bird every thousand years?"
-Crowley hesitated. "Yeah," he said.
-"Bloody ancient bird, then."
-"Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies-"
-"-limps-"
-"-flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak-"
-"Hold on. You can't do that. Between here and the end of the universe there's loads of-" The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. "Loads of buggerall, dear boy."
-"But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered.
-"How?"
-"It doesn't matter!"
-"It could use a space ship," said the angel.
Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah," he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird-"
-"Only it is the end of the universe we're talking about," said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to-" He hesitated. "What have
they got to do?"
-"Sharpen its beak on the mountain," said Crowley. "And then it flies back-"
-"-in the space ship-"
-"And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again," said Crowley quickly.

There was a moment of drunken silence.

-"Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak," mused Aziraphale.
-"Listen," said Crowley urgently, "the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then-"

Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knew he was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds' beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly.

-"-then you still won't have finished watching The Sound of Music."

Aziraphale froze.

-"And you'll enjoy it," Crowley said relentlessly. "You really will."
-"My dear boy-"
-"You won't have a choice."
-"Listen-"
-"Heaven has no taste."
-"Now-"
-"And not one single sushi restaurant."

A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.”
― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.”
― Toni Morrison

“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
― Toni Morrison

“He wants to put his story next to hers.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“I dream a dream that dreams back at me”
― Toni Morrison, A Mercy