Elizabeth Hunter > Elizabeth's Quotes

“You can make anything by writing.”
― C.S. Lewis

“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass.”
― Eudora Welty

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
― Eudora Welty, One Writer's Beginnings

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen

“I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain

“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.”
― Virginia Woolf

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy.”
― Joss Whedon

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”
― John Steinbeck

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire

“If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”
― Michael Crichton

“What the hell was that?” I gasped. “Premature inflammation,” he replied. “Happens sometimes. Very embarrassing. I don’t like to talk about it.”
― Jeaniene Frost, This Side of the Grave

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

“Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“In this part of the story I am the one who
dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“Kate short-circuits my brain. In my head we always have these clear coherent exchanges, but once we meet, what comes out it is, “Kate, do what I say or I’ll kill you.” Her default reply is, “Fuck you!” and we go downhill from there.”
― Ilona Andrews

“The vampire stared at me, his mouth slack as Ghastek assessed his options. I took a couple of forms from my desk, put them into the vamp's mouth, and pulled them up by their edges.
"What are you doing?" Ghastek asked.
"My hole puncher broke."
"You have no respect for the undead.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Burns

“Not only will you sleep with me, but you will say 'please.'"
I stared at him, shocked.
The smile widened. "You will say 'please' before and 'thank you' after."
Nervous laughter bubbled up. "You've gone insane. All that peroxide in your hair finally did your brain in, Goldilocks.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Burns

“She crouched with her hand out. What the hell was she doing…
"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."
Oh my God, she was retarded and I was going to kill Jim.”
― Ilona Andrews, Curran

“Andrea raised her hand. “This is the hand that slapped Aunt B.”
“Maybe you should have it gold-plated.”
“Here, you can touch it, since you’re my best friend.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Slays

“Why a raven?"
"To honor my father."
"The writing under it, is that Cyrillic?"
"Yes."
"What does it say?"
"Dar Vorona. Gift of the Raven. I am my father's gift."
"The raven is holding a bloody sword."
"I never said it was a nice gift.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Bites

“No one feels like you do, so every brush of your skin is a cruel reminder of what I’ve lost. I can barely stand the sight of you because you’re more beautiful than I’ve allowed myself to remember, and when I cut that wire off Maximus and smelled you all over him, I wanted to kill him more than I’ve wanted to kill anyone in my life, yet I couldn’t because of my promise to you.”

Slow tears continued to trickle down my cheeks, but for a different reason this time.

“You care.”

The words were whispered with a despairing sort of wonder. He wasn’t willing to rescind his loveless vow, clearly, but I was wrong about the apathy I’d thought he felt. That he admitted all the above was surprising enough; the fact he’d done it within earshot of his pilots was no less than shocking.

Vlad grunted. “Don’t worry. I intend to kill them as soon as we land.”
― Jeaniene Frost, Twice Tempted

“If you introduce yourself to anyone as Mrs. Dracula, I'll bite you in a manner you won't enjoy.”
― Jeaniene Frost, Twice Tempted

“I despise flowery speech since those who use it are usually guilty of the worst betrayals later. That and the type of life I’ve lived have made me incapable of saying the pretty words you deserve to hear, yet if I made you a vampire, you’d feel my emotions as clearly as I hear your thoughts now.”

Then he drew my hand to his chest, placing it over his heart.

“I never turned any of my previous lovers because I didn’t want them to feel how little I cared. You I loved, yet you left me because I wouldn’t verbalize my emotions. That will probably happen again, but if you could feel what you mean to me, Leila” —his voice deepened— “words wouldn’t matter.”
― Jeaniene Frost, Twice Tempted

“Goddammit. Can't I save you just once?”
― Meljean Brook, Heart of Steel

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient