Marina Ermakova > Marina's Quotes

“Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me.

But if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana

“Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.”
― Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

“Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way... But our minds move a dozen different directions. We can't be confined to one way of thinking...”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes

“There will always be people for whom hate is easier when it’s not backed up by anything but fear.”
― Mira Grant, Feed

“Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resists time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love.”
― Mariama Bâ, So Long a Letter

“...although I had to admit a certain affection for the Mattel booth advertising Urban Survival Barbie, now with her own Machete and blood testing unit.”
― Mira Grant, Feed

“So long as there are nobles and commoners, the wealthy and the poor, those with power will be heard, and those without ignored. That's the world.”
― Tamora Pierce, Squire

“Think about that for a moment. They died for you. Now take a good look at the life you're living and tell me: Did they do the right thing?”
― Mira Grant, Feed

“The word 'happiness' does indeed have meaning, doesn't it? I shall go out in search of it.”
― Mariama Bâ, So Long a Letter

“If we're going to die horribly, we're all going to do it together.”
― Mira Grant, Deadline

“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

“Through pain I've learned to comfort suffering men”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“Stories are full of people who find that, in extreme situations, they’re capable of so much more than they imagined they were. Real life is full of people who find that they’re capable of so much less.”
― Amethyst Marie, A Snag in the Tapestry

“Be careful, boy. In some tales, the hero gets eaten by the monster after all.”
― Julie Kagawa, The Iron Knight

“We live by our labors from one harvest to the next, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed ourselves and our children, and if bad times are prolonged we know we must see the weak surrender their lives and this fact, too, is within our experience. In our lives there is no margin for misfortune.”
― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

“Any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan.”
― Phil Foglio, Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank

“People are naive about such things, and they would rather write them off as evil than attempt to understand them. An unfortunate truth, but a truth nonetheless.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Happiness is the highest form of wisdom.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Mercy

“Revenge is the easiest of emotions to understand and to manipulate.”
― David Anthony Durham, Acacia: The War with the Mein

“Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“They weren't nice words he said. He could've lived a good life and died never having made a person feel rubbed down to bones and too sad to hold together. ”
― Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days

“A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“A man might desire something for a moment, while a larger part of him rejects it. You'll need to learn to judge people by their actions, not their thoughts.”
― Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

“Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“I am better off doing as abnegation taught me: turning away from myself, projecting always outward, and hoping that in whatever is next, I will be better than I am now.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent