Shannon > Shannon's Quotes

“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”
― Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“If you really want things to change, you can make them change no matter where you are.”
― Hannah Harrington, Saving June

“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.”
― Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

“You are the untold story. You are the impassioned truth wanting to scream its existence, to be forever trapped by a strong hand clapped firmly over the mouth of my soul.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“Horror jolts me when I look at one of you and see a pair of beautiful eyes that make me think your mind might contain a world that could hold me as the bolts shake loose and fly from my frame.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“I'm crying for the little girl whose mother divorced her father, the girl who wanted to fall in love for the first time but wasn't ready for sex, the girl who dated a boy just because he wasn't the first one, the girl who fell hard for the guy with the easy smile and the green eyes, the girl who needed to prove she could hook up on a class trip, the girl who rand for student council just to impress a guy, the girl who lost her best friend, the girl whose father doesn't care anymore, the girl who doesn't have the money for college, the girl who just wants her grandma to fix everything, the girl who doesn't talk to anyone about anything, the girl who just can't fall in love again - even if a sweet guy folds a thousand paper cranes. Just for her.”
― Sydney Salter, Swoon at Your Own Risk: A Young Adult Romance About Summer Crushes, Ex-Boyfriends, and Being Yourself

“I think it's because he likes you.'
'Well, that's too bad. I've given up that kind of thing.'
'What kind of thing?'
'Love, dating, the inevitable ensuing heartbreak.”
― Sydney Salter, Swoon at Your Own Risk: A Young Adult Romance About Summer Crushes, Ex-Boyfriends, and Being Yourself

“You don't have anything to lose by standing up for yourself,' Nando said. 'But you can lose yourself by trying to please everyone.”
― Sydney Salter, Jungle Crossing

“Lucky people should hide. Pray the days of wrath do not visit their home.”
― Josephine Hart, Damage

“The more excited I get, the more I vibrate."
"Now there's a thought," Lor says.
"If you mean what I think you mean, you want to shut the fuck up and never think it again," Ryodan says.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Iced

“Stop. Vibrating." Ryodan plucks a paper out of the air and slaps it back down on his desk.
I wonder if he cleans it. How many tushes have been on that thing? I'm never touching it again. "Can't help it," I say around a mouthful of candy bar. I know what I look like: a smudge of black leather and hair. "It happens when I get really excited. The more excited I get, the more I vibrate."
"Now there's a thought," Lor says.
"If you mean what I think you mean, you want to shut the fuck up and never think it again," Ryodan says.
"Just saying, boss," Lor says. "You can't tell me you didn't think it, too.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Iced

“Lor blows in like he was plastered to the other side of the door.
"Escort the kid to clean the fuck up and get that stench off her."
"Sure thing, boss."
He scowls at me.
I scowl right back.
Lor points through the glass floor. "See that blonde down there with the big tits? I was about to get laid."
"One, I'm too young to hear that kind of stuff, and two, I don't see you carrying a club to knock her over the head with, so how were you going to accomplish that?"
Behind me, Ryodan laughs.
"You're ruining my night, kid."
"Ditto. Ain't life at Chester's grand.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Iced

“I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back....”
― Erica Jong

“The truth is simple, you do not die from love. You only wish you did.”
― Erica Jong

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they "don't have time to read." This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons.”
― Stephen King

“Because talent won't be quiet, doesn't know how to be quiet," he said. "Whether it's a talent for safe-cracking, thought-reading, or dividing ten-digit numbers in your head, it screams to be used. It never shuts up. It'll wake you in the middle of your tiredest night, screaming, 'Use me, use me, use me! I'm tired of just sitting here! Use me, fuckhead, use me!”
― Stephen King, The Dark Tower

“Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." -”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“I could not take lightly the idea that people made love without me.”
― Jean Genet, The Thief's Journal

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Jesus Hollywood believed in a lot of things.
He believed that the stars in the sky were only ghostly images of dead things. He believed in the grass on the side of the highway as he whipped by. He believed in the sound of a gun cocking. He believed that the heart gave up long before it stopped beating. He believed last words and bedside confessions were only half-assed last-ditch efforts at Redemption signalling imminent death. He believed in lust and rage and that pain is the only proof that one is alive.
Jesus Hollywood believed that there was no God, no gods, no Divine Being and he certainly believed that Heaven was only a placating fabrication. He believed Love At First Sight was a myth; that Love was masquerading as Lust. He believed Karma was for those too afraid to be selfish. He believed that Luck and Chance, along with Fate and Destiny, were words the weak used to explain away their inaction. He believed that if you wore a long-sleeved shirt, you could win every game of cards with the right poker face and a few extra cards stashed up your sleeves.
Jesus Hollywood certainly did not believe in love.
And now, Jesus Hollywood believed he was fucked.”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming

“What was it you told me, Jesus?” she asked him softly. “Do you remember? Love is love is love. Pain is pain is pain. Knowledge is knowledge. It doesn’t matter what shape or form it takes, what matters is how you use it, what you do with it, and if you can accept it with some measure of grace. If you can, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. If you can’t...”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming

“While gently pushing her towards the dressing room, Lazarus ventured, "Can I ask you something kind of personal?"

Pulling her shirt over her head behind the curtain, and holding her hand out for the corset, she replied, "Anything for you, Laz."

"How are you still friends with him?"

"Can you hook this thing?" Holding the corset on her stomach, Lazarus peeked through the curtain, fingers deftly snapping the twenty hook-and-eye latches. "He saved my life. There are a million reasons to hate him, but there are a million and one reasons to forgive him for his faults."

Twisting to look in the mirror, adjusting her breasts in the tight silk, she continued, "He'll say the worst thing at the worst possible time, except every once in awhile, he says the one most perfect thing that just makes you want to cry from happiness. He knows the exact way you need to be touched at any moment, in any mood, like he's fucking telepathic. He'll make you want to scream when he ignores you, but then you find out he knows your favorite color, your favorite meal, what movie makes you cry and he can list every little thing in the entire world that you hate. And mostly? Well," Turning to face Lazarus and strike a pose, "I just can't fucking stop.”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming

“Once upon a time there was a man with no heart. Drifting through black-and-white life, caring naught for those hurt, and never, ever allowing another near enough to hurt him. Until, on the least likely day, the most unlikely place, the man with no heart met the most surprising person. He was fearless. He was strength and power. He wore his heart boldly on his sleeve. The man with no heart began, shockingly, to feel a movement in his breast. A stretching, a slow, steady beat...”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming

“Cowboy Rodeo was a very simple man. He liked his life simple. He liked his ranch full of animals, he liked the breeze across the plains, and he liked when the sun rose and set. He liked strong, cold whiskey and the stars at night.

Cowboy Rodeo realized at that moment he also really, really liked corsets and black pencil skirts that showed off the curve of the hip.”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming