Shilo Quetchenbach > Shilo's Quotes

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”
― Henry Ward Beecherr

“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you'll die of a misprint.”
― Markus Herz

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

“I think... if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I?”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“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

“Sometimes, if you want to change a man's mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“This is the stupidest plan I have ever in my career participated in," Xenophon said.
"I love stupid plans," said Eugenides.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“I think a good book is a good book forever.
I don't think they get less good because times change.”
― Megan Whalen Turner

“...her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth...”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot the ambassador?"
"You gave me the gun," protested Sounis.
"I didn't mean for you to shoot the ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him.
"Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus.
"You shut up!" said Gen, laughing.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“I didn't think about being king,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Eddis stared. “Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“You didn't know I could do that, did you?" he asked, conversationally.
"I did not, Your Majesty," Teleus gasped.
"My grandfather killed a man that way once, using the edge of the wooden sword."
"I hadn't realized the Thieves of Eddis were so warlike."
"They aren't, mostly. But like all men, Teleus, I have two grandfathers." Teleus rolled his eyes to look up at him, and the king said, "One of mine was Eddis."
"Ah," said Teleus.
"Ah, indeed," said the king.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Muse of poetry, come to his aid, I thought. Could the man produce one more metaphor of husbandry? He seemed to be trying.
"Green wood," I suggested, but even he sensed that there was something unfortunate about a metaphor for a king in which you dry out your royalty before you set fire to it.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“He couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick.”
― Megan Whalen Turner

“He limped slowly over to his own wooden sword and stooped awkwardly to pick it up. Trailing it on the ground behind him, he limped toward the queen, and the courtyard quieted as he approached and was silent again as he dropped to his knees before her and laid the sword across her lap.
“My Queen,” he said.
“My King,” she said back.
Only those closest saw him nod his rueful acceptance. He lifted his hand to brush her cheek softly. As the entire court listened breathlessly, he said, “I want my breakfast.”
The queen’s lips thinned, and she shook her head as she said, “You are incorrigible.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Ah," said the magus, understanding at once. "I see that he means to be prepared if he meets him again."
"Surely that's unlikely," said Sounis.
"I don't think unlikely means to him what it does to the rest of us," said the magus.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“One cannot toss ambassadors back like bad fish," said Eugenides. "You treat them with care, or you'll find you've committed an act of war.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say 'We eat the chicken now!' but the magus had seen that I was considering it...
"My purse is full enough," said the magus, "to keep you supplied with roast chickens."
"So, so, so," I said. "We know who the power behind the throne is," and the magus laughed.
"You eat more than Gen did after prison," he said.
"I have more sympathy with him all the time. Are you going to finish that drumstick?" I asked.
"I am. Stop staring at it.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“We are stardust, we are golden and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
― Joni Mitchell

“Love is friendship set to music.”
― Jackson Pollock

“Dirk was, for one of the few times in a life of exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“The next slide is titled: 'Exploring your sexuality: Healthy, but does it have to be with the Prince of England?' She apologizes for not having time to come up with better titles. Alex actively wishes for the sweet release of death.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue