Karen > Karen's Quotes

“Elend: I kind of lost track of time…
Breeze: For two hours?
Elend: There were books involved.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Every intelligent being, whether it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time in its life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

“He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort

“Now," Kvothe said angrily, "you've both acted understandably, but that does not by any means mean that either of you have behaved well.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like to get lost, because then I'd know where I was going, you see.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers.”
― Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 50

“Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.”
― W.H. Auden, New Year Letter

“The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man - with human flesh.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?”
― Lawrence Durrell, Justine

“The past is never where you think you left it.”
― Katherine Anne Porter

“It was amazing how many books one could fit into a room, assuming one didn't want to move around very much.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals

“Faith means that it doesn't matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.”
― Howard Nemerov

“Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark, it's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year!”
― Ogden Nash, Collected Verse from 1929 On

“What's the good of living if you don't try a few things?”
― Charles M. Schulz

“It won't work,' Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. 'No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've always been nine years old and will always be. When you're thirty, it seems you've always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy. You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“Why does everyone run toward a blood-curdling scream?" mumbled the Senior Wrangler. "It's contrary to all sense.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

“The smell of loving is a difficult one to describe, but if you think of the times when someone has held you close and made you safe, you will remember how it smells just as well as I do.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

“I do believe everyone in Fairyland-Below is royalty!" September exclaimed. "Queens and Princes and Vicereines and Emperors - it's like visiting Europe!”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

“It's saying no. That's your first hint that something's alive. It says no. That's how you know a baby is starting to turn into a person. They run around saying no all day, throwing their aliveness at everything to see what it'll stick to. You can't say no if you don't have desires and opinions and wants of your own. You wouldn't even want to. No is the heart of thinking.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

“He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“Kids. You gotta love them. I adore children. A little salt, a squeeze of lemon—perfect.”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands.

“It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror?

“The touch of another person’s hands.

“Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else’s hand can ease pain and make things better.

“That’s power. That’s power so fundamental that most people never even realize it exists.”
― Jim Butcher, Skin Game

“So what is the truth?” Mr Umezaki had once asked him. “How do you arrive at it? How do you unravel the meaning of something that doesn’t want to be known?”
― Mitch Cullin, A Slight Trick of the Mind