Nan > Nan's Quotes

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
― Elie Wiesel

“All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.”
― Edward Said

“She turned of an ashy paleness as cold hatred and desire for revenge took possession of her vindictive soul.”
― Charlotte Dacre, Zofloya

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“I know that there is not in the world a more subtle poison than that which is extracted from and administered by books.”
― Charlotte Dacre, The Passions

“This is the age of oddities let loose.”
― George Gordon Byron, Don Juan

“Do you ever wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it!”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
― T.S. Eliot

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable.
Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her? “People always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained. “‘And satisfaction brought it back.”
― Tamora Pierce , Trickster's Choice

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.”
― Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Grave

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."

(Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2003)”
― Edward W. Said

“We are more than the parts that form us. ”
― Patrick Rothfuss

“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world.”
― Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“The Nothing is spreading," groaned the first. "It's growing and growing, there's more of it every day, if it's possible to speak of more nothing. All the others fled from Howling Forest in time, but we didn't want to leave our home. The Nothing caught us in our sleep and this is what it did to us."

"Is it very painful?" Atreyu asked.

"No," said the second bark troll, the one with the hole in his chest. "You don't feel a thing. There's just something missing. And once it gets hold of you, something more is missing every day. Soon there won't be anything left of us.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

“The great subversive works of children's literature suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form. They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.”
― Alison Lurie, Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature

“How can so many (white, male) writers narratively justify restricting the agency of their female characters on the grounds of sexism = authenticity while simultaneously writing male characters with conveniently modern values?

The habit of authors writing Sexism Without Sexists in genre novels is seemingly pathological. Women are stuffed in the fridge under cover of "authenticity" by secondary characters and villains because too many authors flinch from the "authenticity" of sexist male protagonists. Which means the yardstick for "authenticity" in such novels almost always ends up being "how much do the women suffer", instead of - as might also be the case - "how sexist are the heroes".

And this bugs me; because if authors can stretch their imaginations far enough to envisage the presence of modern-minded men in the fake Middle Ages, then why can't they stretch them that little bit further to put in modern-minded women, or modern-minded social values? It strikes me as being extremely convenient that the one universally permitted exception to this species of "authenticity" is one that makes the male heroes look noble while still mandating that the women be downtrodden and in need of rescuing.

-Comment at Staffer's Book Review 4/18/2012 to "Michael J. Sullivan on Character Agency ”
― Foz Meadows

“The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know— dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette. There was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to curtsy before a visiting prince to how loudly it was permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant. (...)

Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed her lips together and learned it anyway. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she would go down to the castle armory and bully the armsmaster into giving her a fencing lesson. As she got older, she found her regular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the fencing lessons became more and more frequent.

When she was twelve, her father found out.

“Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess,” he told her in the gentle-but-firm tone recommended by the court philosopher.

Cimorene tilted her head to one side. “Why not?”

“It’s ... well, it’s simply not done.”

Cimorene considered. “Aren’t I a princess?”

“Yes, of course you are, my dear,” said her father with relief. He had been bracing himself for a storm of tears, which was the way his other daughters reacted to reprimands.

“Well, I fence,” Cimorene said with the air of one delivering an unshakable argument. “So it is too done by a princess.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“Dare my guilty heart admit the horrible acknowledgement that I love you still?”
― Charlotte Dacre , Zofloya

“The Luggage said nothing, but louder this time.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic

“After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea