Manda Collins > Manda's Quotes

“Cherish your wilderness.”
― Maxine Kumin

“may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back”
― Lucille Clifton

“Aden St. George managed to avoid having to kill the guard stationed outside his quarry’s crypt-like cell, although the thug outside the caves hadn’t been so lucky. Still, that bastard had tried to knife him in the gut so Aden could hardly be faulted for returning the favor. And knowing what he did about the men who’d kidnapped Lady Vivien Shaw, he wouldn’t waste his fitful conscience on that brutal but necessary act. Killing was not a favorite pastime, but only rarely did it disturb his sleep.

Tonight’s rescue mission carried no inconvenient opportunities for remorse since a woman’s life and innocence hung in the balance. True, the gossips whispered that Lady Vivien’s innocence was an open question, but what would happen to her if Aden failed wasn’t. Without his intervention she would disappear into a nightmarish life, forever beyond the protection of her family and friends.”
― Vanessa Kelly, Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard

“Linnet’s thudding heart raced blood through her veins, sending a flush of embarrassing heat to her face. She had been avoiding him, but she could never tell him why. It took all her discipline not to quail under Sir Anthony’s penetrating gaze.

Blast the man. She’d lost count of the times he’d made her feel like a blushing maiden. Strictly speaking, she was still a maiden, but she’d given up blushing years ago—along with simpering, flirting, and so many other talents deemed useful to unmarried women.

Except, of course, in Sir Anthony’s august presence.”
― Vanessa Kelly, Lost in a Royal Kiss

“You can't imagine how hard it is to come home from hell and be expected to pick up the threads of a life. Apply for jobs, go to a factory, punch in, punch out. Put your lunch in a bag and get on the omnibus every day. Like nothing happened. Nothing.”
― Simone St. James, The Haunting of Maddy Clare

“Dedication: For librarians and booksellers everywhere, who gather books and build shelters for tender souls.”
― Tessa Dare, Any Duchess Will Do

“You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.”
― Michael Palin

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“One day in the country
Is worth a month in town”
― Christina Rossetti

“I get a warm feeling among my books.”
― Anthony Powell

“Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.”
― David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

“The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.”
― Vaclav Havel

“Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.”
― Charles Lamb

“We live for books.”
― Umberto Eco

“I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Abide with Me

“We have two families in life. One were born with that shares our blood. Another we meet along the way that's willing to give it's life for us.”
― Mark Frost, The Paladin Prophecy

“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail Van Buren

“These are the times that try men's souls.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The sun doesn't just hang on one family's tree”
― Anchee Min, Empress Orchid

“It is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble your foe.”
― Anne Brontë

“Accept who you are. Unless you're a serial killer.”
― Ellen DeGeneres, Seriously... I'm Kidding

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”
― Colette

“It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.”
― W.C. Fields

“Poetry has been the longest pleasure of my life.”
― Shirley Hazzard

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

“A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head.”
― Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole--like the world, or the person you loved.”
― Stewart O'Nan, The Odds: A Love Story