Leta Blake > Leta's Quotes

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 5: A Game of You

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Lebedeva’s eyes shone. “Masha, listen to me. Cosmetics are an extension of the will. Why do you think all men paint themselves when they go to fight? When I paint my eyes to match my soup, it is not because I have nothing better to do than worry over trifles. It says, I belong here, and you will not deny me. When I streak my lips red as foxgloves, I say, Come here, male. I am your mate, and you will not deny me. When I pinch my cheeks and dust them with mother-of-pearl, I say, Death, keep off, I am your enemy, and you will not deny me. I say these things, and the world listens, Masha. Because my magic is as strong as an arm. I am never denied.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“You humans, you know, whoever built you sewed irony into your sinews.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Marya Morevna! Don't you know anything? Girls must be very, very careful to care only for ribbons and magazines and wedding rings. They must sweep their hearts clean of anything but kisses and theater and dancing. They must never read Pushkin; they must never say clever things; they must never have sly eyes or wear their hair loose and wander around barefoot, or they will draw his attention!”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Blue is for cruel bargains; green is for daring what you oughtn’t; violet is for brute force. I will say to you: Coral coaxes; pink insists; red compels. I will say to you: You are dear to me as attar of roses. Please do not get eaten.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“But the thought arrived inside her like a train: Marya Morevna, all in black, here and now, was a point at which all the women she had been met—the Yaichkan and the Leningrader and the chyerti maiden; the girl who saw the birds, and the girl who never did—the woman she was and the woman she might have been and the woman she would always be, forever intersecting and colliding, a thousand birds falling from a thousand oaks, over and over.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I’ve a devil of a habit for being right.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“People aren't tidy creations to be stacked neatly in the Tupperware or poured in premeasured quantities from a box into the Cuisinart with no spills; everybody alive is a lost and disastrous mess.”
― Joel Derfner, Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever

“It is easy to see in retrospect that what I longed for was not a boyfriend but a version of me without my defects --- a man in whom I could see myself as flawless, a man whose jokes always caused riotous laughter instead of sometimes falling flat, whose German was fluent instead of passable, who actually knew everything instead of pretending to and then Googling it when he got home.”
― Joel Derfner, Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever

“You don't have anything
if you don't have the stories.”
― Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

“Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.”
― Garrison Keillor

“No matter what you do with your life during the day, there's always that moment when you have to wake up with yourself, with yourself and with the person that's sleeping beside you. That's the person that you make a home with, discuss life's big decisions with, share your finances, eat, shop, maybe parent with. That's the person you share your body with forever, kiss, touch, the one you sit on the couch with and watch movies, the one who gives you a hug when you've had a rough day. That's the person you put up a Christmas tree with and arrive home with for the holidays, the person you watch grow old and who still loves you when you're not as nice to look at, the one who holds your hand when you're dying. And none of that had anything to do with wrestling.”
― Eli Easton, Superhero

“Sometimes it was awesome to sit back and let another person take control. So long as they did really good, dirty, hot things to him.
- Matty”
― Leta Blake, Training Season

“The Room was darkened, and Rob struck a match to light candles. As the comforting scent of jasmine and vanilla lifted from the candles around him, Matty took in the dark sheets on the bed - the ones Rob liked because they showed Matty's jizz better.”
― Leta Blake, Training Season

“(Matty) 'I'm going to a corn maze.'
(Elliot) 'Oh, bitch. You've lost your ever-loving mind.”
― Leta Blake, Training Season

“Honey, are you being safe?'
'I wear my seat belt, yes.'
'Does this Rob Lovely wear a seat belt too?'
Matty sighed. 'Mother, seat belts should be worn at all times when in a moving vehicle. Didn't you teach me that?'
'So long as we're both talking about condoms here, then I'll leave it.'
'Consider it left.”
― Leta Blake, Training Season

“Matty blinked. 'You're passing up whips for shopping?'
'You're bitching about shopping?' Rob countered.
'I feel so torn!' Matty pulled at his hair. 'Oh my god. You suck.”
― Leta Blake, Training Season

“Your heart, Bessie, is an autumn garage.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“My god, there's absolutely nothing tenth-rate about you, and yet you're up to your neck at this minute in tenth-rate thinking.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Listen, I don't care what you say about my race, creed, or religion, Fatty, but don't tell me I'm not sensitive to beauty. That's my Achilles' heel, and don't you forget it. To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset, and I'm limp, by God. Anything. Peter Pan. Even before the curtain goes up at Peter Pan I'm a goddamn puddle of tears.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Bessie: 'Why don't you get married?'
Zooey: 'I like riding in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Why's it so sunny?" she repeated.
Zooey observed her rather narrowly. "I bring the sun wherever I go, buddy," he said.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“You’d better get busy, though, buddy. The goddamn sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I’m talking about. You’re lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddamn phenomenal world.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Give me the waters of Lethe that numb the heart, if they exist, I will still not have the power to forget you.”
― Publius Ovidius Naso, The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters

“Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?'
Jace said, "Unfortunately, Lady of the Haven, my one true love remains myself."
..."At least," she said, "you don't have to worry about rejection, Jace Wayland."
"Not necessarily. I turn myself down occasionally, just to keep it interesting.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk’s too big, the desk’s too small, there’s too much noise, there’s too much quiet, it’s too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply to start.”
― Robert Harris, The Ghost

“It seems important to me that beginning writers ponder this—that since 1964, I have never had a book, story or poem rejected that was not later published. If you know what you are doing, eventually you will run into an editor who knows what he/she is doing. It may take years, but never give up. Writing is a lonely business not just because you have to sit alone in a room with your machinery for hours and hours every day, month after month, year after year, but because after all the blood, sweat, toil and tears you still have to find somebody who respects what you have written enough to leave it alone and print it. And, believe me, this remains true, whether the book is your first novel or your thirty-first.”
― Joseph Hansen

“ 'Go back up.' The angel chuckled. 'Well, that would be easy enough if I wanted to go up, but I assure you that I've had quite enough of up to last forever.' The angel shook with mirth again. 'Or until tomorrow. Or whenever I'm overcome with the lust for it once more. It's quite delightful, except that it's terrifying. Which is, of course, how so many of the best things are.' ”
― Leta Blake, Earthly Desires

“A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed [Illustrated]