Jess > Jess's Quotes

“We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms.
The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Uniformity is not unity. Silence is not peace.”
― Jordan Ifueko, Raybearer

“Not wanting to be destroyed by despair doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you a survivor.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Empire of Gold

“She told me to keep myself whole. That there wasn’t any shame in taking care of yourself in order to help those who needed you.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Empire of Gold

“regret is the most difficult emotion to live with, but in order to have regret, you need to have a conscience: an interesting paradox that allows the worst of us to suffer the least in the aftermath of wrongdoing.”
― Suzanne Redfearn, In an Instant

“Don’t just try to be happy when you think of me—be happy. Look at the ocean and smile. Inhale the scent and celebrate. Remember me. Remember that I was never sad for more than a day, rarely for more than an hour. Remember the amazing times we had and what a goofball I was. Remember that I was scared of anything with more than four legs but fearless of adventure. Remember. Carry me inside you as a light that brightens your world and makes everything better. I don’t want to be a void, a hole, a shadow. REMEMBER ME!”
― Suzanne Redfearn, In an Instant

“I realize how awful people are to each other, how a pervasive cynicism exists in most of us that stops us from seeing the best parts of one another”
― Suzanne Redfearn, In an Instant

“Because death breaks out connection... death is not a thread. it is the sharp cut that severs us. Death separates us from one another, and yet holds us close. As deeply as we hate it, it love us more.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“I recognize that sound. It's the sound of holding on to a cliff by the edge of your nails. The sound of barely containing a pain so immense that to look at it, to raise your own flesh and examine what's beneath, is to risk falling into a darkness you know you'll never escape.”
― Tracy Deonn, Legendborn

“You humans always think you’re destined for things, for tragedy or for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“When man begins to think that he is responsible for writing the script of the world, he forgets the forces that dream up our reality.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“No mourners. No funerals. Among them, it passed for 'good luck.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“We all need our quiet, I think. We all have our unspoken wishes, hopes we cannot mention, choices we may yet regret.”
― Intisar Khanani, Thorn

“In the history of the world, telling someone to ‘calm down’ has never done anything but piss them off more.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Reluctant Queen

“I wanted to matter. For my life to matter. So many people die and no one knows they ever existed. They're ripples in a stream, disappearing when the wind blows.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Reluctant Queen

“Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it?
It's the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Accept the pain, but don't accept that you deserved it.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“The most important words a man can say are, “I will do better.” These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.

The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says “journey before destination.” Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us.

But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination. To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.

I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist. I needed to write it anyway.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Yes, I began my journey alone, and I ended it alone.
But that does not mean that I walked alone.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Ten spears go to battle," he whispered, "and nine shatter. Did the war forge the one that remained? No, Amaran. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“But merely being tradition does not make something worthy, Kadash. We can't just assume that because something is old it is right.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings