Ashutosh > Ashutosh's Quotes

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)

“The ugliness of the world does not fade, nor are fear and grief made less by time, nor is any suffering forgotten. We are only made stronger by its blows.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“A sudden premonition overcame me as I realized that here was yet another song the future would sing of the Sun Eater. How Hadrian Halfmortal waited utterly alone for a dozen years and more beside the crystal coffin of his lady! I have heard versions wherein I dealt with demons in the dark silence, with the very devil that adorned my father’s banners.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“His mother had walked out years before, leaving his dad to cope with Adrian and his sister. This was long before the term “single-parent family” came into use; back then it was “a broken home,” and Adrian was the only person we knew who came from one. This ought to have given him a whole storetank of existential rage, but somehow it didn’t; he said he loved his mother and respected his father. Privately, the three of us examined his case and came up with a theory: that the key to a happy family life was for there not to be a family—or at least, not one living together. Having made this analysis, we envied Adrian the more.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“Nothing endures, nor lasts forever. Not stone, not empires, not life itself. Even the stars will one day burn down—as I have seen and know perhaps better than any other man. Even the darkness that comes after all will one day pass away to new light. This record, too, and this warm scribe—my hand—perhaps, will fade. The stones here on Colchis shall fall into the sea, and the sea dissolve to foam. The stars shall burn the worlds to ash, and cool themselves to cinders. All things fade. Fall. Shatter.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“He knew we were wounded. Wounded by war, wounded by the betrayal of our nation. Wounded twice, once in Vietnam, and again at home.”
― Diane Carlson Evans, Healing Wounds

“As my time in Vietnam continued, I saw the best of America in our hospital beds while working side by side with hundreds of our brave men and women. Fate chose this battleground for my generation. It did not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants or innocent children who were machine-gunned, bombed, or tortured. Our fate, I was starting to realize, was being determined by the stroke of a pen by senators and congressmen in Washington, D.C., most of them who knew nothing of war.”
― Diane Carlson Evans, Healing Wounds

“While we don’t know the exact numbers, we know that many American women serving in Vietnam were sexually harassed, and some raped, but afraid to report it to higher military authorities for fear of retribution. We were vulnerable and knew the Army Nurse Corps could not, or in some cases would not, protect us. Women who did report were often transferred, lost promotions, or were marked as troublemakers. Our surviving Vietnam meant keeping secrets and watching our backs.”
― Diane Carlson Evans, Healing Wounds