An ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn’t tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.
Her parents could have named her Aria, or Harmonia, or Tessitura, or a hundred other clever names that would have alluded to her ancestry. But they weren't for her, these names that roll or sparkle or play or simply proclaim, I am normal! No, it was ...
Whenever he was en route from one place to another, he was able to look at his life with a little more objectivity than usual. it was often on trpis that he thought most clearly, and made the decisions that he could not reach when he was stationary.
Yes, she loved her ship more than she had loved him. But what she loved even more was what it gave her: freedom, and the key to the marvels of space. It gave her the stars, and she doubted she could ever love anything or anyone more than she loved th...
I could not resist the in books, the incredibly satisfying way in which life became weighty and accessible. Books were reality. I hadn't made up my own mind about my own life, a vague, dreamy affair, amorphous and dimly perceived, without beginning o...
It was the challenge of life too, was it not? People could never be fully understood. They were ever changing, different people at different times and under different circumstances and influences. And always growing, always creating themselves anew. ...
He was walking into Faerie, in search of a fallen star, with no idea how he would find the star, nor how to keep himself safe and whole as he tried. He looked back and fancied that he could see the lights of Wall behind him, wavering and glimmering a...
The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.
We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s...
I couldn't help smiling as he grasped my arms and held me in place because his warmth infected me. I hadn't known I was freezing until he held me. I hadn't known until then, after the long hours of separation, that with Cain I could pretend to be hum...
We were his disposable things. Brought to him like cattle. Stripped of what made us sisters or daughters or children. There was nothing that he could take from us—our genes, our bones, our wombs—that would ever satisfy him. There was no other way...
Swann could at once detect in this story one of those fragments of literal truth which liars, when taken by surprise, console themselves by introducing into the composition of the falsehood which they have to invent, thinking that it can be safely in...
So you see, the most vital question then becomes, what type of woman will conquer our hero? If she be of poor quality, he’ll become a slave. But if she be great, then her greatness will elevate the man to greater heights than he could ever have att...
All I know is that once Julián told the kids in the building that he had a sister only he could see. He said she came out of mirrors as if she were made of thin air and that she lived with Satan himself in a palace at the bottom of a lake.
I hadn't realized she could shrink... It makes sense now with the tricks Ari was able to perform with her." "She wasn't born that way. Her mother was a scientist working to reduce subatomic particles." "And whose mom isn't?" Raven joked. "Was Rick Mo...
I watched the people passing below, each of them a story, each story part of somebody else's, all of it connected to the big story of the world. People weren't islands, so far as I was concerned. How could they be, when their stories kept getting tan...
Don't be afraid to try, because you never look back on life and smile at what you could have attempted. Joy only brightens your countenance over those things you attempt.
Yes, of course we could all use some help. There isn't a person alive without a need. So don't ask the silly question, just figure out you're going to help and do it!
All I could think about was the heat of his soft lips, the way they fitted so wonderfully as I was coaxing him to open them some more, just enough to let my tongue slip in and taste him. I needed a taste, needed to complete this fantasy of mine.
How does knowing than what I already deem is awful make me feel any better? You mean I could sink even lower? Oh joy!
Jessie had never heard you could inherit madness. She thought madness was something that just happened to people in Shakespeare when the wind got up.
