Alice Borchardt: Trending quotes (page 2)

“[he] was handsome. Just the sight of him stirred strange longings in me”

“I like a man willing to pay the price of his pleasures”

“Know you, boy, women are like cats and must explore any new place until they are satisfied. If they don’t they become weak and vain, fretful and ill”

“Desire was only another weapon, like hunger, loneliness, and cold arrayed against him by his tormentors”

“for when women take revenge, it is with all their hearts and souls, not to mention considerable inventiveness and ingenuity”

“A hint of ‘I’m so pleased that you strong, handsome, stalwart men are going to stand between my flower-like beauty and danger,’ wouldn’t hurt either”

“Some of the captured women killed themselves. I didn’t. others yielded and learned to love their captors. I wouldn’t do either one. I knew I would escape. Death is forever; to learn to love the hand that crushes you is a shame not to be borne. Pain and slavery will pass. I believed this and it kept me alive”

“Everybody always knows where they stand with you, don't they?”

“Good practical intelligence. Why screech when there is no one to comfort you?”

“You are very lovely now and soon you will be beautiful. Ant not in an ordinary way. Youth is always beautiful, but you are like some creatures of fairy born to bring ill to mortals. Only trouble can follow such gifts”

“He is tremendously strong, she thought, and liked the idea, even as she had feared that strength when she first met him”

“The eyes were too intense, tortured almost. He was tall, but the body was wiry rather than powerful. Nature had gifted him with a cat’s grace and lethal swiftness, rather than the raw power of a bull”

“Do you hate me so much?” “no, I can’t hate you. I wish I could, but I can’t””

“So easily can we destroy those things we love. Had his moment of wounded pride, his stupid frenzy, snuffed out that fragile courage? Would the strong spirit that survived so much anguish be ended as easily as this?”

“Elin wondered, sitting in the sweat bath, what that had to do with passion or desire, and decided – nothing. It was justification. They had murdered the men and must prove, on the helpless bodies of the women, that they were truly stronger. Prove it to exhaustion… not even pleasure was in it for them”

“He was magnificent, and I will never forget that in that moment, I first loved him. And I never stopped loving him. I do now and always will. No one ever brought me more sorrow or pain or joy than he did. No, nothing, not even my sons, has ever outweighed the love I feel and still feel for him. And I believe – had I known what the future held for us: all the trouble, torment, battle, and grief of our lives – I still believe that I would have yielded my heart into his keeping as I did then”

“She was afraid of men, with good reason, but she need not fear all of them. Cai loved her and somehow always would. But above all, she could trust him, because dishonesty wasn’t in him. Not always a good trait but a part of his nature. He kept faith without thinking about it at all. He couldn’t imagine not doing so”

“At worst, they were vile creatures who needed to be wiped from the face of the earth. At best, such behavior shows a dangerous lack of self-control. The first business of a warrior is self-restraint”

“He knew he should be furious, but he couldn’t sustain a decent rage around her. She had too much about her of the ferocious kitten. Something small and fuzzy, just learning it had claws and how to use them”