Quotes about herring
page 37

“Mattie sat at the table, obsessing, orbiting around herself. She was sick of her worried, hostile mind. It would have killed her long before, she felt, if it hadn't needed the transportation.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Blue Shoe

Hostility

“Our last impression of her as she turned the corner was that smile, flung backward like a handful of flowers.”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

Smile, Flowers

“She is happy where she lies
With the dust upon her eyes.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: The Selected Poetry

Happiness

“If she were a writer she would collect her pencils and notebooks and favourite cat and write in bed. Strangers and lovers would never get past the locked door.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Cats, Lovers, Past

“He had given her too much. He had given her everything.”

Trudi Canavan book The High Lord

Source: The High Lord

“calls her beautiful, but she cannot hear…”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Beauty

“Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could not let that happen.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

“he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

“Oh- and grab the plastic bag over by my suitcase."
I slug down the last of the coffee and get up. The bag contains panty hose. I put them on her desk.
"They're for you."
"You want me to look homeless, desperate, but also kind of fabulous?”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

Coffee

“She carried a knife inside of herself now, one that was always cutting her. She could feel it every time she swallowed, every time her thoughts strayed from the splendor of the wild.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

Feeling, Time

“Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right,
By these we reach divinity”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Faith, Soul

“Greg stands up, wiping his mouth. "I saw your mother's trial in the paper, Sharpe. I know you're just like her."

"If I was, I would make you beg to blow me," I sneer.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

“The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.”

Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned

Source: The Queen of the Damned

Animals

“This girl (Stephanie) is but a few months away from her seventeenth birthday and already she has saved the world and killed a god. What have you done?”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

God, World, Girl, Birthday

“I didn't know what to say to her. What do you say to people when they ask how it feels to lose everything? When every planet in your solar system has exploded?”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

People, Feeling

“Now I wish she'd never broken any of her rules. I understood why she held to them so hard. Once you broke the first one, they all broke, one by one, like firecrackers exploding in your face in a parking lot on the Fourth of July.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“We had one gun, one werewolf, one poltergeist, one supercharged spell-caster, one not-so-supercharged spell-caster, and one perfectly useless necromancer, though Liz was quick to remind me that she needed me to relay her words. - Chloe”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

“The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

Love, Feeling, Time

“From his lips/Not words alone pleased her.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

“I can't blame her. but
wonder why she's here with
me? where are the other
guys? how can you be
lucky? having someone the
others have abandoned?”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Guy

“Don’t.” She looks directly into my eyes. After a month of being forced to avoid her, I feel stripped bare by her gaze. “You can be as much of a charming bastard as you want, but you’re never going to bullshit your way into my heart again.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

Way, Feeling, Heart

“You never get mad,” she said when their server left the table. “Except at me.”
“That’s not true,” he said tightly. “Torie can get me going.”
“Torie doesn’t count. You were obviously her mother in a previous life.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Call Me Irresistible

Life, Madness

“She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasies, roe to her challenge, and dispelled her insignificance.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Waiting

“A mother knows what her child's gone through, even if she didn't see it herself.”

Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925–2006) Indonesian writer

Source: Gadis Pantai

“Everybody needs a seashell in her bathroom to remind her the ocean is her home.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Home

“the joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: How Reading Changed My Life

Life, World, Joy

“Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Painting

“"You really want to know what else it was my mom said about you?" he asked.
She shook her head.
He didn't seem to notice. "She said you'd break my heart."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Simon and Clary, pg. 321
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Moms, Heart

“You sound as if you don't mind what happens to it," said Tessa. "Won't you miss it here? This place has been your home."
His fingers stroked her wrist lightly, making her shiver.
"You are home for me now.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Home

“I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm's length, behind a closed door, miles away.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

Truth, Secret

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.”

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) poet and political activist

Life, Truth, World

“Azazello begged her not to worry, assuring her that he had seen not only naked women but also women with their skin flayed clean off”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Women

“But then the girl moved, and smiled, and pulled her hand from the grate- a gorgeous green stone clutched tightly in her grasp. It was covered with dust and cobwebs, but it was uncracked and unharmed.
And, of course, completely fake.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Smile, Girl

“She was just a shell of her former self, functioning and talking but hardly alive.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“My sister was the one who told me where babies come from. My sister was also the one who laughed when I immediately asked her where babies go to.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Sister, Baby

“Nix had told Emma before she'd left for Europe that on this trip she would 'do that which you were born to do.' Apparently, Emma was born to get kidnapped by a deranged Lykae. Her fate sucked.”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

Fate

“No, you've got it all wrong, John." Reading his emotions, she shook her head. "You're not half the male you could be because of what was done to you. You're twice what anyone else is because you survived.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Reading

“So does nobody care about Ireland?"
"Nobody. Neither King Louis, nor King Billie, nor King James." He nodded thoughtfully. "The fate of Ireland will be decided by men not a single one of whom gives a damn about her. That is her tragedy.”

Edward Rutherfurd (1948) British writer

Source: The Rebels of Ireland

Men, Fate

“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”

George Gordon Byron book Hebrew Melodies

She Walks in Beauty http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-SWB42.htm, st. 1. The subject of these lines was Mrs. R. Wilmot.—Berry Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 7. <br class="br">Hebrew Melodies (1815)

Beauty, Light, Night

“You’re that lady,” Leo said. “The one who was named after Caribbean music.”
Her eyes glinted murderously. “Caribbean music.”
“Yeah. Reggae?” Leo shook his head. “Merengue? Hold on, I’ll get it.”
He snapped his fingers. “Calypso!”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Music

“A man spends his whole life trying to prove his worth to others. A woman spends her life trying to prove her worth to herself.”

Tawni O'Dell book Sister Mine

Source: Sister Mine

Life

“The world rests upon a turtle, which itself stands on the back of an elephant!”
Alek tried not to laugh. “Then what does the elephant stand on, madam?”
“Don’t try to be clever, young man.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s elephants all the way down!”

Scott Westerfeld book Behemoth

Source: Behemoth

World, Way

“She's letting out her feelings. The scary thing is not being able to do that. When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you're in big trouble.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Feeling

“We're of one mind, Grenville and I, and the mind is hers, on account of my being a man and not having one.”

Loretta Chase (1949) American writer

Source: The Last Hellion

“Tiger Lily drifted down underneath herself. This was her one gift more than any other. Silently, she nodded. "Yes. Everything is more than okay.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

“I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase

Feeling, Bird, Loneliness

“You're judging her by her literacy," Tara says. "You're a literacist."

"You've made that up.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

“When he asked my grandmother if she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy just to have her daughter and himself: 'If you have love, even plain water is sweet.”

Jung Chang (1952) writer from China

Source: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Love, Water, Daughters, Happiness

“We knew that Cecilia had killed herself because she was a misfit, because the beyond called to her, and we knew that her sisters, once abandoned, felt her calling from that place, too.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Sister

“You two. You can do a cleaning spell."
One slurred, "But Nixie, I'm really pre-hung-over."
Nix's eyes went wide. "Do it, or the photos go live!"
The witch shook her fist to the sky, crying, "Damn you, Valkyrie! Damn you and your digital ways!”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Kiss of a Demon King

Way, Photo, Cry

“How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

“He had this old southern idea of what a lady should be. A lady should not carry a gun and spend most of her time covered in blood and corpses. I had two words for that attitude.
Yeah, those are the words.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Idea, Time

“I thought she'd make some comment about the bloodthirsty gods chasing us, but when she finally found her voice, she said, "That boy kissed you!"
Leave it to Liz to have her priorities straight.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

God, Boy, Kiss

“This was her life. Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good.”

Kim Edwards book The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Life, Dreams, Imagination

“Will looked as if she had slpped him. "I didn't do it so you'd be grateful!"
"Then what?" Her voice rose. "You did it because it's your mandate? Because the law says-"
"I did it because I love you!”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love, Law

“The sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart… converted it into a tomb.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

Heart

“Now don’t you be covering for him, Ash. (She wagged her finger at Nick.) Are you driving? (Cherise)
No, Mom. I’m sitting. (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Moms

“You don't love a girl because of beauty. You love her because she sings a song only you can understand.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire

Love, Beauty, Girl, Understanding

“A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans?”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

Music, Time, Happiness

“You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Parker's answer when asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence?, as quoted in You Might as well Live by John Keats (1970).
Source: You Might as Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker

Thinking