Being Quotes (page 545)
What actually happens when you die is that your brain stops working and your body rots, like Rabbit did when he died and we buried him in the earth at the bottom of the garden. And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go and dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing exept his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he...
Mark Haddon
In fact, I suspect that our only hope is disaster. Cruel tho' it is to say it, there has got to be a vast die-off in the human population -- likely including us and our families -- before the survivors find themselves in a world where a new and humble and 'religious' adaptation with nature is possible. Disaster is not necessary; the better world could be achieved through reason and common sense and a sense of fellowship -- but most of the present human world is dead set against us. Thus I was...
Edward Abbey
There is no glory in being a featherbed soldier, a man bedecked with gorgeous medals, but never beautified by a scar, or ennobled by a wound. All that you ever hear of such a soldier is that his spurs jingle on the pavement as he walks. There is no history for this carpet knight. He is just a dandy. He never smelled gunpowder in battle in his life. If he did, he fetched out his cologne to kill the offensive odor. Oh, if we could be wise enough to choose, even were as wise as the Lord...
Charles Spurgeon
I do not know why I care," Drizzt answered honestly. His eyes turned back to his ancient homeland, where loyalty was merely a device to gain an advantage over a common foe. "Perhaps I care because I strive to be different from my people," he said, as much to himself as to Bruenor. "Perhaps I care because I am different from my people. I may be more akin to race of the surface...that is my hope at least. I care because I have to care about something.
R. A. Salvatore
Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.
Joseph Campbell
Maedhros laughed saying: 'A king is he that can hold his own or else his title is vain. Thingol does but grant us lands where his power does not run. Indeed Doriath alone would be his realm this day but for the coming of the Noldor. Therefore in Doriath let him reign and be glad that he has the sons of Finwe for his neighbours not the Orcs of Morgoth that we found.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Before The World Was Made
If I make the lashes dark
and the eyes more bright
and the lips more scarlet,
or ask if all be right
from mirror after mirror,
no vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man
as though on my beloved,
and my blood be cold the while
and my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
before the world was made.
William Butler Yeats
I think that perhaps we always fall in love the very first instant we see the man of our dreams, even though, at the time, reason may be telling us otherwise, and we may fight against that instinct, hoping against hope that we won't win, until there comes a point when we allow ourselves to be vanquished by our feelings.
Paulo Coelho
People who’ve never read fairy tales, the professor said, have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don’t have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I’m not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your...
Charles de Lint
I think being a teenager is such a compelling time period in your life--it gives you some of your worst scars and some of your most exhilarating moments. It's a fascinating place; old enough to feel truly adult, old enough to make decisions that affect the rest of your life, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young (in most cases) to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval.
Stephenie Meyer