Home > Work > Seraphina (Seraphina, #1)
1 " I had felt the shot coming; I hadn’t realized the bow was loaded with this very quarrel, perfectly calibrated to hit him hardest. What part of me had been studying him, stockpiling knowledge as ammunition? "
― Rachel Hartman , Seraphina (Seraphina, #1)
2 " This is my mind's garden, I tend it; I order it. I have nothing to fear. "
3 " For the merest moment I couldn't breathe. Something inside me quivered, some oud string plucked by his words, and if I breathed it would stop.He did not know the truth of me, yet he had perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed. And in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertiginous moment, made me want to be better than I was. "
4 " Claude rubs the back of his neck and wrinkles his nose, about to tell me he was never sad. I believe this is called bravado and is not limited to lawyers, or even men, although that combination makes it almost unavoidable. "
5 " And I realized a wondrous truth: that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust. "
6 " I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature. "
7 " There are two sacred causes in this world,” he said, holding up his pinkie and ring ringer. “Chance and necessity. By chance I was there to help when you had need. "
8 " Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach. "
9 " ...emotions fly humans toward art "
10 " Let the one who seeks justice be just. "
11 " My own survival required me to counterbalance interesting with invisible. "
12 " I scrupulously hide every legitimate reason for people to hate me, and it turns out they don’t need legitimate reasons. Heaven has fashioned a knife of irony to stab me with. "
13 " I was just chased through St. Willibald’s, and you know why? Because I was kind to a quig. I scrupulously hide every legitimate reason for people to hate me, and then it turns out they don’t need legitimate reasons. Heaven has fashioned a knife of irony to stab me with. "
14 " I was drawn to his aloofness, the way cats gravitate toward people who’d rather avoid them. "
15 " Someone should love you. I will bite him if he will not. "
16 " Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it and then he sat on it. "
17 " I didn't want this dance to end, or Kiggs to let go of my hand. I didn't want him to turn his eyes away, or live any other moment than this one. "
18 " The truth may not be told. Here is an acceptable lie. "
19 " Invisible factors in my life would inevitably lead to my downfall. I felt I had known this all along. There was no escape. "
20 " Why live in fear that he might find me disgusting someday, when I could make it happen right now? "