#fiction

This marriage had resulted from impulse: he had seen her on a high-flying swing at Tsarkoe Selo and her skirt, flared by the breeze, had exposed her ankles; he had proposed the following day. ↗

— Robert K. Massie

#nonfiction #royalty #russia #marriage

But they love each other," Clary appalled. "Isn't that what love means? That you're there for the other person to turn to, no matter what? ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#city-of-fallen-angels #clary #fiction #jace #love

Call it what you like: The Upper Sky, the Unmade, even the Empyrean. Men have given it so many names over the course of history. But those names don't really matter, in the end. It's the unchanging matter. A place without qualities. Neither hot nor cold, wet nor dry. The aether remains while all else shifts and fades...The aether is the opposite of creation. It's always there, invisible but burning bright. It's the pale web that holds the universe together. ↗

— Adam McOmber

#gothic-fiction #the-white-forest #men

Blake smiled while greeting him and turned to introduce me to his friend from Camp Lejeune. Blake made the formal introductions while I studied the two distinguished men. I liked the way they both carried themselves in a dignified manner with confidence, but not too much that they seemed arrogant. I was fascinated by them. Sleek. Forget eye candy. These two are like eye caffeine. I feel energized just looking at them. ↗

— Debra Kay

#contemporary-romance #drama #erotic-romance #fiction-novel #military-romance

There were five others before they got to him. He smiled a little when his turn came. His voice was low, smoky, and dead sexy. “My name is Augustus Waters,” he said. “I’m seventeen. I had a little touch of osteosarcoma a year and a half ago, but I’m just here today at Isaac’s request.” “And how are you feeling?” asked Patrick. “Oh, I’m grand.” Augustus Waters smiled with a corner of his mouth. “I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend. ↗

— John Green

#john-green #life #life

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#chains-of-events #commonplaces-of-existence #cross-purposes #fiction #on-fiction

A woman's got one life: She's got to reach out and grab it with both hands, or it'll pass her by and leave nothing but a smelly old fart in her face. ↗

— Robin Schone

#history #romance #scandalous-lovers #women #life

There's more to life than just surviving . . . but . . . sometimes just surviving is all you get ↗

— Charles de Lint

#life

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written. ↗

— Robert Hass

#robert-hass #writing #writing-craft #writing-life #life

They say that right before you die your whole life flashes before you – a medley of your own personal greatest hits. Well then, I must be about to live, because events that haven’t happened yet are constantly pushing themselves into my head. ↗

— Emlyn Chand

#fiction #paranormal #psychic-powers #ya #yalit