#fiction

Short first pregnancies do not occasion criticism in our valley, for it is widely known that the good Lord often makes first pregnancies mercifully brief as His reward to the girl for having preserved her chastity until marriage. Subsequent pregnancies, however, usually run their full terms, which only makes sense, as the very fact that they are not first pregnancies means that the mother was not chaste at the moment of conception. ↗

— Trevanian

#the-apple-tree #marriage

Well, that depends, I suppose. I heard someone once say that men dance the same way they have sex. So, if you want everyone here to think you're the kind of guy who just sits around and—" He stood up. "Let's dance. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#fiction #georgina #persuasion #romance #succubus

If you can walk with the crowd and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run- Yours is the earth and everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a man my son. ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#historical-fiction #war #wwi #love

Needs are stronger than liking. ↗

— Ravindra Shukla

#philosphy #youth #life

While I stood on the front porch, watching him climb into his vehicle, I breathed in the humid air. I looked at the cloudless sky, and the blue vastness of it made me think about the endless opportunities that lay ahead for me. Life, I knew, was going to be different now… better. I was going to live for today and for the future. Dear past… thank you for the lessons. Dear future… I am ready. ↗

— Debra Kay

#contemporary-romance #erotic-romance #fiction #military-romance #romance

It didn't take me long out there, in the landscapes my father had painted, to realize that as much as I loved my country [Australia], I barely knew it. I'd spent so many years studying the art of our immigrant cultures, and barely any time at all on the one that had been here all along....So I set myself a crash course and became a pioneer in a new field: desperation conservation. My job became the documentation and preservation of ancient Aboriginal rock art, before the uranium and bauxite companies had a chance to blast it into rubble" (pp. 345-346) ↗

— Geraldine Brooks

#art

Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. ↗

— Philip K. Dick

#media #postmodern #power #science-fiction #motivational

Your father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain—Maddy glanced at Tally—and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it. ↗

— Scott Westerfeld

#ya #nature

...it’s my job to lead you to success, and, if you fail, it’s because I failed, not you.’” (Spoken by Bracke, told by Eric) ↗

— Shannon A. Thompson

#failure #father-son #father-son-conversation #father-son-relationship #fiction

In darkness there is death. ↗

— Bob Mayer

#first-lines #thriller #thrillers #death