#ok

As it so happens, I like your mouth." "It doesn't -- " "Challenge me?" He set the bottle down and moved to the end of the bed. "An outspoken woman makes the world a livable place. You have fire in you, and I would never put that out. ↗

— Dannika Dark

#couple #fire #mouth #outspoken #paranormal

I once spoke to someone who had survived the genocide in Rwanda, and she said to me that there was now nobody left on the face of the earth, either friend or relative, who knew who she was. No one who remembered her girlhood and her early mischief and family lore; no sibling or boon companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce. All her birthdays, exam results, illnesses, friendships, kinships—gone. She went on living, but with a tabula rasa as her diary and calendar and notebook. I think of this every time I hear of the callow ambition to 'make a new start' or to be 'born again': Do those who talk this way truly wish for the slate to be wiped? Genocide means not just mass killing, to the level of extermination, but mass obliteration to the verge of extinction. You wish to have one more reflection on what it is to have been made the object of a 'clean' sweep? Try Vladimir Nabokov's microcosmic miniature story 'Signs and Symbols,' which is about angst and misery in general but also succeeds in placing it in what might be termed a starkly individual perspective. The album of the distraught family contains a faded study of Aunt Rosa, a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the Germans put her to death, together with all the people she had worried about. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#anonymity #born-again #clean-slate #extinction #family

While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story. ↗

— Jeffrey Archer

#book #short-story #short-story

I don't like having feelings," Eric said coldly, and he left. That was a tough exit line to top. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#sookie-eric #sookie-stackhouse #dead

My youngest brother had a wonderful schtick from some time in high school, through to graduating medicine. He had a card in his wallet that read, ‘If I am found with amnesia, please give me the following books to read …’ And it listed half a dozen books where he longed to recapture that first glorious sense of needing to find out ‘what happens next’ … the feeling that keeps you up half the night. The feeling that comes before the plot’s been learned. ↗

— Guy Gavriel Kay

#reading #school

... texting, even browsing the Internet - all these things can attract monsters. ↗

— Rick Riordan

#internet

Josh will begin disappearing into a future where the only place he and I remain friends is on the Internet. ↗

— Jay Asher

#friends #future #internet

Josh turns to me. “I can’t believe she’s writing these things.” “Not she,” I say. “Me.” “Why would anyone say this stuff about themselves on the Internet? It’s crazy!” “Exactly,” I say. “I’m going to be mentally ill in fifteen years, and that’s why my husband doesn’t want to be around me. ↗

— Jay Asher

#status-updates #internet

I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them. ↗

— L.M. Montgomery

#temptation

Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage. "It makes me feel as if something had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered. ↗

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

#temptation