#r

They were orphans of war, washed up on that little island in a tide of blood. What made them amazing wasn't that they had miraculous powers; that they had escaped the ghettos and gas chamges was miracle enough. ↗

— Ransom Riggs

#historical

Sooner or later, you will discover which kind of father you are, and at that moment you will, with perfect horror, recognize the type. You are the kind of father who fakes it, who yells, who measures his children with greatest accuracy only against one another, who evades the uncomfortable and glosses over the painful and pads the historic records of his sorrows and accomplishments alike. You are the kind who teases and deceives and toys with his children and subjects them to displays of rich and manifold sarcasm when--as is always the case--sarcasm is the last thing they need. You are the kind of father who pretends knowledge he doesn't possess, and imposes information with implacable gratuitousness, and teaches lessons at the moment when none can be absorbed, and is right, and has always been right, and always will be right until the end of time, and never more than immediately after he has been wrong. And when your daughter's body begins to betray her, and her sky flickers in the distance with the heat lightning of sex, you clear your throat and stroke your chin whiskers and tell her to go ask her mother. You can't help it--you're a walking cliché. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#historical

I have never learned to hate. Don't let my first lesson come from you. ↗

— Susan Carroll

#historical-fiction #meaningful #miri-cheney #powerful #susan-carroll

I'm not going to accept your challenge. There will be no duel." "Why not? Because I'm a woman?" "No, because I've seen the way you spinsters handle a pistol. You'd shoot me dead where I stood. ↗

— Tessa Dare

#historical

Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism. ↗

— Terry Eagleton

#apathy #apolitical #determinism #historical-determinism #history

She opens her eyes as the fury continues, pinning me with her glare. Her gaze reached into my soul as I spin the music back to the simple melody at its core—our melody. A moment of recognition washes over her, followed by regret, fear, terror. An entire kaleidoscope of emotions exists within a single heartbeat. ↗

— Christine Fonseca

#psychological-thriller #ya #music

Atheism and agnosticism signify the rejection of certain images and concepts of God or of truth, which are historically conditioned and therefore inadequate. Atheism is a challenge to religion to purifiy its images and concepts and come nearer to the truth of divine mystery. ↗

— Bede Griffiths

#atheism #idols #religion #religion

With time, grief has a way of slipping down in the crevices of your heart. It never really leaves; it just makes room for more. ↗

— Nancy B. Brewer

#historical-romance #southern-women #historical

Long ago she'd clamped an iron shell around her heart and nothing and no one could pry it lose, but deep inside the tender flesh still beat. ↗

— Sarah Sundin

#romance #world-war- #historical

He lay on the bed, freshly shaven and washed, legs crossed at the ankles and arms propped behind his head. His posture said, Yes, ladies. I truly am this handsome. And I don't even have to try. ↗

— Tessa Dare

#historical