fiction-quotes

Time.

The air was gentle and cool. In her head, she could hear a constant, unbroken scream.

Five miles further on...

“A man abstemious, rigidly upright, inflexibly honest, ferociously chaste,” said Radulfus in private to Prior Robert. “A man with every virtue, except humility and human kindness. This is what I have brought upon the Foregate, Robert. And now what are we to do about him?”

That's the problem with the truth. Everyone wants it. They just don't want to know it.

Motherhood is like that – there is only the now. The despair of now, the relief of now.

Cholly had come home drunk. Unfortunately he had been too drunk to quarrel, so the whole business would have to erupt this morning. Because it had not taken place immediately, the oncoming fight would lack spontaneity; it would be calculated, uninspired, and deadly.

Love plain, simple, and so fast it shattered him.

The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to black substances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on fire.

When I was a child, my father forbade me to read science fiction or fantasy. Trash of the highest order, he said. He didn't want me muddying up my young, impressionable mind with crap. If it wasn't worthy of being reviewed in the Times, it did not make it onto our bookshelves.

On the bus, I pulled out my phone, put my earbuds in my ears, and played the audiobook I was in the middle of listening to. A thriller: a woman in danger, most of the characters possibly lying, everything not quite as it seemed. A twist somewhere near the end that would either shock me or wouldn't. There were dozens of books just like it, hundreds maybe, and they were the soundtrack of my life. The woman's voice in my earbuds told me about death, murder, deep family secrets, people who shouldn't be trusted, lies that cost lives. But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something – that's fashionable right now – but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.

Life had never been fair. She was used to it by now. She could make herself used to it again.

There's a certain stereotype about sex with gymnasts, and I heard enough jokes about it in my early twenties from gross guys at clubs to last a lifetime. The truth is that, yes, while we may be stronger and more flexible than the average person, we're still just regular human beings who like regular sex. Putting your feet behind your head isn't all that exciting when that's just your typical Tuesday morning. That said, there's othing regular about sex with Ryan. He looks at me with awe, like he wants to memorize this moment. His fingers linger over the tender spots by my waist, the edge of my hip, the nape of my neck.

“Look, you'll think I'm crazy.” David was leaning back in his chair, looking up at the stars.

Thus it was that the Valar found at last, as it were by chance, those whom they had so long awaited. And Oromë looking upon the Elves was filled with wonder, as though they were beings sudden and marvellous and unforeseen; for so it shall ever be with the Valar. From without the World, though all things may be forethought in music or foreshown in vision from afar, to those who enter verily into Eä each in its time shall be met unawares as something new and unforetold.

“Ah! that ball!—why did we wait for any thing?—why not seize the pleasure at once?—How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”

Love feels like a wild sea. Sleepless, electric, alive.