A CLASH OF KINGS by GEORGE R. R. MARTIM
January 06, 2014
"The battle fever. [...] How time seemed to blur and slow and even stop, how the past and the future vanished until there was nothing but the instant, how fear fled, and thought fled, and even your body. “You don’t feel your wounds then, or the ache in your back from the weight of the armor, or the sweat running down into your eyes. You stop feeling, you stop thinking, you stop being you, there is only the fight, the foe, this man and then the next and the next and the next, and you know they are afraid and tired but you’re not, you’re alive, and death is all around you but their swords move so slowly, you can dance through them laughing."
OUTLANDER by DIANA GABALDON
January 12, 2014
"I meant it, ye know,” he said softly. “I will protect you. From him, or anyone else. To the last drop of my blood, mo duinne.”
“Mo duinne?” I asked, a little disturbed by the intensity of this speech. I didn’t want to be responsible for any of his blood being spilt, last drop or first.
“It means ‘my brown one.’ ” He raised a lock of hair to his lips and smiled, with a look in his eyes that started all the drops of my own blood chasing each other through my veins. “Mo duinne,” he repeated, softly. “I have been longing to say that to you."
ELENOR AND PARK by RAINBOW ROWELL
February 06, 2014
"She was pretty sure she'd thank him for saving her life. Not just yesterday, but, like, practically every day since they'd met. Which made her feel like the dumbest, weakest girl. If you can't save your own life, is it even worth saving?"
ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE by JEANIENE FROST
February 13, 2014
“I’ll never look at your fangs the same way after last night. A part of me wants to apologize for holding you back before, and the other part wants you to apologize to me because you knew better!”
He laughed again. "I still have more to show you, trust me..."
CHILD 44 by TOM ROB SMITH
March 12, 2014
"To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs."
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN by RAY BRADBURY
July 15, 2014
"We're all fools," said Clemens, "all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly."
ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE by BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ
July 29, 2014
"I wanted to tell them that I'd never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. Until Dante. I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren't meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. And that somehow it felt like it was Dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things and yet I didn't have the words. So I just stupidly repeated myself. "Dante's my friend.”
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN by PAULLINA SIMONS
September 12, 2014
"A bus came. The soldier turned away from her and walked toward it. Tatiana watched him. Even his walk was from another world; the step was too sure, the stride too long, yet somehow it all seemed right, looked right, felt right. It was like stumbling on a book you thought you had lost. Ah, yes, there it is."
THE BOOK THIEF by MARKUS ZUSAK
October 02, 2014
"I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant."
AMERICAN GODS by NEIL GAIMAN
December 31, 2014
"People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe, and then they do not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjuration. People populate the darkness; with ghost, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe; and it is that rock solid belief, that makes things happen."