Best 4069 quotes in «fiction quotes» category

Brian organised for the body to be flown back.

Breathe, Emma. Now is not the time to swoon.

Bullet-ridden bodies were not saved easily. For these fallen soldiers, it wasn’t a sort of accident that happened unexpectedly, it was rather an ordeal of fate that had to come one day. Death made them lose in its surety.

Burn wounds always elicited pain more terrible than anything else he had ever endured. He didn’t relish the idea of forcing himself to suffer through such agony. But it was necessary. Earth depended on them taking possession of the key. “It’s the only way out,” Andrew reminded him. “I understand that, but—” “The trials we have faced thus far have been minimal,” Andrew said, cutting off Sebastian’s retort. “What we seek is the key to the universe. You didn’t expect it to be easy, did you?

But a bond is a bond. And when you’re young and haven’t yet learned to live in your own solitude, even a destructive bond can seem better than none.

...but at night when he turns the awkward [telescope] skyward, he catches his breath at the clarity of the image and the vast populations of stars unknown to him until then, the riotous glittering in the dark crevices between constellations, a convocation of bright spirits waiting to be found.

But everything evened out eventually, didn’t it – every wave subsided, lapsed back into the ocean, returning, giving them time to put themselves back together again. He was her moon. He balanced out her tides.

. . .but he'd seen elite warriors go down in flames enough times to struggle with the sovereignty of God yet yield to it

But I belong here. I could live here…hiding from the others, living among their consciences and their fears; why not? Could this be the missing link? Could it be the darkness that I fear the most… could I be… evil?

But hereto is replied that the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile, and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case? But that is easily answered: their naming of men is but to make their picture the more lively, and not to build any history. Painting men, they cannot leave men nameless. We see we cannot play at chess but that we must give names to our chess-men; and yet, me thinks, he were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop.

But I can’t control my dreams. I can’t even remember them. For all I know I’m having the time of my life when I sleep, but I just can’t remember. So I’m forced to live in a life I have no control over. A life where I’m either numb to everything or terrified of every thought that crosses my mind. If this is all just a dream, then it sure is a disappointing one. But I still have time to try and control my dreams. I have time to try and make my dreams a reality in this waking life as well. The one bloody thing I have is time. I’ve got to remember that. I still have time. And despite everything, there is something reassuring about that.

But inside loss there can be gain, too,like the small silver spider Bela had discovered one dewy morning, curled asleep at the center of a rose.

But if watching the sky is to be his duty, how should he begin? Now and then he has spotted one of the five bright planets or recognized a constellation, but he knows little about the turning of the heavens. When he contemplates the great distances between this and that, and the vast multitude of solitary objects spread over the celestial dome, he cannot fathom how one goes about searching for what is yet unknown.

but in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and chreerful life, free from anxieties; neither apprehending want himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife?

But in the end, black can never be white, one plus one must always equal two, and Mara Lynn was a normal little girl.

but in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties; neither apprehending want himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife?

But life isn't neat the way a story is. And if you try to pretend it is, then you just make yourself unhappy, or screw yourself over.

But it was not business as usual. Black Friday was a household word. The industrialized world spiraled downward as billions of dollars were lost in its wake, and Albuquerque was no exception. In the coming months, the Great Depression stretched its tentacles over all of America, snatching away whatever hopes to lay in its path.

But love?” She made a face. “It’s an all-encompassing machine, with no parts but the weak human heart. You give everything to it with no promise of security in return.

But now, here were the British among us, upon our soil where the sun rises over one lake and sets upon another.

But now she could not bear the way she sounded. She was not a person anyone could love. ... And thus fled to her room. There she wept, bitterly, an ugly sound punctuated by great gulps. She could not stop herself. She could hear his footsteps in the passage outside. He walked up and down, up and down. 'Come in,' she prayed. 'Oh dearest, do come in.' But he did not come in. He would not come in. This was the man she had practically contracted to give away her fortune to. He offered to marry her as a favour and then he would not even come into her room. Later, she could smell him make himself a sweet pancake for his lunch. She thought this a childish thing to eat, and selfish, too. If he were a gentleman he would now come to her room and save her from the prison her foolishness had made for her. He did not come. She heard him pacing in his room.

But Logan had to laugh when he realized that he was the maiden in this scenario. And he didn't care one bit.

But Mother, I don't want to go. It's just that...I have to. I can't spend the rest of my life hiding in the attic. [...] I don't want to be a burden[...]I want to do something with my life. Figure out ways to help other third kids. Make—make a difference in the world.

But Pierre had been born with a shrewdness that made him early aware that a failure to believe that human events were ordered by a higher power was regarded by many in the highest positions as obnoxious and even sinful, and as nothing was to be gained by exciting such hostility, it was better to give a silent or even smiling assent to the fatuous idealism to which, particularly in youth, one was so relentlessly exposed.

But Quincy knew that her heart beat with the rhythm of the presses in the back room, that her blood ran black with ink, and that her mind filled with reams of numbers and projections and plans. The Q was Quincy's only vital organ.

But that's why you're upset now. Fiction is not life.' 'You don't believe that.' 'I think I do.' 'You know as well as I do that the line can't be drawn, that we're infected at every moment by fictions of all kinds, that it's inescapable.' 'Don't be a sophist,' he said. 'There is a world and it's palpable.' 'I don't mean that,' I said. 'I mean that it's hard really to see it, that it's all hazy with out dreams and fantasies.

But the first bedtime story he ever did read me was Kim.' River could tell she recognised the title, so didn't elaborate. 'After that, well, Conrad, Greene. Somerset Maugham.' 'Ashenden.' 'You get the picture. For my twelfth birthday, he bought me le Carré's collected works. I can still remember what he said about them.' They're made up. But that doesn't mean they're not true.

But then, that’s the beauty of writing stories—each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there’s no feeling like it." [Peter Wild Interviews TC Boyle, 3:AM Magazine, June 2003]

...but the air's flat and stale and the people half-hearted. There's nothing to do there. You can make love without trouble or meaning, or get mildly drunk, or extract second-hand emotions from the cinema, or put your mind to sleep on a dance-floor, or play bridge, or throw yourself in front of a train on the Underground. There are forty ways of escaping from consciousness. But I want something more exciting than that.

But then the course of events takes no account of verisimilitude. Fiction has to be probable; fact does not.

...but what are people but deaths that haven’t happened yet?” “Births that already happened?” Jackie said without thinking.

But we will not bury our mother. We have no interest in putting her bones in soft ground, no desire for memorials and platitudes, no feelings attached to the organic detritus of her terminated existence.

But you do believe, don’t you," Rose implored him, "you think it’s true?" "Of course it’s true," the Boy said. "What else could there be?" he went scornfully on. "Why," he said, "it’s the only thing that fits. These atheists, they don’t know nothing. Of course there’s Hell. Flames and damnation," he said with his eyes on the dark shifting water and the lightning and the lamps going out above the black struts of the Palace Pier, "torments." "And Heaven too," Rose said with anxiety, while the rain fell interminably on. "Oh, maybe," the Boy said, "maybe.

By the time he returned to her small room, Quincy’s shock, like a typewriter, had come to the end of tis row, and her internal bell had rung. She was up, removing the blackened wallpaper to see what damage the wall had sustained.

Can I get two coffees?’ Joanna cringed. That cashier ought to tell her straight that she may have two coffees, but she certainly can’t get them because customers aren’t allowed behind the counter!

Can you see the power emotion has to distort out outlook? Makes you wonder, did you have a bad day, or did you make it a bad day?

Can the child who is Dell; be the outer emoodiment of man's quest to save himself? To cure himself?...Or, to "be" himself?

Can you even have human nature if you don’t have the capacity to feel?” I ask. “Do you mean on some kind of existentialist ‘what are we if not the things we feel’ kind of way?” I don’t know what he means by existentialist. I say as much. He laughs. I entertain the idea of stabbing him for several minutes.

Can you imagine how many people got laid in here?" Abby said, walking to the other side of the Jacuzzi.

Can't say I've ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things. Give me a good ending anytime. You know where you are with an ending.

Carefully studying the delicate form of the doll, she was thinking how easy it was to wish for things as a child. Then nothing seemed impossible. Growing up, one realizes how many things one cannot wish for, the things that are forbidden, sinful. Indecent.

Cheers went up around the decks as the Dolphins oars began to move as one in and out shifting and cutting away at the sea beneath, SICANIA RISING

Certamente era um homem que possuía muitas qualidades, mesmo que fossem quase todas ruins.

Change layover the stairs and the kitchen and the garden like fog.

Characters are just extensions of my madness.

Charlee has my arm. She has my arm—my arm that’s rigid from pleasure, from her touch—in her little fingers. She holds my other one, too and she’s right there, that sweet candy perfume stripping the rest of the strength from my body, and it escapes in a soft, breathy sigh.

Change was happening and coming quick. You could feel it, itching at you as you waited desperate for movement. You had been in a holding pattern for too long. You had prayed day after day to be released from what felt like a prison and all the while, you were still here. Life was still the same, a revolving motion of people, activity, sleep and food...No passion. No interest. Just stuck. What you were unaware of was that Heaven was moving.

Charlotte made a promise to herself then and there: If I ever see someone fall, I'll ask if they're okay.

Childhood does not last forever,' said Juniper. 'Although I believe the childish soul can endure for an eternity.

Christopher's heart bled that night and he could not sleep. Deborah who used to call him numerous times in a day and send countless messages was now not answering his calls. And she never called him.