Spells Quotes - Page 31

• And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I'm not sure of how to hold on to, though I'm desperate to try.

  Libba Bray

  Trying, Desperate, Not Sure

  Libba Bray (2015). “The Gemma Doyle Trilogy”, p.212, Delacorte Press

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• Away! Away! The spell of arms and voices: the white arms of roads, their promise of close embraces and the black arms of tall ships that stand against the moon, their tale of distant nations. They are held out to say: We are alone. Come. And the voices say with them: We are your kinsmen. And the air is thick with their company as they call to me, their kinsman, making ready to go, shaking the wings of their exultant and terrible youth... Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

  James Joyce

  Moon, Reality, Race

  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ch. 5 (1916)

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• This was love, I supposed, and eventually I would come to know it. Someday it would choose me and I would come to know its spell, for long stretches and short, two times, maybe three, and then quite probably it would choose me never again.

  Lorrie Moore

  Two, Long, Three

  Lorrie Moore (2009). “A Gate at the Stairs”, p.91, Vintage

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• The people in this house, I felt, and I included myself, were like characters each from a different grim and gruesome fairy tale. None of us was in the same story. We were all grotesques, and self-riveted, but in separate narratives, and so our interactions seemed weird and richly meaningless, like the characters in a Tennessee Williams play, with their bursting unimportant, but spell-bindingly mad speeches.

  Lorrie Moore

  Character, Self, Play

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• If you had grown up with me, this is one of the things I would have tried to teach you: Marry a man who loves you more than you love him. Because I have both now, and when it is the other way around, there is no spell in the world that can even out the balance.

  Jodi Picoult

  Love You, Men, Balance

  Jodi Picoult (2007). “Vanishing acts”, p.200, Simon and Schuster

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• I'm not the world's greatest expert, but I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, ... broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue?' - when J.K. Rowling insisted she wasn't writing fantasy.

  Terry Pratchett

  Writing, Experts, Wizards

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• There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.

  Winston Churchill

  Space, Duty, Obligation

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• This is the most important lesson you must learn about magic," Miss Ochiba went on. "There are many ways of seeing. Each has an element of truth, but none is the whole truth. If you limit yourselves to one way of seeing, one truth, you will limit your power. You will also place limits on the kinds of spells you can cast, as well as their strength. To be a good magician, you must see in many ways. You must be flexible. You must be willing to learn from different sources. And you must always remember that the truths you see are incomplete.

  Patricia C. Wrede

  Life, Missing, Magic

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• Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.

  Ezra Pound

  Squares, Giving, Mind

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• But the moment our eyes meet, I'm right back under his spell, a helpless hunk of steel to his irresistible magnet.

  Alyson Noel

  Eye, Steel, Moments

  Alyson Noel (2013). “The Immortals Bundle 1-3: The Immortals: Evermore, The Immortals: Blue Moon and The Immortals: Shadowland”, p.71, Pan Macmillan

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• He was used to being playful with women, teasing while keeping ultimate control. With Luna, he felt like a berserk marauder. He couldn't even spell control, much less utilize it.

  Lori Foster

  Tease, Used, Berserk

  FaceBook post by Lori Foster from Jul 28, 2014

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• I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls! I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o'er me from above; The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Wall, Night, Light

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867). “The Poetical Works of H. W. Longfellow. Complete Edition”, p.2

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• Creativity depends on a number of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells.

  Teresa Amabile

  Creativity, Thinking, Skills

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• Someone who has thought rationally and deeply about how the body works is likely to arrive at better ideas about how to be healthy than someone who has followed a hunch. Medicine presupposes a hierarchy between the confusion the layperson will be in about what is wrong with him, and the more accurate knowledge available to doctors reasoning logically. At the heart of Epicureanism is the thought that we are as bad at answering the question "What will make me happy?" as "What will make me healthy?" Our souls do not spell out their troubles.

  Alain de Botton

  Heart, Medicine, Doctors

  "The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, 2000.

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• I know death is the fascinating snake under the leaves, sliding and sliding; I know the heart loves him too, can't turn away, can't break the spell. Everything wants to enter the slow thickness, aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost. Wants to be stone.

  Mary Oliver

  Death, Heart, Snakes

  Mary Oliver (1986). “Dream Work”, p.32, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• True love was forever lost. The prince was never coming back to kiss me awake from my enchanted sleep. I was not a princess, after all. So what was the fairy-tale protocol for other kisses? The mundane kind that didn't break any spells? Maybe it would be easy - like holding his hand or having his arms around me. Maybe it would feel nice. Maybe it wouldn't fell like a betrayal. Besides, who was I betraying, anyway? Just myself.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Betrayal, Nice, Princess

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• There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt.

  Margaret Atwood

  Powerful, Naughty, Whispering

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Jan 26, 2012

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• Just as there are predatory birds, so there are predatory ideas: I came under their spell. . . .Just as the survivors say that no one will ever understand the victims, what I must tell you is that you will never understand the executioners.

  Elie Wiesel

  Ideas, Bird, Survivor

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• Only two things I know about Albuquerque - Bugs Bunny should've taken a left turn there. And give me a hundred tries, I'll never be able spell it.

  Jimmy McGill

  Taken, Two, Giving

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