Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Quotes

Christopher . . . are these from you?" she asked at lunch, careful to make her tone light as she placed the two picture-poems on the table. Christopher's eyes fell to them, and he smiled.
"Yes."
He didn't ask if she liked them, and he didn't seem embarrassed.
Sarah was flustered, and somewhat surprised by Christopher's easy confidence. Even so, her natural suspicion surfaced. "Why?"
"Because," he answered seriously, "you make a good subject. Your hair, for one, is like a shimmering waterfall. It's so fair that it catches the light. It makes you seem like you have a halo about you. And your eyes - they're such a pure color, not washed out at all, deep as the ocean. And your expression . . . intense and yet somehow detached, as if you see more of the world than the rest of us."
Flustered, she could think of no way to respond. Did he just say this stuff from the top of his head? Only her strict Vida control kept her from blushing.
Meanwhile Nissa entered the cafeteria. She started to sit, then glanced from the pictures, to Christopher, to Sarah. "Should I go somewhere else?"
Christopher nodded to a chair, answering easily, "Sit down. We aren't exchanging dark secrets - yet."
Nissa flashed a teasing look to her brother as she took a seat. "As his sister, I feel the need to inform you, Sarah, that Christopher has been talking about you incessantly."
Christopher smiled, unembarrassed. "I suppose I might have been.'
"Especially your

When I was fourteen, I was one of those kids who wore all black because it matched everything. Seriously.

Forever is too long to live in fear

My mom was really of the belief that, as long as you were reading anything, it was okay. Just read.

I have swung on a flying trapeze, explored a glacier, and been hit in the face by a shark's tail while scuba diving. I like to throw myself fully into projects and adventures, which is probably how I managed to publish a book in the first place.

Cold as winter, strong as stone;
She faced the darkness all alone.
A silver goddess; a reflection.
A mirage; a recollection.
No return; no turning back.
The past is gone, the future, black.
Serpents gather in their nest,
And she stands above the rest.
Shadows hunt; she hunts the shadow.
The moon is risen; she stands below.
She views her world through the eyes of others.
Black and white; there are no colors,
As she looks down upon a shattered youth.
A shattered mirror shows a shattered truth.

As it was, they had never even managed a successful first date before their romance had gone the way of Romeo and Juliet's
except that Romeo and Juliet didn't wake up the next day, leave the crypt and say, Now what?

I don't know what kind of life we might have together," I said, never looking away from her warm brown eyes. "But I know I would protect you with the last scrap of my soul. I know I want to be there for you, to hold you, to dance for you, to hunt with you, to be with you no matter where Fate takes us, because it's the sound of your heartbeat that comforts me when I drift off to sleep, and I know I - I cannot offer you royalty. I'm not sure what I can offer you - but myself. Hopefully that is enough, because I love you, Betia, and I do implore you to be my mate.

The only way I can protect him now is to make sure he never understands how easy killing can become.

I could not cry for my own brother; he would not want me to. But I found myself crying for this hated stranger and the endless slaughter that I had almost contributed to. (page 8)

Those who cannot be aggressive are hunted down while they shiver and hide because the night is dark.

Do you trust him?
When had we reached the point where the answer to Rei's question had become yes without hesitation? When Zane had sat by my bedside for hours while I was drifting in and out of consciousness? When he had arranged for me to be visited by entertainers and friends, or had carried me home when I was too tired to walk? Or when I had first seen him cry and had wanted nothing but to comfort him?
I do not know how, yet somehow, impossibly, we are here.

You have no sense of what war is like. You have no idea what it means to see those you love fall. You cannot possibly understand what it is to fight for what you believe, and how sometimes you have to fight with words and dreams after all the weapons have been put away. You serve a cold god, surviving on his power for thousands of years without ever living!

Anhamirak, abandon and freedom.

I'm not asking for anything beyond your company in sleep. Just let me rest with the sound of your heartbeat beside mine.

Skin like ivory, perfect; A goddess, she
must be.
Slender fingers, unadorned; beautiful
simplicity.
A single teardrop; when did it fall?
Could this goddess be mortal, after all?

No one can make you a victim but yourself.

I am one of them.
I am also Rachel.
I am Risika

I prefer to write about what we refer to as 'the supernatural' versus everyday life. Humans, by themselves, bore me.

Nikolas.
If it scarred, she was going to be really annoyed.
"Is your control really this good, or are you a secret masochist?" Nikolas asked as he cut the tail of the S, a jagged underline.
"Is this a ritual thing, or are you just a sadist?" she returned, impatient. Though he was enjoying his busywork, he wasn't focused enough for Sarah to act.
"Both," he answered, laughing, as he turned to the other arm. "You can ask me to stop any time now." She understood what he really meant--You can break down and beg. "Or must I continue?"
"Hurry up, would you?" She yawned. "I have to get to the drugstore before it closes. We're out of Band-Aids at my house.

Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting.

If we ever have free time, my partner and I are fond of going on walks through the local state forests and parks.

It is a cruel thing to do, to cage such a beautiful, passionate animal as if it was only a dumb beast, but humans do so all too often. They even cage themselves, though their bars are made of society, not of steel.

You don't have to speak. Words fade," she whispered. "I know that better than anyone. Words are forgotten; they are regretted.Unnecessary. I know.

Love is the strongest emotion any creature can feel except for hate, but hate can't hurt you. Love, and trust, and friendship, and all the other emotions humans value so much, are the only emotions that can bring pain. Only love can break a heart into so many pieces.

White pill, blue pill, yellow pill, purple pill; its like swallowing a rainbow every bedtime.

Fate has a twisted sense of humor.

Vampires were an excellent springboard. I still love them; they fascinate me.

I fought; I fought for the immortal soul the preachers had taught me to believe in. I do not know whether I ever believed in it - I had never seen God, and He had never spoken to me - but I fought for it anyway, and I fought for Alexander.

You speak of giving up my dreams. Have you ever, since Maeve's coven split, had a dream? Have you ever had anything worth dying for?

Are you a god now, Risika, deciding who is to live and who is to die?

I fed on one of the true monsters - one of the many 'witch hunters' who interrogated and jailed the accused, seeking guilt where there was none. How humans can do such things to their fellows is beyond me. They torture, main and kill their own kind, saying it is God's will.

I work during the days and have night classes on Wednesday and Thursday and live with my partner, who is in school during the days and works Wednesday through Saturday nights. Monday and Tuesday are therefore our nights, and we both get our work out of the way so we can actually spend time together.

The truth is, I like to engage with life fully. Given an opportunity to do something I don't often get a chance to do, I feel the need to try it, even if I suspect I'll make a fool out of myself.

I lifted my face to meet the kiss, wanting the comfort of his touch as much as I was willing to provide the comfort of mine. The contact was sweet and soft, yet at the same time desperate.

It was Zane who pulled away first. "Danica, I think..." He trailed off and kissed me again, this time briefly, just the barest touch of lips to lips. "I love you."

From a man who frequently uttered eloquent speeches, the tentative declaration was not the most flattering of compliments-especially when every movement he made and look he cast my way had shown the long truth before now.

But coming from the serpent who had once informed me that he did not love me and did not think he ever could, whose cool, polished words could cut to the bone and freeze the Earth's frozen molten blood - whose eyes right now were just a bid dazed, and whose expression was as open and startled as I had ever seen it - the words were more than enough.

"I know," I answered. Then, soft but certain, I answered, "I love you too."

His smile matched mine and said the same as mine: I know.

I'm standing in a slaughterhouse where the cattle are begging to become hamburgers. I have a right to be jumpy.

The question then is, how much are you willing to give?" And I answered, "Anything." A breath later, Zane echoed my response with, "Everything.

They say the first of my kind was Alasdair, a human raised by hawks. She learned the languages of birds and was gifted with their form.

Absently, she brushed back some of the hair from her face, and she saw as Jaguar's eyes followed how the long strands slid across her throat. Though his dark skin did not show pallor as clearly as Lord Daryl's had, Turquoise could tell Jaguar had not fed yet, and she recognized the hungry look in his black eyes.
Testing, she stood, the movement appearing reluctant. "I"ll leave you to your work if you'd like."
He answered the way she had expected him to. Not raising his gaze from her throat, he said, "Come here." Though the words were an order, the tone left room for argument.
For a moment, Turquoise almost felt guilty. She was intentionally manipulating him. A feeding vampire is an easy target; most of them completely lost sense of their surroundings as they drew blood. Jaguar did not even try to catch her mind as his lips fell to her throat. If she had been armed, it would have been revoltingly easy to kill him.

He had murdered any illlusion of Alex Remington. The golden pendant had been replaced by a spiked dog collar, and he was wearing a black T-shirt that hugged his form and showed off the many designs on his arms: Fenris on the right wrist, and Echidna, the greek mother of monsters, high on his left arm. The norse world serpent was wrapped around his left wrist, and a new design had recently been added: Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades. The world serpent was partially obscurred by a black leather knife sheath, which held a silver knife Aubrey had taken from a vampire hunter a few thousand years earlier.
His hair was slightly touseled, as if he'd been running, and a few strands fell across his face.
Looking at him now, Jessica couldn't imagine how she had ever mistaken him for a human. But illusion was Aubrey's art. And it was simple to fool people who expected nothing else.
For the moment, Aubrey appeared to be exactly what he was: stunning, michievous, and completely deadly all at once

The first time I kissed you, you had just cut off your hair with a plastic knife. You were in restraints and your lips were completely chapped and dry from the tranquilizers. The next day you tried to kill me with a torn-off piece of bedsheet. I've seen you at your worst. You hardly need to dress up for me.

Sacrifice of live, sacrifice for love. Fate is gentle and harsh; she gives and she takes.

Even if I earn millions, I will probably do the average things, like live in a dorm and work at McDonald's.

In 2006, when I had come very close to calling my agent and telling him I needed to take a break, NaNoWriMo was where I found my inspiration again.

Some people use things; they destroy. You're a creator, a builder.

I do not read newspaper comics unless they happen to be out when I visit my parents, but I follow several online comics, which I check every morning while I drink my coffee and wake up for the day.

We return to the void we never left, for Mehay is the center of all, and all is the center of nothing.

Honestly, I get character ideas from the most inane places. Sometimes a song will give me an idea. Sometimes I will just hear a snippet of conversation that ends up having nothing to do with the book that emerges.

Aubrey's voice when he answered was soft. "I'm one of the reasons they wouldn't dare.

Wandering around the mall and giggling at magazines doesn't interest me. I've never enjoyed shopping. I detest shoes.

Betia kissed my forehead. "I won't leave unless you ask me to. I-" Her lips touched mine chastely. "The future will come. I will be there, if you want me.

I looked to Rei, wondering if his vague answer to Betsy meant he might let me slip away downstairs, but A'isha had once again engaged him, hooking one of the many melos scarves she wore around his waist in an attempt to draw him into the dance.
The crow looked at it with shock. A'isha plucked the scarf away with a flourish.
"No need to be shy, little crow," A'isha said. "If the gods didn't want people to admire you, they wouldn't have made you so stunning."
I got to see Rei flush for the first time, blood creeping into his tanned skin. A'isha flipped her scarf around his neck.
"One dance," A'isha implored. "I'm sure Zane would go elsewhere; you would be performing only for the nest."
"I'm sure Zane would," Rei said dryly, glancing at me.
I shrugged.
"What is your lady friend going to think, if she hears you are learning to dance but are ashamed to perform?" A'isha goaded the crow.
"One dance," Rei said, relenting. "And only because I know you'll never forgive me if I don't take my opportunity to make a public fool of myself." He turned to me. "You get out of here and thank A'isha for giving me an excuse to leave you alone."
I would indeed.

The inherent dangers of youth will never change. Volatile hearts and ill-advised flirtations can hardly be compared to the hatred and slaughter of war.

My cousin tried to kill me today," he said. He realized that his voice held an edge of hysteria. "She nearly succeeded. But I guess that's fair, since I was trying to kill her at the time.

Every moment of every day, she had fought to keep his face out of her mind, and his voice out of her head, had fought not to hear him say, Just relax, luv. It's all right.

[Kendra] also referred to Tizoc Theron, one of the most powerful mercenaries in all of vampiric existence, as her "Tizzy". The Inquisition was "a dreadful inconvenience," World War II was "a little spat" and the fall of Midnight, the vampiric empire that had reigned for centurie, was "an unfortunate event.

Your mother all but accused me of something that is, among my kind, the highest crime a man can commit. There is no trial, only punishment, because it is considered better to let an innocent man die than let a guilty one live. (Page 79.)

A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty.