Michelle Franklin Quotes

All the friends in the world are in the fountain of a pen.

The rest of the evening passed agreeably: the crew had their games on the main deck, resigning themselves to Sirs and dice now that dancing was out, those who would go ashore to enjoy the dining halls and tea houses went after their matches were lost, and those who remained either took themselves off to an early rest or remained with the musicians, to sing out the remainder of the evening by way of a few round songs, calling out verses in melodic dissonance, singing the history of Good Marrie the Whore and though there were "Ten hands in her purse, there was still room for one more!",

Everyone is a raconteur without realizing it. We speak to our friends, we speak to our doctors and therapists about the nothing-meaning nonsense that goes on in our lives, but the difference in telling a story and complaining about the ills of one's life is in the delivery. We can talk about how someone slighted you at work, or we can talk about how that person looked when they promptly fell down the stairs a moment after disdaining you. There, you see, is the difference: people will often notice the main but not the nuance; they will notice the face of the person yelling at them and the pitch of their shouts, but will not notice the comfort that the ululations of agony and twisted limbs lying on the bottom stile can promise.

Tell me, Peppone, what other talents do you have besides erasing undesirables?"
"I enjoy a fair bit of sneaking, sir. I also enjoy pilfering and killing as a professional courtesy."
"What a delightfully horrid urchin you are."
"Thank you, sir.

That is the only sure way of knowing we have made someone happy: making someone miserable by our leaving them.

What will I do when you're gone?" said Alasdair, with a faltering voice.
Bryeison placed a hand on his shoulder and said, with raging tranquility, "Do what is good and what is right.

The matron glanced at the old man and suppressed a smile. "He is absolutely miserable."
"I enjoy miserable. It gives one a contrast to all the delectabilities of life. But is he housebroken, inpala? He is rather rumpled. He will look well on my ship, but will he wash well? Do professors fray as a general rule? I will not have my ship looking ragged."
"They do tend to fade after a few years of hard use.

The sins of my sex ... A woman who is ugly is pitiable, but a man who is ugly is forgiven.

There are very few things in the world I hate more than Daylight Savings Time. It is the grand lie of time, the scourge of science, the blight on biological understanding.

I know we are supposed to welcome anyone who vows to protect the kingdom, but really, anyone will do anything for a copper these days, and where pride and promises are saleable, expendable men come very cheap indeed.

The cern paled, and all the courageous which accompanied him into the conversation was now all done away. He shrunk back, his audacity dwizzening under the teneberous gloom of the giant's long shadow. He turned to entreat the help of his fellow soldiers with desperate looks, but there was little more than half of the regiments left behind him, all of them unwilling to intervene, and his bowels rumbled, his heart sinking into the grave of conscience, and never had he felt more mistaken in his conduct.

My doctor has given me as strong an antihistamine as she is allowed to prescribe, but even that does nothing for the itching and swelling. The moment a grain of pollen enters the keep, I begin to tomato, and after two minutes of being exposed to the Ejaculateum Arboratoeaea, I am lying on the ground with my tongue lolling out of the side of my mouth.
I am heartily glad that the trees and plants are still interested in copulatory activities; I only wish they would be so good as to keep their sperm away from my face. Do not pretend that pollen is anything else; it transfers haploid male genetic material and sullies the bedclothes unmercifully.

Is not he? I had him along for his books and potions, and kept him for his character. Profundities of disgruntled sentiments, injured spirits, wounded affection, bitterness, marginality, disdain of establishment - I knew we should get on famously.

It is 32c today, and the only thing keeping me from hanging myself is the small sense of relief I glean from attaching my body to the vents of my delicious cooling piece. It is a stunning unit, exquisite in all its forms, exceptional in its application, and effective in all its functions. I would marry it, if only I knew it would not die on me sometime within the next five years. Appliances, like obedient children or silent extroverts, cannot last forever, and while my unbidden affection kept my other air conditioner alive for the better part of ten years, not all inanimate objects can be fueled by my love.

Such pedantic apotheosis is reached by so few, and when parishioners are left without their guiding star, we can only desperately cling to the last intimations of a passing titan.

My promise is fulfilled," he said.
"It is," she coolly replied. "I shall be sorry to lose you as a soldier. I would be inclined to offer you a more agreeable weapon should you like to stay."
"I am well-trained, woman, unlike most of your men," the giant scoffed. "The weapon in my hand does not matter as much as the skill behind it."
"I cannot disagree." She smiled at him and handed him a few rations for his impending journey. "That should last you a day if you are careful. I would give you more, but unfortunately cannot spare anything beyond that." She stood back from him, expecting him to take his leave, but he only stood in his place, looked down at the rations in his hand, and sighed. "If you wish to revisit your home, you are more than welcome to return to it. I shall not attempt to stop you or alert the others, as promised."
The giant gave her a pensive look and remained in his place.
She waited for an explanation owing to his dejected looks and immobility, but received none, leading her to believe the matter of his captivity was graver than she had expected.

Never underestimate the audacity of the small minded and slightly crapulous.
A rather bleezed young neighbour decided to have a grammar battle with me. It lasted all of two seconds.
I said something slightly amicable, and he responded with, "You sure that's how you use that word?"
I put down my laundry basket and turned to him slowly and deliberately.
"Do you really want to have this discussion with me, son, or do you want to go home and rethink your life?"
He grumbled and vanished.

Why are you wailing away? What is the matter with you?"
"I was playing and - " and her lip quivered as she spoke, " - and it was cloudy, and then - " a sniff, " - and then, as I was playing, the sun came out."
I gave her a flat look. "You're crying because the sun came out?"
"Yes," she moped, wiping the tears from her eyes, "the sun came out, and now - " she heaved, " - and now, it's hot! I don't like it when it's hot. Being hot is dumb!"
I immediately absolved her of all previous sins. I slumped over the sill and gave her as much sympathy as my now warm face allowed. "Yes, child, being hot is very dumb indeed. Very well, you have a reason for crying. But then why are you outside?"
"Because it was too hot inside and mommy won't let me have ice cream."
"Well, there is your problem. You must get an air conditioner and a new mother.

Regrettable was the gallantry of great men who risked themselves for others.

And the matron sighed over the destiny of ladies in good society, whose moral judgement led them to love unabashedly and whose depravity led them to pay for it.

The greatest ugliness in the world is seeing so beautiful a creature spoil themselves on stupidity.

Boudicca MacDaede was not the most striking of women, but she had a wryness in character and heartiness in form that recommended her to the rough demands of a farmer's daughter and a soldier's sufferance." ~ First two lines of book 1 in the Haanta Series

A six mile meteorite cannot compare with a culinary cataclysm of this magnitude.

I would waste thirty minutes a day, standing in front of a mirror that I never had any inclination to really pay proper attention to. And even after I made myself up for nothing, I was still derided and abused for it. It was rather like putting a dress on a bear and pretending it was beautiful.

I am sure I have summer depression; the heat makes me instantly regret being alive.

A library always housed a trove of undiscovered friendships and forays, and a bookstore, a place where those temporary connections might become a constancy, must always hold a charm over any scholar's heart.

No one needs Independence. We all just need tea and air conditioners.

We come by aurora,
with a heavy and sovereign tread,
with the might of matriarchs to furnish our shoulders,
with the apricity of light to crown our heads

I did not need an unstable relationship to teach me about the evils of broken promises. I had parents for that.

Tea was the great arbiter of many things, and for Pastaddams, his morning cup meant the difference between expressing rational thought and succumbing to the ineptitude that occupied recesses of his dormant mind. Merely having the cup in his hand facilitated the flow of ideas, and upon tea, the great nourishment of the tailor's life, rested all his claims to rational dependence.

Attracting musicians is rather like inviting flies over to tea: they are tolerable for half an hour, but when they begin to touch the food, you either wish they would go home or die.

Women always think in the catastrophic, and when there is a calamity to rectify that might require a unmarried granddaughter, there older women will always act. Their powers of foresight and vigilance might make any disheveled or nubile young haggage ready for the altar in five minutes.

As someone who cannot drive for various reasons, I am at the mercy of public transit, a system that has worse side effects than over the counter medication.

In my desperation to try to lull myself into a gentle sloom, I have created a list of things that will often assist my descent into delicious treacle-sleep. The list includes a series of things I can do if I go to bed and wake up early, and includes things like playing games and reading books, but one item that continually seems to work is telling myself:

The faster I go to sleep, the faster I can have cookies for breakfast.

This idea might seem rudimentary, but it staves off the sulks long enough that I can find a few hours of sleep, even on the hottest of days. If only Biscuit Power worked for other insomniacs, cookies might save humanity from itself.

The skies gave way to the full ascendence of morning and clouds skittered across the expanse, the variations on a nebulous theme woven on a celestial loom.

Your legacy will be the world's inheritance, and the laughter you left us with will be the birthright of a new generation.
from a letter to Robin Williams

Life is really a travesty of will: it is a parade of learning how to lose people and improve at feigning indifference.

I suspect I shall always fail at this, and fail miserably. I do not know whether that is winning at life or failing at happiness.

It would be obscene in me as a gentlemen to set my men upon you without warning. A gentleman always tells his enemies he is going to attack them before he does it. It gives them time enough to write to their mothers.

The old who refuse to die merely on principle live on forever, to hate life and complain of all the things they could have been spared had they the good sense to die young.

And if I use the opportunity to kill you and leave?" the giant said in a tone half-serious half-arch.
"I have never known warriors to be dishonourable. Should you prove me wrong, we will all be dead anyway. There is nothing so ugly as reneging a promise, wouldn't you agree?"
The giant clenched his teeth and looked down. "I would," he murmured.

A heart? Peppone knows where one is to be met with. There is always someone in the black market in need of dying early.

I don't talk ill about people I don't know," said Bartleby. "I only disparage them in silence and hope they die.

You know a few shiftless persons in need of biological levity. You men of negotiable constancy like gold, don't you?

The absence of life is not the same as material privation: we will never again see the same soul occupying the same space. The world refers to them as pets, but that is what we do, not really what they are. Affection pays for itself in proportion to the love we offer, and if the love we lavished on him was any indication, we are inconsolable. The suffering is more on our side now, for he led an enormously happy and productive life, and we are left to remember and agonize. It is all wretchedness now. Grief is the currency for death, leaving us in emotional debt perhaps forever, but love is the tax we happily pay toward the investment of another's company, and we would all rather pay it and be happy and poor than be rich in a friendless life. He is gone, and we are now beholden to him, but we are so much happier for his having been here than we deserve to be.
On the death of Ted, beloved cat

The past is behind us," said Boudicca,"but the difficulty there is we keep looking over our shoulders.

Astonishing how tea opens the ears.

But the world hinges on good fathers and those who would be the merchants of confidence.

In my body's effort to conserve itself, rather than attempt any movement outside, I have begun eating more sugar than is good for me. Sugar, while a comfort to many, is a detriment to those with my various physical complaints, and even a spoonful could plunge me into violent agony. It is a pleasurable agony, at least, and in my depression and desperation to have anything that resembled nutrition, I ate half a jar of chocolate spread. I know I should not buy these things. I seldom give in to such cibarious cagmaggery, even when it is On Sale, but when summer is imminent, I will do anything to feel better, including eat something that will make me regret my folly.

I am currently crippled on the floor and awaiting death, or I am lately dead and have taught my undead form to use a keyboard, I cannot tell which. I am no longer hot, however, and there is some comfort, whether I am dead or alive. I would rather be alive, I think, if only to buy more chocolate spread.

My face is rather like a collision waiting to happen: head-on I can be borne, but turn sideways, and it is all calamity.

Eat, woman," he bellowed, leaning over her, prepared to force the remainder of her meal into her opened mouth.
"I would," she said in a strained voice, "But there is a giant attached to my chin. Perhaps if he would be so gracious as to remove the cured pork from my pack, I would share it with him."
Rautu's eyes blazed in senseless joy. He released his companion and hastened toward her effects, rummaging through them with great anticipation. He found a small brown parchment parcel and assumed that this was the source of his happiness. He sniffed the outside of the paper and hummed in delight for the exquisite scent. He tore open the barrier between him and his prize and he was compelled to smile when remarking the numerous slices of meat in his hands. He began eating them immediately, leaving no time between one slice and the next to savour that which he had longed to again taste. The superior fare of Frewyn had been the chief of his consolation during the war, and if he was to remain on the islands with all its splendor, all its comforting familiarity, all its temperate climate, and all its horrendous food, he would relish this last ember of bliss before being made to suffer a diet of steamed grains again.
"I did say share," the commander called out.
"I am responsible for securing your life," he replied with a full mouth and without turning around.
"And I thanked you accordingly." The commander's remonstrations were unanswered, and she scoffed in ave

The captain's eyes betrayed what his countenance must conceal: the anguish of an ancient being who must honour his birthright by living beyond those whom he would have given much to keep.

Bartleby is never happy, but he never can be, you know. Life in general offends him. Happiness is something that happens to other people, because life happens to Bartleby. It happens to him frequently and unwarrantedly, and every time he is forced to suffer it, he is always disappointed.

Do what is right and what is good.
Bryeison to Alasdair before going to his death on the battlefield.

I am rather ashamed to admit that my knowledge of the Ice Age in Canada is very little, mostly because much of it was under ice until about 10,000 years ago. I am very sure we still had beavers. I am also equally sure we still had Tim Horton's, a prehistoric edifice which has a coffee blend that can only be described as fossilized.

Her remarks caught his consideration and his violet eyes tapered with growing dislike. He was at least dejected in his solitude, and now she had come to ruin his isolation and compel him to speak when he would otherwise be enjoying silence. He pressed his immense body against the bars of the cell in hopes of intimidating her, but the captain remained complacent and unaffected by his display.
"Leave me, woman," he bellowed at her.
"I fear a cannot do that just now. I might need your help, should you wish to give it."
He groaned and turned aside. "I will not assist you."
"It is rather a shame you won't. I was going to offer you your freedom."
The giant turned back and looked at her with hesitation.

The events of that day would forever be remembered, and they stood together as a united Marridon, a nation that would lead in innovation and liberality, taking up the thread that had been left for them, the essence of selfless love woven along a national loom.

We all emerge into this material soup, mix about with the meat and potatoes of life, and then slip away, back to the primordial germination whence we came. Nascence is a strange business: we forget what we were doing only to come forth and continually forget what we were doing perpetually over the course of a lifetime, until it is time to quit this plane through some unseen and ethereal vomitorium, and presumably forget that we had forgotten all over again.