Dark Victoriana Collection Quotes

Abigail had no interest in the dolls themselves. Only in what she could keep from them. ~ Christie Stratos

I feel I should point out that I do not mix cocktails or provide helpful advice to those who find themselves in a bit of a pickle; and neither do I untangle emotional difficulties. I just buttle. (The Butler in The Dark Side of the Road) ~ Simon R. Green

Hello carnivore,' said the mouse priest. He turned and bowed to Uncle Mike and Dominic. 'Hail to the High Priest of Goddammit Eat Something Already, and to the God of Hard Choices in Dark Places.' Ryan blinked. 'What?' 'It's a mouse thing, just roll with it, you'll be happier that way,' I advised. ~ Seanan McGuire

All the drinking reinforced my unease, and since nothing of what I did gave me anything back, I became more and more worn down, it was as though I was being drained, I became emptier and emptier, and soon I would be walking around like a shadow, a ghost, as empty and dark as the sky and the sea around me. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Merik swiveled his wrists slowly. At night, the temple was too dark to see the blood dripping from his arms, pooling on the granite flagstones. He felt it falling, though. Just as he felt the new, burned flesh on his hands stretching beneath torn gloves.
Yet even as pain shivered through his body, he couldn't help but think: Only a fool ignores Noden's gifts. For if Merik looked at this case of mistaken identity from the just the right angle, it could in fact all be seen as boon.
The assassin in the night. The fire on the Jana. The attack of a Waterwitch in Pin's Keep. Each event had led Merik here, to Noden's temple. To a fresco of the god's left hand.
To the Fury.
Twice now, he'd been mistaken for that monstrous demigod, and twice now, it had worked in Merik's favor. So why not continue using the fear invoked from that name? Was Merik not doing the Fury's work by bringing justice to the wronged and punishment to the wicked? It was clear that Nubrevnans needed Merik's help, and his sister Vivia…Well, she was stil out there. Alive. Wretched.
So was it not Merik's moral duty to keep her off the throne? And he could do that if he could just prove she had indeed tried to kill him - that it was she who'd purchased that prisoner from Vizer Linday, and she who'd sent the prisoner to kill Merik.
Yes. This was right. This was Noden's will. It throbbed in Merik's wounds. It shivered across his scalp and down his raw back.
Take the god's gift. Become ~ Susan Dennard

She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. ~ John Green

And this Atlantean Destroyer is now leading the Daimons and sending them out to battle against Acheron, who is just using us and the humans as cannon fodder to protect himself? Really, Kyros, put down the crack pipe ... or go write children's fantasy novels. I'll bet you even know exactly who conspired to kill Kennedy, huh? I'm sure the money from D.B. Cooper is what financed your stunning collection of furniture. (Danger) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

heart is something for you to polish and do not let heart doomed as dark as cloud ~ Augelicht

Walking across campus made me feel sad, and I thought to myself, I wasn't happy there. Then, after reading, we walked past Butler Library. It was dark, but the light inside illuminated the windows. Students were reading and working, and those lit windows gave me a wonderful, weightless feeling. I understood for the first time how happy I had been there - in the library. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Instead it's slow and insidious, slinking through you like ink through water, until it permeates every inch of your soul. ~ Karina Halle

During my first few months of Facebooking, I discovered that my page had fostered a collective nostalgia for specific cultural icons. These started, unsurprisingly, within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. They commonly included a pointy-eared Vulcan from a certain groundbreaking 1960s television show.

Just as often, though, I found myself sharing images of a diminutive, ancient, green and disarmingly wise Jedi Master who speaks in flip-side down English. Or, if feeling more sinister, I'd post pictures of his black-cloaked, dark-sided, heavy-breathing nemesis. As an aside, I initially received from Star Trek fans considerable "push-back," or at least many raised Spock brows, when I began sharing images of Yoda and Darth Vader. To the purists, this bordered on sacrilege.. But as I like to remind fans, I was the only actor to work within both franchises, having also voiced the part of Lok Durd from the animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

It was the virality of these early posts, shared by thousands of fans without any prodding from me, that got me thinking. Why do we love Spock, Yoda and Darth Vader so much? And what is it about characters like these that causes fans to click "like" and "share" so readily?

One thing was clear: Cultural icons help people define who they are today because they shaped who they were as children. We all "like" Yoda because we all loved The Empire Strikes Back, probably watched it many times, and can reci ~ George Takei

It is not the development of material need which sets the modern vocabulary of aspiration apart from anything which has gone before, but rather the transformation of our spiritual needs. It is our spirits, not our clothes and houses and cars, that set us so radically apart from our own past and form much of the rest of the world. Imagine what we must be like to the primitive peoples who receive our attentions as anthropologists. We come upon them armed with our mastery of nature, and yet they can disarm us with the simplest metaphysical inquiry: what happen when people die? where do they go? what are the duties of the living to the dead? Their cultures are as rich in answers to these questions as our culture is rich in answers to the technical and scientific problems which baffle them.

It has always been a truism of the Western bad conscience that we have purchased our mastery of nature at the price of our spirits. The conservative and romantic critique of Western progress has always used the example of the savage - rich in cosmology, poor in goods - to argue for an inverse historical relationship between the development of material and spiritual needs. Certainly this view could draw upon the dark side of the Christian theology of need. While secular optimists have trust in the permanence of spiritual need, Augustinian Christians have fixed their gaze on the nightmare of the happy slave: the being so absorbed by the material that all spiritual needs have perished.< ~ Michael Ignatieff

Every time a child is saved from the dark side of life, every time one of us makes the effort to make a difference in a child's life, we add light and healing to our own lives. ~ Oprah Winfrey

He was my tormentor and my solace; the creator of the dark and the light within. ~ C.J. Roberts

We're all in the dark. We try to find out, but can you imagine anything more ludicrous than one person's opinion of another person? One goes along thinking one knows; but one really doesn't know ~ Virginia Woolf

I enjoy the kind of characters that allow you to write the dark stuff. I love Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, and when I'm writing for Dracula or Jekyll & Hyde, I get a chance to use that vocabulary. ~ Frank Wildhorn

There were many echoes of Johnson in Lewis. Both were formidable in their learning and in the range of their conversation, both had the same delight in argument, and in spite of their regard for truth, would argue for victory. Lewis had Johnson's handiness with the butt end of a pistol if an argument misfired. Like Johnson, he was a largish, unathletic-looking man, heavy but not tall, with a roundish, florid face that perspired easily and showed networks of tiny blood-vessels on close inspection; he had a dark flop of hair and rather heavily pouched eyes; these eyes gave life to the face, they were large and brown and unusually expressive. The main effects were of a mild, plain powerfulness, and over all there was a sense of simple masculinity, of a virility absorbed into intellectual life. He differed in his youth from most others of his age by seeming to have no sexual problems or preoccupations, or need to talk about them if he had them ~ Jocelyn Gibb

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark. ~ Mark Van Doren

Fairy tales, before they were sanitized, were very dark, and kids love that. 'Coraline' by Neil Gaiman feels like Beckett for kids. I think there's plenty of room for that. And I think there's a danger of being too patronizing to children, having things too sanitized. ~ Edward Carey

Stars shine brighter in the dark.darkness cannot overcome the light ~ Ikechukwu Joseph

I can tell you a dozen different stories. This is what we are: a collection of stories that we share, in common. This is what we are to each other. ~ Graham Joyce

Besides, I'm not a mirror girl. I have Frankie and Sadie to tell me if I have lettuce in my teeth. I don't have shiny lip gloss to check. I don't do anything that necessitates Visine. Still, sometimes I'll come out of a stall or look up from washing my hands and catch sight of myself: a small, startled person behind a curtain of dark hair who looks away quickly, as if embarrassed by being caught staring. ~ Melissa Jensen

You saw me through a stained-glass window? How'd you pull that off'
'I could find someone as beautiful as you no matter where you hide. You're so radiant, I bet you even glow in the dark. ~ Josephine Angelini

All I could see was his face, hovering over me, his breath hitching in his throat, the look of hunger in his dark gaze. I clung to the memory of that momentary lapse of his control, savoring it, replaying it in my mind again and again. As fleeting as it had been, it had been enough. If that was as far as things would ever go, it was enough to carry with me as a reminder of my time with him in Greece. ~ Elle J. Lawson

The sun only shines, just as God only loves. It is the nature of the sun to shine, to offer warmth and light. And it is the nature of God to love. We are free to get away from the sun, we can lock ourselves in a dark room, but we do not keep the sun from shining just because we put ourselves in a place where it cannot reach us. So it is with God's love. We can reject it, but God keeps on loving us. No matter what our choices, God still loves. And because God loves us, a relationship with God is possible. ~ Les Parrott III

Lady Merritt Sterling was a vibrantly attractive woman with large, dark eyes, a wealth of lustrous sable hair, and a flawless porcelain complexion. Unlike her two sisters, she had inherited the shorter, stockier frame of the Marsden side instead of the slender build of her mother. Similarly, she had her father's square-shaped face and determined jaw instead of her mother's delicate oval one. However, Merritt possessed a charm so compelling that she eclipsed every other woman in the vicinity, no matter how beautiful.
Merritt focused on whomever she was talking to with a wealth of sincere interest, as if she or he were the only person in the world. She asked questions and listened without ever seeming to wait for her turn to talk. She was the guest everyone invited when they needed to blend a group of disparate personalities, just as a roux would bind soap or sauce into velvety smoothness.
It was no exaggeration to say that every man who met Merritt fell at least a little in love with her. When she had entered society, countless suitors had pursued her before she'd finally consented to marry Joshua Sterling, an American-born shipping magnate who had taken up residence in London. ~ Lisa Kleypas

There is humanist enterprise of the book, and amongst that there are many, many stories. And that is why at the end, when he says that the stories are so illuminating that they must be engraved and encased in gold and put in the palace library, the people who compile the book are telling us that this is a collection of human wisdom. ~ Marina Warner

Shadows." The world seemed darker when he said it.
"Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. ~ George R R Martin

My mother gave me a pair of diamond earrings when I was 13. It symbolised becoming a teenager. I also remember getting a collection of costume jewellery from my grandmother when I was in high school. ~ Erin Wasson

Dalhia," he says, his tone is as dark and sad as the place I have lived for the past two years before meeting him. "One day, if you change your mind . . . just know you'll always be my once in a lifetime."
He presses kisses to my forehead and nose, then turns, leaving me at the front door to the house I shared with Ben for so many years. The house that is now empty is the house where, once again, I will be alone. ~ Kim Karr

Ozymandias controls not only the dead, but the living. He works the dark magics, and it is said he knows the paths between the worlds and walks them without fear. He wields the-"
"Stop! In English, okay?""
"In English?" she asked, throwing the empty wineglass into the picnic basket. Riley nodded.
"You're in serious shit. ~ Jana Oliver

ADAMS. This is a great work, Sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? JOHNSON. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch. ADAMS. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman. ~ Samuel Johnson

that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!" "It ought to be good," he replied, "it has been the work of many generations." "And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying books." "I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these." "Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley." "I wish it may. ~ Jane Austen

Happiness is often hidden in misery; light appears brighter in darkness. ~ Debasish Mridha

Once I'm free, we're going to find out exactly how much pain you can endure while remaining conscious. I won't stop until you tell me where my ring is." He leaned in to say at his ear, "I'll be sure to make you feel your loss. ~ Kresley Cole

Maybe that's where it started and they brought it back from the desert, some kind of contagious psychic wound, guilt based. Maybe it's the dark matter, invisibly making up most of the universe. Maybe it was methane thawing at the bottom of the sea, releasing some ancient spore from the melted icebergs. Maybe it was the hole in the ozone, the collapse of the upper atmosphere. Maybe it was the overload of information, the swarms of data generated by every human gesture. Maybe it was the networking craze, the resurrection of dead friendships and memories meant to be lost, now resurfacing like rusted shipwrecks to reclaim our attention and scramble our sense of time. Maybe it was the death of an artist at the hands of a zealot. Maybe it was the particles made to collide. Maybe the mapping of the genome. Maybe the clashing of gods, the tug-of-war over our souls, not one of them refusing to let go, instead opting to see us sliced in two by Soloman's sword. Maybe it was food becoming a prop for food. Maybe it was a distant comet dusting us with its tail of poisoned ice. Maybe it was someone uttering a combination of syllables that should never be uttered. Maybe it was the emergence of collective intelligence, the flattening of the world. Maybe the game we inhabit had a glitch. Maybe the angel's horn had finally been blown. ~ Kenneth Calhoun

What would the ton do without us to feed them scandal broth?"
Grey returned her grin. "The lot of them would starve."
They chuckled and as the humor faded, Grey tilted his head to look at her. "You look beautiful tonight."
She flushed, pleasure lighting the dark depths of her eyes. "You don't have to say such things."
"I know I don't, but you are my fiancée and it's perfectly acceptable for me to voice my thoughts aloud. It's rather refreshing after keeping them to myself for so long."
That got her attention. One of her fine, high brows twitched. "How long?"
He grinned. "Since you were old enough for me to think such thoughts without being lecherous."
They stood no more than six inches apart. Close enough that he could see how amazingly flawless her skin was-not a freckle in sight. Close enough that she could see every twist and knot in his scar-and yet she barely glanced at it. Her gaze was riveted on his. She didn't care that he was disfigured-at least not on the outside. Not on the inside either, so it seemed.
"I've never been a good man," he confessed-a little more hoarse than he liked-"but I promise to be a faithful husband." It was the best he could offer, because as much as he would like to be the man she wanted, it wasn't going to happen.
Her smooth brow puckered. "I haven't actually consented, you know."
"Rose, we have to marry."
"No." She raised sparkling eyes to his. "I want you to ask me to marry you-not deman ~ Kathryn Smith

He was staring into a greater dark that held all things.. .He had known - dimly he had known when he first gazed into those flat animal shallows that behind them lay this - beauty and terror, all horror and delight, in the infinite darkness upon her eyes opened like windows, paned with emerald glass. ~ C.L. Moore

Say it."
"Don't do this to me ... " I whispered painfully. "We can't do this again."
"You're a horrible liar," Eli growled as he pressed his fingers into my thighs. He watched me, his gaze all-consuming, and said, "Your eyes are as dark as a castle moat by midnight, mi cielo. Lower your drawbridge and let me cross; let me in."
"Eli, I-"
"Forget him. For the next hour and a half, you're going to do everything that makes you wonder in this world. And then I'm going to love you again. ~ Nadege Richards

Absence is the dark-room in which lovers develop negatives. ~ H.L. Mencken

I am so angry with myself because I cannot do what I should like to do, and at such a moment one feels as if one were lying bound hand and foot at the bottom of a deep dark well, utterly helpless. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

He that has no present Christ has a future, dark, chaotic, heaving with its destructive ocean; and over it there goes forever
black-pinioned winging its solitary and hopeless flight, the raven of his anxious thoughts, and finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future. ~ Alexander MacLaren

The internet is a dark, dark place. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere, someone has this file that says, "Scott Foley, on March 13, 2012, was searching for how to dispose of a body for 48 hours." ~ Scott Foley

Writing ... is an addiction, an illusory release, a presumptuous taming of reality, a way of expressing lightly the unbearable. That we age and leave behind this litter of dead, unrecoverable selves is both unbearable and the commonest thing in the world - it happens to everybody. In the morning light one can write breezily, without the slight acceleration of one's pulse, about what one cannot contemplate in the dark without turning in panic to God. In the dark one truly feels that immense sliding, that turning of the vast earth into darkness and eternal cold, taking with it all the furniture and scenery, and the bright distractions and warm touches, of our lives. Even the barest earthly facts are unbearably heavy, weighted as they are with our personal death. Writing, in making the world light - in codifying, distorting, prettifying, verbalizing it - approaches blasphemy. ~ John Updike