Falling Over Sideways Quotes

And that's how we live: wandering endlessly, concentrically outward, seeking in others a kindling spark of the love which has long lain, dormant, dark, unstoked in our own deepest souls. ~ Jordan Sonnenblick

In my kind of falling, there's no landing. There's only hitting the ground. Hard. Dead, or wanting to be dead. So the whole time you're falling, it's the worst feeling in the world. Because you feel you have no control over it. Because you know how it ends. ~ David Levithan

I'm falling so fast, so hard, Nola. I'm head over heels in love with you. ~ Heidi McLaughlin

The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, travelled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across that square, red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone. ~ William Golding

Oh, the envelope did contain magic," a strange, low voice said from the doorway.
Judith looked over. She forgot her cut and her coffee. And how to breathe.
The tall, broad man filling up the door frame looked like a warrior angel with gold hair falling into his eyes, a pale-gold undertone to his skin, and 'heartbreaking' green eyes….
"Any magic that involves blood is a grave threat," he continued. "And death by paper cut would be a long and tedious way to go. I can help. ~ Erin Kellison

Nick ran smack into me.
"Ooof!" he hollered, grabbing me around the waist to keep me from falling down the rest of the staircase.
That's when I realized Mom thought Nick and I were going on a date together.
Quickly Nick let me go.He looked huge, frowning down at me from the step above. "Why are you stopping in the middle of the stairs?"
"Why are you tailgating me?"
He put his hand behind me, at butt level, without touching me. "What is that?" he demanded.
I bent a little and slapped my butt, "Something the heir to a meat fortune should know all about. USDA grade-A prime,baby." I straightened. "Just kidding. Really, it's my butt."
He put his hands on his hips, and from below I noticed his strong superhero chin again.He grumbled, "Why do you have 'boy toy' written across your butt?"
"Oh!" I put my hand over the words, realizing that I probably should have been embarrassed about this sooner. "These are my brother's jeans. He wrote it to annoy me. Or to get me a date. ~ Jennifer Echols

I didn't think I was a personal problem. You hate me, remember?" "Every inch of you," Andrew said. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you." The world tilted a little bit sideways. Neil dug his shoes harder into the floor so he wouldn't fall over. "You like me." "I hate you," Andrew corrected him, but Neil barely heard him. ~ Nora Sakavic

Occupation, curfew, settlements, closed military zone, administrative detention, siege, preventive strike, terrorist infrastructure, transfer. Their WAR destroys language. Speaks genocide with the words of a quiet technician.

Occupation means that you cannot trust the OPEN SKY, or any open street near to the gates of snipers tower. It means that you cannot trust the future or have faith that the past will always be there.

Occupation means you live out your live under military rule, and the constant threat of death, a quick death from a snipers bullet or a rocket attack from an M16.

A crushing, suffocating death, a slow bleeding death in an ambulance stopped for hours at a checkpoint. A dark death, at a torture table in an Israeli prison: just a random arbitrary death.

A cold calculated death: from a curable disease. A thousand small deaths while you watch your family dying around you.

Occupation means that every day you die, and the world watches in silence. As if your death was nothing, as if you were a stone falling in the earth, water falling over water.

And if you face all of this death and indifference and keep your humanity, and your love and your dignity and YOU refuse to surrender to their terror, then you know something of the courage that is Palestine. ~ Suheir Hammad

Once after Barefoot In the Park had been playing for about a week I went back to see it, watching the audience, which was just falling over laughing except for one guy sitting the aisle. I was transfixed. I said to myself, there seems to be no way to get to him. No one else would I watch except this one man. My wife joined me about 20 minutes later and asked me how it was going, and I said, terrible. I really meant it. There was no way to get to this man. It destroyed me. ~ Simon Neil

[Note: Brahma originally had five heads. He and Vishnu were once contesting each other's superiority. Just then a huge column of light appeared in front of them and they wondered what it was. They agreed that he who found either end of the column earlier would be the greater of the two. Vishnu became a boar and sought the bottom; Brahma became a swan and flew up towards the top. Vishnu returned disappointed. Brahma at the point of despair came across a falling screwpine flower. He stopped its descent and asked from where it was coming. All that it knew was that it was falling from space and nothing more. Brahma persuaded it to bear false witness and claimed superiority over his rival. Siva was enraged, snipped off that head which spoke the lie, and declared himself as the column of light.] ~ Sri Dattatreya

He took a deep breath and held out his hand. "We got off to a bad start, but you're obviously a friend of Becks's."
Cole stared at his hand,stumped. He looked at me like, What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I'd never seen him so baffled.It was almost comical.
Then the second-to-last thing that I ever would have anticipated happened. Cole took Jack's hand and shook it. "I'm Neal."
"Jack." Jack briefly glanced sideways at me. "I'll try not to hit you again."
Cole and Jack, shaking hands. I covered my eyes with my fingers,wondering when the world had officially tipped over onto its side.When I lowered my hand, they were both looking at me.I'd had enough awkward.
"Let's go," I said, tugging on Jack's arm.
Cole frowned and looked away. "Take care of our girl," he muttered sarcastically. ~ Brodi Ashton

I was leaning over him when he died. My hands on his chest. My palms felt his last breath move inside him. His chest rose and fell and then kept falling, like it could carry us both straight down through the earth.
I didn't stop pushing, but I knew. Right then. I was breathing hard myself. My lungs probably took int he last air Tariq ever exhaled. It can't possibly be in me anymore, but it feels like it is. Like it's weighing heavy on my chest with every breath I take, even now. ~ Kekla Magoon

Her nerves stood on end and she knew she was on the brink of falling over the edge with Alexander. And the thought didn't scare her at that moment. Because she knew he was the type of person to catch her, no matter what. ~ T.K. Leigh

I might have said you'll pay for the wild & reckless hour,
pay in the currency of sweat and shiver,
the future squandered, the course
of years reconfigured, relinquishment so
complete it's more utter than any falling in love. Falling

instead in flames, burning tiles spiraling to litter
the courtyards of countless places that will
never be yours, the fingerprints,
tossed gloves & glittering costumes, flared
cornices & parapets, shattering panes, smoked out

or streaked with embers, the tinder of spools, such
a savage conflagration, stupid edge-game,
the way junkies tempt death,
over & over again, toy with it. I might have
told you that. Everything you ever meant to be, pfft,

out the window in sulphured matchlight, slow tinder
& strike, possession purely ardent as worship
& the scream working its way out
of your bones, demolition of wall & strut
within until you're stark animal need. That is

love, isn't it? Everything you meant to be falls
away so you dwell within a perfect
singularity, a kind of saint. ~ Lynda Hull

Worst fears: That God was not good. That the earth you stood upon shifted, and chasms yawned; that people, falling, clutched one another for help and none was forthcoming. That the basis of all things was evil. That the beauty of the evening, now settling in a yellow glow on the stone of The Cottage barns, the swallows dipping and soaring, a sudden host of butterflies in the long grasses in the foreground, was a lie; a deceitful sheen on which hopeful visions flitted momentarily, and that long, long ago evil had won against good, death over life... in the glow of the sun against the stone walls, as well as in the dancing of butterflies- that in this she had been mocked. ~ Fay Weldon

I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew so well. ~ Bram Stoker

screamed all around him. Luke tossed his empty rifle away and pulled his handgun. He fired down the trench on his own position - it was overrun with enemies. A line of them were running this way. More came sliding, falling, jumping over the wall. Where were his guys? Was anyone still alive? He killed the closest man with a shot to the face. The head exploded like a cherry tomato. He grabbed the man by his tunic and held him up as a shield. The headless man was light, and Luke was raging with adrenaline - it was if the corpse ~ Jack Mars

Do you always play this hard to get?"
"I wish I could afford to play hard to get. You women have wised up a lot in the last decade or so. None of my old lines work anymore."
"You mean 'wanna get naked' doesn't have women falling all over you?"
Mac peered at her over the top of the menu.
"Hey, that's my best one."
"I'd hate to hear your worst."
Yeah, you would. He set the menu down and leaned in as though about to say something confidential. "I crash and burn a lot."
Mac and Rachel. ~ Suzie Quint

Keeping his fingers locked around her arms, he stared her right in the eye, his chest rising and falling from the jagged force of his breaths. "I want you in a bed, Juliana. I want hours on top of you, under you, beside you. Hell, I want it all. And I want to be able to drift off, knowing that I can roll back over at any time and sink right back into you." His voice dropped even lower. "So stop arguing and get back on the damn bed. ~ Rhyannon Byrd

Violet didn't realize that she'd pressed herself so tightly against the door until it opened from the inside and she stumbled backward.
She fell awkwardly, trying to catch herself as her feet slipped and first she banged her elbow, and then her shoulder-hard-against the doorjamb. She heard her can of pepper spray hit the concrete step at her feet as she flailed to find something to grab hold of.
Her back crashed into something solid. Or rather, someone. And from behind, she felt strong, unseen arms catch her before she hit the ground. But she was too stunned to react right away.
"You think I can let you go now?" A low voice chuckled in her ear.
Violet was mortified as she glanced clumsily over her shoulder to see who had just saved her from falling.
"Rafe!" she gasped, when she realized she was face-to-face with his deep blue eyes. She jumped up, feeling unexpectedly light-headed as she shrugged out of his grip. Without thinking, and with his name still burning on her lips, she added, "Umm, thanks, I guess." And then, considering that he had just stopped her from landing flat on her butt, she gave it another try. "No…yeah, thanks, I mean."
Flustered, she bent down, trying to avoid his eyes as she grabbed the paper spray that had slipped from her fingers. She cursed herself for being so clumsy and wondered why she cared that he had been the one to catch her. Or why she cared that he was here at all.
She stood up to face him, feeling more comp ~ Kimberly Derting

That afternoon the sky was scattered with black clouds galloping in from the sea and clustering over the city. Flashes of lightening echoed on the horizon and a charged warm wind smelling of dust announced a powerful summer storm. When I reached the station I noticed the first few drops, shiny and heavy, like coins falling from heaven ... Night seemed to fall suddenly, interrupted only by the lightning now bursting over the city, leaving a trail of noise and fury. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Love makes a mess of things, doesn't it?' he said, as though he was speaking to himself. 'People are always falling in love with the wrong people. It happens over and over. It would be so much simpler if . . . ~ Ashley Weaver

Any cyclist will tell you that one of the things they value most about cycling is what it does for their heads. It cleans out the clutter. Cycling allows for reflection. It simultaneously offers time to mull over problems and to escape those problems. It's both meditative and contemplative. Whether you're weaving through traffic or climbing a long country road, the effect is the same. Your body's working, and your mind is working. And when those two things start working in concert, other aspects of life can start falling into place too. ~ BikeSnobNYC

He moved closer, crowding her back into the darkness. He didn't touch her, but strangely, it didn't matter. He was close enough to feel, tall and lean and ever so warm. "But you're going to wager now, Pippa, aren't you?"
He was muddling her brain and making it very difficult to think clearly. She took a deep breath, the scent of sandalwood wrapping around her, distracting her.
She shouldn't say yes.
But somehow, oddly, she found she couldn't say no.
She reached for the dice, where they lay small and white in his broad palm. Touched them, touched him- the brush of skin against fingertips sending sensation coursing through her. She paused at the feeling, trying to dissect it. To identify it. To savor it. But then he was gone, his hand falling away, leaving her with nothing but the ivory cubes, still warm from his touch.
Just as she was.
Of course, the thought was ridiculous. One did not warm from a fleeting contact. It was the stuff of novels. Something her sisters would sigh over.
He moved, stepping back and extending one arm toward the hazard field. "Are you ready?" His voice was low and soft, somehow private despite the cavernous room. ~ Sarah MacLean

Her invisible remains would combine, over time, with all the wonders under the sun. When it snowed she would be part of it, falling softly to earth, rising up again with the snow's evaporation, When it rained, she would be there in the spectral arch that spanned from firth to ground. She would help to wreathe the fields in mists, and yet would always be transparent to the stars. She would live forever. ~ Michel Faber

It's a reminder for anyone who needs it including myself;
There ain't anything wrong about falling apart,
Just take it as a beautiful chance for you; to rebuild yourself all over again and to recreate a new version of you who doesn't know what it means to give up on the person you're becoming … ~ Samiha Totanji

The explosion was deafening; a huge cloud of fire rolled out the window after us, its immense heat brushing my face as we tumbled into the snow.

We hit the ground and rolled. Flaming debris from the house came down around us; Griffin shoved me flat on my back, covering us both with his heavy coat.

The echoes of the explosion reflected back across the river, then slowly dwindled away, like dying thunder. The leaping flames threw warm light onto the falling snow, turning it into a storm of sparks pouring down from the heavens.

Griffin started to push himself off of me, then stoped. His hands were braced on either side of my shoulders, his legs twined with mine. Mt heart pounded, my palms sweated, and I was suddenly, acutely aware of how close his face was to mine.

"You're a madman," he whispered. "An utter madman."

"Perhaps," I allowed. "But it worked."

The leaping light from the burning house painted his features in gold, highlighting his patrician nose and finding threads of brown and blue in his green eyes. His pupils widened, the irises contracting to silver. "Whatever am I going to do with you?" he murmured.

The warmth of his breath feathered over my skin. Heat collected in my groin, my lips. My mouth was dry, my voice hoarse, and perhaps he was right and it was madness when I whispered, "Whatever you want."

A shiver went through his body, perhaps because we were lying on the col ~ Jordan L. Hawk

In recent years he has gone from being embarrassed about crying at all to crying constantly to himself to crying around Willem to now, in the final falling away of his dignity, crying in front of anyone, at any time, over anything. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

She liked seeing John smile. He was usually so serious and guarded. The flash of boyish teasing warmed her heart. She'd liked the faintly possessive stamp of that kiss, too. Although she'd never imagined she would enjoy any man showing possessive tendencies around her again, there was something healthy and respectful, and completely new about the way John liked to hold her hands or take her arm, to subtly touch her - or kiss her. It was like falling in love for the first time all over again. He made her feel important. He listened. He got angry…on her behalf. John made her feel like a woman worth caring about, not a punching bag or vessel for sex or thing a man owned the way Danny had. He made her believe that with the right man - with John himself, perhaps - that it was okay for her to love again. - (Maggie) ~ Julie Miller

As they stood there, the world falling apart around them, Grigor had a feeling of dread settle over his heart; but despite that, he was glad that he was with Olivia once again. ~ Michael Hibbard

Suffering is tossed by handfuls over the multitudes, with most of it falling on some people and little or none of it on others. ~ Jose Luis Peixoto

When he was left alone, when he had pulled out one stop after another (for the work required it), Stanley straightened himself on the seat, tightened the knot of the red necktie, and struck. The music soared around him, from the corner of his eye he caught the glitter of his wrist watch, and even as he read the music before him, and saw his thumb and last finger come down time after time with three black keys between them, wringing out fourths, the work he had copied coming over on the Conte di Brescia, wringing that chord of the devil's interval from the full length of the thirty-foot bass pipes, he did not stop. The walls quivered, still he did not hesitate. Everything moved, and even falling, soared in atonement.
He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played. ~ William Gaddis

Maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting over, trying to figure out if you want to fall, or how and when you're gonna land, and i gotta tell you, friends, to stop thinking about the landing, because it's all about falling. ~ David Levithan

Bruges had the air of a ghost town. The high towers, the trees along the canals withdrew, absorbed by the same muslin: impenetrable fog with not a single rift. Even the carillon seemed to have to escape, to force its way out of a prison yard filled with cotton wool to be free in the air, to reach the gables over which, every quarter of an hour, the bells poured, like falling leaves, a melancholy autumn of music. ~ Georges Rodenbach

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system ... They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man's career with cool, cautious self-possession ... ~ R.M. Ballantyne

Strigoi have red eyes, " I explained. "Do his eyes look red?"
The boy leaned forward. "No. They're brown. "
"What else do you know about Strigoi?" I asked.
"They have fangs like us, " the boy replied.
"Do you have fangs?" I asked Dimitri in a singsong voice. I had a feeling this was already-covered territory, but it took on a new feel when asked from a child's perspective. Dimitri smiled--a full, wonderful smile that caught me off guard.
"Okay, Jonathan, " said his mother anxiously. "You asked. Let's go now. "
"Strigoi are super strong, " continued Jonathan, who possibly aspired to be a future lawyer. "Nothing can hurt them. " Jonathan fixed Dimitri with a piercing gaze. "Are you super strong? Can you be hurt?"
"Of course I can, " replied Dimitri. "I'm strong, but all sorts of things can still hurt me. "
And then, being Rose Hathaway, I said something I really shouldn't have to the boy. "You should go punch him and find out. " Jonathan's mother screamed again, but he was a fast little bastard, eluding her grasp. He ran up to Dimitri before anyone could stop him--well, I could have--and pounded his tiny fist against Dimitri's knee. Then, with the same reflexes that allowed him to dodge enemy attacks, Dimitri immediately feinted falling backward, as though Jonathan had knocked him over. Clutching his knee, Dimitri groaned as though he were in terrible pain. Several people laughed, and by then, one of the other guardians had caught ~ Richelle Mead

It is a well-known established fact throughout the many-dimensional worlds of the multiverse that most really great discoveries are owed to one brief moment of inspiration. There's a lot of spadework first, of course, but what clinches the whole thing is the sight of, say, a falling apple or a boiling kettle or the water slipping over the edge of the bath. Something goes click inside the observer's head and then everything falls into place. The shape of DNA, it is popularly said, owes its discovery to the chance sight of a spiral staircase when the scientist=s mind was just at the right receptive temperature. Had he used the elevator, the whole science of genetics might have been a good deal different.

This is thought of as somehow wonderful. It isn't. It is tragic. Little particles of inspiration sleet through the universe all the time traveling through the densest matter in the same way that a neutrino passes through a candyfloss haystack, and most of them miss.

Even worse, most of the ones that hit the exact cerebral target, hit the wrong one.

For example, the weird dream about a lead doughnut on a mile-high gantry, which in the right mind would have been the catalyst for the invention of repressed-gravitational electricity generation (a cheap and inexhaustible and totally non-polluting form of power which the world in question had been seeking for centuries, and for the lack of which it was plunged into a terrible and pointless war) was in ~ Terry Pratchett

How did she die?" Grey finally asks.
"Painfully." I hurl the word, dagger sharp, because I'm angry. And hurt ...
Grey's face crumbles. "Oh God." He presses a hand over his eyes as he doubles over, falling to his knees in the surf.
For a moment I stand over him, watching the way that he's broken. Knowing that I'm broken in the same way. My stomach roils at what I say next - at my capacity for cruelty. At my need to hurt him.
But it's the only way I know to save myself. Truth and revenge, my only lifelines. I let myself slip until I'm kneeling next to him. I place my arms around him. Comforting him.
"There's nothing you could have done." I say the words softly, knowing the aching brutality of them.
Because there was something he could have done to save her. He could have told the truth. ~ Carrie Ryan

People are always thinking they can use the Lord to get their own way-- all they have to do is pray and God's gonna take away all their suffering and give them what they whatever they ask for. But it don't work that way. God's doing His business, and it's up to us to be serving Him, not the other way around."

Then why do people pray at all? My papa asked Jesus to help him escape with me when I was just a little girl. But Jesus didn't help us."

Praying ain't about asking for your own way. It's all about talking things over with God, just like you and me are talking things over. In the end, you have to be trusting the Lord to do what's best."

So the Lord thought it was best that my papa died and my mama was sold?"

Delia slowly shook her head. "I don't know, honey, I just don't know. The hardest thing of all to understand is why a loving God keeps letting us suffer... I don't know all the answers myself. I seen my share of suffering, believe me. But there two things I do know for sure. One is that God loves us... And the second thing is that God's always in control of everything that happens. When bad things come our way and it starts looking like He don't love us, all I can say is that maybe we ain't knowing everything He knows."

Kitty's tears started falling again. "I still don't understand."

Remember what you told me about the fighting up in Charleston? How you was standing on that porch, not able to see what's ~ Lynn Austin

My wife has made up Ty's old bedroom for you," he told him in a low voice as Ty and Mara argued over the merits of the couch cushions versus the rocks out back.
"Oh Christ." Zane laughed, falling back in his chair. "He won't let me forget this. Losing his bed to me."
"Well," Earl said with a sigh, "it's either that or fight his mama over it." He sat and watched Ty and Mara for a moment, sipping at his coffee contentedly. "Ain't none of us ever won that fight," he told Zane flatly.
"Me and Zane'll just bunk together," Ty was arguing.
Mara laughed at him. "You two boys won't fit in a double bed any more than I'll still fit in my wedding dress," she scoffed.

[...]

"Good morning, Zane dear, how did you sleep?" Mara asked as she came up to him and pressed a glass of orange juice into his hands.
"Ah, okay," Zane hedged, taking the glass out of self-defense. "I don't do too well sleeping in strange places lately, but…."
"Well, Ty's bed is about as strange a place as you can get," Deuce offered under his breath. He followed it with a muffled grunt as Ty kicked him under the table. ~ Abigail Roux

To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device upon the margin, or in the typography of a book - to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the floor - to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire - to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower - to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind - to lose all sense of motion or physical existence in a state of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in - Such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to any thing like analysis or explanation. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

And the roses - the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades - they came alive day by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and buds - and buds - tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air. Colin ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

I am going to take you every imaginable way,' he promised on a whisper, tugging her bodice lower.
'Excellent,' she murmured. She tugged his shirt from his trousers.
'Right side up, upside down, sideways, sitting, standing. You on top. Then me on top.'
'A brilliant plan.' His shirt fell from his shoulders. Oh, his shoulders. The vast glorious curve of them. She couldn't wait to lick one.
'Backward, forward. On the bed, on the table, on the settee.'
He paused, and lifted her dress off over her head with all the ceremony of an unveiling. It fell to the floor.
'And then?' she whispered.
'And then we'll do it all over again.'
It was the never-ending story! ~ Julie Anne Long

He put his forehead against hers.
"Alannah, my heart is yours." He said softly.
"And yet, I must hand it over to someone else for the keeping." Her last words falling to a strained whisper. ~ B.C. Morin

Whoa," Becky said, because the baby kicked her hard in the bladder.

Felix startled, backing up and nearly falling over a chair.

"Sorry, I was whoa-ing because right when you came in, the baby kicked, not because you're Felix Callahan. Oh, you know what it reminded me of ? When Elisabeth's baby kicks just as Mary greets her? Isn't that funny? As if I had some spiritual sign when I saw you."

Annette smiled, her eyebrows raised. Felix glared handsomely. Becky stamped down a desire to squirm.

"No, it's not terribly funny," Felix said, "particularly as I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Elisabeth, wife of Zacharias, cousin to Mary, mother of Jesus? No? Nothing?"

Felix looked at her with a careful lack of amusement.

"Oh, maybe you don't have the Bible in England. See, there's this guy named Jesus and his mother is named Mary, and well, it's a really interesting read if you don't mind parables. ~ Shannon Hale

To say that Richard Mayhew was not very good at heights would be perfectly accurate, but would fail to give the full picture; it would be like describing the planet Jupiter as bigger than a duck. Richard hated clifftops, and high buildings; somewhere not far inside of him was the fear – the start, utter, silently screaming terror – that if he got too close to the edge, then something would take over, and he would find himself walking to the edge of a clifftop and then he would just step off into space. It was as if he could not entirely trust himsels, and that scared Richard more than the simple fear of falling ever could. So he called it vertigo, and hated it and himself, and kept away from high places. ~ Neil Gaiman