Flavia De Luce Quotes

The wards were to my right. I stepped into the hall and walked confidently forward, yet fully expecting Matron to come bearing down upon me at any moment, like a pirate ship under full sail.
I must say, though, that I was not afraid. I would deal with her.
The new, stony Flavia de Luce would turn her away: send her scurrying with her tail between her legs.
The very idea delighted me. ~ Alan Bradley

Sanctified cyanide
Super-quick arsenic
Higgledy-piggledy
Into the Soup.
Put out the mourning lamps
Call for coffin clamps
Teach them to trifle with
Flavia de Luce! ~ Alan Bradley

I was me, I was Flavia. And I loved myself, even if no one else did. ~ Alan Bradley

Being Flavia de Luce was like being a sublimate: like the black crystal residue that is left on the cold glass of a test tube by the violet fumes of iodine. ~ Alan Bradley

Nature does abhor a vacuum, but she equally abhors pressure. ~ Alan Bradley

As Uncle Tarquin de Luce once wrote in the margin of one of his many notebooks of chemical experiments: Consider also the container. ~ Alan Bradley

O Prosperina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's wagon; daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength
a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one. ~ William Shakespeare

You're one of them de Luce girls over from Buckshaw. I'd rec'nize them cold blue eyes anywhere. ~ Alan Bradley

All flowers are flirtatious - particularly if they carry hyphenated names. The more hyphens in the name, the flirtier the flower. The one-hyphen flowers - black-eyed Susan; lady-smock; musk-rose - may give you only a shy glance and then drop their eyes; the two-hyphen flowers - forget-me-not; flower-de-luce - keep glancing. Flowers with three or more hyphens flirt all over the garden and continue even when they are cut and arranged in vases. John-go-to-bed-at-noon does not go there simply to sleep. ~ Willard R. Espy

Economists get very uncomfortable when you talk about virtue and vice. It doesn't lend itself to a lot of columns with numbers. But I would argue that there are big virtue effects in economics. I would say that the spreading of double-entry bookkeeping by the Monk, Fra Luce de Pacioli, was a big virtue effect in economics. It made business more controllable, and it made it more honest. ~ Charlie Munger

AB de Villiers is the definition of a Cricketing Genius ~ Michael Vaughan

You've had time, Luce. I've given you your space." he said, the bed moaning as he stood. "I've aged fifty years in three weeks' time because I did my part and stayed away from you. But now you're here. And maybe you're not here because of me, but either way, you couldn't stay away. ~ Nicole Williams

If I was 14 and knew some gay people, I wouldn't nearly have had the struggle I had. Our world is definitely changing. ~ Portia De Rossi

The Council of Fashion Designers of America is a national neurotic society of creative leaders in various fields of fashion. ~ Oscar De La Renta

I once read a very funny piece called "The Essential Gone with the Wind" that went something like this: " 'A war?' laughed Scarlett. 'Oh, fiddle-de-dee!' "Boom! Ashley went to war! Atlanta burned! Rhett walked in and then walked out! " 'Fiddle-de-dee,' said Scarlett through her tears, 'I will think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.' " I ~ Stephen King

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself. ~ Alain De Botton

History begins at ground level, with footsteps. ~ Michel De Certeau

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils, but present evils triumph over it. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us. ~ Alain De Botton

Resistance put up by the old capitalist paternalism prevents this equality from being concretely achieved: it will be achieved the day this resistance is broken down. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

We must offer ourselves to God like a clean, smooth canvas and not worry ourselves about what God may choose to paint on it, but at each moment, feel only the stroke of His brush. ~ Jean-Pierre De Caussade

A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the maddest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

An effort made with ourselves for the good of others, with the intention of pleasing God alone. ~ Jacques-Henri Bernardin De Saint-Pierre

I love the word Quetzalcoatl.'
'The word!' he repeated.
His eyes laughed at her teasingly all the time.
'What do you think, Mrs Leslie,' cried the pale-faced young Mirabal, in curiously resonant English, with a French accent. 'Don't you think it would be wonderful if the gods came back to Mexico? our own gods?' He sat in intense expectation, his blue eyes fixed on Kate's face, his soup-spoon suspended.
Kate's face was baffled with incomprehension.
'Not those Aztec horrors!' she said.
'The Aztec horrors! The Aztec horrors! Well, perhaps they were not so horrible after all. But if they were, it was because the Aztecs were all tied up. They were in a cul de sac, so they saw nothing but death. Don't you think so?'
'I don't know enough!' said Kate.
'Nobody knows any more. But if you like the word Quetzalcoatl, don't you think it would be wonderful if he came back again? Ah, the names of the gods! Don't you think the names are like seeds, so full of magic, of the unexplored magic? Huitzilopochtli!--how wonderful! And Tlaloc! Ah! I love them! I say them over and over, like they say Mani padma Om! in Tibet. I believe in the fertility of sound. Itzpapalotl--the Obsidian Butterfly! Itzpapalotl! But say it, and you will see it does good to your soul. Itzpapalotl! Tezcatlipocá! They were old when the Spaniards came, they needed the bath of life again. But now, re-bathed in youth, how wonderful they must be! ~ D.H. Lawrence

We'll have to consult Aglie. I doubt that even he knows all these organizations."
"Want to bet? They're his daily bread. But we can put him to the test. Let's add a sect that doesn't exist. Founded recently."
I recalled the curious question of De Angelis, whether I had ever heard of the Tres. And I said: "Tres."
"What's that?" Belbo asked.
"If it's an acrostic, there has to be a subtext," Diotallevi said. "Otherwise my rabbis would not have been able to use the notarikon. Lets see ... Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici. That suit you?"
We liked the name, and put it at the bottom of the list.
"With all these conventicles, inventing one more was no mean trick," Diotallevi said in a sudden fit of vanity. ~ Umberto Eco

Someday I want to go back to San Felipe de Jesus and find the Jesus in that place. Someday I want to trap myself in those washboard towns, Aconchi, Magdalena; I want to meet their saints someday. I would ask them if they have ever been in love.

I don't mean the syrup they lay on you in the media. I mean the meat of love, the hardness of it, the ice water that wakes you up into the heat of day. The Mexico of love, with rocks, pickup trucks, fat men and sugary children. Cock-sure, moonlit tequila, sweet lime, metallic bed for secret touching. Did they ever reach that side of life? Those mealy saints with their crosses on their backs, did they have enough stomach for the midnight lunch of love? ~ Laurie Perez

True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I've seen the majestic beauty of nature and the overwhelming perfection of it. To me, there's nothing closer to God than that. ~ Cote De Pablo

Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters. ~ Honore De Balzac

Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called news) which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it. ~ Henry R. Luce

The Antioch Beach library was like something out of a good dream, if you're the kind of person who dreams about libraries, which I am ... ~ Marisa De Los Santos

We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe. ~ Alain De Botton

I am a Christian which means that I believe in the deity of Christ, like Tycho de Brahe, Copernicus, Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Pascal ... like all great astronomers mathematicians of the past. ~ Augustin-Louis Cauchy

Haven't you noticed that men struggle every day to correct the defects of my work? What is a plane or a diving suit but an emendation to my work? Even those who worship me spend their lives disagreeing with me and trying to improve on what I made. When they implore me for help with their misfortunes, deep down, are they not in fact censuring me, because what is a prayer but a rebellion that cannot be expressed?' He smiled vaguely and added: 'The only reason they don't curse me is because they still believe I'm stronger than they are ~ José Ferreira Borges De Castro

The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health, basically. ~ Frans De Waal

Social dissipation, as witnessed in the ball-room, is the abettor of pride, the instigator of jealousy, it is the sacrificial altar of health, it is the defiler of the soul, it is the avenue of lust and it is the curse of every town in America. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage

I have no other passion to keep me in breath. What avarice, ambition, quarrels, law suits do for others who, like me, have no particular vocation, love would much more commodiously do; it would restore to me vigilance, sobriety, grace, and the care of my person; it would reassure my countenance, so that the grimaces of old age, those deformed and dismal looks, might not come to disgrace it; would again put me upon sound and wise studies, by which I might render myself more loved and esteemed, clearing my mind of the despair of itself and of its use, and redintegrating it to itself; would divert me from a thousand troublesome thoughts, a thousand melancholic humours that idleness and the ill posture of our health loads us withal at such an age; would warm again, in dreams at least, the blood that nature is abandoning; would hold up the chin, and a little stretch out the nerves, the vigour and gaiety of life of that poor man who is going full drive towards his ruin. ~ Michel De Montaigne

It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight in the eyes of the public: the only use of a journal is, that it imparts the knowledge of certain facts, and it is only by altering or distorting those facts that a journalist can contribute to the support of his own views. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Good befalls us while we sleep, sometimes. ~ Honore De Balzac

The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Who should play the lead role in a film about me? Dunno. Danny De Vito? Jeff Goldblum? Meryl Streep? Someone of that kind. ~ Douglas Adams

Golf is like love. One day you think you are too old and the next day you want to do it again. ~ Roberto De Vicenzo

There is no man who desires as passionately as a Russian. If we could imprison a Russian desire beneath a fortress, that fortress would explode. ~ Joseph De Maistre

Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy. ~ Honore De Balzac

It is a stupid presumption to go about despising and condemning as false anything that seems to us improbable; this is a common fault in those who think they have more intelligence than the crowd. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare. ~ Guy De Maupassant

We should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

However different men's fortunes may be, there is always something or other that balances the ill and the good, and makes all even at last. ~ Francois Alexandre Frederic, Duc De La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt