Katarina Quotes

how tragic it was that the written word was immortal while people were not, ~ Katarina Bivald

I've always thought that books have some kind of healing power and that they can, if nothing else, provide a distraction. ~ Katarina Bivald

One of the most difficult things when you were trying to navigate the world of books was dealing with all the unreliable authors. They were so unbelievably tricky to keep track of. An author might write a brilliant book, only to follow it up with something utterly mediocre. Or, and this was almost worse, one might have written a brilliant book but then turn out to be dead. Then there were those authors who started a series but never finished it. ~ Katarina Bivald

When you see the audiences and the smiling faces at the shows it really makes up for the work that you put in. I have a job I really love so whatever hecticness comes up - I'll just deal with it. ~ Katarina Witt

I learned not to depend on other people. I needed support, but it's you who has to go out and deliver. ~ Katarina Witt

I've had my sorrows, of course, but nothing more than I could cope with. Sometimes I think that it's not the degree of sorrow which matters, but how much of a hold it can get. Maybe some people are just more susceptible, or maybe everyone is more susceptible at certain times. ~ Katarina Bivald

The kids kept walking, moving through the Henley's halls like a tide, but when Kat turned to leave, she walked in the opposite directions. She wasn't an ordinary kid, after all.
Katarina Bishop followed no one. ~ Ally Carter

If he had learned anything in life, it was that there were no happy endings. Life simply went on. ~ Katarina Bivald

She had always hoped that Jane could have looked out over her surroundings and thought: 'I can create a better world than this', or 'You're much too unbearably boring, and perhaps I can't say anything about it without being impolite, but you are going to be absolutely wonderful in my next book. I need another ridiculous minister.' Still, Sara couldn't help but wonder what life must be like if you couldn't daydream about Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (how had she decided on that name? One of literary history's most inexplicable mysteries), because you yourself had created him. ~ Katarina Bivald

It was just that she wondered when, exactly, she had become so old. Perhaps it had happened when her mother died. Some kind of generational shift. The mantel being passed. ~ Katarina Bivald

Very few people had sense enough to appreciate silence. ~ Katarina Bivald

As long as she had books and money, nothing could be a catastrophe. ~ Katarina Bivald

I didn't know there were this many math guys," Hale said as they stepped onto the crowded concourse.
Kat cleared her throat.
"And women," he added. "Math women. ~ Ally Carter

Katarina Bishop was a criminal. But she'd never held a gun. She'd never thrown a punch. Until that moment she didn't really know how it felt to hurt someone, and as soon as she saw the look on Hale's face, she wanted to take the words back.
And she wished she could make them hurt more.
Both. ~ Ally Carter

When his phone rang, he had to dig through his pocket to find it, and his fingers brushed against a pair of tiny earbuds he and Kat had last used in Monte Carlo. Hale smiled a little, realizing he hadn't worn the tux in ages. It was just one of many ways his life had change in the years since a girl named Katarina Bishop crawled into his window and into his life.
- Double Crossed by Ally Carter ~ Ally Carter

Your mother brought a strange man to this house once, Katarina. I had hoped it might be a few years before history repeated itself."
Kat rolled her eyes at the mention of her father. "Uncle Eddie, I brought Hale home ages ago," she reminded him; but her uncle just shook his head.
"I've known my great-niece's friend. A boyfriend, on the other hand ... that is a most different matter."
"Yes, sir," Hale said. He stood up a little straighter, spoke a little louder.
"You have a powerful family, boy."
"Yes, sir," Hale said. "Please don't hold them against me."
Then Eddie gave a wry smile. "Who says I was talking about them? ~ Ally Carter

I came back, Uncle Eddie. Last year, after the Henley, I could have gone to any school in the world
I could have done anything, but I came back."
"You ran away, Katarina."
"And now I'm back."
"You're still running. ~ Ally Carter

I was the very first athlete in East Germany allowed to go professional. ~ Katarina Witt

Katarina Witt. She was the ultimate competitor. She would just stare down people before competition. She was relentless on the ice. ~ Sarah Hughes

Skating taught me to set a goal and to block out other things and just focus on this one thing. ~ Katarina Witt

Sometimes I even now feel like a stranger in my country. But I knew there would be problems because I had seen the world as a skater. And now? A lot of people in eastern Germany have lost jobs, rents went up, food costs went up, unemployment went to 20 percent. Freedom is good, but it is not easy. ~ Katarina Witt

She had thrown herself into one ambitious reading project after another, but things had rarely gone according to plan. It was boring to think of books as something you should read just because others had, and besides, she was much too easily distracted. There were far too many books out there to stick to any kind of theme. When ~ Katarina Bivald

surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing." ~Eckhart Tolle Yes, ~ Katarina Ilic

On most guys, Hale's smile would have looked sheepish. On him, it was so roguishly charming that Kat's heart actually skipped a beat. ~ Ally Carter

The only way to live life is to live in the present. You can't put things off thinking you'll have time later. There may not be a later. - Katarina Kozlov ~ Dannika Dark

I've no idea if she's ugly or beautiful; it's kind of irrelevant. As long as it's her. ~ Katarina Mazetti

You know you're smarter than all of them, right?" Hale said flatly.
"In fact, if you wanted to PROVE it ... "
He glanced at the blackjack tables.
Simon shook his head. "I don't count cards, Hale."
"Don't?" Hale smiled. "Or won't? You know, technically, it's not illegal."
"But it's frowned upon."
Sweat beaded at Simon's brow.
He sounded like someone had just suggested he swim after eating ... run with scissors ...
"It is SERIOUSLY frowned upon. ~ Ally Carter

Sometimes, success almost haunts you. You want to be the best at everything you do and know you have to work hard. ~ Katarina Witt

When I get up, I have a cup of coffee, surf the Internet, then do a half-hour run. ~ Katarina Witt

Maybe that proves I was right about books and people: books are fantastic and probably come into their own in a cabin in the woods, but how fun is it to read a fantastic book if you can't tell others about it, talk about it, quote from it constantly? ~ Katarina Bivald

You've got to be something of a dreamer to enjoy books, at least to begin with. ~ Katarina Bivald

Books or people, you ask. It's a difficult choice, I've got to say. I don't know whether people mean more than books - they're definitely not nicer or funnier or more comforting ... but still, however much I twist and turn the question, I've got to opt for people in the long run. I hope you don't lose all confidence in me now that I've admitted that.
I can't for the life of me explain why I have the bad sense to prefer people. If you went purely by numbers, then books would win hands down. I've loved maybe a handful of people in my entire life, compared with tens or maybe even hundreds of books (and here I'm counting only those books I've really loved, the kind that make you happy just to look at them, that make you smile regardless of what else is happening in your life, that you always turn back to like an old friend and can remember exactly where you first "met" them - I'm sure you know just what I'm talking about). But that handful of people you love ... they're surely worth just as much as all those books. ~ Katarina Bivald

You do a great many things for strangers, Katarina. What are you willing to do for your friends? ~ Ally Carter

Do not push me," she warned in a shaky voice.

"Och, but I will." He shifted on his booted feet, pushed his hips harder against hers, until she felt a part of the wall. A part of him. "You lifted a blade to me, Katarina. I'm going to push you hard. ~ Kris Kennedy

People were strange like that. They could be completely uninterested in you, but the moment you picked up a book, you were the one being rude. ~ Katarina Bivald

When you're young, you don't think very far ahead. You just think in terms of the next day, the next week, the next competition. You don't think about injuries that could threaten your long-term health. ~ Katarina Witt

I really can't say which of the American classics you should read. In fact, I think about as much of the notion of "classic" as you do, but at least the literary critics who compile those lists have a good sense of humor. How else can you explain them adding Mark Twain's wonderful books to their lists, given his view that "a classic is something everybody wants to have read, but no one wants to read"? Unless it's some kind of disguised jibe, but they surely can't be that petty.
Though I don't think that justice is the main argument against classics list. Or rather, in a way it's clearly a question of justice, but not against those who don't make it. No, the books I feel sorry for are the ones they add to these lists. Take Mark Twain again. Once, when Tom was young, he came to me complaining that he had to read Huckleberry Finn for junior high. Huckleberry Finn! Our critics and educators have got a lot to answer for when they manage to make young boys see stories about rebellion and adventure and ballsiness as a chore. Do you understand what I mean? The real crime of these lists isn't that they leave deserving books off them, but that they make people see fantastic literary adventures as obligations. ~ Katarina Bivald

Sara couldn't help but think that she had somehow missed the moment when life was meant to begin. For a long time she had simply drifted through it, reading. While everyone around her was teenaged, unhappy, and foolish, this hadn't been a problem. But then suddenly everyone had grown up around her, and she had done nothing but read. ~ Katarina Bivald

I never had a serious injury that kept me out of a big competition. Now everyone has injuries - to their feet or their knees or their backs. ~ Katarina Witt

Kat," Hale groaned, then fell back onto the pillows.
"Funny, I didn't hear a doorbell."
"I let myself in; hope that's okay."
Hale smiled. "Or the alarm."
She stepped inside, tossed a pocket-size bag of tools onto the bed.
"You're due for an upgrade."
Hale propped himself against the antique headboard and squinted up at her.
"She returns." He crossed his arms across his bare chest. "You know, I could be naked in here. ~ Ally Carter

I think I've lived a happy life. I know I've been lucky. I've had good friends and kind people around me. ~ Katarina Bivald

I can't say, 'It doesn't matter if you win or lose.' It's not true. You go in to win. ~ Katarina Witt

Don't you ever think,' he asked cautiously, 'that it would be better to be a bully than to be bullied? At least that way no one could ever hurt you.'

Katarina turned to him in amazement. 'No,' she said definitively, shaking her head. 'No Pieter, I never think that, not for a moment. ~ John Boyne

As early as high school, she had realized that few people paid attention to you if you were hidden behind a book. ~ Katarina Bivald

Feel-good books were ones you could put down with a smile on your face, books that made you think the world was a little crazier, stranger, and more beautiful when you looked up from them. ~ Katarina Bivald

A writer should be read, not seen, as they seldom are a joy to the eye.
~ Katarina Anhava

I started the class late. The teacher said I would have to learn as much in half a year that the others learned in a year. I did it. ~ Katarina Witt

We, as citizens or members of people's organisations, can preserve and nourish basic principles needed for long-term efforts aimed at transforming a totalitarian and war-torn society into a democratic one. ~ Katarina Kruhonja

I don't want to compete. I want to skate for the joy. I get so nervous in competition. I get always sick. I had pressures enough in my life from skating. ~ Katarina Witt

I've seen people survive terrible things. ... I've also seen people completely caught up in their problems. They practically creep in beneath the skin and eat them up from within, until it seems as though their reaction to the problem is worse than the problem itself ever was. They grow cruel and bitter too, so it's difficult to remember to feel sorry for them. ~ Katarina Bivald

What else was there beside books and work? ~ Katarina Bivald

People expected too much from forgiveness. ~ Katarina Bivald

She had never been someone who believed you needed to have met in person to be friends - many of her most rewarding relationships had been with people who didn't even exist. ~ Katarina Bivald

A complete waste of time - doubting yourself. If you make the slightest mistake, someone else is sure to let you know about it. ~ Katarina Bivald

Can you smell it? The scent of new books. Unread adventures. Friends you haven't met yet, hours of magical escapism awaiting you. ~ Katarina Bivald

You know, life would be so much simpler if it weren't for all the people. ... People are overrated. I'm sure I would be able to deal with things much better if it weren't for them. ~ Katarina Bivald

Maybe it's that the past exists purely inside me. ... I've never cared about growing old, but right now, I do, slightly. It's not just that you have so much less future, but you also lose so much of your past, one death at a time. ~ Katarina Bivald

Books that had already been read were the best. ~ Katarina Bivald

It's not like I didn't do anything for 10 years and chose a new profession. I've been on the ice a lot. I'm not an outsider. ~ Katarina Witt

Just look educated. How hard can it be? Off you go." It ~ Katarina Bivald

You know" - Hale's breath was warm against Kat's ear in the chilly ballroom- "I don't know that both of us really have to be here ... "
The slide changed. While hundreds of mathematicians waited with baited breath, the boy beside Kat whispered,
"I could go make some calls ... check on some things ... "
"Play some blackjack?"
"Well, when in Rome ... "
"Rome is tomorrow, babe," Kat reminded him.
He nodded. "Right. ~ Ally Carter

So instead she settled on, "Did my father put you up to this?"
Hale exhaled a quick laugh and shook his head. "He hasn't returned my calls since Barcelona." He leaned closer and whispered, "I think he might still be mad at me."
"Yeah, well, that makes two of us."
"Hey," Hale snapped. "We all agreed that that monkey seemed perfectly well trained at the time. ~ Ally Carter

I want to see sunrises in the mountains. You never get to see such things enough in a lifetime. I want to see more. ~ Katarina Witt

Of course the edges of the wound struggle to close up
and the clock wants to be set going
(how awkward to be pointing permanently to half past one)
amputated limbs feel phantom pain ~ Katarina Mazetti

She had kept well behind the safety barrier her entire life, but now she was standing there at the edge of the precipice for the very first time, fumbling blindly with the realization that there were other ways to live, at how intense and rich life could be. ~ Katarina Bivald

If I had two breaths left inme, one first one I would use to tell you I miss you, and the second that I love you. ~ Katarina Jovic

I know this is maybe naive, but one day I hope there will be peace in the world. Maybe one day the flowers will come back. ~ Katarina Witt

Too many times women try to be competitive with each other. We should help support each other, rather than try to be better than each other. ~ Katarina Witt

Kat turned back to Hale. "The Mary Poppins?"
"Seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Oh. Yeah. Obviously. Just so we're clear, this master plan of yours ... "
"Might have a couple kinks to work through," Hale admitted, then reached for her hand. As soon as he touched her, Kat knew there was no such thing as curses. People make and break their own fortunes-they are the masters of their own fate. And right then Kat wouldn't have changed a thing.
She kissed him, quick and feather soft.
"What was that for?" he asked.
Kat placed her fingers on his face and brought his forehead close to hers, touching as she whispered, "For luck. ~ Ally Carter

Sometimes you have to get close to the edge to remind yourself what life's about. It's not just about rules or what's on TV tonight. It's about taking a second to look up and admire the universe. - Katarina Kozlov ~ Dannika Dark

Almost nothing is presented to you on a silver platter. You have to really work for it. ~ Katarina Witt

I know there are those who doubt that racism is still such a big problem, but if you ask me, it's only middle-aged people who think that, those who think the world has automatically become better simply because they're old enough to shape it now, but without any of them having made the slightest contribution to improving it. ~ Katarina Bivald

The desire to really compete again has been there for a long time. ~ Katarina Witt

I don't believe in Love, although I've experienced it. I could say. When I can't sleep, I lie there imagining it's because I never actually gave it a chance. I kind of never reached the stage of thinking I had to put it first, in front of everything else.
Sometimes I feel I haven't really reached dry land yet, and maybe never will. ~ Katarina Mazetti

Katarina wasn't afraid of Baden. Not anymore.

He took a step to the side, intending to move around her. Oh, no. She flattened her hands on his shoulders, keeping him in place.

"I want to know what's wrong with you." She said. "Tell me."

He snapped his teeth at her in a show of dominance. "You think you want to know my problem. You're wrong."

Her tone dry, she said, "I'm so glad you know my mind better than I do."

"Very well. I need sex." He threw the words at her as if they were weapons. "Badly."

Whoa. Blindside!

Heart pounding, she jerked her hands away from him. "Sex...from me?"

"Yesss." A hiss. "Only from you."

Only. Amazing how one little word could send pleasure soaring through her, warming her. "You told me never to touch you." Which she'd just done, she realized. My bad.

"I've changed my mind." His gaze dropped, lingered on her lips.

Burning her... "But you and I...we're a different species." As if that mattered to her body. Gimme!


He took a step closer, invading her personal space. "We'll fit, I promise you."


Tristo hrmenych! The raspy quality of his voice, all smoke and gravel...she shivered with longing. Must resist his allure.

But...but...why? Before she'd committed to Peter, she'd dated around, had made out in movie theaters, cars and on couches. She'd liked kissing and touching and "riding the belt buckle," as ~ Gena Showalter

That which didn't kill them made them stranger. ~ Katarina Bivald

Amy might not have had the most exciting life over the past few years, up here in her room, but she must have been fighting death to the very end. Sara could understand why she had been in denial or so long. It must have been a frightening realization: so many books she would never get to pick up, so many stories that would happen without her, so many authors she would never get to discover.

That night, Sara sat in Amy's library for hours, thinking about how tragic it was that the written word was immortal while people were not, and grieving for her, the woman she had never met. ~ Katarina Bivald

WARNING: UNHAPPY ENDING! she wrote. If more bookshop owners had taken the responsibility to hang warning signs, her life would have been much easier. Cigarette packets came with warnings, so why not tragic books? There was wording on bottles of beer warning against drinking and driving, but not a single word about the consequences of reading books without tissues to hand. ~ Katarina Bivald

The feeling of losing oneself in somebody's arms, yet at the same time finding oneself there, is irreplaceable. Nothing compares to the intensity of that feeling. ~ Katarina Witt

Money was never the motivation. It never should be in sports. ~ Katarina Witt