Quills Quotes

Will there be enough to go around, or must we compete for our kills?"
"Unfortunately, I suspect there will be plenty, but that really depends on how many of you are willing to come." And that's when I lost track of who was speaking. They called out from everywhere, having apparently forgotten I was even there.
"All of us!"
"We will all go ... "
"It's only far ... "
"Someone must stay with the children ... "
"Someone must stay to hunt ... "
"Then we'll draw quills. Feathers into the pile! The twenty drawn will go and fight!"
"Wait!" I had to shout to be heard. "Don't you want the details?"
Kai frowned, one of the few birds paying me any attention. "No. We want the fight, and the feast."
"No! I said there will be no feasting! It's a war, not a f***ing dinner banquet!" I threw up my hands in exasperation.
Mentioning war to a Flight of thunderbirds was evidently like dangling candy in front of a class full of children! Ruthless, deadly children ... ~ Rachel Vincent

I still use quill and parchment. I do e-mails, and I write, but I don't go around surfing too much. ~ Oscar Nunez

There were shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable. Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-colored toffees; hundreds of different kinds of chocolate in neat rows; there was a large barrel of Every Flavor Beans, and another of Fizzing Whizbees, the levitating sherbert balls that Ron had mentioned; along yet another wall were "Special Effects" sweets: Droobles Best Blowing Gum (which filled a room with bluebell-colored bubbles that refused to pop for days), the strange, splinter Toothflossing Stringmints, tiny black Pepper Imps ("breathe fire for your friends!"), Ice Mice ("hear your teeth chatter and squeak!"), peppermint creams shaped like toads ("hop realistically in the stomach!"), fragile sugar-spun quills, and exploding bonbons. ~ J.K. Rowling

During the ice age, many animals died of cold, so the porcupines decided to band together to provide one another with warmth and protection. But their spines or quills kept sticking into their surrounding companions, precisely those who provided most warmth. And so they drifted apart again. And again many of them died of cold. They had to make a choice: either risk extinction or accept their fellow porcupines' spines. Very wisely, they decided to huddle together again. They learned to live with the minor wounds inflicted by their relatives, because the key to their survival was that shared warmth. ~ Paulo Coelho

The first of a thousand lies. Truth flowed to Micah Quill, was sucked in and disappeared, and emerged again looking ever so much like it used to, but changed subtly, at the edges, where none would notice, so that simple truth became a complicated fabric indeed, one that could wrap you up so tightly and close you off from the air until you suffocated in it. ~ Orson Scott Card

The dangerous men were still asleep, their blades sheathed next to their beds. The really dangerous men had been up for hours, and their quills and ledgers were getting hard use. ~ Daniel Polansky

Move or die. (Quills) Never give someone a choice that doesn't leave them with any way out except to hurt you. (Devyn) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

If the Bible is called the Good Book, it's not because its people are. Blood flows as freely through the stories as the ink through the quills that penned them. ~ Max Lucado

You mean there's someone out there better than your father? (Quills) No, idiot. My father trained him. Just FYI, my father is also his godfather. So you want to be real nice to Dev. All of us take it personally when people aren't. (Adron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The word processor is a better tool than a quill pen because you can do so much more with it, but on the other hand, what you have to say and how you say it is the ultimate determination. ~ Walter Murch

But no, it was not to be explained so easily. The apparition didn't turn into the musician, but into a large porcupine. The crowd ran backwards, but were impaled by the quills as it grew larger and larger. Some of the quills reached the sky and popped the red balloons, creating turmoil in the crowd. Some of the quills reached into the hole and skewered the red cherries. ~ Tantra Bensko

Dear God, Max! What happened to your face?" Berg hysterically asked.
She shrugged, the quills in her face wiggling when she did. "A porcupine attacked me. Flung its quills at me." She glanced around, seemingly not bothered by the many - many - quills hanging from her face like some weird, horrifying mask. ~ Shelly Laurenston

What are you doing?"
Celaena lifted another piece of paper. "If His Pirateness can't be bothered to clean for us, then I don't see why I can't have a look."
"He'll be here any second," Sam hissed. She picked up a flattened map, examining the dots and markings along the coastline of their continent. Something small and round gleamed beneath the map, and she slipped it into her pocket before Sam could notice.
"Oh, hush," she said, opening the hutch on the wall adjacent to the desk. "With these creaky floors, we'll hear him a mile off." The hutch was crammed with rolled scrolls, quills, the odd coin, and some very old, very expensive-looking brandy. She pulled out a bottle, swirling the amber liquid in the sunlight streaming through the tiny porthole window. "Care for a drink? ~ Sarah J. Maas

Maine should be pleased that its animal is not a waverer, and rather than fight, lets the primed quill fall. Shallow oppressor, intruder, insister, you have found a resister. ~ Marianne Moore

The logic: Reading is a private pursuit, one that often takes place behind closed doors. A young lady might retreat with a book, might even take it into her boudoir, and there, reclining on here silken sheets, imbibing the thrills and chills manufactured by writerly quills, one of her hands, one not absolutely needed to grip the little volume, might wander. The fear, in short, as one-handed reading. [p. 146] ~ Siri Hustvedt

Before you attack the porcupine, think of its quills! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

We're not very dangerous animals; we don't have a horn like a rhino or quills like a porcupine. ~ Helen Fisher

Adron tsked at Devyn's CO, who'd done nothing but rag on him for the last two months since Devyn had been reassigned to this unit. The man really was lucky Devyn had learned to control his temper. Most days, anyway. Adron cuffed the CO on the back so hard, Quills actually staggered from the blow. "Yeah, that's what he wants you to think. But trust me. I know his skills firsthand. His father was the notorious filch and assassin, C.I. Syn. His mother the legendary Seax, Shahara Dagan." Devyn ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Prickly
When I'm feeling
porcupine-y,
I get nasty,
I get whiny.
Stay away or
I might stick you.
My sharp words are
quills to prick you. ~ Laura Purdie Salas

Yet she is happy -- is it happiness she feels? -- as she places her things in the cupboards and drawers. Her quills, stockings, shoes. The room is dotted by porcelain figures. Punctuated, she thinks. She picks one up, puts it down. The former wife's collection? Then opens a window to London bells and that green-silk scent of spring. And she sees now, here in this room, how badly she'd needed to leave. ~ Danielle Dutton

A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told - in the English phrase - to keep their distance. By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Do not shout at me, Mr. Quill," said John [Adams]. "Justice may be blind, but she is not deaf. ~ Orson Scott Card

It was for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face? ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling.
I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try asking her?"
A few people laughed; Harry caught sight of Seamus's eye and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.
Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter. ~ J.K. Rowling

Many women do not even have the basic teaching about predators that a wolf mother gives her pups, such as: if it's threatening and bigger than you, flee; if it's weaker, see what you want to do; if it's sick, leave it alone; if it has quills, poison, fangs, or razor claws, back up and go in the other direction; it it smells nice but is wrapped around metal jaws, walk on by. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Recall that when the first presses produced copies of the Bible, the scribes who had to spend years at a time on the same work, just as it had been done for centuries, streamed out from the monasteries with quills raised in the air, decrying the work of the devil. When one of the pioneering tradesmen printed certain words in red ink to emphasize them, it was proof that he had used his own blood. That was why the printers' assistants began to be called "devils." Soon printers were threatened with burning, and some were indeed put into the fire along with their equipment. From the beginning, the creation of the modern book was viewed as the work of Satan - an attempt to usurp the word of God. ~ Matthew Pearl

Xenophon wrote with a swan's quill, Plato with a pen of gold, and Thucydides with a brazen stylus. ~ Joseph Joubert

Luther once said, "The devil hates goose quills" and, doubtless, he has good reason, for ready writers, by the Holy Spirit's blessing, have done his kingdom much damage. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The Deer don't dineWhen a Wolf's about,And the PorcupineSticks his quill-points out. ~ Arthur Guiterman

With a goose-quill and a few sheets of paper, I mock myself of the universe. They say I am the son of a courtesan; it may be so, but I have the heart of a King. I live free, I enjoy myself, I can call myself happy. ~ Pietro Aretino

Wars are won with quills and ravens, wasn't that what you said? ~ George R R Martin

Tell him that you dreamed of a wolf with porcupine quills in his muzzle. And that the wolf said to you, "As once you did, so I do now. I shelter and guide your son. I will put my life between him and any harm, and when my task is done, I will bring him safely home to you ~ Robin Hobb

Feathers shall raise men even as they do birds towards heaven :- That is by letters written with their quills. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay. ~ John Milton

The thought hath good leggs, and the quill a good tongue. ~ George Herbert

How d'you spell 'belligerent'?" said Ron, shaking his quill very hard while staring at his parchment. "It can't be B - U - M - "
"No, it isn't," said Hermione. "And 'augury' doesn't begin O - R - G either. ~ J.K. Rowling

For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing. ~ Virginia Woolf

In the living room Derek sprawled on the floor on a blanket, his eyes closed, his body human, corded with hard muscle, and covered only with a strategically placed towel. Julie knelt by him, long tweezers in her hand.
"What's going on?"
"Quills," she said. "Very thin quills. There was a magic plant and he decided it would be a good idea to give it a hug. Because he is smart that way."
So they had taken Julie with them. Considering where I'd gone and what I did while there, I didn't have room to talk.
Derek didn't bother opening his eyes. "I wasn't giving it a hug. I was shielding Ella."
"Mm-hm." Julie plucked a thin needle from his stomach. "You shielded her really well. Because it's not like we didn't have Carlos with us."
Carlos was a firebug. The plant must've gotten torched.
"We'll need to work on mixed-unit tactics," Curran said. He looked tired. It must've been hell. "So what did you do in Mishmar?"
Umm. Ehh. In my head I had somehow expected Erra to stay in Mishmar.
"I saw my father," I said. Start small.
"How was that?" Curran asked.
"He's a little upset with me."
"Aha."
"I broke Mishmar a little bit."
The three of them looked at me.
"But it was mostly my grandmother who did it."
"How much is a little bit?" Derek asked.
"There might be a crack. About maybe seven feet at the widest point."
Derek laughed.
"And what else?" Curran asked.
Perceptive bastard.
"And this." ~ Ilona Andrews

If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; turn it new. ~ Ben Jonson

But having quills is a waste, even a double luxury when one can choose not to have quills but open hands. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.
List, list, O list! ~ William Shakespeare

There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world,
a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take one who has offended, and set him down before the blowpipe of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his fault into him; and when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their fiery fists, then
they forgive him. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens. ~ George R R Martin

Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a "wire edge" that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said no, it will come off when the enamel does" - which was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds - but they only eat them once. ~ Mark Twain

I scared a little porcupine
and caught a quill in my behind.
It hurt so badly in my tail,
but tugging on it made me yell.
The porcupine was still around,
so I complained. He simply frowned
and said, Stop whining! Look and see
how many quills are stuck on me! ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills . . . copy this down. . . . ~ J.K. Rowling

To value the tradition of, and the discipline required for, the craft of fiction seems today pointless. The real Arcadia is a lonely, mountainous plateau, overbouldered and strewn with the skulls of sheep slain for vellum and old bitten pinions that tried to be quills. It's forty rough miles by mule from Athens, a city where there's a fair, a movie house, cotton candy. ~ Alexander Theroux

In our marriage - in every marriage? - no annoyed glance holds only the displeasure of the moment. Each one reflects all the irritated glances he's ever shot at me for all of my transgressions: for lacking discipline, for being brittle and sharp, for overreacting, for swearing all the time, even in front of Hannah, for letting my worst self porcupine out before I retract my quills. Every exasperated look Chris gives me - and there have been plenty - carries the sediment of all the displeasure that has accumulated over the past fifteen years. ~ Lauren Fox

Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,/ In the dawn clouds flying,/ How good to go, light into light, and still/ Giving light, dying. ~ Sara Teasdale

Relationships with negative people are simply tedious encounters with porcupines. You don't have the remote knowledge how to be close to them without quills being shot in your direction. ~ Shannon L. Alder

One cold winter's day a number of porcupines huddled together quite closely in order, through their mutual warmth, to prevent themselves from being frozen. But they soon felt the effects of their quills on one another, which made them again move apart. Now, when the need for warmth once again brought them together, the drawback of the quills was repeated so they were tossed between two evils, until they discovered the proper distance from which they could best tolerate one another. Thus the needs for society, which springs from the emptiness and monotony of men's lives, drives them together but their many unpleasant and repulsive qualities once more drive them apart. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

The old woman sits on a bench before the door and quarrels
With her meagre pale demoralized daughter.
Once when I passed I found her alone, laughing in the sun
And saying that when she was first married
She lived in the old farmhouse up Garapatas Canyon.
(It is empty now, the roof has fallen
But the log walls hang on the stone foundation; the redwoods
Have all been cut down, the oaks are standing;
The place is now more solitary than ever before.)
"When I was nursing my second baby
My husband found a day-old fawn hid in a fern-brake
And brought it; I put its mouth to the breast
Rather than let it starve, I had milk enough for three babies.
Hey how it sucked, the little nuzzler,
Digging its little hoofs like quills into my stomach.
I had more joy from that than from the others."
Her face is deformed with age, furrowed like a bad road
With market-wagons, mean cares and decay.
She is thrown up to the surface of things, a cell of dry skin
Soon to be shed from the earth's old eye-brows,
I see that once in her spring she lived in the streaming arteries,
The stir of the world, the music of the mountain. ~ Robinson Jeffers

You can't be a proper writer without a touch of madness, can you? ~ Kate Winslet