The Ill Made Mute Quotes

Speechless, castaway and wry
a spellbound oddity am I
my feet are locked upon the clay
my gaze is locked upon the sky ~ Cecilia Dart-Thornton

Before I went to bed that night, Danny and I talked about my mother. Matilda was easily the movie I'd made that she was most excited about, but she had died while we were doing postproduction. I'd always felt sad that she wasn't able to see the completed film.

I was floored when he told me he'd brought my mother the film while she was in the hospital. It hadn't been fully edited, but she had been able to see what we had. I feel such a sense of peace knowing that, and I'll always be grateful to Danny for it. You, and your story, were a part of her life till the very end. ~ Mara Wilson

You," he snarled, closing his fingers around the front of her jacket again, pulling her against his body and up onto her toes, holding her there as he lowered his mouth to hers. But Sid wasn't ready to kiss and make up, so she bit his lip angrily.

"Look," she snapped, trying without success to push him away. "I get the whole alpha male, vampire lord-of-all-he-surveys thing, okay? I kind of even like it in the bedroom. But out in the real world, you are not the boss of me. I don't forfeit my brain just because we have sex. And I'll do whatever I think necessary to get my story. Besides, it's not like most of what I do is dangerous. I'm not exactly Woodward and Bernstein material. But I'm not stupid either. I don't take unnecessary risks, and I'm careful with the risks I do take."

Aden was eyeing her with very little expression on his face, which made it difficult to tell how he was receiving her liberated woman speech. Whatever his reaction was, however, it didn't extend to his body which was hard and ready to fuck, and no question about it.

"Kind of like it?" he asked finally, a corner of his mouth curling upward with amusement as he focused on the one part of her speech that she'd thought he'd have no problem with. "I think I can do better than that. ~ D.B. Reynolds

I am one of the great wasters of time. I have made it an art form. I can get up at 8 o'clock in the morning, be out of the house by 8:30 and back by 5 P.M., and I'll be going all day long and accomplish absolutely nothing. It's an amazing talent. ~ Bob Newhart

There is a – let us say – a machine. It evolved itself (I am severely scientific) out of a chaos of scraps of iron and behold! – it knits. I am horrified at the horrible work and stand appalled. I feel it ought to embroider – but it goes on knitting. You come and say: "this is all right; it's only a question of the right kind of oil. Let us use this – for instance – celestial oil and the machine shall embroider a most beautiful design in purple and gold". Will it? Alas no. You cannot by any special lubrication make embroidery with a knitting machine. And the most withering thought is that the infamous thing has made itself; made itself without thought, without conscience, without foresight, without eyes, without heart. It is a tragic accident – and it has happened. You can't interfere with it. The last drop of bitterness is in the suspicion that you can't even smash it. In virtue of that truth one and immortal which lurks in the force that made it spring into existence it is what it is – and it is indestructible!
It knits us in and it knits us out. It has knitted time space, pain, death, corruption, despair and all the illusions – and nothing matters. I'll admit however that to look at the remorseless process is sometimes amusing. ~ Joseph Conrad

He said, 'If the torture were to stop now, I might still recover - if never my looks, then at least my strength - '" "'My kes,'" Jake said, and although he'd never heard the word before he pronounced it correctly, almost as if it were kiss. "' - and my kes. But another week . . . or maybe five days . . . or even three . . . and it will be too late. Even if the torture stops, I'll die. And you'll die too, for when love leaves the world, all hearts are still. Tell them of my love and tell them of my pain and tell them of my hope, which still lives. For this is all I have and all I am and all I ask.' Then the boy turned and went out. The batwing door made its same sound. Skree-eek. ~ Stephen King

I warned you I'd overstep," he muttered. "I apologize."
"No," Phoebe said curtly, surprising him. "I wanted your opinion. You've made some points worth considering."
West's head lifted, and he looked at her with unconcealed surprise. He'd fully expected her to give him a sharp set-down, or simply turn on her heel and walk off. Instead, Phoebe had set aside her pride long enough to listen to him, which few women of her rank would have done.
"Although next time you might try a gentler manner," she said. "It usually helps criticism go down easier."
Staring into her silver eyes was like drowning in moonlight. West found himself at a complete loss for words.
They were within arms' reach of each other. How had that happened? Had he moved closer, or had she?
His voice was a husk of sound as he managed a reply. "Yes. I... I'll be gentle next time." That hadn't sounded right. "Gentler. With you. Or... anyone." None of that sounded right, either. "It wasn't criticism," he added. "Just helpful hints." Christ. His thoughts were in a heap.
She was breathtaking up close, her skin reflecting light like the silk of butterfly wings. The lines of her throat and jaw were a precise framework of a mouth as full and rich as flowers in deep summer. Her fragrance was subtle and dry and alluring. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The entire time I'm burning in Hell, I'll regret each tear I made you weep. But if Hell were the price for twenty days with you, I'd condemn myself again and again.
- Cian MacKeltar ~ Karen Marie Moning

I'll tell you one thing," Sorensen said. "If Hillary Clinton should ever become president, God forbid ... " The crowd hissed and booed. Sorensen raised his hands. "If, God forbid, something like that were ever to happen, one of the first things they'd try to do is tax the churches. You can count on that," he said. The crowd gasped at the audacity of the suggestion. I found it ironic that by singling out Hillary specifically, Sorensen had just done the one thing that made the church no longer deserve tax-free status. ~ Matt Taibbi

I haven't got the heart to take the mickey out of him, even," said Fred, looking over at Ron's crumpled figure. "Mind you ... when he missed the fourteenth ... "
He made wild motions with his arms as though doing an upright doggy-paddle.
"Well, I'll save it for parties, eh? ~ J.K. Rowling

I pictured Becs and myself together, squabbling, but always over little things, while I rotted away at the core from love of Ferris.
It was hopeless.
'Here.' I laid my hands on the table, palms up, and jerked my head at them, 'put yours on top.'
Ferris did not move.
'Please,' I said.
He laid his cold hands on mine and I curled my fingers, folding his within them.
'Now,' I said, 'I've neither accepted nor refused. Speak it out plainly, tell me and I'll do it.'
He cried, 'Don't put it onto me! Choose for yourself.'
'This is choosing. Tell Aunt I will do whatever you'll have me do, and that's my answer.' I kept hold of his fingers. We stayed there silent and motionless for some time, while the candles burnt down.
At last he said quietly, 'It is a lot to give up.'
'Well. My history is bad enough without bigamy,' I replied, at which he smiled but made no reply. The candles were half burnt. I took one and rose.
'Goodnight, Ferris.'
'Goodnight, Jacob. ~ Maria McCann

Are we running hot or something?" Peabody demanded. "So a person can't take a minute to have a cup of coffee and maybe a small bite to eat, especially when the person got off a full subway stop early to work off the anticipated bite to eat."
"If you're finished whining about it, I'll fill you in."
"A real partner would have brought me a coffee to go so I could drink it while being filled in."
"How many coffee shops did you pass on your endless and arduous hike from the subway?"
"It's not the same," Peabody muttered. "And it's not my fault I'm coffee spoiled. You're the one who brought the real stufff made from real beans into my life. You addicted me." She pointed an accusing finger at Eve. "And now you're withholding the juice."
"Yes, that was my plan all along. And if you ever want real again in this lifetime, suck it up and do my bidding."
Peabody stared. "You're like Master Manipulator. An evil coffee puppeteer."
"Yes, yes, I am. Do you have any interest, Detective, in where we're going, who we're going to see, and why?"
"I'd be more interested if I had coffee. ~ J.D. Robb

You can run. You can keep running to the ends of the earth. But I won't be far behind you."
"Ethan - "
"No. I will never be far behind you." He tipped up my chin so that I could do nothing else but look back into his eyes. "Do the things you need to do. Learn to be a vampire, to be a warrior, to be the soldier you are capable of being. But consider the possibility that I made a mistake I regret - and that I'll continue to regret that mistake and try to convince you to give me another chance until the earth stops turning. ~ Chloe Neill

I'm sorry if I made you think I don't trust you."
"You don't. Not yet. And that's okay. Just stop assuming I'm only out to hurt you, or take something you're not willing to give. If you're not interested, all you have to do is say so. I can't say I won't be disappointed, but I'll leave you alone if that's what you want."
"I am interested," she said more boldly than she actually felt. "Please understand, my caution comes from experience. You've already proven you're not like the asshole. I'm glad you came last night. I'm glad you're still here this morning."
"See, I'm not so hard to like," he teased, putting her at ease after the tense moments they'd just shared.

-Claire & Owen ~ Jennifer Ryan

Setting down her own basket, Annabelle held a pin between her thumb and forefinger, and closed her eyes. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she always made the same wish…to marry a peer. Strangely, however, a new thought entered her head, just as she cast the pin into the well.
I wish I could fall in love.
Surprised by the wilful, wayward notion, Annabelle wondered how it was that she could have wasted a wish on something that was obviously so ill-advised. Opening her eyes, Annabelle saw that the other wallflowers were staring into the well with great solemnity. "I made the wrong wish," she said fretfully. "Can I have another?"
"No," Lillian said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Once you've thrown in your pin, it's done."
"But I didn't mean to make that particular wish," Annabelle protested. "Something just popped into my head, and it wasn't at all what I had planned."
"Don't argue, Annabelle," Evie advised. "You d-don't want to annoy the well spirit."
"The what?"
Evie smiled at her perplexed expression. "The resident spirit of the well. He's the one to whom y-you make a petition. But if you annoy him, he may decide to demand a terrible price for granting your wish. Or he may drag you into the well with him, to live there forever as his c-consort."
Annabelle stared into the brown water. She cupped her hands around the sides of her mouth to help direct her voice. "You don't have to grant my rotten wish," she told the unseen spi ~ Lisa Kleypas

When one has apparently made up one's mind to spend the evening at home and has donned one's house-jacket and sat down at the lamplit table after supper and do the particular job or play the particular game on completion of which one is in the habit of going to bed, when the weather out is so unpleasant as to make staying in the obvious choice, when one has been sitting quietly at the table for so long already that one's leaving must inevitably provoke general astonishment, when the stairwell is in any case in darkness and the street door locked, and when in spite of all this one stands up, suddenly ill at ease, changes one's coat, reappears immediately in street clothes, announces that one has to go out and after a brief farewell does so, feeling that one has left behind one a degree of irritation commensurate with the abruptness with which one slammed the apartment door, when one then finds oneself in the street possessed of limbs that respond to the quite unexpected freedom one has procured for them with out-of-the-ordinary agility, when in the wake of this one decision one feels capable, deep down, of taking any decision, when one realizes with a greater sense of significance than usual that one has, after all, more ability than one has need easily to effect and endure the most rapid change, and when in this frame of mind one walks the long city streets - then for that evening one has stepped completely outside one's family, which veers into inessentiality, while one's ow ~ Franz Kafka

For the man in the street, the philosophies of opposites, particularly Good and Evil, have served as a torture chamber, a crucifix made from metaphor. Thrust into a world which views him as the property of Gods and States and overwhelmed by an unrepayable debt, the metaphysics of slavery and the facts of pain, pleasure and death; bolstered by science, whose theorists have become the whores of the state, man is now informed that he is ill. The proof of this is his refusal to submit completely. The world debt is due to his saying 'no' to total slavery. He will not obey. We are at War, and man is the enemy. The question is: Who is on the other side? ~ Christopher S. Hyatt

Too tired of living under the same sky with their old faces.
So sick of being in the same room with their echoing voices.
They made my soul heavy, as much as they corrupted my mind.
They forced me to see my world in their colors as if I were a colorblind.
A walking dead is what they made of me, but I cannot take this anymore.
I'll find my way back home to the old me;
To the beautiful dreamy little girl I've been before… ~ Samiha Totanji

He reached for me, and fast as lightning, he boxed my ears. All I remember is the world exploding. Cassandra says she helped me back to our room, and there was blood coming from my left ear. My right ear mended in a day or two, but I could only hear a little out of the left one, and there was a beating pain deep down. Soon I took ill with fever. Mama said that had nothing to do with the ear, but I think it did."
Pandora paused, unwilling to relate any of the distasteful details of her ear suppurating and draining. She glanced cautiously at Gabriel, whose face was averted. He was no longer playing with her braid. His hand had clenched around it until the muscles of his forearms and wrist stood out.
"Even after I recovered from the fever," Pandora said, "the hearing didn't come back all the way. But the worst part was that I kept losing my balance, especially at night. It made me afraid of the dark. Ever since then-" She stopped as Gabriel lifted his head.
His face was hard and murderous, the hellfrost in his eyes frightening her more than her father's fury ever had.
"That bloody son of a bitch," he said softly. "If he were still alive, I'd beat him with a thresher's flail."
Pandora reached out with a fluttering motion, patting the air near him. "No," she said breathlessly, "no, I wouldn't want that. I hated him for a long time, but now I feel sorry for him."
Gabriel caught her hand in midair, swift but gentle, as if it were a bird he wanted to hol ~ Lisa Kleypas

There's no point putting your heart and soul into a part when you know in advance it isn't worth the trouble. I'm not speaking as a dedicated actress. Enthusiasm and hard work are requisites for any job a person undertakes. I tried working just for money once and it made me almost physically ill. ~ Lizabeth Scott

I was in full digression! far from the subject! ... my colonel was losing track ... rapidly, of my story! my story! ... my own story! ... the gifts that I had personally received from Heaven! ... yet I had insisted, every time! truly extraordinary gifts! ... I'd made him repeat them a hundred times! ... enough so he'd remember! that I was the only true genius! the century's only writer! the proof: that no one ever spoke of me! ... everyone was jealous! Nobel! no Nobel! they had all joined forces to have me executed! ... they could just go fuck off! ... drop dead! since it was a question of death between me and them! I'll send their readers packing! all their readers! I'll make the public grow sick of their books! cabal! no cabal! since there was no room for two styles! ... it was mine or theirs! ... crawl or breastroke! ... you understand! ... the only inventor of the century! is me! me! me right here! the only genius, you might say! damned or not! ... ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

I'll cab it home."
"Naw. I'll hang until you're through. Then I'll drag you back to your apartment. Watch you throw up for an hour. Push you into bed. Before I leave I'll get the coffee machine set up. Aspirin will be right next to the sugar bowl."
"I don't have a sugar bowl."
"So it'll be next to the bag."
Butch smiled. "You'd have made a great wife, Jose."
"That's what mine tells me. ~ J.R. Ward

We say that the world is made of sea and land, as though they were equal; but we know that there is more sea in the Western than in the Eastern hemisphere. We say that the firmament is full of stars, as though it were equally full; but we know that there are more stars under the Northern than the Southern pole. We say the element of man are misery and happiness, as though he had an equal proportion of both, and the days of man vicissitudinary, as though he had as many good days as ill, and that he lived under a perpetual equinoctial, night and day equal, good and ill fortune in the same measure. But it is far from that; he drinks in misery, and he tastes happiness; he journeys in misery, he does but walk in happiness: and, which is worstn his misery is positive and dogmatical, his happiness is but disputable and problematical: all men call misery misery, but happiness changes the name by the taste of man. ~ John Donne

She can sense things . . . Things the rest of us can't.She only knew there was a strange feel to you, and she'd only ever felt that around one other person. So she brought you to me."
"Seems like she could have done that without me having to carry a household's worth of stuff."
This made him laugh. "Don't take it personally. She was testing you. She wanted to see if you're a worthy match for her grandson."
"What's the point? He's dead now." I nearly choked on the words.
"True, but for her, it's still important. And, by the way, she does think you're worthy."
"She has a funny way of showing it."

[..]

Paul stuck his head out the back door. "Grandmother wants to leave now," he told me. "She wants to know why you're taking so long and said to ask why you'd make someone as old as her keep waiting and suffering with her back."
I recalled how fast Yeva had been walking while I struggled to keep up with my load. Her back hadn't seemed all that bad to me.
"Okay. I'll be right there." When he was gone, I shook my head. "It's hard being worthy. ~ Richelle Mead

Perhaps we underestimated your mother," he said. "I can't imagine she would have made it so easy for anyone to find."

"A World War isn't enough of a hurdle?" Etta asked, rubbing her hand over her face. "Okay, okay…we just have to think this through.…"

"I do have an idea, but I'm afraid it's terrible," Nicholas said, surveying the lock on the gate and giving it another hard tug.

"A bad idea is better than no idea," Etta said.

"I'm glad you feel that way, because this is an exquisitely bad one." He turned toward her. "We can go around the back of the museum and I can lift you over the gate. You can then slip into the museum and hold any guards or curators inside hostage, until they give up the information about the location of the statues."

"Hold them hostage?" she repeated.

"Don't you know? That's how real pirates like Blackbeard made most of their money. He ransomed whole cities," he said. "I'll even teach you how to use the revolver."

Despite herself, Etta smiled. "I really appreciate the faith you have in my criminal abilities. But even if I find someone in there, I doubt they'll be good for anything other than calling the police to pick me up. It seems like the kind of information people would do anything to protect ~ Alexandra Bracken

I'll give them my number, too. And my brother Vishous made sure we have the best reception and service in the city. No dead zones. Unless you're around Lassiter, and that's more of a mental thing than anything about cellular networks."

"Um ... Lassiter?" Bitty said.

Rhage nodded. "Yeah, he's this pain in the ass--oh, shit--I mean, sorry, I shouldn't say ass around you, should I? Or shit. And all those other bad words." He poked himself in the head. "I gotta remember that, gotta remember that. Anyway, Lassiter's a fallen angel who we've somehow gotten stuck with. He's like gum on the bottom of your shoe. 'Cept he doesn't smell like strawberries, he hogs the T.V. remote, and on a regular basis. you think to yourself, Is that really the best the Creator could do with an immortal? The guy has the worst taste in television--I mean, the only saving grace is that he isn't addicted to Bonanza ...have you ever watched twelve straight hours of Saved by the Bell? Okay, fine, it was probably only seven, and it wasn't like I couldn't have left--my God, I tell you, though, it's a wonder I escaped with my ability to put my pants on one leg at a time still intact ... ~ J.R. Ward

dropped the leather satchel beside it. "There you go." He turned to leave, but she called his name. He stopped in the doorway but didn't turn. "You're not going to stay while I go through them?" He turned his head to the side. "So I can see what you packed to start your new life? No, Grace, I think I'll give that a pass." The distressed little sound she made echoing in his ears, he went downstairs, where he lay down on the couch and draped an arm over his eyes. Grace turned back to the bed, looking ~ Norah Wilson

If that's the case, hurrah for the crazy people! Look, Lola, do you remember a single name, for instance, of any of the soldiers killed in the Hundred Years War? Did you ever try to find out who any of them were? No! You see? You never tried. As far as you are concerned, they are as anonymous, as indifferent, as the last atom of that paperweight, as your morning bowel movement. Get into your head, Lola, that they died fot nothing! For absolutely nothing, the idiots! I say it and I'll say it again! I've proved it! The one thing that counts is life! In ten thousand years, I'll bet you, this war, remarkable as it may seem to us at present, will be utterly forgotten... Maybe here and there in the world a handful of scholars will argue about its causes or the dates of the principal hecatombs that made it famous. Up until now those are the only things about men that other men have thought worth remembering after a few centuries, a few years, or even a few hours... I don't believe in future, Lola... ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

He says, "This hotel is very cheap, ma cherie. The innkeeper behind the desk said our room was forty francs a night but only twenty francs if we made our own bed." He listens to her breathe. "So I said, 'Oh, we can make our own bed.' And he said, 'Right, I'll get you some nails and wood.'"
Marie-Laure still does not smile. ~ Anthony Doerr

It took some time for his storm to pass, some time for him to stop shuddering in her arms. But after they stood there locked together awhile, his strong arms began to loosen their grip and his shaking to subside.
Encouraged by that, she stretched up to brush soothing kisses over his jaw, his cheek, his lips.
He jerked back, and as he searched her face, the dark shadows in his eyes receded a little. "Oh, God, Jane, why did I let you go?" he asked in an aching voice that resonated to her very soul. "I've been lost ever since."
The words melted the last corner of ice in her heart, and when he lowered his head to hers, she rose to him like a shoot stretching for the sun.
Moaning low in his throat, he devoured her mouth, his kiss pure hot passion, so all-consuming that within moments she had to pull free just to breathe. Then he shifted his kisses to her cheek and ear and jaw, branding everything as his.
"I need you," he said against her throat. "God help me for it, but I do. All these years without you have been hell." Kissing her neck, he fisted his hands in her sleeves. "I want to strip this gown from you. I want to lay you down in that straw over there and have my way with you."
The words made her exult. "Then do it," she murmured against his hair. "Now. Tonight. Have your way with me, and I'll have mine with you. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Who's this?" he said, coming across a name he didn't recognize. "Lady Georgina of Sandalhurst? Why are we inviting her? I don't know her. Why are we asking people we don't know?"
I know her," Pauline replied. There was a certain steeliness in her voice that Halt would have done well to recognize. "She's my aunt, Bit of an old stick, really, but I have to invite her."
You've never mentioned her before," Halt challenged.
True. I don't like her very much. As I said, she's a bit of an old stick."
Then why are we inviting her?"
We're inviting her," Lady Pauline explained, "because Aunt Georgina has spent the last twenty years bemoaning the fact that I was unmarried. 'Poor Pauline!' she'd cry to anyone who'd listen. 'She'll be a lonley old maid! Married to her job! She'll never find a husband to look after her!' It's just too good an opportunity to miss."
Halt's eyebrows came together in a frown. There might be a few things that would annoy him more than someone criticizing the woman he loved, but for a moment, he couldn't think of one.
Agreed," he said. "And let's sit her with the most boring people possible at the wedding feast."
Good thinking," Lady Pauline said. She made a note on another sheet of paper. "I'll make her the first person on the Bores' table."
The Bores' table?" Halt said. "I'm not sure I've heard that term."
Every wedding has to have a Bores' table," his fiance explained patiently. "We take all the boring, annoyin ~ John Flanagan

Windham, but not often. There were no murders in anyone's memory, no rapes or molestations or sudden disappearances. It's a quiet town. Windham was perfect, we thought. Safe and sound, and that's where Veronica and I would grow up. We moved there ten years ago. That was in April 2005. I was nine and my little sister Veronica was almost three. My dad, Dr. Simon Taylor, had made a bunch from the popularity of his book, and it was number four on the best-seller list and still holding fast. I'll bet fifty thousand a month was tumbling in, and Dad had already signed a two million dollar advance on his next book. ~ Peter Gilboy