The Young Elites Quotes

I laugh at him, and behind us, several Inquisitors stir in surprise at the sound. Only Magiano can coax joy out of me so easily. ~ Marie Lu

You think me cruel."
"No." Magiano hesitates for a long moment. "Maybe a little."
"I'm not branding them because I am cruel," I say calmly. "I'm doing it as a reminder of what they've done to us. To the marked. You're so quick to forget."
"I never forget," Magiano replies. This time, there is a slight sharpness to his tone. His hand hovers near his side, where his childhood wound continues to plague him. "But branding the unmarked with your crest will not make them any more loyal to you."
"It makes them fear me."
"Fear works best with some love," Magiano says. "Show them that you can be terrifying, yet generous." The gold bands in his braids clink. "Let the people love you a little, mi Adelinetta. ~ Marie Lu

That's another thing to love about me. I steal. ~ Marie Lu

The gods gave us powers, Adelina, because we are born to rule. ~ Marie Lu

If I've learned anything from my past and my present, it's the power of fear. You can give your subjects all the generosity in the world, and still they will demand more. But those who are afraid don't fight back. I know this well enough. ~ Marie Lu

We were never meant to exist, Adelina," he says. "And we will never exist again. But we cannot take the entire world with us." He meets my gaze. "No matter how it has wronged us. ~ Marie Lu

I saw her, once.

"She passed through our village, through fields littered with dead soldiers after her forces overwhelmed the nation of Dumor. Her other Elites followed and then rows of white-robed Inquisitors, wielding the white-and-silver banners of the White Wolf. Where they went, the sky dimmed and the ground cracked - the clouds gathered behind the army as if a creature alive, black and churning in fury. As if the goddess of Death herself had come.

"She paused to look down at one of our dying soldiers. He trembled on the ground, but his eyes stayed on her. He spat something at her. She only stared back at him. I don't know what he saw in her expression, but his muscles tightened, his legs pushing against the dirt as he tried in vain to get away from her. Then the man started to scream. It is a sound I shall never forget as long as I live. She nodded to her Rainmaker, and he descended from his horse to plunge a sword through the dying soldier. Her face did not change at all. She simply rode on.

"I never saw her again. But even now, as an old man, I remember her as clearly as if she were standing before me. She was ice personified. There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen."

- A witness's account of Queen Adelina's siege on the nation of Dumor

The Village of Pon-de-Terre

28 Marzien, 1402 ~ Marie Lu

Yes - at the cost of a third of your army. What will happen when you try to seize what remains of Tamoura? When the Beldish strike at you again? Queen Maeve is watching you, I'm sure." He takes a deep breath. "Adelina, you're Queen of the Sealands now. You've annexed Domacca and northern Tamoura in the Sunlands. At some point, your goal should be not to conquer more territories but to keep order in the territories you do have. And you won't achieve that by ordering your Inquisitors to drag unmarked civilians out into the streets and brand them with a hot iron. ~ Marie Lu

No matter the opinion, everyone knew their names. The Reaper. Magiano. The Windwalker. The Alchemist.
The Young Elites. ~ Marie Lu

Don't forget one weapon just because of another," he says. A flicker of approval flashes in his eyes. "Or you'll find yourself skewered in no time."
"Then maybe you should know which weapons are real. ~ Marie Lu

As you can see, I keep my word," I call to the rest of the crowd. "Do not take advantage of my generosity, and I will not take advantage of your weakness. ~ Marie Lu

You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others. ~ Marie Lu

Everyone knows that to openly show any disrespect for Magiano means instant death at my hands. ~ Marie Lu

You want us to fear you," she growls at me, speaking now in accented Kenettran. "You think that you can come here and destroy our homes, kill our loved ones - then make us grovel at your feet. You think we will sell you our souls for a few coins." She lifts her chin. "But I am not afraid of you."
"Is that so?" I tilt my head at her curiously. "You should be."
She challenges me with a smile. "You can't even bring yourself to spill our blood." She nods in the direction of Sergio, who has already started to draw his sword. "You have one of your lackeys do it for you. You're a coward queen, hiding behind your army. But you cannot crush our spirits beneath your Roses' heels - you cannot win. ~ Marie Lu

I am the nightmare. ~ Marie Lu

If you cast me out of the Dagger Society, then I will form my own. I am tired of losing. I am tired of being used, hurt and tossed aside.
It is my turn to use. My turn to hurt.
My turn. ~ Marie Lu

I will need to root out these insurgents before they can become a real threat. I will need to make a harsher example of their deaths. I will need to be more ruthless.
This is my life now. ~ Marie Lu

The only way to clamp down on my energy is to erase my emotions, and so I fold them each away, one by one. My sorrow turns to anger, then to ice-cold fury. My soul curls in one itself in defense. I am gone. I am truly gone.
I am not sorry. ~ Marie Lu

You are so full of light," I say after a moment. "You align with joy, and I with fear and fury. If you could see into my thoughts, you would surely turn away. So why would you stay with me, even if return to Kenettra and resume our lives?"

"You paint me as a saint," he murmurs. "But I aligned with greed solely to prevent that."

Even now, he can make my lips twitch with a smile. "I'm serious, Magiano."

"As am I. None of us are saints. I have seen your darkness, yes, and know your struggle. I won't deny it." He touches my chin with one hand. At this gesture, the whispers seem to settle, pushed away where I can't hear them. "But you are also passionate and ambitious and loyal. You are a thousand things, mi Adelinetta, not just one. Do not reduce yourself to that. ~ Marie Lu

Every bone in my body yearns to keep this boy safe, always. ~ Marie Lu

No one ever gives my their kindness without hoping for something in exchange.
Are they any different? Are they all the same? They all want to use you, use you, use you until they get what they want, and then they will toss you aside. ~ Marie Lu

The day will come when we strike you down," she's saying. "Mark my words. We will haunt your nightmares."

I clench my fists and fling an illusion of pain across her body. "I am the nightmare. ~ Marie Lu

They were the best of friends as long as they did not know they were supposed to be enemies. The truth would do its damage soon enough.
- Brothers in Fire, by Jedtare ~ Marie Lu

His words remind me of the strange whispers that have accompanied my illusions - something dark and vengeful, tempting and powerful. A weight presses on my chest. I am afraid. Intrigued. ~ Marie Lu

I will wake a hundred times, lost in the madness of this nightmare, until the sunlight streaming through my windows finally burns the scene away. Even then, hours later, I cannot be sure I am not still in my dream.
I am afraid that, one night, I will never wake. I will be doomed to rush to that door over and over again, running from a nightmare in which I am always, forever, lost. ~ Marie Lu

When the manipulations of childhood are a little larceny, they may grow and change with the child into qualities useful and admired in the grown-up world. When they are the futile struggle for love and concern and protection, they may become the warped and ruthless machinations of adults who seek in the advantages of power what they could never win as children. ~ Leontine R. Young

What is important, and I think celebrities should do, is show your children when they are young is that wealth is not important. I took my children when they where young to Brazil, to the shanty towns with children begging. Ever since that day, I have had no problems with my children, if I buy them anything they are grateful. ~ Uri Geller

She was in ward 33 again, lying in bed, a bed with a dark green sheet and a view of the outside. We could both see a man and woman getting out of a taxi. They were young and stood for a while, as if hesitating, in front of the hospital. Then the man took the woman's hand and they walked into the hospital and we lost them.

'That's why Indian women fall ill,' Em said. 'So that their husbands will hold their hands. ~ Jerry Pinto

You're going to pay the bill," said Grahame. "Then I'll escort you and the young lady out to the car. And we'll go back to my place, for a proper talk. Any funny business, and I shoot you both. Capiche? "
Fat Charlie capiched. He also capiched who had been driving the black Mercedes that afternoon and just how close he had already come to death that day. He was beginning to capiche how utterly cracked Grahame Coats was and how little chance Daisy and he had of getting out of this alive. ~ Neil Gaiman

I think one of the ways that these young singers got started is that they would end up in clubs. And a lot of them were mafia owned. And so there was almost an unspoken kind of mafia sponsorship, which is just a very interesting part of that area's music history. ~ John Lloyd Young

Oh, all my friends,
Young or old, mad or sad,
Loving or kind, optimist or pessimist,
Enjoy the drama of life,
enjoy the beauty of life,
enjoy every moment of it,
Because this is it,
We are all in our last journey
We call life. ~ Debasish Mridha

The nursery rhyme ends when a spider comes along and frightens Miss Muffet straight off her tuffet. I have wondered about what kind of lesson this is for a young girl. If you're eating your curds and whey and a spider comes along, I don't think there's anything wrong with picking up a newspaper, smashing it, and going back to your breakfast. ~ Sloane Crosley

That $27,000 that a young player will now get just for making the main draw at the Australian Open is huge. It can set them up for a couple of months which at that level you really do need that kind of help. It sounds like a lot of money, but when you're travelling the world trying to make it as a tennis player, it doesn't last long. ~ Samantha Stosur

Every city is a war. A thousand fights being fought between a hundred groups. Rich, poor, old, young, born-here, and not-born-here. The followers of this god and the followers of that one. Someone will have the upper hand in each of these battles. Those people will make the rules, whether they're administered by priests or soldiers or politicians or programs. Fixing this is hard. Put new people in power, write new laws, erase old ones, build cities out of nothingness - but the wars remain, the underlying conflicts are unaffected. Only power shifts the scales, and people build power only when they come together. When they find in each other the strength to stop being afraid ~ Sam J. Miller

Young Tom Joad and the preacher watched the turtle go - waving its legs and boosting its heavy, highdomed shell along toward the southwest. The cat crept along behind for a while, but in a dozen yards it arched its back to a strong taut bow and yawned, and came stealthily back toward the seated men.
"Where the hell you s'pose he's goin'?" said Joad. "I seen turtles all my life. They're always goin' someplace. They always seem to want to get there."
The gray cat seated itself between and behind them again. It blinked slowly. The skin over its shoulders jerked forward under a flea, and then slipped slowly
back. The cat lifted a paw and inspected it, flicked its claws out and in again experimentally, and licked its pads with a shell-pink tongue ~ John Steinbeck

How far could you trace back such a chain, he wondered, past the Harmon girl being chosen that night to bring his food, past the tree shattering a man's backbone due to a badly notched trunk, past that to an axe unsharpened because a man drank too much the night before, past that to why the man had gotten drunk in the first place? Was it something you never found the end to? Or was there no chain at all, just a moment when you did or didn't step close to a young woman and let you fingers brush a fall of blonde hair behind her ears, did or did not lean to that uncovered ear and tell her that you found her quite fetching." ~G. Pemberton (58) ~ Ron Rash

Well, Mimi Mackson, tell me what you like to bake."
"Lots of things- brownies, cookies, pies, tarts, scones. But cupcakes are my favorite. I like to flavor them with unusual spices and herbs."
"I see. And what's the last thing that you made?"
"Double-chocolate brownies with cinnamon and cayenne, to welcome someone home."
"And prior to that?"
"Cheddar-chive biscuits."
She waved her hand in front of her face like she smelled something bad. "No, no, my word, that will not do at all. Just sweet things, please." She stood and paced behind the desk. "Ha! Cheese and chives! I wouldn't dream of baking, eating, or even serving those, not to win the world."
Well, that was strange. Sweet isn't sweet without savory. One isn't good without the other- I thought everyone knew that. Even the most sugary dessert needs a dash of salt.
Mrs. T sat again. "So tell me then, young Mimi. The best sweet thing you've ever, ever made?"
"Hmm... lemon-lavender cupcakes, I guess. To celebrate friendship. ~ Rajani LaRocca

Will was making a speech, something about having been young and careless once, the sort of thing old-timers said when they issued a deathblow, as if they thought their sanctimonious ramblings disguised as empathy would be welcomed, but Evie was only half listening. ~ Libba Bray

Through the uneven morning mist, she could make out the ruin of the monastery on the northern verge. The broken, roofless walls of outbuildings stretched south of the main ruins in a broken curve. Birches and a few young oaks had grown up where monks had likely once raised vegetables. The rest of the clearing was filled with grass and brambles cut through with newly blazed paths. Four lean-tos had been erected just beyond the stone fence of an overgrown graveyard. ~ Neal Stephenson

Well, good luck to you both. Rome will be the winner whoever is the victor'. Cicero began to move away but then checked himself, and a slight frown crossed his face. He returned to Catulus. 'One more thing, if I may? Who proposed this widening of the franchise?' 'Caesar' Although Latin is a language rich in subtlety and metaphor, I cannot command the words, either in that tongue or even in Greek, to describe Cicero's expression at that moment. 'Dear gods' he said in a tone of utter shock. 'Is it possible he means to stand himself?' 'Of course not. That would be ridiculous. He's far too young. He's thirty-six. He's not yet even been elected praetor' 'Yes, but even so, in my opinion, you would be well advised to reconvene your college as quickly as possible and go back to the existing method of selection.' 'That is impossible' 'Why?' 'The bill to change the franchise was laid before the people this morning' 'By whom?' 'Labienus' 'Ah!' Cicero clapped his hand to his forehead. ~ Robert Harris

The brain is heavily influenced by genes. But from birth through young adulthood, the part of the human brain that most defines us (frontal cortex) is less a product of the genes with which you started life than of what life has thrown at you. Because it is the least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. This must be so, to be the supremely complex social species that we are. Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortext from genes. ~ Robert M. Sapolsky

I remember when I was about 12, I read M. R. James' 'Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary' under the covers, way too young to fully understand what was going on with those stories - completely terrified but absolutely loved them. ~ Tom Goodman-Hill

The blade hovered between us. I could kill him. He could kill me. That's how it was meant to be - there could be nothing else between us now. ~ Jill Criswell

The younger, certainly, had to the full that charm
of a constitutional freshness of aspect which may
defy for a long time extravagant or erring habits of
life; a physiognomy healthy-looking, cleanly, and
firm, which seemed unassociable with any form of
self-tormenting, and made one think of the nozzle of
some young hound or roe, such as human beings
invariably like to stroke - with all the goodliness, that
is, of the finer sort of animalism, though still wholly
animal. It was the charm of the blond head, the
unshrinking gaze, the warm tints: - neither more
nor less than one may see every English summer, in
youth, manly enough, and with the stuff in it which
makes brave soldiers, in spite of the natural kinship
it seems to have with playthings and gay flowers. ~ Walter Pater

Captain Fisher, the commander, with a party of young ladies from the city and gentlemen belonging to his ship, came one day to pay me a visit in the midst of a deluge of rain. ~ Joshua Slocum

My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it. ~ Neil Young

I mean, I think everybody in the world, all the young people in the world, went to journalism school and wanted to investigate everything. And I think they overdid it. I think that you have to investigate things, you have to e skeptical, but you shouldn't be vengeful. You have to be fair and you have to be careful. ~ Katharine Graham

Miss Selina, you have over the past minutes - as in the past months, and indeed, in all the years of your association with him - demonstrated an understanding of Master Bruce, his aspirations, his desires and his demons, that would be the envy of his closest colleagues, who believe they know him better than anybody. It is quite impossible to credit your fear that you 'will not be good at this,' for there is clearly no one in his life better suited to comfort him in tragedy, rejoice with him in triumph, and keep him from being alone in the days and nights in between. If he should 'give up hope,' I have no doubt you would manage the situation with the same sublime felinity you have used to such advantage in the past. Now drink your tea, young woman, and the next time you enjoy, or even sniff, this particular brew, I dare say you will understand how it helps. ~ Chris Dee

I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell. ~ Audre Lorde

Going into the woods, you can go as fast or as slow as you want. It's restorative. Even when I was young, the wilderness offered not only adventure but also therapy and peace: a place to be alone with your thoughts. ~ Jennifer Pharr Davis

I think Michael Crawford realised, I think we all realised, once we'd gone the route of casting a very young girl, you can't really cast a 65 year old man opposite. Slightly different resonance I think. No, we weren't going to go there. We'd have Jack Nicholson in the lead. ~ Andrew Lloyd Webber

In the passion of love, for instance, a cause unknown to the
sufferer, but which is doubtless the spring-flood of hereditary
instincts accidentally let loose, suddenly checks the young
man's gayety, dispels his random curiosity, arrests perhaps his very breath; and when he looks for a cause to explain his
suspended faculties, he can find it only in the presence or image of another being, of whose character, possibly, he knows nothing and whose beauty may not be remarkable; yet
that image pursues him everywhere, and he is dominated by
an unaccustomed tragic earnestness and a new capacity for
suffering and joy.
If the passion be strong there is no previous interest or duty that
will be remembered before it; if it be lasting the whole life may
be reorganized by it, it may impose new habits, other manners,
and another religion.
Yet what is the root of all this idealism? An irrational instinct,
normally intermittent, such as all dumb creatures share, which
has here managed to dominate a human soul and to enlist all the
mental powers in its more or less permanent service, upsetting
their usual equilibrium.
This madness, however, inspires method; and for the first time,
perhaps, in his life, the man has something to live for. ~ George Santayana

Several of my young acquaintances are in their graves who gave promise of making happy and useful citizens and there is no question whatever that cigarettes alone were the cause of their destruction. No boy living would commence the use of cigarettes if he knew what a useless, soulless, worthless thing they would make of him. ~ Luther Burbank

In a city like New York, especially for young professionals who aren't in a family situation, most people don't cook for themselves. This is the only city I've ever lived in where I eat out every night. ~ Cary Fukunaga

Bacon first taught the world the true method of the study of nature, and rescued science from that barbarism in which the followers of Aristotle, by a too servile imitation of their master. ~ Thomas Young

The great mass of women throughout history have been confined to the cultural level of animal life in providing the male with sexual outlet and exercising the animal functions of reproduction and care of the young. ~ Kate Millett

I mean that a battered child has a marvelous capacity to adjust to his torture and will ceaselessly love his battering parents. I mean that the mother of a sexually molested child will not leave nor truly protect the child from the father as long as the man has a good job or otherwise preserves that mother from an economic life which is more horrifying to her than the molestation of her child. I mean that the weakness of the human race is stupefying and that it's not the capacity for evil which astounds young policemen like you and me, Dean. Rather it's the mind boggling worthlessness of human beings. There's not enough dignity in mankind for evil and that's the most terrifying thing a policeman learns. ~ Joseph Wambaugh

Now and then she looked harassed by her own potential, like certain young people, and you might notice then the way a stillness spread through her eyes, and her unguarded face forgot to play a role, just look stunned by confusion and remorse, while the features of this face were organized by a kind of country pride that wouldn't admit confusion or remorse. ~ Nic Pizzolatto

Within days they'd formed an unholy alliance with a foppish young French vampire in the Garden District who had implausibly golden hair and a streak of ruthlessness as wide as the Mississippi ~ Deborah Harkness

It's also reflective of a young person's religion or faith in that it's highly charged with sacramental imagery and with country imagery, because I was in the seminary for so many years in the country. ~ Daniel Berrigan

Excuse me, sir." One the young officers put his hand up to stop them. "Are you Furious Barkley?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Is there a problem, officers?" Doug stepped in front of Furi.

"Damn straight there's a problem." Syn stepped inside the door, yanking his dark aviator glasses off his face. The scowl he wore told Furi this was not a pleasant coincidence. "Thanks guys, you can go."

Furi stood with his mouth hanging open while Syn dismissed the officers.

"Seriously, Starsky. You gonna track my boy down every time he leaves the house?" Doug said angrily, still blocking Furi.

"He's not your boy. And what I do regarding Furi is none of your goddamn business." Syn's clenched jaw made his words sound like an evil hiss. He shouldered past Doug and got directly in Furi's face. "When I've been calling him for over six hours and he hasn't picked up or returned any of my calls, I'll send a fuckin' SWAT team to find him if I want to."

Syn spun and pointed his finger in Doug's face, "That's my say, not yours." Syn's voice was rising with his growing temper, and all eyes were on them.

"Okay, let's get out of here." Furi pushed at both men, urging them out the door.

As soon as they were out in the brisk fall air, Syn rounded on Furi, pushing their chest together. "Where have you been, Furious? I've been going crazy trying to check on you, and you're sitting here casually eating pancakes," Syn growled.
< ~ A.E. Via

[,,,]he saw it as his Christian duty. Jesus had given his life for others, and a knight must do the same, and nothing was nobler than saving a young woman. ~ Melanie Dickerson

To young people born under the weird planet of the SAT, intelligence was equated with agility, with raw acuity. It produced a certain sort of person of which I was a typical specimen: the mental contortionist, able to rise to almost every challenge placed before him, except the challenge of real self-knowledge. ~ Walter Kirn

A canopy of sticky young leaves clung to the branches above him. There were startling yellow clouds of forsythia, trails of purple aubrietia; a young willow shook in a fountain of silver. ~ Rachel Joyce

The gaping hole in her heart is amplified when she catches a glimpse of the strands of silver hair framing her once young face in the mirror. ~ Raquel Cepeda

Maryam closed her eyes and listened as Noruz began. 'You know that every spring, crocuses grow in the courtyard outside. They come from the dirt, green shoots from nothing. One day the flowers come purple as night, the nights when we were young. And inside the petals, saffron grows the color of blood. Then they die, and the ground is dirt again where chickens shit. That's the way of things: saffron, shit, saffron, shit.' Maryam smiled at the word in Noruz's mouth. 'I was sad and Dr. Ahlavi told me this: to remember that saffron comes from the dirt. ~ Yasmin Crowther

Just as I wouldn't expect a gynecologist to have a debate with somebody who believes in the Stork-theory of reproduction, I won't do debates with Young Earth creationists. ~ Richard Dawkins

I think it's important for kids to express themselves with bad fashion. I struggle a little bit now because I have a daughter and I feel with fashion, like they're sexualizing the kids so young. Little kids in high heels and that kind of thing is really difficult for me to wrap my head around. ~ Busy Philipps

Novels are food for the leftover hours of life, the in-between times, the moments of waiting. ~ Young-Ha Kim

Why you runnin' away?"
"The question is, why aren't you?" she asked, biting her lip.
"Do you want to be a Taggerson, Millie?" I whispered, freeing her lip with my teeth and kissing it better.
"A what?" she breathed.
"Or maybe an Andert?" I brushed my mouth over hers again, and her lips opened slightly, waiting for me to apply a little pressure.
"Henry seems to think we should merge our names," I explained.
Millie groaned, and I could feel the embarrassment coming off her in waves.
"Henry really needs to quit asking grown men to marry him," she complained.
"Yeah . . . he's a little young for that kind of commitment. ~ Amy Harmon