Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Gina Marinello-Sweeney

Quote by Gina Marinello-Sweeney

“When faced with a spider, I instantly turn into a fearsome warrior, ready to take on my foe as the female version of Zorro. I enter the combat zone with all the careful observance and skill of the new movies’ Sherlock Holmes. I am ready. I am fearless. And I will be victorious. Once, in a moment of true courage, I took a vacuum cleaner, pulled it to a position above my head, and fired. I was a champion that night. A valiant heroine whose bravery would be sung for many a moon . . . until wondering, hours later . . . IS THAT THING REALLY DEAD?!”

Quote by Gina Marinello-Sweeney

Book:Peter
Create image

Work

Peter

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Gina Marinello-Sweeney

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Gina Marinello-Sweeney. more

You May Also Like

“Arnold had never given much thought to whether or not he loved America—but now it seemed pretty obvious to him that he didn’t. Not in the way Nathan Hale had loved America. Or even in the way his late father, a Dutch-Jewish refugee, had loved America. In fact, he found the idea of sacrificing his life for his country somewhat abhorrent. Moreover, it wasn’t that he disliked abstract loyalties in general. He loved New York, for instance: Senegalese takeout at three a.m., and strolling through the Botanical Gardens on the first crisp day of autumn, and feeding the peacocks at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. If Manhattan were invaded—if New Jersey were to send an expeditionary force of militiamen across the Hudson River—he’d willingly take up arms to defend his city. He also loved Sandpiper Key in Florida, where they owned a time-share, and maybe Brown University, where he’d spent five years of graduate school. But the United States? No one could mistake his qualified praise for love.”

CountryAmericaNew YorkPatriotismNationUnpatrioticBrown UniversityJacob M AppelNathan Hale
Book:The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up
Create image

“Only hinted at in some of these tales, and clearly stated in others, it is apparent that there was a long and continuing conflict between paganism and Christianity in the early centuries A.D. This may also be the explanation behind other well creation tales, such as the slaying by St Barry of a 'great serpent' in County Roscommon. The saint thrust his crozier at it before it disappeared into Lough Lagan, and where his knee touched the ground, a holy well, Tobar Barry, sprang up. Although the serpent may represent paganism, and the saint's victory is therefore the victory of Christianity over paganism, we cannot entirely ignore the possibility that some of the serpents in similar Irish tales may have been real water monsters, which are still seen from time to time in the lakes of Ireland and Scotland. These eerie, ugly monsters, with their aura of primeval mystery, appropriately symbolize the uncouth savagery which the Christians attributed to all non-Christian beliefs; but that is not to say that the monsters were totally symbolic and did not have a reality of their own.”

ChristianityPaganSerpentLake MonsterSea SerpentWater Monster
Book:Sacred Waters
Create image

“Childermass knew what games the children on street-corners are playing - games that all other grown-ups have long since forgotten. Childermass knew what old people by firesides are thinking of, though no one has asked them in years. Childermass knew what young men hear in the rattling of the drums and the tooting of the pipes that makes them leave their homes and go to be soldiers - and he knew the half-eggcupful of glory and the barrelful of misery that await them. And all that Childermass knew made him smile; and some of what he knew made him laugh out loud; and none of what he knew wrung from him so much as ha'pennyworth of pity.”

MagicSlyClever ManSusanna ClarkeJonathan Strange And Mr NorrellChildermass
Book:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Create image

“One cannot write about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell without considering the footnotes. The experienced reader is conditioned to see footnotes as dry, as a way of grounding the text in reality. But footnotes are also an intervention, or intrusion into the flow of the text, and Clarke takes advantage of this figuring. In Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, it is in the footnotes that the world of the fantastic slips through to disrupt the meaning or common understanding of the tale told in the main text. The “explanation” they offer is of worlds slipping between each other, of uncontrolled contact with fairy.”

FootnotesSusanna Clarke
Book:Rhetorics of Fantasy
Create image