Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by A.J. Lauer

Quote by A.J. Lauer

Work

Armageddon: Pick Your Plot

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

A.J. Lauer

Browse famous quotes and profile details for A.J. Lauer. more

You May Also Like

“Ariel moved farther in, picking up and putting down the disgusting little pieces of bric-a-brac. Among all the horror was an ironically delicate vanity covered in mother-of-pearl- and, intriguingly, all manner of exquisite little glass bottles. Scents from the east, oils from the west, attar of roses, nut butter, extract of myrrh, sandalwood decoctions, jasmine hydrosols... Everything to make someone smell exquisite. Or to mask whatever it was she really smelled like, Ariel thought wryly. Or were the oils and butters for more medicinal reasons- for the cecaelia's skin? Ariel found herself looking at her own hands, rubbing them over each other lightly. Last time she had only been in the Dry World for a few days. Was it- literally- drying? Was it difficult or painful, for creatures from the sea to remain for months battered by void and air, despite their magic? Ariel shivered. Magic didn't make everything simpler. Crossing the thresholds of worlds was no minor thing.”

“Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”

“I am Shiloh, whose box you stole. Your godmother's sickness lies in your own keeping, you can heal her in a moment. Make me your slave, and I must do your will.' 'You can do this,' Sheila said, 'without my taking a gift from you; you are wise and skilled. O do it, sir, and I will bless your name for ever.' 'Pooh! what is the good of that?' said he. 'No, I serve a master, the King of Kings, but we are emptiness itself without your mortal alloy. Do as I bid and I will serve you like a queen. And if you fear me you have only to put me to sleep and I shall sleep for seven hundred years.' 'No,' said the tempted girl slowly, 'not even for godmother can I do this; you are full of evil. Lies, lies! Why do you lie so?' 'O,' Shiloh said, 'because I am weary, and dissimulation is stimulation.' 'I don't understand that.' 'Well, it is so.' He yawned and yawned. 'Besides, I am the Other Side of things. All you think good may be bad, all you think bad may be good.' 'And I don't understand that.' Shiloh replied: 'Strong meat for men and lily buds for maids; did Ajax feed on apples?' 'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Sheila.”

“The two other members of Dain's spy troupe also have code names. There's the lean, handsome faerie that looks at least part human, who winks and tells me to call him the Ghost. He has sandy-coloured hair, which is normal for a mortal, but is unusual for a faerie, and ears that come to very subtle points. The other is a tiny, delicate girl, her skin the dappled brown of a doe, her hair a cloud of white around her head, and a miniature pair of blue-grey butterfly wings on her back. She's got at least some pixie in her, if not some imp. ... 'I'm the Bomb,' she says. 'I like blowing things up.”