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A Quotes

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All A Quotes

“Ah, yeah. Yeah, tis awful all right. Well, your Mam wanted me to talk to you about it, but…’ He stopped; he didn’t know what else to say. ‘Yeah? Ah, I know the score, Dad. She wants me to be careful, is it?’ ‘Ah, no. Well, yeah; there’s that, of course. No, she wanted… well, if you’d any questions, you know?’ I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to say yes, or if he just wanted me to say no, and save him having to be awkward. He looked lost. I felt like I wanted to save him ‘No, I’ve no questions, Dad. It’s all right, shur.’ He looked at me then. His eyes went wet, like he was going to start bawling. If we were in a film, he might have hugged me. But we were in Limerick, so he just said: ‘Well, so,’ and put his one glove back on. From The Boys of Summer”

“Ah yes…” He made an exaggerated nod. “I was supposed to be filling you in on Nangí’s story.” He winked at me playfully, as I kept up my glare. “Now, where should I begin?” “Tell you what, let me get you started,” I came back. “Once upon a time, there was this über-creepy old man—who looks like he lives in a haunted shack and eats small children for breakfast—and I decided to make him my new best friend becaaauuse… Okay, your turn.”

“ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

“Ah yes, of course, Spiders. Is it their size? Do you fear the ones you cannot see, dunnot sense until they bite you and you die a horrible, painful death? Or would you prefer a giant, fist-sized one? One that towers above buildings like in an old shit-show production? I quite think you would. Now personally, one of my least favourite thing about spiders is their fangs. You see, their fangs are a mixture of rat’s fur and small dragon teeth. They manage to be sharp, deadly, and disgustingly hairy. Oh, and the colour of death. It makes me shiver just to think about those pincers closing in on a nice, fleshy, alive part of my body. I do think I’d be forced to amputate or decapitate. Possibly both.” "Anywhore, their fangs aren’t what get most people. It’s their eyes. Kinda creepy, don’t ya think? We have two, they have….well, too many ov’em. Would you like to see yourself reflected umpteenth times in a spider’s trippily reflective little eyes? Right before they smile and their fangs grab ya that is. No? I should hope not. You also have the venom and that shifty way they move to consider. Venom can kill anything, no matter how tough or large they are. And the whole eight legs shuffly shifty quicky thing just spooks the shit outta me mate. Death and spiders. They’re pretty much the same thing to some. Some being me, of course. Then again, I’m quite normal.”

“Ah, yes, true that,” Jarlaxle agreed, feigning defeat. “It escaped me that you are without the strong sense of irony to go that delicious route.” Jarlaxle turned to the others. “So we have it, then,” he declared. “It was the illithids, a grand and brilliant plan! Or it was Lolth herself, ever making chaos for her enjoyment. Or it was one of her great rivals, then—perhaps Demogorgon!—blowing up the whole damned Lolthian world on Faerun.” “Or it was nothing at all beyond the epiphany of two women in position to make a difference,” Entreri said dryly. He sighed and shook his head, then looked up at Wulfgar, who stood beside him. “You see, my friend?” he asked with sarcasm exceeding that of the others. “This is why we can’t have good things, good thoughts, simple joy, or hope.” Jarlaxle laughed loudly at that, amused. But there really was a nagging doubt here, about all of it. The most important lesson he had learned in his desperate struggle to survive in Menzoberranzan was that nothing—nothing!—was as it seemed. Not ever. But how he wanted to believe that this time would be different.”

“Ah, you don’t comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, ‘May I come in?’ is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say, ‘I am here.’ Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young girl; I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn; I give my time, my skill, my sleep; I let my other sufferers want that so she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very grave—laugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say ‘Thud! thud!’ to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boy—that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my father-heart yearn to him as to no other man—not even to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son—yet even at such moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, ‘Here I am! here I am!’ till the blood come dance back and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall—all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be.”

“Ah, you may sit under them, yes. They cast a good shadow, cold as well-water; but that's the trouble, they tempt you to sleep. And you must never, for any reason, sleep beneath a cypress.' He paused, stroked his moustache, waited for me to ask why, and then went on: 'Why? Why? Because if you did you would be changed when you woke. Yes, the black cypresses, they are dangerous. While you sleep, their roots grow into your brains and steal them, and when you wake up you are mad, head as empty as a whistle.' I asked whether it was only the cypress that could do that or did it apply to other trees. 'No, only the cypress,' said the old man, peering up fiercely at the trees above me as though to see whether they were listening; 'only the cypress is the thief of intelligence. So be warned, little lord, and don't sleep here.”

“Ah, you pitiful, pitiful creatures! Beautiful family! Nobler far than stupid men..." he cried softly to himself. What was he doing here with his arrow? Cornering these creatures? Armor--an armor to brag about! Save his dignity before that armor-maker because of a promise? Foolish...foolish! If the old man jeered at him, why should it matter anymore; a common suit of armor would do as well! Armor did not make a man, nor did it signify valor. "Dumb creatures that you are, how magnificent! Sorrow, love--parental love incarnate! Were I that fox--what if Tokiko and Shigemori were trapped like this? Even the beast can rise above itself--could I as much?”

“Ah! but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.”