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H Quotes

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All H Quotes

“He knew he was often laughed at behind his back, and sometimes to his face. So what? He didn’t care! He knew what he knew and he also knew what he didn’t know and that was enough for him. Still, his fame had spread lately and he was continually being bothered by people seeking the ultimate truth, as if such a thing could ever be conceptualized and put into plain words. Besides, it wasn’t up to him to tell people the “ultimate truth”. He could only share his truth, and even that changed from day to day, just like the ongoing cycles of the seasons.”

“He knew he was overfastidious. But how could one write history with Macaulay so close behind? Fiction or poetry, in the midst of the greatest galaxy of talent in the history of English literature? How could one be a creative scientist, with Lyell and Darwin still alive? Be a statesman, with Disraeli and Gladstone polarizing all the available space? You will see that Charles set his sights high. Intelligent idlers always have, in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence.”

“He knew he was slipping. Blood was dripping down his arm, through his fingers. He'd faced death before, was no stranger to the sensation of knowing this breath, this one breath, could be the last you drew. But he'd be damned if it would. Not when his woman was watching him with terrified eyes, calling to him, risking her life to save his. He set his teeth, gave his injured arm his weight. Pain swam sickly in his head, into his gut as he reached up to her. And her hand gripped his, firm and strong.”

“He knew his antenatal history, knew it in every detail, and it was a thing to keep causes well before him. What was his frank judgement of so much of its ugliness, he asked himself, but a part of the cultivation of his humility? What was this so important step he had just taken but the desire for some new history that should, so far as possible, contradict, and even if need be flatly dishonour, the old? If what had come to him wouldn't do he must make something different.”

“He knew his father would not have approved. A man is supposed to be fierce. A man is a hunter and a warrior. A MAN beats his mate because she is smaller and gentler than he is (Okor scowled as he thought this). A man should not be gentle. All other creatures on earth walk in fear of the one called Man. Man does not paint faces on little girls' dolls, and he does not rescue drowning insects - yet I knowthese things to be right and good - for I am different. I am still a man, but I am the Strange One - that is what I am. Okor wept.”

“He knew how often I needed to travel to be sane, what my favorite places were, which seat I would choose in a restaurant, which songs I listened to depending on my mood, how I looked when I was hungry, how much sugar I would like in my coffee, what hurt me and what would fix it, when I craved a hug and how tight should that be, how to make out my mood from my voice and how fast my heart would beat if I was asked to address a gathering of five hundred people.”

“He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down it clear to the bottom. And after you had been down inside pain a while you found that like with cold water it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around it trying to get up your nerve. He knew pain.”

“He knew I was gay for ages," he said, his voice soft. "We both did. Since we were, like, ten or eleven, maybe. As soon as we understood what gay was, we knew that's what I was. We... We used to kiss sometimes, when we were kids. When we were alone. Just little childish kisses, little pecks on the lips because we thought it was fun. We were always... really affectionate with each other. We'd cuddle and... we were kind to each other, rather than nasty like most children. I think we were so caught up in each other that we just... missed all the heteronormative propaganda that's thrust at you when you're that age. We didn't really realize it was weird until - yeah, until we were ten or eleven. But that didn't really stop us. I guess... I guess I always felt like it was more romantic than Aled did. Aled always just treated it like it was something that friends did rather than boyfriends. Aled... he's always been weird. He doesn't care what people think. He doesn't even, like, register the social norms... he's just caught up in his own little world.”

“He knew immediately what he should cook for Maura, the journey he would take her on. They could make them together--- varenyky. Thin-skinned dumplings bursting with lightly sugared sour cherries, their warm, dark juice flooding your mouth. Or the cheese kind--- soft, sweet kernels of curd luxuriating in a pool of liquid butter. The meat ones, his dad's take on pelmeni, beef and pork and black pepper and onion, boiled first and then pan-fried, brown and crispy, doused in a poultice of white vinegar and sinus-clearing Russian mustard and thick sour cream. Hell, he'd cook all three.”

“He knew once he stepped into that kind of environment, again, the options would be limited. He’d no longer have the freedom or control to make any important decisions. He’d be just another pawn to be used on the chessboard by the white shirt bosses, who would likely be making their decisions from a safe distant location and passing them along down the totem pole. It was just how his job worked.”

“He knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He was not going to die crouching here like a child playing hide-and-seek; he was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort’s feet . . . he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defense was possible. . . .”