S Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with S. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“She had been shaped to be silent, sharpened to please, polished into something beautiful enough to bind. But the hands that broke her had also forged her – each chain a lesson, each collar a scar turned sigil.”
Source: From Valhalla
“She had been sharing a house with him for a week, and he had not once flirted with her. He had worked with her, asked her opinion, slapped her on the knuckles figuratively speaking when she was on the wrong track, and acknowledged that she was right when she corrected him. Dammit, he had treated her like a human being.”
“She had been so angry for so long, anger always under the surface of everything. Whether she was shopping for presents with Simon or sitting in the park or alone at home trying to draw, the anger was always with her.”
Source: City of Heavenly Fire
“She had been so consumed with escaping her own misery, she hadn't considered the misery she might inflict.”
“She had been so vulnerable, and Norah wanted only to protect her. But that vulnerability was tied to a massive mistake, a perception of herself too damaged to love. If Norah got anything from this book, it's that we're all damaged. The tragedy is letting it define you.”
Source: Dorothy Parker Drank Here
“She had been so wicked that in all her life she had done only one good deed-given an onion to a beggar. So she went to hell. As she lay in torment she saw the onion, lowered down from heaven by an angel. She caught hold of it. He began to pull her up. The other damned saw what was happening and caught hold of it too. She was indignant and cried, "Let go-it's my onion," and as soon as she said, "my onion," the stalk broke and she fell back into the flames.”
“She had been struck by the figure of a woman's back in a mirror. She stopped and looked. The dress the figure wore was the color called ashes of roses, and Ada stood, held in place by a sharp stitch of envy or th woman's dress and the fine shape of her back and her thick dark hair and the sense of assurance she seemed to evidence in her very posture.
Then Ada took a step forward, and the other woman did too, and Ada realized that it was herself she was admiring, the mirror having caught the reflection of an opposite mirror on the wall behind her. The light of the lamps and the tint of the mirrors had conspired to shift colors, bleaching mauve to rose. She climbed the steps to her room and prepared for bed, but she slept poorly that night, for the music went on until dawn. As she lay awake she thought how odd it had felt to win her own endorsement.”
Source: Cold Mountain
“She had been the calmest of them all in the immediate aftermath of the attack consoling and reassuring Matthew when he began to cry at the sight of her ink-stained face and the long wound in her arm. She had drawn strength from everyone else's weakness, hoping that her adrenaline-fuelled bravery would carry her safely back to normality, where she would find a sure footing and move on unscathed, without having to pass through the dark mire where she had lived so long after the rape.”
Source: Career of Evil
“She had been the daughter of a half-insane, mean old woman and an ineffective alcoholic father, and she had grown up poor and unwanted. She had been an unmarried welfare mother and finally become a drunk herself.”
Source: The Jailing of Cecelia Capture
“she had been the eldest sister of a large family of self-indulgent children, and her particular form of indulgence had consisted in openly disapproving of the foibles of the others. Unfortunately the hobby had grown up with her.”
Source: The Chronicles of Clovis
“She had been the quiet, rather plain girl, with a surprisingly sharp tongue if she was put out, lovely eyes and pretty hair and a way of looking very directly at one. Now he had to admit that she had become more important to him than anyone else in the world. The idea of a future without her wasn't to be borne. She had by some mysterious metamorphosis become more beautiful than anyone else he had ever encountered.”
Source: Roses Have Thorns
“She had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly.”
Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge
“She had been too well-trained to allow her emotions to take control of her at the time, but the feelings were too strong to quietly recede into a regimen of critical thought. Deep inside her they stewed, logic and reason slowly boiling off. Reduced to their essence, her feelings became more potent, condensed into an emotional certainty. I should have saved them.”
Source: Genesis
“She had been transformed into a lethal machine to gather information, and destroy anyone who interfered with her.”
Source: All That Glitters
“She had been unable to stand the people at the inn. The company had disgusted her. For an instant, but that instant was now long gone, she had thought of returning to her home, to Persia. Or to Greece, where she had friends, but she had dropped the idea
again. From me she had expected salvation, but I too had disappointed her. I was, much as she was, a lost and ultimately ruinous person, even though I did not admit that to her, she could feel it, she knew it. No salvation could come from such a person. On the contrary, such a person only pushed one even deeper into despair and hopelessness. Schumann, Schopenhauer, these were the two words she said after a prolonged silence and I had the impression that she was smiling as she said them, and then nothing again for a long time. She had had everything, heard and seen everything, that was enough. She did not wish to hear from anyone any more. People were utterly distasteful to her, the whole of human society had profoundly disappointed her and abandoned her in her disappointment. There would have been no point in saying anything, and so I just listened and said nothing. I had, she said, on our second walk in the larch-wood, been the first person to explain to her the concept of anarchy in such a clear and decisive manner. Anarchy she said and no more, after that she was again silent. An anarchist, I had said to her in the larch-wood, was only a person who practised anarchy, she now reminded me. Everything in an intellectual mind is anarchy, she said, repeating another of my quotations. Society, no matter what society, must always be turned upside down and abolished, she said, and what she said were again my words. Everything that is is a lot more terrible and horrible than described by you, she said. You were right, she said, these people here are malicious and violent and this country is a dangerous and an inhuman country. You are lost, she said, just as I am lost. You may escape to wherever you choose. Your science is an absurd science, as is every science. Can you hear yourself? she asked. All these things you yourself said. Schumann and Schopenhauer, they no longer give you anything, you have got to admit it. Whatever you have done in your life, which you are always so fond of describing as
existence, you have, naturally enough, failed. You are an absurd person. I listened to her for a while, then I could bear it no longer and took my leave.”
“She had been wrong in thinking Christ had been called up against his will to fight in a war. He didn't look - in spite of the crown of thorns - like someone making a sacrifice. Or even like someone determined to "do his bit". He looked instead like Marjorie had looked telling Polly she'd joined the Nursing Service, like Mr Humphreys had looked filling buckets with water and sand to save Saint Paul's, like Miss Laburnum had looked that day she came to Townsend Brothers with the coats. He looked like Captain Faulknor must have looked, lashing the ships together. Like Ernest Shackleton, setting out in that tiny boat across icy seas. Like Colin helping Mr Dunworthy across the wreckage.
He looked ... contented. As if he was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do.
Like Eileen had looked, telling Polly she'd decided to stay. Like Mike must have looked in Kent, composing engagement announcements and letters to the editor. Like I must have looked there in the rubble with Sir Godfrey, my hand pressed against his heart. Exalted. Happy.
To do something for someone or something you loved - England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history - wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.”
Source: All Clear
“She had been wrong to think it wouldn't matter that much to him, yes,He took her for granted, of course he did , but he took her for granted - not like an old coat in the corner of a dark cupboard, as she'd put it to herself , but like the very air that he breathed .”
“She had been wronged by the world [...] I would serve it on a fucking platter for her to burn to the ground if she so wished.”
Source: The Glass Goddess
“She had been Zoya’s teacher, feared and beloved, powerful beyond measure. “I watched her throw herself from a mountaintop. She sacrificed herself to stop you. Was that her martyrdom?”
The Darkling said nothing. Zoya couldn’t stop herself.
“Grigori was eaten by a bear. Elizaveta was drawn and quartered. Still, they returned. There are stories whispered in the Elbjen mountains of the Dark Mother. She crowds in when the nights grow long. She steals the heat from kitchen fires.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe. We all have stories to tell.”
Source: Rule of Wolves
“She had begun to find out who she is, and, having discovered this new world, to discover herself.”
Source: The Post-office Girl
“She had begun to read in the beginning as a protection from the frightening and unpleasant things. She continued because, apart from the story, literature brought with it a kind of gentility for which she craved.”
“She had begun to suspect that in order to live, sometimes you simply had to leap into the gap left by sorrow, the only hope that you would feel the solid ledge of the other side under your feet as you fell.”
Source: The Lost Art of Mixing
“She had believed that the heart was like a house and when you let someone in, they were only a guest. You could entertain them in the living room while keeping the bedrooms shut. You could limit their footprint to a minimum.”
Source: Milk Teeth
“She had belonged there. In that life. With him.”
Source: In My Dreams: A Haunting Romantic Fantasy About Star-Crossed Lovers Lost in Dreams and Hunted in the Real World
“She had blue skin, And so did he. He kept it hid And so did she. They searched for blue Their whole life through, Then passed right by- And never knew.”
“She had borne so long the cruelty of belonging to him and not being claimed by him.”
“She had breast cancer. No one said she shouldn't run for governor.”
“She had brillant red hair, like honey and roses and the sun all together.”
“She had brought joy, and laughter, and love, had pried him free of that cold, dark existence and pulled him into the light. Her light.
He wouldn't let it be extinguished.”
Source: House of Flame and Shadow
“She had brought me more of the ricotta, which I ate, slurping at the spoon like a child while my companion watched, beaming. My mind showed me the bees working high in the chestnut trees, swarming through the polished, ridged leaves and over the long white brushes of flowers. I saw the dark heart of the nest, dripping gold. Goats clattered over rocks and tore at cushions of herbs.”
Source: Appetite
“She had built her restaurant kitchen out of scents and tastes and textures, the clean canvas of a round white dinner plate, the firm skins of pears and the generosity of soft cheeses, the many-colored spices sitting in glass jars along the open shelves like a family portrait gallery. She belonged there.”
Source: The Lost Art of Mixing
“She had bullets in her eyes and they fired.”
“She had burdened the boy with worries and chores before sending him away. He never complained, but she worried it would weaken him and cause illness. She longed to see him and check his face, the lines around his mouth, the dimple on his chin, and the look in his eyes. It would tell her all she needed to know.”
“She had caprices of a marvellous unexpectedness, and how is any one to imitate a caprice?”
Source: Amarance
“She had captured his heart and he didn't ever want it back.”
Source: Toxic Game
“She had caught him like a visceral disease which grew and spread inside him. Her presence was the remedy, her absence filled the air. He had grown used to her like a queasy, a sick man to his medicine; just like it happens then, the more of her was the less of her.”
“She had certain thoughts which were like companions, ideas which were like older and wiser friends.”
Source: The Song of the Lark
“She had changed him. The ice was in his eyes and in his heart, like he had predicted with that song, but now they were deep embedded there, all the pain of the world. Not pain to make you feel for somebody else but pain to make you stop feeling.”
“She had changed. When she first came to Freya, she wanted nothing more than to escape her fate. But after observing her mother as a young woman and witnessing how Elinor had put aside personal wants for the betterment of MacCameron Kingdom, Merida became more open to doing the same.”
Source: Fate Be Changed
“She had changed. When she first came to Freya, she wanted nothing more than to escape her fate. But after observing her mother as a young woman and witnessing how Elinor had put aside personal wants for the betterment of MacCameron Kingdom, Merida became more open to doing the same. She was ready to embrace her duties as a member of Clan DunBroch's royal family in her own way.”
Source: Fate Be Changed
“She had clasped his cold body because she could not bear to let him go. And something else Victoria could not easily bear to relinquish was the hold Albert had had over his wife's life.”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
“She had come into the garden expecting summer roses and had instead been caught in a bank of twisted, thorny, frostbitten vines.”
Source: Fearscape
“She had come to accept, deeply, and with certitude, that she had been born into a world, a life, that would not let her be whole.”
Source: Tigana
“She had come to analysis because she was, as she put it, “ruining her children.” ... “But you are so frustrating,” she said. “I want you to take something away from me, and you keep giving it back.” And what, I asked, was that “something” she wanted to give away? “The pain. The crazy,” she said. She said there was a little shrine, somewhere in the north of Brazil. The land was dry, the town impossibly poor, but people would travel for hundreds of miles to get there, to leave candles, gifts, and ex- voto offerings thanking the saint for answered prayers, for healing, for having rescued them from distress. “I bring you my worries. I bring you my tears. I bring you the dreams I have. I want to leave them here. I want to hang them on your wall and return home healed. But everything I give to you, you give back. You say, like you just said, ‘What is this “something” you want to give away?’ ” Years later I looked it up, the shrine. There were many like the one my Brazilian patient had described. One of them was a kind of cave or grotto, where pilgrims would leave little body parts carved from wood or wax: a foot, a breast, a head. From time to time the priest collected the wax objects and melted them down, making candles to be sold to other pilgrims. The walls and ceiling of the shrine were black with candle smoke and crowded with these suspended offerings. I think now that my Brazilian patient managed at least to give that away, the conjured image of a blackened shrine, hung with a jumble of body parts. I think that in the soul of each psychoanalyst such a place must exist, in spite of what we profess about our neutrality, our professional detachment. Perhaps something of what we receive can be melted down and sold back as candlelight— our costly illuminations— but other elements remain just as they appeared, the dreams nailed to the walls, the abandoned hearts and limbs, the soot of inextinguishable longing.”
Source: The Waters & The Wild
“She had come to him the fool, thinking herself the experienced one. After all, she had nothing to give that another hadn't had, nothing so far as she knew. But he'd taken what hadn't been there; what was his; what was promised.”
Source: Crimson Footprints II New Beginnings
“She had come to him to escape her mother's world, a world where all bodies were equal. She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceble. But he, too had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them: he kissed them all alike, stroked them all alike, made no, absolutely no distiction between Tereza's body and the other bodies. He sent her back to the world she tried to escape, sent to march naked with the other naked women”
“She had come to imagine mediocrity and disappointment were her destiny.
Indeed, Nora had always had the sense that she came from a long line of regrets and crushed hopes that seemed to echo in every generation.”
Source: The Midnight Library
“She had come to the clinic because she didn't want to be a little girl anymore. But it wasn't having sex that made you a woman. It was having to make decisions, sometimes terrible ones. Children were told what to do. Adults made up their own minds, even when the options tore them apart.”
Source: A Spark of Light
“she had condemned herself by engaging in a kind of method living, chirping a litany of affirmation. “I think I can, I think I can,” playing The Little Adultress That Could, and thus losing the hope of her heart, the strength of her soul.”
Source: The Ends Of The Earth
“She had consented to be the Dona her world had demanded - a superficial, lovely creature, who walked, and talked, and laughed, accepting praise and admiration with a shrug of the shoulder as natural homage to her beauty, careless, insolent, deliberately indifferent, and all the while another Dona, a strange, phantom Dona, peered at her from a dark mirror and was ashamed.”
Source: Frenchman's creek