Heather's Library

Meredith Gentry Series #1: A Kiss of Shadows
by Laurell K. Hamilton
p.6 I stared at him, and finally understood. "You know we should walk away from this one, but you can't bring yourself to pass judgment on them. You can't bring yourself to condemn them to death."
     He nodded. "Yes."
     "What makes you think that I can do it, if you can't?"
     "I'm hoping one of us is sane enough not to be this stupid."
     "I won't get you all killed for the sake of strangers, Jeremy, so be prepared to walk away from this one." Even to me, my voice sounded thin, hard, cold.
     He smiled again. "That's my little cold-hearted bitch."

p.9-10 Some days I was better at it than this. Some days I was worse. I could have tried to get the measure of her psychically, to see if she had more than bone structure going for her, but it was impolite to read another person's magical ability at first introduction. Among the sidhe it's considered an open challenge, an insult that you don't believe that the other person can shield himself from your most casual magic. Naomi probably wouldn't have taken it as an insult, but her ignorance was no reason for me to be rude.

p.20 "If you're powerful enough, you can put a spell on an ad so that the ad brings you what you truly desire, not necessarily what the ad says you want. It's why I ran the ad that Ms. Gentry answered. Only people with magical ability would have noticed the spell on the ad, and only people with exceptional gifts would have been able to see through to the true writing underneath. The true writing listed a different phone number than the ad. I know that anyone who called that number was capable of the job."

p.26 For a building to be warded, not just an apartment, but a whole building, meant that the protective spells had to be put into the foundation of a building. The wards had to be poured with the concrete, riveted into place with steel beams. It took a coven of witches, or several covens. No single practitioner could do it. It was not a cheap process. Only the most expensive high-rises or homes could boast of it.

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Forrest Gump
by Winston Groom

p.0 There is a pleasure sure in being mad which not but madmen know.
     --Dryden

p.2 Now I know something about idiot. Probly the only thing I do know bout, but I done read up on em--all the way from that Doy-chee-eveskie guy's idiot, to King Lear's fool, and Faulkner's idiot, Benjie, an even ole Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird--now he ws a serious idiot. The one I like best tho is ole Lennie in Of Mice and Men. Mos of them writer fellers got it straight--cause their idiots are always smarter than people give them credit for. Hell, I'd agree with that. Any idiot would. Hee Hee.

p.15 One day a package come from New Yawk City that contain a official baseball signed by the entire New Yawk Yankees baseball team. It was the best thing ever happen to me! I treasure that ball like a goldbrick, till one day when I was tossin it aroun the yard, a big ole dog come up an grasp it outta the air and chewed it up. Things like that always happenin to me.

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Outlander Series #1: Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon

p.-1 People disappear all the time. Ask any policeman. Better yet, ask a journalist. Disappearances are bread-and-butter to journalists.
     Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never heard from again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change their names and vanish into the smoke of imported cigars.
     Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disappearances, after all, have explanations.
     Usually.

p.4-5 "Where are you going?" I asked, as Frank swung his feet out of bed.
     "I'd hate the dear old thing to be disappointed in us," he answered. Sitting up on the side of the ancient bed, he bounced gently up and down, creating a piercing rhythmic squeak. The Hoovering in the hall stopped abruptly. After a minute or two of bouncing, he gave a loud, theatrical groan and collapsed backward with a twang of protesting springs. I giggled helplessly into a pillow, so as not to disturb the breathless silence outside.
     Frank waggled his eyebrows at me. "You're supposed to moan ecstatically, not giggle," he admonished in a whisper. "She'll think I'm not a good lover."
     "You'll have to keep it up for longer than that, if you expect ecstatic moans," I answered. "Two minutes doesn't deserve any more than a giggle."
     "Inconsiderate little wench. I came here for a rest, remember?"
     "Lazybones. You'll never manage the next branch on your family tree unless you show a bit more industry than that."

p.6 "exegesis"

p.12 "The story goes that by order of the house's owner, one wall was built up first, then a stone block was dropped down from the top of it onto one of the workmen--presumably a dislikable fellow was chosen for the sacrifice--and he was buried then in the cellar and the rest of the house built up over him. He haunts the cellar where he was killed, except on the anniversary of his death and the four Old Days."
     "Old Days?"
     "The ancient feasts," he explained, still lost in his mental notes. "Hogmanay, that's New Year's, Midsummer Day, Beltane, and All Hallows'. Druids, Beaker Folk, early Picts, everybody kept the sun feasts and the fire feasts, so far as we know. Anyway, ghosts are freed on the holy days, and can wander about as will, to do harm or good as they please." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It's getting on for Beltane--close to the spring equinox. Best keep an eye out, next time you pass the kirkyard."

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Finding Fish
by Antwone Fisher

p.159 It seemed the world should have stopped or paused or acknowledged in a collective way that a living person was gone. But the world didn't stop. Life just went on.

p.300 Later, when I went to work in the civilian world, I found occasion to quote Chief Lott to others, too, especially when they wanted to give me an ass-chewing. I'd tell them, "That's not the way to do it. I've been chewed out by the best. You got to lean. Talk to me. Lean in and speak directly to me."

Ember Series #3
The Prophet of Yonwood
by Jeanne DuPrau



p.26-27 The president ended with his usual sentence: “Let us pray to God for the safety of our people and the success of our endeavors.” Nickie always wondered about this. The idea seemed to be that if you prayed extremely hard--especially if a lot of people prayed at once--maybe God would change things. The trouble was, what if your enemy was praying to? Which prayer would God listen to?

p.28 This is how Nickie was: she wanted to know about everybody and everything--not just encyclopedia-type information, but ordinary things like what people did at their jobs and what their houses looked like inside and what they talked about. When she passed two or three people walking together on the street, she always hoped to catch an intriguing bit of conversation, like “I found her lying there dead!” Or “...and he left that very day without telling a soul and was never seen again!” But almost always, all she heard were the dull, connecting bits of the conversation, things like “And so I said to her...” and “Yeah, I think so too,” and “So it’s really kind of like...” And by the time they said whatever came next, they were out of earshot.


p.57-58 As soon as Amanda had gone off with Mrs. Beeson, Nickie found a pencil and a scrap of paper and wrote down these words: Sinners. Wrongness. Forces of evil. Shield of goodness. Those were the things to remember. It was so perfect--she could accomplish her Goal #3 by helping to battle the forces of evil and build the shield of goodness. Just the very words made her feel like a warrior. Maybe she should give something up, the way everyone else was. If she did, would she have more love to give to God? She thought probably her love for God was a little weak, since she didn’t know much about him and hadn’t really thought about whether she loved him or not. It was hard to love someone invisible that you’d never met.

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Ember Series #1
The City of Ember
by Jeanne DuPrau

p.34 Lina sat in the big armchair and waited. No one came. She got up and wandered around the room. She bent over The Book of the City of Ember and read a few sentences: “The citizens of Ember may not have luxuries, but the foresight of the Builders, who filled the storerooms at the beginning of time, has ensured that they will always have enough, and enough is all that a person of wisdom needs.”

p.34-35 She flipped a few pages. “The Gathering Hall clock,” she read, “measures the hours of night and day. It must never be allowed to run down. Without it, how would we know when to work and when to go to school? How would the light director know when to turn the lights on and when to turn the lights off again? It is the job of the timekeeper to wind the clock every week and to place the date sign in Harken Square every day. The timekeeper must perform these duties faithfully.”
     Lina knew that not all timekeepers were faithful as they should be. She’d heard of one, some years ago, who often forgot to change the date sign, so that it might say, “Wednesday, Week 38, Year 227” for several days in a row. There had even been timekeepers who forgot to wind the clock, so that it might stand at noon or at midnight for hours at a time, causing a very long day or a very long night. The result was that no one really knew anymore exactly what day of the week it was, or exactly how many years it had been since the building of the city--they called this year 241, but it might have been 245 or 239 or 250. As long as the clock’s deep boom rang out every hour, and the lights went on and off more or less regularly, it didn’t seem to matter.”

p.50 “bald as a peeled potato”

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