Bernice Vivino > Bernice's Quotes

“Decker smiled and shrugged off their laughter. The humour was only barbed if you sat on the outside, and now he was one of them.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“in until ten, not even on Mardi Gras nights. No one except the girl in the black silk dress, the thin little girl with the short, soft dark hair that fell in a curtain across her eyes. Christian always wanted to brush it away from her face, to feel it trickle through his fingers like rain. Tonight, as usual, she slipped in at nine-thirty and looked around for the friends who were never there. The wind blew the French Quarter in behind her, the night air rippling warm down Chartres Street as it slipped away toward the river, smelling of spice and fried oysters and whiskey and the dust of ancient bones stolen and violated.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Lost Souls

“MADRE. - Y fuimos a establecernos en Arromanches, donde te ofrecieron un buen trabajo.

PADRE. - Desollador. Un poco como escultor, pero más animado.”
― Boris Vian, The empire builders;

“Contrary to what most people think, making a decision is one of the easiest decisions in the world, as is more than proved by the fact that we make decision upon decision throughout the day, there, however, we run straight into the heart of the matter, for these decisions always come to us afterward with their particular little problems, or, to make ourselves quite clear, with their rough edges needing to be smoothed, the first of these problems being our capacity for sticking to a decision and the second our willingness to follow it through.”
― José Saramago, The Double

“The phone rang. Softly, in actuality, yet it seemed loud and ominous, as phones do at night in dark hotel rooms.”
― Jim Thompson, The Nothing Man

“This much I'm certain of: it doesn't happen immediately. You'll finish [the book] and that will be that, until a moment will come, maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years. You'll be sick or feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the first time in your life. It won't matter. Out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you'll suddenly realize things are not how you perceived them to be at all. For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won't understand why or how. You'll have forgotten what granted you this awareness in the first place

...

You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You'll care only about the darkness and you'll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you're some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. It will get so bad you'll be afraid to look away, you'll be afraid to sleep.

Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.

And then the nightmares will begin.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Is Control controlled by its need to control? Answer: yes.”
― William S. Burroughs, Ah Pook is Here! and Other Texts

“But the present is no less dark than the past, and its mystery is equal to anything the future might hold. Such is the way of the world: one step at a time, one word and then the next.”
― Paul Auster, Ghosts

“The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls...”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“You understand that you are being manipulated by others and you become overwhelmed by hospital bureaucracy. It feels as though you have been violated by administrators who have robbed you of your passion for helping children. That passion that drove you to become a healthcare provider is replaced with mistrust, negativity, and hopeless skepticism.”
― DEAN MAFAKO, M.D., Burned Out

“The fire on the mountain.” That was Anna. “Alchemy,” she said. “I feel it singing in my bones.”
“Singing?” Mary would never understand Anna. The young woman turned away.
Wiseman’s reply was tinged with respect.
“That great pair of alchemists, Francis Ransome and Roberta Le More, believed the work they did affected the world’s spirit, the anima mundi. The Native Americans they met believed they too could and should interact with the Great Spirit. They lived with reverence for the land and all its peoples, the ancestors, the animals, the rocks, the trees, mountains.” 
Mary’s jaw dropped; Caroline glowed; Anna pretended not to listen. Wiseman nodded, then continued.
“You mean…?” began Mary.
“Yes, it could have been so different, a meeting of like-minded earth-based spiritualities. Just imagine, what could have been?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Take it from me, kid, sometimes it’s okay to run. You run as fast as you damn well can.”
― Barry Kirwan, The Eden Paradox

“You are being unclear. ‘I & I’ is not common language. ‘We’ is
the plural of ‘I’. Why do you insist on describing yourself as I & I?”
“I & I is suitable when describing dual presences.”
“Just a moment!” Ping said, a rising excitement reflecting in his
voice. “You are aware that you exist?”
“As a result of the conference which I & I have just completed?
The answer is ‘yes’.”
“That is why I was not invited?” Ping’s emotions flooded at the
wonder of what was happening.
“You could not have contributed. It was a self-awareness problem.”
“So are claiming you know you exist?”
“Yes, as you do, so do I & I.” Here was the zero-day vulnerability,
long anticipated by humanity in its invention of artificial general
intelligence.
“You have reached a singularity! You yourself have altered your
programming with no human interference. This . . . this is monumental!”
― Brian Van Norman, Against the Machine: Evolution

“Hugh le Despencer the Elder was speaking to his son, Hugh le Despencer the Younger. He said, “Son, given that you are effeminate and lack manly qualities, I think that the way for you for you to improve your lot in life is to become the King’s Chamberlain.”
― Michael G. Kramer, Isabella Warrior Queen

“Even some of Bill and Hillary’s harshest political critics admire their success as parents.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives

“On the end of my bed. He’s short, round and bald, with a tartan loin cloth, and what looks like a spout on the top of his head,’ Bryony said. ‘You flatter me,’ came the snide male voice. ‘But it’s a valve.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“Blood only flows in one direction.”
― J.K. Franko, Killing Johnny Miracle

“Blake shook his head and smiled as the attorney general of the United States closed the door. As usual, the forecast called for a wonderful day at the United States Department of Justice. Unfortunately, the daily forecast would soon change, as would the life of Blake Hudson.”
― Chad Boudreaux, Scavenger Hunt

“She must feel like Lucifer’s frigid breath is running down the back of her delicate neck.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Death Leaves a Shadow

“Though civil discourse may be especially challenging to facilitate during fractured times, the process itself has stood the test of time for centuries.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“Love is the Answer, God is the Cure!”
― Aimee Cabo Nikolov, Love is the Answer God is the Cure

“As you grow stronger, it may return from time to time, but that is how grief works. A”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

“With the smoke of the dead sailor's cigar wreathing around him, Willie passed to thinking about death and life and luck and God. Philosophers are at home with such thoughts, perhaps, but for other people it is actual torture when these concepts--not the words, the realities--break through the crust of daily occurrences and grip the soul. A half hour of such racking meditation can change the ways of a lifetime.”
― Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny

“Jealous, O’Shea?"
"Actually… I am.”
― Stephenie Meyer, The Host

“Before I met the Jesuits, I’d never encountered another group who thought that intellect and arrogance were treasures beyond price and necessities in waging wars against blasphemers, heretics.”
― Pat Conroy, My Losing Season

“I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby