E.K. Johnston Quotes & Sayings

My sister is no fool and she is not tender-hearted," I said. "My sister fights for her home, and takes what risks she must. That is why I put myself before her today - why I would not let you have her. My sister burns, and she does not burn for you. — E.K. Johnston

She gave him a smile. It felt absurdly nice to be taken care of. Maybe that was what she needed, even if she didn't need it very often. — E.K. Johnston

I had spent all the years I had been in Lo-Melkhiin's body giving power to men who I thought would use it in ways that might serve me. I had given them great art and great thoughts, and they never guessed that they fed a terrible hunger in me that would require feeding until they died trying to sate it. They had done great things and made great tales, but I had been blind. All of this time, I had had access to more power than I had imagined, and I had missed it because I saw with men's eyes. I had forgotten the girls who scrubbed the floors and spun the yarn. I had forgotten the women who dyed the cloth and worked with henna. I had married three hundred girls, and as much as eaten them all before they were done cooking. — E.K. Johnston

The monster tested her, pulling at her soul and rending her spirit. She clung to life, and in the clinging she might have become a monster too, except she chose the path her story would take. She chose white stone walls and a golden crown. She chose to debate words of law, and to never grind her own grain. She chose to fight men every day, and then fight their sons, who thought they knew better than their fathers. If you listen long enough to the whispers, you will hear the truth. Until then, I will tell you this: the world is made safe by a woman. — E.K. Johnston

There are corners in the world that are too dark to see, and there are edges that are sharper than they appear, ready to snag the unwary. There are those who do not fear the things they should, and there are those who would bargain with the devil herself for the sake of their greed.The world is made safe by a woman, yes, but it is a very big world. — E.K. Johnston

She had not answered my question. She had not told me that she loved his eyes or the sound of his voice. She had not said that his touch lit a fire on her skin. Then it came to me: she loved him because he did not seek to change her. If I had made him, or if my father had found him, it did not matter. My sister would have a husband who would not make her sit, veiled and weaving, in his tent. He would not take another wife, as my father had done. She would be his, and he would be hers, alone. This was why she loved him, and it made my heart glad to hear it. — E.K. Johnston

There were tightly wound strings shivering in the air as the overture began in full. — E.K. Johnston

But I have faith in you. You seem like the type who eats fear for breakfast. — E.K. Johnston

If you are clever and you are good, the monster will not have you.
You should not believe everything you hear.
Good men fall to monsters everyday. Clever men are tricked by their own pride or by pretty words. — E.K. Johnston

Have you seen burning bone, my wife? It starts like a roasted goat, but then the meat strips away to feed the fire, and the bone is left naked and alone. It twists and shatters, marrow leaking into the flames, until only the dust is left."

"That is what happens to everything, my lord," I said to him. "If only the fire can be made hot enough."

"Would you like to see it?" he asked. — E.K. Johnston

If you listen long enough to the whispers, you will hear the truth. Until then, I will tell you this: the world is made safe by a woman. She bound the monster up and cast him out, and the man who was left was saved. — E.K. Johnston

The fiery ones do not marry young" he said. "They wait for fire to match their own. I did not see that in your village." "My sister finds the fire in others," I said. "Her husband may be the quietest man at the market until he sees her. Then he will burn with a flame to match her own. — E.K. Johnston

There's a moment when I know that I should scream. But screaming would be hard. And blackness would be easy. Black picks me. — E.K. Johnston

There is life, and there is living - and that is what she learned. — E.K. Johnston

Always, it seemed, men would overlook unpleasant things for the sake of those that went well. The statues' eyes for the melodious sounds of the fountain. The deaths of their daughters for the bounty of their trade.
There was great beauty in this qasr, but there was also great ugliness and fear. I would not be like those men who turned their eyes from one to see the other. I would remember what those things cost. — E.K. Johnston

The sword fighting turned out to be quite a bit of fun, once the agony of muscle development produced actual muscles. — E.K. Johnston

I do not want to be anyone's model for becoming a better person. "Can — E.K. Johnston

Good men fall to monsters every day. — E.K. Johnston

Maybe he is starting to understand. I don't really care, though. I do not want to be anyone's model for becoming a better person. — E.K. Johnston

There is life, and there is living. — E.K. Johnston

Our father would return to see his fairest flower gone and only the weed left for him to use as he saw fit — E.K. Johnston

If you think I'm going to apologize for being drugged and raped, you have another thing coming. — E.K. Johnston

I didn't used to overthink my choices quite so much. Then someone made what I've always been told is a very important choice for me, and now I tend to overthink everything else. — E.K. Johnston

I am yours to command, husband," I said to him, and met his eyes.
When my mother spoke to our father, she often said that. He liked it, the way she put herself in his hands. Until just now, I had not realized that since my mother was the one who allowed it, she had more power than even he might have realized. Lo-Melkhiin thought I was less than him; but his was not the only tally. — E.K. Johnston

Let me get this straight...You are sending me out in a minivan whose date of manufacture predates the year of my birth, so that I can watch two dragon slayers track down enormous fire-breathing animals, in an effort to prevent me from spending time in the library? — E.K. Johnston

I do fear him," I said, which was close to the truth. "I fear him as I fear the desert sun and poisonous snakes. They are all part of the life I live. But the sun gives light, and snakes will feed a caravan if they are caught and cooked. — E.K. Johnston

I had tasted power and I had used it up, but now I would get more of another kind. We would share it, and keep each other from the dark. — E.K. Johnston

Of course, if I were dead, they could just bury me, and move on. Broken is harder to deal with. — E.K. Johnston

Watch your world burn, light of my heart. Tomorrow we will find another one and burn that too. — E.K. Johnston

I've never met any of these women before, and I will never see any of them after today. I don't know their names and they don't know mine. I've been on teams and in clubs my whole life, surrounded by people who are united by a common purpose, and I have never felt anything like this. Maybe it's the gas, but until this moment, I have never felt such a kinship with a person who was not actually family. I love every person in this room, and I'm pretty sure that if they asked, I'd do anything for them.

Anything, except have a baby. — E.K. Johnston

What are you doing tonight?" he asked, as soon as I was sitting down.

"Nothing," I said. I had what most people would call a boring social life, a classical holdout in a punk rock world. — E.K. Johnston

My kind do not spend their days at craft or art. Our deepest desire is not for the making of a thing, nor for the thing itself. Rather, we thrive on the skills of those who make. We steal that time and that power, and we turn it to our own souls, and that is how we grow. — E.K. Johnston

Most postmodernists blame the decline of the dracono-bardic tradition on the sudden and soaring popularity of the Beatles. — E.K. Johnston

A dragon eating a bear?" Emily said. "Why are there no Internet videos of that? — E.K. Johnston

It was difficult to imagine dark and cruel magic in the glade, with the sunlight shining on us and the scent of flowers in the air. But when I listened, I could hear the deeper thrum of the mountains underneath me, and then it was easy to remember that the very ground we sat on had been built to be a prison and a paradise both. — E.K. Johnston

Let me get this straight," I said, having swallowed. "You are sending me out in a minivan whose date of manufacture predates the year of my birth, so that I can watch two dragon slayers track down enormous fire-breathing animals, in an effort to prevent me from spending time in the library?" "There's no supervision in the library," Dad said. — E.K. Johnston

She chose to fight men everyday, and then fight their sons, who thought they knew better than their fathers. — E.K. Johnston

There was, apparently, no honor in driver's ed. — E.K. Johnston

He was the soul of politeness, my husband. — E.K. Johnston

And if someone does figure it out and starts a rumour, we'll just deal with it," Polly says. "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, and all that crap."
"Do you ever dream of the day when your life can no longer be adequately summarized by Kelly Clarkson songs?" I ask.
"All the time," Polly says. — E.K. Johnston