Akiva Quotes & Sayings

In one of his darker moments, the irony started him laughing and he couldn't stop, and the sounds that came from him, before finally tapering into sobs, were so far from mirth they might have been the forced inversion of laughter-like a soul pulled inside out to reveal its rawest meats. — Laini Taylor

I think people underestimate the value of collaboration, especially for writers. — Akiva Goldsman

I've always loved music videos - I used to make my own for bands like Pearl Jam. My favorite directors are Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Patrick Daughters. — Akiva Schaffer

Akiva had envisioned this meeting many different ways, and in none of them has his father been naked. — Laini Taylor

I'm all about 'Halo 2'. — Akiva Schaffer

A fence to wisdom is silence. — Rabbi Akiva

It's about Thiago," she said, and he felt the cool touch of finality. Of course it was the Wolf. When he'd seen them curved toward each other, laughing, he'd known, but a part of his mind had insisted on denying it - it was unthinkable - and then, when she'd looked across the cavern to him like that, to him, he'd hoped ...
"He's not who you think," Karou said, and Akiva knew what was coming next.
He braced for it.
"I killed him," she whispered.
...
...
...
Wait.
"What? — Laini Taylor

What?" demanded Liraz. "Why are you laughing?" "Because life's a bastard," was all Akiva could say. "Well then," was his sister's flat reply. "I guess we fit right in. — Laini Taylor

His warmth was like a gift given and snatched away, and she stood there with her back to the window, feeling chilled, bereft, and undone. And angry. It was a childish, cartoonish anger- facing Akiva, she had wanted to beat her fists at his chest and then fall against him and feel his arms close around her. — Laini Taylor

How do you act like you've lost your soul? Akiva asked. He meant it as a lighthearted question about a children's game, but when he heard himself say the words, he thought, Who knows better than I?
You betray everything you believe in. You drown your grief in vengeance. You kill and keep killing until there's no one left. — Laini Taylor

Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of God; still greater was the love in that it was made known to them that they were called children of God, as it is written, 'Ye are the children of the Lord your God.' — Akiva Ben Joseph

He that wounds himself, even though he has not the right, is not culpable; but if others have wounded him, they are culpable. — Akiva Ben Joseph

Tomorrow they will start the apocalypse.
Tonight, they let themselves look at each other, just for a little while. — Laini Taylor

I find that 'Ghostbusters' and 'Alien' actually have a lot in common in that they're both so naturalistic in the performances. It feels like people you could be hanging out with right now in this room, yet they're on a spaceship or killing ghosts. But the way they talk is never heightened or otherwordly. — Akiva Schaffer

What happens is that the experience of writers working together and the idea of creative collaboration is so delightful, but it has been relegated to TV. — Akiva Goldsman

But let's not be casual about this body, okay?" She nuzzled him back. "It may be your soul that I love, but I'm pretty keen on its vessel, too."
Her voice had dropped lower as she spoke, and his response was low and husky in kind. "I can't say I'm sorry to hear that," he said, and brushed his face past hers to kiss a place beneath her ear, sending instant, electric frissons coursing through her body. — Laini Taylor

Life is you master, or death is. — Laini Taylor

Everything lined up. It has been easy, as if it were meant-"
"Meant!" she said, amazed. She spun to face him, which, in the crush, brought her against his chest as if they were still dancing. She fought backward for space. As if what were meant?"
"You," he said. "And me. — Laini Taylor

And if redemption was self-serving, coming as it did ribbon-tied to what he wanted most in life? For once, Akiva's shame wouldn't rise to the bait. He wanted what he'd always wanted, and he'd better just say it, his own worries and fears be damned. — Laini Taylor

This is Wedge Antilles of the New Republic. I am trapped on the Star Destroyer Vigilance in the space above Akiva, and I am in - — Chuck Wendig

Nd when he let her go, it was as if she had been filled and didn't realize it until he pulled away and the absence rushed back in. — Laini Taylor

The tradition is a fence around the law; tithes are a fence around riches; vows are a fence around abstinence; a fence around wisdom is silence. — Akiva Ben Joseph

She smiled a little, and there was effortful lightness in her voice when she asked, "And how would you know what darkness is like?" Her hand brushed his feathers and they sparked to her touch. "You are your own light."
And Akiva almost said, I know what darkness is, because he did, in all the worst senses of the word, but he didn't want Karou to think he was retreating to the bleak state she'd drawn him out of in Morocco. So he held his tongue and was glad he had when she added, so softly he nearly didn't hear, "And mine. — Laini Taylor

Is life worth keeping on with, whatever happens?" Was she talking about living broken, living with loss? Did she count his loss a real one, and did she really want to know or was there a barb in this somewhere? Sometimes, Akiva felt like he didn't know his sister at all. "Yes," he said, wary, thinking of the thurible, and Karou. "As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better."
"Or worse," said Liraz.
"Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse. — Laini Taylor

You learn, even at 'S.N.L.,' that the funniest scripts a lot of the time were written with the actor, because they know what makes people laugh. It's always going to be better if they own it. — Akiva Schaffer

Love is a luxury."
"No. Love is an element."
An element. Like air to breathe, earth to stand on. — Laini Taylor

He dropped the pretense, and dropped his head, so his brow came to rest against the sun-warmed top of hers. His arms went around her and drew her in, and Karou and Akiva were like two matches struck against each other to flare starlight. With a sigh, she softened, and it was pure homecoming to melt against him and rest. — Laini Taylor

Love scenes are the hardest things in the world and if you enjoy them, that's wonderful, because nobody making them sits there and goes, 'Let's do that again tomorrow.' — Akiva Goldsman

And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not - they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note. — Laini Taylor

As you always discover when you make something, typically if your object isn't frivolous, people's relationship to it isn't frivolous. — Akiva Goldsman

Don't I deserve to finally be free of you? — Laini Taylor

Take up a weapon and you become an instrument with as pure a purpose as the weapon itself: to find arteries and open them, limbs and sever them; to take what is alive and deliver it unto death. — Laini Taylor

In moments Akiva was up in the ether, scarcely feeling the sting of ice crystals in the thin air. He let his glamour fall away, and his wings were like sheets of fire sweeping the black of the heavens. He moved at speed, onward toward another human city to find another doorway bitter with the devil's magic, and after that another, until all bore the black handprint ... Once all the doors were marked, the end would begin. And it would begin with fire. — Laini Taylor

You really think joy is easier to come by than pain? What have you had more of? — Laini Taylor

Soon, everything else would come rushing at him. Like the ground to a falling man, it would come rushing up and hit him all at once - the place, the company, her words; one implication would lead to another and shatter him - but around that intake of breath the world hung silent and bright, so bright, and Akiva only knew this one thing, and held on to it and wanted to live inside of it and stay there forever.
Karou was alive. — Laini Taylor

'SNL' is our main priority because that was our first big break. — Akiva Schaffer

He dropped to his knees, and the air between them rippled with Karou's crippling magic and with memory. The day of her death, this is what she had seen, this: Akiva on his knees, sick with the weight of this same magic coursing off Thiago's soldiers, and he had struggled to hold his head up and look at her - just like this - with horror and despair and love - and she had wanted more than she had ever wanted anything to go to him and hold him, whisper to him that she loved him and was going to save him, but she couldn't, not then, and she couldn't now, not because of shackles or pinions or the executioner's ax but because he was the enemy. He had proven it beyond any horror she would ever have believed, beyond any betrayal she could ever have dreamed, and he could never be forgiven, not ever.
But ... then ... her hands fell to her sides. — Laini Taylor

I take a lot of ladies' vitamins, because I never buy my own and that's what's in the house. More iron. — Akiva Schaffer

The goddess of assassins has tasted my blood, he thought, and he wondered if she liked it, and wanted more. — Laini Taylor

I can touch you," she marveled, and she couldn't
or at least didn't
resist the urge to further prove it by sliding her palm over the hot-smooth terrain of his chest until she felt as if she were holding his heartbeat in her hand.
"As much as you want," he said, and there was a trembling in him, but it wasn't from pain. — Laini Taylor

As television is learning some of the movies' great tricks, movies are taking what's good from TV. Maybe it will all become one big thing, with smart, talented people who love a thing, helping each other be better. — Akiva Goldsman

The paper burns, but the words fly away. — Rabbi Akiva

I'm afraid they're in love," he said, concerned. "They don't want to leave you." He lifted one hand from her waist to gently brush a pair from her neck, where their wings fanned against her jaw. Melancholy, he said, "I know just how they feel. — Laini Taylor

It [Hancock] happens to be a big budget film and big star like Will Smith, but it actually has a lot of weight to it. But it was very smart and very intelligent and had this kind of historical element to it that I was fascinated by. It's not silly. It's not stupid. It's fun, but I think it's smart. I think Akiva [Goldsman] writes really interesting material and there you have it. — Charlize Theron

Before you taste anything, recite a blessing. — Rabbi Akiva

She'd spoken of their happiness as though it were an undeniable fact, no matter what happened
apart from everything else and not subject to it. It was a new idea for him, that happiness wasn't a mystical place to be reached or won
some bright terrain beyond the boundary of misery, a paradise waiting for them to find it
but something to carry doggedly with you through everything, as humble and ordinary as your gear and supplies. Food, weapons, happiness.
With hope that the weapons could in time vanish from the picture. — Laini Taylor

Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is granted. — Rabbi Akiva

Silence is the fence around wisdom — Rabbi Akiva

Your soul sings to mine. My soul is yours, and it always will be, in any world. No matter what happens. I need you to remember that I love you. — Laini Taylor

Sometimes you see auteur TV shows and movies, and those are great. — Akiva Goldsman

The idea of starting with that Kanye [West] song is declarative. It says, "This is the kind of story we're telling." — Akiva Goldsman

As far back as she could remember, a phantom life had mocked her with its impenetrable "something else," but now it was the opposite. Here, in the circle of Akiva's presence, even as they spoke of war and siege and enduring enmity, she felt herself being drawn into the warm absoluteness and rightness of him, like he was both place and person and, contrary to all reason, exactly where she was supposed to be. — Laini Taylor

Whose acts are greater, man's or God's?" Rabbi Akiva answered that man's acts are greater. Turnus Rufus responded that the heavens and earth are God's creations which man cannot equal. Rabbi Akiva then brings sheaves of wheat and cakes and says to Turnus Rufus, "The sheaves of wheat were made by God while these cakes were made by man." He explains that man is not meant to eat wheat as it grows from the ground but rather to process and develop it into a complete product. Rabbi Akiva then says, "Why does a child come out with an umbilical cord until the mother cuts it?" Rabbi Akiva is trying to communicate to Turnus Rufus that natural, God-created states are not necessarily perfect. Judaism does not believe in taking the natural world as it is; humans are meant to take the materials God provided and improve on them. There are imperfections in the world, and we need to perfect them. Successful — H.W. Charles

Fairy-tale city. From the air, red rooftops hug a kink in a dark river, and by night the forested hills appear as spans of black nothing against the dazzle of the lit castle, the spiking Gothic towers, the domes great and small. The river captures all the lights and teases them out, long and wavering, and the side-slashing rain blurs it all to a dream. This was Akiva's first sight of Prague; — Laini Taylor

Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of God. Beloved are Israel, for unto them was given the desirable Torah — Rabbi Akiva

Even the poorest in Israel are looked upon as freemen who have lost their possessions, for they are the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. — Akiva Ben Joseph

I came back to find you," Akiva said. "I don't know why. Karou. Karou. I don't know why." His voice was so faint she could barely hear him. "Just to find you and be in the world that you're in ... — Laini Taylor

Adaptation is always the same process for me, which is some version of throwing the book at the wall and seeing what pages fall out. It is trying to imagine, remember the story, read it, put it down, and then write sort of an outline without the book in front of you with some hope that what you like about it will be filtered and distilled out through your memory and then that will be similar to what other people like about it. — Akiva Goldsman

Let there be a wide breadth of possible ways to create. — Akiva Goldsman

In the beginning, sin is like a thread of a spider's web. But in the end, it becomes like the cable of a ship. — Rabbi Akiva

I have now become so infatuated with television. I think television has become elegant. — Akiva Goldsman

An angel lay dying in the mist. Once upon a time.
And the devil should have finished him off without a second thought.
But she hadn't. And if she had? Karou had wondered it a hundred different ways. She'd even wished for it, in her blackest grief at the Kasbah, when all she could see was the death that had come of her mercy.
If she'd killed Akiva that day, or even just let him die, the war would have ground on unbroken. Another thousand years? Maybe. But she hadn't, and it hadn't. "The age of wars is over," Akiva had just said, and even as Karou saw what she saw and no possibility of mistake, and even as her whole being gathered itself into a scream, her heart defied it. The age of wars was over, and Akiva would not die like this.
The blade entered his heart. — Laini Taylor

A pause came between them, and it was so full of Akiva that Karou imagined she could smell him. — Laini Taylor

Seventh bearer of the cursed name Akiva." Here he paused, speculative. "No Misbegotten ever bore that name to manhood before you. Did you know that? Old Byon the steward, he gave it out of spite. Wanted your mother to beg him not to. Any other woman in the harem would have, but not Festival. 'Scribble whatever you like on your list, old man,' she told him. 'My son will not be tangled in your feeble fates.' — Laini Taylor

Nothing is better than the moment you have Michael Bolton dressed as Forrest Gump and you see it in action. — Akiva Schaffer

And the monkey flips the switch. — Akiva Goldsman

War is all we've been taught, but there are other ways to live. We can find them, Akiva. We can invent them. This is the beginning, here." She touched his chest and felt a rush of love for the heart that moved his blood, for his smooth skin and his scars and his unsoldierly tenderness. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast and said, "We are the beginning. — Laini Taylor

So while his uncle taunted him, probing for a weak spot-it wasn't enough to kill; he had to torment - Akiva heard what he said, but none of it touched him. It was like threatening darkness at the break of day. — Laini Taylor

All is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given. — Akiva Ben Joseph

Finding Akiva's door still closed, Liraz gave a chuff of derision and didn't knock but only crashed it open and glared at the sight that greeted them. Akiva and Karou, eyes bleary with desire, facing each other on a stone slab and touching, hands to hearts ... "Well," Liraz said, her voice as dry as the rest of her was not. "At least you still have your clothes on. — Laini Taylor

Infinities are not for casual exploration. You could fall and keep falling. You could get lost. — Laini Taylor

Akiva felt the tilt of the world trying to tip him forward: to be nearer to her
nearer and touching
as though that were the only state of rest, and every other action and movement were geared to achieving it. — Laini Taylor

I got invited to the Playboy Mansion with the Lonely Island guys after their first season on 'SNL,' and I sat in the corner drinking coffee and talking to Akiva Schaffer about what aspect ratio he was going to shoot 'Hot Rod' in. Like, that's what we talk about. — Bill Hader

He remembered a story Madrigal had told him once: the human tale of the golem. It was a thing shaped of clay in the form of a man, brought to life by carving the symbol aleph into its brow. Aleph was the first symbol of an ancestral human alphabet, and the first letter of the Hebrew word truth; it was the beginning. Watching Karou rise to her feet, radiant in a fall of lapis hai, in a woven dress the colour of tangerines, with a loop of silver beads at her throat and a look of joy and relief and ... love ... on her beautiful face, Akiva knew that she was his aleph, his truth and beginning. His soul. — Laini Taylor

If R. Akiva was perhaps overly generous in judging his generation, it can perhaps be ascribed to the belief, based on his own experience, that everyone is capable of a dramatic life change. — Meir Soloveichik

One time, my mom told us, 'No TV.' It was 3 P.M., and I was sneaking it in. She put her hand on the back of the TV to see if it was warm, and it was. So she pulled the cord out of the wall, opened the second-floor window, and just threw it out the window. — Akiva Schaffer

Jesting and levity accustom a man to lewdness. — Akiva Ben Joseph

He who remains unmarried impairs the divine image. — Rabbi Akiva

Jesting and levity lead a man to lewdness. — Rabbi Akiva

It wasn't disgust she felt for Karou, not anymore; it was indignation. Incredulity. A man like Akiva crosses worlds to find you, infiltrates the enemy capital just to dance with you, bends heaven and hell to avenge your death, saves your comrade and kin from torture and death, and you send him off looking gut-punched, diminished, carved hollow? — Laini Taylor

Anything you make has its own wavelength and its own sound. It's like a tuning fork, until the things that resonate are correct for it. — Akiva Goldsman

Love is an element (Akiva) — Laini Taylor

That is your legend?" Akiva asked, incredulous. Madrigal had told him the story of the sun and Ellai while they flew. "That seraphim are the blood of a rapist sun? — Laini Taylor

All of our heroes did silly stuff early and got more serious as time went on. Steve Martin, Adam Sandler, Bill Murray. They got older, wiser, and made different choices. — Akiva Schaffer

'The Watch' is first and foremost a comedy, but since I got to shoot the film using elements from the sci-fi genre, I wanted to make sure the alien didn't look goofy. I got to make a real alien that looks dangerous. That was a big plus for me because I got to do something really fun and cool. — Akiva Schaffer

With a lot of those 'S.N.L.' shorts, we would do them just as we wanted to do them and then beep out the bad words. Since it was late night T.V., they let us get away with a lot. — Akiva Schaffer

Head held high, she stepped toward the block and sank to her knees, and it was then that Akiva started to scream. His voice soared over the pandemonium - a scream to scour the souls of all gathered, a sound to drive ghosts from their nests. — Laini Taylor

Akiva."
"Akiva." It pleased her to say it. She may have been the one whose name meant music, but his sounded like it. Saying it made her want to sing it, to lean out a window and call him home. To whisper it in the dark. — Laini Taylor

If a rock, though extremely hard, can be hollowed out by water, how much more so should it be possible for The Light, which is compared to water, to change my heart. I will begin to study it, and try to become a scholar of The Light. — Rabbi Akiva

If we don't keep people engaged, we're not going to move you. And if we move you, we've done something useful. That's what anybody who writes genre knows. — Akiva Goldsman

Cartoons are the best stuff on TV. 'Wonder Showzen,' 'Aqua Teen,' 'SpongeBob,' and, of course, 'South Park' - one of the funniest shows ever made. — Akiva Schaffer

Death," said Akiva. His life was leaving him fast now that he no longer held his wound. His eyes just wanted to drift closed. "I'm ready."
"Well, I'm not. I hear it's dull, being dead."
She said it lightly, amused, and he peered up at her. Had she just made a joke? She smiled.
Smiled
He did, too. Amazed, he felt it happening, as if her smile had triggered a reflex in him. "Dull sounds nice," he said, letting his eyes flutter closed. "Maybe I can catch up on my reading. — Laini Taylor

He watched her with a hopeful, piercing scrutiny that made her tingle, she felt so ... seen. — Laini Taylor

What 'SNL' taught me that was useful on 'The Watch' was, only put in bad words if they can get a laugh - there was no need for swear words and beeps in places that weren't necessary. Those beeps should only be in there when they mean something and it's important to the joke. — Akiva Schaffer

You can't atone for taking one life by saving another. What good does that do the dead?"
"The dead," she said. "And we have plenty of dead between us, but the way we act, you'd think they were corpses hanging on to our ankles, rather than souls freed to the elements. — Laini Taylor

And the stone table was between them, a barrier, but there could be no barrier to the smile that was her answer. It was another new species, and Akiva thought that he could spend a thousand years with her
please
and still be discovering new species of smiles. — Laini Taylor

Of all the rabbinic sages of antiquity, perhaps none was more influential or famous than Rabbi Akiva. — Meir Soloveichik

He wanted to tell her that everything he had done he had done because he was broken, because watching her die had destroyed him, but there was no way to say it that didn't sound like he was trying to pin the blame outside himself — Laini Taylor

She thought of Akiva, the night he had come to her at the river, the crushing pain and shame in his face, and love, still love - sorrow and love and hope - and she remembered the night of the Warlord's ball, how Akiva had always been the right to Thiago's wrong, the heat to the Wolf's chill, the safety to this monster's menace. — Laini Taylor

Be your own place of safety, she told herself, straightening. No crossbar in the world could protect her from what lay ahead, and neither could a tiny knife ticked in her boot - though there her tiny knife would most certainly remain - and neither could a man, not even Akiva. She had to be her own strength, complete unto herself. — Laini Taylor