Mertens Quotes & Sayings

Love conquers all. Let Love then smile at our defeat. — Virgil

This is what romance gets you
a noose around your neck and a crazy woman with two guns somewhere behind you. — Stephen King

Before Diagnosis"

The lake is dead for a second time
this January. And no matter
how many geese lay their warm breasts
against the ice or fly across
its hard chest, it doesn't break,
or sink, or open up and swallow them.
The ice is frozen water.
There is no metaphor for exile.
Even if these trees continue to shake
the crows from their branches,
my sister is still farther away from her mind
than we are from each other
sitting on opposite ends of a park bench
waiting for evening to swallow us whole.
In the last moments of a depressive, a sun.
In the last moments of a sun, my sister
says a man is chasing a goose through the snow. — Roger Reeves

Fiction is a tower of glass built from a million tiny truths, grains of sand fused together to make a single, gleaming lie. — Joanne Harris

Laugh while you can, sweet girl," I growled against her lips. "I'm going to make you scream all those dirty words you're too scared to say. — Chelle Bliss

Eventually though, I'd like to have my own production company. Then I could create great opportunities not only for myself, but for other actors as well. — Mario Lopez

On occasion, Frau Mertens, looking clean and fresh, would walk out into the fields to see how things were going. She had a colonial largesse about her. By way of greeting, she said "Heil Hitler" to us, with a smile. We would straightened up from the muddy earth and stare at her. No one said a word. She seemed disappointed. — Edith Hahn Beer

Leaders dramatically influence the culture of their organizations through their own work habits. Being a leader does not mean one has 'made it' and is now exempt from hard work. Rather, leaders should set the pace for others. Few things discourage employees and volunteers any more than lazy leaders. Leaders should not ask their people to undertake tasks they are unwilling to perform themselves. — Henry T. Blackaby

In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls. — Nikos Kazantzakis

There is a fable in the forest
Whispered by the branches, as they blow.
A tale about the truth of leaving
Things that no longer help you grow.
For on the surface it looks simple,
Like you only need lace your boots,
But there is nothing quite as painful
As untangling your roots.
And proof is found in tree stumps
Of the price some pay to flee,
That they would cut their lives in half
To cut the time before they're free.
Yet from the little left behind
Life has been known to grow again,
For unless you take your roots
A part of you will still remain. — Erin Hanson

Muttering about caves, Jenks came in with my suitcase, his eyes roving the low ceiling. He dropped my bag by the door, tossed me the keys to the van, and headed out, flicking the light switch several times because he could. — Kim Harrison

Always, we think we know what courage means. If I were called upon, we say, I would answer the call. I would not hesitate. Until the moment is upon us, and then we realize that the demands of true courage are very different from what we had envisioned, long ago on that bright morning when we felt brave. — Erika Johansen

When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken. — P. J. O'Rourke

I know what Jack looks like naked. The image has been burned into my brain all these years, haunting my dreams and fantasies, but he's all that I remembered and a bag of chips. The party size. — Heather R. Blair

For the love of his art — Arthur Conan Doyle