The collection / 53 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

SearchTypeTopicEraCulture / collection labelCountry attributionTraditionOrder

Author

Leave empty for every voice. Browse all authors ↗

Reset

Culture labels and country attributions follow the source collections; earliest origins may be unknown.

53 results · Page 1 of 3Play this collection ▷

01Undated

It wasn’t until I’d walked halfway across the parking lot that I realized: 1. I wasn’t wearing shoes. A. Or a shirt. 2. I didn’t bring my keys A. Or anything really. 3. I’d just left a complete stranger in my apartment. A. Naked.Whoever said one-night stands were supposed to be simple with no strings attached had clearly never met the disaster that was me.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

02Undated

Garrick was panting when he replied, “You’re not forcing me to do anything. I just want you to be sure. You can say stop at anytime.” His lips pulled wide. “You don’t need to make up a new pet.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

03Undated

No tragedies here, Roar. This world will make you a victim every chance it gets. Don't let it.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

04Undated

The best parts of life are the things we can't plan. And it's a lot harder to find happiness if you're only searching in one place. Sometimes, you just have to throw away the map. Admit that you don't know where you're going and stop pressuring yourself to figure it out. Besides...a map is a life someone else already lived. It's more fun to make your own.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

05Undated

Bliss, I don’t normally do things like that. But I was second-guessing everything about coming here, and you were everything I needed. I don’t know how many times I’ve stopped myself from coming over here and knocking on your door. And yes, seeing you with Cade was definitely motivation, but more than that... I just like you, Bliss. As a teacher. As a person. As a guy.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

06Undated

Words streamed from my mouth, some familiar, some not.The last of the were, "I love you."He rose up off me with a grin. "If I'd known it was that easy to get you to admit how you feel, I would have done this a long time ago.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

07Undated

Phaedra keeps saying she's being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can't deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his." "And have you learned anything from our literary parallel?" "Not really, I keep thinking that she would do it all over again if there were a chance...a chance that it could go right. Even if 99 times out of a 100 the story ends badly, it's worth it if only once she gets a happy ending.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

08Undated

He wore his hope like a winter coat, layered over the top of all of him.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

09Undated

She had hoped. And hope broke more hearts than any man ever could.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

10Undated

My mother had told me once when I was little and had a friendship fall apart that some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

11Undated

Pain changes us. Mine made me want to be perfect, so that no one would ever want to leave me again.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

12Undated

Then, slowly, like the sunrise peeking over the horizon, she smiled.She snapped the box closed.She didn’t scream. She didn’t run. She didn’t faint.There might have been a little crying.But mostly… she danced.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

13Undated

She said she wanted my best line tomorrow after the show, and now I knew what it was going to be.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

14Undated

Sometimes she was Aurora. Confident. Clever. Cultured.Sometimes she was Rora. Afraid. Alone. Ashamed.And more and more, she was Roar -- bold, brash, and increasingly baffled by the situation in which she found herself. And sometimes she was none of them, lost and adrift somewhere in between, like the wildlands between Stormling cities.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

15Undated

Because you've got balls of steel.'I hated when people said that, like it assumed strength and being a male were synonymous. There was strength in being a woman. 'Spence, I don't have balls. Good thing, too, because they'd look terrible in the lingerie I'm wearing.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

16Undated

The future is never just one choice. It's a thousand. And they never stop. You will choose your future every day of your life. And should you wake up one day to find that you regret the choice you made the day before, then you make a new one. Don't worry about whether you might be wrong someday. Worry about whether you're right now. Tomorrow can wait.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

17Undated

Blind belief is a comfort; it is the frame that puts the rest of the world into context. It allows us to block out the things that don’t make sense, that which frightens us. It narrows our vision so that the world does not feel so large. Would it comfort you to have the frame of superstition? To believe that if you say the right words and sacrifice the right things, then your world will stay exactly as it is? Or do you wish to choose what you believe, what you trust and understand?

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

18Undated

Each one you take is a commitment. If you break that commitment, the gods of alcohol will punish you with a hangover so bad you'll think Satan himself took a dump on you. -Milo

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

19Undated

If brains could have orgasms, I'm pretty sure this was what it would feel like.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

20Undated

Even the good things from our pasts still only belonged in the past

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

21Undated

Do me a favor? Be a gentleman tomorrow?

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

22Undated

The timbre of his voice went into that low register that made my insides curl in on themselves--it was like my uterus was tapping out a happy dance on the rest of my organs.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

23Undated

I will call bullshit on that so many times that the word bullshit will lose all meaning. -Milo

Cora Carmack / quote

↗

24Undated

Because try as I might, perfect doesn't guarantee me anything. I can't control whether other people will want me or love me or even like me. I can only control how I feel about myself.

Cora Carmack / quote

↗