Short Story Quotes

“Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid in mortal anguish.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minister's Black Veil - Original Edition

“And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light --”
― Isaac Asimov, The Last Question

“The roar of laughter at civilization’s end.”
― Osamu Dazai, ヴィヨンの妻 [Viyon No Tsuma]

“It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all. (Lupov)”
― Isaac Asimov, The Last Question

“I don't need to know whether or not we are capable of magic. Because learning to love yourself, and finding people who love yourself too, that's the real magic.”
― Holly Bourne, What Magic Is This?

“On days her spirits are low, like now, or between ballet seasons, when she has time to think about herself outside of the roles she plays, when she is not Odette in Swan Lake or Clara in The Nutcracker, she finds her feet reason enough to doubt the grace for which she is applauded when she spins on the tips of her toes.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“The show is over, but she cannot bring herself to even slow down. The more she thinks about quitting, the louder the applause, the longer the standing ovations, and the higher the expectations go.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.”
― Isaac Asimov, The Last Question

“Did THEY also hear those notes he heard in memories, that soared and dived and trilled and sparkled in mesmeric intervals with the familiar, “lu, lu, lu, lu,” that had soothed and comforted him? It transported him to fields of gold and peaceful days, peaceful nights when the only sound was the twitching of birds in the hedgerows.”
― Suzy Davies, The Nightingale and The Sunflower

“As the days grew longer, and the last few touches of frost were melting, in the haze of dappled morning sun, children peered into the yellow window-box, long shadows dancing around their feet, their voices echoing.”
― Suzy Davies, The Nightingale and The Sunflower

“On the way home he had explained that she wasn’t his type. And she had felt too humiliated to retort – or even to be aware, at that moment – that he was not hers.”
― Alice Munro, Chance

“t must be irony that, now that he is back in Manila, poverty is almost a complete stranger. Even his Mamita, the woman who has taken care of him since he was born and who took personal care of his mother before him, is not that poor, at least not desperately poor, in Miko’s estimation.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“This is not New York. He does not need to fold in on himself to fit in a studio. He does not need to fend for himself. He does not need to go home to a dark place, where he needs to switch on the light upon arrival every night, and where no hot, homecooked meal awaits him. This is Manila, his home of luxury.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“He took pleasure in scandalizing the moralists in his circles, arriving at soireés in the arms of paid escorts whom he dressed up for the occasion not exactly to make them blend in but to make them stand out.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“When we do not know who we are, how do we relate to other nations as their equal, how do we know what our fair share is in international trade, how do we even know what’s best for us come election time.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“The buzz about the ball has risen to such a fever pitch that two weeks before the event those who had not received an invitation booked themselves a last-minute flight out of town—to Balesin or to Amanpulo or to Pangulasian in El Nido—or out of the country, Hong Kong or Singapore or as far as Tokyo.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“The pundits say that Manila! Manila! is the unwitting revenge of high society, under a new republic whose leader won the presidential elections by a landslide on a platform of social equality and poverty alleviation.”
― A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

“I don’t tell anyone about Jack, mostly because I don’t want anyone to know I’m shallow enough to think that a cute British guy is the single most interesting thing about visiting a different planet.”
― Jacqueline E. Smith, Broken Mirror

“Sidney Hellman doesn't remember who he was the last time around, if there was a last time. But how can he? None of us do.

Still, there are clues.

For instance, he starts seeing things. Images of events from another life. Terrible images.

--From the story "The Monster Inside," included in BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS, the new story collection by Mitchell Waldman”
― Mitchell Waldman

“I'm breathing with a light and free feeling. It's a feeling of release and independence as I begin my European journey. Backpacking somehow sets me apart from everyone. Even in this airport. True, people here are traveling, but they each have things to do, deadlines to meet, itineraries to follow, specific things to see. Not me, I'm different. I have everywhere to go and anything to see. My destination is culture and knowledge and experience.
in 'Waking up to Winter”
― John Morgan

“It wasn't just a room, it was a library filled to the brim with books--volume upon delicious volume of delight.”
― Carla Reighard, Bellarose III

“She had fallen, fallen into an endless void, and fallen into the bony fingers of Death. He was a wisp of a man, with frail limbs the color of smoke and a face shaded by a hood. His protruding eyes glowed with the brilliance of the brightest of stars, yellow irises that sent shivers down her spine.”
― Keerthi Eraniyan, Pebbles: A Collection of Short Stories

“Stories of the lone wolf were often spoken in packs with a level of awe that would make any youngling excited for the day they struck off alone to find their own home. Just like most stories, it seemed, the elders of his pack had left out some very important details.”
― Francesca McMahon, Echoes of the Past

“This is it. This is who she is. Not a dread terror of the night, but a small supple being that slips through the cracks like water.”
― JY Yang

“The place is very strange, I don't know if I'm dreaming or not, but it's a place where silent, naked people walk with thick dust. No one looks at anyone and no one seems interested in anything and I don't know what this place means.
The place I discovered after a long contemplation and these places I always discovered in my head, I discovered strange times and places after contemplation and the contents of creating my strangeness sometimes ugly, but its aesthetic is intrinsic.
I looked at myself and found that I had different characteristics from them alone, but they did not pay attention to anything or anyone. I try to speak and my voice does not come out, but I hear the echo of what I want to say in the whole place, as if we were in a glass ball. Whatever I intend to do without moving my body, without commanding it.
Was my previous will fulfilled when I was, when I was what? a human being Is volitional poetics achieved? To fly to beat physics, but who is fair to the chemistry and chemistry of the universe?
He is the Lord of shedding whom I call Sha’ariel, who transforms beings into other beings and places them in other universes. He turns like a chameleon, into human, animal, wind, inanimate, light, .. I am in the land of processing creatures into experimental projects.”
― السعيد عبدالغني

“I never think of it raining on the sea. Imagine it raining on whole oceans, and there's no one there.”
― Owen Marshall, Owen Marshall: Selected Stories

“Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in
the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got
under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through,
he would just get under another one. (Lupov)”
― Isaac Asimov, The Last Question

“The stars are dying. The original star is dead. (Zee Prime)”
― Isaac Asimov, The Last Question

“আকাশ এখন বেশ স্পষ্ট : গোলাপী রঙের, নীল রঙের; ঘাসের ওপর শিশিরবিন্দু বেশ স্পষ্ট : সবুজ চোখের মাথায় একটি শাদা মণি; টেলিগ্রাফের তারের রেখা বেশ স্পষ্ট : শিশিরে ধুয়ে খুব ধারালো ও নির্লিপ্ত। এই একটু সবুজ, একটু কালো মাঠে, রোদের নিচে, শিশিরের নিচে, চাপড়া চাপড়া ঘাসেরও নিচে একটা নোতুন কবর, টাটকা শোকে উঁচু। কার কবর?”
― Akhteruzzaman Elias, অন্য ঘরে অন্য স্বর

“Gray is a hue created with swirls of white gouache and a daub of midnight pain.”
― Bibiana Krall, Mint