Quotes About Sacrifice

And that, Claire thought, was why Morley had been right about this, even if he was a complete vampire about it. You had to save what you could. Amelie had understood that all along, Claire realized. That was why Morganville existed. Because you had to try.

I'm sorry, Eve. I love you. I'm not letting you do this." She screamed and battered harder. "You love me? You asshole! Let me go!

Claire, I-Look, my life is one long series of screw-ups and bad decisions, and I know that. I own that. But you...I just want you to be happy. And it cuts me when you're not. I'm happy with you. She heard the smile in his voice this time. So what do you really want? A storybook life in Vampireville, with your life on the line every day and a half? I'm considering it, she said. And she was.

The first purpose of a librarian is to preserve and defend our books. Sometimes, that means dying for them - or making someone else die for them. Tota est scientia.

I'll defend the girl with my last breath," he promised, and clasped his hand dramatically to the chest of his ragged frock coat. "Oh, wait. That doesn't mean much, does it, since I gasped that last breath before the Magna Carta was dry on the page? I mean, of course I'll look after her, with whatever is left of my life.

Kill me," he said. "I'd rather be a useless corpse than a useful fool.

I love you, he said. It came out in a rush, as if he couldn't wait to get it out. I love you and Jesus, you scare me. Having to give you up was the hardest thing I've ever done, Claire; I can't do it again. Please tell me - please tell me that you're coming back for good. Or at least, if you leave, let me go with you. - Shane, Fall of night

Stripping away the humanity because that is the only way I can save myself and still watch this unrelenting horror.

And a hateful little voice whispered deep inside that she'd set him to trick Wolfe, and she was doing the same thing now. Making him believe something that couldn't be true. Making him believe she cared. Doesn't matter, he told that part of him. If she doesn't end up with a collar on her neck, locked in a tower, it doesn't matter how much she lies to me. It's all that matters. She should be free, whatever the costs.

This is what you wanted, I tell myself. You wanted Melvin to come for you. Now you just have to live long enough to be useful to your kids. Stay alive. I can't depend on Sam now. I can't depend on anyone but myself. All my life has been coming to this.

If I'm already dead to the people I love, I might as well die for them.

Your education or your life, Claire. I'd rather you be alive and a little bit dumber.

I understand why Laura did what she did. I think I'm supposed to be mad at her, but I'm not. I admire her courage. She saw what the world had to offer and said, No thank you. She saw the lies and hypocrisy and violence and hate and meaningless of it all and she chose another path. She won't live to see her grandchildren, but also won't live to see them suffer.

I love a man who doesn't let go of the leash, even when it leads him to ruin.

I hope I never love someone so much that they could hurt me the way Langston was hurt, so wounded all he could do was cry and mope around the house and ask me to make him peanut butter and banana sandwiches with the crusts cut off, then play Boggle with him, which of course I always did, because I usually do whatever Langston wants me to do.

And she thought: don't trust love unless you can see what it costs the lover.

Do it, Ester. If you must, then deceive your husband just as you deceived me—but you'll do it with a full belly and a house with children. I wish

Ester saw that she'd used belladonna drops to dilate them, sacrificing the day's vision for the chance to seem to Thomas more melting, more womanly.

Love has mass and volume. Put it into your life; it must displace something. As it has displaced my notion of what was good and important in the world, and substituted this: The knowledge that there is nothing more important than people willing to stand up for the truth of each other. The understanding of what it is to protect another fragile being. The understanding that I, too, will grow old.

he loved her as a foundering ship loves a lighthouse, even though the lighthouse is powerless to save it.

No, no, don't let my vulnerable heart share in this sacrifice to lust! Let him disgust me before pleasing me! Let him be what others have been, an instrument that I can break before becoming the echoes of its vibration.

Since this is a hard and sad truth for the telling; those whom nature has sacrificed to her ends--her mysterious ends that often lie hidden--are sometimes endowed with a vast will to loving, with an endless capacity for suffering also, which must go hand in hand with their love. p 146

Duty is a good thing, a calling without which no civilization can survive, but it is also a weight and chain that sometimes seems sure to sink you to the airless bottom of a dark pool

Her husband, Rafael, who'd left her and who'd contributed not one penny to his children's welfare, was a fool of such dimensions that he should have been required to dress like a jester, complete with silly hat and curled-toe shoes.