By accessing or using this site you accept and agree to our Terms and Conditions
We run an ad-free website, help us keep going, Support Us!
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
Roshani Chokshi
Top 10 Best Quotes
“This is why fairy tales are dangerous: their words sneak into your veins and travel into the chambers of your heart, where they whisper of your exceptionalism. They say: Ah, but remember the boy who walked into the woods and came out a king? Oh, but what of the girl who was kicked and slept in ashes? Remember the man who was only kind and so life bent around the shape of his smile? But we are not exceptional.”
“But maybe it is about finding someone whose heart is like a mirror, whose love can make you stand the sight of yourself.”
“In the end, a fairy tale is nothing more than a sense of hope. Hope lures and tricks. It tempts with shining thrones, exquisite nectars, and loving arms. It whispers to us that we are extraordinary. Exempt. Thus lured, we follow its path. Sometimes we are led to riches. Other times, we are led astray. But this hope never hides its shape, and for its honesty we reach for it and pull its sweet and stinking furs up to our chins, for to live without it means living without magic.”
“Our illusions weave roses around us, and when we try to escape, we are met with thorns.”
“I have since learned that marriage is nothing more than a spell strengthened by daily ritual. The spell requires libations: mundane musings hoarded and pored over, the repetition of small dismays, the knowledge of how your spouse takes their coffee. Marriage asks for that crust of time you were selfishly saving for yourself. Marriage demands blood, for it says: Here is what is inside me, and I tithe it to you.”
“You warned me that knowing your secret would destroy us. At first, it sat in our marriage like a blue- lipped ghost, hardly noticeable until a trick of the light drew it into focus. But you could always tell the days when it gnawed at my thoughts. You tried to comfort me. You stroked my face and curled my fingers to your heart. You said: “If you pry, you’ll destroy our marriage.” But oh, my love, you lied.”
“At its heart, a dream is a door. Sometimes there is nothing behind the door, only the stacked faces of strangers. Sometimes the door holds row upon row of indignities plucked and preserved like fruit out of season. And sometimes the door is a piece of yourself that has been exiled and severed for reasons you have been made to forget, and it is only in dream that it dares to show itself.”
“In fairy tales, a kiss marks a threshold—between the state of being cursed or cured lies a kiss. But not all kisses cure; some kill. Thresholds go both ways, after all. I wasn’t thinking about this when Indigo drew me to her beneath the chandeliers of her Paris hotel. At the time, I wished only to trap her laughter under glass. I could not hear, back then, how uncannily triumphant the sound was.”
“You never forget the moment when beauty turns to horror.”
“There is always a peculiar distance to fairy tales. They are denuded of urgency, rinsed of true horror even as the words relish in gore. Love is presented to us as something that must be as vast as a horizon and just as unreachable.”
Except where otherwise noted, all rights reserved to the author(s) of this book (mentioned above). The content of this page serves as promotional material only. If you enjoyed these quotes, you can support the author(s) by acquiring the full book from Amazon.
Book Keywords: