Court Quotes

“Ten years of shadows, but no longer. Light up the darkness, Majesty.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Shadows

“You don't know a woman until you've met her in court.”
― Norman Mailer

“Thus went my first Court Day.
I think I'm going to puke.”
― Tamora Pierce, Terrier

“A queen keeps a court that is spoken about. A goddess keeps a court that is never forgotten.”
― Nalini Singh, Archangel's Kiss

“It's only their fight club, Liss," I said, having no need for her side of the conversation, "Nothing's going on. They're going to talk punches and kicking and other boring stuff."
Well, actually that stuff was pretty sweet, but I wasn't about to glorify Christian and Mia hanging out.
"Maybe now nothing's going on," she growled, staring stonily ahead. "But who knows what could happen? They spend time together, practice some physical moves, one thing leads to another—"
"That's ridiculous," I said. "That kind of stuff isn't romantic at all."
Another lie, seeing as that was exactly how my relationship with Dimitri had begun. Again, best not to mention that.”
― Richelle Mead, Spirit Bound

“Isana laughed. "And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?"
The lady smiled. "That's a question rarely asked here at court."
"And why is that?"
"Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience—only much more convincingly.”
― Jim Butcher, Academ's Fury

“Some people will hate you for not loving them.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never endure the notion of their children laying their heads on their pillows; in short , that there never more could be , for them or theirs , any laying of heads upon pillows at all , unless the prisioner's head was taken off.

The Attorney General during the trial of Mr. Darnay ”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon.”
― Sherwood Smith, Court Duel

“[American family court] is a system that is corrupt on his best day. It is like being tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged down a gravel late at night. No one can hear your cries and complaints and it is not over until they say it's over.”
― Alec Baldwin, A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce

“Court games aren't fair. They don't judge men by their worth, and they aren't about what's just. Guilty men can hold power their whole lives and be wept for when they pass. Innocent men can be spent like coins because it's convenient. You don't have to have sinned for them to ruin you. If your destruction is useful to them, you'll be destroyed.”
― Daniel Abraham, The Dragon's Path

“Nothing raises the national temperature more than a VACANCY sign hanging from the colonnaded front of the Supreme Court. ”
― Christopher Buckley, Supreme Courtship

“McAfee, I could try this case in my sleep and still win."
"Guess that's your plan, then, since you're clearly dreaming.”
― Jodi Picoult, Salem Falls

“Sixth grade, I remembermy best friend Wendy
whose parents were fighting, harshly, loudly,
and we sat on the curb outside so she wouldn't have to hear it,
and she cried, believing her world was falling apart.
I made up a kind-of game:
to everything she would say, I would respond
"Is that a fact or an opinion?"
and she had to figure it out and say it outloud--
we played it for hours,
ending up laughing
but she also began to separate
what was actually happening inside the house
from her feelings about it
and her fears.

I feel like I'm still playing "Fact or Opinion"
in my writing,
in the world--
with family, friends,
and, of course, myself.

Wish I could play it with our governmental representatives,
our institutions,
our courts.”
― Shellen Lubin

“Sixth grade, I remembermy best friend Wendy
whose parents were fighting, harshly, loudly,
and we sat on the curb outside so she wouldn't have to hear it,
and she cried, believing her world was falling apart.
I made up a kind-of game:
to everything she would say, I would respond
'Is that a fact or an opinion?'
and she had to figure it out and say it outloud--
we played it for hours,
ending up laughing
but she also began to separate
what was actually happening inside the house
from her feelings about it
and her fears.

I feel like I'm still playing 'Fact or Opinion'
in my writing,
in the world--
with family, friends,
and, of course, myself.

Wish I could play it with our governmental representatives,
our institutions,
our courts.”
― Shellen Lubin

“Captain, you have heard the charges. How do you plead? Before you answer, you should know that if you plead "guilty" you'll be immediately extradited and U.N.S. law will take over."

"Not guilty."

"Also, it's not very nice to lie in court."

"But it beats extradition.”
― Howard Tayler, Emperor Pius Dei

“Q: But what do you think that the Bible, itself, says? Don't you know how it was arrived at?
A: I never made a calculation
Q: What do you think?
A: I do not think about things I don't think about.
Q: Do you think about things you do think about?
A: Well, sometimes.”
― Scopes Trial

“I loved having each book I read on display, even though Beck constantly teased me about having similar habits to a serial killer who liked their trophies.”
― Andrea Andersen, What It Means To Be Brave

“It was impossible not to stare at each of them, not only because my encounters with the courtly fae are so rare I could count them on one hand, but because they were more lovely and more disturbing than any faerie I had set eyes on before. The Ljosland Folk had seemed shaped from the harsh landscape of their home, a pattern that seemed to extend to the courtly fae of this realm.
The memory blurs, much as I try to pin it like a butterfly in a display case. The best I can do is record the impressions I've retained: a woman with her hair a cascade of wild roses; a man with tiny leaves dotting his face, like freckles. Several faeries with their skin faintly patterned with whorls, like tree rings, or in the variegated shades of bark. Another woman who flashed silver-blue in the sun, as if she were not made of flesh and blood but a collection of ripples.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

“We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would make us believe - some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they‘re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others - some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.
But there is one way in this country in which all men are equal (…). That institution, gentlemen, is a court.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a court-room, be he any colour of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you‘ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don‘t you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.”
― Harper Lee, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

“The court imagined itself the pinnacle of refinement, but underneath its glittering surface a cauldron of dark emotions - greed, envy, lust, hatred - boiled and simmered. Our world today similarly imagines itself the pinnacle of fairness, yet the same ugly emotions still stir within us, as they have forever.”
― Robert Greene

“Let’s not dance around it: the truth, the whole truth, and noth- ing but the truth. Turns out, I don’t do well with that second truth. I’ll have to work on that in prison. It’ll give me something else to do and something to talk about in the weekly group get-togethers with the prison shrink.”
― Mark Shaiken, Fresh Start

“People can't be changed by writ or transformed by court decree.”
― Charles Morrow Wilson, The Bodacious Ozarks: True Tales of the Backhills

“Faintly rattled, Delphine rounded a curve in the path and found herself at the edge of clearing, the trees pulling back from a carpet of verdigris grass. They gave up the wildness of the wood here, tamed into symmetrically intertwined branches whose openings revealed more pale paths into the forest. The diffuse light of the forest concentrated here, as though emanating from hidden gas lamps. Delphine toed the boundary of what she now saw was an enormous fairy ring.
A structure of pure white rose from the center of the ring, the beams arching like the bones of a cathedral, the space between filled with delicate filigree of brittle white. Windows like translucent dragonfly wings shone under cornices carved like birds and flowers and trailing vines. A castle, Delphine thought, or a church--- all the same emphasis and gravitas translated here, and something stranger and deeper.”
― Rowenna Miller, The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill

“She stepped inside a vestibule with a silver bowl of pure, clear water set on a pedestal made of what Delphine could only assume was a very large, very sturdy zinnia. Was she supposed to wash in it, or was she firmly barred from touching it? She glanced in its shallow depth, and it began to pulse and swirl with pale light. She stepped away quickly. A filmy veil of light separated the interior; she held out a tentative finger, and the light brushed it like organza and separated for her. She stepped through into the Court, sprawling and open to the sky above, yet bound by the pale walls on all sides.
Inside, the Court looked back at her.
Dozens of Fae, gathered in twos and threes, beneath trees of gold and silver and around pools of deep azure blue, inside pavilions made of sheer flower petals and on carpets that must have been woven bird feathers. They all watched her, silently, unmoving. Each was almost painful to look at, beautiful and yet sharp and cold. All of them were arrayed in the spoils of their bargains, with sheer gowns of watercolor silk and robes of pliable silver, elaborate braids adorned with finely wrought metal and tautly bound silk, and even, on a few, wings and horns and talons refashioned from wood and bone and glass. Delphine was terrified of them, and yet also drawn to them. A great and terrible power hummed among them, just below the surface, a nearly tangible potential for change, for creation, for more than anything the world on her own side of the veil could offer.”
― Rowenna Miller, The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill

“I always go to court regarding police citations. The citations have always been dismissed by the judge.”
― Steven Magee

“During the past few weeks, I’d begun to feel that there might actually be an end to the endless cycle of penalties and fees. I’d spent an entire year trying to earn back my freedoms, but I now found myself stumbling through a set of revolving doors that would lead me back to square one all over again. Fines, counseling, court, AA, DT, probation, community service, licensing fees, impound fees, license suspension, countless hours walking and bumming rides back and forth between all these penalties. The weight of this mistake felt like a millstone tied around my neck, dragging me deeper and deeper into that pit of despair called hopelessness, the one from whence I’d come, the one I’d fought so hard to climb out of.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I’d been so used to the court system and thinking of myself as a criminal. I’d been so used to pleading in abeyance, proclaiming my guilt and unworthiness and asking the judge for mercy. But God’s love went beyond anything I’d seen in my lifetime. He wasn’t just giving me mercy by overlooking my sins, He was giving me justice by paying off every debt I’d ever created and bearing every damnation I’d ever deserved.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Innocent until proven guilty only works in old movies.”
― Joanna Wayne, 24 Karat Ammunition