Armor Suit Quotes

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

You wear your honor like a suit of armor... You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move.

She had always found villains more exciting than heroes. They had ambition, passion. They made the stories happen. Villains didn't fear death. No, they wrapped themselves in death like suits of armor! As she inhaled the school's graveyard smell, Agatha felt her blood rush. For like all villains, death didn't scare her. It made her feel alive.

And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same.

You look ridiculous. Armor suits you far more than silk." "Take me with you, and I will wear armor the whole time.

ONCE UPON A time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He loved each of them dearly. One day, when the young ladies were of age to be married, a terrible, three-headed dragon laid siege to the kingdom, burning villages with fiery breath. It spoiled crops and burned churches. It killed babies, old people, and everyone in between. The king promised a princess’s hand in marriage to whoever slayed the dragon. Heroes and warriors came in suits of armor, riding brave horses and bearing swords and arrows. One by one, these men were slaughtered and eaten. Finally the king reasoned that a maiden might melt the dragon’s heart and succeed where warriors had failed. He sent his eldest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon listened to not a word of her pleas. It swallowed her whole. Then the king sent his second daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon did the same. Swallowed her before she could get a word out. The king then sent his youngest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, and she was so lovely and clever that he was sure she would succeed where the others had perished. No indeed. The dragon simply ate her. The king was left aching with regret. He was now alone in the world. Now, let me ask you this. Who killed the girls? The dragon? Or their father?

Clothing is ultimately the suit of armor in which we battle the world.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Sarcasm is a suit of armor.

People always whispered when they were hiding. Wrapped in a space suit and surrounded by vacuum, Gomez could have been lighting fireworks inside his armor and no one would have heard it, but he whispered.

Ever set up a camping tent? From the inside? While wearing a suit of armor? It was a pain in the ass.

You seize your freedom in a spirit of rebelliousness, exuberance, defiant joy. But to live that choice -- over the weeks and months and years to come -- requires different qualities. It requires that you turn hard, turn rigid. Because it isn't a choice that the world encourages, you have to wear a suit of armor to defend it.

Angelo Visconti isn’t a knight in shining armor, he’s a monster in an Armani suit.

Love is pretty important. It's like wearing a suit of armor. It makes you strong.

Once upon a time there was a dwarf knight who only had fifty words to live in and they were so fleeting that he only had time to put on a suit of armor and ride swiftly on a black horse into a very well-lit woods where he vanished forever.

If you were mine" Oh my what would I do to be his? He's the only man who has ever set the blood racing through my body. Yet he's so antagonizing too; he's difficult, complicated, and confusing. One minute he rebuffs me, the next he sends me fourteen thousand dollar books, then tracks me like a stalker. And for all that, I have spent the night in his hotel suite, and I feel safe. Protected. He cares enough to come and rescue me from some mistakenly perceived danger. He's not a dark knight at all but a white knight in shining, dazzling armor... a classic romantic hero.

After mangling the Hab, I pulled the remaining canvas down to the flooring and resealed it. Ever set up a camping tent? From the inside? While wearing a suit of armor? It was a pain in the ass.

But I guess even the knights were vessels to someone. Isn't that the way it worked? But then everyone is always a vessel to someone. Isn't that right, Terri? But what I liked about the knights, besides their ladies, was that they had that suit of armor, you know, and they couldn't get hurt very easily. No cars in those days, you know? No drunk teenagers to tear into your ass." Vassals," Terri said. What?" Mel said. Vassals," Terri said. "They were called vassals.

We were passing suits of armor at irregular intervals, and as usual, I had an uncomfortable feeling that I was under observation. “There’s someone inside that armor, isn’t there?” I whispered to Mr. George. “Some poor novice who can’t go to the toilet all day, right? I can tell he’s staring at us.

How much do you work out?" "I don't," he said. "It's genetic." Which it was. Puberty had brought him many things unbidden, including height and weight and an extreme mesomorph physique, with a six-pack like a cobbled city street, and a chest like a suit of NFL armor, and biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue. He had never messed with any of it. No diets. No weights. No gym time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, was his attitude.

I need a suit of armor and the courage to stand behind my convictions to fight for what I want.

Ransie was a narrow six feet of sallow brown skin and yellow hair. The imperturbability of the mountains hung upon him like a suit of armor. The woman was calicoed, angled, snuff-brushed, and weary with unknown desires. Through it all gleamed a faint protest of cheated youth unconscious of its loss.

Odd way to dress for an investigation," Barrons murmured. "She's not Dani anymore," Ryodan clipped. "Would you rather she had on jeans and sneakers?" I said. "I'd rather she had on a fucking suit of armor," Ryodan said cooly. And a chastity belt if I could read the looks in a man's eyes. And I could. "She's a woman, Ryodan," I said softly. "Get used to it. Dancer was right. We need to accept her." (Mac, Barrons and Ryodan as Dani/Jada walks into Chesters)

Be brave, Amari. This time I hold on to Binta's words, wrapping them around my body like a suit of armor. I can be brave. For Binta, I must be everything.

We followed him through the wealthy splendor of the house. Hardwood floors. Custom carved woodworking. Statues. Fountains. Suits of armor. Original painting, one of them a van Gogh. Stained-glass windows. Household staff in formal uniform. I kept expecting to come across a flock of peacocks roaming the halls, or maybe a pet cheetah in a diamond-studded collar.

While the bodies of young children are usually relaxed and flexible, if experiences of fear are continuous over the years, chronic tightening happens. Our shoulders may become permanently knotted and raised, our head thrust forward, our back hunched, our chest sunken. Rather than a temporary reaction to danger, we develop a permanent suit of armor. We become, as Chogyam Trungpa puts it, “a bundle of tense muscles defending our existence.” We often don’t even recognize this armor because it feels like such a familiar part of who we are. But we can see it in others. And when we are meditating, we can feel it in ourselves—the tightness, the areas where we feel nothing.

Give me your word that you’ll tell the queen what she wants to hear when she comes calling.” “If I did, my word would be as hollow as an empty suit of armor. My life is not so precious to me as that.

Listen to me," Jordan begged urgently, somehow convinced that she would stay alive if she understood how much she meant to him. "Listen to what my life was like before you hurtled into it wearing that suit of armor— Life was empty. Colorless. And then you happened to me, and suddenly I felt feelings I never believed existed, and I saw things I'd never seen before. You don't believe that, do you, darling? But it's true, and I can prove it." His deep voice ragged with unshed tears, Jordan recited his proof: "The flowers in the meadow are blue," he told her brokenly. "The ones by the stream are white. And on the arch, by the arbor, the roses are red." Lifting her hand to his face, he rubbed his cheek against it. "And that's not all I noticed. I noticed that the clearing by the pavilion—the one where my plaque is—looks like the very same one where we had our duel a year ago. Oh, and darling, there's something else I have to tell you: I love you, Alexandra." Tears choked his voice and made it a tormented whisper. "I love you, and if you die I'll never be able to tell you that.

Then armor yourself in faith, by all means, but wear a suit of mail and plate as well.

Let me ask you, dear reader, have you ever tried to wear a suit of armor? Great Caesar’s Ghost, it’s almost impossible to put on because—well, it’s a suit of fucking armor!

Andy kicked her way in, moonlit and angerstruck, doors shattering the decoration behind as she shouted at the shocked furniture: “Blyton Summer Fucking Detective Club! Anybody home?” Kerri and Nate came to flank her right after, rifles aimed at the horrified haunted house. Tim scurried between them, promenaded across the hall, stopped by a decorative suit of armor, and peed on it.

And now--Piertotum Locomotor!” cried Professor McGonagall. And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same. “Hogwarts is threatened!” shouted Professor McGonagall. “Man the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!

Who’s there?” “It is I,” said a low voice. From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape. Hatred boiled up in Harry at the sight of him: He had forgotten the details of Snape’s appearance in the magnitude of his crimes, forgotten how his greasy black hair hung in curtains around his thin face, how his black eyes had a dead, cold look. He was not wearing nightclothes, but was dressed in his usual black cloak, and he too was holding his wand ready for a fight. “Where are the Carrows?” he asked quietly. “Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus,” said Professor McGonagall. Snape stepped nearer, and his eyes flitted over Professor McGonagall into the air around her, as if he knew Harry was there. Harry held his wand up too, ready to attack. “I was under the impression,” said Snape, “that Alecto had apprehended an intruder.” “Really?” said professor McGonagall. “And what gave you that impression?” Snape made a slight flexing movement of his left arm, where the Dark Mark was branded into his skin. “Oh, but naturally,” said Professor McGonagall. “You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot.

You have built for yourselves psychic suits of armor, and clad in them, your vision is restricted, your movements are clumsy and painful, your skin is bruised, and your spirit is broiled in the sun. I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free

I scowled. “Murphy’s made of muscle. You just can’t see it under the suit and the body armor,” I said. “And she hasn’t gotten lucky with me either.” Ascher stared at me for a second and blinked slowly. “You’re . . . serious, aren’t you?” “We’re complicated,” I said. “Because you’re twitchy?” “And she’s had a couple of divorces. And her ex-boyfriend kind of shot me.” “What?” “I asked him to,” I said hurriedly. “What?

Most causes of ignorance can be overcome, if people are willing to learn. Nothing, however, can overcome the toxic confluence of arrogance, narcissism, and cynicism that Americans now wear like full suit of armor against the efforts of experts and professionals.

It suddenly occurred to me just how absurd this scene was: a guy wearing a suit of armor, standing next to an undead king, both hunched over the controls of a classic arcade game.

He was fed up with me by then; I knew that: the way my sadness was a suit of armor. How securely I kept him out.

Would a suit of armor make women feel as invincible as a sexy pair of shoes?

It felt like donning a suit of armor or sprouting wings, extending past the boundaries of myself; it felt an awful lot like love.

Knowing who you are and what you’re capable of in your own skin is more powerful than any suit of armor— it’s what makes the ordinary extraordinary.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life ... You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore.

The door to the courtroom burst open and Lancelot swept in. Dressed in a full suit of armour, the idiot looked like an idiot. His idiot blond hair and idiot chiseled jaw line further contributed to his idiocy. The idiot cleft on his too pretty face and the idiot swagger to his too swaggering proclaimed to anyone that he was the biggest idiot in the kingdom. And, given that the Northlands was full to bursting with idiots, that was quite a feat of idiocy.

Could it be that the atomic isolation of the husband and wife nucleus with an orbiting child or two is in fact a culturally imposed aberration for our species? As ill-suited to our evolved tendencies as corsets, chastity belts, and suits of armor? ...a distorted and distorting family structure inappropriate for our species?

For Priebus, it was the worst meeting among many terrible ones. Six months into the administration, he could see vividly that they had a fundamental problem of goal setting. Where were they going? The distrust in the room had been thick and corrosive. The atmosphere was primitive; everyone was ostensibly on the same side, but they had seemed suited up in battle armor, particularly the president. This was what craziness was like, Priebus concluded

Every now and then a green dot shifted to yellow. A soldier down, their armored suits detecting the injuries or death that rendered them combat ineffective. Combat ineffective. Such a nice euphemism for one of his kids bleeding out.

It was an unusual sunset. Having sat behind opaque drapery all day, I had not realized that a storm was pushing in and that much of the sky was the precise shade of old suits of armor one finds in museums. At the same time, patches of brilliance engaged in a territorial dispute with the oncoming onyx of the storm. Light and darkness mingled in strange ways both above and below. Shadows and sunshine washed together, streaking the landscape with an unearthly study of glare and gloom. Bright clouds and black folded into each other in a no-man's land of the sky. The autumn trees took on the appearance of sculptures formed in a dream, their leaden-colored trunks and branches and iron-red leaves all locked in an infinite and unliving moment, unnaturally timeless. The gray lake slowly tossed and tumbled in a dead sleep, nudging unconsciously against its breakwall of numb stone. A scene of contradiction and ambivalence, a tragicomedic haze over all. A land of perfect twilight.

It hurt, a little. I felt like I had put on a suit of armor and twisted a key at the side, chasing the air out, fitting it closer and tighter to my flesh with every turn. But I found that it kept me in a Shape. And how wonderful. A Shape. How dizzying.

Dating women was the hardest thing I had to to as Ned, even when the women liked me and I liked them. I have never felt more vulnerable to total strangers, never more socially defenseless than in my clanking suit of borrowed armor. But then, I guess maybe that's one of the secrets of manhood that no man tells if he can help it. Every man's armor is borrowed and ten sizes too big, and beneath it, he's naked and insecure and hoping you won't see.

Q: How do you take off your suit of armor? How do you open yourself? A: It is not a question of how you do it. There is no ritual or ceremony or formula for opening. The first obstacle is the question itself: “How?” If you don’t question yourself, don’t watch yourself, then you just do it. We do not consider how we are going to vomit; we just vomit. There is no time to think about it; it just happens. If we are very tense, then we will have tremendous pain and will not really be able to vomit properly. We will try to swallow it back, try to struggle with our illness. We have to learn to relax when we are sick.

Is it nonsense," I asked, managing to suppress what I felt—"is it nonsense when he says that the tassets and cuissards of the enamelled suit of armor commonly known as the 'Prince's Emblazoned' can be found among a mass of rusty theatrical properties, broken stoves, and rag-picker's refuse in a garret in Pell Street?

Ah, you pitiful, pitiful creatures! Beautiful family! Nobler far than stupid men..." he cried softly to himself. What was he doing here with his arrow? Cornering these creatures? Armor--an armor to brag about! Save his dignity before that armor-maker because of a promise? Foolish...foolish! If the old man jeered at him, why should it matter anymore; a common suit of armor would do as well! Armor did not make a man, nor did it signify valor. "Dumb creatures that you are, how magnificent! Sorrow, love--parental love incarnate! Were I that fox--what if Tokiko and Shigemori were trapped like this? Even the beast can rise above itself--could I as much?

Deciding on the right thing to do in a situation is a bit like deciding on the right thing to wear to a party. It is easy to decide on what is wrong to wear to a party, such as deep-sea diving equipment or a pair of large pillows, but deciding what is right is much trickier. It might seem right to wear a navy blue suit, for instance, but when you arrive there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being handcuffed due to a case of mistaken identity. It might seem right to wear your favorite pair of shoes, but there could be a sudden flood at the party, and your shoes would be ruined. And it might seem right to wear a suit of armor to the party, but there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being caught in a flood due to a case of mistaken identity, and find yourself drifting out to sea wishing that you were wearing deep-sea diving equipment after all. The truth is that you can never be sure if you have decided on the right thing until the party is over, and by then it is too late to go back and change your mind, which is why the world is filled with people doing terrible things and wearing ugly clothing, and so few volunteers who are able to stop them.

She was beginning to weep again. Tears were her final defense, just as they had always been his mother’s: the soft weapon which paralyzes, which turns kindness and tenderness into fatal chinks in one’s armor. Not that he’d ever worn much armor anyway—suits of armor did not seem to fit him very well. Tears had been more than a defense for his mother; they had been a weapon. Myra had rarely used her own tears so cynically . . . but, cynically or not, he realized she was trying to use them that way now . . . and she was succeeding. He

Misanthropy is a suit of armor lined with thorns.

He saw a tourist drunk laboring up the sidewalk carrying a full suit of armor. He saw a beautiful young woman vomit in the street. Dogs turned at the sound and ran toward her.

A reputation can often be stronger than a suit of armor. This was something Sendoa believed. He knew it to be true through personal experience.

I'm two eyes looking out of a suit of armor. I write because I can't talk.

They had powered armor and heavy caliber rifles. We had bio-suits and pure hearts, oh yeah.

Clothing is ultimately the suit of armor in which we battle the world. When you choose your clothing right, it feels good. And there’s nothing shallow about feeling good.

You're not hiding, but you're sitting in a gay bar at dinnertime. You're not hiding, but you're wearing that suit like it's armor.

My body is yours. I am your shield. I am your armor. I will kill anyone who tries to take you from me, I promise.

I was lying on the procedure table, my armor gone, just wearing what was left of my suit skin, the humans gathered around. That was a bit of a nightmare image.

And I doubt that the average border guard in Skandia will see the difference—particularly if you’re dressed in that fine suit of Gallican armor you took from Deparnieux.

For some reason, Talon Steel paralyzed me. He was perfectly cordial but not friendly. Impenetrable. Like a suit of invisible armor covered him from head to toe.

Inflexible convictions are powerful things. But are they a suit of armor or a prison cell? A weapon or a weakness? —EMPEROR JULES CORRINO, strategic briefing on unrest in the former Unallied Planets

Other objects found in shark stomachs include a suit of armor, a barrel of nails, a roll of tar paper, coal, raincoats, shoes, plastic bags, goats, sheep, lizards, snakes, chicken, reindeer, and monkeys.

Being busy is a kind of tool this way. It’s like giving yourself a suit of armor to wear: If someone’s shooting arrows in your direction, you’re less likely to register any hits. There simply isn’t time.

My faux school uniform is like a power suit, my armor, a super hero’s costume that makes me feel on top of the world. Short skirt, white blouse, knee-highs and Mary Janes. When I wear this, I make the rules.

I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great Hall in twenty minutes, also,” said Professor McGonagall. “If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill.” “Minerva!” he said, aghast. “The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties,” interrupted Professor McGonagall. “Go and wake your students, Horace.” Harry did not stay to watch Slughorn splutter: He and Luna ran after Professor McGonagall, who had taken up a position in the middle of the corridor and raised her wand. “Piertotum--oh, for heaven’s sake, Filch, not now--” The aged caretaker had just come hobbling into view, shouting, “Students out of bed! Students in the corridors!” “They’re supposed to be, you blithering idiot!” shouted McGonagall. “Now go and do something constructive! Find Peeves!” “P-Peeves?” stammered Filch as though he had never heard the name before. “Yes, Peeves, you fool, Peeves! Haven’t you been complaining about him for a quarter of a century? Go and fetch him, at once!” Filch evidently thought Professor McGonagall had taken leave of her senses, but hobbled away, hunch-shouldered, muttering under his breath. “And now--Piertotum Locomotor!” cried Professor McGonagall. And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same. “Hogwarts is threatened!” shouted Professor McGonagall. “Man the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!

Rapp took his pathetic self-absorbed emotion and shoved it as far down in his gut as it would go, and he plugged it with the first and only thing he had available—anger. That anger slowly metastasized into a suit of armor. For the first time since the news had hit him, he saw a way out. A faint light at the far end of the cavern. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew he had to head toward it. It was the only thing that offered him hope.

Could it be that the atomic isolation of the husband-wife nucleus with an orbiting child or two is in fact a culturally imposed aberration for our species—as ill-suited to our evolved tendencies as corsets, chastity belts, and suits of armor?

During a chance meeting, the naturalist E.O. Wilson advised me to give up thinking we are doomed. "It's our chance to practice altruism," he said. I looked doubtful, but he continued. "We have to wear suits of armor like World War II soldiers and just keep going. We have to get used to the changes in the landscape and step over the dead bodies. We have to discipline our behavior and not get stuck in tribal and religious restrictions. We have to work altruistically and cooperatively and make a new world.

It suddenly occurred to me just how absurd this scene was: a guy wearing a suit of armor, standing next to an undead king, both hunched over the controls of a classic arcade game. It was the sort of surreal image you'd expect to see on the cover of an old issue of Heavy Metal or Dragon magazine.

But we were powerless too, because they did have those chariots and archers and suits of armor, and until me, no Israelite could win a pitched battle on low ground without employing some clandestine or psychological device or receiving supernatural assistance in the form of some rare aberration of nature.

The Last Mistake was a sort of monument to the failure of human artifice at critical moments. Its walls were covered in a bewildering variety of souvenirs, each one telling a visual tale that ended with the phrase “not quite good enough.” Above the bar was a full suit of armor, a square hole punched through at the left breast by a crossbow quarrel. Broken swords and split helmets covered the walls, along with fragments of oars, masts, spars, and tatters of sails. One of the bar’s proudest claims was that it had secured a memento of every ship that had foundered within sight of Camorr in the past seventy years.

Mary Hepburn was meanwhile murdering herself up in her room, lying on her bed with the polyethylene sheath of her "Jackie dress" swapped around her head. The sheath was now all steamed up inside, and she hallucinated that she was a great land tortoise lying on its back in the hot and humid hold of a sailing ship of long ago. She pawed the air in perfect futility, just as a land tortoise on its back would have done. As she had often told her students, sailing ships bound out across the Pacific used to stop off in the Galàpagos Islands to capture defenseless tortoises, who could live on their backs without food or water for months. They were so slow and tame and huge and plentiful. The sailors would capsize them without fear of being bitten or clawed. then they would drag them down to waiting longboats on the shore, using the animals' own useless suits of armor for sleds. They would store them on their backs in the dark paying no further attention to them until it was time for them to be eaten. the beauty of the tortoises to the sailors was that they were fresh meat which did not have to be refrigerated or eaten right away.

All this anger about the armor—it was really about honor. It was only about honor. There was nothing mercenary in my husband. Aside from the honor it carried, that suit of armor had no value. No one could melt it down for the precious metals, because, after all, it was made by a god, and it had been worn by Achilles. Ajax was too big to wear it, and Odysseus was too small. This fight was not about a suit of armor or the price of a suit of armor. It was about honor. The men in this army are mad about honor. Women like me lost their honor long ago. Honor means nothing to me. But I understand what it means to a man like Ajax. He was loyal because of his honor, brave because of his honor; everything he was he was because of his honor. And these fools canceled that out. They canceled him out.

Did you ever climb into one of those suits of armor?" "Caine did once-it took me over an hour to pry him out." Shelby gave a murmur of sympathy as she framed his face with her hands. "You were such a good boy." Her laugh was muffled against his lips in a sudden searing kiss.All heat,all fire, without a moment's warning. "He climbed in," Alan continued as he tugged her hair back to deepen the kiss, "because I suggested it might be an interesting experience." Breathless,Shelby stared up at him. When would she be prepared for those sudden dangerous turns of his nature? "An instigator," she managed. "An objective leader," he corrected before he released her. "And I did manage to get him out...after he'd scared the wits out of Rena." For a moment she leaned against the wall watching him, while the throbbing in her body slowly, very slowly, lessened. "I don't believe you were nearly as well-mannered as you once told me.You probably deserved that broken nose." "Caine deserved it more." Shelby laughed again as they moved down another corridor. "I like your family." "So do I." "And you enjoyed watching me go nose-to-nose with your father." "I've always been fond of drawing-room comedies." "Drawing room? It's more like a throne room.

So far we have had a séance, with spirit possession, a White Lady walking by night, a perambulating suit of armor, a diabolical character in a black cloak, and even a semi-dead man with a look of stark staring horror. It isn’t even good horror fiction; it’s straight out of The Mysteries of Udolpho. By some straining of the brain I could believe in ghosts; but I can’t believe in a ghost that acts like Terror Comics.

At last, when his wits were gone beyond repair, he came to conceive the strangest idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world. It now appeared to him fitting and necessary, in order to win a greater amount of honor for himself and serve his country at the same time, to become a knight-errant and roam the world on horseback, in a suit of armor; he would go in quest of adventures, by way of putting into practice all that he had read in his books; he would right every manner of wrong, placing himself in situations of the greatest peril such as would redound to the eternal glory of his name. As a reward for his valor and the might of his arm, the poor fellow could already see himself crowned Emperor of Trebizond at the very least; and so, carried away by the strange pleasure that he found in such thoughts as these, he at once set about putting his plan into effect.

Lucinda might sneak from her own house at midnight to place a wager somewhere else, but she dared not touch the pack that lay in her own sideboard. She knew how passionate he had become about his 'weakness.' She dared not even ask him how it was he had reversed his opinions on the matter. But, oh, how she yearned to discuss it with him, how much she wished to deal a hand on a grey wool blanket. There would be no headaches then, only this sweet consummation of their comradeship. But she said not a word. And although she might have her 'dainty' shoes tossed to the floor, have her bare toes quite visible through her stockings, have a draught of sherry in her hand, in short appear quite radical, she was too timid, she thought, too much a mouse, to reveal her gambler's heart to him. She did not like this mouselike quality. As usual, she found herself too careful, too held in. Once she said: 'I wish I had ten sisters and a big kitchen to laugh in.' Her lodger frowned and dusted his knees. She thought: He is as near to a sister as I am likely to get, but he does not understand. She would have had a woman friend so they could brush each other's hair, and just, please God, put aside this great clanking suit of ugly armor. She kept her glass dreams from him, even whilst she appeared to talk about them. He was an admiring listener, but she only showed him the opaque skin of her dreams--window glass, the price of transporting it, the difficulties with builders who would not pay their bills inside six months. He imagined this was her business, and of course it was, but all the things she spoke of were a fog across its landscape which was filled with such soaring mountains she would be embarrassed to lay claim to them. Her true ambition, the one she would not confess to him, was to build something Extraordinary and Fine from glass and cast iron. A conservatory, but not a conservatory. Glass laced with steel, spun like a spider web--the idea danced around the periphery of her vision, never long enough to be clear. When she attempted to make a sketch, it became diminished, wooden, inelegant. Sometimes, in her dreams, she felt she had discovered its form, but if she had, it was like an improperly fixed photograph which fades when exposed to daylight. She was wise enough, or foolish enough, to believe this did not matter, that the form would present itself to her in the end.

She came back pinked, sun-dazed and slow moving, with spume-salted hair and a sandy butt, displaying upon a narrow palm, with a child’s innocence, a small and perfect white shell, saying in a voice still drugged with sun and heat, “It’s like the first perfect thing I ever saw, or the first shell. It’s a little white suit of armor with the animal dead and gone. What does it mean when things look so clear and so meaningful? Silly little things.” I sat on a low stool, hating the phone.

Words are abstraction, break off from the green; words are patterns in the way fences and trenches are. Words hurt. I can hide in words so long as I scatter them through my body; to read your letters is to gather flowers from within myself, pluck a blossom here, a fern there, arrange and rearrange them in ways to suit a sunny room. Even poetry, which breaks language into meaning—poetry ossifies, in time, the way trees do. What’s supple, whipping, soft, and fresh grows hard, grows armor.

It was Art3mis. She wore a suit of scaled gunmetal-blue armor that looked more sci-fi than fantasy. Twin blaster pistols were slung low on her hips in quickdraw holsters, and there was a long, curved elvish sword in a scabbard across her back. She wore fingerless Road Warrior–style racing gloves and a pair of classic Ray-Ban shades. Overall, she seemed to be going for a sort of mid-’80s postapocalyptic cyberpunk girl-next-door look. And it was working for me, in a big way. In a word: hot.

Just as the attempts to preserve the power of knights in armor were doomed to fail in the face of gunpowder weapons, so the modern notions of nationalism and citizenship are doomed to be short-circuited by microtechnology. Indeed, they will eventually become comic in much the way that the sixteenth century. The cherished civic notions of the twentieth century will be comic anachronisms to new generations after the transformation of the year 2000. The Don Quixote of the twenty-first century will not be a knight-errant struggling to revive the glories of feudalism but a bureaucrat in a brown suit, a tax collector yearning for a citizen to audit.

At night the wind moaned. The gnarled and stunted tree trunks creaked and groaned and forced Yossarian’s thoughts each morning, even before he was fully awake, back on Kid Sampson’s skinny legs bloating and decaying, as systematically as a ticking clock, in the icy rain and wet sand all through the blind, cold, gusty October nights. After Kid Sampson’s legs, he would think of pitiful, whimpering Snowden freezing to death in the rear section of the plane, holding his eternal, immutable secret concealed inside his quilted, armor-plate flak suit until Yossarian had finished sterilizing and bandaging the wrong wound on his leg, and then spilling it out suddenly all over the floor.

Every year Grandma Ann (not blood related but our grandmother all the same) made extravagant paper hats out of recycled material; the mesh netting of pears, colored comics, indigo feathers, origami flowers. She sold them at street fairs and donated the proceeds to local organizations, including Grateful Garments, which provided clothes for survivors of sexual violence. Had this organization not existed, I would have left the hospital wearing nothing but a flimsy gown and boots. Which meant all the hours spent cutting and taping hats at the dinner table, selling them at a little booth in the sun, had gifted me a gentle suit of armor. Grandma Ann wrapped herself around me, told me I was ready.

Our defense against the devil, made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection and the Holy Spirit’s presence in us, comes in three ways: 1. Preparation: In Ephesians 6:10f, the apostle Paul teaches us to grow in our faith similarly to a soldier putting on armor, so that we may stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Our defense is truth; a right relationship with God; the Gospel of peace, faith, and salvation; and our offensive weapon, the word of God. 2. Discernment: We are gifted by the Holy Spirit to “discern spirits” (1 Cor. 12:10). 3. Active resistance: James 4:7 says that if we resist the devil he will flee from us. Our ability to resist depends on our preparation and our discernment. Our resistance is not passive, but an active and intentional use of the “sword of the Spirit, the word of God.” Jesus modeled this, and the disciples followed suit, as they cast out demons by commanding them in the name of Jesus. We can do the same thing through the power of the same Holy Spirit.

Just meat on a stick with the vague sense that somewhere between lavish femininity And state violence lay a mediocre thing called liberty. Still, to be able to sleep at all’s a procedure of waking. Everybody Has to live somewhere being that we are here where most Of us are not welcome. Did you know transcendental Homelessness was a thing. But I dreamed this dream On a physical mattress. On an actual floor in a room with a door That I pay and pay for. If you write you can forge A substance that is other than the woman of substance You are. If you do it to such a point you can find Yourself declining substance altogether. It happens. It is a danger. But there will Always be the idea of a bath or a sleep in a bed or a dream In the head of a woman who is even beautiful visibly Or at least groomed, or somewhat fresh Or like that most domestic of bugs the cockroach Dragging his ponderous suit of armor across the floor Or clean sheets when it’s raining and I love you so much And I think Gimme Shelter, which is a movie I’ve never seen.

Turning, she smiled with genuine affection at Lord Marchman and offered him her hand through the open window of the coach. “Thank you,” she said shyly but with great sincerity, “for being all the things you are, my lord.” His face scarlet with pleasure at her compliment, John Marchman stepped back and watched her coach pull out of his drive. He watched it until the horses turned onto the road, then he slowly walked back toward the house and went into his study. Sitting down at his desk, he looked at the note he’d written her uncle and idly drummed his fingers upon his desk, recalling her disturbing answer when he asked if she’d dissuaded old Belhaven from pressing his suit. “I think I have,” she’d said. And then John made his decision. Feeling rather like an absurd knight in shining armor rushing to save an unwilling damsel in the event of future distress, he took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote out a new message to her uncle. As it always happened the moment courtship was involved, Lord Marchman lost his ability to be articulate. His note read: If Belhaven asks for her, please advise me of it. I think I want her first.

Lucinda and Mr. Wiley were returning at last, and she ran to Lucinda, hastily stepping around the black horse, who laid his ears back evilly in warning. “Lucy!” she burst out while Lucinda waited calmly for Mr. Wiley to help her down. “Lucy! Disaster has struck.” “A moment, if you please, Elizabeth,” said the unflappable woman. “Whatever it is, it will surely wait until we’re inside and can be comfortable. I declare, I feel as if I were born atop this horse. You cannot imagine the time we had finding suitable servants…” Elizabeth scarcely heard the rest of what she was saying. In a torment of frantic helplessness she had to wait while Lucinda dismounted, limped into the house, and sat down upon the sofa. “Now then,” said Lucinda, flicking a speck of dust off her skirts, “what has happened?” Oblivious to the vicar, who was standing by the fireplace looking mystified and alarmed on her behalf, Elizabeth handed Lucinda the note. “Read this. It-it sounds as if he’s already accepted him.” As she read the brief missive Lucinda’s face turned an awful gray with two bright splotches of angry color standing out on her hollow cheeks. “He’d accept an offer from the devil,” Lucinda gritted wrathfully, “so long as he had a noble title and money. This shouldn’t come as a surprise.” “I was so certain I’d persuaded Belhaven that we couldn’t possibly suit!” Elizabeth almost wailed, twisting her blue skirt in her hands in her agitation. “I did everything, Lucy, everything I told you about, and more.” Agitation drove Elizabeth to her feet. “If we make haste, we can be home by the allotted time, and perhaps I can find a way to dissuade Uncle Julius.” Lucinda did not leap to her feet as Elizabeth did; she did not race for the stairs, dash into her room, and vent her helpless rage by slamming a door, as Elizabeth did. Her body rigid, Lucinda stood up very slowly and turned to the vicar. “Where is he?” she snapped. “Ian?” the vicar said distractedly, alarmed by her pallid color. “He’s gone hunting.” Deprived of her real prey, Lucinda unleashed her fury upon the hapless vicar instead. When she finished her tirade she hurled the crumpled note into the cold fireplace and said in a voice that shook with wrath, “When that spawn of Lucifer returns, you tell him that if he ever crosses my path, he’d better be wearing a suit of armor!” So saying, she marched upstairs.

Once upon a time, there was a princess. All of her life the king and queen told her that princesses behaved like ladies, wore beautiful dresses, trained in proper manners and elegance, and were to always wait for a handsome prince to come and save them if ever needed. Princes behaved like gentlemen, wore the finest suites, trained in swordsmanship and sailing, and were always ready to save a princess. This was the perfect formula for a "happily ever after", or at least that's what her parents always told her. What if they were wrong? Could her "happily ever after" look different? One day, this particular human found herself to be in a bit of a pickle. She somehow ended up in the den of a vicious, multi-headed, fire-breathing dragon. She was not about to wait around for a prince to save her, partly because she didn't have time, and partly because she didn't need a prince. She had no sword, no shield, and no idea what to do. (...) She behaved with nobility, wore the most impenetrable armor, wielded her weapon with stength, trained her brain and her body, and never ever waited to be saved. She could slay dragons and fo to afternoon tea with the queen in the same day. She could marry a princess. She was herself, and she lived happily ever after.

A few mornings later Peter and Edmund were looking at the suit of armor and wondering if they could take it to bits, when the two girls rushed into the room and said, “Look out! Here comes the Macready and a whole gang with her.” “Sharp’s the word,” said Peter, and all four made off through the door at the far end of the room. But when they had got out into the Green Room and beyond it, into the library, they suddenly heard voices ahead of them, and realized that Mrs. Macready must be bringing her party of sightseers up the back stairs--instead of up the front stairs as they had expected. And after that--whether it was that they lost their heads, or that Mrs. Macready was trying to catch them, or that some magic in the house had come to life and was chasing them into Narnia--they seemed to find themselves being followed everywhere, until at last Susan said, “Oh, bother those trippers! Here--let’s get into the Wardrobe Room till they’ve passed. No one will follow us in there.” But the moment they were inside they heard voices in the passage--and then someone fumbling at the door--and then they saw the handle turning. “Quick!” said Peter. “There’s nowhere else,” and flung open the wardrobe. All four of them bundled inside it and sat there, panting, in the dark. Peter held the door closed but did not shut it; for, of course, he remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should never never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.

And what is it you desire of us in exchange for your assistance, King Halfpaw?” She glanced at Eragon and smiled, then added, “We can offer you as much cream as you want, but beyond that, our resources are limited. If your warriors expect to be paid for their troubles, I fear they will be sorely disappointed.” “Cream is for kittens, and gold holds no interest for us,” said Grimrr. As he spoke, he lifted his right hand and inspected his nails with a heavy-lidded gaze. “Our terms are thus: Each of us will be given a dagger to fight with, if we do not already have one. Each of us shall have two suits of armor made to fit, one for when on two legs we stand, and one for when on four. We need no other equipment than that--no tents, no blankets, no plates, no spoons. Each of us will be promised a single duck, grouse, chicken, or similar bird per day, and every second day, a bowl of freshly chopped liver. Even if we do not choose to eat it, the food will be set aside for us. Also, should you win this war, then whoever becomes your next king or queen--and all who claim that title thereafter--will keep a padded cushion next to their throne, in a place of honor, for one of us to sit on, if we so wish.” “You bargain like a dwarven lawgiver,” said Nasuada in a dry tone. She leaned over to Jörmundur, and Eragon heard her whisper, “Do we have enough liver to feed them all?” “I think so,” Jörmundur replied in an equally hushed voice. “But it depends on the size of the bowl.

The artillery and mortars had been silent for at least the past few hours. After awhile the rabbi stopped initiating new songs. He took a few more sips of wine and sat for a time, almost shining in obvious pleasure, and yet reflective and silent. All watched him, and after a few minutes he spoke again in his odd Moroccan/Brooklyn accent. "The weapons of a Jew are prayer and mitzvot. Tonight we are arming ourselves with mitzvot like the finest suit of armor ever made. Better than a ceramica," he said, referring to the bullet-proof flak vests worn by many Israeli soldiers by their street name. "By the mere act of sitting and eating and drinking, because we are doing so in a sukkah at the time that our Creator told us to do so, we acquire for ourselves a heavenly shield more powerful than any missile or tank." He let those words settle in as he beamed at all present at the table and standing in the sukkah. "A mitzvah—carrying out HaShem's commandment or doing a good deed, such as an act of kindness towards your fellow human being—creates a heavenly smell, a wonderful odor that is both spiritual and physical. When the Creator of the whole universe commanded the Jewish people to bring sacrifices upon His holy altar, and they did so exactly as he had instructed them, the Torah says that it created a Re-ach Tov, a good and wonderful scent, that pleased the Ribbono Shel-Olam. And in those moments when the Jewish people acted on the instructions of their Creator, there was a kesher and a devekus, a tie and a drawing closer, between the Jewish people and their Creator.

Ian rested his hands behind his head. “I’m already picturing myself in the Sterling luxury suite at Soldier Field, right above the fifty-yard line.” Both the lawyer and pragmatic woman in Brooke felt the need to manage her CEO’s expectations. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself here, Ian. In fact, I think you just lapped yourself.” “A man can dream, Brooke.” She chuckled. “Who are you kidding? You barely use our suites at Wrigley Field and the United Center.” He waved this off. “Yeah, but football’s different. If we get this deal with the Bears, you better believe my butt will be at Soldier Field for every home game.” He saw her fighting back a grin. “What?” “I just wonder what it is about men and football,” Brooke said. Sure, because of her job she could hold her own when it came to talking sports, but—wow—had her eyes been opened when she’d been down in Dallas, negotiating the Cowboys deal. Those men didn’t just love football, they lived football. “Is it a warrior-metaphor kind of thing? The idea that the strongest, toughest men of the region strap on their armor and step onto the battlefield to face off against the strongest, toughest opponents?” “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what it is.” “I see. And remind me: in what century did it become customary for one’s army to be attended at the battle ground by hot girls with spanky pants and pom-poms? Was that a tradition Napoleon started?” Brooke pretended to muse. “Or maybe it was Genghis Khan.” “You scoff at America’s sport. I have fired people for less.” Brooke threw Ian a get-real look. “No, you haven’t. You don’t fire anyone without trotting down to my office and asking me first whether you’ll get sued. And then I’m always the one that has to fire them, anyway.” “Because you do it with such charm,” Ian said with a grin

You whom I could not save, Listen to me. Can we agree Kevlar backpacks shouldn’t be needed for children walking to school? Those same children also shouldn’t require a suit of armor when standing on their front lawns, or snipers to watch their backs as they eat at McDonalds. They shouldn’t have to stop to consider the speed of a bullet or how it might reshape their bodies. But one winter, back in Detroit, I had one student who opened a door and died. It was the front door to his house, but it could have been any door, and the bullet could have written any name. The shooter was thirteen years old and was aiming at someone else. But a bullet doesn’t care about “aim,” it doesn’t distinguish between the innocent and the innocent, and how was the bullet supposed to know this child would open the door at the exact wrong moment because his friend was outside and screaming for help. Did I say I had “one” student who opened a door and died? That’s wrong. There were many. The classroom of grief had far more seats than the classroom for math though every student in the classroom for math could count the names of the dead. A kid opens a door. The bullet couldn’t possibly know, nor could the gun, because “guns don’t kill people,” they don’t have minds to decide such things, they don’t choose or have a conscience, and when a man doesn’t have a conscience, we call him a psychopath. This is how we know what type of assault rifle a man can be, and how we discover the hell that thrums inside each of them. Today, there’s another shooting with dead kids everywhere. It was a school, a movie theater, a parking lot. The world is full of doors. And you, whom I cannot save, you may open a door and enter a meadow, or a eulogy. And if the latter, you will be mourned, then buried in rhetoric. There will be monuments of legislation, little flowers made from red tape. What should we do? we’ll ask again. The earth will close like a door above you. What should we do? And that click you hear? That’s just our voices, the deadbolt of discourse sliding into place.

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire. ...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ... Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close enough." said Addams.) A set of engraved aquatint plates from an antique book on armor. A lamp in the shape of a miniature suit of armor, topped by a black shade. There were various snakes; biopsy scissors ("It reaches inside, and nips a little piece of flesh," explained Addams); and a shiny human thighbone - a Christmas present from one wife. There was a sewing basket fashioned from an armadillo, a gift from another. In front of the couch stood a most unusual coffee table - "a drying out table," the man at the wonderfully named antiques shop, the Gettysburg Sutler, had called it. ("What was dried on it?" a reporter had asked. "Bodies," said Addams.)...

And you know what else they probably pray for every night?” I paused for a moment before saying, “Someone to save them. We could be that someone. We could end this plague. We could save the world. But I can’t do it alone. I’m gonna need your help, specifically the help of our tier 1s and tier 2s.” The crowd started murmuring to each other. “So, that’s what this speech is about—I’m asking for volunteers for this final mission. Now, I know what I’m asking, and I know it’s a lot. I’m basically asking you to risk your lives to help me fight the hardest battle ever. And I can’t guarantee your safety, nor can I guarantee our success… but still, we have to try. For the greater good, we have to try. Because we’ve come too far to give up now. That’s why we’re gonna give this one last mission our best effort. We’re gonna all come together and push hard through the finish line. And with our newly crafted dragon equipment and all the new class upgrades, I believe our chance of success is higher than ever before. So, with that in mind, what say you, my friends? Who’s with me? Who’s gonna help me put an end to the nightly plagues?” There was a brief moment of silence as my final words echoed through the night. But then Devlin spoke up. “I’m with you, Steve! Always.” “Me, too!” yelled Bob. “An epic fight between good and evil?! Can’t miss out on that!” shouted Arthur. “I got your back, bro!” yelled Obsidian Fist. Dozens of more tier 1s and 2s volunteered and made themselves heard. As I watched their hands shot up into the air, I smiled and let out a breath of relief. “Were you worried that there wouldn’t be enough volunteers?” the mayor whispered to me. “Yeah, kinda…” I whispered back. Then he smiled at me. “You’re their general, Steve. They’re not going to let you go off into battle alone… and neither would I.” He shook my hand. “Great speech, by the way. I’ll take it from here.” “Thank you, sir,” I said as I handed him the microphone. The mayor’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Alright, well said. Let’s give it up for General Steve!” Everyone clapped and cheered. “For those of you that volunteered, we’ll be heading out in a day or two. We still need to make preparations for the trip, and Cole still needs to fit the new armor to the golem suits, so all that is going to take some time. I’d suggest you use this time wisely—spend it with family, friends and loved ones. Eat with them, relax with them, be merry and carefree. Because when it is time to go, we’ll be in it to fight the battle of our lives.” The tier 1s and 2s in the crowd nodded.