Arsenic Quotes

It's amazing how much blue there is in the world if you look. You're different colors of flame. Bismuth burns blue, and cerium, germanium, and arsenic. See? I pour you into things.

Doctor, what could you prescribe for Charlemund?” The doctor looked down his nose at the unconscious form of the arch-diocel. “Arsenic?” “Now, really. Something to give him a quality headache and a great deal of memory loss.” “Cyanide.

You! You tricked me! I never want to see you or that bottle of liquid arsenic again!” I chucked the empty moonshine jug at him. Or tried to. It missed him by a dozen feet. He picked it up in astonishment. “You drank the whole bloody thing? You were only supposed to have a few sips!” “Did you say that? Did you?” He reached me just as I felt the ground tip. “Didn’t say anything. I’ve got those names, so that’s all that matters, but you men…you’re all alike. Alive, dead, undead—all perverts! I had a drunken pervert in my pants! Do you know how unsanitary that is?” Bones held me upright. I would have protested, but I couldn’t remember how to. “What are you saying?” “Winston poltergeisted my panties, that’s what!” I announced with a loud hiccup. “Why, you scurvy, lecherous spook!” Bones yelled in the direction of the cemetery. “If my pipes still worked, I’d go right back there and piss on your grave!

He looked at the dessert in my hands as though he’d never tried sugar before. He nodded toward it. “Chocolate?” “Arsenic.” “My favorite.

Insanity runs in my family, it practically gallops

Here. (Zarek) What is it? (Astrid) Arsenic and vomit. (Zarek) Really? And yet you managed to hack that up so quietly. Who knew? Thanks. I’ve never had vomit before. I’m sure it’s extra special. (Astrid)

Sanctified cyanide Super-quick arsenic Higgledy-piggledy Into the Soup. Put out the mourning lamps Call for coffin clamps Teach them to trifle with Flavia de Luce!

Family, like arsenic, works best in small doses...unless you prefer to die.

This is how southern woman worked all peaches in cream laced with arsenic 

Yes, she is." He looks at me, his face carved in pain. "She is dying, Sara. She will die, either tonight or tomorrow or maybe a year from now if we're really lucky. You heard what Dr. Chance said. Arsenic's not a cure. It just postpones what's coming." My eyes fill up with tears. "But I love her," I say, because that is reason enough.

You see, insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.

You should try them, Nick. They’re delicious. No one makes cookies that taste like this.” – Kara ‘Probably because arsenic was a key ingredient.’ “Have to watch my girlish figure. ‘Cause if I don’t, no one will.” – Nick

Modern womanhood was more about rubbing snail mucus on your face than she had thought it would be. But it had always been something, hadn’t it? Taking drops of arsenic. Winding bandages around the feet. Polishing your teeth with lead. It was so easy to believe you freely chose the paints, polishes, and waist-trainers of your own time, while looking back with tremendous pity to women of the past in their whalebones; that you took the longest strides your body was capable of, while women of the past limped forward on broken arches.

Ms. McMartin had no close family. Her nearest relative was a distant cousin who had recently died in Shanghai, after a severe allergic reaction to a bowl of turtle and arsenic soup.

His voice was like a warm tea laced with arsenic, all at once soothing me and killing me.

Once, a Whimsical poet died of despair after finding himself unequal to the task of capturing a fair one's beauty in simile. I think it more likely he died of arsenic poisoning, but so the story goes.

Cyanide is natural. So is arsenic.

Jane: "Missy was not so subtly reminding me that she had done something nice for me and here i was being rude when all she was asking me to do was attend a nice party. This was the way southern women worked all peaches & cream laced with arsenic.

Nitre, vitriol, cinnabar, alum, salt ammoniac, sublimated mercury, rock salt, alcali salt, common salt, rock alum, alum schist, arsenic, sublimate, realgar, tartar, orpiment, verdegris.

A wave of Time hangs motionless on this particular shore. I notice a tree, arsenical grey in the light, or the slow Wheel of the stars, the Great Bear glittering colder than snow, And remember there was something else I was hoping for.

Oh yeah, Caleb thought, you're my bitch. Caleb's voice was sugar laced with arsenic

L'art Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth, Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.

There's so much poison dripping from her words that I could swear she's been soaking her tongue in arsenic

In typical Filipino fashion, my aunt expressed her love not through words of encouragement or affectionate embraces, but through food. Food was how she communicated. Food was how she found her place in the world.

It just feels like you want us to give you the formula for Coke in order to convince you that it doesn’t contain arsenic,” King said. “Nobody’s asked for the formula for Coke!” Jay replied, annoyed.

Plutonium may give you grief for thousands of years, but Arsenic is for ever.

The sun sets, the strange clouds glowing eerily like a full moon laced with arsenic and occult warnings. Eternity stretches out her mocking red carpet, hinting at the long lonely walk of regret I have ahead of me.

Her gaze turned distant. 'Have you ever heard of the arsenic eaters?' Alex blinked, confused. 'No?' 'They would ingest a little bit of arsenic every day. It made their skin clear and their eyes bright and they felt wonderful. And all the while they were just drinking poison.' When Mira turned her eyes back to Alex, they were sharper and steadier than Alex ever remembered them being, free of the usual determined cheer. 'That's what being with your father was like.

Say what you like. Plutonium may give you grief for thousands of years, but arsenic is forever.

Salcombe Hardy groaned: "How long, O Lord, how long shall we have to listen to all this tripe about commercial arsenic? Murderers learn it now at their mother's knee.

Life wasn't always roses and cupcakes; sometimes it was arsenic and manure.

Do you like mysteries?” I nodded. I think if she’d asked me whether I liked arsenic or cyanide on toast I would have given her the same answer. “Are

It contained herbs and all natural ingredients. But belladonna was an herb, and arsenic was natural.

Can a word stop your heart as surely as arsenic?

Arsenic turned out to work even better, and was cheaper. Until it was banned in the 1890s, it was used widely, and heavy arsenic levels are sometimes a problem for archaeologists examining some old U.S. graveyards. What they generally find is that the bodies decomposed anyway, but the arsenic stayed.

I know a lot of people were praying for us to find the arsenic.

Because sugar is not arsenic, many graves are full.

A boy with bad thoughts needs to be visiting a haunted house like he needs arsenic in his mouthwash.

Is it dangerous? Hmm. Well, define 'dangerous.' Is a knife 'dangerous'? Is Russian roulette 'dangerous'? Is arsenic 'dangerous'? ...It really depends on your perspective.

I personally preferred to chance the arsenic,” Uncle Julian said.

Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all.

As for the merchants, they were the clever ones, understanding the sensitivities of their fellow man, his weaknesses, his petty longings. Some were already wealthier than earls. Indeed, if he possessed their cunning, their insatiable greed, he might invent a remedy comprised of pigs’ fat and arsenic, place a notice in the Public Advertiser and have Boswell walk the streets selling the stuff! Eventually, they would become rich. 

I would have swallowed arsenic if someone had promised that it would put me under for at least a few hours—that’s how bad prolonged insomnia feels. But eventually I gave up: on sleeping, on self-control, on my career, on myself. I gave up on all of it. I just fucking gave up. This

Even someone like me felt utang na loob, that impossible to quantify sense of indebtedness and gratitude, to the people who’d raised me. But where was that magical line between selfishness and independence? Between my family and myself?

He unwrapped the Dajm bar, took a large bite, savoring the familiar crunch between his teeth, and opened the cover. The first clipping was from The Home Journal: a story about a murderess in the US in the forties. She had managed to poison fourteen old people with arsenic before she was caught,

Her greatest nightmare was holding a party and not having enough food for everyone.

I made it to Adeena’s fifteen minutes late, which in Brown People Time (BPT) meant I was actually a little early.

Unfortunately, the theory that 'more is better' is a really, really crappy theory when it comes to arsenic.

a study at a Civil War cemetery in Iowa City found that nearby water contained arsenic at three times the safe limit.

We're both tainted water, but Theo's bubbles to the surface like an oil spill. Mine is invisible. Arsenic hiding in plain sight.

I’ve never met people so enthusiastic about their food before.

So even though I was an only child, I had enough godmothers, cousins, aunties, and uncles to populate a small village. Or at least a relatively small town that began to feel smaller and more suffocating the older I got.

All that time and money for your fancy education, you’d think your vocabulary would’ve improved by now. English isn’t even my first language and I’m practically Shakespeare compared to you.

So immutably does a human being surrender to the mist of the Motherland! Just as a tooth will not stop aching until the nerve is killed, so is it with us; we shall probably not stop responding to the call of the the Motherland until we swallow arsenic.

What is that?” Addison inspects the food with a look of sheer revulsion on her face. You’d swear I just handed her a plate full of arsenic. “The Works Burger with fries and extra onions and cheese, exactly as you ordered.” I keep my voice level. She sends me a scathing look. “Do I look like I’d ever consume that amount of saturated fat?

For two billion years, the world knew peace. Only with the invention of gender—specifically males, those tail-fanners, horn-lockers, chest-pounders—did Earth begin its slide toward self-extinction. Perhaps this explains Edwin Hubble’s discovery that all known galaxies are moving away from Earth, as if we are a whole planet of arsenic. Hoffstetler comforts himself that, on this morning, all such self-contempt is worth it. Until Mihalkov can authorize the extraction, Occam’s dogs need bones on which to chew.

As to his religious notions—why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic.

The fact that he'd become withdrawn and insular was no surprise to Percy. He'd few examples of affection to call upon. Aunt Alexia and Lord Maccon being the singular exception. Their marriage, to his outside eye, had always been combative but never lacking warmth. Percy could admit to himself, if not to Arsenic, that he was attracted by their model of a profound and loving relationship, if perhaps hoping for a little less rushing about and banging of heads together.

Percy was struck by a flight of fancy, imagining Arsenic in his lap, with Footnote on top of both of them. A tangle of limbs and books and cat and comfort. He was startled by the depth of his own yearning.

Not darling. Darling is what my mother calls my father when she's cross with him." ..."I did ask what form of endearment you'd prefer." "Dinna think endearments ought to come along naturally?" "Arsenic, I hate to say it, but endearments, as a general rule, may come naturally to some stout gentlemen of fine moral fibre, but certainly not to me.

Percy was, by upbringing and inclination, inclined to let ladies lead where matters of adventure were concerned (and this was definitely one of those unfortunate adventure situations). If Arsenic want to relocate, he would relocate.

Client: “Could you teach me to have an occasional drink and not get hooked again?” Me: “Of course I could. I could even teach you to take the occasional dose of arsenic.” Client: “Why on earth would I want you to do that?” Me: “Exactly!

As to his religious notions—why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic. I look for the man who will bring the arsenic, and don't mind about his incantations." "Very

Rather than throw the white arsenic away, it was realised that money could be made by selling the substance as a poison to get rid of all kinds of vermin, including cockroaches, rats, stray animals - as well as relatives and secret lovers.

the group of fiftysomething-year-old women I privately referred to as “the Calendar Crew.” Their names were April, Mae, and June

Romeo and Juliet are not relationship goals.

Daisy Miller dies of Roman fever. Nana Coupeau dies of smallpox. Ophelia dies by drowning herself. Tess Durbeyfield dies by execution. Emma Bovary dies by swallowing arsenic. Anna Karenina dies by throwing herself under a train. I did not die.

As there are six kinds of metals, so I have also shown with reliable experiments... that there are also six kinds of half-metals: a new half-metal, namely Cobalt regulus in addition to Mercury, Bismuth, Zinc, and the reguluses of Antimony and Arsenic.

...Hiver bouclé comme un bison, Hiver crispé comme la mousse de crin blanc, Hiver aux puits d'arsenic rouge, aux poches d'huile et de bitume, Hiver au goût de skunk et de carabe fumée de bois de hickory, Hiver aux prismes et aux critaux dans les carrefours de diamant noir, Hiver sans thyrses ni flambeaux, Hiver sans roses ni piscines, Hiver ! Hiver! tes pommes de cèdre de vieux fer! tes fruits de pierre! tes insectes de cuivre !

Silence descended while they all analysed her words for hidden meaning. They were lost because there was none. Simplicity of truth and purpose was rare in their world. Arsenic wanted her mark of existence to be kind. She didn't think there was anything wrong or less powerful about that choice.

And whatever you do, don't drink the water. A guide once told Dad that some of the springs still have arsenic in them from the gold rush. I have no idea whether she was joking or not, but let's not risk it, OK?" "Seriously?" Logan asked. He raised his eyebrows. "Alaska - where even the water will kill you. I'm surprised they don't have that on a T-shirt." "Logan -" Maddie warned. Logan raised his hands in surrender. "Poisonous water. Check.

almost said “just friends,” as if romantic partnership was superior to platonic friendship, but stopped myself. Adeena hated that term and idea. And I’d learned, time and again, she was right. There was no hierarchy to love.

As with arsenical candles and papers and fabrics, items become established in commerce before their dangers are recognized, ensuring that any attempt to curtail their use will be resisted by manufacturers … and fought or ignored by politicians ideologically opposed to government interference …’ Gettler’s

Theophilus Crowe wrote bad free-verse poetry and played a jimbai drum while sitting on a rock by the ocean. He could play sixteen chords on the guitar and knew five Bob Dylan songs all the way through, allowing for a dampening buzz any time he had to play a bar chord. He had tried his hand at painting, sculpture, and pottery and had even played a minor part in the Pine Cove Little Theater’s revival of Arsenic and Old Lace. In all of these endeavors, he had experienced a meteoric rise to mediocrity and quit before total embarrassment and self-loathing set in. Theo was cursed with an artist’s soul but no talent. He possessed the angst and the inspiration, but not the means to create.

It was claimed that the Borgias spread arsenic on the entrails of a slaughtered pig, which were then left to rot. The resulting mess was gently dried to a powder which they called La Cantarella, a pale solid that was added to food or drink. If the arsenic did not claim the victim, the toxins from the rotting entrails would probably finish them off.

In 1847 three English children fell seriously ill after eating birthday cake decorated with arsenic-tinted green leaves.

And the nitrogen group of elements, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), arsenic (As) and antinomy (Sb), were just as disparate when it came to their atomic weights: 

Didn't understand the nation's habit of clubbing itself each morning with a list of tragedy and doom before trying to go cheerfully into the day. Like arsenic, it had to have a cumulative effect.

On the surface we're two utterly different types. I'm full of energy and ambition, and see the world as a scented fruit just waiting to be eaten. He is introspective, romantic and for him life is a cake laced with arsenic, every bite poisons him a little more. But our differences only increased our mutual attraction, like the inseparable north and south magnetic poles. We rapidly fell in love.

Modern womanhood was more about rubbing snail mucus on your face than she had thought it would be. But it had always been something, hadn’t it? Taking drops of arsenic. Winding bandages around the feet. Polishing your teeth with lead. It was so easy to believe you freely chose the paints, polishes, and waist-trainers of your own time, while looking back with tremendous pity to women of the past in their whalebones;

When the judge asks me why I put poison in my wife's tea, he will not be satisfied by my saying 'Because electrical impulses from my brain caused my hand to reach for the bottle of arsenic and tip it into the waiting teacup'...

Stop,' I tell her, stepping between her and the bag. 'Look what you're doing.' Jo gazes down at her hands as if they're not even attached to her body. She lowers them. She says, 'I've got a problem.' 'No shit,' I reply. Her head lolls back and I can see she's hurting. 'I made you coffee.' I tell her, thumbing at the mug on the picnic table. 'Extra strong.' She asks, 'Did you spike it with arsenic?' 'We're all out,' I answer. 'Unfortunately, all I could find was Excerdrin.

Overnight, our neighbors began to look at us differently. Maybe it was the little girl down the road who no longer waved to us from her farmhouse window. Or the longtime customers who suddenly disappeared from our restaurants and stores. Or our mistress, Mrs. Trimble, who pulled us aside one morning as we were mopping her kitchen and whispered into our ear, "Did you know that the war was coming?" Club ladies began boycotting our fruit stands because they were afraid our produce might be tainted with arsenic. Insurance companies canceled our insurance. Banks froze our bank accounts. Milkmen stopped delivering milk to our doors. "Company orders," one tearful milkman explained. Children took one look at us and ran away like frightened deer. Little old ladies clutched their purses and froze up on the sidewalk at the sight of our husbands and shouted out, "They're here!" And even though our husbands had warned us--They're afraid--still, we were unprepared. Suddenly, to find ourselves the enemy.

He let Rue boss him around as navigator, and Primrose boss him around about his personal affairs, and Virgil boss him around about his wardrobe. Percy was the kind of man who identified an expert and then ceded control, complaining all the while. He'd apparently decided that she was the expert on his safety. That, she'd been trained for, his heart was another matter. The safeguarding of another's emotions was a serious undertaking. Arsenic could only hope she was up to the task. Although she realized she wanted to try.

Newcomers to manuscripts sometimes ask what such books tell us about the societies that created them. At one level, these Gospel Books describe nothing, for they are not local chronicles but standard Latin translations of religious texts from far away. At the same time, this is itself extraordinarily revealing about Ireland. No one knows how literacy and Christianity had first reached the islands of Ireland, possibly through North Africa. This was clearly no primitive backwater but a civilization which could now read Latin, although never occupied by the Romans, and which was somehow familiar with the texts and artistic designs which have unambiguous parallels in the Coptic and Greek churches, such as carpet pages and Canon tables. Although the Book of Kells itself is as uniquely Irish as anything imaginable, it is a Mediterranean text and the pigments used in making it include orpiment, a yellow made from arsenic sulphide, exported from Italy, where it is found in volcanoes. There are clearly lines of trade and communication unknown to us.

To my family, who’ve always encouraged me to go after my not-Asian-approved career choice of writing. Especially you, Mommy—you introduced me to the world of mysteries and shared your love of culinary cozies with me. This whole series is for you. Daddy, I will never bring the care and attention to cooking that you always did, but I hope you tasted the love all the same. I miss you so much, but I hope I did you proud.

I could ignore my godmothers’ first two comments—while being told you looked like a witch would bother most people, I considered it a compliment. I loved natural remedies, dark color palettes, and made bewitchingly delicious baked goods, so I’d learned to lean into the bruha image.

Chelation Therapy. If you’ve been exposed to a lot of heavy metals, you might want to try chelation therapy. This is the strongest way to detox heavy metals. It involves an intravenous injection of compounds called chelators that bind to toxins in the bloodstream so you can then pass them normally. Chelation therapy is effective for removing lead, mercury, aluminum, arsenic, iron, and copper. However, it can also be dangerous. If your liver and kidneys have been damaged by the heavy metal poisoning and can’t process the metals, this treatment can make you very ill. Talk to your doctor before attempting this one.

Terence, this is stupid stuff: You eat your victuals fast enough; There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear, To see the rate you drink your beer. But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, It gives a chap the belly-ache. The cow, the old cow, she is dead; It sleeps well, the horned head: We poor lads, ’tis our turn now To hear such tunes as killed the cow. Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme Your friends to death before their time Moping melancholy mad: Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’ Why, if ’tis dancing you would be, There’s brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man. Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think: Look into the pewter pot To see the world as the world’s not. And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past: The mischief is that ’twill not last. Oh I have been to Ludlow fair And left my necktie God knows where, And carried half way home, or near, Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer: Then the world seemed none so bad, And I myself a sterling lad; And down in lovely muck I’ve lain, Happy till I woke again. Then I saw the morning sky: Heigho, the tale was all a lie; The world, it was the old world yet, I was I, my things were wet, And nothing now remained to do But begin the game anew. Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill, And while the sun and moon endure Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure, I’d face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good. ’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale Is not so brisk a brew as ale: Out of a stem that scored the hand I wrung it in a weary land. But take it: if the smack is sour, The better for the embittered hour; It should do good to heart and head When your soul is in my soul’s stead; And I will friend you, if I may, In the dark and cloudy day. There was a king reigned in the East: There, when kings will sit to feast, They get their fill before they think With poisoned meat and poisoned drink. He gathered all that springs to birth From the many-venomed earth; First a little, thence to more, He sampled all her killing store; And easy, smiling, seasoned sound, Sate the king when healths went round. They put arsenic in his meat And stared aghast to watch him eat; They poured strychnine in his cup And shook to see him drink it up: They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt: Them it was their poison hurt. —I tell the tale that I heard told. Mithridates, he died old.

Zenia,” he said, “I’m not good at it—tea and cakes. I have no patience with it.” She looked directly at him. “I suppose you would prefer to eat on the ground with your fingers?” Her dry remark seemed to take him aback. He looked at her with a faint frown. “Shall I sprinkle some sand on the butter,” she asked, “to put you more at ease?” He tilted up one corner of his mouth. “No.” He lifted his cup, extending his little finger with an exaggerated delicacy. “I can play, if I must. How does your dear aunt do, Lady Winter? I hear she has the vapors once an hour. I have a receipt for a rhubarb plaster—most efficacious! Of course, if you prefer a more permanent cure, nothing can surpass a fatal dose of arsenic.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go. You might have to squeeze through a knothole, humble yourself, drink muddy tea from consumptive bowls or eat camel sausage, pass for Mexican, or take that last chance, but—well, if you really want to get there, that's the way it is. If you want to see the world, or eat steaks in fine restaurants with white tablecloths, write honest books, or get in to see your sweetheart, you do such things by taking a chance. Of course, a boom may fall and break your neck at any moment, your books may be barred from libraries, or the camel sausage may lead to a prescription of arsenic. It's a chance you take.

Auroleus Phillipus Theostratus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus,

The point is... people who are unhappy with their station in life and don't change it end up developing all sorts of self destructive habits. I'm telling you this as a friend.

He understood when the kzin kitten looked up at its parent and asked, "Is it good to eat?" The adult's eyes met Louis's eyes. Louis let his smile widen to show the teeth. The adult said, "No." In the confidence of four Man-Kzin wars plus some "incidents"—all centuries in the past, but all won by men—Louis grinned and nodded. You tell him, Daddy! Its safer to eat white arsenic than human meat!

Homo sum humani a me nihil alienum puto?" suggested Arsenic. "Exactly!" beamed Percy. He did so admire a sagacious woman. Admittedly, Arsenic was the first to match him Latin-to-Latin, but he'd always suspected such females must exist. He was seized by the horrifying suspicion that she may be the only one. She must be protected, he decided. A unique specimen among humans. Should I write a paper? Rue looked at Quesnel and then Primrose. "Are they flirting?" "It's like watching dirigibles crash midair, filled with hot air, slow and horrible yet inevitable," said Quesnel. "I don't think it can be flirting when it's done so badly, can it?" Primrose finished her coffee, eyes wide with wonder. Percy glared at them all. It was all very well for them to pick on him, but they shouldn't pick on Arsenic. She hadn't the appropriate defences in place. "We are having a perfectly respectable intellectual conversation. Just because you lot are too dim to follow the nuances." "Definitely flirting." Rue grinned at them.

FOOD Adobo (uh-doh-boh)---Considered the Philippines's national dish, it's any food cooked with soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and black peppercorns (though there are many regional and personal variations) Almondigas (ahl-mohn-dee-gahs)---Filipino soup with meatballs and thin rice noodles Baon (bah-ohn)---Food, snacks and other provisions brought on to work, school, or on a trip; food brought from home; money or allowance brought to school or work; lunch money (definition from Tagalog.com) Embutido (ehm-puh-tee-doh)---Filipino meatloaf Ginataang (gih-nih-tahng)---Any dish cooked with coconut milk, sweet or savory Kakanin (kah-kah-nin)---Sweet sticky cakes made from glutinous rice or root crops like cassava (There's a huge variety, many of them regional) Kesong puti (keh-sohng poo-tih)---A kind of salty cheese Lengua de gato (lehng-gwah deh gah-toh)---Filipino butter cookies Lumpia (loom-pyah)---Filipino spring rolls (many variations) Lumpiang sariwa (loom-pyahng sah-ree-wah)---Fresh Filipino spring rolls (not fried) Mamón (mah-MOHN)---Filipino sponge/chiffon cake Matamis na bao (mah-tah-mees nah bah-oh)---Coconut jam Meryenda (mehr-yehn-dah)---Snack/snack time Pandesal (pahn deh sahl)---Lightly sweetened Filipino rolls topped with breadcrumbs (also written pan de sal) Patis (pah-tees)---Fish sauce Salabat (sah-lah-baht)---Filipino ginger tea Suman (soo-mahn)---Glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves, and steamed (though there are regional variations) Ube (oo-beh)---Purple yam

Sheep and cattle now graze side by side, but actually have very different mineral requirements. Modern cattle need quite a lot of copper because they evolved in parts of Europe and Africa where copper was abundant. Sheep, on the other hand, evolved in copper-poor areas of Asia Minor. As a rule, and not surprisingly, our tolerance for elements is directly proportionate to their abundance in the Earth’s crust. We have evolved to expect, and in some cases actually need, the tiny amounts of rare elements that accumulate in the flesh or fiber that we eat. But step up the doses, in some cases by only a tiny amount, and we can soon cross a threshold. Much of this is only imperfectly understood. No one knows, for example, whether a tiny amount of arsenic is necessary for

Thank you for coming with me.” She knew it was no small thing. Dom was Monarch of Iona now, the leader of an enclave shattered by war and betrayal. He should have been at home with his people, helping them restore what was nearly lost forever. Instead, he looked grimly down a sand dune, his clothes poorly suited to the climate, his appearance sticking sticking out of the desert like the sorest of thumbs. While so many things had changed, Dom’s ability to look out of place never did. He even wore his usual cloak, a twin to the one he lost months ago. The gray green had become a comfort like nothing else, just like the silhouette of his familiar form. He loomed always, never far from her side. It was enough to make Sorasa’s eyes sting, and turn her face to hide in her hood for a long moment. Dom paid it no notice, letting her recover. Instead, he fished an apple from his saddlebags and took a noisy bite. “I saved the realm,” he said, shrugging. The least I can do is try to see some of it.” Sorasa was used to Elder manners by now. Their distant ways, their inability to understand subtle hints. The side of her mouth raised against her hood, and she turned back to face him, smirking. “Thank you for coming with me,” she said again. “Oh,” he answered, shifting to look at her. The green of his eyes danced, bright against the desert. “Where else would I go?” Then he passed the rest of the apple over to her. She finished the rest without a thought. His hand lingered, though, scarred knuckles on a tattooed arm. She did not push him away. Instead, Sorasa leaned, so that her shoulder brushed his own, putting some of her weight on him. “Am I still a waste of arsenic?” he said, his eyes never moving from her face. Sorasa stopped short, blinking in confusion. “What?” “When we first met.” His own smirk unfurled. “You called me a waste of arsenic.” In a tavern in Byllskos, after I dumped poison in his cup, and watched him drink it all. Sorasa laughed at the memory, her voice echoing over the empty dunes. In that moment, she thought Domacridhan was her death, another assassin sent to kill her. Now she knew he was the opposite entirely. Slowly, she raised her arm and he did not flinch. It felt strange still, terrifying and thrilling in equal measure. His cheek was cool under under her hand, his scars familiar against her palm. Elders were less affected by the desert heat, a fact that Sorasa used to her full advantage. “No,” she answered, pulling his face down to her own. “I would waste all the arsenic in the world on you.” “Is that a compliment, Amhara?” Dom muttered against her lips. No, she tried to reply. On the golden sand, their shadows met, grain by grain, until there was no space left at all.

Penetrating the literary inferno, you will come to learn its artifices and its arsenic; shielded from the immediate, that caricature of yourself, you will no longer have any but formal experiences, indirect experiences; you will vanish into the Word. Books will be the sole object of your discussions. As for literary people, you will derive no benefit from them. But you will find this out too late, after having wasted your best years in a milieu without density or substance. The literary man? An indiscreet man, who devaluates his miseries, divulges them, tells them like so many beads: immodesty - the sideshow of second-thoughts - is his rule; he offers himself. Every form of talent involves a certain shamelessness. Only sterility is truly distinguished - the man who effaces himself along with his secret, because he disdains to parade it: sentiments expressed are an agony for irony, a slap at humor. To keep one's secret is the most fruitful of activities. It torments, erodes, threatens you. Even when confession is addressed to God, it is an outrage against ourselves, against the mainspring of our being. The apprehensions, shames, fears from which both religious and profane therapeutics would deliver us constitute a patrimony we should not allow ourselves to be dispossessed of, at any cost. We must defend ourselves against our healers and, even if we die for it, preserve our sickness and our sins. The confessional? a rape of conscience perpetrated in the name of heaven. And that other rape, psychological analysis! Secularized, prostituted, the confessional will soon be installed on our street corners: except for a couple of criminals, everyone aspires to have a public soul, a poster soul.

I ran. It was fantastic how far I ran without stopping to rest. I can't even remember what places I passed. I must have left by the back gate next to the Kyohoku Tower in the north of the temple precincts, then I must have passed by the Myoo Hall, run up the mountain path that was bordered by bamboo grass and azalea, and reached the top of Mount Hidari Daimonji. Yes, it was surely on top of Mount Hidari Daimonji that I lay down on my hack in the bamboo field in the shadow of the red pines and tried to still the fierce beating of my heart. This was the mountain that protected the Golden Temple from the north. The cry of some startled birds brought me to my senses. Or else it was a bird that flew close to my face with a great fluttering of its wings. As I lay there on my back I gazed at the night sky. The birds soared over the branches of the redpines in great numbers and the thin flakes from the fire, which were already becoming scarce, floated in the sky above my head. I sat up and looked far down the ravine towards the Golden temple. A strange sound echoed from there. It was like the sound of crackers. It was like the sound of countless people's soul joints all cracking at once. From where I sat the Golden Temple itself was invisible. All that I could see was the eddying smoke and the great fire that rose into the sky. The flakes from the fire drifted between the trees and the Golden Temple's sky seemed to be strewn with golden sand. I crossed my legs and sat gazing for a long time at the scene. When I came to myself, I found that my body was covered in blisters and scars and that I was bleeding profusely. My fingers also were stained with blood, evidently from when I had hurt them by knocking against the temple door. I licked my wounds like an animal that has fled from its pursuers. I looked in my pocket and extracted the bottle of arsenic, wrapped in my handkerchief, and the knife. I threw them down the ravine. Then I noticed the pack of cigarettes in my other pocket. I took one out and started smoking. I felt like a man who settles down for a smoke after finishing a job of work. I wanted to live.