Ash Williams Quotes

Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Well, all right, Ash thought. Maybe freeing the dragon wasn’t such a good idea.

I'm learning to "master self" while rising from the ashes of madness.

No, Hanson, this is not the scene where the girl puts on a skirt and some paint and her schoolmate, who’s a little thick, suddenly realizes that she is his true love.” “Oh,” Ash said. “Good to know.

I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do--then go ahead and do it with ease. Don't maul, don't suffer, don't groan till the first draft is finished. A play is a pheonix and it dies a thousand deaths. Usually at night. In the morning it springs up again from its ashes and crows like a happy rooster. It is never as bad as you think, it is never as good. It is somewhere in between, and success or failure depends on which end of your emotional gamut concerning its value it approaches more closely. But it is much more likely to be good if you think it is wonderful while you are writing the first draft. An artist must believe in himself. Your belief is contagious. Others may say he is vain, but they are affected.

In treading upon the ashes of dead men in Italy, Egypt - on the banks of the Bosphorus, one almost despairs to think how idle are the dreams and toils of this life, and were it not for the intellectual pleasure of knowing and learning, one would almost be damaged by travel in these historic lands.

Let me twine Mine arms about that body, where against My grained ash an hundred times hath broke And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip The anvil of my sword, and do contest As hotly and as nobly with thy love As ever in ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valour. Know thou first, I loved the maid I married; never man Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold.

Women carry on. They endure the way old ships do, breasting into outrageous waters, ache and creak, hull holed and decks awash, yet find anchorage in the ordinary, in tables to be wiped down, pots to scrub, and endless ashes to be put out.

To be honest, I thought of you as an amateur - a spoiled, entitled, runaway princeling bent on revenge who would get caught and then complicate my elegant scheme. I figured the less you knew, the better." "I hate it when you sugarcoat things," Ash said.

By day it is filled with boat traffic - water buses, delivery boats, gondolas - if something floats and it's in Venice, it moves along the Grand Canal. And by daylight it is one of the glories of the Earth. But at night, especially when the moon is full and the soft illumination reflects off the water and onto the palaces - I don't know how to describe it so I won't, but if you died and in your will you asked for your ashes to be spread gently on the Grand Canal at midnight with a full moon, everyone would know this about you - you loved and understood beauty.

Truth is not of this world; and they were fools who looked for her in the bottom of a well; her temple is the grave! her oracles, dust and ashes! ("The Forsaken of God")

We are invited to drink the the king's health." To his good health or bad health? - Ash

He’s a good horse,” Bellamy said, a bit defensively. “He was always willing if you knew how to manage him. Oh, you know, like most horses, he’d get away with whatever he could, but he was never mean-tempered. Not like this.” Ash liked the fact that Bellamy stood up for his horse. “How long has he been off his feed?” “Couple weeks.” “What’s his name?” “Crusher.” Ash raised an eyebrow. “Crusher?” At the sound of his name, the gelding’s ears pricked forward. Bellamy grimaced. “He’s a warhorse, all right? Man doesn’t want to ride into battle on a horse named Daisy.

You don’t have to come with me,” Ash said. “I only brought you along because you’re good with a knife. And got us the uniforms. And the explosives.” Lila snorted. “Sorry I’m not pulling my weight.

You don't have to come with me," Ash said. "I only brought you along because you're good with a knife. And got us the uniforms. And the explosives." Lila snorted. "Sorry I'm not pulling my weight." "This may not be your idea," Ash said doggedly, "but it's what we're going to do." "Is it? Are you really going to start playing the prince card after all?" "Don' start in about my mother the queen, because I don't want to hear it." "All right, then, as your peer and absolute equal, I can't help thinking this is a really bad idea.

I have never battled a gargoyle before.” Zacharel shook his head, a dark lock of hair tumbling into one emerald eye. Damp from the melting snow, the hair stuck to his skin. He didn’t seem to notice. “But I am certain these will murder Paris before willingly carrying him inside.” As if he were the only intelligent life form left in existence, William splayed his arms. “And the problem with that? He’ll still be inside, exactly where he wants to be. And by the way,” he added, blinking at Paris with lashes so long they should have belonged to a girl. “Your new permanent eyeliner is very pretty. You’ll make a good-looking corpse.” Do not react. He did, and the teasing about his ash/ambrosia tattoos would never end. “Thanks.” “I prefer the lip liner, though. A nice little feminine touch that really makes your eyes pop.” “Again, thanks,” he gritted. He wants us! Stupid demon. William grinned. “Maybe we can make out later. I know you want me.” Tell him yes! Not another word out of you, or— “Paris? Warrior?” Zacharel said. “Are you listening to me?” “No.” Zach nodded, apparently not the least offended. “I enjoy your honesty, though I believe you suffer from what the humans call ADD.” “Oh, yeah. I definitely have attention deficient demon.

You’ve grown so tall, Mageling, in these four years,” she said, as if she hadn’t really looked at him for a while. “And handsome. Are you taller than your father was?” “So I’m told. It’s hard for me to remember now.” That was a lie. He remembered—exactly—the measure of his father’s arm around his shoulders, the distance between them when he leaned down to speak at Ash’s level, even the scent of him—leather and sweat and fresh mountain air.

Are you familiar with the strategic concept of competitive control areas?” Ash asked. “Yes,” Stets said.

She doesn't know poets can have ash in the soul, or that after so much burning there comes a time when there's nothing left but blowing away or phoenix-rising.

Whether they are part of a home or home is a part of them is not a question children are prepared to answer. Having taken away the dog, take away the kitchen–the smell of something good in the oven for dinner. Also the smell of washing day, of wool drying in the wooden rack. Of ashes. Of soup simmering on the stove. Take away the patient old horse waiting by the pasture fence. Take away the chores that kept him busy from the time he got home from school until they sat down to supper. Take away the early-morning mist, the sound of crows quarreling in the treetops. His work clothes are still hanging on a nail beside the door of his room, but nobody puts them on or takes them off. Nobody sleeps in his bed. Or reads the broken-back copy of Tom Swift and His Flying Machine. Take that away too, while you are at it. Take away the pitcher and bowl, both of them dry and dusty. Take away the cow barn where the cats, sitting all in a row, wait with their mouths wide open for somebody to squirt milk down their throats. Take away the horse barn too–the smell of hay and dust and horse piss and old sweat-stained leather, and the rain beating down on the plowed field beyond the door. Take all this away and what have you done to him? In the face of a deprivation so great, what is the use of asking him to go on being the boy he was. He might as well start life over again as some other boy instead.

The tin pan notes of a piano drift faintly into the night. A man curses and a window slams. Far distant an ash can clatters on stone and the almost human screech of a cat pierces the night.

How yet resolves the governor of the town? This is the latest parle we will admit; Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves; Or like to men proud of destruction Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier, A name that in my thoughts becomes me best, If I begin the battery once again, I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur Till in her ashes she lie buried. The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand shall range With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants. What is it then to me, if impious war, Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends, Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats Enlink'd to waste and desolation? What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause, If your pure maidens fall into the hand Of hot and forcing violation? What rein can hold licentious wickedness When down the hill he holds his fierce career? We may as bootless spend our vain command Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil As send precepts to the leviathan To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, Take pity of your town and of your people, Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds Of heady murder, spoil and villany. If not, why, in a moment look to see The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters; Your fathers taken by the silver beards, And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls, Your naked infants spitted upon pikes, Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen. What say you? will you yield, and this avoid, Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

This late dissension grown betwixt the peers Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love, And will at last break out into a flame: As festered members rot but by degree, Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away, So will this base and envious discord breed.

Wild eyes were another sign. It is something I have seldom seen — the expression of an ecstatic state — though much is foolishly written of them, as if they grew like Jerusalem artichokes along the road. The eyes are black, right enough, whatever their normal color is; they are black because their perception is condensed to a coal, because the touch and taste and perfume of the lover, the outcry of a dirty word, a welcome river, have been reduced in the heat of passion to a black ash, and this unburnt residue of oxidation, this calyx, replaces the pupil so it no longer receives but sends, and every hair is on end, though perhaps only outspread on a pillow, and the nostrils are flared, mouth agape, cheeks sucked so the whole face seems as squeezed as a juiced fruit; I know, for once Lou went into that wildness while we were absorbing one another, trying to kiss, not merely forcefully, not the skull of our skeleton, but the skull and all the bones on which the essential self is hung, kiss so the shape of the soul is stirred too, that's what is called the ultimate French, the furtherest fuck, when a cock makes a concept cry out and climax; I know, for more than once, though not often, I shuddered into that other region, when a mouth drew me through its generosity into the realm of unravel, and every sensation lay extended as a lake, every tie was loosed, and the glue of things dissolved. I knew I wore the wild look then. The greatest gift you can give another human being is to let them warm you till, in passing beyond pleasure, your defenses fall, your ego surrenders, its structure melts, its towers topple, lies, fancies, vanities, blow away in no wind, and you return, not to the clay you came from — the unfired vessel — but to the original moment of inspiration, when you were the unabbreviated breath of God.

smarting and smoke was hanging thick in the air while the ashtray on Karras’s desk was mounded high with ashes and the twisted butts of cigarettes.

Abruptly the poker of memory stirs the ashes of recollection and uncovers a forgotten ember, still smoldering down there, still hot, still glowing, still red as red.

Ash and Conner are silent. Our three locals have their phones out and seem to be catching up on the news.” “How is the news?” “They strike me as gravely concerned, but not speechless with horror.

James Fraser,” he said. His eyes were fixed on William with a burning intensity, as though to absorb every vestige of a sight he would not see again. “Ye kent me once as Alex MacKenzie. At Helwater.

I don't know how to describe it so I won't, but if you died and in your will you asked for your ashes to be spread gently on the Grand Canal at midnight with a full moon, everyone would know this about you - you loved and understood beauty.

Thee is a rooster, William,” Rachel said mournfully. “I saw this in thee before, but now I know it for certain.” “A rooster,” he repeated coldly, brushing dirt from his sleeve. “Indeed. A vain, crowing, gaudy sort of fellow—that’s what you think me?

Cyrus is quiet for a momenr. "But-" he beginds, then falls silent. It's the first crack I've seen in his composure. "But," he tries again, "she's special. To me." His words make me feel light, like ash floating away from a fire. Johann begins to laugh, bitterly, mirthlessly. "Don't tell me you love her," he spits. "You don't even know her. That's the most irrational thing I've ever heard. And no love can survive immortality." The room is quiet, filled only with the crackling of the fire, and suddenly I don't want to hear Cyrus's answer. What if he doesn't love me? What am I without him by my side? Some strange creature that no one believes exists, some freak of nature, some threat to the reassuring rhythms of normal life. Finally, Cyrus speaks. "All I know is that I'm drawn to her. You always told me there's no such thing as destiny, and I believed you. I still do. But she makes me wonder. I fI could love anyone forever, it would be her. When I'm with her, I feel complete.

This is the heart of it, the scared woman who does not want to go alone to the man any longer, because when she does, when she takes of her baggy dress, displaying to him rancid breasts each almost as big as his own head, or no breasts, or mammectomized scar tissues taped over with old tennis balls to give her the right curves; when, vending her flesh, she stands or squats waiting, congealing the air firstly with her greasy cheesey stench of unwashed feet confined in week-old socks, secondly with her perfume of leotards and panties also a week old, crusted with semen and urine, brown-greased with the filth of alleys; thirdly with the odor of her dress also worn for a week, emblazoned with beer-spills and cigarette-ash and salted with the smelly sweat of sex, dread, fever, addiction—when she goes to the man, and is accepted by him, when all these stinking skins of hers have come off (either quickly, to get it over with, or slowly like a big truck pulling into a weigh station because she is tired), when she nakedly presents her soul’s ageing soul, exhaling from every pore physical and ectoplasmic her fourth and supreme smell which makes eyes water more than any queen of red onions—rotten waxy smell from between her breasts, I said, bloody pissy shitty smell from between her legs, sweat-smell and underarm-smell, all blended into her halo, generalized sweetish smell of unwashed flesh; when she hunkers painfully down with her customer on bed or a floor or in an alley, then she expects her own death. Her smell is enough to keep him from knowing the heart of her, and the heart of her is not the heart of it. The heart of it is that she is scared.

What the hell is going on here?" Ash immediately released her and whirled on him. "Don't take that tone of voice with me Conall William Brannock! This is a girl thing and you don't get to march in here and make us feel bad for being gentle creatures." "Pfft, gentle. Yeah, Ash, you're gentle alright." "Don't make me cut you!" she snapped.

The years were never an element, because my parents didn’t age, they simply sickened. My father was mean and cocky like Cagney all the way to the dump. Flat on his back, his bones poking this way and that like the corpses in the camps, he still had a fiery eye, as though, but for those two coals, the grate held ash. There’s no easy way out of this life, and I do not look forward to the day they put those tubes up my nose, and a catheter shows my pee the way out like some well-trained servant. I saw how my father’s body broke his spirit like a match; and I saw how my mother’s broken spirit took her body under the way a ship stinks after being disemboweled by an errant bag of ice.

They stand beside a grave. Hermann sprinkles upon it a powder, which falls in sparkles of light from his fingers. The earth begins to heave; and presently, as a volcano casts up its ashes, the grave empties itself. Slowly and slowly, like the rippling waves of a becalmed ocean, it rises to the surface, divides, and falls in crumbling heaps on either side. Then there ascends the venerable figure of an aged man, clothed in robes of purple and scarlet, the ensigns of senatorial dignity. At the same moment, the spectre arm, by wondrous motion of its own, tears itself aloft, and becomes a dimly gleaming torch; each livid finger sending forth pale red dusky flames, which fling a horrid glare upon the cadaverous features of the phantom. ("The Forsaken Of God")

The mighty Toyota Company was born from the ashes of a failed weaving business. And perhaps you have heard of Wrigley’s gum? William Wrigley started off his company trying to sell baking soda and soap, but he never turned a profit, and so he turned to making and selling chewing gum instead. These men share one thing in common—they were open to change and they listened to their intuition. Sometimes we hear a whisper in the air that guides us positively. This whisper we hear, it is not passive—it is a response to our own enthusiasm, passion, and commitment. We put in the effort and we get back a divine message. Call it inspiration if you want. Call it an entrepreneurial muse. But it feels and sounds like a whisper in your soul. If you hear it, listen to it. You must be willing to change course when it tells you to.

William paid little heed to what was said, his own attention distracted by the sight of two slender white figures that hovered ghostlike among the bushes at the outer edge of the yard. Two capped white heads drew together, then apart. Now and then, one turned briefly toward the porch in what looked like speculation. “ ‘And for his vesture, they cast lots,’ ” his father murmured, shaking his head. “Eh?” “Never mind.” His father smiled,

When Ash said nothing, Lila growled, “You broke her heart, you know. The least you can do is talk to her.” “I have talked to her. I tried, anyway. I told her up front that I wasn’t looking for a long-term sweetheart. I thought we both agreed to that.” “Did you make her sign a bloody contract?” Lila laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “‘I promise that I won’t fall in love with the moody, mysterious Ash Hanson. I will enjoy his rangy body, his broad shoulders, and shapely leg, all the while knowing it’s a lease, not a buy.’” “Shapely leg?” Ash thrust out his leg, pretending to examine it, hoping to interrupt the litany of his physical gifts. But Lila was on a roll. “‘I will not fall into those blue-green eyes, deep as twin mountain pools, nor succumb to the lure of his full lips. Well, I will succumb, but for a limited time only. And the stubble—have I mentioned the stubble?’” Ash’s patience had run out. Lila was far too fluent in Fellsian for his liking. “Shut up, Lila.” “Isn’t there anyone who meets your standards?” “At least I have standards.” He raised an eyebrow. “Ouch!” Lila clutched her shoulder. “A fair hit, sir. A fair hit.” Her smile faded. “The problem is, hope is the thing that can’t be reined in by rules or pinned down by bitter experience. It’s a blessing and curse.” For a long moment, Ash stared at her. He would have been less surprised to hear his pony reciting poetry. “Who knew you were a philosopher?” he said finally. “Now. If you’re staying, let’s talk about something else. Where’s your posting this term?” “I’m going back to the Shivering Fens,” Lila said, “where the taverns are as rare as a day without rain. Where you have to keep moving or grow a crop of moss on your ass.” Good-bye, poetry, Ash thought. “Sounds lovely.

Comfort thy self, as I do, gentle Queen, With hope of sharp, unheard of, dire revenge.-- He bids me to provide his funeral, And so I will; but all the Peers in France Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears, Until their empty veins be dry and sere: The pillars of his hearse shall be his bones; The mould that covers him, their City ashes; His knell, the groaning cries of dying men; And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb, An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze, While we bewail our valiant son's decease.

They fasted the rest of the day and breathed in the smoke of a cedar fire. At first light next morning, they blackened their faces with the cedar ash, a sign to the spirits of the deep woods that they had purified themselves. Sam tied back his long black-and-gray hair with a leather cord ornamented with a single eagle feather. They smoked tobacco and red willow leaves mixed with powdered aster root as a hunting charm, then covered themselves with tallow made of various animal fats to disguise their scent from the bear.

These hours before first light were merciless. You could not go back to sleep and it was too early to get up and the things you had done or not done lay in your mind immovable as misshapen things you’d erected from stone. There was no give to these hours. They took no prisoners, made no compromises, and the things you had done could not be rationalized into anything save things you had done. The past was bitter and dry and ashes in his mouth, its bone arms clasped him like some old desiccated lover he could not be shut of.

You don't have to come with me," Ash said. "I only brought you along because you're good with a knife. And got us the uniforms. And the explosives." Lila snorted. "Sorry I'm not pulling my weight." "This may not be your idea," Ash said doggedly, "but it's what we're going to do." "Is it? Are you really going to start playing the prince card after all?" "Don't start in about my mother the queen, because I don't want to hear it." "All right, then, as your peer and absolute equal, I can't help thinking this is a really bad idea.

Though Mrs Moore wheezed and sputtered and was prone to the bad chest, though her skin looked like linoleum, the features of her face scrunching together to escape the smoke, it was the weather was the culprit. She held the record for ash-balancing. She would work with a burning cigarette held out ballerina-style in one hand, a tower of ash she didn’t need to look at building nicely while she dusted, or performed a slow-motion version of same, the dust in no danger, until the tower was certain to fall, and at the last moment, as though it were a smoking extension of herself, she would bring the cigarette to her small mouth and suck like the damned. She would draw on the cigarette and the smoke-coloured dashes of her eyebrows would float up and leave no doubt that from ashes to ashes was her destiny, and not such a bad one at that.

An impressive gentleman,” he remarked casually. “The general’s kinsman, I mean. Wouldn’t think they were related to look at, would you?” Caught up in dying hope and tearing grief, William had barely noticed Colonel Fraser before the latter had so suddenly given him the hat—and been too startled to notice much about him then. He shook his head in agreement, though, having a vague recollection of a tall figure kneeling down by the bed, the firelight touching the crown of his head briefly with red. “Looks more like you than like the brigadier,” Grant added offhandedly, then laughed, a painful creak. “Sure you haven’t a Scottish branch in your family?” “No, Yorkshiremen back to the Flood on both sides, save one French great-grandmother,” William replied, grateful for the momentary distraction of light conversation. “My stepfather’s mother is half Scotch—that count, do you think?

Jackaby,” said Marlowe. “Marlowe,” said Jackaby. “Good morning, Mayor Spade.” Spade had doffed his jacket. It was draped over the back of his chair, and a coffee brown bow tie hung undone over his beige waistcoat. He had a full beard and a perfectly bald dome, and he wore a thick pair of spectacles. Spade was not an intimidating figure at his best, and today he looked like he was several rounds into a boxing match he had no aspirations of winning. He had seemed more vibrant the first time we met, and that had been at a funeral. “I haven’t been up here in years,” continued Jackaby. “You’ve done something with the front garden, haven’t you?” “Yes,” said Spade. “We’ve let it grow back. Mary still hasn’t forgiven you.” “Is that why she’s been avoiding me? Your eyebrows have filled in nicely, by the way, and you can tell your wife the roses look healthier than ever. I’m sure being rid of that nest of pesky brownies did wonders for the roots. I understand a little ash is good for the soil, too.” “I never saw any brownies, but there was certainly plenty of ash to go around,” Spade mumbled. “That fire spread so quickly we’re lucky we managed to snuff it out at all.” “You should try blowing up a dragon some time,” I said. “No, scratch that. That went terribly. I don’t recommend it.” “Impressive blast radius, though,” Jackaby confirmed. Mayor Spade looked from me to my employer and rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand. “Good lord, one of you was quite enough. You had to recruit?

I said I don’t propose to die,” William assured him. “And I don’t need help.

I won't abandon the truth, William, and I won't lie about it, either.

Low-ceilinged and smoke-foxed, it had a curious smell: part beer, part cold fireplace ash, part pipe tobacco.

Why should Milton, Shakespeare, and Lord Bacon, and Sir Philip Sidney die? Perhaps yet they shall not wholly die. I am not contented to visit the house in Bread-Street where Milton was born, or that in Bunhill-Row where he died, I want to repair to the place where he now dwells. Some spirit shall escape from his ashes, and whisper to me things unfelt before. I am not satisfied to converse only with the generation of men that now happens to subsist; I wish to live in intercourse with the Illustrious Dead of All Ages. I demand the friendship of Zoroaster. Orpheus, and Linus, and Musaeus shall be welcome to me. I have a craving and an earnest heart, that can never be contented with anything in this sort, while something more remains to be obtained. And I feel that thus much at least the human race owes to its benefactors, that they should never be passed by without an affectionate remembrance. I would say, with Ezekiel, the Hebrew, in his Vision, ‘Let these dry bones live!’ Not let them live merely in cold generalities and idle homilies of morality; but let them live, as my friends, my philosophers, my instructors, and my guides! I would say with the moralist of old, ‘Let me act, as I would wish to have acted, if Socrates or Cato were the spectators of what I did!’ And I am not satisfied only to call them up by a strong effort of the imagination, but I would have them, and men like them, ‘around my path, and around my bed,’ and not allow myself to hold a more frequent intercourse with the living, than with the good departed.

Twenty-four hours after Tambora erupted, the ash cloud had expanded to cover an area approximately the size of Australia. Air temperatures in the region plunged dramatically, perhaps as much as twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Then a light southeasterly breeze sprang up, and over the next several days most of the ash cloud drifted over the islands west and northwest of Tambora. By the time the cloud finally departed, villages within twenty miles of the volcano were covered with ash nearly forty inches thick; those a hundred miles away found eight to ten inches of ash on the ground.

If you really try to know the Hindus you will observe that all castes have several very formal ceremonies. Three are most important. Twelve days after birth the baby is placed in a swinging cot above twelve candles and the priest announces his name. The second ceremony is marriage, which has usually been arranged by the parents. However if a man becomes wealthy he may add wives of his own choice, and as many as he can afford! The last ceremony is for the death. The Hindus believe the soul, trapped in the skull, can only be released by sacred fire. So they burn the dead. They make sure the skull is burned up or is broken open. Three days later they scatter the ashes into a river...” “Why

Mississippi: The rich deep black alluvial soil which would grow cotton taller than the head of a man on a horse, already one jungle one brake one impassable density of brier and cane and vine interlocking the soar of gum and cypress and hickory and pinoak and ash, printed now by the tracks of unalien shapes—bear and deer and panthers and bison and wolves and alligators and the myriad smaller beasts, and unalien men to name them too perhaps—the (themselves) nameless though recorded predecessors who built the mounds to escape the spring floods and left their meagre artifacts: the obsolete and the dispossessed, dispossessed by those who were dispossessed in turn because they too were obsolete: the wild Algonquian, Chickasaw and Choctaw and Natchez and Pascagoula, peering in virgin astonishment down from the tall bluffs at a Chippeway canoe bearing three Frenchmen—and had barely time to whirl and look behind him at ten and then a hundred and then a thousand Spaniards

Ash,” said Lowbeer, fingers extended around the candle as if for warmth, “imagines you a conservative.” “Does she?” “Or a romantic, perhaps. She sees your distaste for the present rooted in the sense of a fall from grace. That some prior order, or perhaps the lack of one, afforded a more authentic existence.

The water outside the ship may toss it, but it is the water inside the ship that sinks it! It is better to have the body consumed to ashes for the sake of Christ, than to have the soul dwell in everlasting burnings through being ashamed of Christ! Though Christians have no warrant to expect that they shall live here without afflictions, yet, in the exercise of them, faith will teach them to live above afflictions.

God can strike straight strokes with crooked sticks and make Satan’s dross[109] burnish[110] His choice vessels. Christians are crucified by the world that they might be crucified to the world. God makes it their enemy that He might make them enemies to it. Christianity is like the “phoenix,” which has always flourished in its own ashes.[111] While reprobates attack the truth with their sword, martyrs defend it with their blood. The loss of their heads hastens the reception of their crowns.

Practice & Ash 2. Scales of the Malefic Viper 3. Lucenti Plains 4. Pondering on Ponds 5. Introspection 6. Intermission 1 – Viridia (1/2) 7. Intermission 1 – The Malefic Viper (2/2) 8. Moment of Curiosity 9. Cleaning Up the Plains 10. The Great White Stag 11. No Rest for the Wicked 12. Loot & Healing 13. True Protagonist 14. Into the Dark 15. The Right Way 16. Dark Mana & Dark Tunnels 17. Many Rats! Handle it! 18. Dark Attunement 19. Nest Watcher 20. A Final Gift 21. Willful Ignorance 22. The Balance Broken 23. Beers & Exposition 24. Of Fate & Destiny 25. William & Jake 26. Spring Cleaning = Loot 3.0 27. Valley of Tusks 28. Going with the Flow 29. The Right Way Forward 30. Mana 101 31. A Thoughtful Touch 32. Pigs for Slaughter 33. Limit Break 34. Falling Rocks 35. Horde Leader 36. Next Target: King of the Forest 37. King 38. Eclipse 39. Fall 40. When the Curtains Fall 41. Tutorial Rewards: Titles & Math 42. Tutorial Rewards: Narrowing Down Options 43. Tutorial Rewards: Getting Stuff 44. Intermission 2 - Life after Death (Casper) 45. Records 46. A Godlike Getaway 47. Danger Bath 48. Second Part? 49. Embracing Power 50. Defiance & Gains 51. You know, I'm something of a sage myself 52. Homecoming 53. Intermission 3 - Carmen 54. Intermission 4 - Noboru Miyamoto 55. Intermission 5 - Eron 56. The Blue Marble 57. One Step Mile 58. Pylon of Civilization 59. Intermission 6 - Matteo (1/2) 60. Intermission 6 - Matteo (2/2) 61. The Times They Are A-Changin' 62. Monsters 63. Living with the Consequences 64. Points of View 65. Going Down 66. Two Kinds of People 67. Big Blue Mushroom 68. Delegating (avoiding) Responsibilities 69. Construction Plans 70. First World Problems 71. How to Train Your Dragon Wings 72. Freedom

But like the U.S. Government, the Canadian powers-that-be never seemed to realize that criminals don’t pay any attention to rules and regulations and laws. The only group of people who are punished by restrictive gun laws are the law-abiding citizens.

Politicians never seemed to learn that criminals paid absolutely no attention to gun laws.

That’s right. An unarmed population is an invitation for takeover.

They’ll never get the chance to do this again in Ireland,” the man said, steel in his voice. “The first politician who stands up and announces he’s in favor of gun control is very likely to get shot.

Back in the 1960s, the federal government had created programs to ease the burden of the poor. It looked good on paper. In effect it destroyed the work ethic and ruined the pride of millions of people. Why work when the government (using the tax money from millions of hard-working citizens) would feed, clothe, and house those who didn’t choose to work? Like nearly every government program ever devised by those ninnies in Washington, it swelled out of control and those in power didn’t have the courage to stop it.

When he turned the key in the ignition, there was a blinding flash followed by total blackness. In that brief instant, Ryan knew his life was over. Two days later, William Holden attended a memorial service for Ray Ryan at the Ziemer Funeral Home East Chapel with its tall white colonnades and trimmed green lawn. The service was held in the presence of several uniformed police officers and undercover FBI agents, one of whom posed as a window washer across the street. Ryan’s ashes were taken to Africa, where his tearful widow Helen Kelley scattered them at the base of Mount Kenya. Afterwards, Holden called Adnan Khashoggi and told him he wanted to sell the Safari Club. “Why?” Khashoggi asked. “Because it’s no fun anymore.

William wrote down a list a few years ago of all the ways he would be a better parent.

However, the invocation of the Devil’s name in Isobel’s verbal charms can be explained by a combination of two theories. The first being that this was the Folk Devil, fairy characters viewed by clergy as their Devil or "wee devils. The second theory being that Isobel was calling upon the biblical Devil to aid in harmful magic. In Scotland, unlike some other countries in the British Isles, most of the accounts where accused witches laid claim that their powers or charms were given unto them by the ‘gude nichtbouries’, or fairies than “muckle black deil”, or the devil-like their other Celtic neighbours. The 19th-century anthropologist Andrew Lang stated that witches who suffered at Presbyterian hands were merely narrators of fairy stories who trafficked with the dead (or fairies) and from them won medicinal recipes for cures. In Scotland, the fairy-faith has always been a strong backbone in the animistic beliefs of the people, especially in the gaidhealtachd or Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland where they are called the sìth, sleagh maith or daoine beaga. In fact, during the whole witch-craze, which spread across Scotland, the Gaelic areas to the west had fewer accounts of people being charged with witchcraft. All classes of society during Isobel’s time held belief in the fairies, most with great fear but others were concerned with the gifts the fairies could bestow or teach.

If you like this kind of thing, there is a lot of great work out there. Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter is among my recent favorites, as is Tom Sweterlitsch’s The Gone World. Both books provide both a respite from and a way to think about our current times. Plus anything by William Gibson, although Neuromancer is the place to start if you’re new to his work.

Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: “To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods?

Zun-zet Where the western zun, unclouded, Up above the grey hill-tops, Did sheen drough ashes, lofty sh’ouded, On the turf beside the copse, In zummer weather, We together, Sorrow-slightèn, work-vorgettèn, Gambol’d wi’ the zun a-zettèn. There, by flow’ry bows o’ bramble, Under hedge, in ash-tree sheädes, The dun-heäir’d ho’se did slowly ramble On the grasses’ dewy bleädes, Zet free o’ lwoads, An’ stwony rwoads, Vorgetvul o’ the lashes frettèn, Grazèn wi’ the zun a-zettèn. There wer rooks a-beätèn by us Drough the aïr, in a vlock, An’ there the lively blackbird, nigh us, On the meäple bough did rock, Wi’ ringèn droat, Where zunlight smote The yollow boughs o’ zunny hedges Over western hills’ blue edges. Waters, drough the meäds a-purlèn, Glissen’d in the evenèn’s light, An’ smoke, above the town a-curlèn, Melted slowly out o’ zight; An’ there, in glooms Ov unzunn’d rooms, To zome, wi’ idle sorrows frettèn, Zuns did set avore their zettèn. We were out in geämes and reäces, Loud a-laughèn, wild in me’th, Wi’ windblown heäir, an’ zunbrowned feäces, Leäpèn on the high-sky’d e’th, Avore the lights Wer tin’d o’ nights, An’ while the gossamer’s light nettèn Sparkled to the zun a-zettèn.

Government got too big—too powerful. Agencies like the IRS had entirely too much power.

The first surviving manuals of European swordsmanship date from the early fourteenth century, so it is impossible to know precisely how William trained and fought with this weapon, but it is clear that he honed his ability to wield his sword both while mounted and on foot. This must have required the daily repetition of practice sword strokes through his teenage years and beyond – so as to develop strength and acquire muscle memory – and regular sparring to refine coordination and agility. By the time he became a knight, Marshal was an effective swordsman, but so far as the History was concerned, his primary gift was not flashy technique, but the brutish physicality that enabled him to deliver crushing blows. With sword in hand, William was, in the words of his biographer, a man who ‘hammered like a blacksmith on iron’. Marshal probably also trained with a number of other mêlée weapons popular with twelfth-century knights, including the dagger, axe, mace and war-hammer, but much of his time would have been devoted to mastering the lance. By construction this was a fairly rudimentary weapon – often simply a ten- to twelve-foot-long straight spar of hewn wood, usually of ash – but it was fiendishly difficult to use from horseback. The lance would be held under the arm (or couched) during a charge, and directing its point towards a target with any accuracy required immense skill. Lances often broke after one or two uses, but a successful strike could cause devastating damage to an opponent. In the course of his career, William would witness the lethal potential of this weapon with his own eyes and he would also be called upon to charge down one of the greatest warriors of the age, Richard the Lionheart, with lance in hand.

He disliked the narrative aspects of history, particularly that part of it. People were so boringly deformed by it, like Ash, or else, like Lev, scarcely aware of it.

Practicing art is a meditation; an artwork is an insight.

Looking down, observers saw a sphere of purple-pink light burst through the cloud ceiling, like an air bubble breaking the surface of a body of water. William Laurence, watching from a window in The Great Artiste, was awestruck. The sphere merged into an ascending column of dirty brown smoke and ash, and “we watched it shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from outer space, becoming ever more alive as it climbed skyward through the white clouds. It was no longer smoke, or dust, or even a cloud of fire. It was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes.

Middle East thumbed his nose at America. The Chinese communists raped the minds of 600 million people and Uncle Sam paid the bill for it through “Most Favored Nation” trade status. Latin America made gringo bashing the national pastime

What it was was an irresponsible act by an asshole with a gun. And it wasn’t the fault of the gun; someone has to be behind the trigger.

Another may have been that she was a smoker. No sooner had she landed than she had to have the one, a Wild Woodbine, and Doady always joined her. Though Mrs Moore wheezed and sputtered and was prone to the bad chest, though her skin looked like linoleum, the features of her face scrunching together to escape the smoke, it was the weather was the culprit. She held the record for ash-balancing. She would work with a burning cigarette held out ballerina-style in one hand, a tower of ash she didn’t need to look at building nicely while she dusted, or performed a slow-motion version of same, the dust in no danger, until the tower was certain to fall, and at the last moment, as though it were a smoking extension of herself, she would bring the cigarette to her small mouth and suck like the damned. She would draw on the cigarette and the smoke-coloured dashes of her eyebrows would float up and leave no doubt that from ashes to ashes was her destiny, and not such a bad one at that.

Like ashes from a volcanic eruption, the legacy of the St. Domingue slave revolt was carried throughout the Atlantic world by what the poet William Wordsworth called “the common wind.

Climbing into her car, he found it configured, familiarly, as a windowless miniature submarine, austerely carpeted, with buff enamel walls. Four compact but comfortable green leather armchairs were sunken in a conversation pit, around a small oval table of brass-bound mahogany, their coziness offset by a sense of concentrated bureaucratic power. Churchill’s waistcoat pocket, Ash called it.

Again. This was the year in which a million people crowded into Atlanta—still alive despite the ashes to which David Selznick had reduced it—for the ceremonial opening of Gone With the Wind. Confederate flags flew everywhere, and hawkers peddled Rhett caramels and Melanie molasses and Tara pecans, and when Vivien Leigh heard a military school band bleating “Dixie,” she said, “Oh, they’re playing the song from our picture.” There was a grand unreality about all the festivity, this celebration of defeat in a war long finished, as though nobody could understand that a much larger struggle had already begun. That September, a group of Selznick’s technicians had been carrying out one of their last tasks, filming the title itself—Gone With the Wind—pulling the camera along on a dolly so that each word could be framed separately, when Fred Williams, the head grip, turned on his radio and heard that Britain had declared war on Nazi

It is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots, and bury them secretly in a flowerpot against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was once something else, that something else is thinkable, and need some evidence of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of hope and truth.

Are you so far discouraged, disquieted, cast down, that your very body feeleth the smart of your discouragements? that you do not only refuse the promise, and all comfort for your soul, but even for your body? Then look into Psalm cii., and see if your case may not be paralleled, verse 4, "My heart is smitten and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread: verse 5, "By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin:" verse 6, "I am like a pelican of the wilderness, and I am like an owl of the desert:" verse 9, "I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping:" verse 10, "Because of thine indignation and thy wrath; for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down:" verse 11, "My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass." Oh, but I am not only so far discouraged, as to refuse comfort for soul and body, but my soul refuseth duty, and casts off duty too for the present.

perhaps Shuja’s most feared crack troops were a large force of 6,000 dreadlocked Hindu Naga sadhus, who fought mainly on foot with clubs, swords and arrows, ash-painted but entirely naked, under their own much-feared Gossain leaders, the brothers Anupgiri and Umraogiri.39 The colossal scale of the combined armies bolstered the confidence of the leaders, as did the news of unrest and further mutinies among the Company forces on the other side of the river.

Flynne’s expression as she took it all in. “Cosplay zone,” said Lev, “Eighteen sixty-seven. We’d be fined for the helicopter, if it didn’t have cloaking, or if it made a sound.” Netherton tapped the requisite quadrant of palate, returning to Ash’s feed, to find them stationary over morning traffic, already so thick as to be almost unmoving. Cabs, carts, drays, all drawn by horses. Lev’s father and grandfather owned actual horses, apparently. Were said to sometimes ride them, though certainly never in Cheapside. His mother had shown him the shops here as a child. Silver-plated tableware, perfumes, fringed shawls, implements for ingesting tobacco, fat watches cased in silver or gold, men’s hats. He’d been amazed at how copiously the horses shat in the street, their droppings swept up by darting children, younger than he was, who he’d understood were no more real than the horses, but who seemed as real,

Spending more time in nature and cultivating our mystic-sensibilities are two effective joy-promoting strategies. But these strategies can prove futile if our morbidness becomes so excessive that we adopt what William James called “the dust-and-ashes state of mind”. This mindset is defined by the dreadful suspicion that evil and futility lurk behind all experiences, and that the greatest goods of life are rotten with a worm at the core. James was no stranger to this mindset and as a young man he confessed in a letter to his brother: “I cannot bring myself, as so many seem able to do, to blink the evil out of sight, and gloss it over.

I found Lord John and William in the parlor, both of them a little flushed. “Mother Claire.” Willie took my hand and gently kissed it. “Come and look. Papa has found something he thinks you will like. Come and see it,” he repeated, drawing me gently toward the table. “It” was a large wooden chest, made of some expensive wood, banded in gold. I blinked at it and put out a hand to touch it. It looked rather like a cutlery safe but much bigger. “What …?” I looked up to find Lord John standing beside me, looking somewhat abashed. “A, um, present,” he said, deprived for once of his smooth manners. “I thought—I mean, I perceived that you lacked somewhat in the way of … equipment. I do not wish you to abandon your profession,” he added gently. “My profession.” A

Mother Claire! Where’s Papa? There are—” He had seized me by the arms as I reeled backward, but his concern for me was superseded by a sound from the hall beyond the landing. He glanced toward the sound—then let go of me, his eyes bulging. Jamie stood at the end of the hall, some ten feet away; John stood beside him, white as a sheet, and his eyes bulging as much as Willie’s were. This resemblance to Willie, striking as it was, was completely overwhelmed by Jamie’s own resemblance to the Ninth Earl of Ellesmere. William’s face had hardened and matured, losing all trace of childish softness, and from both ends of the short hall, deep blue Fraser cat-eyes stared out of the bold, solid bones of the MacKenzies. And Willie was old enough to shave on a daily basis; he knew what he looked like.

God damn you, sir,” Willie said, voice trembling. “God damn you to hell!” He half-turned blindly, then spun on his heel to face John. “And you! You knew, didn’t you? God damn you, too!” “William—” John reached out a hand to him, helpless, but before he could say anything more, there was a sound of voices in the hall below and heavy feet on the stair.

May I come in? I wish to talk to you.” “Yes, I suppose you do.” If I hadn’t known both his fathers, I would have marveled at his ability to suppress the rage and confusion he had so clearly exhibited a quarter of a hour ago. Jamie did it by instinct, John by long experience—but both of them had an iron power of will, and whether William’s was bred in the bone or acquired by example, he most assuredly had one. “Shall I send for something?” I asked. “A little brandy? It’s good for shock.” He shook his head. He wouldn’t sit—I didn’t think he could—but leaned against the wall.

All of them,” I said firmly, “all four of them; they wanted what was best for you.” “Best for me,” he repeated bleakly. “Right.” His knuckles had gone white again, and he gave me a look through narrowed eyes that I recognized all too well: a Fraser about to go off with a bang. I also knew perfectly well that there was no way of stopping one from detonating but had a try anyway, putting out a hand to him. “William,” I began. “Believe me—” “I do,” he said. “Don’t bloody tell me any more. God damn it!” And, whirling on his heel, he drove his fist through the paneling with a thud that shook the room, wrenched his hand out of the hole he’d made, and stormed out. I heard crunching and rending

We’ve sourced something field-expedient,” Ash began, “from what little’s available there…She’s a surprisingly advanced product of the early militarization of machine intelligence…They saw it as cloning complexly specific skill sets.” █ Netherton nodded, hoping his eyes weren’t visibly glazing. █ “There were, for instance, individuals adroit at managing what were termed competitive control areas…complexly volatile environments, where you might easily lose prized field operators.

Gen’s eyes slowly moved from Yue to Ash, and then to Jia. “I see. Building a harem, are we?

I guess. If I am, I’ve certainly gotten the best possible start,” Ash said, his mouth moving faster than his brain.

In fact, scientists have taken advantage of this effect by using the amount of red in contemporary paintings of sunsets to estimate the intensity of volcanic eruptions. Several Greek scientists, led by C. S. Zerefos, digitally measured the amount of red—relative to other primary colors—in more than 550 samples of landscape art by 181 artists from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries to produce estimates of the amount of volcanic ash in the air at various times. Paintings from the years following the Tambora eruption used the most red paint; those after Krakatoa came a close second.

Well there’s no hope in avoiding collapse. If you look at the worst-case consequences of climate change, those pretty much mean the collapse of our industrial civilization. But that doesn’t mean the end of everything. It means that we’re going to be living through the most rapid and intense period of change that humanity has ever faced. And that’s certainly not hopeless. It means we’re going to have to build another world in the ashes of this one. And it could very easily be a better world.

Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: “To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods?” Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome Memorized by Churchill at age thirteen

have written before on ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’5 and pointed out a similarity of use of the word ‘light’ with a celebrated line from Othello. It occurs in a verse which is of particular interest as it changes in the different Dylan versions we have of the song. Dylan sings the following lines in the version from The Gaslight Tapes 1962: Well, it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your lights, babe Lights I never knowed And it ain’t no use in burnin’ your lamp, babe I’m on the dark side of the road. While on the later Freewheelin’ album version, we hear, in addition to slight improvements to the first two lines, the stanza concluding with: An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe I’m on the dark side of the road By changing the third line, Dylan makes this verse consistent with all the others in the song, where the third line repeats the first. In the first version, the “burning” image is redolent of ashes, of ‘burning out’ and interestingly, of ‘burning your bridges’ in addition to its primary meaning of ‘shining’ which puts the lamp in opposition to the dark. “Turning on your light” in the Freewheelin’ version suggests something much more forceful and active, and Dylan has changed the word from the plural in both the first and (now) third lines. The phrase “turning on your lights” simply suggests lighting up her home to make it a welcome place for the singer in contrast to the ‘dark side of the road’. “Turning on your light” is much more personal. It reminds you of the phrase ‘to hold a torch for someone’, and has an intimate appeal, though it is a forlorn one in this case. The light here is now both a physical thing, and also the woman’s inner being. The song’s line now shares the same two meanings of light that we hear in Othello’s chilling statement as he murders Desdemona: Put out the light, and then put out the light.6

William Ashe doesn’t believe in destiny. The word itself is actually shorthand people use when they wish to mysticize random events or externalize the results of their own willful choices.

Just feed your criminal into the machine and his cremated ashes fall out the other end in a plastic Chimu Funeral Urn. Infallible electronic jurisprudence prevent miscarriages and Suburbia is spared screams for mercy or some nausea artist strip on the gallows with a hard-on, scream, 'I'm ready for a meet with my maker!' and leer at the doctor so nasty or roll around the gas chamber floor shitting and ejaculating, while the sheriff whimpers at the witness slot - and who want to see the prick turn red like an old blood sausage and burst open when the switch goes home? The machine does it all, folks.

Because what Ash came to realize in all of this is that people died twice. The first time was when their body failed. The second was when their name ceased to be spoken.

See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell; The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy; Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy; Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt; Dakota by Kathleen Norris; and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.