β
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seemed filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster
β
β
Elizabeth Bishop (The Complete Poems 1927-1979)
β
It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.
β
β
Raymond Chandler (Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe, #2))
β
Humans who thought they were advancing around the chessboard of life as knights and bishops were actually among the multitude of pawns, advancing like fodder to their inevitable demise for the true kings residing behind the curtains, whose presence was invisible to virtually all the pieces on the chessboard.
β
β
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
β
It was as if we played chess after denying me both bishops and knights.
β
β
Gabriel F.W. Koch (Death Leaves a Shadow (Marlowe Black Mystery, #2))
β
There are some questions that shouldn't be asked until a person is mature enough to appreciate the answers.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.
β
β
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods (Discworld, #13))
β
Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.
β
β
Jim Bishop
β
Everything has a price.
β
β
Anne Bishop
β
Bishop was all done with the witty conversation. 'Will you swear?'
And Myrnin said, shockingly, 'I will.' And he proceeded to, a string of swearwords that made Claire blink. He ended with, 'βfrothy fool-born apple-john! Cheater of vandals and defiler of dead dogs!' and did another twirl and bow. He looked up with a red, red grin that was more like a leer. 'Is that what you meant, my lord?
β
β
Rachel Caine (Feast of Fools (The Morganville Vampires, #4))
β
I feel so miserable without you; itβs almost like having you here.
β
β
Stephen Bishop
β
Like a good chess player, Satan is always trying to maneuver you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop.
β
β
C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)
β
You can only win the game when you understand that it is a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him lose them all.
β
β
Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #1))
β
When honor and the Law no longer stand on the same side of the line, how do we choose[?]
β
β
Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
β
A woman with an education may be able to spend more time sitting in a chair instead of lying on her back. A sound advantage, I should think.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
You cannot con an honest man.
β
β
Ally Carter (Uncommon Criminals (Heist Society, #2))
β
We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
I heard this girl worked for Bishop,' said one of the guys, who had a tire iron resting on his shoulder. 'Carrying around his death warrants. Like one of those Nazi collaborators.'
'You heard wrong,' Shane said. 'Sheβs my girl. Now back off.'
'Letβs hear from her,' said the leader of the pack, and locked stares with Claire. 'So? You working for the vamps?'
Shane sent her a quick, warning glance.
Claire took in a deep breath and said, 'Absolutely.'
'Ah hell,' Shane breathed. 'Okay, then. Run.
β
β
Rachel Caine (Fade Out (The Morganville Vampires, #7))
β
Whether youβre beaten or pampered, fed the best foods or starved, kept in filth or kept clean, a cage is still a cage.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Written in Red (The Others, #1))
β
I didn't know there were this many math guys," Hale said as they stepped onto the crowded concourse.
Kat cleared her throat.
"And women," he added. "Math women.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
Close, close all night
the lovers keep.
They turn together
in their sleep,
Close as two pages
in a book
that read each other
in the dark.
Each knows all
the other knows,
learned by heart
from head to toes.
β
β
Elizabeth Bishop (Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments)
β
Never make a permanent decision about a temporary situation.
β
β
T.D. Jakes
β
If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I'm sure it's a good oneβand the same goes for paintings.
β
β
Elizabeth Bishop
β
Some men die for lack of loveβ¦some die because of it. Think about it." - Daemon
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
People who entered the Courtyard without an invitation were just plain crazy! Wolves were big and scary and so fluffy, how could anyone resist hugging one just to feel all that fur?
βIgnore the fluffy,β she muttered. βRemember the part about big and scary.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Written in Red (The Others, #1))
β
If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.
[Letter to the London Packet, 3 June 1772]
β
β
Benjamin Franklin (The Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin)
β
When they killed him, Mother wouldn't hold her peace, so they slit her throat. I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I've learned to appreciate thorns since. The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who've fought the Hundred War have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it IS a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him loose them all.
β
β
Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #1))
β
Do you understand any of this?" he said, pointing to the lines and symbols that covered the massive screens.
"Some people understand the value of an education."
Hale stretched and crossed his legs, the settled his arm around Kat's shoulders.
"That's sweet, Kat. Maybe later I'll buy you a university. And an ice cream."
"I'd settle for the ice cream."
"Deal.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
Books, I found, had the power to make time
stand still, retreat or fly into the future.
β
β
Jim Bishop
β
Kat," Hale groaned, then fell back onto the pillows.
"Funny, I didn't hear a doorbell."
"I let myself in; hope that's okay."
Hale smiled. "Or the alarm."
She stepped inside, tossed a pocket-size bag of tools onto the bed.
"You're due for an upgrade."
Hale propped himself against the antique headboard and squinted up at her.
"She returns." He crossed his arms across his bare chest. "You know, I could be naked in here.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
Love fails for a million reasons - distance, infidelity, pride, religion, money, illness. Why is this story any more worthy?
It felt like it was. It felt important. Living in this town is suffocating in so many ways.
But if a tree falls in the woods, maybe it makes no sound.
And if a boy falls for the bishop's closeted son, maybe it makes no story.
β
β
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
β
Do you always ask me the same questions you ask him?"
"It depends on whether or not I get an answer.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
all my life i have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something.
β
β
Elizabeth Bishop
β
You weren't afraid of me when I was Wolf," he said. "Why are you afraid of Nathan?"
"He's got big feet!"
"What?"
An insulted-sounding arrroooo came from the other side of the door, a reminder that Wolves also had big ears.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Written in Red (The Others, #1))
β
Life wonβt stop for your pauses and procrastinations. It wonβt stop for your confusion or fear. It will continue right along without you. Whether you play an active part or not, the show will go on.
β
β
Gary John Bishop (Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life)
β
We know how it ends practically before it starts. That's why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
I flicked over his rook, his bishop, and protected my queen.
I mouth, Don't fuck with with me. These five people mean more to me than words can express. I've never once felt like I had a real family.
But with them-I know I do.
β
β
Becca Ritchie (Kiss the Sky (Calloway Sisters, #1))
β
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
β
β
Elizabeth Bishop (One Art)
β
Did you follow me here?"
"Something like that."
I let out a frustrated groan. "Can't anyone just talk to me straight? Why is everyone avoiding my damn questions tonight?"
Bishop's brows went up. "Okay, fine. Yes, I followed you here. Better?"
"Yes. Stalkery, but better."
"I'm not stalking you."
"Spoken like a true stalker
β
β
Michelle Rowen (Dark Kiss (Nightwatchers, #1))
β
When a man wears his pants that tight, they tend to pinch his balls, and that tends to pinch his temper.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Queen of the Darkness (The Black Jewels, #3))
β
Well, I hope your hard self enjoys flogging the bishop tonight!
β
β
Jeaniene Frost (This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5))
β
Briarwood is the pretty poison. There is no cure for Briarwood.
β
β
Anne Bishop
β
Let your heart travel lightly. Because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Sebastian (Ephemera, #1))
β
So, your dad's hot."
"Thanks. He was that way when I met him, so I can't really take credit.
β
β
Ally Carter (Perfect Scoundrels (Heist Society, #3))
β
You have the life youβre willing to put up with.
β
β
Gary John Bishop (Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life)
β
She was the most painful, most glorious dance of his life
β
β
Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
β
Stubborn, snarly male.
β
β
Anne Bishop (The Black Jewels Trilogy: Daughter of the Blood, Heir to the Shadows, Queen of the Darkness (The Black Jewels, #1-3))
β
On Writing: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays
1. A beginning ends what an end begins.
2. The despair of the blank page: it is so full.
3. In the head Artβs not democratic. I wait a long time to be a writer good enough even for myself.
4. The best time is stolen time.
5. All work is the avoidance of harder work.
6. When I am trying to write I turn on music so I can hear what is keeping me from hearing.
7. I envy music for being beyond words. But then, every word is beyond music.
8. Why would we write if weβd already heard what we wanted to hear?
9. The poem in the quarterly is sure to fail within two lines: flaccid, rhythmless, hopelessly dutiful. But I read poets from strange languages with freedom and pleasure because I can believe in all that has been lost in translation. Though all works, all acts, all languages are already translation.
10. Writer: how books read each other.
11. Idolaters of the great need to believe that what they love cannot fail them, adorers of camp, kitsch, trash that they cannot fail what they love.
12. If I didnβt spend so much time writing, Iβd know a lot more. But I wouldnβt know anything.
13. If youβre Larkin or Bishop, one book a decade is enough. If youβre not? More than enough.
14. Writing is like washing windows in the sun. With every attempt to perfect clarity you make a new smear.
15. There are silences harder to take back than words.
16. Opacity gives way. Transparency is the mystery.
17. I need a much greater vocabulary to talk to you than to talk to myself.
18. Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean.
19. Believe stupid praise, deserve stupid criticism.
20. Writing a book is like doing a huge jigsaw puzzle, unendurably slow at first, almost self-propelled at the end. Actually, itβs more like doing a puzzle from a box in which several puzzles have been mixed. Starting out, you canβt tell whether a piece belongs to the puzzle at hand, or one youβve already done, or will do in ten years, or will never do.
21. Minds go from intuition to articulation to self-defense, which is what they die of.
22. The dead are still writing. Every morning, somewhere, is a line, a passage, a whole book you are sure wasnβt there yesterday.
23. To feel an end is to discover that there had been a beginning. A parenthesis closes that we hadnβt realized was open).
24. There, all along, was what you wanted to say. But this is not what you wanted, is it, to have said it?
β
β
James Richardson
β
Are there weapons in a bookstore?'
'It's a store full of books, which are objects that can be thrown as well as read,' Monty replied blandly.
The Crows cocked his head. 'I had no idea you humans lived with so much danger.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Murder of Crows (The Others, #2))
β
Everything is valuable, in its own way. Everything is full of history.
β
β
Victoria E. Schwab (The Archived (The Archived, #1))
β
Is that why you've been pushing me away? Because of how you look? [...] I waited for you my whole life. Yearned for you my whole life. After Tersa told me you were coming, I spent seven hundred years searching for you[....] I never gave a damn what you looked like--tall, short, fat, thin, plain, beautiful, ugly. Why would I care about what you looked like? The flesh was the shell that housed the glory[....] Even if I couldn't be your physical lover, there are other ways to be a lover and I know them all. So don't stand there and tell me how you feel depends on how you look!
β
β
Anne Bishop (Dreams Made Flesh (The Black Jewels, #5))
β
Words lie. Blood doesn't.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
β
Mother Night and May The Darkness Be Merciful!
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
You should always trust the instincts of children.
β
β
Ally Carter (Uncommon Criminals (Heist Society, #2))
β
Perhaps not willingly, but pain can make a man do things he wouldn't willingly do.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
Gabrielle, Hale?" Kat smacked his shoulder. "It wasn't bad enough that you got me kicked out of school, but you had to use her to help you? Gabrielle!" "I can hear you," her cousin sang beside her. Hale looked at Gabrielle and gestured at Kat. "She's adorable when she's jealous." Kat kicked his shin.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
β
β
Elizabeth Bishop (Questions of Travel)
β
It was easier when all we wanted to do was eat them and take their stuff,β he grumbled.
And it had been easier when he hadnβt cared if he made any of them cry.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Written in Red (The Others, #1))
β
But what would they have said to their Liaison? Itβs like this, Meg. We didnβt like that Asia Crane, so we ate her.
When dealing with humans, honesty isnβt always the best policy, Vlad thought
β
β
Anne Bishop (Written in Red (The Others, #1))
β
Vlad hated doing the paperwork as much as he did when a human employee quit, which was why they'd both made a promise not to eat quitters just to avoid the paperwork. As Tess had pointed out, eating the staff was bad for morale and made it so much harder to find new employees.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Written in Red (The Others, #1))
β
It's every little girl's dream," she said. "Interpol surveillance. And kittens.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into; the other functions and faculties may be more godlike, but in point of time they come afterwards. A man dies and is buried, and all his words and actions are forgotten, but the food he has eaten lives after him in the sound or rotten bones of his children. I think it could be plausibly argued that changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty or even of religion....Yet it is curious how seldom the all-importance of food is recognized. You see statues everywhere to politicians, poets, bishops, but none to cooks or bacon-curers or market gardeners.
β
β
George Orwell (The Road To Wigan Pier: (Authorized Orwell Edition): A Mariner Books Classic)
β
I suppose [...] that the most convincing way to fool an enemy would be to fool a friend.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
β
Why couldnβt they just give the human female a bag of money and then pee on the building so that everyone would know it was theirs?
β
β
Anne Bishop (Vision in Silver (The Others, #3))
β
At this gathering [Council of Niceau in 324 AD] many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon β the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and, of course, the divinity of Jesus... until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet... a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.
β
β
Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
β
But on the upside, I guess we're getting ready to find out if you really only love me for my jet."
"I might love you for your jet," Gabrielle said, straight-faced.
He smiled a Kat. "What about you?"
"Yeah," Kat said, nodding. "I guess that is the question.
β
β
Ally Carter (Perfect Scoundrels (Heist Society, #3))
β
He therefore turned to mankind only with regret. His cathedral was enough for him. It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquillity and benevolence. The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him β he resembled them too closely for that. It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at. The saints were his friends and blessed him; the monsters were his friends and kept watch over him. He would sometimes spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it. If anyone came upon him then he would run away like a lover surprised during a serenade.
β
β
Victor Hugo (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)
β
The other package has pieces of dried stag stick. The pups like chewing on those."
"What's a stag stick?" Meg asked, taking the packages.
He stared at her for a moment. Then he put a fist below his belt and popped out a thumb.
"Oh," Meg said. "Oh.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Written in Red (The Others, #1))
β
You know" - Hale's breath was warm against Kat's ear in the chilly ballroom- "I don't know that both of us really have to be here...."
The slide changed. While hundreds of mathematicians waited with baited breath, the boy beside Kat whispered,
"I could go make some calls... check on some things..."
"Play some blackjack?"
"Well, when in Rome..."
"Rome is tomorrow, babe," Kat reminded him.
He nodded. "Right.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.
β
β
Stephen Fry
β
But wouldn't it be lovely to watch two people fall in love?
β
β
Anne Bishop (The Shadow Queen (The Black Jewels, #7))
β
Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.
β
β
Carol Bishop Hipps
β
You change your life by doing, not by thinking about doing.
β
β
Gary John Bishop (Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life)
β
you must first accept that while there are things that have happened in your life that you had no say in, you are 100 percent responsible for what you do with your life in the aftermath of those events. Always, every time, no excuses.
β
β
Gary John Bishop (Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life (Unfu*k Yourself series))
β
Will you still want me if I'm poor, Kat?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"No. Seriously. You're the planner. Simon's the genius. The Bagshaws are the muscle. And Gabrielle is . . . Gabrielle. But what am I, Kat? I'm the guy who writes the checks."
"No. You're the most naturally gifted inside man I have ever seen. And I was raised by Bobby Bishop." She made him look into her eyes. "I don't care about your money.
β
β
Ally Carter (Perfect Scoundrels (Heist Society, #3))
β
For now, he and Meg were going to have the adventure of seeing a new place and having a new experience. Together.
He wasn't human. Would never be human. And Meg didn't expect him to be. But feeling her hand in his, Simon thought maybe he could learn to be human enough.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Vision in Silver (The Others, #3))
β
Daemon had written: "What do you do when she asks a question no man would give a child an answer to?"
Saetan had replied: "Hope you're obliging enough to answer it for me. However, if you're backed into a corner, refer her to me. I've become accustomed to being shocked.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))
β
Somewhere in the center of my soul, a rusty chain began to unwind. It freed itself, link by link, from where it had rested, unobserved, waiting for him. My hands, which had been balled up and pressed against his chest, unfurled with it. The chain continued to drop, to an unfathomable depth where there was nothing but darkness and Matthew. At last it snapped to its full length, anchoring me to a vampire. Despite the manuscript, despite the fact that my hands contained enough voltage to run a microwave, and despite the photograph, as long as I was connected to him, I was safe.
β
β
Deborah Harkness (A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1))
β
The cow-shaped cookies have a beef flavoring, the turkey-shaped cookies have a poultry flavoring, and..."
Jane held up one of the cookies. "Human-flavored?"
Meg stifled a sigh. That would be the first thing on her feedback list: don't make people-shaped cookies. The Wolves were way too interested and all of them leaped to a logical, if disturbing, expectation about the taste.
β
β
Anne Bishop (Murder of Crows (The Others, #2))
β
And thatβs when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: βWhen I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.β Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for living out of love that disrupts the social order that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.
β
β
Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical)
β
You know you're smarter than all of them, right?" Hale said flatly.
"In fact, if you wanted to PROVE it..."
He glanced at the blackjack tables.
Simon shook his head. "I don't count cards, Hale."
"Don't?" Hale smiled. "Or won't? You know, technically, it's not illegal."
"But it's frowned upon."
Sweat beaded at Simon's brow.
He sounded like someone had just suggested he swim after eating... run with scissors...
"It is SERIOUSLY frowned upon.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
Do not forget, do not ever forget, that you have promised me to use the money to make yourself an honest man.'
Valjean, who did not recall having made any promise, was silent. The bishop had spoken the words slowly and deliberately. He concluded with a solemn emphasis:
Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to what is evil but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.
β
β
Victor Hugo (Les MisΓ©rables)
β
We are like the moon. The moon shines anyway, but it does not produce its own light. It reflects the light illuminated onto its surface by the Sun and is never proud to say "I am the source of light". God shines through us, hence He deserves the glory; not us.
β
β
Israelmore Ayivor
β
So instead she settled on, "Did my father put you up to this?"
Hale exhaled a quick laugh and shook his head. "He hasn't returned my calls since Barcelona." He leaned closer and whispered, "I think he might still be mad at me."
"Yeah, well, that makes two of us."
"Hey," Hale snapped. "We all agreed that that monkey seemed perfectly well trained at the time.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
My life is over.
My one forever love has
been snatched away,
condemned by my own
father's rules to die,
just because he loved me.
I am without a home,
without a single person to love.
And after having
discovered love, lived for a short
while surrounded by love,
that is to much to bear.
I am a pariah, at church,
at school. The few people
I once called friends have
betrayed me and caused
the death of my husband,
our innocent child.
And so they should die too.
All of them. Dad. Bishop
Crandall. Trevor, Becca, Emily.
With the pull of a 10mm hair
trigger, their lives will end at sacrament meeting.
Such lovely irony!
And when I finish there,
I'll hide in the desert,
reload, and go in search
of Carmen and Tiffany,
who started the rumors.
And Derek, just because.
β
β
Ellen Hopkins
β
I am most often irritated by those who attack the bishop but somehow fall for the securities analyst--those who exercise their skepticism against religion but not against economists, social scientists, and phony statisticians. Using the confirmation bias, these people will tell you that religion was horrible for mankind by counting deaths from the Inquisition and various religious wars. But they will not show you how many people were killed by nationalism, social science, and political theory under Stalin or during the Vietnam War. Even priests don't go to bishops when they feel ill: their first stop is the doctor's. But we stop by the offices of many pseudoscientists and "experts" without alternative. We no longer believe in papal infallibility; we seem to believe in the infallibility of the Nobel, though....
β
β
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)
β
[Responding to the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce's question whether he traced his descent from an ape on his mother's or his father's side]
A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a manβa man of restless and versatile intellectβwho β¦ plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.
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Thomas Henry Huxley
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With knot of one, the spell's begun.
With knot of two, the spell be true.
With knot of three, the spell is free.
With knot of four, the power is stored.
With knot of five, this spell will thrive.
With knot of six, this spell I fix.
With knot of seven, the spell will waken.
With knot of eight, the spell will wait.
With knot of nine, the spell is mine.
With knot of ten, it begins again.
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Deborah Harkness (The Book of Life (All Souls, #3))
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Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.
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Rudine Sims Bishop
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Sylvia had given him a scalding lecture, the gist of it being that whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and anything she didn't enjoy wearing wasn't, and if he was too stubborn and old fashioned to understand that, he could go and soak his head in a bucket of cold water. He hadn't quite forgiven her yet for saying they would have to look hard to find a bucket big enough to fit his head in to, but he admired the sass behind the remark.
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Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
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Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a time when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And who of Huitzilopochtli? In one year - and it is no more than five hundred years ago - 50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried out with the sun.
When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Allen G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of Richmond P. Hobson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler and Tom Sharkey.
Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca was almost as powerful; he consumed 25,000 virgins a year.
Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quetzalcoatl is? Or Xiuhtecuhtli? Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Of Mictlan? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitl? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard-of Hell do they await their resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Caesar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Of that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial jackass? There was a time when the Irish revered all these gods, but today even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.
But they have company in oblivion: the Hell of dead gods is as crowded
as the Presbyterian Hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and
Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsullata, and Deva, and
Bellisima, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshipped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose - all gods of the first class. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them - temples with stones as large as hay-wagons.
The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests,
bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake.
Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels; villages were burned, women and children butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence.
What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile Valley? What has become of:
Resheph
Anath
Ashtoreth
El
Nergal
Nebo
Ninib
Melek
Ahijah
Isis
Ptah
Anubis
Baal
Astarte
Hadad
Addu
Shalem
Dagon
Sharaab
Yau
Amon-Re
Osiris
Sebek
Molech?
All there were gods of the highest eminence. Many of them are mentioned with fear and trembling in the Old Testament. They ranked, five or six thousand years ago, with Yahweh Himself; the worst of them stood far higher than Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:
BilΓ©
Ler
Arianrhod
Morrigu
Govannon
Gunfled
Sokk-mimi
Nemetona
Dagda
Robigus
Pluto
Ops
Meditrina
Vesta
You may think I spoof. That I invent the names. I do not. Ask the rector to lend you any good treatise on comparative religion: You will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest standing and dignity-gods of civilized peoples-worshiped and believed in by millions. All were omnipotent, omniscient and immortal.
And all are dead.
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H.L. Mencken (A Mencken Chrestomathy)
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That is a list of the Territories that yielded to Ebon Askavi. They now stand within the shadow of the Keep. They are mine. Anyone who tries to settle in my Territory without my consent will be dealt with. Anyone who harms any of my people will be executed. There will be no excuses and no exceptions. I will say it simply so that the members of this Council and the intruders who thought to take land they had no right to claim can never say they misunderstood." Jaenelle's lips curled into a snarl. "STAY OUT OF MY TERRITORY!
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Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
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I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
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Elizabeth Bishop
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That night we played truth or dare. You said that after a while you stopped trying to earn your mother's affection." I pause. "Why didn't you give up with me, too?"
"You know why," he says quietly. I close my eyes. I do know, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to hear it. But some part of me must be, because I wouldn't have asked the question otherwise, not of Bishop, the boy who never chooses to say something easy just because the truth is hard. Maybe I want to hear it so that i will know, once and for all, that there is no going back.
"Because I'm in love with you, Ivy," he whispers. "Giving up on you isn't an option." He lifts my hair away from the back of my neck and kisses the delicate skin there.
My breath shudders out of me. The silence spirals into the dark room, and maybe it was foolish to ask the question, but I'm not sorry. I uncurl his hand and kiss his palm, his skin cool and dry. I place his hand over my heart, cover it with my own.
We fall asleep that way. His lips on my neck. My heart in his hand.
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Amy Engel (The Book of Ivy (The Book of Ivy, #1))
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King Edmund of East Anglia is now remembered as a saint, as one of those blessed souls who live forever in the shadow of God. Or so the priests tell me. In heaven, they say, the saints occupy a privileged place, living on the high platform of Godβs great hall where they spend their time singing Godβs praises. Forever. Just singing. Beocca always told me that it would be an ecstatic existence, but to me it seems very dull. The Danes reckon their dead warriors are carried to Valhalla, the corpse hall of Odin, where they spend their days fighting and their nights feasting and swiving, and I dare not tell the priests that this seems a far better way to endure the afterlife than singing to the sound of golden harps. I once asked a bishop whether there were any women in heaven. βOf course there are, my lord,β he answered, happy that I was taking an interest in doctrine. βMany of the most blessed saints are women.β
βI mean women we can hump, bishop.β
He said he would pray for me. Perhaps he did.
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Bernard Cornwell (The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Stories, #1))
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Lucivar winced. "She guzzled half the flask β and it wasn't one of his home brews, it was the concoction you created."
Jaenelleβs eyes widened. βYou let her drink a βgravediggerβ?β
βNo no no,β Wilhelmina said, shaking her head. βYou shouldnβt ever drink a gravedigger until heβs had a bath.β She smiled placidly when Jaenelle and Lucivar just stared at her.
βMother Night,β Lucivar muttered.
βDo you know that song?β Wilhelmina asked Jaenelle.
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Anne Bishop (Queen of the Darkness (The Black Jewels, #3))
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The Children's Hour
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
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I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I was raised a Christian, but at ten years old, when I was taken into Ragnarβs family, I discovered the old Saxon gods who were also the gods of the Danes and of the Norsemen, and their worship has always made more sense to me than bowing down to a god who belongs to a country so far away that I have met no one who has ever been there. Thor and Odin walked our hills, slept in our valleys, loved our women and drank from our streams, and that makes them seem like neighbours. The other thing I like about our gods is that they are not obsessed with us. They have their own squabbles and love affairs and seem to ignore us much of the time, but the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws. He strikes me as a very grumpy god, that one, even though his priests are forever claiming that he loves us. I have never been so stupid as to think that Thor or Odin or Hoder loved me, though I hope at times they have thought me worthy of them.
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Bernard Cornwell (Lords of the North (The Saxon Stories, #3))
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Maria, lonely prostitute on a street of pain,
You, at least, hail me and speak to me
While a thousand others ignore my face.
You offer me an hour of love,
And your fees are not as costly as most.
You are the madonna of the lonely,
The first-born daughter in a world of pain.
You do not turn fat men aside,
Or trample on the stuttering, shy ones,
You are the meadow where desperate men
Can find a moment's comfort.
Men have paid more to their wives
To know a bit of peace
And could not walk away without the guilt
That masquerades as love.
You do not bind them, lovely Maria, you comfort them
And bid them return.
Your body is more Christian than the Bishop's
Whose gloved hand cannot feel the dropping of my blood.
Your passion is as genuine as most,
Your caring as real!
But you, Maria, sacred whore on the endless pavement of pain,
You, whose virginity each man may make his own
Without paying ought but your fee,
You who know nothing of virgin births and immaculate conceptions,
You who touch man's flesh and caress a stranger,
Who warm his bed to bring his aching skin alive,
You make more sense than stock markets and football games
Where sad men beg for virility.
You offer yourself for a fee--and who offers himself for less?
At times you are cruel and demanding--harsh and insensitive,
At times you are shrewd and deceptive--grasping and hollow.
The wonder is that at times you are gentle and concerned,
Warm and loving.
You deserve more respect than nuns who hide their sex for eternal love;
Your fees are not so high, nor your prejudice so virtuous.
You deserve more laurels than the self-pitying mother of many children,
And your fee is not as costly as most.
Man comes to you when his bed is filled with brass and emptiness,
When liquor has dulled his sense enough
To know his need of you.
He will come in fantasy and despair, Maria,
And leave without apologies.
He will come in loneliness--and perhaps
Leave in loneliness as well.
But you give him more than soldiers who win medals and pensions,
More than priests who offer absolution
And sweet-smelling ritual,
More than friends who anticipate his death
Or challenge his life,
And your fee is not as costly as most.
You admit that your love is for a fee,
Few women can be as honest.
There are monuments to statesmen who gave nothing to anyone
Except their hungry ego,
Monuments to mothers who turned their children
Into starving, anxious bodies,
Monuments to Lady Liberty who makes poor men prisoners.
I would erect a monument for you--
who give more than most--
And for a meager fee.
Among the lonely, you are perhaps the loneliest of all,
You come so close to love
But it eludes you
While proper women march to church and fantasize
In the silence of their rooms,
While lonely women take their husbands' arms
To hold them on life's surface,
While chattering women fill their closets with clothes and
Their lips with lies,
You offer love for a fee--which is not as costly as most--
And remain a lonely prostitute on a street of pain.
You are not immoral, little Maria, only tired and afraid,
But you are not as hollow as the police who pursue you,
The politicians who jail you, the pharisees who scorn you.
You give what you promise--take your paltry fee--and
Wander on the endless, aching pavements of pain.
You know more of universal love than the nations who thrive on war,
More than the churches whose dogmas are private vendettas made sacred,
More than the tall buildings and sprawling factories
Where men wear chains.
You are a lonely prostitute who speaks to me as I pass,
And I smile at you because I am a lonely man.
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James Kavanaugh (There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves)
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Thomas Merton said it was actually dangerous to put the Scriptures in the hands of people whose inner self is not yet sufficiently awakened to encounter the Spirit, because they will try to use God for their own egocentric purposes. (This is why religion is so subject to corruption!) Now, if we are going to talk about conversion and penance, let me apply that to the two major groups that have occupied Western ChristianityβCatholics and Protestants. Neither one has really let the Word of God guide their lives.
Catholics need to be converted to giving the Scriptures some actual authority in their lives. Luther wasnβt wrong when he said that most Catholics did not read the Bible. Most Catholics are still not that interested in the Bible. (Historically they did not have the printing press, nor could most people read, so you canβt blame them entirely.) I have been a priest for 42 years now, and I would sadly say that most Catholics would rather hear quotes from saints, Popes, and bishops, the current news, or funny stories, if they are to pay attention. If I quote strongly from the Sermon on the Mount, they are almost throwaway lines. I can see Catholics glaze over because they have never read the New Testament, much less studied it, or been guided by it. I am very sad to have to admit this. It is the Achilles heel of much of the Catholic world, priests included. (The only good thing about it is that they never fight you like Protestants do about Scripture. They are easily duped, and the hierarchy has been able to take advantage of this.)
If Catholics need to be converted, Protestants need to do penance. Their shout of βsola Scripturaβ (only Scripture) has left them at the mercy of their own cultures, their own limited education, their own prejudices, and their own selective reading of some texts while avoiding others. Partly as a result, slavery, racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, and homophobia have lasted authoritatively into our timeβby people who claim to love Jesus! I think they need to do penance for what they have often done with the Bible! They largely interpreted the Bible in a very individualistic and otherworldly way. It was βan evacuation plan for the next worldβ to use Brian McLarenβs phraseβand just for their group. Most of Evangelical Protestantism has no cosmic message, no social message, and little sense of social justice or care for the outsider. Both Catholics and Protestants (Orthodox too!) found a way to do our own thing while posturing friendship with Jesus.
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Richard Rohr
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Once, heβd been the Seducer, the Executioner, the High Priest of the Hourglass, the Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell.
Once, heβd been Consort to Cassandra, the great Black-Jeweled, Black Widow Queen, the last Witch to walk the Realms.
Once, heβd been the only Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince in the history of the Blood, feared for his temper and the power he wielded.
Once, heβd been the only male who was a Black Widow.
Once, heβd ruled the Dhemlan Territory in the Realm of Terreille and her sister Territory in Kaeleer, the Shadow Realm. Heβd been the only male ever to rule without answering to a Queen and, except for Witch, the only member of the Blood to rule Territories in two Realms.
Once, heβd been married to Hekatah, an aristo Black Widow Priestess from one of Hayllβs Hundred Families.
Once, heβd raised two sons, Mephis and Peyton. Heβd played games with them, told them stories, read to them, healed their skinned knees and broken hearts, taught them Craft and Blood Law, showered them with his love of the land as well as music, art, and literature, encouraged them to look with eager eyes upon all that the Realms had to offerβnot to conquer but to learn. Heβd taught them to dance for a social occasion and to dance for the glory of Witch. Heβd taught them how to be Blood.
But that was a long, long time ago.
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Anne Bishop (Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels, #1))