“
It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.
"Because, he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, - you'd forget me.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
If love be rough with you, be rough
with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet)
“
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
“
A mystical rain calming a boisterous night. A sensuous breeze sending leaves into flight. A beautiful flower reminding one of a more treasured hour. A wandering mind wanting for a better world.
”
”
Sherman Kennon (Whisk Of Dust: Too Unseen Distance)
“
I couldn’t trust my own emotions. Which emotional reactions were justified, if any? And which ones were tainted by the mental illness of BPD? I found myself fiercely guarding and limiting my emotional reactions, chastising myself for possible distortions and motivations. People who had known me years ago would barely recognize me now. I had become quiet and withdrawn in social settings, no longer the life of the party. After all, how could I know if my boisterous humor were spontaneous or just a borderline desire to be the center of attention? I could no longer trust any of my heart felt beliefs and opinions on politics, religion, or life. The debate queen had withered. I found myself looking at every single side of an issue unable to come to any conclusions for fear they might be tainted. My lifelong ability to be assertive had turned into a constant state of passivity.
”
”
Rachel Reiland (Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder)
“
It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Elephants love reunions. They recognize one another after years and years of separation and greet each other with wild, boisterous joy. There's bellowing and trumpeting, ear flapping and rubbing. Trunks entwine.
”
”
Jennifer Richard Jacobson (Small as an Elephant)
“
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
”
”
Thomas Jefferson
“
I am metaphysical being, mystical and emotional, skeptical and cynical, happy and boisterous, loud and bawdy, quiet and melancholy, tender and cruel, full of mirth and despair. Inherent inconsistences mark me as part of nature, which is neither cruel nor fair, or reliable or predictable.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time; my heart was full.
"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Should we be capable of ‘forgiving or forgetting’ to be happy? If anger is too powerful and overwhelming, and we cannot tame or cage our rage, let us forget about forgiving. But if real life does not stop crying out for us, telling us to store new energy and experiences and inviting us to sort out the tools for cleaning up our boisterous interior, a new reality may start taking shape, transmitting joy, and letting us tune in with ourselves. When we are in line with the world, we can feel a new mindset has absorbed us and eventually sense what is essential in our lives.
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Hello again,’ she said, shivering in the night air.‘Good eve, fair lady, your forgiveness we implore, to come so brashly tapping, tapping at your chamber door.’‘Oh, well, this isn’t exactly my chamber door. More like a window, actually.’The Raven bobbed his head. ‘I made some alterations for the sake of the rhyme.’‘I see. Well – good evening, fair Raven, my forgiveness I bestow, for this uncanny meeting outside of my window.’A boisterous laugh startled Catherine, sending her heart into her throat.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Heartless)
“
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)
“
Abnegation produces deeply serious people. People who automatically see things like need,” he says. “I’ve noticed that when people switch to Dauntless, it creates some of the same types. Erudite who switch to Dauntless tend to turn cruel and brutal. Candor who switch to Dauntless tend to become boisterous, fight-picking adrenaline junkies. And Abnegation who switch to Dauntless become . . . I don’t know, soldiers, I guess. Revolutionaries.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Allegiant (Divergent, #3))
“
Claire knew she was in control of her actions, she could choose to fight or complain. Her plan was for self-preservation until she was free. This had been a good old-fashioned thunderstorm, loud and boisterous but no real damage.
”
”
Aleatha Romig (Consequences (Consequences, #1))
“
Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
Mercutio: If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
”
”
William Shakespeare
“
What do zombies chant at a riot?”
“Grrarphsnarg?” he asked, in a surprisingly well-done bit of mindless zombie imitating.
“No, but that was really good. Disconcertingly good.”
“I was deceased for a time.”
“True. But anyway, the rioters get all riled up, and they chant: ‘What do we want? Brains! When do we want them? Brains!’” I fell into a wave of appropriately boisterous laughter; Ethan seemed less impressed.
“I truly hope the stipend we pay you doesn’t get spent on the development of jokes like that.
”
”
Chloe Neill (House Rules (Chicagoland Vampires, #7))
“
Swearing is industry language. For as long as we're alive it's not going to change. You've got to be boisterous to get results.
Gordon Ramsay
”
”
Gordon Ramsay
“
He had envied Attean his free, unhampered life in the forest, and the boisterous comradeship in the village.
”
”
Elizabeth George Speare (The Sign of the Beaver)
“
Nature forgot to shade him off, I think... A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too
vehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every
colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!
”
”
Charles Dickens (Bleak House)
“
She had two kinds of laughter: One was a normal chuckle, while the other was this boisterous, head-flailing-back laughter. If I had only one goal in life, it would be to make her laugh loudly every day.
”
”
Elizabeth Eulberg (Better Off Friends)
“
To all the little children:- The happy ones; and sad ones; the boisterous ones and glad ones; The good ones- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.
”
”
James Whitcomb Riley (Little Orphant Annie and Other Poems)
“
I can dig my claws into the rim of a building's crown and spread my arms and feel the buffets and gouts of boisterous air and I can close my eyes and remember, for a moment, what it is to fly.
”
”
China Miéville (Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, #1))
“
He just laughs, that deep, boisterous laugh that seems to come from the center of his soul, because Blake doesn’t do anything half-assed. He laughs the way he lives his life—loud and fierce and without inhibition. He fucks that way, too.
”
”
Sarina Bowen (Good Boy (WAGs, #1))
“
If we want to revel in the challenging delights of the hive of love, we must harken to the ticking of our emotional register, not to the trifling whispers of chit-chatting sirens or the boisterous buzz of small talk vendors. (“When Love bites the dust” -“ L’Amour en friche”)
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Gavin, I can’t talk to you here. People will call me crazy."
My imaginary friend smirked. "But you’re already talking to me."
"Well, I have to stop."
His smirk grew cocky. "I doubt you can resist."
And he was right. There was nothing I wanted more than to give my full attention to an imagined shadow and ignore those who ignored me in the real world. I wanted to talk out loud to Gavin―to play and laugh boisterously with him. In a dream I could justify such behavior, but to succumb to hallucinations while wide awake would only prove me insane.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher)
“
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you - you'd forget me.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
”
”
Thomas Jefferson (Letters of Thomas Jefferson)
“
A young woman across the dock pulled her winter coat tightly around herself and ducked her chin down as the crowd of sailors passed. Her shoulders might have shaken, just a little, but she kept to her path without letting the men's boisterous laughter keep her from her course. In her I saw myself, a fellow lost girl, headstrong and headed anywhere but home.
”
”
William Ritter (Jackaby (Jackaby, #1))
“
...and though the merriment was rather boisterous, still it came from the heart and not from the lips; and this is the right sort of merriment, after all.
”
”
Charles Dickens (The Pickwick Papers)
“
The shore whispers to the sea: “Write to me what your waves struggle to say.”
The sea writes in foam again and again and wipes off the lines in a boisterous despair.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore (Fireflies: a collection of proverbs, aphorisms and maxims (Golden Thread Series))
“
Creative work bridges time because the energy of art is not time-bound. If it were we should have no interest in the art of the past, except as history or documentary. But our interest in art is our interest in ourselves both now and always. Here and forever. There is a sense of the human spirit as always existing. This makes our death bearable. Life + art is a boisterous communion/communication with the dead. It is a boxing match with time.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?)
“
How exuberant and boisterous the universe is, Alma! It turns and turns, and the only constant is everything changes. It is a mystery we can only appreciate out of stillness. I’m living through a very interesting stage. My spirit contemplates the changes in my body with fascination, but this contemplation is not from a distance, but from within. My spirit and my body are together in this process.
”
”
Isabel Allende (The Japanese Lover)
“
They came one at a time or in shy small groups. I remember when sea-kindly showed up, a sentimental favorite, followed by desiccated and massive. Brusque appeared all by itself, which seemed apt; merry and boisterous arrived together. This would be a good time to ask for your patience if I use an adjective too many now and again—even now, some years on, they’re still returning. I’m just so glad to see them.
”
”
Leif Enger (Virgil Wander)
“
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading subjugation on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it: for man is an imitative animal.
”
”
Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press))
“
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,—you’d forget me.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Such is the power of truth that even the slightest whisper of it can handily drown out the most boisterous of lies, which may explain why in many instances God only needs to whisper.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
You think the only battles fought are done so with rifles, and the only wounds that kill draw blood. You think courage is loud, boisterous, and proud. Mrs. Warner, I don't think you have a clue as to what this memorial truly represents."
-Clay to Meg
”
”
Lorraine Heath
“
When the wave, equally suddenly, retreated, it left a void which resembled that of the morning, yet had a character of its own, because though the pattern was repeated it was in reverse order: the scattered schoolchildren who passed my window now were on their way home and there was something unrestrained and boisterous about them, whereas when they had walked past on their way to school in the morning they still bore the silent imprint of sleep and the innate wariness we feel toward things that have not yet begun.
”
”
Karl Ove Knausgård (Min kamp 1 (Min kamp, #1))
“
September laughed and her laugh sounded like a roar; as if she had never been able to properly laugh in her whole life, only giggle or chuckle or grin, and now that she could do it right, now that her laughing had grown up and put bells on, it had become the most boisterous, rowdy roar you ever heard.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland, #2))
“
The loud, boisterous noises of the world make us deaf to the soft, gentle, and loving voice of God.
”
”
Henri J.M. Nouwen (In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership)
“
Mr. Frederick Parker spent a good deal of his time in endeavouring to mask, under a cloak of boisterous good humour, a really remarkable combination of malevolence and imbecility.
”
”
Norman Douglas (South Wind)
“
The American flag doesn't give her glory on a peaceful, calm day. It's when the winds pick up and become boisterous, do we see her strength. When she unfolds her hand, and shows her frayed fingers, where we see the stretch of red-blood lines of man that fought for this land. The purity of white stripes that strips our sins, and the stars of Abraham's covenant, broad in a midnight blue sky. The rights our forefathers established. As it waves high in the currents of freedom, where the Torch of Liberty shines over the sea, does she give meaning to unity. When we strive as one nation, or when it drops half-mast, to a fallen soldier.
”
”
Anthony Liccione
“
In the Commons, Churchill defended his cutting back on the imprisonment of young offenders by drawing Members’ attention to the fact that ‘the evil only falls on the sons of the working classes. The sons of other classes commit many of the same offences. In their boisterous and exuberant spirits in their days at Oxford and Cambridge they commit offences—for which scores of the sons of the working class are committed to prison—without any injury being inflicted on them.’ There
”
”
Martin Gilbert (Churchill: A Life)
“
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,--you'd forget me.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë
“
She had a knack or weakness for laughing boisterously at her own anecdotes—not, I thought, because she found herself funny, but because she thought that life needed celebrating and wanted others to join in.
”
”
Ian McEwan (Sweet Tooth)
“
Smoking torches, lamps, and tapers Dimly light the boisterous fest; Among these many lying faces Here am I, alas, chained fast. Giggling fools, out of my sight! 5580 Untrustworthy, grinning lot! All my enemies tonight Hound me with their secret hate. There’s a friend turned enemy, I can see through his pretense! Another means to murder me, Ha, found out, away he slinks. Oh how I long to take flight, Run away, here, there, wherever! Menaced on all sides, I halt 5590 Between uncertainty and terror.
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust: A Tragedy, Parts One and Two)
“
For me the book is the man and my book is the man I am, the confused man, the negligent man, the recklass man, the lusty, obscene, boisterous, thoughtful, scrupulous, lying, diabolically thruthful man that I am.
”
”
Henry Miller (Black Spring)
“
I'm proud of my carefree behaviour [...] I am boisterous, when I choose to be, and simply because I don't behave like a wan and fainting female who has not a thought in her head except try to attract an eligible suitor [...] I shall not conform to how you or anyone else tells me I should behave. I am answerable only to God.
”
”
Melanie Dickerson (A Viscount's Proposal (The Regency Spies of London, #2))
“
I especially loved to walk around at night and catch glimpses through windows of strangers living their lives. So many different dinnertimes, so many different work hours. Everyone was different ages, different races. Some people were resting, some laboring, some all alone, some celebrating in boisterous company. I never tired of moving through these scenes. I relished the sensation of being one small dot of humanity in a larger ocean of souls.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (City of Girls)
“
And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the real trouble--the heart pain--the world pain.
I tell you, my friend, it is not good for you to find you cannot make your dream come true, for the reason that you not strong enough are, or not clever enough. . . . Ja! . . .
And all the time you are such a fine fellow too! Wie? Was? Gott im Himmel! How can that be? Ha! ha! ha!"
’The shadow prowling amongst the graves of butterflies laughed boisterously.
”
”
Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim)
“
The path is a ribbon of moonlight across a dusky sea.
The wind sings a song that beckons us
To that great and mighty tree.
We are the Greenowls of Ambala, clad in raiments of moss,
Sprigged with lichens and grasses
Then gilded with silvery frost.
Fair and square we play- for a sporting lot we are.
We ride the boisterous Balefire gusts
And we reach for every star.
”
”
Kathryn Lasky (Exile (Guardians of Ga'Hoole, #14))
“
I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
”
”
Mary Oliver (American Primitive)
“
The essence of nice people is that they hate life as manifested in tendencies to co-operation, in the boisterousness of children, and above all in sex, with the thought of which they are obsessed. In a word, nice people are those who have nasty minds.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects)
“
Westcliff smiled. “In my experience, it’s all in how you handle them.” The earl was the calm, steady center of his own boisterous family, which included a high-spirited wife and a brood of rambunctious offspring. And Lady Pandora made them all look like sloths.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Spring (The Ravenels, #3))
“
Did I used to think being pretty was my primary obligation because I was in some way delusional? Or was it that I'd absorbed the messages I was meant to absorb with the same diligence with which I studied? As the mother of a daughter, I hope she won't judge herself as harshly as I judged myself, but her personality is so unlike mine - she is boisterous and outspoken - that I'm not inordinately concerned.
”
”
Curtis Sittenfeld (You Think It, I'll Say It)
“
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. (...) The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.
”
”
Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press))
“
Speaking of the Staveleys (Mrs Staveley, too), said no talent could make up for such bad manners. Bold, boisterous, vulgar, & Mrs Staveley slatternly, strangely singular… Met her walking one day in the town with her hands under her petticoat & she pulled out 2 great muffins.
”
”
Anne Lister (The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister: Volume I)
“
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Not to be slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions; nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation; nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or furiously to launch out as it were, nor ever to want employment.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
We sat on a crate of oranges and thought what good men most biologists are, the tenors of the scientific world--temperamental, moody, lecherous, loud-laughing, and healthy. Once in a while one comes on the other kind--what used in the university to be called a 'dry-ball'--but such men are not really biologists. They are the embalmers of the field, the picklers who see only the preserved form of life without any of its principle. Out of their own crusted minds they create a world wrinkled with formaldehyde. The true biologist deals with life, with teeming boisterous life, and learns something from it, learns that the first rule of life is living. The dry-balls cannot possibly learn a thing every starfish knows in the core of his soul and in the vesicles between his rays. He must, so know the starfish and the student biologist who sits at the feet of living things, proliferate in all directions. Having certain tendencies, he must move along their lines to the limit of their potentialities. And we have known biologists who did proliferate in all directions: one or two have had a little trouble about it. Your true biologist will sing you a song as loud and off-key as will a blacksmith, for he knows that morals are too often diagnostic of prostatitis and stomach ulcers. Sometimes he may proliferate a little too much in all directions, but he is as easy to kill as any other organism, and meanwhile he is very good company, and at least he does not confuse a low hormone productivity with moral ethics.
”
”
John Steinbeck (The Log from the Sea of Cortez)
“
Because, he said, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, - you'd forget me.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
From the race’s conception, the press viewed it with skepticism. Sportswriters argued that the rich event was a farce arranged to pad Seabiscuit’s bankroll. Del Mar, conscious of the potential conflict of interest for the Howards and Smiths, barred public wagering on the race. But the press’s distrust and the absence of gambling did nothing to cool the enthusiasm of racing fans. On the sweltering race day, special trains and buses poured in from San Diego and Los Angeles, filling the track with well over twenty thousand people, many more than the track’s official capacity. Lin plastered a twenty-foot LIGAROTI sign on the wall behind the “I’m for Ligaroti” section, and scores of Crosby’s movie friends, including Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Spencer Tracy and Ray Milland, took up their cerise and white pennants and filed in. “Is there anyone left in Hollywood?” wondered a spectator. Dave Butler led a chorus of Ligaroti cheers, and the crowd grew boisterous. Crosby perched on the roof with Oscar Otis, who would call the race for a national radio broadcast. In the jockeys’ room, Woolf suited up to man the helm on Seabiscuit while Richardson slipped on Ligaroti’s polka dots. Just before the race, Woolf and Richardson made a deal. No matter who won, they would “save,” or split, the purse between them.
”
”
Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit: An American Legend)
“
I love the attention, the hungry gazes, the irresistible need to satisfy my every whim, every need, every demand. I blow them kisses and wink at a few of the guys, whose names I can barely remember.
It’s all part of my defense mechanism. My charm, my looks, my popularity. I’m whatever they want me to be. A flirt. A social butterfly. A useless prodigy.
Anything. Everything.
As long as I confiscate their attention. I don’t mind.
Attention keeps the emptiness at bay. More importantly, the boisterous compliments and not-so-innocent touches ward off dark thoughts.
Even temporarily.
”
”
Rina Kent (God of War (Legacy of Gods, #6))
“
The Ravenels have always been known for their volatile temperaments."
"Thank you," Gabriel said sourly. "Now I won't be surprised when my future offspring emerge with horns and tails."
Westcliff smiled. "In my experience, it's all in how you handle them." The earl was the calm, steady center of his own boisterous family, which included a high-spirited wife and a brood of rambunctious offspring.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Spring (The Ravenels, #3))
“
What was wrong with me? Even a cursory glance at the revelers behind me showed other people had no trouble with boisterous crowds, and some even relished them. And although I might not have minded viewing the kinetoscope, the promise of winning cheap prizes by shooting clay pigeons or tossing a ring onto a milk jug held no appeal for me. I’d rather be curled up in a chair at home, reading a book
”
”
Jordan L. Hawk (Stormhaven (Whyborne & Griffin #3))
“
He sat with me, chattering away about our triumphant return to Cambridge and ICODEF, and myriad other things, and not expecting anything substantial in reply, which is one of my favourite qualities about him. It sounds odd to admit that I find the company of such a boisterous person restful, but perhaps it is always restful to be around someone who does not expect anything from you beyond what is in your nature.
”
”
Heather Fawcett (Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1))
“
Positive: Their dislike for noisy, boisterous and crowded groups of people ensure that those seeking out the INFPs will get undivided and focused attention that is ready to listen – even for hours, if need be. Friends seeking an evening of quiet companionship at a wine bar or café will have an entirely willing date in the INFP, who would be even more thrilled to have that glass of wine or beer in someone’s living room.
”
”
Diana Jackson (INFP: 33 Secrets From The Life of an INFP)
“
Fall Song"
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries — roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay — how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
”
”
Mary Oliver (American Primitive)
“
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you–especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Quickly, I too bent and bowed in the short pants and corky white helmet with my overheated face and great nose. My face can be like the clang of a bell, and because I am hard of hearing on the right side I have a way of swinging the left into position, listening in profile and fixing my eyes on some object to help my concentration. So I did. I waited for him to say more, sweating boisterously, for I was confounded down to the ground. I couldn't believe it; I was so sure that I had left the world
”
”
Saul Bellow (Henderson the Rain King)
“
Do I Love You"
I stand in the night and stare up at a lone star, wondering what love means. You whisper your desire—do I love you? I dare say yes. But my eyes drift back to that solitary star; my mind is plagued with intimate uncertainty.
What art thou, Love? Tell me.
I contemplate what I know—the qualities that love doth not possess. Love lifts no cruel or unkind hand, for it seeketh no harm. It shirks from constraints and demands, for tyranny is not love. A boisterous voice never crosses love's lips, for to speak with thunder chases its very presence from the heart. Love inflicts no pain, no fear, no misery, but conquers all such foes. It is said that love is not selfish, yet it does not guilt those who are. On a heart unwillingly given it stakes no claim. Love is nothing from Pandora's box; it is no evil, sin, or sorrow unleashed on this world.
My eyes glimmer as the star I gaze upon twinkles with brightness that I do not possess. I recognize my smallness—my ignorance of the One whose hands placed that star in the heavens for me.
He is love. By His own mouth He proclaimed it.
Again the whispered question hits my ear—do I love you? I dare say yes. But my eyes squint tight, wishing on a lonely star, wondering what love means.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
“
The Sabbath day has become a day of pleasure, a day of boisterous conduct, a day in which the worship of God has departed, and the worship of pleasure has taken its place. I am sorry to say that many of the Latter-day Saints are guilty of this. We should repent.
”
”
Joseph Fielding Smith
“
The word is dissociate. There is no 'a' before the 'ss'. People invariably say dis-a-ssociate, which, if you're suffering Disso-ciative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, can be irritating. People then want to know how many personalities I have and the answer is: I don't know. The first book about Multiple Personality Disorder to make an impact was Flora Rheta Schreiber's Sybil, published in 1973, which carries the subtitle: The True and Extraordinary Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities. Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley published the controversial The Three Faces of Eve much earlier in 1957, and Pete Townshend from The Who wrote the song 'Four Faces'. People seem to feel safe with numbers.
The truth is more complicated. The kids emerged over time. Billy, the boisterous five-year-old, was at first the most dominant. But he slowly stood aside for JJ, the self-confident ten-year-old who appears when Alice is under stress and handles complicated situations like travelling on the Underground and meeting new people. The first entity to visit was the external voice of the Professor. But he had a choir of accomplices without names. So, how many actual alter personalities are there? I would say more than fifteen and less than thirty, a combination of protectors, persecutors and friends - my own family tree.
”
”
Alice Jamieson (Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind)
“
it is important to me to say the same prayers that my grandmother said, and that her grandmother said, and that other Jews around the world are saying today. These prayers have traveled a journey over thousands of years, echoing through ancient stone Temples, teeming synagogues, and boisterous Shabbat tables; spoken under wedding canopies and over squirming babies, on deathbeds and during dark nights of the soul. And they have been the last words on the lips of many people who lost their lives because they refused to give up their right to utter them.
”
”
Sarah Hurwitz (Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There))
“
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,—you’d forget me.” “That I never should, sir: you know—” Impossible to proceed.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
From the distance of England the Italian cuisine seems to be all things to all people. It does not expect you to bend to its rigor, like the French. It is not rough and boisterous like the Spanish. It is soft and feminine and is adored in the highest circles, though it is not above a degree of prostitution too. But first and foremost it is kind to children. Consider the pizza: all around the world the pizza has come to represent the deepest form of security known to the human palate. It is like a smiling face: it assuages the fear of complexity by showing everything on its surface.
”
”
Rachel Cusk
“
The connection between radical attentiveness, prayer, and joy pervades Jewish mystical thinking in its diverse phases but never so brightly, so every-day-related, and so clearly as in Hasidism. Melancholy is the dust in the soul that Satan spreads out. Worry and dejection are seen to be the roots of every evil force. Melancholy is a wicked quality and displeasing to God, says Martin Buber.
Rabbi Bunam said: "Once when I was on the road near Warsaw, I felt that I had to tell a certain story. But this story was of a worldly nature and I knew that it would only rouse laughter among the many people who had gathered about me. The Evil Urge tried very hard to dissuade me, saying that I would lose all those people because once they heard this story they would no longer consider me a rabbi. But I said to my heart: `Why should you he concerned about the secret ways of God?' And I remembered the words of Rabbi Pinhas of Koretz: 'All joys hail from paradise, and jests too, provided they are uttered in true joy’ And so in my heart of hearts I renounced my rabbi's office and told the story. The gathering burst out laughing. And those who up to this point had been distant from me attached themselves to me." (a quote from Tales of the Hasidim by Martin Buber).
Joy, laughter, and delight are so powerful because, like all mysticism, they abolish conventional divisions, in this case the division between secular and sacred. The often boisterous laughter, especially of women, is part and parcel of the everyday life of mystical movements.
”
”
Dorothee Sölle (The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance)
“
Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?” I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still. “Because,” he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,—you’d forget me.” “That I never should, sir: you know—” Impossible to proceed.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward delight—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original— the Tyre of this Carthage;—the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones—so goes the story— to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick)
“
Interpretation first appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms. The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.
”
”
Susan Sontag (Against Interpretation and Other Essays)
“
It matters to me little whether they're on the Mongolian steppe, the deserts of West Africa, the Australian Outback, the marshlands of Southeast Asia... I can't escape the feeling of nausea...
And this is just the tip of the iceberg - the ongoing spectacle of humans blissfully ignorant, boisterous, over-confident, scheming, and talking big about their dominion overthe world - a suffocating, self-absorbed, vacuous place called the wrold-for-us - to say nothing of how human culture has legitimized the most horrific actions against itself, a sickening and banal drama of the exchange of bodies, the breeding of spe ies, the struggle for power, prosperity and prestige. It just keeps going on and on, no matter how many films or TV shows imagine -like a myth - the disappearance of the human.
”
”
Eugene Thacker (Infinite Resignation)
“
She soon learned that to survive atrocity is to be made an honorary consul to a republic of pain. There existed unspoken protocols governing how she was expected to suffer. Total breakdown, a failure to grieve graciously, was a violation of those rules. But so was the absence of suffering, so was outright forgiveness.What she and others like her were allowed was a kind of passive bereavement, the right to pose for newspaper photographs holding framed pictures of their dead relations in their hands, the right to march in boisterous but toothless parades, the right to call for an end to bloodshed as though bloodshed were some pest or vagrant who could be evicted or run out of town. As long as she adhered to those rules, moved within those margins, she remained worthy of grand, public sympathy.
”
”
Omar El Akkad (American War)
“
The Working Song
by Breton Braley
Oh, we're sick to death of the style of song
That's only a sort of a simpering song,
A kissy song and a sissy song
Or a weepy, creepy, whimpering song.
So give us a lift of a lusty song,
A boisterous, bubbling, boiling song,
Or a smashing song and a dashing song,
Oh, give us the tang of a toiling song,
The chanty loud of the working crowd,
The thunderous thrall of a toiling song!
Ay, sing us a joyous daring song,
Not a moaning, groaning, fretting song,
But a ringing song, and a swinging song,
A rigorous, vigorous, sweating song.
We have had enough of the gypsy song,
Which is only a lazy, shirking song,
So toughen your throat to a rougher note
And give us the tune of a working song,
A tune of strife and the joy of life,
The beat and throb of a working song!
”
”
Berton Braley
“
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë
“
In the campaign of 1876, Robert G. Ingersoll came to Madison to speak. I had heard of him for years; when I was a boy on the farm a relative of ours had testified in a case in which Ingersoll had appeared as an attorney and he had told the glowing stories of the plea that Ingersoll had made. Then, in the spring of 1876, Ingersoll delivered the Memorial Day address at Indianapolis. It was widely published shortly after it was delivered and it startled and enthralled the whole country. I remember that it was printed on a poster as large as a door and hung in the post-office at Madison. I can scarcely convey now, or even understand, the emotional effect the reading of it produced upon me. Oblivious of my surroundings, I read it with tears streaming down my face. It began, I remember:
"The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life.We hear the sounds of preparation--the music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see the pale cheeks of women and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers..."
I was fairly entranced. he pictured the recruiting of the troops, the husbands and fathers with their families on the last evening, the lover under the trees and the stars; then the beat of drums, the waving flags, the marching away; the wife at the turn of the lane holds her baby aloft in her arms--a wave of the hand and he has gone; then you see him again in the heat of the charge. It was wonderful how it seized upon my youthful imagination.
When he came to Madison I crowded myself into the assembly chamber to hear him: I would not have missed it for every worldly thing I possessed. And he did not disappoint me.
A large handsome man of perfect build, with a face as round as a child's and a compelling smile--all the arts of the old-time oratory were his in high degree. He was witty, he was droll, he was eloquent: he was as full of sentiment as an old violin. Often, while speaking, he would pause, break into a smile, and the audience, in anticipation of what was to come, would follow him in irresistible peals of laughter. I cannot remember much that he said, but the impression he made upon me was indelible.
After that I got Ingersoll's books and never afterward lost an opportunity to hear him speak. He was the greatest orater, I think, that I have ever heard; and the greatest of his lectures, I have always thought, was the one on Shakespeare.
Ingersoll had a tremendous influence upon me, as indeed he had upon many young men of that time. It was not that he changed my beliefs, but that he liberated my mind. Freedom was what he preached: he wanted the shackles off everywhere. He wanted men to think boldly about all things: he demanded intellectual and moral courage. He wanted men to follow wherever truth might lead them. He was a rare, bold, heroic figure.
”
”
Robert Marion La Follette (La Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences)
“
…Yes, these were grand and boisterous evenings, full of life and filled to capacity with the rough joy of living. To-morrow? Well, perhaps the news would be bad again. But this was the day, and this was the hour to grasp and save and cherish. And as we walked back to our tents and felt the night breeze play on our faces and heard the little slapping of the lake water on the shore, I think that we all realised the extent of our happiness and knew that it could not be lasting. For things that last grow stale too soon, and joys are all the greater for their un-expected capture.
”
”
Malcolm James
“
. . . such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! Then scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pommel his back and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with wich the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlor, and by one stair at a time up to the top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.
”
”
Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol and The Night Before Christmas)
“
Galen doesn’t get truly nervous until he senses the size of the Syrena mass coming toward them. Up until this point, he’d been worried about Emma. What she thought about all this. Her mother’s reunion with Grom. What she planned to do while they were gone. Whether or not she was going to keep her promise and stay out of the water.
And…his thoughts keep wandering back to their kiss between the sand dunes. It was an exquisite torture, the way she tasted like a mixture of salt water and herself. A combination of two things he’s come to cherish. Water and land. Syrena world and human world. Love for his kind and love for Emma.
Only now, as the party of Syrena approaches, its presence seems to encroach on Galen’s options. For some reason, it feels like a choice between water or land, Syrena world or human world, love for his kind or love for Emma. According to the law, there never was a choice. But that was before Emma.
And Galen has the feeling that the time for truly deciding between the two is closing in on him. But haven’t I already made that decision?
He steals a glance at Toraf, who’s been wearing the same grim expression since they left Emma’s house. Toraf is never grim. Since they were fingerlings, he’s always had a special talent for finding the positive in a situation, and if not the positive, then he can certainly find mischief in a situation.
But not now. Now he’s keeping to himself. Toraf never keeps to himself. Even Grom, the usual sealed-up clam, has become boisterous and enlivened while he and Nalia chatter to each other, laughing and whispering and holding hands, all the while speculating over the events that separated them so long ago.
But Toraf seems oblivious to the chatter and to Galen’s internal war of emotions and to the swarm of jellyfish he just narrowly avoided. Galen had thought Toraf might have been anxious about leaving Rayna behind. Usually, though, he comforts himself by talking about her until Galen wishes he’d had a twin brother instead of a twin sister.
No, what’s troubling Toraf has nothing to do with leaving Rayna behind. He even persuaded her to stay. Which means he thinks it’s safer for her on land right now. Toraf’s motives are always simple: do what’s best for Rayna, in spite of Rayna.
”
”
Anna Banks (Of Triton (The Syrena Legacy, #2))
“
Sunday Morning
V
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.
VI
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.
VII
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.
VIII
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings
”
”
Wallace Stevens
“
Said the Hoopoe: 'O ignorant of the sea, don't you know that it is full of crocodiles and other dangerous creatures? Sometimes its water is bitter, sometimes salt; sometimes it is calm, sometimes boisterous; always changing, never stable; sometimes it flows, sometimes it ebbs. Many great ones have been swallowed up in its abyss. The diver in its depths holds his breath lest he should be thrown up like a straw. The sea is an element devoid of loyalty. Do not trust it or it will end up submerging you. it is restless because of its love for its friend. Sometimes it rolls great billows, sometimes it roars. Since the sea cannot find what it desires, how will you find there a resting place for your heart! The ocean is a rill which rises inthe way that leads to its friend; why then should you remain here content, and not strive to see the face of the Simurgh.
”
”
Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)
“
The best antidote to the furtive poison of anger, fear, anxiety, or any of our destructive, unwieldy passions, is just gratitude. And not the grandiose, boisterous or especially obvious kind. It is not necessarily the verbose or expressive kind. It's often the full immersion, a kind of deep submersion even, into a pool of awareness. This penitent affect distills within us surreal realizations; it is a focus, tinged with layers of deep remorse and the profound beauty of newfound appreciation that washes over us about the simplest things we have slipped into, or suddenly become aware of our own complacency over. This cooling antidote instantly soothes any veins swollen with the heat of pride, or stopped up with pearls of finely polished self-pity. This all comes about with a balm of humility that is simultaneously soothing and jolting to all of our senses at the same time. It is a cocktail both sedative and stimulant in the same, finite instant. It often occurs as we are halted dead in our tracks by a thing so extraordinary and breathtakingly natural, even luscious in its simplicity and unusually ordinary existence; often something we have been blatantly negligent of noticing as we routinely trudge past it in our self-absorbed haze. These are akin to the emotions one might feel as they finally notice the well-established antique rose garden, in full bloom; the same one they have walked by for years on their way to somewhere - but never noticed before. This is the feeling we get when our aging parent suddenly, in one moment, is 87 in our mind's eye - and not the steady 57, or eternal 37 we have determinedly seen our so loved one to be, out of purely wishful thinking born of the denial that only the truest love and devotion can begin to nurture - for the better of many decades.
”
”
Connie Kerbs (Paths of Fear: An Anthology of Overcoming Through Courage, Inspiration, and the Miracle of Love (Pebbled Lane Books Book 1))
“
During the boisterous years of my youth nothing used to damp my wild spirits so much as to think that I was born at a time when the world had manifestly decided not to erect any more temples of fame except in honour of business people and State officials. The tempest of historical achievements
seemed to have permanently subsided, so much so that the future appeared to be irrevocably delivered over to what was called peaceful competition between the nations. This simply meant a system of mutual exploitation by fraudulent means, the principle of resorting to the use of force in self-defence being formally excluded. Individual countries increasingly assumed the appearance of commercial undertakings, grabbing territory and clients and concessions from each other under any and every kind of pretext. And it was all staged to an accompaniment of loud but innocuous shouting. This trend of affairs seemed destined to develop steadily and permanently. Having the support of public approbation, it seemed bound eventually to transform the world into a mammoth department store. In the vestibule of this emporium there would be rows of monumental busts which would confer immortality on those profiteers who had proved themselves the shrewdest at their trade and those administrative officials who had shown themselves the most innocuous. The salesmen could be represented by the English and the administrative functionaries by the Germans; whereas the Jews would be sacrificed to the unprofitable calling of proprietorship, for they are constantly avowing that they make no profits and are always being called upon to 'pay out'. Moreover they have the advantage of being versed in the foreign languages.
Why could I not have been born a hundred years ago? I used to ask myself. Somewhere about the time of the Wars of Liberation, when a man was still of some value even though he had no 'business'.
Thus I used to think it an ill-deserved stroke of bad luck that I had arrived too late on this terrestrial globe, and I felt chagrined at the idea that my life would have to run its course along peaceful and orderly lines. As a boy I was anything but a pacifist and all attempts to make me so turned out futile.
”
”
Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
“
One eye-witness reported that:
'...it seems more like the celebration of the orgies of Bacchus, than the memory of a pious saint, from the drunken quarrels and obscenities practised on these occasions. So little is there of devotion, or amendment of life or manners, that these places are frequently chosen for the scenes of pitched battles, fought with cudgels, by parties, not only of parishes, but of counties, set in formal array against each other, to revenge some real or supposed injury, and murders are not an unusual result of these meetings.
It is hard to believe that many of those who took part in the fighting had originally gone in a spirit of pilgrimage to a holy well. But very often the two went together, at least in Ireland, and a seriously intended pilgrimage was often followed by boisterous and aggressive behaviour. Dr. Patrick Logan, who has made a modern study of Irish pilgrimages, commented: 'Pilgrims in any age are not noted for their piety, the Canterbury Tales make that clear, but anyone who has ever gone on a pilgrimage knows it is a memorable and enjoyable experience, something which is part of the nature of man. These days pilgrims may be called tourists.
”
”
Colin Bord (Sacred Waters)
“
Everywhere you turn you see signs of its place at the top of the Italian food chain: fresh-pasta shops vending every possible iteration of egg and flour; buzzing bars pairing Spritz and Lambrusco with generous spreads of free meat, cheese, and vegetable snacks; and, above all, osteria after osteria, cozy wine-soaked eating establishments from whose ancient kitchens emanates a moist fragrance of simmered pork and local grapes.
Osteria al 15 is a beloved dinner den just inside the centro storico known for its crispy flatbreads puffed up in hot lard, and its classic beef-heavy ragù tossed with corkscrew pasta or spooned on top of béchamel and layered between sheets of lasagne. It's far from refined, but the bargain prices and the boisterous staff make it all go down easily.
Trattoria Gianni, down a hairpin alleyway a few blocks from Piazza Maggiore, was once my lunch haunt in Bologna, by virtue of its position next to my Italian-language school. I dream regularly of its bollito misto, a heroic mix of braised brisket, capon, and tongue served with salsa verde, but the dish I'm looking for this time, a thick beef-and-pork joint with plenty of jammy tomato, is a solid middle-of-the-road ragù.
”
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Matt Goulding (Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents))
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We have shown that social enjoyment and amusements are not incompatible with correct conduct and true religion. Instead of forbidding the theatre and placing it under ban, it has been the aim of the Latter-day Saints to control it and keep it free from impure influences, and to preserve it as a place where all could meet for the purpose of healthful enjoyment. Our leading men have, therefore, gone to these places with the view, by their presence, of restraining all practices and influences that would be injurious to the young and rising generation. Too great care cannot be exercised that liberty shall not degenerate into license, and not to convert that which should furnish enjoyment and simple pleasure into a means of producing unhealthful excitement or corrupting morals.
Our social parties should be conducted in a manner to give gratification to all who attend them, however delicate and refined they may be in their feelings. Rude and boisterous conduct and everything of an improper character should be forbidden at such assemblages. . . . Committee-men and officers in charge of parties should see that dances of every kind are conducted in a modest and becoming manner, and that no behavior be permitted that would lead to evil or that would offend the most delicate susceptibilities.
”
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John Taylor
“
Because,' he said, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you, especially when you are near me, as now; it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situation in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and the nI've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me.'
'That I never would, sir; you know -,' impossible to proceed.
[...]
The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway and asserting a right to predominate - to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last; yes, and to speak.
'I grieve to leave Thornfield; I love Thornfield; I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life, momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright, and energetic, and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence; with what I delight in, with an origin, a vigorous, and expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you forever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.'
'Where do you see the necessity?' he asked, suddenly.
'Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.'
'In what shape?'
'In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman, your bride.'
'My bride! What bride? I have no bride!'
'But you will have.'
'Yes; I will! I will!' He set his teeth.
'Then I must go; you have said it yourself.'
'No; you must stay! I swear it, and the oath shall be kept.'
'I tell you I must go!' I retorted, roused to something like passion. 'Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automation? a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; it is my spirit that addresses your spirits; just as if both had passed through the grace, and we stood at God's feel, equal - as we are!'
'As we are!' repeated Mr. Rochester - 'so,' he added, including me in his arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips; 'so, Jane!'
'Yes, so, sir,' I rejoined; 'and yet not so; for you are a married man, or as good as a married man, and we'd to one inferior to you - to one with whom you have no sympathy - whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union; therefore I am better than you - let me go!'
'Where, Jane? to Ireland?'
'Yes - to Ireland. I have spoke my mind, and can go anywhere now.'
'Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild, frantic bird that is tending its own plumage in its desperation.'
'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.'
Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.
'And your will shall decide your destiny,' he said; 'I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.'
'You play a farce, which I merely taught at.'
'I ask you to pass through life at my side - to be my second self, and best earthly companion.'
[...]
'Do you doubt me, Jane?'
'Entirely.'
'You have no faith in me?'
'Not a whit.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
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Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach. A bundle of appetites. A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock know jokes. Hot dogs - not even East 86th Street bratwurst but mealy, greasy big guts that terrifying pink. Baseball. Gimme caps. Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six-packs. A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives. A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds. Fucks hard and talks dirty; a private though unapologetic taste for porn. Mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction; a subscription to National Geographic. Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf. Delights in crappy snack foods of ever description: Burgles. Curlies. Cheesies. Squigglies - you're laughing - but I don't eat them - anything that looks less like food than packing material and at least six degrees of separation from the farm. Bruce Springsteen, the early albums, cranked up high with the truck window down and your hair flying. Sings along, off-key - how is it possible that I should be endeared by such a tin ear?Beach Boys. Elvis - never lose your roots, did you, loved plain old rock and roll. Bombast. Though not impossibly stodgy; I remember, you took a shine to Pearl Jam, which was exactly when Kevin went off them...(sorry). It just had to be noisy; you hadn't any time for my Elgar, my Leo Kottke, though you made an exception for Aaron Copeland. You wiped your eyes brusquely at Tanglewood, as if to clear gnats, hoping I didn't notice that "Quiet City" made you cry. And ordinary, obvious pleasure: the Bronx Zoo and the botanical gardens, the Coney Island roller coaster, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building. You were the only New Yorker I'd ever met who'd actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You dragged me along once, and we were the only tourists on the boat who spoke English. Representational art - Edward Hopper. And my lord, Franklin, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes. Physically, too, you were such a surprise - yourself a strong defense. There were times you were worried that I thought you too heavy, I made so much of your size, though you weighed in a t a pretty standard 165, 170, always battling those five pounds' worth of cheddar widgets that would settle over your belt. But to me you were enormous. So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. How luck we are, when we've spared what we think we want! How weary I might have grown of all those silly pots and fussy diets, and how I detest the whine of sitar music!
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
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Stop!” she called out.
To a one, the crewmen froze. A dozen heads swiveled to face her.
Sophia swallowed and turned to Mr. Grayson. “What about me? I’m also a virgin voyager.”
His lips quirked as his gaze swept her from head to toe and then back up partway. “Are you truly?”
“Yes. And I haven’t a coin to my name. Do you plan to dunk and shave me, too?”
“Now there’s an idea.” His grin widened. “Perhaps. But first, you must submit to an interrogation.”
A lump formed in Sophia’s throat, impossible to speak around.
Mr. Grayson raised that sonorous baritone to a carrying pitch. “What’s your name then, miss?” When Sophia merely firmed her chin and glared at him, he warned dramatically, “Truth or eels.”
Bang.
Excited whispers crackled through the assembly of sailors. Davy was completely forgotten, dropped to the deck with a dull thud. Even the wind held its breath in anticipation, and Sophia gave a slight jump when a sail smacked limp against the mast.
Though her heart pounded an erratic rhythm of distress, she willed her voice to remain even. “I’ve no intention of submitting myself to any interrogation, by god or man.” She lifted her chin and arched an eyebrow. “And I’m not impressed by your staff.”
She paused several seconds, waiting for the crew’s boisterous laughter to ebb.
Mr. Grayson pinned her with his bold, unyielding gaze. “You dare to speak to me that way? I’m Triton.” With each word, he stepped closer. “King of the Sea. A god among men.” Now they stood just paces apart. Hunger gleamed in his eyes. “And I demand a sacrifice.”
Her hand remained pressed against her throat, and Sophia nervously picked at the neckline of her frock. This close, he was all bronzed skin stretched tight over muscle and sinew. Iridescent drops of seawater paved glistening trails down his chest, snagging on the margins of that horrific scar, just barely visible beneath his toga.
“A sacrifice?” Her voice was weak. Her knees were weaker.
“A sacrifice.” He flipped the trident around, his biceps flexing as he extended the blunt end toward her, hooking it under her arm. He lifted the mop handle, pulling her hand from her throat and raising her wrist for his inspection.
Sophia might have yanked her arm away at any moment, but she was as breathless with anticipation as every other soul on deck. She’d become an observer of her own scene, helpless to alter the drama unfolding, on the edge of her seat to see how it would play out.
He studied her arm. “An unusually fine specimen of female,” he said casually. “Young. Fair. Unblemished.” Then he withdrew the stick, and Sophia’s hand dropped to her side. “But unsatisfactory.”
She felt a sharp twinge of pride. Unsatisfactory? Those words echoed in her mind again. I don’t want you.
“Unsatisfactory. Too scrawny by far.” He looked around at the crew, sweeping his makeshift trident in a wide arc. “I demand a sacrifice with meat on her bones. I demand…”
Sophia gasped as the mop handle clattered to a rest at her feet. Mr. Grayson gave her a sly wink, bracing his hands on his hips in a posture of divine arrogance. “I demand a goat.
”
”
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))