Broken Spears Quotes

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I don't think anyone can give you advice when you've got a broken heart.
Britney Spears
A twig was just a bit of broken wood until it had been sharpened into a spear. Grief carved me in half. And fury honed the pieces into a weapon. Now it was time to unleash it.
Kerri Maniscalco (Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1))
Perhaps I am broken, he conceded silently, but broken bones heal stronger, and I will have my day in the sun.
Peter V. Brett (The Desert Spear (Demon Cycle, #2))
Tyson charged at the Cyclops leader, Ma Gasket, her chain-mail dress spattered with mud and decorated with broken spears. She gawked at Tyson and started to say, “Who—?” Tyson hit her in the head so hard, she spun in a circle and landed on her rump. “Bad Cyclops Lady!” he bell owed. “General Tyson says GO AWAY!” He hit her again, and Ma Gasket broke into dust.
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
I'd had my heart broken, you see. Fell in love with the wrong chap and he crushed me right down to the bedrock. Nothing left but humiliation.
Deanna Raybourn (A Spear of Summer Grass)
Sulien held up the broken spear, one piece in each hand. “A warhammer did this?” “You saw that hammer the Lightning almost hit Addolgar with. And that’s not even the one he uses during battles. That one is bloody huge. Nearly as big as the bastard’s head.” Her father chuckled and stepped around her. “The only purpose of this spear was to protect you—and it did. Its job is now done.” He started to throw the pieces into a bin he kept for trash. “Don’t you dare throw that out.” “Why not? It’s broken, and repairing it would be useless. It’l only break again.” “But you made it for me.” “You cling to what is meaningless, child. Just like your mother sometimes, only with her it’s mostly grudges.
G.A. Aiken (The Dragon Who Loved Me (Dragon Kin, #5))
Numberless are the world's wonders, but none More wonderful than man; the storm gray sea Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high; Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven With shining furrows where his plows have gone Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions. The light-boned birds and beasts that cling to cover, The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water, All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind; The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned, Resign to him; and his blunt yoke has broken The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull. Words also, and thought as rapid as air, He fashions to his good use; statecraft is his And his the skill that deflects the arrows of snow, The spears of winter rain: from every wind He has made himself secure--from all but one: In the late wind of death he cannot stand. O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure! O fate of man, working both good and evil! When the laws are kept, how proudly his city stands! When the laws are broken, what of his city then? Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth, Never be it said that my thoughts are his thoughts.
Sophocles (Antigone (The Theban Plays, #3))
is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well
George R.R. Martin
You can easily tell when someone has been hit by a spear. he turns a deep shade of bitter. David never got hit. Gradually, he learned a very well-kept secret... One, never learn anything about the fashionable, easily mastered art of spear throwing. Two, stay out of the company of all spear throwers. And three, keep your mouth tightly closed. In this way, spears will never touch you, even when they pierce your heart.
Gene Edwards (A Tale of three Kings: A Study in Brokenness)
We live, I suppose, in the unconfessed hope that the rules will at some point be broken, along with the normal course of things and custom and history, and that this will happen to us, that we will experience it, that we — that is, I alone — will be the ones to see it. We always aspire, I suppose, to being the chosen ones, and it is unlikely otherwise that we would be prepared to live out the entire course of an entire life, which, however short or long, gradually gets the better of us.
Javier Marías (Fever and Spear (Your Face Tomorrow, #1))
You have always been dazzling - the life of every party, the glamour girl who dances until dawn." "Well, I am. But I'm dancing on broken glass. I'm Miss Havisham's wedding cake, Kit. A frothy, expensive, mice-eaten confection. I'm the Sphinx's nose, the fallen Colossus. I'm a beautiful ruin, and it's time that has done the deed.
Deanna Raybourn (A Spear of Summer Grass)
For some reason, the despair that's welling up in me is transforming into white-hot rage. I feel it working its way up from my toes, winding around my legs, and burrowing into the pit of my stomach. It spears its razor-sharp tendrils through the pieces of my broken heart. It's crippling, and devastating, and unrelenting. I have only one choice to survive this; I turn that rage outward.
Michelle Figley (The Saints of the Cross)
It was in America that horses first roamed. A million years before the birth of man, they grazed the vast plains of wiry grass and crossed to other continents over bridges of rock soon severed by retreating ice. They first knew man as the hunted knows the hunter, for long before he saw them as a means to killing other beasts, man killed them for their meat. Paintings on the walls of caves showed how. Lions and bears would turn and fight and that was the moment men speared them. But the horse was a creature of flight not fight and, with a simple deadly logic, the hunter used flight to destroy it. Whole herds were driven hurtling headlong to their deaths from the tops of cliffs. Deposits of their broken bones bore testimony. And though later he came pretending friendship, the alliance with man would ever be but fragile, for the fear he'd struck into their hearts was too deep to be dislodged. Since that neolithic moment when first a horse was haltered, there were those among men who understood this. They could see into the creature's soul and soothe the wounds they found there. Often they were seen as witches and perhaps they were. Some wrought their magic with the bleached bones of toads, plucked from moonlit streams. Others, it was said, could with but a glance root the hooves of a working team to the earth they plowed. There were gypsies and showmen, shamans and charlatans. And those who truly had the gift were wont to guard it wisely, for it was said that he who drove the devil out, might also drive him in. The owner of a horse you calmed might shake your hand then dance around the flames while they burned you in the village square. For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubles ears, these men were known as Whisperers.
Nicholas Evans (The Horse Whisperer)
The song is gone; the dance is secret with the dancers in the earth, the ritual useless, and the tribal story lost in an alien tale. Only the grass stands up to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums posture and mime a past corroboree, murmur a broken chant. The hunter is gone; the spear is splintered underground; the painted bodies a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot. The nomad feet are still. Only the rider's heart halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word that fastens in the blood of the ancient curse, the fear as old as Cain.
Judith A. Wright
As they came out from the shelter of the trees and the Great Meadows stretched out before them, Kit caught her breath. She had not expected anything like this. From that first moment, in a way she could never explain, the Meadows claimed her and made her their own. As far as she could see they stretched on either side, a great level sea of green, broken here and there by a solitary graceful elm. Was it the fields of sugar cane they brought to mind, or the endless reach of the ocean to meet the sky? Or was it simply the sense of freedom and space and light that spoke to her of home?
Elizabeth George Speare
Will you yet hold, my friends, to the faith that change is within our grasp? That will and reason shall overcome the will of denial? There is nothing left to understand. This mad whirlpool holds us all in a grasp that cannot be broken; and you with your spears and battle-masks; you with your tears and soft touch; you with the sardonic grin behind which screams fear and self-hatred; even you who stand aside in silent witness to our catastrophe of dissolution, too numb to act – it is all one. You are all one. We are all one.
Steven Erikson (The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6))
In the news media, I was described as a harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy. The truth: I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood. May I just say that on his explosive album and in all the press that surrounded it, Justin neglected to mention the several times he’d cheated on me?
Britney Spears (The Woman in Me)
An ancient Hawaiian war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark’s tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved, and it has cost steady years of steady application.
Herman Melville (The Originals Moby Dick or The Whale : Unabridged Classics)
Made of granite with marbled blue veins and as tall as a castle's keep, the arch's weathered columns were carved to look like mermaids holding tridents that pierced through carvings of men, the way a sailor might spear a fish. The men's backs were bowed, and their hands stretched to hold out the sign forming the top of the enormous arch. WELCOME TO THE MAGNIFICENT NORTH. STORIES BE HERE.
Stephanie Garber (Once Upon a Broken Heart (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #1))
Aelin snarled, “You killed him.” The king approached, his footfalls thudding on the glass bridge. “My one regret,” the king said to her, “is that I did not get to take my time.” She backed up a step—just one. The king drew Nothung. “I’ll take my time with you, though.” Aelin lifted her sword in both hands. Then— “What did you say?” Dorian. The voice was hoarse, broken. The king and Aelin both turned toward the prince. But Dorian’s eyes were on his father, and they were burning like stars. “What did you say. About Chaol.” The king snapped. “Silence.” “Did you kill him.” Not a question. Aelin’s lips began trembling, and she tunneled down, down, down inside herself. “And if I did?” the king said, brows high. “Did you kill Chaol?” The light at Dorian’s hand burned and burned— But the collar remained around his neck. “You,” the king snapped—and Aelin realized he meant her just as a spear of darkness shot for her so fast, too fast— The darkness shattered against a wall of ice.
Sarah J. Maas (Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4))
He was a marvel, shaft after shaft flying from him, spears that he wrenched easily from broken bodies on the ground to toss at new targets. Again and again I saw his wrist twist, exposing its pale underside, those flute-like bones thrusting elegantly forward. My spear sagged forgotten to the ground as I watched. I could not even see the ugliness of the deaths anymore, the brains, the shattered bones that later I would wash from my skin and hair. All I saw was his beauty, his singing limbs, the quick flickering of his feet.
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
To see Ramses, at fourteen months, wrinkling his brows over a sentence like 'The theology of the Egyptians was a compound of fetishism, totem-ism and syncretism' was a sight as terrifying as it was comical. Even more terrifying was the occasional thoughtful nod the child would give. ...the room was dark except for one lamp, by whose light Emerson was reading. Ramses, in his crib, contemplated the ceiling with rapt attention. It made a pretty little family scene, until one heard what was being said. '...the anatomical details of the wounds, which included a large gash in the frontal bone, a broken malar bone and orbit, and a spear thrust which smashed off the mastoid process and struck the atlas vertebra, allow us to reconstruct the death scene of the king.' ... From the small figure in the cot came a reflective voice. 'It appeaws to me that he was muwduwed.'...' a domestic cwime.'...'One of the ladies of the hawem did it, I think.' I seized Emerson by the arm and pushed him toward the door, before he could pursue this interesting suggestion.
Elizabeth Peters (The Curse of the Pharaohs (Amelia Peabody, #2))
… bleak, wind-swept fens and moors; empty fields with broken walls and gates hanging off their hinges; a black, ruined church; an open grave; a suicide buried at a lonely crossroads; a fire of bones blazing in the twilit snow; a gallows with a man swinging from its arm; another man crucified upon a wheel; an ancient spear plunged into the mud with a strange talisman, like a little leather finger, hanging from it; a scarecrow whose black rags blew about so violently in the wind that he seemed about to leap into the grey air and fly towards you on vast black wings …
Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)
Eliot's understanding of poetic epistemology is a version of Bradley's theory, outlined in our second chapter, that knowing involves immediate, relational, and transcendent stages or levels. The poetic mind, like the ordinary mind, has at least two types of experience: The first consists largely of feeling (falling in love, smelling the cooking, hearing the noise of the typewriter), the second largely of thought (reading Spinoza). The first type of experience is sensuous, and it is also to a great extent monistic or immediate, for it does not require mediation through the mind; it exists before intellectual analysis, before the falling apart of experience into experiencer and experienced. The second type of experience, in contrast, is intellectual (to be known at all, it must be mediated through the mind) and sharply dualistic, in that it involves a breaking down of experience into subject and object. In the mind of the ordinary person, these two types of experience are and remain disparate. In the mind of the poet, these disparate experiences are somehow transcended and amalgamated into a new whole, a whole beyond and yet including subject and object, mind and matter. Eliot illustrates his explanation of poetic epistemology by saying that John Donne did not simply feel his feelings and think his thoughts; he felt his thoughts and thought his feelings. He was able to "feel his thought as immediately as the odour of a rose." Immediately" in this famous simile is a technical term in philosophy, used with precision; it means unmediated through mind, unshattered into subject and object. Falling in love and reading Spinoza typify Eliot's own experiences in the years in which he was writing The Waste Land. These were the exciting and exhausting years in which he met Vivien Haigh-Wood and consummated a disastrous marriage, the years in which he was deeply involved in reading F. H. Bradley, the years in which he was torn between the professions of philosophy and poetry and in which he was in close and frequent contact with such brilliant and stimulating figures as Bertrand Russell and Ezra Pound, the years of the break from his family and homeland, the years in which in every area of his life he seemed to be between broken worlds. The experiences of these years constitute the material of The Waste Land. The relevant biographical details need not be reviewed here, for they are presented in the introduction to The Waste Land Facsimile. For our purposes, it is only necessary to acknowledge what Eliot himself acknowledged: the material of art is always actual life. At the same time, it should also be noted that material in itself is not art. As Eliot argued in his review of Ulysses, "in creation you are responsible for what you can do with material which you must simply accept." For Eliot, the given material included relations with and observations of women, in particular, of his bright but seemingly incurably ill wife Vivien(ne).
Jewel Spears Brooker (Reading the Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation)
The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal, twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man’s trouser cuff or the hem of a woman’s skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed of the anlage of movement.
John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath)
One looks down from the Brooklyn Bridge on a spot of foam or a little lake of gasoline or a broken splinter or an empty scow; the world goes by upside down with pain and light devouring the innards, the sides of flesh bursting, the spears pressing in against the cartilage, the very armature of the body floating off into nothingness . . . One walks the street at night with the bridge against the sky like a harp and the festered eyes of sleep burn into the shanties, deflower the walls; the stairs collapse in a smudge and the rats scamper across the ceiling; a voice is nailed against the door and long creepy things with furry antennae and thousand legs drop from the pipes like beads of sweat.
Henry Miller
Charivari ‘They capped their heads with feathers, masked their faces, wore their clothes backwards, howled with torches through the midnight winter and dragged the black man from his house to the jolting music of broken instruments, pretending to each other it was a joke, until they killed him. I don’t know what happened to the white bride.’ The American lady, adding she thought it was a disgraceful piece of business, finished her tea. (Note: Never pretend this isn’t part of the soil too, teadrinkers, and inadvertent victims and murderers, when we come this way again in other forms, take care to look behind, within where the skeleton face beneath the face puts on its feather mask, the arm within the arm lifts up the spear: Resist those cracked drumbeats. Stop this. Become human.)
Margaret Atwood (Selected Poems 1: 1965-1975)
Classical Sanskrit prose writers made very long sentences like this: "Lost in the forest and in thought, bent upon death and at the root of a tree, fallen upon calamity and her nurse's bosom, parted from her husband and happiness, burnt with the fierce sunshine and the woes of widowhood, her mouth closed with silence as well as by her hand, held fast by her companions as well as by grief, I saw her with her kindred and her graces all gone, her ears and her soul left bare, her ornaments and her aims abandoned, her bracelets and her hopes broken, her companions and the needle-like grass-spears clinging round her feet, her eyes and her beloved fixed within her bosom, her sighs and her hair long, her limbs and her merits exhausted, her aged attendants and her streams of tears falling down at her feet...." and it goes on.
Abraham Eraly (The First Spring Part 2: Culture in the Golden Age of India)
Once upon a time, Svoyatovi Igor slew a dragon with three heads and stole its scales to make armor that could not be broken by spear or sword. Delizvik dela Svoyatova Kataryn threaded the stars through her hair and danced in the woods and kissed a god. Delizvik dela. Once upon a time, magic was a thing nestled under the roots of tress and it the sky and it could be taken so easily as whispering a prayer. How did he know this? He shouldn’t know this. Nadya leaning her head against his shoulder and reading fanciful stories of the saints aloud to keep the darkness of the forest at bay. Her voice gentle and rhythmic, the ice in it melted in the warmth of the fire. Somehow, the stories had remained. One upon a time, there was a boy who had helped break magic free from its prison. But with it, entropy had escaped. And one would devour the other until only darkness was left. The end.
Emily A. Duncan (Blessed Monsters (Something Dark and Holy, #3))
But then grey, watery light hit her. And the air- the air was heavy, full of slow-running water and mould and loamy earth. No wind moved around them; not even a breeze. Cassian whistled. 'Look at this hellhole.' Dropping Azriel's hand. Nesta did just that. Oorid stretched before them. She had never seen a place so dead. A place that made the still-human part of her recoil, whispering that it was wrong wrong wrong to be here. Azriel winced. The shadowsinger of the Night Court winced as the full brunt of Oorid's oppressive air and scent and stillness hit him. The three of them surveyed the wasteland. Even the Cauldron's water hadn't been so solidly black as the water here, as if it were made of ink. In the shallows mere feet away, where the water met the grass, not one blade was visible where the surface touched it. Dead trees, grey with age and weather, jutted like the broken lances of a thousand soldiers, some draped with curtains of moss. No leaves clung to their branches. Most of the branches had been cracked off, leaving jagged spears extending from the trunks. 'Not one insect,' Azriel observed. 'Not one bird.' Nesta strained to listen. Only silence answered. Empty of even a whistle of a breeze.
Sarah J. Maas (A ​Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over The bending poplars, newly bare, And the dark ribbons of the chimneys Veer downward; flicked by whips of air. Torn posters flutter; coldly sound The boom of trams and the rattle of hooves, And the clerks who hurry to the station Look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves, Thinking, each one, "Here comes the winter! "Please God I keep my job this year!" And bleakly, as the cold strikes through Their entrails like an icy spear, They think of rent, rates, season tickets, Insurance, coal, the skivvy's wages, Boots, school-bills and the next installment Upon the two twin beds from Drage's. For if in careless summer days In groves of Ashtaroth we whored, Repentant now, when winds blow cold, We kneel before our rightful lord; The lord of all, the money-god, Who rules us blood and hand and brain, Who gives the roof that stops the wind, And, giving, takes away again; Who spies with jealous, watchful care, Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways, Who picks our words and cuts our clothes, And maps the pattern of our days; Who chills our anger, curbs our hope. And buys our lives and pays with toys, Who claims as tribute broken faith, Accepted insults, muted joys; Who binds with chains the poet's wit, The navvy's strength, the soldier's pride, And lays the sleek, estranging shield Between the lover and his bride.
George Orwell
The company was now come to a halt and the first shots were fired and the grey riflesmoke rolled through the dust as the lancers breached their ranks. The kid's horse sank beneath him with a long pneumatic sigh. He had already fired his rifle and now he sat on the ground and fumbled with his shotpouch. A man near him sat with an arrow hanging out of his neck. He was bent slightly as if in prayer. The kid would have reached for the bloody hoop-iron point but then he saw that the man wore another arrow in his breast to the fletching and he was dead. Everywhere there were horses down and men scrambling and he saw a man who sat charging his rifle while blood ran from his ears and he saw men and he saw men with their revolvers disassembled trying to fit the fit the spare loaded cylinders they carried and he saw men kneeling who tilted and clasped their shadows on the ground and he saw men lanced and caught up by the hair and scalped standing and he saw the horses of war trample down the fallen and a little whitefaced pony with one clouded eye leaned out of the murk and snapped at him like a dog and was gone. Among the wounded some seemed dumb and without understanding and some were pale through the masks of dust and some had fouled themselves or tottered brokenly onto the spears of the savages. Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and up the far side of the ruined ranks in a pipping of boneflutes and dropping down off the side of their mounts with one heel hung in the the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, ridding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, heads, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows. And now the horses of the dead came pounding out of the smoke and dust and circled with flapping leather and wild manes and eyes whited with fear like the eyes of the blind and some were feathered with arrows and some lanced through and stumbling and vomiting blood as they wheeled across the killing ground and clattered from sight again. Dust stanched the wet and naked heads of the scalped who with the fringe of hair beneath their wounds and tonsured to the bone now lay like maimed and naked monks in the bloodsoaked dust and everywhere the dying groaned and gibbered and horses lay screaming
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
He will find you,” Elen said. “Beyond this cave and this valley, he will scent you on the wind. And when he does he will come to claim what is his. I will never see you again. I loved you, child, loved you so much I did not name you, for naming calls. But now you are leaving, and I will give you your name. The four treasures of the Tuath are the sword, which is given, the stone, which is hidden, the cup, which I have, and the spear. You are that spear. You are that spear. You are Bêr-hyddur, my spear enduring. You are Peretur. Know that I do not remove my ward, and under my geas will remain hidden, even from you. Know, too: you have broken my heart.
Nicola Griffith (Spear)
Permission to stab him a little, sir,” said Teft, the bridgeman leader. “How do you stab someone ‘a little,’ soldier?” “I could do it,” Lyn said. “I’ve only started training with a spear. We could claim it was an accident.” “No, no,” Lopen said. “You want to stab him a little? Let my cousin Huio do it, sir. He’s the expert on little things.” “Short joke?” Huio said in his broken Alethi. “Be glad not short temper.” “I’m just trying to involve you, Huio. I know that most people overlook you. It’s very easy to do, you see.…
Brandon Sanderson (Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3))
A twig was just a bit of broken wood until it had been sharpened into a spear. Grief carved me in half. And fury honed the pieces into a weapon. Now it was time to unleash it.
Kerri Maniscalco (Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1))
These medicine-women devote their attention principally to obstetrics, and have many peculiar stories to relate concerning pre-natal influences and matters of that sort. Tze-go-juni wore at her neck the stone amulet, shaped like a spear, which is figured in the illustrations of this paper. The material was the silex from the top of a mountain, taken from a ledge at the foot of a tree which had been struck by lightning. The fact that siliceous rock will emit sparks when struck by another hard body appeals to the reasoning powers of the savage as a proof that the fire must have been originally deposited therein by the bolt of lightning. A tiny piece of this arrow or lance was broken off and ground into the finest powder, and then administered in water to women during time of gestation. I have found the same kind of arrows in use among the women of Laguna and other pueblos. This matter will receive more extended treatment in my coming monograph on "Stone Worship." Mendieta is authority for the
John G. Bourke (The Medicine-Men of the Apache: Illustrated Edition)
They're Killing Us (Poem) ________ May my feet land on the safe ends of Your robes, For human land drinks human blood and feasts on its remains. May my hands be held by Your hands, For human hands were loving me yesterday but are murdering me today. May my eyes be filled with sanity, for this generation is piercing me with its inhumanity. May I dwell in Your heaven, as I no longer feel safe on this earth even. My feet are stumbling on many dead bodies. My hands are replete with burns and bruises from the spears of those who You lovingly created in Your image just as I was crested. My eyes are filled with images of my people killed. My body is garmented in agony, trauma, confusion, and fume. Where can I take refuge from these dirty souls who seek my blood? To whom should I run to brood these now broken soles, and eyes filled with floods? Lead me to where it’s safest. Lead me to where it’s kindest.
Mitta Xinindlu
I haven't done anything wrong. "Get off me!" "You're kidding, right? You've injured a sheriff, broken in and entered a house, stole a car - mine - stole Hal Haverton's clothes, broken a glass, and littered.
Terry Spear (Cougar's Mate (Heart of the Cougar, #1))
A Roman soldier . . . thrust a spear into Jesus’ side and out came blood and water. Physicians say that a mixture of blood and water indicates that Jesus died of a broken heart. He poured out the last ounce of His blood to redeem us.
Billy Graham (Billy graham in quotes)
In Tenochtitlan, Tezcoco and other cities there were groups of wise men known as tlamatinime. These scholars carried on the study of the ancient religious thinking of the Toltecs, which Tlacaelel had transformed into a mystical exaltation of war. Despite the popularity of the cult of the war-god, Huitzilopochtli, the tlamatinime preserved the old belief in a single supreme god, who was known under a variety of names. Sometimes he was called Tloque-Nahuaque, “Lord of the Close Vicinity,” sometimes Ipalnemohuani, “Giver of Life,” sometimes Moyocoyatzin, “He who Creates Himself.” He also had two aspects, one masculine and one feminine. Thus he was also invoked as Ometeotl, “God of Duality,” or given the double names Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, “Lord and Lady of Duality,” Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, “Lord and Lady of the Region of Death,” and others.
Miguel León-Portilla (The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico)
Centurion! Would you like to be a cavalryman one last time? There are Venicones who escaped when your line was broken to be hunted down, and Tribune Licinius has ordered me to take the best men available in their pursuit. Leave this hairy gentleman to watch the fun, and join us in the hunt!
Anthony Riches (Fortress of Spears (Empire, #3))
A certain medieval monk announced he would be preaching the next Sunday evening on “The Love of God.” As the shadows fell and the light faded from the cathedral windows, the congregation gathered. In the darkness, the monk lit a candle and carried it to the crucifix. First, he illuminated the crown of thorns; next, the two wounded hands; then the spear wound; and finally the feet. In the hush that fell, he blew out the candle and left the chancel. There was nothing else to say.
Gwen Smith (Broken into Beautiful: How God Restores the Wounded Heart)
A human wasn't an acceptable boyfriend for a witch; nor would a human wish to date a witch. The two would never in a million light years be interested in each other. Then, again, unwritten rules were made to be broken.
Terry Spear (The Vampire...In My Dreams)
The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems really to be broken-heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves. My attention was drawn to it when the elder brother of Syde bin Habib was killed in Rua by a night attack, from a spear being pitched through his tent into his side. Syde then vowed vengeance for the blood of his brother, and assaulted all he could find, killing the elders, and making the young men captives. He
David Livingstone (The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death: 1869-1873)
What do you think a soldier's job is, Derfel?" he asked me in that intimate manner that made you feel he was more interested in you than anyone else in the world. "To fight battles, Lord," I said. He shook his head. "To fight battles, Derfel," he corrected me, 'on behalf of people who can't fight for themselves. I learned that in Brittany. This miserable world is full of weak people, powerless people, hungry people, sad people, sick people, poor people, and it's the easiest thing in the world to despise the weak, especially if you're a soldier. If you're a warrior and you want a man's daughter, you just take her; you want his land, you just kill him; after all, you're a soldier and you have a spear and a sword, and he's just a poor weak man with a broken plough and a sick ox and what's to stop you?" He did not expect an answer to the question, but just paced on in silence. We had come to the western gateway and the split-log steps that climbed to the platform over the gate were whitening with a new frost. We climbed them side by side. "But the truth is, Derfel," Arthur said when we reached the high platform, 'that we are only soldiers because that weak man makes us soldiers. He grows the grain that feeds us, he tans the leather that protects us and he polls the ash trees that make our spear-shafts. We owe him our service.
Bernard Cornwell (The Winter King (The Warlord Chronicles, #1))
¡Ah capitán! ya yo he hecho todo mi poder para defender mi reino, y librarlo de vuestras manos; y pues no ha sido mi fortuna favorable, quitadme la vida, que será muy justo, y con esto acabaréis el reino mexicano, pues a mi ciudad y vasallos tenéis destruidos y muertos . . . Con otras razones muy lastimosas, que se enternecieron cuantos allí estaban, de ver a este príncipe en este lance.
Miguel León-Portilla (The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico)
Trenton’s disgusted look answered that question even as Wilhelm shook his head and said, “They’ll be almost as useless as the sword. With something that big, it probably won’t even notice unless we hit an eye.”   Which most likely still wouldn’t kill it.   The same with any attacks on the body. At most, they’d be a minor nuisance.   “That leaves one option,” Shea said in a resigned voice.   “You have a plan, then?” Witt asked, keeping an eye on their surroundings.   “Yup, but I don’t think any of you are going to like it.” Shea’s expression turned sour. If she was being honest, she didn’t like her plan either.   Trenton stared at her for several beats before he shook his head. “No, that’s crazy.”   “It’s the best option we’ve got ,” Fallon agreed, his mind already following where hers had gone.   Surprise and understanding dawned on Wilhelm and Witt’s faces as they realized what she was thinking.   “I feel like your plans get worse and worse the longer I know you—like gone ‘round the bend crazy worse,” Trenton said. To Fallon, he said, “At least tell me we’re not letting her do the honors.”   Fallon’s eyes were dark as he stared at Shea. It was obvious he wanted to order her to abandon their group and head to the Keep by herself, even at the expense of his own safety. It was just as obvious she would refuse.   “No, we’re not,” he agreed with Trenton. “One of us will do it.”   “I didn’t expect anything else.” Shea gave Fallon a half smile. “I could never make that throw. That’s why Wilhelm will do it.”   Wilhelm lifted an eyebrow. “I will?”   “Wait a minute. Why not me?” Trenton asked in outrage.   Shea ignored him to answer Wilhelm’s question. “I’m not skilled enough with a spear. Same for Witt, and the doubter over there is still recovering from cracked ribs and internal bleeding. And if we let Fallon do it, I’m pretty sure Caden would murder us all once he found out about it. That leaves you.”   “Hey!” Trenton protested.   Fallon looked like he wanted to argue, but he must have seen her point. Of the five of them, Wilhelm was the one with the best marksmanship. Beyond all of the other reasons, that was the one that counted the most and Fallon knew it.   Wilhelm stared off into the mist with a considering expression before looking sideways at Shea, his face serious and intent. “We’ll only get one chance at this.”   “Guess you’d better make the shot count, then,” she told him.   “Incoming,” Witt murmured.
T.A. White (Wayfarer's Keep (The Broken Lands, #3))
The various branches of the US military have special operations forces. These are made up of units of soldiers who have been specially trained to tackle the most risky and dangerous military operations in the world—most of which are never heard about by the general public. Special-ops forces such as the Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Marine RECONs, and Air Force Special Tactics are comprised of the most elite soldiers in the world. Their training is beyond rigorous, and the qualifications to join such exclusive groups of warriors are extremely high. These elite soldiers make up a small percentage of the total military, but they are the tip of the spear when it comes to critical combat operations. These units usually operate in small numbers, drop behind enemy lines, practice tactics repetitively before executing a given operation, and train for every combat condition they might encounter. But even with an exceptional level of training and expertise, there is one critical component that is absolutely necessary for them to successfully reach their objective: communication. These elite special-ops fighters are part of a larger overarching entity with which they must stay in communication—SOCOM. This acronym stands for Special Operations Command.1 Key to their success from the elite soldier on the field all the way to the commander-in-chief is communication through SOCOM. A unit or soldier on mission in the theater of battle can have the latest weapons and technology, but they cannot access the fuller power and might of the military without the critical link—communications. If a satellite phone goes down or can’t access a signal, this life-or-death communication is broken. Without the ability to call in for air support when being overrun, medical evacuation when someone is injured, or passing on key intelligence information to SOCOM, an operation can be compromised. When communication is absent, things can go south in a hurry. In the realm of special military operations, communication is life.
Todd Hampson (The Non-Prophet's Guide™ to Spiritual Warfare (Non-Prophet's Guide(tm)))
The avalanche of expert advice—and nonexpert advice on nonetheless very enticing Web sites—undermines our belief that we are equipped with enough common sense to deal with most child-rearing issues. That battered confidence, in turn, leads us to look ever more desperately to the experts wherever we find them. At the library. In parenting magazines. On TV. Online. But a lot of those experts give advice so daunting and detailed and frankly nondoable (does anyone really want to spend the day retelling potty stories with the aid of a spoon puppet?) that we feel like failures. Then when—surprise—our kids turn out not to be perfect, we know who’s to blame. We are! If only we’d made one more pretend forest out of broccoli spears, our kid would be a veggie fiend. If only we’d put aside that deep-fried Oreo in our second trimester, she’d be in the gifted program at school. And if our child is cranky? Uncommunicative? Headed for five to ten years’ hard labor? That just might be because we told her, “Look, sweetie, a broken cracker is not the end of the world!” instead of saying, “Oooh, your cracker broke. Sad sad sad sad sad!” and respectfully relating.
Lenore Skenazy (Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry))
All the broken walls inside were hung with the ragged memorials of past times, which showed the sad effects of strife. There were rent robes and broken sceptres, sacred things ruined, shivered spears, and shields torn in twain, great cities ransacked, and strong castles beaten down, nations led into captivity, and huge armies slain -- relics of all these ruins remained in the house of Até. All the famous wars in history found a record here, as well as the feuds and quarrels of private persons too many to mention. Such was the house inside. Outside, the barren ground was full of poisonous weeds, which Strife herself had sown; they had grown great from small seeds -- the seeds of evil words and wrangling deeds, which, when they come to ripeness, bring forth an infinite increase of trouble and contention, often ending in bloodshed and war. These horrible seeds also served Até for bread, and she had been fed upon them from childhood, for she got her life from that which killed other people. She was born of a race of demons, and brought up by the Furies. Strife was as ugly as she was wicked; she could speak nothing but falsehood, and she never heard aright.
Mary Macleod (THE LEGEND OF BRITOMART - Stories from the Faerie Queen Book III)
It’s okay,” Crash says with a light laugh. “She was all of the above.” “Please don’t elaborate on the nuts part,” I mutter, spearing Dane with a look when he snorts. “It’s not that funny.” Dane sucks in a breath. “I mean . . . it kind of is?” “You’re the worst. Crash is literally here, pouring out his broken heart, and you’re laughing about the woman being a squirrel.” “My heart is fully intact,
Rory Miles (Twilight Terrors (To Kill A Nightmare, #2))
My friend has seen better days,’ Trull Sengar said, reaching out to slap Onrack on the back. The thump the blow made was hollow, raising dust, and something clattered down within the warrior’s chest. ‘Oh,’ said the Tiste Edur, ‘did that do something bad?’ ‘No,’ Onrack replied. ‘The broken point of a spear. It had been lodged in bone.’ ‘Was it irritating you?’ ‘Only the modest sound it made when I walked. Thank you, Trull Sengar.
Steven Erikson (The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6))
Sometimes he was called Tloque-Nahuaque, “Lord of the Close Vicinity,” sometimes Ipalnemohuani, “Giver of Life,” sometimes Moyocoyatzin, “He who Creates Himself.” He also had two aspects, one masculine and one feminine. Thus he was also invoked as Ometeotl, “God of Duality,” or given the double names Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, “Lord and Lady of Duality,” Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, “Lord and Lady of the Region of Death,” and others.
Miguel León-Portilla (The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico)
All I knew was that, like a kaleidoscope coming into focus, I was seeing Mal in a new light—one as beautiful as it was broken. The watchful, wounded patterns of his behavior, the shifting fractals of his words—all his jagged pieces added up to something gorgeous. But it had to hurt, walking through the world that way. Carrying all those sharp edges inside himself.
Spencer Spears
Judith" You're such an inspiration for the ways That I'll never ever choose to be Oh so many ways for me to show you How your savior has abandoned you Fuck your God Your Lord and your Christ He did this Took all you had and Left you this way Still you pray, you never stray Never taste of the fruit You never thought to question why It's not like you killed someone It's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side Praise the one who left you Broken down and paralyzed He did it all for you He did it all for you Oh so many ways for me to show you How your dogma has abandoned you Pray to your Christ, to your God Never taste of the fruit Never stray, never break Never choke on a lie Even though he's the one who did this to you You never thought to question why Not like you killed someone It's Not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side Talk to Jesus Christ As if he knows the reasons why He did it all for you Did it all for you He did it all for you.. Mer De Noms (2000)
A Perfect Circle (A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms (Guitar Recorded Versions))
Valley of the Damned. Valkyrie Kari tells of the great warrior Crazy Horse (abridged) ’Twas written of those of long ago, That honor should be “as long as grass shall grow.” In battle honor is a fearsome beast, none can contain, In the strength of heart, it brings only shame. A mighty warrior of the plains was he, Crazy Horse of Sioux battle creed. Given to the ravages of noble, savage war, Against his enemies, he vaulted fore. Peering down from lofty mountain hold, The Horse in dream; the warrior was of olde. The promises they were broken one by one, Until only war unbridled could be hardtily done. Understanding and honor was not for those weak, Only the evil Long-knives now he eagerly did seek. The Knives came to steal, to plunder their land, To kill sacred mother with marauding, guilty hands. They had no regard for their own swelling words, With lust in their eyes, their greed greatly stirred. From southern lands came noise that Longhair did kill, Black Kettle’s camp, their blood he had spilled. Longhair destroyed all; dastard agent of evil strife, Deprived them of children and their bountiful life. Yet this lone, brave holy man stood in Longhair’s way, Crazy Horse, vision man, his plans were well framed. His command rode north hard to that destined battle, To meet wicked Longhair—to dash him from the saddle. Fate led him on to Little Bighorn, Where warriors of the sun met with sacred horn. A hellish dry place of calamitous battle, Found many a soul hearing death’s final rattle. The Long-snakes scouted for the great camp, That morn’ they set their fateful, forked-tongue attack. They raised their sabers, waved them strong, Entered eternity, their deaths foresaw. A sea of pilfered blue engulfed in crimson red, Amidst swirls of feathers sacred of the motherland. Through carnage, The Horse did lead his men, Beyond the battle, to the place where legend began. Up hill rode the bold Crazy Horse, With a thousand others to show determined force. To engage Long-knives at their last stand, Striking them down until dead was every man. Great Gall and Crazy Horse led that righteous attack, Against forceful Custer, whose plans did not lack, For ’twas he himself who boasted, wantonly said, “I will become a great chief, if my enemies I fill with lead.” With righteous honor as their sacred ally, Holy arrows that day swiftly let fly. Horse met Longhair in battle forever stayed, Defeated mighty Custer; his corpse on the field in state. Upon that fateful day, on sage choked sandy plain, Spirits clashed with spirits, for the sacred domain. Unconquerable, indomitable this sacred warrior heart, Leads many against the evil now, for this righteous court. Thus, Horse brought the valiants into stark raved battle, Battle scarred by holy wounds delivered by blue devils. Yet he would not relent, this honorable man of gifted vision, But peace came through the lie; his life ended by steel incision. Breathing his last, quiet honor came his way, “Bring my heart home, the Great Spirit will find my way.” Thus ˊtis with all whose understanding shows what may, Honor leads righteousness to death, ask they of that claim. War spirit vigilant with mighty spear and bow in hand, Leads Great Plains spirits, under his gallant command. His spirit never conquered lives it to this good day, Among the heroic mighty, let us his spirit proclaim. In the hour of travail, honor can be finely seen, Leading multitudes unto battle, their hearts boundlessly free. Cowards can never know the freedom of the plains and wind, Or how she musters a soul and the courage found within. Born in deep commune of Earth and Great Spirit above, Understanding and honor flow from hearts of great love. One without understanding is a fool at best, One without honor is a spirit that ne’er rests. O’ majestic One of the relentless plain, The mountains ring joyous with thy name.
douglas laurent
Game of Thrones - Feast for Crows. “Ser? My lady?" said Podrick. "Is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less," Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . . "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.
G R R Martin
Kammy could see the palace built into the cliff face. It was a majestic construction. Its white walls stretched up into a cluster of turrets and towers. Its façade was broken by gigantic windows that reflected a rainbow of colours. The palace was flanked by two waterfalls that filled the chasm running far below them; a chasm that was bridged by a staircase of monstrous size. But Kammy hardly noticed how far she would fall should her grip fail. The giant structure that speared out of the palace and up into the sky commanded all of her attention. It burned her eyes so she could hardly look at it, but at the same time she could not look away. It looked like a white diamond. Each of its countless edges sent off shards of brilliant light. It dwarfed anything that Kammy had ever known and she had never felt as alive as she did in that moment.
Natalie Crown (The Wolf's Cry (The Semei Trilogy, #1))
Vin leaned on Sazed, her teeth gritted against the pain of her broken leg. “I bring you a message from a friend of ours,” she said quietly. “He wanted you to know that he’s not dead. He can’t be killed. “He is hope.” Then she raised the spear and rammed it directly into the Lord Ruler’s heart.
Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1))