Cactus Love Quotes

Roses may say “I love you,” but the cactus says “Fuck off.

Children expect their mothers to love them, no matter what. Those who don't get this tend to feel cheated the rest of their lives.

Captain Phelan and I dislike each other,” Beatrix told her. “In fact, we’re sworn enemies.” Christopher glanced at her quickly. “When did we become sworn enemies?” Ignoring him, Beatrix said to her sister, "Regardless, he’s staying for tea.” “Wonderful,” Amelia said equably. “Why are you enemies, dear?” “I met him yesterday while I was out walking,” Beatrix explained. “And he called Medusa a ‘garden pest,’ and faulted me for bringing her to a picnic.” Amelia smiled at Christopher. “Medusa has been called many worse things around here, including ‘diseased pincushion,’ and ‘perambulating cactus.

You are holding a cactus plant in your hand. You are bleeding and cursing the cactus but not letting go of it. Cactus is not hurting you. Your own attachment with the cactus is hurting you.

I'm a cactus but I will only offer you flowers.

Come live with me and be my love And we will all the pleasures prove Of a marriage conducted with economy In the Twentieth Century Anno Donomy. We’ll live in a dear little walk-up flat With practically room to swing a cat And a potted cactus to give it hauteur And a bathtub equipped with dark brown water. We’ll eat, without undue discouragement, Foods low in cost but high in nouragement And quaff with pleasure, while chatting wittily, The peculiar wine of Little Italy. We’ll remind each other it’s smart to be thrifty And buy our clothes for something-fifty. We’ll bus for miles on holidays For seas at depressing matinees, And every Sunday we’ll have a lark And take a walk in Central Park. And one of these days not too remote You’ll probably up and cut my throat.

Where am I?" Magnus croaked. "Nazca." "Oh, so we went on a little trip." "You broke into a man's house," Catarina said. "You stole a carpet and enchanted it to fly. Then you sped off into the night air. We pursued you on foot." "Ah," said Magnus. "You were shouting some things." "What things?" "I prefer not to repeat them," Catarina said. "I also prefer not to remember the time we spent in the desert. It is a mammoth desert, Magnus. Ordinary deserts are quite large. Mammoth deserts are so called because they are larger than ordinary deserts." "Thank you for that interesting and enlightening information," Magnus croaked. "You told us to leave you in the desert, because you planned to start a new life as a cactus," Catarina said, her voice flat. "Then you conjured up tiny needles and threw them at us. With pinpoint accuracy." "Well," he said with dignity. "Considering my highly intoxicated state, you must have been impressed with my aim." "'Impressed' is not the word to use to describe how I felt last night, Magnus." "I thank you for stopping me there," Magnus said. "It was for the best. You are a true friend. No harm done. Let's say no more about it. Could you possibly fetch me - " "Oh, we couldn't stop you," Catarina interrupted. "We tried, but you giggled, leaped onto the carpet, and flew away again. You kept saying that you wanted to go to Moquegua." "What did I do in Moquegua?" "You never got there," Catarina said. "But you were flying about and yelling and trying to, ahem, write messages for us with your carpet in the sky." "We then stopped for a meal," Catarina said. "You were most insistent that we try a local specialty that you called cuy. We actually had a very pleasant meal, even though you were still very drunk." "I'm sure I must have been sobering up at that point," Magnus argued. "Magnus, you were trying to flirt with your own plate." "I'm a very open-minded sort of fellow!" "Ragnor is not," Catarina said. "When he found out that you were feeding us guinea pigs, he hit you over the head with your plate. It broke." "So ended our love," Magnus said. "Ah, well. It would never have worked between me and the plate anyway. I'm sure the food did me good, Catarina, and you were very good to feed me and put me to bed - " Catarina shook her head."You fell down on the floor. Honestly, we thought it best to leave you sleeping on the ground. We thought you would remain there for some time, but we took our eyes off you for one minute, and then you scuttled off. Ragnor claims he saw you making for the carpet, crawling like a huge demented crab.

I'm like the trunk of a cactus, I suppose." she told him. "I take in a dose of culture and time with friends, then I retreat and go live on it for a while until I get thirsty again.

It's dying," I say. "When the center is exposed like that, it doesn't have a chance." "But it's beautiful," she points out, I stare at the shriveling cactus and try to see the beauty in it. "That's the way I want to go out," she decides. "What?" I ask. "Torn up and ripped open?" She shakes her head. "Totally exposed, with no regrets. You can tell this cactus lived; it has the battle scars to prove it. Why go out looking perfect and put together? It means you didn't experience anything. You didn't take any risks.

He loved politics in large part exactly because it meant time spent with men like Cactus Jack Garner(who would be remembered for observing that the vice presidency was not worth a pitcher of warm piss).

I am the Love Cactus. Make desert to me.

But, these days, fairy-tale endings come in all shapes and sizes. It’s okay for the princess to end up with the prince, it’s okay for her to end up with the footman, it’s okay for her to end up on her own. It’s also okay for her to end up with another princess, or with six cats, or to decide she wants to be a prince. None of those make her any more or less a feminist.

God’s mercy is greater than your sins or circumstances. His compassionate love embraces the cactus parts of you that you swear no one could hug. His grace celebrates the parts of you that nobody claps for. God loved you before you were even created, before you even knew of Him. As the Qur’an says, “It is He who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the believers, that they may add faith to their faith for to Allah belong the forces of the heavens and the Earth and Allah is full of Knowledge and Wisdom” (48:4).

Sean is easy, I get it. He’s a cactus and Elliot is an orchid.

Both a rose and a cactus have thorns, and while the rose may say, "I love you," the cactus says, "Fuck off." I think that's important to remember, and it's the ideal way to farm ducks.

Sad to say, in my four-thousand-plus years, the times I'd felt most at home had all happened during the past few months: at Camp Half-Blood, sharing a cabin with my demigod children; at the Waystation with Emma, Jo, Georgina, Leo and Calypso, all of us sitting around the kitchen table chopping vegetables from the garden for dinner; at the Cistern in Palm Springs with Meg, Grover, Mellie, Coach Hedge and a prickly assortment of cactus dryads; and now at Camp Jupiter, where the anxious, grief-stricken Romans, despite their many problems, despite the fact that I brought misery and disaster wherever I went, had welcomed me with respect, a room above their coffee shop and some lovely bed linen to wear. These places were homes. Whether I deserved to be part of them or not - that was a different question.

The cactus of the high desert is a small grubby, obscure and humble vegetable associated with cattle dung and overgrazing, interesting only when you tangle with it the wrong way. Yet from this nest of thorns, this snare of hooks and fiery spines, is born once each year a splendid flower. It is unpluckable and except to an insect almost unapproachable, yet soft, lovely, sweet, desirable, exemplifying better than the rose among thorns the unity of opposites

Il mio cactus ha il reggiseno.

Authenticity is not the search for uniqueness. An oak tree does not try to become an oak tree. A cactus does not try to become a cactus. All living things simply reach for nourishment - they reach for sun, reach for water, reach their roots deeper into the ground. By being open to receiving what they need, they become unique effortlessly. So let yourself fall open. Forget about crafting yourself a unique personality. Just allow. Allow in love. Allow pain. Allow desire. Allow learning. Allow healing. Allow frustration. Allow uncertainty. Allow yourself to experience what you must experience and learn what you need to learn, so that your uniqueness can emerge organically.

All down the stone steps on either side were periwinkles in full flower, and she could now see what it was that had caught at her the night before and brushed, wet and scented, across her face. It was wistaria. Wistaria and sunshine . . . she remembered the advertisement. Here indeed were both in profusion. The wistaria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps, and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning, and red and pink snapdragons, all outdoing each other in bright, fierce colour. The ground behind these flaming things dropped away in terraces to the sea, each terrace a little orchard, where among the olives grew vines on trellises, and fig-trees, and peach-trees, and cherry-trees. The cherry-trees and peach-trees were in blossom--lovely showers of white and deep rose-colour among the trembling delicacy of the olives; the fig-leaves were just big enough to smell of figs, the vine-buds were only beginning to show. And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea. Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers....

He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. ... This is the smell I love. This and fresh-cut clover, the crushed sage as you ride after cattle, wood-smoke and the burning leaves of autumn. That must be the odor of nostalgia, the smell of the smoke from the piles of raked leaves burning in the streets in the fall in Missoula. Which would you rather smell? Sweet grass the Indians used in their baskets? Smoked leather? The odor of the ground in the spring after rain? The smell of the sea as you walk through the gorse on a headland in Galicia? Or the wind from the land as you come in toward Cuba in the dark? That was the odor of cactus flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Or would you rather smell frying bacon in the morning when you are hungry? Or coffee in the morning? Or a Jonathan apple as you bit into it? Or a cider mill in the grinding, or bread fresh from the oven?

Every cactus blooms, some with little rooms, some give flowers that grow, others so small it won't show! Todo cacto floresce, com um pouco de calor, alguns dão flor que cresce, outros tão pequena flor!

Be courteous, kind, and forgiving. Be gentle and peaceful each day. Be warm and human and grateful, And have a good thing to say. Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike, Be witty and happy and wise. Be honest and love all your neighbors, Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant. Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus. Be dull and boring and omnipresent. Criticize things you don’t know about. Be oblong and have your knees removed. Be sure to stop at stop signs, And drive fifty-five miles an hour. Pick up hitchhikers foaming at the mouth, And when you get home get a master’s degree in geology. Be tasteless, rude, and offensive. Live in a swamp and be three-dimensional. Put a live chicken in your underwear. Go into a closet and suck eggs.

Cecilia had unleashed her blood in the bath, Amy Schraff said, because the ancient Romans had done that when life became unbearable, and she thought when Dominic heard about it, on the highway, amid the cactus, he would realize that it was she who loved him.

Arising there, a china cabinet, its gifts enclosed in a hug. Atop a pedestal table, hand-sanded and love-stained, Mom's Christmas cactus trails and cascades in forest greens awaiting pink-winged petals alighting in season, a crescendo of bloom framed an autumn-light meandering through remembrance like a dream.

You’re more like dun-dun-na-NAH Romantic Man whose superpower is hopeless romanticism. Your bat signal would be a big red heart over Gotham.

I’m built like a damsel in distress with the disposition of a cactus.

Because a novel. Because I was lost to begin with. Because everything we love we will lose. I am here because a cactus.

They say that difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. If I had known that you'd be my destination, I wouldn't have been afraid of the dark lonely nights. I wouldn't have cursed the bumpy ride through the cruel Demonland of my thoughts. I would've laughed through the pain if I had known that you were waiting for me on the other side of the cactus field

My heart beats to the rhythm of the windshield wipers. I’d better never drive in the desert, unless I want to die. Our relationship has one too many cactuses in it to be deserving of my love.

One day, I saw a tiny nopalito (cactus sapling) growing not too far from an old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house in Zacatecas. I told my mom that I would protect it from the wind and that I would water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and strong. My mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's a nopalito, it is it's struggle that makes it so beautiful...

No one could ever take your place, Spaghetti. We love you forever, Spaghetti. Not meatballs, not baked ziti, not even lasagna. Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti. We love you forever, Spaghetti. — Kids from Alcatraz (debut song—five downloads sold)

All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt. So at all events thought old Mr. Graysford and young Mr. Sorley, the devoted missionaries who lived out beyond the slaughterhouses, always travelled third on the railways, and never came to the club. In our Father's house are many mansions, they taught, and there alone will the incompatible multitudes of mankind be welcomed and soothed. Not one shall be turned away by the servants on that verandah, be he black or white, not one shall be kept standing who approaches with a loving heart. And why should the divine hospitality cease here? Consider, with all reverence, the monkeys. May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also? Old Mr. Graysford said No, but young Mr. Sorley, who was advanced, said Yes; he saw no reason why monkeys should not have their collateral share of bliss, and he had sympathetic discussions about them with his Hindu friends. And the jackals? Jackals were indeed less to Mr. Sorley's mind but he admitted that the mercy of God, being infinite, may well embrace all mammals. And the wasps? He became uneasy during the descent to wasps, and was apt to change the conversation. And oranges, cactuses, crystals and mud? and the bacteria inside Mr. Sorley? No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing.

Be courteous, kind, and forgiving. Be gentle and peaceful each day. Be warm and human and grateful. Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike, Be witty and happy and wise. Be honest and love all your neighbors. Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant. Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus. Be dull and boring and omnipresent. Criticize things that you don't know about. Be oblong and have your knees removed. Be sure to stop at stop signs, And drive fifty-five miles an hour. Pick up a hitchhiker foaming at the mouth. And when you get home get a master's degree in geology. Be tasteless , rude, and offensive. Live in a swamp and be three- dimensional. Put a live chicken in your underwear. Go into a closet and suck eggs. "Now, everyone," repeat Added- Ladies only: Never make love to bigfoot! Men only: Hello, my name is bigfoot.

Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset, There must be one (which, I am not sure) That I by now have walked for the last time Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws, Sets up a secret and unwavering scale for all the shadows, dreams, and forms Woven into the texture of this life. If there is a limit to all things and a measure And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness, Who will tell us to whom in this house We without knowing it have said farewell? Through the dawning window night withdraws And among the stacked books which throw Irregular shadows on the dim table, There must be one which I will never read. There is in the South more than one worn gate, With its cement urns and planted cactus, Which is already forbidden to my entry, Inaccessible, as in a lithograph. There is a door you have closed forever And some mirror is expecting you in vain; To you the crossroads seem wide open, Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus. There is among all your memories one Which has now been lost beyond recall. You will not be seen going down to that fountain Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon. You will never recapture what the Persian Said in his language woven with birds and roses, When, in the sunset, before the light disperses, You wish to give words to unforgettable things. And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake, All that vast yesterday over which today I bend? They will be as lost as Carthage, Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt. At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent Murmur of crowds milling and fading away; They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by; Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.

Don’t ever let anyone make you think you’re not good enough or smart enough or talented enough or brave enough. I let people make me feel that way. They hurt me. They wounded me. On the outside. On the inside. I carried that hurt with me my whole life. I never had anyone around to tell me that even my insignificant life was worth something. But you have so many people who love you and believe in you. And you are worth more than you know. Don’t let any one person take that away.

And now it is said of me That my love is nothing because I have borne no children, Or because I have fathered none; That I twisted the twig in my hands And cut the blossom free too soon from the seed; That I lay across the fire, And snuffed it dead sooner than draft or rain. But I have turned away, and drawn myself Upright to walk along the room alone. Across the dark the spines of cactus plants Remind me how I go—aloof, obscure, Indifferent to the words the children chalk Against my house and down the garden walls. They cannot tear the garden out of me, Nor smear my love with names. Love is a cliff, A clear, cold curve of stone, mottled by stars, smirched by the morning, carved by the dark sea Till stars and dawn and waves can slash no more, Till the rock’s heart is found and shaped again. I keep the house and say no words, the evening Falls like a petal down the shawl of trees. I light the fire and see the blossom dance On air alone; I will not douse that flame, That searing flower; I will burn in it. I will not banish love to empty rain. For I know that I am asked to hate myself For their sweet sake Who sow the world with child. I am given to burn on the dark fire they make With their sly voices. But I have burned already down to bone. There is a fire that burns beyond the names Of sludge and filth of which this world is made. Agony sears the dark flesh of the body, And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise Above the earth, above the sacrifice; Until my soul flares outward like a blue Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air: Free of the body’s work of twisted iron.

I used to think that what distinguished Edward's experience of childhood from my own was the way in which we responded to my father's drinking. I'm sure an amateur psychologist would claim that it caused me to be serious beyond my years, to want to be in complete control of my life, to judge myself - and others - harshly. Equally, they would claim that it caused Edward to be impulsive, irresponsible and needy. I suspect that such an analysis might be more accurate than I'm prepared to admit. But I'm not sure, now, that that was the only distinguishing feature. I think that what set my childhood apart from Edward's was that I was never loved, and my brother was.

[O]ur segment of the picture consists only of tired and dirty soldiers who are alive and don't want to die; of long darkened convoys in the middle of the night; of shocked silent men wandering back down the hill from battle; of chow lines and atabrine tablets and foxholes and burning tanks and Arabs holding up eggs and the rustle of high-flown shells; of jeeps and petrol dumps and smelly bedding rolls and C rations and cactus patches and blown bridges and dead mules and hospital tenets and shirt collars greasy-black from months of wearing; and of laughter too, and anger and wine and lovely flowers and constant cussing. All these it is composed of; and of graves and graves and graves.

Kami Castillo My Books Browse ▾ Community ▾ All down the stone steps on either side were periwinkles in full flower, and she could now see what it was that had caught at her the night before and brushed, wet and scented, across her face. It was wistaria. Wistaria and sunshine . . . she remembered the advertisement. Here indeed were both in profusion. The wistaria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps, and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning, and red and pink snapdragons, all outdoing each other in bright, fierce colour. The ground behind these flaming things dropped away in terraces to the sea, each terrace a little orchard, where among the olives grew vines on trellises, and fig-trees, and peach-trees, and cherry-trees. The cherry-trees and peach-trees were in blossom--lovely showers of white and deep rose-colour among the trembling delicacy of the olives; the fig-leaves were just big enough to smell of figs, the vine-buds were only beginning to show. And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea. Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers....

Lolita credeva, con una sorta di celestiale fiducia, in tutte le réclame e i consigli che apparivano su “Movie Love” o “Screen Land” – lo Sterasil stermina i foruncoli, o “Niente camicia fuori dai jeans, ragazze: Jill dice che proprio non si deve!”. Se un cartello stradale diceva “VISITATE IL NOSTRO NEGOZIO DI REGALI” dovevamo visitarlo, dovevamo comprare le curiosità indiane, le bambole, la bigotteria di rame, le caramelle a forma di cactus. Le parole “novità e souvenir” l’ipnotizzavano con la loro cadenza anapestica. Se l’insegna di un caffè proclamava Bibite Ghiacciate, automaticamente Lo si eccitava, anche se le bibite erano ghiacciate dappertutto. Erano dedicate a lei, tutte quelle reclamé: la consumatrice ideale, soggetto e oggetto di ogni odioso manifesto.

Ho imparato che il coraggio non ha molto a che fare con la virilità, ma piuttosto con il pericolo e che non c'è niente di più pericoloso del restare davanti a un magnifico cactus per fargli una dichiarazione d'amore, a parte forse la guerra e le eliminatorie del campionato di Hokey. Le dirò che essere in pericolo al suo cospetto è la cosa più meravigliosa di tutte e le dirò che se mi metto a piangere spero che capirà che sono lacrime di coraggio e che scommetto che se le conservassimo in un boccale con quelle di mio padre e quelle di mio fratello e quelle dei poliziotti in incognito dopo una retata straordinaria, il boccale traboccherebbe e il suo contenuto si spanderebbe per terra tra le crepe dell'asfalto, nei fossati e sotto la terra e il giorno dopo sboccerebbe un fiore, niente di spettacolare nè di esotico, un piccolo dente di leone tutto storto, ma sincero, e io glielo regalerei e le direi ecco il fiore del coraggio, è per te, ti amo.

Are we to treat persons known for liars and strife-makers as the children of the devil or not? Are we to turn away from them, and refuse to acknowledge them, rousing an ignorant strife of tongues concerning our conduct? Are we guilty of connivance, when silent as to the ambush whence we know the wicked arrow privily shot? Are we to call the traitor to account? or are we to give warning of any sort? I have no answer. Each must carry the question that perplexes to the Light of the World. To what purpose is the spirit of God promised to them that ask it, if not to help them order their way aright? One thing is plain—that we must love the strife-maker; another is nearly as plain—that, if we do not love him, we must leave him alone; for without love there can be no peace-making, and words will but occasion more strife. To be kind neither hurts nor compromises. Kindness has many phases, and the fitting form of it may avoid offence, and must avoid untruth. We must not fear what man can do to us, but commit our way to the Father of the Family. We must be nowise anxious to defend ourselves; and if not ourselves because God is our defence, then why our friends? is he not their defence as much as ours? Commit thy friend's cause also to him who judgeth righteously. Be ready to bear testimony for thy friend, as thou wouldst to receive the blow struck at him; but do not plunge into a nest of scorpions to rescue his handkerchief. Be true to him thyself, nor spare to show thou lovest and honourest him; but defence may dishonour: men may say, What! is thy friend's esteem then so small? He is unwise who drags a rich veil from a cactus-bush.

I had a dream about you. You wanted to go for a walk, and I wanted to start a parade. I suggested we team up, but you said you’d rather have sex with a cactus. I was taken aback, but then I offered to introduce you to a Congressman, because I think he could really benefit from your kind of loving.

You don’t have to stay in town,” Liv said. “You could sleep in Gran’s and Granddad’s room until they get back.” “No, I couldn’t do that.” Shane shook his head violently. “Wouldn’t be respectful.” “There’s a bunkhouse near the barn,” Sophie pointed through the window. “You could move in there.” “That’s an excellent idea.” Jess beamed. “At least for this week while you’re not in school.” “I don’t like to put my troubles on you.” Shane shook his head again. “Never know what Pa’s likely to do.” “We’ll share our troubles,” Jess said gently. “The girls’ grandfather called, and he thinks we should bring the horses up to the ranch. I agree, especially after the girls told me about the foal being attacked by a coyote yesterday.” “I hear you,” Shane said. “I guess I’d better round ’em up and bring ’em in.” Jess nodded. “Take Cactus Jack or Cisco for now. When you bring in the herd, choose another horse to ride till Navajo is better.” “You can take Cactus Jack,” Liv volunteered. “Then Sophie can go with you.” Sometimes Sophie felt as if Liv really did understand her, after all. Liv loved riding Cactus Jack in the desert, and she was giving her a chance to be alone with Shane.

What a mess I made of things,” Sophie sighed at last, smoothing the brush down Cisco’s side. “I practically threw Shane into Cheyenne’s arms. Why did I have to go and embarrass him in front of everybody?” “At least Shane isn’t hopelessly in love with someone else.” Liv stared straight ahead, the currycomb motionless in her hand. “Did you see the way he looked at her?” Sophie knew Liv was talking about Temo. “I saw.” Liv leaned against Cactus Jack’s warm chestnut shoulder for comfort. “It’s so hopeless. Temo would never look at me like that in a million years,” she said sadly. “And Dayna’s not good enough for him.” “I know,” said Sophie, straightening Cisco’s mane, “but I feel sort of sorry for her, too. She’s been hiding her feelings for Temo, maybe even from herself. Out there, in the cave, when he was helping her, there wasn’t any place to hide. She’s in trouble. I don’t think her father would let his daughter date a lowly cowhand.” “I know!” was Liv’s anguished cry. “But I don’t care! She’s rich and can have everything she wants. Why should she have Temo, too?

What would six dollars and fifty cents buy? Not a tape deck for Marla. Maybe a Christmas flower arrangement special for Mom. But she loved roses. He’d buy her one long-stemmed rose and get Dad a cactus plant. Something with prickers that you better not touch should suit him.

Deserts never believe in cactus. seeds so.

》Insidious《 "Why are you so cold hearted", she asks. Words of wise say 'There is a pagoda inside every human being'. I want to see. She drops a destination pin twisted at end. In his silence, she sinks into abyss inside him, travelling canyons, caverns and reaches a red dead barren land like amidst of kangaroo country. The only things one see here are Zigzag paths created by Horned vipers, young barrel cactus and corpus of human emotions. "Come under the shelter of this Uluru hill", a thunderous voice she hears. This is blood which trickles like sand in hour glass. The lightning in anonymity is the veins where it flows. That dark clot moving towards mind is sudden anger, spreading in entire body and generates uncontrolled hypertension. Deceit, dishonesty, falsity and hypocrisy of travellers from ages has evolved this place. "But.. but where is that heart soft as fairyfloss? Let me go inside that rock" she urges. You don't need to go there. Purify your heart as of a child in cradle. You will inhale the fumes of fragrance approaching you like incense stick. Then again visit and observe this place, no less than Garden of Eden.

Hands shaking, she walked around the desk. Picked up the postcard, gritty with dirt from the floorboards. Not a cactus. A canyon. Red and gold and burnt umber. She turned it over. Roses are so overdone. And when it comes to thorns, they’re second best.

It is dying””, I say. “When the center is exposed like that, it doesn`t have a chance”. “But it is beautiful”, she points out. I stare at the shriveling cactus and try to see the beauty in it. “ That`s the way I want to go out”, she decides. “What?”, I ask. “Torn up and ripped open?” She shakes her head. “Totally exposed, with no regrets. You can tell this cactus lived; it has the battle, scars to prove it. Why go out looking perfect and put together? It means you didn`t experienced anything. You didn`t take any risks.

Twelve years ago I left Boston and New York, and moved east and west at the same time. East, to a little village in Devon, England, a town I’ve been familiar with for years, since my friends Brian and Wendy Froud and Alan Lee all live there. It had long been my dream to live in England, so I finally bought a little old cottage over there. But I decided, both for visa and health reasons, living there half the year would be better than trying to cope with cold, wet Dartmoor winters. At that point, Beth Meacham had moved out to Arizona, and I discovered how wonderful the Southwest is, particularly in the wintertime. Now I spend every winter-spring in Tucson and every summer-autumn in England. Both places strongly affect my writing and my painting. They’re very opposite landscapes, and each has a very different mythic history. In Tucson, the population is a mix of Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Euro-Americans of various immigrant backgrounds — so the folklore of the place is a mix of all those things, as well as the music and the architecture. The desert has its own colors, light, and rhythms. In Devon, by contrast, it’s all Celtic and green and leafy, and the color palette of the place comes straight out of old English paintings — which is more familiar to me, growing up loving the Pre-Raphaelites and England’s ‘Golden Age’ illustrators. I’ve learned to love an entirely different palette in Arizona, where the starkness of the desert is offset by the brilliance of the light, the cactus in bloom, and the wild colors of Mexican decor.

I make love like the desert. Ever implemented a cactus during foreplay?

Good afternoon,” came a pleasant feminine voice. It was the oldest Hathaway sister, Amelia. She was shorter and more voluptuous than her younger sister. There was a warm maternal air about her, as if she were prepared to ladle out sympathy and comfort at a moment’s notice. “Mrs. Rohan,” Christopher murmured, and bowed. “Sir,” she replied with a questioning lilt. Although they had met before, she clearly didn’t recognize him. “This is Captain Phelan, Amelia,” Beatrix said. The blue eyes widened. “What a lovely surprise,” she exclaimed, giving Christopher her hand. “Captain Phelan and I dislike each other,” Beatrix told her. “In fact, we’re sworn enemies.” Christopher glanced at her quickly. “When did we become sworn enemies?” Ignoring him, Beatrix said to her sister, “Regardless, he’s staying for tea.” “Wonderful,” Amelia said equably. “Why are you enemies, dear?” “I met him yesterday while I was out walking,” Beatrix explained. “And he called Medusa a ‘garden pest,’ and faulted me for bringing her to a picnic.” Amelia smiled at Christopher. “Medusa has been called many worse things around here, including ‘diseased pincushion,’ and ‘perambulating cactus.’” “I’ve never understood,” Beatrix said, “why people have such unreasonable dislike of hedgehogs.” “They dig up the garden,” Amelia said, “and they’re not what one would call cuddlesome. Captain Phelan has a point, dear--you might have brought your cat to the picnic instead.” “Don’t be silly. Cats don’t like picnics nearly as much as hedgehogs.” The conversation proceeded at such quicksilver speed that there was little opportunity for Christopher to break in. Somehow he managed to find an opening. “I apologized to Miss Hathaway for my remarks,” he told Amelia uncomfortably. This earned an approving glance. “Delightful. A man who’s not afraid to apologize. But really, apologies are wasted on our family--we’re usually pleased by the things we should be offended by, and vice versa.

You were, are cactus tourism. meeting you: granular fractals borrowed from oceans.

That’s the first time you’ve ever said ‘happily-ever-after’ without rolling your eyes.” “I know. I think you and your parents are contagious. And my immunizations are wearing off.

I have many lovers. Where ever I look, I find them. There is no place devoid of them. They are everywhere: In the enchanting Cottonwood trees, The rivers, the rocky roads, the hills, the mystic trails, The snow capped mountains, The skies, the clouds, the soaring Eagles, The blackness of night, as black as the Raven, The absolute brave Cactus, Listening to me, and the whispers I breathe. Where ever I, look I find them. There is no place devoid of them. My lovers are everywhere. They are everywhere: In the rains, the freezing winds, The sun, the moonlight, The darkness of despair, The days of pain and sorrow, They never leave me, or betray me, Or ever forsake me, Even in my unfaithfulness, They remain mine. Am I blessed, crazy, or blind? However much I dare, Even in those careless moments; they care. Where ever I look, I find them, There is no place devoid of them, My lovers are everywhere. They are everywhere: I close my eye’s, I see them, They appear to me patiently, like some ancient melody, in my waking dreams, they are like wise prophets, twirling in compassionate dances of forgiveness. Allowing me my mistakes of existence, They give me, ‘me’, Reach for my fears, cradle and hold me. They are everywhere. I will regenerate, and shine through their presence. Through their guidance, from their quiet empowerment, I will gather myself, pick up my pride, Understand ‘life’, and remember reality. Finally, when my ‘being’ remains not with me, they will once again redefine, re-collect me, recreate the aura around me, find another place to replant me. They are everywhere. No place is devoid of them. Countless lovers. Their love: Omnipresent. Only if one can ‘see’, These lovers are everywhere .

He’d never, in his entire life, thought he’d ever be on the receiving end of a vibrator used as a martial arts weapon.

The husband said, “Though your brain can give you good advice, your heart is the only organ you should listen to about love.” And the wife finished, “But always remember to go with your gut on when you should heed that advice.

If the girl next door had an unpredictable, feisty twin sister, this woman would be her. With her adorably stubborn frown and quiet, kitten gaze still mulishly refusing to look directly at him again, she was drawing him in—hook, line, and sinker.

But then that bubble popped when I found out he was the one who’d taken over the shop space next door.” Thankfully, the holidays had hit shortly after they’d discovered that little detail. She ended up getting slammed with the overflowing winter break pub crowd as a result, and he’d had family things to attend to in addition to all the final preparations getting his chocolate shop ready for its grand opening. Then after nearly a week

Basically, Valentine’s Day isn’t a day to exchange gifts between couples. Rather, only the women give the men gifts, namely dark or milk chocolate. The exact reverse holds true on March 14th, a holiday called White Day there since traditionally, white chocolate is what the men reciprocate with...although I’ve read that a gift worth three times more than the Valentine gift is an acceptable alternative.

Loving you is something I can’t not do in the same way I can’t just stop needing oxygen. Not knowing how long I’m going to keep breathing isn’t going to stop me from taking my next breath.

you until you’re fully recovered. Don’t freak out,

It wasn’t my history to tell.

they agreed to start the shop together way back in college, so did his window to let her in on the joke. And breaking the news all these years later sure as hell wasn’t an option, not with her being his best friend and the closest thing he had to a sister now. No, the only way he’d tell her that the homers they discussed all the time were...errr, another kind of home run would be through a ‘Dear Quinn’ letter. A lovely posthumous one by certified mail. In the meantime, Luke was just going to have

She looked relaxed and free in a way I’ve never seen before. Strangely, she looked more herself than she did in Chicago. She was smiling and laughing, dancing with me like she’d been doing it all her life. She tries to be so rigid and stern, but that’s not her, not really. The real Riona is adventurous, climbing on a horse when she’s never been within ten feet of one before. She’s graceful, spinning around in my arms like she was born to dance. She’s perceptive, getting to know Bo when Bo’s as prickly as a cactus and can’t get along with anybody, including her own damn best friend. That’s what I see when I look at Riona. A woman who can be anything and do anything she wants. But she seems determined to deny it. I felt her pulling away from me as we danced. I saw that resentment flare up in her eyes again, that refusal to let herself enjoy something that she was obviously loving just a few minutes before. I don’t understand her. But goddamn do I want to. I want it more than anything. I want to crack the code of her psyche. I want to win her over. I want to make her mine.

The Gloriosa Superba is native to South India. During the autumn rains you find it shooting in the lane bordered thickly by huge cactus and aloe. Here and there you see it in the open field. In the field it will have a chance, you think; but in the lane, crowded down by cactus and aloe, great assertive things with most fierce thorn and spike, what can a poor lily do but give in and disappear? A few weeks afterward you see a punch of color on the field, you go and gather handfuls of lovely lilies, and your revel in the tangle of color, a little bewilderment of delight.

Agnes had fallen in love with appliqué, thanks to her wise, patient teacher, and she made more complex and intricate quilts in the years that had followed, but the Christmas Cactus quilt would always be precious to her, not only because she had discovered a new artistic path by mastering appliqué, but also because Edna’s generosity of spirit inspired her to live her own life free of judgment and bitterness.

Birdie was up before dawn. She’d left her window open all night, and the orchard had filled her room with the smells of swelling green peaches, shaggy pecan bark, and magnolia leaves. Birdie wasn’t sure why, but it was all mixed up with the memory of jacarandas, dry sand, cactus, cayenne, cinnamon.

At least each course was better than the last. The ingredients were fresh, everything was made from scratch, and she had also planned the perfect wine pairing. He had never had mole with fish, as it was usually served with chicken. And for the first time in his life, he actually enjoyed eating cactus, a feat that even some of the best chefs in the world who had cooked for him hadn't managed to accomplish.

Honor He Wrote Sonnet 47 Be the cactus, a proof of unsubmission, And blossom amidst the fiercest environment. In a world primed with the probability of hate, Be love impossible and lift all lost in lament. Aspire to expire for a cause uncausable, And your heart will shine with light untamable. When all go berserk for sect as bozos on booze, Be the sectless sapiens and stand indivisible. When all are possessed with the libido of liberty, Be the first one standing, responsible 'n righteous. In a world founded on unfounded assumptions, Be the first ink of understanding unpresumptuous. Blockheads and blockhearts have only blocked amity. It's time to unblock, unfold and undivide our psyche.

As a protective guardian of the same anatomy, and an avid non-fan of any variety of jockstrap cuisine, you have my sincere appreciation.

Allah's compassionate love embraces those cactus parts of you that you swear no one could hug. His grace celebrates the parts of you that nobody claps for. You were loved by Allah before you were created, even before you were born.

Five days after he came upstairs and opened the box of condoms, four days after they played pinball, Adelaide hadn’t heard from Jack. So she walked over to Uncle Benny’s. It did occur to her that their love might be a delicate flower that would wilt from too much attention. On the other hand, maybe it was a delicate flower that would die if she neglected it. Of course, Adelaide would rather think their connection was not a delicate flower at all, but a sturdy freaking cactus of a love, hardy and strong, able to withstand neglect and hard times—but then again, cacti are prickly. You need to approach them gently. Still, she went over. She wanted to see him.

You’re not a prickly cactus, Willow. You’re not any harder to love than I am.

What would have happened, I wondered, if Clover and Jotter never ran the river—if they had listened to the critics and doomsayers, or to their own doubts? They brought knowledge, energy, and passion to their botanical work, but also a new perspective. Before them, men had gone down the Colorado to sketch dams, plot railroads, dig gold, and daydream little Swiss chalets stuck up on the cliffs. They saw the river for what it could be, harnessed for human use. Clover and Jotter saw it as it was, a living system made up of flower, leaf, and thorn, lovely in its fierceness, worthy of study for its own sake. They knew every saltbush twig and stickery cactus was, in its own way, as much a marvel as Boulder Dam—shaped to survive against all the odds. In the United States, half of all bachelor’s degrees in science, engineering, and mathematics go to women, yet these women go on to earn only 74 percent of a man’s salary in those fields. A recent study found that it will be another two decades before women and men publish papers at equal rates in the field of botany, a field traditionally welcoming to women. It may take four decades for chemistry, and three centuries for physics. Stereotypes linger of scientists as white-coated, wild-haired men, and they limit the ways in which young people envision their futures. In a famous, oft-replicated study, 70 percent of six-year-old girls, asked to draw a picture of a scientist, draw a woman, but only 25 percent do so at the age of sixteen.

Where I walked it was open. The openness was part of the dharma I could not penetrate. There was nothing to indicate that this object rather than that one was significant. A person could go crazy not knowing where to look. The openness imposed an obligation. I had to look at objects and past them, simultaneously. It was certain: no thing was an end. Behind this cactus was another. A rock that stopped my eye one moment became trivial the next. I was obliged to grow indifferent even to a sight I loved. I had to see that the place on which I thought my eyes could rest, they could not rest. Where I walked it was trackless. If I looked down at the path, I saw only the piece of trail where I was: definite, but incomplete. If I looked ahead, I saw an entire landscape, but I was outside of it. Ahead, everything was visible—the trail across the valley on flat ground, the grasses, the century plants—but it lacked depth. All I could count on was the heat, which I couldn't see. If here was where I had to stop, the heat would grind me into the dust on which I walked. - Beautiful Work: A Meditation on Pain

Yet they had loved one another! But it was as though their love were wandering over some desolate cactus plain, far from here, lost, stumbling and falling, attacked by wild beasts, calling for help—dying, to sigh at last, with a kind of weary peace: Oaxaca.

Not all love is a bed of rose, And not every flower glows. Even the cactus with its thorn Can make an impact to reborn! Nem todo amor é um mar de rosa, nem toda flor é assim tao cheirosa. Mas até o cacto com tanto espinho causa um impacto em seu caminho!

One beautiful day, a day with a clear sky and soft sun rays shining about to warm the hearts of both young and old, my special bird released one of its colourful, soft, feathers. The feather brushed my face and made my heart start beating hard, racing with a rhythm only this special bird could hear and understand. Despite the fact that I am not a bird, the pull of our destiny was strong and it forced this special bird to land and build a nest on me … a Cactus tree.

In the mist of the heavy shelling and bombing, my terrified mother worried for the safety of her newborn. She did not know what to do; she worried that if one of the bombs fell on the camp, they would all die, and while she was worried about the life of her daughters and herself, she was more worried about her fragile, newborn baby boy. She wanted him to live and survive this savage war. Without any logical thinking, during the heavy shelling on the second night of the war, my mother fed me well and decided to protect me the only way she knew how. She put me in a straw bassinet and then she wrapped and covered it with a few blankets and placed it in a low, sandy spot under a heavy bush in the middle distance between the camp structure and the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. She was frantic, shivering and crying as she did this. She felt like burying her own child alive. But while she was torn, at the same time she was full of hope that I would have a better chance to survive the night if I was not inside the camp. She was indescribably scared, and continuously prayed to God to sacrifice her life instead of mine. My mother left me outside under the gloomy sky for the entire night. When the navy shelling stopped in the next dawn, she ran, shivering to check on me. Filled with horror and guilt, slowly she uncovered my face. I opened my eyes and looked into her face, recognizing her immediately. Then I started crying for milk. Nana screamed and cried from happiness that I was alive, scaring me more and more. Then, she pulled me out of the bassinet and hugged me hard to her chest, kissing me nonstop.

Mysterious forces steer people to meet and love another soul. In my case, it was not because I chose Mona, my wife; rather, it was because fate was stronger than me, and God always manages our lives to the better. While I was busy trying to build my life and my career, my angel bird was on a noble mission to affect my life through great sacrifices of her own. The culture I was born in respects the sanctity of women and the value of family life. I was raised in a female-dominated environment. I had a strong grandmother, a resilient mother and five sisters. I was raised to value loyalty and faithful commitment to one woman at a time. Following the principles of my faith, during my teenage youth, I did not know any woman physically or get involved in any serious relationships. Yes, during my university years, I met my angel sweetheart, but I treated her with respect and behaved in the way I was taught. My intentions toward her were good and I made them clear to her. I treated her as an equal and made sure she knew I valued her thoughts. I may sound old-fashioned, but I do believe the adage that ‘the woman is the temple of the man’. Mona was most certainly my temple.

This beautiful mystery woman had a very white complexion and wore her blond, silky hair tied back from her face in a braid, which she had tucked under her fur coat. As she got closer, I could see that her facial features were not detailed in the way of an earthly human face. She had beautiful, small eyes and a very small nose with a tip that somehow looked unfinished. It was the same with her tiny mouth, something about the corners looked unfinished as well. I was frozen and I did not know what to do. Honestly, my mind stopped functioning and seemed to travel far away, wandering over my head in search of an explanation or an answer for this apparition. And then this beautiful mystery woman arrived in front of me and inexplicably hugged me very tight, with unusual passion for a stranger. With what felt like the deepest, genuine love, the beautiful mystery woman placed her forehead very tightly against the right side of my neck and then she raised her head until her warm right cheek was tight against my right cheek, so tight I could feel the bones of her face. Her left arm held me tight around my waist, while her right arm was over my left shoulder, squeezing me from behind my neck. She did not say ‘hi’ or any word; she just kept holding me tight that I started to feel her body heat.

The scent of cactus flower still lingered in the air, although it was many hours since she had thrown the golden flower into the incinerator. When she walked out onto the terrace, the scent became even more powerful and she realised that it was being wafted to her on the evening breeze from the eastern mountain. The whole upper slope, above the grassline, was a mass of blooming cactus. She could no more rid Isis of the scent than she could rid herself of her feelings towards Mark - unless she made Guardian fire the whole mountainside and destroy the flowers. He would do it if she were to ask him. He would take away the memory of her love for Mark too, if she were to ask it of him. She walked to the edge of the terrace and looked across the river valley. To do violence to the mountains and the creatures that lived there, just because she could not bear the scent of the cactus flower, would be hideously wrong. To do violence to her mind, so as to forget her unhappiness, would be equally wrong.

time, in fact. But not in a dirty way. He just

I've already told her I love her. I love this nesting doll of souls that rides beside me. And I'll show her every way I can until she believes me...And if I'm careful, or lucky, someday I might manage to dodge the needles on the cactus and hold her hand. Just the thought of watching the sunset while holding Fury's hand has a goofy smile sliding onto my face.