Captain Claw Quotes

He gave me a look of mingled anticipation, curiosity, and compassion, like a cat with a captive bird in its claws.

My lord,' replied El-ahrairah, 'I have come to give you my life. My life for my people.' The Black Rabbit drew his claws along the floor. Bargains, bargains, El-ahrairah,' he said. 'There is not a day or a night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit's. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here what is is what must be.

I thought vampires could rematerialize in their clothes," said Angua accusingly. "Otto Chriek can!" "Females can't. We don't know why. It's probably part of the whole underwired-nightdress business. That's where you score again, of course. When you're in one hundred and fifty bat bodies, it's quite hard to remember to keep two of them carrying a pair of pants." Sally looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. "Look, I can see where this is going. It's going to be about Captain Carrot, isn't it . . . " "I saw the way you were smiling at him!" "I'm sorry! We can be very personable! It's a vampire thing!" "You were so keen to impress him, eh!" "And you aren't? He's the kind of many anyone would want to impress!" They watched each other warily. "He is mine, you know," said Angua, feeling the nascent claws strain under her fingernails. "You're his, you mean!" said Sally. "You know it works like that. You trail after him." "I'm sorry! It's a werewolf thing!" Anuga yelled. "Hold it!" Sally thrust both hands in front of her in a gesture of peace. "There's something we'd better sort before this goes any further!" "Yeah?" "Yes. We're both wearing nothing, we're standing in what, you may have noticed, is increasingly turning into mud, and we're squaring up to fight. Okay. But there's something missing, yes?" "And that is . . . ?" "A paying audience? We could make a fortune." Sally winked. "Or we could do the job we came here to do.

And then, sir,' he added, 'you would oblige me infinitely by marrying us, if you have the leisure.' Captain Broke paused for a moment: was this a strangely-timed pleasantry? Judging from the Doctor's demeanour and his pale, determined face, it was not. Should he wish him joy of the occasion? Perhaps, in view of Jack's silence and Maturin's cool, matter-of-fact, unfestive manner, that might be inappropriate. He remembered his own wedding-day and the desperate feeling of being caught on a leeshore in a gale of wind, unable to claw off, tide setting hard against him, anchors coming home. He said, 'I should be very happy, sir. But I have never performed the manoeuvre -that is, the ceremony - and I am not sure of the forms nor of the extent of my powers. You will allow me to consult the Printed Instructions, and let you know how far I may be of service to you and the lady.' Stephen bowed and walked off.

Listen! Wister, get on your damned feet!’ She pulled a ring of keys from her belt. ‘Weapons locker, floor of my cabin! Take Heck Urse – Heck! Never mind bandaging up Gust, he’ll live – go with Wister. Break out the cutlasses—’ ‘Pardon, Captain, we don’t have any cutlasses.’ Sater scowled at Wister. ‘We don’t? Fine, break out the truncheons, pins and the spears for propelling boarders—’ ‘We ain’t got those neither.’ ‘So what in Hood’s name is in my weapons locker?’ ‘You ain’t looked?’ Sater took a half step closer to Wister, the sword in her hand trembling. ‘If I knew, you brainless mushroom, I wouldn’t be asking you now, would I?’ ‘Fine. Old Captain Urbot, he kept his private stock of rum down there.’ Sater clawed at her face for a moment. ‘All right,’ she sighed, defeated, ‘break out the rum.

Why can't we sit together? What's the point of seat reservations,anyway? The bored woman calls my section next,and I think terrible thoughts about her as she slides my ticket through her machine. At least I have a window seat. The middle and aisle are occupied with more businessmen. I'm reaching for my book again-it's going to be a long flight-when a polite English accent speaks to the man beside me. "Pardon me,but I wonder if you wouldn't mind switching seats.You see,that's my girlfriend there,and she's pregnant. And since she gets a bit ill on airplanes,I thought she might need someone to hold back her hair when...well..." St. Clair holds up the courtesy barf bag and shakes it around. The paper crinkles dramatically. The man sprints off the seat as my face flames. His pregnant girlfriend? "Thank you.I was in forty-five G." He slides into the vacated chair and waits for the man to disappear before speaking again. The guy onhis other side stares at us in horror,but St. Clair doesn't care. "They had me next to some horrible couple in matching Hawaiian shirts. There's no reason to suffer this flight alone when we can suffer it together." "That's flattering,thanks." But I laugh,and he looks pleased-until takeoff, when he claws the armrest and turns a color disturbingy similar to key lime pie. I distract him with a story about the time I broke my arm playing Peter Pan. It turned out there was more to flying than thinking happy thoughts and jumping out a window. St. Clair relaxes once we're above the clouds. Time passes quickly for an eight-hour flight. We don't talk about what waits on the other side of the ocean. Not his mother. Not Toph.Instead,we browse Skymall. We play the if-you-had-to-buy-one-thing-off-each-page game. He laughs when I choose the hot-dog toaster, and I tease him about the fogless shower mirror and the world's largest crossword puzzle. "At least they're practical," he says. "What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh,I'm sorry Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall." "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding "unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff.Like...failed French tests.Or illegal moonshining equipment." He doubles over with that wonderful boyish laughter, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub." He wipes a tear from his cheek. "Ooo,look! A Mount Rushmore garden statue. Just what you need,Anna.And only forty dollars! A bargain!" We get stumped on the page of golfing accessories, so we switch to drawing rude pictures of the other people on the plane,followed by rude pictures of Euro Disney Guy. St. Clair's eyes glint as he sketches the man falling down the Pantheon's spiral staircase. There's a lot of blood. And Mickey Mouse ears. After a few hours,he grows sleepy.His head sinks against my shoulder. I don't dare move.The sun is coming up,and the sky is pink and orange and makes me think of sherbet.I siff his hair. Not out of weirdness.It's just...there. He must have woken earlier than I thought,because it smells shower-fresh. Clean. Healthy.Mmm.I doze in and out of a peaceful dream,and the next thing I know,the captain's voice is crackling over the airplane.We're here. I'm home.

Combine all of these frustrated expectations with the fact that Captain Hook is Mr. Darling, and you might well consider clawing your way out of this plot. To say that James Barrie acutely depicted the suffocating, limited opportunities for expression available to bourgeois men of his period is like saying that Peter Pan can fly. Mr. Darling demonstrates the multitude of ways in which sending men to offices where they judge their success through the respect and fear they engender in underlings and are rewarded for speaking languages that their wives and children cannot understand is a remarkably bad idea. Is it any surprise that this man who cannot fix his tie and tricks his younger son into taking medicine winds up living in a doghouse? Absolutely not. But how different is Mr. Darling from Hook? Both men steal for a living, one through the august institution of a bank and the other more honestly as a pirate. Both men are disturbed by the wanton lighthearted disregard that children show for their accomplishments. Both men are terrified by what other people think of them and change their behavior accordingly. Both men want children to love them. Both men are locked in a struggle to the death with time and responsibility. Suddenly, the banker and the pirate, though clad very differently, seem to have a lot in common, and those similarities serve as a commentary on the stringent boundaries placed on men by the cultural expectations of the early twentieth century.

Wherever you go, Provincetown will always take you back, at whatever age and in whatever condition. Because time moves somewhat differently there, it is possible to return after ten years or more and run into an acquaintance, on Commercial or at the A&P, who will ask mildly, as if he’d seen you the day before yesterday, what you’ve been doing with yourself. The streets of Provincetown are not in any way threatening, at least not to those with an appetite for the full range of human passions. If you grow deaf and blind and lame in Provincetown, some younger person with a civic conscience will wheel you wherever you need to go; if you die there, the marshes and dunes are ready to receive your ashes. While you’re alive and healthy, for as long as it lasts, the golden hands of the clock tower at Town Hall will note each hour with an electric bell as we below, on our purchase of land, buy or sell, paint or write or fish for bass, or trade gossip on the post office steps. The old bayfront houses will go on dreaming, at least until the emptiness between their boards proves more durable than the boards themselves. The sands will continue their slow devouring of the forests that were the Pilgrims’ first sight of North America, where man, as Fitzgerald put it, “must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” The ghost of Dorothy Bradford will walk the ocean floor off Herring Cove, draped in seaweed, surrounded by the fleeting silver lights of fish, and the ghost of Guglielmo Marconi will tap out his messages to those even longer dead than he. The whales will breach and loll in their offshore world, dive deep into black canyons, and swim south when the time comes. Herons will browse the tidal pools; crabs with blue claws tipped in scarlet will scramble sideways over their own shadows. At sunset the dunes will take on their pink-orange light, and just after sunset the boats will go luminous in the harbor. Ashes of the dead, bits of their bones, will mingle with the sand in the salt marsh, and wind and water will further disperse the scraps of wood, shell, and rope I’ve used for Billy’s various memorials. After dark the raccoons and opossums will start on their rounds; the skunks will rouse from their burrows and head into town. In summer music will rise up. The old man with the portable organ will play for passing change in front of the public library. People in finery will sing the anthems of vanished goddesses; people who are still trying to live by fishing will pump quarters into jukeboxes that play the songs of their high school days. As night progresses, people in diminishing numbers will wander the streets (where whaling captains and their wives once promenaded, where O’Neill strode in drunken furies, where Radio Girl—who knows where she is now?—announced the news), hoping for surprises or just hoping for what the night can be counted on to provide, always, in any weather: the smell of water and its sound; the little houses standing square against immensities of ocean and sky; and the shapes of gulls gliding overhead, white as bone china, searching from their high silence for whatever they might be able to eat down there among the dunes and marshes, the black rooftops, the little lights tossing on the water as the tides move out or in.

The truth may hide at your feet. The truth may lie coiled in high grasses. But it still has claws, it still has fangs. Be careful, Captain, where you step.

(The seige of Alma's castle) For all so soone, as Guyon thence was gon Vpon his voyage with his trustie guide, That wicked band of villeins fresh begon That castle to assaile on euery side, And lay strong siege about it far and wide. So huge and infinite their numbers were, That all the land they vnder them did hide; So fowle and vgly, that exceeding feare Their visages imprest, when they approched neare. Them in twelue troupes their Captain did dispart And round about in fittest steades did place, Where each might best offend his proper part, And his contrary obiect most deface, As euery one seem’d meetest in that cace. Seuen of the same against the Castle gate, In strong entrenchments he did closely place, Which with incessaunt force and endlesse hate, They battred day and night, and entraunce did awate. The first troupe was a monstrous rablement Of fowle misshapen wights, of which some were Headed like Owles, with beckes vncomely bent, Others like Dogs, others like Gryphons dreare, And some had wings, and some had clawes to teare, And euery one of them had Lynces eyes, And euery one did bow and arrowes beare: All those were lawlesse lustes, corrupt enuies, And couetous aspectes, all cruell enimies. Those same against the bulwarke of the Sight Did lay strong siege, and battailous assault,... The second Bulwarke was the Hearing sence, Gainst which the second troupe dessignment makes; Deformed creatures, in straunge difference, Some hauing heads like Harts, some like to Snakes, Some like wild Bores late rouzd out of the brakes; Slaunderous reproches, and fowle infamies, Leasings, backbytings, and vaine-glorious crakes, Bad counsels, prayses, and false flatteries. All those against that fort did bend their batteries. Likewise that same third Fort, that is the Smell Of that third troupe was cruelly assayd: Whose hideous shapes were like to feends of hell, Some like to hounds, some like to Apes, dismayd, Some like to Puttockes, all in plumes arayd: All shap’t according their conditions, For by those vgly formes weren pourtrayd, Foolish delights and fond abusions, Which do that sence besiege with light illusions. And that fourth band, which cruell battry bent, Against the fourth Bulwarke, that is the Tost, Was as the rest, a grysie rablement, Some mouth’d like greedy Oystriges, some fast Like loathly Toades, some fashioned in the wast Like swine; for so deformd is luxury, Surfeat, misdiet, and vnthriftie wast, Vaine feasts, and idle superfluity: All those this sences Fort assayle incessantly. But the fift troupe most horrible of hew, And fierce of force, was dreadfull to report: For some like Snailes, some did like spyders shew, And some like vgly Vrchins thicke and short: Cruelly they assayled that fift Fort, Armed with darts of sensuall delight, With stings of carnall lust, and strong effort Of feeling pleasures, with which day and night Against that same fift bulwarke they continued fight.

But I kept going, my blood up. “In the cellar, the light from your Cards flickered. I didn’t understand until just now.” My eyes fell to his hand. “The White Eagles. As soon as you touched them, their light extinguished.” I searched his face, seeing him for the first true time. “What is your magic?” Ravyn did not answer with words. Instead, he held his right hand out between us. Slowly, he unfurled his fingers. There, nestled in the palm of his hand, devoid of light and color, were the two White Eagles. He gave me a fleeting glance. Then he turned his palm over and let the Cards fall. The moment the White Eagles left Ravyn’s skin, their color returned. I winced, blinded by light. The Cards fluttered to the ground, falling like two white beacons. They landed between our feet, their color and light as strong as any Providence Card. I stared at them, my breath quickening. The Nightmare understood before I did. He clawed to the forefront of my mind, his eyes fixed on Ravyn as if he, too, were seeing the Captain for the first time. Twelve Black Horse Cards, yet thirteen Destriers, he murmured. Have you ever seen him with a Black Horse? No, because he cannot use it. He gave a sudden laugh, startling me. Don’t you see? He cannot use Providence Cards. Or at least, not all of them. My gaze shot up to Ravyn, the white light from the Cards casting new shadows across his face. “You can’t use them?” The Captain was statue still. “No. But neither can they be used against me. Such is the nature of my magic. Cards like the Chalice—the Scythe—have no effect on me.

Quiet,” Ravyn cautioned. He cast his eyes up the table to the King. Then, as if I’d pulled the words out of him, he lowered his voice. “I never lied. You merely assumed the King knew I had a Nightmare Card.” The Nightmare tapped his claws, laughter rolling off his back like snakeskin. How wonderful, he said. Absolutely marvelous. Shut up and let me think. Isn’t it obvious? The Captain of the Destriers is a sneaking, contemptible traitor. I had to sit on my hands to keep them from shaking. Just answer the riddle, he called. What has two eyes for seeing, two ears for hearing, and one tongue for lying? When I didn’t reply, he tittered. A highwayman, darling girl. But Ravyn hasn’t acted alone, I countered, my eyes shooting across the table to Elm. Even more curious, the Nightmare purred. Does the young Prince know his cousin is hiding such a valuable Providence Card from the King? Or is he a part of the scheme?

Most of what we know of the Shepherd King we take from lore. His histories were destroyed, and none of his children survived to claim the throne. Brutus Rowan, his Captain of the Guard, became the next King of Blunder.” The Nightmare’s tail twitched, stirring the darkness in my mind. I paused. “Suppose we manage to find the Twin Alders.” I looked up at the Yews. “Whose blood do you intend to use to unite the Deck?” Fenir leaned forward. “You may have met him. He’s head of the King’s Physicians.” The tall, narrow man with eerily pale eyes. “Orithe Willow?” I cried. “He’s infected?” Fenir picked up The Old Book of Alders, gingerly placing it back onto his shelf. “Like yourself,” he said, “Orithe caught the infection as a child. But the King kept him alive for one reason. Orithe’s magic allows him to spot the infection in others. Surely you’ve seen the apparatus he wears around his hand?” I had. It was a metal claw, with long, angry spikes reaching out from each of his pale fingers. I felt the blood drain from my face. “Orithe uses that—that device—to see the infection in others?

As for Elm, you won’t get your hands on him. He won’t be coming with us. What makes you think I’d hurt him? Ravyn scoffed. He’s a Rowan. Descendant of the man who stole your throne and killed your kin. You’ve had five hundred years to imagine your revenge. His stomach turned as he looked at the old blood beneath the Nightmare’s fingernails. Surely you want him dead. I had plenty of time to hurt him. Only I didn’t. The Princeling sensed me—saw my strange eyes—and recoiled. He understands, far better than you, Captain, that there are monsters in this world. He let out a long breath. My claws would find no purchase in a Rowan who is already broken. When Ravyn’s rigid jaw didn’t ease, the Nightmare grinned. Above rowan and yew, the elm tree stands tall. It waits along borders, a sentry at call. Quiet and guarded and windblown and marred, its bark whispers stories of a boy-Prince once scarred. His voice in Ravyn’s mind went eerily soft. And so, Ravyn Yew, your Elm I won’t touch. His life strays beyond my ravenous clutch. For a kicked pup grows teeth, and teeth sink to bone. I will need him, one day, when I harvest the throne.

Jon finally stopped his slow tease, and he forced his cock into Baltsaros, slow and hard until his hips were flush against the captain. When Baltsaros tensed and gave a small, pained grunt as Jon opened him up, Tom drew back, his eyes wide. His hand slid down from where it rested on Baltsaros’s side to his hips. Understanding dawned on his face as he realized exactly what was happening. With a raw-sounding moan, he shifted close enough that their cocks touched and pulled the captain’s leg up onto his thigh. Baltsaros’s pulse soared, and he felt a surge of lust from the naked desire in Tom’s eyes as the first mate held onto him while Jon fucked him slowly from behind. Jon’s teeth closed on skin again—there was no doubt in the captain’s mind that he would be marked and sore, but it made him groan in encouragement. With panted grunts, Jon fucked into him faster, more frantic, and Tom and Jon’s hands clawed lines of pain over his skin as he was savaged by the first mate’s fevered kiss. Then Jon let out a strangled cry and buried his face into the back of the captain’s neck as his thrusts went erratic, a few deep plunges followed by a series of shallow strokes that sent a sweet pulse into Baltsaros’s core.

As the realization of their continued peril became clear, crewmen and passengers—men and women and older children—clawed and battled for position along the ship’s rails, terrified that the horribly wounded ship would be torn to pieces or slip beneath the waves before the boats were launched. Somehow, Gates and Somers and Captain Newport managed to impose order on the ship’s terror-stricken passengers and the equally frightened crewmen. Fortunately for those on board, by the time the Sea Venture took ground, the storm had abated enough to allow the crew to lower the ship’s boats—a longboat and the skiff—into the relatively calm water that lay in the lee of the stricken ship.

There's this sailor with a pet parrot. But the parrot swears like an old sea captain. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself! Trouble is, the sailor who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy. One day, it gets to be too much, so the sailor grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!" But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the sailor locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches everything inside. Finally the sailor lets the bird out. The bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran seaman blush. The sailor is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds there is a terrible racket from inside. Then it suddenly gets very quiet. At first the sailor just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. He's opens up the freezer door. The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on." The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot. The parrot speaks again, "By the way, what did the chicken do?

They were degenerates who held ignorant beliefs, Jon. Little lives that would only serve to pollute others.” “Oh? And who told you that you could act like a god and take lives at a fucking whim just because you disagree with them? And… oh gods, we ate her heart, didn’t we?” …the heart in the icebox… Jon’s mind finally addressed the horror of it, and he pressed his hand to his mouth. Liar. You knew. He felt nauseous over the truth of his complicity. Baltsaros watched him warily. “You had no right to make me a party to your murdering ways,” Jon said when his nausea began to recede. “You’re sick.” When the captain made no response other than to continue staring at him with that same strange expression, Jon clenched his teeth with a frustrated groan and raked his hands through his hair. Death, death, and more death. Tom’s knife with its grisly tally, Baltsaros’s penchant for outright murder. There was a scream buried deep in his chest, trying to claw its way out. He buried his face in his palms, pressing against his eyes so hard he saw starbursts in the dark. The bed shifted, the cords creaking as Baltsaros moved closer. When the captain’s hand settled gently on his head, Jon cringed. Baltsaros’s fingers stroked him slowly. “I… wish I had words to make it better for you,” said the captain in a small voice. He trailed his fingers down the side of Jon’s throat, raising goosebumps as his touch always did. “There’s nothing left of my lies. You know all of my secrets. You know me, Jon, more than anyone alive.” “Tom knows you better,” Jon muttered against his hands. “He’s the one who cleans up your messes and pretends like all is right with you.” Baltsaros’s warm palm slid across his shoulders, the captain’s fingers caressing him softly. Jon lifted his face and looked at the man on the bed next to him. Baltsaros had a pensive expression on his chiselled face, his eyes far away.

So despite our pathetically infantile teeth, claws, skeletons, and musculature, we dominate other species the way Peter Pan dominated Captain Hook: simply by refusing to grow up. We’ve proliferated and thrived because we never stop playing, and the way to cope with the increasing complexity of the wild new world is to play more.

was a powerful female who clothed me. And unclothed me.” Technically, all that had happened was I’d wandered out of range of Levana, and the shadows had disappeared, revealing the tight slip I’d borrowed from Verity underneath, but whatever. Captain Abandon-A-Ho didn’t need to know that. Judging by the way Soren tightened his jaw, claws flexing slightly around his staff, my taunt had worked.