Crimson Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Crimson. Here they are! All 100 of them:

β€œ
It was November--the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.
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L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
β€œ
You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
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Anna Akhmatova (The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova)
β€œ
The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.
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Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca)
β€œ
Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.
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Ellen Hopkins (Impulse (Impulse, #1))
β€œ
There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.
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Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends)
β€œ
What's your name, love?" Love? LOVE! Still dying, here. "Bliss." "Is that a line?" I blushed crimson. "No, it's my name." "Lovely name for a lovely girl.
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Cora Carmack (Losing It (Losing It, #1))
β€œ
These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.
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Anton Chekhov
β€œ
It was the sort of bone deep emotion that made him want to hold her tighter with one hand, and draw a sword against the world with the other.
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
There is a place where the sidewalk ends, And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind.
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Shel Silverstein
β€œ
A single day spent doing things which fail to nourish the soul is a day stolen, mutilated, and discarded in the gutter of destiny.
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Michel Faber (The Crimson Petal and the White)
β€œ
A vibrator can last all night, too, vampire! - Denise
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
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Luscious, aren't I, poppet? Go on, stare. I don't mind.” -β€œYou look like a Dracula porn movie reject” -β€œLetβ€Ÿs not speak of him. Like the devil, Vlad might appear if we do.” Denise & Ian
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
Red", I write "is the color of life. It's blood, passion, rage. It's menstrual flow and after birth. Beginnings and violent end. Red is the color of love. Beating hearts and hungry lips. Roses, Valentines, cherries. Red is the color of shame. Crimson cheeks and spilled blood. Broken hearts, opened veins. A burning desire to return to white.
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Mary Hogan (Pretty Face)
β€œ
As if Spade's chivalry would allow him to do anything to a woman. The harshest punishment she could imagine him dishing out to Cat would be refusing to open a door for her.
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
I wanted you to watch, so I stomped around the room to wake you before I got in the shower. Didn't you wonder why the light was on? It wasn't for me, I can see in the dark. And then I kept the water cold so the glass wouldn't fog.
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
O Rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.
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William Blake (Songs of Experience)
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Pain doesn’t get easier. You just have to get stronger.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
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Find the light that makes your lantern shine,” she used to say. β€œHold on to it, even when the dark surrounds you. Not even the strongest wind will blow out the flame.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
β€œ
My dad had once told me, crimson-red deep in β€œthe talk,” that with sons, all he had to worry about was one penis, but with a daughter, he had to worry about everyone else’s.
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Nicole Williams (Crash (Crash, #1))
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All right, you got that out of your system. Can I get back in the boat without you striking me again? Or should I stay out here enjoying the marine life?" "Why don't you swim around until you find a shark? Then you can discuss how much the two of you have in common
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
...And, all at once, the moon arouse through the thin ghastly mist, And was crimson in color... And they lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out therefrom. And lay down at the feet of the demon. And looked at him steadily in the face.
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Edgar Allan Poe
β€œ
There will be other lives. There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters' unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for brand-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands. And there will be other lives for unpaid debts, for one-night stands, for Prague and Paris, for painful shoes with pointy toes, for indecision and revisions. And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles. And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk. And there will be other lives for a man you don't recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything. Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess.
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Gabrielle Zevin (Elsewhere)
β€œ
I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
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Robert E. Howard (Queen of the Black Coast)
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What a lovely thing a rose is!" He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.
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Arthur Conan Doyle (The Naval Treaty - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story)
β€œ
Crow walked toward her, arms outstretched like a man in a dream, which he was, in a way. Sometimes a dream is enough.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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Be careful, Crimson.” β€œI'm always careful.” β€œI don't know . . .” He pulled way just enough for her to see his mouth twitch at the corner. β€œA careful girl wouldn't say she loved me.” β€œYou're wrong. I don't think my heart could be safer than in your hands.
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Stephanie Garber (Finale (Caraval, #3))
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That's what happens when you love someone... you notice and notice and notice.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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But maybe it's better to go after something, and not get it, than to not even try.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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I want to kiss you again, Tess.” β€œWhy?” He chuckled, low under his breath. β€œWhy? Because you’re beautiful, and because I want you. And I think you want me too.
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Lara Adrian (Kiss of Crimson (Midnight Breed, #2))
β€œ
I would tell you stories from dawn to dusk if it meant filling your eyes with happiness.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
β€œ
THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my bloodβ€” Touch of manner, hint of mood; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
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Bliss Carman
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Fear is just a game, Shiori, I reminded myself. You win by playing.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
β€œ
Participating in Society in not a thing one can do naturally; one has to rehearse for it.
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Michel Faber (The Crimson Petal and the White)
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If fate is a bunch of strings, then I'll carry scissors. My choices are my own. I'll make them as I please.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
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This is the human way, she thought. On the edge of destruction, at the end of all things, we still dance. And hope.
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Rosamund Hodge (Crimson Bound)
β€œ
Go ahead," Apollo said to Luke. "Tell them what it is, since it's obviously hugging material." Crimson stained Luke's cheeks. "Legend goes that one of the gates to hell is in Stull Cemetery in Kansas." "Oh, gods," I muttered, remembering where I'd heard this before. "Wasn't that a season finale on Supernatural?" When the boys nodded, my eyes rolled. "Seriously? Are Sam and Dean going to be there?
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Jennifer L. Armentrout (Apollyon (Covenant, #4))
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But I don't want your throne." "Then what do you want?" "You.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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Perhaps ... To R.A.L. Perhaps some day the sun will shine again, And I shall see that still the skies are blue, And feel one more I do not live in vain, Although bereft of you. Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet, Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay, And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet, Though You have passed away. Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright, And crimson roses once again be fair, And autumn harvest fields a rich delight, Although You are not there. But though kind Time may many joys renew, There is one greatest joy I shall not know Again, because my heart for loss of You Was broken, long ago.
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Vera Brittain (Testament of Youth)
β€œ
...there are people who try to look as if they are doing a good and thorough job, and then there are the people who actually damn well do it, for its own sake.
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John D. MacDonald (Free Fall in Crimson (Travis McGee #19))
β€œ
A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.
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Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
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I had the brief notion that his heart, pressed flat as a flower, crimson and thin as tissue paper, lay in this file. It was a very thin one.
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Angela Carter (The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories)
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Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.
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Gerard Manley Hopkins
β€œ
A hysterical human? Who hadn't seen that before?
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
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And what are you doing with a bloody cat, Charles? Some sort of mascot four our dear Reaper here?" "Not another word," Spade snapped, getting into the car and seating the carrier on his lap. "Ian, trust me--don't," Crispin said
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
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Channel the anger swelling inside you Fighting the boundary 'till you break through Deep in your soul there's no hesitation So make yourself the one they all fear There is a wild fire inside you Burning desire you can't extinguish Your crimson arrow Rips through the twilight This is the moment for war!
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Hajime Isayama (Attack on Titan, Vol. 1)
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Don't you even think of holding back, or I'll...I'll tell Spade you let me get away from you," she improvised. "And that I got mugged," she added for good measure. Cries of "Mon Dieu!" and "That's not fair!" echoed immediately from the two vampires. "I'm a crazy human female, you know I'll do it," Denise warned them
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
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Oh, I am getting married," Raisa said sleepily. "You promised me that if I agreed to marry you, that you would make it happen." She extended her hand, the one with the ring Han had given her, and waved it under his nose. "So. It's time to pay up.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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He swept the red cloak around Inej's shoulders in a rain of petals and blossoms as she continued to strap on her knives. She looked almost as startled as the flower seller. "What?" he asked as he tossed her a Mister Crimson mask that matched his own. "Those were my mother's favorite flower." "Good to know Van Eck didn't cure you of sentiment." "Nice to be back, Kaz." "Good to have you back, Wraith.
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Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
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The colors shone, burned through. Sienna and crimson and gold, and I swallowed my name from his mouth and he kissed his from my lips, and I was incandescent as I tripped into- bliss.
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Michelle Hodkin (The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3))
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Hope is a dangerous thing, Raisa thought. Once kindled, it's hard to put out. It makes wise people into fools.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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I tried to tell you that it's not Spade in there." "You could have tried harder. I absolutely never needed to know that Ian was pierced down there.
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
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He swept Raisa up into his arms and kissed her like it was his first, last, and only
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream. Inside, the fireplace is brightly lit, and the Yule log crackles with orange and crimson sparks. There’s a steaming mug in your hands, warming your fingers. There’s a friend seated across from you in the cozy chair, warming your heart. There is mystery unfolding.
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Vera Nazarian (The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration)
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I don't lack for bed partners, so I don't need to scrounge for unwilling scraps.-Spade
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
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I say, look at the melons on that lass,” Ian exclaimed, his gaze now on the TV. β€œAnd hung like a stallion, he is.” β€œFocus, mate,” Spade muttered.
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
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What kind of love would drive a man for miles through solid rock?
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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I told you once before,” I said, the words husky from remembrance. β€œEveryone holds their sins close to their skin.” Fangs gleamed for an instant before Vlad bit into his wrist, pooling up two deep crimson holes. β€œThen come,” he said, holding it out. β€œAnd taste mine.
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Jeaniene Frost (Once Burned (Night Prince, #1))
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Just another part of that Spartan killer instinct. I can slay the ladies just as well as I can reapers.
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Jennifer Estep (Crimson Frost (Mythos Academy, #4))
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Food feeds the belly, thoughts feed the mind, but love is what feeds the heart.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
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Night, which in Autumn seems to fall from the sky so suddenly, chilled us...
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Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (The Crimson Curtain)
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If I cannot climb, I will grow.
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Zeppazariel (Crimson Rivers)
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They were like two pieces of a failed star, drawn together by a shared history and a memory of illicit kisses.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
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I would not have you be alone, Lina, not in your joys or your sorrows. I would wish your strand knotted to mine, always.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
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..You always have to choose between the path of needles and the path of pins. When a dress is torn, you know, you can just pin it up, or you can take the time to sew it together. That's what it means. The quick and easy way or the painful way that works.
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Rosamund Hodge (Crimson Bound)
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Come and be worshiped, come and be caressed, 270Β Β My dark Vanessa, crimson-barred, my blest My Admirable butterfly! Explain How could you, in the gloam of Lilac Lane, Have let uncouth, hysterical John Shade Blubber your face, and ear, and shoulder blade?
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Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire)
β€œ
I know that look. What are you up to, Gwen?" "What makes you think I'm up to something?" The Valkyrie snorted. "You're breathing, aren't you?
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Jennifer Estep (Crimson Frost (Mythos Academy, #4))
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The only way to get what you want is to make them more afraid of you than they are of each other.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
β€œ
Denise clung to the feel of his hands as she pushed at her panic. It's okay. You're safe...and this has got to be the ugliest couch ever.
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
It's the other part I'm not so sure about. You got any advice for me on that, Lucan?" "Sure." The vampire grunted, his smile filled with dark amusement. "Dust off your knees, brother, because you may damn well end up walking on them before the night is through.
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Lara Adrian (Kiss of Crimson (Midnight Breed, #2))
β€œ
She could Captain to his Your Majesty any time.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
β€œ
I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields sparkled with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of promise. I knew something was going to happen.
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Jean Webster (Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1))
β€œ
What was it with people always trying to kill me in the library? Nickamedes so needed to put up warning signs. Danger: Working here could be hazardous to your health.
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Jennifer Estep (Crimson Frost (Mythos Academy, #4))
β€œ
Some thought magic came from the mind, others the soul, or the heart, or the will. But Kell knew it came from the blood. Blood was magic made manifest. There it thrived. And there it poisoned. Kell had seen what happened when power warred with the body, watched it darken in the veins of corrupted men, turning their blood from crimson to black. If red was the color of magic in balanceβ€”of harmony between power and humanityβ€”then black was the color of magic without balance, without order, without restraint. As an Antari, Kell was made of both, balance and chaos; the blood in his veins, like the Isle of Red London, ran a shimmering, healthy crimson, while his right eye was the color of spilled ink, a glistening black.
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Victoria E. Schwab (A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1))
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Crow paced back and forth, his form flickering like flame. β€œIt’s been a thousand years, Alister. I never intended for anyone to find it, so it’s very well protected. One little misstep, and you and my line will be history.” β€œSince when are you so concerned about your line?” Han said. Crow stared at him for a long moment. β€œSince I found out I had one,
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
β€œ
Regardless of the situation, don’t let the bastards win … and have no regrets … for it will be a good day! -Richard Wakinyan (Martian Fleet Commander)
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R.G. Risch (Beyond Mars: Crimson Fleet)
β€œ
Your heart is your home. Until you understand that, you belong nowhere.
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Elizabeth Lim (The Dragon's Promise (Six Crimson Cranes, #2))
β€œ
It was clear they weren’t getting any information out of Ian tonight. She, Bones, and Cat followed as Spade supported Ian, almost carrying him up the stairs to then dump him on the bed in a guest room. β€œBefore you go, mate, turn on the telly. Something raunchy, too. Think I’ll rub one off before I sleep.
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Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
Do you think that doing the right thing will always be pretty?
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Rosamund Hodge (Crimson Bound)
β€œ
His aster-blue eyes shown out from a face blackened by bruises and soot, his fair hair glittering in the firelight. Dressed all in black, silhouetted against flame, he looked rather like a demon, raised from the dead, trading for souls on the other side.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
β€œ
Haven't you heard about me?" he said, with a tight smile. "I'm really a very dangerous person." And he did look dangerous until he said, "Look, could you watch Dog for me while I'm gone? I can't take him where I'm going.
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Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
β€œ
You would quit the Order for her? Niko asked, the youngest only behind Dante, and a warrior who relished his duty perhaps even more than Dante had himself. I would quit breathing for her, if she asked it of me.
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Lara Adrian (Kiss of Crimson (Midnight Breed, #2))
β€œ
You are my daughter, not of my blood, but of my heart.
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Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
β€œ
Then I place the blade next to the skine on my palm. A tingle arced across my scalp. The flood tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next. What happened next was thet a perfect, straight line of blood bloomed from under the blade.The line grow into a long, Fat bubbel, A lush crimson bubbel that got bigger and bigger. I watch from above, waiting to see how big it would get before it burst. when it did, I felt awesome. Satisfied, finally. Then exhausted.
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Patricia McCormick (Cut (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition))
β€œ
November--with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes--days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew.
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L.M. Montgomery
β€œ
Death does not erase the point of life. A dead flower does not mean it never bloomed. It did, and it was beautiful.
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Zeppazariel (Crimson Rivers)
β€œ
Every night I empty my heart, but by morning it's full again. Slow droplets of you seep in through the night's soft caress. At dawn, I overflow with thoughts of us An aching pleasure that gives me no respite. Love cannot be contained, the neat packaging of desire Splits asunder, spilling crimson through my days. Long, languishing days that are now bruised tender with yearning, Spent searching for a fingerprint, a scent, a breath you left behind.
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Shamim Sarif (I Can't Think Straight)
β€œ
You know some times you just have to sit still and listen to the trees.
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L.A. Banks (Bite the Bullet (Crimson Moon, #2))
β€œ
So here's the truth - I love you. I love everything about you – the way you stick up for people even when it costs you. The way you keep trying to do the right thing even when you're not exactly sure what the right thing is. I love how you put words together. You're as skilled with words as any knife fighter with a blade. You can put an enemy down on his back, or you can raise people up so they find what's best in themselves. You've changed my life. You've given me the words I need to become whatever I want. I love how you talk to lytlings. You don't talk down to them. You respect them, and anybody can tell you're actually interested in what they have to say. I love the way you ride a horse – how you stick there like an upland thistle, whooping like a Demonai. I love the way you throw back your head and stomp your feet when you dance. I love how you go after what you want – whether it's kisses or a queendom. I love your skin, like copper dusted over with gold. And your eyes – they're the color of a forest lake shaded by evergreens. One of the secret places that only the Demonai know about. I love the scent of you – when you've been out in the fresh air, and that perfume you put behind your ears sometimes. Believe it or not, I even love your road smell – of sweat and horses and leather and wool. I want to breathe you in for the rest of my life.
”
”
Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
β€œ
Learn from my mistakes, [...] and learn from my joys. Surround yourself with those who'll love you always, through your mistakes and your faults. Make a family that will find you more beautiful every day, even when your hair is white with age. Be the light that makes someone's lantern shine.
”
”
Elizabeth Lim (Six Crimson Cranes (Six Crimson Cranes, #1))
β€œ
Once he went into the mountains on a clear, sunny day, and wandered about for a long time with a tormenting thought that refused to take shape. Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, goes with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Idiot)
β€œ
A Robin said: The Spring will never come, And I shall never care to build again. A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome, My sap will never stir for sun or rain. The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow, I neither care to wax nor care to wane. The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago, Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main. β€” When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest, And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight. Grey hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core. The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest, Dimpled his blue, yet thirsted evermore.
”
”
Christina Rossetti
β€œ
The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time. The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is. There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside. Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain. Roman Catholic art. Sweeping front porches, turrets, cast-iron balconies, colonnades- 30-foot columns, gloriously beautiful- double pitched roofs, all the architecture of the whole wide world and it doesn't move. All that and a town square where public executions took place. In New Orleans you could almost see other dimensions. There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again. Chronic melancholia hanging from the trees. You never get tired of it. After a while you start to feel like a ghost from one of the tombs, like you're in a wax museum below crimson clouds. Spirit empire. Wealthy empire. One of Napoleon's generals, Lallemaud, was said to have come here to check it out, looking for a place for his commander to seek refuge after Waterloo. He scouted around and left, said that here the devil is damned, just like everybody else, only worse. The devil comes here and sighs. New Orleans. Exquisite, old-fashioned. A great place to live vicariously. Nothing makes any difference and you never feel hurt, a great place to really hit on things. Somebody puts something in front of you here and you might as well drink it. Great place to be intimate or do nothing. A place to come and hope you'll get smart - to feed pigeons looking for handouts
”
”
Bob Dylan (Chronicles, Volume One)
β€œ
You'll always love him" he said, as if he'd read her mind. "That doesn't die just because he did, or because you now love me. Your love for him is part of who you are. It's a beautiful part, Denise. Don't be sad of it, and I will never be jealous of it". Denise's eyes overflowed again. Spade was right.
”
”
Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
The next chamber is full of songbirds, if I remember right. Their music is like turtleweed. It will put you to sleep if you listen to it. They sleep most of the time, so the best thing is to pass through without waking them up. If they do awaken, then you must sing loud enough to drown out their music." "Great," Han said. "Whose idea was that?" "It seemed like a good idea at the time," Crow said. "I was an excellent singer.
”
”
Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
β€œ
So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.
”
”
Barbara W. Tuchman (The Guns of August)
β€œ
Ian waited outside the airport in the arrivals lane after they collected their bags. He looked at them and his brows rose. β€œWhere’s Denise? And what are you doing with a bloody cat, Charles? Some sort of mascot for our dear Reaper here?” β€œNot another word,” Spade snapped, getting into the car and seating the carrier on his lap. β€œIan, trust meβ€”don’t,” Crispin said before he threw their bags into the boot.
”
”
Jeaniene Frost (First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1))
β€œ
STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY’D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON’T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE —” Mrs. Weasley’s yells, a hundred times louder than usual, made the plates and spoons rattle on the table, and echoed deafeningly off the stone walls. People throughout the hall were swiveling around to see who had received the Howler, and Ron sank so low in his chair that only his crimson forehead could be seen. β€œβ€” LETTER FROM DUMBLEDORE LAST NIGHT, I THOUGHT YOUR FATHER WOULD DIE OF SHAME, WE DIDN’T BRING YOU UP TO BEHAVE LIKE THIS, YOU AND HARRY COULD BOTH HAVE DIED —” Harry had been wondering when his name was going to crop up. He tried very hard to look as though he couldn’t hear the voice that was making his eardrums throb. β€œβ€” ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED β€” YOUR FATHER’S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, IT’S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT AND IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE WE’LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME.” A ringing silence fell.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2))
β€œ
Come along,' she said. 'They're waiting.' He had never felt so happy in the whole of his life! Without a word they made it up. They walked down to the lake. He had twenty minutes of perfect happiness. Her voice, her laugh, her dress (something floating, white, crimson), her spirit, her adventurousness; she made them all disembark and explore the island; she startled a hen; she laughed; she sang. And all the time, he knew perfectly well, Dalloway was falling in love with her; she was falling in love with Dalloway; but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered. They sat on the ground and talked-he and Clarissa. They went in and out of each other's minds without any effort. And then in a second it was over. He said to himself as they were getting into the boat, 'She will marry that man,' dully, without any resentment; but it was an obvious thing. Dalloway would marry Clarissa.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
β€œ
I suppose you think you know what autumn looks like. Even if you live in the Los Angeles dreamed of by September’s schoolmates, you have surely seen postcards and photographs of the kind of autumn I mean. The trees go all red and blazing orange and gold, and wood fires burn at night so everything smells of crisp branches. The world rolls about delightedly in a heap of cider and candy and apples and pumpkins and cold stars rush by through wispy, ragged clouds, past a moon like a bony knee. You have, no doubt, experienced a Halloween or two. Autumn in Fairyland is all that, of course. You would never feel cheated by the colors of a Fairyland Forest or the morbidity of a Fairyland moon. And the Halloween masks! Oh, how they glitter, how they curl, how their beaks and jaws hook and barb! But to wander through autumn in Fairyland is to look into a murky pool, seeing only a hazy reflection of the Autumn Provinces’ eternal fall. And human autumn is but a cast-off photograph of that reflecting pool, half burnt and drifting through the space between us and Fairyland. And so I may tell you that the leaves began to turn red as September and her friends rushed through the suddenly cold air on their snorting, roaring high wheels, and you might believe me. But no red you have ever seen could touch the crimson bleed of the trees in that place. No oak gnarled and orange with October is half as bright as the boughs that bent over September’s head, dropping their hard, sweet acorns into her spinning spokes. But you must try as hard as you can. Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like, the awful, wonderful brightness of Fairy colors. Try to smell the hard, pale wood sending up sharp, green smoke into the afternoon. To feel to mellow, golden sun on your skin, more gentle and cozier and more golden than even the light of your favorite reading nook at the close of the day.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
β€œ
Evil is not just a theory of paradox, but an actual entity that exists only for itself. From its ether of manifestation that is garlanded in perpetual darkness, it not only influences and seeks the ruination and destruction of everything that resides in our universe, but rushes to embrace its own oblivion as well. To accomplish this, however, it must hide within the shroud of lies and deceit it spins to manipulate the weak-minded as well as those who choose to ally themselves with it for their own personal gain. For evil must rely on the self-serving interests of the arrogant, the lustful, the power-hungry, the hateful, and the greedy to feed and proliferate. This then becomes the condition of evil’s existence: the baneful ideologies of those who wantonly chose to ignore the needs and rights of others, inducing oppression, fear, pain, and even death throughout the cosmos. And by these means, evil seeks to supplant the balance of the universe with its perverse nature. And once all that was good has been extinguished by corruption or annihilation, evil will then turn upon and consume what remains: particularly its immoral servants who have assisted its purpose so well … along with itself. And within that terrible instant of unimaginable exploding quantum fury, it will burn brighter than a trillion galaxies to herald its moment of ultimate triumph. But a moment is all that it shall be. And a micro-second later when the last amber burns and flickers out to the demise of dissolving ash, evil will leave its legacy of a totally devoid universe as its everlasting monument to eternal death.
”
”
R.G. Risch (Beyond Mars: Crimson Fleet)