“
When we reached the door, Belen stepped in the way. 'If any harm—'
'Comes to her, you’ll rip out my arms. Got it,' Kerrick said.
'I’m serious,' Belen said.
'I know. Do you really think I’d put her in danger?'
'Not on purpose, but things happen that are out of your control.'
Kerrick gave him a tight smile. 'You mean I'm not omnipotent?'
'You're not even semi-potent.'
'Is that even a word?' Kerrick asked.
'He probably means you're impotent,' I offered.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Touch of Power (Healer, #1))
“
I'd wish you luck, but I don't think it would help.'
'Why not?'
'My lady, you make your own luck.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Magic Study (Study, #2))
“
So who gave him his name?" I asked.
"Kerrick," Belen answered.
Not who I'd expect. "Why 'Flea'?"
A full-out grin spread across Flea's face. "Cause I'm fast and hard to catch."
"Because he's a pest and hard to squash," Belen said.
"Because he jumps about three feet in the air when you scare him," Loren added.
"Because he's annoying and makes us itch with impatience," Quain said.
"Thanks, guys. I love you too." Flea made exaggerated kissing noises and patted his ass.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Touch of Power (Healer, #1))
“
You put on such a brave front. But I know if I took another step toward you, you'd wet your pants.'
'With your blood.' I brandished my knife. But I couldn't keep a straight face; the boast sounded ridiculous even to my own ears. I snickered. She laughed. The release of tension made me giddy, and soon I was laughing and crying.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Poison Study (Study, #1))
“
Yes, I thought I'd try electrocution next. Since a bomb, a fire, Vinco's knife and a brief encounter with outer space didn't kill me.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Outside In (Insider, #2))
“
You had me tied in knots. You saved Belen's life, and I wanted to kill and thank you all at the same time. And during those nights when we didn't know if you'd live or die, I went from being angry, to worried to frustrated to scared all within a single heartbeat. If you had die, I would have killed you.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Scent of Magic (Healer, #2))
“
We should make a list of who doesn’t want to kill you, love. It’d be shorter.”
I’d be offended, but it was actually a good idea.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Shadow Study (Soulfinders, #1; Study, #4))
“
You’re better off fighting hand to hand than wielding a weapon you don’t know how to use. A skilled opponent would simply disarm you. Then your troubles would be doubled. Not only would you be under attack, but you’d have to counter your own weapon
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Poison Study (Study, #1))
“
I’d better get going or Valek will be wondering where I am.”
“Yes, by all means go. I noticed you and Valek have become close. Tell him, for me, not to kill anybody, will you?” Sarcasm rendered Rand’s voice sharp.
I lost control and slammed the oven door shut. It echoed in the quiet kitchen. “At least Valek has the decency to inform me when he’s poisoning me,
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Poison Study (Study, #1))
“
I'd like you to make a commitment to me as well. Will you be my mate?
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Outside In (Insider, #2))
“
Some Queen of the Pipes, I thought. I'd believed I was better than a mindless drone. But I was the mindless one, hiding away. Even now I referred to them as if I didn't belong.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Inside Out (Insider, #1))
“
Yelena?”
“Hmm?”
“I’d like you to stay with me while we figure out how to unblock your magic. We’re stronger together.”
“All right.”
He laughed. “I thought I’d have more of a fight.”
“I’m too tired to argue.”
“Then I should take advantage of the situation.”
I cracked one eye open. “And?”
“I’d like you to stay with me forever.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Shadow Study (Soulfinders, #1; Study, #4))
“
I needed to sit down. I'd heard other people talk about having to sit down when shocked by an event or revelation and I had dismissed the notion as pure exaggeration. Little did I realize the actual physical weakness. It felt as if my bones had dissolved and my muscles could no longer support my weight.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Storm Glass (Glass, #1))
“
You look stunning,” I blurted. Mortified, I blushed as a rush of heat spread through my body. I must have swallowed more brandy than I’d realized.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Poison Study (Study, #1))
“
It was thrilling, wasn't it? [...] That moment, that perfect moment you let go of your rigid concepts of what was possible. When there was nothing left to do but step beyond anything you'd learned before...when you stopped being a poor mimic and became a master of the mind. How did that feel?"
"Empowering.
”
”
Scott Snyder (Batman, Volume 4: Zero Year – Secret City)
“
Can you feel your pulse? That means Valek isn’t here, because if he was, you’d be dead. No pulse.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Ice Study (Study, #3.6))
“
Ari said you screamed and raved a lot while he took care of you. In fact, he said that if Reyad was alive today, he’d gut the bastard without a moment’s hesitation. I just thought you might want to know.” Janco gave me a brotherly kiss on the forehead and left.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Poison Study (The Study Series, #1))
“
Whiskey Wendi," Kerrick said.
"Oh, yes," Loren said. A slow smile spread on his lips. "That was Grzebien? Wow that was... a wild time."
"That was also over a year ago before Estrid and when the Booze Baron ruled the town. Do you really think the people would remember us?" Quain asked.
"Whiskey Wendi," Loren repeated, looking at Quain with a gleam in his eyes.
"Oh, yeah." Quain grinned. "Yeah, they'd remember.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Touch of Power (Healer, #1))
“
Hasn’t stopped us before. And besides, if they wanted to kill us, we’d be dead by now and would be having an entirely different conversation. I wonder if I’d still be mad at you, or if we would talk in words or pictures. Maybe in smells. That would be cool.” -Janco
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Power Study (Study, #3.5))
“
Care to explain?” Ari asked.
“Didn’t you see my signals?”
“Yeah. But they didn’t make sense. Five into one and it’s an intrusion.”
“It’s an illusion! Five of them are an illusion.”
“That’s not the signal for illusion. This is.” Ari demonstrated the proper signal.
“That’s what I did.”
“No, you didn’t. You did a weird twisty thing with your pinky.”
“I had a scimitar at my throat. I’d like to see you try signaling under those conditions.”
-Janco and Ari bickering
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Power Study (Study, #3.5))
“
I never laugh at a beautiful woman. I'd much rather laugh and dance with her.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Magic Study (Study, #2))
“
Dear reader who finds this, if I am gone,
My name is Jinny
I lived here on this island.
I loved it.
I stayed.
I held on.
Then, after a pause, Jinny added a line. She'd never be able to write it in ink, bit it was there all the same, a ghost in the letter. As she slid the piece of paper into her pocket, she whispered it aloud.
I held on
Too long.
”
”
Laurel Snyder (Orphan Island)
“
the democracies that arose after the First World War (and the Second) often collapsed when a single party seized power in some combination of an election and a coup d’état. A
”
”
Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century)
“
The idea of calling this guy "dude" was ridiculous. His low, crisp voice sounded faintly English, definitely like he'd been raised somewhere outside the U.S. He was no more a dude than Fitz was a ballerina.
”
”
Suleikha Snyder
“
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might say—about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. One of the most objective chroniclers is Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. In his view, it is still 'Operation Reinhardt,' or the planned destruction of Polish Jewry, that is to be considered as the centerpiece of what we commonly call the Holocaust, in which of the estimated 5.7 million Jewish dead, 'roughly three million were prewar Polish citizens.' We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
What the hel—”
“Finally! I can talk!” Janco said.
Ari turned. Janco held the Sandseed’s scimitar in his hand. The man lay on the ground, unconscious.
“Care to explain?” Ari asked.
“Didn’t you see my signals?”
“Yeah. But they didn’t make sense. Five into one and it’s an intrusion.”
“It’s an illusion! Five of them are an illusion.”
“That’s not the signal for illusion. This is.” Ari demonstrated the proper signal.
“That’s what I did.”
“No, you didn’t. You did a weird twisty thing with your pinky.”
“I had a scimitar at my throat. I’d like to see you try signaling under those conditions.”
Ari opened his mouth to retort, but thought better of it. They could argue for weeks and not resolve a thing. He changed tactics. “You did very well. You knocked him unconscious and stopped his magic.”
As expected, Janco preened.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder
“
I still carry a picture in my mind of an abuser who is a rageaholic, a monster, a person visibly and uncontrollably angry. Someone easily identifiable as a “bad guy.” I may even have operated under the idea that my own gut instincts would alert me to such a man. And what strikes me immediately—in fact, deeply unsettles me in a way—is how incredibly normal they all seem. Like a bunch of guys I’d go have a beer with. They are charming. They are funny, gregarious, shy, high-strung. Good-looking or not, well-dressed or not. They are Everyman. One of the hallmarks of domestic violence, Adams told me, is this false idea that abusers are somehow angry generally; rather, their anger is targeted—at a partner or at the partner’s immediate family. As a result, friends and acquaintances of abusers are often surprised to hear that they committed an assault.
”
”
Rachel Louise Snyder (No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us)
“
What You Should Know to be a Poet"
all you can know about animals as persons.
the names of trees and flowers and weeds.
the names of stars and the movements of planets
and the moon.
your own six senses, with a watchful elegant mind.
at least one kind of traditional magic:
divination, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot;
dreams.
the illusory demons and the illusory shining gods.
kiss the ass of the devil and eat sh*t;
fuck his horny barbed cock,
fuck the hag,
and all the celestial angels
and maidens perfum’d and golden-
& then love the human: wives husbands and friends
children’s games, comic books, bubble-gum,
the weirdness of television and advertising.
work long, dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted
and lived with and finally lovd. exhaustion,
hunger, rest.
the wild freedom of the dance, extasy
silent solitary illumination, entasy
real danger. gambles and the edge of death.
”
”
Gary Snyder
“
I was looking at the sensoriums of heroes. I was sensing through the eyes and nose of Shelley and John Webster, and using the hearing and touch of Ginsberg and Duncan and Kerouac–– and the jazz lucidity of Creeley, and the Doug fir of Snyder, and the almost mystical, physical perceptions of D.H. Lawrence and of Olson himself. I was convinced that poetry was about, by, and from, the meat, that poetry was the product of flesh brushing itself against experience. We are seekers moving in the Tathagata brushing ourselves against the universe of the real, solid illusions. It is by our touches that we become ourselves –– as our ancestors became us and as we became our maturing, sharpening, brightening selves.
”
”
Michael McClure (Scratching the Beat Surface: Essays on New Vision from Blake to Kerouac)
“
Hitler and Mussolini were indeed authoritarians, but it doesn’t follow that authoritarianism equals fascism or Nazism. Lenin and Stalin were authoritarian, but neither was a fascist. Many dictators—Franco in Spain, Pinochet in Chile, Perón in Argentina, Amin in Uganda—were authoritarian without being fascists or Nazis. Trump admittedly has a bossy style that he gets from, well, being a boss. He has been a corporate boss all his life, and he also played a boss on TV. Republicans elected Trump because they needed a tough guy to take on Hillary; previously they tried bland, harmless candidates like Romney, and look where that got them. That being said, Trump has done nothing to subvert the democratic process. While progressives continue to allege a plot between Trump and the Russians to rig the election, the only evidence for actual rigging comes from the Democratic National Committee’s attempt to rig the 2016 primary in favor of Hillary over Bernie. This rigging evoked virtually no dissent from Democratic officials or from the media, suggesting the support, or at least acquiescence, of the whole progressive movement and most of the party itself. Trump fired his FBI director, provoking dark ruminations in the Washington Post about Trump’s “respect for the rule of law,” yet Trump’s action was entirely lawful.18 He has criticized judges, sometimes in derisive terms, but contrary to Timothy Snyder there is nothing undemocratic about this. Lincoln blasted Justice Taney over the Dred Scott decision, and FDR was virtually apoplectic when the Supreme Court blocked his New Deal initiatives. Criticizing the media isn’t undemocratic either. The First Amendment isn’t just a press prerogative; the president too has the right to free speech.
”
”
Dinesh D'Souza (The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left)