“
I don’t care if I need to set this world on fire until there’s no one left but you and me. The world will burn around us, and I’ll gladly live in chaos with you as long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
“
His voice is full of dark promises and dangerous beginnings.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
“
You see!" said a strained voice. Tonks was glaring at Lupin. "She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"
"It's different," said Lupin, barely moving his lips and looking suddenly tense. "Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely-"
"But I don't care either, I don't care!" said Tonks, seizing the front of Lupin's robes and shaking them. "I've told you a million times...."
And the meaning of Tonk's Patronus and her mouse-colored hair, and the reason she had come running to find Dumbledore when she had heard a rumor someone had been attacked by Greyback, all suddenly became clear to Harry; it had not been Sirius that Tonks had fallen in love with after all.
"And I've told you a million times," said Lupin, refusing to meet her eyes, staring at the floor, "that I am too old for you, too poor....too dangerous...."
"I've said all along you're taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus," said Mrs. Weasley over Fleur's shoulder as she patted her on the back.
"I am not being ridiculous," said Lupin steadily. "Tonks deserves somebody young and whole."
"But she wants you," said Mr. Weasley, with a small smile. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so."
He gestured sadly at his son, lying between them.
"This is....not the moment to discuss it," said Lupin, avoiding everybody's eyes as he looked around distractedly. "Dumbledore is dead...."
"Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world," said Professor McGonagall curtly...
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
“
I have never pretended to be a good person. But what I did do was create my own fucking morals to live by. I will keep killing every deranged individual who resides on this goddamn planet if it means children don’t have to die, and you don't have to live in danger.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
“
Just because the sun is pretty doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous to stare at, Addie.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
“
It may be a dangerous and confusing job.
But it’s mine to do…
”
”
Michael Hoeye (Time Stops for No Mouse)
“
My envy's not dangerous; it wouldn't hurt a mouse.
”
”
Henry James (The Portrait of a Lady)
“
You should always aim to be your own mouse, Lieam. In fact...you already are. You are not so quick to jump into danger as Saxon and not as pensive of mind as Kenzie. They rely on each other too much. Saxon knows he can afford to be reckless since Kenzie acts as his conscience. And Kenzie can linger in his thoughts and plans, because he knows Saxon can defend him. I tested Kenzie earlier. I wanted to see if he would be swayed by my advice. It took Saxon's coaxing to make up the greyfur's mind. Be compleete with in yourself young redfur...you will never disappoint. Even in solitude.
”
”
David Petersen (Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 (Mouse Guard, #2))
“
One day, you’re going to feel safe with me again,” he whispers, his voice dangerously soft. “And when that day comes, you better pray I’m feeling generous.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
“
The more the mouse pursues this line of of thought, the more it seems to him that the cat is a large, soft mouse.
”
”
Steven Millhauser (Dangerous Laughter)
“
I’m going to make you come all over my tongue. You got any objections, Mouse? Or will you be a good girl and let Daddy taste his favorite dessert?
”
”
Mila Crawford (The Mask (Dangerous Sinners, #4))
“
Things were going well. Work here was hard, but there was nothing in the way of Mickey Mouse bullshit.
”
”
Tom Clancy (Clear and Present Danger (Jack Ryan, #5; Jack Ryan Universe, #6))
“
A human being can only endure depression up to a certain point; when this point of saturation is reached it becomes necessary for him to discover some element of pleasure, no matter how humble or on how low a level, in his environment if he is to go on living at all. In my case these insignificant birds with their subdued colourings have provided just sufficient distraction to keep me from total despair. Each day I find myself spending longer and longer at the window watching their flights, their quarrels, their mouse-quick flutterings, their miniature feuds and alliances. Curiously enough, it is only when I am standing in front of the window that I feel any sense of security. While I am watching the birds I believe that I am comparatively immune from the assaults of life. The very indifference to humanity of these wild creatures affords me a certain safeguard. Where all else is dangerous, hostile and liable to inflict pain, they alone can do me no injury because, probably, they are not even aware of my existence. The birds are at once my refuge and my relaxation.
”
”
Anna Kavan (Asylum Piece)
“
What he doesn't realize is that his sanity is swaying like a tightrope walker over a dangerous sea of madness and his rationality is dissolving, just as an ominous thought emerges from beyond and moves stealthily through his mind: nibble, nibble like a mouse; tomorrow everyone will die.
”
”
Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Hex (Robert Grim #1))
“
Jesus, his smile is fucking dangerous. It easily stops my heart.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
“
I feel everything and nothing at all, and I've never been more dangerous.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
“
This beautiful woman holds my life in the palm of her hand, she’s just incapable of seeing it that way. The only one who’s truly in danger is me.
”
”
H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
“
Contemporary writers use animal-transformation themes to explore issues of gender, sexuality, race, culture, and the process of transformation...just as storytellers have done, all over the world, for many centuries past. One distinct change marks modern retellings, however, reflecting our changed relationship to animals and nature. In a society in which most of us will never encounter true danger in the woods, the big white bear who comes knocking at the door [in fairy tales] is not such a frightening prospective husband now; instead, he's exotic, almost appealing.
Whereas once wilderness was threatening to civilization, now it's been tamed and cultivated; the dangers of the animal world have a nostalgic quality, removed as they are from our daily existence. This removal gives "the wild" a different kind of power; it's something we long for rather than fear. The shape-shifter, the were-creature, the stag-headed god from the heart of the woods--they come from a place we'd almost forgotten: the untracked forests of the past; the primeval forests of the mythic imagination; the forests of our childhood fantasies: untouched, unspoiled, limitless.
Likewise, tales of Animal Brides and Bridegrooms are steeped in an ancient magic and yet powerfully relevant to our lives today. They remind us of the wild within us...and also within our lovers and spouses, the part of them we can never quite know. They represent the Others who live beside us--cat and mouse and coyote and owl--and the Others who live only in the dreams and nightmares of our imaginations. For thousands of years, their tales have emerged from the place where we draw the boundary lines between animals and human beings, the natural world and civilization, women and men, magic and illusion, fiction and the lives we live.
”
”
Terri Windling (The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People)
“
So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible dangers from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
Lord Goth spent his time riding his hobby horse around the grounds and taking potshots at the garden ornaments with a blunderbuss. Before long he had acquired a reputation for being mad, bad and dangerous to gnomes.
”
”
Chris Riddell (Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse (Goth Girl, #1))
“
THE FORTRESS
Under the pink quilted covers
I hold the pulse that counts your blood.
I think the woods outdoors
are half asleep,
left over from summer
like a stack of books after a flood,
left over like those promises I never keep.
On the right, the scrub pine tree
waits like a fruit store
holding up bunches of tufted broccoli.
We watch the wind from our square bed.
I press down my index finger --
half in jest, half in dread --
on the brown mole
under your left eye, inherited
from my right cheek: a spot of danger
where a bewitched worm ate its way through our soul
in search of beauty. My child, since July
the leaves have been fed
secretly from a pool of beet-red dye.
And sometimes they are battle green
with trunks as wet as hunters' boots,
smacked hard by the wind, clean
as oilskins. No,
the wind's not off the ocean.
Yes, it cried in your room like a wolf
and your pony tail hurt you. That was a long time ago.
The wind rolled the tide like a dying
woman. She wouldn't sleep,
she rolled there all night, grunting and sighing.
Darling, life is not in my hands;
life with its terrible changes
will take you, bombs or glands,
your own child at
your breast, your own house on your own land.
Outside the bittersweet turns orange.
Before she died, my mother and I picked those fat
branches, finding orange nipples
on the gray wire strands.
We weeded the forest, curing trees like cripples.
Your feet thump-thump against my back
and you whisper to yourself. Child,
what are you wishing? What pact
are you making?
What mouse runs between your eyes? What ark
can I fill for you when the world goes wild?
The woods are underwater, their weeds are shaking
in the tide; birches like zebra fish
flash by in a pack.
Child, I cannot promise that you will get your wish.
I cannot promise very much.
I give you the images I know.
Lie still with me and watch.
A pheasant moves
by like a seal, pulled through the mulch
by his thick white collar. He's on show
like a clown. He drags a beige feather that he removed,
one time, from an old lady's hat.
We laugh and we touch.
I promise you love. Time will not take away that.
”
”
Anne Sexton (Selected Poems)
“
One good thing about this place, you got all the hot water you want, and no Mickey Mouse on the housekeeping. Now, if they could just turn the fucking heat on at night--"
"Where the hell are we?"
"Colorado. I know that much. Not much else, though.
”
”
Tom Clancy (Clear and Present Danger)
“
the yellow bird, huge and parrot-faced, had soared across Perry’s dreams, an avenging angel who savaged his enemies or, as now, rescued him in moments of mortal danger: “She lifted me, I could have been light as a mouse, we went up, up, I could see the Square below, men running,
”
”
Truman Capote (In Cold Blood)
“
She didn’t understand why electric energy sizzled in the air. She expected to see sparks popping off Mikhail and Dmitri at any moment. “I apologize,” offered Mikhail, standing before her with his hands at his back. “You need do nothing, Miss Snow, except stand very, very still. Please make no sudden movements. But I must inform you that we must ask permission to get close to your person.” “How close?” she asked, her throat gone dry from their nearness already. She sensed danger like the mouse in the field who feels the hawk watching her but cannot see him. “Quite close,” said Mikhail, his unworldly eyes filling with more black of his pupil.
”
”
Juliette Cross (The White Lily (Vampire Blood #3))
“
Fly! Fly! About with your ship and fly! Row, row, row for your lives away from this accursed shore.”
“Compose yourself,” said Reepicheep, “and tell us what the danger is. We are not used to flying.”
The stranger started horribly at the voice of the Mouse, which he had not noticed before.
“Nevertheless you will fly from here,” he gasped. “This is the Island where Dreams come true.”
“That’s the island I’ve been looking for this long time,” said one of the sailors.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3))
“
In shelters, the danger posed by poison gas was a particular concern. People were encouraged to wear their gas masks for thirty minutes a day, so that they would grow accustomed to their use. Children took part in gas-attack drills. "All the little children of five have Mickey Mouse gasmasks," wrote Diana Cooper in her diary. "They love putting them on for drill and at once start trying to kiss each other, then they march into their shelter singing: 'There'll always be an England.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
“
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library The Island of Dr. Libris Welcome to Wonderland: Home Sweet Motel Welcome to Wonderland: Beach Party Surf Monkey The Haunted Mystery series COAUTHORED WITH JAMES PATTERSON Daniel X: Armageddon Daniel X: Lights Out House of Robots House of Robots: Robots Go Wild! I Funny I Even Funnier I Totally Funniest I Funny TV Jacky Ha-Ha Treasure Hunters Treasure Hunters: Danger Down the Nile Treasure Hunters: Secret of the Forbidden City Treasure Hunters: Peril at the Top of the World Word of Mouse
”
”
Chris Grabenstein (Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics (Mr. Lemoncello's Library, #2))
“
Back to ship, back to ship,” muttered the men.
“I really think,” said Edmund, “they’re right. We can decide what to do with the three sleepers tomorrow. We daren’t eat the food and there’s no point in staying here for the night. The whole place smells of magic--and danger.”
“I am entirely of King Edmund’s opinion,” said Reepicheep, “as far as concerns the ship’s company in general. But I myself will sit at this table till sunrise.”
“Why on earth?” said Eustace.
“Because,” said the Mouse, “this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3))
“
Sydney has no box jellyfish, I was pleased to learn. The famous local danger is the funnel web spider, the most poisonous insect in the world with a venom that is “highly toxic and fast-acting.” A single nip, if not promptly treated, will leave you bouncing around in the grip of seizures of an incomparable liveliness; then you turn blue; then you die. Thirteen deaths are on record, though none since 1981, when an antidote was devised. Also poisonous are white-tailed spiders, mouse spiders, wolf spiders, our old friend the redback (“hundreds of bites are reported each year…about a dozen known deaths”), and a reclusive but fractious type called the fiddleback.
”
”
Bill Bryson (In a Sunburned Country)
“
Morton the tortoiseshell was standing in the middle of the smaller staircase, staring at a point halfway up the wood panels of the wall, as they walked to Edwin’s mother’s suite. He let out an interrogative yowl, paused, flicked his ears, then yowled again.
“I think your cat’s smelled a mouse,” said Robin.
“No, he’s only talking to the ghost.”
“Ghost?”
“Ghost,” Edwin affirmed. “Don’t worry, they’re not dangerous.”
“Back in town you said they didn’t exist. That they were nonsense.”
“Visible ghosts are nonsense,” Edwin said. “You can’t see them. And they can’t talk to you unless there’s a medium around, and there’s maybe three true mediums in the whole of England.”
“Then how do you know they’re there at all?”
“The cats, mostly. There are detection spells you can do, but cats are simpler.
”
”
Freya Marske (A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding, #1))
“
Mademoiselle de Verneuil began to study the young man from the vantage-ground of her position with coolness and dignity; at the bottom of her heart she admired his courage and tranquillity. Happy in discovering that the man she loved bore an ancient title (the distinctions of which please every woman), she also found pleasure in meeting him in their present situation, where, as champion of a cause ennobled by misfortune, he was fighting with all the faculties of a strong soul against a Republic that was constantly victorious. She rejoiced to see him brought face to face with danger, and still displaying the courage and bravery so powerful on a woman’s heart; again and again she put him to the test, obeying perhaps the instinct which induces a woman to play with her victim as a cat plays with a mouse.
”
”
Honoré de Balzac (Works of Honore de Balzac)
“
The usual short story cannot have a complex plot, but it often has a simple one resembling a chain with two or three links. The short short, however, doesn't as a rule have even that much - you don't speak of a chain when there's only one link. ...
Sometimes ... the short short appears to rest on nothing more than a fragile anecdote which the writer has managed to drape with a quantity of suggestion. A single incident, a mere anecdote - these form the spine of the short short.
Everything depends on intensity, one sweeping blow of perception. In the short short the writer gets no second chance. Either he strikes through at once or he's lost. And because it depends so heavily on this one sweeping blow, the short short often approaches the condition of a fable. When you read the two pieces by Tolstoy in this book, or I.L. Peretz's 'If Not Higher,' or Franz Kafka's 'The Hunter Gracchus,' you feel these writers are intent upon 'making a point' - but obliquely, not through mere statement. What they project is not the sort of impression of life we expect in most fiction, but something else: an impression of an idea of life. Or: a flicker in darkness, a slight cut of being. The shorter the piece of writing, the more abstract it may seem to us. In reading Paz's brilliant short short we feel we have brushed dangerously against the sheer arbitrariness of existence; in reading Peretz's, that we have been brought up against a moral reflection on the nature of goodness, though a reflection hard merely to state.
Could we say that the short short is to other kinds of fiction somewhat as the lyric is to other kinds of poetry? The lyric does not seek meaning through extension, it accepts the enigmas of confinement. It strives for a rapid unity of impression, an experience rendered in its wink of immediacy. And so too with the short short. ...
Writers who do short shorts need to be especially bold. They stake everything on a stroke of inventiveness. Sometimes they have to be prepared to speak out directly, not so much in order to state a theme as to provide a jarring or complicating commentary. The voice of the writer brushes, so to say, against his flash of invention. And then, almost before it begins, the fiction is brought to a stark conclusion - abrupt, bleeding, exhausting. This conclusion need not complete the action; it has only to break it off decisively.
Here are a few examples of the writer speaking out directly. Paz: 'The universe is a vast system of signs.' Kafka in 'First Sorrow': The trapeze artist's 'social life was somewhat limited.' Paula Fox: 'We are starving here in our village. At last, we are at the center.' Babel's cossack cries out, 'You guys in specs have about as much pity for chaps like us as a cat for a mouse.' Such sentences serve as devices of economy, oblique cues. Cryptic and enigmatic, they sometimes replace action, dialogue and commentary, for none of which, as it happens, the short short has much room.
There's often a brilliant overfocussing.
("Introduction")
”
”
Irving Howe (Short Shorts)
“
Too much magic about here. The sooner we’re back on board the better.”
“Depend upon it,” said Reepicheep, “it was from eating this food that these three lords came by a seven years’ sleep.”
“I wouldn’t touch it to save my life,” said Drinian.
“The light’s going uncommon quick,” said Rynelf.
“Back to ship, back to ship,” muttered the men.
“I really think,” said Edmund, “they’re right. We can decide what to do with the three sleepers tomorrow. We daren’t eat the food and there’s no point in staying here for the night. The whole place smells of magic--and danger.”
“I am entirely of King Edmund’s opinion,” said Reepicheep, “as far as concerns the ship’s company in general. But I myself will sit at this table till sunrise.”
“Why on earth?” said Eustace.
“Because,” said the Mouse, “this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.”
“I’ll stay with you, Reep,” said Edmund.
“And I too,” said Caspian.
“And me,” said Lucy. And then Eustace volunteered also. This was very brave of him because never having read of such things or even heard of them till he joined the Dawn Treader made it worse for him than for the others.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3))
“
What did this Madame Moon tell you?”
Her friend frowned slightly. “It was so strange. She said there was a man here tonight who was everything I could ever want, and that if I did not find him, my life would be empty and…tragic.”
“Good lord.” Rose dug in her heels. “I’m not going near this woman. It’s all about men.”
“We’re women,” Eve needlessly reminded her, giving her a shove toward the tent entrance. “Of course it’s all about men. Now get in th…oh my.”
Rose turned her head. Her friend was staring at someone on the other side of the room-a man. A handsome, lean, dangerous-looking man with the grace of a cat. A very predatory cat, and he was staring at Eve as though she was the sweetest, plumpest mouse he’d ever seen.
Perhaps there was more to this Madame Moon than she first suspected. One look at Eve’s face and she could tell her friend was just as taken by this man as he by her. “Go,” Rose whispered. And then loudly she said, “Eve, is not that Amanda Ross by the punch bowl? She said she had a recipe for a new face cream. Go get it from her, will you?”
Eve shot her a startled glance, because they both knew Amanda Ross was standing not two feet away from Vienna La Rieux, who was conversing with Mr. Dangerous. But as startled as her friend might have been by the encouragement, she also realized that both of their chaperones were in line to have their fortunes told and that she might never have an opportunity like this again.
“Of course,” she replied loudly as well. “I will be right back.”
And off she went. Alone, and the target of exasperated looks by the ladies waiting their turns, Rose ducked into the tent to face her future.
”
”
Kathryn Smith (When Seducing a Duke (Victorian Soap Opera, #1))
“
Fly! Fly! About with your ship and fly! Row, row, row for your lives away from this accursed shore.”
“Compose yourself,” said Reepicheep, “and tell us what the danger is. We are not used to flying.”
The stranger started horribly at the voice of the Mouse, which he had not noticed before.
“Nevertheless you will fly from here,” he gasped. “This is the Island where Dreams come true.”
“That’s the island I’ve been looking for this long time,” said one of the sailors. “I reckon I’d find I was married to Nancy if we landed here.”
“And I’d find Tom alive again,” said another.
“Fools!” said the man, stamping his foot with rage. “That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I’d better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams--dreams, do you understand--come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.”
There was about half a minute’s silence and then, with a great clatter of armor, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just that half-minute to remember certain dreams they had had--dreams that make you afraid of going to sleep again--and to realize what it would mean to land on a country where dreams come true.
Only Reepicheep remained unmoved.
“Your Majesty, your Majesty,” he said, “are you going to tolerate this mutiny, this poltroonery? This is a panic, this is a rout.”
“Row, row,” bellowed Caspian. “Pull for all our lives. Is her head right, Drinian? You can say what you like, Reepicheep. There are some things no man can face.”
“It is, then, my good fortune not to be a man,” replied Reepicheep with a very stiff bow.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3))
“
If a man jumped as high as a louse (lice), he would jump over a football field. In Ancient Egypt, the average life expectancy was 19 years, but for those who survived childhood, the average life expectancy was 30 years for women and 34 years for men. The volume of the moon is equivalent to the volume of the water in the Pacific Ocean. After the 9/11 incident, the Queen of England authorized the guards to break their vow and sing America’s national anthem for Americans living in London. In 1985, lifeguards of New Orleans threw a pool party to celebrate zero drownings, however, a man drowned in that party. Men and women have different dreams. 70 percent of characters in men’s dreams are other men, whereas in women its 50 percent men and 50 percent women. Men also act more aggressively in dreams than women. A polar bear has a black skin. 2.84 percent of deaths are caused by intentional injuries (suicides, violence, war) while 3.15 percent are caused by diarrhea. On average people are more afraid of spiders than they are afraid of death. A bumblebee has hairs on its eyes, helping it collect the pollen. Mickey Mouse’s creator, Walt Disney feared mice. Citarum river in Indonesia is the dirtiest and most polluted river in the world. When George R R Martin saw Breaking Bad’s episode called “Ozymandias”, he called Walter White and said that he’d write up a character more monstrous than him. Maria Sharapova’s grunt is the loudest in the Tennis game and is often criticized for being a distraction. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for “kangaroo” translates literally to “bag rat”. The first product to have a barcode was a chewing gum Wrigley. Chambarakat dam in Iraq is considered the most dangerous dam in the world as it is built upon uneven base of gypsum that can cause more than 500,000 casualties, if broken. Matt Urban was an American Lieutenant Colonel who was nicknamed “The Ghost” by Germans because he always used to come back from wounds that would kill normal people.
”
”
Nazar Shevchenko (Random Facts: 1869 Facts To Make You Want To Learn More)
“
In 1995, the gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a seventy-year hiatus. Scientists expected an ecological ripple effect, but the size and scope of the trophic cascade took them by surprise.7 Wolves are predators that kill certain species of animals, but they indirectly give life to others. When the wolves reentered the ecological equation, it radically changed the behavioral patterns of other wildlife. As the wolves began killing coyotes, the rabbit and mouse populations increased, thereby attracting more hawks, weasels, foxes, and badgers. In the absence of predators, deer had overpopulated the park and overgrazed parts of Yellowstone. Their new traffic patterns, however, allowed the flora and fauna to regenerate. The berries on those regenerated shrubs caused a spike in the bear population. In six years’ time, the trees in overgrazed parts of the park had quintupled in height. Bare valleys were reforested with aspen, willow, and cottonwood trees. And as soon as that happened, songbirds started nesting in the trees. Then beavers started chewing them down. Beavers are ecosystem engineers, building dams that create natural habitats for otters, muskrats, and ducks, as well as fish, reptiles, and amphibians. One last ripple effect. The wolves even changed the behavior of rivers—they meandered less because of less soil erosion. The channels narrowed and pools formed as the regenerated forests stabilized the riverbanks. My point? We need wolves! When you take the wolf out of the equation, there are unintended consequences. In the absence of danger, a sheep remains a sheep. And the same is true of men. The way we play the man is by overcoming overwhelming obstacles, by meeting daunting challenges. We may fear the wolf, but we also crave it. It’s what we want. It’s what we need. Picture a cage fight between a sheep and a wolf. The sheep doesn’t stand a chance, right? Unless there is a Shepherd. And I wonder if that’s why we play it safe instead of playing the man—we don’t trust the Shepherd. Playing the man starts there! Ecologists recently coined a wonderful new word. Invented in 2011, rewilding has a multiplicity of meanings. It’s resisting the urge to control nature. It’s the restoration of wilderness. It’s the reintroduction of animals back into their natural habitat. It’s an ecological term, but rewilding has spiritual implications. As I look at the Gospels, rewilding seems to be a subplot. The Pharisees were so civilized—too civilized. Their religion was nothing more than a stage play. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing.8 But Jesus taught a very different brand of spirituality. “Foxes have dens and birds have nests,” said Jesus, “but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”9 So Jesus spent the better part of three years camping, fishing, and hiking with His disciples. It seems to me Jesus was rewilding them. Jesus didn’t just teach them how to be fishers of men. Jesus taught them how to play the man! That was my goal with the Year of Discipleship,
”
”
Mark Batterson (Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be)
“
Manhattan is dangerous, though not for the old reasons: muggings, pickpocketing, prostitution. The danger is that the longer you stay - the longer you're bathed in the glow of blinking screens in Times Square, swept along by swarms of commuters, pursued by a mangy imitation of Mickey Mouse who wants a few dollars to pose for photos - the less you're able to feel the wonder. The lights dim. The little battles with subway doors, your radiator, the rat that walks into you in Union Square as if you were the rodent, wear you down. You grow tired, switch off certain receptors.
For years I paid little attention of my city, and in time, it disappeared. I put on sunglasses, put in earbuds, and blindly walked the streets that Billie Holiday and Roy Lichtenstein had walked. Every parade was an inconvenience, as was every stranger, talking too loudly, walking too slowly. I was living in one of the most visited cities in America, working in a skyscraper that people from all over the world stopped to photograph, and skipping town whenever possible.
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Stephanie Rosenbloom (Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude)
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Never mind the danger, never mind what his mother thought. This was living. This was what he wanted to do. On and on and on.
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Beverly Cleary (The Mouse and the Motorcycle (Ralph Mouse Book 1))
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To those who are not, like Wordsworth's primrose, "dwellers on the river's brim," it may be necessary to explain that an outrigger is an apology for a boat, and, apparently, a feeble imitation of a plank–that the individual who hazards his own life in it is happily prevented, by its absurd form, from making any other person a sharer in his danger–that he is liable to be overset by any passing steamer, or by the slightest change of his own posture–that it is difficult to conceive how he ever got into such a thing, or how he is ever to get out of it again, and that the effect he produces on an unprejudiced spectator is that of an aquatic mouse caught in a boat-trap, from which he will never emerge alive, notwithstanding the continual struggle he appears to keep up.
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Emily Eden (The Semi-Detached House)
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I don't care if I need to set this world on fire until there's no one left but you and me. The world will burn around us, and I'll gladly live in chaos with you as long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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I’ll never understand how people can’t sense danger when it’s right up their assholes.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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He’s off doing something dangerous tonight—some dinner party. I know he's there to save a little girl, but there's still that selfish part of me that wishes he were here.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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The man is incredibly dangerous… to everyone else but me.
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H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
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You pretend like you care about me, or whatever you convince yourself that you feel for me, but I’ve been in danger because of you. You do know that, right? Max would’ve never came aft—
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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The danger. It stirs something deep in my core, too. It calls to me and I’m too weak to ignore it. But that’s something that I can never explain to Daya. She’s logical. Reasonable. Smart. And she’s not an adrenaline junkie like I without a doubt am. She doesn’t get a thrill out of danger.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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I’ll never understand how people can’t sense danger when it’s right up their assholes. Shit boggles me.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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But Kandel’s safety-conditioned mice barge right out into the middle of open space when they hear those beeps that they’ve learned to associate with the absence of immediate danger. Boldly going where no mouse has gone before, they wander much farther afield in a bout of what Kandel calls “adventurous exploration.” What makes these mice turn lion-hearted? When safety-conditioned mice hear the series of beeps, neurons in the caudoputamen—a part of the mouse brain similar to our caudate area—go into overdrive, firing at nearly three times their normal intensity. At the same time, neurons in the amygdala—a fear center in the mouse brain, as it is in ours—quiet down. It’s as if the perception of safety leads to a feeling of mastery over the environment, numbing the brain’s ability to be afraid. No wonder investors take more risk when their own gains fool them into thinking the market has gotten safer.
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Jason Zweig (Your Money and Your Brain)
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If you were my little girl,” I breathe, desire growing dangerously high. “Your sweet little pussy would be so full of me, you would forget what it means to feel empty. I would be inside of you so deeply, you would have to cut me out.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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I’m sorry about that. Sometimes danger crops up when you least expect it, but without it we’d never test our mettle. You
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Anna Fargher (The Umbrella Mouse)
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Once virtually every song produced[22] was available at the click of a mouse (via legitimate purchase or more nefarious means), music lost some of the power it had long held as a marker of selfhood. It became just another product that could be downloaded in the privacy of one’s own home, not something that was easily trotted out as a symbol of the buyer’s tastes and beliefs. That didn’t mean music was ever in danger of disappearing from the culture entirely; it just meant that it would no longer be much use to people obsessed with not only finding examples of authentic self-expression but letting every person they came in contact with know that authenticity was integral to their conception of self.
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Kevin Craft (Grunge, Nerds, and Gastropubs: A Mass Culture Odyssey (Kindle Single))
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That’s what he is—a snake, a dangerous predator—and here I am, a mouse…waiting to be devoured.
Luna Ketz, Rise Above Twilight
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Kayla Krantz
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Larch didn’t understand these monsters. The mouse monsters, the fly and squirrel and fish and sparrow monsters, were harmless; but the bigger monsters, the man-eating monsters, were terribly dangerous, more so than their animal counterparts. They craved human flesh, and for the flesh of other monsters they were positively frantic.
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Kristin Cashore (Fire)
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I split my focus on catching my breath and listening for any footsteps. An owl hoots and a cold yet soft breeze flows through the forest. Such a stark contrast to the dark and dangerous situation. It feels like there should be Michael Myers music playing in the background.
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H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
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Jay walks stiffly beside me, periodically glancing at me with fear and anxiety. It’s clear that he’s never been in a dangerous situation like this before. He’s always behind the computer, never on the front lines. I don’t know how to assure him. I’ve never been one to lie, and while I’m confident I’ll get us out alive, I can’t guarantee it.
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H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
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Solutions to life-or-death problems faced by our ancient ancestors while swimming in dark oceans, hiding from dinosaurs, or fighting with other Stone Age bands are built into the brain today. While the parts of the brain work together to meet our needs, they do have specialized functions shaped by our evolutionary history. To push the metaphor, it’s as if we each have an inner lizard freezing or fleeing from danger, a mouse sniffing about for cheese, and a monkey looking for its tribe.
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Rick Hanson (Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness)
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Something inexplicably dark arises in my chest. It’s black and evil and cruel. Dangerous, even.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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None of you are my type. Unfortunately for you, I only have one, and she’s got pretty light brown eyes and a penchant for dangerous men.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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Hate I understood. But seeing her like this, so damn small and meek, taking tiny bites of her pizza like she was a goddamn mouse, incited something dangerous inside me. Squeak, squeak, little thing.
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A.K. Rose (Mine (Blood Ties, #1))
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I don’t care if I need to set this world on fire until there’s no one left but you
and me. The world will burn around us, and I’ll gladly live in chaos with you as
long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.
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H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
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You want to know why I love the house of mirrors?" he murmurs in my ear, eliciting sparks throughout my nerve endings. His voice is full of dark promises and dangerous beginnings.
I swallow thickly. "Why?" I whisper.
"Look around you," he commands softly. Hesitantly, I pull my eyes away from his, dragging my gaze across the dozens of mirrors.
"What you're seeing now is what I see every day. No matter how far I run, how hard I try to escape you-you're everywhere I go. You're everything I see. Loving you is like being trapped in a house of mirrors, little mouse. And l've never felt so at home while being so lost inside you.
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H.D. Carlton
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My instincts are to run towards the danger, not away. God? Me again. We really need to talk about your life decisions when you made me.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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I’d appreciate it if you tuck the guns back in your pockets along with your dicks. None of you are my type. Unfortunately for you, I only have one, and she’s got pretty light brown eyes and a penchant for dangerous men.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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The real secrets of the room were in this back corner. Spadefish and her sisters of the Sturgeon class had been designed more as spy ships than as offensive weapons. With their endurance and stealth, they could sit off the coast of an unsuspecting country for months at a time without being detected. The sophisticated sensors housed in this room allowed her to sweep the electronic spectrum, gathering, decrypting, translating, and interpreting. During the long years of the Cold War, several of these boats were always on station, just outside the territorial limits of the old USSR, hidden but listening attentively. It had been a very dangerous game of cat and mouse. The secrets that had been gathered in this room and others on boats like it had helped to win that war. The “Silent Service” had certainly lived up to its name, and even now, few knew of its contributions to the eventual fall of the Soviet Union. Larson
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George Wallace (Final Bearing (Hunter Killer #1))
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She’s too keen and intelligent to get sucked into danger like I tend to do.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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I’m sorry, Sandstorm,” he murmured. “I never meant to hurt you.” His voice barely more than a whisper, he added, “I love you.” Sandstorm’s eyes glowed. “I love you too, Fireheart,” she whispered. “That’s why it hurt so much when you asked Bluestar if Brackenfur could mentor Tawnypaw. I thought you didn’t respect me.” “I made a mistake.” Fireheart’s voice shook. “I don’t know how I could have been so mouse-brained.” Sandstorm let out a purr and touched her nose to his. “I want you beside me always.” Fireheart breathed in her scent, rejoicing in the warmth of her body. He suddenly felt that he would always be happy if he could stay like that forever. But he knew that he could not. “Sandstorm,” he told her, lifting his head. “I know what we’re going to face out there. It’s more dangerous than I ever imagined. I’m not ordering you to come, but I still want you with me.” Sandstorm’s purr grew deeper, a vibration that filled her whole body. “Of course I’m coming, you stupid furball,” she mewed.
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Erin Hunter (A Dangerous Path)
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So why can we not detect the vampire when he is near?” Mikhail asked no one in particular. “I have scanned the area and can detect none of our kind, not even Byron.”
“Shea was able to detect the vampire when I could not,” Jacques said. “I was not certain I believed her at first, but I could feel as she did when we merged.”
Shea lifted her chin in challenge. “Do you think you can explain how all this was done, healer? How anyone could have done it?”
Gregori turned the full power of his magnetic silver eyes on her. “I can make the earth shake beneath your feet and bring lightning from the sky to do my bidding. I can close off your airway with a thought. I am all things from a mouse to a wolf running free. Is this not enough for you to believe?” he inquired softly.
His voice was a black-magic weapon. That was what Shea believed. She shivered and moved closer to Jacques. They all trusted Gregori, yet wasn’t he one of the ancients? They had all told her a vampire could hide itself, appear normal. None of them even suspected him. It was agreed he was the most dangerous, his knowledge acquired unceasingly through the centuries. And he was their healer, had given blood to all of them. Her brain worked at the pieces of the puzzle.
It is impossible. Jacques caught her thoughts.
Why? Shea demanded.
Mikhail would know. I do not know how I know this, but Gregori could not hide this from Mikhail
She gave an exasperated little sigh.
Jacques hid his grin at her feminine petulance. She really had an aversion to the way Gregori dictated to the women.
”
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Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
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If a small green caterpillar drops from a tree on the sleeve of an Irishman he will two days later assure you that he was attacked by a dragon of four heads, one blue, one red, one black and one invisible, that the dragon was a furlong in length and that he escaped from it only after a battle in which he was left with but a pint of blood in his veins.” “They are an engaging race, without a doubt,” said Abbot Almin. “Yes,” said Sir Roger, “but as I say, they don’t know the real from the fanciful. That is why it is so important for us to rule their country. You can’t have a collection of poets, mystics and outright liars running an island next door to your own nation. Much too dangerous and disorderly.
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Leonard Wibberley (The Mouse That Roared Boxed Set)
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It can even lead to a complete recasting of the original problem. If a client requests a new, improved toaster, IDEO might flip the question around to ask: Is there a better way to make toast? Or how could breakfast be different? IDEO took a similar tack when helping Apple develop its revolutionary computer mouse in 1980. “Right from the start we ask ‘What is the real problem we need to address?’” says Fulton Suri. “There is always a danger that the solution is already embedded in the way we frame our original problem. If we take the time to reframe it, we can open up alternative and often better ways to address the real need.
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Carl Honoré (The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better In a World Addicted to Speed)
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neatly tucking into a mouse,
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Erin Hunter (A Dangerous Path)
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He looks like a man that I could settle down with but dangerous enough to keep me excited.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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Mice don’t seek danger, not the way we do. They, like everything else on this planet, are subject to the whims of humans. My whims involved tests that could greatly advance our understanding of the brain, and my desire to understand the brain superseded every other desire I had. I understood that the same thing that made humans great—our recklessness and creativity and curiosity—was also the thing that hampered the lives of everything around us. Because we were the animal daring enough to take boats out to sea, even when we thought the world was flat and that our boats would fall off the edge, we discovered new land, different people, roundness. The cost of this discovery was the destruction of that new land, those different people. Without us oceans wouldn’t be turning to acid, frogs and bats and bees and reefs wouldn’t be heading for extinction. Without me, the limping mouse wouldn’t limp; he would never have succumbed to addiction.
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Yaa Gyasi (Transcendent Kingdom)
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She sighs, a sound of both frustration and acceptance. “Is he dangerous?” “Yes,” I admit. “But not to me. He loves me, and not only that, he loves me for who I am. He’s never wanted to change me.
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H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
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Because now… he looks savage. “I’m going to ruin you,” he corrects. I take a step back, a lump forming in my throat. His image moves, his body walking in a different direction. Is he coming closer? I can’t tell. I take another step back, the adrenaline in my system rising to dangerous levels. He’s scaring me. “Run,” he growls. My lungs constrict at the guttural command. “If I catch you, I fuck you.” Eyes widening, I listen, my body catapulting into action. I run.
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))
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Just because the sun is pretty doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous to stare at,
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H.D. Carlton (Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #1))