Details The Devil Quotes

you must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. always take the decisions you need to take, even if you're not sure you're doing the right thing. You'll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb: 'The devil is in the detail.' Remember that proverb and you'll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one.

Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess: Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity. Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends. Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point. Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing. I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong. Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces. Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not bossy. Let me discover merits where I had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess any. And, Lord, give me the grace to tell them so. Amen

She criticized, “There are no excuses for why it could not be better. The devil’s in the details,” Viola tried to teach him. That made him mad and she heard him mutter, “Now’s I know why they call you Mrs. Rough-ner!” He went out and used hand scissors for the edges making the yard crisp and pleasant for all to see. Then, Viola just had to smile to herself because she guessed she had pushed him to his limit! But at last, the task was perfect and then, right after that, he left their home again.

Perdition awaits at the end of a road constructed entirely from good intentions, the devil emerges from the details and hell abides in the small print.

The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.

Every time a girl refuses to eat, she one-ups Eve.

...things can happen when you least expect them so you always gotta be prepared. And pay attention to the details. The devil is in the details.

So what do we need to do? (Kat) One: Don’t die. Two: Don’t get bitten. (Sin) And? (Kat) Kick their ass. (Sin) Good plan. Little vague on the details. (Kat) Isn't it, though? (Sin)

God is present in the sweeping gesture, but the devil is in the details.

My lord said, amongst other things, that he did not propose to burden the doctor with the details of his genealogy. He consigned the doctor and all his works, severally and comprehensively described, to hell, and finished up his epic speech by a pungent and Rabelaisian criticism of the whole race of leeches.

More details, more devils.

She thanked me again and then said, ''Some people say 'God is in the details.' Others say it's the Devil.'' Margaret replied, 'Maybe it depends on who's reporting the details.

The fewer words you say, the more chance they have of being general, that is, both true and false. After all, the devil lies in the details.

There's a fine line between piety and wack-ass obsession, and people have been landing on the wrong side for thousands of years.

become works of art so detailed, so precisely articulated

He could wait while I threw some laundry in. That's right ladies. I do laundry.

the greatest thing about having so many laws was that you could pick and choose, and move on to the next when the last lost its magic.

The devil was always in the detail. And here the detail was certainly devilish.

The devil may in the details, but I've a firm conviction many angels reside there as well.

The important things. Where should I find them? In the detail, like God? In the risk, like the Devil?

The devil is in the detail" is an idiom that refers to a catch or mysterious element hidden in the details. It derives from "God is in the detail" attributed to German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969). Earlier on Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) said "Le bon Dieu est dans le detail." Meaning that things seem simple at first but are more complex or require more time and effort than expected. The earlier idea is that details are important; whatever one does should be done thoroughly.

Remember that the truth is in the details. No matter how you see the world or what style it imposes on your work as an artist, the truth is in the details. Of course the devil’s there, too—everyone says so—but maybe truth and the devil are words for the same thing. It could be, you know.

Vagueness is the kingdom of the devil and it is as such on purpose." - On Vagueness

The devil is in the details. So, sometimes, is salvation.

When it comes to creating compelling fiction, the devil may be in the details, but it is your imagination that ultimately allows your work to spread its wings and take flight. And fly it must. Only by soaring above the clouds of doubt can one truly achieve a suspension of disbelief

Remember that the truth is in the details. No matter how you see the world or what style it imposes on your work as an artist, the truth is in the details. Of course the devil’s there, too — everyone says so — but maybe truth and the devil are words for the same thing. It could be, you know.

It took some real inattention to detail, reality, and history to call either the Chinese or the varied nations that made up what Britain called India uncivilized, but then English propriety was that rare combination of inattention to everything that mattered coupled with a minute fascination with everything that didn’t.

You may set your mind at rest, Miss Anstruther-Wetherby." He glanced down, the planes of his face granite-hard. "I'm not marrying you because of any social stricture. That, if you consider it, is a nonsensical idea. Cynsters, as you well know, do not give a damn about social strictures. Society, as far as we're concerned, can think what it pleases—it does not rule us." "But… if that's the case—and given your reputation I can readily believe it is—why insist on marrying me?" "Because I want to." The words were delivered as the most patently obvious answer to a simple question. Honoria held on to her temper. "Because you want to?" He nodded. "That's it? Just because you want to?" The look he sent her was calculated to quell. "For a Cynster, that's a perfectly adequate reason. In fact, for a Cynster, there is no better reason." He looked ahead again; Honoria glanced at his profile. "This is ridiculous. You only set eyes on me yesterday, and now you want to marry me?" Again he nodded. "Why?" The glance he shot her was too brief for her to read. "It so happens I need a wife, and you're the perfect candidate." With that, he altered their direction and lengthened his stride even more. "I am not a racehorse." His lips thinned, but he slowed--just enough so she didn't have to run. They'd gained the graveled walk that circled the house. It took her a moment to replay his words, another to see their weakness. "That's still ridiculous. You must have half the female population of the ton waiting to catch your handkerchief every time you blow your nose." He didn't even glance her way. "At least half." "So why me?" Devil considered telling her--in graphic detail. Instead, he gritted his teeth and growled: "Because you're unique." "Unique?" Unique in that she was arguing.

Full red lips complimented her face,

The devil is in the details.

Always pay attention to the fine print. The devil's in the details. Now go.

What would my work be like if I had to keep returning to the same story every time, I wondered. If, instead of hunting down sad places where people's lives had been ruined, there was only the one place, a place where, every time I told the story again, there was some new thing to learn about it, some overlooked ripple or wrinkle or speck that fleshed out the details, that brought them more fully to life: but with the provision, present in the process, that nothing could help, nothing would change, no one would be unburdened, or healed, or made whole.

When you’ve had a psychotic breakdown it’s always so difficult making that decision. You meet someone new and you wonder how much you should tell them? You wonder what that person’s threshold of ‘strange’ is, and at what point in my story would I end up driving them away. That fear it’s always there in the back of your mind. Those details you never really even admitted to yourself, but that somehow have to be told just as much as they have to be buried deep down.

I hold no preconceived prejudice against anyone," he'd said, "because to do so is utter folly for someone in my line of work. It's only ignorance that causes individuals to label an entire race as either good or bad. These are generalities so broad as to be both worthless and dangerous. I deal only in specifics. God as they say, is in the details. I must focus on the unique traits of the individual in order to tailor an illusion that will ultimately enchant. To see others in this manner is to never give in to labeling. To fail to do this is the equivalent of putting on a blindfold. Do you understand? The devil is in the details.

Postmodernism thus is not relativism or skepticism, as its uncomprehending critics almost daily charge, but minutely close attention to detail, a sense for the complexity and multiplicity of things, for close readings, for detailed histories, for sensitivity to differences. The postmodernists think the devil is in the details, but they also have reason to hope that none of this will antagonize God.

Love – Acceptance – Unity – Peace –Integrity – Respect… a strong, pure creed is short on words and long on nourishing ideas. For me, the longer the creed the more it has been diluted, manipulated, and spoiled. The results of this creed poisoning can be seen in the behavior of its followers. We have all heard the expression, “The devil is in the details”; my observations have led me to suspect this is true.

Pandora launched into a detailed account of her conversation with the hermit crab, reporting that his name was Shelley, after the poet, whose works he admired. He was a well-traveled crustacean, having flown to distant lands while clinging to the pink leg of a herring gull who had no taste for shellfish, preferring hazelnuts and bread crumbs. One day, the herring gull, who possessed the transmigrated soul of an Elizabethan stage actor, had taken Shelley to see Hamlet at the Drury Lane theater. During the performance, they had alighted on the scenery and played the part of a castle gargoyle for the entire second act. Shelley had enjoyed the experience but had no wish to pursue a theatrical career, as the hot stage lights had nearly fricasseed him. Gabriel stopped digging and listened, transported by the wonder and whimsy of Pandora's imagination. Out of thin air, she created a fantasy world in which animals could talk and anything was possible. He was charmed out of all reason as he watched her, this sandy, disheveled, storytelling mermaid, who seemed already to belong to him and yet wanted nothing to do with him. His heart worked in strange rhythms, as if it were struggling to adjust to a brand new metronome. What was happening to him?

Homes, Gamache knew, were a self portrait. A person's choice of color, furnishing, pictures, every touch revealed the individual. God, or the devil, was in the details. And so was the human. Was it dirty, messy, obsessively clean? Were the decorations chosen to impress, or were they a hodgepodge of personal history? Was the space cluttered or clear? He felt a thrill every time he entered a home during an investigation.

We learn that the lowly footnote is not really a lowly paratext in Anthony Grafton’s The Footnote; A Curious History and Chuck Zerby’s The Devil’s Details: A History of Footnotes.

The devil’s in the details!

Since the Devil is in the details... I don't think I'll elaborate.

The next time you’re brainstorming business ideas, keep in mind – “the devil is in the details.” Often times, the smallest things, lead to the biggest rewards.

Both God and the Devil are in the details…

The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.

The devil is in the details,” the great admiral Hyman Rickover used to say, “but so is salvation.

[The Devil] "This legend is about paradise. There was, they say, a certain thinker and philospher here on your earth, who 'rejected all--laws, conscience faith, and, above all, the future life. He died and thought he'd go straight into darkness and death, but no--there was the future life before him. He was amazed and indignant. 'This,' he said, 'goes against my convictions.' So for that he was sentenced...I mean, you see, I beg your pardon, I'm repeating what I heard, it's just a legend...you see, he was sentenced to walk in darkness a quadrillion kilometers (we also use kilometers now), and once he finished that quadrillion, the doors of paradise would be open to him and he would be forgiven everything...Well, so this man sentenced to the quadrillion stood a while, looked, and then lay down across the road: 'I dont want to go, I refuse to go on principle!' Take the soul of an enlightened Russian atheist and mix it with the soul of the prophet Jonah, who sulked in the belly of a whale for three days and three nights--you'll get the character of this thinker lying in the road...He lay there for nearly a thousand years, and then got up and started walking." "What an ass!" Ivan exclaimed, bursting into nervous laughter, still apparently trying hard to figure something out. "isn't it all the same whether he lies there forever or walks a quadrillion kilometers? It must be about a billion years' walk!" "Much more, even. If we had a pencil and paper, we could work it out. But he arrived long ago, and this is where the anecdote begins." "Arrived! But where did he get a billion years?" "You keep thinking about our present earth! But our present earth may have repeated itself a billion times; it died out, lets say, got covered with ice, cracked, fell to pieces, broke down into its original components, again there were the waters above the firmament, then again a comet, again the sun, again the earth from the sun--all this development may already have been repeated an infinite number of times, and always in the same way, to the last detail. A most unspeakable bore... "Go on, what happened when he arrived?" "The moment the doors of paradise were opened and he went in, before he had even been there two seconds--and that by the watch--before he had been there two seconds, he exclaimed that for those two seconds it would be worth walking not just a quadrillion kilometers, but a quadrillion quadrillion, even raised to the quadrillionth power! In short, he sang 'Hosannah' and oversweetened it so much that some persons there, of a nobler cast of mind, did not even want to shake hands with him at first: he jumped over to the conservatives a bit too precipitously. The Russian character. I repeat: it's a legend.

In the same way we find much of the universe, as science discovers it, difficult to understand. Einstein's relativity, quantum uncertainty, black holes, the big bang, the expanding universe, the vast slow movement of geological time – all these are hard to grasp. No wonder science frightens some people. But science can even explain why these things are hard to understand, and why the effort frightens us. We are jumped-up apes, and our brains were only designed to understand the mundane details of how to survive in the stone-age African savannah.

Yes, the Bible is indeed infallible, they’re right about that, but its infallibility is in its inability to be truly understood. It’s a paradox. As messy and monotonous and sometimes gorgeous and sometimes horrendous as existence itself. Jesus’ message, that God is love, is the only real takeaway. The Devil, as always, is in the details. The Bible is infallible. The Bible contradicts itself. Therefore, that which contradicts itself is infallible. That’s the only way it makes sense. Otherwise it’s just a Choose Your Own Adventure book used to justify what you already believe, or the morality you strive for but know you’ll never actually attain. Most people are hypocrites. The vast majority would say they are good, or are trying to be good, but are in fact pretty bad.

Again; thousands are deceived into supposing that they have “accepted Christ” as their “personal Saviour,” who have not first received Him as their LORD. The Son of God did not come here to save His people in their sin, but “from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). To be saved from sins, is to be saved from ignoring and despising the authority of God, it is to abandon the course of self-will and self-pleasing, it is to “forsake our way” (Isa. 55:7). It is to surrender to God’s authority, to yield to His dominion, to give ourselves over to be ruled by Him. The one who has never taken Christ’s “yoke” upon him, who is not truly and diligently seeking to please Him in all the details of life, and yet supposes that he is “resting on the Finished Work of Christ” is deluded by the Devil.1

Don’t be afraid of aging. As the saying goes, don’t be afraid of anything but fear itself. Find “your” perfume before you turn thirty. Wear it for the next thirty years. No one should ever see your gums when you talk or laugh. If you own only one sweater, make sure it’s cashmere. Wear a black bra under your white blouse, like two notes on a sheet of music. One must live with the opposite sex, not against them. Except when making love. Be unfaithful: cheat on your perfume, but only on cold days. Go to the theater, to museums, and to concerts as often as possible: it gives you a healthy glow. Be aware of your qualities and your faults. Cultivate them in private but don’t obsess. Make it look easy. Everything you do should seem effortless and graceful. Not too much makeup, too many colors, too many accessories …  Take a deep breath and keep it simple. Your look should always have one thing left undone—the devil is in the details. Be your own knight in shining armor. Cut your own hair or ask your sister to do it for you. Of course you know celebrity hairdressers, but only as friends. Always be fuckable: when standing in line at the bakery on a Sunday morning, buying champagne in the middle of the night, or even picking the kids up from school. You never know. Either go all gray or no gray hair. Salt and pepper is for the table.

One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the “nightmare” of history, nor any technology not already available. No imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities. God is in the details, they say. So is the devil.

If I am to be associated with your devil, then for your own good I suggest you do not take me for his whore, though I’m sure she’s equally terrifying,” She cocks her head slightly, trying to remember the details of their dark anti god. “I suppose just the devil would do, that would give you enough warning I believe.

While he’s gone, Chris gives me detailed directions for how to get to the grocery store. “Take the third left after the Lutheran church, and then the next right after First Baptist, and, now, if you see St. Mary’s, you’ve gone too far.” By the time I hop up behind the wheel of an old Ford truck, I think I’ll just let Jesus take the wheel.

After all, life doesn’t offer a man much. You work like the devil and think you’re getting on, and suddenly you discover that you’ve only been getting yourself tied up. A million details drink you dry. Your life keeps going for things you don’t want, and all the while you are being built alive into a social structure you don’t care a rap about.

[Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe] was reading a cookery book as [George] entered. Some hold the view that a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things, but Sir Gregory found that it gave him a melancholy pleasure to be wafted back into the golden past by perusing the details of the sort of dishes where you start off with a dozen eggs and use plenty of suet for the pastry. At the moment he was deep in the chapter about Chocolate Soufflé. And he had just got to the part where the heroine takes two tablespoonfuls of butter and three ounces of Sunshine Sauce and was wondering how it all came out in the end, when he had a feeling that the air in the room had become a little close and, looking up, saw that he had a visitor. 'What the devil are you doing here?' was his kindly greeting [...].

He reached for me, and fast as lightning, he boxed my ears. All I remember is the world exploding. Cassandra says she helped me back to our room, and there was blood coming from my left ear. My right ear mended in a day or two, but I could only hear a little out of the left one, and there was a beating pain deep down. Soon I took ill with fever. Mama said that had nothing to do with the ear, but I think it did." Pandora paused, unwilling to relate any of the distasteful details of her ear suppurating and draining. She glanced cautiously at Gabriel, whose face was averted. He was no longer playing with her braid. His hand had clenched around it until the muscles of his forearms and wrist stood out. "Even after I recovered from the fever," Pandora said, "the hearing didn't come back all the way. But the worst part was that I kept losing my balance, especially at night. It made me afraid of the dark. Ever since then-" She stopped as Gabriel lifted his head. His face was hard and murderous, the hellfrost in his eyes frightening her more than her father's fury ever had. "That bloody son of a bitch," he said softly. "If he were still alive, I'd beat him with a thresher's flail." Pandora reached out with a fluttering motion, patting the air near him. "No," she said breathlessly, "no, I wouldn't want that. I hated him for a long time, but now I feel sorry for him." Gabriel caught her hand in midair, swift but gentle, as if it were a bird he wanted to hold without injuring. His eyes had dilated until she could see reflections of herself in the dark centers. "Why?" he whispered after a long moment. "Because hurting me was the only way to hide his own pain.

The devil in the detail is that Smart Crowds are fragile. With a very little adulteration, they cease to be smart at all, and become remarkably stupid, or indeed self-harming. They are susceptible to stampeding by demagogues, poisoning by bad information. They can be made afraid, and when they do they become mobs. They can be divided by scapegoating and prejudice, bought off in fragments, even just romanced by pretty faces.

When I was a kid an older guy sat out front of a gas station in Old Town, FL. His favorite story involved roughing up a couple of guys because "you could tell they weren't from around here." The gruesome details were implied as he'd pull out a straight razor and a plastic bag containing Red Devil lye. "Deliverance", the end of "Easy Rider", and every "wrong turn" horror movie would later make more sense because of those childhood stops for gas and a Yoo-hoo.

Kathleen, Lady Trenear, was a petite woman with red hair, tip-tilted eyes and high cheekbones. Phoebe had come to like her very much during the week the Ravenels had stayed at Heron's Point. Kathleen was cheerful and engaging, albeit a bit horse mad, since both her parents had been in the business of breeding and training Arabians. Phoebe liked horses, but she didn't know nearly enough about them to carry on a detailed conversation. Fortunately, Kathleen was the mother of an infant son who was close to Stephen's age, and that had provided ample ground for conversation.

that rotten feeling of antlike industry. There is really no need to belabor the point, since it is obvious to most of us these days that mathematics has taken possession, like a demon, of every aspect of our lives. Most of us may not believe in the story of a Devil to whom one can sell one’s soul, but those who must know something about the soul (considering that as clergymen, historians, and artists they draw a good income from it) all testify that the soul has been destroyed by mathematics and that mathematics is the source of an evil intelligence that while making man the lord of the earth has also made him the slave of his machines. The inner drought, the dreadful blend of acuity in matters of detail and indifference toward the whole, man’s monstrous abandonment in a desert of details, his restlessness, malice, unsurpassed callousness, money-grubbing, coldness, and violence, all so characteristic of our times, are by these accounts solely the consequence of damage done to the soul by keen logical thinking! Even back when Ulrich first turned to mathematics there were already those who predicted the collapse of European civilization because no human faith, no love, no simplicity, no goodness, dwelt any longer in man.

Your enemies call it comeuppance and relish the details of a drug too fine, how long you must have dangled there beside yourself. In the middle distance of your twenty-ninth year, night split open like a fighter's bruised palm, a purple ripeness. Friends shook their heads. With you it was always the next attractive trouble, as if an arranged marriage had been made in a country of wing walkers, lion tamers, choirboys leaping from bellpulls into the high numb glitter, and you, born with the breath of wild on your tongue brash as gin. True, it was charming for a while. Your devil's balance, your debts. Then no one was laughing. Hypodermic needles and cash registers emptied themselves in your presence. Cars went head-on. Sympathy, old motor, ran out or we grew old, our tongues wearing little grooves in our mouths clucking disappointment. Michael, what pulled you up by upstart roots and set you packing, left the rest of us here, body-heavy on the edge of our pews. Over the reverend's lament we could still hear laughter, your mustache the angled black wings of a perfect crow. Later we taught ourselves the proper method for mourning haphazard life: salt, tequila, lemon. Drinking and drifting in your honor we barely felt a thing.

When I look back on my life, I marvel at how it hasn’t been the major decisions that have most impacted its course. It’s been the tiny, seemingly inconsequential ones. Think about it. Think about the sudden events that have affected your life. With most of them, wasn’t it just a matter of seconds one way or the other? Wasn’t it the little decisions that caused you to cross this street or that, to move yourself into or out of harm’s way? These are the things that get you in the end. Who you marry, what you choose as your profession, how you were raised—yes, that is the big picture. But, as they say, the devil’s in the details. Well,

The most skilled manipulators are able to mix lies with the truth. This enables them to paint a more credible illusion as the kernels of truth embedded in the illusion gives those around them the impression that what they are saying is actually real. As a result, they may get away with their lies. However, please bear in mind that the devil is in the details. So, if you knit pick long enough, you may find that you are dealing with an impostor. That’s why it’s always a good idea to take everything you hear with a grain of salt. If you choose to take everything you hear at face value, you may become disappointed when you realize that you believed someone who was deliberately trying to fool you.

Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. 'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.

Talking with Merritt was like slipping into one of those silk-lined borrowed coats from the Challons. Comfortable, luxurious. She was whip-smart, understanding the details, the unsaid words. She had a way of wrapping people in empathy that extended to everyone from the duke down to the young assistant groundskeeper. It was the kind of charm that made people feel wittier, more attractive, more interesting, in her reflected glow. Keir was doing his level best to resist her lure. But he was so drawn to her, so damn besotted. He adored her fancy words... "prevarication"... "resplendent"... her easy smiles... her perfumed wrists and throat. She was like a beautiful gift that begged to be unwrapped. Just being near her made the blood sing in his veins.

Gossip about us will abound tomorrow,” he said quietly. “I suspect it will abound tonight.” “And you don’t care.” “Not one whit. I have wanted to dance with you since the first ball I ever saw you attend.” “You looked so young and innocent that night, dressed in white. Who would have thought you were such a hellion?” She wasn’t certain whether he was striving to compliment or insult her, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he appeared to recall as many details about that night as she did. “You remember what I was wearing?” “I remember everything about you that night. You wore pink ribbons in your hair and pearls against your throat.” “The pearls were my mother’s.” “You were standing amongst a gaggle of girls, and you stood out not because of your beauty—which far exceeded theirs—but because of your refusal to be cowed. No one has ever challenged me as you do, Catherine.” “No one has ever intrigued me as you do, my lord.

They place more reliance upon methods and kinds of ceremony than upon the reality of their prayer, and herein they greatly offend and displease God. I refer, for example, to a Mass which is said with so many candles, neither more nor fewer; which is said by a priest in such and such a way; and must be at such and such an hour, neither sooner nor later; and the prayers and stations must be made at such time and with such ceremonies and in no other manner; and the person who makes them must have such qualities or qualifications. And there are those who think that if any of these details which they have laid down be wanting, nothing is accomplished. What is worse, and indeed intolerable, is that certain persons desire to feel some effect in themselves, or to have petitions fulfilled, or to know that the purpose of these ceremonious prayers of theirs will be accomplished. This is nothing less than to tempt God and to offend Him greatly, so much so that He sometimes gives leave for the devil to deceive them.

His expression was perturbed, as if he’d been reminded of something he had wanted to forget. But as his gaze slid over her bewildered face, his mouth curved a little, and he settled into the cradle of her body with an insolent familiarity that temporarily robbed her of breath. “Mr. Rohan … how … why … what are you doing here?” He replied without moving, as if he were planning to lie there and converse all day. His infinitely polite tone was an unsettling contrast to the intimacy of their position. “Miss Hathaway. What a pleasant surprise. As it happens, I’m visiting friends. And you?” “I live here.” “I don’t think so. This is Lord Westcliff’s estate.” Her heart thundered in her breast as her body absorbed the details of him. “I didn’t mean precisely here, I meant over there, on the other side of the woods. The Ramsay estate. We’ve just taken up residence.” She couldn’t seem to stop herself from chattering in the aftermath of nerves and fright. “What was that noise? What were you doing? Why do you have that tattoo on your arm? It’s a pooka—an Irish creature—isn’t it?” That last question earned her an arrested stare. Before Rohan could reply, the other two men approached. From her prone position, Amelia had an upside-down view of them. Like Rohan, they were in their shirtsleeves, with waistcoats left unbuttoned. One of them was a portly old gentleman with a shock of silver hair. He held a small wood-and-metal sextant, which had been strung around his neck on a lanyard. The other, black-haired man looked to be in his late thirties. He wasn’t as tall as Rohan, but he had an air of authority tempered with aristocratic arrogance. Amelia made a helpless movement, and Rohan lifted away from her with fluid ease. He helped her stand, his arm steadying her. “How far did it go?” he asked the men. “Devil take the rocket,” came a gravelly reply. “What is the woman’s condition?” “Unharmed.” The silver-haired gentleman remarked, “Impressive, Rohan. You covered a distance of fifty yards in no more than five or six seconds.” “I would hardly miss a chance to leap on a beautiful woman,” Rohan said, causing the older man to chuckle.

Why should “gratitude” be an emotion that is denied to the devil? Dostoevsky leaves this unanswered. But it is worth reflecting on. For acts of deconstruction and destruction can be performed with extraordinary ease. Such ease that they might as well be the habits of the devil. A great building such as a church or a cathedral can take decades — even centuries — to build. But it can be burned to the ground or otherwise brought down in an afternoon. Similarly, the most delicate canvas or work of art can be the product of years of craft and labor, and it can be destroyed in a moment. The human body is the same. I once read a particular detail of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. A gang of Hutus had been at their work and among the people they macheted that day was a Tutsi doctor. As his brains spilled out onto the roadside, one of his killers mocked the idea that these were meant to be the brains of a doctor. How did his learning look now? All the years of education and learning, all the knowledge and experience in that head was destroyed in a moment by people who had achieved none of those things.

You mentioned that Palermo, the part of Buenos Aires where you were brought up, had been a violent place full of bohemians and bandits. There they had two names for the knife, ‘the blade’ and ‘the slicer’. The two names described the same object, but ‘the blade’ was the thing itself, and ‘the slicer’ described its function. ‘The blade’ could fit in the hand even of a sickly child shut up in his father’s library, ‘the blade’ could be any of the superannuated daggers and swords belonging to his warrior grandfather or great-grandfather and displayed on the walls of his house, but ‘the slicer’, the knife in the hand slicing back and forth, in and out, existed only in his imagination, in a fascinating world of rapid settlings of accounts and duels over honor, an insult or a woman, in dark street where you never went, where no writer went, except in the literature he wrote. ‘I’ve always felt that in order to be a great writer, one should have the experience of life at sea, which is why Conrad and Melville and, in a way, Stevenson, who ended his days in the South Seas, were better than all of us, Vogelstein. At sea, a writer flees from the minor demons and faces only the definitive ones. A character in Conrad says that he has a horror of ports because, in port, ships rot and men go to the devil. He meant the devils of domesticity and incoherence, the small devils of terra firma. But I think that having experience of “the slicer” would give a writer the same sensation as going to sea, of spectacularly breaking the bounds of his own passivity and of his remoteness from the fundamental matters of the world.’ ‘You mean that if the writer were to stab someone three times, he could allege that he was merely doing so in order to improve his style.’ ‘Something like that. Soaking up experience and atmosphere.’ ‘It’s said that the artist Turner used to have himself lashed to the ship’s mast during storms at sea so that he could make sure he was getting the colours and details of his painted vortices right.’ ‘And it worked. But neither you nor I will ever experience “the slicer”, Vogelstein. We are condemned to “the blade”, to the knife purely as theory. Even if we used “the slicer” against someone, we would still be ourselves, watching, analyzing the scene, and, therefore, inevitably, holding “the blade” in our hand. I don’t think I could kill anyone, apart from my own characters. And I don’t think I would feel comfortable at sea either. There aren’t any libraries at sea. The sea replaces the library.

He sat beside his brother and glanced at the notes. “The broken pew in the chapel has been repaired—you can cross that off the list. The keg of caviar arrived yesterday. It’s in the icehouse. I don’t know whether the extra camp chairs are here yet. I’ll ask Sims.” He paused to drink half his coffee in one swallow. “Where’s Kathleen? Still abed?” “Are you joking? She’s been awake for hours. At the moment she’s with the housekeeper, showing deliverymen where to set the flower arrangements.” A fond smile crossed Devon’s lips as he rolled the pencil against the tabletop with the flat of his hand. “You know my wife—every detail has to be perfect.” “It’s like staging a production at St. James’s Music Hall. Without, sadly, the chorus girls in pink tights.” West drained the rest of his coffee. “My God, will this day never end?” “It’s only six o’clock in the morning,” Devon pointed out. They both sighed. “I’ve never thanked you properly for marrying Kathleen at the registrar’s office,” West commented. “I want you to know how much I enjoyed it.” “You weren’t there.” “That’s why I enjoyed it.” Devon’s lips twitched. “I was glad not to have to wait,” he said. “But had there been more time, I wouldn’t have minded going through a more elaborate ceremony for Kathleen’s sake.” “Please. Shovel that manure in someone else’s direction.

Only the History of William Marshal described this encounter in close terms, though the broad details of its account were confirmed in other contemporary sources. One thing seems certain. This was to be no fair fight. So intent had Richard been upon hunting down his father, that he had begun his chase wearing only a doublet and light helm. This added speed to his pursuit, but left him dreadfully exposed to attack. Worse still, the Lionheart was armed with only a sword. Marshal, by contrast, had a shield and lance. The biographer described how: [William] spurred straight on to meet the advancing [Duke] Richard. When the [duke] saw him coming he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘God’s legs, Marshal! Don’t kill me. That would be a wicked thing to do, since you find me here completely unarmed.’ In that instant, Marshal could have slain Richard, skewering his body with the same lethal force that dispatched Patrick of Salisbury in 1168. Had there been more than a split second to ponder the choice, William might perhaps have reacted differently. As it was, instinct took over. Marshal simply could not bring himself to kill an un-armoured opponent, let alone the heir-apparent to the Angevin realm, King Henry II’s eldest surviving son. Instead, he was said to have shouted in reply: ‘Indeed I won’t. Let the Devil kill you! I shall not be the one to do it’, and at the last moment, lowering his lance fractionally, he drove it into Richard’s mount. With that ‘the horse died instantly; it never took another step forward’ and, as it fell, the Lionheart was thrown to the ground and his pursuit of the king brought to an end.

I want to decorate the castle with shells and seaweed,” Seraphina said. “You’ll make it look like a girl’s castle,” Justin protested. “Your hermit crab might be a girl,” Seraphina pointed out. Justin was clearly appalled by the suggestion. “He’s not! He’s not a girl!” Seeing his little cousin’s gathering outrage, Ivo intervened quickly. “That crab is definitely male, sis.” “How do you know?” Seraphina asked. “Because . . . well, he . . .” Ivo paused, fumbling for an explanation. “Because,” Pandora intervened, lowering her voice confidentially, “as we were planning the layout of the castle, the hermit crab discreetly asked me if we would include a smoking room. I was a bit shocked, as I thought he was rather young for such a vice, but it certainly leaves no doubt as to his masculinity.” Justin stared at her raptly. “What else did he say?” he demanded. “What is his name? Does he like his castle? And the moat?” Pandora launched into a detailed account of her conversation with the hermit crab, reporting that his name was Shelley, after the poet, whose works he admired. He was a well-traveled crustacean, having flown to distant lands while clinging to the pink leg of a herring gull who had no taste for shellfish, preferring hazelnuts and bread crumbs. One day, the herring gull, who possessed the transmigrated soul of an Elizabethan stage actor, had taken Shelley to see Hamlet at the Drury Lane theater. During the performance, they had alighted on the scenery and played the part of a castle gargoyle for the entire second act. Shelley had enjoyed the experience but had no wish to pursue a theatrical career, as the hot stage lights had nearly fricasseed him.

Michael took me to Paris for the first time back in 1995. I was thirty-six years old and we’d been seeing each other for five months. He was invited to give a talk on childhood leukemia to a conference in Toulouse, and asked if I’d like to go along. When I regained consciousness I said, yes, yes, yes please! We flew out of Montréal in a snowstorm, almost missing the flight. Michael was, to be honest, a little vague on details, like departure times of planes, trains, buses. In fact, almost all appointments. This was the trip where I realized we each had strengths. Mine seemed to be actually getting us to places. His was making it fun once there. On our first night in Paris we went to a wonderful restaurant, then for a walk. At some stage he said, “I’d like to show you something. Look at this.” He was pointing to the trunk of a tree. Now, I’d actually seen trees before, but I thought there must be something extraordinary about this one. “Get up close,” he said. “Look at where I’m pointing.” It was dark, so my nose was practically touching his finger, lucky man. Then, slowly, slowly, his finger began moving, scraping along the bark. I was cross-eyed, following it. And then it left the tree trunk. And pointed into the air. I followed it. And there was the Eiffel Tower. Lit up in the night sky. As long as I live, I will never forget that moment. Seeing the Eiffel Tower with Michael. And the dear man, knowing the magic of it for a woman who never thought she’d see Paris, made it even more magical by making it a surprise. C. S. Lewis wrote that we can create situations in which we are happy, but we cannot create joy. It just happens. That moment I was surprised by complete and utter joy. A little more than a year earlier I knew that the best of life was behind me. I could not have been more wrong. In that year I’d gotten sober, met and fell in love with Michael, and was now in Paris. We just don’t know. The key is to keep going. Joy might be just around the corner

APRIL 6 Don’t be discouraged at the spiritual war you’re called to fight every day. The Lord almighty is with you and wars on your behalf. Between the “already” and the “not yet,” life is war. It can be exhausting, frustrating, and discouraging. We all go through moments when we wish life could just be easier. We wonder why parenting has to be such a continual spiritual battle. We all wish our marriages could be free of war. We all would love it if there were no conflicts at our jobs or in our churches. But we all wake up to a war-torn world every day. It is the sad legacy of a world that has been broken by sin and is constantly under the attack of the enemy. The way the apostle Paul ends his letter to the Ephesian church is interesting and instructive. Having laid out the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ and having detailed their implications for our street-level living, he ends by talking about spiritual warfare: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Eph. 6:10–20) When you get to this final part of Paul’s letter, it’s tempting to think that he has entirely changed the subject. No longer, it seems, is he talking about everyday Christianity. But that’s exactly what he’s talking about. He is saying to the Ephesian believers, “You know all that I’ve said about marriage, parenting, communication, anger, the church, and so on—it’s all one big spiritual war.” Paul is reminding you that at street level, practical, daily Christianity is war. There really is moral right and wrong. There really is an enemy. There really is seductive and deceptive temptation. You really are spiritually vulnerable. But he says more. He reminds you that by grace you have been properly armed for the battle. The question is, will you use the implements of battle that the cross of Jesus Christ has provided for you?

No, she couldn’t blame this one on him. This one was entirely hers. She’d sent him running away. Everyone knew it, too, which was nowhere more apparent than in the carriage once they were all settled in and headed off. Lisette was unusually silent. The duke’s wooden expression said that he wished he could be anywhere else but here. And Tristan was studying her with a cold gaze. He did that for a mile or so before he spoke. “You’re a cruel woman, Jane Vernon.” “Tristan!” Lisette chided. “Don’t be rude.” “I’ll be as rude as I please to her,” he told his sister, with a jerk of his head toward Jane. “That man is mad for her, and she just keeps toying with him.” Guilt swamped Jane. And she’d thought that spending half a day trapped with Dom would be bad? She must have been dreaming. “It’s none of our concern,” Lisette murmured. “The hell it isn’t.” Tristan stared hard at Jane. “Is this about Nancy? About the fact that if she has a child, Dom will lose the title and the estate?” “No, of course not!” How dared he! “Tristan, please--” Lisette began. “That’s why you jilted him years ago, isn’t it?” Tristan persisted. “Because he no longer had any money, and you’d lose your fortune if you married him?” “I did not jilt him!” Jane shouted. An unnatural silence fell in the carriage, and she cursed her quick tongue. But really, this was all Dom’s fault for never telling his family the truth. She was tired of being made to look the villainess when she’d done nothing wrong. “What do you mean?” Lisette asked. Jane released an exasperated breath. “I mean, I did jilt him. But only because he tricked me into it.” When that brought a smug smile to Tristan’s face, she narrowed her eyes on him. “You knew.” “Not the details. I just knew something wasn’t right. But since it was clear that neither you nor my idiot brother were going to say anything without being prodded into it, I…er…did a bit of prodding.” He smirked at her. “You do tend to speak your mind when you get angry.” Jane scowled at him. “You’re just like him, manipulative and arrogant and--” “I beg to differ,” Tristan said jovially. “He’s just like me. I taught him everything he knows.” “Yes, indeed,” Lisette said with a snort. “You taught him to be as much an idiot as you.” She glanced from Tristan to Jane. “So, is one of you going to tell me what is going on? About the jilting, I mean?” Tristan cocked an eyebrow at Jane. “Well?” She sighed. The cat was out of the bag now. Might as well reveal the rest. So she related the whole tale, from Dom’s plotting with Nancy at the ball to George’s involvement to how she’d finally discovered the truth. When she finished, Tristan let out a low whistle. “Hell and thunder. My big brother has a better talent for deception than I realized.” “Not as good as you’d think,” Jane muttered. “If I hadn’t been so wounded and angry at the time, I would have noticed how…manufactured the whole thing felt.” Lisette patted her hand. “You were young. We were all more volatile then.” Her voice hardened. “And he hit you just where it hurt, the curst devil. No wonder you want to strangle him half the time. I would have strung him up by his toes if he’d done such a thing to me!

With all due respect." Sam folded his arms over his chest. "If all you wanted was an extra diver, you probably should not have hired an archaeologist. We're devils when it comes to details, and not likely to opt for speed when accuracy is at stake.

the devil was in the details.

There is a secret society of seven men that controls the finances of the world. This is known to everyone but the details are not known. There are some who believe that it would be better if one of those seven men were a financier. There is a secret society of three men and four women that controls all the fashions of the world. The details of this are known to all who are in the fashion. And I am not. There is a secret society of nineteen men that is behind all the fascist organizations in the world. The secret name of this society is Glomerule. There is a secret society of thirteen persons known as the Elders of Edom that controls all the secret sources of the world. That the sources have become muddy is of concern to them. There is a secret society of only four persons that manufactures all the jokes of the world. One of these persons is unfunny and he is responsible for all the unfunny jokes. There is a secret society of eleven persons that is behind all Bolshevik and atheist societies of the world. The devil himself is a member of this society, and he works tirelessly to become a principal member. The secret name of this society is Ocean.... Chesterton said that Mankind itself was a secret society. Whether it would be better or worse if the secret should ever come out he did not say.

If Merripen had decided on a goal, no detail was too small, no task beneath him. No amount of adversity would deter him. The workmanlike quality that Leo had derided in the past had found its perfect outlet. God or the devil help anyone who got in Merripen’s way. But Merripen had a weakness. By now everyone in the family had become aware of the fierce and impossible attachment between Merripen and Win. And they all knew that to mention it would earn them nothing but trouble. Leo had never seen two people battle their mutual attraction so desperately.

Remember kid, the devil is in the details. Paris. Nineteen eighty-four.

Who you marry, what you choose as your profession, how you were raised—yes, that is the big picture. But, as they say, the devil’s in the details.

I’m not surprised to find that they’re asking the wrong questions the wrong way, and they’re looking at the wrong data. Again, the devil is in the details. I

I felt like I should be wearing a sign that said “damaged” or “failure” or, at least, “injured.” But some wounds only scar on the inside. Ryder

the negative coverage of Bannon and Trump and their relationship to the alt-right carried on for weeks. It was a subject any ordinary campaign would be toxically afraid of. But it didn’t produce the political dynamic Clinton expected: her lead actually narrowed in the month after her speech, from six points to two points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Bannon thought he knew why. “We polled the race stuff and it doesn’t matter,” he said in late September. “It doesn’t move anyone who isn’t already in her camp.” — What became much more worrisome for the Trump campaign was sex—and sexual assault. On October 7, David Fahrenthold, a reporter at The Washington Post, was leaked outtake footage from a 2005 Trump appearance on the NBC show Access Hollywood. In the tape, the recently married Trump is heard bragging in lewd and graphic detail to the show’s host, Billy Bush, about kissing, groping, and trying to bed women. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy.” From the moment it posted at four

From a raw political standpoint, Trump’s decision to adopt a set of views that offended and alienated minority voters, ugly though it was, turned out well for him. He would soon go further, broadening his attacks to include illegal immigrants. Trump did so at precisely the moment when Republican leaders, led by party chairman Reince Priebus (Trump’s future chief of staff), released an “autopsy” of Mitt Romney’s defeat that included a detailed plan for how the party could recover. Its most important recommendation was that Republicans embrace comprehensive immigration reform in order to broaden their appeal to minority voters. In so many words, Republican leaders were telling their rank and file that they needed to be more like Trump during his Apprentice glory days—while Trump was arriving at the opposite conclusion and, with Bannon’s eager encouragement, doing everything he could to build a political movement around white identity politics. A wily

Homes, Gamache knew, were a self-portrait. A person’s choice of color, furnishing, pictures. Every touch revealed the individual. God, or the Devil, was in the details. And so was the human. Was it dirty, messy, obsessively clean? Were the decorations chosen to impress, or were they a hodgepodge of personal history? Was the space cluttered or clear? He felt a thrill every time he entered a home during an investigation.

But the devil was in the details.

The reality is that the true fundamental transformation in America (and the West generally) has come in the realm of culture, notably in matters of sexual orientation, gender, marriage, and family. The shift there has been unprecedented and far beyond anyone’s imagination in 2008. It was signaled most conspicuously in June 2015 when the Obama White House—the nation’s first house—was illuminated in the colors of the “LGBTQ” rainbow on the day of the Obergefell decision, when the Supreme Court, by a one-vote margin, rendered unto itself the ability to redefine marriage (theretofore the province of biblical and natural law) and imposed this new “Constitutional right” on all fifty states. If ever there was a picture of a fundamental transformation, that was it. And that was just one of countless “accomplishments” heralded and boasted of by the Obama administration. In June 2016, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Obergefell, the White House press office released two extraordinary fact sheets detailing President Obama’s vast efforts to promote “LGBT” rights at home and abroad.663 Not only was it telling that the White House would assemble such a list, and tout it, but the sheer length of the list was stunning to behold. There was no similar list of such dramatic changes by the Obama White House in any other policy area. Such achievements included the infamous Obama bathroom fiat, through which, according to Barack Obama’s executive word, all public schools were ordered to revolutionize their restrooms and locker rooms to make them available to teenage boys who want to be called girls.

God is in the details, they say. So is the devil.

The devil is in the detail, Shane Ryan. Has no-one ever told you that?

Homes, Gamache knew, were a self-portrait. A person’s choice of color, furnishing, pictures. Every touch revealed the individual. God, or the Devil, was in the details. And so was the human.

THE DEVIL ISN’T IN the details. Evil thrives in blind spots. In absence, negative space, like the haze of a sleight-of-hand trick. The details are God’s work.

I’m not your adversary, specifically. That’s just the part I play.

I’m the choice some of you find so necessary to the concept of free will; what others of you deny even exists in favour of behavioural predestination. I think the least imaginative name I’ve heard is “the devil”, but I’ll answer to it if I must.

If you want to assign dubious motives to anyone, you should start with the Creator who set this game in motion in the first place, who trapped your strange little wandering souls in flesh-cages and then demanded you look away

I’m here to remind you who you are, not who you could be.

The Creator set you up with this notion that on some level, your life is about relationships. You gauge your own worth by how good a mother, a friend, a daughter, a worker you are. I offer a different perspective. I want to know you for your own sake.

one of the prevailing misconceptions of humanity is the all-consuming importance of every decision you make.

I’m not the teacher. I’m the test. I have nothing to teach you. No judgement to hand down.