Devil Bad Quotes

It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.

Come on, say it again. I'm a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!

Someone who smiles too much with you can sometime frown too much with you at your back.

People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil... Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.

She didn't understand that. "How can anyone be afraid of love?" "How can they not?" His face was completely aghast. "When you love someone... truly love them, friend or lover, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt—you literally hand them the razor with a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully on your heart and soul. And when they do strike, it's crippling—like having your heart carved out. It leaves you naked and exposed, wondering what you did to make them want to hurt you so badly when all you did was love them. What is so wrong with you that no one can keep faith with you? That no one can love you? To have it happen once is bad enough... but to have it repeated? Who in their right mind would not be terrified of that?

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols...

The first sign that Karma was now in cahoots with the Devil Incarnate to ruin her existance should've been before sunrise and pre-coffee.

Buy a gift for a dog, and you'll be amazed at the way it will dance and swerve its tail, but if don't have anything to offer to it, it won't even recognize your arrival; such are the attributes of fake friends.

I know what good morals are, but you're supposed to disregard good morals when you're living in a crazy, bad world. If you're in hell, how can you live like an angel? You're surrounded by devils,trying to be an angel? That's like suicide.

If the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.

And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.

Man cries, his tears dry up and run out. So he becomes a devil, reduced to a monster.

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

Ah, Evie,” she heard him say softly, “I must have a heart, after all…because right now it aches like the devil.” “Only your heart?” she asked ingenuously, making him laugh. He lowered her to the bed, his eyes sparkling wickedly. “Also a few other things,” he conceded. “And as my wife, it’s your duty to ease all my aches.

You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.

Lots of people have bad stories, and if they wail and sob and tell their story to anyone who’ll listen, it’s crap. Or half crap, at least.The stuff that really hurts people, the stuff that almost breaks them . . . that they won’t talk about. Ever.

Bad divorce?" Hardy asked, his gaze falling to my hands. I realized I was clutching my purse in a death grip. “No, the divorce was great,” I said. “It was the marriage that sucked.

The devil finds work for idle hands. Bad thoughts find empty heads.

I feel like I'm stuck in a bad movie, with a little devil sitting on one shoulder and an angel on the other. But the goddamn devil is twice the size and my angel is a fucking mute. Great, I have a fucking mute angel.

Having a relationship with people of questionable character is like playing with a razor blade on your skin, and pretending to observe that it is harmful to your body.

You want to be bad, angel? I can teach you every position it comes in

Any halfway clever devil would decorate the highway to Hell as beautiful as possible.

Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn’t have any alternative. But he hoped it was a long way off. Because he rather liked people. It was major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do to themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination. And electricity, of course. One of them had written it, hadn’t he…”Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

The most dangerous people in the world are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts, but those who do the acts for them. For example, when the British invaded India, many Indians accepted to work for the British to kill off Indians who resisted their occupation. So in other words, many Indians were hired to kill other Indians on behalf of the enemy for a paycheck. Today, we have mercenaries in Africa, corporate armies from the western world, and unemployed men throughout the Middle East killing their own people - and people of other nations - for a paycheck. To act without a conscience, but for a paycheck, makes anyone a dangerous animal. The devil would be powerless if he couldn't entice people to do his work. So as long as money continues to seduce the hungry, the hopeless, the broken, the greedy, and the needy, there will always be war between brothers.

What you should really be sorry for," he continued, "is that for the rest of my life, I'll have to avoid wine cellars to keep from thinking about you." "Why? Was kissing me that bad?" A devil-solf whisper. "No sweetheart. It was that good.

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough , it is your God-given right to have it...I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale.

Don't become a random photograph in the eyes of friends, and even your enemies, for each glance at your face will cause a declination of value and reputation. Create value, through scarcity.

So, been attacked by any vampires yet?" "Not one." "Zombies? Giant spiders? Water monsters?" It's been really quiet on the supernatural front" "Too bad, 'cause I got attacked by a devil dog. It was not awesome.

What victory would the Devil have to win a soul already bad? It is the best the Devil wants, and who is better than the minister." - Rev. John Hale

When things are like hunky dory, every enemy comes in the name of friend, but when things are twisted like turmoil, every friendly enemy shows you their colour.

Oh, you’re going to die all right. All of you. And for what you’ve done to my brother you will suffer unimaginably! (Kessar) Yada, yada, yada. Am I the only one who gets sick of the bad-guy monologue? ‘Ooo, I’m the big evil. I’m going to kill you all. Just wait while I bore you to tears with my egomaniacal bullshit. I’m just a demon windbag who likes to hear himself speak and I’m trying to intimidate you.' (Kat)

Get your butt over there and start reading before I beat you with my Rod of Time. (Sin) I can think of much better things to do with your rod than beat me, baby. (Kat) Aww, gawd, we’ve degenerated into really bad punage. I yield. Save me before my IQ points are damaged. (Sin)

There's a big difference on being wise and being crafty. The former is the attribute of God, and the latter is that of Satan.

You're not a bad person ... or you wouldn't be terrified about being a bad person.... The devil doesn't worry about going to hell.

There's a Good Book about goodness and how to be good and so forth, but there's no Evil Book about how to be evil and how to be bad. The Devil had no prophets to write his Ten Commandments, and no team of authors to write his biography. His case has gone completely by default. We know nothing about him but a lot of fairy stories from our parents and schoolmasters. He has no book from which we can learn the nature of evil in all its forms, with parables about evil people, proverbs about evil people, folklore about evil people. All we have is the living example of people who are least good, or our own intuition.

I didn't understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him?

I am neither good, nor bad, neither angel nor devil, I am a man, I am a vampire.

Yes, I know," "And I love to hear you say it, Louis. I need to hear you say it. I don't think anyone will ever say it quite like you do. Come on, say it again. I'm a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!

The bad part is life continues. The good part is that the pain goes away.

There were dark deeds and bad seeds, but who cared if the house was falling apart as long as it was pretty, right?

Lucifer was engraving Nate’s name on a cage right now.

Nothing. I wanted to hit him but hitting a masochist is pretty pointless. Wesley?” She finally looked him full in his face. For a moment his brown eyes turned silver and she saw Michael’s face floating in front of her. “What if I’m a bad person, too?” “You’re not a bad person. If you were a bad person you wouldn’t be sitting fully dressed in a bathtub with no water in it because you’re terrified you might be a bad person. The devil doesn’t worry about going to hell.” “Only because he’s already there.

I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had. I didn’t understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him?

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

We love drama. We love conflict. We need a devil or we'll create one. None of that is bad. It's just the way human beings operate.

You know you're in for a bad day when the Devil eats your last HobNob.

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would do anything, believe anything in order to acquire it?

Flashes of disbelief trekked in multiple directions. Each one faded into despair.

God is good, but the devil is not so bad to those he likes,

Sometimes the devil you know is bad enough to chance the one you don’t.

I would never have broken up with you," I said earnestly. "I'm more miserable without you than I am with you." As soon as that sentence came out I groaned, because I knew how bad it sounded. But Declan laughed. "Vintage Simon Murray comment.

This was a dream. A very bad, bad dream, brought on by liver poisoning from too many gin and tonics. Here it was, a deal with the devil. At what price my soul? He watched me expectantly and threateningly all at the same time. If I said no, I knew what would happen. Save the glass, waitress, I’m drinking from the bottle! Happy hour, with my neck on tap. If I said yes, I’d be agreeing to a partnership with pure evil.

People that don't know what they are worth will always see their capture's wings, but never their tail.

Outside forces will always be out of your control. One thing you can control is how you choose to live. If you wake up fearful of every bad thing that might happen, you miss out on the good. Death will come for us one day. Worrying about tomorrow only accomplishes ruining today.

Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this:—one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul. For the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe that leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword. A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living.

Alone, adj. In bad company.

We are all the gods and devils, hiding under the human skin.

None of this is important in itself, but I feel somewhere that it has a lot to do with why I have always felt separate, why I have always felt unable to join in, to let go, to become part of the tribe, why I have always sniped or joked from the sidelines, why I have never, ever, lost my overwhelmingly self-conscious self-consciousness. It's not all that bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing - they are not all bad. Those devils have also been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.

Is he good? Or is he bad? That's the only thing I ask nowadays. And as I grow older—I'd swear this on the last crust I eat—I feel I shan't even go on asking that! Whether a man's good or bad, I'm sorry for him, for all of 'em. The sight of a man just rends my insides, even if I act as though I don't care a damn! There he is, poor devil, I think, he also eats and drinks and makes love and is frightened, whoever he is: he has his God and his devil just the same, and he'll peg out and lie as stiff as a board beneath the ground and be food for worms, just the same. Poor devil! We're all brothers! All worm-meat!

Not all light is good. There is negative light, that can cast bad shadows.

Seth laughed when he saw me. “Hey,” I said, poking him with my foot, “be nice.” “I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you look anything less than…” He paused, playing with word choice. “Well-planned.” “Why, you silver-tongued romantic devil. That is the look I usually go for. Other women go for sexy or chic or beautiful. But me? Well-planned all the way.” “You know what I mean. Besides, unplanned isn’t a bad look for you. Not bad at all.” His voice sounded deliciously low and dangerous, and something ignited between us as we held each other’s eyes.

Is it just me or is this like a bad TV sci-fi show?

If we believe that god is the creator of evil, maybe there is evil also in heaven, if that is the case, we are not out of the woods yet

If moral statements are about something, then the universe is not quite as science suggests it is, since physical theories, having said nothing about God, say nothing about right or wrong, good or bad. To admit this would force philosophers to confront the possibility that the physical sciences offer a grossly inadequate view of reality. And since philosophers very much wish to think of themselves as scientists, this would offer them an unattractive choice between changing their allegiances or accepting their irrelevance.

Never greet a devil till you meet one or cross a bridge before you've reached it. Ten times out of nine, thing aren't as bad as we fear them to be.

The devil finds work for idle hands. Bad thoughts find empty heads. So he kept his hands busy and his mind occupied.

When one lives with the Devil one finds out there's a God.

I wasn't sure what I had just agreed to, or what was waiting for me around the next bend. What I did know, could feel in every cell of my body, was that I had just made an unbreakable deal with the devil and paying up might mark my soul forever.

No matter how bad things get, Frannie darling, they can always get worse and they can always get better. Expect worse and you’ll never be disappointed.Expect better and you’ll always have something to look forward to.

You know what happens when an angel and a devil create a bodily union? The apocalypse.” Jesus this is why he gave us a couple costume. “Do the right thing and don’t end the world tonight.

The devil would be powerless if he couldn't entice people to do his work. So as long as money continues to seduce the hungry, the hopeless, the broken, the greedy, and the needy, there will always be war between brothers.

If the devil was going to come, I expected to see the myth of him. A demon with an asphalt shine. He'd be fury. A chill. A bad cough. Cujo at the car window, a ticket at the Creepshow booth, a leap into the depth of night.

The way she saw it, too much religion could be as bad as too little, maybe even worse; but moderation was just not in her husband’s nature.

When Albert Einstein told you to hide your source, he wasn't giving you a deliberate advice to conceal the root in which you're growing, but was to conceal the root from the eyes of people that will dare to uproot it.

A heart was a curious thing. So contradictory. The way it ached in both good and bad ways. The way it leapt with joy and ceased with sorrow. It could beat madly and wildly during both pleasure and pain.

It's not unsporting to thrash a cowardly cad,' said Simmons. 'Everyone knows you don't fight like a gentleman.' 'That might be called an oxymoron,' Ramses said. 'Oh--sorry. Bad form to use long words. Look it up when you get home.' The poor devil didn't know how to fight, like a gentleman or otherwise.

You see, in the Czech Republic, on December fifth, St. Nicholas goes around bringing candy and small gifts to children, accompanied by an angel and a devil. In a holiday tradition that is the stuff of nightmares, the devil threatens to scoop bad children into his sack and carry them to hell. (And you thought coal in your stocking was harsh?)

(Unsure if she should laugh or groan, Astrid held fast to the tank before her as Zarek pushed the snowmachine to the limits. It vibrated so badly that she half-expected it to disintegrate underneath them.) Cap’n, I don’t think she’ll hold. The warp engines can’t take any more. It’s going to blow apart. (Astrid)

I'll let you in on a secret. I don't drink coffee." I genuinely gasped in horror. "The devil you say. Java is the nectar of the gods. I don't know if I can be with a man who doesn't drink coffee." I knew there was something sinister about him. I had no idea it would be that bad.

Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the 'Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?’ But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did—if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather—surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.

The funny thing is, I’m actually quite interested in the Bible, and I’ve tried to read it several times. But I’ve only ever got as far as the bit about Moses being 720 years old, and I’m like, `What were these people smoking back then?’ The bottom line is I don’t believe in a bloke called God in a white suit who sits on a fluffy cloud any more than I believe in a bloke called the Devil with a three-pronged fork and a couple of horns. But I believe that there’s day, there’s night, there’s good, there’s bad, there’s black, there’s white. If there is a God, it’s nature. If there’s a Devil, it’s nature.

I scowled defensively. "My conversations don't usually include the subject of erections." "Too bad," he said. "All the best conversations do.

If you want a moral, here it is: what god giveth, he taketh away. In this story art is god. And if god is art, then what is the devil? Bad art of course.

Bad as he is, the Devil may be abus’d, Be falsly charg’d, and causelesly accus’d, When Men, unwilling to be blam’d alone, Shift off these Crimes on Him which are their Own.

The Big Bad Wolf is asking for my help? The Devil must have his long underwear on today.

If the devil decided to run for President, do you think he/she would put on their horns and wicked grin, or a suit with an angelic smile? If the wicked witch stayed green and ugly, would she have been able to give Snow White a poisoned apple? And if the Big Bad Wolf had not disguised himself as an old granny, would he have been able to lure Little Red Riding Hood into the house to eat her? And if a drug dealer wanted to seduce some school kids to get on his drugs, would he act like a greedy businessman — or a caring friend? Salt and sugar look exactly the same but taste very different. We live in a world of illusions, one filled with Luciferians acting like righteous men, and righteous men condemned as criminals.

It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame, and self-loathing - they are not all bad. Those devils have also been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter, and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.

Having then for the first time clearly understood that before every man, and before himself, there lay only suffering, death, and eternal oblivion, he had concluded that to live under such conditions was impossible; that one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself. But he had done neither the one nor the other, yet he continued to live, think, and feel, had even at that very time got married, experienced many joys, and been happy whenever he was not thinking of the meaning of his life. What did that show? It showed that he had lived well, but thought badly.

Merry hearts are vulnerable to death, don't be over-joyed to the state of oblivion, lest the enemy poison your meal.

Too bad real boyfriends aren’t as awesome as book boyfriends.” “At least real boys don’t get brainwashed by the enemy and try to kill you?” I said, trying to play devil’s advocate.

Beautiful feelings make bad literature. In which case, this precious state of prose is proof that I'm no devil after all. Ah, blessed be the man who coined this phrase! It is a treasure of the language. An author can get away with using it but once in his career. Sad to say. The first time, it's endearing. If you insist on using it a second or a third time, though, dear reader, hiding behind it like a shield, you can expect nothing but misery.

Simi, why did Acheron send you here? (Astrid) To protect you from Thanatos so that your sisters don’t get all freaky and destroy the world. Or something like that. I don’t know why all of you fear the end of the world. It’s not so bad, really. At least then akri’s mama be free. Then she wouldn’t be so cranky at the Simi all the time. (Simi) Ash’s mother is still alive? (Zarek) Oh, akri get mad whenever I tell that. Bad Simi. I not talk anymore. I need food. (Simi)

Good preachers don’t preach about God and heaven, and things like that. They always preach against something, like hell and the devil. Them is things to be against. It wouldn’t do a preacher no good to preach for God. He’s got to preach against the devil and all wicked and sinful things. That’s what the people like to hear about. They want to hear about the bad things.

People often think the Devil tries to influence people to do “bad things.” While this is true, the demonic strategy is also much deeper. He tries to tempt us to get our needs met without relationship and without humility, the way he wanted to in the beginning.

I hated him. He was everything bad that happened to me. But he was the only time—other than dancing—that I felt alive, too. Being with him was like dancing. Dancing with death.

In Hell... bad is good... and I am second only to the Devil.

Luke caught Mina's chin in his left hand and turned her face toward him. 'Guess what, sweetheart?' 'What?' He grinned. 'I'm keeping you.

What victory would the Devil have to win a soul already bad? It is the best the Devil wants...

Good news is only really good to those directly involved. Most people lead such futile and useless lives that only bad news makes them feel better. If not better, certainly gooder. If one cannot gain recognition for anything else, he can rest well with the assurance that he is "good", which in most case equates with "right".

You'd discover your morals aren't defined in terms such as black or white, good or bad. Most shy away from that level of introspection. It makes us realize we're villains. At least in part. We also all have the capacity to he heroes.

He threw the Bible into the trumpet case as well. There had to be something in there, some useful tips for his situation, a homeopathic remedy that you could apply when you came down with a bad case of the devil.

it’s that sense of powerlessness that destroyed my soul. i cannot be as good as i would like to be.nor as bad as i think i need to be.i think you have the same doubts that your goodness was not rewarded

They all thought I was a good girl, Michael.” I dragged his lobe through my teeth. “But there’s so many bad things I want to do. Do dirty things to me.

Angels are good not simply because they see bad as bad, but also because they see bad as corny.

She was shocked by how bad he looked. Cancer really was the devil’s handshake.

Save your good luck for big things, and your bad luck for small things.

Sorry," he eventually said, amusement tilting his deep voice. "I didn't hear him come out over the deafening sound of all the chemistry we don't have.

Kline Brooks left his new intern, Leslie, under my watchful eye while he flew out to L.A. for the day to schmooze investors and impress potential advertising clients for TapNext. I was certain she had been sent straight from Hell. The devil might as well have wrapped a big red bow around her neck and attached a note. Dear Georgie, Have fun with this one. Love, Satan I’d

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . . If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine yound intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them. If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing. (Speech was broadcast by ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965)

Evil seldom takes shape immediately. It is often little more than a whisper at first. A glance. A betrayal. But then it grows and takes root, still invisible, unnoticed. Only fairy tales give evil a proper shape. The big bad wolves, the evil kings, the demons, and devils . . .

Todd? Are you still there?" "Yeah. I'm just trying to think of a good reason to continue our friendship." I grinned. "Jealousy is so unattractive Todd." "It would help if you could tell me one thing that's wrong. One flaw. Bad breath? Warts? Some condition that requires anti fungal spray?" "Would chest hair be a flaw?" "Oh, yeah." Todd sounded relieved." I can't stand a chest rug. You can't see the chest cut.

Among Violet's many useful skills was a vast knowledge of different types of knots. The particular knot she was using was called the Devil's Tongue. A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century, and named it the Devil's Tongue because it twisted this way and that, in the most complicated and eerie way.

You know what happens when you slide your cheek on the edge of a sharp razor blade? Yes! That's how it feels when you slide your dreams into the palms of toxic and negative people! Save your dreams from defamation and disfigurement!

Zoe gave him a look that was difficult to interpret. Eventually she asked, "What makes you sure I couldn't handle you?" She didn't know what she was asking for, from a man who couldn't remember what it was like to be innocent. Lightly gripping her hair, Alex forced her face close to his. The blond curls danced around his fingers and tickled the backs of his hands. " I 'm a bastard in bed, Zoe," he said quietly. " I 'm selfish and mean as the devil. I have to have all the control. And I 'm...not nice

My dress is caught in the settee. And I would be much obliged if you would help me out of it!” “The dress or the settee?” the stranger asked, sounding interested. “The settee,” Pandora said irritably. “I’m all tangled up in these dratted—” she hesitated, wondering what to call the elaborate wooden curls and twists carved into the back of the settee. “—swirladingles,” she finished. “Acanthus scrolls,” the man said at the same time. A second passed before he asked blankly, “What did you call them?” “Never mind,” Pandora said with chagrin. “I have a bad habit of making up words, and I’m not supposed to say them in public.” “Why not?” “People might think I’m eccentric.” His quiet laugh awakened a ticklish feeling in her stomach. “At the moment, darling, made-up words are the least of your problems.

I want you, As soon as you realize how bad this is for you, You’d better disappear from here. But until that day, I’m taking you. You’re mine!

We, humans, easily associate every Good with God and every bad with devil, ignoring the fact that God is the creator and origin of everything.

We believed in a good God, a bad Devil, and a hot Hell, and more than anything else we believed that same God did not intend man should ever fly.

They know how bad they are. They don't care. They do what they do because...because they love it.

On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

I believe that we're much healthier if we think of our selfishness as sin. Which is what it is: a sin. Even if there is nothing out there except a random movement of untold gases and objects, sin still exists. You don't need a devil with horns. It's a social definition of sin. Everything we do that is self-indulgent, and that is selfish, and that turns us away from our dignity as human beings is a sin against what we were born with, the capacities we have, what we could make of this planet. Our whole age has taken the line that if you feel bad about yourself, it's something that you can be relieved of by your goddamn analyst. Psst!—it's gone! And then you'll be happy, you know? But that feeling is not something you should be relieved of. It's something you should deal with. And there's no remission for what I mean by "sin," except doing something useful. The confessional does the same thing as the shrink, rather more quickly and cheaper. Three "Hail Mary"s, and you're out. But I've never been the kind of religious person that thinks saying "Hail Mary" is gonna get me out of it.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint stock company in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It [That is, conformity.] loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.' No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent an well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

In all those stories about people who sold their souls to the devil, I never quite understood why the devil was the bad guy, or why it was okay to screw him out of his soul. They got what they wanted: fame, money, love, whatever—though usually it turned out not to be what they really wanted or expected. Was that the devil's fault? I never thought so. Like John Wayne said, "Life's tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid.

If you dance with the devil, expect to get burned.

Gentle souls cast as devils in humankind’s ongoing stage play of existence. It’s Oppression 101: find a bad guy, and if you can’t, make one up.

On the other hand, I am not a liberal. The notion that man is a rational creature who arrives at reasonable solutions to knotty problems is much in doubt as far as I’m concerned. Liberalism depends all too much on having an optimistic view of human nature. But the history of the 20th century has not exactly fortified that notion. Moreover, liberalism also depends too much upon reason rather than any appreciation of mystery. If you start to talk about God with the average good liberal, he looks at you as if you are more than a little off. In that sense, since I happen to be—I hate to use the word religious, there are so many heavy dull connotations, so many pious self-seeking aspects—but I do believe there is a Creator who is active in human affairs and is endangered. I also believe there is a Devil who is equally active in our existence (and is all too often successful). So, I can hardly be a liberal. God is bad enough for them, but talk about the devil, and the liberal’s mind is blown. He is consorting with a fellow who is irrational if not insane. That is the end of real conversation.

There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person—if virtue comes easily to you—beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee. But

You taught me how to survive that day,” he said. “You taught me how to be strong and how to get to the next minute. And the next and the next. I could never forget, and when you came back in high school, and I had changed into this, because I’d seen so much shit,” he went on, “and my desires had morphed into something ugly and twisted, but I’d fucking survived, nonetheless, and didn’t swallow the bad for anyone anymore, because you had taught me how to get rid of the shit. I finally craved one more thing I realized had been missing when I laid eyes on you again.

Although her disobedience is tragic, Eve’s innocence is not all bad. Certainly, that innocfence leads her to make a poor choice - the very worst - but the fact that she makes a choice at all, the fact that she engages the Devil in a debate which could go either way, the fact that she acts without God breathing down her neck - all speak for her free will or, what amounts to the same thing, her margin for error. It is from this margin for error that freedom springs, because you can’t be free to right unless you can be free to be wrong.

She took a bad tumble. Those are some nasty bruises she's carrying," the maid said with a sad shake of the head. "Aye," Cullen agreed, his eyes traveling over lovely, milky white skin, interrupted by several black bruises. "She looks like a cow." Mildrede turned a horrified gaze on him at the comment, but he was more concerned by the choked sound that came from his bride. He really hadn't meant it as an insult, but it seemed the women were taking it so. "I just meant the coloring," Cullen muttered

...The life of the parents is the only thing that makes good children. Parents should be very patient and ‘saintlike’ to their children. They should truly love their children. And the children will share this love! For the bad attitude of the children, says father Porphyrios, the ones who are usually responsible for it are their parents themselves. The parents don’t help their children by lecturing them and repeating to them ‘advices’, or by making them obeying strict rules in order to impose discipline. If the parents do not become ‘saints’ and truly love their children and if they don’t struggle for it, then they make a huge mistake. With their wrong and/or negative attitude the parents convey to their children their negative feelings. Then their children become reactive and insecure not only to their home, but to the society as well...

It was all very…cute. Not bad if you wanted to hang out with some friends for a beer, but this wasn’t the real Devil’s Night. These people wore their black as a costume. For us, the costume was coming off.

So, can I eat the redheaded goddess now? (Simi) No, Simi. (Acheron) I want to eat her, akri, She a mean person. (Simi) Most gods are. (Acheron) No they’re not. Some, true, but I rather like the Atlanteans. They were very nice. Most of them. You never met Archon, did you? (Simi) No. (Acheron) Now, he could be mean. He was blond, like you, tall like you, well, taller than you, and good-looking like you, but not quite as good-looking as you. I don’t think anyone is as good-looking as you are. Not even them gods. You are definitely one of a kind when it comes to looks…Oh. Well, you’re not really one of a kind, are you? But you cuter than that other one. He a bad copy of you. He only wishes he was as cute as you are. Now where was I going with that? Oh, I remember now. Archon didn’t like a lot of people, unlike you. You know that thing you do whenever you get really, really mad? The one where you can blow stuff up and make it all fiery and chunky and messy and all? He could do that too only not with as much finesse as you. You got a lot of finesse, akri. More than most. But I digress, Archon liked me. He said, ‘Simi, you a quality demon.’ Have you ever seen a non-quality demon, though? That’s what I wanna know. (Simi)

It’s just like Marissa to jump right in with the heavy artillery, like guilt and extortion. I’m so proud to be related to the devil’s mistress.

One of the few comforts I have when looking at images of distant suffering is the hope that the starving child with flies on his face doesn't know how pathetic he is. If all he knows is misery, maybe his suffering isn't as bad.

He leaned towards the young man, his eyes, mouth and face all round in concentration. ‘“There was a banned crow,”’ he intoned sonorously. ‘“There was a cold day.” Not bad, eh? I learned those on the boat. Sounds like perfect Urdu, I’m told.’ He paused and frowned. ‘The devil of it is remembering which one means, “close the door,” and which one will get someone to open it.

Judge Knight: Here's a word of advice. Our Sun Knight has the nerve to PLOT THE DOWNFALL OF A KING. DO NOT get on his bad side if you don't have a status higher than that. Storm Knight: In addition he has mastered the Resurrection Spell, which even the Pope has a hard time with. And he's an expert of divine magic, sorcery, and necromancy. Then he's got a teacher who's known as 'the strongest Sun Knight in history' as his supporter, not to mention his other teacher who's no doubt a necromancer... Oh, and while we're at it he's probably also buddies with a Death Lord. Everyone's Thoughts: His extraordinarily bad swordsmanship really is a stroke of good fortune. Earth Knight: Dammit! Is he the Sun Knight or the devil himself?! Leaf Knight: Have you forgotten what our teachers taught us all throughout our childhood, Earth? Teacher: 'Child, when you accidentlly discover the imperfections of the Sun Knight, unless you want to have a first hand experience of his imperfections, you'd better dutifully admit he is perfect. Remember, no matter what the Sun Knight is always perfect!

Here, kitty, kitty, Chico says. The cover of his cage is still on, making his tiny clown voice slightly muffled. I feel bad for him under there, just waiting to start his evil little day...Freud walks toward Chico in his slinky fashion, sits under his cage and just stares. We have satanic pets...our pets seem to have made a pact with the devil.

Let me put it this way: I am not a bad person, so if there is a god I would hope that he would judge me on what I do and who I am, as against someone that does believe but still doesn’t live a good life.

I've been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks. The sun ceased to shine - " "That's curious. We've had gorgeous weather in London." "The birds ceased to sing." "What birds?" "What the devil does it matter what birds?" said young BIngo, with some asperity. "Any birds. The birds round about here. You don't expect me to specify them by their pet names, do you? I tell you, Bertie, it hit me hard at first, very hard." "What hit you?" I simply couldn't follow the blighter. "Charlotte's calculated callousness.

Hang it all, Haven, talk to a girlfriend if all you want is a pair of ears. Guys hate it when you give us a problem and then don't let us do something about it. It makes us feel bad. And then the only way to make ourselves feel better is to rip a phone book in two or blow something up. So let's get this straight — I'm not a good listener. I'm a guy." - Jack Travis

Just remember, no matter how much they love you, they'll never love you as much as I do." I had to catch the tears before they could fall, refusing to make him feel bad about the choice he had to make but also wanted to make. "I know. And same for you. No matter how many angels you fall for or how many deals you make with the devil, I'll always be the one who loves you most.

I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impluse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself (...)For what I have always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.

When the anarchist, as the mouthpiece of the declining levels of society, insists on 'right,' 'justice,' 'equal rights' with such beautiful indignation, he is just acting under the pressure of his lack of culture, which cannot grasp why he really suffers, what he is poor in– in life. A drive to find causes is powerful in him: it must be somebody's fault that he's feeling bad . . . Even his 'beautiful indignation' does him good; all poor devils like to whine--it gives them a little thrill of power. Even complaints, the act of complaining, can give life the charm on account of which one can stand to live it: there is a subtle dose of revenge in every complaint; one blames those who are different for one's own feeling bad, and in certain circumstances even being bad, as if they were guilty of an injustice, a prohibited privilege. 'If I'm a lowlife, you should be one too': on this logic, revolutions are built.– Complaining is never good for anything; it comes from weakness. Whether one ascribes one's feeling bad to others or to oneself–the socialist does the former, the Christian, for example, the latter–makes no real difference. What is common to both and, let us add, what is unworthy, is that it should be someone's fault that one is suffering–in short, that the sufferer prescribes the honey of revenge as a cure for his own suffering.

The Tomorrow Man theory. It’s pretty basic. Today, right here, you are who you are. Tomorrow, you will be who you will be. Each and every night, we lie down to die, and each morning we arise, reborn. Now, those who are in good spirits, with strong mental health, they look out for their Tomorrow Man. They eat right today, they drink right today, they go to sleep early today–all so that Tomorrow Man, when he awakes in his bed reborn as Today Man, thanks Yesterday Man. He looks upon him fondly as a child might a good parent. He knows that someone–himself–was looking out for him. He feels cared for, and respected. Loved, in a word. And now he has a legacy to pass on to his subsequent selves…. But those who are in a bad way, with poor mental health, they constantly leave these messes for Tomorrow Man to clean up. They eat whatever the hell they want, drink like the night will never end, and then fall asleep to forget. They don’t respect Tomorrow Man because they don’t think through the fact that Tomorrow Man will be them. So then they wake up, new Today Man, groaning at the disrespect Yesterday Man showed them. Wondering why does that guy–myself–keep punishing me? But they never learn and instead come to settle for that behavior, eventually learning to ask and expect nothing of themselves. They pass along these same bad habits tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and it becomes psychologically genetic, like a curse. Looking at you now, Maven, I can see exactly where you fall on this spectrum. You are a man constantly trying to fix today what Yesterday Man did to you. You make up your bed, you clean those dirty dishes from the night before, and pledge not to start drinking until six, thinking that’s the way to keep an even keel. But in reality you’re always playing catch-up. I know this because I’ve been there. The thing is–you can’t fix the mistakes of Yesterday. Yesterday Man is dead, he’s gone forever, and blame and atonement aren’t worth a damn. What you can do is help yourself today. Eat a vegetable. Read a book. Cut that hair of yours. Leave Tomorrow Man something more than a headache and a jam-packed colon. Do for Tomorrow Man what you would have wanted Yesterday Man to do for you.

When Buzz gets in, he won't be having any parade of wounded soldiers. That'll be bad Fascist psychology. All those poor devils he'll hide away in institutions, and just bring out the lively young human slaughter cattle in uniforms.

Have you wanted something so badly that you would have done anything to get it?” he mumbled, his muscly back still to me. “Like, the kind of want that leaves you on your knees and asking for someone, anyone, to answer your prayers?

Nothing in life comes with a guarantee, Wadsworth." Thomas took a deep breath. "Outside forces will always be out of your control. One thing you can control is how you choose to live. If you wake up fearful of every bad thing that might happen, you miss out on the good. Death will come for us all one day. Worrying about tomorrow only accomplishes ruining today.

I know he has a bad nature,' said Catherine; 'he's your son. But I'm glad I've a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me and for that reason I love him. Mr Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery! You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves you - nobody will cry for you, when you die! I wouldn't be you!

No one else knew her. Not the way I did. I knew better. I knew how good she was. She thought she was nothing to me. Insignificant and invisible. She wanted to open my eyes and see her again so fucking badly, but she didn't realise that I already did.

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.

When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel tle very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols, to provide a few rebellious schoolboys with the longed-for ticket to Hamburg, or to stand one or two representatives of the established order on their heads. For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.

No," I said automatically, "don't do anything about Dad. You can't fix my relationship with him." "I can block or run interference." "Thanks, Jack, but I don't need blocking, and I really don't need any more interference." He looked annoyed. "Well, why did you waste all that time complaining to me if you didn't want me to do something about it?" "I don't want you to fix my problems. I just wanted you to listen." "Hang it all, Haven, talk to a girlfriend if all you want is a pair of ears. Guys hate it when you give us a problem and then don't let us do something about it. It makes us feel bad. And then the only way to make ourselves feel better is to rip a phone book in two or blow something up. So let's get this straight — I'm not a good listener. I'm a guy." "Yes you are." I stood and smiled. "Want to buy me a drink at an after work bar?" "Now you're talking," my brother said, and we left the office.

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale.

I'm getting very sorry for the Devil and his disciples such as the good LeChiffre. The Devil has a rotten time and I always like to be on the side of the underdog. We don't give the poor chap a chance. There's a Good Book about goodness and how to be good and so forth, but there's no Evil Book about evil and how to be bad. The Devil has no prophets to write his Ten Commandments and no team of authors to write his biography. His case has gone completely by default. We know nothing about him but a lot of fairy stories from our parents and schoolmasters. He has no book from which we can learn the nature of evil in all its forms, with parables about evil people, proverbs about evil people, folk-lore about evil people. All we have is the living example of the people who are least good, or our own intuition.

We've had to deal with so many complications. We're still dealing with them. And what can we do? Nothing - well, unless we take your side's point of view and make deals with the devil. But why? Why can't we make deals with God? People do all the time. 'God, if you do this for me, I promise to be good.' Stuff like that. Yeah, but I don't see any contracts like you guys have. No hard evidence that it works. How come we can only get things we want by being bad? Why can't we get them by being good?

I’m that bad, am I?” I whispered, lips trembling. I was going to bawl again. “In all the world, with all the things humans have done, all the unspeakable horrors men have visited on other men, the unthinkable suffering of women and children worldwide at the hands of mankind, and I’m that bad!

Money in hand, I glanced up to find Glenn eyeing a rack of stuffed rats. As the salesman rang up my purchase, Glenn leaned close and, still staring at the rats, whispered, “What are those used for?” “I have no idea.” I got my receipt and jammed everything in my bag… Glenn surprised me by opening the car door for me, and as I settled in the seat, he leaned against the frame of the open window. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and strode inside. He was out in a moment with a small white bag. I watched him cross in front of the car—wondering. Timing himself between the traffic, he opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. “Well?” I asked as he set the package between us. “What did you get?” Glenn started the car and pulled out into traffic. “A stuffed rat.” “Oh,” I said, surprised. What the devil was he going to do with it? Even I didn’t know what it was for. I was dying to ask all the way to the FIB building but managed to keep my mouth shut even as we slipped into the cold shade of their underground parking.

Realizing the seriously ruthless, venomous habits and agendas of evil always instills a more fierce passion and longing for a closer God. Men, out of pride, may claim their own authorities over what constitutes good and evil; they may self-proclaim a keen knowledge of subjective morality through religion or science. But that is only if they are acknowledging the work of evil as a cartoon-like, petty little rain cloud in the sky that merely wants to dampen one's spirits. On the contrary, a man could be without a doubt lit with the strength, the peace, and the knowledge of the gods, his gods, but when or if the devils grow weary in unsuccessful attempts to torment him, they begin tormenting his loved ones, or, if not his loved ones, anyone who may attempt to grasp his philosophies. No matter how godly he may become, God is, in the end, his only hope and his only grace for the pressures built around him - it is left up to a higher authority and a more solid peace and a wider love to eclipse not just one's own evils but all evils for goodness to ultimately matter. If all men were gods, each being would dwell in a separate prison cell, hopeless, before finally imploding into nothingness.

The public debate plays out in an infinite regress of blame over who’s responsible for those who fail to fit the standard erotic mold. This is variously ascribed to the people choosing to be the deviants they are, porn, the Devil (always a shoo-in), bad parents, poor role models, our sexually repressed culture, or the psychiatrists who keep needling sexual minorities by branding them mentally ill. It’s a rabbit hole of endless (and usually endlessly bad) arguments. Morally, all that matters—and allow me to reiterate that because I feel it’s quite important, all that matters—is whether a person’s sexual deviancy is demonstrably harmful. If it’s not, and we reject the person anyway, then we’re not the good guys in this scenario; we’re the bad guys.

He gives her his Art History lecture. ‘Then you get Mo-net and Ma-net, that’s a little tricky, Mo-net was the one did all the water lilies and shit, his colors were blues and greens, Ma-net was the one did Bareass on the Grass and shit, his colors were browns and greens. Then you get Bonnard, he did all the interiors and shit, amazing light, and then you get Van Guk, he’s the one with the ear and shit, and Say-zanne, he’s the one with the apples and shit, you get Kandinsky, a bad mother, all them pick-up-sticks pictures, you get my man Mondrian, he’s the one with the rectangles and shit, his colors were red yellow and blue, you get Moholy-Nagy, he did all the plastic thingummies and shit, you get Mar-cel Du-champ, he’s the devil in human form….’ She’s asleep.

When you love someone... truly love them, friend or lover, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt—you literally hand them the razor with a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully on your heart and soul. And when they do strike, it's crippling—like having your heart carved out. It leaves you naked and exposed, wondering what you did to make them want to hurt you so badly when all you did was love them. What is so wrong with you that no one can keep faith with you? That no one can love you? To have it happen once is bad enough... but to have it repeated? Who in their right mind would not be terrified of that?

Watching her sleeping form, I feel so many things. With a hand tucked beneath her chin, she looks like cotton candy wouldn’t melt in her angelic mouth. Whereas I know she’s the devil’s apprentice, expelled out of Hell to torture mortal men under her heel. Hell will be raised when she wakes, that much I know. I might even want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted. To see her react. She’ll paint me as the bad guy in this situation. Huh, maybe I am. Did I try to stop what we did? Not even once. I went full steam ahead with hardly any provocation.

Can you read this word, Peter?' ...'It says GOD.' 'Yes, that's right. Now write it backward and see what you find.' ...'DOG! Mamma! It says DOG!' 'Yes. It says dog.' The sadness in her voice quenched Peter's excitement at once. His mother pointed from GOD to DOG. 'These are the two natures of man,' she said. 'Never forget them... Our preachers say that our natures are partly of God and partly of Old Man Splitfoot... But there are few devils outside of made-up stories, Pete -- most bad people are more like dogs than devils. Dogs are friendly and stupid, and that's the way most men and women are when they are drunk. When dogs are excited and confused, they may bite; when men are excited and confused, they may fight. Dogs are great pets because they are loyal, but if a pet is all a man is, he is a bad man, I think. Dogs can be brave, but they may also be cowards that will howl in the dark or run away with their tails between their legs. A dog is just as eager to lick the hand of a bad master as he is to lick the hand of a good one, because dogs don't know the difference between good and bad.

There is much to be said for contentment and painlessness, for these bearable and submissive days, on which neither pain nor pleasure is audible, but pass by whispering and on tip-toe. But the worst of it is that it is just this contentment that I cannot endure. After a short time it fills me with irrepressible hatred and nausea. In desperation I have to escape and throw myself on the road to pleasure, or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain. When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my mouldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols, to provide a few rebellious schoolboys with the longed-for ticket to Hamburg, or to stand one or two representatives of the established order on their heads. For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.

I wonder you can speak with such levity about my daughter. I have always treated yours with proper respect.’ ‘You called them a pair of turnip-headed swabs once, when they were still in long clothes.’ ‘For shame, Jack: a hissing shame upon you. Those were your very own words when you showed them to me at Ashgrove before our voyage to the Mauritius. Your soul to the Devil.’ ‘Well, perhaps they were. Yes: you are quite right – I remember now – you warned me not to toss them into the air, as being bad for the intellects. I beg pardon.

You're not a wallflower. But you have my permission to hide in corners, my sweet- so long as you take me with you. In fact, I'll insist on it. I warn you, I'm very badly behaved at such affairs- I'll probably debauch you in gazebos, on balconies, beneath staircases, and behind assorted potted plants. And if you complain, I'll simply remind you that you should have known better than to marry a conscienceless rake." Evie's throat arched slightly at the light stroke of his fingers. "I wouldn't complain." Sebastian smiled and nipped tenderly at the side of her neck. "Dutiful little wife," he whispered. "I'm going to be a terrible influence on you. Why don't you give me a kiss, and go upstairs for your bath? By the time you finish, I'll be there with you.

What kind of soldier are you that you’re going to just sit in a cell while the world is thrown into chaos? Do you not understand what could happen if those weapons fall into the wrong hands? How could you be so selfish? (Syd) I’m selfish? Look, Agent Westbrook, your daddy’s a Boston stockbroker. I’m a death broker. I’m sure you don’t lecture Daddy on finance, so don’t even try to lecture me on assassination politics. I know all about them. Some bureaucratic ass-wipe sitting in a pristine office that’s totally isolated from the rest of the world decides the son of King Oomp-Loomp is a threat. He then hands down orders to people like me to go off King Oomp-Loompa’s son. Like an idiot, I do what he says without question. I hunt my target down, using information that is mostly bullshit and unreliable, gathered by someone like you who assured me it was correct as the time. But hey, if it changes minute by minute, and God forbid we pass that along to you. So me and my spotter lie in the grass, sand, or snow for days on end, cramped and hungry, never able to move more than a millimeter an hour until I have that one perfect shot I’ve been waiting for days. I take it, and then we lie there like pieces of dirt until we can inch our way back to safety, where hopefully the helicopter team will remember that they were supposed to retrieve us. Have you any idea of the nerves it takes to do what I do? To lie there on the ground while other armed men search for you? Have them step on you and not be able to even breathe or wince because if you do, it’s not only your life, but the life of your spotter? Do you know what it’s like to have the brains of your best friend spayed into your face and not be able to render aid to him because you know he’s dead and if you do, you’ll be killed too? I have been into the bowels of hell and back, Miz Westbrook. I have stared down the devil and made him sweat. So don’t tell me I don’t take this seriously. (Steele)

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.

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.

Kallias is going to explode on me at any moment. He’ll have me thrown into prison until he decides on the proper day and manner for killing me. He’ll— Kallias laughs so loudly and abruptly, I nearly topple out of the armchair. He has his hands on his knees while his whole body shakes from the force of the laughter. What the devils? Did I break the king? He manages to straighten after a moment and look over at me, but then his face contorts and he’s back to uncontrollable laughter. I feel my limbs grow tight, my face grow hot, anger pooling into every muscle. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I snap, shouting over the top of his laughter. He wasn’t even this bad when he read Orrin’s love letter. He says something I can’t quite make out, then rubs tears from his eyes and tries again. “You killed him!” He throws his head back and laughs and laughs. And somehow, I know that I’m not in trouble. How can I be if he’s this jovial over the fact? I could deny it. Plead on my behalf. But Kallias isn’t stupid. Though the constable doesn’t have enough evidence to convict me, Kallias knows the truth of it. “I’ve an inclination to kill again,” I say, glaring at him. Kallias props himself up on the nearest wall of books, catching his breath. Once he’s calm, he strides over to me and places his gloved hands on either side of my head. “My little hellion. Quite the force to be reckoned with, aren’t you? Oh, say you’ll marry me, Alessandra!” I swallow, thoroughly confused. “You’re not going to hang me?” “Hang you?” he repeats, letting his hands fall to his sides. “The man did you wrong, Alessandra. Honestly, you’ve saved me the trouble of tracking him down and killing him myself.

Father Consett sighed. 'I told you this was an evil place,' he said. 'In the deep forests. She'd not have such evil thoughts in another place.' Mrs Satterthwaite said: 'I'd rather you didn't say that, Father. Sylvia would have evil thoughts in any place.' 'Sometimes,' the priest said, 'at night I think I hear the claws of evil things scratching on the shutters. This was the last place in Europe to be Christianised. Perhaps it wasn't ever even Christianised and they're here yet.' Mrs Satterthwaite said: 'It's all very well to talk like that in the day-time. It makes the place seem romantic. But it must be near one at night. And things are bad enough as it is.' 'They are,' Father Consett said. 'The devil's at work.

None of this is important in itself, but I feel somewhere that it has a lot to do with why I have always felt separate, why I have always felt unable to join in, to let go, to become part of the tribe, why I have always sniped or joked from the sidelines, why I have never, ever, lost my overwhelmingly self-conscious self-consciousness. It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing – they are not all bad. Those devils have also been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.

Brace yourselves, girls: Soda is liquid Satan. It is the devil. It is garbage. There is nothing in soda that should be put into your body. For starters, soda’s high levels of phosphorous can increase calcium loss from the body, as can its sodium and caffeine. [Cousens, Conscious Eating, 475] You know what this means—bone loss, which may lead to osteoporosis. And the last time we checked, sugar, found in soda by the boatload, does not make you skinny! Now don’t go patting yourself on the back if you drink diet soda. That stuff is even worse. Aspartame (an ingredient commonly found in diet sodas and other sugar-free foods) has been blamed for a slew of scary maladies, like arthritis, birth defects, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes.2 When methyl alcohol, a component of aspartame, enters your body, it turns into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is toxic and carcinogenic (cancer-causing). 3 Laboratory scientists use formaldehyde as a disinfectant or preservative. They don’t fucking drink it. Perhaps you have a lumpy ass because you are preserving your fat cells with diet soda. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received more complaints about aspartame than any other ingredient to date.4 Want more bad news? When aspartame is paired with carbs, it causes your brain to slow down its production of serotonin.5 A healthy level of serotonin is needed to be happy and well balanced. So drinking soda can make you fat, sick, and unhappy.

Well it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths...," I began. "Go on," she said "The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy ending and all that. Like Sense and Sensibility or Persuasion. But the second kind, they show you life more like it is. Like in Huckleberry Finn where Huck's pa is a no-good drunk and Jim suffers so. The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up." "People like happy ending, Mattie. They don't want to be shaken up." "I guess not, ma'am. It's just that there are no Captain Wentworths, are there? But there are plenty of Pap Finns. And things go well for Anne Elliot in the end, but they don't go well for most people." My voice trembled as I spoke, as it did whenever I was angry. "I feel let down sometimes. The people in the books-the heroes- they're always so...heroic. And I try to be, but..." "...you're not," Lou said, licking deviled ham off her fingers. "...no, I'm not. People in books are good and noble and unselfish, and people aren't that way... and I feel, well... hornswoggled sometimes. By Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott. Why do writers make things sugary when life isn't that way?" I asked too loudly. "Why don't they tell the truth? Why don't they tell how a pigpen looks after the sow's eaten her children? Or how it is for a girl when her baby won't come out? Or that cancer has a smell to it? All those books, Miss Wilcox," I said, pointing at a pile of them," and I bet not one of them will tell you what cancer smells like. I can, though. It stinks. Like meat gone bad and dirty clothes and bog water all mixed together. Why doesn't anyone tell you that?" No one spoke for a few seconds. I could hear the clock ticking and the sound of my own breathing. Then Lou quietly said, "Cripes, Mattie. You oughtn't to talk like that." I realized then that Miss Wilcox had stopped smiling. Her eyes were fixed om me, and I was certain she'd decided I was morbid and dispiriting like Miss Parrish had said and that I should leave then and there. "I'm sorry, Miss Wilcox," I said, looking at the floor. "I don't mean to be coarse. I just... I don't know why I should care what happens to people in a drawing room in London or Paris or anywhere else when no one in those places cares what happens to people in Eagle Bay." Miss Wilcox's eyes were still fixed on me, only now they were shiny. Like they were the day I got my letter from Barnard. "Make them care, Mattie," she said softly. "And don't you ever be sorry.

God is a creative force, Lestat. And so are we. He told Adam, 'Increase and multiply.' That's what the first organic cells did, Lestat, increased and multiplied. Not merely changed shape but replicated themselves. God is a creative force. He made the whole universe out of Himself through cell division. That's why the devils are so full of envy-the bad angels, I mean. They are [i]not[/i] creative creatures; they have no bodies, no cells, they're spirit. And I suspect it wasn't envy so much as a form of suspicion-that God was making a mistake in making another engine of creativity in Adam, so like Himself. I mean the angels probably felt the physical universe was bad enough, with all the replicating cells, but thinking, talking beings who could increase and multiply? They were probably outraged by the whole experiment. That was their sin." "So you're saying God isn't pure spirit." "That's right. God has a body. Always did. The secret of cell-dividing life lies within God. And all living cells have a tiny part of God's spirit in them, Lestat, that's the missing piece as to what makes life happen in the first place, what separates it from nonlife. It's exactly like your vampiric genesis. You told us that the spirit of Amel-the evil entity-infused the bodies of all the vampires...Well, men share in the spirit of God in the same way.

This person is (pick one): 1. on a perilous journey from which we can learn much when he or she returns; 2. possessed by (pick one) a) the gods, b) God (that is, a prophet), c) some bad spirits, demons, or devils, d) the Devil, 3. a witch 4. bewitched (variant of 2); 5. bad, and must be isolated and punished, 6. ill, and must be isolated and treated by (pick one): a) purging and leeches, b) removing the uterus if the person has one, c) electric shock to the brain, d) cold sheets wrapped tight around the body, e) Thorazine or Stelazine; 7. ill, and must spend the next seven years talking about it; 8. a victim of society's low tolerance of deviant behavior; 9. sane in an insane world; 10. on a perilous journey from which he or she may never return.

And cried for mamma, at every turn'-I added, 'and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain.-Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes, and those thick brows, that instead of rising arched, sink in the middle, and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes-Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet, hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.' 'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes, and even forehead,' he replied. 'I do - and that won't help me to them.' 'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking - tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors, and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!

Silver mining in the United States didn’t start, like hard-core, until the mid-1850s,” Louis said. “And only really got big when the Comstock Lode was discovered in 1859 in California.” “It was bad work. Dangerous. Like any mining. But silver also lets out fumes when it’s mined. Even Pliny the Elder wrote about how harmful the fumes were, especially to animals. You know Pliny the Elder?” “The problem with the silver fumes,” Louis continued, “is that, over time, they gave the miners delusions. Bad enough that they had to stop mining. Their health deteriorated. And a bunch of them even died.” Hard to make fun of something like that, so Pepper didn’t. “Do you know what people would say, in these mining towns, when they saw one of these miners falling apart? Walking through town muttering and swinging at phantoms? They said the Devil in Silver got them. It became shorthand. Like someone might say, ‘What happened to Mike?’ And the answer was always the same. ‘The Devil in Silver got him.’ ” Louis sat straight and crossed his arms and surveyed the table. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” “You’re saying we’re just making this thing up,” Pepper said quietly. Louis seemed disappointed. He dropped his hands into his lap and folded them there. He looked at his sister and Pepper. He turned his head to take in the other patients gathered with their family members there in the hospital. “I’m saying they were dying,” Louis said. “They definitely weren’t making that up. But it wasn’t a monster that was killing them. It was the mine.

No matter who you were in sixteenth-century Europe, you could be sure of two things: you would be lucky to reach fifty years of age, and you could expect a life of discomfort and pain. Old age tires the body by thirty-five, Erasmus lamented, but half the population did not live beyond the age of twenty. There were doctors and there was medicine, but there does not seem to have been a great deal of healing. Anyone who could afford to seek a doctor's aid did so eagerly, but the doctor was as likely to maim or kill as to cure. His potions were usually noxious and sometimes fatal—but they could not have been as terrible and traumatic as the contemporary surgical methods. The surgeon and the Inquisitor differed only in their motivation: otherwise, their batteries of knives, saws, and tongs for slicing, piercing, burning, and amputating were barely distinguishable. Without any anesthetic other than strong liquor, an operation was as bad as the torments of hell.

Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the 'natural' (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this: -- one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the entropy written in our nature? If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers [sic] races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Tortuous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword. A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. Upon my return to San Francisco, I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere. I hear my father-in-law's response. 'Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam. But don't tell me about justice! Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the red-necks that they are merely white-washed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell 'em their imperial slaves' rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium's! Oh, you'll grow hoarse, poor & grey in caucuses! You'll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified! Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!' Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

All languages that derive fromLatin form the word 'compassion' by combining the prefix meaning 'with' (com-) and the root meaning 'suffering' (Late Latin, passio). In other languages- Czech, Polish, German, and Swedish, for instance- this word is translated by a noun formed of an equivalent prefixcombined with the word that means 'feeling' (Czech, sou-cit; Polish, wsspół-czucie; German, Mit-gefühl; Swedish, medkänsla). In languages that derive from Latin, 'compassion' means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, 'pity' (French, pitié; Italian, pietà; etc.), connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. 'To take pity on a woman' means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower ourselves. That is why the word 'compassion' generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love. In languages that form the word 'compassion' not from the root 'suffering' but from the root 'feeling', the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other's misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion- joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion (in the sense of soucit, współczucie, Mitgefühl, medkänsla) therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme. By revealing to Tomas her dream about jabbing needles under her fingernails, Tereza unwittingly revealed that she had gone through his desk. If Tereza had been any other woman, Tomas would never have spoken to her again. Aware of that, Tereza said to him, 'Throw me out!' But instead of throwing her out, he seized her and kissed the tips of her fingers, because at that moment he himself felt the pain under her fingernails as surely as if the nerves of her fingers led straight to his own brain. Anyone who has failed to benefit from the the Devil's gift of compassion (co-feeling) will condemn Tereza coldly for her deed, because privacy is sacred and drawers containing intimate correspondence are not to be opened. But because compassion was Tomas's fate (or curse), he felt that he himself had knelt before the open desk drawer, unable to tear his eyes from Sabina's letter. He understood Tereza, and not only was he incapable of being angry with her, he loved her all the more.

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.

Making Waves I would do anything for you. Would you be yourself? In the Hans Christian Anderson classic, The Little Mermaid, Ariel gives up her beautiful voice in exchange for legs. This is a seemingly innocent fable that captures our deal with the modern devil. For aren't we taught that mobility is freedom, whether it be moving from state to state, or from marriage to marriage, or from adventure to adventure? Aren't we convinced that upward mobility, moving from job to job, is the definition of success? Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with change or variety or newness or with improving our condition. The catch is when we are asked to give up our voice in order to move freely, when we are asked to silence what makes us unique in order to be successful. When not making waves means giving up our chance to dive into the deep, then we are bartering our access to God for a better driveway. As a story about relationship, the lesson of Ariel is crucial. On the surface, her desire for legs seems touching and sweetly motivated by love and the want to belong. Yet here too is another false bargain that plagues everyone who ever tries it. For no matter how badly we want to love or be loved, we cannot alter our basic nature and survive inside, where it counts.

My mother believed in God's will for many years. It was af if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness kept pouring out. She said it was faith that kept all these good things coming our way, only I thought she said "fate" because she couldn't pronounce the "th" sound in "faith". And later I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control. I found out the most I could have was hope, and with that I wasn't denying any possibility, good or bad. I was just saying, If there is a choice, dear God or whatever you are, here's where the odds should be placed. I remember the day I started thinking this, it was such a revelation to me. It was the day my mother lost her faith in God. She found that things of unquestioned certainty could never be trusted again. We had gone to the beach, to a secluded spot south of the city near Devil's Slide. My father had read in Sunset magazine that this was a good place to catch ocean perch. And although my father was not a fisherman but a pharmacist's assistant who had once been a doctor in China, he believed in his nenkan, his ability to do anything he put his mind to. My mother believed she had nenkan to cook anything my father had a mind to catch. It was this belief in their nenkan that had brought my parents to America. It had enabled them to have seven children and buy a house in Sunset district with very little money. It had given them the confidence to believe their luck would never run out, that God was on their side, that house gods had only benevolent things to report and our ancestors were pleased, that lifetime warranties meant our lucky streak would never break, that all the elements were now in balance, the right amount of wind and water.

When Gabriel was about Ivo's age," the duchess remarked almost dreamily, staring out at the plum-colored sky, "he found a pair of orphaned fox cubs in the woods, at a country manor we'd leased in Hampshire. Has he told you about that?" Pandora shook her head, her eyes wide. A reminiscent smile curved the duchess's full lips. "It was a pair of females, with big ears, and eyes like shiny black buttons. They made chirping sounds, like small birds. Their mother had been killed in a poacher's trap, so Gabriel wrapped the poor th-things in his coat and brought them home. They were too young to survive on their own. Naturally, he begged to be allowed to keep them. His father agreed to let him raise them under the gamekeeper's supervision, until they were old enough to return the f-forest. Gabriel spent weeks spoon-feeding them with a mixture of meat paste and milk. Later on, he taught them to stalk and catch prey in an outside pen." "How?" Pandora asked, fascinated. The older woman glanced at her with an unexpectedly mischievous grin. "He dragged dead mice through their pen on a string." "That's horrid," Pandora exclaimed, laughing. "It was," the duchess agreed with a chuckle. "Gabriel pretended not to mind, of course, but it was qu-quite disgusting. Still, the cubs had to learn." The duchess paused before continuing more thoughtfully. "I think for Gabriel, the most difficult part of raising them was having to keep his distance, no matter how he loved them. No p-petting or cuddling, or even giving them names. They couldn't lose their fear of humans, or they wouldn't survive. As the gamekeeper told him, he might as well murder them if he made them tame. It tortured Gabriel, he wanted to hold them so badly." "Poor boy." "Yes. But when Gabriel finally let them go, they scampered away and were able to live freely and hunt for themselves. It was a good lesson for him to learn." "What was the lesson?" Pandora asked soberly. "Not to love something he knew he would lose?" The duchess shook her head, her gaze warm and encouraging. "No, Pandora. He learned how to love them without changing them. To let them be what they were meant to be.

I think if you wanted a peaceful marriage and orderly household, you should have proposed to any one of the well-bred simpletons who've been dangled in front of you for years. Ivo's right: Pandora is a different kind of girl. Strange and marvelous. I wouldn't dare predict-" She broke off as she saw him staring at Pandora's distant form. "Lunkhead, you're not even listening. You've already decided to marry her, and damn the consequences." "It wasn't even a decision," Gabriel said, baffled and surly. "I can't think of one good reason to justify why I want her so bloody badly." Phoebe smiled, gazing toward the water. "Have I ever told you what Henry said when he proposed, even knowing how little time we would have together? 'Marriage is far too important a matter to be decided with reason.' He was right, of course." Gabriel took up a handful of warm, dry sand and let it sift through his fingers. "The Ravenels will sooner weather a scandal than force her to marry. And as you probably overheard, she objects not only to me, but the institution of marriage itself." "How could anyone resist you?" Phoebe asked, half-mocking, half-sincere. He gave her a dark glance. "Apparently she has no problem. The title, the fortune, the estate, the social position... to her, they're all detractions. Somehow I have to convince her to marry me despite those things." With raw honesty, he added, "And I'm damned if I even know who I am outside of them." "Oh, my dear..." Phoebe said tenderly. "You're the brother who taught Raphael to sail a skiff, and showed Justin how to tie his shoes. You're the man who carried Henry down to the trout stream, when he wanted to go fishing one last time." She swallowed audibly, and sighed. Digging her heels into the sand, she pushed them forward, creating a pair of trenches. "Shall I tell you what your problem is?" "Is that a question?" "Your problem," his sister continued, "is that you're too good at maintaining that façade of godlike perfection. You've always hated for anyone to see that you're a mere mortal. But you won't win this girl that way." She began to dust the sand from her hands. "Show her a few of your redeeming vices. She'll like you all the better for it.

Ritual abuse is highly organised and, obviously, secretive. It is often linked with other major crimes such as child pornography, child prostitution, the drugs industry, trafficking, and many other illegal and heinous activities. Ritual abuse is organised sexual, physical and psychological abuse, which can be systematic and sustained over a long period of time. It involves the use of rituals - things which the abusers 'need' to do, or 'need' to have in place - but it doesn't have to have a belief system. There doesn't have to be God or the Devil, or any other deity for it to be considered 'ritual'. It involves using patterns of learning and development to keep the abuse going and to make sure the child stays quiet. There has been, and still is a great deal of debate about whether or not such abuse exists anywhere in the world. There are many people who constantly deny that there is even such a thing as ritual abuse. All I can say is that I know there is. Not only have I been a victim of it myself, but I have been dealing with survivors of this type of abuse for almost 30 years. If there are survivors, there must be something that they have survived. The things is, most sexual abuse of children is ritualised in some way. Abusers use repetition, routine and ritual to forced children into the patterns of behaviour they require. Some abusers want their victims to wear certain clothing, to say certain things. They might bathe them or cut them, they might burn them or abuse them only on certain days of the week. They might do a hundred other things which are ritualistic, but aren't always called that - partly, I think because we have a terror of the word and of accepting just how premeditated abuse actually is. Abusers instill fear in their victims and ensure silence; they do all they can to avoid being caught. Sexual abuse of a child is rarely a random act. It involves thorough planning and preparation beforehand. They threaten the children with death, with being taken into care, with no one believing them, which physical violence or their favourite teddy being taken away. They are told that their mum will die, or their dad will hate them, the abusers say everyone will think it's their fault, that everyone already knows they are bad. Nothing is too big or small for an abuser to use as leverage. There is unmistakable proof that abusers do get together in order to share children, abuse more children, and even learn from each other. As more cases have come into the public eye in recent years, this has become increasingly obvious. More and more of this type of abuse is coming to light. I definitely think it is the word ritual which causes people to question, to feel uncomfortable, or even just disbelieve. It seems almost incredible that such things would happen, but too many of us know exactly how bad the lives of many children are. A great deal of child pornography shows children being abused in a ritualised setting, and many have now come forward to share their experiences, but there is a still tendency to say it just couldn't happen. p204-205

Evie awoke to the cheerful glow of a tiny flame. A candle sat on the bedside table. Someone was sitting on the edge of the bed…Lillian…looking rumpled and tired, with her hair tied at the nape of her neck. Slowly Evie sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Is it evening?” she croaked. “I must have slept all afternoon.” Lillian smiled wryly. “You’ve slept for a day and a half, dear. Westcliff and I have looked after St. Vincent, while Mr. Rohan has been running the club.” Evie ran her tongue inside her pasty mouth and sat up straighter. Her heart began to thud with dread as she struggled to ask, “Sebastian…is he…” Lillian took Evie’s chapped hand in hers and asked gently, “Which do you want first—the good news, or the bad news?” Evie shook her head, unable to speak. She stared at her friend without blinking, her lips trembling. “The good news,” Lillian said, “is that his fever has broken, and his wound is no longer putrid.” She grinned as she added, “The bad news is that you may have to endure being married to him for the rest of your life.” Evie burst into tears. She put her free hand over her eyes, while her shoulders shook with sobs. She felt Lillian’s fingers wrap more firmly around hers. “Yes,” came Lillian’s dry voice, “I’d weep too, if he were my husband—though for entirely different reasons.

Cling to him? Nimmy, Jesus came to be sacrificed for our sins. We offer him, immolated, on the altar. And still, you want to cling to him?"... "To sacrifice Jesus is to give him up, of course." The monk started. "But I gave up everything for Jesus!" "Oh, did you! Except Jesus, perhaps, good simpleton?" "If I give up Jesus, I will have nothing at all!" 'Well, that might be perfect poverty, but for one thing: that nothing — you should get rid of that too, Nimmy."... "Nimmy, the only hard thing about following Christ is that you must throw away all values, even the value you place on following Christ. And to throw them away doesn't mean sell them, or sell them out. To be truly poor in spirit, discard your loves and your hates, your good and bad taste, your preferences. Your wish to be, or not be, a monk of Christ. Get rid of it. You can't even see the path, if you care where it goes. Free from values, you can see it plain as day. But if you have even one little wish, a wish to be sinless, or a wish to change your dirty clothes, the path vanishes. Did you ever think that maybe the cangue and chains you wear are your own precious values, Nimmy? Your vocation or lack of it? Good and evil? Ugliness and beauty? Pain and pleasure? These are values, and these are heavy weights. They make you stop and consider, and that's when you lose the way of the Lord."... "The Devil!" the monk said softly. If Specklebird heard it as an accusation, he ignored it. "Him? Throw him away, dump him in the slit trench with the excrement, throw quicklime on him." "Jesus!" "Him too, oh yes, into the trench with that fucker! If he makes you rich.

I didn’t sneer!” said Juliana hastily. “I’d no notion you behaved so dreadfully badly to her. You said you forced her aboard your yacht, but I never supposed that you really frightened her enough to make her fire at you. You need not be in a rage with me for saying so, Dominic, but when I saw Mary at your house she was so placid I made sure you’d not treated her so very brutally after all. Had you?” “Yes,” said Vidal bluntly. He looked at Juliana. “You think it was vastly romantic for Mary to be carried off by me, don’t you? You think you would enjoy it, and you cannot conceive how she should be afraid, can you? Then think, my girl! Think a little! You are in my power at this moment, I may remind you. What if I make you feel it? What if I say to start with that you shall eat your dinner, and force it down your throat?” Juliana shrank back from him involuntarily. “Don’t, Vidal! Don’t come near me!” she said, frightened by the expression in his face. He laughed. “Not so romantic, is it, Ju? And to force you to eat your dinner would be a small thing compared with some other things I might force you to do. Sit down, I’m not going to touch you.” She obeyed, eyeing him nervously. “I—I wish I hadn’t come with you!” she said. “So did Mary, with more reason. But Mary would have died sooner than let me see that she was afraid. And Mary, my love, is not my cousin.

You took it with good grace when you could have sliced him to ribbons with a few words." "I was tempted," she admitted. "But I couldn't help remembering something Mother once said." It had been on a long-ago morning in her childhood, when she and Gabriel had still needed books stacked on their chairs whenever they sat at the breakfast table. Their father had been reading a freshly ironed newspaper, while their mother, Evangeline, or Evie, as family and friends called her, fed spoonfuls of sweetened porridge to baby Raphael in his high chair. After Phoebe had recounted some injustice done to her by a playmate, saying she wouldn't accept the girl's apology, her mother had persuaded her to reconsider for the sake of kindness. "But she's a bad, selfish girl," Phoebe had said indignantly. Evie's reply was gentle but matter-of-fact. "Kindness counts the most when it's given to people who don't deserve it." "Does Gabriel have to be kind to everyone too?" Phoebe had demanded. "Yes, darling." "Does Father?" "No, Redbird," her father had replied, his mouth twitching at the corners. "That's why I married your mother- she's kind enough for two people." "Mother," Gabriel had asked hopefully, "could you be kind enough for three people?" At that, their father had taken a sudden intense interest in his newspaper, lifting it in front of his face. A quiet wheeze emerged from behind it. "I'm afraid not, dear," Evie had said gently, her eyes sparkling. "But I'm sure you and your sister can find a great deal of kindness in your own hearts." Returning her thoughts to the present, Phoebe said, "Mother told us to be kind even to people who don't deserve it.

Must we believe those who tell us that a hand foul with the filth of a shameful life is the only one a young girl cares to be caressed by? That is the teaching that is bawled out day by day from between those yellow covers. Do they ever pause to think, I wonder, those devil's lady-helps, what mischief they are doing crawling about God's garden, and telling childish Eves and silly Adams that sin is sweet, and that decency is ridiculous and vulgar? How many an innocent girl do they not degrade into an evil-minded woman? To how many a weak lad do they not point out the dirty by-path as the shortest cut to a maiden's heart? It is not as if they wrote of life as it really is. Speak truth, and right will take care of itself. But their pictures are coarse daubs painted from the sickly fancies of their own diseased imaginations. We want to think of women not--as their own sex would show them--as Loreleis luring us to destruction, but as good angels beckoning us upward. They have more power for good or evil than they dream of. It is just at the very age when a man's character is forming that he tumbles into love, and then the lass he loves has the making or marring of him. Unconsciously he molds himself to what she would have him, good or bad. I am sorry to have to be ungallant enough to say that I do not think they always use their influence for the best. . . . And yet, women, you could make us so much better, if you only would. It rests with you more than with all the preachers, to roll this world a little nearer heaven. Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. It is you who must wake it to noble deeds. You must be worthy of knightly worship. You must be higher than ourselves. [1886]

That voice that talks badly to you is a demon voice. This very patient and determined demon shows up in your bedroom one day and refuses to leave. You are six or twelve or fifteen and you look in the mirror and you hear a voice so awful and mean that it takes your breath away. It tells you that you are fat and ugly and you don’t deserve love. And the scary part is the demon is your own voice. But it doesn’t sound like you. It sounds like a strangled and seductive version of you. Think Darth Vader or an angry Lauren Bacall. The good news is there are ways to make it stop talking. The bad news is it never goes away. If you are lucky, you can live a life where the demon is generally forgotten, relegated to a back shelf in a closet next to your old field hockey equipment. You may even have days or years when you think the demon is gone. But it is not. It is sitting very quietly, waiting for you. This motherfucker is patient. It says, “Take your time.” It says, “Go fall in love and exercise and surround yourself with people who make you feel beautiful.” It says, “Don’t worry, I’ll wait.” And then one day, you go through a breakup or you can’t lose your baby weight or you look at your reflection in a soup spoon and that slimy bugger is back. It moves its sour mouth up to your ear and reminds you that you are fat and ugly and don’t deserve love. This demon is some Stephen King from-the-sewer devil-level shit.

We were all pretty quiet until Jeremiah broke the silence like breaking the top of a crème brulee. He said, “This potato salad tastes like bad breath.” “I think that would be your upper lip,” Conrad said. We all laughed, and it felt like a relief. For it to be okay to laugh. To be something other than sad. Then Conrad said, “This rib has mold on it,” and we all started to laugh again. It felt like I hadn’t laughed in a long time. My mother rolled her eyes. “Would it kill you to eat a little mold? Just scrape it off. Give it to me. I’ll eat it.” Conrad put his hands up in surrender, and then he stabbed the rib with his fork and dropped it on my mother’s plate ceremoniously. “Enjoy it, Laurel.” “I swear, you spoil these boys, Beck,” my mother said, and everything felt normal, like any other last night. “Belly was raised on leftovers, weren’t you, bean?” “I was,” I agreed. “I was a neglected child who was fed only old food that nobody else wanted.” My mother suppressed a smile and pushed the potato salad toward me. “I do spoil them,” Susannah said, touching Conrad’s shoulder, Jeremiah’s cheek. “They’re angels. Why shouldn’t I?” The two boys looked at each other from across the table for a second. Then Conrad said, “I’m an angel. I would say Jere’s more of a cherub.” He reached out and tousled Jeremiah’s hair roughly. Jeremiah swatted his hand away. “He’s no angel. He’s the devil,” he said. It was like the fight had been erased. With boys it was like that; they fought and then it was over. My mother picked up Conrad’s rib, looked down at it, and then put it down again. “I can’t eat this,” she said, sighing.

Any Justification that does not lead to Biblical sanctification and mortification of sinful desires is a false justification no matter how many Solas you attach to it”. “See that your chief study be about the heart, that there God’s image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart.” ~ Richard Baxter Never forget that truth is more important to the church than peace ~ JC Ryle "Truth demands confrontation. It must be loving confrontation, but there must be confrontation nonetheless.” ~ Francis Schaeffer I am not permitted to let my love be so merciful as to tolerate and endure false doctrine. When faith and doctrine are concerned and endangered, neither love nor patience are in order...when these are concerned, (neither toleration nor mercy are in order, but only anger, dispute, and destruction - to be sure, only with the Word of God as our weapon. ~ Martin Luther “Truth must be spoken, however it be taken.” ~ John Trapp “Hard words, if they be true, are better than soft words if they be false.” – C.H. Spurgeon “Oh my brethren, Bold hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards” – CH Spurgeon “The Bible says Iron sharpens Iron, But if your words don't have any iron in them, you ain't sharpening anyone”. “Peace often comes as a result of conflict!” ~ Don P Mt 18:15-17 Rom 12:18 “Peace if possible, truth at all costs.” ~ Martin Luther “The Scriptures argue and debate and dispute; they are full of polemics… We should always regret the necessity; but though we regret it and bemoan it, when we feel that a vital matter is at stake we must engage in argument. We must earnestly contend for the truth, and we are all called upon to do that by the New Testament.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans – Atonement and Justification) “It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher “Truth bites and it stings and it has a blade on it.” ~ Paul Washer Soft words produce hard hearts. Show me a church where soft words are preached and I will show you a church of hard hearts. Jeremiah said that the word of God is a hammer that shatters. Hard Preaching produces soft hearts. ~ J. MacArthur Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified, prepare the soul for glory. ~ Richard Sibbes “Cowards never won heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by this heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils.” ~ William Gurnall

Subject: Some boat Alex, I know Fox Mulder. My mom watched The X-Files. She says it was because she liked the creepy store lines. I think she liked David Duchovny. She tried Californication, but I don't think her heart was in it. I think she was just sticking it to my grandmother, who has decided it's the work of the devil. She says that about most current music,too, but God help anyone who gets between her and American Idol. The fuzzy whale was very nice, it a little hard to identify. The profile of the guy between you and the whale in the third pic was very familiar, if a little fuzzy. I won't ask. No,no. I have to ask. I won't ask. My mother loves his wife's suits. I Googled. There are sharks off the coast of the Vineyard. Great big white ones. I believe you about the turtle. Did I mention that there are sharks there? I go to Surf City for a week every summer with my cousins. I eat too much ice cream. I play miniature golf-badly. I don't complain about sand in my hot dog buns or sheets. I even spend enough time on the beach to get sand in more uncomfortable places. I do not swim. I mean, I could if I wanted to but I figure that if we were meant to share the water with sharks, we would have a few extra rows of teeth, too. I'll save you some cannoli. -Ella Subject: Shh Fiorella, Yes,Fiorella. I looked it up. It means Flower. Which, when paired with MArino, means Flower of the Sea. What shark would dare to touch you? I won't touch the uncomfortable sand mention, hard as it is to resist. I also will not think of you in a bikini (Note to self: Do not think of Ella in a bikini under any circumstanes. Note from self: Are you f-ing kidding me?). Okay. Two pieces of info for you. One: Our host has an excellent wine cellar and my mother is European. Meaning she doesn't begrudge me the occasional glass. Or four. Two: Our hostess says to thank yur mother very much. Most people say nasty things about her suits. Three: We have a house kinda near Surf City. Maybe I'll be there when your there. You'd better burn this after reading. -Alexai Subect: Happy Thanksgiving Alexei, Consider it burned. Don't worry. I'm not showing your e-mails to anybody. Matter of national security, of course. Well,I got to sit at the adult table. In between my great-great-aunt Jo, who is ninety-three and deaf, and her daughter, JoJo, who had to repeat everyone's conversations across me. Loudly. The food was great,even my uncle Ricky's cranberry lasagna. In fact, it would have been a perfectly good TG if the Eagles han't been playing the Jets.My cousin Joey (other side of the family) lives in Hoboken. His sister married a Philly guy. It started out as a lively across-the-table debate: Jets v. Iggles. It ended up with Joey flinging himself across the table at his brother-in-law and my grandmother saying loud prayers to Saint Bridget. At least I think it was Saint Bridget. Hard to tell. She was speaking Italian. She caught me trying to freeze a half-dozen cannoli. She yelled at me. Apparently, the shells get really soggy when they defrost. I guess you'll have to come have a fresh one when you get back. -F/E

They stood around a bleeding stump of a man lying on the ground. His right arm and left leg had been chopped off. It was inconceivable how, with his remaining arm and leg, he had crawled to the camp. The chopped-off arm and leg were tied in terrible bleeding chunks onto his back with a small wooden board attached to them; a long inscription on it said, with many words of abuse, that the atrocity was in reprisal for similar atrocities perpetrated by such and such a Red unit—a unit that had no connection with the Forest Brotherhood. It also said that the same treatment would be meted out to all the partisans unless, by a given date, they submitted and gave up their arms to the representatives of General Vitsyn’s army corps. Fainting repeatedly from loss of blood, the dying man told them in a faltering voice of the tortures and atrocities perpetrated by Vitsyn’s investigating and punitive squads. His own sentence of death had been allegedly commuted; instead of hanging him, they had cut off his arm and leg in order to send him into the camp and strike terror among the partisans. They had carried him as far as the outposts of the camp, where they had put him down and ordered him to crawl, urging him on by shooting into the air. He could barely move his lips. To make out his almost unintelligible stammering, the crowd around him bent low. He was saying: “Be on your guard, comrades. He has broken through.” “Patrols have gone out in strength. There’s a big battle going on. We’ll hold him.” “There’s a gap. He wants to surprise you. I know. ... I can’t go on, men. I am spitting blood. I’ll die in a moment.” “Rest a bit. Keep quiet.—Can’t you see it’s bad for him, you heartless beasts!” The man started again: “He went to work on me, the devil. He said: You will bathe in your own blood until you tell me who you are. And how was I to tell him, a deserter is just what I am? I was running from him to you.” “You keep saying ‘he.’ Who was it that got to work on you?” “Let me just get my breath. ... I’ll tell you. Hetman, Bekeshin. Colonel, Strese. Vitsyn’s men. You don’t know out here what it’s like. The whole town is groaning. They boil people alive. They cut strips out of them. They take you by the scruff of the neck and push you inside, you don’t know where you are, it’s pitch black. You grope about—you are in a cage, inside a freight car. There are more than forty people in the cage, all in their underclothes. From time to time they open the door and grab whoever comes first—out he goes. As you grab a chicken to cut its throat. I swear to God. Some they hang, some they shoot, some they question. They beat you to shreds, they put salt on the wounds, they pour boiling water on you. When you vomit or relieve yourself they make you eat it. As for children and women—O God!” The unfortunate was at his last gasp. He cried out and died without finishing the sentence. Somehow they all knew it at once and took off their caps and crossed themselves. That night, the news of a far more terrible incident flew around the camp. Pamphil had been in the crowd surrounding the dying man. He had seen him, heard his words, and read the threatening inscription on the board. His constant fear for his family in the event of his own death rose to a new climax. In his imagination he saw them handed over to slow torture, watched their faces distorted by pain, and heard their groans and cries for help. In his desperate anguish—to forestall their future sufferings and to end his own—he killed them himself, felling his wife and three children with that same, razor-sharp ax that he had used to carve toys for the two small girls and the boy, who had been his favorite. The astonishing thing was that he did not kill himself immediately afterward.

As the third evening approached, Gabriel looked up blearily as two people entered the room. His parents. The sight of them infused him with relief. At the same time, their presence unlatched all the wretched emotion he'd kept battened down until this moment. Disciplining his breathing, he stood awkwardly, his limbs stiff from spending hours on the hard chair. His father came to him first, pulling him close for a crushing hug and ruffling his hair before going to the bedside. His mother was next, embracing him with her familiar tenderness and strength. She was the one he'd always gone to first whenever he'd done something wrong, knowing she would never condemn or criticize, even when he deserved it. She was a source of endless kindness, the one to whom he could entrust his worst thoughts and fears. "I promised nothing would ever harm her," Gabriel said against her hair, his voice cracking. Evie's gentle hands patted his back. "I took my eyes off her when I shouldn't have," he went on. "Mrs. Black approached her after the play- I pulled the bitch aside, and I was too distracted to notice-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat harshly, trying not to choke on emotion. Evie waited until he calmed himself before saying quietly, "You remember when I told you about the time your f-father was badly injured because of me?" "That wasn't because of you," Sebastian said irritably from the bedside. "Evie, have you harbored that absurd idea for all these years?" "It's the most terrible feeling in the world," Evie murmured to Gabriel. "But it's not your fault, and trying not to make it so won't help either of you. Dearest boy, are you listening to me?" Keeping his face pressed against her hair, Gabriel shook his head. "Pandora won't blame you for what happened," Evie told him, "any more than your father blamed me." "Neither of you are to blame for anything," his father said, "except for annoying me with this nonsense. Obviously the only person to blame for this poor girl's injury is the woman who attempted to skewer her like a pinioned duck." He straightened the covers over Pandora, bent to kiss her forehead gently, and sat in the bedside chair. "My son... guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious." Stretching out his long legs, he crossed them negligently. "There's no reason to tear yourself to pieces worrying about Pandora. She's going to make a full recovery." "You're a doctor now?" Gabriel asked sardonically, although some of the weight of grief and worry lifted at his father's confident pronouncement. "I daresay I've seen enough illness and injuries in my time, stabbings included, to predict the outcome accurately. Besides, I know the spirit of this girl. She'll recover." "I agree," Evie said firmly. Letting out a shuddering sigh, Gabriel tightened his arms around her. After a long moment, he heard his mother say ruefully, "Sometimes I miss the days when I could solve any of my children's problems with a nap and a biscuit." "A nap and a biscuit wouldn't hurt this one at the moment," Sebastian commented dryly. "Gabriel, go find a proper bed and rest for a few hours. We'll watch over your little fox cub.