Devils Tower Quotes

The upshot of her tirade was that I was the devil's spawn and should be locked up in a tower before I unleashed hordes of the living dead to slaughter them all in their sleep. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

If you are a monster, stand up. If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend, If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme, If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams Come stand by me. If you have been broken, stand up. If you have been broken, abandoned, alone If you have been starving, a creature of bone If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known, Come stand by me. If you are a savage, stand up. If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight, If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite, If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright, If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight, Come stand by me. If you are a devil, stand up. If you are a villain, a madman, a beast, If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest, If you are a dragon come sit at our feast, For we all have stripes, and we all have horns, We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns And here in the dark is where new worlds are born. Come stand by me.

The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.

The devil you knew was always preferable to the devil you didn’t.

To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. At Devil’s Tower or Canyon de Chelly or the Cahokia Mounds, you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space.

Mamma, are they demons? Is it the Wild Hunt? Phantoms from hell? Mamma, mamma! Quiet, quiet, children. They are not demons, not devils . . . Worse than that. They are people.

The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.

Because when Eddie's in that fuckin zone, he could talk the devil into setting himself on fire.

The hands pulled him forward regardless. The hands of the Tower knew no mercy. They were the hands of Gan, the hands of ka, and they knew no mercy. He smelled alkali, bitter as tears. The desert beyond the door was white; blinding; waterless; without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon. The smell beneath the alkali was that of the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. But not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on. And each time you forget the last time. For you, each time is the first time.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

I grew up in those years when the Old West was passing and the New West was emerging. It was a time when we still heard echoes and already saw shadows, on moonlit nights when the coyotes yapped on the hilltops, and on hot summer afternoons when mirages shimmered, dust devils spun across the flats, and towering cumulus clouds sailed like galleons across the vast blueness of the sky. Echoes of remembrance of what men once did there, and visions of what they would do together.

Despair is so familiar to me; it could be banished by the sight of a beautiful mannekin in the window. It could be dispelled by the lights surrounding a tower. It would be lifted by the great ghostly shape of St. Patrick's coming into view. And then despair would come again. Meaningless, I almost said, aloud.

Those in the grip of a strong drug - heroin, devil grass, true love - often find themselves trying to maintain a precarious balance between secrecy and ecstasy as they walk the tightrope of their lives. Keeping one's balance on a tightrope is difficult under the soberest of circumstances; doing so while in a state of delirium is all but impossible.

FEBRUARY 17 I WILL CAUSE YOU TO DWELL IN SAFETY I HAVE SENT My angels to surround you and to cause you to dwell in safety. They will deliver you from all danger and will surround you with My protection. I will hold you up, and you will be safe. My eyes are turned on My righteous servants, and My ears are attentive to your cry. I will deliver you from all your troubles. The name of My Son is a fortified tower for you, and you can run to it where you will be safe. Do not be afraid, for I will guide you safely wherever you go. You can lie down and sleep, for I have made you to dwell in safety. I am Your God, and I will keep you safe and will protect you forever from the wicked who freely strut around in wickedness. PSALMS 34:7–22; 78:52; 12:5 Prayer Declaration You will answer me, Lord, when I call to You, and will give me relief from my distress. You will have mercy on me and hear my prayer. You will grant peace in my family, in my land, and no one will cause me to be afraid. You will walk with me and will be My God, and I will be Your faithful servant.

Mary Fisher lives in a High Tower, on the edge of the sea: she writes a great deal about the nature of love. She tells lies.

He could talk the devil into setting himself on fire.

Nayyup, nayyup, Ah'll not sell smokeweed to a boy. Never have done." "Good idea, too," Eddie said. "One step below devil grass, and the Surgeon General says thankya.

Another inventor, J. B. McComber, representing the Chicago-Tower Spiral-Spring Ascension and Toboggan Transportation Company, proposed a tower with a height of 8,947 feet, nearly nine times the height of the Eiffel Tower, with a base one thousand feet in diameter sunk two thousand feet into the earth. Elevated rails would lead from the top of the tower all the way to New York, Boston, Baltimore, and other cities. Visitors ready to conclude their visit to the fair and daring enough to ride elevators to the top would then toboggan all the way back home.

I looked at the headline: “The Devil Made Him Do It." It was an opinion piece about the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and the “disjointed" but “grotesque" remarks he had made at a press conference. Lamenting the relative impotence of the arts in comparison to terrorism, Stockhausen had called the attacks “the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos." I guess he thought of it as a Wagnerian spectacle, an opera of airplanes and towers. “Five thousand people are dispatched into eternity, in a single moment," he said. “I couldn’t do that. In comparison with that, we’re nothing as composers.

Lex surfed wicked, like the devil. He wasn’t afraid of anything, seemed like. He grinned at West as the waves came up toward them like towers of green glass, an emerald city. We’re off to see the wizard, he shouted. He whooped. His body crouched ready to fly. He shone against the sun.

And this is the result. Millions of small sins, billions of tiny evils--twisting, twining, groping, consuming...Till they become a great serpent...a blight on humanity...that rises from the collective unconscious towering over the world...Blocking out the light. It is so convenient to blame it all on some sneering, arrogant Satan--sitting on a fiery throne, plotting to corrupt our souls. But if there is a devil--he's just another projection of our own sins.

I know the Unknown God," said the little priest, with an unconscious grandeur of certitude that stood up like a granite tower. "I know his name; it is Satan. The true God was made flesh and dwelt among us. And I say to you, wherever you find men ruled merely by mystery, it is the mystery of iniquity. If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it.

If you had dared to suggest one hundred years ago that God and the devil were in cahoots, you would he invited to attend a barbecue in the public square, and you would be the barbecuee. But today it is apparent that the same force that answers some prayers also causes it to rain anchovies and is behind everything from sea serpents to flying saucers. It distorts our reality whimsically, perhaps out of boredom, or perhaps because it is a little crazy. God may be a crackpot.

How had subterranean frog people in love with hats and lizards become mortal enemies to a breed of bright-red devil bulls? Perhaps at the beginning of time, the elder gods had told the first trogs, You may now pick your nemesis! And the first trogs had pointed across the newly made fields of creations and yelled, We hate those cows!

The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies’ cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel … all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a tomcat. “That’s the real king of this castle right there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child.” He had run her halfway across the castle; twice around the Tower of the Hand, across the inner bailey, through the stables, down the serpentine steps, past the small kitchen and the pig yard and the barracks of the gold cloaks, along the base of the river wall and up more steps and back and forth over Traitor’s Walk, and then down again and through a gate and around a well and in and out of strange buildings until Arya didn’t know where she was. Now at last she had him. High walls pressed close on either side, and ahead was a blank windowless mass of stone. Quiet as a shadow, she repeated, sliding forward, light as a feather. When she was three steps away from him, the tomcat bolted. Left, then right, he went; and right, then left, went Arya, cutting off his escape. He hissed again and tried to dart between her legs. Quick as a snake, she thought.

During heavy rains, river water flowed in a greasy plume far out into Lake Michigan, to the towers that marked the intake pipes for the city’s drinking water.

Ferris, himself fed up with construction delays and Burnham’s pestering, had told Gronau to turn the wheel or tear it off the tower.

devil's tower.

The Devil, The Lovers, and The Tower. The same cards her mother had pulled in her nightmare.

Let kings stack their treasure houses ceiling-high, and merchants burst their vaults with hoarded coin, and fools envy them. I have a treasure that outvalues theirs. A diamond as big as a man’s skull. Twelve rubies each as big as the skull of a cat. Seventeen emeralds each as big as the skull of a mole. And certain rods of crystal and bars of orichalcum. Let Overlords swagger jewel-bedecked and queens load themselves with gems, and fools adore them. I have a treasure that will outlast theirs. A treasure house have I builded for it in the far southern forest, where the two hills hump double, like sleeping camels, a day’s ride beyond the village of Soreev. “A great treasure house with a high tower, fit for a king’s dwelling—yet no king may dwell there.  Immediately below the keystone of the chief dome my treasure lies hid, eternal as the glittering stars. It will outlast me and my name, I, Urgaan of Angarngi. It is my hold on the future. Let fools seek it. They shall win it not. For although my treasure house be empty as air, no deadly creature in rocky lair, no sentinel outside anywhere, no pitfall, poison, trap, or snare, above and below the whole place bare, of demon or devil not a hair, no serpent lethal-fanged yet fair, no skull with mortal eye a-glare, yet have I left a guardian there. Let the wise read this riddle and forbear.

conservative pundits try to get their constituents to believe the American Taxpayer, that mythical and handy beast, is funding lifesaving towers foisted on them by the lily-livered INS, which, by the way, allowed hijackers to blow up New York.

A devil moon took me through the alley Down by the Kardomah and the Centrale To the mews running through the backstreets Where the Blacks sell fire and sleep The devil moon took me out of Soho Up to Camden where the cold north winds blow Sucked along by a winter shower To stand beside your shining tower

Another inventor, J. B. McComber, representing the Chicago-Tower Spiral-Spring Ascension and Toboggan Transportation Company, proposed a tower with a height of 8,947 feet, nearly nine times the height of the Eiffel Tower, with a base one thousand feet in diameter sunk two thousand feet into the earth. Elevated rails would lead from the top of the tower all the way to New York, Boston, Baltimore, and other cities. Visitors ready to conclude their visit to the fair and daring enough to ride elevators to the top would then toboggan all the way back home. “As the cost of the tower and its slides is of secondary importance,” McComber noted, “I do not mention it here, but will furnish figures upon application.” A third proposal demanded even more courage from visitors. This inventor, who gave his initials as R. T. E., envisioned a tower four thousand feet tall from which he proposed to hang a two-thousand-foot cable of “best rubber.” Attached at the bottom end of this cable would be a car seating two hundred people. The car and its passengers would be shoved off a platform and fall without restraint to the end of the cable, where the car would snap back upward and continue bouncing until it came to a stop. The engineer urged that as a precaution the ground “be covered with eight feet of feather bedding.

After a brief murmured exchange, the lady's maid opened the door a bit wider, and Phoebe's brother Ivo stuck his head inside. "Hullo, sis," he said casually. "You look very nice in that gold dress." "It's ecru." At his perplexed look, she repeated, "Ecru." "God bless you," Ivo said, and gave her a cheeky grin as he entered the room. Phoebe lifted her gaze heavenward. "Why are you here, Ivo?" "I'm going to escort you downstairs, so you don't have to go alone." Phoebe was so moved, she couldn't speak. She could only stare at the eleven-year-old boy, who was volunteering to take the place her husband would have assumed. "It was Father's idea," Ivo continued, a touch bashfully. "I'm sorry I'm not as tall as the other ladies' escorts, or even as tall as you. I'm really only half an escort. But that's still better than nothing, isn't it?" His expression turned uncertain as he saw that her eyes were watering. After clearing her throat, Phoebe managed an unsteady reply. "At this moment, my gallant Ivo, you tower above every other gentleman here. I'm so very honored." He grinned and offered his arm in a gesture she had seen him practice in the past with their father. "The honor is mine, sis." In that moment, Phoebe had the briefest intimation of what Ivo would be like as a full-grown man, confident and irresistibly charming.

There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it indeed seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to the riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall? Had Almighty God, in all His infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven? Where the devil was heaven? Was it up? Down? There was no up or down in a finite but expanding universe in which even the vast, burning, dazzling, majestic sun was in a state of progressive decay that would eventually destroy the earth too.

One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder

Death, the Sun, the Lovers. Lots of major arcana. Your future's controlled by others. There's powerful people playing with it. You're gonna have to fight to get it back...this is the country of truth. There the Devil, the Star, the Tower. In this country of truth, where your spirit lives, your life still isn't your own. Other stronger spirits, or maybe gods--they've got the say in what happens to you.

For the next hour, the subject of Pandora's board game business was discarded as the group worked on the sandcastle. They paused at intervals to drink thirstily from jugs of cold water and lemonade that had been sent down from the house. Pandora threw herself into the project with enthusiasm, consulting with Justin, who had decided the castle must have a moat, square corner towers, a front gatehouse with a drawbridge, and battlement walls from which the occupants could drop scalding water or molten tar onto the advancing enemy. Gabriel, who'd been instructed to dig the moat, stole frequent glances at Pandora, who had enough energy for ten people. Her face glowed beneath her battered straw hat, which she had managed to pry away from Ajax. She was sweaty and covered in sand, a few escaped locks of hair trailing over her neck and back. She played with the unselfconscious ease of a child, this woman of radical thoughts and ambitions. She was beautiful. Complex. Frustrating. He'd never met a woman who was so wholly and resolutely herself. What the devil was he going to do about her?

Though the people of this modest village were not accustomed to seeing such barbaric men as Varg, it was his inhuman features that had the citizens of Fellenshire Village on edge. Not only was Varg's hair whiter than an old wise man's beard, but he was nearly six and a half feet tall and easily towered over the shaken folk of the village. His enormous stature alone would intimidate even the most hardened warriors, but with Varg's hair paired with his silver eyes, the people of this small town whispered that the devil himself may be walking amongst them.

I spare you,” said the Duke in a voice of inhuman pity. “I refuse. If I gave you the faintest hint of the load of horror I have to bear alone, you would lie shrieking at these feet of mine and begging to know no more. I will spare you the hint. You shall not spell the first letter of what is written on the altar of the Unknown God.” “I know the Unknown God,” said the little priest, with an unconscious grandeur of certitude that stood up like a granite tower. “I know his name; it is Satan. The true God was made flesh and dwelt among us. And I say to you, wherever you find men ruled merely by mystery, it is the mystery of iniquity. If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it. I entreat your Grace to end this nightmare now and here at this table.” “If

At the outset of his career circumstances seemed to authorize the most sanguine of these expectations. For at twenty-seven, after two years of advanced theology and philosophy, young Father Grandier received his reward for so many long semesters of diligence and good behavior. By the Company of Jesus, in whose gift it lay, he was presented to the important living of Saint-Pierre du Marché at Loudun. At the same time, and thanks to the same benefactors, he was made a canon of the collegial church of the Holy Cross. His foot was on the ladder; all he now had to do was to climb. Loudun, as its new parson rode slowly toward his destination, revealed itself as a little city on a hill, dominated by two tall towers—the spire of St. Peter’s and the medieval keep of the great castle. As a symbol, as a sociological hieroglyph, Loudun’s skyline was somewhat out of date. That spire still threw its Gothic shadow across the town; but a good part of the townspeople

The same thing happened with large civic clients. He and Calvert Vaux had built and refined Central Park from 1858 through 1876, but forever afterward Olmsted found himself defending the park against attempts to tinker with its grounds in ways he considered tantamount to vandalism. It wasn’t just Central Park, however. Every park seemed subject to such abuse. “Suppose,” he wrote to architect Henry Van Brunt, “that you had been commissioned to build a really grand opera house; that after the construction work had been nearly completed and your scheme of decoration fully designed you should be instructed that the building was to be used on Sundays as a Baptist Tabernacle, and that suitable place must be made for a huge organ, a pulpit and a dipping pool. Then at intervals afterwards, you should be advised that it must be so refitted and furnished that parts of it could be used for a court room, a jail, a concert hall, hotel, skating rink, for surgical cliniques, for a circus, dog show, drill room, ball room, railway station and shot tower?” That, he wrote, “is what is nearly always going on with public parks. Pardon me if I overwhelm you; it is a matter of chronic anger with me.

The cart slowed as they came to a place so dark and quiet that it seemed as if they had entered some remote forest. Peeking beneath the hem of the cart's canvas covering, Garrett saw towering gates covered with ivy, and ghostly sculptures of angels, and solemn figures of men, women, and children with their arms crossed in resignation upon their breasts. Graveyard sculptures. A stab of horror went through her, and she crawled to the front of the cart to where West Ravenel was sitting with the driver. "Where the devil are you taking us, Mr. Ravenel?" He glanced at her over his shoulder, his brows raised. "I told you before- a private railway station." "It looks like a cemetery." "It's a cemetery station," he admitted. "With a dedicated line that runs funeral trains out to the burial grounds. It also happens to connect to the main lines and branches of the London Ironstone Railroad, owned by our mutual friend Tom Severin." "You told Mr. Severin about all this? Dear God. Can we trust him?" West grimaced slightly. "One never wants to be in the position of having to trust Severin," he admitted. "But he's the only one who could obtain clearances for a special train so quickly." They approached a massive brick and stone building housing a railway platform. A ponderous stone sign adorned the top of the carriage entrance: Silent Gardens. Just below it, the shape of an open book emblazoned with words had been carved in the stone. Ad Meliora. "Toward better things," Garrett translated beneath her breath.

have loved her more than the light of these eyes that the earth will one day devour, I have not seen her as many as four times; and it is possible that on those four occasions she has not even once noticed that I was looking at her, such is the reserve and seclusion in which her father Lorenzo Corchuelo and her mother Aldonza Nogales have brought her up.’ ‘Oho!’ said Sancho. ‘So Lorenzo Corchuelo’s daughter is the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, also known as Aldonza Lorenzo, is she?’ ‘She is,’ said Don Quixote, ‘and she it is who deserves to be the mistress of the entire universe.’ ‘I know her well,’ said Sancho, ‘and let me tell you she pitches a bar as far as the strongest lad in all the village. Good God, she’s a lusty lass all right, hale and hearty, strong as an ox, and any knight errant who has her as his lady now or in the future can count on her to pull him out of the mire! The little baggage, what muscles she’s got on her, and what a voice! Let me tell you she climbed up one day to the top of the church belfry to call to some lads of hers who were in a fallow field of her father’s, and even though they were a good couple of miles off they could hear her just as if they’d been standing at the foot of the tower. And the best thing about her is she isn’t at all priggish, she’s a real courtly lass, enjoys a joke with everyone and turns everything into a good laugh. And now I can say, Sir Knight of the Sorry Face, that not only is it very right and proper for you to get up to your mad tricks for her sake – you’ve got every reason to give way to despair and hang yourself, too, and nobody who knows about it will say you weren’t justified, even if it does send you to the devil.

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

Oh, Gray, she said. Oh, gray, indeed. As in, oh Gray what the holy hell has come over you and what the devil do you intend to do about it? He took the coward’s way out. He looked away. “I thought you were painting a portrait. Of me.” She turned her head, following his gaze to her easel. A vast seascape overflowed the small canvas. Towering thunderclouds and a violent, frothy sea. And slightly off center, a tiny ship cresting a massive wave. “I am painting you.” “What, am I on the little boat, then?” It was a relief to joke. The relief was short-lived. “No,” she said softly, turning back to look at him. “I’m on the little boat. You’re the storm. And the ocean. You’re…Gray, you’re everything.” And that was when things went from “very bad” to “worse.” “I can’t take credit for the composition. It’s inspired by a painting I once saw, in a gallery on Queen Anne Street. By a Mr. Turner.” “Turner. Yes, I know his work. No relation, I suppose?” “No.” She looked back at the canvas. “When I saw it that day, so brash and wild…I could feel the tempest churning in my blood. I just knew then and there, that I had something inside me-a passion too bold, too grand to keep squeezed inside a drawing room. First I tried to deny it, and then I tried to run from it…and then I met you, and I saw you have it, too. Don’t deny it, Gray. Don’t run from it and leave me alone.” She sat up, still rubbing his cheek with her thumb. Grasping his other hand, she drew it to her naked breast. Oh, God. She was every bit as soft as he’d dreamed. Softer. And there went his hand now. Trembling. “Touch me, Gray.” She leaned forward, until her lips paused a mere inch away from his. “Kiss me.” Perhaps that dagger had missed his heart after all, because the damned thing was hammering away inside his chest. And oh, he could taste her sweet breath mingling with his. Her lips were so close, so inviting. So dangerous. Panic-that’s what had his knees trembling and his heart hammering and his lips spouting foolishness. It had to be panic. Because something told Gray that he could see her mostly naked, and watch her toes curl as she reached her climax, and even cup her dream-soft breast in his palm-but somehow, if he touched his lips to hers, he would be lost. “Please,” she whispered. “Kiss me.

After dinner, we escaped to a movie: The Two Towers, part two of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was a good story, providing the escape we sought, but something more. Near the end of the film, when Frodo feels that the burden of the ring is overwhelming and he simply cannot continue the struggle, Sam tries to convince him to hold on. Frodo asks, “What are we holding onto, Sam?” “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” Peace

The story of that first ascent to Leh from Manali is in this verse that I wrote after that terrible drive. To a land called Ladakh we were preparing to go, Over high roads generously peppered with snow. The old monk saw us packing the car and a greeting he waved, Which I returned since I am moderately well-behaved. ‘So you’re off to my land of Ladakh I guess, It will take you two days to reach at best.’ ‘No sir, I have a very capable car, you see, And within a day in the city of Leh we’ll be.’ ‘Yes son, the car will handle the road, that is true, What I’m wondering is whether or not will you. Those roads are high and almost touch the sky It would be prudent to be a little shy.’ And, worrying his beads, he walked away with a limping gait, And I scoffed at his warning—I was in good physical shape. It was a terrible mistake I made, And the price in full I paid. We climbed that towering road too high and too quick, And at the fifteen thousand-foot high Baralacha La fell violently sick. Altitude mountain sickness had enveloped me in a deadly embrace, My head hurt, my stomach retched, and around me the world reeled at a furious pace. Had to make Sarchu, the only sheltered place to stay, And it was misery personified every kilometre of the way. Mountains and streams make Sarchu a place of unimaginable beauty, But appreciating it was beyond me as I lay groaning, nauseous and retchy. It could have been paradise for all I care, Inside my mind it was the devil’s lair. The gentle monk had tried to warn us, Words that I’d dismissed as an old man’s fuss. Here in the mountains where altitude is king, Hurry or haste is a very deadly thing. A million times I called to my God that night, And then I saw the bright shining light. I snapped awake shivering with fear; are the angels here, is my end near? ‘Not yet, my son,’ a voice seemed to say in my ear. It was the sun shining through the tent, the beginning of another day, My head felt good and I could stand without feeling the world sway. That remains my most distressing night, Those seven hours that I took to fight the height. I am wiser now and whenever that awesome road I drive, I remember the monk and am never in a hurry to arrive. Apart

Kate is an avid reader of fiction and came across a quote from Anthony Trollope’s novel Barchester Towers. I believe it explains why I did not kill Shirley: “A man in the right relies easily on his rectitude and therefore goes about unarmed. His very strength is his weakness. A man in the wrong knows that he must look to his weapons; his very weakness is his strength. The one is never prepared for combat, the other is always ready. Therefore it is that in this world the man that is in the wrong almost invariably conquers the man that is in the right, and invariably despises him.” Responses

It always came back to the cards, and the cards had predicted Death. Sure enough, Death was all around me, shimmering in the night. The cards had been right on the money, in fact—first the exploding Tower, then the Magician, then Death. All of them appearing in rapid succession, each more alarming than the last. The only card left was—the Devil. What did the Devil card mean this night? More lies, more deceit? Or was its appearance simply a marker, a warning that I was about to head into the underbelly of society, down the well-trod rabbit hole of crime, prostitution, drugs, and death? Maybe. Or maybe I’d soon be enjoying Devil’s Food cake. I voted for Option B.

Quiet, quiet, children. They are not demons, not devils… Worse than that. They are people.

Tarot tells a narrative, but it's not a plot-driven story, nor is it a character sketch. It is a story about why. When you can understand why, you are better prepared to accept yourself and the Hanged Man, Death, the Devil, and the Tower if and when they come your way. You will no longer fear them. That is the wisdom of the Fool's journey into the World. That is why you pass the wisdom on - to assuage people's fears and provide them with tools to better handle the turns of the Wheel.

Everything within me said yes, but the rational side of my brain screamed no. This was the Devil of Dowler. I shouldn’t enjoy his sinful kiss.

Mary Fisher has built her tower around her, and cemented the stone with banknotes, and lined the walls inside with stolen love, but still she is not safe. She has a mother.

got to know quite a few politicians. They were a pretty lively bunch, no more or less corrupt than schoolteachers, newspaper reporters, cops, or doctors. Anyway, it didn’t take much exposure to politics for me to realize that there are as many nuts on the left as there are on the right, and in the long run, the lefties are probably more dangerous. But in the short run, if you find a guy on top of your hometown clock tower with a cheap Chinese semiauto assault-weapon lookalike, that guy will be one of Corbeil’s buddies, dreaming of black helicopters and socialist tanks massing on the Canadian border, preparing to pollute America’s vital fluids.

There are things in nature which engender an awful quiet in the heart of man; Devils Tower is one of them. Man must account for it. He must never fail to explain such a thing to himself, or else he is estranged forever from the universe.

The Magyars were claimed to be descendants of the hideous Asiatic Scythians of legend, half men and half apes, a witches’ brood begotten by devils. The sources—chronicles and annals—were all copied from one another, not on the basis of eyewitness accounts but following the characterisation of older chroniclers. Soon the “new barbarians” became identified with the Huns, who are remembered only too well in Europe. Attila had, after all, become in Western eyes the embodiment of barbarism, the anti-Christ, and at the time of the Renaissance he already appeared in Italian legends as the king of the Hungarians, constantly hatching plots, and depicted with dog ears, the bestial offspring of a greyhound and a princess locked up in a tower.12

The fortified watchtower overlooking the Eastern Sea was officially called Ferrigan’s Tower for the engineer who’d built it, but to the miserable soldiers stationed there, the post was known as the Snow Devil’s Asshole.

What the devil are you eating?” Leo, Lord Ramsay, stood in the family parlor at Ramsay House, viewing his dark-haired twins, Edward and Emmaline, who were playing on the carpeted floor. His wife, Catherine, who was helping the babies to build block towers, looked up with a smile. “They’re eating biscuits.” “These?” Leo glanced at a bowl of little brown biscuits that had been placed on a table. “They look revoltingly similar to the ones Beatrix has been feeding the dog.” “That’s because they are.” “They’re…Good God, Cat! What can you be thinking?” Lowering to his haunches, Leo tried to pry a sodden biscuit away from Edward. Leo’s efforts were met with an indignant squall. “Mine!” Edward cried, clutching the biscuit more tightly. “Let him have it,” Catherine protested. “The twins are teething, and the biscuits are very hard. There’s nothing harmful in them.” “How do you know that?” “Beatrix made them.” “Beatrix doesn’t cook. To my knowledge, she can barely butter her bread.” “I don’t cook for people,” Beatrix said cheerfully, coming into the parlor with Albert padding after her. “But I do for dogs.” “Naturally.” Leo took one of the brown lumps from the bowl, examining it closely. “Would you care to reveal the ingredients of these disgusting objects?” “Oats, honey, eggs…they’re very nourishing.” As if to underscore the point, Catherine’s pet ferret, Dodger, streaked up to Leo, took the biscuit from him, and slithered beneath a nearby chair. Catherine laughed low in her throat as she saw Leo’s expression. “They’re made of the same stuff as teething biscuits, my lord.” “Very well,” Leo said darkly. “But if the twins start barking and burying their toys, I’ll know whom to blame.” He lowered to the floor beside his daughter. Emmaline gave him a wet grin and pushed her own sodden biscuit toward his mouth. “Here, Papa.” “No, thank you, darling.” Becoming aware of Albert nosing at his shoulder, Leo turned to pet him. “Is this a dog or a street broom?” “It’s Albert,” Beatrix replied.

A man. Not just any man, but a tall, gloriously handsome one whose black hair streamed in rampant disarray past mighty shoulders and down a broad back; a man whose great hands were bunched into fists, a man with the devil’s own fury blazing from eyes as darkly blue as an empty midnight. Not the gallant officer she pined for . . . but a pirate. Maeve stepped forward, and gathered herself for a question that needed no answer. “Who the hell are you?” His gaze bored into hers. Furious, he reached up and flung an offending clot of slime from his dripping brow. Then, he pushed his captors aside and stepped forward, over six feet of towering male purpose, muscle, and rage. “Your gallant-bloody-knight!

APRIL 16 BIND THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR I HAVE GIVEN you the power to bind the powers of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in those who are not obedient to My Word. Because of My rich mercy and the great love I have for you, I have made you alive with My Son, Christ, and have saved you with My grace. I have made you to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above the powers of the prince of the air. Through the name of Jesus, I give you the power to bind the powers of darkness that would control the airwaves and would release filth, violence, and witchcraft through the media. My holy fire will burn up all the high places established by the enemy. EPHESIANS 2:1–7, 6:12; NUMBERS 33:52 Prayer Declaration Lord, You created the high places for Your glory. Let not the enemy control the high places. In Your name I bind spiritual wickedness in high places, and I pluck down the high places of the enemy. Let the high places of witchcraft be destroyed in the name of Jesus, and let them be purged through Your anointing to become towers of righteousness.

But gratitude can be the very devil sometimes, particularly if you have to be grateful for services you’d rather be without.

Copaface I'm quick learning lessons from the devil but can't decide whether I arrived or was contrived I view so many faces form a tower up above neglected inner wants and hungers for what I love cluttered bunched black eyed and voiceless I fill up the sugar cup to stay up at night in my black upabove where my face is a moon full of craters with crummy eyes and cyst-thighs a perfect beacon for the fictionettes who spread their legs wide open on the plasma embodiments of everything i hide about my self today hips rashed elastic crowded barely wrenched into my upmost ambition for attraction so I nurse fellow wilted and the withered shallow love smut love our love in my black upabove my face is a room full of mirrors with crummy eyes and blistered thighs a bent brain full of lies a beacon for the fiction body voodoo embodiments in morbid tense misplace your grace to chase your copaface

I had no idea that she-devils actually had them.” She stuck out her tongue. “Yes, even my kind has them.” Chaol grinned. “So you asked her to throw one for you?” Considering how the last party had gone… He might very well wind up one of those people slipping away into a darkened bedroom. Especially if Yrene wore that dress again. “Not exactly,” Yrene said wryly. “I mentioned that my birthday was coming up, and how dull your plans for it were…” He chuckled. “Presumptuous of you.

In fact, the towers are built, raised, maintained, and paid for out-of-pocket by those bleeding-heart liberals, the Border Patrol agents themselves.

Some have called me the Devil of Dowler, but I’m better known as the Piper.

Those in the grip of a strong drug—heroin, devil grass, true love—often find themselves trying to maintain a precarious balance between secrecy and ecstasy as they walk the tightrope of their lives. Keeping one’s balance on a tightrope is difficult under the soberest circumstances; doing so while in a state of delirium is all but impossible. Completely impossible, in the long run.

I’ve been in these parts before. I know what dwells in the deep caves beneath Devil Mountain. There are various denizens there. But it’s impossible to talk to the vast majority of them, except with a sword. What else did your druidess say? What else am I to believe?” “She gave me clearly to understand—” the vampire’s black eyes bored into Geralt “—that she isn’t generally fond of individuals who destroy and kill flora and fauna, and of witchers in particular. I explained that at the present moment you are more of a titular witcher. That you absolutely don’t pester flora or fauna, as long as the aforementioned doesn’t pester you. The flaminika, you ought to know, is an extremely shrewd woman, and noted that you have abandoned witcherhood, not as a result of ideological changes, but because you were compelled to by circumstances. I know very well, she said, that misfortune has befallen a person close to the Witcher. The Witcher was thus forced to abandon witcherhood and go to her rescue…” Geralt didn’t comment, but his gaze was expressive enough to make the vampire hurry to explain. “She declared, and I quote: ‘The Witcher-who-is-not-a-witcher will prove he is capable of humility and sacrifice. He will enter the sombre mouth of the earth. Unarmed. Having laid down all weapons, all sharp iron. All sharp thoughts. All aggression, fury, anger and arrogance. He will enter in humility. And then in the abyss, the humble not-witcher will find answers to the questions which torment him. He will find answers to many questions. But should the Witcher remain a witcher, he will find nothing.

The Impossible Banquet by Stewart Stafford Awakened by a stinging sun, Radiant wings of flame and gold, I breathe in dawn’s virgin hopes, With icy shards of doubting cold. Am I not my parents' child? Lost my way on a freedom roam, Invitation to a tempting feast, Over family, love, and home. Trapped within the world's crosshairs, Locked down with time to burn, Casting runestones, but too late, For visible escape, I yearn. An obsessive lady by my side, A judge of karma infernal, She took my life with her own hand, Bequeathing a wound eternal. Tomorrow’s hopes are now a ghost, No merciful release to illuminate, I wish to scrub away the past, A vain rebirth to change my fate. But I’m caught in the Reaper's maw, I weep for you who procrastinate, Sold my soul on Devil's Bridge, Then dragged through a fiery gate. Hope, community, society crash, Towering feats of grotesquery, You may not grieve for me who's gone, Time's cruel critic is all you see. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

I have been to Mont Saint-Michel, which I had not seen before. What a sight, when one arrives as I did, at Avranches toward the end of the day! The town stands on a hill, and I was taken into the public garden at the extremity of the town. I uttered a cry of astonishment. An extraordinarily large bay lay extended before me, as far as my eyes could reach, between two hills which were lost to sight in the mist; and in the middle of this immense yellow bay, under a clear, golden sky, a peculiar hill rose up, sombre and pointed in the midst of the sand. The sun had just disappeared, and under the still flaming sky the outline of that fantastic rock stood out, which bears on its summit a fantastic monument. At daybreak I went to it. The tide was low as it had been the night before, and I saw that wonderful abbey rise up before me as I approached it. After several hours’ walking, I reached the enormous mass of rocks which supports the little town, dominated by the great church. Having climbed the steep and narrow street, I entered the most wonderful Gothic building that has ever been built to God on earth, as large as a town, full of low rooms which seem buried beneath vaulted roofs, and lofty galleries supported by delicate columns. I entered this gigantic granite jewel which is as light as a bit of lace, covered with towers, with slender belfries to which spiral staircases ascend, and which raise their strange heads that bristle with chimeras, with devils, with fantastic animals, with monstrous flowers, and which are joined together by finely carved arches, to the blue sky by day, and to the black sky by night.

I have been to Mont Saint-Michel, which I had not seen before. What a sight, when one arrives as I did, at Avranches toward the end of the day! The town stands on a hill, and I was taken into the public garden at the extremity of the town. I uttered a cry of astonishment. An extraordinarily large bay lay extended before me, as far as my eyes could reach, between two hills which were lost to sight in the mist; and in the middle of this immense yellow bay, under a clear, golden sky, a peculiar hill rose up, sombre and pointed in the midst of the sand. The sun had just disappeared, and under the still flaming sky the outline of that fantastic rock stood out, which bears on its summit a fantastic monument. At daybreak I went to it. The tide was low as it had been the night before, and I saw that wonderful abbey rise up before me as I approached it. After several hours’ walking, I reached the enormous mass of rocks which supports the little town, dominated by the great church. Having climbed the steep and narrow street, I entered the most wonderful Gothic building that has ever been built to God on earth, as large as a town, full of low rooms which seem buried beneath vaulted roofs, and lofty galleries supported by delicate columns. I entered this gigantic granite jewel which is as light as a bit of lace, covered with towers, with slender belfries to which spiral staircases ascend, and which raise their strange heads that bristle with chimeras, with devils, with fantastic animals, with monstrous flowers, and which are joined together by finely carved arches, to the blue sky by day, and to the black sky by night. When I had reached the summit, I said to the monk who accompanied me: “Father, how happy you must be here!” And he replied: “It is very windy, Monsieur;

Our close alliances are strained as never before. A frazzled NATO feels the eager heat of Russia’s breath in the east, with the Baltic states, Poland, and Germany wondering if we’re about to see a new Cold War, only this time with the United States more friendly to Russia than to the West. America’s role as a NATO ally will continue to degrade as Trump’s bromance with Putin, his extortion of the allies, and his utter ignorance of the traditions and meaning of the Western Alliance is demonstrated time and again. But hey, Trump Tower Moscow will make it worthwhile, right?

the deluge, of the tower of Babel, of the destruction of corrupt cities by a rain of fire (reminding us of Sodom and Gomorrah), of the babyhood adventures of King Sargon I. (reminding us of Moses), and of the creation of the world.

Experience could not be acquired from the innocent, and in a way it is a schooling for the innocence we eventually acquire in a wife. If you have not known the devil you can never appreciate an angel.

They are not demons, not devils . . . Worse than that. They are people.

I’ve bemused you with these tales of the devil and his ancient offer of knowledge, that he uses what seems so good in order to bring about such evil.”  Noah brooded.

In considering the evidence we about to present, we ask you to keep one overarching principle in mind: As Saint Thomas teaches, there is no argument against a fact - contra factum non argumentum est. If a statement is contrary to fact, then no authority on earth can expect us to believe it. Thus, for example, if a high-ranking prelate in the Vatican were to issue a decree that Catholics must believe that the Eiffel Tower is located in Saint Peter's Square, that would not make it so and we would be obligated to reject the decree. For the fact is that the Eiffel Tower is located in Paris, and there is no argument against that fact. Therefore, no man, no matter what his authority, can demand that we believe something that is manifestly contrary to fact. (page xxiii)

I could see nothing but those eyes. They filled the universe, *became* the universe and behind them and through them I beheld countless suns. They scattered like embers and blew out, all but one. Toward it I fell and into a city whose spires and bell towers recalled the castle of my home, but all the buildings were strange. I heard a great wailing, as from an infant, as I stood beneath the vaults of a mighty chapel. There a cradle stood amid shattered statuary, and I approached, but the cradle held nothing but air. The image crumbled, and I fell backward through thick mist. As it parted I beheld a great ship studded with statues of men and gods and devils. She stretched across the heavens and drowned the unfixed stars. And I saw the Cielcin standing in rank and file amidst the black of space itself, marching in the night. How bright their spears! And the song of them was like the flash of cruel lightning. Where they passed, the stars fell and planets went up like smoke. And I beheld one greater than the rest. Silver was its crown, and silver the inlay of black armor, and its eyes were terrible as the worlds burning in its wake. The great ship with her statues overshadowed that Pale host and plunged into the nearest star like a knife descending. Light. I was blind, though in that brightness I sensed a presence. Shapes moving invisibly, casting no shadows. I tried to cry out, but the words would not come, for I had forgotten them. I felt nothing, heard nothing. Knew nothing. Save three words. *This must be.*

And…and she remembered the ring. When he’d put the ring on her finger on the Control Tower. Saving her life, knowing full well that in doing so, he was forfeiting his own.

Sometimes you have to trust who you think is the devil to win your way into heaven.