Dungeon Quotes

What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally the whole school knows.

Lawful good to lawful evil!" said Simon, pleased. "He's quoting Dungeons and Dragons," said Clary. "Ignore him.

Far over the misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away ere break of day To seek the pale enchanted gold. The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells. For ancient king and elvish lord There many a gleaming golden hoard They shaped and wrought, and light they caught To hide in gems on hilt of sword. On silver necklaces they strung The flowering stars, on crowns they hung The dragon-fire, in twisted wire They meshed the light of moon and sun. Far over the misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away, ere break of day, To claim our long-forgotten gold. Goblets they carved there for themselves And harps of gold; where no man delves There lay they long, and many a song Was sung unheard by men or elves. The pines were roaring on the height, The wind was moaning in the night. The fire was red, it flaming spread; The trees like torches blazed with light. The bells were ringing in the dale And men looked up with faces pale; The dragon's ire more fierce than fire Laid low their towers and houses frail. The mountain smoked beneath the moon; The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom. They fled their hall to dying fall Beneath his feet, beneath the moon. Far over the misty mountains grim To dungeons deep and caverns dim We must away, ere break of day, To win our harps and gold from him!

No, I do my torturing in the dungeon like any other respectable castle owner,

Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy. "And he’s supposed to be our teacher!" Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first - SMACK! She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered. Harry, Ron, Crabbe, and Goyle stood flabbergasted as Hermione raised her hand again. "Don’t you dare call Hagrid pathetic you foul—you evil—" "Hermione!" said Ron weakly and he tried to grab her hand as she swung it back. "Get off Ron!" Hermione pulled out her wand. Malfoy stepped backward. Crabbe and Goyle looked at him for instructions, thoroughly bewildered. "C’mon," Malfoy muttered, and in a moment, all three of them had disappeared into the passageway to the dungeons. "Hermione!" Ron said again, sounding both stunned and impressed.

Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.

I have an idea," Simon said. "Remember how before, I was talking about Dungeons and Dragons?" "Vividly," Jace said. "It was a dark time.

I saw the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I was pushing boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon.... [disgustedly] in Cardiff!

I wish we could go to the movies." I stared at him. "We're in a creepy dungeon. There's a chance I might die in the next few hours. You are going to die in the next few hours. And if you had one wish, it would be to catch a movie?

Asleep, he looks like a bleeding Prince Charming chained in the dungeon. When I was little, I always thought I’d be Cinderella, but I guess this makes me the wicked witch. But then again, Cinderella didn’t live in a post-apocalyptic world invaded by avenging angels.

Authors also create lovable, friendly characters, then proceed to do terrible things to them, like throw them in unsightly librarian-controlled dungeons. This makes readers feel hurt and worried for the characters. The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren't the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties.

Hell is a state of mind - ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind - is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.

To Garan's credit, the treatment of Dellian prisoners did change after that. One particularly laconic man, after a session in which Fire learned positively nothing, thanked her for it specifically. "Best dungeons I ever been in," he said, chewing on a toothpick. "Wonderful," Garan grumbled when he had gone. "We'll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers.

I don’t know. After the downstairs, I assumed something creepier and dirtier.” I shrugged. “You didn’t have electricity down there.” “It’s for dramatic effect.” Loki gestured widely. “It’s a dungeon.

By squirming out of our dungeon of indifference and wriggling from ourself-centered vault of unawareness, love can conjure up an aura of mental opulence and an inkling of infinity.( "Love as dizzy as a cathedral”)

A fleeting moment can become an eternity. From a past encounter everything may disappear in the dungeon of forgetfulness. A few furtive flashes or innocent twinkles can survive, though. Some immaterial details may remain marked in our memory, forever. A significant look, a salient colour or a unforeseen gesture may abide, indelibly engraved in our mind. ( "Girl in blue" )

what you need and what you want aren't the same things,

How clear everything becomes when you look from the darkness of a dungeon.

As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship, as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part; mitigate the suffering of our fellow-prisoners; decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can.

Remember how before, I was talking about Dungeons and Dragons? Vividly, Jace said. It was a dark time.

Far over the misty mountains cold. To dungeons deep, and caverns old

If every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off of your life, every game of Dungeons & Dragons you play delays the loss of your virginity by seven hours.

It's a dungeon, Leila. They're Supposed to smell." Mission accomplished. The stench might have actually killed my new appetite. If hell could fart, it would smell like this.

Goddammit Donut!

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so in exorable as one's self!

It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but real." Jace was looking at Simon as if he were some bizarre species of insect. "It's like what?" "It's a game," Clary explained. She felt vaguely embarrassed. "People pretend to be wizards and elves, and they kill monsters and stuff." Jace looked stupefied. Simon grinned. "You've never heard of Dungeons and Dragons?" "I've heard of dungeons," Jace said. "Also dragons. Although they're mostly extinct." Simon looked disappointed. "You've never killed a dragon?" "He's probably never met a six-foot-tall hot elf-woman in a fur bikini, either," Clary said irritably. "Lay off, Simon." "Real elves are about eight inches tall," Jace pointed out. "Also, they bite.

If I were to lock you up in a dungeon, I guarantee you would not be bored.

I came ready to fight Genghis Khan and I walk in on a shut-in playing the biggest Dungeons and Dragons game in history.

Now that Sam was dead, there wasn't anything left outside of the dungeons worth fighting for, anyway. Not when Adarlan's Assassin was crumbling apart, and her world with her.

Harsh words live in the dungeon of the heart

Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold...The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.

Far over misty mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away, ere break of day, To find our long-forgotten gold.

Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.

In the vaults of our hearts and brains, danger waits. All the chambers are not lovely, light and high. There are holes in the floor of the mind, like those in a medieval dungeon floor - the stinking oubliettes, named for forgetting, bottle-shaped cells in solid rock with the trapdoor in the top. Nothing escapes from them quietly to ease us. A quake, some betrayal by our safeguards, and sparks of memory fire the noxious gases - things trapped for years fly free, ready to explode in pain and drive us to dangerous behavior...

She could handle if he decided to throw her in the dungeons for a little while, too. Because somehow, the thought of him getting hurt- or worse- made her willing to rick just about anything.

I believe the red stone was kept under lock and key in the dungeon far below Aldene Castle. I know that in 1507, when the Eldest visited Aldene, he was concerned about something dangerous that was held in Aldene’s dungeon.

...an obsession is a way for damaged people to damage themselves more.

I bear the dungeon within me; within me is winter, ice, and despair; I have darkness in my soul.

Your worst dungeon might be the room with the most windows.

What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?" At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling. I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try asking her?" A few people laughed; Harry caught sight of Seamus's eye and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased. Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?" There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter.

Simon grinned. "You've never heard of Dungeons and Dragons?" "I've heard of dungeons," Jace said. "Also dragons. Although they're mostly extinct.

The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules.

When we feel that our default thinking is creeping up on us and starts stifling our minds, we must break the shell of our habits. If rehashed thoughts and bland humdrum are smothering the upshot of subdued cravings, we must create space for the budding of a new dawn. By unsealing all the windows of our mental dungeon, we loosen up our rusty thinking and cut ties with the useless prerogatives of the past. ("Corporeal prison")

Nick was dressed in jeans, a dark green sweater, and bomber jacket–the perfect image of a rich college student. Talon looked like a biker who had just left Sanctuary, New Orleans’s premier biker bar. Acheron looked like a refugee from the Dungeon–the local underground goth hangout. Valerius was the professional contingent, and Zarek…Zarek just looked like he was ready to kill something.’ (Talon)

Modern man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from touching the walls of his dungeon.

I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon, In the round-tower of my heart, And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in the dust away!

Lovely. Imprisoned in a nursery school dungeon.

So...this is the dark dungeon where the very angry Tristan sleeps?" "No. This is the dark dungeon where the very dangerous Tristan keeps himself away from the very carless young woman." Clearly, he was in no mood for small talk.

Standing in the kitchen when you’re hungry is torture. That’s why I moved my fridge to my dungeon, where I keep the prisoners.

The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell off.

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.

Koschei smiled. His pale lips sought hers, crushing her into a kiss like dying. She tasted sweetness there, as though he still kissed her with honey and sugar on his tongue. When he pulled away, his eyes shone. "I don't care, Marya Morevna. Kiss him. Take him to your bed, and the vila, too, for all it matters to me. Do you understand me, wife? There need never be any rules between us. Let us be greedy together; let us hoard. Let us hit each other with birch branches and lock each other in dungeons; let us drink each other's blood in the night and betray each other in the sun. Let us lie and lust and take hundreds of lovers; let us dance until snow melts beneath us. Let us steal and eat until we grow fat and roll in the pleasures of life, clutching each other for purchase. Only leave me my death — let me hold this one thing sacred and unmolested and secret — and I will serve you a meal myself, served on a platter of all the world's bounty. Only do not leave me, swear that you will never leave me, and no empress will stand higher. Forget the girls in the factory. Be selfish and cruel and think nothing of them. I am selfish. I am cruel. My mate cannot be less than I. I will have you in my hoard, Marya Morevna, my black mirror.

It exasperated her to think that the dungeon in which she had languished for so many unhappy years had been unlocked all the time, and that the impulses she had so carefully struggled with and stifled for the sake of keeping well with society, were precisely those by which alone she could have come into any sort of sincere human contact.

Kaltain flowed into the room, spreading her arms wide, and became shadowfire, became freedom and triumph, became a promise hissed in a dungeon beneath a glass castle: Punish them all.

There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?

If you are not careful, soon you will have men locking themselves in dungeons so that you can rescue them.

I take it that “gentleman” is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as “a man” , we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow men, but in relation to himself, - to life – to time – to eternity. A cast-away lonely as Robinson Crusoe- a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life – nay, even a saint in Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by being spoken of as “a man”. I am rather weary of this word “ gentlemanly” which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and often too with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of the noun “man”, and the adjective “manly” are unacknowledged.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction ... nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

You’ll call for me. You’ll be lonely in your new quarters and will feel out of sorts. I could let you pet my hair until you fell asleep.” He drew in closer and lowered his voice to ask in all seriousness, “You’re mad, aren’t you?” “As—a—hatter,” she whispered back conspiratorially. He felt a hint of sympathy for the creature. “How long have you been in here?” “For four long...interminable...days.” He glowered at her. “Which is why I want you to take me with you. I don’t eat much.” The dungeon erupted with laughter again. (Myst and Nikolai)

Far over the Misty Mountains cold, To dungeons deep and caverns old, We must away, ere break of day, To seek our pale enchanted gold. The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells, In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells. The pines were roaring on the heights, The wind was moaning in the night, The fire was red, it flaming spread, The trees like torches blazed with light.

Long have I dwelt forgotten here In pining woe and dull despair; This place of solitude and gloom Must be my dungeon and my tomb.

It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet.

Really, I scolded myself, you should have known that you'd end up in a stone dungeon with no facilities. That's how these things always end up, isn't it?

In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and the revelry above may cause us to forget their existence...

We stood there for a long moment before he said, "You know, we still have like, half an hour down here. Seems a shame to waste it." I poked him in the ribs, and he gave an exaggerated wince. "No way, dude. My days of cellar, mill, and dungeon lovin' are over. Go castle or go home.

The dungeon image helped. "You need to let Maximus go," I stated, my voice stronger now. "No. Wine?

I'm just not fond of cages,' she said, 'and this place looks like one giant dungeon.

I don’t suppose you’ll be anywhere near Kensington anytime soon?” “That shithole?” he says with a wink. “Not if I can help it.” “Oi,” Henry says. He’s grinning now. “That’s disrespect of the crown, that is. Insubordination. I’ve thrown men in the dungeons for less.” Alex turns, walking backward toward the car, hands in the air. “Hey, don’t threaten me with a good time.

They told of dripping stone walls in uninhabited castles and of ivy-clad monastery ruins by moonlight, of locked inner rooms and secret dungeons, dank charnel houses and overgrown graveyards, of footsteps creaking upon staircases and fingers tapping at casements, of howlings and shriekings, groanings and scuttlings and the clanking of chains, of hooded monks and headless horseman, swirling mists and sudden winds, insubstantial specters and sheeted creatures, vampires and bloodhounds, bats and rats and spiders, of men found at dawn and women turned white-haired and raving lunatic, and of vanished corpses and curses upon heirs.

Do you know what it means to be emphatic? I will tell you: It means that when you are being forcibly taken to a dungeon, when you have a large knife at your back, when you are trying to be brave, you are able, still, to think for a moment of the person who is holding the knife.

They can keep men in here, under lock and key, deep in the dungeon until the final moments of their lives, so that men like York and me will never taste the rain. But they cannot keep us from passing our condensation on to the sky. They cannot keep us from raining down in China.

I wouldn't do this if i didn't care, but you mean everything to me, and if this is what you need, then this is what you'll get. But we're damned well going to work on changing this association between caring and spanking.

He belonged to a walled city of the fifteenth century, a city of narrow, cobbled streets, and thin spires, where the inhabitants wore pointed shoes and worsted hose. His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way, and I was reminded of a portrait seen in a gallery I had forgotten where, of a certain Gentleman Unknown. Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world from a long distant past—a past where men walked cloaked at night, and stood in the shadow of old doorways, a past of narrow stairways and dim dungeons, a past of whispers in the dark, of shimmering rapier blades, of silent, exquisite courtesy.

Cats are assholes. I get it. But do you know why people like cats, despite their asshole-ness? It’s because they don’t fucking talk. If they did, and they were all like you, they’d all be extinct because we’d have killed you all by now.

Celaena knew where she was before she awoke. And she didn't care. She was living the same story again and again. The night she'd been captured, she'd also snapped, and come so close to killing the person she most wanted to destroy before someone knocked her out and she awoke in a rotting dungeon. She smiled bitterly as she opened her eyes. It was always the same story, the same loss.

I have met countless patients who told me that they “are” bipolar or borderline or that they “have” PTSD, as if they had been sentenced to remain in an underground dungeon for the rest of their lives, like the Count of Monte Cristo. None of these diagnoses takes into account the unusual talents that many of our patients develop or the creative energies they have mustered to survive.

You are not entering this world in the usual manner, for you are setting forth to be a Dungeon Master. Certainly there are stout fighters, mighty magic-users, wily thieves, and courageous clerics who will make their mark in the magical lands of D&D adventure. You however, are above even the greatest of these, for as DM you are to become the Shaper of the Cosmos. It is you who will give form and content to the all the universe. You will breathe life into the stillness, giving meaning and purpose to all the actions which are to follow.

The books brought brilliance to my life, and they brought an understanding: Life is a story. Everything that has happened and will happen to me is all part of the story of this enchanted place - all the dreams and visions and understandings that come to me in my dungeon cell. The books helped me see the truth is not in the touch of the stone but in what the stone tells you.

You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance—to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it. I can only say that some of my saddest sounds have been heard in such places. A song inside a cage is never a song. It is a plea.

When we entered the first chamber of the dungeon, the stench made me recoil. It smelled like someone had mixed together kerosene, rotten fruit, stale blood, urine, and dog shit, then blown it up. How had I not noticed this before? I wasn't even breathing, but the rancid odor found its way into my nose anyway. "This place stink." "Did the guards forget to spray Febreze?" Vlad asked in mock indignation. Then he gave me a jaded look. "It s a dungeon, Leila. They re supposed to smell." Mission accomplished. The stench might have actually killed my new appetite. If Hell could fart, it would smell like this.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." Thanatopsis

David, you have been so kind to me and this gift will always be treasured. I have one last request. Could you show me some of the secret ways in and out of the castle?” As he spoke the words, the image of the spark of red light appearing from the depths of the castle sprang to his mind again, together with the whispered words, “I am here, Audun.” He knew that one day he would have to return to Aldene and learn the secret of what lay in the deep dungeon below the castle

You’re too visible, Albert,” Hadrian explained. “Can’t afford to have our favorite noble hauled to some dungeon where they cut off your eyelids or pull off your fingernails until you tell them what we’re up to.” “But if they torture me, and I don’t know the plan, how will I save myself?” “I’m sure they’ll believe you after the fourth nail or so,” Royce said with a wicked grin.

Now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes That witnessed huge affliction and dismay Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate: At once as far as angels ken he views The dismal situation waste and wild, A dungeon horrible, on all sides round As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed With ever-burning sulfur unconsumed.

It will be hard James but you come from sturdy peasant stock men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity You come from a long line of great poets some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said "The very time I thought I was lost My dungeon shook and my chains fell off." You know and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you James and Godspeed.

Mana Toast. This is toast. It refills your mana. That’s it. Nothing more. Fuck you.

Oh, I know that. Or at least I think I know that,” she stammers. “I mean, you seem like a decent guy, but then again, lots of serial killers probably seem decent too when you first meet them. Did you know that Ted Bundy was actually really charming?” Her eyes widen. “How messed up is that? Imagine you’re walking along one day and you meet this really cute, charming guy, and you’re like, oh my God, he’s perfect, and then you’re over at his place and you find a trophy dungeon in the basement with skin suits and Barbie dolls with the eyes ripped out and—” “Jesus,” I cut in. “Did anyone ever tell you that you talk a lot?

You see, when you're excited, your body has trouble telling the difference between pain and pleasure.

MacKensie, much as men don't like to share this fact, we rarely die from not getting off.

In high school, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. (You may not have guessed this botanist/mechanical engineer was a bit of a nerd in high school, but indeed I was.) In the game I played a cleric. One of the magic spells I could cast was “Create Water.” I always thought it was a really stupid spell, and I never used it. Boy, what I wouldn’t give to be able to do that in real life right now.

The Children's Hour Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair. A whisper, and then a silence: Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall! By three doors left unguarded They enter my castle wall! They climb up into my turret O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me; They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old mustache as I am Is not a match for you all! I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon In the round-tower of my heart. And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away!

Despite all my public misconduct, in the past year, I had learned the Elemental spells, the Doppelschläferin, and the preparation and flying of a magic broom; I had survived two months as prisoner of war, saving the life of captain Johanne in the process; I had escaped the dungeons of Fortress Drachensbett, and after an arduous journey successfully reunited with my double, so preserving her, and all Montagne, from Prince Flonian's rapacity, I would somehow master the despicable art of being a princess.

There were people dying everywhere getting massacred in every town and village, there were people being picked up and thrown into dark jails in unknown parts, there were dungeons in the city where hundreds of young men were kept in heavy chains and from where many never emerged alive, there were thousands who had disappeared leaving behind women with photographs and perennial waiting, there were multitudes of dead bodies on the roads, in hospital beds, in fresh martyrs' graveyards and scattered casually on the snow of mindless borders.

The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave. All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy -- making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind.

I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That’s why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic. Until I met you, I didn’t understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn’t bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you’re not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don’t want to go through this world without the one person I can’t hide from and who can’t hide from me.

Responding to a moderator at the Sydney Writers Festival in 2008 (video), about the Spanish words in his book: When all of us are communicating and talking when we’re out in the world, we’ll be lucky if we can understand 20 percent of what people say to us. A whole range of clues, of words, of languages escape us. I mean we’re not perfect, we’re not gods. But on top of that people mis-speak, sometimes you mis-hear, sometimes you don’t have attention, sometimes people use words you don’t know. Sometimes people use languages you don’t know. On a daily basis, human beings are very comfortable with a large component of communication, which is incomprehensibility, incomprehension. We tend to be comfortable with it. But for an immigrant, it becomes very different. What most of us consider normative comprehension an immigrant fears that they’re not getting it because of their lack of mastery in the language. And what’s a normal component in communication, incomprehension, in some ways for an immigrant becomes a source of deep anxiety because you’re not sure if it’s just incomprehension or your own failures. My sense of writing a book where there is an enormous amount of language that perhaps everyone doesn’t have access to was less to communicate the experience of the immigrant than to communicate the experience that for an immigrant causes much discomfort but that is normative for people. which is that we tend to not understand, not grasp a large part of the language around us. What’s funny is, will Ramona accept incomprehension in our everyday lives and will greet that in a book with enormous fury. In other words what we’re comfortable with out in the outside world, we do not want to encounter in our books. So I’m constantly, people have come to me and asked me… is this, are you trying to lock out your non-Dominican reader, you know? And I’m like, no? I assume any gaps in a story and words people don’t understand, whether it’s the nerdish stuff, whether it’s the Elvish, whether it’s the character going on about Dungeons and Dragons, whether it’s the Dominican Spanish, whether it’s the sort of high level graduate language, I assume if people don’t get it that this is not an attempt for the writer to be aggressive. This is an attempt for the writer to encourage the reader to build community, to go out and ask somebody else. For me, words that you can’t understand in a book aren’t there to torture or remind people that they don’t know. I always felt they were to remind people that part of the experience of reading has always been collective. You learn to read with someone else. Yeah you may currently practice it in a solitary fashion, but reading is a collective enterprise. And what the unintelligible in a book does is to remind you how our whole, lives we’ve always needed someone else to help us with reading.

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world -- not even in infinite space. I was free -- free to think, to express my thoughts -- free to live to my own ideal -- free to live for myself and those I loved -- free to use all my faculties, all my senses -- free to spread imagination's wings -- free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope -- free to judge and determine for myself -- free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past -- free from popes and priests -- free from all the "called" and "set apart" -- free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies -- free from the fear of eternal pain -- free from the winged monsters of the night -- free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought -- no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings -- no chains for my limbs -- no lashes for my back -- no fires for my flesh -- no master's frown or threat – no following another's steps -- no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain -- for the freedom of labor and thought -- to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains -- to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs -- to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn -- to those by fire consumed -- to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

They had chains which they fastened about the leg of the nearest hog, and the other end of the chain they hooked into one of the rings upon the wheel. So, as the wheel turned, a hog was suddenly jerked off his feet and borne aloft. At the same instant the ear was assailed by a most terrifying shriek; the visitors started in alarm, the women turned pale and shrank back. The shriek was followed by another, louder and yet more agonizing--for once started upon that journey, the hog never came back; at the top of the wheel he was shunted off upon a trolley and went sailing down the room. And meantime another was swung up, and then another, and another, until there was a double line of them, each dangling by a foot and kicking in frenzy--and squealing. The uproar was appalling, perilous to the ear-drums; one feared there was too much sound for the room to hold--that the walls must give way or the ceiling crack. There were high squeals and low squeals, grunts, and wails of agony; there would come a momentary lull, and then a fresh outburst, louder than ever, surging up to a deafening climax. It was too much for some of the visitors--the men would look at each other, laughing nervously, and the women would stand with hands clenched, and the blood rushing to their faces, and the tears starting in their eyes. Meantime, heedless of all these things, the men upon the floor were going about their work. Neither squeals of hogs nor tears of visitors made any difference to them; one by one they hooked up the hogs, and one by one with a swift stroke they slit their throats. There was a long line of hogs, with squeals and life-blood ebbing away together; until at last each started again, and vanished with a splash into a huge vat of boiling water. It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests--and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretence at apology, without the homage of a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering-machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory.

He sighed and opened the black box and took out his rings and slipped them on. Another box held a set of knives and Klatchian steel, their blades darkened with lamp black. Various cunning and intricate devices were taken from velvet bags and dropped into pockets. A couple of long-bladed throwing tlingas were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down the back of his cloak; Teppic picked a slim tin container with an assortment of darts, their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the dark. He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an afterthought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag of assorted caltrops and a set of brass knuckles. Teppic picked up his hat and checked it's lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over.

I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never appreciated it. I did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw the Thumbscrew—two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or may be said, 'I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning,' then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, 'I will recant.' Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: 'Stop; I will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop.' But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dancing around some dried snake fetich. Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be the truth. Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who would not recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the name of love—in the name of mercy, in the name of Christ. I saw, too, what they called the Collar of Torture. Imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. This argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured, by these points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, 'I do not believe that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men.' I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter. Think of a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced. In this condition, he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity would in pity end his pain. I saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer; others to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen, divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. And they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once again. This was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of Christ.