“
Ancient Egypt, like that of the Olmecs (Bolivia), emerged all at once and fully formed. Indeed, the period of transition from primitive to advanced society appears to have been so short that it makes no kind of historical sense. Technological skills that should have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve were brought into use almost overnight-- and with no apparent antecedents whatever. For example, remains from the pre-dynastic period around 3500 BC show no trace of writing. Soon after that date, quite suddenly and inexplicably, the hieroglyphs familiar from so many of the ruins of Ancient Egypt begin to appear in a complete and perfect state. Far from being mere pictures of objects or actions, this written language was complex and structured at the outset, with signs that represented sounds only and a detailed system of numerical symbols. Even the very earliest hieroglyphs were stylized and conventionalized; and it is clear that an advanced cursive script was it common usage by the dawn of the First Dynasty.
”
”
Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization)
“
The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. Pueblo strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much—one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up—but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water.
Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays)
“
Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it, most people aim at it, all people fear it and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure it in others. The more wit you have, the more good nature and politness you must show to induce people to pardon your superiority, for that is no easy matter.
”
”
Amelia Grey (An Earl to Enchant (The Rogues' Dynasty #3))
“
Ah!” Marie finally exclaimed. “Ah! Dear Father! Who owns that darling little man over on the tree there?” “He,” the father answered. “He, dear child, should work hard for all of us. He should crack the hard nuts for us nicely. And he should belong to Luise as much as he belongs to you and to Fritz.” The father then removed him cautiously from the table and, raising the wooden cape aloft, the manikin opened his mouth wide, wide, and showed two rows of very sharp, very tiny white teeth. When told to do so, Marie inserted a nut and—Crack! Crack!—he chewed up the nut, so that the shell dropped away, and the sweet kernel itself ended up in Marie’s hand. By now, everyone, including Marie, had to know that the dainty little man was an offspring of the dynasty of Nutcrackers and was practicing his profession. She shouted for joy, but then her father spoke: “Since, dear Marie, you love Friend Nutcracker so much, you must shield and shelter him especially, even despite the fact that, as I have said, Luise and Fritz have as much right to use him as you!
”
”
E.T.A. Hoffmann (The Nutcracker)
“
The Atonist nobility knew it was impossible to organize and control a worldwide empire from Britain. The British Isles were geographically too far West for effective management. In order to be closer to the “markets,” the Atonist corporate executives coveted Rome. Additionally, by way of their armed Templar branch and incessant murderous “Crusades,” they succeeded making inroads further east. Their double-headed eagle of control reigned over Eastern and Western hemispheres. The seats of Druidic learning once existed in the majority of lands, and so the Atonist or Christian system spread out in similar fashion. Its agents were sent from Britain and Rome to many a region and for many a dark purpose. To this very day, the nobility of Europe and the east are controlled from London and Rome. Nothing has changed when it comes to the dominion of Aton. As Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe have proven, the Culdean monks, of whom we write, had been hired for generations as tutors to elite families throughout Europe. In their book The Knights Templar Revealed, the authors highlight the role played by Culdean adepts tutoring the super-wealthy and influential Catholic dynasties of Burgundy, Champagne and Lorraine, France. Research into the Templars and their affiliated “Salt Line” dynasties reveals that the seven great Crusades were not instigated and participated in for the reasons mentioned in most official history books. As we show here, the Templars were the military wing of British and European Atonists. It was their job to conquer lands, slaughter rivals and rebuild the so-called “Temple of Solomon” or, more correctly, Akhenaton’s New World Order. After its creation, the story of Jesus was transplanted from Britain, where it was invented, to Galilee and Judea. This was done so Christianity would not appear to be conspicuously Druidic in complexion. To conceive Christianity in Britain was one thing; to birth it there was another. The Atonists knew their warped religion was based on ancient Amenism and Druidism. They knew their Jesus, Iesus or Yeshua, was based on Druidic Iesa or Iusa, and that a good many educated people throughout the world knew it also. Their difficulty concerned how to come up with a believable king of light sufficiently appealing to the world’s many pagan nations. Their employees, such as St. Paul (Josephus Piso), were allowed to plunder the archive of the pagans. They were instructed to draw from the canon of stellar gnosis and ancient solar theologies of Egypt, Chaldea and Ireland. The archetypal elements would, like ingredients, simply be tossed about and rearranged and, most importantly, the territory of the new godman would be resituated to suit the meta plan.
”
”
Michael Tsarion (The Irish Origins of Civilization, Volume One: The Servants of Truth: Druidic Traditions & Influence Explored)
“
A jaw like a mastiff's, a frame like a giant's, eyes like two daggers, a smile like a tiger's snarl,"Bernard murmured.
"Aye, he is all that!!" Master Herbert said."A murrain be on him! And when I came to him,what did I do? I did bow in all politeness, yet stiffly withal to show him I'd not brook his surliness."
"I did hear ye did bow so low that your head came below your knees,"Bernard said.
”
”
Georgette Heyer (Simon the Coldheart (Beauvallet Dynasty #1))
“
Barbara Moulton who had spent five years as a drug examiner at the FDA before resigning in protest. The agency had “failed utterly” in its task of policing the way prescription drugs were marketed and sold, she testified. Moulton described an environment at the FDA of unrelenting pressure from the drug companies and a culture in which regulators, rather than regulate the drug companies and their products, showed slavish deference to the private sector.
”
”
Patrick Radden Keefe (Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty)
“
While the coastal media elites would have us believe that Americans are endlessly fascinated with the salacious doings of the Kardashian clan and their various divorces, pregnancies, and exposures of their bodies, the highest-rated episode ever of their reality show drew 3.7 million viewers in 2010. Meanwhile, the tight-knit, God-fearing, Bible-believing Robertson family on Duck Dynasty, alternately mocked and scorned by the coastal elites, drew 11.77 million viewers to their season four premiere in August 2013. It not only beat all competition on the major broadcast networks, it still stands as the highest-rated telecast in the history of the A&E cable channel.
”
”
Mike Huckabee (God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy: and the Dad-Gummed Gummint That Wants to Take Them Away)
“
Has being on Duck Dynasty made you more comfortable in the public eye?
Jess: I never thought I’d get up and speak in front of thousands of people. The show has made us braver. I’m willing to show the world who we are, to tell our story, and to use this opportunity God has given us to share His love and His Word with other people. Anyway, it’s all from Him, and we know we are blessed.
Jep: I want to be a great role model, and so I’m willing to get up and tell my story, even the hard parts, if it will help others. I also want to help people get back to the old ways with hunting and how much joy it is to provide for your family. I don’t ever want to lose that and be some kind of a rich guy who has it made. Also, I never want to move away from Louisiana. I want my kids to grow up with their grandparents, cousins, and uncles and aunts. I learned so much from my granny, and I want my kids to have those relationships and teachable moments too. There’s something about being in a smaller town; the pace of life here is so different, but in a good way.
”
”
Jep Robertson (The Good, the Bad, and the Grace of God: What Honesty and Pain Taught Us About Faith, Family, and Forgiveness)
“
Your mother was a fool to give you away,” Hilde grumbled. Lidia arched a brow. “Is that a compliment?” “Take it as you will.” The hag flashed her rotting teeth in a nightmare of a smile. “You’re a born killer—like any true witch. That girl on the throne is as softhearted as your mother. She’ll bring down the entire Valbaran witch-dynasty.” “Alas, my father was a smart negotiator,” Lidia said, making a good show of admiring the ruby ring on her finger, the stone as red as Irithys’s flame. “But enough about me.” She gestured to the hag, then to the sprite. “Irithys, Queen of the Sprites. Hilde, Grand Hag of the Imperial Coven.” “I know who you are,” Irithys said, her voice quiet with leashed rage. She now floated in the center of the orb, her body bloodred. “You put this collar on me.” Hilde again smiled, wide enough to reveal her blackened gums. A lesser person would have cowered at that smile. “I had the honor of doing it to the little bitch who bore the crown before you, too.” Hilde didn’t mean Irithys’s mother, who had never been queen at all. No, when the last Sprite Queen had died, the line had passed to a different branch of the family, with Irithys first to inherit.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
“
Recently, I was in New York with most of the Robertson family promoting the season-four premiere of Duck Dynasty. We were staying at the Trump International Hotel, which is a really nice place near Central Park. I was already uncomfortable being in the big city. I don’t like traffic or concrete, and there are a lot of both in New York. After we checked in, we gathered downstairs to go to a Broadway musical show. I know it might seem bizarre for me to be going to a musical, but my very attractive wife can be mightily persuasive, especially when I have nothing else to do.
As we were waiting or the others in the lobby, I asked a doorman if there was a nearby bathroom. He gave me directions to the nearest restroom, which included a walk through the hotel restaurant. As I entered the restaurant, a well-dressed staffer offered his assistance. I informed him I was only going to the restroom. But he very nicely continued to offer assistance and took the role of my escort, which I thought was quite courteous and professional. At his direction, we took a quick left turn and walked out of the hotel. Befuddled, I asked him, “Where is the bathroom?” He painted down the street or maybe toward Central Park and said, “Good luck to you, sir. Have a nice day.” I circled back around to the main entrance of the hotel, where I found Missy, who had witnessed the entire episode.
“I thought you had to go to the bathroom,” she said.
I laughed and told her I had been escorted out of the hotel because of the way I looked. It was no big deal to us, and I laughed about the incident later that night with my family over dinner. I shared the story the next day with Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan on Live! with Kelly and Michael because I thought it was funny. Well, the story went viral and was all over the news and Internet the next few days. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing and various media outlets were trying to contact me. I’d jokingly labeled the incident “facial profiling” because in my mind that’s exactly what it was. People were surprised that it didn’t bother me, but my family and I have endured those kinds of things our entire lives. I figured the hotel employee was only trying to protect other hotel guests. The incident culminated with a call from Donald Trump’s office. They offered an apology for any inconvenience. I assured them that no apology was needed, and I asked them not to punish my courteous escort.
”
”
Jase Robertson (Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl)
“
The inescapable and troublesome conclusion was that if there was a political entity in tenth-century Judea, it was a small tribal kingdom, and that Jerusalem was a fortified stronghold. It is possible that the tiny kingdom was ruled by a dynasty known as the House of David. An inscription discovered in Tell Dan in 1993 supports this assumption, but this kingdom of Judah was greatly inferior to the kingdom of Israel to its north, and apparently far less developed. The documents from el-Amarna, dating from the fourteenth century BCE, indicate that already there were two small city-states in the highlands of Canaan—Shechem and Jerusalem—and the Merneptah stela shows that an entity named Israel existed in northern Canaan at the end of the thirteenth century BCE. The plentiful archaeological finds unearthed in the West Bank during the 1980s reveal the material and social difference between the two mountain regions. Agriculture thrived in the fertile north, supporting dozens of settlements, whereas in the south there were only some twenty small villages in the tenth and ninth centuries BCE. The kingdom of Israel was already a stable and strong state in the ninth century, while the kingdom of Judah consolidated and grew strong only by the late eighth. There were always in Canaan two distinct, rival political entities, though they were culturally and linguistically related—variants of ancient Hebrew were spoken by the inhabitants of both.
”
”
Shlomo Sand (The Invention of the Jewish People)
“
Bannon thrived on the chaos he created and did everything he could to make it spread. When he finally made his way through the crowd to the back of the town house, he put on a headset to join the broadcast of the Breitbart radio show already in progress. It was his way of bringing tens of thousands of listeners into the inner sanctum of the “Breitbart Embassy,” as the town house was ironically known, and thereby conscripting them into a larger project. Bannon was inordinately proud of the movement he saw growing around him, boasting constantly of its egalitarian nature. What to an outsider could look like a cast of extras from the Island of Misfit Toys was, in Bannon’s eyes, a proudly populist and “unclubbable” plebiscite rising up in defiant protest against the “globalists” and “gatekeepers” who had taken control of both parties. Just how Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty figured into a plan to overthrow the global power structure wasn’t clear, even to many of Bannon’s friends. But, then, Bannon derived a visceral thrill anytime he could deliver a fuck-you to the establishment. The thousands of frustrated listeners calling in to his radio show, and the millions more who flocked to Breitbart News, had left him no doubt that an army of the angry and dispossessed was eager to join him in lobbing a bomb at the country’s leaders. As guests left the party, a doorman handed out a gift that Bannon had chosen for the occasion: a silver hip flask with “Breitbart” imprinted above an image of a honey badger, the Breitbart mascot. — Bannon’s cult-leader magnetism was a powerful draw for oddballs and freaks, and the attraction ran both ways. As he moved further from the cosmopolitan orbits of Goldman Sachs and Hollywood, there was no longer any need for him to suppress his right-wing impulses. Giving full vent to his views on subjects like immigration and Islam isolated him among a radical fringe that most of political Washington regarded as teeming with racist conspiracy theorists. But far from being bothered, Bannon welcomed their disdain, taking it as proof of his authentic conviction. It fed his grandiose sense of purpose to imagine that he was amassing an army of ragged, pitchfork-wielding outsiders to storm the barricades and, in Andrew Breitbart’s favorite formulation, “take back the country.” If Bannon was bothered by the incendiary views held by some of those lining up with him, he didn’t show it. His habit always was to welcome all comers. To all outward appearances, Bannon, wild-eyed and scruffy, a Falstaff in flip-flops, was someone whom the political world could safely ignore. But his appearance, and the company he kept, masked an analytic capability that was undiminished and as applicable to politics as it had been to the finances of corrupt Hollywood movie studios. Somehow, Bannon, who would happily fall into league with the most agitated conservative zealot, was able to see clearly that conservatives had failed to stop Bill Clinton in the 1990s because they had indulged this very zealotry to a point where their credibility with the media and mainstream voters was shot. Trapped in their own bubble, speaking only to one another, they had believed that they were winning, when in reality they had already lost.
”
”
Joshua Green (Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency)
“
I found out Si was taking naps every day on Kay’s couch! I went to Phil and told him it was a problem.
“Look, I know he’s your brother and he’s my uncle, but he’s not the kind of worker we need to have,” I told Phil, while trying to make a good first impression.
I was trying to instill a new work ethic and culture in Duck Commander, and I couldn’t have Si sleeping on the job!
“Don’t touch Si,” Phil told me. “You leave him alone. He’s making reeds and that’s the hardest thing we do. Si is the only guy who wants to do it, and he’s good at it. Si is fine.”
Amazingly enough, in the ten years I’ve been running Duck Commander, we’ve never once run out of reeds. Six years ago, Si suffered a heart attack. He smoked cigarettes for almost forty years and then quit after his heart attack, so we were all so proud of him. Even before his heart attack, I wasn’t sure about putting Si on our DVDs because I thought he would just come across too crazy. He cracked us up in the duck blind and we all loved him, but I told Jep and the other camera guys to film around him. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone would understand what he was saying. When we finally tried to put him on the DVDs, he clammed up in front of the camera and looked like a frog in a cartoon just sitting there. He wouldn’t perform. Finally, we put a hidden camera under a shirt on Si’s desk. We were near the end of editing a DVD and showed a shooting scene to Si. He always takes credit for shooting more ducks than he really did. He’s said before that he killed three ducks with one shot! We were watching patterns hitting the water, and Si started claiming the ducks like he always does and going off on one of his long tangents. After we recorded him, we ran the DVD back and showed it to him. I think Si saw that he was actually pretty funny and entertaining if he acted like himself. We started putting Si on the DVDs and he got more and more popular. Now he’s the star of Duck Dynasty!
”
”
Willie Robertson (The Duck Commander Family)
“
That the Roman Near East could be looked at, in more than a purely geographical sense, as part of Asia, or 'the Orient', cannot be denied. The mere currency there of a group of related Semitic langauges is sufficient evidence of that. But it was also an area of already long-standing Greek city-foundation and settlement. To look at the culture of any one of the sub-regions of the Near East is to see how profoundly the Greek language and Greek culture were rooted in the civilisation of this region. Any notion of a crude contrast between 'Greek' on the one hand and 'Oriental' or 'Semitic' on the other must seem wholly inadequate. Too much time had passed since Alexander's arrival in 332 BC. Yet the military history of the region itself serves to suggest that this contrast is not completely meaningless. The Roman forces here fought many successive campaigns, large and small, in contexts other than rivalry with Parthia or Persia: repeatedly in Judaea but also in Commagene, in Nabataea in 106, against Palmyra and finally, under Diocletian, against the 'Saracens'. But none of these operations was directed against a community or political formation which we would be tempted to characterise as unambiguously Greek.
Nonetheless, any attempt to understand the culture or cultures of the region in terms of a simple contrast between 'Greek' and 'Oriental' would be inevitably misleading. There is little or nothing to suggest that the supposed 'Orientals' shared any sense of common identity. On the contrary, everything shows that Jewish identity, whose maintenance is beyond question, conflicted rather than cohered with the identities of other groups using Semitic languages. Nor did those others show anything like the same capacity for survival. Whether anything distinctive remained of Commagene after the end of the dynasty, of Nabataea after it was made into the province of Arabia, or of Palmyra after Aurelian's reconquest is precisely one of the crucial questions we need to answer.
”
”
Fergus Millar (The Roman Near East: 31 BC-AD 337)
“
The society showed me there wasn’t anything wrong with me. I was just a man with needs, like all the other men who made it that far
”
”
Stella Hart (Heartless Prince (Dark Dynasty #1))
“
There was more security around the building, lately. Some days, cars were searched when they arrived. Protesters had started showing up, sometimes in ones and twos, sometimes by the dozen. Often, mothers would come, clutching blown-up photographs of their dead children. They looked like the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina. Some chanted their loved ones’ names; others just stood there silently, bearing stark witness, embodying, with an awful steadfast dignity, the idea that Nan Goldin kept repeating about how a generation of people had been wiped out.
”
”
Patrick Radden Keefe (Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty)
“
At a meeting in early 2011, staff showed the board data indicating that 83 percent of patients who were admitted to substance abuse treatment centers had started using opioids by swallowing them.
”
”
Patrick Radden Keefe (Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty)
“
We show our character not by the weapons we choose, but through the purpose for which we fight and manner in which we wield them.
”
”
Ken Liu (Speaking Bones (The Dandelion Dynasty, #4))
“
Yet the episode suggests that Fanny may have been aloof in the outside world and showed her emotions only in private.
”
”
Ron Chernow (The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance)
“
A god of war is also the god of those who are caught in the wheel of eternal struggle, who fight on despite knowledge of certain defeat, who stand with their companions against spear and catapult and gleaming metal, armed with only their pride, who strive and assay and press and toil, all the while knowing that they cannot win.’
‘You are not only the god of the strong, but also the god of the weak. Courage is better displayed when it seems all is lost, when despair appears the only rational course.’
‘True courage is to insist on seeing when all around you is darkness.’
And Fithowéo stood up and ululated. As his voice filled the cave walls and bounced back to his ears, he seemed to see the stalactites hanging overhead like bejeweled curtains, the stalagmites growing out of the ground like bamboo shoots, the bats careening through the air like battle kites, the night-blooming orchids and cave roses blooming like living treasure—the cave was filled with light.
The god of war laughed and bowed down to the orchid and kissed her. ‘Thank you for showing me how to see.’
‘I am but the lowest of the Hundred Flowers,’ said the orchid. ‘But the tapestry of Dara is woven not only from the proud chrysanthemum or the arrogant winter plum, the bamboo who holds up great houses or the coconut who provides sweet nectar and pleasing music. Chicory, dandelion, butter-and-eggs, ten thousand species of orchids, and countless other flowers—we have no claim to the crests of the great noble families, and we are not cultivated in gardens and not gently caressed by the fingers of great ladies and eager courtiers. But we also fight our war against hail and storm, against drought and deprivation, against the sharp blade of the weeding hoe and the poisonous emanations of the herbicide-sprayer. We also have a claim on time, and we deserve a god who understands that every day in the life of the common flower is a day of battle.’
And Fithowéo continued to ululate, letting his throat and ears be his eyes, until he strode out of the cave, emerged into the sunlight, and picked up two pieces of darkest obsidian and placed them in his eye sockets so that he had eyes again. Though they were blind to light, they sowed fear into all who gazed into them.
”
”
Ken Liu (The Wall of Storms (The Dandelion Dynasty, #2))
“
You can save lives just by showing up in a cocktail dress. Hey, remember when Forbes called you guys the last great American dynasty and then Taylor Swift used that as the title of a song?
”
”
Abby Jimenez (Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1))
“
You are a lusty laddie, are you not?" She rocked her hips beneath him, mewling softly. "Show me how lusty you are.
”
”
Amy Jarecki (A Highland Knight to Remember (Highland Dynasty, #3))
“
I am not going to help you start a dynasty of giant babies.”
“I never said you had to be willing.”
“And you wonder why you have a hard time getting a woman.” She rolled her eyes.
“You know, it is precisely that attitude that has made me revise my plan to abscond with you and make you my bride.”
“About time. But if you’re not here to kidnap me, what the heck are you doing here then? And why isn’t anyone tossing you out on your striped ear?”
“I was invited.”
“Who was stupid enough to do that?” she asked.
“I was.”
Spinning on her heel, she finally found Leo, holding two bottles of sweating beer, one brown and skunky, the other pale with a wedge of lime shoved inside the glass. She grabbed the dark one and chugged it before he could saddle her with the girly one.
Once she’d satisfied her thirst— without belching because she was, after all, a lady— she asked, “Why did you invite the king of misogyny?”
“So I could show him this.” This comprised of Leo spinning Meena in his arms and plastering her mouth with his. A surprise smooch.
A welcome lashing of tongues.
An unimpressed audience.
A gagging noise ruined the mood. “Is that necessary? I’ve already withdrawn my suit for the lady.”
“Just making sure you get the point,” Leo remarked when he came up for air.
“And to think I’d heard you were the sporting one,” Dmitri said in a dry tone of voice.
Leo fixed Dmitri with a stare, a cold and menacing one. So hot. “I might be sporting, but I play to win. I also don’t share. Meena is mine.
”
”
Eve Langlais (When an Omega Snaps (A Lion's Pride, #3))
“
Put me down! I wanted to finish watching that.” “You’re recording it, it can wait until tomorrow.” “But it’s Duck Dynasty,” she whined, and I could picture her frowning as I carried her through the hall. “And it can wait.” She slapped my ass as hard as she could, and I paid it right back. “Jerk! I don’t make you stop watching your shows.” “But my shows are good.” “Duck Dynasty is amazing!” “Rach, you’ll live.” I put my hands on her waist and bent over as I pushed her off my shoulder and onto the bed. She jackknifed up and I crawled on top of her and pushed her right back down. “You’re such an—” She cut off quickly and moaned when I gently bit down on her neck and brought her shoving hands above her head and pinned them to the bed. Making a trail up her neck, I kissed her thoroughly and smiled when she leaned toward me as I backed up. “Such a what?” “I don’t remember,” she said against my mouth and pressed our lips together again. “That’s what I thought, Sour Patch.” She
”
”
Molly McAdams (Deceiving Lies (Forgiving Lies, #2))
“
Kuni didn’t change his tone at all. If anything, he grew even calmer. “These cartoons are very amateurish. I could show Namen many more tricks about how to insult people artfully. For example, the drawings could have been made much more subtle and also much more lewd.” “What?
”
”
Ken Liu (The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty, #1))
“
Instead of retreating behind the gates of their Wichita compound and leaving lawyers and crisis management professionals to handle the fallout, the enigmatic family made a public showing of support for the Seiberts.
”
”
Daniel Schulman (Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty)
“
Come. Sit on my lap, angel.” Sliding his hand up the back of my skull, Tytus intertwines his fingers with my hair. “I’ll show you what daddy does for a living.
”
”
Sasha Leone (Sinful Lord (Ruthless Dynasty, #3))
“
he could do for her. But, Nehru showed no interest and said nothing. After some time, she left disappointed. She returned to Ahmedabad to stay with a cousin. Neither Nehru, nor the Congress Party bothered about her well-being. Such was the fate of the lady who gave her all to the nation and of the daughter of a person who made India what it is today! Contrast this with the Nehru Dynasty, who enjoyed all the fruits, while others had done all the sacrifices.
”
”
Rajnikant Puranik (Sardar Patel : The Best PM India Never Had)
“
Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement. Demonstrate respect for each person in the organization. Be deeply committed to learning and teaching. Be fair. Demonstrate character. Honor the direct connection between details and improvement; relentlessly seek the latter. Show self-control, especially under pressure. Demonstrate and prize loyalty. Use positive language and have a positive attitude. Take pride in my effort as an entity separate from the result of that effort. Be willing to go the extra distance for the organization. Deal appropriately with victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation. Promote internal communication that is both open and substantive. Seek poise in myself and those I lead. Put the team’s welfare and priorities ahead of my own. Maintain an ongoing level of concentration and focus that is abnormally high. Make sacrifice and commitment the organization’s trademark.
”
”
Michael Lombardi (Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning Championships and Building Dynasties in the NFL)
“
The shows that lean Republican are much different from the Democratic shows. Republicans like reality shows such as Duck Dynasty, Shark Tank, The Amazing Race, Survivor, and The Bachelor more than Democrats do.
”
”
Marc Hetherington (Prius Or Pickup?: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide)
“
More than one person who worked at Purdue during this era likened the experience to the acidly humorous HBO show Succession, in which a trio of overindulged adult children vie, haplessly, to seize control of a conglomerate
”
”
Patrick Radden Keefe (Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty)
“
the offices could feel quite cosmopolitan, with a conspicuous diversity of accents and religious observances. But the second-generation Sacklers showed no trace of humble origins.
”
”
Patrick Radden Keefe (Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty)
“
I have great, wild hopes of finding my daughter as she will be in adulthood, when she nominally stops needing me, when she is past the seizures and denunciations that I expect will come at adolescence because they came so brutally for me. I hope that I am right in my interpretation of the organic grandmother, that mother hunger is a primal trait of womanness, and that my daughter's need for me may prove larger, more enduring, more passionate than the child's needs for meals, clothes, shelter and applause. I hope that she needs me enough to show me who she is, to give regular dispatches, her intellectual progeny, and to trust me with their safekeeping. I hope that she likes to barter- Youth and Experience haggling over Notoriety. May she spit fire and leave me gladly but sense in her very hemoglobin that she can find me and rest with me and breathe, safely breathe, if only for the intermission between cycles of anger and disappointment. For as long as they last, my bones, brains, and strength are her birthright, and they may not be much, but they are tenacious by decree, and they’ll comply happily with the customs of dynasty. When Youth comes calling, Experience gets her shovel and digs.
”
”
Natalie Angier (Woman: An Intimate Geography)
“
This unusual photograph shows how his nose really looked. Most pictures are touched up.
”
”
Ron Chernow (The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance)
“
again like Pierpont, he often showed coldness and suspicion toward outsiders.
”
”
Ron Chernow (The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance)
“
In order for Christianity to be lasting, it first had to become local. The easiest way to make this come about was to find some homegrown saints and build a cult around them. It was good if these saints left behind some relics that could pass into royal hands, and even better if they were royal family members themselves. This had the double advantage of conferring legitimacy on the dynasty internally, while making ia good show of faith to the wider Christian world.
”
”
Jacob Mikanowski (Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land)
“
If Metaxas offered a comparatively highbrow discourse on heroic masculinity, the Robertsons offered a decidedly lowbrow version. Duck Dynasty, the reality television show featuring the Robertson family, debuted in 2008, and by 2013 it had become one of the most popular shows on television, with its fourth season premier drawing almost twelve million viewers, more than the highest viewed episodes of critical favorites Breaking Bad and Mad Men combined.
”
”
Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation)
“
The nationalities question fit ill with Marxism. It was perhaps even more puzzling than the peasant problem. One could at least delude oneself into believing that the peasant problem was soluble in Marxian terms by extrapolating from economic data, constructing Procrustean sociologies, and predicting the inevitable splitting of the peasants along class lines. But how did one fit nationality into the Marxist scheme? Of course, according to Marxian theory national boundaries created superficial divisions compared to economic forces and the relations of production, but nationalist passion seemed to inflame people and mobilize them even more than their class interests. World War I would show how ready people were to make sacrifices for the sake of the national or imperial dignity or, in the case of the Slavs of the Russian Empire, for related ethnic groups and coreligionists. Even the discredited Romanov dynasty would be able to rally its people around the war effort—at least at the outset. This was a complication—indeed, as history has showed, a fatal one—for a Marxian socialist with a genuinely internationalist orientation.
”
”
Philip Pomper (Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin: The Intelligentsia and Power)
“
She felt her lips widen. She thrust again—he parried. “I won’t draw blood, de Warenne,” she said, but she thought maybe she would, just so she could see the look in his eyes. A terrible excitement consumed her. With it was her rage. She thrust and he parried, but took a step back. Elated, Amanda went on the offensive. His eyes widened but he merely blocked each blow, allowing her to drive him ruthlessly and rapidly back into the larboard railing.
She laughed, triumphant. “You can do better than that, de Warenne! Surely you are not afraid of my naked blade?”
“You remain very angry with me. I understand,” he began.
She was furious. He knew nothing! She thrust and he parried; she feinted and then slipped through his defenses, instantly cutting a long line into his fine, fancy shirt. She withdrew, heady with the scent of victory. “You understand what?” she asked sweetly.
She glanced at the long tear, very surprised, and then he slowly looked up at her.
“I did not draw blood,” she said, exhilarated now. She laughed at him.
“You were fortunate,” he said, color flooding his cheeks.
“No, I was careful. I chose not to take your blood, de Warenne!” She thrust so swiftly that, before he could defend himself, she had taken the top three buttons off his shirt, causing it to gap open, revealing the two thick muscles of his chest.
Above them, someone laughed.
De Warenne was disbelieving.
“Fight, de Warenne,” she said fiercely, panting. She was determined to savagely exchange blows—she would ruthlessly engage, there would be no quarter! “Or show your men that you can be outplayed and outfought by a child.
”
”
Brenda Joyce (A Lady At Last (deWarenne Dynasty, #7))
“
She felt her lips widen. She thrust again—he parried. “I won’t draw blood, de Warenne,” she said, but she thought maybe she would, just so she could see the look in his eyes. A terrible excitement consumed her. With it was her rage. She thrust and he parried, but took a step back. Elated, Amanda went on the offensive. His eyes widened but he merely blocked each blow, allowing her to drive him ruthlessly and rapidly back into the larboard railing.
She laughed, triumphant. “You can do better than that, de Warenne! Surely you are not afraid of my naked blade?”
“You remain very angry with me. I understand,” he began.
She was furious. He knew nothing! She thrust and he parried; she feinted and then slipped through his defenses, instantly cutting a long line into his fine, fancy shirt. She withdrew, heady with the scent of victory. “You understand what?” she asked sweetly.
He glanced at the long tear, very surprised, and then he slowly looked up at her.
“I did not draw blood,” she said, exhilarated now. She laughed at him.
“You were fortunate,” he said, color flooding his cheeks.
“No, I was careful. I chose not to take your blood, de Warenne!” She thrust so swiftly that, before he could defend himself, she had taken the top three buttons off his shirt, causing it to gap open, revealing the two thick muscles of his chest.
Above them, someone laughed.
De Warenne was disbelieving.
“Fight, de Warenne,” she said fiercely, panting. She was determined to savagely exchange blows—she would ruthlessly engage, there would be no quarter! “Or show your men that you can be outplayed and outfought by a child.
”
”
Brenda Joyce (A Lady At Last (deWarenne Dynasty, #7))
“
I can ultimately prove my theory of the theological machine of the Great Pyramid using the funeral papyri of the XVIIIth Dynasty which shows Sekhet-hetepet (i.e. Field of Peace) as rectangular in shape and alluding to the hydraulic function. We even see the barque being lifted up by the water with a pyramidal staircase above it having seven steps; the exact number needed to reach the top of the pyramid.
”
”
Ibrahim Ibrahim (The Mill of Egypt: The Complete Series Fused)
“
Yo, I’m Kobe. Kobe Bryant. I’m from PA—went to Lower Merion High School, dominated everything.” (Pause.) “I just want y’all to know, nobody’s gonna punk me. I’m not gonna let anyone in the NBA punk me. So be warned.” Awwwwkward. “It was like ‘Yo, Kobe, relax,’ ” recalled David Booth, who landed a camp invite off of a strong summer league showing. “He was trying to establish himself, which I understand. But it didn’t play very well.” “Not the best way to start things,” said Blount. “But you have to remember, he was a child.
”
”
Jeff Pearlman (Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty)
“
wanted to show you a different China. Show you that China isn’t just a repressive country with rigid views on gender and sexuality.
”
”
Diana Ma (Heiress Apparently (Daughters of the Dynasty, #1))
“
Here was this high school kid, and he came out dressed as if he were a member of the Rat Pack,” recalled ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, who was present. “What the heck was going on? He wore sunglasses. Sunglasses! And they may well have been drugstore shades, but they looked Armani on him. It was hard to accept the total lack of humility and the sort of Hollywood quality to it. I’d been around Michael Jordan, I’d been around Charles Barkley, but I’d never seen anything so show-offish.
”
”
Jeff Pearlman (Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty)
“
Nevertheless Hebrews 1:8-9 quotes 45:6-7 to prove Jesus’ essential superiority over mere angels. Only the Son is directly addressed as “God.” Why does the writer of Hebrews feel he can use Psalm 45 in this way? The surrounding verses show he has reflected long and hard on several passages and themes: 2 Samuel 7 (see vol. 1, meditation for September 12), which promises an eternal Davidic dynasty; several passages that link the Davidic king to God as his “son” (2 Sam. 7; Ps. 2—on which see meditation for August 4); an entire pattern or “typology” in which David is understood to be a shadow, a type, an adumbration of a still greater “David” to come. If Scripture (and thus God) addresses an early Davidic monarch as “God,” how much more deserving of this title is the ultimate David?
”
”
D.A. Carson (For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word)
“
Historical Setting A reference to “Jonah son of Amittai” in 2Ki 14:25 places the setting for the book of Jonah between 790 and 760 BC. Jonah therefore serves in the generation just before Amos and Hosea, at the beginning of classical prophecy in Israel. During the time of Jonah, the reign of Jeroboam II (793–753 BC) achieved unparalleled prosperity and military success in the history of Israel’s divided monarchy. The Arameans were the only hindrance to territorial expansion. Assyria, in a period of decline, was preoccupied with internal security. This background is important for it shows that the northern kingdom of Israel at this time was near the top, not the bottom, in the realm of international politics. This situation was a reversal from a century earlier when, under Shalmaneser III, the Assyrian Empire had extended its control into the west, exercising authority over Aram, Israel, Judah, and many others. The end of his reign, however, saw revolt by several Assyrian centers (including Nineveh) from 826–820 BC. His son, Shamshi-Adad V, subdued the rebellion, but Assyrian control over the west weakened considerably. Shamshi-Adad V died about 811 BC and left as heir to the throne his young son, Adadnirari III. Until the boy came of age the country was ruled by Shamshi-Adad’s widow, Sammuramat, who retained extensive control until her death. Adadnirari reigned until 783 BC. His city of residence and capital was not Nineveh, but Calah. He was succeeded by three sons: Shalmaneser IV, Ashur-Dan III and Ashurnirari V, respectively. This was a period of practical anarchy. Particularly notable is the series of rebellions between 763 and 758. These were led by disaffected officials who show evidence of usurping royal prerogatives. In such a political climate, a prophecy proclaiming the imminent fall of Nineveh would be taken quite seriously. With the accession of Tiglath-Pileser III in 745 BC, a new dynasty began that established Assyrian supremacy for a century. Tiglath-Pileser III was succeeded by Shalmaneser V, Sargon II and, finally, Sennacherib, who enlarged Nineveh and made it the capital of the Assyrian Empire more than 50 years after the time of Jonah. The importance of this information for the study of the book of Jonah is the understanding that at the time of Jonah, Assyria had not been a threat to Israel for a generation, and it would be no threat for a generation to come. In addition, when Jonah was sent to Nineveh, he was being sent not to the capital city of a vast empire but to one of the provincial centers of a struggling nation. Some would consider this evidence that the book of Jonah was written several centuries after the Assyrian Empire had come and gone by an author unfamiliar with the details of history. Preferably, it could suggest that God had chosen to send Jonah to Nineveh in anticipation of the role it would eventually play.
”
”
Anonymous (NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture)
“
I should have perished of despair in my youth but for the world created for me by that great German dynasty which began with Bach and will perhaps not end with Richard Strauss. Do not suppose for a moment that I learnt my art from English men of letters. True, they showed me how to handle English words; but if I had known no more than that, my works would never have crossed the Channel. My masters were the masters of a universal language: they were, to go from summit to summit, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. Had the Germans understood any of these men, they would have hanged them. Fortunately they did not understand them, and therefore only neglected them until they were dead, after which they learnt to dance to their tunes with an easy conscience. For their sakes Germany stands consecrated as the Holy Land of the capitalist age, just as Italy, for its painters' sakes, is the Holy Land of the early unvulgarized Renascence; France, for its builders' sakes, of the age of Christian chivalry and faith; and Greece, for its sculptors' sakes, of the Periclean age.
”
”
Anonymous