Elmo Quotes

Love you,” Maya says. “Yes, she keeps saying that,” A.J. says. “I warned her about giving love that hasn’t yet been earned, but honestly, I think it’s the influence of that insidious Elmo. He loves everyone, you know?

Well, well, well. Tickle my Elmo ass silly.

Best way out,” Elmo observed laconically, “would be to kill everybody who knows anything, then all of us fall on our swords.” “Sounds a little extreme,” Goblin opined. “But if you want to go first, I’m right behind you.

na na na. na na na, Elmos world!

Elmo is telling kids about how great it is to share. Oh, Elmo, you poor, deluded little red fur ball. You don’t have a clue, do ya, li’l buddy? Kids are way meaner than Muppets.

The Zodiac had rearranged itself into a precise grid of bright points with luminous tails. It was as though the whole planet had been caught in some great closing net, the knots of its mesh aglow with St. Elmo's fire. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.

My heart races and I look away. “Well I care. So, write it down. For nine weekends and eight thousand dollars, what's yours is mine including your friends.” I throw in a little sarcastic eye flutter. “We're going to be so head-over-heels-in-love. I can't wait to see how romantic you are!” “Oh no. I refuse to be your kind of bumper-sticker-romantic. Don't mistake me for Mr. Darcy.” I gasp. “You don't know Hunger Games or Forks, Washington, but you know Mr. Darcy? Start talking.” “Crap! My grandmother's a fan. She's tortured me since birth with Mr. Darcy. Thanks to her DVD collection, I can quote Jane Austen faster than the Elmo song.” I laugh, surprised again. “Prove it.” “Elizabeth, daaarling!” He's launched into a breathless English accent. “I love, love, love you, and I never want to be parted from you from this day forward. Pardon me, whilst I puke…” “No way!” I beam. “Let the contract state that I want the Mr. Darcy accent once a week!” I can't help but laugh again because he's shaking his head and laughing back.

Everybody loves Elmo, right? Elmo is a closer. Elmo gets all the Glengarry leads. Elmo stares into the abyss and the abyss whispers, “Tickle me.

All your sea-omens are of disaster; and of course, with man in his present unhappy state, huddled together in numbers far too great and spending all his surplus time and treasure beating out his brother's brains, any gloomy foreboding is likely to be fulfilled; but your corpse, your parson, your St Elmo's fire is not the cause of the tragedy.

I've got a business to run. Elmo's bringing over a new bed frame. Dora broke her's last night. That girl should be in a side show, not a whorehouse.

Then it happened. One night as the rain beat on the slanted kitchen roof a great spirit slipped forever into my life. I held his book in my hands and trembled as he spoke to me of man and the world, of love and wisdom, pain and guilt, and I knew I would never be the same. His name was Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky. He knew more of fathers and sons than any man in the world, and of brothers and sisters, priests and rogues, guilt and innocence. Dostoyevsky changed me. The Idiot, The Possessed, The Brothers Karamazov, The Gambler. He turned me inside out. I found I could breathe, could see invisible horizons. The hatred for my father melted. I loved my father, poor, suffering, haunted wretch. I loved my mother too, and all my family. It was time to become a man, to leave San Elmo and go out into the world. I wanted to think and feel like Dostoyevsky. I wanted to write. The week before I left town the draft board summoned me to Sacramento for my physical. I was glad to go. Someone other than myself could make my decisions. The army turned me down. I had asthma. Inflammation of the bronchial tubes. “That’s nothing. I’ve always had it.” “See your doctor.” I got the needed information from a medical book at the public library. Was asthma fatal? It could be. And so be it. Dostoyevsky had epilepsy, I had asthma. To write well a man must have a fatal ailment. It was the only way to deal with the presence of death.

...love, he thinks. What a bother. It's completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything. No, the most annoying thing about it is that he's even started to like Elmo.

If life is fair why does roses have thorns

I have a penis," Josh announced out of the blue, pointing down into the water. "That's because you're a boy," I explained sagely. "Does Uncle Adam have a penis?" "Oh yeah," I said with a smile. Adam looked up at me and tried not to laugh. "Does Elmo have a penis?" "Uh, well..." He had stumped me.

There are a whole lot of things whose names I do not know and I’d like to tell you about them in the sky your hair solemnly draws away kinds of rain one no longer sees nuts Saint Elmo’s fire sun lames whispered nights cathedrals too which are the carcasses of large gnawed horses spat by the sea from far away but still worshiped by people a whole lot of forgotten things a whole lot of dreamed things

Nothing says “I’m back and you’ll be glad I am” better than a complementary Krispy Kreme donut.

I have a suspicion that when first built, Stonehenge may have glowed blue with St. Elmo's fire during certain times of the year

Well, well, well. Tickle my Elmo ass silly. I was sitting across from a person who enjoyed talking to dead people, and if they wouldn’t talk, then by God, he’d just wake their corpses up instead. Next to him was a moody, chain-smoking vampire who just might be bipolar and smoked like a corncob pipe.

We look into the eyes of a dog and know ourselves in the presence of a being that forgives all debts. Surely it is some natural relation twixt our species? We can’t all have been saved by our dogs. Unless that look in their eyes is itself a kind of salvation.

Elmo found, as have many, that the death of the heart corrupted the pen into writing a farrago of horrors and insanities, not necessarily the less true for their seeming extravagance, but inaccessible for the most part to the prudent.

Balance isn’t always a good thing. Or all the world would be gray, lukewarm and taste like oatmeal.

Remembering the treatment that had been accorded the Knights and soldiers of St. Elmo, the Maltese inhabitants of Senglea took no prisoners. Hence there arose the expression (used in Malta to this day) 'St. Elmo's pay' for any action in which no mercy is given.

The battle proved a victory—at least in part—and soon after, his grandfather finally died, and Ser Elmo became Lord of Riverrun. But he did not long enjoy his station; he died on the march forty-nine days later, leaving his young son, Ser Kermit, to succeed him.

What had I believed at ten? Anything I wanted. Any tale to make the day more fun, the night more alarming. In giant pigs rooting beneath the streets. In the corpse-eaters who pulled black carts by night, hunting children out past curfew.

Dad always said, “Never embarrass the man who signs your paycheck.

The chaperones were instructed to make sure the kids didn’t do anything stupid. They might as well have asked us to solve world hunger.

You see, it’s not our natural gifts or abilities that make a difference. It’s what God does when we faithfully show up.

about my experiences while living with a fatigued, pregnant woman. I’m going to entitle it, The Girl with the Draggin’ Caboose.

Change for the sake of change is of no value to anyone. Change for the sake of God is of the greatest value to us all.

Elmo, a character A.J. has always despised because he seems too needy. “Elmo!

Stop doin’ that passive-aggressive shit, Ya! I apologized!” “Oooh, passive aggressive, that’s such a big word for Elmo!

Rory is one part John the Baptist, one part John Holmes the porn star, and one part Elmo from Sesame Street.

Elmo showed my father’s softer side, since there’s no greater love than that between a taciturn rural Irishman and the dog he shouts at all day.

the eyes of my generation, the only people who still wore suits on the weekend were ministers and undertakers. And let’s face it—when people equate going to church with going to a funeral, there’s a problem. Definitely not a good way to reach the young. But that’s a battle for another day.

Love you, Maya says. Yes, she keeps saying that, AJ says. I wonder about giving love that hasn't yet been earned but honestly, I think it's the influence of that insidious Elmo. He loves everyone, ya know?

A.J. notices an Elmo doll sitting on the floor with a note attached to his matted red chest by a safety pin. He sets the baby down and picks up Elmo, a character A.J. has always despised because he seems too needy.

Mr. Raney named the porpoises - Sister Woman, and Renford, and Lamar, and St. Elmo - and could recognize them, and call each by its name, even at night, six feet long, some of them, with a million sharp teeth and a naughty grin. Often when he floated past in the boat and watched their playful wheeling, in and out among the cypress knees, he called out to them, "Lamar, we are all alone in the world!" or "Renford, cork is an export product of India!

Every moment for all the generations was leading to you here on my lap, your head against your granddaddy’s chest, already four years old. Hair smelling like coconut oil. Something beneath that, though. Little-girl sweat—almost sour, but then just when I think that’s what it is, it turns, sweetens somehow. Makes me want to sit here forever breathing in your scalp. When did your arms get so long? Your feet so big? These footie pajamas with reindeer all over them remind me of the ones your mama used to wear. She used to fall asleep on my lap just like this. Back at the other house. Oh time time time time. Where’d you go where’d you go? My legs hurt tonight. Another place too—deep in my back somewhere, there’s a dull, aching pain. I try not to think about it. Old people used to always say, You only as old as you feel. Here I am closer to fifty than forty, but I feel older than that most days. Feel like the world is trying to pull me down back into it. Like God went ahead and said, I’ve changed my mind about you, Po’Boy. A bath with Epsom salts helps some evenings. Ginger tea keeps Sabe’s good cooking in my belly. Sitting here holding you at the end of the day—that’s . . . well, I’m not going to lie and say this isn’t the best thing that ever happened to my life because it is. Look at you laughing in your sleep. Got me wondering what you’re dreaming about. What’s making you laugh like that? Tell your granddaddy what’s playing in your pretty brown head, my little Melody. Name like a song. Like you were born and it was cause for the world to sing. You know how much your old granddaddy loves when you sing him silly songs? Sabe says she’s gonna have to get some earplugs if she has to hear one more verse of “Elmo’s World” or that song about how to grow a garden. But me, I can listen to your voice forever. Can’t hear you singing enough.

What I’ve got here are my own constraints. I’m challenging myself, using found objects and making stuff that throws all this computational capacity at, you know, these trivial problems, like car-driving Elmo clusters and seashell toaster-robots. We have so much capacity that the trivia expands to fill it. And all that capacity is junk-capacity, it’s leftovers. There’s enough computational capacity in a junkyard to launch a space-program, and that’s by design. Remember the iPod? Why do you think it was so prone to scratching and going all gunky after a year in your pocket? Why would Apple build a handheld technology out of materials that turned to shit if you looked at them cross-eyed? It’s because the iPod was only meant to last a year!

he was the heir to a fortune earned principally by a quack medicine known as “Saint Elmo’s Remedy.” It was grain alcohol dyed purple, flavored with cloves and sarsaparilla root, and laced with opium and cocaine. As the joke goes: It was absolutely harmless unless discontinued.

In the modern world it is not bricks and roads, cannon and swords that define power. No; it is paper. Books of law, deeds of ownership, writs of forbiddance and permission. Titles of lordship, directives of the king's sub-Ministry for Associated Trade. Memoranda from that last desk alone could sink and shake kingdoms, decide the fates of thousands across the sea. Ink runs thicker than blood. Paper: more powerful than an army or the pox.

Would've been useful when I was about eight," I said. "I used to have wicked nightmares." I did, too: stupid dreams about being chased by Elmo. A psycho Elmo with eyes like that Chucky doll. I'd wake up screaming and Vicky would come running in and ask what the nightmare was about. I never told her. I was too embarrassed.

Math is poetry, kid,” she growled. “Math is sex in the head. All that work of making your mind stroke the numbers? It’s a natural series of touches you already know by instinct. Once you get over your inhibitions, you can sit in class or lie in bed and practice formulae and sums, caress the equation till you find the climax of an elegant solution.

The third method of self-distancing, as Julius Caesar and Elmo teach us, is through language. Kross, Ayduk, and others have carried out some fascinating research concluding that “subtle shifts in the language people use to refer to themselves during introspection can influence their capacity to regulate how they think, feel, and behave under stress.

Fascinated, the kids watched from the bus as their two leaders engaged in a sanctified fist fight.

sam-a-gis

pernicious,

curmudgeon.

But true friends make an effort to stick together, even as it gets harder, even as they move in opposite directions.

Every soul is entitled to a daily ration of madness.

I chuckled. “I’ve decided to write a book about my experiences while living with a fatigued, pregnant woman. I’m going to entitle it, The Girl with the Draggin’ Caboose.

Sensible questions, for a collection of personages to whom ‘sense’ was a humming vibration from the moon.

I wasn’t ready for a fight. But as I drew even with Oberon and put a calming hand on the back of his neck, the blood drained from my face when I saw a lone figure limping toward us across the dry red rock. It looked like a little old lady, and she could not have been more out of place; it was like watching Elmo ride in to the Sturgis biker rally in South Dakota. Granuaile

Well, teacher-lounge rumor said the boy lived a latch-key life. His father spending the days fishing, so drunk by sunset the fish sent him home, calling him a cab, helping with his coat and tackle box…

Stand and deliver,” shouted a firm voice. A figure took possession of the road ahead, posing dramatic in moonlight and high boots. He held a pistol pointed upwards, prepared to shoot the moon as hostage.

She’s worse than a puppy. And a man like me shouldn’t even have a puppy. She’s not potty-trained, and I have no idea how to do that kind of thing or any of the related matters either. Plus, I’ve never really liked babies. I like Maya, but . . . Conversation with her lacks to say the least. We talk about Elmo, and I can’t stand him, by the way, but other than that, it’s mainly about her. She’s totally self-centered.

You want a defenseless girl to walk home in the near dark?” “Seriously? The biggest danger in the streets of Theory, Texas is some farmer letting his dog drive the tractor. A lot of the dogs around here drink.

The street-crowd below held no one of interest. They bored me. They bored God. Surely they bored themselves. The beggars were dull, the passerby grey, the lounging riffraff leaned bereft of lazy charm. If any possessed magic, they kept it hidden. If they thirsted for miracles, they settled for drinking brown fog flavored with smoke, with a chaser of dust and horse-shit. Every tenth breath spitting it to the cobbles with a wet "splat".

Later during the Dance, Ser Elmo Tully led the riverlords into battle at Second Tumbleton, but on the side of Queen Rhaenyra rather than King Aegon II, whom his grandsire had favored. The battle proved a victory—at least in part—and soon after, his grandfather finally died, and Ser Elmo became Lord of Riverrun. But he did not long enjoy his station; he died on the march forty-nine days later, leaving his young son, Ser Kermit, to succeed him.

But those who even slightly understand my character, must know that I have always been too utterly indifferent to, too unfortunately contemptuous of public opinion, to stoop to any deception in order to conciliate it. Moreover,

SER POETA Ser poeta é ser mais alto, é ser maior Do que os homens! Morder como quem beija! É ser mendigo e dar como quem seja Rei do Reino de Aquém e de Além Dor! É ter de mil desejos o esplendor E não saber sequer que se deseja! É ter cá dentro um astro que flameja, É ter garras e asas de condor! É ter fome, é ter sede de Infinito! Por elmo, as manhãs de oiro e de cetim... É condensar o mundo num só grito! E é amar-te, assim, perdidamente... É seres alma, e sangue, e vida em mim E dizê-lo cantando a toda a gente!

Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw? Well, what tongue does the wind talk? What nationality is a storm? What country do rains come from? What color is lightning? Where does thunder go when it dies? Boys, you got to be ready in every dialect with every shape and form to hex the St. Elmo’s fires, the balls of blue light that prowl the earth like sizzling cats. I got the only lightning rods in the world that hear, feel, know, and sass back any storm, no matter what tongue, voice, or sign. No foreign thunder so loud this rod can’t soft-talk it!

One of the other chaperones organized a game of dodge ball and the evening took a sudden turn for the better. I mean, where else can a young adult man throw a rubber ball as hard as he can against the stomach of a bratty thirteen-year-old middle school boy and get cheered for doing it?

In the war I once drove a gunpowder cart down a mountain,” declared Black. “The cart aflame. Lightning striking to left and right. Knife in teeth. One hand on the reins, the other firing a pistol. French dragoons leaping from all sides.” He stared into the past, beholding glory. “City traffic is only a bit more difficult.

In a well-furnished kitchen, there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets—some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage. Become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing.  2 Timothy 2:20-21 (MSG)

The idea of ghosts is exciting. But the reality is absurd. Worse. In writing I call it a ‘sponge’. An unnatural incident that soaks up all the meaning, leaving daily life looking dry and empty. Exactly the opposite to what a story should do. Even in a ghost story, real meaning can’t be in the ghosts. It’s in the daily life the ghost haunts, or the tale is meaningless

All the recent marketing successes have been PR successes, not advertising successes. To name a few: Starbucks, The Body Shop, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, eBay, Palm, Google, Linus, PlayStation, Harry Potter, Botox, Red Bull, Microsoft, Intel, and BlackBerry. A closer look at the history of most major brands shows this to be true. As a matter of fact, an astonishing number of well-known brands have been built with virtually no advertising at all. Anita Roddick built The Body Shop into a worldwide brand without any advertising. Instead she traveled the world looking for ingredients for her natural cosmetics, a quest that resulted in endless publicity. Until recently Starbucks didn’t spend a hill of beans on advertising either. In its first ten years, the company spent less that $10 million (total) on advertising in the United States, a trivial amount for a brand that delivers annual sales of $1.3 billion today. Wal-Mart became the world’s largest retailer, ringing up sales approaching $200 billion, with little advertising. Sam’s Club, a Wal-Mart sibling, averages $56 million per store with almost no advertising. In the pharmaceutical field, Viagra, Prozac, and Vioxx became worldwide brands with almost no advertising. In the toy field, Beanie Babies, Tickle Me Elmo, and Pokémon became highly successful brands with almost no advertising. In the high-technology field, Oracle, Cisco, and SAP became multibillion-dollar companies (and multibillion-dollar brands) with almost no advertising.

Corsi verso di loro. La bimba era fra le braccia della madre, e io lascia cadere la spada, mi sfilai l'elmo e mi inginocchiai lì accanto. - Dian - sussurrai. - Amore mio. Vidi l'anima tremolare ancora nei suoi occhi. Mi vide, Dian mi vide, e vide sua madre, prima di morire. Ci guardò per un istante, poi la sua giovane anima si allontanò leggere come un'ala nel buio, senza rumore, come una fiamma di candela spenta da un soffio di vento. Lavaine le aveva tagliato la gola mentre saltava verso il braccio del fratello e adesso il suo piccolo cuore aveva rinunciato a lottare. Ma riuscì ancora a vedermi, prima di morire. Ne sono certo. Mi vide, poi morì, e io abbracciai lei e sua madre e piansi come un bambino. Piansi per le mia piccola, adorata Dian.

Marissa Theodora took out her journal, put it on her lap so Mr. Alva would not see. She penciled thoughts as they came. ‘Picture the classroom plunged into dark,’ she wrote. A touchable darkness, like the fur of a black cat. A thick fog of ink. You can move through it; just not quickly. Can’t shout through it; only talk in low soft tones.’ She frowned. Why ‘plunged into dark’? Why not ‘opened’? Darkness was already everywhere. Under the floor, between the walls. Up in space and below the earth. Everyone’s pockets were full of Dark. Our heads? Stuffed with the stuff. Close your eyelids and roll your eyes inward, and gaze into the cavern of your skull. Behold: your secret vault of Dark. Marissa considered writing that. Decided not. It sounded gloomy, even creepy.

Nonentity or not, Maddy had to be smart. Stupid people got noticed. They said annoying things, made idiot fails, became the popular target of contempt and pity. It took brains and determination to pass unnoticed year after year. In a small town it took genius. Eternally vigilant to avoid eyes, keeping voice low, in back of the crowd and with back to the wall. Making no friends, no enemies, no gossip, no waves.

The United States inherited a seemingly inexhaustible fortune in natural resources, yet it has responded to its environment with a dismaying mixture of materialism and inertia. The nation was virtually founded upon a ubiquitous desire for access to land and its contents. Its amazing growth during the nineteenth century was based directly upon the exploitation—immediate, unplanned, full use of soils, minerals, forests, and rivers. Equitable access to these natural bounties rather than constitutional guarantees would be the practical basis for democracy. Subsequently, political institutions were shaped in such a way that they could facilitate the disposition of the public domain. But that expectation, as later generations ruefully observed, did not materialize. The combination of economics and government had instead produced a handful of owners and policy makers who were beyond the control of the ballot box.

Any soul who’d go to their own burial is in need of a therapeutic kick to the angsty ectoplasm of their pity-party ass.” Cora considered a funeral from the deceased’s point of view. The tears, the mourning, the sweetly dishonest words of praise making the best of a life and its ending. While you the guest-of-honor stood by, unable to partake in comfort and farewell, only giving embraces not felt, whispering words not heard. God, it’d be torment to surpass the flames of hell.

So let’s imagine for now that our love for our children and our thankfulness for their existence is a given. Let’s imagine that no one can possibly doubt the depths of our feelings for our sons and daughters. Let’s imagine that everyone in the world knows exactly how much we love all the many things there are to love about our children and the relationships we have with them. Let’s imagine that we are all most definitely Good Moms, and, with all that on our side, admit for a moment what we don’t love. I’ll give you my list, you add your own. I don’t love every minute of going to the playground. I don’t love every minute of going to the museums. I don’t love every minute of watching Elmo. I don’t love every minute of having to wake up early in the morning. I don’t love every minute of having interrupted sleep at night. I don’t love every minute of having to be the one to make the rules and the one who must enforce them. I don’t love every minute of laundry. I don’t love every minute of changing diapers. I don’t love every minute of having to endure the stares of people when my child freaks out in public. I don’t love every minute of making food that my kid ends up throwing on the floor. I don’t love every minute that I have the Barney song stuck in my head. I don’t love every minute of having to reason with a tantrum-throwing toddler. I don’t love every minute of being peed on, pooped on, and thrown-up on. I don’t love every minute of weaning. I don’t love every minute of sidewalk chalk. I don’t love every minute of having to pick up the blocks fifteen times a day. I don’t love every minute of putting my life on hold. I don’t love every minute of tantrums. I don’t love every minute of going to story time at the library. I HATE the Teletubbies. I don’t love every minute of being chained to someone else’s routine. I don’t love every minute of not being able to go to the bathroom without company. I don’t love every minute of being a mother.

Say you live five miles from the grocery store. When you need food, you hop in your car, and fifteen minutes later you’re buying groceries. One day on your way to the grocery store you get stopped by a train. You’re delayed five additional minutes. The whole time you’re waiting for the train to pass, you’re irritated by the delay. You forget the fact that before cars were invented, a five-mile trip to the store could take a whole day. “Or how about the student who’s working on a research paper for a class assignment. Because of a slow internet connection, it takes him thirty more minutes to look up and download the necessary information for his paper. He’s peeved by the delay. He’s forgotten that before the Internet, he would’ve had to motor over to the library, look up books in an archaic card file system, find the books in the library stacks, then search through the books for his information. A process that could take hours. “But the quintessential example of this phenomenon is the microwave. Whereas in the past it might take twenty to thirty minutes to cook or heat food in a conventional oven, the same outcome can be derived with a microwave oven in less than two minutes. Yet we stand at the microwave tapping our toe impatiently waiting for those two minutes to conclude, frustrated by how long it’s taking. “Which is why I say today’s world suffers from a serious case of the Microwave Syndrome.

He wasn’t a stuffed animal because he wasn’t an animal and he wasn’t stuffed. He was a hand puppet. Similar to a Muppet. An ancestor to Elmo, with no lower body.

Seasmoke’s descent upon Riverrun had at last persuaded that reluctant warrior, Ser Elmo Tully, to call his banners for the queen, in defiance of the wishes of his bedridden grandsire, Lord Grover.

He blinked in surprise and was even more startled when the dragon mimicked the action, but did so sideways. A clear membrane coated its eye, then drew back to reveal hues infinitely more searing than before—so vibrant it was painful for Roger to look into them. Orange pulsating like a lava flow, yellow glistening brighter than a city made of gold, green flashing like St. Elmo’s fire. All these colors danced not a foot in front of Roger’s face, flickering within that gigantic orb...

La prima volta che ti ho mostrato la biblioteca, tu mi hai detto che il tuo libro preferito era II vasto, vasto mondo. Pensavo che magari ti avrebbe fatto piacere sapere che l'ho letto.’’ '‘E l'hai trovato di tuo gradimento?’’ ‘‘Per niente. Penso che sia melenso e sentimentale.''
 ‘‘Bene, tutti i gusti sono gusti’’ replicò Tessa amabilmente, sapendo che lui stava cercando di stuzzicarla. ‘‘Il piacere dell'uno è il veleno dell'altro, non trovi?’’ Era la sua immaginazione, o sembrava deluso? ‘‘Hai qualche altra segnalazione di autori americani?’’ 
‘‘A che scopo, se disprezzi i miei gusti? Penso che dovreste riconoscere che siamo piuttosto lontani in fatto di letture, e cercare altrove delle segnalazioni, signor Herondale.’’ Le parole non le erano ancora uscite di bocca, che si morse la lingua. Aveva esagerato.
 E infatti Will non gliela lasciò passare. ‘‘Signor Herondale! Io pensavo…’’ 
‘‘Cosa pensavi?’’ Il tono di Tessa era glaciale. 
‘‘Che potessimo almeno parlare di libri.’’ 
‘‘E l'abbiamo fatto. Tu hai insultato i miei gusti’’ disse Tessa. ‘‘E sappi che II vasto, vasto mondo non è il mio libro preferito. È semplicemente una storia che mi è piaciuta, come La mano nascosta o... Sai, forse potresti suggerire tu qualcosa a me, in modo che possa giudicare i tuoi, di gusti.’’
 Will si sedette sul tavolo più vicino, con le gambe penzoloni, riflettendo chiaramente sulla questione. ‘‘Il castello di Otranto…’’
 ‘‘Non è quel libro in cui il figlio dell'eroe muore schiacciato da un enorme elmo che cade dal cielo? E hai definito insulso II racconto di due città!’’ esclamò Tessa, che sarebbe morta piuttosto di ammettere che aveva letto II castello di Otranto e le era piaciuto. 
‘‘Il racconto di due città…’’ Will annuì. ‘‘Dopo che ne abbiamo parlato, l'ho riletto. Avevi ragione: non è affatto sciocco.’’
 ‘’No?’’
 ‘‘No. C'è dentro troppa disperazione.’’ 
Tessa incrociò il suo sguardo, e le sembrò di cadere dentro quegli occhi azzurri come laghi. ‘’Disperazione?’’ ‘‘Be', per Sydney non c'è futuro, con o senza amore, non trovi? Sa che senza Lucie non può salvarsi, ma tenerla accanto a sé significherebbe umiliarla.’’ 
Tessa scosse la testa. ‘‘Non è così che lo ricordo. Il suo sacrificio è nobile…’’ ‘‘Non gli rimane altro’’ insistette Will. ‘‘Non ricordi cosa dice a Lucie? "Se per voi fosse stato possibile... ricambiare l'amore dell'uomo che vedete davanti a voi - di questo povero sciagurato che si è buttato via, di questo ubriacone senza redenzione - egli, nonostante la sua gioia, in questo istante sarebbe stato consapevole che vi avrebbe trascinato nell'infelicità, trascinato nella sofferenza e nel pentimento, che vi avrebbe fatto avvizzire, vi avrebbe rovinato facendovi precipitare con lui nel fango..." Un ciocco cadde nel caminetto tra una pioggia di scintille, facendo trasalire entrambi e interrompendo Will.
 Tessa ebbe un tuffo al cuore e guardò altrove. Stupida, si disse, stizzita. Ricordava come l'aveva trattata, e tuttavia permetteva che le ginocchia le diventassero molli sentendolo citare Dickens. ‘‘Ne hai imparato a memoria un bel po', non c'è che dire. Davvero impressionante.’’ Will scostò il colletto della camicia, scoprendo la curva armoniosa della clavicola. Tessa non si accorse subito che le stava mostrando un marchio collocato pochi centimetri sopra il cuore.
‘’Mnemosyne’’ disse il Nephilim. ‘‘La runa della Memoria. È fissa.’’ Tessa distolse lo sguardo. ‘‘È tardi. Devo ritirarmi... sono esausta.’’ Gli passò davanti e si avviò verso la porta. ‘‘Vathek, di William Beckford. Se hai trovato di tuo gradimento II castello di Otranto, credo che ti piacerà.’’ ‘‘Oh, bene. Grazie. Me ne ricorderò’’ disse Tessa. Poi si rese conto di non aver affatto ammesso che II castello di Otranto le era piaciuto. Will non replicò. Era ancora accanto al tavolo. Aveva lo sguardo fisso a terra, il viso nascosto dai capelli scuri. Prima di potersi frenare Tessa disse: ‘‘Buonanotte, Will.’’ Lui alzò lo sguardo. ‘‘Buonanotte, Tessa.

Uma espada é uma espada, um elmo é um elmo, e se puser a mão no fogo fica queimado, não importa a quem sirva.

I turned my attention to three dresses that were definitely not made for dining. They were going-out things, dancing looks. One was a swingy black dress made of a wet suit-like material, with a high neck and stiff A-line skirt. Alexander McQueen. Another was a red Gucci with little loops of textured fringe. It should have looked Elmo-like, but the sophisticated shape overrode the thought. I twisted the dress on the hanger, and the skirt rose and fell like the swelling of the ocean. The last dress was surprisingly heavy even though it was the shortest, narrowest, lowest-cut garment in that day's shipment. The tag said Hervé Léger and the dress was ribbed like a mummy, a very tight, shiny, green-and-gold mummy.

Once I went by and I saw a match between Vegeta and Elmo.

Oh,” he said, stopping in the doorway. “I should probably warn you. Your beds might take a little getting used to.” “Why?” Tesla asked. “What’s wrong with them?” When Uncle Newt had shown them their room earlier, the beds had looked normal enough. Not that Nick and Tesla had paid much attention to them. They’d been distracted—and horrified—by the posters haphazardly stapled to the wall: Teletubbies, Elmo, Smurfs, Albert Einstein, and the periodic table. (Nick and Tesla had quickly agreed that the first three would “fall down” and “accidentally” “get ripped” at the first opportunity.) “There’s nothing wrong with your beds, and everything right!” Uncle Newt declared. “I’m telling you, kids. You haven’t slept till you’ve slept on compost!” “What?” Nick and Tesla said together. Even Uncle Newt couldn’t miss the disgust on their faces. “Maybe I’d better come up and explain,” he said. Uncle Newt pulled the comforter off Nick’s bed and revealed something that didn’t look like a bed at all. It was more like a lumpy black sleeping bag with tubes and wires poking out of one end. “Behold!” Uncle Newt said. “The biomass thermal conversion station!” Nick reluctantly gave it a test-sit. It felt like he was lowering himself onto a garbage bag stuffed with rotten old food. Because he was. “As you sleep,” Uncle Newt explained, “your body heat will help decompose food scraps pumped into the unit, which will in turn produce more heat that the convertor will turn into electricity. So, by the time you wake up in the morning, you’ll have enough power to—ta da!” Uncle Newt waved his hands at a coffeemaker sitting on the floor nearby. “Brew coffee?” Tesla said. Uncle Newt gave her a gleeful nod. “We don’t drink coffee,” said Nick. “Then you can have a hot cup of invigorating fresh-brewed water.” “Great,” Nick said. He experimented with a little bounce on his “bed.” He could feel slimy things squishing and squashing beneath his butt. “Comfy?” Uncle Newt asked. “Uhh … kind of,” Nick said. Uncle Newt beamed at his invention. “Patent pending,” he said. Uncle Newt was a gangly man with graying hair, but at that moment he looked like a five-year-old thinking about Christmas. Tesla gave the room a tentative sniff. “Shouldn’t the compost stink?” “Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Each biomass thermal conversion station is completely airtight!” Uncle Newt’s smile wavered just the teeniest bit. “In theory.” Nick opened his mouth to ask another question, but Uncle Newt didn’t seem to notice. “Well,” he said, slapping his hands together, “I guess you two should wash your teeth and brush your faces and all that. Good night!

Nella grande mischia a Ponteamaro era andata a cercare i suoi cosiddetti pretendenti e li aveva pestati, uno per uno, Farrow, Ambrose, Bushy, Mark Mullendore, Raymond Nayland e Will la Cicogna. Il suo cavallo aveva calpestato Harry Sawyer e aveva frantumato l'elmo di Robin Potter, lasciandogli una brutta cicatrice. E quando anche l'ultimo di loro era caduto, la Madre le aveva dato Connington. Quella volta ser Ronnet teneva in mano una spada, non una rosa. E ogni colpo che Brienne gli aveva assestato era stato più dolce di un bacio. Quel giorno, l'ultimo ad affrontare la sua collera era stato Loras Tyrell. Il Cavaliere di Fiori non le aveva mai fatto la corte, l'aveva sempre a malapena guardata, ma quel giorno aveva tre rose dorato sullo scudo e Brienne odiava le rose. La vista di quei fiori le aveva infuso una forza furibonda. La notte sognò il combattimento che aveva avuto con ser Loras, e ser Jaime che le metteva una cappa arcobaleno sulle spalle.

I'm sorry. It feels like the moment calls for some humor. You're ranting and dressed like Elmo. The Cookie Monster. Whatever, Rashid

DURING THE RIDE back up to Telluride, among tablelands and cañons and red-rock debris, past the stone farmhouses and fruit orchards and Mormon spreads of the McElmo, below ruins haunted by an ancient people whose name no one knew, circular towers and cliffside towns abandoned centuries ago for reasons no one would speak of, Reef was able finally to think it through. If Webb had always been the Kieselguhr Kid, well, shouldn’t somebody ought to carry on the family business—you might say, become the Kid? It might’ve been the lack of sleep, the sheer relief of getting clear of Jeshimon, but Reef began to feel some new presence inside him, growing, inflating—gravid with what it seemed he must become, he found excuses to leave the trail now and then and set off a stick or two from the case of dynamite he had stolen from the stone powder-house at some mine. Each explosion was like the text of another sermon, preached in the voice of the thunder by some faceless but unrelenting desert prophesier who was coming more and more to ride herd on his thoughts. Now and then he creaked around in the saddle, as if seeking agreement or clarification from Webb’s blank eyes or the rictus of what would soon be a skull’s mouth. “Just getting cranked up,” he told Webb. “Expressing myself.” Back in Jeshimon he had thought that he could not bear this, but with each explosion, each night in his bedroll with the damaged and redolent corpse carefully unroped and laid on the ground beside him, he found it was easier, something he looked forward to all the alkaline day, more talk than he’d ever had with Webb alive, whistled over by the ghosts of Aztlán, entering a passage of austerity and discipline, as if undergoing down here in the world Webb’s change of status wherever he was now. . . . He had brought with him a dime novel, one of the Chums of Chance series, The Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth, and for a while each night he sat in the firelight and read to himself but soon found he was reading out loud to his father’s corpse, like a bedtime story, something to ease Webb’s passage into the dreamland of his death. Reef had had the book for years. He’d come across it, already dog-eared, scribbled in, torn and stained from a number of sources, including blood, while languishing in the county lockup at Socorro, New Mexico, on a charge of running a game of chance without a license. The cover showed an athletic young man (it seemed to be the fearless Lindsay Noseworth) hanging off a ballast line of an ascending airship of futuristic design, trading shots with a bestially rendered gang of Eskimos below. Reef began to read, and soon, whatever “soon” meant, became aware that he was reading in the dark, lights-out having occurred sometime, near as he could tell, between the North Cape and Franz Josef Land. As soon as he noticed the absence of light, of course, he could no longer see to read and, reluctantly, having marked his place, turned in for the night without considering any of this too odd. For the next couple of days he enjoyed a sort of dual existence, both in Socorro and at the Pole. Cellmates came and went, the Sheriff looked in from time to time, perplexed.

COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA was first presented by The Theatre Guild at the Booth Theatre, New York City, on February 15, 1950, with the following cast: (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) DOC Sidney Blackmer MARIE Joan Lorring LOLA Shirley Booth TURK Lonny Chapman POSTMAN Daniel Reed MRS. COFFMAN Olga Fabian MILKMAN ]ohn Randolph MESSENGER Arnold Schulman BRUCE Robert Cunningham ED ANDERSON Wilson Brooks ELMO HUSTON Paul Krauss DIRECTED BY Daniel Mann

They wouldn’t dare really stock Saint Elmo’s Remedy today, of course, it was so bad for people. The poster is just a joke. But they have a modern prescription counter, where you can get barbiturates and amphetamines and methaqualones and so on. Science marches on.

When the buildup of opposite charges is insufficient for lightning to form, a coronal discharge or circular bluish glow—or even a mass of sparks—may appear over a high, sometimes pointed object. This phenomenon, first noted at the top of ships’ masts, is called St. Elmo’s fire, for the patron saint of sailors.

I like distributed systems. If just one person truly believes in the existence of something imaginary, he's an idiot. But when thousands of people even slightly believe, you get beautifully painted eggs hidden under bushes and quarters exchanged for loose teeth under your pillow.  You get Elvis presiding at weddings and cookie crumbs on the plate left for Santa each Christmas morning.

Magical realism is a rain of flowers falling during a funeral, no one asking why. It is finding a dull reference to a non-existent country in an old encyclopedia, and then finding an explanation which leads to a further secret deeper in. It's a bridge bursting into fire after you cross. In pure form it is never explained, which means that just possibly it is not even unnatural.

There is a way of thinking that is a kind of madness. You look for signs and meaning in clouds and leaves and cards and license plates. And you find it, almost. The revelation is just a little past your reach, leading you on till you are trading secrets with a stranger in the elevator or a tree in the park. That is Magic Thinking. But Magic Realism says, ‘suppose it is true, just for a day, just for a page.’ The weird and magical happens, unexplained, turning everyday life into a mystery.

He turned to check the stands again. Maybe dad came after all. To cheer him on, shout how proud he was of his boy. But that was stupid. Dad wasn’t coming to soccer practice. ‘Not a real sport’, he’d shouted. ‘Shit, they have an old woman for a coach’. Dad wanted his football starter back. Living proof he’d fathered a boy in the missionary position to go forth and populate the living-room mantel with trophies. Good for mocking dads whose kids lacked spine, sport jersey and high-school chin hairs. Marlon understood exactly what his dad wanted.

Biddy’s sister, Clare, was another story. She’d once snapped the head off Biddy’s Barbie doll and whipped her Tickle Me Elmo against the wall in anger. Besides losing an eye, Elmo couldn’t stop giggling, sounding like he’d gone completely mad.

We are born screaming, and all our lives we continue that scream. We translate the scream to song and poetry, modulate it into words of wisdom and defiance. And when at last we see the teeth coming for us, when we no longer are to consume but be consumed... we give our final scream. Of pain, or defiance, of prayer or poetry. Hell, even a brave laugh. But all these shrieks are mere echoes of the explosive cry we made coming into this life. Echoes of the Great Scream itself, when the stars were born.

Barnaby the miller’s son hid no tangled drama behind his eyes. He was a happy idiot delighting in the summer day, smiling at the pleasant road before him. And yet, and yet... he knew. So why go on an adventure meant for his death? Why laugh with the breeze, greet birds and mankind with a smile? I can’t comprehend it.

Barnaby the miller’s son hid no tangled drama behind his eyes. He was a happy idiot delighting in the summer day, smiling at the pleasant road before him. And yet, and yet... he knew. So why go on an adventure meant for his death? Why laugh with the breeze, greet birds and mankind with a smile? I can’t comprehend it.

And if you send Barnaby to sell valuables, he'll return with a magic rock that makes soup whensoever you drop it in a pot, say the magic phrase ‘soup, please’, and then add water, carrots, onions and mutton.” “That would be a fine thing to have,” argued Barnaby, suddenly famished. “Are there really such magic stones?

She wrote you a poem,” said Barnaby. “Did she now?” asked the necromancer. He bent, gathering up shreds of paper. Sighed, and let the tatters fall again, drifting down like autumn leaves. “It’s titled ‘To My Dear Pente’.” “I assume, oh Marquise, that you will not be content till you have read it to me. So let’s hear, and have done.” Barnaby read aloud. “Die.” He paused, continued. “Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.” He stopped, turned several pages. “Die. Goes on and on. Just that.” “Well, it rhymes well,” observed Night-Creep.

Yes, I use my chamber pot to punish the wicked. Just not the tea pot. The tea pot is strictly for tea. If you wish to know, my chamber pot is five miles across, deep as Abaddon’s eyes and filled daily with excrement so foul as to make harpies regurgitate the bones of mortals devoured when St. Chronos was a youngster. I fill the chamber pot myself, most mornings. Usually while reading. I take my time. It’s a moment of quiet, which Infernum knows, Infernum lacks. Often I have my most inspiring thoughts right there atop the pot.

Elmo