Etched In Stone Quotes

And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three red-headed men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood. 'No - no - no!' someone was shouting. 'No! Fred! No!' And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.

After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he has really existed. He leaves his proof on wood, on stone or on the lives of other people. This deep desire exists in everyone, from the boy who writes dirty words in a public toilet to the Buddha who etches his image in the race mind. Life is so unreal. I think that we seriously doubt that we exist and go about trying to prove that we do.

The past is a tricky thing. Sometimes it's etched in stone. And other times, it's rendered in soft memories. But if you meddle too long in deep, dark things... Who knows what monsters you'll awaken?

Buddhist say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a new stream into your consciousness, like water eroding the side of a mountain. Scientist confirm this bit of folk wisdom: our neurons break connections and form new pathways all the time. Even if you've been programmed to fear death, that particular pathway isn't set in stone. Each of us is responsible for seeking out new knowledge and creating mental circuits.

Like a feather in a dust storm, with no direction The Raven flies through life, helpless and omitted Until night declares and the wind expires. Then it flies to the land of stones and etchings And becomes an Ember, breaking away

Unlike the rest of nature, our mission in life is not etched in stone. We can choose our destiny, and we do, either by design or default, by taking control of our lives’ or relinquishing it to others.

I think it would be funny to dye somebody’s pool red and then throw dead fish in it. And before you run out of there, you could leave a stone tablet with these words etched in: God is angry with you and has decided to go all Egypt on you.

Our tragedies as fleeting as our smiles. Our futures not etched in stone, but drawn in sand.

It is upon such stones that men attempt to permanently etch history so they will not exist in a vacuum; it is the final statement after a lifetime of scratching out divisions upon the ground, over ephemeral time itself, merely to give their short journeys meaning, to tell others “I was here – do not forget me, do not let my brief blast dissolve into nothingness.

There is an arch supported by four vast columns. Etched over hundreds and hundreds of yards of stone, furlongs of stone, there are names: "Who are these, these? The men who died in this battle?" "No. The lost, the ones they did not find. The others are in the cemeteries." "These are just the ... the unfound." When she could speak again. From the whole war?" The man shook his head. "Just these fields." Elizabeth sat on the steps. "No one told me. My God no one told me,

What a relief, I thought, to free oneself from the heterosexual prison. Straightness : the predictable container in which all possible outcomes seemed already etched into stone—happiness, unhappiness, complacency, strife—a life in which we were all operating inside of a story already told, even as we sought to live an authentic existence.

For London, Blampied claimed, was of all cities in the world the most autumnal —its mellow brickwork harmonizing with fallen leaves and October sunsets, just as the etched grays of November composed themselves with the light and shade of Portland stone. There was a charm, a deathless charm, about a city whose inhabitants went about muttering, "The nights are drawing in," as if it were a spell to invoke the vast, sprawling creature-comfort of winter.

The hard surface of the stone is impervious to nothing in the end. The heat of the sun leaves evidence of daylight. Each drop of rain changes the form; even the wind and the air itself, invisible to our eyes, etches its presence. … All history is taken in by stones.

Fear was etched on her face like a gypsy curse carved on precious stones.

Memories were movable, he was discovering. They weren’t etched in stone like some monolith testimony to the eons, as he’d once imagined.

History, she realized, was mostly lost. No matter how diligent the recorders, the witnesses, the researchers, most of the past simply no longer existed. Would never be known. The notion seemed to empty her out somewhere deep inside, as if the very knowledge of loss somehow released a torrent of extinction within her own memories-moments swirling away, never to be retrieved. She set a finger in one groove etched into the stone, followed its serpentine track downward as far as she could reach, then back up again. The first to do so in how long?

Our Constitution is not good. It is a document designed to create a society of enduring white male dominance, hastily edited in the margins to allow for what basic political rights white men could be convinced to share. The Constitution is an imperfect work that urgently and consistently needs to be modified and reimagined to make good on its unrealized promises of justice and equality for all. And yet you rarely see liberals make the point that the Constitution is actually trash. Conservatives are out here acting like the Constitution was etched by divine flame upon stone tablets, when in reality it was scrawled out over a sweaty summer by people making deals with actual monsters who were trying to protect their rights to rape the humans they held in bondage.

Future is a meaningless word if you don’t give your heart and soul to your dreams. What happens to us is never etched in stone, but determined by what we want to happen… Death is inevitable, but life is what we can avoid, if we so choose.

Some may say that our destinies are etched in stone from the moment of our births, but I don't believe that. I think that life is what you make of it and the choices are yours. Free will asserts that we all must live with the consequences of our actions.

I reached into my vest for the idol of my mother and my fingers hit something else. I fished it from where it was tucked against my heart and I held it out before me. A smile pulled wide at my lips, threatening tears. It was a taufr, the talismans the Riki used to protect the ones they loved. Fiske must have slipped it into my vest with the idol. The stone was smooth and black, the words etched into its surface. Ala sál. Soul bearer.

Touching the copper of the ankh reminded me of another necklace, a necklace long since lost under the dust of time. That necklace had been simpler: only a string of beads etched with tiny ankhs. But my husband had brought it to me the morning of our wedding, sneaking up to our house just after dawn in a gesture uncharacteristically bold for him. I had chastised him for the indiscretion. "What are you doing? You're going to see me this afternoon... and then every day after that!" "I had to give you these before the wedding." He held up the string of beads. "They were my mother's. I want you to have them, to wear them today.” He leaned forward, placing the beads around my neck. As his fingers brushed my skin, I felt something warm and tingly run through my body. At the tender age of fifteen, I hadn't exactly understood such sensations, though I was eager to explore them. My wiser self today recognized them as the early stirrings of lust, and . . . well, there had been something else there too. Something else that I still didn't quite comprehend. An electric connection, a feeling that we were bound into something bigger than ourselves. That our being together was inevitable. "There," he'd said, once the beads were secure and my hair brushed back into place. "Perfect.” He said nothing else after that. He didn't need to. His eyes told me all I needed to know, and I shivered. Until Kyriakos, no man had ever given me a second glance. I was Marthanes' too-tall daughter after all, the one with the sharp tongue who didn't think before speaking. (Shape-shifting would eventually take care of one of those problems but not the other.) But Kyriakos had always listened to me and watched me like I was someone more, someone tempting and desirable, like the beautiful priestesses of Aphrodite who still carried on their rituals away from the Christian priests. I wanted him to touch me then, not realizing just how much until I caught his hand suddenly and unexpectedly. Taking it, I placed it around my waist and pulled him to me. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't pull back. We were almost the same height, making it easy for his mouth to seek mine out in a crushing kiss. I leaned against the warm stone wall behind me so that I was pressed between it and him. I could feel every part of his body against mine, but we still weren't close enough. Not nearly enough. Our kissing grew more ardent, as though our lips alone might close whatever aching distance lay between us. I moved his hand again, this time to push up my skirt along the side of one leg. His hand stroked the smooth flesh there and, without further urging, slid over to my inner thigh. I arched my lower body toward his, nearly writhing against him now, needing him to touch me everywhere. "Letha? Where are you at?” My sister's voice carried over the wind; she wasn't nearby but was close enough to be here soon. Kyriakos and I broke apart, both gasping, pulses racing. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. Heat burned in his gaze. "Have you ever been with anyone before?" he asked wonderingly. I shook my head. "How did you ... I never imagined you doing that...” "I learn fast.” He grinned and pressed my hand to his lips. "Tonight," he breathed. "Tonight we ...” "Tonight," I agreed. He backed away then, eyes still smoldering. "I love you. You are my life.” "I love you too." I smiled and watched him go.

I turned faceup on the slab of stone, gazed at the sky, and thought about all the man-made satellites spinning around the earth. The horizon was still etched in a faint glow, and stars began to blink on in the deep, wine-colored sky. I gazed among them for the light of a satellite, but it was still too bright out to spot one with the naked eye. The sprinkling of the stars looked nailed to the spot, unmoving. I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep.

Who’s Hal? And no, this isn’t a joke.” “He’s my brother and…damn it, no! I’m not doing this. I talk to my sculptures, but they’re not supposed to talk back!

There is an old Chinese saying, “Write your sorrows in sand and etch your joys in stone.

How ironic, she thought, the mention of seance etched into the fossil-studded stone. Two sides of the dead, the illusory and the tangible.

Only when I know I’m right. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is it not? The delivery driver said I was ugly and you told him I wasn’t, that to you I was a work of art. Your actions prove my point.

140 What until now has passed for ‘civilization’ might in fact be nothing more than a gendered appropriation – by men, etching their claims in stone – of some earlier system of knowledge that had women at its centre.

A cult is a group of people who share an obsessive devotion to a person or idea. The cults described in this book use violent tactics to recruit, indoctrinate, and keep members. Ritual abuse is defined as the emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive acts performed by violent cults. Most violent cults do not openly express their beliefs and practices, and they tend to live separately in noncommunal environments to avoid detection. Some victims of ritual abuse are children abused outside the home by nonfamily members, in public settings such as day care. Other victims are children and teenagers who are forced by their parents to witness and participate in violent rituals. Adult ritual abuse victims often include these grown children who were forced from childhood to be a member of the group. Other adult and teenage victims are people who unknowingly joined social groups or organizations that slowly manipulated and blackmailed them into becoming permanent members of the group. All cases of ritual abuse, no matter what the age of the victim, involve intense physical and emotional trauma. Violent cults may sacrifice humans and animals as part of religious rituals. They use torture to silence victims and other unwilling participants. Ritual abuse victims say they are degraded and humiliated and are often forced to torture, kill, and sexually violate other helpless victims. The purpose of the ritual abuse is usually indoctrination. The cults intend to destroy these victims' free will by undermining their sense of safety in the world and by forcing them to hurt others. In the last ten years, a number of people have been convicted on sexual abuse charges in cases where the abused children had reported elements of ritual child abuse. These children described being raped by groups of adults who wore costumes or masks and said they were forced to witness religious-type rituals in which animals and humans were tortured or killed. In one case, the defense introduced in court photographs of the children being abused by the defendants[.1] In another case, the police found tunnels etched with crosses and pentacles along with stone altars and candles in a cemetery where abuse had been reported. The defendants in this case pleaded guilty to charges of incest, cruelty, and indecent assault.[2] Ritual abuse allegations have been made in England, the United States, and Canada.[3] Many myths abound concerning the parents and children who report ritual abuse. Some people suggest that the tales of ritual abuse are "mass hysteria." They say the parents of these children who report ritual abuse are often overly zealous Christians on a "witch-hunt" to persecute satanists. These skeptics say the parents are fearful of satanism, and they use their knowledge of the Black Mass (a historically well-known, sexualized ritual in which animals and humans are sacrificed) to brainwash their children into saying they were abused by satanists.[4] In 1992 I conducted a study to separate fact from fiction in regard to the disclosures of children who report ritual abuse.[5] The study was conducted through Believe the Children, a national organization that provides support and educational sources for ritual abuse survivors and their families.

When you are raised in a place like Cadiz, in a time like ours, you learned the signs. The absolute silence, followed by the soft, near imperceptible click of metal against stone. The soft whir of gears just loud enough to announce itself. The Vath rarely sent men to our homes. When they did—well. The cruelty of men knew few bounds. So there was some relief when the first body through the door was an Imperial droid, chrome and silver, its body etched in cruel, sharp designs.

aisles, and they were all talking in loud voices. I spotted Karen standing away from the group and I approached her side. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Some stuff is missing,” she said, concern etched on her face. “We’ve got a thief among us.

You're Savannah Dubrinsky." Gary breathed her name reverently. "My God, I should have guessed." Gregori's entire demeanor changed, becoming all at once menacing and dangerous. His face was etched in stone, his mouth hard and faintly cruel. The hair on the back of Gary's neck literally stood up. He swallowed hard and instinctively moved a little distance from the woman. Not that he blamed the man, creature, whatever, but his reaction was more that of untamed beast than civilized man. Gary was taking no chances. Savannah laughed softly. She leaned into the man despite Gregori's restraining arm. "He can read your mind," she reminded Gary softly, her breath swirling with tantalizing warmth over his neck. He jumped away as if he'd been burned, his face flamed crimson, and he looked guiltily at Gregori. Gregori's dark features relaxed. The hard edge to his mouth softened. "Do not worry, Gary, she is incorrigible. Even I have trouble with her.I cannot blame you for what I myself cannot control." His arm swept arond Savannah's small waist, and he tucked her beneath his shoulder. Are you angry? The smile was fading from her eyes, her mouth. Gregori tightened his hold on her when her step faltered. We can discuss this at home, cherie.You are already here;you may as well give the boy a thrill.But I warn you,not too big a thrill. She relaxed her body into his.That quickly.That easily.As if she belonged, his other half.He was beginning to believe it might be possible.

Ramblings of a madwoman might be deadly. The same words, spoken in sanity: treason. This truth I have discovered to my woe. Yet, imprisoned within my cell, I find it hard to discern the difference. What is truth? What is lie? God alone knows, for by my soul, I do not. Still, death silences all. And death waits for me beyond this vaulted chamber, its walls etched with the words of prisoners who came before me. Their names haunt me; their pleas for mercy mock me, letters chipped into stone during endless hours.

One day, soon after her disappearance, an attack of abominable nausea forced me to pull up on the ghost of an old mountain road that now accompanied, now traversed a brand new highway, with its population of asters bathing in the detached warmth of a pale-blue afternoon in late summer. After coughing myself inside out I rested a while on a boulder and then thinking the sweet air might do me good, walked a little way toward a low stone parapet on the precipice side of the highway. Small grasshoppers spurted out of the withered roadside weeds. A very light cloud was opening its arms and moving toward a slightly more substantial one belonging to another, more sluggish, heavenlogged system. As I approached the friendly abyss, I grew aware of a melodious unity of sounds rising like vapor from a small mining town that lay at my feet, in a fold of the valley. One could make out the geometry of the streets between blocks of red and gray roofs, and green puffs of trees, and a serpentine stream, and the rich, ore-like glitter of the city dump, and beyond the town, roads crisscrossing the crazy quilt of dark and pale fields, and behind it all, great timbered mountains. But even brighter than those quietly rejoicing colors - for there are colors and shades that seem to enjoy themselves in good company - both brighter and dreamier to the ear than they were to the eye, was that vapory vibration of accumulated sounds that never ceased for a moment, as it rose to the lip of granite where I stood wiping my foul mouth. And soon I realized that all these sounds were of one nature, that no other sounds but these came from the streets of the transparent town, with the women at home and the men away. Reader! What I heard was but the melody of children at play, nothing but that, and so limpid was the air that within this vapor of blended voices, majestic and minute, remote and magically near, frank and divinely enigmatic - one could hear now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid laughter, or the crack of a bat, or the clatter of a toy wagon, but it was all really too far for the eye to distinguish any movement in the lightly etched streets. I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord.

The photos they took didn’t do you justice,” she mused as she continued her exploration, running her hands over every part of him. It wasn’t long before Stone was ready to scream with frustration and longing. Every gentle touch of her hands made him yearn to be free of his magical prison.

I etch a pattern of geometric shapes onto a stone. To the uninitiated, the shapes look mysterious and complex, but I know that when arranged correctly they will give the stone a special power, enabling it to respond to incantations in a language no human being has ever spoken. ...Yet my work involves no witchcraft. The stone is a wafer of silicon, and the incantations are software. The patterns etched on the chip and the programs that instruct the computer may look complicated and mysterious, but they are generated according to a few basic principles that are easily explained.

When you etch your moral code in stone, you have no room for editing. You leave open the possibility that, as our ethical views evolve, your code becomes less relevant. You could find yourself with four of ten divine moral laws describing how to treat God and zero that prohibit rape or slavery.

Anybody gets to ask questions about any fiction-related issues she wants. No question about literature is stupid. You are forbidden to keep yourself from asking a question or making a comment because you fear it will sound obvious or unsophisticated or lame or stupid. Because critical reading and prose fiction are such hard, weird things to try to study, a stupid-seeming comment or question can end up being valuable or even profound. I am deadly-serious about creating a classroom environment where everyone feels free to ask or speak about anything she wishes. So any student who groans, smirks, mimes machines-gunning or onanism, chortles, eye-rolls, or in any way ridicules some other student's in-class question/comment will be warned once in private and on the second offense will be kicked out of class and flunked, no matter what week it is. If the offender is male, I am also apt to find him off-campus and beat him up. . . . This does not mean we all have to sit around smiling sweetly at one another for three hours a week. No truths about the form, content, structure, symbolism, theme, or overall artistic quality of any piece of fiction are etched in stone or beyond dispute.

The Oren-yaro do not lack for courage, it is true. We know how to face battles when the odds are stacked against us. We know how to give our lives for our lords and believe we know sacrifice like no other. But I did not face that dragon as an Oren-yaro. Our tenets may run deep, but they do not make us. I decided that if I ever get out of this alive, I would tell Rayyel that. We are flesh and blood, not words; we bend, we break, but our failings need not be etched in stone. I faced the dragon as someone willing to give her life for another not because of some deep-seated arrogance that I was better but because it was the right thing to do.

Memories are curious things. We mistake them for perfect copies of life; experiences etched in crystal and tucked away for later. But they change on us when we least expect it. A detail is forgotten and a new reality scabs over the hole. History is scarred, the story reimagined. And the strange thing is we don’t even realize it’s happening. It just does.

Healthy Choices Hold still Keep quiet. Get a degree to learn how to talk saying nothing. Catch a good man by being demure. the one your mother chooses. Let him climb you whenever his urge, amidst headaches and menstrual aches and screaming infants. And when he bids quick, turn over. Hold still. Make your tongue a slab of cement a white stone etched with your name. Kill your stories with knives and knitting needles and Clorox bleach. Hide in your mysteriousness by saying nothing. Starch your thoughts with ironed shirts. Tie your anger with a knot in your throat and when he comes without concern swallow it. Hold still. Keep desire hopeless as ice and sleepless nights and painful as pinched eyelid. Keep your fingers from the razor, keep your longing to sever his condescension safely in your douchbag. Turn the blade against yourself. Don't twitch as your slashed wrists stain your bathroom tiles. Disinfect with Pine Sol. Hold still. Keep quiet. Keep tight your lips, keep dead your dreams, keep cold your heart. Keep quiet. And he will shout praises to your perfection.

They say that if a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. Summer’s name would never be carved in stone in monuments or tributes, but she had still carved her name onto my soul, and she deserved the same to be done to her legacy – but in a much larger sense. And so, with the windswept notion that I was hurtling toward destiny, I held my hands over my keyboard and preparedto etch my vanished girlfriend onto the storm-scraped surface of history – one keystroke at a time.

Buddhists say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a new stream into your consciousness, like water eroding the side of a mountain. Scientists confirm this bit of folk wisdom: our neurons break connections and form new pathways all the time. Even if you’ve been programmed to fear death, that particular pathway isn’t set in stone. Each of us is responsible for seeking out new knowledge and creating new mental circuits. I

Halvard reached into his vest and pulled something into his hand. When he opened it, a round, flat stone sat in the center of his palm. It was etched with words I couldn’t read, the same as the one I’d seen Iri tuck into his vest before Adalgildi. “What does it say?” “Ala sál. Soul bearer,” he said, proudly. “It’s my taufr.” I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. “What is it?” “It protects me.” “How?” “You give it to someone you want to protect. It tells the gods that you bear another’s soul. My mother made it for me.

That's when she noticed that Serena, Jimena, and Vanessa each wore matching silver charms. Corrine caught what she was staring at. "They never take them off," she whispered. "Not in P.E., not for dances. Never. They had another friend, Catty, who wore the same amulet, but she's gone now. Someday when we're alone, I'll tell you what happened to her." Tianna looked at the face of the moon etched in the metal on the charms. Sparkling in the morning light, the charms didn't seem silver but more like a strange stone that reflected a rainbow of colors.

Our Constitution is not good. It is a document designed to create a society of enduring white male dominance, hastily edited in the margins to allow for what basic political rights white men could be convinced to share. The Constitution is an imperfect work that urgently and consistently needs to be modified and reimagined to make good on its unrealized promises of justice and equality for all. And yet you rarely see liberals make the point that the Constitution is actually trash. Conservatives are out here acting like the Constitution was etched by divine flame upon stone tablets, when in reality it was scrawled out over a sweaty summer by people making deals with actual monsters who were trying to protect their rights to rape the humans they held in bondage. Why would I give a fuck about the original public meaning of the words written by these men? Conservatives will tell you that the text of laws explicitly passed in response to growing political, social, or economic power of nonwhite minorities should be followed to their highest grammatical accuracy, and I’m supposed to agree the text of this bullshit is the valid starting point of the debate? Nah. As Rory Breaker says in the movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: “If the milk turns out to be sour, I ain’t the kind of pussy to drink it.” The Constitution was so flawed upon its release in 1787 that it came with immediate updates. The first ten amendments, the “Bill of Rights,” were demanded by some to ensure ratification of the rest of the document. All of them were written by James Madison, who didn’t think they were actually necessary but did it to placate political interests.

And to one side of the room, occupying most of the open space, sat an enormous coffin of solid, cream-colored stone. Its surface was etched, inside and out, with row upon row of tiny symbols. “Is that marble?” he asked. “Alabaster. It’s a sarcophagus, from the tomb of King…” Sir Lewis ruffled his hair. “I forget his name at the moment. I have it somewhere.” “And the inscriptions?” “Hexes on the outside. On the interior, directions to the underworld.” The old man’s hoary eyebrows rose. “You can have a lie-down in the thing, if you like. Good for the spine.” “Thank you, no.” Bram shuddered.

You are personally responsible for so much of the sunshine that brightens up your life. Optimists and gentle souls continually benefit from their very own versions of daylight saving time. They get extra hours of happiness and sunshine every day. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life The secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by slowing down and inventing some imaginary letters along the way. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life “There is nothing more important than family.” Those words should be etched in stone on the sidewalks that lead to every home. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life I may be uncertain about exactly where I’m headed, but I am very clear regarding this: I’m glad I’ve got a ticket to go on this magnificent journey. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life When your heart is filled with gratitude for what you do have, your head isn’t nearly so worried about what you don’t. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life Don’t let cynical people transfer their cynicism off on you. In spite of its problems, it is still a pretty amazing world, and there are lots of truly wonderful people spinning around on this planet. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers All the good things you can do – having the right attitude, having a strong belief in your abilities, making good choices and responsible decisions – all those good things will pay huge dividends. You’ll see. Your prayers will be heard. Your karma will kick in. The sacrifices you made will be repaid. And the good work will have all been worth it. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers The more you’re bothered by something that’s wrong, the more you’re empowered to make things right. – Douglas Pagels, from Everyone Should Have a Book Like This to Get Through the Gray Days May you be blessed with all these things: A little more joy, a little less stress, a lot more understanding of your wonderfulness. Abundance in your life, blessings in your days, dreams that come true, and hopes that stay. A rainbow on the horizon, an angel by your side, and everything that could ever bring a smile to your life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Each day brings with it the miracle of a new beginning. Many of the moments ahead will be marvelously disguised as ordinary days, but each one of us has the chance to make something extraordinary out of them. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Keep planting the seeds of your dreams, because if you keep believing in them, they will keep trying their best to blossom for you. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things I hope your dreams take you... to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Love is what holds everything together. It’s the ribbon around the gift of life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things There are times in life when just being brave is all you need to be. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things When it comes to anything – whether it involves people or places or jobs or hoped-for plans – you never know what the answer will be if you don’t ask. And you never know what the result will be if you don’t try. – Douglas Pagels, from Make Every Day a Positive One Don’t just have minutes in the day; have moments in time. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds A life well lived is simply a compilation of days well spent. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds

Have you ever been in a place where history becomes tangible? Where you stand motionless, feeling time and importance press around you, press into you? That was how I felt the first time I stood in the astronaut garden at OCA PNW. Is it still there? Do you know it? Every OCA campus had – has, please let it be has – one: a circular enclave, walled by smooth white stone that towered up and up until it abruptly cut off, definitive as the end of an atmosphere, making room for the sky above. Stretching up from the ground, standing in neat rows and with an equally neat carpet of microclover in between, were trees, one for every person who’d taken a trip off Earth on an OCA rocket. It didn’t matter where you from, where you trained, where your spacecraft launched. When someone went up, every OCA campus planted a sapling. The trees are an awesome sight, but bear in mind: the forest above is not the garden’s entry point. You enter from underground. I remember walking through a short tunnel and into a low-lit domed chamber that possessed nothing but a spiral staircase leading upward. The walls were made of thick glass, and behind it was the dense network you find below every forest. Roots interlocking like fingers, with gossamer fungus sprawled symbiotically between, allowing for the peaceful exchange of carbon and nutrients. Worms traversed roads of their own making. Pockets of water and pebbles decorated the scene. This is what a forest is, after all. Don’t believe the lie of individual trees, each a monument to its own self-made success. A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence. As I stood contemplating the roots, a hidden timer triggered, and the lights faded out. My breath went with it. The glass was etched with some kind of luminescent colourant, invisible when the lights were on, but glowing boldly in the dark. I moved closer, and I saw names – thousands upon thousands of names, printed as small as possible. I understood what I was seeing without being told. The idea behind Open Cluster Astronautics was simple: citizen-funded spaceflight. Exploration for exploration’s sake. Apolitical, international, non-profit. Donations accepted from anyone, with no kickbacks or concessions or promises of anything beyond a fervent attempt to bring astronauts back from extinction. It began in a post thread kicked off in 2052, a literal moonshot by a collective of frustrated friends from all corners – former thinkers for big names gone bankrupt, starry-eyed academics who wanted to do more than teach the past, government bureau members whose governments no longer existed. If you want to do good science with clean money and clean hands, they argued, if you want to keep the fire burning even as flags and logos came down, if you understand that space exploration is best when it’s done in the name of the people, then the people are the ones who have to make it happen.

Using a cactus thorn, they “pricked the skin in small regular rows on our chins with a very sharp stick,” Olive wrote, “until they bled freely. They then dipped these same sticks in the juice of a certain weed that grew on the banks of the river, and then in the powder of a blue stone that was to be found in low water.” The stone was burned, then pulverized, then applied to the pinprick patterns that had been etched into their faces.29 The procedure took a few hours, but it was most painful during the healing process of the next three days, when they could eat only soft foods like roasted pumpkin so the wounds would not open. Because the Mohaves prized broad faces, tattoo patterns were designed to create or enhance this impression

The curse of life The story of Man’s10 abrupt expulsion from Eden – be it fiction, metaphor or literal fact – has become etched too deeply on the collective unconscious to ignore, for it has set in stone Judaeo-Christian attitudes to men, women, original sin (and therefore children), the Creator and his opposition, Lucifer/Satan/the Devil. This all-powerful myth has imbued us all at some level of perception with a belief that life is a curse, that death is the end – a collapsing back of the body into its constituent dust, no more – that women are inherently on intimate terms with evil, that men have carte blanche to do as they please with not only all the animals in the world but also their womenfolk, and that God, above all, is to be feared. Snakes come out of it rather badly, too, as the embodiment of evil, the medium through which Satan tempts we pathetic humans. The Devil, on the other hand, is the only being in the tale to show some intelligence, perhaps even humour, in taking the form of a wriggling, presumably charming, phallic symbol through which to tempt a woman. As both Judaism and Christianity depend so intimately on the basic premises of Genesis, this lost paradise of the soul is evoked several times throughout both Old and New Testaments. The crucified Jesus promised the thief hanging on the cross next to him ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’,11 although it is unclear how those listening may have interpreted this term. Did they see it as synonymous with ‘heaven’, a state of bliss that must remain unknowable to the living (and remain for ever unknown to the wicked)? Or did it somehow encompass the old idea of the luxuriant garden?

Near the Mexican border, rocky canyons cleave the mountains, laying them aside like broken wedges of gray cheese furred with a dark mold of pinon and juniper that sheds hard shadows on moon glazed stone, etched lithographs in gray and black, taupe and silver. Beneath feathery chamisa a rattlesnake flicks his tongue, following a scent. Along a precarious rock ledge a ring-tailed cat strolls, nose snuffling the cracks. At the base of the stone a peccary trots along familiar foot trails, toward the toes of a higher cliff where a seeping spring gathers in a rocky goblet. In the desert, sounds are dry and rattling: pebbles toed into cracks, hoofs tac-tacking on stone, the serpent rattle warning the wild pig to veer away, which she does with a grunt to the tribe behind her. From the rocky scarp the ring-tailed cat hears the whole population of the desert pass about its business in the canyon below.

Some people on bus seats shake at the shoulders, Stoned Elvises trying to dance after the gig. Some walk into the rain and look like they’re smiling, Running mascara writes sad bitter letters on their faces. Some drive their cars into lay-bys or park edges And cradle the steering-wheel looking like headless drivers. Some sink their open mouths into feather pillows And tremble on the bed like beached dolphins. Some people are bent as question marks when they weep And some are straight as exclamation marks. Some are soaking in emotional dew when they wake, Salt street maps etched into their faces. Some find rooms and fall to the floor as if praying to Allah. Noiseless Faces contorted in that silent scream that seems like laughter. Why is there not a tissue-giver? A man who looks for tears, Who makes the finest silk tissues and offers them for free? It seems to me that around each corner, beneath each stone, Are humans quietly looking for a place to cry on their own.

Though Eros and Psyche sat vast and magnificent in the front lawn, a prologue to the grand house itself, there was something wonderful- a mysterious and melancholic aspect- about the smaller fountain, hidden within its sunny clearing at the bottom of the south garden. The circular pool of stacked stone stood two feet high and twenty feet across at its widest point. It was lined with tiny glass tiles, azure blue like the necklace of sapphires Lord Ashbury had brought back for Lady Violet after serving in the Far East. From the center emerged a huge craggy block of russet marble, the height of two men, thick at the base but tapering to a peak. Midway up, creamy marble against the brown, the life-size figure of Icarus had been carved in a position of recline. His wings, pale marble etched to give the impression of feathers, were strapped to his outspread arms and fell behind, weeping over the rock. Rising from the pool to tend the fallen figure were three mermaids, long hair looped and coiled about angelic faces: one held a small harp, one wore a coronet of woven ivy leaves, and one reached beneath Icarus’s torso, white hands on creamy skin, to pull him from the deep.

On reading a translated copy of the covenant, Philip V was horrified. The Muslim ruler of Jerusalem, through his emissary, the viceroy of Islamic Granada, was extending to the Jewish people the hand of eternal peace and friendship. The gesture was occasioned by the recent discovery of the lost ark of the Old Testament and the stone tablets upon which God had etched the Law with His finger. Both were found in perfect condition in a ditch in the Sinai Desert and had awoken in the Muslims, who discovered them, a desire to be circumcised, convert to Judaism, and return the Holy Land to the Jews. However, since this would leave millions of Palestinian Muslims homeless, the King of Jerusalem wanted the Jews to give him France in return. The guilty homeowner Bananias told French authorities that after the Muslim offer, the Jews of France concocted the well-poisoning plot and hired the lepers to carry it out. After reading the translation and several corroborating documents, including a highly incriminating letter from the Muslim King of Tunisia, Philip ordered all Jews in France arrested for “complicity . . . to bring about the death of the people and the subjects of the kingdom.” Two years later, any Jewish survivors of the royal terror were exiled from the country.   The

Olson’s case, he would later say, amounted to “one big Brandeis brief,” a term that refers to twentieth-century litigator Louis Brandeis, who in 1908 pioneered a style of argument that rejected the conservative notion of the law as a static set of truths etched into stone at the time of the nation’s founding. and instead demanded that it respond to changing realities, taking into account not only the framers’ original intent and precedent but new facts that could be gleaned from sociological and scientific study.

He wrapped his arms around her. “Have I told you today how happy I am that you gave up the good fight and moved back in with me?” “Not today,” she said, sucking in his sex-and-sin scent. “But last night you mentioned it quite a few times.” She’d tried for six weeks to live by herself in the apartment over Gracie’s garage, thinking she needed to experience life on her own before living with Mitch. She’d hated every minute of it. When she’d taken to sneaking into the farmhouse and crawling into bed with him in the middle of the night, he’d finally put his foot down. She sighed. Contentment had her curling deeper into his embrace. She didn’t care if it was wrong: Mitch and this farmhouse made her happy. “Maddie,” he said, his voice catching in a way that had her lifting her chin. “You know I love you.” “I know. I love you too.” His fingers brushed a lock of hair behind her chin. “Come with me.” He clasped her hand and led her into the bedroom before motioning her to the bed. She sat, and he walked over to the antique dresser and took a box out of the dresser. He walked back to the bed and sat down next to her. “I wanted to give this to you tonight, but then I saw you standing in the doorway and I knew I couldn’t wait.” Maddie looked at the box, it was wooden, etched with an intricate fleur-de-lis design on it and words in another language. “What is it?” “It was my grandmother’s. They bought it on their honeymoon. It’s French. It says, ‘There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved.’” “It’s beautiful.” That he would give her something so treasured brought the threat of tears to her eyes. He handed it to her. “Open it.” She took the box and suddenly her heart started to pound. She lifted the lid and gasped, blinking as her vision blurred. Mitch grasped her left hand. “I know it’s only been three months, but in my family, meeting the night your car breaks down is a sign of a long, happy marriage.” Maddie couldn’t take her eyes off the ring. It was a gorgeous, simple platinum band with two small emerald stones flanking what had to be a three-carat rectangular diamond. She looked at Mitch. “Maddie Donovan, will you please marry me?” “Yes.” She kissed him, a soft, slow, drugging kiss filled with hope and promises. There was no hesitation. Not a seed of worry or shred of doubt. Her heart belonged to only one man, and he was right in front of her. “It would be my honor.” He slipped the ring on her finger. “My grandma would be thrilled that you have her ring.” “It’s hers?” It sparkled in the sunlight. It looked important on her hand. “It’s been in the family vault since she died. My mom sent it a couple of weeks ago. She’s been a little pushy about the whole thing. I think she’s worried I’ll do something to screw it up and she’ll lose the best daughter-in-law ever.” Maddie laughed. “I love her, too.” He ran his finger over the platinum band. “I changed the side stones to emeralds because they match your eyes. Do you think I made the right choice?” She put her hands on the sides of his face. “It is the most gorgeous ring I have ever laid eyes on. I love it. I love you. You know I’d take you with a plastic ring from Wal-Mart.” “I know.” She kissed him. “But I’m not going to lie: this is a kick-ass ring.” He grinned. “You know, I think that’s what my grandma used to say.” “She was obviously a smart woman.” “For the record, don’t even think about running.” Mitch pushed her back on the bed and captured her beneath him. “I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and bring you back where you belong.” She reached for him, this man who’d been her salvation. “I will run down the aisle to meet you.

Actually, I have very acute night-vision. I can see you perfectly, and I like what I see.” “Cheater!” she said, feeling her cheeks heat as a blush raced over her skin. “Never. I will never cheat or leave you, Adina.” He tapped a finger to his heart, right over her name. “I’m yours, and you are mine.” She

You’re real.” Stone curled his lip into a snarl, baring his fangs. “I am every nightmare you’ve ever had come to life. Never threaten her again. I protect what’s mine, little man, and she is mine.” Maxwell’s

The fact is that, after the Easter Rising and the War of Independence, the Irishmen who’d fought in the Great War didn’t fit the new way the country imagined itself. If the British were our sworn enemies, why had two hundred thousand Irishmen gone off to fight alongside them? If our history was the struggle to escape from British oppression, what were we doing helping Britain out, fighting and dying on her behalf? The existence of these soldiers seemed to argue against this new thing called Ireland. And so, first of all, they were turned into traitors. Then, in a quite systematic way, they were forgotten.’ The boys listen palely, the lucent grass-green of the empty park shimmering around them. ‘It’s a good example of how history works,’ Howard says. ‘We tend to think of it as something solid and unchanging, appearing out of nowhere etched in stone like the Ten Commandments. But history, in the end, is only another kind of story, and stories are different from the truth. The truth is messy and chaotic and all over the place. Often it just doesn’t make sense. Stories make things make sense, but the way they do that is to leave out anything that doesn’t fit. And often that is quite a lot.

Bringing the horse to a stop, Lucetta leaned forward and looked down a well-maintained lane that led directly to what seemed to be some type of a gatehouse, but a gatehouse built to look exactly like a mausoleum, complete with stained-glass windows, stone sculptures on either side of it—not of the expected angels, but of . . . ravens. Turning to Abigail, Lucetta arched a brow. “Should we drive closer?” “I don’t think this could possibly be the lane leading to Bram’s castle,” Abigail said. “I mean, why would anyone build a mausoleum to mark the entrance to their home?” “I have numerous answers to that, but none I’m going to voice until we discover whether or not your grandson resides here. Which, I’m sorry to say, could be a distinct possibility, since the castle’s name is Ravenwood and there are two ravens guarding that building, and . . . if you look over the door, Ravenwood is etched into the stone.” “Oh . . . dear.” Abigail pulled a pair of spectacles out of her pocket, shoved them on, and then looked closely at the building in front of them before immediately pulling the spectacles off again and repocketing them, shuddering ever so slightly as she did so. “Would it be safe to say that your grandson possesses a slightly morbid nature?” Lucetta asked. “Of course not. Bram’s charming, and . . . the ladies find him to be completely delightful, from what I’ve been told—as I do believe I’ve mentioned to you a few times.” Before Lucetta could reply to that, the door to the mausoleum opened with an ominous creak. Abigail grabbed hold of Lucetta’s hand and squeezed it, the squeezing becoming more pronounced as a man stepped through the door—a man who just happened to be carrying a rifle.

If you were going to make a message last, how would you do it? Would you carve it into stone? Etch it into gold? Would you make your message so potent that people couldn’t resist passing it on? Would you build a religion around it, maybe get people’s souls involved? Would you, perhaps, establish a secret society? Or would you do what Gerritszoon did? SLIDE

I sit with the ponderosa pine, next to Big Stump. As the angle and quality of light vary through the day and through the seasons, the hue and luminance of the colors change, animated by the touch of the Sun. Before the volcanic flow, this redwood was seventy meters tall and more than seven hundred years old. Now it is fragmented stone column three meters tall and ten meters around. For such a long dead creature, the stump is an acoustically lively character. In the summer violet-green swallows wheel around the exposed trunk, chattering as they ambush insects. Mountain bluebirds gather on the stump to feed their squalling youngsters, to purr at mates, and to snap their bills at rivals. A hummingbird buzzes face first against the stump, investigating a streak of flower like orange in the rock. Fewer animal sounds enliven winter’s air. The wail of ponderosa needles dominates, interspersed with the kok-kok of passing ravens. Wind bends spent grass stems to the ground, as they move, their sharp tips etch curved lines on the snow’s surface, the scratch of a pen on rough paper. Snows falls in clumps from pine needles, a hiss, then a muffled blow.

We are flesh and blood, not words; we bend, we break, but our failings need not be etched in stone.

My hands read a Braille map hewn from bone, starting with my hollow breasts threaded with blue-vein rivers thick with ice. I count my ribs like rosary beads, muttering incantations, fingers curling under the bony cage. They can almost touch what’s hiding inside. My skin slopes down over the empty belly, then around the inside sharp curve of my hip bones, bowls carved out of stone and painted with fading pink razor scars. I twist in the glass. My vertebrae are wet marbles piled one on top of the other. My winged shoulder blades look ready to sprout feathers. I pick up the knife. The tendons on the back of my hand tense, ropes holding down a tent while the wind blows. Thin scars etch the inside of my wrist, widening to the ribbons in the crook of my elbow where I cut too deep in ninth grade. I win, I won.   I’m lost.     The music from my bedroom shrieks so loud against the mirror it’s making my ears ring. I stare at the ghost-girl on the other side, her corset bones waiting to be laced even tighter so she can fold in on herself over and over until she disappears past zero.

He slides his palm over the gentle strength of those rocks and remembers the faces from the photos tucked into boxes with those rocks, the stories penned with care on tear-splotched pages, arriving from around the country. He sees Liesl, the horror and hope of what she had been through etched in her face as she unwrapped that stone from her threadbare handkerchief. He sees Omaha beach. U-boats. Paris celebrating, bathed in light. He sees the frozen passes of Russia, winding river currents in Burma, jungles in the Philippines

Laughter, then, shows us the boundaries that language is too shy to make explicit. In this way, humor can be extremely useful for exploring the boundaries of the social world. The sparks of laughter illuminate what is otherwise murky and hard to pin down with precision: the threshold between safety and danger, between what’s appropriate and what’s transgressive, between who does and doesn’t deserve our empathy. In fact, what laughter illustrates is precisely the fact that our norms and other social boundaries aren’t etched in stone with black-and-white precision, but ebb and shift through shades of gray, depending on context. For this task, language just doesn’t cut it. It’s too precise, too quotable, too much “on the record”—all of which can be stifling and oppressive, especially when stated norms are too strict. In order to communicate in this kind of environment, we (clever primates) turn to a medium that gives us “wiggle room” to squirm out of an accusation, to defy any sticklers who would try to hold us accountable.

She hated religion as much as she loved its architecture. She detested the pomposity of its spiritual leaders, be they Muslim, Christian or Jews. Whenever she spoke to them, she was outraged by their confident certainty that they were right and all others were wrong, their self-righteousness, haughtiness and aggrandizement. The art and architecture of religion had been amongst mankind's finest achievements, but its inspiration had brought destruction to countless millions. Even the ancient artefacts she'd personally uncovered in the desert, monuments to humanity's earliest attempts to come to terms with spiritual explanations for natural phenomena, had been exquisite, but etched into their stone or marble were the blood and bones of those who believed differently.

This country was theirs for the taking, and in the span of a single lifetime true greatness could be achieved. They spent their days at Erasmus surrounded by traces of great men who had come before, images and names, legacies etched in stone.

The smell hit Josiri first. Death. Not the old death of the rooms above, but the iron tang of blood recently spilt. The rough stone floor was dark with it, and never more so than where glistening grooves led towards a large, open grate at the room’s far end. In the chamber’s centre sat a low stone altar, its worn flanks etched with effigies of carrion birds with glittering gems for eyes

Scorpion-men feature in Babylonian poetry etched on clay tablets, and they are popular images used in many situations, from palaces to homes, thrones to ceramics, and murals to stamp seals.

But you can’t work for a man you don’t trust. Etch that in stone.

Whenever we find functional information—whether embedded in a radio signal, carved in a stone monument, etched on a magnetic disc, or produced by an origin-of-life scientist attempting to engineer a self-replicating molecule—and we trace that information back to its ultimate source, invariably we come to a mind, not merely a material process. For this reason, the discovery of digital information in even the simplest living cells indicates the prior activity of a designing intelligence at work in the origin of the first life.

History is meant to be carved into stone, but the most magical of memories are those that exist only in your imagination. Time with erode away the etchings— but the heart never forgets.

My dear Marwan, in the long summers of childhood, when I was a boy the age you are now, your uncles and I spread our mattress on the roof of your grandfathers’ farmhouse outside of Hom. We woke in the mornings to the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, to the bleating of your grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots, the air cool and the sun a pale rim of persimmon to the east. We took you there when you were a toddler. I have a sharply etched memory of your mother from that trip. I wish you hadn’t been so young. You wouldn't have forgotten the farmhouse, the soot of its stone walls, the creek where your uncles and I built a thousand boyhood dams. I wish you remembered Homs as I do, Marwan. In its bustling Old City, a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbours, and a grand souk for us all to haggle over gold pendants and fresh produce and bridal dresses. I wish you remembered the crowded lanes smelling of fried kibbeh and the evening walks we took with your mother around Clock Tower Square. But that life, that time, seems like a dream now, even to me, like some long-dissolved rumour. First came the protests. Then the siege. The skies spitting bombs. Starvation. Burials. These are the things you know You know a bomb crater can be made into a swimming hole. You have learned dark blood is better news than bright. You have learned that mothers and sisters and classmates can be found in narrow gaps between concrete, bricks and exposed beams, little patches of sunlit skin shining in the dark. Your mother is here tonight, Marwan, with us, on this cold and moonlit beach, among the crying babies and the women worrying in tongues we don’t speak. Afghans and Somalis and Iraqis and Eritreans and Syrians. All of us impatient for sunrise, all of us in dread of it. All of us in search of home. I have heard it said we are the uninvited. We are the unwelcome. We should take our misfortune elsewhere. But I hear your mother's voice, over the tide, and she whispers in my ear, ‘Oh, but if they saw, my darling. Even half of what you have. If only they saw. They would say kinder things, surely.' In the glow of this three-quarter moon, my boy, your eyelashes like calligraphy, closed in guileless sleep. I said to you, ‘Hold my hand. Nothing bad will happen.' These are only words. A father's tricks. It slays your father, your faith in him. Because all I can think tonight is how deep the sea, and how powerless I am to protect you from it. Pray God steers the vessel true, when the shores slip out of eyeshot and we are in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting, easily swallowed. Because you, you are precious cargo, Marwan, the most precious there ever was. I pray the sea knows this. Inshallah. How I pray the sea knows this.

Jacques’ body tightened in anticipation. His black gaze didn’t miss one graceful sway, not one rhythmic movement of her shapely form. Shea waded into the pool slowly, allowed the bubbling water to lap at her body like a sensuous tongue. She moved out into the middle of the water and finally slipped under the surface like a sleek, gleaming otter. Jacques sat on the edge of a rock, his legs under the water, bubbles lapping around his hips. He watched her swim toward him, away, her body flashing in the water, breaking the surface, disappearing once again. Shea’s head emerged, her green eyes enormous as they moved over his body. He was utterly still, as if carved from the very stone itself. His muscles were etched and defined, and his body was ready and aggressive. A small smile touched the corners of her mouth. She swam toward him slowly. “So you think I want to please you.” “Definitely.” The word came out a low growl. He was finding it hard to breathe. She smiled at him, a sexy, provocative, very feminine promise. “You’re right, I do want to please you. But how do I know you haven’t done your hypnotic thing on me, and it’s all your idea, not mine?” He had to reach for his voice, and when he found it, it was gravel. “I would not mind hypnotizing you to do my bidding, but somehow I think you can please me without such help.” He was finding it difficult to think straight, his mind a cloud of erotic desire. Water lapped at his hips as she moved closer. Her breasts brushed his legs, sending ripples of fire through his bloodstream. She pushed against his knees so that he was forced to open them to accommodate her. Her chin nudged his lap. “I have to think of the best way I might please you. You have all sorts of interesting ideas running around in your head. I need to find the best one, don’t you think?

Mornings are endless, a sea of broken clocks. Everyone I love is lost to me. I haven't a clue whether half of them are dead or alive and its maddening, not knowing if their names are being called from across a crowded nightclub or etched in unrelenting stone.

And then the world resolved itself into pain and semi-darkness: he was half buried in the wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a terrible attack: cold air told him that the side of the castle had been blown away and hot stickiness on his cheek told him that he was bleeding copiously. Then he heard a terrible cry that pulled at his insides, that expressed agony of a kind neither flame nor curse could cause, and he stood up, swaying, more frightened than he had been that day, more frightened, perhaps, than he had been in his life... And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three red-headed men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood, 'No -no-no!' someone was shouting. 'No! Fred! No!' And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.

Nesta blinked at her hand. She had seen sparks. Her fingers were embedded in the stone, the rock glowing as if lit with an inner flame. Gasping, she snatched back her hand, and the stone went dark. But the fingerprints remained, four furrows buried in the top of the step, a single hole in the riser where her thumb had pressed. Icy dread sluiced through her. Sent her to her battered legs, knees groaning as she sprinted upward. Away from that handprint, forever etched in stone.

Bits of ice came free from the gray stones of the cottage, revealing the faded ward-markings etched around the threshold. My father had once convinced a passing charlatan to trade the engravings against faerie harm in exchange for one of his wood carvings.

Beneath the arc of stones and etched emblems, a small, round disk rose up slightly, its metal worn down by countless hands and paws and fins and any other manner of limb. A sign beside it read: Touch at your own risk. Do not use between sundown and sunrise. Violators will be fined.

I etch a pattern of geometric shapes onto a stone. To the uninitiated, the shapes look mysterious and complex, but I know that when arranged correctly they will give the stone a special power, enabling it to respond to incantations in a language no human being has ever spoken. ...Yet my work involves no witchcraft. The stone is a wafer of silicon, and the incantations are software. The patterns etched on the chip and the programs that instruct the computer may look complicated and mysterious, but they are generated according to a few basic principles that are easily explained.

Rhysand at last released my hand, only to lay his once more on the bare stone. It rippled beneath his palm, forming- a door. Like the gates above, it was of ivory- bone. And in its surface were etched countless images: flora and fauna, seas and clouds, stars and moons, infants and skeletons, creatures fair and foul-

While Under the Mountain had been a series of halls and rooms and levels, this... this was truly a city. The walkway that Mor led us down was an avenue, and around us, rising high into gloom, were buildings and spires, homes and bridges. A metropolis carved from the dark stone of the mountain itself, no inch of it left unmarked or without some lovely, hideous artwork etched into it. Figures danced and fornicated; begged and revelled. Pillars were carved to look like curving vines of night-blooming flowers. Water ran throughout in little streams and rivers tapped from the heart of the mountain itself. The Hewn City. A place of such terrible beauty that it was an effort to keep the wonder and dread off my face. ... Mor led me down the avenue toward another set of stone gates, thrown open at the base of what looked to be a castle within the mountain. The official seat of the High Lord of the Night Court. Great scaled black beasts were carved into those gates, all coiled together in a nest of claws and fangs, sleeping and fighting, some locked in an endless cycle of devouring each other. Between them flowed vines of jasmine and moonflowers. I could have sworn the beasts seemed to writhe in the silvery glow of the bobbing faelights throughout the mountain-city.

#1 with the wall fetish didn’t move to let her pass, and she was forced to stop directly before him. He stank. She couldn’t remember ever smelling something so vile. There was the feces and urine and body odor, but there was something else mixed with all this, a peaty rottenness she associated with bogs. She guessed he was anywhere between forty and sixty. He was mostly bald, with greasy tufts of white hair sprouting above his ears. He had the normal disfigurements (God, was she already beginning to think no nose or lips as “normal?”), and his albino-white skin was etched with burst capillaries and scabs and smeared with mud. He wore a torn Rolling Stones T-shirt and frayed track pants soiled in the groin and knees. The body beneath the clothes seemed lean and hard.

The camp offices stood in the centre, adjoining the shrine to Jupiter that held the legion’s Eagle. In the camps of the Vth Macedonica and the VIth Ferrata, these buildings were of grey stone, dressed by Gaulish masons to such smoothness that a man could run his hand down them and not feel the joins. The legions’ respective signs of the bull and the eagle had been carved thereon with such pride and perfection that men copied them on their shields and carved them on the bedheads in the barracks. At Raphana, the camp office of the XIIth Fulminata and IVth Scythians before which we dismounted was built of the local baked mud, and some drunkard with a poor eye for detail had etched the Scythians’ sign of the goat and the Fulminata’s crossed thunderbolts together, so that it seemed as if the goat were thunderstruck, or else that lightning grew from its anus. Both applied equally; each was unthinkable in a legion which had any pride in itself.

Are you facing giants today? Does your problem look too big? Do your dreams seem impossible? You need to get your staff out. Instead of going around discouraged, and thinking it’s never going to work out, start dwelling on your victories. Start thinking about how you killed the lion and bear in your own life. Start remembering how far God has brought you. Rehearse all the times He opened doors, gave you promotions, healed your family members, and put you in the right places with the right people. Don’t forget your victories. On a regular basis go back over your memorial stones, and read the victories etched on your staff. When those negative memories come up, they come to all of us--the things that didn’t work out, your hurts, your failures, and your disappointments. Many people mistakenly stay on that channel and they end up stuck in a negative rut and do not expect anything good. Remember, that’s not the only channel--get your remote control and switch over to the victory channel. Expect breakthroughs. Expect problems to turn around. Expect to rise to new levels. You haven’t seen your greatest victories. You haven’t accomplished your greatest dreams. There are new mountains to climb, new horizons to explore. Don’t let past disappointments steal your passion. Don’t let the way somebody treated you sour you on life. God is still in control. It may not have happened in the past, but it can happen in the future. Draw a line in the sand and say, “That’s it. I’m done with low expectations. I’m not settling for mediocrity. I expect favor, increase, and promotion. I expect blessings to chase me down. I expect this year to be my best so far.” If you raise your level of expectancy, God will take you places you’ve never dreamed. He’ll open doors no man can shut. He will help you overcome obstacles that looked insurmountable, and you will see His goodness in amazing ways.

He was polite; he was cool; he was enigmatic. He was every bit what they expected and wanted the storied Duke of Falconbridge to be, because it amused him to be so. In truth, his eyes were on the stairs. He waited with the patience of a cat near a mouse hole for Genevieve Eversea to arrive. He almost didn't recognize her when she did appear. Her dress was a glossy silk of midnight blue, cut very low, and the "sleeves"- really scraps of net- clung to her pale, flawless shoulders, as though she'd tumbled down through clouds to get here and brought a few sheds of sky with her. Her neck was long. Her collarbone had that smooth pristine temptation of a bank of new-fallen snow. It was interrupted only by a drop of a blue stone on a chain that pointed directly at quite confident cleavage, as if the owner knew full well it was splendid and was accustomed to exposing it. Her sleek dark hair was dressed up high and away from her face, and tiny diamanté sparks were scattered through it. Her face beneath it was revealed in delicate simplicity. A smooth, pale, high forehead, etched cheekbones. Elegant as Wedgwood, set off by that dark, dark hair and those vivid eyes. He stared. He wasn't precisely... nonplussed. Still, this particular vision of Genevieve Eversea required reconciling with the quiet girl in the morning dress, the moor pony with the determined gait. As though they were not quite the same thing, or were perhaps 'variations' of the same thing, like verb tenses. He felt a bit like a boy who needed to erase his morning lessons and begin again.

Peter’s expression “the Son of the living God,” had special significance in the area of Caesarea Philippi, which was host to worship of Baal, Pan, and Caesar. Jesus is the Son of the God who is living, unlike mythical gods etched in stone. The expression also references the relationship that has characterized Jesus and God throughout Matthew’s narrative.

Some things are not the product of a negotiation. The Ten Commandments was not a negotiated document. It’s certainly difficult to negotiate with the Lord when he presents you with a fait accompli etched in stone.

My parents had gone out, and Billy was babysitting. We stayed up late to watch Return to Oz. I wasn’t allowed to watch the movie, but I didn’t tell Billy, not that he’d asked whether shock treatments and a demonic Oz were appropriate for a four-year-old. From the entrance of the menacing score, I knew I was in for a sleepless night. When Billy put me to bed, I didn’t tell him to leave a light on, even though the shadows from the floodlights etched the monstrous shapes of the Nome King across my walls. I tossed and turned, and soon the floor began to vibrate. The trophies on my bookshelf rattled. The Nome King had overtaken my room, shifting the walls into stone gargoyles and goblins that wanted to eat me. I screamed. The room didn’t stop shaking. I screamed louder. By the time Billy opened the door, the bookshelves had stopped moving but the Nome King’s minions remained in the shadows across my walls.

It’s a good example of how history works,’ Howard says. ‘We tend to think of it as something solid and unchanging, appearing out of nowhere etched in stone like the Ten Commandments. But history, in the end, is only another kind of story, and stories are different from the truth. The truth is messy and chaotic and all over the place. Often it just doesn’t make sense. Stories make things make sense, but the way they do that