“
You know what? Lets go." I shot Aiden a defiant look. "Come on Seth. Let's go continue our lovers' quarrel."
"Yes my love, that sounds fantastic. Don't forget to grab a dagger so you can poke my eyeballs out.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Pure (Covenant, #2))
“
One thing I've learned about vampires--they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (Bloody Bones (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #5))
“
How dare you open a spaceman's helmet on an uncharted planet? My eyeballs could've been sucked from their sockets!
”
”
Cathy East Dubowski (Disney's Toy Story)
“
The first impressions with the ashram people
are these sparkling interior experiences. The eyeballs can be peepholes into the Milky Way and beyond. You may mumble under your breath that the ashram people could be on something.
”
”
Tom Hillman (Digging for God)
“
Didn't know you could measure distance so well with nothing but you bloody eyeballs
”
”
James Dashner (The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner, #2))
“
You flirt with everything." She could tell that her eyes were popping-- her eyeballs actually felt cold around the edges. "You flirt with old people and babies and everybody in between.
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl)
“
You have the skills,” Chaol said, “but some of your moves are still undisciplined.”
“That’s never stopped me from killing before,” she spat.
Chaol chuckled at her agitation and pointed his sword at the rack, allowing her to get to her feet.
“Pick another—something different. Make it interesting, too. Something that will make me sweat, please.”
“You’ll be sweating when I skin you alive and squish your eyeballs beneath my feet,” she muttered, picking up the rapier.
“That’s the spirit.”
She practically threw the rapier into place, and drew the hunting knives without hesitation.
My dear old friends.
A wicked smile spread across her face.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1))
“
Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.
”
”
Jonathan Edwards
“
. . . if you can't see the good man he is, you need to unscrew them eyeballs of yours and try on a different pair.
”
”
Karen Witemeyer (To Win Her Heart)
“
Logan?'
'Yes?' I pulled my clothes back on even though the fabric stuck to my wounds. So much for trying to keep them clean.
'How did you know it wasn’t really me?'
'Are you kidding? Your eyeballs could be on fire and you wouldn’t bat your lashes at me like that.
”
”
Alyxandra Harvey (Blood Feud (Drake Chronicles, #2))
“
I whipped around, eyeballing the guard breathing down my neck. "Seriously, dude, you need to back the hell up."
The guy was half a head shorter than me and nowhere in my league of extraordinary ass-kicking abilities...
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Origin (Lux, #4))
“
And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don'treally understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs.
”
”
John Elder Robison
“
Look, I was an idiot. I didn't want people to think that I had a crush, so I decided to give everyone the impression that I truly, honestly hated Madison Harter. For no reason. Just thinking about this makes me want to punch myself in the eyeball.
”
”
Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl)
“
I don’t know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, ‘Why don’t you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?’ And I always say, well, when you say that, you’ve also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that’s got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate…
”
”
David Attenborough
“
Remember, it’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eyeball, and then it’s, “Hey! free eyeball!” —T-SHIRT
”
”
Darynda Jones (Sixth Grave on the Edge (Charley Davidson, #6))
“
I’m really grateful to you for saving us, Maia, and Jace is too, even though he’s so stubborn that he’d rather jam a seraph blade through his eyeball than say so. And don’t you say you hope he does,” she added hastily, seeing the look on the other girl’s face, “because that’s really not helpful.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
“
Every male in the world thinks he's an excellent driver. Every copper who's ever had to pick an eyeball out of a puddle knows that most of them are kidding themselves.
”
”
Ben Aaronovitch (Moon Over Soho (Rivers of London, #2))
“
I have to force myself even to move my eyeballs. It's so easy just to stare.
”
”
Flora Rheta Schreiber (Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities)
“
Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.
”
”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature and Selected Essays (Penguin Classics))
“
How many loves do you get in a lifetime?
How many people do you get to call yours? There are all sorts of loves in this world, not all of them, but most of them are beautiful. Some are old, some noble, some brave. Others are dishonourable and weak and make you so by association. Some are a low whisper on a sombre night, some are maddening. Some you can’t ignore—they slow-burn inside of you, never quite going out completely but you’re too scared to dare try to fan that flame. Some loves you pretend you don’t feel, even when you can, even when you know you do, even if he’s the first thing you think of in the morning, even if he’s like a match in the darkened room of your heart—because loving something how you love him is a painful love that puts rocks in your pockets and melancholy in your eyeballs and if time has taught you anything it’s that it doesn’t matter. You’ll love him forever anyway.
”
”
Jessa Hastings (Magnolia Parks (Magnolia Parks Universe, #1))
“
I want to keep sleeping, but the sun outside my window has other ideas: First blind her. Then jab her eyeballs with scorching-hot daggers.
”
”
Natasha Friend (Lush)
“
Jestine and I lock eyes. She's going to look away first. Even if my eyeballs have to completely dry out.
”
”
Kendare Blake (Girl of Nightmares (Anna, #2))
“
I’m lucky I’m even alive,” she announced. “When I was little, I sucked on duck eyeballs.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #3))
“
Kaz heard Wylan retching. He tossed the eyeball overboard and jammed his spit-soaked handkerchief into the socket where Oomen's eye had been. Then he grabbed Oomen's jaw, his gloves leaving red smears on the enforcer's chin. His actions were smooth, precise, as if he were dealing cards at the Crow Club or picking an easy lock, but his rage felt hot and mad and unfamiliar. Something within him had torn loose.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part of God.
”
”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“
For you guys out there who think looking doesn’t hurt? You’re wrong. Because we women don’t think you’re just enjoying the view. We think you’re comparing, finding us lacking. And that stings. Like a paper cut on your eyeball.
”
”
Emma Chase (Twisted (Tangled, #2))
“
I'm a moldy moldy man
I'm moldy thru and thru
I'm a moldy moldy man
You would not think it true
I'm moldy til my eyeballs
I'm moldy til my toe
I will not dance I shyballs
I'm such a humble Joe.
”
”
John Lennon (In His Own Write)
“
I don't really understsand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs
”
”
John Elder Robison (Look Me in the Eye)
“
I was so furious I was actually dizzy with it. There were so many bitchy, sarcastic observations to make, I was having a sarcasm stroke. "My God! You people! You're - you're so stupid you're making my eyeballs throb. They're throbbing, dammit!
”
”
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unfinished (Undead, #9))
“
Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
”
”
Linus Torvalds
“
He stepped to her again, laid his lips on her brow. "But I want children with you, my lovely Eve. One day."
"One day being far, far in the future. Like, I don't know, say a decade when...Hold on. Children is plural."
He eased back, grinned. "Why, so it is--nothing slips by my canny cop."
"You really think if I ever actually let you plant something in me--they're like aliens in there, growing little hands and feet." She shuddered. "Creepy. If I ever did that, popped a kid out--which I think is probably as pleasant a process as having your eyeballs pierced by burning, poisonous sticks, I'd say, 'Whoopee, let's do this again?' Have you recently suffered head trauma?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Could be coming. Any second.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Survivor In Death (In Death, #20))
“
surprised his head doesn’t spin and his eyeballs don’t bug out. “Um.” His gaze bounces around the bathroom like a rubber ball. He looks at the towel rack, where his cargo pants are hanging. He looks at the bathtub, where I’m lounging like Cleo-fucking-patra. He looks at the bubbles surrounding my body like a fluffy white cloud. And then he looks at Winston. “Dude,” I blurt out. “It’s not what it looks like.” “Nope, nope, nope, I don’t want to know!
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Score (Off-Campus, #3))
“
I hoped he was right, but one thing I've learned about vampires-they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (Bloody Bones (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #5))
“
Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.
”
”
Kingsley Amis (Lucky Jim)
“
We can't make death fun, but we can make learning about it fun. Death is science and history, art and literature. It bridges every culture and unites the whole of humanity!
”
”
Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death)
“
How did you know it wasn't really me?"
"Are you kidding? Your eyeballs could be on fire and you wouldn't bat your lashes at me like that.
”
”
Alyxandra Harvey (Blood Feud (Drake Chronicles, #2))
“
What Hamlet suffers from is a lack of zombies. Let us say Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up—Ho-HO! Now you’ve got something that stirs the, um, something that stirs things that are stirrable. BOOM! A pack of ravenous flesh-eaters breaks open their heads and sucks out their eyeballs. No need for iambic pentameter because they are grunting, groaning annihilators of humanity with no time for meter. You’re not asleep in the back of English class anymore, are you? This is what I’m talking about. Zombies. Learn it, live it, love it.
”
”
Libba Bray
“
As my mom used to say,"If wishes were horses, we'd be up to our eyeballs in shit.
”
”
Cat Adams (The Eldritch Conspiracy (Blood Singer, #5))
“
Any messages for me?" Usually I got one or two, but mostly people who wanted my help preferred to talk in person.
"Yes. Hold on." She pulled out a handful of pink tickets and recited from memory, without checking the paper. "Seven forty-two a.m., Mr. Gasparian: I curse you. I curse your arms so they wither and die and fall off your body. I curse your eyeballs to explode. I curse your feet to swell until blue. I curse your spine to crack. I curse you. I curse you. I curse you.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Bleeds (Kate Daniels, #4))
“
Secure your eyeballs. Repeat. Secure your eyeballs.
”
”
Brynne Weaver (Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2))
“
Big Jim’s eyeball fell out. Like, fell the fuck out of his head. It rolled onto the grass, and to be honest, Big Jim and I were both taken aback.
”
”
Kira Jane Buxton (Hollow Kingdom (Hollow Kingdom #1))
“
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand
and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is
holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is
holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy
Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-
sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering
beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks
of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy
the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the
mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the
middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-
ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the
clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy
the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the
locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-
tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the
abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!
”
”
Allen Ginsberg (Howl and Other Poems)
“
Dale eyeballed the greasy, robust man and lambasted him before exiting the taxi. “You’re a foul greaseball lodged firmly within a shit-box that possesses a palpable odor amalgamation of permanent stains and gutter sludge. Go grease your slimy trail to your next regret before I pour salt on you, asshat.
”
”
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
“
I like the one where we melt everyone’s eyeballs on our way out the door,” Glory said. “With magical death spit,” Sunny said, then buried her head in Clay’s wings to hide her giggles as Glory glared at her. “Three
”
”
Tui T. Sutherland (The Lost Heir (Wings of Fire, #2))
“
It's never good to fall in love with someone whom you'd have to stab in the eyeballs to elicit a response.
”
”
Sloane Crosley (How Did You Get This Number: Essays)
“
Would you like a nice cold fish head? They're frozen solid: frozen head of fish, the eyeballs in there and the skeleton's coming out. It comes with a turnip and a spork." "I was wishing you had one of them left; wishing upon a star.
”
”
Brian Regan
“
On my license, it says I'm an organ donor, but the truth is I'd consider being an organ martyr. I'm sure I'm worth a lot more dead than alive - the sum of the parts equal more than the whole. I wonder who might wind up walking around with my liver, my lungs, even my eyeballs. I wonder what poor asshole would get stuck with whatever it is in me that passes for a heart.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
“
I'm leaking masculine pain from my eyeballs.
”
”
Talia Hibbert (Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters, #2))
“
Just one punch. In the eyeball. With a spoon.
”
”
Sara Wolf (Brutal Precious (Lovely Vicious, #3))
“
Why did Justice really always wear a blindfold? I knew now. It was because the cunning bitch had dollar signs for eyeballs
”
”
Iceberg Slim (Pimp: The Story of My Life)
“
Fireflies out on a warm summer's night, seeing the urgent, flashing, yellow-white phosphorescence below them, go crazy with desire; moths cast to the winds an enchantment potion that draws the opposite sex, wings beating hurriedly, from kilometers away; peacocks display a devastating corona of blue and green and the peahens are all aflutter; competing pollen grains extrude tiny tubes that race each other down the female flower's orifice to the waiting egg below; luminescent squid present rhapsodic light shows, altering the pattern, brightness and color radiated from their heads, tentacles, and eyeballs; a tapeworm diligently lays a hundred thousand fertilized eggs in a single day; a great whale rumbles through the ocean depths uttering plaintive cries that are understood hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, where another lonely behemoth is attentively listening; bacteria sidle up to one another and merge; cicadas chorus in a collective serenade of love; honeybee couples soar on matrimonial flights from which only one partner returns; male fish spray their spunk over a slimy clutch of eggs laid by God-knows-who; dogs, out cruising, sniff each other's nether parts, seeking erotic stimuli; flowers exude sultry perfumes and decorate their petals with garish ultraviolet advertisements for passing insects, birds, and bats; and men and women sing, dance, dress, adorn, paint, posture, self-mutilate, demand, coerce, dissemble, plead, succumb, and risk their lives.
To say that love makes the world go around is to go too far. The Earth spins because it did so as it was formed and there has been nothing to stop it since. But the nearly maniacal devotion to sex and love by most of the plants, animals, and microbes with which we are familiar is a pervasive and striking aspect of life on Earth. It cries out for explanation. What is all this in aid of? What is the torrent of passion and obsession about? Why will organisms go without sleep, without food, gladly put themselves in mortal danger for sex? ... For more than half the history of life on Earth organisms seem to have done perfectly well without it. What good is sex?... Through 4 billion years of natural selection, instructions have been honed and fine-tuned...sequences of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts, manuals written out in the alphabet of life in competition with other similar manuals published by other firms. The organisms become the means through which the instructions flow and copy themselves, by which new instructions are tried out, on which selection operates.
'The hen,' said Samuel Butler, 'is the egg's way of making another egg.' It is on this level that we must understand what sex is for. ... The sockeye salmon exhaust themselves swimming up the mighty Columbia River to spawn, heroically hurdling cataracts, in a single-minded effort that works to propagate their DNA sequences into future generation. The moment their work is done, they fall to pieces. Scales flake off, fins drop, and soon--often within hours of spawning--they are dead and becoming distinctly aromatic.
They've served their purpose.
Nature is unsentimental.
Death is built in.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: Earth Before Human)
“
But it all zipped by. One minute Marlena and I were up to our eyeballs, and the next thing we knew the kids were borrowing the car and fleeing the coop for college. And now, here I am. In my nineties and alone.
”
”
Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants)
“
It wasn't a romance; it was too perfect for that. With texts there were only the words and none of the awkwardness. They could get to know each other completely and get comfortable before they had to do anything unnecessarily overwhelming like look at each other's eyeballs with their eyeballs.
”
”
Mary H.K. Choi (Emergency Contact)
“
So I might have to marry Alec when I'm grown," Illia was prattling across to Seregil. "I hope that won't hurt your feelings too much."
Seregil slapped a hand over his heart like a troubadour in a mural. "Ah, fair maiden, I shall slay a thousand evil dragons for you, and lay their steaming black livers at your dainty feet, if only you will restore me to your favor."
"Livers!" Illia buried her face against Alec's shoulder with an outraged giggle.
"You wouldn't bring me livers, would you, Alec?"
"Of course not," Alec scoffed. "What a disgusting present. I'd bring you the eyeballs for a necklace, and all their scaly pointed tongues to tie your braids with.
”
”
Lynn Flewelling (Stalking Darkness (Nightrunner, #2))
“
The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
”
”
Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1))
“
They may not look dangerous, but if angered [bowtruckles] will gouge out human eyes with their fingers, which, as you can see, are very sharp and not at all desirable near the eyeballs.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
“
I threw up again that night, half-afraid that my eyeballs would explode. But it was, by far, more important that I get rid of dinner. Of course, by then, throwing up was the only way I knew how to deal with fear. That paradox would begin to run my life: to know that what you are doing is hurting you, maybe killing you, and to be afraid of that fact--but to cling to the idea that this will save you, it will, in the end, make things okay.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia)
“
I think it was the beginning of Mrs. Bond's unquestioning faith in me when she saw me quickly enveloping the cat till all you could see of him was a small black and white head protruding from an immovable cocoon of cloth. He and i were now facing each other, more or less eyeball to eyeball, and George couldn't do a thing about it. As i say, I rather pride myself on this little expertise, and even today my veterinary colleagues have been known to remark, "Old Herriot may be limited in many respects, but by God he can wrap a cat.
”
”
James Herriot (James Herriot's Cat Stories)
“
AM said it with the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball. AM
said it with the bubbling thickness of my lungs filling with phlegm, drowning me from within. AM said it with the shriek of babies being ground beneath blue-hot rollers. AM said it with the taste of maggoty pork. AM touched me in every way I had ever been touched, and devised new ways, at his leisure, there inside my mind.
”
”
Harlan Ellison (I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream)
“
If a beautiful sunflower is somehow supposed to be evidence of the Christian god, then what is a parasitic worm that eats children’s eyeballs evidence of?
”
”
Guy P. Harrison (50 Simple Questions for Every Christian)
“
Are you sure it’s not one of the ghosts you see eyeballing you? (Tate)
No. They’re never this subtle. They usually pop in, like ‘yo, she-bitch, do my bidding.’ This…this is something else. (Simone)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dream Chaser (Dark-Hunter, #13; Dream-Hunter, #3))
“
Your dad intimidates the hell out of me.”
I laughed. “Because he’s tall?”
“Tall,” he agreed, “and quiet. He has the commanding-presence thing down.”
“He just says a lot more with his eyes than with his mouth.”
“Unfortunately for me, I don’t speak Danish Eyeball.
”
”
Christina Lauren (Love and Other Words)
“
After a while, she whispered in his ear, “Sweetie, are you crying?” “No,” he said. “I’m leaking masculine pain from my eyeballs.
”
”
Talia Hibbert (Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters, #2))
“
Hey,” Watney said over the radio, “I've got an idea.”
“Of course you do,” Lewis said. “What do you got?”
“I could find something sharp in here and poke a hole in the glove of my EVA suit. I could use the escaping air as a thruster and fly my way to you. The source of thrust would be on my arm, so I'd be able to direct it pretty easily.”
“How does he come up with this shit?” Martinez interjected.
“Hmm,” Lewis said. “Could you get 42 meters per second that way?”
“No idea,” Watney said.
“I can't see you having any control if you did that,” Lewis said. “You'd be eyeballing the intercept and using a thrust vector you can barely control.”
“I admit it's fatally dangerous,” Watney said. “But consider this: I'd get to fly around like Iron Man.”
“We'll keep working on ideas,” Lewis said.
“Iron Man, Commander. Iron Man.
”
”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
“
A middle-aged woman lay on the floor in a circle of blood and guts. Her face had been shredded with claws, leaving one eyeball hanging out of the ruins of the socket. The other was gone. Her dress had been shredded, exposing gouged, bloody pendulous breasts. Her stomach had been ripped open by claws, and her guts spread around the room. Her throat was torn out, and a spray of blood lay all around her.
”
”
John Patrick Kennedy (Princess Dracula (Princess Dracula #1))
“
I thought I told you to stop doing that," he snapped.
A thin-lipped mouth opened; the jutting chin and nose knocked together indignantly. "Do what?"
"Taking on such a hideous appearance. I've just had my breakfast."
A section of brow lifted, allowing an eyeball to roll forward with a squelching sound.The face looked
unapologetic."Sorry, mate," it said. "It's just my job."
"Your job is to destroy anyone entering my study without authority. No more, no less."
The door guard considered. "True. But I seek to preempt entry by scaring trespassers away. To my way
of thinking, deterrence is more aesthetically satisfying than punishment."
Mr. Mandrake snorted. "Trespassers apart, you'll likely frighten Ms. Piper here to death."
The face shook from side to side, a process that caused the nose to wobble alarmingly. "Not so. When
she comes alone, I moderate my features. I reserve the full horror for those I consider morally vicious."
"But you just looked that way to me!"
"The contradiction being...?
”
”
Jonathan Stroud (Ptolemy's Gate (Bartimaeus, #3))
“
But you know if God should stamp eternity or even judgment on our eyeballs, or if you’d like on the fleshy table of our hearts I am quite convinced we’d be a very, very different tribe of people, God’s people, in the world today. We live too much in time, we’re too earth bound. We see as other men see, we think as other men think. We invest our time as the world invests it. We're supposed to be a different breed of people. I believe that the church of Jesus Christ needs a new revelation of the majesty of God. We’re all going to stand one day, can you imagine it- at the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for the deeds done in the body. This is what- this is the King of kings, and He’s the Judge of judges, and it’s the Tribunal of tribunals, and there’s no court of appeal after it. The verdict is final.
”
”
Leonard Ravenhill
“
I'm not really putting this very well. My point is this: This book contains precisely zero Important Life Lessons, or Little-Known Facts About Love, or sappy tear-jerking Moments When We Knew We Had Left Our Childhood Behind for Good, or whatever. And, unlike most books in which a girl gets cancer, there are definitely no sugary paradoxical single-sentence-paragraphs that you're supposed to think are deep because they're in italics. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about sentences like this:
The cancer had taken her eyeballs, yet she saw the world with more clarity than ever before.
Barf. Forget it. For me personally, things are in no way more meaningful because I got to know Rachel before she died. If anything, things are less meaningful. All right?
”
”
Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl)
“
Well, they never know they're ill, do they? You can't diagnose yourself with the same organ that has the disease, just like you can't see your own eyeball. So, I suppose you just feel normal and the rest of the world seems to go crazy around you.
”
”
David Wong (John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1))
“
He won’t be diving straight for the human flesh. But a cat has got to eat, and you are the person who feeds him. This is the cat-human compact. Death doesn’t free you from performing your contractual obligations.
”
”
Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies)
“
Megan placed the eye loupe over the toile. Hoping to decipher the texture and composition she moved the loupe ever so meticulously. “This is so detailed.” A blue green eyeball suddenly stared back at her and blinked. Megan gasped.
”
”
Mary K. Savarese (The Girl In The Toile Wallpaper (The Star Writers Trilogy, #1))
“
Because it's all relative. You're pinned down in some filthy hellhole of a paddy, getting your ass delivered to kingdom come, but then for a few seconds everything goes quiet and you look up and see the sun and a few puffy white clouds, and the immense serenity flashes against your eyeballs - the whole world gets rearranged - and even though you're pinned down by a war you've never felt more at peace.
”
”
Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried)
“
You don’t need to be strong to drive your thumbs into a man’s eyeballs,” Katsa said, “but it does a lot of damage.”
“That’s disgusting,” Bitterblue said.
“Someone your size doesn't have the luxury of fighting cleanly, Bitterblue.
”
”
Kristin Cashore (Graceling (Graceling Realm, #1))
“
In the eyeball there is a clash between creation and reflection. The two-way globes of sight are magical revolving doors where the creative spirit meets itself in the created spirit. The eye that surveys the universe is the universe's own eye.
”
”
Jostein Gaarder (Maya)
“
Grandma Mazur stood two feet back from my mother. "I gotta get me a pair if those," she said, eyeballing my shorts. "I've still got pretty good legs, you know." She raised her skirt and looked down at her knees. "What do you think? You think I'd look good in them biker things?"
Grandma Mazur had knees like doorknobs.
”
”
Janet Evanovich (One for the Money (Stephanie Plum, #1))
“
Hey! All you peoples draggin along here. Stop and come stick your ass on a Night of Joy stool," he started again. "Night of Joy got genuine color peoples workin below the minimal wage. Whoa! Guarantee plantation atmosphere, got cotton growin right on the stage right in front your eyeball, got a civil right worker gettin his ass beat up between show. Hey!
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces (Evergreen Book))
“
I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyeballs water.
”
”
Harlan Ellison
“
When you consider all the writers who never even had a machine. Who would have given an eyeball for a good typewriter. Any typewriter. All the ones who wrote on a matchbook covers. Paper bags. Toilet paper. Who had their writing destroyed by their jailers. Who persisted beyond all odds.
”
”
Sam Shepard (True West)
“
The grass whispered under his body. He put his arm down, feeling the sheath of fuzz on it, and, far away, below, his toes creaking in his shoes. The wind sighed over his shelled ears. The world slipped bright over the glassy round of his eyeballs like images sparked in a crystal sphere. Flowers were sun and fiery spots of sky strewn through the woodland. Birds flickered like skipped stones across the vast inverted pond of heaven. His breath raked over his teeth, going in ice, coming out fire. Insects shocked the air with electric clearness. Ten thousand individual hairs grew a millionth of an inch on his head. He heard the twin hearts beating in each ear, the third heart beating in his throat, the two hearts throbbing his wrists, the real heart pounding his chest. The million pores on his body opened.
I'm really alive! he thought. I never knew it before, or if I did I don't remember!
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine)
“
Usually when I looked at people too long I started seeing them as component parts: Bony noses. Eyeballs in sockets. Odd cartilage curve of ears and fingers so strange and overevolved and makeup floating just over the skin and what the hell was with pants, and knees, and how did we walk around like all of this was normal?
”
”
Melissa Albert (The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood, #1))
“
Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.
It? I ast.
Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It.
But what do it look like? I ast.
Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose. She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate
at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.
Shug! I say.
Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going, and praise God by liking what you like.
God don't think it dirty? I ast.
Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love? and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing. Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr. ____s evil sort of shrink. But not altogether. Still, it is like Shug say, You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a'tall.
Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.
Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind,water, a big rock.
But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.
Amen
”
”
Alice Walker (The Color Purple)
“
The thing that struck me was his intensity. Whatever he was interested in he would generally carry to an irrational extreme." Jobs had honed his trick of using stares and silences to master other people. " One of his numbers was to stare at the person he was talking to. He would stare into their fucking eyeballs, ask some question, and would want a response without the other person averting their eyes.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
To be fair, death is hard! We love someone and then they die. It feels unfair. Sometimes death can be violent, sudden, and unbearably sad. But it’s also reality, and reality doesn’t change just because you don’t like it.
”
”
Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies)
“
But you can always justify killing animals on the grounds that you want to eat them, or wear them, or that they smell bad, look funny, bother you, threaten you, and have the bad luck of being in your way. What about killing humans? Well aside from a few die-hard individualists on the fringe, the general consensus among people these days seems to be that eating and wearing other people is just not on. Wearing a suit which costs as much as a farmer will make in his lifetime is acceptable, but actually putting his eyeballs on a string and letting them dangle above tastefully exposed cleavage is bad form.
”
”
Mohsin Hamid (Moth Smoke)
“
That's why all the questions in this book come from 100 percent ethically sourced, free-range, organic children.
”
”
Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies)
“
Lies I've told my 3 year old recently
Trees talk to each other at night.
All fish are named either Lorna or Jack.
Before your eyeballs fall out from watching too much TV, they get very loose.
Tiny bears live in drain pipes.
If you are very very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.
The moon and the sun had a fight a long time ago.
Everyone knows at least one secret language.
When nobody is looking, I can fly.
We are all held together by invisible threads.
Books get lonely too.
Sadness can be eaten.
I will always be there.
”
”
Raúl Gutierrez
“
Oh ye! Who have your eye-balls vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the sea
”
”
John Keats (Complete Poems and Selected Letters)
“
I’m completely library educated. I’ve never been to college. I went down to the library when I was in grade school in Waukegan, and in high school in Los Angeles, and spent long days every summer in the library. I used to steal magazines from a store on Genesee Street, in Waukegan, and read them and then steal them back on the racks again. That way I took the print off with my eyeballs and stayed honest. I didn’t want to be a permanent thief, and I was very careful to wash my hands before I read them. But with the library, it’s like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there’s so much to look at and read. And it’s far more fun than going to school, simply because you make up your own list and you don’t have to listen to anyone. When I would see some of the books my kids were forced to bring home and read by some of their teachers, and were graded on—well, what if you don’t like those books?
”
”
Ray Bradbury
“
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!
”
”
Allen Ginsberg (Collected Poems 1947-1997)
“
You'll be found, your nickels, dimes and Indian-heads fused by electroplating. Abe Lincolns melted into Miss Columbias, eagles plucked raw on the backs of quarters, all run to quicksilver in your jeans. More! Any boy hit by lightning, lift his lid and there on his eyeball, pretty as the Lord's Prayer on a pin, find the last scene the boy ever saw! A box-Brownie photo, by God, of that fire climbing down the sky to blow you like a penny whistle, suck your soul back up along the bright stair!
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes)
“
Here’s the deal: It’s normal to be curious about death. But as people grow up, they internalize this idea that wondering about death is “morbid” or “weird.” They grow scared, and criticize other people’s interest in the topic to keep from having to confront death themselves.
”
”
Caitlin Doughty (Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies)
“
I know why she stormed out of here."
Decebel's and Jacque's heads both whipped around. "You do?" they both asked at the same time.
Fane raised an eyebrow at Sally's words.
Sally in turn eyeballed Decebel. "Jen never really learned how to use an inside voice. So, Decebel, why don't you share how she asked you if you were involved with Crina, and how you never really gave her an answer but instead taunted her, and then nearly made her hyperventilate with desire."
Decebel's head cocked to the side, his eyebrows drawn together. "How -"
"I would say it's a gift, but really I'm just nosy as hell. And damn, boy, the look you were giving her nearly had me in a puddle."
"Shut up!" Jacque squealed. "Are you telling me Jen stormed out of here because he got her all hot and bothered?"
Sally was grinning from ear to ear. Decebel looked like he would be perfectly happy if the universe would just swallow him whole.
"She was angry when she left," Decebel defended. "She left because she was mad."
"Yeah, mad because she's got it bad for you, Sherlock," Sally told him, rolling her eyes.
"Really? She likes me?"
Jacque laughed at Decebel's cocky smile.
"Um, if you aren't her mate that's not a good thing, Casanova," Jacque reminded him.
Sally nodded in agreement, scrutinizing Decebel. "Let's just hope that she finds her mate at Mate Fest so she can get over you."
Decebel took a step towards Sally. Fane stepped around Jacque and laid a hand on Decebel's chest, stopping him. "Easy, Beta."
Decebel closed his eyes taking slow breaths, leashing his wolf. Then Sally's words worked past the jealous fog. "Mate Fest?" he questioned.
Sally grinned. "Jen deemed it."
"Naturally," Decebel muttered with a slight smile.
”
”
Quinn Loftis (Just One Drop (The Grey Wolves, #3))
“
THE SUN WAS DOWN which made it night time, but Harry and Tyrone were bugged with all the lights that stabbed and slashed and skewered their eyeballs. They hung tough behind their shades. Daytime is a drag, when the sun is shining, the sunlight bouncing off windows and cars and buildings and the sidewalk and the goddamn glare pushing on your eyeballs like two big thumbs and you look forward to the night when you can get some relief from the assaults of the day and start to come alive as the moon rises, but you never get the complete relief you look forward to, that you anticipate.
”
”
Hubert Selby Jr. (Requiem for a Dream)
“
Indeed ... but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw
it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind-burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.
But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right ... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica ... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge ... The Edge ... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others -- the living -- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Hell's Angels)
“
I'm keeping a list of Mr. Wrongs going for you. This one might not make it to the weekend's auction."
"Stop," said another woman.
"I'm just kidding."
"I still vote we strip him down." This was a third woman.
Wait. Three women? Had he died and gone to orgy heaven? Awake now, Ty took stock. He wasn't dead. And he had no idea who the fuck Mr. Wrong was, but he was very much "going to make it." He was stuffed in the back of a car, a small car, his bad leg cramping like a son-of-a-bitch. His head was pillowed on...he shifted to try to figure it out, and pain lanced straight through his eyeballs. He licked dry lips and tried to focus. "I'm okay."
"Good," one of them repeated with humor. "He's fine, he's okay. He's also bleeding like a stuck pig. Men are ridiculous."
-Ty and the Chocoholics ladies
”
”
Jill Shalvis (Lucky in Love (Lucky Harbor, #4))
“
INTERVIEWER
You’re self-educated, aren’t you?
BRADBURY
Yes, I am. I’m completely library educated. I’ve never been to college. I went down to the library when I was in grade school in Waukegan, and in high school in Los Angeles, and spent long days every summer in the library. I used to steal magazines from a store on Genesee Street, in Waukegan, and read them and then steal them back on the racks again. That way I took the print off with my eyeballs and stayed honest. I didn’t want to be a permanent thief, and I was very careful to wash my hands before I read them. But with the library, it’s like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there’s so much to look at and read. And it’s far more fun than going to school, simply because you make up your own list and you don’t have to listen to anyone. When I would see some of the books my kids were forced to bring home and read by some of their teachers, and were graded on—well, what if you don’t like those books?
I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy. The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt. When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week. I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school.
”
”
Ray Bradbury
“
It's a physical sickness. Etienne. How much I love him.
I love Etienne.
I love it when he cocks an eyebrow whenever I say something he finds clever or amusing. I love listening to his boots clomp across my bedroom ceiling. I love that the accent over his first name is called an acute accent, and that he has a cute accent.
I love that.
I love sitting beside him in physics. Brushing against him during lands. His messy handwriting on our worksheets. I love handing him his backpack when class is over,because then my fingers smell like him for the next ten minutes. And when Amanda says something lame, and he seeks me out to exchange an eye roll-I love that,too. I love his boyish laugh and his wrinkled shirts and his ridiculous knitted hat. I love his large brown eyes,and the way he bites his nails,and I love his hair so much I could die.
There's only one thing I don't love about him. Her.
If I didn't like Ellie before,it's nothing compared to how I feel now. It doesn't matter that I can count how many times we've met on one hand. It's that first image, that's what I can't shake. Under the streeplamp. Her fingers in his hair. Anytime I'm alone, my mind wanders back to that night. I take it further. She touches his chest. I take it further.His bedroom.He slips off her dress,their lips lock, their bodies press,and-oh my God-my temperature rises,and my stomach is sick.
I fantasize about their breakup. How he could hurt her,and she could hurt him,and of all the ways I could hurt her back. I want to grab her Parisian-styled hair and yank it so hard it rips from her skull. I want to sink my claws into her eyeballs and scrape.
It turns out I am not a nice person.
Etienne and I rarely discussed her before, but she's completely taboo now. Which tortures me, because since we've gotten back from winter break, they seem to be having problems again. Like an obsessed stalker,I tally the evenings he spend with me versus the evening he spends with her. I'm winning.
”
”
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
“
Gray and Drew sitting side by side, with their muscled physiques taking up a good portion of the booth, look like a comic book come to life.
They catch me staring and both say, “What?” at the same time.
Smiling, I shake my head. “Nothing. I just had this image of Thor and Captain America having a beer.”
They both color at the same time. Which is kind of cute.
“Ha!” cries Anna at my side. Her cheeks plump with a wide grin. “I had that Captain America thought about Drew too.”
Drew perks up. “You did, huh?”
Gray snorts. “Dude, I’ve just been compared to Thor. I totally win.”
“What the hell does Thor have? A little hammer?” Drew waves a hand as if to say, please.
But Gray smirks. “At least he isn’t hiding behind a wussy shield. Thor is a god. Enough said.”
“A boring god with the personality of a post,” Drew volleys.
“And you’re saying Captain America isn’t boring? Dude. He doesn’t even understand modern culture. He’s like a 1940s Boy Scout.”
Drew and Gray eyeball each other for a second. Then Drew relents with a laugh. “Touché.
”
”
Kristen Callihan (The Friend Zone (Game On, #2))
“
The Everlasting Staircase"
Jeffrey McDaniel
When the call came, saying twenty-four hours to live,
my first thought was: can't she postpone her exit
from this planet for a week? I've got places to do,
people to be. Then grief hit between the ribs,
said disappear or reappear more fully. so I boarded
a red eyeball and shot across America,
hoping the nurses had enough quarters to keep
the jukebox of Grandma's heart playing. She grew up
poor in Appalachia. And while world war II
functioned like Prozac for the Great Depression,
she believed poverty was a double feature,
that the comfort of her adult years was merely
an intermission, that hunger would hobble back,
hurl its prosthetic leg through her window,
so she clipped, clipped, clipped -- became the Jacques
Cousteau of the bargain bin, her wetsuit
stuffed with coupons. And now --pupils fixed, chin
dangling like the boots of a hanged man --
I press my ear to her lampshade-thin chest
and listen to that little soldier march toward whatever
plateau, or simply exhaust his arsenal of beats.
I hate when people ask if she even knew I was there.
The point is I knew, holding the one-sided
conversation of her hand. Once I believed the heart
was like a bar of soap -- the more you use it,
the smaller it gets; care too much and it'll snap off
in your grasp. But when Grandma's last breath
waltzed from that room, my heart opened
wide like a parachute, and I realized she didn't die.
She simply found a silence she could call her own.
”
”
Jeffrey McDaniel
“
I’m completely library educated. I’ve never been to college. I went down to the library when I was in grade school in Waukegan, and in high school in Los Angeles, and spent long days every summer in the library. I used to steal magazines from a store on Genesee Street, in Waukegan, and read them and then steal them back on the racks again. That way I took the print off with my eyeballs and stayed honest. I didn’t want to be a permanent thief, and I was very careful to wash my hands before I read them. But with the library, it’s like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there’s so much to look at and read. And it’s far more fun than going to school, simply because you make up your own list and you don’t have to listen to anyone. When I would see some of the books my kids were forced to bring home and read by some of their teachers, and were graded on—well, what if you don’t like those books?
I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy. The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt. When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week. I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school.
”
”
Ray Bradbury