Famous Beast Quotes

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She was born under the sign of Gemini. And that stands for the good and evil twin. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both hiding and residing inside her heart. Her good twin was not bad at all. But her evil twin was even better, and showed up to be way too fatal!
Ana Claudia Antunes (Mysterious Murder of Marilyn Monroe)
In the naivete of their youth, they believed Fate to be a kind mistress. None of them were prepared for the beast that was about to pick them up by the throats and shake them until their teeth rattled.
Melodie Ramone (Burning Down Rome)
The famous field altar came from the Jewish firm of Moritz Mahler in Vienna, which manufactured all kinds of accessories for mass as well as religious objects like rosaries and images of saints. The altar was made up of three parts, lberally provided with sham gilt like the whole glory of the Holy Church. It was not possible without considerable ingenuity to detect what the pictures painted on these three parts actually represented. What was certain was that it was an altar which could have been used equally well by heathens in Zambesi or by the Shamans of the Buriats and Mongols. Painted in screaming colors it appeared from a distance like a coloured chart intended for colour-blind railway workers. One figure stood out prominently - a naked man with a halo and a body which was turning green, like the parson's nose of a goose which has begun to rot and is already stinking. No one was doing anything to this saint. On the contrary, he had on both sides of him two winged creatures which were supposed to represent angels. But anyone looking at them had the impression that this holy naked man was shrieking with horror at the company around him, for the angels looked like fairy-tale monsters and were a cross between a winged wild cat and the beast of the apocalypse. Opposite this was a picture which was meant to represent the Holy Trinity. By and large the painter had been unable to ruin the dove. He had painted a kind of bird which could equally well have been a pigeon or a White Wyandotte. God the Father looked like a bandit from the Wild West served up to the public in an American film thriller. The Son of God on the other hand was a gay young man with a handsome stomach draped in something like bathing drawers. Altogether he looked a sporting type. The cross which he had in his hand he held as elegantly as if it had been a tennis racquet. Seen from afar however all these details ran into each other and gave the impression of a train going into a station.
Jaroslav Hašek (The Good Soldier Švejk)
Everything you write henceforth under your name has to be done in honesty and good faith. That’s what it means to have a good name—not who your family is or how rich or famous you are.
Juhea Kim (Beasts of a Little Land)
Rosabella Beauty was the daughter of the famous Beauty, a girl whose love had turned the Beast back into a prince. Darling Charming was the daughter of the renowned King Charming, whose royal storyline stretched back to the very beginning of stories. The Charming men had always been known for their heroic deeds, luxurious hair, and enchanting eyes. Darling's two brothers were expected to follow in King Charming's heroic footsteps by saving damsels, slaying dragons, and basically conquering whatever evil stepped into their paths. Darling, however, was not a son. She was a daughter. And being a daughter was a different matter altogether. No heroic deeds were expected of her. No quests or adventures. While the activities of the Charming princes had always been celebrated by poets and storytellers, the Charming princesses had a singular destiny- to be damsels in distress waiting for rescue.
Suzanne Selfors (A Semi-Charming Kind of Life (Ever After High: A School Story, #3))
Horklump M.O.M. Classification: X The Horklump comes from Scandinavia but is now widespread throughout northern Europe. It resembles a fleshy, pinkish mushroom covered in sparse, wiry black bristles. A prodigious breeder, the Horklump will cover an average garden in a matter of days. It spreads sinewy tentacles rather than roots into the ground to search for its preferred food of earthworms. The Horklump is a favourite delicacy of gnomes but otherwise has no discernible use. Horned Serpent M.O.M. Classification: XXXXX Several species of Horned Serpents exist globally: large specimens have been caught in the Far East, while ancient bestiaries suggest that they were once native to Western Europe, where they have been hunted to extinction by wizards in search of potion ingredients. The largest and most diverse group of Horned Serpents still in existence is to be found in North America, of which the most famous and highly prized has a jewel in its forehead, which is reputed to give the power of invisibility and flight. A legend exists concerning the founder of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Isolt Sayre, and a Horned Serpent. Sayre was reputed to be able to understand the serpent, which offered her shavings from its horn as the core of the first ever American-made wand. The Horned Serpent gives its name to one of the houses of Ilvermorny.
Newt Scamander (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)
When it came to "getting away from it all," there really weren’t many places quite like the top of the tallest mountain in the world. He glanced around the summit, noting the other reason why he enjoyed coming up here. It was tradition for every expedition to the top of Everest to leave something behind—a small token or marker indicating their successful climb to the famous peak. Each one was different and each one seemed to reflect the personality of the party it represented: small flags and banners with the hand-written names of climbers past, a used oxygen canister, a spare glove, even a small metal lunchbox with (Clark noted with a small smile) a picture of Superman on the cover. To Clark, each of these markers indicated the pinnacle of human achievement, the fulfilled promise of the best the human race had to offer. And today, it represented something else as well: man’s ability to conquer the harsh reality of nature… a point in stark contrast to the previous night’s activities. This set were Sherpa prayer flags, each displaying a symbol, not of a distant god or mythological beast, but denoting some aspect of the enlightened human mind: compassion, perfect action, fearlessness. His thoughts turned to another example of the peak of human achievement, of what one man with drive, desire and dedication could accomplish without the benefit of superpowers or metagene enhancement. One that held a much more personal meaning to Clark. Bruce.
Chris Dee (World's Finest: Red Cape, Big City)
So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.... He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Many men of honourable rank were first disfigured with the marks of branding-irons and then condemned to the mines, to work at building roads, or to be thrown to the wild beasts; or else he shut them up in cages on all fours, like animals, or had them sawn asunder. Not all these punishments were for serious offences, but merely for criticising one of his shows, or for never having sworn by his genius. Having asked a man who had been recalled from an exile of long standing, how in the world he spent his time there, the man replied by way of flattery: "I constantly prayed the gods for what has come to pass, that Tiberius might die and you become emperor." Thereupon Caligula, thinking that his exiles were likewise praying for his death, sent emissaries from island to island to butcher them all. Wishing to have one of the senators torn to pieces, he induced some of the members to assail him suddenly, on his entrance into the House, with the charge of being a public enemy, to stab him with their styles, and turn him over to the rest to be mangled; and his cruelty was not sated until he saw the man's limbs, members, and bowels dragged through the streets and heaped up before him. He used to say that there was nothing in his own character which he admired and approved more highly than what he called his ἀδιατρεψία, that is to say, his shameless impudence. He seldom had anyone put to death except by numerous slight wounds, his constant order, which soon became well-known, being: "Strike so that he may feel that he is dying." When a different man than he had intended had been killed, through a mistake in the names, he said that the victim too had deserved the same fate. He even used openly to deplore the state of his times, because they had been marked by no public disasters, saying that the rule of Augustus had been made famous by the Varus massacre, and that of Tiberius by the collapse of the amphitheatre at Fidenae,​ while his own was threatened with oblivion because of its prosperity; and every now and then he wished for the destruction of his armies, for famine, pestilence, fires, or a great earthquake. While he was lunching or revelling capital examinations by torture were often made in his presence, and a soldier who was adept at decapitation cut off the heads of those who were brought from prison. At a public banquet in Rome he immediately handed a slave over to the executioners for stealing a strip of silver from the couches, with orders that his hands be cut off and hung from his neck upon his breast, and that he then be led about among the guests.
Suetonius (The Twelve Caesars)
One can take the ape out of the jungle, but not the jungle out of the ape. This also applies to us, bipedal apes. Ever since our ancestors swung from tree to tree, life in small groups has been an obsession of ours. We can’t get enough of politicians thumping their chests on television, soap opera stars who swing from tryst to tryst, and reality shows about who’s in and who’s out. It would be easy to make fun of all this primate behavior if not for the fact that our fellow simians take the pursuit of power and sex just as seriously as we do. We share more with them than power and sex, though. Fellow-feeling and empathy are equally important, but they’re rarely mentioned as part of our biological heritage. We would much rather blame nature for what we don’t like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like. As Katharine Hepburn famously put it in The African Queen, ”Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” This opinion is still very much with us. Of the millions of pages written over the centuries about human nature, none are as bleak as those of the last three decades, and none as wrong. We hear that we have selfish genes, that human goodness is a sham, and that we act morally only to impress others. But if all that people care about is their own good, why does a day-old baby cry when it hears another baby cry? This is how empathy starts. Not very sophisticated perhaps, but we can be sure that a newborn doesn’t try to impress. We are born with impulses that draw us to others and that later in life make us care about them. The possibility that empathy is part of our primate heritage ought to make us happy, but we’re not in the habit of embracing our nature. When people commit genocide, we call them ”animals”. But when they give to the poor, we praise them for being ”humane”. We like to claim the latter behavior for ourselves. It wasn’t until an ape saved a member of our own species that there was a public awakening to the possibility of nonhuman humaneness. This happened on August 16, 1996, when an eight-year-old female gorilla named Binti Jua helped a three-year-old boy who had fallen eighteen feet into the primate exhibit at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo. Reacting immediately, Binti scooped up the boy and carried him to safety. She sat down on a log in a stream, cradling the boy in her lap, giving him a few gentle back pats before taking him to the waiting zoo staff. This simple act of sympathy, captured on video and shown around the world, touched many hearts, and Binti was hailed as a heroine. It was the first time in U.S. history that an ape figured in the speeches of leading politicians, who held her up as a model of compassion. That Binti’s behavior caused such surprise among humans says a lot about the way animals are depicted in the media. She really did nothing unusual, or at least nothing an ape wouldn’t do for any juvenile of her own species. While recent nature documentaries focus on ferocious beasts (or the macho men who wrestle them to the ground), I think it’s vital to convey the true breadth and depth of our connection with nature. This book explores the fascinating and frightening parallels between primate behavior and our own, with equal regard for the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Frans de Waal (Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are)
Irma Grese & Other Infamous SS Female Guards World War 2: A Brief History of the European Theatre World War 2 Pacific Theatre: A Brief History of the Pacific Theatre World War 2 Nazi Germany: The Secrets of Nazi Germany in World War II The Third Reich: The Rise & Fall of Hitler’s Germany in World War 2 World War 2 Soldier Stories: The Untold Stories of the Soldiers on the Battlefields of WWII World War 2 Soldier Stories Part II: More Untold Tales of the Soldiers on the Battlefields of WWII Surviving the Holocaust: The Tales of Survivors and Victims World War 2 Heroes: Medal of Honor Recipients in WWII & Their Heroic Stories of Bravery World War 2 Heroes: WWII UK’s SAS hero Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne World War 2 Heroes: Jean Moulin & the French Resistance Forces World War 2 Snipers: WWII Famous Snipers & Sniper Battles Revealed World War 2 Spies & Espionage: The Secret Missions of Spies & Espionage in WWII   World War 2 Air Battles: The Famous Air Combat that Defined WWII World War 2 Tank Battles: The Famous Tank Battles that Defined WWII World War 2 Famous Battles: D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy World War 2 Submarine Stores: True Stories from the Underwater Battlegrounds The Holocaust Saviors: True Stories of Rescuers who risked all to Save Holocaust Refugees Irma Grese & The Holocaust: The Secrets of the Blonde Beast of Auschwitz Exposed Auschwitz & the Holocaust: Eyewitness Accounts from Auschwitz Prisoners & Survivors World War 2 Sailor Stories: Tales from Our Warriors at Sea World War 2 Soldier Stories Part III: The Untold Stories of German Soldiers World War 2 Navy SEALs: True Stories from the First Navy SEALs: The Amphibious Scout & Raiders   If these links do not work for whatever reason, you can simply search for these titles on the Amazon website to find them. Instant Access to Free Book Package!   As a thank you for the purchase of this book, I want to offer you some
Ryan Jenkins (World War 2 Air Battles: The Famous Air Combats that Defined WWII)
The Horned Master governs the generative powers of the kingdom of the beasts, the raw forces of life, death and renewal which sustains the natural world.” Nigel A Jackson. The Call of the Horned Piper: 38 The Art and Craft of the Witches is found at the crossroad, where this world and the other side meets and all possibility become reality. This simple fact is often forgotten as one rushes to the Sabbath or occupies oneself with formalities of ritual. The cross marks the four quarters, the four elements, the path of Sun, Moon and Stars. The cross was fused or confused with the Greek staurus, meaning ‘rod’, ‘rood’ or ‘pole’. Various forms of phallic worship are simply, veneration for the cosmic point of possibility and becoming. It is at the crossroads we will gain all or lose all and it is natural that it is at the crossroads we gain perspective. The crossroad is a place of choice, the spirit-denizens of the crossroads are said to be tricky and unreliable and it is of course where we find the Devil. One of the most famous legends of recent times concerns the blues-man Robert Johnson (1911– 1938). He claimed that, one night, just before midnight he had gone to the crossroads. He took out his guitar and played, whereupon a big black guy appeared, tuned his guitar, played a song backwards and handed it back.2 This incident altered Johnson’s playing and his finest and most everlasting compositions were the fruit of the few years of life left to him. This legend tells us how he needed to bury himself at the crossroads, offering himself to the powers dwelling there. Business done with the Devil is said to give him the upper hand. The ill omens and malefica associated with such deals is present in Johnson’s story. He got fame and women, but he died less than three years later before he reached thirty. His body was found poisoned at a crossroads, the murderer’s identity a mystery. Around the Mississippi no less than three tombs carry the name of Robert Leroy Johnson. The image of the Devil remains one of threat, blessing, beauty and opportunity. Where we find the Devil we find danger, unpredictability and chaos. If he offers a deal we know we are in for a complicated bargain. The Devil says that change is good, that we need movement in order to progress. His world is about cunning and ordeal entwined like the serpents of past and future on the pole of ascent. It is to the crossroads we go to make decisions. It is at the crossroads we set the course for the journey. It is at the crossroads we confront ourselves and realize our
Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold (Craft of the Untamed: An inspired vision of Traditional Witchcraft)
The first known published text of the classic fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740 and collected in her compilation La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins. To say that the story met with favor is an understatement. By 1756, "Beauty and the Beast" was so well known that Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont wrote an abridged edition of it that would become the popular version included in collections of fairy tales throughout the nineteenth century (although Andrew Lang went back to de Villeneuve's original for his groundbreaking anthology The Blue Fairy Book, first published in 1891 as the beginning of a twelve-book series that would revolutionize the anthologizing of fairy tales for young read ers). Fifteen years later. Jean-François Marmontel and André Ernest Modeste Grétry adapted de Villeneuve's story as the book for the opera Zémire et Azor. the start of more than two centuries of extraliterary treatments that now include Jean Cocteau's famous 1946 film La Belle et la Bête, Walt Disney's 1991 animated feature Beauty and the Beast, and countless other cinematic, televi sion, stage, and musical variations on the story's theme. More than 4,000 years after it became part of the oral storytelling tradi tion, it is easy to understand why "Beauty and the Beast" continues to be one of the most popular fairy tales of all time, and a seemingly inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists working in all mediums. Its theme of the power of unconditional love is one that never grows old.
Various (Beauty and the Beast and Other Classic Fairy Tales)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous sonnet. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways....
Mary Jo Putney (The Black Beast of Belleterre)
Guide Note: Zaphod Beeblebrox’s two heads and three arms have become as much a part of Galaxy lore as the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast’s cranial spigot, or Eccentrica Gallumbits’s third breast. And though Zaphod claims to have had his third arm fitted to improve his chances at ski-boxing, many media pundits believe that the arm was actually fitted so that the President could simultaneously fondle all of Eccentrica’s mammaries. This attention to erotic detail resulted in Miss Gallumbits referring to Zaphod in Street Walkie-Talkie Weekly as the “best bang since the Big One.” A quote which was worth at least half a billion votes in the presidential election and twice as many daily hits on the private members section of the Zaphod Confidential Sub-Etha site. The origin of Zaphod’s second head is shrouded in mystery and seems to be the one thing the President is reluctant to discuss with the media, other than claim that two heads are better than none. A comment which was taken as a direct jibe by Councillor Spinalé Trunco of the Headless Horsemen tribe of Jaglan Beta. Zaphod’s response to this accusation was “Of course it’s a jibe, baby. Dude’s got zero heads. Come on!” Early images do represent Zaphod with two heads, but in many shots they do not appear to be identical. In fact, in one vidcap, which has famously come to be known as the “I’m With Stupid” shot, Zaphod’s left head appears to be that of a sallow female, attempting to bite the right head’s ear. A Betelgeusean woman later surfaced claiming to be the original owner of the “sallow female” head. Loolu Softhands told Beebelblog that “Zaphod wanted us to be together, like all the time, so we conjoined. After a couple of months he found out that he liked the two-headed thing more than he liked me. So we went out for a few Blasters one night and I woke up back on my own body. Bastard.” Zaphod has never refuted Miss Softhands’s story, leading to speculation that his second head is a narcissistic affectation, an allegation President Beeblebrox claims not to understand. Related
Eoin Colfer (And Another Thing... (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #6))
the most notable instance being that which is described in Adamnan's famous 6th century Life of St Columba. There we read that in the year AD 565, Columba, on yet another of his missionary journeys north, needed to cross the river Ness. As he was about to do so, he saw a burial party. On enquiry, he was informed that they were burying a man who had just been killed by a savage bite from a monster which had snatched him while swimming. On hearing this, and with never a thought for his own safety, the brave saint immediately ordered one of his followers to jump into the freezing water to see if the monster was still in the vicinity. Adamnan relates how the thrashing about of the alarmed and unhappy swimmer, Lugne Mocumin by name, attracted the monster's attention. Suddenly, on breaking the surface, the monster was seen to speed towards the luckless chap with its mouth wide open and screaming like a banshee. Columba, however, refused to panic, and from the safety of the dry land rebuked the beast. Whether the swimmer added any rebukes of his own is not recorded, but the monster was seen to turn away, having approached the swimmer so closely that not the length of a punt-pole lay between them.
Bill Cooper (After the Flood)
old. Letter eight contains his famous vision of the Beauty and the Beast myth: Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. Words often quoted, or paraphrased,
Sigrid Nunez (The Friend)
The soul is called hugr, Anglo-Saxon hygi, thereby indicating it as desire and inclination, as courage and thought. It inspires a man's behaviour, his actions and his speech are characterised according to whether they proceed out of whole hugr, bold hugr, or downcast hugr. It resides in him and urges him on; thus ends Loki when he has said his say among the gods: “Now I have spoken that which my hugr urged me to say,” thus also Sigurd when he has slain the serpent: “My hugr urged me to it.” It sits within, giving counsel or warning; “my hugr tells me,” is a weighty argument, for when the hugr has told a thing, the matter is pretty well settled. “He seems to me unreliable, you will see he will soon turn the evil side outward; it is against my will that he is with you, for my hugr tells me evil about him,” thus Ingolf exhorts his brother to turn away a vagabond who comes to the place. A winter passed, and Ingolf could say that all had fallen out as his hugr had warned him. And Atli Hasteinson, of noble race, confidently gives directions to his household after the fight with Hrafn: “You, my son, will avenge your father, if you take after your kin, and my hugr tells me you will become a famous man, and your children after you.” And when the hugr is uneasy, as when one can say with Gudrun: “Long I hesitated, long were my hugrs divided in me,” then life is not healthy. But when a man has followed the good counsel from within, and attained his end, then there rises from his soul a shout of triumph, it is his hugr laughing in his breast.— Now and again, the soul has its knowledge directly, as we should say; at times it has acquired it by spying out the land, and then it may chance that the enemy has seen his opponent's hugr coming towards him, whether in human form or in the shape of a beast. He dreams of wolves, and is told that it is the hugrs of men he has seen.
Vilhelm Grønbech (The Culture of the Teutons: Volumes 1 and 2)
Fortunately, the Ottomans were unrivaled masters of supply-chain logistics. No other state in Europe devoted as much energy or care to the repair of its roads. From very early on, the Ottomans became justly famous as builders of beautiful stone bridges, whose delicate arches appeared to be as delicate as eggshells but proved as durable as iron. Supplies of food, cloth, gunpowder, and steel flowed continuously over this system of roadways. Camels, able to carry twice as much as any European beast of burden, made their transport easier. Every year, thirty thousand of these essential animals arrived from the Maghreb and Syria, in time for the campaigning season. But the real heart of the Ottoman procurement system was its bakeries. In Istanbul alone, 105 gigantic ovens worked around the clock, baking hardtack for the army and navy stores. Many more operated across the provinces.
Jacob Mikanowski (Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land)
For perhaps a quarter of an hour they stayed like that while he stroked her head, slender neck, and delicate ears. As he did, joy bubbled through him like a fountain of light, and his mind rang with the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous sonnet. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways....
Mary Jo Putney (The Black Beast of Belleterre)
Over in Europe, at around the same time, people were creating art in very similar ways. Southern France is littered with caves adorned with pictures of astonishing beauty and skill that date from around this time all the way into the near present. Lascaux, near Montignac, is probably the most famous, a Pleistocene art gallery from a much more recent 17,000 years ago, displaying more than 6,000 figures, interpretations of hunts, with horses and bison, felines, the extinct colossal elk Megaloceros giganteus, and abstract symbols whose meaning we can never understand. People painted in charcoal and haematite and dabbed them onto the walls as pigments in suspensions with animal fats and clay. They are breathtaking. To the west, the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave has the oldest wall art in Europe, again with beasts in relief, from hunts, and hunters – cave lions, hyenas, bears and panthers, oh my! The oldest of these were painted 37,000 years ago, according to the most up-to-date studies in 2016.
Adam Rutherford (The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us)
to Freyja.” and Odin is like “Can I at least have the octohorse?” and Loki is like “Only if I don’t have to do what you say anymore.” and Odin is like “FINE.” and Loki is like “HAHA, I PRANKED YOU THAT HORSE CAME OUT OF MY HORSE VAGINA.” And Odin is like “Ew, ick. I still want the horse though.” So the moral of the story is that only a sucker pays full price for masonry. Oh, speaking of which let me tell you about another really gross thing Loki had sex with . . . FENRIR IS A DILF So one day, Loki’s wandering around Jotunheim and he sees this chick Angrboða pronounced ANGER BOW THE and he is like “Well, I know she’s pretty ugly and her name is kinda like a reference book entry for THE ANGER BOW but you know what? I’m gonna tap that and have three kids with that and all three of those kids are going to be horrible beasts that bring on the apocalypse. I see no problems with this.” So for now, let’s just focus on the first kid: a giant wolf named Fenrir. Now Loki brings baby Fenrir to Asgard and the Aesir all instantly know that this wolf is gonna be the death of them mainly because it is a GIANT WOLF NAMED FENRIR. But instead of doing anything about it they decide to see if they can just raise it as their own presumably because they don’t want to hurt Loki’s feelings. So this god Tyr the god of single combat and being awesome gets put in charge of feeding Fenrir because he’s the only person with sufficient testicular mass to actually go near the wolf and Fenrir gets bigger and bigger and holy shit bigger until the gods start to be like “Uhh . . . we should really do something about this wolf.” So what they do is they make a big metal chain. This chain is so incredibly massive that they don’t feel right until they give it a name that name is Leyding. So they go up to Fenrir like “Hey, man I bet you totally can’t break out of this chain.” And Fenrir is like “Okay, bring it.” So they tie him up and he pretty much just breaks the chains like cobwebs and he gets famous because of that and the gods are like “Fuck, that backfired. Okay, let’s make a better chain.” so they make a chain that is TWO TIMES AS STRONG and they name it Dromi and they go back to Fenrir like “Bet you can’t break THIS chain.” And Fenrir is like “I don’t know if I want to let you tie me up again.” And the gods are like “Don’t you want to be double famous?” and Fenrir is like “Ugh, okay.” So he lets them tie him up again and he flexes a little, but the chain doesn’t break so then he kicks the chain, and it does break and the gods are all like “Okay we definitely need a better chain. Somebody call some dwarves.” So the dwarves are like “Okay the mistake you guys have been making is you have been trying to make a chain out of actual things that exist such as metal instead of abstract concepts such as the sound of a cat’s footfall.” So what the dwarves do is they take the sound of a cat’s footfall along with the roots of a mountain the sinews of a bear the beard of a woman— remember, these are dwarves— and the breath of a fish, and the spit of a bird so that’s why you can’t hear cats walking around and mountains don’t have roots and fish don’t breathe, and birds don’t spit but I think bears still probably have sinews and I have definitely met me some bearded ladies so I guess the dwarves were not that thorough. But anyway somehow they manage to distill all this shit into THE ULTIMATE
Cory O'Brien (Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology)
It’s important to realize that the Norse gods are inherently “human” in their vices and behavior. This is not a religion of “perfect beings” so often attested in the monotheistic religions found today and, as far as we know, there was no sense of strict “dogma” concerning the gods as a whole. As the historian Julian Richards pointed out, to speak of the pre-Christian beliefs of northern Europe and Scandinavia in particular, it would be better to refer to it as a “belief system,” a specific way of looking at the world that was inclusive of all the monstrous beasts and flawed gods who needed to be appeased and propitiated nonetheless.
Charles River Editors (Norse Mythology: The History of the Norse Pantheon and the Most Famous Myths)
He was in Hell's Kitchen . . . I never got out of here. I never got out. I surrendered to the grocery man-to the deck hands on the ferryboat-to the owner of the poolroom. You don't run things around here. You've never run things anywhere, Gail Wynand. You've only added yourself to the things they ran. Then he looked up, across the city, to the shapes of the great skyscrapers. He saw a string of lights rising unsupported in black space, a glowing pinnacle anchored to nothing, a small, brilliant square hanging detached in the sky. He knew the famous buildings to which these belonged, he could reconstruct their forms in space. He thought, you're my judges and witnesses. You rise, unhindered, above the sagging roofs. You shoot your gracious tension to the stars, out of the slack, the tired, the accidental. The eyes one mile out on the ocean will see none of this and none of this will matter, but you will be the presence and the city. As down the centuries, a few men stand in lonely rectitude that we may look and say, there is a human race behind us. One can't escape from you; the streets change, but one looks up and there you stand, unchanged. You have seen me walking through the streets tonight. You have seen all my steps and all my years. It's you that I've betrayed. For I was born to be one of you. . . He stopped. He saw a paper spread out in the gutter before him, front page up. It was the Banner. He saw Roark's picture. He saw the gray print of a rubber heel across Roark's face. He bent, his body folding itself down slowly, with both knees, both arms, and picked up the paper. He folded the front page and put it in his pocket. He walked on. An unknown rubber heel, somewhere in the city, on an unknown foot that I released to march. I released them all. I made every one of those who destroyed me. There is a beast on earth, dammed safely by its own impotence. I broke the dam. They would have remained helpless. They can produce nothing. I gave them the weapon. I gave them my strength, my energy, my living power. I created a great voice and let them dictate the words. The woman who threw the beet leaves in my face had a right to do it. I made it possible for her. Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness. Alvah Scarret can be forgiven. He had nothing to betray. Mitchell Layton can be forgiven. But not I. I was not born to be a second-hander.
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)