“
ONCE UPON A time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He loved each of them dearly. One day, when the young ladies were of age to be married, a terrible, three-headed dragon laid siege to the kingdom, burning villages with fiery breath. It spoiled crops and burned churches. It killed babies, old people, and everyone in between.
The king promised a princess’s hand in marriage to whoever slayed the dragon. Heroes and warriors came in suits of armor, riding brave horses and bearing swords and arrows.
One by one, these men were slaughtered and eaten.
Finally the king reasoned that a maiden might melt the dragon’s heart and succeed where warriors had failed. He sent his eldest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon listened to not a word of her pleas. It swallowed her whole.
Then the king sent his second daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon did the same. Swallowed her before she could get a word out.
The king then sent his youngest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, and she was so lovely and clever that he was sure she would succeed where the others had perished.
No indeed. The dragon simply ate her.
The king was left aching with regret. He was now alone in the world.
Now, let me ask you this. Who killed the girls?
The dragon? Or their father?
”
”
E. Lockhart (We Were Liars)
“
To the loyal and to the blood-lovers, in the good families and in the fiery dynasties, life is family and family is life. It is the same people who give advice and their vices to live well who turn out to be the ones who give resource and reason to live long.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
Then the stars went out, for the bark of Ra, in fiery splendor, burst out of the East. Sunshine flooded the wide desert and the long, green valley of the Nile. The night was over; a new day had dawned for the land of Egypt.
”
”
Eloise Jarvis McGraw (Mara, Daughter of the Nile)
“
Not a hothouse flower, this daughter of Leoch, despite her surroundings.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5))
“
Agnes presses her lips to her daughter’s fiery hair and feels her life cleaving, splitting cleanly into two pieces: the time before, and the time after.
”
”
Alix E. Harrow (The Once and Future Witches)
“
She’s got a fiery temperament that matches the red hair atop her head.
”
”
Tricia Levenseller (Daughter of the Pirate King (Daughter of the Pirate King, #1))
“
Lenni, wherever you are. Whatever wonderful world you find yourself in now. Wherever that fiery heart is, that quick wit, that disabling charm. Know that I love you. For the brief lifetime that we knew each other, I loved you like you were my very own daughter. You found an old woman worthy of your immense friendship and for that I am forever in your debt. So I have to say thank you.
”
”
Marianne Cronin (The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot)
“
For my sake,” he said firmly, addressing the air in front of him as though it were a tribunal, “I dinna want ye to bear another child. I wouldna risk your loss, Sassenach,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “Not for a dozen bairns. I’ve daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, grandchildren—weans enough.”
He looked at me directly then, and spoke softly.
“But I’ve no life but you, Claire.”
He swallowed audibly, and went on, eyes fixed on mine.
“I did think, though . . . if ye do want another child . . . perhaps I could still give ye one.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5))
“
It’s not for Zeus’s daughter to be A prey to common fears, I never feel Chill fingered panic’s touch. But the horrors Creeping out of Old Night’s womb Since the first beginnings of all things, 8940 With shapes as many as the fiery vapors Billowing from a crater’s fiery mouth, Make even heroes’ hearts turn faint. When
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust: A Tragedy, Parts One and Two)
“
California, Labor Day weekend...early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Fricso, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur...The Menace is loose again, the Hell's Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety miles an hour down the center stripe, missing by inches...like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a monster steed with a fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter's leg with no quarter asked and non given; show the squares some class, give em a whiff of those kicks they'll never know...Ah, these righteous dudes, they love to screw it on...Little Jesus, the Gimp, Chocolate George, Buzzard, Zorro, Hambone, Clean Cut, Tiny, Terry the Tramp, Frenchy, Mouldy Marvin, Mother Miles, Dirty Ed, Chuck the Duck, Fat Freddy, Filthy Phil, Charger Charley the Child Molester, Crazy Cross, Puff, Magoo, Animal and at least a hundred more...tense for the action, long hair in the wind, beards and bandanas flapping, earrings, armpits, chain whips, swastikas and stripped-down Harleys flashing chrome as traffic on 101 moves over, nervous, to let the formation pass like a burst of dirty thunder...
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Hell's Angels)
“
No matter what get's in your way, trust yourself and keep on going - no matter what.
”
”
Janet C. Thomas (Bernice: A Fiery Story of Love and Family: In Her Daughter's Pen)
“
It is through Gulbadan’s account, and only hers, that we can see Babur as a loving father, a tempestuous family man and a devoted husband. The fiery warrior or the marauding opportunist is for the other biographers.
”
”
Ira Mukhoty (Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire)
“
He could smoke through the water as though an aquamarine submarine, he could sever the festoonery of the poolside ebb and eddy into fiery fluttering swathes of hot-cut flax, he could treble beneath the meniscus of the pool, sharp as synthesiser music and with a trajectory of theological impermanence, a crucifixion affected underwater, a kingfisher with the velocity and capriciousness of a shooting star, a knife in the arm of a masochist, a cleft hatchet of rock through the porous orb of a sea urchin, a dick through butter, a tyrannical nutter, Shunt through water, watch Shunt corrupt your daughter. He could move in wet like a lion through wildebeest.
”
”
Kirk Marshall (A Solution to Economic Depression in Little Tokyo, 1953)
“
Then his attention was caught by the bird of paradise.
"So that's what that looks like?" he asked. "Like one of the paper cranes we had to burn after Pearl Harbor." He took a step closer. "That fiery orange blossom - damned if it doesn't look like a phoenix rising from the ashes."
Ruth understood, at last, what the crane flower had represented to her mother. It wasn't Hawai'i, as much as she had loved Hawai'i. It wasn't good fortune; and it wasn't longevity. No, not even that.
It was rebirth.
”
”
Alan Brennert (Daughter of Moloka'i (Moloka'i, #2))
“
These fans were excited to see your mother perform, but more than that it was as if she was taking her audience to church like a fiery, foul-mouthed preacher who offered up profane salvation. There was the new mom who was enjoying her first night out after giving birth a month prior. There are fans who dress up like your mother, imitating the outfits she wore when you were both in her belly There are mothers who bring their daughters. There are those who travel from across the country, and sometimes across the world. They talk about your mother being their spirit animal. Their eyes are lit up, their faces relaxed and smiling, their postures open and welcoming. Watching this magical effect on her fans keeps me manning the merch table to this day.
”
”
Ali Wong (Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life)
“
What interests me - and indeed many others today, now women's contributions to history are better recognised - is [Victoria's] eventual return to fiery form. "While the Prince Consort lived," she told a visitor in the early 1860s, "he thought for me, now I have to think for myself.
”
”
Lucy Worsley (Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow)
“
The decades that she devoted to conserving her husband’s legacy made Eliza only more militantly loyal to his memory, and there was one injury she could never forget: the exposure of the Maria Reynolds affair, for which she squarely blamed James Monroe. In the 1820s, after Monroe had completed two terms as president, he called upon Eliza in Washington, D.C., hoping to thaw the frost between them. Eliza was then about seventy and staying at her daughter’s home. She was sitting in the backyard with her fifteen-year-old nephew when a maid emerged and presented the ex-president’s card. Far from being flattered by this distinguished visitor, Eliza was taken aback. “She read the name and stood holding the card, much perturbed,” said her nephew. “Her voice sank and she spoke very low, as she always did when she was angry. ‘What has that man come to see me for?’” The nephew said that Monroe must have stopped by to pay his respects. She wavered. “I will see him,” she finally agreed. So the small woman with the upright carriage and the sturdy, determined step marched stiffly into the house. When she entered the parlor, Monroe rose to greet her. Eliza then did something out of character and socially unthinkable: she stood facing the ex-president but did not invite him to sit down. With a bow, Monroe began what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech, stating “that it was many years since they had met, that the lapse of time brought its softening influences, that they both were nearing the grave, when past differences could be forgiven and forgotten.” Eliza saw that Monroe was trying to draw a moral equation between them and apportion blame equally for the long rupture in their relationship. Even at this late date, thirty years after the fact, she was not in a forgiving mood. “Mr. Monroe,” she told him, “if you have come to tell me that you repent, that you are sorry, very sorry, for the misrepresentations and the slanders and the stories you circulated against my dear husband, if you have come to say this, I understand it. But otherwise, no lapse of time, no nearness to the grave, makes any difference.” Monroe took in this rebuke without comment. Stunned by the fiery words delivered by the elderly little woman in widow’s weeds, the ex-president picked up his hat, bid Eliza good day, and left the house, never to return.
”
”
Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
“
Might I ask, what, ah, temple you belong to?” “Hathor,” Siti answered. “But I’m more partial to Sekhmet.” “Sekhmet. In theological alchemy we studied ancient and Hellenistic Egypt. If I recall, she’s a goddess of battle?” “The Eye of Ra. When humankind sought to overthrow Ra, his daughter Hathor didn’t take too kindly. In her anger, she became Sekhmet—the fiery lioness. Then broke some things.” Hadia frowned. “Didn’t she almost wipe out the world?” “The goddess really gets into her work.
”
”
P. Djèlí Clark (A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe, #1))
“
The most persistent admirer of the king was Fata Nocha from the House of Forest Springs. Her black hair shone in the sun, her eyebrows were perfectly arched, and her gaze would pin your soul to your heels. Truly, Gino’s daughter was a fiery fairy and impressively creative too! Every morning she laid out a heart of scarlet rose petals in front of the palace entrance or raised a flock of butterflies to the window of His Majesty's bedroom and arranged them into the name “Arancio.” Who wouldn’t like to see his name first thing in the morning!
”
”
Kristina Kamaeva (The Orange Curse)
“
A reflection on Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell knew I was not one of his devotees. I attended his famous “office hours” salon only a few times. Life Studies was not a book of central importance for me, though I respected it. I admired his writing, but not the way many of my Boston friends did. Among poets in his generation, poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Alan Dugan, and Allen Ginsberg meant more to me than Lowell’s. I think he probably sensed some of that.
To his credit, Lowell nevertheless was generous to me (as he was to many other young poets) just the same. In that generosity, and a kind of open, omnivorous curiosity, he was different from my dear teacher at Stanford, Yvor Winters. Like Lowell, Winters attracted followers—but Lowell seemed almost dismayed or a little bewildered by imitators; Winters seemed to want disciples: “Wintersians,” they were called.
A few years before I met Lowell, when I was still in California, I read his review of Winters’s Selected Poems. Lowell wrote that, for him, Winters’s poetry passed A. E. Housman’s test: he felt that if he recited it while he was shaving, he would cut himself. One thing Lowell and Winters shared, that I still revere in both of them, was a fiery devotion to the vocal essence of poetry: the work and interplay of sentences and lines, rhythm and pitch. The poetry in the sounds of the poetry, in a reader’s voice: neither page nor stage.
Winters criticizing the violence of Lowell’s enjambments, or Lowell admiring a poem in pentameter for its “drill-sergeant quality”: they shared that way of thinking, not matters of opinion but the matter itself, passionately engaged in the art and its vocal—call it “technical”—materials.
Lowell loved to talk about poetry and poems. His appetite for that kind of conversation seemed inexhaustible. It tended to be about historical poetry, mixed in with his contemporaries. When he asked you, what was Pope’s best work, it was as though he was talking about a living colleague . . . which in a way he was. He could be amusing about that same sort of thing. He described Julius Caesar’s entourage waiting in the street outside Cicero’s house while Caesar chatted up Cicero about writers.
“They talked about poetry,” said Lowell in his peculiar drawl. “Caesar asked Cicero what he thought of Jim Dickey.”
His considerable comic gift had to do with a humor of self and incongruity, rather than wit. More surreal than donnish. He had a memorable conversation with my daughter Caroline when she was six years old. A tall, bespectacled man with a fringe of long gray hair came into her living room, with a certain air.
“You look like somebody famous,” she said to him, “but I can’t remember who.”
“Do I?”
“Yes . . . now I remember!— Benjamin Franklin.”
“He was a terrible man, just awful.”
“Or no, I don’t mean Benjamin Franklin. I mean you look like a Christmas ornament my friend Heather made out of Play-Doh, that looked like Benjamin Franklin.”
That left Robert Lowell with nothing to do but repeat himself:
“Well, he was a terrible man.”
That silly conversation suggests the kind of social static or weirdness the man generated. It also happens to exemplify his peculiar largeness of mind . . . even, in a way, his engagement with the past. When he died, I realized that a large vacuum had appeared at the center of the world I knew.
”
”
Robert Pinsky
“
As a child, my mother had cautioned me against looking directly at the sun, telling me the brightness of its glare could blind me. Perhaps it was something her own mother had told her. While it might be true for mortals, I now doubted such a thing could harm an immortal's sight. Still, her warning stuck - whenever I saw the fiery orb in the sky I would instinctively turn or shield myself. Today, I had finally dared to gaze at the sun, allowing its radiance to blaze through me unhindered, spilling through my veins until I was aglow. Never did I imagine such luminous joy existed, and never again would I be content to remain in the shadows.
”
”
Sue Lynn Tan (Daughter of the Moon Goddess (The Celestial Kingdom, #1))
“
You probably don’t remember this, and I’m not bringing it up now to embarrass you, but last night you told me that you’d fantasized about me. Well, the feeling’s mutual. You’ve been driving me crazy since the day you moved in. I have made love to you in my mind more than I’m comfortable admitting. But it’s not just about sex. I want to take you out. I want to tuck Annie into her bed at night and read her a bedtime story. I want to sit across from you at the table and watch you smile at something I’ve said. In case I’m not making myself clear, I want to date you, Miracle Emily Grant. You and your daughter.” “Oh.” Emily blushed a fiery red, but didn’t comment further.
”
”
Susan Stoker (Rescuing Emily (Delta Force Heroes, #2))
“
Never play the princess when you can
be the queen:
rule the kingdom, swing a scepter,
wear a crown of gold.
Don’t dance in glass slippers,
crystal carving up your toes --
be a barefoot Amazon instead,
for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet.
Never wear only pink
when you can strut in crimson red,
sweat in heather grey, and
shimmer in sky blue,
claim the golden sun upon your hair.
Colors are for everyone,
boys and girls, men and women --
be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles,
not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside.
Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies,
fierce and fiery toothy monsters,
not merely lazy butterflies,
sweet and slow on summer days.
For you can tame the most brutish beasts
with your wily wits and charm,
and lizard scales feel just as smooth
as gossamer insect wings.
Tramp muddy through the house in
a purple tutu and cowboy boots.
Have a tea party in your overalls.
Build a fort of birch branches,
a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of
Queen Anne chairs and coverlets,
first stop on the moon.
Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls,
bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle,
not Barbie on the runway or
Disney damsels in distress --
you are much too strong to play
the simpering waif.
Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy,
paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood.
Learn to speak with both your mind and heart.
For the ground beneath will hold you, dear --
know that you are free.
And never grow a wishbone, daughter,
where your backbone ought to be.
”
”
Clementine Paddleford
“
In ancient times, it was said that the goddess Selene drove the moon across the sky. Each night she followed her brother Helios, the sun, to catch his fiery rays and reflect the light back to earth. One night on her journey, she looked down and saw Endymion sleeping in the hills. She fell in love with the beautiful shepherd. Night after night she looked down on his gentle beauty and loved him more, until finally one evening she left the moon between the sun and the earth and went down to the grassy fields to lie beside him.
For three nights she stayed with him, and the moon, unable to catch the sun's rays, remained dark. People feared the dark moon. They said it brought death and freed evil forces to roam the black night. Zeus, King of the Gods, was angered by the darkness and punished Selene by giving Endymion eternal sleep.
Selene returned to the moon and drove it across the night sky, but her love was too strong. She hid Endymion in a cave; and now, three nights each lunar month, she leaves the moon to visit her sleeping lover and cover him with silver kisses. In his sleep, Endymion dreams he holds the moon. He has given Selene many daughters to guard the night. They are powerful and beautiful like their mother, and mortal like their father.
”
”
Lynne Ewing (Goddess of the Night)
“
The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither the Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For Childhood is short—a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day— And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
Blast. This day had not gone as planned. By this time, he was supposed to be well on his way to the Brighton Barracks, preparing to leave for Portugal and rejoin the war. Instead, he was…an earl, suddenly. Stuck at this ruined castle, having pledged to undertake the military equivalent of teaching nursery school. And to make it all worse, he was plagued with lust for a woman he couldn’t have. Couldn’t even touch, if he ever wanted his command back.
As if he sensed Bram’s predicament, Colin started to laugh.
“What’s so amusing?”
“Only that you’ve been played for a greater fool than you realize. Didn’t you hear them earlier? This is Spindle Cove, Bram. Spindle. Cove.”
“You keep saying that like I should know the name. I don’t.”
“You really must get around to the clubs. Allow me to enlighten you. Spindle Cove-or Spinster Cove, as we call it-is a seaside holiday village. Good families send their fragile-flower daughters here for the restorative sea air. Or whenever they don’t know what else to do with them. My friend. Carstairs sent his sister here last summer, when she grew too fond of the stable boy.”
“And so…?”
“And so, your little militia plan? Doomed before it even starts. Families send their daughters and wards here because it’s safe. It’s safe because there are no men. That’s why they call it Spinster Cove.”
“There have to be men. There’s no such thing as a village with no men.”
“Well, there may be a few servants and tradesmen. An odd soul or two down there with a shriveled twig and a couple of currants dangling between his legs. But there aren’t any real men. Carstairs told us all about it. He couldn’t believe what he found when he came to fetch his sister. The women here are man-eaters.”
Bram was scarcely paying attention. He focused his gaze to catch the last glimpses of Miss Finch as her figure receded into the distance. She was like a sunset all to herself, her molten bronze hair aglow as she sank beneath the bluff’s horizon. Fiery. Brilliant. When she disappeared, he felt instantly cooler.
And then, only then, did he turn to his yammering cousin. “What were you saying?”
“We have to get out of here, Bram. Before they take our bollocks and use them for pincushions.”
Bram made his way to the nearest wall and propped one shoulder against it, resting his knee. Damn, that climb had been steep. “Let me understand this,” he said, discreetly rubbing his aching thigh under the guise of brushing off loose dirt. “You’re suggesting we leave because the village is full of spinsters? Since when do you complain about an excess of women?”
“These are not your normal spinsters. They’re…they’re unbiddable. And excessively educated.”
“Oh. Frightening, indeed. I’ll stand my ground when facing a French cavalry charge, but an educated spinster is something different entirely.”
“You mock me now. Just you wait. You’ll see, these women are a breed unto themselves.”
“These women aren’t my concern.”
Save for one woman, and she didn’t live in the village. She lived at Summerfield, and she was Sir Lewis Finch’s daughter, and she was absolutely off limits-no matter how he suspected Miss Finch would become Miss Vixen in bed.
”
”
Tessa Dare (A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove, #1))
“
Mud of the gods, woman, what are you doing?’
Abrastal looked up. ‘What does it look as if I’m doing, Spax?’
Her fiery tresses lay heaped on the tent floor. She was wrapped in her blanket and as far as he could tell, naked underneath. He watched as she resumed slashing long lengths away with her knife. ‘I witness,’ he said, ‘the death of my lust.’
‘Good. It’s about time. I was never going to bed you, Barghast.’
‘Not the point. It was the desire I took so much pleasure in.’
‘That’s pathetic.’
Spax shrugged. ‘I am an ugly man. This is how ugly men get through each damned day.’
‘You’ve been bedding my daughter.’
‘She only does it to infuriate you, Highness.’
Abrastal paused with her knife, looked up at him. ‘And has it succeeded?’
Grinning, Spax said, ‘So I tell her every night. All about your rants, your foaming mouth, your outrage and fury.’
‘Ugly and clever, a deadly combination in any man.
”
”
Steven Erikson (The Crippled God (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #10))
“
Within minutes my whole body hurt. Every inch of my skin felt like it was being stabbed by fiery hot needles—a penetrating, unscratchable itch mixed with violent, shooting pain. We didn’t stay out long, but by evening I had turned red as a lobster. Most of my skin was blistered, and I was in agony. It didn’t seem possible that I could be so badly burned so quickly. I had
”
”
Mahtob Mahmoody (My Name Is Mahtob: The Story that Began the Global Phenomenon Not Without My Daughter Continues)
“
It is exactly as I have heard it described: large, white turning to orange trumpet flowers with deep rust-colored stamens, and a sweet scent.'
Elizabeth had found herself able to breathe more easily. She was certain that he had not found the Devil's Trumpet. She knew this plant of which Chegwidden spoke--- her father had described it as the 'fiery trumpet', a glorious tree that featured bushels of pendulous trumpet-shaped flowers, hanging downwards, 'as if musical instruments left behind by a fairy orchestra' he had said.
”
”
Kayte Nunn (The Botanist's Daughter)
“
When he finished he had a magnificent house, perched on the edge of a precipice at whose feet the ocean thundered, but it was a house that knew no happiness, for shortly after Whip had moved in with his third wife, the Hawaiian-Chinese beauty Ching-ching, who was pregnant at the time, she had caught him fooling around with the brothel girls that flourished in the town of Kapaa. Without even a scene of recrimination, Ching-ching had simply ordered a carriage and driven back to the capital town of Lihune, where she boarded an H & H steamer for Honolulu. She divorced Whip but kept both his daughter Iliki and his yet-unborn son John. Now there were two Mrs. Whipple Hoxworths in Honolulu and they caused some embarrassment to the more staid community. There was his first wife, Iliki Janders Hoxworth, who moved in only the best missionary circles, and there was Ching-ching Hoxworth who lived within the Chinese community. The two never met, but Howxworth & Hale saw to it that each received a monthly allowance. The sums were generous, but not so much so as those sent periodically Wild Whip's second wife, the fiery Spanish girl named Aloma Duarte Hoxworth, whose name frequently appeared in New York and London newspapers... p623
When the polo players had departed, when the field kitchens were taken down, and when the patient little Japanese gardeners were tending each cut in the polo turf as if it were a personal wound, Wild Whip would retire to his sprawling mansion overlooking the sea and get drunk. He was never offensive and never beat anyone while intoxicated. At such times he stayed away from the brothels in Kapaa and away from the broad lanai from which he could see the ocean. In a small, darkened room he drank, and as he did so he often recalled his grandfather's words: "Girls are like stars, and you could reach up and pinch each one on the points. And then in the east the moon rises, enormous and perfect. And that's something else, entirely different." It was now apparent to Whip, in his forty-fifth year, that for him the moon did not intend to rise. Somehow he had missed encountering the woman whom he could love as his grandfather had loved the Hawaiian princess Noelani. He had known hundreds of women, but he had found none that a man could permanently want or respect. Those who were desirable were mean in spirit and those who were loyal were sure to be tedious. It was probably best, he thought at such times, to do as he did: know a couple of the better girls at Kapaa, wait for some friend's wife who was bored with her husband, or trust that a casual trip through the more settled camps might turn up some workman's wife who wanted a little excitement. It wasn't a bad life and was certainly less expensive in the long run than trying to marry and divorce a succession of giddy women; but often when he had reached this conclusion, through the bamboo shades of the darkened room in which he huddled a light would penetrate, and it would be the great moon risen from the waters to the east and now passing majestically high above the Pacific. It was an all-seeing beacon, brillant enough to make the grassy lawns on Hanakai a sheet of silver, probing enough to find any mansion tucked away beneath the casuarina trees. When this moon sought out Wild Whip he would first draw in his feet, trying like a child to evade it, but when it persisted he often rose, threw open the lanai screens, and went forth to meet it. p625
”
”
James A. Michener (Hawaii)
“
Sinta
She succumbed to typhoid at twenty-six,
Sinta, my part-time Photoshopper,
fluent in HTML, clubbing and 'just having fun'.
Her Koran thumping Sumatran parents believe
their kafir daughter's gone to Jahannam,
that fiery place of punishment,
for rashly fucking before marriage;
the red spots that erupted like lava
on her chest and abdomen,
to be taken as cautionary signs.
Her father, Abdullah, a customs officer,
said at her funeral, when they laid
Sinta's near skeletal body into the grave,
"Our daughter chose *Jahannam over Jannah,
and now she pays the duty.
Allahu Akbar."*
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
Methuselah swung the pear-shaped mace down toward the skull of his adversary, a fifteen-year old girl named Edna. She raised her shield and blocked it effectively, then parried with her own mace. He barked, “Excellent, runt!” Methuselah was a strapping twenty-year old handsome young man. His unusual blue eyes often drew the teasing of his companions, saying that he was a Bene ha Elohim, or more likely a product of their union with the daughters of men. It was not true, but he played along with it because he liked standing out from the crowd. He was a fiery lad with a passion for arguing, not the best of traits for an apkallu in training, since their order was marked by restraint and listening. But Methuselah hungered for knowledge, and loved to study and learn about everything.
”
”
Brian Godawa (Enoch Primordial (Chronicles of the Nephilim #2))
“
Seventeen years ago a fiery car crash in Seattle, Washington claimed the lives of David Stranson and his two-year-old daughter. The mother, Camilla, survived with severe injuries. Attached to the police
”
”
Karpov Kinrade (Vampire Girl (Vampire Girl, #1))
Janet C. Thomas (Bernice: A Fiery Story of Love and Family: In Her Daughter's Pen)
“
While Amanda may be considered as the “official candidate” whose breeding and background made her eminently acceptable at Court, the Prince was also conducting a stormy relationship with Anna Wallace, the daughter of a Scottish landowner whom he had met while fox hunting in November 1979. She was the latest of a long line of girlfriends, drawn for the most part from the upper reaches of the aristocracy, who had appeared on his romantic horizon. However Anna, fiery, wilful and impulsive, was temperamentally unsuitable for the regulated routine of royalty. Not for nothing was she known as “Whiplash Wallace”. Prince Charles, a man who by his own admission fell in love easily, pressed his suit even though his advisors told him that she had other boy-friends.
Their relationship became so serious that, according to at least one account, he asked her to marry him. She is said to have turned him down but that rebuff did little to dampen his ardour. In May they were discovered by journalists lying on a blanket by the river Dee on the Queen’s estate at Balmoral. The Prince was furious at this intrusion into his private life and authorized his friend, Lord Tryon, who was present at the picnic to shout a four letter word at the journalists concerned.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
I wanna hear about yer brothers," Mira said. "Are they all like Lucien?" Charles made a noise of amusement. "Thank God, no. I'm the second oldest, and then there's Gareth. He's the black sheep of the family and leads a group of ne'er do wells who've styled themselves after the Hellfire Club and call themselves the Den of Debauchery. Gareth is irresponsible and dissolute, and Lucien despairs of him ever making anything of himself besides a general public nuisance — but I have rather more faith in him than that." "And what do the villagers call him?" "The Wild One." "He sounds fun," Mira said. "Is he betrothed?" Charles laughed. "No mama in her right mind would want their daughter married to Gareth. His reputation is not undeserved." He leaned back, his elbows sinking into the sand, the sun warming his upturned face. "And then of course there's Andrew, my youngest brother, who aspires to be an inventor and is, according to the last letter I received from him, hoping to construct a flying machine." "A flying machine?" cried both girls in unison. "Yes. A preposterous notion, isn't it? However, I suppose that if anyone can do it, Andrew can. He has a clever brain, and did very well at Oxford." "What's his nickname?" "The Defiant One." "Why?" "Because he is fiery and independent, and is ever at odds with Lucien." There was long silence. And then, softly, Amy said, "And what did the villagers call you, Charles?" Everything stilled inside him. He sat up, feeling a sudden rush of self-loathing and loss. "The Beloved One," he said quietly. Head bent, he picked up a handful of sand, letting it trickle out through his fingers. "Because I always did everything right, always lived up to what everyone expected of me, always succeeded at whatever I put my mind to — and never let anyone down." He turned his face toward the salty breeze. "Until now." Even
”
”
Danelle Harmon (The Beloved One (The De Montforte Brothers, #2))
“
I pushed aside one strand of hair that cut across her green eye. “Show me that unrelenting brute force, Tisaanah.” She didn’t move, didn’t speak. But a fiery glitter seeped into her eyes, and I let their flames strip me, burn me, consume me, until there was nothing left but ash.
”
”
Carissa Broadbent (Daughter of No Worlds (The War of Lost Hearts, #1))
“
For those who don’t: I’m the daughter of the wicked sorceress Maleficent—but hey, just ’cause I’m the spawn of a vile villain, it doesn’t mean I’m following in Mom’s fiery footsteps. Well, I guess tiny footsteps is more fitting, because Mom’s been a little lizard ever since she went all fire-breathing dragon on me and my friends and shrank to the size of the love in her heart. In case you missed that: not a lot of love. Big shock. Me and my friends realized that we didn’t have to be like our villain parents. We chose to be good over evil (actual big shock), and King Ben and I had our happily ever after.
”
”
Eric Geron (Descendants 2 (Descendants Junior Novel, #2))
“
The son of an earl’s daughter and one of the richest men in all of England had a right to his pride, or so he had thought. As fiery as he now knew her to be, Darcy could easily imagine what his Elizabeth would have said to his very “constipated” proposal.
”
”
Regina Jeffers (Amending the Shades of Pemberley)
“
I love you, and I hope you are safe and happy and that wherever you are, someone (Akiva?) is making you cakewalks, too, or whatever it is that fiery angel boys do for their girls.
kiss/punch
Zuze
”
”
Laini Taylor (Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2))
“
A week later, Stanton walked into the fire. Sparks cascaded around him and formed a crown in his hair without burning. The cold blaze lashed around him, etching a frosty crystalline pattern of his arms and face.
He stared at the other members of the Inner Circle through the veil of flames as the fire burned his mortality away and he became an Immortal again. Their eyes looked more pleased than angry, more content than covetous. Stanton had destroyed the traitor Lambert, and the Atrox was pleased.
The fire became a maelstrom, shrieking up to the heavens in triumph. The crown of burning embers stayed on his head. Bits of fire showered the night and formed a pathway toward the blaze.
Three of the highest-ranking members stepped slowly forward along the fiery path, carrying a cloak spun of black, silky threads. Together they spread the fabric and set the cloak over Stanton's shoulders.
He stared at the emblem, surprised by what he had been given. He smiled, satisfied, and knew that Jimena's final premonition had come true. Only one was allowed to wear this crest. It was the highest honor given by the Atrox; two hands holding the eternal flame of evil. Stanton understood its significance. He had once been destined to be a prince. Now he was Prince of the Night.
”
”
Lynne Ewing (The Sacrifice (Daughters of the Moon, #5))
“
As she turned to signal to her father, she caught sight of Mr. Wylie himself, escorting a lady into the stable block. A gleam of gold silk—wait, it was her mother! Claire’s pale face turned momentarily in her direction, but her attention was fixed on something Wylie was saying, and she didn’t notice her daughter on the path.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5))
“
I see her on TV, screaming into a microphone.
Her head is shaved and she is beautiful
and seventeen, and her high school was just shot up,
she's had to walk by friends lying in their own blood,
her teacher bleeding out,
and she's my daughter, the one I never had,
and she's your daughter and everyone's daughter
and she's her own woman, in the fullness of her young fire,
calling bullshit on politicians who take money from the gun-makers.
Tears rain down her face but she doesn't stop shouting
she doesn't apologize she keeps calling them out,
all of them all of us
who didn't do enough to stop this thing.
And you can see the gray faces of those who have always held power
contort, utterly baffled
to face this new breed of young woman,
not silky, not compliant,
not caring if they call her a ten or a troll.
And she cries but she doesn't stop
yelling truth into the microphone,
though her voice is raw and shaking
and the Florida sun is molten brass.
I'm three thousand miles away, thinking how
Neruda said The blood of the children
ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.
Only now she is, they are
raising a fuss, shouting down the walls of Jericho,
and it's not that we road-weary elders
have been given the all-clear exactly,
but our shoulders do let down a little,
we breathe from a deeper place,
we say to each other,
Well, it looks like the baton
may be passing
to these next runners and they are
fleet as thought,
fiery as stars,
and we take another breath
and say to each other, The baton
has been passed, and we set off then
running hard behind them.
”
”
Alison Luterman
“
The only thing Faith knew for certain was that her daughter would be home in four days. If Emma saw that her construction paper had been torn into strips, that her Hello Kitty tape had been used, that her drawings were gone from the fridge, she would have such a fiery meltdown that a couple of hobbits would show up to toss some rings at her.
”
”
Karin Slaughter (After That Night (Will Trent, #11))
“
The Book of Enoch provides an excellent foundation for the approach and understanding of Luciferianism as a philosophy: The Watchers bring knowledge and potential, this alone is celebrated among Left-Hand Path initiates. In the days before the rise of the Cult of Yahweh, the ancient world was ever changing. The earth evolved and the balance of predator and prey was shaped and fashioned in a beautiful conflict present in nature. The daughters of men, fair and inspiring lust in the Watchers, these gods of the empyrean and fiery realm of air to take notice. The Watchers as they are called, have origins in the Hebrew root ‘er, ‘awake, watchful’ indicating the divine fire of which they bestow unto the Daughters of Cain and the Nephilim. For those of the Luciferian Path, myths and lore are made individual and within the beginning and end of the initiate. We find a parallel and influence of the Watcher descent from the older Mesopotamian lore of the Seven Sages. The apkallu (Wise Ones, Sages) were seven sages sent by Ea from the Apsu to teach the arts of civilization to humanity prior to the Flood. The parallel with the Watchers is clear: the apkallu were skilled craftsmen who instructed man on the arts, social structure and the invention of walled cities. Ea later banished them back to the oceanic abyssic Apsu. Seleucid period Babylonian scribe Berossos recorded this myth in his works. The names of the Seven Sages are known: U-an, better recognized as Oannes, U-an-duga, En-me-duga, En-me-galama, En-me-buluga, An-Enlilda and Utu-abzu. Other epithets are known of the Seven Sages and each is paired with an antediluvian king. The sages came forth from the Apsu depicted as fish-men or with the Underworld features of a bird.
”
”
Michael W. Ford (Fallen Angels: Watchers and the Witches Sabbat)
“
The fiery Watchers of the Heavens join in union with the Daughters of Men, spirit and flesh. The uninitiated are of mere clay or earth, while the offspring of this union are Nephilim or Giants whose spirits leave their bodies and haunt the earth after physical death. The Luciferian seeks to become “like” the Nephilim, balanced in spirit and flesh, giant as in strong of mind and character, spirit can leave body (astral projection, vampirism). Luciferians utilize forbidden knowledge to master their world, commanding the path of their own unique destiny which is changeable. The Daemon of the Black Adept is the guide and personal god representing potential in self-excellence, devoid of ‘conscious’ personality (likes and dislikes), instinctually directing logical and reasonable goals of the Luciferian.
”
”
Michael W. Ford (Fallen Angels: Watchers and the Witches Sabbat)
“
Show me that unrelenting brute force, Tisaanah.” She didn’t move, didn’t speak. But a fiery glitter seeped into her eyes, and I let their flames strip me, burn me, consume me, until there was nothing left but ash.
”
”
Carissa Broadbent (Daughter of No Worlds (The War of Lost Hearts, #1))