โ
Georgian film is a completely unique phenomenon, vivid, philosophically inspiring, very wise, childlike. There is everything that can make me cry and I ought to say that it (my crying) is not an easy thing.
โ
โ
Federico Fellini
โ
You will like her," he persisted. "Egad, she's after your own heart, maman! She shot me in the arm."
"Voyons, do you think that is what I like?
โ
โ
Georgette Heyer (Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley, #2))
โ
My definition of man is a cooking animal. The beasts have memory, judgement, and the faculties and passions of our minds in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook.
โ
โ
James Boswell (The Journals, 1762-95)
โ
The Georgian had used more words in 5 minutes than Wyatt had spoken during 1872 and 1873 combined.
โ
โ
Mary Doria Russell (Doc)
โ
I'm accustomed to reading Georgian and Victorian letters and sometimes you simply know in your gut that a blithe sentence is covering up a deeper emotion.
โ
โ
Sara Sheridan
โ
The best that can be said about Victorian hospitals is that they were a slight improvement over their Georgian predecessors. Thatโs hardly a ringing endorsement when one considers that a hospitalโs โChief Bug-Catcherโโwhose job it was to rid the mattresses of liceโwas paid more than its surgeons.
โ
โ
Lindsey Fitzharris (The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine)
โ
Nell did not imagine that Constable Moore wanted to get into a detailed discussion of recent events, so she changed the subject. "I think I have finally worked out what you were trying to tell me, years ago, about being intelligent," she said.
The Constable brightened all at once. "Pleased to hear it."
The Vickys have an elaborate code of morals and conduct. It grew out of the moral squalor of an earlier generation, just as the original Victorians were preceded by the Georgians and the Regency. The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that codeโ but their children believe it for entirely different reasons."
They believe it," the Constable said, "because they have been indoctrinated to believe it."
Yes. Some of them never challenge itโ they grow up to be smallminded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebelโ as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw."
Which path do you intend to take, Nell?" said the Constable, sounding very interested. "Conformity or rebellion?"
Neither one. Both ways are simple-mindedโ they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.
โ
โ
Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer)
โ
Georgian folk music has more new musical ideas than all the contemporary music.
[Los Angeles Times. 26.02.1990]
โ
โ
Igor Stravinsky
โ
I believe yours is the only wisdom, Demelza.
โ
โ
Winston Graham (Jeremy Poldark (Poldark, #3))
โ
Recordings of Georgian folk polyphonic songs makes a great musical impression. They are recorded in a tradition of active reproduction of Georgian folk music the origin of which begins from ancient time. It is a wonderful finding and can give to the performance much more than all the modem music can... Yodel or "Krimanchuli" as it is called in Georgia is the best song which I have ever heard. ["America" magazine, No 23 1967]
โ
โ
Igor Stravinsky
โ
With Philip's departure had come a void which only could be filled by Philip's return.
โ
โ
Georgette Heyer (Powder and Patch)
โ
- แแแ แแขแแแ แแแ แแขแแแแ, แกแขแ แแแแแแ - แแฎแแแแแ แ แฌแแแแแแ, - แแแแแแแ, แแแขแ, แกแแจแฃแแแ - แกแฃแแแ แแแ. แแแแแแ แแแ แแแแแแ, แกแแแฆแแ แแแ - แแ แแฃแแ.
โ
โ
Andrzej Sapkowski
โ
Song of myself
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,
A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and
hospitable down by the Oconee I live,
A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest
joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,
A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin
leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,
A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen
off Newfoundland,
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking,
At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the
Texan ranch,
Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving
their big proportions,)
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands
and welcome to drink and meat,
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.
I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
โ
โ
Walt Whitman
โ
WHEREVER WE HAD BEEN in Russia, in Moscow, in the Ukraine, in Stalingrad, the magical name of Georgia came up constantly. People who had never been there, and who possibly never could go there, spoke of Georgia with a kind of longing and a great admiration. They spoke of Georgians as supermen, as great drinkers, great dancers, great musicians, great workers and lovers. And they spoke of the country in the Caucasus and around the Black Sea as a kind of second heaven. Indeed, we began to believe that most Russians hope that if they live very good and virtuous lives, they will go not to heaven, but to Georgia, when they die. It is a country favored in climate, very rich in soil, and it has its own little ocean. Great service to the state is rewarded by a trip to Georgia. It is a place of recuperation for people who have been long ill. And even during the war it was a favored place, for the Germans never got there, neither with planes nor with troops. It is one of the places that was not hurt at all.
โ
โ
John Steinbeck (A Russian Journal)
โ
Idleness was so often despised. And yet it was on idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
The three most difficult things to understand: the mind of a woman, the labor of the bees, and the ebb and flow of the tide.โ Georgian proverb โNED BLOODWORTHโS BEEKEEPERโS JOURNAL
โ
โ
Karen White (Flight Patterns)
โ
It turns out to be the new Planet, which, a decade and a half later, will be known first as the Georgian, and then as Herschel, after its official Discoverer, and more lately as Uranus.
โ
โ
Thomas Pynchon (Mason & Dixon)
โ
We look back on history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling; revolutions and counter-revolutions succeeding one another; wealth accumulating and wealth dispersed; one nation dominant and then another. As Shakespeareโs King Lear puts it, โthe rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon.โ In one lifetime Iโve seen my fellow countrymen ruling over a quarter of the world, and the great majority of them convinced โ in the words of what is still a favorite song โ that God has made them mighty and will make them mightier yet. Iโve heard a crazed Austrian announce the establishment of a German Reich that was to last for a thousand years; an Italian clown report that the calendar will begin again with his assumption of power; a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite as wiser than Solomon, more enlightened than Ashoka, more humane than Marcus Aurelius. Iโve seen America wealthier than all the rest of the world put together; and with the superiority of weaponry that would have enabled Americans, had they so wished, to outdo an Alexander or a Julius Caesar in the range and scale of conquest. All in one little lifetime โ gone with the wind: England now part of an island off the coast of Europe, threatened with further dismemberment; Hitler and Mussolini seen as buffoons; Stalin a sinister name in the regime he helped to found and dominated totally for three decades; Americans haunted by fears of running out of the precious fluid that keeps their motorways roaring and the smog settling, by memories of a disastrous military campaign in Vietnam, and the windmills of Watergate. Can this really be what life is about โ this worldwide soap opera going on from century to century, from era to era, as old discarded sets and props litter the earth? Surely not. Was it to provide a location for so repetitive and ribald a production as this that the universe was created and man, or homo sapiens as he likes to call himself โ heaven knows why โ came into existence? I canโt believe it. If this were all, then the cynics, the hedonists, and the suicides are right: the most we can hope for from life is amusement, gratification of our senses, and death. But it is not all.
โ
โ
Malcolm Muggeridge
โ
But I awoke at three, feeling terribly sad, and feeling rebelliously that I didn't want to study sadness, madness, melancholy, and despair. I wanted to study triumphs, the rediscoveries of love, all that I know in the world to be decent, radiant, and clear. Then the word "love", the impulse to love, welled up in me somewhere above my middle. Love seemed to flow from me in all directions, abundant as water--love for Cora, love for Flora, love for all my friends and neighbors, love for Penumbra. This tremendous flow of vitality could not be contained within its spelling, and I seemed to seize a laundry marker and write "luve" on the wall. I wrote "luve" on the staircase, "luve" on the pantry, "luve" on the oven, the washing machine, and the coffeepot, and when Cora came down in the morning (I would be nowhere around) everywhere she looked she would read "luve", "luve", "luve." Then I saw a green meadow and a sparkling stream. On the ridge there were thatched-roof cottages and a square church tower, so I knew it must be England. I climbed up from the meadow to the streets of the village, looking for the cottage where Cora and Flora would be waiting for me. There seemed to have been some mistake. No one knew their names. I asked at the post office, but the answer here was the same. Then it occurred to me that they would be at the manor house. How stupid I had been! I left the village and walked up a sloping lawn to a Georgian house, where a butler let me in. The squire was entertaining. There were twenty-five or thirty people in the hall, drinking sherry. I took a glass from a tray and looked through the gathering for Flora and my wife, but they were not there. Then I thanked my host and walked down the broad lawn, back to the meadow and the sparkling brook, where I lay on the grass and fell into a sweet sleep.
โ
โ
John Cheever
โ
... though the whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were alike amoung them. Some approached pure blanching, some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters (which has possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a cadavourous tint, and to a georgian style.
โ
โ
Thomas Hardy
โ
Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
In these terrific Georgians we had met more than our match. They could out-eat us, out-drink us, out-dance us, out-sing us. They had the fierce gaiety of the Italians, and the physical energy of the Burgundians. Everything they did was done with flair. They were quite different from the Russians we had met, and it is easy to see why they are so admired by the citizens of the other Soviet republics. Their energy not only survives but fattens on a tropical climate. And nothing can break their individuality or their spirit. That has been tried for many centuries by invaders, by czarist armies, by despots, by the little local nobility. Everything has struck at their spirit and nothing has succeeded in making a dent in it.
โ
โ
John Steinbeck (A Russian Journal)
โ
แฅแแแกแแแแแจแ แกแแแจแแแแแก แแแแแแฃแแแแแก แแแ แจแแแชแแแ, แญแแแแแ แแแกแแฎแแแ แแ แกแฃแแก แแแฎแฃแแแแก. แแฅแแฃแ แ แกแแแจแแแแ แแแ แแแแกแแแ แแแแแซแแแแก. แแแแฅแแก แแ แแแ แแแแก, แแแแแก แแแแแช แกแแแจแแแแ แแ แแแกแแแแแแก, แแฆแแแ แแแแแแ แ แแ แฃแแแชแ แแแแ แกแแแจแแแแ
โ
โ
Natalie Davitashvili
โ
That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be . Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
It takes chracter to refuse a man you love more dearly than life merely because marrying him would be the wrong thing to do.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
Ah, those eyes," he said. "They can speak volumes, but sometimes even I cannot translate the language. And we never did invent enough signs for deeper thoughts and feelings.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
แกแแฅแแ แแแแแแจแ แแแแแแแแแแแ แแ แจแแแแแ แแฃแแแ แฌแฃแฎแแแแ แแแแแ: แแฐ... แฌแฃแแแ แแแแแช แแแแ แฃแแแแแแแแก แฉแแแแ แแแแจแแแแ แแ แกแแแแแแแ.
โ
โ
Lado Asatiani (แกแแฅแแ แแแแแแจแ)
โ
Fred is staying with his mother these holidays. She's living in London for six months, in Chelsea, studying Georgian underwear at the National Art Library. It's a thesis, not a fetish.
โ
โ
Fiona Wood (Six Impossible Things)
โ
Here we are, representatives of the three greatest Caucasian people: a Georgian, a Mohammedan, an Armenian. Born under the same sky, by the same earth, different and yet the same, like God's Trinity. European, and yet Asiatic, receiving from the East and West, and giving to both.
โ
โ
Kurban Said (Ali and Nino)
โ
Perhaps we should do the learning - and learn not to communicate, or to do it in a different way. Now there is a thought. Perhaps we could learn your peace if we could share your silence.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
Ice-cold chills ran through my body as I stared at this little soldier beneath me, slight but with a heart of steel.
Lifting her head, she pressed her forehead to mine and said, โWe are different. Me weak and you strong. Me a Georgian and you Russian, but our broken hearts are tired and old. Our spirits are low, though not broken. But our souls, though thoroughly tested and hardened through pain, are resilient.โ Her lips twitched, and she added, โThey are the same.
โ
โ
Tillie Cole (Ravage (Scarred Souls, #3))
โ
You are my own. You are my own. He had not meant the words in that way. He had been talking strictly about possession. But oh, the longing for his love was an unbearably painful ache in her.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Heartless (Georgian, #1))
โ
Tis what marriage is all about, madam," he said. "Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and taste of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
This is heaven,โ he gasped. โI want to live inside you, feel you suck me deeper and deeper until we are one.
โ
โ
Sylvia Day (Passion for the Game (Georgian, #2))
โ
I love you, Maria. More than my life.โ His smile was bittersweet. โToday I believed I loved you as much as I was able. Now, however, I love you many times more than that.
โ
โ
Sylvia Day (Passion for the Game (Georgian, #2))
โ
True vice, my lady, would frighten us all, if it did not wear the mask of virtue. (p.56)
โ
โ
Emery Lee (Fortune's Son)
โ
He would never know know her. Such intimacy but no communication, because words - even if she could speak or write them - could never explain her world to him.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
Gifts were dangerous things, she thought. Sometimes one succeeded only in taking far more than one gave.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
แฐแแ, แแฅแแแ, แแ แแแแแแแแ, แแแฃแแแซแฆแแ แแ แแแแแ, แแฅแแแแก แกแแคแแแแแแแแ แแแกแแแ แแ แแฃแฎแแแก แแแแ แแแ แแแแแแแ.
โ
โ
Lado Asatiani (แกแแฅแแ แแแแแแจแ)
โ
If you forgive the fox for stealing your chickens, he will take your sheep.
โ
โ
Georgian Proverb
โ
She was up again at that.
"In love? You? Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense! You do not know what the word means. You are like a--like a fish, with no more love in you than a fish, and no more heart than a fish, and--"
"Spare me the rest, I beg. I am very clammy, I make no doubt, but you will at least accord me more brain than a fish?
โ
โ
Georgette Heyer (The Black Moth)
โ
Amy Martin (ladysky) and Daniel Baciagalupo had a month to spend on Charlotte Turner's island in Georgian Bay; it was their wilderness way of getting to know each other before their life together in Toronto began. We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly--as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth--the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.
Little Joe was gone, but not a day passed in Daniel Baciagalupo's life when Joe wasn't loved or remembered. The cook had been murdered in his bed, but Dominic Baciagalupo had had the last laugh on the cowboy. Ketchum's left hand would lvie forever in Twisted River, and Six-Pack had known what to do with the rest of her old friend
โ
โ
John Irving (Last Night in Twisted River)
โ
Unfortunately, you, Sir Tristram, knowing nothing of me, and being possessed of a tyrannical disposition โ I beg your pardon?โ
โI did not speak,โ replied Sir Tristram, eyeing her frostily.
Miss Thane met his look with one of limpid innocence. โOh, I quite thought you did!โ
โI choked,โ explained Sir Tristram. โPray continue! You had reached my tyrannical disposition.
โ
โ
Georgette Heyer (The Talisman Ring)
โ
You have had Ravenscar murdered, and hidden his body in my cellar!" uttered her ladyship, sinking into a chair. "We shall all be ruined! I knew it!"
"My dear ma'am it is no such thing!" Deborah said amused. "He is not dead I assure you!
โ
โ
Georgette Heyer (Faro's Daughter)
โ
Yes, but if you cannot clear your name, what then are we to do?" she demanded.
"Forget we ever met!" said Ludovic with a groan.
This Spartan resolve did not commend itself to Eustacie at all. Two large tears sparkled on the ends of her eyelashes, and she said in a very forlorn voice; "But me, I have a memory of the very longest!
โ
โ
Georgette Heyer (The Talisman Ring)
โ
She wondered if she would have tumbled into love with him during the past week if her heart had been whole, if her soul had no been shattered long ago. She rather thought she might have. But a heart and soul could not be mended by the power of the will, she had discovered over seven years. And so she had accepted reality and moved on.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
A Philippine-brothel-owning member of the House of Lords was staying at the house of a Spanish Chief Inspector of Police. The Lord was being watched by an American CIA operative who was staying at the house of an English convicted sex offender. The CIA operative was sharing accommodation with an IRA terrorist. The IRA terrorist was discussing a Moroccan hashish deal with a Georgian pilot of Colombia's Medellรญn Cartel. Organising these scenarios was an ex-MI6 agent, currently supervising the sale of thirty tons of Thai weed in Canada and at whose house could be found Pakistan's major supplier of hashish. Attempting to understand the scenarios was a solitary DEA agent. The stage was set for something.
โ
โ
Howard Marks (Mr. Nice)
โ
Leave love to take its course.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
There was at least as much to learn as there was to be taught.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
It is the yearning I sense in you that lures me.
โ
โ
Sylvia Day (A Passion for Him (Georgian, #3))
โ
I couldn't imagine it, living a pristine life in this big Georgian house and everything. It seemed heinous. So I left him. I thought I'd go mad, if I stayed.
โ
โ
Sarah Rayner (One Moment, One Morning)
โ
While many a Georgian condemned the Yankees for ravaging the countryside, it should be noted that the Confederates often treated Southerners just as badly, if not worse. Major
โ
โ
James Lee McDonough (William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life)
โ
Over dinner at a Georgian restaurant that specialized in shish kebab, Jobs continued his rant.
โ
โ
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
โ
Witch-cursed, legend-haunted Arkham, whose huddled, sagging gambrel roofs and crumbling Georgian balustrades brood out the centuries beside the darkly muttering Miskatonic.
โ
โ
H.P. Lovecraft (The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories)
โ
Will you miss me?โ
โI hope not,โ he muttered, feeling surly for no reason he could recognize.
โI shall miss you.โ
Alert, he studied her. โYou will?โ
โNo. It seemed like the thing to say.
โ
โ
Sylvia Day (Passion for the Game (Georgian, #2))
โ
But Ashley had always understood. He had always known there was a person behind the silence - not just a person who listened with her eyes and would have responded in similar words if she could have, but one who inhabited a world of her own and lived in it quiet as richly as anyone in his world. With Ashley there had always been a language. There had always been a way of giving him glimpses of herself.
โ
โ
Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
In Georgian England, sweeps and climbing-boys were regarded as general cesspools of diseaseโdirty, consumptive, syphilitic, pox-riddenโand a โragged, ill-looking sore,โ easily attributed to some sexually transmitted illness, was usually treated with a toxic mercury-based chemical and otherwise shrugged off. (โSyphilis,โ as the saying ran, โwas one night with Venus, followed by a thousand nights with mercury.โ)
โ
โ
Siddhartha Mukherjee (The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer)
โ
They made their way to the dining room, where the air was blossom-scented and gilded with candlelight. The mammoth Jacobean table, with its legs and support rails carved like twisted rope, had been covered with pristine white linen. A row of broad silver baskets filled with billows of June roses rested on a long runner of frothy green maidenhair ferns. The walls had been lined with lush arrangements of palms, hydrangeas, azaleas and peonies, turning the room into an evening garden. Each place at the table had been set with glittering Irish crystal, Sรจvres porcelain, and no fewer than twenty-four pieces of antique Georgian silver flatware per guest.
โ
โ
Lisa Kleypas (Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels, #5))
โ
I knew the moment I held you in the theater, that you were the reason for everything. Every single turn my life has made led me to you. Were I not the man I am, the agency would never have approached me and I would not have found you, my soul mate. In fact, you are so like me, it is nearly frightening, yet you continue to surprise and astound me.
โ
โ
Sylvia Day (Passion for the Game (Georgian, #2))
โ
let me explain the meaning of freedom. The meaning that I think is accurate and that is true to myself.
The word freedom in the Georgian language is แแแแแกแฃแคแแแ (Tavisufali). แแแแแก meaning His own/Her own, แฃแคแแแ - God. So, I think that to be free means to be the god of yourself. To be connected to the god and his power within your- self. To be free means to be able to have control over yourself. To be fully free is to be able to control your thoughts, then control your words and your actions.
โ
โ
Ani Rich (A Missing Drop: Free Your Mind From Conditioning And Reconnect To Your Truest Self)
โ
but she didn't really hit her stride until she got to the Georgian period, at which point she worked herself up into a froth explaining the shortcomings of that syphilitic monarch, which had inspired the right-thinking Americans to break away in disgust.
โ
โ
Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age)
โ
Too often critics have taken as the sole and crucial matter of fantasy the preoccupation of Tolkien, the quest for a remedy to the world's pain that will not destroy innocence with the temptations of power. Impressive and popular as The Lord of the Rings is, it manages its landscapes, vast green-leaved or slag-heaped vistas of pathetic fallacy and implied morality, far better than its people; it leaves the impression that important issues have been turned by sleight of hand and Georgian prettiness into questions of good and bad practice in urban planning and rural conservation. After all, the Grail is only worth seeking if you can believe in a god who put it there to help those who help themselves, in an Avalon to which burned-out heroes can retire with dignity. There is another great Matter for fantasy, one of more obvious resonance for the creative artist - the reconciliation of faerie and humanity; of the passion, power and wit of a world of sensuality, magic, and danger with the requirements of kind and ordinary life.
โ
โ
Roz Kaveney
โ
He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. โYouโre very anxious to get her in your power again,
Vidal. But I donโt quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had
ruined her, and so were obliged to, didnโt you?โ
She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation
of the dregs of his wine. โBecause I am obliged to?โ he said. โI mean to marry Mary Challoner
because Iโm devilish sure I canโt live without her.โ
Juliana clapped her hands with a crow of delight. โOh, it is famous!โ she exclaimed. โI never dreamed
you had fallen in love with my staid Mary! I thought you were chasing her through France just
because you so hate to be crossed! But when you flew into a rage with me for saying she was too dull
to be afraid of you, of course, I guessed at once! My dearest Dominic, I was never more glad of
anything in my life, and it is of all things the most romantic possible! Do, do let us overtake them at
once! Only conceive of their astonishment when they see us!
โ
โ
Georgette Heyer (Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley, #2))
โ
- Ay! Thornton o' Marlborough Mill, as we call him.
- He is one of the masters you are striving with, is he not? what sort of master is he?
- Did yo' ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hindlegs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton.
โ
โ
Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South)
โ
No matter how many times you fail, you must try again, and use your previously gained experience in order to win the next time. Thatโs how life works. Main is to never stop believing in yourself and who you are. If you donโt know who you are, you must go and find your true identity. You must fight to get what you want. No one will serve you some nectar in a golden glass. Life is all about battle and sweat.
โ
โ
Tamuna Tsertsvadze (Battles of Giorgland: The Legend of White Giorgi and Friends)
โ
It was hard to leave. But it was impossible to stay. He was leaving from choice because he was young and energetic and adventurous and had long wanted to carve a life of his own.
He was going to new possibility, new dreams. But he was leaving behind places and people. And though, being young, he was sure he would see them all again some day, he knew too that many years might pass before he did so.
It was not easy to leave.
โ
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Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
We are different. Me weak and you strong. Me a Georgian and you Russian, but our broken hearts are tired and old. Our spirits are low, though not broken. But our souls, though thoroughly tested and hardened through pain, are resilient.โ Her lips twitched, and she added, โThey are the same.
โ
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Tillie Cole (Ravage (Scarred Souls, #3))
โ
You think Diana would come to your bed?โ Ned threw his head back and laughed. โYouโre mad! First of all, she would never break her marriage vows. Secondly, sheโs certainly deduced by now what a whoremonger you are. She wouldnโt touch you with gloves, my friend.โ from THE DEVIL YOU KNOW (DEVIL DEVERE book #3)
โ
โ
Victoria Vane
โ
She was not sure that her deafness had strengthened her character. She was not even sure she had met a challenge. A silent world was as natural to her as a noisy one must be to them, she reflected. But people tended to assume that deaf persons could function as people only if they learned to conform to a world of sound. What about the challenge of silence? Very few people of hearing ever accepted it or even knew that there was a challenge there. People of hearing feared silence...
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Mary Balogh (Silent Melody (Georgian, #2))
โ
If you want to know what the Georgians were really like, just watch the furniture experts on the Roadshow, those spraunced and pinched plonkers with marbled hair and patinated jowls pulling ancient drawers off old widowsโ ball-and-claw feet and getting all arch about their lovely dovetails. Thatโs the true voice of Georgiana.
โ
โ
A.A. Gill (The Best of A.A. Gill)
โ
But all over-expression, whether by journalists, poets, novelists, or clergymen, is bad for the language, bad for the mind; and by over-expression, I mean the use of words running beyond the sincere feeling of writer or speaker or beyond what the event will sanely carry. From time to time a crusade is preached against it from the text: โThe cat was on the mat.โ Some Victorian scribe, we must suppose, once wrote: โStretching herself with feline grace and emitting those sounds immemorially connected with satisfaction, Grimalkin lay on a rug whose richly variegated pattern spoke eloquently of the Orient and all the wonders of the Arabian Nights.โ And an exasperated reader annotated the margin with the shorter version of the absorbing event. How the late Georgian scribe will express the occurrence we do not yet know. Thus, perhaps: โWhat there is of cat is cat is what of cat there lying cat is what on what of mat laying cat.โ The reader will probably the margin with โSome cat!
โ
โ
John Galsworthy (Candelabra: Selected Essays and Addresses)
โ
She spoke in the soft slurring voice of the coastal Georgian, liquid of vowels, kind to consonants and with the barest trace of French accent. It was a voice never raised in command to a servant or reproof to a child but a voice that was obeyed instantly at Tara, where her husbandโs blustering and roaring were quietly disregarded.
โ
โ
Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)
โ
Heโd once hoped to satisfy his need and finally be done with her. Now he prayed his aching need would never end, the pleasure was too great to forfeit. If
โ
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Sylvia Day (Ask For It (Georgian, #1))
โ
You often appear lost in a world of your own making. It is supremely appealing to men to see a woman content with herself. We long to slip inside her and join her.
โ
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Sylvia Day (A Passion for Him (Georgian, #3))
โ
This is my cousin, by the way. I dare say you know of him. He is very wicked and kills people in duels. Vidal, this is Frederick.
โ
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Georgette Heyer (Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley, #2))
โ
Your presence in England is extremely โ shall we say enlivening? โ Vidal. But I believe I shall survive the loss of it.
โ
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Georgette Heyer (Devil's Cub (Alastair-Audley, #2))
โ
Nation would triumph over all its adverse Fortune. Some eminent
โ
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Roy A. Adkins (Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods)
โ
Brandishing sword and pistol, and flanked by several men, she managed to be sufficiently intimidating and the attackers had been frightened away.
โ
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Sylvia Day (The Georgian Romance Collection: Ask for It / Passion for the Game / A Passion for Him / Don't Tempt Me)
โ
Thought Iโd try something different for a change. The dress is from the vintage shop a few shops down. I love the Georgian and the Victorian era โ Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and all that,โ Tess said excitedly, remembering her plan to read Jane Eyre that night. She pictured a night seated in her cosy armchair with a pot of Earl Grey tea, some gourmet sandwiches from the deli, reading until way past midnight.
โ
โ
Anthea Syrokou (True Colours)
โ
It was in the library that he and May had always discussed the future of the children: the studies of Dallas and his young brother Bill, Mary's incurable indifference to "accomplishments," and passion for sport and philanthropy, and the vague leanings toward "art" which had finally landed the restless and curious Dallas in the office of a rising New York architect.
The young men nowadays were emancipating themselves from the law and business and taking up all sorts of new things. If they were not absorbed in state politics or municipal reform, the chances were that they were going in for Central American archaeology, for architecture or landscape-engineering; taking a keen and learned interest in the prerevolutionary buildings of their own country, studying and adapting Georgian types, and protesting at the meaningless use of the word "Colonial." Nobody nowadays had "Colonial" houses except the millionaire grocers of the suburbs.
โ
โ
Edith Wharton
โ
Although itโs just as likely to be a son,โ Carla says. Iโve missed some earlier part of her speech, and I donโt know what sheโs talking about. โYouโre lucky you have a daughter. They say sons steal from their old mothers. It was in a report I saw on the news.โ โBut I do have a son,โ I say. โMillions of pounds, stolen every year.โ โI donโt have millions of pounds,โ I say. โAnd all kinds of antiques. Georgian, Victorian.โ โI donโt have any antiques, either.โ Oh, this is no good. What sort of a conversation
โ
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Emma Healey (Elizabeth Is Missing)
โ
Humble myself? 'Fore Gad, you must be mad!"
"Belike I am; but I tell you Tracy, that if your passion is love, 'tis a strange one that puts yourself first. I would not give a snap of a finger for it! You want this girl, not for her happiness, but for your own pleasure. That is not the love I once told you would save you from yourself. When it comes, you will count yourself as naught; you will realise your own insignificance, and above all, be ready to make any sacrifice for her sake. Yes, even to the point of losing her!
โ
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Georgette Heyer (The Black Moth)
โ
During his time at VGIK, Tarkovsky and his fellow students studied all aspects of filmmaking, watching the classics of Soviet cinema and taking part in workshops in which they would demonstrate their technical ability. This even included acting; Tarkovskyโs fellow student and friend, Alexander Gordon, remembers him giving a superb performance as the aging Prince Bolkonsky when Romm got the students to perform scenes from War and Peace during their third year at VGIK. Tarkovsky saw many classics from outside the Soviet Union, including Citizen Kane, the films of John Ford and William Wyler, and the works of the fathers of the French New Wave, Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo. Tarkovsky developed a personal pantheon that included Bergman, Bunuel, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, Fellini and Antonioni. The only Soviet director who made it into his pantheon was Dovzhenko, although he was good friends with the Georgian director Sergei Parajanov, whom he regarded as โa genius in everythingโ. He also spoke highly of Iosseliani, and, on occasion, of Boris Barnet. But above them all was the towering figure of Robert Bresson, whom Tarkovsky regarded as the ultimate film artist.
โ
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Sean Martin (Andrei Tarkovsky (Pocket Essential series))
โ
The Caucasus mountain range is probably the most variegated ethnological and linguistic area in the world. It is not a melting pot, as has been said, but a refuge area par excellence where small groups have maintained their identity throughout history. The descendants of the Mediaeval Alans, a Scythic Iranian people, live in the north Caucasus today and are called Ossetes. Iranian cultural influences were strong among the Armenians, Georgians and other peoples of the Caucasus and many times in history large parts of this area were under Persian rule. So it well deserves to be mentioned in a survey of Iran.
โ
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Richard N. Frye (The Heritage of Persia)
โ
Why do we like being Irish? Partly because
It gives us a hold on the sentimental English
As members of a world that never was,
Baptised with fairy water;
And partly because Ireland is small enough
To be still thought of with a family feeling,
And because the waves are rough
That split her from a more commercial culture;
And because one feels that here at least one can
Do local work which is not at the world's mercy
And that on this tiny stage with luck a man
Might see the end of one particular action.
It is self-deception of course;
There is no immunity in this island either;
A cart that is drawn by somebody else's horse
And carrying goods to somebody else's market.
The bombs in the turnip sack, the sniper from the roof,
Griffith, Connolly, Collins, where have they brought us?
Ourselves alone! Let the round tower stand aloof
In a world of bursting mortar!
Let the school-children fumble their sums
In a half-dead language;
Let the censor be busy on the books; pull down the
Georgian slums;
Let the games be played in Gaelic.
Let them grow beet-sugar; let them build
A factory in every hamlet;
Let them pigeon-hole the souls of the killed
Into sheep and goats, patriots and traitors.
And the North, where I was a boy,
Is still the North, veneered with the grime of Glasgow,
Thousands of men whom nobody will employ
Standing at the corners, coughing.
โ
โ
Louis MacNeice
โ
There are two opposing conceptions concerning lies. The first is attributed to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who is reputed to have said, โA lie told often enough becomes the truth.โ There is another one, attributed to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said: โRepetition does not transform a lie into a truth.โ
It is clear that the Russian leadership has a preference for Leninโs approach. Even faced with unequivocal evidence it continues to deny the facts. Apart from unfounded accusations against Georgia of genocide and the denial of its own use of cluster bombs, the war in Georgia was preceded and accompanied by open lies, misinformation (for instance, about โuncontrollableโ South Ossetian militias), and active disinformation, all reminiscent of the old Soviet style.
In this way Russia almost succeeded in hiding the most important fact: that this was not a โRussian-Georgian war,โ but a Russian war against Georgia in Georgia. There was not a single Georgian soldier that crossed the Russian frontier at any point. The Georgian troops that went into South Ossetia did not cross international frontiers, but intervened in their own country, no different from Russian troops intervening in Chechnya. It was Russian and not Georgian troops that crossed the border of another, sovereign country, in breach of the principles of international law [230โ31].
โ
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Marcel H. Van Herpen (Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism)
โ
This business with Sir Magnus Pye had got off to an inauspicious start. It was one thing to be stabbed in your own homeโbut to be decapitated with a medieval sword the moment darkness fell was quite simply outrageous. Saxby-on-Avon was such a quiet place! Yes, there had been that business with the cleaner, the woman who had tripped up and fallen down the stairs, but this was something else again. Could it really be true that one of the villagers, living in a Georgian house perhaps, going to church and playing for the local cricket team, mowing their lawn on Sunday mornings and selling home-made marmalade at the village fรชte, was a homicidal maniac? The answer was yesโquite possibly.
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Anthony Horowitz (Magpie Murders (Susan Ryeland, #1))
โ
While slaveowners worked vigorously to allow slaves only so much biblical teaching as to make them good, docile, submissive slaves, even the most basic moral elements of Christian truth proved revolutionary. This phenomenon arises clearly with the commandment against theft. Reading the proslavery defenses from the antebellum era, one encounters consistent references to slaves stealing and "pilfering" from their masters' stores and livestock, etc. This is always held up as evidence of their incapacity for civilization. Yet it was hardly any lack of capacity; it was resistance and restitution in their keen understanding of their masters' hypocrisy. "While white preachers repeatedly urged 'Don't steal,' slaves just as persistently denied that this commandment applied to them, since they themselves were stolen property." Former slave Josephine Howard retorted to those slaveholders who preached against theft: "[T]hen why did de white folks steal my mammy and her mammy? . . . Dat de sinfulles' stealin' dey is." A Virginian slave preached back at his master, "You white folks set the bad example of stealingโyou stole us from Africa, and not content with that, if any got free here, you stole them afterward, and so we are made slaves." Former Georgian slave George Womble agreed: "Slaves were taught to steal by their masters." [...] It is no wonder that whole audiences full of slaves were known to get up and leave the preaching services of missionaries when they began to preach on stealing. They simply could not stomach the hypocrisy.
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Joel McDurmon (The Problem of Slavery in Christian America)
โ
There were two brothers and a sister. And they had heard from the sky, or from the winds, that Jesus Christ had been born and had grown to manhood. There were portents and dreams that told them about him. Finally the two brothers started for Jerusalem, leaving their sister at home in this place. And they arrived on the day of the crucifixion, so they only saw him dead. And these two brothers from this pass in the Georgian mountains were heartbroken, and they begged a piece of the body-cloth of Jesus, and they brought it home to their sister. She was grief-stricken by the crucifixion, and she clutched the cloth, and fell sick and died of sorrow, and her dead hand held the cloth against her heart. Then the brothers tried to release the cloth, but her hand held firm and they could not get it away from her. And so she was buried with the cloth still held in her hand. She was buried right in this place where the church now stands. And almost immediately a plant grew out of the grave and became a giant tree. After a number of years it was desired to build a church in this place to commemorate the event. And woodsmen came and tried to cut the tree, but their axes flew to pieces against its trunk. Everyone tried to cut the tree, and they couldn't make a dent in it. Finally two angels came and cut the tree, and the church was built over the spot. The dark woman pointed to a curious tent-like structure of clay
inside the church, and this is where the grave was, she said, and this is where the tree stood. And under the clay tent undoubtedly was the body of the holy woman, still clutching the piece of the cloth that had been worn by Jesus.
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John Steinbeck (A Russian Journal)
โ
Haydenโs soft steps resume beside me, muffled and hollow sounding. โDid your dadโฆIs he gone?โ โDied a few years ago,โ I confirm. โMy parents were pretty old when they had us, so it wasnโt totally unexpected, but it still sucked. Sucks.โ โIโm sorry,โ he says. I force a slight smile in his direction. โThanks.โ โI always feel stupid saying that,โ he murmurs. โI know,โ I agree, โbut thereโs nothing else to say. And honestly, I would say seventy percent of my friends have pretty horrible relationships with their dads, so even if I didnโt get mine as long as I wish I could have, I still feel lucky.โ โYouโre not obligated to,โ he says quietly. โYou can feel cheated, Alice.โ I feel a surprising prickle at the back of my nose and a tender ache in my heart. Not just because Iโm thinking about my dad, but because what Cillian said wings through my mind again: An unpleasant sort. I could never blame Cillian for having that impression, but it bothers me to think of people out there meeting Hayden Anderson and coming away with this partial view of him. He can be unpleasant. He can also be kind, and even funny. He can be clueless that you are standing right next to him, but he also might notice you being harassed from the other side of the parking lot and intercede on your behalf. โI know I can,โ I finally admit. โBut Iโd rather think of it like this. Like it only hurts this much because he was so great.โ And so much reminds me of him that in a way itโs like heโs still here. Especially here, in the Georgian summer, interviewing a woman weโd both always been fascinated by. Hayden nods to himself, but neither of us says anything for a while. We just hike along the path in companionable silence, our arms grazing every several steps, our skin slightly sticky.
โ
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Emily Henry (Great Big Beautiful Life)
โ
On August 7, 2013, on the evening of the fifth anniversary of the war, Georgian President Mikheil Saakasvili, in a prerecorded interview on Georgiaโs Rustavi-2 TV, told that he had met Putin in Moscow in February 2008 at an informal summit of the CIS. During the summit he told Putin that he was ready to say no to NATO in exchange for Russian help with the reintegration of the two breakaway territories. Saakashvili claimed โthat โPutin did not even think for a minuteโ about his proposal. โ[Putin] smiled and said, โWe do not exchange your territories for your geopolitical orientation... And it meant โwe will chop off your territories anyway.โโ
Saakashvili asked him to talk about the growing tensions along the borders with South Ossetia, saying, โIt could not be worse than now.โ โThatโs when he [Putin] looked at me and said: โAnd here you are very wrong. You will see that very soon it will be much, much, much worse.โโ [234]
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โ
Marcel H. Van Herpen (Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism)
โ
by the end of his indenture, Gideon had gained weight, and had forgotten his outrage at men in power, for he was now a white Georgian with property of his own, instead of a hungry lad gaping at the well-fed rich. And the peopleโour peopleโwhom the English called Indians were now beneath Gideon. Finally, Gideon Franklin could look down on someone else, instead of being the most despised himself. As a landowner, Gideon was no longer close to power, he possessed it, and even more so when Oglethorpeโs wish of a colony without slavery was violated. And as the years passed, and enslaved Negroes were brought into the colony, though Gideon remained poor, he had pride in his freedom. His optimism grew, as well as his belief that God had blessed him with special grace. And why not? On our land, which the English had stolen from our people, Gideon was a white man. And even the poorest of white men was better than the Indian and the slave.
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Honorรฉe Fanonne Jeffers (The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois)
โ
Once in power, Stalinโs campaign to succeed Lenin required a legitimate heroic career which he did not possess because of his experience in what he called 'the dirty business' of politics: this could not be told, either because it was too gangsterish for a great, paternalistic statesman or because it was too Georgian for a Russian leader. His solution was a clumsy but all-embracing cult of personality that invented, distorted and concealed the truth. Ironically this self-promotion was so grotesque that it fanned sparks, sometimes innocent ones, which flared up into colossal anti-Stalin conspiracy-theories. It was easy for his political opponents, and later for us historians, to believe that it was all invented and that he had done nothing much at allโparticularly since few historians had researched in the Caucasus where so much of his early career took place. An anti-cult, as erroneous as the cult itself, grew up around these conspiracy-theories.
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Simon Sebag Montefiore (Young Stalin)
โ
What matters is the need to move from the rigidity of national stereotypes towards something more truly human; what matters is to discover the riches of human hearts and souls; what matters is the human content of poetry and science, the universal charm and beauty of architecture; what matters is the magnanimity of a nation's leaders and historical figures. only by exalting what is truly human, only by fusing the national with what is universally human, can try dignity - and true freedom - be achieved.
It is the struggle for freedom of thought and expression, the struggle for a peasant's freedom to sow what he wants to sow, for everyone's freedom to enjoy the fruits of their own work - this is the true struggle for national dignity.
The only real triumph of national freedom is one that brings about the triumph of all human freedom.
For small nations and large nations alike, this is the only way forward.
And it goes without saying that the Russians too - as well as Armenians, Georgians, Kazakhs, Kalmyks and Uzbeks - must understand that it is precisely through renouncing the idea of their own national superiority that they can truly affirm the grandeur and dignity of their own people, of their own literature and science.
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Vasily Grossman (An Armenian Sketchbook)
โ
The BFMSS [British False Memory Syndrome Society]
The founder of the 'false memory' movement in Britain is an accused father. Two of his adult daughters say that Roger Scotford sexually abused them in childhood. He denied this and responded by launching a spectacular counter-attack, which enjoyed apparently unlimited and uncritical air time in the mass media and provoke Establishment institutions that had made no public utterance about abuse to pronounce on the accused adults' repudiation of it.
p171-172
The 'British False Memory Syndrome Society' lent a scientific aura to the allegations - the alchemy of 'falsehood' and 'memory' stirred with disease and science. The new name pathologised the accusers and drew attention away from the accused. But the so-called syndrome attacked not only the source of the stories but also the alliances between the survivors' movement and practitioners in the health, welfare, and the criminal justice system. The allies were represented no longer as credulous dupes but as malevolent agents who imported a miasma of the 'false memories' into the imaginations of distressed victims.
Roger Scotford was a former naval officer turned successful property developer living in a Georgian house overlooking an uninterrupted valley in luscious middle England. He was a rich man and was able to give up everything to devote himself to the crusade.
He says his family life was normal and that he had been a 'Dr Spock father'. But his first wife disagrees and his second wife, although believing him innocent, describes his children's childhood as very difficult. His daughters say they had a significantly unhappy childhood.
In the autumn of 1991, his middle daughter invited him to her home to confront him with the story of her childhood. She was supported by a friend and he was invited to listen and then leave. She told him that he had abused her throughout her youth. Scotford, however, said that the daughter went to a homeopath for treatment for thrush/candida and then blamed the condition on him. He also said his daughter, who was in her twenties, had been upset during a recent trip to France to buy a property. He said he booked them into a hotel where they would share a room. This was not odd, he insisted, 'to me it was quite natural'. He told journalists and scholars the same story, in the same way, reciting the details of her allegations, drawing attention to her body and the details of what she said he had done to her. Some seemed to find the detail persuasive. Several found it spooky.
p172-173
โ
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Beatrix Campbell (Stolen Voices: The People and Politics Behind the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony)
โ
On August 5, 2012, a few days before the fourth anniversary of the war, a forty-seven-minute Russian documentary film โ8 Avgusta 2008. Poteryannyy denโ (8 August 2008. The Lost Day) was posted on YouTube. In the film retired and active service generals accused former President Medvedev of indecisiveness and even cowardice during the conflict. They praised Putin, on the other hand, for his bold and vigorous action. According to one of Medvedevโs critics, retired Army General Yury Baluevsky, a former First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff, โa decision to invade Georgia was made by Putin before Medvedev was inaugurated President and Commander-in-Chief in May 2008. A detailed plan of military action was arranged and unit commanders were given specific orders in advance.โ [...]
After the release of the documentary film Putin confirmed that the Army General Staff had, indeed, prepared a plan of military action against Georgia. It was prepared โat the end of 2006, and I authorized it in 2007,โ he said. Interestingly, Putin also said โthat the decision to โuse the armed forcesโ had been considered for three daysโfrom around 5 August,โ which clearly contradicts the official Russian version that the Russian army only reacted to a Georgian attack that started on August 7. According to this plan not only heavy weaponry and troops were prepared for the invasion, but also South Ossetian paramilitary units were trained to support the Russian invading troops [234โ35].
โ
โ
Marcel H. Van Herpen (Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism)
โ
The neighborhood of Indian Village lay just twelve blocks west of Hurlbut, but it was a different world altogether. The four grand streets of Burns, Iroquois, Seminole, and Adams (even in Indian Village the White Man had taken half the names) were lined with stately houses built in eclectic styles. Red-brick Georgian rose next to English Tudor, which gave onto French Provincial. The houses in Indian Village had big yards, important walkways, picturesquely oxidizing cupolas, lawn jockeys (whose days were numbered), and burglar alarms (whose popularity was only just beginning). My grandfather remained silent, however, as he toured his sonโs impressive new home. โHow do you like the size of this living room?โ Milton was asking him. โHere, sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Tessie and I want you and Ma to feel like this is your house, too. Now that youโre retiredโโ โWhat do you mean retired?โ โOkay, semiretired. Now that you can take it a little bit easy, youโll be able to do all the things you always wanted to do. Look, in hereโs the library. You want to come over and work on your translations, you can do it right here. How about that table? Big enough for you? And the shelves are built right into the wall.โ Pushed out of the daily operations at the Zebra Room, my grandfather began to spend his days driving around the city. He drove downtown to the Public Library to read the foreign newspapers. Afterward, he stopped to play backgammon at a coffee house in Greektown. At fifty-four, Lefty Stephanides was still in good shape. He walked three miles a day for exercise. He ate sensibly and had less of a belly than his son. Nevertheless
โ
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Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
โ
[T]hat afternoon, Sergei Lavrov called me for the second time during the crisis. [...] โWe have three demands,โ he said.
โWhat are they?โ I asked.
โThe first two are that the Georgians sign the no-use-of-force pledge and that their troops return to barracks,โ he told me.
โDone,โ I answered.
[...] But then Sergei said, โThe other demand is just between us. Misha Saakashvili has to go.โ I couldnโt believe my ears and I reacted out of instinct, not analysis.
โSergei, the secretary of state of the United States does not have a conversation with the Russian foreign minister about overthrowing a democratically elected president,โ I said. โThe third condition has just become public because Iโm going to call everyone I can and tell them that Russia is demanding the overthrow of the Georgian president.โ
โI said it was between us,โ he repeated.
โNo, itโs not between us. Everyone is going to know.โ The conversation ended. I called Steve Hadley to tell him about the Russian demand. Then I called the British, the French, and several others. That afternoon the UN Security Council was meeting. I asked our representative to inform the Council as well.
Lavrov was furious, saying that heโd never had a colleague divulge the contents of a diplomatic conversation. I felt I had no choice. If the Georgians wanted to punish Saakashvili for the war, they would have a chance to do it through their own constitutional processes. But the Russians had no right to insist on his removal. The whole thing had an air of the Soviet period, when Moscow had controlled the fate of leaders throughout Eastern Europe. I was certainly not going to be party to a return to those days [688].
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Condoleezza Rice (No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington)
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Everyone knew there had never been a cowardly Confederate soldier and they found this statement peculiarly irritating. He always referred to the soldiers as โour brave boysโ or โour heroes in grayโ and did it in such a way as to convey the utmost in insult. When daring young ladies, hoping for a flirtation, thanked him for being one of the heroes who fought for them, he bowed and declared that such was not the case, for he would do the same thing for Yankee women if the same amount of money were involved. Since Scarlettโs first meeting with him in Atlanta on the night of the bazaar, he had talked with her in this manner, but now there was a thinly veiled note of mockery in his conversations with everyone. When praised for his services to the Confederacy, he unfailingly replied that blockading was a business with him. If he could make as much money out of government contracts, he would say, picking out with his eyes those who had government contracts, then he would certainly abandon the hazards of blockading and take to selling shoddy cloth, sanded sugar, spoiled flour and rotten leather to the Confederacy. Most of his remarks were unanswerable, which made them all the worse. There had already been minor scandals about those holding government contracts. Letters from men at the front complained constantly of shoes that wore out in a week, gunpowder that would not ignite, harness that snapped at any strain, meat that was rotten and flour that was full of weevils. Atlanta people tried to think that the men who sold such stuff to the government must be contract holders from Alabama or Virginia or Tennessee, and not Georgians. For did not the Georgia contract holders include men from the very best families? Were they not the first to contribute to hospital funds and to the aid of soldiersโ orphans? Were they not the first to cheer at โDixieโ and the most rampant seekers, in oratory at least, for Yankee blood? The full tide of fury against those profiteering on government contracts had not yet risen, and Rhettโs words were taken merely as evidence of his own bad breeding. He not only affronted the town with insinuations of venality on the part of men in high places and slurs on the courage of the men in the field, but he took pleasure in tricking the dignified citizenry into embarrassing situations. He could no more resist pricking the conceits, the hypocrisies and the flamboyant patriotism of those about him than a small boy can resist putting a pin into a balloon. He neatly deflated the pompous and exposed the ignorant and the bigoted, and he did it in such subtle ways, drawing his victims out by his seemingly courteous interest, that they never were quite certain what had happened until they stood exposed as windy, high flown and slightly ridiculous.
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Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)
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Ready yourselves!' Mullone heard himself say, which was strange, he thought, for he knew his men were prepared.
A great cry came from beyond the walls that were punctuated by musket blasts and Mullone readied himself for the guns to leap into action. Mullone felt a tremor. The ground shook and then the first rebels poured through the gates like an oncoming tide. Mullone saw the leading man; both hands gripping a green banner, face contorted with zeal. The flag had a white cross in the centre of the green field and the initials JF below it. John Fitzstephen. Then, there were more men behind him, tens, then scores. And then time seemed to slow.
The guns erupted barely twenty feet from them.
Later on, Mullone would remember the great streaks of flame leap from the muzzles to lick the air and all of the charging rebels were shredded and torn apart in one terrible instant. Balls ricocheted on stone and great chunks were gouged out by the bullets. Blood sprayed on the walls as far back as the arched gateway, limbs were shorn off, and Mullone watched in horror as a bloodied head tumbled down the sloped street towards the barricade.
'Jesus sweet suffering Christ!' Cahill gawped at the carnage as the echo of the big guns resonated like a giant's beating heart.
Trooper O'Shea bent to one side and vomited at the sight of the twitching, bleeding and unrecognisable lumps that had once been men. A man staggered with both arms missing. Another crawled back to the gate with a shattered leg spurting blood. The stench of burnt flesh and the iron tang of blood hung ripe and nauseating in the oppressive air.
One of the low wooden cabins by the wall was on fire. A blast of musketry outside the walls rattled against the stonework and a redcoat toppled backwards onto the cabin's roof as the flames fanned over the wood.
'Here they come again! Ready your firelocks! Do not waste a shot!' Johnson shouted in a steady voice as the gateway became thick with more rebels. He took a deep breath.
'God forgive us,' Corporal Brennan said.
'Liberty or death!' A rebel, armed with a blood-stained pitchfork, shouted over-and-over.
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David Cook (Liberty or Death (The Soldier Chronicles #1))