Hurricanes Name Quotes

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All the best, Sydney P.S. "The Red Hurricane" is what I named the car. P.P.S. Just because I like you, it doesn't mean I still don't think you're an evil creature of the night. You are.
Richelle Mead
The end. But I'm telling you now, if either of you breathe a word -one goddamn word- about Cate, I will come down on you so hard, they'll be naming hurricanes after me for a fucking century.
Alexandra Bracken (Never Fade (The Darkest Minds, #2))
Do you know why hurricanes have names instead of numbers? To keep the killing personal. No one cares about a bunch of people killed by a number. '200 Dead as Number Three Slams Ashore' is not nearly as interesting a headline as 'Charlie kills 200.' Death is much more satisfying and entertaining if you personalize it. Me, I'm still waitin' for Hurricane Ed. Old Ed wouldn't hurt ya, would he? Sounds kinda friendly. 'Hell no, we ain't evacuatin'. Ed's comin'!
George Carlin (Brain Droppings)
When the hurricane hits him out of nowhere, he’ll understand why storms are named after women.
Rina Kent (Throne of Power (Throne Duet, #1))
It's strange," I say to Day later, as we both curl up on the floor. Outside, the hurricane rages on. In a few hours we'll need to head out. "It's strange being here with you. I hardly know you. But...sometimes it feels like we're the same person born into two different worlds." He stays quiet for a moment, one hand absently playing with my hair. "I wonder what we would've been like if I'd been born into a life more like yours,and you had been born into mine. Would we be just like we are now? Would I be one of the Republic's top soldiers? And would you be a famous criminal?" I lift my head off his shoulder and look at him. "I never did ask you about your street name.Why 'Day'?" "Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything's possible again.You live in the moment, you die in the moment,you take it all one day at a time." He looks toward the railway car's open door, where streaks of dark water blanket the world. "You try to walk in the light.
Marie Lu (Legend (Legend, #1))
I need to start using a hurricane naming system for my hangovers,” he mumbles, stretching out on the couch. “I’m calling this one Abby. She’s a total whore.
Christina Lauren (Dark Wild Night (Wild Seasons, #3))
Then don’t marry me to change your name. Marry me because there will never be another man in this world who loves you as much as I do. You’re my best friend, my missing piece, and the only person who can make my world amazing just by being in it. Marry me because I promise you a lifetime of love and laughter and happiness.
R.J. Prescott (The Hurricane (The Hurricane, #1))
I've lived in New York long enough to understand why some people hate it here: the crowds, the noise, the traffic, the expense, the rents; the messed-up sidewalks and pothole-pocked streets; the weather that brings hurricanes named after girls that break your heart and take away everything. It requires a certain kind of unconditional love to love living here. But New York repays you in time in memorable encounters, at the very least. Just remember: ask first, don't grab, be fair, say please and thank you- even if you don't get something back right away. You will.
Bill Hayes (Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me)
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a lustre of midday to objects below, When what to my wondering eyes did appear, But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!" As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the housetop the coursers they flew With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too— And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack. His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight— “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Clement Clarke Moore (The Night Before Christmas)
..I always recognize the foces that will shape my life. I let them do their work. Sometimes they tear through my life like a hurricane. Sometimes they simply shift the ground under me, so that I stand on different earth, and something or someone has been swallowed up. I steady myself, in the earthquate. I lie down, and let the hurricane pass over me. I never fight. Afterwards I look around me, and I say, 'Ah, so this at least is left for me. And that dear person has also survived.' I quietly inscribe on the stone tablet of my heart the name which has gone forever. Th inscription is a thing of agony. Then I start on my way again.
Josephine Hart (Damage)
Rose, I’m sorry I had to leave so quickly, but when the Alchemists tell me to jump … well, I jump. I’ve hitched a ride back to that farm town we stayed in so that I can pick up the Red Hurricane, and then I’m off to Saint Petersburg. Apparently, now that you’ve been delivered to Baia, they don’t need me to stick around anymore. I wish I could tell you more about Abe and what he wants from you. Even if I was allowed to, there isn’t much to say. In some ways, he’s as much a mystery to me as he is to you. Like I said, a lot of the business he deals in is illegal—both among humans and Moroi. The only time he gets directly involved with people is when something relates to that business—or if it’s a very, very special case. I think you’re one of those cases, and even if he doesn’t intend you harm, he might want to use you for his own purposes. It could be as simple as him wanting to contract you as a bodyguard, seeing as you’re rogue. Maybe he wants to use you to get to others. Maybe this is all part of someone else’s plan, someone who’s even more mysterious than him. Maybe he’s doing someone a favor. Zmey can be dangerous or kind, all depending on what he needs to accomplish. I never thought I’d care enough to say this to a dhampir, but be careful. I don’t know what your plans are now, but I have a feeling trouble follows you around. Call me if there’s anything I can help with, but if you go back to the big cities to hunt Strigoi, don’t leave any more bodies unattended! All the best, Sydney P.S. “The Red Hurricane” is what I named the car. P.P.S. Just because I like you, it doesn’t mean I still don’t think you’re an evil creature of the night. You are.
Richelle Mead (Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, #4))
DO NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH PEOPLE LIKE ME Do not fall in love with people like me. People like me will love you so hard that you turn into stone, into a statue where people come to marvel at how long it must have taken to carve that faraway look into your eyes. Do not fall in love with people like me. We will take you to museums and parks and monuments and kiss you in every beautiful place so that you can never go back to them without tasting us like blood in your mouth. Do not come any closer. People like me are bombs. When our time is up, we will splatter loss all over your walls in angry colors that make you wish your doorway never learned our name. Do not fall in love with people like me. With the lonely ones. We will forget our own names if it means learning yours. We will make you think that hurricanes are gentle, that pain is a gift. You will get lost in the desperation, in the longing for something that is always reaching, but never able to hold. Do not fall in love with people like me. We will destroy your apartment. We will throw apologies at you that shatter on the floor and cut your feet. We will never learn how to be soft. We will leave. We always do.
Caitlyn Siehl (What We Buried)
Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear.
Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire)
In 1953, we began naming hurricanes so we could remember them beyond the wreckage. So we could try to make sense of the destruction. This is the way I remember you.
Lang Leav (Memories)
Depends. (Adron) On? (Livia) Whether or not they’re plotting against you. Taryn’s like a head injury. It’s only funny when it happens to someone else. And Tiernan…I think there’s now a hurricane on Chrinon VI named after him. (Adron)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (In Other Worlds (The League: Nemesis Rising, #3.5; Were-Hunter, #0.5; The League: Nemesis Legacy, #2))
No. He says when you're dealing with any kids of supernatural beings, Gods and Devils and angels, you tend to think about them like hurricanes or earthquakes, some kind of mindless force of nature. But if they're real, then they have minds. They know your name. So even reading about the Devil tips him off, he knows instantly he's being read about and that you're somebody he may have to deal with. And I'm thinking what you did in Vegas went way, way beyond that." "What 'I' did? What about us? We were both there." "Yeah but I cut my hair since then. They probably think that was a different guy.
David Wong (John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1))
Sir, perhaps her name is no coincidence. I believe it’s Ginger. She’s a bit like that damned hurricane. Small, tenacious, and a shit load of a problem.
Bud Rudesill (Hurricane Ginger)
Yuppies in embryo, miming their parents' manners. In twenty years, they’d have country houses and children with pretentious literary names and tennis lessons and ugly cars and liaisons with hot young interns. Hurricanes of entitlement, all swirl and noise and destruction, nothing at their centers.
Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies)
No one can control you. No one can bind you by rules or put you in a box or rein you in. You’re Salem. You’re probably why they name hurricanes and natural catastrophes after girls like you.
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
Despite the fact we give hurricanes names like Katrina and Rita, a hurricane isn't a self-contained unit. A hurricane is an impermanent, ever-changing phenomenon arising out of a particular set of interacting conditions - air pressure, ground temperature, humidity, wind and so on. The same applies to us: we aren't self-contained units either. Like weather patterns, we are also an impermanent, ever-changing phenomenon arising out of a particular set of interacting conditions. Without food, water, air and shelter, we'd be dead. Without our genes, family, friends, social history, and culture, wouldn't act or feel as we do.
Kristin Neff (Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself)
Giving the cat a name, like marriage, is not an easy thing. Soon I experienced the selection of name for a baby, a dog, a book, a warship, a sports team, even the king, the pope or a hurricane is just child's play compared to the selection of the cat's name.
Cleveland Amory (The Cat Who Came for Christmas (Compleat Cat #1))
..., imagine a loamy earth that starts with genocide, then adds a mix of further disease, wars, hurricanes, murder, great fires, dueling, insurrection and slavery, just to name a few of the many instances of tragedy. What dark seed would take root in such a disturbed and twisted soil?
James Caskey (Haunted Savannah: America's Most Spectral City)
So there are pics of Tucker’s mighty wang on the internet?” “I haven’t been tagged on Instagram yet, so I’m hopeful they aren’t out there. But thanks for calling my dick mighty. We appreciate that.” Amusement colors his words. “We? As in you and your penis?” “Yup,” he says cheerfully. I snuggle deeper under the covers. “You have a name for your penis?” “Doesn’t everyone? Guys put a name on everything that’s important to them—cars, dicks. One of my teammates in junior hockey named his stick, which was dumb because sticks break all the time. He’d gone through twelve of them by the end of the season.” “What were the names?” “That’s the thing. He just kept adding a number to the end, like iPhone 6, iPhone 7, except in his case it was Henrietta 1, Henrietta 2, et cetera.” I snicker. “He should’ve used the hurricane naming convention.” “Darlin’, he wasn’t smart enough to come up with two names, let alone twelve.
Elle Kennedy (The Goal (Off-Campus, #4))
Tell you my name F.U.C.K! 50 ft Queenie! Force 10 hurricane. Biggest woman, I could have 10 sons! 10 gods, 10 queens, 10 ft and rising!
P.J. Harvey
A caregiver is changed by the culture of illness, just as one is changed by the dynamic era in which one lives. For one thing, I don't have as much time in conversation with myself, and I feel the loss. Certainly I worry more about his death, and mine too, since I;m so much a part of the evolving saga of his health, which I have to monitor every day. But I've grown stronger in every aspect of my life. In small ways: speaking more directly with people. In large ways: discovering I can handle adversity and potential loss and yet keep going. I've a better idea of my strength. I feel like I've been tested, like a willow whipped around violently in a hurricane, but still stranding, its roots strong enough to hold. [p. 301]
Diane Ackerman (One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing)
Love was her nature 
 and that’s why the sun 
 sets behind her smile,
t hat’s why her eyes drown entire oceans,
 that’s why her laughter
 calms the rain,
 when her love pours
 and heals all the pain,
 when storms, winds
 whisper her name,
 when touching her lips
 feels like a hurricane.
 she makes broken
 bloom in her light,
 she’s the sun to
 my dark nights,
 she’s nature, wild and free,
 loving her, is healing me.
Ventum
These are lines from my asteroid-impact novel, Regolith: Just because there are no laws against stupidity doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be punished. I haven’t faced rejection this brutal since I was single. He smelled trouble like a fart in the shower. If this was a kiss of gratitude, then she must have been very grateful. Not since Bush and Cheney have so few spent so much so fast for so long for so little. As a nympho for mind-fucks, Lisa took to politics like a pig to mud. She began paying men compliments as if she expected a receipt. Like the Aerosmith song, his get-up-and-go just got-up-and-went. “You couldn’t beat the crap out of a dirty diaper!” He embraced his only daughter as if she was deploying to Iraq. She was hotter than a Class 4 solar flare! If sex was a weapon, then Monique possessed WMD I haven’t felt this alive since I lost my virginity. He once read that 95% of women fake organism, and the rest are gay. Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but ugly is universal. Why do wives fart, but not girlfriends? Adultery is sex that is wrong, but not necessarily bad. The dinosaurs stayed drugged out, drooling like Jonas Brothers fans. Silence filled the room like tear gas. The told him a fraction of the truth and hoped it would take just a fraction of the time. Happiness is the best cosmetic, He was a whale of a catch, and there were a lot of fish in the sea eager to nibble on his bait. Cheap hookers are less buck for the bang, Men cannot fall in love with women they don’t find attractive, and women cannot fall in love with men they do not respect. During sex, men want feedback while women expect mind-reading. Cooper looked like a cow about to be tipped over. His father warned him to never do anything he couldn’t justify on Oprah. The poor are not free -- they’re just not enslaved. Only those with money are free. Sperm wasn’t something he would choose on a menu, but it still tasted better than asparagus. The crater looked alive, like Godzilla was about to leap out and mess up Tokyo. Bush follows the Bible until it gets to Jesus. When Bush talks to God, it’s prayer; when God talks to Bush, it’s policy. Cheney called the new Miss America a traitor – apparently she wished for world peace. Cheney was so unpopular that Bush almost replaced him when running for re-election, changing his campaign slogan to, ‘Ain’t Got Dick.’ Bush fought a war on poverty – and the poor lost. Bush thinks we should strengthen the dollar by making it two-ply. Hurricane Katrina got rid of so many Democratic voters that Republicans have started calling her Kathleen Harris. America and Iraq fought a war and Iran won. Bush hasn’t choked this much since his last pretzel. Some wars are unpopular; the rest are victorious. So many conservatives hate the GOP that they are thinking of changing their name to the Dixie Chicks. If Saddam had any WMD, he would have used them when we invaded. If Bush had any brains, he would have used them when we invaded. It’s hard for Bush to win hearts and minds since he has neither. In Iraq, you are a coward if you leave and a fool if you stay. Bush believes it’s not a sin to kill Muslims since they are going to Hell anyway. And, with Bush’s help, soon. In Iraq, those who make their constitution subservient to their religion are called Muslims. In America they’re called Republicans. With great power comes great responsibility – unless you’re Republican.
Brent Reilly
It wasn’t beautiful. A Winter wedding is a union of elation and depression, red velvet blankets in a cheap motel room stained with semen from sex devoid of meaning, and black mold clinging to the fringe of floral shower curtains like a heap of dead forevers. You sat down at the foot of the bed, looking at me like I had already
driven away. I was thinking about watching CNN. How fucked up is that? I wanted to know that your second hand, off-white dress, and my black polyester bow tie wasn’t as tragic as a hurricane devouring a suburb, or a train derailment in no where, Virginia, ending the lives of two young college hopefuls. I was naïve. I thought that there were as many right ways to feel love as the amount of
 pubic hair, 
 belly lint, and 
scratch marks abandoned by lovers in our honeymoon suite. When you looked at me in bed that night, I put my hand on your chest to feel a little more human. I don’t know what to call you; a name does not describe the aches, or lack of. This love is unusual and comfortable. If you were to leave, I know I’d search for days, in newspapers and broadcasts, in car accidents and exposés on genocide in Kosovo. (How do I address this? How is one to feel about a love without a name?) My heart would be ambivalent, too scared to look for you behind the curtains of the motel window, outside in the abyss of powder and pay phones because I don’t know how to love you. -Kosovo
Lucas Regazzi
CAPT. J. W. SIMMONS, master of the steamship Pensacola, had just as little regard for weather as the Louisiana’s Captain Halsey. He was a veteran of eight hundred trips across the Gulf and commanded a staunch and sturdy ship, a 1,069-ton steel-hulled screw-driven steam freighter built twelve years earlier in West Hartlepool, England, and now owned by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company. Friday morning the ship was docked at the north end of 34th Street, in the company of scores of other ships, including the big Mallory liner Alamo, at 2,237 tons, and the usual large complement of British ships, which on Friday included the Comino, Hilarius, Kendal Castle, Mexican, Norna, Red Cross, Taunton, and the stately Roma in from Boston with its Captain Storms. As the Pensacola’s twenty-one-man crew readied the ship for its voyage to the city of Pensacola on Florida’s Gulf Coast, two men came aboard as Captain Simmons’s personal guests: a harbor pilot named R. T. Carroll and Galveston’s Pilot Commissioner J. M. O. Menard, from one of the city’s oldest families. At
Erik Larson (Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History)
I have to keep my mouth shut about Nam though. All of these guys want to believe they were fighting an honorable war, and that their conduct deserves respect. They want the public to treat them like they’re heroes—like the WWII vets were.” “Instead, smart ass, pampered kids call them names and throw dog shit at them.
Bud Rudesill (Hurricane Ginger)
I was holding on to hurricane nights and lit candles and my acoustic guitar resting in your hands. I was holding on to the sound of your voice saying my name and the peace I felt with your arms around me. I was holding on to documentaries in bed and your beautiful eyes closed as you sang Rocket Man and all the songs we never finished. I was holding on to our first text and last phone call and the plane ticket you offered but never sent. I was holding on to our first Christmas together and the last few Christmas Eves apart and I've been thinking we should be together. we should be kissing even if there isn't any mistletoe because if I have you there' no reason to celebrate and fuck, your lips were mine. They were always supposed to be mine. I was holding on to hope and banana pancakes on Sundays. I was holding on to Main Street and sunsets in Jersey. I was holding on to two streets that separated us and blizzards that couldn't keep us apart. I was holding on to you. I was holding on to us. And it was killing me.
Christina Hart (Letting Go Is an Acquired Taste)
If the name of your hurricane is Love, And the soundtrack to your life is Hurt, Write.
Jenim Dibie
When he spun her, he realized the storm in his chest had strengthened to a hurricane. And it had a name: hers.
mightbewriting (Beginning and End)
Would you come back if I turned my tears into hurricanes and named them after you?
Jenim Dibie
it's no wonder hurricanes are given human names
Greta Farrell (flavor profile)
Sign O' The Times Oh yeah In France a skinny man Died of a big disease with a little name By chance his girlfriend came across a needle And soon she did the same At home there are seventeen-year-old boys And their idea of fun Is being in a gang called The Disciples High on crack, totin' a machine gun Time, time Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling of a church And killed everyone inside U turn on the telly and every other story Is tellin' U somebody died Sister killed her baby cuz she could afford 2 feed it And we're sending people 2 the moon In September my cousin tried reefer 4 the very first time Now he's doing horse, it's June Times, times It's silly, no? When a rocket ship explodes And everybody still wants 2 fly Some say a man ain't happy Unless a man truly dies Oh why Time, time Baby make a speech, Star Wars fly Neighbors just shine it on But if a night falls and a bomb falls Will anybody see the dawn Time, times It's silly, no? When a rocket blows And everybody still wants 2 fly Some say a man ain't happy, truly Until a man truly dies Oh why, oh why, Sign O the Times Time, time Sign O the Times mess with your mind Hurry before it's 2 late Let's fall in love, get married, have a baby We'll call him Nate... if it's a boy Time, time Time, time
Prince
I read somewhere,” says my plague doctor, “that there is power to your kind’s names, isn’t there? Or was it in your voices? I can’t remember. Not right now. But there was a reason your husband sliced out your tongue, was there not? He was afraid, one way or another, of the voice that beats in your lungs, your hurricane scream. You frightened him. How men fear things that can’t be quieted.
Cassandra Khaw (The Salt Grows Heavy)
Speaking of names, a word to parents: Stop using alternate spellings for your kids. Aimee, Eryn, Bil, Derik. You’re only costing jobs. The whole customized-coffee-mug and key-chain industry. An entire generation is being robbed of their roadside-Florida-souvenir heritage. “Daddy, why don’t they ever have my name? I see something close, but it’s spelled different.” “Sorry, honey, we decided to be pricks.
Tim Dorsey (Hurricane Punch (Serge Storms, #9))
Instead of clinging to the only Lifeboat that can save, we have tossed overboard biblical truths in the name of [compromise], living on the edge of life, like the man who rides the parameter of a hurricane, daring it to sweep him away.
Billy Graham (Billy graham in quotes)
One afternoon in the fall of 2015, while I was writing this book, I was driving in my car and listening to SiriusXM Radio. On the folk music station the Coffee House, a song came on with a verse that directly spoke to me—so much so that I pulled off the road as soon as I could and wrote down the lyrics and the singer’s name. The song was called “The Eye,” and it’s written by the country-folk singer Brandi Carlile and her bandmate Tim Hanseroth and sung by Carlile. I wish it could play every time you open these pages, like a Hallmark birthday card, because it’s become the theme song of this book. The main refrain is: I wrapped your love around me like a chain But I never was afraid that it would die You can dance in a hurricane But only if you’re standing in the eye. I hope that it is clear by now that every day going forward we’re going to be asked to dance in a hurricane, set off by the accelerations in the Market, Mother Nature, and Moore’s law. Some politicians propose to build a wall against this hurricane. That is a fool’s errand. There is only one way to thrive now, and it’s by finding and creating your own eye. The eye of a hurricane moves, along with the storm. It draws energy from it, while creating a sanctuary of stability inside it. It is both dynamic and stable—and so must we be. We can’t escape these accelerations. We have to dive into them, take advantage of their energy and flows where possible, move with them, use them to learn faster, design smarter, and collaborate deeper—all so we can build our own eyes to anchor and propel ourselves and our families confidently forward.
Thomas L. Friedman (Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations)
As the Pensacola’s twenty-one-man crew readied the ship for its voyage to the city of Pensacola on Florida’s Gulf Coast, two men came aboard as Captain Simmons’s personal guests: a harbor pilot named R. T. Carroll and Galveston’s Pilot Commissioner J. M. O. Menard, from one of the city’s oldest families.
Erik Larson (Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History)
Seriously? Of all the cool names you could have picked when you registered me, ‘The Storm’ was the best you could come up with?” Kieran said to Con. “What? You don’t get it? A storm is a baby hurricane, you know, like you’re the smaller, less-powerful version of me,” Con answered, chuckling at his own cleverness
R.J. Prescott
Hurricane Katrina arrived without a confirmed weather category, or a name that adequately addressed anger summoned from a thousand leagues down. When the levees broke in New Orleans images escaped television screens to tattoo every skin with the shameful reality that America’s towers fell twice. There was no phoenix. Only mosquitoes escaped the ashes, promising to puncture any still unbloodied with the needle kiss of plague. Then, a great swarm of dragonflies, sent by some other to even the odds. They feasted on the thin-limbed vampires, devoured body and virus, and then hovered around the floating bloated bodies of forgotten grandmothers, armored escorts of the dead. Their wings hummed swamp sonnets while their mouths swallowed maggots, thwarting attempts to hurry death beyond spring sunsets and autumn graves. They kept up their holy procession until New Orleans rebirthed jazz and cut the bodies loose and let saints march in all over again. As I steer my bike through one puddle after the other, making the street music urban rainforest dwellers know, I ask the splash to summon the dragonfly. Call her from the swamp into my throat to name the lump that will never loose me. Be my escort, gobble the flies ever entering me before their children become my whole.
Amanda Sledz (Psychopomp Volume One: Cracked Plate)
They were the cars at the fair that were whirling around her; no, they were the planets, while the sun stood, burning and spinning and guttering in the centre; here they came again, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto; but they were not planets, for it was not the merry-go-round at all, but the Ferris wheel, they were constellations, in the hub of which, like a great cold eye, burned Polaris, and round and round it here they went: Cassiopeia, Cepheus, the Lynx, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and the Dragon; yet they were not constellations, but, somehow, myriads of beautiful butterflies, she was sailing into Acapulco harbour through a hurricane of beautiful butterflies, zigzagging overhead and endlessly vanishing astern over the sea, the sea, rough and pure, the long dawn rollers advancing, rising, and crashing down to glide in colourless ellipses over the sand, sinking, sinking, someone was calling her name far away and she remembered, they were in a dark wood, she heard the wind and the rain rushing through the forest and saw the tremours of lightning shuddering through the heavens and the horse—great God, the horse—and would this scene repeat itself endlessly and forever?—the horse, rearing, poised over her, petrified in midair, a statue, somebody was sitting on the statue, it was Yvonne Griffaton, no, it was the statue of Huerta, the drunkard, the murderer, it was the Consul, or it was a mechanical horse on the merry-go-round, the carrousel, but the carrousel had stopped and she was in a ravine down which a million horses were thundering towards her, and she must escape, through the friendly forest to their house, their little home by the sea.
Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano)
It is what the unimportant do that really counts and determines the course of history. The greatest forces in the universe are never spectacular. Summer showers are more effective than hurricanes, but they get no publicity. The world would soon die but for the fidelity, loyalty and consecration of those whose names are unhonored and unsung.1
Frank Viola (Insurgence: Reclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom)
He used to have a hellish wife named Rita, but she’d died about a decade ago and Big Jean didn’t get around too well on his own. When Hurricane Rita bulldozed the bayou, Big Jean’s house was hit hard. Eureka had heard his hoarse voice say, twenty times, “The only thing meaner than the first Rita was the second Rita. One stayed in my house, the other tore it down.
Lauren Kate (Teardrop (Teardrop #1))
It kind of freaked me out. Because I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.” Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t prepared for how ready I was… “Ready for-?” He broke off, and then frowned as if it had all become clear. “Wait.” He dropped his arms from around my waist and took a step away from me. “You think I spent the night wit you?” “Didn’t you?” I blinked back at him. “There’s only the one bed. And…well, you were in it when I woke up.” Thunder boomed overhead. It wasn’t as loud as the violent cracks that had occurred in my dream. Although the rumbles were long enough-and intense enough-that the silverware on the table began to make an eerie tinkling sound. And my bird, who’d been calmly cleaning herself on the back of my chair, suddenly took off, seeing shelter on the highest bookshelf against the far wall. I realized I’d just insulted my host, and no joke was going to get me out of it this time. “For your information, Pierce,” John said, his tone almost disturbingly calm-but his eyes flashed the same shade as the stone around my neck, which had gone the color of the metal studs at his wrists-“I spent most of last night on the couch. Until one point early this morning, when I heard you call my name. You were crying in your sleep.” The salt water I’d tasted on my lips. Not due to rain from a violent hurricane, but from the tears I’d shed, watching him die in front of me. “Oh,” I said uncomfortably. “John, I’m so-“ It turned out he wasn’t finished. “I put my arms around you to try to comfort you, because I know what this place can be like, at least at first. It’s not exactly hell, but it’s the next closest place to it. You wouldn’t let go of me. You held on to me like you were drowning, and I was your only lifeline.” I swallowed, astonished at how close he’d come to describing my dream…except it had been the other way around. I’d been his lifeline; only he’d let go of me, sacrificing himself so that I could live. “Right,” I said. “Of course. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, especially since my mother had always worried so much about my talking in my sleep. On the other hand, I had been upfront with him about my lack of experience when it came to men. “But this is good, see?” I reached out to take his hand. “I told you I could never hate you-“ He pulled his hand away, exactly like in my dream. Well, not exactly, because he wasn’t being sucked from my grasp by a giant ocean swell. Instead, he’d dropped my fingers because he was leaving to go sort the souls of the dead. “You will,” he assured me, bitterly. “You’re already regretting your decision to-what was it you called it? Oh, right-cohabitate with me.” “No,” I insisted. “I’m not. All I said was that I want to take things more slowly-“ That had nothing to do with him-it had to do with me and my fear of not being able to control myself when he was kissing me. It was too humiliating to admit that out loud, however.
Meg Cabot (Underworld (Abandon, #2))
NASA documents from 1966 confirm the United States weather modification programme with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars and in the 1990s the US military was publishing papers expounding the war possibilities of weather manipulation, or 'geoengineering' as it is also known. American scientist J. Marvin Herndon described in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2015 how weather modification has been happening for decades and includes the 'make mud, not war' programme named Project Popeye to create monsoon-scale rain during the Vietnam War. US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report published in 1996 explained how artificially-generated floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes 'offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary'.
David Icke (Everything You Need to Know But Have Never Been Told By David Icke)
What can I be thinking of? Just imagine my not having presented myself to you even yet! But as a matter of fact I do not want to tell you my name out loud; it is a romantic one, utterly inappropriate to the typically modern environment in which we now stand. Ah, if we were only on the steep side of some mountain with the moon like a great lamp above us, or by the shore of some wild ocean, there would be some glamour in proclaiming my identity in the silence of the night, or in the midst of lightning and thunder as a hurricane swept the seas! But here in a third-floor suite of the Royal Palace Hotel, surrounded by telephones and electric lights, and standing by a window overlooking the Champs Elysees-> it would be positively anachronistic!" He took a card out of his pocket and drew near the little writing desk. "Allow me, Princess, to slip my card into this drawer, left open on purpose, it would seem," and while the princess uttered a little cry she could not repress, he did just that. "And now, Princess," he went on, compelling her to retreat before him as he moved to the door of the anteroom opening on to the corridor, "you are too well bred, I am sure, not to wish to conduct your visitor to the door of your suite." His tone altered abruptly, and in a deep imperious voice that made the princess quake he ordered her: "And now, not a word, not a cry, not a movement until I am outside, or I will kill you!
Marcel Allain (Fantômas (Fantômas, #1))
A hurricane delayed our meeting. First date force majeure. Online late one night we rescheduled – "Right now! As-is!" Sleep pants and t-shirts were good enough for Waffle House. Over coffee and pie we said the same sorts things we had sent as instant messages. To a person not a screen name. After she gave me the tour. Her cat's old collar on the rear-view mirror. A place where graffiti was allowed. The Slab by the river. Places where the young could be young. She stopped for cigarettes. The cashier had dirt on her face and ate an onion like an apple. We pretended not to notice. It only seemed polite.
Damon Thomas (Some Books Are Not For Sale (Rural Gloom))
The Rebellions were the first gang in The Bahamas, to come up with a popular logo/brand in the wearing of Raiders clothing. However, other neighborhoods gave birth to their own gangs using popular sporting team images as their official colors and name. You had the Hoyas Bull Dogs out of Kemp Road; the Coconut Grove area took on the name Nike, which became their clothing of choice. Miami Street took on the name Hurricanes, and wore Miami Hurricanes clothing. However, when you look at it closely, because of the lack of involved fathers, a lot of us were simply lacking an image and a positive identity of ourselves.
Drexel Deal (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped in My Father Book 1))
It's only second period, and the whole school knows Emma broke up with him. So far, he's collected eight phone numbers, one kiss on the cheek, and one pinch to the back of his jeans. His attempts to talk to Emma between classes are thwarted by a hurricane of teenage females whose main goal seems to be keeping him and his ex-girlfriend separated. When the third period bell rings, Emma has already chosen a seat where she'll be barricaded from him by other students. Throughout class, she pays attention as if the teacher were giving instructions on how to survive a life-threatening catastrophe in the next twenty-four hours. About midway through class, he receives a text from a number he doesn't recognize. If you let me, I can do things to u to make u forget her. As soon as he clears it, another one pops up from a different number. Hit me back if u want to chat. I'll treat u better than E. How did they get my number? Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he hovers over his notebook protectively, as if it's the only thing left that hasn't been invaded. Then he notices the foreign handwriting scribbled on it by a girl named Shena who encircled her name and phone number with a heart. Not throwing it across the room takes almost as much effort as not kissing Emma. At lunch, Emma once again blocks his access to her by sitting between people at a full picnic table outside. He chooses the table directly across from her, but she seems oblivious, absently soaking up the grease from the pizza on her plate until she's got at least fifteen orange napkins in front of her. She won't acknowledge that he's staring at her, waiting to wave her over as soon as she looks up. Ignoring the text message explosion in his vibrating pocket, he opens the contain of tuna fish Rachel packed for him. Forking it violently, he heaves a mound into his mouth, chewing without savoring it. Mark with the Teeth is telling Emma something she thinks is funny, because she covers her mouth with a napkin and giggles. Galen almost launches from his bench when Mark brushes a strand of hair from her face. Now he knows what Rachel meant when she told him to mark his territory early on. But what can he do if his territory is unmarking herself? News of their breakup has spread like an oil spill, and it seems as though Emma is making a huge effort to help it along. With his thumb and index finger, Galen snaps his plastic fork in half as Emma gently wipes Mark's mouth with her napkin. He rolls his eyes as Mark "accidentally" gets another splotch of JELL-O on the corner of his lips. Emma wipes that clean too, smiling like she's tending to a child. It doesn't help that Galen's table is filling up with more of his admirers-touching him, giggling at him, smiling at him for no reason, and distracting him from his fantasy of breaking Mark's pretty jaw. But that would only give Emma a genuine reason to assist the idiot in managing his JELL-O.
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
The world would end as it began, as beatific arbour, and if any family crests or luminary busts or graven names of institutions were yet visible between the droning hives and honeysuckle, they would be by then wiped clean of any meaning. Meaning was a candlelight in everything that lurched and shifted in the circumstantial breezes of each instant, never twice the same. Significance was a phenomenon of Now that could not be contained inside an urn or monolith. It was a hurricane entirely of the present, an unending swirl of boiling change, and as he stood there gazing out towards the city's rim, across the granite fields of time towards the calendar's far tattered edges, Snowy Vernall was a storm-rod, crackling and exultant, at the cyclone's dangerous and brilliant eye.
Alan Moore (Jerusalem, Book One: The Boroughs (Jerusalem, #1))
She canted her wings and soared toward the top of it, where she could see a never-ending line of trees tossing violently in the wind. The hurricane made one more effort to throw her back into the sea, but she fought with her last reserves until she felt earth beneath her talons. She collapsed forward, clutching the wet soil for a moment, grateful to be alive. Keep going. They’re not safe yet. Clearsight pushed herself up and faced the trees. They were coming. The first two dragons she would meet in this strange new world. What would it be like to face unfamiliar tribes, completely different from the ones she knew? There wouldn’t be any NightWings like her here. No sand dragons, no sea dragons, no ice dragons. She’d glimpsed what these new dragons would look like, but she didn’t know anything yet about their tribes . . . or whether they would trust her. They stepped out of the trees, eyeing her with wary curiosity. Oh, they’re beautiful, she thought. One was dark forest green, the color of the trees all around them. His wings curved gracefully like long leaves on either side of him, and mahogany-brown underscales glinted from his chest. But it was the other who took Clearsight’s breath away. His scales were iridescent gold layered over metallic rose and blue, shimmering through the rain. He outshone even the RainWings she’d occasionally seen in the marketplace, and those were the most beautiful dragons in Pyrrhia. Not only that, but his wings were startlingly weird. There were four of them instead of two; a second pair at the back overlapped the front ones, tilting and dipping at slightly different angles from the first pair to give the dragon extra agility in the air. Like dragonflies, she realized, remembering the delicate insects darting across the ponds in the mountain meadows. Or butterflies, or beetles. She sat up and spread her front talons to show that she was harmless. “Hello,” she said in her very least threatening voice. The green one circled her slowly. The iridescent one sat down and gave her a small smile. She smiled back, although her heart was pounding. She knew she had to wait for them to make the first move. “Leefromichou?” said the green dragon finally, in a deep, calm voice. “Wayroot?” Take a breath. You knew it would be like this at first. “My name is Clearsight,” she said, touching her forehead. “I am from far over the sea.” She pointed at the churning ocean stretching way off to the east behind her. “Anyone speak Dragon?
Tui T. Sutherland (Darkstalker (Wings of Fire: Legends, #1))
Cooper: "You could've been killed. In case you hadn't noticed, we're practically in the middle of a hurricane." My jaw drops. Mac: "Are you kidding me right now? In case I hadn't noticed? And now you're suddenly worried about my safety? You're the one who left me at your house in the middle of a hurricane. I was all alone there! Just me and Patricia screaming like a banshee!" He blinks at me as if I'm insane. Cooper: "Her name is Daisy." I stumble to my feet, clutching the blanket around myself like a toga. Mac: "I'm not talking about the dog! I'm talking about Patricia!" Cooper: "I don't know who Patricia is, you lunatic!" Mac: "The little dead girl who drowned outside your house a hundred years ago and -" I stop, my outraged gaze swinging toward Evan, whose lips are twitching wildly. Mac: "You asshole! Seriously?" Evan crosses his arms across his chest. Evan: "Mackenzie. Sweetheart. I'm not going to apologize for you being gullible. This one's on you.
Elle Kennedy (Good Girl Complex (Avalon Bay, #1))
who nodded as well. The relief hit Clearsight so hard, she nearly had to lie down again. But the dragons beckoned her to follow them, and they all took off, flying cautiously through the storm-tossed treetops. Dragons appeared between the leaves as she swept through the forest with her two companions, all of them watching her with startled curiosity. Most of them were dark green and brown with leaf-shaped wings. That’s their name in Dragon, she realized from a new cascade of visions. LeafWings. But about a quarter of them were the other tribe, the one Clearsight didn’t have a name for yet, and those glittered like jewels on the branches: gold and blue and purple and orange and every color of the rainbow. She saw a tiny lavender dragonet clinging to a branch, and for a moment Clearsight was alarmed to see that she didn’t have any wings. Then she spotted little wingbuds on the dragonet’s back and remembered—or foresaw, or remembered foreseeing—that the glittering tribe grew their wings a few years after hatching. Growing up wingless . . . that must be so strange. Clearsight’s mind flashed to that other vision, the horrible one, where this dragonet had been one of the many bodies left in the hurricane wreckage. But instead, tomorrow the little dragon would wake up and chase butterflies in the sunlight, complaining that she wanted blackberries for breakfast. I saved her. I did something right. The green dragon called out in a booming voice like a bell tolling. Whatever he said, the dragons around them repeated it, passing it along. Clearsight could hear the echoes of other dragon voices rolling through the forest. She felt the drumming wingbeats behind her as both tribes rose into the air and followed them to safety. “You save us,” said the shimmering dragon, looping around to fly beside Clearsight. He smiled at her again. “You safe now, too.” Maybe I am, she thought. I stopped Darkstalker. I saved Fathom, and the NightWings, and my parents. And now I’ve found a new home, with new dragons to save. I can help them with my visions. I can do everything right this time. New futures exploded in her mind. She might marry this kind, funny dragon, whose name would turn out to be Sunstreak. Or she could end up with a dragon she’d meet in three days, while helping to clean up the forest, whose gentle green eyes were nothing like Darkstalker’s.
Tui T. Sutherland (Darkstalker (Wings of Fire: Legends, #1))
And then she caught the song. She fell upon it and music poured from the fiddle’s hollow, bright and liquid like fire out of the heart of the earth. Pierre-Jean drew back and stood mesmerized. The room around Fin stirred as every ear bent to the ring of heartsong. It rushed through Fin and spread to the outermost and tiniest capillary reaches of her body. Her flesh sang. The hairs of her arms and neck roused and stood. She sped the bow across the strings. Her fingers danced on the fingerboard quick as fat raindrops. Every man in the room that night would later swear that there was a wind within it. They would tell their children and lovers that a hurricane had filled the room, toppled chairs, driven papers and sheets before it and blew not merely around them but through them, taking fears, grudges, malice, and contempt with it, sending them spiraling out into the night where they vanished among the stars like embers rising from a bonfire. And though the spirited cry of the fiddle’s song blew through others and around the room and everything in it, Fin sat at the heart of it. It poured into her. It found room in the closets and hollow places of her soul to settle and root. It planted seeds: courage, resolve, steadfastness. Fin gulped it in, seized it, held it fast. She needed it, had thirsted for it all her days. She saw the road ahead of her, and though she didn’t understand it or comprehend her part in it, she knew that she needed the ancient and reckless power of a holy song to endure it. She didn’t let the music loose. It buckled and swept and still she clung to it, defined it in notes and rhythm, channeled it like a river bound between mountain steeps. And a thing happened then so precious and strange that Fin would ever after remember it only in the formless manner of dreams. The song turned and spoke her name—her true name, intoned in a language of mysteries. Not her earthly name, but a secret word, defining her alone among all created things. The writhing song spoke it, and for the first time, she knew herself. She knew what it was to be separated out, held apart from every other breathing creature, and known. Though she’d never heard it before and wouldn’t recall it after, every stitch of her soul shook in the passage of the word, shuddered in the wake of it, and mourned as the sound sped away. In an instant, it was over. The song ended with the dissonant pluck of a broken string.
A.S. Peterson (Fiddler's Green (Fin's Revolution, #2))
Skiddy Cottontail—that was his name—and he defended LGBT equality. He was a flamboyant, colorful striped rabbit, with a headdress of a rainbow crown on his forehead. The radiance of his energy was violet, scarlet, and turquoise; as it represented his love for everyone. In the infancy years of his existence, he was abandoned—alone—unwanted—unloved; rejected by a world that disdains him. His father wished him deceased, his family exiled him from the warren, he was physically mistreated and preyed on by homophobic mobs in the surrounding community by Elephants—Hyenas—rats. They splashed spit at his face, advising him that God condemns homosexuality—as Christ did not. They would slam him on the pavement with their Bibles, strike him in the stomach with their feet, throw boulders of stone at his body: imploring—abusing—condemning him to a tyrannical sentence. Skiddy Cottontail thought that his existence would end with this case of cruelty—violence—assault that was perpetrated against him. He wanted to cease to exist— he wanted to commit the ultimate murder on himself—he no more desired to go on living— he realized hope is already deceased. He yearned to have the courage to emerge, to discover his bravery that would sever this spiral of sensations of oppression. Being a victim made him a slave to his opponent—as his adversaries have full leverage against him. Life has become a thread of light, which he longed to be liberated from its shackles. His demon—a voice that keeps blaming him for his crimes in the back of his mind—a glass that continually cracks in his heart—will keep breaking him if he does not devise a way out of this crisis. He was conscious by his innermost conviction that there was candlelight with a key that had the potential to illuminate a new chapter that will erase this trail of obscurity behind him. He sees a new horizon with greater comprehension, a journey that can give him the roses of affection than a handful of dead birds that his adversaries handed him along the way. The stunning blossoming trees did have a forest—beautiful greenery that was colorful like the rainbow in the Heavens. This home will embrace him with a warm embrace of open arms, where cruelty is forbidden; where adoration can forever abound. Dawn will know him when he arrives. No more hurricanes or strife will be here—no crying of a sad humanity are here—only a gift of harmony and devotion, beyond all explanation, will abide in the heart of Skiddy Cottontail—when he finds his way out from this opponent world for a beautiful existence that is called liberation. Skiddy Cottontail has found a happiness that can only bring him contentment like nothing in this hurtful world can. Find your own sense of balance like him, Skiddy Cottontail, and you will experience serenity as much as him.
Be Daring like Skiddy Cottontail by D.L. Lewis
Nevertheless, it would be prudent to remain concerned. For, like death, IT would come: Armageddon. There would be-without exaggeration-a series of catastrophes. As a consequence of the evil in man...-no mere virus, however virulent, was even a burnt match for our madness, our unconcern, our cruelty-...there would arise a race of champions, predators of humans: namely earthquakes, eruptions, tidal waves, tornados, typhoons, hurricanes, droughts-the magnificent seven. Floods, winds, fires, slides. The classical elements, only angry. Oceans would warm, the sky boil and burn, the ice cap melt, the seas rise. Rogue nations, like kids killing kids at their grammar school, would fire atomic-hydrogen-neutron bombs at one another. Smallpox would revive, or out of the African jungle would slide a virus no one understood. Though reptilian only in spirit, the disease would make us shed our skins like snakes and, naked to the nerves, we'd expire in a froth of red spit. Markets worldwide would crash as reckless cars on a speedway do, striking the wall and rebounding into one another, hurling pieces of themselves at the spectators in the stands. With money worthless-that last faith lost-the multitude would riot, race against race at first, God against God, the gots against the gimmes. Insects hardened by generations of chemicals would consume our food, weeds smother our fields, fire ants, killer bees sting us while we're fleeing into refuge water, where, thrashing we would drown, our pride a sodden wafer. Pestilence. War. Famine. A cataclysm of one kind or another-coming-making millions of migrants. Wearing out the roads. Foraging in the fields. Looting the villages. Raping boys and women. There'd be no tent cities, no Red Cross lunches, hay drops. Deserts would appear as suddenly as patches of crusty skin. Only the sun would feel their itch. Floods would sweep suddenly over all those newly arid lands as if invited by the beach. Forest fires would burn, like those in coal mines, for years, uttering smoke, making soot for speech, blackening every tree leaf ahead of their actual charring. Volcanoes would erupt in series, and mountains melt as though made of rock candy till the cities beneath them were caught inside the lava flow where they would appear to later eyes, if there were any eyes after, like peanuts in brittle. May earthquakes jelly the earth, Professor Skizzen hotly whispered. Let glaciers advance like motorboats, he bellowed, threatening a book with his fist. These convulsions would be a sign the parasites had killed their host, evils having eaten all they could; we'd hear a groan that was the going of the Holy Ghost; we'd see the last of life pissed away like beer from a carouse; we'd feel a shudder move deeply through this universe of dirt, rock, water, ice, and air, because after its long illness the earth would have finally died, its engine out of oil, its sky of light, winds unable to catch a breath, oceans only acid; we'd be witnessing a world that's come to pieces bleeding searing steam from its many wounds; we'd hear it rattling its atoms around like dice in a cup before spilling randomly out through a split in the stratosphere, night and silence its place-well-not of rest-of disappearance. My wish be willed, he thought. Then this will be done, he whispered so no God could hear him. That justice may be served, he said to the four winds that raged in the corners of his attic.
William H. Gass (Middle C)
As late as World War II, among the ‘few of the few’ who bravely defended England against German invasion in the Battle of Britain were Indian fighter pilots, including a doughty Sikh who named his Hurricane fighter ‘Amritsar’.
Shashi Tharoor (An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India)
marriage would necessitate a change of religion, the still-hesitant Alix at first refused. But the otherwise impassive Nicky was nothing if not determined. The very day after Ernie and Ducky were married, the overwhelmed princess finally agreed to become both Russian Orthodox and wife of the heir to the Russian throne. Just as Queen Victoria, the preeminent guest at the festivities, was finishing her breakfast, Ella burst in on her grandmother with the dramatic announcement that “Alix and Nicky are to be engaged.” The wedding was planned for the spring of 1895, but the death of Nicky’s father changed all the elaborate arrangements, including sufficient time for Alix to become literate in the Russian language. Alix had just joined her future husband at the imperial summer palace of Livadia in the Crimea when Tsar Alexander III died on November 1, 1894. His widow Minnie, the princess of Wales’s sister, became the dowager empress; and her son Nicky the new tsar, Nicholas II. The morning after her fiancé’s accession, Alix was received into the Orthodox faith and at the same time given the new name of Alexandra Feodorovna. The imperial family decided the wedding should follow the late tsar’s funeral within the week. Like her mother’s wedding at Osborne in 1862, Alix’s was far more funereal in tone than joyous. All that saved it from complete gloom was the depth of the young bride and groom’s love for each other. During the years when Alice’s children were marrying their cousins and producing a multitude of little second cousins, Vicky had moved from the hurricane’s eye to near oblivion. Though she had been wounded by Fritz’s illness and Willy’s uncivil behavior, until June 1888 she at least had a loving and sympathetic husband to share her distress and lighten her sometimes intolerable burden. After his death, Vicky was left to face her martyrdom stripped of that unfaltering support. With her widowhood, her difficulties centered, inevitably, on the new emperor. Such was the exquisite release Willy experienced in succeeding his father to the throne that he took vainglory to new heights. To the horror of his mother and English grandmother, he jettisoned the standard symbols of mourning that were obligatory for a son in so visible a role, notably refusing to refrain from travel for pleasure. On a grander scale, in his eagerness to test his new powers, Willy made the most disastrous mistake of his early reign only two years after coming
Jerrold M. Packard (Victoria's Daughters)
We are born with a natural delight in the music of language. As infants we coo and babble and let consonants roll around in our mouths like mother’s milk. As young children, we invent words, mash syllables together, and delight in nonsensical lines. We let ourselves be lulled to sleep by the playful rhymes of Mem Fox (“It’s time for bed, little goose, little goose, / The stars are out and on the loose”). We seek out stories with fanciful sounds (“Quickberry / Quackberry / Pick me a blackberry”). We begin to sense the link between what’s on the surface, and what’s under it (“I meant no harm. I most truly did not. / But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. / I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. / I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads”). As we mature, our delight in the music of words goes a bit underground, but it’s still there. We repeat not just Chaucer’s prologue, but also advertising jingles. We let brand names like Chunky Monkey and SurveyMonkey tumble off our tongues. We appreciate the curt sentences of Hemingway as well as those that are long and loose and lyrical. We let ourselves be moved by the moral authority of Nelson Mandela. We follow the Dalai Lama on Facebook. We let Chris Christie voice our outrage after a hurricane, Barack Obama our sorrow after a massacre of children. Language remains an adventure, if sometimes a somewhat mysterious one: We are drawn to reliable narrators and find that metaphors lift us. We are transported by soaring vowels. The cadence of sentences acts on us like the rhythm of an ancient drum. The music of language leads us to meaning, to our own humanity.
Constance Hale (Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose)
The name Matthew means gift of Yahweh. Saint Matthew was one of the twelve apostles and he was a tax collector. Hurricane Matthew just delivered us a gift from God and collected taxes for our abysmal management of Mother Earth.
Mommy Moo Moo
These nonlinear dynamics have a bookstore name, “chaos theory,” which is a misnomer because it has nothing to do with chaos. Chaos theory concerns itself primarily with functions in which a small input can lead to a disproportionate response. Population models, for instance, can lead to a path of explosive growth, or extinction of a species, depending on a very small difference in the population at a starting point in time. Another popular scientific analogy is the weather, where it has been shown that a simple butterfly fluttering its wings in India can cause a hurricane in New York.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto, #1))
Some say God is a spirit, a force, an ultimate reality. Ask seven people what all of that means and you’ll get seven different answers. So what is God? Just another name for whatever makes you feel special and protected? There’s a big, early-season storm blowing itself out in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s bounced around the Gulf, killing people from Florida to Texas and down into Mexico. There are over 700 known dead so far. One hurricane. And how many people has it hurt? How many are going to starve later because of destroyed crops? That’s nature. Is it God? Most of the dead are the street poor who have nowhere to go and who don’t hear the warnings until it’s too late for their feet to take them to safety.
Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1))
Whoever told you I am a subtle woman of po- etry was right. They couldn’t be more correct. But never mistake my softness for weakness. My words can destroy the very ground they have built on. Do not test a woman of water. All hurricanes are named after women.
Linathi Makanda (When No One Is Watching)
She had always had a streak of recklessness about her, a willingness to go chasing hurricanes and tsunamis, all in the name of science, always willing to go that bit further than anybody else. Disaster hunting, she called it, surfing the extreme weather.
Stephen Baxter (Flood (Flood, #1))
I was angry when I said that. There were no better options; there weren’t any options at all. I had no plans to marry anyone. Until you.” Alaric’s pale brow knitted as he measured out his words with care. “And even though ours will be a marriage in name alone, there will still be no other options for me after we pledge our troth. You will have no cause to feel dishonored. I swear it by your gods and mine.
Thea Guanzon (The Hurricane Wars (The Hurricane Wars #1))
Just a few days earlier half a dozen Chinese railroad workers had been gunned down by a group of drunken cowboys. The sheriff arrested the killers and brought them before Sweetwater’s brand-new judge, who had also opened a saloon. The judge considered the case, pursed his lips, opened a couple of law books just to make sure his first bone-deep feelings about the case were correct, then issued his judgment: “Gentlemen,” he ruled, “I have examined the laws of the United States carefully and I do not find any law which says that a white man shall be punished for killing a Chinaman.” The judge, named Roy Bean, let the killers go. Isaac
Erik Larson (Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History)
Clarence.” “Who is Clarence?” “Clarence, ma’am, is a hurricane.” A small voice from somewhere in the middle of the crowd said: “That’s the most ridiculous name for a hurricane I’ve ever heard.” The
Joe Reese (Climate Change (Nina Bannister Mystery, #7))
Hey, did you know that in the parking diagram on Tampa International’s website, they misspelled Lindbergh’s name? Instills that confidence in flying.
Tim Dorsey (Hurricane Punch (Serge Storms, #9))
Klapp Klapp" Corridor lies with the river All watery eyes I stand there waitin’ for my turn I turn with a rise The spirits blow around like a hurricane whip The girls don’t mind my high scream drip Somebody found us dancin’ You can turn off and feel better When everything’s clear like cold weather Go feel better, feel better Somebody from my heart said I could turn off and never wake up And everything’s clear, My breath feels like steam fake Feel better Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Finally they call my name The ghost inside can wake us to life Makin’ my chair do flips By givin’ into this we’ll be saved every time Fallin’ through the floor on my broken butterfly wing "Gimme me one more," the girl from the corridor sing, she sing I hear you want it, don’t you? I know you want it, don’t you, don’t you? I see you want it, don’t you? I know you want it, don’t you, don’t you? Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Somebody found us dancin’ You can turn off and feel better When everything’s clear like cold weather Go feel better, feel better Somebody from my heart said You could turn off and never wake up And everything’s clear, My breath feels like steam fake Feel better Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you? Do you (she says)? Do you? Do you? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you? Do you? Do you (she says)? Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart
Sofia Coppola
Klapp Klapp" Corridor lies with the river All watery eyes I stand there waitin’ for my turn I turn with a rise The spirits blow around like a hurricane whip The girls don’t mind my high scream drip Somebody found us dancin’ You can turn off and feel better When everything’s clear like cold weather Go feel better, feel better Somebody from my heart said I could turn off and never wake up And everything’s clear, My breath feels like steam fake Feel better Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Finally they call my name The ghost inside can wake us to life Makin’ my chair do flips By givin’ into this we’ll be saved every time Fallin’ through the floor on my broken butterfly wing "Gimme me one more," the girl from the corridor sing, she sing I hear you want it, don’t you? I know you want it, don’t you, don’t you? I see you want it, don’t you? I know you want it, don’t you, don’t you? Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Somebody found us dancin’ You can turn off and feel better When everything’s clear like cold weather Go feel better, feel better Somebody from my heart said You could turn off and never wake up And everything’s clear, My breath feels like steam fake Feel better Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you? Do you (she says)? Do you? Do you? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you? Do you? Do you (she says)? Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart Fallin’ apart, apart, apart, apart, apart
Little Dragon
As the ancients tried to understand the forces they encountered in the natural world, they invented personal names for them, much as weather forecasters still do with hurricanes. Further, they unconsciously projected their own consciousness into these storms and other natural phenomena. This is how the human mind first came to create the idea of personal spirits and gods; they were a class of unseen beings that were thought to be responsible for everything that happened in the natural world. We can easily understand how and why the ancients arrived at their polytheistic world-view, because even today we might find a two-year-old who hits his head on the table corner turning round to address the offending object by saying, ‘You naughty table!
Lloyd Geering (Reimagining God: The Faith Journey of a Modern Heretic)
I’m furious with you,” he said almost idly. Curled in his arms, warm and safe with his heart beating steadily beneath her cheek, it was difficult to take his displeasure seriously. “Why?” “You left without saying goodbye this afternoon.” In the lightless, confined cabin, his Scottish accent seemed impossibly exotic, so much more noticeable than in the light of day. She buried her face in his brocade waistcoat and felt his hand rest on her coiled hair. If they weren’t careful, all Lise’s hard work would go for nothing and Campion would emerge from the carriage looking like she’d run through a hurricane. The spicy essence of lemon soap and Lachlan’s skin filled her senses. “I couldn’t bear to tell you that it was our last afternoon together.” He tensed against her and his heart kicked into a faster rhythm. “Last?” She raised her head. Her vision had adjusted enough for her to see the glitter of his eyes. “My aunt is sending me back to Sussex tomorrow.” “Damn it, Campion, you should have told me.” His embrace firmed as he pressed her closer. “I had things to say to you today. Important things.” Happiness had fluttered inside her like fledgling birds since she’d seen him. His somber tone pricked at her elation. “I suppose you want me to leave my aunt’s home and stay in London as your mistress,” she said flatly. He thrust her back against the seat so hard that she bounced. She flinched beneath his blistering anger as his hands tightened on her shoulders. “Of course I wasn’t going to say that, you lovely fool.” She hardly heard him. “I know I’m provincial and poor, but I’m proud of the Parnell name. My parents were fine people who loved me. I can’t bring shame upon their memory by accepting your carte blanche.” She blinked away the prickling rush of moisture. For a fleeting instant tonight, she’d imagined that she was done with tears, at least until Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day. “Whatever else I might choose to do if there were no other considerations.” “So are you saying that you’d like to be my mistress?” he asked slowly, in a tone she couldn’t interpret. She shrugged unhappily and risked the truth. “I don’t want to leave you.” His sigh expressed temper. “Yet you did leave me.” “Lachlan, don’t be angry. Not tonight.” She framed his face with her hands, although it was too dark to see his expression. He’d recently shaved. His skin was smoother than it had been this afternoon. “I know I was a coward, but it seemed easier on both of us if I just disappeared.” “Did it indeed?” The muscles of his cheeks were taut under her palms, but his question sounded merely curious. “I thought that was the last time I’d ever see you.
Anna Campbell (A Grosvenor Square Christmas)
She was crying for the first time in years. She was crying for something she couldn’t name, for someone she couldn’t remember.
Thea Guanzon (The Hurricane Wars (The Hurricane Wars #1))
Do not fall in love With people like me. people like me will love you so hard that you turn into stone into a statue where people come to marvel at how long it must have taken to carve that faraway look into your eyes Do not fall in love with people like me we will take you to museums and parks and monuments and kiss you in every beautiful place so that you can never go back to them without tasting us like blood in your mouth Do not come any closer. people like me are bombs when our time is up we will splatter loss all over your walls in angry colors that make you wish your doorway never learned our name do not fall in love with people like me. with the lonely ones we will forget our own names if it means learning yours we will make you think hurricanes are gentle that pain is a gift you will get lost in the desperation in the longing for something that is always reaching but never able to hold do not fall in love with people like me. we will destroy your apartment we will throw apologies at you that shatter on the floor and cut your feet we will never learn how to be soft we will leave. we always do. — “Do Not Fall in Love With People Like Me,” Caitlyn Siehl (What We Buried)
Caitlyn Siehl (What We Buried)
When looking inside some kids' desks, you understand why hurricanes are named after people.
Phillip Done (The Art of Teaching Children: All I Learned from a Lifetime in the Classroom)
Angelus Rosedale Cemetery. The answers you need start here. Located across the street from the all-boys Loyola High School, Rosedale is one of the oldest, creepiest cemeteries in Los Angeles, with large tombstones shaped like pyramids and giant Celtic crosses. Famous people are buried beneath those stones—“Hurricane Hank” Armstrong, Hattie McDaniel, Rasputin’s daughter Maria, and Anna May Wong, just to name a few. Old Los Angeles is also buried here. Southern California streets, high schools, and cities have been named after the Slausons, Burbanks, and Fremonts now interred at Rosedale.
Rachel Howzell Hall (These Toxic Things)
They had never promised each other every lifetime, every universe, every possible arrangement of atoms. Those are in infinite supply, and they are two girls. But they are two girls whose blood runs with the heat of exploding stars, even as it drips down their knuckles. They are two girls whose souls reach for each other and ignore probability and infinity. They are two girls who crash together and touch each other gently. They have each other’s names carved into their bones and each other’s fingerprints tattooed on their ligaments and they breathe in time with the other’s heartbeat. They would count the steps to hell and freeze it over to save one another and they would burn if there were no other choice. When the sun goes supernova and solar flares lick across the sky, they will see one another, even if only for an instant, and think, This is almost heaven. And with every instant they have they can read each other like braille with ink-stained fingertips and they are a force of nature if you dare to touch them, learning what happens when a hurricane protects its own.
Maia Brown-Jackson (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 141, Nos. 1 & 2, July/August 2021)
Why is it so hard to choose a direction? Part of it is that I've lost the ability to trust any of my own decisions. But there's another gap here, one I can't name. It's a Polaroid I shake and shake, but no answers materialize on the paper.
Laura Taylor Namey (A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak (Girl’s Guide))
Stillness There is a certain stillness, when even the gentle flutter of a butterfly's wing feels like a hurricane. The moment when crashing waves fall asleep, peaceful, lost to the serenity of salty dreams. When tall trees stand to attention and every leaf pauses, takes a deep breath and holds it. It is here, beneath the maddening silence I hear your name. An echo of you.
Michael Faudet
Cosmic Voyager by Stewart Stafford I was the new Ulysses, Petals on a tide of darkness, Cast to bloom among the stars, Wilted, off the world's edge. Lieutenant General Tommy P., Name, rank and serial oblivion, My wife and hurricanes called me, Memories of love kept me going. I found myself fading adrift, Dying far beyond the reach, Of human hands and hearts, In withering away, I found all. They threw flags of all nations, To reel in a drowning person; One last breath for man, One lungful of air for Mankind. Falling from a height too high, Never landing when I should, Tumbling endlessly beyond nausea, To an ethereally crowded firmament. As water swirls down a plughole, I touched the edges of existence, And found the meaning of life, In silent rocks of an alien planet. In the speckled starling womb profound, Self-love filled the void around. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
Stewart Stafford
These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas. Society is set up in such a way that it’s the poor and the uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters. People in low-lying areas get the floods, people in shanties get the hurricanes and tornados. I’m a college professor. Did you ever see a college professor rowing a boat down his own street in one of those TV floods? We live in a neat and pleasant town near a college with a quaint name. These things don’t happen in places like Blacksmith.
Don DeLillo (White Noise)
Feng shui takes its name from two of the most powerful forces in that landscape: feng, meaning “wind,” and shui, meaning “water.” When wind and water flow too fast, the result is destruction: hurricanes, floods, tsunamis. When they flow too slowly, the result is heavy air, murky water, and stagnation.
Ingrid Fetell Lee (Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness)
We formed the idea for what is now Fearless Faith Ministries that day over lunch. We chose the name because Beth had faced death fearlessly. Today, we have a relatively large following on our Facebook page @FFM60. The name of the page is Fearless Faith Ministries. The three of us take turns delivering three-minute messages every morning. We call these messages “Your Morning Cup of Inspiration.” Fearless Faith is a nonprofit 501(c) 3 corporation. A portion of the proceeds from this book will help us continue to minister in exciting new ways, as do the donations from our supporters and followers. God continues to open other doors of ministry to us, including radio and television. Our primary goal is to point people to Jesus. We believe that He is the answer to the problems that plague humanity today. We are not about religion. Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his time for their hypocrisy. He said they were “whited sepulchers,” meaning that they were all cleaned up on the outside, but they were dead on the inside. Fearless Faith is about spreading the gospel, or the Good News, that we can have a relationship with God. Our central message is that anyone can have eternal life by simply asking God to forgive their sins and by accepting the gift of atonement that Jesus provided through his death and resurrection. We believe that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life” as He said in John 14:6, King James Version of the Bible.
Dan Wheeler (Hurricane of Love: My Journey with Beth Wheeler)
From new title ATOMICAS Shatter the Dream A WORD from the ATOMICAS I wake up every morning hearing the bell for Round One La Porcelana Fight until they can’t KISS US Army SGT. Team Black Damaged women are the most dangerous kind, because they already know they can survive. My enemies will not be so fortunate. OVERLOAD Mess with the ATOMICAS and I will rust your blood. Rusty If I ever let my head down, it will only be to admire my shoes. Ms. Newton Throw me to the wolves. I will return leading the pack RABID and Theodore Chaos is loved by the wild, not the weak FERAL and Genovese I will destroy my enemies in the most beautiful way possible, and when I leave, they will know why storms are named after people. Sea Wasp A Princess becomes an ATOMICA when she slays her own dragons. Shatterdream I will shake my bloody knuckles in my enemy’s face. A fight with the ATOMICAS is a fight to the death. I’ll slap an egg out of you. Thunder Girl I like my sunshine with a shot of hurricane. CRISIS In my defense, Mother, the moon was full, and I was the only witch unburned. Merga Starpattern I go from zero to beating you silly really quick. ZAG I’m stuck between a rock and someone I want to hit with it. Conduit Wink at Death and then beat him down like it’s your job. VOX I would rather be strong and scary than pretty and useless. I fight things that would set your soul on fire. Poltergeist
D.W. Hill (Girl Wanted: Apply in Person: The ATOMICAS Series)
study published in 2014, scientists concluded that more people die in hurricanes named for women then men—because we take “female” hurricanes less seriously.
Joanne Lipman (That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together)
He was a force of nature. He could warm your soul like the sun and then bury you in ice the next second. He was more destructive than any other universal element or could ever be. It was his way, to be like a hurricane crashing upon the shores, or lightning splintering everything in its path. He was a force. But he was my force. And in the end, it didn’t matter, because he disappeared, just like the weather always does. Here for one brief moment and gone the next. His name was Jack and his love for me was like a flood, now frozen over.
K.M. Robinson (The Revolution of Jack Frost)
The meteorologist that first named hurricanes named them after politicians he didn't like, so he could make disparaging comments about them wreaking havoc, etc.
David Fickes (Really Interesting Stuff You Don't Need to Know Mega Edition: Over 3,000 Fascinating Facts)
The investigative theory on which the FBI formally opened the foreign-counterintelligence probe code-named “Crossfire Hurricane” on July 31, 2016, held that (a) the Trump campaign knew about, and was potentially complicit in, Russia’s possession of hacked emails that would compromise Hillary Clinton; and (b) in order to help Donald Trump win the presidency, the Kremlin planned to disseminate these emails anonymously (through a third party) at a time maximally damaging to Clinton’s campaign.
Andrew C. McCarthy (Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency)
October 14, 1954 in Washington, D.C. seemed like a day like any other, until we were dismissed from school early because the teacher said there was a bad storm coming. The sky was turning quite dark as we hurried home. “Grandma, why did the teacher tell us to go straight home?” Grandma was trying to remain her calm self, but I know how much storms terrified her. Argentina has the most severe lightning and tornadoes in the world. She was leaning against the kitchen counter in the corner to steady herself. She always said she would love to go hide in a closet during thunderstorms. “It’s a hurricane they’ve named Hazel. Your mom will be home soon, I hope. She is out getting more food and supplies like candles and batteries in case we lose power and have no light. We’re so lucky to have a gas stove so we can still cook.” Dad came home early from his job with the Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland and Mom made it home just before the winds started. Dad chided Mom, and lessened the tension with, “Now don’t be getting any notion of taking a bath, Eva Beat-rice, there is no time for that!” Dad liked to change the pronunciation of her middle name, Beatrice, to Beatrice when he was teasing her. Mom always ran the water and took a bath during every storm. Dad always said, “Someday you’ll be flying through the air in the bathtub and they’ll find you blocks away!
Carol Ann P. Cote (Downstairs ~ Upstairs: The Seamstress, The Butler, The "Nomad Diplomats" and Me -- A Dual Memoir)
The company currently controls more than twenty thousand patents, more than all but a few dozen companies in the world. This has led to some grumbling that IV is a “patent troll,” accumulating patents so it can extort money from other companies, via lawsuit if necessary. But there is little hard evidence for such claims. A more realistic assessment is that IV has created the first mass market for intellectual property. Its ringleader is a gregarious man named Nathan, the same Nathan we met earlier, the one who hopes to enfeeble hurricanes by seeding the ocean with skirted truck tires. Yes, that apparatus is an IV invention. Internally it is known as the Salter Sink because it sinks warm surface water and was originally developed by Stephen Salter, a renowned British engineer who has been working for decades to harness the power of ocean waves. By now it should be apparent that Nathan isn’t just some weekend inventor. He is Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft. He co-founded IV in 2000 with Edward Jung, a biophysicist who was Microsoft’s chief software architect. Myhrvold played a variety of roles at Microsoft: futurist, strategist, founder of its research lab, and whisperer-in-chief to Bill Gates. “I don’t know anyone I would say is smarter than Nathan,” Gates once observed.
Steven D. Levitt (SuperFreakonomics, Illustrated edition: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance)
Enter, therefore, a new and ingenious variant of Ultimatum, this one called Dictator. Once again, a small pool of money is divided between two people. But in this case, only one person gets to make a decision. (Thus the name: the “dictator” is the only player who matters.) The original Dictator experiment went like this. Annika was given $20 and told she could split the money with some anonymous Zelda in one of two ways: (1) right down the middle, with each person getting $10; or (2) with Annika keeping $18 and giving Zelda just $2. Dictator was brilliant in its simplicity. As a one-shot game between two anonymous parties, it seemed to strip out all the complicating factors of real-world altruism. Generosity could not be rewarded, nor could selfishness be punished, because the second player (the one who wasn’t the dictator) had no recourse to punish the dictator if the dictator acted selfishly. The anonymity, meanwhile, eliminated whatever personal feeling the donor might have for the recipient. The typical American, for instance, is bound to feel different toward the victims of Hurricane Katrina than the victims of a Chinese earthquake or an African drought. She is also likely to feel different about a hurricane victim and an AIDS victim. So the Dictator game seemed to go straight to the core of our altruistic impulse. How would you play it? Imagine that you’re the dictator, faced with the choice of giving away half of your $20 or giving just $2. The odds are you would . . . divide the money evenly. That’s what three of every four participants did in the first Dictator experiments. Amazing! Dictator and Ultimatum yielded such compelling results that the games soon caught fire in the academic community. They were conducted hundreds of times in myriad versions and settings, by economists as well as psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. In a landmark study published in book form as Foundations of Human Sociality, a group of preeminent scholars traveled the world to test altruism in fifteen small-scale societies, including Tanzanian hunter-gatherers, the Ache Indians of Paraguay, and Mongols and Kazakhs in western Mongolia. As it turns out, it didn’t matter if the experiment was run in western Mongolia or the South Side of Chicago: people gave. By now the game was usually configured so that the dictator could give any amount (from $0 to $20), rather than being limited to the original two options ($2 or $10). Under this construct, people gave on average about $4, or 20 percent of their money. The message couldn’t have been much clearer: human beings indeed seemed to be hardwired for altruism. Not only was this conclusion uplifting—at the very least, it seemed to indicate that Kitty Genovese’s neighbors were nothing but a nasty anomaly—but it rocked the very foundation of traditional economics. “Over the past decade,” Foundations of Human Sociality claimed, “research in experimental economics has emphatically falsified the textbook representation of Homo economicus.
Steven D. Levitt (SuperFreakonomics, Illustrated edition: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance)
There’s much more in this life to fear than just spirits, and if I let fear rule my every move, I will become nothing more than a little ghost child myself. I want to be brave. I want to live the life I was given. So what if the spirits hear us call their names? Let them hear it.
Kacen Callender (Hurricane Child)
Hurricane Humans (A Sonnet) Come all ye misfits and rebels, Let's march to shatter the games. Break all golden chains of comfort, Let's work forgetting our names. Come all ye sneered and mocked, We must burn as flames of unity. Let's turn into a human tsunami, And wash away all hate and rigidity. Hurricane humans we are o brethren, Savagery no more is master to us. The fountain of inclusion is our lifeblood, We won't let tradition break our universe. Let’s finally build the kingdom of heaven, With clay from our heart’s unifying Eden.
Abhijit Naskar (Revolution Indomable)
There is a ‘Maker’ or ‘Modeler’, a single process or intention, but which is many-sided, as though taking into account that different traditions will accord the dominant role to the Gods they privilege. Moreover the name ‘Heart of the Sky’, designating the divinity taking in certain respects the dominant role in this process, is immediately unpacked, in the execution of this creative intention, into three Thunderbolt Gods, Thunderbolt Hurricane, Newborn Thunderbolt and Sudden Thunderbolt in Tedlock’s translation, who seem to correspond to Gods of the Classic era to whom three pyramids are dedicated at the plaza at Palenque dating from the 7th c. CE, and who are also embodied in the three stones of a traditional Mayan hearth.28 The three Thunderbolt Gods of the Popol Vuh appear to represent an entire class of important formative powers. This collective power in turn approaches the Plumed (or Feathered) Serpent, Q’uq’umatz, who is in occultation, so to speak, as a glittering light within the primordial waters, and They conceive together the desire to make manifest the Plumed Serpent’s illumination in the form of a world, with the guiding intention to bring forth beings who are capable of recognizing the Gods. The demiurgic powers known collectively as the Heart of Sky and the Plumed Serpent arrive at an agreement, with the Plumed Serpent apparently providing the paradigm or model for the cosmogonic work, if we may venture a somewhat Platonizing hermeneutic.
Edward P. Butler (The Way of the Gods : Polytheism(s) Around the World)
Alaric grabbed her elbow, despair surging from him in waves, and pulled her to him. She let out an indignant squeak as she found herself sprawled on top of his bare chest, her nose inches from his. She held still, careful not to disturb the bandages, and his hand darted from her elbow to her lower back, exposed by the cut of her blue dress, his warm fingers trailing static charges along the base of her spine. She hadn’t realized that she was so sensitive there. “Don’t go,” he murmured hoarsely, fitfully, a man caught in a fever-dream. “I won’t bring up the rebels again. I won’t breathe another word. Just—don’t leave me, Tala.” The name he had first called her on their wedding night sent a mess of starlit recollections swirling through her at the same time that it caught in his throat, along with what he said next. “Please.” Talasyn stared into the hollow desolation in Alaric’s gray eyes, the utter defeat. She knew this loneliness. She understood it in the marrow of her bones. “I was going to clean up, that’s all,” she whispered. “I’m not leaving. It’s just—the bucket and—” “Forget the bucket,” he told her, a hint of his usual imperiousness breaking through the valerian fog. “Stay here.” “All right.” Not her wittiest moment, but it was difficult to think when she was pressed up against his solid body, his hand on the small of her back. “I’ll stay.” He looked like he didn’t believe her, and it pierced her heart.
Thea Guanzon (A Monsoon Rising (The Hurricane Wars, #2))
Tala,” he said, in something between a whisper and a sigh. “Alaric,” she said dryly. “I merely wished to say your name,” he said. “Oh gods,” Talasyn muttered. Her husband was a sappy drunk.
Thea Guanzon (A Monsoon Rising (The Hurricane Wars, #2))