Language Of Thorns Quotes

Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.

We were not made to please princes.

You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled - not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it as the boy did.

This goes to show you that sometimes the unseen is not to be feared and that those meant to love us most are not always ones who do.

This is the problem with making a thing forbidden. It does nothing but build an ache in the heart.

Bad fates do not always follow those who deserve them.

You know how the stories go. Interesting things only happen to pretty girls; you will be home by sunset.

The trap is loneliness, and none of us escapes it. Not even me.

I know who I am without anyone there to tell me.

They pray that their children will be brave and clever and strong, that they will tell the true stories instead of the easy ones. They pray for sons with red eyes and daughters with horns.

But hope rises like water trapped by a dam, higher and higher, in increments that mean nothing until you face the flood.

Magic doesn’t require beauty,’ she said. 'Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters. It requires a disruption, something new.

She held each sorrow like a chafing grain and grew her grudges like pearls.

What harm can a little hope do?

Wanting is why people get up in the morning. It gives them something to dream of at night. The more I wanted, the more I became like them, the more real I became.

A thousand desperate wishes have been spoken on these shores, and in the end they were all the same: Make me someone new.

This is the problem with even lesser demons. They come to your doorstep in velvet coats and polished shoes. They tip their hats and smile and demonstrate good table manners. They never show you their tails.

There is no pain like the pain of transformation.

I can bear ugliness, I find the only thing I cannot live with is death.

I will love an honest monster before I swear loyalty to a treacherous king.

-My father never taught me mercy. -And can you not learn?

This goes to show you that sometimes the unseen is not to be feared and that those meant to love us most are not always the ones who do.

She had not been much to look at in her youth, and she knew well that only courage is required for an adventure.

There are better things than princes.

It was the wounds from the thicket that had proven all the sweet blossoms and starlight had been real.

Do not behave as a tyrant and then tell me to scold a tyrant to behave. Show mercy and mercy you may be shown

What gave her strength then? We cannot know for sure. That contrary thing inside her? The hard stone of rage all lonely girls possess?

The beast might shout and snarl, and he might well devour her, but he'd at least been interested enough to listen to her speak.

Ulla could forgive betrayal, another abandonment, even her own death. But not this moment, when after all her sacrifice, she begged for mercy and Signy sought a prince's permission to grant it.

And now I say to you, Yeva Luchcova: will you remain here with the father who tried to sell you, or the prince who hoped to buy you, or the man too weak to solve his riddles for himself? Or will you come with me and be the bride to nothing but the shore?

I can smell your ambition like blood in the water.

Wanting is why people get up in the morning. It gives them something to dream of at night.

And when we are with Alex, I might as well not be there. They speak in a language of whispers and giggles and secrets; their words are like a fairy-tale tangle of thorns, which place a wall between us.

It told a story...the story of Prythian. It began with a cauldron. A mighty black cauldron held by glowing, slender female hands in a starry, endless night. Those hands tipped it over, and, from it, golden sparkling liquid poured out over the lip. No -- not sparkling, but...effervescent with small symbols, perhaps some ancient faerie language.

I tried to reason with them, but people do not always hear the words of a beast.

Are you my soldier? Are you my prince? Are you my darling? Are you mine?

Papa, Yeva said to the duke, desperate to stand beneath an open sky again. Why must I be the one to hide?

The storm has brought Ulla to the cold shelter of the northern islands, to the darkened caves and flat black pools where she remains to this day, waiting for the lonely, the ambitious, the clever, the frail, for all those willing to strike a bargain. She never waits for long.

The sound was so ugly. Was it? Or was it just something you hadn't heard before?

Who are you when no one picks you up to hold you?" asked the Rat King. "When no one is looking at you, or whispering to you, who are you then?

But as you leave that dark gap in the trees behind, remember that to use a thing is not to own it and should you ever take a bride, listen closely to her questions. In them you may hear her true name like the thunder of a lost river, like the sighing of the sea.

For the briefest moment, Ulla despised Signy, as we can only hate those who rescue us from loneliness.

Just because you escape one trap, doesn't mean you will escape the next.

When the coffers are empty and their bellies growl, even good men turn bad.

- What could a river want with a mirror? - That is a question for the river.

And if it was true that the beast was happy to be spoken to, then perhaps it was also true that Ayama was glad to be heard.

You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled—not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it as the boy did.

You see some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled - not with all the good food or sunshine in the world.

And can you not learn?

Dangling form the trap's steel teeth by his wounded leg, a lesser creature might have closed his eyes and prayed for nothing more than a quick death. But if Koja had words then he had hope.

Sometimes the unseen is not to be feared and that those meant to love us most are not always the ones who do.

In my country, terawatt globes are reserved for police helicopter chases and warning sailors of hazardous shoals. This is despite the fact that practically every living creature there can kill you in under three minutes. Our primary spoken language is screaming.

There is but one rule in my wood," he growled. "Speak truth.

My life began with wanting something for myself.

There, she wrote fantastical tales that charmed children, and under another name, she penned rather more lurid works that kept her in nougat and sweet cream,

No prince is worth your life." Ayama supposed it depended on the prince.

You are worth more than that, she wanted to say. You should not have to earn him.

You send me all these roses. Every time I think the last bouquet has arrived, finally, another turns up. I’m running out of vases. I didn’t know roses came in so many colors. You say they’re the perfect symbols of love because they have thorns and love is pain. I say life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. And you don’t get it. You say you love me, but you don’t speak my language. You don’t even realize I’m an orchid girl.

Here in Raine, I can walk with the sunlight on my face. I can speak to anyone who speaks to me. I can learn my daughter's language. I can be called the name I was given when I was born. Here I am no longer my own secret. Will you let me stay?

Sofiya had lived that way a long while, and a lesser creature might choose to live in fear rather than grasp at freedom.

Those meant to love us most are not always the ones who do.

There are different kinds of magic. Some call for rare herbs or complicated incantations. Some demand blood. Other magic is more mysterious still, the kind that fits one voice to another, one being to another, when moments before they were as good as strangers.

Now you kno what monsters once lurked in the woods near Duva, and if you ever meet a bear with a golden collar, you will be able to greep him by name. So shut the window tight and make sure the latch is fastened. Dark things have a way of slipping in through narrow spaces. Shall we have something good to eat? Well then, come help me stir the pot.

Until recently, I believed all horses were alike. They’ve been giant, four-footed animals with ugly dispositions and alarmingly large teeth for so long that it’s a bit startling to notice how different they are from each other. Mara’s mare, for instance, is a chestnut bay except for a wide white blaze down her nose that makes her seem perpetually surprised. My huge plodding mount is a dark brown near to black creature, with the most unruly mane I’ve ever seen. Her shaggy forelock covers her right eye and reaches almost to her mouth. Mara’s mare head-butts her in the chest. Grinning, Mara plants a kiss between her wide, dumb eyes, then murmurs something. “Have you named her?” I ask. “Yes! Her name is Jasmine.” I grimace. “But jasmine is such a sweet, pretty flower.” Mara laughs. “Have you named yours?” “Her name is Horse.” She rolls her eyes. “If you want to get along with your mount you have to learn each others’ languages. That means starting with a good name.” “All right.” I pretend to consider. “What about Imbecile? Or Poops A Lot?

remember that to use a thing is not to own it. And should you ever take a bride, listen closely to her questions. In them you may hear her true name like the thunder of a lost river, like the sighing of the sea.

I wish I could go visit them and talk in my own language, the English I knew before I grew thorns on my tongue.

In time, she came to the banks of a stream, its surface so bright with starlight it was as if someone had peeled the rind from the moon like a piece of fruit and laid it in a gleaming ribbon upon the forest floor.

Aidan pulled against his bonds. “They keep talking to him in a whole bunch of languages. A lot of French. Something about the Thorn of Istra. I think he’s in trouble.” “Are you?” Tana asked. “Not exactly,” said Gavriel.

But no one can live in fear forever.

In the wood, even songbirds must be survivors.

He might be dangerous, but abandoning even a small chance to make her dream real seemed more dangerous still.

[referencing that what bothered her about Hansel and Gretel was the weak willed father who let the evil stepmother send the children into the woods not once but twice, and the unease of children reunited happily with their father] : In many ways that unease has guided me through these stories, that note of trouble that I think many of us hear in familiar tales, because we know - even as children - that impossible tasks are an odd way to choose a spouse, that predators come in many guises, that a prince's whims are often cruel. The more I listened to that note of warning, the more inspiration I found.

Droessen knew the properties of every kind of wood and paint and lacquer; he could finesse the gears of a clock until the spun with silent precision. And yet, though he could smile readily, charm easily, and play the part of a gentleman, he had never truly understood people or the workings of their steady-running but inconstant hearts.

You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled—not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it

He walked through the woods like a young Adam, naming creation. I learned to shape my mouth to the words—sasumuneash for cranberry, tunockuquas for frog. So many things grew and lived here that were strange to us, because they had not been in England. We named the things of this place in reference to things that were not of this place—cat briar for the thickets of vine whose thorns were narrow and claw-like; lambskill for the low-growing laurel that had proved poisonous to some of our hard-got tegs. But there had been no cats or lambs here until we brought them. So when he named a plant or a creature, I felt that I heard the true name of the thing for the first time.

This goes to show that sometimes the unseen is not to be feared and that those meant to love us most are not always the ones who do.

Magic doesn’t require beauty,” she said. “Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters. It requires a disruption, something new.

On Translating Eugene Onegin 1 What is translation? On a platter A poet's pale and glaring head, A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter, And profanation of the dead. The parasites you were so hard on Are pardoned if I have your pardon, O, Pushkin, for my stratagem: I traveled down your secret stem, And reached the root, and fed upon it; Then, in a language newly learned, I grew another stalk and turned Your stanza patterned on a sonnet, Into my honest roadside prose-- All thorn, but cousin to your rose. 2 Reflected words can only shiver Like elongated lights that twist In the black mirror of a river Between the city and the mist. Elusive Pushkin! Persevering, I still pick up Tatiana's earring, Still travel with your sullen rake. I find another man's mistake, I analyze alliterations That grace your feasts and haunt the great Fourth stanza of your Canto Eight. This is my task--a poet's patience And scholastic passion blent: Dove-droppings on your monument.

He only wished that it wasn't winter. He wanted to turn his face to the sun and feel it warm him. The cold frightened him now. It felt like death, like the long silence of not being, without sense of time or place, only the understanding that he must hold on, that someday, there would be an end to the terrible stillness. He'd been a long time in the dark.

Sometimes the unseen is not to be feared.

She held each sorrow like a chafing grain of sand and grew her grudges like pearls.

You seem some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled - not with all the good food or sunshine in the world.

I can bear ugliness," he said. "I find the one thing I cannot live with is death.

The twins exchanged looks again, some silent language they’d learned in the womb passing between them.

But Ulla was not alone; all these broken, betrayed girls were with her, and what a terrible sound they made.

You know how the stories go. Interesting things only happened to pretty girls; he will be home by sunset.

can bear ugliness,” he said. “I find the one thing I cannot live with is death.

They know that the world is a place of danger. Yet still they long for a taste of mortal life.This is the problem with making a thing forbidden. It does nothing but build an ache in the heart.

But despite all this, the boy found he was still unhappy. You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled—not with all the good food or sunshine in the world.

BOWLS OF FOOD Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and love what’s beautiful. “Once it was like that, now it’s like this,” the saying goes around town, and serious consequences too. Men and women turn their faces to the wall in grief. They lose appetite. Then they start eating the fire of pleasure, as camels chew pungent grass for the sake of their souls. Winter blocks the road. Flowers are taken prisoner underground. Then green justice tenders a spear. Go outside to the orchard. These visitors came a long way, past all the houses of the zodiac, learning Something new at each stop. And they’re here for such a short time, sitting at these tables set on the prow of the wind. Bowls of food are brought out as answers, but still no one knows the answer. Food for the soul stays secret. Body food gets put out in the open like us. Those who work at a bakery don’t know the taste of bread like the hungry beggars do. Because the beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation: bury your seed and wait. After you die, All the thoughts you had will throng around like children. The heart is the secret inside the secret. Call the secret language, and never be sure what you conceal. It’s unsure people who get the blessing. Climbing cypress, opening rose, Nightingale song, fruit, these are inside the chill November wind. They are its secret. We climb and fall so often. Plants have an inner Being, and separate ways of talking and feeling. An ear of corn bends in thought. Tulip, so embarrassed. Pink rose deciding to open a competing store. A bunch of grapes sits with its feet stuck out. Narcissus gossiping about iris. Willow, what do you learn from running water? Humility. Red apple, what has the Friend taught you? To be sour. Peach tree, why so low? To let you reach. Look at the poplar, tall but without fruit or flower. Yes, if I had those, I’d be self-absorbed like you. I gave up self to watch the enlightened ones. Pomegranate questions quince, Why so pale? For the pearl you hid inside me. How did you discover my secret? Your laugh. The core of the seen and unseen universes smiles, but remember, smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter. Dark earth receives that clear and grows a trunk. Melon and cucumber come dragging along on pilgrimage. You have to be to be blessed! Pumpkin begins climbing a rope! Where did he learn that? Grass, thorns, a hundred thousand ants and snakes, everything is looking for food. Don’t you hear the noise? Every herb cures some illness. Camels delight to eat thorns. We prefer the inside of a walnut, not the shell. The inside of an egg, the outside of a date. What about your inside and outside? The same way a branch draws water up many feet, God is pulling your soul along. Wind carries pollen from blossom to ground. Wings and Arabian stallions gallop toward the warmth of spring. They visit; they sing and tell what they think they know: so-and-so will travel to such-and-such. The hoopoe carries a letter to Solomon. The wise stork says lek-lek. Please translate. It’s time to go to the high plain, to leave the winter house. Be your own watchman as birds are. Let the remembering beads encircle you. I make promises to myself and break them. Words are coins: the vein of ore and the mine shaft, what they speak of. Now consider the sun. It’s neither oriental nor occidental. Only the soul knows what love is. This moment in time and space is an eggshell with an embryo crumpled inside, soaked in belief-yolk, under the wing of grace, until it breaks free of mind to become the song of an actual bird, and God.

Harriet turned round, and we both saw a girl walking towards us. She was dark-skinned and thin, not veiled but dressed in a sitara, a brightly coloured robe of greens and pinks, and she wore a headscarf of a deep rose colour. In that barren place the vividness of her dress was all the more striking. On her head she balanced a pitcher and in her hand she carried something. As we watched her approach, I saw that she had come from a small house, not much more than a cave, which had been built into the side of the mountain wall that formed the far boundary of the gravel plateau we were standing on. I now saw that the side of the mountain had been terraced in places and that there were a few rows of crops growing on the terraces. Small black and brown goats stepped up and down amongst the rocks with acrobatic grace, chewing the tops of the thorn bushes. As the girl approached she gave a shy smile and said, ‘Salaam alaikum, ’ and we replied, ‘Wa alaikum as salaam, ’ as the sheikh had taught us. She took the pitcher from where it was balanced on her head, kneeled on the ground, and gestured to us to sit. She poured water from the pitcher into two small tin cups, and handed them to us. Then she reached into her robe and drew out a flat package of greaseproof paper from which she withdrew a thin, round piece of bread, almost like a large flat biscuit. She broke off two pieces, and handed one to each of us, and gestured to us to eat and drink. The water and the bread were both delicious. We smiled and mimed our thanks until I remembered the Arabic word, ‘Shukran.’ So we sat together for a while, strangers who could speak no word of each other’s languages, and I marvelled at her simple act. She had seen two people walking in the heat, and so she laid down whatever she had been doing and came to render us a service. Because it was the custom, because her faith told her it was right to do so, because her action was as natural to her as the water that she poured for us. When we declined any further refreshment after a second cup of water she rose to her feet, murmured some word of farewell, and turned and went back to the house she had come from. Harriet and I looked at each other as the girl walked back to her house. ‘That was so…biblical,’ said Harriet. ‘Can you imagine that ever happening at home?’ I asked. She shook her head. ‘That was charity. Giving water to strangers in the desert, where water is so scarce. That was true charity, the charity of poor people giving to the rich.’ In Britain a stranger offering a drink to a thirsty man in a lonely place would be regarded with suspicion. If someone had approached us like that at home, we would probably have assumed they were a little touched or we were going to be asked for money. We might have protected ourselves by being stiff and unfriendly, evasive or even rude.

It pleases him how Spell is how the word is made but also, in the hands of the magician, how the world is changed. One letter separates Word from World, and that letter is like the number one, or an 'I', or a shaft of light between almost closed curtains. There is an old letter called a thorn, which jags and tears at the throat as it's uttered. Later he learns that Grammar and Glamour share the same deeper root, which is further magic, and there can be neither magic without that root, nor plant. He's lost in it like Chid in Child, or God reversed into Dog. Somewhere inside him is a colon. A sentence can last for life.

Sitting under a tree, I studied my options. The fall flowers were in full bloom: verbena, goldenrod, chrysanthemum, and a late-blooming rose. The carefully tended city beds around the park held layers of textured evergreen but little color. I set to work, considering height, density, texture, and layers of scent, removing touch-damaged petals with careful pinches. When I had finished, spiraling white mums emerged from a cushion of snow-colored verbena, and clusters of pale climbing roses circled and dripped over the edge of a tightly wrapped nosegay. I removed every thorn. The bouquet was white as a wedding and spoke of prayers, truth, and an unacquainted heart.

I asked Wendy Melvoin how serious she thought Prince was in his theological questioning. ‘I felt it was showbiz for me,’ she told me. ‘I did not relate personally. But part of the beauty of it back then is that there were Jews, Mexicans, blacks, whites, gays and straights in his band. Everyone had their own opinions and they were tolerated and embraced.’ Lisa Coleman developed this thought. ‘I felt when I first joined the band he thought it was more important to pose questions than to get answers, and somewhere along the line he looked at it and now he doesn’t pose the questions any more, he tells you what the answers are. That counts a lot of people out.’ Wendy agreed: ‘He always had a tendency to speak in parables. He’s not a clear talker. He can speak quickly and monosyllabically and get to the point of what he wants, but when you get down to really philosophical questions and get into a conversation it can become very difficult to follow. He has a different language that he’s learned.

Each new human life retraces this ancient story. Young children are the very essence of human innocence. They run, play, and feel—and, as in Genesis, when they are naked they are not ashamed. Children provide a model for the assumption of healthy normality, and their innocence and vitality are part of why the assumption seems so obviously true. But that vision begins to fade as children acquire language and become more and more like the creatures adults see reflected every day in their mirrors. Adults unavoidably drag their children from the Garden with each word, conversation, or story they relate to them. We teach children to talk, think, compare, plan, and analyze. And as we do, their innocence falls away like petals from a flower, to be replaced by the thorns and stiff branches of fear, self-criticism, and pretense. We cannot prevent this gradual transformation, nor can we fully soften it. Our children must enter into the terrifying world of verbal knowledge. They must become like us.

YOU WISH TO STRIKE A BARGAIN, and so you come north, until the land ends, and you can go no farther. You stand on the rocky coast and face the water, see the waves break upon two great islands, their coastlines black and jagged. Maybe you pay a local to help you find a boat and a safe place to launch it. You wrap yourself in sealskins to keep the cold and wet away, chew whale fat to keep your mouth moist beneath the hard winter sun. Somehow you cross that long stretch of stone-colored sea and find the strength to scale the angry cliff face, breath tight in your chest, fingers nearly numb in your gloves. Then, tired and trembling, you traverse the island and find the single crescent of gray sand beach. You make your way to a circle of rocks, to a little tide pool, your wish burning like a sun in your mortal heart. You come as so many have before—lonely, troubled, sick with avarice. A thousand desperate wishes have been spoken on these shores, and in the end they are all the same: Make me someone new.

So, fast forward from Cardiff 1997 to Auckland 2011, from a Rugby World Cup quarter-final to a World Cup final, from a team heading towards defeat to a team heading towards victory. It’s the same two sides playing: New Zealand vs. France. It’s just as tight, but this time New Zealand lead by one point. Read the body language. Richie McCaw breathes, holds his wrist, stamps his feet – reconnecting with himself, returning to the moment. He looks around. There are no glazed eyes now. No walking dead. Brad Thorne throws water over himself, cooling his thoughts. Kieran Read stares out to the far distant edge of the stadium, regaining perspective. New Zealand, the stadium of four million people, is less calm. The dread casts a long black cloud. The spectators can’t help but flash back to the bad pictures. They are in the Red, but the All Blacks stay in the Blue. The clock counts itself down, slowly, slowly; until finally . . . the whistle blows. 8-7 New Zealand. ‘We smashed ’em,’ says Graham Henry. And in their heads, they did.

If I can keep fighting,” she said, “then so can you.” “Back to the stone,” he said in a harsh voice. “I know you’re not a coward, Murtagh. Better to die than to live as a slave to one such as Galbatorix. At least then you might accomplish some good, and your name might be remembered with a measure of kindness after you’re gone.” “Back to the stone,” he growled, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her over to the slab. She allowed him to push her onto the ash-colored block, fasten the restraints around her wrists and ankles, and then tighten the strap around her head. When he finished, he stood looking at her, his eyes dark and wild, the lines of his body like cords stretched taut. “You have to decide whether you are willing to risk your life in order to save yourself,” she said. “You and Thorn both. And you have to decide now, while there is still time. Ask yourself: what would Tornac have wanted you to do?” Without answering, Murtagh extended his right arm and placed his hand upon the upper part of her chest, his palm hot against her skin. Her breath hitched at the shock of the contact. Then, hardly louder than a whisper, he began to speak in the ancient language. As the strange words tumbled from his lips, her fear grew ever stronger. He spoke for what seemed like minutes. She felt no different when he stopped, but that was neither a favorable nor an unfavorable sign where magic was concerned. Cool air washed over the patch on her chest, chilling it as Murtagh lifted his hand away. He stepped back then and started to walk past her, toward the entrance of the chamber. She was about to call out to him--to ask what he had done to her--when he paused and said, “That should shield you from the pain of most any wound, but you’ll have to pretend otherwise, or Galbatorix will discover what I’ve done.” And then he left. “Thank you,” she whispered to the empty room.

There was a bell clanging in the tower of the building next to the black-shrike-thorn-cave. She found the noise irritating, so she twisted her neck and loosed a jet of blue and yellow flame at it. The tower did not catch fire, as it was stone, but the rope and beams supporting the bell ignited, and a few seconds later, the bell fell crashing into the interior of the tower. That pleased her, as did the two-legs-round-ears who ran screaming from the area. She was a dragon, after all. It was only right that they should fear her. One of the two-legs paused by the edge of the square in front of the black-shrike-thorn-cave, and she heard him shout a spell at her, his voice like the squeaking of a frightened mouse. Whatever the spell was, Eragon’s wards shielded her from it--at least she assumed they did, for she noticed no difference in how she felt or in the appearance of the world around her. The wolf-elf-in-Eragon’s-shape killed the magician for her. She could feel how Blödhgarm grasped hold of the spellcaster’s mind and wrestled the two-legs-round-ears’ thoughts into submission, whereupon Blödhgarm uttered a single word in the ancient-elf-magic-language, and the two-legs-round-ears fell to the ground, blood seeping from his open mouth. Then the wolf-elf tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Ready yourself, Brightscales. Here they come.” She saw Thorn rising above the edge of the rooftops, Eragon-half-brother-Murtagh a small, dark figure on his back. In the light of the morning sun, Thorn shone and sparkled almost as brilliantly as she herself did. Her scales were cleaner than his, though, as she had taken special care when grooming earlier. She could not imagine going into battle looking anything but her best. Her enemies should not only fear her, but admire her. She knew it was vanity on her part, but she did not care. No other race could match the grandeur of the dragons. Also, she was the last female of her kind, and she wanted those who saw her to marvel at her appearance and to remember her well, so if dragons were to vanish forevermore, two-legs would continue to speak of them with the proper respect, awe, and wonder.

In my head, I had learned to survive. I had learned to provide answers to every question and construct universal propositions, that is statements that are correct from front to back and from back to front, which could enjoy the acclaim of professionals in the field. I had learned to conceal myself behind rational sentences. I had learned to speak the universal language. Out of my own fear of fear, I had become a specialist in the universal. By my own choice, I reduced myself to the bare essentials, the necessary generalities. Indeed, the world was remote. No shouting. No thorn bush that burned. No small light. No voice against another voice. The law of the world lay silently over everything so that I myself seemed innocent of my well-knit lies. I have lived extremely far away from myself and learned to lie as part of the collective. I have tried out the cynic’s way of life and could not endure it. Ultimately I understood that I could not outwit the circumstances, even using the cunning of reason.