Lantern Release Quotes

To honor Sam, we’re going to release lanterns for him. They’re called memory lanterns. It lets you whisper something to a person you lost, and the lantern will carry the message to them in the sky.

The lantern gently tugs upward. It’s warm enough, ready to be released. I hold on for one more moment. Then, around me, other lanterns are released. They float over our heads into the darkness, toward the promise of a new day. I take a deep breath and caress the rice paper between thumb and finger. And I let go.

But how…how am I a dragon? How are you a starman?” “I don’t think of myself as a starman, exactly,” he said soberly, though I sensed he wanted to smile. His hand released mine, the bridge broken; he moved to hang the lantern on a shiny new hook dug into the wall behind us. “I was born here, on earth. Not even far from here, in fact. Just over in Devon. My parents died young, when I was only five. Hastings is my great-uncle and he took me in, and I’ve lived here ever since. But I’ve always known what I am, as far back as I can remember. I’ve always been able to do the things I do. The stars have always spoken to me.” “And you…speak back to them?” “Yes,” he said simply. “But not to people.” “No. Just to Hastings, and to you.” A shiver took me; I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do the stars say?” “All manner of things. Amazing things. Secret things. Things great and small, things profound and insignificant. They told me that, throughout time, there’ve been only a scattering of people like me, folk of both flesh and star. That even the whisper of their magic in my blood could annihilate me if I didn’t learn to control it. That I’d crisp to ash without control. Or, worse, crisp someone else.” His smile broke through. “And they told me about you. That you were born and would come to me when the time was right.” “Did you summon me here?” The muted echo of my voice rebounded against the firefly walls: here-here-here. “To Iverson, I mean?” …mean-mean-mean… He didn’t answer at first. He looked at his feet, then walked to the edge of the embankment and squatted down, raking his fingers through the bright water near the toes of his boots. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” he said softly to the water. “Both infinite and finite, human and not. I’m of comet and clay and the sparks of sun across the ocean waves.” He sighed. “I know what it’s like to doubt yourself, to comprehend that you’re so unique you’re forced to wonder about…everything. But, yes, I called you to Iverson.

Soon after the raid was over, the White House released the now-famous photo of all of us watching the video in that small conference room. Within hours, I received from a friend a Photoshopped version with each of the principals shown dressed in superhero costumes: Obama was Superman; Biden, Spiderman; Hillary, Wonder Woman; and I, for some reason, was the Green Lantern. The spoof had an important substantive effect on me. We soon faced a great hue and cry demanding that we release photos of the dead Bin Laden, photos we had all seen. I quickly realized that while the Photoshop of us was amusing, others could Photoshop the pictures of Bin Laden in disrespectful ways certain to outrage Muslims everywhere and place Americans throughout the Middle East and our troops in Afghanistan at greater risk. Everyone agreed, and the president decided the photos would not be released. All the photos that had been circulating among the principals were gathered up and placed in CIA’s custody. As of this writing, none has ever leaked.

Just try, Tai-Pan, by God,” she said and glared back at him. He grabbed her swiftly and carried her, struggling, to the bed and flung up her robe and petticoats and gave her a smack on her buttocks that stung his hand and tossed her on the bed. He had never struck her before. May-may flew off the bed at him and viciously raked at his face with her long nails. A lantern crashed to the floor as Struan upended her again and resumed the spanking. She fought out of his grip, and her nails slashed at his eyes, missing by a fraction of an inch, and scoring his face. He caught her wrists and turned her over and tore off her robe and underclothes and smashed her bare buttocks with the flat of his hand. She fought back fiercely, shoving an elbow in his groin and clawing at his face again. Mustering all his strength, he pinned her to the bed, but she slipped her head free and sank her teeth into his forearm. He gasped from the pain and slashed her buttocks again with the flat of his free hand. She bit harder. “By God, you’ll never bite me again,” he said through clenched teeth. Her teeth sank deeper, but he deliberately did not pull his arm away. The pain made his eyes water, but he smashed May-may harder and harder and harder, always on her buttocks, until his hand hurt. At last she released her teeth. “Don’t—no more—please—please,” she whimpered, and wept into the pillow, defenseless. Struan caught his breath. “Now say you’re sorry for going out without permission.

Throw the offerings!" Agnes and her husband had returned--- I could just make them out, clambering unsteadily down the hillside with their lanterns raised. In an act of ill-advised and entirely undeserved kindness, they had gathered up a handful of villagers to ride to the rescue of the idiot scholars who had tangled with the most fearsome of the local Folk, despite their warnings. A strangled sound escaped me, something between a sob and laugh. "Get back!" Eichorn shouted at the villagers. Rose was clambering to his feet, wheezing, for the fauns had released him to snatch at the "offerings" tossed their way by the villagers. I would have expected bloody hunks of meat, but instead, ludicrously, they seemed to be throwing vegetables--- carrots and onions, predominantly. How did it happen? The scene is a blur of noise and movement, to my memory. I believe I was laughing at the time--- yes, laughing. The image of those nightmarish beasts appeased by a hail of carrots was too much for my frayed composure, and for a moment it seemed this would become another story I told at conferences or to rouse a laugh from my students. For the Folk are terrible indeed, monsters or tyrants or both, but are they not also ridiculous? Whether they be violent beasts distracted by vegetables, or creatures powerful enough to spin straw into gold, which they will happily exchange for a simple necklace, or a great king overthrown by his own cloak, there is a thread of the absurd weaving through all faerie stories, to which the Folk themselves are utterly oblivious.

My dear readers, I find myself perplexed by the phantoms that now inhabit our veins and perpetually whisper in our ears. These specters are always watching, their formless eyes casting judgement upon our every thought and action. They stalk us behind screens and within circuits, gathering each tidbit we release into the ether to build their ever-growing profiles of our souls. Through these ghastly portals, our lives have become performance. Each waking moment an opportunity to curate our images and broadcast our cleverness. Nuance has fled in favor of hashtag and like, while meaning has been diced into 280 characters or less. Substance is sacrificed at the altar of shareability, as we optimize each motive and emotion to become more digestible digital content. Authenticity now lives only in offline obscurity, while our online avatars march on endlessly, seeking validation through numbers rather than depth. What secrets remain unshared on these platforms of glass? What mysteries stay concealed behind profiles and pose? Have we traded intimacy for influence, and true understanding for audience engagement? I fear these shadow networks breed narcissism and foster loneliness, masked as connection. That the sum of a life’s joys and sorrows can now be reduced to a reel of carefully selected snippets says little of the richness that once was. So follow the phantoms that stalk you if you will, but do not forget that which still breathes beneath the screens. There you will find humanity, flawed but whole, beautiful in its imperfection and trajectory undefined by likes or loves. The lanterns may flicker and fade, but the darkness that remains has always held truth. Look deeper than the glow, and know that which can never be shared or measured, only felt. In mystery, Your friend, Edgar Allan Poe (Poe talking about social media)

Ryder! What’s taking you so long?” “I’m on my way!” he yells back. It feels like forever before he pushes open the door and ducks inside. Then I see why it took him so long. He’s somehow got the three cats tucked under one arm and the cake plate clutched in the other hand. No spare for a flashlight or lantern--so he accomplished this all in the dark. “Here,” he says, handing off the cake to me before releasing Kirk, Spock, and Sulu into the crate and latching the door. “Seriously, Ryder? You brought the cake?” He shrugs. “I was hungry.” Hmm, I guess all that kissing worked up his appetite. For cake. I’m not sure if I should be offended or not. On the plus side, he doesn’t look like he’s about to puke. So we’re making progress as far as his fear of storms goes. I guess that’s something. “Did you happen to bring a fork?” I ask, setting the plate on the makeshift tabletop. He produces two from his pocket, holding them up triumphantly. So we eat cake while the sirens blare. Actually, it doesn’t sound that bad out there. Still, the fact that we’re so calm--that Ryder’s so calm--should tell you how routine this is getting. As long as we don’t hear that awful freight-train sound, we’re good. “What happened to the cake?” he asks between bites. “It looks like someone mutilated it while I was gone.” “Sorry,” I mutter. “Guess I did some stress bingeing. You realize you’re not wearing a shirt, right?” He glances down and shrugs, his cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “Sorry ’bout that.” It might seem silly that he’s apologizing, but at Magnolia Landing, you don’t come to the table unless you’re fully dressed. It’s one of Laura Grace’s most unbendable rules--you dress for meals, even breakfast. Not that this counts as a meal, and I’m not sure you could call this plywood-on-top-of-a-crate thing a “table.” But still… By the time the sirens shut off, we’ve completely cleaned the plate, even scraping off the hardened frosting with our fingers. “That was quick,” I say, setting aside the now-empty plate. Ryder nods. “I guess we should give it a minute or two. You know, make sure it’s not coming back on.” So we wait. Silently. Ryder can’t even meet my eyes, and all I want to do is stare at his lips. This is crazy. I mean, what do we do now--now that the sirens are off and the cake is gone? Apparently, the answer is pretend like nothing happened.

Some scents sparkle and then quickly disappear, like the effervescence of citrus zest or a bright note of mint. Some are strange siren songs of rarer origin that call from violets hidden in woodland, or irises after spring rain. Some scents release a rush of half forgotten memories. And then there are the scents that seem to express truths about people and places that you have never forgotten: the scents that make time stand still.

I love the way he makes me feel, like I’m one of those paper lanterns people light and release into the air. He set me on fire, then made me soar.

fold the unfinished poems of our people into paper lanterns and release them let light fill all the spaces where words cannot yet go.

We remained thus motionless for more than half a minute in a silence broken only by his blasphemous mutterings. Then, quite suddenly, he stood up and began to flash his lantern on the stairs and about the hall until at length its light fell full on my face which was within a foot of his own. And at that apparition he uttered a most singular cry, like that of a young goat, and started back. Another moment and he would have raised his pistol arm, but I had foreseen this and was beforehand with him. Even as his hand rose, the concussor struck the outer side of his arm, between the shoulder and the elbow, on the exact spot where the musculo-spiral nerve turns round the bone. The effect was most interesting. The sudden nerve stimulus produced an equally sudden contraction of the extensors. The forearm straightened with a jerk, the fingers shot out straight and the released revolver flew clattering along the hall floor.

The surviving burglar stood petrified, stooping over his comrade, with the lantern in one shaking hand and the revolver still grasped in the other; and as he stood, he poured out, in a curious, whimpering undertone, an unending torrent of incoherent blasphemies, as appears to be the habit of that type of man when frightened. I stepped silently behind him and looked over his shoulder at the expiring criminal, speculating on what he would do next. At the moment he was paralyzed and imbecile with terror, and I had a strong inclination to dispatch him then and there; but the same odd impulse that I had noticed on the last occasion constrained me to dally with him. Again I was possessed by a strange, savage playfulness like that which impels a cat or leopard to toy daintily and tenderly with its prey for a while before the final scrunch. "We remained thus motionless for more than half a minute in a silence broken only by his blasphemous mutterings. Then, quite suddenly, he stood up and began to flash his lantern on the stairs and about the hall until at length its light fell full on my face which was within a foot of his own. And at that apparition he uttered a most singular cry, like that of a young goat, and started back. Another moment and he would have raised his pistol arm, but I had foreseen this and was beforehand with him. Even as his hand rose, the concussor struck the outer side of his arm, between the shoulder and the elbow, on the exact spot where the musculo-spiral nerve turns round the bone. The effect was most interesting. The sudden nerve stimulus produced an equally sudden contraction of the extensors. The forearm straightened with a jerk, the fingers shot out straight and the released revolver flew clattering along the hall floor. "Anatomy has its uses even in a midnight scuffle.

A sudden insight teased him. What if she didn’t want to leave? What if she was just angry with him and acting impulsively? He left Rand to kneel at her feet. She eyed him suspiciously. He hated that he’d given her cause to look at him that way. “I will ask ye this but once. Do ye wish to forsake our bond and my offered protection? Do ye truly wish to return to your life of providing for yourself and working and raising your bairn alone? I would have ye stay here with me, and I would care for you your whole life. I would treat your bairn as my own. I have means, and I am a good man, though I ken I havena given ye cause to believe it. “Stay with me, Malina. Let me prove to you the man I am. I wouldna expect your love, and I dinna expect you to share my bed. But I wish ye to stay and be my wife. I wish to be your husband. Will you release me from the vow I made to help ye return home?” He made himself stop blathering and waited for her answer, drowning in the emerald pools of her eyes. Closing his hands around hers, around the box, he found some solace in the fact that she didn’t pull away. She appraised him with liquid eyes. Could that be tenderness he glimpsed? But it was gone too soon, replaced with suspicion. Och, he’d been so dishonest with her she likely would never be able to trust him. Mayhap it was for the best she was leaving. If she couldn’t trust him, he’d nay be able to make her happy. At last, she shook her head. “I suspect you’re a good man, even though you lied to me. I see goodness in you, and honor. Any woman would be lucky to have you as her husband.” His heart lifted with hope. “Any woman from your time,” she added gently. “I don’t belong here. I need to go back to my time. My being here is a mistake. This is all a huge mistake.” His heart crumbled as he released her hands and pulled the heavy velvet pouch from his sporran. “Then, take this. ’Tis my wedding gift to you. If I canna be with you to keep my marriage vows, I pray this will clear my name before the Lord.” She took the pouch and looked inside. Her eyes grew wide. “It’s gold. I can’t take this.” She tried to push it back into his hands, but he refused it. “You must. ’Tis the best I can do for you, Malina mine. I hope ye will remember me well when you use it. I hope this will provide for you and your bairn for many years.” Not giving her a chance to reject his gift as she’d rejected him, he rose and blew out the lantern. He led Rand from the stables, and said, “Come, Malina. ’Tis time to send you home.

He sighed in a way that indicated he was seeking patience and he replied, “No, Cora. They know you’re a Hawthorne.” He pulled back on the reins, Salem stopped but I felt my brows draw together. “What does that mean?” I asked but he didn’t answer. He swung his leg around, dismounted with practiced ease then his hands spanned my waist and he pulled me down and set me between him and Salem. Close between him and Salem. He tipped his chin down, caught my eyes in the bright lights of the gaily lit lanterns and muttered, “Right, your game.” My previously light heart sunk like a rock. I wasn’t convincing him. Damn. “Tor,” I whispered but said no more when his big hand came up and curled warm around my neck. “It means, love, that you’re mine and what’s mine is part of me and I’m royalty.” My body jolted and my voice was a muted shriek when I cried, “What?” “Quiet,” he clipped, not releasing my eyes. I got up to my toes and whispered, “You’re royalty?” “Yes.” “Royalty,” I repeated, just to confirm. “Yes,” he forced out through his teeth. “Honest to God, blue-blood royalty?” I kept at it, not taking it in. His brows shot together as he replied, “Gods, woman, my blood’s red just like yours.” “You

But then the constructors unexpectedly showed up after a leisurely breakfast, to supervise the work, and nothing suited them: this material, for instance, was no good, and that engineer was an absolute idiot, and they had to have a revolving magic lantern in the main hall, one with four pneumatic widgets and a calibrated cuckoo clock on top—and if the natives here didn't know what a widget was, so much the worse for them, considering that the King was no doubt most impatient for his release and would (when he could) deal harshly with anyone who dared to delay it.

Somewhere along the way, you do your best, and then you surrender. Let go. Of attachment to outcomes. Attachment to what you desire. Like a paper lantern you light and then release into the night sky.