Leech Quotes

Demon?” Gwen gasped out. Her back jerked ramrod-straight, and her face leeched of color. “Did you just say demon?” Oh, uh…did I say that?” Strider once again glanced around the plane helplessly. “No, no. I think I said seaman.

The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.

If leeches ate peaches instead of my blood, then I would be free to drink tea in the mud!

The years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget.

I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and ats the horseradish loves the miyagi, and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness of the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp... I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close... I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don't marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else--and i will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all. That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

Don't get pissy with me leech." With a glare, Carrow pressed her print to his torque. "Even tapped out, I can still do a love spell to make you fall in love--with the sun.

If you desired someone, if he comforted you, if you thought he might leech the poison out of your heart, was that love? Or only desperation?

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more! So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)

Scummer, pox and wound rot!" roared Tunstall, slamming his fist down on the bed. "Gods cursed the pig-tarsed mammering craven currish beef-witted bum-licking gut-griping louts that did this to me! May every flea, leech and hookworm in all creation find and feast upon them!

This is a kill-or-be-killed scenario, leech," Regin the Radiant, a glowing-skinned millennium-old swordswoman, told Ellie in a baleful tone. "So raise your weapon and prepare for your end. 'Cause I'm about to take your head." Ellie yawned. Ten days of this was getting old. "Girl, I don't wanna play video games anymore.

I don't have any leeches on my speed dial." — Jacob Black

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in blurry, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as a starfish loves a coral reef and as a kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. i will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and as an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as the taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock.

I’d bet the leeches are looking for me. Because I glow and I’m wicked smart. They probably want to breed with me.” (Regin)

He can learn things about me through your blood. Can learn about my sister!" She briefly covered her mouth. "He can see everything we've done! I don't want that leech to know what we do in private." Lothaire strolled up, making a scoffing sound. "As if I don't watch you two live from a distance.

Hatred is a leech: The thing that sticks to a person's skin; that feeds off them and drains the sap out of one's spirit. It changes a person, and does not leave until it has sucked the last drop of peace from them.

When you're a writer, the question people always ask you is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Writers hate this question. It's like asking Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, "Where do you get your leeches?" You don't get ideas. Ideas get you.

Are we all just Dark Age doctors, swearing by our leeches? We crave a greater science. We want to be proven wrong.

Time had come to formulate a reason to abandon the gardens and leave Miss Bower to leech onto some other gentleman, preferably one who had a certain fondness for parasites.

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clara who wasted away. D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh. E is for Ernest who choked on a peach. F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech. G is for George smothered under a rug. H is for Hector done in by a thug. I is for Ida who drowned in a lake. J is for James who took lye by mistake. K is for Kate who was struck with an axe. L is for Leo who choked on some tacks. M is for Maud who was swept out to sea. N is for Neville who died of ennui. O is for Olive run through with an awl. P is for Prue trampled flat in a brawl. Q is for Quentin who sank on a mire. R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire. S is for Susan who perished of fits. T is for Titus who flew into bits. U is for Una who slipped down a drain. V is for Victor squashed under a train. W is for Winnie embedded in ice. X is for Xerxes devoured by mice. Y is for Yorick whose head was bashed in. Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.

You're a fuckin' parasite." I could never become a vampire. Filthy leeches. "Words still hurt, Chase. Besides, you should be thanking me. My advice about the Valkyrie clearly worked. And speaking of females, if I call you by one's name while my fangs are plunged deep in your neck, just run with it.

These men were like leeches; they sucked away at the goodness of a woman's heart until it was dry and all her love had been used up. That took a long time, he knew, because women seemed to have vast reservoirs of goodness in them

You twitch as the darkness moves in and out of you. It crawls up your spine and nestles in your brain like an evil thought from out of nowhere, burying itself in your psyche like a starving leech looking for a vein.

She loves you, loathes you, treats you well, then ill. Like a leech or a surgeon's knife, she's double-edged: sometimes she'll cure, but sometimes she will kill.

We seldom consider how much of our lives we must render in return for some object we barely want, seldom need, buy only because it was put before us...And this is understandable given the workings of our system where without a job we perish, where if we don't want a job and are happy to get by we are labeled irresponsible, non-contributing leeches on society. But if we hire a fleet of bulldozers, tear up half the countryside and build some monstrous factory, casino or mall, we are called entrepreneurs, job-creators, stalwarts of the community. Maybe we should all be shut away on some planet for the insane. Then again, maybe that is where we are.

I could feel the certainty of a reality leeching out of me like calcium from a bone. I was starving my mind into obliqueness. I felt less and less. Words came and I spoke them in my head, then nestled in on the sound of them, got lost in the music.

Strange how, as long as the hardship lasts, we can stand it. As soon as the crisis is over, the strength all leeches away in an instant.

She just laughed in his face and told him she'd sooner crawl in a bed with his father's leeches before she'd crawl in one with him. She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her.

Rather, very, little, pretty -- these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then.

I pinch the sentence's butt with my other hand and tug it from my skin like a leech, smack it back on the page and clamp the book shut. Part of it's hanging out, and it waves jerkily at me with what appears to be blatant hostility. I stick the book back on the upside-down shelf over my head, pissed off sentence first, counting on the gluey base to hold it in. All I need is a badly mangled, irate sentence stalking me.

There was nothing left of Earth. They had leeched away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them, through the fierce moments of their inconceivable metamorphosis, as the food stored in a grain of wheat feeds the infant plant while it climbs towards the Sun.

Some memories battened onto a person's mind like evil leeches, and certain words could bring them instantly back to squirming, feverish life.

Right. I can tell from the bat wings and the leeches that you three are just all happy-smiles and rainbows.

Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

Start being honest with her. Aidan always let her know what he was thinking. And he fairly much treated her like a queen.” Lothaire sneered, “That’s the worst bloody advice I’ve ever heard!” Brandr bowed his chest. “And why’s that, leech? She cared for Aidan once—she will again.” “Precisely. She cared for Aidan,” Lothaire said. “I knew of Aidan the Fierce—no mortal could kill that many of the Horde without my hearing about it. And I know that he was a bold, blond Viking who was like a god among men. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him.” He sighed. “Reminded me of myself.

This is making me sick, Jacob. Can you imagine what this feels like to me? I don’t even like Bella Swan. And you’ve got me grieving over this leech-lover like I’m in love with her, too. Can you see where that might be a little confusing? I dreamed about kissing her last night! What the hell am I supposed to do with that?

The Time Around Scars: A girl whom I've not spoken to or shared coffee with for several years writes of an old scar. On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white, the size of a leech. I gave it to her brandishing a new Italian penknife. Look, I said turning, and blood spat onto her shirt. My wife has scars like spread raindrops on knees and ankles, she talks of broken greenhouse panes and yet, apart from imagining red feet, (a nymph out of Chagall) I bring little to that scene. We remember the time around scars, they freeze irrelevant emotions and divide us from present friends. I remember this girl's face, the widening rise of surprise. And would she moving with lover or husband conceal or flaunt it, or keep it at her wrist a mysterious watch. And this scar I then remember is a medallion of no emotion. I would meet you now and I would wish this scar to have been given with all the love that never occurred between us.

My lord said, amongst other things, that he did not propose to burden the doctor with the details of his genealogy. He consigned the doctor and all his works, severally and comprehensively described, to hell, and finished up his epic speech by a pungent and Rabelaisian criticism of the whole race of leeches.

Time does not heal wounds without acknowledgement of what has happened. You need to clarify your feelings and express them in a way that defines in detail what you have lost and how much you care about what you have lost . . . – Peter Leech & Zeva Singer

All writers pen sad stories to garner sympathy, writing is after all for the abandoned of the society: the ink-leech, spewing black blood and sucking innocent souls.

Chiltington was a snake. Worse. A garden slug. Maybe a leech. Something oily and slimy that left a greasy trail and liked to mooch off other people’s ideas.

He holds me longer than I’d expected him to. I leech everything I can out of the hug. Bleed it.

I thought I lost you" "You will never lose me." Paul kissed the top of her head. "And even if I have to leave, you must know that I will come back to you again. If you'll wait for me?

It was impossible to tame, like leeches.

Your ma was a leech with bad teeth,” she taunted. Onua laughed in spite of herself. “Your da was a peahen. I know chickens with more brains than you!

Regin the Radiant and Emmaline Troy: 'Alrighty then, have it your way- you're on your own... Now, if you come across a leech, no offense, remember your training.' 'None taken. And would that be the sword training where you fly past my defenses and swat me on the ass, chirping, 'Dead!'? Another swat. 'Dead!'? Yeah, I'll get right on that.' 'No, that would be the training where you sprint like hell whenever you hear that I'm looking for you to train.

A shaft of sunlight fell on me, making my dress look like fire and my skin glow like pearls. The shadows around me darkened, as if my glowing skin were leeching the light from everything around me. I was a lantern on the longest, darkest moonless night.

When the leeches have sucked enough blood, one simply has to sprinkle some salt on their backs and they fall off – But you, my friend, how can I get rid of you? Your despairing cousin

I understand being sad in ways that don’t necessarily make sense. To wake up feeling a little dimmer than the day before, a little emptier, and his grief has manifested into this leeching sorrow. I

I am a . . . solitary . . . man, he said. 'I do not suffer fools gladly, and I prefer to spend my time alone with a book and a decanter of brandy.

Time leeches most horror and pain from our memories.

I still wasn’t sure that I loved him. Love—the kind that was holy to Aphrodite—was not something I had ever allowed myself to think about much. If you desired someone, if he comforted you, if you thought he might leech the poison out of your heart, was that love? Or only desperation?

If I lived to one hundred years of age, I could never become an elder. They do not appreciate my views. They believe the white man is a leech sucking the Kootenai out of their children’s bones.

When I was little, I used to pour salt on slugs. I liked watching them dissolve before my eyes. Cruelty is always sort of fun until you realize that something’s getting hurt. It would be one thing to be a loser if it meant that no one paid attention to you, but in school, it means you’re actively sought out. You’re the slug, and they’re holding all the salt. And they haven’t developed a conscience. There’s a word we learned in social studies: schadenfreude. It’s when you enjoy watching someone else suffer. The real question though, is why? I think part of it is self preservation. And part of it is because a group always feels more like a group when it’s banded together against an enemy. It doesn’t matter if that enemy has never done anything to hurt you-you just have to pretend you hate someone even more than you hate yourself. You know why salt works on slugs? Because it dissolved in the water that’s part of a slug’s skin, so the water on the inside its body starts to flow out. They slug dehydrates. This works with snails, too. And with leeches. And with people like me. With any creature, really, too thin-skinned to stand up for itself.

Her words felt like a new beginning, a turning of a page, and, ominously, rang like the beginning of a final chapter.

once the ruler is no longer willing to be the sacrifice for his people, he becomes not a leader but a leech,

The high, thin nose was a little lonely, a little sad, but the bud of her lips opened and closed smoothly, like a beautiful little circle of leeches.

I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table.I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavour of naval uniforms. I never want to be away from you again, except at work, in the restroom or when one of us is at a movie the other does not want to see.

...man is as much a parasite on the cow as the tapeworm is on man: We have sucked their udders like leeches. "Man the cow parasite" is probably how non-man defines man in his zoology books

And if he was kind and friendly and funny, and if he told you about places so beautiful that you wanted to go with him to see them, and if he listened to you talk like he actually cared about what you were saying? And if he tried to protect you when other people tried to tell you what to do, as if they owned you? And if he has the handsomest face you've ever seen, no matter if the skin has been damaged, because he's just lovely even so?

The barriers we face in life are so often the ones we create in our minds. As a child I couldn’t open that wooden gate because my body prevented me from doing so. As a teenager it seemed I couldn’t open that door because my mind held me hostage. The world that waited beyond it now was no longer one of safety or escape. Instead, I knew every time that I opened that door, it would be to a life of psychological insecurity and emotional entrapment. She - that cerebral leech who clung to all my thoughts - convinced me of this fact. Only with her could I find and maintain an asylum of mental armour

Annabelle coughs and glares at Blue. “What did you do? Did I just swallow something?” Blue pulls her into a hug. “You’re my best friend in the whole world.” “Get off me, leech,” she says, smiling.

Leeches are singing in my asshole.

The difference between the rich and the poor, is finding true love.

I haven’t been able to pray with the same unquestioned simplicity of hope since Dustin passed. My childhood ended the day my brother died. The naive hope that a miracle would save him, that he would one day walk, that a disease was a blessing in my family – that hope died with him.

The syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary.

...."we saw this big dark red leech hanging off his back. We were dancing round yelling: ‘We’ll burn it off! Get the petrol! Stay still Mr Kassar, you can trust us!’ He wimped out though, and made us use salt. Very boring.

One day, Lorna, I will dance this waltz with you again.

I am German, yes, but I am not a Nazi. There is a difference, and one day I hope you understand that.

Me and the folks who buy my food are like the Indians -- we just want to opt out. That's all the Indians ever wanted -- to keep their tepees, to give their kids herbs instead of patent medicines and leeches. They didn't care if there was a Washington, D.C., or a Custer or a USDA; just leave us alone. But the Western mind can't bear an opt-out option. We're going to have to refight the Battle of the Little Big Horn to preserve the right to opt out, or your grandchildren and mine will have no choice but to eat amalgamated, irradiated, genetically prostituted, barcoded, adulterated fecal spam from the centralized processing conglomerate.

There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind. The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough.”’ Proverbs 30:15.

Cade hiked his shoulders, pretending nonchalance. "Tell me about the vampire, or not, dove. But none of us really wants to be here." "I'll tell you," Nïx said, her gaze rapt on his horns. "But only if you let me lick your rock-hard horns—" "Nïx!" Regin's attention snapped back to this conversation. Eyes wide, Nïx cried, "Who said that?? I didn't say that! Oh, very well—the vampire's named Conrad Wroth. Best be careful with that one. He single-handedly took down Bothrops the Lich." "That was Wroth?" He'd heard of the assassin before. Cade grudgingly admitted that the leech did nice work, dealing deaths with a unique, gruesome signature to them. Which was important in their line of business. "Where is he?" "To find him, you need to trail the one who seeks him in sleep." "Soothsayerese? I don't speak it," he said, but she didn't elaborate. "That's all you're going to divvy?" "Wanna know more?" Nïx raised her brows. "Then you should have let me lick your horns.

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with the nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish. Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen it to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

on Roose Bolton's face, rage and joy looked much the same.

We live in a cruel world. People are dreadfully cold. I have never seen so many dishonest, selfish and greedy people. They are willing to use others until they get exactly what they want. What makes matters even worse, after they get what they want, they come back and ask for more. Sadly, people do not have any empathy for others. They are like leeches and will suck the blood out of you until you have nothing left.

He was telling her that there was a lot to remembering the past, to having stories, to knowing your history, your childhood, but there is something to forgetting it too...There exists a sort of torture of memory if you let it come, if you invite the past to huddle beside you, comforting like a leech...a footprint in history has a thousand repercussions, that there are a thousand battles being fought every day because people couldn't forget something that happened before they were born. There are few worse things than memory, yet few things better.

The air was so damp that fish could have come in through doors and swum out the windows, floating through the atmosphere in the rooms. One morning Ursula woke up feeling that she was reaching her end in a placid swoon and she had already asked them to take her to Father Antonio Isabel, when Santa Sofia de la Piedad discovered that her back was paved with leeches. She took them off one by one, crushing them with a firebrand before they bled her to death.

I ground my teeth. "Just when I thought I was getting a handle on this whole Dark One/demon lord/imp thing, you go and throw knockers into the mix. I'm going to have to request that you stop, Adrian. I'm about at my limit of how many impossible things I can believe before breakfast." He flashed a heart-stoppingly roguish grin at me, his dimples just about bringing me to my knees. "Your middle name wouldn't be Alice, would it?" he asked. "No, it's Diane, and you're no White Rabbit, so let's just stop pretending we're in Wonderland, OK?" He laughed and pointed across the tiny square at our destination. I watched him for a moment, seeing a glimpse of the charming, charismatic man he must have been before the demon lord cursed him and leeched away all the softer emotions.

There's a difference between an opportunist, and someone who seizes an opportunity. One selfishly harvests the fruits of another's labor, the other strategically helps plant the seeds. The latter can be an asset, the former will always be a leech. That climb to the top is already back breaking enough! Don't carry opportunists up your ladder of success!

I had to de-program myself. From myself. Had to reinvent rituals of purification. So full of the vagrant pollutions of others. It was time to detox. Not only from alcohol, sex, and drugs, but from needy leeches who looked to swab me with their sores. Detox from my own needy lechery. Had to locate the center wound and cauterize. Undo the original sin, the origin of my sickness...Had to learn to replace Them, It, Want, Hurt, Anger, Sorrow, Loss, with Power, Healing, Wisdom, Fulfillment, Satisfaction.

Ono što je jednom ispričano ne može nikada više da se ponovi. Ono što se jednom desilo, desilo se zauvek.

There are two types of people in this world: those who can create and those who can’t. Creators are powerful, shaping the world around them. All beings crave power over their slice of existence. Those who can’t create do one of three things: convince themselves to accept a half-life of mediocrity and seething dissatisfaction, deriving enjoyment from whatever small acts of dominance they manage to achieve over their companions; find a creator to leech onto and exploit to enjoy a parasitic lifestyle; or destroy. One way or another, someone that can’t create will find a way to feel in control. Destruction feels like control.

Once upon a time it was not safe to be born a girl. It is important to remember that time does not exist. Once upon a time, all of time, it was not safe to be a girl. Lecherous men would disguise themselves as kittens left for dead by their mothers so that little girls would pick them up and kiss their eyes into vision and then the kittens would grow and grow until they were bigger and fiercer than lions and they would eat the girls in one bite, bones and skin and hair and all. Once upon a time it was not safe to be born a girl because either you were the kitten abandoned in a dumpster or you were devoured by it. Once upon a time it was not safe to be a girl because girls have fires inside of them and men who are cold cling to their warmth until they leech it from the bones of women and then burn them to death with their own matches.

Harwin's eyes went from her face to the flayed man on her doublet. "How do you know me?" he said, frowning suspiciously. "The flayed man . . . who are you, some serving boy to Lord Leech?" For a moment she did not know how to answer. She'd had so many names. Had she only dreamed Arya Stark? "I'm a girl," she sniffed. "I was Lord Bolton's cupbearer but he was going to leave me for the goat, so I ran off with Gendry and Hot Pie. You have to know me! You used to lead my pony, when I was little." His eyes went wide. "Gods be good," he said in a choked voice. "Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her." "She broke my nose." Lem dumped her unceremoniously to the floor. "Who in seven hells is she supposed to be?" "The Hand's daughter." Harwin went to one knee before her. "Arya Stark, of Winterfell.

My son, there is no reason to be distraught. The leeches will cleanse your wound." The friar scratched one of his enormous ears with the tweezers. "My insurance doesn't cover freaky friars or leeches." Troy sat up and swung his legs over the cot. A strip of cloth was wrapped around his gray tights, just above his left knee. A dark red stain had spread across the strip. "When my agent finds out you've kept me here, instead of taking me to a hospital, he'll cram a lawsuit up your butt so fast you'll be the one who's...distraught.

Boredom presents a very real, if insidious peril. To quote Blaine Harden from the Washington post:“Boredom kills, and those it does not kill, it cripples, and those it does not cripple, it bleeds like a leech, leaving its victims pale, insipid, and brooding. Examples abound...Rats kept in comfortable isolation quickly become jumpy, irritable, and aggressive. Their bodies twitch, their tails grow scaly." The backcountry traveler, then, in addition to developing such skills as the use of a map and compass, or the prevention and treatment of blisters, must prepare mentally and materially to cope with boredom, lest his tail grow scaly.

THE SUCCESS OF ANY parasite is proportional to its harmlessness. Some are intelligent; they avoid detection, allowing their carriers to lead healthy lives until obsolescence. Fewer, in brilliant acts of symbiosis, foster dependence in the host. But too many are loudmouths and fools, instigating aches, diarrhea, fatigue, bleeding, or other braggadocious symptoms. Most parasites cannot think far enough ahead to maintain the well-being of their host, much less their host’s entire species. Usually, such foresight is not necessary, unless humans are involved. They tend to hold grudges.

There’s a big difference between merely carrying the world inside you and knowing that you do! A madman can produce ideas that resemble Plato’s, and a pious little schoolboy in a Herrnhut institute can creatively reconstruct profound mythological associations in his mind, ideas to be found in the Gnostics or Zoroaster. But he doesn’t know he’s doing it! He’s a tree or a stone, at best an animal, just as long as he doesn’t know that. But when the first spark of that knowledge glimmers, he becomes a human being. You certainly don’t consider all the bipeds running around the street to be human beings merely because they walk upright and carry their young for nine months? After all, you see how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or leeches, how many are ants, how many are bees! Now, each one of them has the potentiality of becoming a human being, but only when he senses that potential, when he even learns to be conscious of it to some degree, does that potential belong to him.

Then I take a dump. Feel better. Take off my clothes and step into the pool. Ice water. But great. I walk along toward the deep end of the pool, the water rising inch by inch, chilling me. Then I plunge below the water. It's restful. The world doesn't know where I am. I come up, swim to the far edge, find the ledge, sit there. It must be about the 9th or 10th race. The horses are still running. I plunge again into the water, being aware of my stupid whiteness, of my age hanging onto me like a leech. Still, it's OK. I should have been dead 40 years ago. I rise to the top, swim to the far edge, get out.

Look at all the old wars, centuries ago: the king led his men into battle. Always. That was what the ruler was: both on a practical level and on a mystical one, he was the one who stepped forwards to lead his tribe, put his life at stake for them, become the sacrifice for their safety. If he had refused to do that most crucial thing at that most crucial moment, they would have ripped him apart- and rightly so: he would have shown himself to be an impostor, with no right to the throne. The king was the country; how could he possibly expect it go into battle without him? But now... Can you see any modern president or prime minister on the front line, leading his men into the war he's started? And once that physical and mystical link is broken, once the ruler is no longer willing to be the sacrifice for his people, he becomes not a leader but a leech, forcing others to take his risks while he sits in safety and battens on their losses. War becomes a hideous abstraction, a game for bureaucrats to play on paper; soldiers and civilians become mere pawns, to be sacrificed by the thousand for reasons that have no roots in any reality. As soon as rulers mean nothing, war means nothing; human life means nothing. We're ruled by venal little usurpers, all of us, and they make meaninglessness everywhere they go.

Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito--out! Every simile that would have made sub-moron's mouth twitch--gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer--lost! Every story slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like--in the finale--Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been razored. Every image that demanded so much as one instant's attention--shot dead.

Here are a few key guidelines to consider: Spend less than you earn—invest the surplus—avoid debt. Do simply this and you’ll wind up rich. Not just in money. Carrying debt is as appealing as being covered with leeches and has much the same effect. Take out your sharpest knife and start scraping the little bloodsuckers off. If your lifestyle matches—or god forbid exceeds—your income, you are no more than a gilded slave. Avoid fiscally irresponsible people. Never marry one or otherwise give him or her access to your money. Avoid investment advisors. Too many have only their own interests at heart. By the time you know enough to pick a good one, you know enough to handle your finances yourself. It’s your money and no one will care for it better than you. You own the things you own and they in turn own you. Money can buy many things, but nothing more valuable than your freedom. Life choices are not always about the money, but you should always be clear about the financial impact of the choices you make.

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock. I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.

My mom’s smile is genuine, A lilac beaming In the presence of her Sun. Indentions in the sand prove Time’s linear progression, Her hair yet unblighted, Carrying midnight’s consistency. Clear tracks fading as the Movement slips further In the past. Cheekbones High, soft, In summer’s hue, Hopeful. Each step’s unknown impact, A future looking back. My father’s strength: One whose Life is in his arms. Squinting past the camera, He rests upon a rock Like caramel corn half eaten, Just to the left Of man-made concrete convention Daylight’s eraser Removing color to his right. Dustin sits In my father’s lap, Open mouth of a drooling Big mouth bass; Muscle tone Of a well exercised Jelly fish, He looks at me Half aware; His wheelchair Perched at the edge Of parking lot gravel grafted Like a scar on nature’s beach, Opening to the ironic splendor Of a bitter tasting lake. I took the picture. Age 11. Capturing the pinnacle arc Of a son To my lilac Who Outlived him and weeps, Still. Their sky has staple holes – Maybe that’s how the Light Leaked out.

The middle of the 'Atlantis' the warm, luxurious cabins,ining-rooms, halls, shed light and joy, buzzed with the chatter of an elegant crowd, was fragrant with fresh flowers, and quivered with the sounds of a string orchestra. And again amidst that crowd, amidst the brilliance of lights, silks, diamonds, and bare feminine shoulders, a slim and supple pair of hired lovers painfully writhed and at moments convulsively clashed. A sinfully discreet, pretty girl with lowered lashes and hair innocently dressed, and a tallish young man with black hair looking as if it were glued on, pale with powder, and wearing the most elegant patent-leather shoes and a narrow, long-tailed dress coat, a beau resembling an enormous leech. And no one knew that this couple had long since grown weary of shamly tormenting themselves with their beatific love-tortures, to the sound of bawdy-sad music ; nor did any one know of that thing which lay deep, deep below at the very bottom of the dark hold, near the gloomy and sultry bowels of the ship that was so gravely overcoming the darkness, the ocean, the blizzard.

Outsong in the Jungle [Baloo:] For the sake of him who showed One wise Frog the Jungle-Road, Keep the Law the Man-Pack make For thy blind old Baloo's sake! Clean or tainted, hot or stale, Hold it as it were the Trail, Through the day and through the night, Questing neither left nor right. For the sake of him who loves Thee beyond all else that moves, When thy Pack would make thee pain, Say: "Tabaqui sings again." When thy Pack would work thee ill, Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill." When the knife is drawn to slay, Keep the Law and go thy way. (Root and honey, palm and spathe, Guard a cub from harm and scathe!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee! [Kaa:] Anger is the egg of Fear-- Only lidless eyes see clear. Cobra-poison none may leech-- Even so with Cobra-speech. Open talk shall call to thee Strength, whose mate is Courtesy. Send no lunge beyond thy length. Lend no rotten bough thy strength. Gauge thy gape with buck or goat, Lest thine eye should choke thy throat. After gorging, wouldst thou sleep ? Look thy den be hid and deep, Lest a wrong, by thee forgot, Draw thy killer to the spot. East and West and North and South, Wash thy hide and close thy mouth. (Pit and rift and blue pool-brim, Middle-Jungle follow him!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee! [Bagheera:] In the cage my life began; Well I know the worth of Man. By the Broken Lock that freed-- Man-cub, ware the Man-cub's breed! Scenting-dew or starlight pale, Choose no tangled tree-cat trail. Pack or council, hunt or den, Cry no truce with Jackal-Men. Feed them silence when they say: "Come with us an easy way." Feed them silence when they seek Help of thine to hurt the weak. Make no bandar's boast of skill; Hold thy peace above the kill. Let nor call nor song nor sign Turn thee from thy hunting-line. (Morning mist or twilight clear, Serve him, Wardens of the Deer!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee! [The Three:] On the trail that thou must tread To the threshold of our dread, Where the Flower blossoms red; Through the nights when thou shalt lie Prisoned from our Mother-sky, Hearing us, thy loves, go by; In the dawns when thou shalt wake To the toil thou canst not break, Heartsick for the Jungle's sake; Wood and Water, Wind air Tree, Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy, Jungle-Favour go with thee!

Ara. Ara, stop.” He propped my body against the wall and unfastened my hands from his neck. “Why? What's wrong?” I wiped my mouth dry with the back of my wrist. “Did I hurt you?” “Yes, you little leech.” He cupped his hand over the bite mark and pulled it away to look at it. “I may not have a heartbeat, but I still feel pain.” “You're bruising.” I squinted through the dull light to see his neck. “I know. I can feel that.” “I'm sorry.” “Are you kidding me?” He looked up at me. “Ara, that felt amazing. It hurt, but damn it was hard for me to control myself.” “Control yourself?” “Yeah. I wanted to...” He looked down and shook his head. “You wanted to what?” I lifted his face. “I wanted to do...things to you.” “What kinds of...things.” Excitement and fear made my heart thump. “Bad things?” “Yes. Bad things.” He reached up slowly and slipped the shoestring strap of my dress down my shoulder, then ran a delicate line of kisses along the curve of my neck, making the skin on my lower back tingle. “That doesn't feel like bad things.” “This is not what I had in mind,” he said into my shoulder.

She averted her eyes from his naked chest and reached up to close her window. He lifted his arms, curling his hands around the sash of his own window. Between his upraised arms, he stared at her, and his smile widened. "What's wrong, Lily? Are you shutting your window because you're afraid I'll breathe the same air you do?" She met his gaze across the short distance that separated them. "I didn't know leeches could breathe." He didn't get angry at the insult. Instead, he laughed. "You're a worthy opponent. I don't think I've ever met a woman with a quicker wit than you. If you'd been a man, there's no telling what you might have accomplished." "If I'd been a man, I'd have called you out in the fine old Southern tradition five years ago and shot you. That would have been a fine accomplishment." She slammed the window shut and closed the curtains. Daniel was right, of course. Within minutes, the room became suffocatingly hot. She desperately wanted to open the window again, but she didn't want to give him any victory, no matter how small. So, she waited in the dark as her bedroom became an oven, listening to the clock on her dressing table tick away the minutes. When the clock chimed the quarter hour twice, she got out of bed and walked to the window. He was sure to be asleep by now. She slipped the curtains open, and as quietly as possible, she raised the sash. "Told you so," a sleepy male voice murmured. Lord, she hated him.

When I haven't been kissed in a long time, I walk behind well-dressed women on cold, December mornings and shovel the steamy exhalations pluming from their lips down my throat with both hands, hoping a single molecule will cling to my lungs. When I haven't been kissed in a long time, I sneak into the ladies room of a fancy restaurant, dig into the trashcan for a napkin where a woman checked her lipstick, then go home, light candles, put on Barry White, and press the napkin all over my body. When I haven't been kissed in a long time, I start thinking leeches are the most romantic creatures, cause all they want to do is kiss. If only someone invented a kinder, gentler leech, I'd paint it bright pink and pretend Winona Ryder's lips crawled off her face, up my thigh, and were sucking on my swollen bicep. When I haven't been kissed in a long time, I create civil disturbances, then insult the cops who show up, till one of them grabs me by the collar and hurls me up against the squad car, so I can remember, at least for a moment, what it's like to be touched.

A morning-flowered dalliance demured and dulcet-sweet with ebullience and efflorescence admiring, cozy cottages and elixirs of eloquence lie waiting at our feet - We'll dance through fetching pleasantries as we walk ephemeral roads evocative epiphanies ethereal, though we know our hearts are linked with gossamer halcyon our day a harbinger of pretty things infused with whispers longing still and gamboling in sultry ways to feelings, all ineffable screaming with insouciance masking labyrinthine paths where, in our nonchalance, we walk through the lilt of love’s new morning rays. Mellifluous murmurings from a babbling brook that soothes our heated passion-songs and panoplies perplexed with thought of shadows carried off with clouds in stormy summer rains… My dear, and that I can call you 'dear' after ripples turned to crashing waves after pyrrhic wins, emotions drained we find our palace sunned and rayed with quintessential moments lit with wildflower lanterns arrayed on verandahs lush with mutual love, the softest love – our preferred décor of life's lilly-blossom gate in white-fenced serendipity… Twilight sunlit heavens cross our gardens, graced with perseverance, bliss, and thee, and thou, so splendid, delicate as a morning dove of charm and mirth – at least with me; our misty mornings glide through air... So with whippoorwill’d sweet poetry - of moonstones, triumphs, wonder-woven in chandliers of winglet cherubs wrought with time immemorial, crafted with innocence, stowed away and brought to light upon our day in hallelujah tapestries of ocean-windswept galleries in breaths of ballet kisses, light, skipping to the breakfast room cascading chrysalis's love in diaphanous imaginings delightful, fleeting, celestial-viewed as in our eyes which come to rest evocative, exuberant on one another’s moon-stowed dreams idyllic, in quiescent ways, peaceful in their radiance resplendent with a myriad of thought soothing muse, rhapsodic song until the somnolence of night spreads out again its shaded truss of luminescent fantasies waiting to be loved by us… Oh, love! Your sincerest pardons begged! I’ve gone too long, I’ve rambled, dear, and on and on and on and on - as if our hours were endless here… A morning toast, with orange-juiced lips exalting transcendent minds suffused with sunrise symphonies organic-born tranquilities sublimed sonorous assemblages with scintillas of eternity beating at our breasts – their embraces but a blushing, longing glance away… I’ll end my charms this enraptured morn' before cacophony and chafe coarse in crude and rough abrade when cynical distrust is laid by hoarse and leeching parasites, distaste fraught with smug disgust by hairy, smelly maladroit mediocrities born of poisoned wells grotesque with selfish lies - shrill and shrieking, biting, creeping around our love, as if they rose from Edgar Allen’s own immortal rumpled decomposing clothes… Oh me, oh my! I am so sorry! can you forgive me? I gone and kissed you for so long, in my morning imaginings, through these words, through this song - ‘twas supposed to be "a trifle treat," but little treats do sometimes last a little longer; and, oh, but oh, but if I could, I surly would keep you just a little longer tarrying here, tarrying here with me this pleasant morn

Watching him then, I simply couldn’t think of him doing anything other than winning. Loss wasn’t the norm, it couldn’t be. I didn’t have the words for it then, what it felt like to watch my cousin, whom I love and whose worries are our worries and whose pain is our pain, manage to be so good at something, to triumph so completely. More than a painful life, more than a culture or a society with the practice and perfection of violence as a virtue and a necessity, more than a meanness or a willingness to sacrifice oneself, what I felt—what I saw—were Indian men and boys doing precisely what we’ve always been taught not to do. I was seeing them plainly, desperately, expertly wanting to be seen for their talents and their hard work, whether they lost or won. That old feeling familiar to so many Indians—that we can’t change anything; can’t change Columbus or Custer, smallpox or massacres; can’t change the Gatling gun or the legislative act; can’t change the loss of our loved ones or the birth of new troubles; can’t change a thing about the shape and texture of our lives—fell away. I think the same could be said for Sam: he might not have been able to change his sister’s fate or his mother’s or even, for a while, his own. But when he stepped in the cage he was doing battle with a disease. The disease was the feeling of powerlessness that takes hold of even the most powerful Indian men. That disease is more potent than most people imagine: that feeling that we’ve lost, that we’ve always lost, that we’ve already lost—our land, our cultures, our communities, ourselves. This disease is the story told about us and the one we so often tell about ourselves. But it’s one we’ve managed to beat again and again—in our insistence on our own existence and our successful struggles to exist in our homelands on our own terms. For some it meant joining the U.S. Army. For others it meant accepting the responsibility to govern and lead. For others still, it meant stepping into a metal cage to beat or be beaten. For my cousin Sam, for three rounds of five minutes he gets to prove that through hard work and natural ability he can determine the outcome of a finite struggle, under the bright, artificial lights that make the firmament at the Northern Lights Casino on the Leech Lake Reservation.