Lye Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Lye. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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.
Edward Gorey
If it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to disfigure herself or commit suicide to save face for her husband's family, why should a mother not be moved to extreme action by the loss of a child or children? We are their caretakers. We love them. We nurse them when they are sick. . . But no woman should live longer than her children. It is against the law of nature. If she does, why wouldn't she wish to leap from a cliff, hang from a branch, or swallow lye?
Lisa See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan)
I scoured myself with lye soap from head to toe to get the evil funk of demon snot off me. I have flossed things the gods never meant to be flossed and used things that would be toxic to most living organisms. All to sanitize my body for your chewing pleasure.
Sherrilyn Kenyon (No Mercy (Dark-Hunter, #15; Were-Hunter, #7))
But one must go where one's road leads, even when it's a distressing road.
Piers Anthony (Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn (Xanth #8))
For our stories are not yet finished, and perhaps will never be.
Piers Anthony (Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn (Xanth #8))
Black is beautiful—which is to say that the black body is beautiful, that black hair must be guarded against the torture of processing and lye, that black skin must be guarded against bleach, that our noses and mouths must be protected against modern surgery. We are all our beautiful bodies and so must never be prostrate before barbarians, must never submit our original self, our one of one, to defiling and plunder.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
True names,” said September wonderingly. “These are all true names. Like, when your parents call you to dinner and you don’t come and they call again but you still don’t come, and they call you by all your names together, and then, of course, you have to come, and right quick. Because true names have power, like Lye said. But I never told anyone my true name. The Green Wind told me not to. I didn’t understand what he meant, but I do now.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
I poisoned my skin," Genya said harshly, "my lips. So that every time he touched me-" She shuddered slightly and glanced at David. "Every time he kissed me, he took sickness into his body." She clenched her fists. "He brought this on himself." "But the poison would have affected you too," Nikolai said. "I had to purge it from my skin, then heal the burns the lye would leave. Every single time." Her fists clenched. "It was well worth it." Nikolai rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Did he force you?" Genya nodded once. A muscle in Nikolai's jaw ticked.
Leigh Bardugo (Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3))
We laughed at the hollyhocks together and then I sprayed them with lye. Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
William Carlos Williams
She looked around. "Oh, I've just got to hug somebody! You!" And she hugged Puck, the little ghost horse. "And you." She hugged Pook, and Peek, and even the nose of the moat monster. "But not you," she decided, encountering the zombie.
Piers Anthony (Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn (Xanth #8))
So in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water and beating it thrice on a stone, saying: “I knok this rag upone this stane To raise the wind in the divellis name, It sall not lye till I please againe.
James George Frazer (The Golden Bough)
In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries, and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. The rivers stank, the marketplaces stank, the churches stank, it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces.The peasant stank as did the priest, the apprentice as did his master’s wife, the whole of the aristocracy stank, even the king himself stank, stank like a rank lion, and the queen like an old goat, summer and winter
Patrick Süskind
Kisi ko apni zindagi k poshidah goshay dikha kar ye kehna k ' daikho men ne tm par aitabar kiya hai...meray aitabar ko totnay na daina' uske toheen aur tazleel karny k matradif hai...men samjhta hon k insan ya to kise par aitabar kary nahi...aur agr kary to phr pora aitabar kary...ye kch aitabar aur kch bay aitabari wali kefiat dono fareqon k lye takleef dah hoti hai.
Farhat Ishtiaq (Dil Se Niklay Hain Jo Lafz / دل سے نکلے ہیں جو لفظ)
Every mode of violent death available to Renaissance man, including a lye pit, land mines, a trained falcon with envenom'd talons, is employed. It plays, as Metzger remarked later, like a Road Runner cartoon in blank verse
Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49)
All the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his nearest neighbours was that, if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white.
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Schist! Big pile of schist!” A nun at St. Agnes Academy had once washed Hazel’s mouth with lye soap for saying something very similar, so she wasn’t sure how to respond.
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
Careful,” Lye said. “I am fragile.” “That’s all right,” said September suddenly, feeling the warm cinnamon courage of her bath bubble up inside her, fresh and bright. “I’m not.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
Why did things have to be so complicated with human beings?...Yet if we were not what we were, creatures with at least the awareness of purpose and honor, what would we be? Empty knights in armor, seeming so strong on the outside, yet hollow inside?
Piers Anthony (Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn (Xanth #8))
Ignorance of naturall causes disposeth a man to Credulity, so as to believe many times impossibilities: for such know nothing to the contrary, but that they may be true; being unable to detect the Impossibility. And Credulity, because men love to be hearkened unto in company, disposeth them to lying: so that Ignorance it selfe without Malice, is able to make a man bothe to believe lyes, and tell them; and sometimes also to invent them.
Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan)
Brewster Place became especially fond of its colored daughters as they milled like determined spirits among its decay, trying to make it home. Nutmeg arms leaned over windowsills, gnarled ebony legs carried groceries up double flights of steps, and saffron hands strung out wet laundry on backyard lines. Their perspiration mingled with the steam from boiling pots of smoked pork greens, and it curled on the edges of the aroma of vinegar douches and Evening in Paris cologne that drifted through the street where they stood together - hands on hips, straight-backed, round-bellied, high-behinded women who threw their heads back when they laughed and exposed strong teeth and dark gums. They cursed, badgered, worshiped, and shared their men. Their love drove them to fling dishcloths in someone else's kitchen to help him make the rent, or to fling hot lye to help him forget that bitch behind the counter at the five-and-dime. They were hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased, these women of Brewster Place. They came, they went, grew up, and grew old beyond their years. Like an ebony phoenix, each in her own time and with her own season had a story.
Gloria Naylor (The Women of Brewster Place)
The lye clinging in the exact shape of Tyler's kiss is a bonfire or a branding iron or an atomic pile meltdown on my hand at the end of a long, long road I picture miles away from me. Tyler tells me to come back and be with him. My hand is leaving, tiny and on the horizon at the end of the road.
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
As prayer without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer [is] but a presumptuous bravado. He that promises to give, and bids us trust His promises, commands us to pray, and expects obedience to his commands. He will give, but not without our asking.
Thomas Lye
Yes, I'm always hungry after a fatal injury. --Jordan
Piers Anthony (Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn (Xanth #8))
... he never tells a truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a lye; nor a lye, but with the design that you should take it for a truth...
Jonathan Swift (L2: Gulliver's Travels Bk & MP3 Pk (Pearson English Readers, Level 2))
At this slower pace the journey took a couple of days, and I fought off a few minor threats along the way --griffins, carnivorous plants, giant serpents, hostile centaurs, that sort of thing, purely routine --and I was beginning to get bored when at last the dusky towers of Castle Roogna hove into view.
Piers Anthony (Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn (Xanth #8))
Away thou fondling motley humorist, Leave mee, and in this standing woodden chest, Consorted with these few bookes, let me lye In prison, and here be coffin'd, when I dye; Here are Gods conduits, grave Divines; and here Natures Secretary, the Philosopher; And jolly Statesmen, which teach how to tie The sinewes of a cities mistique bodie; Here gathering Chroniclers, and by them stand Giddie fantastique Poets of each land. Shall I leave all this constant company, And follow headlong, wild uncertaine thee?
John Donne (The Satires, Epigrams, and Verse Letters)
Broke the tassels from the birch-trees, Steeped the foliage in honey, Made a lye from milk and ashes, Made of these a strong decoction, Mixed it with the fat and marrow Of the reindeer of the mountains, Made a soap of magic virtue,
Elias Lönnrot (Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland Complete)
trembled. I wanted to throw a handful of black pepper in their faces, to throw lye on them, to scream that they were dirty, scummy peckerwoods, but I knew I was as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles.
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1))
More than a hygenic method of disposing of the dead, cremation enabled lovers and comrades to be mingled together for eternity: The ashes of Domitian were mingled with those of Julia; of Achilles with those of Patroclus; All Urnes contained not single ashes; Without confused burnings they affectionately compounded their bones; passionately endeavouring to continue their living Unions. And when distance of death denied such conjunctions, unsatisfied affections concieved some satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to lye Urne by Urne, and touch but in their names.
Catharine Arnold (Necropolis: London and Its Dead)
Most jobs left me out of money, not gaining any. And while I did shit because it was right, because the system failed the population, because sickos like Harold could walk free, I was still human. I had to eat. I had black hoodies to buy. I had lye and bleach to stock up on. Normal shit.
Jessica Gadziala (Vigilante)
The fifth act, entirely an anticlimax, is taken up by the bloodbath Gennaro visits on the court of Squamuglia. Every mode of violent death available to Renaissance man, including a lye pit, land mines, a trained falcon with envenom'd talons, is employed. It plays, as Metzger remarked later, like a Road Runner cartoon in blank verse.
Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49)
I poisoned my skin,” Genya said harshly, “my lips. So that every time he touched me—” She shuddered slightly and glanced at David. “Every time he kissed me, he took sickness into his body.” She clenched her fists. “He brought this on himself.” “But the poison would have affected you too,” Nikolai said. “I had to purge it from my skin, then heal the burns the lye would leave. Every single time.” Her fists clenched. “It was well worth it.” Nikolai rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Did he force you?" Genya nodded once. A muscle in Nikolai's jaw ticked.” -//- She held up her hands, warding us off. “I don’t want your pity,” she said ferociously. Her voice was raw, wild. We stood there helplessly. “You don’t understand.” She covered her face with her hands. “None of you do.” “Genya—” David tried. “Don’t you dare,” she said roughly, tears welling up again. “You never looked at me twice before I was like this, before I was broken. Now I’m just something for you to fix.” I was desperate for words to soothe her, but before I could find any, David bunched up his shoulders and said, “I know metal.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Genya cried. David furrowed his brow. “I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.
Leigh Bardugo (Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3))
Fat,” the mechanic says, "liposuctioned fat sucked out of the richest thighs in America. The richest, fattest thighs in the world.” Our goal is the big red bags of liposuctioned fat we’ll haul back to Paper Street and render and mix with lye and rosemary and sell back to the very people who paid to have it sucked out. At twenty bucks a bar, these are the only folks who can afford it. "The richest, creamiest fat in the world, the fat of the land,” he says. "That makes tonight a kind of Robin Hood thing.
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
So begins their pursuit of beauty: leaves tumble into barrels of water and lye, the green tears of plants steamed to the clarity of human tears. Then, the same women take up Their pestles and pound the landscape Into pulp. Mashing daylight and daydreams into a pale cold mass. Only then will the men come to drown their fruits in water, dispersing the remnants of plants and the aches of tired white arms. And having dispersed them, they redeem with their fine-meshed nets the tissue of emptiness we now call paper.
Ramon C. Sunico (Bruise: A 2-tongue job)
True beauty doesn't lye within your looks... It lyes within your heart (or more prefered: Heart of hearts)
Nick Wright
(When I’d asked Mrs. Barbour where the washing machine was, she’d looked at me as if I’d asked for lye and lard to boil up for soap.)
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
One summer afternoon our bodies turned into each other's. Your breath played lye strings on my neck. If they ask you tell them that was the closest I came to being alive.
Ayushee Ghoshal
All the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his nearest neighbors was, that if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white.
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Wash out her private parts with lye and throw her in a dungeon,” Tarly commanded.
George R.R. Martin (A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire #4))
A paste of lye and water can burn through an aluminum pan. A solution of lye will dissolve a wooden spoon.
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
Lastly,” Lye said,”we must wash your luck. When souls queue up to be born, they all leap up at just the last moment, touching the lintel of the world for luck. Some jump high and can seize a great measure of luck; some jump only a bit and snatch a few loose strands. Everyone manages to catch some. If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like memory; and wasted, like life. If you know how to look, you can examine the kneecaps of a human and tell how much luck they have left. No bath can replenish luck that has been spent on avoiding an early death by automobile accident or winning too many raffles in a row. No bath can restore luck lost through absentmindedness and overconfidence. But luck withered by conservative, tired,riskless living can be plumped up again—after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
The calculated violence of a shark grew in her, and like every witch that ever rode a broom straight through the night to a ceremonial infanticide as thrilled by the black wind as by the rod between her legs; like every fed-up-to-the-teeth bride who worried about the consistency of the grits she threw at her husband as well as the potency of the lye she had stirred into them; and like every queen and every courtesan who was struck by the beauty of her emerald ring as she tipped its poison into the old red wine, Hagar was energized by the details of her mission.
Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon: A Novel (Vintage International))
HAZEL WASN’T PROUD OF CRYING. After the tunnel collapsed, she wept and screamed like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. She couldn’t move the debris that separated her and Leo from the others. If the earth shifted any more, the entire complex might collapse on their heads. Still, she pounded her fists against the stones and yelled curses that would’ve earned her a mouth-washing with lye soap back at St. Agnes Academy. Leo stared at her, wide-eyed and speechless. She wasn’t being fair to him. The last time the two of them had been together, she’d zapped him into her past and shown him Sammy, his great-grandfather—Hazel’s first boyfriend. She’d burdened him with emotional baggage he didn’t need, and left him so dazed they had almost gotten killed by a giant shrimp monster. Now here they were, alone again, while their friends might be dying at the hands of a monster army, and she was throwing a fit. “Sorry.” She wiped her face. “Hey, you know…” Leo shrugged. “I’ve attacked a few rocks in my day.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Frank is…he’s—” “Listen,” Leo said. “Frank Zhang has moves. He’s probably gonna turn into a kangaroo and do some marsupial jujitsu on their ugly faces.” He helped her to her feet. Despite the panic simmering inside her, she knew Leo was right. Frank and the others weren’t helpless. They would find a way to survive. The best thing she and Leo could do was carry on. She studied Leo. His hair had grown out longer and shaggier, and his face was leaner, so he looked less like an imp and more like one of those willowy elves in the fairy tales. The biggest difference was his eyes. They constantly drifted, as if Leo was trying to spot something over the horizon. “Leo, I’m sorry,” she said. He raised an eyebrow. “Okay. For what?” “For…” She gestured around her helplessly. “Everything. For thinking you were Sammy, for leading you on. I mean, I didn’t mean to, but if I did—” “Hey.” He squeezed her hand, though Hazel sensed nothing romantic in the gesture. “Machines are designed to work.” “Uh, what?” “I figure the universe is basically like a machine. I don’t know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or capital-G God, or whatever. But it chugs along the way it’s supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly…things happen for a reason. Like you and me meeting.” “Leo Valdez,” Hazel marveled, “you’re a philosopher.” “Nah,” he said. “I’m just a mechanic. But I figure my bisabuelo Sammy knew what was what. He let you go, Hazel. My job is to tell you that it’s okay. You and Frank—you’re good together. We’re all going to get through this. I hope you guys get a chance to be happy. Besides, Zhang couldn’t tie his shoes without your help.” “That’s mean,” Hazel chided, but she felt like something was untangling inside her—a knot of tension she’d been carrying for weeks. Leo really had changed. Hazel was starting to think she’d found a good friend. “What happened to you when you were on your own?” she asked. “Who did you meet?” Leo’s eye twitched. “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but I’m still waiting to see how it shakes out.” “The universe is a machine,” Hazel said, “so it’ll be fine.” “Hopefully.” “As long as it’s not one of your machines,” Hazel added. “Because your machines never do what they’re supposed to.” “Yeah, ha-ha.” Leo summoned fire into his hand. “Now, which way, Miss Underground?” Hazel scanned the path in front of them. About thirty feet down, the tunnel split into four smaller arteries, each one identical, but the one on the left radiated cold. “That way,” she decided. “It feels the most dangerous.” “I’m sold,” said Leo. They began their descent.
Rick Riordan (The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus, #4))
Since then, I’ve tended so many bodies, people I loved and people I barely knew. But Sam’s was the first. I bathed him with the soap he liked, because he said it smelled of the children. Poor slow Sam. He never quite realized that it was the children who smelled of the soap. I washed them in it every night before he came home. I made it with heather blooms, a much gentler soap than the one I made for him. His soap was almost all grit and lye. It had to be, to scrape that paste of sweat and soil from his skin. He would bury his poor tired face in the babies’ hair and breathe the fresh scent of them. It was the closest he got to the airy hillsides. Down in the mine at daybreak, out again after sundown. A life in the dark. And a death there, too.
Geraldine Brooks (Year of Wonders)
So now I lye by Day and toss or rave by Night, since the ratling and perpetual Hum of the Town deny me rest: just as Madness and Phrensy are the vapours which rise from the lower Faculties, so the Chaos of the Streets reaches up even to the very Closet here and I am whirl'd about by cries of Knives to Grind and Here are your Mouse-Traps. I was last night about to enter the Shaddowe of Rest when a Watch-man, half-drunken, thumps at the Door with his Past Three-a-clock and his Rainy Wet Morning. And when at length I slipp'd into Sleep I had no sooner forgot my present Distemper than I was plunged into a worse: I dreamd my self to be lying in a small place under ground, like unto a Grave, and my Body was all broken while others sung. And there was a Face that did so terrifie me that I had like to have expired in my Dream. Well, I will say no more.
Peter Ackroyd (Hawksmoor)
This could, quite possibly, be the dumbest thing she’d ever done: pursuing a poisonous basilisk into a cave during an earthquake in the company of a bunch of dead guys, armed with a potato cannon and a six-pack of lye. Never mind her soggy pink fiberglass armor. This was going to be an epic way to die. The
Laura Bickle (Mercury Retrograde (Dark Alchemy, #2))
That when a thing lies still, unlesse somewhat els stirre it, it will lye still for ever, is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat els stay it, though the reason be the same, (namely, that nothing can change it self,) is not so easily assented to.
Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan (AmazonClassics Edition))
Kya had done the laundry plenty with Ma, so knew how to scrub clothes on the rub board under the yard spigot with bars of lye soap. Pa’s overalls were so heavy wet she couldn’t wring them out with her tiny hands, and couldn’t reach the line to hang them, so draped them sopping over the palmetto fronds at the edge of the woods.
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
Castor beans’ seed hulls must be removed by soaking 1-4 oz. of the beans in 12-36 oz. of distilled water with 4-6 tablespoons of NaOH or 6-8 ts. of commercial lye (the beans’ natural buoyancy requiring here that they be weighted down with marbles, sterilized gravel, or low-value coins combined and tied in an ordinary Trojan condom).
David Foster Wallace (Oblivion: Stories)
There was malachite green, and red; the intense red known as worm scarlet—tola’at shani in Hebrew—extracted from tree-dwelling insects, crushed up and boiled in lye. Later, when alchemists learned how to make a similar red from sulfur and mercury, they still named the color “little worm”—vermiculum. Some things don’t change: we call it vermilion even today.
Geraldine Brooks (People of the Book)
You can mix the glycerin with nitric acid to make nitroglycerin," Tyler says. I breathe with my mouth open and say, nitroglycerin. Tyler licks his lips wet and shining and kisses the back of my hand. "You can mix the nitroglycerin with sodium nitrate and sawdust to make dynamite," Tyler says. The kiss shines wet on the back of my white hand. Dynamite, I say, and sit back on my heels. Tyler pries the lid off the can of lye. "You can blow up bridges," Tyler says. "You can mix the nitroglycerin with more nitric acid and paraffin and make gelatin explosives," Tyler says. "You could blow up a building, easy," Tyler says. Tyler tilts the can of lye an inch above the shining wet kiss on the back of my hand. "This is a chemical burn," Tyler says, "and it will hurt worse than you've ever been burned. Worse than a hundred cigarettes." The kiss shines on the back of my hand. "You'll have a scar," Tyler says.
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
When I was a kid an older guy sat out front of a gas station in Old Town, FL. His favorite story involved roughing up a couple of guys because "you could tell they weren't from around here." The gruesome details were implied as he'd pull out a straight razor and a plastic bag containing Red Devil lye. "Deliverance", the end of "Easy Rider", and every "wrong turn" horror movie would later make more sense because of those childhood stops for gas and a Yoo-hoo.
Damon Thomas (Some Books Are Not For Sale)
These pursuits sound brutal to our ears, but in other ways the Vikings were surprisingly modern. Unlike the usual stereotype of a rude barbarian, they were very conscious of their appearance and had excellent hygiene.10 They carefully groomed themselves and generally bathed at least once a day with a lye-rich soap that both bleached their hair and cut down on lice. Highly prized tweezers, razors, combs, and even ear cleaners have all been found in Viking excavations.
Lars Brownworth (The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings)
There is one note on the page that seems disconnected from everything else. It is a recipe for making blond-brown hair dye: “To make hair tawny, take nuts and boil them in lye and immerse the comb in it, then comb the hair and let it dry in the sun.” This may have been a notation in preparation for a court pageant. But it is more likely, I think, that the recipe is a rare intimate jotting. Leonardo was deep into his thirties by now. Perhaps he was resisting going gray.
Walter Isaacson (Leonardo da Vinci)
The Woman Poet // Die Dichterin You hold me now completely in your hands. My heart beats like a frightened little bird's Against your palm. Take heed! You do not think A person lives within the page you thumb. To you this book is paper, cloth, and ink, Some binding thread and glue, and thus is dumb, And cannot touch you (though the gaze be great That seeks you from the printed marks inside), And is an object with an object's fate. And yet it has been veiled like a bride, Adorned with gems, made ready to be loved, Who asks you bashfully to change your mind, To wake yourself, and feel, and to be moved. But still she trembles, whispering to the wind: "This shall not be." And smiles as if she knew. Yet she must hope. A woman always tries, Her very life is but a single "You . . ." With her black flowers and her painted eyes, With silver chains and silks of spangled blue. She knew more beauty when a child and free, But now forgets the better words she knew. A man is so much cleverer than we, Conversing with himself of truth and lie, Of death and spring and iron-work and time. But I say "you" and always "you and I." This book is but a girl's dress in rhyme, Which can be rich and red, or poor and pale, Which may be wrinkled, but with gentle hands, And only may be torn by loving nails. So then, to tell my story, here I stand. The dress's tint, though bleached in bitter lye, Has not all washed away. It still is real. I call then with a thin, ethereal cry. You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel?
Gertrud Kolmar
Our men have aversion spells on their hats,” Gnifty continued. She was really quite talkative, now that the ice had been broken. “So that no big monsters come near, just creatures small enough to be hunted at night. When a dragon is near, they cry, ‘Hang onto your hat!
Piers Anthony (Crewel Lye (Xanth, #8))
She was a clean, mean old woman. She looked at the dust-gray rotting curtains, threw them out, and made new ones. She dug grease out of the stove that had been there since Charles’ mother died. And she leached the walls of a brown shiny nastiness deposited by cooking fat and kerosene lamps. She pickled the floors with lye, soaked the blankets in sal soda, complaining the whole time to herself, “Men—dirty animals. Pigs is clean compared. Rot in their own juice. Don’t see how no woman ever marries them. Stink like measles. Look at oven—pie juice from Methusaleh.
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
Make a List (or lists) • Make a list of all the things that you can look at and think: Why did we even bother to move that the last time? Now will be your last and best chance to give or throw away unwanted items until your next move (5-7 years on average). Give unwanted clothes, furniture, kitchen items, etc. to a charity that allows you to use your donation as a tax write-off. Yard sales are another option. • Make a list (and/or get one online) of household hazardous materials. These are common items in your home that are not or might not be safe to transport: flammables like propane tanks (even empty ones), gasoline or kerosene, aerosols or compressed gases (hair spray, spray paint), cleaning fluids in plastic containers (bleach, ammonia) and pesticides (bug spray) and herbicides (weed killer) and caustics like lye or pool acid. There is more likely to be damage caused by leakage of cleaning fluids-- like bleach--than there is by damage caused by a violent explosion or fire in your truck. The problem lies in the fact that any leaking fluid is going to drip its way to the floor and spread out--even in the short time span of your move and more so if you are going up and down hills. Aerosols can explode in the summer heat as can propane BBQ tanks. Gasoline from lawnmowers and pesticide vapors expand in the heat and can permeate everything in the truck. Plastic containers that have been opened can expand and contract with a change in temperature and altitude and crack.
Jerry G. West (The Self-Mover's Bible: A Comprehensive Illustrated Guide to DIY Moving Written by Professional Furniture Mover Jerry G. West)
When I began writing these pages I believed their subject to be children, the ones we have and the ones we wish we had, the ways in which we depend on our children to depend on us, the ways in which we encourage them to remain children, the ways in which they remain more unknown to us than they do to their most casual acquaintances; the ways in which we remain equally opaque to them. The ways in which our investments in each other remain too freighted ever to see the other clear. The ways in which neither we nor they can bear to contemplate the death or the illness or even the aging of the other. As the pages progressed it occurred to me that their actual subject was not children after all, at least not children per se, at least not children qua children: their actual subject was this refusal even to engage in such contemplation, this failure to confront the certainties of aging, illness, death. This fear. Only as the pages progressed further did I understand that the two subjects were the same. When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children. Once she was born I was never not afraid. I was afraid of swimming pools, high-tension wires, lye under the sink, aspirin in the medicine cabinet, The Broken Man himself. I was afraid of rattlesnakes, riptides, landslides, strangers who appeared at the door, unexplained fevers, elevators without operators and empty hotel corridors. The source of the fear was obvious: it was the harm that could come to her. A question: if we and our children could in fact see the other clear would the fear go away? Would the fear go away for both of us, or would the fear go away only for me?
Joan Didion (Blue Nights)
Lastly,” Lye said, “we must wash your luck. When souls queue up to be born, they all leap up at just the last moment, touching the lintel of the world for luck. Some jump high and can seize a great measure of luck; some jump only a bit and snatch a few loose strands. Everyone manages to catch some. If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life. If you know how to look, you can examine the kneecaps of a human and tell how much luck they have left. No bath can replenish luck that has been spent on avoiding an early death by automobile accident or winning too many raffles in a row. No bath can restore luck lost through absentmindedness and overconfidence. But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be plumped up again—after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
You can mix the glycerin with nitric acid to make nitroglycerin,' Tyler says. I breathe with my mouth open and say, nitroglycerin. Tyler licks his lips wet and shining and kisses the back of my hand. 'You can mix the nitroglycerin with sodium nitrate and sawdust to make dynamite,' Tyler says. The kiss shines wet on the back of my white hand. Dynamite, I say, and sit back on my heels. Tyler pries the lid off the can of lye. 'You can blow up bridges,' Tyler says. 'You can mix the nitroglycerin with more nitric acid and paraffin and make gelatin explosives,' Tyler says. 'You could blow up a building, easy,' Tyler says. Tyler tilts the can of lye an inch above the shining wet kiss on the back of my hand. 'This is a chemical burn,' Tyler says, 'and it will hurt worse than you've ever been burned. Worse than a hundred cigarettes.' The kiss shines on the back of my hand. 'You'll have a scar,' Tyler says.
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
Watching It Happen I laze about, deranged and unafraid to godly kiss you, kiss the pharmacist that whipped you, undilute, to dilate high your animus of lime and lye. I know of an upstairs hell. A creamy, vascular thump through bonus years of things that pass and things that do not move. Your cellular mouth. Your mess of inattention. Now that none of us are good looking I think that/they are right. Strokes of light you taped across my nipple. Patterns staked to fake the love we cannot feel so slick the miser of your hand through my bad heart. Genius, you are blond enough. Once in a while. And in the end, when I sweep coolly up and will not be drawn back, then I will tell you of it. How I can. In writing, I am making an attempt to depict my beautiful nose through imagery. I will tell you of it. Once in a while. I will miss you. And the tape. To be flung down, petals from a balcony.
Elaine Kahn
You hwill follow me!” You did not disobey someone who added h’s to their w’s. Clara and Nutcracker hurried after Mother Svetlana, who could glide down the hall with extreme grace for someone her size. Nuns rushed past them in frocks of beige, their starched wimples brushing Clara. Mother Svetlana parted them like the Red Sea. Something flashed in one of their hands—a butcher knife? “How dare these ungodly creatures assault a house of the Lord!” Mother Svetlana’s voice filled to the arches. “Hwe are hwomen of peace!” “Yes…” Nutcracker eyed a short nun who scampered past with an ax. She looked positively gleeful. “Hwe hwill hold the rats off, with God’s help,” Mother Svetlana continued. Down the hall, gunshots sounded, echoing through the gardens. A nun rushed past, carrying an eye-stinging bucket of lye. Another feeble old woman scuttled past with a huge rifle, gleefully squeaking: Lawks, lawks, I’m just a little old nun!
Heather Dixon Wallwork (The Enchanted Sonata)
How many of us are dead because of their potential unleashed? Your calorie masters showed us what happens. People die." "Everyone dies." The doctor waves a dismissal. "But you die now because you cling to the past. We should all be windups by now. It's easier to build a person impervious to blister rust than to protect an earlier version of the human creature. A generation from now, we could be well-suited for our new environment. Your children could be the beneficiaries. Yet you people refuse to adapt. You cling to some idea of a humanity that evolved in concert with your environment over millennia, and which you now, perversely, refuse to remain in lockstep with. "Blister rust is our environment. Cibiscosis. Genehack weevil. Cheshires. They have adapted. Quibble as you like about whether they evolved naturally or not. Our environment has changed. If we wish to remain at the top of our food chain, we will evolve. Or we will refuse, and go the way of the dinosaurs and Felis domesticus. Evolve or die. It has always been nature's guiding principle, and yet you white shirts seek to stand in the way of inevitable change." He leans forward. "I want to shake you sometimes. If you would just let me, I could be your god and shape you to the Eden that beckons us." "I'm Buddhist." "And we all know windups have no souls." Gibbons grins. "No rebirth for them. They will have to find their own gods to protect them. Their own gods to pray for their dead." His grin widens. "Perhaps I will be that one, and your windup children will pray to me for salvation." His eyes twinkle. "I would like a few more worshippers, I must admit. Jaidee was like you. Always such a doubter. Not as bad as Grahamites, but still, not particularly satisfactory for a god." Kanya makes a face. "When you die, we will burn you to ash and bury you in chlorine and lye and no one will remember you." The doctor shrugs, unconcerned. "All gods must suffer.
Paolo Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl)
You can mix the glycerin with nitric acid to make nitroglycerin,' Tyler says. I breathe with my mouth open and say, nitroglycerin. Tyler licks his lips wet and shining and kisses the back of my hand. 'You can mix the nitroglycerin with sodium nitrate and sawdust to make dynamite,' Tyler says. The kiss shines wet on the back of my white hand. Dynamite, I say, and sit back on my heels. Tyler pries the lid off the can of lye. 'You can blow up bridges,' Tyler says. 'You can mix the nitroglycerin with more nitric acid and paraffin and make gelatin explosives,' Tyler says. 'You could blow up a building, easy,' Tyler says. Tyler tilts the can of lye an inch above the shining wet kiss on the back of my hand. 'This is a chemical burn,' Tyler says, 'and it will hurt worse than you've ever been burned. Worse than a hundred cigarettes.' The kiss shines on the back of my hand. 'You'll have a scar,' Tyler says. 'With enough soap,' Tyler says, 'you could blow up the whole world. Now remember your promise.' And Tyler pours the lye.
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
Finally, it was all finished. September was quite proud of herself, and we may be proud of her, too, for certainly I have never made a boat so quickly, and I daresay only one or two of you have ever pulled off such a trick. All she lacked was a sail. September thought for a good while, considering what Lye, the soap golem, had said: "Even if you've taken off every stitch of clothing, you will still have your secrets, your history, your true name. It's hard to be really naked. You have to work hard at it. Just getting into a bath isn't being naked, not really. It's just showing skin. And foxes and bears have skin, too, so I shan't be ashamed if they're not." 'Well, I shan't be! My dress, my sail!' cried September aloud, and wriggled out of her orange dress. She tied the sleeves to the top of the mast and the tips of the skirt to the bottom. The wind puffed it out obligingly. She took off the Marquess's dreadful shoes and wedged them between the sceptres. There she stood, her newly shorn hair flying in every direction, naked and fierce, with the tide coming in.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
There are things I can confess only after swallowing a bottle of ink. How i crushed a moth between my palms before it rushed to the fireplace. These hands that are used to killing things midflight. Like my mother tongue. Before I can roll out my rounded R and O. Because women like me are believed to practise witchcraft and blackmagic. We swallow men and spit out their bones. These hands that danced with your ghosts on the bluest 4 AMs. These hands that raised a knife to its throat. How deep was the longing to be nothing more than an empty bed, an empty room. If someone asks you tell them writing was the closest I came to witchcraft. Poetry was the closest I came to being possessed. I wanted to leave behind more than emptiness so I wrote. . They say it takes 7 seconds for the eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. I glide across the dark room like the light was never here. Your body imprint on the mattress lost to the frenzied waltz of sunray and dust. How easy was it to just grab a handful of you before you dissolved. If someone asks tell them loving you was the closest I came to seeing god. . On some nights I open the curtains and you are the moon. I am the darkness surrounding it. Which is to say I don't know how to love without being consumed. If they ask you tell them remembrance was the closest I came to being sick. . Once I met a homeless man who spoke in madness because he had forgotten his mother tongue. How long do you hide yourself from the world before you forget your beginning. Like him - I too am full of silence. My beloved - a handful of you, your body. There are things I could only tell the moths but they no longer visit. I have put off the fireplace. Which is to say they too don't know how to love something that won't kill them. . My phone always autocorrects I love you to I live you and what is love if not living the other person. One summer afternoon our bodies turned into each other's. Your breath played lye strings on my neck. If they ask you tell them that was the closest I came to being alive.
Ayushee Ghoshal (4 AM Conversations (with the ghosts of old lovers))
The Marble Tombs that rise on high, Whose Dead in vaulted Arches lye, Whose Pillars swell with sculptur'd Stones, Arms, Angels Epitaphs and Bones, These (all the poor Remains of State) Adorn the Rich, or praise the Great; Who while on Earth in Fame they live, Are senseless of the Fame they give.
Thomas Parnell
All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night All praise to Thee, my God, this night For all the blessings of the light. Keep me, oh, keep me, King of kings, Beneath Thy own almighty wings. 2. Forgive me, Lord, for Thy dear Son, The ill that I this day have done That with the world, myself and Thee, I, ere I sleep, at peace may be. 3. Teach me to live that I may dread The grave as little as my bed. Teach me to die that so I may Rise glorious at the awe-ful Day. 4. Oh, may my soul on Thee repose, And may sweet sleep mine eyelids close, Sleep that shall me more vigorous make To serve my God when I awake. 5. When in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with heavenly thoughts supply; Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, No powers of darkness me molest. 6. Dull Sleep of Sense me to deprive, I am but half my time alive; Thy faithful Lovers, Lord, are griev'd, To lye so long of Thee bereav'd. 7. But though Sleep o'er my frailty Reigns Let it not hold me long in Chains; And now and then let lose my Heart, Till it an Hallelujah dart. 8. The faster Sleep the Senses binds, The more unfetter'd are our Minds; O may my Soul, from matter free, Thy loveliness unclouded see! 9. O when shall I in endless Day, Forever chase dark Sleep away, And Hymns with the Supernal Choir Incessant Sing and never tyre! 10. O may my Guardian while I sleep Close to my Bed his Vigils keep, His Love Angelical instill, Stop all the Avenues of Ill. 11. May he Celestial Joys rehearse, And thought to thought with me converse Or in my stead all the Night long, Sing to my God a Grateful Song. 12. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Thomas Ken
trade in which these vessels were engaged; even when empty the stink of a slaver ship is unmistakable. Used only once for the transportation of three hundred human souls, left to rot and die in their own filth and misery, you could scrub her boards from head to toe in lye and she would still give herself away with her cloying smell. But instead of arresting her on this evidence, we had to overtake them at the exact moment that their holds were full of captured humanity, bound for a life of servitude and misery. Once the crafts had reached the open sea we stood little chance, as their superior speed and manoeuvrability would easily outpace us. Our only opportunity lay in a stealth attack from the coast.
Mike Rogers (Capture of a Slaver)
November 15th, 2012 0930 hours Podilskyi District Kiev, Ukraine   Boris Volkov brought the cleaver down on the talocrural joint, hard and with purpose, severing the anterior and posterior ankle ligaments before slicing clean through the Achilles tendon. He did the same to the left foot, tossing aside both feet into a steel drum lined with thick plastic, filled with his own concoction of lye and sulfuric acid. The result was a bone stripped clean of flesh, muscle and sinew. The bones would then be collected and fed to stray dogs roaming the back alleys of Podilskyi. He moved onto
Vincent Pauletti (The Bounty Hunters (Omega Sector))
You preserved your life because your life, your body, was as good as anyone’s, because your blood was as precious as jewels, and it should never be sold for magic, for spirituals inspired by the unknowable hereafter. You do not give your precious body to the billy clubs of Birmingham sheriffs nor to the insidious gravity of the streets. Black is beautiful—which is to say that the black body is beautiful, that black hair must be guarded against the torture of processing and lye, that black skin must be guarded against bleach, that our noses and mouths must be protected against modern surgery. We are all our beautiful bodies and so must never be prostrate before barbarians, must never submit our original self, our one of one, to defiling and plunder.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
I am a golem, child,’ answered Lye calmly. ‘My mistress wrote it there. She was marvelous clever and knew all kinds of secret things. One of the things she knew was how to gather up all the slips of soap the bath house patrons left behind and arrange them into a girl shape and write “truth” on her forehead and wake her up and give her a name and say to her: “Be my friend and love me, for the world is terrible lonely and I am sad.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
When you watch the videos of soul singers dancing across the stage in that era, with their lye-straighten haired and that side part, what crosses your mind?   When did you go “natural” or do you still process your hair? 
Sonja Cassandra Perdue (Black America: Asking Ourselves The Tough Questions — Book One 2010)
After watching Vaughn and Judd dump the body and cover it with lye, I followed Cooper back to the cabin. “How are things going with Winnie?” he asked as we waited for the others to finish. “Good. We’re moving into one of the houses I’ve remodeled. I’m planning to propose too.” “Did you ask Tad for permission?” Frowning, I shook my head. “Give the guy a break. You show up, bang his daughter, steal her away, and don’t even fake like his opinion matters. You’re lucky he doesn’t beat you with a stick just for the hell of it.” My frown darkened then I remembered Cooper was having a baby girl soon. “I’ll ask Tad before I propose.
Bijou Hunter (Damaged and the Bulldog (Damaged, #6))
For the wishes of one’s old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to remember to catch the world in its changing and change with it.’ Lye
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
It is at times like these that Jaidee's heart breaks. Only once when he was in the muay thai ring was he afraid. But many times when he has worked, he has been terrified. Fear is part of him. Fear is part of the Ministry. What else but fear could close borders, burn towns, slaughter fifty thousand chickens and inter them wholesale under clean dirt and a thick powdering of lye?
Paolo Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl)
In the late seventies, RBG was interviewed for a book called Women Lawyers at Work, which devoted many paragraphs to her work-life balance. The author, Elinor Porter Swiger, seemed eager to find her subject torn or in crisis. Swiger noted that Jane had once rebelliously announced she was going to be a stay-at-home mom like Evelyn Ginsburg. And Swiger pressed RBG for her reaction to a terrifying incident when James was two and a housekeeper found him screaming, with Drano on his lips. RBG vividly described rushing to the hospital: “Deep burns distorted his face, charred lips encircled his mouth—a tiny, burnt-out cavern ravaged by the lye.” Swiger wondered: “How did Ruth feel during this prolonged ordeal? As a working mother, did she agonize with regret that she had not been there when it happened? The answer is a qualified ‘yes.’” Then RBG paused to consider it. She said the real mistake had been “not putting the Drano out of the toddler’s reach.” Swiger wrote, not entirely admiringly, “It is a part of Ruth Ginsburg’s success that she can view this incident in a relatively objective way.
Irin Carmon (Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg)
Rawhide: is soaked in an ash/lye solution to remove every particle of meat, fat and hair and then further soaked in bleach to remove remaining traces of the ash/lye solution. Now that the product is no longer food, it no longer has to comply with food regulations. While the hide is still wet it is shaped into rawhide chews, and upon drying it shrinks to approximately 1/4 of its original size. Furthermore, arsenic based products are often used as preservatives, and antibiotics and insecticides are added to kill bacteria that also fight against good bacteria in your dog’s intestines.
George Hoppendale (Irish Setter Dog. Irish Setter dog book for costs, care, feeding, grooming, training and health. Irish Setter dog Owners Manual.)
We aren’t really alive, which makes us particularly weak: we can’t run for long distances or lift heavy objects; we can’t even stand the light of the sun.” “And spicy foods are right out,” said another. “You think it’s garlic, but actually it’s anything strong and pungent: cinnamon, lye. I was turned aside by some very sharp cheddar once.
Dan Wells (A Night of Blacker Darkness: Being the Memoir of Frederick Whithers As Edited by Cecil G. Bagsworth III)
Trails are routes to remembrance just as they are routes to knowledge.
T.P. Lye
Scrambling, outfacing, fashion-mongring boys,That lye, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,Go antickly, and shew an outward hideousness,And speak of half a dozen dangerous words.Shakesp.Much ado about Nothing.
Samuel Johnson (A Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged in Two Volumes), Volume One)
Tynne flak av hud skaller av, og drysser slik stjernestøv mot gulvet.
Sunniva Lye Axelsen (Følge meg alle mine dager)
You, Sunshine, are a hostage on my ship. Do as ye’re told and your stay here will be short, much to the benefit and relief of us both.” That close, she could smell him. Salt water. Fresh wind. The lye soap that his shirt had been laundered in. His point made, he straightened up, shot her a dark glare over his shoulder, and reached for a bottle with which to refill his mug. Nerissa swung her legs out of the bed. “I am leaving.” “And going where?” He nodded toward the windows behind him, one of which was open to admit a heady balm of salty night air. “There’s a whole ocean out there. Unless you can walk on water, Sunshine, you aren’t goin’ anywhere.” “How dare you speak to me that way! I am Lady Nerissa de—” “I don’t give a tinker’s damn who you are. Now, get up and move around if ye’ve a mind to, but we’re at sea and unless you plan to throw yourself overboard with all the drama of a Shakespearean heroine, ye’re stuck here as a guest of America in general and myself in particular. Get used to it.
Danelle Harmon (The Wayward One (The de Montforte Brothers, #5))
He closed with a partial verse from “Sir Andrew Barton,” one of the ballads in Percy’s Reliques, published in 1765. Barton had been wounded in battle. “Fight on, my men,” Sir Andrew sayes, “A little Ime hurt, but yett not slaine; He but lye downe and bleede awhile, And then He rise and fight againe.
Robert Coram (American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day)
There is a particular kind of science that exists on these sorts of estates—the science of coaxing out bloodstains. For centuries it has been taught to future wives and mothers. If a university for women ever came about, it would be the most important subject. Childbirth, menstruation, war, fights, forays, pogroms, raids—all of it sheds blood, ever at the ready just beneath the skin. What to do with that internal substance that has the gall to make its way out, what kind of lye to wash it out, what vinegar to rinse it with? Perhaps try dampening a rag with a couple of tears and then rubbing carefully. Or soak in saliva. It befalls sheets and bedclothes, underwear, petticoats, shirts, aprons, bonnets and kerchiefs, lace cuffs and frills, corsets, and sukmanas. Carpets, floorboards, bandages, and uniforms.
Olga Tokarczuk (The Books of Jacob)
Black is beautiful-which is to say that the black body is beautiful, that black hair must be guarded against the torture of processing and lye, that black skin must be guarded against bleach, that our noses and mouths must be protected against modern surgery. We are all our beautiful bodies and so must never be prostrate before barbarians, must never submit our original self, our one of one, to defiling and plunder.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
But here come these people, the Rastas like the one who held her up now, who believe that Ethiopia is the true Holy Land and that Haile Selassie is the living God. Decrying the very foundation of their colonial education, preaching instead that whites are the ones who are inferior and wicked. Embracing her blackness had become unnatural to Patricia, and subsequently to Vera, but she wondered now why it seemed more natural to put lye acid on the roots of her hair than to let it grow the way she was born.
Maisy Card (These Ghosts are Family)
But here come these people, the Rastas like the one who held her up now, who believe that Ethiopia is the true Holy Land and that Haile Selassie is the living God. Decrying the very foundation of their colonial education, preaching instead that whites are the ones who are inferior and wicked. Embracing her blackness had become unnatural to Patricia, and subsequently to Vera, but she wondered now why it seemed more natural to put lye acid on the roots of her hair than to let it grow the way she was born. She understood why her mother carried on so when she saw Rastas walking the same streets as her, why she sometimes would call the police if she saw one near their house. They were manifestations of a truth she didn’t want to face, and believed that if scorned enough could be permanently banished. Her mother didn’t want to hear that more of her ancestors came from Africa than from England. That she was idolizing and mimicking the masters who raped and beat her foremothers and forefathers. That slavery was not over, and they’d never truly be free unless they rejected everything they’d been taught to value. Even the white Jesus she worshipped so feverishly. That woman would never embrace Haile Selassie, a god who looked like them, when she was taught that blackness was the opposite of everything divine.
Maisy Card (These Ghosts are Family)
and had occasion to think on the Italian proverb, “ To wait for one who does not come; to lye a bed not able to sleep; and to find it impossible to please those whom we serve; are three griefs enough to kill a man.
Cotton Mather (COTTON MATHER: Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), Volume 1 (of 2))
lye soap; handwoven
Lilian Jackson Braun (The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts (Cat Who...#10))
(Lament about the Evils of Darkness) Night thou foule Mother of annoyance sad, Sister of heauie death, and nourse of woe, Which wast begot in heauen, but for thy bad And brutish shape thrust downe to hell below, Where by the grim floud of Cocytus slow Thy dwelling is, in Herebus blacke hous, (Blacke Herebus thy husband is the foe Of all the Gods) where thou vngratious, Halfe of thy dayes doest lead in horrour hideous. What had th’eternall Maker need of thee, The world in his continuall course to keepe, That doest all things deface, ne lettest see The beautie of his worke? Indeed in sleepe The slouthfull bodie, that doth loue to steepe His lustlesse limbes, and drowne his baser mind, Doth praise thee oft, and oft from Stygian deepe Calles thee, his goddesse in his error blind, And great Dame Natures handmaide, chearing euery kind But well I wote, that to an heauy hart Thou art the root and nurse of bitter cares, Breeder of new, renewer of old smarts: Instead of rest thou lendest rayling teares, Instead of sleepe thou sendest troublous feares, And dreadfull visions, in the which aliue The drearie image of sad death appeares: So from the wearie spirit thou doest driue Desired rest, and men of happinesse depriue. Vnder thy mantle blacke there hidden lye, Light-shonning theft, and traiterous intent, Abhorred bloudshed, and vile felony, Shamefull deceipt, and daunger imminent; Foule horror, and eke hellish dreriment: All these I wote in thy protection bee, And light doe shonne, for feare of being shent: For light ylike is loth’d of them and thee, And all that lewdnesse loue, doe hate the light to see. For day discouers all dishonest wayes, And sheweth each thing, as it is indeed: The prayses of high God he faire displayes, And his large bountie rightly doth areed. Dayes dearest children be the blessed seed, Which darknesse shall subdew, and heauen win: Truth is his daughter; he her first did breed, Most sacred virgin, without spot of sin. Our life is day, but death with darknesse doth begin.
Edmund Spenser (Faerie Queene)
Geoff Lye, a British environmental consultant, once told me that after the sudden and premature death of his friend and colleague David Watson, he would find himself stuck in traffic, not clenching his fists in agitation, as per usual, but wondering: “What would David have given to be caught in this traffic jam?
Oliver Burkeman (Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals)
Is it Minthe? May I suggest lye to remedy the situation? It is quite painful when swallowed
Scarlett St. Clair (A Touch of Malice (Hades x Persephone Saga, #3))
We never know the end of something as it's happening. It's only in the aftermath that we create a narrative, and story can only ever be a cousin of the truth.
Harriet Alida Lye (Let It Destroy You: A Novel)
Susan was like lye soap: caustic to the point of pain, but very effective.
K.J. Charles (Gilded Cage (Lilywhite Boys, #2))
I would have cooked him in a vat of lye if I could have done so without repercussion.
Nita Prose (The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1))
With a small amount of inheritance money, he’d bought a run-down terraced house in the middle of Lye, taught himself different trades, renovated the house and rented it out. By the time he was forty, he had amassed a personal fortune in excess of ten million by doing what he was good at.
Angela Marsons (Twisted Lies (DI Kim Stone, #14))
Singapore Why should I book a live band for my wedding? Merry Bees Merry Bees have serenaded dignitaries at the Istana. Merry bees provide services to their customers like Solo Live Music, Virtual live band, Solo Musician, Solo Wedding Singer, Instrumental live band, Corporate Live Band, wedding livestream etc. their all the services are quite good. Merry bees also performed at TV programmes and other high profile events including APEC, F1 Singapore Grand Prix, Young NTUC Celebrates NDP, DBS, Prudential, Maersk, Singapore Sports Awards, etc. Merry Bees have produced and performed to over 2,000 successful events. When COVID-19 hit us in 2020, Merry Bees was one of the first few events companies in Singapore who adapted quickly to virtual. Merry bees have produced and live streamed to over 250 events and performances by Dec 2020. Apart from that merry bees also provide Content creation, Videography, livestream production, Corporate Videography Merry bees are emotionally attached with their each client. ShiLi & Adi TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE It is no surprise that ShiLi & Adi are a highly sought after duo in the wedding live bands and corporate events circuit due to their fresh piano arrangements and smooth vocal harmony. From duets and their ability to medley any songs dedicated by the audience, their chemistry is unmistakable. John Lye Live Looping Singer Guitarist, Bilingual Emcee & Host, Production & Technical Director John Lye is one of the most versatile performers we know with 12 years of performing experience under his belt. As part of our core team and co-founder of Merry Bees, John wears many hats but his biggest hat would be charming audiences with a wide vocal range and solid guitar live looping skills, as he switches effortlessly from heavy old school rock ballads of Journey and Bon Jovi to classics from Sinatra and Nat King Cole in various languages. Merry bees have many live offers you can book merry bees to make your special day wonderful.
Merry Bees
Well, it was not long before the Council of Plymouth in England had, by a deed bearing date March 19, 1627, sold unto some knights and gentlemen about Dorchester, viz: Sir Henry Rowsel, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcott, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whetcomb, and their heirs and assigns, and their associates for ever, that part of New-England which lyes between a great river called Merrimack, and a certain other river there called Charles’ River, in the bottom of the Massachuset-Bay.
Cotton Mather (COTTON MATHER: Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), Volume 1 (of 2))