β
Β Β Β Β Illicit flight Alfa Bravo Charlie quickly reached a predetermined altitude and stopped dead. The passengers on board screamed the way people do on fairground rides. The shuttle hesitated momentarily and then shot forward accelerating rapidly to reach a blistering 145,222 miles per hour. They were in a Mach 22 situation. The cries from on-board could not be heard from the ground. Neither did anyone in the great metropolis of Llar witness the bright blue vapour trail the craft left behind in its wake. It was after all overcast and raining heavily.
β
β
A.R. Merrydew (Our Blue Orange (Godfrey Davis, #1))
β
Artists aren't really people. And I'm actually 40 per cent papier mache.
β
β
Morrissey
β
Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell
leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house heβs never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. donβt wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
donβt lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.
β
β
Marty McConnell
β
From quite early on, I had this idea of compartmentalized identities - 'this is how you are when you are with your mum, and this is how you are when you are with your dad' - so it seemed like I could never absolutely be myself. And the image of myself as compromised and inconsistent made me want to withdraw from the world even further. I had a sense of formulating a paper-mache version of myself to send out in the world, while I sat controlling it remotely from some smug suburban barracks.
β
β
Russell Brand (My Booky Wook)
β
She wanted to tell him so mach, on the tarmac, the day he left. The world is run by brutal men and the surest proof is their armies. If they ask you to stand still, you should dance. If they ask you to burn the flag, wave it. If they ask you to murder, re-create.
β
β
Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin)
β
I know,β he said, looking down at himself β skin like papier-mache, ribs like violin strings. βI am not β I mean, I look ββ
βBeautiful,β she said, and the word was a pronouncement. βYou are beautiful, James Carstairs.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
β
Die Welt machte mich zu einer Hure, nun mache ich sie zu einem Bordell.
β
β
Friedrich DΓΌrrenmatt (Der Besuch der alten Dame / Die Physiker. ErlΓ€uterungen und Materialien.)
β
Some make you sing and some make you scream,
One makes you wish that you'd never been seen.
But there's a shop on the corner that's selling papier-mache,
Making bullet-proof faces, Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay.
If you want it, boys, get it here, thing.
- Sweet Thing
β
β
David Bowie
β
She switched from ecstasy to embarrassment at about Mach five.
β
β
Kevin Hearne (Hexed (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #2))
β
Can you understand,' asked my father, 'the deep meaning of that weakness, that passion for colored tissue, for papier-mache, for distemper, for oakum and sawdust? This is,' he continued with a pained smile, 'the proof of our love for matter as such, for its fluffiness or porosity, for its unique mystical consistency. Demiurge, that great master and artist, made matter invisible, made it disappear under the surface of life. We, on the contrary, love its creaking, its resistance, its clumsiness. We like to see behind each gesture, behind each move, its inertia, its heavy effort, its bearlike awkwardness.
β
β
Bruno Schulz (The Street of Crocodiles)
β
Knowledge and error flow from the same mental sources; only success can tell one from the other.
β
β
Ernst Mach
β
They hate being unable to control you.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
How often must you be betrayed before you see that others are taking your kindness for weakness, your silence for an inability to speak?
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
The road to powerful magical items is paved with good intentions and hideous deathtraps.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
First off, contrary to popular belief, I'm as human as you are. One of us should probably be ashamed of that. I'm not entirely sure that it's me.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
I don't make monsters.
Definitions make monsters.
You make definitions.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
Dark Lords shatter destiny; it's what we do.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
May you reign supreme but never unchallenged.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
I am a product of the flames which burnt me; the anvil which forged me; and the will that made me grow formidable instead of breaking.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies. True friends help you move the bodies of those who turned out not to have been friends to begin with.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
This is a lesson in creation: The first blood of blood magic is always your own.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
The tavern keeper, a wiry man with a sharp-nosed face, round, prominent ears and a receding hairline that combined to give him a rodentlike look, glanced at him, absentmindedly wiping a tankard with a grubby cloth. Will raised an eyebrow as he looked at it. He'd be willing to bet the cloth was transferring more dirt to the tankard then it was removing.
"Drink?" the tavern keeper asked. He set the tankard down on the bar, as if in preparation for filling it with whatever the stranger might order.
"Not out of that," Will said evenly, jerking a thumb at the tankard. Ratface shrugged, shoved it aside and produced another from a rack above the bar.
"Suit yourself. Ale or ouisgeah?"
Ousigeah, Will knew, was the strong malt spirit they distilled and drank in Hibernia. In a tavern like this, it might be more suitable for stripping runt than drinking.
"I'd like coffee," he said, noticing the battered pot by the fire at one end of the bar.
"I've got ale or ouisgeah. Take your pick." Ratface was becoming more peremptory. Will gestured toward the coffeepot. The tavern keeper shook his head.
"None made," he said. "I'm not making a new pot just for you."
"But he's drinking coffee," Will said, nodding to one side.
Inevitably the tavern keeper glanced that way, to see who he was talking about. The moment his eyes left Will, an iron grip seized the front of his shirt collar, twisting it into a knot that choked him and at the same time dragged him forward, off balance, over the bar,. The stranger's eyes were suddenly very close. He no longer looked boyish. The eyes were dark brown, almost black in this dim light, and the tavern keeper read danger there. A lot of danger. He heard a soft whisper of steel, and glancing down past the fist that held him so tightly, he glimpsed the heavy, gleaming blade of the saxe knife as the stranger laid it on the bar between them.
He looked around for possible help. But there was nobody else at the bar, and none of the customers at the tables had noticed what was going on.
"Aach...mach co'hee," he choked.
The tension on his collar eased and the stranger said softly, "What was that?"
"I'll...make...coffee," he repeated, gasping for breath.
The stranger smiled. It was a pleasant smile, but the tavern keep noticed that it never reached those dark eyes.
"That's wonderful. I'll wait here.
β
β
John Flanagan (Halt's Peril (Ranger's Apprentice, #9))
β
Itβs a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
And lo, at the moment when she needed it most, she found the force within her. She didn't find it in time to avoid having her head bitten off, but she sure did die enlightened.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
I was imprisoned, and no-one freed me.
I cried for help, and no-one freed me.
Eventually, I shook off my chains and I returned.
They said, 'Why do you no longer love us?'
I said, 'I realized that you have always been my chains.
β
β
Jeff Mach (There and Never, Ever Back Again: Diary of a Dark Lord)
β
I mean, the ones on trial are not like me in any way: they're a different kind of human being. They live in a different world, they think different thoughts, and their actions are nothing like mine. Between the world they live in and the world I live in there's this thick, high wall. At least, that's how I saw it at first. ...I became a lot less sure of myself. In other words, I started seeing it like this: that there really was no such thing as a wall separating their world from mine. Or if there was such a wall, it was probably a flimsy one made of papier-mache. The second I leaned on it, I'd probably fall right through and end up on the other side. Or maybe it's that the other side has already managed to sneak its way inside of us, and we just haven't noticed.
β
β
Haruki Murakami (After Dark)
β
Me, while I'm heading west, asleep at Mach 0.83, or 455 miles an hour, or true airspeed, the FBI is bomb-squading my suitcase on a vacated runway back in Dulles. Nine out of ten times, the security task force guy says, the vibration is an electric razor. The other time, it's a vibrating dildo.
Imagine, the task force guy says, telling a passenger on arrival that a dildo kept her baggage on the East Coast. Sometimes it's even a man. It's airline policy not to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. Use the indefinite article.
A dildo.
Never your dildo.
Never say the dildo accidentally turned itself on.
A dildo activated itself and created an emergency situation that required the evacuating of your baggage.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
β
Michael turned from the counter with a cup of coffee in hand. "Don't start," he said to Gabriel."I didn't say anything. I'm just glad you weren't jerking her around." Gabriel paused. "So I guess you don't have too much baggage after all?"
Michael gave him a look. "Trust me I do." He sat down at the table. "She just has enough to mach."
"What does that mean?"
"It means she has a five-year-old son."
Gabriel went still. "Holy crap."
"So we're taking things really slowly."
"Looks like it."
This was quite possibly the first time Gabriel had ever seen his older brother blush. "It was late. She slept here. We did not-" Michael broke off. "I don't really think I need to explain myself to you."
Gabriel smiled and took a sip of coffee. "No, no, I'm enjoying this.
β
β
Brigid Kemmerer (Spark (Elemental, #2))
β
FRIDA KAHLO TO MARTY MCCONNELL
leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house heβs never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. donβt wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
donβt lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.
β
β
Marty McConnell
β
But we must not forget that all things in the world are connected with one another and depend on one another, and that we ourselves and all our thoughts are also a part of nature. It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction, at which we arrive by means of the change of things; made because we are not restricted to any one definite measure, all being interconnected. A motion is termed uniform in which equal increments of space described correspond to equal increments of space described by some motion with which we form a comparison, as the rotation of the earth. A motion may, with respect to another motion, be uniform. But the question whether a motion is in itself uniform, is senseless. With just as little justice, also, may we speak of an βabsolute timeβ --- of a time independent of change. This absolute time can be measured by comparison with no motion; it has therefore neither a practical nor a scientific value; and no one is justified in saying that he knows aught about it. It is an idle metaphysical conception.
β
β
Ernst Mach (Science of Mechanics)