Marble Nail Quotes

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out.Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room. Grandma Lynn died several years later, but I have yet to see her here. I imagine her tying it on in her heaven, drinking mint juleps with Tennessee Williams and Dean Martin. She'll be here in her own sweet time, I'm sure. If I'm to be honest with you, I still sneak away to watch my family sometimes. I can't help it, and sometimes they still think of me. They can't help it.... It was a suprise to everyone when Lindsey found out she was pregnant...My father dreamed that one day he might teach another child to love ships in bottles. He knew there would be both sadness and joy in it; that it would always hold an echo of me. I would like to tell you that it is beautiful here, that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe. But this heaven is not about safety just as, in its graciousness, it isn't about gritty reality. We have fun. We do things that leave humans stumped and grateful, like Buckley's garden coming up one year, all of its crazy jumble of plants blooming all at once. I did that for my mother who, having stayed, found herself facing the yard again. Marvel was what she did at all the flowers and herbs and budding weeds. Marveling was what she mostly did after she came back- at the twists life took. And my parents gave my leftover possessions to the Goodwill, along with Grandma Lynn's things. They kept sharing when they felt me. Being together, thinking and talking about the dead, became a perfectly normal part of their life. And I listened to my brother, Buckley, as he beat the drums. Ray became Dr. Singh... And he had more and more moments that he chose not to disbelieve. Even if surrounding him were the serious surgeons and scientists who ruled over a world of black and white, he maintained this possibility: that the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying were not the results of strokes, that he had called Ruth by my name, and that he had, indeed, made love to me. If he ever doubted, he called Ruth. Ruth, who graduated from a closet to a closet-sized studio on the Lower East Side. Ruth, who was still trying to find a way to write down whom she saw and what she had experienced. Ruth, who wanted everyone to believe what she knew: that the dead truly talk to us, that in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe. Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort. So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.

This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.

...This was probably my biggest mistake: to think that the truth could be captured externally and simply with one's eyes, to imagine a truth exists which can be grasped at once and thereafter remain still and at peace, just like a statue, a truth which contracts and expands depending on the temperature, a truth which eventually erodes, not only modifying the surrounding space but subtly altering thhe composition of the ground on which it stands, shedding minute particles of marble, just as we shed hairs, nail clippings, saliva and the words we speak.

Cold, I was, like snow, like ivory. I thought "He will not touch me", but he did. He kissed my stone-cool lips. I lay still as though I’d died. He stayed. He thumbed my marbled eyes. He spoke - blunt endearments, what he’d do and how. His words were terrible. My ears were sculpture, stone-deaf shells. I heard the sea. I drowned him out. I heard him shout. He brought me presents, polished pebbles, little bells. I didn’t blink, was dumb. He brought me pearls and necklaces and rings. He called them girly things. He ran his clammy hands along my limbs. I didn’t shrink, played statue, shtum. He let his fingers sink into my flesh, he squeezed, he pressed. I would not bruise. He looked for marks, for purple hearts, for inky stars, for smudgy clues. His nails were claws. I showed no scratch, no scrape, no scar. He propped me up on pillows, jawed all night. My heart was ice, was glass. His voice was gravel, hoarse. He talked white black. So I changed tack, grew warm, like candle wax, kissed back, was soft, was pliable, began to moan, got hot, got wild, arched, coiled, writhed, begged for his child, and at the climax screamed my head off - all an act. And haven’t seen him since. Simple as that

So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go hold someone’s hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide heaven is about flat head nails and the soft down of new leaves, wild roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall, then hang, then take you somewhere you could never imagined in your small-heaven dreams.

Want to know the coolest thing about the coming? Not that the One who played marbles with the stars gave it up to play marbles with marbles. Or that the One who hung the galaxies gave it up to hang doorjambs to the displeasure of a cranky client who wanted everything yesterday but couldn't pay until tomorrow. Not that he, in an instant, went from needing nothing to needing air, food, a tub of hot water and salts for his tired feet, and, more than anything, needing somebody - anybody - who was more concerned about where he would spend eternity rather than where he would spend Friday's paycheck. Or that he resisted the urge to fry the two=bit, self-appointed hall monitors of holiness who dared suggest that he was doing the work of the devil. Not that he kept his cool while the dozen best friends he ever had felt the heat and got out of the kitchen. Or that he gave no command to the angels who begged, "Just give us the nod, Lord. One word and these demons will be deviled eggs." Not that he refused to defend himself when blamed for every sin of every slut and sailor since Adam. Or that he stood silent as a million guilty verdicts echoed in the tribunal of heaven and the giver of light was left in the chill of a sinner's night. Not even that after three days in a dark hole he stepped into the Easter sunrise with a smile and a swagger and a question for lowly Lucifer - "Is that your best punch?" That was cool, incredibly cool. But want to know the coolest thing about the One who gave up the crown of heaven for a crown of thorns? He did it for you. Just for you.

He was the one, however, with whom no one wanted his or her picture taken, the one to whom no one wanted to introduce his son or daughter. Louis and Gage knew him; they had met him and faced him down in New England, some time ago. He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boggie of electricity—Available at Your Nearest Switchplate or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nurdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too—Shower with a Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who’s out there? you howled into the dark when you were frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don’t be afraid, it’s just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let’s go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar blue cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation—in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all the oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name’s Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want—hell, we’re old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can’t stay, got to see a woman about a breach birth, then I’ve got a little smoke-inhalation job to do in Omaha. And that thin voice is crying, “I love you, Tigger! I love you! I believe in you, Tigger! I will always love you and believe in you, and I will stay young, and the only Oz to ever live in my heart will be that gentle faker from Nebraska! I love you . . .” We cruise . . . my son and I . . . because the essence of it isn’t war or sex but only that sickening, noble, hopeless battle against Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. He and I, in our white van under this bright Florida sky, we cruise. And the red flasher is hooded, but it is there if we need it . . . and none need know but us because the soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can . . . and tends it.

How long have you known about him?” I asked Jesse, using my free hand to gesture toward his guest. “Forever. Nearly as long as I did about you.” “God, Jesse. Why didn’t you say anything?” “He was a shadow of you.” Jesse shrugged. “His background is diluted, his dragon blood les strong. Even with you in his proximity, I wasn’t certain any of his drakon traits would emerge. He hasn’t anywhere near your potential.” “Pardon me,” Armand said, freezingly polite, “but he is still right here with you in this room.” “Do you mean…I did it?” I asked. “I made him figure it out? What he is?” Jesse gave me an assessing look. “Like is drawn to like. We’re all three of us thick with magic now, even if it’s different kinds. It’s inevitable that we’ll feed off one another. The only way to prevent that would be to separate. And even then it might not be enough. Too much has already begun.” “I don’t want to separate from you,” I said. “No.” Jesse lifted our hands and gave mine a kiss. “Don’t worry about that.” Armand practically rolled his eyes. “If you two are quite done, might we talk some sense tonight? It’s late, I’m tired, and your ruddy chair, Holms, is about as comfortable as sitting on a tack. I want to…” But his voice only faded into silence. He closed his eyes and raised a hand to his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose. I noted again those shining nails. The elegance of his bones beneath his flawless skin. Skin that was marble-pale, I realized. Just like mine. “Yes?” I said, more gently than I’d intended. “Excuse me. I’m finding this all a bit…impossible to process. I’m beginning to believe that this is the most profoundly unpleasant dream I’ve ever been caught in.” “Allow me to assure you that you’re awake, Lord Armand,” I retorted, all gentleness gone. “To wit: You hear music no one else does. Distinctive music from gemstones and all sorts of metals. That day I played the piano at Tranquility, I was playing your father’s ruby song, one you must have heard exactly as I did. Exactly as your mother would have. You also have, perhaps, something like a voice inside you. Something specific and base, stronger than instinct, hopeless to ignore. Animals distrust you. You might even dream of smoke or flying.” He dropped his arm. “You got that from the diary.” “No, I got that from my own life. And damned lucky you are to have been brought into this world as a pampered little prince instead of spending your childhood being like this and still having to fend for yourself, as I did.” “Right. Lucky me.” Armand looked at Jesse, his eyes glittering. “And what are you? Another dragon? A gargoyle, perchance, or a werecat?” “Jesse is a star.” The hand went up to conceal his face again. “Of course he is. The. Most. Unpleasant. Dream. Ever.” I separated my hand from Jesse’s, angling for more bread. “I think you’re going to have to show him.” “Aye.” A single blue eye blinked open between Armand’s fingers. “Show me what?

Want Could Kill Me Xandria Phillips for Dominique I know this from looking into store fronts taste buds voguing alight from the way treasure glows when I imagine pressing its opulence into your hand I want to buy you a cobalt velvet couch all your haters’ teeth strung up like pearls a cannabis vineyard and plane tickets to every island on earth but my pockets are filled with lint and love alone touch these inanimate gods to my eyelids when you kiss me linen leather gator skin silk satin lace onyx marble gold ferns leopard crystal sandalwood mink pearl stiletto matte nails and plush lips glossed in my 90s baby saliva pour the glitter over my bare skin I want a lavish life us in the crook of a hammock incensed by romance the bowerbird will forgo rest and meals so he may prim and anticipate amenity for his singing lover call me a gaunt bird a keeper of altars shrines to the tactile how they shine for you fold your wings around my shoulders promise me that should I drown in want-made waste the dress I sink in will be exquisite

We have taxes upon every article that enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to feel, smell, or taste; taxes on everything in the earth, or in the waters under the earth; on everything that comes from abroad or that is grown at home ; taxes on the raw material; taxes on every value that is added to it by the industry of man ; taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and on the drug which restores him to health ; on the ermine which covers the judge, and the rope that hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride; — on bed and board — couchant or levant — we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages a taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon which has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of one hundred pounds for the privilege of presiding at his death-bed. His whole property is then taxed from two to twenty per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel ; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more.

She felt so stupid for spending thousands of dollars on that kitchen renovation. You don’t get marble in a home you don’t plan to die in.

He was glad of the smell of floor wax and fresh linen. But the room was full of dreadful religious artifacts. On the marble dresser stood a statue of the Virgin with the naked red heart on her breast, lurid, and disgusting to look at. A crucifix lay beside it, with a twisting, writhing body of Christ in natural colors even to the dark blood flowing from the nails in his hands. He looked at the bearded Jesus, the finger pointing to the crown of thorns around his heart. Maybe they were all crazy. Maybe he would go crazy himself if he didn't get out of this house.

I lifted the book, firing two words down the bond between us before I blasted my shields up again. Conversation over. 'Like hell it is,' he snarled. A thrum of power caressed my fingers, and then the book sealed shut between my hands. My nails dug into the leather and paper- to no avail. Bastard. Arrogant, presuming bastard. Slowly, I lifted my eyes to him. And I felt... not hot temper- but icy, glittering rage. I could almost feel that ice at my fingertips, kissing my palms. And I swore there was frost coating the book before I hurled it at his head. He shielded fast enough that it bounced away and slid across the marble floor behind us. 'Good,' he said, his breathing a bit uneven. 'What else do you have, Feyre?' Ice melted to flame, and my fingers curled into fists. And the High Lord of the Night Court honestly looked relieved at the sight of it- of that wrath that made me want to rage and burn. A feeling, for once. Not like that hollow cold and silence. And the thought of returning to that manor with the sentries and the patrols and the secrets... I sank back into my chair. Frozen once more. 'Any time you need someone to play with,' Rhys said, pushing the plate toward me on a star-flecked wind, 'whether it's during our marvellous week together or otherwise, you let me know.' I couldn't muster up a response, exhausted from the bit of temper I'd shown. And I realised I was in a free fall with no end. I had been for a while. From the moment I'd stabbed that Fae youth in the heart.

We ate three tiny, geometrically engineered appetizers, including a perfect cube of kabocha squash-flavored fish cake and an octopus "salad" consisting of one tiny piece of octopus brushed with a plum dressing. Then the waitress uncovered and lit the burner in the center of the table and set a shallow cast-iron pan on top. She poured a thin layer of sauce from a pitcher. Sukiyaki is all about the sauce, a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar. It's frankly sweet. Usually I'm a tiresome person who complains about overly sweet food, but where soy sauce is involved, I make an exception, because soy sauce and sugar were born to hang. The waitress set down a platter of thin-sliced Wagyu beef, so marbled that it was nearly white. She asked if we wanted egg. This time I was prepared: only for me, thanks. Then she cooked us each a slice of beef. It was tender enough to cut with your tongue against the roof of your mouth. While we sighed over the meat, she began adding other ingredients to the pan: napa cabbage, tofu, wheat gluten (fu), fresh shiitake mushrooms, shirataki noodles, chrysanthemum leaves (shungiku), and, of course, negi. Suggested tourist slogan: Tokyo: We put negi in it. Then we were left to cook the rest of the meat and vegetables ourselves. I think we nailed it. (Actually, it's impossible to do it wrong.) Like chanko nabe and all Japanese hot pots, sukiyaki gets better as the meal goes on, because the sauce becomes more concentrated and soaks up more flavor from the ingredients cooking in it.