“
...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.
”
”
John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas)
“
Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.
”
”
Robert Higgs
“
She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love.
He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love.
He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises.
She had desperately wanted his promises.
She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get.
Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation.
He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving.
If he stopped moving, he would self-destruct.
If he stopped wandering, he would have to face himself.
He chose to stay in the dark where he couldn’t see.
If he exposed himself and the sun came out, he’d see his shadow.
He was deathly afraid of his shadow.
She saw his shadow, loved it, understood it. Saw potential in it.
She thought her love would change him.
He pushed and he pulled, tested boundaries, thinking she would never leave.
He knew he was hurting her, but didn’t know how to share anything but pain.
He was only comfortable in chaos. Claiming souls before they could claim him.
Her love, her body, she had given to him and he’d taken with such feigned sincerity, absorbing every drop of her.
His dark heart concealed.
She’d let him enter her spirit and stroke her soul where everything is love and sensation and surrender.
Wide open, exposed to deception.
It had never occurred to her that this desire was not love.
It was blinding the way she wanted him.
She couldn’t see what was really happening, only what she wanted to happen.
She suspected that he would always seek to minimize the risk of being split open, his secrets revealed.
He valued his soul’s privacy far more than he valued the intimacy of sincere connection so he kept his distance at any and all costs.
Intimacy would lead to his undoing—in his mind, an irrational and indulgent mistake.
When she discovered his indiscretions, she threw love in his face and beat him with it.
Somewhere deep down, in her labyrinth, her intricacy, the darkest part of her soul, she relished the mayhem.
She felt a sense of privilege for having such passion in her life.
He stirred her core.
The place she dared not enter.
The place she could not stir for herself.
But something wasn’t right.
His eyes were cold and dark.
His energy, unaffected.
He laughed at her and her antics, told her she was a mess.
Frantic, she looked for love hiding in his eyes, in his face, in his stance, and she found nothing but disdain.
And her heart stopped.
”
”
G.G. Renee Hill (The Beautiful Disruption)
“
People like death and mayhem.
”
”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“
There I was, casually wishing that I could stop existing in the same way you'd want to leave an empty room or mute an unbearably repetitive noise.
”
”
Allie Brosh (Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened)
“
Spurred by Amy’s death I’ve tried to salvage unwilling victims from the mayhem of the internal storm and am always, always just pulled inside myself.
”
”
Russell Brand
“
Let's skip [Mobile Infantry] tradition for a moment. Can you think of anything sillier than being fired out of a spaceship with nothing but mayhem and sudden death at the other end? However, if someone must do this idiotic stunt, do you know a surer way to keep a man keyed up to the point where he is willing than by keeping him constantly reminded that the only good reason why men fight is a living, breathing reality?
"In a mixed ship [men and women] the last thing a trooper hears before a drop (maybe the last word he ever hears) is a woman's voice, wishing him luck. If you don't think this is important you've probably resigned from the human race.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers)
“
let’s imagine that 95 percent of the food on Earth magically disappears tonight, guaranteeing that almost all of us will starve to death within two months. Law and order collapse. Chaos and mayhem ensue. Who among us will still be alive a year from now? Will it be the biggest, strongest, and most violent individuals in each town? Or will it be the people who manage to work together in groups to monopolize, hide, and share the remaining food supplies among themselves?
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
“
The widower glanced at her wedding ring and contemplated a solitary life with his son, but then the mayhem of his marital allegiance resurfaced, and he decided not to betray her.
”
”
Laura Gentile (Within Paravent Walls)
“
Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans had starved to death or died of disease under Robert Mugabe; the more incredible story was how so many millions managed to survive. They refused to become victims.
”
”
Douglas Rogers (The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa)
“
A thin snow started to spit out of grumpy gray skies. Which meant, Eve knew, that at least fifty percent of the drivers currently on the road would lose a minimum of one-third of their intelligence quotient, any skill they’d previously held at operating a vehicle thereby turning what had been the standard annoying traffic into mayhem.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Devoted in Death (In Death, #41))
“
The potency of myth is that it allows us to make sense of mayhem and violent death. It gives a justification to what is often nothing more than gross human cruelty and stupidity. It allows us to believe we have achieved our place in human society because of a long chain of heroic endeavors, rather than accept the sad reality that we stumble along a dimly lit corridor of disasters. It disguises our powerlessness.
”
”
Chris Hedges (War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning)
“
The best=laid plans, one's most fastidious contingency strategies have revealed themselves in the cold light of day to be laughably inadequate, no match for the happenstance that seems of late only to promise death, mayhem, poverty, flood. And here you are, having spent all that time protecting your home from the oncoming elements only to find that it has been shored up with crackers.
”
”
David Rakoff (Half Empty)
“
Only in death are we no longer part of project mayhem
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
No one spoke much, as if to speak was to affirm reality. To remain silent was to accommodate the possibility that it all was merely a nightmare. The silence reached up to the cathedral ceiling and cluttered there, echoing sadness an unseen mayhem, as if too many souls were rising at once. We were existing somewhere between life and death, with neither accepting us fully.
”
”
Susan Abulhawa (Mornings in Jenin)
“
WARNING: This novel deals with undead and crazy murderous cannibalistic people. There are no depictions of ponies gaily prancing across pastures as cute bunnies nibble on carrots contained herein. BUT there are numerous depictions of violence, murder, blood, mayhem, and yes, even gore.
”
”
William Bebb (Valley Of Death, Zombie Trailer Park)
“
Numb to the words you have left heavy on my skin.
Dipped with malice and edged with regret, it's within these shadows you have sanctioned my death.
And how naive to once think us equal pillars, when really you were my soul killer. No noble knight, no sheltered haven. Just another devil casting mayhem.
”
”
A.Y. Greyson (Midnight Fog)
“
At the battle of Waterloo, men formed squares into which the wounded were brought for medical care. At the height of the battle, in the madness of the cannonading and death, the riderless horses of the cavalry, the caisson horses of the slaughtered gun crews attempted to penetrate the squares to be saved by the humans. And in the First World War, men subjected to unparalleled mayhem were stricken more by the plight of the horses than anything else. There is a special grief for the innocent caught up in mankind’s murderous follies.
”
”
Thomas McGuane
“
You only break out the good stuff when you want something. Usually something that includes blood, death, and/or mayhem.
”
”
Alexandra Ivy (Darkness Eternal (Guardians of Eternity, #7.6))
“
Unfortunately it is perhaps in all our natures that we take the living for granted until they are no longer with us. - Thomas Bond
”
”
Sarah Pinborough (Mayhem)
“
Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television. No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure. That is why even on news shows which provide us daily with fragments of tragedy and barbarism, we are urged by the newscasters to “join them tomorrow.” What for? One would think that several minutes of murder and mayhem would suffice as material for a month of sleepless nights. We accept the newscasters’ invitation because we know that the “news” is not to be taken seriously, that it is all in fun, so to say.
”
”
Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business)
“
the endless riding of horses to their deaths bearing flags or banners or the tentlike tapestries painted with portraits of the Virgin carried on poles into battle as if the mother of God herself were authoress of all that calamity and mayhem and madness.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Cities of the Plain (The Border Trilogy, #3))
“
We think of ourselves as more enlightened, more developed than the “primitive” peoples our civilizations have supplanted, yet in all our advancement, we are responsible for more death, more suffering, more murder and mayhem than any period in recorded history.
”
”
John Lewis (Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change)
“
No one spoke much, as if to speak was to affirm reality. To remain silent was to accommodate the possibility that it all was merely a nightmare. The silence reached up to the cathedral ceiling and cluttered there, echoing sadness an unseen mayhem, as if too many souls were rising at once. We were existing somewhere between life and death, with neithe accepting us fully.
”
”
Susan Abulhawa (Mornings in Jenin)
“
Hero Intercedes”:
His hands flickered upward, and before I knew it, they were cupping my face. So, damnably fast now. Demonic-like fast. Trent reeled me closer. Our foreheads joined. He held me, while I trembled in his arms. I was vaguely aware of Evans and Maxwell watching, although it didn’t seem important. Nothing seemed important whenever he did this. It felt like we were enclosed in our own personal bubble made only for the two of us. Trent murmured something in my ear.
We stood like that until my shaky legs gradually regained strength. I shut my eyes and pretended my body wasn’t sizzling with heat-lightning because Trent stood so close. My hormones always decided to rebel whenever he put his arms around me. And it wasn’t totally awkward and uncomfortable.
No, it felt like the best thing I’d experienced since before Dad’s death. And that’s saying a lot.
”
”
Sherry J. Soule (Moonlight Mayhem (Spellbound Prodigies #3))
“
npposiuAt the battle of Waterloo, men formed squares into which the wounded were brought for medical care. At the height of the battle, in the madness of the cannonading and death, the riderless horses of the cavalry, the caisson horses of the slaughtered gun crews attempted to penetrate the squares to be saved by the humans. And in the First World War, men subjected to unparalleled mayhem were stricken more by the plight of the horses than anything else. There is a special grief for the innocent caught up in mankind’s murderous follies.
”
”
Thomas McGuane
“
Her eyes narrowing, she turned her attention back to where Stephanie stood with Ben, feeling her own pain turn to intense fury. “Dominic knew her so damn well because he was usually thinking the same thing. She was his female version – two halves fitting perfectly together,” Gena spat out, anger inflected in her voice. “Like him, she’s reckless and like him, once she gets something into her head nothing or no one will change her mind.” Her fury revealed itself in her eyes, as she spat out, “And, like him, she’s going to get herself killed.” - Gena Evans, Nowhere to Run
”
”
Nina D'Angelo (Nowhere to Run (Stephanie Carovella #1))
“
It was as she remembered, a haven of comfort and serenity. With a glad sigh, she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the side of the bed.Smiling, she patted the mattress beside her.
Her husband scowled. It seemed to have become his habit. "We aren't here to relax."
"Wolscroft may not even be in the area. It could take days for this to be settled."
"He's here," Dragon said with certainty. "He will know what happened at Winchester, and he will be looking for a way to stop us before we can threaten him further."
Privately, Rycca believed the same but she saw no reason to stress it. Nothing would happen until dark. Of that she was confident. Which meant...
"We have hours to fill.Any ideas?"
When he realized her meaning,he looked startled. With a laugh,she scrambled off the bed and went to him.
"Oh,Dragon,for heaven's sake, do you really want to mope around here all day? I certainly don't. I still haven't gotten over being afraid Magnus was going to kill you,and I simply don't want to think about death anymore. I want to celebrate life."
"There are three hundred men out there-"
"Which is why we're in here." She raised herself on tiptoe, bit the lobe of his ear, and whispered, "I promise not to yell too loudly."
A shudder ran through him. Even as his big hands stroked her back,he said, "Warriors don't mope."
"No,of course they don't.It was a poor choice of words.But you'll be pacing back and forth, looking out the windows, or you'll go get that whetstone I noticed in the stable and sharpen your sword endlessly, or you'll be staring off into space with that dangerous look you get when you're contemplating mayhem. You'll be totally oblivious to me and-"
He laughed despite himself and drew her closer. "Enough! Heaven forbid I behave so churlishly."
"Speaking of heaven..."
With the covers kicked back,the bed was smooth and cool.They undressed each other slowly, relishing the wonder of discovery that still came to them fresh and pure as their very first time.
"Remember?" Rycca murmured as she trailed her lips along his broad, powerfully muscled shoulder and down the solid wall of his chest. "I was so nervous..."
"Really?" Fooled me....Ah..."
"I'd never seen anything so beautiful as you."
"Not...beautiful...you are..."
"I can't believe how strong you are. Why am I never afraid with you?"
"Know I'd die 'fore hurting you? Sweetheart..."
"Ohhh! Dragon...please..."
His hands and lips moved over her, sweetly tormenting. She clutched his shoulders, her hips rising, and welcomed him deep within her. Still he tantalized her, making her writhe and laughing when she squeezed him hard with her powerful inner muscles. But the laughter turned quickly to a moan of delight.
She looked up into his perfectly formed face,more handsome than any man had a right to be, and into his tawny eyes that were the windows of a soul more beautiful than any physical form. A piercing sense of blessedness filled her that she should be so fortunate as to love and be loved by such a man.
Her cresting cry was caught by him, hismouth hard against hers, the spur to his own completion that went on and on,seemingly without end.
”
”
Josie Litton (Come Back to Me (Viking & Saxon, #3))
“
Many people are being dragged toward wholeness in their daily lives, but because they do not understand initiation rites, they cannot make sense of what is happening to them. They are being presented with the possibility of rebirth into a different life. Through failures, symptoms, inferiority feelings and overwhelming problems, they are being prodded to renounce life attachments that have become redundant. The possibility of rebirth constellates with the breakdown of what has gone before. But because they do not understand, people cling to the familiar, refuse to make the necessary sacrifices, resist their own growth. Unable to give up their habitual lives, they are unable to receive new life.
Unless cultural rituals support the leap from one level of consciousness to another, there are no containing walls within which the process can happen. Without an understanding of myth or religion, without an understanding of the relationship between destruction and creation, death and rebirth, the individual suffers the mysteries of life as meaningless mayhem—alone.
”
”
Marion Woodman (The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation)
“
Watching the early Keystone flicks today, their weaknesses are as apparent as their strengths. Plots are vaporous and repeatedly recycled. Acting can veer into wild pantomime. Racial and ethnic stereotypes abound. Much screen time is merely filler before the next round of mayhem. Still, you wait for the infectious moment when the uppity heiress lands in the lake or the Keystone Kops give chase in cars, bicycles, and shoes but can’t quite catch the crook. Or when, again and again, a fat man falls.
”
”
Greg Merritt (Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood)
“
What changed your mind?”
“I never changed my mind.” Stitch grunted as he threw the bag as far as he could into the black water.
Zak sighed, rushed toward him, and pulled him away from the shore. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the water getting rough in the moonlight as reptiles crept closer in the darkness, ready for some fresh meat. “Will you come back home with me?” he uttered, cold sweat sliding down his back.
Stitch took a deep breath and held onto Zak’s hand. “If you’ll have me,” he whispered. “This was such a shit day, wasn’t it?”
Zak squeezed his hand tightly with a shuddery sigh. A man who had trembled with pleasure in his bed turned into gator feed, and Zak was choosing to betray him. The death could still be discovered, they could still be charged with murder, but he was determined to keep himself in one piece. “I just want to kiss you so badly.”
Stitch bowed down to him and gave the kiss Zak so deeply craved. His soft, warm lips were somehow making all the black thoughts flee into the depths of Zak’s mind. “I can’t please everyone.” His voice was so weak it was getting lost in the sounds of splashing water and buzzing insects.
Zak pushed himself against Stitch and gasped as adrenaline shot into his brain. Stitch’s scent was sharper than ever, spiked with all the stress and fear of the passing day. “I love you.”
“I know, I love you too.” Stitch kissed Zak’s lips once more and stroked the side of his head. “Let’s go home.
”
”
K.A. Merikan (Road of No Return: Hounds of Valhalla MC (Sex & Mayhem, #1))
“
Nudity and explicit sex are far more easily available now than are clear images of death. The quasi-violence of movies and television dwells on the lively acts of killing – flying kicks, roaring weapons, crashing cars, flaming explosions. These are the moral equivalents of old-time cinematic sex. The fictional spurting of gun muzzles after flirtation and seduction but stop a titillating instant short of actual copulation. The results of such aggressive vivacity remain a mystery. The corpse itself, riddled and gaping, swelling or dismembered, the action of heat and bacteria, of mummification or decay are the most illicit pornography.
The images we seldom see are the aftermath of violent deaths. Your family newspaper will not print photos of the puddled suicide who jumped from the fourteenth floor. No car wrecks with the body parts unevenly distributed, no murder victim sprawled in his own juices. Despite the endless preaching against violent crime, despite the enormous and avid audience for mayhem, these images are taboo.
”
”
Sean Tejaratchi (Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook)
“
Don Marquis: ‘Mayhem, death and arson have followed many a thoughtless kiss not sanctioned by a person.’ There
”
”
Khushwant Singh (On Love and Sex)
“
It is much better to be “bored” but alive somewhere else.
”
”
Selco Begovic (The Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival: The Brutal Truth About Violence, Death, & Mayhem You Must Know to Survive)
“
The problem is, describing that kind of mental fuckery is like trying to describe the color of fog to someone. It's so subtle and shifting, there are so many variables that combine to make it what it is, and often no one else is around to witness it. So instead of telling someone the fog is ephemeral and cloying, tinted orange by the fledgling light of a waking sun, filling our heart with a combination of wonder and dread; we tell them the fog is gray. We tell them it's gray because that's the easier explanation, and because we're afraid that when we go into great detail and try to explain something so changeable and fleeting, we'll be met with raised eyebrows and a nod that tells us we're only being humored.
”
”
Sterling Thomas (Murder and Other Mayhem (The Real-Death Adventures of Lorelai Byrne, #2))
“
Well, Princess…” Lance speared her with a dazzling grin. “I don’t know about you, but battling ancient curses gives me a wicked appetite. What do you say to going halfsies on that giant kettle of soup?” Marigold choked on something dangerously close to laughter. Imprisoned until death, and his most pressing concern was his stomach? He was such… such a man.
”
”
Erica Ridley (Kissed by Magic (Mayhem & Magic #1))
“
In other words, the majority of common folks had food a or couple of days in their pantry and that was it.
”
”
Selco Begovic (The Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival: The Brutal Truth About Violence, Death, & Mayhem You Must Know to Survive)
“
Draco Malfoy was the boy who had no choice. Dominated by his overbearing father, coerced by the Death Eaters, cowed into fear of life of Voldemort, his actions are not his own. They were the actions of a boy whose agency has been ripped from him. He could not make his own decisions, and the turn his life had taken terrified him.
”
”
Tom Felton (Beyond the Wand: The Magic & Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard)
“
Grieving for their future, men and women often took their own lives. Others died when they could not maintain the feverish pace of the march. While the mortality rate of slaves during the Second Middle Passage never approached that of the transatlantic transfer, it surpassed the death rate of those who remained in the seaboard states. Over time some of the hazards of the long march abated, as slave traders - intent on the safe delivery of a valuable commodity - standardized their routes and relied more on flatboats, steamboats, and eventually railroads for transportation. The largest traders established 'jails,' where slaves could be warehoused, inspected, rehabilitated if necessary, and auctioned, sometimes to minor traders who served as middlemen in the expanding transcontinental enterprise. But while the rationalization of the slave trade may have reduced the slaves' mortality rate, it did nothing to mitigate the essential brutality or the profound alienation that accompanied separation from the physical and social moorings of home and family.
...
[T]he Second Middle Passage was extraordinarily lonely, debilitating, and dispiriting. Capturing the mournful character of one southward marching coffle, an observer characterized it as 'a procession of men, women, and children resembling that of a funeral.' Indeed, with men and women dying on the march or being sold and resold, slaves became not merely commodified but cut off from nearly every human attachment. Surrendering to despair, many deportees had difficulties establishing friendships or even maintaining old ones. After a while, some simply resigned themselves to their fate, turned inward, and became reclusive, trying to protect a shred of humanity in a circumstance that denied it. Others exhibited a sort of manic glee, singing loudly and laughing conspicuously to compensate for the sad fate that had befallen them. Yet others fell into a deep depression and determined to march no further. Charles Ball, like others caught in the tide, 'longed to die, and escape from the bonds of my tormentors.'
But many who survived the transcontinental trek formed strong bonds of friendships akin to those forged by shipmates on the voyage across the Atlantic. Indeed, the Second Middle Passage itself became a site for remaking African-American society. Mutual trust became a basis of resistance, which began almost simultaneously with the long march. Waiting for their first opportunity and calculating their chances carefully, a few slaves broke free and turned on their enslavers. Murder and mayhem made the Second Middle Passage almost as dangerous for traders as it was for slaves, which was why the men were chained tightly and guarded closely.
”
”
Ira Berlin (Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves)
“
Islam’s blasphemy codes are probably the aspect of Islamic intolerance best known in the West today—because mayhem and murders routinely break out whenever Western people criticize Islam and its prophet. YouTube videos and European cartoons about Muhammad, academic papal speeches, and even teddy bears have occasioned mass riots, death, and destruction all around the Islamic world.
”
”
Raymond Ibrahim (Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians)
“
Don’t fuck with an old lady, you shitty kid,” I yelled. “I have a lifetime of asshole tricks up my sleeve. They’re all right behind my Kleenex and my emergency Advil.” Mind you, I was doing all this in no bra, sweatpants, and leather slippers with shearling lining. “Sara,” I asked, “when we all get together for dinner in a restaurant, do you think other people see a group of old people having dinner instead of—us?” “Yeah,” she said after she thought for a moment. “Yeah, I think they see old people.” And that’s a trip, because when I look at Sara, I still see Sara. I see Sara as she was at twenty-seven. She hasn’t changed to me. Most of my friends haven’t changed, in my opinion. Jim lost his hair, but so what? Lots of guys shave their heads. Sandra has a couple of gray hairs in her long, jet-black hair. And yet, some of our friend group has died. From heart attacks. Pancreatitis. Liver failure. Drug overdoses. Suicides. Cancer. Aneurysms. We were stunned by each of those deaths. Honestly, drug overdoses and suicides are almost easier to take than pancreatitis and heart attacks, because those diseases rarely happen to kids our age. And then one day, your body stops working. It can be sudden, like throwing out your back while shaving your legs, and it just never goes back to normal. You live the rest of your days with a “bad back.” Then there’s the opposite; there’s the creep. In your thirties, a nerve pings in your hand, like someone has plucked a rubber band inside it. It’s startling and odd. In another five years, your hands start to tingle a little bit when you’re typing, and you buy a pair of hand braces to wear at night. In the next five years, you can’t open a jar, and in the five years after that, they suddenly fall asleep and you have to elicit a hearty round of applause to no one to wake them back up and make them functional again. And no one prepared me for that. I noticed that my nana’s fingers were oddly formed, racked with arthritis, but she never explained that they hadn’t always been like that. She never told me that once, a long time ago, she had hands just like mine, until she felt that first ping. And that’s the weird thing. As a young person, you assume all old people were just always that way—unfortunate. They came like that. And, as an old person, you think that young people surely understand that yesterday, you were just like them.
”
”
Laurie Notaro (Excuse Me While I Disappear: Tales of Midlife Mayhem)
“
York City, as bloodthirsty mobs of enraged working-class Whites roamed Midtown Manhattan “armed with clubs, pitchforks, iron bars, swords, and many with guns and pistols,” looking for any African Americans they could find.1 Marching through the streets, those with weapons fired toward anyone in their way, even at New York City policemen. On the corner of Twenty-Ninth Street, “a crowd who had been engaged all day in hunting down and stoning to death every negro they could spy” lingered in plain view of the Twenty-First Precinct police station. It was undermanned because thousands of New York State Militia troops who would have served as backup had been sent to the Battle of Gettysburg.2 Nothing was spared. The Colored Orphan Asylum at Forty-Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, home to more than two hundred disadvantaged Black children, had been burned to the ground. Horses pulling streetcars had been shot to death and the cars smashed to pieces. The homes of prominent abolitionists were being looted and destroyed. Railroad tracks had been torn up and telegraph wires cut. Dozens of public buildings, including churches, were ransacked and torched. Even the house of the New York City mayor, George Opdyke, was raided and set on fire. It was mayhem. Ever since President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, the city’s poorest Whites feared that freed slaves would migrate to Manhattan and steal their jobs. Then in March, Congress passed the Enrollment Act, which made all able-bodied adult males immediately eligible to be drafted into the Union Army. This reality sank in when the names of New York City draftees were published leading up to “Draft Week.” Making matters worse was that under the Enrollment Act, any wealthy man could escape the draft by paying a $300 fee (the equivalent of more than $6,500 today).3 He would be replaced by some poor fellow who simply couldn’t afford to pay that.
”
”
Claude Johnson (The Black Fives: The Epic Story of Basketball's Forgotten Era)
“
In an instant, the weight of her own beliefs began to crush her. The noise in her head grew deafening. The mitote, that war of words within the human mind, the thing that Miguel had turned into a familiar mythology, was suddenly real. It seemed that every human on the planet was yelling at her or at someone else. Everybody was shouting, nagging, arguing against the truth, and their noise was unbearable. There was anger and raw fear behind the noise, and the intensity was shocking. Even more shocking was the realization that every voice was hers. Every argument, assumption, and conclusion was a part of her own thought process; every judgment came from her. Every complaint and contradiction was a reflection of her. She was the mayhem, the deafening noise in her own head. She was the liar, the deranged storyteller. She had imagined herself to be an angel of life, but death was closing in now and dulling her senses. All she could hear were messages of fear. Terror seared her brain until, suddenly unleashed, it thundered through the ruins of Teotihuacan.
”
”
Miguel Ruiz (The Toltec Art of Life and Death)
“
What is that noise?” Trisfelt yelled at the page. “It’s the palace evacuation klaxon!” the page replied, running up to Trisfelt. “Evacuation?” Trisfelt asked. The page nodded. “Lord Gandros has sounded the alarm to evacuate; apparently there is a major arcane battle going on in the grand foyer that is liable to cause death and generalized mayhem!” “Worse than when the demons all exploded from the basement?” Trisfelt asked. The page shrugged. “Apparently.
”
”
J.L. Langland (The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan, #2))
“
You could beat an orphan to death with a dead nun and not deserve what will happen to you if Mr. Burke catches us. I don't want to overhype him, but the man is mentally unhinged!
”
”
Jeff Strand (The Andrew Mayhem Collection 4-Book Bundle)
“
Did his brothers and the men now believe him dead? Would they blame themselves?
Aye, they would. Iain would curse himself for giving up his command and seeking a new life with Annie. Connor would hate himself, believing that he’d left Morgan to die when he ought to have saved him. Joseph would wonder why he hadn’t foreseen Morgan’s death in a dream. Even the men would blame themselves, Dougie most of all, for ‘twas he whose life Morgan had stayed behind to save.
Och, the bletherin’ idiots!
What they ought to do is get good and bloody drunk! They should play the pipes, curse the English in his name, and send him off to hell with a bit of mayhem, giving Wentworth a bad night’s sleep. That would be a fitting farewell.
”
”
Pamela Clare (Untamed (MacKinnon's Rangers, #2))
“
Then again, NHEs generally meant death and mayhem, so the average person would probably run the other way even if Gray had rainbows coming out of his butt.
”
”
Jordan L. Hawk (Eater of Lives (SPECTR, #4))
“
More often, medical trainees can be likened to frogs in slowly boiling water. We see sickness and death constantly, and if we are not careful, the doctor we had hoped to become will burn out. Out of necessity we create shells that protect and isolate us; sometimes it hurts too much to repeatedly feel another’s pain. We laugh at things that are not funny. We discuss people in a dehumanized, detached way.
”
”
Brent Rock Russell (Miracles and Mayhem in the ER: Unbelievable True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor)
“
Watcher of the Gate, let us die and die again, the little deaths that mean growth and change. Let the parts of us that need to die go, and the parts that need to live stay. May we pass through your doorway in glory when the last dying comes!
”
”
Sandy Nathan (Mogollon: A Tale of Mysticism & Mayhem (Bloodsong Series Book 2))
“
May God who gives patience…and encouragement help you to live in complete harmony with each other.… —Romans 15:5 (TLB) HOLY SATURDAY: LIVING IN HARMONY Depending on which source you consult, Americans spend forty-five minutes to an hour each day waiting: waiting in lines, waiting for files to download, sitting in traffic…waiting. If you ever spy me waiting in traffic, I look patient. I am not. My demeanor masks a very angry man who is contemplating mayhem. I once sat in my car in a highway construction zone on a hot summer afternoon beside a flashing sign that read, SLOW DOWN! YOUR CURRENT SPEED IS 0 MILES AN HOUR. I thought the long wait might cause overheating and then a blown gasket—and I don’t mean the car. It takes a special kind of person to be given a life of unfathomable gifts (food, drink, leisure time, central air) and then complain about occasional delays in living that life. I could, for instance, spend that time enjoying music or praying or pondering my existence rather than pondering mayhem, but no. I have chosen to seethe. Meanwhile, somewhere a child waits for rice from the back of a UN truck. A mother waits for a husband missing in Afghanistan. A couple waits for word about an adoption. A young man in a faraway time waits for the welcome death to end His suffering, accompanied by nothing but two thieves and vinegar mixed with some gall. Lord, I realize that’s what I have: gall. To grumble with such pettiness takes a lot of gall. Perhaps I’ve found something else to ponder the next time I await Your return when I have lost sight of You. —Mark Collins Digging Deeper: Ps 27:14; Mi 7:7
”
”
Guideposts (Daily Guideposts 2014)
“
(OSCAR - – -) “When you become sensitive to forces outside and inside yourself, you become sort of a light to others in this world and beyond. It is at this stage that you become very vulnerable to your own vices and weaknesses. The thing that lives under the bed is real—it always has been and it always will be. Walls can’t stop it. Concrete can’t stop it, steel can’t stop it; it slips past a lead, titanium, or garlic buffer like a hot knife through butter. The one and only force that can stop it is you. You never have to take delivery on any package in this realm or others if you remember that they always need your signature. You have the power to stop all of this if you choose, and you should always do so until you find out the entities’ purpose and motives. You are the sentry of your own mind and body, so challenge whomever or whatever wants to come to visit. If it’s beneficial and loving, it will wait or recede until you are ready. If it’s not at all friendly, you and only you have the power to send it back to where it came from, until you give up the right. The strong will eat the weak. What the weak have to remember is that power is a choice given to all. Die on your feet or die on your knees, you decide … death will come to all.
”
”
D.R. Schervish (The Mayhem Wrangler)
“
I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted to catch him as a sort of late birthday present. Because your party...well, it kinda sucked, and you deserve to get something you really want for your birthday. Something other than death, horror, and mayhem.
”
”
Rachel Vincent (Soul Screamers Volume Four (Soul Screamers, #0.4, 7, 7.5))
“
verb \swon\ to swear, derivative of swannee I swan, raising kids is like being pecked to death by a chicken
”
”
Amy Metz (Murder & Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction)
“
On August 12, 1933, President Machado fled Cuba with ABC terrorists shooting at his laden airplane as it prepared to take off from the long hot runway. He left Cuba without any continuity of leadership and a smooth transfer of authority to the next administration became impossible in Havana.
American envoy, Sumner Welles stepped into the vacuum and encouraged Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada to accept the office of Provisional President of Cuba. Céspedes was a Cuban writer and politician, born in New York City, son of Carlos Manual de Céspedes del Castillo who was a hero of the Cuban War of Independence. Wearing a spotlessly clean, crisp white suit, Céspedes was installed as the Provisional President of Cuba, on what was his 62nd birthday.
This expedient political move failed to prevent the violence that broke out in the streets. Mobs looted and behaved with viciousness that lasted for six long hours and created a mayhem not witnessed since Cuba’s Independence from Spain. Students from the university ransacked the previously pro-Machado newspaper “Heraldo de Cuba.” The Presidential Palace was stormed and severely damaged, with the culprits leaving a “For Rent” sign hanging on the front gate. The temperament of the mob that rallied against the Machado supporters, including the hated Porristas who had been left behind, was ferocious. They wounded over 200 hapless souls and cost 21 people their lives. Five members of the Porristas as well as Colonel Antonio Jimenez, the head of Machado’s secret police, were summarily shot to death and trampled upon. The rioters then tied the mutilated body of Jimenez to the top of a car and paraded his bullet-riddled carcass through the streets of Havana, showing it off as a trophy. When the howling throng of incensed people finally dumped him in front of the hospital, it was determined that he had been shot 40 times.
Students hammered away at an imposing bronze statue of Machado, until piece by piece it was totally destroyed. Shops owned by the dictator’s friends were looted and smashed, as were the homes of Cabinet members living in the affluent suburbs.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
It’s not Halloween yet, but it’s close. Devil’s Night. His night. And it reminds of a Halloween night six years ago. A night of devils and darkness, of mayhem and death. The night my life changed forever.
”
”
Jagger Cole (Reckless Hearts (Dark Hearts #6))
“
As soon as we walk out that door, you’re going to see a side of me tonight you’ve never seen before. I’m going to slaughter them, and you’ll have to see that. Think you’ll love me after?” She gripped his wrists, nodding. “In sickness in health, in life in death, in murder in mayhem, isn’t that how it goes?
”
”
RuNyx (The Emperor (Dark Verse, #3))
“
You guys are going to be the death of me,” I mumble, rubbing my hands down my face and wondering how the hell I ended up in here, with the love of my life and my husband together. Must be, like, karma or something. Or maybe it’s just balance? Maybe life has lobbed so much shit my way that she just had to give me something nice to play with? That bitch better not be just a lending library, if you know what I mean.
”
”
C.M. Stunich (Mayhem At Prescott High (The Havoc Boys, #3))
“
I will die before I surrender!
”
”
Anthony T. Hincks
“
Words flew from her lips, caught fire in his kiss. They burned together, the little death forging them into one body, their love binding them into one soul.
”
”
Grace Callaway (Her Prodigal Passion (Mayhem in Mayfair, #4))
“
Almost no one would publish his name or the circumstances of his death because in Pakistan, individual, daily sacrifice was never commemorated and instead was drowned out by the cacophony of the continual mayhem.
”
”
Adrian Levy (Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of ISI and RAW)
“
Somewhere in the mayhem, a friend gave me a copy of The Hiding Place. The back cover explained that it was about the life of Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of Nazi death camps. I was intrigued.
”
”
Corrie ten Boom (The Hiding Place)
“
I stopped by the kitchen on my way out, only to find that the cats had eaten all my food before they’d ordered the pizza. And this was after Muffin had presumably had some ham with Mayhem. Even a bottle of cheap champagne was open and empty. I glared at Muffin. He glared back. Is this how you treat your guests? I sighed. “Just try to clean up after yourself, okay?” There was no point in sticking around to hear his response. He was a cat. He was going to do whatever the heck he wanted. Lachlan was waiting for me down in the main entry hall, but my stomach was still grumbling. “You hungry?” “I could eat.” “Good. Let’s grab something from the kitchen real quick.” I led him down the stairs into the kitchen, the domain of Hans, the chef. Hans’s mustache quivered with delight when he saw us. He loved guests. “Food!” he cried. “You must eat!” “Could we have something quick to go, please? Something that won’t put you out.” “But it never puts me out, ma cherie!” He darted about the kitchen like a ballet dancer, quick and determined. A little brown rat sat on the counter, a platter of cheese in front of him. “How are you doing, Boris?” I asked. The rat nodded, looking happy. Bree had rescued him from a crazy healer about a month ago, and now he spent his days either in the kitchen, mooching off of Hans, who was only too happy to oblige, or hanging out with Hedy while she created the spells and potions that we used so often. Hans piled us high with sandwiches wrapped in paper, then he shoved a six-pack of juice boxes at Lachlan. “You must drink your juice!” For whatever reason, Hans was utterly obsessed with giving people juice. It was the strangest thing, but he clearly felt strongly about it. Since my sisters and I hadn’t had anyone caring for us since our mother’s death when we were thirteen, I really didn’t mind. “We’ll drink it. Thank you, Hans.
”
”
Linsey Hall (Institute of Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Druid, #1))
“
She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love.
He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love.
He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises.
She had desperately wanted his promises.
She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get.
Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation.
He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving.
If he stopped moving, he would self-destruct.
If he stopped wandering, he would have to face himself.
He chose to stay in the dark where he couldn’t see.
If he exposed himself and the sun came out, he’d see his shadow.
He was deathly afraid of his shadow.
She saw his shadow, loved it, understood it. Saw potential in it.
She thought her love would change him.
He pushed and he pulled, tested boundaries, thinking she would never leave.
He knew he was hurting her, but didn’t know how to share anything but pain.
He was only comfortable in chaos. Claiming souls before they could claim him.
Her love, her body, she had given to him and he’d taken with such feigned sincerity, absorbing every drop of her.
His dark heart concealed.
She’d let him enter her spirit and stroke her soul where everything is love and sensation and surrender.
Wide open, exposed to deception.
It had never occurred to her that this desire was not love.
It was blinding the way she wanted him.
She couldn’t see what was really happening, only what she wanted to happen.
She suspected that he would always seek to minimize the risk of being split open, his secrets revealed.
He valued his soul’s privacy far more than he valued the intimacy of sincere connection so he kept his distance at any and all costs.
Intimacy would lead to his undoing—in his mind, an irrational and indulgent mistake.
When she discovered his indiscretions, she threw love in his face and beat him with it.
Somewhere deep down, in her labyrinth, her intricacy, the darkest part of her soul, she relished the mayhem.
She felt a sense of privilege for having such passion in her life.
He stirred her core.
The place she dared not enter.
The place she could not stir for herself.
But something wasn’t right.
His eyes were cold and dark.
His energy, unaffected.
He laughed at her and her antics, told her she was a mess.
Frantic, she looked for love hiding in his eyes, in his face, in his stance, and she found nothing but disdain.
And her heart stopped.
”
”
G.G. Renee Hill, The Beautiful Disruption
“
Hutchins hadn’t found the malware’s command-and-control address. He’d found its kill switch. The domain he’d registered was a way to simply, instantly turn off WannaCry’s mayhem around the world. It was as if he had fired his proton torpedoes through the Death Star’s exhaust port and into its reactor core, blown it up, and saved the galaxy, but without understanding what he was doing or even noticing his action’s effects for four hours.
”
”
Andy Greenberg (Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers)
“
Agatha Christie’s first Miss Marple novel, Murder at the Vicarage, published in 1930, even included maps of the nameless village where a retired colonel is murdered in the study. The abundance of 1930s thrillers in which colonels are done to death in picturesque hamlets – the ‘Mayhem Parva’ school of writing as Colin Watson puts it – have a very particular kind of village in mind. It is in the Home Counties, ‘where there’s a church, a village inn, very handy for the odd Scotland Yard inspector and his man who come to stay for the regularly recurring crimes’.
”
”
Jeremy Paxman (The English: A Portrait of a People)
“
Even when the military pundits explained it would rip apart the city and kill untold millions in the capital, they could not be dissuaded. They relished the opportunity to attack those different from them, no matter the cost to those who lived in the blast zone. Their gods were mayhem, destruction, and death, not necessarily in that order.
”
”
Michael Anderle (Might Makes Right (The Kurtherian Gambit, #18))
“
The men on the ramparts watched in horror as they realized that the first wave of soldiers was actually comprised entirely of captured villagers from the outlying settlements—poor, imprisoned farmers forced under pain of death to push forward massive siege engines, catapults, and ballistae, assigned the cruel task of bringing destruction and mayhem to their own kinsmen. The soldiers reluctantly opened fire on these wretched saps, but even an endless stream of arrows couldn’t stem the tide of heavy equipment being brought up to the massive moat surrounding the city. To their amazement, the defenders then saw the invading barbarians shoving their prisoners into the moat—using their bodies as a living bridge over which they rolled their infernal contraptions.
”
”
Ben Thompson (Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live (Badass Series))
“
We now live in a world where murderers and terrorists can cause death and mayhem, and when the time is "right" for them, they convert to normal human values, and become a global icon and saint!
”
”
Tony Dovale
“
Awoke to find three vultures sitting on the fence. Realizing they were a portent of impending death I shot them.
”
”
Bridget Allison (Maid for Mayhem)