Menace Anime Quotes

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He snaps a shot of Cornbread and presses send, flinching when the bird flaps at him threateningly. I think he’s cute, Henry responds. that’s because you can’t hear all the menacing gobbling Yes, famously the most sinister of all animal sounds, the gobble. “You know what, you little shit,” Alex says the second the call connects, “you can hear it for yourself and then tell me how you would handle this—” “Alex?” Henry’s voice sounds scratchy and bewildered across the line. “Have you really rung me at three o’clock in the morning to make me listen to a turkey?” “Yes, obviously,” Alex says. He glances at Cornbread and cringes. “Jesus Christ, it’s like they can see into your soul. Cornbread knows my sins, Henry. Cornbread knows what I have done, and he is here to make me atone.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3: ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever. And then comes literature's most famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear." All well and good, but here's the way I would handle it: BERTIE: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves? JEEVES: No, Sir. BERTIE: Then why is your tummy rumbling? JEEVES: Pardon me, Sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us. BERTIE: Animal? What animal? JEEVES: A bear, Sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner. BERTIE (as narrator): I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak and it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult for me to find a formula. "Advise me, Jeeves," I yipped. "What do I do for the best?" JEEVES: I fancy it might be judicious if you were to make an exit, Sir. BERTIE (narrator): No sooner s. than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed across country by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off Roger Bannister's mile. Who can say which method is superior?" (As reproduced in Plum, Shakespeare and the Cat Chap )
P.G. Wodehouse (Over Seventy: An Autobiography with Digressions)
Swinging the spatula, he smacks Leo in the head, the loud thwack echoing though the kitchen. "Shit!" Leo winces, "What the hell was that for?" "The table isn't set," Lorenzo says. "What are we, animals?"?
J.M. Darhower (Menace (Scarlet Scars, #1))
The younger man stepped away from the table and came toward me, his whole posture radiating menace. Every Darre woman is taught to deal with such behavior from men. It is an animal trick that they use, like dogs ruffling their fur and growling. Only rarely is there an actual threat behind it, and a woman's strength lies in discerning when the threat is real and when it is just hair and noise.
N.K. Jemisin (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance, #1))
It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze.
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
The wolf turned to Rachel. She was afraid to run, afraid fleeing would make it chase her. Somewhere in the stored files of her mind, she remembered one should not look directly at a menacing dog, but she couldn’t take her eyes from it.
G.G. Collins (Reluctant Medium (Rachel Blackstone #1))
From the vast, invisible ocean of moonlight overhead fell, here and here, a slender, broken stream that seemed to plash against the intercepting branches and trickle to earth, forming small white pools among the clumps of laurel. But these leaks were few and served only to accentuate the blackness of his environment, which his imagination found it easy to people with all manner of unfamiliar shapes, menacing, uncanny, or merely grotesque. He to whom the portentous conspiracy of night and solitude and silence in the heart of a great forest is not an unknown experience needs not to be told what another world it all is - how even the most commonplace and familiar objects take on another character. The trees group themselves differently; they draw closer together, as if in fear. The very silence has another quality than the silence of the day. And it is full of half-heard whispers, whispers that startle - ghosts of sounds long dead. There are living sounds, too, such as are never heard under other conditions: notes of strange night birds, the cries of small animals in sudden encounters with stealthy foes, or in their dreams, a rustling in the dead leaves - it may be the leap of a wood rat, it may be the footstep of a panther. What caused the breaking of that twig? What the low, alarmed twittering in that bushful of birds? There are sounds without a name, forms without substance, translations in space of objects which have not been seen to move, movements wherein nothing is observed to change its place. Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the world in which you live! ("A Tough Tussle")
Ambrose Bierce (Ghost Stories (Haunting Ghost Stories))
Thomas stared in horror at the monstrous thing making its way down the long corridor of the Maze. It looked like an experiment gone terribly wrong—something from a nightmare. Part animal, part machine, the Griever rolled and clicked along the stone pathway. Its body resembled a gigantic slug, sparsely covered in hair and glistening with slime, grotesquely pulsating in and out as it breathed. It had no distinguishable head or tail, but front to end it was at least six feet long, four feet thick. Every ten to fifteen seconds, sharp metal spikes popped through its bulbous flesh and the whole creature abruptly curled into a ball and spun forward. Then it would settle, seeming to gather its bearings, the spikes receding back through the moist skin with a sick slurping sound. It did this over and over, traveling just a few feet at a time. But hair and spikes were not the only things protruding from the Griever’s body. Several randomly placed mechanical arms stuck out here and there, each one with a different purpose. A few had bright lights attached to them. Others had long, menacing needles. One had a three-fingered claw that clasped and unclasped for no apparent reason. When the creature rolled, these arms folded and maneuvered to avoid being crushed. Thomas wondered what—or who—could create such frightening, disgusting creatures.
James Dashner (The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1))
I often sit over against myself, as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnameable active principle that calls itself to life has adapted itself even to this form. All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;—it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct—it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought—it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude—it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness. Thus we live a closed, hard existence of the utmost superficiality, and rarely does an incident strike out a spark. But then unexpectedly a flame of grievous and terrible yearning flares up. Those
Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)
life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;—it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct—it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought—it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude—it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness.
Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)
It would be nice to think that the menacing aspects of North Korea were for display also, that the bombs and reactors were Potemkin showcases or bargaining chips. On the plane from Beijing I met a group of unsmiling Texan types wearing baseball caps. They were the 'in-country' team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, there to inspect and neutralize North Korea's plutonium rods. Not a nice job, but, as they say, someone has to do it. Speaking of the most controversial reactor at Yongbyon, one of the guys said, 'No sweat. She's shut down now.' Nice to know. But then, so is the rest of North Korean society shut down—animation suspended, all dead quiet on the set, endlessly awaiting not action (we hope) or even cameras, but light.
Christopher Hitchens (Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays)
California, Labor Day weekend...early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Fricso, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur...The Menace is loose again, the Hell's Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety miles an hour down the center stripe, missing by inches...like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a monster steed with a fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter's leg with no quarter asked and non given; show the squares some class, give em a whiff of those kicks they'll never know...Ah, these righteous dudes, they love to screw it on...Little Jesus, the Gimp, Chocolate George, Buzzard, Zorro, Hambone, Clean Cut, Tiny, Terry the Tramp, Frenchy, Mouldy Marvin, Mother Miles, Dirty Ed, Chuck the Duck, Fat Freddy, Filthy Phil, Charger Charley the Child Molester, Crazy Cross, Puff, Magoo, Animal and at least a hundred more...tense for the action, long hair in the wind, beards and bandanas flapping, earrings, armpits, chain whips, swastikas and stripped-down Harleys flashing chrome as traffic on 101 moves over, nervous, to let the formation pass like a burst of dirty thunder...
Hunter S. Thompson (Hell's Angels)
What’s his name?” His voice is still quiet, but it’s also different. A little menacing. “Wh-whose name?” His head tilts, and it reminds me of the nature channel when they show a wild animal stalking its prey. “The man who laid his hands on you. Tell me his name.
S.J. Tilly (Nero (Alliance, #1))
I think he’s cute, Henry responds. that’s because you can’t hear all the menacing gobbling Yes, famously the most sinister of all animal sounds, the gobble. “You know what, you little shit,” Alex says the second the call connects, “you can hear it for yourself and then tell me how you would handle this—” “Alex?” Henry’s
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
The enemy stopped shooting, and that strict, menacing, inaccessible, and elusive line that separates two enemy armies became all the more clearly felt. “One step beyond that line, reminiscent of the line separating the living from the dead, and it’s the unknown, suffering, and death. And what is there? who is there? there, beyond this field, and the tree, and the roof lit by the sun? No one knows, and you would like to know; and you’re afraid to cross that line, and would like to cross it; and you know that sooner or later you will have to cross it and find out what is there on the other side of the line, as you will inevitably find out what is there on the other side of death. And you’re strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and surrounded by people just as strong and excitedly animated.” So, if he does not think it, every man feels who finds himself within sight of an enemy, and this feeling gives a particular brilliance and joyful sharpness of impression to everything that happens in those moments.
Leo Tolstoy
There was once a beautiful boy Who cried 'Wolf', every night. He would tell everyone he saw Of the animals azure eyes, The throat-gripping terror and fright. His friends and lovers came in droves With sticks & words, threats and stoves. They loved his beauty and wanted him safe Of the menacing claws, he said lived inside a cave. Every night with will anew, They waited and plotted beatings Black and blue. Nights turned to dusk Lovers to strangers, Days to years, The wolf never came His stories they couldn't bear to hear. So lived the gorgeous boy, Icy winter nights alone, Still muttering about the wolf So beastly and regal, it needed a throne. He spoke about its glistening fur, Razor sharp claws, yellowed breath And treacherous purr. How the wolf would howl every night, At a monstrous moon Far away and stark bright. He heard its padded steps From miles away Horrified by the wildness, Its softly heaving chest would betray. Alone the boy, with the beautiful smile Died In time to realise The wolf only ever howled inside.
Kakul Gautam
If the experience is familiar and known as safe, the brain’s stress system will not be activated. However, if the incoming information is initially unfamiliar, new or strange, the brain instantly begins a stress response. How extensively these stress systems are activated is related to how threatening the situation appears. It’s important to understand that our default is set at suspicion, not acceptance. At a minimum, when faced with a new and unknown pattern of activity, we become more alert. The brain’s goal at this point is to get more information, to examine the situation and determine just how dangerous it might be. Since humans have always been the deadliest animal encountered by other humans, we closely monitor nonverbal signals of human menace, such as tone of voice, facial expression and body language.
Bruce D. Perry (The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook)
life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;—it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct—it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought—it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude—it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness.” ― All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front [Classics Illustrated])
Here am I, a little animal called a man--a bit of vitalized matter, one hundred and sixty-five pounds of meat and blood, nerve, sinew, bones, and brain,--all of it soft and tender, susceptible to hurt, fallible, and frail. I strike a light back-handed blow on the nose of an obstreperous horse, and a bone in my hand is broken. I put my head under the water for five minutes, and I am drowned. I fall twenty feet through the air, and I am smashed. I am a creature of temperature. A few degrees one way, and my fingers and ears and toes blacken and drop off. A few degrees the other way, and my skin blisters and shrivels away from the raw, quivering flesh. A few additional degrees either way, and the life and the light in me go out. A drop of poison injected into my body from a snake, and I cease to move--for ever I cease to move. A splinter of lead from a rifle enters my head, and I am wrapped around in the eternal blackness. Fallible and frail, a bit of pulsating, jelly-like life--it is all I am. About me are the great natural forces--colossal menaces, Titans of destruction, unsentimental monsters that have less concern for me than I have for the grain of sand I crush under my foot. They have no concern at all for me. They do not know me. They are unconscious, unmerciful, and unmoral. They are the cyclones and tornadoes, lightning flashes and cloud-bursts, tide-rips and tidal waves, undertows and waterspouts, great whirls and sucks and eddies, earthquakes and volcanoes, surfs that thunder on rock-ribbed coasts and seas that leap aboard the largest crafts that float, crushing humans to pulp or licking them off into the sea and to death--and these insensate monsters do not know that tiny sensitive creature, all nerves and weaknesses, whom men call Jack London, and who himself thinks he is all right and quite a superior being.
Jack London (The Cruise of the Snark)
We learned two reasons for the submissiveness of Bushmen. One reason is that it is not in their nature to fight, not in their experience to deal with people other than themselves. They would much rather run, hide, and wait until a menace has passed than defend themselves forcefully, quite unlike the Bantus, who in the past have waged great wars. But Bushmen misunderstand confrontational bravery. The heroes of their legends are little jackals who trick, lie, and narrowly escape, rather than larger, bolder animals such as lions (who in the Kalahari are something of a master race). In the Bushmen’s stories, lions are always being scalded, singed, duped, cuckolded, or killed.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (The Harmless People)
The big cat cages also stank in the heat. This was before zoos built natural habitats with boulders and waterfalls, and the cages back then were painfully small, the animals miserable. The Bengal tiger had flies creeping all over its eyelids, and he didn’t even blink. There was a kid throwing peanuts at him, and Lecia somehow menaced the boy into stopping. When I grew up and discovered the German poet Rilke, it was this zoo’s sorry-looking cats that I thought back to. As a young poet, Rilke had been sent by the sculptor Rodin to study zoo animals, and he captured in a few lines the same frustrated power that I sensed that day in the dull-coated panther: It seems there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
Mary Karr (The Liars' Club)
I think that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world.… The supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Charles Murray (By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission)
the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world.… The supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. —ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America
Charles Murray (By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission)
Darwin’s Bestiary PROLOGUE Animals tame and animals feral prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral: the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile, rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile. Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural, while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel crowned a creature in some mythological mural. Scientists think there is something immoral in singular brutes having meat that is plural: beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral. Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral; the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile: when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel. 1. THE ANT The ant, Darwin reminded us, defies all simple-mindedness: Take nothing (says the ant) on faith, and never trust a simple truth. The PR men of bestiaries eulogized for centuries this busy little paragon, nature’s proletarian— but look here, Darwin said: some ants make slaves of smaller ants, and end exploiting in their peonages the sweating brows of their tiny drudges. Thus the ant speaks out of both sides of its mealy little mouth: its example is extolled to the workers of the world, but its habits also preach the virtues of the idle rich. 2. THE WORM Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain, lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button, deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit: nobody gave the worm much credit till Darwin looked a little closer at this spaghetti-torsoed loser. Look, he said, a worm can feel and taste and touch and learn and smell; and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers, and love can turn them into hustlers, and as to work, their labors are mythic, small devotees of the Protestant Ethic: they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland, south to the rain forests, north to Iceland, fifty thousand to every acre guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor, churning the soil and making it fertile, earning the thanks of every mortal: proud Homo sapiens, with legs and arms— his whole existence depends on worms. So, History, no longer let the worm’s be an ignoble lot unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Moral: even a worm can turn. 3. THE RABBIT a. Except in distress, the rabbit is silent, but social as teacups: no hare is an island. (Moral: silence is golden—or anyway harmless; rabbits may run, but never for Congress.) b. When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit, kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit. (Moral: to thine own self be true—or as true as you can; a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.) c. He populates prairies and mountains and moors, but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors. (Moral: to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles; to understand purity, ponder your freckles.) d. Survival developed these small furry tutors; the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters. (Conclusion: you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.) 4. THE GOSSAMER Sixty miles from land the gentle trades that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay sift a million gossamers, like tides of fluff above the menace of the sea. These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean; the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging, small aeronauts on some elusive mission. The Megatherium, done to extinction by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson: for survival, it’s the little things that count.
Philip Appleman
I think that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world.… The supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. —ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest functionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work. —FRIEDRICH VON HAYEK, The Road to Serfdom A Note on Presentation By
Charles Murray (By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission)
When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch. After Prince Andrew's death Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt this. Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact. Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to dinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before them. Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain. They spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very unimportant matters. Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of a future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that what they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in words, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before their eyes. Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything that might lead up to the subject—this halting on all sides at the boundary of what they might not mention—brought before their minds with still greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling.
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
At a time when I believed what people told me, I should have been tempted to believe Germany, then Bulgaria, then Greece when they proclaimed their pacific intentions. But since my life with Albertine and with Françoise had accustomed me to suspect those motives they did not express, I did not allow any word, however right in appearance of William II, Ferdinand of Bulgaria or Constantine of Greece to deceive my instinct which divined what each one of them was plotting. Doubtless my quarrels with Françoise and with Albertine had only been little personal quarrels, mattering only to the life of that little spiritual cellule which a human being is. But in the same way as there are bodies of animals, human bodies, that is to say, assemblages of cellules, which, in relation to one of them alone, are as great as a mountain, so there exist enormous organised groupings of individuals which we call nations; their life only repeats and amplifies the life of the composing cellules and he who is not capable of understanding the mystery, the reactions and the laws of those cellules, will only utter empty words when he talks about struggles between nations. But if he is master of the psychology of individuals, then these colossal masses of conglomerate individuals facing one another will assume in his eyes a more formidable beauty than a fight born only of a conflict between two characters, and he will see them on the scale on which the body of a tall man would be seen by infusoria of which it would require more than ten thousand to fill one cubic milimeter. Thus for some time past the great figure of France, filled to its perimeter with millions of little polygons of various shapes and the other figure of Germany filled with even more polygons were having one of those quarrels which, in a smaller measure, individuals have. But the blows that they were exchanging were regulated by those numberless boxing-matches of which Saint-Loup had explained the principles to me. And because, even in considering them from the point of view of individuals they were gigantic assemblages, the quarrel assumed enormous and magnificent forms like the uprising of an ocean which with its millions of waves seeks to demolish a secular line of cliffs or like giant glaciers which, with their slow and destructive oscillation, attempt to disrupt the frame of the mountain by which they are circumscribed. In spite of this, life continued almost the same for many people who have figured in this narrative, notably for M. de Charlus and for the Verdurins, as though the Germans had not been so near to them; a permanent menace in spite of its being concentrated in one immediate peril leaving us entirely unmoved if we do not realise it.
Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7])
From an essay on early reading by Robert Pinsky: My favorite reading for many years was the "Alice" books. The sentences had the same somber, drugged conviction as Sir John Tenniel's illustrations, an inexplicable, shadowy dignity that reminded me of the portraits and symbols engraved on paper money. The books were not made of words and sentences but of that smoky assurance, the insistent solidity of folded, textured, Victorian interiors elaborately barricaded against the doubt and ennui of a dreadfully God-forsaken vision. The drama of resisting some corrosive, enervating loss, some menacing boredom, made itself clear in the matter-of-fact reality of the story. Behind the drawings I felt not merely a tissue of words and sentences but an unquestioned, definite reality. I read the books over and over. Inevitably, at some point, I began trying to see how it was done, to unravel the making--to read the words as words, to peek behind the reality. The loss entailed by such knowledge is immense. Is the romance of "being a writer"--a romance perhaps even created to compensate for this catastrophic loss--worth the price? The process can be epitomized by the episode that goes with one of my favorite illustrations. Alice has entered a dark wood--"much darker than the last wood": [S]he reached the wood: It looked very cool and shady. "Well, at any rate it's a great comfort," she said as she stepped under the trees, "after being so hot, to get into the--into the--into what?" she went on, rather surprised at not being able to think of the word. "I mean to get under the--under the--under this, you know!" putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. "What does it call itself, I wonder? I do believe it's got no name--why to be sure it hasn't!" This is the wood where things have no names, which Alice has been warned about. As she tries to remember her own name ("I know it begins with L!"), a Fawn comes wandering by. In its soft, sweet voice, the Fawn asks Alice, "What do you call yourself?" Alice returns the question, the creature replies, "I'll tell you, if you'll come a little further on . . . . I can't remember here". The Tenniel picture that I still find affecting illustrates the first part of the next sentence: So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arm. "I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight. "And dear me! you're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed. In the illustration, the little girl and the animal walk together with a slightly awkward intimacy, Alice's right arm circled over the Fawn's neck and back so that the fingers of her two hands meet in front of her waist, barely close enough to mesh a little, a space between the thumbs. They both look forward, and the affecting clumsiness of the pose suggests that they are tripping one another. The great-eyed Fawn's legs are breathtakingly thin. Alice's expression is calm, a little melancholy or spaced-out. What an allegory of the fall into language. To imagine a child crossing over from the jubilant, passive experience of such a passage in its physical reality, over into the phrase-by-phrase, conscious analysis of how it is done--all that movement and reversal and feeling and texture in a handful of sentences--is somewhat like imagining a parallel masking of life itself, as if I were to discover, on reflection, that this room where I am writing, the keyboard, the jar of pens, the lamp, the rain outside, were all made out of words. From "Some Notes on Reading," in The Most Wonderful Books (Milkweed Editions)
Robert Pinsky
Yet few are as deep-rooted and damaging as the habitual tendency to view the sensuous earth as a subordinate space—whether as a sinful plane, riddled with temptation, needing to be transcended and left behind; or a menacing region needing to be beaten and bent to our will; or simply a vaguely disturbing dimension to be avoided, superseded, and explained away.
David Abram (Becoming Animal)
Food animals also get antibiotics for “growth promotion,” a metabolically mysterious process that has made possible the entire high-volume, low-margin business of industrial-scale farming. Since the 1950s, when two pharma company scientists discovered that feeding chicks the waste products from drug manufacturing made them put on weight much faster, many U.S. farmers have been giving tiny doses of antibiotics to cattle, swine, and poultry.34
Maryn McKenna (Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA)
a massive, battle-scarred animal with long waves of wet, dark hair falling past his heavy pectorals, his arms corded with muscle, his legs long and bulging with power. Through the bars that separated them, his blue eyes glowed with menace and his mouth parted as if it were just a matter of seconds before her blood was on his tongue. And he was naked. Dear God, the only thing on him was a blinking collar around his thick throat— As a scent of dark spices reached her nose, it was a shock to like the way he smelled. Given all that menace, stale sweat and the fresh flesh of his victims seemed more up his alley, yet instead, she found herself breathing deep, her body kindling in a way she couldn’t understand.
J.R. Ward (Prisoner of Night (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #16.5))
Roundtree’s Taxidermy Shop was as dark as a cave and twice as mysterious. From the shadows of its dim interior, white fangs and sharp claws gleamed menacingly at the two boys. Near the door, a huge grizzly bear reared on its hind legs as if ready to pounce on any customer who caused its master displeasure. Mr. Roundtree, a short, plump man, shuffled about in flapping slippers. As the boys entered, he was completing the sale of a mounted wolf’s head to a man in a tan raincoat and slouch hat. Joe glanced curiously at the animal, then turned with Chet to a display case of glass eyes.
Franklin W. Dixon (The Short-Wave Mystery (Hardy Boys, #24))
In spite of the shock that Snowball's expulsion had given them, the animals were dismayed by this announcement. Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments. Even Boxer was vaguely troubled. He set his ears back, shook his forelock several times, and tried hard to marshal his thoughts; but in the end he could not think of anything to say. Some of the pigs themselves, however, were more articulate. Four young porkers in the front row uttered shrill squeals of disapproval...But suddenly the dogs sitting round Napoleon let out deep, menacing growls, and the pigs fell silent...
George Orwell (Animal Farm)
The supermarket was a twenty-minute walk. Shay used the time to work on the thumb drive’s password. Supposedly, the files on the drive were filled with horrible and inhumane things being done to animals, but Shay’s only interest in discovering the password was to learn who
John Sandford (Uncaged (The Singular Menace #1))
Before Iris had an opportunity to respond, a loud noise, one that almost sounded like some type of animal, suddenly drifted into the drawing room from the hallway—mixed with the sound of what could only be pounding feet. Immediately heading for the door, Bram stopped in his tracks when he reached the hall and a sight he’d certainly not been expecting to see met his gaze. Miss Plum was running toward him, her gown practically falling off her, as if it hadn’t been fastened all the way up in the back. She didn’t seem at all concerned with the idea that she was giving him, and anyone else, an eyeful of her chemise, corset, and . . . charms—probably because she was running as if her very life depended on it, holding up the skirt of her dress as she flew ever closer to him, the lifting of that skirt giving him an unobstructed view of legs that were well turned out and feet that were . . . bare. “Don’t just stand there, Mr. Haverstein. Do something about your goat,” she yelled as she pounded past him. The word goat had him looking down the hallway, and sure enough, a goat was charging his way, and not just any goat, but Geoffrey—one of the meanest goats Bram had ever had the misfortune of owning. What the beast was doing inside the castle, he really couldn’t say, but since Geoffrey held an intense dislike for females, or more specifically, females wearing dresses, Bram surged into motion, hoping to intercept the goat before it managed to catch up with Miss Plum. Unfortunately, Geoffrey seemed determined to get past Bram, so with a butt of its head, it sent Bram sprawling and continued charging after its prey, bleating in a menacing sort of way.
Jen Turano (Playing the Part (A Class of Their Own, #3))
The animals were thoroughly frightened. It seemed to them as though Snowball were some kind of invisible influence, pervading the air about them and menacing them with all kinds of dangers. In the evening Squealer called them together, and with an alarmed expression on his face told them that he had some serious news to report.
George Orwell (1984 & Animal Farm)
His snowshoe paws are encased in chains as he hops on his hind legs. On his forehead was placed a wreath of thorns, crimson and blasphemous it was. His eyes were drenched in white, no colors can be discerned whatsoever in the reflection of his pupils, only a harrowing stillness of nothingness can be glimpsed through his gaze. He was the image of a ghostly figure, his silhouette swirling like the clouds in the loftiest mountains in eternal Paradise; a divine messenger before all animals and humanity. He wears shimmering chest armor resembling the scorching rays of the sunlight, with a fire crown of thorns burning on his forehead, which embodies the colors of the Earth's horizon, showcasing seventeen stars in its center. He had a voluminous, metallic beard, which was made of arctic sand from the Northern Winter lands - it was wizardly like - something out of a mythical folk tale that comes from a children's novel. His body glistens like the shattered fragments from the Moon, with his fur appearing like green moss surrounded by waterfalls flowing from each corner on his appearance - evolving into snowflakes, ice, as well as winter storms if you inflict your might at his anguish. He’s a supernatural being that all the Witches of the globe worshiped. He is greater, more superior, more virtuous than all deities people pray to on Earth. He’s the lunar father of all the Heavens and Earth, the All-father of all Animals and Mankind. When you see the Hare flying in the skies of the Universe, He’s bestowing the blessings of Sprout, Summer, Autumn, Winter. As the Hare Lunar King steps on the green grass, the mountains will begin to shake, the oceans will become huge typhoons, earthquakes will rumble across the nations as mankind annihilates each other in the guise of the Hare Lunar Emperor. However, the hare will grieve for all humankind, for he knows that the Earth is devoid of vengeance, so he must demolish it in preparation to reconstruct it from a pristine foundation. That future is nigh, that soon will arrive - it’s unfolding as I converse. The Lunar Rabbit King is coming back with his swarm of rabbits - mankind will not evade the menace of long ears - for their King will tell the sinister world with a voice of a thundering lion roar, ‘it is completed! go into the depths of your abysmal eternity, and enslave yourself as the locust of the earth in the fires of tribulation, for you will be tormented from sunrise to sunset, where sunlight is no more; forevermore.
Chains On The Rabbit, The Lunar God Of All, The Fall Of Mankind Fantasy Poem by D.L. Lewis
The animals were thoroughly frightened. It seemed to them as though Snowball were some kind of invisible influence, pervading the air about them and menacing them with all kinds of dangers.
George Orwell (Animal Farm)
In the west, owls were often seen as a symbol of wisdom, but in Japan and China, they were considered wicked animals that would consume their own family or masters to grow stronger. It was such an ingrained idea that the kanji for “owl” (梟) could also be found in menacing compound kanji words. For example, the word for a person who rose to power through bloodshed was created by taking the word for “hero” (英, which means great. And 雄, which means strong. Together forming 英雄,) and replacing the “great” with “owl,” creating 梟雄. Or that was what my grandpa told me, at least. As I watched the clash between the two Gollems, I was strongly reminded of that little fact. Gien had betrayed his own homeland in his thirst for power, much like the owls of my homeland’s legend. Apparently, the compound kanji for a decapitated criminal’s head on display was made by adding the “owl” kanji to the front of the kanji for “neck” or “head” (首), creating 梟首. It was based on the idea of nailing the bird’s corpse to a tree, so all could see its crimes.
Patora Fuyuhara (In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 16)
Shmi tried to smile at him. She whispered, “I love…” and went horribly, finally still. Anakin stared at her numbly. After a moment, he reached over and closed her eyes. The Tusken Raiders did this. Animals, Cliegg called them—they’re worse than animals. They’re…they’re…vicious, mind less, murdering things. I’ll show them! I’ll get them all! Oh, Mom.
Patricia C. Wrede (Star Wars: Prequel Trilogy: Collecting The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith (Disney Junior Novel (eBook)))
In her eye , he saw a menacing glint. He unhooked his rope and began to sprint.
Molly Fernandes (Owen's Afternoon Tea: A rhyming story about a boy who loves birds takes the reader on a journey to discover the largest eagle in the Amazon. A story ... of animals in an action packed adventure.)
I’ll leave it to the reader to imagine what the journey must have been like for those poor animals, tied together and carried upside down by their claws, by a man who, in the grips of so many passions, had a gesture to accompany each thought agitating his mind. One moment he was punching the air in a rage, the next he was raising his arms in despair, and the next waving them menacingly, all the while shaking the birds violently and jiggling their four dangling heads up and down. Through it all, they kept pecking at one another, as is too often the case with fellows in misfortune.
Alessandro Manzoni (The Betrothed: A Novel)
The laughter of men is difficult to get used to at first. I can never tell if the laughter is a threat or not. It rumbles through your chest like a stampede of horses, low and jolting. In the animal world, to bare your teeth is not a sign of kinship; it is a sign of war. Even having been in the company of men for the last year, I'm still not quite used to it. . . . The laughter of men can turn to menace so quickly that even as I laugh alongside them, my own teeth are set on edge. I'm too tense to enjoy the meal before us.
Aminah Mae Safi (Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix (Remixed Classics))
♪ Go, Teen Titans, go Go, Teen Titans, go ♪ Go, Teen Titans, go Go, go, go, go, go ♪ T-double-E-N-T-I-T-A-N-S ♪ We the real heroes Takin' down the big menace ♪ Teen Titan flows ♪ Teen Titan knows ♪ Where there's real trouble, baby ♪ Teen Titans go ♪ Go, Teen Titans, go Go, Teen Titans, go Ugh. Morons. ♪ Beast Boy I can turn straight up into an animal ♪ Animal? ♪ Animal? ♪ Yes, any animal ♪ Boom, pow Yeah, I'm a kitten now Aw! ♪ Check out my kitten meow ♪ The star, the fire The live, the wire ♪ The alien princess in my alien attire ♪ The energy blasts The supersonic speed ♪ Is she down with the Titans? ♪ Oh, the yes indeed ♪ Booyah, booyah Go my cannon blaster ♪ Cyborg, whoo, baby Mr. High Tech Master ♪ What, what, what? ♪ Mr. Meatball Disaster ♪ What, what, what? ♪ Mr. Boom Boom Blaster ♪ Teen Teen Titans The Titans, the Teen Titans ♪ Teen Teen Titans The Titans, the Teen Titans ♪ Teen Teen Titans The Titans, the Teen Titans ♪ Teen Teen Titans The Titans, the Teen Titans ♪ Boom with the smoke bombs and birdarangs ♪ Bow staff hittin' steady Doin' my thang ♪ Robin, Robin, the leader Robin, Robin, in charge ♪ Show 'em your baby hands! ♪ No Robin, Robin's are large Nah, but for real, man. Those some super-small baby hands. No, they're not. Whatever. Just keep going, just keep going! ♪ Go, Teen Titans, go Go, Teen Titans, go ♪ Go, Teen Titans, go Go, Teen Titans, go ♪ Raven is here to drop it On you even harder ♪ There's no darker than me I'm as dark as can be ♪ Check it Azarath Metrion Zinthos ♪ Teleportin', magical powers We adios ♪ Teen Teen Titans The Titans, the Teen Titans ♪ Teen Teen Titans, the Titans The Teen Titans ♪ Teen Titans Go! ♪
Meredith Day (Teen Titans Go! To The Movies: Screenplay)
Her heart thundered away against the inside of her ribs, the sound loud in the relative silence of the room and the flutter pulsing against his skin between their clothes. Her breathing pushed her breasts against her shirt. Against him. Despite the fear pumping adrenaline through her system, she gazed at him with wide eyes that showed an inexplicable trust that grated against him like a sandpaper sponge bath. “What are you going to do to me?” she whispered. Almost like she was daring him. “You’re a mate,” he said. “So?” “Mates are like catnip to my kind—an obsession, a driving urge to find our own. What if I took you now, claimed you, pushed my fire into you?” Her lips fell open on a silent gasp, but fear didn’t reflect back at him even still. “You’d kill me if you aren’t my destined mate.” So, someone had at least warned her of the deadly consequences should the wrong man try to turn her. Had she listened? He squeezed her wrists a little harder, pressing into her so she couldn’t mistake the heavy cock pressing into her belly. “Yes.” “You’d lose a part of your soul as well,” she pointed out. He allowed his lips to tip up in what he fully intended to be a menacing smile. “Perhaps it’s worth it.” She stared back at him for a long minute. Then, suddenly, her heart quieted, her breathing slowed, her body relaxing under his. “Go ahead.” She was fucking daring him. Inside his head, his dragon growled, but not a warning, more like approval. The animal side of him liked this woman. That scared the hell out of him enough to have him fighting the foreign urge to scramble off her. When he said nothing, she tipped her head. “Just like I thought. All bark.” Bulls facing off against a matador in a ring dealt with less provocation than this woman was daring to throw at him. “You talk a good game,” she continued. “But you won’t hurt me.” Irritation spiked and swirled with a rushing need that had gripped him since the second she’d stepped in front of him in the hangar and he’d recognized her. Drake slammed his mouth over hers, his kiss both full of frustration, but also determined to frighten her into some semblance of self-preservation. He kissed her harshly, wildly, even as he continued to pin her to the bed. Except she didn’t whimper or turn away or struggle. Instead, Cami opened her mouth and licked the full seam of his lips, demanding entrance. Fuck. Gods help him, he opened, tangling his tongue with hers, reveling in the give and take. Her flavor melted across his tongue, sweet and tart at the same time, imprinting on his mind. A glow vaguely penetrated his senses behind his closed eyes, followed by a burst of heat that seemed to be originating from her. Almost as fast as it happened, Drake jerked back with a hiss, staring at a glowing spot under her white tank top. The source of the heat. Definitely a dragon mate. Which meant off-limits. Another shifter’s mate. With a groan he rolled away from her, flopping to his back, and flung an arm over his eyes, doing his damnedest to convince his dick to get its head out of the game. “You need to get out of here.
Abigail Owen (The Enforcer (Fire’s Edge, #3))
It's a new direction for you, though, isn't it? Menacing waterfowl?" "I think I prefer the kittens," Harry said. He'd been silent until then. "You dislike moody animals, even if they're beautiful, Harry?" Genevieve teased. "I dislike believing things are one way when they're really another way entirely." And if that wasn't an innuendo, Genevieve didn't know what one was. She just didn't know if he was referring to his own heart, or to 'her', in general. But that could very well be her conscience interpreting it. She sighed. She felt a certain kinship with that swan. Everyone thought Genevieve Eversea was serenity and purity itself. When she really was capable of... alarmingly original behavior.
Julie Anne Long (What I Did for a Duke (Pennyroyal Green, #5))
Gregori placed his hands over the wounds, closed his eyes, and went seeking out of his own body and into the one lying so hideously wounded, as still as death. Mikhail felt Raven’s stirring of pain. She flinched and tried to move away, tried to fade so that this new, painful sensation could not touch her. Mikhail surrounded her effortlessly, held her still for Gregori to do the intricate work of repairing damaged organs. Relax into it, little one. I am here in this place with you. I can’t do this. It was more a feeling than words. So much pain. Choose for us, then, Raven. You will not go alone. “No!” Jacques’s protest was sharp. “I know what you do, Mikhail. Drink now, or I will not continue the transfusion.” Fury welled up, shook Mikhail out of his semi-stupor. Jacques met the rage in his dark eyes with deliberate calm. “You are too weak from loss of blood to oppose me.” “Then let me feed.” There was cold fury, black as night, in those words. Pure menace, the threat of death. Jacques exposed his throat without hesitating, managing to prevent a groan of pain as Mikhail bit deep, fed hungrily, ferociously, like a savage animal. Jacques did not struggle or make a sound, offering up his life for his brother and Raven. Eric moved toward them as Jacques’s knees buckled and he sat down hard, but Jacques motioned him away. Mikhail lifted his head abruptly, his shadowed features so haunted and grief-stricken, Jacques ached for him. “Forgive me, Jacques. There is no excuse for my treatment of you.” “There is nothing to forgive when I offer freely,” Jacques whispered raggedly. Eric moved immediately to his side, supplying Jacques with blood. “How could anyone do such a thing to her? She is so good, so courageous. She risked her life to help a stranger. How could someone want to harm her?” Mikhail asked, raising his eyes toward the heavens. Silence was his only answer.
Christine Feehan (Dark Prince (Dark, #1))
I found myself inspecting the scenery for signs and clues, for something that might explain the wrenching nature of my dream. I was aware that wolves had once roamed freely through these mountains and valleys, until they were deemed a menace and stamped out. I was aware, too, of the animal’s tentative reintroduction to the landscape—small, carefully bred packs released into closely monitored pockets of wilderness to slowly reinhabit a terrain that had once been their own.
Francisco Cantú (The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border)