β
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole,but true beauty in a Woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she knows.
β
β
Audrey Hepburn
β
Alec muttered a retort into his coffee. It rhymed with something that sounded a lot more like "ducking glass mole.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
What do you think is the biggest waste of time?"
"Comparing yourself to others," said the mole.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Is your glass half empty or half full?" asked the mole.
"I think I'm grateful to have a glass," said the boy.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tyson pounding the Earthborn into the ground like a game of whack-a-mole. Ella was fluttering above him, dodging missiles and calling out advice: "The groin. The Earthborn's groin is sensitive."
SMASH!
"Good. Yes. Tyson found its groin.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
β
What is the bravest thing you've ever said? asked the boy.
'Help,' said the horse.
'Asking for help isn't giving up,' said the horse. 'It's refusing to give up.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
I wind my fingers in his hair. It's thicker than mine, and curlier, and it shines golden in the firelight. There's a mole on his cheek that I've wanted to kiss since I was 12. I do.
β
β
Rainbow Rowell (Carry On (Simon Snow, #1))
β
Hey, thanks for stopping by," Howard said. "I'd offer you some tea and cookies, but all we have is boiled mole and artichokes. Plus, we kind of have a dead girl in the living room.
β
β
Michael Grant (Lies (Gone, #3))
β
The greatest illusion," said the mole, "is that life should be perfect.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"Kind," said the boy.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Old lovers go the way of old photographs, bleaching out gradually as in a slow bath of acid: first the moles and pimples, then the shadings. Then the faces themselves, until nothing remains but the general outlines.
β
β
Margaret Atwood (Catβs Eye)
β
Wait." Isabelle suddenly sat up straight. "What did you say that name was?" she demanded, turning to Jace. "The name in Clary's head."
"I didn't," said Jace. "At least, I didn't finish it. It's Magnus Bane." He grinned at Alec mockingly. "Rhymes with 'overcareful pain in the ass.'"
Alec muttered a retort into his coffee. It rhymed with something that sounded a lot more like "ducking glass mole." Clary smiled inwardly.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
Do you have any other advice?" asked the boy.
"Don't measure how valuable you are by the way you are treated," said the horse.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
One of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
You are not a perfect woman.You have an evil temper, youβre as blind as a mole, youβre a deplorable poet, and frankly, your French accent could use some work.β Supporting himself on his elbows, Leo took her face in his hands. βBut when I put those things together with the rest of you, it makes you into the most perfectly imperfect woman Iβve ever known.
β
β
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
β
Always remember you matter, you're important and you are loved, and you bring to this world things no one else can.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
We often wait for kindness...but being kind to yourself can start now.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
I am truly tiny' said the mole
'The love inside you,' said the boy 'is as big as the universe.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
We have such a long way to go," sighed the boy
"Yes, but look how far we've come," said the horse
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Doing nothing with friends is never doing nothing, is it?' asked the boy.
'No,' said the mole.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Sometimes I worry you'll all realise I'm ordinary," said the boy.
"Love doesn't need you to be extraordinary." said the mole.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Isn't it odd. We can only see our outsides, but nearly everything happens on the inside
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, but can recapture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty in it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties.
β
β
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
β
When things get difficult remember who you are.'
'Who am I?' asked the boy
'You are loved' said the horse
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
What's your best discovery?" asked the mole.
"That I'm enough as I am," said the boy.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
This is easily my favourite place' said the mole
'Why?' asked the boy
'Because you are all here,
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Home isnβt always a place is it?
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Sometimes I think you believe in me more than I do," said the boy
"You'll catch up," said the horse.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
People who pop a painkiller at the smallest hint of a migraine, or who need anaesthetic cream to remove a mole, demand that women giving birth should gladly endure the pain, exhaustion, and mortal fear. As if thatβs maternal love. This idea of βmaternal loveβ is spreading like religious dogma. Accept Maternal Love as your Lord and Savior, for the Kingdom is near!
β
β
Cho Nam-Joo (Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982)
β
Now and then, an inch below the water's surface, the muscles of his stomach tightened involuntarily as he recalled another detail. A drop of water on her upper arm. Wet. An embroidered flower, a simple daisy, sewn between the cups of her bra. Her breasts wide apart and small. On her back, a mole half covered by a strap. When she climbed out of the pond a glimpse of the triangular darkness her knickers were supposed to conceal. Wet. He saw it, he made himself see it again. The way her pelvic bones stretched the material clear of the skin, the deep curve of her waist, her startling whiteness. When she reached for her skirt, a carelessly raised foot revealed a patch of soil on each pad of her sweetly diminished toes. Another mole the size of a farthing on her thigh and something purplish on her calf--a strawberry mark, a scar. Not blemishes. Adornments.
β
β
Ian McEwan (Atonement)
β
Step aside? I step aside for nobeast, whether it be a hallowed hedgehog, an officious otter, a seasoned squirrel, a mutterin' mole or a befuddled badger!
β
β
Brian Jacques (Taggerung (Redwall, #14))
β
Boys are just boys after all, but sometimes girls really seem to be the turn of a pale wrist, or the sudden jut of a hip, or a clutch of very dark hair falling across a freckled forehead. I'm not saying that's what they really are. I'm just saying sometimes it seems that way, and that those details (a thigh mole, a full face flush, a scar the precise shape and size of a cashew nut) are so many hooks waiting to land you.
β
β
Zadie Smith
β
Nothing beats kindness,' said the horse. 'It sits quietly beyond all things.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.
β
β
Sue Townsend (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (Adrian Mole, #1))
β
Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands
β
β
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
β
When the big things feel out of control
focus on what you love right under your nose
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
What do we do when our hearts hurt?" asked the boy.
"We wrap them with friendship, shared tears and time, till they wake hopeful and happy again.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Lovers
Don't tell all of their
Secrets.
They might
Count each other's moles
That reside in the shy
Regions,
Then keep that tally strictly
To themselves.
God and I
Have signe a contract
To be even more intimate than
That!
Though a clause
Mentions
Something about not drawing detailed maps
To all His beautiful
Laughing
Moles.
β
β
The Gift
β
What do you think success is?" asked the boy.
"To love," said the mole.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.
β
β
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
β
So you know all about me?' asked the boy.
'Yes.' said the horse.
'And you still love me?'
'We love you all the more.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Sometimes I want to say I love you all," said the mole, "but I find it difficult."
"Do you?" said the boy.
"Yes, so I say something like I'm glad we are all here."
"Ok," said the boy.
"I'm glad we are all here."
"We are so glad you are here, too.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
What's the bravest thing you've ever said?" asked the boy.
"Help," said the horse.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
How do they look so together and perfect?" asked the boy.
"There's a lot of frantic paddling going on beneath," said the horse.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Just take this step...
The horizon will look after itself.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Most of the old moles I know wish they had listened less to their fears and more to their dreams.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Pied Beautyβ
"
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
β
β
Gerard Manley Hopkins (The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins)
β
sometimes," said the horse.
"sometimes what?" asked the boy.
"Sometimes just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
When the dark clouds come...
...keep going
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigradeβwhich is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to βHow much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?β is βGo fuck yourself,β because you canβt directly relate any of those quantities.
β
β
Josh Bazell (Wild Thing (Peter Brown, #2))
β
I can't see a way through," said the boy. "Can you see your next step?" "Yes." "Just take that," said the horse.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but is is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #3))
β
We're blind moles. Creeping through the soil, feeling with our snoots. We know nothing. I perceived this . . . now I don't know where to go. Screech with fear, only. Run away.
β
β
Philip K. Dick (The Man in the High Castle)
β
Myr, your mole is interrupting my solo
β
β
Olivia Cunning (Backstage Pass (Sinners on Tour, #1))
β
I'm so small,β said the mole. βYes,β said the boy, βbut you make a huge difference.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
It was the thumbprints of human imperfection that used to move him, the flaws in the design: the lopsided smile, the wart next to the navel, the mole, the bruise. Was it consolation heβd had in mind, kissing the wound to make it better?
β
β
Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1))
β
To be honest, I often feel I have nothing interesting to say," said the fox.
"Being honest is always interesting," said the horse.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Sometimes I feel lost," said the boy.
"Me too," said the mole, "but we love you, and love brings you home.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Epic sex?" I sputtered. "By what standards, precisely, is sex judged to be epic?"
"And tons and tons of mortal simps like you used as pawns." Bob sighed happily, ignoring my question. "There are no words. It was like the Lord of the Rings and All My Children made a baby with the Macho Man Randy Savage and a Whac-A-Mole machine.
β
β
Jim Butcher (Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, #13))
β
Look,β I said to Daniel and Jamie, βwhatβs the most terrifying thing you can think of in these tunnels? Rats? Mole people?β
βEvil mastermind hell bent on killing you?β Jamie suggested.
βWrong. The most terrifying thing in these tunnels is me.β I shut the door on both of them and jumped onto the tracks.
β
β
Michelle Hodkin (The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3))
β
The mole is an animal that digs passages searching for the sun. Sometimes he reaches the surface. When he looks at the sun he goes blind.
β
β
Alejandro Jodorowsky
β
Don't measure how valuable you are by the way you are treated.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Do you have a favourite saying?" asked the boy.
"Yes" said the Mole.
"What is it?"
"If at first you don't succeed, have some cake"
"I see, does it work?"
"Every time
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse / A Poem for Every Night of the Year / A Poem for Every Day of the Year)
β
Well," I ventured as we left Salazar's office, stepping back into the long hallway. I glanced over at Kanin, Zeke and Jackal, and shrugged. "What now?"
Jackal rolled his eyes and stepped away from us. "What now is that I am going to relax for a few hours without listening to the lot of you whine at me. 'Ohhh, don't hurt the humans, ohhh, we have to save refugees from mole men, ohhh, Kanin's dying.' Ugh." He made a disgusted gesture with both hands. "It's enough to make me puke. I am going to the bar to get this taste out of my mouth. You all can do whatever you want.
β
β
Julie Kagawa (The Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden, #2))
β
Anyone who thinks cryptozoology is the study of the impossible has never really taken a very good look at the so-called "natural world." Once you get past the megamouth sharks, naked mole rats, and spotted hyenas, then the basilisks, dragons, and cuckoos just don't seem that unreasonable. Unpleasant, yes, but unreasonable? Not really.
β
β
Seanan McGuire (Discount Armageddon (InCryptid, #1))
β
Your dream is the mole
behind your ear,
that chip in your
front tooth,
your freckles.
It's the thing that makes
you special,
but not the thing that makes
you great.
The courage in trying,
the passion in living,
and the acknowledgement
and appreciation of
the beauty happening around
you does that.
β
β
Jason Reynolds (For Every One)
β
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror - indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy - but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august presence was very, very near.
β
β
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
β
this storm will pass
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
The 'sitch'? Did you watch that Kim Possible movie again? You know it only makes you sad that you don't have a naked mole-rat of your very own.'
'One, I've been watching Buffy, not Kim Possible. And two, it is so not fair that Dad won't let me get a Rufus when he lets Angel keep that stupid turtle.
β
β
Tammy Blackwell (Destiny Binds (Timber Wolves Trilogy, #1))
β
The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
β
β
Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1))
β
Raeanne
Mirror, Mirror
When I look into a
mirror,
it is her face I see.
Her right is my left, double
moles, dimple and all.
My right is her left,
unblemished.
We are exact
opposites,
Kaeleigh and me.
Mirror image identical
twins. One egg, one sperm
one zygote, divided,
sharing one complete
set of genetic markers.
On the outside we are
the same. But not
inside. I think
she is the egg, so
much like our mother
it makes me want to scream.
Cold.
Controlled.
That makes me the sperm
I guess. I take completely
after our father.
All Daddy, that's me.
Codependent.
Cowardly.
Good, bad. Left, right.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne.
One egg, one sperm.
One being, split in two.
And how many
souls?
β
β
Ellen Hopkins (Identical)
β
We shall creep out quietly into the butler's pantry--" cried the Mole.
"--with out pistols and swords and sticks--" shouted ther Rat.
"--and rush in upon them," said Badger.
"--and whack 'em, and whack 'em, and whack 'em!" cried the Toad in ecstasy, running round and round the room, and jumping over the chairs.
β
β
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
β
I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever.
β
β
Sue Townsend (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (Adrian Mole, #1))
β
I think everyone is just trying to get home.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.
β
β
Sue Townsend (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (Adrian Mole #1))
β
We don't know about tomorrow, all we need to know is that we love each other.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
Observation #3: They gossip.
Can you believe it? I overheard Finn and Doug in the backyard talking about some girl named Dawn who blew off some guy named Simon for some other guy named Rick for like twenty minutes! They sounded like those old mole-hair ladies at Sal's Milshakes.
β
β
Kate Brian (Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys)
β
If at first you don't succeed, have some cake.'
'I see. Does it work?'
'Every time.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
I keep having the urge to cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to hide. I'm suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine, and how many moles I have spotting up and down my chest, and I just know he's looking at me thinking i'm wrong or deformed. But the he breathes, 'Beautiful' and when his eyes meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.
β
β
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
β
Well, Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.
β
β
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
β
When have you been at your strongest? asked the boy.
When I have dared to show my weakness.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse / The Art of Happiness)
β
I have to admit that humans waste a lot of their time - almost all of it - with hypothetical stuff. I could be rich. I could be famous. I could have been hit by that bus. I could have been born with fewer moles and bigger breasts. I could have spent more of my youth learning foreign languages. They must exercise the conditional tense more than any other known life form.
β
β
Matt Haig (The Humans)
β
I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.
β
β
Sue Townsend (The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (Adrian Mole, #2))
β
Tears fall for a reason and they are your strength not weakness.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse / A Poem for Every Night of the Year / A Poem for Every Day of the Year)
β
Night-time train travel is wonderful again! No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no black-out curtains. All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt as if we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I don't consider myself a real peeper-they go in for bedrooms, but it's families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions.
β
β
Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)
β
A southwest blow on ye and blister you all o'er!'
'The red plague rid you!'
'Toads, beetles, bats, light on you!'
'As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed with raven's feather from unwholesome fen drop on you.'
'Strange stuff'
'Thou jesting monkey thou'
'Apes with foreheads villainous low'
'Pied ninny'
'Blind mole...'
-The Caliban Curses
β
β
Gary D. Schmidt (The Wednesday Wars)
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These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing.
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
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Even if you were green and had a beard and a male appendage between your legs. Even if your eyebrows were orange and you had a mole covering your entire cheek and a nose that poked me in the eye every time I kissed you. Even if you weighed seven hundred pounds and had hair the size of a Doberman under your arms. Even then, I would love you.
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David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))
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When I am high I couldnβt worry about money if I tried. So I donβt. The money will come from somewhere; I am entitled; God will provide. Credit cards are disastrous, personal checks worse. Unfortunately, for manics anyway, mania is a natural extension of the economy. What with credit cards and bank accounts there is little beyond reach. So I bought twelve snakebite kits, with a sense of urgency and importance. I bought precious stones, elegant and unnecessary furniture, three watches within an hour of one another (in the Rolex rather than Timex class: champagne tastes bubble to the surface, are the surface, in mania), and totally inappropriate sirenlike clothes. During one spree in London I spent several hundred pounds on books having titles or covers that somehow caught my fancy: books on the natural history of the mole, twenty sundry Penguin books because I thought it could be nice if the penguins could form a colony. Once I think I shoplifted a blouse because I could not wait a minute longer for the woman-with-molasses feet in front of me in line. Or maybe I just thought about shoplifting, I donβt remember, I was totally confused. I imagine I must have spent far more than thirty thousand dollars during my two major manic episodes, and God only knows how much more during my frequent milder manias.
But then back on lithium and rotating on the planet at the same pace as everyone else, you find your credit is decimated, your mortification complete: mania is not a luxury one can easily afford. It is devastating to have the illness and aggravating to have to pay for medications, blood tests, and psychotherapy. They, at least, are partially deductible. But money spent while manic doesnβt fit into the Internal Revenue Service concept of medical expense or business loss. So after mania, when most depressed, youβre given excellent reason to be even more so.
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Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness)
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I therefore invite you all," Mr Fox went on, 'to stay here with me for ever.'
For ever!' they cried. 'My goodness! How marvellous!' And Rabbit said to Mrs Rabbit, 'My dear, just think! We're never going to be shot again in our lives!'
We will make,' said Mr Fox, 'a little underground village, with streets and houses on each side - seperate houses for Badgers and Moles and Rabbits and Weasels and Foxes. And every day I will go shopping for you all. And every day we will eat like kings.'
The cheering that followed this speech went on for many minutes.
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Roald Dahl (Fantastic Mr. Fox)
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And in bed, deep inside the building, are all the headaches that won't go away. The failed kidneys, the rashes, the ragged-edged moles, the lumps on the breast, the coughs that have turned nasty. In the Marie Curie Ward on the fourth floor are the kids with cancer. Their bodies secretly and slowly being consumed.
And then there's the mortuary, where the dead lie in refrigerated drawers with name tags on their feet.
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Jenny Downham (Before I Die)
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There is no better people-watching than at the airport: the whole world packed into such a tight space, moving fast with all their essentials in their rolling bags. And what caught my attention, as I took a few breaths and lay my eyes on the crowds, were all the imperfections. Everybody had them. Every single person that walked past me had some kind of flaw. Bushy eyebrows, moles, flared nostrils, crooked teeth, crows'-feet, hunched backs, dowagers' humps, double chins, floppy earlobes, nose hairs, potbellies, scars, nicotine stains, upper arm fat, trick knees, saddlebags, collapsed arches, bruises, warts, puffy eyes, pimples. Nobody was perfect. Not even close. And everybody had wrinkles from smiling and squinting and craning their necks. Everybody had marks on their bodies from years of living - a trail of life left on them, evidence of all the adventures and sleepless nights and practical jokes and heartbreaks that had made them who they were.
In that moment, I suddenly loved us all the more for our flaws, for being broken and human, for being embarrassed and lonely, for being hopeful or tired or disappointed or sick or brave or angry. For being who we were, for making the world interesting. It was a good reminder that the human condition is imperfection. And that's how it's supposed to be.
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Katherine Center (Everyone is Beautiful)
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Eventually she came. She appeared suddenly, exactly like she'd done that day- she stepped into the sunshine, she jumped, she laughed and threw her head back, so her long ponytail nearly grazed the waistband of her jeans.
After that, I couldn't think about anything else. The mole on the inside of her right elbow, like a dark blot of ink. The way she ripped her nails to shreds when she was nervous. Her eyes, deep as a promise. Her stomach, pale and soft and gorgeous, and the tiny dark cavity of her belly button.
I nearly went crazy.
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Lauren Oliver (Requiem (Delirium, #3))
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There is, we are aware, a philosophy that denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, classified as pathologic, that denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness. To set up a theory that lacks a source of truth is an excellent example of blind assurance. And the odd part of it is the haughty air of superiority and compassion assumed toward the philosophy that sees God, by this philosophy that has to grope its way. It makes one think of a mole exclaiming, "How I pity them with their sun!" There are, we know, illustrious and powerful atheists; with them, the matter is nothing but a question of definitions, and at all events, even if they do not believe in God, they prove God, because they are great minds. We hail, in them, the philosophers, while, at the same time, inexorably disputing their philosophy.
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Victor Hugo (Les MisΓ©rables)
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He says that woman speaks with nature. That she hears voices from under the earth. That wind blows in her ears and trees whisper to her. That the dead sing through her mouth and the cries of infants are clear to her. But for him this dialogue is over. He says he is not part of this world, that he was set on this world as a stranger. He sets himself apart from woman and nature.
And so it is Goldilocks who goes to the home of the three bears, Little Red Riding Hood who converses with the wolf, Dorothy who befriends a lion, Snow White who talks to the birds, Cinderella with mice as her allies, the Mermaid who is half fish, Thumbelina courted by a mole. (And when we hear in the Navaho chant of the mountain that a grown man sits and smokes with bears and follows directions given to him by squirrels, we are surprised. We had thought only little girls spoke with animals.)
We are the bird's eggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep; we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and sprigs of wallflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak.
But we hear.
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Susan Griffin (Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her)
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George Smiley: [quoting an old letter from Bill Haydon about Jim Prideaux] He has that heavy quiet that commands. He's my other half. Between us we'd make one marvelous man. He asks nothing better than to be in my company or that of my wicked, divine friends, and I'm vastly tickled by the compliment. He's virgin, about eight foot tall, and built by the same firm that did Stonehenge
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John Le CarrΓ©
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Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing.
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
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Didn't you have some big deal last night?" Peabody asked her.
"Yeah, in East Washington. Roarke had this dinner / dance thing for some fancy charity. Save the moles or something. Enough food to feed every sidewalk sleeper on the Lower East Side for a year."
"Gee, that's tough on you. I bet you had to get all dressed up in some beautiful gown, shuttle down on Roarke's private transpo, and choke down champagne."
Eve only lifted a brow at Peabody's dust-dry tone. "Yeah, that's about it." They both knew the glamorous side of Eve's life since Roarke had come into it was both a puzzlement and a frustration to her. "And then I had to dance with Roarke. A lot."
"Was he wearing a tux?" Peabody had seen Roarke in a tux. The image of it was etched in her mind like acid on glass.
"Oh yeah." Until, Eve mused, they'd gotten home and she'd ripped it off of him. He looked every bit as good out of a tux as in one.
"Man." Peabody closed her eyes, indulged herself with a visualization technique she'd learned at her Free-Ager parents' knees. "Man," she repeated.
"You know, a lot of women would get pissed off at having their husband star in their aide's purient little fantasies."
"But you're bigger than that, Lieutenant. I like that about you.
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J.D. Robb (Conspiracy in Death (In Death, #8))
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Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this.
If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.
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Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)