“
So it's the ever popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliché. Why can't it ever be the third nephew twice removed who's fated to destroy the world?
”
”
Julie Kagawa (Iron's Prophecy (The Iron Fey, #4.5))
“
Don’t interrupt,’ one of the boys said. ‘He’ll lose his life.’
Seeing it was a matter of life and death, Sophie and Michael backed toward the door. But Howl, quite unperturbed at killing his nephew, strode over to the wall and pulled the boxes up by the roots.
”
”
Diana Wynne Jones (Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1))
“
You have family", Bob said. "You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That's called family".
”
”
Elizabeth Strout (The Burgess Boys)
“
I would not trade any of these features for anybody else’s. I wouldn’t trade the small thin-lipped mouth that makes me resemble my nephew. I wouldn’t even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because that recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy ever did.
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
So, it's the ever popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy,huh, ice-boy? How very cliche. Why can't it ever be the third nephew twice removed who's fated to destroy the worls?
Iron Prophecy: The Iron Fey~ Puck
”
”
Julie Kagawa
“
No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6))
“
He assumed that Audun, who obviously knew whether or not he had murdered Holger, believed it was possible that Arvid’s nephew was guilty. There were two problems with this: first, of course, Raimund knew that the blood-soaked clothes came from the unsolved murder of a jeweller four years earlier, a crime that Arvid was guilty of. Secondly, Arvid had not seen the boy since that bloody night in 1505. Back then the boy had been ten years old; now he would be fourteen and probably more man than boy. Arvid wondered if he would recognise Raimund even if he saw him. Nonetheless, given the circumstances, he knew he had better be helpful, not least because he was somewhat scared of the huntsman.
”
”
Robert Reid (The Thief (The Emperor, the Son and the Thief, #3))
“
I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of the State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6))
“
So, what's the big emergency, princess? You and ice-boy look fine to me, and the Nevernever isn't crumbling around us. What's going on?"
"I'm pregnant, Puck," I said quietly, and watched his eyebrows shoot into his hair. Briefly,I explained what had happened at Elysium, the oracle's mysterious appearance and invitation, and Grimalkin's instruction to meet him at the Wishing Tree. By the time I was done, Puck was still staring at me openmouthed, struck mute for maybe the second time in his life, and I would've laughed if the situation wasn't so serious.
"Oh," he finally managed. "That's, uh... Wow. That's not something you hear every day. Not exactly what I was expecting, though the entire prophecy thing does get old after a while." He shook himself, seeming to regain his composure, and glanced at Ash. "So, it's the ever so popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliche. Why can't it be the third nephew twice removed who's fated to destroy the world?
”
”
Julie Kagawa (Iron's Prophecy (The Iron Fey, #4.5))
“
It had been June, the bright hot summer of 1937, and with the curtains thrown back the bedroom had been full of sunlight, sunlight and her and Will's children, their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews- Cecy's blue eyed boys, tall and handsome, and Gideon and Sophie's two girls- and those who were as close as family: Charlotte, white- haired and upright, and the Fairchild sons and daughters with their curling red hair like Henry's had once been.
The children had spoken fondly of the way he had always loved their mother, fiercely and devotedly, the way he had never had eyes for anyone else, and how their parents had set the model for the sort of love they hoped to find in their own lives. They spoke of his regard for books, and how he had taught them all to love them too, to respect the printed page and cherish the stories that those pages held. They spoke of the way he still cursed in Welsh when he dropped something, though he rarely used the language otherwise, and of the fact that though his prose was excellent- he had written several histories of the Shadowhunters when he's retired that had been very well respected- his poetry had always been awful, though that never stopped him from reciting it.
Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will's unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire.
Their grandchildren had reminded him of the song about demon pox he had taught them- when they were much too young, Tessa had always thought- and that they had all memorized. They sang it all together and out of tune, scandalizing Sophie.
With tears running down her face, Cecily had reminded him of the moment at her wedding to Gabriel when he had delivered a beautiful speech praising the groom, at the end of which he had announced, "Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back," thus vexing not only Cecily and Gabriel but Sophie as well- and Will, though too tired to laugh, had smiled at his sister and squeezed her hand.
They had all laughed about his habit of taking Tessa on romantic "holidays" to places from Gothic novels, including the hideous moor where someone had died, a drafty castle with a ghost in it, and of course the square in Paris in which he had decided Sydney Carton had been guillotined, where Will had horrified passerby by shouting "I can see the blood on the cobblestones!" in French.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
“
Tyrion turned to his nephew. “Joffrey, it is past time you called on Lord Eddard and his lady, to offer them your comfort.”
Joffrey looked as petulant as only a boy prince can look. “What good will my comfort do them?”
“None,” Tyrion said. “Yet it is expected of you. Your absence has been noted.”
“The Stark boy is nothing to me,” Joffrey said. “I cannot abide the wailing of women.”
Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard across the face. The boy’s cheek began to redden.
“One word,” Tyrion said, “and I will hit you again.”
“I’m going to tell Mother!” Joffrey exclaimed.
Tyrion hit him again. Now both cheeks flamed.
“You tell your mother,” Tyrion told him. “But first you get yourself to Lord and Lady Stark, and you fall to your knees in front of them, and you tell them how very sorry you are, and that you are at their service if there is the slightest thing you can do for them or theirs in this desperate hour, and that all your prayers go with them. Do you understand?
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
Things like Do Not Steal were, I think, hammered into boys’ heads a good deal harder in those days than they are now. Still, we can never be certain.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) (Publication Order, #6))
“
Tamping down my emotions as the justice spoke to the audience, I looked over at a pair of handsome young Korean American boys—Sotomayor’s adopted nephews—squirming in their Sunday best. They would take for granted that their aunt was on the U.S. Supreme Court, shaping the life of a nation—as would kids across the country. Which was fine. That’s what progress looks like.
”
”
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
“
Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry. He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
“
And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a communist.'
Rasheed reflected that this probably meant only that he loathed the poverty and injustice endemic to the village, and that he made no particular secret of it.
”
”
Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy (A Bridge of Leaves, #1))
“
Lindsay laughed. 'Good luck resetting Tyler's standards. He once gave me a birthday card that read "To my favourite nephew" on the inside.
”
”
Tara Eglington (How to Convince a Boy to Kiss You (Aurora Skye #2))
“
Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure his nephew was called Harry. He’d never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
“
Literature is dead, my boy' the uncle replied. 'Look at these empty rooms, and these books buried in their dust; no one reads anymore; I am the guardian of a cemetery here, and exhumation is forbidden.' . . . 'My boy, never speak of literature, never speak of art! Accept the situation as it is! You are Monsieur Boutardins ward before being your Uncle Huguenin's nephew!
”
”
Jules Verne (Paris in the Twentieth Century: The Lost Novel)
“
Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) (Publication Order, #6))
“
Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard across the face. The boy's cheek began to redden. 'One word,' Tyrion said, 'and I will hit you again.' 'I'm going to tell Mother!' Joffrey exclaimed. Tyrion hit him again. Now both cheeks flamed.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
Alexis was now accustomed to his uncle’s fatal disease as we are to all things that last around us; and because he had once made his nephew cry as the dead make us cry, the boy, even though his uncle was still alive, treated him like a dead man: he had begun to forget him.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Pleasures and Days)
“
And how is the expectant mother? You mustn't tax yourself, you know.I don't want my nephew born early enough to raise eyebrows."
Gideon laid his hand in the small of her back in a protective gesture she knew all too well. "Are you implying that I'm the kind of man who'd allow his wife to tax herself?"
"If the shoe fits-"
"Behave, both of you," she admonished as Gideon bristled and Jordan glared. "I swear, when you two get near each other, you act like school boys fighting over a half-pence."
"Oh, you're much more valuable than a half-pence," Jordan retorted. Before Gideon could say anything to that, he added, "And in any case, I didn't come over here to anger you, moppet. I merey wanted to let you know I'm leaving."
"Good," Gideon mumbled under his breath.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (The Pirate Lord)
“
The depth of her feeling surprises her, because how can she have any leftover grief available for other people, for Paola’s murdered nephew? But there it is—an anguish that makes her feel hollow in the bones, despair for a beautiful boy Lydia never met.
”
”
Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt)
“
The tradition amongst the Targaryens had always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew, a boy a cousin, aunt, or niece. This practice went back to Old Valyria, where it was common amongst many of the ancient families, particularly those who bred and rode dragons. The blood of the dragon must remain pure, the wisdom went. Some of the sorcerer princes also took more than one wife when it pleased them, though this was less common than incestuous marriage. In Valyria before the Doom, wise men wrote, a thousand gods were honored, but none were feared, so few dared to speak against these customs.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History, #1))
“
Oh, Mrs. Kim’s nephew is gay too! He’s a nice boy. I’ll call her and arrange a coffee date, Jang-Wan.
”
”
Alyssa Cole (Radio Silence (Off the Grid, #1))
“
Loneliness is treated like the ultimate taboo; at the same time, it’s regarded as a trifle. That to be a thirty-seven-year-old who has spent a decade without someone to hold her hand at the doctor’s office is akin to being a thirteen-year-old sighing over a boy band.
Again, I know—‘single’ is not a synonym for ‘lonely.’ I know there are many lonely married people, as well as lots of single people who have a rich network of deep social connections—friends, sisters, daughters, nephews, etc.—whose lives are as far from Heller’s unhappy narrator as can be.
But for many of us, living alone in a society that is so rigorously constructed around couples and nuclear families is hard on the soul.
”
”
Sara Eckel (It's Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You're Single)
“
The boys were only fourteen and twelve years old at the time, happy go-lucky, fun-loving boys, like your sons, nephews, or grandsons. Their
whole lives were in front of them. Their worries and concerns were the simple ones of any twelve or fourteen-year-olds. Who are my teachers this
year? Will I have friends in my class? Will Mom buy me an iPhone? Will the Lions, Tigers, Pistons, or Red Wings have good seasons? Will I do well in school? Will my parents be proud of me? Will I be invited to cool parties? Will I meet a girl? These should be the problems of Kenny and Jake Tracey. Instead, they worry about whether they can ever get the filthy and disgusting acts of this degenerate out of their minds.
”
”
Mark M. Bello (Betrayal of Faith (Zachary Blake Legal Thriller, #1))
“
The boys were only fourteen and twelve years old at the time, happy go-lucky, fun-loving boys, like your sons, nephews, or grandsons. Their whole lives were in front of them. Their worries and concerns were the simple ones of any twelve or fourteen-year-olds. Who are my teachers this year? Will I have friends in my class? Will Mom buy me an iPhone? Will the Lions, Tigers, Pistons, or Red Wings have good seasons? Will I do well in school? Will my parents be proud of me? Will I be invited to cool parties? Will I meet a girl? These should be the problems of Kenny and Jake Tracey. Instead, they worry about whether they can ever get the filthy and disgusting acts of this degenerate out of their minds.
”
”
Mark M. Bello (Betrayal of Faith (Zachary Blake Legal Thriller, #1))
“
Standing there at Powell’s grave, telling my nephew about a buried skull, I realize how much of our relationship revolves around body parts and severed heads. Once Owen learned to walk, we started playing a game I call Frankenstein, in which I am Frankenstein’s monster and I chase him around trying to harvest his organs and appendages because my master is building another boy. “Frankenstein needs your spleen,” I yell, aping the voice of an announcer at a monster truck rally. “Give me your spleen!” Which is why the seemingly gross book I gave him for his birthday, a collection of poetry for children called The Blood-Hungry Spleen was actually a sentimental choice, even though my sister tells me it didn’t go over so well when he brought it to preschool.
”
”
Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation)
“
What am I going to do, Bob? I have no family.” “You have family,” Bob said. “You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That’s called family.
”
”
Elizabeth Strout (The Burgess Boys)
“
Rotten?” said Uncle Andrew with a puzzled look. “Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) (Publication Order, #6))
“
The invisible people agreed about everything. Indeed most of their remarks were the sort it would not be easy to disagree with: "What I always say is, when a chap's hungry, he likes some victuals," or "Getting dark now; always does at night," or even "Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (Illustrated): The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Prince Caspian. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The Silver Chair. ... Boy. The Magician's Nephew. The Last Battle)
“
Go then, Fools,” called the Witch. “Think of me, boy, when you lie old and weak and dying, and remember how you threw away the chance of endless youth! It won’t be offered to you again.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6))
“
As Darice skimmed the bodies and he noted their number, he duplicated Sumi’s earlier gape. “Gah, Dancer … You took them all out without even breathing hard. How?” Bracing his forearm on his bent knee, Hauk gave his nephew an irritated smirk. “What do you think I do for a living, boy? Bake fucking cookies?” He holstered his newly found weapons and continued to search bodies.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Fury (The League, #6))
“
The missing remained missing and the portraits couldn't change that. But when Akhmed slid the finished portrait across the desk and the family saw the shape of that beloved nose, the air would flee the room, replaced by the miracle of recognition as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, and cousin found in that nose the son, brother, nephew, and cousin that had been, would have been, could have been, and they might race after the possibility like cartoon characters dashing off a cliff, held by the certainty of the road until they looked down -- and plummeted is the word used by the youngest brother who, at the age of sixteen, is tired of being the youngest and hopes his older brother will return for many reasons, not least so he will marry and have a child and the youngest brother will no longer be youngest; that youngest brother, the one who has nothing to say about the nose because he remembers his older brother's nose and doesn't need the nose to mean what his parents need it to mean, is the one who six months later would be disappeared in the back of a truck, as his older brother was, who would know the Landfill through his blindfold and gag by the rich scent of clay, as his older brother had known, whose fingers would be wound with the electrical wires that had welded to his older brother's bones, who would stand above a mass grave his brother had dug and would fall in it as his older brother had, though taking six more minutes and four more bullets to die, would be buried an arm's length of dirt above his brother and whose bones would find over time those of his older brother, and so, at that indeterminate point in the future, answer his mother's prayer that her boys find each other, wherever they go; that younger brother would have a smile on his face and the silliest thought in his skull a minute before the first bullet would break it, thinking of how that day six months earlier, when they all went to have his older brother's portrait made, he should have had his made, too, because now his parents would have to make another trip, and he hoped they would, hoped they would because even if he knew his older brother's nose, he hadn't been prepared to see it, and seeing that nose, there, on the page, the density of loss it engendered, the unbelievable ache of loving and not having surrounded him, strong enough to toss him, as his brother had, into the summer lake, but there was nothing but air, and he'd believed that plummet was as close as they would ever come again, and with the first gunshot one brother fell within arms' reach of the other, and with the fifth shot the blindfold dissolved and the light it blocked became forever, and on the kitchen wall of his parents' house his portrait hangs within arm's reach of his older brother's, and his mother spends whole afternoons staring at them, praying that they find each other, wherever they go.
”
”
Anthony Marra (A Constellation of Vital Phenomena)
“
Jim. If you have any other outside events, don’t confess them. That’s my advice, okay?”“What am I going to do, Bob? I have no family.”“You have family,” Bob said. “You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That’s called family.”Jim fell asleep, his head leaning forward almost to his chest
”
”
Elizabeth Strout (The Burgess Boys)
“
Anyway, it was Oscar who called me to remind me that our nephew, Lydia's son Garnett, was turning eleven years old. Fuck my life. I hated that kid. He smelled like asparagus, and he sweated way too much for a healthy child; but then Garnett, given his propensity for biting teachers and catching chipmunks in the backyard only to bury them alive, was no normal kid. He was a case study for sociopathic behavior in the making. A walking, talking, farting, sweaty, odorous, chipmunk-burying cry for help.
”
”
Richard J. O'Brien
“
The world is changing, I said. It is no longer a world just for boys and men.
Our women are respected here, said the father. We would never let them tramp the world as American women do. There is always someone to look after the Olinka woman. A father. An uncle. A brother or nephew. Do not be offended, Sister Nettie, but our people pity women such as you who are cast out, we know not from where, into a world unknown to you, where you must struggle all alone, for yourself.
So I am an object of pity and contempt, I thought, to men and women alike.
Furthermore, said Tashi’s father, we are not simpletons. We understand that there are places in the world where women live differently from the way our women do, but we do not approve of this different way for our children.
But life is changing, even in Olinka, I said. We are here.
He spat on the ground. What are you? Three grownups and two children. In the rainy season some of you will probably die. You people do not last long in our climate. If you do not die, you will be weakened by illness. Oh, yes. We have seen it all before. You Christians come here, try hard to change us, get sick and go back to England, or wherever you come from. Only the trader on the coast remains, and even he is not the same white man, year in and year out. We know because we send him women.
Tashi is very intelligent, I said. She could be a teacher. A nurse. She could help the people in the village.
There is no place here for a woman to do those things, he said.
Then we should leave, I said. Sister Corrine and I.
No, no, he said.
Teach only the boys? I asked.
Yes, he said, as if my question was agreement.
There is a way that the men speak to women that reminds me too much of Pa. They listen just long enough to issue instructions. They don’t even look at women when women are speaking. They look at the ground and bend their heads toward the ground. The women also do not “look in a man’s face” as they say. To “look in a man’s face” is a brazen thing to do. They look instead at his feet or his knees.
”
”
Alice Walker (The Color Purple)
“
Now come on, we’re off.”
He marched out of the room. They heard the front door open, but Dudley did not move and after a few faltering steps Aunt Petunia stopped too.
“What now?” barked Uncle Vernon, reappearing in the doorway.
It seemed that Dudley was struggling with concepts too difficult to put into words. After several moments of apparently painful internal struggle he said, “But where’s he going to go?”
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon looked at each other. It was clear that Dudley was frightening them. Hestia Jones broke the silence.
“But…surely you know where your nephew is going?” she asked, looking bewildered.
“Certainly we know,” said Vernon Dursley. “He’s off with some of your lot, isn’t he? Right, Dudley, let’s get in the car, you heard the man, we’re in a hurry.”
Again, Vernon Dursley marched as far as the front door, but Dudley did not follow.
“Off with some of our lot?”
Hestia looked outraged. Harry had met this attitude before: Witches and wizards seemed stunned that his closest living relatives took so little interest in the famous Harry Potter.
“It’s fine,” Harry assured her. “It doesn’t matter, honestly.”
“Doesn’t matter?” repeated Hestia, her voice rising ominously. “Don’t these people realize what you’ve been through? What danger you are in? The unique position you hold in the hearts of the anti-Voldemort movement?”
“Er--no, they don’t,” said Harry. “They think I’m a waste of space, actually, but I’m used to--”
“I don’t think you’re a waste of space.”
If Harry had not seen Dudley’s lips move, he might not have believed it. As it was, he stared at Dudley for several seconds before accepting that it must have been his cousin who had spoken; for one thing, Dudley had turned red. Harry was embarrassed and astonished himself.
“Well…er…thanks, Dudley.”
Again, Dudley appeared to grapple with thoughts too unwieldy for expression before mumbling, “You saved my life.”
“Not really,” said Harry. “It was your soul the dementor would have taken…”
He looked curiously at his cousin. They had had virtually no contact during this summer or last, as Harry had come back to Privet Drive so briefly and kept to his room so much. It now dawned on Harry, however, that the cup of cold tea on which he had trodden that morning might not have been a booby trap at all. Although rather touched, he was nevertheless quite relieved that Dudley appeared to have exhausted his ability to express his feelings. After opening his mouth once or twice more, Dudley subsided into scarlet-faced silence.
Aunt Petunia burst into tears. Hestia Jones gave her an approving look that changed to outrage as Aunt Petunia ran forward and embraced Dudley rather than Harry.
“S-so sweet, Dudders…” she sobbed into his massive chest. “S-such a lovely b-boy…s-saying thank you…”
“But he hasn’t said thank you at all!” said Hestia indignantly. “He only said he didn’t think Harry was a waste of space!”
“Yeah, but coming from Dudley that’s like ‘I love you,’” said Harry, torn between annoyance and a desire to laugh as Aunt Petunia continued to clutch at Dudley as if he had just saved Harry from a burning building.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
Beth was laughing at his story when Bobby ran up to her. She lifted her plate out of harm’s way and smiled at Kevin over his nephew’s head as the boy put a hand on either side of her waist. “Hey, cuz!” Bobby yelled at her stomach. “What does a snowman eat for breakfast? Snowflakes!
”
”
Shannon Stacey (Undeniably Yours (Kowalski Family, #2))
“
From the Diary of the Duchess of Roxburghe
I vow, I cannot seem to walk past a window without seeing my great-nephew carrying Miss Balfour somewhere. All great romantic poems have such scenes where the hero, in a fit of passion, sweeps the heroine off her feet. Sadly, it appears that Sin’s technique is questionable.
I’m surprised that, with all of his supposed experience with the gentler sex, he doesn’t realize that women do not like to be carried in a way that musses their hair and leaves them with unattractively red faces.
Sadly, yet another conversation I shall have to have with that boy.
”
”
Karen Hawkins (How to Capture a Countess (The Duchess Diaries, #1))
“
You’re not Auntie Millie’s boyfriend. I am.” High looked down at the kid whose face was now twisted with dislike and outrage and, fuck him, but he couldn’t beat back the smile. “You’re not my boyfriend, sweetheart,” Millie said. “You’re my nephew.” The boy looked to his aunt and snapped, “Same thing.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (Walk Through Fire (Chaos, #4))
“
much.” “With all her faults,” said Uncle Andrew, “that’s a plucky gel, my boy. It was a spirited thing to do.” He rubbed his hands and cracked his knuckles, as if he were once more forgetting how the Witch frightened him whenever she was really there. “It was a wicked thing to do,” said Polly. “What harm had he done her?” “Hullo! What’s that?” said Digory. He had darted forward to examine something only a few yards away. “I say, Polly,” he called back. “Do come and look.” Uncle Andrew came with her; not because he wanted to see but because he wanted to keep close to the children – there might be a chance of stealing their rings. But when he saw what Digory was looking at, even he began to take an interest. It was a perfect little model of a lamp-post, about three feet high but lengthening, and thickening in proportion, as they watched it; in fact growing just as the trees had grown. “It’s alive too – I mean, it’s lit,” said
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #1))
“
The moment I picked up that box I could tell by the pricking in my fingers that I held some great secret in my hands. She gave it me and made me promise that as soon as she was dead I would burn it, unopened, with certain ceremonies. That promise I did not keep.” “Well, then, it was jolly rotten of you,” said Digory. “Rotten?” said Uncle Andrew with a puzzled look. “Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) (Publication Order, #6))
“
In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won’t tell you how cheap and good they were,
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) (Publication Order, #6))
“
Stay where you are,” cried Digory, turning round to face her, “or we’ll all vanish. Don’t come an inch nearer.”
“Foolish boy,” said the Witch. “Why do you run from me? I mean you no harm. If you do not stop and listen to me now, you will miss some knowledge that would have made you happy all your life.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear it, thanks,” said Digory. But he did.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6))
“
[Funeral sermon, 02/08/1880]
How is it with this young man here? Well, I wish it were otherwise; I wish he had lived a very good Saint, which, however, he did not do. We have not come here to indulge in any kind of false sentimentality. He was a drunkard; that is a truth and many of you know it. . . . His father lived up to the Gospel, and died strong in the faith; and his mother has been a very good woman, so far as I know; I have never known anything against her. This boy has caused her a great deal of trouble; and I have been sorry for him. Well, should we tell things? Yes, always; that day is not far distant when the coverings will be taken from the face of all people, and we shall all stand naked, as it were, before God--both you and I and this young man. Well this boy,--I call him a boy, he is a young man, and is a nephew of mine by marriage; and I would not want to say anything about him on that account, neither would I falsify the young man on that account; but let us tell things and understand them as they are. . . .
I would say, I do not utter these things to cause any unpleasant feeling in the bosom of the family; they cannot help it. If I could have helped it, I would; if the mother could have helped it, she would; if the sister could have helped it, she would; if the friends could have helped it, they would. . . .
We are now talking not to the dead, but to the living. I would say, Let us avoid these evils, they lead down to death; let us seek to live our religion, to obey the laws of God and keep his commandments. And in regard to the future, we leave that in the hands of the Almighty who doeth all things well; and we will do all we can to promote the comfort of the living and the dead.
”
”
John Taylor
“
This is the Boy,” said Aslan, looking, not at Digory, but at his councillors. “This is the Boy who did it.”
“Oh dear,” thought Digory, “what have I done now?”
“Son of Adam,” said the Lion. “There is an evil Witch abroad in my new land of Narnia. Tell these good Beasts how she came here.”
A dozen different things that he might say flashed through Digory’s mind, but he had the sense to say nothing except the exact truth.
“I brought her, Aslan,” he answered in a low voice.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6))
“
Andrew Carnegie, the poverty-stricken Scotch lad who started to work at two cents an hour and finally gave away $365 million, learned early in life that the only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the other person wants. He attended school only four years; yet he learned how to handle people. To illustrate: His sister-in-law was worried sick over her two boys. They were at Yale, and they were so busy with their own affairs that they neglected to write home and paid no attention whatever to their mother’s frantic letters. Then Carnegie offered to wager a hundred dollars that he could get an answer by return mail, without even asking for it. Someone called his bet; so he wrote his nephews a chatty letter, mentioning casually in a postscript that he was sending each one a five-dollar bill. He neglected, however, to enclose the money. Back came replies by return mail thanking “Dear Uncle Andrew” for his kind note and—you can finish the sentence yourself.
”
”
Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People)
“
The Traveling Tradesman dangled a triangular stone on a string over her pregnant belly and studied the movement very closely. Red watched the Tradesman like he was a lunatic.
"What are you doing?" Red asked.
"I'm predicting the child's gender," the Traveling Tradesman said. "If the stone swings in a circle, it's a girl. If it moves back and forth, it's a boy."
"And what if it gets ripped out of your hand and thrown across the mine?"
"It's all right. I already know it's going to be a boy," Goldilocks said.
"How could you possibly know that?" Red asked.
"Mother's intuition," Goldilocks said. "It's the one perk that comes with the bloating, the back pain, and the unstable emotions."
"A niece would be better for me," Red said. "I could dress her up in little dresses, apply blush to her tiny cheeks, and put dainty bows in her hair! I suppose I could do that with a nephew, too, but he might resent me for it later."
Goldilocks rolled her eyes. "Your request has been submitted,"
Red grabbed the string of the Tradesman's triangular stone and forced it to swing in a circle above Goldilocks's stomach, as if that would do the trick.
”
”
Chris Colfer (An Author's Odyssey (The Land of Stories, #5))
“
Her young son was adorable, and he loved Mamaw. At all times of the day—one time, past midnight—he would wander to her doorstep and ask for a snack. His mother had all the time in the world, but she couldn’t keep a close enough watch on her child to prevent him from straying into the homes of strangers. Sometimes his diaper would need changing. Mamaw once called social services on the woman, hoping they’d somehow rescue the young boy. They did nothing. So Mamaw used my nephew’s diapers and kept a watchful eye on the neighborhood, always looking for signs of her “little buddy.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
So,” Cole says. “Did you decide on a name yet?”
Before I can answer, everyone starts speaking at once.
“You should name him Jace after your favorite brother.”
Cole shoots Jace a dirty look. “You should name him Cole after your good-looking brother.”
Dylan gives me a rueful grin. “Dylan is a great boy’s name, too. Just saying.”
Sawyer nudges her in the ribs. “So is Sawyer.”
Oakley and I exchange a humorous glance.
“Okay,” Oakley declares, rubbing his hands together. “The bidding starts at fifty dollars.”
After pulling out his wallet, Jace slaps some money on the tray table. “I got a hundred for Jace, right here.”
Cole shoves some bills into Oakley’s hands. “I got two hundred for Cole.”
Wayne reaches inside his pocket. “Do you take credit?”
“Sorry, Pops. Cash only.” Fanning the money in his hand, Oakley looks around the room. “Any more takers?”
Dylan pulls some money out of her bra. “Yup. Four hundred for Dylan.”
“Well, I didn’t bring my checkbook with me.” Smiling smugly, Sawyer pats her stomach. “But we are having a girl and a boy. Perhaps we can work out an exchange.”
Jace glowers. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s called bartering, bro.” Reaching over, Cole high-fives his wife. “And that right there is just one reason I love you so much, Bible Thumper. You’re so fucking smart.”
Oakley’s shoveling the money into his wallet when a nurse waltzes in. “Hi, Bianca. I’m the lactation nurse. Do you think you’re ready to try breastfeeding yet?”
Jace makes a face. “And that’s my cue to leave.”
Cole shakes his head. “Not me. I’m not leaving until I know my nephew’s name is Cole.”
I’m shifting to get into a more comfortable position when I notice the blue, green, orange, and purple butterflies scattered across the nurse’s scrubs.
My chest swells and I look over at Oakley who’s smiling.
There’s only one name that feels right.
“Liam,” we whisper at the same time.
”
”
Ashley Jade (Broken Kingdom (Royal Hearts Academy, #4))
“
[J.Ivy:]
We are all here for a reason on a particular path
You don't need a curriculum to know that you are part of the math
Cats think I'm delirious, but I'm so damn serious
That's why I expose my soul to the globe, the world
I'm trying to make it better for these little boys and girls
I'm not just another individual, my spirit is a part of this
That's why I get spiritual, but I get my hymns from Him
So it's not me, it's He that's lyrical
I'm not a miracle, I'm a heaven-sent instrument
My rhythmatic regimen navigates melodic notes for your soul and your mental
That's why I'm instrumental
Vibrations is what I'm into
Yeah, I need my loot by rent day
But that is not what gives me the heart of Kunte Kinte
I'm tryina give us "us free" like Cinque
I can't stop, that's why I'm hot
Determination, dedication, motivation
I'm talking to you, my many inspirations
When I say I can't, let you or self down
If I were of the highest cliff, on the highest riff
And you slipped off the side and clinched on to your life in my grip
I would never, ever let you down
And when these words are found
Let it been known that God's penmanship has been signed with a language called love
That's why my breath is felt by the deaf
And why my words are heard and confined to the ears of the blind
I, too, dream in color and in rhyme
So I guess I'm one of a kind in a full house
Cuz whenever I open my heart, my soul, or my mouth
A touch of God reigns out
[Chorus]
[Jay-Z (Kanye West)]
Who else you know been hot this long,
(Oh Ya, you know we ain't finished)
Started from nothing but he got this strong,
(The ROC is in the building)
Built the ROC from a pebble, pedalled rock before I met you,
Pedalled bikes, got my nephews pedal bikes because they special,
Let you tell that man I'm falling,
Well somebody must've caught him,
Cause every fourth quarter, I like to Mike Jordan 'em,
Number one albums, what I got like four of dem,
More of dem on the way,
The Eight Wonder on the way,
Clear the way, I'm here to stay,
Y'all can save the chitter chat, this and that, this and Jay,
Dissin' Jay 'ill get you mased,
When I start spitting them lyrics, niggas get very religious,
Six Hail Maries, please Father forgive us,
Young, the Archbishop, the Pope John Paul of y'all niggas,
The way y'all all follow Jigga,
Hov's a living legend and I tell you why,
Everybody wanna be Hov and Hov still alive.
”
”
Kanye West
“
Low down and near the horizon hung a great, red sun, far bigger than our sun. Digory felt at once that it was also older than ours: a sun near the end of its life, weary of looking down upon that world. To the left of the sun, and higher up, there was a single star, big and bright. Those were the only two things to be seen in the dark sky; they made a dismal group. And on the earth, in every direction, as far as the eye could reach, there spread a vast city in which there was no living thing to be seen. And all the temples, towers, palaces, pyramids, and bridges cast long, disastrous-looking shadows in the light of that withered sun. Once a great river had flowed through the city, but the water had long since vanished, and it was now only a wide ditch of grey dust.
"Look well on that which no eyes will ever see again," said the Queen. "Such was Charn, that great city, the city of the King of Kings, the wonder of the world, perhaps of all worlds. Does your uncle rule any city as great as this, boy?"
"No," said Digory. He was going to explain that Uncle Andrew didn't rule any cities, but the Queen went on:
"It is silent now. But I have stood here when the whole air was full of the noises of Charn; the trampling of feet, the creaking of wheels, the cracking of the whips and the groaning of slaves, the thunder of chariots, and the sacrificial drums beating in the temples. I have stood here (but that was near the end) when the roar of battle went up from every street and the river of Charn ran red." She paused and added, "All in one moment one woman blotted it out forever."
"Who?" said Digory in a faint voice; but he had already guessed the answer.
"I," said the Queen. "I, Jadis, the last Queen, but the Queen of the World.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia #6))
“
How do you feel, my lord?”
“Well enough to go downstairs for a while,” Devon said. “But I’m not what anyone would call spry. And if I sneeze, I’m fairly certain I’ll start bawling like an infant.”
The valet smiled slightly. “You’ll have no shortage of people eager to help you. The footmen literally drew straws to decide who would have the privilege of accompanying you downstairs.”
“I don’t need anyone to accompany me,” Devon said, disliking the idea of being treated like some gouty old codger. “I’ll hold the railing to keep myself steady.”
“I’m afraid Sims is adamant. He lectured the entire staff about the necessity of protecting you from additional injury. Furthermore, you can’t disappoint the servants by refusing their help. You’ve become quite a hero to them after saving those people.”
“I’m not a hero,” Devon scoffed. “Anyone would have done it.”
“I don’t think you understand, my lord. According to the account in the papers, the woman you rescued is a miller’s wife--she had gone to London to fetch her little nephew, after his mother had just died. And the boy and his sisters are the children of factory workers. They were sent to live in the country with their grandparents.” Sutton paused before saying with extra emphasis, “Second-class passengers, all of them.”
Devon gave him a look askance.
“For you to risk your life for anyone was heroic,” the valet said. “But the fact that a man of your rank would be willing to sacrifice everything for those of such humble means…Well, as far as everyone at Eversby Priory is concerned, it’s the same as if you had done it for any one of them.” Sutton began to smile as he saw Devon’s discomfited expression. “Which is why you will be plagued with your servants’ homage and adoration for decades to come.”
“Bloody hell,” Devon muttered, his face heating. “Where’s the laudanum?”
The valet grinned and went to ring the servants’ bell.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
“
He called back with an incredible report: there were people lined up around the store already.
Wow, I thought.
Wow!
Wow didn’t begin to cover it. People lined up on two floors of the store to talk to Chris and get their books signed, hours before he was even scheduled to arrive. Chris was overwhelmed when he got there, and so was I. The week before, he’d been just another guy walking down the street. Now, all of a sudden he was famous.
Except he was still the same Chris Kyle, humble and a bit abashed, ready to shake hands and pose for a picture, and always, at heart, a good ol’ boy.
“I’m so nervous,” confided one of the people on the line as he approached Chris. “I’ve been waiting for three hours just to see you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Chris. “Waitin’ all that time and come to find out there’s just another redneck up here.”
The man laughed, and so did Chris. It was something he’d repeat, in different variations, countless times that night and over the coming weeks.
We stayed for three or four hours that first night, far beyond what had been advertised, with Chris signing each book, shaking each hand, and genuinely grateful for each person who came. For their part, they were anxious not just to meet him but to thank him for his service to our country-and by extension, the service of every military member whom they couldn’t personally thank. From the moment the book was published, Chris became the son, the brother, the nephew, the cousin, the kid down the street whom they couldn’t personally thank. In a way, his outstanding military record was beside the point-he was a living, breathing patriot who had done his duty and come home safe to his wife and kids. Thanking him was people’s way of thanking everyone in uniform.
And, of course, the book was an interesting read. It quickly became a commercial success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, including the publisher’s. The hardcover debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list, then rose to number one and stayed there for more than two months. It’s remained a fixture on the bestseller lists ever since, and has been translated into twenty-four languages worldwide.
It was a good read, and it had a profound effect on a lot of people. A lot of the people who bought it weren’t big book readers, but they ended up engrossed. A friend of ours told us that he’d started reading the book one night while he was taking a bath with his wife. She left, went to bed, and fell asleep. She woke up at three or four and went into the bathroom. Her husband was still there, in the cold water, reading.
The funny thing is, Chris still could not have cared less about all the sales. He’d done his assignment, turned it in, and got his grade. Done deal.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
On November 20, 1815, Ludwig van Beethoven’s brother Carl Casper died of tuberculosis, appointing his brother Ludwig as guardian of his son Karl in his will. Not yet ten years old, the little nephew was the only child of the three van Beethoven brothers. And as his father had done before him, Ludwig van Beethoven viewed the boy as a potential vessel for carrying the van Beethoven musical genius into the future.
”
”
Hourly History (Ludwig van Beethoven: A Life From Beginning to End (Composer Biographies))
“
that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement. However, Yoseb did not have enough energy to rise from his pallet, let alone search for his dear nephew, a boy who was like his own flesh.
”
”
Min Jin Lee (Pachinko)
“
On Sunday, after church, Aunt Gertrude said good-by to her nephews and went off with a ladies’ group to visit sick members of the congregation. The boys were alone in the house when the telephone rang. Frank answered and was delighted to hear his father’s voice. “Dad! What a swell surprise! Where are you?” “At Bayport Airport, son. Just landed from Paris this morning and then hopped a plane from New York. Think you and Joe could pick me up?” “You bet. We’ll be there in a jiffy!” Fifteen minutes later the tall, broad-shouldered investigator was embracing his two sons. “Boy, you look great, Dad!” Joe said. “How’d you make out on your case in Europe?” “Tell you about it later. Right now I could use some of Aunt Gertrude’s home cooking.” “You’re out of luck,” Frank said. “She won’t be home until three o’clock.” Mr. Hardy chuckled wryly. “In that case I’ll settle for ham and eggs at the nearest diner.” After stowing their father’s luggage in the trunk of the convertible, the boys took him to a roadside restaurant just outside Bayport. Soon the three were settled in a comfortable booth, enjoying their meal.
”
”
Franklin W. Dixon (The Short-Wave Mystery (Hardy Boys, #24))
“
If the witch is to be finally defeated before bedtime, we must find the battle at once!" - Aslan 'The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Horse and His Boy;)
“
And the fact you didn’t know until this moment that those boys weren’t truly my nephews tells me they claim me as much as I do them. So I guess what I’m trying to say is family has everything to do with heart and nothing with to do with blood. And I think someday, wherever you are, you’ll find it. You and Tater.
”
”
Marae Good (The Burns We Carry)
“
Amidst the wreckage of these implausible suggestions, an alternative has recently emerged—that Lewis was shaped by what the great English seventeenth-century poet John Donne called “the Heptarchy, the seven kingdoms of the seven planets.” And amazingly, this one seems to work. The idea was first put forward by Oxford Lewis scholar Michael Ward in 2008.[618] Noting the importance that Lewis assigns to the seven planets in his studies of medieval literature, Ward suggests that the Narnia novels reflect and embody the thematic characteristics associated in the “discarded” medieval worldview with the seven planets. In the pre-Copernican worldview, which dominated the Middle Ages, Earth was understood to be stationary; the seven “planets” revolved around Earth. These medieval planets were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Lewis does not include Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, since these were only discovered in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, respectively. So what is Lewis doing? Ward is not suggesting that Lewis reverts to a pre-Copernican cosmology, nor that he endorses the arcane world of astrology. His point is much more subtle, and has enormous imaginative potential. For Ward, Lewis regarded the seven planets as being part of a poetically rich and imaginatively satisfying symbolic system. Lewis therefore took the imaginative and emotive characteristics which the Middle Ages associated with each of the seven planets, and attached these to each of the seven novels as follows: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Jupiter Prince Caspian: Mars The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader”: the Sun The Silver Chair: the Moon The Horse and His Boy: Mercury The Magician’s Nephew: Venus The Last Battle: Saturn For example, Ward argues that Prince Caspian shows the thematic influence of Mars.[619] This is seen primarily at two levels. First, Mars was the ancient god of war (Mars Gradivus). This immediately connects to the dominance of military language, imagery, and issues in this novel. The four Pevensie children arrive in Narnia “in the middle of a war”—“the Great War of Deliverance,” as it is referred to later in the series, or the “Civil War” in Lewis’s own “Outline of Narnian History.
”
”
Alister E. McGrath (C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet)
“
The boy topped off his wine, then mine. “Are you well, miss?” I took a deep swill from my goblet. When I looked back up, the boy was watching me. “Never better,” I said. He matched me with a strong gulp of wine. When he smiled, I caught myself wanting to smile back, the vibrancy in his unusual eyes contagious. “I don’t know you,” I said. He was taller than me, though unquestionably younger. When he said his name, he hunched his shoulders and leaned close, as if it were a secret. “I’m Emory,” he said. “Emory Yew.” I choked on the wine lingering in the back of my throat. Across the table, my half sisters watched me with mirrored expressions of curiosity. They—like I—were no doubt wondering how I’d managed to be seated next to the King’s youngest nephew.
”
”
Rachel Gillig (One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1))
“
Chatting to the gossip of flames
waking from the slumber of
our flesh-drunk night together—
it’s only when I step out
to pee do I notice—
how far, burgundy-dark,
the moon has risen….
On four paws the shepherd-
dogs bound, lightly
though the trees they
hardly touch on earth—
we saw it from far
sunk here
in an always-ache….
Dyeing paling twilight woods—
a pair of wasps, spiraling, writhe….
Wetted lips of hers
and mine, just-parted,
move over each other
with tongues just-coming
but refuse—
like mists of evening
they've no place to settle….
Just-here though she's singing
she’s in some song from long ago—
poised on the brink
of twilight longing
three thousand miles
rush through my heart….
Under undulating curtains—
I hover above her
the tips of me brushing
the tips of her—
breathing back and forth
a column of air
we share our breath
slowly asphyxiating….
From burning wood campfire sparks dart off
extinguishing in the wet blue dark…
how you blow your long wind
across my embers,
through my soul, she pleads me,
take away the pain—
I dip a branch in blue water
and plunge it into coals….
***
In pre-dawn dark, against
a leaping inferno of flames
black monolith of wood
in the cast iron compartment
softens, and—gradually— fractures
to cells, warping upward,
until from the top a shard splinters:
pearls of flame string a fiber
and leap in little tongues
while the log, glowing, engulfed,
is consumed by the inferno contained….
A shadow daunts me, haunts and taunts me
now reaching far, now recoiling, now growing bold….
I once sang eruptions and the wind—
then appeared you
it took my whole life
singing only the songs of you
and still I sing for you
what other refuge
can stay me from this torment?
So— my doppelganger has arrived
no one said it would happen this way
but the way his hands
fold like mine, the style
of his humor, broadness of his smile—
even the way he walks….
Licking and lapping these lashings
of grasses are in tongues at my feet
smoldering's the fury within me—
I have seen my fields of daylight warp
to noxious-air infernos
but still to the clean blue of the flame
I take rest in her breast….
His songs I mouth, and in my head
is his voice— I cannot hear my own….
in my mind I see myself— thin,
stupid— my arms too weak,
my own chest too frail— and besides
I prefer him more….
Along spiral lines, seed-heads decay— swept away
they whirl and writhe in the hot blue fire of evening….
Stuck in a mural of sticky flesh— the family…
I am locked-in-arms with brothers
and sisters, drooping at the thighs
with nieces and nephews,
grafted to parents at the scalp, and
pasted with toddlers all over…
hived, sapped, black I sit, subject
to the flavors and aromas of your abuse….
Then— be wrapped in his presence…
crescendo to his warmth
the cascade of your laughter
search in his wrinkles
for the boy inside him…
I’m just biding here, bragless,
trying to admit these
rival-streams that flow
in one latticework of blood….
Halves of flesh and bosomy hips, lips
like dark ripe fruits they're chasing—
I chased them…
full-feathered was their hair
like floss in the sunshine
fine-fingered was their style
like laces cut to curves:
and then there was you,
returning one, just there
like the midnight moon
in my sky at noontime….
”
”
Mark Kaplon
“
I would not trade any of these features for anybody else’s. I wouldn’t trade the small thin-lipped mouth that makes me resemble my nephew. I wouldn’t even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because that recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy ever did. At the end of the day, I’m happy to have my father’s feet and my mother’s eyes with me at all times. If I ever go back to that beach in Wildwood, I want my daughter to be able to find me in the crowd by spotting my soda-case hips. I want her to be able to pick me out of a sea of highlighted-blond women with fake tans because I’m the one with the thick ponytail and the greenish undertones in my skin. And
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
So what’s the lowdown on the new hire?” he wanted to know.
Ah. All became instantly clear. Hardy had moved on to new prey. And while that was a yay for Kerry, it was a boo for poor Maddy. She’d have to warn her. “You mean Madison? Sorry, Hardy, she’s taken. Happily engaged to Sal’s nephew, Micah.”
“Engaged isn’t taken; it only means she’s been reserved,” he said, a cocky grin spreading on his face as he glanced over the heads of the crowd to where Maddy was tending bar. “Reservations can get canceled.”
“Hardy--”
But he wasn’t listening to her. He’d been called back to his table by his buddies to take his turn.
“Oh, boy,” she muttered and wound her way back to the bar. She ducked under the bar and worked her way back down until she was beside Maddy again. “Warning,” she said, keeping her voice as low as she could. “Mr. Tall, Dark, and Cocky at the back pool table? You might want to keep an eye there. I told him you were engaged--”
“Don’t worry. We’ve already had a chat.”
“Well, you may be having another one, as he doesn’t seem all that put off.”
“I’ll be fine, but thanks for running interference.”
“He seems well meaning enough,” Kerry told her, “but he’s not the sharpest tool when it comes to the word no. You’ll have to say it repeatedly for it to sink in.”
Maddy nodded while setting bowls on the bar, then filling them with pretzels and nuts. “Have I mentioned that I grew up working in my much older brother’s dojo?
”
”
Donna Kauffman (Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3))
“
Kahnawake
August 1704
Temperature 75 degrees
By summer, Kahnawake children had stopped wearing clothing.
Mercy could not get over the sight of hundreds of naked children playing tag, or hide-and-seek, or competing in footraces. The boys--naked!--went into the woods to shoot squirrels and rabbits and partridge. They used bow and arrow, since their fathers did not like them using guns yet. Even the six- and seven-year-olds had excellent aim.
Joseph didn’t go entirely bare, being a little too old, but wore a breechclout, a small square of deerskin in back and another square in front, laced on a slender cord. The boys played constantly. They were stalking, shooting, running, chasing, aiming, fishing, swimming--they never sat down.
The men, however, mainly rested. They liked to smoke and talk, and when they were showing a son or nephew or captive how to feather an arrow or find ducks, they did it slowly and sometimes forgot about it in the middle.
A Puritan must rise before dawn and never take his ease. Puritans believed in working hard. But for an Indian man, working hard was something to do for an hour or a week. After he killed the moose or fought the battle, an Indian took his ease. Hunting men and animals were dangerous; he deserved rest afterward, and besides, he had to prepare himself to do it again. A Deerfield man didn’t risk much plowing a field. A Kahnawake man risked everything going into a cave to rouse a sleeping bear.
”
”
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
“
Was this the voice we wanted in our daughters’ heads? Our granddaughters’? Our nieces’? Or our sons’ or grandsons’ or nephews’ heads for that matter? They deserve better than the toxic masculinity Trump embodies. Well, he’s in their heads now. His voice resounds far and wide. Now it’s on all of us to make sure his ugly words don’t damage our girls—and boys—forever.
”
”
Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
“
My baby is four years old. I know that calling her a baby is really only a matter of semantics now. It’s true, she still sucks her thumb; I have a hard time discouraging this habit. John and I are finally confident that we already enjoy our full complement of children, so the crib is in the crawlspace, awaiting nieces, nephews, or future grandchildren. I cried when I took it down, removing the screws so slowly and feeling the maple pieces come apart in my hands. Before I dismantled it, I spent long vigils lingering in Annie’s darkened room, just watching her sleep, the length of her curled up small.
What seems like permanence, the tide of daily life coming in and going out, over and over, is actually quite finite. It is hard to grasp this thought even as I ride the wave of this moment, but I will try. This time of tucking into bed and wiping up spilled milk is a brief interlude. Quick math proves it. Let me take eleven years - my oldest girl’s age - as an arbitrary endpoint to mothering as I know it now. Mary, for instance, reads her own stories. To her already I am becoming somewhat obsolete. That leaves me roughly 2.373 days, the six and half years until Annie’s eleventh birthday, to do this job. Now that is a big number, but not nearly as big as forever, which is how the current moment often seems.
So I tuck Annie in every night. I check on Peter and Tommy, touch their crew-cut heads as they dream in their Star Wars pajamas, my twin boys who still need me. I steal into Mary’s room, awash with pink roses, and turn out the light she has left on, her fingers still curled around the pages of her book. She sleeps in the bed that was mine when I was a child. Who will she grow up to be? Who will I grow up to be? I think to myself, Be careful what you wish for. The solitude I have lost, the time and space I wish for myself, will come soon enough. I don’t want to be surprised by its return.
Old English may be a dead language, but scholars still manage to find meaning and poetry in its fragments. And it is no small consolation that my lost letters still manage, after a thousand years, to find their way to an essay like this one. They have become part of my story, one I have only begun to write.
- Essay 'Mother Tongue' from Brain, Child Magazine, Winter 2009
”
”
Gina P. Vozenilek
“
A smile parted between her lips, peering at Julius flopping about in his uncle’s arms. Dianna couldn’t help but let out a light chuckle. One of the little boy’s mittens dangled by a thread from the sleeve of his jacket while Roland danced about, trying to remove his boots without waking Julius up.
”
”
Ardin Patterson (Feral)
“
The movies were just kind of figuring out how to use computers in 2003, and nobody was just kind of figuring out how to use computers harder than Michael Bay. It’s tempting to say that every frame of Bad Boys II looks like a TV commercial, but truly every frame looks like a print advertisement, like those Candies ads where Jenny McCarthy’s taking a shit, shallow and glossy and tinged acid green. There are four car chases, one of which is at least fifteen minutes long. Even the most passing transitions are giddily tasteless: the camera EXPLODES out of the speedboat’s tailpipe and ZOOMS across Biscayne Bay and WHAMS down the ventilation shaft in the backward sunglasses factory and SHOOMPS into the buttcrack of a raver’s low-rise jeans and SPROINGS across her transverse colon and SQUEAKS through her appendix and AIRHORNS out her belly button and PLOPS into the Cuban drug lord’s mojito as he shoots his favorite nephew in the head while saying, “Adios, kemosabe,” or something fucking cool like that.
When faced with a choice, Bay picks “all of the above” every time. He’s like a dog in one of those obedience trials who’s like, “Obedience? I don’t know her,” and just goes buck wild on the sausages. Except instead of “obedience” it’s “having a coherent plot that holds the audience’s attention” and instead of “sausages” it’s “explosions, Ferrari chases, and how many different cool kinds of box could a gun come in.
”
”
Lindy West (Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema)
“
One evening, while drinking wine, the nephew of Solon the Athenian sang one of Sappho's songs, and Solon liked it so much that he ordered the boy to teach it to him. When one of the company asked why he was learning it, he answered, 'I want to learn it and die.
”
”
Stobaeus (Anthologion. Ioannis Stobæi Florilegium: Ad Manuscriptorum Fidem Emendavit Et Supplevit Thomas Gaisford)
“
Ivar joined Durant on road shows, and interest grew as Ivar repeated his speech throughout 1923. By the fall Durant believed he finally had found enough investors, and Ivar and Lee Higginson began preparing to close a deal. They followed the same procedure as anyone seeking money. First, they created a new firm, called International Match Corporation, and incorporated it in Delaware. During the late nineteenth century, states had begun competing for corporate charters, the formative documents that corporations are required to file when they are created. Delaware had recently surpassed New Jersey as the incorporation state of choice, and increasingly companies chose to file in Delaware, even if their operations were in another state. Delaware judges took a hands-off approach to business, and would be unlikely to second-guess Ivar’s decisions. By incorporating International Match in Delaware, Lee Higginson would give Ivar and themselves maximum flexibility. Next, Durant and Ivar chose the initial shareholders and directors of International Match. The two original shareholders would be Swedish Match and a syndicate of Swedish banks; they would contribute start-up capital of 30 million dollars and receive the company’s shares, in equal amounts. As shareholders, Swedish Match and the bank syndicate would vote for the company’s board of directors, as well as other major business decisions. The shareholders would elect five directors to oversee International Match’s business: Ivar; Krister Littorin, Ivar’s engineering classmate from Stockholm; Donald Durant; Frederic Allen, Lee Higginson’s senior statesman and head of the firm’s New York office; and Percy A. Rockefeller, a nephew of John D. Rockefeller. Percy Rockefeller owned the World Match Company of Walker-ville, Ontario, and recently had met Ivar while negotiating the sale of a Canadian match manufacturing plant to Swedish Match.29 The two men had impressed each other, and Ivar saw that Rockefeller, who then served on more than sixty other boards, would be the ideal director of International Match: he was well connected, wealthy, generally familiar with the match industry, and far too busy to care about any details. Ivar had idolized the Rockefellers since he was a boy in Kalmar; now, a member of that family would serve on his board.
”
”
Frank Partnoy (The Match King: Ivar Kreuger and the Financial Scandal of the Century)
“
You have family,” Bob said. “You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That’s called family.
”
”
Elizabeth Strout (The Burgess Boys)
“
The morning conversations I had with my young son reflect the conversations Black parents have had with their children across generations so as to protect their souls and personalities from being destroyed by a society that does not respect their humanity. It is the conversation that Langston Hughes so intimately captures in the poem “Mother to Son”: “So boy, don’t you turn back. /Don’t you set down on the steps. /’ Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.” 2 It is the conversation James Baldwin has when he writes his nephew on his fourteenth birthday: “Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority, but to their inhumanity and fear.” 3 And it is the conversation that Howard Thurman engages in his book Jesus and the Disinherited.
”
”
Howard Thurman (Jesus and the Disinherited)
“
Andrew my boy," he said to himself as he looked through the glass, "your a devilishly well preserved fellow for you age, a distinguished looking man, sir.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia #6))
“
Say hello to your nephew.” Declan preens like a peacock showing off its feathers. It’s the most un-Declan-like behavior I have seen, which only makes me laugh. “Could be a girl,” I tease. Declan taps his chest. “I have a good intuition, and my gut tells me it’s a boy.” Rowan’s eyes roll. “And if it is a girl?” “I already have a heart doctor on speed dial and every police captain in Chicago under my payroll to arrest anyone who steps within six feet of her.” “You can’t arrest every guy or girl they’re interested in,” I say. He swipes the photo out of Rowan’s hands while glaring at me. “Watch me.
”
”
Lauren Asher (Final Offer (Dreamland Billionaires, #3))
“
If the series is read in the order of publication, the reader enters this narrative in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which concerns the coming—technically the “advent”—of the redeemer. The Magician’s Nephew deals with the narrative of creation and fall, while The Last Battle concerns the ending of the old order, and the advent of a new creation. The remaining four novels (Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,” The Horse and His Boy, and The Silver Chair) deal with the period between these two advents. Lewis here explores the life of faith, lived in the tension between the past and future comings of Aslan. Aslan is now at one and the same time an object of memory and of hope. Lewis speaks of an exquisite longing for Aslan, when he cannot be seen clearly; of a robust yet gracious faith, able to withstand cynicism and skepticism; of people of character who walk trustingly through the shadowlands, seeing “in a mirror darkly” and learning to deal with a world in which they are assaulted by evil and doubt.
”
”
Alister E. McGrath (C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet)
“
Darrow expects retaliation, but we can’t go after him without risking Sinner discovering the truth that his nephew is a lame-ass double-crossing back-stabbing enemy-loving asshole.
”
”
Siobhan Davis ™ (Rebellion (The Sainthood - Boys of Lowell High, #2))
“
There are still those in the Seven Kingdoms who call me Usurper. Do you forget how many houses fought for Targaryen in the war? They bide their time for now, but give them half a chance, they will murder me in my bed, and my sons with me. If the beggar king crosses with a Dothraki horde at his back, the traitors will join him.” “He will not cross,” Ned promised. “And if by some mischance he does, we will throw him back into the sea. Once you choose a new Warden of the East—” The king groaned. “For the last time, I will not name the Arryn boy Warden. I know the boy is your nephew, but with Targaryens climbing in bed with Dothraki, I would be mad to rest one quarter of the realm on the shoulders of a sickly child.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys’ front door; it crept into their living-room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bobble hats – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large, blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
“
So, it’s the ever so popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliché. Why can’t it ever be the third nephew twice removed who’s fated to destroy the world?
”
”
Julie Kagawa (Iron's Prophecy (The Iron Fey, #4.5))
“
The head man was George W. Trendle, who by 1935 had The Lone Ranger well established and was looking for a Ranger derivative. This would not be a spinoff as such, except for the fact that the character who would appear as a very young boy on The Lone Ranger would be an old man on The Green Hornet. Thus did Dan Reid, nephew of John Reid, become father to Britt Reid: the Lone Ranger was the Green Hornet’s great-uncle.
”
”
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
“
They withdrew together; and the knight, not quitting hold of Mr. Reeves’s button, Ads-my-life, Sir, said he, I hope I am right. I love my Nephew as I love myself. I live but for him. He ever was dutiful to me his uncle. If that be Miss Byron who sits on the right-hand of your Lady, with the countenance of an angel, her eyes sparkling with good humour, and blooming as a May-morning, the business is done. I give my consent. Altho’ I heard not a word pass from her lips, I am sure she is all intelligence. My boy shall have her.
”
”
Samuel Richardson (Complete Works of Samuel Richardson)
“
Hmm? Oh, nothing. I just . . . the last time I made that weave, I used it to startle ... I ... never mind."
Eben. Her Warder had been young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and she had been very fond of him. Eben and Daigian had played games together like a boy and an elder sister rather than Aes Sedai and Warder.
.....
I could do something," Nynaeve said. "This pain you feel, it has to be an effect of the bond, and therefore something to do with the One Power. If the Power causes your pain, then the Power can take that pain away."
"And why would I want that?" Daigian asked, in control once again.
"Well . . . well, because it's pain. It hurts."
"It should," Daigian said. "Eben is dead. Would you want to forget your pain if you lost that hulking giant of yours? Have your feelings for him cutaway like some spoiled chunk of flesh in an otherwise good roast?"
Nynaeve opened her mouth but stopped. Would she? It wasn't that simple—her feelings for Lan were genuine, and not due to a bond. He was her husband, and she loved him. Daigian had been possessive of her Warder, but it had been the affection of an aunt for her favored nephew. It wasn't the same.
But would Nynaeve want that pain taken away? She closed her mouth, suddenly realizing the honor in Daigian's words. "I see. I'm sorry.
”
”
Robert Jordan (The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12))
“
Already thirty-six, and to have a younger sister married first? What ever happened to that nice boy Jesse? Did she scare him off? She is not too old yet, nah? My cousin’s nephew has a job now. I will make the arrangements!
”
”
Sonya Lalli (Serena Singh Flips the Script)
“
Thus, in The Lion they become monarchs under sovereign Jove; in Prince Caspian they harden under strong Mars; in The Dawn Treader they drink light under searching Sol; in The Silver Chair they learn obedience under subordinate Luna; in The Horse and His Boy they come to love poetry under eloquent Mercury; in the Magicians Nephew they gain life-giving fruit under fertile Venus; and in the Last Battle they suffer and die under chilling Saturn.
”
”
Michael Ward
“
...When my nephew was three, [his mother] was worrying about getting him into the right preschool. Kid's fifteen now. He's under pressure to make sure he gets good grades so he can get into a good school. He needs to show good extracurricular activities to get into a good school. He needs to be popular with his classmates. Which means be just like them. Dress right, use the proper slang, listen to proper music, go away on the proper vacations. Live in the right neighborhood, be sure his parents drive the right car, hang with the right group, have the right interests. He has homework. He has soccer practice and guitar lessons. The school decides what he has to learn, and when, and from whom. The school tells him which stairwell he can go up. It tells him how fast to move through the corridors, when he can talk, when he can't, when he can chew gum, when he can have lunch, what he is allowed to wear..."
Rita paused and took a drink.
"Boy", I said. "Ready for corporate life."
She nodded.
"And the rest of the world is telling him he's carefree," she said. "And all the time he's worried that the boys will think he's a sissy, and the school bully will beat him up, and the girls will think he's a geek."
"Hard times," I said.
"The hardest," she said. "And while he's going through puberty and struggling like hell to come to terms with the new person he's becoming, running through it all, like salt in a wound, is the self-satisfied adult smirk that keeps trivializing his angst."
"They do learn to read and write and do numbers," I said.
"They do. And they do that early. And after that, it's mostly bullshit. And nobody ever consults the kid about it."
"You spend time with this kid," I said.
"I do my Auntie Mame thing every few weeks. He takes the train in from his hideous suburb. We go to a museum, or shop, or walk around and look at the city. We have dinner. We talk. He spends the night, and I usually drive him back in the morning."
"What do you tell him?" I said.
"I tell him to hang on," Rita said.
She was leaning a little forward now, each hand resting palm-down on the table, her drink growing warm with neglect.
"I tell him that life in the hideous suburb is not all the life there is. I tell him it will get better in a few years. I tell him that he'll get out of that stultifying little claustrophobic coffin of a life, and the walls will fall away and he'll have room to move and choose, and if he's tough enough, to have a life of his own making."
As she spoke, she was slapping the tabletop softly with her right hand.
"If he doesn't explode first," she said.
"Your jury summations must be riveting," I said.
She laughed and sat back.
"I love that kid," she said. "I think about it a lot."
"He's lucky to have you. Lot of them have no one."
Rita nodded.
"Sometimes I want to take him and run," she said.
The wind shifted outside, and the rain began to rattle against the big picture window next to us. It collected and ran down, distorting reality and blurring the headlights and taillights and traffic lights and colorful umbrellas and bright raincoats into a kind of Parisian shimmer.
"I know," I said.
”
”
Robert B. Parker (School Days (Spenser, #33))
“
If we train her, honing her skills as a chef to the very utmost of her considerable ability...
... then it's possible we could delay the day the storm takes her.
We must raise Erina to be the greatest chef the Nakiri Family has ever produced! And to do so, we must find them! Find the perfect rocks that will polish her to a mirror shine...
A Veritable Generation of Diamonds!
Professor Hayama. I hear your student Shiomi has found an intriguing boy overseas."
"S-Sir Senzaemon! How did you...?!"
"Oh, I simply happened to overhear it.
Have you thought of bringing that boy to Japan and enrolling him here?"
"What?! B-but, sir! Not only is Akira a foreigner, he's an orphan of unknown origins! Is such a thing even possible?!"
"I will speak with the Ministry of Justice. Whether it be through bribery or sheer force...
I will see to it that they grant Akira Hayama Japanese citizenship."
"Darling...
You know that boy from the harbor pub?
Now Alice is insisting that he come with her back to Japan, and she won't listen to reason.
Father is right. For Mana's sake...
... I will help him with his plan.
If Alice wants to bring Ryo Kurokiba, then so be it! He will learn at Totsuki alongside her!
I've heard all the rumors about them, you know. So you have not one but two highly talented nephews?
How wonderful! Their futures look bright indeed.
Say... have you thought of sending them to our Institute? I'm sure the Aldini Brothers would do well there."
"Okay, okay. You win. Geez. Stubborn old coot.
But don't come crying to me...
... if Soma flips the tables on your grandkid and uses her as a steppingstone."
Competing against Erina just may destroy the confidence of these children, but so be it! I'm fully aware that this plan is an imperious use of my power for personal gain...
... but I'm willing to make any sacrifice!
I will do whatever it takes to make Erina into a light of hope!
Then I will show her to Mana...
Through her own daughter she will see...
... that there is yet hope and promise in cooking!"
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 36 [Shokugeki no Souma 36] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #36))
“
So, it's the ever so popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliché. Why can't it ever be the third nephew twice removed who's fated to destroy the world.
”
”
Kawaga Julie
“
It’s take-your-nephew-to-work day.’ ‘Cool!’ ‘But we’re not your nephews,’ Billy objected.
”
”
Adam Baron (Boy Underwater: An entertaining and heartwarming story for young readers ages 9+)