Ninth Gate Quotes

For everyone and everything, there is a time to die. Some do not know it, or would delay it, but its truth cannot be denied. Not when you look into the stars of the ninth gate.

She more correctly climbed down into love, picked its locks, opened its gates, and breached its inner chamber.

I have walked in Death to the very precipice of the Ninth Gate," Abhorsen said quietly. "I know the secrets and horrors of the Nine Precincts. I do not know what lies beyond, but everything that lives must go there, in the proper time. That is the rule that governs our work as the Abhorsen, but it also governs us. You are the fifty-third Abhorsen, Sabriel. I have not taught you as well as I should—let this be my final lesson. Everyone and everything has a time to die.

Nine had heard whisperings that the secretive Bilderberg Group was effectively the World Government, undermining democracy by influencing everything from nations' political leaders to the venue for the next war. He recalled persistent rumors and confirmed media reports that the Bilderberg Group had such luminaries as Barack Obama, Prince Charles, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair, Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Bush Sr. and George W. Bush. Other Bilderberg members sprung forth from Nine’s memory bank. They included the founders and CEOs of various multinational corporations like Facebook, BP, Google, Shell and Amazon, as well as almost every major financial institution on the planet.

Then everything changed, abruptly, forever. Harrowhark fell in love. 'Falling' was not the right term, precisely. It was a long process. She more correctly climbed down into love, picked its locks, opened its gates, and breached its inner chamber.

Sabriel met his gaze and her eyes were not the uncertain, flickering beacons of adolescence. 'I am only eighteen years old on the outside,' she said, touching her palm against her breast with an almost wistful motion. 'But I first walked in Death when I was twelve. I encountered a Fifth Gate Rester when I was fourteen and banished it beyond the Ninth Gate. When I was sixteen I stalked and banished a Mordicant that came near the school. A weakened Mordicant, but still... A year ago, I turned the final page of The Book of the Dead. I don't feel young anymore.

Ahead was a gateway, studded with brilliant red neon lights, and there was jazz coming syncopated from the distance, beckoning. No, not the gate. To the right an unlighted stairway rose, menacing and narrow. Mary turned and ran toward it, the echo ricocheting back from the stone walls. Under her ribs the breath was caught, tight and hurting. The shouts were louder now.

Oh doors of your body There are nine and I have opened them all Oh doors of your body There are nine and for me they have all closed again At the first door Clear Reason has died It was do you remember? the first day in Nice Your left eye like a snake slides Even my heart And let the door of your left gaze open again At the second door All my strength has died It was do you remember? in a hostel in Cagnes Your right eye was beating like my heart Your eyelids throbbed like flowers beat in the breeze And let the door of your right gaze open again At the third door Hear the aorta beat And all my arteries swollen from your only love And let the door of your left ear be reopened At the fourth gate They escort me every spring And listening listening to the beautiful forest Upload this song of love and nests So sad for the soldiers who are at war And let the door of your right ear reopen At the fifth gate It is my life that I bring you It was do you remember? on the train returning from Grasse And in the shade, very close, very short Your mouth told me Words of damnation so wicked and so tender What do I ask of my wounded soul How could I hear them without dying Oh words so sweet so strong that when I think about it I seem to touch them And let the door of your mouth open again At the sixth gate Your gestation of putrefaction oh War is aborting Behold all the springs with their flowers Here are the cathedrals with their incense Here are your armpits with their divine smell And your perfumed letters that I smell During hours And let the door on the left side of your nose be reopened At the seventh gate Oh perfumes of the past that the current of air carries away The saline effluvia gave your lips the taste of the sea Marine smell smell of love under our windows the sea was dying And the smell of the orange trees enveloped you with love While in my arms you cuddled Still and quiet And let the door on the right side of your nose be reopened At the eighth gate Two chubby angels care for the trembling roses they bear The exquisite sky of your elastic waist And here I am armed with a whip made of moonbeams Hyacinth-crowned loves arrive in droves. And let the door of your soul open again With the ninth gate Love itself must come out Life of my life I join you for eternity And for the perfect love without anger We will come to pure and wicked passion According to what we want To know everything to see everything to hear I gave up in the deep secret of your love Oh shady gate oh living coral gate Between two columns of perfection And let the door open again that your hands know how to open so well

Shakespeare’s twenty-ninth sonnet. Do you know it? “‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

The Russians had long historical ties to Serbia, which we largely ignored. Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching. The roots of the Russian Empire trace back to Kiev in the ninth century, so that was an especially monumental provocation. Were the Europeans, much less the Americans, willing to send their sons and daughters to defend Ukraine or Georgia? Hardly. So NATO expansion was a political act, not a carefully considered military commitment, thus undermining the purpose of the alliance and recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests. Similarly, Putin’s hatred of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (limiting the number and location of Russian and NATO nonnuclear military forces in Europe) was understandable.

Almost every day a beautiful woman wearing a ball gown made of grey parachute silk and a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with grey roses visits me. Hardly have I sat down in my armchair, tired from work, but I hear her steps outside on the pavement. She sweeps in at the gate, past the almond tree, and there she is, on the threshold of my workshop. Hastily she comes over to me, like a doctor afraid that she may be too late to save a sinking patient. She takes off her hat and her hair tumbles about her shoulders, she strips off her fencing gloves and tosses them onto this little table, and she bends down towards me. I close my eyes in a swoon – and how it goes on after that point, I do not know. One thing is certain: we never say a word. The scene is always a silent one. I think the grey lady understands only her mother tongue, German, which I have not once spoken since I parted from my parents at Oberwiesenfeld airport in Munich in 1939, and which survives in me as no more than an echo, a muted and incomprehensible murmur. It may possibly have something to do with this loss of language, this oblivion, Ferber went on, that my memories reach no further back than my ninth or eighth year, and that I recall little of the Munich years after 1933 other than processions, marches and parades.

18The wall was built of jasper; and the city was pure gold, transparent like clear crystal. [1 Kin 6:30] 19The foundation stones of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; [Ex 28:17–20; Is 54:11, 12] 20the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite (yellow topaz); the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. 21And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each separate gate was of one single pearl. And the street (broad way) of the city was pure gold, like transparent crystal. 22I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty [the Omnipotent, the Ruler of all] and the Lamb are its temple. 23And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon to

On the ninth day of the festival, Abram and Mikael positioned themselves to watch the grand parade of the gods. It proceeded down the Processional Way from Esagila all the way past the temple of Ishtar in the north of the city. A large flock of white doves, the bird of the goddess, was released from Ishtar’s temple as they passed, creating a spectacle of peaceful liberation. The parade continued out through the vainglorious Ishtar Gate on to another temple by the river, where they held a banquet of the gods. This was the most public of events. Throngs of people crowded the lanes of the Processional Way, trying to get a glimpse of the gods in their glorious chariots covered with dazzling jewels. Cultic musicians, dancers, and singers accompanied the parade through the city. Priests, royalty and visiting dignitaries received front row seats to the spectacle.

Thus they were speaking when the thunderous voice came. So mighty it was that it filled every hall and chamber of the palace; and its first word dashed the pictures from the walls so that their crash and smash added to the roar, though they were lost in it. Its second word broke all the crockery in the palace and set the shards to sliding like screes of stones, so that they burst open cabinets and cupboards and descended to the floors in avalanches. Its third word toppled all the statues along the broad avenue that led up to the Great Gate; its fourth stopped the fountain and snapped off both arms of the marble nymph who blessed the waters; and its fifth cracked the basin itself. Its sixth, seventh, and eighth words maddened every cat in the place, struck dead seventeen bat-winged black rooks of the flock that swept the sky about the Grand Campanile, and set all the bells to ringing. Its ninth soured every cask in the cellars, while its tenth word stove them in. Its eleventh stopped the clocks and started the hounds to howling. Its twelfth and last (which was an especially big word) knocked the Dwarves off their feet and sent every one of them rolling and somersaulting amongst all their foulnesses while they held their ears and screeched. And what that voice said was, “What vermin are these who dare defile the body of a Giant?” Oh, my friends! Let us of this star, who are ourselves but Dwarves, heed well the warning.

The ancestors of modern Ukrainians lived in dozens of premodern and modern principalities, kingdoms, and empires, and in the course of time they took on various names and identities. The two key terms that they used to define their land were “Rus’” and “Ukraine.” (In the Cyrillic alphabet, Rus’ is spelled Pycь: the last character is a soft sign indicating palatalized pronunciation of the preceding consonant.) The term “Rus’,” brought to the region by the Vikings in the ninth and tenth centuries, was adopted by the inhabitants of Kyivan Rus’, who took the Viking princes and warriors into their fold and Slavicized them. The ancestors of today’s Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians adopted the name “Rus’” in forms that varied from the Scandinavian/Slavic “Rus’” to the Hellenized “Rossiia.” In the eighteenth century, Muscovy adopted the latter form as the official name of its state and empire.

queen opened the gate, and she and Arthur crossed to the hut. Guinevere knocked on the door. A moment later, an old woman wrapped in a shawl stood in the doorway. She had a long white braid and luminous skin worn smooth by weather and time, like an ancient stone. The woman’s eyes were closed. With a start, Jack realized Cafelle was blind. At her side was a tall white dog with light blue eyes. Oki didn’t bark or whine. The peaceful gaze of the white dog seemed to keep him calm. “Greetings, Cafelle. We have come to—to seek your help,” rasped King Arthur. Cafelle bowed her head. “Welcome, Your Majesty,” she said. “And the queen has come with you this time,