Once I Killed A Plant Quotes

I killed a plant once because I gave it too much water. Lord, I worry that love is violence.

You told me once of t he plants that lie dormant through the drought; that wait, half dead, deep in the earth. The plants that wait for the rain. You said they'd wait for years, if they had to; that they'd almost kill themselves before they grew again. But as soon as those first drops of water fall, those plants begin to stretch and spread their roots. They travel up through the soil and sand to reach the surface. There's a chance for them again. One day they'll let you out of that dry, empty cell. You'll return to the Separates, without me, and you'll feel the ram once more. And you'll grow straight, this time, towards this sunlight. I know you will." - Gemma

I killed a plant once because I gave / it too much water. Lord, I worry / that love is violence.

Nevertheless" you've seen a strawberry that's had a struggle; yet was, where the fragments met, a hedgehog or a star- fish for the multitude of seeds. What better food than apple seeds - the fruit within the fruit - locked in like counter-curved twin hazelnuts? Frost that kills the little rubber-plant - leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can't harm the roots; they still grow in frozen ground. Once where there was a prickley-pear - leaf clinging to a barbed wire, a root shot down to grow in earth two feet below; as carrots from mandrakes or a ram's-horn root some- times. Victory won't come to me unless I go to it; a grape tendril ties a knot in knots till knotted thirty times - so the bound twig that's under- gone and over-gone, can't stir. The weak overcomes its menace, the strong over- comes itself. What is there like fortitude! What sap went through that little thread to make the cherry red!

But…” Hazel gripped his shoulders and stared at him in amazement. “Frank, what happened to you?” “To me?” He stood, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t…” He looked down and realized what she meant. Triptolemus hadn’t gotten shorter. Frank was taller. His gut had shrunk. His chest seemed bulkier. Frank had had growth spurts before. Once he’d woken up two centimeters taller than when he’d gone to sleep. But this was nuts. It was as if some of the dragon and lion had stayed with him when he’d turned back to human. “Uh…I don’t…Maybe I can fix it.” Hazel laughed with delight. “Why? You look amazing!” “I—I do?” “I mean, you were handsome before! But you look older, and taller, and so distinguished—” Triptolemus heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yes, obviously some sort of blessing from Mars. Congratulations, blah, blah, blah. Now, if we’re done here…?” Frank glared at him. “We’re not done. Heal Nico.” The farm god rolled his eyes. He pointed at the corn plant, and BAM! Nico di Angelo appeared in an explosion of corn silk. Nico looked around in a panic. “I—I had the weirdest nightmare about popcorn.” He frowned at Frank. “Why are you taller?” “Everything’s fine,” Frank promised. “Triptolemus was about to tell us how to survive the House of Hades. Weren’t you, Trip?” The farm god raised his eyes to the ceiling, like, Why me, Demeter? “Fine,” Trip said. “When you arrive at Epirus, you will be offered a chalice to drink from.” “Offered by whom?” Nico asked. “Doesn’t matter,” Trip snapped. “Just know that it is filled with deadly poison.” Hazel shuddered. “So you’re saying that we shouldn’t drink it.” “No!” Trip said. “You must drink it, or you’ll never be able to make it through the temple. The poison connects you to the world of the dead, lets you pass into the lower levels. The secret to surviving is”—his eyes twinkled—“barley.” Frank stared at him. “Barley.” “In the front room, take some of my special barley. Make it into little cakes. Eat these before you step into the House of Hades. The barley will absorb the worst of the poison, so it will affect you, but not kill you.” “That’s it?” Nico demanded. “Hecate sent us halfway across Italy so you could tell us to eat barley?” “Good luck!” Triptolemus sprinted across the room and hopped in his chariot. “And, Frank Zhang, I forgive you! You’ve got spunk. If you ever change your mind, my offer is open. I’d love to see you get a degree in farming!” “Yeah,” Frank muttered. “Thanks.” The god pulled a lever on his chariot. The snake-wheels turned. The wings flapped. At the back of the room, the garage doors rolled open. “Oh, to be mobile again!” Trip cried. “So many ignorant lands in need of my knowledge. I will teach them the glories of tilling, irrigation, fertilizing!” The chariot lifted off and zipped out of the house, Triptolemus shouting to the sky, “Away, my serpents! Away!” “That,” Hazel said, “was very strange.” “The glories of fertilizing.” Nico brushed some corn silk off his shoulder. “Can we get out of here now?” Hazel put her hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Are you okay, really? You bartered for our lives. What did Triptolemus make you do?” Frank tried to hold it together. He scolded himself for feeling so weak. He could face an army of monsters, but as soon as Hazel showed him kindness, he wanted to break down and cry. “Those cow monsters…the katoblepones that poisoned you…I had to destroy them.” “That was brave,” Nico said. “There must have been, what, six or seven left in that herd.” “No.” Frank cleared his throat. “All of them. I killed all of them in the city.” Nico and Hazel stared at him in stunned silence. Frank

Everybody has got to live for something, but Jesus is arguing that, if he is not that thing, it will fail you. First, it will enslave you. Whatever that thing is, you will tell yourself that you have to have it or there is no tomorrow. That means that if anything threatens it, you will become inordinately scared; if anyone blocks it, you will become inordinately angry; and if you fail to achieve it, you will never be able to forgive yourself. But second, if you do achieve it, it will fail to deliver the fulfillment you expected. Let me give you an eloquent contemporary expression of what Jesus is saying. Nobody put this better than the American writer David Foster Wallace. He got to the top of his profession. He was an award-winning, bestselling postmodern novelist known around the world for his boundary-pushing storytelling. He once wrote a sentence that was more than a thousand words long. A few years before the end of his life, he gave a now-famous commencement speech at Kenyon College. He said to the graduating class, Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god . . . to worship . . . is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before [your loved ones] finally plant you. . . . Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful; it is that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.4 Wallace was by no means a religious person, but he understood that everyone worships, everyone trusts in something for their salvation, everyone bases their lives on something that requires faith. A couple of years after giving that speech, Wallace killed himself. And this nonreligious man’s parting words to us are pretty terrifying: “Something will eat you alive.” Because even though you might never call it worship, you can be absolutely sure you are worshipping and you are seeking. And Jesus says, “Unless you’re worshipping me, unless I’m the center of your life, unless you’re trying to get your spiritual thirst quenched through me and not through these other things, unless you see that the solution must come inside rather than just pass by outside, then whatever you worship will abandon you in the end.

He [Ray] was working in a tool-and-die factory in Brooklyn, but before that had drifted around, had been employed at the Studebaker plant in South Bend and also at an Omaha slaughterhouse on the kill floor. Once I asked him what that was like. "You ever heard of Auschwitz?

I can't save you the way you want me to. But I can tell you what I feel. It's not much. But it may give you a chance. You told me once of the plants that lie dormant through the drought, that wait, half-dead, deep in the earth. The plants that wait for the rain. You said they'd wait for years, if they had to; that they'd almost kill themselves before they grew again. But as soon as those first drops of water fall, those plants begin to stretch and spread their roots. They travel up through the soil and sand to reach the surface. There's a chance for them again.

Two young men drinking beer on the steps of a closed bookstore across the street fixed their eyes on Savannah. Even from that distance Gregori could see their instant fixation, the obsession she so easily produced in men.It was in the way she moved, her flowing hair and enormous eyes, her aura, at once innocent and sexy. There as no hope that they would not recognize her. She embodied magic and fantasy. Gregori sighed heavily,his gut tightening. She was going to drive him crazy and maybe get some innocent drunk killed. The two men had risen, whispering excitedly, working up their courage to approach her. He could hear them pumping each other up. He fixed his silver eyes on them and concentrated briefly. He wiped their thoughts away and planted in them an urgency to leave the area immediately. "Do me a favor,cherie. Try to look plain and uninteresting." Savannah laughed softly in spite of her growing sense of dread. "Get over it already," she suggested. "You are more than disrespectful, woman. I cannot remember a single time in my existence when anyone spoke to me as you do." She rubbed her cheek along his shoulder in a small caress. Gregori's breath seemed to still in his throat. "That's why I do it.You need someone to give you a little trouble." Her teasing tone slid over him, into him, the tiny threads that tied them together multiplying every moment. "I would not mind a little trouble. You are big trouble.

Once more The guns roar. Once more The call goes forth for men. Again The war begins. Again False slogans become a bore. Yet no one cries: Enough! No more! Like angry dogs the human race Loves the snarl upon its face. It loves to kill. The pessimist says It always will. That I do not believe. Some day The savage in us will wear away. Some day quite clearly Men will see How clean and happy life can be And how, Like flowers planted in the sun, We, too, can give forth blossoms, Shared by everyone.

Fireheart sprang forward and burst through the curtain of lichen. Tigerclaw and Bluestar were writhing on the floor of the den. Bluestar’s claws scored again and again across Tigerclaw’s shoulder, but the deputy’s greater weight kept her pinned down in the soft sand. Tigerclaw’s fangs were buried in her throat, and his powerful claws raked her back. “Traitor!” Fireheart yowled. He flung himself at Tigerclaw, slashing at his eyes. The deputy reared back, forced to release his grip on Bluestar’s throat. Fireheart felt his claws rip through the deputy’s ear, spraying blood into the air. Bluestar scrambled to the side of the den, looking half stunned. Fireheart could not tell how badly hurt she was. Pain lanced through him as Tigerclaw gashed his side with a blow from his powerful hindpaws. Fireheart’s paws skidded in the sand and he lost his balance, hitting the ground with Tigerclaw on top of him. The deputy’s amber eyes blazed into his. “Mousedung!” he hissed. “I’ll flay you, Fireheart. I’ve waited a long time for this.” Fireheart summoned every scrap of skill and strength he possessed. He knew Tigerclaw could kill him, but in spite of that he felt strangely free. The lies and the need for deceit were over. The secrets—Bluestar’s and Tigerclaw’s—were all out in the open. There was only the clean danger of battle. He aimed a blow at Tigerclaw’s throat, but the deputy swung his head to one side and Fireheart’s claws scraped harmlessly through thick tabby fur. But the blow had loosened Tigerclaw’s grip on him. Fireheart rolled away, narrowly avoiding a killing bite to his neck. “Kittypet!” Tigerclaw taunted, flexing his haunches to pounce again. “Come and find out how a real warrior fights.” He threw himself at Fireheart, but at the last moment Fireheart darted aside. As Tigerclaw tried to turn in the narrow den, his paws slipped on a splash of blood and he crashed awkwardly onto one side. At once Fireheart saw his chance. His claws sliced down to open a gash in Tigerclaw’s belly. Blood welled up, soaking into the deputy’s fur. He let out a high-pitched caterwaul. Fireheart pounced on him, raking claws across his belly again, and fastening his teeth into Tigerclaw’s neck. The deputy struggled vainly to free himself, his thrashing growing weaker as the blood flowed. Fireheart let go of his neck, planting one paw on Tigerclaw’s outstretched foreleg, and the other on his chest. “Bluestar!” he called. “Help me hold him down!” Bluestar was crouching behind him in her moss-lined nest. Blood trickled down her forehead, but that did not alarm Fireheart as much as the look in her eyes. They were a vague, cloudy blue, and she stared horror-struck in front of her as if she was witnessing the destruction

For those who live in Kashmir, the expectations of justice, rarely fulfilled in the Indian subcontinent, are more than optimistic; they belong to fantasy. It makes it all the more difficult for the victims to bear their human losses. At Dalal's house, the once carefully tended plants and hedges were already running wild just a few weeks after his murder, the fish in the pond were mostly dead, and few men sat slumped on the floor in a bare hall under the Islamic calendar of mourning. His mother, persuaded by her male relatives to emerge from the dark room where she had taken to since her son's death, broke down as soon as she noticed the photos of Dalal I had been studying. The pictures showed a young man in dark glasses and trendy clothes, a happy, contented man, someone who had managed to find, amid the relentless violence of the insurgency, a new style and identity for himself, and when Dalal's mother, still crying, while her mother, Dalal's grandmother, sat beside her, quietly wiping her tears with the frayed end of her headscarf, asked what was the point of talking to the press, of speaking about her son to me- he was gone and wouldn't come back; the people who had killed him were too powerful- it was hard not to feel pierced by the truth of what she was saying, hard not to be moved by her grief, and the pain, amid the great human waste of Kashmir, of her helplessness.

I believe reincarnation is fundamentally true, even though most of these religions taught it in a metaphorical and popular form called metempsychosis. This is the belief that the soul, the supposed (but false) unity of will and intellect, is fully reborn. This is false. The intellect is a merely physical quality like muscular strength and can’t be “reborn” any more than your muscles are literally reborn. You are not at bottom your intellect, this is impossible, although this is the assumption of almost all modern people even when they claim otherwise. They pay lip service to “supremacy of the desires,” or to biological determinism, but they still believe they are their intellects, just imprisoned by flesh and matter and genes and a biological “programming.” This is wrong! And it’s not the intellect that is reborn, I will tell you what is. Take a fruitfly, or a worker ant. This type of being is very close to plant-life in some ways. It has very primitive intellect, very primitive nervous system. There are inborn ways of behaving, of reacting to certain stimuli, inborn desires and orientations “in the blood,” and when you kill one ant, the next one over will be identical in this regard. Its rebirth is “instantaneous” because the ant has a will that is shared uniformly across its type in the hive, and is therefore persistent and enduring. Once the queen dies, the next queen is indistinguishable from it in that thing that Schopenhauer calls the will, what he says is inborn way of wanting, and is in a very literal sense a “reincarnation” of this same thing.

Tell me about your adventures, Abigail. Any diabolical new cases to investigate?” “Yes, as a matter of fact—bones and bodies and everything. We’ll be leaving for Gad’s Valley tomorrow.” “Isn’t that where that handsome young policeman of yours got stationed? What’s his name?” I felt my cheeks flush, which made Jenny smile impishly. “Charlie is hardly my anything,” I said. “But yes, he’ll be involved. Not that there are enough flowers in the world to make that romance a reality.” “You don’t need flowers, dear. You need confidence. Next time you see him, you should just go right up to him and plant a kiss on that boy’s pretty face.” “Jenny!” “Fortune favors the bold, Abigail!” “Sure it does. The last time I was bold, I nearly got the man killed, and then he changed his name and moved a hundred miles away. That’s not exactly a strong start to a relationship.” “You silly girl. Of course it is—he risked his life for you!” “Oh, never mind about it, anyway. I’m not going to the valley looking for romance—there are more important matters at stake. I’m looking for a murderer.” “You should definitely have kissed him right after the big fight.” Jenny smiled, willfully ignoring my protests. She let her gaze drift to the window. “My fiancé got in a fight over me, once. He lost terribly, the poor man—he never was much of a pugilist. He looked like an absolute mess afterward, with gauze wadded up in each nostril and one eye all swollen, but it was still just the sweetest thing. And the stupidest. I told him as much . . . right before I kissed him.” She turned her eyes meaningfully back to me. “Because that’s what you do.

Few grown humans can normally survive a fall of much more than twenty-five or thirty feet, though there have been some notable exceptions—none more memorable perhaps than that of a British airman in World War II named Nicholas Alkemade. In the late winter of 1944, while on a bombing run over Germany, Flight Sergeant Alkemade, the tail gunner on a British Lancaster bomber, found himself in a literally tight spot when his plane was hit by enemy flak and quickly filled with smoke and flames. Tail gunners on Lancasters couldn’t wear parachutes because the space in which they operated was too confined, and by the time Alkemade managed to haul himself out of his turret and reach for his parachute, he found it was on fire and beyond salvation. He decided to leap from the plane anyway rather than perish horribly in flames, so he hauled open a hatch and tumbled out into the night. He was three miles above the ground and falling at 120 miles per hour. “It was very quiet,” Alkemade recalled years later, “the only sound being the drumming of aircraft engines in the distance, and no sensation of falling at all. I felt suspended in space.” Rather to his surprise, he found himself to be strangely composed and at peace. He was sorry to die, of course, but accepted it philosophically, as something that happened to airmen sometimes. The experience was so surreal and dreamy that Alkemade was never certain afterward whether he lost consciousness, but he was certainly jerked back to reality when he crashed through the branches of some lofty pine trees and landed with a resounding thud in a snowbank, in a sitting position. He had somehow lost both his boots, and had a sore knee and some minor abrasions, but otherwise was quite unharmed. Alkemade’s survival adventures did not quite end there. After the war, he took a job in a chemical plant in Loughborough, in the English Midlands. While he was working with chlorine gas, his gas mask came loose, and he was instantly exposed to dangerously high levels of the gas. He lay unconscious for fifteen minutes before co-workers noticed his unconscious form and dragged him to safety. Miraculously, he survived. Some time after that, he was adjusting a pipe when it ruptured and sprayed him from head to foot with sulfuric acid. He suffered extensive burns but again survived. Shortly after he returned to work from that setback, a nine-foot-long metal pole fell on him from a height and very nearly killed him, but once again he recovered. This time, however, he decided to tempt fate no longer. He took a safer job as a furniture salesman and lived out the rest of his life without incident. He died peacefully, in bed, aged sixty-four in 1987. —

You don't get to ask questions,' I said, and he looked up at me, exhaustion and pain lining his face, my blood shining on his lips. Part of me hated the words, for acting like this while he was wounded, but I didn't care. 'You only get to answer them. And nothing more.' Wariness flooded his eyes, but he nodded, biting off another mouthful of the weed and chewing. I stared down at him, the half-Illyrian warrior who was my soul-bonded partner. 'How long have you know that I'm your mate?' Rhys stilled. The entire world stilled. He swallowed. 'Feyre.' 'How long have you know that I'm your mate.' 'You... You ensnared the Suriel?' How he'd pieced it together, I didn't give a shit. 'I said you don't get to ask questions.' I thought something like panic might have flashed over his features. He chewed again on the plant- as if it instantly helped, as if he knew that he wanted to be at his full strength to face this, face me. Colour was already blooming on his cheeks, perhaps from whatever healing was in my blood. 'I suspected for a while,' Rhys said, swallowing once more. 'I knew for certain when Amarantha was killing you. And when we stood on the balcony Under the Mountain- right after we were freed, I felt it snap into place between us. I think when you were Made, it... it heightened the smell of the bond. I looked at you then and the strength of it hit me like a blow.' He'd gone wide-eyed, had stumbled back as if shocked- terrified. And had vanished. That had been over half a year ago. My blood pounded in my ears. 'When were you going to tell me?' 'Feyre.' 'When were you going to tell me?' 'I don't know. I wanted to yesterday. Or whenever you'd noticed that it wasn't just a bargain between us. I hoped you might realise when I took you to bed, and-' 'Do the others know?' 'Amren and Mor do. Azriel and Cassian suspect.' My face burned. They knew- they- 'Why didn't you tell me?' 'You were in love with him; you were going to marry him. And then you... you were enduring everything and it didn't feel right to tell you.' 'I deserved to know.' 'The other night you told me you wanted a distraction, you wanted fun. Not a mating bond. And not to someone like me- a mess.' So the words I'd spat after the Court of Nightmares had haunted him. 'You promised- you promised no secrets, no games. You promised.' Something in my chest was caving in on itself. Some part of me I'd thought long gone. 'I know I did,' Rhys said, the glow returning to his face. 'You think I didn't want to tell you? You think I liked hearing you wanted me only for amusement and release? You think it didn't drive me out of my mind so completely that those bastards shot me out of the sky because I was too busy wondering if I should just tell you, or wait- or maybe take whatever pieces that you offered me and be happy with it? Or that maybe I should let you go so you don't have a lifetime of assassins and High Lords hunting you down for being with me?' 'I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear you explain how you assumed that you knew best, that I couldn't handle it-' 'I didn't do that-' 'I don't want to hear you tell me that you decided I was to be kept in the dark while you friends knew, while you all decided what was right for me-' 'Feyre-' 'Take me back to the Illyrian camp. Now.' He was panting in great, rattling gulps. 'Please.' But I stormed to him and grabbed his hand. 'Take me back now.' And I saw the pain and sorrow in his eyes. Saw it and didn't care, not as that thing in my chest was twisting and breaking. Not as my heart- my heart- ached, so viciously that I realised it'd somehow been repaired in these past few months. Repaired by him. And now it hurt. Rhys saw all that and more on my face, and I saw nothing but agony in his as he rallied his strength, and, grunting in pain, winnowed us into the Illyrian camp.

No, I'll mostly be watching you, anyway.’ His fingers traced patterns across the skin of my arm, raising goosebumps. ‘Will you cry?’ ‘Probably,’ I admitted, ‘if I'm paying attention.’ ‘I won't distract you then.’ But I felt his lips on my hair, and it was very distracting. The movie eventually captured my interest, thanks in large part to Marcel whispering Romeo's lines in my ear-his irresistible, velvet voice made the actor's voice sound week and coarse by comparison. And I did cry, to his amusement, when Juliet woke and found her new husband dead. ‘I'll admit, I do sort of envy him here, ‘Marcel said, drying the tears with a lock of my hair. ‘She's very pretty.’ He made a disgusted sound. ‘I don't envy him the girl-just the ease of the suicide,’ he clarified in a teasing tone. ‘You humans have it so easy! All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts…’ ‘What?’ I gasped. ‘It's something I had to think about once, and I knew from Chiaz's experience that it wouldn't be simple. I'm not even sure how many ways Chiaz tried to kill himself in the beginning… after he realized what he'd become…’ His voice, which had grown serious, turned light again. ‘And he's still in excellent health.’ I twisted around so that I could read his face. ‘What are you talking about?’ I demanded. ‘What do you mean, this something you had to think about once?’ ‘Last spring, when you were… nearly killed…’ He paused to take a deep breath, snuggling to return to his teasing tone. ‘Of course, I was trying to focus on finding you alive, but part of my mind was making contingency plans. As I said, it's not as easy for me as it is for a human.’ For one second, the memory of my last trip to Phoenix washed over my head and made me feel dizzy. I could see it all so clearly-the the blinding sun, the heat waves coming off the concrete as I ran with desperate haste to find the sadistic angel who wanted to torture me to death. James, waiting in the mirrored room with my mother as his hostage-or so I'd thought. I hadn't known it was all a ruse. Just as James hadn't known that Marcel was racing to save me; Marcel made it in time, but it had been a close one. Unthinkingly, my fingers traced the crescent-shaped scar on my hand that was always just a few degrees cooler than the rest of my skin. I shook my head as if I could shake away the bad memories and tried to grasp what Marcel meant. My stomach plunged uncomfortably. ‘Contingency plans?’ I repeated. ‘Well, I wasn't going to live without you.’ He rolled his eyes as if that fact were childishly obvious. ‘But I wasn't sure how to do it- I knew Emmah and Joh would never help… so I was thinking maybe I would go to Italy and do something to provoke the Ministry.’ I didn't want to believe he was serious, but his golden eyes were brooding, focused on something far away in the distance as he contemplated ways to end his own life. Abruptly, I was furious. ‘What is Vulture?’ I demanded. ‘The Ministry is a family,’ he explained, his eyes still remote. ‘A very old, very powerful family of our kind. They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose. Chiaz lived with them briefly in his early years, in Italy, before he settled in America-do you remember the story?’ ‘Of course, I remember.

She hadn’t said it like a joke or hyperbole. “In this country it is,” Arethusa replied seriously, and reached to take the peach juice I gave her, one of her after the other. She smiled at me. “I don’t see why,” Lady Sally said. “Pacifists—and anarchists, and libertarians—specifically repudiate the right of the state to employ armed agents—to protect them from murder, for instance. So shooting one ought to be no worse than a misdemeanor. ‘Disturbing the peace,’ say, or ‘frivolous discharge of a firearm.’ ” “ ‘Unlicensed hunting,’ maybe,” I suggested. “They’re not restricted,” she pointed out. “As long as you eat the meat, and clean up after…” “I’m particular about what I eat,” I said. “But I will kill this bunch. If you can help me track ’em.” “Joseph,” Arethusa said plaintively, “when I decided to love you, I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty. Do you realize we’ve never gone an entire day without you announcing your intention to murder someone?” “People who plant nuclear mines in major population centers?” I said. “You bet I’ll kill them if I get a chance.” “No allowances for good intentions?” “None,” I said firmly. “Even if I stipulate that a world of enforced peace run by something like Weathermen with nukes is a good intention—and I don’t—nobody elected these clowns to do the job. They don’t have the right. Even a tyrant rules by consent of his people, no matter how difficult he makes it for them to withhold it. He rules openly, a fair target for any assassin. But these vermin are worse than a well-poisoner.” She bit her lip. Then she shrugged. “You’re right,” she said, “but I want you to promise me that you’ll give up murdering people once we’re married.

How long have you known that I’m your mate?” Rhys stilled. The entire world stilled. He swallowed. “Feyre.” “How long have you known that I’m your mate?” “You … You ensnared the Suriel?” How he’d pieced it together, I didn’t give a shit. “I said you don’t get to ask questions.” I thought something like panic might have flashed over his features. He chewed again on the plant—as if it instantly helped, as if he knew that he wanted to be at his full strength to face this, face me. Color was already blooming on his cheeks, perhaps from whatever healing was in my blood. “I suspected for a while,” Rhys said, swallowing once more. “I knew for certain when Amarantha was killing you. And when we stood on the balcony Under the Mountain—right after we were freed, I felt it snap into place between us. I think when you were Made, it … it heightened the smell of the bond. I looked at you then and the strength of it hit me like a blow.

THE OLD CAR WAS SUNK TO THE BUMPERS WHEN I DISCOVERED IT, but my first thought was how good it would be to sleep in there and hear the rain drumming on steel rather than splattering against our tattered old tarp. I was Maggie back then. Maggie, the name my parents gave me. A nice name. But these weren’t nice times. We were tired and hungry, and the GreyDevil bonfires were burning brighter and the solar bear howls were getting closer, and every morning as I strapped my SpitStick across my back and set out to scavenge, I found myself thinking I needed a better name. A stronger name. I mean, the name Maggie was fine, it just seemed kinda underpowered. So when I scrubbed the moss from the side of that old car overlooking Goldmine Gully and saw the chrome letters—Ford Falcon—I climbed up on the hood and stood there with my steel-toed boots planted wide and I wedged my fists on my hips and I announced that Maggie was yesterday, and from this day forward I would answer only to Ford Falcon. Ford, because we had a lot of rivers to cross. Falcon, because, well, if you have a lot of rivers to cross, a pair of wings can’t hurt, and then once you get across the river it’s likely you will need sharp eyes and an even sharper beak. Yes. I know. I named myself after an old dead car. Worse yet, it’s not even a cool car. It’s a station wagon. Station wagons were how parents hauled kids around during the time between covered wagons and minivans. These days you won’t see a minivan unless it’s being pulled by a horse, and even horses are hard to come by. But if you see me you will know me because I wear a vest made from the hide of a beast that tried to kill me and lost. I skinned that beast myself, and also I skinned the lettering from that old dead car and stitched it to the vest across my shoulder blades using copper wire so that in polished chrome the world can read my name and know it: Ford Falcon.

off from the same line, they were scattered peacefully across the globe for centuries, each mostly disregarding the others. But in the Middle Ages, the witches, who by nature did the most interacting with normal humans, began to be discovered. And then persecuted, and tortured, and murdered. Their leaders went to the vampires and the wolves and begged for help, but both groups turned away, the vampires from apathy and the wolves from fear of meeting the same fate. Wolves are pack animals, and look after their pack before anything else. So the witches did the only thing they could: they looked to strengthen their magic. They didn’t know about evolution and magical lines back then, but during their research, the witches managed to stumble upon a group of plants that magic had bonded itself to, just like the human conduits. They were known as nightshades: belladonna, mandragora, Lycium barbarum (which also became known as wolfberry), tomatillo, cape gooseberry flower, capsicum, and solanum. The entire subspecies was rife with magic. The latter four plants could be used in hundreds of charms and potions, many of which helped the witches to deter the human persecutors. But the former three plants were unique; they interacted with the remaining magical beings in mystifying ways. Belladonna was poisonous to vampires—it took unbelievable amounts to actually kill them, but even a sprinkle of the plant would work as a paralytic. Proximity to wolfberry caused the shifters to lose control, painfully unable to stop from changing, again and again, which was very dangerous to anyone nearby. And mandragora, also called mandrake, was the key ingredient in a spell that could grant a very powerful witch the ability to communicate between living and dead. Which is how I ended up disposing of that naked guy’s body in Culver City, all those years ago. This discovery was your classic Pandora’s box scenario. A small group of witches, furious that the vampires and the wolves had abandoned them during their darkest time, began to use wolfberry and belladonna against them—sometimes without much provocation. The balance of power shifted once again, and while the witches’ discovery didn’t cause a full-out war, it did spawn thousands of skirmishes, minor battles breaking out between the three major factions. Eventually, the use of those herbs was “outlawed” in the Old World, but it was done the way that marijuana has been outlawed in the US—basically, don’t get caught. The witches are always arguing about this among themselves; some of them think it should be open season, and others think the ban should be more strictly enforced. But while they may not be able to pull together a majority vote, in Los Angeles Kirsten has organized the witches into sort of an informal union. I know it sounds crazy, but if actors and directors can have unions in this town, why not witches? As I understand it, the real benefit to joining the union is access: to chat rooms, newsletters, support groups, spell sessions—and me. The witches’ dues pay Kirsten a small salary, and she uses the rest to organize the network and pay me. There are plenty of “non-union” witches in LA, too, ones who either haven’t

He arched a mocking eyebrow. “Do you plan to stay and watch me dress?” Her blush intensified as she stumbled off the bed. “You’re a devil.” She planted her feet on the floor and struggled to do up her dress. While she fiddled, he wrenched the shirt over his head. Hearing a frustrated hiss, he bit back a smile and the impulse to tell her she was adorable. He stepped up to her. “Let me help.” To his surprise, she presented her back and swept the curtain of hair aside to reveal the graceful line of nape and shoulders. For a forbidden moment, he didn’t move, but inhaled until her flowery scent flooded his senses. “What on earth are you doing?” she asked, turning her head to give him a glimpse of her profile. Her features weren’t delicate. There was too much character in her nose and defiance in her chin. But he dared anyone who saw her ever to forget her. “Considering artistic matters,” he said gently. He set to doing up her gown. Much against his deepest inclinations. Her lips tightened. “Oh?” “You know, I’d never cast you as Cinderella.” He fastened the top hook and lowered his hands to her slim hips. He tempted fate—and self-control—but he couldn’t resist stringing out the physical contact. “You’re more queen than ingénue.” “Well, you’re no Prince Charming.” She wriggled free and faced him. To his regret, her dress once more covered her to the collarbones. “Tch, tch, no need to take your bad temper out on me.” And received a killing glance for his trouble. “It’s a cursed ill wind that landed you on my doorstep,” she muttered, just loudly enough for him to hear. His lips twitched. She wasn’t much good at deception — an appealing quality in a wife. She kept forgetting that she was meant to be a humble housemaid. Humility, like deceit, wasn’t easy for this imperious creature. Any man who took her on would never have the docile wife touted as ideal. But then, Lyle had never settled for the general run of things. If he married Charlotte Warren—and every moment inclined him more toward the outlandish idea—there would be fireworks. Luckily he loved fireworks. “On

acid broke down the compound, making their waste devastating. They said that once it was absorbed, it ruined the cellular walls of plant cells, causing them to be weak, to die. I don’t know the science behind it, but it spread like a plague through plant life. All across the Midwest, crops withered, trees rotted, and forests turned brown. They said that the soil was completely useless due to highly acidic toxins which destroyed all the minerals and nutrients plants needed to thrive. Everything started dying. We watched on television as the Amazon and lush forests in India began to wither and blacken. The governments took action, quickly quarantining any infected areas, halting foot traffic, and trying their hardest to stop the spread. To be honest, it could have worked had we realized sooner. Everything along the Missouri, the Platte, the Canadian, the Pecos, Red, and Mississippi rivers all began to die. The runoff and seepage killed everything, turning the heart of America into a

You are an adult and you don't understand me and what are the differences between the adult and the kids? The kids are dreamming to have sex and the adult's already are one step forward, adults take drugs... and from there and kids start, adults kill and then the children start to kill... So far everything was build by the adults, I see it. An adult has written a book about sex, about the stuff, an adult has created a website and other stuff of pornography.... It hasn't thought by someone this, when you are small and if you don't see it you don't do it!? You can't do it, without knowing it... can you? It's now habbit because you have saw it, once, twice, tripple and some fake thoughts even not fake but false thoughts have been planted in your mind and you start doing it...

The Advantage of Long Range Technique and Why Close Range Is Deadly Let's be clear: you always want to maintain distance. For the long stick, long range is the optimum strategy. At long range, the opponent must reach out with his hand to hit you. At the farthest range, he can only hit you with that hand: the other hand is too far back to touch you, and his feet are planted as he stretches. If he extends to kick you, his hands can't touch you, while his other foot is planted. In either case, at this longest range only one hand or foot threatens you. With the big stick, you want to maintain a range where you can blast him, but he can't touch you. This is the safest range. As the opponent gets closer he enters a range where he can hit you with both hands and kick you with both feet, so you now have four potential weapons to contend with. At even closer range he can hit with the hands, elbows, knees, head, so the number of threats grows larger still. At this range if he has a knife, he can use one hand to hold you while he stabs with the other, which is easily a fatal attack. At close range an opponent can bring a concealed gun or knife into play, and you may not see the weapon until it is too late. While long range is the desired range, you must realize that you can't always maintain that range, so you must be prepared to fight in close. You not only want to be able to hit at very close range, but be able to drive the opponent back out into the kill zone. Countering the Closing Opponent 1) Recognize the Danger Avoid overconfidence, the delusional thinking, “If anybody tries to tackle me I'll knock him out.” It's not that easy. As long as you're standing, running is always an option, but once an opponent has clinched or tackled you, you lose that option. If you get taken to the ground spectators can very easily kick you in the head, a very powerful, inconspicuous kick that is like kicking a football off a tee. Martial artist Geoff Thompson knew two men who were killed in just such a fashion. A gang tactic is to assign one member to tie you up, sacrificing himself if necessary, so that the rest of the gang can pick you off. Against multiple opponents your primary strategy is mobility, fleeing if possible, but once you're clutched or tackled you've lost that option. A clinching assailant with a knife is your worst nightmare, posing a highly lethal threat.

I put a little plant once in a pot and filled the vessel with rich mould, and the plant grew and at last broke the pot into a hundred pieces, and I found within a dense mat of fibres; the root had eaten up and displaced all the soil and swelled till it rent the vessel. It has been so with my love of you. It got planted, how I know not, in my heart, and it has thrown its roots through the whole chamber, and devoured all the substance, and woven a net of fibres in and out and up and down, and has swelled and is thrusting against the walls, till there is scarce love there any more but horrible, biting, wearing pain. I cannot kill the plant and pluck it out, or it will leave a great void. I must let it grow till it has broken up the vessel. It grows and makes root, but will not flower. There has been scarce leaf, certainly no blossom, to my love. It is all downward, inward, clogging, bursting tangle of fibre.

I killed a plant once because I gave it too much water. Lord, I worry that love is violence.

I killed a plant once because I gave it too much water. Lord I worry that love is violence

I killed a house plant once because I gave it too much water. Lord, I worry that love is violence

Do you mislike the girl?” Tormund asked him as they passed another twenty mammoths, these bearing wildlings in tall wooden towers instead of giants. “No, but I …” What can I say that he will believe? “I am still too young to wed.” “Wed?” Tormund laughed. “Who spoke of wedding? In the south, must a man wed every girl he beds?” Jon could feel himself turning red again. “She spoke for me when Rattleshirt would have killed me. I would not dishonor her.” “You are a free man now, and Ygritte is a free woman. What dishonor if you lay together?” “I might get her with child.” “Aye, I’d hope so. A strong son or a lively laughing girl kissed by fire, and where’s the harm in that?” Words failed him for a moment. “The boy … the child would be a bastard.” “Are bastards weaker than other children? More sickly, more like to fail?” “No, but—” “You’re bastard-born yourself. And if Ygritte does not want a child, she will go to some woods witch and drink a cup o’ moon tea. You do not come into it, once the seed is planted.

Do you hide your smile in photos because of yellow teeth? Does brushing your teeth leave blood in the sink? You're not the only one facing these problems. Every day, thousands of people deal with embarrassing oral health issues that regular toothpaste just can't fix. What if I told you the problem isn't your toothpaste or your brushing technique? The real issue is hiding deep inside your mouth where you can't see it. That's exactly what GumAktiv claims to fix. In this complete GumAktiv review, we'll dig deep into this popular oral health supplement. You'll discover real customer experiences, what's actually inside each capsule, the good and bad sides, and most importantly—whether it's worth spending your hard-earned money on. Let's get into it. What Exactly is GumAktiv? Breaking It Down Simply GumAktiv is an oral health supplement that comes in small tablets. You take one every morning, and it works to fix your mouth problems from the inside. Unlike your regular toothpaste that only cleans what you can see, GumAktiv goes deeper. Think of it like this: Your mouth is like a fish tank. If the water in the tank gets dirty, the fish get sick. You can clean the glass all you want, but until you clean the water itself, the fish won't get better. GumAktiv cleans the "water" in your mouth—the invisible environment where bacteria live. GumAktiv Oral Health Supplement Review: The Basics Each tablet contains 3.5 billion probiotic strains. These are tiny living organisms (the good kind!) that help balance the bacteria in your mouth. When you have enough good bacteria, they push out the bad bacteria that cause: Bleeding gums Bad breath Yellow teeth Cavities Gum disease Tooth sensitivity The supplement is made with natural ingredients, contains no GMOs, and doesn't have any stimulants. It's doctor-formulated and backed by scientific research. The Story Behind GumAktiv: Why Was It Created? Here's something crazy: Scientists dug up ancient human skeletons and found something shocking. These people who lived thousands of years ago—who never brushed their teeth once—had perfect, healthy teeth. No cavities. No gum disease. Nothing. How is that possible? Researchers discovered the answer: their oral microbiome was naturally balanced. They didn't eat processed foods, use harsh chemicals, or kill all their mouth bacteria with strong mouthwash. Modern dental products actually cause problems by killing ALL bacteria—both good and bad. When you wipe out everything, the bad bacteria come back faster and stronger. It's like using too much hand sanitizer. Eventually, it makes things worse. GumAktiv was created to restore that natural balance our ancestors had. It brings back the good bacteria that modern life has destroyed. How Does GumAktiv Work? The Simple Science Let's break down exactly how this supplement helps your mouth: Step 1: Deep Cleansing When you take GumAktiv, it starts cleaning out the bad bacteria and toxins hiding in your mouth. These are the troublemakers causing inflammation, bad breath, and disease. Step 2: Rebuilding Your Defense System The 3.5 billion probiotic strains go to work rebuilding your oral microbiome. They create a healthy environment where good bacteria can thrive. Step 3: Nourishment The vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds feed your gums and teeth the nutrients they desperately need. This helps repair damage and strengthen weak areas. Step 4: Long-Term Protection Once your mouth is balanced, the good bacteria keep working 24/7. They crowd out harmful bacteria before they can cause new problems. This isn't a quick fix. It's a complete transformation of your mouth's ecosystem. GumAktiv Ingredients: What's Really Inside? Let's talk about what you're actually putting in your body. GumAktiv contains seven main ingredients, all working together: The Three Probiotic Powerhouses

It was not until I listened to the desperately lonely people who contact The Samaritans that I began to understand what friendship is, by seeing how terrible and damaging it is to try live without it. The knowledge of knowing of even one, not very close, friend provides some sense of belonging. If you do not belong anywhere it is hard to survive. One of the common elements in suicide is the pain of loss, and the final loss is the conviction that there is no place at all where you safely belong. You are worth nothing, not even to yourself. Especially to yourself. There becomes no point in not killing yourself. People are able to survive for years in a deadly marriage or a dull job, because they do at least belong there. The crippling routine of housework, a production line, a viewless office with anaemic plants - even Mildred's desk and typewriter cover may be what has kept her going all these years. Simone Weil once said that what keeps people committed to a cause is not so much the cause itself, as being part of the way of life among those who serve the cause.