“
She was petite, small in that way that made a man want to slay dragons.
”
”
Julia Quinn (A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith Quartet, #2))
“
Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgments ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
“
There’s more to you than cute. People call you cute because you’re petite…but you’re sexy too…Mostly you’re beautiful in a way that stops a man in his tracks.
”
”
Samantha Young (Echoes of Scotland Street (On Dublin Street, #5))
“
It's impossible, that's for sure. So let's start working.
”
”
Philippe Petit (Man on Wire)
“
Author's Prayer
If I speak for the dead, I must
leave this animal of my body,
I must write the same poem over and over
for the empty page is a white flag of their surrender.
If I speak of them, I must walk
on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man
who runs through the rooms without
touching the furniture.
Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking "What year
is it?"
I can dance in my sleep and laugh
in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,
I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak
of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say
is a kind of petition and the darkest days
must I praise.
”
”
Ilya Kaminsky (Dancing in Odessa)
“
Und der kleine Prinz fügte hinzu: "Aber die Augen sind blind. Man muss mit dem Herzen suchen.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Petit Discours Aux Habitants de Mon Village Sur La Candidature de M. Louis Bonaparte À La Présidence: de la République (Histoire) (French Edition))
“
There is that, and there is also the Irreconcilable Differences line. It seems so catchall, so vague. You could say that about anyone, any man and woman at all. Jesus and Mary Magdalene: "Irreconcilable Differences." JFK and Jackie, anyone at all. It´s built into the man-woman thing. What kind of paltry reason is that? "Insanity" is another box to be checked on the divorce petition, the only alternative to "Irreconcilable Differences." I would like to check it.
”
”
Suzanne Finnamore (Split: A Memoir of Divorce)
“
What grief is not taken away by time? What passion will survive an unequal battle with it? I knew a man in the bloom of his still youthful powers, filled with true nobility and virtue, I knew him when he was in love, tenderly, passionately, furiously, boldly, modestly, and before me, almost before my eyes, the object of his passion - tender, beautiful as an angel - was struck down by insatiable death. I never saw such terrible fits of inner suffering, such furious scorching anguish, such devouring despair as shook the unfortunate lover. I never thought a man could create such a hell for himself, in which there would be no shadow, no image, nothing in the least resembling hope... They tried to keep an eye on him; they hid all instruments he might have used to take his own life. Two weeks later he suddenly mastered himself: he began to laugh, to joke; freedom was granted him, and the first thing he did was buy a pistol. One day his family was terribly frightened by the sudden sound of a shot. They ran into the room and saw him lying with his brains blown out. A doctor who happened to be there, whose skill was on everyone's lips, saw signs of life in him, found that the wound was not quite mortal, and the man, to everyone's amazement, was healed. The watch on him was increased still more. Even at the table they did not give him a knife to and tried to take away from him anything that he might strike himself with; but a short while later he found a new occasion and threw himself under the wheels of a passing carriage. His arms and legs were crushed; but again they saved him. A year later I saw him in a crowded room; he sat at the card table gaily saying 'Petite ouverte,' keeping one card turned down, and behind him, leaning on the back of his chair, stood his young wife, who was sorting through his chips.
”
”
Nikolai Gogol (The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol)
“
I want to build you a house with my bare hands and carry you over the threshold. I want too cook for you every evening and bring you tea in bed in the mornings. I want to read with you in front of an open fire, sipping a glass of wine. I want to drive you to the beach and lie next to you in the sun. I may not be a man of means, bit I want to take care of you as best I can.
”
”
Catherine Sanderson (Petite Anglaise)
“
40. The gods either have power or they have not. If they have not, why pray to them? If they have, then instead of praying to be granted or spared such-and-such a thing, why not rather pray to be delivered from dreading it, or lusting for it, or grieving over it? Clearly, if they can help a man at all, they can help him in this way. You will say, perhaps, ‘But all that is something they have put in my own power.’ Then surely it were better to use your power and be a free man, than to hanker like a slave and a beggar for something that is not in your power. Besides, who told you the gods never lend their aid even towards things that do lie in our own power? Begin praying in this way, and you will see. Where another man prays ‘Grant that I may possess this woman,’ let your own prayer be, ‘Grant that I may not lust to possess her.’ Where he prays, ‘Grant me to be rid of such-and-such a one,’ you pray, ‘Take from me my desire to be rid of him.’ Where he begs, ‘Spare me the loss of my precious child,’ beg rather to be delivered from the terror of losing him. In short, give your petitions a turn in this direction, and see what comes.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius
“
I wonder if this is what it feels like, falling out of love: feeling yourself fading out of existence - the gray sky, the coffee shop limbo - everything a way station of sorts. Making promises you know you can't keep. Making promises - period. People in love shouldn't have to vow or demand, petition or exhort. Nothing. Not even question. No collisions with your surroundings or yourself - you move gently, unknowing, in time.
”
”
Michael Thomas (Man Gone Down)
“
The sight of this half naked man in Susan’s apartment calling Aiden’s woman Suzy, infuriated him even further. He pushed past him. “I have to speak to her right now,” he said.
A petite blonde sauntered out of the bedroom wearing a man’s shirt. But before he could open his mouth, the bruiser grabbed him, hauled him out into the hall, pulled back, and wound up. The force of the blow sent Aiden careening into the opposite wall.
“Wrong Susan,” Aiden said, sliding to the floor.
”
”
Diane L. Kowalyshyn (Double Cross (Cross Your Heart and Die, #2))
“
Many readers are familiar with the spirit and the letter of the definition of “prayer,” as given by Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary. It runs like this, and is extremely easy to comprehend: Prayer: A petition that the laws of nature be suspended in favor of the petitioner; himself confessedly unworthy. Everybody can see the joke that is lodged within this entry: The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right. Half-buried in the contradiction is the distressing idea that nobody is in charge, or nobody with any moral authority. The call to prayer is self-cancelling.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
“
And so it continued all day, wynde after wynde, from a room beyond came the whistle of a teakettle. "Now, you really must join me. I've some marvelous Darjeeling, and some delicious petits fours a friend of mine gave me for Christmas.
”
”
Martha Grimes (The Man With a Load of Mischief (Richard Jury, #1))
“
The world of men is a brutal place. And yet women visit our offices, approach us in the streets, and send us petitions with tens of thousands more signatures every year to ask for more freedom. They feel their safety comes at the expense of their freedom. And, gentlemen, the trouble with freedom is it isn't just an empty phrase that serves well in a speech. The desire to be free is an instinct deeply ingrained in every living thing. Trap any wild animal, and it will bite off its own paw to be free again. Capture a man, and breaking free will become his sole mission. Te only way to dissuade a creature from striving for its freedom is to break it ... I, for my part, am not prepared to break half the population of Britain. I am, in fact, unprepared to see single woman harmed because of her desire for some liberty.
”
”
Evie Dunmore (Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women, #1))
“
It cannot be done all at once. To overpower vertigo - the keeper of the abyss- one must tame it, cautiously.
”
”
Philippe Petit
“
The woman was a menace. He would hate it if she were his. Only a man very strong and able to do without any malefriends could have a siren like her. She was more than a handful; she was a disaster waiting to happen.
Are you reading the human's thoughts, ma petite femme? Gregori's satisfied voice whispered in her mind. Even one such as he knows you are wild like the winds. With great reluctance he loosened his hold on her. Go inside the house.
Her eyes widened in mock surprise. You mean he might think we were making love? We would have been if he hadn't wandered out and interrupted us.
Push me further, cherie, and I may do something you will not like.
She laughed out loud, totally unafraid as she sashayed through the courtyard. As she passed Gary, she leaned over and blew warm air into his ear.
Savannah! Gregori roared her name, a distanct threat.
I'm going, I'm going, she said, completely unrepentant.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
God in heaven will hear your prayers, and will answer them. He has never failed, if a man has been honest in his petitions and honest in his confessions. Let your faith beget patience. God is never in a hurry, said St. Augustine, because He has all eternity to work.
”
”
Dwight L. Moody (Men of the Bible)
“
Western science, following Roger Bacon, believed man could force nature to reveal its secrets; the Sioux simply petitioned nature for friendship. — Vine Deloria, Jr.
”
”
Vine Deloria Jr. (C.G. Jung and the Sioux Traditions)
“
What a study in importunity, in earnestness, in persistence, promoted and propelled under conditions which would have disheartened any but a heroic, constant soul. [Jesus] teaches that an answer to prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes to the petition. To test this, He delays the answer. the superficial pray-er subsides into silence, when thteanswer is delayed. But eh man of prayer hangs on, and on. The Lord recognizes and honors his faith, and gives him a rich and abundant answer to His faith evidencing, importunate prayer.
”
”
E.M. Bounds
“
God in heaven will hear your prayers, and will answer them. He has never failed, if a man has been honest in his petitions and honest in his confessions. Let your faith beget patience.
”
”
Dwight L. Moody
“
I know you are afraid, mon amour," he whispered softly, his hands sliding up her rib cage to her breasts. "But I am no longer a beast. You leashed the demon. There is only me, a man who very much wants to make love to his lifemate." She felt his breath against her nipple. "Let me show you how it is supposed to be. Beautiful. Such pleasure.I can bring you so much pleasure,ma petite." His mouth closed over her breast, hot and moist. The sound of his voice was memerizing, enticing. She could get caught up forever in the mere sound of it. There was no thought in his mind for his own burning body, his own urgent demands; he wanted to show her the beauty and pleasure of true mating.
Flames raced through her blood and licked down her skin at the intensity of the eroticism, the craving his mouth at her breast created. She moaned, low and soft, the note brushing at his soul like the flutter of butterfly wings. Her hands slid over his back, tracing each defined muscle with her fingertips, commiting him to memory. Tears filled her eyes. How could a man be so sensual, so perfect? He was stealing her will as easily as he was stealing her body.
"Want me, Savannah," he whispered softly. "Want me the way I want you.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
I have to clean up first. I’m still all sweaty and stuff from the crime scene.” I realized he was wearing a white shirt and I might have dried blood on me. It made me draw back and look at the front of him.
“What is wrong, ma petite?”
“I may have dried blood and things on me, and you’re wearing white.”
He drew me back into his arms. “I would rather hold you close than worry about my clothes. The shirt will wash, or we can throw it away. I do not care.”
I pushed back just enough to turn my face up, resting my chin on his chest so that I gazed up the line of his body, and he looked down so that our eyes met down the line of his chest. “I know you love me, but when you don’t care about your clothes, I know it’s true love for you.” I grinned as I said it.
He laughed, abrupt, surprised, and for a moment I got to see what he must have looked like centuries ago before being a vampire had taught him to control his face and show nothing for fear it would be used against him by those more powerful than him.
I smiled up at him, held as close to him as I could with clothes and weapons still on, and loved him. I loved that I could make him laugh like that, loved that he felt safe enough to show me this part of him, loved that even when we were ass-deep in alligators, being with each other made it better. The alligators would be chewing on our asses either way, but with each other it was more fun, and we were more likely to be able to make a matching set of alligator luggage out of our enemies rather than end up as their dinner.
I gazed up at him as the laughter filled his face, and just loved him. The day had sucked, but Jean-Claude made it suck a lot less, and that was what love was supposed to do. It was supposed to make things better, not worse, which made me wonder if Asher truly loved anyone. I pushed the thought away, and enjoyed the man in my arms, and the fact that I had made him laugh.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #21))
“
We must first begin again to learn "'learning" and to know standards of measure. Cultural dissolution will not be abated by the mere introduction of newer and more convenient "textbooks." The youth must not wait until more fundamental acquaintance and actual
contemplation are demanded of them from above, for it is precisely the other way around. It is the prerogative of a true and wakeful youth to develop exhortations to knowledge from out of itself, and to cling to these exhortations for itself, in order to construct the future. Whether one occasionally "reads a book" is a measure for the petite bourgeoisie. It does not ask whether today's man, who gets his "education" from "charts" and "magazines," from radio reports and movie theaters. whether such a confused, dizzy, and purely American man still knows, or can know, what "reading" means.
”
”
Martin Heidegger (Four Seminars (Studies in Continental Thought))
“
her mewling and the mottled color of her skin, she didn’t have much time left. Faster than most would think an old man could move, Benfu struggled out of his worn red overcoat and laid it on the ground in front of him. He then lifted the infant and set her on top of it. As he knelt down to wrap the material around her, he ignored the throbbing in his knees and rubbed her tiny feet and hands. He counted under his breath as he quickly massaged each petite toe and finger. While working to get the blood running in her body again, his eyes met hers and held. With the surprise of being suddenly
”
”
Kay Bratt (The Bridge)
“
La petite mort - that's what the French called orgasm. They believed that semen is sort of concentrated blood so that each time a man came he shortened his life a little by spilling blood that couldn't be replenished."
"And women?"
"Then, as now, men didn't much concern themselves with how women felt.
”
”
Michael Nava (The Little Death (Henry Rios Mystery, #1))
“
But, you will say, what a dreadful person you are, with your impossible religious notions and idiotic scruples. If my ideas are impossible or idiotic then I would like nothing better than to be rid of them. But this is roughly the way I actually see things. In Le philosophe sous les toits by Souvestre you can read what a man of the people, a simple craftsman, pitiful if you will, thinks of his country: ‘Tu n’as peut-être jamais pensé á ce que c’est la patrie, reprit-il, en me posant une main sur l’épaule; c’est tout ce qui t’entoure, tout ce qui t’a élevé et nourri, tout ce que tu as aimé. Cette campagne que tu vois, ces maisons, ces arbres, ces jeunes filles qui passent lá en riant, c’est la patrie! Les lois qui te protégent, le pain qui paye ton travail, les paroles que tu échanges, la joie et la tristesse qui te viennent des hommes et des choses parmi lesquels tu vis, c’est la patrie! La petite chambre oú tu as autrefois vu ta mere, les souvenirs qu’elle t’a laisses, la terre oú elle repose, c’est la patrie! Tu la vois, tu la respires partout! Figure toi, tes droits et tes devoirs, tes affections et tes besoins, tes souvenirs et ta reconnaissance, réunis tout ça sous un seul nom et ce nom sera la patrie.
”
”
Vincent van Gogh
“
I told them all, "If possible, I would be here with only you, forever. But I am a man who toils, and I must go where I must. We need currency for famous nightclubs, yes? I am doing something I hate for you. This is what it means to be in love. So do not spleen me." But to be truthful, I was not even the smallest portion sad to go to Lutsk to translate for Jonathan Safran Foer. As I mentioned before, my life is ordinary. But I had never been to Lutsk, or any of the multitudinous petite villages that still endure after the war. I desired to see new things. I desired to experience volumes. And I would be electrical to meet an American.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated)
“
Piedodiet man, bet es neturu godā neko smagāku par gaisu.
”
”
Jean-Pierre Davidts (Le petit prince retrouvé)
“
You're such a tiny little guy, though. Very petite, like a potato.
”
”
Cora Ridon Caballes
“
Farvel, sagde ræven, og nu skal jeg betro dig min hemmelighed. Den er ganske ligetil: kun med hjertet kan man se rigtigt. Det væsentlige er usynligt for øjet.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Le Petit Prince)
“
Shiva is only meant for those whose greed is unlimited, for those who are not willing to settle for life in instalments, for those who want to become one with the very source of existence. If you go to the ultimate power in existence, you must also be going with the petition for the greatest possibility. You cannot be going with petty things to the big man! From
”
”
Sadhguru (Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga)
“
Et voilà, mon passé n’est plus qu’un trou énorme. Mon présent: cette bonne au corsage noir qui rêve près du comptoir, ce petit bonhomme. Tout ce que je sais de ma vie, il me semble que je l’ai appris dans des livres.
”
”
Jean-Paul Sartre
“
Where then shall Hope and Fear their objects find?
Must dull Suspense corrupt the stagnant Mind?
Must helpless Man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the Torrent of his Fate?
Must no Dislike alarm, no Wishes rise,
Nor Cries invoke the Mercies of the Skies?
Enquirer, cease, Petitions yet remain
Which Heaven may hear, nor deem Religion vain.
Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice,
But leave to Heaven the Measure and the Choice.
”
”
Samuel Johnson (The Vanity of Human Wishes)
“
There is one sense, however, in which answer to prayer can always be depended on, if a man has kept his life at all in harmony with God. Even when God cannot answer affirmatively the man's petition he can answer the man.
”
”
Harry Emerson Fosdick (The Meaning of Prayer)
“
« Il faut dire qu’un séjour continuel dans un État bien organisé a quelque chose d’absolument fantômal ; on ne peut sortir dans la rue, boire un verre d’eau ou monter dans le tram sans toucher aux leviers subtilement équilibrés d’un gigantesque appareil de lois et de relations, les mettre en branle ou se faire maintenir par eux dans la tranquillité de son existence ; on n’en connaît qu’un très petit nombre, ceux qui pénètrent profondément dans l’intérieur et se perdent à l’autre bout dans un réseau dont aucun homme, jamais, n’a débrouillé l’ensemble ; c’est d’ailleurs pourquoi on le nie, comme le citadin nie l’air, affirmant qu’il n’est que du vide ; mais il semble que ce soit justement parce que tout ce que l’on nie, tout ce qui est incolore, inodore, insipide, sans poids et sans moeurs, comme l’eau, l’air, l’espace, l’argent et la fuite du temps, est en réalité l’essentiel que la vie prend ce caractère spectral. »
”
”
Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities)
“
Ultimately, the roast turkey must be regarded as a monument to Boomer's love.
Look at it now, plump and glossy, floating across Idaho as if it were a mammoth, mutated seed pod. Hear how it backfires as it passes the silver mines, perhaps in tribute to the origin of the knives and forks of splendid sterling that a roast turkey and a roast turkey alone possesses the charisma to draw forth into festivity from dark cupboards.
See how it glides through the potato fields, familiarly at home among potatoes but with an air of expectation, as if waiting for the flood of gravy.
The roast turkey carries with it, in its chubby hold, a sizable portion of our primitive and pagan luggage.
Primitive and pagan? Us? We of the laser, we of the microchip, we of the Union Theological Seminary and Time magazine? Of course. At least twice a year, do not millions upon millions of us cybernetic Christians and fax machine Jews participate in a ritual, a highly stylized ceremony that takes place around a large dead bird?
And is not this animal sacrificed, as in days of yore, to catch the attention of a divine spirit, to show gratitude for blessings bestowed, and to petition for blessings coveted?
The turkey, slain, slowly cooked over our gas or electric fires, is the central figure at our holy feast. It is the totem animal that brings our tribe together.
And because it is an awkward, intractable creature, the serving of it establishes and reinforces the tribal hierarchy. There are but two legs, two wings, a certain amount of white meat, a given quantity of dark. Who gets which piece; who, in fact, slices the bird and distributes its limbs and organs, underscores quite emphatically the rank of each member in the gathering.
Consider that the legs of this bird are called 'drumsticks,' after the ritual objects employed to extract the music from the most aboriginal and sacred of instruments. Our ancestors, kept their drums in public, but the sticks, being more actively magical, usually were stored in places known only to the shaman, the medicine man, the high priest, of the Wise Old Woman. The wing of the fowl gives symbolic flight to the soul, but with the drumstick is evoked the best of the pulse of the heart of the universe.
Few of us nowadays participate in the actual hunting and killing of the turkey, but almost all of us watch, frequently with deep emotion, the reenactment of those events. We watch it on TV sets immediately before the communal meal. For what are footballs if not metaphorical turkeys, flying up and down a meadow? And what is a touchdown if not a kill, achieved by one or the other of two opposing tribes? To our applause, great young hungers from Alabama or Notre Dame slay the bird. Then, the Wise Old Woman, in the guise of Grandma, calls us to the table, where we, pretending to be no longer primitive, systematically rip the bird asunder.
Was Boomer Petaway aware of the totemic implications when, to impress his beloved, he fabricated an outsize Thanksgiving centerpiece? No, not consciously. If and when the last veil dropped, he might comprehend what he had wrought. For the present, however, he was as ignorant as Can o' Beans, Spoon, and Dirty Sock were, before Painted Stick and Conch Shell drew their attention to similar affairs.
Nevertheless, it was Boomer who piloted the gobble-stilled butterball across Idaho, who negotiated it through the natural carving knives of the Sawtooth Mountains, who once or twice parked it in wilderness rest stops, causing adjacent flora to assume the appearance of parsley.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Skinny Legs and All)
“
Although he does not know the meaning of the words spoken by this man who has been sitting beside him for several minutes, he is aware that he likes the sound of his voice, its solemn power. He may also like the sound of this voice precisely because he is unable to understand the words it utters, and is therefore sure that they will not hurt him, they will not say what he does not wish to hear, they will not ask painful questions, they will not go back into the past in order to resurrect it brutally and hurl it at his feet like a bloody corpse.
”
”
Philippe Claudel (La petite fille de Monsieur Linh)
“
Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Abécédaire le petit prince)
“
Everywhere was filled with painful, jarring reminders of what I'd lost: an elderly couple sitting on a bench, gnarly, arthritic fingers interlaced; a handsome young man in a baseball cap whispering something in his pregnant wife's ear, his arm draped protectively around her shoulders.
”
”
Catherine Sanderson (Petite Anglaise)
“
This man. He claimed to have no children. No family. And it seemed like a travesty that the world would keep existing without his child in it. What a waste of all that masculine perfection. Dear lord, how alarming that her body seemed to be petitioning for the job without her permission.
”
”
Kerrigan Byrne (Tempting Fate (Goode Girls, #4))
“
As the nurse prepared the mixture, H wandered down the ward and laid his hand on the old man’s. “I have something to help you, Roman,” he told him. Dr. H sensed with amazement the old man’s history through the touch of skin. For a second, like a surge of flame, the young man Roman was there, growing up in Franz Josef’s Galicia, a lady-killer in the sweet little nougat of a city, the petit Wien, the jewel of the Vistula, Cracow. Wearing Franz Josef’s uniform and going to the mountains for spring maneuvers. Chocolate-soldiering in Rynek Glowny with the girls of Kazimierz, in a city of lace and patisseries. Climbing the Kosciuszko Mound and stealing a kiss among the shrubbery. How could the world have come so far in one manhood? asked the young man in old Roman. From Franz Josef to the NCO who had had a sanction to put Rosalia Blau and the scarlet fever girls to death?
”
”
Thomas Keneally (Schindler's List)
“
The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. Pueblo strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much—one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up—but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water.
Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays)
“
It's a fine day for a prayer. But then, most days are.'
'That's what you were doing? Praying?' At his nod, I asked, 'For what do you petition the gods?'
He raised his brows. 'Petition?'
'Isn't that what prayer is? Begging the gods to give you what you want?'
He laughed, his voice deep as a booming wind, but kinder. 'I suppose that is how some men pray. Not I. Not anymore.'
'What do you mean?'
'Oh, I think that children pray so, to find a lost doll or that Father will bring home a good haul of fish, or that no one will discover a forgotten chore. Children think they know what is best for themselves, and do not fear to ask the divine for it. But I have been a man for many years, and I should be shamed if I did not know better by now.'
I eased my back into a more comfortable position against the railing. I suppose if you are used to the swaying of a ship, it might be restful. My muscles constantly fought against it, and I was beginning to ache in every limb. 'So. How does a man pray, then?'
He looked on me with amusement, then levered himself down to sit beside me. 'Don't you know? How do you pray, then?'
'I don't.' And then I rethought, and laughed aloud. 'Unless I'm terrified. Then I suppose I pray as a child does. 'Get me out of this, and I'll never be so stupid again. Just let me live.'
He laughed with me. 'Well, it looks as if, so far, your prayers have been granted. And have you kept your promise to the divine?'
I shook my head, smiling ruefully. 'I'm afraid not. I just find a new direction to be foolish in.'
'Exactly. So do we all. Hence, I've learned I am not wise enough to ask the divine for anything.'
'So. How do you pray then, if you are not asking for something?'
'Ah. Well, prayer for me is more listening than asking. And, after all these years, I find I have but one prayer left. It has taken me a lifetime to find my prayer, and I think it is the same one that all men find, if they but ponder on it longer enough.
”
”
Robin Hobb (Fool's Fate (Tawny Man, #3))
“
Many readers are familiar with the spirit and the letter of the definition of “prayer”, as given by Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary. It runs like this, and is extremely easy to comprehend: Prayer: A petition that the laws of nature be suspended in favor of the petitioner; himself confessedly unworthy.
Everybody can see the joke that is lodged within this entry: The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right. Half–buried in the contradiction is the distressing idea that nobody is in charge, or nobody with any moral authority. The call to prayer is self–cancelling. Those of us who don’t take part in it will justify our abstention on the grounds that we do not need, or care, to undergo the futile process of continuous reinforcement. Either our convictions are enough in themselves or they are not: At any rate they do require standing in a crowd and uttering constant and uniform incantations. This is ordered by one religion to take place five times a day, and by other monotheists for almost that number, while all of them set aside at least one whole day for the exclusive praise of the Lord, and Judaism seems to consist in its original constitution of a huge list of prohibitions that must be followed before all else. The tone of the prayers replicates the silliness of the mandate, in that god is enjoined or thanked to do what he was going to do anyway. Thus the Jewish male begins each day by thanking god for not making him into a woman (or a Gentile), while the Jewish woman contents herself with thanking the almighty for creating her “as she is.” Presumably the almighty is pleased to receive this tribute to his power and the approval of those he created. It’s just that, if he is truly almighty, the achievement would seem rather a slight one. Much the same applies to the idea that prayer, instead of making Christianity look foolish, makes it appear convincing. Now, it can be asserted with some confidence, first, that its deity is all–wise and all–powerful and, second, that its congregants stand in desperate need of that deity’s infinite wisdom and power. Just to give some elementary quotations, it is stated in the book of Philippians, 4:6, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” Deuteronomy 32:4 proclaims that “he is the rock, his work is perfect,” and Isaiah 64:8 tells us, “Now O Lord, thou art our father; we art clay and thou our potter; and we are all the work of thy hand.” Note, then, that Christianity insists on the absolute dependence of its flock, and then only on the offering of undiluted praise and thanks. A person using prayer time to ask for the world to be set to rights, or to beseech god to bestow a favor upon himself, would in effect be guilty of a profound blasphemy or, at the very least, a pathetic misunderstanding. It is not for the mere human to be presuming that he or she can advise the divine. And this, sad to say, opens religion to the additional charge of corruption. The leaders of the church know perfectly well that prayer is not intended to gratify the devout. So that, every time they accept a donation in return for some petition, they are accepting a gross negation of their faith: a faith that depends on the passive acceptance of the devout and not on their making demands for betterment. Eventually, and after a bitter and schismatic quarrel, practices like the notorious “sale of indulgences” were abandoned. But many a fine basilica or chantry would not be standing today if this awful violation had not turned such a spectacularly good profit. And today it is easy enough to see, at the revival meetings of Protestant fundamentalists, the counting of the checks and bills before the laying on of hands by the preacher has even been completed. Again, the spectacle is a shameless one.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
“
A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
”
”
Maya Angelou (A Brave and Startling Truth)
“
You are mine for all eternity, Savannah, until we grow weary of this existence and choose to go together to the next." Reluctantly, he freed his body from hers,bent hif head to remove the thin triail of red marring her skin. Gregori settled her into him so that his head rested beside her breast.
Her arms crept around his damp hair, cradling him to her, the sleep of their people calling to her. He shifted her slight body so that he could drape one leg over her thighs possessively, so that his hands could shape the length of her body at will,know it was imprinted there in the soil beside his.
The chamber door slid noiselessly shut to seal them inside at his thought. The safeguards were many and all of them deadly.Anyone disturbing their rest would be in mortal peril.Gregori stroked her long hair, contended. At peace. "You are so small, ma petite, to bring such pleasure to a man." The warmth of his breath teased her nipple, and his tongue followed in a slow,leisurely caress. "I have made love to you each time I have taken you into my arms. There can be no other for either of us,Savannah."
She stirred with drowsy contentment, the slight movement bringing her breast against his mouth. Her hands stroked his hair gently. "I am not the one who worries, lifemate.I know there is no other."
His tongue made another lazy, contented curl around her creamy skin. "One who has gone centuries in utter darkness takes a long time to believe he will not lose the light.Go to sleep, Savannah, safe in my arms.Let the soil heal both of us and bring us peace, as Julian knew it would."
She was silent for a moment, but his mouth feeding at her breast was causing little aftershocks, rushes of liquid heat. "I will if you behave.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
Människorna där du bor”, sa den lilla prinsen,”odlar femtusen rosor i samma trädgård
- men de hittar ändå inte vad de söker.”
”De hittar det inte”, upprepade jag.
”Och ändå hade de kunnat hitta det i en enkel ros eller lite vatten.”
”Ja, det är sant”, svarade jag.
Och den lille prinsen sa: ”Men ögonen är blinda, man måste leta med hjärtat...
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Le petit Prince)
“
an old mother with whom he shares the thirty or forty francs allocated to him per month. “If he’s a man, why do you call him ‘old greatcoat’?” said Simonnin, with the expression of a schoolboy catching his teacher out. And he went back to eating his bread and cheese, leaning his shoulder against the stile of the window, since he took his rest standing up, like the cab-horses of Paris, with one of his legs bent and propped on his other shoe’s toe. “Think of the fun we could have with that old codger!” muttered the third clerk, Godeschal by name, as he paused in the middle of a line of argument he was developing in a petition to be copied out in a fair hand by the fourth clerk, the draft copies of which were
”
”
Honoré de Balzac (Colonel Chabert)
“
The moment a gentleman perfects an invention and petitions the government for aid, he ceases to be an innocent citizen and becomes a culprit, a man to be shirked, browbeaten, and sneered at. I have never heard of any mechanician, inventor, or natural scientist who failed to find the government all but inaccessible, and whom the government did not discourage and treat badly.
”
”
Jennifer Chiaverini (Enchantress of Numbers)
“
Human nature inclines us to have recourse to petition for the purpose of obtaining from another, especially from a person of higher rank, what we hope to receive from him. So prayer is recommended to men, that by it they may obtain from God what they hope to secure from Him. But the reason why prayer is necessary for obtaining something from a man is not the same as the reason for its necessity when there is question of obtaining a favor from God. Prayer is addressed to man, first, to lay bare the desire and the need of the petitioner, and secondly, to incline the mind of him to whom the prayer is addressed to grant the petition. These purposes have no place in the prayer that is sent up to God. When we pray we do not intend to manifest our needs or desires to God, for He knows all things. The Psalmist says to God: "Lord, all my desire is before Thee" and in the Gospel we are told: "Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things." Again, the will of God is not influenced by human words to will what He had previously not willed. For, as we read in Numbers 23:19, "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor as the son of man, that He should be changed"; nor is God moved to repentance, as we are assured in 1 Kings 15:29. Prayer, then, for obtaining something from God, is necessary for man on account of the very one who prays, that he may reflect on his shortcomings and may turn his mind to desiring fervently and piously what he hopes to gain by his petition. In this way he is rendered fit to receive the favor.
”
”
Thomas Aquinas (Aquinas's Shorter Summa: Saint Thomas's Own Concise Version of His Summa Theologica)
“
Moral for psychologists. -- Not to go in for backstairs psychology. Never to observe in order to observe! That gives a false perspective, leads to squinting and something forced and exaggerated. Experience as the wish to experience does not succeed. One must not eye oneself while having an experience; else the eye becomes "an evil eye." A born psychologist guards instinctively against seeing in order to see; the same is true of the born painter. He never works "from nature"; he leaves it to his instinct, to his camera obscura, to sift through and express the "case," "nature," that which is "experienced." He is conscious only of what is general, of the conclusion, the result: he does not know arbitrary abstractions from an individual case.
What happens when one proceeds differently? For example, if, in the manner of the Parisian novelists, one goes in for backstairs psychology and deals in gossip, wholesale and retail? Then one lies in wait for reality, as it were, and every evening one brings home a handful of curiosities. But note what finally comes of all this: a heap of splotches, a mosaic at best, but in any case something added together, something restless, a mess of screaming colors. The worst in this respect is accomplished by the Goncourts; they do not put three sentences together without really hurting the eye, the psychologist's eye. Nature, estimated artistically, is no model. It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is chance. To study "from nature" seems to me to be a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism; this lying in the dust before petit faits [little facts] is unworthy of a whole artist. To see what is--that is the mark of another kind of spirit, the anti-artistic, the factual. One must know who one is.
Toward a psychology of the artist. -- If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy. Frenzy must first have enhanced the excitability of the whole machine; else there is no art. All kinds of frenzy, however diversely conditioned, have the strength to accomplish this: above all, the frenzy of sexual excitement, this most ancient and original form of frenzy. Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings, all strong affects; the frenzy of feasts, contests, feats of daring, victory, all extreme movement; the frenzy of cruelty; the frenzy in destruction, the frenzy under certain meteorological influences, as for example the frenzy of spring; or under the influence of narcotics; and finally the frenzy of will, the frenzy of an overcharged and swollen will. What is essential in such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feeling one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one violates them--this process is called idealizing. Let us get rid of a prejudice here: idealizing does not consist, as is commonly held, in subtracting or discounting the petty and inconsequential. What is decisive is rather a tremendous drive to bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the process.
In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever one wills, is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power--until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is--art. Even everything that he is not yet, becomes for him an occasion of joy in himself; in art man enjoys himself as perfection.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ)
“
And the dog episode?"
He tried for innocence, but his laughter was echoing in her mind. "What do you mean?"
"You know very well what I mean," she insisted. "When Dragon walked me home."
"Ah,yes,I seem to recall now. The big bad wolf decked out in chains and spikes, afraid of a little dog."
"Little? A hundred-and-twenty-pound Rottweiler mix? Foaming at the mouth. Roaring.Charging him!"
"He ran like a rabbit." Gregori's soft, caressing voice echoed his satisfaction. He had taken great pleasure in running that particular jackass off.How dare the man try to lay a hand on Savannah?
"No wonder I couldn't touch the dog's mind and call him off. You rotten scoundrel."
"After Dragon left you,I chased him for two blocks, and he went up a tree. I kept him there for several hours, just to make a point.He looked like a rooster with his orange comb."
She laughed in spite of her desire not to. "He never came near me again."
"Of course not.It was unacceptable," he said complacently,with complete satisfaction, the warmth of his breath heating her blood. His mouth touched, skimmed, moved across her nipple, branding her with his heat, with flame, before finding the underside of her breast. Savannah closed her eyes against a need so intense that she shook with it. How could she want something that hurt so terribly?
No pain,ma petite,only pleasure. His tongue created an aching void in her. I swear it on my life. His mouth was hot velvet closing over her breast. Fire danced over her skin, invading her body, melted her insides so that she was liquid heat, pulsing with need for him, only for him.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
You never speak to any of us, you don’t come to social events, in fact, you don’t even acknowledge invitations. You barely know our names. When we ask you to sign petitions for the upkeep of the local area, you don’t acknowledge those either. You don’t contribute to the community. Why, may I ask, this sudden interest in a local resident? Anyway, if you must know, the only one I bumped into other than you was that new man, the dishy one, the writer.
”
”
Amita Murray (Arya Winters and the Tiramisu of Death (Arya Winters, #1))
“
Her pretty name of Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to her personality.
Behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better.
Adina is a strange child; she is fanciful without being capricious.
She was stout and fresh-coloured, she laughed and talked rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused a good many stiff British necks to turn round.
She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and Tivoli she inflicted her good-humoured ponderosity on diminutive donkeys with a relish which seemed to prove that a passion for scenery, like all our passions, is capable of making the best of us pitiless.
Adina may not have the shoulders of the Venus of Milo...but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to make her stoop.
Adina espied the first violet of the year glimmering at the root of a cypress. She made haste to rise and gather it, and then wandered further, in the hope of giving it a few companions. Scrope sat and watched her as she moved slowly away, trailing her long shadow on the grass and drooping her head from side to side in her charming quest. It was not, I know, that he felt no impulse to join her; but that he was in love, for the moment, with looking at her from where he sat. Her search carried her some distance and at last she passed out of sight behind a bend in the villa wall.
I don't pretend to be sure that I was particularly struck, from this time forward, with something strange in our quiet Adina. She had always seemed to me vaguely, innocently strange; it was part of her charm that in the daily noiseless movement of her life a mystic undertone seemed to murmur "You don't half know me! Perhaps we three prosaic mortals were not quite worthy to know her: yet I believe that if a practised man of the world had whispered to me, one day, over his wine, after Miss Waddington had rustled away from the table, that there was a young lady who, sooner or later, would treat her friends to a first class surprise, I should have laid my finger on his sleeve and told him with a smile that he phrased my own thought. .."That beautiful girl," I said, "seems to me agitated and preoccupied."
"That beautiful girl is a puzzle. I don't know what's the matter with her; it's all very painful; she's a very strange creature. I never dreamed there was an obstacle to our happiness--to our union. She has never protested and promised; it's not her way, nor her nature; she is always humble, passive, gentle; but always extremely grateful for every sign of tenderness. Till within three or four days ago, she seemed to me more so than ever; her habitual gentleness took the form of a sort of shrinking, almost suffering, deprecation of my attentions, my petits soins, my lovers nonsense. It was as if they oppressed and mortified her--and she would have liked me to bear more lightly. I did not see directly that it was not the excess of my devotion, but my devotion itself--the very fact of my love and her engagement that pained her. When I did it was a blow in the face. I don't know what under heaven I've done! Women are fathomless creatures. And yet Adina is not capricious, in the common sense...
.So these are peines d'amour?" he went on, after brooding a moment. "I didn't know how fiercely I was in love!"
Scrope stood staring at her as she thrust out the crumpled note: that she meant that Adina--that Adina had left us in the night--was too large a horror for his unprepared sense...."Good-bye to everything! Think me crazy if you will. I could never explain. Only forget me and believe that I am happy, happy, happy! Adina Beati."...
Love is said to be par excellence the egotistical passion; if so Adina was far gone. "I can't promise to forget you," I said; "you and my friend here deserve to be remembered!
”
”
Henry James (Adina)
“
Later on in Culture and Society, Williams scores a few points by reprinting some absolutist sentences that, taken on their own, represent exaggerations or generalisations. It was a strength and weakness of Orwell’s polemical journalism that he would begin an essay with a bold and bald statement designed to arrest attention—a tactic that, as Williams rightly notices, he borrowed in part from GK Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. No regular writer can re-read his own output of ephemera without encountering a few wince-making moments of this kind; Williams admits to ‘isolating’ them but has some fun all the same. The flat sentence ‘a humanitarian is always a hypocrite’ may contain a particle of truth—does in fact contain such a particle—but will not quite do on its own. Other passages of Orwell’s, on the failure of the Western socialist movement, read more convincingly now than they did when Williams was mocking them, but are somewhat sweeping for all that. And there are the famous outbursts of ill-temper against cranks and vegetarians and homosexuals, which do indeed disfigure the prose and (even though we still admire Pope and Swift for the heroic unfairness of their invective) probably deserve rebuke. However, Williams betrays his hidden bias even when addressing these relatively easy targets. He upbraids Orwell for the repeated use of the diminutive word ‘little’ as an insult (‘The typical Socialist ... a prim little man,’ ‘the typical little bowlerhatted sneak,’ etc.). Now, it is probable that we all overuse the term ‘little’ and its analogues. Williams does at one point—rather ‘loftily’ perhaps—reproach his New Left colleagues for being too ready to dismiss Orwell as ‘petit-bourgeois.’ But what about (I draw the example at random) Orwell’s disgust at the behaviour of the English crowd in the First World War, when ‘wretched little German bakers and hairdressers had their shops sacked by the mob’?
”
”
Christopher Hitchens
“
forever. I would add to my reply as well, the borrowing of a simple invitation from the 13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon: “Contemplate the world!” Because if we do not store in our heart a profound reverence for the miracles of nature as well as for the accomplishments of men and for their sometimes kind and illustrious way of thinking — even if our life is at its beginning and we have seen nothing yet; or if we’ve seen it all and find man evil — we will not be capable of recognizing those marvels, we will not be
”
”
Philippe Petit (Cheating the Impossible: Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist)
“
L'atleta més fort no és el que arriba abans a la meta. Aquest és el més ràpid. El més fort és el que cada vegada que cau s'aixeca. El que, quan sent el dolor al costat, no s'atura. El que, quan veu la meta molt lluny, no abandona. Quan aquest corredor arriba a la meta, encara que arribi l'últim, és un guanyador. De vegades, encara que vulguis, no és a les teves mans ser el més ràpid perquè les teves cames no són tan llargues o els teus pulmons són més petits. Però sempre pots triar ser el més fort. Només depèn de tu, de la teva voluntat i del teu esforç.
”
”
Antonio Iturbe (The Librarian of Auschwitz)
“
Matthews quietly stood by the closed door, watching the patient. Her dramatic eyes darted back and forth as they stared through nothingness, lost in thought. His gaze shifted to her blazing locks, which elegantly fell upon her bare shoulders. Her skin was a pure porcelain that reminded him of his mother’s doll collection. Bridget’s petite frame and angelic complexion were stunning, and in another world, Matthews would have allowed himself to fall for her at first sight. He imagined seeing her in a bookstore with a specialty coffee in one hand and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil in another. She would push her frames up her nose with her index finger before flipping the page and sipping her latte. Matthews, free of his work uniform, would sit in a chair across from her with his copy of The Metamorphosis. The young man would steal glances at her from behind his novel as he worked up the courage to speak to her. She would smile coyly when she caught him peeking, and when they finally made eye contact, he would strike up a conversation. Then he would take her to dinner, and everything else would fall into place.
”
”
Emmie White (Captive)
“
Mabel went on, and you Petites Cendres, you haven’t forgotten we’re throwing a party for your Doctor Dieudonné, oh yes, soon as he gets back, the entire Black Ancestral Choir’s going to celebrate Dieudonné, man of God taking care of the poor and never asking for one cent, why did he have to go away said Petites Cendres, carefree in the comfort of his bed, wasn’t his clinic enough, he mumbled into the dishevelled folds of his sloth, I mean why go volunteer there when we’re holding a party for him right here, Mabel’s singsong voice cut in, going from deep to nasal, he’s getting the town’s medal of honour for doctoring all you lazy layabouts and lost souls, and running two hospitals and a hospice, our very own choir director’s going to give him his plaque with those same fingers and long thin red nails of hers, the ideal man, says the doctor, is not one who piles up money but one who saves lives, why he’s even helped our Ancestral Choir a whole lot too, he’s going to need a nice black tuxedo, just what he hates, and Eureka, the head of the choir, will be so proud that day when Reverend Ézéchielle invites us all to sing in her church,
”
”
Marie-Claire Blais (Nothing for You Here, Young Man)
“
Hommes et femmes de Londres, me voici. Je vous félicite cordialement d'être anglais. Vous êtes un grand peuple. Je dis plus, vous êtes une grande populace. Vos coups de poing sont encore plus beaux que vos coups d'épée. Vous avez de l'appétit. Vous êtes la nation qui mange les autres. Fonction magnifique. Cette succion du monde classe à part l'Angleterre. Comme politique et philosophie, et maniement des colonies, populations, et industries, et comme volonté de faire aux autres du mal qui est pour soi du bien, vous êtes particuliers et surprenants. Le moment approche où il y aura sur la terre deux écriteaux; sur l'un on lira: Côté des hommes; sur l'autre on lira: Côté des anglais. Je constate ceci à votre gloire, moi qui ne suis ni anglais, ni homme, ayant l'honneur d'être un docteur. Cela va ensemble. Gentlemen, j'enseigne. Quoi? Deux espèces de choses, celles que je sais et celles que j'ignore. Je vends des drogues et je donne des idées. Approchez, et écoutez. La science vous y convie. Ouvrez votre oreille. Si elle est petite, elle tiendra peu de vérité; si elle est grande, beaucoup de stupidité y entrera. Donc, attention. J'enseigne la Pseudodoxia Epidemica. J'ai un
camarade qui fait rire, moi je fais penser.
”
”
Victor Hugo (The Man Who Laughs)
“
I’ve bought a town house,” said Oswald. “In Aphrany. A huge black and white timbered monstrosity. The kind a very rich merchant lives in.”
“Why in god’s name?” asked Mason.
“Because Fenella once said she likes them,” said Oswald. “In a purely throw-away conversation. But for some reason, every word she speaks is seared on my brain.”
Roland cleared his throat. “Bit impulsive for you, isn’t it?”
“A bit?” echoed Oswald. “I forced the King to sign annulment papers to an eight-year marriage. Simply because I feel sick to my stomach at the idea of her ever belonging to another man. And the worst of it is, that the annulment is the least drastic course of action that occurred to me. For the last three months, in my head I have been drawing up legal papers to sue Thane for the eight years he spent at my wife’s side, masquerading in my rightful place. In her life, in her heart and in her bed.” He heard his voice shake with anger and realized his brothers must too. Taking a deep breath, he continued more evenly. “Each time I mentally draft the petition, I request a more severe punishment befitting of his crime.”
“What kind of punishments?” asked Mason with interest, sitting back in his seat.
Oswald blew out a shaky breath. “In the latest version, it was beheading.
”
”
Alice Coldbreath (His Forsaken Bride (Vawdrey Brothers, #2))
“
He went into the Gray Joy, drank a glass of Arkanarian brew, patted the hostess's cheek, and deftly used one of his swords to flip the table of the usual informer, who was gawking at him with empty eyes. Then he walked over to a far corner and tracked down a shabby bearded man with an inkwell around his neck. "Hello, Brother Nanin," he said. "How many petitions have you written today?"
Brother Nanin smiled shyly, showing small, decayed teeth. "There aren't many petitions written nowadays, noble don," he said. "Some people think that asking is pointless, while others expect that in the near future they'll be able to take without asking.
”
”
Arkady Strugatsky
“
As Mrs. Turner took what would be her last walk around the vegetable garden, Smarty, the ginger tabby, materialized to sit beside the flowerpot man, a position that afforded him a bird's-eye view of the petit fishpond. There was a larger, more formal water feature on the western side of the house, a rectangular pool with a leafy canopy above it and marble tiles around the rim, well-fed goldfish gleaming beneath glistening lily pads, but this little pond was far more cheerful: small and shallow, with fallen petals floating on its surface. The cat's focus was absolute as he watched for flickers of rose gold in the water, paw at the ready.
”
”
Kate Morton (Homecoming)
“
Why don't you make everybody an Alpha Double Plus while you're about it?"
Mustapha Mond laughed. "Because we have no wish to have our throats cut," he answered. "We believe in happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldn't fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas–that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!" he repeated.
The Savage tried to imagine it, not very successfully.
"It's an absurdity. An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work–go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized–but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren't sacrifices; they're the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he's got to run. He can't help himself; he's foredoomed. Even after decanting, he's still inside a bottle–an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course," the Controller meditatively continued, "goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space. You cannot pour upper-caste champagne-surrogate into lower-caste bottles. It's obvious theoretically. But it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing."
"What was that?" asked the Savage.
Mustapha Mond smiled. "Well, you can call it an experiment in rebottling if you like. It began in A.F. 473. The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and re-colonized with a specially prepared batch of twenty-two thousand Alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all the theoretical predictions. The land wasn't properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were. Within six years they were having a first-class civil war. When nineteen out of the twenty-two thousand had been killed, the survivors unanimously petitioned the World Controllers to resume the government of the island. Which they did. And that was the end of the only society of Alphas that the world has ever seen."
The Savage sighed, profoundly.
"The optimum population," said Mustapha Mond, "is modelled on the iceberg–eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above."
"And they're happy below the water line?"
"Happier than above it.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
“
Et le temps est une chose étonnante. La plupart d’entre nous ne vivent que pour ce qui est devant eux. Pour quelques jours, quelques semaines, quelques années. L’un des moments les plus douloureux dans la vie de chacun est sans doute l’instant où l’on a atteint l’âge où il y a plus de choses à voir en arrière que vers l’avant. Quand le temps n’est plus devant nous, nous devons trouver d’autres raisons de vivre. Le souvenir, peut-être. Les après-midi au soleil, la main d’une autre personne dans la sienne. Le parfum des plates-bandes en fleurs. Les dimanches au café. Les petits-enfants, peut-être. Nous trouvons une façon d’exister pour l’avenir d’un autre. Ce n’est pas qu’Ove est mort quand Sonja l’a abandonné. Il a seulement arrêté de vivre.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove)
“
Leaning back in his chair, Ian listened to Larimore’s irate summation of the wild and fruitless chase he’d been sent on for two days by Lady Thornton and her butler: “And after all that,” Larimore flung out in high dudgeon, “I returned to the house on Promenade Street to demand the butler allow me past the stoop, only to have the man-“
“Slam the door in your face?” Ian suggested dispassionately.
“No, my lord, he invited me in,” Larimore bit out. “He invited me to search the house to my complete satisfaction. She’s left London,” Larimore finished, avoiding his employer’s narrowed gaze.
“She’ll go to Havenhurst,” Ian said decisively, and he gave Larimore directions to find the small estate.
When Larimore left, Ian picked up a contract he needed to read and approve; but before he’d read two lines Jordan stalked into his study unannounced, carrying a newspaper and wearing an expression Ian hadn’t seen before. “Have you seen the paper today?”
Ian ignored the paper and studied his friend’s angry face instead. “No, why?”
“Read it,” Jordan said, slapping it down on the desk. “Elizabeth allowed herself to be questioned by a reporter from the Times. Read that.” He jabbed his finger at a few lines near the bottom of the article about Elizabeth by one Mr. Thomas Tyson. “That was your wife’s response when Tyson asked her how she felt when she saw you on trial before your peers.”
Frowning at Jordan’s tone, Ian read Elizabeth’s reply:
My husband was not tried before his peers.
He was merely tried before the Lords of the
British Realm. Ian Thornton has no peers.
Ian tore his gaze from the article, refusing to react to the incredible sweetness of her response, but Jordan would not let it go. “My compliments to you, Ian,” he said angrily. “You serve your wife with a divorce petition, and she responds by giving you what constitutes a public apology!” He turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Ian behind to stare with clenched jaw at the article.
One month later Elizabeth had still not been found. Ian continued trying to purge her from his mind and tear her from his heart, but with decreasing success. He knew he was losing ground in the battle, just as he had been slowly losing it from the moment he’d looked up and seen her walking into the House of Lords.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
The usual notion of prayer is so absurd. How can those who know nothing about it, who pray little or not at all, dare speak so frivolously of prayer? A Carthusian, a Trappist will work for years to make of himself a man of prayer, and then any fool who comes along sets himself up as judge of this lifelong effort. If it were really what they suppose, a kind of chatter, the dialogue of a madman with his shadow, or even less—a vain and superstitious sort of petition to be given the good things of this world, how could innumerable people find until their dying day, I won't even say such great 'comfort'—since they put no faith in the solace of the senses—but sheer, robust, vigorous, abundant joy in prayer? Oh, of course—suggestion, say the scientists. Certainly they can never have known old monks, wise, shrewd, unerring in judgement, and yet aglow with passionate insight, so very tender in their humanity. What miracle enables these semi-lunatics, these prisoners of their own dreams, these sleepwalkers, apparently to enter more deeply each day into the pain of others? An odd sort of dream, an unusual opiate which, far from turning him back into himself and isolating him from his fellows, unites the individual with mankind in the spirit of universal charity!
This seems a very daring comparison. I apologise for having advanced it, yet perhaps it might satisfy many people who find it hard to think for themselves, unless the thought has first been jolted by some unexpected, surprising image. Could a sane man set himself up as a judge of music because he has sometimes touched a keyboard with the tips of his fingers? And surely if a Bach fugue, a Beethoven symphony leave him cold, if he has to content himself with watching on the face of another listener the reflected pleasure of supreme, inaccessible delight, such a man has only himself to blame.
But alas! We take the psychiatrists' word for it. The unanimous testimony of saints is held as of little or no account. They may all affirm that this kind of deepening of the spirit is unlike any other experience, that instead of showing us more and more of our own complexity it ends in sudden total illumination, opening out upon azure light—they can be dismissed with a few shrugs. Yet when has any man of prayer told us that prayer had failed him?
”
”
Georges Bernanos (The Diary of a Country Priest)
“
Christians like Justin Martyr, one of the fathers of the church, shared such aspirations for self-mastery. Justin wholeheartedly admired Christians who practiced renunciation and celibacy; he even singled out for special praise a young convert in Alexandria who had petitioned Felix, the governor,asking that permission might be given to a surgeon to castrate him. For the surgeons had said they were forbidden to do this without the governor’s permission. And when Felix absolutely refused to sign such a permission, the young man remained celibate. (Justin,
First Apology
29.) Origen, also revered as a father of the church, had been so determined to win his struggle against passion that as a young man he had castrated himself, apparently without asking anyone’s permission, least of all the governor’s.
”
”
Elaine Pagels (The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics)
“
In all its essential points, this book [Beyond Good and Evil] is a criticism of modernity, embracing the modern sciences, arts, even politics, together with certain indications as to a type which would be the reverse of modern man, or as little like him as possible, a noble and yea-saying type. In this last respect the book is a school for gentlemen — the term gentleman being understood here in a much more spiritual and radical sense than it has implied hitherto. All those things of which the age is proud, — as, for instance, far-famed "objectivity," "sympathy with all that suffers," "the historical sense," with its subjection to foreign tastes, with its lying-in-the-dust before petits faits, and the rage for science, — are shown to be the contradiction of the type recommended, and are regarded as almost ill-bred.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo)
“
All the same, we should excuse ourselves," Vergil said. "Although I am wondering if the meeting was already well concluded when we intruded." He gave Nathaniel a deep look on the last sentence that made Charlotte's caution prickle. She saw the big brother in him, thinking that a private chat with this man was in order.
Bianca still had not picked up the cue. "You are making plans regarding the petitions?"
"I trust that a petition came up at some point in the visit," Vergil said dryly. "Correct, Knightridge?"
Charlotte wanted to die. "Indeed one did," she said. "Mr. Knightridge is proving to be a great help in the cause."
Bianca beamed. "I always knew that the two of you would find common ground in something."
"Yes, we have discovered that we think alike in one small area," Nathaniel agreed.
Charlotte wanted to hit him.
"Indeed," Vergil muttered.
”
”
Madeline Hunter (Lady of Sin (Seducers spin-off #2))
“
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard — and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings — and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on — lived to have six children more — to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features — so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief — at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take. Such were her propensities — her abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine was always stupid — by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinner; so, at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character! — for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.
”
”
Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
“
To have citizenship—and the rights citizenship imbued—you had to be legally classified as white. People with nonwhite racial classifications began to petition the courts to be reclassified. Now the courts were in the position to decide who was white and who was not. For example, Armenians won their case to be reclassified as white with the help of a scientific witness who claimed they were scientifically “Caucasian.” In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that the Japanese could not be legally white, because they were scientifically classified as “Mongoloid.” A year later, the court stated that Asian Indians were not legally white, even though they were also scientifically classified as “Caucasian.” To justify these contradictory rulings, the court stated that being white was based on the common understanding of the white man. In other words, people already seen as white got to decide who was white.9
”
”
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
“
The cleaning woman could contain herself no longer, As far as I'm concerned, that's the boat for me, And who are you, asked the man, Don't you remember me, No, I don't, I'm the cleaning woman, Cleaning what, The king's palace, The woman who opened the door for petitions, The very same, And why aren't you back at the king's palace cleaning and opening doors, Because the doors I really wanted to open have already been opened and because, from now on, I will only clean boats, So you want to go with me in search of the unknown island, I left the palace by the door of decisions, In that case, go and have a look at the caravel, after all this time, it must be in need of a good wash, but watch out for the seagulls, they're not to be trusted, Don't you want to come with me and see what your boat is like inside, You said it was your boat, Sorry about that, I only said it because I liked it, Liking is probably the best form of ownership, and ownership the worst form of liking.
”
”
José Saramago
“
He had been a sophomore at Michigan State, studying toward an architect’s certificate, and felt unable to continue, on borrowed money and the world’s sufferance. There was a shuddering in his head he could not eliminate. He let his brother Johan—Joop—cheaply buy his share of the greenhouses and let himself be drafted. Since this accident, the world wore a slippery surface for Piet; he stood on the skin of things in the posture of a man testing newly formed ice, his head cocked for the warning crack, his spine curved to make himself light. “… and we lift our hearts in petition for those who have died, who in the ripening of time have pierced the beyond …” Piet bent his thought toward the hope of his parents’ immortality, saw them dim and small among clouds, in their workaday greenhouse clothes, and realized that if they were preserved it was as strangers to him, blind to him, more than an ocean removed from the earthly concerns of which he had—infant, child, boy, and beginning man—been but one.
”
”
John Updike (Couples)
“
yes, I know, you wouldn’t get anything for your cello and flute and piano lessons, but at least you’d eat every day, child, Garçon Fleur, you remember that don’t you, that’s what they called you when people came from all around to hear you play a Bach sonata on the piano or conduct a jazz band that Garçon Fleur is dead though, just a fake, an illusion the boy murmured sombrely, or perhaps he didn’t and the words simply weighed on his lips and forehead without the strength to force them out of the unseeing shade inside the hood pulled all the way down to his brows; and soon night would fall, time for him to fall asleep like Petites Cendres, his dog stretched out beside him and the flute hidden in the folds of his coat, sleep, thought Fleur, just so I don’t hear or see them anymore, at least not till tomorrow, so even if I play well on any instrument, just a fake, an illusion, it’s because I love it that I can’t get free, now it’s become merely a mechanical longing for the loftiest sounds possible,
”
”
Marie-Claire Blais (Nothing for You Here, Young Man)
“
There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advances from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and a patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man; but it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
“
witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. 1jn.5.10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. 1jn.5.11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 1jn.5.12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. 1jn.5.13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. 1jn.5.14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:† 1jn.5.15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. 1jn.5.16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
”
”
Anonymous (King James Version with Apocrypha)
“
Aboard the crowded ships, the men grew restless, and some began asking why their promised semiannual salary payment had not yet been made. They sent a petition to Sir James Houblon, asking that salaries be paid out to the sailors or their wives, as previously agreed. In response, Houblon told his agent to put several petitioners in irons and lock them in the ships’ dank brigs. Such reaction did not put the sailors’ minds at rest. While visiting other vessels in La Coruna’s sleepy harbor, some of the married sailors were able to send word back to their wives in England. A letter informed the women of their husbands’ plight and urged them to meet Houblon in person to demand the wages they no doubt needed to survive. The women then confronted Houblon, a wealthy merchant and founding deputy governor of the Bank of England, whose brother was chief governor of the Bank and would soon become Lord Mayor of London. His response chilled them to the bone. The ships and their men were now under the king of Spain’s control and as far as he was concerned the king could “pay them or hang them if he pleased.
”
”
Colin Woodard (The Republic Of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down)
“
Dickinson left the rostrum to applause, loud shouts of approval. Franklin was surprised, looked toward Adams, who returned the look, shook his head. The chamber was dismissed, and Franklin pushed himself slowly up out of the chair. He began to struggle a bit, pain in both knees, the stiffness holding him tightly, felt a hand under his arm.
“Allow me, sir.” Adams helped him up, commenting as he did so, “We have a substantial lack of backbone in this room, I’m afraid.”
Franklin looked past him, saw Dickinson standing close behind, staring angrily at Adams, reacting to his words.
“Mr. Dickinson, a fine speech, sir,” said Franklin.
Adams seemed suddenly embarrassed, did not look behind him, nodded quickly to Franklin, moved away toward the entrance. Franklin saw Dickinson following Adams, began to follow himself. My God, let’s not have a duel. He slipped through the crowd of delegates, making polite acknowledgments left and right, still keeping his eye on Dickinson. The man was gone now, following Adams out of the hall. Franklin reached the door, could see them both, heard the taller man call out, saw Adams turn, a look of surprise. Franklin moved closer, heard Adams say, “My apologies for my indiscreet remark, sir. However, I am certain you are aware of my sentiments.” Dickinson seemed to explode in Adams’ face. “What is the reason, Mr. Adams, that you New England men oppose our measures of reconciliation? Why do you hold so tightly to this determined opposition to petitioning the king?” Franklin heard other men gathering behind him, filling the entranceway, Dickinson’s volume drawing them. He could see Adams glancing at them and then saying, “Mr. Dickinson, this is not an appropriate time...” “Mr. Adams, can you not respond? Do you not desire an end to talk of war?” Adams seemed struck by Dickinson’s words, looked at him for a long moment. “Mr. Dickinson, if you believe that all that has fallen upon us is merely talk, I have no response. There is no hope of avoiding a war, sir, because the war has already begun. Your king and his army have seen to that. Please, excuse me, sir.” Adams began to walk away, and Franklin could see Dickinson look back at the growing crowd behind him, saw a strange desperation in the man’s expression, and Dickinson shouted toward Adams, “There is no sin in hope!
”
”
Jeff Shaara (Rise to Rebellion)
“
I lift the lid of the chest. Inside, the air is musty and stale, held hostage for years in its three-foot-by-four-foot tomb. I lean in to survey the contents cautiously, then pull out a stack of old photos tied with twine. On top is a photo of a couple on their wedding day. She's a young bride, wearing one of those 1950's netted veils. He looks older, distinguished- sort of like Cary Grant or Gregory Peck in the old black-and-white movies I used to watch with my grandmother. I set the stack down and turn back to the chest, where I find a notebook, filled with handwritten recipes. The page for Cinnamon Rolls is labeled "Dex's Favorite." 'Dex.' I wonder if he's the man in the photo.
There are two ticket stubs from 1959, one to a Frank Sinatra concert, another to the movie 'An Affair to Remember.' A single shriveled rosebud rests on a white handkerchief. A corsage? When I lift it into my hand, it disintegrates; the petals crinkle into tiny pieces that fall onto the living room carpet. At the bottom of the chest is what looks like a wedding dress. It's yellowed and moth-eaten, but I imagine it was once stark white and beautiful. As I lift it, I can hear the lace swishing as if to say, "Ahh." Whoever wore it was very petite. The waist circumference is tiny. A pair of long white gloves falls to the floor. They must have been tucked inside the dress. I refold the finery and set the ensemble back inside.
Whose things are these? And why have they been left here? I thumb through the recipe book. All cookies, cakes, desserts. She must have loved to bake. I tuck the book back inside the chest, along with the photographs after I've retied the twine, which is when I notice a book tucked into the corner. It's an old paperback copy of Ernest Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises.' I've read a little of Hemingway over the years- 'A Moveable Feast' and some of his later work- but not this one. I flip through the book and notice that one page is dog-eared. I open to it and see a line that has been underscored. "You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another."
I look out to the lake, letting the words sink in. 'Is that what I'm trying to do? Get away from myself?' I stare at the line in the book again and wonder if it resonated with the woman who underlined it so many years ago. Did she have her own secret pain? 'Was she trying to escape it just like me?
”
”
Sarah Jio (Morning Glory)
“
H-22: Father Corby Monument 39º48.205’N, 77º14.063’W This monument honors the hundreds of chaplains present on the field in 1863. As chaplain of the Eighty-eighth New York Infantry of the famed Irish Brigade, Father William Corby, twenty-nine years old, has become as famous as many of those who actually bore arms those three fateful days. As the Irish Brigade formed up to enter the fight, Father Corby stepped onto a boulder—some historians believe the very boulder on which the monument stands—and raised his hand. Three hundred soldiers drew silent, many of them dropping to their knees, as the battle raged around them. The priest blessed them, prayed for their safety, and granted a general absolution, after which the troops marched into the fight. Corby’s admonition that the church would refuse a Christian burial for any man who failed to do his duty that day rang in their ears as they headed off. Following the war, Father Corby became president of the University of Notre Dame. A replica of this monument stands on the university’s campus, marking his grave. Years after the war, veterans of the Irish Brigade petitioned to have the Medal of Honor awarded to Corby, a request that was ultimately denied.
”
”
James Gindlesperger (So You Think You Know Gettysburg?: The Stories behind the Monuments and the Men Who Fought One of America's Most Epic Battles)
“
The superannuated General Ivan Ivanovich Drozdov, a former friend and colleague of the late General Stavrogin, a most honourable man (but in his own way), and known to all of us here, a man who was extremely obstinate and short-tempered, who ate an awful lot and was awfully afraid of atheism, began to quarrel at one of Varvara Petrovna’s soirees with a certain celebrated young man. The latter promptly retorted: ‘You must be a general if you talk like that’, meaning, in other words, that he could come up with no greater term of abuse than ‘general’. Ivan Ivanovich rose to the bait at once: ‘Yes, sir, I am a general, and a lieutenant general, and I have served my Sovereign, and you, sir, are an impudent boy and an atheist!’ A dreadful scene ensued. The next day the incident was reported in the press, and people began collecting signatures for a petition against the ‘outrageous conduct’ of Varvara Petrovna, who had refused to banish the general instantly from her house. A cartoon appeared in an illustrated magazine,32 where Varvara Petrovna, the general and Stepan Trofimovich were caricatured all together as three reactionary friends; the cartoon was also accompanied by some verses, written by the people’s poet exclusively for this occasion.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Demons)
“
Let us have peace." But there was the black man looming like a dark ghost on the horizon. He was the child of force and greed, and the father of wealth and war. His labor was indispensable, and the loss of it would have cost many times the cost of the war. If the Negro has been silent, his very presence would have announced his plight. He was not silence. He was in usual evidence. He was writing petitions, making speeches, parading with returned soldiers, reciting his adventures as slave and freeman. Even dumb and still, he must be noticed. His poverty has to be relieved, and emancipation in his case had to mean poverty. If he had to work, he had to have land and tools. If his labor was in reality to be free labor, he had to have legal freedom and civil rights. His ignorance could only be removed by that very education which the law of the South had long denied him and the custom of the North had made exceedingly difficult. Thus civil status and legal freedom, food, clothes and tools, access to land and help to education, were the minimum demands of four million laborers, and these demands no man could ignore, Northerner or Southerner, Abolitionist or Copperhead, laborer or captain of industry. How did the nation face this paradox and dilemma?
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (Black Reconstruction in America)
“
A woman pushed her way through the swarm of people. “She’s the daughter of Matthias, head scribe to Herod Antipas, and known to be a fornicator.” I called out again in protest, but my denial was swallowed by the black odium that boiled out of their hearts. “Show us your pocket!” a man yelled. One by one, they took up the petition. Gripping my forearm, Chuza let their shouts grow fevered before he reached for my sleeve. I writhed and kicked. I was a fluttering moth, a hapless girl. My skirmish yielded nothing but jeers and laughter. He snatched the sheet of ivory from my coat and lifted it over his head. A roar erupted. “She is a thief, a blasphemer, and a fornicator!” Chuza cried. “What would you do with her?” “Stone her!” someone cried. The chant began, the dark prayer. Stone her. Stone her. I shut my eyes against the dazzling blur of anger. Their hearts are boulders and their heads are straw. They seemed to be not a multitude of persons, but a single creature, a behemoth feeding off their combined fury. They would stone me for all the wrongs ever done to them. They would stone me for God. Most often victims were dragged to a cliff outside the city and thrown off before being pelted, which lessened the laborious effort of having to throw so many stones—it was in some way more merciful, at least quicker—but I saw I would not be accorded that lenience. Men and women and children plucked stones from the ground. These stones, God’s most bountiful gift to Galilee. Some rushed into the building site, where the stones were larger and more deadly. I heard the sizzle of a rock fly over my head and fall behind me. Then the commotion and noise slowed, elongating, receding to some distant pinnacle, and in that strange slackening of time, I no longer cared to fight. I felt myself bending to my fate. I ached for the life I would never live, but I yearned even more to escape it. I sank onto the ground, making myself as small as I could, my arms and legs tucked beneath my chest and belly, my forehead pressed to the ground. I fashioned myself into a walnut shell. I would be broken apart and God could have the meat. A stone struck my hip in a sunburst of pain. Another fell beside my ear. I heard the stomp of sandals running toward me, then a voice glittering with indignation. “Cease your violence! Would you stone her on the word of this man?” The mob quieted, and I dared to raise my head. Jesus stood before them, his back to me. I stared at the bones in his shoulders. The way his hands were drawn into fists. How he’d planted himself between me and the stones.
”
”
Sue Monk Kidd (The Book of Longings)
“
Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man’s vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West)
“
The girl really needed to let him go.
This was the voyage Gray went respectable. And it was off to a very bad start.
It was all her fault-this delicate wisp of a governess, with that porcelain complexion and her big, round eyes tilting up at him like Wedgwood teacups. She looked as if she might break if he breathed on her wrong, and those eyes keep beseeching him, imploring him, making demands. Please, rescue me from this pawing brute. Please, take me on your ship and away to Tortola. Please, strip me out of this revolting gown and initiate me in the pleasure of the flesh right here on the barstool.
Well, innocent miss that she was, she might have lacked words to voice the third quite that way. But worldly man that he was, Gray cold interpret the silent petition quite clearly. He only wished he could discourage his body’s instinctive, affirmative response.
He didn’t know what to do with the girl. He ought to do the respectable thing, seeing as how this voyage marked the beginning of his respectable career. But Miss Turner had him pegged. He was no kind of gentleman, and damned if he knew the respectable thing. Allowing a young, unmarried, winsome lady to travel unaccompanied probably wasn’t it. But then, if he refused her, who was to say she wouldn’t end up in an even worse situation? The chit couldn’t handle herself for five minutes in a tavern. Was he truly going to turn her loose on the Gravesend quay?
”
”
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
“
The Story of the Moon
Once, night, unchallenged, extended its dark grace
across the sky. To the credit of the town, the stars
at night had been enough, though sometimes
the townspeople went about bumping their heads
in sleep. Eventually, three brothers, traveling through
a foreign town, found an evening that did not
disappear behind the mountains, for a shining globe
sat in an oak tree. The brothers stopped. That one
is the moon, said a man from the foreign town.
The brothers conferred. They could make a certain use
of it. The brothers stole the moon down and put it
in their wagon. Seized it. Thieved its silver. Altogether
greedy. The wagon shining brights. At home:
the moon delivered. Then, celebration: dancing in red
coats on the meadow. Number four brother smiling
wide. The moon installed--it extended its silver
calculations. Time and more time. The brothers aged,
took sick, petitioned the town that each quarter
of the moon, as it was their property, be portioned out
to share their graves. Done, and the light of the moon
diminished in fractions. They had extinguished it,
part for part, and night, unimpeded, fell. Altogether
lanternless. The people were silent. The dark rang loud.
Underground: cold blazing. The dead woke, shivering
in the light. Some went out to play and dance,
others hastened to the taverns to drink, quarrel,
and brawl. Noise and more noise. Noise up to heaven.
Saint Peter took his red horse through the gates
and came down. The moon, for the third time, taken.
The dead bidden back into their graves. One wonders
why a story like this exists.
”
”
Richard Siken (War of the Foxes)
“
(Summer of 2010) Chiaz Natherth- It was just going to be a typical summer day. I am at the local watering hole with my bud Melvin Shezor; we were just there to gaze at the girl gaze, sitting on lawn chairs. I had warm lemonade in my right hand at the time. I am looking around at all the bodies that are bobbing in the water; they all just seem to blend. The lifeguard is blowing her whistle while screaming at the little kids that are running around. Some stunning bodies are smacking the cold blue water with great speed, from the high dive.
But- there is no more perfect figure there than hers. Everyone else seems to fade away out of my vision, along with all the ear-shattering noises. Bryan Adams ‘Heaven’ is playing in the background, and it seemed to be pronounced to my senses. When I am looking at her, it is like she is moving in slow motion, swimming across the pool. She climbed up the ladder and out of the pool. Her body dripping with water… what a moment, there is even water dripping down her chest. She looks amazing in that petite pink bikini. I was thinking to myself, that is a very cute looking camel-toe you got showing there Nevaeh! I never knew that she had a heart-shaped belly button piercing, when did that happen?
Also, I could tell that her swimsuit was made by her, just like most of the sun-dresses she wears in the summertime too. Because it was not like any others I have ever seen around, it is cute, somewhat skimpy, and tailored to her perfect body. The fabric was not meant to get wet, it was somewhat see-through, yet she did not know, though it looks very good what can I say. She is walking towards me while running her fingers through her long brown hair. ‘I was thinking this is too good to be for real.’ She walked by and said ‘hi!’ and I was at loss for words. She was already gone, but I still babbled something like ‘Ahh-he-oll-o.’ At that point, into the changing room, she went, and I just sat there trying to fathom what had just happened.
Melvin Shezor- ‘Chiaz! Ah, Chiaz! Hello, earth to Chiaz, snap out of its dude.’
Chiaz Naztherth- ‘She is so fine! I would not mind having her on my arm.’
Melvin Shezor- ‘Yah, the man she is not bad. But- isn’t she into girls though.
So, do you like Nevaeh?’
Chiaz Naztherth- ‘I do not think that she is, and well… Yes, did you see her in that swimsuit? She is adorable in every way.’
Melvin Shezor- ‘Really is that so? Go talk to her!’
Chiaz Naztherth- ‘No way!’
Melvin Shezor- ‘Why not, you pussy!’
Chiaz Naztherth- ‘If Alissa finds out that I like her, or even looked at her I am going to die.’
Melvin Shezor- ‘Ha, it sucks to be you man.’
Chiaz Natherth- ‘Hey, I will see you later, I got to go.’ (Text messages are going off… like crazy)
Melvin Shezor- ‘Pu-ss-y!’ (Shouting as Chiaz Natherth is walking out the exit gate.)
(Chiaz- He just waved it off, with the finger that is not supposed to be used in public, and does not think any more about it from that point on.)
Chiaz Naztherth- Summer is over! Yet she is with him… he is so unconfident in himself that he has to follow me around. He gives me vain advice on what to do, and how to do it, yet I would have to say I need to stand up for myself more than what I do, yet I do not because of her. He attempts to belittle me, with his words of temperament to her. These results lead to her having breakdowns, where she is feeling miserable because she is stuck in the middle. She does not know what to do! She doesn't know how to feel! She does not want to hurt anyone's feelings, yet she is the one that is left to choke on her tears. Yes, I will save you long before you drowned!
”
”
Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh The Miracle)
“
Das pädagogische Bedenken: „Darf man Kinder mit dem Hokuspokus afrikanischer Zauberer und böser Feen unterhalten?“ kommt ungefähr der Frage gleich, ob man den Eskimos ihre Amulette und Zauberpriester weiterhin gestatten soll.
Literarisch ließe sich gegen Märchen wie „La Belle au Bois Dormant“, „Le Petit Cahperon Rouge“, „Le Chat Botté“, „Riquet à la Houppé» eigentlich nichts einwenden; waren sie doch von einem Charles Perrault (de l’Academie Francaise) und seiner Geliebten, einer Comtesse d’Aulnay […] in die Aristokratensalons des Louis Quatorze eingeführt worden und hatten sich so manierlich, so chevaleresk aufgeführt, dass sie überall als geistige Sprösslinge ihrer durchaus hoffähigen Editoren empfunden wurden.
Ihr plebejischer, ja asiatischer, ja negroider Ursprung wurde erst im XIX. Jahrhundert aufgedeckt, als in Deutschland und Rußland Sprachforscher ihren Stammbäumen nachgingen: als die Rechtsgelehrten Brüder Grimm ihre Erzählungen unverblümt dem Volksmund nachschrieben, um sie „in letzter Minute für die armen und einfachen Leute zu retten, denen man sie vorenthielt…“
Aber was da zum Vorschein kam, wuchs den Philologen über den Kopf, wie das so oft im Eifer der Wissenschaften vorkommt. Bei ihrem Vorhaben, im reinsten Interesse der Germanistik heimische Sagenschätze schlichter Bauern und ehrbarer Ammen freizulegen, waren sie auf Aushöhlungen gestoßen, aus denen ihnen geile Succuben entgegenflatterten, giftiges Schlangen- und Basiliskengezücht entgegenkroch, der Blutgeruch shakesperarischer Hexenkessel in die Nase stieg.
Auch hatten sie damit, ohne es zu wollen, einer überall gärenden permanenten Verschwörung Vorschub geleistet – nämlich einer der Kinder aller Rassen, aller Zeitläufte, die heimtückisch, mit dem Revanchegelüst zu kurz gekommener Zwerge das abstruse Riesenreich der Erwachsenen unterwühlen.
”
”
Walter Mehring (The Lost Library: The Autobiography of a Culture)
“
As if reading his mind, she smiled happily up at him. “Gary really came through for us, didn’t he?”
“Absolutely, ma petite. And Beau LaRue was not so bad either. Come, we cannot leave the poor man pacing the swamp. He will think we are engaging in something other than conversation.”
Wickedly Savannah moved her body against his, her hands sliding provocatively, enticingly, over the rigid thickness straining his trousers. “Aren’t we?” she asked with that infuriating sexy smile he could never resist.
“We have a lot of clean-up to do here, Savannah,” he said severely. “And we need to get word to our people, spread the society’s list through our ranks, warn those in danger.”
Her fingers were working at the buttons of his shirt so that she could push the material aside to examine his chest and shoulder, where two of the worst wounds had been. She had to see his body for herself, touch him to assure herself he was completely healed. “I suggest, for now, that your biggest job is to create something for Gary to do so we can have a little privacy.” With a smooth movement, she pulled the shirt from over her head so that her full breasts gleamed temptingly at him.
Gregori made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. His hands came up to cup the weight of her in his palms, the feel of her soft, satin skin soothing after the burning torture of the tainted blood. His thumbs caressed the rosy tips into hard peaks. He bent his head slowly to the erotic temptation because he was helpless to do anything else. He needed the merging of their bodies after such a close call as much as she did. He could feel the surge of excitement, the rush of liquid heat through her body at the feel of his mouth pulling strongly at her breast.
Gregori dragged her even closer, his hands wandering over her with a sense of urgency. Her need was feeding his.
“Gary,” she whispered. “Don’t forget about Gary.”
Gregori cursed softly, his hand pinning her hips so that he could strip away the offending clothes on her body. He spared the human a few seconds of his attention, directing him away from the cave. Savannah’s soft laughter was taunting, teasing. “I told you, lifemate, you’re always taking off my clothes.”
“Then stop wearing the damn things,” he responded gruffly, his hands at her tiny waist, his mouth finding her flat stomach. “Someday my child will be growing right here,” he said softly, kissing her belly. His hands pinned her thighs so that he could explore easily without interruption. “A beautiful little girl with your looks and my disposition.”
Savannah laughed softly, her arms cradling his head lovingly. “That should be quite a combination. What’s wrong with my disposition?” She was writhing under the onslaught of his hands and mouth, arcing her body more fully into his ministrations.
“You are a wicked woman,” he whispered. “I would have to kill any man who treated my daughter the way I am treating you.”
She cried out, her body rippling with pleasure. “I happen to love the way you treat me, lifemate,” she answered softly and cried out again when he merged their bodies, their minds, their hearts and souls.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
Montreal
October 1704
Temperature 55 degrees
Eben was looking at Sarah in the way every girl prays some boy will one day look at her. “I will marry you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I will be a good husband. A Puritan husband. Who will one day take us both back home.”
Wind shifted the lace of Sarah’s gown and the auburn of one loose curl.
“I love you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I’ve always loved you.”
Tears came to Sarah’s eyes: she who had not wept over her own family. She stood as if it had not occurred to her that she could be loved; that an English boy could adore her. “Oh, Eben!” she whispered. “Oh, yes, oh, thank you, I will marry you. But will they let us, Eben? We will need permission.”
“I’ll ask my father,” said Eben. “I’ll ask Father Meriel.”
They were not touching. They were yearning to touch, they were leaning forward, but they were holding back. Because it is wrong? wondered Mercy. Or because they know they will never get permission?
“My French family will put up a terrible fuss,” said Sarah anxiously. “Pierre might even summon his fellow officers and do something violent.”
Eben grinned. “Not if I have Huron warriors behind me.”
The Indians rather enjoyed being French allies one day and difficult neighbors the next. Lorette Indians might find this a fine way to stab a French soldier in the back without drawing blood.
They would need Father Meriel. He could arrange anything if he chose; he had power among all the peoples. But he might say no, and so might Eben’s Indian family.
Mercy translated what was going on for Nistenha and Snow Walker. “They want to get married,” she told them. “Isn’t it wonderful?” She couldn’t help laughing from the joy and the terror of it. Ransom would no longer be the first word in Sarah’s heart. Eben would be. Mercy said, “Eben asked her right here in the street, Snow Walker. He wants to save her from marriage to a French soldier she doesn’t want. He’s loved Sarah since the march.”
The two Indians had no reaction. For a moment Mercy thought she must have spoken to them in English. Nistenha turned to walk away and Snow Walker turned with her.
If Nistenha was not interested in Sarah and Eben’s plight, no Indian would be.
Mercy called on her memory of every speech in every ceremony, every dignified phrase and powerful word. “Honored mother,” she said softly. “Honored sister. We are in need and we beg you to hear our petition.”
Nistenha stopped walking, turned back and stared at her in amazement. Sarah and Eben and Snow Walker stared at her in amazement.
Sam can build canoes, thought Mercy. I can make a speech. “This woman my sister and this man my brother wish to spend their lives together. My brother will need the generous permission of his Indian father. Already we know that my sister will be refused the permission of her French owners. We will need an ally to support us in our request. We will need your strength and your wisdom. We beseech you, Mother, that you stand by us and help us.”
The city of Montreal swirled around them.
Eben, property of an Indian father in Lorette; Sarah, property of a French family in Montreal; and Mercy, property of Tannhahorens, awaited her answer.
“Your words fill me with pride, Munnunock,” said Nistenha softly. She reached into her shopping bundle. Slowly she drew out a fine French china cup, undoubtedly meant for the feast of Flying Legs. She held it for a moment, and then her stern face softened and she gave it to Eben.
Indians sealed a promise with a gift.
She would help them.
From her bundle, Snow Walker took dangling silver earrings she must have bought for Mercy and handed them to Sarah.
Because she knew that Sarah’s Mohawk was not good enough and that Eben was too stirred to speak, Mercy gave the flowery thanks required after such gifts.
“God bless us,” she said to Sarah and Eben, and Eben said, “He has.
”
”
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
“
Her enormous eyes were staring straight into his silver ones.
He couldn’t look away, couldn’t let go of her hand. He couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it. He was lost in those blue-violet eyes, somewhere in their mysterious, haunting, sexy depths. What was it he had decided? Decreed? He was not going to allow her anywhere near Peter’s funeral. Why was his resolve fading away to nothing? He had reasons, good reasons. He was certain of it. Yet now, drowning in her huge eyes, his thoughts on the length of her lashes, the curve of her cheek, the feel of her skin, he couldn’t think of denying her. After all, she hadn’t tried to defy him; she didn’t know he had made the decision to keep her away from Peter’s funeral. She was including him in the plans, as if they were a unit, a team. She was asking his advice. Would it be so terrible to please her over this? It was important to her.
He blinked to keep from falling into her gaze and found himself staring at the perfection of her mouth. The way her lips parted so expectantly. The way the tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her full lower lip. Almost a caress. He groaned. An invitation. He braced himself to keep from leaning over and tracing the exact path with his own tongue. He was being tortured. Tormented.
Her perfect lips formed a slight frown. He wanted to kiss it right off her mouth. “What is it, Gregori?” She reached up to touch his lips with her fingertip. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He caught her wrist and clamped it against his pumping heart.
“Savannah,” he whispered. An ache. It came out that way. An ache. He knew it. She knew it. God, he wanted her with every cell in his body. Untamed. Wild. Crazy. He wanted to bury himself so deep inside her that she would never get him out.
Her hand trembled in answer, a slight movement rather like the flutter of butterfly wings. He felt it all the way through his body. “It is all right, mon amour,” he said softly. “I am not asking for anything.”
“I know you’re not. I’m not denying you anything. I know we need to have time to become friends, but I’m not going to deny what I feel already. When you’re close to me, my body temperature jumps about a thousand degrees.” Her blue eyes were dark and beckoning, steady on his.
He touched her mind very gently, almost tenderly, slipped past her guard and knew what courage it took for her to make the admission. She was nervous, even afraid, but willing to meet him halfway. The realization nearly brought him to his knees. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and the silver eyes heated to molten mercury, but his face was as impassive as ever.
“I think you are a witch, Savannah, casting a spell over me.” His hand cupped her face, his thumb sliding over her delicate cheekbone.
She moved closer, and he felt her need for comfort, for reassurance. Her arms slid tentatively around his waist. Her head rested on his sternum. Gregori held her tightly, simply held her, waiting for her trembling to cease. Waiting for the warmth of his body to seep into hers. Gregori’s hand came up to stroke the thick length of silken, ebony hair, taking pleasure in the simple act. It brought a measure of peace to both of them. He would never have believed what a small thing like holding a woman could do to a man. She was turning his heart inside out; unfamiliar emotions surged wildly through him and wreaked havoc with his well-ordered life. In his arms, next to his hard strength, she felt fragile, delicate, like an exotic flower that could be easily broken.
“Do not worry about Peter, ma petite,” he whispered into the silken strands of her hair. “We will see to his resting place tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Gregori,” Savannah said. “It matters a lot to me.”
He lifted her easily into his arms. “I know. It would be simpler if I did not. Come to my bed, chérie, where you belong.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
I, Prayer (A Poem of Magnitudes and Vectors)
I, Prayer, know no hour. No season, no day, no month nor year.
No boundary, no barrier or limitation–no blockade hinders Me.
There is no border or wall I cannot breach.
I move inexorably forward; distance holds Me not.
I span the cosmos in the twinkling of an eye.
I knowest it all.
I am the most powerful force in the Universe.
Who then is My equal?
Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?
None is so fierce that dare stir him up.
Surely, I may’st with but a Word.
Who then is able to stand before Me?
I am the wind, the earth, the metal.
I am the very empyrean vault of Heaven Herself.
I span the known and the unknown beyond
Eternity’s farthest of edges.
And whatsoever under Her wings is Mine.
I am a gentle stream, a fiery wrath
penetrating; wearing down mountains
–the hardest and softest of substances.
I am a trickling brook to fools of want
lost in the deserts of their own desires.
I am a Niagara to those who drink in well.
I seep through cracks. I inundate.
I level forests kindleth unto a single burning bush.
My hand moves the Universe by the mind of a child.
I withhold treasures solid from the secret stores
to they who would wrench at nothing.
I do not sleep or eat, feel not fatigue, nor hunger.
I do not feel the cold, nor rain or wind.
I transcend the heat of the summer’s day.
I commune. I petition. I intercede.
My time is impeccable, by it worlds and destinies turn.
I direct the fates of nations and humankind.
My Words are Iron eternaled—rust not they away.
No castle keep, nor towers of beaten brass,
Nor the dankest of dungeon helks,
Nor adamantine links of hand-wrought steel
Can contain My Spirit–I shan’t turn back.
The race is ne’er to the swift, nor battle to the strong, nor wisdom to the wise or wealth to the rich.
For skills and wisdom, I give to the sons of man.
I take wisdom and skills from the sons of man
for they are ever Mine.
Blessed is the one who finds it so, for in
humility comes honor,
For those who have fallen on the battlefield
for My Name’s sake, I reach down to lift them up
from On High.
I am a rose with the thorn.
I am the clawing Lion that pads her children.
My kisses wound those whom I Love. My kisses are faithful.
No occasion, moment in time, instances, epochs, ages or eras hold Me back.
Time–past, present and future is to Me irrelevant.
I span the millennia. I am the ever-present Now.
My foolishness is wiser than man’s
My weakness stronger than man’s.
I am subtle to the point of formlessness yet formed.
I have no discernible shape, no place into which the
enemy may sink their claws.
I AM wisdom and in length of days knowledge.
Strength is Mine and counsel, and understanding.
I break. I build. By Me, kings rise and fall.
The weak are given strength; wisdom to those who seek and foolishness to both fooler and fool alike.
I lead the crafty through their deceit.
I set straight paths for those who will walk them.
I am He who gives speech and sight - and confounds and removes them.
When I cut, straight and true is my cut.
I strike without fault. I am the razored edge of
high destiny.
I have no enemy, nor friend.
My Zeal and Love and Mercy will not relent
to track you down until you are spent–
even unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
I cull the proud and the weak out of the common herd.
I hunt them in battles royale until their cries unto Heaven are heard.
I break hearts–those whose are harder than granite.
Beyond their atomic cores, I strike their atomic clock.
Elect motions; not one more or less electron beyond electron’s orbit that has been ordained
for you do I give–for His grace is sufficient for thee until He desires enough.
Then I, Prayer, move on as a comet,
Striking out of the black.
I, His sword, kills to give Life.
I am Living and Active, the Divider asunder
of thoughts and intents.
I Am the Light of Eternal Mind.
And I, Prayer,
AM Prayer Almighty.
”
”
Douglas M. Laurent
“
Johnny liked being with Iona; it made him feel like a man. She was petite - a good five inches shorter than him - but it was more than that. She let him pay for her, patronise her, made no demands on his time other than what he was already willing to offer. She made him feel nineteen as well, in her bed with sheets that smelt like cheap laundrette detergent, in bars drinking Snakebite from pint glasses still warm from the dishwasher.
”
”
Erin Lawless (Little White Lies)
“
Corrigan shouted, “I got you now, you bastard!”, as his index finger began to pull back the trigger, but then stopped when a loud crack sounded behind him and a .44 pounded into the middle of his back at the same moment, knocking him forward and jerking his finger against the trigger, sending the shot high into the air. He never knew where the shot came from and would never have a chance to ask as he slumped back over his horse’s neck, then slid off to the side and tumbled to the ground. Conn had seen the distant muzzle flare and knew whose Winchester had created it, in awe of Sam’s ability yet again. He slowly rose to his feet, holstered his Colt, then picked up his damaged Winchester and began to limp to the last shooter, the one who had almost killed him. He was reasonably sure it was Steve Corrigan after hearing the shouted threat but wanted to be sure. But before he reached the dead shooter, Sam trotted up close on the black mare and asked anxiously, “Are you all right, Conn?” “Only because you arrived when you did, Sam. He had me in his sights. I was a dead man.” Sam dismounted in her usual
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C.J. Petit (Conn Jackson)
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Yo man, bien joué ! Tu l'as bien fait crier, ta petite ! On va enfin pouvoir dormir !
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Anne Cantore (On the road with you)
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I don’t fight battles by penning words or crafting syntax designed to bring people to tears by liberating their hearts or calling out their souls. Nor do I fight them by sitting with untold thousands and granting them counsel in the darkness of their darkest hours. No. Rather, I fight them prone on my knees in morning’s darkness before the sun has roused a wounded world awake to feel its pain yet again. I fight them throughout the day as I “pray without ceasing” because troubles befall us without ceasing. I fight them by praying for the impossible in lives devastated beyond redemption, for rogue nations that spread destruction as though destroying life was the answer to life, for the weak who stand teetering precariously on some emotional or relational or financial abyss, and for an impossible number of situations that everyone else has deemed as impossible. I fight in prayer. And despite the massive weaponry available to mankind, I am utterly convinced that a single man on his knees in humble petition before God exceeds the armament of all the world’s nations combined. This is what I believe. And therefore, this is how I fight.
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Craig D. Lounsbrough
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He introduced petitions at the start of each session before the rules had been officially adopted, then would challenge the continuation of the gag and force a vote on it. He would inquire of the Speaker whether a certain petition was permissible and then read from it. He would ask if a petition could be referred to a committee instructed to explain why it could not be granted. People sent him petitions not only from his constituency but from all over the country, cleverly worded so as not quite to fall under the ban. Many of the petitions now asked for the repeal of the gag rule. It was he, of course, who named it “the gag.” In his dogged battle, Old Man Eloquent earned the respect of his bitterest foes. The Virginia state-righter Henry Wise called him “the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed.”79
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Daniel Walker Howe (What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848)
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Why did you stop?” Her innocence humbled him, and despite the danger, he pulled her to him, resting her head against his chest. He remained quiet, unable to answer as he tried to force his surging emotions to settle. But such a task was impossible. “What do my actions tell you now?” he whispered. She made no sound, only looked up and stroked his face with her delicate fingers. Her endless eyes shimmering back with such love, his heart swelled until it nearly stopped his lungs. “Eliza?” “Yes?” she answered, a husky sound to her voice. “I want you to be my wife.” The words toppled out of his mouth and he bit his tongue. He hadn’t intended to ask her, but apparently his inner desires, no matter how suppressed, could no longer be ignored. She pushed away and looked up at him, disbelief painting her face. “Your wife?” He tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “What do you say?” The muscles in his shoulders tensed. Maybe she did truly love Samuel. “Will you accept me?” She must have seen the emotions he attempted to disguise. Her slender fingers moved over his dipping eyebrows and the sweetest of smiles graced her enticing mouth. “There’s no need for your brow to furrow so. Of course I accept you.” Joy rose in his heart like a surging sea. Thomas moved his hands further around her waist, hoping such closeness would erase all other men from her mind. “You’re not wishing you would have accepted the man who asked before me?” An impish grin chased across her mouth. “Never. You’ve surprised me, that is all. I couldn’t be happier.” “So you do accept me?” he asked. A petite laugh escaped her. “Have I not already answered? What do my actions tell you, Thomas?
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Amber Lynn Perry (So Fair a Lady (Daughters of His Kingdom, #1))