Plague Dogs Book Quotes

When you were dying, Edward quickly discovered, people would let you do pretty much whatever you wanted. So he made some new unofficial decrees: 1. The king was allowed to sleep in as long as he wished. 2. The king no longer had to wear seven layers of elaborate, jewel-encrusted clothing. Or silly hats with feathers. Or pants that resembled pumpkins. Or tights. From now on, unless it was a special occasion, he was fine in just a simple shirt and trousers. 3. Dessert was to be served first. Blackberry pie, preferably. With whipped cream. 4. The king would no longer be taking part in any more dreary studies. His fine tutors had filled his head with enough history, politics and philosophy to last him two lifetimes, and as he was unlikely to get even half of one lifetime, there was no need for study. No more lessons, he decided. No more books. No more tutors' dirty looks. 5. The king was now going to reside in the top of the southeast turret, where he could sit in the window ledge and gaze out at the river for as long as he liked. 6. No one at court would be allowed to say the following words or phrases: affliction, illness, malady, sickness, disease, disorder, ailment, infirmity, convalescence, indisposition, malaise, plight, plague, poor health, failing health, what's going around, or your condition. Most of all, no one was allowed to say the word dying. And finally (and perhaps most importantly, for the sake of our story) 7. Dogs would now be allowed inside the palace. More specifically, his dog.

Modern art is a waste of time. When the zombies show up, you can't worry about art. Art is for people who aren't worried about zombies. Besides zombies and icebergs, there are other things that Soap has been thinking about. Tsunamis, earthquakes, Nazi dentists, killer bees, army ants, black plague, old people, divorce lawyers, sorority girls, Jimmy Carter, giant quids, rabid foxes, strange dogs, new anchors, child actors, fascists, narcissists, psychologists, ax murderers, unrequited love, footnotes, zeppelins, the Holy Ghost, Catholic priests, John Lennon, chemistry teachers, redheaded men with British accents, librarians, spiders, nature books with photographs of spiders in them, darkness, teachers, swimming pools, smart girls, pretty girls, rich girls, angry girls, tall girls, nice girls, girls with superpowers, giant lizards, blind dates who turn out to have narcolepsy, angry monkeys, feminine hygiene commercials, sitcoms about aliens, things under the bed, contact lenses, ninjas, performances artists, mummies, spontaneous combustion, Soap has been afraid of all of these things at one time or another, Ever since he went to prison, he's realized that he doesn't have to be afraid. All he has to do is come up with a plan. Be prepared. It's just like the Boy Scouts, except you have to be even more prepared. You have to prepare for everything that the Boy Scouts didn't prepare you for, which is pretty much everything.

Our entire bodies and brains are made of a few dollars’ worth of common elements: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, enough calcium to whitewash a chicken coop, sufficient iron to make a two-inch nail, phosphorus to tip a good number of matches, enough sulphur to dust a flea-plagued dog, together with modest amounts of potassium, chlorine, magnesium and sodium. Assemble them all in the right proportion, build the whole into an intricate interacting system, and the result is our feeling, thinking, striving, imagining, creative selves. Such ordinary elements; such extraordinary results! James Hemming

Dog Farts:Dogs may be man’s best friends but dog farts remain among the most rancid and foul smelling things ever to enter a human nostril. In fact the rectal stench of K9 back blasters have been plaguing human populations for tens of thousands of years. There a lot of different reasons we put up with our Fido’s stinky dog butt, but the main reason is so we can have someone to blame our own stinkoid bottom cheek claps on. Best of all, as Fido can’t speak he can’t deny it! 8. Vegetarian Humans: Ok, while not eating meat may be great for the animals, and help reduce your carbon footprint, it will turn you into a human rectal stink burger. There can be no question; all those soybeans come at a cost to your domestic air quality. As anyone who has ever had a macrobiotic hippie come to stay, vegetarians are champions when it comes to opening the basement window. 9.  Non Vegetarian Humans: Ok, well maybe it is not just the vegetarians. Meat eating humans can pretty ripe in the trouser department too.  In fact there really isn’t all that much in it, so if you are planning to chow down on a cow to keep your rump mist under control then you might be disappointed.

Damian, who do you admire?’ I said, ‘St Roch, sir.’ The others stopped talking. ‘Who does he play for?’ ‘No one, sir. He’s a saint.’ The others went back to football. ‘He caught the plague and hid in the woods so he wouldn’t infect anyone, and a dog came and fed him every day. Then he started to do miraculous cures and people came to see him – hundreds of people – in his hut in the woods. He was so worried about saying the wrong thing to someone that he didn’t say a word for the last ten years of his life.’ ‘ We could do with a few like him in this class. Thank you, Damian.’ ‘ He’s the patron saint of plague, cholera and skin complaints. While alive, he performed many wonders.’ ‘Well, you learn something new.’ He was looking for someone else now, but I was enjoying being excellent. Catherine of Alexandria (4th century) came to mind. ‘They wanted her to marry a king, but she said she was married to Christ. So, they tried to crush her on a big wooden wheel, but it shattered into a thousand splinters – huge sharp splinters – which flew into the crowd, killing and blinding many bystanders.’ ‘ That’s a bit harsh. Collateral damage, eh? Well, thank you, Damian.’ By now everyone had stopped debating players versus managers. They were all listening to me. ‘After that they chopped her head off. Which did kill her, but instead of blood, milk came spurting out of her neck. That was one of her wonders.’ ‘Thank you, Damian.’ ‘She’s the patron saint of nurses, fireworks, wheel-makers and the town of Dunstable (Bedfordshire). The Catherine wheel is named after her. She’s a virgin martyr. There are other great virgin martyrs. For instance, St Sexburga of Ely (670– 700).’ Everyone started laughing. Everyone always laughs at that name. They probably laughed at it in 670– 700 too. ‘Sexburga was Queen of Kent. She had four sisters, who all became saints. They were called—’ Before I could say Ethelburga and Withburga, Mr Quinn said, ‘Damian, I did say thank you.’ He actually said thank you three times. If that doesn’t make me excellent, I don’t know what does. I was also an artistic inspiration, as nearly all the boys painted pictures of the collateral damage at the execution of St Catherine. There were a lot of fatal flying splinters and milk spurting out of necks. Jake painted Wayne Rooney, but he was the only one.

For weeks now these evolved winged book sprites have been tormenting us with misdemeanors ranging from dog-earing pages to cracking spines to absolute war crimes like spoiling the endings of manuscripts or—like the sprite who plagues me now—fancying themselves critics.