Plague Land Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Plague Land. Here they are! All 100 of them:

He sighs. "I miss the days when females could be ordered around and they'd have no choice." "Sure that wasn't just a myth? I'm pretty sure nobody ever ordered my mom around - ever." "You're probably right. The unruliness of the women in your family must go back for generations. You're like a plague upon the land.
Susan Ee (World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2))
Raffe: "The unruliness of the women in your family must go back for generations. You're like a plague upon the land." Penryn: "So long as we're also a plague upon angels, I'm sure everyone else will forgive us." Raffe: "Oh, you're definitely a plague upon at least one angel.
Susan Ee (World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2))
Sometimes at midnight, in the great silence of the sleep-bound town, the doctor turned on his radio before going to bed for the few hours’ sleep he allowed himself. And from the ends of the earth, across the thousands of miles of land and sea, kindly, well-meaning speakers tried to voice their fellow-feeling, and indeed did so, but at the same time proved the utter incapacity of every man truly to share in suffering that he cannot see.
Albert Camus (The Plague)
As they stood in the heavy silence, they knew there was only one plague larger than the world's hostility--its indifference.
C.M. Rayne (The Forbidden Land of Andara (Andara, #1))
Christ," Henry says, slapping at a bug that's landed on him, "what are these infernal creatures?" "Mosquitoes," Alex supplies. "They're awful," Henry says loftily. "I'm going to catch an exotic plague." "I'm... sorry?" "I just mean to say, you know, Philip is the heir and I'm the spare, and if that nervy bastard has a heart attack at thirty five and I've got malaria, whither the spare?
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
Every fairy tale has blood flecked on its muzzle. Sometimes it’s licked up in the second before the story begins— a queen slowly bleeding out onto her birthing bed, a plague having laid waste to a land before “Once upon a time” slouches from the dark. But every so often, one can trace the thick flow of blood as it seeps from the pages.
Roshani Chokshi (The Last Tale of the Flower Bride)
That --ing zombie is going to end up on the end of a couple of --ing handy and versatile kebab skewers,' said Mr Tulip. 'An' then I'm gonna put an edge on this --ing spatula. An' then... then I'm gonna get medieval on his arse.' There were more pressing problems, but this one intrigued Mr Pin. 'How, exactly?' he said. 'I thought maybe a maypole,' said Mr Tulip reflectively. 'An' then a display of country dancing, land tillage under the three-filed system, several plagues and, if my --ing hand ain't too tired, the invention of the --ing horse collar.
Terry Pratchett (The Truth: Stage Adaptation)
Fleas plague you, she says. Swamp skitters can kill you, an a little thorn- so small you hardly notice- it can work it's way unner the skin an bit after bit, yyer hand's infected. Maybe you loose a couple fingers, maybe the whole hand. Maybe yer blood goes bad an you die. Tiny things can cause plenty of trouble.
Moira Young (Rebel Heart (Dust Lands, #2))
Sheep used to have wings. One flew into the sky and all the others followed. They took their wings off while feeding in the warm sun but the wind blew away their wings so they couldn't fly anymore. They had to return to earth by drifting to where the sky curves down and touches the land, and then walk round the long way.. i like that..
Richard Adams (The Plague Dogs)
The trip doesn’t exist that can set you beyond the reach of cravings, fits of temper, or fears … so long as you carry the sources of your troubles about with you, those troubles will continue to harass and plague you wherever you wander on land or on sea. Does it surprise you that running away doesn’t do you any good? The things you’re running away from are with you all the time.
Seneca (Letters from a Stoic)
Having a brilliant, beloved leader at the helm of a country when the land is in turmoil is one of the best situations people can hope for. That becomes apparent when that leader is dead.
Jennifer Wright (Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them)
Sometimes at midnight, in the great silence of the sleep bound town, the doctor turned on his radio before going to bed for the few hours' sleep he allowed himself. And from the ends of the earth, across thousands of miles of land and sea, kindly, well-meaning speakers tried to voice their fellow-feeling, and indeed did so, but at the same time proved the utter incapacity of every man truly to share in the suffering that he cannot see. "Oran! Oran!" In vain the call rang over oceans, in vain Rieux listened hopefully; always the tide of eloquence began to flow, bringing home still more the unbridgeable gulf that lay between Grand and the speaker. "Oran, we're with you!" they called emotionally. But not, the doctor told himself, to love or to die together-- and that's the only way...
Albert Camus (The Plague)
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’ In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances… and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
C.S. Lewis
I took a very careful hold of the metal door handle. No shocks and nothing exploded. I pulled gently and the door yielded, but I stayed on the balls of my feet. If I felt the tension of a wire or heard a click, I was going to set a new land speed record for a scared white guy in a hazmat suit.
Jonathan Maberry (The King of Plagues (Joe Ledger, #3))
Maia was either going to grow up to rule the world or loose a planetwide plague upon the land. Maybe both.
Patricia Briggs (Frost Burned (Mercy Thompson, #7))
Bodies feel pain; only the mind can suffer. Indeed, it’s possible to be in pain and yet not suffer at all.
Robert S. Rosenthal (From Plagues to Miracles: The Transformational Journey of Exodus, from the Slavery of Ego to the Promised Land of Spirit)
while, and told them that London was the place by which they, that is, the townsmen of Epping, and all the country round them, subsisted; to whom they sold the produce of their lands, and out of whom they made the rents of their farms; and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of London, or to any of those by whom they gained so much, was very hard; and they would be loath to have it remembered hereafter, and have it told, how barbarous, how inhospitable, and how unkind they were to the people of London when they
Daniel Defoe (History of the Plague in London)
When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—'Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted.' This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God. When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God. While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.
Robert G. Ingersoll (Some Mistakes of Moses)
Pharaoh was the son of Re. Israel was explicitly called the son of Yahweh in the confrontation with Pharaoh (Exod 4:23; cf. Hos 11:1). Yahweh and his son would defeat the high god of Egypt and his son. God against god, son against son, imager against imager. In that context, the plagues are spiritual warfare. Yahweh will undo the cosmic order, throwing the land into chaos.2
Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible)
If we fail, the planet will grow sterile and your people will die in hunger, thirst and waves of plagues. Our people and the thrm's will die more slowly because the poisons here will render us unable to conceive. The skies will cease to be blue, the land will lose its verdure and the seas, well, the seas will be the first to go. Anything that does survive will be broken, mutant, discontinuous from us and mutually exclusive. It will be the new life of a shattered world, a world for chitinous, crawly things, not one for soft and tender emotion. I hope, child, I have answered your question." Meg said nothing. None of it made sense, but she still felt an urge to deny it, deny it, even though Ekaterina's strange, rolling words carried a ring of truth. Suddenly, the autumn chill cut through all her layers of bundling wraps. She could not stop shivering.
Robert Stikmanz (Prelude to a Change of Mind)
You thought perhaps you would drink it away, the plague? Was that the plan?" "I thought perhaps I'd try to die drunk." "Such ambition. And this from a dragon-slayer.
Richard K. Morgan (The Cold Commands (A Land Fit for Heroes, #2))
How does a plague start inside a sealed disc that has had no contact with any other living thing for almost six and a half decades?
Anthony Doerr (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
The primary cause of unhappiness is never the [external] situation but your thoughts about it.
Robert S. Rosenthal (From Plagues to Miracles: The Transformational Journey of Exodus, from the Slavery of Ego to the Promised Land of Spirit)
New England, would face no real Indian challenge. Indeed, the plague helped prompt the legendarily warm reception Plymouth enjoyed from the Wampanoags. Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader, was eager to ally with the Pilgrims because the plague had so weakened his villages that he feared the Narragansetts to the west.28 When a land conflict did develop between new settlers and old at Saugus in 1631, “God ended the controversy by sending the small pox amongst the Indians,” in the words of the Puritan minister Increase Mather. “Whole towns of them were swept away, in some of them not so much as one Soul escaping the Destruction.” 29 By the time the Native populations of New England had replenished themselves to some degree, it was too late to
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
Blackwing, the humans were a plague on the earth. They were not able to control their numbers or their consumption of the land, and so Nature did it for them. She is not kind, she is balanced.
Kira Jane Buxton (Hollow Kingdom (Hollow Kingdom #1))
In the middle of the cemetery is a grassy plane, strangely vacant. There are no granite tombs or crumbling concrete, just a sun-washed treeless patch of green known as "No Man's Land." Here 1,500 unidentified bodies are buried. At one time, their skin burned with yellow fever; now they lie in a cool, dark place where long ago their arms and legs, hands and feet, were intertwined for eternity.
Molly Caldwell Crosby (The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History)
Declaring war on Skaal increased patriotism among the people, made them forget about all their other problems, killed off some of the excess population, often resulted in the acquisition of some valuable booty, and — most importantly — relieved Boric’s crushing boredom. It was too bad about the killing, of course, but most of the peasants were probably going to die of plague or starvation anyway.
Robert Kroese (Disenchanted (Land of Dis, #1))
Why didn’t we ever consider sailing as a profession?” Hadrian asked Royce as he moved to the side and faced the wind. He took a deep, satisfying breath and smiled. “This is nice. A lot better than a sweaty, fly-plagued horse—and look at the land go by! How fast do you think we’re going?” “The fact that we’re trapped here, with no chance of retreat except into the ocean, doesn’t bother you?” Hadrian glanced over the side at the heaving waves. “Well, not until now. Why do you always have to ruin everything? Couldn’t you let me enjoy the moment?” “You know me, just trying to keep things in perspective.
Michael J. Sullivan (Rise of Empire (The Riyria Revelations, #3-4))
He saw the sickness of the world and of his own country during the years after the great war; he saw hatred and suspicion become a kind of madness that swept across the land like a swift plague; he saw young men go again to war, marching eagerly to a senseless doom, as if in the echo of a nightmare. And the pity and sadness he felt were so old, so much a part of his age, that he seemed to himself nearly untouched.
John Williams (Stoner)
Many centuries ago, I discovered your world by accident. After a long and wonderful career of helping people (like Cinderella) achieve their dreams, I was only eager to do more. So one day I closed my eyes, waved my magic wand, and said, “I wish to go someplace where people need me the most.” When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the Land of Stories. When I first arrived, your world was enduring a time known as the Dark Ages, and there couldn’t be a better description. It was a period consumed with poverty, plague, and war. People were suffering and starving, and they were very doubtful that conditions would get any better.
Chris Colfer (An Author's Odyssey (The Land of Stories #5))
Naysayers at their polite best chided the rewilders for romanticizing the past; at their sniping worst, for tempting a 'Jurassic Park' disaster. To these the rewilders quietly voiced a sad and stinging reply. The most dangerous experiment is already underway. The future most to be feared is the one now dictated by the status quo. In vanquishing our most fearsome beasts from the modern world, we have released worse monsters from the compound. They come in disarmingly meek and insidious forms, in chewing plagues of hoofed beasts and sweeping hordes of rats and cats and second-order predators. They come in the form of denuded seascapes and barren forests, ruled by jellyfish and urchins, killer deer and sociopathic monkeys. They come as haunting demons of the human mind. In conquering the fearsome beasts, the conquerors had unwittingly orphaned themselves.
William Stolzenburg (Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators)
θεοὶ is the gods, ἐπεκλώσαντο means they spun, ὄλεθρον is death, plague, destruction. Ruin. That’s what the gods do, they spin threads of ruin through the fabric of our lives, all to make a song for generations to come.
Anthony Doerr (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
I work at T-Town, which is about ninety-nine percent men, and all of them either are alpha personalities or think they are. That said, what we have here is the standard dynamic for sexual tension. I'm moderately good-looking. I have big boobs, and I get hit on by everyone from the pastor of my church to baristas at Starbucks, and by every single guy at T-Town except for my boss and the range master. I don't blame them and I don't judge them. It's part of the procreative drive hardwired into us, and we haven't evolved as a species far enough exert any genuine control over the biological imperative. You, on the other hand, are a very good-looking man of prime breeding age. Old enough to have interesting lines and scars--and stories to go with them--and young enough to be a catch. You probably get laid as often as you want to, and you can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times women have said no to you. Maybe--and please correct me if I've strayed too far into speculation--being an agent of a secret government organization has led you to buy into the superspy sex stud propaganda perpetuated by James Bond films." "My name is Powers," I said. "Austin Powers." She ignored me and plowed ahead. "We're in the middle of a crisis. We may have to work closely together for several days, or even several weeks. Close-quarters travel, emotions running high, all that. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not spend the next few days living inside a trite office romance cliche. That includes everything from mild flirtation to sexual innuendo and double entendre and the whole ball of wax." She sipped her Coke. The ball landed in my court with a thump.
Jonathan Maberry (The King of Plagues (Joe Ledger, #3))
He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
He saw the sickness of the world and of his own country, during the years after the great war; he saw hatred and suspicion become a kind of madness that swept across the land like a swift plague; he saw young men go again to war marching eagerly to a senseless doom, as if in the echo of a nightmare. STONER
John Williams (Stoner)
Meanwhile, bank executives bristled—sometimes privately, but often in the press—at any suggestion that they had in any way screwed up, or should be subject to any constraints when it came to running their business. This last bit of chutzpah was most pronounced in the two savviest operators on Wall Street, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, both of whom insisted that their institutions had avoided the poor management decisions that plagued other banks and neither needed nor wanted government assistance. These claims were true only if you ignored the fact that the solvency of both outfits depended entirely on the ability of the Treasury and the Fed to keep the rest of the financial system afloat, as well as the fact that Goldman in particular had been one of the biggest peddlers of subprime-based derivatives—and had dumped them onto less sophisticated customers right before the bottom fell out.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
But what factor, or combination of factors, may have caused the famine(s) in the Eastern Mediterranean during these decades remains uncertain. Elements that might be considered include war and plagues of insects, but climate change accompanied by drought is more likely to have turned a once-verdant land into an arid semidesert.
Eric H. Cline (1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed)
I wanted to get away,' said she; 'everybody wants to plague and worry me about nothing. They'll be all right tomorrow. What's worrying them?' 'They are sacrificing to our Canadian God,' said Solly. 'We all believe that if we fret and abuse ourselves sufficiently, Providence will take pity and smile upon anything we attempt. A light heart, or a consciousness of desert, attracts ill luck. You have been away from your native land too long. You have forgotten our folkways. Listen to that gang over there; they are scanning the heavens and hoping aloud that it won't rain tomorrow. That is to placate the Mean Old Man in the Sky, and persuade him to be kind to us.
Robertson Davies (Tempest-Tost (Salterton Trilogy, #1))
I am in the native land of hypocrite sir! These men and women of principles; I loathe them. I can scorn at a man disdainfully and forget him. Man is filth, sir! he is dutibound to be filthy. While I believe women are chaste, these principles they confine themselves to make them indelicate and hateful. A beautiful woman sir! Stupefying beauty should not be sole possession of one rodent. God created beauty or maybe he did not, but in it's most primitive state, it belonged to everyman before these principles; these God forsaken principles plagued us. Do you believe in God sir? Oh you do! I can tell that by your expression. Sir! God is not of principles, if he were, world would be just. And I belive, no; actually i know God isn't of principles because He will punish me for years for just one glass; this one glass of wine, you bought me, whereas I deserve far lesser punishment. It is empty sir! I can see the bottom of the glass and depth of my wretchedness in this glass. Perhaps another time sir! I am drunk now, and I don't want to squander this temporal leave.
Teufel Damon
And by living this way, she does more harm in this land than the plague, because her affability and beauty attract the hearts of those who try to woo her and love her, but her disdain and reproaches drive them to despair so that they don’t know what to say about her except to call her cruel and ungrateful and other names that plainly show the nature of her disposition.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
If all who have the means run each time this disease appears, then the seeds of the Plague will go with them and be sown far and wide throughout the land until the clean places are infected and the contagion is magnified a thousandfold. If God saw fit to send this scourge, I believe it would be His will that one face it where one was, with courage, and thus contain its evil.
Geraldine Brooks (Year of Wonders: A haunting historical literary fiction novel of human resilience in 17th century England)
The fleeting systems lapse like foam,'" he mumbled what was evidently a quotation. "That's it—foam, and fleeting. All man's toil upon the planet was just so much foam. He domesticated the serviceable animals, destroyed the hostile ones, and cleared the land of its wild vegetation. And then he passed, and the flood of primordial life rolled back again, sweeping his handiwork away—the weeds and the forest inundated his fields, the beasts of prey swept over his flocks, and now there are wolves on the Cliff House beach." He was appalled by the thought. "Where four million people disported themselves, the wild wolves roam to-day, and the savage progeny of our loins, with prehistoric weapons, defend themselves against the fanged despoilers. Think of it! And all because of the Scarlet Death—
Jack London (The Scarlet Plague)
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night…’ In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented…It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty…“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends…not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (any microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
C.S. Lewis
By erecting thirty thousand dams of significant size across the American West, they dewatered countless rivers, wiped out millions of acres of riparian habitat, shut off many thousands of river miles of salmon habitat, silted over spawning beds, poisoned return flows with agricultural chemicals, set the plague of livestock loose on the arid land--in a nutshell they made it close to impossible for numerous native species to survive.
Marc Reisner
But when the time comes to judge, to un­der­stand a be­trayal which will spread like fame across the Web, which will end worlds, I ask you not to think of me—my name was not even writ on wa­ter as your lost poet’s soul said—but to think of Old Earth dy­ing for no rea­son, to think of the dol­phins, their gray flesh dry­ing and rot­ting in the sun, to see—as I have seen—the motile isles with no place to wan­der, their feed­ing grounds de­stroyed, the Equa­to­r­ial Shal­lows scabbed with drilling plat­forms, the is­lands them­selves bur­dened with shout­ing, tram­mel­ing tourists smelling of UV lo­tion and cannabis. Or bet­ter yet, think of none of that. Stand as I did af­ter throw­ing the switch, a mur­derer, a be­trayer, but still proud, feet firmly planted on Hy­pe­r­ion’s shift­ing sand, head held high, fist raised against the sky, cry­ing “A plague on both your houses!
Dan Simmons (Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1))
He took the final drag of the cigarette, blew out the smoke, and threw the butt in the air. It cascaded over the gravel drive and landed, softly, in the bushes. The dry, arid desert bushes of Malibu. On a morning plagued by Santa Ana winds. In a land of scrub brush. In a town under constant threat of combustion. In an area of the country where a tiny spark could destroy acres. In a region that yearns to burn. And so, with the very best of intentions, Mick Riva walked away, having no idea he had just set fire to 28150 Cliffside Drive.
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Malibu Rising)
It was as if the plague had broken out in a country and news had been spreading around that in one or another place there was a man, a wise man, a knowledgeable one, whose word and breath was enough to heal everyone who had been infected with the pestilence, and as such news would go through the land and everyone would talk about it, many would believe, many would doubt, but many would get on their way as soon as possible, to seek the wise man, the helper, just like this this myth ran through the land, that fragrant myth of Gotama, the Buddha, the wise man of the family of Sakya. He possessed, so the believers said, the highest enlightenment, he remembered his previous lives, he had reached Nirvana and never returned into the cycle, was never again submerged in the murky river of physical forms. Many wonderful and unbelievable things were reported of him, he had performed miracles, had overcome the devil, had spoken to the gods. But his enemies and disbelievers said, this Gotama was a vain seducer, he would spent his days in luxury, scorned the offerings, was without learning, and knew neither exercises nor self-castigation.
Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
Ancient foragers also suffered less from infectious diseases. Most of the infectious diseases that have plagued agricultural and industrial societies (such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis) originated in domesticated animals and were transferred to humans only after the Agricultural Revolution. Ancient foragers, who had domesticated only dogs, were free of these scourges. Moreover, most people in agricultural and industrial societies lived in dense, unhygienic permanent settlements – ideal hotbeds for disease. Foragers roamed the land in small bands that could not sustain epidemics.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
Ancient foragers also suffered less from infectious diseases. Most of the infectious diseases that have plagued agricultural and industrial societies (such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis) originated in domesticated animals and were transferred to humans only after the Agricultural Revolution. Ancient foragers, who had domesticated only dogs, were free of these scourges. Moreover, most people in agricultural and industrial societies lived in dense, unhygienic permanent settlements – ideal hotbeds for disease. Foragers roamed the land in small bands that could not sustain epidemics. The
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
They trampled the world with their sick and twisted and crooked kind of love. The bastard didn’t think that anyone else’s love mattered at all. As if a father’s love knew everything, could see everything, could cure everything. And what would have happened if that man, Robert Lawson, had been allowed to keep his son? What would have fucking happened then? Men like him and Mando, they didn’t understand anything but their own imperfect hearts. That was their sickness—that they believed themselves to be the center of all light. That kind of light was a darkness of the land. A plague that was killing them all.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz (In Perfect Light)
They were Diegueños. They were armed with short bows and they drew about the travelers and knelt and gave them water out of a gourd. They’d seen such pilgrims before and with sufferings more terrible. They eked a desperate living from that land and they knew that nothing excepting some savage pursuit could drive men to such plight and they watched each day for that thing to gather itself out of its terrible incubation in the house of the sun and muster along the edge of the eastern world and whether it be armies or plague or pestilence or something altogether unspeakable they waited with a strange equanimity.
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West)
Out in the lost world were hundreds of soldiers who had been sent abroad before the end of it all and could not be brought home. In the wilds of Afghanistan and the ancient cities of Iraq, they were making their way. At bases in Europe, they were holding their ground against the locals only by firepower. When that ran out, they would be taken. Peace corps kids in Africa realized they could not swim home, would never see home again. Tourists all over Asia, the Caribbean, stranded in airports, forgotten in consulates, lived long enough to face the terror of permanence in strange lands. Cruise ships drifted full of plague dead, a few unlucky souls left alive on some.
Meg Elison (The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (The Road to Nowhere, #1))
Aside from its cartridge, pipette, and temperature issues, many of the other technical snafus that plagued the miniLab could be chalked up to the fact that it remained at a very early prototype stage. Less than three years was not a lot of time to design and perfect a complex medical device. These problems ranged from the robots’ arms landing in the wrong places, causing pipettes to break, to the spectrophotometers being badly misaligned. At one point, the blood-spinning centrifuge in one of the miniLabs blew up. These were all things that could be fixed, but it would take time. The company was still several years away from having a viable product that could be used on patients.
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
The greed manifests us in many shapes, The high rise building, a big house , deforestation, no land to grow and no land to feed our own, Our very own People ! The money was deadly than any plague, People bought and sold people like a commodity ! and then , They divided us , according to our flawed faith..... The stench of ignorance fills the air, nestling at the base of our cortex . I refuse to be conquered ! The agenda was all clear from the start, Prospect of the land; they would rather see us disappear, Sold for seventy five lac a 100 years back‎, It's seventy five million wounds and every day to cry !! We are a " numb nation " We are a " slave nation " & I refuse to be conquered !!!
BinYamin Gulzar
Greece’s economic problems weren’t new. For decades, the country had been plagued by low productivity, a bloated and inefficient public sector, massive tax avoidance, and unsustainable pension obligations. Despite that, throughout the 2000s, international capital markets had been happy to finance Greece’s steadily escalating deficits, much the same way that they’d been happy to finance a heap of subprime mortgages across the United States. In the wake of the Wall Street crisis, the mood grew less generous. When a new Greek government announced that its latest budget deficit far exceeded previous estimates, European bank stocks plunged and international lenders balked at lending Greece more money. The country suddenly teetered on the brink of default.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
Yes, they had suffered together, in body no less than in soul, from a cruel leisure, exile without redress, thirst that was never slaked. Among the heaps of corpses, the clanging bells of ambulances, the warnings of what goes by the name of fate, among unremitting waves of fear and agonized revolt, the horror that such things could be, always a great voice had been ringing in the ears of these forlorn, panicked people, a voice calling them back to the land of their desire, a homeland. It lay outside the walls of the stifled, strangled town, in the fragrant brushwood of the hills, in the waves of the sea, under free skies, and in the custody of love. And it was to this, their lost home, toward happiness, they longed to return, turning their backs disgustedly on all else.
Albert Camus (The Plague)
In country after country where local moneys were abolished in favor of interest-bearing central currency, people fell into poverty, health declined, and society deteriorated12 by all measures. Even the plague can be traced to the collapse of the marketplace of the late Middle Ages and the shift toward extractive currencies and urban wage labor. The new scheme instead favored bigger players, such as chartered monopolies, which had better access to capital than regular little businesses and more means of paying back the interest. When monarchs and their favored merchants founded the first corporations, the idea that they would be obligated to grow didn’t look like such a problem. They had their nations’ governments and armies on their side—usually as direct investors in their projects. For the Dutch East India Company to grow was as simple as sending a few warships to a new region of the world, taking the land, and enslaving its people. If this sounds a bit like the borrowing advantages enjoyed today by companies like Walmart and Amazon, that’s because it’s essentially the same money system in operation, favoring the same sorts of players. Yet however powerful the favored corporations may appear, they are really just the engines through which the larger money system extracts value from everyone’s economic activity. Even megacorporations are like competing apps on a universally accepted, barely acknowledged smartphone operating system. Their own survival is utterly dependent on their ability to grow capital for their debtors and investors.
Douglas Rushkoff (Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity)
All these rich people with their private-jet escape routes to New Zealand—maybe it’s the operational manager in me, but all I can think about are apocalypse logistics: What zombie pilot is going to fly all those planes, and which zombie air-traffic controller is going to help land them? And who is going to do all the ongoing work of cooking and cleaning and shopping? Is the New Zealand infrastructure prepared for this? And why would people in New Zealand allow planes full of potential plague-germ carriers onto their island, no matter how much money they have? Would money have value in the new postapocalyptic economy—or would toilet paper be worth even more? Do the pilot and crew who flew you to New Zealand get saved, or do they get barred at the security gate of the bunker?
Ellen Pao (Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change)
The consequences enveloped the entire globe. During 1890 a strong La Niña ocean temperature anomaly developed, followed by two El Niño years, which warmed Pacific waters and upended normal weather patterns—causing floods in some places, drought in others. In India, monsoons failed, leading to widespread cattle deaths, locust plagues, and grain riots.172 In Russia, peasants had been pressured to clear huge areas for wheat, with the grain exported as a cash crop; overseers had walked away rich. But by 1891 and 1892, the land was exhausted. Drought, bad harvests, and bitter winters led vast numbers of peasants to burn the thatched roofs of their homes for fuel and eat “famine bread” made out of weeds. Typhus swept in to finish off the emaciated. Worldwide, millions died. It was, as one scholar put it, a “fin de siècle apocalypse.”173 Weather patterns in the
Caroline Fraser (Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Did you ever read about bubonic plague in medieval Europe?” I asked. She nodded. She reads a lot the way I do, reads all kinds of things. “A lot of the continent was depopulated,” she said. “Some survivors thought the world was coming to an end.” “Yes, but once they realized it wasn’t, they also realized there was a lot of vacant land available for the taking, and if they had a trade, they realized they could demand better pay for their work. A lot of things changed for the survivors.” “What’s your point?” “The changes.” I thought for a moment. “They were slow changes compared to anything that might happen here, but it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change.” “So?” “Things are changing now, too. Our adults haven’t been wiped out by a plague so they’re still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. But things have changed a lot, and they’ll change more. Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take.
Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1))
Descendants of people enslaved at the Whitney still live in the areas surrounding the former plantation. A few now work at the Whitney—ranging from a director-level position to tour guides to the front desk. But much of the community still suffers from the intergenerational poverty that plagues many formerly enslaved communities more than a century and a half after emancipation. Poverty is common in Wallace, Louisiana, the area encompassing the Whitney, where over 90 percent of the population is Black. Wallace is also one of a series of majority-Black communities lining the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans that—as a result of their proximity to petrochemical plants—form what is known as Cancer Alley. Neighborhoods here have some of the highest cancer risks in the country, and chemical emissions from these plants are linked to cardiovascular, respiratory, and developmental ailments. Civil rights leader Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II put it this way when describing the landscape of factories and refineries along the Mississippi River: “The same land that held people captive through slavery is now holding people captive through this environmental injustice and devastation.
Clint Smith (How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America)
It seems that leishmaniasis, a disease that has troubled the human race since time immemorial, has in the twenty-first century come into its own. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, told our team bluntly that, by going into the jungle and getting leishmaniasis, “You got a really cold jolt of what it’s like for the bottom billion people on earth.” We were, he said, confronted in a very dramatic way with what many people have to live with their entire lives. If there’s a silver lining to our ordeal, he told us, “it’s that you’ll now be telling your story, calling attention to what is a very prevalent, very serious disease.” If leish continues to spread as predicted in the United States, by the end of the century it may no longer be confined to the “bottom billion” in faraway lands. It will be in our own backyards. Global warming has opened the southern door of the United States not just to leish but to many other diseases. The big ones now entering our country include Zika, West Nile virus, chikungunya, and dengue fever. Even diseases like cholera, Ebola, Lyme, babesiosis, and bubonic plague will potentially infect more people as global warming accelerates.
Douglas Preston (The Lost City of the Monkey God)
ADVENTURERS AVAUNT! There is no greater plague upon the lands than the chartered adventurer. Crown-sanctioned mischief makers, brigands whose thefts, casual murders, rapine and pillage are excused where the same things done by a cobbler or a milkmaid would be answered with severings of hands or other appendages, plus brandings—or all of those and hanging or death by drawing between four horses. Yet there is no more necessary plague. Adventurers make even kings think twice about cruelly oppressing all who pass within reach, teach prudence to high priests and even rogue wizards, and are almost the only curb upon the numbers of dragons and other large and monstrous beasts. On the whole, I think the balance comes out about even. What makes us keep adventuring charters instead of burning them along with their bearers is the entertainment adventurers afford the populace. In hamlets and at waymoots, after one’s grumbled about the weather, taxes, the latest rumors of war and orc raids, and the all-too-paltry gossip about the indiscretions of royalty and nobility, there’s little else to talk about but the foolish escapades of adventurers. Thundaerlel Maurlatrimm Four Decades of Innkeeping published in the Year of the Highmantle
Ed Greenwood (Swords of Eveningstar (The Knights of Myth Drannor #1))
Most people, who choose or are coerced into only identifying with “positive” feelings, usually wind up in an emotionally lifeless middle ground – bland, deadened, and dissociated in an unemotional “no-man’s-land.” Moreover, when a person tries to hold onto a preferred feeling for longer than its actual tenure, she often appears as unnatural and phony as ersatz grass or plastic flowers. If instead, she learns to surrender willingly to the normal human experience that good feelings always ebb and flow, she will eventually be graced with a growing ability to renew herself in the vital waters of emotional flexibility. The repression of the so-called negative polarities of emotion causes much unnecessary pain, as well as the loss of many essential aspects of the feeling nature. In fact, much of the plethora of loneliness, alienation, and addictive distraction that plagues modern industrial societies is a result of people being taught and forced to reject, pathologize or punish so many of their own and others’ normal feeling states. Nowhere, not in the deepest recesses of the self, or in the presence of his closest friends, is the average person allowed to have and explore any number of normal emotional states. Anger, depression, envy, sadness, fear, distrust, etc., are all as normal a part of life as bread and flowers and streets. Yet, they have become ubiquitously avoided and shameful human experiences. How tragic this is, for all of these emotions have enormously important and healthy functions in a wholly integrated psyche. One dimension where this is most true is in the arena of healthy self-protection. For without access to our uncomfortable or painful feelings, we are deprived of the most fundamental part of our ability to notice when something is unfair, abusive, or neglectful in our environments. Those who cannot feel their sadness often do not know when they are being unfairly excluded, and those who cannot feel their normal angry or fearful responses to abuse, are often in danger of putting up with it without protest. Perhaps never before has humankind been so alienated from so many of its normal feeling states, as it is in the twenty-first century. Never before have so many human beings been so emotionally deadened and impoverished. The disease of emotional emaciation is epidemic. Its effects on health are often euphemistically labeled as stress, and like the emotions, stress is often treated like some unwanted waste that must be removed.
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
On reading a translated copy of the covenant, Philip V was horrified. The Muslim ruler of Jerusalem, through his emissary, the viceroy of Islamic Granada, was extending to the Jewish people the hand of eternal peace and friendship. The gesture was occasioned by the recent discovery of the lost ark of the Old Testament and the stone tablets upon which God had etched the Law with His finger. Both were found in perfect condition in a ditch in the Sinai Desert and had awoken in the Muslims, who discovered them, a desire to be circumcised, convert to Judaism, and return the Holy Land to the Jews. However, since this would leave millions of Palestinian Muslims homeless, the King of Jerusalem wanted the Jews to give him France in return. The guilty homeowner Bananias told French authorities that after the Muslim offer, the Jews of France concocted the well-poisoning plot and hired the lepers to carry it out. After reading the translation and several corroborating documents, including a highly incriminating letter from the Muslim King of Tunisia, Philip ordered all Jews in France arrested for “complicity . . . to bring about the death of the people and the subjects of the kingdom.” Two years later, any Jewish survivors of the royal terror were exiled from the country.   The
John Kelly (The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time)
Twas brillig, and a mortal's tones Did stretch a day beyond the braced; A princess slain, dead to her bones, A word distraught, a knight disgraced. Portentia, Queen of Wonderland, A crown of grief upon her soul, Vowed to repay the world of man, With mother's tears and pain untold. Addison, keeper of the realm, Now plagued with guilt from duties failed, Swears to uphold his Lady's whelms, Unyielding faith, but conscience veiled. And so, they two a war will wage, The Black Queen and her trusted Knight, For all to know a mother's rage And all to feel her daughter's plight, While sibling girls of white and red align against their mother's will. They share her pain, their sister dead, But they would not innocents kill. The Queen's defeat is at their hands. They strip her of her powers black, then bind her to the Nightmares' lands and split her crown and all it lacks. Behold the Heart! Behold the Eye! For here the Black Queen's power sleeps. Leave them to rest, and by and by The world will mend the broken deep. For if these artifacts awake, Surely then, too, the Queen shall rise. And all will suffer in her wake Beneath the blood-soaked screaming skies. Beware the Heart! Beware the Eye! Beware the Blade so Black! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
L.L. McKinney
more than anything.” He turned to Jean Louise. “Seven-thirty tonight and no Landing. We’ll go to the show.” “Okay. Where’re you all going?” “Courthouse. Meeting.” “On Sunday?” “Yep.” “That’s right, I keep forgetting all the politicking’s done on Sunday in these parts.” Atticus called for Henry to come on. “Bye, baby,” he said. Jean Louise followed him into the livingroom. When the front door slammed behind her father and Henry, she went to her father’s chair to tidy up the papers he had left on the floor beside it. She picked them up, arranged them in sectional order, and put them on the sofa in a neat pile. She crossed the room again to straighten the stack of books on his lamp table, and was doing so when a pamphlet the size of a business envelope caught her eye. On its cover was a drawing of an anthropophagous Negro; above the drawing was printed The Black Plague. Its author was somebody with several academic degrees after his name. She opened the pamphlet, sat down in her father’s chair, and began reading. When she had finished, she took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt. “What is this thing?” she said. Alexandra looked over her glasses at it. “Something of your father’s.” Jean Louise stepped on the garbage can trigger and threw the pamphlet in. “Don’t do that,” said Alexandra. “They’re hard to come by these days.” Jean Louise opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “Aunty, have you read that thing? Do you know what’s in it?” “Certainly.” If Alexandra had uttered an obscenity in her face, Jean Louise would have been less surprised. “You—Aunty, do you know the stuff in that thing makes Dr. Goebbels look like a naive little country boy?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jean Louise. There are a lot of truths in that book.” “Yes indeedy,” said Jean Louise wryly. “I especially liked the part where the Negroes, bless their hearts, couldn’t help being inferior to the white race because their skulls are thicker and their brain-pans shallower—whatever that means—so we must all be very kind to them and not let them do anything to hurt themselves and keep them in their places. Good God, Aunty—” Alexandra was ramrod straight. “Well?” she said. Jean Louise said, “It’s just that I never knew you went in for salacious reading material, Aunty.” Her aunt was silent, and Jean Louise continued: “I was real impressed with the parable where since the dawn of history the rulers of the world have always been white, except Genghis Khan or somebody—the author was real fair about that—and he made a killin’ point about even the Pharaohs were white and their subjects were either black or Jews—” “That’s true, isn’t it?” “Sure, but what’s that got to do with the case?” When Jean Louise felt apprehensive, expectant, or on edge, especially when confronting her aunt, her brain clicked to the meter of Gilbertian tomfoolery. Three sprightly figures
Harper Lee (Go Set a Watchman)
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.” In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors — anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
C.S. Lewis
The failure of the Crusades intensified anti-Jewish persecutions in Europe. Banned from owning land or joining trading companies, forced to wear special clothing, Jews were often involved in moneylending, supposedly taboo for Christians. Kings borrowed money from them, and so protected them, but whenever society was strained, by recession or plague, they were attacked. In 1144, after a boy was murdered in Norwich, England, Jews were accused of killing Christian children to make Passover matzoh, unleashing the ‘blood libel’ which in various forms – but always featuring a conspiracy of Jews to harm non-Jews – reverberates down to the twenty-first century. It spread: in 1171, it hit Blois, France, where thirty-three Jews (seventeen women) were burned alive. In the failed state of England, where Henry III struggled to maintain royal power in the face of endemic noble revolt, both king and rebels borrowed from a wealthy banker, David of Oxford. After David’s death, his widow Licoricia of Winchester, the richest non-noble in England, lent to both sides, partly funding the building of Westminster Abbey. But her murder in 1277 showed the perils of being a prominent Jew. In 1290, Henry’s son Edward I expelled the Jews from England. Yet in 1264 Bolesław, duke of Poland, had granted the Statute of Kalisz which gave Jews the right to trade and worship freely and banned the blood libel, legislating against Christian conspiracy theories and denunciations: ‘Accusing Jews of drinking Christian blood is expressly prohibited,’ declared the Statute. ‘If, despite this, a Jew should be accused of murdering a Christian child, such charge must be sustained by testimony of three Christians and three Jews.’ Poland would be a Jewish sanctuary for many centuries.
Simon Sebag Montefiore (The World: A Family History of Humanity)
When you lived in the human world, you had legends of the dread beasts and faeries who would slaughter you if they ever breached the wall, didn’t you? Things that slithered through open windows to drink the blood of children? Things that were so wicked, so cruel there was no hope against their evil?” The hair on her neck rose. “Yes.” Those stories had always unnerved and petrified her. “They were based on truth. Based on ancient, near-primordial beings who existed here before the High Fae split into courts, before the High Lords. Some call them the First Gods. They were beings with almost no physical form, but a keen, vicious intelligence. Humans and Fae alike were their prey. Most were hunted and driven into hiding or imprisonment ages ago. But some remained, lurking in forgotten corners of the land.” He swallowed another mouthful. “When I was nearing three hundred years old, one of them appeared again, crawling out of the roots of a mountain. Before he went into the Prison and confinement weakened him, Lanthys could turn into wind and rip the air from your lungs, or turn into rain and drown you on dry land; he could peel your skin from your body with a few movements. He never revealed his true form, but when I faced him, he chose to appear as swirling mist. He fathered a race of faeries that still plague us, who thrived under Amarantha’s reign—the Bogge. But the Bogge are lesser, mere shadows compared to Lanthys. If there is such a thing as evil incarnate, it is him. He has no mercy, no sense of right or wrong. There is him, and there is everyone else, and we are all his prey. His methods of killing are creative and slow. He feasts on fear and pain as much as the flesh itself.” Her blood chilled. “How did you trap such a thing?” Cassian tapped a spot on his neck where a scar slashed beneath his ear. “I quickly learned I could never beat him in combat or magic. Still have the scar here to prove it.” Cassian smiled faintly. “So I used his arrogance against him. Flattered and taunted him into trapping himself in a mirror bound with ash wood. I bet him the mirror would contain him—and Lanthys bet wrong. He got out of the mirror, of course, but by that time, I’d dumped his miserable self into the Prison.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
The foragers’ secret of success, which protected them from starvation and malnutrition, was their varied diet. Farmers tend to eat a very limited and unbalanced diet. Especially in premodern times, most of the calories feeding an agricultural population came from a single crop – such as wheat, potatoes or rice – that lacks some of the vitamins, minerals and other nutritional materials humans need. The typical peasant in traditional China ate rice for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner. If she was lucky, she could expect to eat the same on the following day. By contrast, ancient foragers regularly ate dozens of different foodstuffs. The peasant’s ancient ancestor, the forager, may have eaten berries and mushrooms for breakfast; fruits, snails and turtle for lunch; and rabbit steak with wild onions for dinner. Tomorrow’s menu might have been completely different. This variety ensured that the ancient foragers received all the necessary nutrients. Furthermore, by not being dependent on any single kind of food, they were less liable to suffer when one particular food source failed. Agricultural societies are ravaged by famine when drought, fire or earthquake devastates the annual rice or potato crop. Forager societies were hardly immune to natural disasters, and suffered from periods of want and hunger, but they were usually able to deal with such calamities more easily. If they lost some of their staple foodstuffs, they could gather or hunt other species, or move to a less affected area. Ancient foragers also suffered less from infectious diseases. Most of the infectious diseases that have plagued agricultural and industrial societies (such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis) originated in domesticated animals and were transferred to humans only after the Agricultural Revolution. Ancient foragers, who had domesticated only dogs, were free of these scourges. Moreover, most people in agricultural and industrial societies lived in dense, unhygienic permanent settlements – ideal hotbeds for disease. Foragers roamed the land in small bands that could not sustain epidemics. The wholesome and varied diet, the relatively short working week, and the rarity of infectious diseases have led many experts to define pre-agricultural forager societies as ‘the original affluent societies’.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why if all politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does. One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices — 545 human beings out of 235 million — are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excused the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered by private central bank. I exclude all of the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislators’ responsibility to determine how he votes. Don’t you see the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes. Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses — provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.
Charley Reese
But was young Boasthard's fear vanquished by Calmer's words ? No, for he had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be done away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the other ? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But could he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the bottle Holiness that then he lived withal ? Indeed not for Grace was not there to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon ? Heard ? Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged up the tube Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw that he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he not accept to die like the rest and pass away ? By no means would he and make more shows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted he nought of that other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the land of promise which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for ever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering at which all shall come as many as believe on it ? Yes, Pious had told him of that land and Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason was that in the way he fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, she said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled him wrongways from the true path by her flatteries that she said to him as, Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither and I will show you a brave place, and she lay at him so flatteringly that she had him in her grot which is named Tow-in-the-Bush or, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence. This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of Mothers the most lusted for after and if they met with this whore Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a wicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and know her. For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else but notion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first, Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot and in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they cared not for them for Preservative had give them a stout shield of oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring that was that wicked by devil by virtue of this same shield which was named Killchild. So were they all in ther blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon, Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a very grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm and spill their souls for their abuse and their spillings done by them contrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth.
James Joyce (Ulysses)
She tore a small bite of bread and offered it to him. His eyes never leaving hers, he leaned forward to feed from her hand. He took her fingers into his mouth and gently nibbled them before he pulled away. He swallowed the bread. “Are you seeking to tame me, Adara?” “Nay, my prince. I seek only to claim you. I don’t mind your wildness in the least.” He was struck dumb by her playfulness as she stepped past him to join Corryn, who was ordering a group of men about. Christian took a deep draught of the wine she’d neglected. “You’d be better off to pour that down your breeches,” Phantom said as he joined him. “What say you?” “The look of you says it all. You’re aching to taste her again.” Outwardly, Christian scoffed even though he knew that attitude for the lie it was. “You are mistaken.” Phantom paused beside him. “Nay, Christian. Lie to yourself if you must, but never to me.” Christian frowned at him. “Why are you still here? It’s not like you to travel with a group.” “You offered me land.” “Which I know means nothing to you. Not really. Why have you always been at my back all these years?” “I respect you, Christian. You should be king, and if you are determined to seek your throne, then I am determined to help you.” Christian couldn’t have been more stunned by his words. “What has gotten into you?” “I wish I knew. Promise me that should I discover what it is, you’ll exorcize it.” Christian laughed. “I wish the same promise from you.” Phantom looked back at Adara, who was busy castigating her fool. “I know what plagues you, my brother, but from that I hear there is no cure.
Kinley MacGregor (Return of the Warrior (Brotherhood of the Sword, #6))
one of the plagues that God sent on the Egyptians was lice. This was a plague in whose presence we were helpless. The lice were big and white, each with a black cross on its back. They feasted on us day and night. This was an enemy whom you had to fight—search and destroy. When I went to the bathroom at night I would see women standing near the electric lamp that gave off a faint light, searching for lice in their clothes. One would leave her position near the light, and immediately someone would take her place.
Sara Nomberg-Przytyk (Auschwitz: True Tales From a Grotesque Land)
You’re probably right. The unruliness of the women in your family must go back for generations. You’re like a plague upon the land.” “So long as we’re also a plague upon angels, I’m sure everyone else will forgive us.
Susan Ee (World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2))
The second redemption upstaged the first. God sent not Moses but Jesus. He smote not Pharaoh but Satan. Not with ten plagues but a single cross. The Red Sea didn’t open, but the grave did, and Jesus led anyone who wanted to follow him to the Land of No More. No more law keeping. No more striving after God’s approval. ‘You can rest now,’ he told them.
Max Lucado (Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine)
despair hovered over the land like a plague. They had watched their parents lose their businesses, their farms, their jobs, their hopes. They had learned to accept a future that played out one day
Tom Brokaw (The Greatest Generation)
6 1The Ark of the Lord remained in the territory of the Philistines seven months.* 2Then the Philistines summoned the priests and the diviners and asked, “What shall we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us with what we shall send it off to its own place.” 3They answered, “If you are going to send the Ark of the God of Israel away, do not send it away without anything; you must also pay an indemnity to Him. Then you will be healed, and *He will make Himself known to you; otherwise His hand will not turn away from you.”-a 4They asked, “What is the indemnity that we should pay to Him?” They answered, “Five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice, corresponding to the number of lords of the Philistines; for the same plague struck all of you* and your lords. 5You shall make figures of your hemorrhoids and of the mice that are ravaging your land; thus you shall honor the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lighten the weight of His hand upon you and your gods and your land.
Adele Berlin (The Jewish Study Bible)
Danes, Norse... all were from the northlands in the eyes of her people. To their fright-frozen minds, Hakan was another of the dreaded Norse, sweeping over the land like a plague and leaving little in the wake. But summer had yielded a different crop for her: not all Norse were vicious raiders out for death and plunder. Hakan braced one foot on a rock. "And now the Norse wolf brings you safely home."... "Aye," she said.
Gina Conkle (Norse Jewel (Norse, #1))
Plague pits of London,” she said. “There are many, leading some to name it the city of bones. From one end to the other you need only dig a few yards beneath the surface to discover its many hidden secrets—tens of thousands of bodies are buried beneath the sprawling capital, a land of skeletons. In addition to the Knightsbridge pit I mentioned earlier we have another at the center of Soho—Golden Square. Now a charming little area, it has a secret history as a plague pit. In 1685 Lord Macauley described it as ‘a field not to be passed by without a shudder by any Londoner of that age’. Here, as the great plague raged, nightly cartloads of corpses were dropped and buried. It was believed that the earth was deeply infected and could never again be interred without the risk of infection.
David Leadbeater (The Plagues of Pandora (Matt Drake, #9))
Zack drew alongside her, leaning down to murmur in her ear. “Mollie, I’m not leaving you again. If the city burns to the ground for a second time. If an earthquake splits the land in two or a plague saps us dry . . . I am not leaving. I’ll show up at your doorstep every morning and every evening for the rest of the year if that’s what it takes.
Elizabeth Camden (Into the Whirlwind)
God redeemed them, and then told them to do something that would lead to blessing, which required obedience, and they refused to do it, an act of rebellion.  They had the audacity to decide that His commandments were optional, and so they did not enter into His promises – even after seeing the plagues of Egypt and the Red Sea part and the mountain covered with fire.  They did it at Sinai with the Golden Calf right after the first Ten Commandments were given,[36] they did it again when ten of the spies brought an evil report and the people refused to go into the Land,[37] and then again when they whored with the pagan women![38]  They did not treat God like He was God.  They violated the very word and spirit of the Covenant.
Tyler Dawn Rosenquist (The Bridge: Crossing Over Into the Fullness of Covenant Life)
Dragon’s breath billowed across the peaks of Feldall Forest, waves of green flame bursting into tongues of orange and red as it caught the trees in its path. The creature swooped, serrated wings chopping down the blazing tree-tops to spread the flames along the forest floor. Its scream shook the earth and set the horses to panic, but the three riders held their position along the edge of the tree line. Lady Jasmine of Feldall cursed as her black Friesen, Nalen, reared, and she struggled to stay in her seat. Tendrils of dark brown hair fluttered in her face and she puffed out a breath to clear her vision. This dragon had plagued their lands for months, terrorizing the skies as well as their cattle—what little remained of the herds after a three month drought. Whatever fate had brought the beast out to play while she, Jayden, and Corey were cleaning up the damage he’d done, this was the closest they’d come to ridding themselves of at least one plight. If only Corey would take the shot.
Krista Walsh (Evensong (Meratis Trilogy, #1))
For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. Now the blood shall be a sign (Hebrew ote) for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” – EXODUS 12:12-13 Later, Moses would reaffirm this promise and indicate that the blood would protect them from the Destroyer. “For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.” – EXODUS 12:23
Perry Stone (America's Controversy with God's Covenant: America's Blessings are in Danger of Being Lost)
Ezekiel spells it out: “This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign LORD. In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign LORD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’” (Ezekiel 38:18-23)
John Price (The End of America: The Role of Islam in the End Times and Biblical Warnings to Flee America)
Moses was weeping as much as the rest of them. Joshua was angry. He had been in the tent when Yahweh commanded Moses what to do. He had seen the idolatry of Israel as it worshipped Ba’al and the other gods of the pantheon. They were not yet in their Promised Land of Canaan, and they were already playing the harlot with Ba’al of Peor. It was a form of spiritual adultery. Yahweh had taken care of them in the desert wilderness these forty years until all the original gripers and complainers were dead. They had just conquered the Transjordan and the mighty Og of Bashan as a prelude to Canaan. And still—still—these pathetic miserable backsliding wretches were already fornicating with Ba’al like wanton harlots. They worshipped household idols and even engaged in human sacrifice on Mount Nebo to the god of plague. The plague was therefore an ugly but fitting expression of a spiritual judgment. Afflicted Israelites would get puss filled boils and rashes in their genitals and anus like a sexual disease. Their excrement would be full of blood, both solid and liquid, and excruciatingly painful to release. After a few days, if the victim did not get well, their genitals would turn black and rot. Within a week, the victim would be dead.
Brian Godawa (Joshua Valiant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 5))
Many generations ago, your ancestor Abraham and his family infested this land like a plague. He invaded this very city of King Arba, and butchered every one of our ancestors with impunity—save one. Abraham did not know that our queen Naqiya would give birth in her death to the child within her womb. That child was Anak, the father of my people. For over four hundred years we have waited for the opportunity to exact revenge upon our enemies, the Seed of Abraham.” Joshua responded with equal confidence, “The War of the Seed goes back farther in time. In the Garden of Eden Yahweh pronounced a curse upon the Seed of the Serpent at war with the Seed of Eve. He prophesied that Eve would crush the head of the Serpent. King Ahiman, the creator Yahweh has claimed your land and he will possess it for his people.
Brian Godawa (Caleb Vigilant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 6))
One last element remained for the consecration of the Children of Israel. On the fourteenth day of the first month of Nisan the people all kept the Passover meal in their new base of operations at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho. The Passover was a feast that commemorated God’s tenth and final plague on Egypt, the death of the first-born. Before their exodus from Egyptian slavery the Israelites were commanded by Yahweh to slaughter a lamb and brush its blood over the doorposts of their homes. The Destroyer then came to kill the first-born of every family in Egypt, but passed over those with the blood on their lintels. It was the last plague that Yahweh sent on Pharaoh to bend his will. When Pharaoh’s own son succumbed to the Angel of Death, it did not merely bend Pharaoh, it broke him, and he let Moses and his people leave the land of the Nile.
Brian Godawa (Caleb Vigilant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 6))
His voice bellowed with strength and courage, “People of Israel, Yahweh has spoken to me and has told me to be strong and courageous, for we will inherit this land that Yahweh had sworn to our forefathers! But we must be careful to do according to all the law that Moses commanded us! We must not turn from it to the right or to the left, and only then will we have success wherever we go! The book of the Law shall not depart from our mouths, but we shall meditate on it day and night, for Yahweh our Elohim is with us wherever we go!” The people applauded. Caleb beamed with honor. They had been through so much. They had survived thirst and starvation in a desert land, the death of loved ones, rebellion, plagues, famines, and wars. And now, finally, finally they were about to gain their inheritance. Their eternal wandering would be over.
Brian Godawa (Caleb Vigilant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 6))
The aboriginals have always known the four points of the compass and the four winds of heaven—the north, the south, the west, and the east. Traditions say that the aboriginals came to Australia from another land in the north-west. One of these tells that they were forced to Australia by fierce ants. This may mean that they were pursued by a plague of huge, deadly ants, or by a prehistoric race as fierce and as numerous as ants. Since coming to Australia, thousands of years ago, the people have probably made little or no change in their habits and customs. They kept the balance of nature even, and for centuries they neither advanced nor retrograded. Their tribal laws and customs were fixed and unchangeable.
W. Ramsay Smith (Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines)
I wanted to be a spy,” Olga said, shrugging. “I applied to the CIA. I was turned down. I did not meet the psychological profile. Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Basically, I have a hard time taking orders from idiots.” “Don’t think of me as an idiot and I won’t give you an idiotic order,” Sophia said. “But if I give you one, you’d better do it. Because it’s probably going to mean surviving or dying.” “You I don’t mind,” Olga said. “Or I wouldn’t have joined your crew. Don’t ask me about Nazar. So I was in Spain with the troupe. When the Plague hit, they shut down travel. And all my guns were in America. In a zombie apocalypse. I was quite upset.” “You should have seen Faith when they told her she had to be disarmed in New York,” Sophia said. “Then they gave her a taser and that was mistake. What kind of guns?” “I like that your family prefers the AK series,” Olga said. “I really do think it’s superior to the M16 series in many ways. Much more reliable. They say it is less accurate but that is at longer ranges. The round is not designed for long range.” “I can hit at a thousand meters with my accurized AK,” Sophia said. “It’s a matter of knowing the ballistics. It’s not real powerful at that range, but try doing the same thing with an M4. I’ll wait.” “Oh, jeeze, you two,” Paula said. “Get a room.” “So continue with how you got on the yacht,” Sophia said. “We don’t want our cook getting all woozy with gun geeking.” “We were called by the agency and asked if anyone wanted to ‘catch a ride’ on a yacht,” Olga said. “When they said who owned the boat… I nearly said no. We all knew Nazar. Or at least of him. Not a nice man, as you might have noticed. We knew what we were getting into. But then we were told he had vaccine… ” she shrugged again. “Accepting Nazar’s offer was perhaps not the worst decision I have made in my life. I survived. Not how I would have preferred to survive, but I was vaccinated and I survived. But I did not even hint that I knew more about his men’s weapons than they did. They were pigs. Tough guys. But none of them were military and none of them really knew what they were doing with them. When they brought out the RPG, I nearly peed myself. Irinei had no idea what he was doing with it. I don’t think he even knew the safety was off.” “You know how to use an RPG?” Sophia said. “My family liked the United States very much,” Olga said, sadly. “We all like guns and anything that goes boom. And in the US, you could find people who had licenses for anything. I’ve fired an RPG, yes.” “Well, if we find an RPG you can have it,” Sophia said. “Oh, thank you, captain!” Olga said, clapping her hands girlishly. “But we’ll be keeping the rounds and the launcher separate,” Sophia said. “Oh, my, yes,” Olga said. “And both will have to be in a well sealed container. This salt air would cause corrosion quickly.” “I guess you miss your guns?” Paula said. “That’s not a request for an inventory and loving description of each, by the way. Got that enough from Faith.” “I do,” Olga said. “But I miss my books more.” “Books,” Paula said. “Now you’re talking my language.” “I have more books than shelves,” Olga said. “And I had many shelves. I collect old manuscripts when I can afford them.” “If we do any land clearance, look in the libraries and big houses,” Sophia said. “I bet around here you can probably pick up some great stuff.” “This is okay?” Olga said. “We can, salvage?” “If there’s time and if we clear the town,” Sophia said. “Sure.” “Oh, thank you, captain!” Olga said, kissing her on the cheek. “Okay, now you definitely need to get a room.
John Ringo
You could never be sure, at any given moment, whether she was inhabiting her own private fantasy land—which she seemed to do most of the time—or whether she was on one of her flying visits to what passed for reality.
Jean Ure (Plague 99 (Plague 99 #1))
industrial corridors and smart cities. It has to create large cities where 35 to 40 per cent of GDP comes from manufacturing. Land lawsThis government appears to be fairly determined to drive manufacturing, and there's a lot of energy and vibrancy. But there's also an unfinished agenda of the government. For large-scale manufacturing to take off, there are several other things that need to be done. There are certain legacies of the past which need to be corrected. For example, we have one of the worst labour regimes. We need to set that right. An EXIM Bank study says that only Pakistan has worse labour laws than us. In the past six months, certain labour reforms have been carried out. The expectations are so high that we need big-ticket reforms. The last government had messed up badly on land laws. When I talk about land acquisition laws, I am not talking about not giving a higher price to the farmer but the present act is anti-farmer because it is full of procedures and processes which never allow farmer to monetize the land value. It will work against his interest. Everything is at a standstill. The government needs to quickly reverse this whole process. Also, the government needs to roll out the goods and services tax (GST) and resolve problems plaguing the energy sector. In
Anonymous
New state decrees included provisions that the dead be unceremoniously disinfected, packed into double body bags, and hastily buried—normally in unmarked graves—by officially appointed gravediggers wearing protective equipment. This new regulation prevented family members and friends from honoring loved ones, and it negated religious observance. The discovery of a body by a search team thus furnished ample potential for physical confrontations, just as a similar decree had led to clashes in plague-stricken Bombay in 1897–1898. This tense atmosphere was inflamed by multiple conspiracy theories. One Canadian reporter wrote that people “tell me stories about witchcraft, Ebola witch guns, crazy nurses injecting neighbours with Ebola and government conspiracies.”29 Untori, or plague spreaders, were said to be at work, as in the days of the Black Death described by Alessandro Manzoni. Some regarded health-care workers as cannibals or harvesters of body parts for the black market in human organs. The state, rumor also held, had embarked on a secret plot to eliminate the poor. Ebola perhaps was not a disease but a mysterious and lethal chemical. Alternatively, the ongoing land grab was deemed to have found ingenious new methods. Perhaps whites were orchestrating a plan to kill African blacks, or mine owners had discovered a deep seam of ore nearby and wanted to clear the surrounding area.
Frank M. Snowden III (Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present)
the first colonisation of Ireland seems to have taken place ca 1484 BC (the 2520th year after the Creation).13 It was the colony led by one Partholan, which landed in the estuary of the river Kenmare. Partholan himself was to die thirty years later in about 1454 BC or Anno Mundi [the year of the world] 2550. Some three hundred years later, it is recorded that the colony was wiped out by a plague, 9000 men, women and children dying in one week alone. The name of the area in which they had settled was later called Tallaght, denoting a place where plague victims lie buried, and it is interesting to note that it is still littered with ancient burial mounds today.
Bill Cooper (After the Flood)
Our main problem over the past few days and weeks,’ he said, ‘has lain in trying to connect the various phenomena. In fact, there wasn’t any obvious connection until a jelly-like substance started to crop up. Sometimes it appeared in small quantities, sometimes in larger amounts, but always with the distinguishing characteristic that it disintegrated rapidly on contact with air. Unfortunately the discovery of the jelly only added to the mystery, given its presence in crustaceans, mussels and whales - three types of organism that could hardly be more different. Of course, it might have been some kind of fungus, a jellified version of rabies, an infectious disease like BSE or swine fever. But, if so, why would ships be disappearing or crabs transporting killer algae? There was no sign of the jelly on the worms that infested the slope. They were carrying a different kind of cargo - bacteria that break down hydrates and cause methane gas to rise. Hence the landslide and the tsunami. And what about the mutated species that have been emerging all over the world? Even fish have been behaving oddly. None of it adds up. In that respect, Jack Vanderbilt was right to discern an intelligent mind behind the chaos. But he overestimated our ability - no scientist knows anything like enough about marine ecology to be capable of manipulating it to that extent. People are fond of saying that we know more about space than we do about the oceans. It’s perfectly true, but there’s a simple reason why: we can’t see or move as well in the water as we can in outer space. The Hubble telescope peers effortlessly into different galaxies, but the world’s strongest floodlight only illuminates a dozen square metres of seabed. An astronaut in a spacesuit can move with almost total freedom, but even the most sophisticated divesuit won’t stop you being crushed to death beyond a certain depth. AUVs and ROVs are only operational if the conditions are right. We don’t have the physical constitution or the technology to deposit billions of worms on underwater hydrates, let alone the requisite knowledge to engineer them for a habitat that we barely understand. Besides, there are all the other phenomena: deep-sea cables being destroyed at the bottom of the ocean by forces other than the underwater slide; plagues of jellyfish and mussels rising from the abyssal plains. The simplest explanation would be to see these developments as part of a plan, but such a plan could only be the work of a species that knows the ocean as intimately as we do the land - a species that lives in the depths and plays the dominant role in that particular universe.
Frank Schätzing (The Swarm: A Novel)
At the same time, a terrible plague took over the lands, killing many of the inhabitants.
Enthralling History (Ancient Japan: An Enthralling Overview of Ancient Japanese History, Starting from the Jomon Period to the Heian Period (Asia))
They closed their eyes to the external world which can always offer an escape from anything, stubbornly nurturing their all-too-real fantasies and pursuing with all their strength the images of a land in which a certain light, two or three hills, a favourite tree and the faces of women composed a climate that nothing could replace.
Albert Camus (The Plague)
She’s a country forged in pain and glory, her soil is tainted with the blood of those who fought and died for her. She’s the conqueror of the old world and the streets of this here London Town weave spells around those from foreign lands. She’s opportunity and history and culture. She’s beauty and fucking grace, darlin’, and she’ll leave her mark on you forever now, because you’ve already placed your feet upon her pavements, and once you walk in the footsteps of the people who’ve lived here, it’ll alter you in ways you can’t even imagine yet. This city was a kingdom of brutality, from the cutthroat royals who publicly executed countless unfortunate sods at Tower Hill, to louts like Jack the Ripper who spilled the guts of his victims all over Whitechapel - the very place you find yourself in right now. This city’s been burned to the ground, bombed by the Luftwaffe, and still she stands. It’s survived plagues and winters cold enough to freeze your heart in your very chest. It ain’t easy to leave a mark on this place, but it sure leaves a mark on you. And you’re marked Anya Volkov, it’s already too late for you.
Caroline Peckham (Forget-Me-Not Bombshell)