Puppy Died Quotes

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Every time you try to flirt with her, a puppy dies.
Maureen Johnson (Suite Scarlett (Scarlett, #1))
It is also then that I wish I believed in some sort of life after life, that in another universe, maybe on a small red planet where we have not legs but tails, where we paddle through the atmosphere like seals, where the air itself is sustenance, composed of trillions of molecules of protein and sugar and all one has to do is open one's mouth and inhale in order to remain alive and healthy, maybe you two are there together, floating through the climate. Or maybe he is closer still: maybe he is that gray cat that has begun to sit outside our neighbor's house, purring when I reach out my hand to it; maybe he is that new puppy I see tugging at the end of my other neighbor's leash; maybe he is that toddler I saw running through the square a few months ago, shrieking with joy, his parents huffing after him; maybe he is that flower that suddenly bloomed on the rhododendron bush I thought had died long ago; maybe he is that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. It isn't only that he died, or how he died; it is what he died believing. And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Every time that boy smiles, somewhere a puppy died.
Gwen Hayes (So Over You)
Popcorn, chocolate, coffee, ice cream, and pizza. The five food groups. Health nuts are going to feel stupid one day, dying of nothing.
Kelly Moran (Puppy Love (Redwood Ridge, #1))
Aladar's axehounds had puppies. I had no idea how much I needed to see puppies until I flew by them this morning. They are the grossest things on the planet, Kaladin. They're somehow so gross that they're cute. So cute I could have died! Except I can't, because I'm an eternal sliver of God himself, and we have standards about things like that.
Brandon Sanderson (Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4))
‎Life is worth living really but only if we believe it is, if we believe further that life is eternal not because the tissues last forever, but because the imagination never dies
F. Sionil José (Puppy Love and Thirteen Short Stories)
That’s the spirit. Now the next time you say it, say it without looking like your puppy just died.
S.C. Stephens
This isn’t about karma. I’m not trying to rack up I’m-a-Good-Person points.” You shouldn’t donate to charity, help the elderly cross the street, or rescue puppies in the hopes you’ll be repaid later. I may not be able to cure cancer or end world hunger, but small kindnesses go a long way. Not that I’m saying any of this to Rufus, since all my classmates used to mock me for saying things like that, and no one should feel bad for trying to be good. “I think we made his day by not pretending he’s invisible. Thanks for seeing him with me.
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (They Both Die at the End Series Book 1))
For every puppy or kitten your pet gives birth to, one dies in the shelter for lack of a home... Spay/Neuter.
Brooklyn Hudson (WISHBONE...Be Careful What You Wish For)
Live or die, but don't poison everything... Well, death's been here for a long time -- it has a hell of a lot to do with hell and suspicion of the eye and the religious objects and how I mourned them when they were made obscene by my dwarf-heart's doodle. The chief ingredient is mutilation. And mud, day after day, mud like a ritual, and the baby on the platter, cooked but still human, cooked also with little maggots, sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother, the damn bitch! Even so, I kept right on going on, a sort of human statement, lugging myself as if I were a sawed-off body in the trunk, the steamer trunk. This became perjury of the soul. It became an outright lie and even though I dressed the body it was still naked, still killed. It was caught in the first place at birth, like a fish. But I play it, dressed it up, dressed it up like somebody's doll. Is life something you play? And all the time wanting to get rid of it? And further, everyone yelling at you to shut up. And no wonder! People don't like to be told that you're sick and then be forced to watch you come down with the hammer. Today life opened inside me like an egg and there inside after considerable digging I found the answer. What a bargain! There was the sun, her yolk moving feverishly, tumbling her prize -- and you realize she does this daily! I'd known she was a purifier but I hadn't thought she was solid, hadn't known she was an answer. God! It's a dream, lovers sprouting in the yard like celery stalks and better, a husband straight as a redwood, two daughters, two sea urchings, picking roses off my hackles. If I'm on fire they dance around it and cook marshmallows. And if I'm ice they simply skate on me in little ballet costumes. Here, all along, thinking I was a killer, anointing myself daily with my little poisons. But no. I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as nice as a chocolate bar. Even with the witches' gymnastics they trust my incalculable city, my corruptible bed. O dearest three, I make a soft reply. The witch comes on and you paint her pink. I come with kisses in my hood and the sun, the smart one, rolling in my arms. So I say Live and turn my shadow three times round to feed our puppies as they come, the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown, despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy! Despite the pails of water that waited, to drown them, to pull them down like stones, they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue and fumbling for the tiny tits. Just last week, eight Dalmatians, 3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood each like a birch tree. I promise to love more if they come, because in spite of cruelty and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens, I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take. So I won't hang around in my hospital shift, repeating The Black Mass and all of it. I say Live, Live because of the sun, the dream, the excitable gift.
Anne Sexton (The Complete Poems)
America is a young dumb country and it needs all kinds of help. America is a dumb puppy with big teeth that bite and hurt. And we take care of America. We hold America to our bosom; we feed America, we make love to America. There wouldn't be an America if it wasn't for black people. So you have some dedicated black Americans who will die a million deaths to save America. And this is home for us. We don't know really about Africa. We talk it in a romantic sense, but America is it. And so, America is always going to be okay as long as black people don't totally lose their mind, cause we'll pick up the pieces and turn it into a new dance.
Abiodun Oyewole
Temujin: I want to hate you, yet you don't seem overwhelmed by evil. Blake: Maybe I kick puppies in my spare time.
Ian Isaro (Wizardry on Caffeine (The Dying War, #2))
Okay.' I can feel the letters vomit off my tongue. O. K. A. Y. I watch the vet insert the syringe into the catheter and inject the second drug. And then the adventures come flooding back: The puppy farm. The gentle untying of the shoelace. THIS! IS! MY! HOME! NOW! Our first night together. Running on the beach. Sadie and Sophie and Sophie Dee. Shared ice-cream cones. Thanksgivings. Tofurky. Car rides. Laughter. Eye rain. Chicken and rice. Paralysis. Surgery. Christmases. Walks. Dog parks. Squirrel chasing. Naps. Snuggling. 'Fishful Thinking.' The adventure at sea. Gentle kisses. Manic kisses. More eye rain. So much eye rain. Red ball. The veterinarian holds a stethoscope up to Lily's chest, listening for her heartbeat. All dogs go to heaven. 'Your mother's name is Witchie-Poo.' I stroke Lily behind her ears the way that used to calm her. 'Look for her.' OH FUCK IT HURTS. I barely whisper. 'She will take care of you.
Steven Rowley (Lily and the Octopus)
But the moon was so large and clear through the uncurtained window that it made me think instead of a story my mother had told me, about driving to horse shows with her mother and father in the back seat of their old Buick when she was little. “It was a lot of travelling—ten hours sometimes through hard country. Ferris wheels, rodeo rings with sawdust, everything smelled like popcorn and horse manure. One night we were in San Antonio, and I was having a bit of a melt-down—wanting my own room, you know, my dog, my own bed—and Daddy lifted me up on the fairgrounds and told me to look at the moon. ‘When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.’ So after he died, and I had to go to Aunt Bess—I mean, even now, in the city, when I see a full moon, it’s like he’s telling me not to look back or feel sad about things, that home is wherever I am.” She kissed me on the nose. “Or where you are, puppy. The center of my earth is you.
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
Now he was gone. She said a silent prayer. Sent it up to heaven. Sam, if you can hear me, I hope you’ve got nice food where you are. Some vegetables like these. They’re meant to be good for you. So eat them all up, like I’m doing. When I die I’ll come and see you, and we’ll be together again. But for now I’m going to think of you safe and happy and playing knights with a friend. Love from Ella. Your sister. P.S. I got a good long turn with Godzilla today after we got here. Godzilla is very happy. P.P.S. I forgot, you never met Godzilla. He is a puppy and is very cute. He belonged to a boy called Joel who got killed by monkeys. I think the monkeys were sick. Monkeys are usually nice. At least in stories. P.P.P.S. Maybe you’ll meet Joel where you are. Say hello. He is nice. P.P.P.P.S. Good night, Sam. The others call you Small Sam. To me you’re just Sam—my brother. I miss you. I wish I was with you.
Charlie Higson
You shouldn’t donate to charity, help the elderly cross the street, or rescue puppies in the hopes you’ll be repaid later. I may not be able to cure cancer or end world hunger, but small kindnesses go a long way.
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (They Both Die at the End Series Book 1))
No one fears death more than immortals. Humans adjust to their lot in life little bits at a time. They’re introduced to the concept with goldfish, then move up to puppies, ancient relatives and reckless friends, each victim closer to them than the last. Death follows them through life, making itself known. Numbing them bit by bit until there is nothing left in them but resignation. We had no such preparation. We were never meant to die.
Kaitlin Bevis (The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus, #3))
Well, you’re part of the human fabric of experience. You don’t have to have cancer to write about cancer. You don’t have to have somebody close to you die to understand what death is. Definitely, the more you live, the more experiences fall into your spectrum, but I have songs like “Chemo Limo,” or “Ode to Divorce”—I wrote that when I was 18. And I remember having people come up to me and be like, “You totally described what it feels like to get divorced!” As a writer, you must have been told: Write about what you know. But Kafka didn’t. Gogol didn’t. Did Shakespeare write only what he knew? Did Camus? Our own selves are limitless.And our capacity for empathy is giant. That’s why we’re able to feel sympathy for, you know, a dog who has a puppy in its litter that died; we can feel for that, and write about that. I’ve never seen that, I just see things sometimes in my mind’s eye.I guess it sounds sort of hippie, and probably is, but I do feel that we’re all part of the experience. So in that way, I guess you don’t have to compartmentalize. You could just kind of let it all be.
Regina Spektor
This isn’t about karma. I’m not trying to rack up I’m-a-Good-Person points.” You shouldn’t donate to charity, help the elderly cross the street, or rescue puppies in the hopes you’ll be repaid later. I may not be able to cure cancer or end world hunger, but small kindnesses go a long way.
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (They Both Die at the End Series Book 1))
You shouldn't donate to charity, help the elderly cross the street, or rescue puppies in the hopes you'll be repaid later. I may not be able to cure cancer or end world hunger, but small kindnesses go a long way.
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (They Both Die at the End Series, 1))
His gaze meandered along my chest. "Hey!" I crossed my arms over my breasts. "Those are…" "Patrick's?" "Well, his name isn't tattooed on them, but yeah, currently they are reserved for him." I peered at him and noted the similarities between him and his sons. "Ruadan, I presume?" "Got it in one," he said, silver eyes twinkling. "You scared the shit out of me." One corner of his mouth lifted into a grin. He picked up the parchment and tapped on it. "So, you're Patrick's soul mate." "No." "But you read the scroll. Only his sonuachar can do that." "Let me explain." I paused. "No, there is too much. Let me sum up." " The Princess Bride!" Ruadan exclaimed in happy surprise. "I love that movie. 'Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!'" He leapt off the bed and made fencing motions. "Ruadan, we're in a bit of crisis around here." "Hey! My swords." He practically skipped to the dresser where I had left them when I got ready for my bath. He whirled the half-swords like a master swordsman, which, of course, he was. "My mother really knows how to smith a weapon, doesn't she? Real fairy gold." He stabbed an invisible foe's chest with one and his stomach with the other. "Die, evil one! Die!" He jumped up and down, the swords held above his head, and did a victory dance. "You're like a big puppy!" I exclaimed. "A big, dumb puppy.
Michele Bardsley (I'm the Vampire, That's Why (Broken Heart, #1))
I looked around me and absorbed the peace of a sprawling bustling city stopped dead, socked in snow. My puppy jumped and barked, twisting and sliding. I was instantly wildly grateful just to be awake and witness all this stillness. I don’t ever want to die, I thought, I want to live forever.
Ethan Hawke (A Bright Ray of Darkness)
Everything ends. Some things last longer than others, but everything end. Childhood feels like it takes forever when you're in the midst of it, but one day you wake up and you're eighteen and going to college. The basset hound puppy with the bow around his neck? You're going to see his whole life pass. You may find someone you love and get married. And it might last a long time, but it ends one way or another. Maybe you'll be together for fifty or sixty years, but one of you is going to get left behind.I'm glad things end, though. It forces you to love them ferociously while you have them. There's nothing worth having that doesn't die.
Jeff Zentner (Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee)
My dog, Willy, died a few years ago, but one of my great memories of him is watching him play in the front yard of our house at dusk. He was a puppy then, and in the early evenings he would contract a case of the zoomies. He ran in delighted circles around us, yipping and jumping at nothing in particular, and then after a while, he'd get tired, and he'd run over to me and lie down. And then he would do something absolutely extraordinary: He would roll over onto his back, and present his soft belly. I always marveled at the courage of that, his ability to be so absolutely vulnerable to us. He offered us the place ribs don't protect, trusting that we weren't going to bite or stab him. It's hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There's something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you know now where to punch. I know that if I’m hit where I am earnest, I will never recover.
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed)
Purity, a concept that recalled flowers, the piquant mint taste of a mouthwash, a child clinging to its mother’s gentle breast, was something that joined all these directly to the concept of blood, the concept of swords cutting down iniquitous men, the concept of blades slashing down through the shoulder to spray the air with blood. And to the concept of seppuku. The moment that a samurai “fell like the cherry blossoms,” his blood-smeared corpse became at once like fragrant cherry blossoms. The concept of purity, then, could alter to the contrary with arbitrary swiftness. And so purity was the stuff of poetry. For Isao, to die purely seemed easy. But what about laughing purely? How to be pure in all respects was a problem that disturbed him. No matter how tight a rein he kept upon his emotions, there were times when some trivial thing would arise to make him laugh. Once, for example, he had laughed at a puppy frolicking at the side of the road, with a woman’s high-heeled shoe, of all things, in its mouth. It was the kind of laugh that he preferred others not to see.
Yukio Mishima (Runaway Horses)
Oh. Darrow. I remembered. No more Truffle Pig. She hates it. Says it’s demeaning to her other contributions and athletic stature.” “Uh-huh. Well. She doesn’t get to choose her own callsign.” “Of course not. I was thinking Strawberry Lass. No? Crow Whisperer? Red Rabbit?” “We’ll figure it out later.” I have a thought. “What do they call baby eagles?” He acts like he’s just seen a puppy. “Eaglet. Oh gods. She’ll die.
Pierce Brown (Light Bringer (Red Rising Saga, #6))
Billy’s voice is sarcastic, drawing her fire away from me. “Hey, Delores, it’s good to see you too. I’m great, thanks for asking. The album? Doin’ awesome—triple platinum. California? Fabulous, couldn’t be happier. Again . . .” He cups his hands around his mouth, megaphone style, “. . . thanks for asking.” Delores’s eyes zero in on him, looking him over head to toe. Not happy with what she sees. “It’s called a razor; you should get one. If ancient man could figure it out, you’ve got a slim chance. Oh—and Pearl Jam called. They want their flannel back.” Billy’s brows go up. “You’re criticizing my style? Really, Cruella? How many puppies had to die so you could wear that coat?” “Eat shit.” “Cooking again, are you? I thought the health department banned you for life the last time you tried?” Delores opens her mouth for a rebuttal, but nothing comes out. Her glossy lips stretch slowly into a smile. “I’ve missed you, Jackass.” Billy winks. “Right back at you, cuz.
Emma Chase (Twisted (Tangled, #2))
I can tell you we were right, our bodies were right, life was really going to be that good, that pleasurable in every cell. Suddenly I remember the exact look of your body, but better than that the bright corners of your eyes, or the light of your face, the rich Long Island puppy-fat of your thighs, or the slick chino of your pants bright in the corners of my eyes, I remember your extraordinary act of courage in loving me
Sharon Olds
and Daddy lifted me up on the fairgrounds and told me to look at the moon. ‘When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.’ So after he died, and I had to go to Aunt Bess—I mean, even now, in the city, when I see a full moon, it’s like he’s telling me not to look back or feel sad about things, that home is wherever I am.” She kissed me on the nose. “Or where you are, puppy. The center of my earth is you.” A
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
The humiliation and the sleepless nights. When I couldn’t breathe, because he didn’t reply. How I cried when I typed. I wrote to him when my puppy died, about the bully and the stalker. It was like a storm that took away January, February, and March. And when months were gone, I was all alone, trying to fix new and old scars. I was trying so hard to hide the stains, but they just got blue and dark. The letters I wrote and the messages I sent. I’m glad his reply never came. I wish he loses me without even having me. I wish he loses all of me, the clingy me, the needy me, the broken me, and also the happy me…and I suppose when he’ll lose all of me, I’ll forget him too. There’s one thing that is sadder than losing someone you’ve been waiting for all your life…it’s losing them, and not even realizing you had them. I wish, Siddhartha never reads the book and the songs and the letters…he doesn’t deserve them.
Snehil Niharika (That’ll Be Our Song)
Not so fast,” Sully said. The entire station went quiet as everyone turned toward him. “Lindsey Norris, I like you, too. I like that you’re smart and funny and can remember what everyone in town likes to read. I like that you ride a ridiculous bike to work in terrible weather, and I like that your eyes change color with your moods, like the sea reflects the sky. I like that you adopted a puppy who needed you, and I like the way the wind tangles up your hair when you let it loose, and I do like it loose.” Lindsey
Jenn McKinlay (Due or Die (Library Lover's Mystery, #2))
What are we doing?” she said, landing on his shoulder and sitting primly with her legs crossed and her hands on her knees. “Actually, I don’t care. I need to tell you something. Aladar’s axehounds had puppies. I had no idea how much I needed to see puppies until I flew by them this morning. They are the grossest things on the planet, Kaladin. They’re somehow so gross that they’re cute. So cute I could have died! Except I can’t, because I’m an eternal sliver of God himself, and we have standards about things like that.
Brandon Sanderson (Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4))
answer. It is also then that I wish I believed in some sort of life after life, that in another universe, maybe on a small red planet where we have not legs but tails, where we paddle through the atmosphere like seals, where the air itself is sustenance, composed of trillions of molecules of protein and sugar and all one has to do is open one’s mouth and inhale in order to remain alive and healthy, maybe you two are there together, floating through the climate. Or maybe he is closer still: maybe he is that gray cat that has begun to sit outside our neighbor’s house, purring when I reach out my hand to it; maybe he is that new puppy I see tugging at the end of my other neighbor’s leash; maybe he is that toddler I saw running through the square a few months ago, shrieking with joy, his parents huffing after him; maybe he is that flower that suddenly bloomed on the rhododendron bush I thought had died long ago; maybe he is that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. It isn’t only that he died, or how he died; it is what he died believing. And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
At most puppy mills, they pack the dogs into wire cages, usually for the entirety of their lives, often in pitch-black conditions. There are waste collection trays beneath these cages, but they’re rarely emptied. Flies are a constant. With no air-conditioning in the summer and no heat in the winter, dogs freeze to death or die from heatstroke with regularity. During the hottest months, when the cage metal heats up, puppies have been known to cook on the wires. The food is poor and veterinary care infrequent. Open sores, tissue damage, blindness, deafness, ulcers, tooth decay—even rotting jaws because the tooth decay has gotten so bad—are more the rule than the exception.
Steven Kotler (A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life)
There are these Precious Moments figurines, they’re like porcelain, little kids with giant eyes handing each other a heart that says LOVE on it, or rolling around with a puppy? Maria stumbles into a whole aisle of them. Tears start welling up in her eyes, again, which is totally not tough and totally not punk but which also you totally can’t lie about. Like, they’re depictions of this idealized childhood innocence, right? This idea that little kids have the potential for sadness in their giant eyes, but really they just know these pure emotions: love, happiness, whatever. It’s totally hokey and stupid and obviously a construction. Real little kids are as dirty, impure, and complicated as the adults they’re going to grow up and be. But this sort of thing gets her all melodramatic and choked up specifically because of how fucked up she was convinced she was when she was little. She didn’t know she was trans, she couldn’t put into words that she was a little girl, but she did know that something was horribly wrong and she blamed herself for it. Other kids could stomp around and punch eachother and sleep at night, but she was this self-conscious mess who liked books a lot because sometimes people in books seemed as bewildered by the world and themselves as she was. She was never a little kid who could get a puppy and be happy about it. If you’d given her a puppy, she would immediately have started worrying about what if she trained it wrong, what if it ran away. She would already be sad that it would die.
Imogen Binnie (Nevada)
As I write this, I am still waiting for Steve to walk through the door. His sarong still hangs on the bed. His toothbrush is in the bathroom. Reality is sinking in more and more. Bindi and I have a lot of heart-to-heart talks. These seem to help her, just like when she was younger and lost a special koala named Wilson. Wilson died of renal failure and is buried in our backyard. I felt thankful that over the years, I had set the foundation of faith with Bindi. “As hard as it is to understand, there was a reason for all of this,” I told her. “One day it will be clear.” Robert is like a pitiful puppy, and he still waits patiently for his daddy to come home from heaven. I hadn’t been prepared for how devastated Robert would be. Some nights he sits in the bathtub and cries. “I want my daddy,” he says, over and over. It absolutely tears my heart out.
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
Your mother told you," he states flatly. "Yeah," I snap. "She told me." "She doesn't know everything. She doesn't know me...or how I feel. I would never force you to do anything against your will, and I would never, ever let anyone harm you." His words enrage me. Lies, I'm convinced. My hand shoots out, ready to slap that earnest look off his face. The same earnest look he'd given me the first time he lid to my face. He catches my hand, squeezes the wrist tight. "Jacinda-" "I don't believe you. You gave me your word. Five weeks-" "Five weeks was too long. I couldn't leave you for that long without checking on you." "Because you're a liar," I assert. His expression cracks. Emotion bleeds through. He knows I'm not talking about just the five weeks. With a shake of his head, he sounds almost sorry as he admits, "Maybe I didn't tell you everything, but it doesn't change anything I said. I will never hurt you. I want to try to protect you." "Try," I repeat. His jaw clenches. "I can. I can stop them." After several moments, I twist my hand free. He lets me go. Rubbing my wrist, I glare at him. "I have a life here now." My fingers stretch, curl into talons at my sides, still hungry to fight him. "Make me go, and I'll never forgive you." He inhales deeply, his broad chest lifting high. "Well. I can't have that." "Then you'll go? Leave me alone?" Hope stirs. He shakes his head. "I didn't say that." "Of course not," I sneer. "What do you mean then?" Panic washes over me at the thought of him staying here and learning about Will and his family. "There's no reason for you to stay." His dark eyes glint. "There's you. I can give you more time. You can't seriously fit in here. You'll come around." "I won't!" His voice cracks like thunder on the air. "I won't leave you! Do you know how unbearable it's been without you? You're not like the rest of them." His hand swipes through air almost savagely. I stare at him, eyes wide and aching. "You're not some well-trained puppy content to go alone with what you're told. You have fire." He laughs brokenly. "I don't mean literally, although there is that. There's something in you, Jacinda. You're the only thing real for me there, the only thing remotely interesting." He stares at me starkly and I don't breathe. He looks ready to reach out and fold me into his arms. I jump hastily back. Unbelievably, he looks hurt. Dropping his immense hands, he speaks again, evenly, calmly. "I'll give you more space. Time for you to realize that this"-he motions to the living room-"isn't for you. You need mists and mountains and sky. Flight. How can you stay here where you have none of that? How can you hope to survive? If you haven't figured that out yet, you will." In my mind, I see Will. Think how he has become the mist, the sky, everything, to me. I do more than survive here. I love. But Cassian can never know that. “What I have here beats what waits for me back home. The wing clipping you so conveniently failed to mention-" "Is not going to happen, Jacinda." He steps closer. His head dips to look into my eyes. "You have my word. If you return with me, you won't be harmed. I'd die first." His words flow through me like a chill wind. "But your father-" "My father won't be our alpha forever. Someday, I'll lead. Everyone knows it. The pride will listen to me. I promise you'll be safe.
Sophie Jordan (Firelight (Firelight, #1))
As they spoke, 290 Argos, the dog that lay there, raised his head and ears. Odysseus had trained this dog but with no benefit—he left too soon to march on holy Troy. The master gone, boys took the puppy out to hunt wild goats and deer and hares. But now he lay neglected, without an owner, in a pile of dung from mules and cows—the slaves stored heaps of it outside the door, until they fertilized the large estate. So Argos lay there dirty,300 covered with fleas. And when he realized Odysseus was near, he wagged his tail, and both his ears dropped back. He was too weak to move towards his master. At a distance, Odysseus had noticed, and he wiped his tears away and hid them easily, and said, “Eumaeus, it is strange this dog is lying in the dung; he looks quite handsome, though it is hard to tell if he can run, or if he is a pet, a table dog,310 kept just for looks.” Eumaeus, you replied, “This dog belonged to someone who has died in foreign lands. If he were in good health, as when Odysseus abandoned him and went to Troy, you soon would see how quick and brave he used to be. He went to hunt in woodland, and he always caught his prey. His nose was marvelous. But now he is in bad condition, with his master gone, long dead. The women fail to care for him.320 Slaves do not want to do their proper work, when masters are not watching them. Zeus halves our value on the day that makes us slaves.” With that, the swineherd went inside the palace, to join the noble suitors. Twenty years had passed since Argos saw Odysseus, and now he saw him for the final time— then suddenly, black death took hold of him.
Homer (The Odyssey)
there is so much injustice in the world.” “And you do not believe God can fix it. So you see people starve puppies or cut down trees, and you take over the job you think God should be doing. This is not our way. Outsiders disagree with us, but we have always believed that we belong to the kingdom of heaven, not the kingdoms of men. It’s the reason we don’t vote or fight in wars. Puppy mills and new roads are the affairs of men. We concern ourselves with the things of God. We believe in submitting our will to the will of Heavenly Father. Gelassenheit.” “And let evil men go unpunished?” Dawdi raised a finger to the sky. “‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ God allows people and animals to suffer at the hands of wicked men so that His judgments will be just at the last day. The wicked will have their reward, even as the righteous will. Do not rob anyone of the reward God has in store for them.” Aden swallowed the lump in his throat. “Dawdi, do you remember when I had that accident at the lake?” “Your mamm wrote us six pages about it.” “The car filled with water, and we couldn’t get out.” He ran a hand across his forehead and shivered. He still felt the ice in his bones. “I thought I was going to die. I’ve never told anyone this before, but someone grabbed my hand and pulled me to the surface.” “An angel?” “I heard a voice urging me to choose the good part.” Nothing seemed to surprise Dawdi. “That’s wonderful gute.” “Not really. I mean, it is wonderful gute that an angel saved my life, but I have been so confused. I feel like God is calling my number, but I can’t answer Him because I don’t have a phone.” “I’ve never needed a phone to talk to God,” Dawdi said. “But it would be much easier if I knew exactly what He wants to tell me.” “If God made it easy, we would not grow from the struggle.” “I know.
Jennifer Beckstrand (Huckleberry Summer (The Matchmakers of Huckleberry Hill series Book 2))
What is your name?” she said crossing her legs. “I am Raj Singhania, owner of Singhania group of Industries and I am on my way to sign a 1000 crore deal.” “Oh my God, Oh my God!” she said laughing and looked at Bobby from top to bottom. “What’s with this OMG thing and girls, stop saying that. I am not going to propose you anytime soon. But it’s OK. I can understand how girls feel when they meet famous dudes like me,” Bobby said smiling. “What kind of an idiot are you?” she said laughing. “Indeed, a very rare one. The one that you find after searching for millions of years,” Bobby said. “Do you always talk like this?” she said laughing. “Only to strangers on bus or whenever I get bored,” Bobby said. “OK, tell me your real name,” she said. “My name is Mogaliputta Tissa and I am here to save the world.” “Oh no not again!” she said squeezing her head with both her hands. “I know you are dying inside to kiss me,” Bobby said flashing a smile. “Why would I kiss you?” she said with a pretended sternness. “Because, you are impressed with my intelligence level and the hotness quotient, I can see that in your eyes.” “You think you are hot! Oh no! You look like that cartoon guy in 7 up commercial,” she said laughing. “Thank you. He was the coolest guy I saw on TV,” Bobby said. “OK fine, let’s calm down. Tell me your real name,” she said calmly. “I don’t remember my name,” Bobby said calmly. “What kind of idiot forgets his name?” she said staring into Bobby’s eyes. “I am suffering from multiple personality disorder and I forgot my present personality’s name. Can you help me out?” Bobby said with an innocent look on his face. “I will kill you with my hair clip. Leave me alone,” she said and closed her eyes. “You look like a Pomeranian puppy,” Bobby said looking at her hair. “Don’t talk to me,” she said. “You look very beautiful,” Bobby said. “Nice try but I am not going to open my eyes,” she said. “Your ear rings are very nice. But I think that girl in the last seat has better rings,” Bobby said. “She is not wearing any ear rings. I know because I saw her when I was getting inside. It takes just 5 seconds for a girl to know what other girls around her are wearing,” she said with her eyes still closed. “Hey, look. They are selling porn CDs at a roadside shop,” Bobby said. “I have loads of porn in my personal computer. I don’t need them,” she said. “OMG, that girl looks hotter than you,” Bobby said. “I will not open my eyes no matter what. Even if an earthquake hits the road, I will not open my eyes,” she said crossing her arms over her chest. Bobby turned back and waved his hand to the kid who was poking his mom’s ear. The kid came running and halted at Bobby’s seat. “This aunty wants to give you a chocolate if you tell her your name,” Bobby whispered to the kid and the kid perked up smiling. “Hello Aunty! Wake up, my name is Bintu. Give me my chocolate, Aunty, please!” the kid said yanking at the girl’s hand. All of a sudden, she opened her eyes and glared at the kid. “Don’t call me aunty. What would everyone think? I am a teenage girl. Go away. I don’t have anything to give you,” she said and the kid went back to his seat. “This is what happens when you mess with an intelligent person like me,” Bobby said laughing. “Shut up,” she said. “OK dude.” “I am not a dude. Stop it.” “OK sexy. Oops! OK Saxena,” “I will scream.” “OK. Where do you study?” “Why should I tell you?” “Are you suffering from split personality disorder like me?” Bobby said staring into her eyes. “Shut up. Don’t talk to me,” she said with a pout. “What the hell! I have enlightened your mind with my thoughts, told you my name and now you are acting like you don’t know me. Girls are mad.
Babu Rajendra Prasad Sarilla
Where are the ethical concerns, that so many people called animal lovers invoke, when you steal the children of wild dog mothers and other family members from right before their eyes? Do ethics always refer only to what people think appropriate for purely subjective reasons? Ultimately, our long-term research resulted in a very sad picture: With the exception of the random puppy, who today as an adult actually is interested in people, neither male Maccia nor the most of the other "rescued" dogs are socially and environmentally secure, but had remained shy and partly vegetate in kennels with empty eyes. Such dogs are neither fish nor fowl, although taken from the wild population in the early age of about eight to twelve weeks (except Maccia, whom Funny "rescued" at the age of four months, which is even more irresponsible).
Günther Bloch (Die Pizza-Hunde: Freilandstudien an verwilderten Haushunden ; Verhaltensvergleich mit Wölfen ; Tipps für Hundehalter)
In most puppy mills, dogs live and die in their own excrement.
Anonymous
It was ten years since Gwenda had picked Skip out of a litter of mongrel puppies, on the floor of Caris’s bedroom in the wool merchant’s big house, the day Caris’s mother died.
Ken Follett (World Without End (Kingsbridge, #2))
I crammed my brain with the most awful thoughts I could muster. Puppies falling off a cliff like lemmings (somehow, puppies dying seemed a lot worse than lemmings). The penguin egg rolling away from its parents in that documentary. My dad having a stroke, my mom getting in some horrible accident, Garret himself being struck by lightning and horribly disfigured. Nothing worked. Apparently, all the tragedies life had to offer could be lobbed at me and I'd march right through them, leading the way with my dick.
P.E. Ryan (Gemini Bites)
Like a grateful puppy, Paula nodded and snatched up Phillip’s plate of pie before she scurried into the kitchen to make him a cup of coffee.
Bianca Sloane (Live and Let Die)
After you died, I got a puppy. I wear your clothes and tease her sometimes, in case you come back.
Joey Comeau
I love my puppy. I love that he is so young and full of life, and that he will still die first.
Joey Comeau
If that dickwad Sabin wants to talk to her, that means Gwennie will want to, as well.” Kaia drummed her nails against the tabletop. “And as you know, puppy, I ensure that my sister gets what she wants. Besides, I’m about to die of boredom since no one has attacked the fortress as promised.” “Harpy,” Aeron snapped. “Don’t try my patience. You will obey me in this and let the angel go.” “Warriors are so adorable when they think they’re all tough and commanding.” Kaia’s arm shot out, again rattling dishes, and she snatched up a handful of eggs. A handful she then launched at Aeron. Olivia quickly dodged, and the eggs slapped Aeron in the face. His lips curled in a grimace as he wiped away the yellow mess. Rather than touch her again, however, he flattened his palms on the arms of the chair. Kaia
Gena Showalter (The Darkest Passion (Lords of the Underworld, #5))
Ryan put a hand around his neck. James breathed in carefully. Ryan’s thumb pressed into his neck, a silent order to look at him. It had always been like this, even when they were kids: Ryan had always been the pushy one, the opinionated one, the leader in all their games, in all their mischief. Ryan had been the king, the general, the main villain, the dashing hero or the dragon while James was his loyal sidekick. As a kid, James hadn’t minded it. As a twenty-two-old guy, he resented it, because old habits died hard and he still hadn’t figured out how to quit following Ryan around like a loyal, eager puppy, starved for a pat on the head. There was a reason his dad disliked Ryan so much and it wasn’t Ryan’s common background. Dad hated that someone else had a bigger influence on his son.
Alessandra Hazard (Just a Bit Confusing (Straight Guys #5))
No, I’m serious. I wish you were getting the man of your dreams. I wish he was standing here, getting to see you look like you do, knowing how lucky he is to have you in his life. I wish he was going to stand in front of a group of witnesses and declare how much he loves you and declare himself yours, and you his. I wish he was whisking you away tonight to some lonely cottage on a tropical island where he would show you in mind-numbing passion everything he had proclaimed in words. I wish he’d help you fight all your demons, to build your dreams together, to cherish and love you as you deserve and need to be loved. And to protect you, always protect you. I wish you had a normal life, had a heap load of kids, if that’s what you want, or a puppy named Clover if you don’t. But most of all...” Jerry paused and smacked his palate. “I wish I could be that man.
Killian McRae (Once You Go Demon (All My Exes Die from Hexes Book 2))
This book feels like someone watched that Sarah McLachlan commercial for animal cruelty prevention and thought, But what if all the puppies died on camera?
Emily Henry (Book Lovers)
No,” I admitted. “He’s cute, but he was too young for me. I didn’t think the four-year age gap would matter that much, but after a few weeks, I knew it was never going to work.” “You knew after a few weeks? You dated Mason for months!” “I know, but the spark wore off fast. Our relationship was strictly platonic by the end.” “Why didn’t you break it off sooner?” “Because I felt sorry for him. His mom had recently died, his stepdad was out of the picture, he never knew his real father . . . He seemed so vulnerable.” Winnie laughed. “This is your problem. You date lost puppies.
Melanie Harlow (Tempt (Cloverleigh Farms, #9))
Although Grace knew that she should resist, that Hugh wasn’t taking her seriously, and that she needed to get him to promise he wouldn’t almost die for her ever again, she was unable to stop herself from leaning in until their faces were just inches apart. “And I’m out,” Theo said. Startled, Grace tried to jerk back, but Hugh’s grip tightened, holding her in place. Despite his injuries, he was surprisingly strong. Theo gave Grace a reproving look, and she dropped her gaze. “I know.” She shot a quick glance at Hugh before sheepishly meeting Theo’s eyes again. “I folded. Sorry. It’s that puppy-dog look…” When his disapproving scowl didn’t waver, Grace, like the chicken that she was, tossed out a guaranteed distraction. “Jules is here.” With a shake of his head that expressed his disappointment in her lack of staying power against Hugh’s puppy eyes, Theo stalked to the door. “I don’t need to watch what’s coming.” “Not when you can go find Jules and have a make-out session of your own, right?” Hugh said slyly. Turning, Theo gave Hugh a severe look. Grace would’ve crumbled under that glare, but Hugh merely met Theo’s gaze with “with raised eyebrows and a smirk. Their stare down lasted an uncomfortably long time before Theo’s mouth twitched. “Maybe.” He left the room, closing the door behind him with a sharp thump.
Katie Ruggle (On the Chase (Rocky Mountain K9 Unit, #2))
You know,” said Ms. Dobbins, smiling down at Lizzie and the puppy. “I think this puppy needs a name.” Lizzie looked up. “Really? Are you sure?” That must mean that Ms. Dobbins thought that the puppy would not die. Ms. Dobbins nodded. “Dr. Gibson said that if she made it through last night, it’s a pretty good bet that she’ll do just fine from here on out, especially with your loving care.” The puppy nuzzled her head into Lizzie’s chest, let out a tiny sigh, and fell asleep.
Ellen Miles (Bella (The Puppy Place))
the shed door opened. Immediately the puppies started screaming and
Graham Masterton (Begging to Die (Katie Maguire, #10))
The newer tactic of scattering bodies on city streets, as happened when Joaquín Guzmán’s goons pushed thirty-five bloody corpses (twelve of them women) off two trucks on Manuel Ávila Camacho Boulevard, near a shopping mall in the prettier part of the port city of Veracruz one day in September 2011, to terrorize their adversaries... Guzmán, known as El Chapo (Shorty) for his small stature, ran the largest airborne opera- tion in Mexico; he owned more aircraft than Aeromexico, the national air- line. Between 2006 and 2015, Mexican authorities seized 599 aircraft — 586 planes and 13 helicopters—from the Sinaloa cartel; by comparison, Aeromexico had a piddling fleet of 127 planes.... One Zeta atrocity I knew nothing about took place in 2010, in the small town of San Fernando, south of Reynosa. A roaming band of Zetas stopped two buses of migrants—men, women, and children from Central and South America, who were fleeing the violence in their countries. The Zetas demanded money. The migrants had no money. The Zetas demanded that the migrants work for them, as assassins or operatives or drug mules. The migrants refused. So they were taken to a building in the village of El Huizachal, blindfolded, their hands and legs bound, and each one was shot in the head. Seventy-two of them died. One man (from Ecuador) played dead, escaped, and raised the alarm... The gory details of this massacre became known when one of the perpetrators was arrested, Édgar Huerta Montiel, an army deserter known as El Wache, or Fat Ass. He admitted killing eleven of the migrants person- ally, in the belief (so he said) that they were working for a gang hostile to his own. A year later, near the same town, police found 47 mass graves containing 193 corpses — mostly migrants or passengers in buses hijacked and robbed while passing through this area of Tamaulipas state, about eighty miles south of the US border... But in the early 2000s headless bodies began to appear, tossed by the roadside, while human heads were displayed in public, at intersections, and randomly on the roofs of cars. This butchery was believed to be inspired by a tactic of the Guatemalan military’s elite commandos, known as Kaibiles. A man I was to meet in Matamoros, on my traverse of the border, explained how the Kaibiles were toughened by their officers. The officers encouraged recruits to raise a dog from a puppy, then, at a certain point in their training, the recruit was ordered to kill the dog and eat it.... When the Kaibiles became mercenaries in the Mexican cartels, the first beheadings occurred, the earliest known taking place in 2006: a gang in Michoacán kicked open the doors of a bar and tossed five human heads on the dance floor. Decapitations are now, according to one authority on the business, “a staple in the lexicon of violence” for Mexican cartels....
Paul Theroux
I still don't know to this day how she managed to climb the 94 stairs; she was dying from an overdose. The gate at the bottom of the stairwell did not make a sound when she entered the building, being so ill and alone. It was odd. Where could she have been? Almost as if she had been dropped off at my doorstep like a package silently by a (Polish) giant. She was pale and could barely open the door with her keys. When she entered, she fell into my arms; she was drunk and high, her legs buckling so that she couldn't stand. I tried to figure out what she had taken and what she had drunk, but she could barely talk; her eyes were rolling back in her skull. She was crying with her head in the toilet bowl, unable to stop the cramps running through her insides and her entire body shaking. - What did you drink? - Two … beers. - I am not your father. What did you take? Where have you been? - Beers and tequila - she mumbled, saliva drooling out of her mouth and her head hanging down like she was dead already. Then I asked her what else she had taken. She still wouldn't answer, so I repeated. - Answer me Martina, who gave it to you?! - I shouted. - Where have you been?! But she didn't answer, and her condition was critical, so I had to rush her to the hospital in my arms as she was about to lose consciousness. I had to grab her and take her to the closest hospital across Parallel, two blocks away. This was the first time I had taken her to the hospital since she'd split her chin by falling off my bicycle allegedly before, although it wasn't the last. Interestingly, whenever she got involved with a new group of criminals, she wound up in the hospital both times, and both times I took her there. She had no energy to lift her head out of the toilet bowl. As soon as I entered the hospital with her, the staff and I had to put her in a wheelchair. They took her inside and 20 minutes later when I was sitting by her bed, she already felt better with an IV dripping slowly into her vein, but she was unable to move; she was lying in her hospital bed, barely able to open her eyes to look at me. She was between life and death, or between real life and just a dream. I remembered less than a year earlier she was so full of life and happy and healthy when I put her up on that set of chairs that night when we took off the 'for sale' sign. The doctors told me after she fell asleep that they wanted to rinse her stomach, but she didn't authorize that. I was not fully aware that she was on drugs time to time or all the time and with what kind of people she was associated with. She almost only showed up at home in September 2014 when she overdosed. I was in love and worried for her so much, so I filled out the forms while they treated her in the hospital. I prayed to God to save her, asking for Him to show her the Truth. All I had was a prayer—50/50 if it worked. And I remembered that two years before, I had prayed for the life of our kitten Sabrina was playing with, making friends. This time, however, I had to rush to the hospital, not the vet, with my 20-year-old girlfriend who would soon be 21 in October 2014. And I felt like Sabrina, trying to make friends again but by the wrong people was the reason why I, an atheist, was praying for a puppy or a kitten or a bunny's life this time again. I didn't know that lies and secrets were eating away at her from deep inside once in a while as well, it wasn't just the drugs that were killing her insides like cancer. Just like her brother's intestines silently began to consume him and her, unbeknownst to them, but I could almost sense it like a dog if I could not see it, smell it inside them like X-ray. They were unaware of what my eyes had seen, as I watched their vibrations and faces silently change.
Tomas Adam Nyapi (BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA)
The list of things that keep me up at night includes, but is not limited to: appendicitis, typhoid, leprosy, unclean meat, foods I haven’t seen emerge from their packaging, foods my mother hasn’t tasted first so that if we die we die together, homeless people, headaches, rape, kidnapping, milk, the subway, sleep. An assistant teacher comes to school with bloodshot eyes, and I am convinced he’s infected with Ebola. I wait for blood to trickle from his ear or for him to just fall down dead. I stop touching my shoelaces (too filthy) or hugging adults outside of my family. In school, we are learning about Hiroshima, so I read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and I know instantly that I have leukemia. A symptom of leukemia is dizziness and I have that, when I sit up too fast or spin around in circles. So I quietly prepare to die in the next year or so, depending on how fast the disease progresses. My parents are getting worried. It’s hard enough to have a child, much less a child who demands to inspect our groceries and medicines for evidence that their protective seals have been tampered with. I have only the vaguest memory of a life before fear. Every morning when I wake up there is one blissful second before I look around the room and remember my daily terrors. I wonder if this is what it will always be like, forever, and I try to remember moments I felt safe: In bed next to my mother one Sunday morning. Playing with Isabel’s puppy. Getting picked up from a sleepover just before bedtime.
Lena Dunham (Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned")
A right smart baby she was. I used to like to watch her. You know they makes them greedy sounds. Eyes all soft and wet. A cross between a puppy and a dying man. But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly
Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye)
Life is about embodiment, thought Maddie. This was a point that she had discussed wth Dad many times. To experience the world through the senses was different from simply having data about the world. The memory of his time in the world was what had kept her father sane after he had been turned into a brain in a jar. And in this way, oddly, Maddie came to have a glint of the difficulty Mist faced in explaining her world to Maddie. She tried to imagine what it was like to have never petted a puppy, to have never eperienced a tomato filled with June sunshine burst between the tongue and the palate, to have never felt the weight of gravity or the elation of being loved, and imagination failed her. She felt sorry for Mist, a ghost who could not even call upon the memory of an embodied existence.
Ken Liu
Hudson moved closer to Nathan and planted his head on his leg, looking up at him with puppy-dog eyes. Nathan rolled his head back in surrender. “He just murdered me with cuteness.” “Pet him, please!” Morgan said, swooning over the new bromance. “He’s dying for you.
Victoria Schade (Dog Friendly)
THE MOTIVATION BEHIND behavior rarely includes the goals for which it evolved. These goals stay behind the veil of evolution. We evolved nurturant tendencies, for example, to raise our own biological children, but a cute puppy triggers these tendencies just as well. Whereas reproduction is the evolutionary goal of nurturance, it isn’t part of its motivation. After a mother dies, other adult primates often take care of her weaned juvenile. Humans, too, adopt on a large scale, often going through hellish bureaucratic procedures to add children to their families. Stranger yet is cross-species adoption, such as by Pea, a rescued ostrich at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya. Pea was beloved by all orphaned elephant calves at the trust and took special care of a baby named Jotto, who’d stay by her side and sleep with his head on her soft feathered body. The maternal instinct is remarkably generous.38 Some biological purists call such behavior a “mistake.” If adaptive goals are the measure, Pea was making a colossal error. As soon as we move from biology to psychology, however, the perspective changes. Our impulse to take care of vulnerable young is real and overwhelming even outside the family. Similarly, when human volunteers push a stranded whale back into the ocean, they employ empathic impulses that, I can assure you, didn’t evolve to take care of marine mammals. Human empathy arose for the sake of family and friends. But once a capacity exists, it takes on a life of its own. Rather than calling the saving of a whale a mistake, we should be glad that empathy isn’t tied down by what evolution intended it for. This is what makes our behavior as rich as it is. This line of thought can also be applied to sex.
Frans de Waal (Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist)
I’ve heard that He won’t lead you to it if He can’t get you through it, and I guess I started thinking that sounded reasonable, if the Gizmoe analogy was any guide. If I was just a puppy, afraid of the rain, maybe my God was looking out for me after all.
Kevin Sorbo (True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life)
It wasn’t like I hired him. I don’t fucking hire any of them. They show up for work and then Grace gets pissed when I won’t pay them. PTSD Jesse followed Alex back from Florida like some lost puppy. I keep telling Alex not to feed strays.
Lexi Blake (Love and Let Die (Masters and Mercenaries, #5))
But maybe rural America isn't dying so much as it's Shucker-ing: adjusting, adapting, becoming something new, getting a new outdoor sign and adding jalapeno hush puppies to the menu. I'd like to think that.
Monica Hesse (American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land)
I can tell you we were right, our bodies were right, life was really going to be that good, that pleasurable in every cell. Suddenly I remember the exact look of your body, but better than that the bright corners of your eyes, or the light of your face, the rich Long Island puppy-fat of your thighs, or the slick chino of your pants bright in the corners of my eyes, I remember your extraordinary act of courage in loving me
Sharon Oldss
I love Johannesburg – like one loves and protects a fragile puppy, like one removes weeds from beds of blossoming tulips and roses. I am drawn to its formless danger, the lurking disquiets of a big city, by how minute and faceless I have become in the vast frontiers of its palaces and dungeons, how my stargazing crawls by unnoticed by my countrymen. There are other stargazers too, there must be, real stargazers who camp and live and thrive in the wild: lantern carriers and owners of books and celestial maps about the history and unknown charms in the world of stars. There must be true worshippers and disciples of these heavenly fires, these celestial corpses that have long died, exploded into trillions of graveyards that adorn the night skies. There seems, if I concentrate long enough, to be a certain secret that draws me to the stars: their ancient silence, their insistence on commanding attention without shouting from rooftops, unlike the shamelessness of thunder and rain, unaffected by their distance or determination. Stars are quiet – arrogant, maybe – but also of a particular crispness that takes refuge in every pore, every fragment of every hair that covers every slope and plane of the body. It is possible that Michael K is peering from behind the night clouds, content not to be bothered. He has seen the zealots and charlatans coming from miles away, preserved his soul in the most elementary of ways: the ways of silence.
Nthikeng Mohlele (Michael K)
Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn't keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn't playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There's hiding and there's finding, we'd say. And he'd say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we'd all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn't play with him anymore if he didn't get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He's probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know. As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, "GET FOUND, KID!" out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It's real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes. A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn't want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn't need them, didn't trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn't say good-bye. He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. "I don't want anyone to know." "What will people think?" "I don't want to bother anyone." Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found. Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end. "Olly-olly-oxen-free." The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says "Come on in, wherever you are. It's a new game." And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.
Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarden)