Reign And Ruin Quotes

Should he give free reign to his desires, the bibliomaniac can ruin his life along with the lives of his loved ones. He'll often take better care of his books than of his own health; he'll spend more on fiction than he does on food; he'll be more interested in his library than in his relationships, and, since few people are prepared to live in a place where every available surface is covered with piles of books, he'll often find himself alone, perhaps in the company of a neglected and malnourished cat. When he dies, all but forgotten, his body might fester for days before a curious neighbor grows concerned about the smell.

The Rangers were founded over one hundred and fifty years ago, in King Herbert's reign. Do you know anything about him?" Halt looked sideways at the boy sitting beside him, tossing the question out quickly to see his response. Will hesitated. He vaugely remembered the name from history lessons in the Ward, but he couldn't remember any details. Still, he decided he'd try to bluff his way through it... "Oh ... yes," he said, "King Herbert. We learned about him." "Really?" said the Ranger expansively. "Perhaps you could tell me a little about him?" He leaned back and crossed his legs, getting himself comfortable... "He was ..." he hesitated, pretending to gather his thoughts. "The king." That much he was sure of. Halt merely smiled and made a rolling gesture with his hand that meant go on. "He was the king ... a hundred and fifty years ago," Will said, trying to sound certain of his facts. The Ranger smiled at him, gesturing for him to continue yet again. "Ummm ... well, I seem to recall that he was the one who founded the Ranger Corps," he said hopefully, and Halt raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "Really? You recall that, do you?

It is the reign of Autumn, the height of the Carnival of Decay, the roses have got inflammation in their blushes, an uncanny hectic tinge, through their soft damask. I felt myself like a creeping thing on the verge of destruction, gripped by ruin in the midst of a whole world ready for lethargic sleep.

If you have a lover, I’m sure he would not wish to hear how you moan for me, how you plead for my cock, how you rotate those hips to keep me inside you, how your slick begins to drip just hearing me unbuckling my pants.” Her shoulders stiffened, her chest rising rapidly as he stood over her. “If you have a lover, I can assure you, he will no longer satisfy you. Not like I do.

Aluminium’s sixty-year reign as the world’s most precious substance was glorious, but soon an American chemist ruined everything.

Someone starved of something will take whatever they can get and make it into what they need, because they do not know there is more to be had in the world.

Beneath an apparent unity it is divided into two camps, one aspiring to destroy the universe and reign over the ruins, the other thinking simply of imposing upon the world a demoniac cult of which it shall be high priest.

CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP The bright mirror I braved: the devil in it Loved me like my soul, my soul: Now that I seek myself in a serpent My smile is fatal. Nile moves in me; my thighs splay Into the squalled Mediterranean; My brain hides in that Abyssinia Lost armies foundered towards. Desert and river unwrinkle again. Seeming to bring them the waters that make drunk Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank. Now let the snake reign. A half-deity out of Capricorn, This rigid Augustus mounts With his sword virginal indeed; and has shorn Summarily the moon-horned river From my bed. May the moon Ruin him with virginity! Drink me, now, whole With coiled Egypt's past; then from my delta Swim like a fish toward Rome.

Delhi was once a paradise, Where Love held sway and reigned; But its charm lies ravished now And only ruins remain. No

After all, death is no more an escape than it is a curse

There will always be a light in the dark waiting, no matter how small

Let the ruins come to life In the beauty of Your name Rising up from the ashes God forever You reign

A cruel irony that she missed him more when she was with him than when she was away.

I called it the San Clemente Syndrome. Today's Basilica of San Clemente is built on the site of what once was a refuge for persecuted Christians. The home of the Roman consul Titus Flavius Clemens, it was burnt down during Emperor Nero's reign. Next to its charred remains, in what must have been a large, cavernous vault, the Romans built an underground pagan temple dedicated to Mithras, God of the Morning, Light of the World, over whose temple the early Christians built another church, dedicated -coincidentally or not, this is a matter to be further excavated to another Clement, Pope St. Clement, on top of which came yet another church that burnt down and on the site of which stands today's basilica. And the digging could go on and on. Like the subconscious, like love, like memory, like time itself, like every single one of us, the church is built on the ruins of subsequent restorations, there is no rock bottom, there is no first anything, no last anything, just layers and secret passageways and interlocking chambers, like the Christian Catacombs, and right along these, even a Jewish Catacomb.

Nevertheless, many times during that evening she despaired of destiny, and of herself. She didn’t invoke God, as we know, but she had faith in the genius of evil, that vast sovereignty that reigns over all the details of human life, a power so great that, as in the Arabian fable, it needs no more than a single pomegranate seed from which to reconstruct a ruined world. Once she’d readied herself to receive Felton,

So much for the reign of the great Dragon King.” The world of fire and ruin shattered around me, the agony in my flesh evaporating in an instant as I fell from my rightful place within my body and into the freezing waters of the river of death.

On all sides, as far as the eye could reach, rose the grass-covered heaps marking the site of ancient habitations. The great tide of civilisation had long since ebbed, leaving these scattered wrecks on the solitary shore. Are those waters to flow again, bearing back the seeds of knowledge and of wealth that they have wafted to the West? We wanderers were seeking what they had left behind, as children gather up the coloured shells on the deserted sands. At my feet there was a busy scene, making more lonely the unbroken solitude which reigned in the vast plain around, where the only thing having life or motion were the shadows of the lofty mounds as they lengthened before the declining sun.

Any animal can fuck. But only humans can experience sexual passion, something wholly different from the biological urge to mate. And sexual passion’s endured for millennia as a vital psychic force in human life — not despite impediments but because of them. Plain old coitus becomes erotically charged and spiritually potent at just those points where impediments, conflicts, taboos, and consequences lend it a double-edged character — meaningful sex is both an overcoming and a succumbing, a transcendence and a transgression, triumphant and terrible and ecstatic and sad. Turtles and gnats can mate, but only the human will can defy, transgress, overcome, love: choose. History-wise, both nature and culture have been ingenious at erecting impediments that give the choice of passion its price and value: religious proscriptions; penalties for adultery and divorce; chivalric chastity and courtly decorum; the stigma of illegitimate birth; chaperonage; madonna/whore complexes; syphilis; back-alley abortions; a set of “moral” codes that put sensuality on a taboo-level with defecation and apostasy… from the Victorians’ dread of the body to early TV’s one-foot-on-the-floor-at-all-times rule; from the automatic ruin of “fallen” women to back-seat tussles in which girlfriends struggled to deny boyfriends what they begged for in order to preserve their respect. Granted, from 1996’s perspective, most of the old sexual dragons look stupid and cruel. But we need to realize that they had something big in their favor: as long as the dragons reigned, sex wasn’t casual, not ever. Historically, human sexuality has been a deadly serious business — and the fiercer its dragons, the seriouser sex got; and the higher the price of choice, the higher the erotic voltage surrounding what people chose." -from "Back in New Fire

going forward, things would not work out, disappointment would reign. My grandmother knew this, and her daughter. Everyone older knew. It was a devastating secret we kept from young people. We didn’t want to ruin their fun and also it was embarrassing; they couldn’t imagine a reality this bad so we let them think our lives were just like theirs, only older. The only honest

A document from the reign of King Henry VIII described one of the two actual axes used for the beheadings.  The story was that the relic was displayed in the church; it gave both the church and the street their odd names.  In the early 1560s refugees from Spain used it as a place of worship but by then it was in a state of disrepair.  It was demolished shortly thereafter, taken down to the foundation.  Another building, the one which Thomas and Belinda Russell owned today, was built in 1620 on the ruins of the ancient church.

Grey lizards, those heirs of ruin, of sepulchres and desolation, glided in and out among the rocks or lay still and sunned themselves. Where prosperity has reigned, and fallen; where glory has flamed, and gone out; where beauty has dwelt, and passed away; where gladness was, and sorrow is; where the pomp of life has been, and silence and death brood in its high places, there this reptile makes his home, and mocks at human vanity. His coat is the colour of ashes: and ashes are the symbol of hopes that have perished, of aspirations that came to nought, of loves that are buried. If he could speak, he would say, Build temples: I will lord it in their ruins; build palaces: I will inhabit them; erect empires: I will inherit them; bury your beautiful: I will watch the worms at their work; and you, who stand here and moralise over me: I will crawl over your corpse at the last.

But wouldn’t she always wonder? She did not want to live a lifetime never knowing what it felt like to be kissed by someone who she actually wanted to kiss. Naime rose up on her knees and pressed her mouth softly to his, her breath held, slipping her hands to rest on his shoulders. She pulled immediately away, unsure. “I don’t know how.” Makram slid off the trunk, landing on his knees in front of her, wrapping his arm around her waist to draw her against him. “I know you don’t.” He brushed his mouth over the bridge of her nose, then her cheek, then her brow, burning her with the tenderness of it. “I know I shouldn’t touch you or let you touch me. I shouldn’t speak to you, I shouldn’t look at you.” “But I like all of those things,” she protested breathlessly, her mind fogged. “I can’t stop,” he said. “I am trying and failing.” “Then,” she began, tingles of anticipation and shyness arcing across her lips and down her throat, “teach me.

For today, thanks to recently discovered documents, the evidence shows that in the early days of their accession to power, the Nazis in Germany set out to build a society in which there simply would be no room for Jews. Toward the end of their reign, their goal changed: they decided to leave behind a world in ruins in which Jews would seem never to have existed. That is why everywhere in Russia, in the Ukraine, and in Lithuania, the Einsatzgruppen carried out the Final Solution by turning their machine guns on more than a million Jews, men, women, and children, and throwing them into huge mass graves, dug just moments before by the victims themselves. Special units would then disinter the corpses and burn them. Thus, for the first time in history, Jews were not only killed twice but denied burial in a cemetery. It is obvious that the war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children, but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory.

Sovereign King of Detachment and Renunciation, Emperor of Death and Shipwreck, living dream that gradually wanders among the worlds ruins and wastes! Sovereign King of Despair amid splendours, grieving lord of palaces that don't satisfy, master of processions and pageants that never succeed in blotting out life! Sovereign King risen from the tombs, who came in the night by the light of the moon to tell your life to the living, royal page of lilies that have lost their petals, imperial herald of the coldness of ivory! Sovereign King Shepard of the Watches, knight errant of Anxieties traveling on moonlit roads without glory and without even a lady to serve, lord in the forest and on the slopes, a silent silhouette with visor drawn shut, passing through valleys, misunderstood in villages, ridiculed in towns, scorned in the cities! Sovereign King consecrated by Death to be her own, pale and absurd, forgotten and unrecognized, reigning amid worn-out velvets and tarnished marble on his throne at the limits of the Possible, surrounded by the shadows of his unreal court and guarded by the fantasy of his mysterious, solidierless army. (...) Your love for things dreamed was your contempt for things lived. Virgin King who disdained love, Shadow King who disdained light, Dream King who denied life! Amid the muffled racket of cymbals and drums, Darkness acclaims you Emperor!

Sometimes I have thought I heard a Dwarf-drum in the mountains. Sometimes at night, in the woods, I thought I had caught a glimpse of Fauns and Satyrs dancing a long way off; but when I came to the place, there was never anything there. I have often despaired; but something always happens to start me hoping again. I don’t know. But at least you can try to be a King like the High King Peter of old, and not like your uncle.” “Then it’s true about the Kings and Queens too, and about the White Witch?” said Caspian. “Certainly it is true,” said Cornelius. “Their reign was the Golden Age in Narnia and the land has never forgotten them.” “Did they live in this castle, Doctor?” “Nay, my dear,” said the old man. “This castle is a thing of yesterday. Your great-great-grandfather built it. But when the two sons of Adam and the two daughters of Eve were made Kings and Queens of Narnia by Aslan himself, they lived in the castle of Cair Paravel. No man alive has seen that blessed place and perhaps even the ruins of it have now vanished. But we believe it was far from here, down at the mouth of the Great River, on the very shore of the sea.” “Ugh!” said Caspian with a shudder. “Do you mean in the Black Woods? Where all the--the--you know, the ghosts live?” “Your Highness speaks as you have been taught,” said the Doctor. “But it is all lies. There are no ghosts there. That is a story invented by the Telmarines. Your Kings are in deadly fear of the sea because they can never quite forget that in all stories Aslan comes from over the sea. They don’t want to go near it and they don’t want anyone else to go near it. So they have let great woods grow up to cut their people off from the coast. But because they have quarreled with the trees they are afraid of the woods. And because they are afraid of the woods they imagine that they are full of ghosts. And the Kings and great men, hating both the sea and the wood, partly believe these stories, and partly encourage them. They feel safer if no one in Narnia dares to go down to the coast and look out to sea--toward Aslan’s land and the morning and the eastern end of the world.

You’re fucking wrong if you think that. You’re not ruined. You’re strong as hell. You’re a queen, with four men who would all get on our knees for you. We wouldn’t want you so damn bad if you weren’t steel all the way through, baby girl. You’re not. Fucking. Ruined.

She had also taught her it would be fleeting; that she must have other assets and tools at her disposal when the beauty inevitably faded, or risk losing her belief in herself, which was the only gift she truly had. He had recognized something other than her appearance, and that, in her experience, was rare.

All right, Sultana. I am at your side. Command me.

Frequently do we meet with the idea that the world is to be converted to Christ by the spread of civilization. Now civilization always follows the Gospel and is, in a great measure, the product of it, but many people put the cart before the horse and make civilization the first cause. According to their opinion, trade is to regenerate the nations! The arts are to ennoble them and education is to purify them. Peace Societies are formed, against which I have not a word to say, but much in their favor. Still, I believe the only efficient Peace Society is the Church of God and the best peace teaching is the love of God in Christ Jesus! The Grace of God is the great instrument for lifting up the world from the depths of its ruin and covering it with happiness and holiness. Christ’s Cross is the Pharos of this tempestuous sea, like the Eddystone lighthouse flinging its beams through the midnight of ignorance over the raging waters of human sin, preserving men from rock and shipwreck, piloting them into the port of peace! Tell it among the heathen—the Lord reigns from the Cross—and as you tell it believe that the power to make the peoples believe it is with God the Father and the power to bow them before Christ is in God the Holy Spirit. Saving energy lies not in learning, nor in wit, nor in eloquence, nor in anything except in the right arm of God who will be exalted among the heathen, for He has sworn that surely all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

What do you have”, she said , “that binds you to life? Love doesn't follow you, glory doesn't seek you, and power doesn't find you. The house that you inherit was in ruins. The lands you received had already lost their first fruits to frost, and the sun had withered their promises. You have never found water in your farm's well. And before you ever saw them, the leaves had all rotted in your pools; weeds covered the paths and walkways where your feet had never trod. “But in my domain, where only the night reigns, you will be consoled, for you hopes will have ceased; you will be able to forget, for your desire will have died; you will finally rest, for you'll have no life”. And she showed me the futility of hoping for better days when one isn't born with a soul that can know better days. She showed me how dreaming never consoles, for life hurts all the more when we wake up. She showed me how sleep gives no rest, for it is haunted by phantoms, shadows of things, ghost of gestures, stillborn desires, the flotsam from the shipwreck of living. (…) „Why try to be like others if you're condemned to being yourself? Why laugh if, when you laugh, even your genuine happiness is false, since it is born of forgetting who you are? Why cry if you feel it's of no use, and if you cry not because tears console you but because it grieves you that they don't?

Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome. This monarch reigned for the space of five years, with tolerable credit to himself, but then gave way to the greatest extravagancy of temper, and to the most atrocious barbarities. Among other diabolical whims, he ordered that the city of Rome should be set on fire, which order was executed by his officers, guards, and servants. While the imperial city was in flames, he went up to the tower of Macaenas, played upon his harp, sung the song of the burning of Troy, and openly declared that 'he wished the ruin of all things before his death.

And even though it may offend you, I feel bound to say that the majority also of English people are uncouth and unrefined, whereas we Russian folk can recognise beauty wherever we see it, and are always eager to cultivate the same.  But to distinguish beauty of soul and personal originality there is needed far more independence and freedom than is possessed by our women, especially by our younger ladies.  At all events, they need more experience.  For instance, this Mlle. Polina—­pardon me, but the name has passed my lips, and I cannot well recall it—­is taking a very long time to make up her mind to prefer you to Monsieur de Griers.  She may respect you, she may become your friend, she may open out her heart to you; yet over that heart there will be reigning that loathsome villain, that mean and petty usurer, De Griers.  This will be due to obstinacy and self-love—­to the fact that De Griers once appeared to her in the transfigured guise of a marquis, of a disenchanted and ruined liberal who was doing his best to help her family and the frivolous old General; and, although these transactions of his have since been exposed, you will find that the exposure has made no impression upon her mind. 

In Rome, the dense ruin of the Forum has a few unmistakable landmarks. Turning up a cobbled slope towards the green peace of the Palatine, the visitor immediately confronts one of them: an uncompromising, fairly well-preserved ceremonial arch. The Arch of Titus was erected posthumously to celebrate the eponymous prince’s triumphs in Judea during the reign of his father, Vespasian, and during the childhood of Hadrian. One of the relief carvings shows the removal of the sacred texts, trumpets and menorah of the Jewish Temple. They were not to return to Jerusalem for 500 years and the Temple itself was never rebuilt.

For roughly sixty minutes, they scored on me at will. If they weren’t identical twins, I would’ve thought I was seeing double. By the end, I was utterly broken. As I sat crying in my car, I thought about what Coach Gable must have been thinking. In the exhaustion, my mind played tricks on me. When we experience disappointment, our thoughts spiral, and it’s important in those moments to press pause and assess the situation, not be led by our emotions. The #1 indicator of sustained success is emotional control. We must keep the issue in the appropriate bucket. Too often, we allow issues from one part of our lives to overflow into another. Therefore, pressing pause at such a time is crucial. Thankfully, at that moment, I pushed pause to consider my options. I could drive back to Syracuse. My coaches there would gladly allow me to return. I was the reigning EIWA Champ with a redshirt and two more years of eligibility. However, when my tears and emotions got under control, I thought more clearly. When you’re under emotional duress, it’s not a good time to make any decisions. I’ve seen lives ruined over emotional decisions.

The galaxy was vast beyond mortal comprehension. It was common to visualise it as a great spiral of light, but this was an illusion. The stars were only tiny specks scattered across the endless night. To travel between them required risking a still greater darkness, the maddened hell that was the immaterium. The only light in that twisted nether-realm was the Astronomican, the soul-blaze guided by the Emperor Himself. Yet even the divine beacon had limits. In the far reaches it thinned and faded to nothing. There, at the very edge of where the shadows reigned unchallenged, sat the Blackstone Fortress. It was older than human civilisation. Whatever hands had built it were no longer around to explain its opaque workings. Such a shadowed existence led, unsurprisingly, to superstition. It had borne many names through the slow creep of years. The Dark Star. Old Unfathomable. The Eater of the Dead. Thousands more across hundreds of languages. That last name was given for a particular oddity of the ancient station. Its gravity obeyed no known rules. Instead, it seemed almost hungry. It pulled in debris and ships, a train of wreckage and ruin that spiralled in from the stars to be consumed into the lightless hull. There in the belly of the beast everything was slowly absorbed. Perhaps that was how it repaired itself. Perhaps it was how it learned. Perhaps it was growing. There was no one to ask.

Tolkien`s translation of Voluspa The younger gods again shall meet in Idavellir’s pastures sweet, and tales shall tell of ancient doom, the Serpent and the fire and gloom, and that old king of Gods recall his might and wisdom ere the fall. There marvellous shall again be found cast in the grass upon the ground the golden chess wherewith they played when Ásgard long ago was made, when all their courts were filled with gold in the first merriment of old. A house I see that standeth there bright-builded, than the Sun more fair: o’er Gimlé shine its tiles of gold, its halls no grief nor evil hold, and there shall worthy men and true in living days delight pursue. Unsown shall fields of wheat grow white when Baldur cometh after night; the ruined halls of Ódin’s host, the windy towers on heaven’s coast, shall golden be rebuilt again, all ills be healed in Baldur’s reign.

They were so nice. What happened? “Well, I do ruin everything I touch.

Keep looking at me like that, Atarah, and I'll ruin our friendship.

Long ago, during the 'Kingdom Reign', the 'power' of Dy5topia lay in the hands of Royalty who employed 'death squads', deemed Undertakers, to 'keep the fear'. Now these Kingdoms have 'fallen' into ruin and their remnants are sprinkled throughout the known regions of Dy5topia.

Meanwhile, the people of Solomon split their kingdom in two during the reign of his son, with the remnants taking the name of Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel fell to foreign occupation first, with Judah following in 609 BC when the Babylonians swept in. Twelve years later King Jeconiah, grandfather to the legendary Zerubbabel, was taken from Judah along with many others in the first wave of the Babylonian captivity. In 586 BC the second deportation completed this task of taking the Hebrew people into exile, and the Temple of Solomon, having been sacked many times by others, was now utterly destroyed and left in ruins.

Looks like it’s morphin’ time, boys.

Madame Lorraine was a rich French woman who lived in an old mansion, which she inherited from her husband. The family had already had many possessions, however, they were ruined in the Revolution. For defending the monarchy, they lost their titles, lands and servants. Madame Lorraine's husband, the old Earl, died in the Reign of Terror, as did her children. The wife, however, had hidden the jewelry at the beginning of the revolution and had left in secret for Switzerland. After the restoration, she returned to France, but with few resources she had, she bought a house in Paris. She complained of loneliness and adopted a little orphan, named Juliette, who she used as a servant. When the girl complained about being overworked, as she had to take care of the entire house alone, her stepmother told her: “your complaints hurt me, you see, I lost everything and I only have you, your mother didn't want you, but I I adopted you and took care of you and you don’t even appreciate that.” The girl, then, victim of emotional blackmail, got used to serving, without complaining. The problem is that every day more and more was demanded – the girl never reached perfection, said Madame Lorraine: “look at the silverware, look at the floor, look at the walls, you will never be able to get married”. However, Madame Lorraine did not tell the girl that perfection is never achieved: it is just a resource to dominate the poor in spirit, who see in the light of their own craft a hope of transcendence. Another thing that Madame Lorraine had not taught the girl – even if the Revolution had taught humanity: that they were free. The girl then grew older and became an object of exploitation every day, her arms becoming weaker, her mind increasingly taken over by obedience. One day, the girl went to the market in the square, and hardly talked to anyone – Madame Lorraine told her that everyone wanted to abuse her and that she shouldn't trust anyone. That day, however, she was exhausted and stopped at a farmer's stand selling tomatoes and said to her: “young man, what's your name, I always see you running around here and you never talk to anyone”. She decided to talk to him: “I'm the old widow's daughter, she says that everyone wants to exploit me, that I shouldn't trust strangers”. The salesman, already aware of the girl's situation from the stories that were circulating in the village, said to her: “Isn't it just the opposite, girl, maybe you haven't learned a lie all your life and now you're trying harder and harder to keep this lie as if it were the truth – see, God made everyone free.” The girl then quickly returned to the house, but doubt had entered her heart and there she began to take root and grow. Until, one day, the old lady released the drop that would overflow her body and said to her: “Well, Juliette, you don't do anything right, look how my dresses are, you didn't sew them perfectly”. The girl then got up, looked the vixen in the eyes and said: “if it’s not good, do it yourself” and left. It is said that she married the farmer in the sale and, from that day on, she was the best wife in the world. Not because she did everything with great care, with an almost divine perfection, that she was modest or because she had freed herself from the shrew who exploited her, but simply because she recognized the value of freedom itself.

RANCOR like

„We're in Hell.” „That's not going to stop me, babe. The world is already burning around us. Why not have a little fun while it goes up in flames?

Grumpiness is a sin. It is, I think, particularly endemic among males. It is the kind of sin we tolerate and smile at, the kind we indulge as we return to the castle of our home and find it to be not completely to our liking. It is an emotion we cherish in our man caves at the twilight of a day ruined by interruptions and hassles or small children and annoying people. It is an attitude of heart and mind nurtured by the reign of self-pity, and from which the subjects of our self-made kingdom can suffer great harm because they have not treated us as we think we deserve.

a girl obsessed with wrath and ruin

My mother says each snowflake is a different Wheel, and that they represent all the ways it can turn, all the choices we could make, and how the world can be remade by them.” Samira stepped beside Naime, catching more snow to examine as she spoke.

But wouldn’t she always wonder? She did not want to live a lifetime never knowing what it felt like to be kissed by someone who she actually wanted to kiss. Naime rose up on her knees and pressed her mouth softly to his, her breath held, slipping her hands to rest on his shoulders. She pulled immediately away, unsure. “I don’t know how.” Makram slid off the trunk, landing on his knees in front of her, wrapping his arm around her waist to draw her against him. “I know you don’t.” He brushed his mouth over the bridge of her nose, then her cheek, then her brow, burning her with the tenderness of it. “I know I shouldn’t touch you or let you touch me. I shouldn’t speak to you, I shouldn’t look at you.” “But I like all of those things,” she protested breathlessly, her mind fogged. “I can’t stop,” he said. “I am trying and failing.” “Then,” she began, tingles of anticipation and shyness arcing across her lips and down her throat, “teach me.” “Yes, Sultana.” The pupils of his eyes broke open, spilling black night across the irises.

In eastern Oregon and Washington, where grazing reigns supreme, an estimated 90 percent of the sage biome is gone.

He selected a fried patty of falafel

like he was about to sweep the board in chess.

Thank you for coming, San,

hope this Merlin guy knows how to send us back. Somehow I doubt it.” “We’ll find a way, Steve,” Alex said and she smiled at me in a way I have never been smiled at. My heart beat a little faster. I quickly looked away. “It’s, uh, getting dark now. I think we’re safe to move closer.” Alex tucked her strawberry blond hair behind an ear and cleared her throat. “Right. Of course. Let’s go save someone else’s kingdom, why don’t we.” She hit the button and we flew over the edge of Camelot. Looking down, I saw the different rings of the city, the ruined parks, the buildings burned to rubble, and the refugees living in the ruins. The sad sight gave us all a spark of determination to see Mordred’s reign brought to a swift end. Arthur stood on the drawbridge with his green-cloaked soldiers. With the roar of the pistons and the great distance, we heard nothing of his words, but afterward were told he gave a great and heroic speech, informing the gatekeeper of the detailed history of each of his warriors—the many brave feats they had performed.

Nothing! thou elder brother even to Shade: That hadst a being ere the world was made, And well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid. Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not, When primitive Nothing Something straight begot; Then all proceeded from the great united What. Something, the general attribute of all, Severed from thee, its sole original, Into thy boundless self must undistinguished fall; Yet Something did thy mighty power command, And from fruitful Emptiness’s hand Snatched men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land. Matter the wicked’st offspring of thy race, By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace, And rebel Light obscured thy reverend dusky face. With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join; Body, thy foe, with these did leagues combine To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line; But turncoat Time assists the foe in vain, And bribed by thee, destroys their short-lived reign, And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again. Though mysteries are barred from laic eyes, And the divine alone with warrant pries Into thy bosom, where truth in private lies, Yet this of thee the wise may truly say, Thou from the virtuous nothing dost delay, And to be part with thee the wicked wisely pray. Great Negative, how vainly would the wise Inquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise, Didst thou not stand to point their blind philosophies! Is, or Is Not, the two great ends of Fate, And True or False, the subject of debate, That perfect or destroy the vast designs of state— When they have racked the politician’s breast, Within thy Bosom most securely rest, And when reduced to thee, are least unsafe and best. But Nothing, why does Something still permit That sacred monarchs should at council sit With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit, While weighty Something modestly abstains From princes’ coffers, and from statemen’s brains, And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns? Nothing! who dwell’st with fools in grave disguise For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise, Lawn sleeves, and furs, and gowns, when they like thee look wise: French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy, Hibernian learning, Scotch civility, Spaniards’ dispatch, Danes’ wit are mainly seen in thee. The great man’s gratitude to his best friend, Kings’ promises, whores’ vows—towards thee may bend, Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.

Action is better than the little lies we tell with apology, isn’t it?

For today, thanks to recently discovered documents, the evidence shows that in the early days of their accession to power, the Nazis in Germany set out to build a society in which there simply would be no room for Jews. Toward the end of their reign, their goal changed: they decided to leave behind a world in ruins in which Jews would seem never to have existed

The truth is that Jesus didn’t come to rescue us from our humanity; He entered into our humanity to rescue us from our sinfulness. He didn’t come to save us from being sexual creatures; He became one of us to save us from the reign of sin and lust, which ruins our sexuality. That

You and me, princess? Your wisdom and my words? Together, we’re a brilliant fucking force. We can reign supreme and bring an army to its knees. I’m all in, Sweet Thorn.” “As am I,” I replied. “All in. With you.

I could never fear you,” she said against his mouth. “You are etched in my heart.

Tell me to stay,” he said. She took a slow, audible breath. “I did. You’re here.” His gaze hardened on hers. “No, not the night. Ask me to stay with you. Ask me to stay forever.

When they were apart she was not confronted with the reality of someone who no longer shared her memories.

Tareck’s breath rushed out in a soundless laugh. “Your wounded pride is showing. That probably isn’t allowed in Tamar either.” “Have I ever mentioned how much I hate you?” Makram said under his breath. “Frequently. Shall we?

I like you at my side, Naime.” “I am the firstborn, so I believe you’re at my side, by rank,” she teased. Makram opened his eyes and ducked his chin, a slow smile spreading over his mouth. “All right, Sultana. I am at your side. Command me.