Saga Boy Quotes

It is easy to kill with a bow, girl. How easy it is to release the bowstring and think, it is not I, it is the arrow. The blood of that boy is not on my hands. The arrow killed him, not I. But the arrow does not dream anything in the night.

Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.

Oh, Vixus," I say with a sigh, keeping the tremble of anger and fear out of my voice. "Vixus, Vixus, Vixus. There are no boys like me.

Be proud, Bonito, pretty boy. You can go home and tell your father, Yes, I beat up Ender Wiggin, who was barely ten years old, and I was thirteen. And I had only six of my friends to help me, and somehow we managed to defeat him, even though he was naked and wet and alone--Ender Wiggin is so dangerous and terrifying it was all we could do not to bring two hundred.

Is this how you repay my goodness--with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.

It must be a hard thing, to be a father; living in fear that your daughter would meet a boy she liked, but also having to worry if she didn't.

It's a McLaren SLR 722 Roadster." "How big is it?" "It's a convertible." "Will a tiger fit?" "No. It seats only two, but the boys are man half the day now." "Is it more than $30,000?" He squirmed and hedged, "Yes, but-" "How much more?" "Much more." "How much more?" "About $400,000 more." My mouth dropped open. "Mr. Kadam!" "Miss Kelsey, I know it's extravagant, but when you drive it, you will see it's worth every cent." I folded my hands across my chest. "I won't drive it." He looked offended. "That car was meant to be driven." "Then you drive it. I'll drive the Jeep." He looked tempted. "If it will appease you, perhaps we can share it." Kishan clapped his hands. "I can't wait." Mr. Kadam wagged a finger at him. "Oh, no! Not you. We'll get you a nice sedan. Used.

I am no slave. This is my city! " Lada snorted. "And I am the queen of Byzantium." She turned on her heel, pulling Radu along. "I will see you again!" the boy called. It was not a question, but a command. "I will burn your city to the ground." Lada called back over her shoulder.

Men call him father, liberator, warlord, Slave King, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the war-torn planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-third of his life.

They created a strange tableau: rabid boy, trapped girl, bombed-out building. It suggested a tale that could only end in tragedy. Star-crossed lovers meeting their fate. A revenge story turned in on itself. A war saga that took no prisoners.

I was in disbelief that I’d just explained my dreary life to this bizarre, beautiful boy who may or may not despise me. Bella Swan

The Golds dance in pairs, Obsidians in threes, Grays in dozens,” he told me. “We dance alone, because only alone do Helldivers drill. Only alone can a boy become a man.

If you ever have to make a choice between learning and inspiration, boy, choose learning. It works more of the time.

Everything we do means something, Ender realized. Them laughing. Me not laughing. He toyed with the idea of trying to be like the other boys. But he couldn’t think of any jokes, and none of theirs seemed funny. Wherever their laughter came from, Ender couldn’t find such a place in himself.

Boys... You're all idiots

I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the only rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher. I will devise the strategy of your army, and you will learn to be quick and discover what tricks the enemy has for you. Remember, boy. From now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose.

Sharing a life threads more than flesh and blood together. It weaves her memories in and around and through mine. The more I know of her, the more I share of her, the more I love her in a way the boy I used to be never knew how to love. Eo was a flame, dancing against the wind. I tried to catch her. Tried to hold her. But she was never meant to be held. My wife is not as fickle as a flame. She is an ocean. I knew from the first that I cannot own her, cannot tame her, but I am the only storm that moves her depths and stirs her tides. And that is more than enough.

Only a teenage boy would agree to this: deceiving both our parents while repairing dangerous vehicles using money meant for my college education. He didn't see anything wrong with that picture. Jacob was a gift from the gods.

He must have forgotten that in the mind of a boy, a warning isn’t much different from an invitation.

He had realised that most vital of humanities. he had touched lives. And he had raised three boys that no one had wanted into men.

It's raining in Washington tonight. Plump, warm summer rain that covers the sidewalks with leopard spots. Downtown, elderly ladies carry their houseplants out to set them on the fire-escapes, as if they were infirm relatives or Boy Kings. I like that.

One young boy, asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, a fireman or pilot or such, answered: "Alive.

Mingo went toward his cabin, but turning at the door, he looked back at George. “Hear me, boy! You thinks you’s sump’n special wid massa, but nothin’ don’t make no difference to mad, scared white folks! Don’t you be no fool an’ slip off nowhere till this blow over, you hear me? I mean don’t!

Can't choose where you come from, Seth. My boys and you know that better than anyone. But you can choose where you end up, and how you get there.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience.

The bad boy, the good girl and a leather belt.

You scared the shit out of boys. You were always too smart, too dangerous, for some foreign water–blooded pretty face in a uniform, don’t you know that? For his own sake, he figured it out before you did, is all.

He toyed with the idea of trying to be like the other boys. But he couldn’t think of any jokes, and none of theirs seemed funny. Wherever their laughter came from, Ender couldn’t find such a place in himself. He was afraid, and fear made him serious.

He couldn't go into his army's barracks -- he had long since learned that the best commanders stay away unless they have some reason to visit. The boys have to have a chance to be at peace, at rest, without someone listening, to favor or despise them depending on the way they talk, and act, and think.

Perhaps it's called the end of the world because it's the end of the games, because I can go to one of the villages and become one of the little boys working and playing there, with nothing to kill and nothing to kill me, just living there. As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what "just living" might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.

His strut reminded her of a smiling serial killer, oh yeah, he'd kill you, but boy, he'd have lovely manners while he did it.

Remember, I know what you are inside. Just a scared boy who tried to kill himself when he was too weak to save his wife from hanging.

You ran miles and miles to find me, didn’t you? You clever boy! I don’t know if I should be scolding you or hugging you!” And with that, I wrapped my weak arms around my knight in furry armor. “You’re the best friend a girl could ever have, Maze. I love you.

IT'S MORNING, TIME to get up, so get up, Arturo, and look for a job. Get out there and look for what you'll never find. You're a thief and you're a crab-killer and a lover of women in clothes closets. You'll never find a job! Every morning I got up feeling like that. Now I've got to find a job, damn it to hell. I ate breakfast, put a book under my arm, pencils in my pocket, and started out. Down the stairs I went, down the street, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, sometimes foggy and sometimes clear. It never mattered, with a book under my arm, looking for a job. What job, Arturo? Ho ho! A job for you? Think of what you are, my boy! A crab-killer. A thief. You look at naked women in clothes closets. And you expect to get a job! How funny! But there he goes, the idiot, with a big book. Where the devil are you going, Arturo? Why do you go up this street and not that? Why go east - why not go west? Answer me, you thief! Who'll give you a job, you swine - who? But there's a park across town, Arturo. It's called Banning Park. There are a lot of beautiful eucalyptus trees in it, and green lawns. What a place to read! Go there, Arturo. Read Nietzsche. Read Schopenhauer. Get into the company of the mighty. A job? fooey! Go sit under a eucalyptus tree reading a book looking for a job.

Kalmar nodded. "I'm sorry, Papa. I wasn't strong enough." "None of us are, lad. Me least of all." Esben smiled and took a rattling breath. "But it's weakness that the Maker turns to strength. Your fur is why you alone loved a dying cloven. You alone in all the world knew my need and ministered to my wounds." Esben pulled Kalmar closer and kissed him on the head. "And in my weakness, I alone know your need. Hear me, son. I loved you when you were born. I loved you when I wept in the Deeps of Throg. I loved you even as you sang the song that broke you. And I love you now in the glory of your humility. You're more fit to be the king than I ever was. Do you understand?" Kalmar shook his head. Esben smiled and shuddered with pain. "A good answer, my boy. Then do you believe that I love you?" "Yes, sir. I believe you." Kalmar buried his face in his father's fur. "Remember that in the days to come. Nia, Janner, Leeli - help him to remember.

I am not a twenty-two-year-old boy; I am not a besotted fool. If you think to jilt me, think again. For I will not turn tail and run the other way as he did, oh no. I will find you, and I will drag you to the altar on your back if need be, no matter how you might be screaming. No matter how scandalous it might be.

And it’s been so long since most of our boys have sailed they hardly know a poop deck from a chamber pot!

The boy in the pearl gray suit could have been Jane's twin. His hair was darker, and his lips were not as full, but he was just as lovely.

Teenage Turn-Ons As played by Robert Pattinson in the Twilight Saga movies, Edward has a certain physical sex appeal thanks in part to the the actor's handsome features. but the appeal in both the movies and the novels has nothing to do with a bad-boy energy that so often translates into sexiness because, really, even when he's full-out vamp, there isn't that much of a bad boy to be found in his character. Curiously, the sexiness of the vampire Edward comes from his safeness. He is the ultimate fantasy man. Described in overly ripe prose, his physical perfection is glorious. He might be a little cool to the touch-but gosh! Look at him! He's youthful, with a perfect body, or the sort of man found in the pages of a million romance novels. And most important, he will do what ever it takes to keep his beloved Bella safe, whether the danger comes from the world or himself.

Oil and Water, Daddy calls us. At four years younger than me, Katie is only fourteen and she already has half the boys in town eating from her pretty little hand. She tells me I am too tall and too wicked looking to capture the heart of any sensible young man.

Wicked eyes are not a good prospect for seminary boys. They want a gentle, soft sort of wife, not a wife who looks as though she may sprout wings and carry off the young children of the village. ~Maria "Smythe

The image of a teenage boy dressed in a black uniform, his babyish face partly obscured by an official looking cap, paralysed every muscle and nerve in her body. The pink telegram loomed large in her line of sight...

This boy, whom death loved dearly for his years of worship, for the souls he’d sent like offerings to death’s altar, made him a deal - an offering of his own: immortality for service.

Are you all right,” he whispered, his lips brushing the tips of my spiky hair. Granted, I knew he was only being discreet so as to save poor Hillary from being reamed again, but my knees didn’t know the difference. They betrayed me, buckling under his hot breath on my ear and the deep whisper that tickled my senses.

Within months, Ray Quinn had died, but he'd kept his word. He'd kept it through the three men he'd made his sons. Those men had given the scrawny, suspicious, and scarred young boy a life. They had given him a home, and made him a man. Cameron, the edgy, quick-tempered gypsy; Ethan, the patient, steady waterman; Phillip, the elegant, sharp-minded executive. They had stood for him, fought for him. They had saved him. His brothers.

I thought speakers didn't believe in sin," said a sullen boy. Andrew smiled. "You believe in sin, Styrka, and you do things because of that belief. So sin is real in you, and knowing you, this speaker must believe in sin.

What did this portend? He still breathed, the instruments did not change, his heart beat on. But he called to Peter. Did this mean that he longed to live the life of his child of the mind, Young Peter? Or in some kind of delirium was he speaking to his brother the Hegemon? Or earlier, his brother as a boy. Peter, wait for me. Peter, did I do well? Peter, don't hurt me. Peter, I hate you. Peter for one smile of yours I'd die or kill. What was his message?

One day, a boy decided to break the rules. Like in most children's stories, he then had an adventure. This experience taught the boy that those aforementioned rules were there for a reason. But he also learned another important lesson... that one should break rules as often as possible. Because who the hell doesn't want to have an adventure?

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.” William Cowper

As Boy had once heard his father say: Your desire will tell you who you are, you can’t reason with a boner – it’s as simple as that!

So I wasn’t hallucinating; the boy was really there. He looked exactly the same as he had in my dreams, except… dry, and wearing FUBU.

The boys have to have a chance to be at peace, at rest, without someone listening, to favor or despise them depending on the way they talk act and think.

The other boys started to complain that pushing off walls was movement, not combat. "There is no combat without movement," Ender said.

Each time I returned to my wife, I told her that her boys died well. There's no such thing.

I hunger for an opportunity to bash in the heads of a few Church boys, creepy little geldings that they are.

We’ll never again be the boys we once were, Tomas. But we’ve become so much more than we dreamed.

My heart breaks for who you were," he says. "For that boy who watched his wife die. My heart broke in that garden. It breaks now knowing all you suffered.

Storm’s coming, boys. Doesn’t bode well, not with the moonrise tonight.

It's not the substance that hooks you, it's the emotions," he explained. "There is a crack somewhere in our spirits, and we have to heal that before anything.

Revolution? You’re an idiot. You don’t even know what that word means. Forget your precious Mao and Che and Fidel. If they’ve appeared on a T-shirt, they haven’t changed shit. You want revolution, look at Alexander Fleming. Penicillin transformed the world in ways Lenin and Washington only dreamt of. Now sit down and shut up, you autocratic frat boy. It’s adult swim.

I had a mother who read to me Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea. Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth; "Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath. I had a Mother who read me lays Of ancient and gallant and golden days; Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe, Which every boy has a right to know. I had a Mother who read me tales Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales, True to his trust till his tragic death, Faithfulness lent with his final breath. I had a Mother who read me the things That wholesome life to the boy heart brings- Stories that stir with an upward touch. Oh, that each mother of boys were such! You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be -- I had a Mother who read to me.

Archimedes was a mathematician," blurted Ethan from the back of the room. "And he was Greek. And he invented things." Ethan was the sort of student who was always keeping score--if he couldn't be the first to declare his knowledge of something, he would make certain you understood that he'd known it already. One day he would be declared the winner, and there would be a Smartest Boy trophy and a parade.

How could any boy know that freedom is lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain

It was terrible enough that the Twice Lucky had been shamed, that the restaurant’s kitchen had harbored jade thieves, but for the two boys to be publicly slain right next to the buffet dessert table—no business could survive the stain of such bad luck.

My stomach gurgled at the mention of food. “Cake?” “Huh?” She wrinkled her nose. “For breakfast?” Oh boy. This girl needed to learn the proper way to live life, and it was up to me to show her. Sliding off the bed, I hooked arms with her. “Nina, any time is cake time.

He clapped delightedly and stood. “Here you are!” “Where are we?” Lada asked. “In my chambers!” “And who are you, to earn such esteem from the devil?” Radu elbowed her. The boy’s smile turned wicked. “Why, I am the son of the devil himself. Mehmed the Second, son of Murad.

Because I don’t want my final days in this universe to be filled with pity and sorrow. I want to spend this time doing what I like best for the people I care about most.” “But… you don’t even know me.” “Maybe not, but lord do you ever talk in your sleep. It’s clear you love my boy very much.

Well, she’s a deepspace mulebitch, all right,” Pytha murmurs in a monotone delivery that erodes punctuation and inflection. “Probably packing a hundred million credits of iron. Slag me but that’s a crew I’d like to be on.” “Must you swear so early in the morning?” I ask. “Shit, sorry, moon boy. Forgot to mind my fucking manners.

Pax screams his name, and he screams mine as he conquers the citadel almost single-handedly. He picks a boy up by the leg and uses him as a club.

I love guys on the inside. I go inside boys all the time.

whatever stupid thing you were doing, you stupid boy with your stupid stupidness.

I’m starting to wonder if taking hostages was such a good idea.

Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess.” Edna Woolman Chase

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Falling in love Is the best way to kill your heart Because it’s not yours anymore. It’s laid in a coffin, Waiting for cremation.” Ville Valo

He wanted the one woman he couldn't have. The one female who had grown immune to his good looks and his bad-boy charm. The only one he felt, he had ever connected with on a deeper level.

A riding crop and a blindfold don’t make it BDSM. There is a big difference between being kinky and being in the scene. It’s not a sexual thing to me; it’s a very spiritual thing.” Domina Blue

When things are good, it is because we remember a time when they were not. When there was pain. But now the pain is gone, so things are ‘good’. When we hurt, it is because we recall a time when we did not. When there was no pain. But now we suffer, so things are ‘bad’. The tiger sipped from the cup, peering at the boy over the rim. Stars swirled in its eyes. “Good. Bad. The cup holds both.

You’re too young to remember, but your father was the best friend I ever had. And when he left, I promised him I’d watch over you. And your mother and your sister, too, but especially you, because it’s hard for a boy to grow up without a father. A lot of men who turned out bad might have ended up different if only they’d had a man to guide them, to keep them straight when they turned the wrong way.

Surrounded by them, she would growl, “Let me tell a story . . . ” “Please!” the children would chorus, wriggling in anticipation. And she would begin in the way that all Mandinka storytellers began: “At this certain time, in this certain village, lived this certain person.” It was a small boy, she said, of about their rains, who walked to the riverbank one day and found a crocodile trapped in a net. “Help me!” the crocodile cried out. “You’ll kill me!” cried the boy. “No! Come nearer!” said the crocodile. So the boy went up to the crocodile—and instantly was seized by the teeth in that long mouth. “Is this how you repay my goodness—with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.” The boy refused to believe that, so the crocodile agreed not to swallow him without getting an opinion from the first three witnesses to pass by. First was an old donkey. When the boy asked his opinion, the donkey said, “Now that I’m old and can no longer work, my master has driven me out for the leopards to get me!” “See?” said the crocodile. Next to pass by was an old horse, who had the same opinion. “See?” said the crocodile. Then along came a plump rabbit who said, “Well, I can’t give a good opinion without seeing this matter as it happened from the beginning.” Grumbling, the crocodile opened his mouth to tell him—and the boy jumped out to safety on the riverbank. “Do you like crocodile meat?” asked the rabbit. The boy said yes. “And do your parents?” He said yes again. “Then here is a crocodile ready for the pot.” The boy ran off and returned with the men of the village, who helped him to kill the crocodile. But they brought with them a wuolo dog, which chased and caught and killed the rabbit, too. “So the crocodile was right,” said Nyo Boto. “It is the way of the world that goodness is often repaid with badness. This is what I have told you as a story.” “May you be blessed, have strength and prosper!” said the children gratefully.

An interesting side effect of the battle was that Ender emerged at the top of the soldier efficiency list. Since he hadn’t fired a shot, he had a perfect record on shooting—no misses at all. And since he had never been eliminated or disabled, his percentage there was excellent. No one else came close. It made a lot of boys laugh, and others were angry, but on the prized efficiency list, Ender was now the leader.

The boy whose arm he had broken was out for vengeance. His name, Ender quickly learned, was Bernard. He spoke his own name with a French accent, since the French, with their arrogant Separatism, insisted that the teaching of Standard not begin until the age of four, when the French language patterns were already set. His accent made him exotic and interesting; his broken arm made him a martyr; his sadism made him a natural focus for all those who loved pain in others.

Ren followed along behind me somewhere quietly. I couldn’t hear him, but I knew he was there. I was acutely aware of his presence. I had an intangible connection with him, the man. It was almost as if he were walking next to me. Almost as if he were touching me. I must have started walking down the wrong path because he trotted ahead, pointedly moving in a different direction. I muttered, “Show-off. I’ll walk the wrong way if I want to.” But, I still followed after him. After a while, I made out the Jeep parked on the hill and saw Mr. Kadam waving at us. I walked up to his camp, and he grabbed me in a brief hug. “Miss Kelsey! You’re back. Tell me what happened.” I sighed, set down my backpack, and sat on the back bumper of the Keep. “Well, I have to tell you, these past few days have been some of the worst of my life. There were monkeys, and Kappa, and rotted kissing corpses, and snakebites, and trees covered with needles, and-“ He held up a hand. “What do you mean a few days? You just left last night.” Confused, I said, “No. We’ve been gone at least,” I counted on my fingers, “at least four or five days.” “I’m sorry, Miss Kelsey, but you and Ren left me last night. In fact, I was going to say you should get some rest and then try again tomorrow night. You were really gone almost a week?” “Well, I was asleep for two of the days. At least that’s what tiger boy over there told me.” I glared at Ren who stared back at me with an innocuous tiger expression while listening to our conversation. Ren appeared to be sweet and attentive, as harmless as a little kitten. He was about as harmless as a Kappa. I, on the other hand, was like a porcupine. I was bristling. All of my quills were standing on end so I could defend my soft belly from being devoured by the predator who had taken an interest. “Two days? My, my. Why don’t we return to the hotel and rest? We can try to get the fruit again tomorrow night.” “But, Mr. Kadam,” I said an unzipped the backpack, “we don’t have to come back. We got Durga’s first gift, the Golden Fruit.” I pulled out my quilt and unfolded it, revealing the Golden Fruit nestled within. He gently picked it up out of its cocoon. “Amazing!” he exclaimed. “It’s a mango.” With a smirk, I added, “It only makes sense. After all, mangoes are very important to Indian culture and trade.” Ren huffed at me and rolled onto his side in the grass.

All those boys and girls out there, once they’d passed through the Hitler Youth and the Labor Service and the army, they were like the children in the saga, children who’d been raised by wild animals to rip apart and devour their own mothers.

just call me dweebish?” I asked. “What exactly does that mean, anyway?” “It means reeking little boys who run off and get special powers so their brothers can't beat the crud out of them anymore.” Everyone tried to laugh, but it was very weak.

down the hallway. “Come back to your room; I got you some new clothes, and breakfast, too!” My stomach gurgled at the mention of food. “Cake?” “Huh?” She wrinkled her nose. “For breakfast?” Oh boy. This girl needed to learn the proper way to live life, and it was up to me to show her.

I am here because I am the one that must love Peter so much that he can feel worthy, worthy enough to bear to let the goodness of Young Valentine flow into him, making him whole, making him Ender. Not Ender the Xenocide and Andrew the Speaker for the Dead, guilt and compassion mingled in one shattered, broken, unmendable heart, but Ender Wiggin the four-year-old boy whose life was twisted and broken when he was too young to defend himself. Wang-mu was the one who could give Peter permission to become the man that child should have grown up to be, if the world had been good.

Are you serious?” he asks in confusion as though I misunderstand something as basic as gravity. “Boy, allegiances crumble as soon as we board that shuttle. Some of your friends will be spirited away to the Moon Lords. Others will go to the Governors of the Gas Giants. Even a few to Luna. They will remember you as a legend of their youth, but that is it. And that legend will brook no loyalty. I’ve stood where you stand. I won my year, but loyalty isn’t found in these halls. It is the way things are.” “It is the way things were,” I say harshly, suprising him. But I believe what I say. “I am something different. I freed the enslaved and let the broken mend themselves. I gave them something you older generations can’t understand.” He chuckles, irritating me. “That is the problem with youth, Darrow. You forget that every generation has thought the same.” “But for my generation it is true.” No matter his confidence, I am right. He is wrong. I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.

Don't daydream in the middle of class, teachers love to pick on students who aren't paying attention. Their weird teacher radar goes off. They have special chips implanted in their heads after graduating college. Ones that help them weed out slackers. Seriously, your teachers are probably cyborgs or talking octopuses on a mission to destroy earth.

If Titus raped a little girl who happened to be a Red, how would you feel?” She doesn’t know how to answer. The Law does. Nothing would happen. It isn’t rape unless she wears the sigil of an elder House like Augustus. Even then, the crime is against her master. “Now look around,” I say quietly. “There are no Golds here. I’m a Red. You’re a Red. We are all Reds till one of us gets enough power. Then we get rights. Then we make our own law.” I lean back and raise my voice. “That is the point of all this. To make you terrified of a world where you do not rule. Security and justice aren’t given. They are made by the strong.” “You should hope that is not true,” Mustang says quietly to me. “Why?” “Because there is a boy here like you.” Her face takes on a gloomy aspect, as though she regrets what she must say. “My Proctor calls him the Jackal. He is smarter and crueler and stronger than you, and he will win this game and make us his slaves if the rest of us go about acting like animals.” Her eyes implore me. “So please, hurry up and evolve.

Graff had deliberately set him up to be separate from the other boys, made it impossible for him to be close to them. And he began now to suspect the reasons behind it. It wasn’t to unify the rest of the group—in fact, it was divisive. Graff had isolated Ender to make him struggle. To make him prove, not that he was competent, but that he was far better than everyone else.

Oh, stand up, Radu.” Lada grabbed his shirt and yanked him upright. “He is a stupid boy. If even the tutors are allowed to beat him, I doubt the head gardener is under his command. He is probably a pampered captive, like us.” She felt no sympathy for the boy. He reminded her of what she was—powerless, young—and it made her angry. The boy stood, stomping a foot. “I am no slave. This is my city!” Lada snorted. “And I am the queen of Byzantium.” She turned on her heel, pulling Radu along. “I will see you again!” the boy called. It was not a question, but a command. “I will burn your city to the ground,” Lada called back over her shoulder. The boy’s only response was a burst of surprised laughter. Lada was shocked when her lips answered with their first smile in weeks.

Ren moved just a smidgen closer to me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then…waited. When I opened my eyes, he was still staring at me. He really was waiting for permission. There was nothing, and I mean nothing I wanted more in the world at that moment than to be kissed by this gorgeous man. But, I ruined it. For some reason, I fixated on the word permission. I nervously rambled, “What…umm…what do you mean you want my permission?” He looked at me curiously, which made me feel even more panicky. To say I had no experience with kissing would be an understatement. Not only had I never kissed a boy before, I’d never even met a guy I wanted to kiss until Ren. So, instead of kissing him like I wanted to, I got flustered and started coming up with reasons to not do it. I babbled, “Girls need to be swept off their feet, and asking permission is just…just…old-fashioned. It’s not spontaneous enough. It doesn’t scream passion. It screams old fogy. If you have to ask, then the answer is…no.” What an idiot! I thought to myself. I just told this beautiful, kind, blue-eyed, hunk of a prince that he was an old fogy. Ren looked at me for a long moment, long enough for me to see the hurt in his eyes before he cleared his face of expression. He stood up quickly, formally bowed to me, and avowed softly, “I won’t ask you again, Kelsey. I apologize for being so forward.” Then he changed into a tiger and quickly ran off into the jungle, leaving me alone to berate myself for my foolishness. I shouted, “Ren, wait!” But it was too late. He was gone. I can’t believe I insulted him like that! He must hate me! How could I do that to him? I knew I only said those things because I was nervous, but that was no excuse. What did he mean he would never ask me again? I hope he asks me again. I replayed my words over and over again in my mind and thought of all the things I could have said that would have given me a better result. Things like, “I thought you’d never ask” or “I was just about to ask you the same question.” I could have just grabbed the man and kissed him first. Even just a simple “Yes” would have done the trick. I could have said dramatically, “As you wish,” “Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time,” or “You had me at hello.” He’d never seen the movies, so why not? But, no, I had to go on and on about “permission.” Ren left me alone the rest of the day, which gave my plenty of time to kick myself.

Wax shouldered the strange gun, then put his hand on Wayne’s arm. “Yeah. I know. But maybe your ma was right about the bad guy being a mesa. Being the land itself. Maybe that’s what she was saying, Wayne: It’s the world that we have to worry about. Individual men, yes, they can be evil. But we should worry more about the world itself making them so.” “What do you mean?” “Well,” Wax said, “do you think you’d have fallen in with the Plank Boys if your mother hadn’t died in that accident?” “Absolutely not,” Wayne said. “Nearly every man I’ve had to shoot? He had a story like yours. It’s the sort of thing Marasi is always talking about. You have to stop the Blatant Barms of the world, yes. But if you can create a world where fewer boys grow up alone … well, maybe you’ll have far fewer Blatant Barms to face in the future. Maybe that was what your mother was saying.

These were my countrymen, these were the new Californians. With their bright polo shirts and sunglasses, they were in paradise, they belonged. But down on Main Street, down on Towne and San Pedro, and for a mile on lower Fifth Street were the tens of thousands of others; they couldn't afford sunglasses or a four-bit polo shirt and they hid in the alleys by day and slunk off to flop houses by night. A cop won't pick you up for vagrancy in Los Angeles if you wear a fancy polo shirt and a pair of sunglasses. But if there is dust on your shoes and that sweater you wear is thick like the sweaters they wear in the snow countries, he'll grab you. So get yourselves a polo shirt boys, and a pair of sunglasses, and white shoes, if you can. Be collegiate. It'll get you anyway. After a while, after big doses of the Times and the Examiner, you too will whoop it up for the sunny south. You'll eat hamburgers year after year and live in dusty, vermin-infested apartments and hotels, but every morning you'll see the mighty sun, the eternal blue of the sky, and the streets will be full of sleek women you never will possess, and the hot semi-tropical nights will reek of romance, you'll never have, but you'll still be in paradise, boys, in the land of sunshine. As for the folks back home, you can lie to them, because they hate the truth anyway, they won't have it, because soon or late they want to come out to paradise, too.

I learned then that unlike Hollywood, Bollywood does not exist as a physical place, and some deplored the name, arguing that it made the Indian film industry look like a poor cousin of Hollywood. Yet, the name stuck, and “Bollywood” has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary as the sobriquet for Hindi cinema. Though it is often used incorrectly as synecdoche to refer to the whole of Indian cinema, in reality, it is only a part of the large Indian film industry – a large part, which remains a sizable centre for film production in the world. 

I don't have time to learn how to fucking skate!" "I suppose you don't have to," said Hermes. "You can just fly all the way there like that." Dionysus gritted his teeth. "Come on, big boy. Just treat it like a sit-up. Once you are upright, your weight will help you land." "Treat it like a sit-up," Dionysus mocked, yet he tried, tightening his abs and swinging up. The first time, he only made it halfway, the second a little farther. His third attempt had him doing a complete flip. "Fuck!" "You almost had it," said Hermes. "I know I almost had it, Hermes! I don't need your commentary!" He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm just trying to be helpful." "Well, don't." "Fine. You suck at this.

We continued our coitus reservatus as I mounted my lover in the lotus position. We closed our eyes to relish our unhurried gyrations, stirring an ardent tranquillity within ourselves that defied space and time. We lost track of time in this meditative equilibrium. All we experienced was the intimate connection our souls shared in our consummate union. Our spirits intertwined into a blissful state which the Hindus call Nirvana, the union with Brahman, the divine ground of existence, and the experience of seraphic egolessness. We were at once the Alpha and the Omega, the Yin and the Yang, the Front and the Back, the Positive and the Negative. “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male (masculine) and female (feminine) into a single entity, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female… then you will enter [the kingdom],” I remembered Jabril quoting from the gnostic Apostle Thomas.

When Wen was seventeen years old, she'd sharpened a kitchen knife and slashed the tires on her brother's bicycle. She never told Kehn, who gave on of the neighbor boys a beating over it. After that, Kaul Hilo came around their house in his car every day to pick up Kehn and Tar when the three of them went around town together, junior Fingers fresh out of the Academy, hungry to win jade and earn their reputations. Every day, Wen walked out to the Duchesse to bid her brothers goodbye and to welcome them home. Hilo once laughed as he pulled up to see her standing in the rain. He said she was the kindest and most devoted sister he'd ever met, that his own sister would never do such a thing. Wen had to admit with some chagrin that she had been a lovesick teenage girl, but she hadn't simply pined uselessly. A small thing like a ruined bicycle could change fate, just as a stone-eye could tip the scales in a clan war. She searched now for the one thing she could say that would make Hilo turn towards her, the way he used to when he rolled down the window and leaned across the seat with a grin. But she was too weary. 'I have to go back out there,' Hilo said. Wen turned onto her side. She felt the pressure of him lift off the mattress, and when the next burst of light from the fireworks struck the room, it lit empty space.