Serena Joy Quotes

Serena Smith,” he began gravely. “From this heartbeat until my last, I share your blood and bone, joy and grief. No words or acts could make me turn from you. You are my pack, my kin, my home.” - AKOE

Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn't do this herself, she made speeches instead, but she presented this failure of hers as a sacrifice she was making for the good of all.

The room smells of lemon oil, heavy cloth, fading daffodils, the leftover smells of cooking that have made their way from the kitchen or the dining room, and of Serena Joy's perfume: Lily of the Valley. Perfume is a luxury, she must have some private source. I breathe it in, thinking I should appreciate it. It's the scent of pre-pubescent girls, of the gifts young children used to give their mothers, for Mother's Day; the smell of white cotton socks and white cotton petticoats, of dusting powder, of the innocence of female flesh not yet given over to hairiness and blood. It makes me feel slightly ill, as it I'm in a closed car on a hot muggy day with an older woman wearing too much face powder. This is what the sitting room is like, despite its elegance.

Joy is the whole game, not just the end game

Partway through, I thought about Serena Joy, sitting down there in the kitchen. Thinking: cheap. They'll spread their legs for anyone. All you need to give them is a cigarette. And I thought afterwards: this is a betrayal. Not the thing itself but my own response. If I knew for certain he's dead, would that make a difference? I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.

He comes at last, with a stifled groan as of relief. Serena Joy, who has been holding her breath, expels it. The Commander, who has been propping himself on his elbows, away from our combined bodies, doesn’t permit himself to sink down into us. He rests a moment, withdraws, recedes, rezippers. He nods, then turns and leaves the room, closing the door with exaggerated care behind him, as if both of us are his ailing mother. There’s something hilarious about this, but I don’t dare laugh.

The Commander puts his hand to his head. What have I been saying, and to whom, and which one of his enemies has found out? Possibly he will be a security risk, now. I am above him, looking down; he is shrinking. There have already been purges among them, there will be more. Serena Joy goes white. "Bitch," she says. "After all he did for you." Cora and Rita press through from the kitchen. Cora has begun to cry. I was her hope, I've failed her. Now she will always be childless. The van waits in the driveway, its double doors stand open. The two of them, one on either side now, take me by the elbows to help me in. Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing: I have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can't be helped. And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.

Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn't do this herself, she made speeches instead, but she presented this failure of hers as a sacrifice she was making for the good of all. Around that time, someone tried to shoot her and missed; her secretary, who was standing right behind her, was killed instead. Someone else planted a bomb in her car but it went off too early. Though some people said she'd put the bomb in her own car, for sympathy. That's how hot things were getting. Luke and I would watch her sometimes on the late-night news. Bathrobes, nightcaps. We'd watch her sprayed hair and her hysteria, and the tears she could still produce at will, and the mascara blackening her cheeks. By that time she was wearing more makeup. We thought she was funny. Or Luke thought she was funny. I only pretended to think so. Really she was a little frightening. She was in earnest.

I look at the one red smile. The red of the smile is the same as the red of the tulips in Serena Joy’s garden, towards the base of the flowers where they are beginning to heal. The red is the same but there is no connection. The tulips are not tulips of blood, the red smiles are not flowers, neither thing makes a comment on the other. The tulip is not a reason for disbelief in the hanged man, or vice versa. Each thing is valid and really there. It is through a field of such valid objects that I must pick my way, every day and in every way. I put a lot of effort into making such distinctions. I need to make them. I need to be very clear, in my own mind. I feel a tremor in the woman beside me. Is she crying? In what way could it make her look good? I can’t afford to know. My own hands are clenched, I note, tight around the handle of my basket. I won’t give anything away. Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.

There is no possible way for the average human mind to grasp it; the totality of the evil. It involves everyone; it goes everywhere. The blackness is so black that it becomes a living entity that devours all joy, all happiness, all virtue, all goodness, and all life.” – Sister Serena, Leader in the Underground Railroad, South America, 2085

Aw, Rach, I know you’re hurting right now. I don’t mean to lecture, but you should try to find your joy in the Lord, not in circumstances.” Serena reached for Rachel’s hand. “Things will change in your life. People will come and go. If you get your joy from those things, it will never last. The only person who is unchanging in our lives is Christ. Get your joy from Him, and then no matter what else happens, even when it’s painful, the undercurrent of joy will still be there. Rachel

They have a piano in town," Cade said. He'd stood outside Clark's barn any number of times, listening to the intertwining of notes, contemplating making such a joyful noise. The player hadn't been expert, but he'd never heard anything like it before. Apparently this was news to Lily. She looked up at Cade with something akin to excitement burning in the pale blue of her eyes. "Really? Why didn't anyone tell me?" Then she shut up and her gaze drifted to the pasture beyond the trees. Her husband had known. He could see that suspicion forming on her face. "I suppose that's what they do in town on Saturday nights," she murmured. "Jim told me it was too rowdy to stay after dark." "The other women stay," Cade said without inflection. Lily had never been close to her sisters, but she had grown up in a household of females and missed the feminine discussions and laughter and shared secrets. Juanita couldn't fill that need entirely; she had been too damaged by her past. Lily didn't know much about the town ladies, but there was no reason she couldn't meet them somehow, if she put her mind to it. "I wish I could hear the piano," Lily said. Actually, she wished she had a right to play the piano, but that was beyond her ability to speak. "I'll take you in if you wish to go." Lily surprised herself by saying, "I would like that, thank you. I don't think Juanita would mind watching Serena, and my father can look after Roy. Do they have other instruments besides the piano?" Cade stroked the flute as he gazed on the woman sitting boldly in the grass before him. He had never met anyone quite like her before. She was white and female, which should put her completely out of bounds for any conversation at all. But she was his boss, and as such, there had to be a certain amount of communication. She wore trousers like a man, and to a certain extent she spoke like a man, but he couldn't treat her with the same deference as Ralph Langton or with the scorn he felt for the ignorant farmhands he worked with. If she had been a whore, he could have had certain expectations, but she was a lady. How the hell should he treat a lady who wore pants? "Fiddles, sometimes," he responded while he struggled with the problem. "Is there dancing?" she asked anxiously. It was then that Cade realized that this woman didn't see categories as other people did. She saw people through the eyes of a child, as they related to her. It was rather amusing to realize that he had been avoiding her to keep from offending her ladylike sensibilities, when she was more likely offended by his avoidance than his presence. That's what he got for assuming all white women were alike. "They dance," he agreed. Cade

When he was hidden in shadows, he looked up at the night sky. He had no choice. He pressed his hands against his forehead, trying to think of another possibility. There was none. He wiped at the hot tears stinging his eyes, then slowly he lifted his arms to the fathomless black sky. He could endure anything if he knew Serena was safe. Anything. "Father of night and evil, I call you." A primitive vibration trembled in the air. He knew the Atrox was near. "Allow me to cross over and become your servant again." A deadly cold throbbed through him with the ancient rhythm of evil. "I come freely," Stanton added and felt something collapse inside him. "Take me back to the night." Spears of lightning crackled across the sky and a concussion boomed through the earth, releasing the sulfurous smells of hell. Then a raven-black cloud seeped up from the ground and hovered around him. Stanton held an image of Serena's face deep inside him as he breathed the icy spirit of the Atrox back into his body. The chill seeped deep inside him, wintry tentacles reaching down to his bones. The Atrox embraced him and welcomed him back to its congregation. Its raw power surged through him and when Stanton opened his eyes, he again ruled the night. The world around him seemed sharper now, as if he could see in the dark. His pain was gone and in its place he felt a dark joy. He grinned as the wild rapture seized him. This time he was no longer invitus. Evil pulsed through him without guilt or worry, consequence or remorse. He breathed in the feel of it, then leaned back and became a black mist, hissing into the air.

While motherhood has been one of her greatest joys, she also wants to let the world in on how challenging it can be to juggle everything on her plate.

The world knows me as someone who puts so much time and hard work into my game and through it all I’ve realized you have to find the joys that make the journey worth it.

Victory is temporary, but joy is eternal. Grateful for all of the joyful moments, big and small.

I don’t mean to lecture, but you should try to find your joy in the Lord, not in circumstances.” Serena reached for Rachel’s hand. “Things will change in your life. People will come and go. If you get your joy from those things, it will never last. The only person who is unchanging in our lives is Christ. Get your joy from Him, and then no matter what else happens, even when it’s painful, the undercurrent of joy will still be there.

So it is guilt that you are not sadder?" he asks. "That you feel wrong for being happy?" I suspect that's it. That I feel as if I'm betraying their memories by having a good day, or one that doesn't involve crying or aching sadness. I feel guilty that I'm spending so much time with Thrand and that he makes me so happy. "I think so." "That is a difficult thing." Thrand watches me eat. "I would be sad if Vordis was not here with me. At the same time, I think I would wish for him to get over his sadness quickly. Not because I want him to forget me, but because it would grieve me that he would suffer for a long time. Would your sisters want you to be sad?" I take another bite, thinking. "No," I whisper, aching. He's right. Serena, Alexis and Jordan would squeeze me in hugs and tell me that I need to live. They're such driven, strong, successful people that they would want me to take a moment, and then get over the sadness and move on. I don't want them to be sad, either. I want them to think of me with joy, to smile at our memories. My eyes sting with tears, but I feel better than I have in a while. "Thank you, Thrand." He reaches up and cups my cheek. "You are allowed to be sad. Just do not let it take all the happiness, too. Life is meant to be enjoyed.

So he sings,” he continued as if Denny had said nothing. “His solo mio, that with her in his life he is rich because she is so beautiful that she makes the sun more beautiful, you understand?” And at that he dropped the hoe, closed his eyes and spread out his arms wide and with the fading sun shining on his handsome face he sang: Che bella cosa è na jurnata 'e sole n'aria serena doppo na tempesta! Pe' ll'aria fresca pare già na festa Che bella cosa e' na jurnata 'e sole Ma n'atu sole, cchiù bello, oi ne' 'O sole mio sta 'nfronte a te! 'O sole, 'o sole mio sta 'nfronte a te! sta 'nfronte a te! It looked like fun. We dropped our tools and joined him, belting out something that sounded remarkably like Napolitano. We sang as loud as we could, holding on to each note as long as we could before we ran out of breath, and then we sang again, occasionally dropping to one knee, holding our hands over our hearts with exaggerated looks of deep pain. Although we made the words up, we sang with the deepest passion, with the best that we had, with all of our hearts, and that made us artists, great artists, for in that song, we had made all that art is: the creation of something from nothing, fashioned with all of the soul, born from joy. And as that beautiful summer sun set over Waterbury, the Brass City, the City of Churches, our voices floated above the wonderful aromas of the garden, across the red sky and joined the spirits in eternity.

What's going on under Serena Joy's canopy, is not exciting. It has nothing to with passion or love or romance or any of those other notions we used to titillate ourselves with. It has nothing to do with sexual desire, at least for me, and certainly not for Serena. Additional and organ are no longer thought necessary; they would be a symptom of frivolity merely, like jazz garters or beauty spots ; superfluous distractions for the light-minded. Outdated.

I think you are sweet and lovely and enchanting and... very innocent." She raised her chin and glared at him through her tears. "I'm not the saint thou thinkest I am." He smiled. She doubted even he realized how natural that condescending, patronizing smile was to him. How it made her want to shake her fist in his face. Instead, she reached up on tiptoe and touched her lips to his, wanting more from him, but somehow knowing it would only come this way. "Not a saint, eh?" He smiled against her mouth, and she pulled back, cheeks aflame. She hadn't gotten very far away before he caught her and gathered her up close into his arms, his lips claiming hers, the force of his will in the kiss. She was swept away as before, but this time she felt the thoughts of right or wrong slipping, drowned in their heat. All her reasoning why she could not fall in love with him faded as she lost herself, floating on the sensation of his mouth against hers. Minutes passed... exploring minutes... discovering minutes. Time stood still, and yet it seemed so short when he pulled suddenly away and gasped out, "My God!" These words were no curse. They were more a prayer. Suddenly Drake laughed, and Serena's spirit soared that she had caused him such joy as that sound carried. She had banished the ghosts in his eyes, if only for a little while. He smiled, and it was one Serena had not yet seen- pure and real- not meant to mean anything different than what it was. "What magic you weave. You always pull me out of the darkness.

Will Serena Joy talk about me like that, if I do as she wants? Agreed to it right away, really she didn’t care, anything with two legs and a good you-know-what was fine with her. They aren’t squeamish, they don’t have the same feelings we do. And the rest of them leaning forward in their chairs, My dear, all horror and prurience. How could she? Where? When?