“
There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #3))
“
The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.
”
”
David W. Orr (Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World (The Bioneers Series))
“
I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
“
The guy stroked his goatee. "What do you call twenty guys watching the world series?"
"The New York Yankees," Butch replied.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #1))
“
Spouses and lovers may come and go, but our children are our children forever.
”
”
Patricia D'Arcy Laughlin (Sacrifices Beyond Kingdoms: A Provocative Romance Torn Between Continents and Cultures (The Sacrifices and Kingdoms Series Book 2))
“
You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. Only the sun has come this close, only the sun.
”
”
Shauna Barbosa (Cape Verdean Blues (Pitt Poetry Series))
“
I always knew there was no one who is going to accept my flaws and understand my brokenness.And i knew it very well that nobody would hold my hand when the wind of darkness overcome my life so i just pushed them,i pushed them all away.
”
”
Carl W. Bazil
“
Choose your partners wisely. Always use protection, and always protect your heart.
”
”
Patricia D'Arcy Laughlin (Sacrifices Beyond Kingdoms: A Provocative Romance Torn Between Continents and Cultures (The Sacrifices and Kingdoms Series Book 2))
“
When my assistant strolled into my office one idle Tuesday morning, I had no way of knowing this would be the moment everything changed. A series of dominoes tipping with a clack, all leading to an unexpected and crazy end. One I fear I won't ever recover from.
”
”
Kelly Moran (Exposure)
“
Don't be an asshole"
Rhage summed up the regurgitation with two words: "Kettle.Black."
Fucking hell. "Did you guys plan that out?"
"Yeah and if you don't fight us"- Hollywood bit down on the grape Tootsie Pop-"we'll do it again- only with the dance moves this time"
"Spare me."
"Fine.Unless you agree to home it,we WILL rock the dance moves." To prove the point ,the moron linked his palms behind his head and started doing something obscene with his hips. Which was backed up by a series of,"Uh-huh,uh-huh,ohhhh, yeeeeeeah,who's your daddy..."
The others looked at Rhage like he'd grown a horn in the middle of his forehead. Nothing unusual there. And Tohr knew that, in spite of this ridiculous diversion,if he didn't cave,the lot of them would crawl so far up his ass,he'd be coughing up shitkickers.
Rhage wheeled around,shoved out his butt,and started slapping his moneymaker like it was bread dough.
"For the love of the Virgin Scribe,"Z muttered "put us out of this misery, and go the fuck home"
Someone else chimed in, "You know, I never thought there were advantages to being blind..."
"Or deaf"
"Or mute," somebody added
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #10))
“
There are full series I love whose last chapter I’ve never read. I hate the feeling of something ending.
”
”
Emily Henry (Book Lovers)
“
America, my dear, I hope you find something, in this cage worth fighting for.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
“
It's been written that a lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him.
”
”
Emily Thorne
“
Bedtime is daytime,
and we come into bloom
after midnight.
”
”
Lenore Kandel (Collected Poems of Lenore Kandel (Io Poetry Series))
“
Fucking hell. "Did you guys plan that out?"
"Yeah, and if you don't fight us"--Hollywood bit down on his grape Tootsie-Pop--"we'll do it again--only with dance moves this time."
"Spare me."
"Fine. Unless you agree to home it, we will rock the dance moves.". To prove the point, the moron linked his palms behind his head and started doing something obscene with his hips. Which was backed up by a series of, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, ohhh, yeeeeeeaaaah, who's your daddy....
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #10))
“
I love you," he whispered. "In all my life, its been only you.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1))
“
The road for hell for me is paved with everything I would do for you, and that list never fucking ends.
”
”
J. Bree (Broken Bonds (The Bonds that Tie, #1))
“
And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun/ And she forgot the blue above the trees,/ And she forgot the dells where waters run,/ And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;/ She had no knowledge when the day was done,/ And the new morn she saw not: but in peace/ Hung over her sweet basil evermore,/ And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.
”
”
John Keats (Keats: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series))
“
Scusi mia bella*, but it runs in the blood of all Italians to be skillful lovers. So you have to get used to this.
”
”
Olga Goa (Fateful Italian Passion)
“
You can't be gone. I need you here, with me. What am I going to do without you?
”
”
Patrick Carman (Pulse (Pulse, #1))
“
There's something to say about inspiration - when it comes into your life...the feeling is insatiable.
”
”
Ann Marie Frohoff (First Kiss (Heavy Influence, #1))
“
Somehow my soul remembers it all, hers doesn't.
”
”
Hope Irving (Twice upon a Time (The Black Angel Book Series, #1))
“
The guy stroked his goatee. “What do you call twenty guys watching the World Series?” “The New York Yankees,” Butch replied. The vampire laughed in a loud burst, whipped the baseball cap off his head, and slapped it on his thigh.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #1))
“
With painstaking rumination, the tips of his fingers grazed over my neck, a deafening silence. I didn't move as his hand paused at the base of my throat. He listened to the arrhythmic beating of my heart, my pulse thumping beneath his fingers. He kissed me along my neckline and throat. I almost burst apart from the longing. My blood burned for him.
”
”
Rae Hachton
“
He wasn’t looking for a soulmate. That would require having a soul to share, and he’d sold his off long ago
”
”
Miranda Liasson (Heart and Sole (Kingston Family #1))
“
Mr. Normal stepped forward and offered him a Scotch bottle. "You look like you could use some."
Yeah, you think? Butch took a swig. "Thanks."
"So can we kill him now?" said the one with the goatee and the baseball hat.
Beth's man spoke harshly. "Back off, V."
"Why? He's just a human."
"And my shellan is half-human. The man doesn't die just because he's not one of us."
"Jesus, you've changed your tune." "So you need to catch up, brother." Butch got to his feet. If his death was going to be debated, he wanted in on the discussion. "I appreciate the support," he said to Beth's boy. "But I don't need it."
He went over to the guy with the hat, discreetly switching his grip on the bottle's neck in case he had to crack the damn thing over a head. He moved in tight, so their noses were almost touching. He could feel the vampire heating up, priming for a fight.
"I'm happy to take you on, asshole," Butch said. "I'll probably end up losing, but I fight dirty, so I'll make you hurt while you kill me." Then he eyed the guy's hat.
"Though I hate clocking the shit out of another Red Sox fan."
There was a shout of laughter from behind him. Someone said, "This is gonna be fun to watch."
The guy in front of Butch narrowed his eyes into slits. "You true about the Sox?"
"Born and raised in Southie. Haven't stopped grinning since '04."
There was a long pause.
The vampire snorted. "I don't like humans."
"Yeah, well, I'm not too crazy about you bloodsuckers."
Another stretch of silence.
The guy stroked his goatee. "What do you call twenty guys watching the World
Series?"
"The New York Yankees," Butch replied.
The vampire laughed in a loud burst, whipped the baseball cap off his head, and slapped it on his thigh. Just like that, the tension was broken.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #1))
“
Since then her life had been peaceful and happy. She had allowed herself to be worshipped by that strangely captivating lover of hers, whose passionately willful temperament, tempered by that persistent, sunny gaiety, she had up to now only half understood.
”
”
Emmuska Orczy
“
B-b-but who will I have cleaning marathons with?”
“Casey. I’ll be there in spirit.”
“She’s not neurotic and cranky like you.”
“You’ll miss that, ay?”
“Hell yes, I’ll miss that! When you’re obsessive and pissy, you tell those floors who’s boss. They won’t shine like that when Casey scrubs them. And don’t get me started on our Covenant Series discussions. The girl thinks Alex should pick Seth. Seth, Em. How can I clean with someone who isn’t Team Aiden? It’s like...madness. Madness on Earth. The fucking apocalypse—”
“Whitney,” I chuckled, squeezing her tighter, “I assure you, you’ll survive. The second she starts running her mouth about Aiden, just spray her with bleach. That’ll teach her a lesson.”
-Emma and Whitney
”
”
Rachael Wade (Love and Relativity (Preservation))
“
The Lord must have created coffee to reward humans for those bad times they sometimes have on Earth. Having charged your heart and brain with a cup of coffee, you’re ready to face the challenges of life. A good cup of coffee makes life seem better.
”
”
Sahara Sanders (Indigo Diaries: A Series of Novels)
“
The most crucial thing to know about true love is that, it is not something you can find, rather you need to build it with the person in whose eyes you see your soul.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality (Humanism Series))
“
We are the memory keepers and the trappers of time; stealers of stolen glances and breathless lungs from all that have been taken away. We are the noticers of subtle signs hidden in plain sight by a benevolent universe bigger than we'd ever believe...We are the directionless wanderers and the destinationless travelers and we are the crumpled map that never got packed to join us. We are the cinematic lovers and the translucent curtains saturated in light. The soundtrack to the moments without sounds and the swiftness that two bodies can become one in the stillness of a second. We, says the last string pulled out, the final string that kept it all together, balled up tight, filling us after all this time, We, are the chasers of the light.
”
”
Tyler Knott Gregson (Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series)
“
Life can be hard sometimes,” I say. “My mom and dad taught me that when you're not sure if you can keep going, you just need to take it one day at a time, one step at a time. Can you do that for me?
”
”
Krista Ritchie
“
She’s purring,” I exclaimed in delight.
“Stop taming the battlecat,” Draven said, looking slightly annoyed. “She’s a killing machine. Not a house pet.”
“Says the man who snuggled beside her all night,” I retorted.
”
”
Briar Boleyn (Queen of Roses (Blood of a Fae, #1))
“
Beauty is an illusion, created by Mother Nature to drive the human species in the path of reproduction. In reality, beauty is irrelevant to human life, especially in a relationship. What you today perceive as beautiful and special, over time, becomes not so special. That’s how the human brain works. It is not beauty that keeps a relationship alive, it is attachment. Without attachment, a naked body is merely a lifeless sex toy.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality (Humanism Series))
“
It is not beauty that keeps a relationship alive, it is attachment. Without attachment, a naked body is merely a lifeless sex toy.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality (Humanism Series))
“
Gifted Deirdre cast the spell that enabled our souls to eventually be reunited. She couldn't bear for us to be apart, and neither could I.
”
”
Hope Irving (Twice upon a Time (The Black Angel Book Series, #1))
“
What the hell are you doing with my underwear?”
He kept his response flippant. “I don’t have this color in my collection.
”
”
Miranda Liasson (Heart and Sole (Kingston Family #1))
“
Life is just a series of obstacles preventing you from reading your book.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Maybe this then was the definition of love. When you wanted someone, needed her, adored her still, even when you were utterly furious and quite ready to tie her to the bed just to keep her from going out and making more trouble
”
”
Julia Quinn (Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Bridgertons, #4))
“
I’d love to be a tabletop in Paris, where food is art and life combined in one, where people gather and talk for hours. I want lovers to meet over me. I’d want to be covered in drops of candle wax and breadcrumbs and rings from the bottom of wineglasses. I would never be lonely, and I would always serve a good purpose.
”
”
Maureen Johnson (The Last Little Blue Envelope (Little Blue Envelope, #2))
“
His power reached out to her like physical touch of a lover, sending tingles over her skin. His sculptured body moved in a sensual, yet deadly manner. Her hands itched to touch him, to feel his warm skin under her palms. She closed her eyes to stop the urge to go to him, shivered, and cursed her body for responding to him.
”
”
Lia Davis (Death's Storm (The Divinities, #2))
“
Wine knows that having passion for life is an art itself.
”
”
Talismanist Giebra (Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.)
“
And among many understandings and misunderstandings, Lany and Antony once again were victims of an illusory love...
”
”
Pet Torres (Illusory Love III (Illusory Love, #3))
“
spring time is for lovers because...it's so fresh and new!
”
”
Kim Shaw (Soul Caress (Kimani Romance Series))
“
A good cup of coffee makes life feel better.
”
”
Sahara Sanders (Indigo Diaries: A Series of Novels)
“
What she read was a series of short connected lyrics, “Isis in Darkness.” The Egyptian Queen of Heaven and Earth was wandering in the Underworld, gathering up pieces of the murdered and dismembered body of her lover Osiris. At the same time, it was her own body she was putting back together; and it was also the physical universe. She was creating the universe by an act of love.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Wilderness Tips)
“
Flight is many things. Something clean and swift, like a bird skimming across the sky. Or something filthy and crawling; a series of crablike movements through figurative and literal slime, a process of creeping ahead, jumping sideways, running backward.
It is sleeping in fields and river bottoms. It is bellying for miles along an irrigation ditch. It is back roads, spur railroad lines, the tailgate of a wildcat truck, a stolen car and a dead couple in lovers' lane. It is food pilfered from freight cars, garments taken from clotheslines; robbery and murder, sweat and blood. The complex made simple by the alchemy of necessity
”
”
Jim Thompson (The Getaway)
“
...lovers, even those who are married, always exist autonomously of one another, no matter how close they are or how long they've known each other. That's why jealously can flare in even the most intimate relationships.
Because you know that at some basic level this person exists separately from you. No mater how close you are, the landscape of their life is always tinted a different hue than your own." - Hunter to Joanna
”
”
Vicki Pettersson (The Neon Graveyard (Signs of the Zodiac, #6))
“
Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of pure disappointments than in a series of substitutions. Continually it had happened that what she had desired had not been granted her, and that what had been granted her she had not desired. So she viewed with an approach to equanimity the now cancelled days when Donald had been her undeclared lover, and wondered what unwished-for thing Heaven might send her in place of him.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (The Mayor of Casterbridge)
“
I think every day about how we’re all here because of a series of little miracles we know nothing about. The miracles that brought me right here, sitting in this chair beside you. What they sacrificed so I could live.
”
”
Beatriz Williams (Husbands & Lovers)
“
If a man keeps the law, I know he is a lover of his neighbour. But he is not a lover because he keeps the law: he keeps the law because he is a lover. No heart will be content with the law for love. The law cannot fulfil love.
”
”
George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons Series I., II., and II.)
“
Nothing is more hallowing than the union of kindred spirits in art. At the moment of meeting, the art lover transcends himself. At once he is and is not. He catches a glimpse of Infinity, but words cannot voice his delight, for the eye has no tongue. Freed from the fetters of matter, his spirit moves in the rhythm of things. It is thus that art becomes akin to religion and ennobles mankind. It is this which makes a masterpiece something sacred. In the old days the veneration in which the Japanese held the work of the great artist was intense. The tea-masters guarded their treasures with religious secrecy, and it was often necessary to open a whole series of boxes, one within another, before reaching the shrine itself--the silken wrapping within whose soft folds lay the holy of holies. Rarely was the object exposed to view, and then only to the initiated.
”
”
Kakuzō Okakura (The Book of Tea)
“
Beauty is irrelevant to human life, especially in a relationship. What you today perceive as beautiful and special, over time, becomes not so special. That’s how the human brain works. It is not beauty that keeps a relationship alive, it is attachment. Without attachment, a naked body is merely a lifeless sex toy.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality (Humanism Series))
“
When I read, my mind had the tendency to wander around, embroiling itself in the common points between the plots and my life, feeling empathy for the characters' inner struggles, almost as if they were merging with my personal conflicts.
”
”
Catia M Rodrigues (Dubhán Reborn (The Oporto Series, #1))
“
While a child breathes, a smile blooms and a hope lives.
”
”
Nastaran Aghajani
“
Best wines with character have abyss within.
”
”
Talismanist Giebra (Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.)
“
Enjoy the wine, don’t spill the night…
”
”
Talismanist Giebra (Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.)
“
They’d used sex instead of communication in the past, and it had turned out disastrously.
”
”
Miranda Liasson (Heart and Sole (Kingston Family #1))
“
I always thought 'love at first sight' was silly and incredibly irresponsible. Then, you came along and you flipped it on me. I understand it now. I do! ~Sheriff Derrick Decker
”
”
Laney Smith (Lock Creek: In Their Own Time (Time Capsule Series))
“
The lover of God never knows the words “too much.” Those who accuse others of loving God or religion too much really do not love God at all, nor do they know the meaning of love.
”
”
Fulton J. Sheen (Three to Get Married (Catholic Insight Series))
“
Suddenly I see myself as another, as another would be seen, outside myself, available to all, available to all eyes, in circulation for cities, journeys, desire.
”
”
Marguerite Duras (The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities: Introduction by Rachel Kushner (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series))
“
I see you truly for everything you are and everything you will be and I claim you as mine.
”
”
Briar Boleyn (Court of Claws (Blood of a Fae, #2))
“
Mm…hmm. I bet he’s helping you. Right into his bed and you’d be a fool not to test him out. Shit. From what you’ve told me, any woman would love to be in that man’s bed. I bet he’s got a nice cock and is a sweet lover too
”
”
Alyson Raynes (Fixer of Deceit (Fixer Series, #1))
“
I stroke them, and they always like that, because old people don’t have anyone who touches them, and I get them hooked on a TV series, because nobody wants to die before the final episode. Some of them find comfort in prayer, but there are lots of atheists here, and they don’t pray. What’s most important is not to leave them on their own.
”
”
Isabel Allende (The Japanese Lover)
“
It was Draven. He’d come up behind me. I jumped for a second time that morning, unable to help myself, then glared up at him. “How did you even do that?”
“I have the ears of an exmoor and the tread of a fenrir,” he said with a smirk.
“I’d say comparing yourself to wild animals was fitting, except the exmoor seems highly intelligent,” I muttered.
”
”
Briar Boleyn (Queen of Roses (Blood of a Fae, #1))
“
A Blessing on the Poets
Patient earth-digger, impatient fire-maker,
Hungry word-taker and roving sound-lover,
Sharer and saver, muser and acher,
You who are open to hide or uncover,
Time-keeper and –hater, wake-sleeper, sleep-waker;
May language’s language, the silence that lies
Under each word, move you over and over,
Turning you, wondering, back to surprise.
”
”
Annie Finch (Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan Poetry Series))
“
There was something to be said for the stoicism of a native New Englander. Not much riled them besides a World Series loss or another region claiming to have the best pizza—everyone knew the best was from New Haven’s brick ovens in Wooster Square.
”
”
Jenn McKinlay (Killer Research (Library Lover's Mystery, #12))
“
I let my eyelids fall closed. In my mind, Draven’s voice rang out over and over, shouting my name. His voice was more powerful than the sea. More primordial than the stars. My name was on his lips as he promised unspeakable darkness to any who came between us.
”
”
Briar Boleyn (Queen of Roses (Blood of a Fae, #1))
“
To the skeptics, perhaps the events that are to follow were just a coincidence and nothing more than a series of random accidents that led me to where I am today. But to the lovers and poets and dreamers, perhaps you might agree that the story about to unfold is something more. You might even agree that there are times when coincidences are so powerful that they don’t really seem like coincidences anymore. Times when you come across events that seem too strange, or too strong, to be anything other than Fate—a grand design that incorporates everything from the career paths we take, the friends we meet along the way, and the partners we choose to spend our lives with. Times like these make you question that maybe nothing in this world happens by accident. Maybe everything really does happen for a reason, as some prewritten destiny slowly takes shape and shoves you down a path—or in my case, a mountain side.
”
”
Kayla Cunningham (Fated to Love You (Chasing the Comet Book 1))
“
Love is not the primeval surge of libidinal lust that a person receives when meeting a suitable partner for the first time. Love in the truest sense of the term is born much later in a relationship, when both sides get to the know the truest selves of each other.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality (Humanism Series))
“
He saw her legs first. Ankle boots met her bare calves, and the tops of her knees were hidden under a maroon, long-sleeved body-con dress. His gaze momentarily flitted to her breasts, which were pushed up and toward him. He was only human, after all, and they were really amazing breasts. He was used to seeing her in conservative wardrobe choices for the show, or the casual-date look she'd had at the pumpkin patch and ice-cream shop. In this fitted, sleek dress that showed off every one of her curves, though, she looked...
”
”
Erin La Rosa (For Butter or Worse (The Hollywood Series #1))
“
Come on, Oliver. I’m saying no.”
“Is it a fake no? Because your body keeps saying yes.”
“My body doesn’t know anything.”
“What does your heart say?”
“That’s number one on my list of unenlightened organs. It believes anything it hears. It’s screwed up in some way.
”
”
Elisa Marie Hopkins (A Diamond in the Rough (Diamond in the Rough series book 1))
“
You think I don’t know what I want? You think I love the idea of relying on my looks for life? No! It’s pathetic! In my head, I have a nice, quiet, normal job that involves me running my own business. I carry a briefcase around my office with important documents, I have a nice assistant who calls me boss, and people ask me questions—they ask for my advice because I matter! I’m important to them! I’m recognized as something more than a pretty face and a pair of legs. I have a brain and interests and thoughts about religion, and poverty, and economics. I’m not a miserable girl with a number attached to her chest, stripping her clothes off in a room full of people.
”
”
Elisa Marie Hopkins (A Diamond in the Rough (Diamond in the Rough series book 1))
“
His first thought as he stared death in the face was that he was never going to meet his daughter. At least not on this side of the Fade. His second and final was that he couldn't believe he'd never told Blay he loved him. In all the minutes and hours and nights of his life, in all the words he'd spoken to the male over the years they'd known each other, he'd only ever pushed him away. And now it was too late.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #11))
“
He may say he is different. He may want to be different. He may even go so far as to become your lover. But he'll always feel guilty and dirty. He'll be ashamed to be seen with you and try to blame you for his own desires. He'll claim you seduced him or that you are somehow irresistible because you're Haldiim. If the two of you are discovered together, he'll press charges to save himself. That's how Cadeleonian men are.
”
”
Ginn Hale (Lord of the White Hell, Book 1 (The Cadeleonian Series, #1))
“
Using the word “lovers” (from #H157 אֹהֲבֶ֑) is extremely generous. When we compare God’s definition of “love” at 1Cor 13:4-13, we have to wonder: what sick reality is Judah living in? What else should she expect? No matter. Unfulfilled expectations. Despite her youth and good looks, it didn’t turn out the way she imagined. On this night, she was frightened, in tears, enslaved by a former lover, Babylon. (Mt 23:37)
Lamentations, pg 5
”
”
Michael Ben Zehabe (Lamentations: how narcissistic leaders torment church and family (The Hidden Series))
“
So if I asked you to wear my skirt and juggle my high heels, you would?” I joked.
I could only see Andrew's face in profile, but a grin overtook his earlier grim expression, and he laughed. “I draw the line at wearing women’s clothing.”
“Are you sure?” I whispered seductively, nibbling on his earlobe.
“That’s cheating,” he said, his breath hitching.
I kissed down his neck. “If all else fails, I’ll never rule out using my womanly wiles.”
“I refuse to be used as a pawn by my devious lover,” he countered, grinning.
I abruptly pulled away from him. “Ah, well, it never hurts to try.
”
”
Laura Kreitzer (Fallen Legion (Timeless, #4))
“
You left and I cried tears of blood. My sorrow grows. Its not just that You left. But when You left my eyes went with You. Now, how will I cry? The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.
”
”
John Balkh (Rumi Poetry: 101 Quotes Of Wisdom On Life, Love And Happiness (Rumi Poetry, Sufism and Love Poems Series))
“
Life is made up of a series of lies. Love? It’s a fairytale some person made up, so they didn’t have to face the cold, hard fact that we are all alone. You come into this world alone, and you leave it alone. Loneliness, it’s the one the thing we fear most. It means you’re forgotten, you’ve been rejected, or you’re overlooked.
”
”
Michelle Horst (Heartless (Enemies to Lovers #1))
“
Toulouse is to lose.
Good on us,
That one never lied
And said it’s still alive.
A full life is a series
Of incompletions.
Whole with holes.
Entirely fragmented.
Carrying one-days,
Sentences,
Old lovers,
And looks.
Absolutes turn men and women
Into machines that need
Numbers to work.
But people were never meant to work
Just to live.
”
”
Kristian Ventura (The Goodbye Song)
“
Just imagine that you have a soulmate, destined numerically to pair with you! You just have to find the person who has your number. Who is the 284 to your 220?
”
”
Thomas Stark (What Is Mathematics?: The Greatest Detective Story Never Told (The Truth Series Book 17))
“
You’re supposed to keep your enemies close. Therefore, it stands to reason that your sworn enemy should be kept closest.
”
”
Merry Knightly ((Self-Proclaimed) Menace To Society (The Primordial Ruins Series Book 1))
“
If a man keeps the law, I know he is a lover of his neighbour. But he is not a lover because he keeps the law: he keeps the law because he is a lover.
”
”
George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III)
“
My sense of self-preservation is wildly excited at the thought of submission. Sometimes a woman wants nothing more than to be conquered.
”
”
Rowan Rossler (The Closer (The Hustlers Series #3))
“
There is something about this wine and a jungle river at dusk when thirsty animals approach to drink. Over there you’ll find some philosophical beginnings…
”
”
Talismanist Giebra (Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.)
“
How was it that the one man who could take their company down appeared to be the only one who believed in her?
”
”
Miranda Liasson (Heart and Sole (Kingston Family #1))
“
He was making up a story, and she was buying into his bullshit. That was a recipe for disaster
”
”
Miranda Liasson (Heart and Sole (Kingston Family #1))
“
Yes," she whispered.
He kissed her forehead."Yes what,my leelan?"
"I will marry you
”
”
null
“
. . . I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.
”
”
Marguerite Duras (The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities: Introduction by Rachel Kushner (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series))
“
I was afraid of myself, afraid of God.
”
”
Marguerite Duras (The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities: Introduction by Rachel Kushner (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series))
“
The space for it existed in me. I knew it the same as other people, but, strangely, in advance.
”
”
Marguerite Duras (The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities: Introduction by Rachel Kushner (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series))
“
Had things turned out differently, I might have amused myself with a series of heart-wretched lovers. I might have dallied with brilliant men. I might have married.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects)
“
I knew you'd ruin me ... I knew I'd be in over my head ... And now here I am, drowning in you and all that you are. And I'll be damned if I want to break the surface.
”
”
Kimberly Lewis (Luke (The McKades of Texas, #3))
“
Having charged your brain with a cup of coffee, you’re ready to face some more challenges of life.
”
”
Sahara Sanders (Indigo Diaries: A Series of Novels)
“
The Lord must have created coffee to reward humans for those bad times they sometimes have on Earth.
”
”
Sahara Sanders (Indigo Diaries: A Series of Novels)
“
A good cup of coffee makes life seem better.
”
”
Sahara Sanders (Indigo Diaries: A Series of Novels)
“
Having charged your heart and brain with a cup of coffee, you’re ready to face the challenges of life.
”
”
Sahara Sanders (Indigo Diaries: A Series of Novels)
“
Love, which in gentlest hearts will soonest bloom seized my lover with passion for that sweet body from which I was torn unshriven to my doom
”
”
Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comdey: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso - The Temple Classics Series (3 Vols.))
“
I think every day about how we’re all here because of a series of little miracles we know nothing about.
”
”
Beatriz Williams (Husbands & Lovers)
“
As Euripides said: “He is not a lover who does not love forever.
”
”
Fulton J. Sheen (Three to Get Married (Catholic Insight Series))
“
Come, whoever you are! Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. This is not a caravan of despair. It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vow a thousand times, still and yet again come!
”
”
John Balkh (Rumi Poetry: 101 Quotes Of Wisdom On Life, Love And Happiness (Rumi Poetry, Sufism and Love Poems Series))
“
Cats bring home dead animals to their owners, not as presents, but because they think you stink at hunting. In their own way, they are looking out for you and making sure you don't starve!
”
”
R.V. Bowman (All About Cats: An Interactive Quiz Book for Cat Lovers (All About Animals Series 2))
“
A lover pays his court where his heart has taken root; he aims at gaining every one’s favour in that spot; and so as to have no one opposed to his flame, he endeavours to please the very house-dog.
”
”
Molière (Delphi Complete Works of Molière (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 18))
“
In the wee hours of the morning, the Edenic lovers wound themselves around each other, flesh against flesh, sleepy and sated in a large, white bed. Lightness and darkness, innocence and experience, kissed and caressed in the warmth and acceptance created by their love. The dark angel whispered to his muse in Italian until she fell asleep in his arms, happier than she had ever been. She was loved.
”
”
Sylvain Reynard (Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno Series, #1))
“
We can ask for forgiveness, from a god, from a friend, a lover, even ourselves. We can ask for forgiveness from all of the people we’ve wronged, but we can never get back the one thing we’re truly hoping to find when we asked: our innocence—the person we were before that piece of us was taken, ripped away and shattered at our feet, leaving us to learn how to pick ourselves back up and move past it.
”
”
Kristen Kehoe (Dropping In (The Vert Series #3))
“
I know it's not a question of beauty, though, but of something else, for example, yes, something else -- mind, for example. What I want to seem I do seem, beautiful too if that's what people want me to be.
”
”
Marguerite Duras (The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities: Introduction by Rachel Kushner (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series))
“
Ugh, I think I got your body spray in my mouth." She gagged for added effect.
"Makes sense." He nodded. "I felt you licking my arm."
"I know better than to eat poisonous objects," she responded with a tight smile.
”
”
Erin La Rosa (For Butter or Worse (The Hollywood Series #1))
“
...she couldn't decided what was worse, to be the latest iteration in a series of similar lovers or to be radically different from the ones who'd come before her. Belonging to a pattern was safe, at least; to be singular was a risk.
”
”
Brit Bennett (The Vanishing Half)
“
Excerpts from the Angel Handbook
Be careful how you unfold your wings --
there are some in the world who are not content
unless their teeth are full of feathers
...
You will meet some whose faces give a glw
as if they once had halos:
these are the lovers,
you will make a lot of love
and your flights, even though you are careful
to keep them invisible, will make those who love you sad:
they will not understand that you never go anyplace
you're not meant to be.
”
”
Kathleen Norris (Journey: New And Selected Poems 1969-1999 (Pitt Poetry Series))
“
However, the marriage is averted when Kallisthenes, a young man from Byzantium who has heard of Leucippe’s beauty, comes to Tyre to kidnap her, but by mistake kidnaps Calligone, setting in place a series of misadventures for the lovers.
”
”
Achilles Tatius (The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon - Complete Works of Achilles Tatius)
“
In ancient Greece, adolescence was a time when young men left their biological families to become the lovers of adult men. Sexuality was but one element of an affectional and educational relationship in which youths learned the ways of manhood
”
”
Barry D. Adam (The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement (Social Movements Past and Present Series))
“
Sometimes her heart and head are invaded by upheavals, analyses, syntheses, wrenching turmoil, bright hopes, crushed expectations, precipices around which thought wanders shivering and dazed, unable to make sense of anything. (Wartime Notebooks)
”
”
Marguerite Duras (The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities: Introduction by Rachel Kushner (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series))
“
He’d been spending more time in the past lately. He liked to close his eyes and let his memories overtake him. A life, remembered, is a series of photographs and disconnected short films: the school play when he was nine, his father beaming in the front row; clubbing with Arthur in Toronto, under whirling lights; a lecture hall at NYU. An executive, a client, running his hands through his hair as he talked about his terrible boss. A procession of lovers, remembered in details: a set of dark blue sheets, a perfect cup of tea, a pair of sunglasses, a smile. The Brazilian pepper tree in a friend’s backyard in Silver Lake. A bouquet of tiger lilies on a desk. Robert's smile. His mother's hands, knitting while she listened to the BBC.
”
”
Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven)
“
I’m wondering if I need it anymore, if we ever really need these words, “Dauntless,” “Erudite,” “Divergent,” “Allegiant,” or if we can just be friends or lovers or siblings, defined instead by the choices we make and the love and loyalty that binds us.
”
”
Veronica Roth (The Divergent Series: Complete Collection)
“
His lips might be soft, but he kissed how he played—he poured all that swagger into it, that confidence, that trust in himself, to take the shot. He kissed me like a man who never lost, a man that would go toe-to-toe with giants for a taste of my love.
”
”
Mari Kane (Alley Oops I Think I'm Falling in Love: An Enemies-to-Lovers Sports Romance (She Got Game Series Book 1))
“
The emotion between the two young lovers was a sweet tang in the air. It coated his tongue, and he licked his lips, eager for more. He shared their excitement and hope, and though he had promised himself he wouldn’t watch their love again, that promise went ignored.
”
”
Kristin L. Hamblin (Fated Born (Fated Born #1))
“
Never be done by one experience.
Lovers who broke your heart
Friends who betrayed you
Family that let you down
Opportunities \ jobs that never worked out.
Whole heap a people you still have not met yet
Whole heap a places you haven't been.
The best may yet still to come.
”
”
Crystal Evans (Every Man Deserves A Good Jacket II: Babydaddy Series (Bouncing Baby Book 2))
“
the dark lady who inspired Shakespeare’s sonnets, the lady of Arosa may remain forever mysterious.” (Unfortunately, because Schrödinger had so many girlfriends and lovers in his life, as well as illegitimate children, it is impossible to determine precisely who served as the muse for this historic equation.) Over the next several months, in a remarkable series of papers, Schrödinger showed that the mysterious rules found by Niels Bohr for the hydrogen atom were simple consequences of his equation. For the first time, physicists had a detailed picture of the interior of the atom, by which one could, in principle, calculate the properties of more complex atoms, even molecules. Within months, the new quantum theory became a steamroller, obliterating many of the most puzzling questions about the atomic world, answering the greatest mysteries that had stumped scientists since the Greeks. The
”
”
Michio Kaku (Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time)
“
However, with our lover, we have the chance to start the story of ourselves anew. Whatever we may feel about them, it is how they make us feel about ourselves that can be at the core of their appeal. In their company, we can present facets of who we are that have been sidelined in our main relationship.
”
”
The School of Life (Affairs (Love Series))
“
There’s the sorrow of losing someone we liked, but there is also the suffering caused by the unfortunate ways a lover acted at the end which tells us about them, but not really about us. We may not be able to escape the agony of a broken heart but we can always strive to keep the suffering to a wise minimum.
”
”
The School of Life (Heartbreak (Love Series))
“
And this doesn’t just mean taking physical risks. The science shows that other risks—emotional, intellectual, creative, social—work just as well. “To reach flow,” explains psychiatrist Ned Hallowell,22 “one must be willing to take risks. The lover must be willing to risk rejection to enter this state. The athlete must be willing to risk physical harm, even loss of life, to enter this state. The artist must be willing to be scorned and despised by critics and the public and still push on. And the average person—you and me—must be willing to fail, look foolish, and fall flat on our faces should we wish to enter this state.
”
”
Peter H. Diamandis (Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World (Exponential Technology Series))
“
Paradoxically, that large screen in the cavernous, crowded
room creates intimacy. And violence is an intimate act. If you
are punching someone, or if you are pinpointing someone in
the telescope of your rifle, you are as close to your victim as to
a lover, trying to think like them, anticipate their moves, overcome
them.
”
”
D.K. Holm (Quentin Tarantino (Pocket Essential series))
“
Seemed Karlie spent her whole life letting perfect moments slip through her fingers like sand through an hourglass. Now though? Now she was all grown up and was through letting anything get in her way from what she wanted. Luke McKade was her forever and, come hell or high water, she was finally going to stake her claim.
”
”
Kimberly Lewis (Luke (The McKades of Texas, #3))
“
Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? I don’t do games. I don’t do one-night stands. I don’t do affairs. Usually, when I meet a woman and take interest in her, I will be loyal to her, and only her. I expect the same. I don’t share well. I’m all for exclusiveness in everything I do, and own. I’m not afraid of commitment or hard work. You’re right; I’m not new to this. I’ve been in many relationships. This is good news, Sophie. It means I won’t waste your time. Rest assured, if I’m with you it’s because that’s exactly where I want to be. If ever I want out of a relationship, I leave. My commitment ends there. It’s simple enough and this is the only thing that makes sense to me.
”
”
Elisa Marie Hopkins (A Diamond in the Rough (Diamond in the Rough series book 1))
“
In matters of affection, the rules of engagement at Empire High were detailed yet unambiguous, an extension of procedures established in junior high, a set of guidelines that couldn't have been clearer if they'd been posted on the schoolhouse door. If you were a girl and your heart inclined toward a particular boy, you had one of your girlfriends make inquiries from one of that boy's friends. Such contact represented the commencement of a series of complex negotiations, the opening rounds of which were handled by friends. Boy's friend A might report to Girl's friend B that the boy in question considered her a fox, or, if he felt particularly strongly, a major fox. Those experienced in these matters knew that it was wise to proceed cautiously, since too much ardor could delay things for weeks. The girl in question might be in negotiations with other parties, and no boy wanted to be on record as considering a girl a major fox only to discover that she considered him merely cool. Friends had to be instructed carefully about how much emotional currency they could spend, since rogue emotions led to inflation, lessening the value of everyone's feelings. Once a level of affection within the comfort zone of both parties was agreed upon, the principals could then meet for the exchange of mementos - rings, jackets, photos, key chains - to seal the deal, always assuming that seconds had properly represented the lovers to begin with.
”
”
Richard Russo (Empire Falls)
“
It’s killing me not knowing how it ends, I tell him. It’s killing me that it’s going to end, he writes back. If I weren’t editing it, I wouldn’t finish it. Really? I write. You have that level of self-control? Sometimes. After a moment, he sends another message. There are full series I love whose last chapter I’ve never read. I hate the feeling of something ending.
”
”
Emily Henry (Book Lovers)
“
Get it off,” she said, jerking their bound wrists up and holding them up under his nose.
“I thought perhaps we might at least introduce ourselves,” he said lightly.
“Get it off!”
“What shall I call you?” he asked as he pulled her to the table and removed the silver dome on the platter. Mutton stew, by the smell of it. Not a single knife to be had. “Lover?”
“Rest assured you’ll never need to call me anything at all!” she said with admirable conviction.
“You may reduce your rancor and save it for when you might need it,” he said calmly. “I am as enchanted by this arrangement as you are. May I remove your brooch?”
“Pardon?”
“Your brooch,” he said, looking at the small gold ring-shaped brooch that held her shawl on her shoulder.
Her eyes narrowed.
Jack knew that look and gestured to their wrists. “Rein in your thoughts, lass. I need something to get it off.
”
”
Julia London (Highland Scandal (The Scandalous Series, #2))
“
Remember? We have a rematch. And this time, it’s my turn to shine.” With his goggles on, Sterling got into his stance, keeping an eye on the Professor.
“Oh? I didn’t realize that you were so dull.” I put my goggles on and took my stance as well, making sure that Professor Trinkott was within my line of vision. Challenge accepted.
“Ha, ha, joke all you want, Alvara. Just don’t come crying to me afterwards.”
“I don’t cry when I win.
”
”
iLana Markarov (The Timekeeper's Secret (Timeless Fate #1))
“
Godzilla lovers to this day still wonder precisely what attracts them. Part of the appeal is the surprising sophistication in what seems at first glance to be simple-minded Saturday matinee fare. In the wreckage left in the wake of this awesome beast lies the tattered remains of human hubris, a moral lesson left smoldering in the ruins. As series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka put it, “As long as the arrogance of human beings exists, Godzilla will survive.
”
”
David Kalat (A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series)
“
Do you think we're the only ones here?"
"When I called, they told me no one comes up on Mondays. It's just us." His gaze flitted from her mouth, back to her eyes.
Her hands traveled down the front of his shirt. A dare. "So we're all alone?"
Her mouth smelled like apples and cinnamon, and when he kissed her, she tasted like the cider they'd been drinking. He backed her up and against the tree, cradling her head as he continued to press his lips into hers.
”
”
Erin La Rosa (For Butter or Worse (The Hollywood Series #1))
“
He terrifies me, Aunt Peg.” I don’t have the backbone to say it to her face. “Oliver is such a self-contained person. He’s always so calm, so at ease, so refined. I’m the one who’s always losing my mind over nothing. He is unbelievably amazing in a way I don’t know if I can reciprocate. His voice is calm and patient. It makes me feel like he will sit me down and tell me everything’s going to be okay. And his eyes. Have you seen his eyes? They’re so kind and gentle.
”
”
Elisa Marie Hopkins (A Diamond in the Rough (Diamond in the Rough series book 1))
“
He hadn't actually lied to her about anything; she had erred in her assumptions about his life. What Archer knew about Josie was what she chose for him to know; what she knew about him was what he decided to tell her. They had reveled in their independence and now she knew that was a mistake. Understanding that made her feel lost. It was natural for a lover to believe she knew everything - intuitively, instinctively and intimately - about the man she had committed to. Wasn't it?
”
”
Rebecca Forster (Silent Witness (Witness Series, #2))
“
I do not suppose that the youth was one whom ordinary people would call a lover of money; I do not believe he was covetous, or desired even the large increase of his possessions; I imagine he was just like most good men of property: he valued his possesions--looked on them as a good.
From this false way of thinking, and all the folly and unreality that accompany it, the Lord would deliver the young man. As the thing was, he was a slave; for a man is in bondage to what ever he cannot part with that is less than himself.
”
”
George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III)
“
Don't cure me, Mother, I couldn't bear
the bath
of your bitter spittle.
No salve
no ointment in a doctor's tube, no brew in a witch's kettle, no lover's mouth, no friend
or god could heal me
if your heart
turned in anathema, grew stone
against me.
Defenseless
and naked as the day
I slid from you
twin voices keening and the cord
pulsing our common protests, I'm coming back
back to you
woman, flesh
of your woman's flesh, your fairest, most
faithful mirror,
my love
transversing me like a filament
wired to the noonday sun.
Receive
me, Mother.
”
”
Olga Broumas (Beginning with O (Yale Series of Younger Poets))
“
I wish you could see that it doesn’t matter if people reject you. I’ll be here for you, always. You’ll never have to worry about that from me. And they won’t reject you. You’re fucking talented, you’re the most talented, creative person I’ve ever met, and you’re doing amazing things. You’re kind and thoughtful and this big ball of light that people can’t help being drawn towards. I know you worry about not being good enough or never accomplishing enough, but look around you, Taylor! What more do you want? You have it all, you have…” he paused and trailed off, and she knew what he was going to say. You have me.
”
”
Melissa Gresko (Blind Items and British Boys (Thirty, Flirty and Finding Love #1))
“
There have been plenty of people in my life - family, friends, colleagues, lovers, a forecast of the usual suspects that make a person's social circle - but mine has always felt a little bent out of shape. None of the relationships I've ever formed with another human being feel real to me, more like a series of missed connections. People might recognize my face, they may even know my name, but they'll never know the real me. Nobody does. I've always been selfish with the true thoughts and feelings inside my head. I don't share them with anyone because I can't. There is a version of me I can only ever be with myself.
”
”
Alice Feeney (His & Hers)
“
Philippe d’Aunay, equerry to Monseigneur the Count of Valois, the King’s brother, had been for three years the lover of Marguerite, the eldest of Philip the Fair’s daughters-in-law. And he dared to speak thus to Blanche of Burgundy, the wife of Charles, Philip the Fair’s third son, because Blanche was the mistress of his brother, Gautier d’Aunay, equerry to the Count of Poitiers. And if he dared to speak thus to Jeanne, Countess of Poitiers, it was because Jeanne, no one’s mistress as yet, nevertheless was a party, partly from weakness, partly because it amused her, to the intrigues of the other two royal daughters-in-law.
”
”
Maurice Druon (The Accursed Kings Series: The Iron King / The Strangled Queen / The Poisoned Crown (The Accursed Kings #1-3))
“
….Nancy now gave herself to the wider problems surrounding friends and lovers, igniting her torches from theirs, yet following her own. One much disputed loyalty to an American Negro fired her to battle for recognition for his people, compiling and publishing her "Negro Anthology." Another friendship drew her to Spain during the Civil War, in which she participated actively on the side of freedom and composed a series of Spanish poems. Because of these and further deviations from the United status quo, she was refused permission to re-enter America, where she had hoped to join her closest companion, whose absence in Europe left her solitary at heart.
On Nancy Cunard
”
”
Iris Tree
“
Sand burns outside their windows in every direction. Compass needles spin in their twinned minds: everywhere they look, they are greeted by horizon, deep gulps of blue. People think of the green pastoral when they think of lovers in nature. Those English poets used the vales and streams to douse their lusts into verse. But the desert offers something that no forest brook or valley ever can: distance. A cloudless rooming house for couples. Skies that will host any visitors’ dreams with the bald hospitality of pure space. In terms of an ecology that can support two lovers in hot pursuit of each other, this is the place; everywhere you look, you’ll find monuments to fevered longing. Craters beg for rain all year long. Moths haunt the succulents, winging sticky pollen from flower to flower.
”
”
Joe Hill (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (The Best American Series))
“
And still I had not admitted to myself that I should have stopped seeing Albertine long before, for she had entered, in relation to me, that wretched period when a being, dispersed in space and time, is no longer a woman in our eyes, but a series of events on which we cannot shed light, a series of insoluble problems, a sea which, like Xerxes, we absurdly try to beat, to punish it for all that it has swallowed up. Once this period has begun, one is inevitably defeated. Happy are those who see it in time not to be drawn into a useless, exhausting battle, surrounded on all sides by the limits of our imagination, where jealousy struggles so humiliatingly that the same man who once, if the eyes of his constant companion fell for a moment on another man, imagined a conspiracy, suffered who knows what torments, may later allow her to go out alone, sometimes with the man he knows is her lover, choosing this torture which is at least familiar in preference to the terrible unknown. It is a question of finding a rhythm which one afterward follows from habit.
”
”
Marcel Proust (The Prisoner: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 5 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition))
“
1595, Richard Field, fellow-alumnus of the King Edward grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, printed The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot, abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings privie counsell, and great Amner of France, and out of French into English, by Thomas North. This was the book that got Shakespeare thinking seriously about politics: monarchy versus republicanism versus empire; the choices we make and their tragic consequences; the conflict between public duty and private desire. He absorbed classical thought, but was not enslaved to it. Shakespeare was a thinker who always made it new, adapted his source materials, and put his own spin on them. In the case of Plutarch, he feminized the very masculine Roman world. Brutus and Caesar are seen through the prism of their wives, Portia and Calpurnia; Coriolanus through his mother, Volumnia; Mark Antony through his lover, Cleopatra. Roman women were traditionally silent, confined to the domestic sphere. Cleopatra is the very antithesis of such a woman, while Volumnia is given the full force of that supreme Ciceronian skill, a persuasive rhetorical voice.40 Timon of Athens is alone and unhappy precisely because his obsession with money has cut him off from the love of, and for, women (the only females in Timon’s strange play are two prostitutes). Paradoxically, the very masculinity of Plutarch’s version of ancient history stimulated Shakespeare into demonstrating that women are more than the equal of men. Where most thinkers among his contemporaries took the traditional view of female inferiority, he again and again wrote comedies in which the girls are smarter than the boys—Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Rosalind in As You Like It, Portia in The Merchant of Venice—and tragedies in which women exercise forceful authority for good or ill (Tamora, Cleopatra, Volumnia, and Cymbeline’s Queen in his imagined antiquity, but also Queen Margaret in his rendition of the Wars of the Roses).41
”
”
Jonathan Bate (How the Classics Made Shakespeare (E. H. Gombrich Lecture Series Book 2))
“
And in fact the jealous lover is, like contemporaries, too close to the events, he can know nothing of them, and it is for the uninvolved that a series of adulteries takes on the precision of history, expanding into lists, quite dispassionate in themselves and saddening only for another jealous lover such as I was, who cannot avoid comparing his own case to the one he is hearing about, and wondering whether, for the woman he doubts, there does not exist another equally famous list. But he will never know, it is as if there is a general conspiracy, a joke of which he is the victim, in which everyone cruelly participates and which involves, while the woman he loves flits from one man to another, holding a blindfold over his eyes which he constantly tries to tear off, but without success, for everyone keeps him in the dark, poor soul, kind people out of kindness, unkind out of unkindness, vulgar people from a taste for low jokes, well-brought-up people from politeness and good manners, and everyone in observance of one of those conventions which the world calls principles.
”
”
Marcel Proust (The Prisoner: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 5 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition))
“
All the girl could remember was the terrible, irremediable tension between wanting to be somewhere and wanting to be nowhere. And the plant, crazed by its proximity to rich familiar soil, tried repeatedly to Leap out of her. This caused her hand to lift, holding a long knife, and plummet earthward, rooting into the fleshy chest of her lover, feeling deeper and deeper for moisture. The Joshua tree’s greatest victory over the couple comes four months into their stay: they sign a lease. A bungalow on the outskirts of the national park, with a fence to keep out the coyotes and an outdoor shower. When the shower water gets into their mouths, it tastes like poison. Strange reptiles hug the fence posts, like colorful olives on toothpicks. Andy squeezes Angie’s hand and returns the gaze of these tiny monsters; he feels strangely bashful as they bugle their throats at him. Four months into his desert sojourn, and he still doesn’t know the name of anything. Up close, the bungalow looks a lot like a shed. The bloated vowels of his signature on the landlord’s papers make him think of a large hand blurring underwater.
”
”
Joe Hill (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (The Best American Series))
“
Degrading oneself for the sake of the beloved reveals the disruptiveness of the love relation. The person in love agrees to sacrifice social identity for the sake of winning the other’s love. When in love, all other considerations disappear before the response of the beloved. This experience of a complete loss of one’s usual coordinates is at once the appeal and the trauma of love. Though we tend to think of love as a pleasant experience, it actually produces much more suffering than pleasure. We feel pleasure when our lives move along smoothly and with relative security, but love is always rocky and insecure. As we fall in love, we can never be sure if the other truly loves us in return, and we spend our time worrying about what the other is doing. This is why it is easy to picture the lover phoning a beloved an abundance of times when there is no answer. The lover experiences of the trauma of love with each unrequited phone call. Life no longer just goes on when we love. Instead, it bombards us with a series of traumatic jolts that preclude any peace of mind. Our very symbolic identity loses its stable coordinates.
”
”
Todd McGowan (Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets)
“
Despite such experiences Houdini never developed what we think of as a political consciousness. He could not reason from his own hurt feelings. To the end he would be almost totally unaware of the design of his career, the great map of revolution laid out by his life. He was a Jew. His real name was Erich Weiss. He was passionately in love with his ancient mother whom he had installed in his brownstone home on West 113th Street. In fact Sigmund Freud had just arrived in America to give a series of lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and so Houdini was destined to be, with Al Jolson, the last of the great shameless mother lovers, a nineteenth-century movement that included such men as Poe, John Brown, Lincoln, and James McNeill Whistler. Of course Freud's immediate reception in America was not auspicious. A few professional alienists understood his importance, but to most of the public he appeared as some kind of German sexologist, an exponent of free love who used big words to talk about dirty things. At least a decade would have to pass before Freud would have his revenge and see his ideas begin to destroy sex in America for ever.
”
”
EL Doctorow (Ragtime)
“
Listen to me, Monsieur Chaucer screwing La Princesse de Cléves. I hope he tears you to pieces and exposes you for the shallow, bungling petit con you've always been, even, and especially, in bed. I curse you and your children if they're unlucky enough to have you as a father. A curse on you — did you hear me? — a curse!" And out came a string of words in Farsi, tears, yelps, followed by an endless series of French words sobbed out of her lungs, as though she were talking not to me, not to her lover, but to her mother, pleading first, then cursing again, then apologizing for cursing, and cursing all over again. "I curse you." As in some of her most passionate moments, she had turned to Old World-speak, and if my heart was racing as she kept heaping curses upon me and on the children of my children, it was because I too, like her, came from a world where curses, like blessings, like pledges, like all protestations of enduring love are, even when you don't mean a word you're saying, binding legal tender, the currency of the soul, because once spoken, they cannot be taken back, dispelled, or parleyed with; they will hunt you down, find you, and carry out their sentence.
”
”
André Aciman (Harvard Square)
“
Uexküll begins by carefully distinguishing the Umgebung, the objective space in which we see a living being moving, from the Umwelt, the environment-world that is constituted by a more or less broad series of elements that he calls “carriers of significance” (Bedeutungsträger) or of “marks” (Merkmalträger), which are the only things that interest the animal. In reality, the Umgebung is our own Umwelt, to which Uexküll does not attribute any particular privilege and which, as such, can also vary according to the point of view from which we observe it. There does not exist a forest as an objectively fixed environment: there exists a forest-forthe-park-ranger, a forest-for-the-hunter, a forest-for-the-botanist, a forest-for-the-wayfarer, a forest-for-the-nature-lover, a forest-forthe-carpenter, and finally a fable forest in which Little Red Riding Hood loses her way. Even a minimal detail—for example, the stem of a wildflower—when considered as a carrier of significance, constitutes a different element each time it is in a different environment, depending on whether, for example, it is observed in the environment of a girl picking flowers for a bouquet to pin to her corset, in that of an ant for whom it is an ideal way to reach its nourishment in the flower’s calyx, in that of the larva of a cicada who pierces its medullary canal and uses it as a pump to construct the fluid parts of its elevated cocoon, or finally in that of the cow who simply chews and swallows it as food.
”
”
Giorgio Agamben (The Open: Man and Animal)
“
...and the handsome jester, Devil’s Gold, is shaking his bead-covered rattle, making medicine and calling us by name. We are so tired from our long walk that we cannot but admire his gilded face and his yellow magic blanket. And, holding each other’s hands like lovers, we stoop and admire ourselves in the golden pool that flickers in the great campfire he has impudently built at the crossing of two streets in Heaven.
But we do not step into the pool as beforetime. Our boat is beside us, it has overtaken us like some faithful tame giant swan, and Avanel whispers: “Take us where The Golden Book was written.” And thus we are up and away. The boat carries us deeper, down the valley. We find the cell of Hunter Kelly,— . St. Scribe of the Shrines. Only his handiwork remains to testify of him. Upon the walls of his cell he has painted many an illumination he afterward painted on The Golden Book margins and, in a loose pile of old torn and unbound pages, the first draft of many a familiar text is to be found. His dried paint jars are there and his ink and on the wall hangs the empty leather sack of Johnny Appleseed, from which came the first sowing of all the Amaranths of our little city, and the Amaranth that led us here.
And Avanel whispers:—“I ask my heart: —Where is Hunter Kelly, and my heart speaks to me as though commanded: ‘The Hunter is again pioneering for our little city in the little earth. He is reborn as the humblest acolyte of the Cathedral, a child that sings tonight with the star chimes, a red-cheeked boy, who shoes horses at the old forge of the Iron Gentleman. Let us also return’.”
It is eight o’clock in the evening, at Fifth and Monroe. It is Saturday night, and the crowd is pouring toward The Majestic, and Chatterton’s, and The Vaudette, and The Princess and The Gaiety.
It is a lovely, starry evening, in the spring. The newsboys are bawling away, and I buy an Illinois State Register. It is dated March 1, 1920.
Avanel of Springfield is one hundred years away.
The Register has much news of a passing nature. I am the most interested in the weather report, that tomorrow will be fair.
THE END - Written in Washington Park Pavilion, Springfield, Illinois.
”
”
Vachel Lindsay (The Golden Book of Springfield (Lost Utopias Series))
“
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was admired by all, but no one dared to ask for her hand in marriage. In despair, the king consulted the god Apollo. He told him that Psyche should be dressed in mourning and left alone on top of a mountain. Before daybreak, a serpent would come to meet and marry her. The king obeyed, and all night the princess waited for her husband to appear, deathly afraid and freezing cold. Finally, she slept. When she awoke, she found herself crowned a queen in a beautiful palace. Every night her husband came to her and they made love, but he had imposed one condition: Psyche could have all she desired, but she had to trust him completely and could never see his face.” How awful, I think, but I don’t dare interrupt him. “The young woman lived happily for a long time. She had comfort, affection, joy, and she was in love with the man who visited her every night. However, occasionally she was afraid that she was married to a hideous serpent. Early one morning, while her husband slept, she lit a lantern and saw Eros, a man of incredible beauty, lying by her side. The light woke him, and seeing that the woman he loved was unable to fulfill his one request, Eros vanished. Desperate to get her lover back, Psyche submitted to a series of tasks given to her by Aphrodite, Eros’s mother. Needless to say, her mother-in-law was incredibly jealous of Psyche’s beauty and she did everything she could to thwart the couple’s reconciliation. In one of the tasks, Psyche opened a box that makes her fall into a deep sleep.” I grow anxious to find out how the story will end. “Eros was also in love and regretted not having been more lenient toward his wife. He managed to enter the castle and wake her with the tip of his arrow. ‘You nearly died because of your curiosity,’ he told her. ‘You sought security in knowledge and destroyed our relationship.’ But in love, nothing is destroyed forever. Imbued with this conviction, they go to Zeus, the god of gods, and beg that their union never be undone. Zeus passionately pleaded the cause of the lovers with strong arguments and threats until he gained Aphrodite’s support. From that day on, Psyche (our unconscious, but logical, side) and Eros (love) were together forever.” I pour another glass of wine. I rest my head on his shoulder. “Those who cannot accept this, and who always try to find an explanation for magical and mysterious human relationships, will miss the best part of life.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
“
As the most perfect subject for painting I have already specified inwardly satisfied [reconciled and peaceful] love, the object of which is not a purely spiritual ‘beyond’ but is present, so that we can see love itself before us in what is loved. The supreme and unique form of this love is Mary’s love for the Christ-child, the love of the one mother who has borne the Saviour of the world and carries him in her arms. This is the most beautiful subject to which Christian art in general, and especially painting in its religious sphere, has risen. The love of God, and in particular the love of Christ who sits at’ the right hand of God, is of a purely spiritual kind. The object of this love is visible only to the eye of the soul, so that here there is strictly no question of that duality which love implies, nor is any natural bond established between the lovers or any linking them together from the start. On the other hand, any other love is accidental in the inclination of one lover for another, or,’ alternatively, the lovers, e.g. brothers and sisters or a father in his love for his children, have outside this relation other conceI1l8 with an essential claim on them. Fathers or brothers have to apply themselves to the world, to the state, business, war, or, in short, to general purposes, while sisters become wives, mothers, and so forth. But in the case of maternal love it is generally true that a mother’s love for her child is neither something accidental just a single feature in her life, but, on the contrary, it is her supreme vocation on earth, and her natural character and most sacred calling directly coincide. But while other loving mothers see and feel in their child their husband and their inmost union with him, in Mary’s relation to her child this aspect is always absent. For her feeling has nothing in common with a wife’s love for her husband; on the contrary, her relation to Joseph is more like a sister’s to a brother, while on Joseph’s side there is a secret awe of the child who is God’s and Mary’s. Thus religious love in its fullest and most intimate human form we contemplate not in the suffering and risen Christ or in his lingering amongst his friends but in the person of Mary with her womanly feeling. Her whole heart and being is human love for the child that she calls her own, and at the same time adoration, worship, and love of God with whom she feels herself at one. She is humble in God’s sight and yet has an infinite sense of being the one woman who is blessed above all other virgins. She is not self-subsistent on her own account, but is perfect only in her child, in God, but in him she is satisfied and blessed, whether. at the manger or as the Queen of Heaven, without passion or longing, without any further need, without any aim other than to have and to hold what she has.
In its religious subject-matter the portrayal of this love has a wide series of events, including, for example, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth, the Flight into Egypt, etc. And then there are, added to this, other subjects from the later life of Christ, i.e. the Disciples and the women who follow him and in whom the love of God becomes more or less a personal relation of love for a living and present Saviour who walks amongst them as an actual man; there is also the love of the angels who hover over the birth of Christ and many other scenes in his life, in serious worship or innocent joy. In all these subjects it is painting especially which presents the peace and full satisfaction of love.
But nevertheless this peace is followed by the deepest suffering.
Mary sees Christ carry his cross, she sees him suffer and die on the cross, taken down from the cross and buried, and no grief of others is so profound as hers. Mary’s grief is of a totally different kind. She is emotional, she feels the thrust of the dagger into the centre of her soul, her heart breaks, but she does not turn into stone.
”
”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
“
If a man can fly, well then, I believe I flew down that street. For a brief moment, in my fifty-five years of living, I was finally the baseball hero rounding third base in game seven of the World Series, bursting with speed, madly dashing for victory, the crowd cheering for me to “Run!
”
”
Steven J. Carino (Oliver: The True Story of a Stolen Dog and the Humans He Brought Together)
“
Let death come in its most vicious form - I as an accountable human accept it with utter grace - we the humans accept it with utter glory - for if we don't die, children cannot play in the park - if we do not die, lovers cannot walk freely hand in hand - if we do not die, the elderly cannot enjoy their favorite tv series over a cup of coffee. But mark you, our first duty is not to die for nothing - but to live for the society - if we live and work for society, justice will live, inclusion will live, acceptance will live, peace will live - if we live and work for society, only then will the society live.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Martyr Meets World: To Solve The Hard Problem of Inhumanity)
“
I compared the Panthers to the heroes given to me by the schools, men and women who struck me as ridiculous and contrary to everything I knew. Every February my classmates and I were herded into assemblies for a ritual review of the Civil Rights Movement. Our teachers urged us toward the example of freedom marchers, Freedom Riders, and Freedom Summers, and it seemed that the month could not pass without a series of films dedicated to the glories of being beaten on camera. The black people in these films seemed to love the worst things in life—love the dogs that rent their children apart, the tear gas that clawed at their lungs, the fire-hoses that tore off their clothes and tumbled them into the streets. They seemed to love the men who raped them, the women who cursed them, love the children who spat on them, the terrorists that bombed them. Why are they showing this to us? Why were only our heroes nonviolent? I speak not of the morality of nonviolence, but of the sense that blacks are in especial need of this morality. Back then all I could do was measure these freedom-lovers by what I knew. Which is to say, I measured them against children pulling out in the 7-Eleven parking lot, against parents wielding extension cords, and “Yeah, nigger, what’s up now?” I judged them against the country I knew, which had acquired the land through murder and tamed it under slavery, against the country whose armies fanned out across the world to extend their dominion. The world, the real one, was civilization secured and ruled by savage means. How could the schools valorize men and women whose values society actively scorned? How could they send us out into the streets of Baltimore, knowing all that they were, and then speak of nonviolence?
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me (One World Essentials))
“
The great mystic poet Farid al-Din ‘Attar tells a moving story about a saint who had a vision of God in his dreams. In this vision, the whole of humanity, all who have ever been and shall ever be, are gathered before God. God presents them with a series of rewards that they can choose from. In the first offer, God asks them, “Who here wishes to have the totality of worldly desires?” Nine out of ten of those gathered choose these worldly pleasures. God says to them, “It is granted onto you,” and they depart.
Of those who remain, God asks: “Who here wishes to be spared hellfire?” Again, nine out of ten raise their hands. God again says: “It is granted onto you,” and they depart. Next,
God asks the remaining minority who wishes to have a taste of heaven. Nine out of those who remain raise their hand, and God says to them: “It is granted onto you,” and they depart.
At long last, there is but a handful of devoted lovers of God, not enchanted by worldly desires, unafraid of the torment of hellfire, and not seduced by the promise of paradise. This time the voice of God comes at them, thundering: “I offered you redemption from hellfire, you chose it not. I offered you my loftiest paradise, you chose it not. What, then, are you here for?” They lowered their heads in humility and said:
“You. You yourself know Who we desire.
”
”
Attar of Nishapur
“
The word tantra comes from two Sanskrit verbal roots, tan tra. Tran means "to expand" or "to weave," which is just what does in his avatar body when he weaves the tendrils of his n queue with those of his teacher-lover Neytiri, the animals of Pandora and the trees that connect him ultimately to Eywa.
”
”
George A. Dunn (Avatar and Philosophy: Learning to See (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series))
“
To the skeptics, perhaps the events that are to follow were just a coincidence and nothing more than a series of random accidents that led me to where I am today. But to the lovers and poets and dreamers, perhaps you might agree that the story about to unfold is something more. You might even agree that there are times when coincidences are so powerful that they don’t really seem like coincidences anymore. Times when you come across events that seem too strange, or too strong, to be anything other than Fate—a grand design that incorporates everything from the career paths we take, the friends we meet along the way, and the partners we choose to spend our lives with. Times like these make you question that maybe nothing in this world happens by accident. Maybe everything really does happen for a reason, as some prewritten destiny slowly takes shape and shoves you down a path—or in my case, a mountain side.
”
”
Kayla Cunningham (Fated to Love You (Chasing the Comet Book 1))
“
George A. Lopez, characterizing techniques common to the State as terrorist, lists four approaches—information control, law enforcement/legal, economic coercion, and outright life threatening (including kidnapping, disappearances, torture, etc.). He argues with unusual acumen that all four are entwined with the dynamic of patriarchy: “The emphasis on masculinity demands the assumption of warrior-hero characteristics: a proclivity for violence, an aura of the fighter, and an explicit rejection of those characteristics associated with the frail and womanly aspects of human beings: sensitivity, pity, emotionality, tenderness toward others, and so on.”
He’s right—but the truth is even worse. The phallic malady is epidemic and systemic. It’s too easy to imagine the power concentrated in a series of rooms, with ten or even a hundred high-level would-be-hero bureaucrats raving toward Armageddon for one another’s approval. The more frightening reality is that each individual male in the patriarchy is aware of his relative power in the scheme of things. A few may be distressed at that power, many may claim innocence of it, most may deny it or pretend to ignore it, and some may blatantly delight in it—but all are aware of it.
”
”
Robin Morgan (The Demon Lover)
“
I’ve ravaged countless lands, terrorized the common folk to no end, and captured thousands of maidens to add to my harem! The name Reece Grimsor is feared by every person in Oberon!”
Vere stabbed his sword into the ground and leaned against the hilt.
“Why are you confessing all of your crimes?” he asked. “Are you trying to get hit? There’s no need to work so hard. I already planned to kill you.
”
”
Merry Knightly ((Self-Proclaimed) Menace To Society (The Primordial Ruins Series Book 1))
“
Places, like people, have their own unique energy. The different layers of life and reality that emanate from some natural structures are complex, marvellous, and fascinating.
”
”
Donna Goddard (Geboor: Spiritual Fiction (Nanima Series Book 2))
“
Are you intimidated by me?” His face darkened as he looked down at me.
I scoffed, “You wish.
”
”
L.L. Winters (Fated to the Lone Wolf: The Luna Shaw Series)
“
Love is a Dangerous Game
”
”
Cassie Rose (The Enchanted Kiss (The Lovers Nightmare Series Book 1))
“
The common denominator in life is that in a thousand years, none of us is going to be here. Even if I were the fastest guy in the world, in a thousand years the result would be the same. I'd be dead and buried, and no one would remember or care.
”
”
Mark Goldblatt (Twerp (Twerp Series))
“
Fear no more the lightning flash, nor the all-dreaded thunder stone, fear not slander, censure rash, thou hast finished joy and moan: All lovers young, all lovers must, consign to thee, and come to dust.
”
”
Blake Banner (The Dead Cold Series #21-24)
“
Books are the way to my heart. They’re how I travel. - Chandler -
”
”
Jess Bryson (Stealing Summer (Book #1 The Bayside Lake Series))
“
Apple's iPhone A series chip has always been the strongest and most dominant in the mobile phone market, because Apple relies on this chip to lead the technology strategy. In the past, we did not care much about how powerful the A series chip was, but we felt that it could make the iPhone run very smoothly and efficiently in any situation. This means that the A series chip was always stronger than what the peak performance iPhone needed.
However, this changed when the iPhone 11 series added the night mode feature. The A series chip could not handle the night mode processing fast enough, and it showed that it lacked enough computing power. This problem was not solved until the iPhone 14 pro series with the A16 chip.
”
”
Shakenal Dimension (The Art of iPhone Review: A Step-by-Step Buyer's Guide for Apple Lovers)
“
It doesn’t take a prophet to know you’ll get into loads of trouble before your RMC even begins. And twice as much after it does.
”
”
Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: Prince Zadkiel (RMC, #2))
“
Tt’s certain that one of your bachelors doesn’t have your best interest in mind.
”
”
Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: Princess Qloey (RMC, #1))
“
Despite the smile on my face, I was deeply shaken by the fact that one bachelor, who was pretending to court me, would put me and my family through all of this.
”
”
Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: Princess Zoyechka (RMC, #4))
“
I was crossing the border of a simple crush into the fields of love.
”
”
Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: The Fate of the Empire (RMC, #3))
“
We never imagined any of this would happen. This was far worse than what I went through during my RMC
”
”
Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: The Fate of the Empire (RMC, #3))
“
Passion was written in her eyes. Devotion in her breath. And willingness in her soul. It touched me deeply. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say her feelings for me were powerful. So too were mine. They had come upon me slowly, not like the abrupt passion I had felt for the Ogarzian princess.
”
”
Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: The Fate of the Empire (RMC, #3))
“
Zadkiel, I understand your position dating several girls at once, and I have assumed you love Esperanza more than the rest of us. But I don’t care. You haven’t eliminated me yet, which means I still have a chance with you.” She pushed me back on the grass and straddled me. A ferocious look came to her eyes. “So kiss the others for all I care, but don’t hold back with me; because right now, all I want is to kiss you so passionately that you’ll forget Esperanza even exists.
”
”
Zoiy G. Galloay (The Royal Matchmaking Competition: The Fate of the Empire (RMC, #3))
“
June. You are everything." Rowan Rossler, The Closer
”
”
Rowan Rossler (The Closer (The Hustlers Series #3))
“
But then last night. The things she confessed to. The things she asked me to do.
”
”
Rowan Rossler (The Closer (The Hustlers Series #3))
“
I have considered castration, but I think you'd find that too pleasant," said Hades.
The god pursed his lips and then shrugged. "Fair."
"I had to nix anything that requires restraint too."
"Unfair," said the god.
"I could send you into the Forest of Despair, but it's likely your greatest fear is a life with the only one sexual partner."
"A tragedy," Hermes said.
"Which means I'd take a different approach."
"You really have thought about this," said Hermes.
"First, I'd curse you to always appear homely to any potential lover."
Hermes gasped.
"Then, I would ensure you never find your rhythm again. That applies to dancing and sex."
"You wouldn't," Hermes said.
"The sight of your penis would make everyone gag."
"You beast!"
"Those aren't even my favorites," said Hades with a smirk. "My favorite is that every television series you start never finishes."
"No!" Hermes bellowed. "It is true what they say. You are a cruel god."
Hades shrugged. "You asked.
”
”
Scarlett St. Clair (A Touch of Chaos (Hades x Persephone Saga, #4))
“
held her head in my hands and spoke from behind her back. “Monique, listen,” I said. I spoke very slowly, deliberately letting the words drag while my voice got lower, softer, deeper. “First, I'm going to strip you naked and strip the dead man naked. I think he's dead. I'm almost sure he's dead. And I'll bind you both together, your warm body pressed against his own and your face against his cheek. I'll tie his arms around you, and yours around him and I'll leave you here alone, like lovers. You'll feel his body cooling, the flesh becoming cool and damp while darkness falls. And then it will be night, dark night, and you'll hear rustling all around you, in the grass and in the branches of the trees. Right now, you think you'll know it's only wind, or crawling things, but when it happens you won't know. The sounds will crawl into your mind like worms.
”
”
Richard S. Prather (Shell Scott PI Mystery Series, Volume Two)
“
Tech Magazine Pro is your most trusted technology stage to teach about the advanced tech and gadgets in the market which will transform you forever.
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Have you ever heard of uwatchmovies? It’s one of the best websites that share online content for free, but the main concern is they are pirated. If you are a movie lover, you might be looking for different ways to download or watch movies on the web.
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If you want to know how to make a laptop faster, then you might be surprised at just how many different suggestions are out there. Most people just give up after trying all the different ways that they can try to speed up their laptops. I know that for myself I tried every single trick that I could think of in an attempt to improve on my computer’s speed and still was not able to get it to work properly. It wasn’t until I discovered how to make my laptop faster that I was able to actually accomplish something that made a difference.
how to make laptop faster || How to Make Your Laptop Faster in 2021
”
”
Tech Magazine pro
“
Fools say, 'Why should we marry? Love is the only bond my lover and I need.' To them I say, 'Marriage is not a covenant between man and woman; …. Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman on one side and the community on the other. To marry according to the law of the community is to become a full citizen; to refuse marriage is to be a stranger, a child, an outlaw, a slave, a traitor.
”
”
Orson Scott Card (Shadow Puppets (The Shadow Series, #3))
“
about intimacy with your Lover and Lord. The kind of intimacy that leaves you naked and bare before Him where He sees all your vulnerabilities and you begin to see some of His characteristics. I’m speaking of transparency before God.
”
”
Denise Cook-Godfrey (All Churched Out: The Weary Wife of the Pastor-Book 1 (All Churched Out Series))
“
Then there is spiteful deviousness, like properly fucking a woman so that she is ruined for all other lovers after me. Savoring the madness I can drive someone to by inflicting pain and pleasure so intense that they wouldn’t know if they were coming or dying.
”
”
K. Elle Morrison (Blood On My Name (Princes Of Sin: The Seven Deadly Sins series))
“
Jack nodded, his mind drifting back to a night in Coventry when he and his wife had been caught in an air raid. He closed his eyes briefly as he thought about her, his throat catching as he recalled the letter she had sent him a week earlier. It had been the first he had received from his wife since arriving in France and he knew that it would be the last. In it she had confirmed all of the wild fantasies that had plagued him for countless nights. In it was the end of the hope he had clung to for so long. The letter had barely been a paragraph long, yet it had destroyed the world that Jack had once known. She had told him that there was another man, an American who was stationed on an airbase near their home. He was, she had told him, an officer. They had been together for two years and she planned to marry him. She had asked for a divorce and had informed him briskly that she intended, when the war was over, to take the children and return with her lover to New York. The letter had been blunt and to the point, there had been no warmth, no consideration in the words, just a cold animosity that Jack could not understand. The wording had suggested that it was his fault that their marriage had fallen apart, that somehow, in some imperceptible way, he had forced her into the arms of another. He felt his blood rising and he forced himself to breathe, his hands white against the stock of his Sten gun as he mulled over the contents of the letter. He had, deep inside, harboured a hope, a small dream that when the war finished they could rebuild their strained marriage. The letter had shattered that illusion and left in its wake a cold reality that had struck Jack like a thunderbolt. He spat onto the ground and wished that he could get five minutes alone with the bastard. All those years of writing to her, of missing her. All those years of struggling in the desert, longing to come home, of pouring his heart into the precious letters he had sent to her. All that time she had been with another man.
”
”
Stuart Minor (The Killing Ground (The Second World War Series, #11))
“
the cows home from the back pasture by way of Lover's Lane. It was a September evening and all the gaps and clearings in the woods were brimmed up with ruby sunset light. Here and there the lane was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite shadowy beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a clear violet dusk like airy wine. The winds were out in their tops, and there is no sweeter music on earth than that which the wind makes in the fir trees at evening.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables Complete Series Book 1))
“
If it matters to you, it matters to me as well. Of all the things you do, your silent promises shine,
The care you show, even if you insist on not to be mine
Gives me the faith…
You’ll hold me close even when I fall apart You live in my eyes… You rule my mind… You manipulate my brain.
I know… you know… it’s true It’s love!!
”
”
T Shree (You're Still The One I Want For Life: Duet-2 (You and Me Series Book 10))
“
The next five cards, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, and The Wheel of Fortune, show how the heroic fool must navigate various life lessons: love, ambition, courage, reflection and the mysteries of fate. We're tested in these areas because they enable our growth. We must understand that it is in the nature of the world to present us with a series of lessons on the basics of living. The Lovers represent the call of duty over pleasure. The Chariot represents our goals and whether we have the tenacity to identify and pursue them. Strength: tact and diplomacy, taming the beast. The Hermit shows us that introspection is important too - and the ability to stand alone, independent of thought and action. The Wheel of Fortune reminds us that nothing is guaranteed. There's always an element of chance that can aid or thwart us.
”
”
Rob Parnell (The Writer & The Hero's Journey)
“
No, now I know four secrets.” “Four?” A perfectly sculpted brow arched and her laugh twisted Jackson’s quixotic emotions into a knot. The pressure inside his pants grew. He envisioned her naked beneath him, her long, coltish legs wrapped tight in a lover’s squeeze around his waist. A sliver of sweat slid down his neck. God help me, I want her. He shot a glance to the cup and saucer on the piano. “You make and serve tea. That’s one.” His hand slid along the Steinway, thankful for the coolness beneath his fingers. “Two…you play this instrument with remarkable skill.” He motioned toward her green damask evening gown. “Three. You do know how to wear a dress.” He then rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, and steepled his fingers in an outward show of control. Inside, however, his blood still churned. “And four…” Jackson paused to slide his gaze in a deliberate, self-indulgent sweep over the curve of her breasts before reconnecting with her now-widened eyes. “You’re an incredibly beautiful woman.
”
”
Cindy Nord (With Open Arms (The Cutteridge Series #2))
“
The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead- Marilyn Monroe If
”
”
Kris Johnston (Rest in Peace Roz, Book 1 in The R.I.P. Series)
“
His book For Whom the Bell Tolls was an instant success in the summer of 1940, and afforded him the means to live in style at his villa outside of Havana with his new wife Mary Welsh, whom he married in 1946. It was during this period that he started getting headaches and gaining weight, frequently becoming depressed. Being able to shake off his problems, he wrote a series of books on the Land, Air and Sea, and later wrote The Old Man and the Sea for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1954. Hemingway on a trip to Africa where he barely survived two successive airplane crashes. Returning to Cuba, Ernest worked reshaping the recovered work and wrote his memoir, A Moveable Feast. He also finished True at First Light and The Garden of Eden. Being security conscious, he stored his works in a safe deposit box at a bank in Havana.
His home Finca Vigía had become a hub for friends and even visiting tourists. It was reliably disclosed to me that he frequently enjoyed swinger’s parties and orgies at his Cuban home. In Spain after divorcing Frank Sinatra Hemingway introduced Ava Gardner to many of the bullfighters he knew and in a free for all, she seduced many of hotter ones. After Ava Gardner’s affair with the famous Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín crashed, she came to Cuba and stayed at Finca Vigía, where she had what was termed to be a poignant relationship with Ernest. Ava Gardner swam nude in the pool, located down the slope from the Hemingway house, after which he told his staff that the water was not to be emptied. An intimate friendship grew between Hemingway’s forth and second wife, Mary and Pauline. Pauline often came to Finca Vigia, in the early 1950s, and likewise Mary made the crossing of the Florida Straits, back to Key West several times. The ex-wife and the current wife enjoyed gossiping about their prior husbands and lovers and had choice words regarding Ernest.
In 1959, Hemingway was in Cuba during the revolution, and was delighted that Batista, who owned the nearby property, that later became the location of the dismal Pan Americana Housing Development, was overthrown. He shared the love of fishing with Fidel Castro and remained on good terms with him. Reading the tea leaves, he decided to leave Cuba after hearing that Fidel wanted to nationalize the properties owned by Americans and other foreign nationals. In the summer of 1960, while working on a manuscript for Life magazine, Hemingway developed dementia becoming disorganized and confused. His eyesight had been failing and he became despondent and depressed. On July 25, 1960, he and his wife Mary left Cuba for the last time.
He never retrieved his books or the manuscripts that he left in the bank vault. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban government took ownership of his home and the works he left behind, including an estimated 5,000 books from his personal library. After years of neglect, his home, which was designed by the Spanish architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer in 1886, has now been largely restored as the Hemingway Museum. The museum, overlooking San Francisco de Paula, as well as the Straits of Florida in the distance, houses much of his work as well as his boat housed near his pool.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
If we weren’t running late already, I’d pull this truck onto a dirt road and show her just what she does to me.
”
”
Jiffy Kate (Fighting Fire (Finding Focus #3))
“
It is our attitude toward Truth, and our power to receive that classifies us. Paul mentions three classes of people: natural; spiritual; carnal man. The thing which determines the class to which we belong, is our capacity to understand: our love of Truth; our embracing the Truth, and letting it work in us. We should ask ourselves the question: “Am I actually a lover of the Truth?
”
”
John Wright Follette (John Wright Follette's Golden Grain (Signpost Series Book 2))
“
In some ways, he was just like the rest of us: lonely, ambitious, a son, a father, a lover, never truly content. Where he set himself apart is in the way he took responsibility for his mistakes, embraced his weaknesses, and always strove to do better, to be better.
”
”
David A. Goodman (The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (Star Trek Autobiographies Series))
“
As Colin was starting to drift into the twilight he could feel blood pouring out of his head; whilst he was calling out to his true love.
”
”
Nicole Eglinger (Wanting (Popstar Lover #2))
“
Inside the car Colin was getting thrashed about. Colin was crying out in pain as he could feel his bones breaking deep within his body. Colin’s SUV was rolling over and over and over endlessly.
”
”
Nicole Eglinger (Wanting (Popstar Lover #2))
“
We can take our time with everything. Do it right, do it slow.
”
”
Stella Knights (Taken Outback (The Dusty Rider Series #1))
“
Every February, my classmates and I were herded into assemblies for a ritual review of the Civil Rights Movement. Our teachers urged us toward the example of freedom marchers, Freedom Riders, and Freedom Summers, and it seemed that the month could not pass without a series of films dedicated to the glories of being beaten on camera. The black people in these films seemed to love the worst things in life - love the dogs that rent their children apart, the tear gas that clawed at their lungs, the firehoses that tore off their clothes and tumbled them into the streets. They seemed to love the men who raped them, the women who cursed them, love the children who spat on them, the terrorists that bombed them. Why are they showing this to us? Why were only our heroes nonviolent? I speak not of the morality of nonviolence, but of the sense that blacks are in especial need of this morality. Back then all I could do was measure these freedom-lovers by what I knew. Which is to say, I measured them against children pulling out in the 7-Eleven parking lot, against parents wielding extension cords, and "Yeah, nigger, what's up now?" I judged them against the country I knew, which had acquired the land through murder and tamed it under slavery, against the country whose armies fanned out across the world to extend their dominion. The world, the real one, was civilization secured and ruled by savage means. How could the schools valorize men and women whose values society actively scorned? How could they send us out into the streets of Baltimore, knowing all that they were, and then speak of nonviolence?
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
“
He didn’t try to kiss her. She probably would have bitten him if he had. This wasn’t nice sex. It wasn’t considerate. This wasn’t the kind of sex lovers had. It was two angry people trying to fuck each other into submission.
And she’d never been more turned on in her life.
”
”
Amy Andrews (Playing With Forever (Sydney Smoke Rugby, #4))
“
April 2012 Mixed feelings rose when I read Aria’s email. On one hand, I was relieved to know Andy was well and alive, but on the other I was afraid. I had not connected with my ex-lover, and the prospect of reconnecting with him was closing in by the minute. I wouldn’t know how to react if and when he wrote. It had been extremely painful for us after our separation. I had plunged into the deep end trying to find the love we shared. For more than a year and half, I lived a double life through a series of licentious sexual encounters, often visiting underground sex clubs; it brought nothing but further depression. I was desperately trying to find the kind of unconditional stability, mentorship, and companionship my ‘big brother’ had so lovingly provided. I, being stubborn, faced a myriad of difficulties without my soulmate’s guiding presence. Not admitting defeat, I told myself that if I could survive alone in a major metropolis, I could survive anywhere in the world. As much as I hated this hellacious experience, it also strengthened my courage in the face of adversity. My single-mindedness to succeed in my chosen career saved me from sinking into progressive deterioration. Now, a possible reconnection with Andy would open years of concealed wounds that I might not be able to reconcile. The best solution I knew was to sleep on my fears and meditate on the problem until an answer arrived without active participation on my part.
”
”
Young (Unbridled (A Harem Boy's Saga, #2))
“
After all, our main business in art, as in life, is to strive. Honest effort meets with its own reward, even where it does not lead to what the world calls success.
”
”
Aubertine Woodward Moore (For Every Music Lover A Series of Practical Essays on Music)
“
Had you asked me the question a couple of hours ago, I would have been silly enough to think that the only feelings I felt for you were those of friendship. I know now that your friendship is no longer what I want. I’m in love with you and the knowledge that you will be far from me next year breaks my heart.” Maxime’s eyes shone as she spoke. “I feel the same.” He took her hand and pressed it lightly. “I promise you, we’ll find a way to make this work.” She kissed him as the sun’s last lingering rays set in a fiery blaze, while the swans swam near their lonely boat overlooking the two lovers and protecting their new love with the soft feathers of their outstretched wings. *****
”
”
Anna Adams (Aria's Dream (The Aria Series, #2))
“
Enjoy a small dramatic excerpt of CRESCENT SUN: SONS OF BLOOD...Book 2 in my vampire series!
Thayne looked over at Sebastian and released his hold on Leelee. Sebastian could feel himself trembling from his father's icy stare. He had never heard his father yell, but he had heard of his father's temper. Sebastian stood frozen in place. Thayne chuckled as he turned his attention back to Leelee. ... “It is good to see that while I was away, you took yourself a young lover.” Thayne said mockingly, as he walked passed his wife a short distance. Thayne stopped, but kept his back to Leelee. “Of course I will kill him as soon as I've rested.” Thayne said coolly, as he continued down the long hall. Sebastian's eyes widened in true fear at his father's words. “He is not my lover.” Leelee said softly in Vamprin. Thayne stopped walking when he heard his wife speaking his language, but kept his back to Leelee. “You've learned my tongue in my absence.” Thayne said calmly. “I am impressed Leelee Markum.” Thayne said smoothly. Leelee walked over to Sebastian and took his hand. “He is your son.” She said. “Father.” Sebastian said, his voice shaky. Thayne turned around and quickly went to Sebastian. He stood in front of his son and wife. Sebastian briefly looked into his father's blood red eyes. He lowered his own and offered his father a bow of respect. “My king.” Sebastian said in their tongue. “This is Sebastian, your son.” Leelee said. Sebastian stood tall at his mother's introduction. Neither Sebastian nor Leelee moved as Thayne slowly made his way around Sebastian. Thayne stopped directly behind his son. Leelee let her son's hand go and faced Thayne. She watched as a sly smile came across her husband's lips. Before she could open her mouth to speak, Leelee watched in horror as Thayne grabbed Sebastian's hair and bent his head over to expose the side of his neck. Thayne's fangs quickly grew and he bit down into Sebastian's neck. Sebastian screamed out in pain and Leelee punched and screamed at Thayne.
The moment Thayne bit into his son's neck, Leelee's scent escaped from the open wound. Thayne released his son and watched as Sebastian stumbled against a wall in fear. Sebastian held his hand to his neck and Leelee ran to her son's aid. Thayne continued his walk down the hall. Leelee moved Sebastian's hand and watched as his skin immediately healed before her eyes. Leelee looked in shock at Thayne. “Are you fucking crazy?” Leelee yelled. Thayne stopped, but again kept his back to his wife. “You are correct Miss Markum, he is my son.” Thayne said coolly. “Sebastian.” Thayne said. “Yes father.” Sebastian replied. “Escort your mother to her room.” Thayne replied sternly. “Yes father.” Sebastian replied. Thayne walked away from his wife and son.
”
”
Tiana Washington
“
It is not desirable that every one should perform acrobatic feats on some musical instrument, or indulge in vocal pyrotechnics, but it is desirable to extract music out of whatever technique may be attained.
”
”
Aubertine Woodward Moore (For Every Music Lover A Series of Practical Essays on Music)