Serpent Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Serpent. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
Mark Twain (Pudd'nhead Wilson (Bantam Classics))
I gasp, and I'm Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he's the serpent, and I cannot resist.
E.L. James (Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1))
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, A damned saint, an honourable villain! O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell; When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh? Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace!
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something.It is a cold slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.
L.M. Montgomery (The Blue Castle)
Most humans think the appearance of quiet is quiet. They do not see that sometimes the enemy is as quiet as the serpent. Only when it has stolen all of their eggs will they know bad walks in the quiet as well as the noisy.
Tamora Pierce (Trickster's Choice (Daughter of the Lioness, #1))
I loved her. Despite everything. Despite the lies, the betrayal, the hurt. Despite the Archbishop and Morgane le Blanc. Despite my own brothers. I don't know if she returned that love, and I didn't care. If she was destined to burn in Hell, I would burn with her.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Well, even if the serpent bites off your head,” says Tatterfell, “the rest of you will still look good.” “That’s the spirit,” I tell her.
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
I was no one's sacrifice. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
There are some things that can't be changed with words. Some things have to be seen. They have to be felt.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Why the fuck is everyone in this kingdom trying to murder my wife?
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
The curse is broken. The king is returned." He's every bit as terrifying as any serpent. I don't care. I run into his arms. Cardan's fingers dig into my back. He's trembling, and whether it is from ebbing magic or horror, I am not sure. But he holds me as though I am the only solid thing in the world.
Holly Black
Bessie?” I looked down at the bull serpent. “But… he’s too cute. He couldn’t destroy the world.” -Percy Jackson
Rick Riordan (The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
Love makes fools of us all, darling.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Timequake)
But this Scroll too has magical properties. From the moment I first saw it, the paper warmed to my touch. I know it came alive as I held it. Did you know there’s a serpent on the back? Some say it’s a dragon. It winked at me. Its lashes are gold.
Susan Rowland (The Alchemy Fire Murder: a Mary Wandwalker Mystery)
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!
William Shakespeare (King Lear)
If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.
Jeff Zentner (The Serpent King)
Our lives reflect our hearts.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Death couldn't take him away from me. He was me. Our souls were bound.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent." "Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But...she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.
Libba Bray
Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.
Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
Met them. Killed them. Got the T-shirt.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from you.’” He trailed his fingers down my arm in slow, torturous strokes. My head fell back on his shoulder, my eyes fluttering closed, as his lips continued to move against my neck. “‘Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
The crew gathered for a hurried meeting on the foredeck – mostly because Percy was keeping an eye on a giant red sea serpent swimming off the port side. ‘That thing is really red,’ Percy muttered. ‘I wonder if it’s cherry-flavoured.’ ‘Why don’t you swim over and find out?’ Annabeth asked. ‘How about no.
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
Maybe men can learn a thing or two from women.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't.
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever. Curse on book thieves, from the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona, Spain
Cornelia Funke (Inkheart (Inkworld, #1))
Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
And maybe it would have bitten you in half," said Will. "What you are describing, the transformation into a demon, is the last stage of the pox." "Will!" Charlotte threw up her hands. "Why didn't you say so?" "You know, the books on demon pox are in the library," Will said with an injured tone. "I wasn't preventing anyone from reading them." "Yes, but if Benedict was going to turn into an enormous serpent, you'd think you could at least have mentioned it," said Charlotte. "As a matter of general interest.
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
in my veins that roll you run citrus watercolor images of serpents on orange trees quietly arise and grow sweet in my midst
Lana Del Rey (Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass)
The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands
Martin Luther
I leaned back, studying her as she finished my bun. A bit of icing covered her lip. Her nose was still red from the cold, her hair wild and windblown. My little heathen.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
We were originally naked in the garden of paradise, "but unashamed." After the serpent of forced assimilation, "we were taught shame upon our natural beauty.
San Mateo (San Mateo: Proof of The Divine)
Amor" So many days, oh so many days seeing you so tangible and so close, how do I pay, with what do I pay? The bloodthirsty spring has awakened in the woods. The foxes start from their earths, the serpents drink the dew, and I go with you in the leaves between the pines and the silence, asking myself how and when I will have to pay for my luck. Of everything I have seen, it's you I want to go on seeing: of everything I've touched, it's your flesh I want to go on touching. I love your orange laughter. I am moved by the sight of you sleeping. What am I to do, love, loved one? I don't know how others love or how people loved in the past. I live, watching you, loving you. Being in love is my nature. You please me more each afternoon. Where is she? I keep on asking if your eyes disappear. How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt. I feel poor, foolish and sad, and you arrive and you are lightning glancing off the peach trees. That's why I love you and yet not why. There are so many reasons, and yet so few, for love has to be so, involving and general, particular and terrifying, joyful and grieving, flowering like the stars, and measureless as a kiss. That's why I love you and yet not why. There are so many reasons, and yet so few, for love has to be so, involving and general, particular and terrifying, joyful and grieving, flowering like the stars, and measureless as a kiss.
Pablo Neruda (Intimacies: Poems of Love)
We are Adam and Eve born out of chaos called creation Ribbing me gave you life yet you forget there will always be a part of me in you yes I taunted and tempted you with my forbidden fruit does that make me the serpent too? Believe what you will but if I am exiled alone I know we will be together again someday naked without shame in paradise My thanks to you for being in on my sin
Megan McCafferty (Sloppy Firsts (Jessica Darling, #1))
the serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.
Francis Bacon
There’s my baby!” I cried, quite carried away. “There’s my Poochiekins!” Ammit ran at me and leaped into my arms, nuzzling me with his rough snout. “My lord Osiris!” Disturber lost the bottom of his scroll again, which unraveled around his legs. “This is an outrage!” “Sadie,” Dad said firmly, “please do not refer to the Devourer of Souls as Poochiekins.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
I like you, Ansel, but this had better be something good. Emilie and Alexandre just had a moment, and I swear if they don't kiss soon, I will literally die.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
What you are now is not what you’ve always been, nor is it what you always will be. You are a snake. Shed your skin if it no longer serves you. Transform into something different. Something better.
Shelby Mahurin (Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove, #2))
And if the serpent grows in monstrousness and corruption, if it poisons the land of Elfhame itself, then let me be the queen of monsters. Let me rule over that blackened land with my redcap father as a puppet by my side. Let me be feared and never again afraid.
Holly Black (The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3))
We speak with one voice,” Walt said. “Especially on this matter. No one hurts Sadie Kane.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Nothing makes you feel more naked than someone identifying a desire you never knew you possessed.
Jeff Zentner (The Serpent King)
For what it’s worth: trust your feelings. I can’t promise that you’ll never get hurt again, but I can promise you the risk is worth it.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Wicked are the ways of women—and especially a witch. Their guile knows no bounds.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
I would beg,” he murmured. “For you, I would. You have fucking destroyed me, Oraya. Do you know that?
Carissa Broadbent (The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1))
Such a love was not something of just the heart and mind. It wasn't something to be felt and eventually forgotten, to be touched without it in return touching you. No . . . this love was something else. Something irrevocable. It was something of the soul.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Love does not always wear the face we wish,” she said. “I wish my love had been more beautiful. I wish … I wish we had more time.
Roshani Chokshi (The Silvered Serpents (The Gilded Wolves, #2))
Hello' said a vague and dreamy voice from behind them. Harry looked up: Luna Lovegood had drifted over from the Ravenclaw table. Many people were staring at her and few people openly laughing and pointing; she had managed to procure a hat shaped like a life-size lion's head, which was perched precariously on her head. 'I'm supporting Gryffindor' said Luna, pointing unnecessarily at her hat. "Look what it does...' She reached up and tapped the hat with her wand. It opened its mouth wide and gave an extremely realistic roar that made everyone in the vicinity jump. 'It's good, isn't it?' said Luna happily. 'I wanted to have it chewing up a serpent to represent Slytherin, you know, but there wasn't time. Anyway...good luck, Ronald!
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
I never said it was your god. Your god hates women. We were an afterthought.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
A weapon, I told Horus. I need a weapon. I reached into the Duat and pulled out an ostrich feather. “Really?” I yelled. Horus didn’t answer
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Death isn’t frightening when weighed against an insignificant existence.
Carissa Broadbent (The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1))
If you don't feel as close to God today as you did yesterday, who moved?
Chris Heimerdinger (Feathered Serpent, Part 1 (Tennis Shoes, #3))
People are so like their first mother Eve: what they are given doesn't take their fancy. The serpent is forever enticing them to come to him, to the tree of mystery. They must have the forbidden fruit, or paradise will not be paradise for them.
Alexander Pushkin (Eugene Onegin)
dealing with any man means dealing with multiple personalities.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
when a person brings you more hurt than happiness, you’re allowed to let them go.
Shelby Mahurin (Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove, #2))
Un malheur ne vient jamais seul. Misfortune never arrives alone. —French proverb
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Knowledge of any value can't be given. It must be sought and earned
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Lacy had warned me about Drew the first day of school. Apparently the two of them had gone to some summer camp together––blah, blah, I didn't really listen to teh details––and Drew had been just as much a tyrant there. ~Sadie Kane, about Lacy and Drew of Aphrodite cabin.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Our problems started in Dallas, when the fire-breathing sheep destroyed the King Tut exhibit.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Idiocy is oft mistaken for sentimentality.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
I-I've never seen anyone savor anything the way you do everything. You make me feel alive. Just being in your presence - it's addictive. You're addictive. It doesn't matter you're a witch. The way you see the world . . . I want to see it that way too. I want to be with you always, Lou. I never want to be parted from you again.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Stories always begin the same way: There was and there was not. There is possibility in those words, the chance for hope or despair.
Melissa Bashardoust (Girl, Serpent, Thorn)
Besides, you're a cat. It's your nature to think you're the center of the universe.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
When the devil waged war in the heavens, even angels had to fall.
Roshani Chokshi (The Silvered Serpents (The Gilded Wolves, #2))
That wouldn't be a bad way to die...giving off light for millions of years after you're gone.
Jeff Zentner (The Serpent King)
That is love, to give away everything, to sacrifice everything, without the slightest desire to get anything in return. —Albert Camus
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
I've been thinking," he said finally. "A dangerous pastime.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Death couldn’t take him away from me. He was me. Our souls were bound. Even if he didn’t want me, even if I cursed his name, we were one.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
Hope isn’t the sickness. It’s the cure.
Shelby Mahurin (Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove, #3))
A person's shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
The world didn’t end in a scream. It ended in a gasp. A single, startled exhalation. And then— Nothing. Nothing but silence.
Shelby Mahurin (Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove, #2))
I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that's patrotism.
Edward Abbey (The Serpents of Paradise: A Reader)
There was only one way such a story could end -a stake and a match.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
How do I defeat Apophis?” “I’m so glad you asked!” Thoth beamed at me with his multicolored eyes. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you.” I glanced at Walt. “Do you want to kill him, or should I?
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
I've made books my life because they let me escape this world of cruelty and savagery.
Jeff Zentner (The Serpent King)
Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.
Gloria E. Anzaldúa
A dead lover can never break your heart.
Carissa Broadbent (The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1))
I’ve lived through some injustices in the last couple of centuries. Seen some fucking travesties. But one of the biggest, Oraya, is that anyone taught you that you should become anything other than exactly what you are.
Carissa Broadbent (The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1))
If you’re listening to this, congratulations! You survived Doomsday. I’d like to apologize straightaway for any inconvenience the end of the world may have caused you. The earthquakes, rebellions, riots,tornadoes, floods, tsunamis, and of course the giant snake who swallowed the sun—I’m afraid most of that was our fault. Carter and I decided we should at least explain how it happened.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
You're to be my wife." Catching up to her in two strides, I reached out to grab her arm, but stopped short of touching her. "That means you'll obey me." "Does it?" She raised her brows, still grinning. " I suppose that means you'll honor and protect me, then? If we're adhering to the dusty old roles of your patriarchy?" I shortened my pace to match hers. "Yes." She clapped her hands together. "Excellent. At least this will be entertaining. I have many enemies.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
I was not the woman who breaks into pieces under the blows of abandonment and absence, who goes mad, who dies. Only a few fragments had splintered off, for the rest I was well. I was whole, whole I would remain. To those who hurt me, I react giving back in kind. I am the queen of spades, I am the wasp that stings, I am the dark serpent. I am the invulnerable animal who passes through fire and is not burned.
Elena Ferrante (The Days of Abandonment)
In the Duat, Anubis looked as he always had, with his tousled dark hair and lovely brown eyes, but I’d never seen him filled with such rage. I realized that anyone who dared to hurt me would suffer his full wrath, and Walt wasn’t going to hold him back.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
She was burning, Reid. I don't know how, but she took away that witch's pain. She gave it to herself.” He exhaled heavily. “That's why I didn't tell you. Because even though I knew Lou was a witch, I knew she wasn't evil. She burned at the stake once. She doesn't deserve to do it twice.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
All [Sadie’s] previous attempts [of making a shabti (an Egyptian avatar of one’s self)] had exploded or gone haywire, terrorizing Khufu and the initiates. Last week she’d created a magical Thermos with googly eyes that levitated around the room, yelling, “Exterminate! Exterminate!” until it smacked me in the head.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
I lifted my face to meet the kiss, wanting the comfort of his touch as much as I was willing to provide the comfort of mine. The contact was sweet and soft, yet at the same time desperate. It was Zane who pulled away first. "Danica, I think..." He trailed off and kissed me again, this time briefly, just the barest touch of lips to lips. "I love you." From a man who frequently uttered eloquent speeches, the tentative declaration was not the most flattering of compliments-especially when every movement he made and look he cast my way had shown the long truth before now. But coming from the serpent who had once informed me that he did not love me and did not think he ever could, whose cool, polished words could cut to the bone and freeze the Earth's frozen molten blood — whose eyes right now were just a bid dazed, and whose expression was as open and startled as I had ever seen it — the words were more than enough. "I know," I answered. Then, soft but certain, I answered, "I love you too." His smile matched mine and said the same as mine: I know.
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (Hawksong (The Kiesha'ra, #1))
If anyone asks you if you’re taken,” I said, “the answer is yes.” “I think I can live with that,” he promised. “Good,” I said. “Because you don’t want to see me be cross.” “Too late.” “Shut up and dance, Walt.” “Shut up and dance, Walt.” We did—with the music of a psychotic griffin screaming behind us, and the sirens and horns of Brooklyn wailing below. It was quite romantic.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
What's your favorite color?” “Blue.” She rolled her eyes. “Boring. Mine's gold-or turquoise. Or emerald.” “Why doesn't that surprise me?” “Because you aren't as stupid as you look.” I didn't know whether to be insulted or flattered. She didn't give me time to decide.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
She's it. She's my everything. She's the standard by which I'll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I'll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.
Jeff Zentner (The Serpent King)
Every aspect of Reid was precise, certain, every color in its proper place. Undiluted by indecision, he saw the world in black and white, suffering none of the messy, charcoal colors in between. The colors of ash and smoke. Of fear and doubt. The colors of me.
Shelby Mahurin (Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1))
I see murky visions of other gods and rival magic." That REALLY didn't sound good. "What do you mean?" I asked. "what OTHER GODS?" "I don't know, Sadie. But Egypt has always faced challenges from outside –– magicians from elsewhere, even gods from elsewhere. Just be vigilant." ~Ruby & Sadie Kane about...? Possibly Greeks?
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Oh...my...god,"Drew whimpered."Who..." Anubis ignored her (bless him for that) and held out his elbow for me - a sweet old-fashioned gesture. " May I have this dance?" "I suppose," I said,as non committally as I could. I looped my arm through his, and we left the Plastic Bags behind us, all of them muttering,"Oh my god! Oh my god!" No ,actually, I wanted to say. He's my amazingly hot boy god. Find your own.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
Stop smiling!” she ordered. “I can see you, Carter. Oh…and, uh, hullo, Walt.” The pot monster made squeaky grinding noises as it stood up straight. One clunky arm rose and tried to fix Sadie’s nonexistent hair. Leave it to Sadie to be self-conscious around boys, even when she’s made out of pots and duct tape.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
I lifted my wand, hoping she would see this as a dramatic move, not a threat. “Why once, in my bunker at Charing Cross Station, I stalked the deadly prey known as Jelly Babies.” Neith’s eyes widened. “They are dangerous?” “Horrible,” I agreed. “Oh, they seem small alone, but they always appear in great numbers. Sticky, fattening—quite deadly. There I was, alone with only two quid and a Tube pass, beset by Jelly Babies, when…Ah, but never mind. When the Jelly Babies come for you…you will find out on your own.” She lowered her bow. “Tell me. I must know how to hunt Jelly Babies.” I looked at Walt gravely. “How many months have I trained you, Walt?” “Seven,” he said. “Almost eight.” “And have I ever deemed you worthy of hunting Jelly Babies with me?” “Uh…no.
Rick Riordan (The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, #3))
In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood-- A lord of nature weeping to a tree. I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall. That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have. A steady storm of correspondences! A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, And in broad day the midnight comes again! A man goes far to find out what he is-- Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
Theodore Roethke
Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that "productivity" and "earnings" keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity—most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it's only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which must sooner or later crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life. Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide . . . though he's amiable enough, keeps cracking jokes back through the loudspeaker . . .
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow)
You don’t get to leave me. Do you understand?” Cupping my face, he wrenched me backward and kissed me hard. His voice was fierce. His eyes were fiercer. They burned into mine, angry and anguished and afraid. “You don’t get to do this alone. If you retreat into your mind—into your magic—I’ll follow you, Lou.” He shook me slightly, tears glistening in those frightened eyes. “I’ll follow you into that darkness, and I’ll bring you back. Do you hear me? Where you go, I will go.
Shelby Mahurin (Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove, #2))
This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance--at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin, and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. His light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox churches, Henry Ward Beecher, is a believer in the theories of Charles Darwin--a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire church put together. ...The church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand years he has degenerated. Darwin demonstrated the falsity of this dogma. He shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; that the Garden of Eden is an ignorant myth; that the doctrine of original sin has no foundation in fact; that the atonement is an absurdity; that the serpent did not tempt, and that man did not 'fall.' Charles Darwin destroyed the foundation of orthodox Christianity. There is nothing left but faith in what we know could not and did not happen. Religion and science are enemies. One is a superstition; the other is a fact. One rests upon the false, the other upon the true. One is the result of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason.
Robert G. Ingersoll (Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll: Including His Letters On the Chinese God--Is Suicide a Sin?--The Right to One's Life--Etc. Etc. Etc, Volume 2)
Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment.  The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become. As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper.  She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale. Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?” I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.  “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”             I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”  I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank. “Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”   I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”   So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.
K. Ritz (Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master)