Skins Pandora Quotes

Jameson thought about what he’d written down, and it took everything in him not to look at Avery, because suddenly, her presence here didn’t seem like a boon. It was a risk. After all, Jameson could hear the Proprietor saying, these things are always more interesting when at least a few players have “skin in the game.” Anyone reading those words would be bad. Avery reading them would open Pandora’s box.

What frightens you? What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged? Is it the dark? A fleeting memory of a bedtime story, ghosts and goblins and witches hiding in the shadows? Is it the way the wind picks up just before a storm, the hint of wet in the air that makes you want to scurry home to the safety of your fire? Or is it something deeper, something much more frightening, a monster deep inside that you've glimpsed only in pieces, the vast unknown of your own soul where secrets gather with a terrible power, the dark inside? If you will listen I will tell you a story-one whose ghost cannot be banished by the comfort of a roaring fire, I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as your handprint in the snow. I will tell you how we unlocked the Pandora's box of ourselves, tasted freedom, stained our souls with blood and choice, and unleashed a horror on the world that destroyed its dearest Order. These pages are a confession of all that has led to this cold, gray dawn. What will be now, I cannot say. Is your heart beating faster? Do the clouds seem to be gathering on the horizons? Does the skin on your neck feel stretched tight, waiting for a kiss you both fear and need? Will you be scared? Will you know the truth? Mary Dowd, April 7, 1871

Pandora’s Box Longing has a language that is all her own. The language of skin, the language of flowers. I am a body of longing, a vessel of language. For you, I am calamity in a locked box where the key is still turning. For you, I am a mistress in her ivory tower humming. For you, I am a songbird preening her feathers. For you, for you, I am a bed of roses, blooming.

[The Christian story] amounts to a refusal to affirm life. In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulse is sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the wold. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist the has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.... I don't know of it [the idea of woman as sinner...in other mythologies] elsewhere. The closest thing to it would be perhaps Pandora with Pandora's box, but that's not sin, that's just trouble. The idea in the biblical tradition of the all is that nature as we know it is corrupt, sex in itself is corrupt, and the female as the epitome of sex is a corrupter. Why was the knowledge of good and evil forbidden to Adam and Eve? Without that knowledge, we'd all be a bunch of babies still Eden, without any participation in life. Woman brings life into the world. Eve is the mother o this temporal wold. Formerly you had a dreamtime paradise there in the Garden of Eden – no time, no birth, no death – no life. The serpent, who dies and is resurrected, shedding its skin and renewing its life, is the lord of the central tree, where time and eternity come together. He is the primary god, actually, in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh, the one who walks there in the cool of the evening, is just a visitor. The Garden is the serpent's place. It is an old, old story. We have Sumerian seals from as early as 3500 B.C. showing the serpent and the tree and the goddess, with the goddess giving the fruit of life to a visiting male. The old mythology of he goddess is right there.... There is actually a historical explanation [of the change of this image of the serpent and the snake in Genesis] based on the coming of the Hebrews into Canaan. The principal divinity of the people of Canaan was the Goddess and associated with the Goddess is the serpent. This is the symbol of the mystery of life. The male-god-oriented groups rejected it. In other words, there is a historical rejection of the Mother Goddess implied in the story of the Garden of Eden. Moyers: It does seem that this story has done women a great disservice by casting Eve as responsible for the Fall. Why...? Campbell: They represent life. Man doesn't enter life except by woman, and so it is woman who brings us into this wold of pairs of opposites and suffering.... Male and female is one opposition. Another opposition is the human and God. Good and evil is a third opposition. The primary oppositions are the sexual and that between human beings and God. Then comes the idea of good and evil in the world. And so Adm and Eve have thrown themselves out of the Garden of Timeless Unity, you might say, just by that act of recognizing duality. To move out into the world, you have to act in terms of pairs of opposites.

I believe that social media has become a treacherous platform for love interests. Before the Internet invaded our lives, I’m sure that each single person liked a lot of people at one time. Before falling into a committed relationship, there are steps taken to get there. Often, this involves talking to and even dating a few people at once. That’s logical. But with Facebook, your competition is suddenly splattered in your face. All I had to do was click onto Number 23’s profile and scan one after another wall post from ladies who may or may not be his mating potentials or mating pasts. I see their names and faces. When I click onto their photos, I open a Pandora’s box into their lives. I see their friends, professions, achievements, hobbies, and bodies. I evaluate, I compare, and when I’m insecure, I tear apart. I copy, paste, email, and text the images to my friends, so that they can assure me that I’m prettier, smarter, have bigger breasts, clearer skin, have something that would make him a fool to want her over me. Suddenly, I am stalking, letting fits of rage overcome me with violent hatred for these women who I’ve never met.

Without warning, a smooth voice spoke next to her ear- a woman's voice with an American accent. "You're nothing but a skinny, awkward child, just as he described. He's visited me since the wedding, you know. He and I have laughed together over your juvenile infatuation with him. You bore him senseless." Pandora turned and found herself confronted by Mrs. Nola Black. The woman was breathtaking, her features creamy-skinned and flawless, her eyes deep and dark under brows so perfectly groomed and delineated, they looked like thin strips of velvet. Although Mrs. Black was approximately the same height as Pandora, her figure was a remarkable hourglass shape, with a waist so small one could have buckled a cat's collar around it. "That's nothing but bitchful thinking," Pandora said calmly. "He hasn't visited you, or he would have told me." Mrs. Black was clearly "picking for a fight," as Winterborne would have put it. "He'll never be faithful to you. Everyone knows you're a peculiar girl who tricked him into marriage. He appreciates novelty, to be sure, but it will wear off, and then he'll send you packing to some remote country house." Pandora was filled with a confusing mixture of feelings. Jealousy, because this woman had known Gabriel intimately, and had meant something to him... and antagonism, but also a stirring of pity, because there was something wounded in the biting darkness of her eyes. Behind the stunning façade, she was a savagely unhappy woman. "I'm sure you think that's what I should fear," Pandora said, "but I actually don't worry about that at all. I didn't trick him, by the way." She paused before adding, "I'll admit to being peculiar. But he seems to like that.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: no man who has ever voted against abortion could handle being pregnant. Not one of those ham-faced assemblages of fear, misogyny and idiocy could handle having their skin, muscle and bones torn apart by an unborn child. Not one of them would undergo three months of daily vomiting, existential terror, occasional bleeding, constant nausea and unshakeable fatigue, followed by another six months of aching joints, short breath, decreased mobility, near-incontinence, fear and exhaustion for the sake of something that may not even survive. Not one of them could give up their status, their ability to work, their financial security, their freedom of thought and movement, their whole previous way of life, in order to grow something in their bodies that they never even wanted – it is hard enough when you do want it.

Well, well, do we have a new girl?’ I looked up to see three girls standing behind Tak. The one in the middle was tall and slim with bronzed skin and long shiny black hair and she had that air about her that the popular girls at school back home did. I was instantly wary. Those girls had never been nice to me. ‘Don’t be shy, what’s your name?’ the girl on her left said. Curly red hair framed her perfect face and she put her hands on her ample, curvy hips, waiting for me to answer. ‘Pandora,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m Arketa,’ said the slim girl. ‘And this is Filis and Kiko.’ The red-head, Kiko, cocked her head and gave me an over-the-top smile. ‘We’re Aphrodite descendants.’ That explained why they were so attractive, I thought. ‘You know, you’re not pretty enough to hang out with us but you’re better than these losers,’ Filis said. She was shorter than the other two, with rich brown hair and an exotic looking face with full pouty lips.

There was a moment of stillness before something in him seemed to snap. she pounced on her with a sort of tigerish delight, and clamped his mouth over hers. She squeaked in surprise, wriggling in his hold, but his arms clamped around her easily, his muscles as solid as oak. He kissed her possessively, almost roughly at first, gentling by voluptuous degrees. Her body surrendered without giving her brain a chance to object, applying itself eagerly to every available inch of him. The luxurious male heat and hardness of him satisfied a wrenching hunger she hadn't been aware of until now. It also gave her the close-but-not-close-enough feeling she remembered from before. Oh, how confusing this was, this maddening need to crawl inside his clothes, practically inside his skin. She let her fingertips wander over his cheeks and jaw, the neat shape of his ears, the taut smoothness of his neck. When he offered no objection, she sank her fingers into his thick, vibrant hair and sighed in satisfaction. He searched for her tongue, teased and stroked intimately until her heart pounded in a tumult of longing, and a sweet, empty ache spread all through her. Dimly aware that she was going to lose control, that she was on the verge of swooning, or assaulting him again, she managed to break the kiss and turn her face away with a gasp. "Don't," she said weakly. His lips grazed along her jawline, his breath rushing unsteadily against her skin. "Why? Are you still worried about Australian pox?" Slowly it registered that they were no longer standing. Gabriel was sitting on the ground with his back against the grass-covered mound, and- heaven help her- she was in his lap. She glanced around them in bewilderment. How had this happened? "No," she said, bewildered and perturbed, "but I just remembered that you said I kissed like a pirate." Gabriel looked blank for a moment. "Oh, that. That was a compliment." Pandora scowled. "It would only be a compliment if I had a beard and a peg leg." Setting his mouth sternly against a faint quiver, Gabriel smoothed her hair tenderly. "Forgive my poor choice of words. What I meant to convey was that I found your enthusiasm charming." "Did you?" Pandora turned crimson. Dropping her head to his shoulder, she said in a muffled voice, "Because I've worried for the past three days that I did it wrong." "No, never, darling." Gabriel sat up a little and cradled her more closely to him. Nuzzling her cheek, he whispered, "Isn't it obvious that everything about you gives me pleasure?" "Even when I plunder and pillage like a Viking?" she asked darkly. "Pirate. Yes, especially then." His lips moved softly along the rim of her right ear. "My sweet, there are altogether too many respectable ladies in the world. The supply has far exceeded the demand. But there's an appalling shortage of attractive pirates, and you do seem to have a gift for plundering and ravishing. I think we've found you're true calling." "You're mocking me," Pandora said in resignation, and jumped a little as she felt his teeth gently nip her earlobe. Smiling, Gabriel took her head between his hands and looked into her eyes. "Your kiss thrilled me beyond imagining," he whispered. "Every night for the rest of my life, I'll dream of the afternoon in the holloway, when I was waylaid by a dark-haired beauty who devastated me with the heat of a thousand troubled stars, and left my soul in cinders. Even when I'm an old man, and my brain has fallen to wrack and ruin, I'll remember the sweet fire of your lips under mine, and I'll say to myself, 'Now, that was a kiss.'" Silver-tongued devil, Pandora thought, unable to hold back a crooked grin. Only yesterday, she'd heard Gabriel affectionately mock his father, who was fond of expressing himself with elaborate, almost labyrinthine turns of phrase. Clearly the gift had been passed down to his son.

— PAULING’S ADVOCACY GAVE BIRTH TO a vitamin and supplement industry built on sand. Evidence for this can be found by walking into a GNC center—a wonderland of false hope. Rows and rows of megavitamins and dietary supplements promise healthier hearts, smaller prostates, lower cholesterol, improved memory, instant weight loss, lower stress, thicker hair, and better skin. All in a bottle. No one seems to be paying attention to the fact that vitamins and supplements are an unregulated industry. As a consequence, companies aren’t required to support their claims of safety or effectiveness. Worse, the ingredients listed on the label might not reflect what’s in the bottle. And we seem to be perfectly willing to ignore the fact that every week at least one of these supplements is pulled off the shelves after it was found to cause harm. Like the L-tryptophan disaster, an amino acid sold over the counter and found to cause a disease that affected 5,000 people and killed 28. Or the OxyElite Pro disaster, a weight-loss product that caused 50 people to suffer severe liver disease; one person died and three others needed lifesaving liver transplants. Or the Purity First disaster, a Connecticut company’s vitamin preparations that were found to contain two powerful anabolic steroids, causing masculinizing symptoms in dozens of women in the Northeast.

Didn’t your sister explain what happens to a man’s body when he’s aroused?” he asked. “Yes, but she didn’t tell me it could happen in the parlor, of all places.” His lips curved. “I’m afraid it can happen anywhere. The parlor, the drawing room, a carriage . . . or a summer house.” Looking scandalized, Pandora asked, “Then you think this is what Dolly and Mr. Hayhurst were doing in the summer house?” “There’s no doubt.” He began to unfasten the top buttons of her nightgown, and kissed the newly revealed skin of her throat. Pandora, however, hadn’t yet finished with the subject of the summer house rendezvous. “But Mr. Hayhurst wouldn’t have returned to the ballroom with a . . . a protrusion like that. How do you deflate it?” “I usually distract myself by thinking about the latest analysis of foreign securities on the stock exchange. That usually takes care of the problem right away. If that fails, I picture the Queen.” “Really? I wonder what Prince Albert used to think about? It couldn’t have been the Queen—they had nine children together.” As Pandora continued to chatter, Gabriel spread the sides of the nightgown open and kissed the tender valley between her breasts. Her fingers fidgeted at the back of his neck. “Do you suppose it was something like educational reform? Or Parliamentary procedure, or—” “Shhh.” 

Nothing you say can justify what you just did to me. I shouldn’t have to safeword my boyfriend, he should be man enough to stop himself, and he sure as hell should keep his damn promises! I know your demons lie close underneath your skin and that you fight an endless battle to release the past, but I’m not going to save you by sacrificing myself. That’s not love; it’s torture.

So, there I was, encased in about ten feet of cement, and walled into the basement of Ahab's coffee shop. Being buried alive was just about as much fun as you would think. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, couldn't move. My skin ached...

Vann was so scared his skin actually turned white. He looked like Michael Jackson for a second.

The comments you would receive if you wore rouge in public would assuredly not be delicate or inoffensive. People would assume you were a fallen woman. Or worse, an actress.” Pandora turned to Devon. “Lord Trenear, what do you think?” “This is one of those times when it’s best for a man to avoid thinking altogether,” he said hastily. “Bother,” Cassandra said. Reaching for a white glass pot with a gilded top, she gave it to Kathleen. “We found this for you. It’s lily pomatum, for your wrinkles.” “I don’t have wrinkles,” Kathleen said with dawning indignation. “Not yet,” Pandora allowed. “But someday you will.” Devon grinned as the twins snatched their empty baskets and scurried away to continue shopping. “When my wrinkles appear,” Kathleen said ruefully, “those two will have caused most of them.” “That day will be a long time coming.” Looking down at her, Devon cupped her face with his hands. “But when it does, you’ll be even more beautiful.” The skin beneath his gentle touch flamed with a blush more brilliant than potted rouge could have imparted. Desperately she tried to make herself pull away from him, but his touch had paralyzed her.