Snakes In Suits Quotes

The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team.

Giants isn't eating each other either, the BFG said. Nor is giants killing each other. Giants is not very lovely, but they is not killing each other. Nor is crockadowndillies killing other crockadowndillies. Nor is pussy-cats killing pussy-cats. 'They kill mice,' Sophie said. 'Ah, but they is not killing their own kind,' the BFG said. 'Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.' 'Don't poisonous snakes kill each other?' Sophie asked. She was searching desperately for another creature that behaved as badly as the human. 'Even poisnowse snakes is never killing each other,' the BFG said. 'Nor is the most fearsome creatures like tigers and rhinostossterisses. None of them is ever killing their own kind. Has you ever thought about that?' Sophie kept silent. 'I is not understanding human beans at all,' the BFG said.' You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans. Right or left?' 'Right,' Sophie said. 'But human beans is squishing each other all the time,' the BFG said. 'They is shootling guns and going up in aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.' He was right. Of course he was right and Sophie knew it. She was beginning to wonder whether humans were actually any better than giants. 'Even so,' she said, defending her own race, I' think it's rotten that those foul giants should go off every night to eat humans. Humans have never done them any harm.' 'That is what the little piggy-wig is saying every day,' the BFG answered. 'He is saying, "I has never done any harm to the human bean so why should he be eating me?'" 'Oh dear,' Sophie said. 'The human beans is making rules to suit themselves,' the BFG went on. 'But the rules they is making do not suit the little piggy-wiggies. Am I right or left?' 'Right,' Sophie said. 'Giants is also making rules. Their rules is not suiting the human beans. Everybody is making his own rules to suit himself.

Psychopathic workers very often were identified as the source of departmental conflicts, in many cases, purposely setting people up in conflict with each other. “She tells some people one story, and then a totally different story to others.

You hate me because I’m blunt and have no patience for wasted time or wasted words. Because I’m not nice. Well, a lot of nice people are nice because they’ve figured out it’s a great way to get things from other people. Some of the slimiest snakes I’ve run across have been nice. So let me tell you now, if you ever see me resort to being nice, run.

Going out at night the medics gave you pills, Dexedrine breath like dead snakes kept too long in a jar. [...] I knew one 4th division Lurp who took his pills by the fistful, downs from the left pocket of his tiger suit and ups from the right, one to cut the trail for him and the other to send him down it. He told me that they cooled things out just right for him, that could see that old jungle at night like he was looking at it through a starlight scope. "They sure give you the range," he said.

I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive

Because they see most people as weak, inferior, and easy to deceive, psychopathic con artists will often tell you that their victims deserved what they got.

Even in the face of contrary evidence, the psychopath can lie so well that listeners doubt themselves first, rather than question the psychopath.

In psychopaths’ mental world people do not exist except as objects, targets, and obstacles.

Somehow, the notion that Professor Moriarty had parents - might have been a child - never sat right. A viper is a snake straight from the egg. I couldn't help but picture little Jamie as a balding midget in a sailor suit, spying Cook and the baker's boy rolling in the flour on the kitchen table through his toy telescope, and blackmailing them for extra buns.

Another characteristic of psychopaths is an ability to avoid taking responsibility for things that go wrong; instead, they blame others, circumstances, fate, and so forth.

I hadn't realized how supremely shit-housed I was until we stumbled into our room at the Embassy Suites. You ever been so drunk you forgot that you have to shit until the last minute? Well I was at that stage. I nearly had my pants completely off when SlingBlade snaked past me and got into the toilet first. Fine, I go get out of my bar clothes and change into a t-shirt and pink Gap boxers to sleep in. I wait patiently for about three minutes, then I start pounding on the door, screaming at him that I am going to shit on his bed if he doesn't get out of there. A short time later he opens the door laughing his ass off, and says, "That was perhaps the most prodigious shit ever. I just put that toilet into therapy." I take a gander into the bathroom. It looks like Revelations. The toilet is overflowing, brown shit water is spilling out all over the bathroom floor, and the tank is making demonic gurgling noises. THE MOTHERFUCKER CLOGGED UP A HOTEL TOILET! Hotel toilets are industrial size; they are designed to be able to accommodate repeated elephant-sized shits, and their ram-jet engine flushes generate enough force to suck down a human infant, yet skinny ass 170-pound SlingBlade completely killed ours.

Rapid business growth, increased downsizing, frequent reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures have inadvertently increased the number of attractive employment opportunities for individuals with psychopathic personalities

On the surface however people with psychopathic personalities can and do easily come across as friendly and agreeable - they get along with other "kids" at work or play. It is only beneath the surface, well hidden from view, that darker tendencies lie.

He (Lafcadio) was sitting all alone in a compartment of the train which was carrying him away from Rome, & contemplating–not without satisfaction–his hands in their grey doeskin gloves, as they lay on the rich fawn-colored plaid, which, in spite of the heat, he had spread negligently over his knees. Through the soft woolen material of his traveling-suit he breathed ease and comfort at every pore; his neck was unconfined in its collar which without being low was unstarched, & from beneath which the narrow line of a bronze silk necktie ran, slender as a grass snake, over his pleated shirt. He was at ease in his skin, at ease in his shoes, which were cut out of the same doeskin as his gloves; his foot in its elastic prison could stretch, could bend, could feel itself alive. His beaver hat was pulled down over his eyes & kept out the landscape; he was smoking dried juniper, after the Algerian fashion, in a little clay pipe & letting his thoughts wander at their will …

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear. Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you. The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

psychopaths will lie even to people who already know the truth about what they are saying. Amazingly, more often than not, victims will eventually come to doubt their own knowledge of the truth and change their own views to believe what the psychopath tells them rather than what they know to be true.

I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never appreciated it. I did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw the Thumbscrew—two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or may be said, 'I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning,' then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, 'I will recant.' Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: 'Stop; I will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop.' But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dancing around some dried snake fetich. Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be the truth. Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who would not recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the name of love—in the name of mercy, in the name of Christ. I saw, too, what they called the Collar of Torture. Imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. This argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured, by these points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, 'I do not believe that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men.' I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter. Think of a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced. In this condition, he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity would in pity end his pain. I saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer; others to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen, divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. And they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once again. This was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of Christ.

the detractors despised these individuals, and the supporters almost worshipped them. It was as if employees were describing two entirely different people.

The increase in cautious inaction among coworkers is another subtle but powerful effect that psychopathic behavior has on the organization.

Honesty and integrity are a “given” in most organizations, rarely tested on any but the most superficial levels.

At a basic level, a person with a personality disorder has a limited range of stereotyped “solutions” that he or she applies to most of the problems encountered in life.

Other objects found in shark stomachs include a suit of armor, a barrel of nails, a roll of tar paper, coal, raincoats, shoes, plastic bags, goats, sheep, lizards, snakes, chicken, reindeer, and monkeys.

When dramatic organizational change is added to the normal levels of job insecurity, personality clashes, and political battling, the resulting chaotic milieu provides both the necessary stimulation and sufficient “cover” for psychopathic behavior.

Sejanus appeared, in another brand-new suit, with a rumpled little woman in an expensive flowered dress on his arm. It didn't matter. You could put a turnip in a ball gown and it would still beg to be mashed. Coriolanus had no doubt this could only be Ma.

Most people are honest, loyal, law-abiding citizens who focus their energy on making a living, raising a family, and contributing to society. Others are more selfish, concerned only about themselves, and appear to lack a moral compass. These individuals display little regard for others, allowing their need for power and prestige to override their sense of fairness and equity.1 Unfortunately, some individuals in the business world allow the responsibilities of leadership and the perquisites of power to override their moral sense.

most interesting challenges to the psychopath, no doubt, are individuals with strong personality traits such as narcissism, assertiveness, and dominance. These individuals are particularly important to psychopaths because they also tend to be in the higher levels of power in organizations.

The real problem for others is when narcissistic features, especially a sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy, shade into antisocial and destructive behaviors. When this happens, the pattern might be described as aggressive or malignant narcissism, which is difficult to distinguish from psychopathy.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.

I’m not a nice guy. But I am on your side. Don’t confuse the two. You hate me because I’m blunt and have no patience for wasted time or wasted words. Because I’m not nice. Well, a lot of nice people are nice because they’ve figured out it’s a great way to get things from other people. Some of the slimiest snakes I’ve run across have been nice. So let me tell you now, if you ever see me resort to being nice, run.

Coriolanus acted engrossed in the show as 8, 6, and 11 called their tributes, but his brain spun with the repercussions of landing Lucy Gray Baird. She was a gift, he knew it, and he must treat her as such. But how best to exploit her showstopping entrance? How to wrangle some success from a dress, a snake, a song? The tributes would be given precious little time with the audience before the Games began. How could he get the audience to invest in her and, by extension, him, in just an interview? He half registered the other tributes, mostly pitiful creatures, and took note of the stronger ones. Sejanus got a towering fellow from District 2, and Livia’s District 1 boy looked like he could be a contender as well. Coriolanus’s girl seemed fairly healthy, but her slight build was more suited to dancing than hand-to-hand combat. He bet she could run fast enough, though, and that was important. As the reaping drew to a close, the smell of food from the buffet wafted over the audience

I decided early in graduate school that I needed to do something about my moods. It quickly came down to a choice between seeing a psychiatrist or buying a horse. Since almost everyone I knew was seeing a psychiatrist, and since I had an absolute belief that I should be able to handle my own problems, I naturally bought a horse. Not just any horse, but an unrelentingly stubborn and blindingly neurotic one, a sort of equine Woody Allen, but without the entertainment value. I had imagined, of course, a My Friend Flicka scenario: my horse would see me in the distance, wiggle his ears in eager anticipation, whinny with pleasure, canter up to my side, and nuzzle my breeches for sugar or carrots. What I got instead was a wildly anxious, frequently lame, and not terribly bright creature who was terrified of snakes, people, lizards, dogs, and other horses – in short, terrified of anything that he might reasonably be expected to encounter in life – thus causing him to rear up on his hind legs and bolt madly about in completely random directions. In the clouds-and-silver-linings department, however, whenever I rode him I was generally too terrified to be depressed, and when I was manic I had no judgment anyway, so maniacal riding was well suited to the mood. Unfortunately, it was not only a crazy decision to buy a horse, it was also stupid. I may as well have saved myself the trouble of cashing my Public Health Service fellowship checks, and fed him checks directly: besides shoeing him and boarding him – with veterinary requirements that he supplement his regular diet with a kind of horsey granola that cost more than a good pear brandy – I also had to buy him special orthopedic shoes to correct, or occasionaly correct, his ongoing problems with lameness. These shoes left Guicci and Neiman-Marcus in the dust, and, after a painfully aquired but profound understanding of why people shoot horse traders, and horses, I had to acknowledge that I was a graduate student, not Dr. Dolittle; more to the point, I was neither a Mellon nor a Rockefeller. I sold my horse, as one passes along the queen of spades, and started showing up for my classes at UCLA.

The most to which we can ever aspire is not to break free from the cage that sits around us as some may believe, but that instead we might choose one that best suits our needs. A home for a captive lizard is not suitable for a bird. A gorilla is displeased by an environment that would be bliss for a snake. Do not mistake me—it is better to hate your cage and search for something more than to be complacent. That we might find our cage a Heaven or a Hell is far more preferable to wanting nothing at all. Ants care not whose dirt they dwell in. Hate your cage. Find another. Build it with your own bare hands if you must—but understand that it is a cage all the same. Embrace it. Fashion it with pride. Make it your home. There is no such thing as freedom for our species.

WHEN TRAVELING THROUGH WASHINGTON, DC, one expects to see a few snakes in human clothing. Still, I was concerned when a two-headed boa constrictor boarded our train at Union Station. The creature had threaded himself through a blue silk business suit, looping his body into the sleeves and trouser legs to approximate human limbs. Two heads protruded from the collar of his dress shirt like twin periscopes. He moved with remarkable grace for what was basically an oversize balloon animal, taking a seat at the opposite end of the coach, facing our direction. The other passengers ignored him. No doubt the Mist warped their perceptions, making them see just another commuter. The snake made no threatening moves. He didn’t even glance at us. For all I knew, he was simply a working-stiff monster on his way home.

The way you see the change in a person you've been away from for a long time, where somebody who sees him every day, day in, day out, wouldn't notice because the change is gradual. All up the coast I could see the signs of what the Combine had accomplished since I was last through this country, things like, for example a train stopping at a station and laying a string of full-grown men in mirrored suits and machined hats, laying them like a hatch of identical insects, half-life things coming pht-pht-pht out of the last car, then hooting its electric whistle and moving on down the spoiled land to deposit another hatch. Or things like five thousand houses punched out identical by a machine and strung across the hills outside of town, so fresh from the factory theyre still linked together like sausages, a sign saying NEST IN THE WEST HOMES NO DWN. PAYMENT FOR VETS, a playground down the hill from the houses, behind a checker-wire fence and another sign that read ST. LUKE'S SCHOOL FOR BOYS there were five thousand kids in green corduroy pants and white shirts under green pullover sweaters playing crack-the-whip across an acre of crushed gravel. The line popped and twisted and jerked like a snake, and every crack popped a little kid off the end, sent him rolling up against the fence like a tumbleweed. Every crack. And it was always the same little kid, over and over. All that five thousand kids lived in those five thousand houses, owned by those guys that got off the train. The houses looked so much alike that, time and time again, the kids went home by mistake to different houses and different families. Nobody ever noticed. They ate and went to bed. The only one they noticed was the little kid at the end of the whip. He'd always be so scuffed and bruised that he'd show up out of place wherever he went. He wasn't able to open up and laugh either. It's a hard thing to laugh if you can feel the pressure of those beams coming from every new car that passes, or every new house you pass.

As the horse is the brother, so the snake is the sister of Chiwantopel (“my little sister”). Rider and horse form a centaur-like unit,84 like man and his shadow, i.e., the higher and lower man, ego-consciousness and shadow, Gilgamesh and Enkidu. In the same way the feminine belongs to man as his own unconscious femininity, which I have called the anima. She is often found in patients in the form of a snake. Green, the life-colour, suits her very well; it is also the colour of the Creator Spiritus. I have defined the anima as the archetype of life itself.85 Here, because of the snake symbolism, she must also be thought of as having the attribute of “spirit.” This apparent contradiction is due to the fact that the anima personifies the total unconscious so long as she is not differentiated as a figure from the other archetypes. With further differentiations the figure of the (wise) old man becomes detached from the anima and appears as an archetype of the “spirit.” He stands to her in the relationship of a “spiritual” father, like Wotan toThe OHG. Brünhilde or Bythos to Sophia. Classic examples are to be found in the novels of Rider Haggard.

A snake doesn't need feet in grass. A seed doesn't need eyes in soil. A bird doesn't need a parachute in air. A fish doesn't need a suit in water. A bee doesn't need sugar in a hive. A spider doesn't need thread in a bush. A flower doesn't need perfume in a garden. A bat doesn't need binoculars in a cave. A giraffe doesn't need a ladder in the woods. A cricket doesn't need a violin in nature. A camel doesn't need wheels in a desert. A wolf doesn't need a knife in a forest. A lion doesn't need a spear in a jungle. If you throw a bird off a cliff, you are helping it find its wings. If you throw a fish into water, you are helping it find its fins. If you throw a seed into soil, you are helping it find its roots. If you throw a bat into the dark, you are helping it find its eyes. If you throw a flower into dirt, you are helping it find its petals. If you throw a cub into the jungle, you are helping it find its fight. If you throw a camel into the desert, you are helping it find its stride. If you throw a scorpion into nature, you are helping it find its sting. If you throw a serpent into grass, you are helping it find its fangs. If you throw a wolf into the jungle, you are helping it find its bite.

Gadzooks, lady! Where’d you learn to throw like that?” The awe in the boy’s tone brought heat to her cheeks. “A pirate taught me,” she snapped, stomping forward to reclaim her blade. For heaven’s sake. Did all males assume women to be helpless creatures incapable of fending for themselves? Pressing her shoe against the snake’s neck, she held the lifeless rattler down and yanked the knife free. There wasn’t much blood, but still, she couldn’t exactly lift her skirts and slip it back into the sheath strapped to her thigh with Darius and a child looking on in rapt attention. “A pirate, Miss Greyson?” Darius regarded her with a raised brow, obviously not as awestruck as the gaping boy at his side. She sighed. “All right, so my father was an ordinary seaman, not a pirate. But I used to imagine him a pirate while we had our lessons.” She tossed a wink at the boy. “Made it so much more fun, you know. My father ensured I was proficient with pistols, too, but I preferred the blades. So much more elegant and lighter weight. Much better suited to a lady, wouldn’t you say? Pistols are dirty things, what with all that black powder and the flash from the flintlock every time one pulls the trigger.” She gave a little shudder, and the boy cracked a smile.

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire. ...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ... Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close enough." said Addams.) A set of engraved aquatint plates from an antique book on armor. A lamp in the shape of a miniature suit of armor, topped by a black shade. There were various snakes; biopsy scissors ("It reaches inside, and nips a little piece of flesh," explained Addams); and a shiny human thighbone - a Christmas present from one wife. There was a sewing basket fashioned from an armadillo, a gift from another. In front of the couch stood a most unusual coffee table - "a drying out table," the man at the wonderfully named antiques shop, the Gettysburg Sutler, had called it. ("What was dried on it?" a reporter had asked. "Bodies," said Addams.)...

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, show no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dear like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear. Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you. The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, your open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear. Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you. The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

She knew the effort it took to keep one’s exterior self together, upright, when everything inside was in pieces, broken beyond repair. One touch, one warm, compassionate hand, could shatter that hard-won perfect exterior. And then it would take years and years to restore it. This tiny, effeminate creature dressed in velvet suits, red socks, an absurdly long scarf usually wrapped around his throat, trailing after him like a coronation robe. He who pronounced, after dinner, “I’m going to go sit over here with the rest of the girls and gossip!” This pixie who might suddenly leap into the air, kicking one foot out behind him, exclaiming, “Oh, what fun, fun, fun it is to be me! I’m beside myself!” “Truman, you could charm the rattle off a snake,” Diana Vreeland pronounced. Hemingway - He was so muskily, powerfully masculine. More than any other man she’d met, and that was saying something when Clark Gable was a notch in your belt. So it was that, and his brain, his heart—poetic, sad, boyish, angry—that drew her. And he wanted her. Slim could see it in his hungry eyes, voraciously taking her in, no matter how many times a day he saw her; each time was like the first time after a wrenching separation. How to soothe and flatter and caress and purr and then ignore, just when the flattering and caressing got to be a bit too much. Modesty bores me. I hate people who act coy. Just come right out and say it, if you believe it—I’m the greatest. I’m the cat’s pajamas. I’m it! He couldn’t humiliate her vulnerability, her despair. Old habits die hard. Particularly among the wealthy. And the storytellers, gossips, and snakes. Is it truly a scandal? A divine, delicious literary scandal, just like in the good old days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald? The loss of trust, the loss of joy; the loss of herself. The loss of her true heart. An amusing, brief little time. A time before it was fashionable to tell the truth, and the world grew sordid from too much honesty. In the end as in the beginning, all they had were the stories. The stories they told about one another, and the stories they told to themselves. Beauty. Beauty in all its glory, in all its iterations; the exquisite moment of perfect understanding between two lonely, damaged souls, sitting silently by a pool, or in the twilight, or lying in bed, vulnerable and naked in every way that mattered. The haunting glance of a woman who knew she was beautiful because of how she saw herself reflected in her friend’s eyes. The splendor of belonging, being included, prized, coveted. What happened to Truman Capote. What happened to his swans. What happened to elegance. What truly was the price they paid, for the lives they lived. For there is always a price. Especially in fairy tales.

Jaywalker was the only criminal defense lawyer in the suite. For one reason or another, criminal defense lawyers have always been pretty much solo practitioners, and those who’ve attempted to organize them into groups or associations, or even gather them under a single roof, have tended to come away from the experience feeling as though they’ve been trying to line up snakes single file.

Using the satellite phone connection, I finally reached Croc One. The captain, Kris, was in tears. I finally tracked down John Stainton, and he assured me that he hadn’t left Steve’s side. “I’ve got a charter plane coming,” John said. “I’ll get him home, Terri.” I asked about Steve’s personal effects. Steve had had on his khakis and wet-suit boots while he was diving, but because he had no jewelry or anything of value, the medical examiner had destroyed all his clothing. I was devastated. It’s completely unpredictable what one will hold dear in a time of grief, particularly in the case of an accident. I remember thinking, I’ve got to sit down with the powers that be and change these regulations. The family should decide what should be destroyed and what should be kept. I needed to focus on something other than losing Steve. That fact was just too hard to get my head around. As John arranged to bring Steve home, the media pressure steadily increased. I told Wes I wanted to go meet the plane, but that I wouldn’t take the kids. This was my time to be with my soul mate, and I needed to do it on my own. I headed out with a police escort. The Queensland police were considerate and professional, and an officer named Annie was personally assigned to make sure the overwhelming media attention did not interfere with my private moment to say good-bye to Steve. Wes accompanied me. It was night. As the seaplane came in, I recognized it as the same one that had taken Steve on many South Pacific adventures, in search of sea snakes, crested iguanas, or sharks. The ranks of police stood at attention. Many of them had met Steve previously. Once again, I was overwhelmed to see the looks of grief on their faces. The plane landed, and I had a moment to sit with Steve on my own. It was a bit of an effort to clamber up into the back of the plane. A simple wooden casket rested inside, still secured. I knew that who Steve was, his spirit and his soul, were no longer there, but it was strange how I couldn’t cry. I sat down and leaned my head against the wooden box that held his body and felt such strange peace. In some way, we were together again.

An implication in all books about the country is that, though Europeans successfully emigrate to Mexico and become Mexican, no American can follow suit: the gringo remains incorrigibly a gringo.

The plump, nervous bride, flicking at her veil, posed in a voluminous gown and glittering tiara, attended by a bevy of young men in black suits, slicked-down hair, wide shoulders, and confident smiles; the bridesmaids, all shapes and sizes but dressed in identical purple gowns, stumbled badly in stiletto heels on the cobblestones. Surrounding them were potbellied matrons in tight dresses, portly husbands in yellow suits with stupendous sideburns and droopy mustaches, overdressed children, and heavily made-up crones in bombazine and shawls.

As a spectacle, it was an opportunity for townspeople to gape, to tease, to eat, to become part of the throng, as a pack of imploring beggars lined up for alms, some with bowls of coins, others slumped, one nursing a child at her breast, another wildly gesturing to her comatose baby and pleading for help—and a few feet away, the taffeta gowns, the silken shawls, the gleaming suits, the misshapen wedding guests, grinding out their cigarettes under their expensive shoes in anticipation of the ceremony.

Companies are very pragmatic and respond to information about behaviors relevant to the work at hand rather than subjective feelings about another person.

I imagined him with reptilian skin in a suit whose burning lapel set off fire alarms. His fingernails sharp as shark teeth and cannibals in ten different ways. Snakes on him like tar. Flies buzzing around him like an odd sense of humor. There would be hooves, horns, pitchforks. Maybe a goatee.

Between screams, Mom managed to cover the snake with a bucket, which she duct-taped to the floor, so that when Dad came home from work eight hours later in a suit and tie he found, in the dark, an enraged reptile—coiled and claustrophobic—waiting to strike. He just managed to slide a copy of the REO Speedwagon album You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can’t

Thanks again to Alan Butler's work, this time I was able to inspect the work of Hesiod in connection with the Phaistos Disc for being calendrical, and now I view it through the lens of ancient Egypt by projecting it directly onto the circular zodiac of Dendera. Hesiod has used three different references to the days in his work: (the first ..); (the middle ..); and (.. of the month). With this system which he had used, I linked the "first" references to the zodiac's portals on the East; the "middle" references to the Fullmoon days of the month which are located on the zodiac's western portals; and the "of the month" references to the zodiac's days which are located right after passing by and finishing the rotation beyond the eastern portals. Therefore, Hesiod has recognized Egypt's month's count of days (And tell your slaves the thirtieth is the month's best-suited day). He has also explicitly identified the beginning of the Equinox and Solstice portals on the zodiac based on the zodiac's anticlockwise orientation while emphasizing the more prominent role of the Summer Solstice in the calendar system (The first and fourth and seventh days are holy days to men, the eighth and ninth as well). Hesiod has also issued a warning against, Apophis, the snake demon (But shun the fifth day, fifth days are both difficult and dread). Hesiod has recognized Egypt's royal-cosmic copulation event that takes place at the culmination of the Summer Solstice (The first ninth, though, for human beings, is harmless, quite benign for planting and for being born; indeed, it's very fine For men and women both; this day is never bad all through) Hesiod has identified the exact position of the newly born infant boy on the zodiac (For planting vines the middle sixth is uncongenial but good for the birth of males) and also established the Minoan bull's head rhyton connection with Egypt (The middle fourth, which is a day to soothe and gently tame the sheep and curved-horned), (Open a jar on the middle fourth),(And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Hesiod gave Osiris' role in the ancient Egyptian agrarian Theology to men (two Days of the waxing month stand out for tasks men have to do, the eleventh and the twelfth) and pointed out the right location of the boar on the zodiac (Geld your boar on the eighth of the month) and counted on top of these days the days of the mule which comes afterward (on the twelfth day of the month [geld] the long-laboring mule) - since the reference to the mule in the historical text comes right after that of the boar's and both are grouped together conceptually with the act of gelding. He has also identified the role of Isis for resurrecting Osiris after the Summer Solstice event (On the fourth day of the month bring back a wife to your abode) and even referred to the two female figures on the zodiac and identified them as, Demeter and Persephone, the two mythical Greek queens (Upon the middle seventh throw Demeter's holy grain) where we see them along with the reference to Poseidon (i.e. fishes and water) right next to them as the account exists in the Greek mythology. Even more, Hesiod knows when the sequence of the boats' appearances begins on the zodiac (And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Astonishingly enough, he mentions the solar eclipse when the Moon fully blocks the Sun (the third ninth's best of all, though this is known by few) and also glorifies sunrise and warns from sunset on that same day (Again, few know the after-twentieth day of the month is best ..) and identifies the event's dangerous location on the west (.. at dawn and that it worsens when the sun sinks in the west).

The serpent then crawled onto the front of the domed roof of the train station they were about to pull into, wrapping its body around red block letters that spelled “JADEN SMITH FIGHTS A GIANT SNAKE.” Jacob said, “I like how literal they are with the titles now, you know exactly what you’re getting.

Ragnar destroyed a poisonous snake infestation while he was wearing a snake-proof suit made of animal skin. He did all of this because he wanted to win the hand of a princess. This is how he got his nickname, “Hairy Breeches.

The defendant, a wiry man named Billy Dockery, stood next to his lawyer at the defense table as the jury filed past. Dockery was gangly and in his mid-thirties. His dark hair snaked past his shoulders, framing a flat face that had maintained a perpetual smirk throughout the two-day trial. He wore civilized clothing—a dark gray suit, white shirt, and a navy blue tie—but I knew he was anything but civilized. Beneath the veneer was a cruel and dangerous sociopath.

Cons, Bullies, and the Puppetmaster

One of the prime motivators behind the lock step political organization of evangelical Christians is an idea of a "war on Christianity." It's a testament to the efficacy of that false victim mentality that a country built on the separation of church and state has been co-opted by supposed followers of Christ who peddle the same sort of venal, profane, blasphemous, manipulative, soul-selling, fear-mongering, false idol worshipping bull shit. There's nothing wrong with turning the other cheek and humbling yourself before the idea of a higher power and treating one another as you would be treated--with dignity and respect. Unfortunately, that's not the substance of mega-church, imperial, for-profit Christianity. Instead we've got pestilent little golems sucking the life blood out of Americans with promises of divine grace and eternal salvation that amount to abstract snake oil used to lubricate their own materialism. That's the Christianity that people willfully antagonize. That's the Christianity that alienates anyone whose aversion to false morality is greater than their fear of life without a con man's blessing. That's the sort of vulgar perversion of spirituality that cheapens the symbolic cross and leads a nation away from the yoke of power hungry pastors who preach whatever gospel keeps them in control of the coffers. You want a ministry? Live it. Take off your fancy suit. Give up your mansion. Wash those feet. Crucify your ego. Bless the whores. Forgive the sinners. Live it. Otherwise you're nothing but another leach preying on weakness to aggrandize your own mortal ambitions.

please tell me your definition of ahimsa.” “The avoidance of harm to any living creature in thought or deed.” “Beautiful ideal! But the world will always ask: May one not kill a cobra to protect a child, or one’s self?” “I could not kill a cobra without violating two of my vows — fearlessness, and non-killing. I would rather try inwardly to calm the snake by vibrations of love. I cannot possibly lower my standards to suit my circumstances.

In the late 1800’s a rather obnoxious windbag of politician became an artform on the American political scene. In an era of the soapbox and the campaign caboose car, men in pressed suits would flock to see characters with names like “Battlin’” Bob LaFollete, Eugene V. Debs, William Jennings Bryan, and Theodore Roosevelt with the same enthusiasm normally reserved for the revival preacher, carnival barker, or snake oil salesman. They would indict, convict, satire, and mock all the while slinging words few in their awestruck audiences comprehended. They would promise the stars, affirm prejudices, delivering a mountebankism, so seductive, their audiences were sure these men were messianic instead of the scoundrels they actually were. Most would walk away either sufficiently entertained, or believing that the illusory American Dream they craved was about to be delivered on a silver platter. Ultimately what they found was that these frauds were simply blowing through, like a torrential Florida rain, leaving nothing in their wake but a lot of work for the street sweepers.

Gibbons came trotting out of the dressing room with Nash’s best evening clothes draped over his arm, whistling a merry tune—always a bad sign. “What are you doing with those?” Nash asked suspiciously. “Checking for moths,” replied the valet testily. “We go to Brierwood next week, you will recall.” “Not in that rig.” “But there is to be a ball,” sniffed Gibbons. “I had it from Mr. Hayden-Worth. Honestly, if I waited for you to tell me anything—” “Next week,” Nash interjected. “That, Gibbons, is the operative word.” “And if there are moths?” challenged the valet. “Have you any idea how long it would take to get a new suit of evening clothes made up?” Nash shrugged. “I must have a dozen more in there somewhere,” he said, picking up his coffee. “Just drag out a set of old ones.” “They mightn’t fit,” said Gibbons with another sniff. “None of us, I fear, are quite the men we once were.” Nash put his coffee down, and turned sharply in his chair. “What the devil is that supposed to mean?” Gibbons smiled faintly. “You are almost five-and-thirty, sir,” he said. “Things begin to shift—or spread—perhaps even sag.” “I’ll be damned,” said Nash, leaping from his chair. He loosened the dressing gown and jerked it off. “Really, my lord!” Gibbons rolled his eyes. “The tape measure!” Nash growled, stripping off his shirt and hurling it to the floor. “Get me the goddamned tape measure!” Gibbons sighed, went into the dressing room, and returned with the tape, curled like a little snake in the palm of his hand. Nash loosened the fall of his trousers, and held up his arms. “All right,” he said. “Measure it.” “Sir, this really is not nec—” “No, by God, I said measure it.” Gibbons wrinkled his nose and wrapped the heavy ribbon around Nash’s waist. “Ah-ha!” said Nash. “Thirty-two inches, is it not?” “Tsk, tsk,” said Gibbons. “What?” Nash demanded. “They do say a man’s eyesight is the second thing to go,” said Gibbons mournfully. “This tape plainly says thirty-three.” Nash gasped in horror. “You must be lying.” He squinted down. Yes, Gibbons was lying. The tape very plainly said thirty-four. “Oh, God!” said Nash. “Not to worry, sir,” said Gibbons placatingly. “Before your sucking gasp of horror, it was an even three-and-thirty.

Hence, being thus suited to the Age which had begotten her, being thus its creature and its likeness, she bad thriven in it as the snake thrives in hot and poisonous waters which for all purer and healthier things breed death.

We can get Derek one of those dark suits and aviator shades. He can look menacing and give out numbers. ‘You are seventh in line to bow before Kate Daniels.’” “I’m going to punch you in the arm,” I growled. “We can get you a throne with snakes. I’ll stand next to you and roar at anybody who fails to grovel. Fear Kate Daniels. She is a mighty and terrible ruler. Grendel can anoint the petitioners with his vomit. It’ll be great . . .” Oh God. I put my hands over my face. “Come on, baby,” he said. “I’m just trying to cheer you up.