“
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate...Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says “Love your enemies,” he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies– or else? The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Strength to Love)
“
Kaladin screamed, reaching the end of the bridge. Finding a tiny surge of strength somewhere, he raised his spear and threw himself off the end of the wooden platform, launching into the air above the cavernous void.
Bridgemen cried out in dismay. Syl zipped about him with worry. Parshendi looked up with amazement as a lone bridgeman sailed through the air toward them.
His drained, worn-out body barely had any strength left. In that moment of crystallized time, he looked down on his enemies. Parshendi with their marbled red and black skin. Soldiers raising finely crafted weapons, as if to cut him from the sky. Strangers, oddities in carapace breastplates and skullcaps. Many of them wearing beards.
Beards woven with glowing gemstones.
Kaladin breathed in.
Like the power of salvation itself—like rays of sunlight from the eyes of the Almighty—Stormlight exploded from those gemstones. It streamed through the air, pulled in visible streams, like glowing columns of luminescent smoke. Twisting and turning and spiraling like tiny funnel clouds until they slammed into him.
And the storm came to life again.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1))
“
Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story)
“
The next year had seen them drop into the crazy-obsessive love spiral in which they’d break up and then not be able to stay away from each other, until one time she was able to stay away, and that was all she wrote.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel)
“
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., “Strength to Love,” 1963
”
”
Jeanne DuPrau (The People of Sparks)
“
It was the Tower. The Dark Tower. It stood on the horizon of a vast plain the color of blood in the violent setting of a dying sun. He couldn't see the stairs which spiraled up and up and up within its brick shell, but he could see the windows which spiraled up along that staircase’s way, and saw the ghosts of all the people he had ever known pass through them. Up and up they marched, and an arid wind brought him the sound of voices calling his name.
”
”
Stephen King (The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2))
“
The ultimate weakness of violence,” observed Martin Luther King, Jr., “is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
”
”
Walter Wink (The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium)
“
I’d abandoned an evening with my books for a nightclub, for Christ’s sake. If that wasn’t a sign of my irreversible spiral, nothing was.
”
”
Ana Huang (King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2))
“
I swallowed a gasp as a heady flush unraveled within my body, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin as my eyes connected with a familiar, gorgeous face. The vampire who had found me in the clearing, the one who had licked blood from my skin and sent me into a spiral of desire, was Adrian, the Blood King.
”
”
Scarlett St. Clair (King of Battle and Blood (Adrian X Isolde, #1))
“
We do NOT know the past in chronological sequence. It may be convenient to lay it out anesthetized on the table with dates pasted on here and there, but what we know we know by ripples and spirals eddying out from us and from our own time.
”
”
Thomas King (The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America)
“
What started as a normal conversation quickly spiraled out of hand, and Neil had no idea how they went from the construction work on the far side of campus grounds to a likely starting point for World War III. There had to be a correlation between the two, but as hard as he wracked his brain he couldn't find one. Eventually he gave up, because trying to make sense of the jump meant he couldn't actually listen to their argument. Renee expected it to start over resources, particularly water shortages, whereas Andrew was convinced the US government would get involved in the wrong conflict and draw vicious retaliation. There wasn't enough time left in break for either one of them to win the other over, and since Neil wouldn't play tiebreaker they set the debate aside for another day.
”
”
Nora Sakavic (The King's Men (All for the Game, #3))
“
Sometimes I dream about it, I’m walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don’t even know who I’m looking for. Most nights it’s my father, but sometimes it’s Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle. Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it’s not them I’m afraid of. I scream that I’m not a Stark, that this isn’t my place, but it’s no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream” -Jon Snow
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
Except that wasn’t quite what Clotho was thinking of, Ralph discovered. For one flickering moment he seemed to catch an image from the mind of the other, one he found both exciting and disturbing: an enormous tower constructed of dark and sooty stone, standing in a field of red roses. Slit windows twisted up its sides in a brooding spiral.
”
”
Stephen King (Insomnia)
“
diminishing circles indicating a spiral leading down, not to a point, but to infinity; order from chaos or chaos from order, depending on which way your mind worked.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Interested citizens could follow a lady from the Historical Society up the spiral of stairs to the gallery at the top, where they could ooh and aah over the view and snap Kodaks to show their friends.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
and goes with it. There is a sensation first of being rocked, of a delicious spiralling sweetness which makes her begin to turn her head helplessly from side to side, and a tuneless humming comes from between her closed lips, this is flying, this, oh love, oh desire, oh this is something impossible to deny, binding, giving, making a strong circle: binding, giving . . . flying. “Oh Ben, oh my dear, yes,
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
Everything, my good friend, is relative, from the king who stands in the way of his designated successor to the employee who impedes the supernumerary: if the king dies, the successor inherits a crown; if the employee dies, the supernumerary inherits a salary of twelve hundred livres. These twelve hundred livres are his civil list: they are as necessary to his survival as the king’s twelve million. Every individual, from the lowest to the highest on the social scale, is at the centre of a little network of interests, with its storms and its hooked atoms, like the worlds of Descartes;2 except that these worlds get larger as one goes up: it is a reverse spiral balanced on a single point.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
The glow lasted through the night, beyond the bar's closing, when there were no cabs on the street. And so Mathilde and Lotto decided to walk home, her arm in his, chatting about nothing, about everything, the unpleasant, hot breath of the subway belching up from the grates.
'Chthonic', he said, booze letting loose the pretension at his core, which she still found sweet, an allowance from the glory. It was so late, there were few other people out, and it felt, just for this moment, that they had the city to themselves.
She thought of all the life just underfoot, the teem of it that they were passing over, unknowing. She said, 'Did you know that the total weight of all the ants on Earth is the same as the total weight of all the humans on Earth.' She, who drank to excess, was a little bit drunk, it was true, there was so much relief in the evening.
When the curtains closed against the backdrop, an enormous bolder blocking their future had rolled away.
'They'll still be here when we're gone,' he said. He was drinking from a flask. By the time they were home, he'd be sozzeled. 'The ants and the jellyfish and the cockroaches, they will be the kings of the Earth.'...
'They deserve this place more than we do,' she said. 'We've been reckless with our gifts.'
He smiled and looked up. There were no stars, there was too much smog for them.
'Did you know,' he said, 'they just found out just a while ago that there are billions of worlds that can support life in our galaxy alone.'
...She felt a sting behind here eyes, but couldn't say why this thought touched her.
He saw clear through and understood. He knew her. The things he didn't know about her would sink an ocean liner. He knew her.
'We're lonely down here,' he said, 'it's true, but we're not alone.'
In the hazy space after he died, when she lived in a sort of timeless underground grief, she saw on the internet a video about what would happen to our galaxy in billions of years. We are in an immensely slow tango with the Andromeda galaxy, both galaxies shaped like spirals with outstretched arms, and we are moving toward each other like spinning bodies. The galaxies will gain speed as they draw near, casting off blue sparks, new stars until they spin past each other, and then the long arms of both galaxies will reach longingly out and grasp hands at the last moment and they will come spinning back in the opposite direction, their legs entwined, never hitting, until the second swirl becomes a clutch, a dip, a kiss, and then at the very center of things, when they are at their closest, there will open a supermassive black hole.
”
”
Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies)
“
Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says “Love your enemies,” he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Strength to Love (King Legacy))
“
I know,” Kai said, his calm voice pulling me out of my poorly timed existential spiral. “Because you’re too strong not to. You might not think so, but you are. Also…” A glint of mischief cracked his sober expression. “You tell great stories, condom varieties notwithstanding.
”
”
Ana Huang (King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2))
“
The graves in the Pet Sematary mimed the most ancient religious symbol of all: diminishing circles indicating a spiral leading down, not to a point, but to infinity; order from chaos or chaos from order, depending on which way your mind worked. It was a symbol the Egyptians had chiseled on the tombs of the Pharaohs, a symbol the Phoenicians had drawn on the barrows of their fallen kings; it was found on cave walls in ancient Mycenae; the guild-kings of Stonehenge had created it as a clock to time the universe; it appeared in the Judeo-Christian Bible as the whirlwind from which God had spoken to Job.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It was later said that he came under a bad influence at this stage. But the secret of the history of Edward d'Eath was that he came under no outside influence at all, unless you count those dead kings. He just came under the influence of himself.
That's where people get it wrong. Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are... well... human beings. He was also spiraling inwards, as tends to happen in cases like this.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Men at Arms (Discworld, #15; City Watch, #2))
“
I wanted a real diary, but there wasn't time to visit a stationery store, so instead I ran down to Thrift Drug and got you. According to your cover, you're an 'Official Popeye the Sailor Spiral-Bound Notebook, copyright © 1959 King Features Syndicate.' When I look into your wizened face, Popeye, I know you're a man I can trust.
”
”
James K. Morrow (Towing Jehovah (Godhead, #1))
“
Now we live in an age of coercion, where the king’s will is an instrument reshaped each morning, as if by a master-forger: sharp-pointed, biting, it spirals deep into our crooked age. You will see Henry, profound in deception, take an ambassador’s arm and charm him. Lying gives him a deep and subtle pleasure, so deep and subtle he does not know he is lying; he thinks he is the most truthful of princes.
”
”
Hilary Mantel (The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3))
“
Themes of descent often turn on the struggle between the titanic and the demonic within the same person or group. In Moby Dick, Ahab’s quest for the whale may be mad and “monomaniacal,” as it is frequently called, or even evil so far as he sacrifices his crew and ship to it, but evil or revenge are not the point of the quest. The whale itself may be only a “dumb brute,” as the mate says, and even if it were malignantly determined to kill Ahab, such an attitude, in a whale hunted to the death, would certainly be understandable if it were there. What obsesses Ahab is in a dimension of reality much further down than any whale, in an amoral and alienating world that nothing normal in the human psyche can directly confront.
The professed quest is to kill Moby Dick, but as the portents of disaster pile up it becomes clear that a will to identify with (not adjust to) what Conrad calls the destructive element is what is really driving Ahab. Ahab has, Melville says, become a “Prometheus” with a vulture feeding on him. The axis image appears in the maelstrom or descending spiral (“vortex”) of the last few pages, and perhaps in a remark by one of Ahab’s crew: “The skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.” But the descent is not purely demonic, or simply destructive: like other creative descents, it is partly a quest for wisdom, however fatal the attaining of such wisdom may be. A relation reminiscent of Lear and the fool develops at the end between Ahab and the little black cabin boy Pip, who has been left so long to swim in the sea that he has gone insane. Of him it is said that he has been “carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro . . . and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps.”
Moby Dick is as profound a treatment as modern literature affords of the leviathan symbolism of the Bible, the titanic-demonic force that raises Egypt and Babylon to greatness and then hurls them into nothingness; that is both an enemy of God outside the creation, and, as notably in Job, a creature within it of whom God is rather proud. The leviathan is revealed to Job as the ultimate mystery of God’s ways, the “king over all the children of pride” (41:34), of whom Satan himself is merely an instrument. What this power looks like depends on how it is approached. Approached by Conrad’s Kurtz through his Antichrist psychosis, it is an unimaginable horror: but it may also be a source of energy that man can put to his own use. There are naturally considerable risks in trying to do so: risks that Rimbaud spoke of in his celebrated lettre du voyant as a “dérèglement de tous les sens.” The phrase indicates the close connection between the titanic and the demonic that Verlaine expressed in his phrase poète maudit, the attitude of poets who feel, like Ahab, that the right worship of the powers they invoke is defiance.
”
”
Northrop Frye (Words with Power: Being a Second Study of the Bible and Literature)
“
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
Jon: Sometimes I dream about it. I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening door, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle.
Sam: Do you ever find anyone in your dream?
Jon: No one. The castle is always empty. Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones, That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream. That's when I always wake.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1-4))
“
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by destroying itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story)
“
I slipped my lasso from the horn of my saddle, and grasped the coil in my right hand. This time you should have seen him come! It was a business trip, sure; by his gait there was blood in his eye. I was sitting my horse at ease, and swinging the great loop of my lasso in wide circles about my head; the moment he was under way, I started for him; when the space between us had narrowed to forty feet, I sent the snaky spirals of the rope a-cleaving through the air, then darted aside and faced about and brought my trained animal to a halt with all his feet braced under him for a surge. The next moment the rope sprang taut and yanked Sir Sagramor out of the saddle! Great Scott, but there was a sensation!
”
”
Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court)
“
Spiral pathways wound their way downward like a whirlpool in pursuit of copper, the life food of a new age begun by the discovery of bronze. Bronze was an alloy more durable than its copper predecessor, being used in everything from tools and decoration to weapons and armor. It was discovered by mixing tin with copper, which resulted in the harder bronze that would last longer and kill more efficiently in weaponry. For all those reasons, especially the last, gods and kings needed plenty of bronze to build their kingdoms. Extracting copper ore from the ground was laborious work. It required many men to unearth the volume demanded by such rulers. The necessary work force could be met by only one thing: Slaves, and lots of them.
”
”
Brian Godawa (Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 1))
“
The Glass Castle is also known as the Grail Castle, the pilgrimage place of the Grail knights, troubadours, Merlins, and bards, like Taliesin, who enter within the Grail Gates of her spinning, spiral tower to receive their initiation and rebirth. This is the hero’s journey, to make the pilgrimage into the Womb. King Solomon; Yeshua, descendent of King David; and King Arthur also walked this labyrinth Womb path and experienced the shamanic internment, and symbolic rebirth or resurrection through the Divine Feminine—at-one-ment with the Great Mother.
The heroine’s journey is to not only enter the Grail Castle, but to become the Grail Castle; to become both the eternal pilgrim and also the sacred site that the knights and bards make pilgrimage to, to receive their baptism; to become a Magdalene, a magical doorway or womb portal for others.
”
”
Azra Bertrand (Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life)
“
The field stretched on for miles, climbing a gentle slope of land, and standing at the horizon was the Dark Tower. It was a pillar of dumb stone rising so high into the sky that he could barely discern its tip. Its base, surrounded by red, shouting roses, was formidable, titanic with weight and size, yet the Tower became oddly graceful as it rose and tapered. The stone of which it had been made was not black, as he had imagined it would be, but soot-colored. Narrow, slitted windows marched about it in a rising spiral; below the windows ran an almost endless flight of stone stairs, circling up and up. The Tower was a dark grey exclamation point planted in the earth and rising above the field of blood-red roses. The sky arched above it was blue, but filled with puffy white clouds like sailing ships. They flowed above and around the top of the Dark Tower in an endless stream.
”
”
Stephen King (The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, #3))
“
Samwell Tarly looked at him for a long moment, and his round face seemed to cave in on itself. He sat down on the frost-covered ground and began to cry, huge choking sobs that made his whole body shake. Jon Snow could only stand and watch. Like the snowfall on the barrowlands, it seemed the tears would never end.
It was Ghost who knew what to do. Silent as shadow, the pale direwolf moved closer and began to lick the warm tears off Samwell Tarly's face. The fat boy cried out, startled... and somehow, in a heartbeat, his sobs turned to laughter. Jon Snow laughed with him. Afterward they sat on the frozen ground, huddled in their cloaks with Ghost between them. Jon told the story of how he and Robb had found the pups newborn in the late summer snows. It seemed a thousand years ago now. Before long he found himself talking of Winterfell.
"Sometimes I dream about it," he said. "I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle." The thought of Benjen Stark saddened him; his uncle was still missing. The Old Bear had sent out rangers in search of him. Ser Jaremy Rykker had led two sweeps, and Quorin Halfhand had gone forth from the Shadow Tower, but they'd found nothing aside from a few blazes in the trees that his uncle had left to mark his way. In the stony highlands to the northwest, the marks stopped abruptly and all trace of Ben Stark vanished. "Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked. Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf s shaggy white fur.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
-Sometimes I dream about it. I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening door, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle.
-Do you ever find anyone in your dream?
-No one. The castle is always empty. Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones, That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream. That's when I always wake.
Jon and Sam
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1-4))
“
In 1950, a thirty-year-old scientist named Rosalind Franklin arrived at King’s College London to study the shape of DNA. She and a graduate student named Raymond Gosling created crystals of DNA, which they bombarded with X-rays. The beams bounced off the crystals and struck photographic film, creating telltale lines, spots, and curves. Other scientists had tried to take pictures of DNA, but no one had created pictures as good as Franklin had. Looking at the pictures, she suspected that DNA was a spiral-shaped molecule—a helix. But Franklin was relentlessly methodical, refusing to indulge in flights of fancy before the hard work of collecting data was done. She kept taking pictures. Two other scientists, Francis Crick and James Watson, did not want to wait. Up in Cambridge, they were toying with metal rods and clamps, searching for plausible arrangements of DNA. Based on hasty notes Watson had written during a talk by Franklin, he and Crick put together a new model. Franklin and her colleagues from King’s paid a visit to Cambridge to inspect it, and she bluntly told Crick and Watson they had gotten the chemistry all wrong. Franklin went on working on her X-ray photographs and growing increasingly unhappy with King’s. The assistant lab chief, Maurice Wilkins, was under the impression that Franklin was hired to work directly for him. She would have none of it, bruising Wilkins’s ego and leaving him to grumble to Crick about “our dark lady.” Eventually a truce was struck, with Wilkins and Franklin working separately on DNA. But Wilkins was still Franklin’s boss, which meant that he got copies of her photographs. In January 1953, he showed one particularly telling image to Watson. Now Watson could immediately see in those images how DNA was shaped. He and Crick also got hold of a summary of Franklin’s unpublished research she wrote up for the Medical Research Council, which guided them further to their solution. Neither bothered to consult Franklin about using her hard-earned pictures. The Cambridge and King’s teams then negotiated a plan to publish a set of papers in Nature on April 25, 1953. Crick and Watson unveiled their model in a paper that grabbed most of the attention. Franklin and Gosling published their X-ray data in another paper, which seemed to readers to be a “me-too” effort. Franklin died of cancer five years later, while Crick, Watson, and Wilkins went on to share the Nobel prize in 1962. In his 1968 book, The Double Helix, Watson would cruelly caricature Franklin as a belligerent, badly dressed woman who couldn’t appreciate what was in her pictures. That bitter fallout is a shame, because these scientists had together discovered something of exceptional beauty. They had found a molecular structure that could make heredity possible.
”
”
Carl Zimmer (She Has Her Mother's Laugh: What Heredity Is, Is Not, and May Become)
“
Rowan coughed and spluttered on his gulp of beer. “I’ve never played with my pussy,” he said with an amused glint in his eye.”
Her cheeks heated at his dirty language, but the tingles running under her skin made her aware of her reaction to being alone in the hotel room with Rowan, sitting on the big bed and playing silly games. “I’ve never touched a woman’s breasts beside my own.”
“I’ve never given a blow job.”
“I’ve never received a blow job,” she said, tilting the mini wine bottle to her mouth and realizing it was empty.
“I’ve never played I never with a woman I love before,” he said, setting his beer can on the nightstand with a clink.
“I’ve never kissed a man in a hotel room before.” She pressed forward onto her hands and knees to reach and kiss him. Their lips lingered for a long moment before she leaned back and waited for his next I never.
“I’ve never removed a woman’s shirt in a hotel room.” Now it was his turn to lean forward and tug her sweater up over her head.
She thought long and hard about her next words, knowing he would act on whatever she said. “I’ve never ordered a man to take off his shirt in a hotel room,” she said finally and watched happily as he removed his long sleeve navy cotton T–shirt. She’d never tire of seeing his smooth skin over hard pectorals. A narrow line of hair trailed down the center of his belly disappearing into jeans. She’d licked her way along that line yesterday and licked her lips now in anticipation of tasting him again.
“I’ve never kissed a woman’s nipples in a hotel room,” he said. In a flash, her bra was flying through the air to land in a pile on the carpet in front of the window, and Rowan’s mouth was on her breasts. Sensation spiraled through her as she shuddered and her arousal built. She’d been on edge since their heated kisses in the car in the parking lot, and it didn’t take much for Rowan’s tongue to turn her into a shuddering, needy wanton.
“I think this game has turned from I Never into Truth or Dare,” she said, clasping Rowan’s head to her chest.
He pulled away from his decadent kisses to look her in the face. “Let’s do it. Dare me, Jill.” The look in his eye told her she might’ve taken on more than she could handle. Though she’d been an active participant in their lovemaking up to now, Rowan had taken the lead and guided her. She had the power here. The question was what to do with it.
“I dare you to”—she licked her lips thoughtfully—“I dare you to get naked and lie on your back. Eyes closed,” she added. When all was as she wanted, she leaned over him and planted a kiss on his lips. Then she kissed her way down his body, stopping at all the best spots. His chin, where his unshaven beard scratched at her skin. His pectorals, one nipple, then another. His belly button. “You’re ticklish,” she observed.
“Yeah.”
Then she made her way lower to his erection, lying over his belly pointing at the chin. She freaking loved his body and how it reacted to her every touch. Being alone with him in the hotel room was even better. Here there were no echoes of footsteps in the hallway, no clock ticking signaling the end of their hour together, no narrow bed forcing them to get creative in their positions. They had a king–size bed and a whole night to explore.
Kneeling at the side, she took him in her mouth, eliciting a moan. His musky taste filled her mouth, and she lovingly used her tongue to drive him wild. His hand found the crease of her jeans between her legs and explored her while she used her mouth on him. She parted her legs, giving him better access, and it was all she could do to concentrate on giving him pleasure when he was making her feel so good.
She wanted to straddle him so bad. The temptation to stop the foreplay and ride this thing to completion was great, but she held off.
“Are you ready for me?” Rowan asked. “You want my cock in you?” His eyes remained closed, and a smile lingered on his face.
”
”
Lynne Silver (Desperate Match (Coded for Love, #5))
“
Fieldking rotavator is better as it saves fuel, Time, soil compaction & wear and tear of the tractor as it accomplishes better pulverization in no time. And with Robust Multi Speed now no need for multiple operations of the cultivator, disc harrow, and leveler. Fielding Rotary Tillers is economical series and it can be coupled with 30 to 60 HP tractors quite easily. It is mainly intended with a rigid structure, multi-speed Gearbox, Visual Oil Level Indicator,
Features of Fielding Rotavator
Innovation – neatly designed keeping in mind minimum diesel consumption & breakages
Better Production – It helps in holding wet of the soil and will increase soil porousness and aeration which boosts germination and growth of crops.
Hard truth – Rigid structure, Multi-speed shell, Mechanical oil seal, Advanced designed Front support and serious duty back guard (Trialing board) makes it appropriate and effectively on object yet as in wet and paddy condition.
Technically advanced – It specially installs with Spiral shapes of the rotor assembly to cut back the load on tractors, scale back fuel consumption and avoids tire slippage.
Smartly Placed – Visual oil level indicator, scale back the possibilities to breakage of gears thanks to inaccessibility of minimum oil level within gear transmission.
King of Crop – It makes the simplest bed to victimization at before and once rain. it’s in the main appropriate for every type of crops like cotton, castor, vegetable, sugarcane, banana, wheat, maize, and paddy.
Easy to use – It will simply take away residues components of the previous crop, cut into items and completely combine it them into the soil in kind of organic manure to extend productivity.
Long life – Powder coated glorious resistance to corrosion, maintains the machine in just-bought condition for a extended amount.
”
”
Julia Smith
“
city, ending again at the palace gate. “Bounds must always be walked to dawn first,” Belvarin had explained. “It is not the direction of the circle, but the direction of the first turn that matters—it must be the shortest way to the rising sun and the elvenhome kingdoms.” Now they were nearing the city’s margin, with forest beyond gardens and orchards. A cloud of birds rose singing from the trees—tiny birds, brilliantly colored, fluttering like butterflies. They swooped nearer, flew in a spiral over his head, and returned to the trees as the procession turned toward the river. Butterflies then took over, out of the gardens and orchards, arching over the lane, then settling on his shoulders and arms as lightly as air, as if he wore a cloak of jeweled wings. As they neared the river side of the city, the butterflies lifted away, and out of the water meadows rose flying creatures as brightly colored as the birds and butterflies … glittering gauzy wings, metallic greens, golds, blues, scarlet. Kieri put up his hand and one landed there long enough for him to see it clearly. Great green eyes, a body boldly striped in black, gold, and green, with a green tail. The head cocked toward him; he could see tiny jaws move. Was it talking? He could hear nothing, but the creature looked as if it were listening. It was a long walk, and his new boots—comfortable enough that morning—were far less so by the time they reached the palace gates again. He could smell the fragrance of roast meats and bread, but next he had the ritual visit to the royal ossuary, and spoke vows into that listening silence, to those who had given him bone and blood, vows no one else would hear. He came up again to find the feast spread in the King’s Ride, long tables stretching away into the distance. On either side, the trees rose up; he could feel them, feel their roots below the cushiony sod that welcomed his feet. His place lay at the farthest table, with
”
”
Elizabeth Moon (Oath of Fealty (Paladin's Legacy, #1))
“
Recall that along the spectrum of restoration, healing is the most presently experienced reality of the coming of the
kingdom. Healing implies a reversal of circumstances. But when reversal is not experienced, does that mean that the kingdom is not present even in part? When the power of the King is not felt through healing, it is still found through help. While healing implies restoration through reversal, help implies restoration through assistance. In practical terms, help is what stems the tide of a free fall into despair that can be experienced through brokenness. While help may not reverse the circumstances experienced, it can break the downward spiral of negativity that we all experience when faced with daunting challenges.
”
”
Stephanie O. Hubach (Same Lake, Different Boat: Coming Alongside People Touched by Disability)
“
The king and Osric had vanished, gone ahead around the curve, and Hild walked alone-they all walked alone-along the inwardly spiralling path painted with tales, the characters from songs she had heard in hall all her life, songs of music and magic, of heroes and beginnings.
”
”
Nicola Griffith (Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1))
“
right, Spud,” said a suspicious Miss Spite, before turning to the board and writing on it. “King Louis the sixteenth.” Stepping out into the spring sunshine, Joe turned to Lauren. “You totally saved my butt in there.” “That’s OK. I like you.” She smiled. “Really…?” asked Joe. “Yes!” “Well, then, I wonder if…” Joe stumbled over his words. “If, well…” “Well, what…?” “If you, well, I mean you probably wouldn’t, in fact you definitely wouldn’t, I mean, why would you? You are so pretty and I am just a big lump, but…” The words were spiralling out of his mouth in all directions now, and Joe was beginning to blush fiercely with embarrassment. “Well, if you wanted to…” Lauren took over the speaking for a bit. “If I wanted to go for a walk in the park after school and maybe grab an ice lolly? Yes, I would love to.” “Really?” Joe was incredulous. “Yes, really.” “With me?” “Yes, with you, Joe Potatoe.” Joe was a hundred
”
”
David Walliams (Billionaire Boy)
“
The House of Laurel is not loyal to you,” Zeryth said. “Lord Laurel is a known rebel conspirer.” Sesri looked at Tare, who nodded. “He is.” Her brow wrinkled. “Perhaps there is another way.” “Force, my Queen, is the only way to deal with such things.” Zeryth gave her a comforting smile. “Though it is very admirable that you have such a benevolent heart. Just like your father did.” The mention of the late king, predictably, sent grief spiraling across Sesri’s face. She looked down at her hands, frowning.
”
”
Carissa Broadbent (Daughter of No Worlds (The War of Lost Hearts, #1))
“
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” He is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies–or else?
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
A simple kiss between a rag doll and a Pumpkin King. And perhaps the beginning of their most amazing adventure yet. Not in another world far away this time, but right here, right now, just the two of them, silhouetted in the moonlight on top of Spiral Hill.
As if it was simply meant to be.
”
”
Mari Mancusi (Sally's Lament)
“
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. . . . Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
”
”
Liz Wiseman (Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter)
“
It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one's enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us.
Second, we must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. ... This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. ... The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
”
”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“
It was funny how one sentence could send me into an anxiety spiral.
”
”
Ana Huang (King of Wrath (Kings of Sin, #1))
“
The universe had the shittiest sense of humor. I was already spiraling about not finishing my book; it didn’t need to kick me while I was down.
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”
Ana Huang (King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2))
“
You're gonna fall." He snorted a laugh, twizzling his finger though the air and spiralling it down to his legs while he whistled. "You'll go weeeeeee - splat." I swung for him, trying to punch him but my fist sailed through the air and hit nothing. "I won't fall. I'm the Lana - Laynar - Loo-naar King.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Broken Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, #4))
“
Bones that weren’t hers, had been pushed inside her flesh, stretching her out of shape. Twisting her into this new Orsina. This girl who’d do anything to graduate from some school she’d never heard of. To make herself powerful, so that somebody might give her shelter from the world. She didn’t want that. She’d never wanted any of that. These were the wants of the Prima and Harmony. They were in her head, speaking in her voice. Telling her how she should live. Who she should strive to become. She needed to think. She needed to get her brain back under control. She was spiraling. She was losing herself.
”
”
G.D. Penman (Shadebound (The Last King Book 1))
“
Anna looked out from the castle window. On the bridge far below, she could see a carriage crossing the bright blue water. King Agnarr and Queen Iduna, Anna’s parents, were inside that carriage. They needed to take care of important business and would be gone for two weeks. “We’ll be back before you know it,” her mother had said. She stroked her daughter’s hair. “We will miss you while we are gone.” “I’ll miss you, too,” Anna had replied, giving her mother a long hug. She blew kisses and waved at the carriage until it disappeared into the distance. Anna was eight years old, and this was the first time her parents were traveling without her. She would miss having tea in the mornings with her mother, and reading stories in the afternoons with her father. She would do her lessons as usual, but life at the castle would be totally different. But Anna had decided she was not going to let her parents’ trip get her down! Anna would make her own fun. After one last look out the window, Anna hurried down the spiral stairs and raced to her room. Miss Larsen, Anna and her sister Elsa’s governess, had told Anna she could have some free time before lessons. It was the perfect day to play pretend, Anna decided. She took a sheet off her bed and circled it around herself. The long end trailed behind her like a train. To be continued . . .
”
”
Kate Egan (Disney Before the Story: Elsa's Icy Rescue)
“
The White Falcon by Stewart Stafford
Trampled pomegranate underfoot,
Fervent ascent of anatine steps,
To the alabaster falcon's chamber,
Viperine slither as a king's retinue.
Roman breakage for a concubine,
Stillbirths piled on a spiral staircase,
Skewered tongues spitting smears,
Spurious sparks fanned to an inferno.
Denounced in the toxic public mind,
Cast into a wolf pit by kangaroo court,
Blood money to the Gallic executioner,
Her headless ghost in a centuries' limbo.
© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
It feels as if my usually quiet life is spiraling into an abyss of chaos and violence, and I don’t understand why.
”
”
Michelle Heard (Tempted by the Devil (Kings of Mafia #1))
“
I know,” Kai said, his calm voice pulling me out of my poorly timed existential spiral. “Because you’re too strong not to. You might not think so, but you are. Also…” A glint of mischief cracked his sober expression. “You tell great stories, condom varieties notwithstanding.” He laughed when I tossed a cocktail napkin at him. Heat seared my cheeks, but it was nothing compared to the warmth flooding my veins. I was seeing a different side of Kai, and I liked it. Too much. More than I should.
”
”
Ana Huang (King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2))
“
At the beginning of the scene, when called upon to offer his opinion on one side or another of the legal argument, the Earl of Warwick holds back. He may know something about dogs and hawks, he genially declares, but in such highly technical matters—“these nice sharp quillets of the law” (2.4.17)—he professes to be no wiser than a jackdaw, a proverbially stupid bird. But by the scene’s end, in the wake of the formation of the parties, his restraint has vanished: he has plucked the white rose and is eager for blood. “This brawl today,” he prophesies, Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden, Shall send between the red rose and the white A thousand souls to death and deadly night. (2.4.124–28) The obscure legal difference has not fundamentally changed, no new occasion for dispute has arisen, and there does not seem to be an underlying cause such as greed or jealousy. But the party rage seems to have a life of its own. Suddenly everyone seems to be boiling over with potentially murderous aggression. It is as if, in the absence of the dominant figure of the king, the purely conventional and meaningless emblems precipitate a rush of both group solidarity and group loathing. This loathing is an important part of what leads to a social breakdown and, eventually, to tyranny. It makes the voice, even the very thought, of the opponent almost unendurable. You are either with me or against me—and if you are not with me, I hate you and want to destroy you and all of your adherents. Each party naturally seeks power, but seeking power becomes itself the expression of rage: I crave the power to crush you. Rage generates insults, and insults generate outrageous actions, and outrageous actions, in turn, heighten the intensity of the rage. It all begins to spiral out of control.
”
”
Stephen Greenblatt (Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics)