Spoon Fed Quotes

When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.

It doesn't do any good to say, 'This is what it means.' When you are spoon fed a film, people instantly know what it is. I like films that leave room to dream.

I realized, that she had been spoon-fed a story from the day she was born. She had been taught no other way to be. And yet, I saw that despite everything, some part of her was self-made. This part, small as it appeared at first, was forged in the fire of her own strength, and resisted her cage. And I understood...that this part was made of steel. The part who she truly was.

‎Who would die for this chance to be fed this death of pleasure with spoons, in their warm homes, alone, unmoving?

Pastors are starting to get wily. When people tell my friend, 'I'm not being fed,' he replies, 'I'm prefectly happy to spoon feed my one-year-old. But if I'm still spoon-feeding him when he's five, we've got a problem. Here's a fork. Feed yourself.

people have been fed spoonfuls of nonsense and told it was Jesus.

When you are fed with the spoon of betrayal, you can choose to spit it out and live or swallow it and die

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon! The little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon! He ran from conviction and fed his addiction as the dish heated the spoon. The spoon begged to but the dish shouted "NO!" "The heroin will be ready soon".

Tortolita, let me tell you a story,” Estevan said. “This is a South American, wild Indian story about heaven and hell.” Mrs. Parsons made a prudish face, and Estevan went on. “If you go visit hell, you will see a room like this kitchen. There is a pot of delicious stew on the table, with the most delicate aroma you can imagine. All around, people sit, like us. Only they are dying of starvation. They are jibbering and jabbering,” he looked extra hard at Mrs. Parsons, “but they cannot get a bit of this wonderful stew God has made for them. Now, why is that?” “Because they’re choking? For all eternity?” Lou Ann asked. Hell, for Lou Ann, would naturally be a place filled with sharp objects and small round foods. “No,” he said. “Good guess, but no. They are starving because they only have spoons with very long handles. As long as that.” He pointed to the mop, which I had forgotten to put away. “With these ridiculous, terrible spoons, the people in hell can reach into the pot but they cannot put the food in their mouths. Oh, how hungry they are! Oh, how they swear and curse each other!” he said, looking again at Virgie. He was enjoying this. “Now,” he went on, “you can go and visit heaven. What? You see a room just like the first one, the same table, the same pot of stew, the same spoons as long as a sponge mop. But these people are all happy and fat.” “Real fat, or do you mean just well-fed?” Lou Ann asked. “Just well-fed,” he said. “Perfectly, magnificently well-fed, and very happy. Why do you think?” He pinched up a chunk of pineapple in his chopsticks, neat as you please, and reached all the way across the table to offer it to Turtle. She took it like a newborn bird.

People are tired of this mainstream shit; television and radio is ghastly and the public can smell the corporate meeting. When you watch a show with Simon Cowell, you know no human touch has been near it, that they've carefully engineered the outcome and picked those they're going to humiliate. We live in an age of information glut, but so many people don't question what they're spoon-fed or bother to search for themselves.

All of us somehow felt that the next battleground was going to be culture. We all felt somehow that our culture had been stolen from us – by commercial forces, by advertising agencies, by TV broadcasters. It felt like we were no longer singing our songs and telling stories, and generating our culture from the bottom up, but now we were somehow being spoon-fed this commercial culture top down.

As for me, the thought of me being spoon-fed so many lies while believing you respected me enough to pour me some truth is what makes me sick to my stomach.

Many people who experienced love their whole lives, in childhood and all throughout, do not know the worth of being loved as adults. People fed love on silver spoons don't feel the weight of love anymore. They don't feel the value of it because they always had it anyway. They are insatiable, they don't trust it, they always ask you for more! Fucking shits! It's the people who had to pull love out of cracks in the wall and out of holes in trees, who know the value of love, who feel the weight of love, even the smallest ounce of it! Love people who weren't loved. They're worth their weight in gold.

A man is allowed to visit Heaven and Hell. In Hell, he sees a large gathering of people sitting around a long table set with rich and delectable food. And yet these people are miserable and starving. He soon discovers that the reason for their dreadful state is that the spoons and forks provided for them are longer than their arms. As a result, they are unable to bring the food to their mouths and feed themselves. Then the man is shown Heaven. He finds the same table set out there, with the same extra-long eating utensils. But, in Heaven, instead of just trying to feed their own selves, each person uses his or her spoon and fork to feed one another. They are all well-fed and happy.

Once I was old enough to understand it, the Swedish birthday song always made me sad. I didn't know anybody who had lived to one hundred, and I didn't think I would live to one hundred either. So, every year when my parents and friends sang to me, I felt this sadness that they were celebrating something that wouldn't actually happen. They were hoping for the impossible. I would let them down. In the video, having just blown out my first birthday candle and been fed some icing on a spoon by my father, I have no idea what the song means and I look so happy.

In a world pulsating with so much information, the only information that you need is the stuff that will lead you straight to your own soul. Think of this: Most of the information that is fed to you, is motivated by the desire to earn money. Forget what the magazines say, what the forums say, what all the experts say. Your soul does not need to be spoon-fed with stuff it doesn't need. Your soul needs to be seen and found, and what leads you to that, is the only information that you need.

Having DID is, for many people, a very lonely thing. If this book reaches some people whose experiences resonate with mine and gives them a sense that they aren't alone, that there is hope, then I will have achieved one of my goals. A sad fact is that people with DID spend an average of almost seven years in the mental health system before being properly diagnosed and receiving the specific help they need. During that repeatedly misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated, simply because clinicians fail to recognize the symptoms. If this book provides practicing and future clinicians certain insight into DID, then I will have accomplished another goal. Clinicians, and all others whose lives are touched by DID, need to grasp the fundamentally illusive nature of memory, because memory, or the lack of it, is an integral component of this condition. Our minds are stock pots which are continuously fed ingredients from many cooks: parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, teachers, schoolmates, strangers, acquaintances, radio, television, movies, and books. These are the fixings of learning and memory, which are stirred with a spoon that changes form over time as it is shaped by our experiences. In this incredibly amorphous neurological stew, it is impossible for all memories to be exact. But even as we accept the complex of impressionistic nature of memory, it is equally essential to recognize that people who experience persistent and intrusive memories that disrupt their sense of well-being and ability to function, have some real basis distress, regardless of the degree of clarity or feasibility of their recollections. We must understand that those who experience abuse as children, and particularly those who experience incest, almost invariably suffer from a profound sense of guilt and shame that is not meliorated merely by unearthing memories or focusing on the content of traumatic material. It is not enough to just remember. Nor is achieving a sense of wholeness and peace necessarily accomplished by either placing blame on others or by forgiving those we perceive as having wronged us. It is achieved through understanding, acceptance, and reinvention of the self.

kids who weren't fed love on a silver spoon often learned to lick it off knives.

Son, we are all products of operant conditioning. By daring to think outside the box, you'll be judged. Stay the course. Heightened cognizance is meaningful only when freely sought out and discovered. Not when it is incrementally spoon-fed to you throughout your lifetime.

You can find God, make as much money as God or be as good-looking as God, and you'll still need to figure out a way to pack the emotional baggage you were handed when you were a kid.

There just comes a point where you realize it is time to show up for your parents, no matter what has passed between you or how you were raised or how busy you are. You just have to show up.

[My university coursework] was all fed to me from an American silver spoon and calculated by my professors to make me a hundred percent American first; an educator and a human being second and third.

It is a theory of mine," I said, warming to my theme, "that we owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness―either enforced or voluntary. The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself―and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.

I pity those reviewers above, and people like them, who ridicule authors like R.A. Boulay and other proponents of similar Ancient Astronaut theories, simply for putting forth so many interesting questions (because that's really what he often throughout openly admits is all he does does) in light of fascinating and thought-provoking references which are all from copious sources. Some people will perhaps only read the cover and introduction and dismiss it as soon as any little bit of information flies in the face of their beliefs or normalcy biases. Some of those people, I'm sure, are some of the ones who reviewed this book so negatively without any constructive criticism or plausible rebuttal. It's sad to see how programmed and indoctrinated the vast majority of humanity has become to the ills of dogma, indoctrination, unverified status quos and basic ignorance; not to mention the laziness and conformity that results in such acquiescence and lack of critical thinking or lack of information gathering to confirm or debunk something. Too many people just take what's spoon fed to them all their lives and settle for it unquestioningly. For those people I like to offer a great Einstein quote and one of my personal favorites and that is: "Condemnation without investigation is the highest form of ignorance" I found this book to be a very interesting gathering of information and collection of obscure and/or remote antiquated information, i.e. biblical, sacred, mythological and otherwise, that we were not exactly taught to us in bible school, or any other public school for that matter. And I am of the school of thought that has been so for intended purposes. The author clearly cites all his fascinating sources and cross-references them rather plausibly. He organizes the information in a sequential manner that piques ones interest even as he jumps from one set of information to the next. The information, although eclectic as it spans from different cultures and time periods, interestingly ties together in several respects and it is this synchronicity that makes the information all the more remarkable. For those of you who continue to seek truth and enlightenment because you understand that an open mind makes for and lifelong pursuit of such things I leave you with these Socrates quotes: "True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

When I was a real girl, my mother fed me her glass dreams one spoonful at a time. Harvard. Yale. Princeton. Duke. Undergrad. Med school. Internship, residency, God. She'd brush my hair and braid it with long words, weaving the Latin roots and Greek branches into my head so memorizing anatomy would come easy.

It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn.

anyway i saw it coming from the rooftops. they said the second coming was heading our way tomorrow’s world today force fed to us in a tobacco-colored spoon keep us entertained – content - oppressed. we prayed, friend, and they brought it down.

Not all plants are equal: some have much more polyphenols than others, and as a general rule bright or dark colours are a good sign, including a wide range of berries, beans, artichokes, grapes, prunes, red cabbage, spinach, peppers, chilli, beetroot and mushrooms.

There's not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, they're not a-going—none of 'em—ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon.

I took Amah's thin hand in mine. This hand had dried my tears and spanked me as a child. It had combed my hair and spoon-fed me. Now it was spotted with liver marks, and the knuckles and joints swollen. I wasn't sure how old she was, but I felt a surge of melancholy affection. Sooner than later she would need someone to care for her.

Vitamin D isn’t actually a vitamin, since our body can make it naturally from chemicals in the skin on exposure to sunlight. It should be called ‘steroid hormone D’, although presumably this would make it much less popular. It is fat-soluble, meaning that like vitamins A, E and K, toxic levels can build up in the body as it is stored in fat tissue.

Another completely useless procedure is hair follicle testing, as hair is not involved at all in immune-based allergic reactions.

Studies observing over half a million people taking these unregulated multivitamins have shown they are more likely to develop cancer or heart disease.2

It was a collage of mollycoddled, spoon-fed faces. An ugly pimple was their biggest misery and slow internet was the worst torture they knew.

The ingredient list on gluten-free foods is often much longer, with many added chemicals that together could be having unknown effects on our body and microbes.

I remembered her father, the old man from another world, the man with mittens, who had to be spoon-fed on porridge because he was ninety, who smelled like an unburied corpse.

From the many years he’d spent in the Omega Agency, the special agent understood there were no obvious good guys or bad guys on the world stage. Contrary to the PR spin generated within Congress and spoon-fed to the well-meaning American public by a gullible or at least malleable media, Kentbridge also knew there were no clear sides anymore. As he often told the orphans, patriotism was a useless emotion because the modern world was no longer shaped by countries or governments. In fact, nations had long since been superseded by the vast spider web of elite conspirators spanning the globe.

You can cook when you're hungry or cook to make a living or to feel creative or even just as a distraction, but cooking for the people whom you wake up with and go to sleep with is the best thing ever

I realized,” she said, after a period of silence, “that she had been spoon-fed a story from the day she was born. She had been taught no other way to be. And yet, I saw that despite everything, some part of her was self-made. This part, small as it appeared at first, was forged in the fire of her own strength, and resisted her cage. And I understood... that this part was made of steel. This part was who she truly was.

I'll admit that the idea of being adored for nothing but my face and my body has had an occasional appeal, in the way winning the lottery does. The difference is that I have a much better chance of winning the lottery.

In my years as a detective and particularly with Searchlight, I’ve learned so much about cycles of violence in family systems. But cycles of silence can be just as dangerous—and they repeat through generations with startling consistency. A mother’s dieting becomes her daughter’s obsessive control over bonsai trees. Secret glaring infidelity becomes wordless assent and then emptiness. Cameron was exposed to all of this. Silver spoon or no, Emily had fed her powerlessness.

Noah held his hand out. She accepted it - it was bone-cold, as always - and together they turned to face the huge room. Noah took a deep breath as if they were preparing to explore the jungle instead of stepping deeper into Monmouth Manufacturing. It seemed bigger with just the two of them there. The cobwebbed ceiling soared, dust motes making mobiles overhead. They turned their heads sideways and read the titles of the books aloud. Blue peered at Henrietta through the telescope. Noah daringly reattached one of the broken miniature roofs on Gansey's scale town. They went through the fridge tucked in the bathroom. Blue selected a soda. Noah took a plastic spoon. He chewed on it as Blue fed Chainsaw a leftover hamburger. They closed Ronan's door - if Gansey still managed to inhabit the rest of the apartment, Ronan's presence was still decidedly pervasive in his room. Noah showed Blue his room. They jumped on his perfectly made bed and then they played a bad game of pool. Noah lounged on the new sofa while Blue persuaded the old record player to play an LP too clever to interest either of them. They opened all the drawers on the desk in the main room. One of Gansey's EpiPens bounced against the interior of the topmost drawer as Blue withdrew a fancy pen. She copied Gansey's blocky handwriting onto a Nino's receipt as Noah put on a preppy sweater he'd found balled under the desk. She ate a mint leaf and breathed on Noah's face. Crouching, they crab-walked along the aerial printout Gansey had spread the length of the room. He'd jotted enigmatic notes to himself all along the margin of it. Some of them were coordinates. Some of them were explanations of topography. Some of them were Beatles lyrics.

Orde-Lees wrote one night: “We want to be fed with a large wooden spoon and, like the Korean babies, be patted on the stomach with the back of the spoon so as to get in a little more than would otherwise be the case. In short, we want to be overfed, grossly overfed, yes, very grossly overfed on nothing but porridge and sugar, black currant and apple pudding and cream, cake, milk, eggs, jam, honey and bread and butter till we burst, and we’ll shoot the man who offers us meat. We don’t want to see or hear of any more meat as long as we live.

You took it with good grace when you could have sliced him to ribbons with a few words." "I was tempted," she admitted. "But I couldn't help remembering something Mother once said." It had been on a long-ago morning in her childhood, when she and Gabriel had still needed books stacked on their chairs whenever they sat at the breakfast table. Their father had been reading a freshly ironed newspaper, while their mother, Evangeline, or Evie, as family and friends called her, fed spoonfuls of sweetened porridge to baby Raphael in his high chair. After Phoebe had recounted some injustice done to her by a playmate, saying she wouldn't accept the girl's apology, her mother had persuaded her to reconsider for the sake of kindness. "But she's a bad, selfish girl," Phoebe had said indignantly. Evie's reply was gentle but matter-of-fact. "Kindness counts the most when it's given to people who don't deserve it." "Does Gabriel have to be kind to everyone too?" Phoebe had demanded. "Yes, darling." "Does Father?" "No, Redbird," her father had replied, his mouth twitching at the corners. "That's why I married your mother- she's kind enough for two people." "Mother," Gabriel had asked hopefully, "could you be kind enough for three people?" At that, their father had taken a sudden intense interest in his newspaper, lifting it in front of his face. A quiet wheeze emerged from behind it. "I'm afraid not, dear," Evie had said gently, her eyes sparkling. "But I'm sure you and your sister can find a great deal of kindness in your own hearts." Returning her thoughts to the present, Phoebe said, "Mother told us to be kind even to people who don't deserve it.

Once I was old enough to understand it, the Swedish birthday song always made me sad. I didn't know anybody who had lived to one hundred, and I didn't think I would live to one hundred either. So, every year when my parents and friends sang to me, I felt this sadness that they were celebrating something that wouldn't actually happen. They were hoping for the impossible. I would let them down. In the video, having just blown out my first birthday candle and been fed some icing on a spoon by my father, I have no idea what the song means and I look so happy.

When we are born into this world, the world revolves around us. We’re spoon-fed on the front end and diaper-changed on the back end. It’s as if the entire world exists to meet our every need. And that’s fine if you are a two-month-old baby. If you’re twenty-two, it’s a problem! Newsflash:

Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West's handwriting. Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position To Whom It May Concern, I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred. Your servant, Galoshes the Cat Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents' questioning gazes on her. "Job application," she explained sourly. "From the cat." "How charming," Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder. "'Personal companion,' my foot," Phoebe muttered. "This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin." "I wonder," Seraphina said thoughtfully. "If she were truly feral, she wouldn't want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated." Phoebe rolled her eyes. "It seems we'll find out." The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe's lap and curled up with a sigh. "I'd say she's adjusting quite well," Seraphina commented with a grin, and elbowed Phoebe gently. "One never knows who might rise above their disreputable past.

Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicentre, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns. This moment is the absent mother’s: the boy, the empty house, the deserted yard, the unheard cry. Him standing here, at the back of the house, calling for the people who had fed him, swaddled him, rocked him to sleep, held his hand as he took his first steps, taught him to use a spoon, to blow on broth before he ate it, to take care crossing the street, to let sleeping dogs lie, to swill out a cup before drinking, to stay away from deep water. It will lie at her very core, for the rest of her life.

The model stripped down naked and stood with her arms out to her sides while genderless cohorts sprayed her body with large silver canisters of foundation. They wore masks over there faces and sprayed her from head to toe like they were putting out a fire. They airbrushed her into a mono-toned six-foot-two column of a human being with no visible veins, nipples, nails, lips, or eyelashes. When every single thing that was real about the model was gone, the make up artist fug through a suite case of brushes and plowed through hundreds of tubes of flesh colored colors and began to draw human features onto her face. At the same time, the hair stylist meticulously sewed with a needle and thread strand after strand of long blond hairs onto her thin light brown locks, creating a thick full mane of shimmering gold. The model had brought her own chef, who cooked her spinach soup from scratch. The soup was fed to her by one of her lackeys, who existed solely for this purpose. The blond boy stood in front of her, blowing on the soup and then feeding it to her from a small silver child's spoon, just big enough to fit between her lips. the model's mouth was barely open, maybe a quarter of an inch wide, so that she would not crack the flesh colored paint.

Spirit Woods. They’d buried Max in the shadows of the forest—a forest that had quite a reputation. She’d been born and raised in Jamesville, had been spoon-fed the town’s mythology, had heard dozens of tales about strange, jewel-toned lights, odd weather patterns, and the whisper of voices that echoed among the trees.

That’s the problem with a lot of things these days. Everything is too full now; we are spoon-fed everything. All songs are about one thing and one thing specifically, there is no shading, no nuance, no mystery. Perhaps this is why music is not a place where people put their dreams at the moment; dreams suffocate in these airless environs.

churchgoing, as I saw it, was primarily social. It showed that you conformed to the norm of religious worship, which means that you accept groupthink. You define God secondhand, through revelations given to prophets and teachers many centuries ago. Spirituality is firsthand experience. It takes you on an inner journey from hope and faith to real knowledge that no one else has spoon-fed you.

What can I tell you that you do not know Of the life after death? Your son’s eyes, which had unsettled us With your Slavic Asiatic Epicanthic fold, but would become So perfectly your eyes, Became wet jewels, The hardest substance of the purest pain As I fed him in his high white chair. Great hands of grief were wringing and wringing His wet cloth of face. They wrung out his tears. But his mouth betrayed you — it accepted The spoon in my disembodied hand That reached through from the life that had survived you. Day by day his sister grew Paler with the wound She could not see or touch or feel, as I dressed it Each day with her blue Breton jacket. By night I lay awake in my body The Hanged Man My neck-nerve uprooted and the tendon Which fastened the base of my skull To my left shoulder Torn from its shoulder-root and cramped into knots — I fancied the pain could be explained If I were hanging in the spirit From a hook under my neck-muscle. Dropped from life We three made a deep silence In our separate cots. We were comforted by wolves. Under that February moon and the moon of March The Zoo had come close. And in spite of the city Wolves consoled us. Two or three times each night For minutes on end They sang. They had found where we lay. And the dingos, and the Brazilian-maned wolves — All lifted their voices together With the grey Northern pack. The wolves lifted us in their long voices. They wound us and enmeshed us In their wailing for you, their mourning for us, They wove us into their voices. We lay in your death, In the fallen snow, under falling snow, As my body sank into the folk-tale Where the wolves are singing in the forest For two babes, who have turned, in their sleep, Into orphans Beside the corpse of their mother.

We American's are the example of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We vote Republican; again buying the line that they are deficit hawks and, when in power, they both feast on our blood and treasure and stuff their coffers with sweat literally from our brows. Again, fed up, we elect Democrats and they repair what the Republicans purposely and yet strategically managed to do. Then, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes with renewed youth, the Republican deficit hawks emerge; spoon feeding us the same old bullshit until we bend to their will. We, in turn, vote them to power and, yet again, the ravenous lot feeds. This year...this era, however, they're governing like Kamikaze pilots, not giving one bit of damn about either public opinion nor their place in government. I believe that they see the writing on the wall and, with much fervor, are seeking to grab everything they can get their greedy little hands on. Will we ever get off this hamster wheel, my fellow Americans?

While a gluten-free diet may help alleviate symptoms in some people, for others it can lead to nutritional problems. Gluten-free products are typically lacking in vitamin B12, folate, zinc, magnesium, selenium and calcium. Other studies found that gluten-free diets in Spain contained on average more fat and less fibre than comparable diets. It is clear that excluding an entire food group from your diet can reduce fibre and dietary diversity, which also affects our gut microbes, creating the possibility of long-term adverse effects.

They talked about record labels, about how the majority of labels didn't care anything about the music, they just wanted a pretty face they could saturate the media with. The people who were doing the good stuff weren't being signed. "Same with radio," Ruby said. "It has nothing to do with music. For the station, music is just the noise in between the ads." "No shit. It's even hard to tell the songs from the ads." "I know. It's like solid ads." "And nobody cares. Nobody cares that they're being spoon-fed shit. They just think, I like this shit because everybody else likes this shit.

If you go to visit hell, you will see a room like this kitchen. There is a pot of delicious stew on the table, with the most delicate aroma you can imagine. All around, people sit, like us. Only they are dying of starvation. They are jibbering and jabbering,” he looked extra hard at Mrs. Parsons, “but they cannot get a bite of this wonderful stew God has made for them. Now, why is that?” “Because they’re choking? For all eternity?” Lou Ann asked. Hell, for Lou Ann, would naturally be a place filled with sharp objects and small round foods. “No,” he said. “Good guess, but no. They are starving because they only have spoons with very long handles. As long as that.” He pointed to the mop, which I had forgotten to put away. “With these ridiculous, terrible spoons, the people in hell can reach into the pot but they cannot put the food in their mouths. Oh, how hungry they are! Oh, how they swear and curse each other!” he said, looking again at Virgie. He was enjoying this. “Now,” he went on, “you can go and visit heaven. What? You see a room just like the first one, the same table, the same pot of stew, the same spoons as long as a sponge mop. But these people are all happy and fat.” “Real fat, or do you mean just well-fed?” Lou Ann asked. “Just well-fed,” he said. “Perfectly, magnificently well-fed, and very happy. Why do you think?” He pinched up a chunk of pineapple in his chopsticks, neat as you please, and reached all the way across the table to offer it to Turtle. She took it like a newborn bird.

A long time ago, I collected the flower petals stained with my first blood; I thought there was something significant about that, there was importance in all the little moments of experience, because when you live forever, the first times matter. The first time you bleed, first time you cry — I don’t remember that — first time you see your wings, because new things defile you, purity chips away. your purity. nestled flowers in your belly, waiting to be picked. do you want innocence back? small and young smiles that make your eyes squint and cheeks flare the feeling of your face dripping down onto the grass, the painted walls you tore down, the roads you chipped away, they’ll eat away at you, the lingering feelings of a warm hand on your waist, the taps of your feet as you dance, the beats of your timbrel.’ ‘and now you are like Gods, sparkling brilliant with jewelry that worships you, and you’re splitting in order to create.’ ‘The tosses of your wet hair, the rushes of chariots speeding past, the holy, holy, holy lord god of hosts, the sweetness of a strawberry, knocks against the window by your head, the little tunes of your pipes, the cuts sliced into your fingers by uptight cacti fruits, the brisk scent of a sea crashing into the rocks, the sweat of wrestling, onions, cumin, parsley in a metal jug, mud clinging to your skin, a friendly mouth on your cheeks and forehead, chimes, chirps of chatter in the bazaar, amen, amen, amen, the plump fish rushing to take the bread you toss, scraping of a carpenter, the hiss of chalk, the wisps of clouds cradling you as you nap, the splashes of water in a hot pool, the picnic in a meadow, the pounding of feet that are chasing you, the velvet of petals rustling you awake, a giant water lily beneath you, the innocent kiss, the sprawl of the universe reflected in your eyes for the first time, the bloody wings that shred out of your back, the apples in orchards, a basket of stained flowers, excited chants of a colosseum audience, the heat of spinning and bouncing to drums and claps, the love braided into your hair, the trickles of a piano, smell of myrrh, the scratches of a spoon in a cup, the coarseness of a carpet, the stringed instruments and trumpets, the serene smile of not knowing, the sleeping angel, the delight of a creator, the amusement of gossip and rumors, the rumbling laughter between shy singing, the tangling of legs, squash, celery, carrot, and chayote, the swirled face paint, the warmth of honey in your tea, the timid face in the mirror, mahogany beams, the embrace of a bed of flowers, the taste of a grape as its fed to you, the lip smacks of an angel as you feed him a raspberry, the first dizziness of alcohol, the cool water and scent of natron and the scratch of the rock you beat your dirty clothes against, the strain of your arms, the columns of an entrance, the high ceilings of a dark cathedral, the boiling surface of bubbling stew, the burn of stained-glass, the little joyous jump you do seeing bread rise, the silky taste of olive oil, the lap of an angel humming as he embroiders a little fox into his tunic, the softness of browned feathers lulling you to sleep, the weight of a dozen blankets and pillows on your small bed, the proud smile on the other side of a window in a newly-finished building, the myrtle trees only you two know about, the palm of god as he fashions you from threads of copper, his praises, his love, his kiss to your hair, your father.

I threw hollowed self at your robust, went for IV drips, mercury detoxes, cilantro smoothies. I pressed my lips to you, fed you kale, spooned down coconut oil. I fasted for blood sugar, underboomed the carbs, chased ketosis, urine-stripped and slip-checked. Baked raw cocoa & mint & masticated pig thyroids. You were contemporary, toxic, I can’t remember what you were, you’re in my brain, inflaming it, using up the glutathione. I read about you on the Internet & my doctor agreed. Just take more he urged & more. You slipped into each cell. I went after you with a sinking inside and medical mushrooms for maximum oom, I plumbed you without getting to nevermore. O doom. You were a disease without name, I was a body gone flame, together, we twitched, and the acupuncturist said, it looks difficult, stay calmish. What can be said? I came w/o a warranty. Stripped of me—or me-ish-ness— I was a will in a subpar body. I waxed toward all that waned inside.

Joanne Sanders, a broad woman in her forties, posed with friends, family, and Snowball in photographs displayed on the mantel of the fake fireplace. She had shoulder-length brown hair and bangs teased high above her brow. I could picture her behind ten inches of bulletproof glass sneering at me with gloss-encased lips for filling out my deposit slip incorrectly. I fed Snowball half a cup of kibble and a spoonful of wet food as my envelope of information directed. She ate it quickly while making funny little squeaking noises. Once she had licked her bowl to a bright sheen, we headed out for my first walk as a dog-walker. I steered us off of East End Avenue and onto the esplanade that runs along the river. The water reflected the sun in bright silver glints. I smelled oil and brine. We reached Carl Schurz Park and turned into the dog run for small dogs. The gate leading into the run reached only to my knees, as did the rest of the fence designed to keep small dogs in and big ones out. A sign on the gate read, "Dogs over 25 pounds not permitted." Ten dogs under 25 pounds, and one who was probably a little over, played together in the pen. Their owners, in groups of three or four, sat on worn wooden benches and talked about dogs. Snowball ran to join a poodle growling at a puppy. They intimidated it behind its owner's calves. Then the poodle, a miniature gray curly thing with long ears, mounted Snowball. I turned to the river and watched a giant barge inch by.

My dad always told me that there are three types of humans on this planet. First there’s the Sheep. The everyday types who live in denial—spoon-fed by the morning news, chewed up by another monotonous workday, and spit back out across the urban streets of the world like a mouthful of funky meatloaf that’s been rotting in the back of the fridge. Basically, the Sheep are the defenseless majority who are completely unwilling to acknowledge the inevitability of real danger, and trust the system to take care of them. Next you’ve got your Wolves. The bad guys who abide by no societal laws whatsoever but are good at pretending when it suits them. These are the thieves, murderers, rapists, and politicians, who feed on the Sheep until they’re thrown in prison, or better yet, belly up in a landfill alongside sheaves of your grandma’s itchy hand-knit Christmas socks. The ones you ritualistically blow up every year with an M80. And lastly, you have people like us. The McCrackens. The Herders of the world. Sure, our kind may look a lot like Wolves—large fangs, sharp claws, and the capacity for violence—but what sets us apart from the rest is that we represent the balance between the two. We can navigate the flock freely, with the ability to protect or disown as we see fit. My dad says that we’re the select few with the power of choice, and when real danger arises, we’ll be the ones who survive—and not just because we own a 357 Magnum, three glock G19’s, and a Mossberg pump-action shotgun, but because we’ve been prepping, in every possible badass way, since as long as I can remember, for the inevitable collapse of society as we know it.

A knock at the enameled door of the carriage altered them to the presence of a porter and a platform inspector just outside. Sebastian looked up and handed the baby back to Evie. He went to speak to the men. After a minute or two, he came back from the threshold with a basket. Looking both perturbed and amused, he brought it to Phoebe. “This was delivered to the station for you.” “Just now?” Phoebe asked with a nonplussed laugh. “Why, I believe it’s Ernestine’s mending basket! Don’t say the Ravenels went to the trouble of sending someone all the way to Alton to return it?” “It’s not empty,” her father said. As he set the basket in her lap, it quivered and rustled, and a blood-curdling yowl emerged. Astonished, Phoebe fumbled with the latch on the lid and opened it. The black cat sprang out and crawled frantically up her front, clinging to her shoulder with such ferocity that nothing could have detached her claws. “Galoshes!” Justin exclaimed, hurrying over to her. “Gosh-gosh!” Stephen cried in excitement. Phoebe stroked the frantic cat and tried to calm her. “Galoshes, how . . . why are you . . . oh, this is Mr. Ravenel’s doing! I’m going to murder him. You poor little thing.” Justin came to stand beside her, running his hands over the dusty, bedraggled feline. “Are we going to keep her now, Mama?” “I don’t think we have a choice,” Phoebe said distractedly. “Ivo, will you go with Justin to the dining compartment, and fetch her some food and water?” The two boys dashed off immediately. “Why has he done this?” Phoebe fretted. “He probably couldn’t make her stay at the barn, either. But she’s not meant to be a pet. She’s sure to run off as soon as we reach home.” Resuming his seat next to Evie, Sebastian said dryly, “Redbird, I doubt that creature will stray more than an arm’s length from you.” Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West’s handwriting. Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position To Whom It May Concern, I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred. Your servant, Galoshes the Cat Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents’ questioning gazes on her. “Job application,” she explained sourly. “From the cat.” “How charming,” Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder. “‘Personal companion,’ my foot,” Phoebe muttered. “This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin.” “I wonder,” Seraphina said thoughtfully. “If she were truly feral, she wouldn’t want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated.” Phoebe rolled her eyes. “It seems we’ll find out.” The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe’s lap and curled up with a sigh.

A lot of people don’t experience that kind of  freedom, and they’re hungry for it. Yet instead, people have been fed spoonfuls of nonsense and told it was Jesus.

It wasn’t really a loud-mouthed, hyperactive little pig-tailed blonde that made Carl cringe. It was what I represented. While his upbringing was battered humiliation, I was spoiled, doted on, and spoon-fed by the world. I don’t think he was even aware of his intentions to reduce that child to his own state of self-loathing, but he was truly brilliant at it.

For too long, employees have been spoon-fed their education and their training, and have failed to develop as independent learners

We now know that babies don’t need solid foods, and their bodies aren’t really ready for them, until they are around six months old. If you’ve waited until six months to start solids with your baby, you’ve skipped the spoon-feeding stage. At this age babies are quite capable of feeding themselves and they don’t need to be spoon fed.

Don’t believe everything you see. Look things up. Research them for yourself. Learn how to tell the difference between the lies you are being spoon-fed and the truth. The truth is always harder, because it requires an effort of will to obtain, and an effort of mind to understand.

The socialbot program is so sophisticated that it can spoon-feed people information tailored to their moods, biases, idiosyncrasies, grievances, and soft spots. And it raises a very disturbing question: If you make a decision that was almost a foregone conclusion because of the stream of information you’ve been fed, have you really exercised free will?

They went through the fridge tucked in the bathroom. Blue selected a soda. Noah took a plastic spoon. He chewed on it as Blue fed Chainsaw a leftover hamburger.

She tells me I’m her best friend and the only reason she is alive is because I listen to her and don’t yell at her for something she can’t help.

Someone with little more than a simplistic weekend training course in acupuncture or kinesiology can set themselves up as an expert and convince a vulnerable person to part with their cash and take potentially harmful treatments or to follow restrictive diets.

Legally, Scottish fish can be sold if it contains up to eight lice per fish, but the reality is that Scottish salmon sold in supermarkets often contains up to twenty times the legal amount.

In France, raising your children as vegan is classed as criminal neglect.

More high-quality clinical trials are required to confirm this, but current evidence suggests that telling diabetics to reduce their salt intake to low levels could actually be harming them.

Those who aren't fed love off a silver spoon learn to like it off knives

She glanced at him, feeling secure in the distance between them, and smiled. “Thank you,” she murmured. “For what, lass?” He idly licked a swirl of fluffy topping from his spoon. “For feeding me,” she replied, assuring herself that the mere glimpse of his tongue flicking over a spoon was not sufficient cause for her blood pressure to rise. “I’ve fed you every day since you’ve been here and you’ve not thanked me before,” he observed mockingly. “That’s because you never fed me anything worth eating before.” She watched as he licked a dab of cream from the tip of his spoon. “I think you got it all,” she said uneasily. Suddenly the cavernous room seemed to shrink and she felt as if she were sitting mere inches away from him, not twenty feet. And who had poked up the dratted fire? She fanned at her face with a hand that betrayed not the slightest tremor she was feeling. “Got what all?” he asked absently, filling his spoon with a mound of berries and cream.

They’re spoon-fed lies, and because they’re typically too stupid to think for themselves, no one ever questions why their soup tastes like poison.

When presented with the bones of a monster, the general public will believe the story they’re told without digging any further. They’re spoon-fed lies, and because they’re typically too stupid to think for themselves, no one ever questions why their soup tastes like poison.

He eyed her hungrily. "Now, eat your cake or whatever it is and try to be a good girl." "It's German apple puff, for your information. Have you tried it? It's delicious. Here." She leaned slowly across the table and fed him a bite from her spoon. He helped himself to a leisurely look at her décolletage as he opened his mouth and accepted. "Mm. That is good." "Told you so." Her eyes twinkled as she leaned back in her chair in leisurely contentment. "I thought you said a while ago you had no room left for the sweets." "I'm pacing myself. Besides---" She took another dainty nibble off her dessert spoon. "There were no corsets in the trunk of goodies your servants brought me, so, you see, I'm wonderfully free to make a glutton of myself." This little fact arrested his full attention. His stare homed in on her figure--- what he could see of it over the table. "You mean...?" "Indeed, Your Grace. Tonight, I go au naturel." She laughed like she enjoyed teasing him and took another remorseless bite of German apple puff. Rohan watched her with strange sensations of delight. God, she was a maddening woman. An unpredictable blend of innocence and passion. Intelligent, mercurial. Her prickly side amused him, but he liked her even better like this, open and relaxed. Uncorseted. In her scintillating humor, she threw off light like the candle glow as it played over the cut-crystal facets of their wine goblets. In short, she enchanted him. Maybe she had inherited some of her ancestor Valerian's magic. Rohan had a feeling he was doomed. He could sense a most unforeseen bond growing between them and did not know what to make of it. "Staring again, Your Grace?" "I've just decided you are rather naughty. And I like it." She shrugged. "You said we were celebrating. Anyway, it's your fault. If you wanted me to behave, you shouldn't have made me try so many wines." "Why on earth would I want that?" he asked softly. "Hm." She caught a bead of condensation running down the shaft of her narrow champagne flute on her fingertip and brought it to her lips. Damn, but just watching her got him hard.

Look around you. So many are surrounded by wonderful opportunities to grow themselves. Yet they don't life their spoon. Instead, they want to be spoon-fed like babies.

Don’t wait to be spoon-fed; feed yourself

One day a man was praying to God and sincerely asked, “God, what’s the difference between Heaven and Hell?” That night, God came to the worshipper in his dream and said, “Come with Me, I am going to show you why Heaven is different from Hell.” God first took the man to Hell, showing him a table with an incredible feast with aromas so pleasing to the scent that the man couldn’t help but salivate at the sight of it. The man saw that the people around the table had spoons attached to their hands that had handles longer than their arms. The people were both thin and angry, because the spoon handle was too long for anyone to be able to feed themselves. The man watching turned to God and said, “Hell must be the place where we witness the bounties of Your glory, but we are unable to take part in it.” God said, “Now let me take you to Heaven.” When God opened the second door, the man was shocked to see the exact same table, the exact same feast of food, the same delicious aromas, and the same long spoons. The confused man looked at God and said, “How can Heaven and Hell be the same?” God said, “Keep watching.” The man returned his gaze to the table and noticed that the people of Heaven looked full, healthy, and happy. He watched as each person in Heaven filled their spoon with all the things they longed to eat and fed the ones next to them. One after another, spoon after spoon, the people of Heaven gave away what they loved to one another. God said to the man, “Heaven and Hell are realties made based on the consciousness of the ones who live in them. Those who reflect my qualities of generosity, love, kindness, and compassion make every place into Heaven. And for the ones who are arrogant, self-centered, angry, and prideful, they will transform even Heaven into Hell.

Compared to the dog, the wolf is a true symbol of freedom or of those who refused to be spoon-fed.

Harper knew Wayne Storr must've told the kitchen staff to go all out with this dinner, because she couldn't believe the quality of every course. Seared scallops with charred scallions, slow-cooked lamb shoulder with fennel ricotta, grass-fed rib eye with polenta and salsa verde, finished with a tiramisu that made her eyes roll back in her head. At least, that's what it felt like, and if Manny's rapturous expression was any indication, he liked it too. "That is categorically the best meal I've ever had." He patted his stomach and groaned. "And I'm not going to eat for the next week, so I'm stuffed." "Me too." But she knew a good way to burn off the calories, and she couldn't wait any longer. While the food may have been delicious, watching Manny eat had been torture. His lips wrapping around a scallop, his tongue flicking out to capture a dab of salsa verde on his lip, the small, satisfied groan as he spooned the final scoop of tiramisu into his mouth. He'd driven her slowly but surely crazy. It seemed like the entire meal had been one giant exercise in foreplay, and she'd been patient long enough. Time for dessert. In her case, greed was good.

I was on that spoon-fed path of least resistance, letting dominoes fall on my head, and it was killing me slowly.

It was,” the man said. “But when I returned from re-education, I discovered that my supply of copper wires was gone. During the Great Leap Forward, people broke down my door and carried away all the metal. You remember the slogan, ‘Struggle to produce 10.7 million tonnes of steel.’ When Chairman Mao instructed the villages to industrialize, my neighbours discovered all my bits and pieces, even my voltage meter, my collection of batteries, pinhole cameras and metal coils, not to mention my cooking pots and metal spoons, and fed them to the smelter that you’ll see if you walk fifty paces to the east of here. They managed to produce a surprising quantity of steel but, sadly, none of it was useable.” He shrugged and one of the electric lights fizzled, dimmed and then gleamed brightly again. “Upon my release, my neighbours all came and said, ‘Isn’t it a shame, Teacher Edison, you weren’t here to help us fulfill our steel quota?’ And then I was glad that I hadn’t been present to hand over all my spatulas and wires, as well as my mother’s wedding ring and the German stein my father brought from Düsseldorf many years ago, as well as my bicycle. Sometimes it is better not to say goodbye.

This attitude — that the inner guru is enough — is often adopted by those whose intellectual orientation is slightly nihilistic or who are from very controlling, high- achieving families and resent the idea of yet another powerful person breathing down their necks. Then there are others who like to be led. Even when it comes to mundane issues, they don’t trust their own judgment or inner voice. They can barely go to the grocery store without being full of doubt. They also tend to be a little bit lazy, asking the guru for advice on every little thing that pops into their heads. These types of people have to learn to trust themselves and rely less on the outer guru. They might find that the more they trust the inner and secret gurus, the more they rely on and love the outer guru. Ultimately, the question of whether the inner guru is enough for you is irrelevant if your spiritual aim is to attain enlightenment. But there is an easy way to find the answer. If you can overcome any and all external circumstances, then maybe you don’t need the outer guru, because by then all appearance and experience arise as the guru anyway. On the other hand, if a practitioner is not able to control circumstances and situations, then all kinds of mind training are necessary. Therefore, one needs to be led, to be poked, to be spoon-fed. To find out whether or not you are controlled by circumstances and situations, there are myriad things you can do, such as skip lunch. If you are a man, wear a bra and walk around in public. If you are a woman, go to a fancy party in your bedroom slippers. If you are married, see if you can tolerate someone pinching your spouse’s bottom. See if you are swayed by praise, criticism, being ignored, or being showered with attention. If you get agitated, embarrassed, or infuriated, then more than likely you are still under the spell of the conditions of habit and culture. You are still a victim of causes and conditions. When a loved one dies or the life you are trying to build collapses, it’s likely that your understanding of the inner and secret gurus will not ease the pain. Nor will your understanding of “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” provide solace. In this case, you need to insert a new cause to counter these conditions. Because your understanding of the inner and secret gurus is only intellectual, you cannot call upon them. This is where the outer, physical, reachable guru is necessary. As long as you dwell in a realm where externally existing friends and lovers are necessary, as long as you are bothered by externally existing obstacles like passions and moral judgments, you need a guru. Basically, as long as you have a dualistic mind, don’t kid yourself by thinking that an inner guru is enough. When you reach a point where you can actually communicate with your inner guru, you will have little or no more dualism. You will no longer be repelled by or attracted to an outer guru. Therefore, the outer guru is necessary until you at least have the gist of the inner and secret gurus. When you realize the inner and secret gurus, you won’t even be able to find the outer guru anymore.

How will I ever learn the truth then?" asked Janna despondently. "The way other people learn it, " said Hugo. "Do you think newspaper reporters find it easy to learn the truth? They may have to interrogate many liars, sift the facts, and draw their own conclusions. Or judges.... think of their difficulties, yet a human life may depend on what they decide. Then take scientists, how many years of patient observation it takes them to find out the tiniest truth about our universe. You want to be spoon-fed. You've just learned that you may not have the true idea of what is going on, and you want to spend no thought and effort on it yourself. That's a bad attitude. There's a library full of information right here... with enough books in German for you to do some research. Besides, your Dutch is getting good. You have brains, use them.

I was on that spoon-fed path of least resistance, letting dominoes fall on my head, and it was killing me slowly. But there’s a difference between being numb and clueless.

Stop," she cried, trying desperately to twist away from him. The exertion caused her flush to darken. "This is madness… Oh, you stubborn wretch, let me go!" "Never." Kev smoothed her wild, fine hair, the strands darkening where her tears had tracked. "Easy," he murmured. "Don't exhaust yourself. Rest." Win's struggles slowed as she recognized the futility of resisting him. "You're so strong," she said faintly, the words born not of praise, but damnation. "You're so strong…" "Yes," Kev said, gently using a corner of the bed linens to dry her face. "I'm a brute, and you've always known it, haven't you?" "Yes," she whispered. "And you're going to do as I say." He cradled her against his chest and gave her some water. She took a few painful sips. "Can't," she managed, turning her face away. "More," he insisted, bringing the cup back to her lips. "Let me sleep, please-" "After you drink more." Kev wouldn't relent until she obeyed with a moan. Settling her back into the pillows, he let her drowse for a few minutes, then returned with some toast softened in broth. He bullied her into taking a few spoonfuls. By that time Amelia had awakened, and she came into Win's room. A quick double blink was Amelia's only reaction to the sight of Win leaning back against Kev's arm while he fed her. "Get rid of him," Win told her sister hoarsely, her head resting on Kev's shoulder. "He's torturing me." "Well, we've always known he was a fiend," Amelia said in a reasonable tone, coming to stand at the bedside. "How dare you, Merripen?… Coming into an unsuspecting girl's room and feeding her toast.

Order, remember seeing this video on the news and thinking to myself, “Hey. There you have it.  He did it.  Let’s go kick some ass in Afghanistan.”  I was taken for a complete ride along with everyone else who isn’t paying attention to what we are being spoon fed.

Reason 2: Laziness Farmer Flaky is imprisoned by laziness. The next verse describe this paralysis: "He sticks to his bed like a door to its hinges! He is too tired even to lift his food from his dish to his mouth!" (Proverbs 26:14-15, TLB). Who says the Bible is boring? This verse is so funny. It gives you the height of laziness: There's already food on his plate, yet he's too tired to lift his spoon to his mouth. Absurd? Not really. Look around you. So many are surrounded by wonderful opportunities to grow themselves. Yet they don't life their spoon. Instead, they want to be spoon-fed like babies. But we live in different times. When my son was fourteen years old, he learned how to play the drums, how to edit videos, how to arrange songs, how to make websites. How? By watching YouTube videos. He also learned enough fashion sense to be my fashion stylist, so he can tell me what to wear on stage so I don't look like Mr. Bean. That's the kind of universe we live in. Because of the Internet, all the libraries of the world are now in your bedroom and you can access them by just one press of a button. Yet people remain immobilized. Stuck. Frozen.

She smiles like a demon, her lips painted red with my blood. Jane doesn’t want to be fed love on a silver spoon―she wants to lick it off my flesh as I bleed for her.

It's easy to sneer that insta is all cats, brunch, selfies, and beach yoga, but social media is one of the most powerful tools for self education we've ever had. If your social media is boring you don't blame the tool, or the algorithms. If you're choosing to be spoon-fed, you can't complain that everything tastes the same.

It is a theory of mine,” I said, warming to my theme, “that we owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness—either enforced or voluntary. The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself—and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.

Someone who had no money to feed her and was probably not even married. Look at her, look how dark she is, look how she eats when she is hungry as if she has never been fed. Yes, yes, now she has money pouring in from rich men in the city, she dresses up fine and goes to a fancy school and is learning to speak English and eating cakes with a spoon. Does not change where she came from.

How amazing it was that readers could be led by the hand to feel and react. Like drones, gobbling page after page of words, coerced into feelings, concocted into a brew that convinced, assured, and spoon-fed the phoniness so gently it was accepted and, yes, loved with devotion!

On Clock Island, a girl with soft brown hair and a long wooden spoon fed freshly caught stars to the Man in the Moon.

Women who wore pink were just as capable of defending themselves as women in leather and denim. ... Unfortunately, stupid boys growing up fed stereotypical gender roles and misogyny with a silver spoon didn’t understand that.

Then the mer captain said, “I, ah … I was assigned to look into a human woman, Sofie Renast. She was a rebel who was captured by the Hind two weeks ago. But Sofie was no ordinary human, and neither was her younger brother—Emile. Both he and Sofie pass as human, yet they possess full thunderbird powers.” Bryce blew out a breath. Well, she hadn’t been expecting that. Hunt said, “I thought thunderbirds had been hunted to extinction by the Asteri.” Too dangerous and volatile to be allowed to live was the history they’d been spoon-fed at school. A grave threat to the empire. “They’re little more than myths now.” All true. Bryce remembered a Starlight Fancy horse called Thunderbird: a blue-and-white unicorn-pegasus who could wield all types of energy. She’d never gotten her hands on one, though she’d yearned to. But Tharion went on, “Well, somehow, somewhere, one survived. And bred. Emile was captured three years ago and sent to the Kavalla death camp. His captors were unaware of what they’d grabbed, and he wisely kept his gifts hidden. Sofie went into Kavalla and freed him. But from what I was told, Sofie was caught by the Hind before she reached safety. Emile got away—only to run from Ophion as well. It seems like he came this way, but various parties are still very interested in the powers he possesses. And Sofie, too, if she survived.” “No one survives the Hind,” Hunt said darkly. “Yeah, I know. But the chains attached to the lead blocks at the bottom of the ocean were empty. Unlocked. Seems like Sofie made it. Or someone snatched her corpse.