Spots And Stripes Quotes

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I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;Her coat is one of the tabby kind,with tiger stripes and lepard spots.
T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats)
He had no doubt that he knew who Ty was now, inside and out. He knew every one of Ty's quirks and weak spots and favorite things. He knew what Ty found funny and what annoyed him. He knew what would break his heart. He knew how to touch him to drive him wild, and when to back off when Ty was having a bad day. He knew that Ty was kind and loyal and funny, that he had a deep sense of honor and righteousness. He knew that Ty would die to save a stranger, and kill to save a friend. That was the type of man he was.
Abigail Roux (Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run, #6))
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman. She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witchmen, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul. Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, halt-shaped resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscoutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her. She looked at us all as if her life had depended upon the unswerving steadiness of her glance
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
I found Waldo. He was in a strip club. He was hard to spot, because he’d already stripped off his red and white striped sweater and was all sweaty.
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
I like to imagine that Adam's tongue, his palate and his lips were always on fire, that the air he breathed was kindled to incandescence each time he cried out in sorrow or delight. If fiction can be said to have a function, it is to release that primary fury of which language, even now, is miraculously capable - from the dry mud of daily use. So that furred, spotted and striped, it may - as it did in Eden - scrawl under every tree as revelation.
Rikki Ducornet (The Jade Cabinet)
Whoever had designed the skeletons of creatures had even less imagination than whoever had done the outsides. At least the outside-designer had tried a few novelties in the spots, wool and stripes department, but the bone-builder had generally just put a skull on a ribcage, shoved a pelvis in further along, stuck on some arms and legs and had the rest of the day off. Some ribcages were longer, some legs were shorter, some hands became wings, but they all seemed to be based on one design, one size stretched or shrunk to fit all. - Ponder Stibbons
Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent (Discworld, #22; Rincewind, #6))
Very likely even his splendid coloration is a little too marked and would be objected to by those who put the laws of breeding above the value of personality, for it would appear that the classic pointer type should have a coat of one colour or at most with spots of a different one, but never stripes.
Thomas Mann (Death in Venice and Other Tales)
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step.
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
When your cock is literally candy cane striped and can curve inside a person, hitting their pleasure spot... peppermint flavors mean something different. To me, it’s a kink. All things candy
Maeve Black (Dear Monster Claus)
.. And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman. 'She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witchmen, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
Tsunami spotted Snail and Herring among the guards. Their eyes darted anxiously from side to side, as if they were wondering how they were still alive. Because Mother wants to make a spectacle of them, Tsunami guessed. Coral was probably waiting for the right moment to punish them in public, the way she’d punished Tortoise. Well, two can play the spectacle game, Your Majesty. “MOTHER!” Tsunami declared dramatically as the waitstaff set bowls of soup in front of each dragon. Beside her, Whirlpool jumped and nearly tipped his bowl onto himself. Even Queen Coral looked startled. “I have something DREADFULLY SHOCKING to tell you!” Tsunami announced. She wanted this to be loud, so every dragon could witness it. “Oh?” said Coral. “Could we discuss it after breakfast? In a civilized fashion?” “NO,” Tsunami said, louder than before. “This is TOO SHOCKING.” Even SeaWings not invited to the feast were starting to peer out of their caves and poke their heads out of the lake to hear what was going on. “Well, perhaps —” Coral started. “WOULD YOU BELIEVE,” Tsunami said, “that my friends — the DRAGONETS OF DESTINY, remember — were CHAINED UP? And STARVED? In YOUR CAVES? By YOUR DRAGONS?” “What?” Coral said, flapping her wings. She looked thoroughly alarmed, but Tsunami couldn’t tell whether that was because the news actually surprised her or because she was being confronted openly with what she’d done. “I KNOW!” Tsunami practically bellowed. “It’s UNBELIEVABLE. I’m sure you didn’t know anything about it, of course.” “Of course,” Coral said in a hurry. “I would never treat any dragonets that way! Especially my dearest daughter’s dearest friends. Who are part of the prophecy and everything.” “And I’m sure you’ll want to punish the dragons who disobeyed you by treating my friends so terribly,” Tsunami said. “Right? Like, for instance, the one who lied to you about keeping them well fed?” She shot a glare at Lagoon, who froze with a sea snail halfway to her mouth, suddenly realizing what was going on. “Absolutely,” said the queen. “Guards! Throw Lagoon in one of the underwater dungeons!” “But —” Lagoon said. “But I was only —” “Next time you’ll obey my orders,” said the queen. A stripe quickly flashed under her wings, but Tsunami spotted it, and it was one Riptide had taught her. Silence. Oh, Mother, Tsunami thought sadly. “Can’t I even —” Lagoon said, reaching wistfully for her cauldron of soup as the guards pulled her away. “No breakfast for you,” the queen ordered. “Think about how that feels as you sit in my dungeon.” Tsunami was fairly sure Lagoon wouldn’t actually suffer very much. Queen Coral would have her back at Council meetings before long. But Tsunami wasn’t done. “And
Tui T. Sutherland (The Lost Heir (Wings of Fire, #2))
will make a fine honor guard for Lord Kronos. And you, of course, will have a role to play—” I thought Luke turned paler when the General said that. “—but under my leadership, the forces of Lord Kronos will increase a hundredfold. We will be unstoppable. Behold, my ultimate killing machines.” The soil erupted. I stepped back nervously. In each spot where a tooth had been planted, a creature was struggling out of the dirt. The first of them said: “Mew?” It was a kitten. A little orange tabby with stripes like a tiger. Then another appeared, until there were a dozen, rolling around and playing in the dirt. Everyone stared at them in disbelief. The General roared, “What is this? Cute cuddly kittens? Where did you find those teeth?
Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
You rarely saw the celebs protesting anything of substance. The Glades weren't a sexy enough cause, but give the latest blonde-haired twenty-something who'd just hit it big on TV six or seven horn-tailed, red-spotted, sticky-beaked, pigeon-toed, multi-striped tree-owls who might occasionally fly over the two-mile zone pumping millions of barrels of oil out of the ground, and suddenly she began to feel a stronger connection to the land than the Ancient Ones, the Anasazi. Two months later of course, the only red-spotted, sticky-beaked creature in sight would be the little blonde's flush face when she made it on TMZ for failing a breathalyzer test and cursing the cop arresting her, shouting the typical Hollywood star mantra: "Don't you know who I am?
Bobby Underwood (The Turquoise Shroud (Seth Halliday #1))
Just why it should have happened, or why it should have happened just when it did, he could not, of course, possibly have said; nor perhaps could it even have occurred to him to ask. The thing was above all a secret, something to be preciously concealed from Mother and Father; and to that very fact it owed an enormous part of its deliciousness. It was like a peculiarly beautiful trinket to be carried unmentioned in one's trouser-pocket - a rare stamp, an old coin, a few tiny gold links found trodden out of shape on the path in the park, a pebble of carnelian, a sea shell distinguishable from all others by an unusual spot or stripe-and, as if it were anyone of these, he carried around with him everywhere a warm and persistent and increasingly beautiful sense of possession. Nor was it only a sense of possession - it was also a sense of protection. It was as if, in some delightful way, his secret gave him a fortress, a wall behind which he could retreat into heavenly seclusion. ("Silent Snow, Secret Snow")
Conrad Aiken (Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library))
Have you ever…” he hesitated. “Met another striped?” “You mean a male?” “Yeah I mean a male.” “No.” You wouldn’t still be single if you had, he thought grimly. For some reason, it bothered him. She jumped and he realised he’d placed a possessive hand on her hip.
Alice Coldbreath (Striped Not Spotted)
Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep black space high up among many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman’s tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of the dots. At length, I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn’t find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn’t make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at the very moment with great emotion, in intricate detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which whole worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped, in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, “that was a good time then, a good time to be living.” And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water…I saw may apples in forest, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided and apples grew striped and spotted in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves, and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wilds ducks flew, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remembered the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean’s shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, “Yes, that’s how it was then, that part there we called ‘France’”. I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes.
Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman. "She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
As delightful as the Just So explanations are of how spots, stripes, humps and horns came to be, biology can now tell us stories about butterflies, zebras and leopards that I contend are every bit as enchanting as Kipling's fairy tales. What's more, they offer some simple, elegant truths that deepen our understanding of all animal forms, including ourselves.
Sean B. Carroll (Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo)
To me Chocolate is like the quintessential ingredient necessary for a good life; almost equal in importance to water or the sun. Life without chocolate is like a zebra without stripes or a leopard without spots. Chocolates are to sweets what salts are to savories. They give life dimension, flavor, and color. Without chocolate life is bland, boring, and unexciting.
John W Lord
Striped mintbush Meaning: Love forsaken Prostanthera striatiflora | Centtral Australia Found in rocky gorges and near outcrops. Very strongly mint-scented. Narrow leathery leaves. The white flower is bell-shaped with purple stripes inside the bloom and yellow spots in the throat. Should not be ingested, as it can cause difficulty in sleeping. Vivid dreams are also symptomatic.
Holly Ringland (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart)
he found a palpitating snake, Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake.  She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d; 50 And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries — So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries, She seem’d, at once, some penanced lady elf, Some demon’s mistress, or the demon’s self. Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne’s tiar: Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet! She had a woman’s mouth with all its pearls complete: 60
John Keats (Complete Works of John Keats)
Pounce trotted past the newcomers, carrying a black kitten with a white bib and mittens in his mouth. The small creature hung in Pounce’s grip, ears flat, hindquarters and tail curled up. It seemed as dejected as a body could be at my cat’s handling… My cat dropped his captive in Aniki’s lap. He then lectured her in meows, saying, I cannot let you maul me about. Do it to him. …Kora grabbed Pounce. “Why her?” she asked, holding Pounce up. “I’m a mage. By rights I should have a cat. You like Aniki more than you like me!” Ersken said, “I think Pounce is in a giving mood today.” Here came my cat with a second kitten. This one was a light and dark brown ball with thin black stripes and spots. Pounce dropped it in front of Kora.
Tamora Pierce (Terrier (Beka Cooper, #1))
As I stare around, and walk alone, I spot something new, as every day I do. This knew thing, was beyond my purpose. As I watched it fly, it came to me. I knew who it was. I knew it needed me. I took flight, following it through the beyond. Than I saw it. Just what I needed most. Friends. They came, and they haven't gone sense. They showed me the ways, and I remember. Months have passed, and today I still wonder, 'Why did you lead me here? Where are you now? I only have this to say, if I can see you again. Thank you. For my friends. And giving me light amongst the darkness that surrounded me. I was hiding behind a wall, until you showed me the light. I had a few friends to guide me to the new, thank you Sabre. Thank you Stripes. But most importantly, thank you Vivien, Hunter, and Disney. Thank you. For the light. Of my Darkstar...
Howler the Icewing
take tuna. Among the other 145 species regularly killed — gratuitously — while killing tuna are: manta ray, devil ray, spotted skate, bignose shark, copper shark, Galapagos shark, sandbar shark, night shark, sand tiger shark, (great) white shark, hammerhead shark, spurdog fish, Cuban dogfish, bigeye thresher, mako, blue shark, wahoo, sailfish, bonito, king mackerel, Spanish mackerel, longbill spearfish, white marlin, swordfish, lancet fish, grey triggerfish, needlefish, pomfret, blue runner, black ruff, dolphin fish, bigeye cigarfish, porcupine fish, rainbow runner, anchovy, grouper, flying fish, cod, common sea horse, Bermuda chub, opah, escolar, leerfish, tripletail, goosefish, monkfish, sunfish, Murray eel, pilotfish, black gemfish, stone bass, bluefish, cassava fish, red drum, greater amberjack, yellowtail, common sea bream, barracuda, puffer fish, loggerhead turtle, green turtle, leatherback turtle, hawksbill turtle, Kemp’s ridley turtle, Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross, Audouin’s gull, balearic shearwater, black-browed albatross, great black-backed gull, great shearwater, great-winged petrel, grey petrel, herring gull, laughing gull, northern royal albatross, shy albatross, sooty shearwater, southern fulmar, Yelkouan shearwater, yellow-legged gull, minke whale, sei whale, fin whale, common dolphin, northern right whale, pilot whale, humpback whale, beaked whale, killer whale, harbor porpoise, sperm whale, striped dolphin, Atlantic spotted dolphin, spinner dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, and goose-beaked whale. Imagine being served a plate of sushi. But this plate also holds all of the animals that were killed for your serving of sushi. The plate might have to be five feet across.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
Chapter 28 Genghis Cat Gracing Whatever Shithole This Is, Washington, USA You can all relax now, because I am here. What did you think? I’d run for safety at the whim of a fucking parrot with under-eye bags like pinched scrotums? Did you suspect I—a ninja with feather-wand fastness and laser-pointer focus—had the spine of a banana slug? Then you are a shit-toned oink with the senses of a sniveling salamander. Then you don’t know Genghis Cat. I look around and can see that we are surrounded by The Bird Beasts, those crepe-faced, hair ball–brained fuck goblins. I intensely dislike these lumpy whatthefuckareyous who straddle between the Mediocre Servant and animal worlds, trying to be one thing and really not being, like imitation crabmeat in a sushi log that is really just fucking whitefish and WE ALL KNOW IT. “Would you like a little of the crabmeat, Genghis?” my Mediocre Servants seemed to ask with their blobfish lips and stupid faces. “THAT’S FUCKING WHITEFISH, YOU REGURGITATED MOLES!” I’d yowl, and then I’d steal the sushi log and run off and growl very much so they couldn’t have it back, and later I would pee on their night pillows for good measure. I cannot imagine their lives before me. We mustn’t think of those bleak dark ages. But the Beasts are dangerous. I have watched them morph and chew into a house. I have seen them with spider legs and second stomachs and camouflage skins. I have seen them tear the legs off a horse and steal flight from those with feathers. Orange and I have lost family to their fuckish appetites. But they are still fakish faking beasts and I’m fucking Genghis Cat. They are imitation crab and Genghis is filet mignon Fancy Feast, bitch. Probably I should come clean here and tell you that I’m immortal. I always suspected it but can confirm it now that I have surpassed the allocated nine lives. I’m somewhere around life 884, give or take seventy-eight. Some mousers have called me a god, but I insist on modesty. I also don’t deny it. I might be a god. It seems to fit. It feels right. A stealthy, striped god with an exotically spotted tummy—it seems certain, doesn’t it to you? I’m 186 percent sure at this point. Orange insists we stay away from the Beasts all the time, but I only let Orange think he’s in charge. Orange is incredibly sensitive, despite being the size of a Winnebago. He hand-raised each of my kittens and has terrible nightmares, and I have to knead my paws on him to calm him down. Orange and I have a deal. I will kill anything that comes to harm Orange and Orange will continue to be the reason I purr.
Kira Jane Buxton (Feral Creatures (Hollow Kingdom #2))
Maybe it’s not a coincidence that I’ve always been interested in heroes, starting with my dad, Phil Robertson, and my mom, Miss Kay. My other heroes are my pa and my granny, who taught me how to play cards and dominoes and everything about fishing (which was a lot), and my three older brothers, who teased me, beat me up, and sometimes let me follow them around. Not much has changed in that department. I’ve always loved movies, and when I was about seven or eight years old, I watched Rocky, Sylvester Stallone’s movie about an underdog boxer who used his fists, along with sheer will, determination, and the ability to endure pain, to make a way for himself. He fought hard but played fair and had a soft spot for his friends. I fell in love with Rocky. He was my hero, and I became obsessed. When I decide to do something, I’m all in; so I found a pair of red shorts that looked like Rocky’s boxing trunks and a navy blue bathrobe with two white stripes on the sleeve and no belt. I took off my shirt and ran around bare-chested in my robe and shorts. Most kids I knew went through a superhero phase, but they picked DC Comics guys, like Batman or Superman. Not me. I was Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, and proud of it. Mom let me run around like that for a couple of years, even when we went in to town. Rocky had a girlfriend, Adrian, who was always there, always by his side. When he was beaten and blinded in a bad fight, he called out for her before anybody else. “Yo, Adrian!” he shouted in his Philly-Italian accent. He needed her. Eventually, I grew up, and the red shorts and blue bathrobe didn’t fit anymore, but I always remembered Rocky’s kindness and his courage. And that every Rocky needs an Adrian.
Jep Robertson (The Good, the Bad, and the Grace of God: What Honesty and Pain Taught Us About Faith, Family, and Forgiveness)
I sit by his bed and pull the covers over him. In doing so, I accidently brush against his thigh. And that’s when I feel it. That same electrical sensation I got the first time I touched the spot—in my room, when I begged him to stay the night. The feeling radiates up my spine and gnaws at my nerves. It’s like something’s there, marked on his leg. I run my fingers over the spot—through the blanket—almost tempted to have a look. I close my eyes, trying to sense things the way he does—to get a mental picture from merely touching the area. But I can’t. And I don’t. Still, I have to know if I’m right. I peer over my shoulder toward the door, checking to see that no one’s looking in. And then I roll the covers down. Ben’s wearing a hospital gown. With trembling fingers, I pull the hem and see it right away: the image of a chameleon, tattooed on his upper thigh. It’s about four inches long, with green and yellow stripes. And its tail curls into the letter C. I feel my face furrow, wondering when he got the tattoo, and why he never told me. It wasn’t so long ago that I told him the story of my name—how my mother named me after a chameleon, because chameleons have keen survival instincts.
Laurie Faria Stolarz (Deadly Little Games (Touch, #3))
The bast, dispersing in shreds in the sunset whispered "Time has begun." The son, Adam, stripped naked, descended into the Old Testament of his native land and arrayed himself in bast; a wreath of roadside field grass he placed upon his brow, a staff, not a switch, he pulled from the ground, flourishing the birch branch like a sacred palm. On the road he stood like a guard. The dust-gray road ran into the sunset. And a crow perched there, perched and croaked, there where the celestial fire consumed the earth. There were blind men along the dust-gray road running into the twilight. Antique, crooken, they trailed along, lonely and sinister silhouettes, holding to one another and to their leader's cane. They were raising dust. One was beard-less, he kept squinting. Another, a little old man with a protruding lip, was whispering and praying. A third, covered with red hair, frowned. Their backs were bent, their heads bowed low, their arms extended to the staff. Strange it was to see this mute procession in the terrible twilight. They made their way immutable, primordial, blind. Oh, if only they could open their eyes, oh if only they were not blind! Russian Land, awake! And Adam, rude image of the returned king, lowered the birch branch to their white pupils. And on them he laid his hands, as, groaning and moaning they seated themselves in the dust and with trembling hands pushed chunks of black bread into their mouths. Their faces were ashen and menacing, lit with the pale light of deadly clouds. Lightning blazed, their blinded faces blazed. Oh, if only they opened their eyes, oh, if only they saw the light! Adam, Adam, you stand illumined by lightnings. Now you lay the gentle branch upon their faces. Adam, Adam, say, see, see! And he restores their sight. But the blind men turning their ashen faces and opening their white eyes did not see. And the wind whispered "Thou art behind the hill." From the clouds a fiery veil began to shimmer and died out. A little birch murmured, beseeching, and fell asleep. The dusk dispersed at the horizon and a bloody stump of the sunset stuck up. And spotted with brilliant coals glowing red, the bast streamed out from the sunset like a striped cloak. On the waxen image of Adam the field grass wreaths sighed fearfully giving a soft whistle and the green dewy clusters sprinkled forth fiery tears on the blind faces of the blind. He knew what he was doing, he was restoring their sight. ("Adam")
Andrei Bely (Silver Age of Russian Culture (An Anthology))
Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep blank space high up above many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman’s tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of dots. At length I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn’t find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn’t make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at that very moment with great emotion, in intricate, detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which wholly worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, “that was a good time then, a good time to be living.” And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water. I saw white-faced cattle lowing and wading in creeks. I saw May apples in forests, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided, and apples grew spotted and striped in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wild ducks flew with outstretched necks, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remember the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean’s shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, “yes, that’s how it was then, that part there was called France.” I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes. We all ought to be able to conjure up sights like these at will, so that we can keep in mind the scope of texture’s motion in time.
Annie Dillard
You my little reader… yes You! No matter if you have stripes, spots or no spots, you are beautiful or ugly, smart or silly, hardworking or lazy,  to your Mother you will always be the best, the most beautiful, the kindest. Just as she will always be to you.
Bea Balint (The Mother's Day Gift (Noisy Farm - A Beautifully Illustrated Children's Picture Book, Perfect Bedtime Story))
In the quarter where the sun should have appeared, the sky was covered by a strange reddish cloud, like smoke, like hot ashes, like a dark pollen that had arisen swiftly, stretching from one horizon to the other. When the cloud moved overhead, it began to rain butterflies on the roofs, the water jars, our shoulders. They were little butterflies, deep amaranth in color, striped in violet, which had come together by myriads in some unknown spot behind the immense jungle, frightened, perhaps, driven away, after multiplying frenziedly, by some cataclysm, some awful occurrence, without witnesses or record. The Adelantado told me that these swarms of butterflies were nothing new in the region, and that when they took place the sun was almost blotted out for the whole day. The burial of the father would have to be carried out by candlelight in a day that was night, reddened by wings.
Alejo Carpentier (The Lost Steps)
I bought a narrow blue one with white spots and square ends, took off my long-striped tie and rolled it up in my top jacket pocket, leaving a bit sticking out. After a few attempts at the speckled mirror, I manage to get the bow tie almost right, if a little lopsided. In the world of bow ties, it is important that it should be ever so slightly imperfect; this is to show that: a) you tied it yourself; and b) that you are slightly 'devil may care' and not at all prissy. Perfection is the sign of an amateur, perhaps someone who works with great skill but without connection to his animal nature, to passion and lust. Perfection is not for living things, certainly not for human beings; if you are not capable of loving flaws and faults, then you are not capable of love. I have lived most of my life in poverty, but I can tie a bow tie and to some this will be a mystery, but somebody who knows me would say, 'Of course he can tie a bow tie.' Such imperfections - wrinkles in the world - are where all of life's best stories are.
Marc Hamer (Spring Rain)
A majority of the country—reliable polling said it was so—refused to believe she was actually gone. They hung their hopes on the fact that only one of the Aurora’s two Zodiac dinghies had been found. Surely, they argued, she was adrift on the open seas or had washed ashore on a deserted island. One disreputable Web site went so far as to report that she had been spotted on Montserrat. Another said she was living quietly by the sea in Dorset. Conspiracy theorists of every stripe concocted lurid tales of a plot to kill the princess that was conceived by the Queen’s Privy Council and carried out by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. Pressure mounted on its chief, Graham Seymour, to issue a full-throated denial of the allegations, but he steadfastly refused.
Daniel Silva (The English Spy (Gabriel Allon, #15))
Those who live with insomnia and who consider sleep both an enemy and a gift will understand the following. Some of us cannot comprehend how anyone except the very good or those who have no conscience at all can sleep from dark to dawn without dreaming or waking. We hear William Blake’s tiger padding softly through a green jungle, his stripes glowing, his whiskers spotted with gore. Psychoanalysis does no good. Neither does a health regimen that induces physical exhaustion. The only solution that is guaranteed is the one provided by our old friend Morpheus, who requires our souls in the bargain.
James Lee Burke (Crusader's Cross (Dave Robicheaux))
there now sat a square package perhaps a cubit on a side, done up in a golden wrapping all spattered with ornamental sparks of brighter and darker gold. She went over to it, picked it up to test the weight: somewhat heavy. Arrhae shook the box, then smiled at herself. Nothing rattled. She wandered back into her chamber with it, pushed her clothes aside, and sat down on the couch. Carefully Arrhae unwrapped the paper without tearing it—the old habit of a household manager, not to waste anything that might be useful later—and set it aside, revealing a plain golden paperboard box inside. A seal held the closing-flap down. She slit the seal with one thumbnail, opened the box, and found inside it some white tissue spangled with more golden spots, all wrapped around something roughly spherical. Arrhae pushed the padding-tissue aside to reveal a smooth clear substance, a glassy dome. Reaching into the box, she brought out what revealed itself as a dish garden of clear glass: the bottom of it full of stripes of colored sand, and rooted in the sand, various small dry-climate plants, spiny or thick-leaved, one or two of them producing tiny, delicate, golden flowers. Attached to the upper dome, instead of a chip or tag, was a small, white, gold-edged printed card that said, FROM AN ADMIRER—WELCOME HOME. Arrhae
Diane Duane (The Empty Chair)
After each outing, I spent hours looking through a huge volume called The Fishes of the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea. Among the fish that I think I may have spotted were: tiger sharks, lemon sharks, gray reef sharks, blue-spine unicorn fish, yellow boxfish, spotted boxfish, conspicuous angelfish, Barrier Reef anemonefish, Barrier Reef chromis, minifin parrotfish, Pacific longnose parrotfish, somber sweetlips, fourspot herring, yellowfin tuna, common dolphinfish, deceiver fangblenny, yellow spotted sawtail, barred rabbitfish, blunt-headed wrasse, and striped cleaner wrasse. Reefs are
Elizabeth Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History)
You were always the King of Much Too Late.' 'And you were always the Queen of my heart,' said Burnet, and held out his arms to her. For a second, Vanessa said nothing. Her angry profile was turned away; her dark hair shimmered silver. Burnet put his arms around her, and for a moment, she turned her face into the curve of his shoulder... Then the air gave a giant sob, as if rushing in to fill a space, and the interlaced pair dispersed into dazzling fragments. Millions of butterflies and moths exploded into the turbulence, fluttering madly to escape; bright wings torching the London smoke into a cacophony of colors. Golden-winged and orange-tipped; peacock-eyed and painted; speckled, stippled, spotted; striped; fretting the kaleidoscope air. And then, they slowly began to dissolve like smoke into the atmosphere.
Joanne Harris (The Moonlight Market)
And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman. “She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent;
Book House (100 Books You Must Read Before You Die - volume 1 [newly updated] [Pride and Prejudice; Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; Tarzan of the Apes; The Count of ... (The Greatest Writers of All Time))
Do You Like Animals? is a wild animal menagerie of fun as children view pictures and read stories about elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos, hippos, zebras, giraffes, camels, kangaroos, penguins, and much more. The book helps children meet the animals up close and learn fun facts about how they live in the wild. The author/illustrator viewed the animals in the jungles, bush, and deserts of Africa, Australia, and South America before writing about them and painting them in forms that would be enjoyable and educational for children. For example, children will learn why elephants have trunks, why giraffes and leopards have spots, whether zebras’ stripes are black-on-white or white-on-black, how long hippos can hold their breath, the amazing characteristics of howler monkeys’ tails, why some kangaroos have a pouch, whether ostriches really bury their heads in the sand, the types of camels that have either one or two humps… Through stories that rhyme and pictures painted with punch this book is a must for children who like to have fun while they learn!
M.S. Gatto (Do You Like Wild Animals?)
Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. The cool kids of the 1960s invited the old man who had been cool before they knew cool was cool to join them in a musical romp that nobody took particularly seriously. Crosby enjoys himself. He has nothing at stake, since he’s not the star who has to carry the film. He’s very casual, and appears to be ad-libbing all his lines in the old Road tradition with a touch of W. C. Fields’s colorful vocabulary thrown in: “You gentlemen find my raiment repulsive?” he asks Sinatra and Martin when they object to his character’s lack of chic flash in clothing. Crosby plays a clever con man who disguises himself as square, and his outfits reflect a conservative vibe in the eyes of the cats who are looking him over. The inquiry leads into a number, “Style,” in which Sinatra and Martin put Crosby behind closet doors for a series of humorous outfit changes, to try to spruce him up. Crosby comes out in a plaid suit with knickers and then in yellow pants and an orange-striped shirt. Martin and Sinatra keep on singing—and hoping—while Crosby models a fez. He finally emerges with a straw hat, a cane, and a boutonniere in his tuxedo lapel, looking like a dude. In his own low-key way, taking his spot in the center, right between the other two, Crosby joins in the song and begins to take musical charge. Sinatra is clearly digging Crosby, the older man he always wanted to emulate.*17 Both Sinatra and Martin are perfectly willing to let Crosby be the focus. He’s earned it. He’s the original that the other two wanted to become. He was there when Sinatra and Martin were still kids. He’s Bing Crosby! The three men begin to do a kind of old man’s strut, singing and dancing perfectly together (“…his hat got a little more shiny…”). The audience is looking at the three dominant male singers of the era from 1940 to 1977. They’re having fun, showing everyone exactly not only what makes a pro, not only what makes a star, but what makes a legend. Three great talents, singing and dancing about style, which they’ve all clearly got plenty of: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin in Robin and the 7 Hoods
Jeanine Basinger (The Movie Musical!)
cloudlets of striped and spotted smoke drifted slowly from his mouth.
Richard A. Lupoff (Sacred Locomotive Flies)
The orange wave was real. Layton and the NDP won 103 seats on May 2, 2011, and for the first and only time in its history, the party formed the official opposition with Layton at the helm. It was a huge accomplishment for the NDP, but for Jack Layton there was very little time to celebrate. The cancer had returned. It was about to race through his body. Just one hundred and twelve days after election night, the battle against it ended. On August 22, just before five in the morning, my phone rang. I've been around long enough to know that when the phone rings in the middle of the night the odds are it's not good news. It wasn't. "Jack just passed away. We will be announcing it publicly in a few hours. Perhaps you could make it known before then." I got up, showered, and dressed. I drove into Toronto from our home in Stratford thinking about those last conversations we'd had during the campaign. In St. John's after that interview had ended, I'd thanked him for being so frank about his health and his hopes in the few days we'd just spent together. Standing on the dock I'd told him that while he and I had done many interviews in the years before, all my questions in those past years had been so predictable. Before I could say anything, he smiled and looked at me. "And all my answers were so predictable too." We both laughed. It was so true. But 2011 had been different. I parked my car and walked into the studio where Heather Hiscox was hosting her morning show and, to her surprise, I sat down, unannounced, beside her. She could tell something wasn't right and, on air, she asked me what was up. "Jack Layton has just died." Heather's face said it all. She was shocked and saddened, just like so many Canadians of all political stripes were, as they found out in that same moment. A person's life have been stolen from them at the pinnacle of their professional career. The country was instantly in mourning. Two weeks later, Layton's widow, Olivia Chow, returned with me to the spot on Toronto Island where they had been married twenty-three years before and talked about what the final moments had been like. "It was very difficult, but he had no fear. He had no fear. He was ready, so I thought, okay. So we held him.
Peter Mansbridge (Off the Record)
In the watery light the cats are a tangle of angles and curves. A secret message? A code? Letters in their stripes, perhaps, in the points of their ears or the bends of their tails? He turns the letter this way and that, traces the ballpoint lines with the beam. On a tabby he thinks he spots an M; the arched leg of a black cat looks like an S, or maybe an N.
Celeste Ng (Our Missing Hearts)
She smiled and he felt it all the way down to his toes, like a full body shiver. His beast shifted within him knowingly. What? Again it shut down their usual flow of communication, frustrating him.
Alice Coldbreath (Striped Not Spotted)
I love you, God knows I love you Jessie,” he rasped. “More than anything. More than my life and that’s why. That’s why I can’t let you do this, risk yourself for me. You’re the only thing… I ever treasured, you understand? You’re the only beautiful thing in my miserable goddamn wasted life.
Alice Coldbreath (Striped Not Spotted)
Luc’s hand was rubbing up and down her back soothingly. He was murmuring against her shoulder. Telling her he loved her and only her. That he’d never loved anyone else in his whole life and never would.
Alice Coldbreath (Striped Not Spotted)
So we’ll just be a two-some. A mated pair,” she told him simply. “We hyenas do that. You can do your moody lone wolf thing and it’ll be fine.” “A lone wolf with a hyena nipping at his heels,” he pointed out.
Alice Coldbreath (Striped Not Spotted)
The walls were covered in paper that might once have been blue and white stripe, but which time and moisture had turned murky gray, spotted and peeling in places. Faded scenes from Hans Christian Andersen hung along one side: the brave tin soldier atop his fire, the pretty girl in red shoes, the little mermaid weeping for her lost past. It smelled musty, of ghostly children and long-settled dust. Vaguely alive.
Kate Morton (The House at Riverton)
The strange stripes on apples—known as twin spotting—might occur because a cell had two copies of a gene for color. One copy might be a light variant, the other dark. When the cell divided, it accidentally bequeathed two dark variants to one daughter cell, and two light ones to the other. When those cells multiplied, their daughters would inherit those new combinations. And since they grew next to each other, the result would be dark and light stripes. As geneticists studied these peculiar plants more carefully, they gave them a new name: mosaics.
Carl Zimmer (She Has Her Mother's Laugh: What Heredity Is, Is Not, and May Become)
When we exited the greenhouse, a kaleidoscope of butterflies floated over our heads, whirling in the sky. They were beautiful, their wings a creamy butter speckled with black. The top portion of the wings had stripes, similar to tiger markings, and the hind portion was marked with inlaid sapphire-blue crescents and one golden orange spot. One landed on my shoulder and fluttered its wings. "Those are flambé butterflies. It's how your grand-mère came up with the name for the other restaurant," said Phillipa. "I Googled the English name: scarce swallowtails." "I prefer flambé," I said.
Samantha Verant (The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux (Sophie Valroux #1))
She looked up at me with more animation. "Oh yes, indeed there is. I like playing with my kittens. I have three of them, Spot, Patch and Stripe. Spot has a black spot, but otherwise he is entirely white. Patch has a white patch on his back, and Stripe - " "Allow me to guess. He has a stripe?" "Why, have you seen him?" "No.
Amanda Grange (Mr. Darcy's Diary (Jane Austen Heroes, #1))
Mulholland was the backbone of Los Angeles. It rode like a snake along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains from one end of the city to the other. Clewiston knew of places where you could stand on the white stripe and look north across the vast San Fernando Valley and then turn around and look south and see across the Westside and as far as the Pacific and Catalina Island. It all depended on whether the smog was cooperating or not. And if you knew the right spots to stop and look. Mulholland had that Top of the World feel to it. It could make you feel like a prince of the city and that the laws of nature and physics didn’t apply. The foot came down heavy on the accelerator. That was the contradiction. Mulholland was built for speed but it couldn’t handle it. Speed was a killer.
Michael Connelly (Mulholland Dive)
Neither leopards can change their spots, Nor tiger their stripes, But human with consciousness Can rise above all tribes Let your evolution get revolutionized... Get #Mickeymized!
Mickey Mehta
Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters, even in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink. So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. Jacob separated the lambs, and made the
James W. Goll (The Seer Expanded Edition: The Prophetic Power of Visions, Dreams and Open Heavens)
flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own herds apart, and did not put them with Laban’s flock. Moreover, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the gutters, so that they might mate by the rods; but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. So the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys (Genesis 30:37-43). Jacob took fresh rods from poplar and almond trees (trees symbolize authority), peeled white stripes in them, and placed them in the watering troughs for the sheep and the goats. When the animals came to drink, they also mated (symbolizing intimacy) in front of the peeled rods. The resulting offspring were striped, speckled, and spotted. Jacob did this only when the stronger animals were mating, so he ended up with the strongest and healthiest flocks, while Laban’s animals were weaker. Jacob prospered greatly because the sheep and goats brought forth the right kind of offspring. They produced the desired result because there was a vision that was put in front of their eyes, and they begat what was put in
James W. Goll (The Seer Expanded Edition: The Prophetic Power of Visions, Dreams and Open Heavens)
Don’t you have your suit on?” he asks, pulling off his shoes. I nod and wait for him to get distracted again before shedding layers, turning my back on him as I pull out my sunscreen and work the cool lotion into my face, down my arms, stomach and legs. A grunt escapes my mouth, the hard to reach spot on my back mocking me. No. The cliché Can you rub this on my back? is most definitely not happening. Assuming the plan is to soak up some rays and chat, I lie down on my back, hiding the vulnerable strip of unprotected skin, determined not to ask for help. His eyes are on me. I can feel it. I suck in, flattening out my stomach as much as possible, before turning my head and squinting at him. I was right. He’s staring. “What?” I ask. “Do you want me to get your back for you?” Cringe. “No, I’m fine.” “Okay, then could you get mine? I don’t really want the striped look you’re going for. A little too trendy for me.” He laughs, snapping the lid shut on his sunscreen bottle. He shakes it hard to force the lotion to the end, every muscle in his body tensing, releasing, tensing, releasing. My jaw goes slack. He asked me a question. What was it? The cliché come to life? I hesitantly sit up and he’s already on his knees on the end of my mat, back to me. “Oh. Okay, sure.” I take the bottle from him and smear the lotion on the middle of his back as fast as I can. Why isn’t it rubbing in? Too much, I took too much. His body is solid under my fingertips. And tan. And solid. And sweaty. Overstimulation. Accelerated heart rate. Bad thoughts, Pippa. Stop. The lotion finally blends into his skin and I wipe my hands on my towel. “That wasn’t so terrible, was it?” Darren twists around and winks. “Now are you going to be stubborn or do you want me to finish your back for you?” I give in for lack of a reasonable excuse and toss him my higher SPF. He kneels behind me and gently rubs even the places I know he saw me reach myself. When he nears the small of my back, I sit up straight as a board, goose bumps racing down my arms and legs, pulse loud in my ears. I need a distraction, fast.
Kristin Rae (Wish You Were Italian (If Only . . . #2))
No eye can excel at both. An eagle might be able to spot a far-off rabbit in broad daylight, but its acuity plummets as the sun sets. (There are no nocturnal eagles.) Conversely, lions and hyenas might not be able to resolve a zebra’s stripes at a distance, but their vision is sensitive enough to hunt one at night.
Ed Yong (An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us)