Stonecutters Quotes

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

What more shall I say: born under light bulbs, deliberately stopped growing at age of three, given drum, sang glass to pieces, smelled vanilla, coughed in churches, observed ants, decided to grow, buried drum, emigrated to the West, lost the East, learned stonecutter's trade, worked as model, started drumming again, visited concrete, made money, kept finger, gave finger away, fled laughing, rode up escalator, arrested, convicted, sent to mental hospital, soon to be acquitted, celebrating this day my thirtieth birthday and still afraid of the Black Witch.

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it--but all that had gone before.

Mastery requires patience. The San Antonio Spurs, one of the most successful teams in NBA history, have a quote from social reformer Jacob Riis hanging in their locker room: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore defeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind and blacken to the heart: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey of peace in old poems.

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.19 Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.

I ask you to accept the things you cannot change, only so you may grow to the point when you can change the things you cannot accept. Consider this”, said the Yogi, “what cannot be cured, must be endured, but then what can’t be endured must one day be cured. Be a boulder of endurance. Be a stonecutter of grit, to cure. Be both.

I can't imagine,' I said one afternoon after a long silence, 'how it would be possible for such a small island to support enough artists and stonecutters to build all these wonders. And I can't imagine how all these different people get along without quarreling.' 'Oh, it is possible,' said Nallab, sucking thoughtfully on a mango, 'but only if you DO imagine it...

Without intending to, without even knowing it, he demonstrated with his life that his father had been right when he repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager so lucid or dangerous, than a poet.

Next, he showed the girls a narrow Incan street. Both sides of it had high stone walls and the driver stopped so the visitors could walk down a short distance to see the famous twelve-sided stone which was part of it. Each girl counted the sides and marveled at the way the ancient stonecutters had trimmed this enormous rock to accommodate the ones fitted around it. The young tourists noticed that all the stones were so perfectly fitted that there was not one single opening or crack between them. Not even an earthquake could damage this amazing artisanship!

It is life, more than death, that has no limits. Love becomes greater and nobler and mightier in calamity. We men are the miserable slaves of prejudice. But when a women decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root. There is no god worth worrying about. Let time pass and we will see what it brings. Humanity, like the armies in the field, advances at the speed of the slowest. Those of us who make the rules have the greatest obligation to abide by them. I don't believe in God but I am afraid of him. It's better to arrive in time than to be invited. Unfaithful but not disloyal. Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. Nobody teaches life anything. The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. There is no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid and dangerous, than a poet. Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. One comes into the world with a predetermined allotment of lays and whoever doesn't use them for whatever reason, one's own and someone else's, willingly or unwillingly, looses them forever.

Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them a gate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says. A girl says, “But what’s through there?” “Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.” “And what’s behind that?” “A third locked door, smaller yet.” “What’s behind that?” “A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.” The children lean forward. “And then?” “Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.” Puzzlement. Fidgeting. “Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?” The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision. The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?” They nod. He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.” “Stabbed in the heart?” “Is this true?” A boy says, “Hush.” “The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone. “The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.” “Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl. “Hush,” says the boy. “The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east. "The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.

I learn I prefer Bernini’s recalcitrant rival, an ex-pupil named Francesco Borromini, a stonecutter’s son, introverted, suicidal, insanely gifted. Bernini is polished, urbane, in love with the human body; Borromini is touchy,

When nothing seems to help, I go back and look at the stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it--but all that had gone before.

Stonecutter said, pushing him gently in the back. “No, I’ll go last,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said. “Someone has to trigger the TNT so that the monsters cannot follow, and that’s my job.” He could hear the moans of the zombies getting louder as they neared the top of the wall. “Stonecutter, I need you to look after my sister,” Gameknight said, pointing to Monet, who still stood at the top of the watchtower with Hunter and Stitcher. “Please … go get her and take her to a minecart. Carry her if you must, but make her safe.” The stocky NPC nodded his head, his stone-gray eyes staring back at Gameknight999 with confidence and

I saw the mountain, impassible, cavernous, secret, where from morning to night I’d hear nothing but the wind, the curlews, the clink like distant silver of the stone-cutters’ hammers.

There, publicly throwing off the mask under which he had hitherto concealed his real character and feelings, he made a speech painting in vivid the cause of her death was an even bitterer and more dreadful thing than the death itself. He went on to speak of the king's arrogant and tyrannical behavior; of the sufferings of the commons condemned to labor underground clearing or constructing ditches and sewers; of gallant Romans - soldiers who had beaten in battle all neighboring peoples - robbed of their swords and turned into stone-cutters and artisans. He reminded them of the foul murder of Servius Tullius, of the daughter who drove her carriage over her father's corpse, in violation of the most sacred of relationships - a crime which God alone could punish. Doubtless he told them of other, and worse, things, brought to his mind in the heat of the moment and by the sense of this latest outrage, which still lived in his eye and pressed upon his heart; but a mere historian can hardly record them. The effect of his words was immediate: the populace took fire, and were brought to demand the abrogation of the king's authority and the exile of himself and his family.

The sound I liked best had nothing noble about it. It was the barking of the dogs, at night, in the clusters of hovels up in the hills, where the stone-cutters lived, like generations of stone-cutters before them. it came down to me where I lay, in the house in the plain, wild and soft, at the limit of earshot, soon weary. The dogs of the valley replied with their gross bay all fangs and jaws and foam...

There was once a stonecutter, who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day, he passed a wealthy merchant's house, and through the open gateway, saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stonecutter. He became very envious, and wished that he could be like the merchant. Then he would no longer have to live the life of a mere stonecutter. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever dreamed of, envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. But soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants, and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around, who had to bow down before him as he passed. It was a hot summer day, and the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought "I wish that I could be the sun!" Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, hated and feared by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it--a huge, towering stone "How powerful that stone is”" he thought. I wish that I could be a stone!" Then he became the stone, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the solid rock, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the stone?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the fixture of a stonecutter.

Science has never killed or persecuted a single person for doubting or denying its teaching, and most of these teaching have been true; but religion has murdered millions for doubting or denying her dogmas and most of these dogmas have been false. All stories about gods and devils, of heavens and hells, as they do not conform to nature, and are not apparent to sense, should be rejected without consideration. Beyond the universe there is nothing and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist. Of all deceivers who have plagued mankind, none are so deeply ruinous to human happiness as those imposters who pretend to lead by a light above nature. The lips of the dead are closed forever. There comes no voice from the tomb. Christianity is responsible for having cast the fable of eternal fire over almost every grave.

Mr Segundus found two stone dragons no longer than his forearm, which slipped one after the other, over and under and between stone hawthorn branches, stone hawthorn leaves, stone hawthorn roots and stone hawthorn tendrils. They moved, it seemed, with as much ease as any other creature and yet the sound of so many stone muscles moving together under a stone skin, that scraped stone ribs, that clashed against a heart made of stone – and the sound of stone claws rattling over stone branches – was quite intolerable and Mr Segundus wondered that they could bear it. He observed a little cloud of gritty dust, such as attends the work of a stonecutter, that surrounded them and rose up in the air; and he believed that if the spell allowed them to remain in motion for any length of time they would wear themselves away to a sliver of limestone.

This is perhaps the real secret of heroism. The rational basis of heroism is dependent upon the decision that one's own life cannot be worth as much as certain abstract common ideals. But I believe that instinctive or impulsive heroism is much more frequently independent of such motivation and simply defies danger on the assurance which animated Hans, the stone-cutter, a character in Anzengruber, who always said to himself: Nothing can happen to me.

It may well be that Proya manufactured men stronger than women but like all things that roll out from heaven's mill, that truth has another side, for I have seen men whom a battalion could not corner, beat down by the blinks of a pretty woman. Yes, a man is far stronger than a woman by one measure, but by another, the woman holds the day, and so much more the night. The only folly a woman truly needs worry herself over is the driving of a man to his strength, especially in a rage, for should he ever turn his strength against her with jealous wrath, she is for the grave.

What does that mean? I do not have the heart to tell you but know if only half of what is whispered of this damnant is true, his evil is twice all the hate of the ages. I do not wish to strand you, but if I tell you now, my words might deflect your courage and prevent you from becoming the man you must. But I promise, I will tell you all that is yours to hear before you grow too doddered, before old age frosts what it doesn’t rub away, lest this secret freeze the warm wealth of your heart. Just know at the banquet for this particular revelation, plums are better than prunes.

Napoléon Gallieni, a stonecutter, broke his neck falling down the stairs. He may have been pushed. In any case he was taken to the morgue.

Look at a stonecutter hitting at the rock. Nothing happens at first, but after many strikes, the rock eventually cracks. In Life, don't Doubt. Keep at it and it will happen.-RVM

In 1837, New York University erected a Gothic Revival building on the northeast corner of the parade grounds at Washington Square, constructed from stones cut by convicts at Sing Sing, the maximum-security prison located about thirty miles up the river in Ossining, New York. The indignant stonecutters of New York’s Stonecutters Guild promptly organized New York’s first mass labor demonstration in Washington Square, which continued for days. To complete its construction, NYU was forced to call in the 27th Regiment of the National Guard to clear the demonstrators from the site.

father to bury

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.

Think about a stonecutter. The stonecutter may sit there and hammer away at his block of stone for what feels like an eternity, making only small chips and dents here and there. But in one moment, the stone will crack open. Was it the one time that did it? No—it was all the sustained effort that prepared the stone to split. Approach your learning like a stonecutter. It will require you to cultivate patience, to have a positive attitude, and to be adaptive to your own needs. If you are the kind of learner who does best with a book in your hands, that’s fantastic. But if you already know that doesn’t work for you, why keep trying the same thing? Look for other ways to learn that do work for you.

This simple fact of sculpture making is as true today (Jeff Koons, anyone?) as it was in the nineteenth century. But critics of the Marmorean Flock used it to raise the ageless trope against women artist: they are not the authors of their own works. Marmorean Flock member Harriet Hosmer railed against such spiteful ignorance: "We women-artists have no objection to its being known that we employ assistants; we merely object to its being supposed that it is a system peculiar to ourselves." Nearly all sculptors of the time used stonecutters and other artisans in executing their works. Except, not Lewis. She famously wielded the chisel herself. Early on she probably couldn't afford assistants, but she no doubt continued because as a woman of color she could not afford any hint of fraud.

He kept his eye open for other events that looked like the place to be and became drawn to them, looking for any opening to create news and enhance his value further. One such event was the Arnold Classic, held on March 2nd in Columbus, Ohio. The Arnold Classic was an annual bodybuilding event traditionally held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. It served as something of a melting pot, luring agents, pornstars, hustlers, fans and wannabe stars to one venue with its gravitational pull. “If you like fake tits that’s the place to go”, jokes Kim Wood. “It’s a cesspool, there’s drug dealers…you just wallow in the sleaze.” Pillman’s visit was dual-purpose – in addition to hanging out at the expo, he was filming a commercial to plug his hotline to air on Hardcore TV. ECW’s television crew Stonecutter Productions, headed by Steve Karel, put it together with Brian. In what would become an unfortunate, ironic twist of fate, it was Karel, the same man who told Kim Wood about the WCW-ECW connection which led to Pillman becoming the talk of the industry, that took Brian to the Arnold Classic. Of course, a lot of the attendees were wrestling fans and with Brian in character, he was getting almost as much attention as Arnold himself. Brian and Karel took the sleaze a step further, going back and forth between strip shows and nude woman contests, when Pillman came across a model that caught his eye. In this case, however, it wasn’t a female. One of the sponsors of the Arnold Classic was Hummer. Schwarzenegger fell in love seeing a fleet of military Humvees roll past the set of Kindergarten Cop in 1990 and wanted one of his own. Arnie finally convinced AM General to produce them, and it was Schwarzenegger himself who purchased the first Hummer off the assembly line. Since then he was linked with them and with the bodybuilding expo bearing his name, it was only natural to have a number of floor models on display. Pillman loved the look of one of the Hummers in particular and since the ones being showcased had to be gotten rid of, Karel, with his connections, was able to get Brian a pretty good deal if he wanted to purchase it there and then. Despite all his hard work being with the goal of cashing in and making it out on the other end financially better off, Pillman’s focus lapsed amidst the intoxicating vibe of working everybody and living his character. Against his prior instincts, he bought the vehicle.

The following parable of the stonecutters is a useful metaphor in understanding the connection between language, story, and action. Imagine three stonecutters, each with a mallet in one hand and a cold chisel in the other, sitting on a stool in front of a huge block of granite. To the casual observer it looks as if they are all doing the same thing, cutting on a slab of stone. The are, in other words, all engaged in the same activity. When we ask the first stonecutter what he's doing, he replies, "I'm carving a piece of stone." We move to the second stonecutter and ask her what she's doing. "I'm building a wall," she says. When we ask the same question of the third stonecutter, he answers, "I'm creating a cathedral." p99

Jacob Riis hanging in their locker room: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before

The San Antonio Spurs, one of the most successful teams in NBA history, have a quote from social reformer Jacob Riis hanging in their locker room: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.19 Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.

The San Antonio Spurs, one of the most successful teams in NBA history, have a quote from social reformer Jacob Riis hanging in their locker room: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it -- but all that had gone before.

Riis hanging in their locker room: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.19 Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it - but all that had gone before.

Stone-cutter’s Credo, as described by photographer and activist Jacob Riis as he contemplated the slow pace of social reform: When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

the story of two stonecutters. Each is asked what they’re doing. One responds, “I am cutting this stone in a perfectly square shape.” The other responds, “I am building a cathedral.”29

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred time without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

Like taking slow deep breaths and deliberately feeling the air come in and go out of the body, writing slows the racing pace of thoughts, allowing everything to be experienced, understood and conveyed deeply, sensuously, genuinely.

Mother once said I’d marry a quarryman. She looked at me as we washed clothes in the giant steel washtub, two pairs of water-wrinkled hands scrubbing and soaking other people’s laundry. We were elbow-deep in dirty suds and our fingers brushed under the foamy mounds. “Some mistakes are bound to be repeated,” she murmured We lived in Stony Creek, a granite town at a time when granite was going out of fashion. There were only three types of men here: Cottagers, rich, paunchy vacationers who swooped into our little Connecticut town in May and wiled away time on their sailboats through August; townsmen, small-time merchants and business owners who dreamed of becoming Cottagers; and quarrymen, men like my father, who worked with no thought to the future. The quarrymen toiled twelve hours a day, six days a week. They didn’t care that they smelled of granite dust and horses, grease and putty powder. They didn’t care about cleaning the crescents of grime from underneath their fingernails. Even when they heard the foreman’s emergency signal, three sharp shrieks of steam, they scarcely looked up from their work. In the face of a black powder explosion gone awry or the crushing finality of a wrongly cleaved stone, they remained undaunted. I knew why they lived this way. They did it for the granite. Nowhere else on earth did such stone exist—mesmerizing collages of white quartz, pink and gray feldspar, black lodestone, winking glints of mica. Stony Creek granite was so striking, it graced the most majestic of architecture: the Battle Monument at West Point, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Fulton Building in Pittsburgh, the foundations of the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. The quarrymen of Stony Creek would wither and fall before the Cottagers, before the townsmen. But the fruits of their labor tethered them to a history that would stand forever. “You’ll marry one, Adele—I’m sure of it. His hands will be tough as buckskin, but you’ll love him regardless,” Mother told me, her breath warm in my ear as the steam of the wastewater rose around us. I didn’t say that she was wrong, that she couldn’t know what would happen. I’d learned that from the quarry. Pa was a stonecutter and he cut the granite according to rift and grain, to what he could feel with his fingertips and see with his eyes. But there were cracks below the surface, cracks that betrayed the careful placement of a chisel and the pounding of a mallet. The most beautiful piece of stone could shatter into a pile of riprap. It all depended on where those cracks teased and wound, on where the stone would fracture when forced apart. “Keep your eyes open, Adele. I don’t know who it will be—a steam driller, boxer, derrickman, powderman? Maybe a stonecutter like your father?” I turned away from her, feigning disinterest. “There’s no predicting, I told her.

Mother once said I’d marry a quarryman. She looked at me as we washed clothes in the giant steel washtub, two pairs of water-wrinkled hands scrubbing and soaking other people’s laundry. We were elbow-deep in dirty suds and our fingers brushed under the foamy mounds. “Some mistakes are bound to be repeated,” she murmured We lived in Stony Creek, a granite town at a time when granite was going out of fashion. There were only three types of men here: Cottagers, rich, paunchy vacationers who swooped into our little Connecticut town in May and wiled away time on their sailboats through August; townsmen, small-time merchants and business owners who dreamed of becoming Cottagers; and quarrymen, men like my father, who worked with no thought to the future. The quarrymen toiled twelve hours a day, six days a week. They didn’t care that they smelled of granite dust and horses, grease and putty powder. They didn’t care about cleaning the crescents of grime from underneath their fingernails. Even when they heard the foreman’s emergency signal, three sharp shrieks of steam, they scarcely looked up from their work. In the face of a black powder explosion gone awry or the crushing finality of a wrongly cleaved stone, they remained undaunted. I knew why they lived this way. They did it for the granite. Nowhere else on earth did such stone exist—mesmerizing collages of white quartz, pink and gray feldspar, black lodestone, winking glints of mica. Stony Creek granite was so striking, it graced the most majestic of architecture: the Battle Monument at West Point, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Fulton Building in Pittsburgh, the foundations of the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. The quarrymen of Stony Creek would wither and fall before the Cottagers, before the townsmen. But the fruits of their labor tethered them to a history that would stand forever. “You’ll marry one, Adele—I’m sure of it. His hands will be tough as buckskin, but you’ll love him regardless,” Mother told me, her breath warm in my ear as the steam of the wastewater rose around us. I didn’t say that she was wrong, that she couldn’t know what would happen. I’d learned that from the quarry. Pa was a stonecutter and he cut the granite according to rift and grain, to what he could feel with his fingertips and see with his eyes. But there were cracks below the surface, cracks that betrayed the careful placement of a chisel and the pounding of a mallet. The most beautiful piece of stone could shatter into a pile of riprap. It all depended on where those cracks teased and wound, on where the stone would fracture when forced apart. “Keep your eyes open, Adele. I don’t know who it will be—a steam driller, boxer, derrickman, powderman? Maybe a stonecutter like your father?” I turned away from her, feigning disinterest. “There’s no predicting, I told her.

He sat down facing Erica and began to dunk his cheese-and-caviar sandwich into the hot chocolate.

This is good Paledoris, son of Palodaran of Arrowfell, the best minister among many. One not hobbled by inadequate interpretations and who, by focus, keeps my political heavens clear of those who have not earned the right to soar in them.

You turn the blood to saltwater, a low-tide of courage pulled away by the moon.

Your voice could pass for honeysuckle were it not for the sulphur.

She had a look that could deprive saints of their conscience, and dominate lesser men with a wink.

You are never well, full or fasting.

If there are stripes laid on me by Providence, they have become bonds, not that they bind me, but they bind me together: both to myself and to Providence by whose hand they came. And of that togetherness, I do not wish ever to escape. Where you see shackles I see sinews. And what you thought had scarred me had in truth all the better sealed me. These wounds I shall not cast off for they are the many stripes of my rank.

You would not believe what the voice in my head tells me about you. Not who you are now, but who you’ve yet to become. That is why I am here. I am the trauma that will transform you into what you should be, but don’t have the courage to become on your own. I am the horror you are missing.

An unarmed man is either a slave or on his way to becoming one. Only villains and black kings disarm their countrymen.

The way you speak of courage, it goes down like medicine and honey,

I’ve heard of kindness but never found myself behind its gate.

Sometimes a man needs to hear his own words, but in a friend’s voice.

The Bible was perfectly clear on this point: ‘Woman shall be silent in the congregation.’ What was there to discuss? Women had no business being members of the clergy.

the bond between mother and daughter was so strong in the beginning that it functioned as both a shackle and a lifeline.

Death was a state of being, just like life. Why should one be better than the other?

Life had caught up with her, run her down, and left her aching all over by the side of the road.

Friendships were tested in times of crisis, and she didn’t want to be one of those people who out of exaggerated caution and perhaps even cowardice avoided friends who were having a hard time.

He had lost almost everything, and nothing was as dangerous as a person who had nothing more to lose.

Egyptologists claim that Khufu began construction of his pyramid so it would be completed in time to accept his corpse. I should imagine that while he was considering what style of pyramid he wanted, he would have been consulting his architects and engineers to see what was feasible. He also might have been interested in knowing how long it would take to build and how much it would cost. Using today's technology, modern stonecutters have estimated that it would take at least twenty-seven years just to quarry and deliver the stone. I wonder how long it would have taken Khufu's men using simple, primitive methods?

I think of hot, crowded, smog-covered Tokyo, of steaming Osaka, of poor fragmented Kyoto, and I know that even there, right now, there are carpenters and stonecutters who take pride in their work, taxi drivers who polish their cars, salesmen who believe in the company, housewives who believe in happiness, disinterested politicians, students who have faith in the future, and waitresses who manage smiles for each of their hundreds of daily customers. And I know that such things have largely vanished elsewhere. And I wondered what depths of humanity the Japanese must contain that, even now, despite everything, they remain civil to each other, remain fond of each other. And so I want to go to the font of that humanity, to this still and backward place where people live better than anywhere else because they live according to their own natures.

Look at a stonecutter hitting at the rock. Nothing happens at first, but after many strikes, the rock eventually cracks. In Life, don't Doubt. Keep at it and it will happen.