Struck Dumb Quotes

Regardless, you ask why I did not greet you. Well, let us assume that I had acted as you suggest I should. Upon your approach, you would have had me gush over you?” “Naturally.” “You would have me point out how stunning you appear in that gown?” “I wouldn’t complain.” “Mention how your dazzling eyes glisten in the fireworks like burning embers?” “That would be nice.” “Expound on how your lips are so perfectly red that they could leave any man breathless with wonder, yet drive him compose the most brilliant of poetry each time he recalled the moment?” “I’d be flattered for certain.” “And you claim you want these reactions from me?” “I do.” “Well blast it, woman,” Lightsong said, picking up his cup. “If I’m stunned, dazzled, and breathless, then how the hell am I supposed to greet you? By definition, won’t I be struck dumb?” She laughed. “Well, then, you’ve obviously found your tongue now.” “Surprisingly, it was in my mouth,” he said. “I always forget to check there.

...as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, 'Can you see anything?' it was all I could do to get out the words, 'Yes, wonderful things.

Once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to the wind.

Here I've been telling him things in my head for weeks, writing long, frenzied missives to him I know I'll never send, and now that I have him less than two feet away, I'm struck dumb. Fantastic.

He wasn't crazy. How could he be? He was just -- amazing. But she was struck dumb. All she could do was stare at him.

He was struck dumb at the words though he should not be surprised; his wife kept him in a perpetual state of speechlessness.

Dumbledore raised his finger for silence, a silence which fell as though he had struck Uncle Vernon dumb.

He was reading. I was struck dumb with amazement.

Each time I read a book, I cataloged the parts that struck me dumb with envy and admiration for their beauty and power and truth.

It struck me that the chief obstacle to marital contentment was this perpetual gulf between the well-founded, commendable pessimism of women and the sheer dumb animal optimism of men, the latter a force more than any other responsible for the lamentable state of the world.

I'll show up and stand humble in the face of a loved one's pain. I'll admit I'm as empty-handed, dumb-struck, and out of ideas as she is. I won't try to make sense of things or require more than she can offer. I won't let my discomfort with her pain keep me from witnessing it for her. I'll never try to grab or fix her pain, because I know that for as long as it takes, her pain will also be her comfort. It will be all she has left. Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved... So, I'll just show up and sit quietly with her.

Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder. His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

Beautiful people make even those of us who proudly consider ourselves unmoved by another's appearance dumb with admiration and fear and delight, and struck by the profound, enervating awareness of how inadequate we are, how nothing, not intelligence or education or money, can usurp or overpower or deny beauty.

President Kennedy’s assassination, less than two weeks ago, has struck the world dumb. It’s like no one wants to be the first to break the silence. Nothing seems important.

Gege, want to get married?” “...” Xie Lian was struck dumb. “...Huh?” Such an intent gaze, such words; they were in such close quarters with nowhere to run. Colors exploded in Xie Lian's vision, and his mind went completely blank. His entire body was frozen, stiffer than a corpse. Seeing his reaction, Hua Cheng withdrew his arm and let out a snicker. “It's a joke. Did I shock gege?” “...” Xie Lian only snapped out of it with concerted effort. “...You're too much. How can you joke about something like that?” It wasn't just shock. He was so rattled by that question that his heart had almost stopped. And though he did not quite understand why, he also felt a trace of hurt. “My bad,” Hua Cheng laughed.

Doctor Doom was exactly the sort of bastard who would have armed al-Qaeda with death rays and killer robots if he thought for one second it would piss off the hated Reed Richards and the rest of his mortal enemies in the Fantastic Four, but here he was sobbing with the best of them, as representative not of evil, but of Marvel Comics' collective shock, struck dumb and moved to hand-drawn tears by the thought that anyone could hate America and its people enough to do this.

An evil man threw tobacco in the macaque-rhesus eyes.' Oleg was struck dumb. Up to then he had been strolling along smiling with knowing condescension, but now he felt like yelling and roaring across the whole zoo, as though the tobacco had been thrown into his own eyes. 'Why?' Thrown into its eyes, just like that! 'Why? It's senseless! Why?'" - Kostoglotov

. . . Orpheus struck dumb with hindsight.

He lay, often, looking at her sleeping face in the new light that fell in through the open walls of the strange house, and he stared at her skin and hair with his mouth open, transfixed by the quick stillness of her, struck dumb with the physical fact of her existence as though she was some careless star-thing that slept on quite unaware of its incandescent power; the casualness and ease with which she slept there amazed him; he couldn't believe that such beauty could survive without some superhumanly intense conscious effort.

Not everything has an answer.” Alma found this to be such a staggering piece of intelligence that she was struck dumb by it for several hours. All she could do was sit and ponder the notion in an amazed stupor.

So for a moment the gunslinger merely stood inside the door, first amazed, then ironically amused. Here he was in a world which struck him dumb with fresh wonders seemingly at every step, a world where carriages flew trough the air and paper seemed as cheap as sand. And the newest wonder was simply that for these people, wonder had run out: here, in a place of miracles, he saw only dull faces and plodding bodies.

He stared at her, struck dumb. It’s an act. It’s always been an act. She was not entirely the haughty, saucy woman she presented herself to be. She just worked very, very hard at pretending that she was. For some reason, this broke his heart.

the being struck dumb. It’s like some combination of invisibility and being buried alive, in terms of the feeling. It’s like being strangled somewhere deeper inside you than your neck.

We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with legs crossed, letting the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight a holy war. Jihad! And certainly we could argue this out in the street, but I think, in the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution---it is not my solution. So I do not know what it is you would like me to say. Truth and firmness is one suggestion, though there are many people you can ask if that answer does not satisfy. Personally, my hope lies in the last days. The prophet Muhammad---peace be upon Him!---tells us that on the Day of Resurrection everyone will be struck unconscious. Deaf and dumb. No chitchat. Tongueless. And what a bloody relief that will be.

Unbelievable. I’m in a fucking Outside Context situation, the ship thought, and suddenly felt as stupid and dumb-struck as any muddy savage confronted with explosives or electricity.

Would you rather be smart and poor or dumb and rich? The three engineers all chose smart and poor, while the Frat Pack voted unanimously for dumb and rich. Greg was struck by how clearly the line was drawn between the two groups. They were all in their mid- to late twenties with good educations, but they valued different things.

This is all that “ordinary” in the phrase “ordinary language philosophy” means, or ought to mean. It does not refer to particular words of wide use, nor to particular sorts of men. It reminds us that whatever words are said and meant are said and meant by particular men, and that to understand what they (the words) mean you must understand what they (whoever is using them) means, and that sometimes men, do not see what they mean, that usually they cannot say what they mean, that for various reasons they may not know what they mean, and that when they are forced to recognize this they feel they do not, and perhaps cannot, mean anything, and they are struck dumb.

Struck dumb by love among the walruses And whales, the off-white polar bear with stuffing Missing, the mastodons like muddy buses, I sniff the mothproof air and lack for nothing.

Your attention is the same as the ray from a lighthouse. I am struck dumb beneath it.

How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterward, presses her mouth upon the traveler’s mouth, in order to make the mouth work, to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place and speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye’s instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That’s where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up. The narrator comes and makes a slow, fake song of the mouth’s eager devastation.

He stared back at me so blatantly I wanted to smack him. “I know. Like I said, that… was never my intention. It was an accident.” My mouth dropped open. “Did you slip and fall on my bed? Because I don’t understand how you’ve accidentally ended up there.” Red stained the tips of his cheeks. “I check the outside, and then I check the inside just to be sure. Hybrids can get into your house, Katy, as you already know. So could Daedalus if they wanted.” What would he have done if Daemon had been there? Then it struck me and I felt sick all over again. “How long do you watch at night?” He shrugged. “A couple of hours.” So he’d have known if Daemon had come over most of the time, and the rest was just sheer dumb luck. Part of me wished he’d tried it just once when Daemon was there. He wouldn’t be walking right for months. There was a good chance he may leave this stairwell with a limp. Blake seemed to sense where my mind went. “After I checked inside your house, I… I don’t know what happened. You have bad dreams.” I wondered why. I had perverts sleeping in the bed with me.

The sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour struck out between them with extraordinary vigour, as if a young man, strong, indifferent, inconsiderate, were swinging dumb-bells this way and that.

His arrogance marked something new in the world, for this was the first war where the losers would write history instead of the victors, courtesy of the most efficient propaganda machine ever created (with all due respect to Joseph Goebbels and the Nazis, who never achieved global domination). Hollywood’s high priests understood innately the observation of Milton’s Satan, that it was better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, better to be a villain, loser, or antihero than virtuous extra, so long as one commanded the bright lights of center stage. In this forthcoming Hollywood trompe l’oeil, all the Vietnamese of any side would come out poorly, herded into the roles of the poor, the innocent, the evil, or the corrupt. Our fate was not to be merely mute; we were to be struck dumb.

Early on he had been told the famous maxim of American justice, that it was better that a hundred men go free than that one innocent man be punished. Struck almost dumb by the beauty of the concept, he became an ardent patriot. America was his country. He would never leave America.

he reached out and took her hand, overcome by a shocking tenderness. For a moment he was struck dumb at a habit of hers he saw now for the first time, how whenever she looked up from whatever she was doing, even unwrapping a sandwich in the front seat of a car, she always looked up smiling. He wondered if anybody had ever noticed it before.

I was struck dumb by the sight of this beloved face working itself up into what looked like hatred.

He was struck dumb by her brilliant blue eyes. Eyes that could drag a man out of the darkest hole and into the light.

...because if you tell a lie when you are being eaten by a nearly dead queen, you are always struck dumb.

He could feel her fear. It ran from her with her sweat, she expelled it with every breath. He was struck dumb by the idea that someone would be willing to die rather than betray him.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his young life… In the few seconds, that he stood there––dumb-struck, taking in her beauty. Will Wilson, fell, totally, hopelessly, in love with Mary.

Beautiful people make even those of us who proudly consider ourselves unmoved by another’s appearance dumb with admiration and fear and delight, and struck by the profound, enervating awareness of how inadequate we are, how nothing, not intelligence or education or money, can usurp or overpower or deny beauty.

I was struck dumb by his incredibly beautiful blue eyes, which shone like sapphires in the soft light of the torches. One look was all he needed to win over any woman. Everything about him oozed confidence, greatness, power, and sex appeal.

Scriassine studied me in turn. "You're not so dumb, you know. Generally I dislike intelligent women, maybe because they're not intelligent enough. They always want to prove to themselves, and to everyone else, how terribly smart they are. So all they do is talk and never understand anything. What struck me the first time I saw you was that way you have of keeping quiet.

Names are of course fanciful designers; the sketches they draw of people and places are such poor likenesses that we are often struck dumb when, instead of the world as we have imagined it, we are suddenly confronted by the world as we see it (which is not the real world, of course, as the senses are not much better at likenesses than the imagination; so we end up with approximate drawings of reality, which are at least as different from the seen world as the seen world was different from the imagined world).

Diego had never seen the sea. His father took him to discover it. . . . And so immense was the sea and its sparkle that the child was struck dumb by the beauty of it. And when he finally managed to speak, trembling, stuttering, he asked his father: “Help me to see!

I’m a maker of ballads right pretty I write them right here in the street You can buy them all over the city yours for a penny a sheet I’m a word pecker out of the printers out of the dens of Gin Lane I’ll write up a scene on a counter - confessions and sins in the main, boys confessions and sins in the main Then you’ll find me in Madame Geneva’s keeping the demons at bay There’s nothing like gin for drowning them in but they’ll always be back on a hanging day, on a hanging day They come rattling over the cobbles they sit on their coffins of black Some are struck dumb, some gabble top-heavy on brandy or sack The pews are all full of fine fellows and the hawker has set up her shop As they’re turning them off at the gallows she’ll be selling right under the drop, boys selling right under the drop Then you’ll find me in Madame Geneva’s keeping the demons at bay There’s nothing like gin for drowning them in but they’ll always be back on a hanging day, on a hanging day

A viewing population brought back to its default state, dumb struck, undefended, scared shitless.

President Kennedy’s assassination, less than two weeks ago, has struck the world dumb. It’s like no one wants to be the first to break the silence. Nothing seems important enough.

This music ebbs and flows, irregular, sad. It reminds me, weirdly, of watching the ocean during a bad storm, the lashing, crashing waves and the spray of sea foam against the docks; the way it takes your breath away, the power and the hugeness of it. That’s exactly what happens as I listen to the music, as I come up over the final crest of hill, and the half-ruined barn and collapsing farmhouse fan out in front of me, just as the music swells, a wave about to break: The breath leaves my body all at once, and I’m struck dumb by the beauty of it. For a second it seems to me like I really am looking down at the ocean—a sea of people, writhing and dancing in the light spilling down from the barn like shadows twisting up around a flame.

Why may you not kiss me?” she had demanded. “Am I a corpse?” “Of course not.” “Do you find me less attractive now that weather and wind have scoured the bloom from my cheeks?” “Skaytha, it’s nothing like that. If anything you are more beautiful now than when we lived on Skyrl. Often enough I have no breath when I look at you. You rob me of any other thoughts.” “So you’re afraid my kisses will take what little brain you have left?” “I’m afraid the angels will do something I don’t want them to do if I fly in the face of their commands, commands I can only assume are divine as well as angelic.” “Did you ever think to ask them the reasons behind their demands?” “When it is an angel I just want to get out of the conversation alive or at least without being struck dumb. So I don’t prolong the chat.” “You might have wanted my kisses more than that. If you had any romance in you you’d have told them you were ready to fight ten legions of angels for my love.” Hawk had reached out to hold her. “If I’d told them that they might have taken me up on it. Angels are not just useful for gallant flourishes the moment you declare your intention to battle all comers for the woman you love. Angels burn like fire and blaze like a hundred suns – they strike fear in my heart.” She had pulled away from his embrace and jumped to her feet. “Oh, no, you don’t. If I’m not good enough to kiss I’m not good enough to take in your arms either. It’s angels or me. Make up your mind whom you fear more. Or love more.” “I don’t love the angels.” “Clearly you don’t love me either.” They had been in a tipi. She’d gone to the opening, lifted the flap, bent, and stalked away, passing by warriors of the tribe with her head as high as a goddess and her back as straight as the shaft of the spear. The chief had poked his head in. “All is well, Hawk?’ he had asked. Hawk had learned their tongue. “It couldn’t be better,” Hawk had responded. “Only being slain in battle would be greater than this.” The chief had thought this over and laughed. "That would bring you great honor." "I am in short supply of honor right now and such short supply never pleases a woman like her. Better to die at the end of a spear and have it for a few moments and win her back." The chief had nodded. "Sound wisdom. Would you like to join a raiding party against our enemy tonight?" "I couldn't be happier." (from The Name of the Hawk, Book 2)

Nature Boy I was just a boy when I sat down To watch the news on TV I saw some ordinary slaughter I saw some routine atrocity My father said, don't look away You got to be strong, you got to be bold, now He said, that in the end it is beauty That is going to save the world, now And she moves among the sparrows And she floats upon the breeze She moves among the flowers She moves something deep inside of me I was walking around the flower show like a leper Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair Up against the pink and purple wisteria You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me With some unrighteous intention? My knees went weak, I couldn't speak, I was having thoughts That were not in my best interests to mention And she moves among the flowers And she floats upon the smoke She moves among the shadows She moves me with just one little look You took me back to your place And dressed me up in a deep sea diver's suit You played the patriot, you raised the flag And I stood at full salute Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb And made it impossible to speak As you closed in, in slow motion, Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek She moves among the shadows She floats upon the breeze She moves among the candles And we moved through the days and through the years Years passed by, we were walking by the sea Half delirious You smiled at me and said, Babe I think this thing is getting kind of serious You pointed at something and said Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing? It was then that I broke down It was then that you lifted me up again She moves among the sparrows And she walks across the sea She moves among the flowers And she moves something deep inside of me She moves among the sparrows And she floats upon the breeze She moves among the flowers And she moves right up close to me

When I was a teenager in Boston, a man on the subway handed me a card printed with tiny pictures of hands spelling out the alphabet in sign language. I AM DEAF, said the card. You were supposed to give the man some money in exchange. I have thought of that card ever since, during difficult times, mine or someone else's; surely when tragedy has struck you dumb, you should be given a stack of cards that explain it for you. When Pudding died, I wanted my stack. I still want it. My first child was stillborn, it would say on the front. It remains the hardest thing for me to explain, even now, or maybe I mean especially now - now that his death feels like a non sequitur. My first child was stillborn. I want people to know but I don't want to say it aloud. People don't like to hear it but I think they might not mind reading it on a card.

They had been heritors and subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing could have startled them but a kindness.  Yes, here was a curious revelation, indeed, of the depth to which this people had been sunk in slavery.  Their entire being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in this life.  Their very imagination was dead.  When you can say that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no lower deep for him.

I do not know you, little squirrel chaser,” he said, wariness in his jutting face, something else dancing in his eyes. “But if I give this back, you promise not to hit me with it?” Grasping the pistol by the barrel, he offered her the stock. Struck dumb by his flawless English, Tamsen moved to take the proffered weapon. The Indian didn’t loosen his grip. “Or hit me with any other thing?” he added in addendum to his terms. “We have peace between us, you and me?” He waited until she nodded, then released the weapon to her.

This was the only door she ever opened, the door into herself. And her taciturnity was such that in a mirror, where every woman smiles at her reflection, she struck at herself over and over again, hammering her own effigy at her dumb forge. No flame, no air. Clad in red velvet, adorned in white, in black or pearl, her face heavily made up beneath the large pale forehead. In the heart of her room, encircled by candelabras, nothing but herself; a self always unseizable, and whose many faces she was forever unable to assemble in a single look.

As I sat there, the town clock struck twelve, and the sound reminded me of the legend, which affirms that all dumb animals are endowed with speech for one hour after midnight on Christmas Eve, in memory of the animals who lingered near the manger when the blessed Christ Child was born.

What particularly struck Nocera was Jobs’s “almost willful lack of tact.” It was more than just an inability to hide his opinions when others said something he thought dumb; it was a conscious readiness, even a perverse eagerness, to put people down, humiliate them, show he was smarter.

To wit, that this dreadful matter brought from these downtrodden people no outburst of rage against these oppressors.  They had been heritors and subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing could have startled them but a kindness.  Yes, here was a curious revelation, indeed, of the depth to which this people had been sunk in slavery.  Their entire being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in this life.  Their very imagination was dead.  When you can say that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no lower deep for him.

He was struck by the order, dullness, dumbness, suicidal tendencies, and pointlessness of midcentury America, the America of the empire, the America that was going to put its stamp on a century, the America with its arteries clogged with things, and its soul left at some pawn shop along the way in order to raise the cash for guns.

I knew exactly when the fever had struck. I had been reading Hamlet in an English class at school. Everyone else stumbled, puzzling over the strange words. Then it had been my turn, and the language had suddenly woken in me, so that my heart and lungs and tongue and throat were on fire. Later, I understood that this was why people spoke of Shakespeare as a god. At the time, I felt like weeping. Somebody had released me from dumbness, from utter isolation. I knew that I could live inside these words, that they would give me a a shape, a shell. I had no idea, then, that I would never play Hamlet…. I’m an actor, and in a good year I earn eleven thousand pounds for dressing up as a carrot.

The person who says to himself, “Yes, I will be a great philosophers and I will rewrite Plato and do it better,” must sooner or later be struck dumb by his grandiosity, his arrogance. And especially in his weaker moments, will say to himself “Who? Me?” and think of it as a crazy fantasy or even fear it as a delusion. He compares his knowledge of his inner private self, with all its weakness, vacillation, and shortcomings, with the bright, shining, perfect, and faultless image he has of Plato. Then, of course, he’ll feel presumptuous and grandiose. (What he doesn’t realize is that Plato, introspecting, must have felt just the same way about himself, but went ahead anyway, overriding his doubts about himself.)

Ode to the Beloved’s Hips" Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered percussion in the morning—are the morning. Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me— I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna. How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur. My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena, ecstatic devourer. O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped the amber—fast honey—from their openness— Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet- dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond— to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue— come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips, I am—strummed-song and succubus. They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book— the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel. Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays, Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray. Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera. Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle: What do I see? Hips: Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone. Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread, wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be: Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel. Bone basin bone throne bone lamp. Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery— slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit, laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God, I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth for pear upon apple upon fig. More than all that are your hips. They are a city. They are Kingdom— Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire— thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth. Beloved, your hips are the war. At night your legs, love, are boulevards leading me beggared and hungry to your candy house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late and the tables have been cleared, in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake. O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve, a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon, let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming for your dark matter. Along las calles de tus muslos I wander— follow the parade of pulse like a drum line— descend into your Plaza del Toros— hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros. Your arched hips—ay, mi torera. Down the long corridor, your wet walls lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed. I am the animal born to rush your rich red muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan, a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre Manolete—press and part you like a wound— make the crowd pounding in the grandstand of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.

The moment I met her she struck me dumb, deaf, and stupid. At only eighteen, she’d had everything— brains, beauty, class. And she’d known it too. In the eight years since, I’ve watched her toy with one man after another, sometimes for a weekend, sometimes for a couple of months. But the affairs always ended the same. With her handing him his hat and a don’t-slam-the-door-on-your-way-out.

In all evils we must confess that God is the author and say: “Since You have done it, we must be silent and dumb,” lest we murmur or blaspheme against Him. And He must be implored to remove the evil. For he who does not know who brings in the evil becomes impatient in vain and attempts to banish it. It is as if a spear were hurled from an unknown place, and the one struck is angry in vain.

Art thou that man,' she cries, 'who, erstwhile fed with the milk and reared upon the nourishment which is mine to give, had grown up to the full vigour of a manly spirit? And yet I had bestowed such armour on thee as would have proved an invincible defence, hadst thou not first cast it away. Dost thou know me? Why art thou silent? Is it shame or amazement that hath struck thee dumb? Would it were shame; but, as I see, a stupor hath seized upon thee.' Then, when she saw me not only answering nothing, but mute and utterly incapable of speech, she gently touched my breast with her hand, and said: 'There is no danger; these are the symptoms of lethargy, the usual sickness of deluded minds. For awhile he has forgotten himself; he will easily recover his memory, if only he first recognises me.

Worse, he seemed as impassive as some of the killers he'd interrogated. That more than anything was what struck him. Men who killed serially suffered a unique lack of affect. You felt this in advance, a physical pressure before they entered a room. There was something impenetrable and thick behind their eyes, a gaze that was shark-dumb. They were people, Hastroll thought, who could not be touched by love.

Does the sacred quest end with cultivating our own gardens and dwelling within our private and incommunicable experiences? Because we human beings are verbal and communal animals, we cannot remain wonder-struck and dumb. We need to say something. We are a species given to storytelling and philosophizing to explain our world. Ergo, it is pure folly to suppose we can avoid speaking about the ultimate context and meaning of our existence. We cannot simply be content with the private experience of elementary emotions and the great encompassing mystery. Our feelings demand expression. How are we to understand this perennial need to speak to G-d and about G-d even when what we say involves contradictions, paradoxes, and sacred nonsense? To communicate is to come back into the community. The hero must return from the inner journey to the common life of dialogue and engagement.

Last night the sound of the front door closing upon breathless chuckles and secretive panting, then the voice of Paddy Leigh Fermor: “Any old clothes?” in Greek. Appeared with his arm round the shoulders of Michaelis who had shown him the way up the rocky path in darkness. “Joan is winded, holed below the Plimsoll line. I’ve left her resting halfway up. Send out a seneschal with a taper, or a sedan if you have one.” It is as joyous a reunion as ever we had in Rhodes. After a splendid dinner by the fire he starts singing, songs of Crete, Athens, Macedonia. When I go out to refill the ouzo bottle at the little tavern across the way I find the street completely filled with people listening in utter silence and darkness. Everyone seems struck dumb. “What is it?” I say, catching sight of Frangos. “Never have I heard of Englishmen singing Greek songs like this!” Their reverent amazement is touching; it is as if they want to embrace Paddy wherever he goes.

There was something impulsive about her. When she spoke everything, everything in her seemed to be rushing after her thoughts- the expression of her face, the tone of her voice, the movement of her hands; the very folds of her dress seemed flying in the same direction, and one got the impression that she herself would fly after her own words. There was nothing secretive about her. She would not have been afraid to disclose her thoughts with anyone, and no force in the world could have made her be silent when she wanted to speak. The way she walked was so fascinating, so much part of herself and so fearlessly free that everyone involuntarily made way before her. An evil man was overcome with confusion and struck dumb in her presence; and the most free and easy and glib person could not find what to say to her, while a shy person could talk to her as he never talked to anyone in his life before and right from the beginning he felt that he had met her before and had seen some features somewhere...

To wit, that this dreadful matter brought from these downtrodden people no outburst of rage against their oppressors. They had been heritors and subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing could have startled them but kindness. Yes, here was a curious revelation indeed, of the depth to which this people had been sunk into slavery. Their entire being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in this life. Their very imagination was dead. When you can say that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no lower deep for him.

My dear, dear ladies,” Sir Francis effused as he hastened forward, “what a long-awaited delight this is!” Courtesy demanded that he acknowledge the older lady first, and so he turned to her. Picking up Berta’s limp hand from her side, he presed his lips to it and said, “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Sir Francis Belhaven.” Lady Berta curtsied, her fear-widened eyes fastened on his face, and continued to press her handkerchief to her lips. To his astonishment, she did not acknowledge him at all; she did not say she was charmed to meet him or inquire after his health. Instead, the woman curtsied again. And once again. “There’s hardly a need for all that,” he said, covering his puzzlement with forced jovially. “I’m only a knight, you know. Not a duke or even an earl.” Lady Berta curtsied again, and Elizabeth nudged her sharply with her elbow. “How do!” burst out the plump lady. “My aunt is a trifle-er-shy with strangers,” Elizabeth managed weakly. The sound of Elizabeth Cameron’s soft, musical voice made Sir Francis’s blood sing. He turned with unhidden eagerness to his future bride and realized that it was a bust of himself that Elizabeth was clutching so protectively, so very affectionately to her bosom. He could scarcely contain his delight. “I knew it would be this way between us-no pretense, no maidenly shyness,” he burst out, beaming at her blank, wary expression as he gently took the bust of himself from Elizabeth’s arms. “But, my lovely, there’s no need for you to caress a hunk of clay when I am here in the flesh.” Momentarily struck dumb, Elizabeth gaped at the bust she’d been holding as he first set it gently upon its stand, then turned expectantly to her, leaving her with the horrifying-and accurate-thought that he now expected her to reach out and draw his balding head to her bosom. She stared at him, her mind in paralyzed chaos. “I-I would ask a favor of you, Sir Francis,” she burst out finally. “Anything, my dear,” he said huskily. “I would like to-to rest before supper.” He stepped back, looking disappointed, but then he recalled his manners and reluctantly nodded. “We don’t keep country hours. Supper is at eight-thirty.” For the first time he took a moment to really look at her. His memories of her exquisite face and delicious body had been so strong, so clear, that until then he’d been seeing the Lady Elizabeth Cameron he’d met long ago. Now he belatedly registered the stark, unattractive gown she wore and the severe way her hair was dressed. His gaze dropped to the ugly iron cross that hung about her neck, and he recoiled in shock. “Oh, and my dear, I’ve invited a few guests,” he added pointedly, his eyes on her unattractive gown. “I thought you would want to know, in order to attire yourself more appropriately.” Elizabeth suffered that insult with the same numb paralysis she’d felt since she set eyes on him. Not until the door closed behind him did she feel able to move. “Berta,” she burst out, flopping disconsolately onto the chair beside her, “how could you curtsy like that-he’ll know you for a lady’s maid before the night is out! We’ll never pull this off.” “Well!” Berta exclaimed, hurt and indignant. “Twasn’t I who was clutching his head to my bosom when he came in.” “We’ll do better after this,” Elizabeth vowed with an apologetic glance over her shoulder, and the trepidation was gone from her voice, replaced by steely determination and urgency. “We have to do better. I want us both out of here tomorrow. The day after at the very latest.” “The butler stared at my bosom,” Berta complained. “I saw him!” Elizabeth sent her a wry, mirthless smile. “The footman stared at mine. No woman is safe in this place. We only had a bit of-of stage fright just now. We’re new to playacting, but tonight I’ll carry it off. You’ll see. No matter what if takes, I’ll do it.

He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

Because we human beings are verbal and communal animals, we cannot remain wonder-struck and dumb. We need to say something. We are a species given to storytelling and philosophizing to explain our world. Ergo, it is pure folly to suppose we can avoid speaking about the ultimate context and meaning of our existence. We cannot simply be content with the private experience of elementary emotions and the great encompassing mystery. Our feelings demand expression. How are we to understand this perennial need to speak to G-d and about G-d even when what we say involves contradictions, paradoxes, and sacred nonsense? To communicate is to come back into the community. The hero must return from the inner journey to the common life of dialogue and engagement. PRAYERS TO AN ABSENT G-D ON PRAYER You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something — an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

How very moving,” FitzSimon declared from the ramparts above, his tone full of rancor. “Now take your bastard and go, MacKinnon!” Iain hung his head back, peering up into the ramparts to meet FitzSimon’s gaze. “Aye,” he agreed. “You’ve kept your end o’ the bargain, FitzSimon, and now I’ll keep mine. Your daughter will be returned to you within the hour.” “Nay!” FitzSimon shook his head vehemently. “Keep the bloody bitch!” Iain was struck entirely dumb. Surely he didn’t mean that... He was but angry... “If you return her to me,” FitzSimon swore, “I’ll rip out her traitorous tongue for her betrayal!” Iain held his son in stunned disbelief. “I have no need of the lass,” he returned. “Surely you cannot mean...” “Keep her, or kill her!” FitzSimon declared. “I care not which—only get her the hell out of my sight!” And then he withdrew, ending the discourse, once and for all, leaving Iain and his men to stare after him in shock.

If through all thy discouragemnets thy condition prove worse and worse, so that thou canst not pray, but are struck dumb when thou comest into his presence, as David, then fall making signs when thou canst not speak; groan, sigh, sob, "chatter, "as Hezekiah did; bemoan thyself for thine unworthiness, and desire Christ to speak thy requests for thee, and God to hear him for thee.

In his dreams, Alistair was human again. He’d had fingers and toes, the ability to walk on two strong legs, and a voice that didn’t rumble on the edge of a growl. He’d been human, and there had been a princess of such breathtaking beauty he’d been struck dumb at the sight of her. And when she spoke to him, he couldn’t help but ask if she was his.

The bedroom door opened and Ginger snapped Evan’s reaction shot on her cell phone. He looked like he’d been struck dumb at the sight of Willa coming toward him. She saved the photo of Evan with the intention of showing it to Willa the next time she felt unsure of his feelings for her. The poor kid looked two seconds away from throwing himself at her feet. “Whoa.” “Hey.” Willa shifted from side to side, looking uneasy under Evan’s scrutiny. She pretended to adjust the bracelet Ginger lent her to avoid his eyes. “Willa, stop.” Both sisters gaped at Evan. “Stop what?” Willa managed. “I can tell you’re freaking out.” He held out his hand to her. “Stop.” Ginger watched, fascinated, as Willa’s eyes glassed over and she bit her bottom lip. Nodding, she reached out and took his hand. “You look beautiful,” he breathed.

There are many reasons why girls should not travel alone, and I won’t list them, because none of them are original reasons. Besides, there are more reasons why girls should. I have the utmost respect for girls who travel alone, because it’s hard work sometimes. But girls, we just want adventures. We want international best friends and hold-your-breath vistas out of crappy hostel windows. We want to discover moving works of art, sometimes in museums and sometimes in side-street graffiti. We want to hear soul-restoring jam sessions at beach bonfires and to watch celestial dawns spill over villages that haven’t changed since the Middle Ages. We want to fall in love with boys with say-that-again accents. We want sore feet from stay-up-all-night dance parties at just-one-more-drink bars. We want to be on our own even as we sketch and photograph the Piazza San Marco covered in pigeons and beautiful Italian lovers intertwined so that we’ll never forget what it feels like to be twenty-three and absolutely purposeless and single, but in love with every city we visit next. We want to be struck dumb by the baritone echoes of church bells in Vatican City and the rich, heaven-bound calls to prayer in Istanbul and to know that no matter what, there just has to be some greater power or holy magic responsible for all this bursting, delirious, overwhelming beauty in the great, wide, sprawling world. I tucked my passport into my bag. Girls, we don’t just want to have fun; we want a whole lot more out of life than that.

He stared at her, struck dumb by her smile. Whatever

A Stand (based on a true story) The lone figure emerges from the mist, his long white beard blows in the wind. A peculiar sight for guard and prisoners alike. Soon more emerge as the old man advances. 7,14,21...soon a hundred unarmed saints. "What do they want?" "Who are they?" "Are these the followers of Jesus?" "Surely not, or they like others would sing louder as screams echo from death train." "No, no my brother it is them." "Why have they come?" The lone figure pushes gunmen aside. "Can't go in there!" Guards cry. Heeding them not he stands in the midst of the prisoners. Eyes of surprised prisoners, Eyes of dumb struck guards, Eyes of bold congregation standing at the gate."What will he do?" "What can he do?" "Tomorrow to death camp we go." But then... Lifting up holy book he roars prophetically the words of Ruth 1:16,17. A thunder of applause within and outwith the gates. Gates that will not prevail. Guards disband for the Word of the Lord has been spoken. Never again do they return, All because a few made A STAND to save children of the promised land.

shoulder when she started to get up. “I told her it was a mistake when she did, and I’ve come around to seeing that was a lot more about me than you.” In a defensive gesture, she folded her arms under her breasts. “If you’d taken such an instant dislike to me, I’m surprised you didn’t put a lot more pressure on Bodine.” “It wasn’t dislike, and pressuring Bodine when her mind’s made up’s a waste of time. Taking your time’s not wasting it.” And he took his time now. “I thought it was a mistake, believed it was because I didn’t see you staying. So pretty, so polished, I didn’t see how you’d fit in. And since I was damn near struck deaf, dumb, and blind the first time I saw you in that red suit, it didn’t bode well for me. I figured to keep my distance until Bo came home and said how I was right and you were leaving.” “Apparently you’ve been disappointed there.” “No, just wrong. I kept my distance as best I could because every time I saw you I wanted to touch you. And

At first I felt something like an oppressed anxiety when I was near the little sick girl, which later changed into pious and reverential awe in face of this dumb and strangely moving suffering. Whenever I saw her, an obscure sensation would arise in me that she must surely die. And then I grew afraid to look her in the face. Whenever I roamed the forests during the day, feeling so joyful in this solitude and peace, when I stretched out wearily on the moss and gazed for hours together into the bright, shimmering sky, into whose very depths one could see, when a strange and profound sense of joy thrilled me, I would suddenly think of the sick Maria - then I would get up and roam aimlessly about, overwhelmed by inexplicable thoughts and feel a dull pressure in my head and my heart which brought me to the verge of tears. At times when I walked in the evening along the dusty main street which was filled with the scent of the blossoming lime and watched whispering couples as they stood in the shadows of the trees; when I saw two people pressed close together as though they were one being, sauntering slowly beside the fountain as it quietly played in the moolight, and a feverish thrill of presentiment coursed through me as I thought of poor sick Maria; then I was seized by a quiet yearning for something inexplicable and all at once I saw myself strolling arm in arm with her in the shade of the fragrant lime trees. And a strange radiance shone from Maria's great dark eyes, and the moon made her slender little face appear still paler and more transparent. Then I fled upstairs into my attic, leaned against the window, looked up into the deep dark heavens where the stars appeared to have gone out and for hours abandoned myself to formless and confusing dreams until overcome by sleep. And yet - and yet I did not exchange so much as ten words with poor sick Maria. She never spoke. I would only sit at her side for hours gazing into her sick, suffering face, feeling ever and again that she must die. In the garden I lay in the grass and breathed in the fragrance of a thousand flowers; my eye was intoxicated by the gleaming colours of blossoms flooded with sunlight, and I listened too for the silence in the air above, interrupted only by the mating call of a bird. I sensed the ferment of the fruitful, torrid earth, that mysterious sound of ever-creative life. I could then darkly feel the greatness and beauty of life. Then it semed to me as if life belonged to me. But then my eye lit upon the bay-window of the house. I could see the sick Maria sitting there - silent and motionless and with closed eyes. And all my thinking was again drawn to the suffering of this being and remained there - became a painful but shyly conceded yearning which struck me as puzzling and confusing. And I left the garden timidly, silently, as though I had no right to linger in this temple.

Za...” We were struck dumb again. D-Did he just say the anti-magic armor Zanaffar?! “Hey, Zel! This isn’t what you told us!” “Like I’m some expert!” Well, fair enough.

Um! Little help!” Ricardo yelled as he struck his zombie foe again, and again doing no damage. “Oh! Right.” Jack equipped the wakizashi and charged in to attack. “Razor Shaves the Dolphin!” He slashed out with the wakizashi at the zombies head, scoring a critical hit. “Sweet!” “Would you cool it with the dumb names?” Ricardo struck the zombie, hitting it in the arm and flashing it red. “Dolphins don’t even have hair!” “You should try it, it’s really fun,” Jack said. The zombie was trapped between a sword and a sharp place as the two boys bounced it back and forth between their swords. Jack scored another critical hit with the wakizashi and it poofed, dropping its armor to the ground. Jack snatched it up, looking at it. Iron Dō-maru 6 armor 8 armor vs. bludgeoning attacks “Hey, shouldn’t I get the armor if you got the sword?” Ricardo asked.

Most of us have been struck dumb by the scariest communication task of all—asking for what we want.

Prophecy,” said Alastair. “We saw the future.” Both me and Guleed were actually struck dumb—which is not a good look in a pair of experienced police officers. Fortunately, Alastair was off with the fairies and so didn’t notice, and thus was the much vaunted mystique of the Metropolitan Police preserved.

But when she saw Ernest Hemingway striding out the front door of his home in Key West, she was struck dumb. He wasn’t simply lit from within; he’d harnessed the sun itself, hauled it down from the sky with those enormous hands, swallowed it so that it sat squarely in that barrel chest, molten rays radiating out of every pore.

Her heart heavy, she lay behind him on the small cot and snuggled close to his warm body. She shouldn’t be doing this. Christian would no doubt protest if he knew what she was about. Yet she couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to hold him. Needed to feel his strength with her body. She felt lost. Alone. She didn’t know what her future held anymore. Truthfully, that terrified her. Uncertainties assailed her in the darkness and brought tears to her eyes. “What’s to become of me?” she whispered as silent tears started falling. “I need guidance, Lord. Wisdom. My people need a queen who knows what she’s doing, not one who is lost and unsure.” Suddenly she felt the strength of Christian’s hand on hers. She swallowed in trepidation as he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. She pulled back as Christian rolled over to face her. “Don’t cry, Adara,” he whispered, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I won’t let them hurt you or take your kingdom from you. I know what it’s like to be without a home and I will pledge my eternal soul that you will never know that feeling.” His words only succeeded in making her cry more. Christian was at a loss as to how to cope with her tears. He’d never spent enough time with women to witness them often. The only woman he’d spent much time with was Mary, who had been a captive with them in the Holy Land. But Mary had never once wept. His stomach tightened in hopelessness. “Shhh,” he breathed, wiping her tears with his hand. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I don’t normally cry. I don’t. I’m j-just at a loss.” “I’m so often at a loss that it seems my most natural state.” He couldn’t believe he’d confessed that to her. Even when he was at his most perplexed, he refused to allow anyone to know it. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.” “Nay, my lady. Truly. I am often baffled by life. Struck dumb, point of fact.” -Adara & Christian

She tore a small bite of bread and offered it to him. His eyes never leaving hers, he leaned forward to feed from her hand. He took her fingers into his mouth and gently nibbled them before he pulled away. He swallowed the bread. “Are you seeking to tame me, Adara?” “Nay, my prince. I seek only to claim you. I don’t mind your wildness in the least.” He was struck dumb by her playfulness as she stepped past him to join Corryn, who was ordering a group of men about. Christian took a deep draught of the wine she’d neglected. “You’d be better off to pour that down your breeches,” Phantom said as he joined him. “What say you?” “The look of you says it all. You’re aching to taste her again.” Outwardly, Christian scoffed even though he knew that attitude for the lie it was. “You are mistaken.” Phantom paused beside him. “Nay, Christian. Lie to yourself if you must, but never to me.” Christian frowned at him. “Why are you still here? It’s not like you to travel with a group.” “You offered me land.” “Which I know means nothing to you. Not really. Why have you always been at my back all these years?” “I respect you, Christian. You should be king, and if you are determined to seek your throne, then I am determined to help you.” Christian couldn’t have been more stunned by his words. “What has gotten into you?” “I wish I knew. Promise me that should I discover what it is, you’ll exorcize it.” Christian laughed. “I wish the same promise from you.” Phantom looked back at Adara, who was busy castigating her fool. “I know what plagues you, my brother, but from that I hear there is no cure.

It was possible to be struck dumb by all sorts of emotions, not only surprise, and as they drove back toward Pittsford, Amina thought that there ought to be a whole set of words to encompass all those different varieties of silence.

How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are always two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterward, presses her mouth upon the traveler’s mouth, in order to make the mouth work, to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place and speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye’s instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That’s where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up. The narrator comes and makes a slow, fake song of the mouth’s eager devastation.

I may have faced him in battle before on some colony moon somewhere. He may have killed some of my friends, and I may have killed some of his. I am once again struck by how much alike we are—how similar the grunts on both sides really are—and I know that when this battle is over, I don’t want to go on fighting him and his friends over dumb shit that could be settled at a table in one evening by half a dozen grunts from each side and a few bottles of booze between them.

Yuguo fell apart, into a thousand little pieces. He felt it happen, fragments of his mind detaching from the rest, splitting off, becoming their own, being mapped by Nexus. Here was Yuguo’s knowledge of coding, his comprehension of data structures, of objects and methods, of intents and game players, of threads and loops and conditions. Here was football Yuguo, the precise way his left foot grounded into the grass and his hips swiveled and his arm balanced as his right foot shot forward to kick the checked ball at the goal. Here was Yuguo’s shy lust for girls, the patterns his eyes drew over their curves when he saw them, the anxiety that struck him dumb when they were near. Here was Yuguo’s despair that had led him to this room, his quiet dread that his country and the world were getting worse instead of better, that the future was one of slow strangulation at the electronic hands of smiling tame AIs with famous faces, their forked tongues lapping out of the viewscreens to feed saccharine to the masses, the old men who’d always ruled China laughing and holding their leashes. Here were the words a young woman had said to him just minutes ago. “Critical mass. Weak apart, strong together.” Here were her eyes, fiery eyes, hanging in space. Here was her name: Lifen. Then those pieces fell apart, into smaller pieces, which fell apart into fragments even smaller: Yuguo’s sensation of red. Yuguo’s concept of 1 and 0. Yuguo’s left thumb. The sound in Yuguo’s head when he heard the third note of his favorite pop song. Yuguo’s yes. Yuguo’s no. Yuguo’s and. Yuguo’s or. Yuguo’s xor. Yuguo’s now. Yuguo’s future. Yuguo’s past. He could see himself now. He was a golden statue of Yuguo, immobile, one foot in front of the other, standing in a space of white light. But the statue wasn’t solid, it was made of grains, millions of grains, flecks of gold dust, millions of parts of him. And as he watched they were separating, pulling gradually apart, so that he was no longer a single entity but a cloud, a fog, a fog of Yuguo, and if a strong wind came, he would just blow away, and if the pieces split any more he knew there wouldn’t be any such thing as Yuguo left at all. Yuguo’s fear. Yuguo’s end. And then the pieces rushed together, and he was inside that statue, he was that statue, and he was all of it, 1 and 0, yes and no, future and past, sound and sight, football and coding. He was all of it. He was whole. He was a mind. I’m Yuguo, he realized. I’m him. I’m me. I’m Yuguo! His eyes snapped open. He was in his body. His body made of molten gold. No, not gold, flesh and blood.

Bed rest? That sounded serious. “Is she going to be okay?” I asked. Mom nodded. “I think she is. But she’s going to need a lot of help around the house and at her bakery. I’m almost wondering if I should go be with her.” Mom paused, and then a smile crept across her face. “And maybe you could come, too, Grace, to help out and keep your cousin Sylvie company.” Sylvie is Aunt Sophie’s stepdaughter. I had only met her once, at Aunt Sophie’s wedding in Boston a couple of years ago, and I couldn’t remember very much about her. I tried to picture her face… “Paris?” said Maddy, interrupting my thoughts. “You get to go to Paris?” That’s when it hit me. I was going to France? I was too dumb-struck to know what to say. “We’ll have to talk to Dad first,” Mom added, “because it’s a long time to be away—I’m thinking about five weeks.” “Wow,” Ella said quietly. “That’s like half the

Even still, it wasn't over. For if a battle could be won so easily, men would soon forget its horrors and clamor for it all the more. War would come more than once or twice a generation. Easy victories would produce men who were struck dumb with their own unbelievably improbable successes. Such men wold begin to think they had devised not the superior tactic, but rather the supreme tactic at winning

So they went to a place that only they knew-- the mixed-nut forest where the mixed-nut trees grew. As the cubs picked almonds and walnuts, pistachios, too, which Papa Bear claimed as his Thanksgiving due, the entire forest started to lurch. The cubs fell like stones from their top-lofty perch. But they landed not with a bone-jarring bump. They landed instead with a comfortable “whump.” For you see, the cubs had been caught in mid-air in the dumpster-sized paw of a monster-sized bear. It was Bigpaw, of course. The monster HAD come. Talk about scared! The normally talkative cubs were struck dumb. Suffice it to say, Something surprising Happened that day. With a bit of a smile and nary a sound, he gently placed them down on the ground. What a shock! What a surprise! For despite his manner and imposing size, Bigpaw was nice, gentle, and shy-- a friendly, helpful sort of a guy. Those cubs knew what they had to do-- tell that only part of the legend was true. Though he was powerful, fearsome, and tall, the monster called Bigpaw was no monster at all. It was important news, so off they hurried, leaving Bigpaw looking a little worried. “Little cubs! Little cubs! You forgot your mixed nuts!” This certainly was true, no ifs, ands, or buts.

When a thing happened that had not happened before, a confusion often descended upon people, a fog that fuddled the clearest minds; and often the consequence of such confusion was rejection, and even anger. A fish crawled out of a swamp onto dry land and the other fish were bewildered, perhaps even annoyed that a forbidden frontier had been crossed. A meteorite struck the earth and the dust blocked out the sun but the dinosaurs went on fighting and eating, not understanding that they had been rendered extinct. The birth of language angered the dumb. The shah of Persia, facing the Ottoman guns, refused to accept the end of the age of the sword and sent his calvary to gallop suicidally against the blazing cannons of the Turk. A scientist observed tortoises and mockingbirds and wrote about "random mutation" and "natural selection" and the adherents of the Book of Genesis cursed his name. A revolution in painting was derided and dismissed as mere "Impressionism." A folksinger plugged his guitar into an amp and a voice in the crowd shouted "Judas!

trying to kick your buddy off the wall of a mineshaft for shits and giggles struck him as just plain dumb. He didn’t rate the actual climb itself much higher on the common sense scale, but the climb was a quarterly requirement. Who knows when they’d have to climb some rocky, vertical surface in order to achieve their goal? Eagle had pointed out, every time the test came up, that he flew their transport, the Snake. He could put them at the top of any cliff or wall they desired with no sweat. Such logic held little sway with Nada and Moms, neither of whom, Eagle noted, were currently with them.

But when one British officer returned briefly from his ship to retrieve some forgotten personal items, he was struck dumb by the law-abiding crowds. “This is a strange scene indeed!” he commented. “Here, in this city, we have had an army for more than seven years, and yet could not keep the peace of it … Now [that] we are gone, everything is in quietness and safety. The Americans are a curious, original people. They know how to govern themselves, but nobody else can govern them.