“
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me (One World Essentials))
“
He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
“
Your daughter is ugly.
She knows loss intimately,
carries whole cities in her belly.
As a child, relatives wouldn’t hold her.
She was splintered wood and sea water.
They said she reminded them of the war.
On her fifteenth birthday you taught her
how to tie her hair like rope
and smoke it over burning frankincense.
You made her gargle rosewater
and while she coughed, said
macaanto girls like you shouldn’t smell
of lonely or empty.
You are her mother.
Why did you not warn her,
hold her like a rotting boat
and tell her that men will not love her
if she is covered in continents,
if her teeth are small colonies,
if her stomach is an island
if her thighs are borders?
What man wants to lay down
and watch the world burn
in his bedroom?
Your daughter’s face is a small riot,
her hands are a civil war,
a refugee camp behind each ear,
a body littered with ugly things
but God,
doesn’t she wear
the world well.
”
”
Warsan Shire
“
It’s SpongeBob, Eleanor,” he said, speaking very slowly and clearly as though I were some sort of idiot. “SpongeBob SquarePants?” A semi-human bath sponge with protruding front teeth! On sale as if it were something completely unremarkable! For my entire life, people have said that I’m strange, but really, when I see things like this, I realize that I’m actually relatively normal.
”
”
Gail Honeyman (Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine)
“
He sounded so tired and so earnest. I worried my lips between my teeth before asking, "Does this have anything to do with what you told me before?"
Tybalt blinked. Then he snorted a brief laugh, and asked, "October, in the years since your return ... has anything not been in some way related to what I told you before? You handed me a hope chest in a dark alley. You took my heart as collateral, and you've never returned it.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Ashes of Honor (October Daye, #6))
“
I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linked unto a system of gears where teeth have been filed off at random. Such snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell.
The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said.
Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, thought mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined.
Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell - keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year.
The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.
The wilful filling off a gear teeth, the wilful doing without certain obvious pieces of information -
That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony -
That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love fora a blue vase -
That was how Rudolf Hess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers -
That was how Nazi Germany sense no important difference between civilization and hydrophobia -
That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I've seen in my time.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Mother Night)
“
This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white. This has been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the fish pond, Danny Rahman in the football cage, Quang O’Rourke bouncing a basketball, and Irie Jones humming a tune. Children with first and last names on a direct collision course. Names that secrete within them mass exodus, cramped boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checks. It is only this late in the day, and possibly only in Willesden, that you can find best friends Sita and Sharon, constantly mistaken for each other because Sita is white (her mother liked the name) and Sharon is Pakistani (her mother thought it best — less trouble).
”
”
Zadie Smith (White Teeth)
“
It is hard to face this. But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me (One World Essentials))
“
Sentimentality and nostalgia are closely related. Kissing cousins. I have no time for nostalgia, though. Nostalgics believe the past is nicer than the present. It isn't. Or wasn't. Nostalgics want to cuddle the past like a puppy. But the past has bloody teeth and bad breath. I look into its mouth like a sorrowing dentist.
”
”
Mal Peet (Life: An Exploded Diagram)
“
There is one thing I like about the Poles—their language. Polish, when it is spoken by intelligent people, puts me in ecstasy. The sound of the language evokes strange images in which there is always a greensward of fine spiked grass in which hornets and snakes play a great part. I remember days long back when Stanley would invite me to visit his relatives; he used to make me carry a roll of music because he wanted to show me off to these rich relatives. I remember this atmosphere well because in the presence of these smooth−tongued, overly polite, pretentious and thoroughly false Poles I always felt miserably uncomfortable. But when they spoke to one another, sometimes in French, sometimes in Polish, I sat back and watched them fascinatedly. They made strange Polish grimaces, altogether unlike our relatives who were stupid barbarians at bottom. The Poles were like standing snakes fitted up with collars of hornets. I never knew what they were talking about but it always seemed to me as if they were politely assassinating some one. They were all fitted up with sabres and broad−swords which they held in their teeth or brandished fiercely in a thundering charge. They never swerved from the path but rode rough−shod over women and children, spiking them with long pikes beribboned with blood−red pennants. All this, of course, in the drawing−room over a glass of strong tea, the men in butter−colored gloves, the women dangling their silly lorgnettes. The women were always ravishingly beautiful, the blonde houri type garnered centuries ago during the Crusades. They hissed their long polychromatic words through tiny, sensual mouths whose lips were soft as geraniums. These furious sorties with adders and rose petals made an intoxicating sort of music, a steel−stringed zithery slipper−gibber which could also register anomalous sounds like sobs and falling jets of water.
”
”
Henry Miller (Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, #1))
“
Some people aren’t really light-teethed; they’re merely dark-skinned.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
He knew that he, Millat, was a Paki no matter where he came from; that he smelled of curry; had no sexual identity; took other people’s jobs; or had no job and bummed off the state; or gave all the jobs to his relatives; that he could be a dentist or a shop-owner or a curry-shifter, but not a footballer or a filmmaker; that he should go back to his own country; or stay here and earn his bloody keep; that he worshiped elephants and wore turbans; that no one who looked like Millat, or spoke like Millat, or felt like Millat, was ever on the news unless they had recently been murdered.
”
”
Zadie Smith (White Teeth)
“
[...] I look in the mirror every day, when I brush my teeth or wash my face or comb my hair. It's just I tend to look at myself in pieces and avoid joining them up all together. I don't know why; it just feels safer that way.
But tonight I force myself to look at the whole thing. And suddenly I see how the bits and pieces add up to someone I'm not familiar with, someone I never intended to be.
”
”
Kathleen Tessaro (Elegance)
“
With a deliberate shrug, he stepped free of the hold on his shoulder. “Tell me something, boys,” he drawled. “Do you wear that leather to turn each other on? I mean, is it a dick thing with you all?” Butch got slammed so hard against the door that his back teeth rattled.
The model shoved his perfect face into Butch’s. “I’d watch your mouth, if I were you.”
“Why bother, when you’re keeping an eye on it for me? You gonna kiss me now?”
A growl like none Butch had ever heard came out of the guy.
“Okay, okay.” The one who seemed the most normal came forward. “Back off, Rhage. Hey, come on. Let’s relax.”
It took a minute before the model let go.
“That’s right. We’re cool,” Mr. Normal muttered, clapping his buddy on the back before looking at Butch. “Do yourself a favor and shut the hell up.”
Butch shrugged. “Blondie’s dying to get his hands on me. I can’t help it.”
The guy launched back at Butch, and Mr. Normal rolled his eyes, letting his friend go this time. The fist that came sailing at jaw level snapped Butch’s head to one side. As the pain hit, Butch let his own rage fly. The fear for Beth, the pent-up hatred of these lowlifes, the frustration about his job, all of it came out of him. He tackled the bigger man, taking him down onto the floor. The guy was momentarily surprised, as if he hadn’t expected Butch’s speed or strength, and Butch took advantage of the hesitation. He clocked Blondie in the mouth as payback and then grabbed the guy’s throat. One second later, Butch was flat on his back with the man sitting on his chest like a parked car. The guy took Butch’s face into his hand and squeezed, crunching the features together. It was nearly impossible to breathe, and Butch panted shallowly.
“Maybe I’ll find your wife,” the guy said, “and do her a couple of times. How’s that sound?"
“Don’t have one.”
“Then I’m coming after your girlfriend.”
Butch dragged in some air. “Got no woman.”
“So if the chicks won’t do you, what makes you think I’d want to?”
“Was hoping to piss you off.”
“Now why’d you want to do that?” Blondie asked.
“If I attacked first”—Butch hauled more breath into his lungs—“your boys wouldn’t have let us fight.
Would’ve killed me first. Before I had a chance at you.”
Blondie loosened his grip a little and laughed as he stripped Butch of his wallet, keys, and cell phone.
“You know, I kind of like this big dummy,” the guy drawled.
Someone cleared a throat. Rather officiously.
Blondie leaped to his feet, and Butch rolled over, gasping. When he looked up, he was convinced he was hallucinating. Standing in the hall was a little old man dressed in livery. Holding a silver tray.
“Pardon me, gentlemen. Dinner will be served in about fifteen minutes.”
“Hey, are those the spinach crepes I like so much?” Blondie said, going for the tray.
“Yes, Sire.”
“Hot damn.”
The other men clustered around the butler, taking what he offered. Along with cocktail napkins. Like they didn’t want to drop anything on the floor. What the hell was this?
“Might I ask a favor?” the butler said.
Mr. Normal nodded with vigor. “Bring out another tray of these and we’ll kill anything you want for you.”
Yeah, guess the guy wasn’t really normal. Just relatively so.
The butler smiled as if touched. “If you’re going to bloody the human, would you be good enough to do it in the backyard?”
“No problem.” Mr. Normal popped another crepe in his mouth. “Damn, Rhage, you’re right. These are awesome.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #1))
“
Several months ago there was a somewhat, in some people's eyes, relatively normal Cal--or by and large normal--the best he was able to be as half Auphe. Occasionally he did lose his shit, attacked and ate deer while on road trips through the woods, created massive holes in between dimensions to shove through malevolently murderous pucks, and once in a while ripped out an Auphe's throat with his teeth. He also opened a gate or two to save his friends, blew up an antihealer from the inside out to save the world, cleaned his guns while watching porn, and generally was a smart-ass to everyone.
Normal.
”
”
Rob Thurman (Doubletake (Cal Leandros, #7))
“
The weight of our guts is estimated at about 60 percent of what is expected for a primate of our size: the human digestive system as a whole is much smaller than would be predicted on the basis of size relations in primates. Our small mouths, teeth, and guts fit well with the softness, high caloric density, low fiber content, and high digestibility of cooked food.
”
”
Richard W. Wrangham (Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human)
“
Killing an enemy with teeth and bare hands is emotionally far more demanding than pulling a trigger or pressing a button. In inventing tools and weapons, in contriving civilization, we have disinhibited the controls - sometimes thoughtlessly and inadvertently, but sometimes with cool premeditation. If the beasts who are our nearest relatives engaged recklessly in … mass murder they would have rendered themselves extinct. If our non-human ancestors did it, we would not be here.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)
“
He makes up the most remarkable yarns - and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for telling stories. And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it ready to relate to her when she lets him out. He had one for me when he came down tonight. 'Uncle Jim,' says he, solemn as a tombstone, 'I had a 'venture in the Glen today.' 'Yes, what was it?' says I, expecting something quite startling, but no-wise prepared for what I really got. 'I met a wolf in th street,' says he, 'a 'normous wolf with a big red mouf and awful long teeth, Uncle Jim.' 'I didn't know there was any wolves at the Glen,' says I. 'Oh, he comed there from far, far away,' says Joe, 'and I fought he was going to eat me up, Uncle Jim.' 'Were you scared?' says I. 'No, 'cause I had a gun,' says Joe, 'and I shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim - solid dead - and then he went up to heaven and bit God,' says he.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne's House of Dreams (Anne of Green Gables, #5))
“
So you had to piss me off badly enough activate some primal instinct?” I clenched my jaw, grinding my teeth. “I think all you managed to ‘draw out’ was fuming rage. I could rip your head off right now.”
“Save that for later,” he waved his hand dismissively. “You have work to do right now.
”
”
M.A. George (Relativity (Proximity, #2))
“
But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me (One World Essentials))
“
What poor wretches are we, Harriet, men as well as women! We pray for long life; and what is the issue of our prayers, but leave to outlive our teeth and our friends, to stand in the way of our elbowing relations, and to change our swan-skins for skins of buff; which nevertheless will keep out neither cold nor infirmity?
”
”
Samuel Richardson (Complete Works of Samuel Richardson)
“
Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, 1642: a weakly and diminutive infant, of whom it is related that, at his birth, he might have found room in a quart mug. He died on March the 20th, 1727, after more than eighty-four years of more than average bodily health and vigour; it is a proper pendant to the story of the quart mug to state that he never lost more than one of his second teeth.
”
”
Augustus de Morgan (Essays on the Life and Work of Newton)
“
I will here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre existing forms. Passing over allusions to the subject in the classical writers (Aristotle, in his "Physicae Auscultationes" (lib.2, cap.8, s.2), after remarking that rain does not fall in order to make the corn grow, any more than it falls to spoil the farmer's corn when threshed out of doors, applies the same argument to organisation; and adds (as translated by Mr. Clair Grece, who first pointed out the passage to me), "So what hinders the different parts (of the body) from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. And in like manner as to other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity; and whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished and still perish." We here see the principle of natural selection shadowed forth, but how little Aristotle fully comprehended the principle, is shown by his remarks on the formation of the teeth.), the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details.
”
”
Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)
“
But I regret to inform you that you are probably not dying'
'As you will.' I take a swig from the bottle of brandy, my teeth chattering against it. I don't have the energy to argue; I must save my strength for my imminent demise.
”
”
Janet Mullany (Improper Relations (Lord Shad, #1))
“
Finally, he smiled, and although his smile was bumpy because some of his teeth were jagged and broken, it was a warming, infectious smile that was reflected in his eyes. It made her smile widely in return. She felt as if the room had been lit up. He held out his arms, and she went across the room to him, almost running. She buried her face in his shirt, her nose wrinkling up as the scent of his cologne mixed with the nutty, sourish smell of camphor that filled the room. He put his arms around her, but gently, so that there was space between his forearms and her back, holding her as if she was to fragile to hug properly. Awkwardly, he patted her light, bushy aureole of dark brown hair, repeating: "Good girl. Fine daughter.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (The Icarus Girl)
“
So that eight-pointed star,” Nesta said into the quiet as they began walking again, shoes squishing, “it’s a symbol of the Starborn people in your world. It means nothing else?” “Why all the questions about it?” Bryce asked through chattering teeth. Azriel walked a few steps behind, silent as death, but she knew he was listening to every word. Nesta went silent, and Bryce thought she might not answer, but then she said, “I had a tattoo on my back—recently. A magical one, now gone. But it was of an eight-pointed star.” “And?” “And the magic, the power of the bargain that caused the tattoo to appear … it chose the design. The star meant nothing to me. I thought maybe it was related to my training, but its shape was identical to the scar on your chest.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
“
A semi-human bath sponge with protruding front teeth! On sale as if it were something completely unremarkable! For my entire life, people have said that I’m strange, but really, when I see things like this, I realize that I’m actually relatively normal.
”
”
Gail Honeyman (Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine)
“
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
All the experiments led to one unifying conclusion: The overall structure, the shape, the pattern, of any animal is as real a part of its body as are its cells, heart, limbs, or teeth. Living things are called organisms because of the overriding importance of organization, and each part of the pattern somehow contains the information as to what it is in relation to the whole. The ability of this pattern to maintain itself reaches its height in the newts, mud puppies, and other amphibians collectively called salamanders.
”
”
Robert O. Becker (The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life)
“
Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
Neither my readers nor I are in the relatively sunlit uplands depicted in White Teeth anymore. But the lesson I take from this is not that the lives in that novel were illusory, but rather that progress is never permanent, will always be threatened, must be redoubled, restated and *reimagined* if it is to survive.
”
”
Zadie Smith (Feel Free: Essays)
“
They loved her because she was an independent spirit, unafraid to speak her mind, passionate, impetuous, and brave. Seldom lauded for her beauty, Mary Ryan had something else to offer, something women could grab ahold of and understand. She had a powerful sense of self, and this proved more magnetic and more relatable than any other single quality.
”
”
Kate Mulgrew (Born with Teeth)
“
Trailing veils of steam, Grandma came and went and came again with covered dishes from kitchen to table while the assembled company waited in silence. No one lifted lids to peer in at the hidden victuals. At last Grandma sat down, Grandpa said grace, and immediately thereafter the silverware flew up like a plague of locusts on the air.
When everyone's mouths were absolutely crammed full of miracles, Grandmother sat back and said, "Well, how do you like it?"
And the relatives, including Aunt Rose, and the boarders, their teeth deliciously mortared together at this moment, faced a terrible dilemma. Speak and break the spell, or continue allowing this honey-syrup food of the gods to dissolve and melt away to glory in their mouths? They looked as if they might laugh or cry at the cruel dilemma. They looked as if they might sit there forever, untouched by fire or earthquake, or shooting in the street, a massacre of innocents in the yard, overwhelmed with effluviums and promises of immortality. All villains were innocent in this moment of tender herbs, sweet celeries, luscious roots. The eye sped over a snow field where lay fricassees, salmagundis, gumbos, freshly invented succotashes, chowders, ragouts.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine)
“
It was a journalist (it was always journalists these days), and she had something to read to him. She’d had a crash course in media relations since her exams, and dealing with them/it had taught her there was no point in trying to deal with each one separately. To give some unique point of view to the Financial Times and then to the Mirror and then to the Daily Mail was impossible. It was their job, not yours, to get the angle, to write their separate book of the huge media bible. Each to their own. Reporters were factional, fanatical, obsessively defending their own turf, propounding the same thing day after day. So it had always been. Who would have guessed that Luke and John would take such different angles on the scoop of the century, the death of the Lord? It just went to prove that you couldn’t trust these guys.
”
”
Zadie Smith (White Teeth)
“
the existence of the muscles vanished into thin air. And yet, it was then that the muscles played their most essential function, grinding up with their sturdy, invisible teeth that ambiguous, relative sense of existence and substituting for it an unqualified sense of transparent, peerless power that required no object at all. Even the muscles themselves no longer existed. I was enveloped in a sense of power as transparent as light.
”
”
Yukio Mishima (Sun and Steel)
“
What do we mean by the lived truth of creation? We have to mean the world as it appears to men in a condition of relative unrepression; that is, as it would appear to creatures who assessed their true puniness in the face of the overwhelmingness and majesty of the universe, of the unspeakable miracle of even the single created object; as it probably appeared to the earliest men on the planet and to those extrasensitive types who have filled the roles of shaman, prophet, saint, poet, and artist. What is unique about their perception of reality is that it is alive to the panic inherent in creation: Sylvia Plath somewhere named God "King Panic." And Panic is fittingly King of the Grotesque. What are we to make of a creation in which the routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types-biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses the residue. Everyone reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him. The mosquitoes bloating themselves on blood, the maggots, the killerbees attacking with a fury and demonism, sharks continuing to tear and swallow while their own innards are being torn out-not to mention the daily dismemberment and slaughter in "natural" accidents of all types: the earthquake buries alive 70 thousand bodies in Peru, automobiles make a pyramid heap of over 50 thousand a year in the U.S. alone, a tidal wave washes over a quarter of a million in the Indian Ocean. Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all its creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet for about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer. But the sun distracts our attention, always baking the blood dry, making things grow over it, and with its warmth giving the hope that comes with the organism's comfort and expansiveness. "Questo sol m'arde, e questo m'innamore," as Michelangelo put it.
”
”
Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death)
“
But the bull-dog ant of Australia affords us the most extraordinary example of this kind; for if it is cut in two, a battle begins between the head and the tail. The head seizes the tail with its teeth, and the tail defends itself bravely by stinging the head; the battle may last for half an hour, until they die or are dragged away by the other ants. This contest takes place every time the experiment is tried . . . . Yunghahn relates that he saw in Java a plain, as far as the eye could reach, entirely covered with skeletons, and took it for a battle-field; they were, however, merely the skeletons of large turtles, . . . which come this way out of the sea to lay their eggs, and are then attacked by wild dogs who with their united strength lay them on their backs, strip off the small shell from the stomach, and devour them alive. But often then a tiger pounces upon the dogs . . . . For this these turtles are born . . . . Thus the will to live everywhere preys upon itself, and in different forms is its own nourishment, till finally the human race, because it subdues all the others, regards nature as a manufactory for its own use. Yet even the human race . . . reveals in itself with most terrible distinctness this conflict, this variance of the will with itself; and we find homo homini lupus.
”
”
Will Durant (The Story of Philosophy)
“
existence of the muscles vanished into thin air. And yet, it was then that the muscles played their most essential function, grinding up with their sturdy, invisible teeth that ambiguous, relative sense of existence and substituting for it an unqualified sense of transparent, peerless power that required no object at all. Even the muscles themselves no longer existed. I was enveloped in a sense of power as transparent as light. It is scarcely to be wondered at that in this pure sense of power that no amount of books or intellectual analysis could ever capture, I should discover a true antithesis of words. And indeed it was this that by gradual stages was to become the focus of my whole thinking.
”
”
Yukio Mishima (Sun and Steel)
“
But the truth is, there’s little even the most organized people can do to prepare themselves for having children. They can buy all the books, observe friends and relations, review their own memories of childhood. But the distance between those proxy experiences and the real thing, ultimately, can be measured in light-years. Prospective parents have no clue what their children will be like; no clue what it will mean to have their hearts permanently annexed; no clue what it will feel like to second-guess so many seemingly simple decisions, or to be multitasking even while they’re brushing their teeth, or to have a ticker tape of concerns forever whipping through their heads. Becoming a parent is one of the most sudden and dramatic changes in adult life.
”
”
Jennifer Senior (All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood)
“
1. When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
We were a heap of living creatures, irritated, embarrassed at ourselves, we hadn't the slightest reason to be there, none of us, each one, confused, vaguely alarmed, felt in the way in relation to the others. *In the way*: it was the only relationship I could establish between these trees, these gates, these stones. In vain I tried *count* the chestnut trees, to *locate* them by their relationship to the Velleda, to compare their height with the height of the plane trees: each of them escaped the relationship in which I tried to enclose it, isolated itself, and overflowed. Of these relations (which I insisted on maintaining in order to delay the crumbling of the human world, measures, quantities, and directions) - I felt myself to be the arbitrator; they no longer had their teeth into things. *In the way*, the chestnut tree there, opposite me, a little to the left ...
”
”
Jean-Paul Sartre (Nausea)
“
The strongest evidence yet was published in 2010. In a painstaking long-term study, much larger and more thorough than anything done previously, an international team of researchers tracked one thousand children in New Zealand from birth until the age of thirty-two. Each child’s self-control was rated in a variety of ways (through observations by researchers as well as in reports of problems from parents, teachers, and the children themselves). This produced an especially reliable measure of children’s self-control, and the researchers were able to check it against an extraordinarily wide array of outcomes through adolescence and into adulthood. The children with high self-control grew up into adults who had better physical health, including lower rates of obesity, fewer sexually transmitted diseases, and even healthier teeth. (Apparently, good self-control includes brushing and flossing.) Self-control was irrelevant to adult depression, but its lack made people more prone to alcohol and drug problems. The children with poor self-control tended to wind up poorer financially. They worked in relatively low-paying jobs, had little money in the bank, and were less likely to own a home or have money set aside for retirement. They also grew up to have more children being raised in single-parent households, presumably because they had a harder time adapting to the discipline required for a long-term relationship. The children with good self-control were much more likely to wind up in a stable marriage and raise children in a two-parent home. Last, but certainly not least, the children with poor self-control were more likely to end up in prison. Among those with the lowest levels of self-control, more than 40 percent had a criminal conviction by the age of thirty-two, compared with just 12 percent of the people who had been toward the high end of the self-control distribution in their youth.
”
”
Roy F. Baumeister (Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength)
“
Then there were times when Vassy compulsively yet touchingly would get very drunk and break down in great heaving sobs when we got home. No one could possibly understand what it meant to be a 'fucking Russian in America,' he sobbed. 'My fucking country, my beloved Russia,' he would cry. 'No one understands my country. You judge us, you condemn us, you believe we have swords in our teeth. You're so conditioned, so brainwashed, even more than we are. At least Russians know about America, not only bad things. And you here imagine Russia as a concentration camp! You don't like Commies! That's your problem. Now I hear Americans think 'Russian' is the same as evil, stupidity, idleness. That's dangerous! What about our culture, our music, our ingenuity, our patience, endurance--these are qualities, not drawbacks! Yes, we are fucking different, why not? Why should we be the same? Instead of trying to change each other, why don't we simply tolerate our differences and enjoy similarities?
”
”
Shirley MacLaine (Dancing in the Light)
“
The intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful if man will live the life of nature and not import into his mind difficulties which are none of his. No man need be perplexed in his speculations.
Not less conspicuous is the preponderance of nature over will in all practical life. There is less intention in history than we ascribe to it. We impute deep-laid far-sighted plans to Cæsar and Napoleon; but the best of their power was in nature, not in them.
Our life might be much easier and simpler than we make it; that the world might be a happier place than it is; that there is no need of struggle, convulsions, and despairs, of the wringing of the hands and the gnashing of the teeth; that we miscreate our own evil.
A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine.
No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object.
Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride.
He may see what he maketh. Our dreams are the sequel of our waking knowledge.
The visions of the night bear some proportion to the visions of the day. Hideous dreams are exaggerations of the sins of the day. We see our evil affections embodied in bad physiognomies.
The same reality pervades all teaching. The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. If he can communicate himself he can teach, but not you words. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he never quite lose the benefit.
The effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It look a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-related, and is called an institution.
We are full of these superstitions of sense, the worship of magnitude. We call the poet inactive, because he is not a president, a merchant, or a porter. We adore an institution, and do not see that it is founded on a thought which we have. But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the wayside as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life and says,—‘Thus hast thou done, but it were better thus.
”
”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“
A look passed between Genevieve, Kaya, and I, a silent knowledge relating back to the warning Anansi had given us that Paine was growing corn here, recalling a vision I had not long ago about acres and acres of the stuff stretching on for miles beneath a moonlit sky, about so many lessons gleaned in the Divine Rite Academy as children regarding the “Devil’s Grain” and how to spot it and its many forms by sight and smell, so that we would always avoid it if it should ever reappear on this earth. That yellow sweet temptress. Its siren song was near impossible to avoid, even though I’d never once tasted it. But somehow I knew exactly how it would taste, how its rough grit would crunch between my teeth like grains of sand, as if it had been imprinted into my genes from so many ancestors going back thousands of years who were gluttons for those kernels of gold. We could drive it to extinction or turn it into a monster that would drive us to extinction, but it would always be a part of us, waiting for resurrection. I could tell by the way the women gazed at the platter of golden medallions that they were having a similar fight in their minds. Just one bite. One little taste. It wouldn’t be so bad. And then we could move on.
”
”
Allison M. Dickson (The Last Supper)
“
There is an intellectual trick, which consists in associating the idea of the gratification so firmly with some painful thought, that after a little practice the thought of gratification is itself immediately felt as a very painful one. (For example, when the Christian accustoms himself to think of the presence and scorn of the devil in the course of sensual enjoyment, or everlasting punishment in hell for revenge by murder; or even merely of the contempt which he will meet with from those of his fellow-men whom he most respects, if he steals a sum of money, or if a man has often checked an intense desire for suicide by thinking of the grief and self-reproaches of his relations and friends, and has thus succeeded in balancing himself upon the edge of life: for, after some practice, these ideas follow one another in his mind like cause and effect.)
Among instances of this kind may be mentioned the cases of Lord Byron and Napoleon, in whom the pride of man revolted and took offence at the preponderance of one particular passion over the collective attitude and order of reason. From this arises the habit and joy of tyrannising over the craving and making it, as it were, gnash its teeth. “I will not be a slave of any appetite,” wrote Byron in his diary.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality)
“
The first otter to go into deep water had felt the same fear that Tarka felt that night; for his ancestors, thousands of years ago, had been hunters in woods and along the banks of rivers, running the scent of blooded creatures on the earth, like all the members of the weasel race to which they belonged. This race had several tribes in the country of the Two Rivers. Biggest were the brocks, a tribe of badgers who lived in holts scratched among the roots of trees and bushes, and rarely went to water except to drink. They were related to the fitches or stoats, who chased rabbits and jumped upon birds on the earth; and to the vairs or weasels, who sucked the blood of mice and dragged fledgelings from the nest; and to the grey fitches or polecats, so rare in the forests; and to the pine-martens, a tribe so harried by men that one only remained, and he had found sanctuary in a wood where a gin was never tilled and a gun was never fired, where the red deer was never roused and the fox never chased. He was old; his canine teeth worn down. Otters knew the ponds in this wood and they played in them by day, while herons stalked in the shallows and nothing feared the old lady who sometimes sat on the bank, watching the wild creatures which she thought of as the small and persecuted kinsfolk of man.
”
”
Henry Williamson (Tarka the Otter)
“
Before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the very word
conspiracy was seldom used by most Americans. The JFK assassination
was the seminal national event in the lives of the Baby Boomer generation.
We’ve heard all the clichés about the loss of our innocence, and the beginning
of public distrust in our government’s leaders, being born with the events
of November 22, 1963, but there’s a good deal of truth in that. President
Kennedy tapped into our innate idealism and inspired a great many people,
especially the young, like no president ever had before.
John F. Kennedy was vastly different from most of our elected presidents.
He was the first president to refuse a salary. He never attended a Bilderberg
meeting. He was the first Catholic to sit in the Oval Office, and he almost
certainly wasn’t related to numerous other presidents and/or the royal family
of England, as is often the case. He was a genuine war hero, having tugged an
injured man more than three miles using only a life preserver’s strap between
his teeth, after the Japanese had destroyed the boat he commanded, PT-109.
This selfless act seems even more courageous when one takes into account
Kennedy’s recurring health problems and chronic bad back. He was an
intellectual and an accomplished author who wrote many of his memorable
speeches. He would never have been invited to dance naked with other
powerful men and worship a giant owl, as so many of our leaders do every
summer at Bohemian Grove in California.
”
”
Donald Jeffries (Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics)
“
A few minutes later Elizabeth watched Lucinda emerge from the cottage with Ian, but there was no way to guess from their closed expressions what they’d discussed.
In fact, the only person betraying any emotion at all was Jake Wiley as he led two horses into the yard. And his face, Elizabeth noted with confusion-which had been stormy when he went off to saddle the horses-was now wreathed in a smile of unrestrained glee. With a sweep of his arm and a bow he gestured toward a swaybacked black horse with an old sidesaddle upon its back. “Here’s your mount, ma’am,” he told Lucinda, grinning. “His name’s Attila.”
Lucinda cast a disdainful eye over the beast as she transferred her umbrella to her right hand and pulled on her black gloves. “Have you nothing better?”
“No, ma’am. Ian’s horse has a hurt foot.”
“Oh, very well,” said Lucinda, walking briskly forward, but as she came within reach the black suddenly bared his teeth and lunged. Lucinda struck him between the ears with her umbrella without so much as a pause in her step. “Cease!” she commanded, and, ignoring the animal’s startled grunt of pain, she continued around to his other side to mount. “You brought it on yourself,” she told the horse as Jake held Attila’s head, and Ian Thornton helped her into the sidesaddle. The whites of Attila’s eyes showed as he warily watched her land in his saddle and settle herself. The moment Jake handed Lucinda the reins Attila began to leap sideways and twist around in restless annoyance. “I do not countenance ill-tempered animals,” she warned the horse in her severest tone, and when he refused to heed her and continued his threatening antics she hauled up sharply on his reins and simultaneously gave him a sharp jab in the flank with her umbrella. Attila let out a yelping complaint, broke into a quick, animated trot, and headed obediently down the drive.
“If that don’t beat all!” Jake said furiously, glowering after the pair, and then at Ian. “That animal doesn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty!” Without waiting for a reply Jake swung into his saddle and cantered down the lane after them.
Absolutely baffled over everyone’s behavior this morning, Elizabeth cast a puzzled, sideways glance at the silent man beside her, then gaped at him in amazement. The unpredictable man was staring after Lucinda, his hands shoved into his pockets, a cigar clamped between his white teeth, his face transformed by a sweeping grin. Drawing the obvious conclusion that these odd reactions from the men were somehow related to Lucinda’s skillful handling of an obstinate horse, Elizabeth commented, “Lucinda’s uncle raised horses, I believe.”
Almost reluctantly, Ian transferred his admiring gaze from Lucinda’s rigid back to Elizabeth. His brows rose. “An amazing woman,” he stated. “Is there any situation of which she can’t take charge?”
“None that I’ve ever seen,” Elizabeth said with a chuckle; then she felt self-conscious because his smile faded abruptly, and his manner became detached and cool.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
YOU CAN COME to the end of talking, about women, talking. In restaurants, cafés, kitchens, less frequently in bars or pubs, about relatives, relations, relationships, illnesses, jobs, children, men; about nuance, hunch, intimation, intuition, shadow; about themselves and each other; about what he said to her and she said to her and she said back; about what they feel.
Something more definite, more outward then, some action, to drain the inner swamp, sweep the inner fluff out from under the inner bed, harden the edges. Men at sea, for instance. Not on a submarine, too claustrophobic and smelly, but something more bracing, a tang of salt, cold water, all over your calloused body, cuts and bruises, hurricanes, bravery and above all no women. Women are replaced by water, by wind, by the ocean, shifting and treacherous; a man has to know what to do, to navigate, to sail, to bail, so reach for the How-To book, and out here it’s what he said to him, or didn’t say, a narrowing of the eyes, sizing the bastard up before the pounce, the knife to the gut, and here comes a wave, hang on to the shrouds, all teeth grit, all muscles bulge together. Or sneaking along the gangway, the passageway, the right of way, the Milky Way, in the dark, your eyes shining like digital wristwatches, and the bushes, barrels, scuppers, ditches, filthy with enemies, and you on the prowl for adrenalin and loot. Corpses of your own making deliquesce behind you as you reach the cave, abandoned city, safe, sliding panel, hole in the ground, and rich beyond your wildest dreams!
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Good Bones and Simple Murders)
“
The last refuge of the Self, perhaps, is “physical continuity.” Despite the body’s mercurial nature, it feels like a badge of identity we have carried since the time of our earliest childhood memories. A thought experiment dreamed up in the 1980s by British philosopher Derek Parfit illustrates how important—yet deceiving—this sense of physical continuity is to us.15 He invites us to imagine a future in which the limitations of conventional space travel—of transporting the frail human body to another planet at relatively slow speeds—have been solved by beaming radio waves encoding all the data needed to assemble the passenger to their chosen destination. You step into a machine resembling a photo booth, called a teletransporter, which logs every atom in your body then sends the information at the speed of light to a replicator on Mars, say. This rebuilds your body atom by atom using local stocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on. Unfortunately, the high energies needed to scan your body with the required precision vaporize it—but that’s okay because the replicator on Mars faithfully reproduces the structure of your brain nerve by nerve, synapse by synapse. You step into the teletransporter, press the green button, and an instant later materialize on Mars and can continue your existence where you left off. The person who steps out of the machine at the other end not only looks just like you, but etched into his or her brain are all your personality traits and memories, right down to the memory of eating breakfast that morning and your last thought before you pressed the green button. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you may be perfectly happy to use this new mode of space travel, since this is more or less what the USS Enterprise’s transporter does when it beams its crew down to alien planets and back up again. But now Parfit asks us to imagine that a few years after you first use the teletransporter comes the announcement that it has been upgraded in such a way that your original body can be scanned without destroying it. You decide to give it a go. You pay the fare, step into the booth, and press the button. Nothing seems to happen, apart from a slight tingling sensation, but you wait patiently and sure enough, forty-five minutes later, an image of your new self pops up on the video link and you spend the next few minutes having a surreal conversation with yourself on Mars. Then comes some bad news. A technician cheerfully informs you that there have been some teething problems with the upgraded teletransporter. The scanning process has irreparably damaged your internal organs, so whereas your replica on Mars is absolutely fine and will carry on your life where you left off, this body here on Earth will die within a few hours. Would you care to accompany her to the mortuary? Now how do you feel? There is no difference in outcome between this scenario and what happened in the old scanner—there will still be one surviving “you”—but now it somehow feels as though it’s the real you facing the horror of imminent annihilation. Parfit nevertheless uses this thought experiment to argue that the only criterion that can rationally be used to judge whether a person has survived is not the physical continuity of a body but “psychological continuity”—having the same memories and personality traits as the most recent version of yourself. Buddhists
”
”
James Kingsland (Siddhartha's Brain: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment)
“
I have seen elsewhere houses in ruins, and statues both of gods and men: these are men still. 'Tis all true; and yet, for all that, I cannot so often revisit the tomb of that so great and so puissant city,—[Rome]— that I do not admire and reverence it. The care of the dead is recommended to us; now, I have been bred up from my infancy with these dead; I had knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I had any of those of my own house; I knew the Capitol and its plan before I knew the Louvre, and the Tiber before I knew the Seine.....
.... Finding myself of no use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other, and am so enamoured of it, that the free, just, and flourishing state of that ancient Rome (for I neither love it in its birth nor its old age) interests and impassionates me; and therefore I cannot so often revisit the sites of their streets and houses, and those ruins profound even to the Antipodes, that I am not interested in them. Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that the sight of places which we know to have been frequented and inhabited by persons whose memories are recommended in story, moves us in some sort more than to hear a recital of their—acts or to read their writings? It pleases me to consider their face, bearing, and vestments: I pronounce those great names betwixt my teeth, and make them ring in my ears: Of things that are in some part great and admirable, I admire even the common parts: I could wish to see them in familiar relations, walk, and sup. It were ingratitude to contemn the relics and images of so many worthy and valiant men as I have seen live and die, and who, by their example, give us so many good instructions, knew we how to follow them.
And, moreover, this very Rome that we now see, deserves to be beloved.
”
”
Michel de Montaigne (The Complete Essays)
“
This once-proud country of ours is falling Into the hands of the wrong people,' said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. 'And, before it gets back on the right track,' said Jones, 'some heads are going to roll.'
I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell.
The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said.
Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined.
Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell — keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a
year.
The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.
The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information —
That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuebrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony —
That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase —
That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers —
That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia —
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Mother Night)
“
Vim?” “Sweetheart?” The whispered endearment spoken with sleepy sensuality had Sophie’s insides fluttering. Was this what married people did? Cuddled and talked in shadowed rooms, gave each other bodily warmth as they exchanged confidences? “What troubles you about going home?” He was quiet for a long moment, his breath fanning across her neck. Sophie felt him considering his words, weighing what to tell her, if anything. “I’m not sure exactly what’s amiss, and that’s part of the problem, but my associations with the place are not at all pleasant, either.” Was that…? His lips? The glancing caress to her nape made Sophie shiver despite the cocoon of blankets. “What do you think is wrong there?” Another kiss, more definite this time. “My aunt and uncle are quite elderly, though Uncle Bert and Aunt Essie seem the type to live forever. I’ve counted on them living forever. You even taste like flowers.” Ah, God, his tongue… a slow, warm, wet swipe of his tongue below her ear, like a cat, but smoother than a cat, more deliberate. “Nobody lives forever.” The nuzzling stopped. “This is lamentably so. My aunt writes to me that a number of family heirlooms have gone missing, some valuable in terms of coin, some in terms of sentiment.” His teeth closed gently on the curve of her ear. What was this? He wasn’t kissing her, exactly, nor fondling the parts other men had tried to grope in dark corners—though Sophie wished he might try some fondling. “Do you think you might have a thief among the servants?” He slipped her earlobe into his mouth and drew on it briefly. “Perhaps, though the staff generally dates back to before the Flood. We pay excellent wages; we pension those who seek retirement, those few who seek retirement.” “Is some sneak thief in the neighborhood preying on your relations, then?” It was becoming nearly impossible to remain passively lying on her side. She wanted to be on her back, kissing him, touching his hair, his face, his chest… “Or has some doughty old retainer merely misplaced some of the silver?” Vim muttered right next to her ear. “You’ll sort it out.
”
”
Grace Burrowes (Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (The Duke's Daughters, #1; Windham, #4))
“
This once-proud country of ours is falling into the hands of the wrong people,” said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. “And, before it gets back on the right track,” said Jones, “some heads are going to roll.” I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. “You’re completely crazy,” he said. Jones wasn’t completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information— That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony— That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase— That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers— That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia— That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I’ve seen in my time. And for me to attempt such a mechanical explanation is perhaps a reflection of the father whose son I was. Am. When I pause to think about it, which is rarely, I am, after all, the son of an engineer. Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself—will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows—some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history— But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, “This fact I can do without.” Howard W. Campbell, Jr., praises himself. There’s life in the old boy yet! And, where there’s life— There is life.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Mother Night)
“
Merry Christmas.” he says quietly, pulling something from his back pocket.
I frown in confusion then smile in delight when I see what it is. It’s a shiny, sharp trowel with a holly green handle. It’s stolen from the gardens for sure. It is the single greatest gift I’ve ever received.
“It’s so pretty.” I whisper happily, turning it over to test its edge.
“I promised you something shiny.”
“And you delivered.” I press my finger against the tip then pull it back quickly. “It’s sharp.”
“Why else have it, right? Keep it with you when you can. If something goes down while I’m gone I want to know you have it.”
I nod my head as I slip it into my back pocket. The handle sticks up but the point is hidden.
When I look up at Vin my heart skips. His eyes are sharp, intense.
“Come with me.” he commands quietly.
“No.” I reply immediately.
I was waiting for this. From the moment he woke me up, the second I saw his eyes, I knew. And just as quickly as I recognized it, I knew what my answer would be.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “You know I’m not coming back here. Not for you, not for anyone.”
“Maybe not, but if I go with you then you definitely won’t.”
“It’s not going to work, Joss.” he tells me seriously. “The Hive won’t bite. They don’t want to rock the boat with the Colonies and the pot isn’t sweet enough to convince them to try. They’ll pass and everyone here is going to either stay here forever or die in a revolt.”
“Nats included.” I remind him coolly.
“She’s a big girl. She knows how it really is. She can yell at me all she wants, but she knows just as well as I do that no one will come here to help.”
“Especially if you don’t ask.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” he whispers fiercely. “You want me to go out there and rally the troops, bring them back here riding on a tall white horse and save the day? I’m no hero. I never have been. It’s how I’ve stayed alive.”
“It’s also a great way to stay alone. And if you do this, if you go and pretend we don’t exist, then I’ll pretend I never knew you. Nats will too, I’m sure. You’ll be nothing to no one and won’t that make life easier for you? So go on and go, you coward, and don’t ever look back because there’s nothing to look back on. You were never even here far as I’m concerned.”
I turn to leave him standing there in the cold beside the words I wrote to Ryan, words that have gone unnoticed and feel like nothing in the night. I’m spun around roughly and pinned against Vin’s chest. His breath is coming even and hard, sharp inhales and exhales that burst against my face leaving my skin freezing in their absence.
“Don’t turn your back on me.” he growls.
I can see the enforcer in him now. The hard ass who lived on the outside by the skin of his teeth and grit under his knuckles. It’s something I understand, something I can respect. Something I can relate to.
I lean closer, no longer being pulled but rather pushing against him until our faces almost touch.
“No, don’t you turn your back on me. On us.” I whisper harshly, pushing at him aggressively. He lets me go and I stumble back from him.
“I’m no hero.” he repeats.
“How do you know until you’ve tried?”
* * *
“You’ll come back for us, Vin.” I whisper in his ear. “I know you will.”
I know no such thing, but I want it to be true and I can tell he does too so I tell him that it is. I lie to us both and I hope it makes it real.
Vin nods his head beside mine and buries his face in my shoulder. I do the same. We stand huddled together against the cold and the uncertainty of everything tomorrow will bring.
”
”
Tracey Ward
“
DON’T ABUSE ME, I’ve never flown one of these things before.” Richard Reiss put the tip of his tongue between his teeth and squinted at the controls. While he did this, building blocks, tree limbs, and swirling leaves scudded past the plastic windscreen. Chaison stared at the ambassador. “Richard, why are you dressed as a clown?” Ballooning pantaloons and a polka-dotted top spilled out around the edges of Reiss’s seat; he had red smudges on his cheeks that he’d obviously been trying to rub off. The ambassador turned with great dignity, fixed Chaison with a steely eye and said, “It is a very long story, and one I find I would rather not relate.
”
”
Karl Schroeder (Pirate Sun (Virga, #3))
“
But I can tell you the reason for me being so youthful-looking for a man a century and a half old. I’m not exactly what you’d call human. Hell, I’m not human at all. The closest thing you might be able to relate me to is what’s known as a ‘werewolf’, but not the kind you see in picture shows that sprout hair and teeth every time there’s a full moon. The truth of my kind is a lot more complicated—and frightening—than that.
”
”
Nancy A. Collins (Walking Wolf: A Weird Western)
“
Indeed, Aristotle makes as many mistakes as possible for a man who is founding the science of biology. He thinks, for example, that the male element in reproduction merely stimulates and quickens; it does not occur to him (what we now know from experiments in parthenogenesis) that the essential function of the sperm is not so much to fertilize the ovum as to provide the embryo with the heritable qualities of the male parent, and so permit the offspring to be a vigorous variant, a new admixture of two ancestral lines. As human dissection was not practised in his time, he is particularly fertile in physiological errors: he knows nothing of muscles, not even of their existence; he does not distinguish arteries from veins; he thinks the brain is an organ for cooling the blood; he believes, forgivably, that man has more sutures in the skull than woman; he believes, less forgivably, that man has only eight ribs on each side; he believes, incredibly, and unforgivably, that woman has fewer teeth than man.25 Apparently his relations with women were of the most amicable kind.
”
”
Will Durant (The Story of Philosophy)
“
I recently visited New Zealand and learned that it has a very diverse ecosystem. Until the arrival of humans, it was populated almost entirely by birds. They occupied every niche in the food chain, from tiny ɻightless things to predators so enormous they could snatch a hundred-pound prey for dinner. For millions of years, birds dominated their man-less, mammal-less world, a universe of feathers, beaks, and talons, knowing of no other form of higher life. The birds acquired a host of abilities and natural defenses optimal for their environment.
But then in the thirteenth century, while the Europeans were still busy with their crusades, Polynesian explorers came, and with them came rats—with fur instead of feathers, teeth instead of beaks, and tiny paws instead of fearsome talons. The defense mechanisms that worked well against other birds failed against the rats. Small ɻightless birds who, when sensing danger, would remain perfectly still to avoid being spotted by predators ɻying overhead, would do the same when encountering a rat. Fighting for its life, in its passive way, the little bird focused its every eʃort on not moving a single muscle—only to be gobbled up where it stood.
The scientific term for animals like the little bird who had not encountered rats or humans is naïve. I find this charming, as if the little bird existed in a moral universe of which his New Zealand was a kind of Eden, its inhabitants living a peaceful existence disrupted only by the victimization of a cunning intruder, preying on their relative innocence.
I often think the people I encounter are naïve, but only because they may never have encountered someone quite like me. Sociopaths see things that no one else does because they have diʃerent expectations about the world and the people in it. While you and observer from certain harsh truths, the sociopath remains undistracted. We are like rats
on an island of birds.
I have never identified with the little bird, trapped by fear and an instinct for passivity, the wide-eyed victim of circumstance. I have never pined for an Eden of peace on earth and goodwill toward men. I am the rat, and I will take every advantage I can without apology or excuse. And there are others like me.
”
”
M.E. Thomas
“
She is beautifully well-born, related to everyone, and she speaks Greek.’ He picked his teeth and I changed sides and curried my horse’s off side.
‘And she’s beautiful,’ I commented.
‘And that,’ said Nerio. ‘Intelligent too –much more so than most Italian girls. She can ride, and hawk. She’s like … a person.
”
”
Christian Cameron (The Green Count (Chivalry, #3))
“
Orpheus literally had his hands full, holding on to her while she struggled to break away from him and plunge into the water, time after time. How the other Argonauts laughed!
Jason was exasperated. He needed Orpheus to keep the rowers working together and he was short by three men since the battle. He couldn’t spare anyone else from the crew to keep the girl from killing herself. When he ordered Herakles to grab her and tie her to the mast, our “dove” showed us that she spoke our language well enough to spew blistering curses and threats.
“Listen to that!” Herakles exclaimed with an exaggerated shudder. “She’s a witch’s daughter, sure enough. She’ll put a spell on me if I offend her.”
“Stop that nonsense and control the brat,” Jason snapped.
“Alas, beloved prince, I can’t.” Herakles sighed and hung his head with such a pathetic air that Milo, Hylas, and I stuffed our knuckles into our mouths to stifle snickers. “I made a vow to Hera not to touch a woman until we come to Colchis.”
That was too much for Hylas. He burst into hoots of laughter, and Milo and I joined in, until we had to clutch one another to keep from falling over.
I was still trying to catch my breath when Jason’s foot shot out and dealt me an undeniable kick in the behind. “You think this is funny? You watch her!” he barked at me. “If anything happens to the scrawny little bitch, we’ll stick you in a dress, hand you over to her flea-bitten relatives, and be halfway to Colchis before they figure out they’ve been duped. If you’re lucky, they’ll kill you quickly. If not, they might decide to use their knives to turn you into the daughter they lost. See if you can laugh your way out of that, boy!” He showed his teeth in a satisfied smirk and didn’t understand why I kept on laughing at his threat, even while I walked off to assume my new job as the girl’s keeper.
”
”
Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Prize (Nobody's Princess, #2))
“
I doubt you cared this much about their feelings when you chose this path,” Iolaus said. He didn’t raise his voice. The truth doesn’t need to be shouted.
“Maybe not,” I answered, looking him in the eyes. “But I had to choose it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No more ridiculous than why you’re ready to sail into the unknown. The only person who needs to chase after the Golden Fleece is Prince Jason, yet you and all the others are joining him for the sake of pure adventure. You hunger for it! Why can’t I?”
“Enough.” Iolaus raised his hand. “You win, for your brothers’ sake and because I’ve got the feeling you’d find a way to sneak aboard no matter how much they or I try to stop you. I wish some of the men I know had half your boldness. It’s strange to see it in a girl. Perhaps you’re really Atalanta’s daughter.”
My smile answered his. “My nurse, Ione, said I was Zeus’s child.”
“My uncle Herakles is supposed to be Zeus’s son. You two must be related. He’s a great one for following his heart first and thinking about the consequences afterward. Or never.” His teeth flashed in the shadows of the old fishwife’s home. “I’ll keep your secret.”
“Thank you. You won’t have to do it for very long. You said I didn’t care about my brothers’ feelings when I decided to join this quest. You were right. I’ve only been thinking about what I want.” I took a deep breath. What I was about to say tore at my heart, but I couldn’t escape it. “I’ll go back to Delphi. It’s one thing to take a chance with my own life, but not with so many others.”
“Oh, I agree,” Iolaus said. “Which is why I intend to take very good care of my new weapons bearers.
”
”
Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Prize (Nobody's Princess, #2))
“
The Contract had an air of esoteric mysticism when it covered topics related to the universe’s deepest secrets, yet it was gratuitously specific regarding the wrath of Thotash and the penalty for default. Huge swaths of the unholy text were dedicated to the terrors and woes that would fall upon those who failed to meet the Terms, including pestilences of the skin, debilitating afflictions of vital organs, nameless horrors from forgotten dimensions, and the “rain of teeth,” though whose teeth was uncertain. Article VIII, section 3, subsection B was particularly unsettling, assuming one had sufficient familiarity with anatomy to grasp it fully
”
”
J. Zachary Pike (The Cabal of Thotash)
“
The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information— That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony— That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase— That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers— That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia— That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I’ve seen in my time.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Mother Night)
“
Try this on. What if I didn’t want to have babies because I loved my job too much to compromise it, or because serious travel makes me feel in relation to the world in an utterly essential way? What if I’ve always liked the looks of my own life much better than those of the ones I saw around me? What if, given the option, I would prefer to accept an assignment to go trekking for a month in the kingdom of Bhutan than spend that same month folding onesies? What if I simply like dogs a whole lot better than babies? What if I have become sure that personal freedom is the thing I hold most dear? Some of my closest friends love being mothers, live, to a certain extent, to be mothers. It has been the single most challenging and rewarding endeavor of their lives. Others of my friends don’t like it that much, thought they would like it better than they do, are counting the days till the last kid goes off to college so they can turn their attention to their own dreams. A few friends pretend to love it, but everyone within twelve square miles can hear them grinding their teeth. Still others pretend motherhood is the world’s biggest hassle and yet you can tell they love it deep down. And
”
”
Meghan Daum (Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids)
“
When, in June 2015, relatives of the murder victims in Charleston, South Carolina, came face-to-face with the killer, several of them told him at once that they forgave him. Something similar happened after the Amish school shooting in October 2006. These incidents, widely reported, strike secular journalists and their readers as strange to the point of being almost incredible. Do these people really mean it? It is clear that they do. The forgiveness was unforced. It wasn’t said through clenched teeth, in outward conformity to a moral standard, while the heart remained bitter. Forgiveness was already a way of life in these communities. They were merely exemplifying and extending, in horrific circumstances, the character they had already learned and practiced.
”
”
N.T. Wright (The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion)
“
Get Relational 15 MIN 1. While holding hands or cuddling, spend several minutes telling each other the qualities you enjoy about your partner. Be sure to look into your lover’s eyes and try to include moments you observed these qualities in action. 5 MIN EXAMPLE: I really like how generous and thoughtful you are. Just today you surprised me with my favorite bag of coffee beans that you know I love! 2. Notice how you feel when giving and receiving appreciation. Talk about what you notice as you practiced the previous step. 3 MIN 3. Take some time kissing like you did when you were first married. 2 MIN HINT: You may want to brush your teeth first if you had onions or garlic for lunch. 4. Close with several minutes of quiet cuddling and resting together. 5 MIN
”
”
Marcus Warner (The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages: How 15 Minutes a Day Will Help You Stay in Love)
“
Just like a city, parts of the Archives teemed with activity. The Scriptorium held rows of desks where scrivs toiled over translations or copied faded texts into new books with fresh, dark ink. The Sorting Hall buzzed with activity as scrivs sifted and reshelved books.
The Buggery was not at all what I expected, thank goodness. Instead, it proved to be the place where new books were decontaminated before being added to the collection. Apparently all manner of creatures love books, some devouring parchment and leather, others with a taste for paper or glue. Bookworms were the least of them, and after listening to a few of Wilem’s stories I wanted nothing more than to wash my hands.
Cataloger’s Mew, the Bindery, Bolts, Palimpsest, all of them were busy as beehives, full of quiet, industrious scrivs.
But other parts of the Archives were quite the opposite of busy. The acquisitions office, for example, was tiny and perpetually dark. Through the window I could see that one entire wall of the office was nothing but a huge map with cities and roads marked in such detail that it looked like a snarled loom. The map was covered in a layer of clear alchemical lacquer, and there were notes written at various points in red grease pencil, detailing rumors of desirable books and the last known positions of the various acquisition teams.
Tomes was like a great public garden. Any student was free to come and read the books shelved there. Or they could submit a request to the scrivs, who would grudgingly head off into the Stacks to find if not the exact book you wanted, then at least something closely related.
But the Stacks comprised the vast majority of the Archives. That was where the books actually lived. And just like in any city, there were good neighborhoods and bad.
In the good neighborhoods everything was properly organized and cataloged. In these places a ledger-entry would lead you to a book as simply as a pointing finger.
Then there were the bad neighborhoods. Sections of the Archives that were forgotten, or neglected, or simply too troublesome to deal with at the moment. These were places where books were organized under old catalogs, or under no catalog at all.
There were walls of shelves like mouths with missing teeth, where longgone scrivs had cannibalized an old catalog to bring books into whatever system was fashionable at the time. Thirty years ago two entire floors had gone from good neighborhood to bad when the Larkin ledger-books were burned by a rival faction of scrivs.
And, of course, there was the four-plate door. The secret at the heart of the city.
It was nice to go strolling in the good neighborhoods. It was pleasant to go looking for a book and find it exactly where it should be. It was easy. Comforting. Quick.
But the bad neighborhoods were fascinating. The books there were dusty and disused. When you opened one, you might read words no eyes had touched for hundreds of years. There was treasure there, among the dross.
It was in those places I searched for the Chandrian.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
“
Guh! Why did you give me this?” I fought back a laugh.
“Some people like licorice.”
“Disgusting.” His jaw worked. “It’s in my teeth! What is this zh’ūltis food?
”
”
Annette Marie (Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped (The Guild Codex: Demonized, #3))
“
Everybody knows that Billy Corgan is an asshole. Only assholes name their band something like Smashing Pumpkins. Only assholes smash pumpkins.
But when he wears silver pants and closes his eyes and yells like a madman, I like him. I like him a lot.
He has normal-person teeth. He’s bald. He gains weight and loses weight. Sometimes he sounds like a hippy and sometimes he sounds like thunder rattling windows.
He’s like a lot people we know. A relatable asshole. Like an obnoxious uncle who smokes too much.
And assholes who sing about butterflies and cherubs and melancholy are okay to hang out with every once in a while. Maybe at birthday parties. Maybe at an IHOP after working late on a Wednesday night.
”
”
S.D. Pfunder (I Believe in a God Who Roller Skates: Selected Poems)
“
The progressives pose as the champions not only of fairness and social justice but also of compassion. They are the ones who insist on our obligation to those from whom we have allegedly stolen. Let’s leave aside for the moment whether they are right about the theft. What we do know for sure is that progressives assert there has been a theft. They further acknowledge that they are among the beneficiaries of it. Based on this, they would seem to have a clear obligation to return the stolen goods that they are currently enjoying. We might expect, from this analysis, to discover that progressives are the most generous people in America. We can anticipate that they contribute the highest portion of their incomes and time to help their wronged and less fortunate fellow men and women. The truth, however, is that progressives are the least generous people in America. I saw this personally with Obama, who unceasingly declares that “we are our brother’s keeper” even as he refuses to help his own half brother, George, who lives in a hut in the Huruma slum of Nairobi. I met George in early 2012 when I interviewed him for my film 2016: Obama’s America. A few months after that, when I was back in America, George called me from Kenya to ask me to give him $1,000 because his baby son was sick. Surprised, I asked him, “Why are you calling me? Isn’t there someone else you can call?” He said, “No.” So I sent him the money. I guess on that occasion it was I, not Obama, who proved to be his brother’s keeper. And besides George, the president has other relatives in dire need—his aunt Hawa Auma, for example, sells charcoal on the roadside in rural Kenya, and desperately needs money to get her rotting teeth fixed. Although Obama is aware of their plight, he refuses to help them.
”
”
Dinesh D'Souza (Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party)
“
With these uneasy thoughts urging me onward, I hurried toward home, praying I would make it in time for dinner and thereby avoid having to answer to my mother. That was the only way my day could get worse. I was forced to adjust that conclusion, however, when I spotted Saadi loitering nearby. The moment he laid eyes on me, I knew he’d been waiting for me, and I groaned. Why couldn’t he leave me alone?
“Shaselle!” he called, coming toward me.
I gritted my teeth, knowing I could not escape. The traffic on the thoroughfare had thinned, as was generally the case at this time of day, no longer providing the cover I needed to dart past him. He came abreast of me, but I didn’t slow or acknowledge him.
“I’m glad I caught you,” he said, and in my peripheral vision, I could see him smoothing that damn bronze hair forward, an impossible task, for as always it kinked upward at the midpoint of his hairline.
“Can’t say the same.”
“I didn’t take you to my sister.” He sounded like this small mercy should be eliciting gratitude from me.
“I realize that.”
Saadi exhaled, baffled and exasperated. “How can you be angry with me?”
I halted and stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not! You’re the Cokyrian soldier who arrested me when I broke the law. Our relationship ends there. It would be a waste of my time to be angry with you.”
“That’s it?” he said, eyebrows rising, and I was sure I detected disappointment. “I thought…I don’t know. I thought you were angry with me before, for not having mentioned I’m Rava’s brother. Weren’t you?”
“No,” I lied.
I still didn’t understand why it upset me to know that this annoying tag-along was related to the woman I hated with such intensity that my insides burned. But there was no reason to complicate things by letting him know the truth.
“Well, I saved you today, didn’t I? Just like I saved you before. You walked out of the Bastion free, without a scratch, and if any Cokyrian but me had caught you with that dagger, you might be drawn and quartered by now.”
“You didn’t save me from that butcher,” I said irritably. “But you’re right. About today, I mean.” I could sense his satisfaction, which irritated me all the more. “So accept my thanks, but stay away from me. We’re not friends, you know.”
I was nearing my neighborhood and didn’t want anyone to see me with him. He stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop.
“We’re not friends yet. But you’ve thought about it. And you just thanked me.”
“Are you delusional?”
“No. You just said thank you to the faceless Cokyrian soldier who arrested you.”
“Don’t you ever stop?” I demanded, trying in vain to move around him.
“I haven’t even started.”
“What does that mean?
”
”
Cayla Kluver (Sacrifice (Legacy, #3))
“
There had to be something near racial parity in the early stages because setting up the infernal machine required at least as many Europeans as Africans.
Consequently, the original contact language had to be not too far from the language of the slave owners. Because at this stage Europeans were teaching Africans what they had to do, the contact language had to be intelligible to native speakers of the European language. Because so many interactions were between Europeans and Africans, the latter would have much better access to that European language than at any later stage in plantation history. We should remember that Africans, unlike modern Americans, do not regard monolingualism as a natural state, but expect to have to use several languages in the course of their lives. (In Ghana, our house-boy, Attinga, spoke six languages-two European, four African-and this was nothing out of the ordinary.)
But as soon as the infrastructure was in place, the slave population of sugar colonies had to be increased both massively and very rapidly. If not, the plantation owners, who had invested significant amounts of capital, would have gone bankrupt and the economies of those colonies would have collapsed.
When the slave population ballooned in this way, new hands heavily outnumbered old hands. No longer did Europeans instruct Africans; now it was the older hands among the Africans instructing the new ones, and the vast majority of interactions were no longer European to African, the were African to African. Since this was the case, there was no longer any need for the contact language to remain mutually intelligible with the European language. Africans in positions of authority could become bilingual, using one language with Europeans, another with fellow Africans. The code-switching I found in Guyana, which I had assumed was a relatively recent development, had been there, like most other things, from the very beginning.
In any case, Africans in authority could not have gone on using the original contact language even if they'd wanted to. As we saw, it would have been as opaque to the new arrivals as undiluted French or English. The old hands had to use a primitive pidgin to communicate with the new hands. And, needless to add, the new hands had to use a primitive pidgin to communicate with one another.
Since new hands now constituted a large majority of the total population, the primitive pidgin soon became the lingua franca of that population. A minority of relatively privileged slaves (house slaves and artisans) may have kept the original contact language alive among themselves, thus giving rise to the intermediate varieties in the continuum that confronted me when I first arrived in Guyana. (For reasons still unknown, this process seems to have happened more often in English than in French colonies.) But it was the primitive, unstructured pidgin that formed the input to the children of the expansion phase.
Therefore it was the children of the expansion phase-not the relatively few children of the establishment phase, the first locally born generation, as I had originally thought-who were the creators of the Creole. They were the ones who encountered the pidgin in its most basic and rudimentary form, and consequently they were the ones who had to draw most heavily on the inborn knowledge of language that formed as much a part of their biological heritage as wisdom teeth or prehensile hands.
”
”
Derek Bickerton (Bastard Tongues: A Trail-Blazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World's Lowliest Languages)
“
Walter was among the American expeditionary forces gassed with high explosive projectiles northwest of Toul, on April 3, 1918, in the course of intense shelling that lasted through the night. How much damage he sustained is hard to say. By 1918, after more than three years of chemical warfare, troops were equipped with gas masks with charcoal filters, and there were relatively few casualties. In some accounts, Walter attributed the loss of his lower front teeth to the gassing, which also altered his voice, giving it a wizened, reedy quality that he would exploit so well for comic effect and adapt when he had to play characters older than himself. On This Is Your Life, when Ralph Lindsey mentioned they took “a little shot of mustard gas,” Walter cut him off: “We’re not going to talk about that.” The two men fought together in four major campaigns in 1918: Aisne (May 27–June 16), Champagne-Marne line (July 15–18), Saint-Mihiel (September 12–15), and Meuse-Argonne (September 26–November 11). At Aisne, the Germans bombarded the Allied line with four thousand artillery pieces, and seemed to be winning until the American expeditionary forces arrived and counterattacked.
”
”
Carl Rollyson (A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan (Hollywood Legends))
“
Routine activities we normally miss Choose one of the following (or another of your own choosing), and each day for the next week, see if you can remember to pay attention while you are doing it. You do not have to slow it down, or even enjoy it. Simply do what you normally do, but see if you can be fully alive to it as you do so. Brushing your teeth Walking from one room to another at home or work Drinking tea, coffee, juice taking out the garbage Loading the washing machine or dryer Write your own choices here Try this as an experiment with the same chosen activity each day for this week. See what you notice. The idea is not to make you feel different, but simply to allow a few more moments in the day when you are “awake.” Go at your own pace when doing your chosen routine activity, for example: Brushing your teeth: where is your mind when you are brushing your teeth? Pay careful attention to all the sensations—the toothbrush in relation to the teeth, the flavor of the toothpaste, moisture building up in the mouth, all the movements required to spit, etc. Showering: pay attention to the sensations of the water on your body, the temperature and the pressure. Notice the movements of your hand as you wash and the movements of your body as you turn and bend, etc. If you decide to take some of your showering time to plan or reflect, do so intentionally, with awareness that this is where you have decided to focus your attention. Next week, feel free to continue this experiment with a different activity.
”
”
J. Mark G. Williams (Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World)
“
due to the precision of the optical electron oscillation frequency within strontium or aluminium. 30. Train of identical nearly single-cycle optical pulses. The spectrum of the pulse train looks like the teeth of a comb, hence it is called a frequency comb. ‘Optical clockwork’ of this kind allows the comparison of disparate frequencies with such remarkable precision that it provides a means to test the tenets of relativity, and thus to understand better the role of light in defining space and time. Frequency, and thus time, is the physical quantity that can be measured with the highest precision of any quantity, by far. Optical telecommunications Frequency combs are also important in telecommunications links based on light. In Chapter 3, I described how optical waves could be guided along a fibre or in a glass ‘chip’. This phenomenon underpins the long-distance telecommunications infrastructure that connects people across different continents and powers the Internet. The reason it is so effective is that light-based communications have much more capacity for carrying information than do electrical wires, or even microwave cellular networks. This makes possible massive data transmission, such as that needed to deliver video on demand over the Internet. Many telecommunications companies offer ‘fibre optic broadband’ deals. A key feature of these packages is the high speed—up to 100 megabytes per second (MBps)—at which data may be received and transmitted. A byte is a number of bits, each of which is a 1 or a 0. Information is sent over fibres as a sequence of ‘bits’, which are decoded by your computer or mobile phone into intelligible video, audio, or text messages. In optical communications, the bits are represented by the intensity of the light beam—typically low intensity is a 0 and higher intensity a 1. The more of these that arrive per second, the faster the communication rate. The MBps speed of the package specifies how rapidly we can transmit and receive information over that company’s link.
”
”
Ian A. Walmsley (Light: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
“
Gathered together in this fashion, Jerry could see that the Whitstables possessed certain common physical characteristics, including wayward teeth, large earlobes, and the sort of stress-related blotchiness usually found in cornered jellyfish.
”
”
Christopher Fowler (Seventy-Seven Clocks (Bryant & May #3))
“
Cell Salts are very important for the human body as they provide the basic nutrition to the body at the cellular level. They combine with other vital components and helps maintain the millions of cell which form the body. When there is an imbalance of these important salts at the cellular level and imbalance is created. This loss of balance gives rise to several types of diseases. These diseases can be cured by restoring the lost balance of the cell salts in the body.
There are 12 cell salts in homeopathy which are derived from human tissue. These salts are Calc Fluor, Cal Phos, Calc Sulph, FerrumPhos, Kail Mur, Kali Phos, Kali Sulph, Mag Phos, Nat Mur, Nat Phos, Nat Sulph and Silicea.
Each and every cell salt has an important impact on human body and help cure a range of diseases. In homeopathy it is believed that their impact is also dependent on the nature of the person.
Calc Fluor is helpful in maintaining health of bones, teeth, tissues and joints. Flexible and healthy tissues can be maintained with the health of this tissue salt. It is usually applied on the loose teeth,cracks on the skin, and administered in the cases wherever there is loss of energy due to poor blood circulation.
CalcPhos is extremely helpful aiding good health in malnourished children, strengthens muscles, and helps in the development of strong bones and cures rickets.
Calc Sulph is great for maintaining healthy skin. It helps eliminate impurities in the blood and cures acne, common cold and sore throat.
FerrumPhos is the iron of homeopathy. This tissue salt is administered to the patients who suffer from weakness due to lack of hemoglobin, inflammation of joints, fast pulse, congestion and fever. This salt helps maintain nerves, blood, hair, muscles in good condition.
Kali Mur can cure conditions related to blood, salaiva and muscles. It is given to patients suffering from indigeston, cough and cold, sore throat and helps purify blood.
Kali Phos gives nourishment to nerves, eases breathing, sharpens brain. It helps remedy headaches, skin ailments, bad temper, timidity and insomnia.
Kali Salph can take care of the problems related to inflammation of joints, stomach catarrh, shifting pains, skin eruptions, etc. It helps in carrying oxygen, perspiration, respiration and improves health of skin and hair.
Mag Phos helps make strong bones, nerves and muscles. It eliminates menstrual pains, stomach cramps, sciatica, neuralgia, headaches, and flatulence.
Nat Mur helps in the distribution of water which helps in the distribution of water which is the basis of glandular activity, growth of cells, nutrition and promotes digestion.
Nat Phos neutralizes acid and helps in the digestion of nutrients and fats. It is prescribed in the cases of rheumatism, swellings of joints, flatulence and lumbago.
Nat Sulph is a promoter of digestive system and strong liver. This tissue salt removes excess water from body and helps cure rheumatic ailments. Influenza, malaria, humid asthma, liver can be treated with this salt.
Silicea is capable of promoting healthy connective tissues and problem-free skin. It can treat conditions like pus formation, tonsillitis, boils, brittle nails, smelly armpits and feet and stomach pains are conditions in which Silicea is prescribed.
”
”
Cell Salts Tissue Salts World
“
Laughing and crying are closely related. Smiling and grimacing both involve a person showing their teeth as does laughing and growling. Crying and laughing always represents the expression of actual emotion.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
It is appropriate at this point to note some characteristics of a decaying tooth. The process of tooth decay never starts from within but always from without and is most likely to start at the contact points between the teeth or in the pits and grooves, especially when these are incompletely formed. Teeth never have caries while they are covered with flesh but decay most easily soon after eruption, when conditions are unfavorable. If the saliva is normal the surfaces of the teeth progressively harden during the first year after eruption. While there are many theories regarding the relative importance of different factors in the process of decay practically all provide for a local solution of the tooth substance by acids produced by bacteria. The essential difference in the various theories of tooth decay is the difference in theories relative to the control of these decalcifying organisms, and relative to their quantity and activity. The dental profession has been waiting for decades for this question to be solved before taking active steps to prevent the whole process. The primitive approach has been to provide a program that will keep the teeth well, that is, prevention of dental caries by adequate food combinations. I have just stated that teeth harden after eruption if the saliva is normal. This occurs by a process of mineralization much like the process by which petrified wood is produced. The tooth is made up of four structures. The first is the pulp within, which carries blood vessels and
”
”
Anonymous
“
Krishna’s form expanded so that it stretched from above the sky to the bottom of the sea. He was as resplendent as a thousand suns. From his breath emerged countless worlds. Between his teeth were crushed countless worlds. In him Arjuna saw all that was, is and will be—all the oceans, all the mountains, all the continents, the worlds above the sky and the worlds below the earth. Everything came from him, everything returned to him. He was the source of all Manavas, Devas, Asuras, Nagas, Rakshasas, Gandharvas, Apsaras, of all forefathers and all descendants. He was the container of all the possibilities of life. The sight made Arjuna aware of the enormity of the cosmos and his relative insignificance. He felt like a grain of sand on a vast endless beach. If Krishna was an ocean, this moment, this war, was but a wave. So many waves, so many opportunities to discover the sea. This war, this life, his rage and his frustrations, everything in this world was a pointer to the soul. ‘Remember, Arjuna,’ said Krishna, ‘he who says he kills and he who says he is killed are both wrong. I am both the killer and the killed. Yet I cannot die. I am your flesh and your soul, that which changes and that which does not change. I am the world around you, the spirit inside you and the mind in between. I am the measuring scale, the one who measures and that which is measured. I alone can bend the rules of space and time. I alone can shatter the web of karma. Realize me. Become a master of your intellect as a charioteer masters his horses and you will realize it is not about the war, it is not about fighting or not fighting, it is not about winning or losing, but it is about taking decisions and discovering the truth about yourself. When you do this, there will be no fear, there will be no ego; you will be at peace, even in the midst of what the deluded call war.
”
”
Devdutt Pattanaik (Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata)
“
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today. will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.
”
”
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
“
larynx (pp. 352–354), and (2) smaller intrinsic muscles that control tension in the glottal vocal folds or that open and close the glottis. These smaller muscles insert on the thyroid, arytenoid, and corniculate cartilages. The opening or closing of the glottis involves rotational movements of the arytenoid cartilages. When you swallow, both sets of muscles work together to prevent food or drink from entering the glottis. Food is crushed and chewed into a pasty mass, known as a bolus, before being swallowed. Muscles of the neck and pharynx then elevate the larynx, bending the epiglottis over the glottis, so that the bolus can glide across the epiglottis rather than falling into the larynx. While this movement is under way, the glottis is closed. Foods or liquids that touch the vestibular folds or glottis trigger the coughing reflex. In a cough, the glottis is kept closed while the chest and abdominal muscles contract, compressing the lungs. When the glottis is opened suddenly, a blast of air from the trachea ejects material that blocks the entrance to the glottis. Sound Production How do you produce sounds? Air passing through your open glottis vibrates its vocal folds and produces sound waves. The pitch of the sound depends on the diameter, length, and tension in your vocal folds. The diameter and length are directly related to the size of your larynx. You control the tension by contracting voluntary muscles that reposition the arytenoid cartilages relative to the thyroid cartilage. When the distance increases, your vocal folds tense and the pitch rises. When the distance decreases, your vocal folds relax and the pitch falls. Children have slender, short vocal folds, so their voices tend to be high pitched. At puberty, the larynx of males enlarges much more than that of females. The vocal cords of an adult male are thicker and longer, so they produce lower tones than those of an adult female. Sound production at the larynx is called phonation (fo.-NA .-shun; phone, voice). Phonation is one part of speech production. Clear speech also requires articulation, the modification of those sounds by voluntary movements of other structures, such as the tongue, teeth, and lips to form words. In a stringed instrument, such as a guitar, the quality of the sound produced does not depend solely on the nature of the vibrating string. Rather, the entire instrument becomes involved as the walls vibrate and the composite sound echoes within the hollow body. Similar amplification and resonance take place within your pharynx, oral cavity, nasal cavity, and paranasal sinuses. The combination gives you the particular and distinctive sound of your voice. That sound changes when you have a sinus infection and your nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses are filled with mucus rather than air.
”
”
Frederic H. Martini (Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology)
“
British philosopher Alain de Botton relishes this perspective and argues that it explains a great deal. For one thing, de Botton suggests, it clarifies why some cultures are drawn to lavish, opulent decors (he cites the Russians and Saudis as examples) while others prefer clean, simple design (such as those popular in Scandinavian countries). Both are a reaction to historical conditions. The Russians and Saudis endured decades of economic deprivation, and since extravagant interiors represent the opposite of poverty, they favor ostentatious decor. (A similar case has been made for the enthusiastic display of gold chains, rings, and teeth that are fashionable among newly successful rappers.) Scandinavians, on the other hand, were raised in relative financial security and do not share a desire for visual reminders of wealth. Instead, they favor calm, peaceful interiors as an antidote to the overstimulation of everyday life.
”
”
Ron Friedman (Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success)
“
Ten minutes later, Cabrillo was sprawled across his bed, sleeping so soundly that, for the first time in a long time, he didn't need the mouth guard to keep him from grinding his teeth.
”
”
Clive Cussler (Plague Ship (Oregon Files, #5))
“
Results of a recent survey of 74 chief executive officers indicate that there may be a link between childhood pet ownership and future career success. Fully 94% of the CEOs, all of them employed within Fortune 500 companies, had possessed a dog, a cat, or both, as youngsters.
The respondents asserted that pet ownership had helped them to develop many of the positive character traits that make them good managers today, including responsibility, empathy, respect for other living beings, generosity, and good communication skills. For all we know, more than 94% of children raised in the backgrounds from which chief executives come had pets, in which case the direction of dependency would be negative. Maybe executive success is really related to tooth brushing during childhood. Probably all chief executives brushed their teeth, at least occasionally, and we might imagine the self-discipline thus acquired led to their business success. That seems more reasonable than the speculation that “communication skills” gained through interacting with a childhood pet promote better relationships with other executives and employees.
”
”
Reid Hastie (Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making)
“
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: These are unnatural.
”
”
Matthew Van Natta (The Beginner's Guide to Stoicism: Tools for Emotional Resilience and Positivity)
“
Obviously, under primitive planetary conditions — finite space and finite resources — the illth was perceived as necessary to protect the wealth. Territorial politics are much the same among domesticated primates as among other mammals; the primates are just smarter at building more omni-lethal weapons faster. This was originally a survival trait, an Evolutionary Relative Success, because primates are born without the physiological, inbuilt weaponry (lethal teeth, claws, horns etc.) of other mammals.
”
”
Robert Anton Wilson (Prometheus Rising)
“
So that eight-pointed star,” Nesta said into the quiet as they began walking again, shoes squishing, “it’s a symbol of the Starborn people in your world. It means nothing else?”
“Why all these questions about it?” Bryce asked through chattering teeth. Azriel walked a few steps behind, silent as death, but she knew he was listening to every word.
Nesta went silent, and Bryce thought she might not answer, but then she said, “I had a tattoo on my back—recently. A magical one, now gone. But it was of an eight-pointed star.”
“And?”
“And the magic, the power of the bargain that caused the tattoo to appear…it chose the design. The star meant nothing to me. I thought maybe it was related to my training, but its shape was identical to the scar on your chest.”
“So we’re obviously destined to be best friends,” Bryce teased. Nesta didn’t smile or laugh.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
“
When it stops working or operates suboptimally, our capacity to perform even the most ordinary daily activities (like bugging your kids to brush their teeth while making them pack lunches and also thinking about what meetings you have later that day) fails. And connected to working memory is the inner voice. A critical component of working memory is a neural system that specializes in managing verbal information. It’s called the phonological loop, but it’s easiest to understand it as the brain’s clearinghouse for everything related to words that occurs around us in the present. It has two parts: an “inner ear,” which allows us to retain words we’ve just heard for a few seconds; and an “inner voice,” which allows us to repeat words in our head as we do when we’re practicing a speech or memorizing a phone number or repeating a mantra.
”
”
Ethan Kross (Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It)
“
And here we encounter perhaps the coolest thing about being human: we never outgrow our neoteny. However long we live, our true nature retains the features that wilder apes have only as babies: relatively flat faces, small nose, small teeth. The anthropologist Lee Berger, who discovered the richest deposit of “missing link” hominid bones in scientific history, told me that the egalitarianism of a human-like species can be judged by fang size. Baboons, who are brutally hierarchical, have huge canine teeth, while our canines aren’t any bigger than our molars. Like humans and unlike any other apes, small-toothed, peace-loving bonobos bare their teeth in friendship rather than aggression, peeling back their lips in a bright smile that says, “Look! I still have baby teeth! I couldn’t rip out your throat with my jaws even if I wanted to! But I don’t even want to! Hah-hah!
”
”
Martha N. Beck (Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want (Powerful and Inspirational Self-Help))
“
They used my name and permit to grow the weed and earn money to repay their debts and compensate their investors. To keep my girlfriend. To take her.
I am uncertain if any of them have ever spent a minute in jail for any of these activities.
Adam proudly showcases his new motorcycles on Instagram, posing on a hill above Barcelona. He also displays his brand new electric camper van, which they use to travel and transport drugs across Europe and Iberia, as well as his gigantic marijuana cultivation located in Portugal. People like Ruan and Martina admire his public images.
I came across a picture of Ruan and Martina together in Berlin, where their mother Fernanda visited them.
Martina became member of the Evil Eye Cult, and the custom made mafia group in Spain, which used her as a pawn in their porn and drug-related activities. She now operates as their representative in Berlin.
Martina and I have lost the ability to genuinely smile. Her social media posts only show disinterest or a malicious demeanor. ‘A boot stomping on a human face.’
In a picture with her brother and mother, she puts on a forced fake “good vibe” and “happy” smile, revealing her flawless teeth and the subtle lines of aging. With each passing day, she bears a greater resemblance to her rich and so happy mother, the bad person.
As far as I know, none of these individuals have faced consequences for their actions, such as having their teeth broken. As I had. Innocently. Taking care of business and their lives. With love.
I find this to be incredibly unjust. In the 21st century. In Europe. On planet Earth.
By non-EU criminals. “Matando – ganando” – “killing and gaining” like there were no Laws at all.
Nowadays, you can observe Sabrina flaunting her fake lips and altered face, just like Martina her enhanced breasts.
Guess who was paying for it?
It seems that both girls now sustain themselves through their bodies and drug involvement, to this day, influencing criminals to gain friends in harming Tomas and having a lavish lifestyle filled with fun and mischief. Making a living. Enjoying Spain. Enjoying Life. My money. My tears.
This is the situation as it stands.
I was wondering what Salvador Dali was trying to tell me. I stood in front of the Lincoln portrait for a long time, but I couldn't grasp the point or the moral behind it.
I can listen to Abraham Lincoln and ‘trust people. To see. If I can trust them.’
But he ultimately suffered a tragic fate, with his life being taken. (Got his head popped.)
I believe there may have also been a female or two involved in that situation, too, possibly leading to his guards being let down.
While he was watching: Acting performances, he was facing a: Stage.
Theater.
It is disheartening, considering he was a good person. Like Jesus, John Lennon and so on.
Shows a pattern Machiavelli was talking about.
Some individuals are too bright for those in darkness; they feel compelled to suppress those brighter minds simply because they think and act differently. Popping their heads.
Reptilian lower brain-based culture, the concept of the Evil Eye, Homo erectus. He couldn't even stand up properly when I was shouting at him, urging him to stand up from the stairs. ‘Homo seditus reptilis.’
But what else was there in the Lincoln image that I didn't see? What was Dali trying to convey or express or tell me?
Besides the fact that the woman is in his mind, on his mind, in the image, exactly, his head got popped open. Perhaps because he was focusing on a woman, trusting her for a split second, or turning his head away for a moment.
”
”
Tomas Adam Nyapi (BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA)
“
The markings on your surface
Your speckled face
Flawed crystals hang from your ears
I couldn't gauge your fears
I can't relate to my peers
I'd rather live outside
I'd rather chip my pride than lose my mind out here
Maybe I'm a fool
Maybe I should move and settle
Two kids and a swimming pool
I'm not brave
(Brave)
I'm not brave
I'm living over city
And taking in the homeless sometimes, I've
Been living in an idea
An idea from another man's mind
Maybe I'm a fool
To settle for a place with some nice views (nice views)
Maybe I should move, settle down
Two kids and a swimming pool
I'm not brave
I'd rather live outside
I'd rather live outside
I'd rather go to jail
I've tried hell (it's a loop)
What would you recommend I do?
(The other side of the loop is a loop)
This, this fe-, this feel, this feel, this feels
This feels how molly must feel
This feels how molly must feel
How molly must feel
This feels how molly must feel
How molly must feel
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell (brave)
Speaking of nirvana, it was there
Rare as the feathers on my dash from a phoenix
There with my crooked teeth and companion sleeping, yeah
Dreaming a thought that could dream about a thought
That could think of the dreamer that thought
That could think of dreaming and getting a glimmer of God
I be dreaming a dream in a thought
That could dream about a thought
That could think of dreaming a dream
Where I cannot, where I cannot
Less morose and more present
Dwell on my gifts for a second
A moment one solar flare would consume, so why not
Spin this flammable paper on the film that's my life
High flights, inhale the vapor, exhale once and think twice
Eat some shrooms, maybe have a good cry, about you
See some colors, light hang glide off the moon
I'd do anything for you
(In the dark)
I'd do anything for you
(In the dark)
I'd do anything for you
(In the dark)
I'd do anything for you
(In the dark)
I'd do anything for you, anything for you
(In the dark)
I'd do anything for you, anything for you
”
”
Frank Ocean
“
The final visitor is my friend Jason from York, Pennsylvania, who's my brother in the way that half the people I call my aunts and uncles and my cousins are family with out actually being related to me legally or biologically. They're people you would brush your teeth in front of. In your underwear.
”
”
Leslie Gray Streeter (Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like "Journey" in the Title)
“
For the first time in a while, I felt secure. There I was, twenty-five, having lost a lot in my life; my front teeth on the seesaw, my first spelling bee, my dad, 135 pounds, multiple pairs of sunglasses, and, most often, my way.
”
”
Andie Mitchell (It Was Me All Along)
“
But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. . . . You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.
”
”
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
“
Prologue
“Pain!. Oh, Father of the Dark, how it hurts! My muscles, my bones – every millimeter of my body.
Damn locusts! They’re skinning me alive. Do I have any skin left? It seems like it will never end.
How many years have passed since I’ve been buried here? One, two, ten? Or maybe, a hundred?
Time itself has melded into total dusky looming. A bloody and merciless one.
All my thoughts have been mixed up since I’ve been immured in this stone coffin. Without any possibility of escape. Without any chance for freedom.
I feel endless agony under the teeny weeny teeth of ghostly beasts. And their small daggers shred my immortal flesh. Time after time, they’re driving me to madness.
But I’ll find a way out, or my name is not Rave Eridanus Castro-Firel. And then, I swear, I’ll kill everyone who has taken part in torturing me. Ulfricus, you traitor ass. I hope your soul has never found sanctuary and is being tormented somewhere in the abyss of the Twilight, while I’m decaying here, in immortality. I hope you’re answering for every minute I’ve spent here, in this tomb. Even for every second. And if not, I promise I’ll kill all your relatives. Every person you love. Your wife, your children, your parents, your grandchildren. And your dam cat,...”
The man’s interior monologue was interrupted by a restrained growl.
“Oh, demons, how it hurts!.. But wait. Someone will surely wander across this damn field again. Someone whom I’ll kill without coming out of the ground. I’ll exhaust the last drop of magic. And, one day, I’ll be able to get out of this trap.
Oh, no, who am I kidding? Nobody has appeared here so far. Even animals avoid coming to my field. I don’t sense any living being whose energy I could suck dry and use to appease the burning, even a little... They all sense me. They don’t understand, but they sense that death is there under their feet.
Oh, Father of the Dark, I’ll be decomposing here forever! Damn Ulfricus, Banshee take your soul into the Twilight and love it to death.”
The internal voice stopped again, and the man stopped short, listening attentively to the sounds of the outer world.
“Oh, that just can’t be... Now for the first time since so long ago! A woman. A girl. A very young one. I can almost hear her heart beating... I feel the energy concealed in her blood.
Come closer, dear. I don’t have to get out of here to play with you.
So sweet... I can practically feel your odor. A strange, unusual smell of blood. What’s wrong with you? You’re a necromancer, for sure. Almost my soulmate. Well, even this won’t save you.
Come closer, dear... Yes, this way.
Oh Dark! what magic you eradiate! But not black, certainly not.
I couldn’t care less. Any energy will suit me...”
At this point, somewhere on the surface, somewhere nearby, a woman began singing. The accursed man, chained in the living grave, lay down, having suddenly forgotten the respiratory reflex, which still had not been exterminated through hundreds of years spent under the ground. Without air, without life.
“What a pretty voice. A very, very pretty voice. I haven’t heard human voices for so long...”
The man’s broad chest rose again. Then, a sequence of dark thoughts continued:
“A girl with a ringing voice and strange magic... You’ve come here to the Ash Field in vain. You’re so enigmatic and courageous.
You’re alive.
But not for long.
”
”
Silvia Liam (Do Not Awaken The Undead King)
“
But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. . . . You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body. —Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
”
”
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)