Violent Delights Quotes

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

The stars incline us, they do not bind us.

These violent delights have violent ends, you have always known this.

To have and to hold, where even death cannot part us,’ Juliette whispered. ‘In this life and the next,’ Roma returned, ‘for however long our souls remain, mine will always find yours.

Do you not listen to me when I speak?” he answered shakily, his lip quirking up. “I love you. I have always loved you.

You know me. Running around. Living life. Committing arson.

Memories were beastly little creatures, after all—they rose with the faintest whiff of nourishment.

I was raised in hatred, Roma. I could never be your lover, only your killer.

I will fight this war to love you, Juliette Cai. I will fight this feud to have you, because it was this feud that gave you to me, twisted as it is, and now I will take you away from it.

You destroy me and then you kiss me. You give me a reason to hat you and then you give me a reason to love you. Is this a lie or the truth? Is the a ploy or your heart reaching for me?

He couldn’t stand to look at the truth, even now. All they were—all they had ever been—was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.

Don’t you dare,” Roma said. “Don’t you dare fall apart now, dorogaya.

They speak of Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai as the ones who dared to dream. And for that, in a city consumed by nightmares, they were cut down without mercy.

Together or not at all, doragaya

It was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly

Even the land of dreams needs to wake up sometimes.

Because even if you hate me, Roma Montagov, I still love you.

In this life and the next, for however long our souls remain, mine will always find yours.

These days Juliette,” he said, low and warily, “the most dangerous people are the powerful white men who feel as if they have been slighted.

She…hoped. And hope was dangerous. Hope was the most vicious evil of them all, the thing that had managed to thrive in Pandora’s box among misery, and disease, and sadness—and what could endure alongside others with such teeth if it didn’t have ghastly claws of its own?

Astra inclinant,” he would whisper into the wind, so heartachingly sincere even when quoting in Latin, “sed non obligant.

This is why my betrayal was so terrible. Because you believed me incapable of hurting you, and yet I did.

I said I wanted you dead," Roma confirmed. "I never said I didn't love you

I hate you, what he really meant was I love you. I l still love you so much that I hate you for it

Your life," he seethed. "Is not a game of luck". "Since when," Juliette spat, "did you care about my life?' "I don't." He was trembling with fury. "I hate you". And when Juliette didn't recoil, Roma kissed her.

Don't miss," Roma said. "I never do," Juliette replied

Wasn't playing with her heart once enough? Hadn't he already torn her into two and left her to the wolves once before?

moya doragaya, I love you, I love you

You destroy me and then you kiss me. You give me a reason to hate you and then you give me a reason to love you. Is this a lie or the truth? Is the a ploy or your heart reaching for me?

If the human soul has an afterlife, has a will, then his would be here for rest, and Alisa has no doubt that Juliette's would follow.

I made a vow to you, Roma.’ She took a step forward. No one stopped her. ‘Where you go, I go. I will not bear a day parted. I will take a dagger to my own heart if I must.

That is what this city is. The party at the end of the world.

Too many kind hearts turn cold every day.

And he mourned for her. He didn’t wish to, but he did—he ached with the knowledge that the softness of their youth was gone forever, that the Juliette he remembered was long dead. He ached even more to think that though he was the one who had dealt the killing blow,

I'll say it however many times you want. I'll romance you until you get sick of me. I am horrendously in love with your dreadful face, and we need to go now

I hope you looked west while I was looking east, and that for a moment you met my eyes without knowing it. I know you never look away, ever when your eyes are closed, but I'm never certain you can see what's really there. I miss you to pieces. Yours Always - J

It always makes me a little sad when you laugh," Julian went on. "The way it sort of takes you by surprise. I love it, it has that sweet sincerity that's the best part of you, but it still kills me how you never seem to expect it. All I want to do is make you happy, and you're the unhappiest person I've ever met.

he would have burned the damn city to the ground just to keep her unharmed

You’re fluent in Russian and that’s the best you could come up with?” Roma asked, flabbergasted. “What is a Montague? It sounds Italian.” “There are Italian Communists!” “Not in Shanghai!

All that is good is gone, or perhaps it never existed. The blood feud kept us apart, forced us onto different sides. I will not allow death to do the same.

All they were—all they had ever been—was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.

My darling, darling Juliette

He remembered the way love had burned through him like a flame under glass, grasping outward, devouring what air it had left before it choked.

If Roma were ever again to run a tender finger down her spine, it would be to count her vertebrae and gauge where he could stab his knife in.

they were once as familiar as halves of the same soul

Sometimes it was hard for Kathleen to remember that she was still her own person, not just shards of a mirror, reflecting back a thousand different personalities most fitting for the situation.

This place hums to the tune of debauchery. This city is filthy and deep in the thrall of unending sin, so saturated with the kiss of decadence that the sky threatens to buckle and crush all those living vivaciously beneath it in punishment.

Nothing in this world is complicated, only misunderstood.

Those who do not care, those who are violent, those who delight in that which is terrible”—Marshall shrugged, waving his hands about as he chose the right words—“they thrive. They come outside.

because I cannot bear to see you hurt, even when I am the one hurting you most.

I kill them because they're beautiful, and it's the only way I can keep them.

He wanted to forget he'd ever yielded to the weakness of wanting anything. He wanted to scrub away any evidence that he existed outside his own head at all—that he was a visible object that anyone else could see and mock and judge.

Of course it was hard for him to hurt her now. It went against every fiber of his being. Every cell, every nerve—they had grown into place with one mantra: protect her, protect her.

You are a liar, Juliette Cai," he said. "You lied to me until I wanted you dead

Side by side they are twin angels on a headstone, cold and terrible and immutable. They were boys once, he remembers, but they aren't anymore.

So don’t start believing that skill is all it takes to stay at the top. Loyalty plays its dirty hand too, and it is a fickle, ever-changing thing.

The land of dreams. Where men and women in white hoods roam the streets to murder Black folks. Where written laws prohibit the Chinese from stepping upon its shores. Where immigrant children are separated from immigrant mothers on Ellis Island, never to be seen again.

I will fight this war to love you, Juliette Cai.

And silence. She liked the silence most of all. The silence in which the body, senses, the instincts, are more alert, more powerful, more sensitized, live a more richly perfumed and intoxication life, instead of transmuting into thoughts, words, into exquisite abstractions, mathematics of emotion in place of violent impact, the volcanic eruptions of fever, lust and delight.

The opening move was circled in red.

They had always been two mirrored souls, the only ones who understood the other in a city that wanted to consume them whole, and now they were joined, mightier when together.

Roma wasn’t sure if Benedikt and Marshall were fated to eventually kill each other or kiss each other.

Believe in the things I try to tell you instead of the things you think you deserve to be told. Keep writing. It doesn't matter what about. Please keep writing.

Entitlement that encouraged their wives to place a delicate handkerchief to their nose and sniff, wholeheartedly believing the tirade was deserved. They believed themselves the rulers of the world—on stolen land in America, on stolen land in Shanghai. Everywhere they went—entitlement. And Juliette was so tired.

what was love if all it did was kill?

How mighty you are', he whispered quietly. 'I am grateful that our roles are not switched, for I would have dove headfirst into the Huangpu should I be left in this world without you.

If you paint a masterpiece and then set it on fire, it still would have mattered. If you know you’ve made something beautiful, who cares how long it lasts.

There was so much luck to be had in the genetic lottery; one different code and it was a whole lifetime of forced adaptation.

I love you so much it feels like it could consume me.

Of course they would promise each other everything. Of course eternity would yield to them once they'd earned it.

that when you assume someone cannot speak English right off the bat, they tend to make fun of you.

The problem with hatred was that when the initial emotion weakened, the responses still remained. The clenched fist and hot veins, the blurred vision and quickened pulse. And in such remains, Juliette was not in control of what they might develop into.

There’s this idea in psychoanalysis that I’ve always liked.” Julian pulled himself closer and rested his head in the crook of Paul’s arm. “It’s that what we call ‘love’ is actually letting your identity fill in around the shape of the other person—you love someone by defining yourself against them. It says loss hurts because there’s nothing holding that part of you in place anymore. But your outline still holds, and it keeps holding. The thing you shaped yourself into by loving them, you never stop being that. The marks are permanent, so the idea of the person you loved is permanent, too.

No, he is mine to deal with. He is mine to destroy.

You chose me four years ago. Would you choose me still? Would you choose this version of me—these sharp edges and hands far bloodier than yours?

Juliette breathed in and found her lungs to be horribly tight. Could she never be both? Was she doomed to choose one country or the other? Be an American or nothing?

I always think of a passage from the Symposium, this allegory about people who started off as two halves of a whole, but then something cut them apart, and they spend their whole lives looking for their other half so they can fit themselves back together. And that's how it feels, it hurts, it's like I lost you before I was born.

How are you this bad?" Juliette asked in disbelief. "I thought you were Russian." "I am Russian, not an alcoholic," Roma muttered.

Keep fighting for love.

Civilized? You have me at knifepoint." "You had me at gunpoint" "I'm on your territory — I had no choice

Do I? she wanted to say. Would I be less if I sounded like my mother, my father, and all those in this city who were forced to learn more than one language, unlike you?

Was the line between enemy and friend horizontal or vertical? Was it a great plain to lumber across or was it a high, high wall—either to be scaled or kicked down in one big blow?

This is why we shall not love more than we need to. Death will come for everyone in the end—

Roma was not afraid. He only feared the power of others. Monsters and things that walked the night were strong, but they were not powerful. There was a difference.

Juliette embraced danger with open arms. It seemed that Roma couldn’t do so even when his whole world was at risk, even while Alisa was strapped down by her arms and legs.

There will be hatred. There will be war. The country will fight itself to pieces. It will starve its people, ravage its land, poison its breath. Shanghai will fall and break and cry. But alongside everything, there has to be love - eternal, undying, enduring. Burn through vengeance and terror and warfare. Burn through everything that fuels the human heart and Sears it red, burn through everything that covers the outside with hard muscle and tough sinew. Cut down deep and grab what beats beneath, and it is love that will survive after everything else has perished.

It is love that will survive after everything else has perished.

Why do you pause?” Juliette mimicked bitterly. Softly, she set him down, brushing his mussed hair out of his face. “Because even if you hate me, Roma Montagov, I still love you.

They could only stitch themselves back together if they did something irreversible.

What are you afraid of?' Roma Montagov asked. Juliette's lips parted. She exhaled a short, abrupt breath. 'The consequences,' she whispered, "of love in a city ruled by hate.

Her feminine beauty was a concept as fleeting as power. If she acquired a tan, put on some weight, and let a few decades pass, the street artists would not be rendering her face to sell their creams anymore. Chinese and Western standards alike were arbitrary, pitiful things. But Juliette still needed to keep herself in line, force herself to follow them if people were to look up to her.

If I have to deal with one more person today, I'll fucking kill myself." Paul almost snapped at him, but he didn't want to explain why the threat made him feel sick. Instead he said, very quietly, "I can leave." "Don't be dumb," said Julian, "you don't count.

I take you, Juliette Cai, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, until...No, scratch that. To have and to hold, where even death cannot part us. In this life and the next, for however long our souls remain, mine will always find yours. Those are my vows to you.

Fight dirty but fight bravely. Do not fight those who cannot understand what it means to fight. Nurse had known exactly what working for the Scarlet Gang entailed. This man had pulled at a hint of glitter in the ground expecting a Nugget of gold and disturbed a hornet's nest instead.

Was it loyalty that created power? Or was loyalty only a symptom, offered when the circumstances were favorable and taken away when the tides turned? It helped that Lord Cai and Lord Montagov were men. Juliette wasn’t naive. Their every messenger, every errand runner, every lower-tiered but fiercely loyal gangster was male. Most of the Scarlet Gang feared and revered Juliette now,

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

A long time ago, Roma had told Juliette that her anger was like a cold diamond. It was something she could swallow smoothly, something to be placed upon other people, gliding along their skin in glitter and glamour before they realized far too late that the diamond had sliced them into pieces. He had admired her for it. Mostly because his own anger was the precise opposite—an uncontrollable wave of fire that knew no subtlety.

How are you coming with your home library? Do you need some good ammunition on why it's so important to read? The last time I checked the statistics...I think they indicated that only four percent of the adults in this country have bought a book within the past year. That's dangerous. It's extremely important that we keep ourselves in the top five or six percent. In one of the Monthly Letters from the Royal Bank of Canada it was pointed out that reading good books is not something to be indulged in as a luxury. It is a necessity for anyone who intends to give his life and work a touch of quality. The most real wealth is not what we put into our piggy banks but what we develop in our heads. Books instruct us without anger, threats and harsh discipline. They do not sneer at our ignorance or grumble at our mistakes. They ask only that we spend some time in the company of greatness so that we may absorb some of its attributes. You do not read a book for the book's sake, but for your own. You may read because in your high-pressure life, studded with problems and emergencies, you need periods of relief and yet recognize that peace of mind does not mean numbness of mind. You may read because you never had an opportunity to go to college, and books give you a chance to get something you missed. You may read because your job is routine, and books give you a feeling of depth in life. You may read because you did go to college. You may read because you see social, economic and philosophical problems which need solution, and you believe that the best thinking of all past ages may be useful in your age, too. You may read because you are tired of the shallowness of contemporary life, bored by the current conversational commonplaces, and wearied of shop talk and gossip about people. Whatever your dominant personal reason, you will find that reading gives knowledge, creative power, satisfaction and relaxation. It cultivates your mind by calling its faculties into exercise. Books are a source of pleasure - the purest and the most lasting. They enhance your sensation of the interestingness of life. Reading them is not a violent pleasure like the gross enjoyment of an uncultivated mind, but a subtle delight. Reading dispels prejudices which hem our minds within narrow spaces. One of the things that will surprise you as you read good books from all over the world and from all times of man is that human nature is much the same today as it has been ever since writing began to tell us about it. Some people act as if it were demeaning to their manhood to wish to be well-read but you can no more be a healthy person mentally without reading substantial books than you can be a vigorous person physically without eating solid food. Books should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. Dr. Johnson said: "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son shall read first, another boy has read both.

My belief is that, morally, God and Satan are vaguely on the same page. According to the common understanding of Satan's origins, 'holiness' is, metaphorically, frozen stiff in his veins: and at that a corrupted formula - i.e. legalism. The vital difference is that God is willing to offer grace for our sins; he delights in grace. God is the one and only holy and just punisher of sin, yes, but that is partly so because punishment for the sake of punishment is not something he loves. Whereas Satan, as the accuser, and as it is written, actually seeks God's permission to punish; he, being a seasoned legalist, delights in finding wrongs and will defy his own morality just to expose immorality. This is why both the anti-religious soul and the violently religious soul are, whether consciously or unconsciously, and sadly enough, glorifying their biggest hater: Satan is not only a lawless lover of punishing lawlessness, but also the sharpest theologian of us all. He loves wickedness, but only because he loves punishing wickedness.

I mourned,” Roma said just as softly. “I mourned for months, years outside the gates of the cemetery. Yet I don’t regret choosing you. No matter how cruel you think yourself, your heart beats for your people. That’s why you shot him. That’s why you took the chance. Not because you are merciless. Because you have hope.” Juliette looked up. If Roma turned, even the slightest, they would be nose to nose. “I regret that I was ever put in the position to choose,” Roma continued. His words were faint, whispered into the world while the streets roared with sirens, the building beside them teemed with chaos, and policemen along every street corner screamed for order. But Juliette heard him perfectly. “I hate that the blood feud forced my hand, but I can’t—I did what I had to do and you may think me monstrous for it. The feud keeps taking and hurting and killing and still I couldn’t stop loving you even when I thought I hated you.