Witches Movie Quotes

Sir Beldevere: What makes you think she's a witch? Peasant 3: Well, she turned me into a newt! Sir Beldevere: A newt? Peasant 3: [meekly after a long pause] ... I got better. Crowd: [shouts] Burn her anyway!

In every big-budget science fiction movie there's the moment when a spaceship as large as New York suddenly goes to light speed. A twanging noise like a wooden ruler being plucked over the edge of a desk, a dazzling refraction of light, and suddenly the stars have all been stretched out thin and it's gone. This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve-mile-long spaceship, it was an off-white twenty-year-old motor scooter. And you didn't have the special rainbow effects. And it probably wasn't going at more than two hundred miles an hour. And instead of a pulsing whine sliding up the octaves, it just went putputputputput ... VROOOOSH. But it was exactly like that anyway.

We watched Vamps hunting Vamps, Vamp hunters and Witches torching Vamps, teenage girls kissing Vamps. And we giggled and swooned through it all.

We were just a hair's breadth from electing America's first female president to succeed America's first black president. We weren't done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form-like the Balrog's whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, 'If I can't have you, no one can'-white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House.

Pizza and a movie (Escape to Witch Mountain, my all-time Disney favorite)

What I've done means no witch can ever control you like that. It's my mark, see. My brand. It warns them off. Apart from that, it don't mean much, though. Not if you don't want it to. Don't have to sit next to me. Movie if you want. Do you want to go?" I shook my head. "I'm happy sitting here next to you." "And I'm happy here sitting next to you. So we're both happy. What can be wrong with that?

I don't think he can hurt. Wizards and witches go hand in hand, after all. Didn't you read Harry Potter?" Eden stared at him. "Well, yeah." "I didn't read the books," he continued. "But I did get to see the movies. A previous host was a fan. He even wore dress robes and pretended he'd been sorted into a house. Hufflepuff, if you can believe it. Who liked Hufflepuff best? I mean, seriously.

There's a class of things to be afraid of: it's "those things that you should be afraid of". Those are the things that go bump in the night, right? You're always exposed to them when you go to horror movies, especially if they're not the gore type of horror movie. They're always hinting at something that's going on outside of your perceptual sphere, and they frighten you because you don't know what's out there. For that the Blair Witch Project was a really good example, because nothing ever happens in that movie but it's frightenting and not gory. It plays on the fact tht you do have a category of Those Things Of Which You Should Be Afraid. So it's a category, frightening things. And only things capable of abstraction can come up with something like the caregory of frightenting things. And so Kali is like an embodied representation of the category of frightening things. And then you might ask yourself, well once you come up with the concept of the category of frightening things, maybe you can come up with the concept of what to do in the face of frightening things. Which is not the same as "what do you do when you encounter a lion", or "what do you do when you encounter someone angry". It's a meta question, right? But then you could say, at a philosophical level: "You will encounter elements of the category of all those things which can frighten and undermine you during your life. Is there something that you can do *as a category* that would help you deal with that." And the answer is yeah, there is in fact. And that's what a lot of religious stories and symbolic stories are trying to propose to you, is the solution to that. One is, approach it voluntarily. Carefully, but voluntarily. Don't freeze and run away. Explore, instead. You expose yourself to risk but you gain knowledge. And you wouldn't have a cortex which, you know, is ridiculously disproportionate, if as a species we hadn't decided that exploration trumps escape or freezing. We explore. That can make you the master of a situation, so you can be the master of something like fire without being terrified of it. One of the things that the Hindus do in relationship to Kali, is offer sacrifices. So you can say, well why would you offer sacrifices to something you're afraid of. And it's because that is what you do, that's always what you do. You offer up sacrifices to the unknown in the hope that good things will happen to you. One example is that you're worried about your future. Maybe you're worried about your job, or who you're going to marry, or your family, there's a whole category of things to be worried about, so you're worried about your future. SO what're you doing in university? And the answer is you're sacrificing your free time in the present, to the cosmos so to speak, in the hope that if you offer up that sacrifice properly, the future will smile upon you. And that's one of the fundamental discoveries of the human race. And it's a big deal, that discovery: by changing what you cling to in the present, you can alter the future.

WILL THERE BE A MOVIE, THEN? Neil likes to think that one day maybe there will, and Terry is certain that it will never happen. In either case, neither of them will believe it until they’re actually eating popcorn at the premiere. And even then, probably not.

The term 'flying monkey' is called 'abuse by proxy.' The flying monkeys do the bidding for a narcissist. The term flying monkey was coined in the movie The Wizard of Oz. The flying monkeys were under the wicked witches spell to gang up on poor Dorothy and her friends.

Wait a minute. You watched it once? So you’ve seen one Star Wars movie? And that’s it?

Grief is not something you know if you grow up wearing feathers with a Charlie Chaplin boyfriend, a love-child papoose, a witch baby, a Dirk and a Duck, a Slinkster Dog, and a movie to dance in. You can feel sad and worse when your dad moves to another city, when an old lady dies, or when your boyfriend goes away. But grief is different. Weetzie’s heart cringed in her like a dying animal. It was as if someone had stuck a needle full of poison into her heart. She moved like a sleepwalker. She was the girl in the fairy tale sleeping in a prison of thorns and roses.

Still, you can’t deny that, like goldfish and gummies, The Little Mermaid is fucking magical. I still feel sparkles in my stomach when I watch it. Despite Ariel wearing an ocean bra for most of that movie, and despite the fact that a man ultimately saves her from an evil plus-sized sea witch, and despite Ariel ditching her entire family for this man just because he’s a handsome prince, I gave in and showed The Little Mermaid to Mari on repeat. Those songs are also the shit. I’m a sucker for a drunk seagull best friend and since this is a safe space free of judgment: Ariel’s dad is kinda hot? I still find my feelings about King Triton confusing. He looks like Santa with abs and a tail.

Out in the stone-pile the toad squatted with its glowing jewel-eyes and, maybe, its memories. I don't know if you'll admit a toad could have memories. But I don't know, either, if you'll admit there was once witchcraft in America. Witchcraft doesn't sound sensible when you think of Pittsburgh and subways and movie houses, but the dark lore didn't start in Pittsburgh or Salem either; it goes away back to dark olive groves in Greece and dim, ancient forests in Brittany and the stone dolmens of Wales. All I'm saying, you understand, is that the toad was there, under its rocks, and inside the shack Pete was stretching on his hard bed like a cat and composing himself to sleep. ("Before I Wake...")

I work with funny and cute gossipy filmmakers, that are smart and nice like little garden gnomes (tho not Jena, she's tall, lean and more like Glenda the Good Witch, tho in a more judgey way), and who NOTICE THINGS LIKE LOVE! So they can gossip about it when not working on their movie!

Usually when I have a bad day like this, I put on my jams, get in bed with some mint chocolate chip ice cream, and watch funny movies until I feel better.

My Beloved. It made her think of beautiful music, of elegant gentleman in old movies she saw on late night television. Of voices from another time, soft and distinct, the very words like kisses.

[about movie Little Nicky] In hell, to pay for his penis crime, Satan sentences Lovitz to be raped eternally by a giant bird. Ever notice how men's idea of hell is always rape? Man, wait til they hear about Earth.

You can’t have a conversation about The Blair Witch Project’s influence without talking about the film’s innovative guerrilla marketing—it was, in a sense, the first movie to achieve what we now think of as virality.

What if it turns out there really are witches and vampires and werewolves living right here alongside us? After all, what better disguise could there be than to get your image enshrined in the culture of the mass media? Anything that's described in artistic terms and shown in the movies stops being frightening and mysterious. For real horror you need the spoken word, you need an old grandpa sitting on a bench, scaring the grandkids in the evening: 'And then the Master of the house came to him and said: "I won't let you go, I'll tie you up and bind you tight and you'll rot under the fallen branches!"' That's the way to make people wary of anomalous phenomena! Kids sense that, you know–it's no wonder they love telling stories about the Black Han and the Coffin on Wheels. But modern literature, and especially the movies, it all just dilutes that instinctive horror. How can you feel afraid of Dracula, if he's been killed a hundred times? How can you be afraid of aliens, if our guys always squelch them? Yes, Hollywood is the great luller of human vigilance. A toast–to the death of Hollywood, for depriving us of a healthy fear of the unknown!

Well, alright. Let’s see... Long ago, in the castle town of a kingdom far, far away, there lived a girl named Cinderella...” I never thought I’d be telling stories featuring witches or wizards in a world where magic really existed... Still, Sue seemed happy enough, so I didn’t really mind. After that, I exhausted myself by reciting every fairy tale imaginable, and before I knew it, I found myself telling the stories of famous manga and popular anime movies. I almost leapt out of my boots when Sue yelled about wanting to embark on a hunt for the Castle in the Sky, but Leim managed to calm her down.

Are these black cats like the hare?" "No. They're smaller; they only want me to play with them. Fly away with them to a place on the other side of the moon. There's a garden there, all silvery-gold, and the cats and hares dance and jump round and round. They can jump so much farther than they can on earth; it's like flying, and they love it so. Sometimes I've felt as if I'd like to dance and jump through the air too, they looked so happy, and I've thought maybe if I did I wouldn't be afraid any more, but when I look they're all dancing round a Figure that sits still in the middle of the garden. A big black Figure with a hood on. And It hasn't got any face. Its face is so awful that It keeps it covered. And then I get so terribly afraid. And everything stops." "And you see all that in the picture?" "I don't know." She hesitated again. "I think it's partly dreams. After I've thought they were at the windows - the cats and the big hare. They sit there and watch, you see, after I've gone to sleep. But they don't come often. I don't usually know what's there." She came closer and whispered, her blue eyes earnest and weird, "I don't think it's an animal hare. I think it's Aunt Sarai's hare, that maybe it came from hell. It isn't swearing to say that word just as the name of a place, is it? That's why people used to be so scared of witches' black cats, isn't it, because they thought they weren't earth-cats, they were from the devil? Mother says there isn't any hell or any witches. But Aunt Sarai was a witch; that's why she can come back. I think they've all been witches here; the house is mad because mother wouldn't be; that's why it wants me now." Carew said, "It was all dreams, Betty. There is no hell. There is no garden on the other side of the moon. It's a dead world, full of volcanic craters, with no air for anything to grow in or breathe. A hare frightened you and, being nervous, you've had nightmares about it - pictures that fear paints on your mind just as an artist would on canvas, with paints and brushes. "Every dream is now a movie we make for ourselves in our sleep...

Although I like a good scary movie, I’ve never actually believed anything paranormal or supernatural could be real...until today. Magic genies, witch spells, and magic troll dolls with funky bright hair are other ideas that have crossed my mind. It also occurs to me that I may be going crazy, and will have to be committed before I finish high school.

No one has to tell her that her body makes her irrelevant to that entire conversation. Grace has never questioned her body's place in the world. She's always believed the laws of movies and TV shows: Chubby girls are sidekicks, not romantic leads; sometimes they get to be funny, but more often they're the butt of jokes; if they're powerful, they'e evil- they're Ursula the sea witch from The Little Mermaid: they are not heroines and they are certainly not sexy. These are the rules. This is the script.

Every artist who moves us, from a movie maker to Beethoven or Shakespeare, is a bit of a hypnotist. In this sense that seemingly stupid and mechanical contraption we call "society" must rank as the greatest artist on the planet. For instance, when I was seven or eight, and feeling superior to the kids who closed their eyes "during the scary parts," I was entering a deep hypnosis created by another Virtual Reality called language. This hypnosis was a worse nightmare than the Wicked Witch of the West or King Kong or the Wolf-Man or any of their kith and kin, but it made me a "member of society".

Oh, what a world, what a world", Abby said. "How's that, honey?" "That's what the wicked witch says in The Wizard of Oz. Did you know that? They're showing a revival downtown and I went to see it last night with Dane. The witch says 'I'm melting! Melting! Oh, what a world. what a world', she says." "I remember the part about 'I'm melting'," Mrs. Whitshank said. "I took Red and Merrick to see that movie when they were little bitty things." "Yes, well, and then she talks about 'what a world'. I told Dane afterward, I said, 'I never heard that before! I had no idea she said that!'" "Me neither," Mrs. Whitshank said. "In a way, it sounds kind of pitiful." "Exactly," Abby said. "All at once I started feeling sorry for her, you know? I really believe that most people who seem scary are just sad.

Brave (2012) C-94m. 1⁄2 D: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman. Voices of Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd, Julie Walters, Craig Ferguson, John Ratzenberger. In ancient times, a Scottish princess named Merida resists her mother’s constant training to become a future queen, preferring a boisterous existence roaming the forest with her trusty bow and arrow. When it comes time for her to choose a suitor, she runs away and stumbles onto a witch who agrees to change her fate through a magical dark spell. Typically handsome Pixar animated feature has robust characters but a formulaic feel—until the story takes a very strange turn. A final burst of emotion almost redeems it. Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature. 3-D Digital Widescreen. [PG] Braveheart (1995) C-177m. 1⁄2 D: Mel Gibson. Mel

The above is stereotypical FMS rhetoric. It employs a formulaic medley of factual distortions, exaggerations, emotionally charged language and ideological codewords, pseudo-scientific assertions, indignant protestations of bigotry and persecution, mockering of religious belief, and the usual tiresome “witch hunt” metaphors to convince the reader that there can be no debating the merits of the case. No matter what the circumstances of the case, the syntax is always the same, and the plot line as predictable as a 1920's silent movie. Everyone accused of abuse is somehow the victim of overzealous religious fanatics, who make unwarranted, irrational, and self-serving charges, which are incredibly accepted uncritically by virtually all social service and criminal justice professionals assign to the case, who are responsible for "brainwashing" the alleged perpetrator or witnesses to the crime. This mysterious process of "mass hysteria" is then amplified in the media, which feeds back upon itself, which finally causes a total travesty of justice which the FMS people in the white hats are duty-bound to redress. By reading FMS literature one could easily draw the conclusion that the entire American justice system is no better than that of the rural south in the days of lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan. The Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century are always the touchstone for comparison.

What's that thing?” The young man looked horrified. “That’s Winky.” How dare he call my darling cat a thing? Sure, Winky had only one eye, and looked as though he’d just walked off the set of a slasher movie, but deep down, underneath all that fur and latent aggression, he was sweet and adorable. At least, that’s what the woman at the cat re-homing centre had told me. Gullible? Who? Me? Winky jumped onto my desk, and immediately the young man pushed his chair back. He probably thought he’d be safe at that distance, but he hadn’t seen how far Winky could jump.

Two figures joined the witch, a skull head and a pumpkin head.

you don’t just get over the sudden loss of a parent like you sometimes see in books or movies. In real life you can’t gloss over those emotions, and they stick with you forever. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, you only get used to dealing with them.

Because of monster movies and stereotypical witch stories, many people who do not condemn witchcraft to the realm of nonsense think that there is a monster or demon hiding behind every corner waiting to get them. Magick tends to amplify the intentions given to it. If you learn centeredness, confidence, and compassion, magick will amplify those qualities, rather than your fears. Protection magick and psychic self-defense skills alleviate your fears and bring balance.

But our great-aunt Tillie was forcing us to watch a string of very bad horror movies, so I had a feeling I wouldn’t get a say in the matter.

Lake Mungo, Savageland, The Taking of Deborah Logan, Trollhunter, REC, The Blair Witch Project, the Hell House LLC movies, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, Cloverfield, Creep I and II, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Afflicted… Okay, I’ll stop now.

It was only when the witch movie ended and the Christmas one began that I realized I’d watched a rom-com without writing a review for the first time in five years.

In the prestreaming, presmartphone era, movie theaters were destinations, not diversions. People remember where they first saw The Phantom Menace, The Blair Witch Project, or American Pie—and who they were with—because they were major social or cultural moments. The movies of 1999 aren’t mere nostalgia trips; they’re a part of people’s lives.

A few days after screening Blair Witch, journalists would come into work and find an unmarked, unofficial-looking envelope waiting on their desks; inside would be one of the film’s creepy stick man figures. Some writers, who’d been spooked by the movie, weren’t amused. “One of them said, ‘I walked right down to the corner and put that motherfucker in the trash can,’ ” remembers Blair Witch publicist Jeremy Walker.

Her long beautiful red hair wasn’t what got me to stare. It was her beautiful heart that I heard beating when I thought no one was there. Her hugs wasn’t what got me to stay, it was the thought of me being alone again and I was afraid. She completes me more than she knows. I admire her more than I show, they say true love is hard to find but, I don’t believe that because once I saw her in my dreams, I knew she was mines. I’ve waited for this day for so long and she never knew it, I plan to give her the world. Lord please don’t let me blow it.

I’m a rare fox-human, with the souls of witches inside me. Can you imagine what a certain mindset would like to do with me? I’ll give you a clue; it’s not to re-create a cherished Roald Dahl novel.” I could imagine. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. “And to make matters worse, there was a movie with a talking fucking raccoon in it. Did you know that Camelot has a cinema? That they import movies from Earth? Well, they fucking well do. For months all I heard was how maybe for the sequel they could have me be his stunt double, or that they should paint me brown and make me a star. I began to get angry with the rabid little fucker. And he’s not even real! I was angry at a fucking comic book character.” I didn’t really know what else to say. “Good film though.” Remy stared at me. “You’re sort of missing the point of my anger, here.” “No, I get it. You know, even for my life it’s a little weird that I’m talking to a fox about how unhappy he is that people compared him to a raccoon in a science fiction film about a bunch of comic book characters saving the galaxy.” “When you put it like that, I sound downright silly.” “Yeah, wording, that’s the issue here.” Remy chuckled for a moment,

Some lines you just don't cross. Not in my business." "Your business?" Georgia rolled her eyes. "You mean the private detective business? I wasn't aware you guys had such ironclad rules about making out with clients." She ignored the choking sound he made. "Seriously, have you even seen The Maltese Falcon?" Darius' face heated. "This isn't some movie, Ms. Clare. You're not Mary Astor, and I'm sure as hell no Humphrey Bogart. Here in the real world, there are rules.

Was I altering the 'space-time continuum' or whatever they called it in time travel movies, just by existing right now? Perhaps I'd accidentally kill a mosquito that might have given some famous person a disease that killed them?

Finally, out of breath, they tried to slip behind some trash cans at the end of a narrow alley. But Floyd ducked a moment too late, and Alice’s rabbit ears gave them away. Leona squealed with delight. Yo Ho Ho! I see something funny. It’s Pirate Floyd And his baby bunny! The witches roared with laughter and slapped each other on the back. Floyd winced, but as he drew his saber, his face lit up with a pirate’s grin. First, he kept the witches at bay so his friends could carry little Alice to safety. Then, growling like a movie pirate, he swung out of reach on an overhanging tree limb, turned a quick flip, and somersaulted backward over the fence. “I didn’t know you could do that,” Mona said. Floyd looked surprised. “Neither did I.” “Come on,” shouted Wendell. “They’re right behind us!” They ran until they found themselves in an even stranger part of town. “It’s pretty creepy around here,” muttered Floyd. Wendell suggested they hide in the graveyard, but Mona scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding.” “No, it’s perfect. They’ll never follow us into a place like this.” Actually, the witches didn’t mind the graveyard at all. “We see you, Wendell!” Leona crowed. What’s wrong with Wendell? Let me think. He must be MAD ‘Cause he’s dressed in pink! The witches shrieked and hooted, laughing so hard they nearly cried. For a moment Wendell’s face turned as pink as his smock. But then an idea began to brew. He reached into his mad scientist’s kit and started mixing potions. “Drink this!” he told his friends. “It will make us invisible.” At the word “invisible” the witches roared even louder. But their laughter turned to puzzled yelps when Wendell, Floyd, Mona, and Alice suddenly disappeared!

Nefarious was a recent vocab word. They had a witch as the visual prompt from some lame old movie that had everyone singing in it. It meant wicked intent or something.

Our first idea is a grand opening, a big launch, a press release, or major media coverage. We default to thinking we need an advertising budget. We want red carpet and celebrities. Most dangerously we assume we need to get as many customers as possible in a very short window of time—and if it doesn’t work right away, we consider the whole thing a failure (which, of course, we cannot afford). Our delusion is that we should be Transformers and not The Blair Witch Project. Needless to say, this is preposterous. Yet you and I have been taught, unquestionably, to follow it for years. What’s wrong with it? Well, for starters: most movies fail. Despite the glamour and the history of movie marketing, even after investing

Feinstein’s fact-finding missions often verged on the ludicrous. An ardent opponent of the city’s growing porn industry, Feinstein decided she should go to an adult movie to see for herself what she was up against, dragging along another nice Jewish girl, Chronicle society columnist Merla Zellerbach, to a seedy theater. Predictably, Feinstein and her friend were horrified. On another occasion, Feinstein—determined to clean up the Tenderloin, the city’s drugged-out red-light district—put on a blond wig and stood on a street corner for three hours to learn more about the raunchy neighborhood.

I was seven," she answered. "In my room, under the bed, I heard something like fingernails dragging across the floor. I got up the courage, hung my head over the side, and looked under." "You're never supposed to do that," Mila gasped. "Seriously, don't you pay attention to the horror movies?

It was almost a shame, I thought, walking back to my post at the register, how you never got to appreciate the moments when your life was action-movie thrilling. Because you were too busy being terrified.

The Moon is also the author, the narrator, and the musical score in the ongoing movie in your mind that summarizes and mythologizes your story.

Winky had only one eye, and looked as though he’d just walked off the set of a slasher movie,

007 came to mind. The only things I was missing was a gun and an evening dress, oh and the stilettos, because all good movie heroines have to save the world in ridiculously inappropriate footwear.

Eighth grade is a bubbling cauldron of rumors that spread fast in the dark. That’s why I’ve started avoiding any activities that take place during the nocturnal hours. School dances, movie nights, and sleepovers aren’t hard to avoid when you don’t have any friends. Not that it’s stopped the rumors.

I’d always hoped my sixteenth birthday would be the moment I came into my witch powers. That was the way it worked in books and movies,

I'd already banned horror movies and romcoms. I had thought the latter were safe, and then I came home to find a message spelled out on my bed. In rose petals. The word BACON.

Things I Miss About Philadelphia That Are Long Gone: Woodside Amusement Park. The Mastbaum movie theater. The Chinese Wall. Schuylkill Punch (no soup in the country is as chunky, as stick-to-your-ribs as the witches’ brew we called water). The raspy spiel of a huckster named Jesus.

If you consider almost every evil character in Disney movies, you can’t help but see the narcissistic tendencies. I love Disney, but suddenly I feel groomed to believe evil would be some green-faced witch, rather than my own mother.

Seriously, that thing looks like it could be an extra in a monster movie,” Clove said disgustedly.

movie, but deep down, underneath all that fur and latent aggression, he was sweet and adorable. At least, that’s what the woman at the cat re-homing centre had told me. Gullible? Who? Me? Winky jumped onto my desk, and immediately the young man pushed his chair back. He probably thought he’d be safe at that distance, but he hadn’t seen how far Winky could jump. “Get down!” I tried to push Winky off the desk, but he managed to avoid my arm. His meowing grew louder as he walked around in circles, directing his attention first at me and then at the young man. “Sorry about this.” I forced a smile, and pressed the intercom. “Mrs V?” “Hello.” Mrs V’s voice crackled

My husband and son are at the movies, and the hellhounds, appropriately named Duvel (Duch/Belgian dialect for ''devil'') and Hexe (German for ''witch''), are in the backyard for the evening. Only the cat, Vegas (I know, right? Totally doesn't fit the theme, but she came with the name) is running around the house, She gives the newcomers a bored look before heading to the bedroom to get white fur all over my pillow. What grows on Vegas does not stay on Vegas.

like a movie about witches sets up a ‘witchy-pedia’ website that tried to look

[about a character in movie Little Nicky] A hilarious, hilarious sex criminal.

He shrugged a shoulder. “Not really into science fiction movies. Or movies in general, for that matter.

Every artist who moves us, from a movie maker to Beethoven or Shakespeare, is a bit of a hypnotist. In this sense that seemingly stupid and mechanical contraption we call "society" must rank as the greatest artist on the planet. For instance, when I was seven or eight, and feeling superior to the kids who closed their eyes "during the scary parts," I was entering a deep hypnosis created by another Virtual Reality called language. This hypnosis was a worse nightmare than the Wicked Witch of the West or King Kong or the Wolf-Man or any of their kith and kin, but it made me a "member of society

Every artist who moves us, from a movie maker to Beethoven or Shakespeare, is a bit of a hypnotist. In this sense that seemingly stupid and mechanical contraption we call "society" must rank as the greatest artist on the planet. For instance, when I was seven or eight, and feeling superior to the kids who closed their eyes "during the scary parts," I was entering a deep hypnosis created by another Virtual Reality called language. This hypnosis was a worse nightmare than the Wicked Witch of the West or King Kong or the Wolf-Man or any of their kith and kin, but it made me a "member of society”. By Robert AntonWilson in the introduction of the book.

Naturally, we even made snow angels in the backyard as we stumbled around, and passed out. No one cared what we did really, thus far that was the fun of it all. Oh, and Kenneth was just the boy that only wanted one thing from Jenny. He had no personality to speak of… he would hit on me all the time, and sometimes he would get it from me too, or I would be out of the group by her if he said I was the one that wanted it from him. We could break widows out of old buildings and homes, and who would stop us. Sure, we got chased by the cops, yet that was the fun of it too. There is nothing else for us to do. I remember Maddie leaving her handprints in the wet mud, Jenny her butt, and some of her lady-ness, when the town thought it was time for new sidewalks. Yet we all did, something that would last forever, we thought. Maddie drew a few other things too. You can get the picture! All inappropriate… all there for life. She was just crazy like that, like squatting down pissing, and doing number two in the old man Jackups yard. She has more balls than most guys… I knew. Old man Jackups called us, ‘Mindless slutty hooligans’ So that was payback. At the time- I thought like what is wrong with that, we're just having some fun here… your old windbag, like go and sit on your cane! You know what I mean… I think? I remember being so smashed at my sweet sixteen too, that I don’t even remember it. Yet that is what having a good time was all about, so they say. Bumping and grinding on all the boys with loud music. And as the twinkling lights shine on your skin, that lights the way up to your bedroom. You know that your puffy dress is going to be pushed up a couple of times on that night. I just don’t remember how many times it was, and I didn’t remember who it was with, I am not even sure if I know them at all… all of them or not. All I know is I did it all and was happy to do whatever they asked me to do. But- but I thought I was having the time of my life. I was the birthday girl that had the rosiest pink lipstick on most boys at the party. I thought it was such a horror. In my mind at the time, I thought that I high-jacked the rainbow, and crashed into a pot of gold! All the girls my age did it, yet I was the best at it! I recall the time Liv and I went trick or treating. I was dressed as Hermione from the Harry Potter movies. Liv was a sexy witch! With the pointed hat. So, original…! That is what I told her. That was the night we scared the pants off of Ray in the not-so-scary haunted house. And before you ask, he was dressed as Harry. So, I wanted to play with his wand, that's why I dressed the way I did at the time. Liv was one of those good friends… I thought, which would tell everyone what you all did the day after, to all the girls at the lunch table. She can text faster than anyone I know. Anyways… we jumped out at him, and he nearly craps his nicely pressed pants. I am sure there was a skid mark on his tighty- whities or something. Yet he did yack on Liv’s chest, and that was hilarious to me. She was dancing around, and flapping her hands doing the funky chicken while yelling, ‘Ou- ou- ou- wah!’ As I dibble over in lather, I guess it was funnier when it doesn’t happen to you too many times.

I first met Tracey Gold when we played brother and sister in a McDonald’s commercial. We met again in the made-for-television movie Beyond Witch Mountain. Later she played a cheerleader while I played a football star in the Robin Williams/Kurt Russell film The Best of Times. She was cute, she was good and she was always working on something. I had a bit of a crush on her at the time—which probably sounds a bit creepy to the rest of the world who think of us as siblings.

Prison is not a good idea because it puts two people in prison: the prisoner and the guard. And the rest of us become inheritors of The Fugitive Slave Law, requiring us to turn in people who seek their freedom through the Underground Railroad or the overland express, or face the consequences of the full force of the law for not doing so. Newspapers, radio, television, and movies have made us afraid of our fellow citizens who are accused of being heretics, witches, christians, Jews, Muslims, drug lords, drug users, prostitutes, sodomites, anything somehow different from what we think we are or should be but not afraid of slum lords, union busters, corrupt and graft-taking politicians, insider traders, employers paying less than minimum wage, college presidents shutting down debate.

Silence replaces conversation. Turning away replaces turning towards. Dismissiveness replaces receptivity. And contempt replaces respect. Emotional withholding is, I believe, the toughest tactic to deal with when trying to create and maintain a healthy relationship, because it plays on our deepest fears—rejection, unworthiness, shame and guilt, the worry that we’ve done something wrong or failed or worse, that there’s something wrong with us. ♦◊♦ But Sara’s description is more accurate and compelling than mine. Her line, “quietly sucks out your integrity and self-respect” is still stuck in my head three days later. It makes me think of those films where an alien creature hooks up a human to some ghastly, contorted machine and drains him of his life force drop by drop, or those horrible “can’t watch” scenes where witches swoop down and inhale the breath of children to activate their evil spells of world domination. In the movies, the person in peril always gets saved. The thieves are vanquished. The deadly transfusion halted. And the heroic victim recovers. But in real life, in real dysfunctional relationships, there’s often no savior and definitely no guarantee of a happy ending. Your integrity and self-respect can indeed be hoovered out, turning you into an emotional zombie, leaving you like one of the husks in the video game Mass Effect, unable to feel pain or joy, a mindless, quivering animal, a soulless puppet readily bent to the Reapers’ will. Emotional withholding is so painful because it is the absence of love, the absence of caring, compassion, communication, and connection. You’re locked in the meat freezer with the upside-down carcasses of cows and pigs, shivering, as your partner casually walks away from the giant steel door. You’re desperately lonely, even though the person who could comfort you by sharing even one kind word is right there, across from you at the dinner table, seated next to you at the movie, or in the same bed with you, back turned, deaf to your words, blind to your agony, and if you dare to reach out, scornful of your touch. When you speak, you might as well be talking to the wall, because you’re not going to get an answer, except maybe, if you’re lucky, a dismissive shrug.

So I spilled my guts already. Your turn. If you won’t tell me what happened just now, at least tell me what happened at the tattoo place.” I did. I was tempted to joke that his dad was right--apparently I was evil--but he wouldn’t appreciate that. When I was done, he stood there, his broad face screwed up in disbelief. “So this old lady, who’s never met you before, sees your birthmark and says you’re a witch?” “Sounds like something from a TV movie, doesn’t it?” I hummed a few bars of suitably sinister music. “Should have been a fortune-teller, though. The teenage girl goes to the fortune-teller, whose gypsy grandmother says she’s cursed.” “Maybe that was it. Like one of those reality TV shows. You got pranked.” “In Nanaimo? Must be a low-budget Canadian production.” “Is there any other kind?

Although the longest book was the Order of Phoenix it was the shortest film. Even though the Chamber of Secrets was the longest book it was the shortest movie.

Yes! I meowed excitedly, brushing back and forth against her legs, nuzzling my head against her skin.  “Damien. I like it, too.” She scooped me up into her arms, cradling me like a baby. “What do you say we go sit on the couch and watch a movie, huh, beastie? There’s so many good ones for the Halloween season.”  Meow. Yes.