Worthy Opponent Quotes

Consider and then act, don't react. A worthy opponent will calculate his move to entice a response from you. Make your own play.

Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.

Warriors want a worthy opponent. There is no redress in fighting the pathetic.

The Captain of the Guard would be an interesting opponent. Maybe even worthy of some effort on her part.

Lissa knelt down, compassion on her face. I wasn't surprised, since she'd always had a thing for animals. She'd lectured me for days after I'd instigated the infamous hamster-and-hermit-crab fight. I'd viewed the fight as a testing of worthy opponents. She'd seen it as animal cruelty.

Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find. If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whos hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes. The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them.

You needed worthy opponents.

Without a worthy opponent a man or group cannot grow stronger.

The most beautiful women in the world are the ones that can stand as rivals on the battlefield of love, yet they can still see each other’s pain. They can set down their swords for only just a moment to acknowledge the beauty of the warrior that stands before them—the passion, the fearlessness and the relentless fire that never gives up. It is in this moment that we learn that it is not the man that sees the worth of the hearts torn by battle in his honor; it is the women who have suffered for so long. Two women that can “see” clearly the worth of the other, even while they grow weary from their wounds is the only kind of beauty that matters. For if there wasn’t two worthy opponents there would be no war in love.

There is no shame in meeting a worthy opponent. It means there is more to learn, a welcome reminder to pursue humility.

It was okay to win as long as I acted surprised when I did and attributed it to luck. I should never let on how much I wanted to win or, worse, that I believed I deserved to win. And I should never, under any circumstances, admit that I did not believe all of my opponents were just as worthy as I was. The bulk of the commentators... they wanted a woman whose eyes would tear up with gratitude, as if she owed them her victory, as if she owed them everything she had.

Years later, a Japanese visitor tried to apologize to Mao for his country’s invasion of China. Mao interrupted, “Should I not thank you instead?” Without a worthy opponent, he explained, a man or group cannot grow stronger. Mao’s

The Great Bitch is the deadly female, a worthy opponent for the omnipotent hero to exercise his powers upon and through. She is desirous, greedy, clever, dishonest, and two jumps ahead all the time. The hero may either have her on his side and like a lion-tamer sool her on to his enemies, or he may have to battle for his life at her hands.

Winning is nothing unless the opponent is worthy

Come, captain, we had no leadership worthy of the name then, and we faced the cleverest opponent, the heaviest armor, the strongest force of all. Yet we won by the inevitability of history.

I have to bite down the impulse to tell Hook to put me down, that I’m too heavy. He’s obviously got things well in hand, and it’s just my fool brain being an asshole.

A great blow it was,' he said in expensive tones, 'worthy of the mightiest warrior and truly struck upon the nose of the foe. The bright blood flew, and the enemy was dismayed and overcame. Like a hero, Garion stood over the vanquished, and, like a true hero, did not boast nor taunt his fallen opponent, but offered instead advice for quelling that crimson blood. with simple dignity then, he quit the field, but the bright-eyed maid would not let him depart unrewarded for his valor. hastily, she pursued him and fondly clasped her snowy arms about his neck. And there she lovingly bestowed that single kiss that is the true hero's greatest reward. Her eyes flamed with admiration, and her chaste bosom heaved with newly wakened passion. But modest Garion innocently departed and tarried not to claim those other sweet rewards the gentle maid's fond demeanor so clearly offered. And thus the adventure ended with our hero tasting victory but tenderly declining victory's true compensation.

Between Holberger and Veres there exists a kind of technical understanding that outruns the powers of speech. Most Hardy Boys share this specialist’s ESP to some degree. It’s a feeling that some good chess players say they share with worthy opponents, a kind of mind reading—what Holberger calls being “in sync.

You are a worthy competitor, the best rival I ever encountered, it is an honour to be your opponent, you are better than me at many things, but you cannot beat me at politeness.

I fit. It’s annoying that I fit.

there's no worthy opponent in the world than love!

AT LAST, A WORTHY OPPONENT!” he’d roared, shaking the stalactites hanging from the cave. “I AM OFFICIALLY INTRIGUED!

It was somewhat flattering, Winnie realised, to be considered as a worthy opponent, instead of as a woman.

Oh, yeah,’ I said. ‘The bear thing.’ Zoë looked offended. ‘Show some respect. It was a fine bear. A worthy opponent.’ ‘You act like it was real.

I don't believe in knights on white horses. Maybe I did once, but the only people out there searching for damsels in distress are more dangerous than anything said damsel leaves behind.

He enjoyed it. Pallas was a worthy opponent, and it was a pleasure to feel the strain and heave of a highly trained body against his own. The bout lasted almost two minutes, before Damen locked his arm around Pallas’s neck and held him down, absorbing every surge, every struggle, until Pallas was stiff with strain, then shaking with it, then spent, and the match was won. Gratified,

He [Wallace] sent a quick note to his friend [Franzen] explaining his behavior. "the bold fact is that I'm a little afraid of you right now,"[...] "all I can tell you is that I may have been that [a worthy opponent] for you a couple/ three years ago, and maybe 16 months or tow or 5 or 10 years hence, but right now I am a pathetic and very confused man, a failed writer at 28, who is so jealous, so sickly searing envious of you and Vollmann and Mark Leyner and even David Fuckward Leavitt and any young man who is right now producing pages with which he can live and even approving them off some base-clause of conviction about the entrprise's meaning and end that I consider suicide a reasonable- if not at this point a desirable- option with respect to the whole wretched problem.

She averted her eyes from his naked chest and reached up to close her window. He lifted his arms, curling his hands around the sash of his own window. Between his upraised arms, he stared at her, and his smile widened. "What's wrong, Lily? Are you shutting your window because you're afraid I'll breathe the same air you do?" She met his gaze across the short distance that separated them. "I didn't know leeches could breathe." He didn't get angry at the insult. Instead, he laughed. "You're a worthy opponent. I don't think I've ever met a woman with a quicker wit than you. If you'd been a man, there's no telling what you might have accomplished." "If I'd been a man, I'd have called you out in the fine old Southern tradition five years ago and shot you. That would have been a fine accomplishment." She slammed the window shut and closed the curtains. Daniel was right, of course. Within minutes, the room became suffocatingly hot. She desperately wanted to open the window again, but she didn't want to give him any victory, no matter how small. So, she waited in the dark as her bedroom became an oven, listening to the clock on her dressing table tick away the minutes. When the clock chimed the quarter hour twice, she got out of bed and walked to the window. He was sure to be asleep by now. She slipped the curtains open, and as quietly as possible, she raised the sash. "Told you so," a sleepy male voice murmured. Lord, she hated him.

if someone merely wishes to provoke you, shake the dust from your feet and carry on. Fight only with a worthy opponent, and not with someone who uses trickery to prolong a war that is already over, as does sometimes happen.

Years later, a Japanese visitor tried to apologize to Mao for his country’s invasion of China. Mao interrupted, “Should I not thank you instead?” Without a worthy opponent, he explained, a man or group cannot grow stronger.

All the stories end with the villain vanquished and the happy couple riding off into the sunset. That’s what happily ever after is. They never have to work on their relationship, never have to get their hands dirty when facing the challenges living a full life creates. They’re caught in stasis, without conflict, without problems, without life. That’s no way to live.

Truly, the better a person you are, or become, the harder life becomes. No longer are you omnipotent, but are made flaccid. You are exposed to the horrors of the world. I decree that it is harder to live than to die, but sacred are the few whom have chosen to live. The uneducated man possesses the aptitude to destroy his surroundings. It isn’t until you are educated in both realms that you stop living for yourself. We must wear the hearts of our opponents on our sleeves in order to be worthy of the pride we wear on our shoulders. Victories against other flesh are only victories when not worn as trophies. Always remember—the futility of man is only surpassed by its greatness.

And not only our own particular past. For if we go on forgetting half of Europe’s history, some of what we know about mankind itself will be distorted. Every one of the twentieth-century’s mass tragedies was unique: the Gulag, the Holocaust, the Armenian massacre, the Nanking massacre, the Cultural Revolution, the Cambodian revolution, the Bosnian wars, among many others. Every one of these events had different historical, philosophical, and cultural origins, every one arose in particular local circumstances which will never be repeated. Only our ability to debase and destroy and dehumanize our fellow men has been—and will be—repeated again and again: our transformation of our neighbors into “enemies,” our reduction of our opponents to lice or vermin or poisonous weeds, our re-invention of our victims as lower, lesser, or evil beings, worthy only of incarceration or explusion or death. The more we are able to understand how different societies have transformed their neighbors and fellow citizens from people into objects, the more we know of the specific circumstances which led to each episode of mass torture and mass murder, the better we will understand the darker side of our own human nature. This book was not written “so that it will not happen again,” as the cliché would have it. This book was written because it almost certainly will happen again. Totalitarian philosophies have had, and will continue to have, a profound appeal to many millions of people. Destruction of the “objective enemy,” as Hannah Arendt once put it, remains a fundamental object of many dictatorships. We need to know why—and each story, each memoir, each document in the history of the Gulag is a piece of the puzzle, a part of the explanation. Without them, we will wake up one day and realize that we do not know who we are.

The Prince of the Pit wants a worthy opponent this time. One who will not break so easily, as Prince Pelias did so long ago. He insists on facing you, Starborn, at your full power.” Bryce barked out a laugh. “Tell him I was literally on my way to training before you half-lives interrupted me.” But her bones quaked to say it, to think about who they represented. “Tell him you just knocked out my tutor.” “Train harder. Train better. He is waiting.” “Thanks for the pep talk.” “Your disrespect is not appreciated.” “Yeah, well, your kidnapping my brother is definitely not appreciated.

You assume far too readily that man is a paragon of justice, forgetting, apparently, that he has a long and savage history. He has killed other animals not only for meat but for pleasure; he has enslaved his neighbors, murdered his opponents, and obtained the most unholy sadistical joy from the agony of others. It is not impossible that we shall, in the course of our travels, meet other intelligent creatures far more worthy than man to rule the universe.

Buts it's your heart that I want most, Cecelia, not your beautiful face or your body, it's your heart that I'm drawn to, it's your heart that's the most beautiful thing about you, it's your heart that makes you my most worthy opponent. I regret a lot of shit from back then, a lot, but I don't regret you. I loved you then and now, and I always will.

he treated her with anger, disrespect, and disdain, to punish her for her success.

Men don’t sleep with you when they love you, but they do sleep with you without a second thought when they don’t.

Fight for what you believe in, Spencer,” he always told her. “Never give up.” “Don’t sell yourself short.” “Even if you’re the only one left standing, keep fighting.

Never be afraid of change” and “Don’t get stuck in a rut just because something has always been done a certain way.

Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers.

To rely on luck and confront a lion is a suicide mission. You have to be a ‘lion’ to combat a lion. Even a lion suffering from diarrhea and anorexia is still a formidable opponent.

The forgotten Spengler will have his revenge by threatening to be right in the end. (...) Spengler has hardly found an opponent worthy of him: collective amnesia provides the escape.

There are athletes who believe God helps them win—against opponents who would seem, on the face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who believe God saves them a parking space—thereby presumably depriving somebody else.

I’ve only begun to prove myself to you. Let me. Please let me. If you never tell me you love me again, I’ll deserve it, and I won’t even ask for it. Not ever. But it’s your heart that I want most, Cecelia, not your beautiful face or your body, it’s your heart that I’m drawn to, it’s your heart that’s the most beautiful thing about you, it’s your heart that makes you my most worthy opponent.” He buries his head in my neck. “Please. God, please, Cecelia, let me finally love you the way you deserve.

It was okay to win as long as I acted surprised when I did and attributed it to luck. I should never let on how much I wanted to win or, worse, that I believed I deserved to win. And I should never, under any circumstances, admit that I did not believe all of my opponents were just as worthy as I was.

What Homer could never have foreseen is the double idiocy into which we now educate our children. We have what look like our equivalent to the Greek “assemblies”; we can watch them on cable television, as long as one can endure them. For they are charades of political action. They concern themselves constantly, insufferably, about every tiniest feature of human existence, but without slow deliberation, without balance, without any commitment to the difficult virtues. We do not have men locked in intellectual battle with other men, worthy opponents both, as Thomas Paine battled with John Dickinson, or Daniel Webster with Robert Hayne. We have men strutting and mugging for women nagging and bickering. We have the sputters of what used to be language, “tweets,” expressions of something less than opinion. It is the urge to join—something, anything—while remaining aloof from the people who live next door, whose names we do not know. Aristotle once wrote that youths should not study politics, because they had not the wealth of human experience to allow for it; all would become for them abstract and theoretical, like mathematics, which the philosopher said was more suitable for them. He concluded that men should begin to study politics at around the age of forty. Whether that wisdom would help us now, I don’t know.

In the dark of the night, sometimes I lie awake and fear creeps in. Fear that I’ll never be free of Peter. Fear that the abuse he dealt during those four years will continue to poison anything good for the rest of my life. He took those years from me. I desperately don’t want him to take my future too. I close my eyes and take long, slow breaths, one after another, until the frantic circling of my thoughts eases, just a little. The fear isn’t gone. It’s never really gone. I’ve just learned to live with it.

Ambrose Bierce’s witty definition of the verb ‘to pray’: ‘to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy’. There are athletes who believe God helps them win – against opponents who would seem, on the face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who believe God saves them a parking space – thereby presumably depriving somebody else. This style of theism is embarrassingly popular, and is unlikely to be impressed by anything as (superficially) reasonable as NOMA.

Remember Ambrose Bierce’s witty definition of the verb ‘to pray’: ‘to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy’. There are athletes who believe God helps them win—against opponents who would seem, on the face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who believe God saves them a parking space—thereby presumably depriving somebody else. This style of theism is embarrassingly popular, and is unlikely to be impressed by anything as (superficially) reasonable as NOMA. Nevertheless,

That? It's nothing. A stupid mutation. A standard outcome. We used to see them in our labs. Junk." "Then why haven't we ever seen it before?" Gibbons makes a face of impatience. "You don't culture death the way we do. You don't tinker with the building blocks of nature." Interest and passion flicker briefly in the old man's eyes. Mischief and predatory interests. "You have no idea what things we succeeded in creating in our labs. This stuff is hardly worth my time. I hoped you were bringing me a challenge. Something from Drs. Ping and Raymond. Or perhaps Mahmoud Sonthalia. Those are challenges." For a moment, his eyes lose their cynicism. He becomes entranced. "Ah. Now those are worthy opponents." We are in the hands of a gamesman. In a flash of insight, Kanya understands the doctor entirely. A fierce intellect. A man who reached the pinnacle of his field. A jealous and competitive man. A man who found his competition too lacking, and so switched sides and joined the Thai Kingdom for the stimulation it might provide. An intellectual exercise for him. As if Jaidee had decided to fight a muay thai match with his hands tied behind his back to see if he could win with kicks alone. We rest in the hands of a fickle god. He plays on our behalf only for entertainment, and he will close his eyes and sleep if we fail to engage his intellect. A horrifying thought. The man exists only for competition, the chess match of evolution, fought on a global scale. An exercise in ego, a single giant fending off the attacks of dozens of others, a giant swatting them from the sky and laughing. But all giants must fall, and then what must the Kingdom look forward to?

Accordingly, we imagine ourselves to be innocuous, reasonable, and humane. We do not think of distrusting our motives or of asking ourselves how the inner man feels about the things we do in the outside world. But actually it is frivolous, superficial, and unreasonable of us, as well as psychically unhygienic, to overlook the reaction and standpoint of the unconscious. One can regard one’s stomach or heart as unimportant and worthy of contempt, but that does not prevent overeating or overexertion from having consequences that affect the whole man. Yet we think that psychic mistakes and their consequences can be got rid of with mere words, for ‘psychic’ means less than air to most people. All the same, nobody can deny that without the psyche there would be no world at all, and still less a human world. Virtually everything depends on the human psyche and its functions. It should be worthy of all the attention we can give it, especially today, when everyone admits that the weal or woe of the future will be decided neither by the threat of wild animals, nor by natural catastrophes, nor by the danger of world-wide epidemics, but simply and solely by the psychic changes in man. It needs only an almost imperceptible disturbance of equilibrium in a few of our rulers’ heads to plunge the world into blood, fire, and radioactivity. The technical means necessary for this are present on both sides. And certain conscious deliberations, uncontrolled by any inner opponent, can be put into effect all too easily, as we have seen already from the example of one 'Leader.’ The consciousness of modern man still clings so much to external objects that he makes them exclusively responsible, as if it were on them that the decision depended

Of us all, Father was the only one who really had any kind of a faith. And I do not doubt that he had very much of it, and that behind the walls of his isolation, his intelligence and his will, unimpaired, and not hampered in any essential way by the partial obstruction of some of his senses, were turned to God, and communed with God Who was with him and in him, and Who gave him, as I believe, light to understand and to make use of his suffering for his own good, and to perfect his soul. It was a great soul, large, full of natural charity. He was a man of exceptional intellectual honesty and sincerity and purity of understanding. And this affliction, this terrible and frightening illness which was relentlessly pressing him down even into the jaws of the tomb, was not destroying him after all. Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity. And my father was in a fight with this tumor, and none of us understood the battle. We thought he was done for, but it was making him great.

Here is my advice: as you get into this passion of mine, enjoy your time on the stream. Make it an end unto itself. Be satisfied with whatever Mother Nature provides you with that day. Thank God you had the opportunity to spend a few hours with all of this beauty while challenged by this worthy opponent, regardless of outcome. That alone should be enough.

In fact, if your opponent thinks you’re not worthy of debating, he isn’t worthy of debating.

Do adults also use aggression to boost their status? Certainly. This type of behavior can take place at the individual level, like bad-mouthing a neighbor to make ourselves seem a little more worthy of attention, or in public, such as when Donald Trump’s poll numbers rose following every insult he lobbed at a reporter or opponent. Sometimes it is even global, as when a nation attacks a weaker foe to assert its dominant position. In each of these cases, the use of aggression is shortsighted, because while it may result in a temporary boost in status and offer a little jolt of social reward, it is not ultimately fulfilling the wishes that really matter.

We brought you here. You called me ‘Administrator’ and Merlin ‘Hector’ and tried to attack us. Who is Hector?” “No one.” Ari closed her eyes. “I kept hallucinating. Seeing my enemies. What did I call Jordan?” “Jordan,” she said. Ari cracked an eye to peer at Lionel’s famed black knight. Jordan just smirked, and Ari didn’t stop her own smile. “Perhaps it was just worthy opponents then.

Never have I had such a worthy opponent, and never have I wanted to silence someone more with my cock down their throat.

meet

Caged birds always crave the sky,

The Prince of the Pit wants a worthy opponent this time. One who will not break so easily, as Prince Pelias did so long ago. He insists on facing you, Starborn, at your full power.

Good girls aren’t supposed to want down and dirty fucking like that. They aren’t supposed to want to play on the dark side of desire, to push back until their partner forces submission, to love every second of the struggle.

I’ll let them eat your pussy until you’re begging for mercy, and then I’ll fuck you right there in front of them to remind everyone—to remind you—of who you belong to.

Good girls don’t want their pussies licked by strangers. Good girls certainly don’t want to be claimed in the most intimate and public way possible by a man who’s supposed to be the enemy. Fuck. That.

She’s like being slapped in the face with an Arctic wind—cold and bitter and somehow refreshing all the same.

We can keep playing the non-consent game if you like—after you earn it.

But what does “dominating the opponent without killing him” mean in a fight to the death? What is worthy of thinking about here is that this has nothing to do with the application of an ethical outlook; rather, it is the culmination of a development in combat technique. In the warrior culture, which was based from the beginning on pragmatism, ethics and philosophy are the products of technique. Technique here came to take in the total human being. The technical quest thus included the mental state without which it is impossible to reach technical perfection.

She smiles up at me. It’s far more tentative than it would have been even a year ago, and I mourn the lost time. I know better than anyone not to take things for granted, but I’ve done exactly that with this woman.

He’s my rock in the sea of blackness, the one thing I can be sure of in this room.

I want to live not-happily-ever-after with you, Jameson.

The only rules are the ones we make.

I might be a fighter in the survival sense, but when it comes to actual combat, I’m a flail-violently-and-hope-for-the-best kind of woman.

You can’t possibly be that sure of me. I’m not even that sure of myself.

I didn’t realize how much he allows me to see until I watch him tuck away bits of himself.

I love you, Jameson. It makes me kind of cranky because I didn’t plan on this, but it’s the damned inconvenient truth.

Tink never feels fragile, not really. She’s too strong, fills a room with her energy too effectively just by walking into it. But at the end of the day, she’s only human and she’s about to come face-to-face with someone who’s done her immeasurable amounts of harm.

To hate is to grant a level of importance that those teams don’t deserve. We dismiss our opponents, we don’t hate them. They are not worthy of that.

When I say I love you, and I want a life with you as my wife, I mean a life, Tink. The problems and the victories and the day-to-day mundane bullshit. I want everything.

Friends and chickens,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “for I know you’re my friends, whether you vote for me or not—you have been promised by Grover, my worthy opponent, that if he is elected he will get you a revolving door for the chicken-house.

Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers.

The only thing standing in the way of my restoring the full power of the Underrealm is Daphne herself. Part of me worries I’m not prepared for taking on this Cypher, but at the same time, I am glad for the challenge of a worthy opponent. It will make my victory all the more satisfying. “What is the best way to defeat her?” I ask Dax. “How do I take her down?” “Take her down?” he repeats, as if I’ve just said something distasteful. “You said it yourself. Daphe isn’t like other Boons. She’s a more formidable opponent than—” “Whoa,” Dax says. “You’re looking at this all wrong. First of all, you can’t think of her as an opponent. That’s you thinking like an Underlord warrior. You’re going to have to take a more human approach. You’re not here to defeat her; you’re here to get her to trust you. You need her to like you. Actually, more than that,” he says with a weird smile. “You’re going to have to get her to fall in love with you.” I stare at Dax, dumbfounded. He might as well have told me I needed to sprout wings and fly into the sun. “How am I supposed to get her to fall in love with me when I don’t know the first thing about . . . it? Love, I mean.” Dax sighs like he has no idea of how to explain it to me. And I thought he was supposed to be my guide.

Former spider boys came from all walks of life—they ranged from homeless street kids and school dropouts to decent kids, but the best ones were those who had gone anywhere and everywhere to search out and capture their fighting spiders; they even ventured into dangerous bushes infested with black mambas. These boys were risk-takers and crowd-pullers, always on the move, always looking for worthy opponents with which to fight their spiders.

A worthy opponent can command more respect from us than a cowering ally.

I’m not angry with you.” Baird interrupted softly. “I’m sad because you can’t let yourself feel for me what I feel for you. I’m sorry you still want to get away so badly. And of course I’m frustrated because I want you so damn much and you’re determined not to let me have you. But angry? No. The only fault here is mine—I’ve been pushing you too much, trying too hard and for that, I’m sorry.” Liv gave a shaky laugh. “Wow—a guy who actually talks about his feelings and takes the blame when we have a fight.” He’d be freaking perfect if he didn’t come with so much damn alien baggage. “Everything is a fight with you.” But the soft tone in his deep voice didn’t match the angry words. “I wish it didn’t have to be like that, Lilenta. Wish you could give yourself to me and let me care for you.” Liv felt her throat grow tight. “I told you before, Baird, I just can’t do that. There are people I love back on Earth—things I want to accomplish.” He nodded. “So be it. One thing I’ll give you, Lilenta, you’re a worthy opponent.” Liv

them out if they make dumb choices. Let them struggle; let them learn; let them take responsibility. They need to figure out the importance of working hard, saving money, being smart. For God’s sake, don’t be a damned fool and then go begging the government to save you.” This is not a stupid argument. I come at the issues differently, of course, as someone who supports a strong social safety net. But this more conservative view represents a considered and consistent position, worthy of respect. Lower-income conservatives are making the same kind of argument that rich liberals are making. They are willing to make monetary sacrifices to answer the call of their fundamental values. For liberals, those values are more about the common good and enlightened self-interest. For conservatives, those values are more about the importance of independence and personal responsibility. But both sides rightfully see their voting behavior as needing to reflect more than just a vulgar calculation about their immediate pocketbook needs. If one side deserves respect, then so does the other.*1 Of course, respecting our opponent’s argument doesn’t mean we have to just accept it and give in. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t argue passionately about the best approach to taxes or spending—especially in a society as complex as ours, with the stakes as high as they are. In fact, we should disagree and debate. Debate is the lifeblood of democracy, after all. Disagreement is a good thing—even heated disagreement. Only in a dictatorship does everybody have to agree. In a democracy, nobody has to agree. That’s called freedom. It’s the whole point of America. But at the base of too many of our public discussions sits the same destructive assumption: I’m right. And you’re wrong. We proceed on both sides as if our side is grounded in “the Truth” and the other side is always insane and delusional. And some version of this flawed concept has become the default setting throughout American political discourse. It is one thing to say, “I disagree with you because we have different values and priorities.” It’s quite another to say, “I disagree with you because you are an uneducated idiot—a pawn—and a dupe.” The prevalence of the latter set of arguments is why the Democratic Party stinks of elitism. Here’s another liberal favorite: “How can we argue with conservatives? They don’t believe in facts anymore—only ‘alternative facts.’ At least, liberals believe in science. Right-wingers don’t!” I understand the source of liberal exasperation here. Even though any high school student can reproduce the greenhouse-gas effect in a laboratory beaker,

You put up a good fight. It’s been a while since I have had a worthy opponent.” “Please,” I begged, looking up through my eyelashes. I forced fresh tears to my eyes and lowered my head. I needed him to get closer. “Just make it quick.” “I am not going to kill you. Samkiel and the Council of Hadramiel will place their final judgment.

It will work because it’s us.” “I truly wish I could believe that.” “You don’t have to believe it, baby girl. I’ll believe enough for both of us.

It’s important to keep one’s thumb on the pulse of a place, and the only way to do that is to be neck deep in it.

He’d walk through fire for you.” Maybe once. I don’t know if it’s true any longer. “When we first fell for each other, yes. But the years have a way of taking their toll. We’ve grown apart. The stupid thing is that I don’t even know when it started. It’s something I should know, right? But it feels like I just woke up one day and realized that he’s almost more a stranger now than he was when I first made my deal.” “It happens like that sometimes.

Some things a person cannot compromise on, and having children numbers among them.

She shudders out a sigh. “You really don’t make this easy.” “Nothing in life is easy, Tink. Least of all people. If it seems like it is, someone’s lying.

Only you would fall kicking and screaming into love and then pout about it.

Most of us will find love; we shall also encounter opponents, rivals, and outright enemies, an evil nemesis worthy of unqualified hatred. Occasionally we act as the antagonist on our own casting card. Our own internal voice(s) can torture us with feelings of insanity. For example, before filling her overcoat pockets with stones and drowning herself in a river, English writer Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) left a final note to her husband disclosing, ‘I feel certain that I am going mad again.’ Her last note also stated that she feared that she would not recover from her illness, she could not endure another depressive episode, and she was hearing voices.

Every Great Story involves a normal person who answers the Call to become a HERO. Every HERO has a worthy opponent. Who is Yours?

The next cock you'll have is mine. All you have to do is ask." She braces her hands on my shoulders, her nails digging in the tiniest bit as she rocks against me. "I'm never going to ask." "Yes you are." I ignore her restless moving, a silent demand that I pick up my pace. "And when you do, I'll let you ride me. Or I'll bend you over the nearest piece of furniture and fuck you until you see the face of god.

The collapse of society was the western front, that conflict augmented by a lack of preparation, limited physical resources, and a severe shortage of human assets. A dark, ominous cloud of uncertainty was the enemy’s primary weapon. Levi was certain that this was going to be a war of attrition. On the eastern front loomed old age. Twenty years ago, Levi would have feared no man. While he’d never spoiled for a fight in any theatre, when one came his way, he had always felt up to the task. Years of military schools and courses had instilled this confidence. Numerous engagements on the battlefield had proven him worthy. That man, however, had been a different Levi York, both physically and mentally. Now, Father Time was employing a strategy that seemed destined to make him fail. He knew the outcome of this battle was inevitable. Ultimately, he had no chance of winning. He was a ball player intentionally fouling his opponent, merely wrangling to prolong the game, desperately trying to stop the clock from counting down to zero. “Aren’t we all fighting for more time?” he reflected as he prepared for his shift on patrol. “Isn’t that what this is all about? I’ve fought insurgents, radicalized religious zealots, power-hungry holy men, and indoctrinated crazies,” he proclaimed to the mirror. “In every single case, we gave better than what we received. I controlled the field at the end of day, each and every time. Is it finally my turn to fall? Will the combination of foes we’re facing finally take me out of the fight?” he ranted. As he pondered his own questions for several moments more, Levi’s spine stiffened, his shoulders squaring off. “Doesn’t matter,” he grunted. “You’re not going down without leaving your best on the field. You’re not going to fade quietly into the night. To the end, you’re going to give it your best, old man.

But Hunt didn’t so much as sniff as he asked Cormac, “Where did you inherit the ability from?” Cormac squared his shoulders, every inch the proud prince as he said, “It was once a gift of the Starborn. It was the reason I became so … focused on attaining the Starsword. I thought my ability to teleport meant that the bloodline had resurfaced in me, as I’ve never met anyone else who can do it.” His eyes guttered as he added, “As you know, I was wrong. Some Starborn blood, apparently, but not enough to be worthy of the blade.” Bryce wasn’t going to touch that one. So she retied her wet hair into a tight bun atop her head. “What are the odds that I have the gift, too?” Cormac gave her a slashing smile. “Only one way to find out.” Bryce’s eyes glowed with the challenge. “It would be handy.” Hunt murmured, his voice awed, “It would make you unstoppable.” Bryce winked at Hunt. “Hel yeah, it would. Especially if those Reapers weren’t full of shit about the Prince of the Pit sending them to challenge me to some epic battlefield duel. Worthy opponent, my ass.” “You don’t believe the Prince of the Pit sent them?” Cormac asked. “I don’t know what I believe,” Bryce admitted. “But we need to confirm where those Reapers came from—who sent them—before we make any moves.” “Fair enough,” Hunt said. Bryce went on, “Beyond that, this is twice now that we’ve gotten warnings about Hel’s armies being ready. Apollion’s a little heavy-handed for my tastes, but I guess he really wants to get the point across. And wants me leveled up by the time all Hel breaks loose. Literally, I guess.

The Prince of the Pit sent us.” Her blood chilled. “You don’t serve him. I doubt your king would be happy about it.” “We bear his message nonetheless.” “Put Prince Ruhn down and we can talk.” “And have you use the star on us? We think not.” She pivoted, trying to keep them all in her sights. Ruhn might survive being dumped in the river, but there were limits. How long could a Vanir who’d made the Drop go without oxygen? Or would it be a torturous process of drowning, healing, and drowning again, until even their immortal strength was spent and they finally died? She didn’t want to find out. “What’s your message?” she demanded. “Apollion, Prince of the Pit, is ready to strike.” Her blood iced over to hear the name spoken aloud. “He’s going to launch a war?” Aidas had said something like that yesterday, but he’d indicated that the armies would be for her. She’d thought he meant to help in whatever insanity Hel had planned. “The Prince of the Pit wants a worthy opponent this time. One who will not break so easily, as Prince Pelias did so long ago. He insists on facing you, Starborn, at your full power.

Yeah, well, your kidnapping my brother is definitely not appreciated.” They seethed with ire and Bryce cringed. “The Prince of the Pit already hunts through the Bone Quarter’s mists to find the other one who might be his worthy opponent … or his greatest weapon.” Bryce opened her mouth, but shut it before she could blurt Emile? But fuck—Apollion was hunting for the kid, too? Was the Bone Quarter what Danika had meant after all? Her mind raced, plan after plan spreading out, then she said, “I’m surprised the Under-King lets Apollion wander around his territory unchecked.” “Even the caretakers of the dead bow to the Prince of the Pit.” Bryce’s heart sank. Emile was in the Bone Quarter. Or at least Apollion thought so. What the fuck had Danika been thinking, telling Sofie it was safe there?

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