“
In an hour, every person in America will be able to look at a screen and see their First Son and his boyfriend.
And, across the Atlantic, almost as many will look up over a beer at a pub or dinner with their family or a quiet night in and see their youngest prince, the most beautiful one, Prince Charming.
This is it. October 2, 2020, and the whole world watched, and history remembered.
”
”
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
“
In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months. In 2009, bound to a wheelchair, he watched his daughter graduate from college. The wheelchair had nothing to do with his cancer. The man had fallen down while coaching his youngest son's baseball team.
”
”
Siddhartha Mukherjee (The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer)
“
Ron held up his badge. Mrs Weasley let out a shriek just like Hermione’s. ‘I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That’s everyone in the family!’ ‘What are Fred and I, next-door neighbours?’ said George indignantly, as his mother pushed him aside and flung her arms around her youngest son.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
“
He was the son of this bitchy book reviewer. Totally blasted my first book. Called all my lovely kinksters ‘sick’ and ‘abusive.’ So I got my payback by sickly abusing her youngest all night long.”
“And you felt guilty about that?”
“Not the sex. The note I sent Mom the next day.”
“You sent his mother a note after you seduced her son? What did it say?”
“It said...” Nora began, and paused for a breath. Not one of her prouder moments. “It said, ‘Your son gave me five stars last night. And five fingers.’”
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m trying so hard to feel bad about it. I swear to God I am.
”
”
Tiffany Reisz (The Mistress (The Original Sinners, #4))
“
But let me say this. I am a superstitious man, a ridiculous failing but I must confess it here. And so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police officer should accidentally shoot him, if he should hang himself while in his jail cell, if new witnesses appear to testify to his guilt, my superstition will make me feel that it was the result of the ill will still borne me by some people here. Let me go further. If my son is struck by a bolt of lightning I will blame some of the people here. If his plane show fall into the sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of the ocean, if he should catch a mortal fever, if his automobile should be struck by a train, such is my superstition that I would blame the ill will felt by people here. Gentlemen, that ill will, that bad luck, I could never forgive. But aside from that let me swear by the souls of my grandchildren that I will never break the peace we have made. After all, are we or are we not better men than those pezzonovanti who have killed countless millions of men in our lifetimes?
”
”
Mario Puzo (The Godfather (The Godfather, #1))
“
Brock 'Slim' Lucas looked at his oldest son, his eyes moved to his youngest son and then they slid to his wife.
And when his eyes hit her shining ones he realized he had not one thing to wish for. Not one. There was nothing he wanted.
He had it all right here.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (Wild Man (Dream Man, #2))
“
... and you're the son of his youngest. He has no other children. Oh, your father's dead, by the way. Fell off a horse two years ago.'
'Good to know.
”
”
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
“
It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine, that children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are.
”
”
Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue)
“
Behind him Kaldar nudged Urow's youngest son. "Bet you he lasts at least thirty seconds."
"Um..." Gaston looked at him. "No he won't."
"Bet me something."
"I don't have anything."
Kaldar grimaced. "Pick up that rock."
Gaston swiped the rock off the ground.
"Now you have a rock. I bet this five bucks against your rock."
Gaston grinned. "Deal.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Bayou Moon (The Edge, #2))
“
You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you or my boy to me? I forgo the vengeance of my son. But I have selfish reasons, my youngest son was forced to leave this country because of this Sollozzo business. All right, now I have to make arrangements to bring him back here safely cleared of all these false charges. But I'm a superstitious man and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightening, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we have made here today.
”
”
Mario Puzo (The Godfather (The Godfather, #1))
“
While his three eldest sons spent their adult lives toiling to improve the family fortunes, who had Benicio named as his heir? The illegitimate youngest son who had devoted his adult life to destroying the family business, or at least buggering it up real good. Does this make sense to anyone besides Benicio? Of course not. Either the man is a mastermind of family manipulation or just plain fucked in the head. I don't use that word much, but in some cases, nothing else fits.
-Paige
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (Industrial Magic (Women of the Otherworld, #4))
“
He was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her lady’s maid, and errand boy. He was her one flattering mirror, and her teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat. He was her best pal, the dog she hardly walked, and her greatest romance. He was her cheer on a dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience. Jodie shunted him again but Mungo only grumbled and curled tighter around her. Her brother was her mother’s minor moon, her warmest sun, and at the exact same time, a tiny satellite that she had forgotten about. He would orbit her for an eternity, even as she, and then he, broke into bits.
”
”
Douglas Stuart (Young Mungo)
“
Fairy tales are more than moral lessons and time capsules for cultural commentary; they are natural law. The child raised on folklore will quickly learn the rules of crossroads and lakes, mirrors and mushroom rings. They’ll never eat or drink of a strange harvest or insult an old woman or fritter away their name as though there’s no power in it. They’ll never underestimate the youngest son or touch anyone’s hairpin or rosebush or bed without asking, and their steps through the woods will be light and unpresumptuous. Little ones who seek out fairy tales are taught to be shrewd and courteous citizens of the seen world, just in case the unseen one ever bleeds over.
”
”
S.T. Gibson
“
The eldest child is the golden one, the middle child invisible, and the youngest child is loud.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
..I was raised on the Torah, my wife on the Qu'Ran, my eldest son is an Atheist, my youngest is a scientologist, my daughter is studying Hinduism, I imagine there is room there for a holy war in my living room, but we practice live and let live.
”
”
Jerome Bixby
“
But I am the youngest son, and my father made the grave mistake of sending me away to school, and the more I read, the more I thought, and the more I thought, the more I knew I had to be in Paris.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
Grigorii spared a single glance in his brother’s direction. If looks were daggers, that one would’ve
sliced straight through the volhv’s heart. “Here it comes. ‘My oldest son . . .’”
“Is a doctor,” Evdokia finished in a singsong voice. “And my daughter is an attorney.”
Vasiliy raised his chin. “Jealousy is bad for you. Poisons the heart.”
“Aha!” Evdokia slapped the table. “How about your youngest, the musician? How is he doing?”
“Yes, what is Vyacheslav doing lately?” Grigorii asked. “Didn’t I see him with a black eye yesterday?
Did he whistle a tree onto himself?”
Oh boy.
Curran opened his mouth. Next to him Jim shook his head. His expression looked suspiciously like
fear.
“He is young,” Vasiliy said.
“He is spoiled rotten,” Evdokia barked. “He spends all his time trying to kill my cat. One child is a
doctor, the other is an attorney, the third is a serial killer in training.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Slays (Kate Daniels, #5))
“
He was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her lady’s maid, and errand boy. He was her one flattering mirror, and her teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat. He was her best pal, the dog she hardly walked, and her greatest romance. He was her cheer on a dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience.
”
”
Douglas Stuart (Young Mungo)
“
If it pleases the Arnesian king, she will send a year’s worth of winter wine, seven priests, and her youngest son, Hok, whose gift for stone magic is unsurpassed in all of Vesk.”
My mother is dead, Rhy wanted to scream, and you would give me drink and danger. Instead he said only, “And what of the princess? What will the queen give me for her?
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3))
“
Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in the world, and to come into your own.
Fairy tales are almost always the stories of the powerless, of youngest sons, abandoned children, orphans, of humans transformed into birds and beasts or otherwise enchanted away from their own lives and selves. Even princesses are chattels to be disowned by fathers, punished by step-mothers, or claimed by princes, though they often assert themselves in between and are rarely as passive as the cartoon versions. Fairy tales are children's stories not in wh they were made for but in their focus on the early stages of life, when others have power over you and you have power over no one.
In them, power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness -- from beehives that were not raided, birds that were not killed but set free or fed, old women who were saluted with respect. Kindness sewn among the meek is harvested in crisis...
In Hans Christian Andersen's retelling of the old Nordic tale that begins with a stepmother, "The Wild Swans," the banished sister can only disenchant her eleven brothers -- who are swans all day look but turn human at night -- by gathering stinging nettles barehanded from churchyard graves, making them into flax, spinning them and knitting eleven long-sleeved shirts while remaining silent the whole time. If she speaks, they'll remain birds forever. In her silence, she cannot protest the crimes she accused of and nearly burned as a witch.
Hauled off to a pyre as she knits the last of the shirts, she is rescued by the swans, who fly in at the last moment. As they swoop down, she throws the nettle shirts over them so that they turn into men again, all but the youngest brother, whose shirt is missing a sleeve so that he's left with one arm and one wing, eternally a swan-man. Why shirts made of graveyard nettles by bleeding fingers and silence should disenchant men turned into birds by their step-mother is a question the story doesn't need to answer. It just needs to give us compelling images of exile, loneliness, affection, and metamorphosis -- and of a heroine who nearly dies of being unable to tell her own story.
”
”
Rebecca Solnit (The Faraway Nearby)
“
If I have become my father, then I shall have my father's blade. Thorn is my dragon, and a thorn he shall be to all enemies. It is only right, then, that I should wield the sword, misery. Misery and Thorn, a fit match. Besides, Zar'roc should have gone to Morzan's eldest son, not his youngest. It is mine by right of birth."
A cold pit formed in Eragon's stomach. It can't be.
A cruel smile appeared on Murtagh's face. "I never told you my mother's name, did I? And you never told my yours. I'll say it now: Selena.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
“
The life of the hero of the tale is, at the outset, overshadowed by bitter and hopeless struggles; one doubts that the little swineherd will ever be able to vanquish the awful Dragon with the twelve heads. And yet, ...truth and courage prevail and the youngest and most neglected son of the family, of the nation, of mankind, chops off all twelve heads of the Dragon, to the delight of our anxious hearts. This exultant victory, towards which the hero of the tale always strives, is the hope and trust of the peasantry and of all oppressed peoples. This hope helps them bear the burden of their destiny.
”
”
Gyula Illyés (Once Upon a Time: Forty Hungarian Folk-Tales)
“
I once wrote a biography of Albert Einstein, called Einstein’s Cosmos, and had to delve into the minute details of his private life. I had known that Einstein’s youngest son was afflicted with schizophrenia, but did not realize the enormous emotional toll that it had taken on the great scientist’s life.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
“
Pick,” he said, “or we kill them all.” On her knees, weeping, Helaena named her youngest, Maelor. Perhaps she thought the boy was too young to understand, or perhaps it was because the older boy, Jaehaerys, was King Aegon’s firstborn son and heir, next in line to the Iron Throne. “You hear that, little boy?” Cheese whispered to Maelor. “Your momma wants you dead.” Then he gave Blood a grin, and the hulking swordsman slew Prince Jaehaerys,
”
”
George R.R. Martin (Fire & Blood)
“
Much of [John Hanning] Speke's Journal of the Discovery of the Source of Nile is devoted to descriptions of the physical and moral ugliness of Africa's "primitive races," in whose condition he found "a strikingly existing proof of the Holy Scriptures." For his text, Speke took the story in Genesis 9, which tells how Noah, when he was just six hundred years old and had safely skippered his ark over the flood to dry land, got drunk and passed out naked in his tent. On emerging from his oblivion, Noah learned that his youngest son, Ham, had seen him naked; that Ham had told his brothers, Shem and Japheth, of the spectacle; and that Shem and Japheth had, with their backs chastely turned, covered the old man with a garment. Noah responded by cursing the progeny of Ham's son, Canaan, saying, "A slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers." Amid the perplexities of Genesis, this is one of the most enigmatic stories, and it has been subjected to many bewildering interpretations--most notably that Ham was the original black man. To the gentry of the American South, the weird tale of Noah's curse justified slavery, and to Spake and his colonial contemporaries it spelled the history of Africa's peoples. On "contemplating these sons of Noah," he marveled that "as they were then, so they appear to be now.
”
”
Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families)
“
Was it Jesus you saw a picture of?” he says and looks up at me. If it had not been for the friendly voice and the long pause before the question, I would have thought he was making fun of me. He finds it a little embarrassing that I am a Christian; all he wants is for me not to be different from the other kids, and of all the kids in the neighbourhood, his youngest son is the only one to call himself a Christian.
But he is really wondering about this.
I feel a flutter of joy because he actually cares, and at the same time I become a bit offended that he underestimates me like that.
I shake my head.
“It wasn’t Jesus,” I say.
”
”
Karl Ove Knausgård (Min kamp 1 (Min kamp, #1))
“
The youngest one,” she interrupted. “The youngest son, I mean. The one who is unmarried.”
“I know who he is.”
“Very well, then. What is wrong with him?” At that she cocked her head to the side and waited expectantly.
He thought for a moment. “Nothing.”
“You—wait.” She blinked. “Nothing?”
He shook his head, then shifted his weight a little; his good foot was beginning to fall asleep. “Nothing comes immediately to mind.” It was true. She could do a good deal worse than Gregory Bridgerton.
“Really?” she asked suspiciously. “You find nothing at all objectionable about him.”
Marcus pretended to think about this a bit longer. Clearly he was supposed to be playing a role here, probably that of the villain. Or if not that, then the grumpy old man. “I suppose he’s a bit young,” he said.
”
”
Julia Quinn (Just Like Heaven (Smythe-Smith Quartet, #1))
“
I have engaged in enough women’s rights activism to know that the belief “sons are better than daughters'' is a huge problem in some parts of the world. For those who have little knowledge of Islam, there is the impression that women’s oppression stems from islamic teachings. This is simply not the case. In fact, muslim imams preach about the value of daughters often siting that a daughter opens the gates of paradise for their father. Indeed, the person the most beloved to the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, was his youngest daughter, Fatima. Islamic teachings are clear that a father has to fulfill his duty to raise and care for his daughters, and that the obligations go beyond providing financial support. He must provide a safe, peaceful, and loving home environment that is conducive to his daughter’s overall spiritual and moral development.
”
”
Mariam Khan (It's Not About the Burqa)
“
It is my dearest hope that one day I shall be the one to discover the GUT-the Grand Unified Tale, the one which will bind together all our Theorems and Laws, leaving out not one Orphan Girl or Youngest Son or Cup of Life and Death. Not one Descent or Ascent, not one Riddle or Puzzle or Trick. One perfect golden map that can guide any soul to its desire and back again. I will be the one to do it, I know it. I hope I know it. I know I hope it.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland, #2))
“
He was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her
lady’s maid, and errand boy. He was her one flattering mirror, and her
teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat. He was her best pal, the
dog she hardly walked, and her greatest romance. He was her cheer on a
dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience.
”
”
Douglas Stuart
“
When he took my hand he taught me something about the value of touch, the communicative power of the human hand. I didn't know, as I lay there, that I would think of him many times in the years ahead. When my son lay on a hospital bed, age four, with the raging fever of meningitis, I reached through the bodies of the attending doctors and held his slack, heated hand in both of mine. When my youngest child disappeared beneath the waves of the Mediterranean Sea and I had to leap in, haul her out, turn her upside-down so that the water drained from her lungs. Then all she and I could do was sit on the sand, wrapped in towels, contemplating what had almost happened, her small fingers wrapped in mine.
”
”
Maggie O'Farrell (I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death)
“
For some people, the most important formative element is place. To appreciate Harry Truman, for example, you must understand the Missouri frontier of the nineteenth century; likewise, you must delve into the Hill Country of Texas to fathom Lyndon Johnson.3 But Benjamin Franklin was not so rooted. His heritage was that of a people without place—the youngest sons of middle-class artisans—most of whom made their careers in towns different from those of their fathers. He is thus best understood as a product of lineage rather than of land.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)
“
let us talk in good earnest. Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?
”
”
William Shakespeare (The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents))
“
He’d built a life of integrity and honor, and that was more than he could have hoped for as the youngest son of the most notorious bomb maker in Northern Ireland.
”
”
Toni Anderson (The Killing Game)
“
I used to think the 109th bead was an emergency spare. Like the extra button on a fancy sweater, or the youngest son in a royal family.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
“
The fourteen-year-old boys, Ashton and Augustus, were the youngest offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Simon Hunt, who had been close friends to the Challons since before Phoebe had been born.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels, #5))
“
On the question of his own enlightenment the Master always remained reticent, even though the disciples tried every means to get him to talk. All the information they had on this subject was what the Master once said to his youngest son, who wanted to know what his father felt when he became enlightened. The answer was, 'A fool.'
When the boy asked why, the Master had replied, 'Well, son, it was like going to great pains to break into a house by climbing a ladder and smashing a window--- and realizing later that the door of the house was open.
”
”
Anthony de Mello
“
The missing remained missing and the portraits couldn't change that. But when Akhmed slid the finished portrait across the desk and the family saw the shape of that beloved nose, the air would flee the room, replaced by the miracle of recognition as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, and cousin found in that nose the son, brother, nephew, and cousin that had been, would have been, could have been, and they might race after the possibility like cartoon characters dashing off a cliff, held by the certainty of the road until they looked down -- and plummeted is the word used by the youngest brother who, at the age of sixteen, is tired of being the youngest and hopes his older brother will return for many reasons, not least so he will marry and have a child and the youngest brother will no longer be youngest; that youngest brother, the one who has nothing to say about the nose because he remembers his older brother's nose and doesn't need the nose to mean what his parents need it to mean, is the one who six months later would be disappeared in the back of a truck, as his older brother was, who would know the Landfill through his blindfold and gag by the rich scent of clay, as his older brother had known, whose fingers would be wound with the electrical wires that had welded to his older brother's bones, who would stand above a mass grave his brother had dug and would fall in it as his older brother had, though taking six more minutes and four more bullets to die, would be buried an arm's length of dirt above his brother and whose bones would find over time those of his older brother, and so, at that indeterminate point in the future, answer his mother's prayer that her boys find each other, wherever they go; that younger brother would have a smile on his face and the silliest thought in his skull a minute before the first bullet would break it, thinking of how that day six months earlier, when they all went to have his older brother's portrait made, he should have had his made, too, because now his parents would have to make another trip, and he hoped they would, hoped they would because even if he knew his older brother's nose, he hadn't been prepared to see it, and seeing that nose, there, on the page, the density of loss it engendered, the unbelievable ache of loving and not having surrounded him, strong enough to toss him, as his brother had, into the summer lake, but there was nothing but air, and he'd believed that plummet was as close as they would ever come again, and with the first gunshot one brother fell within arms' reach of the other, and with the fifth shot the blindfold dissolved and the light it blocked became forever, and on the kitchen wall of his parents' house his portrait hangs within arm's reach of his older brother's, and his mother spends whole afternoons staring at them, praying that they find each other, wherever they go.
”
”
Anthony Marra (A Constellation of Vital Phenomena)
“
Tonight, no one will rage and cry: "My Kingdom for a horse!" No ghost will come to haunt the battlements of a castle in the kingdom of Denmark where, apparently something is rotten. Nor will anyone wring her hands and murmur: "Leave, I do not despise you." Three still young women will not retreat to a dacha whispering the name of Moscow, their beloved, their lost hope. No sister will await the return of her brother to avenge the death of their father, no son will be forced to avenge an affront to his father, no mother will kill her three children to take revenge on their father. And no husband will see his doll-like wife leave him out of contempt. No one will turn into a rhinoceros. Maids will not plot to assassinate their mistress, after denouncing her lover and having him jailed. No one will fret about "the rain in Spain!" No one will emerge from a garbage pail to tell an absurd story. Italian families will not leave for the seashore. No soldier will return from World War II and bang on his father's bedroom dor protesting the presence of a new wife in his mother's bed. No evanescent blode will drown. No Spanish nobleman will seduce a thousand and three women, nor will an entire family of Spanish women writhe beneath the heel of the fierce Bernarda Alba. You won't see a brute of a man rip his sweat-drenched T-shirt, shouting: "Stella! Stella!" and his sister-in-law will not be doomed the minute she steps off the streetcar named Desire. Nor will you see a stepmother pine away for her new husband's youngest son. The plague will not descend upon the city of Thebes, and the Trojan War will not take place. No king will be betrayed by his ungrateful daughters. There will be no duels, no poisonings, no wracking coughs. No one will die, or, if someone must die, it will become a comic scene. No, there will be none of the usual theatrics. What you will see tonight is a very simple woman, a woman who will simply talk...
”
”
Michel Tremblay
“
If his mother had lived it might have been different, but the farm in Asoli where Garin of Lower Corte had taken his three sons had been a dour, womanless place—acceptable perhaps for the twins, who had each other, and for the kind of man Garin had slowly become amid the almost featureless spaces of the flatlands, but no source of nurture or warm memories for a small, quick, imaginative youngest child, whose own gifts, whatever they might turn out to be, were not those of the land.
”
”
Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
“
[Loki] was beautiful, that was always affirmed, but his beauty was hard to fix or to see, for he was always glimmering, flickering, melting, mixing, he was the shape of a shapeless flame, he was the eddying thread of needle-shapes in the shapeless mass of the waterfall. He was the invisible wind that hurried the clouds in billows and ribbons...He was amused and dangerous, neither good nor evil. Thor was the classroom bully raised to the scale of growling thunder and whipping rain. Odin was Power, was in power. Ungraspable Loki flamed amazement and pleased himself.
The gods needed him because he was clever, because he solved problems. When they needed to break bargains they rashly made, mostly with giants, Loki showed them the way out. He was the god of endings. He provided resolutions for stories -- if he chose to. The endings he made often led to more problems.
There are no altars to Loki, no standing stones, he had no cult. In myths he was always the third of the trio, Odin, Hodur, Loki. In myths, the most important comes first of three. But in fairy tales, and folklore, where these three gods also play their parts, the rule of three is different; the important player is the third, the *youngest* son, Loki.
”
”
A.S. Byatt (Ragnarok)
“
34 In his days Hiel the Beth-elite built Jericho: he laid the foundation of it with the loss of Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates of it with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by Yahshua the son of Nun.
”
”
Jacob O. Meyer (The Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition)
“
He’s still a baby.” “No, he’s not! I’ve been taking care of Jiyoung’s bags, school supplies, and homework since I was ten. When we were his age, we mopped the floor, hung laundry, and made ramen and fried eggs for ourselves.” “He’s the youngest.” “You mean he’s the son!
”
”
Cho Nam-Joo (Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982)
“
Hello,Dad."
"Well,well,well, so you're still alive." The booming, full-bodied voice was not so subtly laced with sarcasm. "Your mother and I thought you'd met with some fatal accident."
Alan managed to keep the grin out of his voice. "I nicked myself shaving last week.How are you?"
"He asks how I am!" Daniel heaved a sigh that should have been patended for long-suffering fathers everywhere. "I wonder you even remember who I am. But that's all right-it doesn't matter about me.Your mother, now, she's been expecting her son to call. Her firstborn."
Alan leaned back.How often had he cursed fate for making him the eldest and giving his father that neat little phrase to needle him with? Of course, he remembered philosophically, Daniel had phrases for Rena and Caine as well-the only daughter,the youngest son.It was all relative.
”
”
Nora Roberts (The MacGregors: Alan & Grant (The MacGregors, #3-4))
“
JOSIAH FRANKLIN and ABIAH his wife, lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. Without an estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labor and industry, with God’s blessing, They maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Dover Thrift Editions: American History))
“
It was a relief to see his father, who'd always been an unfailing source of reassurance and comfort. They clasped hands in a firm shake, and used their free arms to pull close for a moment. Such demonstrations of affection weren't common among fathers and sons of their rank, but then, they'd never been a conventional family.
After a few hearty thumps on the back, Sebastian drew back and glanced over him with the attentive concern that hearkened to Gabriel's earliest memories. Not missing the traces of weariness on his face, his father lightly tousled his hair the way he had when he was a boy. "You haven't been sleeping."
"I went carousing with friends for most of last night," Gabriel admitted. "It ended when we were all too drunk to see a hole through a ladder."
Sebastian grinned and removed his coat, tossing the exquisitely tailored garment to a nearby chair. "Reveling in the waning days of bachelorhood, are we?"
"It would be more accurate to say I'm thrashing like a drowning rat."
"Same thing." Sebastian unfastened his cuffs and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. An active life at Heron's Point, the family estate in Sussex, had kept him as fit and limber as a man half his age. Frequent exposure to the sunlight had gilded his hair and darkened his complexion, making his pale blue eyes startling in their brightness.
While other men of his generation had become staid and settled, the duke was more vigorous than ever, in part because his youngest son was still only eleven. The duchess, Evie, had conceived unexpectedly long after she had assumed her childbearing years were past. As a result there were eight years between the baby's birth and that of the next oldest sibling, Seraphina. Evie had been more than a little embarrassed to find herself with child at her age, especially in the face of her husband's teasing claims that she was a walking advertisement of his potency. And indeed, there have been a hint of extra swagger in Sebastian's step all through his wife's last pregnancy.
Their fifth child was a handsome boy with hair the deep auburn red of an Irish setter. He'd been christened Michael Ivo, but somehow the pugnacious middle name suited him more than his given name. Now a lively, cheerful lad, Ivo accompanied his father nearly everywhere.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Spring (The Ravenels, #3))
“
By the same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston, New England.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)
“
Tobias Hawthorne had given himself a middle name at the same time he’d disinherited his family. Tattersall. Tatters, all. Given everything that Jameson and Xander had told me about their grandfather, that seemed like a message. Leaving the money to me—and before me, to charity—wasn’t the point. Disinheriting his family was. “What the hell happened twenty years ago in August?” I asked. Alisa seemed to be weighing her response. My eyes narrowed, and I wondered if any part of her was still loyal to Nash. To his family. “Mr. Hawthorne and his wife lost their son that summer. Toby. He was nineteen, the youngest of their children.
”
”
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games, #1))
“
Charley looked over at him. "About how much you and Jesse have in common."
Jesse said, "Why don't you tell it, Bob; if you remember."
Bob inched forward in his chair. "Well, if you'll pardon my saying so, it is interesting, the many ways you and I overlap and whatnot. You begin with my daddy, J.T. Ford. J stands for James! And T is Thomas, meaning 'twin.' Your daddy was a pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church; my daddy was part-time pastor of a church at Excelsior Springs. You're the youngest of the three James boys; I'm the youngest of the five Ford boys. You had twins as sons, I had twins as sisters. Frank is four and a half years older than you, which incidentally is the difference between Charley and me, the two outlaws in the Ford clan. Between us is another brother, Wilbur here (with six letters in his name); between Frank and you was a brother, Robert, also with six letters. Robert died in infancy, as most everyone knows, and he was named after your father, Robert, who was remembered by your brother's first-born, another Robert. Robert, of course, is my Christian name. My uncle, Robert Austin Ford, has a son named Jesse James Ford. You have blue eyes; I have blue eyes. You're five feet eight inches tall; I'm five feet eight inches tall. We're both hot-tempered and impulsive and devil-may-care. Smith and Wesson is our preferred make of revolver. There's the same number of letters and syllables in our names; I mean, Jesse James and Robert Ford. Oh me, I must've had a list as long as your nightshirt when I was twelve, but I lost some curiosities over the years.
”
”
Ron Hansen (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
“
26Joshua laid an oath on them at that time, saying, x“Cursed before the LORD be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho. “At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates.” 27 ySo the LORD was with Joshua, and zhis fame was in all the land.
”
”
Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
“
THE GODFATHER • Premise The youngest son of a Mafia family takes revenge on the men who shot his father and becomes the new Godfather. W—weaknesses at the beginning: unconcerned, afraid, mainstream, legitimate, separated from the family A—basic action: takes revenge C—changed person: tyrannical, absolute ruler of the family The Godfather is a perfect example of why you want to go to the opposites of the basic action to determine the weaknesses and change of your hero. If Michael begins the story as a vengeful man, taking revenge on the men who shot his father will only make him seem more of the same. There’s no character change. But what if he starts off the opposite of vengeful?
”
”
John Truby (The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller)
“
New Rule: For at least the next generation, the Crocodile Hunter clan has to leave nature alone. This week, the late Steve Irwin’s youngest son was bitten by a boa constrictor. Authorities don’t know exactly what went wrong, but they think the accident might have happened when a bunch of idiots let a four-year-old fuck around with a giant snake.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
Teenage boys were very useful for farm work, of course. But the men did not like having their grown sons in the house. They took up too much space, for one. But also, it was not fit to have lusty young men share a roof with so many women. Since the girls in Paradise were married off at seventeen or eighteen, that meant that the youngest wives were often the same age as the bachelors.
”
”
Sarina Bowen (Goodbye Paradise (Hello Goodbye, #1))
“
They would also need to talk sense to her. The almost-existing children, the husky-voiced daughter, a museum curator perhaps, and the gifted, less settled son, good at too many things, who failed to complete his university course, but a far better pianist than she. Both always affectionate, brilliant at Christmases and summer-holiday castles and entertaining their youngest relations.
”
”
Ian McEwan (The Children Act)
“
With him, his best and eldest son, By all his princely virtues won King Daśaratha24willed to share His kingdom as the Regent Heir. But when Kaikeyí, youngest queen, With eyes of envious hate had seen The solemn pomp and regal state Prepared the prince to consecrate, She bade the hapless king bestow Two gifts he promised long ago, That Ráma to the woods should flee, And that her child the heir should
”
”
Vālmīki (The Rámáyan of Válmíki)
“
Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t.
Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass.
Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.”
I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.
”
”
Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
“
A story could lead you into a different world for a while. It might be a world where a foolish youngest son could turn into a brave and clever hero, or a beaten young woman could end up as a wise leader of folk. And when the story was ended and that world was gone, you still had the idea of it inside you. Like a flame that didn't go out even when the bad things rattled and swirled and screamed, and worse, oh, much worse, when they whispered and goaded and tormented.
”
”
Juliet Marillier (Den of Wolves (Blackthorn & Grim, #3))
“
that he would obey the “law of the land.” Magna Carta wasn’t nearly as important as Coke made it out to be, but by arguing for its importance, he made it important, not only for English history, but for American history, too, tying the political fate of everyone in England’s colonies to the strange doings of a very bad king from the Middle Ages. King John, born in 1166, was the youngest son of Henry II. As a young man, he’d studied with his father’s chief minister, Ranulf de Glanville,
”
”
Jill Lepore (These Truths: A History of the United States)
“
Like her youngest son, Julia administered stern lectures on republican virtue. Before supper, two noblewomen stopped by to school her in palace etiquette. “Mrs. Grant,” one said, “I hope you will not feel fatigued. Our Queen always receives standing.” Julia replied breezily, “Oh, I am sure I will not feel the fatigue. You must remember I too have received for the last eight years and always standing.” Julia was at pains to remind the two women that they were dealing with American royalty.
”
”
Ron Chernow (Grant)
“
The same question might be asked about the educational system. In 2016, an American professor and Fulbright scholar named William Doyle, just returned from a semester-long appointment at the University of Eastern Finland, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that for those five months, his family “experienced a stunningly stress-free, and stunningly good, school system.” His seven-year-old son was placed in the youngest class—not because of some developmental delay, but because children younger than seven “don’t receive formal academic training . . . Many are in day care and learn through play, songs, games and conversation.” Once in school, children get a mandated fifteen-minute outdoor recess break for every forty-five minutes of in-class instruction. The educational mantras Doyle remembers hearing the most while there: “‘Let children be children,’ ‘The work of a child is to play,’ and ‘Children learn best through play.’” And as far as outcomes go? Finland consistently ranks at or near the top of educational test score results in the Western world and has been ranked the most literate nation on Earth.[17] “The message that competition is appropriate, desirable, required, and even unavoidable is drummed into us from nursery school to graduate school; it is the subtext of every lesson,” writes educational consultant Alfie Kohn in his excellent book No Contest: The Case Against Competition: Why We Lose in Our Race to Win, which documents the negative impact of competition on genuine learning, and how
”
”
Gabor Maté (The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture)
“
Rules vary with context. In the Ramayana, which takes place in Treta yuga, Vishnu is Ram, eldest son of a royal family. In the Mahabharata, which takes place in Dvapara yuga, Vishnu is Krishna, youngest son of a noble family, who is raised by cowherds but who performs as a charioteer. They are expected to behave differently. Ram is obligated to follow the rules of the family, clan and kingdom, and uphold family honour. Krishna is under no such obligation. This is why Krishna tells Arjuna to focus on dharma in his context (sva-dharma) rather than dharma in another’s context (para-dharma). Arjuna, better to do what you have been asked to do imperfectly than try to do perfectly what others have been asked to. All work has inadequacies; even fire is enveloped by smoke.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 18, verses 47 and 48 (paraphrased). In the Ramayana Ram upholds rules, while Ravana breaks them. In the Mahabharata Duryodhana upholds rules, while Krishna breaks them. As eldest sons of their respective clans, Ram and Duryodhana are obliged to uphold rules. Ravana, son of a Brahmin, and Krishna, raised by cowherds, are under no such obligations. Dharma, however, is upheld only by Ram and Krishna, not Ravana and Duryodhana. Ram is constantly concerned about his city Ayodhya’s welfare, while Ravana does not care if his Lanka burns. Krishna cares for the Pandavas, who happen to be the children of his aunt, but the Kauravas do not care for the Pandavas, who happen to be the children of their uncle. Dharma thus has nothing to with rules or obligations. It has to do with intent and caring for the other, be it your kingdom or your family.
”
”
Devdutt Pattanaik (My Gita)
“
When Kyr decided to use me as Maris’s scapegoat, he forgot two things. One, we are Phrixian. You have a problem with someone, you fight it out. You don’t tie them up and torture them. Two… I’m the baby. The rest of the family might hate Mari, but they adore me. I’m the favoured son.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Fury (The League: Nemesis Rising, #6))
“
Hoagland," Kingston said in a voice like expensive liquor on ice, "it's good to see you. Your son is better, I trust?"
"You're very kind to ask, Your Grace. Yes, he's recovered fully from his tumble. The poor lad's grown so fast, he hasn't yet learned to manage those long arms and legs. A rackabones, my wife calls him."
"My boy Ivo is the same. He's shot up like a weed of late."
"Will he grow as tall as your other two sons, do you expect?"
"By force of will, if necessary," the duke replied dryly. "Ivo has informed me he has no intention of being the youngest and the shortest.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels, #7))
“
Yes, he fights well," said Bulba, pausing; "well, by heavens!" he continued, rather as if excusing himself, "although he has never tried his hand at it before, he will make a good Cossack! Now, welcome, son! embrace me," and father and son began to kiss each other. "Good lad! see that you hit every one as you pommelled me; don't let any one escape. Nevertheless your clothes are ridiculous all the same. What rope is this hanging there?--And you, you lout, why are you standing there with your hands hanging beside you?" he added, turning to the youngest. "Why don't you fight me? you son of a dog!
”
”
Nikolai Gogol (The Collected Works of Nicolai Gogol (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics))
“
to investigate and found my daughter, furious and beautiful in her grief. She had found several sheets of that blistered packing material in which fragile objects are sometimes shipped. She was jumping up and down on this, popping the blisters, and yelling, “He was my cat!” Let God have his own cat! Smucky was my cat!” Such anger, I think, is the sanest first response to grief that a thinking, feeling human being can have, and I’ve always loved her for that defiant cry: Let God have his own cat! Right on, beautiful; right on. Our youngest son, then less than two years old, had only learned to walk,
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
But that was where his excitement began to melt into cold anxiety. His dad had been the Gryffindor Seeker, the youngest one in Hogwarts history. The best he, James, could hope for was to match that record. That’s what everyone would expect of him, the first-born son of the famous hero. He remembered the story, told to him dozens of times (although never by his own dad) of how the young Harry Potter had won his first Golden Snitch by virtually jumping off his broom, catching the golden ball in his mouth and nearly swallowing it. The tellers of the tale would always laugh uproariously, delightedly, and if Dad was there, he’d smile sheepishly as they clapped him on the back. When James was four, he found that famed Snitch in a shoe box in the bottom of the dining room hutch. His mum told him it’d been a gift to Dad from the old school headmaster. The tiny wings no longer worked, and the golden ball had a thin coat of dust and tarnish on it, but James was mesmerized by it. It was the first Snitch he had ever seen close up. It seemed both smaller and larger than he’d imagined, and the weight of it in his small hand was surprising. This is the famous Snitch, James thought reverently, the one from the story, the one caught by my dad. He asked his dad if he could keep it, stored in the shoebox when he wasn’t playing with it, in his room. His dad agreed easily, happily, and James moved the shoebox from the bottom of the hutch to a spot under the head of his bed, next to his toy broom. He pretended the dark corner under his headboard was his Quidditch locker. He spent many an hour pretending to zoom and bank over the Quidditch green, chasing the fabled Snitch, in the end, always catching it in a fantastic diving crash, jumping up, producing his dad’s tarnished Snitch for the approval of roaring imaginary crowds.
”
”
G. Norman Lippert (James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing (James Potter, #1))
“
Meanwhile, with Sejanus’s eldest son already put to death, orders were given for his two youngest children to be taken to the city prison. One, a boy, was old enough to understand what lay ahead; but his little sister, bewildered and not knowing what she had done wrong, kept asking why she could not be punished like any other child – with a beating? Since it would naturally have been an offence against the most sacred traditions of the Roman people to put a virgin to death, the executioner made sure to rape her first. The bodies of the two children, once they had been strangled, were dumped on the Gemonian Steps.
”
”
Tom Holland (Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar)
“
The contemporary moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has summed this up eloquently: It is through hearing about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world and eldest sons who waste their inheritance … that children learn or mislearn what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are. Deprive children of stories and you leave them unscripted, anxious stutterers in their actions as in their words.2
”
”
Vigen Guroian (Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Childs Moral Imagination)
“
Especially not a commander like this one. Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife. Mounted on his huge black destrier, the knight towered above Will and Gared on their smaller garrons. He wore black leather boots, black woolen pants, black moleskin gloves, and a fine supple coat of gleaming black ringmail over layers of black wool and boiled leather. Ser Waymar had been a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch for less than half a year, but no one could say he had not prepared for his vocation. At least insofar as his wardrobe
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
Like Alan, Jep turned his life around after overcoming the struggles of alcohol and drugs. He came to work for Duck Commander and found his niche as a videographer. He films the footage for our Duckmen videos and works with Willie on the Buck Commander videos. Jep is with us on nearly every hunt, filming the action from a distance. He knows exactly what we’re looking for in the videos and films it, downloads it, edits it, and sends it to the duplicator, who produces and distributes our DVDs.
Having worked with the crew of Duck Dynasty over the last few years, I’ve noticed that most people who work in the film industry are a little bit weird. And Jep, my youngest son, is a little strange. It’s his personality-he’s easygoing, likable, and a lot more reserved than his brothers. But he’s the only one who will come up to me and give me a bear hug. He’ll just walk up and say, “Daddy, I need a hug.” The good news for Jep is that as far as the Duck Commander crowd goes, one thing is for sure: weirdos are in! We covet weirdos; they can do things we can’t because they’re so strange. You have to have two or three weirdos in your company to make it work. It’s truly been a blessing to watch Jep grow and mature and become a loving husband and father. He and his wife, Jessica, have four beautiful children.
”
”
Phil Robertson (Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander)
“
When I finally leave the market, the streets are dark, and I pass a few blocks where not a single electric light appears – only dark open storefronts and coms (fast-food eateries), broom closet-sized restaurants serving fish, meat, and rice for under a dollar, flickering candles barely revealing the silhouettes of seated figures. The tide of cyclists, motorbikes, and scooters has increased to an uninterrupted flow, a river that, given the slightest opportunity, diverts through automobile traffic, stopping it cold, spreads into tributaries that spill out over sidewalks, across lots, through filling stations. They pour through narrow openings in front of cars: young men, their girlfriends hanging on the back; families of four: mom, dad, baby, and grandma, all on a fragile, wobbly, underpowered motorbike; three people, the day’s shopping piled on a rear fender; women carrying bouquets of flapping chickens, gathered by their feet while youngest son drives and baby rests on the handlebars; motorbikes carrying furniture, spare tires, wooden crates, lumber, cinder blocks, boxes of shoes. Nothing is too large to pile onto or strap to a bike. Lone men in ragged clothes stand or sit by the roadsides, selling petrol from small soda bottles, servicing punctures with little patch kits and old bicycle pumps.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines)
“
Consider for a few moments the enormous aesthetic claim of its chief contemporary rival—what we may loosely call the Scientific Outlook, 1 the picture of Mr. [H. G.] Wells and the rest. Supposing this to be a myth, is it not one of the finest myths which human imagination has yet produced? The play is preceded by the most austere of all preludes: the infinite void, and matter restlessly moving to bring forth it knows not what. Then, by the millionth millionth chance—what tragic irony—the conditions at one point of space and time bubble up into that tiny fermentation which is the beginning of life. Everything seems to be against the infant hero of our drama—just as everything seems against the youngest son or ill-used stepdaughter at the opening of a fairy tale. But life somehow wins through. With infinite suffering, against all but insuperable obstacles, it spreads, it breeds, it complicates itself, from the amoeba up to the plant, up to the reptile, up to the mammal. We glance briefly at the age of monsters. Dragons prowl the earth, devour one another, and die. Then comes the theme of the younger son and the ugly duckling once more. As the weak, tiny spark of life began amidst the huge hostilities of the inanimate, so now again, amidst the beasts that are far larger and stronger than he, there comes forth a little naked, shivering, cowering creature, shuffling, not yet erect, promising nothing, the product of another millionth millionth chance. Yet somehow he thrives. He becomes the Cave Man with his club and his flints, muttering and growling over his enemies’ bones, dragging his screaming mate by her hair (I never could quite make out why), tearing his children to pieces in fierce jealousy till one of them is old enough to tear him, cowering before the horrible gods whom he created in his own image. But these are only growing pains. Wait till the next act. There he is becoming true Man. He learns to master Nature. Science comes and dissipates the superstitions of his infancy. More and more he becomes the controller of his own fate. Passing hastily over the present (for it is a mere nothing by the time scale we are using), you follow him on into the future. See him in the last act, though not the last scene, of this great mystery. A race of demigods now rules the planet—and perhaps more than the planet—for eugenics have made certain that only demigods will be born, and psychoanalysis that none of them shall lose or smirch his divinity, and communism that all which divinity requires shall be ready to their hands. Man has ascended his throne. Henceforward he has nothing to do but to practise virtue, to grow in wisdom, to be happy. And now, mark the final stroke of genius. If the myth stopped at that point, it might be a little bathetic.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)
“
There is a moment in the tractate Menahot when the Rabbis imagine what takes place when Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. In this account (there are several) Moses ascends to heaven, where he finds God busily adding crownlike ornaments to the letters of the Torah. Moses asks God what He is doing and God explains that in the future there will be a man named Akiva, son of Joseph, who will base a huge mountain of Jewish law on these very orthographic ornaments. Intrigued, Moses asks God to show this man to him. Moses is told to 'go back eighteen rows,' and suddenly, as in a dream, Moses is in a classroom, class is in session and the teacher is none other than Rabbi Akiva. Moses has been told to go to the back of the study house because that is where the youngest and least educated students sit.
Akiva, the great first-century sage, is explaining Torah to his disciples, but Moses is completely unable to follow the lesson. It is far too complicated for him. He is filled with sadness when, suddenly, one of the disciples asks Akiva how he knows something is true and Akiva answers: 'It is derived from a law given to Moses on Mount Sinai.' Upon hearing this answer, Moses is satisfied - though he can't resist asking why, if such brilliant men as Akiva exist, Moses needs to be the one to deliver the Torah. At this point God loses patience and tells Moses, 'Silence, it's my will.
”
”
Jonathan Rosen (The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey between Worlds)
“
Where is your wife, Aoseh?” Vas said, turning his attention back to their dad. He turned the currentblade in his fist, so the black tendrils shifted over his skin. “We could ask her if she had a dalliance with a Shotet man, or if she shares our fine ancestry and never saw fit to tell you about it. Surely the oracle knows how her youngest son came to be fluent in the revelatory tongue.”
“She’s not here,” Aoseh said, terse. “As you may have observed.”
“The Thuvhesit thinks he is clever?” Vas said. “I think that cleverness with enemies gets a man killed.”
“I’m sure you think many foolish things,” Aoseh said, and somehow, he stared Vas down, despite being on the ground at his feet. “Servant of the Noaveks. You’re like the dirt I remove from under my fingernails.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1))
“
I have two settings as a dad: normal and special mode. Normal mode is used with my eldest son, aged eight. It involves all the regular dad stuff, such as knowing the answers to every possible question, teaching him to ride his bike and generally being hands-on and involved. Special mode is quite different. All of the skills of normal mode apply, and then some. Special mode involves enormous powers of endurance, negotiation, problem solving, vigilance, strength, forbearance, deciphering, arbitration and above all, patience. To be honest, I’m a bit rubbish at all of those things but I strive for them nonetheless, because special mode is required for my youngest son, aged five and diagnosed as high functioning autistic. The two styles of parenting could not be more different.
”
”
B's Dad (Life with an Autistic Son)
“
A man on his deathbed left instructions
For dividing up his goods among his three sons.
He had devoted his entire spirit to those sons.
They stood like cypress trees around him,
Quiet and strong.
He told the town judge,
'Whichever of my sons is laziest,
Give him all the inheritance.'
Then he died, and the judge turned to the three,
'Each of you must give some account of your laziness,
so I can understand just how you are lazy.'
Mystics are experts in laziness. They rely on it,
Because they continuously see God working all around them.
The harvest keeps coming in, yet they
Never even did the plowing!
'Come on. Say something about the ways you are lazy.'
Every spoken word is a covering for the inner self.
A little curtain-flick no wider than a slice
Of roast meat can reveal hundreds of exploding suns.
Even if what is being said is trivial and wrong,
The listener hears the source. One breeze comes
From across a garden. Another from across the ash-heap.
Think how different the voices of the fox
And the lion, and what they tell you!
Hearing someone is lifting the lid off the cooking pot.
You learn what's for supper. Though some people
Can know just by the smell, a sweet stew
From a sour soup cooked with vinegar.
A man taps a clay pot before he buys it
To know by the sound if it has a crack.
The eldest of the three brothers told the judge,
'I can know a man by his voice,
and if he won't speak,
I wait three days, and then I know him intuitively.'
The second brother, 'I know him when he speaks,
And if he won't talk, I strike up a conversation.'
'But what if he knows that trick?' asked the judge.
Which reminds me of the mother who tells her child
'When you're walking through the graveyard at night
and you see a boogeyman, run at it,
and it will go away.'
'But what,' replies the child, 'if the boogeyman's
Mother has told it to do the same thing?
Boogeymen have mothers too.'
The second brother had no answer.
'I sit in front of him in silence,
And set up a ladder made of patience,
And if in his presence a language from beyond joy
And beyond grief begins to pour from my chest,
I know that his soul is as deep and bright
As the star Canopus rising over Yemen.
And so when I start speaking a powerful right arm
Of words sweeping down, I know him from what I say,
And how I say it, because there's a window open
Between us, mixing the night air of our beings.'
The youngest was, obviously,
The laziest. He won.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
“
Prudence: Now James, can you tell me who made you? James: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Prudence: Good boy. And can you tell me who saves you? James: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Prudence: Good boy again. But how does God the Father save you? James: By his grace. Prudence: How does God the Son save you? James: By reckoning his righteousness to me, by dying, and shedding his blood for me, and by his perfect life. Prudence: How does God the Holy Spirit save you? James: By enlightening me, by renewing me, and by preserving me. “You’re to be congratulated for the way you’re bringing up your children”, said Prudence to Christiana. “I suppose it’s not necessary for me to ask those questions of the rest, since the youngest has answered them so well. So now I’ll take the next youngest.
”
”
John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress Part 2 in Contemporary English (Pilgrim's Progress in Contemporary English))
“
From other shelters, there were stories of singing “Deutschland über Alles” or of people arguing amid the staleness of their own breath. No such things happened in the Fiedler shelter. In that place, there was only fear and apprehension, and the dead song at Rosa Hubermann’s cardboard lips. Not long before the sirens signaled the end, Alex Steiner—the man with the immovable, wooden face—coaxed the kids from his wife’s legs. He was able to reach out and grapple for his son’s free hand. Kurt, still stoic and full of stare, took it up and tightened his grip gently on the hand of his sister. Soon, everyone in the cellar was holding the hand of another, and the group of Germans stood in a lumpy circle. The cold hands melted into the warm ones, and in some cases, the feeling of another human pulse was transported. It came through the layers of pale, stiffened skin. Some of them closed their eyes, waiting for their final demise, or hoping for a sign that the raid was finally over. Did they deserve any better, these people? How many had actively persecuted others, high on the scent of Hitler’s gaze, repeating his sentences, his paragraphs, his opus? Was Rosa Hubermann responsible? The hider of a Jew? Or Hans? Did they all deserve to die? The children? The answer to each of these questions interests me very much, though I cannot allow them to seduce me. I only know that all of those people would have sensed me that night, excluding the youngest of the children. I was the suggestion. I was the advice, my imagined feet walking into the kitchen and down the corridor. As is often the case with humans, when I read about them in the book thief’s words, I pitied them, though not as much as I felt for the ones I scooped up from various camps in that time. The Germans in basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable.
”
”
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
“
Two-hands,” Zak said more emphatically. Matron Malice motioned for him to continue, unable to deny the grace of her youngest son’s display. “Could you do it again?” Zak asked Drizzt. With each hand working independently, Drizzt soon had the coins stacked atop his index fingers, ready to flip. Zak stopped him there and pulled out four more coins, building each of the piles five high. Zak paused a moment to study the concentration of the young drow (and also to keep his hands over the coins and ensure that they were brightened enough by the warmth of his body heat for Drizzt to properly see them in their flight). “Catch them all, Secondboy,” he said in all seriousness. “Catch them all, or you will land in Sorcere, the school of magic. That is not where you belong!” Drizzt still had only a vague idea of what Zak was talking about, but he could tell from the weapons master’s intensity that it must be important. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then snapped the coins up. He sorted their glow quickly, discerning each individual item. The first two fell easily into his hands, but Drizzt saw that the scattering pattern of the rest would not drop them so readily in line. Drizzt exploded into action, spinning a complete circle, his hands an indecipherable blur of motion. Then he straightened suddenly and stood before Zak. His hands were in fists at his sides and a grim look lay on his face. Zak and Matron Malice exchanged glances, neither quite sure of what had happened. Drizzt held his fists out to Zak and slowly opened them, a confident smile widening across his childish face. Five coins in each hand. Zak blew a silent whistle. It had taken him, the weapons master of the house, a dozen tries to complete that maneuver with ten coins. He walked over to Matron Malice. “Two-hands,” he said a third time. “He is a fighter, and I am out of coins.” “How many could he do?” Malice breathed, obviously impressed in spite of herself. “How many could we stack?” Zaknafein shot back with a triumphant smile.
”
”
R.A. Salvatore (Homeland (The Dark Elf, #1; The Legend of Drizzt, #1))
“
Meeting the Prince of Wales
Then I was asked to stay at the de Passes in July 1980 by Philip de Pass who is the son. ‘Would you like to come and stay for a couple of nights down at Petworth because we’ve got the Prince of Wales staying. You’re a young blood, you might amuse him.’ So I said ‘OK.’ So I sat next to him and Charles came in. He was all over me again and it was very strange. I thought ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’ I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious, I thought this was very odd. The first night we sat down on a bale at the barbecue at this house and he’d just finished with Anna Wallace. I said: ‘You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral.’ I said: ‘It was the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched. I thought, “It’s wrong, you’re lonely--you should be with somebody to look after you.”’
The next minute he leapt on me practically and I thought this was very strange, too, and I wasn’t quite sure how to cope with all this. Anyway we talked about lots of things and anyway that was it. Frigid wasn’t the word. Big F when it comes to that. He said: ‘You must come to London with me tomorrow. I’ve got to work at Buckingham Palace, you must come to work with me.’ I thought this was too much. I said: ‘No, I can’t.’ I thought ‘How will I explain my presence at Buckingham Palace when I’m supposed to be staying with Philip?’ Then he asked me to Cowes on Britannia and he had lots of older friends there and I was fairly intimidated but they were all over me like a bad rash. I felt very strange about the whole thing, obviously somebody was talking.
I came in and out, in and out, then I went to stay with my sister Jane at Balmoral where Robert [Fellowes, Jane’s husband] was assistant private secretary [to the Queen]. I was terrified--shitting bricks. I was frightened because I had never stayed at Balmoral and I wanted to get it right. The anticipation was worse than actually being there. I was all right once I got in through the front door. I had a normal single bed! I have always done my own packing and unpacking--I was always appalled that Prince Charles takes 22 pieces of hand luggage with him. That’s before the other stuff. I have four or five. I felt rather embarrassed.
I stayed back at the castle because of the press interest. It was considered a good idea. Mr and Mrs Parker-Bowles were there at all my visits. I was the youngest there by a long way. Charles used to ring me up and say: ‘Would you like to come for a walk, come for a barbecue?’ so I said: ‘Yes, please.’ I thought this was all wonderful.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
What no one then, of course, knew was that as female children of the tsaritsa, one or all of the sisters might be carriers of that terrible defective gene – a hidden time bomb that had already begun to reverberate across the royal families of Europe. Alexandra’s elder sister Irene – who like her was a carrier and who had married her first cousin, Prince Henry of Prussia – had already given birth to two haemophiliac sons. The youngest, four-year-old Heinrich, had died – ‘of the terrible illness of the English family’, as Xenia described it – just five months before Alexey was born. In Russia they called it the bolezn gessenskikh – ‘the Hesse disease’; others called it ‘the Curse of the Coburgs’.66 But one thing was certain; in the early 1900s, the life expectancy of a haemophiliac child was only about thirteen years.67
”
”
Helen Rappaport (The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra (The Romanov Sisters #2))
“
Nothing,” said Margaret. “So there once was an Indian chief with three daughters, or squaws. All the braves in the tribe wanted to marry them, so he decided to hold a contest—all the braves would go out hunting, and the three who brought back the best hides would get to marry his squaws.” “Everyone knows this one,” said Lauren, rolling her eyes. “I don’t,” said Mom. I didn’t either. “Then I’ll keep going,” said Margaret, smiling, “and don’t you dare give it away. So anyway, all the braves went out, and after a long time they started to come back with wolf hides and rabbit hides and things like that. The chief was unimpressed. Then one day, a brave came back with a hide from a grizzly bear, which is pretty amazing, so the chief let him marry his youngest daughter. Then the next guy came back with a hide from a polar bear, which is even more amazing, so the chief let him marry his middle daughter. They waited and waited, and finally the last brave came back with the hide from a hippopotamus.” “A hippopotamus?” asked Mom. “I thought this was in North America.” “It is,” said Margaret, “that’s why a hippopotamus hide was so great. It was the most amazing hide the tribe had ever seen, and the chief let that brave marry his oldest and most beautiful daughter.” “She’s two minutes older than I am,” said Mom, glancing at me with a mock sneer. “Never lets me forget it.” “Stop interrupting,” said Margaret, “this is the best part. The squaws and the braves got married, and a year later they all had children—the youngest squaw had one son, the middle squaw had one son, and the oldest squaw had two sons.” She paused dramatically, and we stared at her for a moment, waiting. Lauren laughed. “Is there a punchline?” I asked. Lauren and Margaret said it in unison: “The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.
”
”
Dan Wells (I Am Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver, #1))
“
Ywa was neither man nor woman, and was not in a human form. Ywa was the creator of the world and a force for good. To balance Ywa there was also a force for evil, called Mu Kaw Lee. Ywa created three sons in human form. The eldest was a Karen, the second a Burman, and the youngest was a white man. To the Karen son Ywa gave a golden book, to the Burman a silver book, and to the white man Ywa gave a book bound in normal paper. When the rains began and the Karen son went to plant his rice field, he placed the golden book nearby, on a tree stump. But his youngest brother, the white man, had grown jealous and coveted his beautiful golden book. When the Karen man wasn’t looking the white man came along and took it, replacing it with his own. Then the white man built a boat and escaped to a far-off country. He carried his prize with him–the golden book that contained the teachings Ywa had given to his eldest son. After a long day working under the heavy rain, the Karen man went to fetch his golden book. The book that the white man had left in its place had fallen apart in the rain, and there was nothing left. A chicken had been scratching around the stump searching for food, and all the Karen man found was chicken scratch marks. He concluded that the golden book had been replaced by the scratch marks, and that those must embody the message that Ywa had left him. And so the Karen man taught himself to read and write in chicken scratch. Over time, he learned the truth about the golden book being stolen, but by then it was too late–chicken scratch had become the official language of the Karen. The Karen man wrote down the story of how the golden book was stolen, and the word of Ywa lost, in a new book. He called this book Li Hsaw Weh–‘the book of chicken scratch teachings’. Centuries later the first white missionaries came to Burma. Many Karen believed that this was the younger brother returning, bringing the golden book in the form of the Bible, and so they welcomed them. Many Karen believe this story absolutely, and that one day the younger brother–a white man–will come again to help save our people.
”
”
Zoya Phan (Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West)
“
Of course, no china--however intricate and inviting--was as seductive as my fiancé, my future husband, who continued to eat me alive with one glance from his icy-blue eyes. Who greeted me not at the door of his house when I arrived almost every night of the week, but at my car. Who welcomed me not with a pat on the arm or even a hug but with an all-enveloping, all-encompassing embrace. Whose good-night kisses began the moment I arrived, not hours later when it was time to go home.
We were already playing house, what with my almost daily trips to the ranch and our five o’clock suppers and our lazy movie nights on his thirty-year-old leather couch, the same one his parents had bought when they were a newly married couple. We’d already watched enough movies together to last a lifetime. Giant with James Dean, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Reservoir Dogs, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, All Quiet on the Western Front, and, more than a handful of times, Gone With the Wind. I was continually surprised by the assortment of movies Marlboro Man loved to watch--his taste was surprisingly eclectic--and I loved discovering more and more about him through the VHS collection in his living room. He actually owned The Philadelphia Story. With Marlboro Man, surprises lurked around every corner.
We were already a married couple--well, except for the whole “sleepover thing” and the fact that we hadn’t actually gotten hitched yet. We stayed in, like any married couple over the age of sixty, and continued to get to know everything about each other completely outside the realm of parties, dates, and gatherings. All of that was way too far away, anyway--a minimum hour-and-a-half drive to the nearest big city--and besides that, Marlboro Man was a fish out of water in a busy, crowded bar. As for me, I’d been there, done that--a thousand and one times. Going out and panting the town red was unnecessary and completely out of context for the kind of life we’d be building together.
This was what we brought each other, I realized. He showed me a slower pace, and permission to be comfortable in the absence of exciting plans on the horizon. I gave him, I realized, something different. Different from the girls he’d dated before--girls who actually knew a thing or two about country life. Different from his mom, who’d also grown up on a ranch. Different from all of his female cousins, who knew how to saddle and ride and who were born with their boots on. As the youngest son in a family of three boys, maybe he looked forward to experiencing life with someone who’d see the country with fresh eyes. Someone who’d appreciate how miraculously countercultural, how strange and set apart it all really is. Someone who couldn’t ride to save her life. Who didn’t know north from south, or east from west.
If that defined his criteria for a life partner, I was definitely the woman for the job.
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
“
Will’s fleshy face contorted and a memory swept over him like a chilling wind. He did
not move slowly over the past, it was all there in one flash, all of the years, a picture, a feeling and a despair, all stopped the way a fast camera stops the world. There was the flashing Samuel, beautiful as dawn with a fancy like a swallow’s flight, and the brilliant, brooding Tom who was dark fire, Una who rode the storms, and the lovely Mollie, Dessie of laughter, George handsome and with a sweetness that filled a room like the perfume of flowers, and there was Joe, the youngest, the beloved. Each one without effort brought some gift into the family.
Nearly everyone has his box of secret pain, shared with no one. Will had concealed his well, laughed loud, exploited perverse virtues, and never let his jealousy go wandering. He thought of himself as slow, doltish, conservative, uninspired. No great dream lifted him high and no despair forced self-destruction. He was always on the edge, trying to hold on to the rim of the family with what gifts he had—care, and reason, application. He kept the books, hired the attorneys, called the undertaker, and eventually paid the bills. The others didn’t even know they needed him. He had the ability to get money and to keep it. He thought the Hamiltons despised him for his one ability. He had loved them doggedly, had always been at hand with his money to pull them out of their errors. He thought they were ashamed of him, and he fought bitterly for their recognition. All of this was in the frozen wind that blew through him.
His slightly bulging eyes were damp as he stared past Cal, and the boy asked, “What’s the matter, Mr. Hamilton? Don’t you feel well?”
Will had sensed his family but he had not understood them. And they had accepted him without knowing there was anything to understand. And now this boy came along. Will understood him, felt him, sensed him, recognized him. This was the son he should have had, or the brother, or the father. And the cold wind of memory changed to a warmth toward Cal which gripped him in the stomach and pushed up against his lungs.
”
”
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
“
Dylan Caine came over last night and worked with me to strip the walls.”
Her stomach tingled again as she remembered that kiss that had happened right about where her mother stood.
Laura frowned. “Which Caine brother is that? There are dozens of them.”
“Only six, Mother. He’s the youngest son.”
Laura looked baffled for a moment, trying to put the pieces together, and then her eyes widened. “Dylan. He’s the one who lives up in Snowflake Canyon. The one who lost his arm.”
“Yes,” she said calmly. “That’s the one.”
Laura stared at her. “Why would you have him help you? What can he even do without an arm?”
Kiss her until she couldn’t remember her name, for one thing. He had amazing skills in that direction, but she was quite certain her mother wouldn’t appreciate that particular insight.
”
”
RaeAnne Thayne (Christmas in Snowflake Canyon (Hope's Crossing, #6))
“
Loomis was not any easier a father than he was a husband. He set the bar very high when it came to his three sons. After he cashed out of Bonbright, he awarded each of the three boys a substantial share of their inheritance - roughly $1 million - on the theory that it was never too early to begin charting one's own course. The youngest, Henry, was only fourteen when he was given complete financial independence.
”
”
Jennet Conant (Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II)
“
Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife. Mounted on his huge black destrier, the knight towered above Will and Gared on their smaller garrons. He wore black leather boots, black woolen pants, black moleskin gloves, and a fine supple coat of gleaming black ringmail over layers of black wool and boiled leather. Ser Waymar had been a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch for less than half a year, but no one could say he had not prepared for his vocation. At least insofar as his wardrobe was concerned.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
“
For pure patriotism, however, the Gists of South Carolina stood above the rest. Their father had been an ardent patriot during the Revolution, in consequence of which he named his first son Independence Gist. Independence without some sort of restraint being close to anarchy, however, the father tempered his zeal by naming the second son Constitution Gist. But in 1831 when his third son arrived, it was already evident that Independence and Constitution were not enough. The liberties for which he fought still stood endangered by radicals in Washington. Consequently, as an admonition to all, he named this youngest boy States Rights Gist.
”
”
William C. Davis (The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy (Modern War Studies))
“
home. The entire Luftwaffe seemed to be waiting for him. Bombing and strafing, the enemy planes made pass after pass. Fortunately Sundowner could turn on a sixpence, and Lightoller had learned a few tricks from an expert. His youngest son, killed in the first days of the war, had been a bomber pilot and often talked about evasion tactics. The father now put his lost son’s theories to work. The secret was to wait until the last instant, when the enemy plane was already committed, then hard rudder before the pilot could readjust. Squirming and dodging his way across the Channel, Lightoller managed to get Sundowner back to England without a scratch. Gliding into Ramsgate
”
”
Walter Lord (The Miracle of Dunkirk (Wordsworth Collection))
“
...Denise left the kitchen and took the plate to Alfred, for whom the problem of existence was this: that, in the manner of a wheat seedling thrusting itself up out of the earth, the world moved forward in a time by adding cell after cell to its leading edge, piling moment on moment, and that to grasp the world even in its freshest youngest moment provided no guarantee that you'd be able to grasp it again a moment later. By the time he'd established his daughter Denise was handing him a plate of snacks in his son Chip's living room, the next moment in time was already budding itself into a pristinely ungrasped existence in which he couldn't absolutely rule out the possibility, for example, that his wife Enid was handing him a plate of feces in the parlor of a brothel.
”
”
Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections)
“
Our church has been supportive, but it still amazes me what people will say. ‘At least he’s not suffering…God needed another angel…You still have other children.’” Janice shared. “My son is dead. Platitudes are useless, and hurtful.” Janice’s son Kolton was the youngest of
”
”
Gary Roe (Shattered: Surviving the Loss of a Child (Good Grief Series))
“
Since Damarcus was back in their lives, Trigga talked to him more than Truth. Damarcus continuously tried with his youngest son but to no avail. Truth was still stuck on the past.
”
”
Ms. Brii (Love And A Thug 2: A Hitta's Love Story (Love And A Thug: A Hitta's Love Story))
“
Sideline Story
By Barbara Dooley, Georgia Grits
When you have a lot of children, and we had four, you get worn slap out. By the time the last baby arrives, you just let them do just about whatever they want. We had a rule that our first son, Daniel, could not go to the sidelines with his father, who was the head coach at the University of Georgia at the time, until he was ten years old. Our youngest son, Derek, got this chance a lot sooner.
When Derek was five, Georgia played our biggest in-state rival, Georgia Tech, in Atlanta on Thanksgiving night. We spent Thanksgiving without the coach, then drove to Atlanta for the game. When we got to the hotel, Derek immediately asked his father if he could sit on the sidelines. Feeling guilty about Thanksgiving, Vince compromised and told him that if we were beating Tech by a large score at the end of the third quarter he could go down on the sidelines. There were two rules: he could not get near the team, and he could not get near Dad! At family prayers, Derek prayed, “…and Jesus please let us be beating Tech by a big enough score that I can get to the sidelines.”
At the end of the third quarter the score was 42--0, and I thought that was a reasonable lead to take him down to the sidelines. By the time we got to the fence, Tech had scored and it was 42--7. By the time I got him over the fence, it was 42--14. By the time I got back to my seat, it was 42--21 and Derek Dooley was pulling on his dad’s pants leg.
That night in the hotel, we put the children down in their room and turned out the lights. We went to our adjoining room and Vince turned out the light. I knew, womanly instinct, that something major was about to be said. I just lay there as still as I could, waiting. Finally he said, “Barbara, the strangest thing happened tonight on the sideline. Tech had the ball going down the field to score and Derek was pulling on my pants leg. I pushed him away, anything to get him to turn loose of my leg. Finally when Tech scored, I looked down and said, ‘Derek, what do you want?’ I was ready for anything except for what he said. He looked up at me with his big brown eyes and said, “Daddy, don’t worry about a thing. Jesus is just having a little fun.
”
”
Deborah Ford (Grits (Girls Raised in the South) Guide to Life)
“
Wednesday evening arrived, eight o'clock came, and eight members of the committee were punctual in their attendance. Mr Loggins, the solicitor, of Boswell-court, sent an excuse, and Mr Samuel Briggs, the ditto of Furnival's Inn, sent his brother, much to his (the brother's) satisfaction, and greatly to the discomfiture of Mr Percy Noakes. Between the Briggses and the Tauntons there existed a degree of implacable hatred, quite unprecedented. The animosity between the Montagues and Capulets was nothing to that which prevailed between these two illustrious houses. Mrs Briggs was a widow, with three daughters and two sons; Mr Samuel, the eldest, was an attorney, and Mr Alexander, the youngest, was under articles to his brother. They resided in Portland-street, Oxford-street, and moved in the same orbit as the Tauntons - hence their mutual dislike. If the Miss Briggs appeared in smart bonnets, the Miss Tauntons eclipsed them with smarter. If Mrs Taunton appeared in a cap of all the hues of the rainbow, Mrs Briggs forthwith mounted a toque, with all the patterns of a kaleidoscope. If Miss Sophia Taunton learnt a new song, two of the Miss Briggses came out with a new duet. The Tauntons had once gained a temporary triumph with the assistance of a harp, but the Briggses brought three guitars into the field, and effectually routed the enemy. There was no end to the rivalry between them.
”
”
Charles Dickens
“
I remember at a certain point my youngest son, Shuba, landed his silver top hat or racing car on a square where Pete had two hotels built. Shuba had to pay out almost all his money. He flew into a rage, ran to his room, slammed the door screaming “I hate you all!” It took us 15 minutes to coach him out. Pete, on the other hand, was enjoying the game, not to win or lose, but to relax and have fun. It really made no difference to him what the outcome was, and in fact when my older son came through as the victor, Pete was delighted. In one sense, this is the essence of aging with wisdom. You still participate fully. You still play the game with gusto. You still build hotels. You still go to jail and wait to roll a double six. But you do all these things in a spirit of amused detachment. If you win, you win; if you lose, you lose; but you’ve learned that is not the point of being here.
”
”
John C. Robinson (The Three Secrets of Aging)
“
On Saturday morning he got out the Monopoly set with the boys, and they got launched into a tournament that went on hours. I remember at a certain point my youngest son, Shuba, landed his silver top hat or racing car on a square where Pete had two hotels built. Shuba had to pay out almost all his money. He flew into a rage, ran to his room, slammed the door screaming “I hate you all!” It took us 15 minutes to coach him out. Pete, on the other hand, was enjoying the game, not to win or lose, but to relax and have fun. It really made no difference to him what the outcome was, and in fact when my older son came through as the victor, Pete was delighted. In one sense, this is the essence of aging with wisdom. You still participate fully. You still play the game with gusto. You still build hotels. You still go to jail and wait to roll a double six. But you do all these things in a spirit of amused detachment. If you win, you win; if you lose, you lose; but you’ve learned that is not the point of being here.
”
”
John C. Robinson (The Three Secrets of Aging)
“
But the way Roscoe spoke sometimes, he acted like his poop didn’t smell even though he was just a poor boy from backwoods Tennessee, the youngest son of a con man and a librarian. He’s
”
”
Penny Reid (Beard in Mind (Winston Brothers, #4))
“
Soon after the marriage of Miss Meg, George, the third son, and youngest of the family, was placed in the counting house of one of the most eminent West Indian merchants at that period in Glasgow. This incident was in no other respect important in the history of the Lairds of Grippy, than as serving to open a career to George, that would lead him into a higher class of acquaintance than his elder brothers: for it was about this time that the general merchants began to arrogate to themselves that aristocratic superiority over the shopkeepers, which they have since established into an oligarchy, as proud and sacred, in what respects the reciprocities of society, as the famous Seignories of Venice and Genoa.
”
”
John Galt (The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy)
“
But John Marshal, having four sons and a fruitful wife, considered the youngest of his sons of far less value than a strong castle
”
”
Sidney Painter (William Marshal: Knight-Errant, Baron, and Regent of England)