“
There was also a dark-haired man of about thirty (BMI approximately twenty) who appeared not to have shaved for several days, and, beside him, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. In contrast to the complexity of Bianca’s costume, she was wearing a green dress with zero decoration, so minimal that it did not even have straps to hold it in place. It took me a moment to realise that its wearer was Rosie.
”
”
Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1))
“
Markov died while trying to fit a small, slippery shotgun shell into a narrow gun barrel, in the dark, at thirty below zero—with a tiger bearing down on him from ten yards away.
”
”
John Vaillant (The Tiger)
“
ready to waste a lifetime waiting to be carried by the same winds again
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
Sometimes it takes a broken frame to see the bigger picture.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
Your emerald eyes turn to marble as we fuse
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
You closed your eyes while I was getting lost in them.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
In our blissful swirl of self-interruption we forget some days are about surviving.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
Contrary to when in company, I rarely feel lonely being alone.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
Everything seemed bigger when we were kids, but most of all time did.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
There were early mornings–“zero dark thirty,” as they were called–when a special operations helicopter would appear, 300 feet from his quarters. These were UH-60 Blackhawks, which staged on the taxiway far from the rest of the camp. The crews waited in the middle of the night, engines and rotors engaged, until they were called in for a raid as part of a task force so secretive that even its designation was classified.
”
”
Cate Folsom (Smoke the Donkey: A Marine's Unlikely Friend)
“
What is it, Officer Day?” The captain turned hard, dark eyes on the man, already sporting a sarcastic smirk. “What if you don’t have a wife to fuck, sir?” Day quipped, his mouth twitching at trying to hide his amusement. “Then fuck your boyfriend, Day, I don’t give a shit, just make sure you can still drag your ass back in here at zero-dark-thirty tomorrow, smart-mouth.” The captain snatched his paperwork off the podium and left the room. “Yes, sir,” Day whispered after the captain slammed the door. The
”
”
A.E. Via (Nothing Special)
“
The rules are: your house is a safe zone. School is a safe zone, but not the parking lot. Once you step out the door, it’s all fair game. You’re out if you get hit with a two-hand touch.
And if you renege on your wish, your life is forfeit. Genevieve comes up with that last part and it gives me shivers. Trevor Pike shudders and says, “Girls are scary.”
“No, girls in their family are scary,” Peter says, gesturing at Chris and Genevieve. They both smile, and in those smiles I see the family resemblance. Casting a sidelong glance at me, Peter says hopefully, “You’re not scary, though. You’re sweet, right?” Suddenly I remember something Stormy said to me. Don’t ever let him get too sure of you. Peter is very sure of me. As sure as a person could be.
“I can be scary too,” I quietly say back, and he blanches. Then, to everyone else, I say, “Let’s just have fun with it.”
“Oh, it’ll be fun,” John assures me. He puts his Orioles cap on his head and pulls the brim down. “Game on.” He catches my eye. “If you thought I was good at Model UN, wait till you see my Zero Dark Thirty skills.
”
”
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
“
When they were about a hundred meters from the death lines, Yifan waved Cheng Xin to a stop. Each death line was about twenty or thirty meters in diameter, and from here, they resembled death columns. “These are probably the darkest things in the universe,” Cheng Xin said. The death lines showed no details except an exceptional blackness showing the boundaries of the zero-lightspeed region, with no real surface. Looking up, the lines showed up clearly even against the dark backdrop of space. “These are the deadest things in the universe as well,” said Guan Yifan. “Zero-lightspeed means absolute, one hundred percent death. Inside it, every fundamental particle, every quark is dead. There is no vibration. Even without a source of gravity inside, each death line is a black hole. A zero-gravity black hole. Anything that falls in cannot reemerge.” Yifan picked up a rock and tossed it toward one of the death lines. The rock disappeared inside the absolute darkness. “Can your lightspeed ships produce death lines?” Cheng Xin asked. “Far from it.” “So you’ve seen these before, then?” “Yes, but only rarely.” Cheng
”
”
Liu Cixin (Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3))
“
I reach out and squeeze her hand, and remember everything we’ve lived through together. The normal things we endured as we grew from girls to women. The days in school where boys would line us up in order of our fuckability. The parties where it was normal to lie on top of a semi-conscious girl, do things to her, then call her a slut afterwards. A Christmas number-one song about a pregnant woman being stuffed into the boot of a car and driven off a bridge. Laughing when your male friends made rape jokes. Opening a newspaper and seeing the breasts of a girl who had only just turned legal, dressed in school uniform to make her look underage. Of the childhood films we grew up on, and loved, and knew all the words to, where, at the end, a girl would always get chosen for looking the prettiest compared to all the others. Reading magazines that told you to mirror men’s body language, and hum on their dick when you went down on them, that turned into books about how to get them to commit by not being yourself. Of size zero, and Atkins, and Five-Two, and cabbage soup, and juice cleanses and eat clean. Of pole-dancing lessons as a great way to get fit, and actually, if you want to be really cool, come to the actual strip club too. Of being sexually assaulted when you kissed someone on a dance floor and not thinking about it properly until you are twenty-seven and read a book about how maybe it was wrong. Of being jealous of your friend who got assaulted on the dance floor because why didn’t he pick you to assault? Boys not wanting to be with you unless you fuck them quickly. Boys not wanting to be with you because you fucked them too quickly. Being terrified to walk anywhere in the dark in case the worst thing happens to you, and so your male friend walks you home to keep you safe, and then comes into your bedroom and does the worst thing to you, and now, when you look him up online, he’s engaged to a woman who wears a feminist T-shirt and isn’t going to change her name when they get married. Of learning to have no pubic hair, and how liberating it is to pay thirty-five pounds a month to rip this from your body and lurch up in agony. Rings around famous women’s bodies saying ‘look at this cellulite’, oh, by the way, here is a twenty-quid cream so you don’t get
”
”
Holly Bourne (Girl Friends: the unmissable, thought-provoking and funny new novel about female friendship)
“
He reached a finger toward the Seiko, which now proclaimed the time to be ninety-one minutes past seven--A.M. and P.M.--and pulled it back just before touching the glass above the liquid crystal display. "Tell me, dear boy--is this 'watch' of yours boobyrigged?"
"Huh? Oh! No. No, it's not boobyrigged." Jake touched his own finger to the face of the watch.
"That means nothing, if it's set to the frequency of your own body," the Tick-Tock Man said. He spoke in the sharp, scornful tone Jake's father used when he didn't want people to figure out that he didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Tick-Tock glanced briefly at Brandon, and Jake saw him weigh the pros and cons of making the bowlegged man his designated toucher. Then he dismissed the notion and looked back into Jake's eyes. "If this thing gives me a shock, my little friend, you're going to be choking to death on your own sweetmeats in thirty seconds."
Jake swallowed hard but said nothing. The Tick-Tock Man reached out his finger again, and this time allowed it to settle on the face of the Seiko. The moment that it did, all the numbers went to zeros and then began to count upward again.
Tick-Tock's eyes had narrowed in a grimace of potential pain as he touched the face of the watch. Now their corners crinkled in the first genuine smile Jake had seen from him. He thought it was partly pleasure at his own courage but mostly simple wonder and interest.
"May I have it?" he asked Jake silkily. "As a gesture of your goodwill, shall we say? I am something of a clock fancier, my dear young cully--so I am."
"Be my guest." Jake stripped the watch off his arm at once and dropped in onto the Tick-Tock Man's large waiting palm.
”
”
Stephen King (The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, #3))
“
My office is over here—”
He stopped. Frowned. Looked about. Had to backtrack to the kitchen in order to find the various parties.
Sola’s grandmother had her head in the Sub-Zero refrigerator, rather as if she were a gnome looking for a cool place in the summer.
“Madam?” Assail inquired.
She shut the door and moved on to the floor-to-ceiling cabinets. “There is nothing here. Nothing. What do you eat?”
“Ah . . .” Assail found himself looking at the cousins for aid. “Usually we take our meals in town.”
The scoffing sound certainly appeared like the old-lady equivalent of Fuck that.
“I need the staples.” She pivoted on her little shiny shoes and put her hands on her hips. “Who is taking me to supermarket.”
Not an inquiry. And as she stared up at the three of them, it appeared as though Ehric and his violent killer of a twin were as nonplussed as Assail was.
The evening had been planned out to the minute—and a trip to the local Hannaford was not on the list.
“You two are too thin,” she announced, flicking her hand in the direction of the twins. “You need to eat.”
Assail cleared his throat. “Madam, you have been brought here for your safety.”
He was not going to permit Benloise to up the stakes—and so he’d had to lock down potential collateral damage.
“Not to be a cook.”
“You have already refused the money. I no stay here for free. I earn my keep. That is the way it will be.”
Assail exhaled long and slow. Now he knew where Sola got her independent streak.
“Well?” she demanded. “I no drive. Who takes me.”
“Madam, would you not prefer to rest—”
“Your body rest when dead. Who.”
“We do have an hour,” Ehric hedged.
As Assail glared at the other vampire, the little old lady hitched her purse up on her forearm and nodded. “So he will take me.”
Assail met Sola’s grandmother’s gaze directly and dropped his tone a register just so that the line drawn would be respected. “I pay. Are we clear—you are not to spend a cent.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue, but she was headstrong—not foolish. “Then I do the darning.”
“Our clothes are in sufficient shape—”
Ehric cleared his throat. “Actually, I have a couple of loose buttons. And the Velcro strip on his flak jacket is—”
Assail looked over his shoulder and bared his fangs at the idiot—out of eyesight of Sola’s grandmother, of course. Remarshaling his expression, he turned back around and— Knew he’d lost.
The grandmother had one of those brows cocked, her dark eyes as steady as any foe’s he’d ever faced.
Assail shook his head. “I cannot believe I’m negotiating with you.”
“And you agree to terms.”
“Madam—”
“Then it is settled.”
Assail threw up his hands. “Fine. You have forty-five minutes. That is all.”
“We be back in thirty.” At that, she turned and headed for the door.
In her diminutive wake, the three vampires played ocular Ping-Pong.
“Go,” Assail gritted out. “Both of you.”
The cousins stalked for the garage door—but they didn’t make it.
Sola’s grandmother wheeled around and put her hands on her hips. “Where is your crucifix?”
Assail shook himself. “I beg your pardon?”
“Are you no Catholic?”
My dear sweet woman, we are not human, he thought.
“No, I fear not.”
Laser-beam eyes locked on him. Ehric. Ehric’s brother. “We change this. It is God’s will.”
And out she went, marching through the mudroom, ripping open the door, and disappearing into the garage.
As that heavy steel barrier closed automatically, all Assail could do was blink.
”
”
J.R. Ward (The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #12))
“
It’s not remotely likely, but then neither is anything. If the force of gravity were even slightly weaker, stars wouldn’t be dense enough to cross the Coulomb barrier and start thermonuclear fusion. It would be a completely dark universe. If gravity were slightly stronger, stars would burn too hot and fast, and there would be no life. If the attractive force between electrons and atomic nuclei were too weak, electrons couldn’t orbit; if it were too strong, atoms couldn’t bond with each other. Either way, there would be no molecules. There are more than thirty such parameters that must have almost the precise values that they do in order to permit a universe with life. The odds of that happening have been calculated to be one to the negative 230—that is to say, one chance in a number that has 229 zeros after it. Randomly finding a specific grain of sand on the first try among all the grains on earth would be millions of millions of times more likely than the universe existing. And yet here we are.
”
”
Sebastian Junger (In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife)
“
On the same pages, at different times.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
How low do you want this fire to burn for it to cast no shadows?
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
There's no movement without direction.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
At night I still wake up falling through the hole I tore into your dream.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
There's only two things that affect rational thought - one is fear, the other is love.
Who am I to judge a scared lover?
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
I don't know which idea threatens me more - to appear part of society or spending a lifetime trying to please it.
”
”
Dean Cocozza (zero dark thirty)
“
ZERO DARK THIRTY by Mark Boal
”
”
Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty: The Shooting Script)
“
This is the guy that’s KSM’s nephew? What’s his issue? DANIEL He’s being a dick. BRADLEY If he’s trying to outsmart you, tell him about your PhD.
”
”
Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty: The Shooting Script)