An Offering Of Midnight Quotes

He touched her as he would touch his violin: it was how he knew to touch something that was precious and loved. ~ Cassandra Clare

And most of all, most emphatically of all, they hated how her favorite means of connecting was commiseration. "Oh, poor you!" she would say. "You're looking so tired!" Or "You must be feeling so lonely!" Other people showed love by offering compliments; Abby offered pity. It was not an attractive quality, in her children's opinion. ~ Anne Tyler

A few days earlier, Chess and Thomas had driven to Spokane for a cheap hamburger. They walked in downtown Spokane and stumbled onto a drunk couple arguing.
"Get the fuck away from me!" the drunk woman yelled at her drunk husband, who squeezed his hand into a fist like he meant to hit her.
Thomas and Chess flinched, then froze, transported back to all of those drunken arguments they'd witnessed and survived.
The drunk couple in downtown Spokane pulled at each other's clothes and hearts, but they were white people. Chess and Thomas knew that white people hurt each other, too. Chess knew that white people felt pain just like Indians, Nerve endings, messages to the brain, reflexes. The doctor swung hammer against knee, and the world collapsed.
"You fucker!" the white woman yelled at her husband, who opened his hands and held them out to his wife. An offering. That hand would not strike her. He pleaded with his wife until she fell back into his arms. That white woman and man held each other while Chess and Thomas watched. A hundred strangers walked by and never noticed any of it.
After that, Chess and Thomas had sat in the van in a downtown parking lot. Thomas began to weep, deep ragged tears that rose along his rib cage, filled his mouth and nose, and exploded out. ~ Sherman Alexie

He had never once felt itchy, in the way that two connecting pieces of a jigsaw never felt itchy, as far as one could tell. If one were to imagine, for the sake of argument, that jigsaw pieces had thoughts and feelings, then it was possible to imagine them saying to themselves, 'I'm going to stay here. Where else would I go?' And if another jigsaw piece came along, offering its tabs and blanks enticingly in an attempt to lure one of the pieces away, it would be easy to resist temptation. 'Look,' the object of the seducer's admiration would say. 'You're a bit of telephone box, and I'm the face of Mary, Queen of Scots. We just wouldn't look right together.' And that would be that. ~ Nick Hornby

I like cats a lot. I've always liked cats. They're great company. When they eat, they always leave a little bit at the bottom of the bowl. A dog will polish the bowl, but a cat always leaves a little bit. It's like an offering. ~ Christopher Walken

I make this bond to you in blood, not flowers," he said. "Come with me and you shall be an empress with the moon for your throne and constellations to wear in your hair. Come with me and I promise you that we will always be equals."
My mouth went dry. A blood oath was no trifling undertaking. Vassals swore it to lords, priests to the gods. But husbands to wives? Unthinkable.
Still, Bharata's court had taught me one thing: the greater the offer, the greater the compromise. And I had neither dowry nor influence from Bharata, nothing to give but the jewels I wore.
"You're offering me the world, and you ask for nothing in return."
"I ask only for your trust and patience."
"Trust?" I repeated. "Trust is won in years. Not words. And I don't know anything about you--"
"I will tell you everything," he cut in, his voice fierce. "But we must wait until the new moon. The kingdom's close ties to the Otherworld make it dangerous grounds for the curious."
In my stories to Gauri, the new moon weakened the other realms. Starlight thinned their borders and the inhabitants lay glutted and sleepy on moonbeams. The thing is, I had always made that part up.
"Why that long?"
"Because that is when my realm is at its weakest," said Amar, confirming my imagination and sending shivers across my arms. "Until then, the hold of the other realms binds me into silence."
The night before the wedding ceremony, there was no moon in the sky. I would have to wa ~ Roshani Chokshi

Even with his eyes concealed, I sensed Amar's gaze. "What world do you belong to? Theirs?" I pointed at an Otherworldly being sharpening his horns.
"No. My kingdom is neither among humans nor Otherworldly beings. It is between."
"Why did you come to Bharata?" I asked. "The invitation to my swayamvara was issued only to the nations we're at war with."
"Everyone is at war with my nation," he said with a smile.
"How did you even know about me?"
"Akaran has its eyes and ears."
He could have been lying. Nothing escaped me from the rafters where I had spied for years. But my father had other meetings…and he was not always in Bharata.
I hesitated. "How can I trust someone who won't even reveal their face?"
"It's far too easy to be recognized here."
He drew the cloak closer and the gesture was so final, so closed off and unwelcoming, that I stepped back, chastened. Amar removed the wedding garland from around his neck. From the sleeves of his jacket, he withdrew a small knife. Before I could react, he swiped the knife across his palm. Small beads of blood welled to the surface. He held his palm out to me like a perverse offering.
"I make this bond to you in blood, not flowers," he said. "Come with me and you shall be an empress with the moon for your throne and constellations to wear in your hair. Come with me and I promise you that we will always be equals."
My mouth went dry. A blood oath was no trifling undertaking. Vassals sw ~ Roshani Chokshi

That's my little piece of heaven. Go ahead."
Ciro followed Remo through the open door to a small enclosed garden. Terra-cotta pots positioned along the top of the stone wall spilled over with red geraniums and orange impatiens. An elm tree with a wide trunk and deep roots filled the center of the garden. Its green leaves and thick branches reached past the roof of Remo's building, creating a canopy over the garden. There was a small white marble birdbath, gray with soot, flanked by two deep wicker armchairs.
Remo fished a cigarette out of his pocket, offering another to Ciro as both men took a seat. "This is where I come to think."
"Va bene," Ciro said as he looked up into the tree. He remembered the thousands of trees that blanketed the Alps; here on Mulberry Street, one tree with peeling gray bark and holes in its leaves was cause for celebration. ~ Adriana Trigiani

Delta's plan to upgrade JFK facilities will improve our customers' travel experience and make it more efficient and enjoyable to travel through one of the world's premier international gateways. Our customers should make no mistake that Delta is committed to New York and that this summer's expansion at JFK is an important step in offering enhanced service to customers in most every direction we serve from New York City. ~ Jim Whitehurst

Caroline, my dear, you just got turned down by a man who once made a woman meow for thirty minutes straight. how do you feel?' the naked woman in the mirror asked me, turning my thumb into a little microphone. She gestured toward me, holding out her thumb. 'Well I drank enough wine to sustain a small Spanish village, I haven't had an orgasm in a thousand years, and I will probably die old and alone in a beautifully designed apartment with all of Clive's illegitimate children swarming around me... How do you think I feel?' I asked back, offering Mirror Caroline her thumb. ~ Alice Clayton

It is a mistake easily made by every man, saint or scholar, Church leader or day laborer. Ultimately, we come to expect God to accept our understanding of what his will ought to be and to help us fulfill that, instead of learning to see and accept his will in the real situations in which he places us daily. The simple soul who each day makes a morning offering of "all the prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day" - and who then acts upon it by accepting unquestioningly and responding lovingly to all the situations of the day as truly sent by God - has perceived with an almost childlike faith the profound truth about the will of God. To predict what God's will is going to be, to rationalize about what his will must be, is at once a work of human folly and yet the subtlest of all temptations. The plain and simple truth is that his will is that he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people, and problems. The trick is to learn to see that - not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God's grace, but every day. ~ Father Walter J. Ciszek

Fortunately, I'm able to make a living from comics, so I'm privileged enough to be quite choosy, though most cartoonists can't afford to be. It's really an uncomfortable situation, since I'm not an illustrator, though I do get calls from morally indefensible businesses offering me money to decorate their ambitions. It's extremely rare, almost unheard of, in fact, that I am asked to do a comic strip. Do writers get calls to pen Toyota advertisements? Do composers get asked to write chamber pieces about exercise machines? ~ Chris Ware

I looked up at Lee when we stopped in front of Hector and informed him helpfully, "You might want to take your arm away. Blanca tells me Hector doesn't like men touching me."
"Blanca told you that?" Lee asked, his smile (and arm) still firmly in place.
"Yes. She's known Hector, like, his whole life so I think she's in the position to know."
Lee nodded, his smile somehow bigger like he was trying not to laugh then his eyes moved to Hector and he said, "I tried to stop it."
Hector looked at Lee then looked at me then he muttered, "Oh fuck."
"It was Ally's idea," Lee told Hector.
"What was Ally's idea?" Hector asked Lee.
"It was not Ally's idea!" I cried.
"It wasn't!" super-power-eared Ally yelled from the open back window of Lee's Explorer. "It was Sadie's idea. I just was offering moral support."
"Shut up, Ally!" Indy shouted out the open passenger side window.
"I will not shut up! I'm not taking the fall for this one!" Ally shouted back.
I turned to the car, dislodging Lee's arm and lifted both my hands and pressed down. "No one's going to take a fall. Everyone calm down. It's all okay. It's rock 'n' roll!" I screamed.
"Righteous!" Ally screamed back.
"Rock on, sister!" Indy screamed too.
"It's rock 'n' roll?" Lee asked, sounding as amused as he looked.
"You all wanna quit screamin' at three o'clock in the mornin' in my fuckin' neighborhood?" Hector suggested.
Mm, well maybe we were being an een ~ Kristen Ashley

We know every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering....

- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 1986 ~ Edward Iwata

Liquor, guns, motorcycle helmets (legislation had gone back and forth on that) - mainly white masculine pursuits - are fairly unregulated. But for women and black men, regulation is greater. Within given parameters, federal law gives women the right to decide whether or not to abort a fetus. But the state of Louisiana has imposed restrictions on clinics offering the procedure, which, if upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court, would prevent all but one clinic, in New Orleans, from offering women access to it. Any adult in the state can also be jailed for transporting a teenager out of state for the purposes of an abortion if the teen has not informed her parents. Young black males are regulated too. Jefferson Davis Parish passed a bill banning the wearing of pants in public that revealed "skin beneath their waists or their underwear" and newspaper accounts featured images, taken from the back, of two black teenage boys exposing large portions of their undershorts. The parish imposed a $50 fine for a first offense and $100 for a second. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

For what Luc was in fact proposing was just a game, an enticing game, but, even so, one that could destroy my undoubtedly quite genuine feelings for Bertrand; and it could destroy something else within me, something ill-defined but fiercely felt, which, whether I liked it or not, was opposed to transience. Or, at the very least, to the intentionally transient nature of what Luc what was offering. And then, even if I was able to conceive of any passion or liaison as being short-lived, I couldn't accept in advance that it had to be that way. Like any individual for whom life is a series of charades, I could bear the charades only if they were written by me, and by me alone. ~ Francoise Sagan

The purpose of worship is to please God, and that every word and act in worship creates a witness about God as well as an offering to Him ~ Matthew James Elliott

The greatest enthusiasts for Civil War history and memory often displace complicated consequences by endlessly focusing on the contest itself. We sometimes lift ourselves out of historical time, above the details, and render the war safe in a kind of national Passover offering as we view a photograph of the Blue and Gray veterans shaking hands across the stone walls at Gettysburg. Deeply embedded in an American mythology of mission, and serving as a mother lode of nostalgia for antimodernists and military history buffs, the Civil War remains very difficult to shuck from its shell of sentimentalism. ~ David W. Blight

From the point of view of a spiritual life, it is not what you do that matters most, but the way in which it is done and the
consciousness you put into it. Remember always the Divine and all you do will be an expression of the Divine Presence.
When all your actions are consecrated to the Divine, there will be no longer activities that are superior and activities that
are inferior; all will have an equal importance - the value given them by the consecration. ~ The Mother

As an innovation ... the establishment of Free Schools was the boldest ever promulgated, since the commencement of the Christian era ... Time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, as beneficient as it was disinterested. It was one of those grand mental and moral experiments ... The sincerity of our gratitude must be tested by our efforts to perpetuate and improve what they established. The gratitude of the lips only is an unholy offering. ~ Horace Mann

The Services offer the cleanest and most natural support to an aggressive foreign policy; expansion of the empire appeals powerfully to the aristocracy and the professional classes by offering new and ever-growing fields for the honorable and profitable employment of their sons. ~ J.A. Hobson

In the secular world, women are also credited with having a sense of good that is intrinsically female, a sense of good that men do not have. This is a frequent feature of contemporary environmentalist or antimilitarist movements. Women are seen to have an inborn commitment to both clean air and peace, a moral nature that abhors pollution and murder. Being good or moral is viewed as a particular biological capacity of women and as a result women are the natural guardians of morality: a moral vanguard as it were. Organizers use this appeal to women all the time. Motherhood is especially invoked as biological proof that women have a special relationship to life, a special sensitivity to its meaning, a special, intuitive knowledge of what is right. Any political group can appropriate the special moral sensibility of women to its own ends: most groups do, usually in place of offering substantive relief to women with respect to sexism in the group itself. Women all along the male-defined political spectrum give special credence to this view of a female biological nature that is morally good. ~ Andrea Dworkin

Some car had hit it after all, because it hadn't had the courage to honor its own correct instinct. And I began to cry because I had this thought about people, that they do this all the time, deny the wise voice inside them telling them the right thing to do because it is different. I remembered once seeing a tea party some little girls had set up outside, mismatched china, decorations of a plucked pansy blossom and a seashell and a shiny penny and a small circle of red berries and a fern, pressed wetly into the wooden table, the damp outline around it a beautiful bonus. They didn't consult the Martha Stewart guide for entertainment and gulp a martini before their guests arrived. They pulled ideas from their hearts and minds about the things that gave them pleasure, and they laid out an offering with loving intent. It was a small Garden of Eden, the occupants making something out of what they saw was theirs. Out of what they truly saw. ~ Elizabeth Berg

It's one thing to ask your bank manager for an overdraft to buy 500 begonias for the borders in Haslemere, but quite another to seek financial succour to avail oneself of the 5-2 they're offering on lie de Bourbon for the St Leger. ~ Jeffrey Bernard

An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know.
All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was!-that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant ... ~ Virginia Woolf

The Fates themselves grant us one or two places in our lives where the thread untwists and we can follow either one strand or the other. Better to know when and where those choices will come to us instead of being taken by surprise. "
"Why only one or two?" I asked, thinking of all the moments my life had already accumulated in which I'd chosen to follow a different path than the one most people would expect of me. "Why not say that every day lets me choose my own future?"
The priest chuckled. "What a gift you have for joking, Lady Helen! You know your future. You'll be Sparta's queen, living a life blessed by the gods. Your only surprises will be the name of your husband and whether your babies will be sons or daughters. You don't need to visit the Pythia. But your noble brothers will be heroes, making their own futures; heroes should know what awaits them."
"He's right, Helen," Castor said. "Polydeuces and I should know our fate."
Castor's fate? He didn't need an oracle to discover that; I could tell him exactly what it would be. The young priest's glib words were better than underground fumes for giving me a vision of what lay in store for both of my brothers: They were going to have their ears filled with flattery, then be persuaded to leave a rich gift at Apollo's shrine just to hear some poor girl babble riddles while she choked half to death on smoke. Then they'd made another offering just to have Apollo's priests translate the Pythia's wild words. ~ Esther M. Friesner

Thus, to give an obvious instance, if I have once enjoyed the cool shade of a tree, and been lulled into a deep repose by the sound of a brook running at its feet, I am sure that wherever I can find a tree and a brook, I can enjoy the same pleasure again. Hence, when I imagine these objects, I can easily form a mystic personification of the friendly power that inhabits them, Dryad or Naiad, offering its cool fountain or its tempting shade. Hence the origin of the Grecian mythology. ~ William Hazlitt

It is an old custom of these people to pick up a stone and toss it on the pile. Perhaps it is a symbolical lightening of the load they carry, perhaps a small offering to the gods of the trails. ~ Louis L'Amour

I came to realize that this was about more than not offering up what some of his opponents craved - the picture of the angry black man, or the lectures on race that fuel a sense of grievance among white voters. Obama also didn't want to offer up gauzy words to make well-meaning white people feel better. The fact that he was a black president wasn't going to bring life back to an unarmed black kid who was shot, or alter structural inequities in housing, education, and incarceration in our states and cities. It wasn't going to change the investment of powerful interests in a system that sought to deny voting rights, or to cast people on food stamps working minimum wage jobs as "takers," incapable of making it on their own. The "last person who ever thought that Barack Obama's election was going to bring racial reconciliation and some "end of race" in America was Barack Obama. That was a white person's concept imposed upon his campaign. I know because I was once one of them, taking delight in writing words about American progress, concluding in the applause line "And that is why I can stand before you as president of the United States." But he couldn't offer up absolution for America's racial sins, or transform American society in four or eight years. ~ Ben Rhodes

We prefer: large purchases (at least $5 million of after-tax earnings), demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of little interest to us, nor are "turn-around" situations), businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt, management in place (we can't supply it), simple businesses (if there's lots of technology, we won't understand it), an offering price (we don't want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown). ~ Warren Buffett

There in the city's steam-and-smoke-smudged harbor is the most extraordinary sight of all: a great copper-clad lady with a torch in one hand and a book in the other. It is not a statesman or a god or a war hero who welcomes us to this new world. It is but an ordinary woman lighting the way- a lady offering us the liberty to pursue our dreams if we've the courage to begin. ~ Libba Bray