And Only Then Quotes

but we dont want to die. do u know how hard it is to decide to sting sombody? it will hurt them really bad! and it will make us die! so on one wing, we will die. but on the other wing, the rest of us will not die. in the moment, we get scared and the only thing we can think of is protecting the ones we love. we dont want to die but if it means that it will make the rest of us not die, then we will do it. if i have to die, it will be worth it because i love the ones i love so much that i would do anything to protect them. if i have to die, it will be worth it because it means the ones i love will not. they will get to continue to live. to love. to be happy. to experience sadness. if i am not there, i will be at peace knowing that i was the reason they still are. ~ Jomny Sun

You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Quite true. And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? We cannot. Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. ~ Plato

And then he smiled, kind of a quirky half smile that tipped up only the right corner of his mouth. Because of that smile, that goddamn human smile, I had to swallow down a burst of affection that nearly brought tears to my eyes. Instead, I looked away, and hated myself - for my inability to hate him despite the things he said, the things he did, the things he expected. ~ Chloe Neill

There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us. Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you "Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?" - Immediately you did not want to anymore; and when I asked you again you remained silent. Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn't. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

Know the word of God not in order that by doing so you might be saved; know it rather so that unlike the many you are not easily deceived. You may find that, evidently, a great many of the so-called novel ideas of the present were made without a clue that 'God', if you will, already laid profound discourse on or against them ages ago: no man has gone against God in such a way that God, from the beginning, did not already expect him to. Then, insofar as this, you will remain clear in that it is not at all that the Christian should be against newness; quite the opposite really - for a major point of Christianity is about one constantly being made new in Christ - it is only that many people are not actually bringing true newness to the table, and this is precisely because they do not first apply (or let alone even know) the wisdom of old. ~ Criss Jami

I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a grey wreath of smoke. I will vanish into the air and the night. They will blow us all out, one by one, until it is only their own light by which they see themselves. ~ Hannah Kent

It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue (German) ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it. ~ Mark Twain

Stop being part of the social norms of writing and teaching, which then leads to the point, stop being a capitalist person, one who works for a salary to teach writing in a form that's acceptable to capitalism, which then leads further to the point, exit social norms imposed upon you, do not have a lifestyle that requires living by capitalist rules even outside the teaching and practice of writing - which ultimately is the only way to a real literary community, which is based on real art, and you see how impossible a track I'm on? ~ Anis Shivani

No, no, no, I don't snort no more, I'm tired of waking up on the floor. No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, then it makes it hard to find the door. ~ Ringo Starr

It feels like I'm trapped in quicksand. The more I struggle, the more I sink. So I stop struggling. I stop trying to free myself; because the more I struggle the scarier it becomes. Then - and only then did panic yield long enough for a numbness to spread and stick to me like a second skin. ~ Jannet Casas

These solo concerts were without precedent, not only in jazz history, but also in the entire history of the piano. They were not renditions of composed music committed to memory, nor were they a series of variations on composed themes. They were attempts at very long stretches (up to an hour at a time) of total improvisation, the creation from scratch of everything: rhythms, themes, structures, harmonic sequences and textures. Before a concert, Jarrett would try to empty himself of all preconceived ideas, and then allow the music to flow through and out of him. He said that if he was not able to empty himself he would, almost invariably, have a concert that was not as good. There might be periods when he seemed to be marking time but and feeling his way into a new area, but this was also part of the total experience which delighted and enthralled audiences. The sustained intensity of Jarrett's inspiration during these marathons was literally awesome and, almost in the sense of preacher and congregation, he seemed to want the audiences to be not only witnesses but also participators on the occasion... ~ Ian Carr

...if the United States never intended to help, it shouldn't have built up the expectation. The false promise of help was cruel and inexcusable and it would only get worse over time. If a man is drowning and a boat drives past in the distance, the man accepts his death and goes down quietly. If a man is drowning and a boat pulls up beside him, dangles a life jacket, tells the world he wants to help, but then doesn't throw the life jacket, the drowning man dies crying and his family might take a blood oath to take revenge on the boat's crew. This type of anger was already starting to build in Syria and al-Qaeda would capitalize on it. ~ Richard Engel

All the time, of course, Laura or Mary was minding Baby Carrie, except when she had her afternoon nap. Then they sat and soaked in the sunshine and the wind until Laura forgot that the baby was sleeping. She jumped up and ran and shouted till Ma came to the door and said, "Dear me, Laura, must you yell like an Indian? I declare," Ma said, "if you girls aren't getting to look like Indians! Can I never teach you to keep your sunbonnets on?"
Pa was up on the house wall beginning the roof. He looked down at them and laughed.
"One little Indian, two little Indians, three little Indians," he sang, softly. "No, only two."
"You make three," Mary said to him. "You're brown, too."
"But you aren't little, Pa," said Laura. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

I think every one who has some vague belief in God, until he becomes a Christian, has the idea of an exam, or of a bargain in his mind. The first result of real Christianity is to blow that idea into bits. When they find it blown into bits, some people think this means that Christianity is a failure and give up. They seem to imagine that God is very simple-minded! In fact, of course, He knows all about this. One of the very things Christianity was designed to do was to blow this idea to bits. God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam, or putting Him in your debt.

Then comes another discovery. Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like.

It is like a small child going to its father and saying, "Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present." Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. ~ C.S. Lewis

So much of being a grown-up is about managing or quelling desires. For food, for drink, for sex, for good times; if you're a woman, I maintain, for ambition. You should not want too much. It is strange, then, to be in a position where society demands you should have an appetite for something. And yet here was a rare instance where I was appetite-free, and the world seemed to be saying, "You have to want this thing, if only so that we can help you work through your feelings about not having it! ~ Courtney Hodell

If there is anything for you to learn, it's only that you should not be ashamed. Don't be ashamed to be a person with feelings. No matter what it is, feel it tenderly and deeply. Feel it more tenderly, feel it more deeply. Feel it for yourself. Feel it for yourself. Feel it for others. And then: Let it go. ~ Milena Michiko Flasar

There are three ways to approach secrets, you know. The first is what you find on soap operas and in poorly executed middle-school maneuvers. First, you uncover a piece of incriminating information, and then you use it to force a steady stream of favors or payment or behavior. The problem here is that, if extended indefinitely, the expected cost of compliance eventually outweighs the cost of exposure. Moreover, the probability that you'll lose your monopoly of your information increases with each passing day. Never, ever assume that you're only person digging for dirt, especially in Los Angeles. Vipers are measured by the pitful for a reason.

The second approach is more effective: You make one, single very carefully chosen demand. And you give your mark just one chance. This was my usual MO. If this mark doesn't do as you ask, when you ask, you leak their secret. No excuses. No mercy. Brutal consistency is the key to credibility. Mothers, dog trainers, Israel -- you know what I'm talking about.

But there's also a radical third approach: You reveal that you know the secret...and they you keep it under wraps. Do that, and they're not just going to tell you other secrets, they might even keep yours in return. And they'll think they're doing of their own free will when what you've really done is painstakingly aligned your incentives. That's all trust is, really. Some people are just incentivized by nature. ~ Elizabeth Little

In my past, there's also an opportunity I could have taken advantage of that I didn't, and that I wish I had. There's a thing I got rid of that I really wish I'd kept. But the train never backs up. Never. I missed those things, and I will never get a second chance. Do yourself a favor, right now, and realize two things: 1. You will keep getting older, and then you will die. 2. Everything that's ever entered your experience has lasted and will continue to last for only a brief moment in the life of the universe. This is game time, champ. You're in. You're in, playing, right now, and the clock is ticking. So stop wondering what it all means and how you'll possibly ever do X and what people will think, and get on with your life already. Stop being a pussy and go do something amazing. *** DO EPIC SHIT. ~ Johnny B. Truant

He moaned her name against her lips, and then at her temple, and her closed eyes. It seemed to be all he could say, the only word he knew. She remembered how she'd once been incensed by his lazy, mocking use of that butchered form of Bernadette, and decided she had been a pathetic little idiot. ~ Lynn Turner

He did all this with great concentration in order to keep his thoughts at bay, in order to let them in only one at a time, having first asked them what they contained, because you can't be too careful with thoughts, some present themselves to us with a cloying air of false innocence and then, when it's too late, reveal their true wicked selves. ~ Jose Saramago

Our story is the only thing we have that is completely our own. A person who steals it and uses it to entertain is the worst kind of thief. Then ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

Come for your revenge at last, elf?"
Royce stepped forward. He looked down at Thranic and then around the room. "How could I top possibly top this? Sealed alive in a tomb of rock. My only regret is that I had nothing to do with it ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Alicia Pevensey said to Anthony Blake: "I love you. Not because you'll protect me and our family, not because you're wealthy, or have a wonderful house. I love you because you're you - because of the man you are."
He was silent for a long moment, then his chest swelled as he drew breath. "I don't know what love is, only that I feel it. All I know is I love you - and always will. ~ Stephanie Laurens; A Gentleman's Honor

It seems that every life form on this planet strives toward its maximum potential ... except human beings. A tree does not grow to half its potential size and then say, "l guess that will do." A tree will drive its roots as deep as possible. It will soak up as much nourishment as it can, stretch as high and as wide as nature will allow, and then look down as if to remind us of how much each of us could become if we would only do all that we can. ~ Jim Rohn

How can you love me if you don't even know me?" He lifted my arms around his neck and placed his hands on the small of my back.
"I know you, Jade. You're witty and stubborn, like when you wanted to get rid of me at the bar in San Diego. And you're sweet and caring, like when you talked to my mother at the hospital. And you can drink like a sailor. " He chuckled. "And you hardly ever blush, but when you do it's like the sunshine." Then, he whispered in my ear with a husky voice, "And you make love with your soul."
Peter gave my earlobe a quick nibble. "I couldn't care less about energy. It might have brought us together, but I only care about you. I want to spend the rest of my days with you; no matter if it'll be ten or ten thousand."
Despite myself, I felt my eyes burn from tears I wasn't ready to shed.
Still, I couldn't say it.
"Peter..." I kissed him with all the tenderness I found in my heart and said, "the tub is about to
spill."
"Oh, shit." He jerked away from me, turned the water off and unplugged the tub, then hugged
me again with wet hands. "All we need is time, Jade. You'll see this love is real. ~ Denyse Cohen

Angeline's gaze swiveled to Zoe.
"Why didn't you have us pick up
something?"
"Because that's not my job!" Zoe
lifted her head up high. "We're here to
keep Jill's cover and make sure she stays off the radar. It's not my job to
feed you guys."
"In which sense?" I asked. I knew
perfectly well that was a mean thing to
say to her but couldn't resist. It took her a moment to pick up the double meaning.
First she paled; then she turned an angry red.
"Neither! I'm not your concierge.
Neither is Sydney. I don't know why she
always takes care of that stuff for you.
She should only be dealing with things
that are essential for your survival.
Ordering pizza isn't one of them."
I faked a yawn and leaned back into
the couch. "Maybe she figures if we're
well fed, you two won't look that
appetizing."
Zoe was too horrified to respond,
and Eddie shot me a withering look. ~ Richelle Mead

And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."


The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
....
And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become r ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

He makes love to me then, like only Naz can, alternating between slow and deep and rough and hard, sending me into a tailspin. It's a breath-catching, skin-slapping, soul-capturing kind of love. The man owns me. He consumes me. Every part of me was made for every part of him. It's the kind of love I can't imagine ever living without. It's raw, and real, and it's ours.
It's ours.
It goes on forever.
Life flashes before my eyes.
We're old and gray and happy. We're happy.
Nothing is going to get in our way now. ~ J.M. Darhower

To sleep with a woman: it can seem of the utmost importance in your mind, or then again it can seem like nothing much at all. Which only goes to say that there's sex as therapy (self-therapy, that is) and there's sex as pastime. ~ Haruki Murakami

I think the only time I doubted myself was my senior year in high school. I was not offered a Division I scholarship. I remember a scout from Ohio State coming in and looking at my film. He was all excited to meet me. Then he met me and I was 5'10 and he said that I was not a Division I quarterback. ~ Doug Flutie

And I'll tell you another thing, Patrick Michael Thomas Cunnane, if you think you can come and go at all hours as you damn please just because you're going off to college, you'd best get that thick head of yours examined in a hurry. I'll be happy to do it myself, with the skillet I have in my hand, just as soon as I'm done with it."
"Yes,ma'am." At the table Patrick say with his shoulders hunched, wincing at this mother's back. "But since you're using it, maybe I could have some more French toast.Nobody makes it like you do."
"You won't get around me that way."
"Maybe I will."
She shot a look over her shoulder that Brian recognized as one only a mother could conjure to wither a child.
"And maybe I won't," Patrick muttered, then brightened when he saw Brian at the door. "Ma,we've got company. Have a seat,Brian. Had breakfast? My mother makes world-famous French toast."
"Witnessess won't save you," Adelia said mildly, but turned to smile at Brian. ~ Nora Roberts

Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear,
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.

- Next, Please ~ Philip Larkin

He spits out an epithet so nasty I think it's only legal in England. And then only when your favourite football club loses. ~ Tera Lynn Childs

He leaned her back against the tub, setting her head on the edge, then washed her shoulders.
"I know I left you once."
She opened her mouth, wanting to say it didn't matter, it was forgotten. But it wasn't.
"I know I hurt you."
Again, she wanted to argue. But she couldn't.
"I know I said I won't leave you again, but I also know that's not enough, and that the only way you're going to trust that I won't leave is if I don't".
He slid the cloth over her arms.
"If this ends, Hope, it won't be me that ends it. I think you know that. ~ Kelley Armstrong

For it is difficult to speak, even any old rubbish, and at the same time focus one's attention on another point, where one's true interest lies, as fitfully defined by a feeble murmur seeming to apologize for not being dead. And what it seemed to me I heard then, concerning what I should do, and say, in order to have nothing further to do, nothing further to say, it seemed to me I only barely heard it, because of the noise I was engaged in making elsewhere, in obedience to the unintelligible terms of an incomprehensible damnation. ~ Samuel Beckett

As happens in dreams, when a perfectly harmless object inspires us with fear and thereafter is frightening every time we dream of it (and even in real life retains disquieting overtones), so Dreyer's presence became for Franz a refined torture, an implacable menace. [ ... H]e could not help cringing when, with a banging of doors in a dramatic draft, Martha and Dreyer entered simultaneously from two different rooms as if on a too harshly lit stage. Then he snapped to attention and in this attitude felt himself ascending through the ceiling, through the roof, into the black-brown sky, while, in reality, drained and empty, he was shaking hands with Martha, with Dreyer. He dropped back on his feet out of that dark nonexistence, from those unknown and rather silly heights, to land firmly in the middle of the room (safe, safe!) when hearty Dreyer described a circle with his index finger and jabbed him in the navel; Franz mimicked a gasp and giggled; and as usual Martha was coldly radiant. His fear did not pass but only subsided temporarily: one incautious glance, one eloquent smile, and all would be revealed, and a disaster beyond imagination would shatter his career. Thereafter whenever he entered this house, he imagined that the disaster had happened - that Martha had been found out, or had confessed everything in a fit of insanity or religious self-immolation to her husband; and the drawing room chandelier invariably met him with a sinister refulgence. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I'd rather I was a stray pup,' I made bold to say. And then all my fears broke my voice as I added, "You wouldn't let them do this to a stray pup, changing everything all at once. When they gave the bloodhound puppy to Lord Grimsby, you sent your old shirt with it, so it would have something that smelled of home until it settle in.'
'Well,' he said, "I didn't ... come here, fitz. Come here, boy.'
And puppy-like, I went to him, the only master I had, and he thumped me lightly on the back and rumbled up my hair, very much as if I had been a hound. ~ Robin Hobb

The best part of the ceremony was after Shy kissed his bride, and when we were done, he didn't let go. So I stood in his arms, my thumb stroking his jaw, my eyes gazing up at him. the world had melted away, so I didn't hear the hoots and hollers of friends and family.
I only heard what he muttered in a voice that was weirdly raw but unbelievable beautiful: "Like I'm the only man on the planet."
In that minute, he was but then again, for me, really, when it came down to it, he always had been. ~ Kristen Ashley

You have an idea what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, it's joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones.

Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.

Trust is so hard, since you have nothing to fall back on. Still, trust is what is essential. The new country is where you are called to go, and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.

It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while you experience a real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover that the old country has lost its charm. Risk a few more steps into the new country, trusting that each time you enter it, you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

We had once what we can never have again. So why, then, do we behave as if everything we have connected with, everything we have blessed with our loving, should be ours for keeps? It is enough to have tiptoed to that space beyond the skin, beyond our nerve endings, and to have glimpsed things that beforehand we only half knew. ~ Rachel Joyce

Let us make our hearts as big as an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy the world without being in any way affected by it. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The first thing you must realise is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: "Freedom is Slavery." Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone - free - the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. ~ George Orwell

The inner self of every human waits patiently until we are ready to discover it; then it extends an invitation to enter the luminous mystery of existence in which all things are created, nurtured, and renewed. In the presence of this mystery, we not only heal ourselves, we heal the world. ~ Deepak Chopra

Just before the men closed the tail gate on the float, she strained her head to see me and nodded her head so hard her blonde mane flew around her face - she looked like she was standing in a cloud of icing sugar. She uttered such a quiet neigh, it seemed only I heard it. She stared at me, and closed her eyes. Then she was gone. ~ Kelly Batten

A Life like Mine:

Round and round, round and round, this is how life is feeling at the very moment. Why on earth, would anyone want to live in a life that is never ending chaos? Not me, she thought to herself. Gloria Jacobson, 19 years old, was on her way to a life of success when she was finally looking into a life of school, love, and a family that could look up to her for being the next honor roll student. Well, ok, technically speaking, she wasn't an "Honor roll" Student, and she wasn't in love yet. But she did have one thing, and that was a family that loved her. Skeptical or not, as she was, she was headed to sleep after a long day's journey through thoughts and school. She went to a College Prep school, so it wasn't exactly the easiest. In fact, sometimes school to her could become one of the toughest things.
She rolled up her jean legs and through on her purple hooded jacket then slipped out the door. "Mom will hopefully allow her to go to the school ball tomorrow night"; she thought as she crossed her fingers. It was going to be a school formal, and all the way through elementary and middle school, she wasn't ever allowed to go. Why on earth wouldn't her parents ever let her just be a normal teenage girl. After all she only turns 20, towards the end of graduation. Her entire life was devoted to school work, college apps, and volunteer work at different places after school, and church activities. She never seemed to have any time for boys or even f ~ Ann Clifton

I lost my virginity to Grant Connelly," a slender brunette declared wistfully, twirling a lock of hair ... "What? Am I the only one?"
"Nope." A different brunette, this one in a push-up bra, raised her hand. "Not the virginity part, but, well, you know."
Two others raised their hands slowly, looking at each other.
"Spring break?" one asked.
"New Year's Eve," the other answered, and then they collapsed into coed-caliber giggles and hugged each other like pageant queens. No shit. Delaney had stumbled into a Grant Connelly sexual conquest recover group. ~ Tracy Brogan

I had forgotten: this is what it feels like to live in time. The lurching forward, the sensation of falling of a cliff into darkness, and then landing abruptly, surprised, confused, and then starting the whole process again in the next moment, doing that over and over again, falling into each instant of time and then climbing back up only to repeat the process. ~ Charles Yu

Not so much because many occupations would not permit of a loving attitude, but because the spirit of a production-centered, commodity-greedy society is such that only the non-conformist can defend himself successfully against it. Those who are seriously concerned with love as the only rational answer to the problem of human existence must, then, arrive at the conclusion that important and radical changes in our social structure are necessary, if love is to become a social and not a highly individualistic, marginal phenomenon. ~ Erich Fromm

Certainly a visitor from Mars descending upon a colony of birth-injured cripples, dwarfs and hunchbacks...could not deduce what they should have been. But then let us not study cripples, but the closest thing we can get to whole, healthy men. In them, we find qualitative differences, a different system of motivation, emotion, value, thinking and perceiving. In a certain sense, only the saints are mankind. All the rest are cripples. ~ Abraham H. Maslow

When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth of a moonlit night if you'll write that a gleam like starlight shone from the pieces of a broken bottle, and then the dark, plump shadow of a dog or wolf appeared. You will bring life to nature only if you don't shrink from similes that liken its activities to those of humankind. ~ Anton Chekhov

For then only will you be strong, when you cherish the laws, and when the revolutionary attempts of lawless men shall have ceased. ~ Aeschines

They believe civilization weakens natural selection. They do nature's work so that we do not become a soft race. The Passage, it seems, is a continuation of that policy. Only we were the tools they used. My ... victim ... was, bless his soul, a fool. He was from a family of no worth, and he had no wits, no intelligence, no ambition," he frowns at the words before sighing, "he had nothing the Board values. There is a reason he was to die."
Was there a reason Julian was to die?
Roque knows what he does because his mother is on the Board. He loathes his mother, and only then do I realize I should like him. Not only that, I take refuge in his words. He disagrees with the rules, but he follows them. It is possible. I can do the same until I have power enough to change them. ~ Pierce Brown

After I decided to become a Jew, only then did I learn that the Jews don't have all the money. When I found out Rockefeller and Ford were goyim, I almost resigned. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I have always chosen my friends from a silent distance, picking them out after a short observation period and only then attempting to get to know them. ~ Katie Heaney

If you're only thinking, It's evangelism time! - you might become one of those insensitive doctrine-nerds that overcomplicates things while firing off apologetics to "win" people. But you're a real human being with a story, dealing with other real human beings who have stories. So, what's your story? How did God save you? Maybe you went to church your whole life, and then suddenly God knocked you out of the pew into His total grace and you started feeding the homeless and reading to blind kids. Or maybe you were doing black tar heroin, punching cops in the face while throwing puppies out of a moving vehicle, and Jesus uppercut you in your soul. Either way, you were saved. You have a testimony. ~ J.S. Park

The commentator says: The West is trying to spread panic, telling lies about the accident. And then they show the dosimeter again, measuring some fish on a plate, or a chocolate bar, or some pancakes at an open pancake stand. It was all a lie. The military dosimeters then in use by our armed forces were designed to measure the radioactive background, not individual products. This level of lying, this incredible level, with which Chernobyl is connected in our minds, was comparable only to the level of lies during the big war. ~ Svetlana Alexievich

Stop! Stop!"
Sophie shrieked with laughter as she ran down the stone steps that led to the garden behind Bridgerton House. After three children and seven years of marriage, Benedict could still make her smile, still make her laugh . . . and he still chased her around the house any chance he could get.
"Where are the children?" she gasped, once he'd caught her at the base of the steps.
"Francesca is watching them."
"And your mother?"
He grinned. "I daresay Francesca is watching her, too."
"Anyone could stumble upon us out here," she said, looking this way and that.
His smile turned wicked. "Maybe," he said, catching hold of her green-velvet skirt and reeling her in, "we should adjourn to the private terrace."
The words were oh-so-familiar, and it was only a second before she was transported back nine years to the masquerade ball.
"The private terrace, you say?" she asked, amusement dancing in her eyes. "And how, pray tell, would you know of a private terrace?"
His lips brushed against hers. "I have my ways," he murmured.
"And I," she returned, smiling slyly, "have my secrets."
He drew back. "Oh? And will you share?"
"We five," she said with a nod, "are about to be six."
He looked at her face, then looked at her belly. "Are you sure?"
"As sure as I was last time."
He took her hand and raised it to lips. "This one will be a girl."
"That's what you said last time."
"I know, ~ Julia Quinn

He believes the relationship
between particle and quantum wave is more like a ship on automatic
pilot guided by radar waves. A quantum wave does not push an electron
about any more than a radar wave pushes a ship. Rather, it
provides the electron with information about its environment which
the electron then uses to maneuver on its own.
In other words, Bohm believes that an electron is not only mindlike,
but is a highly complex entity, a far cry from the standard view that
an electron is a simple, structureless point. The active use of information
by electrons, and indeed by all subatomic particles, indicates that
the ability to respond to meaning is a characteristic not only of consciousness
but of all matter. It is this intrinsic commonality, says
Bohm, that offers a possible explanation for PK. He states, "On this
basis, psychokinesis could arise if the mental processes of one or more
people were focused on meanings that were in harmony with those
guiding the basic processes of the material systems in which this
psychokinesis was to be brought about. "4
It is important to note that this kind of psychokinesis would not be
due to a causal process, that is, a cause-and-effect relationship involving
any of the known forces in physics. Instead, it would be the result
of a kind of nonlocal "resonance of meanings, " or a kind of nonlocal
interaction similar to, but not the sam ~ Michael Talbot

Which was why he reflexively turned when a flash of iridescence caught his eye. His first thought was: Morpho rhetenor Helena. The extraordinary tropical butterfly with wings of shifting colors: blues, lavenders, greens.
It proved to be a woman's skirt.
The color was blue, but by the light of the legion of overhead candles, he saw purples and even greens shivering in its weave. A bracelet of pale stones winked around one wrist, a circlet banded her dark head. The chandelier struck little beams from that, too.
She's altogether too shiny for a woman, he decided, and began to turn away.
Which was when she tipped her face up into the light.
Everything stopped. The beat of his heart, the pump of his lungs, the march of time.
Seconds later, thankfully, it all resumed. Much more violently than previously.
And then absurd notions roman-candled in his mind.
His palms ached to cradle her face - it was a kitten's face, broad and fair at the brow, stubborn at the chin. She had kitten's eyes, too: large and a bit tilted and surely they weren't actually the azure of calm southern seas? Surely he, Miles Redmond, hadn't entertained such a florid thought? Her eyebrows were wicked: fine, slanted, very dark. Her hair was probably brown, but it was as though he'd never learned the word "brown."
Burnished. Silk. Copper. Azure. Delicate. Angel. Hallelujah. Suddenly these were the only words he knew. ~ Julie Anne Long

I'm about the only person in my family that's made it to 24 without being married. That's the way it works where I'm from. Most people, if you find someone to marry in high school, you do that, and if you don't find that, then you find someone in college. ~ Carrie Underwood

Greg was a supernice guy and a good tenant."
"I met him only once, but he seemed pretty cool," I said. "Of course, the neighbor across the street was convinced he was up to no good."
"Oh, my God, that racist bitch? I swear, I wanted to rent the place out to a black Jewish gay couple just to piss her off, but then I figured it wouldn't be fair to the black Jewish gay couple. ~ Diana Rowland

Alexander of Whitby taught that the universe is like a tapestry only parts of which are visible to us at a time. After we are dead, we will see the whole and then it will be clear to us how the different parts relate to each other. ~ Susanna Clarke

He makes you feel like you're the only person worth having a conversation with, and then he goes a year without having a conversation with you. The disappointment is vast. He will never build that model car with you, he will cancel dinner plans and birthday plans and vacation plans. He will choose work and someone else over you. He will break your charmed hopeful heart time and time again. ~ Tarryn Fisher

This is the paradox presented by every general library: that if, to a lesser or greater extent, it intends to accumulate and preserve as comprehensive as possible a record of the world, then ultimately its task must be redundant, since it can only be satisfied when the library's borders coincide with those of the world itself. ~ Alberto Manguel

There were only 170 neurologists in Britain then and, whether spoken or unspoken, there was this insidious feeling. How can Bannister, a mere athlete, probably spoilt by all the publicity and fame, dare aspire to neurology? But I'd done a lot of research, and my academic record was very good. ~ Roger Bannister

It cannot fail to be admitted, that when protectionism raises the price of things, the consumer loses the difference. But, then, it is said, national labor is the gainer. No, it is not the gainer; for since the Act, it is no more encouraged than it was before, to the amount of fifteen francs. The only thing is that, since the Act, the fifteen francs of John Q. Citizen go to the metal trade, while before it was put in force, they were divided between the ironmonger and the bookseller. ~ Frederic Bastiat

Simulation Tobias kisses my neck.
I try to think. I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.
I look Simulation Tobias in the eye and say sternly, "I am not going to sleep with you in a hallucination. Okay?"
Then I grab him by his shoulders and turn us around, pushing him against the
bedpost. I feel something other than fear - a prickle in my stomach, a bubble of laughter. I press against him and kiss him, my hands wrapping around his arms. He feels strong. He feels ... good.
And he's gone.
I laugh into my hand until my face gets hot. I must be the only initiate with this fear. ~ Veronica Roth

Each generation has its own dream of beauty. I have lived long enough to watch it change. Just then, he was what all sculptors were reaching after, and only the great achieved. ~ Mary Renault

This was a particularly spectacular example of the German campaign to gather forced labor in the East, which had begun with the Poles of the General Government, and spread to Ukraine before reaching this bloody climax in Belarus. By the end of the war, some eight million foreigners from the East, most of them Slavs, were working in the Reich. It was a rather perverse result, even by the standards of Nazi racism: German men went abroad and killed millions of "subhumans," only to import millions of other "subhumans" to do the work in Germany that the German men would have been doing themselves - had they not been abroad killing "subhumans." The net effect, setting aside the mass killing abroad, was that Germany became more of a Slavic land than it had ever been in history. (The perversity would reach its extreme in the first months of 1945, when surviving Jews were sent to labor camps in Germany itself. Having killed 5.4 million Jews as racial enemies, the Germans then brought Jewish survivors home to do the work that the killers might have been doing themselves had they not been abroad killing.)

pp. 244-246 ~ Timothy Snyder

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

--written 1960 ~ Sylvia Plath

The thought of both East and West (philosophies) can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can't progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves. ~ James Redfield

I have these thoughts that Dr. Karen Singh calls "intrusives" but the first time she said it, I heard "invasives," which I like better, because, like invasive weeds, these thoughts seem to arrive at my biosphere from some faraway land, and then they speed out of control. Supposedly everyone has them--you look out from over a bridge or whatever and it occurs to you out of nowhere that you could just jump. And then if you're most people, you think, Well, that was a weird thought, and move on with your life. But for some people, the invasive can kind of take over, crowding out all other thoughts until it's the only one you're able to have, the thought you're perpetually either thinking or distracting yourself from. ~ John Green

I think the kids in school that laughed at the clothes that we wore and the house that we lived in, and then my mother had to cut hair ... I think that was a good motivator. Every time they laughed at me, they just built a fire, and there was only one way to put it out - to try and show 'em I was as good as they were. ~ Jimmy Dean

Rooney is one of the best players in the world and I love watching him play. But if you had to pick out only one, then for their history and for all that they have achieved it would have to be Paul Scholes or Ryan Giggs. They are two shining examples for any player. ~ Andres Iniesta

The intellect is a great danger to creativity … because you begin to rationalize and make up reasons for things, instead of staying with your own basic truth – who you are, what you are, what you want to be. I've had a sign over my typewriter for over 25 years now, which reads "Don't think!" You must never think at the typewriter – you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. … The worst thing you do when you think is lie - you can make up reasons that are not true for the things that you did, and what you're trying to do as a creative person is surprise yourself - find out who you really are, and try not to lie, try to tell the truth all the time. And the only way to do this is by being very active and very emotional, and get it out of yourself - making things that you hate and things that you love, you write about these then, intensely. ~ Ray Bradbury

Everybody says: the Kremlin, the Kremlin. They all go on about it, but I've never seen it. The number of times (thousands) I've been drunk or hung over, traipsing round Moscow, north-south, east-west, end to end, straight through or any old way - and I've never once seen the Kremlin.

For instance, yesterday - yesterday I didn't see it again, though I was buzzing round that area the whole evening and it's not as if I was particularly drunk. I mean, as soon as I came out onto Savyelov Station, I had a glass of Zubrovka for starters, since I know from experience that as an early-morning tipple, nobody's so far dreamed up anything better.

Anyway, a glass of Zubrovka. Then after that - on Kalyaev Street - another glass, only not Zubrovka this time, but coriander vodka. A friend of mine used to say coriander had a dehumanizing effect on a person, i.e, it refreshes your parts but it weakens your spirit. For some reason or other it had the opposite effect on me, i.e., my spirit was refreshed, while my parts all went to hell. But I do agree it's dehumanizing, so that's why I topped it up with two glasses of Zhiguli beer, plus some egg-nog straight from the bottle, in the middle of Kalyaev Street.

Of course, you're saying: come on, Venya, get on with it - what did you have next? And I couldn't say for sure. I remember - I remember quite distinctly in fact - I had two glasses of Hunter's vodka, on Chekhov Street. But I couldn't have made it across th ~ Venedikt Erofeev

Misty bit her lip - or at least that was what it looked like with the glamour. Kate could only imagine what she was doing with that mouth full of fangs. 'How do I know I can trust him? Or you?'

Kate rose to her feet. 'You don't. You never do, with people. Some things, you have to take on faith.' She turned and headed for the door, then paused and looked back. 'I don't know how much you know about humans. I'm just guessing here, but we probably seem like a bunch of violent, paranoid, back-stabbing monkeys. 'Cause we are. But the thing is … sooner or later, we all find ways to trust each other, even though we might get burned doing it.'

Misty's lip curled into a sneer. 'Because deep down inside, humans are all noble creatures that want to rise above their natures, right?'

'Oh, hell no,' Kate said. 'It's just better than facing the darkness alone.'
Then she turned and walked out, leaving the dumbstruck Misty behind her. ~ Chris Lester

Two black boots came into view, then a pair of knees as someone crouched on the edge of the ring.

"Get up," Chaol whispered. She couldn't bring herself to look him in the face. It was over.(...)

"Get up," Chaol said again, louder. She could only stare at the white line of chalk that marked the ring.(...)

"Celaena," Chaol said gently. And then she heard the scraping noise as his hand came into view, sliding across the flagstones. His fingertips stopped just at the edge of the white line. "Celaena," he breathed, his voice laced with pain - and hope. This was all she had left - his outstretched hand, and the promise of hope, of something better waiting on the other side of that line.

Moving her arm made sparks dance before her eyes, but she extended it until her fingertips reached the line of chalk, and stayed there, not a quarter of an inch from Chaol, the thick white mark separating them.

She lifted her eyes to his face, and found his gaze lined with silver. "Get up," was all he said.

And in that moment, somehow his face was the only thing that mattered. She stirred, and couldn't stop her sob as her body erupted with pain that made her lie still again. But she kept her focus on his brown eyes, on his tightly pressed lips as they parted and whispered, "Get up. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Then there occurred to me the 'glucklichste Gedanke meines Lebens,' the happiest thought of my life, in the following form. The gravitational field has only a relative existence in a way similar to the electric field generated by magnetoelectric induction. Because for an observer falling freely from the roof of a house there exists-at least in his immediate surroundings-no gravitational field [his italics]. Indeed, if the observer drops some bodies then these remain relative to him in a state of rest or of uniform motion, independent of their particular chemical or physical nature (in this consideration the air resistance is, of course, ignored). The observer therefore has the right to interpret his state as 'at rest.' Because of this idea, the uncommonly peculiar experimental law that in the gravitational field all bodies fall with the same acceleration attained at once a deep physical meaning. Namely, if there were to exist just one single object that falls in the gravitational field in a way different from all others, then with its help the observer could realize that he is ina gravitational field and is falling in it. If such an object does not exist, however-as experience has shown with great accuracy-then the observer lacks any objective means of perceiving himself as falling in a gravitational field. Rather he has the right to consider his state as one of rest and his environment as field-free relative to gravitation. The experimentally known matter independence of the ~ Albert Einstein

If the Americans, in addition to the eagle and the Stars and Stripes and the more unofficial symbols of bison, moose and Indian, should ever need another emblem, one which is friendly and pleasant, then I think they should choose the grapefruit. Or rather the half grapefruit, for this fruit only comes in halves, I believe. Practically speaking, it is always yellow, always just as fresh and well served. And it always comes at the same, still hopeful hour of the morning. ~ Johan Huizinga

I know you," he added, helping to arrange the blanket over my shoulders. "You won't drop the subject until I agree to check on your cousin, so I'll do it. But only under one condition."
"John," I said, whirling around to clutch his arm again.
"Don't get too excited," he warned. "You haven't heard the condition."
"Oh," I said, eagerly. "Whatever it is, I'll do it. Thank you. Alex has never had a very good life-his mother ran away when he was a baby, and his dad spent most of his life in jail…But, John, what is all this?" I swept my free hand out to indicate the people remaining on the dock, waiting for the boat John had said was arriving soon. I'd noticed some of them had blankets like the one he'd wrapped around me. "A new customer service initiative?"
John looked surprised at my change of topic…then uncomfortable. He stooped to reach for the driftwood Typhon had dashed up to drop at his feet. "I don't know what you mean," he said, stiffly.
"You're giving blankets away to keep them warm while they wait. When did this start happening?"
"You mentioned some things when you were here the last time…." He avoided meeting my gaze by tossing the stick for his dog. "They stayed with me."
My eyes widened. "Things I said?"
"About how I should treat the people who end up here." He paused at the approach of a wave-though it was yards off-and made quite a production of moving me, and my delicate slippers, out of its path. "So I decided to make a few ~ Meg Cabot

I do not recall my own first glance of love, my own first gift of love. Yet it happened. Those divine simplicities are erased from my heart. Good God, then what do I retain that is of value? The little boy that I was is dead forever, before my eyes. I survived him, but forgetfulness tormented me, then overcame me, the sad process of living ruined me, and I scarcely know what he knew. I remember things at random only, but the most beautiful, the sweetest memories are gone. ~ Henri Barbusse

Still, Allen and the Greens are an example of foster care working exactly as it should: a foster home is meant to be only a temporary holding place while parents get the support they need to get back to being parents again. The foster family should provide the kind of bonding and love that the Greens gave Allen and then, wrenching as it is, let the child go. The biological parents may be imperfect - they may feed the kids inappropriate foods or leave the TV on too long - but as long as there's no abuse, a child belongs with his blood. ~ Cris Beam

It is certain that one who studies the scriptures every day accomplishes far more than one who devotes considerable time one day and then lets days go by before continuing. Not only should we study each day, but there should be a regular time set aside when we can concentrate without interference" ("Reading the Scriptures," Ensign, November 1979, p. 64). ~ Howard W. Hunter

It is only when they have the photos before their eyes that they seem to take tangible possession of the day they spent, only then that the mountain stream, the movement of the child with his pail, the glint of sun on the wife's legs take on the irrevocability of what has been and can no longer be doubted. ~ Italo Calvino

Tears and Smiles <3 Mrs. Randolph
Quite the character!!!
"Here's the thing about life, boy. We meet a lot of people along this journey. Some of them are sonsabitches and some are special. When you find the special ones you don't take a moment for granted, because you never know when your time with them is gonna be up. I got over fifty years with my Fritz. Fifty wonderful years. When he died, I was lost for a few months. I lost my fire. But then I realized that life's short and I had a choice to make. I could keep bein' miserable, or I could go find joy and live again." She's squeezing even harder now. "If you only listen to one thing this crazy old lady tells you, I hope it's this: ain't nobody gonna stoke your fire but you, boy." She looks at me hard with her grey, cloudy eyes. "You go make life happen. ~ Kim Holden

I was born abroad, but my parents were both English. Still, those few years of separation, and then coming back to England as an outsider, did give me an ability to see the country in a slightly detached way. I suppose I was made aware of what Englishness actually is because I only became immersed in it later in life. ~ Rachel Cusk

Churces crack me up. They're like money, a conspiracy of faith. Like everyone agreed to believe not only is there a God, but he comes down and checks on folks, so long as they hang in certain places, put up altars, burn lots of candles and incense, and perform sit-stand-kneel and other wacky rituals that'd make a coven of witches look not OCD. Then to further complicate it, some folks perform rituals, subset A, and others folks perform rituals, subset B, C,or D, and so on into an infinity of denominations, and call themselves different things then deny everyone's elses right to heaven if they're not performing the same rituals. Dude. Weird. I figure if there is a God, he or she isn't paying attention to what we build or if follow some elaborate rules, but copping a ride on our shoulders, watching what we do every day.Seing if we took this great big adventure called life and did anything interesting with it. I figure that the folks that are the most interesting get to go to heaven. I mean, if I was God, that's who I would want there with me. I also figure being eternally happy would be eternally boring so I try not to be too interesting, even though it's hard for me. I would rather be a superhero in hell, kicking all kinds of demon ass, than an angel in heaven, waiting around with a beatific smile on my face, playing a pansy harp all day. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Consider the cattle, grazing as they pass you by. They do not know what is meant by yesterday or today, they leap about, eat, rest, digest, leap about again, and so from morn till night and from day to day, fettered to the moment and its pleasure or displeasure, and thus neither melancholy nor bored. [ ... ] A human being may well ask an animal: 'Why do you not speak to me of your happiness but only stand and gaze at me?' The animal would like to answer, and say, 'The reason is I always forget what I was going to say' - but then he forgot this answer too, and stayed silent. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Whether it is the wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family or friends, so often those closest to us are the ones who get the worst of us. It is as if we feel that they are the only ones we can be grumpy with, and we save our best for our guests or for work. But this is a recipe for struggle. The smart man and woman save the best for those they love. If we show our loved ones the most gratitude every day, then life will smile on us in return. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude: three words to help you thrive. Trust me. ~ Bear Grylls

When I got here my first thought was: Maybe I achieved such an effort with my thoughts that time has made a complete revolution; here I am at the station from which I left on my first journey, it has remained as it was then, without any change. All the lives that I could have led begin here; there is the girl who could have been my girl and wasn't, with the same eyes, the same hair ... "
She looks around as if making fun of me; I point my chin at her; she raises the corners of her mouth as if to smile, then stops: because she has changed her mind, or because this is the only way she smiles. "I don't know if that's a compliment, but I'll take it as one. And then what? ~ Italo Calvino

By the way, leafing through my dictionary I am struck by the poverty of language when it comes to naming or describing badness. Evil, wickedness, mischief, these words imply an agency, the conscious or at least active doing of wrong. They do not signify the bad in its inert, neutral, self-sustaining state. Then there are the adjectives: dreadful, heinous, execrable, vile, and so on. They are not so much as descriptive as judgmental. They carry a weight of censure mingled with fear. Is this not a queer state of affairs? It makes me wonder. I ask myself if perhaps the thing itself - badness - does not exist at all, if these strangely vague and imprecise words are only a kind of ruse, a kind of elaborate cover for the fact that nothing is there. Or perhaps words are an attempt to make it be there? Or, again, perhaps there is something, but the words invented it. Such considerations make me feel dizzy, as if a hole had opened briefly in the world. ~ John Banville

In love everything changes, and continues changing all the time. There is no stillness, no stopped clock of the heart in which the moment of happiness holds forever, but only the constant whirring forward motion of desire and need, rising and falling, falling and rising, full of doubts then certainties that moment by moment change and become doubts again. ~ Niall Williams

Maybe women are more in touch with the world. He said what did I mean, and I said, well, everything's connected, isn't it, and women are more closely connected to all the cycles of nature and birth and rebirth on the planet than men, who are only impregnators after all when it comes down to it, and if women are in tune with the planet then maybe if terrible things are going on up in the north, things which threaten the whole existence of the planet, then maybe
women get to feel these things, like the way some people know earthquakes are coming, and perhaps that's what sets off PMT ~ Julian Barnes

Or else you can say, like the camel driver who took me there: "I arrived here in my first youth, one morning, many people were hurrying along the streets toward the market, the women had fine teeth and looked you straight in the eye, three soldiers on a platform played the trumpet, and all around wheels turned and colored banners fluttered in the wind. Before then I had known only the desert and the caravan routes. In the years that followed, my eyes returned to contemplate the desert expanses and the caravan routes; but now I know this path is only one of the many that opened before me on that morning in Dorothea. ~ Italo Calvino

Our brother Ivan is a sphinx, he maintains his silence, and guards it well. But I'm being tortured by the idea of God. That's the only thing that does torture me. Supposing He doesn't exist? What if Rakitin is right that the idea is man's invention? For, if He doesn't exist, man is master of the world, of all creation. Splendid! Only how is he going to be virtuous without God? That's the question! I keep coming back to it. Who is he going to love then - man, I mean? To whom is he going to offer his gratitude, to whom is he going to sing his hymn of praise? Rakitin is ridiculous. Rakitin says you don't need God to love mankind. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It can be seen, then, that a public debate on the issue of the Nakbah, whether conducted in Israel itself or in the United States, its imperial protector, could open up questions concerning the moral legitimacy of the Zionist project as a whole. The mechanism of denial, therefore, was crucial, not only for defeating the counter-claims made by Palestinians in the peace process, but, far more importantly, for disallowing any significant debate on the very essence and moral foundations of Zionism. ~ Noam Chomsky

When you're down, when you've been kicked down in the street and then kicked a few more times until you're bleeding and your teeth are out, then you only have up to go. You get reborn again, and expectations aren't so great because they've taken you away. It's beautiful to be down there. It's so beautiful! ~ David

When she rolled over, nestling her back into Daniel's chest so that he was cradling her with his right wing, her eyelids fluttered shut. Then they flew open.
She was face to face with Cam.
He was inches away, on his side, head propped on his hand, green eyes holding hers as if they were both in a trance. He opened his mouth as if to say something-
BOOM.
The room trembled like a leaf. For an instant, the air seemed to take on a strange transparency. Cam's body shimmered, both there and somehow not there, his very existence seeming to flicker.
"Timequake," Daniel said.
"A big mother," Cam agreed.
Luce sprang upright, gaping at her own body in the sleeping bag, at Daniel's hand on her knee, at Arriane, whose muffled voice called out," "I'wuzznt me," until Annabelle's wing slapped her awake. All of them were flickering before each other's eyes. Solidly present one moment, as insubstantial as ghosts the next.
The timequake had jarred loose a dimension in which they weren't even there.
The cave around them shuddered. Sand sifted down from the walls. But unlike those of Luce and her friends, the physical properties of the red rock remained fixed, as if to prove that only people-souls-were at risk of being erased. ~ Lauren Kate

What's this?" Dan said, pointing to a funny squiggly formation.
Uh, an M," said Nellie. "Or if you look at it the other way, a W. Or sideways, kind of S-ish..."
Maybe it's palm trees," Dan said. "Like in the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. You know? No? These guys need to find hidden money, and the only clue they have is it's under a big W? And no one sees what it means-but then, near the end of the movie, there's this grove of four palm trees rising up in the shape of... you-know-what! Classic!"
Amy, Alistair, Natalie, Ian and Nellie all looked at him blankly.
There is no W in the Korean language," Alistair replied. "Or palm trees in Korea. I might be maple trees..."
Mrrp," said Saladin, rubbing his face against Dan's knee.
I'll tell you the rest of the plot later," Dan whispered to the Mau. ~ Peter Lerangis