Black Mirror Quotes

they have commandos and astronauts who know this kind of thing cold." "But Raz, you are educable, you can learn 'this kind of thing,' if by that you mean how to maneuver an S2-35B and how to assemble a Cold Black Mirror. You've spent your whole life, ever since you were Collected, becoming educable. ~ Neal Stephenson

It was any outcast's nightmare.
If I looked carefully, I suspected I might find it beneath the black paint of the small acrylic by the window. ~ Nancy Werlin

Koschei smiled. His pale lips sought hers, crushing her into a kiss like dying. She tasted sweetness there, as though he still kissed her with honey and sugar on his tongue. When he pulled away, his eyes shone.

"I don't care, Marya Morevna. Kiss him. Take him to your bed, and the vila, too, for all it matters to me. Do you understand me, wife? There need never be any rules between us. Let us be greedy together; let us hoard. Let us hit each other with birch branches and lock each other in dungeons; let us drink each other's blood in the night and betray each other in the sun. Let us lie and lust and take hundreds of lovers; let us dance until snow melts beneath us. Let us steal and eat until we grow fat and roll in the pleasures of life, clutching each other for purchase. Only leave me my death - let me hold this one thing sacred and unmolested and secret - and I will serve you a meal myself, served on a platter of all the world's bounty. Only do not leave me, swear that you will never leave me, and no empress will stand higher. Forget the girls in the factory. Be selfish and cruel and think nothing of them. I am selfish. I am cruel. My mate cannot be less than I. I will have you in my hoard, Marya Morevna, my black mirror. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

On Translating Eugene Onegin


1
What is translation? On a platter
A poet's pale and glaring head,
A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter,
And profanation of the dead.
The parasites you were so hard on
Are pardoned if I have your pardon,
O, Pushkin, for my stratagem:
I traveled down your secret stem,
And reached the root, and fed upon it;
Then, in a language newly learned,
I grew another stalk and turned
Your stanza patterned on a sonnet,
Into my honest roadside prose--
All thorn, but cousin to your rose.


2
Reflected words can only shiver
Like elongated lights that twist
In the black mirror of a river
Between the city and the mist.
Elusive Pushkin! Persevering,
I still pick up Tatiana's earring,
Still travel with your sullen rake.
I find another man's mistake,
I analyze alliterations
That grace your feasts and haunt the great
Fourth stanza of your Canto Eight.
This is my task--a poet's patience
And scholastic passion blent:
Dove-droppings on your monument. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Jews put black over mirrors during times os mourning so they wouldn't think about themselves. But I never did look in mirrors anyway, because I disliked myself. No, wait. I disliked my appearance. ~ Nancy Werlin

Now that Karen has been resurrected, I can travel beyond the black mirror. I can discover who I have lost with the
floating hearts and severed heads of my medicine. I must now whisper my other friends back too. I'm sad they're gone ... sad and blue. ~ Nicholaus Patnaude

Darkness retreats and the Sun rises. Red, yellow and orange creep into clear blue, the sweet airborne calls of waking birds echo across the black mirror of the Lake, a crisp draft carries the bitter of cold into the reserve of night. I stand and I walk back to the Unit and dew on the dead grass soaks through my shoes and i watch my feet break the crystalline perfection of the morning's drops and the drops are just another thing I've destroyed, another thing I can't fix or bring back, another beautiful thing ruined by my carelessness. I don't stop. I don't stop destroying and don't change my course and I don't look back. Looking back hurts too much, so I just keep going. ~ James Frey

'Black Mirror,' I read that, and I had another offer for a movie at the same time that was a bigger movie, an actual film as opposed to TV, but I said, 'No, it has to be Black Mirror.' And it hadn't been sold to Netflix, hadn't gone abroad at that point - but it's just good work - that's all there is to it. ~ Domhnall Gleeson

There were the Newport hills, far up the bay, marked now by a rim of lights. There was the water, a blue shimmer under the sun, a black mirror after dark, somehow alive, a living thing that tied it all together, the houses hugging the rim and the people in them, drawn there to be beside the bay. The water had been there in the beginning, the beautiful bay all alone; and now the houses had crowded about it, hemming it in a row of stucco and brick and white clapboard. Someday the bay would be alone again. When The Thing went off. When all of the houses would be blown away. There would be floating rubble, a border of broken trash for a little while. ~ Dolores Hitchens

Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance - but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? 29-32 What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Your brain is involved in everything you do.
Your brain controls everything you do, feel, and think. When you look in the
mirror, you can thank your brain for what you see. Ultimately, it is your brain that
determines whether your belly bulges over your belt buckle or your waistline is trim and
toned. Your brain plays the central role in whether your skin looks fresh and dewy or is
etched with wrinkles. Whether you wake up feeling energetic or groggy depends on your
brain. When you head to the kitchen to make breakfast, it is your brain that determines
whether you go for the leftover pizza or the low-fat yogurt and fruit. Your brain controls
whether you hit the gym or sit at the computer to check your Facebook page. If you feel
the need to light up a cigarette or drink a couple cups of java, that's also your brain's
doing.ACTION STEP Remember that your brain is involved in everything you do, every
decision you make, every bite of food you take, every cigarette you smoke, every
worrisome thought you have, every workout you skip, every alcoholic beverage you
drink, and more. ~ Daniel G. Amen

Belief isn't easy. It isn't black and white. ~ Ashley Herring Blake

Nothing could be more admirable than the manner in which for forty years he [Joseph Black] performed this useful and dignified office. His style of lecturing was as nearly perfect as can well be conceived; for it had all the simplicity which is so entirely suited to scientific discourse, while it partook largely of the elegance which characterized all he said or did ... I have heard the greatest understandings of the age giving forth their efforts in its most eloquent tongues-have heard the commanding periods of Pitt's majestic oratory-the vehemence of Fox's burning declamation-have followed the close-compacted chain of Grant's pure reasoning-been carried away by the mingled fancy, epigram, and argumentation of Plunket; but I should without hesitation prefer, for mere intellectual gratification (though aware how much of it is derived from association), to be once more allowed the privilege which I in those days enjoyed of being present while the first philosopher of his age was the historian of his own discoveries, and be an eyewitness of those experiments by which he had formerly made them, once more performed with his own hands. ~ Henry Peter Brougham

There are some people, be they black or white, who don't want others to rise above them. They want to be the source of all knowledge and share it piecemeal to others less endowed. That is what's wrong with all these carpenters and men who have a certain knowledge. It is the same with rich people. ~ Ngugi Wa Thiongo

My doctor told me to watch my drinking. Now I drink in front of a mirror. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

I think we did our first session in 1958. There were no black background singers - there were only white singers. They weren't even called background singers; they were just called singers. I don't know who gave us the name 'background singers,' but I think that came about when The Blossoms started doing background. ~ Darlene Love

The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it's a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black and fall in love with a white person, race doesn't matter when you're alone together because it's just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don't talk about it. We don't even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we're worried they will say we're overreacting, or we're being too sensitive. And we don't want them to say, Look how far we've come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we're thinking when they say that? We're thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don't say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn't matter because that's what we're supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

No matter how much you've worked so hard to be as successful as you are, there will always be those ignorant haters who don't understand. ~ Jinxx

The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colors until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone… His fear infected Harry too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder, wondering what it was that Snape was waiting for -
Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air. Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand.
"Don't kill me!"
"That was not my intention."
Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand.
"Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?"
"No - no message - I'm here on my own account!"
Snape was wringing his hands. He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him.
"I - I come with a warning - no, a request - please - "
Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snape faced eac ~ J.K. Rowling

i wear black
got dem boots
nothing more to say ~ Hailie

Guerrilla wars, and even more so terrorist assaults, are conducted only by forces with insufficient strength to carry out a real war. ~ Conrad Black

I can go all over the world with just three outfits: a blue blazer and gray flannel pants, a gray flannel suit, and black tie. ~ Pierre Cardin

Gerard Manley Hopkins somewhere describes how he mesmerized a duck by drawing a line of chalk out in front of it. Think of me as the duck; the chalk, softly wearing itself away against the tiny pebbles embedded in the corporate concrete, is Joyce's forward-luring rough-smooth voice on the cassettes she gives me. Or, to substitute another image, since one is hardly sufficient in Joyce's case, when I let myself really enter her tape, when I let it surround me, it is as if I'm sunk into the pond of what she is saying, as if I'm some kind of patient, cruising amphibian, drifting in black water, entirely submerged except for my eyes, which blink every so often. Each word comes floating up to me like a thick, healthy lily pad and brushes past my head. ~ Nicholson Baker

The funeral was held on a rainy Tuesday at the church where the Brendan family were members. The high school was excused for the day so the teachers and students could attend if they wished, and many did. Avivah's parents mourned their only child from the front pew, tears falling as steadily as the droplets outside, smattering faces as well as painted window panes.

After the eulogy, a song about heaven began to play over head, and as the song played, the Brendans lit a candle by the photo of their daughter, then returned to their seats. More than a few people in attendance were found dabbing at their eyes as the song came to a close. The group of mourners made their way slowly to the cemetery and laid the girl to rest, black umbrellas dotting the vivid green of the grass, grey sky bright, despite the rainfall. ~ Rebecca Harris

There are very few really stark black and white stories. ~ Jim Lehrer

I will put gold in your room for the journey. And I will let it be whispered about that I have sent you out to a farm to hoe cabbages. Will Elayne be going with you?"
Nynaeve forgot herself enough to stare at the Amyrlin, then hurriedly put her eyes back on her hands. Her knuckles were white on the spit handle. "You scheming old ... Why all the pretense, if you knew? Your sly plots have had us squirming nearly as much as the Black Ajah has. Why?" The Amyrlin's face had tightened, enough to make her force a more respectful tone. "If I may ask, Mother. ~ Robert Jordan

The Final Poem

A forge burns in my heart.
I am redder than dawn,
Deeper than seaweed,
More distant than gulls,
More hollow than wells.
But I only give birth
To seeds and to shells.
My tongue becomes tangled in words:
I no longer speak white,
Nor utter black,
Nor whisper gray of a wind-worn cliff,
Barely do I glimpse a swallow,
A shadow's brief glimmer,
Or guess at an iris.
Where are the words,
The undying fire,
The final poem?
The source of life? ~ Andrée Chedid

As long as I can hear the sweet melody of your words,
I need not;
The angel's secret, to be whispered in my ears

As long as I can lace your silky fingers round my own,
I need not;
Pretty diamonds, nor big cash nor gold

As long as I can watch the handsome sunshine of your face,
I need not;
Open skies, nor snowfall, nor the rain

As long as I can gaze into the emeralds of your eyes,
I need not;
New colors, new wings or paradise

As long as I can feel the tender tickle of your breath,
I need not;
The drifting wind, nor its call, nor caress

As long as I can feel your soft lips upon mine,
I need not;
Melted sugar, nor the most expensive of wines

As long as I can feel your warm body close to me
I need not;
A blanket, nor a bonfire's luxury

As long as I can see you every morning I wake,
I need not;
A mirror, nor a cloud, nor shade

As long as I can keep you in every petal of memories
I need not:
Dreams, nor desires, nor fantasies

And as long as I can hold you in every moment that I breathe,
I need not;
Oxygen, nor blood, nor heartbeats. ~ Sanober Khan

Regardless of how black the page, he had always managed to turn it and move on to a new chapter in his life. ~ Robert Masello

Koolaid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish, and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes - goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. Macaroons are very Jewish - very Jewish cake. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is goyish. Lime soda is very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won't go near them. ~ Lenny Bruce

< Dear Luke,
I'm sorry for coming by unannounced. You haven't been returning my texts, and a stronger man would have gotten the hint - >
Movement caught my eye. I looked at him. He was signing. Slowly. Imperfectly. Little inflections were wrong, and he got some of the ideas out of order, but he was, as best he could, reciting the letter to me.
- gotten the hint, but I'm not strong. I'm not proud. I'm in love with you, and I'm sorry for hurting you. Please let me say my piece, and then I'll leave if you want. But I'd never be able to look in a mirror if the last time we spoke was that night on the phone.
You are nothing but love and warmth and strength, and the world was a better place when you were a nurse in it. I don't know how serious things are, but if you can get back into nursing, that's what I want for you. If there's a way I can help - any way at all, big or small - please tell me. You deserve your dreams, and I was a complete ass for the things I said during our fight.
I'll never do that again. Never. If you let me in your life, I promise to listen. To always listen. To listen carefully and compassionately. I'll give you advice when you want it or help if you need it, but I will always listen.
And if you want me, a reclaimed ass who promises to do better, in your life, it would make me happy. I don't know what we'd look like in the real world, but I can't think of another person I'd rather figure things out with.
We've ~ Peter Styles

And so, however many people watch this thing, that's how many different opinions there will be about it. But I don't feel like it has an agenda in terms of its ideology. It just presents a story like a mirror. It's a mirror more than it is than a distorted mirror. ~ Josh Radnor

Then the coxswain called out, 'Ready all!' Joe turned and faced the rear of the boat, slid his seat forward, sank the white blade of his oar into the oil-black water, tensed his muscles, and waited for the command that would propel him forward into the glimmering darkness. ~ Daniel James Brown

I've called in the oracles and they were communing with the Fates. But you know how they are. I'm sure it'll come back as 'When the sky is green,m and the earth turns black, the Daimons will give you lots of flack. To kill the great awful one you seek, you'll have to find something unique.' Or some bullshit like that. I really hate Oracles. If I wanted to play mind games, I'd buy a Rubik's Cube. (Acheron)
I don't know, Ash, you're pretty good at that. Sure you don't want to take up an Oracle position? (Kyrian)
Picture this, General, my middle finger is extended all the way up, and aimed right at you. Now let me work. I have Daimons to track, Dark-Hunters to antagonize, and women to seduce. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

But when you are used to white being the default, black isn't black unless it is clearly pointed out as such. ~ Reni Eddo-Lodge

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love ... What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. ~ Robert F. Kennedy

Know that the mirror of the heart is boundless ... Here, opinions become silent, otherwise they will lead you into errors ... for the heart is sacred - even more the heart is sacredness itself. ~ Rumi

I am not opposed to religion. Far from it. I'm for anything that gives people peace. That's why I am also for hot tubs and compact discs of whale songs. Anything that soothes the soul is fine by me. ~ Michael Ian Black

I looked into the mirror and saw this middle-aged woman who keeps invading my face. ~ Liv Ullmann

Whatever the truth about the Deliverer, she will remain in my mind as she was shown on that statue, and all the other statues and murals, songs and stories: riding, at the head of her own swift cavalry, with a growing migration behind her and a decadent, vulnerable, defenceless and rich continent ahead; and, floating bravely above her head and above her army, the black flag on which nothing is written. ~ Ken MacLeod

If you are a crazy person who needs to have clandestine meetings, then, just like in real estate, what matters most is location, location, location. ~ Holly Black

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too. ~ Maya Angelou

I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked awful, but I always look awful in the mirror. I keep myself going with the firm belief that my real face is much better looking. ~ George Alec Effinger

Remember, the prince is like a mirror exposed to the eyes of all his subjects who continually look to him as a pattern on which to model themselves, and who in consequence without much trouble discover his vices and virtues. ~ Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

I love the idea of a super villain that doesn't wear a cape, that doesn't wear a super suit. ~ Shane Black

A teacher is like a magical mirror that will show you your future. Imagine if you have no teacher, it may mean you have no future. ~ Gracia Hunter

Big and little they went on together to Molalla, to Tuska, to Roswell, Guthrie, Kaycee, to Baker and Bend. After a few weeks Pake said that if Diamond wanted a permanent traveling partner he was up for it. Diamond said yeah, although only a few states still allowed steer roping and Pake had to cover long, empty ground, his main territory in the livestock country of Oklahoma, Wyoming, Oregon and New Mexico. Their schedules did not fit into the same box without patient adjustment. But Pake knew a hundred dirt road shortcuts, steering them through scabland and slope country, in and out of the tiger shits, over the tawny plain still grooved with pilgrim wagon ruts, into early darkness and the first storm laying down black ice, hard orange-dawn, the world smoking, snaking dust devils on bare dirt, heat boiling out of the sun until the paint on the truck hood curled, ragged webs of dry rain that never hit the ground, through small-town traffic and stock on the road, band of horses in morning fog, two redheaded cowboys moving a house that filled the roadway and Pake busting around and into the ditch to get past, leaving junkyards and Mexican cafes behind, turning into midnight motel entrances with RING OFFICE BELL signs or steering onto the black prairie for a stunned hour of sleep. ~ Annie Proulx

Bodybuilding has been the tool that single-handedly taught a little black boy from the projects to use his mind to achieve success. it taught me to see things for what they can be. I had 17-inch arms; I imagined them to be 24 inches. The power of my mind allowed me to achieve what I imagined. ~ Kai Greene

As the Brotherhood got down to business, he found himself putting his hand on the dog's big head and stroking the soft fur ... playing with an ear ... dipping down and finding the long waves that flowed from the animal's broad, strong chest.
Not that any of that meant he was keeping the the animal, of course.
It just felt nice, was all. ~ J.R. Ward

I'm a multi-faceted woman and person, like all women are - there's no black and white. We have shades of grey in the middle. And even many more colours that other people don't see! ~ Shakira

I believe every pencil has to be sharpened every now and then to stay sharp, or you dull out. So my records, I chose to speak on what black people do, what white people do, what women do, what men do. ~ Ice Cube

If there was no Black Sabbath, I could still possibly be a morning newspaper delivery boy. No fun. ~ Lars Ulrich

Do not mistake me, Inrithi. In this much Conphas is right. You are all staggering drunks to me. Boys who would play at war when you should kennel with your mothers. You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill not daring. It is not a trial of souls, nor the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.
You have offered me war, and I have accepted. Nothing more. I will not regret your losses. I will not bow my head before your funeral pyres. I will not rejoice at your triumphs. But I have taken the wager. I will suffer with you. I will put Fanim to the sword, and drive their wives and children to the slaughter. And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart. ~ R. Scott Bakker

Let me tell you what happens when you cook down the syrup of loss over the open fire of sorrow: it solidfies into something wlaw. not grief, like you'd expect, or even regret. no, it gets thick as paste, black as ash; yet it isn't until you dip a finger in and feel that sharp taste dissolving on your tounge that you realize this is angel in its purest form, unrefined; a substance to be weighed and measyred and spread. ~ Jodi Picoult

When Diana returned to work on Monday, September 16, she came directly to my bedroom and announced, "Mrs. Robertson, I have something important to tell you." I could see out of the corner of my eye that she had a slight, mischievous grin on her face.
"Go right ahead," I said as I continued to blow-dry my hair in front of the mirror above the dresser.
"No, Mrs. Robertson, I'd like your full attention." I switched off my hair dryer and faced her as she stood in the doorway. "When you leave for work this morning, you'll notice a lot of reporters and photographers at the entrance to the mews."
I wondered aloud if the press were following either Lord Vestey, a notorious international financier, or John Browne, a bright young M.P. known as one of "Maggie's boys," both of whom lived on our small street.
"No, actually, Mrs. Robertson, they're waiting for me," Diana said with a great deal of blushing, staring at the floor, and throat clearing.
"Good heavens, Diana, why?"
"Well . . . I spent last weekend at Balmoral."
"With Prince Andrew?" I asked, remembering my friend Lee's comment on the way to Glyndebourne.
"No, actually, I was there to see Prince Charles." More blushes and throat clearing, quickly followed by her disclaimer, "But he didn't invite me. His mother did." Hearing Diana speak of Her Majesty the Queen as "his mother" certainly gave me a clear picture of the circles in which Diana moved.
I gasped and asked, probably rather tact ~ Mary Robertson