Blades Quotes

Some mornings I walked out into the courtyard and every living thing there, the seagulls and wagtails, the small trees, and even the stray blades of grass seemed to smile and shine in the sun. It was at such times, when I perceived the beauty of even this small, closed-in corner of the world, that I knew that some day my people and I would be free. ~ Nelson Mandela

Her blades were reliable. And they made her feel like she'd been born with proper claws. ~ Leigh Bardugo

We encounter the grinding wheels that sharpen our mental blades many places in life. Adversity, school, parents, spiritual guides, books, experience are all sharpening teachers. As we grow older, to stay sharp we must find new grindstones to whet and sharpen our potential and keep us at our brightest, most penetrating best. ~ Rob Kall

William untucked the covers and stood, making a mental list of everything he'd need for the coming trip. A few blades, serrated and non serrated. A vial of acid. A bone saw. A spiked paddle. A cat-o'-nine-tails. And a bag of Gummy Bears. ~ Gena Showalter

For a few moments, raising his arms desperately, the Reverend Mouret implored Heaven. His shoulder-blades cracked, with such fantastic force did he pray. But soon enough his arms fell to his sides, his hopes abashed. From heaven came one of those silences utterly void of hope known to the devout. ~ Emile Zola

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The great artificer made my mate. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

You know, one time I saw Tiger down at the waterhole: he had the biggest testicles of any animal, and the sharpest claws, and two front teeth as long as knives and as sharp as blades. And I said to him, 'Brother Tiger, you go for a swim, I'll look after your balls for you. ~ Neil Gaiman

That's life. We all go through the tractor blades now and then. We all get bruised, and we all get cut. Sometimes the blade cuts deep. The lucky ones come through with a few scratches, a little blood, but even that isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is having someone there to scoop you up, to hold you tight, and to tell you everything is all right. ~ Vicki Myron

I walked far down a dirt side road and into a farmer's field - some sort of cereal that was chest high and corn green and rustled as its blades inflicted small paper burns on my skin as I walked through them. And in that field, when the appointed hour, minute, and second of the darkness came, I lay myself down on the ground, surrounded by the tall pithy grain stalks and the faint sound of insects, and held my breath, there experiencing a mood that I have never really been able to shake completely - a mood of darkness and inevitability and facination - a mood that surely must have been held by most young people since the dawn of time as they have crooked their necks, stared at the heavens, and watched their sky go out. ~ Douglas Coupland

They're making a ton of money, and no one is getting a nickel. ~ Ruben Blades

We are like blades of grass or trees of the forest, creations of the universe, of the spirit of the universe, and the spirit of the universe has neither life nor death. Vanity is the only obstacle to life. ~ Joe Hyams

And all of this leaves me wondering if this dream of mine-that out there, somewhere, hiding, there exists a guy who is cultured and calm, and smiley and faithful, who want´s to escape the rat-race with me and, apparently like the French, wear wellies and make cheese...Well, I wonder if it can possibly exist. I don´t want much...just someone who would flat on his stomach next to me in the garden watching ants carrying crumbs through the jungle of blades of grass. I wonder if that can ever exist, anywhere, for anyone. ~ Nick Alexander

There's no reason for Gillette to be world class on the web, but there's every reason for Gillette to be world class in producing billions of high powered razor blades at low cost. ~ James Collins

I never advocate that you should be lonely, or come to my shows and bring me your razor blade to show me that you don't cut anymore. ~ Andy Biersack

It is not difficult to be a lord, a jarl, or even a king, but it is difficult to be a leader.
Most men want to follow, and what they demand of their leader is prosperity. We are the ring-givers, the gold-givers. We give land, we give silver, we give slaves, but that alone is not enough. They must be led. Leave men standing or sitting for days at a time and they get bored, and bored men make trouble. They must be surprised and challenged, given tasks they think beyond their abilities. And they must fear. A leader who is not feared will cease to rule, but fear is not enough. They must love too. When a man has been led into the shield wall, when an enemy is roaring defiance, when the blades are clashing on shields, when the soil is about to be soaked in blood, when the ravens circle in wait for the offal of men, then a man who loves his leader will fight better than a man who merely fears him. At that moment we are brothers, we fight for each other, and a man must know that his leader will sacrifice his own life to save any one of his men.
I learned all that from Ragnar, a man who led with joy in his soul, though he was feared too. His great enemy, Kjartan, knew only how to lead by fear, and Ragnall was the same. Men who lead by fear might become great kings and might rule lands so great that no man knows their boundaries, but they can be beaten too, beaten by men who fight as brothers. ~ Bernard Cornwell

We got lots of secrets, Will. You Apollo guys can't have all the fun. Our campers have been excavating the tunnel system under Cabin Nine for almost a century. We still haven't found the end. Anyway, Leo, if you don't mind sleeping in a dead man's bed, it's yours-Jake
Suddenly Leo didn't feel like kicking back. He sat up, careful not to touch any of the buttons. The counselor who died-this was his bed-Leo
Yeah. Charles Beckendorf-Jake
Leo imagined saw blades coming through the mattress, or maybe a grenade sewn inside the pillows. He didn't, like, die IN this bed, did he-Leo
No. In the Titan War, last summer-Jake
The Titan War, which has NOTHING to do with this very fine bed-Leo
"The Titans," Will said, like Leo was an idiot. The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods. They tried to make a comeback last summer. Their leader, Kronos, built a new palace on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies came to New York and almost destoyed Mount Olympus. A lot of demigods died trying to stop them-Will
I'm guessing this wasn't on the news-Leo
It seemed like a fair question, but Will shook his head in disbelief. You didn't hear about Mount St. Helens erupting, or the freak storms across the country, or that building collapsing in St Louis-Will
Leo shrugged. Last summer, he'd been on the run from another foster home. Then a truancy officer caught him in New Mexico, and the court sentenced him to the nearest correction fac ~ Rick Riordan

Great tracts of reindeer moss, for example: tiny stars and florets and inklings of an ancient flora growing on exhausted land. Crisp underfoot in summer, the stuff is like a patch of the arctic fallen into the world in the wrong place. Everywhere, there are bony shoulders and blades of flint. On wet mornings you can pick up shards knocked from flint cores by Neolithic craftsmen, tiny flakes of stone glowing in thin coats of cold water. ~ Helen Macdonald

This twinned twinkle was delightful but not completely satisfying; or rather it only sharpened my appetite for other tidbits of light and shade, and I walked on in a state of raw awareness that seemed to transform the whole of my being into one big eyeball rolling in the world's socket.

Through peacocked lashes I saw the dazzling diamond reflection of the low sun on the round back of a parked automobile. To all kinds of things a vivid pictorial sense had been restored by the sponge of the thaw. Water in overlapping festoons flowed down one sloping street and turned gracefully into another. With ever so slight a note of meretricious appeal, narrow passages between buildings revealed treasures of brick and purple. I remarked for the first time the humble fluting - last echoes of grooves on the shafts of columns - ornamenting a garbage can, and I also saw the rippling upon its lid - circles diverging from a fantastically ancient center. Erect, dark-headed shapes of dead snow (left by the blades of a bulldozer last Friday) were lined up like rudimentary penguins along the curbs, above the brilliant vibration of live gutters.

I walked up, and I walked down, and I walked straight into a delicately dying sky, and finally the sequence of observed and observant things brought me, at my usual eating time, to a street so distant from my usual eating place that I decided to try a restaurant which stood on the fringe of the town. Night had fallen without sound or ce ~ Vladimir Nabokov

My mother never finished elementary school. My father didn't, and that was a reality for many of us. ~ Ruben Blades

I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is ... ~ Frank O'Hara

What I do not accept is the fact that so many people's talents were ripped off. ~ Ruben Blades

A gnarled old branch dulls the blade that severs a sapling. ~ Robert Jordan

Be more humble than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, always offering respect onto others and never expecting any in return ~ Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style. ~ Steven Brust

Engineers are now experimenting with 4,096-line TV systems, suggesting that with the next generation of sets you'll be able to count the grass blades on the Superbowl field, an obvious lifestyle improvement. ~ Seth Shostak

A brown spotted lady-bug climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it
which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its simplicity more than once. ~ Mark Twain

The sound of the blades on the ice in the morning is like smelling fresh coffee. ~ Tara Lipinski

the way the dew sparkled as if a careless hand had spilled a thousand translucent gemstones on the lush green blades ~ Nalini Singh

The sunset like a blacksmith, was beating the sky into glowing red blades. ~ Ali Shaw

Welcome," she said flatly. "You are aware that the dildo iron maiden is bring your own didos?"

We held up our bag of dildos.

"And that there are no actual spikes or blades of any type allowed in the iron maiden?"

"Did somebody really try that?" Drix asked.

BellaSade nodded tiredly. She gestured to the open chamber. "As you can see, the iron maiden has steps inside so that you can impale yourself on different dildos on different levels. Any projections near the eyes or ears must be no longer that four inches and completely blunt. This is the signal hole. " She indicated a large hole in the side of the iron maiden. "If you need to safe signal use that. That--" she pointed to another large hole in the back -- "is the grope hole. Please do not signal through the grope hole or grope through the signal hole. ~ J.A. Rock

Tell me about Dunyasha," he said.
"She was carrying quality blades." Inej took the shears from the table of the vanity and began cutting fresh strips of cloth from one of the towels. "I think she may be my shadow."
"Pretty solid shadow if she can throw knives."
"The Suli believe that when we do wrong, we give life to our shadows. Every sin makes the shadow stronger, until eventually the shadow is stronger than you."
"If that were true, my shadow would have put Ketterdam in permanent night."
"Maybe," Inej said, turning her dark gaze to his. "Or maybe you're someone else's shadow. ~ Leigh Bardugo

The widest, most open, most accepting aperture, the one providing the narrowest, most demanding depth of field. She and Naomi had joked about the sexuality of camera apertures, that they needed to write a woman's monograph on the symbolism and cultural relevance of the mechanics of image-making as it related to sex, so that, for example, stopping down the fixed 35mm lens's diaphragm - elegantly composed of nine leaf-shutter blades - to a tight f/16 would be the equivalent of executing a Kegel pelvic floor exercise. ~ David Cronenberg

A good picture, any picture, has to be bristling with razor blades. ~ Pablo Picasso

The dangerous men were still asleep, their blades sheathed next to their beds. The really dangerous men had been up for hours, and their quills and ledgers were getting hard use. ~ Daniel Polansky

Everyone has a black guy inside them. Mine is a Cuban sonero who is 80-something years old and sings better than I do. His name is Medoro Madera. Medoro has been recording since 1997. ~ Ruben Blades

It's called star silver because it glows brighter than the heavens when it's put to the flame (...) But it's not silver, it's a form of iron, rare iron that comes from the earth like all metals, there's nothing Dark about it. But it's this that makes swords of the Order stronger than others. With this, your blades will withstand blows that would shatter others and, if wielded with skill, will cut through mail and armour. ~ Anthony Ryan

Eyes are windows to the soul." His voice rang with profound meaning I couldn't grasp. Deep-chested baying alerted us to the approaching pack. Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades. "Curtains are half off at JCPenney," I snapped. "What's your point? ~ Hailey Edwards

She glides through the night. He punches into it, a boxing glove with razor blades for knuckles. When she passes, the world is a better place. He leaves bloody footprints in a graveyard of bones. ~ Karen Marie Moning

The Kindle is just the razor. The books are the blades - ka-ching! ~ David Pogue

Mrs. Heath wanted to sprinkle their minds with grass seed and watch the blades spike up through the earth, flat and predictable as a golf course. She wanted dependable students, well fed but not necessarily nourished. But he was not in that category. Admittedly, he could not count on his perceptions of letters and words, and he was not always accurate. He misused words most when he liked their sound. A sentence had a kind of music, and the word sounded right. The definitions were never as interesting as the sound they made coming out of your mouth. He rolled their flavors around on his tongue, tasting every nook and cranny, but he could not be trusted to deliver the right answer and she would never give him better than a C, no matter what genius work he produced. The way he saw it, his mind was a big unruly field of wildflowers. One day he would shower the world with blossoms. ~ Elizabeth Brundage

Regard this fleeting world like this:
Like stars fading and vanishing at dawn,
like bubbles on a fast-moving stream,
like morning dewdrops evaporating on blades of grass,
like a candle flickering in a strong wind ...
echoes, mirages, and phantoms, hallucinations,
and like a dream. ~ Gautama Buddha

Vinyasa Three With the inhalation, lift the whole torso, attempting to concave or at least flatten out the low back while gazing up between the eyebrows. Unless one is extremely flexible, it is recommended to lift the hands off the floor and let only the fingertips keep contact with it. The legs work strongly, and the torso is buoyant, supported by the extensor muscles of the back. Keep the heart lifted, broaden the shoulders, draw the shoulder blades down the back, and press them on to the back. This positioning of the shoulders prepares them to take the weight of the body for the jump-back into Chaturanga Dandasana. ~ Gregor Maehle

At first glance, it looks like some kind of ice cream...
...!
It isn't sweet. I see.
It's salmon ice cream, but made without sweetener."
"He made salmon into ice cream?!
But how?!"
"The Cryogenic Grinder."
"Ah! That's Alice Nakiri for you. Got it in one guess.
I pureed some salmon with a blender and then froze the resulting paste, putting it through the Cryogenic Grinder.
The high-powered blades of the grinder minced the paste into a fluffy and silky soft ice cream. ~ Yuto Tsukuda

Albine now yielded to him, and Serge possessed her.
And the whole garden was engulfed together with the couple in one last cry of love's passion. The tree-trunks bent as under a powerful wind. The blades of grass emitted sobs of intoxication. The flowers, fainting, lips half-open, breathed out their souls. The sky itself, aflame with the setting of the great star, held its clouds motionless, faint with love, whence superhuman rapture fell. And it was the victory of all the wild creatures, all plants and all things natural, which willed the entry of these two children into the eternity of life. ~ Emile Zola

She scissored the curls away, and - toms, grow easily sentimental over their haircuts, but I remember this sensation very vividly - it was not like she was cutting hair, it was as if I had a pair of wings beneath my shoulder-blades, that the flesh had all grown over, and she was slicing free ... ~ Sarah Waters

When those blades cut, they cause tears that feed the well of Urdr that lies beside the world tree, and the well gives the water that keeps Yggdrasil alive, and if Yggdrasil dies then the world dies, and so the well must be kept filled and for that there must be tears. ~ Bernard Cornwell

When you're moving in a dark and haunted forest the urge is for every step to be taken more quickly than the last. There's a pressure between your shoulder blades. Each creak and groan is a hunter stalking you, each flutter of wind its breath, close against your neck. You want to break and run, in any direction, just as long as it's fast. ~ Mark Lawrence

I decided we should book ourselves, so I started booking the band. ~ Ruben Blades

The Minotaur unstrapped his axe and swung it around. It was beautiful in a harsh I'm~going~togut~you~like~a~fish kind of way. Each of its twin blades was shaped like an omega: Ω - the last letter of the Greek alphabet. Maybe that was because the axe would be the last thing his victims ever saw ~ Rick Riordan

freezing force of the wind. When the blades ~ Lauren Groff

It was raining in the quadrangle, and the quadrangular sky looked like a grimace of a robot or a god made in our own likeness. The oblique drops of rain slid down the blades of grass in the park, but it would have made no difference if they had slid up. Then the oblique (drops) turned round (drops), swallowed up by the earth underpinning the grass, and the grass and the earth seemed to talk, no, not talk, argue, their comprehensible words like crystallized spiderwebs or the briefest crystallized vomitings, a barely audible rustling, as if instead of drinking tea that afternoon, Norton had drunk a steaming cup of peyote. ~ Roberto Bolano

We're just blades of grass, and when we go, we go, we never come back; one life ... maybe that's true. But I tend to believe that this is not all there is. Because my life has been like a shadow of something deeper. And I've experienced that many times. ~ Anthony Hopkins

Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen enemy, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength. Stealing our will, for what are we without empathy? What manner of joy might we find in our live if we cannot understand the joys and pains of those around us, if we cannot share in a greater community. ~ R.A. Salvatore

...occasionally I like carrying raw steel to remind myself of an important lesson.
The blade's an extension of the hand, the agent--no pun intended--of my will. Most people understand this immediately of edged weapons...
The trick--and few are subtle or sophisticated enough to master it--is to see that this is equally true... by implication, of all machines. ~ L. Neil Smith

The strong is not the one who can put on the blades at a glance, and the one who is able to raise a smile from his knees! ~ Juliette Binoche

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else. ~ L. Frank Baum

Having a relationship with people of questionable character is like playing with a razor blade on your skin, and pretending to observe that it is harmful to your body. ~ Michael Bassey

Tybalt put a hand on my back, resting it in the space between my shoulder blades. "Are you all right?"
"Not on this or any other planet." I straightened, up looking around. We were under the old bridge spanning the creek that cut through the middle of campus. I sighed. "See, if I'd just realized where we'd come out, I could have thrown up in the water. Less mess."
"Yes, but won't you think about the frogs? I'm sure they receive enough unwanted vomit from the student body. ~ Seanan McGuire

I would clean my blades, and wash the blood from my skin.
And I would do it again and again and again. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Rock is young music, it is youth oriented. It just speaks for a generation. ~ Ruben Blades

Puck threw Ash a mocking smile. "You look like crap, Prince. Did you miss
me?"
Ash frowned, stabbing a faery that was clawing at his feet. "What are you
doing here, Goodfellow?" he asked coldly, which only caused Puck's grin to widen.
"Rescuing the princess from the Winter Court, of course." Puck looked down
as the wire-fey piled on the squealing boar, ripping and slicing. It exploded into a pile of leaves,
and they skittered back in confusion. "Though it appears I'm saving your sorry ass, as well."
"I could've handled it."
"Oh, I'm sure." Puck brandished a pair of curved daggers, the blades clear as
glass. His grin turned predatory. "Well, then, shall we get on with it? Try to keep up, Your
Highness."
"Just stay out of my way. ~ Julie Kagawa

To keep Velaris safe, to keep Mor and Amren and Cassian and Azriel and… Rhys safe.

I said to Lucien, low and quiet and as vicious as the talons that formed at the tips of my fingers, as vicious as the wondrous weight between my shoulder blades, "When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness begins to stare back."

A pulse of surprise, of wicked delight against my mental shields, at the dark, membranous wings I knew were now poking over my shoulders. Every icy kiss of rain sent jolts of cold through me. Sensitive - so sensitive, these Illryian wings.

Lucien backed up a step. "What did you do to yourself?"

I gave him a little smile. "The human girl you knew died Under the Mountain. I have no interest in spending immortality as a High Lord's pet."

Lucien started shaking his head. "Feyre - "

"Tell Tamlin," I said, choking on his name, on the thought of what he'd done to Rhys, to his family, "if he sends anyone else into these lands, I will hunt each and every one of you down. And I will demonstrate exactly what the darkness taught me."

There was something like genuine pain on his face.

I didn't care. I just watched him, unyielding and cold and dark. The creature I might one day have become if I had stayed at the Spring Court, if I had remained broken for decades, centuries… until I learned to quietly direct those shards of pain outward, learned to savor ~ Sarah J. Maas

The events of September 11 were carried out by people armed not with weapons of mass destruction, but with blades you can buy at a newsagent ~ Phillip Adams

I implicitly believe in the truth of the saying that not a blade of grass moves but by His will. He will save it (my life) if He needs it for further service in this body. None can save it against His will. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I was afraid to watch 'Blade Runner' in the theater because I was afraid the movie would be better than what I myself had been able to imagine. In a way, I was right to be afraid, because even the first few minutes were better. ~ William Gibson

I think being born in Panama was a blessing because Panama is a port city. It's a really - the mentality is that - I remember that of admitting things in. You know, ports, ideas come in and out all the time. ~ Ruben Blades

We've got 50 percent voter turnout for presidential elections. That's appalling. We can do so much better. ~ Joan Blades

Be nice to Helen Blackthorn," Alec said urgently. "You don't have to like her, but don't treat her differently from any other Shadowhunter."
Aline blinked. "I wasn't planning on it. Of course she's . . . a colleague. I will treat her in a professional fashion. That was my plan on how to treat her. With a calm professionalism."
"Good," said Alec.
"Do you have her phone number?" Aline asked. "In case we get separated, or something?"
"I don't," said Alec.
In the weapon's room, Helen came toward them, her arms full of seraph blades, her fair hair curling around her ears. Aline made a sighing sound. ~ Cassandra Clare

Why don't you swallow razor blades? ~ Lou Reed

Time runs and flows and only our death succeeds in catching up with it. Photography is a blade which, in eternity, impales the dazzling moment. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

You named your sword Fire? Fire? What kind of a boring name is that? You might as well name your sword 'Blazing Blade' and be done with it. Fire indeed. Humph. Wouldn't you rather have a sword called Sheepbiter or Chrysanthemum Cleaver or something else with imagination? ~ Christopher Paolini

Love The Wild Swan
I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One color, one glinting
Hash, of the splendor of things.
Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets of wax,
The lion beauty, the wild-swan wings, the storm of the wings.
This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.
Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast
Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.
Does it matter whether you hate your ... self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan. ~ Robinson Jeffers

Those who love are clouds floating side by side:
Dewdrops bending blades of grass at sunrise.
Yet love is the rhythm of nature;
Love is oneness with beauty;
Love is the joyful revelation of the way. ~ Malinda Lo

I want two scars, one on each of my shoulder blades."
He shrugged in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Two scars," I repeated, "for where my wings used to be, where my wings were torn away from me. ~ Christos Tsiolkas

All around her it was like that: a fast crack on the head if you let the hunger show so she decided then and there at the age of twelve in Baltimore never to be broken in the hands of any man. Whatever it took
knife blades or screaming teeth
Never. And yes, she would tap dance, and yes, she would skate, but she would do it with a frown, pugnacious lips and scary eyes, because Never. And anybody who wanted nice from this little colored girl would have to get it with pliers and chloroform, because Never. When her mother died and she went to Philadelphia and then away to school, she was so quick to learn, but no touchee, teacher, and no, I do not smile, because Never. It smoothed out a little as she grew older. The pugnacious lips became a seductive pout
eyes more heated than scary. But beneath the easy manners was a claw always ready to rein in the dogs, because Never. ~ Toni Morrison

But, when I was about thirteen, I began to sort of sing in my neighborhood. ~ Ruben Blades

The moth batted its wings angrily at him as it twisted and spun gracelessly in the green blades. For
Consort's sake, throw us a lifeline and stop lettin' death take me hand! ~ C. Kennedy

So that when I came from Panama ... my family was exiled in 1973 and they went to Miami. ~ Ruben Blades

What would I put in my bottom drawer? – I would put only sharp objects, the clean lines of broken glass, the honed steel of paring knives, the tiny saw-teeth of bread knives and the soothing edges of razor blades, I weigh knives in my hands like strange comforters. ~ Kate Atkinson

Vasectomy
After the steaming bodies swept
through the hungry streets of swollen cities;
after the vast pink spawning of family
poisoned the rivers and ravaged the prairies;
after the gamble of latex and
diaphragms and pills;
I invoked the white robes, gleaming blades
ready for blood, and, feeling the scourge
of Increase and Multiply, made
affirmation: Yes, deliver us from
complicity.
And after the precision of scalpels,
I woke to a landscape of sunshine where
the catbird mates for life and
maps trace out no alibis - stepped
into a morning of naked truth,
where acts mean what they really are:
the purity of loving
for the sake of love. ~ Philip Appleman

He saw the delicate blades of grass which the bodies of his comrades had fertilized; he saw the little shoots on the shell-shocked trees. He saw the smoke-puffs of shrapnel being blown about by light breezes. He saw birds making love in the wire that a short while before had been ringing with flying metal. He heard the pleasant sounds of larks up there, near the zenith of the trajectories. He smiled a little. There was something profoundly saddening about it. It all seemed so fragile and so absurd. ~ Humphrey Cobb

I stretched my arms towards the sky like blades of tall grass
The sun beat between my shoulders like carnival drums
I sat still in hopes that it would help my wings grow
So then I could really be fly
And then she arrived
Like day break inside a railway tunnel
Like the new moon, like a diamond in the mines
Like high noon to a drunkard, sudden
She made my heart beat in a now-now time signature
Her skinny canvas for ultraviolet brushstrokes
She was the sun's painting
She was a deep cognac color
Her eyes sparkled like lights along the new city
She lips pursed as if her breath was too sweet
And full for her mouth to hold
I said, "You are the beautiful, the stress of mathematics."
I said, "For you, I would peel open the clouds like new fruit
And give you lightning and thunder as a dowry
I would make the sky shed all of it's stars, light and rain
And I would clasp the constellations across your waist
And I would make the heavens your cape
And they would be pleased to cover you
They would be pleased to cover you
May I please, cover you, please ~ Mos Def

Words can be more lethal than blades, Magnus. And Loki is a master of words. To beat him, you must find your inner poet. Only one thing can give you a chance to beat Loki at his own game."
"Mead," I guessed. "Kvasir's Mead."
The answer didn't sit right with me. I'd been on the streets long enough to see how well "mead" improved people's skills. Pick your poison: beer, wine, vodka, whiskey. Folks claimed they needed it to get through the day. They called it liquid courage. It made them funnier, smarter, more creative. Except it didn't. It just made them less able to tell how unfunny and stupid they were acting. ~ Rick Riordan

They were on the set of Bad Santa but I tried to keep the headphones away from them. My kids have seen Sling Blade, they've seen Armageddon, Bandits and Friday Night Lights. They have not seen Monster's Ball, nor will they ever, even when they're sixty [laughter]. I will leave it in my will that they can never see it. ~ Billy Bob Thornton

Peering down into the water where the morning sun fashioned wheels of light, coronets fanwise in which lay trapped each twig, each grain of sediment, long flakes and blades of light in the dusty water sliding away like optic strobes where motes sifted and spun. ~ Cormac McCarthy

In Memory of My Feelings"

My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent
and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets.
He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.

My quietness has a number of naked selves,
so many pistols I have borrowed to protect myselves
from creatures who too readily recognize my weapons
and have murder in their heart!
though in winter
they are warm as roses, in the desert
taste of chilled anisette.
At times, withdrawn,
I rise into the cool skies
and gaze on at the imponderable world with the simple identification
of my colleagues, the mountains. Manfred climbs to my nape,
speaks, but I do not hear him,
I'm too blue.
An elephant takes up his trumpet,
money flutters from the windows of cries, silk stretching its mirror
across shoulder blades. A gun is "fired."
One of me rushes
to window #13 and one of me raises his whip and one of me
flutters up from the center of the track amidst the pink flamingoes,
and underneath their hooves as they round the last turn my lips
are scarred and brown, brushed by tails, masked in dirt's lust,
definition, open mouths gasping for the cries of the bettors for the lungs
of earth.
So many of my transparencies could not resist the race!
Terror in earth, dried mushrooms, pink feathers, tickets,
a flaking moon drifting across the muddie ~ Frank O'Hara

Every band had their own distinctive sound, but it was pretty much dancing music and rhythmic music with a tremendous emphasis on copying the Cuban models. ~ Ruben Blades

I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America. ~ Ruben Blades

Her childhood had been magical, hours spent in ecstatic loneliness in the apple orchard, dreaming of foreign lands and wild adventures. Everything was new, down to bird song and grass blades. By the time she had reached adulthood, the town around her was like a grandmother who had used up all her stories and now simply rocked on the porch. The same flowers, the same streets, year after year. She longed for someone more exotic. A prince. A pirate. ~ Kathy Hepinstall

A few words can be more effective than a lot of blades, even in such times as these. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The day is early with birds beginning and the wren in a cloud piping like the child in the poem, drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe. And the place grows bean flower, pea-green lush of grass, swarm of insects dizzily hitting the high spots; dunny rosette creeping covering shawl ream in a knitted cosy of roses; ah the tipsy wee small hours of insects that jive upon the crippled grass blades and the face of the first flower alive. ~ Janet Frame

Are we going to debate philosophy or should I just kiss and make up with the demon now? Let it get a good shot at your throat so it can rip it out? (Xypher) Put him down mercifully. (Kat) Yes, Queenie. I'll make sure and use a cushioned blade. (Xypher) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Worry ... is rust upon the blade. ~ Simon Hughes

The Kel unsheathed their swords, each tinted differently, blank bars of light. Cheris's ran from blue near the hilt to red at the tip. As they closed with the enemy, numbers blazed to life along the lengths of the blades: the day and the hour of your death, as the Kel liked to say. ~ Yoon Ha Lee

The blade itself incites to deeds of violence. ~ Homer

All his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved. ~ Truman Capote

Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our
spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of
artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver
behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity
has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship
the spine and its tingle. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Guns are always the best method for a private suicide. They are more stylish looking than single-edged razor blades and natural gas has got so expensive. Drugs are too chancy. You might miscalculate the dosage and just have a good time. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Her protector and savior was shirtless and barefoot, dressed only in a pair of drawers. He stood beside the bed with his back to her, turning down the covers. She studied the rippling muscles of his shoulders and arms as he performed the mundane task. His back was a beautiful, pale canvas on which she could imagine painting letters and designs. She admired the bands of muscle and the shadows beneath his shoulder blades. His drawers sagged low, revealing narrow hips and the intriguing curve of his rear. Her sex tightened at the glimpse of his buttocks.
His face was in profile and his nose no longer seemed too big or his features too coarse as she'd once thought, so long ago it seemed. Instead, they appeared assertively masculine except for the thick sweep of eyelashes and the generous fullness of his lips.
Alan noticed her and turned. The blanket fell from his fingers as he gazed at her with the eyes of a hungry dragon. His lips parted and the exhalation of his breath floated to her across the quiet room. Then he walked toward her. ~ Bonnie Dee