Brace Yourself For The Violence Quotes

You have eyes like a mermaid," he murmured. "Soft, pale green. Beautiful."
"I knew it was only a matter of time before you walked in during my bath," Lara said, trying to sound calm although her heart was pounding. "Your request to see me in that negligee made it quite evident that you're a shameless voyeur."
Hunter grinned. "I've been found out, it seems. But you can't blame me for it."
"Why not?"
"After more than a year of sexual deprivation, a man has to have some pleasure."
"You could expend your energy on something more productive," Lara suggested as he came closer to the bath. "Develop a hobby... collect something... take up chess or pugilism."
His eyes twinkled at her prim tone. "I do have a hobby, madam."
"Which is what?"
"Admiring you."
She shook her head with a reluctant smile. "If you weren't so annoying, my lord, you would almost be charming."
"If you weren't so beautiful, I wouldn't be annoying." He gave her an easy masculine grin. "But I plan to annoy you often, madam, and someday you'll like it." He took another step toward the tub. "Brace yourself- I'm coming closer."
Lara went rigid, thinking of covering herself, screaming, splashing him... but she did none of those things. She remained in the tub, stretched before him like a pagan sacrifice. Hunter made no obvious show of staring at her, but she knew that he took in every detail of her body as it shimmered beneath the scented water. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Liberals are doing to the Duggars what they always accuse their opponents of doing - hating. When you disagree with these disciples of diversity on issue A, B, or C, brace yourself to be told that you hate. If you're against paying for other people's contraception and abortion, then you hate women. If you're against redefining marriage, regardless of your religious beliefs, then you hate gay people. On and on it goes. ~ Anonymous

Lucian attempted a wan smile, although he did not open his eyes. "You are the miracle my brother has named you in his thoughts."
"Has he named me a miracle?" Even her voice was soothing and tranquil to Gabriel's ears. He wanted to touch her, bask forever in her beauty, in her serenity. After the chaos of a bleak, gray world filled with violence, she was a miracle.
"Yes, and for once, he was right." There was an edge of weariness to the beautiful pitch of Lucian's voice and it alarmed Gabriel. He had never heard his invincible twin sound so utterly drained of strength.
"I am right at all times," Gabriel corrected, moving at once to his brother's side. "It is a peculiar phenomenon Lucian finds difficult to live with, but all the same . . ."
Lucian opened his eyes to regard his brother with an icy stare clearly meant to intimidate. "Francesca, my dear sister, you have tied yourself to one who has a much inflated opinion of himself. I do not remember a time when he was right about anything."
Gabriel moved to the couch, seating himself beside his brother. "Do not listen to him, my love, he practices his intimidating stare in the mirror on a daily basis. He thinks to silence me with his glare. ~ Christine Feehan

You're lying to yourself. Voron made us into serial killers. We can be okay without violence for a few weeks, but after a couple of months, the hand starts itching for the sword. You start looking for that rush. You get irritable, life turns stale, and then one day some fool crosses your path, attacks, and as you cut him down, you feel that short moment of struggle when he leverages his life against yours. If you're lucky, he's very good and the fight lasts a few seconds. But even if it doesn't, that short moment of triumph is like getting an adrenaline shot. Suddenly color comes back into life, food tastes better, sleep is deeper, and sex is rapture.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I lived it and I felt it. ~ Ilona Andrews

People think it's just forgetting your keys, she says. Or the words for things. But there are the personality changes. The mood swings. The
hostility and even violence. Even from the gentlest person in the world. You lose the person you love. And you are left with the shell... And you are expected to go on loving them even when they are no longer there. You are supposed to be loyal. It's not
that other people expect it. It's that you expect it of yourself. And you long for it to be over soon. ~ Alice LaPlante

In the beginning, it was odd to have so much attention brought to my body type. I thought, 'Uh-oh, brace yourself.' But everyone has been so positive. During the first season, a woman came up to me at dinner and said, 'I just want to thank you u2014 watching you has made me proud of my body.' I thought, What an amazing thing for someone to say! To make anyone feel good about themselves makes me feel good. ~ Christina Hendricks

Talking Taboo is a groundbreaking book. This chorus of bold female voices is presenting the church with an opportunity to engage real but all too frequently avoided or unseen issues impacting countless Christian women today. Their candid essays cover a wide spectrum of perspectives. Readers will resonate with some and be shocked by others. Talking Taboo took courage to write. Reading taboo takes courage too. So buckle up and brace yourself for an eye-opening but vitally important read! ~ Carolyn Custis James

The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfillment, but brace yourself for failure. ~ Eugen Herrigel

Isana stared at Gaius for a moment. Then she said, "How can you live with yourself?"

The First Lord stared at her for a moment, his eyes cold. Then he spoke in a very quiet, precise, measured voice. "I look out my window each day. I look out my window at people who live and breathe. At people who have not been devoured by civil war. At people who have not been ravaged by disease. At people who have not starved to death, who have not been hacked apart by enemies of humanity, at people who are free to lie and steal and plot and complain and accuse and behave in all manner of repugnant ways because the Realm stands. Because law and order stands. Because something other than simple violence shapes the course of their lives. And I look, wife of my son, mother of my heir, at a very few decent people who have had the luxury of living their lives without being called upon to make hideous decisions I would not wish upon my worst enemies, and who consequently find such matters morally appalling when they consider them--because they have not had to be the ones who dealt with them." He took a short, hard swallow of wine. "Feh. Aquitaine thinks me his enemy. The fool. If I truly hated him, I'd give him the Crown. ~ Jim Butcher

I mean, mentally you brace yourself for the ending of a novel. As you're reading, you're aware of the fact that there's only a page or two left in the book, and you get ready to close it. but with a film there's no way of telling, especially nowadays, when films are much more loosely structured, much more ambivalent, than they used to be. There's no way of telling which frame is going to be the last. The film is going along, just as life goes along, people are behaving, doing things, drinking, talking, and we're watching them, and at any point the director chooses, without warning, without anything being resolved, or explained, or wound up, it can just...end. ~ David Lodge

The average person wastes his life. He has a great deal of energy but he wastes it. The life of an average person seems at the end utterly meaningless…without significance. When he looks back…what has he done?


MIND

The mind creates routine for its own safety and convenience. Tradition becomes our security. But when the mind is secure it is in decay. We all want to be famous people…and the moment we want to be something…we are no longer free.

Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential…the what is. It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything new…and in that there's joy. To awaken this capacity in oneself and in others is real education.

SOCIETY

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals…whereas culture has invented a single mold to which we must conform. A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person because he conforms to a pattern. He repeats phrases and thinks in a groove. What happens to your heart and your mind when you are merely imitative, naturally they wither, do they not?

The great enemy of mankind is superstition and belief which is the same thing. When you separate yourself by belief tradition by nationally it breeds violence. Despots are only the spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power which is in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

I am a Roman,' he said to the king; 'my name is Gaius Mucius. I came here to kill you - my enemy. I have as much courage to die as to kill. It is our Roman way to do and to suffer bravely. Nor am I alone in my resolve against your life; behind me is a long line of men eager for the same honor. Brace yourself, if you will, for the struggle - a struggle for your life from hour to hour, with an armed enemy always at your door. That is the war we declare against you: you need fear no action in the battlefield, army against army; it will be fought against you alone, by one of us at a time.'
Porsena in rage and alarm ordered the prisoner to be burnt alive unless he at once divulged the plot thus obscurely hinted at, whereupon Mucius, crying: 'See how cheap men hold their bodies when they care only for honor!' thrust his right hand into the fire which had been kindled for a sacrifice, and let it burn there as if he were unconscious of the pain. Porsena was so astonished by the young man's almost superhuman endurance that he leapt to his feet and ordered his guards to drag him from the altar. 'Go free,' he said; 'you have dared to be a worse enemy to yourself than to me. I should bless your courage, if it lay with my country to dispose of it. But, as that cannot be, I, as an honorable enemy, grant you pardon, life, and liberty.'
'Since you respect courage,' Mucius replied, as if he were thanking him for his generosity, 'I will tell you in gratitude what you could not force ~ Livy

If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'
Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'
Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'
I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'
I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'
What? Sure--yes, sir.'
Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'
Why . . . no, sir!'
Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war ~ Robert A. Heinlein

There is nothing about abuse that makes it easy to talk about. Not how it is often someone you know, trust and love that inflicts the harm. Not how it spins your head a thousand times over, breaks your spine in two; traps you in a bed for days. There is nothing easy about crying in the shower after it is finished. Ruminating on the details. Watching tears dive into swimming pools at your feet. The night sweats. The intrusive thoughts. The feelings of being less than human. The guilt, the shame, the anger and the fear. I tell you, there is absolutely nothing soft about breaking. There are times when you betray yourself by thinking most about the person that cares for you the least. Times when you put your heart back together knowing it will still break again by morning. Times when you wonder if the darkness gets a kick out of staying too long. And you know it will cost a lot of therapy returning yourself to you, so instead you settle. You settle for anything that will alleviate the memories. The sweets. The overeating. The drugs. The alcohol. The fast sex. You know; those small violence's you do to your body in order to make sense of why. ~ Ezinne Orjiako, Nkem.

His dark eyes were on the road ahead, thoughtful. "No. I was hoping to go back to Tucson and see if I could get this hot chick I know to go out with me. I hear she's in demand, though. She keeps putting me off each time I try to plan something romantic."
"Yeah, well, maybe if you come up with a good itinerary, you could lure her out."
"I was thinking dinner at Joe's."
I made a face. "If that's the case, maybe you'd better brace yourself for rejection."
"Red Pepper Bistro?"
"Okay. Now you're in the zone."
"Followed by a long massage in the sauna."
"That's pretty good too."
"And then indecent things in the sauna."
"I hope you mean you'll be doing the indecent things - because I more than did my share last night."
Kiyo glanced over at me with a mischievous grin. "Who says I'm talking about you? ~ Richelle Mead

I wish you could simply extirpate violence and war from the world, abolish all the armed forces, and destroy all the bombs. But this is probably not very realistic. Ultimately, everyone has to start with themselves. Many want to be active somewhere else, at best in a country where they don't currently live. But what's the point, if there's no peace in your own life? So be at peace with yourself. And how? Through peaceful dealings with others. Start by ensuring peace at home before you go out into the world. Or work for peace in both spheres. You can't be working for a peace camp in the Middle East during the day and then in the evening have a quarrel with your family over the phone. ~ Jon Gnarr

Everything is possible but I can't see a solution. If you become an outlaw then you'll commit violence, so how could you be angry with them? If you come to hate them, you'll be poisoned by your ill will unless you act against them, and against yourself, since you're the same as they are, and they'll catch you again. You might as well commit suicide. If you forget, you might make up for it somehow, thinking that you're generous. But they'll think that you're a coward and a hypocrite, and they won't believe you. You'll be excluded in any case, and that's what you cannot accept. The only possible solution would be this: for nothing to have happened ~ Mesa Selimovic

The only antidote for the corrosive poison of violence is finding peace within yourself. ~ Christopher Paolini

These last weeks, since Christmas, have been odd ones. I have begun to doubt that I knew you as well as I thought. I have even wondered if you wished to keep some part of yourself hidden from me in order to preserve your privacy and your autonomy. I will understand if you refuse to give me an answer tonight, and although I freely admit I will be hurt by such a refusal, you must not allow my feelings to influence your answer." I looked up into his face. "The question I have for you, then is this: How are the fairies in your garden?"

By the yellow streetlights, I saw the trepidation that had been building up in face give way to a flash of relief, then to the familiar signs of outrage: the bulging eyes, the purpling skin, the thin lips. He cleared his throat.

"I am not a man much given to violence," he began, calmly enough, "but I declare that if that man Doyle came before me today, I should be hard-pressed to avoid trouncing him." The image was a pleasing one, two gentlemen on the far side of middle age, one built like a bulldog and the other like a bulldong, engaging in fisticuffs. "It is difficult enough to surmount Watson's apparently endless blather in order to have my voice heard as a scientist, but now, when people hear my name, all they will think of is that disgusting dreamy-eyed little girl and her preposterous paper cutouts. I knew the man was limited, but I did not even suspect that he was insane!"

"Oh, well, Holmes," I drawled int ~ Laurie R. King

Why you?"

"I don't know, ask him."

"I'm asking you, so, why don't you just come out and say it?"

Rafe released the door, letting it close. "What are we talking about?"

I dug my nails into my palms, letting the pain brace me for his answer. "Is he your father?"

Rafe's smile returned. "Nope. I'm not your brother, Lane. I know that's got to be a disappointment." He paused, considering it. "Or maybe not. Now you can throw yourself at me. Just not when Mack's around okay? He's not my dad, but he is the guy who busted me out of an orphan camp when I was ten. ~ Kat Falls

A memory comes up and you brace yourself. What will it be? Something that makes you cry? So what if it makes you cry? Why do you judge your tears? That's another lie that someone told you. That tears are bad. That tears are a sign of weakness. Tears are a sign of life and love and like the spring rains that wash away the harshness of winter they nourish and clear the way for regeneration. Tears are a part of life. Sadness and sorrow are a part of life. Are you willing to cut off the life we shared together simply because you do not want to feel your sorrow or the wet tears upon your face? ~ Kate McGahan

When we talk about violence, we do not always talk about death, I said. Sometimes violence can mean the difference between life and death. The difference between waiting for someone's help and continuing to suffer abuse, and helping yourself when you most need it. ~ Tanaz Bhathena

The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self is the product and a part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself, self-knowledge is essential; without knowing what you are, there is no basis for right thought, and without knowing yourself there cannot be transformation. One must know oneself as on is, not as on wishes to be, which is merely an ideal and there for fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish to be. To know oneself as one is requires and extraordinary alertness of mind, because what is, is constantly undergoing transformation, change; and to follow it swiftly the mind must not be tethered to any particular dogma or belief, to any particular pattern of action. If you would follow anything, it is no good being tethered. To know yourself, there must be the awareness, the alertness of mind in which there is freedom from all beliefs, from all idealization, because beliefs and ideals only give you a color, perverting true perception. If you want to know what you are, you cannot imagine or have belief in something which you are not. If I am greedy, envious, violent, merely having an ideal of non-violence, of non-greed, is of little value. The understanding of what you are, whatever it be – ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous – the understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is essential, for it gives ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Hi." I caught a flash of his smile as he bent to kiss me. His lips were warm and his kiss was sweet. Gentle. He only deepened the kiss a little while his hand slid into my hair and his other hand curved into the small of my back.

I smiled as he pulled away. "Hi."

"That's better." He cupped my cheek in his hand, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheekbone. "I've missed you since yesterday. Is that weird? Does that make me one of those stalker guys?"

"Only if you follow me home. Cut off a lock of my hair while I sleep. Something like that."

"I thought I'd save that for next weekend." He bent to kiss me again but swerved at the last second to brush his lips against my cheek instead. "I have a theory about you, Emily Parker."

"You do?"

"I do." Another kiss on my cheek, and then his teeth grazed my earlobe, and I shivered. "I don't think you've ever been wooed. Have you?" The words were a low whisper in my ear, and the shiver intensified.

"Wooed?" The word felt strange in my mouth.

"Wooed," he repeated, punctuating the word with a kiss on my other cheek. "Courted. Swept off your feet. Had someone show you how you make him feel."

"I . . . I can't say that I have." That was an understatement.

"Then brace yourself." He straightened up and backed away from me a step or two. "I'm going to woo your ass off. ~ Jen DeLuca

In 1919, 1920, 1921, the entire Jewish press was assaulting the Romanian state, unleashing disorder everywhere, urging violence against the regime, the form of government, the church, Romanian order, the national idea, patriotism.

Now, as if by a miracle, the same press, controlled by the same men, changed into a defender of the state's order, of laws; declares itself against violence. While we become: 'the country's enemies', 'extremists of the Right', 'in the pay and service of Romania's enemies', etc. And in the end we will hear also this: that we are financed by the Jews. ...

We have endured outrage after outrage, ridicule after ridicule, slap after slap, until we have come to see ourselves in this frightening situation: Jews are considered to be defenders of Romanianism, sheltered from any unpleasantness, leading a life of peace and plenty, while we are considered enemies of our nation, with our liberty and life endangered, and we are hunted down like rabid dogs by all the Romanian authorities.

I witnessed with my own eyes these times and lived through them, and I was saddened to the depths of my soul. It is dreadful to fight for years on end for your fatherland, your heart as pure as tears, while enduring misery and hunger, then find yourself suddenly declared an enemy of your country, persecuted by your own kind, told that you fight because you are in the pay of foreigners, and see the entire Jewry master your land, assuming the role of ~ Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done.
Here is the truth: It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don't die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do.You can tell yourself all the stories you want, but you can't leave your actions over there. You can't build a wall and expect to live on the other side of memory. All of the poison seeps back into our soil. ~ Megan K. Stack

So some hope. I am going to be honest. It's gonna get way worse. Brace yourself. BUT ALSO know there is a new tomorrow. Be grateful for everyday you are on this big blue marble because death is for a real long time. Life is brief. The world is better with you on it. Trust me when I say I understand how you feel! I understand depression. You know what helps. I say read a book or watch comedy, not mine necessarily. Just think about it. Who moves you? What comedy do you love? Not into comedy, listen to music, hell go to your porch and watch what's going on. Wild life isn't just lions and frogs but also squirrels and Birds. Like someone fun? Watch him or her or they or whomever. Look you'll get through this! Stay in together! ~ Johnny Corn

Your taste for literature did not come from your father, who read little, but from your mother, who taught it. You wondered how, being so different, they could have formed a union; but you noted that in you there was a mixture of the violence of the one and the gentleness of the other. Your father exerted his violence on others. Your mother was sympathetic to the suffering of others. One day you directed the violence you had inherited toward yourself. You dished it out like your father and you took it like your mother. ~ Edouard Leve

The cats are asleep at the end of my bed and all around me, the thundery silence of L'Escarènere, caught at last in the rising flood of warm air, carrying the sand from the south. The Alps are folded above in the flickering light. And on the desk in the room beneath lies the writing which insists that the only escape is through the absolute destruction of everything you have ever known, loved, cared for, believed in, even the shell of yourself must be discarded with contempt; for freedom costs no less than everything, including your generosity, self-respect, integrity, tenderness - is that really what i wanted to say? It's what I have said. Worse still, I have pointed out the sheer creative joy of this ferocious destructiveness and the liberating wonder of violence. And these are dangerous messages for which I am no longer responsible. ~ Patricia Duncker

Coming of queer age in the 1990s, to love queers was to love damage. To love damage was a path to loving yourself. ...Queers do not come out of the minefield of homophobia without scars. We do not live through out families' rejection of us, our stunted life options, the violence we've faced, the ways in which we've violated ourselves for survival, our harmful coping mechanisms, our lifesaving delusions, the altered brain chemistry we have sustained as a result of this, the low income and survival states we've endured as a result of society's loathing, unharmed. Whatever of theses wounds I didn't experience firsthand, my lovers did, and so I say that, for a time, it was not possible to have queer love that was not ins some way damaged or defined by damage sustained, even as it desperately fought through that damage to access, hopefully, increasingly frequent moments of sustaining, lifesaving love, true love, and loyalty, and electric sex. ~ Michelle Tea

Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, UNICEF Executive Director, Excellencies and distinguished guests from across the world.

My name is Kim Nam Jun, also known as RM, the leader of the group BTS. It's an incredible honour to be invited to an occasion with such significance for today's young generation.

Last November, BTS launched the "Love Myself" campaign with UNICEF, building on our belief that "true love first begins with loving myself." We have been partnering with UNICEF's #ENDviolence program to protect children and young people all over the world from violence.

Our fans have become a major part of this campaign with their action and enthusiasm. We truly have the best fans in the world!

I would like to begin by talking about myself.

I was born in Ilsan, a city near Seoul, South Korea. It's a beautiful place, with a lake, hills, and even an annual flower festival. I spent a happy childhood there, and I was just an ordinary boy.

I would look up at the night sky in wonder and dream the dreams of a boy. I used to imagine that I was a superhero, saving the world.

In an intro to one of our early albums, there is a line that says, "My heart stopped…I was maybe nine or ten."

Looking back, that's when I began to worry about what other people thought of me and started seeing myself through their eyes. I stopped looking up at the stars at night. I stopped daydreaming. I tried to jam myself into mo ~ Kim Namjoon

...I think a lot of my misery was me hating me, and hating me made me hate everyone else. I felt like such a punk, I felt so weak. I really was a coward. I never stood up for myself. I mean, I stood up for myself as we associate standing up for yourself -- fighting and violence. But that's not standing up for yourself. I mean standing up for myself like thinking for myself. Now, I feel more ok with myself. I'm feeling stronger in my abilities every day, and the world just opens up. You really can do anything, you can shape your life any way you want it to be. Because prison isn't the great prison. Prison is being entrapped by those self-destructive ways of thinking. ~ Laura Bates

If you accept a democratic system, this means that you are prepared to put up with those of its workings, legislative or administrative, with which you do not agree as well as with those that meet with your concurrence. This willingness to accept, in principle, the workings of a system based on the will of the majority, even when you yourself are in the minority, is simply the essence of democracy. Without it there could be no system of representative self-government at all. When you attempt to alter the workings of the system by means of violence or civil disobedience, this, it seems to me, can have only one of two implications; either you do not believe in democracy at all and consider that society ought to be governed by enlightened minorities such as the one to which you, of course, belong; or you consider that the present system is so imperfect that it is not truly representative, that it no longer serves adequately as a vehicle for the will of the majority, and that this leaves to the unsatisfied no adequate means of self-expression other than the primitive one of calling attention to themselves and their emotions by mass demonstrations and mass defiance of established authority. ~ George F. Kennan

Focus on the POSITIVE
Recognize the BLESSINGS
Find the HUMOR
Hope for the BEST
&
Brace yourself for the worst. ~ Tanya Masse

Hands hovering over the keyboard, he paused and looked over. I'm going to begin typing now, so you might want to brace yourself for the onslaught of sexiness. ~ Julie James

It is also about loss, about the perishability of dreams once they are transformed into hard reality. It is the longing, its immateriality, that makes the dream pure.

What we in Iran had in common with Fitzgerald was this dream that became our obsession and took over our reality, this terrible, beautiful dream, impossible in its actualization, for which any amount of violence might be justified or forgiven. This was what we had in common, although we were not aware of it then.

Dreams, Mr Nyazi, are perfect ideals, complete in themselves. How can you impose them on a constantly changing, imperfect, incomplete reality? You would become a Humbert, destroying the object of your dream; or a Gatsby, destroying yourself.

When I left the class that day, I did not tell them what I myself was just beginning to discover: how similar our own fate was becoming to Gatsby's. He wanted to fulfill his dream by repeating the past, and in the end he discovered that the past was dead, the present a sham, and there was no future. Was this not similar to our revolution, which had come in the name of our collective past and had wrecked our lives in the name of a dream? ~ Azar Nafisi

ANITA,
I KNEW THAT MOMENT IN THE CAVE THAT YOU WOULD THINK AS I DID. I FELT THAT YOU WOULD KNOW WHERE I WOULD GO TO HUNT. NOW HERE YOU ARE. I AM NEARBY.
I HAVE WATCHED YOU COME TO THE GOOD PROFESSOR'S RESCUE. I WATCHED YOU TAKE THE ENVELOPE, AND I KNOW YOU ARE READING IT NOW. I BELITTLED EDWARD WHEN HE SPOKE OF SOUL MATES. I OWE HIM AN APOLOGY. WHEN I SAW YOU TAKE HIS HEART, SO PRACTICED, I KNEW THAT YOU WERE AS I AM. HOW MANY HAVE YOU KILLED? HOW MANY HEARTS HAVE YOU RIPPED OUT? HOW MANY HEADS HAVE YOU TAKEN? YOU'LL ARGUE WITH YOURSELF THAT YOU ARE NOT AS I AM. MAYBE YOU DON'T TAKE TROPHIES, BUT YOU STILL LIVE FOR THE KILL, ANITA. YOU WOULD WITHER AND DIE WITHOUT THE VIOLENCE. WHAT TRICK OF FATE HAS MADE YOU PHYSICALLY THE WOMAN I KILL OVER AND OVER AGAIN, AND YET PUT INSIDE THAT TINY BODY THE OTHER HALF OF MY SOUL? ARE MOST OF THE VAMPIRES YOU KILL MEN? DO YOU HAVE YOUR VICTIM PREFERENCE, ANITA?
I WOULD LOVE TO HUNT WITH YOU AT MY SIDE. I WOULD HUNT YOUR VICTIMS BECAUSE I KNOW YOU WILL NOT HUNT MINE. BUT WE WOULD STILL KILL TOGETHER AND CUT THE BODIES UP, AND THAT WOULD BE MORE THAN I EVER DREAMED OF SHARING WITH A WOMAN.
"What does the note say?" Bernardo asked.
I handed it to him.
Bernardo read faster than I would have thought, "Jesus, Anita, Olaf has a crush on you."
"A crush," I said, "a crush, God, there's got to be another word for it. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

I have no doubt that we will one day abolish the death penalty in America. It will come sooner if people like me who know the truth about executions do our work well and educate the public. It will come slowly if we do not. Because, finally, I know that it is not a question of malice or ill will or meanness of spirit that prompts our citizens to support executions. It is, quite simply, that people don't know the truth of what is going on. That is not by accident. The secrecy surrounding executions makes it possible for executions to continue. I am convinced that if executions were made public, the torture and violence would be unmasked, and we would be shamed into abolishing executions. We would be embarrassed at the brutalization of the crowds that would gather to watch a man or woman be killed. And we would be humiliated to know that visitors from other countries - Japan, Russia, Latina America, Europe - were watching us kill our own citizens - we, who take pride in being the flagship of democracy in the world. (p. 197) ~ Helen Prejean

Pornography also eroticizes male supremacy. It makes dominance and subordination feel like sex; it makes hierarchy feel like sex; it makes force and violence feel like sex; it makes hate and terrorism feel like sex; it makes inequality feel like sex. Pornography keeps sexism sexy. It keeps sexism necessary for some people to have sexual feelings. It makes reciprocity make you go limp. It makes mutuality leave you cold. It makes tenderness and intimacy and caring make you feel like you're going to disappear into a void. It makes justice the opposite of erotic; it makes injustice a sexual thrill. ~ John Stoltenberg

Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions ~ Dag Hammarskjold

[The Soviet State Security Service] is more than a secret police organization, more than an intelligence and counter-intelligence organization. It is an instrument for subversion, manipulation and violence, for secret intervention in the affairs of other countries. ~ Allen W. Dulles

We have agreed with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to cease all acts of violence against the Israelis and against the Palestinians wherever they are. Tranquility and quiet that will be witnessed and in our land, starting today, is the beginning for a new era. ~ Mahmoud Abbas

Recognizing that many forms of violence are motivated by a range of intentions and hostilities, the terms racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic and transphobic violence are used here in an effort to more accurately describe the phenomena under discussion: the terms bias or hate crime suggest that such violence is motivated entirely by prejudice (presumably irrational) and not informed by historical patterns of dominance and subordination that produce tangible political, social, and economic benefits for majority groups. Regardless of the terminology used or its targets, there is no question that such violence is abhorrent, structural, and pervasive. Where ~ Joey L. Mogul

It is good netiquette to use domains that do not allow spam, hate, or violence. NetworkEtiquette.net ~ David Chiles

Many cultural stories worldwide present the domination system as the only human alternative. Fairy tales romanticize the rule of kings and queens over "common people." Classics such as Homers Illiad and Shakespeare's kings trilogy romanticize "Heroic violence." Many religious stories present men's control, even ownership, of women as normal and moral.

These stories came out of the times that oriented much more closely to a "pure" domination system. Along with newer stories that perpetuate these limited beliefs about human nature, they play a major role in how we view our world and how we live in it. But precisely because stories are so important in shaping values, new narratives can help change unhealthy values.

Of particular importance are new stories about human nature. We need new narratives that give us a more complete and accurate picture of who we are and who we can be - stories that show that our enormous capacities for consciousness, creativity and caring are integral to human evolution, that these capacities are what make us distinctively human. ~ Riane Eisler

That's the joy of myths. The fun comes in telling them yourself - something I warmly encourage you to do, you person reading this. Read the stories in this book, then make them your own, and on some dark and icy winter's evening, or on a summer night when the sun will not set, tell your friends what happened when Thor's hammer was stolen, or how Odin obtained the mead of poetry for the gods . . . ~ Neil Gaiman

For decades, the violence in the Middle East has claimed a multitude of innocent civilian victims: Men, women and children, Arab and Israeli. ~ John Conyers