Flora Banks Quotes

Time is a random thing. It is the thing that makes us older. Humans use it to organize the world. They have invented a system to try to make order from randomness. The other humans, all of them but me, live their lives by hours and minutes and days and seconds, but those things are nothing. The universe would laugh at our attempts to organize it, if it could be bothered to notice them.
Time is the thing that makes our bodies shrivel and decay. That is why people are scared of it. ~ Emily Barr

He drew away, his brows drawn together as he stared at her in question. "What's wrong?" She would have laughed but she was too unhinged to do more than just stand there gaping at him. "You just kissed me and then you ask me what's wrong?" He frowned. "Was it that bad?" This time she did laugh. "I think you know it wasn't bad. Why did you kiss me, Steele? What the hell is going on here?" "I want us to have sex," he said bluntly. ~ Maya Banks

The big banks advise cities about whether privatization is a wise choice. They also control the ability of states and cities to access the market for their financing needs. ~ Bethany McLean

Bully, she muttered.
When it comes to you, baby, I don't mind being labeled a bully. ~ Maya Banks

Theirs is a civilization of deprivation; ours of finely balanced satisfaction ever teetering on the brink of excess. ~ Iain M. Banks

This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. ~ Sitting Bull

The riches of the game are in the thrills, not the money. ~ Ernie Banks

The River
Every day the river waits for your reflection;
it's spine ripples, it backwaters arch
rocking the banks in frothy anticipation.
Rills, rindles, runnels stream into rivulets,
industrious like leaf-cutting ants,
carrying every reflection but yours.
The river will wait, of course;
patience is her nature
and the day you arrive
it will capture your terrestrial beauty,
freighting it to the ocean
with the devotion of a sister's prayer. ~ Beryl Dov

But maybe my expression isn't as bad as I think it is. Maybe Galen's just really good at reading me. Or maybe he's just being overly mushy himself. He is a tad protective, after all. I glance at Toraf, who's sitting on the other full-size bed next to Rayna. And Toraf is already looking at me. When our eyes meet, he shakes his head ever so slightly. As if to say, "Don't do it." As if to say, "You really don't want to do it." As if to say, "I know you really want to do it, but I'm asking you not to. As a friend."
I huff, then adjust myself in Galen's death grip. It's not fair that Galen and Toraf silently ask me to accept this. That my mother is putty in Grom's proficient hands. That her temperature barely raised a degree around my dad, yet Grom, within an hour of reunion, has her titanium exterior dissolving like Alka-Seltzer in hot water. I can't accept it. Won't. Will. Not. ~ Anna Banks

One boy's a boy; two boys be half a boy, and three boys be no boy at all', ran the old country saying. ~ Flora Thompson

Welcome to the future, she thought, surveying all this wordage and tat. All our tragedies and triumphs, our lives and deaths, our shames and joys are just stuffing for your emptiness. ~ Iain M. Banks

When I said "the pocket of the banks," it is not necessarily a mercenary relationship. It is a mindset. ~ Joseph Stiglitz

It's pretty easy to hear what people are physically responding to versus what's just flat as a pancake in the room when it comes to jokes. ~ Elizabeth Banks

Toraf nudges him from his thoughts. "You know whose advice I need?" He nods toward the gigantic house behind them. "Rachel's."
"Actually, you don't," Galen says, standing. He reaches a hand down to help his friend.
"Why's that?"
"Rachel's expertise lies more along the lines of communication. You won't need to worry about communication when Rayna finds out you're already mated."
"We're what?" They both turn to Rayna who has stopped mid-stride in the sand. The emotions on her face change from surprise to full-blown murderous rage.
"You're gonna pay a special price for that, minnow!" Toraf calls before he hits the water.
Galen grins as Rayna slices through the waves in blood-thirsty pursuit. Then he heads for the house to talk to Rachel. ~ Anna Banks

Sometimes what goes without saying is best said anyway. ~ Iain M. Banks

Attraction doesn't follow a set of rules, you know. But I know that I don't look at the others like I look at you. ~ Maya Banks

I've made myself as vulnerable as a man can make himself to a woman. It's the same as if I just handed you a knife and offered you my balls, for God's sake. ~ Maya Banks

No business in the economy has the easy money that banks get to play with ... The existence of banks with single digit amounts of equity is a completely unhealthy existence
that is not only a risk for the banks, but for all of us. ~ Anat R. Admati

The way we deal with death depends on how it's imagined for us beforehand, by our parents and the people who surround them, and what happens to us early on.[ ... ] Instead, we believe the lie, that death, unlike taxes, can be postponed indefinitely, and we spend our lives defending that belief. Some people are very good at it, and they become our nation's heroes. Some, like me, see the lie early for what it is, fake it for a while and grow bitter, and then go beyond bitterness to ... to what? To this, I suppose. Cowardice. Adulthood. ~ Russell Banks

If perception is limited to experience and knowledge, what proof do we have of moral judgement? ~ Kierra C.T. Banks

If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. ~ J. Paul Getty

All banks should be under government control. Deposits guaranteed, dividends reduced, officials turned into state servants taking their orders from Washington ... ~ Margaret Ayer Barnes

The buildings of the farm, a shade darker than the sky, could now be distinguished in the gloom, a little distance on, and as Flora and Adam were slowly approaching them, a door suddenly opened and a beam of light shone out. Adam gave a joyful cry.
'Tes the cowshed! 'Tes our Feckless openin' the door fer me!' And Flora saw that it was indeed; the door of the shed, which was lit by a lantern, was being anxiously pushed open by the nose of a gaunt cow.
This was not promising. ~ Stella Gibbons

The Sun, Moon and Stars are there to guide us. ~ Dennis Banks

Johnny Flora "The Spell of Zalanon" > quotable quote (edit)
"Every page of a great novel should be crafted like a beautiful melody, to linger on long after the music stops playing."
- Johnny Flora "The Spell of Zalanon ~ Johnny Flora

I fell in love with flora of all types, especially ferns. Loved the sparse structure and repetition of shape - almost fractal. ~ Jack Dorsey

In every area of life everyone is capable of seeing from a higher perspective than they do now.
You are never stuck. You're simply limited by the level you are seeing from.

Limitation is always illustion. Just wait. Relax. Stay still. Wait until the wisdom talks to you, as it will. - Syd Banks ~ Sydney Banks

I won't hurt you, Lyric. I don't want you to be afraid. I want you to know what it feels like to have someone love you. ~ Maya Banks

Merrill Meewee knew his stones. As a boy in Kenya, skipping stones was his favorite free-time activity. There had been an abundance of saucer-shaped missiles on the banks of his father's own fishpond. Fat, river-smoothed disks, they skipped ten, twelve, sixteen times before slipping beneath the surface with a watery plop. His father, a man of little wealth but great forbearance, was not pleased with his boy's solitary pastime, but he never ordered him to stop. Instead, he asked the boy how many stones he thought the pond could hold. I don't know, Meewee remembered answering. A hundred thousand?

Oh, such a big number! And how many stones do you suppose you've thrown already?

Merrill, who was an excellent student, calculated the number of stones he might have tossed in an hour and how many free hours were left each day after school and chores, how many afternoons in how many years since he first discovered the sport. I would estimate 14,850, he informed his father with a certain amount of swagger.

His father was impressed. So many? And all of them have gone to the bottom?

Of course they've gone to the bottom, he had said, embarrassed by his father's apparent ignorance. They're stones. They're heavier than water.

And heavier than fishes?

Of course heavier than fishes.

Good, good, his father concluded, patting him on the head. Keep at it, son, and soon I won't have to work so hard.

Fat ~ David Marusek

My fingers used to hurt really bad when I played guitar. I stopped because of it. ~ Tyra Banks

What central banks can control is a base and one way they can control the base is via manipulating a particular interest rate, such as a Federal Funds rate, the overnight rate at which banks lend to one another. But they use that control to control what happens to the quantity of money. There is no disagreement. ~ Milton Friedman

Earth is a silly and boring planet. If not, then it is too deeply unpleasant to be allowed to exist! Dammit, there's something wrong with those people! They are beyond redemption and hope! They are not very bright, they are incredibly bigoted, and unbe-fucking-lievably cruel, both to their own kind and any other species that has the misfortune to stray within range, which of course these days means damn nearly every species; and they're slowly but determinedly fucking up the entire planet . . . ~ Iain M. Banks

As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think. ~ Wendell Berry

Motivations are too tangled and complex. ~ Russell Banks

A bath in Ganges undoubtedly absolves one of all sins; but what does that avail? They say that the sins perch on trees along the banks of the Ganges. No sooner does the man come back from the holy waters that the old sins jump on his shoulders from the trees. The same old sins take possession of him again. He is hardly out of the waters before they fall upon him. ~ Ramakrishna

Promise me, man. If anything ever happens to me, promise me you'll take care of
Angelina. She's something special, Micah. Heart way too big for her own good. I worry
because she doesn't see everyone for who they are. She's too busy looking for the good.
I've tried to get her to adopt some cynicism, but the truth of the matter is, she wouldn't be
the same girl if she did. ~ Maya Banks

The truth of death is a peculiar thing. For when they leave us the beloved are as if they never were. They vanish from this earth and vanish from the air. What remains are moors and mountains, the solid world upon which we find ourselves, and in which we reign. We are the wolves. We are the lions. After so many nights treading the banks with the dogs and my brothers, intent on some mettlesome purpose I did not truly understand, night after night I dreamed of the river. I dream it now: a river of stolen perfumes, winding its way through our inverse Eden. ~ Sarah Hall

It's increasingly clear that governments, major corporations, banks, universities and other such bodies view the defense of their secrets as a desperate matter of institutional survival, so much so that the state has gone to extraordinary lengths to punish and/or threaten to punish anyone who so much as tiptoes across the informational line. ~ Matt Taibbi

He was one of those men ... who know in their hearts that for all their edgy, belligerent hardness they are just unhappy kids, emotional retards. ~ Iain Banks

No, I be-ant expectin' nothin', but I be so yarnin ~ Flora Thompson

I've been telling anyone willing to listen that banks have a tendency to sit on time bombs while convincing themselves that they are conservative and nonvolatile. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The set-up assumes that the game and life are the same thing, and such is the pervasive nature of the idea of the game within the society that just by believing that, they make it so. ~ Iain M. Banks

I swear if-" Galen starts to name all kinds of ways to kill Rachel if she's involved, but he's cut off by the sound of his new favorite person to loathe approaching.
"Highness, I've heard your lovely sister plans to join us soon," Jagen says from behind them. "What a happy reunion."
Galen rolls his eyes before turning to face him. "You are correct, Jagen. Rayna has missed you. She loves that face you make when you're upset. She says it's the best impression of a rockfish she's ever seen."
Jagen doesn't like this. His lips curl into a snarl. "Go ahead, young prince. Have a laugh at my expense. I assure you it will be the last time."
Torag glides in front of Galen. "That sounds a lot like a threat. To my knowledge, threatening a Royal is still illegal."
Galen grabs his shoulder. "It's fine, Toraf. Let this squid release his ink. Ink will only last so long before it fades away in the current. When his protective cloud is gone, everyone will see what's really going on here."
Jagen nods. "We shall see, young ones." He rakes his eyes over Toraf. "Tell your mate that she stays with the rest of the Royals. If she tries to leave, I'll have her thrown in the Ice Caverns. She can wait there until the rest of you join her."
Toraf starts toward Jagen again, but Galen holds him back. "This is not the time," Galen says. Jagen gives Toraf a smug smile. Galen adds, "Besides, you saw his face when Antonis had him by the throat. We don't want him to faint befo ~ Anna Banks

In my considered opinion, salary is payment for goods delivered and it must conform to the law of supply and demand. If, therefore, the fixed salary is a violation of this law - as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together and both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other only earns two thousand , or when lawyers and hussars, possessing no special qualifications, are appointed directors of banks with huge salaries - I can only conclude that their salaries are not fixed according to the law of supply and demand but simply by personal influence. And this is an abuse important in itself and having a deleterious effect on government service. ~ Leo Tolstoy

No one has the right to use America's rivers and America's Waterways, that belong to all the people. as a sewer. The banks of a river may belong to one man or one industry or one State, but the waters which flow between the banks should belong to all the people. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Aubade"

I know my leaving in the breakfast table mess.
Bowl spills into bowl: milk and bran, bread crust
crumbled. You push me back into bed.

More "honey" and "baby."
Breath you tell my ear circles inside me,
curls a damp wind and runs the circuit
of my limbs. I interrogate the air,

smell Murphy's Oil Soap, dog kibble.
No rose. No patchouli swelter. And your mouth -
sesame, olive. The nudge of your tongue
behind my top teeth.

To entirely finish is water entering water.
Which is the cup I take away?

More turning me. Less your arms reaching
around my back. You ask my ear
where I have been and my body answers,
all over kingdom come. ~ Amber Flora Thomas