Innocents Quotes

Protecting ten innocents is not worth killing one. ~ Brandon Sanderson

An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents. ~ Alec Guinness

The dead shook off their rust of living and seized up steel. Their lips quivered with the defiance of innocents, with manipulations of politicians and their interchangeable dreams, and with the insanity of thugs who don't even know for which parties they commit their atrocities. ~ Ben Okri

Indeed, some "revolutionaries" brand as "innocents," "dreamers," or even "reactionaries"; those who would challenge this educational practice. But one does not liberate people by alienating them. Authentic liberation - the process of humanization - is not another deposit to be made in men. ~ Paulo Freire

To have birthed and bred her, beaten and raped her all for selling her to other scum. What god made such creatures as that and set them to prey on innocents? ~ J.D. Robb

On Sunday, evening, May 2, 2015, in Garland, Texas, an active-shooter incident didn't end in a massacre. It ended when an armed police officer took the fight to the enemy, literally pushing toward them and killing the duo before they could massacre innocents in a crowded event center. Forget politics. Forget before and after. When the attack is initiated there is no negotiation, no thinking - only fighting, pushing, and close killing. The event in Garland wasn't quite the soft target the terrorists thought it would be. They didn't have the access to the defenseless civilians they thought they'd have. Defend yourself - now rather than later. Strength stops strength. Overwhelming strength stops massacres in their tracks. ~ Gary J. Byrne

With the perspective afforded by the passage of time, where does 9/11 rank as a turning point in our national history? For the victims and their families, innocents going about their lives, suddenly and brutally murdered, no other day can ever matter as much. ~ Jon Meacham

Revelation 12 presents Christmas from a cosmic perspective, adding a new set of images to the familiar scenes of manger and shepherds and the slaughter of the innocents. ~ Philip Yancey

You horrible, horrible man!" Lisa yelled.
"How could you even show your face here, you bounder?" Christiana snapped.
"You vile debaucher of innocents," Lisa added. "She loved you, you cad!"
"You've broken her heart! You should be shot for toying with her that way! ~ Lynsay Sands

Let me say this as clearly as I can: No matter how sharp a grievance or how deep a hurt, there is no justification for killing innocents. ~ William J. Clinton

Innocents, the meat in a ghastly sandwich between an uncaring society and a vengeful state. ~ Bryce Courtenay

The ship told you a guilty system recognises no innocents. I'd say it does. It recognises the innocence of a young child, for example, and you saw how they treated that. In a sense it even recognises the "sanctity" of the body… but only to violate it. Once again, Gurgeh, it all boils down to ownership, possession; about taking and having. ~ Iain M. Banks

Force persuades a person to speak, but it cannot guarantee his honesty. Quite the reverse: it will extract confessions from innocents and lies from simple sinners ... ~ Meredith Duran

As in any war, there have been dreadful mistakes and civilian casualties. The difference is when Israelis kill innocents they apologize; when Hezbollah kills innocents they celebrate. ~ J. D. Hayworth

The life of the body, reduced to its
essentials, paradoxically produces an abstract and gratuitous universe, continuously denied, in its turn, by
reality. This type of novel, purged of interior life, in which men seem to be observed behind a pane of
glass, logically ends, with its emphasis on the pathological, by giving itself as its unique subject the
supposedly average man. In this way it is possible to explain the extraordinary number of "innocents"
who appear in this universe. The simpleton is the ideal subject for such an enterprise since he can only be
defined - and completely defined - by his behavior. He is the symbol of the despairing world in which
wretched automatons live in a machine-ridden universe, which American novelists have presented as a
heart-rending but sterile protest. ~ Albert Camus

In the 1950s kids lost their innocence.
They were liberated from their parents by well-paying jobs, cars, and lyrics in music that gave rise to a new term ---the generation gap.

In the 1960s, kids lost their authority.
It was a decade of protest---church, state, and parents were all called into question and found wanting. Their authority was rejected, yet nothing ever replaced it.

In the 1970s, kids lost their love. It was the decade of me-ism dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self.
Self-image, Self-esteem, Self-assertion....It made for a lonely world. Kids learned everything there was to know about sex and forgot everything there was to know about love, and no one had the nerve to tell them there was a difference.

In the 1980s, kids lost their hope.
Stripped of innocence, authority and love and plagued by the horror of a nuclear nightmare, large and growing numbers of this generation stopped believing in the future.

In the 1990s kids lost their power to reason. Less and less were they taught the very basics of language, truth, and logic and they grew up with the irrationality of a postmodern world.

In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that somewhere in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination. Violence and perversion entertained them till none could talk of killing innocents since none was innocent anymore. ~ Ravi Zacharias

A guilty system recognizes no innocents. ~ Iain M. Banks

This is a formidable enemy. To dismiss it as a bunch of 'cowards' perpetuating 'senseless acts of violence' is complacent nonsense. People willing to kill thousands of innocents while they kill themselves are not cowards. They are deadly vicious warriors and need to be treated as such. ~ Charles Krauthammer

For a brazen Libertine, an adulterer, a sodomite, an atheist, a fornicator, rakehell, heretic, godless playmaker and debaucher of innocents, you're a sorry state of affairs. ~ Elizabeth Bear

If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents? ~ Michael Connelly

Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt. ~ William Shakespeare

But some gifts are worse than curses, and the dark side of the gift is that they know. The lost, the stragglers, those who should not have been taken but were, the innocents, the struggling, tormented shades, the gathering ranks of the dead, they know. And they come. ~ John Connolly

When Freemasons vainglory on their deeds during the French Revolution, they forget that many innocents paid with their own life for that, including pregnant women and children from the royal families, and those that have witness it didn't forget, and will likewise turn the karma back on them in the years to come, making their innocents pay for the guilty ones. ~ Robin Sacredfire

She was a gardener of the ruthless type, and went for any small green thing that incautiously showed a timid spike above the earth, suspecting it of being a weed. She had had a slight difference with the professional gardener who had hitherto worked for her on three afternoons during the week, and had told him that his services were no longer required. She meant to do her gardening herself this year, and was confident that a profusion of beautiful flowers and a plethora of delicious vegetables would be the result. At the end of her garden path was a barrow of rich manure, which she proposed, when she had finished the slaughter of the innocents, to dig into the depopulated beds. On the other side of her paling her neighbour Georgie Pillson was rolling his strip of lawn, on which during the summer he often played croquet on a small scale. Occasionally they shouted remarks to each other, but as they got more and more out of breath with their exertions the remarks got fewer. Mrs. Quantock's last question had been "What do you do with slugs, Georgie?" and Georgie had panted out, "Pretend you don't see them. ~ E.F. Benson

Love is a strawberry blonde liar, tease-baby, princess-girl torture. ~ Mary Elizabeth

Brute force is not our salvation, especially as directed by State central planning and done with little regard for the innocents ... ~ Anthony Gregory

What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television's dominance of our culture
for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery of heroes in their prime
and of all holy-seeming innocents
that televisions achieves its deplorable greatness. ~ John Irving

Are your kids learning the right lessons about 9/11? Ten years after Osama bin Laden's henchmen murdered thousands of innocents on American soil, too many children have been spoon-fed the thin gruel of progressive political correctness over the stiff antidote of truth. ~ Michelle Malkin

It is surprising to see how often the worst people in the world - rapists interviewed in prison, say - see themselves as the real victims. They are wrong to see themselves as innocents, but we are wrong as well to see them as different creatures from the rest of us. If you want to think about evil, real evil, a better way to proceed is this: Don't think about what other people have done to you; think instead about your own actions that hurt others, that made others want you to apologize and make amends. Don't think about other nations' atrocities toward your country and its allies; think instead about the actions of your country that other people rage against. Your ~ Paul Bloom

Seaboard Air Line, which was thought by numerous innocents to provide a foothold in aviation, was another favorite, although, in fact, it was a railroad. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children ~ Howard Zinn

As far as I can see, your lordship's never been hungry, never killed, never stolen. what ever can you know of the world? You've got an innocent's brain and you skin's never felt the sun, ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Contrary to the "myths to live by" created by Alex Haley and others, Africans were by no means the innocents portrayed in Roots, baffled as to why white men were coming in and taking their people away in chains. On the contrary, the region of West Africa from which Kunte Kinte supposedly came was one of the great slave-trading regions of the continent - before, during, and after the white man arrived. It was the Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some of these slaves to Europeans or to Arabs and keeping others for themselves. Even at the peak of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans retained more slaves for themselves than they sent to the Western Hemisphere. ~ Thomas Sowell

But this was Dublin, the nation's capital. The place of my birth and a city I loved at the heart of a country I loathed. A town filled with good-hearted innocents, miserable bigots, adulterous husbands, conniving churchmen, paupers who received no help from the State, and millionaires who sucked the lifeblood from it. ~ John Boyne

And I did it for Him and He loves them. He betrayed us! Do you know why they get to come back from the dead to slaughter more and more of us? I thought it was some demon's trick. That maybe we could fix that, too, or instead if our first mission failed." Now she's laughing at herself, at her naivety. "But He did it. Because He loves them. He loves the demons. He still loves them! After they sold their souls, after they've tortured the Templars and Beacons, and countless random innocents, He still loves them! He wants to give them time to change their minds before they're committed to hell. He wants to give those murdering bastards the ability to be redeemed. They slaughtered my family, bathed in the blood of my friends, and He still loves them." She looks at me and I see in her expression so much pain, so much bitterness, so much rage that I would have stepped back, had the demons not been holding me in place. The darkness that has taken over her personality since she became a demon becomes suddenly clear. After everything she has sacrificed to His cause she can't understand how He can forgive her enemies.

But I do.

I do and it hits me with the force of a train. ~ Eliza Crewe

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane, there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of 911. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremist have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans. ~ Jon Krakauer

Visible barriers unseen by choice,
Trip and trap innocents who have no voice.
Why choose not to see clear inequity? ~ Brenda Vicars

In London the slaughter of the innocents goes on on a scale more stupendous than any before in the history of the world. And equally stupendous is the callousness of the people who believe in Christ, acknowledge God, and go to church regularly on Sunday. For the rest of the week they riot about on the rents and profits which come to them from the East End stained with the blood of the children. Also, at times, so peculiarly are they made, they will take half a million of these rents and profits and send it away to educate the black boys of the Soudan. ~ Jack London

We are angels just like the rest of our brothers and sisters. ~ Jay Woodman

Terrorism isn't a crime against people or property. It's a crime against our minds, using the death of innocents and destruction of property to make us fearful. Terrorists use the media to magnify their actions and further spread fear. And when we react out of fear, when we change our policy to make our country less open, the terrorists succeed
even if their attacks fail. But when we refuse to be terrorized, when we're indomitable in the face of terror, the terrorists fail
even if their attacks succeed. ~ Bruce Schneier

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy. ~ Charles Krauthammer

Are you gay, Cherie?
Me, No… I'm not anything… I-I mean I prefer not to indulge, I stammered.
"Really... how do you mean?"
Well love has been an elusive story, like a fairytale adults tell children but I have never known any of it to be true. In reality it reminds me of religion. I am not sure God is real either, if God is real why do so many innocents suffer?
Innocents suffer because it is their destiny to suffer.
What? What does that mean?" I'm annoyed.
God has nothing to do with it. We are born into this world to experience all that is not God-like, so we can then be inspired to reach for higher spiritual goals.
I have never thought of it that way before. If that is so then I must be preparing for sainthood. Am I to think that all of my suffering as a child has been to prepare me for greatness? ~ Darwun St. James

The cat jumped out of Willie's arms and bounded up the stanze.

The gallery fell into a hush as the cat crawled through Moses and the Prophets and the reign of David and up through the Old Testament entirely, fixing its claws on the slaying of the Holy Innocents and stopping to consider how far it wished to travel into the Gospels. The Russian priest began to scream again.

A spirit-minded guard, interpreting the cat's movements as an evil sign, fell on his knees and asked forgiveness for his many sins of the flesh.

A policeman called to the cat to jump down but the cat seemed content to remain with the dying Innocents.

Willie whistled sharply then. The cat turned, hesitated, then leaped down and skittered out of the gallery.

Everyone turned to Willie, who stood quite still, holding his arms as if he were still cradling the cat.

"Cats - men," he said in a faraway voice, "need things to hang on. Otherwise, wouldn't everything fall away?"

The Italian word for insane rippled through the gallery. ~ Thomas S. Klise

Some parents in our neighborhood do everything they can to keep their children away from violent images. And then, when something terrible happens, like murder or rape or genocide - well, then a conversation has to be had with these young innocents to explain that, yes, goodness is sometimes a fiction, like Santa Claus, and that humanity is, underneath all the cookie baking and song singing, a shameful and secret nastiness. Me, I'm going to raise my son differently. What he will be made to know is that there is violence in everything - even in goodness, if you're passionate about it. ~ Joshua Gaylord

The absence and suppression of justice can only open the way for extremists to exploit such a condition to perpetrate acts of violence against innocents. ~ King Hussein I

She's the friend my sister needed, the daughter my mom wanted, a child my dad doesn't feel guilty about, and the fucking reason my heart beats." - Dusty ~ Mary Elizabeth

What kind of country has this one become? What kind of world? What evil infests the land which allows innocents to be corrupted in the cradle? What evil seeks children to torture? What civilization abandons its children, gives them drugs, shocks them, hypnotizes them and harbors sexual assault upon them by their family, their clergy and representatives of their government? ~ Walter H Bowart

Scourges assumed authority they had not been granted. They made a carefully reasoned decision to kill in greater numbers than were absolutely necessary to save themselves and the innocents
who needed their protection. Scourges transgressed against social and sacred order ... Scourges themselves are always scourged. ~ Dean Koontz

We don't do what we do for the glory or the fame or the credit; we do it for the quiet satisfaction of making the world a better place, saving the lives of innocents, and being better than you are. ~ Derek Landy

Torturing innocents, murdering civilians and destroying public property; they are all the gifts we have been given by religion. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

Why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones? ~ George R R Martin

I hear all the time that peace activists are naive, that it is impossible to talk to extremists--people who have no regard for the lives of innocents... But in my experience in conflict zones the world over, there are always people to talk to. From members of Hamas in Gaza to Baathists under Saddam's Iraq to the Taliban in Afganistan to government officials in Iran, it is a major blunder to label all our perceived enemies as extremists incapable of rational conversation. People join militant groups for many reasons--religious, family, social pressure, revenge for some wrong they experienced, political ideology, poverty. With such diversity of motives, the are always some people who can be enticed to talk about peace. Our goal should be to seek them out, to strengthen the moderates. Unfortunately, our actions have only served to embolden the extremists. ~ Medea Benjamin

Varys gave a long weary sigh, the sigh of a man who carried all the sadness of the world in a sack upon his shoulders. "The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that's true, Lord Eddard, tell me ... why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones? Ponder it, if you would, while you wait upon the queen. And spare a thought for this as well: The next visitor who calls on you could bring you bread and cheese and the milk of the poppy for your pain ... or he could bring you Sansa's head. "The choice, my dear lord Hand, is entirely yours. ~ George R R Martin

If there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war. ~ Timothy McVeigh

A wise man once said that the best definition of insanity was performing the same action over and over again, expecting different results."
Father Peter stopped smiling. "The same could be said of you. What makes you so sure you're right? And so sure I'm wrong?"
"The difference is that I made a mistake once, out of ignorance," Tim said. "Everything I've done since then has been to try to make amends."
"To earn forgiveness."
"To protect the innocents." Tim smiled, "And yes, to earn forgiveness. ~ Robert J. Wiersema

You fought well on Mona, my Mules, but I have brought you here for a little more javelin practice.' The words carried along the line and Valerius could see men grinning at the unlikely familiarity. 'Those who stand before you have murdered, tortured and raped Roman citizens, men, women and children; innocents whose only crime was to attempt to bring civilization to this land. They butchered and mutilated your comrades of the Ninth, and the brave veterans of Colonia who fell defending the Temple of Divine Claudius.' He paused and the silence was filled by a growl, like an enormous dog gathering itself for the attack. 'We offered them our friendship, our trust and our aid, and they took all with smiles of thanks, but when we turned our backs they reached for the knife and the sword and the spear, as is their way. They believe you are already defeated.' 'No!' The massed roar carried across the valley and echoed from the banks. 'They are the true face of barbarism. They are your enemy. They show no mercy and they deserve no mercy. Give them none. For Rome!'
'For Rome!' The words erupted from ten thousand throats and Valerius felt the ice in his belly melt and the first stirrings of life return to his heart.
'For Rome,' he whispered. ~ Douglas Jackson

If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act. ~ Don DeLillo

We are born as innocents. We are polluted by advice. ~ Henry David Thoreau

We've come because we need to track down the original location of the Fall," Daniel said, "the place where Lucifer and the host of Heaven will appear. We have to stop him."
Dee looked strangely undeterred from her tea service, continuing to divvy up the cucumber sandwiches. The angels waited for her to respond. A log in the fire splintered, cracked, and tumbled from the grate.
"And all because a boy loved a girl," she said at last. "Quite disturbing. Really brings out the worst in all the old enemies, doesn't it? Scale coming unhinged, Elders killing innocents. So much unpleasantness. As if all you fallen angels didn't have enough to bother with. I say, you must be awfully tired." She have Luce a reassuring smile and gestured again for them to sit down.
Roland pulled out the chair at the head of the table for Dee and sat down in the seat to her left. "Maybe you can help us." He motioned for the others to join him. Annabelle and Arriane sat beside him, and Luce and Daniel sat across the table. Luce slid her hand over Daniel's, twining her fingers around his.
Dee passed the cups of tea around the table. After a clattering of china and spoons stirring sugar into tea, Luce cleared her throat. "We're going to stop Lucifer, Dee."
"I should hope so."
Daniel grasped Luce's fingers. "Right now we're searching for three objects that tell the early history of the fallen. When brought together, they should reveal the original location of the Fall."
Dee ~ Lauren Kate

Innocence has invisible hands to touch the hearts directly! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Fretting makes us important. Say you're an adult male and you're skipping down the street whistling "Last Train to Clarksville." People will call you a fool. But lean over to the person next to you on a subway and say, "How can you smile when innocents are dying in Tibet?" You'll acquire a reputation for great seriousness and also more room to sit down.
...Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy? ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Arms around me in the dark. Lips against mine in the sunlight. Do you know why I love you?
He knew me. And loved me. And he had never asked me for anything. Even Shade wanted me to
die for him. Maybe I shouldn't forgive a monster just because he loved me that way - but
But loving me that way made him a monster. My doom was the price of saving Arcadia, and only
a monster would care more about me than saving thousands upon thousands of innocents. Shade was
the last prince; of course if he could save only one, he would choose Arcadia. I would do the same. ~ Rosamund Hodge

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. ~Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad ~ Mark Twain

She's the only thing worth anything in my life. ~ Mary Elizabeth

Children are born atheists. Then they are indoctrinated and abused by so-called 'God's representatives.' Innocents are scarred emotionally and psychologically by those who are sworn to protect them. ~ C.J. Anderson

I have seen a large dog fox several times recently but it was a hot afternoon and no doubt, like most creatures, it was lying low in the shade. The fox has an unfortunate reputation. A crafty thief, often a charming one in fable and fairy story, its name is a byword for low (and occasionally high) cunning. A moral outlaw, a trickster and sometimes downright malevolent. The Christian Church often equated the fox with the devil. In many churches across the land you will find images of the fox in priestly robes preaching to a flock of geese. (There is a fine woodcut in the Cathedral at Ely.) The fox is a subtle outlaw, a devilish predator without conscience, and the geese a flock of innocents ... ~ Kate Atkinson

Don't mourn the death of monsters, dear. Celebrate the saving of the innocents. ~ Dean Koontz

Religion stalks across the face of human history, knee-deep in the blood of innocents, clasping its red hands in hymns of praise to an approving God. ~ Philip Appleman

O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black hearts, while poor innocents stand like malefactors before them! ~ Samuel Richardson

Madam, if I were Herod in the middle Of the massacre of the innocents, I'd pause
Just to consider the confusion of your imagery. ~ Christopher Fry

In the early years of America's skyjacking epidemic, the airlines were reluctant to let the FBI attempt to end hijackings by force; they feared that innocents would get caught in the crossfire, thereby sparking a wave of negative publicity. ~ Brendan I. Koerner

Judging Pius by what he did not say, one could only damn him. With images of piles of skeletal corpses before his eyes; with women and young children compelled, by torture, to kill each other; with millions of innocents caged like criminals, butchered like cattle, and burned like trash - he should have spoken out. He had this duty, not only as pontiff, but as a person. After his first encyclical, he did reissue general distinctions between race-hatred and Christian love. Yet with the ethical coin of the Church, Pius proved frugal; toward what he privately termed "Satanic forces," he showed public moderation; where no conscience could stay neutral, the Church seemed to be. During the world's greatest moral crisis, its greatest moral leader seemed at a loss for words.

But the Vatican did not work by words alone. By 20 October, when Pius put his name to Summi Pontficatus, he was enmeshed in a war behind the war. Those who later explored the maze of his policies, without a clue to his secret actions, wondered why he seemed so hostile toward Nazism, and then fell so silent. But when his secret acts are mapped, and made to overlay his public words, a stark correlation emerges. The last day during the war when Pius publicly said the word "Jew" is also, in fact, the first day history can document his choice to help kill Adolf Hitler. ~ Mark Riebling

When unspeakable violence is enacted upon innocents, say, in a school or movie theatre, and the survivors and the families of the victims, in the throes of pain and anguish, want to ask, "Why did this happen?," "How did this happen?," and "What can we do to prevent this from happening again?," and one of the areas they (still we) focus their scrutiny is that of the highly efficient weapons of warfare that are casually available to us citizens of the United States, then we frightened gun owners have the chance to be human and say, "Okay, this is a horrible tragedy. Let's open up a conversation here." Instead, I'm surmising, out of fear, we throw up our defenses and behave in a very confrontational way toward such a conversation , citing the Second Amendment as the ultimate protection of our rights, no matter how ridiculously murderous the firearm, which, unfortunately, makes us look like dicks. ~ Nick Offerman

But Dracula, the book, the myth, goes beyond metaphor in its intuitive rendering of an oncoming century filled with sexual horror: the throat as a female genital; sex and death as synonyms; killing as a sex act; slow dying as sensuality; men watching the slow dying, and the watching is sexual; mutilation of the female body as male heroism and adventure; callous, ruthless, predatory lust as the one-note meaning of sexual desire; intercourse itself needing blood, someone's, somewhere, to count as a sex act in a world excited by sado-masochism, bored by the dull thud-thud of the literal fuck. The new virginity is emerging, a twentieth century nightmare: no matter how much we have fucked, now matter with how many, now matter with what intensity or obsession or commitment or conviction (believing that sex is freedom) or passion or promiscuous abandon, no matter how often or where or when or how, we are virgins, innocents, knowing nothing, untouched, unless blood has been spilled – ours: not the blood of the first time; the blood of every time; this elegant blood-letting of sex a so-called freedom exercised in alienation, cruelty, and despair. Trivial and decadent; proud; foolish; liars; we are free. ~ Andrea Dworkin

You are the man Alexandra described in her note as an 'unspeakable cad, vile libertine,' and 'despoiler of innocents'?"
"I'm all that and more," Ian replied grimly. ~ Judith McNaught

It was a warm summer night of a kiss at first. Gentle. Romanic. It matched the dreaminess he'd seen in her eyes when she talked about lovers bathed in starlight.

She couldn't know what she did to him when she had peered up at him, a mixture of sweet innocence and curious desire all at once. He had waged a war within himself. He should leave, he'd thought. If nothing else in his life remained true, he was a gentleman. And gentlemen did not ravish young innocents in their guardian's library.
But when her milky skin flushed pink, he'd lost the battle. Even their talk of consequences had done nothing to tamp down the need that consumed him. For just a taste.

Just a taste. ~ Brianna Labuskes

He brushed his hand over my cheek and a thought of a wild briar-rose hedge surrounding a beautiful castle flashed into my mind. Sleeping Beauty's castle. Only he didn't see me as the cursed and passive beauty, quietly waiting to be awakened by her Prince Charming. I was the stunning rose hedge, wild and impenetrable and strong enough to withstand a hundred years of people trying to hack their way through it to the vulnerable innocents I would protect. A hedge that knew which person, which people, to let inside. ~ Anna Sheehan

None of the names have been changed because there were not enough innocents to protect ~ David Ellsworth

We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent. ~ Ronald Reagan

Every attempt through history to limit the definition of humanity has been a prelude to the subjugation, degradation, and slaughter of innocents. ~ Ramez Naam

We left our home forty years ago. Despite the unhappy events we faced there, we left because our faith allowed it, because our belief in the Lord taught us that we would find a new place, a place to build a heaven on earth. War was waged in our home as we left. Many, many innocents dies. To live, people killed and were killed. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminds his people of the promise made to their ancestors regarding the land of Canaan. He delivers the law, teaching them how to win a life of victory in the land of promise. They said, Jehovah, let all the enemies of the Lord face this same end. Do not pity them or offer them promises, only annihilate them all. And yet, Jesus taught love and peace. I say again - those left behind in our hometown had souls, just as we do. It is we who must repent first. (2007: 17) ~ Hwang Sok-yong

It was a wonderful time to be young. The 1960s didn't end until about 1976. We all believed in Make Love, Not War. We were idealistic innocents, despite the drugs and sex. ~ Margot Kidder

We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia Borgia, a lady for whom I have always entertained the highest respect, on account of her rare histrionic capabilities, her opulence in solid gold goblets made of gilded wood, her high distinction as an operatic screamer, and the facility with which she could order a sextuple funeral and get the corpses ready for it. ~ Mark Twain

One has to kill a few of one's natural selves to let the rest grow - a very painful slaughter of innocents. ~ Henry Sidgwick

We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth. ~ Sydney Schanberg

So we were back in the Children's Pavilion, and there was again the familiar scene: the mothers with their nearly dead, the false face of mercy, the Slaughter of the Innocents. ~ Peter De Vries

Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers - your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and damned rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off. ~ James Baldwin

Jernau Gurgeh," the machine said, making a sighing noise, "a guilty system recognizes no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody's either for it or against it, we're against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you among its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximize that effect, and some try to minimize it. You come from one of the latter and you're being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it." Gurgeh thought about this. "Can I lie? ~ Iain M. Banks

Feast of the Holy Innocents The most thrilling thing you can ever do is win someone to Christ. And it's contagious. Once you do it, you don't want to stop. ~ Luis Palau

Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hears? On the face of it, it seemed unlikely that one Leader could force a million Englishmen against their will. If, for instance, Mordred had been anxious to make the English wear petticoats, or stand on their heads, they would surely not have joined his party -- however clever or persuasive or deceitful or even terrible his inducements? A leader was surely forced to offer something which appealed to those he led? He might give the impetus to the falling building, but surely it had to be toppling on its own account before it fell? If this were true, then wars were not calamities into which amiable innocents were led by evil men.They were national movements, deeper, more subtle in origin. And, indeed, it did not feel to him as if he or Mordred had led their country to its misery. If it was so easy to lead one's country in various directions, as if she was a pig on a string, why had he failed to lead her into chivalry, into justice, and into peace? He had been trying.
Then again -- this was the second circle -- it was like the Inferno -- if neither he nor Mordred had really set the misery in motion, who had been the cause? How did the fact of war begin in general? For any one war seemed so rooted in its antecedents. Mordred went back to Morgause, Morgause to Uther Pendragon, Uther to his ancestors. It seemed as if Cain had slain Abel, seizin ~ T.H. White

Let's not pretend that abortion isn't about the mass slaughter of innocents. ~ Michael Aston

A lot of history is just dirty politics cleaned up for the consumption of children and other innocents. ~ Richard Reeves

There are no innocents in Gaza, don't let any diplomats who want to look good in the world endanger your lives - mow them down! ~ Michael Ben-Ari

The Peloponnesian War turns out to be no dry chronicle of abstract cause and effect. No, it is above all an intense, riveting, and timeless story of strong and weak men, of heroes and scoundrels and innocents too, all caught in the fateful circumstances of rebellion, plague, and war that always strip away the veneer of culture and show us for what we really are. ~ Thucydides

When the Lord finished the world, he pronounced it good. That is what I said about my first work, too. But Time, I tell you, Time takes the confidence out of these incautious opinions. It is more than likely that He thinks about the world, now, pretty much as I think about the Innocents Abroad. The fact is, there is a trifle too much water in both. ~ Mark Twain

That's the trouble with innocents. They aren't innocent of doing, just of knowing what they're doing. ~ Jack Butler

How do you expect me to provide
you with a demon tear if I don't have a
body? I can't cry you a goddamn river
while stuck in a bronze reproduction of
an ugly-ass alchemist. A dead one, at
that."
"You can move your eyes," Navin ventured. "And you're a demon. Can't
you do some kind of demon magic and
produce tears?"
"Demon magic? Have you been eating
Ironwood mushrooms? Demons don't do
magic. Demons curse. We tear apart
reality and feed on the blood of
innocents."
Navin shivered. "Stop being so
dramatic. You're hardly in the position
to tear apart reality. You'd have trouble tearing open a packet of potato chips right now."
Newton made a horrific snorting
sound that might have been laughter.
"Ah, dear boy. And you said you
weren't interested in comedy. If only I
could cry tears of laughter right now,
we'd be peachy."
"Shut up a minute. I'm trying to think."
"I know. I can hear your two brain
cells rubbing together. ~ Karen Mahoney

A leader was surely forced to offer something which appealed to those he led? He might give the impetus to the falling building, but surely it had to be toppling on its own account before it fell? If this were true, then wars were not calamities into which amiable innocents were led by evil men. They were national movements, deeper, more subtle in origins. ~ T.H. White

For the past two weeks he's been feeling so superior and smart because of all the things he knows from the war, but forget it, they are the ones in charge, these saps, these innocents, their homeland dream is the dominant force. His reality is their reality's bitch; what they don't know is more powerful than all the things he knows, and yet he's lived what he's lived and knows what he knows, which means what, something terrible and possibly fatal, he suspects. To learn what you have to learn at the war, to do what you have to do, does this make you the enemy of all that sent you to the war?
Their reality dominates, except for this: It can't save you. It won't stop any bombs or bullets. He wonders if there's a saturation point, a body count that will finally blow the homeland dream to smithereens. How much reality can unreality take? ~ Ben Fountain

I would never take a case that had to do with abusing children. They're the true innocents. ~ Lynne Stewart