Markison Snake Quotes

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up. ~ D.H. Lawrence

The remaining chain swung down, he wrenched the door out and he was free. The last thing he heard behind him was the oncoming stomp of running feet.

Now began flight, that excruciating accompaniment to both the sleep-dream and the drug-dream as well. Down endless flights of stairs that seemed to have increased decimally since he had come up them so many days before. Four, fourteen, forty - there seemed no end to them, no bottom. Round and round he went, hand slapping at the worn guard-rail only at the turns to keep from bulleting head-on into the wall each time. The clamor had come out onto a landing high above him now, endless miles above him; a thin voice came shouting down the stair-well, "There he is! See him down there?" raising the hue and cry to the rest of the pack. Footsteps started cannonading down after him, like avenging thunder from on high. They only added wings to his effortless, almost cascading waterlike flight.

Like a drunk, he was incapable of hurting himself. At one turning he went off his feet and rippled down the whole succeeding flight of stair-ribs like a wriggling snake. Then he got up again and plunged ahead, without consciousness of pain or smart. The whole staircase-structure seemed to hitch crazily from side to side with the velocity of his descent, but it was really he that was hitching. But behind him the oncoming thunder kept gaining.

Then suddenly, after they'd kept on for hours, the stairs suddenly ended, he'd ~ Cornell Woolrich

I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe. ~ Richard Gere

Is that it?" he demanded, in sudden rage. "Is that all that matters? Not that I am in love and tumbled like a fool into sin. Not that I can never be happy, married to a snake and in love with a heartbreaker, but only, only, that Mistress Anne Boleyn's reputation must be without blemish." At once she flew at him, her hands spread like claws, and he caught her wrists before she could rake his face. "Look at me!" she hissed. "Didn't I give up my only love, didn't I break my heart? Didn't you tell me then that it was worth the price?" He held her away but she was unstoppable. "Look at Mary! Didn't we take her from her husband and me from mine? And now you have to give up someone too. You have to lose the great love of your life, as I have lost mine, as Mary lost hers. Don't whimper to me about heartbreak, you murdered my love and we buried it together and now it is gone." George ~ Philippa Gregory

It was the first time they had ever talked face to face and Breece divined in a moment of dizzy revelation something about Sutter that no one had noticed before. Why, he is mad, Breece thought. He's not what people say about him at all. He's not just mean as a snake or eccentric or independent. He's as mad as a hatter, and I don't know how they've let him go so long. ~ William Gay

Python opened his eyes. "What do you want?"
"To sing you songs about my awesomeness!"
"Oh, please. Just kill me now."
"Okay!" Apollo drew his bow and shot the snake between the eyes. Then he sang a song about his awesomeness. ~ Rick Riordan

Dr Maxwell. Why are you wearing a red snake in my office?' 'Sorry, sir. Whose office should I be wearing it in? ~ Jodi Taylor

Some people are just like snake, they will never understand your love. ~ Raaz Ojha

Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way. ~ Jean Anouilh

I am surprised you didn't whack your head on an overhanging branch back there. I have never seen anyone leap straight up off the ground the way you did when you saw that snake! It would make a good move for our next dance. Do you think you could teach the others? The snake jump? ~ Jennifer Frick-Ruppert

I would not want to put him in charge of snake control in Ireland. ~ Eugene McCarthy

Fascists are not human. A snake is more human. ~ Hugo Chavez

Fly from bad companions as from the bite of a poisonous snake. ~ John Bosco

Tedium is the worst pain. the mind lays out the world in blocks, and the hushed blood waits for revenge. all order, i've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal - a harmless sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self and the world - two snake pits. ~ John Gardner

You think this is some sort of comedy going on here?" Collins gave him his tough stare.
A little red spark flared in Barabas's eyes. "Excuse me." He struck with preternatural quickness and yanked a five-foot snake from the counter, an inch away from Tsoi's elbow. Tsoi jumped, clearing half the room in a single bound. The snake body flailed in my lawyer's fist. Barabas jerked the snake to his mouth and bit its neck.
"Jesus Christ!" Collins took a step back. Tsoi clamped her hand over her mouth.
Barabas spat the head onto the counter. "Pit viper - my favorite. Where were we? Ah, yes. You were trying to intimidate me. I apologize for the interruption. Please, resume your staring. ~ Ilona Andrews

But a new thing, a great hitch, had happened yesterday in the gliding and noiseless current of his life, and he felt as a snake must feel who has sloughed off its winter skin, and cannot understand the brightness and sensitiveness of its new one. ~ Thomas Hardy

The real transformation upon the awakening of kundalini is that you shed your old tendencies and negativity like a snake sheds its old skin. You no longer feel angry or flustered over trivial matters unlike the earlier times. Your emotions and thoughts don't overpower and trample all over you anymore. You begin to gain control of yourself. ~ Om Swami

In her book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carol Tavris recounts a story about a Bengali cobra that liked to bite passing villagers. One day a swami - a man who has achieved self-mastery - convinces the snake that biting is wrong. The cobra vows to stop immediately, and does. Before long, the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse him. Battered and bloodied, the snake complains to the swami that this is what came of keeping his promise.
"I told you not to bite," said the swami, "but I did not tell you not to hiss."
"Many people, like the swami's cobra, confuse the hiss with the bite," writes Tavris. ~ Susan Cain

This sentence is made of lead (and a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium). This sentence is made of yak wool. This sentence is made of sunlight and plums. This sentence is made of ice. This sentence is made from the blood of the poet. This sentence was made in Japan. This sentence glows in the dark. This sentence was born with a caul. This sentence has a crush on Norman Mailer. This sentence is a wino and doesn't care who knows it. Like many italic sentences, this one has Mafia connections. This sentence is a double Cancer with a Pisces rising. This sentence lost its mind searching for the perfect paragraph. This sentence refuses to be diagrammed. This sentence ran off with an adverb clause. This sentence is 100 percent organic: it will not retain a facsimile of freshness like those sentences of Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe et al., which are loaded with preservatives. This sentence leaks. This sentence doesn't look Jewish... This sentence has accepted Jesus Christ as its personal savior. This sentence once spit in a book reviewer's eye. This sentence can do the funky chicken. This sentence has seen too much and forgotten too little. This sentence is called "Speedoo" but its real name is Mr. Earl. This sentence may be pregnant. This sentence suffered a split infinitive - and survived. If this sentence has been a snake you'd have bitten it. This sentence went to jail with Clifford Irving. This sentence went to Woodstock. And ~ Tom Robbins

I coiled my empty straw wrapper around like a snake. Then I bit it before it could bite me. My love is as dangerous as my drinking habits. ~ Jarod Kintz

You guys (Boko Haram) are trying so hard to convince everybody that you're such badasses. But all you've done with this kidnapping is highlight who the real badasses are, the kids you kidnapped. Compared to a teenager who knows that her desire for an education could get her dragged into a snake infested jungle to be sold as a bribe to some demented, stick-chewing cartoon villain but still gets up and goes to class everyday, fully aware of that danger - compared to their courage - I'd say Boko Haram is a bunch of little girls. But, you know what? You don't deserve that compliment. ~ Jon Stewart

Raised herself on one round elbow and looked out on a tiny river like a gleaming blue snake winding itself around a purple hill. Right below the house was a field white as snow with daisies, and the shadow of the huge maple tree that bent over the little house fell lacily across it. Far beyond it were the white crests of Four Winds Harbour and a long range of sun-washed dunes and red cliffs. ~ L.M. Montgomery

People," Wax said, "are like cords, Steris. We snake out, striking this way and that, always looking for something new. That's human nature, to discover what is hidden. There's so much we can do, so many places we can go." He shifted in his seat, changing his center of gravity, which caused the sphere to rotate upward on its tether.
"But if there aren't any boundaries," he said, "we'd get tangled up. Imagine a thousand of these cords, zipping through the room. The law is there to keep us from ruining everyone else's ability to explore. Without law, there's no freedom. That's why I am what I am. ~ Brandon Sanderson

The Ghost

Like angels fierce and tawny-eyed,
Back to your chamber I will glide,
And noiselessly into your sight
Steal with the shadows of the night.
And I will bring you, brown delight,
Kisses as cold as lunar night
And the caresses of a snake
Revolving in a grave. At break
Of morning in its livid hue,
You'd find I had bequeathed to you
An empty place as cold as stone.
Others by tenderness and ruth
Would reign over your life and youth,
But I would rule by fear alone. ~ Roy Campbell, Poems Of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

The skin of a python is no less precious to the snake than fur is to the fox. ~ Maneka Gandhi

Last Night My Soul Cried O Exalted Sphere Of Heaven

Last night my soul cried, "O exalted sphere of Heaven, you hang indeed inverted, with flames in your belly.
"Without sin and crime, eternally revolving upon your body in its complaining is the indigo of mourning;
"Now happy, now unhappy, like Abraham in the fire; at once king and beggar like Ebrahim-e Adham.
"In your form you are terrifying, yet your state is full of anguish: you turn round like a millstone and writhe like a snake."
Heaven the blessed replied, "How should I not fear that one who makes the Paradise of the world as Hell?
"In his hand earth is as wax, he makes it Zangi and Rumi , he makes it falcon and owl, he makes it sugar and poison.
"He is hidden, friend, and has set us forth thus patent so that he may become concealed.
"How should the ocean of the world be concealed under straws? The straws have been set adancing, the waves tumbling up and down'
"Your body is like the land floating on the waters of the soul; your soul is veiled in the body alike in wedding feast or sorrow.
"In the veil you are a new bride, hot-tempered and obstinate; he is railing sweetly at the good and the bad of the world.
"Through him the earth is a green meadow, the heavens are unresting; on every side through him a fortunate one pardoned and preserved.
"Reason a seeker of certainty through him, patience a seeker of help through him, love seeing the unseen t ~ Rumi

New Rule: For at least the next generation, the Crocodile Hunter clan has to leave nature alone. This week, the late Steve Irwin's youngest son was bitten by a boa constrictor. Authorities don't know exactly what went wrong, but they think the accident might have happened when a bunch of idiots let a four-year-old fuck around with a giant snake. ~ Bill Maher

Why should existence be arranged so that our alienation from God is a given and we must forever fight our way not simply toward what he is but toward the whole notion that he is? If you let go of the literal creation story as it comes down to us through Genesis, if you let go of the Garden of Eden, the intellectual apple, the whole history of man's separation from God tied to the tongue of a talking snake; if you let go of these things - and who but a child could hold on to them - then you are left, paradoxically, with a child's insistent question: Why? ~ Christian Wiman

On a long journey to Glen-Stone
Isailed into its shade
there before me she proudly shone
my decision was already made.
A lass who bore the light of the town
her fur of ivory thread
how she danced is stuck in my crown
and back to this glen my boat led.
Twenty some seasons have since passed
since her eyes and mine both met
through lands unnamed and wildly vast
my blade slaying every threat
Wolf, hawk, fox, and snake
can't stand in my way
my body is weak and it may break,
but not today.
Living in blackness wrought with fright
my steel shattered facing the foes
dusks and dawns darker than night
my fallen companions in rows
Life spilled past me staining the ground
mylimbs growing ever so cold
above villians let out a cackiling sound
telling me i'd never grow old
One dance and one mouse played in my mind
calling me back from the doom
the courage to carry on i did find
to raise me out of my tomb
Wolf, hawk, fox, and snake
can't stand in my way
my body is weak and it may break
though not today
Battered and bruised i stood to my paws
raised what little i owned
predators growled caring not for my cause
of the mouse that shone light off Glen-stone
Wolf, hawk, fox, and snake
can't tand in my way
my body is weak and it may break
though not today. -The Ballad Of The Ivory Lass ~ David Petersen

When death comes, we take off our clothes and gather everything we left behind: what is dark, broken, touched with shame. When Death demands we give an accounting, naked we present our lives in bundles. See how much these weigh, we tell him, refusing to deny what we have lived. Everything that is touched by light loves the light. We the stubborn-as-grass, we who reel at the taste of sap and want our spirits cleansed, will not betray the weeds, snake, or crippled mare. Never leave behind what the light shone on. ~ Linda Gregg

Don't waste time worrying about work/life balance, or looking for your best self, sham "secrets" or any other snake oil being pushed by sloppy hippies who have never built a business, let alone a bankroll, or you will wake up 20 years from now poor, pissed off and primed for a midlife crisis. ~ Ari Gold

Many parks in Florida have information kiosks with colorful enamel signs showing the special flora and fauna in the park. The gopher tortoise, the scrub jay, the indigo snake. At no park with an indigo snake on its kiosk signs could I find an indigo. ~ Padgett Powell

Zain poured skimmed milk over Weetabix, throwing in a handful of cashew nuts to add flavour. A glass of grapefruit juice to go with it, and green tea. He tried to avoid caffeine. Maybe the green pills were loaded with it, anyway. Alligator balls, snake venom and caffeine. He ~ Alex Caan

When I return with her heart, there will be years aplenty for all of us," she said, eying her sisters' hairy chins and hollow eyes with disfavor. She slipped a scarlet bracelet onto her wrist, in the shape of a small snake with its tail between its jaws. ~ Neil Gaiman

The Snake in the fence is now inside the lungi ~ Sidin Vadukut

The snake will always bite back. ~ Jake Roberts

It's like the cuffs cut all the way down to the bone. 'It's like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.' Like my marrow could carry a bruise. ~ Jesmyn Ward

The snake began to unweave itself from the rug again, only this time Ender did not hesitate. He stepped on the head of the snake and crushed it under his foot. It writhed and twisted under him, and in response he twisted and ground it deeper into the stone floor. Finally it was still. Ender picked it up and shook it, until it unwove itself and the pattern in the rug was gone. Then, still dragging the snake behind him, he began to look for a way out. ~ Orson Scott Card

Go on, my dear," urges the snake. "Take one. Hear it? 'Pluck me,' it's saying. That big, shiny red one. 'Pluck me, pluck me now and pluck me hard.' You know you want to."

"But God," quotes Eve, putting out feelers for an agent provacateur, clever girl, "expressly forbids us to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge."

"Ah yessssss, God ... But God gave us life, did He not? And God gave us desire, did He not? And God gave us taste, did He not? And who else but God made the damned apples in the first place? So what else is life for but to tassste the fruit we desire?"

Eve folds her arms schoolgirlishly. "God expressly forbade it. Adam said."

The snake grins through his fangs, admiring Eve's playacting. "God is a nice enough chap in His way. I daresay He means well. But between you and The Tree of Knowledge, He is terribly insecure."

"Insecure? He made the entire bloody universe! He's omnipotent."

"Exactly! Almost neurotic, isn't it? All this worshiping, morning, noon, and night. It's 'Oh Praise Him, Oh Praise Him, Oh Praise the Everlassssting Lord.' I don't call that omnipotent. I call it pathetic. Most independent authorities agree that God has never sufficiently credited the work of virtual particles in the creation of the universssse. He raises you and Adam on this diet of myths while all the really interesting information is locked up in these juicy apples. Seven days? Give me a break. ~ David Mitchell

Emotional baggage is like the dead skin of a snake. If you don't shed it, how can you grow emotionally? ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen

Who am I? I am the spine that the mountains hang upon! I am the tears that the rivers cry! I am the lungs that breathe the wind! I am the wolf that kills the stag, the hawk that kills the mouse, the spider that kills the fly! I am the stag, the mouse and the fly that are eaten! I am the snake of the world devouring its tail! I am everything untamed and untameable! ~ Patrick Ness

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev'n with Paradise devise the snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blackened - Man's forgiveness give and take! ~ Omar Khayyam