Muramasa Blade Quotes

...while ruthlessness may have its place, I believe your brand of strength would garner greater loyalty. That is what makes you dangerous. Not because you would ride in with a blade and take control, but because you could quietly sit in this chair, in the dark, with your book...and you could determine the best way to achieve what needs to be done. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

'The Blade Itself' was my first book. Probably I should've tried a few short stories first, but for some reason I decided to begin with Everest. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Rejection is a blade to the heart. It's the worst kind of pain. ~ Toni Sorenson

For the whole world seemed to have dissolved in this early morning hour into a pool of thought, a deep basin of reality, and one could almost fancy that had Mr. Carmichael spoken, for instance, a little tear would have rent the surface pool. And then? Something would emerge. A hand would be shoved up, a blade would be flashed. It was nonsense of course. ~ Virginia Woolf

(If we were caught pointing at a map with a finger, instead of a blade of grass or something sharp, we had been threatened, by the unforgettable Sgt Taff, that he would 'Rip that finger off and beat you to death with the soggy end!' It's a threat that I enjoy passing on to my boys when we are reading a map together nowadays.) ~ Bear Grylls

A great warrior trusts not his weapons, but himself. When you possess true strength, you can deal a killing blow even if all you have is a blade of grass. "Now ~ Ken Liu

The breath had become as much a trick as breathing. Things were not dual merely, but multiple. I had become a cage of mirrors reflecting vacuity. But vacuity once stoutly posited I was at home and what is called creation was merely a job of filling up holes. The trolley conveniently carried me about from place to place and in each little side pocket of the great vacuum I dropped a ton of poems to wipe out the idea of annihilation. I had ever before me boundless vistas. I began to live in the vista, like a microscopic speck on the lens of a giant telescope. There was no night in which to rest. It was perpetual starlight on the arid surface of dead planets. Now and then a lake black as marble in which I saw myself walking amidst brilliant orbs of lights. So low hung the stars and so dazzling was the light they shed, that it seemed as if the universe were only about to be born. What rendered the impression stronger was that I was alone; not only were there no animals, no trees, no other beings, but there was not even a blade of grass, not even a dead root. In that violet incandescent light witihout even the suggestion of a shadow motion itself seemed to be absent. It was like a blaze of pure consciousness, thought become God. And God, for the first time in my knowledge, was dean-shaven. I was also clean-shaven, flawless, deadly accurate. I saw my image in the marble black lakes and it was diapered with stars. Stars, stars... like a clout between the eyes and all remembrance fast ~ Henry Miller

Cause nobody's the slightest idea who we are, or who we were, not even we ourselves
- except, that is, in the glimmer of a moment of fair business between strangers, or the nod of knowing and agreement between friends.
Other than these, we go out anonymous into the insect air and all we are is the dust of colour, brief engineerings of wings towards a glint of light on a blade of grass or a leaf in a summer dark. ~ Ali Smith

I don't mess with that cat. I'm pretty sure he carries a blade under his jersey. ~ Charles Barkley

Scar tissue does more than flaunt its strength by chronicling the assaults it has withstood. Scar tissue is new growth. And it is tougher than skin innocent of the blade. ~ Shelley Jackson

Poem

Things will go on like this for
Ever. No
Thing shall shatter. No
Tree. No
Blade of grass shall be
There. No
Thing but
Blue rocks shall
Fill the valley where I
Sleep.
Things shall go on like this for
Ever.
Things shall be un
Broken.
No action shall shatter. No
Thing shall escape and no
Body shall shatter ideas and no
Being shall shatter. No
Tree. No
Blade of grass shall
Be present to
Witness the
Incident.

********

Everything shall be always thus. No
Thing shall be turned or moved.
Touched.
All shall forever be so. ~ Paul Bowles

And by God, what a day! You know the kind of day that generally comes some time in March when winter suddenly seems to give up fighting. For days past we'd been having the kind of beastly weather that people call "bright" weather, when the sky's a cold hard blue and the wind scrapes you like a blunt razor-blade. Then suddenly the wind had dropped and the sun got a chance. You know the kind of day. Pale yellow sunshine, not a leaf stirring, a touch of mist in the far distances where you could see the sheep scattered over the hillsides like lumps of chalk. And down in the valleys fires were burning, and the smoke twisted slowly upwards and melted into the mist. I'd got the road to myself. It was so warm you could almost have taken your clothes off. ~ George Orwell

It's a little scary, what you do."
As I tried to figure out how to respond, and with words as sharp and cold as the blade of a knife, Criminy said, "If you're scared of her talent, then you don't truly know what fear is. ~ Delilah S. Dawson

Vader approached, drawing and igniting his Sith blade. Shryne blinked blood from his eyes; lifted his lightsaber hand only to realize that he had lost the sword during his fall. Slumping back, he loosed a ragged, resigned exhalation. ~ James Luceno

Surely a pen is like a blade; if it is not used then it becomes dull. ~ Faith Mortimer

The last werewolf tripped over Raphael Santiago's foot. Alec hastily hit him in the back of the head with the hilt of his seraph blade, and the werewolf stayed down.
"That was an accident," said Raphael, with Lily and Elliott sticking close behind him. "He got in my way as I was trying to leave."
"Okay," Alec panted.
He wiped dust and sweat out of his eyes. Bat the DJ staggered toward them, claws out, and Alec flipped his seraph blade so he was holding the hilt again.
"Someone dropped a piece of roof on me," Bat told him, blinking in a way that was more owlish than wolfish. "Inconsiderate."
Alec realized Bat was not so much on a murderous out-of-control rampage as mildly concussed.
"Easy there," he said, as Bat tumbled against his chest.
He looked around for the most trustworthy person, for someone to be on his team. He took a gamble and dumped Bat into Lily's arms.
"Watch him for me, will you?" he asked. "Make sure he gets out all right."
"Put that werewolf down immediately, Lily," Raphael ordered.
"It really hurts that you would say that," Bat muttered, and shut his eyes.
Lily considered Bat's head, pillowed on her lavender bosom. "I don't want to put him down," she announced. "The Shadowhunter gave this DJ to me."
Bat opened one eye. "Do you like music?"
"I do," said Lily. "I like jazz."
"Cool," said Bat.
Raphael threw up his hands. "This is ridiculous! Fine," he snapped. "Fine. Let's just vacate th ~ Cassandra Clare

Moses questions God about death

Moses asks God the most basic question, "You create us; then you kill us. "Why"

God says, I understand the purpose within your question; therefore I'll answer.

You want to know the meaning of phenomenal duration, so you can teach others

and help their souls unfold. Anyone who asks this question has some of the answer.

Sow seed corn, Moses, and you will experience the purpose of taking a form. Moses

plants and tends the crop; when the ears have ripened to the shape of their beauty,

he brings out to the field his blade and sharpening stone. The unseen voice comes,

Why did you work to bring the corn to perfection only now to chop it down? "Lord,

it is the winnowing time when we separate the corn grains we use for food from the straw

we use for bedding and fodder. They must be stored in different cribs in the barn."

Where did you learn this threshing-floor work? "You gave me discernment." Do you

not feel that I should have a similar discernment in the planting and harvesting

of forms that I do? So creation has a purpose. God has said, I was

a hidden treasure, and I desired to be known. That desire is part of manifestation. ~ Rumi

Her sword weighed heavily in her hand. She stared at the polished blade, wondering if its reflection would be the last sight she ever caught of herself. Would she die as Ping, the Fa son she'd made up so she could join the army in her father's place? If she died here, in the middle of this snow-covered mountain pass, she'd never see her father or her family again.
Mulan swallowed hard. Who would believe that only a few months ago, her biggest concern had been impressing the Matchmaker? She could barely remember the girl she'd been back then. She'd worn layer upon layer of silk, not plates of armor, her waist cinched tightly with a satin sash instead of sore from carrying a belt of weapons. Her lips had been painted with rouge instead of chapped from cold and lack of water, her lashes highlighted with coal that she now could only dream of using to fuel a fire for warmth.
How far she'd come from that girl to who she was now: a soldier in the Imperial army.
Maybe serving her country as a warrior was truer to her heart than being a bride. Yet when she saw her reflection in her sword, she knew she was still pretending to be someone else. ~ Elizabeth Lim

Now she knew, and spoke it, answering him in kind with cool self-possession, fully cognizant of what the admission could mean. "The fleshly sword, yes. But he also taught me what you cannot: what it is to love a man." Dull color stained his face. Her thrust had gone home cleanly, and more deeply than she had hoped.

Her matter-of-fact confirmation of his crude insinuation turned the blade back on him. His eyes glittered in flame. "Do you know what I see?"

She knew very well what he saw. She named it before he could. "Robin Hood's whore," she answered. "And grateful for the honor. ~ Jennifer Roberson

There is a story they tell, about a girl dared by her peers to venture to a local graveyard after dark. This was her folly: when they told her that standing on someone's grave at night would cause the inhabitant to reach up and pull her under, she scoffed. Scoffing is the first mistake a woman can make.

I will show you, she said.

Pride is the second mistake.

They gave her a knife to stick into the frosty earth, as a way of proving her presence and her theory.

She went to that graveyard. Some storytellers say that she picked the grave at random. I believe she selected a very old one, her choice tinged by self-doubt and the latent belief that if she were wrong, the intact muscle and flesh of a newly dead corpse would be more dangerous than one centuries gone.

She knelt on the grave and plunged the blade deep. As she stood to run she found she couldn't escape. Something was clutching at her clothes. She cried out and fell down.

When morning came, her friends arrived at the cemetery. They found her dead on the grave, the blade pinning the sturdy wool of her skirt to the ground. Dead of fright or exposure, would it matter when the parents arrived? She was not wrong, but it didn't matter any more. Afterwards, everyone believed that she had wished to die, even though she had died proving that she could live.

As it turns out, being right was the third, and worst, mistake. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

I think the future stopped looking American when you think back to Blade Runner and Neuromancer, when it started to look more Japanese. ~ Iain Banks

I could have reached him in three quick strides and slipped my blade into his spine before he had the chance to fart. ~ Oliver Bowden

ALPHA: sleek black-and-brown female with a white fang-shaped mark below her ear (also known as Blade) BETA: huge black-and-tan male (also known as Mace) DAGGER - brown-and-tan male with a stubby face PISTOL - black-and-tan female BRUTE - black-and-tan male RIPPER - black-and-tan female REVOLVER - black-and-tan male AXE - large black-and-brown male SCYTHE - large black-and-tan female BLUDGEON - massive black-and-tan male MUSKET - black-and-brown male CANNON - brown-and-tan female LANCE - black-and-tan male ARROW - young black-and-tan male OMEGA: smaller black-and-brown male (also known as Bullet) PUPS: FANG - brown-and-tan male LONE ~ Erin Hunter

The man who will ultimately stand at her side will be forged in fire. If you burn easily, don't even bother. ~ Miranda Honfleur

Impulsively, she shoved him, but he didn't budge, and the knife in her hand sliced into his shirt. And his skin. Horrified, she was about to apologize when he spun her around and held her with one arm pressed against her throat and a switchblade aimed at her stomach. "I win this point, Jordan. If I was a lost soul, you'd now have a blade in your belly. Do you know why?"
"Because you're a mean son of a bitch? ~ Trinity Faegen

This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade. ~ John Quincy Adams

I would almost forget about Ida Durbin. But a sin of omission, if indeed that's what it was, can be like the rusty head of a hatchet buried in the heartwood of a tree
it eventually finds the teeth of a whirling saw blade. ~ James Lee Burke

The blade hovered between us. I could kill him. He could kill me. That's how it was meant to be - there could be nothing else between us now. ~ Jill Criswell

Bobby had a secret. You know what it was? It took nothing to make him happy. That was it. He held happiness in his hand easy as if he'd just, I don't know, plucked a blade of grass form the ground. And all he did his whole short life was offer that happiness to anybody who'd smile at him. That's all he wanted form me. From you. From anybody. A smile. ~ William Kent Krueger

Amidst these offences of foulness and violence, and so many iniquities, are sins of men, who are on the whole making proficiency; which by those that judge rightly, are, after the rule of perfection, discommended, yet the persons commended, upon hope of future fruit, as in the green blade of growing corn. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

Nothing is more uplifting than a woman's love and nothing is more dangerous than a woman's hatred. ~ Oliver Blade

Somewhere, in some shadowy bedroom of a leaf-strewn town, a father bolts the door to a child's room, then steps closer to the bed. In a neighbor's garden lurks a weed with a funny, blade-petaled flower, its poison choking the red roses. Somewhere a car is crashing; a phone is ringing in the center of night. The spider waits poised in the slipper. The bird swoops headlong into glass it thought was farther air. The strangler envisions a neighborhood of throats. The head finds the noose; the foot kicks the chair. ~ Scott Heim

She reached for the milk and honey soap, then poured it into the puff, but when she started washing him with it, he chuckled.
"Uh, sweetheart?"
"Hmm?" Candice mumbled as she stared at some interesting spot on his arm.
"Real men don't use puffs," he said, amused and turned on by having Candice's undivided attention.
She finally managed to drag her gaze away from his forearm and stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. "You can't be serious?" When he only shrugged, she rolled her eyes. "What does it matter what I use, so long as you're clean?"
"It matters, believe me." Blade knew he sounded absurd but he couldn't help it. It was bad enough he'd let her put bandages on a few measly cuts; if word got out he'd let her use a peach-colored puff and milk-and-honey bath soap he'd never hear the end of it.
A man had to put his foot down somewhere. ~ Anne Rainey