Pg 264 Quotes

The weather service reported that there weren't any atmospheric conditions present that might have led to fish raining from the sky. ~ Haruki Murakami

Not long ago I had a conversation with a Jewish rabbi who said to me, "You know, one of the greatest differences between our two religions is this idea that you've committed a sin just by desiring or thinking it. We believe you have to actually commit the physical act before it's really sin. Otherwise," he concluded with an incredulous chuckle, "we'd be sinning all the time!" "We are," I replied. "That's the whole point." pg 167 ~ Michael S. Horton

Beware young brides: The cruelest behaviors on earth are done in the name of, what some call, 'love.' Therefore, the Shulamite does a much better job at defining love than pop-culture.
pg 4 ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

A true fear of God makes us respect more what God requires and commands than what our corrupt heart desires and suggests. It subdues or unruly passions, and brings them within the compass of duty. It makes us deny ourselves and our own desires, and, though through the corruption of our nature and inborn pride we are loath to submit, yet God's fear will bring down that proud mind and make us humble and gentle. It will keep those who are in authority from tyranny, cruelty, and too much severity, and it will keep those who are under subjection from giving half-truths, deceit, and conspiracies. ~ William Gouge

Too many disciples neglect their thorn-like qualities. For instance: Opting for singleness doesn't count if you can't attract a mate. Patience doesn't count if you are too cowardly to defend what is right. Forgiveness doesn't count if the offender never respected you enough to ask for it. Don't label your character flaws as noble sacrifices.
pg 47 ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

Tell me my little children, what crime has this lizard committed that it must die this evening?" There was silence. In raising my head like a joke, I tried to laugh. That was the same time I realized that grandma was dead serious with us.Pg.26 ~ Obehi Peter Ewanfoh

The same hostile roof now again rose before me; my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart: I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished." (Bronte, p.264)

"A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed; as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other--Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise--pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited, than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow--that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad. ~ Charlotte Bronte

In that light, across the field, is all I will never have. Next to me is all I will. ~ Andrea Barrett

Eyes of a poet, hands of a killer.

Who the hell are you? ~ Alexandra Bracken

Whenever two unbelievers quarrel, the may both say some very insightful things about the unsightly habits of the other.
The postmodernists are very good at pointing out the pretensions of the modernists. And the modernists are very good at pointing out the incoherence of the postmodernists. ~ Douglas Wilson

We found a jewel in the desert,'" I quoted. "'And from it fashioned a charred cinder.
'Queen of Fire Pg 313 ~ Anthony Ryan

Probably a good idea, let me know how it ends"
"I already know how it ends"
"You read the ending first?"
"I always read the ending before I commit to the whole book."
"If you know how it ends, why read the book?"
"I don't read for the ending. I read for the story". ~ Jayne Ann Krentz

Love hurts."
Oh, shut UP!" - pg 123 ~ James Patterson

The forsaking of all others is a keeping of faith, not just with the chosen one, but with the ones forsaken. The marriage vow unites not just a woman and a man with each other; it unites each of them with the community in a vow of sexual responsibility toward all others. The whole community is married, realizes its essential unity, in each of its marriages...
Marital fidelity, that is, involves the public or institutional as well as the private aspect of marriage. One is married to marriage as well as to one's spouse. But one is married also to something vital of one's own that does not exist before the marriage: one's given word. It now seems to me that the modern misunderstanding of marriage involves a gross misunderstanding and underestimation of the seriousness of giving one's word, and of the dangers of breaking it once it is given. Adultery and divorce now must be looked upon as instances of that disease of word-breaking, which our age justifies as "realistic" or "practical" or "necessary," but which is tattering the invariably single fabric of speech and trust.
(pg.117, "The Body and the Earth") ~ Wendell Berry

...our role as comforters is not to solve the problem of pain; even less is it to stick up for God. Trying to vindicate God to a person in agonizing pain is like explaining to a crying infant that Mommy is really a well-intentioned person. ... While [Job's friends] remain mired in their convictions, Job is moving. (pg. 130) ~ Ellen F. Davis

On any basic figure of the Africans landed alive in the Americas, one would have to make several extensions- starting with a calculation to cover mortality in transshipment. The Atlantic crossing, or "Middle Passage," as it was called by European slavers, was notorious for the number of deaths incurred, averaging in the vicinity of 15-20 per cent. There were also numerous deaths in Africa between time of capture and time of embarkation, especially in cases where captives had to travel hundreds of miles to the coast. Most important of all (given that warfare was the principal means of obtaining captives) it is necessary to make some estimate of the number of people killed and injured so as to extract the millions who were taken alive and sound. The resultant figure would be many times the millions landed alive outside of Africa, and it is that figure which represents the number of Africans directly removed from the population and labor force of Africa because of the establishment of slave production by Europeans. Pg. 96 ~ Walter Rodney

Mug your destiny in an alley and punch it until it gives you what you want"
pg 240 ~ Catherynne M Valente

The American uppermiddle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not.
- pg. 41 ~ William S. Burroughs

The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. (pg. 326, The Pleasures of Eating) ~ Wendell Berry

One day, I want to make a PG film. ~ Jackie Chan

This happened back east of course. I've heard that term a lot since coming to this part of the country. But I never think of the term as a marker of geography. It's a reference to time, a statement about time, about all the densities of being and experience, it's time disguised, it's light-up time, shifting smoky time tricked out as some locus of stable arrangement. When people use that term they're talking about the way things used to be before they moved out here, the way the world used to be, not just New Jersey or South Philly, or before their parents moved, or grandparents, and about the way things still exist in some private relativity theory, some smoky shifting mind dimension, or before the other men and women came this way, the ones in Conestoga wagons, a term we learned in grade school, a back-east term, stemming from the place where the wagons were made. (pg.333) ~ Don DeLillo

He would show them that ... that he ... that he was of managerial timber! (pg. 613) ~ Stephen King

Everything in life is unusual until you get accustomed to it -The Scarecrow - The Marvellous Land Of Oz by L. Frank Baum pg 103 chapter 13 ~ L. Frank Baum

Why, oh why, had Jace picked a fight with a pack of wolves? What had possessed him? Then again, it was Jace. He'd pick a fight with a Mack truck if the urge took him.
-Clary, pg.40- ~ Cassandra Clare

How often it is that an idea that seems bright bossed and gleaming in its clarity when examined in a church, or argued over with a friend in a frosty garden, becomes clouded and murk-stained when dragged out into the field of actual endeavor. pg. 65 ~ Geraldine Brooks

Samson caused the house to collapse, knowing his death would also result. Despite Samson's deliberate suicide, Samson died faithful after having judged Israel for 20 years. His name rightly appears among men who, through faith, were made powerful. (Jg 15:20; 16:29-31; Heb 11:32-34)
We are surrounded by thousands of unseen cruelties, that mostly go unseen. The total amount of suffering each year is beyond comprehension. This world is barbed, dangerous and painful - too painful for some. Give them their space.
On any given day, your nod of approval may perpetuate cruelties that rasp away at the soul of another. We are all bound together in this delicate web of consequence. Tread light. Be kind. Many among us make unseen bargains to push ourselves onward - another hour, another day, another week. Occasionally their bargains create a deadly, unstoppable momentum.
Consider King Saul: When he realized that he would not survive his final battle against the Philistines, rather than letting his enemy humiliate him, or extort Israel, "Saul took the sword and fell upon it." –1Sam 31:4
pg 75 ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

Jace whistled. "Raphael is really having an exceptionally bad night."
-Jace, pg.283- ~ Cassandra Clare

No,' I said, shooting him a look. 'But you don't have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.'
You don't have to assume the worst about everyone, either. THe world isn't always out to get you.'
In your opinion,' I added.
Look,' he said, 'the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. so you're left with a choice. Eitherhope for the best, or just expect the worst.'
If you expect the worst you're never disappointed,' I pointed out.

~Ruby and Nate, pg 259 ~ Sarah Dessen

Pg 102 "Maybe you don't have to think about hell because probly nobody you know going to end up there."
pg 238 "Sleep is mercy. You can feel it coming on, like being swept up in something ... You had to trust sleep when it came or it would just leave you there, waiting."
Pg 253 " And if she prayed now, it was really remembering the comfort he put around her, the warmth of his body still in that coat. It was a shock to her, a need she only discovered when it was satisfied, for those few minutes. In those days she had all the needs she could stand already, and here was another one. ~ Marilynne Robinson

But time could not move backward. Just as he had been made, he had to be unmade."

pg 299 ~ Veronica Roth

Your father says a wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountaintop. ~ Deborah Harkness

If we are looking for insurance against want and oppression, we will find it only in our neighbors' prosperity and goodwill and, beyond that, in the good health of our worldly places, our homelands. If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety, for real security and success, then we would begin to turn to our communities - and not the communities simply of our human neighbors but also of the water, earth, and air, the plants and animals, all the creatures with whom our local life is shared.
(pg. 59, "Racism and the Economy") ~ Wendell Berry

There was a period when the capitalist system increased the well-being of significant numbers of people as a by-product of seeking out profits for a few, but today the quests for profits comes into sharp conflict with people's demands that their material and social needs should be fulfilled. Pg. 10 ~ Walter Rodney

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. ~ Voltaire

So perhaps there are no phantom pains after all; perhaps all pain is real; perhaps each long-ago blow lives on into eternity in some different permutation and shape; perhaps the body is this hypersensitive, revengeful entity, a ledger book, a warehouse of remembered slights and cruelties. ~ Thrity Umrigar

I remeber asking a wise man, once ... 'Why do Men fear the dark?' ... 'Because darkness' he told me, 'is ignorance made visable.' 'And do Men despise ignorance?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'they prize it above all things
all things!
but only so long as it remains invisible. ~ R. Scott Bakker

Precious child, what is the meaning of the saying,
"We must die before death?"
It means we must make all the evil qualities,
all the qualities of satan within us, die before our death.
If those qualities die, then the world within us dies.
And if the world within us dies, then all the sins,
ghosts, demons, and satan's contained within it also die.
The desire for earth, gold, and sexual pleasure
all die along with the world within us.
All that is left is Allah and His power (quadrat).
If all the evil qualities die within us,
then we die before death
and only Allah's qualities, actions and conduct will remain.
Then there will be no death for us.
We will have attained eternal life (hayat).
If we attain eternal life, where will we live?
We will live in heaven, in God's kingdom.

To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life- pg. 116-117 ~ Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

You want to …?" His other eye popped open as I started to slide down his body, intent on exploring that part of him which had given me so much pleasure. He grabbed me before I was able to move four inches. I looked up, worried that I had done something wrong. A familiar strained, tense look was on his face, his eyes screwed up tight. I looked down at his penis. It was no longer in a resting state. "I thought you were sated?"

I was. Until you went and mentioned doing that to me.
No! Don't touch me there, woman! For the love of – grk!"

A half hour later, Gabriel, his arm wrapped around me because my legs were unusually weak, hustled me toward the house with a grim look on his face.

I will beat this," he muttered. "I am a wyvern, I am strong. I will control my needs long enough to give you pleasure, and you will enjoy it, dammit!"
I said nothing, but I smiled. A lot. [May and Gabriel, pg. 307] ~ Katie MacAlister

The longer the night, the brighter the dawn," he said, his voice the promise of healing. "for those with the strength to endure the darkness." (pg. 23) ~ S.G.D. Singh

Grandmother," Ruth admonished. "I would not have a man who could not at least understand me."
"And it looks like you might have finally fond one, heaven be praised."
Ruth began to grow irritated. "Grandmother, I wish you would have more faith in me."
"I do, dear; it's the men I worry about. ~ Debbie Viguie

These moments were wondrous and divine, instances when the gossamer curtain between heaven and earth ripped and all of humanity witnessed the marvel of the ethereal beings.
Angelology pg. 32 ~ Danielle Trussoni

Pleasure is an attitude, not a person or place. - Diary 6, pg. 52 ~ Anais Nin

Did you think I was helping you out of the goodness of my heart? Or am I just the only warlock you know?" (Magnus)
…
"No," he said now, "but you are the only warlock we know who happens to be dating a friend of ours." (Jace)
For a moment everyone stared at him-Alec in sheer horror, Magnus un astonished anger, and Clary and Simon in surprise. It was Alec who spoke first, his voice shaking. "Why would you say something like that?"
Jace looked baffled. "Something like what?"
"That I'm dating-that we're-its not true," Alec said, his voice rising and dropping several octaves as he fought to control it.
Jace looked at him steadily. "I didn't say he was dating you," he said, "but funny that you knew just what I meant, isn't it?"
"We're not dating," Alec said again.
"Oh?" Magnus said. "So you're just that friendly with everybody, is that it?"
-pg.241- ~ Cassandra Clare

It's like I'm trying to distract him with something shiny." Cath circled her spoon hand in front of her face, accidentally flicking cottage cheese on her sweater. "He already knows about all this. This is what I look like." She tried to scrape the cottage cheese off without rubbing it in." (pg. 290) ~ Rainbow Rowell