Pleading Quotes

True prayer is pleading with God for that which He wants to do anyway. ~ Todd Stocker

I am yours," Trent gasped through clenched teeth, and my hand sprang from him, thinking I was betrayed. Trent fell to a knee, looking up at me, pleading. "I. Am. Yours. Claim me, Rachel! Damn your morals and claim me! ~ Kim Harrison

Dark waves fell along the side of his face and he stared, pleading for me to see more of him. To see the truth.
Maybe I want to be the kind of guy a girl like you believes in. ~ Angela Parkhurst

Yet even then the music has still a quality stern and implacable, deliberate and without passion so much as immolation, pleading, asking, for not love, not life, forbidding it to others, demanding in sonorous tones death as though death were the boon, like all Protestant music. ~ William Faulkner

Opportunities are everywhere. Needed are eyes to see the pitiable plight and ears to hear the silent pleadings of a broken heart. ~ Thomas S. Monson

Unfortunately, the term "identity politics" has been weaponized. It is most often used by speakers to describe politics as practiced by members of historically marginalized groups. If you're black and you're worried about police brutality, that's identity politics. If you're a woman and you're worried about the male-female pay gap, that's identity politics. But if you're a rural gun owner decrying universal background checks as tyranny, or a billionaire CEO complaining that high tax rates demonize success, or a Christian insisting on Nativity scenes in public squares - well, that just good, old fashioned politics. With a quick sleight of hand, identity becomes something that only marginalized groups have.

The term "identity politics," in this usage, obscures rather than illuminates; it's used to diminish and discredit the concerns of the weaker groups by making them look self-interested, special pleading in order to clear the agenda for the concerns of stronger groups, which are framed as more rational, proper topics for political debate. But in wielding identity as a blade, we have lost it as a lens, blinding ourselves in a bid for political advantage. WE are left searching in vaid for what we refuse to allow ourselves to see. ~ Ezra Klein

There is nothing more disconcerting to passers-by than to see a man in a wheelchair pleading with a woman who is meant to be looking after him. It's apparently not really the done thing to be angry with your disabled charge. Especially ~ Jojo Moyes

Dying's easy." Illyan's drawn features grew distant. How much did he remember of his agonized pleading to Miles for an easy death, so few weeks ago? "Living's hard. Let the son of a bitch stand his court-martial. Every last eternal minute of it. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Simon's horse was defective, or possibly a genius that had worked out that Simon could not possibly control it. It went off for a wander in the woods, with Simon on its back alternately pleading, threatening, and offering bribes. If Simon's horse could read his every thought, then Simon's horse was a sadist. ~ Cassandra Clare

Yoshino distinguishes covering from "conversion" (trying to become straight) and "passing" (staying in the closet), and points out that even after gay people come out, society exerts a "covering demand" on its minority members. I would argue that, by pleading for more magnanimous treatment of our opponents, gay thought leaders were unconsciously applying the covering demand to the LGBT equality movement as a whole. ~ Michelangelo Signorile

Without realising it, she was repeating the fault she had so recently lamented. Too fearful to intervene and hold back the tormenter, she was pleading instead with the victim to be more submissive. It was a solution that would resolve the conflict while entrenching the problem. ~ Jonathan Renshaw

The teachers tried everything, even pleading, but Tomas was in the habit of addressing them only in Latin, a language he spoke with papal fluency and in which he did not stammer. Sooner or later they all resigned in despair, fearing he might be possessed: he might be spouting demonic instructions in Aramaic at them, for all they knew. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I want to live in this moment just a little bit longer. After all, it's my fucking fairytale.

This isn't about Cinderella and her strange feet that are different from everyone else's feet in the kingdom.

This isn't about Rapunzel and her super strong neck muscles that can support the weight of a grown man.

This isn't about Snow White and her seven little men kink - although I'm more like her than the others.

This story is about me - Winter Tews.

So cue the music.

Light the fireworks.

Pour the scotch.

Because this shit is really happening.

This is the ending to a fairytale I never imagined could be mine.

I give Jinx a pleading look. "One more time?"

"For fuck's sake," he rushes out, exasperated.

He cradles my face in his hands. Kisses me crazy. Doesn't pull away until I'm breathless. Then he says it again. "I love you."

I only have one thing to say.

"Ditto."

And we lived happily ever after. ~ Kim Jones

I won't lie to you. This changes things. It may even change you. I know it will change me."
"I guess it's a reminder of the uncertainty in life and the foolishness of merely existing when the world is pleading with you to live. If you take anything from this, please take that. We take life for granted. We have to stop that. We have to start living. ~ Samantha Young

Prayer is the best study. It blesses the pleading preacher and the people to whom he ministers. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Her father said it took at least five years to learn law after one left law school: one practiced economy for two years, learned Alabama Pleading for two more, reread the Bible and Shakespeare for the fifth. ~ Harper Lee

You have no idea how hard this is for me, but ... maybe, this isn't the right time. Not now, in a vampire tower ... with them all around." He opened his eyes, giving me a pleading look. "Do you understand ... what I'm trying to say?"
I smiled. "You're turning red, did you know that?"
"Allie!" Zeke blew out his breath in a huff. I laughed, released him and stepped back. ~ Julie Kagawa

All Alexander hears is his mother pleading, screaming, crying into the closed face of the consulate guard, as he keeps trying to pull her away, Please please please help him, we have money, a place to live, help him, help him, help him - ~ Paullina Simons

We can stop pleading with God to show us the future, and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future. ~ Kevin DeYoung

I let out another groan. "What if I lost her for good this time?"

Garrett and Tucker instantly shake their heads. "You didn't," Garrett assures me.

"How can you be so sure of that?"

"Because she told you she loves you."

"You stupid jackass," Tucker adds with a grin.

I love you, you stupid jackass. Not the words a man wants to hear. The first three, sure. The last three? Pass.

"How do I fix this?" I ask, sighing.

"Quick. Write her another poem," Garrett suggests.

I scowl at him.

"No, I think G's onto something," Tuck says. "I think the only way to save this is to bust out another grand gesture. What else was on her list?"

"Nothing," I moan. "I did everything on the list."

Tucker shrugs. "Then come up with something else."

A grand gesture? I'm a guy, damn it. I need direction. "Is Wellsy coming back here?" I ask Garrett.

He smirks at my pleading tone. "Even if she is, I'm not letting you pick her brain. You're gonna have to fix this one all on your own."

There's a pause, and then…

"You stupid jackass," my friends say in unison. ~ Elle Kennedy

This is why, if I may be forgiven a digression, I believe it is time for the black race to forget about rhetoric and instead show what we are capable of doing. The testing will surely go on for the next generation and the next, but each time we meet the test, we'll climb another rung of the ladder until finally we arrive at parity, having earned our place rather than pleading or demanding that it be given to us. ~ Yvonne S. Thornton

Introduction to Kate. - Satisfied she had concluded her notes on the manuscript she had been reading, Kate placed her heel back in its shoe and stood up. She smoothed her skirt and paused to spare a thought for Vincent.
"What is going to happen next?" Kate remembered him pleading.
Claire had said this would happen. ~ Francine Scott

Ico made to charge her again. The queen raised a clawlike nail, but Yorda stepped between them. Without a word, Yorda stretched out her arms in front of Ico, holding him back. Ico looked into her eyes and she shook her head, pleading with him. ~ Miyuki Miyabe

My son." Hades tone was almost gentle. "Whatever happens, you have earned my respect. You brought honor to our house when we stood together against Kronos in Manhattan. You risked my wrath to help the Jackson boy, helping him to the River Styx, freeing him from my prison, pleading with me to raise the armies of Erebos to assist him. Never before have I been so harassed by one of my sons. Percy this and Percy that. I nearly blasted you to cinders. ~ Rick Riordan

We're going to go right by a couple 24/7s crossing town. Maybe we could stop and get some hot chocolate."
"That stuff they sell in those places is swill."
"Yeah, but it's chocolate swill." Peabody tried a pitiful, pleading look. "You wouldn't let her give us any of the good stuff."
"Maybe you'd like some cookies, too. Or little frosted cakes."
"That would be nice. Thanks for asking."
"That was sarcasm, Peabody."
"Yes, sir. I know. Responded in kind."
The easy laugh had the black cloud lifting. Because it did, Eve pulled over at a cross-street 24/7 and waited while Peabody ran in and loaded up. ~ J.D. Robb

I want you like this,crying out for me to release you but wanting it to go on for all eternity," he whispered against her skin. "Pleading with me to end this, begging me to never stop. It is there in your mind.I hear you, see your fantasies.I know each of them, and I will fulfill every one. ~ Christine Feehan

The truth is, the best win-lost records are not built on great trial work. They are built on cherry-picking only the strongest cases for trial and pleading out the rest, regardless of the right and wrong of it. ~ William Landay

This father, indeed, is what the various fathers of the biblical story - from Noah to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to David - never quite managed to be with their own families. He does what they rarely managed to do with their own power: use it for ever-increasing abundance and blessing. He is an icon of the true image. Indeed, in the holy hilarity of his greeting, the lavishness of his feast, and the eagerness of his pleading, we glimpse not just an image bearer but the very One "from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name" (Ephesians 3:15), whose image is meant to be refracted in his sons and daughters. Like him, we are meant to pour out our power fearlessly, spend our privilege recklessly, and leave our status in the dust of our headlong pursuit of love. ~ Andy Crouch

I'd never wanted to consume another body as rabidly as I did when he was inside me, but even like this, I could never seem to get close enough to the parts of him I wanted to feel. And it was with that thought in my mind that the delicious ratcheting tension along my skin and in my belly crystallized into an ache so heavy I slipped my legs off his shoulders, pulling all of his weight on top of me and pleading, "Please, please, please," over and over. ~ Christina Lauren

Please, don't do this," he whispered. His familiar words hit me and I wiggled out of his hold. "I seem to remember saying, actually yelling, begging, pleading, those exact words to you a month ago. Let me respond the same way you did ... " I saw him flinch right before I turned and walked out the door. ~ Kimberly Lauren

Is it not possible that the accent falls a little differently, that the moment of importance came before or after, that, if one were free and could set down what one chose, there would be no plot,the moment of importance came before or after, that, if one were free and could set down what one chose, there would be no plot, little probability, and a vague general confusion in which the clear-cut features of the tragic, the comic, the passionate, and the lyrical were dissolved beyond the possibility of separate recognition? The mind, exposed to the ordinary course of life, receives upon its surface a myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms, composing in their sum what we might venture to call life itself; and to figure further as the semi-transparent envelope, or luminous halo, surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not perhaps the chief task of the novelist to convey this incessantly varying spirit with whatever stress or sudden deviation it may display, and as little admixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; but suggesting that the proper stuff for fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it. ~ Virginia Woolf

I shall be your poet! I do not want to be a poet for others; make your appearance, and I shall be your poet. I shall eat my own poem, and that will be my food. Or do you find me unworthy? Just as a temple dancer dances to the honor of the god Gudutl, so I have consecrated myself to your service; light, thinly clad, limber, unarmed, I renounce everything. I own nothing; I desire to own nothing; I love nothing; I have nothing to lose-but have I not thereby become more worthy of you, you who long ago must have been tired of depriving people of what they love, tired of their craven sniveling and craven pleading. Surprise me-I am ready ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Not now. On this night so divine, Mariah did no pleading. The only thing on her heart was gratitude.

But she did have one request.

She wanted to stay awake, wanted to see what freedom looked like, felt like at midnight, then at the cusp of dawn. ~ Tonya Bolden

Who am I?" I ask softly, heart pleading. "Who am I to you?"
She turns to face me ... "You're Lachlan McGregor. And you're mine. ~ Karina Halle

I've been thinking about this mouth all day" he said before covering my lips with his. I licked at his bottom lip and he opened for me, letting me leisurely taste him. The gentle pressure of his mouth was perfect and made me a little dizzy. His fingers slip up my thigh until both hands were gripping my butt. One of his fingers traced the edge of my panties. "I really like this skirt," he murmured against my lips. I really liked it too at the moment. My breath was coming in short gasps as he slid one hand inside the edge of my panties. He gripped my bare butt with one hand while he slid his other slowly back down my thigh and shifted closer to my inner thigh. I liked what his next move would be. What I didn't know was if I was going to let it go that far. Then he moaned into my mouth as his fingers touched the inside of my thigh and my leg fell open of its own accord. The slow, easy kiss became frenzied as we both fought to calm our breathing. His hand inched higher and higher up my exposed thigh. The second his finger grazed the outside of my panties, I jerked in his hold, and something very close to pleading squeaked in my throat. Sawyer pulled back, and his accelerated breathing made me tingle with pleasure. I loved knowing I did that to him. He kissed down my neck until he met the curve of my shoulder. He went very still. His warm breath bathed my chest and neck. His hand slowly moved again. One lone finger slipped inside the edge of my panties and made direct contact. He ~ Abbi Glines

Feeding the hungry, healing the sick, rebuking hypocrisy, pleading for faith--this was Christ showing us the way of the Father... In His life and especially in His death Christ was declaring, "This is the Father's compassion I am showing you, as well as my own. ~ Jeffrey R. Holland

If you pray, "Oh God, please have mercy. Don't pour out Your wrath!" you have just pushed the Lord aside and declared, "Jesus, I know You atoned for us and that You dealt with sin. The Word says that You are the only mediator, but I think I can help. It's also going to take my pleading and interceding to make things right!" You're trying to add to what Jesus has already done! Jesus + anything = nothing. Jesus + nothing = everything. By attempting to intercede the way Abraham and Moses did, the way others in the Old Testament did, you aren't esteeming what Christ has done and you're trying to become a mediator. ~ Andrew Wommack

Sold my soul to Satan. I've been dancing with the devil. So when you get to hell you can say you know me. I'm easily attracted by the dark side. Devil keep following. For that fortune, some sold their soul to Satan. Was on track for the first two years, then i let the Devil steer. Now i got to mask my tears, but allow me to re-introduce myself, my name is Cole: Born sinner, opposite of a winner. But the Devil run the T.V. so the demons in him, I'm in trouble did a deal with the Devil but now I'm pleading with him like give me my soul. I ain't ever letting go but the devil don't play fair. ~ J. Cole

I breathed for you... I begged for you to breathe with every breath I gave to you. I kept pleading for you to breathe over and over again. And then… then you did. ~ Evan ~ Rebecca Donovan

In the silence that ensued, Mariana turned her gaze on Callie. Ignoring her sister's pleading look, the younger woman offered a smile befitting The Allendale Angel, and said, sweetly, Callie, it appears that you have a visitor.'
Callie's gaze narrowed. There was truly nothing worse in the wide world than a sister. ~ Sarah MacLean

Do it for the kids! The ones who look up to you - especially when they are pleading for their lives." - Bats 2015 ~ Fred Barnett

Gregor, open up, I'm pleading with you.' But Gregor had absolutely no intention of opening the door and complimented himself instead on the precaution he had adopted from his business trips of locking all the doors during the night even at home. ~ Franz Kafka

War is not a computer-generated missile striking a digital map. War is the color of earth as it explodes in our faces, the sound of child pleading, the smell of smoke and fear. Women survivors of war are not the single image portrayed on the television screen, but the glue that holds families and countries together. Perhaps by understanding women, and the other side of war ... we will have more humility in our discussions of wars ... perhaps it is time to listen to womens side of history. ~ Zainab Salbi

Once again your mind explodes with a searing pain. A floodgate of memories bursts wide. Yet it is her face that keeps haunting you. Always her face. Who is she? Then things begin to crystallize. You remember your funeral. Begging and pleading for someone to release you from the darkness. You're not dead. You can't be. Then you feel her presence. Warm, caring, soothing. But somewhere deep inside she feels empty now. She has no reason. No meaning. No soul. But your soul lives. While her's is dying. ~ Todd McFarlane

Every time I lied to my dad I felt like I was going up against the Supreme Court justices and pleading my case. ~ Claire Contreras

I love you," she whispers.
"It's only a week," I tell her, but I loathe this separation as much as she does.
Echo looks at me with those pleading green eyes. I twine my fingers into her curls. The first taste of her lips is sweet. The second makes me forget there's a bus terminal full of people. The third causes me to lift her feet off the ground and deepen our kiss.
"Noah," she whispers in reprimand as she breaks away. "We're causing a scene."
"Not my problem." But I lower her to the ground anyhow. "Besides, it wasn't my fault. You're the one looking at me with take-me-to-bed eyes, and I felt you kissing me back. Once again, you're the one getting us into trouble."
Echo grins. "You are so impossible."
"Damn straight, baby. ~ Katie McGarry

Be warned, the ink you use is magical and your oath will be binding. If you carry falsehoods in your heart, the ink will know and it will signal us. The punishment for a false oath will be harsh, I assure you."
Haung paused to give the troops a hard stare and then he waved the first one forward, watching as the man approached the sorcerer's apprentice who stood behind the desk. The apprentice placed a pre-prepared sheet of paper in front of the man and handed him the brush pen. With a trembling hand, the man dipped the brush into the ink bowl and shakily signed his name. The ink stayed as ink and there was an audible sigh, echoed by the other recruits, from the man.
Four more times this happened. When the fifth shaking and nervous man approached, he took the brush, dipped it into the ink and drew the character for his name. As he handed the brush back the ink on the page hissed and bubbled giving off an acrid blue smoke. Guards grabbed the man and dragged him, kicking, screaming and pleading his innocence into the dark room behind the desk. There was more shouted pleading and then a chilling, bone grating, scream erupted from the doorway followed by silence. The guards re-appeared, wiping their daggers with sword-cloth and replacing them in their belt scabbards. ~ G.R. Matthews

The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion. ~ William Safire

Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt in my voice that demands love. Even the people I work with, the ones I am supposed to have a professional relationship with, all business, get pulled into my need. I can't help it. I want to be adored. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

Diligence which, as it avails in all things, is also of the utmost moment in pleading causes. Diligence is to be particularly cultivated by us; it is to be constantly exerted; it is capable of effecting almost everything. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Tristan looked at me with pleading eyes, as though he could forget for one moment how I was programmed to respond to him - how even now upon hearing his confession, I wanted nothing more than to suck his beautiful cock to fulfillment, to straddle him right here on the edge of this roof, to let him fuck every orifice he'd created on my body. I fought back the feelings of lust, wondering if I'd ever truly be myself again, if I'd ever be free of the programming. ~ A. Violet End

Dear Sir: Yours of the 24th. asking 'the best mode of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the law' is received. The mode is very simple, though laborious, and tedious. It is only to get the books, and read, and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone's Commentaries, and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty's Pleading, Greenleaf's Evidence, & Story's Equity &c. in succession. Work, work, work, is the main thing. ~ Abraham Lincoln

What I'd always said in jest suddenly struck me as truth. Karish was something else, something other. I stared at him with wonder. "Holy hell," I muttered.
He was looking at me warily. "Don't you start, Lee," he said, almost pleading. "I mean it. Really."
All right. I could keep my mouth shut. Adoration wasn't my style, anyway. ~ Moira J. Moore

When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten. Then ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

There was nothing else to do but call upon the Creator,
praying, begging, pleading, bargaining - anything to make
him protect Xavier. I couldn't have him ripped away from
me like that. I could survive emotional turmoil; I could
survive the most intense physical torture. I could survive
Armageddon and holy fire raining down upon the earth, but I
could not survive without him. ~ Alexandra Adornetto

What is he like?" asked Khadgar, his voice almost pleading.
"Like everyone else, I suppose." said Moroes. "Has his druthers. Has his moods. Good days and bad. Like everybody else."
"puts his pants on one leg at a time," said Khadgar, sighing.
"No. He levitates into them," said Moroes. ~ Jeff Grubb

Any substantial improvement must come from action on the system, the responsibility of management. Wishing and pleading and begging the workers to do better was totally futile. ~ W. Edwards Deming

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her: Love lies bleeding. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Papa, why are you selling our goats? I like these goats."
"A week ago the price was five hundred, now it's four hundred. I'm sorry, but we can't wait for it go any lower."
Mankhalala and the others were tied by their front legs with a long rope. When my father started down the trail, they stumbled and began to cry. They knew their future. Mankhalala looked back, as if telling me to help him. Even Khamba whined and barked a few times, pleading their case. But I had to let them down. What could I do? My family had to eat. ~ William Kamkwamba

Friends, my ass," Joss grunted ... "The sexual tension between you two is off the charts." Her grin turned smug. "Reminds me of me and Mr Carmichael."
"No details." Ellie held up a hand, her eyes pleading.
"I wasn't going to," Joss assured her, but we knew where her mind had wandered by the still smug smile curing her mouth and the heat in her eyes. ~ Samantha Young

As he spoke, the edges of the clay man began shimmering, like air does in intense heat, and the lumpen form gradually became more manlike. "Something's happening!" I cried. I was paralyzed by shock and hope. "Please let it work. Come back, Vincent. You have to come back, I whispered, pleading.
Red clay became olive-toned skin, and the bald head became waves of raven black hair. The face that Jules had carefully sculpted became a real nose and mouth and eyes, closed as if in sleep. But it lay there, still unmoving, until, focusing on the air just above, Bran yelled, "Come, bardia spirit, inhabit this body!" He made one final sweeping gesture, as if pulling the aura downward, and touching his fingers to the body's side.
The eyes flew open and Vincent took a great gulping gasp, as if trying to swallow all of the oxygen in the room.
"Vincent," I said, my heart in my throat.
His eyes flew to mine. He reached toward me, and I took his hand and pressed it to my cheek. His skin was burning hot, like with a fever. I kissed his fingers, and his skin smelled like fire and rain-soaked earth. Like the boy I thought I would never touch again. ~ Amy Plum

In the pleading of cases nothing pleases so much as brevity. ~ Pliny The Younger

Parents bless their children by endeavouring to instate them in their own covenant-interest. God having promised to be a God unto believers, and to their seed in and by them, they do three ways bless them with the good things thereof: first, By communicating unto them the privilege of the initial seal of the covenant, as a sign, token, and pledge of their being blessed of the Lord; secondly, By pleading the promise of the covenant in their behalf; thirdly, By careful instructing of them in the mercies and duties of the covenant. ~ John Owen

We need to have a purpose in this life. I'm pleading with you, I'm begging with you to do the right thing. And do it not for the sake of how it will impact your own lives, but only for the sake of doing the right thing. ~ James McGreevey

And I knew that tone, the pleading, the fear that was sitting like a spiked ball in his chest. He'd been left behind too, maybe more than I had. ~ Lili St. Crow

My arm was extended upward pleading for peace and the Union of our Fathers. When my hand came down, it fell slowly and sadly by the side of a Secessionist. ~ Zebulon Baird Vance

If a man means to be hard, let him keep in his saddle and speak from that height, above the level of pleading eyes, and with the command of a distant horizon. ~ George Eliot

Footsteps approach the kitchen. Garrett wanders in, wiping sweat off his brow. When he notices Sabrina, he brightens. "Oh good. You're here. Hold on - gotta grab something."

She turns to me as if to say, Is he talking to me?

He's already gone, though, his footsteps thumping up the stairs.

At the table, Hannah runs a hand through her hair and gives me a pleading look. "Just remember he's your best friend, okay?"

That doesn't sound ominous.

When Garrett returns, he's holding a notepad and a ballpoint pen, which he sets on the table as he sits across from Sabrina. "Tuck," he says. "Sit. This is important."

I'm so baffled right now. Hannah's resigned expression doesn't help in lessening the confusion.

Once I'm seated next to Sabrina, Garrett flips open the notepad, all business. "Okay. So let's go over the names."

Sabrina raises an eyebrow at me.

I shrug, because I legitimately don't know what the fuck he's talking about.

"I've put together a solid list. I really think you're going to like these." But when he glances down at the page, his face falls. "Ah crap. We can't use any of the boy names."

"Wait." Sabrina holds up a hand, her brow furrowed. "You're picking names for our baby?"

He nods, busy flipping the page.

My baby mama gapes at me.

I shrug again.

"Just out of curiosity, what were the boy names?" Grace hedges, ~ Elle Kennedy

Fell." Maddox was cold and wet, and had been only vaguely aware of Ben dragging him through the jungle. Bumpy. Ben pleading. Ben's lips ghosting over his skin. "From ~ Annabeth Albert

Concerted voices of heartfelt petitions in Arabic all pleading for divine intervention are abruptly silenced as the drone ensures fatalities by injecting a final stab in each of their skulls. ~ C.J. Anderson

Saying "I meant well" is not going to cut it. Not with God screaming, begging, pleading, urging us to love mercy and justice, to feed the poor and the orphaned, to care for the last and least in nearly every book of the Bible. It will not be enough one day to stand before Jesus and say, "Oh? Were You serious about all that? ~ Jen Hatmaker

Hearts grow hard and weary. Pain spreads, and joy diminishes. Those who hated you hate you still, but those who loved you, or would have loved you, or wanted to love you but never had the chance, are being scraped hollow by a loss they don't understand. Come home. Please come home. We are withering without you. ~ Bruce Coville

I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: if you fuck with me I'll kill you all. ~ Marine General James Mattis

He addressed the class ... in a soft, stupefied, increasingly breathless tone like an astronaut pleading with a mad supercomputer to open an airlock. ~ Michael Chabon

But too much reading had taken its toll. William found that he now thought of prayer as a sophisticated way of pleading with thunderstorms. ~ Terry Pratchett

It is this subtle dimension of understanding that marks the southwestern Indian peoples from other religions and separates tribal peoples from the world's religions. Somewhere in the planetary history religious expression changed from participation in the sound, color and rhythm of nature to the abstractions of man outside this context pleading for temporary respite and hoping in the next life to return to the Garden. ~ Vine Deloria Jr.

According to his closest disciple who served him while patriarch, Fr Raphael Ava Mina, Kyrillos' diet was meager and austere. When he broke his fast around midday - having started the day with psalmody at three in the morning - it would inevitably be with a piece of bread (qorban) and dukkah. With much pleading, he could occasionally be convinced to add a few small spoons of beans. Often Kyrillos would be delayed by meetings and then he would have his breakfast only after three in the afternoon. For lunch, he would usually have some dried bread with a small number of cooked vegetables - but, Fr Raphael recalls, he would never actually eat the vegetables, but only dip his bread in their sauce. Before he slept, he would usually be satisfied with some fruit or bread at most. "I never saw him touch a piece of chicken or meat, or even have a sip of milk." That was during the non-fasting days. In fasting times, especially that of Lent and the Theotokos fast, even though he had been awake since the earliest hours of the morning, he would eat only once later in the evening.

At one point during the fifty days of Resurrection, Kyrillos gave his regular cook a few days of leave, upon which Fr Raphael, who in his own words "did not know how to cook," thought to take care of the kitchen. Each evening he would lay out roasted chicken, a few small pieces of meat, rice, bread and cheese; only to find the chicken and meat untouched, with the bread and cheese eaten. Given the poor r ~ Daniel Fanous

But the novels of women were not affected only by the necessarily narrow range of the writer's experience. They showed, at least in the nineteenth century, another characteristic which may be traced to the writer's sex. In Middlemarch and in Jane Eyre we are conscious not merely of the writer's character, as we are conscious of the character of Charles Dickens, but we are conscious of a woman's presence of someone resenting the treatment of her sex and pleading for its rights. ~ Virginia Woolf

Battered by shifing currents and a cold, unrelenting wind, we sailed past deserted islands crowded with pines and a ghost tree growing staight out of the water, its gaunt trunk and scrawny branches raised heavenward like an outcast pleading for his life. Now, having reached the north shore, we were doggedly searching for the hidden rivulet that would take us into The Peak. We were trapped in muddy water barbed with grasses and covered with thick green algae, which broke apart in clumps, then, after we'd edged through, resealed, erasing all signs of our passing.

The wind had dissipated - strange, as it'd been so turbulent minutes ago out on the lake. Dense trees surrounded us, packed like hordes of stranded prisoners. There wasn't a single bird, not a scuttle through the branches, not a cry - as if everything alive had fled. ~ Marisha Pessl

In Stalin's famous words, one death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic. In this case, it is not even a particularly good statistic. The very incomprehensibility of what a million horrible and violent deaths might mean, and the impossibility of producing an appropriate response, is perhaps the reason that the events following partition have yielded such a great and moving body of fictional literature and such an inadequate and flimsy factual history. What does it matter to the readers of history today whether there were 200,000 deaths, or 1 million, or 2 million? On that scale, is it possible to feel proportional revulsion, to be five times more upset at 1 million deaths than at 200,000? Few can grasp the awfulness of how it might feel to have their fathers barricaded in their houses and burnt alive, their mothers beaten and thrown off speeding trains, their daughters torn away, raped and branded, their sons held down in full view, screaming and pleading, while a mob armed with rough knives hacked off their hands and feet. All these things happened, and many more like them; not just once, but perhaps a million times. It is not possible to feel sufficient emotion to appreciate this monstrous savagery and suffering. That is the true horror of the events in the Punjab in 1947: one of the vilest episodes in the whole of history, a devastating illustration of the worst excesses to which human beings can succumb. The death toll is just a number. ~ Alex Von Tunzelmann

Why can't I be like that? Why can't I be the father who just shrugs off the love of his daughter? Why can't I be the Lead Inquisitor who enjoys watching his pleading victims burn at the stake? Why can't I be the one who befriends a lonely, lost girl and then casts her out? Why can't I be the one to strike first, to hit so early and with such fury that my enemies cower before they can ever think of turning on me? What is so great about being good? ~ Marie Lu

I don't trust you."
He stepped back, wounded. "Has your judgment become so compromised? If you truly do not believe the truth in my words, then you have no place here."
We stared at one another, fury swelling between us. The silence expanded, solidifying our words like manacles.
"Once, I thought you loved me," I said in a broken voice. "I refuse to live in your shadow for the rest of eternity."
His eyes widened, obsidian eyes searching and disbelieving.
"Then leave!" he said, gesturing to the door angrily.


So I did.
I stepped into the reincarnation pool, letting the waters tease my life apart, inflicting upon myself the same curse that had forced me to undergo the agni pariksha. In the distance, Amar's voice roared for me. Pleading. But it was too little. And far too late. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Feb. 1, 1965
Storm late at night, heavy rain, a thunderous racket, the windows shaking. I heard my name called. A woman's voice in hell pleading with me to join her. ~ Leonard Michaels

Love for perishing souls inspired Abraham's prayer. While he loathed the sins of that corrupt city, he desired that the sinners might be saved. His deep interest for Sodom shows the anxiety that we should feel for the impenitent. We should cherish hatred of sin, but pity and love for the sinner. All around us are souls going down to ruin as hopeless, as terrible, as that which befell Sodom. Every day the probation of some is closing. Every hour some are passing beyond the reach of mercy. And where are the voices of warning and entreaty to bid the sinner flee from this fearful doom? Where are the hands stretched out to draw him back from death? Where are those who with humility and persevering faith are pleading with God for him? ~ Ellen G. White

He pulled the gun from his waist, running it along my cheek and back down to my lips. I blinked back the tears at sick game. He finally stopped the gun at my temple, my pulse fighting against the pressure of the cold metal of the gun.
"Do you think you are a good person, Kendall?"
"No, not at all," I said, swallowing down the misery of my honest answer.
"Really?" he asked, one eyebrow lifting in confusion. "Are you afraid to die?"
I wished I could spit in his face for making everything so hard. I wished he would just pull the trigger and end it already. But a small part of me was begging and pleading internally that he wouldn't shoot me.
"No, I'm not afraid to die," I admitted, I closed my eyes and the tears fell quickly. "I'm not afraid of much in life. I've seen too much to be scared."
He let out a sigh. I opened my eyes. He pulled the gun away from me.
"Well, damn. How the hell am I supposed to kill someone so miserable?"
I looked away. Even in death I was pitiful. ~ Holly Hood

The young man waited patiently over a period of time for the young woman to remove her extra earrings, but she did not take them out. This was a valuable piece of information for this young man, and he felt unsettled about her nonresponsiveness to a prophet's pleading. For this and other reasons, he ultimately stopped dating the young woman, because he was looking for an eternal companion who had the courage to promptly and quietly obey the counsel of the prophet in all things and at all times. The young man was quick to observe that the young woman was not quick to observe.

I presume that some of you might have difficulty with my last example. You may believe the young man was too judgmental or that basing an eternally important decision, even in part, upon such a supposedly minor issue is silly or fanatical. Perhaps you are bothered because the example focuses upon a young woman who failed to respond to prophetic counsel instead of upon a young man. I simply invite you to consider and ponder the power of being quick to observe and what was actually observed in the case I just described. The issue was not earrings! ~ David A. Bednar

O the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know! ~ George Eliot

Matthias, please."
The sound of her voice, pleading with him. He'd dreamed of this. Sometimes she pleaded for mercy. Sometimes there were other things she begged for. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Instincts sent sparks throughout her body pleading with her to stay away or else, but she didn't listen. How could she listen? This was Jack ~ K.A. Linde

Some may call you crazy if you try to reason with a dog. It is with desperate attempts that you hope they understand you. When the realization sinks in that your futile pleading goes without understanding or care, you are left with no choice but to think of the next best thing. From Finally Home: Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog ~ Elizabeth Parker

It serves the American socialists as a leading argument in their endeavor to depict American capitalism as a curse of mankind. Reluctantly forced to admit that capitalism pours a horn of plenty upon people and that the Marxian prediction of the masses' progressive impoverishment has been spectacularly disproved by the facts, they try to salvage their detraction of capitalism by describing contemporary civilization as merely materialistic and sham.
Bitter attacks upon modem civilization are launched by writers who think that they are pleading the cause of religion. They reprimand our age for its secularism.
They bemoan the passing of a way of life in which, they would have us believe, people were not preoccupied with the pursuit of earthly ambitions but were first of ali concerned about the strict observance of their religious duties. They ascribe ali evils to the spread of skepticism and agnosticism and passionately advocate a return to the orthodoxy of ages gone by.
It is hard to find a doctrine which distorts history more radically than this antisecularism. There have always been devout men, pure in heart and dedicated to a pious life. But the religiousness of these sincere believers had nothing in common with the established system of devotion. It is a myth that the political and social institutions of the ages preceding modem individualistic philosophy and modem capitalism were imbued with a genuine Christian spirit. The teachings of the Gospels did not det ~ Ludwig Von Mises

It is an early step in this knowledge of Christ, to know and to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord; to know that Christ is God, divine to me; that Christ is man, brother to me - bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh - that as such he is a sin-subduing Savior; that he is for me an intercessor, pleading before the throne; my prophet, priest, and king - in this sense I trust that most of you know him. If you do not, breathe the silent prayer now, "Lord, help me that I may know him." But this knowledge of recognition is comparatively a low attainment, one of the lowest rounds of the ladder of light.

from sermon called " Do You know Him ~ Spurgeon, Charles H.

I leaned in and kissed him. It was a mess: hands in hair and practically climbing into his lap right there in that stupid bar but I didn't care. I didn't care. His hands moved to my face, and his eyes--when I peeked--were open and pleading and something was there. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. "Sweet Sara," he murmured around my wild kisses. ~ Christina Lauren

My client," the lawyer said forcefully, "is pleading the Fifth. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

See the man they are fitting into the bottom slot. He is coughing badly. No, not pneumonia. Not tuberculosis. Nothing so picturesque. Gently, gently, stretcher-bearers… he is about done. He is coughing up clots of pinky-green filth. Only his lungs, Mother and Mrs. Evans-Mawington. He is coughing well to-night. That is gas. You've heard of gas. Haven't you? It burns and shrivels the lungs to… to the mess you see on the ambulance floor there. He's about the age of Bertie, Mother. Not unlike Bertie, either, with his gentle brown eyes and fair curly hair. Bertie would look up pleading like that in between coughing up his lungs… The son you have so generously given to the War. Cough, cough, little fair-haired boy. Perhaps somewhere your mother is thinking of you… boasting of the life she has so nobly given… the life you thought was your own, but which is hers to squander as she thinks fit. 'My boy is not a slacker, thank God.' Cough away, little boy, cough away. What does it matter, providing your mother doesn't have to face the shame of her son's cowardice? ~ Helen Zenna Smith

She didn't want to give the murder-pornography frame by frame. Didn't want to recite her route across Manhattan, the length of the knife blade and the number of times she pulled the trigger, the color of the blood-splattered wallpaper in the hotel room, the man falling to the floor, the baby crying in the next room, the woman emerging and dropping the bottle, its nipple popping off and the milk spilling onto the carpet, the woman pleading "Por favor," her hands up, shaking her head, asking - begging - for her life to be spared, her big black eyes wide, deep sinkholes of dark terror, while Kate trained the Glock on her, a seemingly eternal internal debate, while the baby sounded like he was the same age as Jake, late infancy, and this poor woman the same age as Kate, a different version of herself, an unlucky woman who didn't deserve to die. ~ Chris Pavone

Once you change, change happens.

This is a big lesson. Expecting someone else to change is like pleading with a manufacturer to turn Twinkies into a green smoothie. It makes no sense, right? Often times we feel people are purposely doing or not doing things for us in a relationship – we want to make them better, not for their personal development, but how to make this person fit our image of the perfect partner. We want them to dress, act and say things at certain times. It becomes a conditioned relationship. ~ Sadiqua Hamdan

Thou content to leave thy prayer in his hands, who knows when to give, and how to give, and what to give, and what to withhold. So pleading, earnestly, importunately, yet with humility and resignation, thou shalt surely prevail. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Utility is the emotion pleading to be let into the house of pure reason and thereby enriching it. ~ Dennis Lindley

Fear the pleading prayer of a wronged one, for there is no veil between it and Allah. ~ Muhammad