Samirah Al Abbas Quotes

Jack was pleased to help. "Combat time? Cool!" He floated in a circle around me. "Who are we fighting?"
"Sam," I said.
Jack froze. "But I like Sam."
"We're just practicing," I said. "Try to kill her without really killing her."
"Oh, phew! Okay. I can do that. ~ Rick Riordan

Amir, you look hideous." My fiancée, Samirah al-Abbas, stared at my outfit in horrified disbelief.
"Really?" I looked down at myself. "But it's a tux!"
"A baby-blue tux!"
"With a matching ruffled shirt and floppy bow tie," I said defensively. "My uncle loaned it to me. I think it'll impress your grandparents, don't you?"
"It's Jid and Bibi's fiftieth wedding anniversary!" Sam sputtered. "You can't wear - "
"Samirah." My father emerged from the kitchen. "He is pulling your leg."
Sam's reddish-brown eyes blazed dangerously, and I suddenly realized that playing a practical joke on a Valkyrie might not be the best idea I ever had. ~ Rick Riordan

Sam stood in the middle of the store. With a spear of brilliant light in hand and wearing a suit of chain mail with a helmet over her green hijab, she looked drop-dead dangerous. If our religion didn't forbid it, I would have kissed her.
"Let him go." Sam's voice radiated Valkyrie power. "Amir belongs to me."
My heart swelled with pride. I felt like we could take on the whole world together, and -
"Not anymore," Stan snarled. "As long as he wears the nábrók, he is bound to me."
Oh. ~ Rick Riordan

You were amazing," Sam said.
I let that sink in. Samirah wasn't big on doling out praise any more than Mallory wa big on doling out apologies.
"Well, it wasn't poetry," I said at last. "More like pure panic."
"Maybe there's not much difference," Sam said. "Besides just take the compliment, Chase. ~ Rick Riordan

A video screen descended from the spear-enhanced ceiling and locked into place. He pushed another button. Images of wolves, giants, gods, and weapons flashed across the screen. Then a title: The Signs of Ragnarok: Doomed if You Know Them, Doomed if You Don't.
I groaned inwardly. I'd sat through Odin's instructional video when I first became a Valkyrie. I saw it a second time after I helped re-shackle the dreaded killer Fenris Wolf on Lyngvi, the Isle of Heather. Then once more after I'd inadvertently aided my father Loki, a vile trickster, to escape his imprisonment. And after Loki was recaptured? Yep - got to see it again. ~ Rick Riordan

My heart leaped with excitement. Odin was sending me to fight the jotuns in Jotunheim! I jumped up and summoned my spear of light. It blazed with anticipation. "I won't let you down, sir! I'll take care of those giants and their wretched sorcery!"
"Ah. No." Odin handed me a Valkyrie Vision body cam. "I need you to take a new photo of the egg. So I can see if it is beginning to hatch."
My spear dimmed. "Oh."
He raised an eyebrow. "It's an important job. Likely fraught with danger."
"Oh, sure," I agreed. "Snapping a pic of an egg in a nest would be . . . obviously. I'll be on my way, then. ~ Rick Riordan

Just follow my lead,' I said. 'It'll be fun.'

'Please,' Sam begged, 'don't let those words be carved on my tombstone. ~ Rick Riordan

Samirah," Loki growled, "turn into a lizard and scuttle away, my dear."
Sam frowned at him. "No, Father, I don't think I will. Why don't you?"
"Oooh!" Some of the giants even clapped. ~ Rick Riordan

The man who reproaches you is unfair;
You're a woman and not a saint. ~ Abbas Ibn Al-Ahnaf

Death and parting are the same. ~ Abbas Ibn Al-Ahnaf

My sign, he announced. My family's sign.

Blitzen sniffled. 'I like that. A family of four empty cups!'

Sam wiped her eyes. 'Suddenly I feel thirsty.'

'Al-Abbas,' I said, 'I nominate you for the role of annoying sister.'

'Shut up, Magnus. ~ Rick Riordan

I think we were colonized by aliens 250,000 years ago, and they genetically altered our DNA to be primates into homo erectus and humans. I'm very interested in how we evolved so suddenly, which obviously ties in with the alien thing. ~ Al Jourgensen

I really do see it as the start of the second half of my career. ~ Al Jarreau

A good way to work on alternate picking is to choose three or four notes, and work on those. Too often, players who are trying to improve their right hand dexterity get hung up by playing too many notes with the left hand.I hear a lot of players running whole scales from the sixth string to the first , and playing them really sloppy.Keeping it very basic-and using only a few notes-and playing slowly with perfect rhythm is a task in itself. ~ Al Di Meola

My daughter became a teacher right out of college. ~ Al Franken

When Husni Zaim seized power from Shukri al-Quwatli on 30 March 1949, Syria's economy was a parlous state and its army had been beaten the previous November by the Israelis. Zaim knew that he needed to take action on both fronts fast. After overthrowing al-Quwatli bloodlessly, he set out to open peace talks with the Israelis and mend relations with the French via a currency agreement and an arms deal that would pave the way for renewed French influence in the former mandate. But Zaim's reign did not last long. One hundred and thirty-seven days after he had taken power, on 14 August he too was overthrown and executed. ~ James Barr

If they ask you about me, tell them "She was the only girl who loved me with honesty, and I broke her.". ~ Shahrazad Al-Khalij

We will in fact encourage them to commit more suicides. We have given them death and poison. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

I watch 'Al Jazeera.' They have news that you can't find anywhere else. They do great documentaries, too. ~ Dick Van Dyke

We in the U.A.E. have no such word as 'impossible'; it does not exist in our lexicon. Such a word is used by the lazy and the weak, who fear challenges and progress. ~ Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue. It affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of Left vs. Right; it is a question of right vs. wrong. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours. ~ Al Gore

When people flirt with despair about the future, they are less likely to take the actions necessary to safeguard it, focusing instead on the short-term. ~ Al Gore

It is regrettable to spend one's life in a battle that ends with no victory nor defeat, to consume it in another battle that ends with a defeat, and in a third that ends with his victory over his brother. ~ Salman Al Odah

I'd like to do radio just like pictures - leave the imperfect stuff on the cutting-room floor. ~ Al Jolson

This American system of ours,call it Americanism,call it capitalism,call it what you will,gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we seize it with both hands and make the most of it. ~ Al Capone

If the United States has to accept the U.N. resolutions, we have to generalize it across the board. We can't just pick and choose where we impose and accept the U.N. resolution and don't accept them. U.N. Resolution 242 is very clear and states very clearly that Israel has to go back to the borders of the pre-war of 1967. ~ Al-Waleed Bin Talal

True artistic renewal does not mean being stripped of fetters. It means moving into new fetters. ~ Tawfiq Al-Hakim

People must ask themselves why this earthquake occurred in this area and not in others ... These areas were notorious because of this type of modern tourism, which has become known as "sex tourism" ... Don't they deserve punishment from Allah?! ~ Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

We won't stop until the first Saudi license is issued to a woman. ~ Manal Al-Sharif

In the past, traditional art was based on making manifest what is enduring in man, like love, jealousy, hatred, envy, and greed ... Today art has to look again at these unchanging qualities, because society is no longer unchanging. It is up to art today to show us what has become of these unchanging qualities in a world which is moving and changing. ~ Tawfiq Al-Hakim

I dream of a free, democratic, peaceful Tunisia, a country that can protect its developing identity. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

You can give so much in this life, and that offers you many opportunities to release the self. For example, you can give time, helpfulness, donations, restraint, patience, noncontention, and forgiveness. Any path of service - including raising a family, caring for others, and many kinds of work - incorporates generosity. Envy - and its close cousin, jealousy - is a major impediment to generosity. So notice the suffering in envy, how it is an affliction upon you. Envy actually activates some of the same neural networks involved with physical pain (Takahashi et al. 2009). In a compassionate and kind way, remind yourself that you will be all right even if other people have fame, money, or a great partner - and you don't. To free yourself from the clutches of envy, send compassion and loving-kindness to people you envy. ~ Rick Hanson

Religion is to the human race as the appendix is to the human body. At one time it was useful, but now it is nothing more than a detriment, and one that can kill in short order. ~ Al Stefanelli

Maybe PTSD really is triggered by a single incident, a stressor, as it's known in the psychiatric community, and maybe the attack at Al-Waleed was that stressor for me, but as I have learned in the intervening years, I was not damaged by that moment alone. In fact, while there are specific memories that resurface with some frequency, like the suicide bomber in Sinjar or the order riot at Al-Waleed, I find myself most traumatized by the overall experience of being in a combat zone like Iraq, where you are always surrounded by war but rarely aware of when or how violence will arrive. Like so many of my fellow veterans, I understand now how that it is the daily adrenaline rush of a war without front lines or uniforms, rather than the infrequent bursts of bloody violence, that ultimately damages the modern warrior's mind. ~ Luis Carlos Montalvan

A human-being is not a human-being while his tendencies include self-indulgence, covetousness, temper and attacking other people ~ Al-Ghazali

Don't be sad, The world is turning around. ~ Isam Al Darawsheh

The UK is one of the only nations on earth that has actually met and even exceeded its goals under the Kyoto Protocol. ~ Al Gore

A few years before his death in 1934 the great Algerian Sheikh, Ahmad al-'Alawi, became friendly with a Frenchman, Dr. Carret, who had been treating him for various minor ailments. One day Carrett tried to explain his agnosticism to the Sheikh, adding, however, that what most surprised him was that people who did claim to be religious 'should be able to go on attaching importance to this earthly life'. After a pause, the Sheikh said to him: 'It is a pity that you will not let your spirit rise above yourself. But whatever you may say and whatever you may imagine, you are nearer to God than you think'. In this confused age in which we now find ourselves there may be many a believer who is a kafir under the skin, and many a kafir who is closer than he knows to the God in whom he thinks he does not believe.

It is important to be aware of these paradoxes because the distrust of religion - or at least of 'organized religion' - which is so widespread in the Western world, derives less from intellectual doubts than from a critical judgement of the way in which religious people are seen to behave. The agnostic does not concern himself with the supernatural dimensions of religion, let alone with ultimate truth. He sees only that part of the iceberg which is visible above the surface, and he judges this to be misshapen. The whole sad story is summed up in the wise child's prayer: 'Lord, please make good people religious and make religious people good'. ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton

I speak better English than this villain, Bush. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

Art is commenting on what's going on around you in your life. ~ Al Jourgensen

Research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favorable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence (for a review of this evidence, see Langlois et al., 2000). ~ Robert B. Cialdini