Serafina And The Black Cloak Quotes

She was a failure. That's what she thought. She had come to the forest to see the world, but all she found was wretchedness. ~ Robert Beatty

She'd always had a hankering for sitting quietly in dark, confined spaces. ~ Robert Beatty

Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, both dark and bright, and they will ensnare your soul. ~ Robert Beatty

I lifted the latch, and there he stood, dark and tall, the scholar's gown falling from his shoulders like the cloak of the Black Knight in the old tale. His arms were laden with boughs of apple blossom. He lifted a branch, high over my head, and shook it, so that the petals showered me, releasing a heady scent that promised spring. ~ Geraldine Brooks

This is the Death's-head Moth," he said. "That's nightshade she's sitting on - we're hoping she'll lay." The moth was wonderful and terrible to see, its large brown-black wings tented like a cloak, and on its wide furry back, the signature device that has struck fear in men for as long as men have come upon it suddenly in their happy gardens. The domed skull, a skull that is both skull and face, watching from its dark eyes, the cheekbones, the zygomatic arch traced exquisitely beside the eyes. "Acherontia styx," Pilcher said. "It's named for two rivers in Hell. Your man, he drops the bodies in a river every time - did I read that?" "Yes," Starling said. "Is it rare?" "In this part of the world it is. There aren't any at all in nature. ~ Thomas Harris

I'm not your gilded prince with the gilded chairs, Letty," Geoff said simply. "I couldn't be if I tried."
"I wouldn't want you to be." Letty's voice felt rusty.
"I'm not particularly bold or dashing or heroic. I'm happier at my desk than in a black cloak. And I've never entirely mastered all the steps of the quadrille." He looked soberly down at her. "But what I am is yours, if you'll still have me. ~ Lauren Willig

One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadowcat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?" He chuckled. "It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. "But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears … and most of all, no red. The men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said. "I left the next morning … for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose. ~ George R.R. Martin

I look in the glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical bags (so picturesquely rugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, and wonder what right I have to go about making God's world hideous. Then wild and wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't want to be good and respectable. (I never can be sensible, I'm told; so that don't matter.) I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with red velvet breeches and a green doublet slashed with yellow; to have a light-blue silk cloak on my shoulder, and a black eagle's plume waving from my hat, and a big sword, and a falcon, and a lance, and a prancing horse, so that I might go about and gladden the eyes of the people. Why should we all try to look like ants crawling over a dust-heap? Why shouldn't we dress a little gayly? I am sure if we did we should be happier. True, it is a little thing, but we are a little race, and what is the use of our pretending otherwise and spoiling fun? Let philosophers get themselves up like old crows if they like. But let me be a butterfly. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

He sighed and opened the black box and took out his rings and slipped them on. Another box held a set of knives and Klatchian steel, their blades darkened with lamp black. Various cunning and intricate devices were taken from velvet bags and dropped into pockets. A couple of long-bladed throwing tlingas were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down the back of his cloak; Teppic picked a slim tin container with an assortment of darts, their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the dark.

He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an afterthought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag of assorted caltrops and a set of brass knuckles.

Teppic picked up his hat and checked it's lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over. ~ Terry Pratchett

The night sky stretched on forever above me, the stars flung like glass beads and pearls on a black velvet cloak. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness ~ Richard Wright

Here is the essence of mankind's creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatoza attacking an ovum. It might be argued that the Siamese-twin infants of word/idea are the only contribution the human species can, will, or should make to the reveling cosmos. (Yes, our DNA is unique, but so is a salamander's. Yes, we construct artifacts, but so have species ranging from beavers to the architecture ants ... Yes, we weave real fabric things from the dreamstuff of mathematics, but the universe is hardwired with arithmetic. Scratch a circle and pi peeps out. Enter a new solar system and Tycho Brahe's formulae lie waiting under the black velvet cloak of space/time. But where has the universe hidden a word under its outer layer of biology, geometry, or insensate rock?) ~ Dan Simmons

Can you second-guess this Shevraeth?" Branaric asked. "He seems to be driving us back into our hills--to what purpose? Why hasn't he taken over any of our villages? He knows where they lie--and he has the forces. If he does that, traps or no traps, arrows or no arrows, we're lost. We won't be able to retake them."
Khesot puffed again, watching smoke curl lazily toward the tent roof.
In my mind I saw, clearly, that straight-backed figure on the dapple-gray horse, his long black cloak slung back over the animal's haunches, his plumed helm of command on his head. With either phenomenal courage or outright arrogance he had ignored the possibility of our arrows, the crowned sun stitched on his tunic gleaming in the noonday light as he directed the day's battle.
"I do not know," Khesot said slowly. "But judging from our constant retreats of the last week, I confess freely, I do not believe him to be stupid."
I said, "I find it impossible to believe that a Court fop--really, Azmus reported gossip in Remalna claiming him to be the most brainless dandy of them all--could suddenly become so great a leader."
Khesot tapped his pipe again. "Hard to say. Certainly Galdran's famed army did poorly enough against us until he came. But maybe he has good captains, and unlike Debegri, he may listen to them. They cannot all be stupid," Khesot said. "They've been guarding the coast and keeping peace in the cities all these years. It could also be they learned from those fi ~ Sherwood Smith

He felt something on his neck. Warmth.
He hesitated, then turned weary eyes toward the sky. Sunlight bathed his face. He gaped; it seemed so long since he'd seen pure sunlight. It shone down through a large break in the clouds, comforting, like the warmth of an oven baking a loaf of Adrinne's thick sourdough bread.
Almen stood, raising a hand to shade his eyes. He took a deep, long breath, and smelled… apple blossoms? He spun with a start.
The apple trees were flowering.
That was plain ridiculous. He rubbed his eyes, but that didn't dispel the image. They were blooming, all of them, white flowers breaking out between the leaves.
[...] What was happening? Apple trees didn't blossom twice. Was he going mad?
Footsteps sounded softly on the path that ran past the orchard. Almen spun to find a tall young man walking down out of the foothills. He had deep red hair and he wore ragged clothing: a brown cloak with loose sleeves and a simple white linen shirt beneath. The trousers were finer, black with a delicate embroidery of gold at the cuff.
"Ho, stranger," Almen said, raising a hand, not knowing what else to say, not even sure if he'd seen what he thought he'd seen. "Did you… did you get lost up in the foothills?"
The man stopped, turning sharply. He seemed surprised to find Almen there. With a start, Almen realized the man's left arm ended in a stump.
The stranger looked about, then breathed in deeply. "No. I'm not lost. Finally. It fe ~ Robert Jordan

But the young Count insisted on the Beauty selecting a flower for him. He was waiting impatiently for her second present, the promised kiss - her first kiss.

The Beauty looked at the flowers. Once again her face was darkened by a delicate shade of sadness. Suddenly, as if prompted by some strange will, she quickly stretched out a hand, so exquisite in its naked whiteness, and plucked a many-petaled flower. Her hand hesitated, and she bowed her head, and finally with an expression of shy indecision she approached the Count and placed the flower in a buttonhole of his cloak.

The powerful and pungent scent wafted into the young Count's face, which grew pale as his head reeled in languid impotence. Indifference and tedium overcame him. He was scarcely aware of himself, he hardly noticed that the Beauty took him by the arm and led him into the house, away from the fragrances of the wondrous Garden.

In one of the rooms of the house where all was bright, white and rosy, the Count came to himself. A youthful vitality returned to his face, his black eyes were aflame with passion once again, and he felt the joy of life and the surge of desire anew. But already the inescapable lay in wait for him. A white hand, bare, slender, lay on his neck; and the fragrant kiss of the Beauty was tender, sweet, long. The two blue lightnings of her eyes flashed close to his eyes and were masked with the subtle mystery of her long eyelashes. The sinister fires of some ~ Valery Bryusov

And that is the problem with a society that doesn't read books. The most painful form of censorship does not come from a centralized, repressive government. It is a cast, black cloak of a nation's indifference. ~ Lourd De Veyra

Then the day came when a new column was spotted riding up behind Debegri's force. We almost missed them, for we had also begun staying in a tight group. But luckily Khesot, cautious since his days in the terrible Pirate Wars, still sent pairs of scouts on rounds in all four directions twice a day.
It was Seliar, of my group, who spotted them first. She reported to me, and the rest of us crept down the hillside to watch the camp below. We saw at the head of the column a man wearing a long black cloak.
Debegri emerged, bowed. The newcomer bowed in return and handed the Baron a rolled paper. They went inside Debegri's tent, and when they emerged, the stranger had the white plume of leadership on his helm. Debegri's glower was plain even at the distance we watched from.
Backing up from our vantage, we retreated to our camp.
Bran and Khesot and the other riding leaders were all gathered under our old, patched rain cover when we reached them. Seliar blurted out what we'd seen.
Branaric grinned all through the story. At the end I said, "This is obviously no surprise. What news had you?"
Bran nodded to where a mud-covered young woman sat in front of one of the tents, attacking a bowl of stew as if she hadn't eaten in a week. "Messenger just arrived from Azmus, or it would have been a surprise. Galdran has taken his cousin off the command. He'd apparently expected us to last two weeks at most."
"Well, who is this new commander? Ought we to be afraid ~ Sherwood Smith

If any man has a ghost
Bourne has a ghost
a tiny twisted unscared ghost in a black cloak
hopping along the grimy old brick and brownstone streets still left in downtown New York,
crying out in a shrill soundless giggle:
War is the health of the State. ~ John Dos Passos

One of them was a young fellow of about twenty-seven, not tall, with black curling hair, and small, grey, fiery eyes. His nose was broad and flat, and he had high cheek bones; his thin lips were constantly compressed into an impudent, ironical - it might almost be called a malicious - smile; but his forehead was high and well formed, and atoned for a good deal of the ugliness of the lower part of his face. A special feature of this physiognomy was its death-like pallor, which gave to the whole man an indescribably emaciated appearance in spite of his hard look, and at the same time a sort of passionate and suffering expression which did not harmonize with his impudent, sarcastic smile and keen, self-satisfied bearing. He wore a large fur - or rather astrachan - overcoat, which had kept him warm all night, while his neighbour had been obliged to bear the full severity of a Russian November night entirely unprepared. His wide sleeveless mantle with a large cape to it - the sort of cloak one sees upon travellers during the winter months in Switzerland or North Italy - was by no means adapted to the long cold journey through Russia, from Eydkuhnen to St. Petersburg. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness. A lantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well. The water splashing from the well disappeared, almost at once, under the floor on which I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the black cloak and the black mask. He was bathing my temples and his hands smelt of death. I tried to push them away and asked, 'Who are you? Where is the voice?' His only answer was a sigh. Suddenly, a hot breath passed over my face and I perceived a white shape, beside the man's black shape, in the darkness. The black shape lifted me on to the white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I murmured, 'Cesar!' The animal quivered. Raoul, I was lying half back on a saddle and I had recognized the white horse out of the PROFETA, which I had so often fed with sugar and sweets. I remembered that, one evening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse had disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost. I believed in the voice, but had never believed in the ghost. Now, however, I began to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was the ghost's prisoner. I called upon the voice to help me, for I should never have imagined that the voice and the ghost were one. You have heard about the Opera ghost, have you not, Raoul?"

"Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse of the Profeta?"

"I made no movement and let myself go. The black shape held me up, and I made no e ~ Gaston Leroux

She then pulled him to the ground and clasped him in her arms.

Immediately, the cry went up: "Tam Lin is away!" The Elf Queen's black horse reared and she pulled him to a halt. Turning, she cast her mesmerizing emerald eyes toward Janet and Tam Lin. As Janet held Tam Lin fast, the Elf Queen put a spell upon them. Tam Lin shrank and became a small, scaly lizard which Janet clutched to her breast. Janet then felt a slithering sensation through her fingers. The lizard had become a cold, slippery snake which she gripped tightly, even as it coiled around her neck. Suddenly, a searing pain ran through her hands. The snake had been turned into a red-hot cinder. Tears of agony ran down her cheeks, but still, Janet held on to Tam Lin and would not let him go.

At last, the Elf Queen knew that she had lost Tam Lin because of the steadfast love of a mortal woman. She then shaped him in Janet's arms in his own form - as naked as the day he was born. In triumph, Janet covered Tam Lin with her cloak. ~ Bridget Haggerty

At some unseen signal the long line of guards around me stopped and their spears thudded to the floor with a noise that sounded like doom.
Then a tall figure with a long black cloak walked past us, plumed and coroneted helm carried in his gloved right hand. For a moment I didn't recognize the Marquis; somewhere along the way he'd gotten rid of his anonymous clothing and was now clad in a long black battle tunic, Remalna's crowned sun stitched on its breast. At his side hung his sword; his hair was braided back. He passed by without so much as a glance at me. His eyes were slack lidded, his expression bored.
He stopped before a dais, on which was a throne made of carved wood--a piece of goldwood so beautifully veined with golds and reds and umbers it looked like fire--and bowed low.
I was tempted to try hopping on my one good foot in order to get a glimpse of the enemy on the throne, but I didn't--and a moment later was glad I hadn't, for I saw the flash of a ring as Galdran waved carelessly at the guards. The four in front promptly stepped to each side, affording a clear field of vision between the King and me. I saw a tall, massively built man whose girth was running to portliness. Long red hair with gems braided into it, large nose, large ears, high forehead, pale blue eyes. He wore a long, carefully cultivated mustache. His mouth stretched in a cruel smile.
"So you won your wager, Shevraeth, eh?" he said. The tone was jovial, but there was an ugly edge ~ Sherwood Smith

So, what did you think of the Unseelie Court?"
A slow, wicked smile spread on his face. "Oh, Kaye," he breathed. "It was marvelous. It was perfect."
She narrowed her gaze. "I was joking. They were killing things, Corny. For fun. Things like us."
He didn't seem to hear her, his eyes looking past her to the bright window. "There was this knight, not yours. He ... " Corny shivered and seemed to abruptly change the direction of his sentence. "He had a cloak all lined with thorns."
"I saw him talking to the Queen," Kaye said.
Corny shrugged off his jacket. There were long scratches along his arms.
"What happened to you?"
Corny's smile widened, but his gaze was locked in some memory. He shifted it back to her. "Well, obviously I got inside the cloak."
She snorted. "What a euphemism. ~ Holly Black

From sunset she appeared,

Her cloak pierced by a bloom

Of unfamiliar climes.


She summoned me somewhere

Into the northern gloom

And aimless winter ice.


And bonfire burned 'mid night,

And with its tongues the blaze

Did lick the very skies.


The eyes flashed fiery light,

And falling as black snakes

The tresses were released.


And then the snakes encircled

My mind and lofty spirit

Lay spread upon the cross.


And in the snowdust's swirl

To black eyes I am true,

To beauty of the coils.

(untitled: "From sunset she appeared") ~ Alexander Blok

The Death of Allegory

I am wondering what became of all those tall abstractions
that used to pose, robed and statuesque, in paintings
and parade about on the pages of the Renaissance
displaying their capital letters like license plates.


Truth cantering on a powerful horse,
Chastity, eyes downcast, fluttering with veils.
Each one was marble come to life, a thought in a coat,
Courtesy bowing with one hand always extended,


Villainy sharpening an instrument behind a wall,
Reason with her crown and Constancy alert behind a helm.
They are all retired now, consigned to a Florida for tropes.
Justice is there standing by an open refrigerator.


Valor lies in bed listening to the rain.
Even Death has nothing to do but mend his cloak and hood,
and all their props are locked away in a warehouse,
hourglasses, globes, blindfolds and shackles.


Even if you called them back, there are no places left
for them to go, no Garden of Mirth or Bower of Bliss.
The Valley of Forgiveness is lined with condominiums
and chain saws are howling in the Forest of Despair.


Here on the table near the window is a vase of peonies
and next to it black binoculars and a money clip,
exactly the kind of thing we now prefer,
objects that sit quietly on a line in lower case,


themselves and nothing ~ Billy Collins

his hands moved busily among the puppets, choosing, discarding, until they pounced finally on the moon with her crystal eyes and her hands shaped like stars.
'I will be the moon,' Kyel said. 'You must make a wish to me.'
Lydea slid her fingers into the fox's head, with its sly smile and fiery velvet pelt. 'I wish,' she said, 'that you would take your nap.'
'No,' the prince said patiently, 'you must make a true wish. And I will grant it because I am the moon.'
'Then I must make a fox's wish. I wish for an open door to every hen house, and the ability to jump into trees.'
The moon sank onto the blue hillock of Kyel's knee. 'Why?'
'So that I can escape the farmer's dogs when they run after me.'
'Then you should wish,' the prince said promptly, 'that you could jump as high as the moon.'
'A good wish. But there are no hens on the moon, and how would I get back to Ombria?'
The moon rose again, lifted a golden hand. 'On a star.'
The governess smiled. The fox stroked the prince's hair while he shook away the moon and replaced it with the sorceress, who had one amethyst eye and one emerald, and who wore a black cloak that shimmered with ribbons of faint, changing colors.
'I am the sorceress who lives underground,' the prince said. 'Is there really a sorceress who lives underground?'
'So they --' Lydea checked herself, let the fox speak. 'So they say, my lord.'
'How does she live? Does she have a house?'
She paused a ~ Patricia A. McKillip

Magnus's head was tipped back, his shimmering white suit rumpled like bedsheets in the morning, his white cloak swaying after him like a moonbeam. His mirrorlike mask was askew, his black hair wild, his slim body arching with the dance, and wrapped around his fingers like ten shimmering rings was the light of his magic, casting a spotlight on one dancer, then another.
The faerie Hyacinth caught one radiant stream of magic and whirled, holding on to it as if the light were a ribbon on a maypole. The vampire woman in the violet cheongsam, Lily, was dancing with another vampire who Alec presumed was Elliott, given the blue and green stains around his mouth and all down his shirtfront. Malcolm Fade joined in the dance with Hyacinth, though he appeared to be doing a jig and she seemed very puzzled. The blue warlock who Magnus had called Catarina was waltzing with a tall horned faerie.The dark-skinned faerie whom Magnus had addressed as a prince was surrounded by others whom Alec presumed were courtiers, dancing in a circle around him.
Magnus laughed as he saw Hyacinth using his magic like a ribbon, and sent shimmering streamers of blue light in several directions. Catarina batted away Magnus's magic, her own hand glowing faintly white. The two vampires Lily and Elliott both let a magic ribbon wrap around one of their wrists. They did not seem like trusting types, but they instantly leaned into Magnus with perfect faith, Lily pretending to be a captive and Elliott shimmyi ~ Cassandra Clare

I don't think I could ever see her closely," the sentinel replied, "however close she came." His own voice was hushed and regretful, echoing with lost chances. "She has a newness," he said. "Everything is for the first time. See how she moves, how she walks, how she turns her head -- all for the first time, the first time anyone has ever done these things. See how she draws her breath and lets it go again, as though no one else in the world knew that air was good. It is all for her. If I learned that she had been born this very morning, I would only be surprised that she was so old." The second sentinel stared down from his tower at the three wanderers. The tall man saw him first, and next the dour woman. Their eyes reflected nothing but his armor, grim and cankered and empty. But then the girl in the ruined black cloak raised her head, and he stepped back from the parapet, putting out one tin glove against her glance. In a moment she passed into the shadow of the castle with her companions, and he lowered his hand. "She may be mad," he said calmly. "No grown girl looks like that unless she is mad. That would be annoying, but far preferable to the remaining possibility." "Which is?" the younger man prompted after a silence.
"Which is that she was indeed born this morning. I would rather that she were mad. ~ Peter S. Beagle

At times such as these, evenings in the forest, loneliness seized her like a black dog. She kept telling herself it was pure weakness, that she had to be strong to stay alive in this world. Her orphanhood hung about her like a cloak.
You shall not feel sorry for yourself, she commanded, and then disobeyed ... beneath the surface veneer of stubborn independence, she needed desperately to belong to somebody. ~ Jean Zimmerman

And so he lied because he can't speak the truth. His tongue is bent. He breaks oaths, my lady, and he swears black is white and white is black, and men believe him because he has honey on his bent tongue. But I know him, my lady, because he's my man, he's sworn to me." And with that I leaned down from the saddle and took hold of Haesten's mail coat, shirt, and cloak, and hauled him up. He ~ Bernard Cornwell

Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger. ~ William Golding

Forever I will move like the world that turns beneath me And when I lose my direction, I'll look up to the sky And when the black cloak drags upon the ground I'll be ready to surrender, and remember Well we're all in this together If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die. - THE AVETT BROTHERS, ONCE AND FUTURE CARPENTER ~ Colleen Hoover

Where are you taking me?" Andrew demanded, whirling on the Ferryman. His muscles tensed, hands curling in and out of fists.
"To my master." The voice was ghostly, whispers of black ash and death, words cold and detached.
He had an idea who that was but asked anyway: "And who is your master?"
No answer came.
Andrew's insatiable rage rose up and swallowed his grief like a yawning ocean mouth, the darkest depths surging to the surface to form a mighty tidal wave. He closed the distance and seized the Ferryman's gaunt wrist. There was no substance, no life beneath the cloak. The Ferryman slowly turned his hooded head, and Andrew found himself looking into the black hole of a self-contained night. The olfactory of decay was a punch in the face. Andrew released the Ferryman's wrist and hastily stepped back, rocking the boat as he put distance between him and the unnatural wind spilling from the gaping orifice. Andrew shivered, the tiny hairs on his neck saluting. The cloaked head faced forward again, and the wind died away. ~ Laura Kreitzer

Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people. ~ Terry Pratchett

Black America "isn't just as fissured as white America; it is more so," wrote Gates. And the mounting intraracial disparities mean that the realities of race no longer affect all blacks in the same way. There have been perverse consequences: in part to assuage our sense of survivor's guilt, we often cloak these differences in a romantic black nationalism - something that has become the veritable socialism of the black bourgeoisie.32 ~ Jason L. Riley

Without warning, he fingered the small, black tattoo on her lower back. "What does this script mean?"
She did gasp then, as much from the shock of his touch as from her visceral reaction to it. She wanted to arch up to his hand and couldn't understand why. She snapped, "Are you done groping me?"
"Canna say. Tell me what the marking means."
Mari had no idea. She'd had it ever since she could remember. All she knew was that her mother used to write out that mysterious lettering in all of her correspondence. Or, at least her mother had before she'd abandoned Mari in New Orleans to go on her two-hundred-year-long druid sabbatical -
He tapped her there, impatiently awaiting an answer.
"It means 'drunk and lost a bet.' Now keep your hands to yourself unless you want to be an amphibian." When the opening emerged ahead, she crawled heedlessly for it and scrambled out with her lantern swinging wildly. She'd taken only three steps into the new chamber before he'd caught her wrist, spinning her around.
As his gaze raked over her, he reached forward and pulled a lock of her long hair over her shoulder. He seemed unaware that he was languidly rubbing his thumb over the curl. "Why hide this face behind a cloak?" he murmured, cocking his head to the side as he studied her. "No' a damn thing's wrong with you that I can tell. But you look fey. Explains the name."
"How can I resist these suave compliments?" He was right about the name though. Many of the fey ~ Kresley Cole

I like to judge people and it was clear to me that Colin's life has been about as exciting as a cluster headache. You can tell this just from his humour tumour which runs through every conversation you have with him. I got the impression that Colin had arrived at his early fifties resenting the fact that he's spent his entire career worshiping at the altar of Dynasty PLC. But he is now so indoctrinated by the world of corporate banking that he's forgotten how to express the real him.

This is what a life working for large corporations does to people. The workplace is a place not to be you; it's a place to be the corporate you. The you that doesn't really exist. We all see this corporate you and pretend that it's a normal part of life. But we know that something isn't quite right. We know that the real you is slowly fading away like old wallpaper. The corporate you is a myth; just like Icarus. And yet we are powerless against it. All of us are powerless against the wrath of the corporate world. ~ Rupert Dreyfus

I don't know that he said a thing. He smelled strange, I noticed that right away, not rotten like you and Roticella said, more complicated, like an apple that the wasps are flying around, musty, but autumny... I can't explain. But he hissed, and those awful red eyes, like red fire, coals. God, they were anything but dead the way they are in his picture. I could see the iris was dark brown, almost black, and the whites were bloodshot lines... The lashes were thick and Harry I just can't say this right, but the eyes, they weren't repulsive. Evil, evil, but not to turn you away. I... I couldn't stop looking at him. It was like some sort of spider sucking out all my juices. Destroying me right there on the sidewalk.

'And I felt I was going to faint, and I tried, I tried to break out of that stare of his, but I couldn't. He was drawing everything out of me - my job, that you were trying to trap him, even things about me, even personal things. Then... then he was gone.

'I was conscious of myself again, it was like I had been left hollow, worthless. I mean something of me went with him and the rest of me wanted to go with him. I'm ashamed, Harry, so ashamed...' She sobbed for a moment, then with difficulty regained her control. ~ Leslie H. Whitten Jr.

The core of the culture is racism and how black men are viewed. They've always been demonized and seen as threats in our culture. Another holdover from slavery. We've got to deal with that core root of racism and demonization of the upbringing of black men. Black women are not exempt by any means. ~ Marian Wright Edelman

In particular I want to talk about natural black hair, and how it's not just hair. I mean, I'm interested in hair in sort of a very aesthetic way, just the beauty of hair, but also in a political way: what it says, what it means. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The overhead lights reflect in the glass countertop and mingle in the gray and black of the gloves, resulting in a mother-of-pearl swirl that sometimes sends Mirabelle into a shallow hypnotic dream. ~ Steve Martin

Many black people I know are proud of the Irish part of their heritage - an Irish grandparent, say - but they recognise that many people believe in a form of racial purity. And it is from that belief that prejudice starts. ~ Tom Paulin

Tell me. Has your daughter made the journey with you?"

"She is here," the hag says. A girl steps from the crowd to bow low before Cardan. She is young, with a mass of unbound hair. Like her mother, her limbs are oddly long and twig-like, but where her mother is unsettlingly bony, she has a kind of grace. Maybe it helps that her feet resemble human ones.

Although, to be fair, they are turned backward. ~ Holly Black

The criminalization of Black life was something specific to the United States in the post-Reconstruction period and there's something like it happening today with mass incarceration, directed largely against black males. ~ Noam Chomsky