Taste For The Devil Quotes

So far you've spent your life striving to please others," she heard him say. "With a rather poor rate of success. Why don't you try pleasing yourself for a change? Why not live by your own rules? What has obeying the conventions ever gotten you?" Evie pondered the questions, and her breath hissed in pleasure as he found a particularly sore spot. "I like the conventions," she said after a moment. "There is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person, is there?" "No. But you're not ordinary - or you never would have come to me instead of marrying cousin Eustace." "I was desperate." "That wasn't the entire reason." His low voice sounded like a purr. "You also had a taste for the devil. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I was desperate."
"That wasn't the entire reason." His low voice sounded like a purr. "You also had a taste for the devil."
"I didn't! I don't!"
"You enjoyed cornering me, an infamous rake, in my own home with an offer I couldn't afford to refuse. Don't try to deny it - I know you well enough by now."
Incredibly, despite her grief and worry, Evie felt a smile working up to her lips. "Perhaps I did enjoy it, for a moment," she admitted. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The managers and superintendents and clerks of Packingtown were all recruited from another class, and never from the workers; they scorned the workers, the very meanest of them. A poor devil of a bookkeeper who had been working in Durham's for twenty years at a salary of six dollars a week, and might work there for twenty more and do no better, would yet consider himself a gentleman, as far removed as the poles from the most skilled worker on the killing beds; he would dress differently, and live in another part of the town, and come to work at a different hour of the day, and in every way make sure that he never rubbed elbows with a laboring man. Perhaps this was due to the repulsiveness of the work; at any rate, the people who worked with their hands were a class apart, and were made to feel it. ~ Upton Sinclair

A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. ~ John Herschel

Need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? ~ Marilynne Robinson

God reveals himself, that is, in creation and in Christ, in ways we can see and hear and touch and taste, in place and person. Beauty is the term we apply to these hints of transcendence, these perceptions that there is more going on here than we can account for.

And that is how we come to identify as apostles of the gospel the men and women and, yes, children, who use words and images and sounds and textures to wake us up to beauty latent and implicit all around us. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Watch out for that effelant. They're green and like the taste of Vikings. ~ Mark Lawrence

Loners are the opposition. Pensive, thoughtful and furious, marooned with stories that need to be spoken out loud and no one to listen, curries to be cooked and no one to taste, days and days of traffic signals to be manoeuvred and no one to congratulate except other loners: they find each other because like all good maps there are familiar signs that lead the way. The loner who both observes and creates worlds necessarily speaks with many tongues. It is with these tongues that she explores the contours of the centre and the margins, the signs for somewhere and elsewhere and here and now. ~ Deborah Levy

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I reach for my bag, pulling out gum, but he quickly moves to me, sliding his hands up my neck to cup my face. "Don't." He leans close, sucking on my mouth the way he seems to like so much. "You taste like me. I taste like you." He bends, licking my tongue, my lips, my teeth. "I like this so much. Let it stay, just for a bit. ~ Christina Lauren

Today, it is the scent of honeysuckle that takes me back in time and lays me down near a barn. I pick a honeysuckle blossom, touch the trumpet to my nose and inhale. With sticky filthy fingers, I pinch the base of its delicate well then lick the drop of nectar. The sweet liquid makes me thirst for more, and I reach for another and another, the same hands that reach again and again for tobacco as I string. I separate honeysuckle blossoms and taste. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing - I know that. Here it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks entrance to my heart."

"Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel."

"Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne - between a guide and a seducer?"

"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more misery if you listen to it."

"Not at all - it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"

He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.

"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim - a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Be careful who you trust, for even the Devil was once an Angel. ~ Bianca Scardoni

A man's features, the bone structure and the tissue which covers it, are the product of a biological process; but his face he creates for himself. It is a statement of his habitual emotional attitude; the attitude which his desires need for their fulfilment and which his fears demand for their protection from prying eyes. He wears it like a devil mask; a device to evoke in others the emotions complementary to his own. ~ Eric Ambler

Tonight, however, Dickens struck him in a different light. Beneath the author's sentimental pity for the weak and helpless, he could discern a revolting pleasure in cruelty and suffering, while the grotesque figures of the people in Cruikshank's illustrations revealed too clearly the hideous distortions of their souls. What had seemed humorous now appeared diabolic, and in disgust at these two favourites he turned to Walter Pater for the repose and dignity of a classic spirit.

But presently he wondered if this spirit were not in itself of a marble quality, frigid and lifeless, contrary to the purpose of nature. 'I have often thought', he said to himself, 'that there is something evil in the austere worship of beauty for its own sake.' He had never thought so before, but he liked to think that this impulse of fancy was the result of mature consideration, and with this satisfaction he composed himself for sleep.

He woke two or three times in the night, an unusual occurrence, but he was glad of it, for each time he had been dreaming horribly of these blameless Victorian works…

It turned out to be the Boy's Gulliver's Travels that Granny had given him, and Dicky had at last to explain his rage with the devil who wrote it to show that men were worse than beasts and the human race a washout. A boy who never had good school reports had no right to be so morbidly sensitive as to penetrate to the underlying cynicism of Swift's delightful fable, and th ~ Margaret Irwin

Thus the blasphemy of the homosexual formula, for it denies Babalon and breeds devils in chaos. ~ Kenneth Grant

He paid her only the compliment of attention; and she felt a respect for him on the occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless want of taste. ~ Jane Austen

The appetite for silence is seldom an acquired taste. ~ Emily Dickinson

It may also be that, quite apart from any specific references one food makes to another, it is the very allusiveness of cooked food that appeals to us, as indeed that same quality does in poetry or music or art. We gravitate towards complexity and metaphor, it seems, and putting fire to meat or fermenting fruit and grain, gives us both: more sheer sensory information and, specifically, sensory information that, like metaphor, points away from the here and now. This sensory metaphor - this stands for that - is one of the most important transformations of nature wrought by cooking. And so a piece of crisped pig skin becomes a densely allusive poem of flavors: coffee and chocolate, smoke and Scotch and overripe fruit and, too, the sweet-salty-woodsy taste of maple syrup on bacon I loved as a child. As with so many other things, we humans seem to like our food overdetermined. ~ Michael Pollan

One can make no better investment than the cultivation of a taste for the beautiful, for it will bring rainbow hues and enduring joys to the whole life. It will not only greatly increase one's capacity for happiness, but also one's efficiency. ~ Orison Swett Marden

I think to be in politics you have to have the taste for blood on that. ~ Moira Kelly

Thomas More: ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you
where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast
man's laws, not God's
and if you cut them down ... d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake. ~ Robert Bolt

Can you imagine it, Alister? Can you imagine what it was like for a shade like me to experience the world again through all of your senses- vision and touch, and smell and taste and hearing?"
"I wouldn't have gone to the library, I'll tell you that," Han said.
Crow laughed. "I like you, Alister. All of this would have been easier if you were unlikable. And stupid. You would have been considerably more tractable. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

That's absolutely true, about the eight glasses a day. There's no reason whatsoever to drink eight glasses of water a day unless you, for whatever reason, particularly like the taste of water. Most experts agree that unless there's something horribly wrong with you, you should just drink water whenever you're - get this - thirsty. ~ John Green

As for 'Dear Friend Hitler,' if it ever gets off the ground it will likely go down in history as little more than a symbol of Bollywood's limitless capacity for poor taste. ~ Sadanand Dhume

As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother. If he prides himself on having God for his Father but does not give to Mary the tender affection of a true child, he is an impostor and his father is the devil. ~ Louis De Montfort

I have never cared very deeply about the actual taste of my work. Let its essential odor satisfy my mind and senses, and I am content. I rarely judge by the grosser test of actual gustation ... in cooking, to create a masterpiece for the nose alone - that is exquisite, that is Art! ~ Elinor Wylie

In my twenties if even a tenth reading of Mallarmé failed to yield up its treasures, the fault was mine, not his. If my eyes swooned shut while I read The Sweet Cheat Gone, Proust's pacing was never called into question, just my intelligence and dedication and sensitivity. And I still entertain these sacralizing preconceptions about high art. I still admire what is difficult, though I now recognize it as a "period" taste and that my generation was the last to give a damn. Though we were atheists, we were, strangely enough, preparing ourselves for God's great Quiz Show; we had to know everything because we were convinced we would be tested on it - in our next life. ~ Edmund White

A soul, therefore, when deprived of the Word of God, is given up unarmed to the devil for destruction ~ John Calvin

Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd come to New York to write. It was supposed to be about America, and freedom, and the kinship of time to pain, but in order to write about these things, he'd needed experience. Well, be careful what you wish for. For now all he seemed capable of producing was a string of sentences starting, Here was William. Here was William's courage, for example. And here was William's sadness, smallness of stature, size of hands. Here was his laugh in a dark movie theater, his unpunk love of the films of Woody Allen, not for any of the obvious ways they flattered his sensibility, but for something he called their tragic sense, which he compared to Chekhov's (whom Mercer knew he had not read). Here was the way he never asked Mercer about his work; the way he never talked about his own and yet seemed to carry it with him just beneath the skin; the way his skin looked in the sodium light from outside with the light off, with clothes off, in silver rain; the way he embodied qualities Mercer wanted to have, but without ruining them by wanting to have them; the way his genius overflowed its vessel, running off into the drain; the unfinished self-portrait; the hint of some trauma in his past, like the war a shell-shocked town never talks about; his terrible taste in friends; his complete lack of discipline; the inborn incapacity for certain basic things that made you want to mother him, fuc ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

You have to stay out of the game. It's deadly and no one ever wins. Everyone is a loser. Even seeming wins are short-lived and have the taste of bitterness mixed in with the satisfaction of personal gain. The ego is exclusive by nature. While the spirit seeks to include, the ego is unashamedly manipulative in its culling of people. The intention of self-aggrandisement is barely even covered over. The soul does not see people in terms of what it can gain. It seeks to share. It seeks to create by extension of its own and others' true nature. The ego is extremely changeable. It has no stability. Constantly guarding against attack and looking out for its own advantage, its perceptions and thus feelings towards others are ever-shifting. This creates unhappiness. The more we veer away from our true nature, the more unhappy we feel. When we align with our better self, we feel happy again. And so the process continues until the spaces between happiness are not as long and arduous. The presence or absence of personal peace is our barometer. It will guide us even if we are not sure of the way. ~ Donna Goddard

Who can tell?
Your living is an organized hell.
The mansion of your mind just an oversized cell.
The pressure, everything is done to a measure.
In the sea of competition sunk like a treasure.
Like a feather falling slow spiraling to the floor.
Strung up like a broken violin to your course.
Opportunity is knocking at your door,
But you never left a welcome mat (It doesn't matter anymore.).
Or anyhow, but you're too late to turn back.
Fate pushing you into the wall like a thumbtack.
Ain't no comebacks in this game of life.
Roll the dice again,
Roll it once, never twice.

Keep on going, and taste the stars.
Keep on growing, and raise the bar.
You're living life for the As down to the Zs,
After one drop you got a fountain to seize.

Wanna break from the world, but the world wanna break you,
The weight makes your backbone curl up and make you. ~ Tablo

They call me a monster and if it were untrue the weight of my crimes would pin me to the ground. I have maimed and I have murdered and if this mountain stood but a little higher I would cut the angels from their heaven. I care less for accusations than for the rain that soaks me, that runs down every limb. I spit both from my lips. Judgment has always left a sour taste. ~ Mark Lawrence

The lust for chaos wrenched reason from my mind. She wanted the power I'd called before. She wanted to burn it all; to slice open the veil and summon the fires of hell to dance for her. She burned for it, and so did I." ~ Muse ~ Pippa DaCosta

Mmm, butt bagels." Elody reaches into the bag and pulls out a bagel, half squashed, then makes a big deal of taking an enormous bite out of it. "Taste like Victoria's Secret."
"Taste like thong floss," I say.
"Taste like crack," Lindsay says.
"Taste like fart," Elody says, and Lindsay spits coffee on the dashboard, and I start laughing and can't stop, and all the way to school we're thinking of flavors for butt bagels, and I'm thinking that this
my life, my friends
might be weird or screwy or imperfect or damaged or whatever, but it's never seemed better to me. ~ Lauren Oliver

Then, on a left-hand curve 2.8 kilometres from the finish line, Marco delivers another cutting acceleration. Tonkov is immediately out of the saddle. The gap reaches two lengths. Tonkov fights his way back and is on Marco's wheel when Marco, who is still standing on the pedals, accelerates again. Suddenly Tonkov is no longer there. Afterwards Tonkov would say he could no longer feel his hands and feet. 'I had to stop. I lost his slipstream. I couldn't go on.' Marco told Romano Cenni he could taste blood. His performance on Montecampione was close to self-mutilation.
Seven hundred metres from the finish line, the TV camera on the inside of the final right-hand bend, looking down the hill, picks Marco up over two hundred metres from the line and follows him for fifty metres, a fifteen-second close-up, grainy, pallid in the late-afternoon light. A car and motorbike, diffused and ghostlike, pass between the camera and Marco, emerging out of the gloom. The image cuts to another camera, tight on him as he swings round into the finishing straight, a five-second flash before the live, wide shot of the stage finish: Marco, framed between ecstatic fans on either side, and the finish-line scaffolding adorned with race sponsors' logos; largest, and centrally, the Gazzetta dello Sport, surrounded by branding for iced tea, shower gel, telephone services.
Then we see it again in the super-slow-motion replay; the five seconds between the moment Marco appeared in the closing straigh ~ Matt Rendell

The use of ghosts as a means of social control predated the Klan. Slave owners employed so-called patterollers, usually poor whites, who would patrol the countryside at night; such patrols would regularlyuse spook stories, among other tactics, to help keep enslaved people from escaping. "The fraudulent ghost," [Gladys-Marie] Fry writes, "was the first in a gradually developed system of night-riding creatures, the fear of which was fostered by white for the purpose of slave control." A man in a white sheet on horseback riding ominously through a forest could help substantiate rumers that the forest was haunted and that those who valued their lives best avoid it. By spreading ghost stories, Southern whites hoped to limit the unauthorized movement of black people. If cemeteries, crossroads, and forests came to be known particularly as haunted, it's because they presented the easiest means of escape and had to be patrolled.

Now it's common to think of such places as the provenance of spirits. We have stories for such places: a tragic death, forlorn lovers, a devil waiting to make a deal -- stories that reflect a rich tradition of American folklore. But all this might have come much later, and these places might have first earned their haunted reputation through much more deviant methods. In the ghost-haunting legacies of many of these public spaces lies a hidden history of patrolling and limiting access. ~ Colin Dickey

Impossible?" she scoffed, lurching to face him. "You have servants who can pull the brains from a calf's head, but they couldn' get one little pear out of a bottle? I doubt that. Send for one of your under-butlers - just give a whistle, and - oh, I forgot. You can't whistle." She focused on him, her eyes narrowing as she stared at his mouth. "That's the sillies' thing I ever heard. Everyone can whistle. I'll teach you. Right now. Pucker your lips. Like this. Pucker…see?"
Marcus caught her in his arms as she swayed before him. Staring down at her adorably pursed lips, he felt an insistent warmth invading his heart, overflowing and spilling past its fretted barriers. God in heaven, he was tired of fighting his desire for her. It was exhausting to struggle against something so overwhelming. Like trying not to breathe.
Lillian stared at him earnestly, seeming puzzled by his refusal to comply. "No, no, not like that. Like this." The bottle dropped to the carpet. She reached up to his mouth and tried to shape his lips with her fingers. "Rest your tongue on the edge of your teeth and…it's all about the tongue, really. If you're agile with your tongue, you'll be a very, very good" - she was temporarily interrupted as he covered her mouth with a brief, ravening kiss - "whistler. My lord, I can't talk when you - " He fitted his mouth to hers again, devouring the sweet brandied taste of her. ~ Lisa Kleypas

What did Saturday's used to taste like? Like eggs and fried ham and the bitter smell of hair in heavy rollers. Like long quiet hours and making up after a fight. Like ointment and bruising. Like waiting, especially, for something - anything - to happen. ~ Lauren Oliver

Many of us have moments of weakness when we feel as if our cravings have taken us captive or left us out of control. Sometimes they leave our faith flavorless because we are craving what used to be or what we wish could be. The Bible tells us there is a season for everything, and if we don't learn to taste each season as it is served, we will end up missing special moments and those life lessons we need to draw closer to God. I love the seasons of love and laughter, but I have discovered that the seasons of loneliness and painful places are when I learn what my faith is for. The best way to season our faith again is to become salt in others' lives when our own feel lifeless. ~ Sheri Rose Shepherd

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
"And the foolish can cite Shakespeare. ~ Susan Dennard

ROSS PEROT was the best thing that happened in American politics since Richard Nixon acquired a taste for gin. In both cases, the political dialogue of the day was enriched by spontaneous gibberish that entertained the wrong people and made the right ones question their faith. ~ Hunter S. Thompson