Tearing Quotes

You will not understand your part within the framework of nature until you actually see yourselves in danger of tearing it apart. ~ Seth

History is the dark magician inside us, tearing at our liver. (Deborah Levy, Hot Milk, p. 185) ~ Deborah Levy

Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshiping the same god. ~ Ridley Scott

You look like a pagan. A pagan warrior queen." He scraped his teeth along her throat. "Naked, glowing, wearing nothing but ropes of diamonds."
"I want you inside me." Breath tearing, she bit at his ear. "Hot, hard inside me."
"My hands are busy at the moment." He filled them with her breasts. "I'll need help getting out of this shirt."
She reached up, tore it open, sending buttons flying.
"Well, that's one way."
"It's how it works when you're a pagan warrior queen. Take me." She gripped his hair, yanked his mouth to hers. "I want you to take me like there's nothing you need more."
"There isn't. It's you. It's always you. ~ J.D. Robb

Opposites are joined at the hip. Night and day, poisons and pleasures, innovation and destruction are usually different facets of the very same thing. [...] Opposites work together in the very opposite of the way they seem - not tearing each other to bits or threatening to annihilate each other. ~ Howard Bloom

Marital faithfulness involves more than just sexual fidelity. Being faithful to your wife also means defending her and affirming her beauty, intelligence, and integrity at all times, particularly before other people. Faithfulness to your husband means sticking up for him, always building him up and never tearing him down. Marital fidelity means that your spouse's health, happiness, security, and welfare take a higher place in your life than anything else except your own relationship with the Lord. ~ Myles Munroe

If you saw a wounded person, torn and mangled, on the highway, the sight of so deplorable an object would fill you with compassion; the sight of your friends under the disease I am now speaking ought to move you much more, for it is tearing them to pieces every moment. Every moment it preys upon their vitals, and they are continually dying, yet cannot die. ~ Timothy Rogers

Neil felt a half-second from losing his mind, but then Andrew said his name and Neil's thoughts ground to a startled halt. He was belatedly aware of his hand at his ear and his fingers clenched tight around his phone. He didn't remember pulling it from his pocket or making the decision to dial out. He lowered it and tapped a button, thinking maybe he'd imagined things, but Andrew's name was on his display and the timer put the call at almost a minute already. Neil put the phone back to his ear, but he couldn't find the words for the wretched feeling that was tearing away at him. In three months championships would be over. In four months he'd be dead. In five months the Foxes would be right back here for summer practices with six new faces. Neil could count his life on one hand now. On the other hand was the future he couldn't have: vice-captain, captain, Court. Neil had no right to mourn these missed chances. He'd gotten more than he deserved this year; it was selfish to ask for more. He should be grateful for what he had, and gladder still that his death would mean something. He was going to drag his father and the Moriyamas down with him when he went, and they'd never recover from the things he said. It was justice when he'd never thought he'd get any and revenge for his mother's death. He thought he'd come to terms with it but that hollow ache was back in his chest where it had no right to be. Neil felt like he was drowning. Neil found his voice at last, but the best he h ~ Nora Sakavic

George W. Bush and his administration embarked on a full-scale assault on civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law, walking away from his international obligations, tearing up international treaties, protocols and UN conventions. ~ Bianca Jagger

No one outside of our family unit would ever guess that away from prying eyes, we were systematically tearing ourselves apart. Away from the outside world, everyone in our family started to fall to pieces, and never really recovered. Even though our times together are always fun and laughter-filled, the closeness we once shared is gone. In its place is guilt, regret, the ability to say the nastiest things and, for the longest minute on earth, mean every word of them ~ Dorothy Koomson

[O]ne may properly look closely at any proposed new "freedom" from restraint or convention in order to learn what if any personal interest the advocate of the proposal has therein. Personal observation supports the statement that he who speaks for the tearing down of convention and the doing away with restraint may be one who wishes to escape the odium of some defect of his own habit or character, by having everyone else either become as he is or take his point of view. ~ J. Reuben Clark Jr.

So what do they do? They start writing articles in the New York Daily News. Boy, that's a paper that loves to write crap on people, isn't it? Wanna talk about a paper that supports fascism! Man, I've seen more doctors hatcheted in there. The butchery they did on Emmanuel Revici, the butchery they did on Lawrence Burton, calling him nothing more
what was the quote the guy said? ... "Burton is nothing more than a horse doctor." Denigrating him, tearing down his character. ~ Gary Null

He puts his hand on the wall next to my head and moves closer. I put my other hand on his chest. Not to stop him. Just to feel more of his body.
He closes his eyes and exhales before looking at me again. "If you're feeling even half of the attraction I'm feeling toward you, then, no, I don't think you could resist. In fact, I think if I kissed you right now, we'd barely make it through that door before tearing each other's clothes off and fucking like there's no tomorrow. ~ Leisa Rayven

Excessively precise economic analysis can lead to assessing everything in terms of its easily measurable melt value - the value that thieves get from stealing copper wiring from isolated houses, that vandals got from tearing down Greek temples for the lead joints holding the marble blocks together, that shortsighted timber companies get from liquidating their forests. The standard to insist on is live value. What is something worth when it's working? ~ Stewart Brand

A Lion Overpowered

Sheikh Abu Masood bin Abi Bakr Harimi (r.a) reports that there was a very great Saint by the name of Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) He used to travel on a lion wherever he went. In every city that he visited, it was his habit to ask the people of the city to send one cow for his lion's meal. Once, he went to a certain city and requested from the Saint of that city a cow for his lion. The Saint sent the cow to him and said, "If you ever go to Baghdad, your lion will receive a welcome invitation."

Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) then journeyed to Baghdad Shareef. On arriving in Baghdad, he sent one of his disciples to al-Ghawth al-A'zam (r.a) and commanded that a cow be sent to him, as a meal for his lion. The great Ghawth was already aware of his coming. He had already arranged for a cow to be kept for the lion. On the command of Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) sent one of his disciples with a cow to him. As the disciple took the cow with him, a weak and old stray dog which used to sit outside the home of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) followed the disciple. The disciple presented the cow to Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) who in turn signalled the lion to commence feeding. As the lion ran towards the cow, this stray dog pounced on the lion. It caught the lion by its throat and killed the lion by tearing open its stomach. The dog then dragged the lion and threw it before al-Ghawth al-A'zam (r.a)

On seeing this, Sheikh Ahm ~ Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jilani

I used to stalk this dude I went to high school with. I would close up the bread shop where I worked, take one of the loaves that was intended for donation to the soup kitchen, then drive my car to his parents' house and park close enough to see inside, but far enough away to be inconspicuous. Then I would sit there with the engine running, tearing off chunks of apple-cinnamon bread and listening to De La Soul while imagining our life together.
I am a deeply troubled person ~ Samantha Irby

But I am not sure what this self is. For the moment I seem to be busy tearing down what I was. ~ Anais Nin

They cowered in a corner as far away as they could from the sound of ripping, tearing and banging. The creature above was frantically trying to find a way through the floor to them.
The terrifying scraping noise signaled that the thing had torn its way through the clean, white woolen carpet that had neatly covered the hard wood floorboards. Now it scraped its claws along the wood trying to find a hold.
In frustration, and after many attempts, it thumped the floor in anger. Screaming a long high-pitched whistle, it smashed itself hard and heavily against the floor.
Dust drifted towards them as they looked to each other for any suggestions to the one impending question upon all of their minds.
How are we going to get out of here alive? ~ Robert E. Kreig

We writers spent the entire twentieth century tearing down the bourgeoisie! ... We in the arts have been complicit in the denigration of the best people on earth. Why? Because so many of the most influential ideas of our time are the product of a new creature of the twentieth century, a creature that did not exist until 1898 - and that creature is known as 'the intellectual. ~ Tom Wolfe

Curran spared me half a second of his hard stare. "Even if you thought I was in the Guild, what did you think I was doing while the giant was tearing it up? Did you think I was sitting on my hands?" "I thought you might be injured." He looked at me. "We've met, you and I?" I deliberately took a big step back. "What?" he growled. "I'm making room for your ego." "Fine. I should've left a note!" "You should've." "Answer me this, did you hesitate at all or did you see the giant, go 'Wheee!' and run toward it?" "She ran toward it," Juke quipped. "He was biting people in half." "I rest my case," Curran said. "A note wouldn't have made any difference." Note or not, I didn't care. I was just happy he was alive. ~ Ilona Andrews

The Swimming Pool

All around the apt. swimming pool
the boys stare at the girls
and the girls look everywhere but the opposite
or down or up. It is
as it was a thousand years ago: the fat
boy has it hardest, he
takes the sneers,
prefers the winter so he can wear
his heavy pants and sweater.
Today, he's here with the others.
Better they are cruel to him in his presence
than out. Of the five here now (three boys,
two girls) one is fat, three cruel,
and one, a girl, wavers to the side,
all the world tearing at her.
As yet she has no breasts
(her friend does) and were it not
for the forlorn fat boy whom she joins
in taunting, she could not bear her terror,
which is the terror
of being him. Does it make her happy
that she has no need, right now, of ingratiation,
of acting fool to salve
her loneliness? She doesn't seem
so happy. She is like
the lower middle class, that fatal group
handed crumbs so they can drop a few
down lower, to the poor, so they won't kill
the rich. All around
the apt. swimming pool
there is what's everywhere: forsakenness
and fear, a disdain for those beneath us
rather than a rage
against the ones above: the exploiters,
the oblivious and unabashedly cruel. ~ Thomas Lux

In other nightmares, in his everyday reality, Victor watched his father take a drink of vodka on a completely empty stomach. Victor could hear that near-poison fall, then hit, flesh and blood, nerve and vein. Maybe it was like lightning tearing an old tree into halves. Maybe it was like a wall of water, a reservation tsunami, crashing onto a small beach. Maybe it was like Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Maybe it was like all that. Maybe. But after he drank, Victor's father would breathe in deep and close his eyes, stretch, and straighten his neck and back. During those long drinks, Victor's father wasn't shaped like a question mark. He looked more like an exclamation point. ~ Sherman Alexie

I'm very proud that our country still produces people like my son, who choose the path less traveled; that knowingly step up to serve, even though our country is tearing itself apart with things like political machinations. ~ Steve Daines

Trying to keep us both whole was tearing me apart ~ Laura E Weymouth

Her eyes on my eyes. I was tearing apart, inside and outside.
Her life.
My life. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Stupid men and their stupid violence. Tearing apart everything good that was ever built. Why couldn't you ever just go after your life without tripping over some idiot's dick? ~ Rebecca Makkai

What a sad thing men are. Can't do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can't build something up without tearing it
down. ~ Patrick Ness

My teeth ache, my gums hurt, and my cat is tearing me apart, wanting you in every way imaginable. Your body. Your magic. Your fire spirit. Your blood. ~ N.D. Jones

Her free hand was clenched in a fist. I held still, waiting for her to say something, to tell me she should have never left me here, where her friends might look to me for help.
Finally she looked at me. Her eyes were hard, but she'd let no tears fall. "This is where we blame those who are responsible, Cooper, she told me, her voice very soft. "The colemongers, and the bought Dogs at Tradesmen's kennel. We'll leave an offering for him with the Black God when all this is done, and we'll occupy ourselves with tearing these colemongers apart. all right? We put grief aside for now. ~ Tamora Pierce

So, say, when they're out in their little boats and they hear voices in the night, they forget whatever destination they had in mind and they go tearing straight towards the sound, screaming their heads off. ~ Simon Spurrier

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. 1 Peter 3:15 When you're challenged or asked about your faith, you shouldn't respond arrogantly. You shouldn't be defiant or forceful, as if you were tearing trees out of the ground. Rather, you should respond with fear and humility, as if you were standing before God and answering him. If you were summoned before kings and princes and had prepared yourself well in advance with Scripture, you might think, "Just wait; I'll answer correctly." But the devil will grab the sword out of your hands and give you a shove. You will be disgraced and find out you put your armor on in vain. He can even take your best verses from your hands so that you can't use them, even though you have them memorized. God allows this to happen to subdue your arrogance and make you humble. ~ Martin Luther

He always entered the house as though he were entering it with the intention of tearing it down from inside ~ Tennessee Williams

A competitive culture endures by tearing people down. ~ Jules Henry

Life has moments that feel as if the sun has blackened to tar and the entire world turned to ice. It feels as if Hades and his vile demons have risen from the depths of Tartarus solely for the purpose of banding to personally torture you, and that their genuine intent of mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish is tearing you to shreds. Your heart weighs as heavily as leaden legs which you would drag yourself forward with if not for the quicksand that pulls you down inch by inch, paralyzing your will and threatening oblivion. And all the while fire and brimstone pour from the sky, pelting only you.
Truly, that is what it feels like. But that feeling is a trial that won't last forever. Never give up. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Saga of Tristan and Danika. The battles and the victories. The defeats and the triumphs. The tragedies and the trials. Somewhere in the middle, I had him tearing up, ~ R.K. Lilley

You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the "brain" of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of "other people," which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people ~ Philip Roth

Jesper and Kaz swung around, crashed into the mechanism of the clock, righted themselves. It wasn't a fight, it was a brawl - graceless, a tangle of elbows and fists.
"Ghezen and his works, someone stop them!" Wylan said desperately.
"Jesper hasn't shot him," Nina said.
"Kaz isn't using his cane," said Inej.
"You think they can't kill each other with their bare hands?"
They were both bleeding - Jesper from a cut on his lip and Kaz from somewhere near his brow. Jesper's shirt was halfway over his head and Kaz's sleeve was tearing at the seam. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I'm not known as a singer, but in life I like to do things that are a bit beyond my reach to keep myself from slipping. I find that technology has made it so that we don't need to have a memory system, and as I get older I want to do things that challenge me. What could be more challenging than doing this show with a knee that's been replaced, after tearing my Achilles heel with a baker's cyst on the back of my knee? And then I have to try and dance! ~ George Hamilton

His hands clenched. Sugar, I'm this close to tearing off your clothes and teaching you exactly how badly I take you keeping secrets from me. Your choice. Talk or get naked. ~ Nalini Singh

We have all cherished our life purposes. We have forecast our futures as likely to lie in a certain direction and have dearly desired that it should be so. When hindrances have been put in our way and when we have met with strong opposition and rebuff, we have still clung to our hope. Only very slowly have we yielded and accepted the inevitable. To renounce it has been like tearing out our heart. Not till long years have passed have we realized that the Lord's plan was much wiser and grander that our own. Then suddenly we have awakened to discover that while we were desiring to do one thing, God was leading us to do another and that what we have counted secondary was primary, for His glory, and for the lasting satisfaction of our own heart. ~ F.B. Meyer

I don't know what to do," Will said. "Mortmain has taken Tessa, and I believe now I know where she might be. There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to go after her. But I cannot leave Jem. I swore an oath. And what if he wakes in the night and finds I am not here?" He looked as lost as a child. "He will think I left him willingly, not caring that he was dying. He will not know. And yet if he could speak, would he not tell me to go after Tessa? Is that not what he would want?" Will dropped his face into his hands. "I cannot say, and it is tearing me in half. ~ Cassandra Clare

He had not been sleeping well over Christmas. Actually, he hadn't been doing anything well over Christmas – eating, sleeping, exercising, talking, looking after himself, laughing, crying… No, he hadn't really been crying despite all the pain he felt. It was just tearing him up inside, quietly. It was like his insides were being ripped up by an angered tiger. ~ Pamela Harju

A Prayer for The Wild at Heart

A prayer for the wild at heart
Kept in cages
I know how you long
To run wild and free
To feel your blood pumping
To hear your heart beating faster
Yet you can't
For you are locked inside a prison
One that you will never escape
I can hear your howls of pain
And your growls of frustration
Pacing back and forth
Clawing at the bars
Tearing at your skin
Begging to be set free
Your eyes are wild of full hate
You face bears no smile
Only a snarl of anger

Blood drips from your hands
Blood from the people
Who didn't understand
Your fearful whimpers fill the air
As you look to the full moon
And let out a mournful howl
Your voice gets louder
As I and the others join in
We let our pleads fill the night
As we sit in our cold cages
Praying someone will hear

- Tennessee Williams ~ Tennessee Williams

I'm tearing down Route 80 East, the sun's on my right side. I'm drunk, but my vision's good. ~ Lou Reed

( ... ) she knew this: She was falling for this girl, this beautiful, beautiful girl, and she wanted to fall. She wanted to leap right now, arms spread wide, gravity pulling her down, the wind tearing at her hair. She didn't care if she crashed, as long as Amber crashed with her. ~ Malinda Lo

Hey, this ship hasn't sunk yet," she said, tearing her gaze away from the museum. "We may have one sail, but we're still going. ~ Alexandra Bracken

Everyone should play their role in tearing down the wall of hatred. ~ Lalu Prasad Yadav

of the station wagon tearing up the ~ S.K. Epperson

My office is committed to tearing down unlawful barriers to voting to ensure that all eligible voters are able to freely cast a ballot. ~ Eric Schneiderman

Nothing, indeed, is more revolting to English feelings than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that "decent drapery" which time or indulgence to human frailty may have drawn over them; accordingly, the greater part of our confessions (that is, spontaneous and extra-judicial confessions) proceed from demireps, adventurers, or swindlers. ~ Thomas De Quincey

The hole left by the moon's tearing-free and monument to her exile; ~ Thomas Pynchon

I stand so abruptly that Leiza startles.

"If Violet wants to find me, I'll be outside chopping wood," I tell her, causing her to choke back a sound that suspiciously resembles a smothered laugh.

When I eye her, she's the picture of seriousness, nodding once again. "Of course, Alpha," she says so graciously.

Tearing my shirt over my head, I toss it to the ground. Leiza's phone rings, and she puts it aside.

"A vampire is calling me. That can't be good," she says as she meets my eyes, almost asking for permission to answer Shera's call.

"They're trying to reach me. Not you. They can kiss my ass. I need a minute to deal with this."

"I thought you were tired and going to get some sleep," Leiza states, and then swallows down whatever else is on the tip of her tongue.

"I'm no longer tired," I point out dryly.

Another nod from Leiza, and I walk out shirtless to go chop some fucking wood for the fireplace Violet rarely ever uses.

There's an axe wedged into one of the piles of wood near the chopping block, making this simpler than expected, so I get to work.

Before I can even make one small pile, Damien is wheeling into the driveway, barely putting the brake on, before he hops out.

His eyes narrow on me, and then his brow furrows. It's when his lips start to twitch that I bristle, feeling a little too transparent.

"Didn't realize you'd gotten this pathetic ~ Kristy Cunning

Besides knowing all about the world, Mr. Right is also an expert on your life and how you should live it. He has the answers to your conflicts at work, how you should spend your time, and how you should raise your children. He is especially knowledgeable about your faults, and he likes to inventory what is wrong with you, as if tearing you down were the way to improve you. ~ Lundy Bancroft

When I'm in a city that's just clean, concrete lines, I get really short of breath and confused. It's much more interesting to me when nature is creeping back and tearing the mortar apart between the bricks. ~ Feist

Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen enemy, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength. Stealing our will, for what are we without empathy? What manner of joy might we find in our live if we cannot understand the joys and pains of those around us, if we cannot share in a greater community. ~ R.A. Salvatore

Recurrent invasions racked the city of Theodora in the centuries of its history; no sooner was one enemy routed than another gained strength and threatened the survival of the inhabitants. When the sky was cleared of condors, they had to face the propagation of serpents; the spiders' extermination allowed the flies to multiply into a black swarm; the victory over the termites left the city at the mercy of the woodworms. One by one the species incompatible to the city had to succumb and were extinguished. By dint of ripping away scales and carapaces, tearing off elytra and feathers, the people gave Theodora the exclusive image of human city that still distinguishes it. ~ Italo Calvino

That is what they say I said when they found me in the blackness after three hours; found me crouching in the blackness over the plump, half-eaten body of Capt. Norrys, with my own cat leaping and tearing at my throat ... When I speak of poor Norrys they accuse me of a hideous thing, but they must know that I did not do it. They must know it was the rats; the slithering, scurrying rats whose scampering will never let me sleep; the daemon rats that race behind the padding in this room and beckon me down to greater horrors than I have ever known; the rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats in the walls. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Enclosures have appropriately been called a revolution of the rich is against the poor. The lords and nobles were upsetting the social order, breaking down ancient law and custom, sometimes by means of vio¬lence, often by pressure and intimidation. They were literally robbing the poor of their share in the common, tearing down the houses which, by the hitherto unbreakable force of custom, the poor had long regarded as theirs and their heirs'. The fabric of society was being disrupted; desolate villages and the ruins of human dwellings testified to the fierce¬ness with which the revolution raged, endangering the defenses of the country, wasting its towns, decimating its population, turning its over¬burdened soil into dust, harassing its people and turning them from decent husbandmen into a mob of beggars and thieves. ~ Karl Polanyi

(a) Are the skies you sleep under likely to open up for weeks on end?
(b) Is the ground you walk on likely to tremble and split?
(c) Is there a chance (and please check the box, no matter how small that chance seems) that the ominous mountain casting a midday shadow over your home might one day erupt with no rhyme or reason?

Because if the answer is yes to one or all of these questions, then the life you lead is a midnight thing, always a hair's breadth from the witching hour; it is volatile, it is threadbare; it is carefree in the true sense of that term; it is light, losable like a key or a hair clip. And it is lethargy: why not sit all morning, all day, all year, under the same cypress tree drawing the figure eight in the dust? More than that, it is disaster, it is chaos: why not overthrow a government on a whim, why not blind the man you hate, why not go mad, go gibbering through the town like a loon, waving your hands, tearing your hair? There's nothing to stop you---or rather anything could stop you, any hour, any minute. That feeling. That's the real difference in a life. ~ Zadie Smith

The reason I started writing was because I was a little kid in San Diego who was getting beaten up by her dad and sexually abused and because I felt different than everybody else and I had this big huge secret that was tearing me apart. ~ Dorianne Laux

Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words. And suddenly he realized that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, chaff dust, sand; prowling through his brain, tearing at his head. they were his insomnia, his illness. And what he yearned for at that moment, vaguely, but with all his might, was unbounded music, absolute sound, a pleasant and happy all-encompassing, over-poering, window-rattling din to engulf, once and for all, the pain, the futility, the vanity of words. Music was the negation of sentences, music was the anti-word! ~ Milan Kundera

I love getting ready to do a scene, and thinking about it, and talking about it. But the rest of the time, I'm so nervous and obsessed. I'm just tearing my hair out in the trailer. The whole time I'm really tense. ~ Casey Affleck

You have enemies enough without tearing open your own wounds over things you could not have prevented. ~ Jim Butcher

Stop thief! Stop thief!' There is a magic in the sound. The tradesman leaves his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the child his battledore. Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash: tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls: and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo with the sound. ~ Charles Dickens

Keeping The City

"Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman guardeth in vain" - John F. Kennedy's unspoken words in Dallas on November 23, 1963.

Once,
in August,
head on your chest,
I heard wings
battering up the place,
something inside trying to fly out
and I was silent
and attentive,
the watchman.
I was your small public,
your small audience
but it was you that was clapping,
it was you untying the snarls and knots,
the webs, all bloody and gluey;
you with your twelve tongues and twelve wings
beating, wresting, beating, beating
your way out of childhood,
that airless net that fastened you down.

Since then I was more silent
though you had gone miles away,
tearing down, rebuilding the fortress.
I was there
but could do nothing
but guard the city
lest it break.

I was silent.
I had a strange idea I could overhear
but that your voice, tongue, wing
belonged solely to you.
The Lord was silent too.
I did not know if he could keep you whole,
where I, miles away, yet head on your chest,
could do nothing. Not a single thing.

The wings of the watchman,
if I spoke, would hurt the bird of your soul
as he nested, bit, sucked, flapped.
I wanted him to fly, burst like a missile from your throat,
burst from the spidery-mother-web,
burst from Woman herself
w ~ Anne Sexton

That part was easy. Tearing up the roots will be the hard part. ~ Ally Condie

Yeah, it's terrible really. Little fucking minions in there hacking away with their teeny individual pick axes, tearing away the lining of my uterus piece by piece, basking in glory every time I let out a little cry of pain. ~ Laurel Ulen Curtis

Boy oh boy, this man is trouble. He was slowly tearing down the wall she'd built around her heart, brick by brick. Could any man be this perfect? He must have some faults. Maybe he is a chauvinist pig ... no, doesn't seem like it. He is kind to animals and children, he is a fireman, he looks like sex on a stick. What could be wrong with him? Maybe he snores. Oh, wouldn't I like to find out? ~ Tamara Hoffa

[ELLA] Oh! You know what Wes?

[WESLEY] What?

[ELLA] That story your father used to tell about that eagle. You remember the whole thing?

[WESLEY] Yeah.

[ELLA] I remember he keeps coming back and swooping down on the shed roof and then flying off again. What else?

[WESLEY] I don't know.

[ELLA] You remember. What happens next?

[WESLEY] A cat comes.

[ELLA] That's right. A big tomcat comes. He jumps up on top of that roof to sniff around in all the entails or whatever it was.

[WESLEY] And that eagle comes down and picks up that cat in his talons and carries him screaming off into the sky.

[ELLA] And they fight. They fight like crazy in the middle of the sky. The cat's tearing his chest out, and the eagle's trying to drop him, but the cat won't let go because he knows if he falls he'll die.

[WESLEY] And the eagle's being torn apart in midair. The eagle's trying to free himself from the cat, and the cat won't let go.

[ELLA] And they come crashing down to earth. Both of them come crashing down. Like one whole thing. ~ Sam Shepard

Duchess was barking her head off as she raced after a snarling, hissing, yowling white ball of Maleficent. Aphrodite was chasing after the dog, screaming for her to 'Come! Stay. Be good, damnit!' Damien was close behind her, flailing his arms and yelling 'Duchess! Come!' All of a sudden the Twins' cat, the huge and very stuck-up Beelzebub joined in the chase, only he was tearing around after Duchess.
'Ohmygod! Beelzebub! Honey!' Shaunee ran into my view, yelling at the top of her very healthy lungs.
'Beelzebub! Duchess! Stop!' Erin wailed, right behind her twin.
Darius suddenly burst out into the hallway, and I stepped back behind the curtains, not sure is my shrouding could be detected by him. Apparently he didn't notice me, or anything else, because he ran into the Council Room. I peeked through the drapes and could hear him telling Neferet that she was needed on the school grounds-that there was an 'altercation.' Then Neferet was hurrying out of the room and down the hall, following Darius into the dog-barking, cat-yowling, kid-screaming craziness.
I noticed that through all of it I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Jack.
Talk about an excellent diversion! ~ Kristin Cast

Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once. ~ Anthony Bourdain

I was sprawled out in my usual position on the couch, half asleep but entirely drunk, torturing myself by tearing memories out of my mind at random like matches from a book, striking them one at a time and drowsily setting myself on fire. ~ Jonathan Tropper

Fire supposed he needed to be there in order to give rousing speeches and lead the charge into the fray, or whatever is was commanders did in wartime. She resented his competence at something so tragic and senseless. She wished he, or somebody, would throw down his sword and say, 'Enough! This is a silly way to decide who's in charge!' And it seemed to her, as the beds in the healing room filled and emptied and filled, that these battles didn't leave much to be in charge of. The kingdom was already broken, and this war was tearing the broken pieces smaller. ~ Kristin Cashore

You use your whole body like you did when you played as a kid. Grown-up amusements don't allow for crawling and wriggling, getting good and muddy, and tearing the knees of your pants. ~ Nevada Barr

The consequences of the past are always with us, and half the hostilities tearing the world apart could be resolved today were we to allow the forgiveness of sins to alter these consequences ... if we were to say of ourselves, 'The hostility stops here. ~ William Sloane Coffin

When you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and a female in society, and other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it's not antithesis, or it's not competing, it's a complementary role. We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships in nuclear families, and it's tearing us apart. ~ Erick Erickson

She pictured her Alzheimer's as a demon in her head, tearing a reckless and illogical path of destruction, ripping apart the wiring from "Lydia now" to "Lydia then ~ Lisa Genova

You have to let it go. You can hold on to the hate and the love and even the bitterness, but you have to go of the blame. The blame is what's tearing you down, babe. -Sky ~ Colleen Hoover

Gundar's smile broadened at the memory of that evening as he recalled how his rough-and-tumble sailors had stayed on their best manners, humbly asking their table companions to pass the meat, please, or requesting just a little more ale in their drinking mugs. These were men who were accustomed to cursing heartily, tearing legs off roast boar wih their bare hands and occasionally swilling ale traight from the keg. Their attempts at mingling with polite society would have made the basis of some great stories back in Skandia. ~ John Flanagan

There was a downpour coming; Avery could feel it. The wind was already gaining strength, tearing out the last of her hairpins, whipping her dress close to her body. The air was heavy with the scent of rain. Avery's thoughts circled frantically in her mind, pressing so hard she thought she would burst.
A falcon that had been perched farther along the railing turned a beady eye on her, curious. Avery watched it unfurl its wings and take off. She felt a sudden kinship with the bird, the way it flew screaming into the sky like a wild thing. She wished she could follow it straight into the gathering storm. ~ Katharine McGee

I don't like to think of her as pretend Peabody anymore. The more we find out, the meaner and crazier she gets. It's like it's bad enough fake Peabody got murdered, but now fake Peabody is a dead, blackmailing asshole on top of it. It's depressing."
"Yeah, it's all really too bad for you."
"Well, it kind of is. How am I supposed to enjoy the vid now, when I'll be thinking how behind the scenes I was trying to blackmail McNab into bed, and the whole time he's in love with you? And that maybe there's a vid of the two of you all naked and sexy and - "
"Stop right there before I boot."
"Hey! Maybe there's a vid of fake Peabody and fake Roarke all naked and sexy. That would definitely make up for it. Maybe I can get a copy."
"There's going to be a vid of me tearing strips off your ass then using them to wallpaper my office. I'll make copies for everybody. Get Marlo down here. I'll start on Julian. ~ J.D. Robb

Awareness of the sacred in life is what holds our world together, and the lack of awareness of the sacred is what is tearing it apart. ~ Joan D. Chittister

During the canvass in the State of Mississippi, I traveled into different parts of that state, and this is the doctrine that I everywhere uttered: that while I was in favor of building up the colored race, I was not in favor of tearing down the white race. ~ Hiram Rhodes Revels

I don't dislike life the way you seem to do. But then you may be a fish out of water. I'm not. I'm where I want to be, doing what I want to do. But even so, there's nothing wonderful about it. Most of the time it's like - let's say - living with a lion. One day you can make it jump through hoops, or even ride on its back. But get careless, make a wrong move, and it'll have you in a corner and be tearing an arm off. ~ J.B. Priestley

The fastest way to a man's heart is by tearing a hole through his rib cage_T-Shirt ~ Darynda Jones

As Val jumped down onto the litter-strewn concrete after them, she thought how insane it was to follow two people she didn't know into the bowels of the subway, but instead of being afraid, she felt glad. She would make all her own decisions now, even if they were ruinous ones. It was the same pleasurable feeling as tearing a piece of paper into tiny, tiny pieces. ~ Holly Black

It was as if a tiny crack had opened somewhere in him and was growing, tearing him to pieces. If he had simply been angry, I might have found a way to calm him, but I had no idea how to put him back together once he came apart. ~ Yoko Ogawa

- I told Jack. -

And?

Matthew sighed. - And. -

What does that mean?

- You're in my eyes. -

A vision began, and I saw a blur of Jack. He was frenzied, tearing at his hair as he yelled -

NO, Matthew! I shook my head hard. No, I don't want that! I'd only recently gotten my emotions under control. I wasn't that bulletproof.

It faded. - Empress? -

I don't want to see him. I can't. I couldn't handle any more rabbit holes!

- I feel your heart; it actually aches. - The same words he'd told me on the night Jack had confessed his feelings to me. ~ Kresley Cole

The mosquitoes. Tearing at him, clouds of them, the awful, ripping, thick masses of the small monsters trying to bleed him dry. ~ Gary Paulsen

I only wanted books - nothing more - only books, only words, it was never anything but words - give them to me, I don't have any! Look, see, I don't have any! Look, I'm naked, barefoot, I'm standing before you - nothing in my pants pockets, nothing under my shirt or under my arm! They're not stuck in my beard! Inside - look - there aren't any inside either - everything's been turned inside out, there's nothing there! Only guts! I'm hungry! I'm tormented!...
What do you mean there's nothing? Then how can you talk and cry, what words are you frightened with, which ones do you call out in your sleep? Don't nighttime cries roam inside you, a thudding twilight murmur, a fresh morning shriek? There they are words - don't you recognize them? They're writhing inside you, trying to get out! There they are! They're yours! From wood, stone, roots, growing in strength, a dull mooing and whining in the gut is trying to get out; a piece of tongue curls, the torn nostrils swell in torment. That's how the bewitched, beaten, and twisted snuffle with a mangy wail, their boiled white eyes locked up in closets, their vein torn out, backbone gnawed; that's right, that's how your pushkin writhe, or mushkin - what is in my name for you? - pushkin-mushkin, flung upon the hillock like a shaggy black idol, forever flattened by fences, up to his ears in di, the pushkin-stump, legless, six-fingered, biting his tongue, nose in his chest - and his head can't be raised! - pushkin, tearing off the pois ~ Tatyana Tolstaya

The Peacemaker Colt has now been in production, without change in design, for a century. Buy one to-day and it would be indistinguishable from the one Wyatt Earp wore when he was the Marshal of Dodge City. It is the oldest hand-gun in the world, without question the most famous and, if efficiency in its designated task of maiming and killing be taken as criterion of its worth, then it is also probably the best hand-gun ever made. It is no light thing, it is true, to be wounded by some of the Peacemaker's more highly esteemed competitors, such as the Luger or Mauser: but the high-velocity, narrow-calibre, steel-cased shell from either of those just goes straight through you, leaving a small neat hole in its wake and spending the bulk of its energy on the distant landscape whereas the large and unjacketed soft-nosed lead bullet from the Colt mushrooms on impact, tearing and smashing bone and muscle and tissue as it goes and expending all its energy on you.
In short when a Peacemaker's bullet hits you in, say, the leg, you don't curse, step into shelter, roll and light a cigarette one-handed then smartly shoot your assailant between the eyes. When a Peacemaker bullet hits your leg you fall to the ground unconscious, and if it hits the thigh-bone and you are lucky enough to survive the torn arteries and shock, then you will never walk again without crutches because a totally disintegrated femur leaves the surgeon with no option but to cut your leg off. And so I stood absolut ~ Alistair MacLean

I want you." She felt the words wrench from her. As they slipped from her mouth into his, he crushed her against him in a grip that left all gentleness behind. His lips savaged, warred, absorbed, util they were both speechless. With an inarticulate mrumuer, Grant buried his face in her hair and fought to find reason.
"Good God,in another minute I'll forget it's still daylight and this is a public road."
Gennie ran her fingers down the nape of his neck. "I already have."
Grant forced the breath in and out of his lungs three times, then lifted his head. "Be careful," he warned quietly. "I have a more difficult time remembering to be civilized than doing what comes naturally. At this moment I'd feel very natural dragging you into the backseat,tearing off your clothes and loving you until you were senseless."
A thrill rushed up and down her spine, daring her,urging her. She leaned closer utnil her lips were nearly against his. "One should never go against one's nature. ~ Nora Roberts

First, Paul is anxious that everyone who professes Christian faith should allow the gospel to transform the whole of their lives, so that the outward signs of the faith express a living reality that comes from the deepest parts of the personality. Second, he is also anxious that each Christian, and especially every teacher of the faith, should know how to build up the community in mutual love and support, rather than, by the wrong sort of teaching or behaviour, tearing it apart. ~ N. T. Wright

In marriage, the point is not to achieve a rapid union by tearing down and toppling all boundaries. Rather, in a good marriage, each person appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude and thus shows him the greatest faith he can bestow. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

for you cannot build anything without tearing something down, and even he ... all pleasures available freely (but what we attain with no effort we cannot value), ~ Neil Gaiman

I think that when two people are able to weave that kind of invisible thread of understanding and sympathy between each other, that delicate web, they should not risk tearing it. It is too rare, and it lasts too short a time at best ... ~ Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher

"Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it ... have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind". ~ John Wesley

The boy knelt, shoulders bowed, on the sand in the grey of morning, moaning softly, fearfully. Glowing tendrils of energy streamed across the agitated sky, converging high above him in a vortex of brightness. He flung his hands heavenward and a sheet of blinding brilliance descended from the vortex. It enveloped him and from its core a pulsing sphere of light fell, entering his body and almost tearing him apart. He went rigid, screaming to shatter the heavens, his dark eyes bulging from their sockets, his mouth wide in a rictus of agony. Sirius exploded in a burst of silver-blue radiance, as his howl rose to a shriek beyond hearing and endurance. Out of the light and the sound and the anguish, two names imprinted themselves on his mind. One of them, he knew, was his own.
The other floated for an instant above his consciousness like a fugitive white dove in the morning. ~ J. Valor

That night the Salt Fish Girl came back looking exhausted and dishevelled. A Malaysian girl who worked at her factory had been stricken with hysteria, had gone to the toilet and begun screaming and tearing at her hair. She had been working at the factory for nearly three years and was half blind and bored out of her wits with the tedious repetitiveness of the work. Her hysteria had provoked others, until half the women in the factory were screaming and howling and throwing themselves against the walls in sheer frustration with the dreariness of their toil and the damage it was exacting from their once young bodies and once bright faces. ~ Larissa Lai

Fact, no matter how minutely observed, is truth with a small "t." Big "T" Truth is located behind, beyond, inside, below the surface of things, holding reality together or tearing it apart, and cannot be directly observed. ~ Robert McKee