The Last Savanna Quotes

Faraway a leopard barked that high, dissatisfied deep roar it cuts off so sharply, as if its annoyance is too great to express, can only be appeased. ~ Mike Bond

The immense desert, empty as a bird's wing, inspired him with promise. ~ Mike Bond

...He sat back on his heels and watched the stars one by one cut their way through onrushing darkness, till all was reversed, day was night, and the blackness glittered with all the desert's sands, each a tiny flame beyond the bounds of time. ~ Mike Bond

...the track of the three camels and three pairs of sandals was like an arrow diminishing into infinity across the wavering sand. ~ Mike Bond

But wasn't that progress too, that the elephants were killed off like the mastodon and giant rhino before them, like all other wildlife and wild places? 'We can't stop time,' MacAdam said. 'But you can change the way it goes,' Nehemiah insisted. ~ Mike Bond

A camel brayed columns from the rondavels; new sunlight struck the savage earth. ~ Mike Bond

I have spent hours and hours watching elephants, and to come to understand what emotional creatures they are...it's not just a species facing extinction, it's massive individual suffering. ~ Mike Bond

Long before the stars died the birds began to sing - cool rippling doves, loud cheery starlings, the long lilting trills of warblers and thrushes. ~ Mike Bond

Already this sun was pouring its wrath into the blue Indian ocean where swordfish and marlin cruised like silver-blue attenuated warheads in their green-gold depths... ~ Mike Bond

Magic is the first and last religion of the world. It has the power to make us whole, to open our eyes to the Dominions and return us to ourselves. Everything that isn't us is also ourselves. We're joined to everything that was, is and will be. From one end of the Imajica to another. From the tiniest mote dancing over this flame to the Godhead Itself. ~ Clive Barker

And then the light turns into a snake, and I turn into a snake, although I'm pretty sure those last two are due more to my choice of bedtime reading than to Molly's memories. ~ Rysa Walker

Have I really been in a battle?" wondered Stendhal's hero after many hours blundering around the field of Waterloo, and many people today share a similar perplexity. Like Stendhal's hero, they eat and drink and sustain the business of life, but the meaning of it all depends upon their conviction of contributing to the liberation of workers, women, the colonized, or other varieties of the oppressed. Like Fabrizio del Dongo, they find a regiment and tag along - the Hussars against Patriarchy, the Dragoon Guards of the Proletariat, and so on. Quite where the real battle lies is hotly disputed, but its significance is agreed to be a final end to oppression. (…) My argument, then, is an exploration of the hypothesis that there is a pure theory of ideology, and while from one point of view it is a critique, from another it is a do-it-yourself ideology kit. It begins with some suggestions about how ideology was generated from eighteenth-century social theory. The long central section is an attempt to characterize ideologies as forms of understanding. The last section develops the view that, although ideology must take on political trappings in order to transform the world, its real character is entirely antithetical to the practice of politics. Ideology is to reality, I suggest, as (in Tolstoy's opinion) the reports of battles are to the concrete experience of individuals in the field. In ideological moods, we think we see in social and political life those clear lines from the hist ~ Kenneth Minogue

December, being the last month of the year, cannot help but make us think of what is to come. ~ Fennel Hudson

For me, [John Wheeler] was the last Titan, the only physics superhero still standing. ~ Max Tegmark

Companies cannot really see beyond their current customer base. They explicitly or implicitly do things to protect their current customers. And the last person to want real change is your customer. This is why most new ideas come from small companies that have nothing to lose. ~ Nicholas Negroponte

There is no arguing with people who say that, since there is nothing but Nature, no process can be other than natural. There is no sign, even from heaven, that could break down the intellectual prejudice of such people. If they saw Jesus Christ Himself in glory, they could always say that "at present science cannot account for the phenomenon of a luminous body apparently seated upon a throne, but no doubt it will do so in the course of time." If they saw a dead and corrupting man rise from the grave, they could always argue that he could not have been dead and corrupting, or he could not have risen from the grave. Nothing but the Last Judgment could convince such persons. Even when the trumpet sounds, I believe that some of them, when they have recovered from their first astonishment, will make remarks about aural phenomena. ~ Robert Hugh Benson

The annoying this was that their authority loomed larger by the hour. One is not aware of it, but these men are kings. Throwing open my rooms, they would say, "Everything here belongs to us." They would fall upon my scraps of thought: "This is ours." They would challenge my story, "Talk," and my story would put itself at their service. In haste, I would rid myself of myself. I distributed my blood, my innermost being among them, lent them the universe, gave them the day. Right before their eyes, though they were not at all startles, I became a drop of water, a spot of ink. I reduced myself to them. The whole presence of me passed in full view before them, and when at last nothing was present but my perfect nothingness and there was nothing more to see, they ceased to see me too. Very irritated, they stood up and cried out, "All right, where are you? Where are you hiding? Hiding is forbidden, it is an offense," etc. ~ Maurice Blanchot

... for it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to despond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that once overboard it must drown ~ Herman Melville

He had performed that last service that a man can perform for a friend - he had told the truth about him. ~ David Eddings

Dr. Jan Yager, a sociologist, friendship expert and author of When Friendship Hurts, states, "For some, admitting to a broken friendship has become like admitting to a failed marriage. Over the last two decades, a myth of lifelong friendship has emerged, even as the ideal of a lifelong marriage has, sadly, become an unrealistic reality for many people. ~ Liz Pryor

I'd think, One of the times she leaves will be the last time I see her. It destroyed me. I didn't want us to have a last time, and that was how I realized I'd fallen in love with you. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

That the Roman empire was, like all its predecessors, a form of extortion by force, an enriching of well-connected Romans (who "make a desolation and call it peace") at the expense of hapless conquered peoples, would also not have carried much weight with most readers. Hadn't Philip of Macedon's first conquest been the seizure of the Balkan gold mines? Hadn't Alexander's last planned campaign been for the sake of controlling the lucrative Arabian spice trade? How could anyone demur over such things? What would be the point of holding out against the nature of man and of the universe itself? Augustus set up in the midst of the Roman Forum a statue of himself that loomed eleven times the size of a normal man,10 and similarly awesome statues were erected in central shrines throughout the empire. Augustus was not a normal man; he was a god, deserving of worship. And, like all gods, he was terrifying. ~ Thomas Cahill

Jessabelle,
I'm sorry to just leave, but I need some time.
Time to get my head back on straight.
Time to remember who I really am.
Time with my Creator, the one who knew before the foundations of the earth what would happen over the last few days.

I wish more than anything, that I could process all of this with you, go through all of this together, because I'm coming to understand that, out of all the men in the world, God picked me for you. It's so much more than lineage. It's you. How you've come into your own. How you've blossomed and grown. I'm so privileged to see that secret side of you-the side no one else gets to see. The side where you secretly paint your second toenail a different color because everyone else does the fourth one, but you're not sure my mother would approve so you never wear open-toed shoes to show them off. You only eat M&Ms in odd numbers. You use your right hand to put hair behind your ear, but never your left.
You didn't know I knew those things, did you?
I've watched you over the last few months and learned more about you than I realized until I tried to put my thoughts on paper. You're sleeping just feet away from me as I write this. Your even breathing brings some peace to my troubled soul. The small smile on your face makes me wonder what your dreaming about and if, in your sleep, you've managed to find happiness instead of the turmoil life always seems to bring. I have to stop myself ~ Carol Moncado

Arguing with the girlfriend. Mid argument she says "Were you on Monday night Raw last night?" I had no comeback. ~ Zack Ryder

This is Roshana, the last queen of the Amulen Empire, back when my people ruled all the lands from the east to the west. She is something of a legend among us. Every queen aspires to learn from her mistakes."
"Her mistakes? Surely you mean her victories."
"What?"
I frown at her. "Roshana was one of the greatest queens in the world. She ended the Mountain Wars, she routed Sanhezriyah the Mad, she - "
"For a foreign serving girl, you are strangely well versed in Amulen history."
"I spent a lot of time in libraries as a girl."
"Were you there to dust the scrolls or read them?"
"Surely Roshana's victories outweigh her errors."
"The higher you rise, the farther you fall. For all her wisdom, Roshana was fooled by the jinni, believing it was her friend, and then it destroyed her. Ever since that day, my people have hunted the jinn. There is no creature more vicious and untrustworthy."
"This is not the story I heard," I say softly. "My people tell it differently. That the jinni truly was a friend to Roshana but was forced to turn against her. That she had no choice."
"Surely I know how my own ancestress died," returns the princess, a bit hotly. "Anyway, it was a long time ago, but we Amulens do not forget. ~ Jessica Khoury

She read the last chapter of her book because she didn't want to start something that would end badly. ~ Richard House

Women and men who have established no-lie relationships talk about them with reverence, even when they are not permanent and, in fact, even when they are not romantic. Why? In the no-lie relationship there is acceptance of who each partner is, rather than a shallow idealization. There is a genuine commitment to the relationship beyond the immediate. You each act as though you are in a real partnership that will last. ~ Dory Hollander

She knows she will remember these last moments with her Mother every single day for the rest of her own life. ~ Kris Radish

The problem is, is that President Bush and the Republican leadership in the Congress have resisted attempts to increase dramatically our fuel economy standards over the last five years. ~ Ed Markey

Oh well,' said Jack: and then, 'Did you ever meet Bach?'

'Which Bach?'

'London Bach.'

'Not I.'

'I did. He wrote some pieces for my uncle Fisher, and his young man copied them out fair. But they were lost years and years ago, so last time I was in town I went to see whether I could find the originals: the young man has set up on his own, having inherited his master's music-library. We searched through the papers - such a disorder you would hardly credit, and I had always supposed publishers were as neat as bees - we searched for hours, and no uncle's pieces did we find. But the whole point is this: Bach had a father.'

'Heavens, Jack, what things you tell me. Yet upon recollection I seem to have known other men in much the same case.'

'And this father, this old Bach, you understand me, had written piles and piles of musical scores in the pantry.'

'A whimsical place to compose in, perhaps; but then birds sing in trees, do they not? Why not antediluvian Germans in a pantry?'

'I mean the piles were kept in the pantry. Mice and blackbeetles and cook-maids had played Old Harry with some cantatas and a vast great passion according to St Mark, in High Dutch; but lower down all was well, and I brought away several pieces, 'cello for you, fiddle for me, and some for both together. It is strange stuff, fugues and suites of the last age, crabbed and knotted sometimes and not at all in the modern ta ~ Patrick O'Brian

The Luseferous VII, magnificent though it undoubtedly was, represented an unignorable and probably unmissable target. Their best strategy might be to use the great ship as the bait in a trap, their own forces seemingly disposed so that it looked like they were determined to defend it to the last, but in fact treating it as a disposable asset. Lure in as much of the Mercatorial fleet as possible and then destroy everything, including, unfortunately, the Luseferous VII itself. ~ Anonymous

Toward the end of March, in St. Louis, slush fills the gutters, and dirty snow lies heaped alongside porch steps, and everything seems to be suffocating in the embrace of a season that lasts too long. Radiators hiss mournfully, no one manages to be patient, the wind draws tears from your eyes, the clouds are filled with sadness. Women with scarves around their heads and their feet encased in fur-lined boots pick their way carefully over patches of melting ice. It seems that winter will last forever, that this is the decision of nature and nothing can be done about it. ~ Harold Brodkey

You're sure your new roommate won't be like the last one who wore tinfoil socks and had a tendency to occasionally urinate in the refrigerator. You're sure you'll pass Math 106 this time around. You're determined to actually join some clubs this year and not just sit around in your dorm eating spray cheese from a can and watching youtube videos about cats. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

If the meaning of life has become doubtful, if one's relations to others and to oneself do not offer security, then fame is one means to silence one's doubts. It has a function to be compared with that of the Egyptian pyramids or the Christian faith in immortality: it elevates one's individual life from its limitations and instability to the plane of indestructability; if one's name is known to one's contemporaries and if one can hope that it will last for centuries, then one's life has meaning and significance by this very reflection of it in the judgments of others. ~ Erich Fromm

Here is the last thing, and a shameful admission it is. When the all-father in eagle form had almost reached the vats, with Suttung immediately behind him, Odin blew some of the mead out of his behind, a splatter wet fart of foul-smelling mead right in Suttung's face, blinding the giant and throwing him off Odin's trail.

No one, then or now, wanted to drink the mead that came out of Odin's ass. But whenever you hear bad poets declaiming their bad poetry, filled with foolish similes and ugly rhymes, you will know which of the meads the have tasted. ~ Neil Gaiman

We were also fortunate enough to engage in our service a Canadian Frenchmen, who had been with the Chayenne Indians on the Black mountains, and last summer descended thence by the Little Missouri. ~ Meriwether Lewis

Oh really?' said Mayes raising a mocking eyebrow which put Rob in mind of a poor man's Roger Moore. 'And what on earth makes you think that you of all people would be allowed anywhere near our board meeting?

Rob's smile widened as he realised that he was about to have one of those golden bombshell moments of the type he'd been on the receiving end of all too frequently over the last few days.

'Because Mr. Mayes, I'm your new chairman. ~ Dougie Brimson

Thus it is doubly difficult to write of this period calmly, so intense was the feeling, so mighty the human passions that swayed and blinded men. Amid it all, two figures ever stand to typify that day to coming ages, - the one, a gray-haired gentleman, whose fathers had quit themselves like men, whose sons lay in nameless graves; who bowed to the evil of slavery because its abolition threatened untold ill to all; who stood at last, in the evening of life, a blighted, ruined form, with hate in his eyes; - and the other, a form hovering dark and mother-like, her awful face black with the mists of centuries, had aforetime quailed at that white master's command, had bent in love over the cradles of his sons and daughters, and closed in death the sunken eyes of his wife, - aye, too, at his behest had laid herself low to his lust, and borne a tawny man-child to the world, only to see her dark boy's limbs scattered to the winds by midnight marauders riding after "damned Niggers." These were the saddest sights of that woful day; and no man clasped the hands of these two passing figures of the present-past; but, hating, they went to their long home, and, hating, their children's children live today. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

Soon college would be out, I would join the ranks of the martriculated, and the real world would steal me away for one of their own. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I could take all the cartoons in the tabloid newspapers, but I couldn't take my daughter punching me in the belly and asking why I was so fat. That was my inspiration to lose the weight. And probably the last time anyone hurt my feelings. ~ Al Sharpton

At last he said, "Did you come out of the big mountains?"
Gitano shook his head slowly. "No, I walked down the Salinas Valley."
The afternoon thought would not let Joey go. "Did you ever go into the big mountains back there?"
The old dark eyes grew fixed, and their light turned inward on the years that were living in Gitano's head. ~ John Steinbeck

It's funny, because my last record was a lot about isolation and people living in separate worlds that other people can't even understand, which drug addiction is the perfect negative example of. ~ Aimee Mann

Central bankers always try to avoid their last big mistake. So every time there's the threat of a contraction in the economy, they'll over stimulate the economy, by printing too much money. The result will be a rising roller coaster of inflation, with each high and low being higher than the preceding one. ~ Milton Friedman

Why don't you tell people what happened last night"
"You slept on the sofa!"
"And why is that?"
"Because you're ... incompetent ~ R.S. Burnett

Dallying? Dallying, mind you?" She marched up the last few steps. "As if I would ever min a million years dally with you." She wouldn't. Really, she wouldn't!
His low chuckle behind her put the lie to her words. "Never say never, my lady. A vow like that is sure to come back to bit you in the arse. Which would be a shame, given that you have such a fine one. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Life becomes a habit. You get up, dress, eat, go tae work, clock in etcetera etcetera automatically, and think about nothing but the pay packet on Friday and the booze-up last Saturday. Life's easy when you're a robot. ~ Alasdair Gray

Don't you know anything at all about numbers?"
"Well, I don't think they're very important," snapped Milo, too embarrassed to admit the truth.
"NOT IMPORTANT!" roared the Dodecahedron, turning red with fury. "Could you have tea for two without the two - or three blind mice without the three? Would there be four corners of the earth if there weren't a four? And how would you sail the seven seas without a seven?"
"All I meant was - " began Milo, but the Dodecahedron, overcome with emotion and shouting furiously, carried right on.
"If you had high hopes, how would you know how high they were? And did you know that narrow escapes come in all different widths? Would you travel the whole wide world without ever knowing how wide it was? And how could you do anything at long last," he concluded, waving his arms over his head, "without knowing how long the last was? Why, numbers are the most beautiful and valuable things in the world. Just follow me and I'll show you." He turned on his heel and stalked off into the cave. ~ Norton Juster

At that moment the dull sound of a rumbling crash from outside filtered through the low murmur of the pub, through the sound of the jukebox, through the sound of the man next to Ford hiccuping over the whiskey Ford had eventually bought him.
Arthur choked on his beer, leaped to his feet.
"What's that?" he yelped.
"Don't worry," said Ford, "they haven't started yet."
"Thank God for that," said Arthur, and relaxed.
"It's probably just your house being knocked down," said Ford, downing his last pint.
"What?" shouted Arthur. Suddenly Ford's spell was broken. Arthur looked wildly around him and ran to the window.
"My God, they are! They're knocking my house down. What the hell am I doing in the pub, Ford?"
"It hardly makes any difference at this stage," said Ford, "let them have their fun. ~ Douglas Adams

The first jazz musician was a trumpeter, Buddy Bolden, and the last will be a trumpeter, the archangel Gabriel. ~ Wynton Marsalis

And when we pushed away that other, bad vision, we felt good again and everything was a joy to us: the fire, the smell of trampled grass, that our shirts had dried, the sleep of the earth, the taste of cigarettes, the forest, our rested legs, the stardust, life - life most of all.

In the end, we went on. The dawn met us. The sun warmed us. We kept walking. Our legs buckled, our shoulders went numb, our hands swelled, but we managed to carry it to the cemetery - to the grave - our last harbour on earth, at which we put in only once, never again to sail forth - this Stefan Kanik, eighteen, killed in a tragic accident, during blasting, by a block of coal. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

And we remember the end of our combat mission and the emergence of a new dawn
the precision of our efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq, the professionalism of the training of Iraqi security forces, and the steady drawdown of our forces. In handing over responsibility to the Iraqis, you preserved the gains of the last four years and made this day possible. ~ Barack Obama

I'VE never seen such a look of mortal agony on a human face before. She screamed quite a bit before she died, and the last shriek was forever frozen on her face. ~ Robert Bloch

You'd think the homeless would despise the rest of us, but it seems the thing they want to do most is talk. If only they could sit us down and let it all spill out - every twist of their history, down to the last murmur - then they'd be cured. ~ Alexander Masters

If my children call me during the day and leave a message, I return those calls first, not last. ~ Dave Checketts

I'm about to commence four years of obeying the cause of a bruiser on a horse. I refuse to put down what might be the last book I see for months. ~ Tamora Pierce

Lone at night, when I was twelve years old, I looked at the planet Mars and I said, 'Take me home!' And the planet Mars took me home, and I never came back. So I've written every day in the last 75 years. I've never stopped writing. ~ Ray Bradbury