The Last Word And Other Stories Quotes

We praise heroes as though they are rare, and yet we are always ready to blame another man for lack of heroism. ~ Graham Greene

If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and ~ Robert Baden-Powell

A little child, a limber elf,
Singing, dancing to itself,
A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
That always finds, and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father's eyes with light ;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last
Must needs express his love's excess
With words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other ;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be true !)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's most used to do. ~ James Gillman

Catherine Land liked the beginnings of things. The pure white possibility of the empty room, the first kiss, the first swipe at larceny. And endings, she liked endings, too. The drama of the smashing glass, the dead bird, the tearful goodbye, the last awful word which could never be unsaid or unremembered.
It was the middles that gave her pause. This, for all its forward momentum, this was a middle. The beginnings were sweet, the endings usually bitter, but the middles were only the tightrope you walked between the one and the other. No more than that. ~ Robert Goolrick

Didn't Azmus say Galdran promised the Court our heads on poles after two days?"
"So Debegri swore," Bran said, smiling a little.
"That means we've held out all these weeks despite the enormous odds against us, and word of this has to be reaching the rest of the kingdom. Maybe those eastern Counts will decide to join us--and some of the other grass-backed vacillators as well," I finished stoutly.
Bran grinned. "Maybe so," he said. "And you're right. The higher Shevraeth drives us, the more familiar the territory. If we plan aright, we can lead them on a fine shadow chase and pick them off as they run. Maybe more traps…"
Khesot's lips compressed, and I shivered again. "More traps? You've already put out a dozen. Bran, I really hate those things."
Branaric winced, then he shook his head, his jaw tightening. "This is war. Baron Debegri was the first to start using arrows, despite the Code of War, and now Shevraeth has got us cut off from our own castle--and our supplies. We have to use every weapon to hand, and if that means planting traps for their unwary feet, so be it."
I sighed. "It is so…dishonorable. We have outlawed the use of traps against animals for over a century. And what if the Hill Folk stumble onto one?"
"I told you last week," Bran said, "my first command to those placing the traps is to lay sprigs of stingflower somewhere nearby. The Hill Folk won't miss those. Their noses will warn them to tread lightly long before their eyes w ~ Sherwood Smith

He lifted a hand and turned and went on. He had divested himself of the little cloaked godlet and his other amulets in a place where they would not be found in his lifetime and he'd taken for talisman the simple human heart within him. Walking down the little street for the last time he felt everything fall away from him. Until there was nothing left of him to shed. It was all gone. No trail, no track. The spoor petered out down there on Front Street where things he'd been lay like paper shadows, a few here, they thin out. After that nothing. A few rumors. Idle word on the wind. Old news years in traveling that you could not put stock in. ~ Cormac McCarthy

The other dangerous delusion from which those who are wilfully or otherwise blind to realities suffer, is summed up in the word "integration." To be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members.
Now, at all times, where there are marked physical differences, especially of colour, integration is difficult though, over a period, not impossible. There are among the Commonwealth immigrants who have come to live here in the last fifteen years or so, many thousands whose wish and purpose is to be integrated and whose every thought and endeavour is bent in that direction.
But to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one. ~ Enoch Powell

Barrons's hold tightened further. "Give me one good reason not to kill him. Ms. Lane," he growled roughly around thick, long black fangs. "Because I asked you not to, Barrons. That's good enough. You killed the other princes, and I was grateful. I wasn't ready then. I was still afraid of what I'd become. But this last prince is mine to kill or not to kill. And I say no. At the moment. And although Cruce is incapable of understanding that word, I know you know that a no from me means no. And you will honor it," I said in a voice that brooked no resistance. It was one of the defining differences between the two proud, dark, violent males. And if he didn't honor it, he wasn't the man I believed he was. ~ Karen Marie Moning

The word thing is an interesting word. At first glance it looks like the front half of one word combined with the last half of another. It's a versatile word. It can be good, as in, "what a nice thing," or "she has a thing for you." Or it can be bad, like "the thing under the bed," or "here's the thing, you're fired and you smell bad." Add an "s" to the back end of it and it becomes something that most people in the world can't get enough of.
Things
People love things. They collect things. They store things. They cherish things and then move on and cherish other things. People also buy things. Some buy a lot of things simply because their neighbors have those same things
which is a weird thing if you really think about it.
It's remarkable what we'll do for the sake of things when in reality things couldn't care less about us. ~ Obert Skye

The last word went like a bullet to my heart. My arm lost all sensation of the hand that grasped it. I never moved and never spoke. The sharp autumn breeze that scattered the dead leaves at our feet, came as cold to me, on a sudden, as if my own mad hopes were dead leaves, too, whirled away by the wind like the rest. Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally far from me. Would other men have remembered that in my place? Not if they loved her as I did. ~ Wilkie Collins

Let's skip [Mobile Infantry] tradition for a moment. Can you think of anything sillier than being fired out of a spaceship with nothing but mayhem and sudden death at the other end? However, if someone must do this idiotic stunt, do you know a surer way to keep a man keyed up to the point where he is willing than by keeping him constantly reminded that the only good reason why men fight is a living, breathing reality?
"In a mixed ship [men and women] the last thing a trooper hears before a drop (maybe the last word he ever hears) is a woman's voice, wishing him luck. If you don't think this is important you've probably resigned from the human race. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Well, Mimi Mackson, tell me what you like to bake."
"Lots of things- brownies, cookies, pies, tarts, scones. But cupcakes are my favorite. I like to flavor them with unusual spices and herbs."
"I see. And what's the last thing that you made?"
"Double-chocolate brownies with cinnamon and cayenne, to welcome someone home."
"And prior to that?"
"Cheddar-chive biscuits."
She waved her hand in front of her face like she smelled something bad. "No, no, my word, that will not do at all. Just sweet things, please." She stood and paced behind the desk. "Ha! Cheese and chives! I wouldn't dream of baking, eating, or even serving those, not to win the world."
Well, that was strange. Sweet isn't sweet without savory. One isn't good without the other- I thought everyone knew that. Even the most sugary dessert needs a dash of salt.
Mrs. T sat again. "So tell me then, young Mimi. The best sweet thing you've ever, ever made?"
"Hmm... lemon-lavender cupcakes, I guess. To celebrate friendship. ~ Rajani LaRocca

Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of my seat and rushing up toward the railing that divided the seats from the field. I had to make sure he was okay. I couldn't just sit here and watch him lie there in pain.
I heard my name called, but I ignored it as I flung my leg over the top railing and prepared to hoist myself over.
One of the guys working security happened to see me and he rushed over and ordered me to stop.
"I can't. That's my…" My voice broke. I couldn't force the word boyfriend between my lips. It just wasn't enough. It just didn't describe how desperate I was to get to him.
"He's my everything," I finished.
The security guard gave me a grim look. "You can't come on the field."
A lone tear tracked its way down my cheek, and I craned my neck. Frustrated, I glanced up at the big screen to see if it was showing a different angle.
But they weren't playing Romeo. They were focused on me.
I blinked at the site of me half straddling the railing and the security guard standing there with a grim look on his face as he stared me down. My cheeks were red, behind my glasses, my eyes wild.
I turned away from the screen, irritated that they weren't focused on Romeo.
I glanced at the guard. "I'm coming over."
He crossed his arms over his chest as if to say, I dare you.
I flung my other leg over so I was balanced on the bottom rung.
"This is your last warning," the guard shouted.
The crowd st ~ Cambria Hebert

And you, Ronan," Niall said. He always said Ronan differently from other words. As if he had meant to say another word entirely - something like knife or poison or revenge - and then swapped it out for Ronan's name at the last moment. "When you were born, the rivers dried up and the cattle in Rockingham County wept blood. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I got interested in the idea that love is often used as a kind of blanket explanation for things. I mean, battered wives, for instance: "Why did you go back to him?" "Oh, I loved him." "Why did you embezzle fifteen million pounds and run away to the other side of the world?" "Oh, well, because I was in love." All that and then you don't ask anything else. I thought if I just say, these people needed love and they found it, then it kind of explained it away. I wanted to look at their behaviour and how love can inspire the best and the very worst in human behaviour but love itself is not behaviour. So I avoided the word 'love' until the very end and it's the last word in the novel. I wanted to explore what people will do when they're in such terrible need of love. If there was a big idea then that was it. Then, of course, I hope that if it's a story worth reading it's the characters themselves who make you want to read it, not the big idea. I don't think a big idea drives a novel usually. Something else has to engage you on a much more kind of personal level. ~ Morag Joss

The Light in the Labyrinth is a beautifully written book, a gem. I savoured every word; words written with so much 'colour'. Even though I know the story of Queen Anne Boleyn, Dunn's perspective on her last days is missing in so many other books of the genre. Dunn gives grace to the history and an honest, and very compassionate look at Anne's last days. I cried in the end, shedding tears for the young Kate, Anne and her little Bess. I have not yet read a Tudor book that has moved me to tears, as this wonderful journey does. Dunn's dedication and research shines through in this unforgettable book, a book not just for young readers, but also for all." - Lara Salzano, avid Tudor reader. ~ Wendy J. Dunn

How to repulse a demon (an old problem)? The demons, especially if they are demons of language (and what else could they be?) are fought by language. Hence I can hope to exorcise the demonic word which is breathed into my ears (by myself) if I substitute for it (if I have the gifts of language for doing so) another, calmer word (I yield to euphemism). Thus: I imagined I had escaped from the crisis at last, when behold
favored by a long car trip
a flood of language sweeps me away, I keep tormenting myself with the thought, desire, regret, and rage of the other; and I add to these wounds the discouragement of having to acknowledge that I am falling back, relapsing; but the French vocabulary is a veritable pharmacopoeia (poison on one side, antidote on the other): no, this is not a relapse, only a last soubresaut, a final convulsion of the previous demon. ~ Roland Barthes

On another note, I also learned that everyone plays games with texting, like waiting longer than the other person to text, sending replies of equal length, always trying to get the last word, and the like. Even if you say you "don't play games," that is a type of game - it is the "I don't play games" game. Everyone hates these games and no one wants to play them. For the most part, people just want to be honest and say how they feel, and they definitely want others to be honest and open with them. But here's the thing: Unfortunately those games are actually kind of effective. No matter how much people want things to be different, I don't think we can defeat the insecurities and tendencies built into our internal psychology. ~ Aziz Ansari

He told me that in 1886 he had invented an original system of numbering and that in a very few days he had gone beyond the twenty-four-thousand mark. He had not written it down, since anything he thought of once would never be lost to him. His first stimulus was, I think, his discomfort at the fact that the famous thirty-three gauchos of Uruguayan history should require two signs and two words, in place of a single word and a single sign. He then applied this absurd principle to the other numbers. In place of seven thousand thirteen he would say (for example) Maximo Pérez; in place of seven thousand fourteen, The Railroad; other numbers were Luis Melián Lafinur, Olimar, sulphur, the reins, the whale, the gas, the caldron, Napoleon, Agustin de Vedia. In place of five hundred, he would say nine. Each word had a particular sign, a kind of mark; the last in the series were very complicated... ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Professor Severus Snape, master of this school, commands you to yield the information you conceal!" Snape said, hitting the map with his wand.
As though an invisible hand were writing upon it, words appeared on the surface of the map.
"Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business."
Snape froze. Harry stared, dumbstruck, at the message. But the map didn't stop there. More writing was appearing beneath the first.
"Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git."
It would have been very funny if the situation hadn't been so serious. And there was more...
"Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor."
Harry closed his eyes in horror. When he'd opened them, the map had had its last word.
"Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball."
(286 & 287) ~ J.K. Rowling

For all that people have tried to abuse it and disown it. "feminism" is still the word we need. No other word will do. And let's face it, there has been no other word, save "Girl Power"
which makes you sound like you're into some branch of Scientology owned by Geri Halliwell. That "Girl Power" has been the sole rival to the word "feminism" in the last 50 years is a cause for much sorrow on behalf of the women. After all, P. Diddy has had four different names, and he's just one man. ~ Caitlin Moran

His father's last word, which Sean had never told anyone, not even his mother, hadn't been goodbye: it had been hello. He hadn't died; he'd been set free from the constraints of history and flesh. And while the fathers of other children could only be the people they were, and were forced to live the lives they'd made for themselves, the Philip Steiner of his son's daydreams was all the possible versions of himself that Sean could imagine. He was always near, always ready to listen, always offering solace. He was all the possible fathers. He was a dragonslayer and a titan of industry; he was a cunning detective and a grizzled gunfighter; he was an astronaut and a priest and a jailer of thieves. He lived in the shadows, and he filled his son's world with light. ~ Dexter Palmer

Making another effort to be paradoxical, Williams decides to identify Orwell as an instance of 'the paradox of the exile'. This, which he also identified with D. H. Lawrence, constituted an actual 'tradition', which, in England:

attracts to itself many of the liberal virtues: empiricism, a certain integrity, frankness. It has also, as the normally contingent virtue of exile, certain qualities of perception: in particular, the ability to distinguish inadequacies in the groups which have been rejected. It gives, also, an appearance of strength, although this is largely illusory. The qualities, though salutary, are largely negative; there is an appearance of hardness (the austere criticism of hypocrisy, complacency, self-deceit), but this is usually brittle, and at times hysterical: the substance of community is lacking, and the tension, in men of high quality, is very great.

This is quite a fine passage, even when Williams is engaged in giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Orwell's working title for Nineteen Eighty-Four was 'The Last Man in Europe,' and there are traces of a kind of solipsistic nobility elsewhere in his work, the attitude of the flinty and solitary loner. May he not be valued, however, as the outstanding English example of the dissident intellectual who preferred above all other allegiances the loyalty to truth? Self-evidently, Williams does not believe this and the clue is in the one word, so seemingly innocuous in itself, ~ Christopher Hitchens

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. ~ O. Henry

He closes the door with a determined click, and I hear him call to a flight attendant, and I sink down onto the toilet seat, resting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands as I listen to him through the door.

"I'm sorry to bother you but my wife," he says, and then pauses. With the last word he says, my heart begins to hammer. "The one who now got sick? She's started her... cycle? And I'm wondering if you keep any, or rather if you have... something? You see this all happened a bit fast and she packed in a hurry, and before that we were in Vegas. I have no idea why she came with me but I really really don't want to screw this up. And now she needs something. Can she, uh," he stutters, finally saying simply, "borrow quelque chose?" I cover my mouth as he continues to ramble, and I would given anything in this moment to see the expression of the flight attendant on the other side of this door. "I meant use," he continues. "Not to borrow because I don't think they work that way."

I hear a woman's voice ask, "Do you know if she needs tampons or pads?"

Oh God. Oh God. This can't be happening.

"Um..." I hear him sigh and then say, "I have no idea but I'll give you a hundred dollars to end this conversation and give me both. ~ Christina Lauren

Somewhere or other there must surely be
The face not seen, the voice not heard,
The heart that not yet - never yet - ah me!
Made answer to my word.
Somewhere or other, may be near or far;
Past land and sea, clean out of sight;
Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star
That tracks her night by night.
Somewhere or other, may be far or near;
With just a wall, a hedge, between;
With just the last leaves of the dying year
Fallen on a turf grown green. ~ Christina Rossetti

We hadn't spoken one word to each other since the death glare last night, and I couldn't help but check both of her hands for knives and shivs, hoping that if she had one, I would be able to wrestle it away from her before meeting my untimely death.
I was far too young and fun to die at the hands of my mother, and she was way too pretty to end up in prison. It would only take a matter of minutes for her to become someone's bitch, and I didn't want the responsibility for that kind of thing on my shoulders. ~ Laurel Ulen Curtis

Edward and I had not had a last grand scene of farewell, nor did I plan one. To speak the word was to make it final. It would be the same as typing the words The End on the last page of a manuscript. So we did not say our goodbyes, and we stayed very close to each other, always touching. Whatever end found us, it would not find us separated. ~ Stephenie Meyer

Hi." I caught a flash of his smile as he bent to kiss me. His lips were warm and his kiss was sweet. Gentle. He only deepened the kiss a little while his hand slid into my hair and his other hand curved into the small of my back.

I smiled as he pulled away. "Hi."

"That's better." He cupped my cheek in his hand, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheekbone. "I've missed you since yesterday. Is that weird? Does that make me one of those stalker guys?"

"Only if you follow me home. Cut off a lock of my hair while I sleep. Something like that."

"I thought I'd save that for next weekend." He bent to kiss me again but swerved at the last second to brush his lips against my cheek instead. "I have a theory about you, Emily Parker."

"You do?"

"I do." Another kiss on my cheek, and then his teeth grazed my earlobe, and I shivered. "I don't think you've ever been wooed. Have you?" The words were a low whisper in my ear, and the shiver intensified.

"Wooed?" The word felt strange in my mouth.

"Wooed," he repeated, punctuating the word with a kiss on my other cheek. "Courted. Swept off your feet. Had someone show you how you make him feel."

"I . . . I can't say that I have." That was an understatement.

"Then brace yourself." He straightened up and backed away from me a step or two. "I'm going to woo your ass off. ~ Jen DeLuca

At last he stood staring at the old Reuben Golding he thought he knew so well, and neither had a word for the other that mattered. ~ Anne Rice

As I said before, the marriage had troubles in it, which is easy to say ... When we were both mad, we would have something to say to each other. It wasn't love, but it beat indifference, and sooner or later, mostly sooner, it would come to love ...
We had often enough the pleasure of making up, because we fell out often enough. But now, looking back, it is hard to say why we fell out, or what we fell out about, or why whatever we fell out about ever mattered. But even then it was something hard to say.
One time we were fussing and Nathan looked at me right in the middle of it and said, "Hannah, what in the hell got us started on this?"
I said, "I don't know."
"Well, I don't know either," he said. "So I think I'm going to quit."
"Well, go ahead and quit," I said.
He said, "I already did." And that was the last word that time. ~ Wendell Berry

Evolution is largely a temporal phenomenon, Merrill. The environment changes, and populations in that environment change in turn, or they languish. Individual organisms don't evolve; populations do. Nature doesn't give a damn about individuals. The only role we play in evolution is surviving long enough to give birth to offspring who are slightly different from us. Some of our offspring will prosper in a changing environment, and some of them will not. As for us individuals, once we've reproduced, nature has no more use for us. We perish along with our ill-adapted young. Death has always been an essential factor in species survival.

Now consider the human race. We are a partial exception to the rule. Unlike other species, we have developed culture. Instead of adapting to a changing environment biologically, we can sometimes adapt to it culturally. If an Ice Age comes along, we don't need to grow fur on our bodies if we invent the fur coat. Culture allows us to adapt to almost any environment, including the harshest, like space. In fact, our cultural adaptation is so robust that it all but obviates the need to evolve biologically.

We are so good at adapting to changing conditions with our knowledge and technology that we may deceive ourselves into believing that we are above nature. But only a fools believes that. Nature always has the last word. A star in our neighborhood could go supernova and wipe out all life in our solar system, and no amount of cult ~ David Marusek

And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
It is to satiate no Being's gall.

It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
Could not be killed by poison or the knife.

This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.

We finish thus; and all our wretched race
Shall finish with its cycle, and give place
To other beings with their own time-doom:
Infinite aeons ere our kind began;
Infinite aeons after the last man
Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb. ~ James Thomson

I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. Keep yourselves from idols. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your hands have made. For I am a consuming fire, a jealous God. ~ Zhang Yun

The discovery of this strange society was a curiously refreshing thing; to realize that there were ten new trades in the world was like looking at the first ship or the first plough. It made a man feel what he should feel, that he was still in the childhood of the world. That I should have come at last upon so singular a body was, I may say without vanity, not altogether singular, for I have a mania for belonging to as many societies as possible: I may be said to collect clubs, and I have accumulated a vast and fantastic variety of specimens ever since, in my audacious youth, I collected the Athenaeum. At some future day, perhaps, I may tell tales of some of the other bodies to which I have belonged. I will recount the doing's of the Dead Man's Shoes Society (that superficially immoral, but darkly justifiable communion); I will explain the curious origin of the Cat and Christian, the name of which has been so shamefully misinterpreted; and the world shall know at last why the Institute of Typewriters coalesced with the Red Tulip League. Of the Ten Teacups, of course I dare not say a word. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Oh, if it were lawful for men, in order to raise their opinions on horseback, to use the Scripture as stirrups, to lengthen and shorten them, each one to his own size, where, I beg you, should we be? Do you not perceive the stratagem? All authority is taken away from tradition, the Church, the Councils, the pastors: what further remains? The Scripture. The enemy is crafty. If he would tear it all away at once he would cause an alarm; he takes away a great part of it in the very beginning, then first one piece, then the other, at last he will have you stripped entirely, without Scripture and without Word of God. ~ Francis De Sales

Now some of you will say that the two are one and the same - happiness and joy - but this is not so. Happiness is a feeling. Happiness is fleeting, dependent on the moment, the circumstances, even the weather. Joy is transcendent, enduring, and, in the biblical context, is not an emotion. Joy is an attitude of the heart. Joy brings us peace, a refuge in the midst of troubles. God gives us joy through His Spirit. But the enemy tries to steal your joy and give you temporary happiness instead. Now, is there anything wrong with being happy? Nee, but it cannot last. So, you may wonder why I bring up the difference between these two - it is simple really. [...] marriage is sacred before the Lord, a decision for a lifetime, but too often I think young people look upon it as a source of happiness. Do not look at marriage this way. See it as a reservoir of joy, a deep, welling spring that endures the icy blast of temper, the bite of an angry word, the void of loneliness in a heart hungry for talk when there is no response. [...] Seek joy in each other, not happiness. ~ Kelly Long

I found the other two in Bran's room, and one look at their faces made it abundantly clear that they felt no better than I did. Not that the Marquis had a red nose or a thick voice--he even looked aristocratic when sick, I thought with disgust. But Bran sneezed frequently, and from the pungent smell of bristic in the air, he had had recourse to the flagon.
"Mel!" he exclaimed when I opened the door. And he laughed. "Look at you! You're drowning in that kit." He turned his head to address Shevraeth. "Ain't anyone undersized among your people?"
"Obviously not," I said tartly, and helped myself to the flagon that I saw on the bed. A swig of bristic did help somewhat. "Unless the sight of me is intended to provide some cheap amusement for the warriors."
"Well, I won't come off much better," Bran said cheerily.
"That I resent," the Marquis said with his customary drawl. "Seeing as it is my wardrobe that is gracing your frame."
Branaric only laughed, then he said, "Now that we're all together, and I'm still sober, what's the word?"
"The latest report is that the King is a day or two's march from here, well ensconced in the midst of his army. Debegri is with him, and it seems there have been some disagreements on the manner in which you two are to be dealt with. Galdran wants to lay Tlanth to waste, but Debegri, of course, has his eye to a title and land at last."
Bran rubbed his chin. "Only one of that family not landed, right?"
"To the Baron ~ Sherwood Smith

The cabins they passed among seemed solemn in their abandonment, cramped by the watercourse and the overhanging brow of the cloudy mountain. Some of its people might yet be living, and Ada wondered how often they remembered this lonesome place, now still as a held breath. Whatever word they had called it would soon be numbered among the names of things which have not been passed down to us and are exiled from our memories. She doubted that its people, even in the last days, had ever looked ahead and imagined loss so total and so soon. they had not foreseen a near time when theirs would be another world filled with other people whose mouths would speak other words, whose sleep would be eased or troubled with other dreams, whose prayers would be offered up to other gods. ~ Charles Frazier

About 35-40% of the time, a player wants to create a word ending in a specific letter. This, however, is not the way we traditionally think, and, not to mention, this is not the way dictionaries are sorted. In other words, in many situations, conventional dictionaries are not arranged in an easy to use manner. This dictionary solves that problem by sorting on the last letter of the word. ~ Richard D. Ekstrom

One of the most terrible losses man endures in his lifetime is not even noticed by most people, much less mourned. Which is astonishing, because what we lose is in many ways one of the essential qualities that sets us apart from other creatures. I'm talking about the loss of the sense of wonder that is such an integral part of our world when we are children. However, as we grow older, that sense of wonder shrinks from cosmic to microscopic by the time we are adults. Kids say "Wow!" all the time. Opening their mouths fully, their eyes light up with genuine awe and glee. The word emanates not so much from a voice box as from an astonished soul that has once again been shown that the world is full of amazing unexpected things.
When was the last time you let fly a loud, truly heartfelt "WOW?"
NOt recently I bet. Because generally speaking wonder belongs to kids, with the rare exception of falling madly in love with another person, which invariably leads to a rebirth of wonder. As adults, we are not supposed to say or feel Wow, or wonder, or even true surprise because those things make us sound goofy, ingenuous, and childlike. How can you run the world if you are in constant awe of it?...
The human heart has a long memory though and remembers what it was like to live through days where it was constantly surprised and delighted by the world around it. ~ Jonathan Carroll

After deliberating my options for a split second, I rolled my chair over to watch him tattoo the guy he had hunched over, working on an old pirate ship right smack on the middle of the man's brawny shoulder.

I didn't say a word as I watched him, not wanting to distract him from the man who had been all too excited to request Slim's work an hour before.

But my friend Slim had other thoughts. His green eyes flashed up at me. "What was that about?"

"Huh?" I played stupid.

Slim pulled the gun off the customer's skin, dabbing at the beaded blood before continuing with a shake of his head. "Since when are you guys BFFs?"

I'd learned over the last month how chatty all the guys were, well, specifically Slim and Blake. If I answered his question just remotely weird, I'd bet my first born Slim would jump to some kind of crazy conclusion that I wanted no part of. So I went with the truth. "I heard him fart last night. It kind of broke the ice."

The little whistle he let out told me that was good enough. He snorted and raised an eyebrow before getting back to work. "That'll do it. ~ Mariana Zapata

New Rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word "liberal," they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite media," and the "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is overly influenced by the "Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shit-kicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game where you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite," you'd be almost as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.

I don't get it: In other fields--outside of government--elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad--the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains.

Which is fine, except that whenever there's a Bush administration scandal, it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment, and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screwups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I'm not kidding. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because she's smack in the middle of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third-ranking official in the Justice Department of the United States. She's thirty-three, and though she never even worked as a prosecutor, was tasked with overseeing ~ Bill Maher

You are the last Five left in the competition, yes? Do you think that hurts your chances of becoming the princess?"
The word sprang from my lips without thought. "No!"
"Oh, my! You do have a spirit there!" Gavril seemed pleased to have gotten such an enthusiastic response. "So you think you'll beat out all the others, then? Make it to the end?"
I thought better of myself. "No, no. It's not like that. I don't think I'm better than any of the other girls; they're all amazing. It's just...I don't think Maxon would do that, just discount someone because of their caste."
I heard a collective gasp. I ran over the sentence in my head. It took me a minute to catch my mistake: I'd called him Maxon. Saying that to another girl behind closed doors was one thing, but to say his name without the word "Prince" in front of it was incredibly informal in public.
And I'd said it on live television.
I looked to see if Maxon was angry. He had a calm smile on his face. So he wasn't mad...but I was embarrassed. I blushed fiercely.
"Ah, so it seems you really have gotten to know our prince. Tell me, what do you think of Maxon?"
I ahd thought of several answers while I was waiting for my turn. I was going to make fun of his laugh or talk about the pet name he wanted his wife to call him. It seemed like the only way to save the situation was to get back the comedy. But as I lifted my eyes to make one of my comments, I saw Maxon's face.
He really wanted to ~ Kiera Cass

The whole set of stylizations that are known as "camp" (a word that I was hearing then for the first time) was, in 1926, self-explanatory. Women moved and gesticulated in this way. Homosexuals wished for obvious reasons to copy them. The strange thing about "camp" is that it has been fossilized. The mannerisms have never changed. If I were now to see a woman sitting with her knees clamped together, one hand on her hip and the other lightly touching her back hair, I should think, "Either she scored her last social triumph in 1926 or it is a man in drag. ~ Quentin Crisp

Believing in the second coming itself is anything but arrogant. The whole point of it is to insist, over against not only the wider pagan world, but against all self-delusion or pretension within the church, that Jesus remains sovereign and will return at last to put everything right. This putting right (the biblical word for it is "justice") is the sort of sigh-of-relief event that the whole world, at its best and at many other times too, longs for most deeply. All sorts of things are out of joint, both on a large and a small scale, in the world; and God the creator will put them straight. All sorts of things are still going wrong, corrupting the lives of human beings and the larger life of the environment, the planet itself; God the creator will put them right. All sorts of things are still wrong with us, Jesus's followers; Jesus, when he comes, will put us right as well. That may not be comfortable, but it's what we need. ~ N. T. Wright

One night the month before, back on the other side of the Belgian border, Aughenbaugh had delivered a lecture on the etymology of the word war. He said that he had looked it up and it came from an ancient Indo-European root signifying confusion. That was a foxhole night, bitter cold. The 5th Panzer Army was making its last great push west. You had to hand it to those Indo-Europeans, my grandfather thought, rolling through Vellinghausen. Confusion shown on the faces of the townspeople. War confused civilians every bit as surely as it did the armies who got lost in its fogs. It confounded conquest with liberation, anger with heartache, hunger with gratitude, hatred with awe. The 53rd Combat Engineers looked pretty confused, too. They were milling around at the edge of town, contemplating the long stretch of road between and beautiful downtown Berlin, trying to figure out if they ought to mine it or clear it of mines. ~ Michael Chabon

I wonder how long this word will last, governed exclusively by the merciless, inhuman and immoral criteria of global economy. Seeing the shadow of distant islands, I imagined one still inhabited by a tribe of poets set aside for when, after the middle age of materialism, humanity will have to start to put other values into his existence. ~ Tiziano Terzani

Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. While she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more, all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of whose companionship she was grown more than weary.
I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle. ~ Charlotte Bronte

I have had a lifelong association with these things. (Odd that the word 'trees' does not apply.) I can accept them and their power and their age because I was early exposed to them. ON the other hand, people lacking such experience begin to have a feeling of uneasiness here, of danger, of being shut in, enclosed and overwhelmed. It is not only the size of these redwoods but their strangeness that frightens them. And why not? For these are the last remaining members of a race that flourished over four continents as far back in geologic time as the upper Jurassic period. Fossils of these ancients have been found dating from the Cretaceous era while in the Eocene and Miocene they were spread over England and Europe and America. And then the glaciers moved down and wiped the Titans out beyond recovery. And only these few are left--a stunning memory of what the world was like once long ago. Can it be that we do not love to be reminded that we are very young and callow in a world that was old when we came into it? And could there be a strong resistance to the certainty that a living world will continue its stately way when we no longer inhabit it? p. 172 Travels with Charley ~ John Steinbeck