The Pit And The Pendulum Quotes

In death - no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Cordelia glared at me. 'I expect if someone strapped you to table an swung an axe over your naked quivering flesh like The Pit and the Pendulum, you'd be correcting his grammar'. ~ Victoria Clayton

We are basically storytellers, descendants of the old men who sat around the fire and told us legends, fairytales, exploits, or maybe just how funny Og looked when he fell into the tar pit. ~ Sol Saks

Granny Weatherwax was in trouble.

First of all, she decided, she should never have allowed Hilta to talk her into borrowing her broomstick. It was elderly, erratic, would fly only at night and even then couldn't manage a speed much above a trot.

Its lifting spells had worn so thin that it wouldn't even begin to operate until it was already moving at a fair lick. It was, in fact, the only broomstick ever to need bump-starting.

And it was while Granny Weatherwax, sweating and cursing, was running along a forest path holding the damn thing at shoulder height for the tenth time that she had found the bear trap.

The second problem was that a bear had found it first. In fact this hadn't been too much of a problem because Granny, already in a bad temper, hit it right between the eyes with the broomstick and it was now sitting as far away from her as it was possible to get in a pit, and trying to think happy thoughts. ~ Terry Pratchett

Personality is the glitter that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into that big black space where the audience is. ~ Mae West

Dex isn't a big guy by any means. He's on the short side and toned but still thin. But he has unpredictable pit-bull tactics and one hell of a lippy attitude with strangers. For heaven's sake, never give that man a shovel. ~ Karina Halle

He smiled as only the truly shy can smile. It was not the easy grin of the confident, nor the quick slashing smile of the extremely durable and the wicked. It had no relation with the poised, intently used smile of the courtesan or the politician. It was the strange, rare smile which rises from the deep, dark pit, deeper than a well, deep as a mine, that is within them. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Big worms that move through the sand like it's water." Roger's level arm went up and down in a smooth wave. "Or the big thing in Star Wars. What if we step down there and the sand just turns into a big pit with a mouth at the bottom?" "For the record, it's called a Sarlacc," Xela said. ~ Peter Clines

Imperishable moments and immortal deeds, death itself and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for the moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest. ~ Arthur Balfour

Slumped to the floor. The pit of blackness welcomed her to let go and fall into the murky depths where conscience and pain ceased to exist.
Hands to her head, face to the stone, screaming without sound, she pushed back hard.
For nine months she'd tasted happiness, a chance at the closest thing she'd known to peace and a real life. For nine months the rage and violence that had defined so many of her years had finally ebbed, and now those who had no right had come with impunity to rip her out of this newfound calm, throwing her into an impossible situation where no matter what she did or what she chose, the end result would be a return to madness. ~ Taylor Stevens

As I stand at the edge of the pit, searching for his body amongst all the others, I am slightly frightened by the violent clashes. It seems almost savagery, the way they throw themselves into each other. As I continue to watch, unable to look away, drawn in by their angry and troubled release I see him. His body is sweating, his muscles are flexed and his face holds an expression of pain mixed with pleasure. In that moment I realize their is so much I don't know about the man I am falling in love with and my fear of him excites me. ~ Nicole T. Smith

The powdered sugar had caramelized and blackened into a sucking tar pit in which my ladyfingers languished like so many sunk mastadons. ~ Julie Powell

Years in museums had trained me not to touch things that were this obviously fine and rare. Some voracious beast in the pit of my soul wanted to lick the moulding, though, if I'm being honest. ~ Meg Watson

Consider how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down in the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist's arm-chair and confuse his "Rinse the mouth-rinse the mouth" with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us - when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature ~ Virginia Woolf

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon ... probably the demigod Hazel admired most. He'd saved her life so many times on their quest to Alaska; but when he had needed Hazel's help in Rome, she'd failed him. She'd watched, powerless, as he and Annabeth had plunged into that pit. ~ Rick Riordan

Gnag bends things for breaking, and the Maker makes a flourish! Evil digs a pit, and the Maker makes a well! That is his way. ~ Andrew Peterson

I see in the papers that the singer, Frank Ifield, popular in the fifties, is planning a comeback. I remember reviewing his debut at the Palladium under the insane misapprehension that he was blind. (I had him confused with a blind vocalist who bore a similar name.) I watched agape with admiration while he strolled around the stage with every appearance of knowing where he was going, and I burst into spontaneous applause as he strode down to within a foot of the orchestra pit without the least sign of fear. By the end of his act I was misty with tears at the thought of his courage. I often wonder what he thought when he read the review in which I congratulated him on the gallantry with which he had overcome the handicap of sightlessness. ~ Kenneth Tynan

An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. ....The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney, therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow fell into a lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair and came out looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown's decided "Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive, But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once."
Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel.I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in London? ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

The chief attraction of the opposite sex for all of us, old and young, men and women: we need someone to save us from the sympathetic smiles in the Sunday-night cinema queue, someone who can stop us from falling down into the pit where the permanently single live with their mums and dads. ~ Nick Hornby

Pianos, unlike people, sing when you give them your every growl. They know how to dive into the pit of your stomach and harmonize with your roars when you've split yourself open. And when they see you, guts shining, brain pulsing, heart right there exposed in a rhythm that beats need need, need need, need need, pianos do not run. And so she plays. ~ Francesca Lia Block

It is easier to call the storm from the empty sky than to manipulate the heart of a man; and soon, if my bones did not lie to me, I should be needing all the power I could muster, to pit against a woman; and this is harder to do than anything concerning men, as air is harder to see than a mountain. ~ Mary Stewart

A steel door clapped open as a guard stepped from the bulletproof viewing station across the hall. "Adams!"
"That you?"
"I told you, I don't know-"
The cop pointed straight at him. "Jeffrey Adams! Front and center!"
The black man helped him rise to his feet. "Ain't everybody gets called back from the pit, man. Question is, what are you gonna do when you find out who you are? ~ Davis Bunn

Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy that the shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part, I hate boating and I hate the water ... ~ J. Sheridan Le Fanu

With a beautiful girl I could have consoled myself that she was out of my league; that I was so haunted and stirred even by her plainness suggested - ominously - a love more binding than physical affection, some tar-pit of the soul where I might flop around and malinger for years. ~ Donna Tartt

Curriculum companies provide more work than is needed. I never finished the complete curriculum when I taught in a classroom or at home. If your race is with your curriculum, learn to pick and choose what to use, and please do not attempt to cover it all or your race will be ongoing and you will be exhausted. Even races require pit stops to refuel. ~ Tamara L. Chilver

TRAUMA STEALS YOUR VOICE

People get so tired of asking you what's wrong and you've run out of nothings to tell them.

You've tried and they've tried, but the words just turn to ashes every time they try to leave your mouth.

They start as fire in the pit of your stomach, but come out in a puff of smoke.

You are not you anymore.

And you don't know how to fix this.

The worst part is...you don't even know how to try. ~ Nikitta Gill

If they think they can stop me, I defy them to bring the best they have and I shall roast them over a pit of their own arrogant stupidity.
Maxis ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The pain makes you so numb,
At times, you feel as if you are hallucinating,
Seeing things happen to you as if it were happening to someone else like an " out of body experience".

How could life be so cruel?

Is this what perseverance and enduring pain is all about;I ask myself ?
Somehow I have made myself believe that
" jumping off the cliff " or
" drowning myself "
would do nothing to ease this "pain " ! this " numbness "!
Seeing my loved one suffer after I am "gone" , I guess ,will make me more and more anxious ;
Angry "ghosts " don't make good " providers" , I assume.
So I carry on ..
I carry on every day .
It's a weight I have ...
It makes my heart sink to the bottomless pit ,
But
Then again,
a man like me; a giver & a man with no choice has " literally" no choice" but to " live with this hollowed numb"! ~ BinYamin Gulzar

When I had tried to stop previously there were weeks of dark depression. There would be odd days when I was comparatively cheerful but the next day I would invariably sink back into the misery and depression. It was like clawing your way out of a slippery pit - you feel that you are nearing the top; you can see the sunshine - and then find yourself sliding back down again. ~ Allen Carr

In October 1941, Mahilue became teh first substantial city in occupied Soviet Belarus where almost all Jews were killed. A German (Austrian) policeman wrote to his wife of his feelings and experiences shooting the city's Jews in the first days of the month. 'During the first try, my hand trembled a bit as I shot, but one gets used to it. By the tenth try I aimed calmly and shot surely at the many women, children, and infants. I kept in mind that I have two infants at home, whom these hordes would treat just the same, if not ten times worse. The death that we gave them was a beautiful quick death, compared to the hellish torments of thousands and thousands in the jails of the GPU. Infants flew in great arcs through the air, and we shot them to pieces in flight, before their bodies fell into the pit and into the water.'
pp. 205-206 ~ Timothy Snyder

It is implied in the New Testament vision that Christianity is not a culture-creating thing but rather a culture-influencing one... there can never be such a thing as a Christian culture; there can only be cultures in which the influence of Christianity is more or less apparent.The New Testament vision does not pit a "Christian culture" against a non-Christian culture; rather does it introduce a leavening into any existing culture into which it insinuates itself, a leaven whereby that already existing culture is then affected.... The New Testament's idea of societal compositism is the only real alternative to the stultifying ideologies that have given rise to the modern optionless and option forbidding totalitarian states. ~ Leonard Verduin

All right, now that the weirdness between us has caused actual physical damage, I think it's time we talked it out, don't you?"
He gave a half smile and then turned back to the path. "We don't need to be weird," he said. "These past few days, since the thing with Elodie, I've been thinking." He took a deep breath, and I knew that this was one of those rare occasions when Cal was about to say a lot of words at once. "I like you, Sophie. A lot. For a while, I thought it might be more than that. But you love Cross."
He said it matter-of-factly, but I still caught the way his ears reddened. "I know I've said some pretty awful stuff about him, but…I was wrong. He's a good guy. So, I guess what I'm saying is that as the guy who's betrothed to you, I wish we could be more than friends." He stopped, turning around to face me. "But as your friend, I want you to be happy. And if Cross is who you want, then I'm not gonna stand in the way of that."
"I'm the worst fiancé ever, aren't I?"
Cal lifted one shoulder. "Nah. This one warlock I knew, his betrothed set him on fire."
Laughing so I wouldn't cry, I tentatively lifted my arms to hug him. He folded me against his chest, and there was no awkwardness between us, and I knew the warmth in the pit of my stomach was love. Just a different kind.
Sniffling, I pulled back and rubbed at my nose. "Okay, now that the hard part's over, let's go tackle the Underworld."
"Got room for two more?"
Startled, I turn ~ Rachel Hawkins

Then suddenly Percy was next to her, lacing his fingers in hers. He turned her gently away from the pit and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest and broke down in tears. "It's okay," he said. "We're together." He didn't say you're okay, or we're alive. After all they'd been through over the last year, he knew the most important thing was that they were together. She loved him for saying that. Their friends gathered around them. Nico di Angelo was there, but Annabeth's thoughts were so fuzzy, this didn't seem surprising to her. It seemed only right that he would be with them. "Your leg." Piper knelt next to her and examined the Bubble Wrap cast. "Oh, Annabeth, what happened?" She started to explain. Talking was difficult, but as she went along, her words came more easily. Percy didn't let go of her hand, which also made her feel more confident. When she finished, her friends' faces were slack with amazement. "Gods of Olympus," Jason said. "You did all that ~ Rick Riordan

Not entirely fair?" His voice became that of the inferno: a rushing, booming howl of icy evil that flew around the great cavern, as swift and cold as the Wendigo on skates. "I am Satan, also called Lucifer the Light Bearer ... "
Cabal winced. What was it about devils that they always had to give you their whole family history?
"I was cast down from the presence of God himself into this dark, sulfurous pit and condemned to spend eternity here-"
"Have you tried saying sorry?" interrupted Cabal.
"No, I haven't! I was sent down for a sin of pride. It rather undermines my position if I say 'sorry'! ~ Jonathan L. Howard