Venus In Furs Quotes

Dangerous forces lie within me. You awaken them, and not to your advantage. You know how to paint pleasure, cruelty, arrogance in glowing colors. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will paint her, and go mad. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would subjugate me by his inate strength. And every man - I know this very well - as soon as he falls in love becomes weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself into the woman's hands, kneels down before her. The only man whom I could love permanently would be he before whom I should have to kneel. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

He simply painted the portrait of some aristocratic Mesalina, and was tactful enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her majestic allure with cold satisfaction. He looks as though his task were becoming burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery. Later an 'expert' in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the name of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair model wrapped herself, probably more for fear of a cold than out of modesty, have become a symbol of the tyranny and cruelty that constitute woman's essence and her beauty. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Now that I'm on Broadway, it's like NASA engineering with the costumes. I was very grateful for the slightly more high-tech ones in my show, 'Venus in Fur'; our costume designer Anita Yavich is kind of a genius. ~ Nina Arianda

I love her passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally uniform, eternally calm, stony smile. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Why become well-versed in science and the arts if not to impress a lovely little woman? ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Cats exercise ... a magic influence upon highly developed men of intellect. This is why these long-tailed Graces of the animal kingdom, these adorable, scintillating electric batteries have been the favorite animal of a Mohammed, Cardinal Richlieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood ... ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

My husband's personality was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow. On the very night of his death he took me in his arms, and during the many months when he lay dying in his wheel chair, he often said jokingly to me: 'Well, have you already picked out a lover?' I blushed with shame. 'Don't deceive me,' he added on one occasion, 'that would seem ugly to me, but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably several. You are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you need toys. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You are cold, while you yourself fan flames. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers
everything, because it must. It is not our judgment that leads us;
it is neither the advantages nor the faults which we discover, that
make us abandon ourselves, or that repel us.
It is a sweet, soft, enigmatic power that drives us on. We cease to
think, to feel, to will; we let ourselves be carried away by it, and
ask not whither? ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You of the North in general take love too soberly and seriously. You talk of duties where there should be only a question of pleasure. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The Plastic People of the Universe played 'Venus in Furs' from Velvet Underground, and I knew everything was basically okay. ~ Tom Stoppard

Watch out, I have a large, very large fur, with which I could cover you up entirely, and I have a mind to catch you in it as in a net. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason ... ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

My heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I imagine that the goddess of Love has come down from Olympus to visit a mortal. So as not to die of cold in this modern world of ours, she wraps her sublime body in great heavy furs and warms her feet on the prostrate body of her lover. I imagine the favorite of this beautiful despot, who is whipped when his mistress grows tired of kissing him, and whose love only grows more intense the more he is trampled underfoot. I shall call the picture Venus in Furs ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Woman's power lies in man's passion, and she knows how to use it, if man doesn't understand himself. He has only one choice: to be the tyrant over or the slave of woman. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Currently reading Venus In Furs by Sacher-Masoch,
so... um...

"God did punish him and deliver him into a woman's hands."
Judith 16:7 ~ Bible Notes

That love, which is the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in you. As soon as you wish to be natural, you becomecommon. To you nature seems something hostile; you have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar. And if ever one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff, while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every hour, but their fragrance does not agree with you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Once I no longer exist as I am, out of what consideration then should I forgo anything? Should I belong to a man I don't love simply because I used to love him? No, I forgo nothing, I love any man who appeals to me and I make any man who loves me happy. Is that ugly? No, it is at least far more beautiful than my cruelly delighting in the tortures incited by my charms and my virtuously turning my back on the poor man who pines away for me. I am young, rich, and beautiful, and just as I am, I live cheerfully for pleasure and enjoyment. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

All about us the earth steamed; mists rose up toward heaven like clouds of incense; a shattered rainbow still hovered in the air. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I've always found paintings of nudes depressing because they can't compete with photographs. The grainiest photograph of some girl, a blurry Polaroid - you'd rather look at that than the Venus de Milo, because you think, Wow, that's really somebody ... This camera really was in front of this real naked lady. ~ John Currin

Women, he would say, are not Muses. Muses are Muses. To confuse one with the other is to mistake the Devouring Void for the Seminal Light. Earthly Women and the Muses are ancient, sworn enemies. The battlefield is the Creative Male. On the one side is the encampment of Discordia, of Diana, of Venus located in his Heart and in his Groin. On the other is the Bastion of Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania, in his Brain and in his Mind. The Muses are tolerant and understanding of border raids, skirmishes, and harassing maneuvers. Throughout the history of the Male Light, there have been few painters, few writers, who have not had a She Who Must Be Accommodated. For some it was their mothers. For many their wives, their mistresses, their girlfriends. For many it was their daughters, a favourite waitress, a stripper, a whore. To the Muses, they are all one. Mother, whore, wife, daughter, stripper, waitress, mistress, girlfriend. ~ Dave Sim

Similarly the call to growth can be conceptualized as personal (a daimon or genius, an angel or a muse) or as impersonal, like the tides or the transiting of Venus. Either way works, as long as we're comfortable with it. Or if extra-dimensionality doesn't sit well with you in any form, think of it as "talent," programmed into our genes by evolution. The point, for the thesis I'm seeking to put forward, is that there are forces we can call our allies. As Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels. ~ Steven Pressfield

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love. ~ Michel De Montaigne

I remember once, on a family skiing trip to the Alps, Dad's practical joking got all of us into a particularly tight spot.
I must have been about age ten at the time, and was quietly excited when Dad spotted a gag that was begging to be played out on the very serious-looking Swiss-German family in the room next door to us.
Each morning their whole family would come downstairs, the mother dressed head to toe in furs, the father in a tight-fitting ski suit and white neck scarf, and their slightly overweight, rather snooty-looking thirteen-year-old son behind, often pulling faces at me.
The hotel had the customary practice of having a breakfast form that you could hang on your door handle the night before if you wanted to eat in your room. Dad thought it would be fun to fill out our form, order 35 boiled eggs, 65 German sausages, and 17 kippers, then hang it on the Swiss-German family's door.
It was too good a gag to pass up.
We didn't tell Mum, who would have gone mad, but instead filled out the form with great hilarity, and sneaked out last thing before bed and hung it on their door handle.
At 7:00 A.M. we heard the father angrily sending the order back. So we repeated the gag the next day.
And the next.
Each morning the father got more and more irate, until eventually Mum got wind of what we had been doing and made me go around to apologize. (I don't know why I had to do the apologizing when the whole thing had been Dad's idea, but I gu ~ Bear Grylls

Since I started playing at the Olympics in 2000, I have always wanted to do a dress based on Wonder Woman. It should be interesting to wear. And hopefully, it will get me a gold medal. ~ Venus Williams

Having you in my life has mended my soul, helped me to believe I'm more... that I matter. Knowing you has made me whole. ~ RaShelle Workman

Item. A hand in plaster. This was the right hand of Venus. A hand like a dahlia blossom, a pure white hand, mounted on a stand. But if you looked at it carefully you could tell how this pure white, delicate hand, with whorl-less finger tips and unmarked palms, expressed, so pitifully that even the beholder was stabbed with pain, the shame intense enough to make Venus stop her breath; in the gesture was implicit the moment when Venus' full nakedness was seen by a man, when she twisted away her body, flushed all over with the prickling warmth of her shock, the whirlwind of her shame, and the tragedy of her nudity. Unfortunately, this was only a piece of bric-à-brac. The clerk valued it at fifty sen. ~ Osamu Dazai

But everywhere dark shapes were already melting into the night, seeking asylum in the undergrowth and the jungle. Those not caught in the first haul headed for the mountains, stealing canoes and boats to make their way upstream; they were unarmed, almost naked, but determined to return to the way of life of their ancestors, somewhere the whites would not be able reach them. As they passed the outlying plantations, they spread the news amongst their own people, and ten, twenty, more men would abandon their work, deserting the fields of indigo and clover, to swell the numbers of the runaways. And in parties of one hundred, two hundred at a time, followed by their wives carrying children, they moved off into the interior, through thickets and crags, in search of a place they could build a palisade. As they fled they scattered mullein seeds in the streams and rivulets, so that fish would be poisoned and infect the water with their miasma as they putrefied. Beyond this torrent, beyond that mountain clothed in waterfalls, Africa would begin again; they would go back to forgotten tongues, to the rites of circumcision, to the worship of the earlier gods, who had preceded the recent gods of Christianity. The undergrowth closed behind men who were retracing the course of history, to regain an age when Creation had been ruled by the fertile Venus, with her huge breasts and her ample belly, who was worshipped in deep caves where a hand was haltingly tracing its first configurations of th ~ Alejo Carpentier

I watch them the way I watch every Cleansing. I do not leave until the fire is down to embers and they are sleeping underneath their furs. It is not in my nature to turn away. Not I-- I look my nightmares in the eye. And if my nightmares should look back, they see nothing but shadow. I am not there. ~ Catherine Egan

Japan and Hong Kong are steadily whittling away at the last of the elephants, turning their tusks (so much more elegant left on the elephant) into artistic carvings. In much the same way, the beautiful furs from leopard, jaguar, Snow leopard, Clouded leopard and so on, are used to clad the inelegant bodies of thoughtless and, for the most part, ugly women. I wonder how many would buy these furs if they knew that on their bodies they wore the skin of an animal that, when captured, was killed by the medieval and agonizing method of having a red-hot rod inserted up its rectum so as not to mark the skin. ~ Gerald Durrell

Nothing is so unpredictable as a throw of the dice, and yet every man who plays often will at some time or other make a Venus-cast: now and then he indeed will make it twice and even thrice in succession. Are we going to be so feebleminded then as to aver that such a thing happened by the personal intervention of Venus rather than by pure luck? ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

On Venus you could cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza in seven seconds, just by holding it out to the air. (Yes, I did the math.) ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Finer feeling, which we now wish to consider, is chiefly of two kinds: the feeling of the *sublime* and that of the *beautiful*. The stirring of each is pleasant, but in different ways. The sight of a mountain whose snow-covered peak rises above the clouds, the description of a raging storm, or Milton's portrayal of the infernal kingdom, arouse enjoyment but with horror; on the other hand, the sight of flower strewn meadows, valleys with winding brooks and covered with grazing flocks, the description of Elysium, or Homer's portrayal of the girdle of Venus, also occasion a pleasant sensation but one that is joyous and smiling. In order that the former impression could occur to us in due strength, we must have *a feeling of the sublime*, and, in order to enjoy the latter well, *a feeling of the beautiful*. Tall oaks and lonely shadows in a sacred grove are sublime; flower beds, low hedges and trees trimmed in figures are beautiful. Night is sublime; day is beautiful. Temperaments that possess a feeling for the sublime are drawn gradually, by the quiet stillness of a summer evening as the shimmering light of the stars breaks through the brown shadows of night and the lonely moon rises into view, into high feelings of friendship, of disdain for the world, of eternity. The shining day stimulates busy fervor and a feeling of gaiety. The sublime *moves*, the beautiful *charms*. ~ Immanuel Kant

I have a lot of plants and fish and a pet lizard and Venus flytraps. I have a whole ecosystem in my room, like a running waterfall and different lights and sensors set on digital timers. ~ Chris Pratt

Vanda (as Dunayev): I am a pagan. I am a Greek. I love the ancients not for their pediments or their poetry, but becausein their world Venus could love Paris one day and Anchises the next. Because they're not the moderns, who live in their mind, and because they're the opposite of Christians, who live on a cross. I don't live in my mind, or on a cross. I live on this divan. In this dress. In these stockings and these shoes. I want to live the way Helen and Aspasia lived, not the twisted women of today, who are never happy and never give happiness. Who won't admit that they want love without limit. Why should I forgo any possible pleasure, abstain from any sensual experience? I'm young, I'm rich, and I'm beautiful and I shall make the most of that. I shall deny myself nothing.

Thomas (as Kushemski): I certainly respect your devotion to principle.

Vanda (as Dunayev): I don't need your respect, excuse me. I'll take happiness. My happiness, not society's happiness. I will love a man who pleases me, and please a man who makes me happy--but only as long as he makes me happy, not a moment longer. ~ David Ives

When I was a child, I was certain that I could remember what it was like to live on Venus; I could remember what it was like to live in the American Plains. I could remember. And it's ancient memory. We all have it. It's just that some of us access it more than others. ~ Patti Smith

It was turning out to be an anxious Christmas season. Too many were the early mornings spent sitting at the table, insomniac in the gray dawn, thinking to myself, Eggs would be good. Not for eating but for the viscous wrath of my ovobarrage. It seemed only a matter of time before I was lobbing my edible artillery out the window at the army of malefactors who daily made my life such a buzzing carnival of annoyance. I could almost feel the satisfying, sloshy heft of my weapons as I imagined them leaving my hands and raining down upon my targets: the pair of schnauzers two doors down, with their loathsome, skittish dispositions, barking and yelping all day long; their owner, with her white hair styled like Marlene Dietrich's in Blond Venus, who allows them to pee freely on the garbage that some poor sanitation worker then has to pick up; the leather-clad schmuck immediately next door, a cigar-smoking casual life-ruiner with his mufflerless motorcycle. All would taste my All Natural, Vegetarian Feed, Grade A Extra Large brand of justice! ~ David Rakoff

When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus. ~ Lactantius

So you're exactly like a Venus flytrap. You reel 'em in. Clamp 'em down. Eat 'em up." I didn't respond. "Mmmmm," he said. "You're like a sexy super scary plant." I close my eyes. Covered my mouth in horror. "Why is that so wrong?" he said then bent down to meet my gaze. Tugged on a lock of my hair to get me to look up. "Why does this have to be so horrible? Why can't you see how awesome this is? ~ Tahereh Mafi

Our rockets can find Halley's comet, and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technical triumphs is an obvious lack of efficiency in using scientific achievements for economic needs ... many Soviet household appliances are of poor quality. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

Astronomers do not commonly use Venereal, in favor of the less contagious-sounding Venutian. Blame the medical community, who snatched the word long before astronomers had any good use for it. I suppose you can't blame the doctors. Venus is the goddess of beauty and love, so she ought to be the goddess of its medical consequences. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

As to our going on together as we were going, in a sort of friendly way, the people round us would have made it unable to continue. Their views of the relations of man and woman are limited, as is proved by their expelling me from the school. Their philosophy only recognizes relations based on animal desire. The wide field of strong attachment where desire plays, at least, only a secondary part, is ignored by them - the part of - who is it? - Venus Urania. ~ Thomas Hardy

He tried to learn seductive phrases in all languages, but the only Swedish he had ever really needed was, "Do you serve anything aside from pickled fish?" and "If you wrap me in furs, I can pretend to be your little fuzzy bear. ~ Cassandra Clare

That's Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It's nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Venus, the first star, has appeared, another child is born and the stream runs on. Water must be a celestial element for it has neither time nor history stamped upon it and is as constant as the tides of the sea or the rising of the Moon. I long for such constancy, be it in life or in comradeship. Memory is a great deceiver; it embroiders until naught is left but the glory and the pleasure. I have a noble spirit but I want to live. Tell me how to live and who to live for. I fear I shall surrender too much in love and then survive to regret it. ~ Tobsha Learner

Everybody was always trying to ship me with somebody. Thalia. Jason. Gwen. Even Frank. Oh, you'd be perfect together! That's who you need! But I was never really sure if I wanted that, or if I just felt like I was supposed to want it. People, well-meaning, would be like, Oh, you poor thing. You deserve somebody in your life. Date him. Date her. Date whoever. Find your soul mate.'
She looked at me to see if I was following. Her words came out hot and fast, as if she'd been holding them in for a long time. 'And that meeting with Venus. That really messed me up. No demigod will heal your heart. What was that supposed to mean? Then finally you came along.'
'Do we have to review that part again? I am quite embarrassed enough.'
'But you showed me. When you proposed dating . . .' She took a deep breath, her body shaking with silent giggles. 'Oh, gods. I saw how ridiculous I'd been. How ridiculous the whole situation was. That's what healed my heart - being able to laugh at myself again, at my stupid idea about destiny. That allowed me to break free - just like Frank broke free of his firewood. I don't need another person to heal my heart. I don't need a partner . . . at least, not until and unless I'm ready on my own terms. I don't need to be force-shipped with anyone or to wear anybody else's label. For the first time in a long time, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. So thank you. ~ Rick Riordan

Our grandkids will lead the lives of the gods of mythology. Zeus could think and move objects around. We'll have that power. Venus had a perfect, timeless body. We'll have that, too. Pegasus was a flying horse. We'll be able to modify life in the future. ~ Michio Kaku

Karakarof spat onto the ground at Dumbledore's feet. In one swift movement, Hagrid seized the front of Karkaroff's furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against a nearby tree. ~ J.K. Rowling

The chemical compounds are comparable to a system of planets in that the atoms are held together by chemical affinity. They may be more or less numerous, simple or complex in composition, and in the constitution of the materials, they play the same role as Mars and Venus do in our planetary system, or the compound members such as our earth with its moon, or Jupiter with its satellites ... If in such a system a particle is replaced by one of different character, the equilibrium can persist, and then the new compound will exhibit properties similar to those shown by the original substance. ~ Jean-Baptiste Dumas

This old dead hero had one only daughter left of his race; a beauty that, to describe her truly, one need say only, she was female to the noble male; the beautiful black Venus to our young Mars; as charming in her person as he, and of delicate virtues. I have seen an hundred white men sighing after her, and making a thousand vows at her feet, all vain, and unsuccessful; and she was, indeed, too great for any, but a prince of her own nation to adore. ~ Aphra Behn

And when wine has soaked Cupid's drunken wings,
he's stayed, weighed down, a captive of the place.
...
Wine rouses courage and is fit for passion:
care flies, and deep drinking dilutes it.
...
Don't trust the treacherous lamplight overmuch:
night and wine can harm your view of beauty.
Paris saw the goddesses in the light, a cloudless heaven,
when he said to Venus: 'Venus, you win, over them both.'
Faults are hidden at night: every blemish is forgiven,
and the hour makes whichever girl you like beautiful.
Judge jewellery, and fabric stained with purple,
judge a face, or a figure, in the light. ~ Ovid

On average, odd years have been the best for me.

I'm at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version
of someone I already know.

Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I've never experienced.

The sky is molting. I don't know
if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring
itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering.

I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland.

Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas
as possible as unsexed fruit.

I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders
the connection between the sunset and pollution.

On Venus you and I are not even a year old.

Then there were two skies.
The one we fly through and the one
we bury ourselves in.

I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills
the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things.

I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories.
Such things.

In the story we were together every time.

On his wedding day, the stone in his chest
not fully melted but enough.

Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me. ~ Jennifer K. Sweeney

If we do not require a calendar to be geared to a tropical year (earth's orbit), but only that it be geared to some part of the celestial clock, then the Maya calendar was more accurate than the Julian calendar, more accurate than the Babylonian (solar-lunar) calendar; it intermeshed the "gear wheels" of Sun, Moon and Venus, and was based on a more accurate "gear ratio" than the other calendars, repeating itself only once in 52 years. ~ Petr Beckmann

You spent it on oil for your hair,' I said, 'and on baubles for your whores, on furs and on horses, on jewels and on silk. A man, Lord Eardwulf, dresses in leather and iron. And he fights. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Mary in Christianity, Isis in ancient Egypt, Demeter in Greece, Venus in Rome and Guan Yin in China have all functioned as conduits to recollections of early tenderness. Their statues often stand in darkened, womb-like spaces, their faces are compassionate and supportive, they enable us to sit, talk and cry with them. The similarities between them are too great to be coincidental. We are dealing here with figures that have evolved not out of shared cultural origins but in response to the universal needs of the human psyche. ~ Alain De Botton

So," Wanda cried, "a woman in furs is nothing more than a large cat, a charged electric battery? ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I don't throttle and smother people in my life.. Not because I don't have my own fair share of doubts and sometimes, yes, insecurities.. But I have a great deal of confidence in my instincts that I've chosen the right one to trust.. When I trust, I do so with my whole heart.. ~ Laarni Venus Marie Giango

Some people say I have attitude - maybe I do ... but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does - that makes you a winner right there. ~ Venus Williams

Thus a man looking through a tremendous telescope does not see the cirri of an Indian summer above his charmed orchard, but does see, as my regretted colleague, the late Professor Alexander Ivanchenko, twice saw, the swarming of hesperozoa in a humid valley of the planet Venus. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Quiet, moving, masterfully crafted. Such are the nine stories in Venus in the Afternoon. Tehila Lieberman writes with precision, restraint, with a compassionate heart. She inhabits her characters, young or old, men or women, honestly, but without judgment, until they rise off the page and stand before us breathing and alive. New York, the Atacama desert, Amsterdam or Cuzco in Peru, the settings in Venus in the Afternoon are just as varied as the lives which they contain. A wonderful collection, one that will stay in your mind long after you have bid it goodbye. ~ Miroslav Penkov

If it were only a few degrees, that would be serious, but we could adapt to it. But the danger is the warming process might be unstable and run away. We could end up like Venus, covered in clouds and with the surface temperature of 400 degrees. It could be too late if we wait until the bad effects of warming become obvious. We need action now to reduce emission of carbon dioxide. ~ Stephen Hawking

I think that Billie (Jean King) and Zina (Garrison), they have a whole lot of experience. Even if I don't quite agree with something or have a different way of doing it this week, whatever they said, I did it right away and I found out that it was correct. I think that's helped a lot ... I'm having fun. I had a lot of fun out there. Sometimes I was ready to smile
but I knew I'd lose focus
because I was doing things that I'd done in practice and we talked about. I was ready to laugh and give someone a high-five, but it wasn't time for that. ~ Venus Williams

Unfortunately the world is what it is now. People don't get along for whatever reason. As professional athletes, in a way we're almost ambassadors for peace, because sports brings everyone together. ~ Venus Williams

Then Night came down like the feathery soot of a smoky lamp, and smutted[9] first the bedquilt, then the hearth-rug, then the window-seat, and then at last the great, stormy, faraway outside world. But sleep did not come. Oh, no! Nothing new came at all except that particularly wretched, itching type of insomnia which seems to rip away from one's body the whole kind, protecting skin and expose all the raw, ticklish fretwork of nerves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. Pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer; and thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper; and chill like the clammy horror of raw fish. ~ Eleanor Hallowell Abbott