“She shook off her sense of amazement, and tried to pretend she was watching a period play. There was a lot of flirting going on, plenty of fluttering of ivory fans and eyelashes. It was weird to think that in another two hundred years people would flirt by pole dancing, twerking, and sexting. The”
― Julie McElwain, quote from A Murder in Time
“Whoever had said that appearances were deceiving was only partially right; they could also be deadly.”
― Julie McElwain, quote from A Murder in Time
“The accouterments of humanity may change, but its heartbeat remained the same.”
― Julie McElwain, quote from A Murder in Time
“That is utterly preposterous! Who are you? Really, sir.” He turned to the Duke. “You can’t expect us to swallow such a preposterous tale. And from a mere servant . . . from a . . . a woman!”
― Julie McElwain, quote from A Murder in Time
“Kendra recognized the rising hysteria in the room. Really, it was no different than what she’d encountered in City Hall meetings, where citizens were quick to point the finger at a drifter or stranger in town. Better to think a murderer was a vagrant than a neighbor, someone they probably sat next to in church, or had coffee with at the local diner.”
― Julie McElwain, quote from A Murder in Time
“To quote Voltaire, ‘Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”
― Julie McElwain, quote from A Murder in Time
“Times have changed, Miss Donovan. Mankind has evolved. We are more enlightened thinkers than our ancestors.” “I’ve heard that before.” He raised his brows. “You don’t believe we are evolving as a species?” She thought of her earlier epiphany, that she wasn’t superior to her nineteenth-century compatriots. And she thought of the countless murder boards she’d stood before, centuries from now, detailing man’s depravity toward man, and shook her head. “We might be becoming more civilized as a whole—and I’m not even sure about that—but I don’t think mankind ever really changes. We’re not smarter, better, kinder people, Doctor.” She paused, grim. “We’re just inventing better technology.” Aldridge”
― Julie McElwain, quote from A Murder in Time
Julie McElwain
Born place: The United States
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“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” — Nelson Mandela”
― Nikki Sex, quote from Accuse
“Oh, I just wasted two hundred dollars on a gym membership, which I didn’t use…even once. My shorts are getting shorter. Lately I’ve been looking like a slut—unintentionally of course.”
― Danielle Esplin, quote from Give It Back
“Some things do not have to be said. You didn’t have to tell me you were in love with Khalid Ibn al-Rashid. And I didn’t have to tell you I cried myself to sleep for weeks after you left. Love speaks for itself.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from The Rose & the Dagger
“A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.
There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.
The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?'
They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.'
The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.'
So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.
Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.'
The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’
As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’
So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.
The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation.
So of course, we killed him.
-San Angelo
Letters to an Incipient Heretic”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from La voz de los muertos
“I was a slave to my hope. But I couldn't hang on any longer. I watched as it slipped through my fingers, fading to a pinpoint of light.”
― Staci Hart, quote from A Thousand Letters
The Birth of Tragedy
On the Genealogy of...
The God-Stone War
A Moment
Seducing Destiny
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