“Hell, right now my only weapons were Obnoxious and Snark, and I intended to use them whenever possible.”
― Diana Rowland, quote from Touch of the Demon
“Had I managed to fall into some sort of carnivorous plant? Yeah, bleed on the man-eating plant. Always a good plan.”
― Diana Rowland, quote from Touch of the Demon
“This dude could read Pat the Bunnyand make it terrifying.”
― Diana Rowland, quote from Touch of the Demon
“I leveled a scowl at him. “Is there
anything in our agreement that says I can’t
call you names?”
He crouched and added a few touches
to the diagram. A very faint smile curved
his mouth. “No.”
My own mouth twitched. “So,
hypothetically, if I were to call you an
asshole, there’d be no reprisals?” I asked
with an innocent look. “Hypothetically, of
course.”
Idris glanced up sharply, then hissed
and drew back his hand as the sigil he was
working on stung him.
“Nothing of that sort is covered by the
agreement,” was Mzatal’s mild reply.
I chuckled under my breath. “I think
I’ll just call you Boss.”
He glanced over at me with a raised
eyebrow. I smiled sweetly in response.
Mzatal straightened, turned fully to me,
hands behind back and head lowered
slightly, and still with the faint hint of a
smile. “There could be consequences.”
I shrugged, still smiling. “What fun
would it be if there weren’t?”
Mzatal lifted his head. “None
whatsoever,” he said, his face betraying a
hint of amusement as he moved to the
center of the diagram.”
― Diana Rowland, quote from Touch of the Demon
“I have missed you. And I did not know anything was missing.”
― Diana Rowland, quote from Touch of the Demon
“Mzatal gave a decisive nod. “I will
manage this. It cannot continue to interfere
with his work. Too much is at stake.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How do you
intend to manage it?”
“I will tell him the truth and outline the
consequences.”
I was surprised Mzatal didn’t shrivel
away from the look I gave him. “Dude.
Seriously? You expect him to stop
crushing on me because you forbid it?”
Mzatal frowned, contemplative.
“Perhaps not ideal given the entanglement
of human emotions, though there is no time
for it to drag on,” he said, as if he actually
knew what he was talking about. “If he
knows you have no interest and sees how
his distractions have affected his work, he
will subside enough for now.”
My withering look became glacial.
“Boss, you’re completely awesome in
many ways, but you are so off-base with
this it’s not even funny.” I rolled my eyes.
“I’ve already ramped ‘No Interest’ up to
eleven on the dial and, at this point, he
doesn’t care if his work suffers.” I took a
big gulp of coffee, then ran my fingers
through my tangled hair. “Let me deal with
it. Normally I’m not into direct
confrontation with this sort of shit, but
there’s isn’t enough time for it to fizzle out
on its own.”
Mzatal regarded me with that damned
unreadable mask which he’d slipped on as
I was talking. Great. Lords weren’t much
on being told they were wrong, but it had
to be said.”
― Diana Rowland, quote from Touch of the Demon
“Ma che cosa posso raccontare a questa ragazza, ora, in questa fredda mattina ventosa al Gritti Palace Hotel?
“Che cosa vorresti sapere, Figlia?” le chiese
“Tutto quanto.”
“Va bene” disse il colonnello. “Incominciamo.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from Across the River and into the Trees
“Lee made small greetings to the others, saw the sour expression of Jubal Early, Ewell’s division commander,”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from The Last Full Measure
“It is the fate of great achievements, born from a way of life that sets truth before security, to be gobbled up by you and excreted in the form of shit. For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal. This, little man, is what you have done with Christianity, with the doctrine of sovereign people, with socialism, with everything you touch. Why, you ask, do you do this? I don't believe you really want an answer. When you hear the truth you'll cry bloody murder, or commit it. … You had your choice between soaring to superhuman heights with Nietzsche and sinking into subhuman depths with Hitler. You shouted Heil! Heil! and chose the subhuman. You had the choice between Lenin's truly democratic constitution and Stalin's dictatorship. You chose Stalin's dictatorship. You had your choice between Freud's elucidation of the sexual core of your psychic disorders and his theory of cultural adaptation. You dropped the theory of sexuality and chose his theory of cultural adaptation, which left you hanging in mid-air. You had your choice between Jesus and his majestic simplicity and Paul with his celibacy for priests and life-long compulsory marriage for yourself. You chose the celibacy and compulsory marriage and forgot the simplicity of Jesus' mother, who bore her child for love and love alone. You had your choice between Marx's insight into the productivity of your living labor power, which alone creates the value of commodities and the idea of the state. You forgot the living energy of your labor and chose the idea of the state. In the French Revolution, you had your choice between the cruel Robespierre and the great Danton. You chose cruelty and sent greatness and goodness to the guillotine. In Germany you had your choice between Goring and Himmler on the one hand and Liebknecht, Landau, and Muhsam on the other. You made Himmler your police chief and murdered your great friends. You had your choice between Julius Streicher and Walter Rathenau. You murdered Rathenau. You had your choice between Lodge and Wilson. You murdered Wilson. You had your choice between the cruel Inquisition and Galileo's truth. You tortured and humiliated the great Galileo, from whose inventions you are still benefiting, and now, in the twentieth century, you have brought the methods of the Inquisition to a new flowering. … Every one of your acts of smallness and meanness throws light on the boundless wretchedness of the human animal. 'Why so tragic?' you ask. 'Do you feel responsible for all evil?' With remarks like that you condemn yourself. If, little man among millions, you were to shoulder the barest fraction of your responsibility, the world would be a very different place. Your great friends wouldn't perish, struck down by your smallness.”
― Wilhelm Reich, quote from Listen, Little Man!
“So let those people go on weeping and wailing whose self-indulgent minds have been weakened by long prosperity, let them collapse at the threat of the most trivial injuries; but let those who have spent all their years suffering disasters endure the worst afflictions with a brave and resolute staunchness. Everlasting misfortune does have one blessing, that it ends up by toughening those whom it constantly afflicts.”
― Seneca, quote from On the Shortness of Life
“It is never a crime to love someone.”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction
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