“Hug your children...Kiss your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters. Tell them how much you love them, every day. Because every day is the last day. Every light casts a shadow. And only the gods know when the darkness will find us.”
“Prolonging death was akin to prolonging an orgasm. The closer you could bring the victim to the finish line without crossing it, the better it”
“If the wise men mounted their camels now, they could escape, no question. But Balthazar hadn’t ridden into Bethlehem to run. He’d come to kill every last one of them, or die trying.”
“Nothing would surprise him. Nothing could anymore. But it didn’t matter. Even if it meant the most painful, hideous death a human being had ever experienced, they weren’t getting the baby, and they weren’t getting her. Twenty yards… He gripped the handle of his sword tightly…breathed deep of the desert air. Okay, Balthazar…let’s die.”
“I’m not interested in what you know,” said Herod. “I’m interested in watching you scream.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.” “We’ll see,” said Herod with a smile.”
“Funny to get so close...only to have him ripped away again.”
“The prophecy is clear, Your Highness. The Messiah shall topple all the kingdoms of the world. Even yours.”
“Emotion is emotion, and politics is politics, and one has nothing to do with the other.”
“Besides, there was no honor in betraying a loyal friend.”
“The one thing people loved more than an outlaw was seeing him punished.”
“A Strange Eastern Light “During the time of King Herod, Wise Men from the east came and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’” —Matthew 2:1”
“Either I’m right,” he continued, “and he doesn’t exist, or you’re right, and he’s the kind of God who watches children die. The kind of God who sits around while men like Herod build palaces and good people starve. Either way, he’s not worth worshipping.”
“I didn’t like my father all that much,” said the admiral. “But before he died, he gave me a piece of advice. The only one that ever really made a difference in my life. ‘Hug your children,’ he said. ‘Kiss your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters. Tell them how much you love them, every day. Because every day is the last day. Every light casts a shadow. And only the gods know when the darkness will find us.”
“Every service had a price. Every object a value. If someone made you a sword, you paid him the appropriate amount or traded something of equal value with him. If a man saved your life, you either paid him the amount you considered that life worth, or you saved his in return. Until either of those things was transacted, you were in his debt. It was business. And if Balthazar believed in anything with religious fervor, it was that.”
“Dialogue disappears when you are burdened with belief systems. How can you really be in a dialogue? You are already too full of your ideas and you think they are absolutely true. When you are listening to the other, you are just being polite; otherwise you don’t listen. You know what is right, you are simply waiting until this man finishes and then you jump upon him. Yes, there can be a debate and a discussion and argumentation, but there can be no dialogue. Between two beliefs there is no possibility of dialogue. Beliefs destroy friendship, beliefs destroy humanity, beliefs destroy communion. So”
“She knew a couple of writers. They were always broke.”
“Why didn’t you stay?” she had whispered against the unyielding stone. Why didn’t you stay? She pressed the berry against her lips. Why didn’t I ask you just one more time to stay? Sajjad stood up quietly and walked over to her. “There is a phrase I have heard in English: to leave someone alone with their grief. Urdu has no equivalent phrase. It only understands the concept of gathering around and becoming ‘ghum-khaur’—grief-eaters—who take in the mourner’s sorrow.”
“I absolutely love you, Briony, and I am on my knees. So we're getting married - right? But say it fast before we get shot."
Only Jack would ask - if you could call it asking - in the middle of a battlefield, with a man lying dead at his feet.”
“the nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”
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