“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“I'm not a goddamned faith healer! I don't talk to God! I'm a mechanic and her goddamned engine was broken!
--Joanne ”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“friends don't threaten friends' distributor caps”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“He fell ass over tea Kettle”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“Why do airline pilots always call passengers "folks"? I don't usually take umbrage at generic terminology--I'm one of those forward-thinkers who believes that "man" encompasses the whole darned race -- but at whatever 0'clock in the mornning. I thought it would be nice to be called sometihng that suggested unwashed masses a little less.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“Since I didn't have any world-class fencing skills, I kicked Cernunnos in the nuts again. I didn't have to know how to use a sword to do that, and he was standing there like he was asking for it, so it seemed justified. Shock and rage filled his green eyes all over again and he doubled. I guess there must be rules that people fighting gods usually followed. Next time, maybe someone would give me a primer.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“I rested my forehead on a grease spot I'd left on the window earlier. The airlines, I thought, must have custodians who clean the windows, or there'd be an inches-thick layer of goo on them from people like me.
That thought was proof positive that I shouldn't be allowed to stay up for more than eighteen hours at a time. I have a bad habit of following every thought to its miserable, pathetic little end when I'm tired. I don't mean to. It's just that my brain and my tongue get unhinged. Though some of my less charitable acquaintances would say this condition didn't require sleep deprivation.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“By the time I could see again, the captain had announced the final descent into Seattle. Couldn't they find a less ominous phrase for it? I don't like flying as it is, even without the implication that before landing I might want to have all my worldly and spiritual affairs in order.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“We circled around and came in from the northwest.” I lifted my wrist to show him the compass on my watch band, although I hoped that, being the pilot, he knew we’d approached from the northwest. “I was looking out the window. I saw a woman running down the street. There was a pack of dogs after her and a guy with a switchblade down the street in the direction she was running.”
“Ma’am,” he said, still very patiently. I reached out and took a fistful of his shirt. Actually, at the last moment, I grabbed the air in front of his shirt. I didn’t think security could throw me out of the airport for grabbing air in a threatening fashion, not even in this post-9/11 age.
“Don’t ma’am me . . .”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“You seriously think you got some kind of god after you?” Gary asked. Marie nodded. Gary turned to me. “I vote we drop her off at a loony bin and run for the hills.”
“Are you asking me to run away with you, Gary? After such a short, violent courtship?”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
C.E. Murphy
Born place: in Kenai, Alaska, The United States
Born date June 1, 2018
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“Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“You remember the word we said when we pressed our hands together, right?"
I nodded. Forem. But what does it mean?"
"Forever,” he said his breath shaky. "It means we're bonded together forever.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Underworld
“Please. Alex, i'm begging you...forty-eight hours? Tell me you'll stay.”
― Indigo Bloome, quote from Destined to Play
“Humans are predators, not prey. Always remember that.”
― Dia Reeves, quote from Slice of Cherry
“This process of assimilation, which takes place in depth, requires a state of relaxation that is becoming rarer and rarer. If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away. His nesting places - the activities that are intimately associated with boredom - are already extinct in the cities and are declining in the country as well. With this the gift for listening is lost and the community of listeners disappears. For storytelling is always the art of repeated stories, and this art is lost when the stories are no longer retained.”
― Walter Benjamin, quote from Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
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