“Will this generation be able to turn things around and learn a valuable lesson from all of this? I hope so, but I have my doubts. The damage has been done. And as a lifelong student of history, it's quite evident that human beings don't learn from the mistakes of past generations.”
― quote from Voluntary
“No fucking popcorn? No Junior Mints?”
― quote from Voluntary
“I want that little blonde bitch in the lobby to hear me screaming your name.”
― quote from Voluntary
“We live for ourselves only when we live for others.”
― Robin S. Sharma, quote from Family Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“Steldor, maybe you could try to deter your father, you know, from making arrangements for me so soon. Would another year or two really matter?”
He responded with a dry laugh. “Deter my father? Shaselle, trying to deter my father once he’s made up his mind is like yelling whoa at a stampede of wild horses.”
“Doesn’t stop you,” I muttered, crossing my arms with a huff.
Again that cynical chuckle. “I assure you, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I pushed off the rough stone to stare at him. Annoyance came to me ever more quickly these days, and now the disagreeable temperament my mother and older sister condemned was emerging. I pointed back up the road. “Explain that scarecrow to me, if you’re so obedient! I know your father was upset with you after you posted your rules, but you went ahead anyway, without his blessing.”
Steldor clamped a hand over my mouth, the other holding the back of my neck, then he leaned close to hiss, “I’d prefer if my involvement in both of those incidents remained undisclosed.”
My cheeks burned, and I pushed his hands away. “Sorry. That was stupid. But isn’t there anything you can do? You have the captain’s ear.”
“What I have is his attention,” he corrected, having accepted my apology and brushed aside our tense exchange. “Not intentionally, mind you, but I’ll be keeping it over the next few weeks. He’ll probably be distracted from you anyway.”
“You’re planning another stunt?”
He winked. “Would you expect anything less of Galen and me?”
“Can I help you?”
The up-and-down nature of our conversation persisted, and he shook his head vehemently.
“This is dangerous, what we’ve been doing. We laugh, but these aren’t games. If we’re caught, we’ll be arrested. There’s a reason my father disapproves, in spite of his own ambitions.” He let his rebuff hang in the hot air while I again felt color rising in my cheeks. “Just go home, Shaselle. Put on a dress. Be a lady, and stay out of trouble. Understand?”
“I hate them, too, you know,” I said, his dismissal and the humiliation that came with it rankling me. “It’s not just your homeland that the Cokyrians have sullied--it’s my homeland, too. And those bastards killed my father.”
“And bitches,” he added, catching me off guard. “Wouldn’t want to forget the women.”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I gaped at him foolishly until he stepped onto the cobblestone of the thoroughfare.
“Come on. Let me take you home.”
We walked in silence back to the western residential area where I lived, though he stopped at the beginning of my street to let me traverse the rest of the distance by myself.
“I shouldn’t be seen around here. Not where Galen’s assigned--the Cokyrians are trying to keep us apart to avoid plots big and small, and will be suspicious if we’re seen in the same area.”
I nodded and turned to go, but he grabbed my arm.
“I know how you feel, Shaselle. I know you want to do something, and it’s not even that I don’t think you could. I just can’t let you be involved, for the sake of your safety. And mine,” he added as an afterthought. “My father would kill me if I let you help and you came to harm. Just please, let this go, and I swear I’ll do my best to influence him on your marriage issue.”
Now that I was thinking rationally, offering my assistance had been absurd--I had no special skills aside from horseback riding, and certainly no military training , so accepting Steldor’s offered compromise was not difficult.”
― Cayla Kluver, quote from Sacrifice
“The devil?” Jason heaved the tick over his shoulder like a collier with his sack. “Satan. The adversary. The enemy of the plan of God. The undoer. The destroyer. Yes. He definitely was.” Jason smiled. “But he meant well.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from The Worthing Saga
“opposing party was an offshoot of the Libertarians. They were called the Eliminationist Party, and their platform was predicated on the belief that corporate society had evolved beyond the need for government at all. For decades the Eliminationists remained a fringe party because of their shortsighted insistence on scrapping all government everywhere. Because corporate society was inherently conservative, and the party’s platform too radical, the Eliminationist movement never got off the ground.”
― Dani Kollin, quote from The Unincorporated Man
“For the first time I was learning how much easier it was to leave than to stay behind and love.”
― Laurie Lee, quote from As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
A Pocket Full of Rye
The Beauty Myth
Keep the Aspidistra...
Wings of the Wicked
Chaysing Dreams
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