the Exit

* WISDOM TROVE *

1:I hope the exit is joyful and i hope never to return. ~ frida-kahlo, @wisdomtrove

2:As somebody who, in my second marriage, insisted on a prenuptial agreement, I can also testify that sometimes it is an act of love to chart the exit strategy before you enter the union, in order to make sure that not only you, but your partner as well, knows that there will be no World War III should hearts and minds, for any sad reason, change. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove

* NEWFULLDB 2.4M *

1:enter at the exit ~ Trenton Lee Stewart,

2:I wish you’d find the exit out of my head. ~ Sylvia Plath,

3:The exit in a blaze of glory is bullshit. ~ Bruce Springsteen,

4:The exit is usually where the entrance was. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec,

5:Will you open up the exit hatch, please, computer? ~ Douglas Adams,

6:I hope the exit is joyful and i hope never to return. ~ Frida Kahlo,

7:We're dead anyway, all we get to choose is the exit strategy. ~ Peter Watts,

8:The best things happen at the exit ramp of your comfort zone. ~ Karen Salmansohn,

9:The entrance strategy is actually more important than the exit strategy. ~ Edward Lampert,

10:An agony. The exit like the entrance - but reversed. A palindrome: gut-tug. ~ Lorrie Moore,

11:The place I live in is a kind of maze and I keep seeking the exit or the home. ~ Anne Sexton,

12:No moment is ever trivial, since any moment points to the exit into enlightenment. ~ David Richo,

13:An autumn forest is such a place that once entered you never look for the exit! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

14:It was rather like the exit of a bumblebee and left a noticeable silence behind it. ~ Agatha Christie,

15:Writing is the passageway, the entrance, the exit, the dwelling place of the other in me. ~ Helene Cixous,

16:The best things in life are often waiting for you at the exit ramp of your comfort zone. ~ Karen Salmansohn,

17:the first impulse is escape, but people who lurch toward the exit rarely choose the right door. ~ J D Vance,

18:Lorraine was the emotional equivalent of a hollow-point round; the exit wound was a shit show. ~ Mary H K Choi,

19:The trick was looking past the illusion, because the exit was never as far away as it seemed. ~ Lauren DeStefano,

20:The longest bridge is the one where you don’t know which side to turn your face for the exit! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

21:I’m the girl who trips on the dance floor and can’t find her way to the exit. All eyes on me. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson,

22:Article 50 governs the exit from the European Union and here there can also be no renegotiation. ~ Jean Claude Juncker,

23:use it to prove how the stars were always what we knew they were: the exit wounds of every misfired word ~ Ocean Vuong,

24:Losing path is a magic! If you can enjoy with the unknown path, you shall find the exit much quicker! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

25:Death is not the end! The exit for the world of mortals is the entrance to the world of immortals! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah,

26:If you're trapped in a tunnel with many open exits, the tunnel can't help you! The exit is in your mind! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

27:Victory means exit strategy. And it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is. ~ George W Bush,

28:Barthes found the exit to this merry-go-round by reminding himself that “it is language which is assertive, not he. ~ Maggie Nelson,

29:If that’s all you came to talk about, you know where the exit is. Or should I reacquaint you with the street, butt first? (Terri) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,

30:...the Waldorf looked like one of the dead and empty spaces which collect about the exit of a man who has lost a million in an hour. ~ Norman Mailer,

31:A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family. ~ Saul Alinsky,

32:I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign. ~ Nick Hornby,

33:Goldman Sachs did not leave the house before it began to burn; it was merely the first to dash through the exit—and then it closed the door behind it. ~ Michael Lewis,

34:Doing a quick spin, she mouthed the words full report tomorrow, then proceeded toward the exit as if it wasn’t completely obvious why she was leaving in such a hurry. ~ Terri Osburn,

35:Speaking of Austin, he and Polly were in the back row, closest to the exit. They weren’t in a place just yet where trusting a roomful of cops was in their repertoire. ~ Tessa Bailey,

36:Well, it’s not as if Missy’s going to give you an exclusive.” Shows what you know . . . Aubrey’s stomach rolled on a punch of trepidation as she followed him to the exit. ~ Laura Spinella,

37:Whichever path you choose, always know how to quit this path, always know where the exit is because once realised that the path is wrong, it has to be left immediately! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

38:At the exit, they sell home-made soap with the evil eye attached, to protect yourself from people who'd wish you ill. I buy one, wondering, How do you hang it inside yourself? ~ Emma Forrest,

39:You know how they won’t let parents with kiddos sit in the exit row? It has nothing to do with safety. They’re worried you might open the emergency door and throw your kid out. ~ Karen Alpert,

40:This was good, except that now I had two crazed, burning zombies standing between me and the exit, plus another one that wasn’t on fire. I had not thought this plan through at all. ~ Amanda Hocking,

41:Headed for the exit,” she hears through the earbud. “Teams 1 and 2, go,” she says. “Team 3, hold ready.” “Team 1, that’s a go,” comes the response. “Team 2, that’s a go.” “Team 3 holding ready. ~ Bill Clinton,

42:All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates,

43:Time is not on Gaddafi's side. People ask about the exit strategy. It's Colonel Gaddafi who needs an exit strategy because this pressure will only mount and it will be intensified over the coming days and weeks. ~ William Hague,

44:YOU’LL REMEMBER THAT the exit forms filled out by Notes Day participants weren’t shy about asking, “Who should pitch this proposal?” That was by design—we wanted the best ideas to be pushed forward, not to languish. So ~ Ed Catmull,

45:The whole world seemed a maze of shifting mirrors in which I wandered alone, looking always and frenziedly for the exit back into my real life, where people had substance, did as they said they would, and were whole. ~ Claire Messud,

46:I stood my ground. "You evil scientist are all the same--evil. Count me out." Fang and I brushed past Mr. God and walked quickly but smoothly to the exit. It was barely noon, and I'd already made a huge enemy. Dang, I'm good. ~ James Patterson,

47:This is what he has always wanted, or so he had thought, but now here he is, in the middle of a story of his own and looking for the exit, and realizing all the exits are blocked and then realizing that an exit is not what he needs. ~ Charles Yu,

48:and groaned. And Tate, saint that he is, just sighed and helped Rachel stand up, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her steady as their sad little group moved towards the exit. "Okay Mike Tyson, let's go." He turned to Casey ~ Karla Sorensen,

49:I really understood what was happening in Cannes. I was in a restaurant during a break and when I came out 2 hours later, 500 people were waiting for me at the exit. It was total chaos. They literally had to carry me to the car. ~ Robert Pattinson,

50:As I’m debating running for the exit, Nash leans down to whisper at my ear.
“Is something wrong?”
“I feel like the only splash of color in an abstract painting.”
“You are the splash of color. But there’s nothing wrong with that. ~ Michelle Leighton,

51:The walk to the exit brought him into contact with several changelings. That wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the response his presence elicited. Smiles, waves, shouted hellos and even slaps on the back when he didn't move away fast enough. ~ Nalini Singh,

52:Blitzen clapped my shoulder. "Good luck, kid. I'll be waiting at the exit to pull you out. Unless Hearth needs backup..."
He glanced at the elf as if hoping for more details besides I have it covered.
Hearthstone signed, I have it covered. ~ Rick Riordan,

53:I stood up from my seat and made my way for the exit downstairs. Outside, the early evening assaulted me with light, surrounded me with sudden warmth. This is what I deserve, I said to myself. I've made my nothing, and now I've got to live in it. ~ Paul Auster,

54:I glance at the exit across the room. I want out. The bird in my chest is crashing up against its cage. I can feel the heavy thump, thump, thump of its feverish body inside and I open my mouth, not to speak, but to let the bird out so I can breathe. ~ Han Nolan,

55:In the business world, allegations of accounting irregularities is tantamount to yelling fire in a crowded theater, except, today, in our Internet world, instead of people running for the exit signs, they just push the button on their computer. ~ Jeffrey Skilling,

56:Now that Hillary [Clinton] has won Pennsylvania, it will take a village to help Obama escape from the suffocating embrace of his rival. Certainly Howard Dean will be of no use steering her to the exit. It’s like Micronesia telling Russia to denuke. ~ Maureen Dowd,

57:Barthes found the exit to this merry-go-round by reminding himself that “it is language which is assertive, not he.” It is absurd, Barthes says, to try to flee from language’s assertive nature by “add[ing] to each sentence some little phrase of uncertainty, ~ Maggie Nelson,

58:Sicarius padded toward the exit, his soft black boots silent on the tile floor. He paused in the doorway and glanced at the backs of the two older men. The emperor emitted a nervous chuckle. “You trained him too well, Hollow. The man bothers me.” “He is loyal.” “I know. ~ Lindsay Buroker,

59:O is for obliterating everyone inside. And R is for rockets to get those that hide. P is for plutonium, enriched of course. Because H is for hitting with unnecessary force, A is for artillery to pick off ones left behind. While N is for not forgetting the exit is mined.” It ~ J A Cipriano,

60:- So what do we do? - She asked.
I reached for the doorknob and looked at the BBC.

- Forward to a normal life.
- Do you think that happens? - She asked, and I started down through the power of the stairs to the exit:
"Be happy, the boss"
- And we'll try ~ Rachel Hawkins,

61:- So what do we do? - She asked.
I reached for the doorknob and looked at the Bi.
- Forward to a normal life.
- Do you think that happens? - She asked, and I became spuskatsya through the power of the stairs to the exit:
"Be happy, the boss"
- And we'll try ~ Rachel Hawkins,

62:Look at one person who annoys you, and use the opportunity to counter your own anger and cultivate compassion. But if the annoyance is too powerful – if you find the person so repulsive that you cannot bear to be in his or her presence – it may be better to look for the exit! ~ Dalai Lama XIV,

63:Do yourself a favor,' I said. "Forget it. Forget you ever saw me." "Forget that you tried to kill me too?" "Yeah. That, too." "But who are you?" "Percy-" I started to say. Then the skeletons turned around. "Gotta go!" "What kind of name is Percy Gotta-go?" I bolted for the exit. ~ Rick Riordan,

64:The difficulty in dealing with a maze or labyrinth lies not so much in navigating the convolutions to find the exit but in not entering the damn thing in the first place.

Or, at least not yet again.

As a creature of free will, do not be tempted into futility. ~ Vera Nazarian,

65:Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility--that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary. Not the road less traveled but the road with the exit ramp. ~ Will Schwalbe,

66:Rose shifted her shopping bag off her lap and with a grunt levered her ponderous body upright; she smiled broadly at me, and with a cheery “Ta Gert, ta girls,” she waddled towards the exit while I eased my shoulders in relief from the confining pressure of her body. God, what a huge woman. ~ E R Braithwaite,

67:In Indian mythology, when the moon covers the sun, darkness has the power to cover your life.” Slowly, he makes his way out of the room and toward the exit. “But it is not always the sun that must shine to have light. In darkness, we must seek out the stars. Their brightness has its own power. ~ Sejal Badani,

68:How will the exit affect thousands of British pensioners living in Portugal or Spain who will lose their access to the welfare and health systems? Fifty-three free-trade agreements, which were negotiated by the EU on behalf of all Member States, are also hanging in the balance for the UK. ~ Jean Claude Juncker,

69:Do yourself a favor,' I said. "Forget it. Forget you ever saw me."
"Forget that you tried to kill me too?"
"Yeah. That, too."
"But who are you?"
"Percy-" I started to say. Then the skeletons turned around. "Gotta go!"
"What kind of name is Percy Gotta-go?"
I bolted for the exit. ~ Rick Riordan,

70:So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a taillight behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963,

71:Each one is traveling his own way ad though the earth be rotting with good things, there is no time to pluck the fruits; the procession scrambles toward the exit sign, and such a panic is there, such a sweat to escape, that the weak and the helpless are trampled into the mud and their cries are unheard. ~ Henry Miller,

72:I realized we'd pulled into a parking garage. We drove around two levels, pulled into a spot, then immediately pulled out again. Along with four other black Bentley SUVs. "What's going on?" I asked, as we headed back toward the exit with two Bentleys in front of us and two behind us. "Shell game," he said. ~ Sylvia Day,

73:My fingers scrabbled at the smooth leather interior of Ryu’s BMW as he missed the exit we needed. Causing him to drop a few more F bombs and slam on the breaks. He then opened what I assume was a rift in the space time continuum in order to hurtle his German made steal cage of doom through said continuum. ~ Nicole Peeler,

74:Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates,

75:But in his soul, he had been a fighter stuck in a desk job. Resentment had made him edgy, and even though he hadn’t been aware of it, he had had his eye on the exit every single night. No sight. No exit. And what if that was actually…okay. What if those Hallmark motherfuckers were right. Door closes, window opens. ~ J R Ward,

76:If there is a way out, a way that isn’t death itself, then the exit route is through words. But rather than leave the mind entirely, words help us leave a mind, and give us the building blocks to build another one, similar but better, nearby to the old one but with firmer foundations, and very often a better view. ~ Matt Haig,

77:I stepped toward the exit, and Jax’s hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I closed my eyes and waited for him to speak. “You think you’re jus t someone I spent time with?” I swallowed the lump in my throat. He looked at me incredulously, and I wasn’t sure what to say. I returned his stare. He seemed angry and hurt. ~ Abbi Glines,

78:Fire,” yells someone in a theater. Immediately everyone stampedes toward the exits. What do they do at the exit door? Push. If the door doesn’t open, they push harder. But what if the door opens inward and must be pulled, not pushed? Highly anxious, highly focused people are very unlikely to think of pulling. ~ Donald A Norman,

79:I realized we’d pulled into a parking garage. We drove around two levels, pulled into a spot, then immediately pulled out again. Along with four other black Bentley SUVs.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as we headed back toward the exit with two Bentleys in front of us and two behind us.
“Shell game,” he said… ~ Sylvia Day,

80:I stayed right next to him as we began heading for the exit…right past Jeff’s desk. Jeff saw us coming and I saw his cheeks once again flush with color. Yeah, I’m on to you, fucker. “You heading out?” Jeff asked as he climbed to his feet. “Yeah,” was all Magnus said and I was surprised when he didn’t stop by the man’s desk. “Um, ~ Sloane Kennedy,

81:My eyes were bewildered at their freedom. Without the motives that had marked the rest of the day - to seek out the airport, the exit out of Marseilles and so on - they careered from object to object, so that if their path had been traced by the mark of a giant pencil, the sky would soon have been darkened by random and impatient patterns ~ Alain de Botton,

82:Our training pushes us to develop a new set of instincts: instead of reacting to danger with a fight-or-flight adrenaline rush, we’re trained to respond unemotionally by immediately prioritizing threats and methodically seeking to defuse them. We go from wanting to bolt for the exit to wanting to engage and understand what’s going wrong, then fix ~ Chris Hadfield,

83:As somebody who, in my second marriage, insisted on a prenuptial agreement, I can also testify that sometimes it is an act of love to chart the exit strategy before you enter the union, in order to make sure that not only you, but your partner as well, knows that there will be no World War III should hearts and minds, for any sad reason, change. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,

84:Our training pushes us to develop a new set of instincts: instead of reacting to danger with a fight-or-flight adrenaline rush, we're trained to respond unemotionally by immediately prioritizing threats and methodically seeking to defuse them. We go from wanting to bolt for the exit to wanting to engage and understand what's going wrong, then fix it. ~ Chris Hadfield,

85:The exit from agony is always there. The tunnel out of the agony sector is always in front of you and yet you don't take it. You don't take it by choice. You want to indulge a lot and be in pain. The easiest way out is to write a list of what you're grateful for. If everybody literally did that before they went to bed at night, there'd be no unhappy people. ~ Jim Carrey,

86:They say all good things come to those who wait, and as I deplaned and began walking toward the exit, all I could think about was that I’d waited long enough. I’d been dying in a gray hell, longing for a taste of everything for as long as I could remember, and I would take a bite out of it all. I’d spent too many years of my life living vicariously through movies. ~ Kate Stewart,

87:[Ranger] "How's your mental health?" he asked. "I heard about Soder." [Stephanie] "I'm rattled." "I have a cure." Oh, boy. He put the truck in gear and headed for the exit. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "And that wasn't where I was going. I was going to suggest work." "I knew that." He looked over at me and grinned. "You want me bad." I did. God help me. ~ Janet Evanovich,

88:Aislin points her finger at him. “Be nice while I’m gone. I mean it. And get some stuff done. You’ve been slacking and letting Gemma and I pick up your workload.” She waves at me. “See you later, Gemma.” I give her a small wave as she walks toward the exit, pressing buttons on her phone. Alex and I watch her until she disappears out the doors. When he looks at me again, ~ Jessica Sorensen,

89:The only thing to see is the obligatory third-world Coke billboard, ironic in exact proportion to the distance from its proper American context. This one says COKE—MAKE IT REAL. Just after the Coke sign there is a contrary sign, an indication that irony is not a currency in Liberia. It is worn by a girl who leans against the exit in a T-shirt that says THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD. ~ Zadie Smith,

90:Daniel Wesley, you’re gonna get caught,” she says with a grin. She turns and begins walking toward the exit, so I discreetly place a hand on her lower back and walk next to her.

“God, I hope so,” I say. “If I have to sit through another lunch like that, I’ll lose my shit and you’ll end up on your back on top of the table.”

She laughs. “What a way with words you have. ~ Colleen Hoover,

91:Yeah, I got her,” Will confirms.
“Who you got?” I ask.
“You, drunk girl. Come on.” He turns to lead me toward the exit, and I start to follow him, but for some reason my feet don’t work very well.
“Um, Will?”
“Yeah?”
“I lost my feet.”
“What?” he laughs and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I can’t find my feet.”
Why is everyone laughing at me? This is serious! ~ Kristen Proby,

92:[Ranger] "How's your mental health?" he asked. "I heard about Soder."
[Stephanie] "I'm rattled."
"I have a cure."
Oh, boy.
He put the truck in gear and headed for the exit. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "And that wasn't where I was going. I was going to suggest work."
"I knew that."
He looked over at me and grinned. "You want me bad."
I did. God help me. ~ Janet Evanovich,

93:Once I heard about the electronic voting machines, and how they weren't gonna be audited, and no one would be able to go in and verify what the votes were. And then the exit poll thing - wasn't that kind of weird? How the exit polls didn't match up to the voting... I feel like, you know, they dropped a couple lines of code in here and there, and swung a couple states in their direction. ~ Aaron McGruder,

94:...Our conversation with the supermarket manager had been about as helpful as a New Jersey road sign, and if you've ever been there, you know the signs don't tell you the exit you're coming up to, they only point out the exits you've just missed.
It puts parents in very foul moods--and since you're probably there to visit relatives, their mood was pretty touch and go to begin with. ~ Neal Shusterman,

95:It's a fine balance between design and the thing making itself happen. The stroke has to have complete precision to work. Sometimes I lose it on the exit. You can't fudge it. It ruins the whole thing.” The resulting figures are almost always contained within the rectangle. “It's less of a window if I keep it within the confines of the canvas, but there's almost always a drip that's an umbilical cord. ~ James Nares,

96:How about I call? We'll do lunch." he blew a kiss toward Miss Lynn's increasingly purple face and jumped off onto the next row.
Miss lynn shoved past me, running to block the exit. "Guard the gym door!" she shouted,eyes blazing as she took up her position and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
But jack was long gone,having eluded both Miss lynn and any repercussions for his idiotic actions. ~ Kiersten White,

97:We’re out.” …
A round of groans passed from my new group of friends, and I smiled that they were actually disappointed we were retiring. I waved to the girls. “Don’t leave!” a few called out.
“My girl needs sex. I deliver,” Lane said unabashedly. He looked at the guys, quirking his eyebrow in question. “What would you do?”
All three of them, Jax, Jace, and Cole, proceeded to point toward the exit. ~ Kimberly Lauren,

98:Surely it could not be the same party. It looked like a warzone. The floating chandelier had crashed and shattered on the dance floor, freeing the now- dark floating orbs. People ran madly for the exit. Some were being chased by pickax-wielding dwarves, to say nothing of the ogres. The floor was littered with frogs. Hopefully they weren’t enchanted princes, because some of them were getting squished by the mob. ~ Betsy Schow,

99:He didn't say anything. Didn't try any of the hugging bullshit, either, which was just as well.
Instead, he placed a wooden case next to Tohr on the bed, exhaled some Turkish smoke, and went back for the exit like he couldn't wait to get out of the room.
Except he stopped before he left, "I gotchu, my brother," he said to the door.
"I know, V. You always have.
~ J R WardVishous and Tohrment Lover Reborn ~ J R Ward,

100:I came of age in the Sixties, when there were chances, when it was all there waiting. Now they seep out of school – to what? To nothing, to fuck-all. The young (you can see it in their faces), the stegosaurus-rugged no-hopers, the parrot-crested blankies – they’ve come up with an appropriate response to this, which is: nothing. Which is nothing, which is fuck-all. The dole-queue starts at the exit to the playground. ~ Martin Amis,

101:Ten years ago I saw a documentary on the siege of that Moscow theater. After just forty-eight hours of the terrorists confining the hostages to their seats with no sleep, the lights blazing and being forced to pee their pants-although if the had to shit, they could do so in the orchestra pit-well,more than a few hostages just stood up and walked to the exit knowing they'd get shot in the back. Because the were DONE. ~ Maria Semple,

102:So the experience of death is turned into that of the exchange of functionaries, and anything in the natural relationship to death that is not wholly absorbed into the social one is turned over to hygiene. In being seen as no more than the exit of a living creature from the social combine, death has been domesticated: dying merely confirms the absolute irrelevance of the natural organism in face of the social absolute. ~ Theodor Adorno,

103:We’ve already altered our relationship with last night,” Nick said. “We’ll never get that back.”
“I know,” Kelly said softly.
“We can stop here and just go to sleep.
”Kelly narrowed his eyes, a smile flitting across his lips. “You’re going to look for the exit at every turn, aren’t you?”
Nick huffed.
Kelly began to unbutton his shirt. “Well there ain’t no exits on this ride, babe, ’cause I know all your tricks. ~ Abigail Roux,

104:One is ejected into the world like a dirty little mummy; the roads are slippery with blood and no one knows why it should be so. Each one is traveling his own way and, though the earth be rotting with good things, there is no time to pluck the fruits; the procession scrambles toward the exit sign, and such a panic is there, such a sweat to escape, that the weak and the helpless are trampled into the mud and their cries are unheard. ~ Henry Miller,

105:Where is this place our baby bodies sprinted towards even when we were holding still for as long as possible? Flight gave birth to birth. Fragment genius comes down to this heaven of ass thwack, the miracle of taking it the miracle of sweet good girl best girl good girl finally made it made it home We don’t always know where this place is. We stumble looking for the light switch, the exit sign. ~ Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha,

106:Shit, that’s the exit,” Deborah said, swerving hard for the off-ramp and effectively killing the mood, as well as guaranteeing that I lost all sense of what I had been about to say. The sign that flashed by, seemingly just a few inches from my head, told me we were heading for North Miami Beach, into an area of modest houses and shops that had changed very little in the last twenty years. It seemed like a very odd neighborhood for a cannibal. Deborah ~ Jeff Lindsay,

107:Come on,"he said, gesturing toward the exit. "let's take a walk." "Where?" "It doesn't matter. We just need you calmed down or you'll be in no shape to fight." "Yeah? Are you afraid of my possibly insane dark side coming out?" "No, I'm afraid of your normal Rose Hathaway side coming out, the one that isn't afraid to jump in without thinking when she believes something is right." I gave him a dry look. "Is there are a difference?" "Yes. The second one scares me. ~ Richelle Mead,

108:finished loading their luggage onto the cart and they started for the exit, where two young Malay soldiers armed with machine guns stood guard. Marah felt her mouth go dry, one of the precursors to the panic attacks she’d been having since her last miscarriage. In baggy navy uniforms two sizes too big for them, the soldiers hardly looked old enough to shave, let alone carry automatic weapons. Marah imagined them accidentally firing their guns, barely hanging on to ~ Kirk Kjeldsen,

109:Maryanne paid for her purchases, and once everything was stuffed into the blue plastic bags, she headed toward the exit. That's when she spotted her tail again... not six feet away.

"Here," she said, thrusting her purchases at J.Z.'s middle. "Since you're sticking to me like used bubble gum to my shoes, you can make yourself useful. Carry these to my car, please."

She left him, arms full of bags, jaw agape, and wend to buy a soft pretzel and an icy drink. ~ Ginny Aiken,

110:A Panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air. "Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder. "I'm a Panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up." The waiter turns to the relevant entry, and, sure enough, finds an explanation. Panda. Large black and white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves. ~ Lynne Truss,

111:I shot up out of my chair. “Change of plans. Finish your drink so we can go.”
Jay responded flatly, “Go where exactly?”
“I’m not sure but we’ll know it when we see it.”
He looked at his glass and back to me. “Why bother?”
I looked him the eye, seeing pain there and forcing myself not to flinch from it. “Because pity parties suck” I started walking toward the exit and over my shoulder asked “You coming?”
He downed the rest of his drink and followed me out the door. ~ Amanda Kelly,

112:Come on,"he said, gesturing toward the exit. "let's take a walk."
"Where?"
"It doesn't matter. We just need you calmed down or you'll be in no shape to fight."
"Yeah? Are you afraid of my possibly insane dark side coming out?"
"No, I'm afraid of your normal Rose Hathaway side coming out, the one that isn't afraid to jump in without thinking when she believes something is right."
I gave him a dry look. "Is there are a difference?"
"Yes. The second one scares me. ~ Richelle Mead,

113:Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues. ~ Nick Hornby,

114:Have you got any soul?” a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I’ve got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can’t seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn’t be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues. ~ Nick Hornby,

115:Brand-name growth stocks ordinarily command the highest p/e ratios. Rising prices beget attention, and vice versa - but only to a point. Eventually their growth rate can diminish as results revert towards normal. Maybe not in all cases, but often enough to make a long-term bet. Bottom line: I wouldn't want to get caught in a rush for the exit, much less get left behind. Only when big growth stocks fall into the dumper from time to time am I inclined to pick them up - and even then, only in moderation. ~ John Neff,

116:A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves. ~ Lynne Truss,

117:Living in a delusion, we endlessly re-create its landscape; we repeatedly enact its roles and manufacture its dramas, racing along the same old paths of the maze. Even if we achieve temporary victory against the bad guys, the overall situation doesn't seem to change. We never get closer to the exit. What we normally achieve is, instead of victory, a strengthened conviction that we are in fact the good guys. That polarized view is one of the things we will have to give up if we are to launch the era of ecological healing. ~ Charles Eisenstein,

118:There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to yourself. I don't really see the difference. We find ourselves through the process of escaping. It is not where we are, but where we want to go, and all that [...] If there is a way out, a way that isn't death itself, then the exit route is through words. But rather than leave the mind entirely, words help us leave a mind, and give us the building blocks to build another one, similar but better, nearby to the old one but with firmer foundations, and very often a better view. ~ Matt Haig,

119:As I see it, a successful story of any kind should be almost like hypnosis: You fascinate the reader with your first sentence, draw them in further with your second sentence and have them in a mild trance by the third. Then, being careful not to wake them, you carry them away up the back alley of your narrative and when they are hopelessly lost within the story, having surrendered themselves to it, you do them terrible violence with a softball bag and then lead them whimpering to the exit on the last page. Believe me, they'll thank you for it. ~ Alan Moore,

120:Self-Employed: For Harvey Shapiro
I stand and listen, head bowed,
to my inner complaint.
Persons passing by think
I am searching for a lost coin.
You’re fired, I yell inside
after an especially bad episode.
I’m letting you go without notice
or terminal pay. You just lost
another chance to make good.
But then I watch myself standing at the exit,
depressed and about to leave,
and wave myself back in wearily,
for who else could I get in my place
to do the job in dark, airless conditions?
~ David Ignatow,

121:We got off the train and headed forward toward the exit. When we entered the lobby, my phone vibrated. Win sent the following text: BRING TERESE TO THE PENTHOUSE. THEN GO TO ROOM 118. ALONE. The two seconds later, Win added: PLEASE REFRAIN FROM TEXTING BACK SOME WITTY ALBEIT HOMOPHOBIC COMEBACK VIS-À-VIS THE “ALONE” COMMENT. Win was the only person I knew who was more verbose in texts than in person. I took Terese up to the penthouse. There was a laptop with Internet access. I pointed to it. “Maybe you can start digging into this Save the Angels charity. ~ Harlan Coben,

122:I will not make you a vampire," Mr. Crepsley insisted. "You must forget about it. Go home and get on
with your life."
"No!" Steve screamed. "I won't forget!" He stumbled to his feet and pointed a shaking ringer at the tall,
ugly vampire. "I'll get you for this," he promised. "I don't care how long it takes. One day, Vur Horston,
I'll track you down and kill you for rejecting me!"
Steve jumped from the stage and ran toward the exit. "One day!" he called back over his shoulder, and I
could hear him laughing as he ran, a crazy kind of laugh. ~ Darren Shan,

123:April 9th. Hope is almost as difficult as the other. But one is simply more used to hoping and fearing than to find oneself in the middle of what one had hoped or feared.

What I have learned: that there is no real escape from life.

One can only postpone the decision with cunning and cleverness. But there is no way out. It is a totally closed system, and at the exit there is only death. And that naturally is no exit at all.

I am a body. Nothing but a body. Everything which has to be done, which can be done, must happen within this body.

(The Yellow Book IV:2) ~ Lars Gustafsson,

124:They knew what gunfire meant better than anyone. Some were crying by the time they reached the exit and stepped outside into the afternoon air. The sun was already descending in the sky, leaving shadows crawling across the valley floor. Not daring to look behind her, Khalia’s eyes fixed on her target, the emergency bunker. Across the expanse of lush green grass before her, the beckoning hillside seemed impossibly far away. A warning prickle began at her nape, as if someone had her in their sights and was taking aim at her. More shots erupted from the hills behind them. The lead group broke ~ Kaylea Cross,

125:They walked on in silence, unsure about what had happened and what would happen next. Two more turnings brought them once again to the exit of the maze, and back to the party. Emma was about to open the heavy oak door when he took her hand.
‘Em?’
‘Dex?’
He wanted to take hold of her hand and walk back into the maze. He would turn his phone off, and they would just stay in there until the party was over, get lost and talk about all that had happened.
‘Friends again?’ he said eventually.
‘Friends again.’ She let go of his hand. ‘Now, let’s go and find your fiancée. I want to congratulate her. ~ David Nicholls,

126:I don't know how they do it. I don't know how anybody does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no grades below a B, because really, nobody's average, not around here. It's a dance with complicated footwork and a changing tempo. I'm the girl who trips on the dance floor and can't find her way to the exit. All eyes on me. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson,

127:children who experience multiple transitions in family structure may fare worse developmentally than children raised in stable two-parent families and perhaps even than children raised in stable, single-parent families.” For many kids, the first impulse is escape, but people who lurch toward the exit rarely choose the right door. This is how my aunt found herself married at sixteen to an abusive husband. It’s how my mom, the salutatorian of her high school class, had both a baby and a divorce, but not a single college credit under her belt before her teenage years were over. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos ~ J D Vance,

128:And there is only one way you can live, now. There must be an emotional hand to slap you on the back to make you move. A desire, a want, an emotion. Then the first thing you know you quiver and rise and strike your brow against silk-skinned wood. That emotion surges through you, calling you. If it is not strong enough, you will settle down wearily, and will not wake again. But if you grow with it, somehow, if you claw upward, if you work tediously, slowly, many days, you find ways of displacing earth an inch at a time, and one night you crumble the darkness, the exit is completed, and you wriggle forth to see the stars. ~ Ray Bradbury,

129:And there is only one way you can live, now. There must be an emotional hand to slap oyou on the back to make you move. A desire, a want, an emotion. Then the first thing you know you quiver and rise and strike your brow against silk-skinned wood. That emotion surges thorugh you, calling you. If it is not strong enough, you will settle down wearily, and will not wake again. But if you grow with it, somehow, if you claw upward, if you work tediously, slowly, many days, you find ways of displacing earth an inch at a time, and one night you crumble the darkness, the exit is completed, and you wriggle forth to see the stars. ~ Ray Bradbury,

130:We all looked at Shelton, who rolled his eyes. “Like my vote matters now.”
Hi patted his back. “If it makes you feel better, your vote’s never mattered.”
“Hilarious.” Shelton rubbed his face. “I hope my parole officer finds you as funny.”
I sprang up and hurried for the exit, stopping Chance with a hand on his shoulder. “Give me a second alone with Ben. He’s still worked up, probably needs a few minutes to decompress.”
Chance’s expression soured, but he held back.
Hi fired a shooter my way. “Good idea. We need him mission focused. Rodger dodger.”
Shelton covered his face with his hands. “Enough already. ~ Kathy Reichs,

131:Whenever I get dumped, I nail the door shut so that no one can come inside, get a towel and clip it around my neck so it's like a Superman cape, take off my shoes so I can slide across the room, and...get a fake mic, like a celery stick or a pen, and I play any record that features the vocalist Ronnie James Dio. And you can just pretend you're Dio, because on every album he does, he has minimum one, usually three, *EVIL WOMAN LOOK OUT!*- songs. And if you wanna point like Dio, it's a three-finger point. (heavy metal voice) 'The exit is that way. Evil LURKS! Evil lurks in twilight! Dances in the DARK! Evil woman! Just WALK AWAY! ~ Henry Rollins,

132:As we trooped back out through the shower room door, the S.S. men ran their hands over every prisoner, back, and sides.
The woman ahead of me was searched three times. Behind me, Betsie was searched. No hand touched me. At the exit door to the building was a second ordeal, a line of women guards examining each prisoner again. I slowed down as I reached them but the Aufseherin in charge shoved me roughly by the shoulder. "Move Along! You're holding up the line! And so Betsie and I arrived in Barracks 8 in the small hours of that morning, bringing not only the Bible, but a new knowledge of the power of Him whose story it was. ~ Corrie ten Boom,

133:Being forced to confront the prospect of failure head-on—to study it, dissect it, tease apart all its components and consequences—really works. After a few years of doing that pretty much daily, you’ve forged the strongest possible armor to defend against fear: hard-won competence.

Our training pushes us to develop a new set of instincts: instead of reacting to danger with a fight-or-flight adrenaline rush, we’re trained to respond unemotionally by immediately prioritizing threats and methodically seeking to defuse them. We go from wanting to bolt for the exit to wanting to engage and understand what’s going wrong, then fix it. ~ Chris Hadfield,

134:Creation takes place in bottlenecks . . . A creator who isn’t grabbed around the throat by a set of impossibilities is no creator. A creator’s someone who creates their own impossibilities, and thereby creates possibilities . . . it’s by banging your head on the wall that you find a way through. You have to work on the wall, because without a set of impossibilities, you won’t have the line of flight, the exit that is creation, the power of falsity that is truth. Your writing has to be liquid or gaseous simply because normal perception and opinion are solid, geometric … You have to open up words, break things open, to free earth’s vectors. ~ Gilles Deleuze,

135:A maze is a puzzle to be solved, with twists and turns and dead ends. It requires logical, analytical thinking and usually has a different way out than the way in. The maze could be a metaphor of struggling through life, going one way and then another until the exit takes your by surprise.

A maze signifies entrapment, while the labyrinth, with its unicursal path leading into the center and out again the same way, provides enlightenment. It's the process, the journey into your deepest self, your soul, the part where God abides. It's a passive path, a surrender even, to an order and design repeated through creation. A sacred geometry. ~ Kristen Heitzmann,

136:I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how anybody
does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving
from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots
inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing
every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of
ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one
sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no
grades below a B, because really, nobody’s average, not
around here. It’s a dance with complicated footwork and
a changing tempo.
I’m the girl who trips on the dance floor and can’t find
her way to the exit. All eyes on me. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson,

137:The gash in the girl’s neck flooded Taylor’s mind and she nearly missed her exit off the highway. Without thinking, she hit her brakes hard, and the wet, sloppy snow declined to help. She had to manhandle the truck until the wheels caught again. She regained control and took the exit, her heart beating hard. The near miss woke her up. Adrenaline coursed through her body. Her mind refused to cooperate, to calm itself. The murder scene popped back into her head, and she went down the exact path she was trying to avoid—thinking about the case. She was so lost in thought that when she stopped, she realized she’d driven to her old house. The cabin. Shaking ~ J T Ellison,

138:He glanced at me, his eyes dark. “Would you rather talk about your dream?”
“No.”
“Considering that I was featured in it, I think I deserve to know the particulars. Were my clothes missing because we were in bed? Was I touching you?” He glanced at me. His voice could’ve melted clothes off my body. “Were you touching me?”
I shouldn’t have gotten into his car. I should’ve taken a separate vehicle.
“Cat got your tongue, Nevada?”
“No, we weren’t in bed. I was pushing you off a cliff to your death.” I pointed at the highway. “Take the next exit and stay in the right lane, please. We’ll need to make a right.”
He chuckled and took the exit. ~ Ilona Andrews,

139:Wake Up
wake up wake up realize your fight
wake up wake up realize your fright
wake up wake up this is a dream
wake wake up your slipping away
that light is not the exit its your
final breath please wake up
we need you we need you
please come back! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
that coma your in please
come to my voice! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
im yelling im screming
yet you ignor me! ! ! ! ! ! !
why do you run faster
to the light! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
i see now reality is not
where you wanna be
in heaven is the place to be
so if it is your time then
rest in peace
and goodbye
from your boy
~ david bailey,

140:Sicarius padded toward the exit, his soft black boots silent on the tile floor. He paused in the doorway and glanced at the backs of the two older men.
The emperor emitted a nervous chuckle. “You trained him too well, Hollow. The man bothers me.”
“He is loyal.”
“I know. You did a good job. I ought to give you Sespian to work with. The boy is disappointing.”
“He does seem soft,” Hollowcrest said.
“Did you hear that scream? I would’ve been fascinated by severed heads at that age.”
“You’re fascinated with them now, Sire.”
“True enough.”
They shared a laugh and headed for the door. Sicarius slipped away before they noticed him. ~ Lindsay Buroker,

141:The risk models developed by private firms, whether hedge funds, rating agencies, or banks, are not reliable guides to the future. Even when these models are applied by government regulators, their application is flawed, because they look to past market history as received truth. But markets, we must emphasize, are imperfect; they are the agglomeration of myriad investors, most of whom usually act rationally - usually, as history has shown, but not always. Even perfectly logical investors will panic, as will theatergoers at the mere possibility of fire, so as not to be last to the exit; this threat of contagion renders financial markets inherently unstable. ~ Roger Lowenstein,

142:Astronomers had already found the fingerprints of chaos in violence on the sun's surface, gaps in the asteroid belt, and the distribution of galaxies. Levin and her colleagues have found them in the exit from the big bang and in black holes. They predict that light trapped by a black hole can enter unstable chaotic orbits and be reemited-making the black hole visible, if only briefly. Yes, chaos can light up black holes. "There are rational numbers to mine, fractal sets, and all kinds of truly beautiful consequences," she says. "So on the one hand, people are horrified, on the other they're mesmerized." She does chaos in curved space-time. Einstein would be proud. ~ James Gleick,

143:The central police station of the governorate of Qasr el-Nil looked like the poorly maintained palace of a deceased sheikh. Protected by tall black fences, its dark facade opened onto a garden containing a mix of palm trees and police vehicles, which seemed more like grocers’ delivery vans. Only the large blue two-note revolving lights showed the difference. In front of a long staircase, six military guards—each with white short-sleeved shirt, kepi bearing the insignia of an eagle stamped with the national flag, Misr assault rifle across the shoulder—slapped the edge of their hands against their chests at the exit of a corpulent man endowed with three stars on his epaulettes. ~ Franck Thilliez,

144:Noir is about losers. The characters in these existential, nihilistic tales are doomed. They may not die, but they probably should, as the life that awaits them is certain to be so ugly, so lost and lonely, that they'd be better off just curling up and getting it over with. And, let's face it, they deserve it.

Pretty much everyone in a noir story (or film) is driven by greed, lust, jealousy or alienation, a path that inevitably sucks them into a downward spiral from which they cannot escape. They couldn't find the exit from their personal highway to hell if flashing neon lights pointed to a town named Hope. It is their own lack of morality that blindly drives them to ruin. ~ Otto Penzler,

145:Trying to retain his enthusiasm, he led her toward the opening in the overgrown boxwood hedge where a pair of musk rose bushes formed a thorny turnstile, marking the exit from the garden to the fallow fields and woods beyond. They stopped to take deep, lung-filling inhalations of the musk roses' delicious, honeylike perfume. Exclaiming with unaffected joy at the roses' late-blooming beauty, Alice cupped one of the creamy white blossoms gracefully in her gloved hand. He picked one, pulled off the thorns, and offered it to her. She took it in silence, searching his face warily, then turned away and walked on. Lucien just stood there watching her, praying he wouldn't do anything wrong. ~ Gaelen Foley,

146:One Multicolored strands of lights twinkled from every surface around the dining room of the Big Texan Steak Ranch, even from the antlers of mounted deer heads and the ears of one embarrassed-looking coyote. Only the buffalo head maintained its dignity. Well, he and the giant fiberglass Santa guarding the exit door. I’d wanted to come here ever since my rodeo-cowboy father ran off before my promised seventeenth-birthday dinner, but, in light of the news I’d just received, all of the decorations were suddenly a little too much. I cradled my iPhone between my ear and shoulder, one hand clutching the neck of my poncho and the other slinging my purse straps over my other shoulder. “Come on,” I whispered to Jack, my boss—a man ~ Pamela Fagan Hutchins,

147:There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself. I don’t really see the difference. We find ourselves through the process of escaping. It is not where we are, but where we want to go, and all that. ‘Is there no way out of the mind?’ Sylvia Plath famously asked. I had been interested in this question (what it meant, what the answers might be) ever since I had come across it as a teenager in a book of quotations. If there is a way out, a way that isn’t death itself, then the exit route is through words. But rather than leave the mind entirely, words help us leave a mind, and give us the building blocks to build another one, similar but better, nearby to the old one but with firmer foundations, and very often a better view. ~ Matt Haig,

148:A demigod!" one snarled.
"Eat it!" yelled another.
But that's as far as they got before I slashed a wide arc with Riptide and vaporized the entire front row of monsters.
"Back off!" I yelled at the rest, trying to sound fierce. Behind them stood their instructor--a six-foot tall telekhine with Doberman fangs snarling at me. I did my best to stare him down.
"New lesson, class," I announced. "Most monsters will vaporize when sliced with a celestial bronze sword. This change is completely normal, and will happen to you right now if you don't BACK OFF!"
To my surprise, it worked. The monsters backed off, but there was at least twenty of them. My fear factor wasn't going to last that long.
I jumped out of the cart, yelled, "CLASS DISMISSED!" and ran for the exit. ~ Rick Riordan,

149:Ass up is our best position No one could have told us we never would’ve believed that someday we would kneel in this place, worshipped We use each other’s raw bodies to remind ourselves how to pray. Where is this place our baby bodies sprinted towards even when we were holding still for as long as possible? Flight gave birth to birth. Fragment genius comes down to this heaven of ass thwack, the miracle of taking it the miracle of sweet good girl best girl good girl finally made it made it home We don’t always know where this place is. We stumble looking for the light switch, the exit sign. Can we really just relax? When does this get pulled away? Did we finally make it home? Queer grief is a blueprint. We got this shit wired tight. ~ Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha,

150:no was a bad word in my hone
no was met with the lash
erased from our vocabulary
beaten out of our backs
till we became well-behaved kids
who obediently nodded to yes to everything
when he climbed on top of me
every part of my body wanted to reject it
but i couldn't say no to save my life
when i tried to scream
all that escaped me was silence
i heard no pounding her fist
on the roof of my mouth
begging to let her out
but i had not put up the exit sign
never built the emergency staircase
there was no trapdoor for no to escape from
i want to ask all the
parents and guardians a question
what use was obedience then
when there were hands
that were not mine inside me

- how can i verbalize consent as an adult if i was never taught to as a child ~ Rupi Kaur,

151:In a series of experiments, safety officials ran regular people through mock evacuations from planes. The trials weren't nearly as stressful as real evacuations, of course, but it didn't matter. People, especially women, hesitated for a surprisingly long time before jumping onto the slide. That pause slowed the evacuation for everyone. But there was a way to get people to move faster. If a flight attendant stood at the exit and screamed at people to jump, the pause all but disappeared, the researchers found. In fact, if flight attendants did not aggressively direct the evacuation, they might as well have not been there at all. A study by the Cranfield University Aviation Safety Centre found that people moved just as slowly for polite and calm flight attendants as they did when there were no flight attendants present. ~ Amanda Ripley,

152:Trust me, Jennifer. Just...trust me."
I drove another block or two. "Why should I?"
"Why shouldn't you?"
Because you left me, Cameron. After everything we went through. But I knew it wasn't his fault, any more than it was mine. It wasn't like either of us had control over our lives. We were at the mercy of our parents, both of us. Anyway, I'd already turned the car toward the freeway entrance. I turned on the car radio and we drove twenty minutes without talking. When the exit finally came into view, ugly warehouses and the new Wal-Mart looming before us, I said, "Let's go to my old apartment first. I haven't been there since we moved."
"I've gone by it a couple of times."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Living there with you was kind of my best memory."
I imagined that, him going to the apartment and looking up at the window and thinking about me. ~ Sara Zarr,

153:But the engine started, eventually, after a bunch of popping and churning, and then it idled, wet and lumpy. The transmission was slower than the postal service. She rattled the selector into reverse, and all the mechanical parts inside called the roll and counted a quorum and set about deciding what to do. Which required a lengthy debate, apparently, because it was whole seconds before the truck lurched backward. She turned the wheel, which looked like hard work, and then she jammed the selector into a forward gear, and first of all the reversing committee wound up its business and approved its minutes and exited the room, and then the forward crew signed on and got comfortable, and a motion was tabled and seconded and discussed. More whole seconds passed, and then the truck slouched forward, slow and stuttering at first, before picking up its pace and rolling implacably toward the exit gate. ~ Lee Child,

154:What about him?” one of Brisco’s entourage asked, glaring at Jablonski. They all were, actually. He wasn’t a popular man. I pretended to think about it. “Well, here’s the thing. I promised I wouldn’t kill him if he did everything I told him to, and he did.” I patted Jablonski on the back. “So I guess here’s where we part ways. Nice seeing ya, buddy.” “Wait,” Jablonski said, his head on a swivel as he backed up against the guardrail. “You can’t leave me here!” “Sure I can. Look, all you have to do is make it from here to the exit by yourself. It’s not like you went out of your way to give every man in here a reason to hate you, right? What do you think, Brisco? What are his odds?” Brisco slapped his fist into his open palm. “Not good.” Jablonski tried to run. He made it two, maybe three steps before they fell on him. Then it was all fists and feet and strangled pleading, and we left Brisco and his boys to their revenge. ~ Craig Schaefer,

155:I don't get scared very often," he said finally. "I was scared the first morning I woke up and you weren't here. I was scared when you left me after Vegas. I was scared when I thought I was going to have to tell my dad that Trent had died in that building. But when I saw you across the flames in the basement...I was terrified. I made it to the door, was a few feet from the exit, and I couldn't leave.
"What do you mean? Are you crazy?" I said, my head jerking up to look into his eyes.
"I've never been so clear about anything in my life. I turned around, made my way to that room you were in, and there you were. Nothing else mattered. I didn't even know if we would make it out or not, I just wanted to be where you were, whatever that meant. The only thing I'm afraid of is a life without you, Pigeon."
I leaned up, kissing his lips tenderly. When our mouths parted, I smiled. "Then you have nothing to be afraid of. We're forever. ~ Jamie McGuire,

156:He walked to the exit, skirting the pools of vapor light purely out of habit, but he saw that the last lamp was unavoidable, because it was set directly above the exit gate. So he saved himself a further perimeter diversion by walking through the next-to-last pool of light, too. At which point a woman stepped out of the shadows. She came toward him with a distinctive burst of energy, two fast paces, eager, like she was pleased to see him. Her body language was all about relief. Then it wasn’t. Then it was all about disappointment. She stopped dead, and she said, “Oh.” She was Asian. But not petite. Five-nine, maybe, or even five-ten. And built to match. Not a bone in sight. No kind of a willowy waif. She was about forty, Reacher guessed, with black hair worn long, jeans and a T-shirt under a short cotton coat. She had lace-up shoes on her feet. He said, “Good evening, ma’am.” She was looking past his shoulder. He said, “I’m the only passenger. ~ Lee Child,

157:How fast can you run?

When you really have to?

In heels and a work skirt, with your bag banging against your side: how fast?

When you’re late for your train and you have to get home, and you race down the platform with seconds to spare: how fast can you run?

What if it isn’t a train you’re running for, but your life?

If you’re late home from work, and there’s no one in sight. If you haven’t charged your phone and no one knows where you are. If the footsteps behind you are getting closer, and you know, because you do it every day, that you’re on your own; that between the platform and the exit you won’t see another soul.

If there’s breath on your neck, and the panic is rising, and it’s dark, and cold, and wet.

If it’s just the two of you.

Just you, and whoever’s behind you.

Whoever is chasing you.

How fast could you run then?

It doesn’t matter how fast.

Because there’s always someone who can run faster. ~ Clare Mackintosh,

158:The most terrifying part of battle was the exit from a trench—standing up and climbing out, knowing that the opposing force would at that moment unleash a fusillade that would continue until the offensive concluded, either with victory, meaning a few yards gained, or defeat, a few yards lost, but invariably with half one’s battalion dead, wounded, or missing. “I shall never forget the moment when we had to leave the shelter of the trenches,” wrote British private Ridley Sheldon, of combat at Helles, at the southwest tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. “It is indeed terrible, the first step you take—right into the face of the most deadly fire, and to realize that any moment you may be shot down; but if you are not hit, then you seem to gather courage. And when you see on either side of you men like yourself, it inspires you with a determination to press forward. Away we went over the parapet with fixed bayonets—one line of us like the wind. But it was absolute murder, for men fell like corn before the sickle. ~ Erik Larson,

159:I would leave everything here: the valleys, the hills, the paths, and the jaybirds from the gardens, I would leave here the petcocks and the padres, heaven and earth, spring and fall, I would leave here the exit routes, the evenings in the kitchen, the last amorous gaze, and all of the city-bound directions that make you shudder, I would leave here the thick twilight falling upon the land, gravity, hope, enchantment, and tranquility, I would leave here those beloved and those close to me, everything that touched me, everything that shocked me, fascinated and uplifted me, I would leave here the noble, the benevolent, the pleasant, and the demonically beautiful, I would leave here the budding sprout, every birth and existence, I would leave here incantation, enigma, distances, inexhaustibility, and the intoxication of eternity; for here I would leave this earth and these stars, because I would take nothing with me from here, because I've looked into what's coming, and I don't need anything from here. ~ L szl Krasznahorkai,

160:Only one aspect of the Vision resonated sharply throughout his first eight months in office. During the second presidential debate with Al Gore, on October 11, 2000, George W. Bush promised a less interventionist foreign policy than that of the Clinton-Gore administration – one, in keeping with his Responsibility Era, that would encourage self-reliance while curbing its own meddlesome Great Power Impulses. “I am worried,” Bush said then, “about over committing our military around the world. I want to be judicious in its use… I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war; that’s what its meant to do. And when it gets overextended, moreal drops… I’m going to be judicious as to how I use the military. It needed to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious. ~ Robert Draper,

161:I thought of the words the old witch had used to summon the sword on previous occasions. While stepping backwards with the intent of putting the table between Thaddeus and myself, I voiced the spell aloud.

“Grim dettarias, ee Duvalla swen areir!”

My trusted weapon appeared from out of nowhere, the hilt grasped tight within my fingers. Without delay, I pointed the tip of the blade at my enemy.

“Move away from the door and let me leave this place.”

“Oh, Catherine…”

“Don’t breathe that wicked name again!” I angrily ordered. Thaddeus closed his mouth, and his eyes scrunched the slightest bit, never shifting from me.

“I’ll cut out your tongue if you mutter that awful name one more time,” I threatened. I interpreted his frown as a sign that he believed I would make every effort to carry out that threat.

Using the sword as an extension of my arm, I gestured with a flick of the wrist, signaling for the swine standing between me and freedom to move aside and clear the exit. He failed to comply. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,

162:It was early morning and already hot. There was a strong odor of earth and grass drying in the sun. We climbed among tall shrubs, on indistinct paths that led toward the tracks. When we reached an electrical pylon we took off our smocks and put them in the schoolbags, which we hid in the bushes. Then we raced through the scrubland, which we knew well, and flew excitedly down the slope that led to the tunnel. The entrance on the right was very dark: we had never been inside that obscurity. We held each other by the hand and entered. It was a long passage, and the luminous circle of the exit seemed far away. Once we got accustomed to the shadowy light, we saw lines of silvery water that slid along the walls, large puddles. Apprehensively, dazed by the echo of our steps, we kept going. Then Lila let out a shout and laughed at the violent explosion of sound. Immediately I shouted and laughed in turn. From that moment all we did was shout, together and separately: laughter and cries, cries and laughter, for the pleasure of hearing them amplified. The tension diminished, the journey began. ~ Elena Ferrante,

163:Jason shot to his feet, nostrils flaring. Ben stopped dead.
The cafeteria went still. Everyone watched the boys square off.
"Im not a violent person, Blue." Jason bit off the words. "But Ive had enough of your mouth. Ill kick your ass right here."
Ben's jaw tightened. "You think so, rich boy?"
"You heard me." A vein was bulging in Jason's neck.
Ben's breathing quickened. The tiniest spark of gold flickered in his irises.
My stomach backflipped.
Oh my God! He's going to flare!
"Get him out of here!" I hissed at Shelton and Hi. "Hurry!"
Recognizing the danger, Hi jumped to his feet, planted both hands on Ben's chest and pushed him towards the door, whispering, "Use your head, use your head, use your head!"
Ben tried to hold his ground, but Shelton joined the effort. "Get it together! People are watching. Dont lose control!"
Slowly, the duo managed to back Ben away, but his glare never strayed from Jason. At the exit, Ben shrugged free, and stalked down the hall alone.
I took my first breath since Jason stood.
Crisis averted, but only barely. ~ Kathy Reichs,

164:Which parts of Pembrook Park had been real? Any of it? Even herself? The absurdity bubbled up inside her, and she laughed out loud. The woman next to her stiffened as if forcing herself not to look at the crazy person.
“Excuse me.”
The sound of the voice flattened Jane against the back of her seat as though the plane had taken off at a terrifying speed.
It was him. There he was. In the plane. Vest and cravat and jacket and all.
“Holy cow,” she said.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Nobley said to the woman beside Jane. “My girlfriend and I don’t have tickets together, and I wonder if you would mind switching. I have a lovely seat on the exit row.”
The woman nodded and smiled sympathetically at Jane as though pondering the sadness of a crazy woman dating a man in Regency clothes.
The man who was Mr. Nobley sat beside her. He lifted his hand to remove his cap, discovered it’d been dislodged during the scuffle with Martin, and then inclined his head just as Mr. Nobley would have.
“How do you do? I’m Henry.”
So he was Henry Jenkins.
“I’m still Jane,” she said. Or, squeaked, rather. ~ Shannon Hale,

165:For years the neighbors had pleaded with the Neighborhood Administration to make Mamá take her tree down. It was, after all, the tree whose flowers and fruit were used in burundanga and the date-rape drug. Apparently, the tree had the unique ability of taking people’s free will. Cassandra said burundanga was where the idea of zombies came from. Burundanga was a native drink made out of Drunken Tree seeds. The drink had once been given to the servants and wives of Great Chiefs in Chibcha tribes, in order to bury them alive with the Great Dead Chief. The burundanga made the servants and wives dumb and obedient, and they willingly sat in a corner of the underground grave waiting, while the tribe sealed the exit and left them with food and water that would have been a sin to touch (reserved as it was for use by the Great Chief in the afterworld). Many people used it in Bogotá—criminals, prostitutes, rapists. Most victims who reported being drugged with burundanga woke up with no memory of assisting in the looting of their apartments and bank accounts, opening their wallets and handing over everything, but that’s exactly what they’d done. ~ Ingrid Rojas Contreras,

166:Now we are going to be late for lunch. By the time we get there there will be nothing but salad left,’ he said plaintively.

‘I think you can stand to miss one lunch, Franz,’ Nigel sighed, ‘or we could always get someone to wheel us down to the dining hall and spoon-feed us, I suppose.’

Franz’s eyes lit up at the suggestion. ‘This is being an excellent idea. Otto, you and Wing could help us, ja?’ The hope was evident in his tone.

‘Erm, we’d love to help, guys, but we’ve got to . . . erm . . .’ Otto looked at Wing desperately. He doubted that either of them would be strong enough to wheel Franz all the way to the dining hall – there was an awful lot of hardened foam encasing his ample frame.

‘We have to go to the library,’ Wing stepped in, ‘we have . . . erm . . .’

‘Chess club, yes, that’s it, chess club,’ Otto said suddenly, backing away towards the exit.

‘Otherwise, you know we would be happy to help,’ Wing smiled.

Otto and Wing walked quickly towards the door.

‘I was not knowing that Otto and Wing were interested in chess,’ Franz said as the other two boys beat a hasty retreat.

Nigel just sighed. ~ Mark Walden,

167:Let us face ourselves. We are Hyperboreans; we know very well how far off we live. 'Neither by land nor by sea will you find the way to the Hyperboreans'—Pindar already knew this about us. Beyond the north, ice, and death—our life, our happiness. We have discovered happiness, we know the way, we have found the exit out of the labyrinth of thousands of years. Who else has found it? Modern man perhaps? 'I have got lost; I am everything that has got lost,' sighs modern man. This modernity was our sickness: lazy peace, cowardly compromise, the whole virtuous uncleanliness of the modern Yes and No. … Rather live in the ice than among modern virtues and other south winds! We were intrepid enough, we spared neither ourselves nor others; but for a long time we did not know where to turn with our intrepidity. We became gloomy, we were called fatalists. Our fatum—abundance, tension, the damming of strength. We thirsted for lightning and deeds and were most remote from the happiness of the weakling, 'resignation.' In our atmosphere was a thunderstorm; the nature we are became dark—for we saw no way. Formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

168:To the night version of her (mother) I owe free-floating anxiety. I am no longer a child in an unsafe home, but anxiety became habit. My brain is conditioned. I worry. I recheck everything obsessively. Is the seat belt fastened, are the reservations correct, is my passport in my purse? Have I done something wrong? Have I said something wrong? I'm sorry - whatever happened must be my fault. Is everyone all right, and if they aren't, how can I step in? That brilliant serenity prayer: God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. To all the children of alcoholics I want to say, Good luck with that. If I don't do it myself, it won't get done (this belief is often rewarded in this increasingly incompetent world). Also, I panic easily. I am not the person you want sitting in the exit row of an airplane. And distrust. Just in general, distrust. Irony.
Irony, according to the dictionary, is the use of comedy to distance oneself from emotion. I developed it as a child lickety-split. Irony was armor, a way to stick it to Mom. You think you can get me? Come on, shoot me, aim that arrow straight at my heart. It can't make a dent because I'm wearing irony. ~ Delia Ephron,

169:As soon as he left, Lex closed the curtain back up, flung herself at the bed, and shook Driggs. “Wake up!” she half yelled, half whispered. “Driggs!”
His eyes fluttered. “Wha? Where are we?”
“Hospital.” Lex started unplugging the tubes in his arm. “I summoned it into existence, or I opened up a wormhole, or maybe a giant goddamn eagle showed up to fly us here and save the day—I don’t know! But we have to leave. Now.”
Driggs looked down at his chest. “I’ve got like fifty stitches here.”
“Your courage in the face of adversity is an inspiration to us all.” She pulled at his shoulders. “Now GET UP.”
The sound of hurried footsteps pounded through the smoke. Lex held her breath as the curtain swooshed open.
“She’s right,” Uncle Mort said to Driggs. “We gotta go.”
Driggs nearly fell out of the bed as Lex dropped him to go hug her uncle. “Where have you been?” she asked him.
“Where have I been?” Uncle Mort looked incredulous. “You never cease to amaze, kiddo.”
“Ow!” Driggs was doubled over. “Little help here?”
Lex ran back to his side. “Sorry.” She grabbed his torn-up hoodie from the chair, put her shoulder under his arm, and looked at Uncle Mort. “Now what?”
He nodded toward the exit. “We leave. ~ Gina Damico,

170:Next!’ The judgement issues summarily from the review panel before Sexecutioner has even a chance to drop his first motherfucker. For a moment, the boys remain rooted to the spot in ungangsta-like attitudes of woundedness, mocked by the drumbeat that is still thumping around them; then, unplugging the ghettoblaster, they clamber down and make the walk of shame to the exit.

‘What in God’s name was that?’ the Automator says as soon as they have left.

Trudy peers down at her clipboard. ‘ “Original material.” ’

‘Our old friend original material,’ the Automator says grimly. ‘I’ve had some plumbing mishaps that sounded a little like those guys.’

‘It did have a certain rough-hewn vitality,’ Father Laughton moderates.

‘I’ve said it before, Padre, this concert’s not about rough-hewn. It’s not about “doing your best”. I want professionalism. I want pizazz. I want this concert to put the Seabrook name out there, tell the world what we’re all about.’

‘Education?’

‘Quality, damn it. A brand right at the top of the upper end of the market. God knows that’s not going to be easy. I’ve given serious thought to bussing in other kids, talented kids, just so we don’t have to drop the curtain after half an hour – ~ Paul Murray,

171:I go with him to retrieve his backpack. The hallway’s deserted, so he and I steal a kiss against the row of lockers. Then I push him away. “I thought you were morally opposed to PDAs.”

“Yeah, they’re gross,” he says, and leans in again.

I hold him off with the palms of my hands against his chest. “I’d hate for you to have to do something that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I’ll survive.”

“Come on,” I say, and shove him toward the exit. “Let’s go. But admit you were wrong about that whole kissing in public thing. It’s not such a crime.”

“It is when I’m not the one kissing you.”

“Were you jealous of James? Even back then?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Not exactly. And you guys were pretty annoying. I was sincerely disgusted by you—”

“Thanks.”

“But I’ll admit that if I’d been standing where he was standing, I’d probably have had a different view of the whole thing.”

“The funny thing is, he was jealous of you for a while there.”

He snorts. “I seriously doubt that your ex has ever been the slightest bit jealous of me. Look at him. And look at me.”

“I’m not comparing you two—”

“Because I’d lose.”

“Well, yeah, but only in looks and personality.”

Now it’s his turn to thank me sarcastically. ~ Claire LaZebnik,

172:Too bad it was buried before Shakespeare,” Darren continues. “This stage never saw the likes of Romeo or Macbeth.”
I whirl around to face him in horror. “No no no no no, don’t say the M word!”
“What M word? Macbeth?”
“‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us,’” I mutter, turning from him and heading for the exit.
“Pippa, what are you doing?” he asks, right on my heels.
I stop inside the tunnel and he bumps into me, clutching my elbows to steady me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head as embarrassed laughter overtakes me. “Theater background. Superstitious bunch.”
“You’re superstitious?” His rough voice echoes above our heads, so he leans in closer and says, “I didn’t really see that coming.”
“I’m usually not, but I guess that got ingrained. Everyone in my circle knows not to say that inside a theater.”
“Bad luck, I take it?” he asks. I nod and he observes the place one more time before following me out. “Not to be insensitive to our surroundings or anything, but I think bad luck’s already done its business here.”
“Old habits…blow up in your face.” I adjust my ponytail and try to concentrate on what’s around us, but from the corner of my eyes I see Darren bite his lip. I’m not sure if he finds this new information about me endearing or insane. ~ Kristin Rae,

173:When my parents passed on, and we read their wills, we discovered something we didn’t at all expect, especially from our devoutly Catholic mother: they had both left instructions that their bodies be donated to science. We were bewildered and we were pissed. They wanted their cadavers to be used by medical students, they wanted their flesh to be cut into and their cancerous organs examined. We were breathless. They wanted no elaborate funerals, no expense incurred for such stuff – they hated wasting money or time on ceremony, on appearances. When they died there was little left – the house, the cars. And their bodies, and they gave those away. To offer them to strangers was disgusting, wrong, embarrassing. And selfish to us, their children, who would have to live with the thought of their cold weight sinking on silver tables, surrounded by students chewing gum and making jokes about the location of freckles. But then again: Nothing can be preserved. It’s all on the way out, from the second it appears, and whatever you have always has one eye on the exit, and so screw it. As hideous and uncouth as it is, we have to give it all away, our bodies, our secrets, our money, everything we know: All must be given away, given away every day, because to be human means:

1. To be good
2. To save nothing ~ Dave Eggers,

174:Toward the final hallway, we found an attraction that hadn’t been there in previous years. Or maybe in other years we were more innocent and less observant, more eager to run to the next delight. Whatever the reason, as we neared the exit we were caught between two giant mirrors that faced each other, reflecting the image between them back and forth ad infinitum.
We had dressed alike as we often did, or as often as cheap clothing and Goodwill bags would allow. We had on pale colored shorts and plain pink T’s, our heads covered with the fluorescent green bandanas we’d purchased, and flip flops on our feet. I was browner and a little heavier than Minnie—the chemo made her more susceptible to sunburn and killed her appetite, but other than that, we were still identical.
Minnie and I stared at the rows of twins that had no end, one behind another in smaller and smaller replicas of the original. Bonnie and Minnie forever . . . and ever and ever. I reached for Minnie’s hand, and all our reflections joined hands as well, making the hair rise on my neck. Maybe it should have been comforting, the thought of the two of us going on forever, but it wasn’t.
“There are twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, right? But what do you call that?” Minnie said, her eyes glued to the mirror in front of us.
“Scary as hell,” I answered ~ Amy Harmon,

175:Youth and death have always been an intoxicating combination for the myth makers left amongst the living. And dangerous, even violent, self-loathing has long been an essential ingredient in the fires of transformation. When the "new self" burns to life, the twins of great control *and* recklessness are immutably linked. It's what makes life interesting. The high tension between those two forces often makes a performer fascinating and fun to watch, but also a white-cross highway marker. Here, many who've come this way have burned out hard or died. The rock death cult is well loved and chronicled in literature and music, but in practice, there ain't much in it for the singer and his song, except a good life unlived, lovers and children left behind, and a six-foot-deep hole in the ground. The exit in a blaze of glory is bullshit.

Now, if you're not one of the handful of music revolutionaries—and I was not—you naturally set your sights on something different. In a transient field, I was suited for the long haul. I had years of study behind me; I was physically built to endure and by disposition was not an edge dweller. I was interested in what I might accomplish over a lifetime of music making, so assumption number one is you are going to keep breathing. In my business, the above case studies prove, no matter who you are, that's not as easy as it sounds. ~ Bruce Springsteen,

176:Less Time
Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken
account of everything,
there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my
fingers and some
others; I've distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to
accept them. I've
kept company with music for a second only and now I no longer know what to
think of suicide, for
if I ever want to part from myself, the exit is on this side and, I add
mischievously, the entrance, the
re-entrance is on the other. You see what you still have to do. Hours, grief, I
don't keep a
reasonable account of them; I'm alone, I look out of the window; there is no
passerby, or rather no
one passes (underline passes). You don't know this man? It's Mr. Same. May I
introduce Madam
Madam? And their children. Then I turn back on my steps, my steps turn back
too, but I don't
know exactly what they turn back on. I consult a schedule; the names of the
towns have been
replaced by the names of people who have been quite close to me. Shall I go to
A, return to B,
change at X? Yes, of course I'll change at X. Provided I don't miss the connection
with boredom!
There we are: boredom, beautiful parallels, ah! how beautiful the parallels are
under God's
perpendicular.
~ Andre Breton,

177:The dawn! The dawn, I repeated. Henry thought it was the dawn itself which was a new experience. I could not explain what I felt. It was the first time I had not felt the compulsion to escape; it was the first time I had abandoned myself to fraternity, exchange, confessions, without feeling suddenly the need to take flight. All night I had stayed there, without experiencing that abrupt end to fusion, that sudden and painful consciousness of separation, of reaching ultimately and always the need of my own world, the inability to remain outside, estranged, at some moment or other, from everyone. This had not happened, this dawn had come as the first break in the compulsion and tyranny of inadaptation. (The way I once concealed from myself this drama of perpetual divorce was to blame the clock. It was time to go, in place of now I must go, because relationship is so difficult for me, so strained, so laborious, its continuance, its flow.) I never knew what happened. At a party, at a visit, at a play, a film, came a moment of anguish. I cannot sustain the role, the pretense that I am at one with others, synchronized. Where was the exit? Flight. The imperative need of flight. Was it the failure to remove the obstacles, the walls, the barriers, the effort? Dawn had come quietly, and found me sitting at ease with Henry and Fred, and it was the dawn of freedom from a nameless enemy. ~ Ana s Nin,

178:Let us look one another in the face. We are Hyperboreans—we know well enough how much out of the way we live. 'Neither by land nor sea shalt thou find the road to the Hyperboreans': Pindar already knew that of us. Beyond the North, beyond the ice, beyond death—our life, our happiness.... We have discovered happiness, we know the road, we have found the exit out of whole millennia of labyrinth. Who else has found it? Modern man perhaps? 'I know not which way to turn; I am everything that knows not which way to turn,' sighs modern man.... It was from this modernity that we were ill—from lazy peace, from cowardly compromise, from the whole virtuous uncleanliness of modern Yes and No. This tolerance and largeur of heart which 'forgives' everything because it 'Understands' everything is sirocco to us. Better to live among ice than among modern virtues and other south winds! ...We were brave enough, we spared neither ourselves nor others: but for long we did not know where to apply our courage. We became gloomy, we were called fatalists. Our fatality—was the plenitude, the tension, the blocking-up of our forces. We thirsted for lightning and action, of all things we kept ourselves furthest from the happiness of the weaklings, from 'resignation'.... There was a thunderstorm in our air, the nature which we are grew dark—for we had no road. Formula of our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal... ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

179:In addition, of course, they would be taken to a bath and in the bath vestibule they would be ordered to leave their leather coats, their Romanov sheepskin coats, their woolen sweaters, their suits of fine wool, their felt cloaks, their leather boots, their felt boots (for, after all, these were no illiterate peasants this time, but the Party elite—editors of newspapers, directors of trusts and factories, responsible officials in the provincial Party committees, professors of political economy, and, by the beginning of the thirties, all of them understood what good merchandise was). "And who is going to guard them?" the newcomers asked skeptically. "Oh, come on now, who needs your things?" The bath personnel acted offended. "Go on in and don't worry." And they did go in. And the exit was through a different door, and after passing through it, they received back cotton breeches, field shirts, camp quilted jackets without pockets, and pigskin shoes. (Oh, this was no small thing! This was farewell to your former life—to your titles, your positions, and your arrogance!) "Where are our things?" they cried. "Your things you left at home!" some chief or other bellowed at them. "In camp nothing belongs to you. Here in camp, we have communism! Forward march, leader!"
And if it was "communism," then what was there for them to object to? That is what they had dedicated their lives to. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,

180:The Children
The children are all crying in their pens
and the surf carries their cries away.
They are old men who have seen too much,
their mouths are full of dirty clothes,
the tongues poverty, tears like puss.
The surf pushes their cries back.
Listen.
They are bewitched.
They are writing down their life
on the wings of an elf
who then dissolves.
They are writing down their life
on a century fallen to ruin.
They are writing down their life
on the bomb of an alien God.
I am too.
We must get help.
The children are dying in their pens.
Their bodies are crumbling.
Their tongues are twisting backwards.
There is a certain ritual to it.
There is a dance they do in their pens.
Their mouths are immense.
They are swallowing monster hearts.
So is my mouth.
Listen.
We must all stop dying in the little ways,
in the craters of hate,
in the potholes of indifferencea murder in the temple.
The place I live in
is a maze
and I keep seeking
the exit or the home.
Yet if I could listen
to the bulldog courage of those children
and turn inward into the plague of my soul
with more eyes than the stars
222
I could melt the darknessas suddenly as that time
when an awful headache goes away
or someone puts out the fireand stop the darkness and its amputations
and find the real McCoy
in the private holiness
of my hands.
~ Anne Sexton,

181:Get a move on, Perico, and go ask him for the battery charger," and the apprentice hurried out, but everything was like a dream and what was the point of any of it: battery chargers, wrenches, mechanics, and he felt sorry for the terrified little boy because, he thought, all of us are dreaming and why punish kids and why fix cars and have crushes on nice boys and then get married and have children who also dream that they're alive, who have to suffer, go off to war or fight or give up hope all on account of mere dreams. He was simply drifting along now, like a boat without a crew swept along by shifting currents, and moving mechanically like those invalids who have lost almost all will and consciousness and yet allow themselves to be moved by the nurses and obey the instructions they are given with the obscure remains of that will and that consciousness without knowing why. The 493, he thought, I go as far as Chacarita and then I take the subway to Florida and then I walk from there to the hotel. So he got on the 493 and mechanically asked for a ticket, and for half an hour continued to see ghosts dreaming of things that kept them very busy; at the Florida stop he went out the exit on the Calle San Martin, walked along the Corrientes to Reconquista and from there headed for the Warszawa rooming house, Accommodations for Gentlemen, went up dirty, dilapidated stairs to the fourth floor, and threw himself on the wretched bed as though he had been wandering through labyrinths for centuries. ~ Ernesto Sabato,

182:Life Is A Privilege
Life is a privilege. Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,
To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire,
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions – in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling – God! in truth,
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!
Life is a privilege. Like some rare rose
The mysteries of the human mind unclose.
What marvels lie in the earth, and air, and sea!
What stores of knowledge wait our opening key!
What sunny roads of happiness lead out
Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt!
And what large pleasures smile upon and bless
The busy avenues of usefulness!
Life is a privilege. Thought the noontide fades
And shadows fall along the winding glades,
Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air,
Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there.
Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind,
And in the serious hours of life we find
Depths in the souls of men which lend new worth
And majesty to this brief span of earth.
Life is a privilege. If some sad fate
Sends us alone to seek the exit gate,
If men forsake us and as shadows fall,
Still does the supreme privilege of all
Come in that reaching upward of the soul
To find the welcoming Presence at the goal,
And in the Knowledge that our feet have trod
Paths that led from, and must wind back, to God.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

183:And then we jerked to a stop. Jared was blocking the exit. "Have you lost your mind, Ian?" he asked, shocked and outraged. "What are you doing to her?"
"Did you know about this?" Ian shouted back, shoving me toward Jared and shaking me at him.
"You're going to hurt her!"
"Do you know what she's planning?" Ian roared.
Jared stared at Ian, his face suddenly closed off. He didn't answer. That was answer enough for Ian.
Ian's fist struck Jared so fast that I missed the blow - I just felt the lurch in his body and saw Jared reel back into the dark hall.
"Ian, stop," I begged.
"You stop," he growled back at me.
He yanked me through the arch into the tunnel, then pulled me north. I had to almost run to keep up with his longer stride.
"O´Shea!" Jared shouted after us.
"I'm going to hurt her?" Ian roared back over his shoulder, not breaking pace. "I am? You hypocritical swine!"
There was nothing but silence and blackness behind us now. I stumbled in the dark, trying to keep up.
He jerked me along faster, and my breath caught in a moan, almost like a cry of pain.
The sound made Ian stumble to a stop. His breathing was hoarse in the darkness.
"Ian, Ian, I..." I chocked, unable to finish. I didn't know what to say, picturing his furious face.
His arms caught me abruptly, yanking my feet out from under me and then catching my shoulders before I could fall. He started running forward again, carrying me now. His hands were not rough and angry like before; he cradled me against his chest. ~ Stephenie Meyer,

184:As Zane drove toward the exit, Phoebe searched frantically for a topic of conversation. Nothing brilliant came to mind. She nibbled on her lower lip as she considered risking the truth. When nothing better occurred to her, she decided to dive right into the cowboy-infested water.
“So this is really strange, huh?”
Zane glanced at her but didn’t speak.
She cleared her throat. “Me being here. I mean you don’t know me from a rock, and I’m going to be staying at the ranch for a couple of days. Maybe we should get to know each other, so the situation isn’t so awkward.”
“If you don’t feel like you belong, why did you come?”
She spent a good three seconds mentally swooning over the sound of his voice before processing his words. He wasn’t exactly welcoming.
“Well, um, several reasons,” she said, stalling, then couldn’t think of any but one. She sighed. “Maya guilted me into it.”
“What did she tell you? That I keep Chase locked in a tower and feed him bread and water?”
Phoebe winced. “Not exactly.”
“But close.”
“Um, maybe.”
Zane’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “She’s always had a soft spot for Chase.”
“He must be really smart. That must make you proud. I certainly couldn’t design a website and entice people to sign up for a cattle-drive vacation.”
Zane’s ever-so-perfect mouth tightened. “He lied, stole and committed fraud. Pride doesn’t much enter into it for me.”
Phoebe hunched down in her seat. “If you’re going to put it like that,” she mumbled and turned her attention to the scenery. ~ Susan Mallery,

185:Mary!”
Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting but pale and wan, had just come running out of a lift.
“R-Reg?”
She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly.
The balding wizard gaped, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other.
“Hey--what’s going on? What is this?”
“Seal the exit! SEAL IT!”
Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the fireplaces, into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As the balding wizard lifted his wand, Harry raised an enormous fist and punched him, sending him flying through the air.
“He’s been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!” Harry shouted.
The balding wizard’s colleagues set up an uproar, under cover of which Ron grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, pulled her into the still-open fireplace, and disappeared. Confused, Yaxley looked from Harry to the punched wizard, while the real Reg Cattermole screamed. “My wife! Who was that with my wife? What’s going on?”
Harry saw Yaxley’s head turn, saw an inkling of the truth dawn in that brutish face.
“Come on!” Harry shouted at Hermione; he seized her hand and they jumped into the fireplace together as Yaxley’s curse sailed over Harry’s head. They spun for a few seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. Harry flung open the door; Ron was standing there beside the sinks, still wrestling with Mrs. Cattermole.
“Reg, I don’t understand--”
“Let go, I’m not your husband, you’ve got to go home! ~ J K Rowling,

186:She thought of the revelations she held cradled against her chest, of how they could potentially serve up more discord, more upset and controversy. Would she be doing this society any good by revealing her new knowledge?
“I . . .” She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Really, it’s nothing that can’t wait. Actually”—she stood up and extracted the scrolls from Noah’s hold—“all I wanted was, uh . . . help with some interpretation. But you are busy . . .” She rounded the peculiar triangular table as casually as she could while she spoke, even turning to back out of the room while giving them a bright smile that she hoped did not look as fake as it felt. “You know, there are lots of books down there, and I bet there’s a translation.” She reached up to smack her palm into her forehead, chiding herself for not thinking properly.
Isabella reached for the door and closed it even faster than she had originally opened it.
Noah looked over at Jacob, one dark brow lifting toward his thick hairline.
“Does . . .?” He raised a hand to point to the door, looking utterly perplexed. “Does she have any idea what a lousy liar she is?”
“Apparently not,” Jacob said with a long, low sigh. “I think that was my fault,” he speculated wryly.
“Your fault?”
“Yeah . . . it is . . . a long story. We better get her.”
“Relax,” Noah chuckled. “She’s leaning against the other side of the door, trying to catch her breath.
“I know. I just thought it would be funny if we opened it behind her.”
“I never knew you actually enjoyed being cruel,” the King remarked, humor sparkling in his eyes as they both stepped up to the exit.
Noah opened the door, and Jacob reached out to catch her, scrolls and all. ~ Jacquelyn Frank,

187:The song turns to a slow one, and Skip pulls me close to him. His hands encircle my waist and slip beneath my shirt to touch my naked skin. I pull his questing fingers out. Suddenly, Skip is gone, and he’s lying on the floor. I look up to find Bob staring down at me, his chest heaving. “What the fuck are you doing, Madison?” “Well, I was dancing.” “It looked more like he was trying to fuck you on the dance floor.” I snort. “I hate to be the one to tell you, Bob, but fucking is a bit different from that.” I tilt my head at him. “You want me to get you a book on the subject? Because it seems like you are woefully misguided.” “I don’t need a book,” he mutters. “Why are you here with him?” He jerks a thumb toward Skip, who is being helped up off the floor. Skip taps Bob on the shoulder, like he wants to repay the favor, and Bob turns his head just enough to growl at him through his clenched teeth. Skip’s face goes white and he backs up, holding up two hands. “No problem, buddy. Didn’t know you called dibs.” Skip turns and walks off the dance floor. “He didn’t call dibs!” I yell to Skip, but he doesn’t come back. “I did call dibs. I do call dibs. I will call dibs.” He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the exit. “I don’t accept your dibs!” I cry. I dig my heels in and he turns back to face me. Suddenly, he upends me over his shoulder, his arm clamped across the backs of my thighs. I beat on his back, but he pays me no mind. I bend close to him and bite the only thing I can get my teeth into, which just happens to be the tender skin just over his left butt cheek. “I like it rough, sweetheart,” he says. This time, I put some heat behind my teeth and really nail him. His butt flinches. “Rough enough for you, sweetheart?” I ask between bounces of my body. ~ Tammy Falkner,

188:On September 16, in defiance of the cease-fire, Ariel Sharon’s army
circled the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, where Fatima and
Falasteen slept defenselessly without Yousef. Israeli soldiers set up
checkpoints, barring the exit of refugees, and allowed their Lebanese
Phalange allies into the camp. Israeli soldiers, perched on rooftops,
watched through their binoculars during the day and at night lit the sky
with flares to guide the path of the Phalange, who went from shelter to
shelter in the refugee camps. Two days later, the first western
journalists entered the camp and bore witness. Robert Fisk wrote of it
in Pity the Nation:
They were everywhere, in the road, the laneways, in the
back yards and broken rooms, beneath crumpled masonry
and across the top of garbage tips. When we had seen a
hundred bodies, we stopped counting. Down every
alleyway, there were corpses—women, young men, babies
and grandparents—lying together in lazy and terrible
profusion where they had been knifed or machine-gunned to
death. Each corridor through the rubble produced more
bodies. The patients at the Palestinian hospital had
disappeared after gunmen ordered the doctors to leave.
Everywhere, we found signs of hastily dug mass graves.
Even while we were there, amid the evidence of such
savagery, we could see the Israelis watching us. From the
top of the tower block to the west, we could see them
staring at us through field-glasses, scanning back and forth
across the streets of corpses, the lenses of the binoculars
sometimes flashing in the sun as their gaze ranged through
the camp. Loren Jenkins [of the Washington Post] cursed a
lot. Jenkins immediately realized that the Israeli defense
minister would have to bear some responsibility for this
horror. “Sharon!” he shouted. “That fucker [Ariel] Sharon!
This is Deir Yassin all over again. ~ Susan Abulhawa,

189:Fritz.”
The butler rushed over from the crudité arrangement he was working on. “Yes, master! I am eager to be of aid.”
“Take this.” iAm peeled the cat off himself, prying both of its front claws out of his fleece. “And do whatever it is you do with it.”
As he turned away, he felt like glancing back and making sure G*dd*mn was okay.
But why the fuck would he do that?
He had to get to Sal’s and check on his staff. Usually he hit the restaurant in the early afternoon, but shit had not been “usual,” what with that migraine: Every time his brother had one, they both got a headache. Now, though, with Trez rebounding and no doubt soon to be on the grind with that Chosen, it was time to get back on his own track. If only to keep himself from going psychotic.
Jesus Christ, Trez was now going to fuck that female. And God only knew where that was going to land them all.
Just as he hit the exit, he called out over his shoulder, “Fritz.”
Through the din of First Meal prep, the doggen answered back, “Yes, master?”
“I never find any seafood in this place. Why is that?”
“The King does not favor any manner of fin.”
“Would he allow it in here?”
“Oh, yes, master. Just not upon his table, and certainly never upon his plate.”
iAm stared at the panels of the door in front of him. “I want you to get some fresh salmon and poach it. Tonight.”
“But of course. I will not have it ready afore First Meal for you—”
“Not for me. I hate fish. It’s for G*dd*mn Cat. I want him served that regularly.” He pushed the door open. “And get him some fresh veggies. What kind of cat food does he eat?”
“Only the best. Hill’s Science Diet.”
“Find out what is in his food—and then I want everything hand-prepared. Nothing out of the bag for him from now on.”
Approval bloomed in the old doggen’s voice: “I’m sure Master Boo will appreciate your special interest.”
“I’m not interested in that bag of fur.”

-iAm, Fritz, & Boo ~ J R Ward,

190:Near the exit to the blue patio, DeCoverley Pox and Joaquin Stick stand by a concrete scale model of the Jungfrau, ... socking the slopes of the famous mountain with red rubber hot-water bags full of ice cubes, the idea being to pulverize the ice for Pirate's banana frappes. With their nights' growths of beard, matted hair, bloodshot eyes, miasmata of foul breath, DeCoverley and Joaquin are wasted gods urging on a tardy glacier.

Elsewhere in the maisonette, other drinking companions disentangle from blankets (one spilling wind from his, dreaming of a parachute), piss into bathroom sinks, look at themselves with dismay in concave shaving mirrors, slab water with no clear plan in mind onto heads of thinning hair, struggle into Sam Brownes, dub shoes against rain later in the day with hand muscles already weary of it, sing snatches of popular songs whose tunes they don't always know, lie, believing themselves warmed, in what patches of the new sunlight come between the mullions, begin tentatively to talk shop as a way of easing into whatever it is they'll have to be doing in less than an hour, lather necks and faces, yawn, pick their noses, search cabinets or bookcases for the hair of the dog that not without provocation and much prior conditioning bit them last night.

Now there grows among all the rooms, replacing the night's old smoke, alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of Breakfast:flowery, permeating, surprising, more than the color of winter sunlight, taking over not so much through any brute pungency or volume as by the high intricacy to the weaving of its molecules, sharing the conjuror's secret by which-- though it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off--- the genetic chains prove labyrinthine enough to preserve some human face down ten or twenty generations. . . so the same assertion-through-structure allows this war morning's banana fragrance to meander, repossess, prevail. Is there any reason not to open every window, and let the kind scent blanket all Chelsea? As a spell, against falling objects. . . . ~ Thomas Pynchon,

191:Let’s find out, shall we?” Then, louder and with a rakish grin, “Shall we find the exit to the garden, my lady? I daresay we both could use some…air.” “I don’t think that will be at all necessary, Stanhope.” The statement cut through the air like a knife, and Alex felt her stomach drop with the realization that Blackmoor was standing immediately behind her. She looked up at Freddie, wide-eyed, not quite knowing what to do. He spoke with an air of bored dismissal. “Blackmoor, what a surprise. What is it you want?” Blackmoor’s tone brooked no refusal, but was surprisingly hushed, only loud enough for the three of them to hear. “I want you to stay away from Lady Alexandra, Stanhope. She is most definitely not in need of a walk in the gardens with the likes of you.” “I suppose you would be a better companion?” Freddie drawled. Alex could sense that this conversation was not going to end well but had a nagging suspicion that Freddie was quite enjoying himself. “Most certainly. I’m practically her brother.” Freddie gave a short laugh at this, which made Blackmoor even more angry. “More importantly,” he continued, “I’m her escort this evening, and I say where she goes and who she goes with. And she is most certainly not going anywhere with you.” “I beg your pardon?” Alex spoke, keeping her voice hushed, but pulling herself up to her full height and stepping between the two men. Her face flushed with indignation as she leveled Blackmoor with a dark look. “What did you just say?” He looked down at her mutely as she pressed on. “I’m almost certain that you implied…nay…dictated…that you have some kind of control over my behavior.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “I think it best you say no more, my lord, lest you embarrass yourself further. Let me be clear. Last I was aware, you were neither my husband nor my father nor my king. Therefore, any control you may imagine you hold over me is just that—imaginary.” She continued, her anger making her voice waver, “If I want to take a walk in the gardens with Stanhope, or with anyone else for that matter, that is entirely my business. I will thank you to stay out of my affairs. Or need I remind you that it is not Stanhope whom I’ve had to be wary of on balconies recently?” Her ~ Sarah MacLean,

192:Six heads erupted from the water with fangs flashing and mouths roaring. On the neck of one of them was Asherah, riding it like a steed. She pointed down at the approaching form of Mikael. The monster focused on the angel as a target. The sound of gurgling from deep within its bowels warned Mikael. He had been caught by this attack before, at the beach of Mount Sapan. He was not going to let it happen again. He dove behind a huge boulder as a stream of fire poured out from the dragon head and blackened the entire area of stone. Another head reached down and Dagon leapt onto it, pulled away before Uriel and Gabriel could reach him. Ba’alzebul and Molech dashed headlong at the seven heads. Ba’alzebul’s muscular form launched an amazing thirty feet to catch one of the gaping jaws as it swung past the rocks of the beach. Molech was not so glorious. He could only make a good twenty feet. It was not enough to reach his target. He landed in the water in a belly flop. Uriel and Gabriel could not help but look at each other, smirking. One of the dragon heads reached down and picked Molech out of the water with its teeth and placed him on the back of another neck. The head that Ba’alzebul had caught had a sword stuck in the roof of its mouth, the hilt sticking out of its head. It was Gabriel’s sword, from their confrontation at Sapan generations earlier. Ba’alzebul pulled it from the creature’s mouth and swung around to mount its neck. He raised the sword high in victory, as all seven heads plunged back into the deep, carrying its four riders away from the grasp of the angels. Mikael stepped down to the shoreline to stand by Uriel and Gabriel as Raphael and Raguel helped the trapped angels get free from the rocks. They looked out onto the frothing, swirling waters left behind by the exit of the gargantuan and its riders. There was no way the archangels could ever chase that chaos monster. “You have to hand it to that Asherah,” said Uriel. “She is one goddess with chutzpah, taking her chances with enchanting Leviathan.” Gabriel added, “And I thought Ashtart was gutsy.” “Ashtart cut your gut in half back at Mount Hermon,” said Uriel wryly. “If I had not found your legs in the waters of the Abyss you would have been a paraplegic until the Resurrection. ~ Brian Godawa,

193:Shockers take six months of training and still occasionally kill their users. Why did you implant them in the first place?”
“Because you kidnapped me.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Mr. Rogan.” My voice frosted over. “What I put into my body is my business.”
Okay, that didn’t sound right. I gave up and marched out the doors into the sunlight. That was so dumb. Sure, try your magic sex touch on me, what could happen? My whole body was still keyed up, wrapped up in want and anticipation. I had completely embarrassed myself. If I could fall through the floor, I would.
“Nevada,” he said behind me. His voice rolled over me, tinted with command and enticing, promising things I really wanted.
You’re a professional. Act like one. I gathered all of my will and made myself sound calm. “Yes?”
He caught up with me. “We need to talk about this.”
“There is nothing to discuss,” I told him. “My body had an involuntary response to your magic.” I nodded at the poster for Crash and Burn II on the wall of the mall, with Leif Magnusson flexing with two guns while wrapped in flames. “If Leif showed up in the middle of this parking lot, my body would have an involuntary response to his presence as well. It doesn’t mean I would act on it.”
Mad Rogan gave Leif a dismissive glance and turned back to me. “They say admitting that you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.”
He was changing his tactics. Not going to work. “You know what my problem is? My problem is a homicidal pyrokinetic Prime whom I have to bring back to his narcissistic family.”
We crossed the road to the long parking lot. Grassy dividers punctuated by small trees sectioned the lot into lanes, and Mad Rogan had parked toward the end of the lane, by the exit ramp.
“One school of thought says the best way to handle an issue like this is exposure therapy,” Mad Rogan said. “For example, if you’re terrified of snakes, repeated handling of them will cure it.”
Aha. “I’m not handling your snake.”
He grinned. “Baby, you couldn’t handle my snake.”
It finally sank in. Mad Rogan, the Huracan, had just made a pass at me. After he casually almost strangled a woman in public. I texted to Bern, “Need pickup at Galeria IV.” Getting into Rogan’s car was out of the question. ~ Ilona Andrews,

194:My back hit the wall. He closed in with an almost terrifying intensity. His muscular body boxed me in.
“Rogan,” I warned. In my head, a song played over and over, singing to me in a seductive voice, Rogan, Rogan, Rogan, sex . . . want . . .
“Remember that dream you had?” His voice was low, commanding.
“Rogan!”
The delicious warmth danced around my neck.
“Where I had no clothes?”
The warmth split and slid over me, over the sensitive nerves in the back of my neck, over my collarbone, around my breasts, cupping them and sliding fast to the tips, tightening my nipples, then sliding down, over my stomach, over my sides and butt, down between my legs. It was everywhere at once, and it flowed over me like a cascade of sensual ecstasy, overloading my senses, overriding my reason, and rendering me speechless. I hurtled through it, trying to sort through the sensations and failing. My head spun.
He was right there, masculine, hot, sexy, so incredibly sexy, and I wanted to taste him. I wanted his hands on me. I wanted him to press himself against the aching spot between my legs.
His arms closed around me. His face was too close, his eyes enticing, compelling, excited. “Let’s talk about that dream, Nevada.”
I was trapped. I had nowhere to go. If he kissed me, I would melt right here. I would moan and beg him, and I would have sex with him right here, in the Galleria, in public.
A spark of pain drained down my arm, driven by pure instinct. I grabbed his shoulder. Feathery lightning shot out and singed him.
Agony exploded in me, cleansing like an ice-cold shower.
Rogan’s body jerked, as if struck by an electric current. It lasted only a second, and I didn’t push as hard as I could have. I was learning to control it.
Rogan whipped back to me, his eyes feral. His voice was a ragged growl. “Was that supposed to hurt?”
“It was supposed to get your attention.” I pushed him back with my hand. “You were getting really excited.”
“‘No’ would’ve been sufficient.”
“I wasn’t sure.” I pushed from the wall and headed for the exit. “I said ‘once.’ That was more than once. I wanted you to stop.”
“I was encouraged by you breathlessly moaning my name.”
I spun on my foot. “I wasn’t moaning your name. I was shrieking in alarm.”
“That was the sexiest throaty shrieking I’ve ever heard.”
“You need to get out more.” My cheeks were burning. ~ Ilona Andrews,

195:One evening in April a thirty-two-year-old woman, unconscious and severely injured, was admitted to the hospital in a provincial town south of Copenhagen. She had a concussion and internal bleeding, her legs and arms were broken in several places, and she had deep lesions in her face. A gas station attendant in a neighboring village, beside the bridge over the highway to Copenhagen, had seen her go the wrong way up the exit and drive at high speed into the oncoming traffic. The first three approaching cars managed to maneuver around her, but about 200 meters after the junction she collided head-on with a truck. The Dutch driver was admitted for observation but released the next day. According to his statement he started to brake a good 100 meters before the crash, while the car seemed to actually increase its speed over the last stretch. The front of the vehicle was totally crushed, part of the radiator was stuck between the road and the truck's bumper, and the woman had to be cut free. The spokesman for emergency services said it was a miracle she had survived. On arrival at the hospital the woman was in very critical condition, and it was twenty-four hours before she was out of serious danger. Her eyes were so badly damaged that she lost her sight. Her name was Lucca. Lucca Montale. Despite the name there was nothing particularly Italian about her appearance. She had auburn hair and green eyes in a narrow face with high cheek-bones. She was slim and fairly tall. It turned out she was Danish, born in Copenhagen. Her husband, Andreas Bark, arrived with their small son while she was still on the operating table. The couple's home was an isolated old farmhouse in the woods seven kilometers from the site of the accident. Andreas Bark told the police he had tried to stop his wife from driving. He thought she had just gone out for a breath of air when he heard the car start. By the time he got outside he saw it disappearing along the road. She had been drinking a lot. They had had a marital disagreement. Those were the words he used; he was not questioned further on that point. Early in the morning, when Lucca Montale was moved from the operating room into intensive care, her husband was still in the waiting room with the sleeping boy's head on his lap. He was looking out at the sky and the dark trees when Robert sat down next to him. Andreas Bark went on staring into the gray morning light with an exhausted, absent gaze. He seemed slightly younger than Robert, in his late thirties. He had dark, wavy hair and a prominent chin, his eyes were narrow and deep-set, and he was wearing a shabby leather jacket. Robert rested his hands on his knees in the green cotton trousers and looked down at the perforations in the leather uppers of his white clogs. He realized he had forgotten to take off his plastic cap after the operation. The thin plastic crackled between his hands. Andreas looked at him and Robert straightened up to meet his gaze. The boy woke. ~ Jens Christian Gr ndahl,

196:I turn on my heel, which is no easy feat in a gravel parking lot. Not losing eye contact with Galen, I stare him down until I get to the door he's opened for me. He seems unconcerned. In fact, he seems downright emotionless. "This better be good," I tell him as I plop down.
"You should have returned my calls. Or my texts," he says, his voice tight.
As he backs out of the parking space, I yank my cell out of my purse, perusing the texts. "Well, doesn't look like anyone died, so why the hell did you ruin my date?" It's the first time I've ever cursed at royalty and it's liberating. "Or is this a kidnapping? Is Grom in the trunk? Are you taking us on our honeymoon?"
You're supposed to be hurting him, not yourself, moron. My lip trembles like the traitor it is. Even though I'm looking away, I can tell Galen's impassive expression has softened because of the way he says, "Emma."
"Leave me alone, Galen." He pulls my chin to face him. I knock his hand away. "You can't go forty miles an hour on the interstate, Galen. You need to speed up.”
He sighs and presses the gas. By the time we reach a less-embarrassing speed, I’ve abandoned my hurt for rage-o-plenty, struck by the realization that I’ve turned into “that girl.” Not the one who exchanges her doctorate for some kids and a three-bedroom two-bath, but the other kind. That girl who exchanges her dignity and chances for happiness for some possessive loser who beats her when she makes eye contact with some random guy working the hot dog stand.
Not that Galen beats me, but after his little show, what will people think? He acted like a lunatic tonight, stalking me to Atlantic City, blowing up my phone, and threatening my date with physical violence. He made serial-killer eyes, for crying out loud. That might be acceptable in the watery grave, but by dry-land standards, it’s the ingredients for a restraining order. And why are we getting off the interstate?
“Where are you taking me? I told you I want to go home.”
“We need to talk,” he says quietly, taking a dark road just off the exit. “I’ll take you home after I feel you understand.”
“I don’t want to talk. You might have realized that when I didn’t answer your calls.”
He pulls over on the shoulder of Where-Freaking-Are-We Street. Shutting off the engine, he turns to me, putting his arm around the back of my seat. “I don’t want to break up.”
One Mississippi…two Mississippi…”You followed me like a crazy person to tell me that? You ruined my date for that? Mark is a nice guy. I deserve a nice guy, don’t I, Galen?”
“Absolutely. But I happen to be a nice guy, too.”
Three Mississippi…four Mississippi…”Don’t you mean Grom? And you’re not a nice guy. You threatened Mark with physical pain.”
“You threw Rayna through a window. Call it even?”
“When are you going to get over that? Besides, she provoked me!”
“Mark provoked me, too. He put his hand on your leg. We won’t even talk about the kiss on your cheek. Don’t think I didn’t hear you give him permission either.”
“Oh, now that’s rich,” I snort, getting out of the car. Slamming the door, I scream at him. “Now you’re acting jealous on behalf of your brother,” I say, spinning in place. “Can Grom do anything without the almighty Galen helping him? ~ Anna Banks,

197:His booted feet pounded out an insane, frantic rhythm underneath him as he raced into the cavern across from Baba Yaga’s den at a dead sprint. Pieces of dragon dung flew off him and hit the ground behind him in miniature chunks. He didn’t dare look behind him to see if the dragon had risen from the ground yet, but the deafening hiss that assaulted his ears meant she’d woken up. Icy claws of fear squeezed his heart with every breath as he ran, relying on the night vision goggles, the glimpse he’d gotten of the map, and his own instincts to figure out where to go.
Jack raced around one corner too sharply and slipped on a piece of dung, crashing hard on his right side. He gasped as it knocked the wind out of him and gritted his teeth, his mind screaming at him to get up and run, run, run. He pushed onto his knees, nursing what felt like bruised ribs and a sprained wrist, and then paled as an unmistakable sensation traveled up the arm he’d used to push himself up.
Impact tremors.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom, boom, boom.
Baba Yaga was coming.
Baba Yaga was hunting him.
Jack forced himself up onto his feet again, stumbling backwards and fumbling for the tracker. He got it switched on to see an ominous blob approaching from the right. He’d gotten a good lead on her—maybe a few hundred yards—but he had no way of knowing if he’d eventually run into a dead end. He couldn’t hide down here forever. He needed to get topside to join the others so they could take her down.
Jack blocked out the rising crescendo of Baba Yaga’s hissing and pictured the map again. A mile up to the right had a man-made exit that spilled back up to the forest. The only problem was that it was a long passage. If Baba Yaga followed, there was a good chance she could catch up and roast him like a marshmallow. He could try to lose her in the twists and turns of the cave system, but there was a good chance he’d get lost, and Baba Yaga’s superior senses meant it would only be a matter of time before she found him. It came back to the most basic survival tactics: run or hide.
Jack switched off the tracker and stuck it in his pocket, his voice ragged and shaking, but solid. “You aren’t about to die in this forest, Jackson. Move your ass.”
He barreled forward into the passageway to the right in the wake of Baba Yaga’s ominous, bubbling warning, barely suppressing a groan as a spike of pain lanced through his chest from his bruised ribs. The adrenaline would only hold for so long. He could make it about halfway there before it ran out. Cold sweat plastered the mask to his face and ran down into his eyes. The tunnel stretched onward forever before him. No sunlight in sight. Had he been wrong?
Jack ripped off the hood and cold air slapped his face, making his eyes water. He held his hands out to make sure he wouldn’t bounce off one of the cavern walls and squinted up ahead as he turned the corner into the straightaway. There, faintly, he could see the pale glow of the exit.
Gasping for air, he collapsed against one wall and tried to catch his breath before the final marathon. He had to have put some amount of distance between himself and the dragon by now.
“Who knows?” Jack panted. “Maybe she got annoyed and turned around.”
An earth-shattering roar rocked the very walls of the cavern.
Jack paled.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
Boom, boom, boom, boomboomboomboom—
Mother of God.
The dragon had broken into a run.
Jack shoved himself away from the wall, lowered his head, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him. ~ Kyoko M,

198:I heard the fear in the first music I ever knew, the music that pumped from boom boxes full of grand boast and bluster. The boys who stood out on Garrison and Liberty up on Park Heights loved this music because it told them, against all evidence and odds, that they were masters of their own lives, their own streets, and their own bodies. I saw it in the girls, in their loud laughter, in their gilded bamboo earrings that announced their names thrice over. And I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze, how they would cut you with their eyes and destroy you with their words for the sin of playing too much. “Keep my name out your mouth,” they would say. I would watch them after school, how they squared off like boxers, vaselined up, earrings off, Reeboks on, and leaped at each other.

I felt the fear in the visits to my Nana’s home in Philadelphia. You never knew her. I barely knew her, but what I remember is her hard manner, her rough voice. And I knew that my father’s father was dead and that my uncle Oscar was dead and that my uncle David was dead and that each of these instances was unnatural. And I saw it in my own father, who loves you, who counsels you, who slipped me money to care for you. My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. Everyone had lost a child, somehow, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns. It was said that these lost girls were sweet as honey and would not hurt a fly. It was said that these lost boys had just received a GED and had begun to turn their lives around. And now they were gone, and their legacy was a great fear.

Have they told you this story? When your grandmother was sixteen years old a young man knocked on her door. The young man was your Nana Jo’s boyfriend. No one else was home. Ma allowed this young man to sit and wait until your Nana Jo returned. But your great-grandmother got there first. She asked the young man to leave. Then she beat your grandmother terrifically, one last time, so that she might remember how easily she could lose her body. Ma never forgot. I remember her clutching my small hand tightly as we crossed the street. She would tell me that if I ever let go and were killed by an onrushing car, she would beat me back to life. When I was six, Ma and Dad took me to a local park. I slipped from their gaze and found a playground. Your grandparents spent anxious minutes looking for me. When they found me, Dad did what every parent I knew would have done—he reached for his belt. I remember watching him in a kind of daze, awed at the distance between punishment and offense. Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. What I know is that fathers who slammed their teenage boys for sass would then release them to streets where their boys employed, and were subject to, the same justice. And I knew mothers who belted their girls, but the belt could not save these girls from drug dealers twice their age. We, the children, employed our darkest humor to cope. We stood in the alley where we shot basketballs through hollowed crates and cracked jokes on the boy whose mother wore him out with a beating in front of his entire fifth-grade class. We sat on the number five bus, headed downtown, laughing at some girl whose mother was known to reach for anything—cable wires, extension cords, pots, pans. We were laughing, but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates,

199:My favourite quotes, Part Two
-- from Michael Connelly's "Harry Bosch" series

The Black Box

On Bosch’s first call to Henrik, the twin brother of Anneke -

Henrik: "I am happy to talk now. Please, go ahead.”

“Thank you. I, uh, first want to say as I said in my email that the investigation of your sister’s death is high priority. I am actively working on it. Though it was twenty years ago, I’m sure your sister’s death is something that hurts till this day. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, Detective. She was very beautiful and very excited about things. I miss her very much.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Over the years, Bosch had talked to many people who had lost loved ones to violence. There were too many to count but it never got any easier and his empathy never withered.

The Burning Room 2

Grace was a young saxophonist with a powerful sound. She also sang.

The song was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and she produced a sound from the horn that no human voice could ever touch. It was plaintive and sad but it came with an undeniable wave of underlying hope.

It made Bosch think that there was still a chance for him, that he could still find whatever it was he was looking for, no matter how short his time was.

----------------

He grabbed his briefcase off his chair and walked toward the exit door. Before he got there, he heard someone clapping behind him. He turned back and saw it was Soto, standing by her desk. Soon Tim Marcia rose up from his cubicle and started to clap. Then Mitzi Roberts did the same and then the other detectives. Bosch put his back against the door, ready to push through. He nodded his thanks and held his fist up at chest level and shook it. He then went through the door and was gone.

The Burning Room 3

“What do you want to know, Bosch?”

Harry nodded. His instinct was right. The good ones all had that hollow space inside. The empty place where the fire always burns. For something. Call it justice. Call it the need to know. Call it the need to believe that those who are evil will not remain hidden in darkness forever.

At the end of the day Rodriguez was a good cop and he wanted what Bosch wanted. He could not remain angry and mute if it might cost Orlando Merced his due.

------------

“I have waited twenty years for this phone call . . . and all this time I thought it would go away. I knew I would always be sad for my sister. But I thought the other would go away.”

“What is the other, Henrik?” Though he knew the answer.

“Anger . . . I am still angry, Detective Bosch.”

Bosch nodded. He looked down at his desk, at the photos of all the victims under the glass top. Cases and faces. His eyes moved from the photo of Anneke Jespersen to some of the others. The ones he had not yet spoken for.

“So am I, Henrik,” he said. “So am I.”

Angle of Investigation

1972

They were heading south on Vermont through territory unfamiliar to him. It was only his second day with Eckersly and his second on the job.

Now

He knew that passion was a key element in any investigation. Passion was the fuel that kept his fire burning. So he purposely sought the personal connection or, short of that, the personal outrage in every case. It kept him locked in and focused. But it wasn’t the Laura syndrome. It wasn’t the same as falling in love with a dead woman. By no means was Bosch in love with June Wilkins. He was in love with the idea of reaching back across time and catching the man who had killed her.

The Scarecrow

At one time the newsroom was the best place in the world to work. A bustling place of camaraderie, competition, gossip, cynical wit and humor, it was at the crossroads of ideas and debate. It produced stories and pages that were vibrant and intelligent, that set the agenda for what was discussed and considered important in a city as diverse and exciting as Los Angeles. ~ Michael Connelly,

200:The Ship Of Death
Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.
The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.
And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.
II
Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.
The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.
And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.
III
And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?
With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?
Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?
IV
152
O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!
How can we this, our own quietus, make?
Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.
And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.
Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.
Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
Already the flood is upon us.
Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.
VI
Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.
We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.
We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.
VII
153
We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.
A little ship, with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accoutrements
fitting and ready for the departing soul.
Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood's black waste
upon the waters of the end
upon the sea of death, where still we sail
darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.
There is no port, there is nowhere to go
only the deepening blackness darkening still
blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
darkness at one with darkness, up and down
and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!
VIII
And everything is gone, the body is gone
completely under, gone, entirely gone.
The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
between them the little ship
is gone
It is the end, it is oblivion.
IX
154
And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.
Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion
Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
of a flood-dawn.
Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.
A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.
The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
filling the heart with peace.
Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion.
Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.
~ David Herbert Lawrence,

201:THE

SIGN

In the morning after this night, Zarathustra jumped
up from his resting place, girded his loins, and came
out of his cave glowing and strong as a morning sun
that comes out of dark mountains.
"'You great star," he said as he had said once before,
"you deep eye of happiness, what would your happiness
be had you not those for whom you shine? And if they
325
stayed in their chambers even after you had awakened
and come and given and distri buted, how angry would
your proud shame be!
"Well then, they still sleep, these higher men, while
I am awake: these are not my proper companions. It is
not for them that I wait here in my mountains. I want
to go to my work, to my day: but they do not understand the signs of my morning; my stride is for them
no summons to awaken. They still sleep in my cave,
their dream still drinks of my drunken songs. The ear
that listens for me, the heedful ear is lacking in their
limbs."
Thus had Zarathustra spoken to his heart when the
sun rose; then he looked questioning into the height, for
he heard the sharp cry of his eagle above him. "Well
then" he cried back; "thus it pleases and suits me. My
animals are awake, for I am awake. My eagle is awake
and honors the sun as I do. With eagle talons he grasps
for the new light. You are the right animals for me; I
love you. But I still lack the right men."
Thus spoke Zarathustra. But then it happened that
he suddenly heard himself surrounded as by innumerable
swarming and fluttering birds: but the whirring of so
many wings and the thronging about his head were so
great that he closed his eyes. And verily, like a cloud it
came over him, like a cloud of arrows that empties itself over a new enemy. But behold, here it was a cloud
of love, and over a new friend.
"What is happening to me?" thought Zarathustra in
his surprised heart, and slowly he sat down on the big
stone that lay near the exit of his cave. But as he reached
out with his hands around and over and under himself,
warding off the affectionate birds, behold, something
stranger yet happened to him: for unwittingly he
reached into a thick warm mane; and at the same time
326
he heard a roar in front of him-a soft, long lion roar.
"The sign is at hand," said Zarathustra, and a change
came over his heart. And indeed, as it became light
before him, a mighty yellow animal lay at his feet and
pressed its head against his knees and out of love did
not want to let go of him, and acted like a dog that
finds its old master again. But the doves were no less
eager in their love than the lion; and whenever a dove
slipped over the lion's nose, the lion shook its head and
was amazed and laughed.
About all this Zarathustra spoke but a single sentence:
"My children are near, my children." Then he became
entirely silent. But his heart was loosed, and tears
dropped from his eyes and fell on his bands. And he no
longer heeded anything and sat there motionless, without warding off the animals any more. Then the doves
flew about and sat on his shoulders and caressed his
white hair and did not weary of tenderness and jubilation. But the strong lion kept licking up the tears that
fell on Zarathustra's hands and roared and growled
bashfully. Thus acted these animals.
All this lasted a long time, or a short time: for properly
speaking, there is no time on earth for such things. But
meanwhile the higher men in Zarathustra's cave had
awakened and arranged themselves in a procession to
meet Zarathustra and bid him good morning; for they
had found when they awakened that he was no longer
among them. But when they reached the door of the
cave and the sound of their steps ran ahead of them, the
lion started violently, turned away from Zarathustra
suddenly, and jumped toward the cave, roaring savagely.
But when the higher men heard it roar, they all cried
out as with a single mouth, and they fled back and
disappeared in a flash.
327
Zarathustra himself, however, dazed and strange, rose
from his seat, looked around, stood there amazed, questioned his heart, reflected, and was alone. "What did
I hear?" he finally said slowly; "what happened to me
just now?" And presently memory came to him and
with a single glance he grasped everything that had
happened between yesterday and today. "Here is the
stone," he said, stroking his beard, "where I sat yesterday morning; and here the soothsayer came to me, and
here I first heard the cry which I heard just now, the
great cry of distress.
"O you higher men, it was your distress that this old
soothsayer prophesied to me yesterday morning; to your
distress he wanted to seduce and tempt me. 0 Zarathustra, he said to me, I come to seduce you to your
final sin.
"To my final sin?" shouted Zarathustra, and he
laughed angrily at his own words; "what was it that was
saved up for me as my final sin?"
And once more Zarathustra became absorbed in himself, and he sat down again on the big stone and reflected. Suddenly he jumped up. "Pity! Pity for the
higher man!" he cried out, and his face changed to
bronze. "Well then, that has had its time! My suffering
and my pity for suffering-what does it matter? Am I
concerned with happiness? I am concerned with my
work.
"Well then! The lion came, my children are near,
Zarathustra has ripened, my hour has come: this is my
morning, my day is breaking: rise now, rise, thou great
noon!"
Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he left his cave, glowing
and strong as a morning sun that comes out of dark
mountains.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE SIGN
,

202:Above The Gaspereau
To H. E. C.
THERE are sunflowers too in my garden on top of the hill,
Where now in the early September the sun has his will—
The slow autumn sun that goes leisurely, taking his fill
Of life in the orchards and fir-woods so moveless and still;
As if, should they stir, they might break some illusion and spill
The germ of their long summer musing on top of the hill.
The crowds of black spruces in tiers from the valley below,
Ranged round their sky-roofed coliseum, mount row after row.
How often there, rank above rank, they have watched for the slow
Silver-lanterned processions of twilight—the moon's come and go!
How often, as if they expected some bugle to blow,
Announcing a bringer of news they were breathless to know,
They have hushed every leaf,—to hear only the murmurous flow
Of the small mountain river sent up from the valley below!
How still through the sweet summer sun, through the soft summer rain,
They have stood there awaiting the summons should bid them attain
The freedom of knowledge, the last touch of truth to explain
The great golden gist of their brooding, the marvellous train
Of thought they have followed so far, been so strong to sustain,—
The white gospel of sun and the long revelations of rain!
Then the orchards that dot, all in order, the green valley floor,
Every tree with its boughs weighed to earth, like a tent from whose door
Not a lodger looks forth,—yet the signs are there gay and galore,
The great ropes of red fruitage and russet, crisp snow to the core.
Can the dark-eyed Romany here have deserted of yore
Their camp at the coming of frost? Will they seek it no more?
Who dwells in St. Eulalie's village? Who knows the fine lore
Of the tribes of the apple-trees there on the green valley floor?
Who, indeed? From the blue mountain gorge to the dikes by the sea,
Goes that stilly wanderer, small Gaspereau; who but he
Should give the last hint of perfection, the touch that sets free
From the taut string of silence the whisper of beauties to be!
The very sun seems to have tarried, turned back a degree,
To lengthen out noon for the apple folk here by the sea.
34
What is it? Who comes? What's abroad on the blue mountain side?
A hush has been laid on the leaves and will not be defied.
Is the great Scarlet Hunter at last setting out on his ride
From the North with deliverance now? Were the lights we descried
Last night in the heavens his camp-fire seen far and wide,
The white signal of peace for whose coming the ages have cried?
'Expectancy lingers; fulfilment postponed,' I replied,
When soul said uneasily,'Who is it haunts your hillside?'
All the while not a word from my sunflowers here on the hill.
And to-night when the stars over Blomidon flower and fill
The blue Northern garden of heaven, so pale and so still,
From the lordly king-aster Aldebaran there by the sill
Of the East, where the moonlight will enter, not one will fulfil
A lordlier lot than my sunflowers here on the hill.
So much for mere fact, mere impression. So much I portray
Of the atmosphere, colour, illusion of one autumn day
In the little Acadian valley above the Grand Pré;
Just the quiet of orchards and firs, where the sun had full sway,
And the river went trolling his soft wander-song to the bay,
While roseberry, aster, and sagaban tangled his way.
Be you their interpreter, reasoner; tell what they say,
These children of silence whose patient regard I portray.
You Londoner, walking in Bishopsgate, strolling the Strand,
Some morning in autumn afford, at a fruit-dealer's stand,
The leisure to look at his apples there ruddy and tanned.
Then ask, when he's smiling to serve you, if choice can command
A Gravenstein grown oversea on Canadian land.
(And just for the whim's sake, for once, you'll have no other brand!)
How teach you to tell them? Pick one, and with that in your hand,
Bethink you a while as you turn again into the Strand.
'What if,' you will say,—so smooth in your hand it will lie,
So round and so firm, of so rich a red to the eye,
Like a dash of Fortuny, a tinge of some Indian dye,
While you turn it and toss, mark the bloom, ere you taste it and try—
'Now what if this grew where the same bright pavilion of sky
Is stretched o'er the valley and hillside he bids me descry,
The windless valley of peace, where the seasons go by,
35
And the river goes down through the orchards where long shadows lie!'
There's the fruit in your hand, in your ears is the roar of the street,
The pulse of an empire keeping its volume and beat,
Its sure come and go day and night, while we sleep or we eat.
Taste the apple, bite in to the juice—how abundant and sweet!
As sound as your own English heart, and wholesome as wheat,—
There grow no such apples as that in your Bishopsgate Street.
Or perhaps in St. Helen's Place, when your business is done
And the ledgers put by, you will think of the hundred and one
Commissions and errands to do; but what under the sun
Was that, so important? Ah, yes! the new books overrun
The old shelves. It is high time to order a new set begun.
Then off to the joiner's. You enter, to see his plane run
With a long high shriek through the lumber he's working upon.
Then he turns from his shavings to query what you would have done.
But homeward 'tis you who make question. That song of the blade!
And the sharp sweet cry of the wood, what an answer it made!
What stories the joiner must hear, as he plies his clean trade,
Of all the wild life of the forest where long shadows wade
The untrodden moss, and the firs send a journeying shade
So slow through the valley so far from the song of his blade.
Come back to my orchards a moment. They're waiting for you.
How still are the little gray leaves where the pippins peep through!
The boughs where the ribstons hang red are half breaking in two.
Above them September in magical soft Northern blue
Has woven the spell of her silence, like frost or like dew,
Yet warm as a poppy's red dream. When All Saints shall renew
The beauty of summer a while, will their dreaming come true?
Ah, not of my Grand Pré they dream, nor your London and you!
Their life is their own, and the surge of it. All through the spring
They pushed forth their buds, and the rainbirds at twilight would sing.
They put forth their bloom, and the world was as fairy a thing
As a Japanese garden. Then midsummer came with the zing
And the clack of the locust; then fruit time and coolness, to bring
This aftermath deep underfoot with its velvety spring.
And they all the while with the fatherly, motherly care,
36
Taking sap from the strength of the ground, taking sun from the air,
Taking chance of the frost and the worm, taking courage to dare,
Have given their life that the life might be goodly and fair
In their kind for the seasons to come, with good witness to bear
How the sturdy old race of the apples could give and not spare.
To-morrow the harvest begins. We shall rifle them there
Of the beautiful fruit of their bodies, the crown of their care.
How lovingly then shall the picker set hand to the bough!—
Bid it yield, ere the seed come to earth or the graft to the plough,
Not only sweet life for its kind, as the instincts allow,
That savour and shape may survive generations from now,
But life to its kin who can say, 'I am stronger than thou,'—
Fulfilling a lordlier law than the law of the bough.
I heard before dawn, with planets beginning to quail,—
'Whoso hath life, let him give, that my purpose prevail;
Whoso hath none, let him take, that his strength may be hale.
Behold, I have reckoned the tally, I keep the full tale.
Whoso hath love, let him give, lest his spirit grow stale;
Whoso hath none, let him die; he shall wither and fail.
Behold, I will plenish the loss at the turn of the scale.
He hath law to himself, who hath love; ye shall hope and not quail.'
Then the sun arose, and my sunflowers here on the hill,
Like good little Catholics, turned to the East to fulfil
Their daily observance, receiving his peace and his will,—
The lord of their light who alone bids the darkness be nil,
The lord of their love who alone bids the life in them thrill;
Undismayed and serene, they awaited him here on the hill.
Ah, the patience of earth! Look down at the dark pointed firs;
They are carved out of blackness; one pattern recurs and recurs.
They crowd all the gullies and hillsides, the gashes and spurs,
As silent as death. What an image! How nature avers
The goodness of calm with that taciturn beauty of hers!
As silent as sleep. Yet the life in them climbs and stirs.
They too have received the great law, know that haste but defers
The perfection of time,—the initiate gospeller firs.
So year after year, slow ring upon ring, they have grown,
Putting infinite long-loving care into leafage and cone,
37
By the old ancient craft of the earth they have pondered and known
In the dead of the hot summer noons, as still as a stone.
Not for them the gay fruit of the thorn, nor the high scarlet roan,
Nor the plots of the deep orchard land where the apples are grown.
In winter the wind, all huddled and shuddering, came
To warm his old bones by the fires of sunset aflame
Behind the black house of the firs. When the moose-birds grew tame
In the lumberers' camps in the woods, what marvellous fame
His talk and the ice of his touch would spread and proclaim,
Of the berg and the floe and the lands without nation or name,
Where the earth and the sky, night and noon, north and south are the same,
The white and awful Nirvana of cold whence he came!
Then April, some twilight picked out with a great yellow star,
Returning, like Hylas long lost and come back with his jar
Of sweet living water at last, having wandered so far,
Leads the heart out of doors, and the eye to the point of a spar,
At whose base in the half-melted snow the first Mayflowers are,—
And there the first robin is pealing below the great star.
So soon, over-soon, the full summer. Within those dark boughs,
Deliberate and far, a faltering reed-note will rouse
The shy transports of earth, till the wood-creatures hear where they house,
And grow bold as the tremble-eared rabbits that nibble and mouse.
While up through the pasture-lot, startling the sheep as they browse,
Where kingbirds and warblers are piercing the heat's golden drowse,
Some girl, whom the sun has made tawny, the wind had to blowse,
Will come there to gentle her lover beneath those dark boughs.
Then out of the hush, when the grasses are frosty and old,
Will the chickadee's tiny alarm against winter be rolled;
And soon, when the ledges and ponds are bitten with cold,
The honk of the geese, that wander-cry stirring and bold,
Will sound through the night, where those hardy mariners hold
The uncharted course through the dark, as it was from of old.
Ah, the life of the woods, how they share and partake of it all,
These evergreens, silent as Indians, solemn and tall!
From the goldenwing's first far-heard awakening call,
The serene flute of the thrush in his high beech hall,
And the pipe of the frog, to the bannered approach of the fall,
38
And the sullen wind, when snow arrives on a squall,
Trooping in all night from the North with news would appal
Any outposts but these; with a zest they partake of it all.
Lo, out of the hush they seem to mount and aspire!
From basement to tip they have builded, with heed to go higher,
One circlet of branches a year with their lift of green spire.
Nay, rather they seem to repose, having done with desire,
Awaiting the frost, with the fruit scarlet-bright on the brier,
Each purpose fulfilled, each ardour that bade them aspire.
Then hate be afar from the bite of the axe that shall fell
These keepers of solitude, makers of quiet, who dwell
On the Slopes of the North. And clean be the hand that shall quel
The tread of the sap that was wont to go mounting so well,
Round on round with the sun in a spiral, slow cell after cell,
As a bellringer climbs in a turret. That resinous smell
From the eighth angel's hand might have risen with the incense to swell
His offering in heaven, when the half-hour's silence befell.
Behold, as the prayers of the saints that went up to God's knees
In John's Revelation, the silence and patience of these
Our brothers of orchard and hill, the unhurrying trees,
To better the burden of earth till the dark suns freeze,
Shall go out to the stars with the sound of Acadian seas,
And the scent of the wood-flowers blowing about their great knees.
To-night when Altair and Alshain are ruling the West,
Whence Boötes is driving his dogs to long hunting addressed;
With Alioth sheer over Blomidon standing at rest;
When Algol is leading the Pleiades over the crest
Of the magical East, and the South puts Alpherat to test
With Menkar just risen; will come, like a sigh from Earth's breast,
The first sob of the tide turning home,—one distraught in his quest
For ever, and calling for ever the wind in the west.
And to-night there will answer the ghost of a sigh on the hill,
So small you would say, Is it wind, or the frost with a will
Walking down through the woods, and to-morrow shall show us his skill
In yellows and reds? So noiseless, it hardly will thrill
The timorous aspens, which tremble when all else is still;
Yet the orchards will know, and the firs be aware on the hill.
39
'O Night, I am old, I endure. Since my being began,
When out of the dark thy aurora spread up like a fan,
I have founded the lands and the islands; the hills are my plan.
I have covered the pits of the earth with my bridge of one span.
From the Horn to Dunedin unbroken my long rollers ran,
From Pentland and Fastnet and Foyle to Bras d'Or and Manan,
To dredge and upbuild for the creatures of tribe and of clan.
Lo, now who shall end the contriving my fingers began?'
Then the little wind that blows from the great star-drift
Will answer: 'Thou tide in the least of the planets I lift,
Consider the journeys of light. Are thy journeyings swift?
Thy sands are as smoke to the star-banks I huddle and shift.
Peace! I have seeds of the grasses to scatter and sift.
I have freighting to do for the weed and the frail thistle drift.
'O ye apples and firs, great and small are as one in the end.
Because ye had life to the full, and spared not to spend;
Because ye had love of your kind, to cherish and fend;
Held hard the good instinct to thrive, cleaving close to life's trend;
Nor questioned where impulse had origin,—purpose might tend;
Now, beauty is yours, and the freedom whose promptings transcend
Attainment for ever, in death with new being to blend.
O ye orchards and woods, death is naught, love is all in the end.'
Ah, friend of mine over the sea, shall we not discern,
In the life of our brother the beech and our sister the fern,
As St. Francis would call them (his Minorites, too, would we learn!)
In death but a door to new being no creature may spurn,
But must enter for beauty's completion,—pass up in his turn
To the last round of joy, yours and mine, whence to think and discern?
Who shall say 'the last round'? Have I passed by the exit of soul?
From behind the tall door that swings outward, replies no patrol
To our restless Qui vive? when is paid each implacable toll.
Not a fin of the tribes shall return, having cleared the great shoal;
Not a wing of the migrants come back from below the dark knoll;
Yet the zest of the flight and the swimming who fails to extol?
Saith the Riddle, 'The parts are all plain; ye may guess at the whole.'
I guess, 'Immortality, knowledge, survival of Soul.'
40
To-night, with the orchards below and the firs on the hill
Asleep in the long solemn moonlight and taking no ill,
A hand will open the sluice of the great sea-mill,—
Start the gear and the belts of the tide. Then a murmur will fill
The hollows of midnight with sound, when all else is still,
And stray through the dream of the sunflowers here on the hill.
~ Bliss William Carman,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

WORDNET

* WISDOM TROVE *

* NEWFULLDB 2.4M *