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1 " Midnight Omen Deja vu" - Because everyone should experience love in the Caribbean...at least once in a lifetime. "
2 " Even women deeply committed to the emancipatory promises of modernity were alarmed by the " inappropriateness" of unrelated men and omen socializing in the streets. In the women's press, articles exhorted young men to treat women respectfully in public. Other articles encouraged women to act as their own police and to be more observant of their hijab and public modesty.From the beginning, then, women's entry on the streets was subject to the regulatory harassment of men. The modernist heterosocializing promise that invited women to leave their homosocial spaces and become educated companionate partners for modernist men was underwritten by policing of women's public presence through men's street actions. Men at once desired heterosociality of the modern and yet would not surrender the privileged masculinity of the streets. Women's public presence was also underwritten by disciplinary approbation of modernizing women themselves whose emancipatory drive would be jeopardized by unruly public conduct. "
3 " The stars are reflected from within the black water in the cistern. I find comfort in the omen I glean from this: light in the darkness, truth when it seems there is none. "
― Alice Hoffman , The Dovekeepers
4 " Don't let a stranger that comes to you leave empty handed without food, water, shelter, or word of encouragement. Whether you believe in God or s**t, it's a bad omen when you let a stranger that came to you left empty handed. "
5 " Rarely do wonder tales end unhappily. They triumph over death. The tale begins with " Once upon a time" or " Once there was" and never really ends when it ends. The ending is actually the beginning. The once upon a time is not a past designation but futuristic: the timelessness of the tale and its lack of geographical specificity endow it with utopian connotations - " utopia" in its original meaning designated " no place," a place that no one had ever envisaged. We form and keep the utopian kernel of the tale safe in our imaginations with hope.The significance of the paradigmatic functions of the wonder tale is that they facilitate recall for teller and listeners. They enable us to store, remember, and reproduce the utopian spirit of the tale and to change it to fit our experiences and desires, owing to the easily identifiable characters who are associated with particular assignments and settings ...The characters, settings, and motifs are combined and varied according to specific functions to induce wonder, It is this sense of wonder that distinguished the wonder tales from such other oral tales as the legend, the fable, the anecdote, and the myth; it is clearly the sense of wonder that distinguishes the literary fairy tale from the moral story, novella, sentimental tale, and other modern short literary genres. Wonder causes astonishment, and as manifested in a marvelous object or phenomenon, it is often regarded as a supernatural occurrence and can be an omen or a portent, It gives rise to admiration, fear, awe, and reverence. The Oxford Universal Dictionary states that wonder is " the emotion excited by the perception of something novel and unexpected, or inexplicable; astonishment mingled with perplexity or bewildered curiosity." In the oral wonder tale, we are to wonder about the workings of the universe, where anything can happen at any time, and these happy or fortuitous events are never to be explained. Nor do the characters demand an explanation - they are opportunistic, are encouraged to be so, and if they do not take advantage of the opportunity that will benefit them in their relations with others, they are either dumb or mean-spirited. The tales seek to awaken our regard for the miraculous condition of life and to evoke in a religious sense profound feelings of awe and respect for life as a miraculous process, which can be altered and changed to compensate for the lack of power, wealth, and pleasure that is most people's lot. Lack, deprivation, prohibition, and interdiction motivate people to look for signs of fulfillment and emancipation. In the wonder tales, those who are naive and simple are able to succeed because they are untainted and can recognize the wondrous signs. They have retained their belief in the miraculous condition of nature, revere nature in all its aspects. They have hot been spoiled by conventionalism, power, or rationalism. In contrast to the humble characters, the villains are those who use words intentionally to exploit, control, transfix, incarcerate, and destroy for their benefit. They have no respect or consideration for nature and other human beings, and they actually seek to abuse magic by preventing change and causing everything to be transfixed according to their interests. Enchantment equals petrification. Breaking the spell equals emancipation. The wondrous protagonist wants to keep the process of natural change flowing and indicates possibilities for overcoming the obstacles that prevent other characters or creatures from living in a peaceful and pleasurable way. "
6 " He was invaded by an unreasoning calm, which he interpreted as an omen that nothing new was going to happen, that everything he had done in his life had been in vain, that he could not go on: it was the end. "
― Gabriel García Márquez , Love in the Time of Cholera