63
" I have never battled a gargoyle before.” Zacharel shook his head, a dark lock of hair tumbling into one emerald eye. Damp from the melting snow, the hair stuck to his skin. He didn’t seem to notice. “But I am certain these will murder Paris before willingly carrying him inside.”
As if he were the only intelligent life form left in existence, William splayed his arms. “And the problem with that? He’ll still be inside, exactly where he wants to be. And by the way,” he added, blinking at Paris with lashes so long they should have belonged to a girl. “Your new permanent eyeliner is very pretty. You’ll make a good-looking corpse.”
Do not react. He did, and the teasing about his ash/ambrosia tattoos would never end. “Thanks.”
“I prefer the lip liner, though. A nice little feminine touch that really makes your eyes pop.”
“Again, thanks,” he gritted.
He wants us!
Stupid demon.
William grinned. “Maybe we can make out later. I know you want me.”
Tell him yes!
Not another word out of you, or—
“Paris? Warrior?” Zacharel said. “Are you
listening to me?”
“No.”
Zach nodded, apparently not the least offended. “I enjoy your honesty, though I believe you suffer from what the humans call ADD.”
“Oh, yeah. I definitely have attention deficient demon. "
― Gena Showalter , The Darkest Seduction (Lords of the Underworld, #9)
64
" We have gone on too long blaming or pitying the mothers who devour their children, who sow the seeds of progressive dehumanization, because they have never grown to full humanity themselves. If the mother is at fault, why isn't it time to break the pattern by urging all these Sleeping Beauties to grow up and live their own lives? There never will be enough Prince Charmings or enough therapists to break that pattern now. It is society's job, and finally that of each woman alone. For it is not the strength of the mothers that is at fault but their weakness, their passive childlike dependency and immaturity that is mistaken for " femininity." Our society forces boys, insofar as it can, to grow up, to endure the pains of growth, to educate themselves to work, to move on. Why aren't girls forced to grow up - to achieve somehow the core of self that will end the unnecessary dilemma, the mistaken choice between femaleness and humanness that is implied in the feminine mystique? "
76
" Our civil and criminal codes reflect at many points the spirit of the Mosaic. In the criminal code we find no feminine pronouns, as " He," " His," " Him," we are arrested, tried and hung, but singularly enough, we are denied the highest privileges of citizens, because the pronouns " She," " Hers" and " Her," are not found in the constitutions. It is a pertinent question, if women can pay the penalties of their crimes as " He," why may they not enjoy the privileges of citizens as " He" ? "
77
" Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which hasbeen built up around her; she must reverence that within her which struggles for expression. Hereyes must be less upon what is and more clearly upon what should be. She must listen only witha frankly questioning attitude to the dogmatized opinions of man-made society. When shechooses her new, free course of action, it must be in the light of her own opinion—of her ownintuition. Only so can she give play to the feminine spirit. Only thus can she free her mate fromthe bondage which he wrought for himself when he wrought hers. Only thus can she restore tohim that of which he robbed himself in restricting her. Only thus can she remake the world.The world is, indeed, hers to remake, it is hers to build and to recreate. Even as she haspermitted the suppression of her own feminine element and the consequent impoverishment ofindustry, art, letters, science, morals, religions and social intercourse, so it is hers to enrich allthese "
80
" Women are no longer required to be chaste or modest, to restrict their sphere of activity to the home, or even to realize their properly feminine destiny in maternity. Normative femininity [that is, the rules for being a good woman] is coming more and more to be centered on women’s body—not its duties and obligations or even its capacity to bear children, but its sexuality, more precisely, its presumed heterosexuality and its appearance. . . . The woman who checks her makeup half a dozen times a day to see if her foundation has caked or her mascara has run, who worries that the wind or the rain may spoil her hairdo, who looks frequently to see if her stockings have bagged at the ankle, or who, feelingfat, monitors everything she eats, has become, just as surely as the inmateof Panopticon, a self-policing subject, a self committed to a relentless self-surveillance. This self-surveillance is a form of obedienceto patriarchy. "