3
" Why?" I shrieked, hitting him again and again, and again, the sound of the blows thudding against his chest. " Why, why why!" .Because I was afraid!" He got hold of my wrists and threw me backward so I fell across the bed. He stood over me, fists clenched, breathing hard.I am a coward, damn you! I couldna tell ye, for fear ye would leave me, and unmanly thing that I am, I thought I couldna bear that!" ~~~~~~~~~You should have told me!" And if I had?, You'd have turned on your heel and gone without a word. And having seen ye again--I tell ye, I would ha' done far worse than lie to keep you!" Voyager "
10
" During a famine, the father and stepmother of Hansel and Gretel abandon them in a forest so that they will starve to death. The children stumble upon an edible house inhabited by a witch, who imprisons Hansel and fattens him up in preparation for eating him. Fortunately Gretel shoves the witch into a fiery oven, and “the godless witch burned to death in a horrible way.” 41 • Cinderella’s stepsisters, when trying to squeeze into her slippers, take their mother’s advice and cut off a toe or heel to make them fit. Doves notice the blood, and after Cinderella marries the prince, they peck out the stepsisters’ eyes, punishing them “for their wickedness and malice with blindness for the rest of their lives.”
Snow White arouses the jealousy of her stepmother, the queen, so the queen orders a hunter to take her into the forest, kill her, and bring back her lungs and liver for the queen to eat. When the queen realizes that Snow White has escaped, she makes three more attempts on her life, two by poison, one by asphyxiation. After the prince has revived her, the queen crashes their wedding, but “iron slippers had already been heated up for her over a fire of coals.... She had to put on the red-hot iron shoes and dance in them until she dropped to the ground dead. "
― Steven Pinker , The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
11
" When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver. But I did not fall. From nape to heel I discovered myself bound to earth. I felt a sort of appeasement in surrendering to it my weight. Gravitation had become as sovereign as love. The earth, I felt, was supporting my back, sustaining me, lifting me up, transporting me through the immense void of night. "
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , Wind, Sand and Stars
13
" I had all kinds of answers ready for the commissions that called me in and asked me what had made me become a Communist, but what had attracted me to the movement more than anything, dazzled me, was the feeling (real or apparent) of standing near the wheel of history. For in those days we actually did decide the fate of men and events, especially at the universities; in those early years there were very few Communists on the faculty, and the Communists in the student body ran the universities almost single-handed, making decisions on academic staffing, teaching reform, and the curriculum. The intoxication we experienced is commonly known as the intoxication of power, but (with a bit of good will) I could choose less severe words: we were bewitched by history; we were drunk with the thought of jumping on its back and feeling it beneath us; admittedly, in most cases the result was an ugly lust for power, but (as all human affairs are ambiguous) there was still (and especially, perhaps, in us, the young), an altogether idealistic illusion that we were inaugurating a human era in which man (all men) would be neither outside history, nor under the heel of history, but would create and direct it. "
― Milan Kundera , The Joke
14
" The sun rises bright and beautiful as if it feels no pain.
It must not see, it must not hear, it can't possibly or it would not be able to overcome so defiantly.
My bed creaks and whines when I leave it behind.
I don't know why it tries so hard to hold onto me but yet I continue to try and overcome.
I put on my shirt, my pants that fit me, find my socks and glue my heel back to my boot.
My gloves are lost, my coat is torn but my scarf still keeps me warm and so I continue to try and overcome.
Work has no pride, no place for me but I have no other place to be.
My broken dreams continue to rise, my hopes continue to fade but still I try to overcome.
A broken window and a gas tank on E, it's not Friday so I have to walk each day for at least another three.
And so I walk while the world cries and pleas and tries to swallow me but still I continue and try to overcome.
My lock on my door only turns halfway, but I don't have anything to steal anyway.
My fridge is bare but my cabinet still holds three so I continue to try and overcome.
The news haunts me, the weather threatens to rain down on me but another day has gone by.
And I have overcome, I have overcome … I have overcome - the sun has nothing on me. "
― Jennifer Loren
15
" Natasha, with a vigorous turn from her heel on to her toe, walked over to the middle of the room and stood still... Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, a serious expression came into her face. She was thinking of no one and of nothing at that moment, and from her smiling mouth poured forth notes, those notes that anyone can produce at the same intervals, and hold for the same length of time, yet a thousand times leave us cold, and the thousand and first time they set us thrilling and weeping. "
― Leo Tolstoy , War and Peace
16
" Right,' Thomas said. 'Where are we headed?'
'To where they treat me like royalty,' I said.
'We're going to Burger King?'
I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead and spelled fratricide in a subvocal mutter, but I had to spell out temporary insanity and justifiable homicide, too, before I calmed down enough to speak politely. 'Just take a left and drive. Please.'
'Well,' Thomas said, grinning, 'since you said 'please'
- Thomas Raith & Harry Dresden, Small Favor, Jim Butcher "
― Jim Butcher , Small Favor (The Dresden Files, #10)
18
" Adventuring turned out to be boring. Zach thought back to all the fantasy books he'd read where a team of questers traveled overland, and realized a few things. First he'd pictured himself with a loyal steed that would have done most of the walking, so he hadn't anticipated the blister forming on his left heel or the tiny pebble that seemed to have worked its way under his sock, so that even when he stripped off his sneaker he couldn't find it.
He hadn't thought about how hot the sun would be either. When he put together his bunch of provisions, he never thought about bringing sunblock. Aragorn never wore sunblock. Taran never wore sunblock. Percy never wore sunblock. But despite all that precedent for going without, he was pretty sure his nose would be lobster-red the next time he looked in the mirror.
He was thirsty, too, something that happened a lot in books, but his dry throat bothered him more than it had ever seemed to bother any character.
And, unlike in books where random brigands and monsters jumped out just when things got unbearably dull, there was nothing to fight except for the clouds of gnats, several of which Zach was pretty sure he'd accidentally swallowed. "
― Holly Black , Doll Bones
