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1 " Four flips the gun in this hand, presses the barrel to Peter's forehead, and clicks a bullet into place. Peter freezes with his lips parted, the yawn dead in his mouth. " Wake. Up," Four snaps. " You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it. "
2 " Captain! To your left there’s a Lunar guard and on your right is a doctor who’s running tests on Lunars and I’m being held by one of Levana’s wolf hybrids and please be careful!”Thorne took a step back into the hallway a gun from his waistband. He spent a moment swiveling the barrel of the gun in each direction, but nobody moved to attack him.With some surprise, Cress realized that the operative’s grip had weakened.“Er…” Thorne furrowed his brow, aiming the gun somewhere near the window. “Could you describe all those threats again because I feel like I missed something. "
― Marissa Meyer , Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3)
3 " Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security. Second, unlike a well-defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality. One is capable of unwittingly playing Russian roulette - and calling it by some alternative “low risk” game. "
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
4 " Little CinderGirl, they can't understand you.You rise from the as-heap in a blazeand only then do they recognize you as their one true love.While you pray beneath your mother's tree you carrve a phoenix into your palmwth aa hazel twig and coal;every night she devours more of you.You used to believe in angels.Now you believe in the makeover;if you can't get the grime off your faceand your foot into a size six heelwho will ever bother to notice you?The kettle and the broom sear in your grasp,snap into fragments. The turtledoves sing," There's blood within the shoe." You deserve the palace, you think, as you signalthe pigeons to attack, approve the barrel filled with red-hot nails.Its great hearth beckons, and the prince's flagrises crimson in the angry sun.He will love you for the heat you generate,for the flames you ignite around you,though he encase your tiny feet in glassto keep them from scorching the ground. "
5 " ArtifactAs long as I can remember you kept the rifle--your grandfather's an antique you called it-in your study, propped against the tall shelvesthat held your many books. Upright,beside those hard-worn spins, it was anotherbackbone of your pas, a remnant I studiedas if it might unlock-- like the skeleton keyits long body resembled-- some door i had yetto find. Peering into the dark muzzle, I imagined a bulletas you described: spiraling through the boreand spinning straight for its target. It did not hit methen: the rifle I'd inherited showing mehow one life is bound to another, that hardshipendures. For years I admired its slender profile,until-- late one night, somber with drink--you told meit still worked, that you kept it loaded just in case,and I saw the rifle for what it is; a relicsharp as sorrow, the barrel hollow as regret. "
― Natasha Trethewey , Thrall
6 " I am a lawyer, and for me it is very sad to say that there is now law here. There are weapons rather than law. What did Mao say? Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. It's very true. The situation is decadent. A lot of Serbs think this is leading us nowhere but they feel powerless. How many disagree? I don't know. Perhaps thirty percent disagree, but most of them are frightened and quiet. Perhaps sixty percent agree or are confused enough to go along. They are led by the ten percent who have the guns and who have control of the television towers. That's all they need.'p. 107 "
― , Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War
7 " I am a creator, writing like the wind, I carry the weight of a future world in the barrel of a pen, etching my characters into the paper with life giving ink so my dreams and reality might finally meet. "
― L.M. Fields
8 " Men got two guns, you know. One for now," he tapped the barrel of his gun against her nose. " And one for later." When his free hand went to his zipper, she twisted underneath him, bringing her knee into his groin and pulling her knife from her boot." Mother taught me to carry a knife for always." She left him holding his intestines in disbelief as she disappeared down the hill, his gun tucked securely in her waistband. "
9 " The marine underworld stretched below the ship and embodied many secrets. The disappearance of Olga had become one of the mysteries that would remain with Stefania and her family. The disappearance of her baby sister and sudden departure from her home had taught the ten-year-old that life was filled with uncertainties. But she was willing to forget that for a little while.She jumped down from the barrel and headed toward Liam, Felix, and the other shipmates. They would sing shanties and talk of the constellations, the sea, its creatures, and the legends. It would get her through another night.La Suerte was the only stability for her passengers with the infinite unknown all around them. The waters of the sea, the world below the surface, and the sky that stretched beyond the horizon was a representation of the limitless possibilities and dangers awaiting those aboard. "
― Tiffany Apan , Descent (The Birthrite Series, #1)
10 " I paused for a moment, debating whether to turn and look what was happening. My senses told me Obo’s presence was still at my side, and turning my face into the barrel of a gun seemed like an ill-advised way to cap off this day of monumentally stupid decisions. "
― M.A. George , Relativity (Proximity, #2)
11 " It seemed hardly feasible that anyone could tune an oil barrel, and even less credible that the barrel could make music like nothing else in the world. She thought those sounds were magic. "
― Stieg Larsson
12 " No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he found himself staring down the barrel of a single-shot caplock pistol, and halted in his tracks. It was not a particularly accurate weapon if he remembered correctly, not that it would matter at point-blank range. "
13 " The marine underworld stretched below the ship and embodied many secrets. The disappearance of Olga had become one of the mysteries that would remain with Stefania and her family. The disappearance of her baby sister and sudden departure from her home had taught the ten-year-old that life was filled with uncertainties. But she was willing to forget that for a little while.She jumped down from the barrel and headed toward Liam, Felix, and the other shipmates. They would sing shanties and talk of the constellations, the sea, its creatures, and the legends. It would get her through another night.La Suerte was the only stability for her passengers with the infinite unknown all around them. The waters of the sea, the world below the surface, and the sky that stretched beyond the horizon was a representation of the limitless possibilites and dangers awaiting those aboard. "
14 " Raven briefly pondered the phrase, " staring down the barrel of a gun" . It wasn't really that accurate, he decided. After all, it was too dark to see any features down a barrel, only a black circle at the end of it. "
15 " Drake's whip hand spun Diana like a top.She cried out. That sound, her cry, pierced Caine like an arrow.Diana staggered and almost righted herself, but Drake was too quick, too ready.His second strike yanked her through the air. She flew and then fell.“Catch her!” Caine was yelling to himself. Seeing her arc as she fell. Seeing where she would hit. His hands came up, he could use his power, he could catch her, save her. But too slow.Diana fell. Her head smashed against a jutting point of rock. She made a sound like a dropped pumpkin.Caine froze.The fuel rod, forgotten, fell from the air with a shattering crash.It fell within ten feet of the mine shaft opening. It landed atop a boulder shaped like the prow of a ship.It bent, cracked, rolled off the boulder, and crashed heavily in the dirt.Drake ran straight at Caine, his whip snapping. But Jack stumbled in between them, yelling, “The uranium! The uranium!”The radiation meter in his pocket was counting clicks so fast, it became a scream.Drake piled into Jack, and the two of them went tumbling.Caine stood, staring in horror at Diana. Diana did not move. Did not move. No snarky remark. No smart-ass joke.“No!” Caine cried.“No!”Drake was up, disentangling himself with an angry curse from Jack.“Diana,” Caine sobbed.Drake didn’t rely on his whip hand now, too far away to use it before Caine could take him down. He raised his gun. The barrel shot flame and slugs, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.Inaccurate, but on full automatic, Drake had time. He swung the gun to his right and the bullets swooped toward where Caine stood like he was made of stone.Then the muzzle flash disappeared in an explosion of green-white light that turned night into day. The shaft of light missed its target. But it was close enough that the muzzle of Drake’s gun wilted and drooped and the rocks behind Drake cracked from the blast of heat.Drake dropped the gun. And now it was Drake’s turn to stare in stark amazement. “You!”Sam wobbled atop the rise. Quinn caught him as he staggered.Now Caine snapped back to the present, seeing his brother, seeing the killing light.“No,” Caine said. “No, Sam: He’s mine.”He raised a hand, and Sam went flying backward along with Quinn.“The fuel rod!” Jack was yelling, over and over. “It’s going to kill us all. Oh, God, we may already be dead!”Drake rushed at Caine. His eyes were wide with fear. Knowing he wouldn’t make it. Knowing he was not fast enough.Caine raised his hand, and the fuel rod seemed to jump off the ground.A javelin.A spear. He held it poised. Pointed straight at Drake.Caine reached with his other hand, extending the telekinetic power to hold Drake immobilized.Drake held up his human hand, a placating gesture. “Caine…you don’t want to…not over some girl. She was a witch, she was…”Drake, unable to run, a human target. The fuel rod aimed at him like a Spartan’s spear.Caine threw the fuel rod. Tons of steel and lead and uranium.Straight at Drake. "
― Michael Grant , Hunger (Gone, #2)
16 " Childhood is the barrel they give you/to go over the falls in. "
― Linda McCarriston , Eva-Mary
17 " Smoke rose from the barrel of the gun like a serpent crawling up from its wicker basket "
― Andrew Lennon , Family Man
18 " Her beauty was a weapon. A loaded gun, with the barrel pointed at her own head. "
― Khaled Hosseini , And the Mountains Echoed
19 " There's this small flicker in time when you're looking down the barrel of a gun and instead of your life flashing before your eyes, it’s all the moments you missed out on. "
― Melyssa Winchester , Holding on to Heaven (Love United, #1)
20 " Sometimes there is no right thing. Sometimes wrong wins, and that's okay. Life doesn't have cooker-cutters for right and wrong, Ryder. There's that messy gray area in between, and I sure hope I'm not the one staring down the barrel of your gun when you figure that out." Muse ~ Darkest Before Dawn. #3 The Veil Series "