the brotherhood QUOTES

1 " The Thought of Death. It gives me a melancholy happiness to live in the midst of this confusion of streets, of necessities, of voices: how much enjoyment, impatience and desire, how much thirsty life and drunkenness of life comes to light here every moment! And yet it will soon be so still for all these shouting, lively, life- loving people! How everyone's shadow, his gloomy travelling companion stands behind him! It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant- ship: people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise-so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching! Everyone wants to be foremost in this future-and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death! I would fain do something to make the idea of life to us to be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility. And so we will believe in our even a hundred times more worthy of their attention. "

― Friedrich Nietzsche , The Gay Science

3 " I believe in the brotherhood of mankind. "

5 " Abruptly, the sea of people parted . . . and then there they were. Bella, with Nalla in her arms, Z standing beside his girls.
Beth broke down all over again as the female came forward.
God, it was impossible not to remember how Nalla had started this, putting into motion the need that had become undeniable.
Bella was tearing up, too, as she stopped. “We just want to say yay!”
At that moment, Nalla reached out to Beth, a gummy smile on her face, pure joy radiating out.
No turning that down, nope, not at all.
Beth took the little girl out of her mother’s arms and positioned her on her chest, capturing one of the pinwheeling hands and giving kisses, kisses, kisses. “You ready to be a big . . .” Beth glanced at Z and then her husband. “. . . a big sister?”
Yes, Beth thought. Because that’s what the Brotherhood and their families were. Close as siblings, tighter than blood because they were chosen.
“Yes, she is,” Bella said as she wiped under her eyes and looked back at Z. “She is so ready.”
“My brother.” Z shoved out his palm, his scarred face in a half smile, his yellow eyes warm. “Congratulations.”
Instead of shaking anything, Wrath shoved that ultrasound picture into his Brother’s face. “Do you see him? See my son? He’s big, right, Beth?”
She kissed Nalla’s supersoft hair. “Yes.”
“Big and healthy, right?”
Beth laughed some more. “Big and healthy. Absolutely perfect.”
“Perfect!” Wrath bellowed. “And this is a doctor saying it—I mean, she went to medical school.”
Even Z started laughing at that point.
Beth gave Nalla back to her parents. “And Dr. Sam told me she’s delivered over fifteen thousand babies over the course of her career—”
“See!” Wrath yelled. “She knows these things. My son is perfect! Where’s the champagne? Fritz! Get the fucking champagne! "

― J.R. Ward , The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #12)

7 " What is it with Dictators and Writers, anyway? Since before the infamous Caesar-Ovid war they've had beef. Like the Fantastic Four and Galactus, like the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, like the Teen Titans and Deathstroke, Foreman and Ali, Morrison and Crouch, Sammy and Sergio, they seemed destined to be eternally linked in the Halls of Battle. Rushdie claims that tyrants and scribblers are natural antagonists, but I think that's too simple; it lets writers off pretty easy. Dictators, in my opinion, just know competition when they see it. Same with writers. Like, after all, recognizes like. "

― Junot Díaz