the jaws QUOTES

1 " Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold... brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds. "

― Victor Hugo , Les Misérables

2 " Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe." Beware the Jabberwock, my son The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought—So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought.And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back." And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy!O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" He chortled in his joy.'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe. "

3 " Nobody played poker with Mike Walsh--at least, not twice--but people fought to get aboard Constellation. Her command record since Mike took her was almost the equal of Enterprise's for danger, daring, and success not only snatched from the jaws of failure, but afterward used to beat failure over the head. "

― Diane Duane , My Enemy, My Ally (Star Trek: Rihannsu, #1)

4 " No matter how strong you are, you cannot hold open the jaws of a great-white shark with your bare hands... that can do your brain. "

― Ivan Stoikov

5 " To become a better you, secure your dreams from the jaws of people who discredit your ambitions. "

― Israelmore Ayivor , Become a Better You

6 " The mysterious Enoch Root meets 8-year-old Benjamin Franklin, Boston, 1713: " Do I look like a schoolmaster to you?" " No, but you talk like one." " You know something of schoolmasters, do you?" " Yes, sir," the boy says, faltering a bit as he sees the jaws of the trap swinging toward his leg. " Yet here it is the middle of Monday—" " The place was empty 'cause of the Hanging. I didn't want to stay and—" " And what?" " Get more ahead of the others than I was already." " If you are ahead, the correct thing is to get used to it—not to make yourself into an imbecile. Come, you belong in school. "

7 " A meadow is nothing but a field of suffering. Every second some creature is dying in the gorgeous green expanse, ants eat wriggling earthworms, birds lurk in the sky to pounce on a weasel or a mouse. You see that black cat, standing motionless in the grass. She is only waiting for an opportunity to kill. I detest all that naïve respect for nature. Do you think that a doe in the jaws of a tiger feels less horror than you? People thought up the idea that animals don’t have the same capability for suffering as human, because otherwise they couldn’t bear the knowledge that they are surrounded by a world of nature that is horror and nothing but horror. "

― Milan Kundera , Immortality

8 " Being a wizard gives you more power than most, but it doesn't change your heart. We're all human. We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain. "

― Jim Butcher , White Night (The Dresden Files, #9)

9 " ...I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, - and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because " there is no flesh in his obdurate heart." I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion. "

10 " My Manager forced me to put my beetle in my own ear, a clear waste and an act that gave me nightmares: of a burning city through which giant carnivorous lizards prowled, eating survivors off of balconies. In one particularly vivid moment, I stood on a ledge as the jaws closed in, heat-swept, and tinged with the smell of rotting flesh. Beetles intended for the tough, tight minds of children should not be used by adults. We still remember a kinder, gentler world. "

― Jeff VanderMeer , The Third Bear

11 " Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell. "

― Alfred Tennyson , The Charge of the Light Brigade

12 " All I know was that Dirva stayed with Liro in the days immediately after, and that it was Liro who slowly coaxed him back from the jaws of grief. Dirva had Liro, he had no one else, and it was then that I began to understand that the things we need from others make their own kind of sense, have their own logic, create their own legitimacy regardless of what we've been taught. If he hadn't had Liro, I am not sure Dirva would have been able to patch himself back together.I am grateful for this, but in the years since, I cannot help but wonder at the sacrifice it required of Liro. It is not easy to hold someone through their grief. It is hard to see someone you love in pain, in irreparable pain. It takes an extraordinary type of kindness, a rare patience, to let the loss run its course. We always want to help, but there are times when there is no help, and the pressure to take help only makes things harder on the ones trapped in mourning. I don't know what transpired between them. I don't. But I do know that Dirva left him without explanation, reappeared without warning, and that there was nothing for Liro to do but offer himself up. I never knew Liro well, but he seemed to me a very bright man. Like anyone who scraped a childhood by on the street and survived to adulthood, he had a watchfulness about him and an uncannily honed feel for other people. Liro knew the moment Dirva set foot in the City what he would need, and what he would take, and Liro let him take it anyway. "

13 " Think about it. For the sake of fame, men will risk great dangers. They put themselves in the jaws of death more than for their children. For fame, they will spend their money like water and work their fingers to the bone. Have you not observed this in your own home? "

― Karen Essex , Stealing Athena

14 " Do you think that a doe in the jaws of a tiger feels less horror than you? People thought up the idea that animals don't have the same capability for suffering as humans, because otherwise they couldn't bear the knowledge that they are surrounded by a world of nature that is horror and nothing but horror." Paul was pleased that man was gradually covering the whole earth with concrete. It was as if he were watching a cruel murderess being walled up. "

15 " Hate PoemI hate you truly. Truly I do.Everything about me hates everything about you.The flick of my wrist hates you.The way I hold my pencil hates you.The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.Look out! Fore! I hate you.The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m diggingfrom under by third toenail, left foot, hates you.The history of this keychain hates you.My sigh in the background as you explain relational databaseshates you.The goldfish of my genius hates you.My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.A closed window is both a closed window and an obvioussymbol of how I hate you.My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.My pleasant “good morning”: hate.You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my headunder your arm? Hate.The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My witpractices it.My breasts relaxing in their holster from morningto night hate you.Layers of hate, a parfait.Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each oneindividually and at leisure.My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validityof my hate, which can never have enough of you,Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine. "

16 " The warm night claimed her. In a moment it was part of her. She walked on the grass, and her shoes were instantly soaked. She flung up her arms to the sky. Power ran to her fingertips. Excitement was communicated from the waiting trees, and the orchard, and the paddock; the intensity of their secret life caught at her and made her run. It was nothing like the excitement of ordinary looking forward, of birthday presents, of Christmas stockings, but the pull of a magnet - her grandfather had shown her once how it worked, little needles springing to the jaws - and now night and the sky above were a vast magnet, and the things that waited below were needles, caught up in the great demand. (" The Pool" ) "

17 " Brief as the lightning in the collied night;That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth,And ere a man hath power to say " Behold!" The jaws of darkness do devour it up.So quick bright things come to confusion. "

18 " Deep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously in the jaws of the wilderness. The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass beneath the stars. The cold air pricked. In the draughts of night that poured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messages from distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there lay already the faint, bleak odors of coming winter.(" The Wendigo" ) "

19 " Ptah held up his mug. “Do you realize, we’ve fought together, starved together, bled together, endured slavery, and looked into the jaws of death...”
“But we never drank together!” Marcus finished, clanking his mug to Ptah’s.
“Exactly! The drink flows freely, and we must make up for lost time, ha ha ha! "

― Jennifer McKeithen , Atlantis: On the Shores of Forever (Atlantis: The Antediluvian Chronicles, #1)

20 " Were the diver to think on the jaws of the shark he would never lay hands on the precious pearl. "

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