#contra

Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes Luke a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowdilly, small and slender like. Hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#beauty

Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room. But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves. ↗

— Louise Penny

#country #death #death

I don't even know what I'm looking for, although I hope I'll know it if I find it along the way. Sometimes I want to simplify my life into a simple bare thing. And other times I want to complicate it so thoroughly that everything I touch will become bound in some way to me. I've become quite aware of my contradictions, but there's no true resolution in that. ↗

— David Levithan

#contradictions #david-levithan #life #life

Talik said, 'His contract with Lord Berenger ends soon. Ancel will seek a new contract, a high bidder. He wants money, status. He is foolish. Lord Berenger may offer less money, but he is kind, and never puts pets in the ring. Ancel has made many enemies. In the ring, someone will scratch his green eyes out, an "accident."' Damen was drawn in against his will. 'That's why he's chasing royal attention? He wants the Prince to--' He tried out the unfamiliar vocabulary. '--offer for his contract?' 'The Prince?' said Talik, scornfully. 'Everyone knows the Prince does not keep pets.' 'None at all?' said Damen. She said, 'You.' She looked him up and down. 'Perhaps the Prince has a taste for men, not these painted Veretian boys who squeal if you pinch them.' Her tone suggested that she approved of this on general principle. ↗

— S.U. Pacat

#captive-prince #contracts #damen #laurent #talik

The opera tells the story with all the built-in contradictions and from many different angles. ↗

— Harrison Birtwistle

#built-in #contradictions #different #different angles #many

I've always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations. ↗

— Marlee Matlin

#aids #always #book #chicago #child

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. ↗

— Margaret Mead

#arbitrary #contrasting #culture #diverse #each

When Jackie got his big contract at CBS and was putting together what turned out to be almost a stock company of players, he remembered Frank and said, 'Get me that kid who played the jail sketch.' ↗

— Audrey Meadows

#big #cbs #company #contract #frank

The voice of the intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance. ↗

— Karl A. Menninger

#biased #contradicted #desire #drowned #extinguished

I'm a real relationship person - contrary to public perception. I'm either in one or I'm not. ↗

— Sienna Miller

#either #i #perception #person #public