#cull

You can only chase a butterfly for so long. ↗

— Jane Yolen

#butterfly #chase #culloden #historical-fiction #jane-yolen

Edward: Bella, please stop taking your clothes off! Bella: Why? Did you wanna do that part? ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#eclipse #edward-cullen #seduction #seduction

I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba'ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.) ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#ba-athism #ba-athist-iraq #beria #conspiracy #cull

driving at the speed limit--hideous thought. ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#edward-cullen #hideous-thought #midnight-sun #twilight #twilight

I said it would be better if we weren’t friends, not that I didn’t want to be. ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#twilight

I wanted the monster back and that was plainly wrong. ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#eclipse #edward-cullen #ian-o-shea #new-moon #soul

A hundred yards away, Mike Newton was lowering Bella's limp body to the sidewalk. She slumped unresponsively against the wet concrete, her skin chalky as a corpse. I almost took the door off the car. ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#car #edward-cullen #midnight-sun #mike #overreaction

I was a vampire, and she had the sweetest blood I’d smelled in eighty years. ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#edward-cullen #edward-cullen-quote #midnight-sun #romance #twilight

I watched her, waiting. She smiled. Her lips curved up and the edges, and her chocolate eyes warmed. I’d just admitted to stalking her, and she was smiling. ↗

— Stephenie Meyer

#midnight-sun #twilight #the-sun-watches-the-sun

At the beginning Scully was much more sceptical than she is now. ↗

— Gillian Anderson

#more #much #now #sceptical #scully