#east

Some curses fade and leave nothing but the faintest mark, a tea stain on watered silk. There are those that are so malevolent that, upon defeat, explode in a fiery burst of sulfurous flames, burning everything they touch as they die. Others dissolve like morning mist in the brightness of the midday sun. Some cannot be defeated at all, but feed upon the energy spent trying to vanquish it, growing more and more potent with each failed attempt. And then there are those ancient curses with deceptively simple antidotes that shatter like jagged shards of a vast mirror. These curses may be broken, but never completely destroyed, sharp slivers of light distorted. ↗

— Ava Zavora

#fantasy #beauty

And John Kearns whispered into my ear: "Do you see it now? *You* are the nest. *You* are the hatchling. *You* are the chrysalis. *You* are the progeny. *You* are the rot that falls from the stars. All of us--you and I and poor, dear Pellinore. Behold the face of the magnificum, child. And despair." Though I was sickened by the sight, I looked. In the bower of the beast at the top of the world, I beheld the face of the magnificum, and I did not turn away. ↗

— Rick Yancey

#john-kearns #magnificum #pellinore-warthrop #spoiler #the-beast

You're a beautiful boy, Clay, but that's about it. ↗

— Bret Easton Ellis

#bret-easton-ellis #life #transgressive #beauty

Although we live in a civilised society, the business world remains a jungle. ↗

— Mohammed Rashid Al Maktoum

#business

What is the death of a soldier even off duty of an occupying army walking in an occupied territory against the death of a little boy screaming in terror in his father's arms Where is the equivalence ↗

— Linda Grant

#politics #death

When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or identity assumed for the convenience of social communication. ↗

— Alan Watts

#communication

...British appeasement of the Palestinian Arabs led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews [in the Holocaust] who might otherwise have found refuge in Palestine. ↗

— Sol Stern

#israel #jewish #middle-east #political #death

It is hard to imagine that, having downgraded the US, S & P will not follow suit on at least one of the other members of the dwindling club of sovereign AAAs. If this were to materialise and involve a country like France, for example, it could complicate the already fragile efforts by Europe to rescue countries in its periphery. ↗

— Mohamed El-Erian

#amp #club #complicate #could #countries

Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith. ↗

— W.H. Auden

#christmas #crucifixion #easter #good-friday #faith

Because inside me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom.. and as hard as I try, I cannot kill it. ↗

— Veronica Roth

#freedom #humanity #life #freedom