#lie

By first believing in Santa Claus, then the Easter Bunny, then the Tooth Fairy, Rant Casey was recognizing that those myths are more than pretty stories and traditions to delight children. Or to modify behavior. Each of those three traditions asks a child to believe in the impossible in exchange for a reward. These are stepped-up tests to build a child's faith and imagination. The first test is to believe in a magical person, with toys as the reward. The second test is to trust in a magical animal, with candy as the reward. The last test is the most difficult, with the most abstract reward: To believe, trust in a flying fairy that will leave money. From a man to an animal to a fairy. From toys to candy to money. Thus, interestingly enough, transferring the magic of faith and trust from sparkling fairy-dom to clumsy, tarnished coins. From gossamer wings to nickels... dimes... and quarters. In this way, a child is stepped up to greater feats of imagination and faith as he or she matures. Beginning with Santa in infancy, and ending with the Tooth Fairy as the child acquires adult teeth. Or, plainly put, beginning with all the possibility of childhood, and ending with an absolute trust in the national currency. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#conditioning #santa-claus #tooth-fairy #faith

There was a tacit understanding between them that 'liquor helped'; growing more miserable with every glass one hoped for the moment of relief. ↗

— Graham Greene

#drinking #liquor #relationships #relief #alcohol

It’s awful, telling it like this, isn’t it? As though we didn’t know the ending. As though it could have another ending. It’s like watching Romeo drink poison. Every time you see it you get fooled into thinking his girlfriend might wake up and stop him. Every single time you see it you want to shout, 'You stupid ass, just wait a minute,' and she’ll open her eyes! 'Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Don’t die this time!' But they always do. ↗

— Elizabeth Wein

#despair #irony #romeo-and-juliet #irony

Ah, Ms. Ferrars. I don't know what you hope to accomplish by sitting in the corner. ↗

— Tahereh Mafi

#juliette #accomplishments

When your lover is a liar, you and he have a lot in common, you're both lying to you! ↗

— Susan Forward

#deceit #infidelity #liar #lies #pathological-liars

And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone or that's an evil one because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#complicated #deed #evil #good #labels

There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away. (107) ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#addicts #pain #pain-relief #addiction

The worst wounds, the deadliest of them, aren't the ones people see on the outside. They're the ones that make us bleed internally. ↗

— Sherrilyn Kenyon

#deadliest #heal #hurt #internally #outside

Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#inspirational #island #metaphysical-beliefs #metaphysics #faith

The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived. ↗