#pun

Gates got up, but not fast or jerkily, with the same slowness that had always characterized him. He wiped the sweat off his palms by running them lightly down his sides. As though he were going to shake hands with somebody. He was. He was going to shake hands with death. He wasn't particularly frightened. Not that he was particularly brave. It was just that he didn't have very much imagination. Rationalizing, he knew that he wasn't going to be alive anymore ten minutes from now. Yet he wasn't used to casting his imagination ten minutes ahead of him, he'd always kept it by him in the present. He couldn't visualize it. So he wasn't as unnerved by it as the average man would have been. ("3 Kills For 1") ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#death #death-penalty #death-sentence #electric-chair #execution

Everyone in a decadent society, Lorrain urges, is guilty. Everyone loves masking murder and everyone takes masochistic pleasure in the risk of discovery and punishment. ↗

— Jennifer Birkett

#decadents #guilt #masochism #murder #punishment

Y todavía los que no murieron bajo las chozas ni se rajaron los huesos bajo los árboles ni se desangraron bajo las cuevas, ciegos de miedo y de ira acabaron despedazándose entre sí. Los pocos que no sufrieron quebranto, como recuerdo de la simpleza de sus corazones, se transformaron en monos. ↗

— Popol Vuh

#death #dioses #fear #humanidad #humanity

Use lots of exclamation points. They love to be overused. ↗

— S.A.R.K.

#exclamation #punctuation #change

In person, if possible, Anubis was even more drop-dead gorgeous. [Oh . . . ha, ha. I didn't catch the pun, but thank you, Carter. God of the dead, drop-dead gorgeous. Yes, hilarious. Now, may I continue?] ↗

— Rick Riordan

#dead

The future is unwritten. there are best case scenarios. There are worst-case scenarios. both of them are great fun to write about if you' re a science fiction novelist, but neither of them ever happens in the real world. What happens in the real world is always a sideways-case scenario. World-changing marvels to us, are only wallpaper to our children. ↗

— Bruce Sterling

#cyberpunk #future #science-fiction #change

I tried acupuncture, the patch, and hypnosis, but found that I needed to do it alone - when the time was right for me. ↗

— Christy Turlington

#alone #found #hypnosis #i #i tried

Judgment, then, is not an impersonal, legalistic process. It is a matter of love, and it is something we choose for ourselves. Nor is punishment a vindictive act. God's "curses" are not expressions of hatred, but of fatherly love and discipline. Like medicinal ointment, they hurt in order to heal. They impose suffering that is remedial, restorative, and redemptive. God's wrath is an expression of His love for His wayward children. ↗

— Scott Hahn

#god #judgment #love #punishment #love

He leaned forward and plucked something out of my hair. “What—?” He held the dead leaf before me. “Must have gotten that rolling around with Alexi in the backyard.” I blinked and looked at him. “That sounded so wrong.” He nodded, eyebrow quirked. Waiting. “I’m trying to learn a few things from your more experienced brother so I’m ready for our big event.” His expression didn’t change. “Yee-ahhh. Not any better, huh?” I laughed. Our big event could mean two vastly different things to Pietr. “Lemme just run through the other ways I could get this wrong: Alexi’s teaching me some moves. He’s trying to put the hurt on me. He was putting me into some positions I’ve never tried before.…” I snorted. I couldn’t help myself. A muscle near Pietr’s left eye twitched. “He’s teaching me to fight!” I laughed, grabbing his wrists. ↗

— Shannon Delany

#puns #change

They were all machines, he thought, just like La Mettrie had said in L'Homme Machine all those years ago. So he, Orphan, was a machine of flesh and blood, and Lucy, now, was made of something else, more complex perhaps- but they were the same and... They were in love. Sometimes that was enough. ↗

— Lavie Tidhar

#machines #steampunk #love