#sin

Advertising - a judicious mixture of flattery and threats. ↗

— Northrop Frye

#flattery #judicious #mixture #threats

In a culture that is becoming ever more story-stupid, in which a representative of the Coca-Cola company can, with a straight face, pronounce, as he donates a collection of archival Coca-Cola commercials to the Library of Congress, that 'Coca-Cola has become an integral part of people's lives by helping to tell these stories,' it is perhaps not surprising that people have trouble teaching and receiving a novel as complex and flawed as Huck Finn, but it is even more urgent that we learn to look passionately and technically at stories, if only to protect ourselves from the false and manipulative ones being circulated among us. ↗

— George Saunders

#manipulation #story #integrity

An accusing heart couldn't see her own sins. ↗

— Toba Beta

#introspection #sins #introspection

The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#dressing #innovation #introspection #melancholy #philosophical

We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them. ↗

— Jennifer Donnelly

#punishment

I could almost feel Meghan against me, shaking with sobs as she mourned her Winter prince. I could feel my arms around her as I whispered that it would be okay, that she still had me, and I would never leave. Ant then I wanted to kick myself in the head for thinking that ↗

— Julie Kagawa

#puck #summer-s-crossing #mourning

You can't make yourself feel positive, but you can choose how to act, and if you choose right, it builds your confidence. ↗

— Julien Smith

#choices #choosing #confidence #feelings #flinch

Assassination is almost always unthinkable to moral, thinking men until after a holocaust has come and gone. ↗

— Caitlín R. Kiernan

#morality #pragmitism #men

The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame. ↗

— Kohta Hirano

#blood #fear #hellsing #mythology #vampires

It's already bad. I'm honestly not sure how much worse it's going to get." Notice that I didn't say couldn't get worse. It can always get worse. I know this. And thus I refuse to tempt fate. Superstitious - probably. But magic exists. So does karma, and karma can be a bitch. ↗

— Cat Adams

#cat-adams #karma #karma