#snake

The older a wizard grows, the more silent he becomes, like a woody vine growing over time to choke a garden path, deep and full of moss and snakes, running everywhere, impenetrable. ↗

— F.T. McKinstry

#gardens #power #silence #snakes #wizards

I had no idea what humans were capable of. I heard they were crafty, but how are they able to do such things? You mean harness light and water? Speedy asked. Change the weather? Yes. It's only the beginning, Speedy said. There are more marvels waiting. Some not so marvelous. Such as? Be not in haste, said the tortoise. There is nothing here but time. If you live long enough, you will see. Of course, though, you will see them from your cage. Live long enough? I asked. Are there mortal dangers here? The tortoise chuckled. The boy doesn't always take very good care of his prisoners, Rex the lizard chimed in. What do you mean? He doesn't feed us enough? Sometimes he doesn't understand what we need to survive, Rex answered. Sometimes he plays too rough. How can a creature able to bend the laws of nature be so cruel? I asked. ↗

— Patrick Jennings

#humans #lizard #pets #power #reptiles

Kill the snake of doubt in your soul, crush the worms of fear in your heart and mountains will move out of your way. ↗

— Kate Seredy

#doubt #fear #heart #kill #mountains

One morning as I closed the cyclone-fence gate / to begin a slow drift / down to the cookhouse on foot / (because my truck wheels were glued / in deep mud once again), / I walked straight into / the waiting non-arms of a snake, / its tan beaded-bag skin / studded with black diamonds. Up it coiled to speak to me a eye level. / Imagine! that sleek finger / rising out of the land's palm / and coiling faster than a Hindu rope. / The thrill of a bull snake / startled in the morning / when the mesas lie pooled / in a custard of light / kept me bright than ball lightning all day. Praise leapt first to mind / before flight or danger, / praise that knows no half-truth, and pardons all. ↗

— Diane Ackerman

#nature #snakes #imagination

All games have morals; and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb, a snake is waiting just around the corner; and for every snake, a ladder will compensate. But it's more than that; no mere carrot-and-stick affair; because implicit in the game is the unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down, good against evil; the solid rationality of ladders balances the occult sinuosities of the serpent; in the opposition of staircase and cobra we can see, metaphorically, all conceivable oppositions, Alpha against Omega, father against mother; here is the war of Mary and Musa, and the polarities of knees and nose ... but I found, very early in my life, that the game lacked one crucial dimension, that of ambiguity - because, as events are about to show, it is also possible to slither down a ladder and climb to triumph on the venom of a snake ... ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#life

Life in a box was unbearable. How did humans stand it? ↗

— Patrick Jennings

#ethics #humans #reptiles #snakes #life

I'm not the one who's so far away When I feel the snake bite enter my veins. Never did I wanna be here again, And I don't remember why I came. ↗

— Sully Erna

#erna #godsmack #metal #music #snake

A relationship is like being in a forest, where snakes lurk awaiting the chance to entice. ↗

— Anthony Liccione

#lure #snakes #temptation #relationship

Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way. ↗

— Jean Anouilh

#hands #hold #like #long #move

From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war. ↗

— Margot Asquith

#could #expression #faces #happy #i