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It was this feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land where men were contented, uncontradicted ans safe in possession of unpunctured vanity was likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So, from the cradle to the grave, women strove to make men pleased with themselves, and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration. In fact, men willingly gave ladies everything in the world except credit for having intelligence. ↗
Bianca, camp is cool! It's got a pegasus stable and a sword-fighting arena and… I mean, what do you get by joining the Hunters?" To begin with," Zoe said, "immortality." I stared at her, then at Artemis. "She's kidding, right?" Zoe rarely kids about anything," Artemis said. "My Hunters follow me on my adventures. They are my maidservants, my companions, my sisters-in-arms. Once they swear loyalty to me, they are indeed immortal… unless they fall in battle, which is unlikely. Or break their oath." What oath?" I said. To foreswear romantic love forever," Artemis said. To never grow up, never get married. To be a maiden eternally." Like you?" The goddess nodded. I tried to imagine what she was saying. Being immortal. Hanging out with only middle-school girls forever. I couldn't get my mind around it. ↗
#bianca-di-angelo #percy-jackson #zoe-nightshade #imagination
A game like sardines is scary, not so much for the hider but for the seekers. It's scary because you lose your companions and the whole world creeps up quiet and you slowly realize you're going to stumble upon a secret place where everyone will jump out at you. And then, when you are the very last seeker, you start to wonder if you're the only person in the world. If the hiding place somehow sucked up the players and the last one has to decide to run away or get sucked up, too. ↗
Imagine that one day you are out for a walk in the woods. Suddenly you see a small spaceship on the path in front of you. A tiny Martian climbs out the spaceship and stands on the ground looking up at you… What would you think? Never mind, it’s not important. But have you ever given any thought to the fact that you are a Martian yourself? It is obviously unlikely that you will ever stumble upon a creature from another planet. We do not even know that there is life on other planets. But you might stumble upon yourself one day. You might suddenly stop short and see yourself in a completely new light. On just such a walk in the woods. I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature. You feel as if you are waking from an enchanted slumber. Who am I? you ask. You know that you are stumbling around on a planet in the universe. But what is the universe? If you discover yourself in this manner you will have discovered something as mysterious as the Martian we just mentioned. You will not only have seen a being from outer space. You will feel deep down that you are yourself an extraordinary being. ↗
Nevertheless, the potential and actual importance of fantastic literature lies in such psychic links: what appears to be the result of an overweening imagination, boldly and arbitrarily defying the laws of time, space and ordered causality, is closely connected with, and structured by, the categories of the subconscious, the inner impulses of man's nature. At first glance the scope of fantastic literature, free as it is from the restrictions of natural law, appears to be unlimited. A closer look, however, will show that a few dominant themes and motifs constantly recur: deals with the Devil; returns from the grave for revenge or atonement; invisible creatures; vampires; werewolves; golems; animated puppets or automatons; witchcraft and sorcery; human organs operating as separate entities, and so on. Fantastic literature is a kind of fiction that always leads us back to ourselves, however exotic the presentation; and the objects and events, however bizarre they seem, are simply externalizations of inner psychic states. This may often be mere mummery, but on occasion it seems to touch the heart in its inmost depths and become great literature. ↗
Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. While she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more, all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of whose companionship she was grown more than weary. I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle. ↗
We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have to be brought into line by the threat of hell or the promise of paradise; we merely have to be reminded that it is we ourselves -- that is, the most mature and reasonable parts of us (seldom present in the midst of our crises and obsessions) -- who want to lead the sort of life which we once imagined supernatural beings demanded of us. An adequate evolution of morality from superstition to reason should mean recognizing ourselves as the authors of our own moral commandments. ↗
#commandments #god #life #morality #morals
I had never seen Rebecca with a guy before, so I never knew what kind of guy she went for. I spent all that time in my car telling myself I am not a nobody, that I am somebody, and then seeing that guy I knew I had been deceiving myself. He looked like a Disney cartoon prince, and I looked more like Old Yeller. What a shot to my ego. Just as I was feeling sorry for myself, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around expecting to see Rebecca. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t her! But it was a woman, so that’s a start. And it appeared she wanted to talk, and not just ask me to kindly get the hell out of her way. “I saw you from across the room,” she said. “Oh really?” I replied. “That’s disappointing.” “Why’s that?” “Because that means the invisible cloak I bought specifically for tonight is a sham. I was suspicious walking out of the store with an empty hanger, but the salesman assured me it was the best invisibility money could buy.” “I always thought being poor and having no money afforded you the most invisibility,” she said as she started laughing. “Well then I guess it goes to show that you don’t need to spend money you don’t have just to stand out by blending in. Or something like that.” “Something like that,” she said. “Anyway, my name is Dora J. Arod, and I saw you over there and I got excited, because you look like that one actor—you know who I’m talking about, because you must get it all the time.” Yes! So somebody does think I’m handsome and in possession of movie star looks. “Which actor are you referring to?” “Not sure his name, but he was in Armageddon, Big Fish, and Con Air.” “Oh!” I said, “Ben Affleck?” “Ben wasn’t in Big Fish or Con Air.” “Damn,” I said. “Hmm well I’m not sure who you’re referring to then.” “It just hit me,” she said. “Steve Buscemi. You look like Steve Buscemi!” I don’t remember what I said to that, but after giving it much thought, I will say that she is crazy. I do not look like Steve Buscemi. Steve Buscemi is a much more handsome man than me. ↗
#big-fish #con-air #confidence #crazy #disney
