Ratcliffe was a great statesman. The smoothness of his manipulation was marvelous. No other man in politics, indeed no other man w...ho had ever been in politics in this country, could--his admirers said--have brought together so many hostile interests and made so fantastic a combination. Some men went so far as to maintain that he would "rope in the President himself before the old man had time to swap knives with him." The beauty of his work consisted in the skill with which he evaded questions of principle. As he wisely said, the issue now involved was not one of principle but of power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Run fast, stand still. This, the lesson from lizards. For all writers. Observe almost any survival creature, you see the same. Jum...p, run, freeze. In the ability to flick like an eyelash, crack like a whip, vanish like steam, here this instant, gone the next--life teems the earth. And when that life is not rushing to escape, it is playing statues to do the same. See the hummingbird, there, not there. As thought arises and blinks off, so this thing of summer vapor; the clearing of a cosmic throat, the fall of a leaf. And where it was--a whisper. What can we writers learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping. In between the scurries and flights, what? Be a chameleon, ink- blend, chromosome change with the landscape. Be a pet rock, lie with the dust, rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparents' window long ago.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I believe it was a good job, Despite this possible horror: that they might prefer the... Preservation of their law in all its sick dignity and their knives To the continuation of their creed And their lives.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Drinking tents were full, glasses began to clink in carriages, hampers to be unpacked, tempting provisions to be set forth, knives... and forks to rattle, champagne corks to fly, eyes to brighten that were not dull before, and pickpockets to count their gains during the last heat. The attention so recently strained on one object of interest, was now divided among a hundred; and, look where you would, there was a motley assemblage of feasting, talking, begging, gambling and mummery.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sexual sadism actualizes male identity. Women are tortured, whipped, and chained; women are bound and gagged, branded and burned, ...cut with knives and wires; women are pissed on and shit on; red-hot needles are driven into breasts, bones are broken, rectums are torn, mouths are ravaged, cunts are savagely bludgeoned by penis after penis, dildo after dildo--and all of this to establish in the male a viable sense of his own worth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Diddy-Wah-Diddy ... is a place of no work and no worry for man or beast. The road to it is so crooked that a mule pulling a load o...f fodder can eat off the back of the wagon as he plods along. All curbstones are chairs, and all food is already cooked. Baked chickens and sweet potato pies, with convenient knives and forks, drift along crying, 'Eat me! Eat me!'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There were metal detectors on the staff-room doors and Hernandez usually had a drawer full of push-daggers, nunchuks, stun-guns, k...nucks, boot-knives, and whatever else the detectors had picked up. Like Friday morning at a South Miami high school.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We do not wish to injure you.... But if you again plunge your knives into the breasts of our people, I shall send a force which wi...ll severely punish you for your cruelties.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »