I was just kidding, shuck-face," Minho said. "Let's all go over there. She could have an army of psycho girl ninjas hiding in that shack of hers.""Psycho girl ninjas?" Newt repeated, his voice showing he was surprised, if not annoyed, by Minho's additude.

Hurricanes couldn’t remove you from my mind. You’re my world and I’m incapable of not loving you.

Her caramel skin and curly beach sand hair spreads in wavy chops like the choppy storm waves on the ocean. Her fluffy rose colored lips glisten with eyes emerald green and almond shaped set deep into her face and yet when she looks at you with those same deep set eyes, it feels like they jump out, speaking to you.

It would ha' been a good deal easier, if ye'd only been a witch.

She might not have read many books. But when she reads a book, she swallows the very words. If you open the books on her shelves, you will find that the front and back covers encase white pages.

I am five, I will never understandwhy we are stranded in our selvesbut in this moment I knowmy own storyis understanding our singlenessthat I am destined to move my body and timeinto the body-timethe storyof Others.

I need not adapt in certain ways. I am in fact but a visitor to this world, an ephemeral gasp within its long, tired history, and, before anything else, a follower of Christ. By this alone I have the power not to shuffle away from the Faith, the power to break loose from these marching-shackles of ongoing cultural and political pretense.

I'm a little bit naked, but that's okay.

How are we going to get out of here?""Oh, escape is easy once you have the right

Uphill? There's nothing up the hill," Colly said, trying desperately to work out where this conversation was going."As a matter of fact, there is. There's a bluff about twelve meters high, with a river running below it. The water's deep, so it'll be quite safe for you to jump." In his brief glimpse of the river, Halt had noticed that the fast-flowing water cut under the bluff in a sharp curve. That should mean that the bottom had been scoured out over the years. A thought struck him. "You can swim, I assume?""Yes. I can swim," Colly said. "But I'm going jumping off some bluff just because you say to!""No, no. Of course not. That'd be asking far too much of you. You'll jump off because if you don't, I'll shoot you. It'll be the same effect, really. If I have to shoot you, you'll fall off. But I thought I'd give you a chance to survive." Halt paused, then added, "Oh, and if you decide to run downhill, I'll also shoot you with an arrow. Uphill and off is really your only chance of survival.""You can't be serious!" Colly said. "Do you really-"But he got no further. Halt leaned forward, putting a hand up to stop the outburst."Colly, take a good, long look into my eyes and tell me if you see anything, anything at all, that says I'm not deadly serious."His eyes were deep brown, almost black. They were steady and unwavering and there was no sign of anything there but utter determination. Colly looked at them and after a few second, his eyes dropped away. halt nodded as the other man's gaze slid away from his."Good. Now we've got that settled, you should try to get some sleep. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.

For Achilles, the death of Patroclus pushed him into a fury, but it was not only grief that drove him. It was also a sense of shame and guilt because he had not been there to protect his friend. Sometimes men in combat feel this sort of survivor’s guilt even though, realistically, they could have done nothing to prevent their comrade’s death.

My life wasn’t just about one city, or one Epic, anymore. It was about a war. It was about finding a way to stop the Epics.Permanently.

The greatest war story ever told commemorates a war that established no boundaries, won no territory, and furthered no cause.

This, the only occasion in the Iliad when furious Achilles smiles serves as a bittersweet reminder of the difference real leadership could have made to the events of the Iliad. Agamemnon's panicked prize-grabbing in Book One and even Nestor's rambling "authority" pale beside Achilles' instinctive and absolute command of himself and the dangers of this occasion.

Surely, by all convention, the Iliad will end here, with the triumphant return of its vindicated hero. But the Iliad is not a conventional epic, and at the very moment of its hero's greatest military triumph, Homer diverts his focus from Achilles to the epic's two most important casualties, Patroklos and Hektor: it is to the consequences of their deaths, especially to the victor, that all action of the Iliad has been inexorably leading.

Homer's epic does not tell of such seemingly essential events as the abduction of Helen, for example, nor of the mustering and sailing of the Greek fleet, the first hostilities of the war, the Trojan Horse, and the sacking and burning of Troy. Instead, the 15,693 lines of Homer's Iliad describe the occurrences of a roughly two-week period in the tenth and final year of what had become a stalemated siege of Troy.

Lost race?” The Prince studied Orayna, trying to see something inhuman in her. “Why have I never heard of these ‘Rathiuel’?” “Because,” Azaroth rapped his knuckles on the Prince’s skull, “you do not care to read.

I wouldn't do that," Silk advised. "Thinking about it isn't going to help, and it's only going to make you nervous.""Nervouser," Garion corrected. "I'm already nervous.""Is there such a word as "'nervouser'?" Silk asked Belgarath curiously. "There is now," Belgarath replied. "Garion just invented it.""I wish I could invent a word," Silk said admiringly to Garion.

We are all born as storytellers. Our inner voice tells the first story we ever hear.

Oh, how scary and wonderful it is that words can change our lives simply by being next to each other.

The garden is a miraculous place, and anything can happen on a beautiful moonlit night.

In every journey comes a moment... one like no other. And in that moment, you must decide between who you are... and who you want to be.

Small men command the letter of the law. Great men serve its spirit. For the spirit of the law is justice... and justice is the spirit of God.

But have a care! It is a bitter blade, and steel serves only those that can wield it. It will cut your hand as willingly as aught else.

You will know him by the blade he carries and the Dark-born skill with which he wields it, for none who know the love of the Father may defeat the Darkblade, yet all must stand against him.

Oh, how long were the days of a man.When he strode upon the broken land.He sailed as far as a man could steer.And he never wished to lose his fear.For the fear of man is a thing untold.It keeps him safe, and it proves him bold!Don’t let fear make you cease to strive,for that fear it proves you remain alive!I will walk this broken road,and I will carry a heavy load!So come at me with your awful lies,I’m a man of truth and I’ll meet your eyes!

Azerowut, I must tend to an urgently urgent business and a business that is urgent most urgently. Watch over my tent with extreme care and care that is caring in the extreme, and do not, under any circumstantial circumstances, allow anyone and his brother to be within an uncomfortably uncomfortable distance of her door. --Master Kwadile

What kind of person do you wish to be? A part of those who take action, who try the hardest, or of those who go with the flow?

Come with me Tlothy. Lady misfortune always brings together the unlucky.” Said Aissawa laughing.

You’re the shield, and I’m the sword.

We were friends before.” Sort of. We never tried to kill each other.

I turn back to Griffin. His expression is stony and unreadable, although if I had to take a wild guess, I’d say it was tending toward ominous.

It’s just you always…” “Run,” I finish for him… I gaze up at him. Soft light plays over his striking features – the hard planes of his cheekbones, his strong jaw, the slight hook in his nose. “I’ll still run, Griffin. The difference now is that I’ll run to you.” He looks at me for a long time, his gray eyes inscrutable. “You’d better.” I arch an eyebrow. “Or you’ll spank me?

Being on the edge is always worse than going through

It’s amazing what desperation can do to a person. It can seep into the heart. Turn us into the very monsters we fight." -Vexis

There was something severed and rough about her, something tainted and, yet, at the same time those jagged pieces were the makings of something fearsome. She'd wanted to become someone the Senate would fear, why not shatter the sky?

The rhythm of fraught footsteps and fervent heartbeat orchestrated a symphony of anticipation and dread.

For every blissful moment you must an anguish meet.

A wounded animal yet bears teeth

There was a feeling on the air like the eve of the end of the world.

You will not lift the veil of my body until you lift the veil over my face.

In many ways my life has been rather like a record of the lost and found. Perhaps all lives are like that.

In fairy tales the evil characters disappear or die, in reality, evil spreads while you wait for your hero on a horse, only to realise the sword to save yourself was always in your hand...

Death, you know, keeps secrets better even than a guilty Roman.

The wise will admire you. The wishful will envy you. The weak will hate you. This is the reality for those who dare to be epic.

In this life at least,Our fate is rarely epic.Maybe just as well,Impervious heroes we are not…

Fiction is entertaining. Nonfiction is epic.

Gareth Miller grabbed the beer first, then the hotdog, because if there’s one thing you don’t want to be caught dead without at these sorts of events it’s beer. The hotdog was strictly for show, a prop, a way of blending in.Burst of static in his right ear: “G-man, you read me? What’s yo’ twenty, dawg?”Gareth departed the concession stand, stopped, looked down at his hands, and tossed the hotdog into the first trash receptacle he saw. Raising his wrist to his mouth, he spoke into the cuff of his long-sleeved tee. “Concession stand, Section B. Over.”Allowing his hand to linger by his chin, he gingerly scratched his cheek as if he had meant to do it all along. The same voice: “Yo, I’m in position. Ready when you is.”Gareth cringed while crossing the wide concourse, checking both directions. The giant hallway was the main drag of a ghost town, its only residents a solitary custodian sweeping debris into a portable waste bin and the concession crew to his rear.

Life was a destiny waiting to be seized.

For Honor and the Octagon!

I have one dream: I want to get my jet pilot license, and take my jet to 40 000 feet, look down, and realise how small we are. Not for the kick of the G's but just to get the feeling of just for once flying above humanity.

Whether or not the fame of Gilgamesh of Uruk had reached the Aegean – and the idea is attractive – there can be no doubt that it was as great as that of any other hero. In time his name became so much a household word that jokes and forgeries were fathered onto it, as in a popular fraud that survives on eighth-century B.C. tablets which perhaps themselves copy an older text. This is a letter supposed to be written by Gilgamesh to some other king, with commands that he should send improbable quantities of livestock and metals, along with gold and precious stones for an amulet for Enkidu, which would weigh no less that thirty pounds. The joke must have been well received, for it survives in four copies, all from Sultantepe.

I remember the great feeling of sadness to have left many of our brothers behind in a foreign land, but as I sat on the rowing bench, alongside Hengist and Yffi, as the Famous Horse sailed over the gentle waves, I couldn't help but feel excited of what was to come. Yet none of us could have predicted that we were sailing towards a head -on-collision with the Roman General, Flavius Aëtius and his Hun allies, where Hengist and I would come face to face with the legendary Siegfried the Dragon Slayer and the one they call Attila the Hun!

His stories were not always new, but there was in the telling of them a special kind of magic. His voice could roll like thunder or hush down into a zepherlike whisper. He could imitate the voices of a dozen men at once; whistle so like a bird that the birds themselves would come to him to hear what he had to say; and when when he imitated the howl of a wolf, the sound could raise the hair on the backs of his listeners' necks and strike a chill into their hearts like the depths of a Drasnian winter. He could make the sound of rain and of wind and even, most miraculously, the sound of snow falling.

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.

In the beginning there was only Darkness.

Seek Knowledge, Protect Knowledge, Share Knowledge.

Beauty to beguile, spies to ensnare, and gold, always gold, to tempt, to trap, to control.

There was a feeling on the air like the eve of the end of the world...

Jesus didn't die on the cross so we can do something epic. He died so we can have a relationship with an epic God who moves in epic ways!

Jesus wastes none of our stories, even our tales of woe. He transforms them into epic adventures where we dare to face our past for the sake of our present.

Careful, mother, or you could end up dangling in another's webs.

We've seen firsthand the footprints of the Mordant's treachery.

Most tales carry a kernel of truth, else they're soon forgotten.

Like seduction, the Priestess took poisoning to an art form.

Reflections of the battlements shimmered in the deep green moat, casting an image of enduring strength, an image that defied the very siege of time.

Splendor was the decree of the day.

Give Compassion: Every day the average person fights epic battles never told just to survive.

A port arrival makes you feel so free ...To realize what it is to be a free man, with a world before him;

Confidence don't mean jack shit in the real world, sis," she once said. I feel myself finding the courage to trust those words more and more with every twist of the knife. Coincidentally, last Tuesday afternoon I was involuntarily exposed to the punch line of an old wise tale that goes something like: "There's beauty that can be found in everything." But why can't the insensitive cunt who said that ever find the courage to look in the mirror? Because poopycock, one might say.

He looked up at the stars as the storm closed in and saw them extinguished, one-by-one, until just two remained. They glimmered and shone through gaps in the clouds like two great eyes in the darkness, burning on a demon’s face that chased him across the sea.

There are demons within. And they're the deadliest kind.

Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep,even so I will endure…For already have I suffered full much,and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war.Let this be added to the tale of those.

But they could neither of them persuade me, for there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country and his parents, and however splendid a home he may have in a foreign country, if it be far from father or mother, he does not care about it.

Courage comes in the form of a girl.

His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw benieath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg.

It made the woman feel like a thousand seas had come together from all worlds, like faraway lands had been bridged together, and the vastness of the known and the unknown were somehow easier to comprehend.

Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all

Lucifer unbound his absolutionHis purpose took unstoppable formA wyrm whose brilliance blindedTenacity burned as radiant as the AlmightyLucifer remembered this so vividlyA fond memory of when God stood thunderstruck

It’s in our nature to want to watch our human frailties played out on a huge, epic canvas. Ancient societies had anthropomorphic gods: a huge pantheon expanding into centuries of dynastic drama: fathers and sons, star-crossed lovers, warring brothers, martyred heroes. Tales that taught us the danger of hubris and the primacy of humility. It’s the everyday stuff of everyman’s life, but it’s writ large, and we love it.

I'm not the one with the problem its the world who seems to have a problem with me

Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, destined to die in misery. But you, my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life. Out of all of them, your story will be the one to last.

A thrilling story can be dull if told badly, but even the most mundane event can be elevated into a tale of epic scale by a good storyteller.

As I prefer to see it, there has never been an epic love story that involved significant amounts of self-control.

Do you know which is the greatest epic till date?

Inching into the room, it’s clear something is wrong here. There’s a tingling sensation up my legs and back before I can even really focus on the parlor’s details. There are silhouettes of people, but I can see through them. It’s like shadows were cast and left behind to do as they please. Lost in the surreal sight of them for a moment, I inch further into the room without noticing that some were now moving behind me.There is no warning. I’m suddenly in the air, and moving backward rapidly toward the wall. It’s almost a full second before my body registers the actual pain of the blow my stomach just took. Being hit by a car doesn't even compare to this, and I didn't even see it coming.“For a shadow, you hit like a sledgehammer!” The words barely escape before something else slams into the base of my skull embedding most of my upper body in the wall and all but removing my head. These things are like Lucy; the disembodied dead who haven’t moved on. I've never met others that can actually touch things physically, they must be fairly potent.I pull my face out of the hole it had been planted in, letting plaster dust fall, coating my chest and legs like snow. Looking around quickly I try to gauge my surroundings. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. Is one easy night, without a huge dry-cleaning bill, too much to ask for these days?I only have time to dwell on it a moment before my head is bouncing off the hardwood floor; once, twice, and then a third time in quick succession. Now ‘pick splinters out of my forehead’ can be added to my Saturday night to-do list. Damn it, this is not going as planned.

I'm almost finished," said Wilhelm, wiping out a line with his sleeve and drawing over it."I never doubted you for a moment," said Vex, then looked at Aurora and spoke more softly. "I actually doubted him the whole time. He's really not very good."Wilhelm turned. "I'm standing right in front of you. I can hear literally every sound you make.""Wilhelm, please," said Vex, "this is a private conversation.

When you’re lost there’s nowhere to go but forward. One step at a time – and the way will show itself.

Oh, Jatel, I am so used. Would you rid yourself of me?" the knight started to cry.Jatel slowly kissed the woman upon her forehead. To the Gods! how he loved her so.Not for the world entire, sire.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Darkness will always be...its own master...

Thus spake brave Horatius, the captain of the gate. To all men upon this Earth, death cometh soon or late. And what better way to die, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of ones' fathers, and the temples of ones' G/Ds? For the tender mother, who dandled him to rest. And for the wife, who nurses his baby at her breast. And for the holy maidens, who feed the eternal flame. To save them from false sextus, that wrought the deed of shame. Lay down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may. I, with two more at either side, shall hold the foe in play. In Yon straight path a thousand may well be stop by three. Now who will stand on either hand and hold the bridge with me?

It's almost dawn. You can feel it coming. The world holds its breath, because there's really no guarantee that the sun will rise. That there was a yesterday doesn't mean there will be a tomorrow.

Now the day has ended, its brief excitements already an imperfect memory.

So each one of you agrees to disagree with whatever the other one agrees with, but if you both disagree with the same thing, aren't you really in agreement?

Over his shoulder, she saw Skulduggery walk in. "Oh, hell," she muttered. Wreath's smile reappeared. "It's Skulduggery, isn't it?"Over his shoulder, she saw Skulduggery walk in. "Oh , hell," she muttered. Wreath's smile reappeared. "It's Skulduggery, isn't it?""Please don't annoy him.""Me? When have I EVER annoyed the great Skulduggery Pleasant?"Skulduggery arrived at their table. Wreath smile up at him. "Hello.""I will shoot you in the eye," Skulduggery said.Wreath glanced at Valkyrie. "I think I've annoyed him.

I can help you, Jorge. I can give you back your self. I can give you your will.' He held out his hand, palm open. 'Free will has to be taken,' I said.

I am Detective Inspector Me. This is my partner, Detective Her."The traffic warden frowned. "Her?""Me," said Stephanie."Him?""Not me," said Skulduggery. "Her.""Me," said Stephanie."You?" said the traffic warden."Yes," said Stephanie. "I'm sorry, who are you?"Stephanie looked at him. "I'm Her, he's Me. Got it?

I'd say," the Ranger answered after a few seconds' deliberation, "that he'll be heading south now that he has the chance. Back into Araluen.""How do you know that?" Horace asked. He was always impressed at the two Rangers' ability to read a situation and come up with the correct answer to a problem. Sometimes, he thought, they almost seemed to have divine guidance."I'm guessing," Halt told him.

The door handle turned. Someone knocked, and a man's voice called, "Uh, hello?"Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery, looked back at the others, looked at Skulduggery again."Hello," Skulduggery said, speaking loudly to be heard over the alarm. "Hi," said the man. "The door's locked.""Is it?""Yes.""That's funny" said Skulduggery. "Hold on a moment." He reached out, jiggled the handle a few times, then stepped back. "Yes, it's locked. You wouldn't happen to have the key, would you?"There was a delay in response from the other side. "I'm sorry," the man called, "Who am I speaking

As it 'appens, I am Arthur's right-hand man," said Suzy. "Or left-hand girl, I can't remember where I stood last time. Anyhow, me and Arthur is like two fingers of a gauntlet. Or at least the thumb and the little finger. I mean, I'm his top General, and all. So if I say you're in, you're in.

Please don't arrest me.""Listen to me, I'm not going to arrest you, ok? I'm not a cop.""Are you sure?""Am I sure I'm not a cop? yes, I'm sure.""You could be undercover.

You promise?""I cross the place where my heart used to be and wish to be even more deader than I am now.

I can't tell you how may beautiful women have broken up with me because they were bored. I can't tell you because it never happened. They all adored me." "It was your humility, wasn't it?

This isn't the first time I've used this, and the test subject showed no signs of impaired cognitive ability.""Who was the test subject?" asked Aurora."I test everything out on myself before taking it into the field."She stared at him. "You zapped your own brain?""And it didn't do me any harm apart from the dizziness and the vomiting spells and the weirdly persistent ringing in my ears. Also the blackouts and the mood swings and the creeping paranoia. Apart from that, zero side effects, if you don't count the numb fingertips. Which I don't.

What are we going to do when we get into the temple, anyway? Are we going to fight our way through the Necromancers on our

I was going straight for Mantis, but then that bloody gas got in my eyes and, I don't know, some massive bloke reared up in front of me. I hit him, but I swear, it was like hiting a wall."Gracious nodded. "You hit a wall."Maybury blinked at him. "I what?""I saw it. You ran into a cloud of gas and stumbled around for a second until you reached a wall, and then you shrieked and punched it. It was very heroic.