Being a hangman requires you to take someone else’s life based on someone else’s judgment, and carry it out on someone else’s schedule. The job does not provide the same satisfaction that an ordinary murderer gets from smashing a skull. It robs...
Once you pass a certain age, life becomes noting more than a process of continual loss. Things that are important to your life begin to slip out of your grasp, one after another, like a comb losing teeth. And the only things that come to take their p...
I came to feel a tenderness for them all. This was something new to me. It gave me a curious pleasure to touch them, to help them in and out of the chair, to shave their weather-toughened old faces. They had known hard use, nearly all of them. You co...
If the gods bring to you a strange and frightening creature, accept the gift as if it were one you had chosen. Say the accustomed prayers, oil the hooves well, caress the small ears with praise. Have the new halter of woven silver embedded with jewel...
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking....
She would not say of any one in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as sh...
The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us - these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of ...
Brian Taylor: This is my day job. Some of you might know me as Brian or Taylor, but here I am Police Officer 2 Brian Taylor. This is where the forces of good prepare to fight the forces of evil. This is my partner, Officer Zavala. Mike Zavala: I'm on...
Boss Tweed: You killed an elected official? Bill: Who elected him? Boss Tweed: You don't know what you've done to yourself. Bill: [taps his glass eye with a knife] I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will s...
Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort: I don't think I have to remind you that this war has been going on for almost 5 years. Over half of Europe has been overrun and occupied. We're comparative newcomers. England's gone through a blitz with a knif...
Christian Szell: The gun had blanks, the knife, a retractable blade. Hardly original, but effective enough. I think you'll agree. I'm told you are a graduate student. Brilliant, yes? You are an historian, and I am part of history. I should have thoug...
Brian: Want the head there, sweetheart? Come and get it! [Dwight jumps into the sewer, guns blazing] Brian: I coulda put a bullet in your ear just now, laddy, if I hadn't gone off and got me revolver all wet and useless. You got the drop on me love. ...
[outside the witches' castle] Septimus: [as he holds a sword to Tristan's throat] Who are you? What business do you have here? Tristan: [he sees the number 7 mark on Septimus' hand] Septimus... I knew your brother, Primus. Septimus: Unless you wish t...
Fergus 'Fergie' Colm: You're going to do this for me, or I'm going to clip your nuts, like I clipped your daddy's. Doug MacRay: Don't talk about my father. Fergus 'Fergie' Colm: Son, I knew your daddy. He worked for me for years. Years. Then he wante...
We are all running towards a destination which doesn't exist. On our way, dogs of life keep barking at us where we respond to some and some we throw stones at. Every dog teaches a lesson we are better off without. Every knife stabs a little deeper th...
One time I took my knife and sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of salami. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt and rubbed it on the wound. Now that hog reall...
oxygen Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its home, the soul. So the merciful, noisy machine stands in our house working away in its lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel before the fire, stirring with a stick of i...
Dear Aspiring Writer, you are not ready. Stop. Put that finished story away and start another one. In a month, go back and look at the first story. RE-EDIT it. Then send it to a person you respect in the field who will be hard on you. Pray for many m...
Simon: You're in a dangerous line of work, Jayne. Odds are you'll be under my knife again, often. So I want you to understand one thing very clearly: No matter what you do or say or plot, no matter how you come down on us, I will never, ever harm you...
Mischa: [the second guard tries to reach the front desk but instead reaches Simon's henchman who has replaced the real guard] Front desk. Federal Reserve Guard #2: Yes, call the police, get your ass down here right now! I'm under attack! Mischa: Hey,...
Sgt. James R. 'Fatso' Judson: Are you sore about something? Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: I don't like the way you play the piano. [Fatso laughs] Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: Remember Maggio? Sgt. James R. 'Fatso' Judson: Oh, the wop? Yeah, real tou...
