It didn't look like the sort of place that had its roots in shady places and black market deals, but if there was one thing that every W.W. Hale learned early on, it's that you never really want to know where the money comes from.

[Uncommon Criminals, Ally Carter]

Should peace be sought at any price to end the bloodshed, even if power sharing arrangements fail to uphold basic human rights and democratic principles - or should the objective be a democratic peace that respects human rights - a goal that might prolong the fighting and risk more atrocities in the time that it takes to reach a negotiated ( Read more... )

I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I've caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once ( Read more... )

But there was no point complaining about how horrible their lives were, because nothing could be done. No one was going to wave a magic wand and make the world beautiful again. Nobody could bring back the forests and the fields that had been destroyed because of The Animal Plague, and as time went on, they got used to living behind The Wall in a ( Read more... )

Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth ( Read more... )

A word of friendly advice could have saved him, but dear me, I was too busy watching him unravel to think of it until it was far too late.

[The Amulet of Samarkand, Jonathan Stroud]

"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help ( Read more... )

The common room was packed and noisy. Everyone was eating the food that had been sent up. Hermione, however, stood alone by the door, waiting for them. There was a very embarrassed pause. Then, none of them looking at each other, they all said "Thanks," and hurried off to get plates ( Read more... )

Faced with parts of ourselves that we do not recognize, would like perhaps not to recognize, we deny the kinship, and often lean away from the new and into the old, accentuating the familiar qualities that complement the strange new ones.

[Somewhere I Have Never Travelled: The Hero's Journey, Thomas Van Nortwick]

He was angry. That was part of the reason. But Alex knew it was more than that. Mr. Bray might have given him the excuse, but there was part of him that needed to investigate, to uncover the answers. That part of him had been deliberately cultivated by MI6 and his uncle - Ian Rider. Using him wasn't enough. First, they had turned him into ( Read more... )