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Quote by Nick Tosches

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King of the Jews

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Nick Tosches
Nick Tosches

Nick Tosches is an American journalist renowned for his in-depth reporting on music, culture, and crime. His writing style is distinctive, often using vivid and detailed descriptions to portray complex characters and events. more

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“Even in the wake of tragedy, we could not have felt more amazed had we been visited by an angel that Christmas morning. When the angel met the shepherds in Bethlehem, the shepherds "were sore afraid." When I was a child, that phrase had always seemed odd to me...but now that I have thought more deeply about these words of scripture, it seems to me that the angels must have been more like our Christmas weasel: glorious in purity, strength, and holy perfection.”

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“Squeak scrambled down his body to hers and disappeared inside her gown again. She felt him squirm around between her breasts, finding a comfy spot, and then glanced up to see Payton walking beside them, staring wide-eyed at where the stoat had disappeared. Catching her eye he grinned. "I did wonder where ye kept him hidden all the time. Now I ken." "Aye, now ye ken," the Wolf growled with irritation. "So ye can stop ogling the lass. She's betrothed to another." Claray turned to him with surprise. "Nay. I'm no'. Remember? I told ye. I was betrothed to Bryson MacDonald, but he and his parents were murdered while I was still a bairn. I ha'e no betrothed now." "See. She has no' betrothed now," Payton said cheerfully, and then confided to her, "Fortunately enough, m'lady, neither ha'e I. Mayhap we should get to know each other better and see if we would no' suit each other.”

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“She wasn't surprised when Lovey gave up his spot under a tree where he'd been napping to rush to accompany her. Neither was she surprised to see Squeak sitting up on the base of his neck, his little paws clutching at the wolf's fur to keep his seat as he looked around like a little emperor. The stoat didn't like the jostling he suffered when Claray constantly bent over and straightened while weeding the gardens, and had taken to climbing out of her dress and scrambling over to climb onto Lovey to sleep while she worked. Much to her surprise, the wolf was tolerating it.”

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“Harvey wanted to dive into his ugliness; he intentionally reached for those long hours of soul desolation. He waited. He paced, ready to face down whatever was to come. Paulette’s, though, busted loose uninvited, catching her completely off guard when she was already hurting, feeling crumbled, and vulnerable. When all she really wanted was some quiet gentle feelings for a change. A few flowers. Some sunshine. A way out of all that inner torment for even just a moment. Had she had brought only nastiness out of her childhood? Hadn’t there been anything sweet she could remember instead? As she wandered back to her cabin, searching for even a single fond memory, light faded everywhere around her. Aw, c’mon, she thought. Everyone had some happy childhood memories. She had to have at least a couple. How about the coloring? Children enjoy coloring; how about that? She’d spent hours and days on her art. It was as close as she could remember to having her Mamma stand over her with anything even remotely resembling approval. Her books and comics could be tales of Jesus, but coloring books had to be Old Testament because “No child’s impure hand could touch a crayon to the sweet beautiful face of our beloved Lord and savior Christ Jesus.” So the little girl had scrunched down over Daniel in the lion’s den. Samson screaming in rage, pain, and terror as they blinded him with daggers and torches. The redder she made the flowing wounds of a man of God shot full of arrows, the richer the flames around those three men being burned in an iron box, the longer Mamma let her stay out of that closet. - From “The Gardens of Ailana”

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Book:The Gardens of Ailana
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“Paulette awoke with an ache in her heart, a grinding in her gut. If there really was a God, why would He have let anyone put a child through that? … She had survived, but at what cost? She was an itinerant professor, living in her head, not her heart. She had broken away, but abandoned her sister; hadn’t contacted her family in years. Paulette wondered what she was looking for in these weekend workshops. Absolution wasn’t on the curriculum. What could she possibly hope to accomplish? To be a healer you need to connect with people. You need to touch, and let yourself be touched. And not just with your hands. Watching these nurses, she envied them their friendships. Here were real buddies truly caring about each other, taking jabs, sharing private jokes and fears. She’d never had that. Even witnessing it from across a room, or a yard, only made her feel that much more lonely. She got along with people well enough. Agreed with whatever they said, watched their pets, helped them move from one apartment to another. But no one really knew her. Paulette had never been flush with self-confidence. People took that as humility, but humility isn’t painful and crippling. She hadn’t yet learned that humble and self-destructive aren’t the same thing at all. They’re not even on the same team. And now here she was at a workshop for healers. Had she come here to heal; or to be healed? It was one of those warm, charming days that write poems about themselves, and then settle these very softly into your mind. Paulette sensed what felt like a rain-laced breeze stirring her soul; sodden, and yet beautiful; laden with both the dismal, and the promising. - From “The Gardens of Ailana”, a fiction largely based around adults still traumatized by having been abused as children, in the name of their parents’ religion.”

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Book:The Gardens of Ailana
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