Glen Viken > Glen's Quotes

“The Times
2 July 1952
WAS BRITISH BARONESS WORKING FOR THE NAZIS IN PARIS?
By Philip Bing-Wallace
It was alleged that Baroness Freya Saumures (who claimed to be of Swedish descent but is a British subject) was one of the many women that entertained the Gestapo and SS during the occupation of Paris, a jury was told. At the baroness’s trial today, the Old Bailey heard Daniel Merrick-James QC, prosecuting council, astonish the jury by revealing that Baroness Freya Saumures allegedly worked with the Nazis throughout the Nazi occupation of Paris.
There was a photograph of a woman in a headscarf and dark glasses, alongside a tall dark-haired man who had a protective arm around her, his face shielded by his hand. A description beneath the image read: Baroness Saumures with her husband, Baron Ferdinand Saumures, outside the Old Bailey after her acquittal.
Alec could not see her face fully, but the picture of the baron, even partially obscured, certainly looked very like the man lying dead in the Battersea Park Road crypt. Alec read on.
When Mr Merrick-James sat, a clerk of the court handed the judge, Justice Henry Folks, a note. The judge then asked the court to be cleared. Twenty minutes later, the court was reconvened. Justice Folks announced to the jury that the prosecution had dropped all charges and that Lady Saumures was acquitted.
There was no explanation for the acquittal. The jury was dismissed with thanks. Neither Baron nor Baroness Saumures had any comment.
Baron and Baroness Saumures live in West Sussex and are well known to a select group for their musical evenings and events. They are also well known for protecting their privacy.
Alec rummaged on. It was getting close to lunchtime and his head was beginning to ache.”
― Hugo Woolley, The Wasp Trap

“Oo, I like a good cat fight – especially when it doesn’t involve me,’ Oscar said.
‘Shut up!’ Bryony and Raya said simultaneously. A hairline crack formed in the ice between them.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“Tolerance doesn’t mean to accept, believe, understand, agree or ignore. Tolerance means yielding to beliefs that are not your own without judgement or condemnation.”
― C. Toni Graham

“That is a death I will think of often and with great fondness.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood

“Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“He let the light from the upstairs world enter him and fill him. He gasped aloud with the wonder of it.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“to be in the middle distance, and he was not perceptibly”
― Jeffrey Archer, Kane and Abel

“There was nothing to be done except what could be done.”
― David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars

“The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether knowledge will save him or kill him.”
― Robert Penn Warren

“How can two people hate so much without knowing each other?”
― Alan Moore , Batman: The Killing Joke

“Sometimes truths are what we run from, and sometimes they are what we seek.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face.”
― J.K. Franko, Eye for Eye

“I walked past Malison, up Lower Main to Main and across the road. I didn’t need to look to know he was behind me. I entered Royal Wood, went a short way along a path and waited. It was cool and dim beneath the trees. When Malison entered the Wood, I continued eastward. 
I wanted to place his body in hallowed ground. He was born a Mearan. The least I could do was send him to Loric. The distance between us closed until he was on my heels. He chose to come, I told myself, as if that lessened the crime I planned. He chose what I have to offer.
We were almost to the cemetery before he asked where we were going. I answered with another question. “Do you like living in the High Lord’s kitchens?”
He, of course, replied, “No.”
“Well, we’re going to a better place.”
When we reached the edge of the Wood, I pushed aside a branch to see the Temple of Loric and Calec’s cottage. No smoke was coming from the chimney, and I assumed the old man was yet abed. His pony was grazing in the field of graves. The sun hid behind a bank of clouds.
Malison moved beside me. “It’s a graveyard.”
“Are you afraid of ghosts?” I asked.
“My father’s a ghost,” he whispered.
I asked if he wanted to learn how to throw a knife. He said, “Yes,” as I knew he would.  He untucked his shirt, withdrew the knife he had stolen and gave it to me. It was a thick-bladed, single-edged knife, better suited for dicing celery than slitting a young throat. But it would serve my purpose. That I also knew. I’d spent all night projecting how the morning would unfold and, except for indulging in the tea, it had happened as I had imagined. 
Damut kissed her son farewell. Malison followed me of his own free will. Without fear, he placed the instrument of his death into my hand. We were at the appointed place, at the appointed time. The stolen knife was warm from the heat of his body. I had only to use it. Yet I hesitated, and again prayed for Sythene to show me a different path.
“Aren’t you going to show me?” Malison prompted, as if to echo my prayer.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“My crystals call to me. You cannot leave without counting your crystals, the internal voice beckons. No. I retaliate against the thought. Garrison, Bryce, Thornton, and Rigel are gone, counting the crystals will not bring them back.”
― Tricia Copeland, To Be a Fae Queen

“She must feel like Lucifer’s frigid breath is running down the back of her delicate neck.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Death Leaves a Shadow

“Trust me. I haven't been wrong yet.”
― Eoin Colfer

“Matrimony is a serious thing.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“being an artist is more than a job or a skill; it’s a way of walking through the world.” I”
― Anita Diamant, The Boston Girl

“Jackson,”
― Founding Fathers, The United States Constitution

“There is lovemaking that is bad for a person, just as there is eating that is bad. That boysenberry cream pie from the Thrift-E Mart may appear inviting, may, in fact, cause all nine hundred taste buds to carol from the tongue, but in the end, the sugars, the additives, the empty calories clog arteries, disrupt cells, generate fat, and rot teeth. Even potentially nourishing foods can be improperly prepared. There are wrong combinations and improper preparations in sex as well. Yes, one must prepare for a fuck--the way an enlightened priest prepares to celebrate mass, the way a great matador prepares for the ring: with intensification, with purification, with a conscious summoning of sacred power. And even that won't work if the ingredients are poorly matched: oysters are delectable, so are strawberries, but mashed together ... (?!) Every nutritious sexual recipe calls for at least a pinch of love, and the fucks that rate four-star rankings from both gourmets and health-food nuts use cupfuls. Not that sex should be regarded as therapeutic or to be taken for medicinal purposes--only a dullard would hang such a millstone around the nibbled neck of a lay--but to approach sex carelessly, shallowly, with detachment and without warmth is to dine night after night in erotic greasy spoons. In time, one's palate will become insensitive, one will suffer (without knowing it) emotional malnutrition, the skin of the soul will fester with scurvy, the teeth of the heart will decay. Neither duration nor proclamation of commitment is necessarily the measure--there are ephemeral explosions of passion between strangers that make more erotic sense than lengthy marriages, there are one-night stands in Jersey City more glorious than six-months affairs in Paris--but finally there is a commitment, however brief; a purity, however threatened; a vulnerability, however concealed; a generosity of spirit, however marbled with need; and honest caring, however singled by lust, that must be present if couplings are to be salubrious and not slow poison.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“I intended lilies, said the magician. but in the clutches of a desparate desire to do something extraordinary, I called down a greater magic and inadvertently caused you a profound harm. I will now try to undo what I have done.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Magician's Elephant