Autumn

“There was a space inside me, cupped and still. It was small as cupped hands; it was large as the sky. It was untouched and it was touch itself. It was empty and it was full. I held love there, like a treasure. I held my own name.”
― Erin Bow, The Scorpion Rules

“We’ll imprison one another. We’ll get used to it. We’ll turn into moles, into bats, into scorpions.”
“We won’t even get out. We’ll come to love the silence and the darkness.”
“We won’t get out. We’ll stay here forever. We can’t live without eternity.”
“We won’t forget one another.”
“We’ll imprison our adversaries up above; we’ll banish them to the earth. And we’ll forget about them.”
“‘When they’re pulled from hell, they’ll be thrown into the river of life.’”
“They’ll be unhappy up above. They’ll cry: ‘Give us a little darkness. We were together with you!”’
“And we’ll say to them: ‘Find darkness for yourself. Create it yourself!”’
“How unhappy they’ll be! They’ll cry: ‘Release us! Let us come down below!’ And we’ll say to them: ‘That’s your own fault. You didn’t believe us.’”
“That’s your own fault. Remain up above.”
“Occasionally I’ll go up to the earth.”
“You always rebel.”
“You’ll be a mole-dervish. You’ll make sure that we never begin to see, that we never wander out of our dark world”
― Meša Selimović, Death and the Dervish

“The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature, then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.”
― Ram Dass, Be Here Now

“Now more than ever she struck him like a fairy in a tale—a haunted one with shadowed eyes and a sting like a scorpion.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone