“You do whatever you can to get to Chuck . If he doesn’t show by five , find a safe place . Find more like you, Fred, and get out.”
“Would you leave me behind?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not telling the truth. I can hear it in your voice . We’re both going to get to Chuck. You have to think of the positive, of the light, or the dark takes over.”
You have to prepare for the worst, Arlys thought, the incomprehensible worst or you could die in the dark.
I leave the books behind and go to my room. I cry, as if Chase recently died and isn’t brooding in the room next door. I almost wish he’d die. Seeing him lose his mind feels more painful. At least if he died, I wouldn’t have to be teased by seeing his physical body, because the Chase I adore doesn’t exist anymore. His body is a house that is falling apart, and his mind is a prisoner in the upstairs attic. I have no hope. Still, sometimes, a glimpse of his malnourished body makes me want to violently shake him until the chains holding his mind captive fall free. As if that would work.
–Manic Kingdom: A True Story of Breakdown and Breakthrough by Dr. Erin Stair
The storyteller’s fingertip touched the red symbol stamped on one corner. “This glyph means fate, or chance. The Laughing Man’s actions are so unexpected, and their effect is so profound, that his victims think it is a bitter joke. He destroys everything—even trust and hope. But there is one power that can counteract his.” She took out another card: a circle of people, arm in arm. “Fellowship,” she said.
That day, suns’ dawning burnished my perception for the first time in my life, and I knew how long a journey faced me, for it was like squinting at a firefly’s faint glow through darkened crysglass. My knowledge of scroll lore allowed me to rejoice in many previously unimaginable similes and metaphors. Yet also, I knew a miracle. There was light in my darkness. This was my introduction to the joys and frustrations of that priceless gift called hope.
Quote 2:
It is hard to wish for what one has never known. Wishes are free, not so?
Auli considered her statement. Are they, noble Qualiana? For wishes rely upon hope, and hope must perforce rest one paw within reality. Some wishes carry a great price, o Dragoness; a price that would crush a soul.
Quote 3:
Hope is that emotion most riven with glorious terror, a unique, intensely personal expression of suffering. May hope’s promise never play you false.
The Dragon Librarian (Scrolls of Fire Book 1) by Marc Secchia
There is something beautiful about broken glass and the tiny visions it creates. For instance, the glass from that shattered beer bottle told me there was a twenty-dollar bill hidden in the center of an ant pile. I buried my arms elbow-deep in the ants but all I found was a note that said Some people will believe in anything. And I laughed.
–The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
After the 2008 election, people all over the United States were LITERALLY dancing in the streets.
The AP Archives
In Harlem, thousands of people, black and white, took to the streets, some dancing, others crying tears of joy…
In Miami, honking horns and fireworks greeted news of Obama’s victory. In Seattle, people poured out of bars, restaurants and houses in the streets near historic Pike Place Market…
But the biggest celebration was in Chicago, Obama’s hometown, where several hundred thousand people jammed the streets as the president-elect addressed the nation from Grant Park.
The downtown park — where police fought anti-war protesters during the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention — was transformed by white tents and a stage lined with American flags and hung with red, white and blue bunting.
After the 2016 election, people are violently confronting one another in the street, hate crimes are on the rise and people are expressing increasing levels of fear.
Pulling from news reports, social media, and direct submissions at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, the SPLC had counted 201 incidents of election-related harassment and intimidation across the country as of Friday, November 11 at 5pm. These range from anti-Black to anti-woman to anti-LGBT incidents. There were many examples of vandalism and epithets directed at individuals. Often times, types of harassment overlapped and many incidents, though not all, involved direct references to the Trump campaign. Every incident could not be immediately independently verified.
A black woman from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, also tells how she was threatened with a gun when pumping gas. Four white men pulled up and started talking about how they wouldn’t have to deal with black people much longer, she wrote on Facebook. “How scared are you, you black b****h?” she said one of the men shouted at her.
Posts show Illinois college students wearing blackface and posing in front a confederate flag while one man showed his vandalized car with a racial slur painted across the windshield. In classrooms, white students, some as young as kindergarten age, have been reportedly chanting “cotton picker” and “heil Hitler” at black students while Muslim women have shown concern for wearing a hijab in public.
“There is a stillness that comes across the earth sometimes, at dawn, or just before a storm, a stillness as if the entire world lies stunned by possibility.”
“I think that for both children and parents, Santa Claus represents a welcome distraction from the harsher realities of life that many of us have to deal with. Children can tell Santa Claus their hopes and dreams the same way they might wish upon a star. And most parents wouldn’t ever want to dash those dreams or put limits on their children’s innocent optimism. Even in tough economic times—perhaps especially then—Christmas and Santa Claus represent a shining ray of hope. Sure, Santa might not give a child everything he or she wants, and honestly, I don’t think that many children truly expect that. To their little minds, though, it can’t hurt to at least ask, right?”
“If you think about it, there are hundreds of little ways and chances for us to be that shining light of hope for one another, especially during tough times. We can give money, sure, but we can also give our time, love, attention, creativity, or even just a shoulder of support. If we all looked for and acted on these opportunities, even on days that aren’t Christmas, well…imagine the kind of world that would be.”