Stake Out Quotes & Sayings

Singling out "women's fiction" for genre derision never fails to piss me off. Somehow worse when women do it. Case in pt: Editor says crowd-sourcing editorial for romance & erotica not bad idea b/c "no great artistry at stake" Yes, genre fiction not high art. But it's a craft we take seriously, writing for love of storytelling, not writing whatever sells. — Kelley Armstrong

On every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as — Thomas Paine

It was - unthinkable: three of the most powerful men in Europe - the world - the Pope, the Emperor Maximilian, and Albrecht - all wanted Luther tied to a stake and burned. Yet each time they reached out to light the fire, Luther snatched the torch from their hands and set fire to their own robes. How was a mere monk able to do this? Because he was protected by the Elector Frederick, who declined to hand over one of his Saxon subjects to other authority. What did Frederick have to gain by shielding Luther? — Christopher Buckley

Amazingly, Jackal staggered to his feet, holding his stomach with one hand, the stake still clenched in the other. "You're a freaking insane 'person', you know that?" he snarled at Sarren, who calmly picked up a pipe and advanced on him. "So the whole time you were sitting on that research, you decided, 'hey, instead of curing Rabidism, I'm just going to make a superplague and wipe everything out! That'll show them!'" He sneered, curling his lips back in a painful grimance. "But you'll have to pardon me for not jumping on your little DESTROY THE WORLD train. I happen to like this world, thanks. — Julie Kagawa

I cherish the fantasy, even the hope, of adventures in other realms to come. But how can we choke out that most precious of all gifts, life, with the rope of religion around our necks? It chokes out freedom with dogma. It pinions us to the stake of superstition. — Gerry Spence

The name says it all. That's where Dad (Hades) tries out his new punishment ideas, but he says the traditional ones still work best: the lava flows, the minefields full of exploding surprises, burning at the stake, running naked through cactus patches ... You name it, we've got it here - Nico di Angelo — Rick Riordan

But, Foley, my lad, it isn't beauty per se that makes wire-walking Zen or makes it art. It's the extremity of the risks that are assumed by each exquisite gesture, each impossible somersault. Here's a more extreme version of the dangerous beauty bullfights used to possess before the matadors became preening cowards and stacked the desk against the beasts. We only rise above mediocrity when there's something at stake, and I mean something more consequential than money or reputation. The great value of a high-wire act is that it has no practical value. The fact that so much skill and effort and courage can be directed into something so ostensibly useless is what makes it useful. That's what affords it the power to lift us out of context and carry us-elsewhere. — Tom Robbins

The barn was dark from the storm, and we couldn't find the harness, which no one had used in years. Old Jake, who had sprained his good foot falling off a horse and was hobbling around worse than ever, started getting panicky at the idea of the dam giving out and washing away the cattle, but I told him to hush his mouth. We all knew what was at stake, and if we were going to save the ranch, we needed clear heads. — Jeannette Walls

The only dangerous scene is when James Cromwell put a stake in my chest. But other than that, it turned out to be quite a punch. I didn't think much of it. — Andre Braugher

Gregori leaned forward. "Can you believe it? We're all a bunch of mutants! Just like the Ninja Turtles."
Angus blinked. "We - we're like ... turtles?"
Gregori burst out lauging.
Ian shook his head, grinning.
Connor snorted. "Nay. We have vampire DNA. No turtles. — Kerrelyn Sparks

They learned that Catholics burned Protestants at the stake, and it came as a shock if they ever found out that Protestants did the same to Catholics whenever they got the chance. — Ken Follett

I have heard stories from the depths of human lives where men and women were wrestling with the elemental problems of misery and sin--stories that put upon a man's heart a burden of vicarious sorrow, even though he does but listen to them. Here was real human need crying out after the living God revealed in Christ. Consider all the multitudes of men who so need God, and then think of Christian churches making of themselves a cockpit of controversy when there is not a single thing at stake in the business. So much of it does not matter! And there is one thing that does matter--more than anything else in all the world--that men in their personal lives and in their social relationships should know Jesus Christ. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

I didn't think things through, you know. I just rushed out and rescued you. I caused you great suffering." Her large green eyes fastened on his face. Storm clouds gathered instantly when she felt his faint, mocking amusement echoing through her mind. "What? What's so funny? Some idiot tried to put a stake through your heart, and he didn't even hit the darn thing!"
For which I am grateful. And I am even more grateful that you rescued me. I did not like being imprisoned and in such pain.
"I guess I'm glad I rescued you, too, but the truth is, Jacques, I have watched you healing faster than is possible. You're even more dangerous now. You are, aren't you?"
Never to you, he denied. — Christine Feehan

We all faced painful ethical challenges before we even knew how to spell our names. There were tough choices. Tradeoffs. Confusing signals regarding how to live one's life. And here we are now, today, still struggling. Still trying to sort things out. Still trying to work our way through life effectively. About the only thing that has changed is the scope of the problem. There's more at stake now. And we're in a position, as grownups, to do a lot more-good or bad-for ourselves, our organization, our world. But we still must wrestle with our imperfect ethics. — Price Pritchett

I don't see the country audience looking forward to an out male singer. There are rumors about people but no one ever confirms because there is a tremendous amount of money at stake. — Callie Khouri

Democracy is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs. What is at stake in democratic politics is whether ordinary men and women can recognize that their concerns are best protected and cultivated under a regime whose actions are governed by principles of commonality, equality, and fairness, a regime in which taking part in politics becomes a way of staking out and sharing in a common life and its forms of self-fulfillment. Democracy is not about bowling together but about managing together those powers that immediately and significantly affect the lives and circumstances of others and one's self. — Sheldon S. Wolin

I'm trying mostly to ask questions. And not just trying to stake out a position on something, but also trying to define the stuff we agree on. I'm having battles with comment posters trying to insert a little sense of order so it's not just a long pissing match between the edges, which is what I think a lot of the blogosphere is tending to do. — Andrew Revkin

Antonia: I meant to tell you, and then forgot: call a spade a spade, and say 'arse', 'prick', 'cunt', and 'fuck', otherwise the only people who'll understand you will be the scholars of the Capranica think tank - you and your 'rose in the ring', your 'obelisk in the arsenal' your 'leek in the garden', your 'bolt in the door', your 'key in the lock', your 'pestle in the mortar', your 'nightingale in the nest', your 'sapling in the ditch', your 'syringe in the flap-valve', your 'sword in the sheath'; and the same goes for 'the stake', 'the crozier', the parsnip', 'the little monkey', 'his thingummy', 'her thingummy', 'the apples', 'the leaves of the mass book', 'that thingy', 'the graceful whatyamacallit', 'that whatsit', 'that doings', 'that latest news', 'the handle', 'the dart', 'that carrot', 'the root' and all the other shit that comes out of your mouth, but there you go, pussyfooting around. Let your yes mean yes, your no, no, and otherwise, just shut it. — Pietro Aretino

Sixteen vampires you took out yourself with nothing but a stake and your cleavage? Makes me ashamed of my kind, it does. — Jeaniene Frost

There really is confusion out there. Finding common ground sounds good. But the reality is, a lot of people on all sides have a stake in the fight. — Charles Haynes

I was nervous and confident at the same, nervous about going out there in front of all those people, with so much at stake, and confident that I was going to go out there and win. — Althea Gibson

Was I still myself? If so, who was I? I wasn't really interested in knowing that. It had no sort of importance for me anymore. Some moorings had broken, some taboos had fallen, and a world of spells and anathemas was springing up from their ruins. What was terrifying about this whole affair was the ease with which I passed from one universe to another without feeling out of place. Such a smooth transition. I had gone to bed a docile, courteous boy, and I'd awakened with an inextinguishable rage lodged in my very flesh. I carried my hatred like a second nature; it was my armor and my shirt of Nessus, my pedestal and my stake; it was all that remained to me in this false, unjust, arid, and cruel life. — Yasmina Khadra

That happens a lot when people become parents, too. There's just so much at stake suddenly, and you're also witness to the total miracle of birth, and stuff like that. So I started reading tons of religious texts and checking everything out. One of the things I wanted to make sure of on the record is that it still has a "searching" vibe rather than an authoritative vibe. — Mason Jennings

BAIT GOAT
There is a distance where magnets pull, we feel, having held them back. Likewise there is a distance where words attract. Set one out like a bait goat and wait and seven others will approach. But watch out: roving packs can pull your word away. You find your stake yanked and some rough bunch to thank. — Kay Ryan

I had helped him understand that he had lost sight of his personal boundaries. It is natural, I had told him, that one should respond adversely to an attack on one's central core - after all, in that situation one's very survival is at stake. But I had pointed out that Carlos had stretched his personal boundaries to encompass his work and, consequently, he responded to a mild criticism of any aspect of his work as though it were a mortal attack on his central being, a threat to his very survival. I had urged Carlos to differentiate between his core self and other, peripheral attributes or activities. Then he had to "disidentify" with the non-core parts: they might represent what he liked, or did, or valued - but they were not him, not his central being. — Irvin D. Yalom

Why?" I asked softly. The word was carried away on the wind, but he heard.
"Because I want you."
I gave him a sad smile, wondering if we'd meet again in the land of the dead. "Wrong answer," I told him.
I let go.
[ ... ]
I looked him in the eye. "I will always love you."
Then I plunged the stake into his chest.
It wasn't as precise a blow as I would have liked, not with the skilled way he was dodging. I struggled to get the stake in deep enough to his heart, unsure if I could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one.
"That's what I was supposed to say ... " he gasped out. — Richelle Mead

back in the middle ages
they burned unruly women at the stake
and out of the ashes of their bones and flesh
rose the Enlightenment and Reason fresh
and the white men declared
there's no such thing as witches
they're just crazy psycho-bitches
but we certainly can't let them run free
lock 'em up and throw away the key
yeah they said: lock 'em up and throw away the key

cause there's nothing scarier than a woman mad and/or
aware of her own magic
tragic how much violence is done
in the name of science
to ensure our silence

in Victorian times they located suffering in our uterus
in the blood in the soft internal organs
took our pain our righteous rage
they called it 'hysteria'
and then Dr. Freud ignored women's horror stories
herstories of abuse and rape and
took a justified hatred of the penis and called it
envy (he sold more books that way) — Leah Harris

I think at the beginning of one's writing life, negative reviews are what one does to get attention and stake out your territory. It's also often a mistake. — Darryl Pinckney

When we were almost to the other campus, I felt the weird nausea hit me. I called a warning to Christian, just as a Strigoi grabbed him. But Christian was fast. Flames wreathed the Strigoi's head. He screamed and released Christian, trying frantically to put the flames out. The Strigoi never saw me coming with the stake. The whole thing took under a minute. Christian and I exchanged looks.
Yeah. We were badasses. — Richelle Mead

For a second i was just a kid, a kid who had lived all his life in the same tiny town. Just a child, because i knew i would have to live a lot more, suffer a lot more, to ever understand the searing agony in Edwards eyes. He raised his hands as if to wipe sweat from his forehead, but his fingers scraped against his face like they were going to rip his granite skin right off. His black eyes burned in their sockets, out of focus, or seeing things that weren't there. His mouth opened like he was going to scream, but nothing came out. This was the face of a man who would if he were burning at the stake. — Stephenie Meyer

For the undocumented immigrants, the big priority is just to get out from the shadows, be able to get a driver's license, buy an airplane ticket and stop worrying about sudden deportation. But for the country as a whole, it's crucial that everybody have a citizen's stake in the nation's welfare. — Gail Collins

Out of the way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency! This is no occassion for sport- there is lace at stake! (Ms. Pole) — Elizabeth Gaskell

Lynetta bared her wickedly sharp pointed canines and hissed. Her long black hair hung wildly to her hips, tangled and teased by the breeze. She was petite like me but as strong as a male body builder. Her grip on Dominic remained iron tight. Her soul-less black eyes, vacant and without a care, really ate away at my heart. I surveyed the yard for any kind of weapon I could use against the vampire. My heart surged when I spied a colorful whirligig attached to a wooden stake embedded in my mother's pampered pansy garden nearby. Without a second's hesitation, I dashed for it and yanked it out. Running at the vampire, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "Death to the blood sucky vampire!" which gave me some courage. It wasn't every day I had to beat one vampire off of another when they didn't even really exist! — Terry Spear

Frowning, Garrett ran a hand through his hair. "How can you stay the head of the Stake-Out team? Isn't that a conflict of interest?"
"You expect me to stake myself?" Sean growled. — Kerrelyn Sparks

White looked at him and said, "What are you thinking about?" He said, "The contradiction between rule one and the rest of it. We mustn't burn the Iranian. Which means we can't go anywhere near the messenger. We can't even stake out a location the messenger leads us to. Because we don't know the messenger exists. Not unless we got an inside whisper." "That's an impediment," Waterman said. "Not a contradiction. We'll find a way to work around it. They need that guy. — Lee Child

Your dad would stake me out to freeze if I let you fall and hurt yourself." He offered me his arm, which I latched onto gratefully.
"He wouldn't stake you out," I panted as we forced our way through the hard top layer of snow that was almost thigh deep. "He'd just shoot you."
"Well that's a comfort. — P.C. Cast

I'm out there arguing the Labor case. I will do it anywhere and everywhere that I can. I do it within various communities across Australia where I am able to make a positive contribution. And let me tell you, my voice won't be silenced in the public debate because the issue at stake for Australia are so stark. — Kevin Rudd

His words at the stake were characteristic of the man. Addressing Bishop Ridley, who was to die with him, he said, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out." And by God's grace it never shall be. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Oil depletion and climate change will create an entirely new context in which political struggles will be played out. Within that context, it is not just freedom, democracy, and equality that are at stake, but the survival of billions of humans and of whole ecosystems. — Richard Heinberg

I know insecurity is unattractive. I hate this side of me.
I don't really hate this side of me.
I think other people will hate it so I hate it preemptively to ward off the unbearable feeling of having my shortcomings pointed out by other people. I want to get there before anyone else and stake my claim on hating my jealousy so no one else can. — Merri Lisa Johnson

I will be the first. As of tonight, I renounce my citizenship in the United Nations, and my allegiance to the Shelter state. From now on I will be a citizen--a citizen of no country but that bounded by the limits of my own mind. I do not know what those limits are, and I may never find out, but I shall devote my life to searching for them, in whatever manner seems good to me, and in no other manner whatsoever.
You must do the same. Tear up your registration cards. If you are asked your serial number, tell them you never had one. Never fill in another form. Stay above ground when the siren sounds. Stake out plots; grow crops; abandon the corridors. Do not commit any violence; simply refuse to obey. Nobody has the. right to compel you, as non-citizens. Passivity is the key. Renounce, resist, deny! — James Blish

Bhutto acknowledged the difficulties faced by women who were breaking with tradition and taking leading roles in public life. She deftly managed to refer both to the challenges I had encountered during my White House tenure and to her own situation. "Women who take on tough issues and stake out new territory are often on the receiving end of ignorance," she concluded. In a private meeting with the Prime Minister, we talked about her upcoming visit to Washington in April, and I spent time with her husband and their children. Because I had heard that their marriage was arranged, I found their interaction particularly interesting. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

For what it's worth, I'll share my intentions. You and me, we aren't practice for the real thing. It isn't that too much is at stake with family and friends, it's because I love you. You're funny, beautiful and you care about people. I like the way you look at me, especially when you think I don't notice it. I like that we have history and our kids will have a big family and share that history because there was never a time when their Mom and Dad weren't together. If you were a terrible lay, I might have second thoughts but you and I are dynamite together. I intend to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you. If that freaks you out, tough, because now we've started this, there's no goin' back. — Kristen Ashley

In the same way, I saw our General once approach the table in a stolid, important manner. A lacquey darted to offer him a chair, but the General did not even notice him. Slowly he took out his money bags, and slowly extracted 300 francs in gold, which he staked on the black, and won. Yet he did not take up his winnings - he left them there on the table. Again the black turned up, and again he did not gather in what he had won; and when, in the third round, the RED turned up he lost, at a stroke, 1200 francs. Yet even then he rose with a smile, and thus preserved his reputation; yet I knew that his money bags must be chafing his heart, as well as that, had the stake been twice or thrice as much again, he would still have restrained himself from venting his disappointment. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If you're going to immerse yourself in a project for three years, why not stake out a chunk of the world that is completely alien to you and go traveling? — Richard Powers

I think the reason I wrote screenplays for nearly a decade was because it was my territory. I could stake that out. — Nick Harkaway

You stake a guy out on an anthill in the desert - see? He's facing upward, and you put honey all over his balls and pecker, and you cut off his eyelids so he has to stare at the sun till he dies." So it goes. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Then viselike fingers clenched my throat, the stake was wrenched from my hand, and a sharp stabbing pain shot up my right thigh as I landed on the ground with a thump that knocked the breath out of me.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, once I landed, something hard and heavy - his knee, I thought - hit me right in the sternum. You know, just in case there was one last breath left in my lungs. The point of the stake scraped the sensitive skin just under my chin. I looked up, wheezing, into Archer's face. — Rachel Hawkins

Geez, where's the fire? Something happen at school? Another failed run-in with Baseball Stud?"
Peyton choked and sputtered beside me, but Faith continued despite her distress. "I already told you what you have to do. Find out whichever locker is his, stake it out, and when that Diamond Doll floozie leaves his side, offer to be his bat girl instead."
She giggled as she said it, wiggling her eyebrows for innuendo, and Peyton's face blazed five shades of red. I couldn't wipe the smile from my face if someone paid me to.
As Peyton's mouth opened and closed like a fish, I leaned close to her ear, inhaling the intoxicating scent of sunflowers, and murmured, "I'd love it if you did that. — Rachel Harris

My soul is ten thousand miles wide and extremely invisibly deep. It is the same size as the sea, and you cannot, you cannot cram it into beer cans and fingernails and stake it out in lots and own it. It will drown you all and never even notice. — Ursula K. Le Guin

For years we have been counseled to have on hand a year's supply of food. Yet there are some today who will not start storing until the Church comes out with a detailed monthly home storage program. Now suppose that never happens. We still cannot say we have not been told. Should the Lord decide at this time to cleanse the Church- and the need for that cleansing seems to be increasing- a famine in this land of one year's duration could wipe out a large percentage of slothful members, including some ward and stake officers. Yet we cannot say we have not been warned. — Ezra Taft Benson

If all the world spoke, acted, or kept silence with intent to deceive,
if dearest interests were at stake, and dearest lives in peril,
if no one should ever know of her truth or her falsehood to measure out their honour or contempt for her by, straight alone where she stood, in the presence of God, she prayed that she might have strength to speak and act the truth for evermore. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Since when do you wear cologne to learn math? Oh, my son is growing up right in front of my very eyes. Maybe I should get out the video camera.

Maybe you should tie me to a stake, douse me in kerosene, and torch me right on our front lawn.

I won't need any kerosene, Steven - I'm sure the cologne will go up pretty fast!

Ha-ha, Mom. — Jordan Sonnenblick

Well he should get over himself. He tried to get me burned at the stake in Brit History yesterday. Here I am minding my own business like a good little girl, and out of the blue Tucker raises his hand and accuses me of being a witch"
"sounds like something Tucker would do" admits wendy.
"Everybody had to vote on it. I barely escaped with my nuns life. Obviously I'll have to return the favour. — Cynthia Hand

One, something emotional has to be at stake. There has to be something important for me that I'm writing about. And then two, I have to have a formal idea. Something has to be being worked out in poetry. — Edward Hirsch

We claim no glory. If the tempest rolls
About us we have fear, and then
Having so small a stake grow bold again.
We know not definitely even this
But 'cause some vague half knowing half doth miss
Our consciousness and leaves us feeling
That somehow all is well, that sober, reeling
From the last carouse, or in what measure
Of so called right or so damned wrong our leisure
Runs out uncounted sand beneath the sun,
That, spite your carping, still the thing is done
With some deep sanction, that, we know not how,
Sans thought gives us this feeling; you allow
That this not need we know our every thought
Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought
Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit,
Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit
And serve our jape's turn for a night or two. — Ezra Pound

I do believe that Instagram has put a stake in the ground and we're growing more quickly than anyone. Is there something in there we could do to make it a multi-billion dollar business? I think we can figure out something along the way. — Kevin Systrom

We've got to deal with the fact that the church has been violently prejudiced against gay people. We've murdered them; we've burned them at the stake; we've run them out of town for something over which they have no control. And that's immoral. — John Shelby Spong

The task of science is to stake out the limits of the knowable, and to center consciousness within them. — Rudolf Virchow

Garrett ran a hand through his hair. "How can you stay the head of the Stake-Out team? Isn't that a conflict of interest?"
"You expect me to stake myself?" Sean growled.
"I've got a nice, big one you can borrow," Gregori suggested. — Kerrelyn Sparks

But Amanda ... " Jadina said, looking past Maylin at the young Fate. "She doesn't ask for anything. She doesn't even try to read the future, it's just there. She ends up blurting things out. Starts talking about the car accident you're going to have in three years, or your baby boy dying in child birth in a few months, or your grandmother's funeral next year. Thing's you can't change even if you know about them. Things you're happier not knowing about. People go through life, happily oblivious. If you start telling them all the horrible things that are coming, they get upset. When those horrible things start coming true, they get scared and blame you. They say you caused it. Label you witch. Even burn you at the stake. She's safer in there. — Crissy Moss

Most Wicked Words!-Forbear to Speak Them Out

Most wicked words!-forbear to speak them out.
Utter them not again; blaspheme no more
Against our love with maxims learned from Doubt:
Lest Death should get his foot inside the door.
We are surrounded by a hundred foes;
And he that at your bidding joins our feast,
I stake my heart upon it, is one of those,
Nor in their councils does he sit the least.
Hark not his whisper: he is Time's ally,
Kinsman to Death, and leman of Despair:
Believe that I shall love you till I die;
Believe; and thrust him forth; and arm the stair;
And top the walls with spikes and splintered glass
That he pass gutted should again he pass. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

This is all-out, give-no-mercy warfare. The survival of civilization is at stake. What do we do now? All eyes turned toward Meina Gladstone. — Anonymous

No, no, no. This ain't right. I finally find a woman who'll actually let me into her place and you bring her home for you? Oh, please tell me you brought her home for you and not for me. You didn't pimp me out again, Wulf, did you? I swear I'll stake you in your sleep if you did. (Chris) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The whole campfire idea freaked Piper out. It made her think of that huge purple bonfire in the dreams, and her father tied to a stake.
What she got instead was almost as terrifying: a sing-along. — Rick Riordan

I have more enemies than I deserve," I said. "I am fighting a losing battle, me against the world. The next century is at stake. Time is running out and my optimism is sorely strained."
"Yeah?" he said. "I was young once too. — Felix Gilman

When new artists come out and they're not being cosigned or some company doesn't have a stake in it, or someone's not getting paid under the table to produce the whole record or bring it to video, the artist really suffers. — Pharoahe Monch

My stupidity gave its blessing to succouring nature, on her knees before God.
What I am (my drunken laughter and happiness) is nonetheless at stake, handed over to chance, thrown out into the night, chased away like a dog.
The wind of truth responded like a slap to piety's extended cheek.
The heart is human to the extent that it rebels (this means: to be a man is 'not to bow down before the law').
A poet doesn't justify - he doesn't accept - nature completely. True poetry is outside laws. But poetry ultimately accepts poetry.
When to accept poetry changes it into its opposite (it becomes the mediator of an acceptance!) I hold back the leap in which I would exceed the universe, I justify the given world, I content myself with it — Georges Bataille

Courage is called for on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, even when there's nothing urgent at stake. It is up to us to create our lives consistent with who we know ourselves to be - making what's at stake that which we say is at stake. It's the stand we take on ourselves. That stand then becomes who we are. Saying that something is at stake is always a purely existential act. This business about freedom, this business about power, is really a product of a place to stand - not something that is out in front of us, that we're working on or measuring ourselves against. When we live consistent with what we say, we are being true to ourselves. — Nancy Zapolski

She yanked open her shoulder bag and pulled out a stake. Boy Scouts and vampire slayers should always be prepared. — Christopher Golden

Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers whom you know nothing about, and having those strangers work on your child's mind, out of your sight, for a period of twelve years? Could there be a more radical idea than that? Back in Colonial days in America, if you proposed that kind of idea, they'd burn you at the stake, you mad person! It's a mad idea! — John Taylor Gatto

A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to the sea with the-surely not always strong-hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on the shoreline of the heart. In this way, too, poems are en route: they are headed towards. Toward what? Toward something open, inhabitable, an approachable you, perhaps, an approachable reality. Such realities are, I think, at stake in a poem. — Paul Celan

Or consider a story in the Jewish Talmud left out of the Book of Genesis. (It is in doubtful accord with the account of the apple, the Tree of Knowledge, the Fall, and the expulsion from Eden.) In The Garden, God tells Eve and Adam that He has intentionally left the Universe unfinished. It is the responsibility of humans, over countless generations, to participate with God in a "glorious" experiment - the "completing of the Creation."
The burden of such a responsibility is heavy, especially on so weak and imperfect a species as ours, one with so unhappy a history. Nothing remotely like "completion" can be attempted without vastly more knowledge than we have today. But, perhaps, if our very existence is at stake, we will find ourselves able to rise to this supreme challenge. — Carl Sagan

The news, when it leaked out, caused outrage and horror in Rome. The Republic was never so dangerous as when it believed that its security was at stake. The Romans rarely went to war, not even against the most negligible foe, without somehow first convincing themselves that their preemptive strikes were defensive in nature. — Tom Holland

At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it. I laid down the largest stake allowe-four thousand gulden-and lost it. Then, getting hot, I pulled out all I had left, staked it on the same number, and lost again, after which I walked away from the table as though I were stunned. I could not even grasp what had happened to me. — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Iraq is the central battleground in the war on terror. The terrorists certainly know what is at stake, which is why they are pulling out all the stops to derail our efforts there. They know that a free and democratic Iraq is a serious blow to their interests. — Elizabeth Dole

The real desk isn't one with four legs and a filing cabinet. It's the space of time that you stake out every day and the will with which you defend it. — Josh Ritter

The Rabia Balkhi, registered to Captain Eric Khan out of Pallas, was still just goods and people heading into the frontier to stake a claim. Fewer horses, maybe, but more fusion reactors. — James S.A. Corey

Momma was with the pony last night. Lily and me have him in the mornings, and we give him a wash with the shammy cloths and a soapy bucket so he's ready for Jade to look after him the next night. I think Momma must ride him too rough because he's always sweating and white-eyed when we get him, pulling tight at his rope and spreading his wide beige lips. He won't settle forever and ever, he just turns circles around the stake. Me and Lily get nervy watching him paw scoops out of the backyard soil. — Kirsty Logan

... out here in "the real world," every day was sort of like the one before. I guess that's why people freaked out about birthdays: Those at least put a stake in the ground, somehow ended one chapter and opened a next. — David Rosen

When you've got the Daytona 500 out there at stake and everything riding on the line, guys go for it, and the guys that go for it are the ones that are either going to win or they're going to wreck. — Jeff Gordon

I can't know entirely what's at stake beforehand; you find out as you go. I love to take a poem, for instance, that starts with something seemingly frivolous or inconsequential and then grows in gravity until by the end it's something very serious. — James Tate

Weber's achievement was not to definitively answer a riddle but to stake out a territory fertile of new puzzles at the heart of which is the claim that religious forces, not simply economic ones, paved the way for the mentality characteristic of modern, Western capitalism. — Max Weber

I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chains -
I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar cane;
I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.
I will go out until the day, until the morning break -
Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress;
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake.
I will revisit my lost love and playmates masterless! — Rudyard Kipling

For our country to be safe from terrorists we must stabilize Iraq and show that it can be done and take out these terrorist organizations who would harm Americans. Our freedom is at stake here. — Kay Bailey Hutchison

I want to say to you is that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson did not intend to drive a stake in the heart of religion and to drive it out of our public life. What they intended to do was to set up a system so that we could bring religion into our public life and into our private life without any of us telling the other what to do. — William J. Clinton

This girl at 17 really led an army, this girl at 19 really burned at the stake by her own choice. And you sit there and you want to figure out why did she make these choices? How did she live such a life? — Leelee Sobieski

It is quite simple: put passion ahead of training. Feel out in any way you can what you most want to do in science, or technology, or some other science-related profession. Obey that passion as long as it lasts. Feed it with the knowledge the mind needs to grow. Sample other subjects, acquire a general education in science, and be smart enough to switch to a greater love if one appears. But don't just drift through courses in science hoping that love will come to you. Maybe it will, but don't take the chance. As in other big choices in your life, there is too much at stake. Decision and hard work based on enduring passion will never fail you. — Edward O. Wilson

Competition for the future is competition to create and dominate emerging opportunities-to stake out new competitive space. Creating the future is more challenging than playing catch up, in that you have to create your own roadmap. — Gary Hamel

Jack grabbed Phil's arm to teleport back to Romatech.
Phil muttered a curse. "If you say one word about this to the other guys, I will stake you in your sleep."
"Don't worry, sweetheart. If they find out about this, I'll stake myself. — Kerrelyn Sparks

Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of pity
to unbind the martyr from the stake
break all the chains
put out the fires of civil war
stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science?
Is it a small thing to make men truly free
to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice and power
the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear? — Robert G. Ingersoll

Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what. — Michael Shermer

Come, see the north-wind's masonry, Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he For number or proportion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You're crazy," Ludovico announced. Alessandro held his finger in the air. "Ah!" he said, "but at least I'm able to tell you my last name, and at least, when they take me out to the stake my dreams may be just beginning, whereas yours, by your own definition, must and will come to a dark end." "You fool yourself. Your illusions will fall away even before the end. They won't do you any good. You'll see. — Mark Helprin

Because what is at stake for Jesus is not the proclamation and realization of new ethical ideals, and thus also not his own goodness (Matt. 19:17), but solely his love for real human beings, he can enter into the communication of their guilt; he can be loaded down with their guilt ... . It is his love alone that lets him become guilty. Out of his selfless love, out of his sinless nature, Jesus enters into the guilt of human beings; he takes it upon himself. A sinless nature and guilt bearing are bound together in him indissolubly. As the sinless one Jesus takes guilt upon himself, and under the burden of this guilt, he shows that he is the sinless one. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Why can't I be like that? Why can't I be the father who just shrugs off the love of his daughter? Why can't I be the Lead Inquisitor who enjoys watching his pleading victims burn at the stake? Why can't I be the one who befriends a lonely, lost girl and then casts her out? Why can't I be the one to strike first, to hit so early and with such fury that my enemies cower before they can ever think of turning on me? What is so great about being good? — Marie Lu

Okay, don't get mad." She pulled out my stake
or at least something that looked like my stake,only the hilt of it was now covered in bright blue crystals and diamond-like gems.
"You Bedazzled my stake?"
"Um ... Surprise," April said, "Just because you're hunting nasty stuff doesn't mean you can't do it in style. — Bree Despain

...I would much rather my kids leave my class with the strength of character and courage to fight racism when they find it, than have memorized some facts about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I'm not saying you can't have both, I'm just pointing out that only one of those things will be measured on the test - and it isn't the most important one. — Dave Burgess

But why?" Gabriel asks. "Why do they wish to cause such pain to another human?"
"Why does the Spanish Inquisition do what it does?" I ask. "Why does our own Church burn witches at the stake? Why did our own crusaders punish the Moors so exquisitely?"
Gabriel thinks about this. He knows I don't beg answers for these questions.
"Of course it's easy to say that we mete out punishment to those who are an abomination in God's eyes," I say. "But it's more than that, isn't it? I think we don't just allow torturers but condone them as a way to excise the fear we all have of death. To torture someone is to take control of death, to be the master of it, even for a short time. — Joseph Boyden

I have no personal stake in these people, Jean-Claude, but they are people. Good, bad, or indifferent, they are alive, and no one has the right to just arbitrarily snuff them out."
"So it is the sanctity of life you cling to?"
I nodded. "That and the fact that every human being is special. Every death is a loss of something precious and irreplaceable. — Laurell K. Hamilton