Quotes & Sayings About Talisman

Altogether forty-five Emperors had claimed the Spear of Destiny as their possession between the coronation in Rome of Charlemagne and the fall of the old German Empire exactly a thousand years later. And what a pagentry it was! THe Spear had passed like the very finger of destiny through the millenium forever creating new patterns of fate which had again and again changed the entire history of Europe ... According to the legend associated with the Spear of Longinus, the claimant to this talisman of power has a choice between the service of two opposing Spirits in the fulfilment of his world historic aims
a Good and an Evil Spirit. — Trevor Ravenscroft

Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the circumference, the graduating circles of all thought and action. Love is the talisman of human weal and woe
the open sesame to every soul. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Sixth letter : Choose your influences well

We do not move through our days alone or apart from the world around us. And we must always be aware of the things and the people we allow in our lives. It's a mark of wisdom to choose to spend time in those places that inspire and energize you. Whether in our work or within our personal lives, these most positive friends and peers will inspire us to be our greatest selves and to lead our largest lives. — Robin S. Sharma

Yet I cannot believe that this talisman of love has lost all its power and I still attempt to use it.

- Those who have never had occasion to feel sometimes the value of a word, of an expression, consecrated by love will find no sense in this phrase. (C. de L.) — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people. — Walter E. Williams

Pusillanimous. Talisman. — Christina Baker Kline

I was away from home, I was a virgin, I thought I had a soul. — Jonathan Aycliffe

He could not say goodbye to these three rooms as he could to a house he had loved: hotel rooms accepted departures emotionlessly. — Stephen King

Three things I remember: I was in a city so old it did not have a name,; there was a full moon that cast a pale light over buildings unlike any I had ever seen before; and at the end of a long tunnel something was waiting for me. — Jonathan Aycliffe

Now that I have this piglet talisman... who knows what I might find the poor judgment to do? — Ginn Hale

Perhaps it is becoming clearer why I felt no romance when you told me that you carried my last letter with you, everywhere you went, for months on end, unopened. This may have served some purpose for you, but whatever it was, surely it bore little resemblance to mine. I never aimed to give you a talisman, an empty vessel to flood with whatever longing, dread, or sorrow happened to be the day's mood. I wrote it because I had something to say to you. — Maggie Nelson

Because you love me," he says. "And I love you. That is our talisman, our charm. We may still break a little, you and I. But so long as we are together, neither of us will shatter. — J. Kenner

Why do they use it like that? Peace." "When you have never known a thing except to dream," Lan replied, heeling Mandarb forward, "it becomes more than a talisman. — Robert Jordan

King David had a ring with an inscription on it: 'All things pass.' When one is sad those words make one cheerful, and when one is cheerful it makes one sad. I have got myself a ring like that with Hebrew letters on it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations. All things pass, life will pass, one wants nothing. Or at least one wants nothing but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing, nothing, nothing. — Anton Chekhov

Unlike the Man with No Cell Phone, the Man Who Can See around Corners owns several, which he places on the table, like talismans. So far, so good. But you can imagine my disappointment when he promptly disabuses me of this seeing-around-corners stuff. "That's all bullshit," he says. — Eric Weiner

When it came to time travel, science and science fiction and fantasy had flip-flopped. Nobody was going to create a machine that traveled to the future or the past. Time machines might be accepted in science fiction as an enabling device to get the story moving, but they're like faster-than-light space ships-- neither one is going to happen any time soon, not with any technology we know how to implement.
The guys who had it figured were the fantasists, Dennis. The Finneys and the Mathesons and the Ellisons and the Serlings. No machines and no advanced physics, at least not most of the time. Just an overpowering desire. Just need and longing and pain and regret and the right talisman or the right surroundings. Put the right person in the right place, and perhaps with the right objects, and the potential for time travel is there. — Tony Rabig

Fear of living without a map is the main reason people are so insistent that we tell them what to do. The reasons are pretty obvious: If it's someone else's map, it's not your fault if it doesn't work out. If you've memorized the sales script I gave you and you don't make the sale, who's in trouble now? Not only does the map insulate us from responsibility, but it's also a social talisman. We can tell our friends and family that we've found a good map, a safe map, a map worthy of respect. — Seth Godin

Realizing that the dream had been sent to him for a purpose, Adin worked in secert over many months to create a likeness of the belt he had been shown.Then he traveled around the kingdom to persuade each tribe to allow its talisman to be added to it. — Emily Rodda

Memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain. — Gail Caldwell

The Cross is a gibbet - rather an odd thing to make use of as a talisman against bad luck, if that is how we regard it. Or is it, instead, a cynical reminder that Virtue usually gets pilloried whenever it makes one of its occasional appearances in this world? — Denis Johnston

Jane clutched her mug like a talisman of reality; then suddenly jumped so hard that she spilt half the cocoa on the window-sill. — Susan Cooper

The intellect,-that is miraculous! Who has it, has the talisman: his skin and bones, though they were of the color of night, are transparent, and the everlasting stars shine through, with attractive beams. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When the author is not traveling, he works at an L-shaped desk, which affords a view north through a large sunny window. He writes everything on an electric typewriter because "it has to be a book from the first day," he explains. He has no daily routine because of all the traveling he does, but follows a very disciplined writing process. He writes each page six times, then places it in a three-ring binder with a DePauw University cover ("a talisman," he calls this memento from his alma mater). When he feels that he has gotten a page just right, he takes out another 20 words. "After a year, I've come to the end. Then I'll take this first chapter, and without rereading it, I'll throw it away and write the chapter that goes at the beginning. Because the first chapter is the last chapter in disguise." He always hands in a completed manuscript, and his editor is his first reader. — Jennifer M. Brown

He had been ploughing his way through the early volumes, discovering the origins of Lazenby's twin obsessions: sex and eternal life. — Jonathan Aycliffe

As Lily Cavenaugh says in The Talisman (and it was Peter Straub's line, not mine), "You can never be too thin or too rich." And if you don't believe it, you were never really fat or really poor. — Stephen King

Good stories will tell you that facing the lie is the worst terror of all. And there is no talisman or magic sword that is half so potent a weapon as truth — Tad Williams

She was tasked with guarding the doorway to the Otherworld, keeping the balance of nature (as much as anyone could in these modern times), and occasionally, helping a worthy seeker. — Deborah Blake

You're my wife, Suki. That gives me every right. — Sofia Grey

Not everything has to be done with herbs and oils. In fact, when it comes to any kind of business-related magic, I much prefer a consecrated metal talisman or paper seal hidden away, rather than a bulky bag that smells like a hippie is hiding in my pocket. — Jason G. Miller

... bleak, wind-swept fens and moors; empty fields with broken walls and gates hanging off their hinges; a black, ruined church; an open grave; a suicide buried at a lonely crossroads; a fire of bones blazing in the twilit snow; a gallows with a man swinging from its arm; another man crucified upon a wheel; an ancient spear plunged into the mud with a strange talisman, like a little leather finger, hanging from it; a scarecrow whose black rags blew about so violently in the wind that he seemed about to leap into the grey air and fly towards you on vast black wings ... — Susanna Clarke

Seventh letter : Life's simplest pleasures are life's greatest joys

Most people dont discover whats most important in life untill they are too old to do anything about it. They spend many of their best years pursuing things that matter little in the end. While society invites us to fill our with material objects, the best part of us knows that the more basic pleasures are the ones that enriches and sustain us. No matter how easy or hard our conditions, we all have wealth of simple blessings around us - waiting to be continued. As we do our happiness grows. Our gratitude expands. And each day becomes a breathtaking gift. — Robin S. Sharma

He finally pulled it all back into his heart, sucking in the painful tide of his misery. In the Glade, Chuck had become a symbol for him - a beacon that somehow they could make everything right again in the world. Sleep in beds. Get kissed goodnight. Have bacon and eggs for breakfast, go to a real school. Be happy.
But now Chuck was gone. And his limp body, to which Thomas still clung, seemed a cold talisman - that not only would those dreams of a hopeful future never come to pass, but that life had never been that way in the first place. That even in escape, dreary days lay ahead. A life of sorrow.
His returning memories were sketchy at best. But not much good floated in the muck.
Thomas reeled in the pain, locked it somewhere deep inside him. He did it for Teresa. For Newt and Minho. Whatever darkness awaited them, they'd be together, and that was all that mattered right then. — James Dashner

You're what gives me strength. If I am what centers you, Nikki, then you are what anchors me. Every time I touch you, every time I bury myself deep inside you - Nikki, don't you see?
You are the talisman of my life, and if I lose my grip on you, then I have lost myself. — J. Kenner

Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman: a lucky charm, a brand of paper, but most often a writing instrument. Am I writing well? Thank my pen. Am I writing badly? Don't blame me blame my pen. By such displacements does the fearful imagination defend itself. — Anne Fadiman

If I must face this new trial, I would do it with my past fisted in my palm like a talisman reminding me if I could breathe it, I could write it, and when I wrote it, I would find freedom from it. Now, — Pepper Winters

Imagine members of an art appreciation society pleading in court that they 'believe' they need a hallucinogenic drug in order to enhance their understanding of Impressionist or Surrealist paintings. Yet, when a church claims an equivalent need, it is backed by the highest court in the land. Such is the power of religion as a talisman. — Richard Dawkins

Telling me I'm pretty is nice and all, but if you really want to make my day, tell me I inspired you to read a book. Say you picked up a novel I've raved about and that you fell in love with it, too. Or tell me the time we spent reading aloud together was one of your favorite moments. Ask me to read to you, and beg for another chapter. This will fill me with indescribable joy and purpose.
And if you really want to make me speechless with wonder, tell me it was MY words and MY story you enjoyed. Tell me you shed tears over the things my characters went through, and that you're just a little bit in love with them, too. I might never recover. I will carry those words around in my heart for the rest of my life, like a talisman against all past and future criticisms.
That's how important stories are to me. — J.M. Richards

It's amazing, isn't it? Here we are, two thousand years later, with everything we've accomplished, everything we know, and yet this little talisman still rules the way billions of people live ... and die. — Raymond Khoury

Britney Spears became my talisman. I became obsessed with wearing Britney T-shirts. I felt it would bring me luck. And it did. — Madonna Ciccone

This one's mine. I've claimed him. And he's wearing my talisman to keep him safe. — Leta Blake

Since we're into witches, let's swing by and check out this Isis at Spirit Quest." She slid her eyes right. Well, maybe she'd rag just a little. "You can probably buy a talisman or some herbs," she said solemnly. "You know, to ward off evil."
Peabody shifted in her seat. Feeling foolish wasn't nearly as bad as worrying about being cursed. "Don't think I won't."
"After we deal with Isis, we can grab a pizza sub
with plenty of garlic."
"Garlic's for vampires."
"Oh. We can have Roarke get us a couple of his antique guns. With silver bullets."
"Werewolves, Dallas." Amused at both of them now, Peabody rolled her eyes. "A lot of good you're going to do if we have to defend ourselves against witchcraft."
"What does it to witches, then?"
"I don't know," Peabody admitted. "But I'm damn sure going to find out. — J.D. Robb

It is to labor, and to labor only, that man owes everything possessed of exchangeable value. Labor is the talisman that has raised him from the condition of the savage: that has changed the desert and the forest into cultivated fields; that has covered the earth with cities, and the ocean with ships; that has given us plenty, comfort, and elegance, instead of want, misery, and barbarism. — John Ramsay McCulloch

Second letter: Embrace your fear

What holds us back in life is the invisible architecture of fear. It keeps us in our comfort zones, which are, in truth, the least safe place in which to live. Indeed the greatest risk in life is taking no risk. But every time we do that which we fear , we take back the power that fear has stolen from us - for on the other side of fear lives our strength. Every time we step into the discomfort of growth and progress, we become more free. The more fears we walk through, the more power we reclaim. In this way, we grow both fearless and powerful, and thus are able to live the lives of our dreams. — Robin S. Sharma

We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself. — Jacques Ellul

Sometimes people just need thunderbolts. Thunderbolts to climb like stairs. Sometimes people just need a talisman. A promise in the lectern of their hands. — Matt Ferrara

Not very smart," Chudo-Yudo growled. "Stalking a Baba Yaga." He showed a set of sharp white teeth. "Maybe he has a death wish. I could help with that You want me to eat him? — Deborah Blake

Not piece by piece, all at once: metamorphosis is like death, as he welcomed the change he'd fought off since crossing over into the Wildeeps in that it ruptures mind from body. By grace of the blood, though, your consciousness can cohere into flesh and bone after transformation. If you're strong enough, if you don't vanish into the void. Only you can judge whether the gods' heritage is enough expressed in you to bring you back past throwing off human shape. No one can tell you that; only you will know. For a talisman, gather thoughts of what matters most to you. — Kai Ashante Wilson

Something tells me this isn't going to end well for everyone involved. Someone may get turned into a frog yet." And that was the good news. — Deborah Blake

Talisman, Talisman, show me your secrets,
Helmsman, Helmsman, turn me for home. — Robert James Waller

The idea that his wedding band was some kind of talisman nauseated him like the smell of attar. — Stephen R. Donaldson

It is precisely because we believe in democracy as a talisman, a heal-all, that we are prone to the disintegration of language that characterizes Life Under Compulsion. It — Anthony Esolen

There is nothing for her beyond those gates," Gavriel said. "Do you think to bring her along like a talisman to remind you of your humanity? Or do you think sharing your damnation will lighten the burden of it? — Holly Black

There are moments in the middle of winter when all seems lost, and the darkness presses in like death, and everthing is cold, and I wake in the night shivering, and relive all I went through then. — Jonathan Aycliffe

He reached in his pocket, took out the gray button that had fallen off her suit the first time they'd met. When she'd viewed him as a murder suspect. "And I have my talisman to remind me."
It never failed to baffle her - and on a deeper level delight her - that he carried it with him, always. "What ever happened to that suit anyway?"
Humor flickered in his eyes. "It was hideous, and met the fate it deserved. This" - he held up the button - "was the best part of it. — J.D. Robb

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world? — Rita Dove

Moments later, I too came up from a lake of sleep, like a drowning man rising to air, and for several moments I lay in the darkness, bewildered. — Jonathan Aycliffe

There was a lot about the Babylonians, how their religion was the original, the most authentic, how their gods were symbols for another reality, that if one could rediscover their rituals and use them as they were meant to be used, one could gain enlightenment. — Jonathan Aycliffe

The Bible itself is less read than preached, less interpreted than brandished. Increasingly, pastors may drape a limply bound Book over the edges of the pulpit as they depart from it. Members of the congregation carry Bibles to church services; the paster announces a long passage text for his sermon and waits for people to find it, then reads only the first verse of it before he takes off. The Book has become a talisman. — Harold Bloom

Everything became a metaphor, a talisman, a sign that I was still actually connected to people - that I wasn't so completely on my own. — Susan Jane Gilman

Sometimes the darkness beacame so hideous, I would have sold my soul for light. The devil is not called Lucifer for nothing. — Jonathan Aycliffe

I cried. In the spring I returned home from captivity, on muddy roads, without my saber, without strength, without joy, without my former self. I was holding on to a mere memory, like a talisman, but even that became weak; it lost its color and freshness, its vivacity and former meaning. I trudged silently onward, through the mud of the gloomy plains; I spent the nights in silence, in village bowers and inns; I walked in silence, in the spring rains, guessing my direction like an animal, driven by the desire to die in my homeland, among the people who had given me life. — Mesa Selimovic

We made love. How pedestrian the words look-trite, worn, practically featureless with use-but how can one better describe that which happens when it happens? That creation? That magic blending? I might say we became figures in a mesmerized dance before the rocking talisman of the moon, starting slow, so slow ... a pair of feathers drifting through clear liquid substance of sky ... gradually accelerating, faster and faster and finally into photon existence of pure light ... as my whole straining body burst like fluid electricity into hers. — Ken Kesey

Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the Cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman [the cross] is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then ... a play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll. — Heinrich Heine

Oscar always opens up doors, especially the night of the Oscars. On that night, you hold that gold man, and it's like having Gandalf's staff. You can go anywhere and do anything. It's a talisman of such power. — Alex Gibney

If all the Bibles in America were simultaneously dusted, the sun would be obscured for a week. It's not a magic talisman that works without being read. A Bible does us no harm as long as it remains closed. — Randy Alcorn

I love you," he says quietly. I want to take his words, the truth of them I can see on his face, and cup them in my hands like a glowing coal from the fire. Keep them with me warm and bright, a talisman. — Amy Engel

The one thing I've learned about family skeletons is that they always have a way of finding the light of day and ending up at the neighborhood garage sale. Alora from The Sapphire Talisman — Brenda Pandos

He had divested himself of the little cloaked godlet and his other amulets in a place where they would not be found in his lifetime and he'd taken for talisman the simple human heart within him. — Cormac McCarthy

The essay form has superceded the novel as the vehicle that best suggests the prevailing apocalyptic gestalt, and as the talisman that is most able to repel the onset of paralysing dread. — Adam Parfrey

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. — John Quincy Adams

A wave of intense happiness washed over me, and I told myself to carry this moment as a talisman of a time in my life when I was both truly content and lucky enough to realize it. — Heather Cocks

I used to joke that she'd married me for my books and my knowledge of the field, and she used to laugh and shake her head. — Jonathan Aycliffe

He lifted a hand and turned and went on. He had divested himself of the little cloaked godlet and his other amulets in a place where they would not be found in his lifetime and he'd taken for talisman the simple human heart within him. Walking down the little street for the last time he felt everything fall away from him. Until there was nothing left of him to shed. It was all gone. No trail, no track. The spoor petered out down there on Front Street where things he'd been lay like paper shadows, a few here, they thin out. After that nothing. A few rumors. Idle word on the wind. Old news years in traveling that you could not put stock in. — Cormac McCarthy

Fifth letter : To lead your best life, do your best work

There is no insignificant work in the world. All labor is a chance to express personal talents, to create our art and to realize the genius we are built to be. We must work like picasso painted : with devotion, passion, energy and excellence. In this way, our productivity will not only become a source of inspiration to others, but it will have an impact - making a difference in the lives around us. One of the greatest secrets to a life beautifully lived is to do work that matters. And to ascend to such a state of mastery in it that people can't take ther eyes off you. — Robin S. Sharma

Woman dwell always in the palace of unpalatable truth and never by any chance is there a magic talisman to save them from their destiny. Speech is their ultimate need. We men exist for them only in so far as we can be described. — William McFee

If you have people do some magic, impossible thing by stroking a talisman or praying to a tree, it's fantasy; if they do the same thing by pressing a button or climbing inside a machine, it's science fiction. — Orson Scott Card

The story enchanted me, and I took to carrying the book with me everywhere, as if it were some powerful talisman, as if it contained some magic that might somehow convey or explain something fundamental to me. — Richard Flanagan

DiMaggio's grace came to represent more than athletic skill in those years. To the men who wrote about the game, it was a talisman, a touchstone, a symbol of the limitless potential of the human individual. That an Italian immigrant, a fisherman's son, could catch fly balls the way Keats wrote poetry or Beethoven wrote sonatas was more than just a popular marvel. It was proof positive that democracy was real. On the baseball diamond, if nowhere else, America was truly a classless society. DiMaggio's grace embodied the democracy of our dreams. — David Halberstam

Memorizing Qur'an without studying it renders the text as a Talisman in the hands of its user; in Islam this is forbidden and is treated as a mark of Polytheism. Words convey contextual meanings to man, therefore, God's Word is only allowed to be treated as a Message; once touched by man, she/he is ordered to transport it into her/his mind and not only into her/his brain. That is why Symbols are a mediocre tool for conducting language because they paralyze the brain with their glyphs rather than excite the mind. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

The ceremony, likely aided by narcotics and hallucinogens, required Hubbard to channel the female deity of Babalon as Parsons performed the "invocation of wand with material basis on talisman" - in other words, masturbating on a piece of parchment. He typically invoked twice a night. — Lawrence Wright

To get from the tangible to the intangible (which mature artists in any medium claim as part of their task) a paradox of some kind has frequently been helpful. For the photographer to free himself of the tyranny of the visual facts upon which he is utterly dependent, a paradox is the only possible tool. And the talisman paradox for unique photography is to work "the mirror with a memory" as if it were a mirage, and the camera is a metamorphosing machine, and the photograph as if it were a metaphor ... . Once freed of the tyranny of surfaces and textures, substance and form [the photographer] can use the same to pursue poetic truth" (Minor White, Newhall, 281). — Minor White

Eighth letter : The purpose of life is to love

How well you live comes to how much you love. The heart is wiser than the head. Honor it. Trust it follow it. — Robin S. Sharma

Too often, in novels that are speculative, God is a kind of kryptonite, and that's about all that it is, and it goes back to Dracula, where someone dumps a crucifix in Count Dracula's face, and he pulls away and runs back into his house. That's not religion. That's some kind of juju, like a talisman. — Stephen King

She had been his talisman, his cure for the insecurities and worries that he knew deep down didn't really matter, but somehow had always managed to get the best of him. — Erik Tomblin

Payattention. As a summation of all that I have had to say as a writer, I would settle for that. And as a talisman or motto for that journey in search of a homeland, which is what faith is, I would settle for that too. — Frederick Buechner

I will seek out a face, a composed, a monumental face, and will endow it with omniscience, and wear it under my dress like a talisman and then (I promise this) I will find some dingle in a wood where I can display my assortment of strange, valuable objects. I promise myself this. So I will not cry.
-Virginia Woolf, The Waves — Virginia Woolf

Early tattooing was thought to have mystical protection, to be a talisman of sorts worn on the skin. — Kym Grosso

Oblivion, or an eternal sleep in which no pain could come to him again. — Jonathan Aycliffe

Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it. — David Mamet

In ancient days, Deltora was divided into seven tribes. The tribesfought on their borders but otherwise stayed in their own place. Each had a gem from deep within the Earth, a talisman with special powers. — Emily Rodda

First letter : The power of authenticity

The most important gift we can give ourselves is the commitment to living our authentic life. To be true to ourselves, however is not an easy task. We must break free of the seductions of society and live life on our own terms, under our own values and aligned with our original dreams. We must tap our hidden selves; explore the deep seated, unseen hopes, desires, strength and weakness the make us who we are. We have to understand where we have been and know where we are going. Every decision we make, every step we take, must be informed by our commitment to living a life that is true and honest and authentic to ourselves and ourselves alone. And as we proceed, we are certain to experience fortune well beyond our highest imagination. — Robin S. Sharma

Once there was a gypsy queen who wore on her wrist a chain of six lucky charms - a golden crown, a silver horse, a butterfly caught in amber, a cat's eye shell, a bolt of lightning forged from the heart of a falling star, and the flower of the rue plant, herb of grace. The queen gave each of her six children one of the charms as their lucky talisman, but ever since the chain of charms was broken, the gypsies had been dogged with misfortune. — Kate Forsyth

He thought the ancient Babylonians knew the truth of existence, knew things that were lost later on. Lost or destroyed. Not just the usual stuff about wisdom. — Jonathan Aycliffe

When we begin to love and respect Great Mother Nature's gift to us of gayness, we'll discover that the bondage of our childhood and adolescence in the trials and tribulations of neitherness was actually an apprenticeship for teaching her children new cutting edges of consciousness and social change. In stunning paradox, our neitherness is our talisman, our fairie wand, our gift we bring to the hetero world to ... transform their pain into healings; ... transform their tears to laughter: ... transform their hand-me-downs to visions of loveliness. — Harry Hay

Where was the bloodied boy who'd collapsed on her bedroom floor?

Where was the tortured magician, veins turning black as he fought a talisman's pull?

Where was the sad, lonely royal who'd stood on the dock and watched her walk away? — V.E Schwab

What makes 'American Pie' so unusual is that it isn't a relic from the counterculture but a talisman, which, like a sacred river, keeps bringing joy to listeners everywhere. When 'American Pie' suddenly is played on a jukebox or radio, it's almost impossible not to sing along. — Douglas Brinkley

Work, ah! that talisman to guard one against one's self. — Rosa Campbell Praed

Ask her what you want, and she will answer. She listens at mornings and at nights, and her voice is never silent. — Jonathan Aycliffe

Or that one person whom you rarely speak with, who can always be found right where you left them. You carry their smile with you like a talisman - for whatever reason, their presence in your life will always bring the promise of better days. — Lang Leav

When ye set about a difficult quest - if ye're Kahnyen'kehaka, I mean - ye generally go aside for a time, to fast and pray for guidance. We havena time to be doing that now, of course. But often, while ye're doing that, ye choose a talisman - or to be right about it, it chooses you - " He sounded completely matter-of-fact about this procedure, Roger noted. "And ye carry it with ye through the quest, to keep the attention of the spirits upon your desire and ensure your success. — Diana Gabaldon