Vestal Quotes & Sayings

He's mad at me."
"For what?"
"For not being like him."
Eleanor looked dubious. "Has he been mad at you for the last sixteen years?"
"Basically. — Rainbow Rowell

Once a pallid Vestal Doubted truth in blue; Listed red in ruin, Harried every hue; Barricaded vision, Garbed herself in sighs; Ridiculed the birthmarks Of the butterflies. — Nathalia Crane

Sara knelt. She was becoming smaller, lighter, and then she was down among the insects, and the only thing in the world was the noise of them, the churn of their bodies upon one another, the clack of their black hulls, a heavenly vibration that resounded only because they were pushing in the same direction, and they were invincible. They crawled onto her legs and began eating her cotton skirt. She placed her hands down for them to crawl upon her, some of them swarming by and others stopping to chew at her clothing or hang from her skirt, and she was surrounded, feeling the scratch of their legs and the points of their antennae and their light husks. Her mind calmed, and she felt herself lifted into the air by the hand of God. — Shawn Vestal

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd — Alexander Pope

Maybe the most interesting thing gay writers can do is show the tension between the breadth of gay experiences and the unity of what they have in common. — Vestal McIntyre

Give her a ride. — Nora Roberts

You don't even have to ask twice, you could have my heart or we could share it like the last slice. — Drake

I'm an aesthetic empiricist. If you like something, it doesn't matter who made it. There really is no objective standard other than your own taste. You develop your own tastes, you find things that do or do not fit your tastes, and therefore are or are not 'good.' Whether they have been labeled as produced by the right person is another matter. — Arthur Phillips

I used to believe, bless my naive little heart, that I had something to offer the robbed dead. Not revenge-there's no revenge in the world that could return the tiniest fraction of what they've lost-and not justice, whatever that means, but the one thing left to give them: the truth. I was good at it. I had one, at least, of the things that make a great detective: the instinct for truth, the inner magnet whose pull tells you beyond any doubt what's dross, what's alloy, and what's the pure, uncut metal. I dug out the nuggets without caring when they cut my fingers and brought them in my cupped hands to lay on graves, until I found out-Operation Vestal again-how slippery they were, how easily they crumbled, how deep they sliced and, in the end, how very little they were worth. — Tana French

Not the slow Hearse, where nod the sable plumes,
The Parian Statue, bending o'er the Urn,
The dark robe floating, the dejection worn
On the dropt eye, and lip no smile illumes;
Not all this pomp of sorrow, that presumes
It pays Affection's debt, is due concern
To the FOR EVER ABSENT, tho' it mourn
Fashion's allotted time. If Time consumes,
While Life is ours, the precious vestal-flame
Memory shou'd hourly feed; - if, thro' each day,
She with whate'er we see, hear, think, or say,
Blend not the image of the vanish'd Frame,
O! can the alien Heart expect to prove,
In worlds of light and life, a reunited love! — Anna Seward

Romulus and Remus, twin sons of dark Mars and a human vestal, sucking at the dugs of a wolf bitch. — Jack Williamson

There is beauty in every incident of life; the true and the false, the wise and the foolish, are all one in the eye that beholds all without passion or prejudice: and the secret appears to lie not in the retirement from the world, but in keeping a part of oneself Vestal, sacred, intact, aloof from that self which makes contact with the external universe. In other words, in a separation of that which is and perceives from that which acts and suffers. And the art of doing this is really the art of being an artist. As a rule, it is a birthright; it may perhaps be attained by prayer and fasting; most surely, it can never be bought. — Aleister Crowley

FOR MOST OF MY LIFE I couldn't have found Idaho on a map. I had no picture of the place in my mind, nothing like a California beach or a Texas oil field. Potato trees, is what I thought on the drive out. Rows — Shawn Vestal

There may be something universal about idealizing the past, but I think it's taken to an absurd degree in New York, which is what I'm poking fun at. The hole-in-the-wall bars I went to in the 90s that smelled like sewage now enjoy legendary status, as if times were had there that could never be had anywhere else. — Vestal McIntyre

And it was inconceivable that the God of War would not be able to be the victor in a little skirmish like that, when all the cards were already stacked in his favour.
What could Jupiter do if he took her by force & deflowered her? In Roman Mythology, Mars was the only God who had ever raped a Vestal Virgin, an event that led to the birth of Romulus & Remus & the founding of Rome.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

London is like a collection of hills. There are lots of desirable spots and lots of space in between. The idea of elbowing people out of your way to get somewhere - literally or metaphorically - seems foreign here. — Vestal McIntyre

The divinity in man is the true vestal fire of the temple which is never permitted to go out, but burns as steadily and with as pure a flame on the obscure provincial altar as in Numa's temple at Rome. — Henry David Thoreau

I've always written stories from female perspectives. That it's one of the reasons I write, to have that experience. — Vestal McIntyre

You complain of Catholicism for setting up an ideal of virginity; it did nothing of the kind. The whole human race set up an ideal of virginity; the Greeks in Athene, the Romans in the Vestal fire, set up an ideal of virginity. What then is your real quarrel with Catholicism? Your quarrel can only be, your quarrel really only is, that Catholicism has _achieved_ an ideal of virginity; that it is no longer a mere piece of floating poetry. — G.K. Chesterton

When you grow up in a place (whether as a child or an adult) you squeeze everything out of it. You need so much when you're young. — Vestal McIntyre

What is needed now is for leaders to become more open, more flexible, less egoistic and less hypocritical. We must loosen our death grip on whatever we believe to be the truth simply because it is how we want the truth to look. We must be honest with ourselves and invite honesty from others. — Susan Scott

I wondered what would happen to him, and what would happen to me. The world rolls on and on. We cannot imagine it without us, even as we dream of death. — Shawn Vestal

It never meant anything, Moses says. Not to the god above it and not to the earth below it. It never did. Not even when they first did it. But it's the doin it that counts. It's something. You draw imaginary lines. That's what you do.
The Vestal looks at him kindly, a smile on her lips that seems affectionate--even maybe admiring.
Then what do you do with the lines? she asks.
And Moses looks at her straight and true. He says:
Then you pick one side or the other and you stand there. — Alden Bell

I'm nobody's motivational speaker, but if I've learned anything it's this: Always try to fuck someone you think won't fuck you. Just try. Chances are decent that you're overestimating their taste or intelligence. — Shawn Vestal

Oh, well. Just twist the first thing you can grab, as the High Priest said to the vestal virgin. — Terry Pratchett

Nature had given me a square jaw, a cleft chin, a dark mane, eyes that could bring a vestal virgin to her knees and a cock that could keep her there. — Michael Schiefelbein

She was real
She was alive
And she made my heavy black heart lighten with joy. — Tabatha Vargo

And I'll be sworn 'tis true. Travelers ne'er did lie,
Though fools at home condemn 'em.
---Antonio
(Act III, scene 3, lines 26-27.) — William Shakespeare

I was desperate for him to hear me. What was my existence otherwise? I tried and tried to make a ripple in the world. To be there. — Shawn Vestal

I enjoy the fact that, as a gay man, there's relatively little pressure on me to act like a grown-up, but also I see the pitfalls that we're susceptible to, addiction, isolation, loneliness, mental illness, not to mention the embarrassing fashion choices. — Vestal McIntyre

Today the world is a big jungle. — Roberto Cavalli

Women are not In their best fortunes strong, but want will perjure the ne'er-touched vestal. — William Shakespeare

Horace, in a particularly boastful mood, once said his verse would last as long as the vestal virgins kept going up the Capitoline Hill to worship at the temple of Jupiter. But Horace's poetry has lasted longer than Jupiter's religion, and Jupiter himself has only survived because he disappeared into literature. — Northrop Frye

And from a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world's room, Oak walked unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the shoulders. — Thomas Hardy

They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin. — William Shakespeare