#poison

I hold the biscuits in front of his face and he stands up. "What do I have to do?" he says. "Nothing," I say. "They're for you." "Are they poisoned?" he says. "No," I say. "Eat one," he says. So I do. "Probably the others are poisoned," he says. "Eat a fraction of each." I eat a corner off each biscuit. He looks at the reminders suspiciously, then sniffs them. "I'm not sure it's worth it," he says. "How I wish you'd never come. Perhaps you've left the poison off of just those corners." I begin to realize I'll doubt whatever information he gives me. "Lick the entire biscuit," he says. "Then give them to me." So I lick each biscuit. "Both sides," he says. I lick both sides of each biscuit. I give him the wet biscuits and he cracks them open and sniffs them. Then he puts them in his pocket. "What do you want?" he says. "Now that you've failed to poison me to death. ↗

— George Saunders

#doubt #humor #paranoia #poisoning #death

In my carpet bag are the mushrooms that I gathered in the woods. With two fingers I pick up a piece and look at it. Then I take a bite and wait for my body to react. Now I'm in a better mood. In a short time I'll be dead. Or alive. I'm not always sure that there's any difference. ↗

— Peter H. Fogtdal

#life #mushrooms #poison #death

All I want is to sleep--to dream. Life is better in dreams. ↗

— Christina Westover

#dreams #literary-fiction #literary-quotes #poisoning-sylvie #san-francisco

However entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance? ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#equality

I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#fear #health #inspirational #motivational #poison

It takes bravery to recognize where in your life you are your own poison... it takes courage to do something about it. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#courage #happiness #inspirational #life #motivational

In many ways, life is about managing your delusions; keeping the ones that nourish and eliminating the ones that poison. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#eliminate #life #managing #nourish #poison

We must remember balance and moderation. Patience can be spiritually enriching and virtuous… but when taken in excess, it turns to procrastination, the poison of inaction. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#excess #inaction #moderation #patience #poison

When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy. The way I liked best was letting go a poisonous spider in his bed. It would bite him and he'd be dead and swollen up and I would shudder to find him so. Of course I would call the rescue squad and tell them to come quick something's the matter with my daddy. When they come in the house I'm all in a state of shock and just don't know how to act what with two colored boys heaving my dead daddy onto a roller cot. I just stand in the door and look like I'm shaking all over. But I did not kill my daddy. He drank his own self to death the year after the County moved me out. I heard how they found him shut up in the house dead and everything. Next thing I know he's in the ground and the house is rented out to a family of four. All I did was wish him dead real hard every now and then. All I can say for a fact that I am better off now than when he was alive. ↗

— Kaye Gibbons

#drunk #poisonous-spider #death

I'm going to put death in all their food and watch them die. ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#hate #poison #death