The_Grynne

The ideal scent keeps the wearer interested, evolves with him or her; you can't "solve" it in one go like the plot of a bad detective novel. You need a perfect structure, like Chanel No 5, to keep you safe; and then from time to time you need to subvert expectations, with something that cuts against your style and even your gender.

The angel said to him, "Be not afraid."

“Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord. “Here, take some with you.”

Castiel steps closer. Dean has nothing but green leaf covered wall at his back, and the otherworldly blue in Castiel's eyes in front of him. Castiel's lips on his own and they leave there unremembered terror and pain. Memories that are made of darkness and loss. Lost, I am lost.

Dean seems to think that he’s privy to the secrets of the universe. But Castiel has no idea how his heart differs from a human heart.

Jo can’t believe it. Dean Winchester, the second coming.

“We need to teach you how to talk smack,” Dean said. “You’re failing hard, there, buddy.”

Apparently, gin and tonic agreed with angels of the Lord.

"The way I see it, you're in a whole world of trouble this time, Castiel."

Castiel didn't ask, before they came, why their father hadn't let them walk on Earth for two thousand years. But Uriel knows he will find out.

Right now, they’re in between. Reports of electrical storms, cattle mutilations, the usual chestnut. The end of the world might come tomorrow or next week to this particular zip code. If they skip town, it might not come at all. Right now, it’s just the two of them. Uriel’s off mopping up the last mess Dean made, the last town he couldn’t save. Elijah and Dina and all the others fucked off to wherever they usually fuck off to. Just Dean and Castiel, gone native.

"I don't think in terms of 'heroes' and 'anti-heroes'. Nearly everyone is capable of some kind of self-sacrificing or 'heroic' behaviour, given the right circumstances and the same goes for selfish or 'anti-heroic' behaviour. By following one extreme or the other most fantasy characters are cardboard cut-outs, not people.

You taste the words before you say them, and you're not surprised when you wind up saying them in Russian. They taste of darkness and cheap vodka, pain and solitude.

You see, it's not that she wants to be Serena, if she has to be honest. It's more like she just wants to mean something by herself, not because of the rest of the world's approval and praise, and Serena's the only person she knows who does.

“Papers to run for a congressional seat in the 48th California district.” Nate is practically vibrating with excitement. “Filled out and ready to turn in tomorrow.”

What strikes me on reading her new novel, No Present Like Time is that whatever, if any, movement Swainston is part of, her work has such a powerful and startlingly original edge to it that it transcends such labels - here is a writer on the verge of starting her own movement.

When Barney pulls back and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, all she can think is Wow.

He smells like Barney--an expensive shaving soap ("Hand-milled by Tibetan Trappists. Yes--the two great monks that monk great together."), an even more expensive shampoo ("It's the best. It's so good, it doesn't even have a name."), and the expensive linen spray that his laundress uses on his clothes ("Yes, I have a laundress. Dry cleaning is so twentieth century."). He also smells like Robin, like rather intimate areas of Robin, in fact, and while that's wrong on so many levels because she's not sure that she trusts Barney enough for that kind of stuff to be happening, it has happened.