“Did he bend down and embrace his foster daughter, as he wanted to do? Did he tell her that he was sorry for what was happening to her, to her mother, for what had happened to her brother? Not exactly. He clenched his eyes. Then opened them. He slapped Liesel Meminger squarely in the face. ‘Don’t ever say that!’ His voice was quiet, but sharp.”
“And it is I, Raksha [the Demon], who answer. The man’s cub is mine, Lungri—mine to me! He shall not be killed. He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs—frog-eater—fish-killer, he shall hunt thee!”
“On its own, being a decent person is no guarantee that you will act well, which brings us back to the one protection we have against demagogues, tricksters, and the madness of crowds . . . : clear and reasoned thinking.”
“There was a pause, then more words appeared—words I hadn’t known I needed to hear, but once I saw them, I realized I’d been searching my whole life for them. *You were my child. I should have protected you.*
I lived a lifetime in the moment I read those lines, a life that was not the one I had actually lived. I became a different person, who remembered a different childhood. I didn’t understand the magic of those words then, and I don’t understand it now. I know only this: that when my mother told me she had not been the mother to me that she wished she’d been, she became that mother for the first time.”
“I like that boy, now; I never seen a better boy than that. He’s more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house, and what I say is this: let me see him that’ll lay a hand on him—that’s what I say, and you may lay to it.”
She is protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of Evil. All we can do is carry her to the castle of the Wicked Witch and leave her there.
“Indeed I have not seen them roused like this for many an age. We Ents do not like being roused; and we never are roused unless it is clear to us that our trees and our lives are in great danger.”
“It is at moments like these that I know my what my purpose is in life. I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be.”
“My reaction was instantaneous and unthinking. I skittered to one side of the tunnel, sweeping Jamie along with one arm so that I was between him and whatever was coming for me.”
“In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.”
“Whoever is picked first, the other will have the option of volunteering to take his place. I already know what will happen. Peeta will ask Haymitch to let him go into the arena with me no matter what. For my sake. To protect me.”
“That’s when I hear the scream. So full of fear and pain it ices my blood. And so familiar. I drop the spile, forget where I am or what lies ahead, only know I must reach her, protect her. I run wildly in the direction of the voice, heedless of danger, ripping through vines and branches, through anything that keeps me from reaching her.”
″‘One day’ - I gestured with my chin toward the plate glass - ‘all that will be gone, and so will all that so-called loyalty. And when that day comes, I don’t want you to have any knowledge of some of the things that went on here. That’s why I’m evasive with you sometimes. It’s not that I don’t trust you or that I don’t respect you - or that I don’t value your opinion. It’s the opposite, Dad. I keep things from you because I love you, and because I admire you, and because I want to protect you from the fallout when all this starts to unwind.‘”
“There’s something... strange about the way you two are together… The way he watches you – it’s so... protective. Like he’s about to throw himself in front of a bullet to save you or something.”
“I’m in Cinna’s Mockingjay suit, the only scars visible are on my neck, forearms, and hands. Octavia secures my Mockingjay pin over my heart and we step back to look in the mirror. I can’t believe how normal they’ve made me look on the outside when inwardly I’m such a wasteland.”
“I did what I do every night before I go to sleep, I checked to make sure everything was there. The way there are more and more kids coming into the Home every day, I had to make sure no one had run off with any of my things.”
″ ‘Hush!’ Bailey yelled, ‘Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle this!’ He was squatting in the position of a runner about to sprint forward but he didn’t move.”
“Humans cover themselves, and protect themselves, and when someone says, “You are pushing my buttons,” it is not exactly true. What is true is that you are touching a wound in his mind, and he reacts because it hurts.”
“You’re asking yourself, can I give this child the best possible upbringing and keep her out of harm’s way her whole life long? The answer is no, you can’t. But nobody else can either. Not a state home, that’s for sure . . . The best they can do is turn their heads while the kids learn to pick locks and snort hootch, and then try to keep them out of jail. Nobody can protect a child from the world. That’s why it’s the wrong thing to ask, if you’re really trying to make a decision.”
“I have been made to protect you. Only in death will I be kept from this oath. It was the vow of the druskelle to Fjerda. And now it was Matthias’ promise to her.”
“I think you thought you were gonna walk in here and flash a badge and that was gonna mean something. I eat breakfast seventy yards away from three thousand Cubans who are trained to kill me. Danny, believe this. I’d kill you. I’d kill everyone in this room. I’d kill anyone to protect what I am paid to protect.”
“Alright . . . Mr. Death. See now . . . I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take and build me a fence around this yard. See? I’m gonna build me a fence around what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay on the other side. See?”
“We would bump out five hundred yards, six or eight hundred yards, going deep into Injun territory to look and wait for the bad guys. We’d set up on overwatch ahead of one of his patrols. As soon as his people showed up, they’d draw all sorts of insurgents toward them. We’d take them down. The guys would turn and try and fire on us; we’d pick them off. We were protectors, bait, and slayers.”
“As I watched them coming from the post, I spotted an insurgent moving in behind them.
I fired once. The Marine patrol hit the dirt. So did the Iraqi, though he didn’t get up.”
″‘There are two kinds of people in this world, son. Those who save lives, and those who take lives.’
‘And what of those who protect and defend? Those who save lives by taking lives?’
‘That’s like trying to stop a storm by blowing harder. Ridiculous. You can’t protect by killing.‘”
“But I didn’t risk my life to bring democracy to Iraq. I risked my life for my buddies, to protect my friends and fellow countrymen. I went to war for my country, not Iraq.”
“Heeding that call was a band of elite warriors who’d left the United States military and had joined a clandestine organization that protected American covert intelligence operatives abroad.”
“It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”
“His worthy steed he then bestrode
And forth upon his way he glode
Like sparkles from a flame.
And his crest he bore a tower
And stuck thereon a lily-flower,
God guard him from all shame!”
“It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood.”
“It always makes me want to grab him by the shirt and push him until he lets the girl go.
But instead, every time, I pretend not to notice.
What could I do anyway?”
“Oh, Gemma, how could I tell you what I’d done? That’s the curse of mothers, you know. We’re never prepared for how much we love our children, for how much we wish we could protect them by being perfect.”
“If you want to build lifelong, loyal friendships, if you want to build trust, learn to protect your family members and friends even when they make mistakes.”
“Did he run? He did not! HORTON STAYED ON THAT NEST! He held his head high and threw out his chest and looked at the hunters as much as to say: ‘shoot if you must but I won’t run away!’ ”
“He decided to just keep afloat, treading water and hoping that something- who knows what? – would turn up to save him. But what if a shark, or some big fish, a horse mackerel, turned up? What was he supposed to do to protect himself? He didn’t know.”
″...the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works, and certain public institutions...”
“Always she had protected Peter, had smoothed things out and made them easy for him- molly-coddled him like an anxious hen her father had once said. But how could she protect him now?”