customs

The past informs the present.

You gotta look backwards to go forwards.

Preserve the spirit of a __ost_ age, when time moved slower.

Why do you need that thing?" September asked. "None of the airports back home have them.""They do. You just can't see them right," Betsy Basilstalk said with a grin. "All customs agents have them, otherwise, why would people agree to stand in line and be peered at and inspected? We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say, lines on maps are silly. Where you live, the awful machinery is smaller, harder to see. Less honest, that's all. Whereas Rupert here? He's as honest as they come. Does what it says on the box.

But there are times," said Charlotte, "when it is necessary and an act of friendship to write nothing rather than not to write.

The customs are as formalised as an eighteenth-century minuet, and a child at the race's knee learns the moves and twirls by osmosis and observation.

Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. From an anthropologist's view, 'justice' is a search for workable customs.

Customs, morals--is there a difference?

All the joys__nimal and human__f a free life are mine. I have escaped everything that is artificial, conventional, customary. I am entering into the truth, into nature.

Modern Christians should not mistake our post-Victorian sense of propriety for moral purity.

I had never before considered leaving my religion, my family, my customs, and my beliefs behind. It was all that I had ever known. Would it be worth it to give it all up? I had no way of knowing. It was frightening even to contemplate a life beyond

[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

Anubis is associated with the mummification and protection of the dead for their journeys through Denver International Airport to the afterlife. He is usually portrayed as being half human and half jackal, and holding a metal detector in his hand ... Anubis is employed by the Department of Homeland Security to examine the hearts of all travellers to make sure they have not exceeded the weight limit for psychological baggage ... He is also shown frisking mummies and confiscating firearms and other contraband. It doesn't take much to tip the scales in favour of a dead body cavity search or an afterlifetime travel ban.

Santa Claus has nothing to do with it," the latke said. "Christmas and Hanukah are completely different things.""But different things can often blend together," said the pine tree. "Let me tell you a funny story about pagan rituals.

I just wish this social institution [religion] wasn't based on what appears to me to be a monumental hoax built on an accumulation of customs and myths directed toward proving something that isn't true.

India has many customs and rituals that may seem bizarre to anyone not used to its distinctive culture. It is a strange combination of being a young nation as well as an ancient country.

Now, come over here so I can pat you down.""But you don't have-" Percy stopped. "Uh, sure."He stood next to the armless statue. Terminus conducted a rigorous mental pat down."You seem to be clean," Terminus decided. "Do you have anything to declare?""Yes," Percy said. "I declare that this is stupid.

The believer is not a slave to fa