The quotes in my last two acrostics, #18 and #19, were epigraphs in books I bought at the end of May. I encountered today’s quote in, of all places, an Apple TV series, Widow’s Bay. It’s a terrific show that has managed to strike the perfect tone: one that balances horror and humor. It stars Matthew Rhys, who was so good in one of my all-time favorite series, The Americans.

In Widow’s Bay, the quote is read by an 84-year-old woman, Ruth, who has it cross-stitched into a sampler that hangs on her living room wall. I couldn’t get the acrostic construction to work with the full quote, so had to ditch the first sentence, but here it is so you have the full thing:

The world is violent and mercurial — it will have its way with you.

If you’d like to know the rest, solve away!

And a very special thank you to Dob and Momes over at Crossweird Puzzles for allowing me to present this acrostic within such an aesthetically pleasing interface, courtesy of their puzzle uploader. (You can change the theme coloring if you’d like: see upper right).

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