Allied Best Quotes

I think of how perhaps the best way to fly would be with hands full of earth, so you always remember where you came from.

My Dearest Allie. I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you. Noah

You know,' I whispered, 'some girls might think it's creepy having a boy watch them sleep.' He smirked and pointed to himself. 'Spy.' 'Oh.' I nodded. 'Right. So you're a trained Peeping Tom.' 'Product of the best peeping academies in the country.' 'Well, now I feel much better.' 'You should.

Its Vermeer" Kat turned to the boy who lingered in the doorway. "It's stolen" "What can I say?" Hale eased behind her and studied the painting over her shoulder. "I met a very nice man who bet me he had the best security system in Istanbul." His breath was warm on the back of her neck. "He was mistaken.

Your memory is your first and best weapon, ladies. Learn to use it.

Zach walked away, but I stood there for a long time, wondering if I should go to my mother; if I should go to my friends; but instead I slipped into the corridors I hadn't used in months, pushed my way through cobwebs and darkness, trying to walk away from the tears that burned hot down my cheeks, because maybe I didn't want to admit weakness; maybe I wanted to wallow in my solitude and grief. Or maybe crying is like everything else we do—it's best if you don't get caught.

Only when I hold onto nothing can I be the best, only then can I be what they expect me to be.

Do you think you could let someone go if you thought it was best for them?

So the quesiton is," Bex said slowly,"How far are you willing to go?" I looked at my three best friends in the world. "How far is there?

I cope with it the best way I know - by being completely unreasonable and trying to force everything else in the world to obey me and do all the nonsensical things I want.

Even the best thief in the world can't steal time.

Unfailing friends are essential, when ‘presence’ and ‘absence’ are wrangling in our daily living, and our presence is rampaged by murk and woe, while passion and lust for life are trampled. Reliable allies can shore us up and since we are our best ally, we first have got to make sure we get along well with ourselves. ("Being my best friend”).

Haven't I? - he thought. Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven't I thought of nothing else for two years? ...He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her ...Since the first time I saw you ...Nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way your eyes would look at me, if ...Through every sentence I ever said to you, through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of all the issues we discussed ...You trusted me, didn't you? To recognize your greatness? To think of you as you deserved - as if you were a man? ...Don't you suppose I know how much I've betrayed? The only bright encounter of my life - the only person I respected - the best business man I know - my ally - my partner in a desperate battle ...The lowest of all desires - as my answer to the highest I've met ...Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need, which would never touch you, I have never wanted anyone but you ...I hadn't known what it was like, to want it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought : Not I, I couldn't be broken by it ...Since then ...For two years ...With not a moments respite ...Do you know what it's like, to want it? Would you wish to hear what I thought when I looked at you ...When I lay awake at night ...When I hear your voice over a telephone wire ...When I worked, but could not drive it away? ...To bring you down to things you cant conceive - and to know that it's I who have done it. To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal's pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent on the upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength - then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which I'll preform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which you'll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation ...I want you - and may I be damned for it!

Um…” Simon started slowly “at the risk of stating the obvious I feel I have to point out that Interpol has the worldʼs best database of international criminals.” “Thatʼs the idea ” Gabrielle said with a nod. “And I feel compelled to remind you that weʼre international criminals ” he finished but Kat was already smiling. “Donʼt worry Simon. Itʼs not like anyone in there knows it was a bunch of teenagers who robbed the Henley.

The obvious," Noah goes on, a little out of breath, "being that he is probably some super secret assassin or something. And I'm not as tough as I look." "That's OK," I tell him. "I'm way tougher than you look.

I knew she was right. Of course she was right. Bex was always right. She knew me better than I knew myself. But then again, isn't that a best friend's job?

Man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false," but as "academic" or "practical," "outworn" or "contemporary," "conventional" or "ruthless." Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.

A good enemy can be better than the best of friend.

I know you love me. I love you, I always will, but things can't hold like this. They have to break. You say you don't mind, that you will wait for me, but I think that you do mind, and you should. Because we've done too much waiting in our lives, Xander. Don't wait for me anymore. I hope for love for you. I hope for this more than anything else, maybe even more than my own happiness. And in a way, perhaps that means I love Xander best of all.

You get some sleep, Abigail," Townsend told her. "I'll keep watch." "That's very gracious of you, but being that we're on an airplane..." Even after the plane took off, they kept debating security perimeters and protocols. I'm pretty sure they argued for forty-five minutes about where the best place for cappuccino was near the Colosseum.

Ok," he says. "First lesson." Noah broadens his stance, taking his place firmly on the embassy side of the threshold. "in the United States," he says. Then, with both feet, he leaps on to the sidewalk. "Out of the United States." Quickly, he jumps back toward me. "In the United States." Another jump across the threshold. "Out of the United States. In. Out. In --" "Is this the part where I hit you?

Mom’s Israeli. Dad’s Brazilian. What can I say? I am Embassy Row personified. You really lucked out in the best friend department

I sang because that is what I do when I am happy and when I'm sad. I sang because it is who I am when I am being the best possible version of me.

Christ, don't go to the Haunted Houses with Ally and Indy. A few years ago, Indy went berserk and broke through the hay bales they had set up to make the haunted trail and headed into the cornfields. All the employees chased after her but since they were dressed like monsters, Indy lost her mind. They had to call the cops to settle her down." I lost him at "cornfields". "Cornfields?" I whispered. "Yeah." "They have a haunted trail through cornfields?" "Yeah, up in Thornton. Best Haunted House in Denver. Indy and Ally go every year. Why?" "Cornfields freak me out," I admitted. Hank was silent. Then, he said, "You're from Indiana. How in the fuck can cornfields freak you out?" "Cornfields don't freak me out. Cornfields at night freak me out. Haunted cornfields at night freak me out." "You been to many haunted cornfields?" "Dude," I said low. "All cornfields are haunted. Trust me. I know... They whisper to you.

Even though Liz might have been at the bottom of our class in P&E, she is the best person I've ever seen at getting me out of bed, which is saying something, considering the woman who raised me. Macey was asleep in her headphones, so Liz felt free to yell, "We're doing this for you!" as she pulled on my left leg and Bex went in search of breakfast. Liz put her foot against the mattress for leverage as she tugged. "Come on, Cam. GET. UP. " "No!" I said, burrowing deeper into the covers. "Five more minutes. " Then she grabbed my hair, which is totally a low blow, since everyone knows I'm tender-headed. "He's a honeypot. " "He'll still be one in an hour, " I pleaded. Then Liz dropped down beside me. She leaned close. She whispered, "Tell Suzie she's a lucky cat. " I threw the covers aside. "I'm up!

You can’t really yell at your boyfriend for stealing your seat and your best friend. You also can’t yell at your best friend for stealing your boyfriend. Or you can…but Hi seemed like a much easier way to start the morning.

The darkness behind doesn't worry me; neither do the stars ahead. I think of how perhaps the best way to fly would be with hands full of earth so you always remember where you came from, how hard walking could be.

If you can’t have another ally,” I said at last, “next best thing is to give your enemy another enemy.

It is said that one should keep one's allies within view, and one's enemies within reach. A valid statement. One must be able to read an ally's strengths, so as to determine how to best use them. One must similarly be able to read his enemy's weaknesses, so as to determine how to best defeat him. But what of friends? There is no accepted answer, perhaps true friendship is so exceedingly rare. But I had formulated my own. A friend need not be kept within sight or within reach. A friend must be allowed the freedom to find and follow his own path. If one is fortunate, those paths will for a time join. But if paths separate, it is comforting to know that a friend still graces the universe with his skills, and his viewpoint, and his present. For if one is remembered by a friend, one is never truly gone.

If you suffer an attack your best ally is to keep calm.

You are my best friend. And sometimes I like to check and make sure my friends aren’t dead.

What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in, whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, to whom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorly understood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profound understanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vital role they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertain future that is unfolding.

For a moment on the top of that bare pain of rock I wonder if I should run behind or ahead-which is the best way to protect her-and then I find us just running side by side.

You were the best friend I ever had, Allie. I'd still like to be friends, even if you are engaged, and even if it is just for a couple of days.

Things evolve into other things. Emotions do the same. Forever. Your best ally in all of these shifting seas is your faith in the fact that you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

The healing process is best described as a spiral. Survivors go through the stages once, sometimes many times; sometimes in one order, sometimes in another. Each time they hit a stage again, they move up the spiral: they can integrate new information and a broader range of feelings, utilize more resources, take better care of themselves, and make deeper changes.” Allies in Healing by Laura Davis

It is a truism to say that the dog is largely what his master makes of him: he can be savage and dangerous, untrustworthy, cringing and fearful; or he can be faithful and loyal, courageous and the best of companions and allies.

As Christians, we should be the best collaborators in the world. We should be quick to find unlikely allies and subversive friends, like Jesus did.

I am still yours, Allie, my queen, my timeless beauty. You are, and always have been, the best thing in my life

Or maybe crying is like everything else we do- it's best if you don't get caught.

As well, they used their B-52 bombers to drop thousands of tons of bombs which included napalm and cluster bombs. In a particularly vile attack, they used poisonous chemicals on our base regions of Xuyen Moc, the Minh Dam and the Nui Thi Vai mountains. They sprayed their defoliants over jungle, and productive farmland alike. They even bull-dozed bare, both sides along the communication routes and more than a kilometre into the jungle adjacent to our base areas. This caused the Ba Ria-Long Khanh Province Unit to send out a directive to D445 and D440 Battalions that as of 01/November/1969, the rations of both battalions would be set at 27 litres of rice per man per month when on operations. And 25 litres when in base or training. So it was that as the American forces withdrew, their arms and lavish base facilities were transferred across to the RVN. The the forces of the South Vietnamese Government were with thereby more resources but this also created any severe maintenance, logistic and training problems. The Australian Army felt that a complete Australian withdrawal was desirable with the departure of the Task Force (1ATF), but the conservative government of Australia thought that there were political advantages in keeping a small force in south Vietnam. Before his election, in 1964, Johnston used a line which promised peace, but also had a policy of war. The very same tactic was used by Nixon. Nixon had as early as 1950 called for direction intervention by American Forces which were to be on the side of the French colonialists. The defoliants were sprayed upon several millions of hectares, and it can best be described as virtual biocide. According to the figure from the Americans themselves, between the years of 1965 to 1973, ten million Vietnamese people were forced to leave their villages ad move to cities because of what the Americans and their allies had done. The Americans intensified the bombing of whole regions of Laos which were controlled by Lao patriotic forces. They used up to six hundred sorties per day with many types of aircraft including B52s. On 07/January/1979, the Vietnamese Army using Russian built T-54 and T-59 tanks, assisted by some Cambodian patriots liberated Phnom Penh while the Pol Pot Government and its agencies fled into the jungle. A new government under Hun Sen was installed and the Khmer Rouge’s navy was sunk nine days later in a battle with the Vietnamese Navy which resulted in twenty-two Kampuchean ships being sunk.

He looked... very alone then, a single human in a monster-infested world, a fading bright spot surrounded by shadow. And despite my best intentions, my determination not to be a monster, I was part of the world that he feared. Part of the darkness that would drag him down and tear him apart. "I'm sorry Zeke

Life's best adventures are as close as your nearest bookshelf. Tour Europe with the Count of Monte Cristo. Dance a ball with Mr Darcy. Hunt down bad guys with Stephanie Plum. Amazing things can happen when you read.

Rule #5 Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good.

God’s a comfortable certainty. But us humans? I think we’re a step beyond it, an uncertainty, deep and rare and inspiring in all the best and worst ways.

Don't wait for me anymore. I hope for love for you. I hope for this more than anything else, maybe even more than my own happiness. And in a way, perhaps that means I love Xander best of all.

Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.

People do more for their fellows than return favors and punish cheaters. They often perform generous acts without the slightest hope for payback ranging from leaving a tip in a restaurant they will never visit again to throwing themselves on a live grenade to save their brothers in arms. [Robert] Trivers together with the economists Robert Frank and Jack Hirshleifer has pointed out that pure magnanimity can evolve in an environment of people seeking to discriminate fair weather friends from loyal allies. Signs of heartfelt loyalty and generosity serve as guarantors of one s promises reducing a partner s worry that you will default on them. The best way to convince a skeptic that you are trustworthy and generous is to be trustworthy and generous.

Always choose to be smart There are two types of people in the world, the seekers of riches and the wise thinkers, those who believe that the important thing is money, and those who know that knowledge is the true treasure. I, for my part, choose the second option, Though I could have everything I want I prefer to be an intelligent person, and never live in a game of vain appearances. Knowledge can take you far far beyond what you imagine, It can open doors and opportunities for you. and make you see the world with different eyes. But in this eagerness to be "wise", There is a task that is a great challenge. It is facing the fear of the unknown, and see the horrors around every corner. It's easy to be brave when you're sure, away from dangers and imminent risks, but when death threatens you close, "wisdom" is not enough to protect you. Because, even if you are smart and cunning, death sometimes comes without mercy, lurking in the darkest shadows, and there is no way to escape. That is why the Greek philosophers, They told us about the moment I died, an idea we should still take, to understand that death is a reality. Wealth can't save you of the inevitable arrival of the end, and just as a hoarder loses his treasures, we also lose what we have gained. So, if we have to choose between two things, that is between being cunning or rich, Always choose the second option because while the money disappears, wisdom helps us face dangers. Do not fear death, my friend, but embrace your intelligence, learn all you can in this life, and maybe you can beat time and death for that simple reason always choose to be smart. Maybe death is inevitable But that doesn't mean you should be afraid because intelligence and knowledge They will help you face any situation and know what to do. No matter what fate has in store, wisdom will always be your best ally, to live a life full of satisfaction, and bravely face any situation. So don't settle for what you have and always look for ways to learn more, because in the end, true wealth It is not in material goods, but in knowledge. Always choose to be smart, Well, that will be the best investment. that will lead you on the right path, and it will make you a better version of yourself.

watched the people I know best look at me like I was a crazy person. Trust me. It’s a look I know pretty well.

I know the Otherlands are to her what Ky is to me, the best, most beautiful place, not fully realized, but full of promise.

Literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

We seem to face an enemy who, no matter how many times we win, will best us in the end. He has so many allies: time, disease, boredom, stupidity, religious quackery, and bad habits.

It's often the hardest things that turn out to be the best.

But after being on the run I've learned a life spent creating enemies isn't worth leading. Having allies is the best advantage in the world.

The best allies own their privilege not as a badge of honor but as a reminder to be constantly listening and learning to become better at offering support to others.

The older man cocked his head and gave a laugh, "We get all the ladies. But for some reason I don't think you're here looking for me." "I don't know," Kat said. "I'm always in the market for good rappelling harness." "For you, my dear, nothing but the best." "But you are right about something. I'm actually trying to find---" "Young Mr. Hale, I'm assuming." Kate blushed. "Let me guess--I'm not the only one?" "Maybe. But you're the one i hope finds him." He gave a wink and walked away, and Kat didn't feel alone anymore in the big room full of people.

I wasn’t raised in a household where it was considered abnormal to be gay. So for me to meet people who use the word 'faggot' as an insult, with a derogatory meaning, I can’t take it. I don’t understand it. It’s so foreign to me. I was raised in a household where being gay was like, the most normal thing. You know, my brother is gay, all of my best friends are gay. When my brother came out of the closet, it wasn’t a big deal for my family. Even my grandpa, who is like, super old-school, was like, Good for you! It’s outrageous to me when I see people hate on someone because of their sexuality. I hate the intolerance. I hate the judgment. I hate it so much. Most of my favorite people in my life are gay. It’s something I’m super passionate about, because whenever I would see my friends get bullied, or my brother get hurt for his sexuality, I would become a raging lunatic. I would literally become a raging lunatic because I just can’t take it. When you see someone you love hurting, for such a superficial, bullshit reason, it’s like, how small and spiritually unenlightened and dumb as fuck can a person be? How much further can your head get up your ass that you’re actually judging someone as a person based on their sexuality before you even have a conversation with them?

Plenty of women have met the “male feminist” who can quote bell hooks but will use those quotes to speak over you. Plenty of people of color have met the white antiracist who is all for Dr. King’s dream until people of color start asking white people to make actual sacrifices for racial justice. Ego can undermine even the best of intentions, but often, when things like this happen—when someone we trust as an ally ends up taking advantage of their position and then turning against the principles they once claimed to fight for when that abuse is discovered—we find that the intentions were never that great in the first place.

But more than that, if you ally yourself with people who are prepared to fight to make a difference, then your life will always be in danger. I don't think it's fair to ever blame the person who makes the stand. Because the Doctor's so old, because he's done this so many times before, he sometimes forgets how dangerous it is. But if he didn't create the danger by opposing evil, if he didn't get these people to help him, then terrible things would happen. Standing up for what's right is always the best thing to do.

of course, your one of my best friends.

So many times in my life I’ve felt as though looking at Em is like seeing another variation of myself, but I don’t feel that way now. Too much has changed recently. Still, Em is my best girl friend. Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that. -Cassia, from the novel Matched.

Xander is my Match and my oldest friend and one of the best people I know. When I kissed him, it was sweet. I'm drawn to him and tied to him with the cords of a thousand different memories

In the twenty-first century, as the 1,400-year Islamic jihad against the free world continued to advance, the best allies the warriors of jihad had were the very people they had in their sights.

And then the Archbishop offered his final and most effective remedy: reframing. “The very best is being able to ask yourself, ‘Why do I want to have a house that has seven rooms when there are only two or three of us? Why do I want to have it?’ And you can turn it on its head and look at how we are in such a mess with climate change because of our galloping consumption, which for the environment has been nothing less than disastrous. So you buy the small electric car instead, and you say, no I don’t need or want that big luxury car. So instead of it being your enemy, now it’s your ally.” Jinpa

In the name of "force protection," the military often rolls up windows, builds walls, and points rifles at the outside world. The best force protection, however, is to be surrounded by friends and allies.

Things evolve into other things. Emotions do the same. Forever. Your best ally in all of these shifting seas is your faith in the fact that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Stay put. Stay soft. Stay gentle and kind. Listen to your instincts. Meditate. Pray. Laugh as much as humanly possible. Pain is ok too. Say thank you for all of it. Feel proud that you have spent most of your life's energy on cultivating a strong connection to your own soul and the will of your heart. It is leading you somewhere deeply satisfying, but never perfect.

It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily 'true' or 'false', but as 'academic' or 'practical', 'outworn' or 'contemporary', 'conventional' or 'ruthless'. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church.

After being diagnose as bi-polar...I feel that laughter is the best medicine for all. I find that I can't write humorously and be depressed at the same time.:)

No hurry, she thought, a warmth growing inside. All the best wines took time.

True friends celebrate with you on the best of days and build you up on your worst days. And sometimes they speak hard truths into your life because they love you enough to not let you be a terrible person. But for me, the best measurement I have for a true friend? They pour life into me instead of draining it out.

They taught me that being of service, an ally to the lonely and suffering, a big-girl helper to underdogs, was my best shot at happiness. They taught me that most of my good ideas were not helpful, and that all of my ideas after ten p.m. were especially unhelpful. They taught me to pay attention, but not so much attention to my tiny princess mind.

As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our 'national security' calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of 'Left' intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush's legitimacy. So I don't even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction.

Pain is your friend, your ally, it will tell you when you are seriously injured, it will keep you awake and angry, and remind you to finish the job and get the hell home. But you know the best thing about pain?It lets you know you're not dead yet!

Stuart Maxwell told me in a shaky voice that the first time Cheyenne picked him out as her victim for the kissing game, it had been like a nightmare as he'd found himself cornered by the circle of girls, only to see Cheyenne's lips coming closer and closer, until finally the smell of cranberry Kiehl's lip balm had overwhelmed him. 'And that's when,' Stuart told me in a horrified voice, 'I knew it was all over.

One of the best advertising people ever was Carl Ally. He said the true creative person wants to be a know-it-all. They want to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, modern manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and lean hog futures. Because they never know when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six years down the road, but they know it will happen.

Christians best thrive as a minority, a counterculture. Historically, when they reach a majority they too have yielded to the temptations of power in ways that are clearly anti-gospel. Charlemagne ordered a death penalty for all Saxons who would not convert, and in 1492 Spain decreed that all Jews convert to Christianity or be expelled. British Protestants in Ireland once imposed a stiff fine on anyone who did not attend church and deputies forcibly dragged Catholics into Protestant churches. Priests in the American West sometimes chained Indians to church pews to enforce church attendance. After many such episodes in Christendom it became clear that religion allied too closely to the state leads to the abuse of power. Much of the current hostility against Christians evokes the memory of such examples. The blending of church and state may work for a time but it inevitably provokes a backlash, such as that seen in secular Europe today.

Moffat's prose is fine: clear and steady, with just enough sweeping statements about destiny and dragons to keep things well inflated. The characters are appealing archetypes: Fernwen the scholarly dwarf is the everynerd, doing his best to live through the adventure. Telemach Half-Blood is the hero you wish you could be. He always has a plan, always has a solution, always has secret allies that he can call upon - pirates and sorcerers whose allegiance he earn with long-ago sacrifices.

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

If a misfortune has already occurred, it is best not to worry about it, so we do not add fuel to the problem. Don't ally yourself with past events by lingering on them and exaggerating them. Let the past take care of itself, and transport yourself to the present while taking whatever measures are necessary to ensure that such a misfortune never occurs again, now or in the future.

Harrison’s visit to Dylan’s Woodstock sessions and his invitation to Eric Clapton to solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” convinced him that an outsider could revive stalled sessions. Dylan and the Band treated Harrison as an equal, while in his own band, Lennon and McCartney persistently patronized his material, even as it began to peak. (Lennon, in fact, sat out most of Harrison’s Beatle recordings from here on out.) Taking in an ally could only ease Harrison’s reentry into the contentious Beatle orbit. Along with lobbying for Ringo Starr to replace Pete Best, bringing Preston into the Get Back project stands as a defining move for Harrison: he single-handedly rescued Let It Be, and pushed his material throughout 1969, until Abbey Road featured his best work yet.

I watched Leo and I realized that he also knew how it felt to be different. To want big things in a very small town. To get made fun of. He wasn’t as different as I was. But he also wasn’t one of those lucky people who fit in all the time. And I thought of the first time I worked with him, what I’d seen. He did like the world—that was the thing about him that I liked the best—but the world didn’t always like him back.

King Leopold’s private fiefdom in the Congo was precisely the counterfactual to colonial rule and the best argument for colonialism. His inability to control his native rubber agents who continued their pre-colonial business of slave-trading and coercive rubber harvesting showed the problems that would arise if European freelancers allied with native warlords and slave-traders to establish regimes with no outside scrutiny.

Wherefore it would appear that this number was thus allied unto her for the purpose of signifying that, at her birth, all these nine heavens were at perfect unity with each other as to their influence. This is one reason that may be brought: but more narrowly considering, and according to the infallible truth, this number was her own self: that is to say, by similitude. As thus. The number three is the root of the number nine; seeing that without the interposition of any other number, being multiplied merely by itself, it produceth nine, as we manifestly perceive that three times three are nine. Thus, three being of itself the efficient of nine, and the Great Efficient of Miracles being of Himself Three Persons (to wit: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), which, being Three, are also One:—this lady was accompanied by the number nine to the end that men might clearly perceive her to be a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the Holy Trinity. It may be that a more subtile person would find for this thing a reason of greater subtilty: but such is the reason that I find, and that liketh me best.

Soon you shall be landing In the battleground, ensure you have the right weapons to fight the enemy; ensure you know your enemy and what he is capable of; take them unprepared to gain the victory and stand with your head held high; show it to the world the cause you have been fighting for, deception is the key, challenge your enemy when it is least expected; break them mentally before breaking them physically. You are a soldier; your enemy is a soldier and you are facing the best, both sides have a lot of similarities only variation lies in the cause. Cause is driver for the battle; cause is binding comrades together and even if the victory is gained the cause stays undefeated. You stand defeated for your strategy, tactics and leaders but never for the cause, it’s still alive, it shall always be alive with the men who have sacrificed their lives, with the men who are still alive. They stand defeated with the physical strength but not for the cause they have believed in and you can never take it away from them. Fight for a cause and you shall stay invincible. A war story is always biased towards one side and it’s hard to narrate a true war story. We choose and make our heroes from what we have read, heard and believed in. If we know the cause both sides are standing for, it will become difficult to take sides. Always respect your enemy, respect for the fact they are standing neck to neck with you, respect them for the courage they have shown to defend the other side, their land, respect them for whatever you have earned the respect for from your men, from your country and from your people. Powerful strategies, tactics, weapons, leaders are allies to the war, they support but never claims victory all my themselves Greatest wars won always had the greater cause. Rebel without a cause is never a rebel just an aimless person whose fate lies in the defeat.

3.    Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; [Perhaps the word “balk” falls short of expressing the full force of the Chinese word, which implies not an attitude of defense, whereby one might be content to foil the enemy’s stratagems one after another, but an active policy of counter-attack. Ho Shih puts this very clearly in his note: “When the enemy has made a plan of attack against us, we must anticipate him by delivering our own attack first.”] the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; [Isolating him from his allies. We must not forget that Sun Tzu, in speaking of hostilities, always has in mind the numerous states or principalities into which the China of his day was split up.] the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; [When he is already at full strength.] and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. 4.    The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided.

It is easy to confuse hope with faith. Yet faith is blind; faith does not have eyes that see, nor does it need them. Faith is an inner sureness and is an invaluable ally to the spiritual seeker. In no way would we discourage any from the cultivation of the faculty of faith, for it is one of the great tools of learning available to you upon the spiritual path. Yet there are situations in which a focused vision has its place and is far more effective than blind faith. That faculty is hope. Hope is the development of faith upon a specific area of intent or interest so that there is a vision which is developed which affirms all that is best in a situation, all that is requisite in an outcome.

That night I looked Stephanie [Burt] up online and started reading more about her work...I kept encountering a striking factoid...: she’s often cited as the most influential poetry critic of her generation. And she’s openly trans. This is not the world I was taught I would grow into when I was a young trans child -- the one where transgender people are heard, are brilliant, are influential, are even the best. At anything. Being trans, I’d learned subliminally, was supposed to keep you from being that -- even if you loved your trans self, and even if some other trans people and a few allies did too, the world at large would keep your potential tamped down." - from "Surface Difficulty: An Adventure in Reading Trans Poetry," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014

Things evolve into other things. Emotions do the same. Forever. Your best ally in all of these shifting seas is your faith in the fact that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Stay put. Stay soft. Stay gentle and kind. Listen to your instincts. Meditate. Pray. Laugh as much as humanly possible. Pain is okay too. Say thank you for all of it. Feel proud that you have spent most of your life's energy on cultivating a strong connection to your own soul and the will of your heart. It is leading you somewhere deeply satisfying but never perfect. Observe what is painful right now and see if you can stay courageous enough to share it wholly and honestly. Invite it into your house and be a good student. You are a patchwork quilt of all these past selves, all these wounded little girls, and they are all here too, listening in some form or another. You have grown into someone I am very proud of, and though I wish I could give you the gift of knowing we won't ever need to have this conversation... that's not really the point, and probably not true. The work is learning to love whatever it is, so for now let's do that, shall we? I love you, my beautiful girl, and I hope that's enough.

From the perspective of nearly half a century, the Battle of Hue and the entire Vietnam War seem a tragic and meaningless waste. So much heroism and slaughter for a cause that now seems dated and nearly irrelevant. The whole painful experience ought to have (but has not) taught Americans to cultivate deep regional knowledge in the practice of foreign policy, and to avoid being led by ideology instead of understanding. The United States should interact with other nations realistically, first, not on the basis of domestic political priorities. Very often the problems in distant lands have little or nothing to do with America’s ideological preoccupations. Beware of men with theories that explain everything. Trust those who approach the world with humility and cautious insight. The United States went to war in Vietnam in the name of freedom, to stop the supposed monolithic threat of Communism from spreading across the globe like a dark stain—I remember seeing these cartoons as a child. There were experts, people who knew better, who knew the languages and history of Southeast Asia, who had lived and worked there, who tried to tell Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon that the conflict in Vietnam was peculiar to that place. They were systematically ignored and pushed aside. David Halberstam’s classic The Best and the Brightest documents this process convincingly. America had every right to choose sides in the struggle between Hanoi and Saigon, even to try to influence the outcome, but lacking a legitimate or even marginally capable ally its military effort was misguided and doomed. At the very least, Vietnam should stand as a permanent caution against going to war for any but the most immediate, direct, and vital national interest, or to prevent genocide or wider conflict, and then only in concert with other countries. After

When a man seats before his eyes the bronze face of his helmet and steps off from the line of departure, he divides himself, as he divides his ‘ticket,’ in two parts. One part he leaves behind. That part which takes delight in his children, which lifts his voice in the chorus, which clasps his wife to him in the sweet darkness of their bed. “That half of him, the best part, a man sets aside and leaves behind. He banishes from his heart all feelings of tenderness and mercy, all compassion and kindness, all thought or concept of the enemy as a man, a human being like himself. He marches into battle bearing only the second portion of himself, the baser measure, that half which knows slaughter and butchery and turns the blind eye to quarter. He could not fight at all if he did not do this.” The men listened, silent and solemn. Leonidas at that time was fifty-five years old. He had fought in more than two score battles, since he was twenty; wounds as ancient as thirty years stood forth, lurid upon his shoulders and calves, on his neck and across his steel-colored beard. “Then this man returns, alive, out of the slaughter. He hears his name called and comes forward to take his ticket. He reclaims that part of himself which he had earlier set aside. “This is a holy moment. A sacramental moment. A moment in which a man feels the gods as close as his own breath. “What unknowable mercy has spared us this day? What clemency of the divine has turned the enemy’s spear one handbreadth from our throat and driven it fatally into the breast of the beloved comrade at our side? Why are we still here above the earth, we who are no better, no braver, who reverenced heaven no more than these our brothers whom the gods have dispatched to hell? “When a man joins the two pieces of his ticket and sees them weld in union together, he feels that part of him, the part that knows love and mercy and compassion, come flooding back over him. This is what unstrings his knees. “What else can a man feel at that moment than the most grave and profound thanksgiving to the gods who, for reasons unknowable, have spared his life this day? Tomorrow their whim may alter. Next week, next year. But this day the sun still shines upon him, he feels its warmth upon his shoulders, he beholds about him the faces of his comrades whom he loves and he rejoices in their deliverance and his own.” Leonidas paused now, in the center of the space left open for him by the troops. “I have ordered pursuit of the foe ceased. I have commanded an end to the slaughter of these whom today we called our enemies. Let them return to their homes. Let them embrace their wives and children. Let them, like us, weep tears of salvation and burn thank-offerings to the gods. “Let no one of us forget or misapprehend the reason we fought other Greeks here today. Not to conquer or enslave them, our brothers, but to make them allies against a greater enemy. By persuasion, we hoped. By coercion, in the event. But no matter, they are our allies now and we will treat them as such from this moment. “The Persian!

You were burning in the middle of the worst solar storm our records can remember. (...) Everyone else fled. All your companions and crew left you alone to wrestle with the storm. “You did not blame them. In a moment of crystal insight, you realized that they were cowards beyond mere cowardice: their dependence on their immortality circuits had made it so that they could not even imagine risking their lives. They were all alike in this respect. They did not know they were not brave; they could not even think of dying as possible; how could they think of facing it, unflinching? “You did not flinch. You knew you were going to die; you knew it when the Sophotechs, who are immune to pain and fear, all screamed and failed and vanished. “And you knew, in that moment of approaching death, with all your life laid out like a single image for you to examine in a frozen moment of time, that no one was immortal, not ultimately, not really. The day may be far away, it may be further away than the dying of the sun, or the extinction of the stars, but the day will come when all our noumenal systems fail, our brilliant machines all pass away, and our records of ourselves and memories shall be lost. “If all life is finite, only the grace and virtue with which it is lived matters, not the length. So you decided to stay another moment, and erect magnetic shields, one by one; to discharge interruption masses into the current, to break up the reinforcement patterns in the storm. Not life but honor mattered to you, Helion: so you stayed a moment after that moment, and then another. (...) “You saw the plasma erupting through shield after shield (...) Chaos was attempting to destroy your life’s work, and major sections of the Solar Array were evaporated. Chaos was attempting to destroy your son’s lifework, and since he was aboard that ship, outside the range of any noumenal circuit, it would have destroyed your son as well. “The Array was safe, but you stayed another moment, to try to deflect the stream of particles and shield your son; circuit after circuit failed, and still you stayed, playing the emergency like a raging orchestra. “When the peak of the storm was passed, it was too late for you: you had stayed too long; the flames were coming. But the radio-static cleared long enough for you to have last words with your son, whom you discovered, to your surprise, you loved better than life itself. In your mind, he was the living image of the best thing in you, the ideal you always wanted to achieve. “ ‘Chaos has killed me, son,’ you said. ‘But the victory of unpredictability is hollow. Men imagine, in their pride, that they can predict life’s each event, and govern nature and govern each other with rules of unyielding iron. Not so. There will always be men like you, my son, who will do the things no one else predicts or can control. I tried to tame the sun and failed; no one knows what is at its fiery heart; but you will tame a thousand suns, and spread mankind so wide in space that no one single chance, no flux of chaos, no unexpected misfortune, will ever have power enough to harm us all. For men to be civilized, they must be unlike each other, so that when chaos comes to claim them, no two will use what strategy the other does, and thus, even in the middle of blind chaos, some men, by sheer blind chance, if nothing else, will conquer. “ ‘The way to conquer the chaos which underlies all the illusionary stable things in life, is to be so free, and tolerant, and so much in love with liberty, that chaos itself becomes our ally; we shall become what no one can foresee; and courage and inventiveness will be the names we call our fearless unpredictability…’ “And you vowed to support Phaethon’s effort, and you died in order that his dream might live.

Daisy and I need an aristocratic sponsor,” Lillian said with a sigh. “Not to mention some etiquette lessons. And unfortunately, Annabelle, since you’ve married a commoner, you’ve got no real social influence, and we’re no farther along than when we started.” Hastily she added, “No offense meant, dear.” “None taken,” Annabelle replied mildly. “However, Simon does have some friends in the peerage— Lord Westcliff in particular.” “Oh, no,” Lillian said firmly. “I want nothing to do with him.” “Why not?” Lillian raised her brows as if surprised by the need to explain. “Because he’s the most insufferable man I’ve ever encountered?” “But Westcliff is very highly placed,” Annabelle wheedled. “And he is Simon’s best friend. I have no great liking for him myself, but he could be a useful ally. They say that Westcliff’s title is the oldest one in England. Blood doesn’t get any bluer than his.” “And well he knows it,” Lillian said sourly. “Despite all his populist talk, one can see that he’s inwardly thrilled to be a peer with lots of minions he can order about.” “I wonder why Westcliff hasn’t married yet,” Daisy mused. “Despite his flaws, one has to admit that he is a whale-sized catch.” “I’ll be thrilled when someone harpoons him,” Lillian muttered, making the other two laugh.

It's not really negativity or sadness anymore, it’s more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can’t feel anything about anythingeven the things you love, even fun things—and you’re horribly bored and lonely, but since you’ve lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you’re stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void with-out anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is. ...I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn’t feel obligated to keep existing. The absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something you don’t like can be overwhelming. And the longer it takes to feel different, the more it starts to seem like everything might actually be hopeless bullshit. I don’t like when I can’t control what reality is doing. Which is unfortunate because reality works independently of the things I want, and I have only a limited number of ways to influence it, none of which are guaranteed to work. I still want to keep tabs on reality, though. Just in case it tries to do anything sneaky. It makes me feel like I’m contributing. The illusion of control makes the helplessness seem more palatable. And when that illusion is taken away, I panic. Because, deep down, I know how pointless and helpless I am, and it scares me. I am an animal trapped in a horrifying, lawless environment, and I have no idea what it’s going to do to me. It just DOES it to me. I cope with that the best way I know—by being completely unreasonable and trying to force everything else in the world to obey me and do all the nonsensical things I want.

I turned to Kitty Sue and surprised myself by answering honestly, "I'm fine. Lee's fine. Lee's more fine than me. I'm having troubles adjusting. Lee seems pretty sure of himself. Lee seems pretty sure of everything." This, I realized, was true about Lee always. I'd never met someone as confident in my life. Well, maybe Hank, but Hank's confidence was quiet and assured. And there was Lee's best friend, Eddie, of course. But Eddie was like Lee's twin, separated at birth, cut from the same cloth. Lee's confidence, and Eddie's, wasn't like Hank's. It was cocky and assertive. "And you aren't sure?" Kitty Sue asked. I looked at her and thought maybe I should have lied. It was too late now. "Nope. He scares me," I admitted. She nodded. "Yep, he's pretty dang scary." I stared. My God, the woman was talking about her son. "You agree?" She looked at Lee then back at me. "Honey, that boy drives me to distraction. It's like he's not of my loins. I don't even know where he came from. If Ally hadn't been the exact replica of Lee, personality-wise, except female I would have wondered if there was a mix up at the hospital." I kept staring. Kitty Sue kept talking. "Hank's just like his Dad. Smart, cautious, controlled, taking only calculated risks. I'm sure Lee calculates his risks, but I think he allows for a much larger margin for error and counts on ... I don't know what he counts on to get him out of whatever scrapes he gets into." I couldn't stop staring. She kept talking, and everything that came out of her mouth was like a verbal car accident. If she was trying to convince me to stick with her son, she should have tried a different tact. "He does ... you know?" Kitty Sue said. I realized she was asking me a question, so I shook my head that no, I didn't know. She explained, "He gets out of every scrape. Always did and always did it on his own. Though it'll take some kind of woman to live a life like that, knowing what he's like, knowing the risks he takes." Her hand went to my knee and she squeezed it before she went on. "Not anyone here would think less of you if you aren't that woman. I'm telling you because it's true. We all love you both and we'll always love you both, no matter what happens between you." She stopped, sighed and continued, "Anyway, I don't even know if that kind of woman exists. I'm his mother. I've lived with him surviving scrapes that would make your hair stand on end and I worry about him every day. He scares the hell out of me.

You didn’t tell me,” he says. “Why not?” “Because I didn’t…” I shake my head. “I didn’t know how to.” He scowls. “It’s pretty easy, Tris--” “Oh yeah,” I say, nodding. “It’s so easy. All I have to do is go up to you and say, ‘By the way, I shot Will, and now guilt is ripping me to shreds, but what’s for breakfast?’ Right? Right?” Suddenly it is too much, too much to contain. Tears fill my eyes, and I yell, “Why don’t you try killing one of your best friends and then dealing with the consequences?” I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want him to see me sobbing again. He touches my shoulder. “Tris,” he says, gently this time. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pretend that I understand. I just meant that…” He struggles for a moment. “I wish you trusted me enough to tell me things like that.” I do trust you, is what I want to say. But it isn’t true--I didn’t trust him to love me despite the terrible things I had done. I don’t trust anyone to do that, but that isn’t his problem; it’s mine. “I mean,” he says, “I had to find out that you almost drowned in a water tank from Caleb. Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?” Just when I was about to apologize. I wipe my cheeks hard with my fingertips and stare at him. “Other things seem stranger,” I say, trying to make my voice light. “Like finding out that your boyfriend’s supposedly dead mother is still alive by seeing her in person. Or overhearing his plans to ally with the factionless, but he never tells you about it. That seems a little strange to me.” He takes his hand from my shoulder. “Don’t pretend this is only my problem,” I say. “If I don’t trust you, you don’t trust me either.” “I thought we would get to those things eventually,” he says. “Do I have to tell you everything right away?” I feel so frustrated I can’t even speak for a few seconds. Heat fills my cheeks. “God, Four!” I snap. “You don’t want to have to tell me everything right away, but I have to tell you everything right away? Can’t you see how stupid that is?” “First of all, don’t use that name like a weapon against me,” he says, pointing at me. “Second, I was not making plans to ally with the factionless; I was just thinking it over. If I had made a decision, I would have said something to you. And third, it would be different if you had actually intended to tell me about Will at some point, but it’s obvious that you didn’t.” “I did tell you about Will!” I say. “That wasn’t truth serum; it was me. I said it because I chose to.” “What are you talking about?” “I was aware. Under the serum. I could have lied; I could have kept it from you. But I didn’t, because I thought you deserved to know the truth.” “What a way to tell me!” he says, scowling. “In front of over a hundred people! How intimate!” “Oh, so it’s not enough that I told you; it has to be in the right setting?” I raise my eyebrows. “Next time should I brew some tea and make sure the lighting is right, too?” Tobias lets out a frustrated sound and turns away from me, pacing a few steps. When he turns back, his cheeks are splotchy. I can’t remember ever seeing his face change color before. “Sometimes,” he says quietly, “it isn’t easy to be with you, Tris.” He looks away. I want to tell him that I know it’s not easy, but I wouldn’t have made it through the past week without him. But I just stare at him, my heart pounding in my ears. I can’t tell him I need him. I can’t need him, period--or really, we can’t need each other, because who knows how long either of us will last in this war? “I’m sorry,” I say, all my anger gone. “I should have been honest with you.” “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” He frowns. “What else do you want me to say?” He just shakes his head. “Nothing, Tris. Nothing.” I watch him walk away. I feel like a space has opened up within me, expanding so rapidly it will break me apart.

You didn’t tell me,” he says. “Why not?” “Because I didn’t…” I shake my head. “I didn’t know how to.” He scowls. “It’s pretty easy, Tris--” “Oh yeah,” I say, nodding. “It’s so easy. All I have to do is go up to you and say, ‘By the way, I shot Will, and now guilt is ripping me to shreds, but what’s for breakfast?’ Right? Right?” Suddenly it is too much, too much to contain. Tears fill my eyes, and I yell, “Why don’t you try killing one of your best friends and then dealing with the consequences?” I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want him to see me sobbing again. He touches my shoulder. “Tris,” he says, gently this time. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pretend that I understand. I just meant that…” He struggles for a moment. “I wish you trusted me enough to tell me things like that.” I do trust you, is what I want to say. But it isn’t true--I didn’t trust him to love me despite the terrible things I had done. I don’t trust anyone to do that, but that isn’t his problem; it’s mine. “I mean,” he says, “I had to find out that you almost drowned in a water tank from Caleb. Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?” Just when I was about to apologize. I wipe my cheeks hard with my fingertips and stare at him. “Other things seem stranger,” I say, trying to make my voice light. “Like finding out that your boyfriend’s supposedly dead mother is still alive by seeing her in person. Or overhearing his plans to ally with the factionless, but he never tells you about it. That seems a little strange to me.” He takes his hand from my shoulder. “Don’t pretend this is only my problem,” I say. “If I don’t trust you, you don’t trust me either.” “I thought we would get to those things eventually,” he says. “Do I have to tell you everything right away?” I feel so frustrated I can’t even speak for a few seconds. Heat fills my cheeks. “God, Four!” I snap. “You don’t want to have to tell me everything right away, but I have to tell you everything right away? Can’t you see how stupid that is?” “First of all, don’t use that name like a weapon against me,” he says, pointing at me. “Second, I was not making plans to ally with the factionless; I was just thinking it over. If I had made a decision, I would have said something to you. And third, it would be different if you had actually intended to tell me about Will at some point, but it’s obvious that you didn’t.” “I did tell you about Will!” I say. “That wasn’t truth serum; it was me. I said it because I chose to.” “What are you talking about?” “I was aware. Under the serum. I could have lied; I could have kept it from you. But I didn’t, because I thought you deserved to know the truth.” “What a way to tell me!” he says, scowling. “In front of over a hundred people! How intimate!” “Oh, so it’s not enough that I told you; it has to be in the right setting?” I raise my eyebrows. “Next time should I brew some tea and make sure the lighting is right, too?” Tobias lets out a frustrated sound and turns away from me, pacing a few steps. When he turns back, his cheeks are splotchy. I can’t remember ever seeing his face change color before. “Sometimes,” he says quietly, “it isn’t easy to be with you, Tris.” He looks away. I want to tell him that I know it’s not easy, but I wouldn’t have made it through the past week without him. But I just stare at him, my heart pounding in my ears. I can’t tell him I need him. I can’t need him, period--or really, we can’t need each other, because who knows how long either of us will last in this war? “I’m sorry,” I say, all my anger gone. “I should have been honest with you.” “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” He frowns. “What else do you want me to say?” He just shakes his head. “Nothing, Tris. Nothing.” I watch him walk away. I feel like a space has opened up within me, expanding so rapidly it will break me apart.

And thus when by poetyr or wehn by music the most entrancing of the poetic moods we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then not as the abbate gravina supposes through excess of pleasure but through a certain petulatn impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp no wholly here on earth at once and forever these divein and rapturous joys of which through the poem or through the music we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. The struggle to apprehend the supernal loveliness this struggle on the part of souls fittingly constituted has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as peotic whose distant footsteps echo down the corridors of time The impression left is one of pleasurable sadness. This certain taint of sadness is insperably connected with al the higher manifestations of true beauty . It is nevertheless. Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. The next desideratum was a pretext for the continous use of the one word nevermore.in observing the difficutly which i at once found in inventing a suffiecienly plausible reason for its continuous repetition i did not fail to preceive thta this difficutly arose solely form the pre assumption that the world was to be so continuously or monotonously spoke by a human being i did not fail to perceive in shor t that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word here then immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech and very naturally a parrot in the first instance suggested itself but was superseded forthwith by a raven as equally capable of speech and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone.“I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven, the bird of ill-omen, monotonously repeating the one word "Nevermore" at the conclusion of each stanza in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. Now, never losing sight of the object _supremeness_ or perfection at all points, I asked myself--"Of all melancholy topics what, according to the _universal_ understanding of mankind, is the _most_ melancholy?" Death, was the obvious reply. "And when," I said, "is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?" From what I have already explained at some length, the answer here also is obvious--"When it most closely allies itself to _Beauty_; the death, then, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.

10. A wounded person might be saved but a wounded person wouldn't heal that easily. ch 173 Pg 1999 11. s. I could hear a slight creaking sound from Yoo Joonghyuk's body. His body was already at the limit. Even so, Yoo Joonghyuk didn't give up. PG 2059 12. There is no magic that will heal all wounds just because someone else has a deep wound as well. PG 2089 13. I will pull all of you down from that fucking heaven. PG 2192 CH 190 14. In a place they couldn't see, the story that was going to destroy them had just begun PG2226 15. The most dangerous enemy is always the closest ally PG 2265 16. "Don't regard past failures as scriptures. There will be no change if you don't do anything. PG 2299 17. Fight, fight and fight again PG2365 18.Fight, fight again and keep moving forward. It was the best mourning possible for this guy's past. PG 2623 19. If that happens, I will destroy all the worlds that caused that Fate. PG 2676 20. "The scenario is a small destruction to prevent a greater destruction." PG 2802 21. This was Yoo Joonghyuk. He didn't give up on his goal even if he gave up his life. 22. "I felt it while living… life is supposed to be like this. There are times when nothing can be done and times when things don't work out. PG 2824 23. "I know that things don't work out well. Not everything will flow as you wish. Even so, don't dwell on it too much and let your heart lead you." PG 2827 24. In order to hold that spear, Yoo Joonghyuk trained with a single focus for decades.PG 3470 25.Don't be fooled by what you see! Believe in yourself, not the myths already recorded! Pg 3685 26.there is no good or evil. There is only our desire to see the story pg 3690 27. Are all failed stories meaningless? Even if you know you will fail, isn't the story of those who have fought to the end worth it? PG3706 28. It was a dependable tone. I really wanted a father like this. 3719 29. Then I looked around and saw Han Sooyoung dangling her legs while sucking candy. I scolded Han Sooyoung, "Is it delicious?" "Strangely, I've been craving something sweet lately. Do you want to eat?" Han Sooyoung didn't wait for my answer and shoved the candy she was holding into my mouth. It had a lemon flavour. I ate the candy and Han Sooyoung looked at me quietly. "By the way, that's what I was eating." "So?" "…You are really no fun." Pg 3734 30. 'Yoo Joonghyuk' of the other rounds were watching us. Some looked envious while others had gloomy expressions. Finally, there was one with an expression of intrigue. Pg 3747 31. Sometimes the thing that looks like a road isn't a road pg3767 32. "Kim Dokja, you know you aren't a godlike person." I smelt lemon candy from the grumbling voice. Han Sooyoung took the brush from my hand in a frustrated manner. "There are some things in the world you don't know about, you idiot. pg3792 33. [I think it will be hard to just send you away.] [What bullshit is that?] [If you are a demon king, you should be worthy. Isn't that right? pg 3844

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, not any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.