Am Proud Of Myself Quotes

The love of my life is gone, and I can't just call her and say I'm sorry and have her come back. She's gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn't spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, 'I'm in love with Celia St. James!' and let them crucify me for it. That's what I should have done. And now that I don't have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly.

I never thought of myself as anything but plain and ordinary until you came along. The way you look at me, the way you see me . . . you pull something out of me. When I want to hide, you urge me forward. When I think I’m not good enough, you make me believe I am. When I feel anything but pretty, you convince me I’m beautiful. Just being around you makes me feel special. You don’t think you’re good at loving people, but you are. Your friends, your family . . . the level of love that you have for people astounds me. You don’t think people love you back, but they do. They fiercely love you. I fiercely love you. I’ve never met anyone as passionate as you, as kindhearted as you . . . as amazing as you. You love with every fiber of your soul. You inspire me every day. And if you’ll agree to be my husband, I’ll do my best to make you proud of me, to inspire you.

Because as proud as I am of you, I need to do something that makes me proud of myself" (Harper)

And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

I am not like any of them. I am disillusioned with spirituality. I am far too well-read to devote myself to a cause. Don’t you get it? I don’t have the dedication and can’t submit myself. I am far too intelligent, proud, and egotistical to meditate. I am far too arrogant to relent, far too damaged to commit myself. All I can do is think and philosophise. All I have is the awareness of my condition, my misery.

Love never comes with a brochure of rules and regulations, a prospectus with guides of what is acceptable and what is abominable. It’s a standard to follow your heart, and that’s what I did and if doing that hurt you, then I’m sorry… sorry for coming in your life and wasting your time, for causing you an anguish so great that you could not bear the sight of me. Today, I am proud to stand up and honour myself and proclaim to the world… yes, I loved someone more than myself. I loved someone truly, madly, deeply!

Ego Tripping I was born in the congo I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every one hundred years falls into the center giving divine perfect light I am bad I sat on the throne drinking nectar with allah I got hot and sent an ice age to europe to cool my thirst My oldest daughter is nefertiti the tears from my birth pains created the nile I am a beautiful woman I gazed on the forest and burned out the sahara desert with a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes I crossed it in two hours I am a gazelle so swift so swift you can't catch me For a birthday present when he was three I gave my son hannibal an elephant He gave me rome for mother's day My strength flows ever on My son noah built new/ark and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer day I turned myself into myself and was jesus men intone my loving name All praises All praises I am the one who would save I sowed diamonds in my back yard My bowels deliver uranium the filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels On a trip north I caught a cold and blew My nose giving oil to the arab world I am so hip even my errors are correct I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continents I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission I mean...I...can fly like a bird in the sky...

If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s.

What I feel for you is contempt. But it's nothing, compared to the contempt I feel for myself. I don't love you. I've never loved anyone. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted you as one wants a whore - for the same reason and purpose. I spent two years damning myself, because I thought you were above a desire of this kind. You're not. You're as vile an animal as I am. I should loathe my discovering it. I don't. Yesterday, I would have killed anyone who'd tell me that you were capable of doing what I've had you do. Today, I would give my life not to let it be otherwise. Not to have you be anything but the bitch you are. All the greatness that I saw in you - I would not take it in exchange for the obscenity of your talent at an animal's sensation of pleasure. We were two great beings, you and I, proud of our strength, weren't we? Well this is all that's left of us - and I want no self-deception about it.

Jaime," I said softly, "are you happy about it? About the baby?" Outlawed in Scotland, barred from his own home, and with only vague prospects in France, he could pardonably have been less than enthused about acquiring an additional obligation. He was silent for a moment, only hugging me harder, then sighed briefly before answering. "Aye, Sassenach," His hand stayed downward, gently rubbing my belly. "I'm happy. And proud as a stallion. But I am most awfully afraid too." "About the birth? I'll be all right." I could hardly blame him for apprehension; his own mother had died in childbirth, and birth and its complications were the leading cause of death for women in these times. Still, I knew a thing or two myself, and I had no intention whatever of exposing myself to what passed for medical care here. "Aye, that--and everything," he said softly. "I want to protect ye like a cloak and shield you and the child wi' my body." His voice was soft and husky, with a slight catch in it. "I would do anything for ye...and yet...there's nothing I can do. It doesna matter how strong I am, or how willing; I canna go with you where ye must go...nor even help ye at all. And to think of the things that might happen, and me helpless to stop them...aye, I'm afraid, Sassenach. "And yet"--he turned me toward him, hand closing gently over one breast--"yet when I think of you wi' my child at your breast...then I feel as though I've gone hollow as a soap bubble, and perhaps I shall burst with joy.

I am a book. Sheaves pressed from the pulp of oaks and pines a natural sawdust made dingy from purses, dusty from shelves. Steamy and anxious, abused and misused, kissed and cried over, smeared, yellowed, and torn, loved, hated, scorned. I am a book. I am a book that remembers, days when I stood proud in good company When the children came, I leapt into their arms, when the women came, they cradled me against their soft breasts, when the men came, they held me like a lover, and I smelled the sweet smell of cigars and brandy as we sat together in leather chairs, next to pool tables, on porch swings, in rocking chairs, my words hanging in the air like bright gems, dangling, then forgotten, I crumbled, dust to dust. I am a tale of woe and secrets, a book brand-new, sprung from the loins of ancient fathers clothed in tweed, born of mothers in lands of heather and coal soot. A family too close to see the blood on its hands, too dear to suffering, to poison, to cold steel and revenge, deaf to the screams of mortal wounding, amused at decay and torment, a family bred in the dankest swamp of human desires. I am a tale of woe and secrets, I am a mystery. I am intrigue, anxiety, fear, I tangle in the night with madmen, spend my days cloaked in black, hiding from myself, from dark angels, from the evil that lurks within and the evil we cannot lurk without. I am words of adventure, of faraway places where no one knows my tongue, of curious cultures in small, back alleys, mean streets, the crumbling house in each of us. I am primordial fear, the great unknown, I am life everlasting. I touch you and you shiver, I blow in your ear and you follow me, down foggy lanes, into places you've never seen, to see things no one should see, to be someone you could only hope to be. I ride the winds of imagination on a black-and-white horse, to find the truth inside of me, to cure the ills inside of you, to take one passenger at a time over that tall mountain, across that lonely plain to a place you've never been where the world stops for just one minute and everything is right. I am a mystery. -Rides a Black and White Horse

I’ve been trying to stay real and true and proud of who I am, all those ideals of how to look I’ve been trying not to care. But I’m still holding my breath, I ‘m still watching every step. I’m still tip-toeing away, when I’m getting to ashamed of myself. I don’t want to be your letdown, I’m scared like hell I’m not enough. I don’t wanna be your failure anymore. — The Glass Child, Letdown

My “Best Woman” speech Good evening everyone, my name is Rosie and as you can see Alex has decided to go down the non-traditional route of asking me to be his best woman for the day. Except we all know that today that title does not belong to me. It belongs to Sally, for she is clearly his best woman. I could call myself the “best friend” but I think we all know that today that title no longer refers to me either. That title too belongs to Sally. But what doesn’t belong to Sally is a lifetime of memories of Alex the child, Alex the teenager, and Alex the almost-a-man that I’m sure he would rather forget but that I will now fill you all in on. (Hopefully they all will laugh.) I have known Alex since he was five years old. I arrived on my first day of school teary-eyed and red-nosed and a half an hour late. (I am almost sure Alex will shout out “What’s new?”) I was ordered to sit down at the back of the class beside a smelly, snotty-nosed, messy-haired little boy who had the biggest sulk on his face and who refused to look at me or talk to me. I hated this little boy. I know that he hated me too, him kicking me in the shins under the table and telling the teacher that I was copying his schoolwork was a telltale sign. We sat beside each other every day for twelve years moaning about school, moaning about girlfriends and boyfriends, wishing we were older and wiser and out of school, dreaming for a life where we wouldn’t have double maths on a Monday morning. Now Alex has that life and I’m so proud of him. I’m so happy that he’s found his best woman and his best friend in perfect little brainy and annoying Sally. I ask you all to raise your glasses and toast my best friend Alex and his new best friend, best woman, and wife, Sally, and to wish them luck and happiness and divorce in the future. To Alex and Sally!

I don’t ever remember being afraid of “oldness”. There are things I miss about being younger - chiefly the ability to pull all-nighters and keep working and working well; and being smiled at by girls I didn’t know who thought I was cute; and I wish I had the eyesight I had even five years ago… but that stuff feels pretty trivial. I’m happier than I’ve been at any time in my life these days. I have a wonderful wife whom I adore, watched three amazing kids grow into two delightful adults and my favourite teenager, an astonishing number of grand life experiences, I’ve made art I’m proud of, I have real, true, glorious friends, and I’ve been able to do real good for things I care about, like freedom of speech, like libraries. Sometimes I’ll do something like An Evening With Neil and Amanda, or the 8 in 8 project, and completely surprise myself. I miss friends who have died, but then, I’m glad that time gave them to me, to befriend, even for a while, and that I was alive to know them. I knew Douglas Adams, and I knew Roger Zelazny, and I knew John M Ford, and I knew Diana Wynne Jones… do you know how lucky that makes me? Ah, I’m rabbiting on, and I sound a bit more Pollyannaish than I’m intending to sound: I know the downside of age and the downside of time, and I am sure that the view from age 51 is not the view from age 71. I wish the time hadn’t gone so fast, though. And sometimes I wish I’d enjoyed it more on the way, and worried about it less.

Why would I want to be like everyone elsewhen I could be myself? I am curious, unique, and proud to be me, so I stumbled out of this box without making a sound.

I am myself indifferent honest ; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me : I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all ; believe none of us.

So I was born a proud daughter of Pakistan, though like all Swatis I thought of myself first as Swati and then Pashtun, before Pakistani.

I want to turn every person who has been bullied into their own hero—if I can do it, others can do it too. I am proud of myself.

The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. He [C.S. Lewis] says elsewhere that that's the very definition of humility. Humility does not mean to have a low view of your self. It means to have no view of yourself. Having a low view of yourself is miserable--psychologists know that. And that's also the solution to the problem of introspection. If I ask myself, how am I doing, I come out with one of three answers: well, terribly, or so-so. If I say I'm doing well, I'm a proud, self-righteous, arrogant, self-satisfied, priggish Pharisee; if I say I'm doing lousy, I'm a miserable worm with a guilt complex and I need some psychiatry; and if i say I'm sort of fair to midland then I'm dull, wishy-washy, Charlie Brown. So what's the solution? Don't look at yourself. Take your temperature when you're sick, otherwise look at other people and God. They're much more interesting. The first step is to try to forget about yourself altogether. Your real self, your new self, will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come only when you're looking for Him.

After shutting off the phone to ignore the incessant ringing, I'm proud of myself. I hear nothing but silence. There is nothing torturing me. There is no sound to make me jump or panic. There is nothing but complete silence, well, Except In My Head, but whatever.

i am proud of my ability to be mean to myself, so i feel like i am not interested in protecting myself and maybe that’s a friendly quality because i don’t want to be a liar to people. i think the phrase “i am not important, so be nice” all the time. - from "Sam Pink Is the Dictator – An Interview with Sam Pink

I'm in a constant battle with reality and pretend with who I am, who I want to be, and who I wish I could be with picking up the pieces, painting portraits of something strong, something whole, something to be proud of and shattering crystal vases on wooden floors while smiling, without blinking with seeing just how far I can run away from myself without forgetting myself

I am proud of myself because I picked up the hammer and cracked the concrete.

I am proud of myself today.

You have taught me that I am allowed to like myself as I am, at whatever stage I am in. I can change, I can stay the same, or I can be whoever it is that is right for me; but I can be satisfied. No, more than that. I can be proud. I can celebrate. That is what I am going to do.

I’m alive, I think, and so many of my friends are not. I may be nuts to be doing this, but I’m kind of proud of myself. I am having an adventure. I like my life. Even if I have to stand here for the rest of it.

I was proud to be in America, not just because here I found my voice but because the country made me the woman I am today, a woman with a fierce voice, a woman without shame. I grew up hearing that I was stubborn, a troublemaker, hard headed, and not good enough. But I had been wise enough to look in the mirror. I liked what I was, and I said to myself, I am worthy, lovable, and good enough.

In a moment, when I throw myself down among the absinthe plants to bring their scent into my body, I shall know, appearances to the contrary, that I am fulfilling a truth which is the sun's and which will also be my death's. In a sense, it is indeed my life that I am staking here, a life that tastes of warm stone, that is full of the signs of the sea and the rising song of the crickets. The breeze is cool and the sky blue. I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly: it makes me proud of my human condition. Yet people have often told me: there's nothing to be proud of. Yes, there is: this sun, this sea, my heart leaping with youth, the salt taste of my body and this vast landscape in which tenderness and glory merge in blue and yellow. It is to conquer this that I need my strength and my resources. Everything here leaves me intact, I surrender nothing of myself, and don no mask: learning patiently and arduously how to live is enough for me, well worth all their arts of living.

I am proud of myself.

"Your king did not break through with me until his touch stopped taking and started giving and until, in our cham, he treated me with kindness. He is the mightiest of Suh Tunak, recognized the battle he had on his hands, analyzed it, created his strategy and then he went about winning that battle using any means necessary. And, Zahnin," I edged closer and for the sake of this man who pledged to guard me even if it meant giving his life, who backed me against Dortak and who clearly wanted his wife to settle in her new life with him in his cham, I admitted to him at the same time I admitted to myself, "My Lahn won that battle. I now lay awake at night waiting for him to return. When he does not, I fall asleep looking forward to the morning when he will wake me with his hands. He is my King, He is my Warrior, He is my Husband and I am proud to say above all...He is MINE."

I am too proud to ever allow myself to care for a man who does not love me

I don’t know who I am. And I don’t think people ever will know who they are. We have to be humble enough to learn to live with this mysterious question. Who am I? So, I am a mystery to myself. I am someone who is in this pilgrimage from the moment that I was born to the day to come that I’m going to die. And this is something that I can’t avoid, whether I like it or not, or — I’m going to die. So, what I have to do is to honor this pilgrimage through life. And so I am this pilgrim — if I can somehow answer your question — who’s constantly amazed by this journey. Who is learning a new thing every single day. But who’s not accumulating knowledge, because then it becomes a very heavy burden in your back. I am this person who is proud to be a pilgrim, and who’s trying to honor his journey.

If I love a dose of (good) theology or philosophy, I probably also love discipline, improvement, wisdom, and challenges. If I hate it, I am probably too comfortable and proud to try to question myself.

Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra.

When I am paid a compliment, I must compare myself with the little donkey that carried Christ on Palm Sunday. And I say to myself: If that little creature, hearing the applause of the crowd, had become proud and had begun -- jackass that he was -- to bow his thanks left and right like a prima donna, how much hilarity he would have aroused! Don't act the same!

The Age Of Reason 1. ‘Well, it’s that same frankness you fuss about so much. You’re so absurdly scared of being your own dupe, my poor boy, that you would back out of the finest adventure in the world rather than risk telling yourself a lie.’ 2. “ I’m not so much interested in myself as all that’ he said simply. ‘I know’, said Marcelle. It isn’t an aim , it’s a means. It helps you to get rid of yourself; to contemplate and criticize yourself: that’s the attitude you prefer. When you look at yourself, you imagine you aren’t what you see, you imagine you are nothing. That is your ideal: you want to be nothing.’’ 3. ‘In vain he repeated the once inspiring phrase: ‘I must be free: I must be self-impelled, and able to say: ‘’I am because I will: I am my own beginning.’’ Empty, pompous words, the commonplaces of the intellectual.’ 4. ‘He had waited so long: his later years had been no more than a stand-to. Oppressed with countless daily cares, he had waited…But through all that, his sole care had been to hold himself in readiness. For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence….He waited. And during all that time, gently, stealthily, the years had come, they had grasped him from behind….’ 5. ‘ ‘It was love. This time, it was love. And Mathiue thought:’ What have I done?’ Five minutes ago this love didn’t exist; there was between them a rare and precious feeling, without a name and not expressible in gestures.’ 6. ‘ The fact is, you are beyond my comprehension: you, so prompt with your indignation when you hear of an injustice, you keep this woman for years in a humiliating position, for the sole pleasure of telling yourself that you are respecting your principles. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were true, if you really did adapt your life to your ideas. But, I must tell you once more…you like that sort of life-placid, orderly, the typical life of an official.’ ‘’That freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one’s responsibilities.’ ‘Well…perhaps I’m doing you an injustice. Perhaps you haven’t in fact reached the age of reason, it’s really a moral age…perhaps I’ve got there sooner than you have.’ 7. ‘ I have nothing to defend. I am not proud of my life and I’m penniless. My freedom? It’s a burden to me, for years past I have been free and to no purpose. I simply long to exchange it for a good sound of certainty….Besides, I agree with you that no one can be a man who has not discovered something for which he is prepared to die.’ 8. ‘‘I have led a toothless life’, he thought. ‘ A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on-and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone. What’s to be done? Break the shell? That’s easily said. Besides, what would remain? A little viscous gum, oozing through the dust and leaving a glistering trail behind it.’ 9.’’ A life’, thought Mathieu, ‘is formed from the future just like the bodies are compounded from the void’. He bent his head: he thought of his own life. The future had made way into his heart, where everything was in process and suspense. The far-off days of childhood, the day when he has said:’I will be free’, the day when he had said: ’I will be famous’, appeared to him even now with their individual future, like a small, circled individual sky above them all, and the future was himself, himself just as he was at present, weary and a little over-ripe, they had claims upon him across the passage of time past, they maintained their insistencies, and he was often visited by attacks of devastating remorse, because his casual, cynical present was the original future of those past days.

Love one another, fathers," the elder taught (as far as Alyosha could recall afterwards). "Love God's people. For we are not holier than those in the world because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, but, on the contrary, anyone who comes here, by the very fact that he has come, already knows himself to be worse than all those who are in the world, worse than all on earth...And the longer a monk lives within his walls, the more keenly he must be aware of it. For otherwise he had no reason to come here. But when he knows that he is not only worse than all those in the world, but is also guilty before all people, on behalf of all and for all, for all human sins, the world's and each person's, only then will the goal of our unity be achieved. For you must know, my dear ones, that each of us is undoubtedly guilty on behalf of all and for all on earth, not only because of the common guilt of the world, but personally, each one of us, for all people and for each person on this earth. This knowledge is the crown of the monk's path, and of every man's path on earth. For monks are not a different sort of men, but only such as all men on earth ought also to be. Only then will our hearts be moved to a love that is infinite, universal, and that knows no satiety. Then each of us will be able to gain the whole world by love and wash away the world's sins with his tears...Let each of you keep close company with his heart, let each of you confess to himself untiringly. Do not be afraid of your sin, even when you perceive it, provided you are repentant, but do not place conditions on God. Again I say, do not be proud. Do not be proud before the lowly, do not be proud before the great either. And do not hate those who reject you, disgrace you, revile you, and slander you. Do not hate atheists, teachers of evil, materialists, not even those among them who are wicked, nor those who are good, for many of them are good, especially in our time. Remember them thus in your prayers: save, Lord, those whom there is no one to pray for, save also those who do not want to pray to you. And add at once: it is not in my pride that I pray for it, Lord, for I myself am more vile than all...Love God's people, do not let newcomers draw your flock away, for if in your laziness and disdainful pride, in your self-interest most of all, you fall asleep, they will come from all sides and lead your flock away. Teach the Gospel to the people untiringly...Do not engage in usury...Do not love silver and gold, do not keep it...Believe, and hold fast to the banner. Raise it high...

MAGGIE, in pain: That’s what I mean; I’m a joke to most people. QUENTIN: No, it’s that you say what you mean, Maggie. You don’t seem to be upholding anything, you’re not—ashamed of what you are. MAGGIE: W-what do you mean, of what I am? … But you didn’t, did you? He turns to her in agony. Laugh at me? QUENTIN: No. He suddenly stands and cries out to Listener. Fraud! From the first five minutes! …Because! I should have agreed she was a joke, a beautiful piece, trying to take herself seriously! Why did I lie to her, play this cheap benefactor, this— Listens, and now unwillingly he turns back to her. MAGGIE: Like when you told me to fix where my dress was torn? You wanted me to be— proud of myself. Didn’t you?

And what if I told you that even in spite of my confessions—be they funny, embarrassing, painful, or gross—I am at peace with myself? That I love who I am even when I do things I’m not proud of?

Meantime, let me ask myself one question--Which is better?--To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort--no struggle;--but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time--for he would--oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He DID love me--no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me--it is what no man besides will ever be.--But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one hour- -suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next- -or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

I know I can't take all that shame away from him. But I can start by showing him how much I'm not ashamed. Not only am I not ashamed, I'm proud. I can't make him love himself. The closest I can get is loving myself unapologetically in front of him. Like Bo did in front of me. Maybe then he'll get it.

I sing strange battle songs to myself in the darkness to scare away the demons. I am a fighter when I need to be. And for that I am proud. I celebrate every one of you reading this. I celebrate the fact that you’ve fought your battle and continue to win. I celebrate the fact that you may not understand the battle, but you pick up the baton dropped by someone you love until they can carry it again. I survived and I remind myself that each time we go through this, we get a little stronger. We learn new tricks on the battlefield. We learn them in terrible ways, but we use them. We don’t struggle in vain. We win. We are alive.

I daresay she is as proud of you as I am. We are two old ladies who both had a hand in forming you. You are, one might say, our joint creation." "Don't you think I did any of me myself, then?" Howl asked. "Put in just a few touches of my own?" "A few, and those not altogether to my liking," Mrs Pentstemmon replied.

My ideal man," Malak said ponderingly. "I'm not sure what that means. I don't want the ideal. I want complexity. I want passion. I want imperfection. "My ideal man is not ideal. But," she said, leaning forward, "I'll tell you about him." "I want him to have lunch at home. I want him to help me with my own mind. I want him to be bookish, wise, cunning, and exemplary. I want him to be a good storyteller, and always on my side." "Yes, I want him to be near me. A good conversationalist, proud, not afraid of the lofty heights." "I want him to be a singer, one who knows and loves a good song, can play an instrument, the oud or the ney, and preferably both. I want him to be a good mourner, know how to attend to the pain of others, a consoler who could assuage the grief I have for all those I loved and befriended and who are no longer here. I want him to be a healer, an expert in all that troubles me. I want him to be a fire that annihilates all danger that lies ahead and behind me and that which I have, somehow, without his help, found a way to avoid. I want him to be faithful---" "Incapable of deception. I want him to be constant__" "Constant in his love and in his prayers and, when those prayers are not answered, I want him to change reality with his own hands. I want him to be my lord-" "For all the world to see. I want him to make me proud, to make vanish old and fresh longings, new and unremembered regrets. I want him to be vigilant-" "To protect me from sorrows even once their great heights have passed. I want him to know how to deal with the past. I want him to be occasionally gripped by fear-" "The fear of losing me. I want him to be patient, to help me to endure the injustices visited upon the houses of those I love. But I also want him to be impatient-" "To lose all reason and hurry off, forgetting his shoes and hat, and ride-" "His horse flanked by wings of angry dust, galloping, if need be, all night to find the traitorous, to change my fortunes and avenge me." "And then I want him to return to me, to prosper by my side. I want to take him to the clearest stream, one only I know the way to, and there quench his thirst. I want him to look at me sometimes as if he does not know who I am. But I want to be forever recognized by him, come what may, to point me out in a crowd when, after the passage, we are reunited." "I want him to see me when I cannot see myself.

As an African myself, I cannot tell how much proud and excited I am to see our nation having the first African-American president. This is a historical time for our nation. Arab and Muslim Americans are amongst those who overwhelmingly voted for Mr. Obama. As we know, there are about three million Arab Americans and about seven million Muslim Americans in this country. Not all Arab American are Muslims, and not all Muslim Americans are Arabs. These are very diverse communities. They come in all colors and backgrounds. They have been contributing to this nation for so long. Islam is not a foreign religion to this great nation of ours; Islam knew its way with the first sailors who came to America with Columbus after the fall of Granada in 1492. Islam was the religion of many Africans brought here to America. Muslim soldiers and chaplains contribute to the success of our military.

I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am...self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests...but then I countenance the fact here at least here I am worrying about it; so then I feel better about myself...but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to imagined Others...I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am--so where does that put me.

These coins are not very valuable. Jack went out to get a napoleon changed, so as to have money suited to the general cheapness of things, and came back and said he had "swamped the bank, had bought eleven quarts of coin, and the head of the firm had gone on the street to negotiate for the balance of the change." I bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shilling myself. I am not proud on account of having so much money, though. I care nothing for wealth.

He slouches,' DeeDee contributes. 'True--he needs to work on his posture,' Thelma says. 'You guys,' I say. 'I'm serious,' Thelma says. 'What if you get married? Don't you want to go to fancy dinners with him and be proud?' 'You guys. We are not getting married!' 'I love his eyes,' Jolene says. 'If your kids get his blue eyes and your dark hair--wouldn't that be fabulous?' 'The thing is,' Thelma says, 'and yes, I know, this is the tricky part--but I'm thinking Bliss has to actually talk to him. Am I right? Before they have their brood of brown-haired, blue-eyed children?' I swat her. "I'm not having Mitchell's children!' 'I'm sorry--what?' Thelma says. Jolene is shaking her head and pressing back laughter. Her expressing says, Shhh, you crazy girl! But I don't care. If they're going to embarrass me, then I'll embarrass them right back. 'I said'--I raise my voice--'I am not having Mitchell Truman's children!' Jolene turns beet red, and she and DeeDee dissolve into mad giggles. 'Um, Bliss?' Thelma says. Her gaze travels upward to someone behind me. The way she sucks on her lip makes me nervous. 'Okaaay, I think maybe I won't turn around,' I announce. A person of the male persuasion clears his throat. 'Definitely not turning around,' I say. My cheeks are burning. It's freaky and alarming how much heat is radiating from one little me. 'If you change your mind, we might be able to work something out,' the person of the male persuasion says. 'About the children?' DeeDee asks. 'Or the turning around?' 'DeeDee!' Jolene says. 'Both,' says the male-persuasion person. I shrink in my chair, but I raise my hand over my head and wave. 'Um, hi,' I say to the person behind me whom I'm still not looking at. 'I'm Bliss.' Warm fingers clasp my own. 'Pleased to meet you,' says the male-persuasion person. 'I'm Mitchell.' 'Hi, Mitchell.' I try to pull my hand from his grasp, but he won't let go. 'Um, bye now!' I tug harder. No luck. Thelma, DeeDee, and Jolene are close to peeing their pants. Fine. I twist around and give Mitchell the quickest of glances. His expressions is amused, and I grow even hotter. He squeezes my hand, then lets go. 'Just keep me in the loop if you do decide to bear my children. I'm happy to help out.' With that, he stride jauntily to the food line. Once he's gone, we lost it. Peals of laughter resound from our table, and the others in the cafeteria look at us funny. We laugh harder. 'Did you see!' Thelma gasps. 'Did you see how proud he was?' 'You improve his posture!' Jolene says. 'I'm so glad, since that was my deepest desire,' I say. 'Oh my God, I'm going to have to quit school and become a nun.' 'I can't believe you waved at him,' DeeDee says. 'Your hand was like a little periscope,' Jolene says. 'Or, no--like a white surrender flag.' 'It was a surrender flag. I was surrendering myself to abject humiliation.' 'Oh, please,' Thelma says, pulling me into a sideways hug. 'Think of it this way: Now you've officially talked to him.

This is because I define myself in part by my color. And I know it is the proverbial slippery slope: That there are associations with red hair that I utterly reject and others I wear proudly means nothing to anyone else, since I don't get to choose how the observer sorts those same traits. Grazing through the stereotypes, I am on the delicatessen plan, winding a way over the menu offerings, picking, choosing and rejecting; adhering to some, dismissing others. Having adopted a method of personal vigilance that allows me to be on the lookout for associations that suffuse my color with preferred associations and to reject those I choose not to adopt, I enhance my self-image. But to other people my red hair is more a take-it-or-leave-it experience: Red-haired, to them, I may also be a certain type of person, complete with temperament.

Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country-house. Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command. Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win. Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to it all. Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

Few approach Nick the rest of the night, I am the only one brave enough to take him his specially made tea. "Thank you", he said barely glancing up at me. "You're welcome", I said waiting for him to look up at me but he won't. I have to force myself to say something before the doubt takes me over. " That guy was wrong, but you should have ignored her to begin with. She would have been humiliated enough by that alone. Your ego got in the way of your judgment." I said before walking away proudly.

Am I not fighting? Do I look to be defeated?" Dorea sat up straight, her head held proudly. "I am Dorea Black Potter, and nothing is done without my consent. Things happen because I will them to happen. I will myself to fight, but I accept the inevitable. This is not my end, my lovelies." She smiled sweetly, her grey eyes sparkling. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.

Am I brave enough? What is brave? Is bravery counted by the medals, proudly on display on a soldier’s uniform or is it in laying down your life for something bigger than yourself. Is bravery in holding tight or letting go? For some, bravery is in standing against the world for your Principle …. For me bravery is living each day of my life for the sake of something greater than myself.

I suppose that now would be the time to ask for forgiveness for all the things I've done, but I'm sure my list would never be complete. I also don't believe that whatever comes after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions-that sounds too much like an Erudite afterlife to me, all accuracy and no feeling. I don't believe that what comes after depends on anything I do at all. I am better off doing as Abnegation taught me: turning away from myself, projecting always outward, and hoping that in whatever is next, I will be better than I am now. I smile a little. I wish I could tell my parents that I will die like the Abnegation. They would be proud, I think

Nastasha Filippovna,' said Myshkin softly and as it were with compassion, 'I told you just now that I would take your consent as an honor, and that you are doing me an honor, not I you. You smiled at those words, and I heard people laughing about us. I may have expressed myself very absurdly and have been absurd myself, but I thought all the time that I... understood the meaning of honor, and I am sure I spoke the truth. You wanted to ruin yourself just now irrevocably; for you'd never have forgiven yourself for it afterwards. But you are not to blame for anything. Your life cannot be altogether ruined. What does it matter that Rogozhin did come to you and Gavril Ardalionovitch tried to deceive you? Why will you go on dwelling on it? Few people would do what you have done, I tell you that again. As for your meaning to go with Rogozhin, you were ill when you meant to do it. You are ill now, and you had much better go to bed. You would have gone off to be a washerwoman next day; you wouldn't have stayed with Rogozhin. You are proud, Nastasha Filippovna; but perhaps you are so unhappy as really to think yourself to blame. You want a lot of looking after, Nastasha Filippovna. I will look after you. I saw your portrait this morning and I felt as though I recognized a face that I knew. I felt as though you had called to me already... I shall respect you all my life Nastasha Filippovna.

I want to turn every person who has been bullied into their own hero—if I can do it, others can do it too. I am proud of myself. Years ago, I was fragile, buried in broken dreams, and felt hopeless because of what my classmates said and did to me… No, it is not fair, not at all. Nearly every single day, elementary school has been a challenge. I have many wishes that I would love to come true but one wish I would like to be granted is for teachers to understand bullying hurts. Bullying tears a person down, inside and out. It stings and deeply pierces the heart.

You believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. You taught me how to love again when I had lost all hope. You showed me how to be a person I could finally be proud of. If not for you, I would not be the person I am today. If not for you, I would not be. - For that, I thank you.

Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word “maladjusted.” This word is the ringing cry to modern child psychology. Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. In order to have real adjustment within our personalities, we all want the well‐adjusted life in order to avoid neurosis, schizophrenic personalities. But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good‐will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self‐defeating effects of physical violence… In other words, I’m about convinced now that there is need for a new organization in our world. The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment‐‐men and women who will be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos. Who in the midst of the injustices of his day could cry out in words that echo across the centuries, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Self-satisfaction as I contemplate actions of which I am proud might well turn to gratitude towards others and a bit of humility when I recognize that the causes of those actions may lie well outside myself, and gratitude and humility might in the end be more salutary reactions than pride.

Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, "I am what I am, nothing more." "I have failed," I said, "I have lost myself—would it had been my shadow." I looked round: the shadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood.

I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am - for just an example - self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I'm not one of the good ones; but then I countenance the fact that here at least I am worrying about it; so then I feel better about myself (I mean, at least this stuff is on my mind, at least I'm dissatisfied with my level of integrity and commitment); but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to (imagined) Others...It has to do with God and gods and a basic sense of trust in the universe v. fear that the universe must be held at bay and micromanaged into giving me some smidgen of some gratification I feel I simply can't live without. It's all very confusing. I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am - so where does that put me.

If you are an LGBT+ person and you come out, you have to go through your knight’s quest to create ground for yourself, to create a space for yourself, to stand there and say, “I exist. I have no reason to feel guilt or shame. I am proud to exist, and while I’m not perfect, I deserve to exist in society just like anyone else.” This became my first big fight. While I consider myself to be fantastically boring, I realized that if I took on my own sexual identity and came out and just told people about it and tried to have a chat with them—tried to be offhand and casual about it—and tried to build our place in society and humanity, then that would be a good mission. This is where I exist in society. I am just this guy. I am transgender, and I exist. But that is just my sexuality. More important than that is that I perform comedy, I perform drama, I run marathons, and I’m an activist in politics. These are the things I do. How you self-identify with your sexuality matters not one wit. What you do in life—what you do to add to the human existence—that is what matters. That is the beautiful thing.

I miss you of course and I think of you all the time. I am O.K., and even though I have never believed in wars - and know them to be foolish, even when they are necessary - I am proud that I am involved since so many others are, and this is what's happening. I do not recognize any enemy which is human, for no human being can be my enemy. Whoever he is, he is my friend. My quarrel is not with him, but with that unfortunate part of him which I seek to destroy in myself first.

Oh, how awful is truth on earth! That exquisite creature, that gentle spirit, that heaven - she was a tyrant, she was the insufferable tyrant and torture of my soul! I should be unfair to myself if I didn't say so! You imagine I didn't love her? Who can say that I did not love her! Do you see, it was a case of irony, the malignant irony of fate and nature! We were under a curse, the life of men in general is under a curse! (mine in particular). Of course, I understand now that I made some mistake! Something went wrong. Everything was clear, my plan was clear as daylight: "Austere and proud, asking for no moral comfort, but suffering in silence." And that was how it was. I was not lying, I was not lying! "She will see for herself, later on, that it was heroic, only that she had not known how to see it, and when, some day, she divines, it she will prize me ten times more and will abase herself in the dust and fold her hands in homage" - that was my plan. But I forgot something or lost sight of it. There was something I failed to manage. But, enough, enough! And whose forgiveness am I to ask now? What is done is done. By bolder, man, and have some pride! It is not your fault!... Well, I will tell the truth, I am not afraid to face the truth; it was her fault, her fault!

For a while I thought I could un-Jew myself. Then I realized that being Jewish is not in the ritual or the action. It is in one's history. I am proud of being Jewish, because I think that's where my indomitable spirit comes from, passed down from ancestors who burned in fired of persecution because of their blood, their faith.

My soul is no different from a Lotus flower. I didn’t start my journey in fresh water because my environment was not pleasant. Just like a Lotus flower, my life was surrounded by insects, debris, and so many unpleasant things and people. However, just like the Lotus petals are never contaminated by the murky water, my core remained pure. Just like the Lotus flower, I came from a place of suffering. However, I remained true to myself. I have overcome many obstacles in my life. I am proud of myself—because this time, I jumped a little higher over the hurdles. I have finished the never-ending race. I have officially crossed the finish line and have a fresh start! I am renewed, and I am loved!

As you know, I am from a planet that has been engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time. I myself have seen the bodies of schoolgirls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own countrymen, who were proud of fighting pure evil at the time.” This was true. Billy saw the boiled bodies in Dresden. “And I have lit my way in a prison at night with candles from the fat of human beings who were butchered by the brothers and fathers of those schoolgirls who were boiled. Earthlings must be the terrors of the Universe!

I have a choice. Instead of worrying what others think, I realize no one else can change who I am inside. I choose to feel proud of who I am, even if I am different. Because each tree is valuable because it brings something unique to the world. I believe in myself. I know I am exactly as I am meant to be, like a seed who knows it is a tree, just…not…yet.

I took myself back, made myself over, became a woman I am proud of.

so people like myself created places where young peculiars could live apart from common folk—physically and temporally isolated enclaves like this one, of which I am enormously proud.

And I'm filled with an aching sorrow, too, for the loss to my own family because, in a very real way, I also died that day. I died to my family, to my children, to my grandchildren, to myself. I've lived out my death for more than two decades now. Those who put me here and keep me here knowing of my innocence can take grim satisfaction in their sure reward — which is being who and what they are. That's as terrible a reward as any I could imagine. I know who and what I am. I am an Indian — an Indian who dared to stand up to defend his people. I am an innocent man who never murdered anyone nor wanted to. And yes, I am a Sun Dancer. That, too, is my identity. If I am to suffer as a symbol of my people, then I suffer proudly. I will never yield.

In order to help another effectively I must understand more than he – yet first of all surely I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume myself on my greater understanding, it is because I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of benefiting him, I want to be admired.

I read in Lessing recently: ‘I am too proud to consider myself unlucky. Just clench your teeth and let your skiff sail where the wind and waves take it. Enough that I do not intend to upset it myself

Listen to me. I did not wish to be summoned by your Princess. Summoned, I did not wish to come. But having been summoned, and having come, I mean to give a good account of myself. That’s how I was taught by my father, and the men of his age who slew Kings and swept away not merely Governments but whole Systems of Thought, like Khans of the Mind. I would have my son in Boston know of my doings, and be proud of them, and carry my ways forward to another generation on another continent. Any opponent who does not know this about me, stands at a grave disadvantage; a disadvantage I am not above profiting from.

I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am — for just an example — self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I’m not one of the good ones; but then I countenance the fact that here at least here I am worrying about it, noticing all the ways I fall short of integrity, and I imagine that maybe people without any integrity at all don’t notice or worry about it; so then I feel better about myself (I mean, at least this stuff is on my mind, at least I’m dissatisfied with my level of integrity and commitment); but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to (imagined) Others…. It has to do with God and gods and a basic sense of trust in the universe v. fear that the universe must be held at bay and micromanaged into giving me some smidgeon of some gratification I feel I simply can’t live without. It’s all very confusing. I think I’m very honest and candid, but I’m also proud of how honest and candid I am — so where does that put me.

I am the daughter of a mother who would never change...The refusal to modify her aspect, her habits, her attitudes was strategy for resisting American culture, for fighting it, for maintaining her identity...When my mother returns to Calcutta, she is proud of the fact that, in spite of almost fifty years away from India, she seems like a woman who never left. I am the opposite. While the refusal to change was my mother's rebellion, the insistence on transforming myself is mine...All my life I've tried to get away from the void of my origin. It was the void that distressed me, that I was fleeing...Writing, I discovered a way of hiding in my characters, of escaping myself. Of undergoing one mutation after another. One could say that the mechanisms of metamorphosis is the only element of life that never changes. The journey of every individual, every country, every historical epoch, of the entire universe and all it contains, is nothing but a series of changes, at times subtle, at times deep, without which we would stand still. The moments of transitions in which something changes, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a loss, they are moments we tend to remember. They give a structure to our existence. Almost all the rest is oblivion.

Erik: I remember you quite well! We had never met a more proud and demanding blacksmith, but as soon as I saw your blades, I knew I needed one by my side. You certainly made me prove myself though. Kleitos: It astonishes me that I once such passion. But you know . . . perhaps passion takes many forms. Perhaps it becomes quiet and tired, and needs time to rest. Erik: Like being away from your forge for a spell? Kleitos: I am not sure. But being so far removed, I find myself noticing things around me that had become burned out by my focus on the forge fire . . . I feel like all my senses are returning. Strange, but I had not even noticed they were gone.

This was not going the way I wanted it to. I felt a desperate need to escape before I said something that would screw up my plans. Ren was the dark side, the forbidden fruit, my personal Delilah-the ultimate temptation. The question was…could I resist? I gave his knee a friendly pat and played my trump card…”I’m leaving.” “You’re what?” “I’m going home to Oregon. Mr. Kadam thinks it will be safer for me anyway, with Lokesh out there looking to kill us and all. Besides, you need time to figure out…stuff.” “If you’re leaving, then I’m going with you!” I smiled at him wryly. “That kind of defeats the purpose of me leaving. Don’t you think?” He slicked back his hair, let out a deep breath, then took my hand and looked intently into my eyes. “Kells, when are you going to accept the fact that we belong together?” I felt sick, like I was kicking a faithful puppy who only wanted to be loved. I looked out at the pool. After a moment, he sat back scowling and said menacingly, “I won’t let you leave.” Inside, I desperately wanted to take his hand and beg him to forgive me, to love me, but I steeled myself, dropped my hands in my lap, then implored, “Ren, please. You have to let me go. I need…I’m afraid…look, I just can’t be here, near you, when you change your mind.” “It’s not going to happen.” “it might. There’s a good chance.” He growled angrily. “There’s no chance!” “Well, my heart can’t take that risk, and I don’t want to put you in what can only be an awkward position. I’m sorry, Ren. I really am. I do want to be your friend, but I understand if you don’t want that. Of course, I’ll return when you need me, if you need me, to help you find the other three gifts. I wouldn’t abandon you or Kishan in that way. I just can’t stay here with you feeling obligated to pity-date me because you need me. But I’d never abandon your cause. I’ll always be there for you both, no matter what.” He spat out, “Pity-date! You? Kelsey, you can’t be serious!” “I am. Very, very serious. I’ll ask Mr. Kadam to make arrangements to send me back in the next few days.” He didn’t say another word. He just sat back in his chair. I could tell he was fuming mad, but I felt that, after a week or two, when he started getting back out in the world, he would come to appreciate my gesture. I looked away from him. “I’m very tired now. I’d like to go to bed.” I got up and headed to my room. Before I closed the sliding door, I asked, “Can I make one last request?” He sat there tight-lipped, his arms folded over his chest, with a tense, angry face. I sighed. Even infuriated he was beautiful. He said nothing so I went on, “It would be a lot easier on me if I didn’t see you, I mean as a man. I’ll try to avoid most of the house. It is yours after all, so I’ll stay in my room. If you see Mr. Kadam, please tell him I’d like to speak with him.” He didn’t respond. “Well, good-bye, Ren. Take care of yourself.” I tore my eyes away from him, shut the door, and drew the curtains. Take care of yourself? That was a lame goodbye. Tears welled in my eyes and blurred my vision. I was proud that I’d gotten through it without showing emotion. But, now, I felt like a steamroller had come along and flattened me.

Perhaps I should admit on the title page that this book is "By L. Frank Baum and his correspondents," for I have used many suggestions conveyed to me in letters from children. Once on a time I really imagined myself "an author of fairy tales," but now I am merely an editor or private secretary for a host of youngsters whose ideas I am requested to weave into the thread of my stories...My, what imaginations these children have developed! Sometimes I am fairly astounded by their daring an genius. There will be no lack of fairy-tale authors in the future, I am sure. My readers have told me what to do with Dorothy, and Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, and I have obeyed their mandates. They have also given me a variety of subjects to write about in the future: enough, in fact, to keep me busy for some time. I am very proud of this alliance. Children love these stories because children have helped to create them. My readers know what they want and realize I try to please them. The result is satisfactory to the publishers, to me, and (I am quite sure) to the children. I hope, my dears, it will be a long time before we are obliged to dissolve partnership.

And now that i dont have her, and I have more money than i could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and i know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second i chose it over loving her proudly.

I tore myself apart so they wouldn’t destroy me, but I can stand it now.” Tears traced down her cheeks. She bared her teeth and wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t spare herself. Better wild grief than this meekness with no passion. “Pain…she was how I stood it then, but I can remember it all, now. I can stand by myself because I won’t let you win. I won’t let what someone else made me into be what I am. I love this me I’ve made myself into. I’m proud of me. And I damn well won’t give this me up to you.

JD: Anyway, I tried to convince myself the reason that I didn't come earlier was because of you coming into work drunk. But that's not it. I was scared. I guess after all this time I still thought of you as a superhero that will help me out of any situation I'm in. I needed that. But that's my problem. I'll deal with that. I guess I came over here to tell you how proud of you I am. Not because you did the best for those patients. But because after 20 years of being a doctor, you still take it this hard.

Gushing I look around and am able to digest where I’ve come from, in a whole new light. A Playmate, A small-town girl in Hollywood— and feel proud of myself. No one else in history has had the same story— I did it all on my own— and I did it against the odds.

I experience thousand of emotions in a day But, one thing is for sure.I am bipolar, and I am proud. I want to write a book and carry a burning torch, To illuminate and eradicate the stigma attache to it. I am not an illness. I have a story to tell and I am winning the battle by loving myself

I am a survivor, but I also am, and always will be, a victim. I can't speak for others who share this dual identity, but I can say for myself that, while I wish to be the proud person who exclusively occupies the title of survivor, I still claim the territory of the shivering, cowering victim.

You've turned out good. You've made me proud, Markos. I am fifty-five years old. I have waited all my life to hear those words. Is it too late now for this? For us? Have we squandered too much for too long? Part of me thinks it is better to go on as we have, to act as though we don't know how ill suited we have been for each other. Less painful that way. Perhaps better than this belated offering. This fragile, trembling little glimpse of how it could have been between us. All it will beget is regret, I tell myself, and what good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.

You and your entire world have changed me, pulling me further and further from myself. I am not proud of it. She remains unsullied.” “Well, goody for her.” “Child?” The Light Queen’s voice stilled the turbulent waves of my soul, singing calm and grace to every fiber of my being. Neamh. Ah, there, I was pissed off again.

I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly.

The Winding Stair My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, Upon the broken, crumbling battlement, Upon the breathless starlit air, 'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole; Fix every wandering thought upon That quarter where all thought is done: Who can distinguish darkness from the soul My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was, Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass Unspotted by the centuries; That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn From some court-lady's dress and round The wodden scabbard bound and wound Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war? Think of ancestral night that can, If but imagination scorn the earth And intellect is wandering To this and that and t'other thing, Deliver from the crime of death and birth. My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it Five hundred years ago, about it lie Flowers from I know not what embroidery - Heart's purple - and all these I set For emblems of the day against the tower Emblematical of the night, And claim as by a soldier's right A charter to commit the crime once more. My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows And falls into the basin of the mind That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind, For intellect no longer knows Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known - That is to say, ascends to Heaven; Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone. II My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; The finished man among his enemies? - How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what's the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast? I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul. I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest

I have a choice. Instead of worrying what others think, I realize no one else can change who I am inside. I choose to feel proud of who I am, even if I am different. Because each tree is valuable because it brings something unique to the world. I believe in myself. I know I am exactly as I am meant to be, like a seed who knows it is a tree, just…not…yet.

Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. . . . I belong to the earth! . . . And I join my slime, my excrement, my madness,my ecstasy to the great circuit which flows through the subterranean vaults of the flesh. . . . Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists. . . . Out of the dead compost and the inert slag they breed a song that contaminates. . . . “I love everything that flows,” said the great blind Milton of our times [Joyce]. I was thinking of him this morning . . . of his rivers and trees and all that world of night that he is exploring. Yes, I said to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. . . . I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly.

From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro race, than be able to claim membership with the most favoured of any other race. I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong.

Last month, on a very windy day, I was returning from a lecture I had given to a group in Fort Washington. I was beginning to feel unwell. I was feeling increasing spasms in my legs and back and became anxious as I anticipated a difficult ride back to my office. Making matters worse, I knew I had to travel two of the most treacherous high-speed roads near Philadelphia – the four-lane Schuylkill Expressway and the six-lane Blue Route. You’ve been in my van, so you know how it’s been outfitted with everything I need to drive. But you probably don’t realize that I often drive more slowly than other people. That’s because I have difficulty with body control. I’m especially careful on windy days when the van can be buffeted by sudden gusts. And if I’m having problems with spasms or high blood pressure, I stay way over in the right hand lane and drive well below the speed limit. When I’m driving slowly, people behind me tend to get impatient. They speed up to my car, blow their horns, drive by, stare at me angrily, and show me how long their fingers can get. (I don't understand why some people are so proud of the length of their fingers, but there are many things I don't understand.) Those angry drivers add stress to what already is a stressful experience of driving. On this particular day, I was driving by myself. At first, I drove slowly along back roads. Whenever someone approached, I pulled over and let them pass. But as I neared the Blue Route, I became more frightened. I knew I would be hearing a lot of horns and seeing a lot of those long fingers. And then I did something I had never done in the twenty-four years that I have been driving my van. I decided to put on my flashers. I drove the Blue Route and the Schuylkyll Expressway at 35 miles per hour. Now…Guess what happened? Nothing! No horns and no fingers. But why? When I put on my flashers, I was saying to the other drivers, “I have a problem here – I am vulnerable and doing the best I can.” And everyone understood. Several times, in my rearview mirror I saw drivers who wanted to pass. They couldn’t get around me because of the stream of passing traffic. But instead of honking or tailgating, they waited for the other cars to pass, knowing the driver in front of them was in some way weak. Sam, there is something about vulnerability that elicits compassion. It is in our hard wiring. I see it every day when people help me by holding doors, pouring cream in my coffee, or assist me when I put on my coat. Sometimes I feel sad because from my wheelchair perspective, I see the best in people. But those who appear strong and invulnerably typically are not exposed to the kindness I see daily. Sometimes situations call for us to act strong and brave even when we don't feel that way. But those are a few and far between. More often, there is a better pay-off if you don't pretend you feel strong when you feel weak, or pretend that you are brave when you’re scared. I really believe the world might be a safer place if everyone who felt vulnerable wore flashers that said, “I have a problem and I’m doing the best I can. Please be patient!

Wrote the fucking book. I remember when I finished it. It was the middle of the night. I had been working on it for a year. I was alone and tired and it was dark, probably 4 a.m. I wrote the last word and I stared at it and I burst into tears. Just sobbed. Face in my hands, for probably an hour, just sat and sobbed. I was the only one who cared, the only one who believed, and after all those years, I had done it, I had written a book that I wasn’t going to light on fire or throw in a river. From there I found an agent, and we submitted it to publishers as a novel, a novel that told a version of the story of part of my life. At some point someone thought it would sell as a memoir, they asked me if I was okay with it as a memoir. I didn’t give a shit, just wanted it to come out, just wanted the dream to finally come true. The publisher knew what they were buying. When it came out I asked what I should do about the fact that not all of it was true, they said no memoir is, just do the interviews. I was cocky and proud and believed in the book, and I went along with it, I lied, got swept up in it, and the book became hugely successful, and I kept lying. I hated doing it, and hated myself every time I did, but I didn’t

When I first envisioned myself running, I saw myself as Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling in the opening scenes of The Silence of the Lambs. So strong, so focused, so proud. She is utterly confident, completely single-minded about her training run across a terrifying assault course. At one point she runs past a tree with the sign HURT AGONY PAIN LOVE IT stapled to it. She doesn’t care what she looks like; she has shit to do, and she is going to get it done. And yet . . . she is wearing a phenomenally impractical outfit. She is in a heavy cotton sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms and is drenched in sweat. The top is sticking to both her chest and back and looks painfully heavy. She is summoned by a colleague and heads inside past a roomful of people dressed in khaki, faffing around with guns, and then gets into an elevator. All in the heavy, damp cotton. That wet fabric must have gotten incredibly cold the minute she stopped running, and it bothers me whenever I think of the poor woman in that meeting. For years the scene was my running inspiration, yet now I am unable to watch the first hour of the film without worrying about whether Clarice is shivering from the horrors of Hannibal Lecter or because she caught a dreadful chill.

When I am asked if I consider myself a feminist, the question is usually couched within some sort of apology, as though the word itself was an insult. I am as proud to be called a feminist as I am to be called a Jew, or an American. Feminism is an individual part of who I am, and I remain mystified by the stigma that has been attached to the idea that women are human beings. It sounds so obvious and simple to me, so motherhood and apple pie. And yet the idea that women are human beings remains news, a message that requires constant, clear and artful reinforcement in a world that continues to undermine the confidence and abilities of girls and women. On the day that the intelligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and the planet itself will benefit in ways we can only begin to imagine.

you make me the most myself I’ve ever been. The most complete as a person in my own right. You found me in the darkness and didn’t let me stay there. You pushed me to remake myself into someone better, someone who I am really proud of being. Being with you… it’s like living a tap dance all the time. I’m more awake and more alive and at my happiest. I know this seems like the worst moment to say it, but I never want you to wonder or doubt it. I love you, Rohan.” I spread my arms helplessly. “I’m yours.

Because I love my body. I saw the way girls on my gymnastic team would whisper about me. I heard so many fucking derogatory remarks and tips about dieting and working out. It didn't matter how I felt about my own body. People honestly thought I should be unhappy with myself. They thought they were helping. “But men liked me. Men appreciated my body. And I don’t care if that makes me sound like a slut or an attention whore. I was, and am, proud of my curves, and I was tired of hearing how I should change them.

I am gratified by how much pain I can endure for him. Punishments that once would have had me panicked and screaming and begging, I now suffer through without a peep. I have come to crave the whipping and the paddling, because they give me a chance to prove my devotion. He doesn’t seem to notice how high my pain tolerance is now, which is devastating, because all I want to do is make him proud of me. I accept that he’s killed me. He lied to me when he said he wouldn’t kill me. He killed Tamara. The girl who loved the smiles on people’s faces, and coffeeshops, and books, and music; the girl who dreamed about someday making a difference…she’s dead. I can’t be myself anymore, because I can’t stand to be locked up in that room alone anymore. I need Master. I am alone in the world without him. Sarah doesn’t visit me in my head anymore, and neither does the dark tormenting voice that blamed me for destroying my mother. I thought I was making a difference in the world, and now I know that I failed at that. I never touched a single soul out there

I would like to believe and give in to my naiveté, I would like to embrace the fact that I am back in the place where the long fingers of civilization cannot reach me and rip my heart out. At this moment, I would like to embrace myself. I would like to be unconcerned with the rest of the world and take pleasure in knowing that I have found my home. All of my life, all of my adult life, which began with the first notion of understanding, I have been searching for this sensation. You, cruel world, have tried to bring me down, tried to crush me with your code of conduct, your ethics, and your preconceived limits on liberty. You have raped me and robbed me of happiness; you have stolen my dreams and my dignity, leaving me to rot with the rest of you. Today, I know I have escaped your poisoned web; I know your rules do not apply to me, for after all you have done to crush me, I am still standing proudly above the set of your sick play. I am in love—a feeling you no longer thought I was capable of. I am in love—living, breathing, dreaming again—triumphant over your sick schemes.

The love of my life is gone, and I can’t just call her and say I’m sorry and have her come back. She’s gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly. But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them. Back then, I still thought I had all the time I needed to do everything I wanted. That if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.

What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; The finished man among his enemies?— How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what's the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast? I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul. I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest.

Evelyn looks at me as if I am stupid. “She’s gone now,” Evelyn says. “The love of my life is gone, and I can’t just call her and say I’m sorry and have her come back. She’s gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly. But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them. Back then, I still thought I had all the time I needed to do everything I wanted. That if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.

After school, Peter and I are lying on the couch; his feet are hanging off the end. He’s still in his costume, but I’ve changed into my regular clothes. “You always have the cutest socks,” he says, lifting up my right foot. These ones are gray with white polka dots and yellow bear faces. Proudly I say, “My great-aunt sends them from Korea. Korea has the cutest stuff, you know.” “Can you ask her to send me some too? Not bears, but maybe, like, tigers. Tigers are cool.” “Your feet are too big for socks as cute as these. Your toes would pop right out. You know what, I bet I could find you some socks that fit at…um, the zoo.” Peter sits up and starts tickling me. I gasp out, “I bet the--pandas or gorillas have to--keep their feet warm somehow…in the winter. Maybe they have some kind of deodorized sock technology as well.” I burst into giggles. “Stop…stop tickling me!” “Then stop being mean about my feet!” I’ve got my hand burrowed under his arm, and I am tickling him ferociously. But by doing so, I have opened myself up to more attacks. I yell, “Okay, okay, truce!” He stops, and I pretend to stop, but sneak a tickle under his arm, and he lets out a high-pitched un-Peter-like shriek. “You said truce!” he accuses. We both nod and lie back down, out of breath. “Do you really think my feet smell?” I don’t. I love the way he smells after a lacrosse game--like sweat and grass and him. But I love to tease, to see that unsure look cross his face for just half a beat. “Well, I mean, on game days…” I say. Then Peter attacks me again, and we’re wrestling around, laughing, when Kitty walks in, balancing a tray with a cheese sandwich and a glass of orange juice. “Take it upstairs,” she says, sitting down on the floor. “This is a public area.

Loneliness is one of the most universal human experiences, but our contemporary Western society has heightened the awareness of our loneliness to an unusual degree. During a recent visit to New York City, I wrote the following note to myself: Sitting in the subway, I am surrounded by silent people hidden behind their newspapers or staring away in the world of their own fantasies. Nobody speaks with a stranger, and a patroling policeman keeps reminding me that people are not out to help each other. But when my eyes wander over the walls of the train covered with invitations to buy more or new products, I see young, beautiful people enjoying each other in a gentle embrace, playful men and women smiling at each other in fast sailboats, proud explorers on horseback encouraging each other to take brave risks, fearless children dancing on a sunny beach, and charming girls always ready to serve me in airplanes and ocean liners. While the subway train runs from one dark tunnel into the other and I am nervously aware where I keep my money, the words and images decorating my fearful world speak about love, gentleness, tenderness and about a joyful togetherness of spontaneous people.

Young man,” he went on, raising his head again, “in your face I seem to read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners, who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving, she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal … well, the medal of course was sold—long ago, hm … but the certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell some one or other of her past honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don’t condemn her for it. I don’t blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has nothing but black bread to eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated with disrespect. That’s why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov’s rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was a widow when I married her, with three children, one smaller than the other. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and ran away with him from her father’s house. She was exceedingly fond of her husband; but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he died. He used to beat her at the end: and although she paid him back, of which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of him with tears and she throws him up at me; and I am glad, I am glad that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as having once been happy.… And she was left at his death with three children in a wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time; and she was left in such hopeless poverty that, although I have seen many ups and downs of all sorts, I don’t feel equal to describing it even. Her relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud, too, excessively proud.… And then, honoured sir, and then, I, being at the time a widower, with a daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife, offered her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she married me! For she had nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? No, that you don’t understand yet…

The love of my life is gone, and I can't just call her and say I'm sorry and have her come back. She's gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn't spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay... And now that I don't have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly.

I perceived how foolish I had been in consenting to take my turn with you in praising love, and saying that I too was a master of the art, when I really had no conception how anything ought to be praised. For in my simplicity I imagined that the topics of praise should be true, and that this being presupposed, out of the true the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the best manner. And I felt quite proud, thinking that I knew the nature of true praise, and should speak well. Whereas I now see that the intention was to attribute to Love every species of greatness and glory, whether really belonging to him or not, without regard to truth or falsehood—that was no matter; for the original proposal seems to have been not that each of you should really praise Love, but only that you should appear to praise him. And so you attribute to Love every imaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere; and you say that 'he is all this,' and 'the cause of all that,' making him appear the fairest and best of all to those who know him not, for you cannot impose upon those who know him. And a noble and solemn hymn of praise have you rehearsed. But as I misunderstood the nature of the praise when I said that I would take my turn, I must beg to be absolved from the promise which I made in ignorance, and which (as Euripides would say (Eurip. Hyppolytus)) was a promise of the lips and not of the mind. Farewell then to such a strain: for I do not praise in that way; no, indeed, I cannot. But if you like to hear the truth about love, I am ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you. Say then, Phaedrus, whether you would like to have the truth about love, spoken in any words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time. Will that be agreeable to you? Aristodemus

The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When first I became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectable disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our anarchist pamphlets, in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. I certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those who, like Nietzsche, admire violence--the proud, mad war of Nature and all that, you know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and waved it constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, like a man calling for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak perish; it is the Law.' Well, well, it seems majors don't do this. I was nabbed again. At last I went in despair to the President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is the greatest man in Europe.

Five Questions 1. The Integrity Question Am I being honest with myself, really? Decision #1: I will not lie to myself even the truth makes me feel bad about myself. 2. The Legacy Question What story do I want to tell? Decision #2: I will write a story I’m proud to tell one decision at a time. 3. The Conscience Question Is there a tension that needs my attention? Decision #3: I will explore rather than ignore my conscience. 4. The Maturity Question What is the wise thing to do? Decision #4: I will take the past, present, and future into consideration 5. The Relationship Question What does love require of me? Decision #5: I will decide with the interests of others in mind.

Now, to be sure, Mrs Varden thought, here is a perfect character. Here is a meek, righteous, thoroughgoing Christian, who, having mastered all these qualities, so difficult of attainment; who, having dropped a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues, and caught them everyone; makes light of their possession, and pants for more morality. For the good woman never doubted (as many good men and women never do), that this slighting kind of profession, this setting so little store by great matters, this seeming to say, ‘I am not proud, I am what you hear, but I consider myself no better than other people; let us change the subject, pray’—was perfectly genuine and true. He so contrived it, and said it in that way that it appeared to have been forced from him, and its effect was marvellous. Aware of the impression he had made—few men were quicker than he at such discoveries—Mr Chester followed up the blow by propounding certain virtuous maxims, somewhat vague and general in their nature, doubtless, and occasionally partaking of the character of truisms, worn a little out at elbow, but delivered in so charming a voice and with such uncommon serenity and peace of mind, that they answered as well as the best. Nor is this to be wondered at; for as hollow vessels produce a far more musical sound in falling than those which are substantial, so it will oftentimes be found that sentiments which have nothing in them make the loudest ringing in the world, and are the most relished.

Where were you yesterday?" "Yesterday? Where was I-let me see...." "I thought you took a powder." "Me? How could that be?" "You mean, you wouldn't run out on me?" Run out on fragrant, sexual, high-minded Ramona? Never in a million years. Ramona had passed through the hell of profligacy and attained the seriousness of pleasure. For when will we civilized beings become really serious? said Kierkegaard. Only when we have known hell through and through. Without this, hedonism and frivolity will diffuse hell through all our days. Ramona, however, does not believe in any sin but the sin against the body, for her the true and only temple of the spirit. "But you did leave town yesterday," said Ramona. "How do you know-are you having me tailed by a private eye?" "Miss Schwartz saw you in Grand Central with a valise in your hand." "Who? Ramona said, "Perhaps some lovely woman scared you on the train, and you turned back to your Ramona." "Oh..." said Herzog. Her theme was her power to make him happy. Thinking of Ramona with her intoxicating eyes and robust breasts, her short but gentle legs, her Carmen airs, thievishly seductive, her skill in the sack (defeating invisible rivals), he felt she did not exaggerate. The facts supported her claim. "Well, were you running away?" she said. "Why should I? You're a marvelous woman, Ramona." "In that case you're being very odd, Moses." "Well, I suppose I am one of the odder beasts." "But I know better than to be proud and demanding.” “Life has taught me to be humble." Moses shut his eyes and raised his brows. Here we go. "Perhaps you feel a natural superiority because of your education." "Education! But I don't know anything..." "Your accomplishments. You're in Who's Who. I'm only a merchant-a petit-bourgeois type." "You don't really believe this. Ramona." "Then why do you keep aloof, and make me chase you? I realize you want to play the field. After great disappointments, I've done it myself, for ego-reinforcement." "A high-minded intellectual ninny, square ..." "Who?" "Myself, I mean." She went on. "But as one recovers self-confidence, one learns the simple strength of simple desires.” “Please, Ramona, Moses wanted to say-you're lovely, fragrant, sexual, good to touch-everything. Ramona paused, and Herzog said, "It's true-I have a lot to learn.” Excerpt From: Bellow, Saul. “Herzog.” iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

Urgent Story" When the oracle said, ‘If you keep pigeons you will never lose home.’ I kept pigeons. They flicked their red eyes over me, a deft trampling of that humanly proud distance by which remaining aloof in it’s own fullness. I administered crumbs, broke sky with them like breaking the lemon-light of the soul's amnesia for what It wants but will neither take nor truh let go. How it revived me, to release them! And at that moment of flight to disavow the imprint, to tear their compass, out by the roots of some green meadow they might fly over on the way to an immaculate freedom, meadow in which a woman has taken off her blouse, then taken off the man's flannel shirt in their sky-drenched arc of one, then the other above each other's eyelids is a branding of daylight, the interior of its black ambush in which two joys lame the earth a while with heat and cloudwork under wing-beats. Then she was quiet with him. And he with her. The world hummed with crickets, with bees nudging the lupins. It is like that when the earth counts its riches—noisy with desire even when desire has strengthened our bodies and moved us into the soak of harmony. Her nipples in sunlight have crossed his palm wind-sweet with savor and the rest is so knelt before that when they stand upright the flight-cloud of my tamed birds shapes an arm too short for praise. Oracle, my dovecot is an over and over nearer to myself when its black eyes are empty. But by nightfall I am dark before dark if one bird is missing. Dove left open by love in a meadow, Dove commanding me not to know where it sank into the almost-night—for you I will learn to play the concertina, to write poems full of hateful jasmine and longing, to keep the dead alive, to sicken at the least separation. Dove, for whose sake I will never reach home.

When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards—in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships—I felt confident but not humble. I was likely to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. When I was not living up to standards, I felt humble but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. I don’t need to notice myself—how I’m doing, how I’m being regarded—so often.

Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

I am thirty. I made two girls within my own body, felt the rush of bringing them into the world, and when I saw their bodies, I saw a miracle. Their skin and eye lashes perfect. Tiny lips, tiny fingernails, eyes embodying innocence and awe. They grow and run around my house naked and scream wildly without self-awareness or social concern. I teach them about our culture and what is and isn’t acceptable. But what I will not teach them is shame of their body. It was beautiful from moment one, and that will not change - not with age, not with anything. One daughter looks at her body in the mirror, we talk about the organs and skin, how her body will change. She is beautiful on every count. I remember when I was six, and I know I have to warn her. Not shame her, but tell her how some people were not taught to love, but take for themselves and she must be brave and aware. It pains me as I tell her, her innocent mind not know why one person would hurt another in such a way. “Do not be afraid,” I tell her. “But this is our culture, so be smart and be aware my brave girl.” Shame teaches us, but I will not teach my daughters in this way. I will empower them to be proud of their bodies, respectful of their bodies, in awe of how miraculous it is and what it is capable of. I will tell my daughter that to be a woman is not to be lesser, not object, not the bed in the red light district, nor the “bitch” in the hotel. She is not the body to exploit or product to consume. “She” is not shame. “She” is beautiful woman with beautiful body, capable of cosmic realities. Holding someone close, experiencing love, making love, creating life, accepting another human life as her own, feeling pain, joy, giving strength, healing with a kiss, wholeness with a touch; giving physical and mental nourishment with her own body. “She” is grounded enough to follow, still capable to lead from a child to a nation. The woman’s body is made in the image of Love, from Love herself, Life herself, so she herself is of God. For my Grandmother, for my Mother, for my daughters, my friends, and as a reminder to myself: be proud, beautiful woman, your body is intrinsically good, perfectly good. Perfect from moment one.

As for everyone else, there have been cases when I have felt taken advantage of…when people have taken from me without giving back. I have felt wronged and have judged those people as unfair. And it has bothered me. I have asked myself: What should I do? Should I refrain from being generous? Should I change? And every time I have considered this, I have realised that there are certain situations, generally seen as difficult, sad, or unfair, that allow us to express our higher self. I aspire to be more than my biology. I can choose. I am endowed with reason. My death is certain and my time limited, but I can choose how to live. What would make me into someone I can be proud of, someone who counts among the heroes of my own life? Would it be a person who practises calculated goodness or one who strives to be good for its own sake? And if goodness is to be my demise, given that a demise is unavoidable, is it still not better to die loving than to succumb in any other way? …I don’t know…. I’m not sure I’ve made much sense…. I am still searching for the answers. All I have right now are glimpses and intuitions.

Anna: Right. I can only imagine. Etienne: And what, exactly, ist hat supposed to mean? Anna: Forget it. Etienne: No. Let’s not forget it. I’m sick and tired of forgetting it, Anna. Anna: You’re tired of forgetting it? I’ve had to do nothing BUT forget it. Do you think it’s easy sitting in my room every night, thinking about you and Ellie? Do you think any of this has been easy for me? Etienne: I’m sorry. Anna: You tell me I’m beautiful, and that you like my hair and you like my smile. You rest your leg against mine in darkened theatres, and then you acta s if nothing happened when the lights go up. You slept in my bed for three nights straight, and then you jsut … blew me off for the next month. What am I supposed to do with that, St. Clair? You said on my birthday that you were afraid of being alone, but I’ve been here this whole time. This whole time. Etienne: Anna. I am so sorry that I’ve hur you. I’ve made terrible decisions. And I realize it’s possible that I don’t deserve your forgiveness, because it’s taken me this long to get here. But I don’t understand why you’re not giving me the chance. You didn’t even let me explain myself lad weekend. You just tore into me, expected the worst of me. But the only truth I know is what i feel when we’re together. I thought you trusted those feelings, too. I thought you trusted me, I thought you knew me … Anna: But that’s just it! I don’t know you. I tell you everything, St. Clair. About my dad, about Bridgette and Toph, about Matt and Cherrie. I told you about being a virgin. And what have you told me? Nothing! I know nothing about you. Not about your father, not about Ellie … Etienne: You know me better than anyone. Andi f you ever bothered to pay attention, you’d understand that things with my father are beyond shite right now. And I can’t believe you think so poorly of me that you’d assume I’d wait the entire year to kiss you, and then the moment it happened, I’d … I’d be done with you. OF COURSE I was with Ellie that night. I WAS BLODDY BREAKING UP WITH HER! You say that I’m afraid of being alone, and it’s true. I am And I’m not proud o fit. But you need to take a good look at yourself, Anna, because I am not the only one in this room who suffers this problem.

The rest is just slow diminution and loss. A waning of the full and effulgent moon of my youth. Not that the bright light of my youth was anything to be proud of. I was a terrible person. I did unkind and sometimes illegal things. I treated women abominably. The remembrance of it causes me to flush with shame and to feel a tightening in my groin. It was a radiance without warmth, and I thought of nothing but myself in the brightness of the light. Now I try never to think of myself. I try not to think at all, not to dwell, but, sometimes, late at night, it all comes back to me, and I lose myself in the life that might have been, the wife of twenty years, her comforts and distractions. The fractious children, raucous at the holidays, with their tattoos you asked them not to get and their lacrosse sticks they play with in the house, stringing and restringing them, the trips to Paris to stay at the Lutetia. Photograph albums of a life that never quite came to be. It doesn’t last long when it comes, but it is vivid, and I am there, not here, not here where I belong. When you lose everything, you don’t die. You just continue in ordinary pants with nothing in your pockets.

Amani knew Baz’s fatwa by heart, about women being forbidden from driving, and she proudly quoted, “Depravity leads to the innocent and pure women being accused of indecencies. Allah has laid down one of the harshest punishments for such an act to protect society from the spreading of the causes of depravity. Women driving cars, however, is one of the causes that lead to that.” Now Maha was dancing around the room, singing her words in a loud voice: “I am free, Amani, while you willingly wear chains!” She leapt into the air like a ballerina, holding her driving license like a trophy. My daughter is really too dramatic. Maha continued her rant. “I am free! My sister wears chains!” “Everything you do is haram, Maha,” Amani announced self-importantly, with the greatest certainty. “Listen, Amani. You are in the dark ages. You could be smart, but you seek ignorance and you appear to like portraying weakness and ignorance, to have men making all your decisions, when you are fully capable.” Maha was smothering. “I am free, Amani, to live. I am free to think for myself. I am free to drive. I am free to have thoughts about anything I please. I am a woman freed from this madness you embrace so lovingly!

Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

Now we all should seek to live a well adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things. I call upon you to be as maladjusted as Amos who in the midst of the injustices of his day cried out in words that echo across the generation, 'Let judgment run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.' As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave and half free. As maladjusted as Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery could cry out, 'All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who dreamed a dream of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to gout and change our world and our civilization. And then we will be able to move from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, “I am what I am, nothing more.” “I have failed,” I said, “I have lost myself — would it had been my shadow.” I looked round: the shadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt to behold, if not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal. Now, however, I took, at first, what perhaps was a mistaken pleasure, in despising and degrading myself. Another self seemed to arise, like a white spirit from a dead man, from the dumb and trampled self of the past. Doubtless, this self must again die and be buried, and again, from its tomb, spring a winged child; but of this my history as yet bears not the record. Self will come to life even in the slaying of self; but there is ever something deeper and stronger than it, which will emerge at last from the unknown abysses of the soul: will it be as a solemn gloom, burning with eyes? or a clear morning after the rain? or a smiling child, that finds itself nowhere, and everywhere?

Again I see before me the usual street. The canopy of civilization is burnt out. The sky is dark as polished whalebone. But there is a kindling in the sky whether of lamplight or of dawn. There is a stir of some sort--sparrows on plane trees somewhere chirping. There is a sense of the break of day. I will not call it dawn. What is dawn in the city to an elderly man standing in the street looking up rather dizzily at the sky? Dawn is some sort of whitening of the sky; some sort of renewal. Another day; another Friday; another twentieth of March, January, or September. Another general awakening. The stars draw back and are extinguished. The bars deepen themselves between the waves. The film of mist thickens on the fields. A redness gathers on the roses, even on the pale rose that hangs by the bedroom window. A bird chirps. Cottagers light their early candles. Yes, this is the eternal renewal, the incessant rise and fall and fall and rise again. 'And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!' The waves broke on the shore.

You see, I suffer from a disease that you cannot see; a disease that there is no cure for and that keeps the medical community baffled at how to treat and battle this demon, who’s[sic] attacks are relentless. My pain works silently, stealing my joy and replacing it with tears. On the outside we look alike you and I; you won’t see my scars as you would a person who, say, had suffered a car accident. You won’t see my pain in the way you would a person undergoing chemo for cancer; however, my pain is just as real and just as debilitating. And in many ways my pain may be more destructive because people can’t see it and do not understand....” “Please don’t get angry at my seemingly [sic] lack of interest in doing things; I punish myself enough, I assure you. My tears are shed many times when no one is around. My embarrassment is covered by a joke or laughter…” “I have been called unreliable because I am forced to cancel plans I made at the last minute because the burning and pain in my legs or arms is so intense I cannot put my clothes on and I am left in my tears as I miss out on yet another activity I used to love and once participated in with enthusiasm.” “And just because I can do a thing one day, that doesn’t mean I will be able to do the same thing the next day or next week. I may be able to take that walk after dinner on a warm July evening; the next day or even in the next hour I may not be able to walk to the fridge to get a cold drink because my muscles have begun to cramp and lock up or spasm uncontrollably. And there are those who say “But you did that yesterday!” “What is your problem today?” The hurt I experience at those words scars me so deeply that I have let my family down again; and still they don’t understand….” “On a brighter side I want you to know that I still have my sense of humor….I love you and want nothing more than to be a part of your life. And I have found that I can be a strong friend in many ways. Do you have a dream? I am your friend, your supporter and many times I will be the one to do the research for your latest project; many times I will be your biggest fan and the world will know how proud I am at your accomplishments and how honored I am to have you in my life.” “So you see, you and I are not that much different. I too have hopes, dreams, goals… and this demon…. Do you have an unseen demon that assaults you and no one else can see? Have you had to fight a fight that crushes you and brings you to your knees? I will be by your side, win or lose, I promise you that; I will be there in ways that I can. I will give all I can as I can, I promise you that. But I have to do this thing my way. Please understand that I am in such a fight myself and I know that I have little hope of a cure or effective treatments, at least right now. Please understand….

This once-proud country of ours is falling into the hands of the wrong people,” said Jones. He nodded, and so did Father Keeley and the Black Fuehrer. “And, before it gets back on the right track,” said Jones, “some heads are going to roll.” I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell. The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. “You’re completely crazy,” he said. Jones wasn’t completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information— That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, Father Keeley, Vice-Bundesfuehrer Krapptauer, and the Black Fuehrer could exist in relative harmony— That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase— That was how Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over the loudspeakers of Auschwitz great music and calls for corpse-carriers— That was how Nazi Germany could sense no important differences between civilization and hydrophobia— That is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I’ve seen in my time. And for me to attempt such a mechanical explanation is perhaps a reflection of the father whose son I was. Am. When I pause to think about it, which is rarely, I am, after all, the son of an engineer. Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself—will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows—some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history— But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, “This fact I can do without.” Howard W. Campbell, Jr., praises himself. There’s life in the old boy yet! And, where there’s life— There is life.

When you teach someone your true name, you place everything you are in their hands.” “I know, but I may never have the chance again. This is the only thing I have to give, and I would give it to you.” “Eragon, what you are proposing…It is the most precious thing one person can give another.” “I know.” A shiver ran through Arya, and then she seemed to withdraw within herself. After a time, she said, “No one has ever offered me such a gift before…I’m honored by your trust, Eragon, and I understand how much this means to you, but no, I must decline. It would be wrong for you to do this and wrong for me to accept just because tomorrow we may be killed or enslaved. Danger is no reason to act foolishly, no matter how great our peril.” Eragon inclined his head. Her reasons were good reasons, and he would respect her choice. “Very well, as you wish,” he said. “Thank you, Eragon.” A moment passed. Then he said, “Have you ever told anyone your true name?” “No.” “Not even your mother?” Her mouth twisted. “No.” “Do you know what it is?” “Of course. Why would you think otherwise?” He half shrugged. “I didn’t. I just wasn’t sure.” Silence came between them. Then, “When…how did you learn your true name?” Arya was quiet for so long, he began to think that she would refuse to answer. Then she took a breath and said, “It was a number of years after I left Du Weldenvarden, when I finally had become accustomed to my role among the Varden and the dwarves. Faolin and my other companions were away, and I had a great deal of time to myself. I spent most of it exploring Tronjheim, wandering in the empty reaches of the city-mountain, where others rarely tread. Tronjheim is bigger than most realize, and there are many strange things within it: rooms, people, creatures, forgotten artifacts…As I wandered, I thought, and I came to know myself better than ever I had before. One day I discovered a room somewhere high in Tronjheim--I doubt I could locate it again, even if I tried. A beam of sunlight seemed to pour into the room, though the ceiling was solid, and in the center of the room was a pedestal, and upon the pedestal was growing a single flower. I do not know what kind of flower it was; I have never seen its like before or since. The petals were purple, but the center of the blossom was like a drop of blood. There were thorns upon the stem, and the flower exuded the most wonderful scent and seemed to hum with a music all its own. It was such an amazing and unlikely thing to find, I stayed in the room, staring at the flower for longer than I can remember, and it was then and there that I was finally able to put words to who I was and who I am.” “I would like to see that flower someday.” “Perhaps you will.” Arya glanced toward the Varden’s camp. “I should go. There is much yet to be done.” He nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then.” “Tomorrow.” Arya began to walk away. After a few steps, she paused and looked back. “I’m glad that Saphira chose you as her Rider, Eragon. And I’m proud to have fought alongside you. You have become more than any of us dared hope. Whatever happens tomorrow, know that.” Then she resumed her stride, and soon she disappeared around the curve of the hill, leaving him alone with Saphira and the Eldunarí.

You still want me?” she murmured, a seductive husk to her voice. Gods, this woman could do me in with a single question. My gaze drifted down to my very proud, very erect cock and back to her face. “I think you know I’ll always want you. But right now? I want you more than I want air.” Lust bloomed through our connection, nearly knocking me for a loop. “That’s good. You know, I almost touched myself in the shower without you,” she admitted, opening her towel and showing me her perfect skin. “Almost made myself come all over my fingers just thinking about you tied up out here.” She threw a leg over mine, straddling me, my cock mere inches from Heaven. But did Wren even graze my aching, leaking head? No. No, she did not. Instead, she held herself from me as she grazed her own skin, palming her breasts, plucking her already-tight nipples.    “Fuuuuccccckkkkk,” I groaned, shifting restlessly on the sheets, trying for just a brush of her sex against mine. The pleasure she was giving herself threaded through me—enough that I was ready to rip out of these cuffs and take her over my knee. Her hands traveled down her stomach, her fingers threading through her auburn curls. “Just like this,” she said. “But I thought you’d want to see me. And you want to, don’t you? Watch me fuck myself?” My mouth was as dry as the Sahara. “Yes,” I croaked. “I want to see everything.” She whimpered as she grazed her clit with her thumb, fucking that sweet pussy with her fingers, her delicious heat so far out of reach. “Let me taste you,” I ordered, the thread of command thick in my voice. Wren raised an eyebrow, not giving an inch. “Good boys say please, Nico. Everyone knows that.” “Please,” I whispered, needing her taste on my tongue. Needing it, craving it. If she was going to torture me this way, I wanted something, anything of hers. Wren’s smile widened as she crawled up my body, grazing her luscious tits up my belly and chest. I tried capturing a nipple in my mouth, but she kept it just out of reach. She straddled my chest, her wet, slick heat so close and so far—all at the same time. I wanted her to sit on my face, wanted to lap her up, and drink her down. Wanted her pleasure for my own. But instead of letting me taste her, she went back to work, milking herself of pleasure just out of reach. Her scent filled my nose so much I could almost savor her sweetness, and as her pleasure ramped up, it got thicker in the air. She let her hair down, the wet strands curling over her gorgeous tits as she writhed. She plucked at her nipples, making herself hiss in desire. “That’s it, beautiful,” I growled. “Make yourself come all over my chest. Fuck that gorgeous pussy.” My words must have done the trick because Wren went off like a bomb, her orgasm slamming into both of us, nearly taking me over with it. But she didn’t come to me, didn’t press her body against mine, and that’s when I decided I’d had about enough of this shit. A flick of my wrists later, and Wren was on her back in my bed, her eyes wide. I nearly hissed at her warm skin against mine, but I was too preoccupied with her surprise. It was fucking adorable. “Yo-you just broke out of… How did you… How strong are you?” Like a pair of steel cuffs were a match for any shifter, let alone an Alpha. “Sweetheart, I’m an Acosta Alpha, next in line to take my father’s place if he ever decides to step down. A shifter is strong. I am stronger. Now, you’ve had your fun. It’s my turn.” Her wide green-gold eyes flared as her mouth parted, and even though she’d just had an orgasm, Wren’s desire blazed through us. As reluctant as I was to move,

In fact, I am generally proud of having had so many adventures. But today, I had barely pronounced the words than I was seized with contrition; it seems as though I am lying, that I have never had the slightest adventure in my life, or rather, that I don't even know what the word means any more. [...] Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn't a question of words; I am beginning to understand. [...] There is nothing brilliant about my life now: but from time to time, for example, for example, when they play music in the cafes, I look back and tell myself: in old days, in London, Meknes, Tokyo, I have known great moments, I have had adventures. Now I am deprived of this. I have suddenly learned, without apparent reason, that I have been lying to myself for ten years. [...] ... adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makese sense when dead. [...] Each instant appears only as a part of a sequence. I cling to each instant with all my heart: I know that it is unique, irreplacable-and yet I would not raise a finger to stop it from being annihilated. [...] I shall never rediscover either this woman or this night. I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn on early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass. All of a sudden something breaks off sharply. The adventure is over, time resumes its daily routine. I turn; behind me, this beautiful melodious form sinks entirely into the past. It grows smaller, contracts as it declines, and now the end makes one with the beginning. Following this gold spot with my eyes I think I would accept-even if I had to risk death, lost a fortune, a friend-to live it all over again, in the same circumstances, from end to end. But an adventure never returns nor is prolonged." (p.56-57) "... Perhaps there is nothing in the world I cling to as much as this feeling of adventure; but it comes when it pleases; it is gone so quickly and how empty I am once it has left. Does it, ironically, pay me these short visits in order to show me that I have wasted my life? [...] This feeling of adventure definitely does not come from events: I have proved it. It's rather they way in which the moments are linked together. I think this is what happens: you suddenly feel that time is passing, that each instant leads to another, this one to another one, and so on; that each instant is annihilated, and that it isn't worth while to hold it back, etc., etc. And then you attribute this property to events which appear to you *in* the instants; what belongs to the form you carry over to the content. You talk a lot about this amazing flow of time but you hardly see it. You see a woman, you think that one day she'll be old, only you don't see her grow old. But there are moments when you think you *see* her grow old and feel yourself growing old with her: this is the feeling of adventure. If I remember correctly, they call that the irreversibility of time. The feeling of advanture would simply be that of the irreversibility of time. But why don't we always have it? Is it that time is not always irreversible? There are moments when you have the impression that you can do what you want, go forward or backward, that it has no importance; and then other times when you might say that the links have been tightened and, in that case, it's not a questino of missing your turn because you could never start again.

So what brought you here?” Emilio asks. I don’t set the icing bag down, because it’s nice to have something to do with my hands, although they’re suddenly shaking. “I wanted to talk to you about Peck.” “What about her?” “I wanted to see if you’d have any objections to me asking her to marry me.” I hear a whoop from the other room. Emilio rolls his eyes. “Why do you want to marry her?” Why do I want to marry her? She’s just Peck. And I feel like she was made for me. “Um…” “The answer is no, if that’s the best you can do.” He points to the cupcakes. “Ice them,” he says. I ice quietly for a few minutes, trying to gather my thoughts. “Didn’t expect you to give up quite so easily,” he suddenly says. I look up. “Oh, I’m not giving up. I’m just thinking.” “You about done with that?” I shake my head. “Not yet.” “Keep icing.” Suddenly, Marta strolls into the room. There’s purpose in her stride and I back up against the wall, because I’m afraid I’m her target. But I quickly see I’m not. She goes for Emilio, but he must be used to this. He runs around the corner of the center island and she chases him. She picks up a rolling pin and runs, but he runs a little bit faster. Suddenly, she stops and blows a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “Stop tormenting the poor boy,” she says. She shakes the rolling pin at him. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he breathes. “I was having fun with it!” He grins. Then he sobers completely. “Did Peck tell you about the day we met?” “Yes, sir,” I tell him. “What she didn’t tell you was my side of it.” He rubs at the back of his hand. “I had been hanging out in the boys’ ward at the home, and one of the little assholes bit me on the back of the hand, so I was in a bad mood. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there. I walked around the corner, trying to find Marta, and I saw her sitting beside a little girl. I took one look at that kid and I said to myself, She’s my daughter.” He takes a deep breath. “I know it sounds stupid, and I suppose it should. But she was sitting there on the edge of the bed and she wouldn’t speak. But when she looked at me, she said a million words with her eyes.” Marta wipes a tear from her cheek. “I have loved that little girl from the minute I met her. I never doubted that she belonged to us, and neither did she.” He waits a beat. “The first time she spoke to me was when she had a set of drumsticks in her hand.” He looks at me. “Do you know what she said?” I shake my head, and swallow past the lump in my throat. “She took my hand and said, ‘I’m glad you’re my dad.’ It was one big stutter, and I loved every syllable. She makes me so fucking proud.” He points a finger at me. “She’s fucking perfect, so if you so much as make her cry, I will find you and jam her drumsticks so far up your ass that you’ll taste them ten years from now. Do you understand?” “Yes, sir.” I swallow again. “So, yes, you can marry my daughter. And you better make her happy every day for the rest of her life, because I will be watching. Understand?” “Yes, sir.” He points to the cupcakes. “Keep icing.” “Yes, sir.” I grin. Marta lays a hand on my shoulder. “Did you get a ring yet?” “No, ma’am. I wanted to get permission first.” She looks at Emilio and quirks a brow. He nods. She disappears into a bedroom and comes back a minute later with a box. “It was my mother’s,” Emilio says. “Peck used to try it on all the time when she was small, and she loves it. So you can use it if you want to.” He’s grumbling, but I can tell he’s serious. I pop open the box and stare down at a beautiful antique ring. “It’s lovely. Are you sure it’s okay if I use it?” He nods. He points to the cupcakes. “Keep icing.” “Yes, sir.” I smile.

People call me ugly and kids are scared of me, I have deep scars all over my body and face, When I look at my old pics I am not able to recognize myself, I look normal as any other girl, These scars and this pain is the result of my saying No to a man who wanted to own me, Should I regret saying No to that man double my age? Should I regret being a girl? Should I believe the world which calls me ugly? No, I don’t regret anything, I don’t think that I am ugly! I have a beautiful loving heart and a forgiving soul. I forgive the man who caused me this pain and I forgive those who want to make me feel ugly not because they deserve forgiveness but because I deserve my peace of mind! I am beautiful and no one can make me feel ugly… I love myself and feel proud to be who I am- a woman, a wonderful woman!

Today, I am proud that my happiness comes first. I know who I am and what I like. I am assertive about asking for what I want or need. My life changed because I changed myself.

My grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and great-great-great-grandfather were Torah scribes - and for all I know the tradition goes back to the days before the Diaspora. The texts I compose and redact are not sacred, but I am a kind of scribe as well. I count myself proudly among the people of the book. I commit to paper the stories of those who came before me. What we have done, what we have lost, what remains, what we can pass on - this is the scope of my work. The family work, as I now understand. Though I have ceased to attend synagogue and don't claim my ancestors' knowledge or share their faith, I have come to love and revere the Judaism that sustained my family through the generations. The more I learn about them, the more amazed I am by the breadth and originality of their lives. Their daring, their drive, their inventiveness and ambition and confidence and secret melancholy strike me now like something out of Dos Passos or Isaac Bashevis Singer. They were giants; wittingly or not, they enacted epics. They gave me so much, these fierce, passionate immigrants - my life, my freedom and privileges, my education, my identity, my country. The least I can do is give their stories back to them.

Maybe it’s because of the hope on their faces and the smile still stuck on Henry’s. Maybe it’s because of Bo, telling me how capable I am. How possible this is. Mostly, I think, it’s because of me. Because of how much stronger I feel lately. I let myself feel proud of everything I did with Henry today, the years of schooling that prepared me for this, the life I’ve lived with my hand and the experiences I’ve gathered just by having it. And I hold my head high.

I find no consolation even in pride. What reason have I to be proud if I am not the creator of myself? And even if there were something in me I could feel vain about, how many more things are there not to?

I am a proud African, no matter what other nationality I may possess. I am a product of Africa, and I will never apologize to anyone for that. Like me or not, that's your problem. I stand tall in the richness of my heritage, embracing the diversity that makes me who I am. My roots are my strength, and I celebrate the beauty of being authentically myself, unapologetically African.

Often survivors ask Laura how far along they are in the healing process, and her response to them is always the same. She asks them, "What are you doing to take care of yourself?" This is a better indicator of healing than how much therapy you've had, how many tears you've cried, or how many people you've told your incest story to. Ask yourself: Am I gentle with myself when I make a mistake? Can I relax and take breaks from the intensity of healing? Am I able to do things I enjoy? Am I getting enough sleep and eating healthy food? Am I part of a community of people who love and support one another? Can I recognize the things that are going well in my life? Are there things I'm doing that I feel proud of? When you can answer yes to most of these questions or are making progress in that direction, you're well on your way to healing. However, if you are at the very beginning of the healing process, you may not be able to say yes to a single question.

i am learning how to learn from my mistakes and let go of my failures. i am learning how to be okay again. to be me again. i am learning to pick myself up and i am proud of what i’ve been through and how far i came. i am still standing on my feet and there is a long road ahead. - just getting started

I am a 14 years Old Boy , I just find myself happy with simple things. I love myself though not everything, but I do love the good as well as the bad. I love my crazy lifestyle, and I love my hard discipline. I love my freedom of speech and the way my eyes get dark when I'm tired. I love that I have learned to trust people with my heart, even if it will get broken. I am proud of everything that I am and will become. Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself. I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself in. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that's just the way it is! If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when? so now I really know myself, and I know my voice.

Ibrahim found the passage and began to read it. “‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Behold, I am going to break the bow of Elam, the finest of their might. I will bring upon Elam the four winds from the four ends of heaven, and will scatter them to all these winds; and there will be no nation to which the outcasts of Elam will not go. So I will shatter Elam before their enemies and before those who seek their lives; and I will bring calamity upon them, even My fierce anger,” declares the Lord, “and I will send out the sword after them until I have consumed them. Then I will set My throne in Elam and destroy out of it king and princes,” declares the Lord. “But it will come about in the last days that I will restore the fortunes of Elam,” declares the Lord.’” “Elam is Iran?” Ali asked. “Yes,” said Birjandi, still leaning back, eyes still closed. “Elam is one of the ancient names of Iran, just like Persia. The passage tells us that in the last days, God will scatter the people of Iran all over the earth. For many centuries, this seemed impossible because we Persians are such a proud and nationalistic people. But as incredible as it was, this prophecy actually began to come to pass in 1979. In that year, for the first time in history, our people were scattered all over the globe. When the Shah’s regime fell and Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, Iran went into upheaval. Many were overjoyed, myself included. We were deceived. Our eyes were blinded. But many others understood the evil Khomeini represented. They understood Islam was not the answer and jihad was not the way, which is why many fled Iran as soon as they could. Guess how many Iranians now live outside our country.” “Half a million?” Ibrahim guessed.

I headed straight for the half-bathroom I remembered seeing on my other visits over. I peed and started washing my hands, and it was when I reached for a towel that I happened to look down and saw something small and brown run across the floorboard. I froze. Leaning over just a little, I peeked around the toilet and saw it again. Two little eyes. One bare tail. About two inches long. It darted off, disappearing around the trash can. I wasn’t proud of myself… but I screamed. Not loud, but it was still a scream. And then I got the hell out of there. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d ever moved so fast going down the hall, thankful I’d seen him after I’d pulled my pants on and zipped them up, going as far away from the bathroom as possible. Which ended up being the kitchen. Rhodes was standing by the island, tearing paper towels off when he noticed me coming. A frown came over his face. “What’s—” “There’s a mouse in the bathroom!” I squeaked and went past him, pretty much leaping onto the stool beside the counter, then jumping from there to the back of the couch with a frantic look toward the floor to make sure I hadn’t been followed. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Amos stood up so fast the chair he was in fell backward, and the next thing I knew, he’d leaped onto the couch and ended up beside me, his butt propped up on the back of it, legs dangling inches off the floor in the air. Johnny and Jackie either didn’t care or were so stunned by Amos and me, that they hadn’t moved a single inch from the table. “A rat?” Rhodes asked from the exact same spot he’d been in. I shook my head at him, exhaling hard to try and bring my heart rate down. “No, a mouse.” His eyebrows crept up about a half-inch, but I noticed it. “You’re screaming because of a mouse?” Did he have to ask so slowly? I swallowed. “Yes!” He blinked. Beside me, Amos suddenly snorted deep in his throat like he hadn’t knocked his chair over. Then I noticed that Rhodes’s chest was shaking. “What?” I asked, eyeing the floor again. His chest was shaking even more, and he barely managed to wheeze out, both eyes squeezing closed, “I… I didn’t know you were into parkour.” Amos snorted again, lowering his legs and planting his feet. “You backflipped onto the table…,” Rhodes choked out. He was wheezing. The son of a bitch was wheezing. “No, I did not!” I argued, starting to feel just a little bit… foolish. I hadn’t. I didn’t know how to backflip. “You jumped from the island to the couch,” Rhodes kept going, raising a fist to hold it right in front of his nose. He could barely talk. “Your face… Ora, it was so white,” Am started, bottom lip starting to tremble. I pressed my lips together and stared at my favorite traitor. “My soul left my body for a second, Am. And you didn’t exactly walk over here either, okay.” Rhodes, who decided that this was what he was going to find hilarious, barely choked out, “You looked like you saw a ghost.” Amos burst out laughing. Then Rhodes burst out laughing. One quick glance confirmed that Johnny was chuckling too, Jackie was the only one giving me a smile. I was glad someone had a heart. They were cracking up, totally and completely cracking up. “You know, I hope it crawls into one of your mouths for being so mean to me,” I muttered, joking. Mostly. Rhodes grinned so wide, he came over and slapped his son on the back while they both kept laughing. At me. But together. And maybe I wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight now, worried there might be a mouse next door, but it would be worth it.

I want what I see when my parents look at each other. I want a man who will stand by me, no matter what, who will never let me down. A man who keeps his promises and honours his wife and family, a man who is proud of me for having opinions, even if he doesn’t always agree with them and never tries to silence me. I want a man who will discuss instead of arguing, who will seek my counsel before deciding on things that affect our family, who will allow me to make decisions for myself instead of telling me what I must do. Someone who will love me for who I am, the good and the bad, not just the pretty face I must present to society and the fat purse marrying me will give him. That is what I want.

And now tell me"-in the end I could not restrain myself "how did you manage to know?" "My good Adso," my master said, "during our whole journey I have been teaching you to recognize the evidence through which the world speaks to us like a great book. Alanus de Insulis said that omnis mundi creatura quasi liber et pictura nobis est in speculum and he was thinking of the endless array of symbols with which God, through His creatures, speaks to us of the eternal life. But the universe is even more talkative than Alanus thought, and it speaks not only of the ultimate things (which it does always in an obscure fashion) but also of closer things, and then it speaks quite clearly. I am almost embarrassed to repeat to you what you should know. At the cross roads, on the still-fresh snow, a horse's hoofprints stood out very neatly, heading for the path to our left. Neatly spaced, those marks said that the hoof was small and round, and the gallop quite regular --and so I deduced the nature of the horse, and the fact that it was not running wildly like a crazed animal. At the point where the pines formed a natural roof, some twigs had been freshly broken off at a height of five feet. One of the blackberry bushes where the animal must have turned to take the path to his right, proudly switching his handsome tail, still held some long black horsehairs in its brambles. ... You will not say, finally, that you do not know that path leads to the dungheap, because as we passed the lower curve we saw the spill of waste down the sheer cliff below the great south tower, staining the snow; and from the situation of the crossroads, the path could only lead in that direction." "Yes," I said, "but what about the small head, the sharp ears, the big eyes...?" "I am not sure he has those features, but no doubt the monks firmly believe he does. As Isidore of Seville said, the beauty of a horse requires that the head be small, siccum prope pelle ossibus adhae rente, short and pointed ears, big eyes, flaring nostrils, erect neck, thick mane and tail, round and solid hoofs.' If the horse whose passing I inferred had not really been the finest of the stables, stableboys would have been out chasing him, but instead, the cellarer in person had undertaken the search. And a monk who considers a horse excel lent, whatever his natural forms, can only see him as the auctoritates have described him, especially if" and here he smiled slyly in my direction-"the describer is a learned Benedictine." "All right," I said, "but why Brunellus?" "May the Holy Ghost sharpen your mind, son!" my master exclaimed. "What other name could he possibly have? Why, even the great Buridan, who is about to become rector in Paris, when he wants to use a horse in one of his logical examples, always calls it Brunellus This was my master's way. He not only knew how to read the great book of nature, but also knew the way monks read the books of Scripture, and how they thought through them. A gift that, as we shall see, was to prove useful to him in the days to follow. His explanation, moreover, seemed to me at that point so obvious that my humiliation at not having discovered it by myself was surpassed only by my pride at now being a sharer in it, and I was almost congratulat ing myself on my insight. Such is the power of the truth that, like good, it is its own propagator. And praised be the holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ for this splendid revelation I was granted.

You say I have the power to break you--well, you have changed me, and I did not think I was capable of changing again. I only hope you will not abandon me, so altered and strange to myself, because you think I am too proud to accept your love. I would hate for my life to go on like that, empty of you. I think I would be the one to finally break after that.

Let’s face it, dear, there are people who walk around like deflated balloons – even with all the potential for greatness, but kinda limpy & dusty. IMPRESS YOURSELF, TODAY! Every day when you go to bed, ask yourself, “Did I do something awesome today?” Am I proud of myself?” & feel the answer deep inside your heart.. Sweetheart, look, most people settle for a life way smaller than they’re actually capable of. Most people cage themselves in “self-doubt” & “what if” fortresses & then complain the view sucks. (Seriously, you want a limited-edition life when you can be the GOLD edition?) Darling listen – this is your official wake-up call! Dust off your inner rockstar, ditch the excuses & unleash your awesomeness! You already have talent & inherited wisdom to be extraordinary, you just gotta use them. So, shed those limiting beliefs like a bad outfit. Move from “just existing” to “extraordinary.” Do a few things to make yourself proud. Expand your horizons & surprise yourself with what you’re capable of. Trust me, the world needs your unique brand of magic. I wish & hope that very soon you get a taste for what it means to expand beyond your limited sense of self. Blessings & may your self-impressed journey begin today!

My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.

Keep going. You are going to be so proud of yourself if you keep pushing.” When I finish a workout like that, I am so happy the rest of the day because I know I did everything I could do to better myself.

But the subject of war never came up until Billy brought it up himself. Somebody in the zoo crowd asked him through the lecturer what the most valuable thing he had learned on Tralfamadore was so far, and Billy replied, “How the inhabitants of a whole planet can live in peace! As you know, I am from a planet that has been engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time. I myself have seen the bodies of schoolgirls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own countrymen, who were proud of fighting pure evil at the time.” This was true. Billy saw the boiled bodies in Dresden. “And I have lit my way in a prison at night with candles from the fat of human beings who were butchered by the brothers and fathers of those schoolgirls who were boiled. Earthlings must be the terrors of the Universe! If other planets aren’t now in danger from Earth, they soon will be. So tell me the secret so I can take it back to Earth and save us all: How can a planet live at peace?” Billy felt that he had spoken soaringly. He was baffled when he saw the Tralfamadorians close their little hands on their eyes. He knew from past experience what this meant: He was being stupid.

Much of that hostility, which emanated from the entertainment industry, was racially motivated. There were many Americans, then and later, that resented Japanese people, such as Noguchi, who occupied positions of authority. “I am a coroner,” he said. “It is a noble profession.” Like a mortician, who embalms dead bodies, Noguchi was proud of his job. “I consider myself an artist.” Despite ongoing criticism, Noguchi was totally dedicated to his work. He believed in the public’s right to know the truth and for telling it like it is – not as someone might have imagined it.

How did I earn it? What didn’t I do? I did whatever I had to. Whatever I could. “I made myself valuable wherever possible,” I said. And look at what I did. Even the moments I weren’t proud of were worth it, for this. A pleased smile crept to the edges of my mouth. “And what,” Esmaris hissed, “does that mean?” My smile promptly disappeared. Shit. “I learned from you,” I said, smoothly, pacing forward. “Business is just a matter of—” “You whored for this money.” His revulsion — his fury — split the air so violently that I felt like I had been slapped across the face. The ugliness of the word, the way he hurled it at me, left me momentarily speechless. I had never even said it that way to myself. It hit harder than I thought it would. “No, I—” Only once. I pushed away the whisper, reminding myself that I had no regrets about what I had done. “You and I both know that I am not stupid. You could not have gotten this money any other way.” “I worked for it. For whoever would hire me. Danced, conjured, scrubbed floors—

I have no idea how long I doze, but when I open my eyes again, the sirens have quieted. Ryder’s lying beside me, our shoulders touching. “You awake?” he asks. “Yeah,” I mumble sleepily. “Is it morning yet?” “Not quite. Soon.” I nod, and we both fall silent. Inexplicably, I find myself scooting closer to him, fitting myself against his side, seeking his warmth. He puts an arm around me, drawing me closer. I let out a contented sigh. There’s something so familiar--and yet so foreign--about his closeness. I think about those shared cribs, the communal Pack ’n Plays our mothers insisted on. Maybe that explains it--old memories, too far out of reach to be easily accessed, but there all the same. That’s why this feels so…right. It must be. I feel Ryder’s fingers in my hair, combing through it absently. His heart is thumping noisily against my ear, his chest rising and falling with each breath. “Jem?” I swallow hard before answering. “Yeah?” “I’ve been thinking about what you said--you know, about the eighth-grade dance. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out what you were talking about. And”--he swallows hard--“there’s something I need to tell you.” Why is he bringing this up now? “You don’t have to, Ryder,” I say, my heart accelerating. “You were right. It was a long time ago.” “I know, but, well…just hear me out, okay?” I nod, mentally bracing myself. I’m not sure I want to hear this--to open those old wounds again. “I said some things that night, things I’m not proud of. And…it occurred to me that someone might have told you, and--” “I heard you, Ryder,” I say, cutting him off. “I was there, hiding in those trees by the rock. I heard everything.” He lets out his breath in a low whistle. “Shit. I am so sorry, Jemma. I didn’t think--I mean, not that it makes any difference, but I didn’t know. I figured you’d had second thoughts or something and decided you didn’t want to go with me.” “I wish,” I mumble.

I’ve been thinking about what you said--you know, about the eighth-grade dance. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out what you were talking about. And”--he swallows hard--“there’s something I need to tell you.” Why is he bringing this up now? “You don’t have to, Ryder,” I say, my heart accelerating. “You were right. It was a long time ago.” “I know, but, well…just hear me out, okay?” I nod, mentally bracing myself. I’m not sure I want to hear this--to open those old wounds again. “I said some things that night, things I’m not proud of. And…it occurred to me that someone might have told you, and--” “I heard you, Ryder,” I say, cutting him off. “I was there, hiding in those trees by the rock. I heard everything.” He lets out his breath in a low whistle. “Shit. I am so sorry, Jemma. I didn’t think--I mean, not that it makes any difference, but I didn’t know. I figured you’d had second thoughts or something and decided you didn’t want to go with me.” “I wish,” I mumble. “The thing is, Jem, those things I said? I didn’t mean them. I was there waiting for you, when Mason and Ben showed up and started teasing me. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to get rid of them, and then they started saying stuff. You know, about you.” “Yeah, I heard.” Even now, all these years later, the memory makes me cringe. “And I knew that if they knew the truth--if they knew how much I really liked you, it’d be even worse. I swear, in some crazy, convoluted way, I thought I was protecting you or something.” “I still can’t believe Laura Grace made you ask me,” I say. “Was Mama in on it too?” He shakes his head. “No. Don’t you get it? I made that up. My mom had nothing to do with it--she didn’t even know. The truth is, I wanted to go with you. Something had changed between us, remember? At the beach over Christmas break?” “I remember.” I’d been hyperaware of him on that trip--self-conscious and nervous and giddy and excited all at once. I’d caught him staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking, and I’d stolen some secret glances myself. “That was when I realized you were the prettiest girl in Magnolia Branch,” he says. “Hell, maybe in all of Mississippi. Anyway, I was excited about the dance. I even snuck into town that afternoon and bought you a corsage. I had it in my pocket when I went to the rock to meet you.” I barely hear him, because I’m still stuck on the “prettiest girl” part of his speech.

My family says they are proud of me. Of course, I would rather hear this than the contrary, but I cannot say that I am proud of myself, so I find that I cannot 'talk about it'.

That is why I am proudly and vocally a nasty woman; tired of making excuses, of letting politeness stop me from defending myself. I lost too much when I was silent, nice and accommodating and I met someone who chose to take advantage of that.

Uncle Damian crossed his arms and gave me a stern, unyielding, wholly unsympathetic look. For some odd reason, it made me feel immensely better. “Buck up, woman! You just took a hard left to the gut, but I trained you better than this.” “I’m pregnant,” I said, sniffling as I wiped up the last of my messy tears. “I’m allowed to be emotional.” “You’re not allowed to be an idiot, and that’s the path you’re heading down if you don’t stop right now. I trained you to be a smart, savvy woman who could handle herself in any situation. Now let’s see the last of this pitiful creature, and more of the Aisling I know you can be.” He was right. I straightened my shoulders, lifting my chin as I sniffled my last sniffle. Drake wasn’t excluding me because he wanted to—he’d always been proud of me as his mate, demanding I be at his side for everything. I was just giving in to my hormones, and that wasn’t going to help anyone. If I wanted things to change, I’d have to see to it myself. “You’re absolutely right. Dammit, I am a Guardian. I am a wyvern’s mate—we won’t go into whose right now because that’s all screwed up—but I am still a wyvern’s mate, and that’s important.” Righteous indignation filled me, but it was a cleansing, energizing emotion. “That’s better,” Uncle Damian nodded as I stormed over to the window and flung back the curtain. “And I am a demon lord, one of the seven princes of Abaddon!” I yelled, spinning around to face him, shaking my fist to the ceiling. “As god is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” “Eh…” Uncle Damian pursed his lips. “Sorry. Got carried away with the moment. Jim, Traci! I summon thee!” Both demons appeared before me just as Rene cracked open the door and peered in. “Is everything all right? We heard yelling.” “Come in and join the fun,” I said as he slowly came into the room, Nora on his heels. “Everything’s crap right now, but it’s about to get a whole lot better

I did Bring Myself Up. I am self-made. But, sometimes – often – especially now, I feel like a child’s first attempt at pottery – all misshapen and dented. The kind of thing only a mother would be proud of. Let me tell you about my mum.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." -Benjamin Franklin I'm writing to free myself and free women from this prison. My writing is dedicated to all women over the world. I believe that history repeats itself, and for that reason I am indebted to my namesake, Huda Al-Sharawy, Egyptian feminist, and the first woman in the Middle East who called for female emancipation. I see myself as a foreigner in my community. This is because my thoughts do not match their thoughts, and their thoughts do not match mine. My community doesn't consider me to be a real woman because they are unwilling to accept a woman who objects or defends her gender. To them, I am not a woman because I am strong and stand against them. They believe that strength is for men and weakness for women. The only way to express my feelings and share my thoughts is through writing. In the writing of my experiences and thoughts, I found myself writing this book, Women between submission and freedom. I consider myself a messenger for woman, carrying their message, whether from the East or West, to define the true meaning of being a woman. This definition is a culmination of stories and experiences from different perceptions and angles of life, and I hope that they can make all women proud of their womanhood.

Anna, did you just indirectly admit to liking me?” She drew in a swift breath and saw from his expression that while he was teasing, he was also… fishing. “Of course I like you. I like you entirely too well, and it is badly done of you to make me admit it.” “Well, let’s go from bad to worse, then, and you can tell me precisely why you like me.” “You are serious?” “I am. If you want, I will return the favor, though we have only several hours, and my list might take much longer than that.” He is flirting with me, Anna thought, incredulous. In his high-handed, serious way, the Earl of Westhaven had just paid her a flirtatious compliment. A lightness spread out from her middle, something of warmth and humor and guilty pleasure in it. “All right.” Anna nodded briskly. “I like that you are shy and honorable in the ways that count. I like that you are kind to Morgan, and to your animals, and old Nanny Fran. You are as patient with His Grace as a human can be, and you adore your brother. You are fierce, too, though, and can be decisive when needs must. You are also, I think, a romantic, and this is no mean feat for a man who spends half his days with commercial documents. Mostly, I like that you are good; you look after those who depend on you, you have gratitude for your blessings, and you don’t think enough of yourself.” Beside her, the earl was again silent. “Shall I go on?” Anna asked, feeling a sudden awkwardness. “You could not possibly pay me any greater series of compliments than you just have,” he said. “The man you describe is a paragon, a fellow I’d very much like to meet.” “See?” Anna nudged him with her shoulder. “You do not think enough of yourself. But I can also tell you the parts of you that irritate me—if that will make you feel better?” “I irritate you?” The earl’s eyebrows rose. “This should be interesting. You gave me the good news first, fortifying me for more burdensome truths, so let fly.” “You are proud,” Anna began, her tone thoughtful. “You don’t think your papa can manage anything correctly, and you won’t ask your brothers nor mother nor sisters even, for help with things directly affecting them. I wonder, in fact, if you have anybody you would call a friend.” “Ouch. A very definite ouch, Anna. Go on.” “You have forgotten how to play,” Anna said, “how to frolic, though I cannot fault you for a lack of appreciation for what’s around you. You appreciate; you just don’t seem to… indulge yourself.” “I see. And in what should I indulge myself?” “That is for you to determine,” she replied. “Marzipan has gone over well, I think, and sweets in general. You have indulged your love of music by having Val underfoot. As to what else brings you pleasure, you would be the best judge of that.” The earl turned down a shady lane lined with towering oaks and an understory of rhododendrons in vigorous bloom. “It was you,” he said. “Before Val moved in, I thought it was a neighbor playing the piano late in the evenings, but it was you. Were you playing for me?” Anna glanced off to the park beyond the trees and nodded.

Father, You have told me to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility to consider others better than myself (Phil. 2:3). Right this moment, I confess all selfish ambition and vain conceit to You. Forgive me for so often considering myself better than others. Help me to look not only to my own interests but also to the interests of others. Please give me an attitude the same as that of Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:4-5). Father, help me to clothe myself with humility toward others, because You oppose the proud but give grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5:5). I will never live a day that I am not in need of Your grace, so please help me maintain an attitude that welcomes it.

I watched you enter the world in amazement. I held you in my hands. I carried you on my shoulders. I picked you up when you had fallen. I healed your wounds. I teared when you were hurting. I tried my best but felt it was never enough. Now you are grown ready to go on your own. I watch you prepare for you future and I fell helpless. I hold you in my arms. I cry on your shoulder but keep you from knowing. I pick myself up although I have not fallen. I have no wound but fell I need healing. I tear from my heart that feels so empty. I am trying my best but it is not working. Now you are gone but you will never be alone. I fell so empty but yet so proud I want you to be happy.

I watched you enter the world in amazement. I held you in my hands. I carried you on my shoulders. I picked you up when you had fallen. I healed your wounds. I teared when you were hurting. I tried my best but felt it was never enough. Now you are grown ready to go on your own. I watch you prepare for your future and I fell helpless. I hold you in my arms. I cry on your shoulder but keep you from knowing. I pick myself up although I have not fallen. I have no wound but fell I need healing. I tear from my heart that feels so empty. I am trying my best but it is not working. Now you are gone but you will never be alone. I fell so empty but yet so proud I want you to be happy.

One might think that after this trenchant diagnosis of the radical dualism in human thinking, Huxley would urge us to take truth seriously and lean against any way in which we may be tempted to rationalize our needs—as Plato and Aristotle would have recommended. Instead, bizarrely, he goes on to take the very approach he was attacking. He freely admits that he “took it for granted” that the world had no meaning, but he did not discover it, he decided it. “I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.”7 His philosophy of meaninglessness was far from disinterested. And the reason? “We objected to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”8 This admission is extraordinary. To be sure, Huxley and his fellow members of the Garsington Circle near Oxford were not like the Marquis de Sade, who used the philosophy of meaninglessness to justify cruelty, rape and murder. But Huxley’s logic is no different. He too reached his view of the world for nonintellectual reasons: “It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence.” After all, he continues in this public confessional, “The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants, or why his friends should seize political power and govern in a way they find most advantageous to themselves.”9 The eminent contemporary philosopher Thomas Nagel is equally candid. He admits that his deepest objection to Christian faith stems not from philosophy but fear. I am talking about something much deeper—namely the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.10 At least there is no pretense in such confessions. As Pascal wrote long ago, “Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.”11 In Huxley’s case there is no clearer confession of what Ludwig Feuerbach called “projection,” Friedrich Nietzsche called the “will to power,” Sigmund Freud called “rationalization,” Jean-Paul Sartre called “bad faith,” and the sociologists of knowledge call “ideology”—a set of intellectual ideas that serve as social weapons for his and his friends’ interests. Unwittingly, this scion of the Enlightenment pleads guilty on every count, but rather than viewing it as a confession, Huxley trumpets his position proudly as a manifesto. “For myself, no doubt, as for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.”12 Truth

Let me begin by saying that no, I am not crazy. I had no intention of initiating this little trauma with one child while giving birth to another. In fact, I was thinking middle school was probably a good target for the whole process. But he, apparently, had other plans. "I go potty!" he said. We were standing at the sink brushing our teeth. "What?" I asked, looking around to see if there was someone else in the room. "I go potty!" he said again. He got down from his little stepstool and stood adamantly before the toilet. "Well, OK, little guy," I replied, hesitantly, "I mean, sure, if that's what you want to do . . . " I certainly couldn't discourage him without being the focus of therapy for years to come. And besides, what kind of mother says, "No, honey, I'd really rather you stayed in diapers until you're old enough to date"? I dutifully took off his diaper and pants, popped in his little potty seat, and lifted him up. "All done!" he squealed with delight. "What?" I practically screamed. "What do you mean, all done? You haven't been up there ten seconds!" "All done!" he said again, and started to hop down. He stood there in the middle of the bathroom, looking very proud of himself, and proceeded to pee on the floor. OK, I said to myself. It's just going to take some time. "Good job, honey! Nice try! We'll get 'em next time!" I said cheerfully. I then put a clean diaper on him, put his pants back on, cleaned up the floor, and started down the stairs. "I go potty!" he called after me. "I go potty again!

It starts in all kinds of ways. First I wanted you. Then I needed you. Then I thought I couldn't live without you. Then I knew I had too. You came into my life and all of the sudden, it all made sense. It made sense that it never worked out with anyone else. I thought you were my person. But then you started taking me for granted. You starting using me. You starting taking more than you were giving. I loved you, and you knew I did and still, you broke me down. Over and over until there was nothing left. Until I became a shell of myself. Until my friends starting worrying about me. Until I had fallen so deep down that I wasn't sure if I was ever going to get out, to be whole again. And you did that. I had to learn the hard way that when you love something too hard, too fast, too much, sometimes you can't be yourself. Sometimes you have to lose yourself to someone else to find out who you truely are. So yes, I loved you. I am not too proud to admit that. I loved you and you ruined me. But not forever. I have risen above all of that, I have become someone smarter, stronger, better than I was before I met you.

If the gospel lacks correspondence to reality, why is it that the majority of believers never comes to terms with this? As I expressed in my opening chapter, I am convinced it is not due to a lack of intelligence. Nor is it due to a lack of goodness or noble intentions on the part of most believers. Rather, from the perspective of one who has escaped the finely tuned clutches of the Christian machinery designed to keep me in the fold, I see it primarily as a lack of courage, at least for those who have encountered good reasons for doubting. I, like most believers, experienced serious doubts as a young Christian, but I lacked the courage to pit my reservations against the authority of the church and against its fallible, humanly authored scriptures, finding it safer to submit to the supremely well-crafted, guilt-inducing tactics of apologists who assured me that all the fault lay with me and not with the divinely inspired Bible. I capitulated and managed to hold my doubts at bay for over a decade longer while serving God on the mission field. Many if not most of you have faced similar questions and misgivings about the Bible and the Christian faith, even if not to the same extent. You might be like me during my initial short-lived crises of faith: I could not bring myself to face with courage the possibility that life might not have any cosmic Meaning; that there might be no higher power to guide, protect, and provide for me; that justice might not prevail in the long run; that I might no longer be able to hold sinners accountable with the words, "Thus says the Lord"; that life ends at the grave; or that I might have followed and lead others to follow a grand mistake. I lacked the courage to face my church, family, and friends whom I feared would look upon me as a reprobate. I lacked the courage to think for myself—to accept that the virtues of humility and meekness must not be used as an excuse for failing to challenge entrenched ideas that lack sufficient evidence. In short, I preferred to squelch the seed of doubt and label it as sin rather than as healthy, critical thinking, lest it flower and make life unbearable. That I viewed my incipient doubt and disbelief as sin was no accident: the church has a powerful vested interest in keeping believers in the fold, and it will not let them go without a fight. My courage-squelching guilt or angst was the result of a concerted effort developed over the centuries to make me feel like a depraved worm, a proud and willful rebel, a traitor, a God-hater, and an enemy of all that is good. I was programmed to consider that I would be better off if I were to commit adultery or murder than if I were to abandon the one who created me and redeemed me. Without Christ I would be worse than a good-for-nothing, and, like the traitor Judas, it would have been better for me had I never been born. No wonder most believers never muster the courage to break free from this cage!

That's the thing about after, Sadie. It's still happening, and there's no one answer to what you want to know. I'm living after. Every second. Every minute. Every day. But I'm living, and there's that. So here are a few of my immediate afters. Moments I'm not proud of: After... I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to kill you. Clearly, I didn't do any of those things, although I can see how for someone else, it would be easy to get stuck in one of those afters and not let go. But I moved on, because that's who I am. I realize this now, and I'm starting to be okay with it. For one, I'm a pacifist. I'm also afraid of death. But more than anything, what keeps me here on this earth and lets me live with my failures is the knowledge that I am a lamb among wolves. I am not you.

When I am asked if I consider myself a feminist, the question is usually couched within some sort of apology, as though the word itself was an insult. I am as proud to be called a feminist as I am to be called a Jew, or an American. Feminism is an individual part of who I am, and I remain mystified by the stigma that has been attached to the idea that women are human beings. It sounds so obvious and simple to me, so motherhood and apple pie. And yet the idea that women are human beings remains news, a message that requires constant, clear and artful reinforcement in a world that continues to undermine the confidence and abilities of girls and women. On the day that the intelligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and the planet itself will benefit in ways we can only begin to imagine.

Notably, it was not her fabled tenure as first lady, not the conquest of Paris or the myriad other triumphs of the White House years, not her demeanor at President Kennedy’s funeral and what it had meant to so many Americans, that Jackie spoke of when she replied without hesitation: “I think it is that after going through a rather difficult time, I consider myself comparatively sane. I am proud of that.

Below are just a few of the infinite questions that, if asked with high emotion and a deep desire to seek out constructive answers, will stimulate new thoughts to resolve your job and career challenges. By asking courageous questions, your brain will come up with seemingly miraculous answers so that you’ll better manage negativity and fear. And when you better manage negativity and fear, you’ll be in a much better state of mind to pursue and land your next job. How have others effectively dealt with this problem in the past? How do I turn this problem into an adventure and meet this challenge with a positive outlook? What can I learn from this, and how can I enjoy the process? What resources are available to me in the community that will assist me in getting a new job? What do I need to research to gain better control of my future? Whom can I recruit for my job transition campaign “board of directors” that will advise me and support my efforts in a positive way? How can I be a hero to myself and others by meeting this challenge head-on with confidence and self-respect? Am I spending more time on the solution than on the problem? Am I displaying leadership qualities to the members of my family so they can be proud of me? What do I have to read to make myself a more educated job campaigner? How can I make those I love more comfortable and at ease with my situation? Whom do I have to meet so I can achieve my goals quickly?

FEBRUARY 18 HUMILITY AND SUBMISSION TO ME WILL PROTECT YOU I HAVE HEARD the desire of the humble, and I will prepare your heart and cause My ear to hear. I am great and mighty in power, and I will lift up the humble. But I will cast the wicked down to the ground. The highway of the upright avoids evil, and those who guard their ways preserve their lives. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. But how much better it is to be lowly in spirit, for I will instruct the humble in the way they should go. I will prosper them and bless the one who trusts only in Me. You who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders, and clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. For I will oppose the proud, but I will show favor to the humble. Humble yourself under My mighty hand, and I will lift you up in due time. ISAIAH 57:15; PSALMS 10:17–18; 147:5–6; 1 PETER 5:5–6 Prayer Declaration Father, in humility and submission I stand before You. I have prepared my heart to do Your will and have strengthened my spirit to follow after Your ways. Cover me with Your protection, for I have submitted myself to You, to Your Word, and to Your Holy Spirit.

Sierra, You always have been, always will be, my muse. You inspire me in countless ways every day.  Your influence has made me a better artist, and more importantly, a better man. I only hope in some small way I have inspired you to be the best you can be. I believe in you more than I have ever believed in anyone, myself included. I know you will accomplish great things in life; this is only the beginning of your journey. I am so proud to call you my wife, my lover, my best friend. I love you, Trey

Steve knew just how and when to find them. We headed out early the next morning, before there was wind. The temperature was exactly right at eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit. Steve got a faraway look in his eye, as though he was concentrating or communicating. Then he headed off. Ten minutes later, we were on the trail of a fierce snake. “Would you like to tail one?” Steve asked. “Are you kidding?” I said. “I don’t know how to catch a fierce snake.” Steve had already “tailed” one of the snakes. Gently grabbing the end of its tail, he could hold it at arm’s length and examine it. During this procedure, snakes would often defecate, and we could get some clue about what they’d been eating. Steve would tail a snake, put it in a bag, release it, and keep what remained. “You grab the next one,” Steve said. He spotted a four- or five-foot-long fierce snake. It glistened in the sun like glass, brilliantly shiny and sleek. “It’s warming up now,” Steve said as we approached. “You’re going to have to be quick.” Yes, Terri, I said to myself, please be quick so as not to get struck by the most venomous snake on earth. If you get bitten out here, you’re in a load of trouble. We crept up behind the fierce snake. I got close enough to grab it, but the snake suddenly and violently swung its head around, directly at me, poised and ready to strike. I backed off abruptly. Time and again I approached the snake just as I’d seen Steve do it: Walk up behind the snake as it started to slither away, and grab it by the tail. I knew what to do, but I couldn’t do it. Every time I reached down, the snake would swing around and I would jump a mile. We wandered farther and farther on the trail of the snake. I could see our truck way in the distance. I sweated profusely. I kept thinking the same thought. If I get bitten by this snake, I’m dead. Then I would try to push that thought away. Stop thinking, just grab the snake. Steve wouldn’t ask you to do something that you couldn’t do. But the whole process was becoming ridiculous. “What am I doing wrong?” I wailed. “You are too bloody scared,” Steve said. “Oh,” I said. Then I reached down and picked up the snake. It was magic. Once I had the nice, soft, supple body in my hands, it was as though the snake and I had a connection. Its skin was warm to my touch from sitting in the sun. I suddenly understood exactly how to hold on so it wouldn’t get away, and yet not squeeze it so tightly that it would get angry. The snake naturally kept trying to move off. I let the front part of its body stay on the ground and held the tail up. I felt such triumph--not that I had dominated the snake, but that it had let me pick it up. Steve held out the catch bag, and I carefully dropped the snake in. He tied a knot in the bag. We looked at each other and grinned. Then we both whooped and hollered and jumped in the air. He hugged and kissed me. “I’m proud of you, Terri,” he said. Once again I marveled at Steve’s instincts. He knew that this particular snake would be okay for me to pick up. He never hesitated, he never yelled at me or coached me--until I asked for help. Then he simply told me what to do.

The Princess was anxious that her sons should also see something of the real world beyond boarding schools and palaces. As she said in a speech on Aids: ‘I am only too aware of the temptation of avoiding harsh reality; not just for myself but for my own children too. Am I doing them a favour if I hide suffering and unpleasantness from them until the last possible minute? The last minutes which I choose for them may be too late. I can only face them with a choice based on what I know. The rest is up to them.’ She felt this was especially important for William, the future King. As she once said: ‘Through learning what I do, and his father to a certain extent, he has got an insight into what’s coming his way. He’s not hidden upstairs with the governess.’ Over the years she has taken both boys on visits to hostels for the homeless and to see seriously ill people in hospital. When she took William on a secret visit to the Passage day centre for the homeless in Central London, accompanied by Cardinal Basil Hume, her pride was evident as she introduced him to what many would consider the flotsam and jetsam of society. ‘He loves it and that really rattles people,’ she proudly told friends. The Catholic Primate of All England was equally effusive. ‘What an extraordinary child,’ he told her. ‘He has such dignity at such a young age.’ This upbringing helped William cope when a group of mentally handicapped children joined fellow school pupils for a Christmas party. Diana watched with delight as the future King gallantly helped these deprived youngsters join in the fun. ‘I was so thrilled and proud. A lot of adults couldn’t handle it,’ she told friends. Again during one Ascot week, a time of Champagne, smoked salmon and fashionable frivolity for High society, the Princess took her boys to the Refuge night shelter for down-and-outs. William played chess while Harry joined in a card school. Two hours later the boys were on their way back to Kensington Palace, a little older and a little wiser. ‘They have a knowledge,’ she once said. ‘They may never use it, but the seed is there, and I hope it will grow because knowledge is power. I want them to have an understanding of people’s emotions, people’s insecurities, people’s distress and people’s hopes and dreams.’ Her quiet endeavors gradually won back many of the doubters who had come to see her as a threat to the monarchy, or as a talentless and embittered woman seeking to make trouble, especially by upstaging or embarrassing her husband and his family. The sight of the woman who was still then technically the future Queen, unadorned and virtually unaccompanied, mixing with society’s poorest and most distressed or most threatened, confounded many of her critics.

I am Audrey Brown," she shouted proudly, "and I know nothing of spells, or dark magic: I place myself in the protection of the Green Mouse! Whatever you do to me I know that I shall be received by Him.

Curse you then. However beat and done with it all I am, I must haul myself up, and find the particular coat that belongs to me; must push my arms into the sleeves; must muffle myself up against the night air and be off. I, I, I, tired as I am, spent as I am, and almost worn out with all this rubbing of my nose along the surfaces of things, even I, an elderly man who is getting rather heavy and dislikes exertion, must take myself off and catch some last train. Again I see before me the usual street. The canopy of civilization is burnt out. The sky is dark as polished whalebone. But there is a kindling in the sky whether of lamplight or of dawn. There is a stir of some sort—sparrows on plane tree somewhere chirping. There is a sense of the break of day. I will not call it dawn. What is dawn in the city to an elderly man standing in the street looking up rather dizzily at the sky? Dawn is some sort of whitening of the sky; some sort of renewal. Another day; another Friday; another twentieth of March, January, or September. Another general awakening. The stars draw back and are extinguished. The bars deepen themselves between the waves. The film of mist thickens on the fields. A redness gathers on the roses, even on the pale rose that hangs by the bedroom window. A bird chirps. Cottagers light their early candles. Yes, this is the eternal renewal, the incessant rise and fall and fall and rise again. And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man’s, like Percival’s, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! The waves broke on the shore.

My music is not staid or proper, pretty or respectable. It is not for the mother looking for a biddable bride for her son at church or for the son looking for a pretty housekeeper to call his wife. It is adventurous and weighty, loud and boisterous, fuming when it wants to be and despondent when it needs to be. It is unapologetically emotional in a way I am never allowed to be without consequence. My music is a girl who behaves like a boy: flat shoes and comfortable slacks, loud-mouthed and ready to take on the world. My music is black in a place where black isn’t an insult: it’s shining, proud, and unworried. I let myself transform into wood and sound and vibration.

I am proud of myself for daring to try new things

The other night I was invited out for a night with the 'girls.' I told my husband that I would be home by midnight, 'I promise!' Well, the hours passed and the Blue Wkds went down way too easily. Around 3 a.m., a bit pissed, I headed for home. Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hallway started up and cuckooed 3 times. Quickly, realizing my husband would probably wake up, I cuckooed another 9 times. I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a quick-witted solution, in order to escape a possible conflict with him. (Even when totally smashed... 3 cuckoos plus 9 cuckoos totals 12 cuckoos MIDNIGHT!) The next morning my husband asked me what time I got in, I told him 'MIDNIGHT'... he didn't seem pissed off in the least. Whew, I got away with that one! Then he said 'We need a new cuckoo clock.' When I asked him why, he said, 'Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said 'oh shit.' Cuckooed 4 more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another three times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the coffee table and farted.

Am I not fighting? Do I look to be defeated?" Dorea sat up straight, her head held proudly. "I am Dorea Black Potter, and nothing is done without my consent. Things happen because I will them to happen. I will myself to fight, but I accept the inevitable. This is not my end, my lovelies." She smiled sweetly, her grey eyes sparkling. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.

A sweet little baby girl sleeping just next to me. Her attractive brows on the eyes are like rainbow in the skies. Seeing repeatedly her Cute little face, which is undoubtedly full of grace. Ofcourse I am trying to sleep, but out of sheet again and again prefering to peep. Stopping myself in continuity, thought of writing the experience once properly awake But I Can’t doze sound, since I wanna jot it down right away without any mistake Lucky I am, to have this small yet best blessing everyday on my side A proud father is rhyming today for his beloved daughter which he consider his pride A sweet little baby girl sleeping just next to me. Endless Gratitude lord for reminding to rhyme even when I am half asleep !!

I now know and realize that I am responsible for my own happiness. I am responsible for my own success. It doesn’t matter who is proud of me; at the end of the day, I need to be proud of myself. So you were right. Thank you for that lesson.

Neither I have golden Luck nor I could earn a hell of a lot of money. I also won't consider myself handsome, never had girls around me. I am hardly skilled in any domain in demand. The only thing that I got is a Spine made of Tungsten. And I am absolutely proud of it, no matter If I have lost everything else because of it.

Nngg…” A groan made him and Iris look at the other bed and its occupant. The inu stirred, eyes fluttering open. He looked around the room before noticing Kevin. “You…” “I’m surprised you’re already up,” Kevin said. “Anyone else would have gone into shock after losing an arm. You inu really are a hardy species.” “But they’re not as hard as you, Stud,” Iris quipped. Kevin rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you kill me?” asked Cien. “Because I don’t believe in killing if I don’t have to.” “I should have died.” “That’s your foolish pride talking. Only a fool asks for death after his enemy spares him.” Cien scoffed. “Che. I don’t expect a human like you to understand. To a warrior like myself, our pride means everything. We inu are a proud race. For us to be defeated in single combat, and by a human no less, is nothing short of disgraceful.” “A human like me, huh?” Kevin murmured, turning his back on Cien. “You can think that way if you want. I certainly won’t try to force your perceptions of me to change. I don’t really care enough to try. Anyway, I suggest you get some rest. You haven’t been out for that long, and you no longer have a right arm. Even an inu can’t shrug that off like it’s nothing.” Kevin wandered to the hut’s entrance and looked out. No one else was around. The hut that Orin was letting them stay in was further removed from everyone else, over on the outskirts of New Genbu. Kevin didn’t mind, especially since no one in the village liked him. “That was a stupid thing to say,” Iris started, “even for a dog.” “What was that?!” Cien growled. “I dare you to get up and say that to my face you—owch!” He yelped when something smacked him in the face. Looking down at the object as it fell to the ground and landed by his head, he frowned. “Is that… a shoe?” “Don’t fight with my mate’s sister,” Kevin said, grabbing his discarded sneaker and putting it back on. “She started it,” Cien mumbled as Iris snickered behind her hand. “What was that?!” “Nothing,” he said, his body jolting as if he’d touched a live wire. That tone of voice… it had sounded almost feral! Like it belonged to some kind of animal instead of a human! “I’m glad to hear that. Now, then, do as I said and get some sleep. I’m going to be interrogating you tomorrow, and I want you to be perfectly capable of answering every question I have.” Kevin smiled. “I am the victor, after all, and this is my request.” “R-right.” Cien felt his forehead break out in a cold sweat. Who knew humans could be so frightening?

I am proud of what I made you. You will do great things, Rasmira.” “I already have, Father. And you may have helped shape me, but I made myself. I’ve become what I wanted.

I have taken power where once I had none,’ she said proudly. ‘I walk unmasked where they cannot, endure what they cannot. I do so in finery when they knew me in rags. All that I am I have taken for myself, through blood and sacrifice. I was born into stagnation and became change.

I am a strong and powerful person. "I am proud to be who I am and I celebrate the qualities that I have as myself. I am not defined by other people’s opinion of who I should be or what I should do as a person.. "I determine that, not anyone else.

I learned that some cops lie. This was a brutal and profoundly disturbing realization: Those in control are not necessarily trustworthy. More importantly, authority is not necessarily to be obeyed, and certainly not feared. There is always a way to challenge authority, either in the courtroom or in the media or in the voting booth. He has done all of them many times, and usually successfully. In other words, he believes that it is possible to change a situation for the better, even in the face of entrenched authority. So what am I saying? I am proud of this man. I respect and admire his vitality, his courage, his insight, his perverse resistance to security and predictability, his deliberate disregard for propriety, his ability to make me see and think differently. Ultimately, I love and respect him because he really lives,

Oh, don't try to frighten me with your shouting now, the old Stepan Trofimovich no longer stands before you. He is dead and buried; enfin, tout est dit. And what are you shouting for anyway? Only because you yourself are not getting married and will not have to wear a certain ornament on your head. Does this grate on you again? My poor friend, you don't know women, whereas I've done nothing else but study them. "If you want to conquer the entire world, conquer yourself" - that's the only thing that another man like yourself, a romantic, Shatov, my fiancée's brother, has succeeded in saying well. I gladly borrow his maxim. Well. Here I am, ready to conquer myself by getting married, while wondering what I shall gain instead of the whole world. Oh my friend, marriage is the moral death of any proud soul, of any independence. Married life will corrupt me, will take away my energy and my courage in the service of the institution; children will come along, though perhaps not mine, that is, of course not mine; a wise man is not afraid to look truth in the face...

She was close, almost there. I could tell by her frenzied movements and erratic breathing. Her pussy pulsated, aching, throbbing against my fingers and I didn’t let up until she couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t wait any longer. Within seconds, her legs started to shake, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Her hands immediately gripped onto my hair, and I grunted in pleasure. “Hmm … ah … mmm…” she exhaled, coming hard. Fast. All the way down my face and neck. “And she’s a squirter. That’s a nice unexpected surprise. I’m just learning all these new things about my girl.” “That’s never happened before.” I smiled, feeling damn proud of myself. Tugging off my shirt over my head, I wiped my face and neck and tossed it on the floor next to her clothes. Unbuckling my belt and jeans next, I slid them off, along with my boxer briefs. She opened her eyes and glanced down my body. “Huh, imagine that.” I crawled my way back up to her face. “Imagine what?” “You weren’t lying about your big main man.” “My cock?” “You just want to hear me say it.” I scoffed out a chuckle, now hovering above her. “Fuck.” “What?” “I need to get a condom and I’m honestly terrified what will happen if I go down that ladder with how hard I am right now.” She kissed my lips. “I’m on the pill.” “I’ve never gone bareback before.” “Me either.” For the first time in my life, I turned into a wild animal. Growling like I was a fucking lion and king of the jungle, I claimed her mouth, aggressively kissing her. Positioning my cock at her entrance, I held it there. In between kissing her, I muttered, “If I thrust balls deep inside of you, Mila, everything will change, and I don’t want to fuck up our friendship. It’s too important to me.” “Are you saying that you don’t want to do this with me?

I hope that sharing my experiences might ignite the courage that someone needs to fight for their life, because in the end they are worth it.  Maybe that has been my purpose all along and I am finally realizing it now.  I know in my heart that by telling the truth God is smiling down on me, proud of me and my epiphany.  I am worth it, I am worth the love, the love of myself, and I can trust that love.  No one will hurt me again. No one will hurt that little girl inside, for I am taking her in my arms and together we begin a new journey.  One that will likely be a big surprise, but I do know that I am not afraid.  I trust that God and the universe will take care of me.  I have no more doubts because, in the end, those two are really all I can count on, and I am definitely okay with that.

Discovering the truth is not a simple matter. There are many sides and layers of truth. There are many complexities, mixtures, and contradictions. There may be only partial truths, not exclusive or universal truths. There may be modified or contaminated truths. But within the context, and despite these limitations, I feel the search must continue. Thus, I ask myself these questions: Who am I really? What have I done? What do I do that is truly good and useful? What do I believe in and why? How well do I know myself and others? What kinds of relationships do I geniunely have and what kind do I want? What is important and meaningful to me? Important and meaningful enough to make me want to keep on living? What difference has it made that I've lived? What contributions have I made that I'm proud of? What values do I hold firmly and unequivically and why those? What talents do I really have? What potentials have I not yet realized? Should I still try to achieve them? How can I balance my optimism and pessimism? What do I know and what do I still want to know about human nature and the human condition? What do I understand about the development and survival of the human race? What does it mean to be fully human and where am I on that scale?

My day just splits again, and I am at the table sitting with the girls, Jenny is hearing me say all this… I am saying at lunch to all of them not leaving out one gross detail- and Jenny said- ‘Damn I have loaded in my undies right now just leasing to this crap.’ Liv and Maddie are kissing like to ribbed- hot- b*tch dogs in heat over it, so yeah, it's hot. I said- ‘I am coming – OH-hh-Aaa- UM-mmm-COME-meeting!!!’ So loud that I know that the rooms in the apartments could hear me, one even said back to my god- yet Miss Wilddickersion is eighty-eight I know who you are… a girl over there, rolled my eyes feeling so award.’ I am so going to hell for this- I said out loud. Do you ever look back over the crap you say, and say what the freak was I thinking? I just had the thought of this crap I am saying. Jenny said- nope not really- my dad hears me coming all the time so- like last night he said- ‘Stop it! You’re going to go throw your bedroom floor girl, and it’s four in the morning! ‘Yet I hear their freaking headboard hitting my wall- but- but that’s okay?’ I said about to have the old b*tch over in the next apart room there getting off too- ‘We all do’ -said Maddie and Olivia. Have you ever had the cops come, over that crap? Jenny said- ‘Well- freak know- Maybe…? I’ve done an officer here at the school, said Jenny proudly, so the whole cafeteria could hear her. Hey- Jenny- no one cares to hear about you being a slutty ho,’ Said- Marcel, yelling it at a table or two away. Maddie- ‘So was it that good?’ ‘It’s good under the hood.’ Said Maddie, I said the same thing too, in a different way, I said- ‘If you know what you’re doing down there.’ Jenny- ‘I- am- the- one that showed you-you b*tch, and your sis too.’ It’s all good! I speak! Not sure if I am going to keep my nasty pizza down at this point really, I don’t want to have thoughts played around in my mind freaking and fingering my brain. I put my feet up all girly and per-die on the table, and he sits accused from me to check me out so why not give him what he wants, and I don’t give a crap if I am in a skirt, I spread them out sloughing like a dude, and Marcel turns bright red, I want him to see that, I was not wearing annoying underneath I know that someone took a picture of my p*ssy and all of his freaked-up face- yep jaw-dropping moments, good thing I shaved it! The teaching that was looking over us freaking fainted at the sight of my va-jay-jay, is that a good thing? Oliva was saying please don’t fart- please don’t fart- she had the set on the other side of me, yet she was all pressed up to Maddie, so I knew he could see all of this- YOU-NO! I said- ‘Dude shut up! You’re freaking me over, and I put my one hand down between my legs, and start to play with myself, caressing it all around, sometimes up and down or in a little circular pattern, making lots of sounds. I even put my long fingers down inside and feel all the wetness and wroth, and I hear voices coming out of me, so he could see the come on my fingers unstop of my dark purple nail polish, and I come right in front of everyone, but it was only for him to see.’ Jenny- ‘do I see a d*ick; you need one to freak that p*ssy? I said- ‘Nah- dude that’s just my heart throbbing clit, and I get written up by another old b*tch teach, that must have a hairy one, or something like that- she has always been up against my ass hole.’ ‘Sometimes you are as blunt as the butt end of a fork, freaking strapping you in the one boob!’ said- Oliva. I see Marcel in the lunch line making a cute almost kiss-ie face at me, and I rankle up my nose and turn my head off to the right side and shake it in a short fast yet deliberate quiver. I walk up to where more than friends and at this point, I hug him and the cafeteria gaps, he kisses me in front of everyone, and I look up before walking and saying with flirty eyes- (You’re such a weirdo!)

Dear Lotus Flower, Just like you, my roots were always latched in the mud. I envied you because you were in the dark, murky water only at night—when the daylight arose, you bloomed. Unlike you, I was submerged in nasty water every day and night, but the light abandoned me. Came the morning light, and somehow miraculously, you rebloomed, sparkling, and so clean. I sort of bloomed at night with the moonlight and stars. However, the next morning I wasn’t so lucky because the morning light was nowhere to be found. Things got better for me slowly but surely. I must say, no matter how many times our roots were in the dirtiest water, we survived. We survived because our roots provided the nutrients that allowed us to bloom. I read that a lotus flower at times only partially opens, and the center is hidden. Just like you, there were times when I slowly opened up to people. I hid my inner core because mentally, I didn’t know who to trust. However, I arose from the midst of suffering. Again, just like you, I withstood highly adverse conditions and had to repair myself mentally and physically. Nobody knows, but you are my favorite flowers. We are unique, and we have so much in common. Your shadowy, murky origin found enlightenment as you were on the hunt for light. I, too, was on the quest for light for many years. For 16 years, I was thirsty for light, and now my thirst is quenched. All of those years, I yearned and wanted to break free and bloom. However, I had to keep moving, growing, and believing. My soul is no different from a Lotus flower. I didn’t start my journey in fresh water because my environment was not pleasant. Just like a Lotus flower, my life was surrounded by insects, debris, and so many unpleasant things and people. However, just like the Lotus petals are never contaminated by the murky water, my core remained pure. Just like the Lotus flower, I came from a place of suffering. However, I remained true to myself. I have overcome many obstacles in my life. I am proud of myself—because this time, I jumped a little higher over the hurdles. I have finished the never-ending race. I have officially crossed the finish line and have a fresh start! I am renewed, and I am loved! Triumph should be my middle name because I never gave up.

Your government is giant. How many people are in it, top to bottom? Are you going to change them? Can you change even one person, let alone all those hundreds or thousands? Actually, which one can you change? Yourself. Therefore, just practice. So much complaining—did you control yourself, now you are looking for something else to control? And if you didn't control your own self, your own mind, then wanting to control everybody else, that's embarrassing! You are not qualified! We say, “They should do this!” “They should do that!” But what we should do ourselves, we don't know or we ignore it. Therefore, we are shameless, pointing the finger at everybody else and ignoring the smell coming from our own butt that we didn't clean nicely. Like myself, here I have a control for my television. I have a television control but no control over my own mind! That's embarrassing! You might think your own idea is wonderful, and everybody should follow your way. Actually, does your “my way” have any foundation? You should check. If you think you have a wonderful “my way,” then you need to get more educated. Study and check, carefully. Then you can see if your way is really solid or not before you start thinking you are a big hero just because you can blah blah blah. Anybody can blah! Even Odzer the cat can meow lots! If you really think you are better than others, you should check carefully: what is that 'better?' If you are really better than them, then good. Stay that way. No reason to be proud. Your merit. Don't lose it, boasting! Or if that 'better' is not really better, then examine your faults. Maybe what you thought was better was actually a mistake. Maybe they are the right way and you are the wrong way. Whatever your wrong way things are, then do confession and Vajrasattva and purify them. Slowly give up your negative things. If you find you are indeed better, you don't need to scream at everyone, “I am good! I am the goodest! The best!” If you find you have faults, you don't need to make a big announcement: “I am bad!” It is just your own business. Good things, keep. Bad things, slowly move away from them.

I have reached a time in my life when I am learning to stand proud and quieten the voices — within and outside myself — that attempt to keep me in my box. It was a long journey here. When I started connecting the dots on my journey, it meant that some of my relationships were going to change, people were going to be hurt and some of the most courageous and scary steps were going to be taken.

My ideal man," Malak said ponderingly. "I'm not sure what that means. I don't want the ideal. I want complexity. I want passion. I want imperfection. My ideal man is not ideal. But," she said, leaning forward, "I'll tell you about him." "I want him to have lunch at home. I want him to help me with my own mind. I want him to be bookish, wise, cunning, and exemplary. I want him to be a good storyteller, and always on my side." "Yes, I want him to be near me. A good conversationalist, proud, not afraid of the lofty heights." "I want him to be a singer, one who knows and loves a good song, can play an instrument, the oud or the ney, and preferably both. I want him to be a good mourner, know how to attend to the pain of others, a consoler who could assuage the grief I have for all those I loved and befriended and who are no longer here. I want him to be a healer, an expert in all that troubles me. I want him to be a fire that annihilates all danger that lies ahead and behind me and that which I have, somehow, without his help, found a way to avoid. I want him to be faithful---" "Incapable of deception. I want him to be constant__" "Constant in his love and in his prayers and, when those prayers are not answered, I want him to change reality with his own hands. I want him to be my lord-" "For all the world to see. I want him to make me proud, to make vanish old and fresh longings, new and unremembered regrets. I want him to be vigilant_" "To protect me from sorrows even once their great heights have passed. I want him to know how to deal with the past. I want him to be occasionally gripped by fear-" "The fear of losing me. I want him to be patient, to help me to endure the injustices visited upon the houses of those I love. But I also want him to be impatient_" "To lose all reason and hurry off, forgetting his shoes and hat, and ride-" "His horse flanked by wings of angry dust, galloping, if need be, all night to find the traitorous, to change my fortunes and avenge me." "And then I want him to return to me, to prosper by my side. I want to take him to the clearest stream, one only I know the way to, and there quench his thirst. I want him to look at me sometimes as if he does not know who I am. But I want to be forever recognized by him, come what may, to point me out in a crowd when, after the passage, we are reunited." "I want him to see me when I cannot see myself.

After a moment to regain his composure, he propped himself up on his elbow to look down at me, desire still lurking in his mesmerizing eyes. “Alera? Are you…all right?” “Narian, we can’t do this.” I was more than a little shocked at the both of us. His brow furrowed, and he ran a hand through his disheveled hair. He took a breath and opened his mouth, then stopped, apparently unable to decide exactly what he wanted to say. “Why not?” “Because,” I said, pushing myself upright. “We’re not married!” He sat up as well and lit the lantern on my bedside table. I pulled my chemise back onto my shoulders and wrapped my arms around my legs while I waited for his reaction. “And marriage, that’s…important to you…for this,” he surmised, trying to work out the basis for my objection. “Yes,” I told him fervently. “Isn’t it to you?” He glanced at the bedclothes, as though he anticipated an unpleasant reaction to what he would say. “Well, no. We don’t have marriage in Cokyri.” My eyebrows shot upward. “You don’t have…marriage? Well then, how do you…I mean, where…where do your children come from?” “We just choose a partner,” he said, ignoring the absurdity of my question. “A woman chooses a man, and if he accepts, he is marked with a tattoo around his forearm. The tattoo is a great honor--men in Cokyri are proud to bear it.” “What about the church?” He shrugged, no longer worrying about how I might react. “Cokyri has no official religion. Some people seek the High Priestess’s approval to be bound, but they come to her of their own accord. Again, it is a choice.” “So…in order to be with me, all you would need is a tattoo?” I spoke tentatively, trying to absorb and understand his words. “Only to signify that I am yours and no one else’s. If that is what we both want.” His closing statement, though subtle, sough confirmation, his steel-blue eyes filled with love and longing. “I choose you,” I said, leaning toward him, and his mouth met mine with such ardor that my senses reeled all over again. He lay down with me on top of him, and it took all my strength of will to pull away. “But we have to be married.” He studied me, concluding that I truly believed in what I said. “Then let’s go get married.” “Now?” I blurted, eyes wide. “Is now a problem?

Was there anything in it?” she asked, not bothering to wipe the tear tracing the rim of her nose. “Our summer here, all those long walks and even longer conversations? When you kissed me that night, did it mean anything to you?” When he did not answer, she took three paces in his direction. “I know how proud you must be of those enigmatic silences, but I believe I deserve an answer.” She stood between his icy silence and the heated aura of the fire. Scorched on one side, bitterly cold on the other— like a slice of toast someone had forgotten to turn. “What sort of answer would you like to hear?” “An honest one.” “Are you certain? It’s my experience that young ladies vastly prefer fictions. Little stories, like Portia’s gothic novel.” “I am as fond of a good tale as anyone,” she replied, “but in this instance, I wish to know the truth.” “So you say. Let us try an experiment, shall we?” He rose from his chair and sauntered toward her, his expression one of jaded languor. His every movement a negotiation between aristocratic grace and sheer brute strength. Power. He radiated power in every form— physical, intellectual, sensual— and he knew it. He knew that she sensed it. The fire was unbearably warm now. Blistering, really. Sweat beaded at her hairline, but Cecily would not retreat. “I could tell you,” he said darkly, seductively, “that I kissed you that night because I was desperate with love for you, overcome with passion, and that the color of my ardor has only deepened with time and separation. And that when I lay on a battlefield bleeding my guts out, surrounded by meaningless death and destruction, I remembered that kiss and was able to believe that there was something of innocence and beauty in this world, and it was you.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Almost. Warm breath caressed her fingertips. “Do you like that answer?” She gave a breathless nod. She was a fool; she couldn’t help it. “You see?” He kissed her fingers. “Young ladies prefer fictions.” “You are a cad.” Cecily wrenched her hand away and balled it into a fist. “An arrogant, insufferable cad.” “Yes, yes. Now we come to the truth. Shall I give you an honest answer, then? That I kissed you that night for no other reason than that you looked uncommonly pretty and fresh, and though I doubted my ability to vanquish Napoleon, it was some balm to my pride to conquer you, to feel you tremble under my touch? And that now I return from war, to find everything changed, myself most of all. I scarcely recognize my surroundings, except . . .” He cupped her chin in his hand and lightly framed her jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Except Cecily Hale still looks at me with stars in her eyes, the same as she ever did. And when I touch her, she still trembles.” Oh. She was trembling. He swept his thumb across her cheek, and even her hair shivered. “And suddenly . . .” His voice cracked. Some unrehearsed emotion pitched his dispassionate drawl into a warm, expressive whisper. “Suddenly, I find myself determined to keep this one thing constant in my universe. Forever.” -Cecily & Luke

Despite the brightness of the sun, I shivered in the brisk November air, for I had not taken a cloak with me when I had left my parlor. As if by magic, one fell about my shoulders, and I knew without looking that Narian had joined us. His mere presence bolstered my courage and brought my thoughts into focus. I scanned the throng of eager Hytanicans, some of whom were gathered inside the Central Courtyard with more outside its walls, then raised my hands to quiet them. Taking a deep breath, I began to speak. “Spread the word. Tell your families and friends. Let it be known across the Recorah River Valley that I am proud to be Queen of this Kingdom of Hytanica!” Cheers exploded, rising and falling in waves, and I let myself enjoy the sights and sounds of victory for several minutes. Then I once more raised my hands to quell the crowd. “Be it known that Commander Narian stands with me as a loyal citizen of Hytanica. Without him, I would not have been able to travel to Cokyri and safely return. And without him, I would not have been able to begin negotiations for lasting peace with the High Priestess. I believe a trade treaty that is fair for both of our countries will soon be signed. Regardless, we stand here now and forevermore as a people free of Cokyrian rule.” Jubilant shouts greeted these words, and I took Narian’s hand in mine, raising it high into the air. The people did not know that we were in love. They did not know that we were bound to each other according to Cokyrian custom and would soon be joined in marriage under Hytanican law. But this was a step forward, and that was enough for now. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother appear at Narian’s other side to likewise take his hand and hold it aloft in a show of support. When the rest of my family followed her lead, my father next to my mother, Miranna and Temerson at my side, tears spilled down my cheeks. I met Narian’s mystified blue eyes and smiled, then gazed out at our people, a member of a united royal family, the man I loved among us. When the noise had subsided, I addressed the sorrow that hid beneath the joy, for it was essential to pay tribute to those who had fought bravely and tirelessly, but had not lived to see this day. “We all know the terrible price that was paid for our freedom. Remember those who died in the war. Honor them in your hearts, and join with me in honoring them with a memorial on the palace grounds. Let those who gave their lives for this kingdom never be forgotten.” I paused, permitting a moment of silence for our lost loved ones, then finished, “Embrace your families. Return to your homes. And know that you go in peace.” This received perhaps the greatest response of anything I had said, and to the tumultuous cries of my tired but elated people, Narian and I reentered the palace.

It’s only an hour later that a servant comes to my room. And when she tells me the duke has invited me out for a horseback ride, I’m flooded with the strangest mix of emotions. I can’t believe that after running off like that, he still wants to hang out. What is going on between us? And why do I want so desperately for it to be something? I shouldn’t want anything. Not with a guy like him. I mean, yeah, I might have been wrong about the illegitimate kid and Lord Brimmon, but the dude still thinks I don’t have opinions or options because I’m a girl. He thinks I have a “place, my place” and that it’s behind a guy. And worse, I keep thinking about our kiss. The part where I bash into the wall in my haste to get away is a particular highlight on the reel I keep playing over and over again in my head. When I walk out the back of the house and he turns to look at me, it’s impossible to fight the burn in my cheeks as he steps up beside me and the horse. I can’t look at him. I’m so embarrassed I stare at the stirrup as if it will take all concentration to get my foot into it. Is he going to say anything? Is he going to apologize for just…kissing me like that? Maybe if he brings it up…Maybe if he apologizes, I can apologize too. For running off. It was so sudden all I could do was react. But he says nothing. He just steps up beside me and gives me a boost. I’m up on the first try and feeling rather proud of myself as I situate my pretty skirts so they drape over my ankles. Until, that is, I see him swing aboard and am reminded of how graceful and easy he makes it look, even when his horse swings away from him when he’s only halfway on. We ride past the stable, and when I glance in, I see one of the stable boys showing the other how to do the robot, his arms stuck out at odd angles, his hands dangling. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing when I see Alex’s eyebrows shoot up so high they’re nearly to his hairline. It’s nice seeing him caught off-guard. I like it. It makes me want to do something totally crazy, just to see his expression.