Amanda Tapping Quotes

Unlike the cults of the ‘70s, we don’t even have to leave the house for a charismatic figure to take hold of us. With contemporary cults, the barrier to entry if the simple frisson of tapping Follow.

What’s new is that in this internet-ruled age, when a guru can be godless, when the barrier to entry is as low as a double-tap, and when folks who hold alternative beliefs are able to find one another more easily than ever, it only makes sense that secular cults—from obsessed workout studios to start-ups that put the “cult” in “company culture”—would start sprouting like dandelions. For good or for ill, there is now a cult for everyone.

October, the urban anthropologist will say, tapping his foot steadily, we are sociologists, not politicians. We are academics, not charity workers. Life is a phenomenon.

But this city is a world of its own, a country within a country. People are used to taking the old and making it news; and used, too, to taking the new and making it old. Every glass of water from its taps, it is said, has passed six times through the kidneys of another, and every scrap of its land has been trodden on, fought over, dug up and broken down for centuries.

What are you, fire refusing to be named? I will tell you what you are not. You are not an afterthought. You are not a magic lamp whose only purpose is to fulfill the desires of another. You are not an oracle or a muse that can be used, exhausted, tapped dry and left convulsing on a mountaintop. You are not a lonely night or a place to hide secrets when no one else is watching. You are not a bodiless voice that whispers comfort to the demons of desperate men, not a vessel from which they can thieve their vitality. & my god, you are certainly not a second choice.

As her numbness began to fade and her limbs stopped trembling, she felt the oddest of sensations, as if someone had turned on a tap deep in her gut and all her hope, optimism, love and respect for the man had started to drain away, and it was happening quicker than she would ever have thought possible.

The train of thought went like this: I scribbled down the most "sophisticated" foods I could think of. Foie gras. Truffles. Expensive wine. Caviar. Ibérico ham. The one that struck a chord with my Jewish brain was caviar. Caviar served with blinis, little pancakes hailing from eastern Europe. In Russia they served blinis with caviar and sour cream. But even if I could make a hundred and fifteen blinis in the time allowed (since we had to make a few extras for beauty shots and mistakes), I couldn't just serve them with caviar and sour cream. That wasn't transformative enough. Original enough. What else was served with blinis? I tapped my pen thoughtfully against my Chef Supreme notepad. We were getting to the end of our planning session, and the way the others around me were nodding and whispering to themselves was making me nervous. Sadie, they all know exactly what they're doing, and you don't, I thought to myself. And then I nodded, confirming it. Jam. Blinis were served sweet-style with jam. But even if I made my own jam, that wouldn't be enough. I needed a wow factor. What if... what if I made sweet blinis, but disguised them as savory blinis? Ideas ran through my head as we were driven to the grocery store. I wasn't hugely into molecular gastronomy, but even I knew how to take a liquid or an oil and turn it into small gelatinous pearls not unlike fish eggs. I could take jam, thin it out, and turn it into caviar. Then what would be my sour cream? A sweetened mascarpone whip? And then I needed something to keep all the sweetness from becoming overwhelming. I'd have to make the jam nice and tart. And maybe add a savory element. A fried sage leaf? That would be interesting...

She'd discreetly asked a few of her customers today and found out, much to her dismay, that everyone was under the impression Jack was back, and not just for a visit. She let her head fall back and sighed heavily. Damn him. Damn him and my sister both. She knew it wasn't fair to be mad at Jack just for coming home, but she couldn't help it. After everything she'd sacrificed to keep Amanda's secret, it was ready to be blown to bits by his arrival. She was going to drive herself crazy if she didn't stop dwelling on it. Cassie picked up her phone and slid her finger across the screen. With a couple taps on the glass, it was ringing. Time to call in the reinforcements. "Hey girl, what's shaking?" came the sound of Lissa's voice. "Hey." She sat there, unsure what to say to her best friend, just knowing she needed her support. "Uh oh. What's going on?" "Jack came in my shop this morning." "I'll be right there." The line went dead. Cassie smiled. Of course she would. She closed her eyes and rested while she waited. She and Melissa Winters had been through everything side by side, so why should this be any different? Lissa was the only person in the world besides Cassie that knew the secret about Sarah. She had helped her adjust to a new baby, teaching her everything she had learned from growing up the oldest sister of five. It was always in times like those that Cassie wished she had her mother around, but Lissa had stepped up. Caroline Powell would have loved helping with Sarah, but as it was, she often didn't even remember who Sarah was when Cassie would take her for visits to the full-time care facility she lived at in The city. Footsteps on the porch stairs shook her out of her reverie, and she opened her eyes to see Lissa walking up, Chinese takeout bags in hand. "General Tso to the rescue," she proclaimed, dropping into the rocker next to Cassie. "And some sweet and sour chicken for Miss Priss, of course." "Of course," Cassie smiled. "You're the best." They sat in silence for a few moments, Cassie turning her glass round and round in her hands until Lissa couldn't take it any longer. "Okay, spill. You can't drop a bomb on me like that and then just sit there in silence," Lissa chided. "I just don't know what to say. I'm terrified, Liss." "Let's think rationally. There is no reason for him to suspect anything." "He seemed really confused about Sarah. Surprised. He kept asking about her.

Crazy,” Brian finished. “I was going to say formidable,” I corrected. “You can make fun all you want, but you couldn’t pay me to take that woman on. She is … beyond messing with.” Brian was unperturbed. “I think she’s crazy, and that entire family lets her get away with murder because they’re too sweet to put her in a home,” he said. “That’s where she belongs. She should be strapped down and medicated.” The young woman in the witch hat tapped Brian on the arm, drawing his attention. “Are you talking about Ms. Tillie?” she asked. Brian nodded. “She’s crazy.” “You know that she can hear when people talk badly about her, right?” the woman pressed. “Annabelle Dickinson told Madison Wilson that Ms. Tillie had fake teeth, and the next day Annabelle’s pants wouldn’t fit.

Do you currently have a girlfriend, Sam?” he asks. “I don’t believe—” Sky starts. But I cut her off. “Yes, I do.” “What’s her name?” He taps his pen against his notepad. I look at Sky. She nods. “Her name is Peck Vasquez.” “How long have you been dating?” Since last night. “A few months.” Well, that’s true if you count the time we spent together before. And there hasn’t been anyone else for me since the day I met her. “You’ll want to be seen with her in public to mitigate the damage caused by Amanda’s allegations.” “Not a problem.” I’d go anywhere with Peck. Suddenly,

Because then we'd be the same. Kindred spirits. You've been watching me or days. You're so desperate, it's embarrassing." A pause. "You see too much and I dislike it." I laughed. "I think that makes us equal." He tapped me on the nose. "Every word of yours cuts me to the bone, and yet I am a dog begging for scraps. Any sign of affection, of approval, of desire, I would lose my soul all over again for them. So, no. I would not call any piece of this relationship equal.

When college students were asked to tap out the rhythm of any of twenty-five well-known songs, they predicted that the people listening would correctly guess about half of them. After all, the person doing the tapping could “hear” the melody, the instruments, and even the lyrics in her head. It was so obvious! Out of 120 tapped-out songs, the listeners guessed just under 3 percent correctly. This is the illusion of communication. We consistently overestimate our ability to communicate. We lack empathy for what it is like to be outside our own heads. The listener occupies a different reality, hearing only a series of dull, barren taps, one after the other. It sounds like nothing at all. “The biggest problem in communication,” as the saying goes, “is the illusion that it has taken place.

We consistently overestimate our ability to communicate. We lack empathy for what it is like to be outside our own heads. The listener occupies a different reality, hearing only a series of dull, barren taps, one after the other.