“
Basically, I have two speeds.... Hostile or smart-aleck. Your choice.
”
”
James Patterson (Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride, #3))
“
Liam cleared his throat again and turned to fully face me. “So, it’s the summer and you’re in Salem, suffering through another boring, hot July, and working part-time at an ice cream parlor. Naturally, you’re completely oblivious to the fact that all of the boys from your high school who visit daily are more interested in you than the thirty-one flavors. You’re focused on school and all your dozens of clubs, because you want to go to a good college and save the world. And just when you think you’re going to die if you have to take another practice SAT, your dad asks if you want to go visit your grandmother in Virginia Beach.”
“Yeah?” I leaned my forehead against his chest. “What about you?”
“Me?” Liam said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m in Wilmington, suffering through another boring, hot summer, working one last time in Harry’s repair shop before going off to some fancy university—where, I might add, my roommate will be a stuck-up-know-it-all-with-a-heart-of-gold named Charles Carrington Meriwether IV—but he’s not part of this story, not yet.” His fingers curled around my hip, and I could feel him trembling, even as his voice was steady. “To celebrate, Mom decides to take us up to Virginia Beach for a week. We’re only there for a day when I start catching glimpses of this girl with dark hair walking around town, her nose stuck in a book, earbuds in and blasting music. But no matter how hard I try, I never get to talk to her.
“Then, as our friend Fate would have it, on our very last day at the beach I spot her. You. I’m in the middle of playing a volleyball game with Harry, but it feels like everyone else disappears. You’re walking toward me, big sunglasses on, wearing this light green dress, and I somehow know that it matches your eyes. And then, because, let’s face it, I’m basically an Olympic god when it comes to sports, I manage to volley the ball right into your face.”
“Ouch,” I said with a light laugh. “Sounds painful.”
“Well, you can probably guess how I’d react to that situation. I offer to carry you to the lifeguard station, but you look like you want to murder me at just the suggestion. Eventually, thanks to my sparkling charm and wit—and because I’m so pathetic you take pity on me—you let me buy you ice cream. And then you start telling me how you work in an ice cream shop in Salem, and how frustrated you feel that you still have two years before college. And somehow, somehow, I get your e-mail or screen name or maybe, if I’m really lucky, your phone number. Then we talk. I go to college and you go back to Salem, but we talk all the time, about everything, and sometimes we do that stupid thing where we run out of things to say and just stop talking and listen to one another breathing until one of us falls asleep—”
“—and Chubs makes fun of you for it,” I added.
“Oh, ruthlessly,” he agreed. “And your dad hates me because he thinks I’m corrupting his beautiful, sweet daughter, but still lets me visit from time to time. That’s when you tell me about tutoring a girl named Suzume, who lives a few cities away—”
“—but who’s the coolest little girl on the planet,” I manage to squeeze out.
”
”
Alexandra Bracken (The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds, #1))
“
I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children's books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires.
”
”
Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry)
“
Running is a brutal and emotional sport. It's also a simple, primal sport. As humans, on a most basic level, we get hungry, we sleep, we yearn for love, we run.
”
”
Adharanand Finn (Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth)
“
For Schwartz this formed the paradox at the heart of baseball, or football, or any other sport. You loved it because you considered it an art: an apparently pointless affair, undertaken by people with special aptitude, which sidestepped attempts to paraphrase its value yet somehow seemed to communicate something true or even crucial about The Human Condition. The Human Condition being, basically, that we're alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not.
Baseball was an art, but to excel at it you had to become a machine. It didn't matter how beautifully you performed SOMETIMES, what you did on your best day, how many spectacular plays you made. You weren't a painter or a writer--you didn't work in private and discard your mistakes, and it wasn't just your masterpieces that counted.
”
”
Chad Harbach (The Art of Fielding)
“
just as a stool requires three legs to stand upright so the taekwondoist must cultivate basic skills, meaningful forms, and effective sparring in order to have both feet firmly planted in the art
”
”
Doug Cook (Taekwondo: A Path to Excellence)
“
He planned for his son or daughter to have three or four toys, minimal sports equipment, and a thousand books. He didn't care for the rhymed nonsense of Dr. Seuss, but preferred anything that instilled basic knowledge sets. He could abide a talking animal, but not an inanimate object that spoke.
”
”
John Brandon (Arkansas)
“
The Advanced Level is Mastery of the Basics
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”
Ray Mancini (Zen, Meditation & the Art of Shooting: Performance Edge - Sports Edition)
“
In the aftermath of an athletic humiliation on an unprecedented scale—a loss to a tortoise in a footrace so staggering that, his tormenters teased, it would not only live on in the record books, but would transcend sport itself, and be taught to children around the world in textbooks and bedtime stories for centuries; that hundreds of years from now, children who had never heard of a “tortoise” would learn that it was basically a fancy type of turtle from hearing about this very race—the hare retreated, understandably, into a substantial period of depression and self-doubt.
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”
B.J. Novak (One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories)
“
Ulrich had talked himself into a state of excitement. Basically, he now maintained, this experience of almost total ecstasy or transcendence of the conscious mind is akin to experiences now lost but known in the past to the mystics of all religions, which makes it a kind of contemporary substitution for an eternal human need. Even if it is not a very good substitute it is better than nothing, and boxing or similar kinds of sport that organize this principle into a rational system are therefore a species of theology, although one cannot expect this to be generally understood as yet.
”
”
Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities)
“
How about I tell you what I don't like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be - basically gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful - nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mashups a la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and cross breeding rarely results in anything satisfying... I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred and fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and - I imagine this goes without saying - vampires.
”
”
Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry)
“
I’m coming to see the commonality between sex and sport, basics being the same, it’s the players who raise the bar.
”
”
B.S. Murthy (Benign Flame: Saga of Love)
“
He had a very strong opinion that anything that stopped when it started raining wasn’t a sport. It was basically sunbathing with accessories.
”
”
Caimh McDonnell (The Quiet Man (McGarry Stateside, #3))
“
Among males, conflict resolution requires a rapid return to the basics, preferably sports or automotive mechanics.
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”
Rinker Buck (The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey)
“
There’s a commonality between sex and sport, basics being the same, it’s the players who raise the bar.
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”
BS Murthy
“
Roopa, I’m coming to see the commonality between sex and sport,’ he said resting on her belly in fulfillment. ‘Basics being the same, it’s the players who raise the bar.
”
”
B.S. Murthy (Benign Flame: Saga of Love)
“
Now he explained to her the essential fraudulence of all sporting glory. “Average twenty-one-year-old male, given basic training for one month, can run a hundred meters in about fourteen seconds. Okay? Fastest man runs same distance in nine point nine seconds. Not much of a difference. One to one point four is the range. Now, what is the difference between an average man’s intelligence and Einstein’s? Cannot measure it.
”
”
Aravind Adiga (Amnesty)
“
In the United States, the two-party system works as a way to manufacture an artificial group identity, akin to an ethnic or national one or an allegiance to a sports team. Part of the identity seems to consist in allegiance to certain conclusions on a range of “hot button” political issues. On those issues, political party affiliation does seem to result in rigidly held belief and loyalty in the voting booth. Allegiance to the group identity forged by political party affiliation renders Americans blind to the essential similarities between the agendas of the two parties, similarities that can be expected to be exactly the ones that run counter to public interest, in other words, those interests of the deep-pocketed backers of elections to which any politician must be subservient in order to raise the kind of money necessary to run for national office. Satisfaction at having one’s group “win” seems to override the clearly present fundamental dissatisfaction with the lack of genuine policy options.33 If the function of the two parties is to hide the fact that the basic agenda of both is shared, and irrational adherence to one of the two parties is used propagandistically to mask their fundamental overlap, then we can see how Burnham’s prediction may have come to pass, despite the existence of two distinct political parties.
”
”
Jason F. Stanley (How Propaganda Works)
“
And another question we are asking is: what is going to happen to humanity, to all of us, when the computer outthinks man in accuracy and rapidity—as the computer experts are saying it will? With the development of the robot, man will only have, perhaps, two hours of work a day. This may be going to happen within the foreseeable future. Then what will man do? Is he going to be absorbed in the field of entertainment? That is already taking place: sports are becoming more important; there is the watching of television; and there are the varieties of religious entertainment. Or is he going to turn inwardly, which is not an entertainment but something which demands great capacity of observation, examination and non-personal perception? These are the two possibilities. The basic content of our human consciousness is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of fear. Is humanity increasingly going to follow entertainment?
21st July, 1981
”
”
J. Krishnamurti (The Network Of Thought: Authentic Reports of Talks in 1981 in Saanen, Switzerland and Amsterdam Holland)
“
We are experiencing a dangerous time in our country, with a political environment where basic facts are disputed, fundamental truth is questioned, lying is normalized, and unethical behavior is ignored, excused, or rewarded. This is not just happening in our nation’s capital, and not just in the United States. It is a troubling trend that has touched institutions across America and around the world—boardrooms of major companies, newsrooms, university campuses, the entertainment industry, and professional and Olympic sports.
”
”
James Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
Like fifty million other losers, Anthony was caught up in the game, his misfortune temporarily at bay, his yearning merging with the great national aspiration. From stock traders to kids in Bobigny to Patrick Bruel and José Bové, everyone was on the same page, and it didn't matter whether you were in Paris or Heillange. From the top to the bottom of the pay scale, from the boonies to La Défense, the country was cheering in unison. Basically, the thing was simple. Just do like they do in America: think your country is the best in the world and revel in that forever.
”
”
Nicolas Mathieu (Leurs enfants après eux)
“
Alex also took advantage of his natural strengths. “I learned that boys basically do only one thing: they chase girls. They get them, they lose them, they talk about them. I was like, ‘That’s completely circuitous. I really like girls.’ That’s where intimacy comes from. So rather than sitting around and talking about girls, I got to know them. I used having relationships with girls, plus being good at sports, to have the guys in my pocket. Oh, and every once in a while, you have to punch people. I did that, too.” Today Alex has a folksy, affable, whistle-while-you-work
”
”
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
“
Research and practice are clear. Stress inoculation doesn’t work unless you have acquired the skills to navigate the environment you will encounter. As sports psychologist Brian Zuleger told me, “Telling people to relax doesn’t work unless you’ve taught people how to actually relax. The same goes for mental strength. The historical way to develop toughness was to do something physically challenging, and you’d have a fifty-fifty shot if they thrived. You have to teach the skill before it can be applied.” Throwing people in the deep end doesn’t work unless they’ve been taught the basics of how to swim.
”
”
Steve Magness (Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness)
“
Even though I was born in America, and my ancestors built its infrastructure for free, I’m not a part of the “Our” when they sing, “Our flag was still there!” I feel like the “Our” doesn’t include blacks, most women, gays, trans, and poor people of all colors. And, sadly, our nation reminds us every day. Some may reject the anthem because Francis Scott Key sang for freedom while enslaving blacks. His hatred even bled into the lyrics of the elongated version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” you won’t hear at a sporting event. The third stanza reads: No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave That line was basically a shot at slaves who agreed to fight with the British during the War of 1812 in exchange for their freedom.
”
”
D. Watkins (The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America)
“
If someone in that category asks me whether he should keep going, I don’t have an answer. I have questions. The most basic is, “Are you sure you’ve honored your commitment?” By that, I mean to ask whether the client has done what he set out to do, which is to make the strongest possible effort to become as good as he can be by creating and fulfilling performance and preparation processes.
”
”
Bob Rotella (How Champions Think: In Sports and in Life)
“
Every pregnancy results in roughly two years of lost menstruation. If you are a manufacturer of menstrual pads, this is bad for business. So you ought to know about, and be so happy about, the drop in babies per woman across the world. You ought to know and be happy too about the growth in the number of educated women working away from home. Because these developments have created an exploding market for your products over the last few decades among billions of menstruating women now living on Levels 2 and 3. But, as I realized when I attended an internal meeting at one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of sanitary wear, most Western manufacturers have completely missed this. Instead, when hunting for new customers they are often stuck dreaming up new needs among the 300 million menstruating women on Level 4. “What if we market an even thinner pad for bikinis? What about pads that are invisible, to wear under Lycra? How about one pad for each kind of outfit, each situation, each sport? Special pads for mountain climbers!” Ideally, all the pads are so small they need to be replaced several times a day. But like most rich consumer markets, the basic needs are already met, and producers fight in vain to create demand in ever-smaller segments. Meanwhile, on Levels 2 and 3, roughly 2 billion menstruating women have few alternatives to choose from. These women don’t wear Lycra and won’t spend money on ultrathin pads. They demand a low-cost pad that will be reliable throughout the day so they don’t have to change it when they are out at work. And when they find a product they like, they will probably stick to that brand for their whole lives and recommend it to their daughters.
”
”
Hans Rosling (Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think)
“
We ache for this feeling, but it’s everywhere. Booze, drugs, sex, sport, art, prayer, music, meditation, virtual reality. Kids, hyperventilating, spinning in circles, feel oneness. Why William James called it the basic lesson of expanded consciousness—just tweak a few knobs and levers in the brain and bam. So the drop, the comedown, it’s not that we miss oneness once it’s gone; it’s that we suddenly can’t feel what we actually know is there. Phantom limb syndrome for the soul.
”
”
Steven Kotler (Last Tango in Cyberspace)
“
Huxley suggested rock climbing as an ideal basic training for citizenship. This sport teaches young people that survival depends on developing skills and on preparing oneself to face risks and unexpected contingencies. They discover that every move they make has real consequences involving life and death. In addition, a rock climber learns to take responsibility for another person’s life, and learns to trust his life in the hands of the companion who holds the other end of the rope to which he is attached. What could be a more concrete way of shaping a complex self? The
”
”
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (The Evolving Self)
“
All of human civilization... is basically a result of immortality projects: the cities and governments and structures and authorities in places today were all immortality projects of men and women who came before us. They are the remnants of conceptual selves that ceased to die... all the meaning in our life is shaped by this innate desire to never truly die. Religion, politics, sports, art, and technological innovation are the result of people's immortality projects. ...wars and revolutions and mass murder occur when one group of people's immortality project rub up against another group's.
”
”
Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
“
When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who are served by that system, you can be certain that the shame is systemic, the money is driving ethics, and the accountability is all but dead. This is true in corporations, nonprofits, universities, governments, faith communities, schools, families, and sports programs. If you think back on any major scandal fueled by cover-ups, you’ll see this same pattern. And the restitution and resolution of cover-ups almost always happens in the wilderness—when one person steps outside their bunker and speaks their truth.
”
”
Brené Brown (Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone)
“
How about I tell you what I don’t like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires. I rarely stock debuts, chick lit, poetry, or translations. I would prefer not to stock series, but the demands of my pocketbook require me to. For your part, you needn’t tell me about the ‘next big series’ until it is ensconced on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Above all, Ms. Loman, I find slim literary memoirs about little old men whose little old wives have died from cancer to be absolutely intolerable. No matter how well written the sales rep claims they are. No matter how many copies you promise I’ll sell on Mother’s Day.
”
”
Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry)
“
No one ever warns you about the complicated and political decisions regarding lessons and classes and sports you’ll have to make when you become a parent. When I was in eighth grade everyone in Home Economics had to care for flour-sack babies for two weeks to teach us about parenting and no one ever mentioned enrolling your flour baby in sports. Basically, everyone got a sealed paper sack of flour that puffed out flour dust whenever you moved it. You were forced to carry it around everywhere because I guess it was supposed to teach you that babies are fragile and also that they leave stains on all of your shirts. At the end of the two weeks your baby was weighed and if it lost too much weight that meant you were too haphazard with it and were not ready to be a parent. It was a fairly unrealistic child-rearing lesson. Basically all we learned about babies in that class was that you could use superglue to seal your baby’s head after you dropped it. And that eighth-grade boys will play keep-away with your baby if they see it so it’s really safer in the trunk of your car. And that you should just wrap your baby up in plastic cling wrap so that its insides don’t explode when it’s rolling around in the trunk on your way home. And also that if you don’t properly store your baby in the freezer your baby will get weevils and then you have to throw your baby in the garbage instead of later making it into a cake that you’ll be graded on. (The next two weeks of class focused on cooking and I used my flour baby to make a pineapple upside-down cake. My baby was delicious. These are the things you never realize are weird until you start writing them down.)
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
The talent code is built on revolutionary scientific discoveries involving a neural insulator called myelin, which some neurologists now consider to be the holy grail of acquiring skill. Here's why. Every human skill, whether it's playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse—basically, a signal traveling through a circuit. Myelin's vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. When we fire our circuits in the right way—when we practice swinging that bat or playing that note—our myelin responds by wrapping layers of insulation around that neural circuit, each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker the myelin gets, the better it insulates, and the faster and more accurate our movements and thoughts become.
”
”
Daniel Coyle (The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else)
“
something that cannot be memorized and graded: a great doctor must have a huge heart and a distended aorta through which pumps a vast lake of compassion and human kindness. At least, that’s what you’d think. In reality, medical schools don’t give the shiniest shit about any of that. They don’t even check you’re OK with the sight of blood. Instead, they fixate on extracurricular activities. Their ideal student is captain of two sports teams, the county swimming champion, leader of the youth orchestra and editor of the school newspaper. It’s basically a Miss Congeniality contest without the sash. Look at the Wikipedia entry for any famous doctor, and you’ll see: ‘He proved himself an accomplished rugby player in youth leagues. He excelled as a distance runner and in his final year at school was vice-captain of the athletics team.’ This particular description is of a certain Dr H. Shipman, so perhaps it’s not a rock-solid system.
”
”
Adam Kay (This is Going to Hurt)
“
Well, in our society, we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can't get involved in them in a very serious way―so what they do is they put their minds into other things, such as sports. You're trained to be obedient; you don't have an interesting job; there's no work around for you that's creative; in the cultural environment you're a passive observer of usually pretty tawdry stuff; political and social life are out of your range, they're in the hands of the rich folk. So what's left? Well, one thing that's left is sports―so you put a lot of the intelligence and the thought and the self-confidence into that. And I suppose that's also one of the basic functions it serves in the society in general: it occupies the population, and keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter. In fact, I presume that's part of the reason why spectator sports are supported to the degree they are by the dominant institutions.
”
”
Noam Chomsky (Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky)
“
Like,” he repeats with distaste. “How about I tell you what I don’t like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires. I rarely stock debuts, chick lit, poetry, or translations. I would prefer not to stock series, but the demands of my pocketbook require me to. For your part, you needn’t tell me about the ‘next big series’ until it is ensconced on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Above all, Ms. Loman, I find slim literary memoirs about little old men whose little old wives have died from cancer to be absolutely intolerable. No matter how well written the sales rep claims they are. No matter how many copies you promise I’ll sell on Mother’s Day.
”
”
Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry)
“
Like,” he repeats with distaste. “How about I tell you what I don’t like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires. I rarely stock debuts, chick lit, poetry, or translations. I would prefer not to stock series, but the demands of my pocketbook require me to. For your part, you needn’t tell me about the ‘next big series’ until it is ensconced on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Above all, Ms. Loman, I find slim literary memoirs about little old men whose little old wives have died from cancer to be absolutely intolerable. No matter how well written the sales rep claims they are. No matter how many copies you promise I’ll sell on Mother’s Day.” Amelia blushes, though she is angry more than embarrassed. She agrees with some of what A.J. has said, but his manner is unnecessarily insulting. Knightley Press doesn’t even sell half of that stuff anyway. She studies him. He is older than Amelia but not by much, not by more than ten years. He is too young to like so little. “What do you like?” she asks. “Everything else,” he says. “I will also admit to an occasional weakness for short-story collections. Customers never want to buy them though.” There is only one short-story collection on Amelia’s list, a debut. Amelia hasn’t read the whole thing, and time dictates that she probably won’t, but she liked the first story. An American sixth-grade class and an Indian sixth-grade class participate in an international pen pal program. The narrator is an Indian kid in the American class who keeps feeding comical misinformation about Indian culture to the Americans. She clears her throat, which is still terribly dry. “The Year Bombay Became Mumbai. I think it will have special int—” “No,” he says. “I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet.” “Just no.” “But why?” “If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit that you’re only telling me about it because I’m partially Indian and you think this will be my special interest. Am I right?” Amelia imagines smashing the ancient computer over his head. “I’m telling you about this because you said you liked short stories! And it’s the only one on my list. And for the record”—here, she lies—“it’s completely wonderful from start to finish. Even if it is a debut. “And do you know what else? I love debuts. I love discovering something new. It’s part of the whole reason I do this job.” Amelia rises. Her head is pounding. Maybe she does drink too much? Her head is pounding and her heart is, too. “Do you want my opinion?” “Not particularly,” he says. “What are you, twenty-five?” “Mr. Fikry, this is a lovely store, but if you continue in this this this”—as a child, she stuttered and it occasionally returns when she is upset; she clears her throat—“this backward way of thinking, there won’t be an Island Books before too long.
”
”
Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry)
“
We are experiencing a dangerous time in our country, with a political environment where basic facts are disputed, fundamental truth is questioned, lying is normalized, and unethical behavior is ignored, excused, or rewarded. This is not just happening in our nation’s capital, and not just in the United States. It is a troubling trend that has touched institutions across America and around the world—boardrooms of major companies, newsrooms, university campuses, the entertainment industry, and professional and Olympic sports.
”
”
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
NBA 2K18 Wishlist - Good Badges To Deal Problems In 2K17
The NBA 2K18 release date has basketball fans hyped. The new game in the series will be the definitive way for fans to take control of their favorite franchises and players on the Xbox One and PS4. As of the features player wish to be added into NBA 2K18, we can compare it with NBA 2K17. Today, we'll list the best badges players would like to see in the latest NBA franchise.
Flashy Dunker
2K Sports has spent a large amount of time recording flashy dunk animations that look great when they trigger. Unfortunately players do not equip any of these because they get blocked at a higher rate than the basic one and two hand dunk packages. NBA 2K17 has posterizer to help with contact dunks but Flashy Dunker would be for non-contact animations. The badge would allow you to use these flashy dunk packages in traffic while getting blocked at a lower rate in NBA 2K18.
Bullet Passer Badge
Even with a high passer rating and Hall of Fame dimer you can still find yourself throwing slow lob passes inexplicably. These passes are easy to intercept and give the defense too much time to recover. Bullet Passer would be an increase in the speed of passes that you throw, allowing you to create open looks for teammates in 2K18 that were not possible in NBA 2K17. A strong passing game is more important than ISO ball and this badge would help with that style of play.
3 And D Badge
The 3 and D badge would be an archetype in NBA 2K18 ideally but a badge version would be an acceptable substitute. This badge would once again reward players for playing good defense. The badge would trigger after a block, steal, or good shot defense and would lead to an increase in shooting percentage on the next possession from behind the 3 point arc.
Dominant Post Presence Badge
It's a travesty that post scorer is one of the more under-utilized archetypes in NBA 2K17. Many players that have created a post scorer can immediately tell you why they do not play it as much as their other MyPlayers, it is incredibly easy to lose the ball in the post. Whether it is a double team or your matchup, getting the ball poked loose is a constant problem. Dominant Post Presence would trigger when you attempt to post up and would be an increase in your ability to maintain possession of the ball as long as NBA 2K18 add this badge. In addition the badge would be an increase in the shooting percentage of your teammate when you pass out of the post to an open man.
The Glove
NBA 2K17 has too many contested shots. The shot contest rating on most archetypes is not enough to outweigh the contested midrange or 3 point rating and consistently force misses. It's obviously that height helps you contest shots in a major way but it also slows you down. However, the Glove would solve this problem in NBA 2K18. This badge would increase your ability to contest shots effectively, forcing more misses and allowing you to play better defense.
Of course, there should be more other tips and tricks for NBA 2K18. If you have better advices, tell us on the official media. The NBA 2K18 Early Tip-Off Weekend starts September 15th. That's a total of four days for dedicated fans to get in the game and try its new features before other buyers. The game is completely unlocked for Early Tip-Off Weekend. Be sure to make enough preparation for the upcoming event.
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Bunnytheis
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How about you?” I asked, trying to keep words happening. “Play any sports?”
“I might have.”
“Instruments?”
“No.”
“Did you grow up in a state that starts with the letter A, M, or T?”
Her lips did this twisty thing to the side.
“Isn’t that how we’re doing this? Process of elimination?”
Daryn brushed some sand off her jeans. “The less we do of this, the better it’ll be for both of us.”
I started laughing. I didn’t know what had just hit me. Daryn laughed too, more at me than with me, but it didn’t matter. I enjoyed it.
“You run a pretty good defense, Martin. You know that?”
“I’ve gotten better.”
“Does this mean you’re not going to tell me about the downloads you get? Or how often you get ’em? Or how long you’ve been doing this? Like, is this your first assignment, or have you been seeking—seekering?—your whole life? And, like, when you saw me—you said you saw me—was I excelling at protecting secret powerful objects? Doing epic War shit? How amazing was I, is basically what I want to know. But in specifics. Did I look really-really awesome or just kind of good? Wait, wait—I looked prime. Didn’t I, Martin?”
“Are you done?”
“With my opening questions?”
She shook her head. “Wow.”
“You don’t have to answer.”
“I know I don’t.” She reclined her seat and put her feet up on the dash. I thought the subject was closed because she shut her eyes, but then she said, “It’s not often you meet people who are so persistent.”
“How often do you meet people who are War?”
She peered at me and gave a little shrug, like you’re really not all that special. Then she closed her eyes again.
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Veronica Rossi (Riders (Riders, #1))
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The point is that you have to work. And that's why the propaganda system is so successful. Very few people are going to have the time or the energy or the commitment to carry out the constant battle that's required to get outside of Lehrer, or Dan Rather, or somebody like that. The easy thing to do, you know, you come home from work, you're tired, you had a busy day, you're not going to spend the evening carrying out a research project. So you turn on the tube, you say it's probably right, or you look at the headlines in the paper, and then you're watching sports or something. That's basically the way the system of indoctrination works. Sure the other stuff is there, but you're going to work to find it.
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Noam Chomsky
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Jason Gesser has a historic and successful football programs and has enriched his college career by the leading, Cougars to two 10 win seasons that included a trip to the Rose Bowl. Jason Gesser also had a victory in the Sun Bowl. He is basically a perfect fit for the people. And the best part is that Jason Gesser considers WSU, a perfect fit for himself. Now he has a new role as an assistant director of the development team with the Cougar Athletic Fund.
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Jason Gesser
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By the nature of their basic design, families tend to have a strong, united identity. In this natural state families live in the same house, eat the same meals, work on the same projects, suffer the same misfortunes, have the same friends and extended family relations and protect the weaker members. It takes an alien, unnatural culture to create a family that eats separately, has separate friends, separate interests and identifies more strongly with a peer-based subculture than their own family. Most of what families must do to bring back a strong family identity involves resisting the forces that want to pull the family into its individual parts. In our family that means we don’t worship separately, we worship together; we don’t play sports separately but together; we don’t learn separately but together; we eat most of our meals together; we make money together; we go on adventures together because we are one unit and we opt out of many opportunities that force us to spend too much time embodying our individual identities.
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Jeremy Pryor (Family Revision: How Ancient Wisdom Can Heal the Modern Family)
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Are you looking for something fun to do with the whole family? Adventure Watersports has you covered! Wakeboarding and water skiing are two of our most popular activities, and both are perfect for people of all ages. We have a team of experienced instructors who will help you learn how to do these activities in no time. Come out and enjoy a day on the lake with us!
What Is Wakeboarding and water skiing?
Wakeboarding is a surface water sport in which the rider, referred to as a wakeboarder, is towed behind a motorboat across its Wake, with their feet securely fastened into bindings mounted on the board. Meanwhile, water skiing involves riding a water ski behind a boat while being pulled along by the vessel. The sport can be traced back to the 1920s but didn’t gain widespread popularity until after World War II.
How Can I Learn?
Learning how to Wakeboard or water ski is easier than you think! At Adventure Watersports, we have experienced instructors who will help you every step of the way. They will start by teaching you the basics and progress to more advanced techniques. Before you know it, you’ll be Wakeboarding or water skiing like a pro!
Why Should I Try It?
Wakeboarding and water skiing are great ways to exercise while having a lot of fun. They are also perfect for people of all ages – so the whole family can join in on the fun! If you’re looking for an activity that everyone will enjoy, look no further than Wakeboarding and water skiing at Adventure Watersports.
Visit Us Today!
If you’re interested in Wakeboarding or water skiing, we invite you to come to visit us at Adventure Watersports. We are located at Riviera Beach Marina, 200 E 13th Street, Riviera Beach, FL, USA 33404. For more inquiries, contact us at 561-729-0690.
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Adventure Watersports
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GB-3 This vital point is located near the lower aspects of the temple area of skull, along the Zygomatic Arch, and is directly forward of the ear. It is bilateral, meaning it is found on both sides of the head, which is unlike any of the centerline points that only occur once. It is not directly associated with any of the Extraordinary Vessels, but is an Intersection Point for the Gall Bladder Meridian, Triple Warmer Meridian, and the Stomach Meridian. This makes it valuable to martial artists, since Intersection Points provide the ability to disrupt multiple meridians with a single strike. It makes attacking them economic from a time and motion standpoint. In a standard defense of being grabbed at the waist, with your arms free, slapping the ears forcefully will allow activation of this point with the meaty part of your hand. It is one of several points in this region of the skull and other would likely be activated while striking it given their proximity and size of the surface you are striking with. EYES If you asked a non-martial artist what are vital points on the human body, most of them would include the eyes. This is just basic common sense, as the eyes allow us to see our environment and determine any possible threats. If you happen to be struck in the eye it would inhibit your ability to effectively defend yourself. This is as true today as it was at the time that the author(s) were putting together what became the Bubishi. Though the eyes are not pressure point per se, these organs are extremely sensitive to attack. Flicking, poking, or thrusting into the eyes directly will greatly inhibit your opponent’s ability to see you in a combative situation. In fact, many of the old school Western hand-to-hand instructors of the World War II area were adamant in attacking the eyes. Likewise, it is common place in many martial arts systems, especially the ones that are truly combative and not sport oriented. Quick flicks of the wrist, with the fingertips striking the eyes, is a method that most opponents aren’t expecting. Thrusting your fingers into the eyes, either all or singularly, is another effective technique. More extreme is thrusting one finger into the inner corner of the opponent’s eye and then jerking forward and to the outside. This technique will dislodge the eye from its socket and should only be used in extreme circumstances. Defending against eye attacks is built into each of us, as we instinctually know their importance. If you recognize an eye attack from your opponent, dropping, raising and/or turning the head will many times save you from eye injury.
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Rand Cardwell (36 Deadly Bubishi Points: The Science and Technique of Pressure Point Fighting - Defend Yourself Against Pressure Point Attacks!)
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Basically, action is, and always will be, faster than reaction. Thus, the attacker is the one that dictates the fight. They are forcing the encounter with technique after technique that are designed to overcome any defensive techniques initiated by the defender. Much of this exchange, and determining which of the adversaries is victorious, is all a matter of split seconds. That is the gap between action and reaction. That attacker acts; the defender reacts. Military history is saturated with an uneven amount of victorious attackers compared to victorious defenders. It is common to observe the same phenomenon in popular sports, fighting competitions, in the corporate world of big business. The list goes on and on. So, how do we effectively defend ourselves when we can easily arrive at the conclusion that the defender statistically loses? It is by developing the mentality that once attacked that you immediately counter-attack. That counter-attack has to be ferocious and unrelenting. If someone throws a punch, or otherwise initiates battle with you, putting you, for a split second, on the wrong side of the action versus reaction gap. Your best chance of victory is to deflect, smoother, parry, or otherwise negate their attack and then immediately launch into a vicious counter-attack. Done properly, this forces your adversary into a reactive state, rather than an action one. You turn the table on them and become the aggressor. That is how to effectively conceptualizes being in a defensive situation. Utilizing this method will place you in a greater position to be victorious. Dempsey, Sun Tzu and General Patton would agree. Humans are very violent animals. As a species, we are capable of high levels of extreme violence. In fact, approaching the subject of unarmed combatives, or any form of combatives, involves the immersion into a field that is inherently violent to the extreme of those extremes. It is one thing to find yourself facing an opponent across a field, or ring, during a sporting match. Those contests still pit skill verses skill, but lack the survival aspects of an unarmed combative encounter. The average person rarely, if ever, ponders any of this and many consider various sporting contests as the apex of human competition. It is not. Finding yourself in a life-or-death struggle against an opponent that is completely intent on ending your life is the greatest of all human competitions. Understanding that and acknowledging that takes some degree of courage in today’s society.
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Rand Cardwell (36 Deadly Bubishi Points: The Science and Technique of Pressure Point Fighting - Defend Yourself Against Pressure Point Attacks!)
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It struck me as a kind of technology that reduced freedom, and in a society that was basically an assembly plant for Western business interests, depending on the goodwill of washerwomen and the cowardice of students, this technology was useful for all sorts of programs and campaigns. In a “wired city” you wouldn’t need wall space for SINGAPORE WANTS SMALL FAMILIES and PUT YOUR HEART INTO SPORTS and REPORT ANYTHING SUSPICIOUS: you would simply stuff it into the wire and send it into every home.
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Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia)
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... said to a group of student midwives, ‘“Females are more resistant to anoxia. We females are the basic utility model – more robust. Men are the sports version. More enjoyable, use more fuel and break down a lot!” A sea of blank faces looked back at me.
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Diana Ashworth
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Sources of collective effervescence—ceremonies, musical performances, sports, dances, rituals within churches—shift the rhythms of our bodies to a shared biological rhythm, breaking down that most basic barrier between self and other, the idea that we are physically separated by the boundaries of our skin.
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Dacher Keltner (Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life)