Basket Full Of Love Quotes

You don’t know my wife. It’s like a toy store for her. Our pen drawer at home is organized by color, and she has an entire basket full of washi tape.” “What’s washi tape?” “It’s, like, pretty tape for decorating. I don’t know. She loves that shit, though.” Del nodded. “Nessa has two full drawers of it. Sometimes I catch her staring at them with this weird smile on her face.

You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.

It looked like the basket of someone keen to live life to the full

It is no use for you to attempt to sow out of an empty basket, for that would be sowing nothing but wind,” wrote Spurgeon.

I was greedy, she warned, and could not fill my heart with enough pleasure, my stomach with enough contentment, my body with enough sleep. I was like a rice basket with a rat hole at the bottom, and thus could not be satisfied and overflow, nor could I be filled. I would never know the full depth and breadth of love, beauty, or happiness. She said it like a curse.

In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori Baskets of olives and lemons, Cobbles spattered with wine And the wreckage of flowers. Vendors cover the trestles With rose-pink fish; Armfuls of dark grapes Heaped on peach-down. On this same square They burned Giordano Bruno. Henchmen kindled the pyre Close-pressed by the mob. Before the flames had died The taverns were full again, Baskets of olives and lemons Again on the vendors' shoulders. I thought of the Campo dei Fiori In Warsaw by the sky-carousel One clear spring evening To the strains of a carnival tune. The bright melody drowned The salvos from the ghetto wall, And couples were flying High in the cloudless sky. At times wind from the burning Would drift dark kites along And riders on the carousel Caught petals in midair. That same hot wind Blew open the skirts of the girls And the crowds were laughing On that beautiful Warsaw Sunday. Someone will read as moral That the people of Rome or Warsaw Haggle, laugh, make love As they pass by martyrs' pyres. Someone else will read Of the passing of things human, Of the oblivion Born before the flames have died. But that day I thought only Of the loneliness of the dying, Of how, when Giordano Climbed to his burning There were no words In any human tongue To be left for mankind, Mankind who live on. Already they were back at their wine Or peddled their white starfish, Baskets of olives and lemons They had shouldered to the fair, And he already distanced As if centuries had passed While they paused just a moment For his flying in the fire. Those dying here, the lonely Forgotten by the world, Our tongue becomes for them The language of an ancient planet. Until, when all is legend And many years have passed, On a great Campo dei Fiori Rage will kindle at a poet's word.

One of the things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they’ll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old picture frames, say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they’ll confront you, and you’ll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn’t thought about in weeks or years. I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. The may make me feel, but I can’t’ feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture and no weight. They can get in your head but can’t whack you upside it.

So coming back from a journey, or after an illness, before habits had spun themselves across the surface, one felt that same unreality, which was so startling; felt something emerge. Life was most vivid then. One could be at one’s ease. Mercifully one need not say, very briskly, crossing the lawn to great old Mrs. Beckwith, who would be coming out to find a corner to sit in, “Oh, good-morning, Mrs. Beckwith! What a lovely day! Are you going to be so bold as to sit in the sun? Jasper’s hidden the chairs. Do let me find you one!” and all the rest of the usual chatter. One need not speak at all. One glided, one shook one’s sails (there was a good deal of movement in the bay, boats were starting off) between things, beyond things. Empty it was not, but full to the brim. She seemed to be standing up to the lips in some substance, to move and float and sink in it, yes, for these waters were unfathomably deep. Into them had spilled so many lives. The Ramsays’; the children’s; and all sorts of waifs and strays of things besides. A washerwoman with her basket; a rook; a red-hot poker; the purples and grey-greens of flowers: some common feeling held the whole.

As a boy, in my own backyard I could catch a basket of blue crabs, a string of flounder, a dozen redfish, or a net full of white shrimp. All this I could do in a city enchanting enough to charm cobras out of baskets, one so corniced and filigreed and elaborate that it leaves strangers awed and natives self-satisfied. In its shadows you can find metal work as delicate as lace and spiral staircases as elaborate as yachts. In the secrecy of its gardens you can discover jasmine and camellias and hundreds of other plants that look embroidered and stolen from the Garden of Eden for the sheer love of richness and the joy of stealing from the gods. In its kitchens, the stoves are lit up in happiness as the lamb is marinating in red wine sauce, vinaigrette is prepared for the salad, crabmeat is anointed with sherry, custards are baked in the oven, and buttermilk biscuits cool on the counter.

One of the many things i love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they’ll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old pictures frames,say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they’ll confront you, and you’ll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn’t thought about in weeks or years. I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. They may make me feel, but i can’t feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture, and no weight. They can get in your head but can’t whack you upside it.

One of the many things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they’ll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old picture frames, say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they’ll confront you, and you’ll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn’t thought about in weeks or years. I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. They may make me feel, but I can’t feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture, and no weight. They can get in your head but can’t whack you upside it.

The boats were filled mostly with steerage passengers who lived in Trebizond or were visiting relations there, and the women carried great bundles and sacks full of things, but the men carried suit-cases with sharp, square corners, which helped them very much in the struggle to get on and stay on the boats, for this was very violent and intense. More than one woman got shoved overboard into the sea during the struggle, and had to be dragged out by husbands and acquaintances, but one sank too deep and had to be left, for the boat-hooks could not reach her; all we saw were the apples out of her basket bobbing on the waves. I thought that women would not stand much chance in a shipwreck, and in the struggle for the boats many might fall in the sea and be forgotten, but the children would be saved all right, for Turks love their children, even the girls.

Miss Rose sitting on a porch. Beside her, a bushel basket of ripe peaches or tomatoes. The drunkards buzzing, but easily smashed with a swat. Early mornings, she starts singing, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and that's your cue to rise. To eat the heavy breakfast that will keep you full all day. Once you've helped her with peeling those tomatoes or peaches, there are weeds to be plucked from the garden, from around the vegetables that will show up fresh on the supper table. Fish need cleaning if Uncle Norman comes through with a prize. After dinner, the piecing together of quilt tops from remnants until the light completely fades. The next morning, it starts again. A woman singing off-key praises to the Lord. The sweet fruit dripping with juice. The sound of bugs. I thought of what Mama liked to say: to find this kind of love, you have to enter deep country.

My Lover Who Lives Far..... My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and offers supper in a bowl made of his breath. The stew has boiled and I wonder at the cat born from its steam. The cat is in the bedroom now, mewling. The cat is indecent and I, who am trying to be tidy, I, who am trying to do things the proper way, I, who am sick from the shedding, I am undone. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and offers pastries in a basket spun from his vision. It is closely woven, the kind of container some women collect. I have seen these in many colors, but the basket he brings is simple: only black, only nude. The basket he brings is full of sweet scones and I eat even the crumbs. As if I've not dined for days. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and offers tea made from the liquid he's crying. I do not want my lover crying and I am sorry I ever asked for tea. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room pretending he never cried. He offers tea and cold cakes. The tea is delicious: spiced like the start of our courtship, honeyed and warm. I drink every bit of the tea and put aside the rest. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room like a man loving his strength. The lock I replaced this morning will not keep him away. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and brings me nothing. Perhaps he has noticed how fat I've grown, indulged. Perhaps he is poor and sick of emptying his store. It is no matter to me any longer, he has filled me, already, so full. My lover who is far away opens the door to my room and tells me he is tired. I do not ask what he's tired from for my lover, far away, has already disappeared. The blankets are big with his body. The cat, under the covers, because it is cold out and she is not stupid, mews.

It was my father who called the city the Mansion on the River. He was talking about Charleston, South Carolina, and he was a native son, peacock proud of a town so pretty it makes your eyes ache with pleasure just to walk down its spellbinding, narrow streets. Charleston was my father’s ministry, his hobbyhorse, his quiet obsession, and the great love of his life. His bloodstream lit up my own with a passion for the city that I’ve never lost nor ever will. I’m Charleston-born, and bred. The city’s two rivers, the Ashley and the Cooper, have flooded and shaped all the days of my life on this storied peninsula. I carry the delicate porcelain beauty of Charleston like the hinged shell of some soft-tissued mollusk. My soul is peninsula-shaped and sun-hardened and river-swollen. The high tides of the city flood my consciousness each day, subject to the whims and harmonies of full moons rising out of the Atlantic. I grow calm when I see the ranks of palmetto trees pulling guard duty on the banks of Colonial Lake or hear the bells of St. Michael’s calling cadence in the cicada-filled trees along Meeting Street. Deep in my bones, I knew early that I was one of those incorrigible creatures known as Charlestonians. It comes to me as a surprising form of knowledge that my time in the city is more vocation than gift; it is my destiny, not my choice. I consider it a high privilege to be a native of one of the loveliest American cities, not a high-kicking, glossy, or lipsticked city, not a city with bells on its fingers or brightly painted toenails, but a ruffled, low-slung city, understated and tolerant of nothing mismade or ostentatious. Though Charleston feels a seersuckered, tuxedoed view of itself, it approves of restraint far more than vainglory. As a boy, in my own backyard I could catch a basket of blue crabs, a string of flounder, a dozen redfish, or a net full of white shrimp. All this I could do in a city enchanting enough to charm cobras out of baskets, one so corniced and filigreed and elaborate that it leaves strangers awed and natives self-satisfied. In its shadows you can find metalwork as delicate as lace and spiral staircases as elaborate as yachts. In the secrecy of its gardens you can discover jasmine and camellias and hundreds of other plants that look embroidered and stolen from the Garden of Eden for the sheer love of richness and the joy of stealing from the gods. In its kitchens, the stoves are lit up in happiness as the lamb is marinating in red wine sauce, vinaigrette is prepared for the salad, crabmeat is anointed with sherry, custards are baked in the oven, and buttermilk biscuits cool on the counter.

He opened the door after letting me pound on it for almost five minutes. His truck was in the carport. I knew he was here. He pulled the door open and walked back inside without looking at me or saying a word. I followed him in, and he dropped onto a sofa I’d never seen before. His face was scruffy. I’d never seen him anything but clean-shaven. Not even in pictures. He had bags under his eyes. He’d aged ten years in three days. The apartment was a mess. The boxes were gone. It looked like he had finally unpacked. But laundry was piled up in a basket so full it spilled out onto the floor. Empty food containers littered the kitchen countertops. The coffee table was full of empty beer bottles. His bed was unmade. The place smelled stagnant and dank. A vicious urge to take care of him took hold. The velociraptor tapped its talon on the floor. Josh wasn’t okay. Nobody was okay. And that was what made me not okay. “Hey,” I said, standing in front of him. He didn’t look at me. “Oh, so you’re talking to me now,” he said bitterly, taking a long pull on a beer. “Great. What do you want?” The coldness of his tone took me aback, but I kept my face still. “You haven’t been to the hospital.” His bloodshot eyes dragged up to mine. “Why would I? He’s not there. He’s fucking gone.” I stared at him. He shook his head and looked away from me. “So what do you want? You wanted to see if I’m okay? I’m not fucking okay. My best friend is brain-dead. The woman I love won’t even fucking speak to me.” He picked up a beer cap from the coffee table and threw it hard across the room. My OCD winced. “I’m doing this for you,” I whispered. “Well, don’t,” he snapped. “None of this is for me. Not any of it. I need you, and you abandoned me. Just go. Get out.” I wanted to climb into his lap. Tell him how much I missed him and that I wouldn’t leave him again. I wanted to make love to him and never be away from him ever again in my life—and clean his fucking apartment. But instead, I just stood there. “No. I’m not leaving. We need to talk about what’s happening at the hospital.” He glared up at me. “There’s only one thing I want to talk about. I want to talk about how you and I can be in love with each other and you won’t be with me. Or how you can stand not seeing me or speaking to me for weeks. That’s what I want to talk about, Kristen.” My chin quivered. I turned and went to the kitchen and grabbed a trash bag from under the sink. I started tossing take-out containers and beer bottles. I spoke over my shoulder. “Get up. Go take a shower. Shave. Or don’t if that’s the look you’re going for. But I need you to get your shit together.” My hands were shaking. I wasn’t feeling well. I’d been light-headed and slightly overheated since I went to Josh’s fire station looking for him. But I focused on my task, shoving trash into my bag. “If Brandon is going to be able to donate his organs, he needs to come off life support within the next few days. His parents won’t do it, and Sloan doesn’t get a say. You need to go talk to them.” Hands came up under my elbows, and his touch radiated through me. “Kristen, stop.” I spun on him. “Fuck you, Josh! You need help, and I need to help you!” And then as fast as the anger surged, the sorrow took over. The chains on my mood swing snapped, and feelings broke through my walls like water breaching a crevice in a dam. I began to cry. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. The strength that drove me through my days just wasn’t available to me when it came to Josh. I dropped the trash bag at his feet and put my hands over my face and sobbed. He wrapped his arms around me, and I completely lost it.

Oh, Julia! Oh dear!” Mrs. Windham tottered down the stone pathway, holding scissors aloft. Beneath the crook of one elbow she clutched an oversized basket, and with her free hand, she clutched an apron full of clippings. Breathless, she reached over the wooden gate and unlatched it. Scatterings of rosemary and lavender fell about her feet, scenting the air. “Julia dear, what on earth? Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today. Depend upon you to come early. Oh, and I had such a lovely dinner of stewed pigeon planned, too. Now we shall have to eat rabbit pie and cold beef. Oh, it’s all been ruined.

Josefina had grown up hearing tales of treasures hidden by thieves, gold mines with secret entrances, jars of coins buried by old men afraid of being robbed. She’d always enjoyed these legends, shared by good storytellers when shadows were long and imaginations ran high. She’d never heard of anyone actually finding lost treasure. But she’d never seen a map marked with landmarks and strange sketches, either. Josefina tried to push the image of the map from her mind so that she could go to sleep, but it was no use. Finally, afraid she might wake her sisters, she got up. Wrapping her rebozo around her shoulders against the cool night breeze, she tiptoed out of the sala. She lit a candle and crept to the storeroom where she and Teresita kept their remedios and dyes. Josefina loved the musty-spicy smells of the plant bundles hanging from poles overhead. She loved seeing bins and gourds and baskets filled with supplies that might help ward off illness or cure disease. Sitting on a banco, she savored the peaceful stillness. She could feel her muscles relaxing. Soon she would be ready for sleep. Then an unexpected sound jerked Josefina upright. The candle fell to the hard earthen floor and snuffed out. In the sudden darkness, Josefina strained to hear the sound that had disturbed her. There it was again! A faint crying sound. Was one of her sisters awake? Was Francisca in the courtyard, weeping for Ramón? Josefina cocked her head, but when she heard the sound again, she was sure it came from outside the house. Josefina stepped closer to the window, carefully avoiding a basket of pumpkin stems. Pressing a palm against the wall, she held her breath. And the sound came again, drifting through the open window above her head—a woman’s sob, low and full of anguish. Josefina’s bones turned to ice. Only one woman roamed at night, weeping and wailing: the ghost, La Llorona!

The epiphany in the beans. I spend a lot of time thinking about our relationships with land, how we are given so much and what we might give back. I try to work through the equations of reciprocity and responsibility, the whys and wherefores of building sustainable relationships with ecosystems. All in my head. But suddenly there was no intellectualizing, no rationalizing, just the pure sensation of baskets full of mother love. The ultimate reciprocity, loving and being loved in return.

Dropped off on Isla’s porch in a basket with a single blanket and my name and birthday scrawled on a ripped piece of parchment, I was crying in the dead of night when she opened her front door to see an olive-skinned baby with a full head of black hair. It wasn’t even a choice, Isla always said — she would love me as her own until her last breath. If anyone ever asked, Isla told them that my parents were two drunks from her side of the family who couldn’t afford to raise a child. No one ever questioned it, which was the story we had maintained for twenty-four years. When I was brought to the castle, Isla never left my side and held my hand when the king’s adviser, John, explained that the fallen king, Leonidas, willed me to be the heir to his throne. No reason was ever given, and there wasn’t a connection in our bloodlines that anyone could find.

Holly Berries A Confederate Christmas Story by Refugitta There was, first, behind the clear crystal pane, a mammoth turkey, so fat that it must have submitted to be killed from sheer inability to eat and move, hung all around with sausage balls and embowered in crisp white celery with its feathered tops. Many a belated housekeeper or father of a family, passing by, cast loving glances at the monster bird, and turned away with their hands on depleted purses and arms full of brown paper parcels. Then there were straw baskets of eggs, white and shining with the delightful prospect of translation into future eggnogs; pale yellow butter stamped with ears of corn, bee hives, and statuesque cows with their tails in an attitude. But these were all substantials, and the principal attraction was the opposition window, where great pyramids of golden oranges, scaly brown pineapples, festoons of bananas, boxes of figs and raisins with their covers thrown temptingly aside, foreign sauces and pickles, cheeses, and gilded walnuts were arranged in picturesque regularity, jut, as it seemed, almost within reach of one’s olfactories and mouth, until a closer proximity realized the fact of that thick plate glass between. Inside it was just the same: there were barrels and boxes in a perfect wilderness; curious old foreign packages and chests, savory of rare teas and rarer jellies; cinnamon odors like gales from Araby meeting you at every turn; but yet everything, from the shining mahogany counter under the brilliant gaslight, up to the broad, clean, round face of the jolly grocer Pin, was so neat and orderly and inviting that you felt inclined to believe yourself requested to come in and take off things by the pocketful, without paying a solitary cent. I acknowledge that it was an unreasonable distribution of favors for Mr. Pin to own, all to himself, this abundance of good things. Now, in my opinion, little children ought to be the shop keepers when there are apples and oranges to be sold, and I know they will all agree with me, for I well remember my earliest ambition was that my papa would turn confectioner, and then I could eat my way right through the store. But our friend John Pin was an appreciative person, and not by any means forgetful of his benefits. All day long and throughout the short afternoon, his domain had been thronged with busy buyers, old and young, and himself and his assistant (a meager-looking young man of about the dimensions of a knitting needle) constantly employed in supplying their demands. From the Southern Illustrated News.

One of the many things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they'll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old picture frames, say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they'll confront you, and you'll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in weeks or years. I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me. They may make me feel, but I can't feel them. They are all soul with no flesh, no texture, and no weight. They can get in your head but can't whack you upside it.

Smith had imagined that there would be time again for serious speech between the two of them, on the return leg to New-York; but as well as a hold full of sacks and a deck laden with casks, the lugger had also taken on a moderate clutch of New-York-bound passengers, from Dutch farm-wives carrying baskets of eggs to several more would-be sailors for the Indies voyage, and a talkative attorney, up, he said, from Baltimore to view the northern colonies. Smith and Tabitha were parted by the casks and the crowd, and he spent the journey back into fog and darkness on the ebb tide, obliged to lob back the attorney’s conversational sallies; and thinking wonderingly, where he could betwixt the distractions, as young men are likely to do in these circumstances, how very ordinary and general and unremarkable a destiny it must be, how predictable a part of the universal portion of mankind it is, to love and to feel oneself beloved; and yet how astonishing it seems when it happens to you, yourself; what a stroke of glorious, undeserved, unprecedented, unsuspected luck it turns out to be, that you should be permitted, in your own person, to share in the general fate. It was not until the end of the voyage that she squeezed her way back to his side. They

Children Are a Gift Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. —PSALM 127:3 NASB     In a recent women’s Bible study, the teacher asked the group, “Did you feel loved by your parents when you were a child?” Here are some of the responses. • “A lot of pizza came to the house on Friday nights when my parents went out for the evening.” • “I got in their way. I wasn’t important to them.” • “They were too busy for me.” • “Mom didn’t have to work, but she did just so she wouldn’t have to be home with us kids.” • “I spent too much time with a babysitter.” • “Mom was too involved at the country club to spend time with me.” • “Dad took us on trips, but he played golf all the time we were away.” So many of the ladies felt they were rejected by their parents in their childhoods. There was very little love in their homes. What would your children say in response to the same question? I’m sure we all would gain insight from our children’s answers. In today’s verse we see that children are a reward (gift) from the Lord. In Hebrew, “gift” means “property—a possession.” Truly, God has loaned us His property or possessions to care for and to enjoy for a certain period of time. My Bob loves to grow vegetables in his raised-bed garden each summer. I am amazed at what it takes to get a good crop. He cultivates the soil, sows seeds, waters, fertilizes, weeds, and prunes. Raising children takes a lot of time, care, nurturing, and cultivating as well. We can’t neglect these responsibilities if we are going to produce good fruit. Left to itself, the garden—and our children—will end up weeds. Bob always has a smile on his face when he brings a big basket full of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans into the kitchen. As the harvest is Bob’s reward, so children are parents’ rewards. Let your home be a place where its members come to be rejuvenated after a very busy time away from it. We liked to call our home the “trauma center”—a place where we could make mistakes, but also where there was healing. Perfect people didn’t reside at our address. We tried to teach that we all make mistakes and certainly aren’t always right. Quite often in our home we could hear the two

Walking over the moonlit bridge, Tom found himself drawn deeper and deeper into the world of the market. Here, it was crowded, noisy; buzzing with scents both familiar and strange. The sharp aroma of some herbal stuff seemed to dominate this part of the bridge; the scented smoke was strongest around a little stall named Madcap, from which a pipe-smoking vendor was selling brightly colored pouches, marked at the price of Three days a twist. Next to him, a person of indeterminate gender was folding sheets of colored paper into origami birds, which they released into the air with a papery flutter of wings. In spite of the crow woman's warning, Tom snapped a few more pictures. A dancer on the side of the bridge, her wings spread wide against the night. A diminutive woman with a whole haberdasher's shop balanced on her head: tiny drawers full of bobbins and lace, and packs of slender needles, and pincushions, and safety pins, and multicolored twists of silk. Next to her, cross-legged on the ground, an old woman in a drab overcoat was making garlands and buttonholes from baskets of strange-looking flowers that released an unfamiliar, intoxicating aroma. Her brown face lit up when she caught sight of Tom. 'Collector! What's it to be today? Another adventure? Your heart's desire? I know. True love!' And she picked up a white flower from one of her baskets and held it out to him with a smile. Its scent was complex, dark and sweet; the scent of a summer garden at night.

An Apple Gathering I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree And wore them all that evening in my hair: Then in due season when I went to see I found no apples there. With dangling basket all along the grass As I had come I went the selfsame track: My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass So empty-handed back. Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by, Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer; Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky, Their mother's home was near. Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full, A stronger hand than hers helped it along; A voice talked with her through the shadows cool More sweet to me than song. Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth Than apples with their green leaves piled above? I counted rosiest apples on the earth Of far less worth than love. So once it was with me you stooped to talk Laughing and listening in this very lane: To think that by this way we used to walk We shall not walk again! I let me neighbours pass me, ones and twos And groups; the latest said the night grew chill, And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews Fell fast I loitered still.

The basket sat there all stately and elegant, declaring she’d brought me some tender loving care and romance—while I’d basically gone for full body contact lust and love.

You can disrupt a behavior you don’t want by removing the prompt. This isn’t always easy, but removing the prompt is your best first move to stop a behavior from happening. A few years ago I went to the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. I walked into my hotel room and threw my bag on the bed. When I scanned the room, I saw something on the bureau. “Oh nooooo,” I said out loud to absolutely no one. There was an overflowing basket of goodies. Pringles. Blue chips. A giant lollipop. A granola bar. Peanuts. I try to eat healthy foods, but salty snacks are delicious. I knew the goody bin would be a problem for me at the end of every long day. It would serve as a prompt: Eat me! I knew that if the basket sat there I would eventually cave. The blue chips would be the first to go. Then I would eat those peanuts. So I asked myself what I had to do to stop this behavior from happening. Could I demotivate myself? No way, I love salty snacks. Can I make it harder to do? Maybe. I could ask the front desk to raise the price on the snacks or remove them from the room. But that might be slightly awkward. So what I did was remove the prompt. I put the beautiful basket of temptations on the lowest shelf in the TV cabinet and shut the door. I knew the basket was still in the room, but the treats were no longer screaming EAT ME at full volume. By the next morning, I had forgotten about those salty snacks. I’m happy to report that I survived three days in Austin without opening the cabinet again. Notice that my one-time action disrupted the behavior by removing the prompt. If that hadn’t worked, there were other dials I could have adjusted—but prompts are the low-hanging fruit of Behavior Design. Teaching the Behavior Model Now that you’ve seen how my Behavior Model applies to various types of behavior, I’ll show you more ways to use this model in the pages that follow.

It was lovely to be among the apple trees, with the morning breeze riffling their leaves. The apples were warm from the sun, and at least half were already red, splashed with threads of gold. The trees were old ones, Mr. Miller had told me, a heritage variety. The apples were Baldwins, introduced to the Northwest in the early part of the century. I already knew them to be sweet and crisp, and once my basket was full, I picked one more to eat on the spot.

Fish and the old woman An old woman, selling fish, Crying at all those who passed by, “Try my fish that you shall relish,” Most of them ignored her calls but many asked why? She answered all whys, all ifs, all questions, As long as you were someone she thought would buy, And I stood there listening to her witty quotations, That addressed all doubts and answered every why, Her greasy hands often patted and placed the fish in order, In the round wicker basket that was wet but clean, And in this fish market she looked much wiser and older, Her face was round, her eyes sharp, with a body frame that was lean, Few minutes passed, unlike the fish she was unable to catch a reliable prospect, Then a man stopped and looked at her basket full of fish, And she had found her much needed suspect, The providence had granted her her wish, She turned the fish around and showed him the best ones, Her greasy hands held them with twin feelings, A feeling that still wanted to retain the best ones, And a feeling that was willing to let go of the few in her commercial dealings, And there was her struggle, and her eyes revealed it clearly, She shuffled the best ones around and then mixed them with the rest, And she did this with a professional dexterity, Creating a mix of the good fish and the best, Because to her all customers are the same, They all deserve to savour the fish that she thinks are the finest, So she had to indulge in this necessary hypnotic game, And she performed it in ways sharp and tidiest, She scrubbed off the scales carefully, And cleaned them with a unique fondness, And when ready she handed them to the man lovingly, He held them with a sense of quickness, And walked away, leaving behind the old woman and her basket full of fish, Who once again shouted in her typical melody, “Try my fish that you shall relish, The fish that will make the tastiest dish, The fish from the lake that breeds the best fish!” While I watched her and her teary eyes, Because she missed the fish that were being taken away, Away from her everyday, with her daily lot gone a part of her in that basket dies, But she does not let her feelings give in or sway, Because this is who she is, the seller of life and joy, Who shouts on the bridge on a cold November day, For she too has a home, where she has to feed her girl and her always waiting boy, It has been so for many decades, and was so today, In the evening when the wicker basket is dry with no fish left in it, She lifts the basket, mops the floor, and places it on her head, Well I guess not all of us can do it, Because she carries the physical load over the head that with a million thoughts is also fed, Yet she walks with a smile and vivaciousness that is radiant, Because she sells the fish that are the best, And in the wicker basket they look magnificent and brilliant, I guess for her, the fish and the basket are her test, Where fate pushes her to the extreme every day, But she never gets tired to shout and say, “Try my fish that you shall relish any day, Why not let that day be today, your luckiest day!” With the old woman gone, the bridge is still crowded but the spot is empty, So, I turn around and look at it, and I hear her echoes, And I feel a wave of humility induced by my realisation of her piety, Towards a different God, the God she invokes often in her melody that resides there in the form of her echoes, I may never see her again, or maybe I will, Whenever I cross the bridge, the bridge that leads people to their destinations, But for me it begins there and it ends there too, there time holds still, Because we all respect her courage and we love her melodious incantations!

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I’m about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it’s gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash. I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I’m going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, “Aren’t those gourds straining your neck?” And I’m just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, “It’s fall, fuckfaces. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not.” Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff’rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn’t it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they’re both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that’s upsetting, but I’m not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore. The next thing I’m going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I’m going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it’s not summer, it’s not winter, and it’s not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it’s fall, fuckers. Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well, then you’re going to fucking love my house. Just look where you’re walking or you’ll get KO’d by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you’re going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned. For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer. Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

She wandered among the wooden crates, picking up tomatoes, peeling back the husks on ears of corn, adding two red peppers to her shopping basket and a bunch of very thin asparagus, a bouquet of zinnias for the table, and seven imperial-looking white and purple gladiolas to put in the stone pitcher that she kept by the front door. She was loaded down with fresh things, beautiful, glorious provisions. Could she stop time and stay here, with her basket full, surrounded by organic produce? Could she just die here and call it a happy end?

Welcome to the first dinner of this academic year, we shall start as we always do by saying the witches’ creed,' Miss Moffat said. As she began to speak, the other witches joined in: 'Witches old and witches young owls and bats and black cats too. Come together in this castle to bring out the best in you. With perfect love and perfect trust we learn the spells and witches' rules. Acting for the good of all now let’s eat in this great hall.' Charlotte looked at Stef, and they exchanged awkward glances because everyone else around them seemed to know the words to the creed, including Gerty and even Alice, although she only joined in on the last few sentences. Charlotte knew that she'd need to learn it for next time so that she didn't stand out and reminded herself to ask Gerty to teach it to her and Stef later. As soon as the witch’s creed had finished the bats flew into the room carrying bowls of broth and baskets of bread rolls. They went to the teacher's table first before they brought in food for the girls. Charlotte watched, and she was incredibly impressed as two bats quickly but precisely placed the bowl of orangey red broth down in front of her. On seeing Stef begin to eat and Gerty grab a roll out of the basket in front of them, she also took a roll and then placed her spoon into her broth. Picking up the silver goblet in front of her, she saw that it was now full of cranberry juice, even though she was sure it had been empty when she'd first sat down. The main course was a selection of steamed meats, and freshly cooked vegetables and dessert was an array of fruits and mini cakes that the bats brought in on three-tiered stands. The food was so delicious that even Alice hadn't complained once, although when Charlotte thought about it, she realized that Alice hadn't said anything since she'd sat down. When everyone had finished eating Molly stood up and said 'luculentam' as she waved her wand. All the dirty dishes, goblets and cutlery immediately vanished, and the tables were perfectly tidy. 'I so need to learn that spell,' Stef said, and Charlotte and Gerty nodded in agreement. 'Now that dinner is over it is your free time to do as you wish, may you use it wisely. I request the new students to stay behind, and Molly will give you a tour of the Academy. As for the rest of you, you're now free to leave,' Miss Moffat said. She got onto the broomstick that was floating behind her chair and led the rest of the teachers and older students out of the room. Charlotte watched as the room became quieter. Then she followed the others over to where Molly was standing in front of the platform, her blonde-hair now tied into bunches. 'I don't see why I need a tour, I know where my room is, and the meeting hall is easy to find. Surely servants should be on call to show me the remaining rooms as and when I need to see them,' Alice said, breaking her short bout of silence. 'This castle is huge, and I'm excited to see more of it,' Charlotte whispered to Gerty.