Beats Luck Quotes

He turned to Frank who was trying to pull his fingers out of the Chinese handcuffs… “Okay,” Frank relented. “Sure.” He frowned at his fingers, trying to pull them out of the trap. “Uh, how do you—” Leo chuckled. “Man, you’ve never seen those before? There’s a simple trick to getting out.” Frank tugged again with no luck. Even Hazel was trying not to laugh. Frank grimaced with concentration. Suddenly, he disappeared. On the deck where he’d been standing, a green iguana crouched next to an empty set of Chinese handcuffs. “Well done, Frank Zhang,” Leo said dryly, doing his impression of Chiron the centaur. “That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas.

I wish you luck,' she said, kissing him on the cheek. He still had the most beautiful eyes of any boy she'd ever seen. But now her heart beat so much faster for someone else.

Some of you were born with talent, some weren't. Some of you are lucky and got everything for free, some of you got nothing. But remember, when you're out on the ice you're all equals. And there's one thing you need to know: desire always beats luck.

Frank tugged again with no luck. Even Hazel was trying not to laugh. Frank grimaced with concentration. Suddenly, he disappeared. On the deck where he’d been standing, a green iguana crouched next to an empty set of Chinese handcuffs. “Well done, Frank Zhang,” Leo said dryly, doing his impression of Chiron the centaur. “That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas.

Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?” “Oh, let’s see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair... it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up,” Peeta says. “Your father? Why?” I ask. “He said, ‘See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,’” Peeta says. “What? You’re making that up!” I exclaim. “No, true story,” Peeta says. “And I said, ‘A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could’ve had you?’ And he said, ‘Because when he sings... even the birds stop to listen.’” “That’s true. They do. I mean, they did,” I say. I’m stunned and surprisingly moved, thinking of the baker telling this to Peeta. It strikes me that my own reluctance to sing, my own dismissal of music might not really be that I think it’s a waste of time. It might be because it reminds me too much of my father. “So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says. “Oh, please,” I say, laughing. “No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew—just like your mother—I was a goner,” Peeta says. “Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.” “Without success,” I add. “Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,” says Peeta. For a moment, I’m almost foolishly happy and then confusion sweeps over me. Because we’re supposed to be making up this stuff, playing at being in love not actually being in love. But Peeta’s story has a ring of truth to it. That part about my father and the birds. And I did sing the first day of school, although I don’t remember the song. And that red plaid dress... there was one, a hand-me-down to Prim that got washed to rags after my father’s death. It would explain another thing, too. Why Peeta took a beating to give me the bread on that awful hollow day. So, if those details are true... could it all be true? “You have a... remarkable memory,” I say haltingly. “I remember everything about you,” says Peeta, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.” “I am now,” I say. “Well, I don’t have much competition here,” he says. I want to draw away, to close those shutters again, but I know I can’t. It’s as if I can hear Haymitch whispering in my ear, “Say it! Say it!” I swallow hard and get the words out. “You don’t have much competition anywhere.” And this time, it’s me who leans in.

You can go back to blacksmithing in Hintindar and live a quiet happy life. Do me a favor and marry some pretty farm girl and train your son to beat the crap out of imperial knights." "Sure," Hadrian told him. "And with any luck he'll make friends with a cynical burglar who'll do nothing but torment him.

...You cannot beat time; you can only enjoy it whenever possible, as it zooms by endlessly.

Edward spoke in a voice so peaceful and gentle that it made the words strangely more threatening. "I'm not going to kill you now, because it would upset Bella." "Hmph," I grumbled. Edward turned slightly to throw me a quick smile. His face was still calm. "It would bother you in the morning," he said, brushing his fingers across my cheek. The he turned back to Jacob. "But if you ever bring her back damaged again--and I don't care whose fault it is; I don't care if she merely trips, or if a meteor falls out of the sky and hits her in the head--if you return her to me in less than the perfect condition that I left her in, you will be running with three legs. Do you understand that, mongrel?" Jacob rolled his eyes. "who's going back?" I muttered Edward continued as if he hadn't heard me. "And if you ever kiss her again, I wiil break your jaw for her," he promised, his voice still gentle and velvet deadly. "What if she wants me to?" Jacob drawled, arrogant. "Hah!" I snorted. "If that's what she wants, then I won't object." Edward shrugged, untroubled. "You might want to wait for her to say it, rather than trust your interpretation of body language-but it's your face." Jacob grinned. "You wish," I grumbled. "Yes, he does," Edward murmured. "Well, if you're done rummaging through my head," Jacob said with a think edge of annoyance, "why don't you go take care of her hand?" "One more thing," Edward said slowly. "I'll be fighting for her, too. You should know that. I'm not taking anything for granted, and I'll be fighting twice as hard as you will." "Good," Jacob growled. "it's no fun beating someone who forfeits." She is mine." Edward's low voice was suddenly dark, not as composed as before, "i did't say I would fight fair." "Neither did I." "Best of luck." Jacob nodded. "Yes, may the best man win." "That sounds about right...pup.

every night she shuts the windows tight to guard against drafts, and every morning he dies and is reborn beside her. she reminds his heart to beat again, as she did so long ago. he kisses her fingers, and combs her hair, and he treasures her, as only a man who has lost his luck and found it once more ever can.

plan B plan Battered and Broken plan Boxed in plan Bailed on and Back from the dead plan Better luck next time plan Balled up plan Backtracked plan Backhanded plan Backward steps plan Blackballed, Black-marked, and Blacklisted plan B-side, Bye Bye Baby plan Belly up and Beat down plan Bad days ahead and Best are far Behind

Somebody’s on a man hunt. And she’s accepting all applicants with a big wallet, a penis, and a beating heart. Good luck with that.

Sometimes I feel proud of myself, not because of any success I’ve achieved, but because I’m aware of all the difficulties that I have suffered or went through. I’m an eyewitness at all the fear, weakness, frustration, failure, depression, refraction and bad luck moments that I’ve been through alone and which affected significantly but never was able to beat me for so long. This is why I’m proud, because I’m here now stronger that yesterday, I'm still able to stand and continue on my way, still following up my dreams, still trying my best to build better future for me and my family and I will never ever give up!

And there’s one thing you need to know: desire always beats luck.

Bad luck is actually a chance for us to make up some time. We're like runners who train on hills, or at an altitude so they can beat the runners who expected the course would be flat.

You're also going to be out of luck with weapons. And weapons are mandatory for zombie apocalypse survival.' Camilla is silent for a moment. 'You couldn't just beat them to death with Tupperware? That stuff's tough.' I grin. 'Maybe if it's filled with Adrian's grandma's cupcakes. I think those are a valuable addition to any arsenal.

Heart, my heart, so battered with misfortune far beyond your strength, up, and face the men who hate us. Bare your chest to the assault of the enemy, and fight them off. Stand fast among the beamlike spears. Give no ground; and if you beat them, do not brag in open show, nor, if they beat you, run home and lie down on your bed and cry. Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree you give away to sorrow. All your life is up-and-down like this.

You may beat the devil once—through providence, bravery, dumbass luck, or a combination of all—but not twice.

He looked at her, smiling. Her heart—which had been beating pretty rapidly all evening, increased in pace. His hair was ruffled and he had a scattering of sand on his arms. He was gorgeous. And he was looking at her as if she were covered in maple syrup and he wanted to lick it off. She couldn’t believe her luck.

I can be in control of my own actions, despite what my track record might imply to the contrary, and suddenly, I just feel like, sure. I can hold my boyfriend-yeah-that’s-right-world-boyfriend’s hand wherever I want to, and not because I want to be all, ‘Check it out, humanity, there’s someone out there who’ll hold my hand,’ but because we’re walking close enough that his arm is against mine and he’s musing over the meaning of ‘crunk’ like he’s sixty-five and somehow, by some mad glorious stroke of luck, he is mine to touch. He looks down at our hands. Ever sensible, he’s wearing gloves, nice leather ones. I left in a hurry, and I’m not exactly the most practical guy to begin with; I’m barehanded, and my fingers are cold. He tightens his grasp on my hand, smiles at me a little bit. I smile back. Beats pockets.

Let’s see if I remember all of this—born in Charlottesville, Virginia, but raised in Salem by her mother, Susan, a teacher, and her father, Jacob, a police officer. Attended Salem Elementary School until your tenth birthday, when your father called into his station to report an unknown child in his house—” “Stop,” I muttered. Liam looked over his shoulder, trying to divide his attention between me and the boy reciting the sordid tale of my life. “—but, bad luck, the PSFs beat the police to your house. Good luck, someone dropped the ball or they had other kiddies to pick up, because they didn’t wait around long enough to question your parents, and thus, didn’t pre-sort you. And then you came to Thurmond, and you managed to avoid their detecting you were Orange—” “Stop!” I didn’t want to hear this—I didn’t want anyone to hear it.

desire always beats luck.

Who you are today . . . that’s who you are. Be brave. Be amazing. Be worthy. And every single time you get the chance? Stand up in front of people. Let them see you. Speak. Be heard. Go ahead and have the dry mouth. Let your heart beat so, so fast. Watch everything move in slow motion. So what. You what? You pass out, you die, you poop? No. (And this is really the only lesson you’ll ever need to know.) You take it in. You breathe this rare air. You feel alive. You are yourself. You are truly finally always yourself. Thank you. Good luck.

That’s just stupid. What are you going to do? Beat people with your GPA? ‘You cannot hurt me with your gun for I have the power of GPA on my side!’” Shepherd calls out to some invisible attacker.

I hate that phrase – ‘beat cancer’. Cancer isn’t a war or a fight that you win or lose. It’s bad luck. It’s bad genes. It’s bad timing. It’s a postcode lottery. Call it what you will, just don’t call it a fight. Doing so makes all those who don’t make it weak. Or losers. I hate that.

It was cold, but we weren't about to make Max leave because we didn't know if he or any of us would ever make it back to Canada's capital city, let alone this very spot, and even if we did, somehow we knew it would never be the same as right then. There would be different variables, if we came back, a totally different equation made up of wildly different circumstances; it just couldn't be helped, because life was always evolving and changing, and therefore, no matter how much we'd like to, we would never, ever have that moment again--even if we tried with all our might to re-create it, going so far as wearing the exact clothes even, we would fail, because you cannot beat time; you can only enjoy it whenever possible, as it zooms by endlessly.

It is not the dead rather the ones who lives through war have seen the dreadful end of the war, you might have been victorious, unwounded but deep within you, you carry the mark of the war, you carry the memories of war, the time you have spend with your comrades, the times when you had to dug in to foxholes to avoid shelling, the times when you hate to see your comrade down on the ground, feeling of despair, atrocities of the war, missing families, home. They live through hell and often the most wounded, they live with the guilt, despair, of being in the war, they may be happy but deep down they are a different person. Not everyone is a hero. You live with the moments, time when you were unsuccessful, when your actions would have helped your comrades, when your actions get your comrades killed, you live with regret, joyous in the victory can never help you forget the time you have spent. You are victorious for the people you have lost, the decisions you have made, the courage you have shown but being victorious in the war has a price to pay, irrevocable. You can't take a memory back from a person, even if you lose your memory your imagination haunts you as deep down your sub conscious mind you know who you are, who you were. Close you eyes and you can very well see your past, you cant change your past, time you have spent, you live through all and hence you are a hero not for the glorious war for the times you have faced. Decoration with medals is not going to give your life back. the more you know, more experiences doesn't make it easy rather make its worse. Arms and ammunition kills you once and free you from the misery but the experiences of war kills you everyday, makes you cherish the times everyday through the life. You may forgot that you cant walk anymore, you may forget you cant use your right hand, you may forgot the scars on your face but you can never forgot war. Life without war is never easy and only the ones how survived through it can understand. Soldiers are taught to fight but the actual combat starts after war which you are not even trained for. You rely on your weapon, leaders, comrades, god, luck in the war but here you rely on your self to beat the horrors,they have seen hell, heaven, they have felt the mixed emotions of hope, despair, courage, victory, defeat, scared.

There is nothing more powerful than a heart. Never forget what beats in your chest. It will be your guide, and with a little luck, you’ll find what you’re looking for.

I wanted to marry wood. I wanted to chew down some two–by–fours, crawl inside a tree, slide elm into my aorta so that every beat of every second was a grand waltz with luck.

That’s when I realized it was really very simple. Index investing beats 85 percent of actively managed mutual funds.

Never forget what beats in your chest. It will be your guide, and with a little luck, you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Ivy League bumblers and drunks who had once pulled the levers of secret gov't in an age of high anxiety...These were the bastards who beat the bastards, unless it was all just dumb luck.

Magnus, his silver mask pushed back into his hair, intercepted the New York vampires before they could fully depart. Alec heard Magnus pitch his voice low. Alec felt guilty for listening in, but he couldn’t just turn off his Shadowhunter instincts. “How are you, Raphael?” asked Magnus. “Annoyed,” said Raphael. “As usual.” “I’m familiar with the emotion,” said Magnus. “I experience it whenever we speak. What I meant was, I know that you and Ragnor were often in contact.” There was a beat, in which Magnus studied Raphael with an expression of concern, and Raphael regarded Magnus with obvious scorn. “Oh, you’re asking if I am prostrate with grief over the warlock that the Shadowhunters killed?” Alec opened his mouth to point out the evil Shadowhunter Sebastian Morgenstern had killed the warlock Ragnor Fell in the recent war, as he had killed Alec’s own brother. Then he remembered Raphael sitting alone and texting a number saved as RF, and never getting any texts back. Ragnor Fell. Alec felt a sudden and unexpected pang of sympathy for Raphael, recognizing his loneliness. He was at a party surrounded by hundreds of people, and there he sat texting a dead man over and over, knowing he’d never get a message back. There must have been very few people in Raphael’s life he’d ever counted as friends. “I do not like it,” said Raphael, “when Shadowhunters murder my colleagues, but it’s not as if that hasn’t happened before. It happens all the time. It’s their hobby. Thank you for asking. Of course one wishes to break down on a heart-shaped sofa and weep into one’s lace handkerchief, but I am somehow managing to hold it together. After all, I still have a warlock contact.” Magnus inclined his head with a slight smile. “Tessa Gray,” said Raphael. “Very dignified lady. Very well-read. I think you know her?” Magnus made a face at him. “It’s not being a sass-monkey that I object to. That I like. It’s the joyless attitude. One of the chief pleasures of life is mocking others, so occasionally show some glee about doing it. Have some joie de vivre.” “I’m undead,” said Raphael. “What about joie de unvivre?” Raphael eyed him coldly. Magnus gestured his own question aside, his rings and trails of leftover magic leaving a sweep of sparks in the night air, and sighed. “Tessa,” Magnus said with a long exhale. “She is a harbinger of ill news and I will be annoyed with her for dumping this problem in my lap for weeks. At least.” “What problem? Are you in trouble?” asked Raphael. “Nothing I can’t handle,” said Magnus. “Pity,” said Raphael. “I was planning to point and laugh. Well, time to go. I’d say good luck with your dead-body bad-news thing, but . . . I don’t care.” “Take care of yourself, Raphael,” said Magnus. Raphael waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “I always do.

You may beat the devil once—through providence, bravery, dumbass luck, or a combination of all—but not twice. I don’t think anyone but saints beat the devil twice, and maybe not even them.

His (Juggut Singh's) equation with authority was simple: he was on the other side. Personalities did not come into it. Subinspectors & policemen were people in khaki who frequently arrested him, always abused him, and sometimes beat him. Since they abused him and beat him without anger or hate, they were not human beings with names. They were only denominations one tried to get the better of. If one failed, it was just bad luck.

You want me to teach you all the dirty words?” I looked up at him and wiggled my eyebrows. Aaron gave me a lopsided smile that would have made my panties drop to the floor had they been resting on my hips. “Well, you are in luck; I’m a wonderful teacher.” “And I’m a highly dedicated student.” He winked. And that goddamn wink disrupted the beating of my heart. “Although I might get a little distracted every now and then.” “I see.” I placed my index finger against his chest, watching Aaron’s eyes dive down quickly before returning to my face. “Maybe you need the right kind of motivation to keep your attention on the subject.” I trailed that finger up, traveling across his pec and then up his neck, following the line of his jaw until reaching his lips. They parted with a shallow breath. “This …” I pushed myself up and kissed his lips gently. “This is a six-letter word in Spanish. Labios. Tus labios. Your lips.” The only answer he gave me was taking my mouth in his again. As if the only way he’d learn the word was tasting it. “And this,” I said before parting his lips and making the kiss deeper, our tongues dancing together, “is another six-letter word. Lengua—tongue.” “I think I really like that one.” Aaron’s head dipped low, his new favorite word reaching my breast. “And this? What do you call this?” he said, grazing his mouth over the peak. A giggle that soon turned into a moan left my mouth before I was able to answer. “That’s a five-letter word. Pezón. Nipple.

By love, she probably meant she would die without being in love. By in love, she meant the acuteness of the heart at the sudden sight of a particular person or the way over a couple of years of interested friendship one is suddenly stunned by the lungs’ longing for more and more breath in the presence of that friend, or nearly drowned to the knees by the salty spring that seems to beat for years on our vaginal shores. Not to omit all sorts of imaginings which assure great spiritual energy for months and, when luck follows truth, years.

Good luck," Kassian said amiably, watching her walk away. When she was gone, he cast another look at Sin. "I hope they skip the sparring this time around." "Afraid I'll beat up your girlfriend?" Sin asked dryly, hunching forward with a wince as he put his head in his hands. "Don't worry, I have no desire to kill a bunch of pathetic little trainees if that's what you're thinking." Boyd raised an eyebrow. "You'd better not be including me in that statement." Sin peeked at him through his fingers. "Oh. I forgot about you." "I'm that easy to forget, am I?" Boyd asked dryly. "Especially when I've been right in front of you for the last hour? I'm flattered.

For are we not all, at times, exactly like Poe’s narrators—beating upon the confining walls of circumstance, the limits of the universe? In spiritual work, with good luck (or grace) we come to accept life’s brevity for ourselves. But the lover that is in each of us—the part of us that adores another person—ah! That is another matter.

I am a Hindu because of sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets, because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival to God, because of the while of the reedy nadaswaram and the beating of drums, because of the patter of bare feet against stone floors down dark corridors pierced by shafts of sunlight, because of the fragrance of incense, because of flames of arati lamps circling in the darkness, because of bhajans being sweetly sung, because of elephants standing around to bless, because of colourful murals telling colourful stories, because of foreheads carrying, variously signified, the same word - faith. I became loyal to these sense impressions even before I knew what they meant or what they were for. It is my heart that commands me so. I feel at home in a Hindu temple. I am aware of Presence, not personal the way we usually presence, but something larger. My heart still skips a beat when I catch sight of the murti, of God Residing, in the inner sanctum of the temple. Truly I am in a sacred cosmic womb, a place where everything is born, and it is my sweet luck to behold its living core. My hands naturally come together in reverent worship.

Apologies for any insult this causes,' she said without peering out from around her easel, 'but I am not in the market for a husband, my lord. Please just go.' A beat of silence passed. With any luck, Vexley would be insulted by the bite in her tone and would turn right back around and leave for some faraway city at the edge of the world. 'Well, that's quite a relief considering I'm in want of a painting, not a wife.

All That You Have Is Your Soul Oh my mama told me 'Cause she say she learned the hard way Say she wanna spare the children She say don't give or sell your soul away 'Cause all that you have is your soul Don't be tempted by the shiny apple Don't you eat of a bitter fruit Hunger only for a taste of justice Hunger only for a world of truth 'Cause all that you have is your soul I was a pretty young girl once I had dreams I had high hopes I married a man he stole my heart away He gave his love but what a high price I paid And all that you have is your soul Why was I such a young fool Thought I'd make history Making babies was the best I could do Thought I'd made something that could be mine forever Found out the hard way one can't possess another And all that you have is your soul I thought thought that I could find a way To beat the system To make a deal and have no debts to pay I'd take it all take it all I'd run away Me for myself first class and first rate But all that you have is your soul Here I am waiting for a better day A second chance A little luck to come my way A hope to dream a hope that I can sleep again And wake in the world with a clear conscience and clean hands 'Cause all that you have is your soul All that you have All that you have All that you have Is your soul

Poor old Nixon, even his own commissions beat on him. What the hell can he do? He can’t go into every ghetto and fix the plumbing himself. He can’t give every copped-out junkie a million dollars and a Ph.D. Nixon, who’s Nixon? He’s just a typical flatfooted Chamber of Commerce type who lucked his way into the hot seat and is so dumb he thinks it’s good luck. Let the poor bastard alone, he’s trying to bore us to death so we won’t commit suicide.

A trader needs to be highly skilled and extremely lucky to beat the market consistently. If a trader is highly skilled but not lucky enough or extremely lucky but modestly skilled, he will beat the market occasionally but not consistently. Traders that are modestly skilled and modestly lucky will briefly beat the market but will be behind the market most of the time. Everybody else will lose money on a long-term basis, that is, 90% of the traders.

Self-defense is clearly my focus in this book. What is it? It is recovery from stupidity or bad luck, from finding yourself in a position you would have given almost anything to prevent. It is difficult to train for because of the surprise element and because you may be injured before you are aware of the conflict. The critical element is to overcome the shock and surprise so that you can act, to “beat the freeze.” Self-defense is about recovery. The ideal is to prevent the situation.

You’ve dated a shoplifter. A drug addict. A girl who claimed that her roommate kept her locked in a dumpster. She was admitted to Mulberry not too long ago, if I recall, right? They diagnosed her with schizophrenia.” Reece nodded reluctantly. “For the record, I only dated her for two months. And also for the record, she’s doing a lot better.” “Hmm,” Camden replied. “There’s the one who put salt on all her food then complained incessantly of bloating problems. Oh yeah! And the one who wanted you to tie her up and beat the shit out of her every night.” “All right already!” Reece snapped. “I get it. I haven’t had the best of luck with normal women.

IT IS NOT often that anyone entering a great city for the first time has the luck to witness such an incident as engaged Shelley’s attention when he drove into Naples. A youth ran out of a shop pursued by a man armed with a knife. The man overtook him and with one blow in the neck laid him dead on the road. Shelley had a tender heart. He didn’t look upon it as a bit of local colour; he was seized with horror and indignation. But when he expressed his emotions to a Calabrian priest who was travelling with him, a fellow of gigantic strength and stature, the priest laughed heartily and attempted to quiz him. Shelley says he never felt such an inclination to beat anyone.

George is very far, right now, from sneering at any of these fellow creatures. They may be crude and mercenary and dull and low, but he is proud, is glad, is almost indecently gleeful to be able to stand up and be counted in their ranks—the ranks of that marvelous minority, The Living. They don't know their luck, these people on the sidewalk, but George knows his—for a little while at least—because he is freshly returned from the icy presence of The Majority, which Doris is to join. I am alive, he says to himself, I am alive! And life-energy surges hotly through him, and delight, and appetite. How good to be in a body—even this beat-up carcass—that still has warm blood and semen and rich marrow and wholesome flesh! The scowling youths on the corners see him as a dodderer no doubt, or at best as a potential score. Yet he claims a distant kinship with the strength of their young arms and shoulders and loins. For a few bucks he could get any one of them to climb into the car, ride back with him to his house, strip off butch leather jacket, skin-tight Levi's, shirt and cowboy boots and take a naked, sullen young athlete, in the wrestling bout of his pleasure. But George doesn't want the bought unwilling bodies of these boys. He wants to rejoice in his own body—the tough triumphant old body of a survivor. The body that has outlived Jim and is going to outlive Doris.

I don’t want to play with you. My name is Tessa-Misfortune. I bring bad luck to those around me.” “You don’t say!” The prince curled his lips in a grin. “Did you come up with this just now because you don’t want to lose face? I bet you won't be able to hit a pin.” “I didn’t come up with it, silly. I can beat you easily!” “Come here then, and show me! What on earth could happen to me? I'm not afraid, Tessa-Misfortune.” “Are you sure?” The girl hesitated. “People of all kingdoms flee at the sight of me.” “You must be very famous! If you're not lying.” Mateo smirked, threw a stone into the air, and caught it in his palm. Tessa left her place under the tree and walked up to him. “You asked for it!

No one said a word, and I waited a beat, then pushed forward. Screw Kevin. Screw Maggie. Screw whatever happened to them now. I went after Caden. He didn’t have to push his way through the crowd. It automatically opened for him. Not so much for me. I was at a disadvantage, and when I ran to the parking lot, he was already in the car and peeling past me. “HEY!” I yelled, raising my hands in the air. He braked, a little too close for comfort, right next to me. The passenger window rolled down. “What?” I reached for the door. “Let me in.” His eyebrows pinched together. “Why?” “Let me in.” He unlocked the door. I opened it and climbed in. “Okay. I’m with you.” I had no idea what I was doing. “Excuse me?” “I’m with you.” I clapped the dashboard, pointing ahead. “Whatever you’re going to do, I’m in. You seem to need a friend. You’re in luck. I could use one myself. So I’m in.” “I’m going to get drunk and have sex.” “Oh.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You still in?” He was laughing now. He was still mad, but he was laughing. For whatever reason—maybe I did want to go with him, or maybe I heard my own voice calling me boring and pathetic again—I sat back and folded my hands in my lap. “I’m in.” He shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into..” He shifted his Land Rover into drive and started forward. “But that’s your problem, not mine.” He careened out of the parking lot, and I fell against the door. I grabbed the oh shit handle above my head, and I had a feeling that was going to be the theme for the rest of the night: Oh, shit.

After a Time After a time, all losses are the same. One more thing lost is one thing less to lose; And we go stripped at last the way we came. Though we shall probe, time and again, our shame, Who lack the wit to keep or to refuse, After a time, all losses are the same. No wit, no luck can beat a losing game; Good fortune is a reassuring ruse: And we go stripped at last the way we came. Rage as we will for what we think to claim, Nothing so much as this bare thought subdues: After a time, all losses are the same. The sense of treachery--the want, the blame-- Goes in the end, whether or not we choose, And we go stripped at last the way we came. So we, who would go raging, will go tame When what we have we can no longer use: After a time, all losses are the same; And we go stripped at last the way we came.

Maybe it wasn’t that job particularly; maybe it was just working for someone else. It’s so brutal and tiring, the way it can push you down and knock the heart out of you. It’s not getting up at a certain time and arriving at a certain place at a certain time and leaving at a certain time and coming back again at a certain time — it’s knowing that you have to. What’s worse is that, through age or job-experience or academic qualification or sheer good luck, one adult is in a position to order and insult and abuse and shout at another adult who isn’t in a position to reply in kind. It makes everyone a tin god. Everyone likes having slaves to beat, as they’re beaten themselves. And working on the grind wears you out. After a week of it you’re so tired that you use the weekend just to catch up on your rest before going back to another week of it.

Walter didn’t know what to make of his two boys. If you looked at it a certain way, then the one who needed the beatings to toughen him up, namely Joey, never did a thing to earn a beating, because he hadn’t the gumption, and the one who got the beatings learned nothing from them. Looking back on his own childhood, Walter saw a much more orderly system: His father or mother told them the rules. If they got out of line, even not intending to, they got a whipping to help them remember the next time, and they did remember the next time, and so they got fewer beatings, and so they became boys who could get the work done, and since there was plenty of it, it had to get done. That was life, as far as Walter was concerned—you surveyed the landscape and took note of what was needed, and then you did it, and the completed tasks piled up behind you like a kind of treasure, or at least evidence of virtue. What life was for Frankie he could not imagine.

UNREQUITED LOVE: Look, you see me, a lonely girl having a drink. What do you do? LOST: Avoid eye contact at all costs? UNREQUITED LOVE: Oh come on, don’t you ever randomly flirt and find yourself falling in love with attractive young women? LOST: I’ve forgotten how. UNREQUITED LOVE: How peculiar. LOST: (Struggles, trying to find the right words.) No…I mean I did once, but I’ve forgotten most things about love I guess. It just comes with the territory of losing your heart. UNREQUITED LOVE: Wait. (Beat.) You lost your heart? LOST: Yeah um...I lost my heart about a year ago. Filed a police report and everything, but they haven’t had any luck finding it. UNREQUITED LOVE: But without a heart, how can you- LOST: Love? I can’t. UNREQUITED LOVE: Can you remember what love feels like? LOST: (Shrugs.) Vaguely, but for the most part I don’t remember much about it. Like when couples hold hands, I don’t understand why they do that. UNREQUITED LOVE: Must make for some lonely nights.

First time they met was on a cruise, if you think of “cruise” in maybe more of a specialized way. In the wake of her separation, back in what still isn’t quite The Day, from her then husband, Horst Loeffler, after too many hours indoors with the blinds drawn listening on endless repeat to Stevie Nicks singing “Landslide” on a compilation tape she ignored the rest of, drinking horrible Crown Royal Shirley Temples and chasing them with more grenadine directly from the bottle and going through a bushel per day of Kleenex, Maxine finally allowed her friend Heidi to convince her that a Caribbean cruise would somehow upgrade her mental prognosis. One day she went sniffling down the hall from her office and into the In ’n’ Out Travel Agency, where she found undusted surfaces, beat-up furniture, a disheveled model of an ocean liner that shared a number of design elements with RMS Titanic. “You’re in luck. We’ve just had a . . .” Long pause, no eye contact. “Cancellation,” suggested Maxine. “You could say.” The price was irresistible. To anyone in their right mind, too much so.

Queen Ariel held the nautilus and considered thoughtfully. But the little mermaid didn't think. She acted. Before she realized fully what she was doing Ariel had smashed the nautilus on a sharply faceted rock. It didn't break like a normal shell. It shattered like a human vessel. Shards flew in all directions equally, unhampered by gravity or luck. Ariel pitched forward. She choked, no longer breathing the air of the Dry World. Her arms flailed up like a puppet's. Her torso whipped back and forth, pummeled by unseen forces. Something flew into her mouth, up her nose, and suffused her entire body with a heat that threatened to burn. It rushed into her lungs and expanded, expelling whatever breath she had left, pushing blood to her extremities, pushing everything out that wasn't it, leaving room for nothing else. Ariel collapsed. It was over. It was like the thing, whatever it was, had been absorbed by her body and had now dissipated into her blood and flesh. She took a breath. Her heart started beating again. She hadn't been aware it had stopped. She coughed. A few grains of sand came out. And then she sang.

Jesus Hollywood believed in a lot of things. He believed that the stars in the sky were only ghostly images of dead things. He believed in the grass on the side of the highway as he whipped by. He believed in the sound of a gun cocking. He believed that the heart gave up long before it stopped beating. He believed last words and bedside confessions were only half-assed last-ditch efforts at Redemption signalling imminent death. He believed in lust and rage and that pain is the only proof that one is alive. Jesus Hollywood believed that there was no God, no gods, no Divine Being and he certainly believed that Heaven was only a placating fabrication. He believed Love At First Sight was a myth; that Love was masquerading as Lust. He believed Karma was for those too afraid to be selfish. He believed that Luck and Chance, along with Fate and Destiny, were words the weak used to explain away their inaction. He believed that if you wore a long-sleeved shirt, you could win every game of cards with the right poker face and a few extra cards stashed up your sleeves. Jesus Hollywood certainly did not believe in love. And now, Jesus Hollywood believed he was fucked.

That night, after Popo told me this, I sat by the pond, looking into the water. And because I was weak, I began to cry. Then I saw this turtle swimming to the top and his beak was eating my tears as soon as they touched the water. He ate them quickly, five, six, seven tears, then climbed out of the pond, crawled onto a smooth rock and began to speak. “The turtle said, ‘I have eaten your tears, and this is why I know your misery. But I must warn you. If you cry, your life will always be sad.’ “Then the turtle opened his beak and out poured five, six, seven pearly eggs. The eggs broke open and from them emerged seven birds, who immediately began to chatter and sing. I knew from their snow-white bellies and pretty voices that they were magpies, birds of joy. These birds bent their beaks to the pond and began to drink greedily. And when I reached out my hand to capture one, they all rose up, beat their black wings in my face, and flew up into the air, laughing. “ ‘Now you see,’ said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, ‘why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else’s joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.

Eventually I became a tad compulsive about hearing certain songs. At first it was a handful of jazz classics—Miles Davis’s “Freddie Freeloader,” John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things,” Frank Sinatra’s “Luck Be a Lady.” (Before one primary debate, I must have played that last track two or three times in a row, clearly indicating a lack of confidence in my preparations.) Ultimately it was rap that got my head in the right place, two songs especially: Jay-Z’s “My 1st Song” and Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” Both were about defying the odds and putting it all on the line (“Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it? Or just let it slip…”); how it felt to spin something out of nothing; getting by on wit, hustle, and fear disguised as bravado. The lyrics felt tailored to my early underdog status. And as I sat alone in the back of the Secret Service van on the way to a debate site, in my crisp uniform and dimpled tie, I’d nod my head to the beat of those songs, feeling a whiff of private rebellion, a connection to something grittier and more real than all the fuss and deference that now surrounded me. It was a way to cut through the artifice and remember who I was.

Back in my room, I woke to a strange scratching coming from the air-conditioning vent. It began with hesitance, a creature feeling its way around a new environment. After a few minutes, the scratching gained a rhythm - shka shka shkashka shka shka - the rhythm of work that some small rodent figured would bring it to freedom. Consistency. Work without interruption, work with intensity. Surely, working at a steady pace, without breaks, the creature could reach its goal. I listened to my companion, refusing to take away its dignity by opening the vent. It took twenty minutes for the rhythm to reach its climax - shkakakakashkakakakashkakakaka, now with true desperation, as the rodent beat at the world to convince it of its worth, not a plea but a demand: Hear me! Let me out! I am here! I decided it was time for relief for the both of us, and when I stood up I saw a small brown nose peeking through the bars, two black eyes fixed on mine. I unscrewed the cover with a coin. When I opened it, a small tail was peeking from a dark corner deep in the shaft. It was hiding from me. It would not be rescued. I tried to reach the tail without any luck. I sat on my bed with the vent uncovered for an hour, waiting for my new fried to come out. It didn't. I put the cover back on, and while I was fastening the last screw, the nose appeared again, followed by the laborious scratching. Work will save me. Diligent, patient, never-ending. It must. I put a coat on and walked outside.

In scale and audacity, the dam was astonishing; engineers were going to anchor a mile-long wall of concrete in bedrock at the bottom of a steep canyon in the Columbia. They would excavate 45 million cubic yards of dirt and rock, and pour 24 million tons of concrete. Among the few dams in the Northwest not built by the Corps of Engineers, the Grand Coulee was the work of the Bureau of Reclamation. When completed, it was a mile across at the top, forty-six stories high, and heralded as the biggest thing ever built by man. The dam backed up the river for 151 miles, creating a lake with 600 miles of shoreline. At the dam’s dedication in 1941, Roosevelt said Grand Coulee would open the world to people who had been beat up by the elements, abused by the rich and plagued by poor luck. But a few months after it opened, Grand Coulee became the instrument of war. Suddenly, the country needed to build sixty thousand planes a year, made of aluminum, smelted by power from Columbia River water, and it needed to build ships—big ones—from the same power source. Near the end of the war, America needed to build an atomic bomb, whose plutonium was manufactured on the banks of the Columbia. Power from the Grand Coulee was used to break uranium into radioactive subelements to produce that plutonium. By war’s end, only a handful of farms were drawing water from the Columbia’s greatest dam. True, toasters in desert homes were warming bread with Grand Coulee juice, and Washington had the cheapest electrical rates of any state in the country, but most of that power for the people was being used by Reynolds Aluminum in Longview and Alcoa in Vancouver and Kaiser Aluminum in Spokane and Tacoma.

The least you can do is buy the lady a drink.” As the tavern-goers returned to their carousing, he turned his arrogant grin on Sophia. “What are you having, then?” She blinked at him. What was she having? Sophia knew exactly what she was having. She was having colossally bad luck. This well-dressed mountain of insolence looming over her was Captain Grayson, of the brig Aphrodite. And the brig Aphrodite was the sole ship bound for Tortola until next week. For Sophia, next week might as well have been next year. She needed to leave for Tortola. She needed to leave now. Therefore, she needed this man-or this man’s ship-to take her. “What, no outpouring of gratitude?” He cast a glance toward Bains, who was lumbering up from the floor. “I suppose you think I should have beat him to a pulp. I could have. But then, I don’t like violence. It always ends up costing me money. And pretty thing that you are”-his eyes skipped over her as he motioned to the barkeep-“before I went to that much effort, I think I’d at least need to know your name, Miss…?” Sophia gritted her teeth, marshaling all her available forbearance. She needed to leave, she reminded herself. She needed this man. “Turner. Miss Jane Turner.” “Miss…Jane…Turner.” He teased the syllables out, as if tasting them on his tongue. Sophia had always thought her middle name to be the dullest, plainest syllable imaginable. But from his lips, even “Jane” sounded indecent. “Well, Miss Jane Turner. What are you drinking?” “I’m not drinking anything. I’m looking for you, Captain Grayson. I’ve come seeking passage on your ship.” “On the Aphrodite? To Tortola? Why the devil would you want to go there?” “I’m a governess. I’m to be employed, near Road Town.” The lies rolled effortlessly off her tongue. As always. His eyes swept her from bonnet to half boots, stroking an unwelcome shiver down to her toes. “You don’t look like any governess I’ve ever seen.

We then reached a fork in the valley. Should we go left or right? Dad called it left. I had a very powerful intuition that right was the choice we should make. Dad insisted left. I insisted right. It was a fifty-fifty call and he relented. Within two hundred yards we stumbled across a snowy track through the woods and followed it excitedly. Within a mile it came out on a mountain road, and within ten minutes we had flagged down a lift from a car heading up the hill in the darkness. We had found salvation, and I was beat. The car dropped us off at the gates of the garrison thirty minutes later. It was, by then, late into the night, but I was suddenly buzzing with energy and excitement. The fatigue had gone. Dad knew that I had made the right call up there--if we had chosen left we would still be trudging into the unknown. I felt so proud. In truth it was probably luck, but I learned another valuable lesson that night: Listen to the quiet voice inside. Intuition is the noise of the mind. As we tromped back through the barracks, though, we noticed there was an unusual amount of activity for the early hours of a weekday morning. It soon became very clear why. First a sergeant appeared, followed by another soldier, and then we were ushered into the senior officers’ block. There was my uncle, standing in uniform looking both tired and serious. I started to break out into a big smile. So did Dad. Well, I was excited. We had cheated a slow, lingering hypothermic death, lost together in the mountains. We were alive. Our enthusiasm was countered by the immortal words from my uncle, the brigadier, saying: “I wouldn’t smile if I was you…” He continued, “The entire army mountain rescue team is currently out scouring the mountains for you, on foot and in the air with the search-and-rescue helicopter. I hope you have a good explanation.” We didn’t, of course, save that we had been careless, and we had got lucky; but that’s life sometimes. And the phrase: “I wouldn’t smile if I was you,” has gone down into Grylls family folklore.

We need to leave as soon as possible." "Okay," Luce said. "I have to go home, then, pack, get my passport..." Her mind whirled in a hundred directions as she started making a mental to-do list. Her parents would be at the mall for at least another couple of hours, enough time for her to dash in and get her things together... "Oh, cute." Annabelle laughed, flitting over to them, her feet inches off the ground. Her wings were muscular and dark silver like a thundercloud, protruding through the invisible slits in her hot-pink T-shirt. "Sorry to butt in but...you've never traveled with an angel before, have you?" Sure she had. The feeling of Daniel's wings soaring her body through the air was as natural as anything. Maybe her flights had been brief, but they'd been unforgettable. They were when Luce felt closest to him: his arms threaded around her waist, his heart beating close to hers, his white wings protecting them, making Luce feel unconditionally and impossibly loved. She had flown with Daniel dozens of times in dreams, but only three times in her waking hours: once over the hidden lake behind Sword & Cross, another time along the coast at Shoreline, and down from the clouds to the cabin just the previous night. "I guess we've never flown that far together," she said at last. "Just getting to first base seems to be a problem for you two," Cam couldn't resist saying. Daniel ignored him. "Under normal circumstances, I think you'd enjoy the trip." His expression turned stormy. "But we don't have room for normal for the next nine days." Luce felt his hands on the backs of her shoulders, gathering her hair and lifting it off her neck. He kissed her along the neckline of her sweater as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Luce closed her eyes. She knew what was coming next. The most beautiful sound there was-that elegant whoosh of the love of her life letting out his driven-snow-white wings. The world on the other side of Luce's eyelids darkened slightly under the shadow of his wings, and warmth welled in her heart. When she opened her eyes, there they were, as magnificent as ever. She leaned back a little, cozying into the wall of Daniel's chest as he pivoted toward the window. "This is only a temporary separation," Daniel announced to the others. "Good luck and wingspeed.

Dear Mom and Dad How are you? If you are reading this it means your back from the wonderful cruise my brothers and I sent you on for your anniversary. We’re sure you both had a wonderful time. We want you to know that, while you were away, we did almost everything you asked. All but one thing, that is. We killed the lawn. We killed it dead. You asked us not to and we killed it. We killed it with extreme prejudice and no regard for its planty life. We killed the lawn. Now we know what you’re thinking: “But sons, whom we love ever so much, how can this be so? We expressly asked you to care for the lawn? The exactly opposite of what you are now conveying to us in an open digital forum.” True enough. We cannot dispute this. However, we have killed the lawn. We have killed it good. We threw a party and it was quite a good time. We had a moon bounce and beer and games and pirate costumes, oh it was a good time. Were it anyone else’s party that probably would have been enough but, hey, you know us. So we got a foam machine. A frothy, wet, quite fun yet evidently deadly, foam machine. Now this dastardly devise didn’t kill the lawn per se. We hypothesize it was more that it made the lawn very wet and that dancing in said area for a great many hours over the course of several days did the deed. Our jubilant frolicking simply beat the poor grass into submission. We collected every beer cap, bottle, and can. There is not a single cigarette butt or cigar to be found. The house is still standing, the dog is still barking, Grandma is still grandmaing but the lawn is no longer lawning. Now we’re sure, as you return from your wonderful vacation, that you’re quite upset but lets put this in perspective. For one thing whose idea was it for you to leave us alone in the first place? Not your best parenting decision right there. We’re little better than baboons. The mere fact that we haven’t killed each other in years past is, at best, luck. Secondly, let us not forget, you raised us to be this way. Always pushing out limits, making sure we thought creatively. This is really as much your fault as it is ours, if not more so. If anything we should be very disappointed in you. Finally lets not forget your cruise was our present to you. We paid for it. If you look at how much that cost and subtract the cost of reseeding the lawn you still came out ahead so, really, what position are you in to complain? So let’s review; we love you, you enjoyed a week on a cruise because of us, the lawn is dead, and it’s partially your fault. Glad that’s all out in the open. Can you have dinner ready for us by 6 tonight? We’d like macaroni and cheese. Love always Peter, James & Carmine

HE DO THE POLICE IN DIFFERENT VOICES: Part I THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD First we had a couple of feelers down at Tom's place, There was old Tom, boiled to the eyes, blind, (Don't you remember that time after a dance, Top hats and all, we and Silk Hat Harry, And old Tom took us behind, brought out a bottle of fizz, With old Jane, Tom's wife; and we got Joe to sing 'I'm proud of all the Irish blood that's in me, 'There's not a man can say a word agin me'). Then we had dinner in good form, and a couple of Bengal lights. When we got into the show, up in Row A, I tried to put my foot in the drum, and didn't the girl squeal, She never did take to me, a nice guy - but rough; The next thing we were out in the street, Oh it was cold! When will you be good? Blew in to the Opera Exchange, Sopped up some gin, sat in to the cork game, Mr. Fay was there, singing 'The Maid of the Mill'; Then we thought we'd breeze along and take a walk. Then we lost Steve. ('I turned up an hour later down at Myrtle's place. What d'y' mean, she says, at two o'clock in the morning, I'm not in business here for guys like you; We've only had a raid last week, I've been warned twice. Sergeant, I said, I've kept a decent house for twenty years, she says, There's three gents from the Buckingham Club upstairs now, I'm going to retire and live on a farm, she says, There's no money in it now, what with the damage don, And the reputation the place gets, on account off of a few bar-flies, I've kept a clean house for twenty years, she says, And the gents from the Buckingham Club know they're safe here; You was well introduced, but this is the last of you. Get me a woman, I said; you're too drunk, she said, But she gave me a bed, and a bath, and ham and eggs, And now you go get a shave, she said; I had a good laugh, couple of laughs (?) Myrtle was always a good sport'). treated me white. We'd just gone up the alley, a fly cop came along, Looking for trouble; committing a nuisance, he said, You come on to the station. I'm sorry, I said, It's no use being sorry, he said; let me get my hat, I said. Well by a stroke of luck who came by but Mr. Donovan. What's this, officer. You're new on this beat, aint you? I thought so. You know who I am? Yes, I do, Said the fresh cop, very peevish. Then let it alone, These gents are particular friends of mine. - Wasn't it luck? Then we went to the German Club, Us We and Mr. Donovan and his friend Joe Leahy, Heinie Gus Krutzsch Found it shut. I want to get home, said the cabman, We all go the same way home, said Mr. Donovan, Cheer up, Trixie and Stella; and put his foot through the window. The next I know the old cab was hauled up on the avenue, And the cabman and little Ben Levin the tailor, The one who read George Meredith, Were running a hundred yards on a bet, And Mr. Donovan holding the watch. So I got out to see the sunrise, and walked home. * * * * April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land....

thepsychchic chips clips ii If you think of yourself instead as an almost-victor who thought correctly and did everything possible but was foiled by crap variance? No matter: you will have other opportunities, and if you keep thinking correctly, eventually it will even out. These are the seeds of resilience, of being able to overcome the bad beats that you can’t avoid and mentally position yourself to be prepared for the next time. People share things with you: if you’ve lost your job, your social network thinks of you when new jobs come up; if you’re recently divorced or separated or bereaved, and someone single who may be a good match pops up, you’re top of mind. This attitude is what I think of as a luck amplifier. … you will feel a whole lot happier … and your ready mindset will prepare you for the change in variance that will come … 134-135 W. H. Auden: “Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences.” Pay attention, or accept the consequences of your failure. 142 Attention is a powerful mitigator to overconfidence: it forces you to constantly reevaluate your knowledge and your game plan, lest you become too tied to a certain course of action. And if you lose? Well, it allows you to admit when it’s actually your fault and not a bad beat. 147 Following up on Phil Galfond’s suggestion to be both a detective and a storyteller and figure out “what your opponent’s actions mean, and sometimes what they don’t mean.” [Like the dog that didn’t bark in the Sherlock Holmes “Silver Blaze” story.] 159 You don’t have to have studied the description-experience gap to understand, if you’re truly expert at something, that you need experience to balance out the descriptions. Otherwise, you’re left with the illusion of knowledge—knowledge without substance. You’re an armchair philosopher who thinks that just because she read an article about something she is a sudden expert. (David Dunning, a psychologist at the University of Michigan most famous for being one half of the Dunning-Kruger effect—the more incompetent you are, the less you’re aware of your incompetence—has found that people go quickly from being circumspect beginners, who are perfectly aware of their limitations, to “unconscious incompetents,” people who no longer realize how much they don’t know and instead fancy themselves quite proficient.) 161-162 Erik: Generally, the people who cash the most are actually losing players (Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan strategy, jp). You can’t be a winning player by min cashing. 190 The more you learn, the harder it gets; the better you get, the worse you are—because the flaws that you wouldn’t even think of looking at before are now visible and need to be addressed. 191 An edge, even a tiny one, is an edge worth pursuing if you have the time and energy. 208 Blake Eastman: “Before each action, stop, think about what you want to do, and execute.” … Streamlined decisions, no immediate actions, or reactions. A standard process. 217 John Boyd’s OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. The way to outmaneuver your opponent is to get inside their OODA loop. 224 Here’s a free life lesson: seek out situations where you’re a favorite; avoid those where you’re an underdog. 237 [on folding] No matter how good your starting hand, you have to be willing to read the signs and let it go. One thing Erik has stressed, over and over, is to never feel committed to playing an event, ever. “See how you feel in the morning.” Tilt makes you revert to your worst self. 257 Jared Tindler, psychologist, “It all comes down to confidence, self-esteem, identity, what some people call ego.” 251 JT: “As far as hope in poker, f#¢k it. … You need to think in terms of preparation. Don’t worry about hoping. Just Do.” 252

The beauty of poker is that while luck is always involved, luck doesn’t dictate the long-term results of the game. A person can get dealt terrible cards and beat someone who was dealt great cards. Sure, the person who gets dealt great cards has a higher likelihood of winning the hand, but ultimately the winner is determined by—yup, you guessed it—the choices each player makes throughout play. I see life in the same terms. We all get dealt cards. Some of us get better cards than others. And while it’s easy to get hung up on our cards, and feel we got screwed over, the real game lies in the choices we make with those cards, the risks we decide to take, and the consequences we choose to live with. People who consistently make the best choices in the situations they’re given are the ones who eventually come out ahead in poker, just as in life. And it’s not necessarily the people with the best cards. There are those who suffer psychologically and emotionally from neurological and/or genetic deficiencies. But this changes nothing. Sure, they inherited a bad hand and are not to blame. No more than the short guy wanting to get a date is to blame for being short. Or the person who got robbed is to blame for being robbed. But it’s still their responsibility. Whether they choose to seek psychiatric treatment, undergo therapy, or do nothing, the choice is ultimately theirs to make. There are those who suffer through bad childhoods. There are those who are abused and violated and screwed over, physically, emotionally, financially. They are not to blame for their problems and their hindrances, but they are still responsible—always responsible—to move on despite their problems and to make the best choices they can, given their circumstances.

Calvin, can I speak to my brother in private?" The Admiral looked at Steven, who nodded. He stood and bowed to them before exiting the room. "You need to show a little more respect, Mitch," Steven said. "He's an Admiral in-" "Frig that, Steve. And frig you, too. The Alliance set me up and sold me out, and yet I'm the one still desperately fighting to save our people? Me and a crew of incarcerated soldiers? Grab your crotch and make sure your balls are still there." "Mitch-" "Shut up, Steve. Look, I left out part of my story. When I was on Hell, I entered this virtual world the Tetron call a Construct. Origin left something for me in there. I don't know what it is, but according to it the other Tetron don't know it exists, and it's important enough that it can help us with the war effort." "You don't know what it is?" "No. But I know where it is. They etched the coordinates into my memory." "It altered your memory? Why didn't it implant the memory of what it was?" "Come on, Steve. This is advanced alien tech, how the frig do I know why it works the way it does? The point is, it's out there, and it will help. If Goliath doesn't show, that should be our next move." "Instead of trying to save what's left?" "Yes. If it makes you feel better, you can send a ship out into unexplored space with a few Adam and Eves on it. Let them find a nice planet to land on and frig like bunnies for a few thousand years. We're soldiers. We need to keep fighting. Your wife and daughter are out there." Steven's face twisted. "Don't you think I know that, Mitch? That they're out there, sitting on Earth wondering where I am and thinking that everything is going to be okay? This is bigger than both of us." "It's bigger than you. Not me. I have to be big enough to stop it. That's my fate, or destiny, or bad luck, or whatever the frig you want to call it. And I've never done it! I've never won this war. Humankind dies because of me, over and over again. No pressure, Mitch." Mitchell reached out and grabbed Steven by the shoulders. "I could use a lot of support in this. Especially from my big brother." Steven stared at Mitchell, his lip quivering. "Don't get all emotional on me," Mitchell said. "You're right. I know you're right. We'll fight, even if we die trying. You have my fleet, what little of it is left. We're beat up and out of ammo, but we make good targets." Mitchell laughed. "Thank you."  He gave Steven a short hug and backed away, turning his head to look out the viewport again. There was still no sign of the Goliath. Steven walked over to stand next to Mitchell. The two of them stared out into space. "How long do we wait?" Steven asked. "I don't know. A day?" "A day sounds good." Steven's eyes reached into the darkness.

We walk past a clown who is painting kids’ faces, and I suddenly stop, something catching my eye. “I like that unicorn,” I say, pointing to the bright pink stuffed animal hanging from the ceiling of a game booth. Travis looks from the unicorn to me. “Is that a hint?” “I didn’t think I was being subtle,” I say, batting my eyelashes at him. “How much is it?” Travis asks the man in charge of the game, reaching for his wallet. “One dart for three dollars, four for ten. You just pop a balloon with the dart and you get a prize,” he says, perking up at the prospect of a new customer. “Oh, that sounds easy!” I say, clapping my hands together. “How many times do you have to pop a balloon to get the unicorn?” Travis asks. “Five,” the man answers brightly. “I could buy you a unicorn for cheaper than that!” Travis says, turning to me. My face falls. “But that’s not the point,” I argue. Travis looks at my pout before he lifts his eyes up to the ceiling, shaking his head. “Okay, I will take five darts.” I immediately perk up again, and reach out for his arm. “You’ll do great!” I say. Travis takes the first dart from the man and throws it at the wall. It doesn’t even make it all the way and falls pitifully to the floor. “Must have been a bad dart,” I argue. He frowns, picks up the second dart and this time takes a little more aim before throwing it. This time it makes it to the wall but doesn’t manage to stick. “That’s okay, it−” Before I can finish my thought, Travis is handing me his jacket to hold so he has both hands free. He picks up the next dart, his face all business, and plants his feet, ready for action. None of the five darts pop any balloons, and before I can offer him any words of consolation he has slapped down a twenty on the ledge and rolled up his sleeves. “Travis, you don’t have to−” but I can tell he isn’t listening to a word I’m saying. He throws another dart and it actually connects to the side of a balloon, but it only serves to pin the balloon to the wall more. Is that even possible? These are like miracle balloons. “This is obviously rigged!” I argue, picking up one of the darts. I throw it at the wall, my back leg kicking up from the effort and it connects with a bright yellow balloon, popping it instantly. “We have a winner!” The operator yells. I look up at Travis who is just staring at the popped balloon. “That was just beginner’s luck,” I assure Travis, picking up another dart and trying to throw it at the wall a little higher than before, aiming for above the balloons. It quickly curves down in the air and pops a blue balloon. Honestly, I tried out for my high school’s baseball team and got laughed off the diamond. If it wasn’t so inappropriate I would have Travis take a video so I could post it on my Facebook page. That would show Shannon Winters and all her baseball friends. “Another winner!” the operator yells. “Three more, pretty lady, and you’ve got your unicorn.” I shoot my eyes to Travis, but he’s still staring at the wall in disbelief. I have no problem popping the other three balloons and I stand gleefully with my arms outstretched, waiting for my unicorn. “You have three more darts,” the operator points out. “Did you want to try and win your boyfriend something?” I clamp my lips together while Travis stands beside me, completely silent. “We’re going to try something else,” I say, holding my unicorn in one hand and grabbing Travis’s hand with the other. Travis walks away shaking his head. “I played football in university. I was on the provincial lacrosse team.” “I know,” I say, wrapping my arm around his middle as we walk away. “You were so close.” I try and hide the smile from my face. There is hardly anything I’m able to beat Travis at and now I know whenever I challenge him it should definitely include darts

I soon set Castor’s mind at ease about how I’d protect my borrowed identity. To stave off any challenges I couldn’t handle, the first thing I did was issue a challenge of my own against any man who wanted to try his luck besting me in a footrace. I beat five men, including Kalais, a so-called son of Boreas, the North Wind. No one else challenged me for the rest of the morning. What man wanted to risk losing to a woman in front of all his friends?

A measly five humans? And you think you can beat me? Hah! I’ve never seen a funnier joke! All this time, you’ve had it easy not encountering me, but now your luck’s run out. Ignorance truly is a sin. Out of respect for that hubris of yours, I shall grant you an agonizing death squirming in my hellish fl—” “Wallys, Explode.

The best thing to do," said one of the malingerers, "is to sham madness. In the next room there are two other men from the school where I teach and one of them keeps shouting day and night : 'Giordano Bruno's stake is still smoldering ; renew Galileo's trial !'” “I meant at first to act the fool too and be a religious maniac and preach about the infallibility of the Pope, but finally I managed to get some cancer of the stomach for fifteen crowns from a barber down the road." "That's nothing," said another man. "Down our way there's a midwife who for twenty crowns can dislocate your foot so nicely that you're crippled for the rest of your life.” “My illness has run me into more than two hundred crowns already," announced his neighbor, a man as thin as a rake. "I bet there's no poison you can mention that I haven't taken. I'm simply bung full of poisons. I've chewed arsenic, I've smoked opium, I've swallowed strychnine, I've drunk vitriol mixed with phosphorus. I've ruined my liver, my lungs, my kidneys, my heart—in fact, all my insides. Nobody knows what disease it is I've got." "The best thing to do," explained someone near the door, "is to squirt paraffin oil under the skin on your arms. My cousin had a slice of good luck that way. They cut off his arm below the elbow and now the army'll never worry him any more.” “Well," said Schweik, "When I was in the army years ago, it used to be much worse. If a man went sick, they just trussed him up, shoved him into a cell to make him get fitter. There wasn't any beds and mattresses and spittoons like what there is here. Just a bare bench for them to lie on. Once there was a chap who had typhus, fair and square, and the one next to him had smallpox. Well, they trussed them both up and the M. O. kicked them in the ribs and said they were shamming. When the pair of them kicked the bucket, there was a dust-up in Parliament and it got into the papers. Like a shot they stopped us from reading the papers and all our boxes was inspected to see if we'd got any hidden there. And it was just my luck that in the whole blessed regiment there was nobody but me whose newspaper was spotted. So our colonel starts yelling at me to stand to attention and tell him who'd written that stuff to the paper or he'd smash my jaw from ear to ear and keep me in clink till all was blue. Then the M.O. comes up and he shakes his fist right under my nose and shouts: 'You misbegotten whelp ; you scabby ape ; you wretched blob of scum ; you skunk of a Socialist, you !' Well, I stood keeping my mouth shut and with one hand at the salute and the other along the seam of my trousers. There they was, running round and yelping at me. “We'll knock the newspaper nonsense out of your head, you ruffian,' says the colonel, and gives me 21 days solitary confinement. Well, while I was serving my time, there was some rum goings-on in the barracks. Our colonel stopped the troops from reading at all, and in the canteen they wasn't allowed even to wrap up sausages or cheese in newspapers. That made the soldiers start reading and our regiment had all the rest beat when it came to showing how much they'd learned.

My mom always said that the Love family is lucky. Not big luck, mind you, like lottery or sweepstakes winnings, but small luck. Like beating a rainstorm by five minutes every time, sometimes getting upgraded to business class on flights, and scoring close parking spots in crowded superstore lots. We’re lucky in the small ways that, in the end, don’t really matter. It’s a curse, really. Because you’d think we’d be lucky in our namesake, too. By all accounts, we should be.

Index investing allows you to invest in all companies at once rather than trying to pick out the winners. Indexes can’t crash to zero. Index funds have lower fees. Index funds beat 85 percent of all actively managed mutual funds after fees.

Oh man, that’s like thirty-six hours on the road. With me.” I laugh. “Good fucking luck, brother.” “I will beat my list of murder items in one body if you don’t behave yourself.” “When do I ever misbehave?” “Every day that ends in Y.

Sometimes I suspect we are all horrible people. Or at least, we are human people. Same thing. We are impatient, judgmental, irritating and irritated, grumpy, easily offended and the rest of it. So how to be kinder if it doesn’t come naturally? Fake it. Fake it a little bit at a time. Because there isn’t actually any difference between doing something nice for someone because you are naturally saintly and perfect, and doing something nice for someone because you are secretly demonic and trying to cover it up. It’s still an act of kindness either way, and you still made their lives better. Smile at people. Say hullo. Ask about their lives. Remember what they’ve told you about their lives. Do small things to try and help them. (They will not know you are horrible, do not worry. They will just perceive that you are helping.) Give people the benefit of the doubt. Remember that it’s more often stupidity to blame than evil, that everyone can screw up (including you) and what’s important is learning from that. Think “What would an actually kind person do now?” – and do that. Don’t beat yourself up when you fail. Just be as kind to yourself as you will be to others – even if you have to fake that. And good luck.

What else did her mother tell you?” Ethan asked, looking for any advantage in his task of winning her over. “That she’d call us later and give us pointers on wooing her daughter. Apparently, Naomi has something of a stubborn nature.” A snort escaped him. “I hadn’t noticed.” Javier paced the living room as Ethan stroked Naomi’s silky hair, unable to resist running his fingers through the long brown strands. “What are you thinking?” “That fate is laughing at me.” A chuckle made Ethan’s chest vibrate, causing Naomi’s head to jiggle. He cradled her head in his big palm to prevent her from falling before replying. “She’s certainly not what either of us expected, that’s for sure.” Javier shot him a dark look. “No shit, Sherlock. I mean don’t get me wrong, short and curvy works fine for me, but I always expected, if ever fate was cruel enough to curse me, she’d at least give me a woman who likes me.” “I’m sure she will in time. We took her by surprise, not to mention she’s in pain. Besides, I kind of like that she’s feisty. She’ll need it to keep up with us.” Round eyes and an open mouth met his answer. “You, my friend, are insane. One ball too many to the head I think. I mean, not only does she not want you, shouldn’t you be more pissed that it looks like she’s meant for both of us?” Ethan shrugged. “I’ll admit, I never expected to share, but if fate says that’s my lot, then at least it chose someone I could tolerate. And beat in a wrestling match if I need to. Besides, I’ll only have to share if you bother to stick around to mark her.” “Oh, I’m staying, so you can forget about keeping her for yourself,” Javier replied shooting him a dark look. “What happened to I’m not meant for monogamy?” Ethan pitched his voice mockingly. A sigh emerged from Javier’s mouth before he slumped in the chair across from him. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. It’s hard to think at all with my damned cat yammering for me to bite her. Mayhap if you were to claim her first, the need for me to do so would vanish?” The optimism in his friend’s voice made him laugh again. “Sorry, no such luck I’m afraid. From everything I’ve ever heard, once you find the one, you’re done for. The need to mark her, claim her, just gets stronger and stronger.” Already the urge to take her rode Ethan hard. It didn’t help that he held her cuddled on his lap, her sweet fragrance tickling his nose while her lush body pressed against his turgid cock.

One never knows what fate has in store.” Turning toward Rohan, Amelia discovered he was glancing over her in a slow inventory that spurred her heart into a faster beat. “I don’t believe in fate,” she said. “People are in control of their own destinies.” Rohan smiled. “Everyone, even the gods, are helpless in the hands of fate.” Amelia regarded him skeptically. “Surely you, being employed at a gaming club, know all about probability and odds. Which means you can’t rationally give credence to luck or fate or anything of the sort.” “I know all about probability and odds,” Rohan agreed. “Nevertheless, I believe in luck.” He smiled with a quiet smolder in his eyes that caused her breath to catch. “I believe in magic and mystery, and dreams that reveal the future. And I believe some things are written in the stars … or even in the palm of your hand.” Mesmerized, Amelia was unable to look away from him. He was an extraordinarily beautiful man, his skin as dark as clover honey, his black hair falling over his forehead in a way that made her fingers twitch with the urge to push it back. “Do you believe in fate too?” she asked Merripen. A long hesitation. “I’m a Roma,” he said. Which meant yes. “Good Lord, Merripen. I’ve always thought of you as a sensible man.” Rohan laughed. “It’s only sensible to allow for the possibility, Miss Hathaway. Just because you can’t see or feel something doesn’t mean it can’t exist.

She tied him a fly, using a pattern she’d designed, one that had given her untold luck with those silvery fish, those fighting steelhead. She was anxious for his return. “Does it have a name?” he said, when she gave it to him. “The Predator.” She smiled. A little embarrassed. His eyes turned dark, and her heart beat faster. His voice dipped low. “It’s a fine name.” He regarded her for several heavy, silent beats. She felt an atavistic pull, the hairs on her arms rising toward him, as if in electrical attraction. He leaned closer and her mouth turned dry. And he told her about the wild blueberries. Down by the bend in the river. She took the lure. She went in search of the berries. She never came home.

Even though I was very young, I still remember some of the men who would come into my village, the soldiers, the death squads. Most were nothing but jackals, men who killed and raped and looted for fun, because it was the easy thing to do. But some of the killers, they had a fear about them, like an aura of death. They would look at you and your blood would turn to ice and your heart would feel like it had stopped beating in your chest. Those were the men who killed and killed and would never die themselves, time after time. Whether they knew it or not, they had made a pact with the Reaper, a pact to stay alive as long as they kept sending souls in their place.” “And you think Richard is like these men?” “Don't you? Killing is like breathing to him. He has bathed in the blood of countless murders. I have seen him kill three times, and on each occasion, he should have died time and again, but the other men were a heartbeat too slow, or the bullets a few inches to the left or right. No man is so lucky for so long without something making that luck for him.” “Do you think he is evil?” “Killing and evil are not always the same things. I do not think he is a good man, but I don't think he is an evil man, either. I think he is like an earthquake, or a bolt of lightning. If you are in his sights, you die. The only question is, what put you there.” “Do you feel the same aura around Richard that you felt around those men in El Salvador?” “You are comparing a candle to the sun. Those other men, they were apprentices in the ways of Death. Richard is a master.

If she remember right, people who had a God didn't seem to hold to drinking' an' beating' their women. With a little luck maybe she wouldn't have to put up with that anyway.

So you beat me... on chess... BRAVO... BRAVO let's say it was some kind a luck... but if we look what Elementary said about "Luck"... (Luck is for idiots...) so far... So let's say some how randomly you beat me... (LET"S DON"T GO DEEPER ABOUT RANDOM...!)

I also believe strongly in the powerful words: “I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.” They are good ones to live by. The big, final motivator was that I really wasn’t enjoying my university studies. I loved the Brunel and our small group of buddies there, but the actual university experience was killing me. (Not the workload, I hasten to add, which was pleasantly chilled, but rather the whole deal of feeling like just another student.) Sure, I like the chilled lifestyle (like the daily swim I took naked in the ornamental lake in the car park), but it was more than that. I just didn’t like being so unmotivated. It didn’t feel good for the soul. This wasn’t what I had hoped for in my life. I felt impatient to get on and do something. (Oh, and I was learning to dislike the German language in a way that was definitely not healthy.) So I decided it was time to make a decision. Via the OTC, Trucker and I quietly went to see the ex-SAS officer to get his advice on our Special Forces Selection aspirations. I was nervous telling him. He knew we were troublemakers, and that we had never taken any of the OTC military routine at all seriously. But to my amazement he wasn’t the least bit surprised at what we told him. He just smiled, almost knowingly, and told us we would probably fit in well--that was if we passed. He said the SAS attracted misfits and characters--but only those who could first prove themselves worthy. He then told us something great, that I have always remembered. “Everyone who attempts Selection has the basic mark-one body: two arms, two legs, one head, and one pumping set of lungs. What makes the difference between those that make it and those that don’t, is what goes on in here,” he said, touching his chest. “Heart is what makes the big difference. Only you know if you have got what it takes. Good luck…oh, and if you pass I will treat you both to lunch, on me.” That was quite a promise from an officer--to part with money. So that was that. Trucker and I wrote to 21 SAS HQ, nervously requesting to be put forward for Selection. They would do their initial security clearances on us both, and then would hopefully write, offering us (or not) a place on pre-Selection--including dates, times, and joining instructions. All we could do was wait, start training hard, and pray. I tossed all my German study manuals unceremoniously into the bin and felt a million times better. And deep down I had the feeling that I might just be embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. On top of that, there was no Deborah Maldives saying I needed a degree to join the SAS. The only qualification I needed was inside that beating heart of mine.

So what are you doing lurking out here?” Madison asked, cradling the sticker with Blue’s number in her hand, so Jeremy wouldn’t see it. Jeremy leaned in until his face was only inches from hers, and whispered, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” “Ahem!” a deep voice sounded behind them. “I hate to interrupt this little tete-a-tete, but don’t you have someplace else you ought to be right now?” Madison and Jeremy sprang away from each other like startled pigeons. They turned and guiltily faced the principal. Madison spoke first. “Hello, Mr. Kaufman. I left some, um, material for my report for Mr. Dalberg’s class in my locker and I was just about to get it.” “Is that your locker?” Mr. Kaufman asked. Jeremy cut in. “Actually, it’s my locker. Madison forgot to mention that she had asked me to keep it for her.” Jeremy spun the combination on the lock to show Mr. Kaufman that he was actually getting the report. He swung open the locker and grabbed the first thing he could put his hands on--a MAD magazine. Without skipping a beat, Madison took it and started talking. “You see, Mr. Kaufman, we’re studying the role that periodicals and newspapers have played in American historical events. For instance, um, Tom Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense helped start the American Revolution, and, well, Horace Greeley’s editorials in the New York Tribune sparked the great Westward migration and the idea of Manifest Destiny, and now MAD magazine has, um, er--” “Redefined the concept of social satire in the twentieth century,” Jeremy jumped in. “Without MAD, there’d have been no National Lampoon. Without the National Lampoon, no Saturday Night Live. Without SNL, there’d be no Bill Murray. Eddie Murphy. Adam Sandler. The list goes on and on.” “Really?” Mr. Kaufman raised one eyebrow. “Very interesting.” Madison plastered a grateful smile on her face and extended her hand to Jeremy. “Thanks for keeping this, um, research material for me.” Jeremy shook her hand politely. “Anytime, Madison. I have room in here for lots more of your, uh, reports.” Before Mr. Kaufman could say anything, Jeremy shut his locker, and the two of them marched off in opposite directions away from the principal. As she walked away, Madison held her breath waiting for Mr. Kaufman to call them back. But he didn’t. Madison couldn’t believe her luck. What a bizarre encounter! And yes, she had to admit it: Jeremy had really bailed her out when she’d run out of gas with her excuse.

Is it just me, or do you not communicate with humans?" A.J. demanded, breaking the silence only because she could hear herself thinking. "I'm not uncommunicative," Kane said mildly. "I'm meditative." "Great. I'm teamed up with Ghandi." He snorted a laugh and she cheered up a little. "Wow. Was that an actual reaction?" "Don't press your luck." “Quit meditating and talk to me, or I’ll talk to you and you already know how good I am at that,” she warned, and even while his gaze narrowed, she went on another rant—the kind that used to drive her brother, Gabriel, nuts. “So if you think about it, all of these planted fields probably look the same as they did three thousand years ago. Do you think the pharaohs used irrigation systems, or did they just beat small children until they cried enough to water the plants?” No response. Fine, she could keep this up all day. “Did you know that some people believe the pyramids were built by space aliens? It would explain a lot, but what do you think? Was it ancient astronauts, or were the Egyptians just really good architects, or—” “Okay!” he snapped. “I surrender.” “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

inflexible structure forces characters into a predetermined framework rather than letting them be what they want to be and prevents them from finding their own organic (and often better) ways. Working with flexible beats that can change on the fly can be a very nice happy medium, wherein you have that organic character feel while also having an idea where your story is headed.

History records that there was only one Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo — and that he was too small for his job. The fact is there were two Napoleons at Waterloo, and the second one was big enough for his job, with some to spare. The second Napoleon was Nathan Rothschild — the emperor of finance. During the trying months that came before the crash Nathan Rothschild had plunged on England until his own fortunes, no less than those of the warring nations, were staked on the issue. He had lent money direct. He had discounted Wellington's paper. He had risked millions by sending chests of gold through war-swept territory where the slightest failure of plans might have caused its capture. He was extended to the limit when the fateful hour struck, and the future seemed none too certain. The English, in characteristic fashion, believed that all had been lost before anything was lost -— before the first gun bellowed out its challenge over the Belgian plains. The London stock market was in a panic. Consols were falling, slipping, sliding, tumbling. If the telegraph had been invented, the suspense would have been less, even if the wires had told that all was lost. But there was no telegraph. There were only rumors and fears. As the armies drew toward Waterloo Nathan Rothschild was like a man aflame. All of his instincts were crying out for news — good news, bad news, any kind of news, but news — something to end his suspense. News could be had immediately only by going to the front. He did not want to go to the front. A biographer of the family, Mr. Ignatius Balla, 1 declares that Nathan had " always shrunk from the sight of blood." From this it may be presumed that, to put it delicately, he was not a martial figure. But, as events came to a focus, his mingled hopes and fears overcame his inborn instincts. He must know the best or the worst and that at once. So he posted off for Belgium. He drew near to the gathering armies. From a safe post on a hill he saw the puffs of smoke from the opening guns. He saw Napoleon hurl his human missiles at Wellington's advancing walls of red. He did not see the final crash of the French, because he saw enough to convince him that it was coming, and therefore did not wait to witness the actual event. He had no time to wait. He hungered and thirsted for London as a few days before he had hungered and thirsted for the sight of Waterloo. Wellington having saved the day for him as well as for England, Nathan Rothschild saw an opportunity to reap colossal gains by beating the news of Napoleon's 1 The Romance of the Rothschilds, p. 88. 126 OUR DISHONEST CONSTITUTION defeat to London and buying the depressed securities of his adopted country before the news of victory should send them skyward with the hats of those whose brains were still whirling with fear. So he left the field of Waterloo while the guns were still booming out the requiem of all of Napoleon's great hopes of empire. He raced to Brussels upon the back of a horse whose sides were dripping with spur-drawn blood. At Brussels he paid an exorbitant price to be whirled in a carriage to Ostend. At Ostend he found the sea in the grip of a storm that shook the shores even as Wellington was still shaking the luck-worn hope of France. " He was certainly no hero," says Balla, " but at the present moment he feared nothing." Who would take him in a boat and row him to England? Not a boatman spoke. No one likes to speak when Death calls his name, and Rothschild's words were like words from Death. But Rothschild continued to speak. He must have a boatman and a boat. He must beat the news of Waterloo to England. Who would make the trip for 500 francs? Who would go for 800, 1,000? Who would go for 2,000? A courageous sailor would go. His name should be here if it had not been lost to the world. His name should be here and wherever this story is printed, because he said he would go if Rothschild would pay the 2,000 francs to the sailor's wife before

If you ever get stuck, ask yourself what happens next, then next, then next. Don’t get an idea for a situation; develop the arc for your story. Pretty much every story goes like this: Someone is complacent, they face a challenge, the challenge nearly beats them, they find a way to conquer the challenge, then emerge changed at the other end.

During the war, my son Alfred [Cochrane] went up [to Bsharre, in Lebanon] to see some friends. On the road, he was stopped by the Marada militia. They put a gun to his head and tied him to a tree. When Alfred was at Eton he quickly learned how to get out of beatings, and his experience came in very handy on this occasion. They said they were going to execute him. He kept telling them he was great friends with the Franjiehs – the ex-President’s family who commanded the militia – and said that he was going to spend the weekend with them. Of course he had no such plans, but the lie eventually did the trick. Most of the militia men did not believe him, but Alfred kept going on about his important Maronite friends and eventually one of them got cold feet. The others were saying, ‘Let’s just shoot him first and ask questions afterwards,’ but the one with the cold feet said, ‘No we must telephone the Franjiehs and check what he’s saying.’ So they did.” “Luckily they got the former President, Suleiman Franjieh. He was a little surprised to hear Alfred thought he had been invited over the weekend, but he told the militiamen to release Alfred immediately nonetheless. The next day Robert Franjieh, the President’s son, rang up here. He and Alfred had known each other since they were in playpens together: it’s a very small world here in Lebanon. Robert said: ‘I’m so sorry, Alfred. Rotten luck. Won’t you come to lunch?’” “And what was Alfred’s reply?” “He said, ‘Thanks a lot Robert, but not today. I’m afraid I’m a little busy.

What will happen to her now?' 'If she would listen to me, she'd marry me. I've asked her more than once. I asked her again last week, but she won't. You are my rival, Knox, I'm afraid. Good luck to you. If you beat her, I'll put arsenic in your tooth-paste, that's all.' 'What do you mean?' asked George Knox, putting down his cup of tea with a crash. 'What I say. I can't say it again. All this nobility is too much for me. I can be rung up at any time if I'm wanted. Say goodnight to Mrs Morland for me.' Dr Ford hit Mr Knox on the shoulder and went out of the room

Some primal instinct tells the parent, or the person down on their luck, than if we let it go — the child's hand, or our dignity — all is lost, and we’ll never get it back. That’s why, if you even bother to look, you’ll sometimes see a bag lady pushing a shopping cart down the street, wearing a nice dress underneath her torn and tattered coat. Or she’ll have a pretty plastic flower pinned to her beat-up old hat. The flower and the dress remind her that she’s human, a real person. Dignity and compassion, they’re all that separate us from the four-legged creatures operating only on survival instinct, the law of the jungle. Without them, we’re all just animals.

Okay, judged on raw brain power, humans do no better than our hairier cousins. So, then, what are we using our great big brains for? Maybe we’re more cunning. That’s the crux of the ‘Machiavellian intelligence’ hypothesis, named after the Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince (1513). In this handbook for rulers, Machiavelli counsels weaving a web of lies and deception to stay in power. According to adherents of this hypothesis, that’s precisely what we’ve been doing for millions of years: devising ever more inventive ways to swindle one another. And because telling lies takes more cognitive energy than being truthful, our brains grew like the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the US during the Cold War. The result of this mental arms race is the sapien superbrain. If this hypothesis were true, you’d expect humans to beat other primates handily in games that hinge on conning your opponent. But no such luck. Numerous studies show that chimps outscore us on these tests and that humans are lousy liars.9 Not only that, we’re predisposed to trust others, which explains how con artists can fool their marks.10 This brings me to another odd quirk of Homo sapiens. Machiavelli, in his classic book, advises never revealing your emotions. Work on your poker face, he urges; shame serves no purpose. The object is to win, by fair means or foul. But if only the shameless win, why are humans one of the only species in the whole animal kingdom to blush?

To see why temporarily high returns don’t prove anything, imagine that two places are 130 miles apart. If I observed the 65 mph speed limit, I can drive that distance in two hours. But if I drive 130 mph, I can get there in one hour. If I try this and survive, am I “right”? Should you be tempted to try it, too, because you hear me bragging that it “worked?” Flashy gimmicks for beating the market are much the same: in short streaks, so as long as your luck holds out, they work. Over time, they will get you killed.

pot /po/ I. nm 1. (récipient, contenu) container; (en verre) jar; (en plastique) carton, tub; (en faïence, terre) pot; (pichet) jug • ~ de verre | glass jar • mettre qch en ~ | to put [sth] into jars [confiture, fruits]; to pot [plante] • plante en ~ | potted plant • ~ de marmelade | jar of marmalade • ~ de yaourt (en verre) jar of yoghurt; (en plastique) carton of yoghurt • acheter un ~ de peinture | to buy a tin of paint • garder les ~s de confiture | to save jam jars • réutiliser les ~s de peinture | to re-use the paint tins • il a fallu trois ~s de peinture | it took three tins of paint voir aussi: cuiller 2. (de chambre) pot; (de bébé) potty • aller sur le ~ (ponctuellement) to go on the potty • depuis un mois il va sur le ~ | he's been potty-trained for a month now 3. ○(boisson) drink • prendre un ~ | to have a drink 4. ○(réunion) do (familier) (GB), drinks party • ~ d'accueil/d'adieu | welcoming/farewell party 5. ○(chance) luck • elle n'a pas eu de ~ | she hasn't had much luck • avoir du ~ | to be lucky • avoir un coup de ~ | to have a stroke of luck • (par un) coup de ~, la porte était ouverte | as luck would have it, the door was open 6. (argent commun) kitty • ramasser le ~ | (Jeux) to win the kitty II. Idiomes 1. payer les pots cassés | to pick up the pieces 2. c'est le pot de terre contre le pot de fer | it's an unequal contest 3. ce sera à la fortune du pot | you'll have to take pot luck 4. découvrir le pot aux roses | to stumble on what's been going on 5. être sourd comme un pot○ | to be as deaf as a post 6. tourner autour du pot | to beat about the bush 7. payer plein pot○ | to pay full price 8. partir or démarrer plein pot○ | to be off ou go off like a shot (familier) pot catalytique catalytic converter pot de chambre chamber pot pot de colle (lit) pot of glue; (fig) informal leech pot à eau water jug (GB), pitcher (US) pot d'échappement (silencieux) silencer (GB), muffler (US); (système) exhaust

For are we not all, at times, exactly like Poe’s narrators—beating upon the confining walls of circumstance, the limits of the universe? In spiritual work, with good luck (or grace), we come to accept life’s brevity for ourselves. But the lover that is in each of us—the part of us that adores another person—ah! that is another matter. In the mystery and the energy of loving, we all view time’s shadow upon the beloved as wretchedly as any of Poe’s narrators. We do not think of it every day, but we never forget it: the beloved shall grow old, or ill, and be taken away finally. No matter how ferociously we fight, how tenderly we love, how bitterly we argue, how pervasively we berate the universe, how cunningly we hide, this is what shall happen. In the wide circles of timelessness, everything material and temporal will fail, including the manifestation of the beloved. In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us. This is Poe’s real story. As it is ours. And this is why we honor him, why we are fascinated far past the simple narratives. He writes about our own inescapable destiny.

after someone, I forget who, remarked that I was getting beat up too much.

Where did you come from, lamentable quality? Before I had a life you were about to ruin my life. The mystery of this stays with me. “Don’t brood about things,” my elders said. I hadn’t any other experience of enemies from inside. They were all from outside—big boys Who cursed me and hit me; motorists; falling trees. All these you were as bad as, yet inside. When I spoke, you were there. I could avoid you by singing or acting. I acted in school plays but was no good at singing. Immediately after the play you were there again. You ruined the cast party. You were not a sign of confidence. You were not a sign of manliness. You were stronger than good luck and bad; you survived them both. You were slowly edged out of my throat by psychoanalysis You who had been brought in, it seems, like a hired thug To beat up both sides and distract them From the main issue: oedipal love. You were horrible! Tell them, now that you’re back in your thug country, That you don’t have to be so rough next time you’re called in But can be milder and have the same effect—unhappiness and pain.

thepsychchic chips clips i How often are we actually in control, I wondered? And how does the perception of being in control in situations where luck is queen actually play out in our decision making? How do people respond when placed in uncertain situations, with incomplete information? 13 Personal accountability, without the possibility of deflecting onto someone else, is key. 41 There’s never a default to anything. It’s always a matter of deliberation. 56 Erik: You have to have a clear thought process for every single hand. What do I know? What have I seen? How will that help me make an informed judgment about this hand? 74 … find the fold … 86 Erik: There’s nothing like getting in there and making a bunch of mistakes. 88 Erik: Pick your spots. 91 Erik: Have you ever heard the expression ‘snap fold’? A snap fold, you do it immediately. You’re thrilled to let it go. So. snap fold. This lets you shove with basically the same enthusiasm. It tells you which hands to go with when you have different amounts of big blinds. 98 There’s a false sense of security in passivity. You think that you can’t get into too much trouble—but really, every passive decision leads to a slow but steady loss of chips. And chances are, if I’m choosing those lines at the table, there are deeper issues at play. Who knows how many proverbial chips a default passivity has cost me throughout my life. How many times have I walked away from situations because of someone else's show of strength, when I really shouldn't have. How many times I've passively stayed in a situation, eventually letting it get the better of me, instead of actively taking control and turning things around. Hanging back only seems like an easy solution. In truth, it can be the seed of far bigger problems. 100-101 Gambler's fallacy -- the faulty idea that probability has a memory. 107 Frank Lantz, NYU Game Center, former poker player: Part of what I get out of a game is being confronted with reality in a way that is not accommodating to my incorrect preconceptions. 109 Only play within your bankroll. 126 Re: Ladies Event: Yes, I completely understand the intention, but somehow, segregating women into a separate player pool, as if admitting that they can’t compete in an open player pool, feels equal parts degrading and demoralizing. … if I’m known as anything in this game, I want to be known as a good poker player, not a good female player. No modifiers need apply. 127 Erik: Bad beats are a really bad mental habit. You don’t want to ever dwell on them. It doesn’t help you become a better player. It’s like dumping your garbage on someone else’s lawn. It just stinks.” 132-33 No bad beats. Forget they ever happened. 136 As W H Auden told an interviewer, Webster Schott, in a 1970 conversation: "Language is the mother, not the handmaiden of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” The language we use becomes our mental habits—and our mental habits determine how we learn, how we grow, what we become. It’s not just a question of semantics: telling bad beats stories matters. Our thinking about luck has real consequences in terms of our emotional well-being, our decisions and the way we implicitly view the world and our role in it. 133

Since they abused and beat him without anger or hate, they were not human beings with names. They were only denominations one tried to get the better of. If one failed, it was just bad luck.

Poker players explained to me that there’s a particular moment at which players are extremely vulnerable to an emotional surge. It’s not when they’ve won a huge pot or when they’ve drawn a fantastic hand. It’s when they’ve just lost a lot of money through bad luck (a ‘bad beat’) or bad strategy. The loss can nudge a player into going ‘on tilt’ – making overly aggressive bets in an effort to win back what he wrongly feels is still his money. The brain refuses to register that the money has gone. Acknowledging the loss and recalculating one’s strategy would be the right thing to do, but that is too painful. Instead, the player makes crazy bets to rectify what he unconsciously believes is a temporary situation. It isn’t the initial loss that does for him, but the stupid plays he makes in an effort to deny that the loss has happened. The eat economic psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky summarised the behaviour in their classic analysis of the psychology of risk: ‘a person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise’. Even those of us who aren’t professional poker players know how it feels to chase a loss.