Billy Jack Quotes

Billy,” Emily said. “Billy Wallace is the father.” “Not that musician, the druggie who left school?

Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man. Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.

Diamond Sutra says, 'Make no formed conceptions about the realness of existence nor about the unrealness of existence," or words like that. Handcuffs will get soft and billy clubs will topple over, let's go on being free anyhow.

Weird? Absurd? That’s how it seemed to me. I had these forces, these compunctions, these alternative personalities inside me, driving me. It was like being a jack-in-the-box and I was unsure which personality was going to jump out next: Billy, who thought of himself as a cowboy or a terrorist; Kato the cutter; anorexic Shirley, whose only self-indulgence was binge drinking and the occasional salad sandwich. I didn’t dislike Shirley. I was afraid of her. Shirley knew things I didn’t.

Stop!” she screamed. “Don’t hurt him.” “Back off!” Billy shouted. She yanked harder on Billy’s arm. “He isn’t a vampire anymore, idiot. Look! Do you see that big, yellow thing up in the sky? That’s called the sun. It’s shining down on him, and he isn’t exploding. His fangs are gone. He’s as human as we are. Case closed.” Billy stared up at the sky, his jaw slack. “Not possible.” Jack mumbled, “They don’t call me Jackpot for nothing.” “What?” Billy blinked at him. “Private joke.

In the 1991 movie City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some profoundly simple advice. When Crystal asks him the secret of life, Palance holds up a forefinger, answers with a single word: "One." Choose one thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Let it go. Pick something else. Repeat endlessly.

In fact at one point when Billie’s up leaning over a chair Dave goes behind Billie and playfully touches her and winks at me, but I’m not of all this like a moron and we could all be having fun such as soldiers dream the day away imagining, dammit—But the venoms in the blood are asexual as well as asocial and a-everything

When all’s said and done they’re a strange breed, these South and East Londoners, and they’re amused by little things. Their love of jellied eels and pie ‘n’ mash is astonishing. “Food of the Gods,” they call it, as they enter some filthy hovel to order pie ‘n’ mash, without even knowing what they’re eating. I’ve asked what meat it is and been told, “Meat? Its pie, pie ‘n’ mash with liquor. Food of the Gods.” But it’s not food of the Gods at all. It’s just pie and mashed potatoes, and that’s it. Nothing special about it. There’s nothing nostalgic about it. It’s not Bermondsey Billy Wells or the Artful Dodger. It’s just a meat pie and mashed potatoes. And it looks like Barry Manilow’s blown his nose in it.

remember what Billy Connolly said, that there isn’t bad weather, only wrong clothes.

Jack had not only heard Billy Crystal’s joke; he was genuinely impressed by Billy’s imitation of Jack-as-Melody. “Christ,” he said.

There’s a famous quote regarding Polanski. Perhaps Jack Nicholson said it, perhaps someone else, but it goes, “Polanski is the five-foot Pole I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.” So, yes, the world seems to despise him. I, however, love his work. It’s so much funnier and well-constructed than the pompous stuff of Kubrick. Polanski balances between camp and horror in much the same way Billy Wilder did.

There is a story for children, There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon, by Jack Kent, that I really like. It’s a very simple tale, at least on the surface. I once read its few pages to a group of retired University of Toronto alumni, and explained its symbolic meaning.*2 It’s about a small boy, Billy Bixbee, who spies a dragon sitting on his bed one morning. It’s about the size of a house cat, and friendly. He tells his mother about it, but she tells him that there’s no such thing as a dragon. So, it starts to grow. It eats all of Billy’s pancakes. Soon it fills the whole house. Mom tries to vacuum, but she has to go in and out of the house through the windows because of the dragon everywhere. It takes her forever. Then, the dragon runs off with the house. Billy’s dad comes home—and there’s just an empty space, where he used to live. The mailman tells him where the house went. He chases after it, climbs up the dragon’s head and neck (now sprawling out into the street) and rejoins his wife and son. Mom still insists that the dragon does not exist, but Billy, who’s pretty much had it by now, insists, “There is a dragon, Mom.” Instantly, it starts to shrink. Soon, it’s cat-sized again. Everyone agrees that dragons of that size (1) exist and (2) are much preferable to their gigantic counterparts. Mom, eyes reluctantly opened by this point, asks somewhat plaintively why it had to get so big. Billy quietly suggests: “maybe it wanted to be noticed.

Oh, for fuck's sake, quit being pussies." Montana leaned against the doorframe, Coke in hand. "You hit me. I left. Billy got shot. You have this weird...brain thing." Those dark eyes met Jack's. "I don't know what's wrong with you, except that you got that ADD thing, and hey, that's not criminal. You are Billy's friends. I'm Billy's, period. I'm not leaving. You're not leaving. You hit me again, and I'll hit you back. Hard. Now, can we all stop being weird-assed people and eat some fucking potato chips from a bag?

Billie wants me to stroll with her down towards the caves but I dont want to get up from the sand where I’m sitting back to boulder—She goes alone—I suddenly remember James Joyce and stare at the waves realizing “All summer you were sitting here writing the so called sound of the waves not realizing how deadly serious our life and doom is, you fool, you happy kid with a pencil, dont you realize you’ve been using words as a happy game—all those marvelous skeptical things you wrote about graves and sea death it’s ALL TRUE YOU FOOL! Joyce is dead! The sea took him! it will take YOU!

The world didn’t need another story about the Zodiac Killer or Jack the Ripper. The murders in the shadows add up to a hell of a lot more than the murders in the spotlight. The shadows are where I need to tread, because that’s where the problem lay. The blood of the forgotten was just as red as the “famous” victims.

Billie offers to dig the garbage pit but does so by digging a neat tiny coffinshaped grave instead of just a garbage hole—Even Dave Wain blinks to see it—It’s exactly the size fit for putting a little dead Elliott in it, Dave is thinking the same thing I am I can tell by a glance he gives me—We’ve all read Freud sufficiently to understand something there

Although well played by Billy Zane, Cal in the screenplay is one of the weakest part of the design, and would have been a more effective rival if he were more seductive, a better match for Rose, real competition for Jack, and not such an obvious monster. Then it would have been a real contest, and not a one-sided match between the most attractive young man in the universe and a leering, abusive cad with a bag of money in one hand and a pistol in the other.

open your eyes to why God’s put you here, stop all that staring at the floor, you and Perry both you’re crazy—I’ll draw you magic moon circles’ll change all your luck”—I look her dead in the eye and it is blue and I say “O Billie, forgive me”—“But you see you go there talkin guilty again”—“Well I dont know all those big theories about how everything should be goddamit all I know is that I’m a helpless hunk of helpful horse manure looking in your eye saying Help me”—“But when you make those big final statements it doesnt help you

But what about Cody? you want me to marry you but you love Cody and in fact Perry loves you too? " -- "Sure but what's wrong with that or all that? there's perfect love between us forever there's no doubt about it but we only have two bodies" -- (a strange statement) -- I stand by the window looking out on the glittering San Francisco night with its magic cardboard houses saying "And you have Elliott who doesnt like me and I dont like myself either, how about that? " (Billie says nothing to this but only stores up an anger that comes out later)

Billie I dont wanta get married, I’m afraid. . .”—“Afraid?”—“I wanta go home and die with my cat.” I could be a handsome thin young president in a suit sitting in an oldfashioned rocking chair, no instead I’m just the Phantom of the Opera standing by a drape among dead fish and broken chairs—Can it be that no one cares who made me or why?—“Jack what’s the matter, what are you talking about?” but suddenly as she’s making supper and poor little Elliott is waiting there with spoon upended in fist I realize it’s just a little family home scene and I’m just a nut in the wrong place

Tristessa e a estranheza de seu rosto amoroso, asteca, garota índia com olhos de Billie Holliday misteriosos e semicerrados e com uma grande voz melancólica como as atrizes vienenses de rostos tristes como Luise Rainer que fizeram toda a Ucrânia chorar em 1910. [...] Curvas lindas em forma de pêra moldam a pele de seu rosto, que tem pestanas compridas e tristes, e uma resignação de Virgem Maria, e uma compleição cor de café e textura de pêssego e olhos de um mistério impressionante com uma falta de expressão de profundidade rasteira, meio desdém meio um lamento de dor pesaroso.

Hickok and the others now returned from looking at the saloon sign, and this suck-up who had been talking to me, he asked what happened and another man says: “He put all ten inside the hole of the O, by God!” And everybody was whistling and gasping at the wonder of it—well, not exactly everybody, for there was other scouts and gun-handlers around, people like Jack Gallagher, Billy Dixon, Old Man Keeler, and more who was well known in them days, and they looked thoughtful so as not to display jealousy. As elsewhere in life, there are specialists on one hand, and the audience on the other.

In the 1991 movie, City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some profoundly simple advice. When Crystal asks him the secret of life, Palance holds up a forefinger, answers with a single word: "One." Choose one thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Let it go. Pick something else. Repeat endlessly. How sad that so much of our lives is spent looking back over our shoulders or gazing far ahead instead of wringing full benefit from the only thing we truly own: Now. This moment. None other. There is no other. How tragic, therefore, not to fulfill its unique promise before it passes from us forever. How much of our regret comes from wasting so many of our moments wanting something better, something different, something other than what we have at the moment we have it.

At a young age, Evan would listen in on his father’s long legal calls, which he credits for giving him early business exposure that helped develop his critical thinking and business accumen. He can often become obsessed with ideas, hungrily learning everything he can about them at a rapid pace. Evan is constantly curious and is learning and getting better at being a CEO very quickly. But his two superpowers are (1) his ability to get inside his users’ heads and think like a teenage girl and (2) his knack for attracting brilliant, powerful mentors. Evan loves picking other people’s brains over a walk or a meal. Over the years he has attracted an A-list roster of mentors, including SoftBank’s Nikesh Arora, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Eric Schmidt. He doesn’t just limit these brain dumps to tech luminaries, though, as he often walks and chats with fashion designers, politicians, documentary filmmakers, and other intriguing peers. Often, these impressive people will come speak to Team Snapchat at their Venice headquarters.

Lucifer Sansfoi Varlet Sansfoi Omer Perdiu I.B.Perdie Billy Perdy I'll unwind your guts from Durham to Dover and bury em in Clover-- Your psalms I'll 'ave engraved in your toothbone-- Your victories nilled-- You jailed under under a woman's skirt of stone-- Stone blind woman with no guts and only a scale-- Your thoughts & letters Shandy'd about in Beth (Gaelic for grave) Your philosophies run up your nose again-- Your confidences and essays bandied in ballrooms from switchblade to switchblade --Your final duel with sledge hammers-- Your essential secret twinned to buttercups & dying-- Your guide to 32 European cities scabbed in Isaiah --Your red beard snobbed in Dolmen ruins in the editions of the Bleak-- Your saints and Consolations bereft --Your handy volume rolled into an urn-- And your father And mother besmeared at thought of you th'unspent begotless crop of worms --You lay there, you queen for a day, wait for the "fun- sucked frogs" to carp at you Your sweety beauty discovered by No Name in its hidingplace till burrs Part from you from lack of issue, sinew, all the rest-- Gibbering quiver graveryard Hoo! The hospital that buries you be Baal, the digger Yorick, & the shoveler groom-- My rosy tomatoes pop squirting from your awful rotten grave-- Your profile, erstwhile Garboesque, mistook by earth- eels for some fjord to Sheol-- And your timid voice box strangled by lie-hating earth forever. May the plighted Noah-clouds dissolve in grief of you-- May Red clay be your center, & woven into necks, of hogs, boars, booters & pilferers & burned down with Stalin, Hitler & the rest-- May you bite your lip that you cannot meet with God-- or Beat me to a pub --Amen The Almoner, his cup hat no bottom, nor I a brim. Devil, get thee back to the russet caves.

He's like a little boy again now for the first time in years because he's like let out of school, no job, the bills paid, nothing to do but gratefully amuse me, his eyes are shining -- In fact ever since he's come out of San Quentin there's been something hauntedly boyish about him as tho prison walls had taken all the adult dark tenseness out of him -- In fact every evening after supper in the cell he shared with the quiet gunman he'd bent his serious head to a daily letter or at least every-other-day letter full of philosophical and religious musings to his mistress Billie... And when you're in bed in jail after lights out and you're not sleepy there's ample time to just remember the world and indeed savor its sweetness if any (altho it's always sweet to remember it in jail tho harder in prison, as Genet shows) with the result that he'd not only come to a chastisement of his bashing bitternesses (and of course it's always good to get away from alcohol and excessive smoking for two years) (and all that regular sleep) he was just like a kid again, but as I say that haunting kidlikeness I think all ex cons seem to have when they've just come out -- In seeking to severely penalize criminals society by putting the criminals away behind safe walls actually provide them with the means of greater strength for future atrocities glorious and otherwise -- "Well I'll be damned" he keeps saying as he sees those bluffs and cliffs and hanging vines and dead trees, "you mean to tell me you ben alone here for three weeks, why I wouldn't dare that... must be awful at night ... looka that old mule down there... man, dig the redwood country way back in... reminds me of old Colorady b'god when I used to steal a car every day and drive out to hills like this with a fresh little high school sumptin" -- "Yum Yum, " says Dave Wain emphatically turning that big goofy look to us from his driving wheel with his big mad feverish shining eyes full of yumyum and yabyum too --

Very convenient. Anything else?’ ‘Not really. I’m sure, for instance, that you haven’t the slightest interest in a Berger International flight into the Isle of Man, carrying one Marco Rossi.’ Dillon laughed. ‘Well, imagine that.’ ‘If it’s a sea voyage he’s planning, he’s in for a rough ride. Tomorrow and tomorrow night, there’ll be rain squalls and high seas. You’ll know you’re out there!’ ‘Should be interesting.’ ‘Do you have a game plan, Sean?’ ‘Yeah, the game plan is to blow the hell out of the Mona Lisa and deposit two million quid’s worth of arms on the floor of the Irish Sea.’ ‘What about the crew? I’ve got a Captain Martino listed here and five others: Gomez, Fabio, Arturo somebody, an Enrico, a Sancho. You’re going to kill them all, Sean?’ ‘Why not? They’re a reasonable facsimile of scum. They’ve run everything from heroin to human beings, I’m told, and now arms. They shouldn’t have joined if they didn’t want the risk.’ ‘Fine by me. I’ll stay in touch. Speak to you tomorrow.’ ‘Good, but stay on the Berger case. I’m convinced Rossi was responsible for Sara Hesser’s death.’ ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Oban was enveloped in mist and rain. Beyond Kerrera, the waters looked disturbed in the Firth of Lorn, and clouds draped across the mountain tops. ‘I’ve said it before,’ Billy moaned. ‘What a bloody awful place. I mean, it rains all the bleeding time.’ ‘No, Billy, it rains six days a week.’ Dillon turned to Ferguson. ‘Am I right, General?’ ‘You usually are, Dillon.’ ‘Good. Please join me in the wheelhouse.’ There was a flap to one side of the instrument panel and he pressed a button. Inside was a fuse box and some clips screwed into place. He opened one of the weapons bags, took out a Browning with a twenty-round magazine protruding from its butt. He clipped it into place and added a Walther in the other clips. ‘Ace in the hole.’ He closed the flap. ‘My goodness, you do mean business,’ Ferguson said. ‘I always did, Charles. Now let’s go ashore and eat.’ The early darkness of the far north was against them

Selim?” “Dropped in at Kuwait twelve hours ago, collected his car and set off north. It’s a long, hard drive to Baghdad these days, Sean. Sharif is meeting you at the hotel early evening.” “Thanks.” “Have fun.” Dillon replaced the phone. Billy said, “What was that?” Dillon told him. Billy was highly amused. “What are we going to do about Novikova? Have a drink in the bar?” “Who

I drove to the bar Theodosha had called from and parked on the street. The bar was a gray, dismal place, ensconced like a broken matchbox under a dying oak tree, its only indication of gaiety a neon beer sign that flickered in one window. She was at a table in back, the glow of the jukebox lighting her face and the deep blackness of her hair. She tipped a collins glass to her mouth, her eyes locked on mine. “Let me take you home,” I said. “No, thanks,” she replied. “Getting swacked?” “Merchie and I had another fight. He says he can’t take my pretensions anymore. I love the word ‘pretensions.’” “That doesn’t mean you have to get drunk,” I said. “You’re right. I can get drunk for any reason I choose,” she replied, and took another hit from the glass. Then she added incongruously, “You once asked Merchie what he was doing in Afghanistan. The answer is he wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in one of those other God-forsaken Stone Age countries to the north, helping build American airbases to protect American oil interests. Merchie says they’re going to make a fortune. All for the red, white, and blue.” “Who is they?” But her eyes were empty now, her concentration and anger temporarily spent. I glanced at the surroundings, the dour men sitting at the bar, a black woman sleeping with her head on a table, a parolee putting moves on a twenty-year-old junkie and mother of two children who was waiting for her connection. These were the people we cycled in and out of the system for decades, without beneficial influence or purpose of any kind that was detectable. “Let’s clear up one thing. Your old man came looking for trouble at the club today. I didn’t start it,” I said. “Go to a meeting, Dave. You’re a drag,” she said. “Give your guff to Merchie,” I said, and got up to leave. “I would. Except he’s probably banging his newest flop in the hay. And the saddest thing is I can’t blame him.” “I think I’m going to ease on out of this. Take care of yourself, kiddo,” I said. “Fuck that ‘kiddo’ stuff. I loved you and you were too stupid to know it.” I walked back outside into a misting rain and the clean smell of the night. I walked past a house where people were fighting behind the shades. I heard doors slamming, the sound of either a car backfiring or gunshots on another street, a siren wailing in the distance. On the corner I saw an expensive automobile pull to the curb and a black kid emerge from the darkness, wearing a skintight bandanna on his head. The driver of the car, a white man, exchanged money for something in the black kid’s hand. Welcome to the twenty-first century, I thought. I opened my truck door, then noticed the sag on the frame and glanced at the right rear tire. It was totally flat, the steel rim buried deep in the folds of collapsed rubber. I dropped the tailgate, pulled the jack and lug wrench out of the toolbox that was arc-welded to the bed of the truck, and fitted the jack under the frame. Just as I had pumped the flat tire clear of the puddle it rested in, I heard footsteps crunch on the gravel behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short, thick billy club whip through the air. Just before it exploded across the side of my head, my eyes seemed to close like a camera lens on a haystack that smelled of damp-rot and unwashed hair and old shoes. I was sure as I slipped into unconsciousness that I was inside an ephemeral dream from which I would soon awake.

rattled and rocked the theater. Considered one of the funniest movies of all time, it also sprinkled in unexpected doses of wisdom and insight. In one memorable scene, Curly, the gritty cowboy played by the late Jack Palance, and city slicker Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, leave the group to search for stray cattle. Although they had clashed for most of the movie, riding along together they finally connect over a conversation about life. Suddenly Curly reins his horse

pays, they open a bottle of gin and take turns drinking from it while they drive, screaming and cheering, back to Cocoa Beach where they park in front of Ron Jon’s surf-shop, which is also open 24/7. Yelling and visibly intoxicated, they storm inside with Billy and take the elevator to the second floor. They run through the aisles of bikinis and pull down one after another. “I always wanted yellow

I just needed to end that meeting before Chivalry Fitzwarren took over the case, and Billy’s soul.

Either Billie’s had a procedure or that swimsuit is doing god’s work. They’re jacked up to her collarbones just like when she was eighteen.

Jack knew what had come after.

He need not consider appearances, being indeed more concerned for his disappearances. Jack the Ripper.

Even Billy Andrews’ boy is going—and Jane’s only son—and Diana’s little Jack,” said Mrs. Blythe. “Priscilla’s son has gone from Japan and Stella’s from Vancouver—and both the Rev. Jo’s boys. Philippa writes that her boys ‘went right away, not being afflicted with her indecision.

He shook his head. “What?” she whispered, looking on the program to see what had caused his consternation. He pointed to her name. “Never in all my days have I seen a girl with so many boy names.” She glanced at the neatly typeset Dr. Billy Jack Scott and smiled.

The she-beast’s claws ripped through his jugular like soft butter as blood spurted from his neck and began to pool on the sidewalk. His heart stopped as the beast picked him up and inspected him with a ravenous grin. A stream of saliva ran from her chin as her jaws gaped open and she began to make a meal of Jack Junior. During the feeding, the she-beast’s body had fully transformed into something more animal than human, and she inadvertently squashed the small flashlight with her webbed foot, which returned the alley to pitch-blackness.

The larger monster looked up at Jack and the sheriff, and pausing in the middle of sucking a dangling eyeball from Bubba’s cheek, it said, “Do you know any place around here you can order fries at this time of night?

Billy was a hardscrabble country boy, maybe forty years old, lean and furtive, like a fox and a squirrel had a kid, and spent half the time baking it in the sun, and the other half beating it with a stick.

A raving loony. She must be,” Billy

When they kissed Jack felt truly outside. Inside, outside, these were now the terms that shaped his reality. One could be outside but still inside. Lucy was his new outside. It was terrifying and glorious how firmly Jack believed this.

In the patch of forest across the road, there were two deer grazing, a stag and a doe. Jack watched them in awe, took in their grace and vulnerability as though they were good omens sent personally to him. They were two reasons to live, to reasons to believe he could defy the odds history had stacked against him.

Eye Hate U" U have just accessed the Hate Experience Do U wish 2 change your entry? Very well, please enjoy your experience I never thought that U would be the one After all the things that we've been through U gave your body 2 another in the name of fun I hope U had some baby, if not, boo hoo It's so sad but I hate U like a day without sunshine It's so bad but I hate U cuz U're all that's ever on my mind Honey, I hate U - Now everyday would be a waste of time Cuz I hate U I never thought that I could feel this way 2 fall in love was a table reserved 4 fools Say U're sorry if U wanna but it's all in vain I'm out the door sweet baby, that's right, we're through It's so sad but I hate U like a day without sunshine It's so bad but I hate U cuz U're all that's ever on my mind Honey, I hate U - Now everyday would be a waste of time Cuz I hate U This court is now in session Would the defendant please rise? State your name 4 the court Never mind (Billy Jack Bitch) U're being charged with one 2 many counts of heartbreaking In the 1st degree I don't give a damn about the others My main concern is U and me Your honor, may I call 2 the stand my one and only witness? A girl that know damn well she didn't have no damn business I know what U did, how U did it and uh.. who U did it with So U might as well plead guilty cuz U sure can't plead the 5th Now raise your right hand Do U swear 2 tell the whole truth Not the half truth like U used 2 so help U God? Nod your head one time if U hear me If U don't, I'll have 2 use the rod Anything 2 make U see that uh.. U're gonna miss me Yeah, U're gonna miss me Uh, uh, uh, oh! If it please the court I'd like 2 have the defendant place her hands behind her back So I can tie her up tight and get into the act The act of showing her how good it used 2 be I want it 2 be so good she falls back in love with me Close your eyes I'm gonna cover your ass with this sheet And I want U 2 pump your hips like U used 2 And, baby, U better stay on the beat Did U do 2 your other man the same things that U did 2 me? Right now I hate U so much I wanna make love until U see That it's killin' me, baby, 2 be without U Cuz all I ever wanted 2 do was 2 be with U ... ow! I hate U (I hate U) Because I love U (Because I love U) But I can't love U (I can't love U) Because I hate U (I hate U) Prince, The Gold Experience (1995)

The Mexican woman bring you in?” Josh asked. “Mrs. Greer,” Reacher said. “Mrs. Greer is Rusty,” Billy said. “She didn’t bring you in.” “Mrs. Carmen Greer,” Reacher said. Billy said nothing. The guy called Josh just smiled.

Here is your working practice list: 1. Accused of cheating on a test, Janis goes to visit her math professor with the goal of convincing him she did not cheat. 2. Searching for an embezzler, Calvin accosts the bank examiner with the goal of convincing the examiner to give him the name of the prime suspect. 3. Lost in the caverns, Billy explores a narrow shaft with the goal of finding his way out. (A hard one! No living opponent.) 4. Ted visits Jennifer with the goal of getting her to marry him. 5. Wanting to win permission to enter graduate school, Bari goes into the office of the graduate dean with the goal of convincing him to let her in. (If the dean is a male, there is a very obvious “Yes, but!” disaster possibility lurking at the end of this scene.)

Readers generally find nothing as enthralling as conflict. Most popular novels, for example, are basically the record of a prolonged struggle. But as we mentioned in chapter 2, a story of any length must have some sort of movement or progress; you can’t expect a reader to be patient very long with a story that drags out a single, unchanging conflict over many, many pages. You know the kind of static, unchanging conflict I mean; you see it when small children argue: Mary: “Mommy, make him stop! He hit me!” Billy: “I did not!” “Did so!” “Did not!” “Did so!” “Did not!” “Did so!” “Did not!” Maybe the story question at the start of this little plot was: “Will Mary get mommy to make Billy stop?” And this question very quickly became: “Will Mary convince mommy in light of Billy’s denial?” But that’s as far as it got; Mary and Billy kept fighting about exactly the same issue, over and over and over again, ad infinitum. Fusses like this drive mommies nuts.

The November Road Playlist “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”—Bob Dylan “’Round Midnight”—Billy Taylor Trio “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”—The Shirelles “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” from The Wizard of Oz—Judy Garland “How Can You Lose”—Art Pepper “Night and Day”—Ella Fitzgerald “I Saw Her Standing There”—The Beatles “Jack O’Diamonds”—Ruth Brown “Ring of Fire”—Johnny Cash “Somebody Have Mercy”—Sam Cooke “Something Cool”—June Christy “Prisoner of Love”—James Brown “It’s My Party”—Lesley Gore “Blowin’ in the Wind”—Peter, Paul and Mary “I’m Walkin’”—Fats Domino “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me”—Frank Sinatra “’Round Midnight”—Thelonious Monk

Also at that moment, Arthur Scorpio was dialing Billy in Wyoming again. Again there was no answer. Just voicemail. Scorpio said, “Billy, this is Arthur. I need to hear from you. You’re making me worried now. What’s with not answering your phone all the time? And you got that guy coming. Plus maybe another guy. We just got a message from Montana. They sent a rider down especially. They have a Fed up there asking questions. He just left Billings. We don’t know where he’s headed next. Eyes open, OK? And call me back. Don’t make me worried, Billy.” He clicked off and dropped the phone in the trash basket.

He said, “But overall it was good news for us. We like the new problem better. The regular cartel powder is harder to hide. We can follow it better. From our point of view it was like the system had just swallowed a barium meal. Whole networks lit up like neon. Standards got less precise. Our job got easier. But not everywhere. A certain part of Montana, for instance. Nothing lit up at all. We couldn’t see incoming product. No cartel powder going there. So what happened to their addicts? Did they all cold turkey? Or die? Or is someone else supplying? That’s something I would want to know. So I went out to check. I discovered nothing of value. Except one trivial thing. Anecdotally along the way, I discovered I had spooked a low-level operative, who triggered a long-standing pact with a friend, who was also a low-level operative, but in another network. The pact was both of them would immediately get the hell out the very first time either one of them heard a whisper of trouble. Which was the smart play, no question. I’m guessing this wasn’t their first rodeo. These things always fall apart in the end, and they always fall hardest on the lowest-level guys. Better to get out early. Which is why Billy ain’t coming home. Billy was the friend. From Mule Crossing, Wyoming. He’s in the wind, with his pal from Billings, Montana.

From kindergarten through senior year of high school, Evan attended Crossroads, an elite, coed private school in Santa Monica known for its progressive attitudes. Tuition at Crossroads runs north of $ 22,000 a year, and seemingly rises annually. Students address teachers by their first names, and classrooms are named after important historical figures, like Albert Einstein and George Mead, rather than numbered. The school devotes as significant a chunk of time to math and history as to Human Development, a curriculum meant to teach students maturity, tolerance, and confidence. Crossroads emphasizes creativity, personal communication, well-being, mental health, and the liberal arts. The school focuses on the arts much more than athletics; some of the school’s varsity games have fewer than a dozen spectators. 2 In 2005, when Evan was a high school freshman, Vanity Fair ran an exhaustive feature about the school titled “School for Cool.” 3 The school, named for Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” unsurprisingly attracts a large contingent of Hollywood types, counting among its alumni Emily and Zooey Deschanel, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, Kate Hudson, Jonah Hill, Michael Bay, Maya Rudolph, and Spencer Pratt. And that’s just the alumni—the parents of students fill out another page or two of who’s who A-listers. Actor Denzel Washington once served as the assistant eighth grade basketball coach, screenwriter Robert Towne spoke in a film class, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma talked shop with the school’s chamber orchestra.

If you made a country out of all the companies founded by Stanford alumni, it would have a GDP of roughly $ 2.7 trillion, putting it in the neighborhood of the tenth largest economy in the world. Companies started by Stanford alumni include Google, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Netflix, Electronic Arts, Intuit, Fairchild Semiconductor, LinkedIn, and E* Trade. Many were started by undergraduates and graduate students while still on campus. Like the cast of Saturday Night Live, the greats who have gone on to massive career success are remembered, but everyone still keeps a watchful eye on the newcomers to see who might be the next big thing. With a $ 17 billion endowment, Stanford has the resources to provide students an incredible education inside the classroom, with accomplished scholars ranging from Nobel Prize winners to former secretaries of state teaching undergraduates. The Silicon Valley ecosystem ensures that students have ample opportunity outside the classroom as well. Mark Zuckerberg gives a guest lecture in the introductory computer science class. Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey spoke on campus to convince students to join his companies. The guest speaker lineups at the myriad entrepreneurship and technology-related classes each quarter rival those of multithousand-dollar business conferences. Even geographically, Stanford is smack in the middle of Silicon Valley. Facebook sits just north of the school. Apple is a little farther south. Google is to the east. And just west, right next to campus, is Sand Hill Road, the Wall Street of venture capital.

Today Jack is in a lonely mood. Billie is home

I never wavered from the mission: getting the best possible number and price on every game. And no matter the obstacles, via trial and error, I became the best in the world at finding that number and concealing the source. The business of sports betting might seem like quantum physics to the general public. At the highest level, it is closer to psychological warfare between bettor and bookmaker—cat and mouse, hunter and prey. The posted line is just a way to trigger the game. Some cynics assume that my goal was to put every bookie out of business—but nothing could be further from the truth. Bookmakers strive for balance. They never want to tilt too far on one side of the action. Bookies breathe easiest in the middle, taking equal money and profiting off the 10 percent juice. If a bookie was destroyed, it meant he either closed his shop or reduced his limits. Neither scenario did me any good. My goal was to keep the bookmakers in business and expand their limits. This served to increase the size of the market, which meant more potential profit for me. The smartest bookies had solved this riddle and wanted to do business with me directly. They wanted to know straight from the horse’s mouth what games I liked. If they were smart, they took my information and profited by shading their line and forcing customers to the other side, extending limits. A smart bookmaker knows there will be winners and losers. They also understand that there is no business if there are no winners. Translated: the smartest bookmakers are open to all comers—just like baccarat, blackjack, and craps. The brightest bookmakers know they can use smart money for their own benefit. Early in my career, the major-league bookmakers were Bob Martin, Johnny Quinn, Gene Maday, and Scotty Schettler. Following in their footsteps are Nick Bogdanovich, Jimmy Vaccaro, Richie Baccellieri, Matt Metcalf, and Chris Andrews. They are grand masters of the art. They know how to book. How smart are they? Well, Nick ran the William Hill U.S. sportsbook operation and then oversaw Caesars Sports trading for nearly a decade before being hired as sportsbook manager at Circa. Jimmy is the senior linemaker at the sports-betting network VSiN and vice president of sports marketing at the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa. Richie B., who ran the counter at the MGM, Caesars, and the Palms, now works as the director of product development at Circa alongside Nick. Chris Andrews, legendary oddsmaker Jack “Pittsburgh Jack” Franzi’s nephew, is the sportsbook director and Jimmy’s sidekick at the South Point, owned and operated by Michael Gaughan, another Las Vegas legend. In 1992, Jack Binion was Nick Bogdanovich’s boss at the Horseshoe. I could bet $25,000 on a game of college football at eight o’clock Monday morning, and $50,000 on a pro football game.

Early in my career, the major-league bookmakers were Bob Martin, Johnny Quinn, Gene Maday, and Scotty Schettler. Following in their footsteps are Nick Bogdanovich, Jimmy Vaccaro, Richie Baccellieri, Matt Metcalf, and Chris Andrews. They are grand masters of the art. They know how to book. How smart are they? Well, Nick ran the William Hill U.S. sportsbook operation and then oversaw Caesars Sports trading for nearly a decade before being hired as sportsbook manager at Circa. Jimmy is the senior linemaker at the sports-betting network VSiN and vice president of sports marketing at the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa. Richie B., who ran the counter at the MGM, Caesars, and the Palms, now works as the director of product development at Circa alongside Nick. Chris Andrews, legendary oddsmaker Jack “Pittsburgh Jack” Franzi’s nephew, is the sportsbook director and Jimmy’s sidekick at the South Point, owned and operated by Michael Gaughan, another Las Vegas legend. In 1992, Jack Binion was Nick Bogdanovich’s boss at the Horseshoe. I could bet $25,000 on a game of college football at eight o’clock Monday morning, and $50,000 on a pro football game.

Maybe it’s a good thing if we don’t see her. It would mean she doesn’t need what Billy was selling. It would mean she’s OK. Someone stole her ring. You said so yourself.” “Best case.” “Which sometimes happens.” “Sometimes,” Reacher said. “How often?” “More than never. Less than always.