Blunt Friend Quotes

Do not love half lovers Do not entertain half friends Do not indulge in works of the half talented Do not live half a life and do not die a half death If you choose silence, then be silent When you speak, do so until you are finished Do not silence yourself to say something And do not speak to be silent If you accept, then express it bluntly Do not mask it If you refuse then be clear about it for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance Do not accept half a solution Do not believe half truths Do not dream half a dream Do not fantasize about half hopes Half a drink will not quench your thirst Half a meal will not satiate your hunger Half the way will get you no where Half an idea will bear you no results Your other half is not the one you love It is you in another time yet in the same space It is you when you are not Half a life is a life you didn't live, A word you have not said A smile you postponed A love you have not had A friendship you did not know To reach and not arrive Work and not work Attend only to be absent What makes you a stranger to them closest to you and they strangers to you The half is a mere moment of inability but you are able for you are not half a being You are a whole that exists to live a life not half a life

If you don’t find the right set of eyes to see through your bull, you will always be surrounded by friends that will tell you white lies because they like your company and don’t want to ruin the evening.

You can find anyone that will tell you what you want to hear, but the only one worth valuing is the one that tells you what you need to learn.

She's like a sister. People say we're such opposites, but that's what makes us such good friends. She's incredibly blunt. I love that about her. If some guy has said or done something to me she doesn't like, she'll grab my cell phone and say, 'I'm deleting his number.

Alan Blunt got in touch with me and asked me to put you up here for the rest of the week, to pretend that you're my son. I have to say, you don't look anything like me." "I don't look anything like myself either," Alex said.

How do I know I can trust you?' 'You can't,' he said bluntly. 'You've got to take it on faith that the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

We probably shouldn't be friends," I told her, stretching out on the sofa. "I've been thinking about it, and I see no reason to continue.

No one is adequate to comprehending the misery of my lot! Fate obliges me to be constantly in movement: I am not permitted to pass more than a fortnight in the same place. I have no Friend in the world, and from the restlessness of my destiny I never can acquire one. Fain would I lay down my miserable life, for I envy those who enjoy the quiet of the Grave: But Death eludes me, and flies from my embrace. In vain do I throw myself in the way of danger. I plunge into the Ocean; The Waves throw me back with abhorrence upon the shore: I rush into fire; The flames recoil at my approach: I oppose myself to the fury of Banditti; Their swords become blunted, and break against my breast: The hungry Tiger shudders at my approach, and the Alligator flies from a Monster more horrible than itself. God has set his seal upon me, and all his Creatures respect this fatal mark!

Kings have no friends,' Stannis said bluntly, 'only subjects and enemies.' 'And brothers,' a cheerful voice called out.

So many people have asked me what to do for depressed friends and relatives, and my answer is actually simple: blunt their isolation. Do it with cups of tea or with long talks or by sitting in a room nearby and staying silent or in whatever way suits the circumstances, but do that. And do it willingly.

But this was not what Blue was told. Again and again, she had her fingers spread wide, her palm examined, her cards plucked from velvet-edged decks and spread across the fuzz of a family friend’s living room carpet. Thumbs were pressed to the mystical, invisible third eye that was said to lie between everyone’s eyebrows. Runes were cast and dreams interpreted, tea leaves scrutinised and séances conducted. All the women came to the same conclusion, blunt and inexplicably specific. What they all agreed on, in many different clairvoyant languages, was this: If Blue was to kiss her true love, he would die.

As observers of totalitarianism such as Victor Klemperer noticed, truth dies in four modes, all of which we have just witnessed. The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts. The president does this at a high rate and at a fast pace. One attempt during the 2016 campaign to track his utterances found that 78 percent of his factual claims were false. This proportion is so high that it makes the correct assertions seem like unintended oversights on the path toward total fiction. Demeaning the world as it is begins the creation of a fictional counterworld. The second mode is shamanistic incantation. As Klemperer noted, the fascist style depends upon “endless repetition,” designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable. The systematic use of nicknames such as “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary” displaced certain character traits that might more appropriately have been affixed to the president himself. Yet through blunt repetition over Twitter, our president managed the transformation of individuals into stereotypes that people then spoke aloud. At rallies, the repeated chants of “Build that wall” and “Lock her up” did not describe anything that the president had specific plans to do, but their very grandiosity established a connection between him and his audience. The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction. The president’s campaign involved the promises of cutting taxes for everyone, eliminating the national debt, and increasing spending on both social policy and national defense. These promises mutually contradict. It is as if a farmer said he were taking an egg from the henhouse, boiling it whole and serving it to his wife, and also poaching it and serving it to his children, and then returning it to the hen unbroken, and then watching as the chick hatches. Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason. Klemperer’s descriptions of losing friends in Germany in 1933 over the issue of magical thinking ring eerily true today. One of his former students implored him to “abandon yourself to your feelings, and you must always focus on the Führer’s greatness, rather than on the discomfort you are feeling at present.” Twelve years later, after all the atrocities, and at the end of a war that Germany had clearly lost, an amputated soldier told Klemperer that Hitler “has never lied yet. I believe in Hitler.” The final mode is misplaced faith. It involves the sort of self-deifying claims the president made when he said that “I alone can solve it” or “I am your voice.” When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience. What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant. At the end of the war a worker told Klemperer that “understanding is useless, you have to have faith. I believe in the Führer.

Harris argued, albeit gently, that parents are wrong to think they contribute so mightily to their child’s personality. This belief, she wrote, was a “cultural myth.” Harris argued that the top-down influence of parents is overwhelmed by the grassroots effect of peer pressure, the blunt force applied each day by friends and schoolmates.

For folks who have that casual-dude energy coursing through their bloodstream, that's great. But gays should not grow up alienated just for us to alienate each other. It's too predictable, like any other cycle of abuse. Plus, the conformist, competitive notion that by "toning down" we are "growing up" ultimately blunts the radical edge of what it is to be queer; it truncates our colorful journey of identity. Said another way, it's like living in West Hollywood and working a gay job by day and working it in the gay nightlife, wearing delicate shiny shirts picked from up the gay dry cleaners, yet coquettishly left unbuttoned to reveal the pec implants purchased from a gay surgeon and shown off by prancing around the gay-owned-and-operated theater hopped up on gay health clinic steroids and wheat grass purchased from the friendly gay boy who's new to the city, and impressed by the monstrous SUV purchased from a gay car dealership with its rainbow-striped bumper sticker that says "Celebrate Diversity." Then logging on to the local Gay.com listings and describing yourself as "straight-acting." Let me make myself clear. This is not a campaign for everyone to be like me. That'd be a total yawn. Instead, this narrative is about praise for the prancy boys. Granted, there's undecided gender-fucks, dagger dykes, faux-mos, po-mos, FTMs, fisting-top daddies, and lezzie looners who also need props for broadening the sexual spectrum, but they're telling their own stories. The Cliff's Notes of me and mine are this: the only moments I feel alive are when I'm just being myself - not some stiff-necked temp masquerading as normal in the workplace, not some insecure gay boy aspiring to be an overpumped circuit queen, not some comic book version of swank WeHo living. If that's considered a political act in the homogenized world of twenty-first century homosexuals, then so be it. — excerpt of "Praise For The Prancy Boys," by Clint Catalyst appears in first edition (ISBN # 1-932360-56-5)

I wish I could have told you how much talking and writing to you meant to me all year. How you were my bullshit detector. How you listened and kept me true, even when I wanted to block my ears, because you had no filter between your thoughts and your mouth. How you were my best friend, and how it was only because of you that I never felt isolated or desperate to attach myself to anyone at Laurinda.

Lussurioso: "Welcome, be not far off, we must be better acquainted. Push, be bold with us, thy hand!" Vindice: "With all my heart, i'faith. How dost, sweet musk-cat? When shall we lie together?" Lussurioso: (aside) "Wondrous knave! Gather him into boldness? 'Sfoot, the slave's Already as familiar as an ague, And shakes me at his pleasure! -- Friend, I can Forget myself in private, but elsewhere, I pray do you remember be." Vindice: "Oh, very well, sir. I conster myself saucy." Lussurioso: "What hast been? What profession?" Vindice: "A bone-setter." Lussurioso: "A bone-setter!" Vindice: "A bawd, my lord, one that sets bones together." Lussurioso: (aside) "Notable bluntness!

There’s a bluntness to Russian culture that generally rubs Westerners the wrong way. Gone are the fake niceties and verbal webs of politeness. You don’t smile at strangers or pretend to like anything you don’t. In Russia, if something is stupid, you say it’s stupid. If someone is being an asshole, you tell him he’s being an asshole. If you really like someone and are having a great time, you tell her that you like her and are having a great time. It doesn’t matter if this person is your friend, a stranger, or someone you met five minutes ago on the street.

Social scientists estimate that about 70 percent of our happiness stems from our relationships, both quantity and quality, with friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. During life’s difficult patches, camaraderie blunts our misery; during the good times, it boosts our happiness.

Any time someone gives you drugs, the purpose is to subdue. Always. Whether it is from a dealer, a friend, your mother/brother/sister/son, or your government--especially your government--the intention is to subdue, and always to feed another motive. Why? Because in getting high, your power and your intellect are blunted. Can the motive ever be in your best interests? Governments notoriously use sex, drink, and drugs to subdue their people. Notoriously. And we're falling for it.

Kings have no friends,' Stannis said bluntly, 'only subjects and enemies.

I'll be right here. Good luck, or break a leg, or something.” As Jay and Gregory turned and headed into the crowd, my traitorous eyes returned to the corner and found another pair or eyes staring darkly back. I dropped my gaze for three full seconds, and then lifted my eyes again, hesitant. The drummer was still staring at me, oblivious to the three girls trying to win back his attention. He put up one finger at the girls and said something that looked like, “Excuse me.” Oh, my goodness. Was he...? Oh, no. Yes, he was walking this way. My nerves shot into high alert. I looked around, but nobody else was near. When I looked back up, there he was, standing right in front of me. Good gracious, he was sexy-a word that had not existed in my personal vocabulary until that moment. This guy was sexy like it was his job or something. He looked straight into my eyes, which threw me off guard, because nobody ever looked me in the eye like that. Maybe Patti and Jay, but they didn't hold my stare like he was doing now. He didn't look away, and I found that I couldn't take my gaze off those blue eyes. “Who are you?” he asked in a blunt, almost confrontational way. I blinked. It was the strangest greeting I'd ever received. “I'm...Anna.” “Right. Anna. How very nice.” I tried to focus on his words and not his luxuriously accented voice, which made everything sound lovely. He leaned in closer. “But who are you?” What did that mean? Did I need to have some sort of title or social standing to enter his presence? “I just came with my friend Jay?” Oh, I hated when I got nervous and started talking in questions. I pointed in the general direction of the guys, but he didn't take his eyes off me. I began rambling. “They just wrote some songs. Jay and Gregory. That they wanted you to hear. Your band, I mean. They're really...good?” His eyes roamed all around my body, stopping to evaluate my sad, meager chest. I crossed my arms. When his gaze landed on that stupid freckle above my lip, I was hit by the scent of oranges and limes and something earthy, like the forest floor. It was pleasant in a masculine way. “Uh-huh.” He was closer to my face now, growling in that deep voice, but looking into my eyes again. “Very cute. And where is your angel?” My what? Was that some kind of British slang for boyfriend? I didn't know how to answer without continuing to sound pitiful. He lifted his dark eyebrows, waiting. “If you mean Jay, he's over there talking to some man in a suit. But he's not my boyfriend or my angel or whatever.” My face flushed with heat and I tightened my arms over my chest. I'd never met anyone with an accent like his, and I was ashamed of the effect it had on me. He was obviously rude, and yet I wanted him to keep talking to me. It didn't make any sense. His stance softened and he took a step back, seeming confused, although I still couldn't read his emotions. Why didn't he show any colors? He didn't seem drunk or high. And that red thing...what was that? It was hard not to stare at it. He finally looked over at Jay, who was deep in conversation with the manager-type man. “Not your boyfriend, eh?” He was smirking at me now. I looked away, refusing to answer. “Are you certain he doesn't fancy you?” Kaidan asked. I looked at him again. His smirk was now a naughty smile. “Yes,” I assured him with confidence. “I am.” “How do you know?” I couldn't very well tell him that the only time Jay's color had shown mild attraction to me was when I accidentally flashed him one day as I was taking off my sweatshirt, and my undershirt got pulled up too high. And even then it lasted only a few seconds before our embarrassment set in.

She remembered walking back from there last month, half-drunk with a gaggle of half-friends from her dorm, and when one of them asked her (only half-giving a shit) where she’d planned to go for Christmas break, Darby had answered bluntly: that it would require an act of God Himself to make her come back home to Utah. And apparently He’d been listening, because He’d blessed Darby’s mother with late-stage pancreatic cancer.

Well, my friend, if I may be blunt, all this time you have talked about how you walked away from your American life. How you walked away from your wife. And the reasons you have put forth to me about why and how your children would be better if you left. You may see your wife and children at anytime, however. They are only a sea away. This is the American loss I speak of. - A portion of Abasi's explanation of how ridiculous westerners can be.

I left out the part that I had a major crush on him and was enjoying my time with him more than I should. “What does that guy look like anyway?” Tyler asked. “Josh? Hot fireman.” No point in lying to him. He’d see for himself soon enough. And Tyler was never shocked by my bluntness. “Not hotter than me, I hope.” He was giving me that cocky grin of his right through the phone. The guy knew he was gorgeous. He didn’t sound particularly worried. “It’s kind of a crapshoot, actually. The two of you would really rake it in at one of those ‘save the children’ fund-raisers where the guys get auctioned off.” I’d go broke at that fund-raiser. For the kids, of course.

So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness— Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together—there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses!

But the heavy stroke which most of all distresses me is my dear Mother. I cannot overcome my too selfish sorrow, all her tenderness towards me, her care and anxiety for my welfare at all times, her watchfulness over my infant years, her advice and instruction in maturer age; all, all indear her memory to me, and highten my sorrow for her loss. At the same time I know a patient submission is my Duty. I will strive to obtain it! But the lenient hand of time alone can blunt the keen Edg of Sorrow. He who deignd to weep over a departed Friend, will surely forgive a sorrow which at all times desires to be bounded and restrained, by a firm Belief that a Being of infinite wisdom and unbounded Goodness, will carve out my portion in tender mercy towards me! Yea tho he slay me I will trust in him said holy Job. What tho his corrective Hand hath been streached against me; I will not murmer. Tho earthly comforts are taken away I will not repine, he who gave them has surely a right to limit their Duration, and has continued them to me much longer than deserved. I might have been striped of my children as many others have been. I might o! forbid it Heaven, I might have been left a solitary widow. Still I have many blessing left, many comforts to be thankfull for, and rejoice in. I am not left to mourn as one without hope. My dear parent knew in whom she had Believed...The violence of her disease soon weakned her so that she was unable to converse, but whenever she could speak, she testified her willingness to leave the world and an intire resignation to the Divine Will. She retaind her Senses to the last moment of her Existance, and departed the world with an easy tranquility, trusting in the merrits of a Redeamer," (p. 81 & 82).

It’s normally agreed that the question “How are you?” doesn’t put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer. So when asked these days, I tend to say something cryptic like, “A bit early to say.” (If it’s the wonderful staff at my oncology clinic who inquire, I sometimes go so far as to respond, “I seem to have cancer today.”) Nobody wants to be told about the countless minor horrors and humiliations that become facts of “life” when your body turns from being a friend to being a foe: the boring switch from chronic constipation to its sudden dramatic opposite; the equally nasty double cross of feeling acute hunger while fearing even the scent of food; the absolute misery of gut–wringing nausea on an utterly empty stomach; or the pathetic discovery that hair loss extends to the disappearance of the follicles in your nostrils, and thus to the childish and irritating phenomenon of a permanently runny nose. Sorry, but you did ask... It’s no fun to appreciate to the full the truth of the materialist proposition that I don’t have a body, I am a body. But it’s not really possible to adopt a stance of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” either. Like its original, this is a prescription for hypocrisy and double standards. Friends and relatives, obviously, don’t really have the option of not making kind inquiries. One way of trying to put them at their ease is to be as candid as possible and not to adopt any sort of euphemism or denial. The swiftest way of doing this is to note that the thing about Stage Four is that there is no such thing as Stage Five. Quite rightly, some take me up on it. I recently had to accept that I wasn’t going to be able to attend my niece’s wedding, in my old hometown and former university in Oxford. This depressed me for more than one reason, and an especially close friend inquired, “Is it that you’re afraid you’ll never see England again?” As it happens he was exactly right to ask, and it had been precisely that which had been bothering me, but I was unreasonably shocked by his bluntness. I’ll do the facing of hard facts, thanks. Don’t you be doing it too. And yet I had absolutely invited the question. Telling someone else, with deliberate realism, that once I’d had a few more scans and treatments I might be told by the doctors that things from now on could be mainly a matter of “management,” I again had the wind knocked out of me when she said, “Yes, I suppose a time comes when you have to consider letting go.” How true, and how crisp a summary of what I had just said myself. But again there was the unreasonable urge to have a kind of monopoly on, or a sort of veto over, what was actually sayable. Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self–centered and even solipsistic.

There's not much to say about loneliness, for it's not a broad subject. Any child, alone in her room, can journey across its entire breadth, from border to border, in an hour. Though not broad, our subject is deep. Loneliness is deeper than the ocean. But here, too, there is no mystery. Our intrepid child is liable to fall quickly to the very bottom without even trying. And since the depths of loneliness cannot sustain human life, the child will swim to the surface again in short order, no worse for wear. Some of us, though, can bring breathing aids down with us for longer stays: imaginary friends, drugs and alcohol, mind-numbing entertainment, hobbies, ironclad routine, and pets. (Pets are some of the best enablers of loneliness, your own cuddlesome Murphy notwithstanding.) With the help of these aids, a poor sap can survive the airless depths of loneliness long enough to experience its true horror -- duration. Did you know, Myren Vole, that when presented with the same odor (even my own) for a duration of only several minutes, the olfactory nerves become habituated -- as my daughter used to say -- to it and cease transmitting its signal to the brain? Likewise, most pain loses its edge in time. Time heals all -- as they say. Even the loss of a loved one, perhaps life's most wrenching pain, is blunted in time. It recedes into the background where it can be borne with lesser pains. Not so our friend loneliness, which grows only more keen and insistent with each passing hour. Loneliness is as needle sharp now as it was an hour ago, or last week. But if loneliness is the wound, what's so secret about it? I submit to you, Myren Vole, that the most painful death of all is suffocation by loneliness. And by the time I started on my portrait of Jean, I was ten years into it (with another five to go). It is from that vantage point that I tell you that loneliness itself is the secret. It's a secret you cannot tell anyone. Why? Because to confess your loneliness is to confess your failure as a human being. To confess would only cause others to pity and avoid you, afraid that what you have is catching. Your condition is caused by a lack of human relationship, and yet to admit to it only drives your possible rescuers farther away (while attracting cats). So you attempt to hide your loneliness in public, to behave, in fact, as though you have too many friends already, and thus you hope to attract people who will unwittingly save you. But it never works that way. Your condition is written all over your face, in the hunch of your shoulders, in the hollowness of your laugh. You fool no one. Believe me in this; I've tried all the tricks of the lonely man.

Nothing was more characteristic of Sir Walter Pole than Surprize. His eyes grew large, his eyebrows rose half an inch upon his face and he leant suddenly backwards and altogether he resembled nothing so much as a figure in the engravings of Mr Rowlandson or Mr Gillray. In public life Surprize served Sir Walter very well. “But, surely,” he cried, “You cannot mean to say —!” And, always supposing that the gentleman who was so foolish as to suggest – in Sir Walter’s hearing was no friend or yours, or if you have that sort of mischief in you that likes to see blunt wits confounded by sharp ones, you would be entertained. On

When we bring personality types together, communication breakdowns are inevitable…Thinking types may feel they’re being considerate by getting straight to a point in a conversation, unaware that their feeling friends perceive them as uncomfortably blunt. Intuitive types may think they are contributing by sharing their grand plans in a team meeting, unaware that the thought of so many changes at once completely stresses out their sensing colleagues. Extroverted types may feel disappointed when their spouses don’t immediately respond with enthusiasm to their ideas, ignorant that they just need time to think the ideas over.

Franklin wrote a whole essay on the subject and told one of his friends, "I have long been of your opinion, that your legal provision for the poor [in England] is a very great evil, operating as it does to the encouragement of idleness. We have followed your example, and begin now to see our error, and, I hope, shall reform it." 119    A survey of Franklin's views on counter-productive compassion might be summarized as follows:    1. Compassion which gives a drunk the means to increase his drunkenness is counter-productive. 120    2. Compassion which breeds debilitating dependency and weakness is counter-productive. 121    3. Compassion which blunts the desire or necessity to work for a living is counter-productive. 122    4. Compassion which smothers the instinct

Cassidy and I wouldn’t be friends if we met today. She’s blunt, even when she shouldn’t be. She’s cynical to the point of perpetual gloom. Her interest in culture begins and ends with fashion magazines—hence the gloom. She’s still the best friend I’ve ever had. We’re there for each other in a way no one else is. That’s what counts, not the music she listens to or the books she doesn’t read.

Sometimes I feel it is best to experience as little as possible. I have become so accustomed to the sight of blood that this afternoon I witnessed the execution of two soldiers for cowardice. All that occurred to me was that their severed heads went rolling about just like dice. This only goes to show what I have always held: that horrors do not sharpen but blunt the senses. An old friend once set above his vestibule door the blood-soaked cuirass in which his father was killed. He put it there, he said, as a perpetual reminder of the horror of violence. And was he reminded? The first time he passed the vestibule, yes. The second time, maybe. The third time not at all, and thereafter he grew used to it, and was later killed in an amphitheatre riot with his fingers on another man's throat.

I asked another friend what it’s like being the mother of a black son. “The condition of black life is one of mourning,” she said bluntly. For her, mourning lived in real time inside her and her son’s reality: At any moment she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black: no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street, no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black. Eleven

So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness: Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together; there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses!

Sarai was a lovely woman still, and even after two dozen years he could grow hard if she looked at him a certain way. Sometimes, he wondered about Vistorini, and how he could live a life without a woman’s warmth in his bed. Or children. What would it be, to miss the sight of them, sweet-faced infants growing, changing, year by year, finding their paths to an honorable maturity? He wondered if the wine his friend drank so excessively was a way to blunt those needs, so natural, so God given.

In some ways, though she had very high moral standards, she was actually the least judgmental person I knew. But ever since the seventh grade, she’d always given it to me straight. It had caused a few arguments over the years, as sometimes she hurt my feelings with her bluntness. But I cherished our filterless relationship and considered it the truest measure of a best friend, greater than pure affection. Who was the person you trusted enough to be your most transparent self with, in both good times and bad?

Catti-brie had to believe that now, recalling the scene in light of the drow's words. She had to believe that her love for Wulfgar had been real, very real, and not misplaced, that he was all she had thought him to be. Now she could. For the first time since Wulfgar's death, Cattie-brie could remember him without pangs of guilt, without the fears that, had he lived, she would not have married him. Because Drizzt was right; Wulfgar would have admitted the error despite his pride, and he would have grown, as he always had before. That was the finest quality of the man, an almost childlike quality, that viewed the world and his own life as getting better, as moving toward a better way in a better place. What followed was the most sincere smile on Cattie-brie's face in many, many months. She felt suddenly free, suddenly complete with her past, reconciled and able to move forward with her life. She looked at the drow, wide-eyed, with a curiosity that seemed to surprise Drizzt. She could go on, but what exactly did that mean? Slowly, Cattie-brie began shaking her head, and Drizzt came to understand that the movement had something to do with him. He lifted a slender hand and brushed some stray hair back from her cheek, his ebony skin contrasting starkly with her light skin, even in the quiet light of night. "I do love you," the drow admitted. The blunt statement did not catch Catti-brie by surprise, not at all. "As you love me," Drizzt went on, easily, confident that his words were on the mark. "And I, too, must look ahead now, must find my place among my friends, beside you, without Wulfgar." "Perhaps in the future," Catti-brie said, her voice barely a whisper. "Perhaps," Drizzt agreed. "But for now..." "Friends," Catti-brie finished. Drizzt moved his hand back from her cheek, held it in the air before her face, and she reached up and clasped it firmly. Friends

Let me put it bluntly: anyone who says money isn’t important doesn’t have any! Rich people understand the importance of money and the place it has in our society. On the other hand, poor people validate their financial ineptitude by using irrelevant comparisons. They’ll argue, “Well, money isn’t as important as love.” Now, is that comparison dumb or what? What’s more important, your arm or your leg? Maybe they’re both important. Listen up, my friends: Money is extremely important in the areas in which it works, and extremely unimportant in the areas in which it doesn’t. And although love may make the world go round, it sure doesn’t pay for the building

Maxims If you work harder and look more closely, there's always something you can whittle away. It's when you get to the essence of your idea that you'll have something to be proud of. 196 Blunt is Simplicity. Meandering is Complexity. 13 The simplest way isn't always the easiest. 2 You can't let yourself be talked into going along with something when you know there's something better. Ever. 15 Apple encourages big thinking but small everything else. 25 Simplicity's best friend: Small groups of smart people. 26 Great ideas travel with a degree of risk. 39 Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff. ~ Steve Jobs's advice to Nike. 51 The less the merrier. 54 Simplicity never stands till. 70 To accomplish great things two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time. ~ Leonard Bernstein, 72 Aim realistically high. 72 Never stop moving. 73 As long as you've got new ideas to share, you are free to re-present the old ones. 110 Simplicity gains power through brevity. 133 Simplicity is in a hurry. 134 Simplicity has universal appeal. 161 It's really hard to design things by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. ~ Steve Jobs, 164 Take advice, not orders. 166 So it must become your nature never to relent. You never want to come out even, because in this game a tie goes to Complexity. 192

I asked another friend what it's like being the mother of a black son. "The condition of black life is one of mourning," she said bluntly. For her, mourning lived in real time inside her and her son's reality. At any moment she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black: no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street, no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black.

Colby arrived the next day, with stitches down one lean cheek and a new prosthesis. He held it up as Cecily came out to the car to greet him. He held it up as Cecily came out to the car to greet him. “Nice, huh? Doesn’t it look more realistic than the last one?” “What happened to the last one?” she asked. “Got blown off. Don’t ask where,” he added darkly. “I know nothing,” she assured him. “Come on in. Leta made sandwiches.” Leta had only seen Colby once, on a visit with Tate. She was polite, but a little remote, and it showed. “She doesn’t like me,” Colby told Cecily when they were sitting on the steps later that evening. “She thinks I’m sleeping with you,” she said simply.” So does Tate.” “Why?” “Because I let him think I was,” she said bluntly. He gave her a hard look. “Bad move, Cecily.” “I won’t let him think I’m waiting around for him to notice me,” she said icily. “He’s already convinced that I’m in love with him, and that’s bad enough. I can’t have him know that I’m…well, what I am. I do have a little pride.” “I’m perfectly willing, if you’re serious,” he said matter-of-factly. His face broke into a grin, belying the solemnity of the words. “Or are you worried that I might not be able to handle it with one arm?” She burst out laughing and pressed affectionately against his side. “I adore you, I really do. But I had a bad experience in my teens. I’ve had therapy and all, but it’s still sort of traumatic for me to think about real intimacy.” “Even with Tate?” he probed gently. She wasn’t touching that line with a pole. “Tate doesn’t want me.” “You keep saying that, and he keeps making a liar of you.” “I don’t understand.” “He came to see me last night. Just after I spoke to you.” He ran his fingers down his damaged cheek. She caught her breath. “I thought you got that overseas!” “Tate wears a big silver turquoise ring on his middle right finger,” he reminded her. “It does a bit of damage when he hits people with it.” “He hit you? Why?” she exclaimed. “Because you told him we were sleeping together,” he said simply. “Honest to God, Cecily, I wish you’d tell me first when you plan to play games. I was caught off guard.” “What did he do after he hit you?” “I hit him, and one thing led to another. I don’t have a coffee table anymore. We won’t even discuss what he did to my best ashtry.” “I’m so sorry!” “Tate and I are pretty much matched in a fight,” he said. “Not that we’ve ever been in many. He hits harder than Pierce Hutton does in a temper.” He scowled down at her. “Are you sure Tate doesn’t want you? I can’t think of another reason he’d try to hammer my floor with my head.” “Big brother Tate, to the rescue,” she said miserably. She laughed bitterly. “He thinks you’re a bad risk.” “I am,” he said easily. “I like having you as my friend.” He smiled. “Me, too. There aren’t many people who stuck by me over the years, you know. When Maureen left me, I went crazy. I couldn’t live with the pain, so I found ways to numb it.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I came to my senses until you sent me to that psychologist over in Baltimore.” He glanced down at her. “Did you know she keeps snakes?” he added. “We all have our little quirks.

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honourable: What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it: they are wise and honourable, And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, That love my friend; and that they know full well That gave me public leave to speak of him: For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me speak. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what: Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves? Alas, you know not: I must tell you then: You have forgot the will I told you of. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. To every Roman Plebeian he gives, To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours and new-planted orchards, On this side Tiber; he hath left them you, And to your heirs for ever, common pleasures, To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?

You want us to love you, is that right? Love, Tabitha Crum, is to be earned, not given away to just anyone like a festering case of fleas. She'd been seven when her mother had made the comparison of love and irritable itching. Tabitha remembered the statement quite well because it was the same year children at school had suddenly gotten it in their heads that she had a case of head lice. That had been a difficult time and nobody had gotten close to Tabitha since. Of course, with the addition of a pet mouse over the last year, her lack of friendship could perhaps be further explained by the misapprehension that she spoke to herself. Pemberley was a most excellent consultant in all matters, but he tended to stay out of sight, so Tabitha could somewhat understand the slanderous comments. Or it might have been the unfortunate, uneven unattractive, blunt-scissored haircut her mother was so fond of giving her. Or it could have been the simple truth that making friends can be an awkward and a difficult thing when it's a one-sided endeavor and you've a pet mouse and you've been painted as odd and quiet and shy, when really you're just a bit misunderstood. In any case, nobody at St. John's seemed lacking for companionship except her. But Tabitha reminded herself that there were far worse things than not having friends. In fact, she often made a game of listing far worse things: • eating the contents of a sneeze • creatures crawling into her ear holes. • losing a body part (Though that one was debatable depending on the part. An ear or small toe might be worth a friend or two.

It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grubworm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our own. So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness — Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together — there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses!

And then in a swift, calculating move, Rothbury sprang forward, covering her body with his own. For a second her breath felt trapped in her chest and she was instantly immobile underneath his weight. His warm, hard thigh sat heavy between hers. Panting from exertion, a shameful lick of heat ignited deep in her belly. Effortlessly, he joined her wrists together, holding them above her head with only one hand while the long, blunt-tipped fingers of the other trailed a silky path down her cheek. "Who are you?" he whispered. Her breath hitched at the explosion of feeling and thought thrumming through her. He looked so dominant above her, so beautiful, like he was created specifically for seduction. None of her wicked imaginings had prepared her for the plethora of sensations he sparked with only his fingertips upon her face. Belatedly, she realized her body refused to listen to her mind. She had quit squirming. In fact, she had begun to relish the intoxicating feel of his long, lean-muscled body atop hers. His warm, bare chest pressed onto her bodice, his solid thigh planted firmly against her sex. Her eyes dipped to his mouth, which was partially open, baring his straight white teeth. All she would have to do was arch her neck and her mouth would fasten to his. She shivered, surprised and ashamed at the way her body reacted to him. She needed to escape before he discovered her identity. But her mind warred between what was right and what felt wonderful. In the end, years of dire warnings from her pious father about the sins of the flesh returned at least some of her good sense. "Get off of me," she demanded, albeit weakly. "Absolutely not," he growled, his breath feathering hotly against her mouth, her cheek, her neck. "I'll not let you get away now. Not before I find out who you are. Wanted a taste, did you?

The phone rang. It was a familiar voice. It was Alan Greenspan. Paul O'Neill had tried to stay in touch with people who had served under Gerald Ford, and he'd been reasonably conscientious about it. Alan Greenspan was the exception. In his case, the effort was constant and purposeful. When Greenspan was the chairman of Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and O'Neill was number two at OMB, they had become a kind of team. Never social so much. They never talked about families or outside interests. It was all about ideas: Medicare financing or block grants - a concept that O'Neill basically invented to balance federal power and local autonomy - or what was really happening in the economy. It became clear that they thought well together. President Ford used to have them talk about various issues while he listened. After a while, each knew how the other's mind worked, the way married couples do. In the past fifteen years, they'd made a point of meeting every few months. It could be in New York, or Washington, or Pittsburgh. They talked about everything, just as always. Greenspan, O'Neill told a friend, "doesn't have many people who don't want something from him, who will talk straight to him. So that's what we do together - straight talk." O'Neill felt some straight talk coming in. "Paul, I'll be blunt. We really need you down here," Greenspan said. "There is a real chance to make lasting changes. We could be a team at the key moment, to do the things we've always talked about." The jocular tone was gone. This was a serious discussion. They digressed into some things they'd "always talked about," especially reforming Medicare and Social Security. For Paul and Alan, the possibility of such bold reinventions bordered on fantasy, but fantasy made real. "We have an extraordinary opportunity," Alan said. Paul noticed that he seemed oddly anxious. "Paul, your presence will be an enormous asset in the creation of sensible policy." Sensible policy. This was akin to prayer from Greenspan. O'Neill, not expecting such conviction from his old friend, said little. After a while, he just thanked Alan. He said he always respected his counsel. He said he was thinking hard about it, and he'd call as soon as he decided what to do. The receiver returned to its cradle. He thought about Greenspan. They were young men together in the capital. Alan stayed, became the most noteworthy Federal Reserve Bank chairman in modern history and, arguably the most powerful public official of the past two decades. O'Neill left, led a corporate army, made a fortune, and learned lessons - about how to think and act, about the importance of outcomes - that you can't ever learn in a government. But, he supposed, he'd missed some things. There were always trade-offs. Talking to Alan reminded him of that. Alan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, White House correspondent for NBC news, lived a fine life. They weren't wealthy like Paul and Nancy. But Alan led a life of highest purpose, a life guided by inquiry. Paul O'Neill picked up the telephone receiver, punched the keypad. "It's me," he said, always his opening. He started going into the details of his trip to New York from Washington, but he's not much of a phone talker - Nancy knew that - and the small talk trailed off. "I think I'm going to have to do this." She was quiet. "You know what I think," she said. She knew him too well, maybe. How bullheaded he can be, once he decides what's right. How he had loved these last few years as a sovereign, his own man. How badly he was suited to politics, as it was being played. And then there was that other problem: she'd almost always been right about what was best for him. "Whatever, Paul. I'm behind you. If you don't do this, I guess you'll always regret it." But it was clearly about what he wanted, what he needed. Paul thanked her. Though somehow a thank-you didn't seem appropriate. And then he realized she was crying.

Sky's The Limit" [Intro] Good evening ladies and gentlemen How's everybody doing tonight I'd like to welcome to the stage, the lyrically acclaimed I like this young man because when he came out He came out with the phrase, he went from ashy to classy I like that So everybody in the house, give a warm round of applause For the Notorious B.I.G The Notorious B.I.G., ladies and gentlemen give it up for him y'all [Verse 1] A nigga never been as broke as me - I like that When I was young I had two pair of Lees, besides that The pin stripes and the gray The one I wore on Mondays and Wednesdays While niggas flirt I'm sewing tigers on my shirts, and alligators You want to see the inside, I see you later Here comes the drama, oh, that's that nigga with the fake, blaow Why you punch me in my face, stay in your place Play your position, here come my intuition Go in this nigga pocket, rob him while his friends watching And hoes clocking, here comes respect His crew's your crew or they might be next Look at they man eye, big man, they never try So we rolled with them, stole with them I mean loyalty, niggas bought me milks at lunch The milks was chocolate, the cookies, butter crunch 88 Oshkosh and blue and white dunks, pass the blunts [Hook: 112] Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on Just keep on pressing on Sky is the limit and you know that you can have What you want, be what you want Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on Just keep on pressing on Sky is the limit and you know that you can have What you want, be what you want, have what you want, be what you want [Verse 2] I was a shame, my crew was lame I had enough heart for most of them Long as I got stuff from most of them It's on, even when I was wrong I got my point across They depicted me the boss, of course My orange box-cutter make the world go round Plus I'm fucking bitches ain't my homegirls now Start stacking, dabbled in crack, gun packing Nickname Medina make the seniors tote my Niñas From gym class, to English pass off a global The only nigga with a mobile can't you see like Total Getting larger in waists and tastes Ain't no telling where this felon is heading, just in case Keep a shell at the tip of your melon, clear the space Your brain was a terrible thing to waste 88 on gates, snatch initial name plates Smoking spliffs with niggas, real-life beginner killers Praying God forgive us for being sinners, help us out [Hook] [Verse 3] After realizing, to master enterprising I ain't have to be in school by ten, I then Began to encounter with my counterparts On how to burn the block apart, break it down into sections Drugs by the selections Some use pipes, others use injections Syringe sold separately Frank the Deputy Quick to grab my Smith & Wesson like my dick was missing To protect my position, my corner, my lair While we out here, say the Hustlers Prayer If the game shakes me or breaks me I hope it makes me a better man Take a better stand Put money in my mom's hand Get my daughter this college grant so she don't need no man Stay far from timid Only make moves when your heart's in it And live the phrase sky's the limit Motherfuckers See you chumps on top [Hook]

FORGIVE ME, FOR I HAVE SINNED . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . . Romans 3:23 Every single human being has sinned and will sin again. Darn it. I’m right there at the top having to acknowledge mine. Double darn. I was baptized Catholic as a baby, part of a big, loyal Irish Catholic family led by our patriarch, Grandpa Clem Sheeran. Later, when I became of age to make the conscious decision to publicly testify of my walk with Christ, I was baptized in the icy waters of Little Beaver Lake. When Pastor Riley dunked me under the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I was then lifted out of the water and . . . I was still the same Sarah Heath. Yes, I’d just testified to joining the “righteousness of Christ Jesus,” but I still lived in the fallen world, a world overrun by sin, which is easy to see just by looking at the news, or in the mirror. No one is perfect, and in case we forget that, this verse bluntly reminds us we all need the mercy of God in the midst of our mess. And friends, with all due respect, we are a mess. Consider the example of our elected national leaders supporting a treaty with Iran that lifts sanctions against this enemy nation instead of punishing its evil acts—while still fully acknowledging that it’s the top sponsor of worldwide Islamic terrorism and is hell-bent on destroying both America and Israel. Yes, we are a mess. Lord have mercy. And what about us? It may be a hard-to-accept truth, but fallen man’s nature puts us all in the same boat until we ask for the life-saving newness God offers. Accepting it is the only way to clean up the mess. It’s an important step to honestly admit that we try to excuse things in our own lives because they don’t seem as bad when compared to what someone else has done. But we’ve got to call those things what they are: sin. Only then can we repent and be forgiven. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, examine your conscience, confess your sins, and rest in the comfort of the Lord’s forgiveness.

It’s hard to imagine how Dad managed to do it all—to be a top student, a star athlete, a man with a huge group of friends, and a devoted husband and father. As Mother put it with characteristic bluntness, “He worked hard.” That’s true. George Bush did not waste time. He filled every minute of every day with activity.

Even a year later, Bush remarked to a friend, with uncharacteristic bluntness: “I wouldn’t care if I never see Richard Nixon again.

I fought through the boisterous crowd and saw that the bowl-shaped field was certainly not vacant anymore, its new occupant a rather unsightly scarecrow dressed in a Cokyrian uniform, framed against the tranquil green of summer grass. I gazed down the hill, ignoring the shoving and jostling of the people around me, brimming with pride. This was the work of my cousin. Only he and his friends would have had the nerve to do something like this. Cokyrians were preventing Hytanicans from descending the slope, pushing us back like cattle and trying to make us disband. When one of the soldiers passed close to me, I spat on his boots, jumping back so the blunt end of the sword he thrust at me tickled my temple and nothing more. I grinned at him, then tensed as someone put their hands on my shoulders from behind. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” the person said in a lazily irreverent tone that I knew well. “Whatever befell the poor soldier who lost his uniform to that creature?” Before I could turn around, Steldor tugged me backward through the crowd, out of harm’s way. Releasing me, he strode toward the thoroughfare, forcing me to jog in order to keep pace with him. “How did you manage it?” I breathlessly asked, scrutinizing his handsome profile. He stood several inches taller than me, and it was difficult to look at him, keep up and dodge people all at once. Quite the opposite, the throng parted for him, his height and build such that he could not pass notice, and his recent actions earning him a few hardy pats on the back. “You really shouldn’t be out here, Shaselle,” he responded, sidestepping my actual question. He glanced at me, and despite his next words, there was bemusement in his dark brown eyes. “And you certainly shouldn’t be spitting on Cokyrian boots.” “You laugh in their faces--why shouldn’t I spit on their boots?” I countered, earning a smirk and a shrug. “Perhaps…because home is a better place for you?” Despite the tease in his voice, there was seriousness behind what he said.

Ayub saw Hinduism and communism as equal threats to Pakistan. In 1959, he wrote in the foreword of a book The Ideology of Pakistan and Its Implementation that one of the questions of concern for Pakistanis was ‘how can the offensive of Hinduism and Communism against the ideology of Islam be combated?’30 In his autobiography, which was published towards the end of his regime in 1968, Ayub made clear his low regard for Hindus and bluntly expressed his steadfast views on why they could not be friends of Pakistan.

How should anything be sacred to an advertiser?" demanded Ingleby, helping himself to four lumps of sugar. "We spend our whole time asking intimate questions of perfect strangers and it naturally blunts our finer feelings. ‘Mother! Has your Child Learnt Regular Habits?’ ‘Are you Troubled with Fullness after Eating?’ ‘Are you satisfied about your Drains?’ ‘Are you Sure that your Toilet-Paper is Germ-free?’ ‘Your most Intimate Friends dare not Ask you this question.’ ‘Do you Suffer from Superfluous Hair?’ ‘Do you Like them to Look at your Hands?’ ‘Do you ever ask yourself about Body-Odour?’ ‘If anything Happened to You, would your Loved Ones be Safe?’ ‘Why Spend so much Time in the Kitchen?’ ‘You think that Carpet is Clean - but is it?’ ‘Are you a Martyr to Dandruff?’ Upon my soul, I sometimes wonder why the long-suffering public doesn’t rise up and slay us.

What a vibe! Do you wanna walk with me? I’m headed this way.” “No,” said Andrei. “But thank you.” David shifted his arms and laughed. He did not expect rejection. David considered himself friendly and a young man of great energy and there could be no possible reason why anybody should deny his invitation. “Oh, why not?” “David...” Andrei started on an effortless admission. The comet knew exactly how he felt and did not measure his blow. It was fair this way, so he locked his eyes kindly on David and shared: “I do not want to walk with you. There’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t need to be friends. And this is okay.” “Oh. Did I...say something bad earlier?” “Mate, it’s just who you are. And who I am. I don’t want to pretend that it’s pleasant to be with you.” “Dude, that really hurts me that you said that, Andrei.” “What can we do, honestly, David? Lie instead? That’s how it is. It can’t be changed. It’s nothing on you—just the both of us combined Not every person we meet is right for us. If we treat everyone like friends, nothing is earned, you know what I mean?” “Alright, dude. Whatever. That’s totally your choice, so all good. But that literally makes no sense, so.” Andrei looked down the road, which he owed, and not David, and so withdrew. “Then let me make no sense. Cheers. Good luck with everything.

What a vibe! Do you wanna walk with me? I’m headed this way.” “No,” said Andrei. “But thank you.” David shifted his arms and laughed. He did not expect rejection. David considered himself friendly and a young man of great energy and there could be no possible reason why anybody should deny his invitation. “Oh, why not?” “David...” Andrei started on an effortless admission. The comet knew exactly how he felt and did not measure his blow. It was fair this way, so he locked his eyes kindly on David and shared: “I do not want to walk with you. There’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t need to be friends. And this is okay.” “Oh. Did I...say something bad earlier?” “Mate, it’s just who you are. And who I am. I don’t want to pretend that it’s pleasant to be with you.” “Dude, that really hurts me that you said that, Andrei.” “What can we do, honestly, David? Lie instead? That’s how it is. It can’t be changed. It’s nothing on you—just the both of us combined. Not every person we meet is right for us. If we treat everyone like friends, nothing is earned, you know what I mean?” “Alright, dude. Whatever. That’s totally your choice, so all good. But that literally makes no sense, so.” Andrei looked down the road, which he owed, and not David, and so withdrew. “Then let me make no sense. Cheers. Good luck with everything.

Blunt, funny, and kind. She was the best friend anyone could dream of.

Why are you here?' ... 'My husband,' the word poisonous and foul on my tongue, 'experimented on and then cobbled together dead body parts to create a monster. Once that was accomplished, he went on to murder his own brother and frame my best friend for the murder so that she would be hanged. Then he tried to use her body to practice his dark science on, in preparation for eventually changing me from living to dead, and back again to a new form of being that would never corrupt or die or be parted from him. I told him I was not interested in being his wife under those particular circumstances.' The women's eyes were wide, and she scooted several inches away from me, pushing herself along the floor

So, despite the popular view of Stoicism as a philosophy that would strip us of most emotions, the ancient Stoics argue that the very best of us show rational exuberance and desire, and a cautious wariness, lest we be too easily led astray or deceived. We cherish friends and nurture warm and welcoming attitudes toward them. This is what it is to be righteous. Put bluntly, even sages have emotional skin in the game.

I think about patients who present ideal scenarios and insist that they can only be happy with that exact situation. If he didn’t drop out of business school to become a writer, he’d be my dream guy (so I’ll break up with him and keep dating hedge-fund managers who bore me). If the job wasn’t across the bridge, it would be the perfect opportunity (so I’ll stay in my dead-end job and keep telling you how much I envy my friends’ careers). If she didn’t have a kid, I’d marry her. Certainly we all have our deal-breakers. But when patients repeatedly engage in this kind of analysis, sometimes I’ll say, “If the queen had balls, she’d be the king.” If you go through life picking and choosing, if you don’t recognize that “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” you may deprive yourself of joy. At first patients are taken aback by my bluntness, but ultimately it saves them months of treatment. “The

You do know scones are not donuts, right?" Nina wasn't one to pass up any baked goods, but a donut was a donut. No scone would do. "This is not your white, British-royals high tea, my friend. This is Highland Park high tea. It opened a month ago, and I think we're about to have our whole world rocked." The Jam's exterior was black-and-white---- if you blinked you'd miss it. But when they went inside Nina immediately spotted a colorful mural of dinosaurs seated on velvet cushions, eating donuts and drinking out of porcelain cups. A pristine glass display case on the opposite wall featured rows and rows of endless donuts--- a happy welcoming committee of frosting and dough. "We'll be having tea for two," Jasmine said at the counter. "And for my donut, could I get the Swirly Rosewater, please?" As soon as she saw the names and flavors of the donuts, she instantly knew two things: one, she was going to love these, and two, Leo would absolutely hate them. Nina suddenly felt sympathy for Leo any time a contestant created a unique flavor pairing on the show. She raced to find the donut her friend had ordered in the case, and landed on a frosted pink cake donut that had a lemon rosewater glaze topped with roasted pistachios. "You live your life in pink, Jas." "No better color. So from what I read online, the deal is that instead of scones, they do vegan donuts---" Nina's eyes narrowed, and Jasmine glared right back. "Don't judge. What are you going to get?" "I need chocolate," Nina said. She scanned the rows in search of the perfect solution. "May I recommend our Chocolate from the Crypt donut?" the saleswoman suggested from behind the display. Her sharp bangs and blunt ponytail bobbed as she explained, "It's our fall-themed donut--- chocolate cake with a chocolate glaze, and it's got a kick from the cayenne pepper and cinnamon we add in." "Oh, my donut," Nina said. In the case was an absolutely gorgeous chocolate confection--- the cayenne and cinnamon flakes on the outside created a black-and-orange effect. "I am sold." "You got it." The saleswoman nodded and rang them up. A narrow hallway covered in murals of cartoon animals drinking tea led them to the official tearoom. Soaring ceilings revealed exposed beams and brick walls, signaling that the building was likely older and newly restored. Modern, barrel-back walnut chairs were clustered around ultrasleek Scandinavian round tables. Nina felt like she'd followed Jasmine down a rabbit hole and emerged into the modern interpretation of the Mad Hatter's tea party. "This is like..." Nina began. "It's a fun aesthetic." "I know, right?" Jasmine replied as they sat down. "It makes me feel like I'm not cool enough to be here, but glad I got invited." Nina picked up the prix fixe high tea menu on the table. The Jam's version of finger sandwiches were crispy "chicken" sliders, potato-hash tacos and mini banh mi, and in lieu of scones, they offered cornbread with raspberry jam and their signature donuts. "And it's all vegan...?" "Yes, my friendly carnivore, and hopefully delicious.

Why did we never kiss?” Haneul never drinks this much around me, but I came to find out alcohol makes him blunt. I shrug. “We’re friends.” “Friends can kiss.” “They can,” I nod. “We could kiss.” “We could.” “Maybe the universe wants us to kiss. It’s been two years since we became friends, and no other girl is as important to me as you are.

Belle was the kind of best friend who loved fiercely. She was honest with me always — bluntly so — and she never let me get too comfortable in my little land of control. Just when she saw me slipping into any kind of complacency, she would challenge me. I hated her as much as I loved her for that.

I am a terribly cruel friend. I shouldn’t apologize for it, but I do. “I am sorry for being so harsh.” I told him with full sincerity. “I need to be this way.” I admitted my meanness like a shrug woven from get the fuck over it.

The good news was that the smoke, whatever its source, was not getting closer to us. The bad news was that it was moving towards Oban. We wasted no time rowing across the loch. The group we’d already sent over remained visible and clearly busy, though doing what was anybody’s guess from our vantage point in the birlinn. It was getting on past noon, and I hated the idea of leaving the birlinn behind. Crafting it had been a singularly powerful experience, one that I wasn’t sure was repeatable. The birlinn we’d made was unique. In the end, though, it was a boat. It wasn’t alive like the three hundred people we were trying to keep breathing. Not to mention the thousands in Oban who could die. I’d planned to take one of the oars to give a rower a break, but I must have looked haggard. When I’d gone to offer, the bloke with the oar had taken one look at me and said, “Naw, mate.” Sitting on a thwart next to Eilidh, I fervently wished for something to distract me from the radiating warmth on my left. Rowing would at least give me something to do that wasn’t thinking about that heat or second guessing all the decisions we’d made in the past few days. We could have taken the strongest of us and returned to Oban, leaving the other three hundred to take the slower route around the loch. Sure, that was a possibility. But if we’d done that, we’d have left them vulnerable, including the children. That wasn’t acceptable to me or to anyone else. Oban had the advantage of numbers and at least some preparation at this point; the people with us did not. There were any number of things we could be questioning, but if we sat here picking apart the instincts we’d followed, all we’d do was pick up an ulcer. We were still alive. That was all that mattered. I tuned back in to the birlinn to hear a couple of the rowers talking, both of them darting glances at me and Eilidh in the process. “. . . wrecked all of Sackington’s guns and stole his grenades,” one of them said, not really trying to be quiet. Eilidh zeroed in on him like a bloodhound catching a whiff of the quarry. “Yes. We did.” “Erm, he wasn’t saying it was a bad thing!” one of the rowers blurted out. “Yes, I was! We could have used those instead of hitting things with sticks, for fuck’s sake,” the other one said. “No offense.” “Mate, they don’t even work anymore,” I said, and when I could almost see his thoughts pivot to but there’s magic now, I sighed. “We happened to be present when someone figured out how to use their magic to fire a rifle at one of Bawbag’s simulacra. Not only did the bullet literally bounce right back, but it killed his daughter when it ricocheted, and his next shot was dead on. Can you guess what happened then?” “He died,” said the guy who had tried to reassure me they weren’t questioning that decision. He had sandy brown hair that was a mess of waves half stuck to his head with sweat from the exertion, and his muscles were bulging out of his shirt—guess he was getting those Strength increases. “Did he die?” the other bloke asked. “Aye, he might as well have just shot himself in the heart. Even swords bounced right off that damn thing—piercing it with the point seems to be the only thing even marginally successful, and that might be imbuing it with Purifire more than the actual poke.” “I know how to shoot a gun,” Eilidh said bluntly. “And amateurs with firearms tend to hurt much more than they help, let alone in a state of active combat. This isn’t the fucking Wild West.” She sounded Done with a capital D, and I didn’t blame her. To his credit, the bloke seemed to mull that over for a bit before nodding as if ceding the point. Whatever the Ascended Alliance knew about friendly fire of an arcane nature, that did not extend to human-made explosives. If

The reason you’re here,” he said, turning to his oldest and best friend, “is that someone has invented a device capable of destroying a planet.” “Fuck me with a blunt spoon.” “Exactly.

My day just splits again, and I am at the table sitting with the girls, Jenny is hearing me say all this… I am saying at lunch to all of them not leaving out one gross detail- and Jenny said- ‘Damn I have loaded in my undies right now just leasing to this crap.’ Liv and Maddie are kissing like to ribbed- hot- b*tch dogs in heat over it, so yeah, it's hot. I said- ‘I am coming – OH-hh-Aaa- UM-mmm-COME-meeting!!!’ So loud that I know that the rooms in the apartments could hear me, one even said back to my god- yet Miss Wilddickersion is eighty-eight I know who you are… a girl over there, rolled my eyes feeling so award.’ I am so going to hell for this- I said out loud. Do you ever look back over the crap you say, and say what the freak was I thinking? I just had the thought of this crap I am saying. Jenny said- nope not really- my dad hears me coming all the time so- like last night he said- ‘Stop it! You’re going to go throw your bedroom floor girl, and it’s four in the morning! ‘Yet I hear their freaking headboard hitting my wall- but- but that’s okay?’ I said about to have the old b*tch over in the next apart room there getting off too- ‘We all do’ -said Maddie and Olivia. Have you ever had the cops come, over that crap? Jenny said- ‘Well- freak know- Maybe…? I’ve done an officer here at the school, said Jenny proudly, so the whole cafeteria could hear her. Hey- Jenny- no one cares to hear about you being a slutty ho,’ Said- Marcel, yelling it at a table or two away. Maddie- ‘So was it that good?’ ‘It’s good under the hood.’ Said Maddie, I said the same thing too, in a different way, I said- ‘If you know what you’re doing down there.’ Jenny- ‘I- am- the- one that showed you-you b*tch, and your sis too.’ It’s all good! I speak! Not sure if I am going to keep my nasty pizza down at this point really, I don’t want to have thoughts played around in my mind freaking and fingering my brain. I put my feet up all girly and per-die on the table, and he sits accused from me to check me out so why not give him what he wants, and I don’t give a crap if I am in a skirt, I spread them out sloughing like a dude, and Marcel turns bright red, I want him to see that, I was not wearing annoying underneath I know that someone took a picture of my p*ssy and all of his freaked-up face- yep jaw-dropping moments, good thing I shaved it! The teaching that was looking over us freaking fainted at the sight of my va-jay-jay, is that a good thing? Oliva was saying please don’t fart- please don’t fart- she had the set on the other side of me, yet she was all pressed up to Maddie, so I knew he could see all of this- YOU-NO! I said- ‘Dude shut up! You’re freaking me over, and I put my one hand down between my legs, and start to play with myself, caressing it all around, sometimes up and down or in a little circular pattern, making lots of sounds. I even put my long fingers down inside and feel all the wetness and wroth, and I hear voices coming out of me, so he could see the come on my fingers unstop of my dark purple nail polish, and I come right in front of everyone, but it was only for him to see.’ Jenny- ‘do I see a d*ick; you need one to freak that p*ssy? I said- ‘Nah- dude that’s just my heart throbbing clit, and I get written up by another old b*tch teach, that must have a hairy one, or something like that- she has always been up against my ass hole.’ ‘Sometimes you are as blunt as the butt end of a fork, freaking strapping you in the one boob!’ said- Oliva. I see Marcel in the lunch line making a cute almost kiss-ie face at me, and I rankle up my nose and turn my head off to the right side and shake it in a short fast yet deliberate quiver. I walk up to where more than friends and at this point, I hug him and the cafeteria gaps, he kisses me in front of everyone, and I look up before walking and saying with flirty eyes- (You’re such a weirdo!)

Sabrina surely had one dead ex-boyfriend on her record. But did Martina have a deceased ex-boyfriend in her past too? Biggie’s words swirled in my head, mixing with the reality I faced: ’Sabrina reminding me of Lil Cease with her crocodile teeth, the warpath we rode apart and together, our laughter, our tears—my tears, their laughter—the player haters, the cocaine-snorting bitches, the cats with no dough, try to play me at my show, pull up and crack doors, short-change bitches with 5 to 20 euro notes not enough to powder their beak and nose. They still tickle me, Sabrina and them midgets cripple me, make me as hard as Martina's nipples be, I'm sour like a pickle be. You disobey the rules. Now the year’s new and I want my spot back; fake two, all the planes I flew, all the bitches I went through, mothersnuggers mad, cause I’m blue, bitches envy us, too many bitches in my club guard your dogs before I stick you for your re-up, maniacs put my name in raps, living by hugs from fake friends, your whole life you live sneaky, you burn when you creep me, you slipping try to break me, living by my love, hating me, they like to hustle backward, Acid rain, Cadillac Fleetwood look what you made me do, you made me and my girl Marine blue make you, open the safe too’ Della Reese had been on my mind since a while as if she wanted to tell me something a wisdom she wanted to share with me. The lyrics and the words the bad people played mindgames with me kept mixing up in my head. ’Maniacs put my name in raps; the club is dead without me they can hustle only backwards with all the beef against me. Blunt wraps and Dutchies, all the smoking accessories; they can't touch me. One third is on me. Martina's butt a public touchy-touchy. My enemies holding their cats shaky. Sabrina is dead or alive, her ghost is under me.

Years ago, I received a call from a paramedic I had known for a long, long time. He was a true believer; a provider in it to do good more than to do well. By the tone of his voice, I could tell he was in some serious trouble. His voice did not lie. He was. It seemed that some years earlier he had suffered an injury off the job. The injury resulted in several surgeries and months of painful recovery, physical rehabilitation, and pain medicine. It started as an as-needed remedy for intense pain but before long became a physical necessity. When the actual pain no longer necessitated the monthly refills, the feigned pain took over. When that excuse had run its course, new injuries and favors from friends took over. The cycle had begun. Back at work, he became adept at leading his double life; on the job he was clean, sober, and clear-headed, but off-duty the pills took over. The decline was slow, but steady. It would not be long before he would lose all control. One day, on a call with the entire crew, he found himself in the home of a patient whose medicine cupboard was a veritable treasure trove of pain killing goodies. Jackpot! While logging all of the medicines, it was easy to drop a full bottle of a certain pain killer into his pocket, and he did…completely undetected. The patient was transported, and the scene was cleared, and his addiction would be fed for a little while longer. Nobody would ever know. However, as he exited the scene with his supervisor, he was struck with a blunt and harsh realization: This is not who I am and it’s not who I want to be! While still at the curbside, in front of the patient’s home, he pulled the bottle from his pocket, handed it to his supervisor, and admitted sincerely: “I have a problem. I need help.” His supervisor considered the heartfelt and painfully honest plea for help, but the paramedic was summarily fired from a job where he had an impeccable record of exemplary service for nearly two decades. He was stripped of his Paramedic license and reported to local authorities and was charged with multiple felonies by the District Attorney. That was the response from his supervisor and the rest of the morally superior lemmings up the chain of command. He asked for help, and they fucked him…because they were afraid of what actually helping him might look like to the outside world. Not once was he offered treatment or an ounce of compassion. He asked for help; now he was looking at serious prison time. This brings us to the frightened and helpless tone in his voice when he called me. Thankfully, his story ends with the proper treatment: A new career and the entire criminal case being dismissed (he had a great lawyer). Unfortunately, similar stories continue to play out in agencies, both public and private, all across America and they do not, or will not, end so well.

But, Lillian,” he said softly, “I thought you had no concern for money or for any material rewards.” “You don’t understand! I’m not talking about money—I’m talking about poverty! Real, stinking, hall-bedroom poverty! That’s out of bounds for any civilized person! I—I too have to worry about food and rent?” He was watching her with a faint smile; for once, his soft, aging face seemed tightened into a look of wisdom, he was discovering the pleasure of full perception—in a reality which he could permit himself to perceive. “Jim, you’ve got to help me! My lawyer is powerless. I’ve spent the little I had, on him and on his investigators, friends and fixers—but all they could do for me was find out that they can do nothing. My lawyer gave me his final report this afternoon. He told me bluntly that I haven’t a chance. I don’t seem to know anyone who can help against a setup of this kind. I had counted on Bertram Scudder, but . . . well, you know what happened to Bertram. And that, too, was because I had tried to help you. You pulled yourself out of that one, Jim, you’re the only person who can pull me out now. You’ve got your gopher-hole pipe line straight up to the top. You can reach the big boys. Slip a word to your friends to slip a word to their friends. One word from Wesley would do it. Have them order that divorce decree to be refused. Just have it refused.

I’ll be blunt, Jake. It’s hard for me to believe you could spend so many years walking away from a woman if you truly believed you were made for each other.

The seminal paper in the field was published in 1991 by William Sharpe, whose theories underpinned the original creation of the index fund, and was bluntly titled “The Arithmetic of Active Management.”16 This expanded on Sharpe’s earlier work, and addressed the suggestion that the index investing trend that was starting to gain ground at the time was a mere “fad.” The paper articulated what Sharpe saw as two iron rules that must hold true over time: The return on the average actively managed dollar will equal that of a dollar managed passively before costs, and after costs the return on that actively managed dollar will be less than that of a passively managed dollar. In other words, mathematically the market represents the average returns, and for every investor who outperforms the market someone must do worse. Given that index funds charge far less than traditional funds, over time the average passive investor must do better than the average active one. Other academics have later quibbled with aspects of Sharpe’s 1991 paper, with Lasse Heje Pedersen’s “Sharpening the Arithmetic of Active Management” the most prominent example. In this 2016 paper, Pedersen points out that Sharpe’s assertions rest on some crucial assumptions, such as that the “market portfolio” never actually changes. But in reality, what constitutes “the market” is in constant flux. This means that active managers can at least theoretically on average outperform it, and they perform a valuable service to the health of a markets-based economy by doing so. Nonetheless, Pedersen stresses that this should not necessarily be construed as a full-throated defense of active management. “I think that low-cost index funds is one of the most investor-friendly inventions in finance and this paper should not be used as an excuse by active managers who charge high fees while adding little or no value,” he wrote.17 “My arithmetic shows that active management can add value in aggregate, but whether it actually does, and how much, are empirical questions.

He was tired of there being something shameful or unsettling about the blunt expression of friendship, of the simple desire to be there for someone needing to be mocked before it could be respected, of the fact that caring about a friend and wanting the best for them didn't hold the same value as money, when it was just as essential, if not more so.

There’s a collector’s mentality online; our social worth is given a single blunt number. We have to make sure that we’re not fooled by it. We have to make the same assessments that we always did about the quality of those connections, their individual meanings to us and the nurture that they can realistically offer us. Just as with the physical world, many of these friends will melt away at the first sign of trouble. The only difference is that the numbers are bigger online, and our missed connections feel more visible. I’m beginning to think that unhappiness is one of the simple things in life: a pure, basic emotion to be respected, if not savoured. I would never dream of suggesting that we should wallow in misery or shrink from doing everything we can to alleviate it, but I do think it’s instructive. After all, unhappiness has a function: it tells us that something is going wrong. If we don’t allow ourselves the fundamental honesty of our own sadness, then we miss an important cue to adapt. We seem to be living in an age when we’re bombarded with entreaties to be happy, but we’re suffering from an avalanche of depression. We’re urged to stop sweating the small stuff, yet we’re chronically anxious. I often wonder if these are just normal feelings that become monstrous when they’re denied. A great deal of life will always suck. There will be moments when we’re riding high and moments

Ivy had learned to find Alexia’s bluntness entertaining, and Alexia had learned one did not always have to look at one’s friend’s hats. Thus, each having discovered a means to overlook the most tiresome aspects of the other’s personality early on in their relationship, the two girls developed a fixed friendship to the mutual benefit of both.

Then the Fool was only a role? Someone you became because it ‘suited your purpose’? And what was your purpose? To gain a doddering king’s trust? To befriend a royal bastard? Did you become what we most needed in order to get close to us?” He was not looking at me, but as I gazed at his motionless profile, he closed his eyes. Then he spoke. “Of course I did. Make of that what you will.” His words were like spurs to my fury. “I see. None of it was real. I’ve never known you at all then, have I?” I expected no answer and for an instant I strangled silently on my anger and insult. Then, “Yes. You have. You more than anyone in my life.” He looked down and the stillness seemed to grow around him. “If that is true, then I think you owe me the truth about yourself. What is the reality, Fool, not what you jest about or allow others to suspect? Who and what are you? What is it you feel for me?” He looked at me at last. His eyes were stricken. But as I continued to gaze at him, demanding this knowledge, I saw his own anger come to life there. He suddenly stood straight and gave a small huff of disdain, as if unbelieving that I could ask. He shook his head then drew a deep breath. The words rushed out of him in a torrent. “You know who I am. I have even given you my true name. As for what I am, you know that, too. You seek a false comfort when you demand that I define myself for you with words. Words do not contain or define any person. A heart can, if it is willing. But I fear yours is not. You know more of the whole of me than any other person who breathes, yet you persist in insisting that all of that cannot be me. What would you have me cut off and leave behind? And why must I truncate myself in order to please you? I would never ask that if you. And by those words, admit the truth. You know what I feel for you. You have known it for years. Let us not, you and I, alone here, pretend that you don’t. You know I love you. I always have. I always will.” He spoke the words levelly. He said them as if they were inevitable. There was no trace of either shame or triumph in his voice. The he waited. Words such as that always demand an answer. I took a deep breath and managed the elfbark’s black mood. I spoke honestly and bluntly. “And you know that I love you, Fool. As a man loves his dearest friend. I feel no shame in that. But to let Jek or Starling or anyone think that we take it beyond friendship’s bound, thst you would want to lie with me, is—” I paused. I waited for his agreement. It did not come. Instead, he met my eyes with his open amber gaze. There was no denial in them. “I love you,” he said quietly. “I set no boundaries on my love. None at all. Do you understand me?

First and foremost, you need to talk with your child’s teacher. If you think that your child is on the margins of the class, ask the teacher if that is true. It is a painful question to ask and a tough question to answer. Be blunt. Explain your worry and lay out the facts as you see them. It may take this kind of bold appraisal before a teacher will say, “Yes, I’m sorry to say that your child doesn’t have a friend in the class,” or “Yes, he is teased an awful lot.” Parents need to know that teachers are generally very kind, diplomatic, and supportive. It is difficult for them to be direct about a child’s terrible social situation unless he is a bully who’s causing problems for other children. If a child is the real victim, teachers sometimes hold themselves responsible for fixing the problem and feel defensive if they cannot.

An especially close friend inquired ‘is it that you’re afraid you’ll never see England again?’ As it happens he was exactly right to ask, and it had been precisely that which had been bothering me, but I was unreasonably shocked by his bluntness. I’ll do the facing of hard facts, thanks. Don’t you be doing it too . . . ‘Yes, I suppose a time comes when you have to consider letting go.’ How true, and how crisp a summary of what I had just said to myself. But again there was an unreasonable urge to have a kind of monopoly on, or a sort of veto over, what was actually sayable. -Mortality

I am improvising a brassiere,” I said with dignity. “I don’t mean to ride sidesaddle through the mountains wearing a dress, and if I’m not wearing stays, I don’t mean my breasts to be joggling all the way, either. Most uncomfortable, joggling.” “I daresay.” He edged into the room and circled me at a cautious distance, eyeing my nether limbs with interest. “And what are those?” “Like them?” I put my hands on my hips, modeling the drawstring leather trousers that Phaedre had constructed for me—laughing hysterically as she did so—from soft buckskin provided by one of Myers’s friends in Cross Creek. “No,” he said bluntly. “Ye canna be going about in—in—” He waved at them, speechless. “Trousers,” I said. “And of course I can. I wore trousers all the time, back in Boston. They’re very practical.” He

I don’t want to be your friend, Simone,” he told her bluntly and watched her flinch. But he wasn’t done. “I want to be your lover. I want to be your Master. I want to know all your secrets. I want to unravel the mystery that’s you and then help you keep it safe. I wantyou, and the way I want you is beside me, in bed, in play and in life.” “You can’t know that,” she said softly. “And this is something you’ll be learning about me. I do know that. I know myself. I know what I want. And when that’s identified, I get it.

This Blue Coat’s woman?” he demanded, gesturing toward Lily. Caleb shook his head. “She’s her own woman. Just ask her.” Lily’s heart was jammed into her throat. She had an urge to go for the rifle again, but this time it was Caleb she wanted to shoot. “He lies,” she said quickly, trying to make sign language. “I am too his woman!” The Indian looked back at his followers, and they all laughed. Lily thought she saw a hint of a grin curve Caleb’s lips as well but decided she must have imagined it. “You trade woman for two horses?” Caleb lifted one hand to his chin, considering. “Maybe. I’ve got to be honest with you. She’s a lot of trouble, this woman.” Lily’s terror was exceeded only by her wrath. “Caleb!” The Indian squinted at Lily and then made an abrupt, peevish gesture with the fingers of one hand. “He wants you to get down from the buggy so he can have a good look at you,” Caleb said quietly. “I don’t care what he wants,” Lily replied, folding her trembling hands in her lap and squaring her shoulders. The Indian shouted something. “He’s losing his patience,” Caleb warned, quite unnecessarily. Lily scrambled down from the buggy and stood a few feet from it while the Indian rode around her several times on his pony, making thoughtful grunting noises. Annoyance was beginning to overrule Lily’s better judgment. “This is my land,” she blurted out all of a sudden, “and I’m inviting you and your friends to get off it! Right now!” The Indian reined in his pony, staring at Lily in amazement. “You heard me!” she said, advancing on him, her hands poised on her hips. At that, Caleb came up behind her, and his arms closed around her like the sides of a giant manacle. His breath rushed past her ear. “Shut up!” Lily subsided, watching rage gather in the Indians’ faces like clouds in a stormy sky. “Caleb,” she said, “you’ve got to save me.” “Save you? If they raise their offer to three horses, you’ll be braiding your hair and wearing buckskin by nightfall.” The Indians were consulting with one another, casting occasional measuring glances in Lily’s direction. She was feeling desperate again. “All right, then, but remember, if I go, your child goes with me.” “You said you were bleeding.” Lily’s face colored. “You needn’t be so explicit. And I lied.” “Two horses,” Caleb bid in a cheerful, ringing voice. The Indians looked interested. “I’ll marry you!” Lily added breathlessly. “Promise?” “I promise.” “When?” “At Christmas.” “Not good enough.” “Next month, then.” “Today.” Lily assessed the Indians again, imagined herself carrying firewood for miles, doing wash in a stream, battling fleas in a tepee, being dragged to a pallet by a brave. “Today,” Lily conceded. The man in the best calico shirt rode forward again. “No trade,” he said angrily. “Blue Coat right—woman much trouble!” Caleb laughed. “Much, much trouble,” he agreed. “This Indian land,” the savage further insisted. With that, he gave a blood-curdling shriek, and he and his friends bolted off toward the hillside again. Lily turned to face Caleb. “I lied,” she said bluntly. “I have no intention of marrying you.” He brought his nose within an inch of hers. “You’re going back on your word?” “Yes,” Lily answered, turning away to climb back into the buggy. “I was trying to save myself. I would have said anything.” Caleb caught her by the arm and wrenched her around to face him. “And there’s no baby?” Lily lowered her eyes. “There’s no baby.” “I should have taken the two horses when they were offered to me,” Caleb grumbled, practically hurling her into the buggy. Lily

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. “I’m glad we got the chance to see it.” “It reminds me of the country. Of home.” He heard the wistful note in her voice. “Gwen misses it, too. She wishes you could all be home for Christmas at Easton Manner.” He turned toward her, leaning against the window frame. She’d never really noticed it before, but his shoulders were quite nicely broad. “Is that what you’d like for Christmas too, Amelia? To be home with your family?” She thought for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. “No, I would like not to have to marry Lord Broadmore.” The sudden intensity in Nigel’s gaze set her already pounding heart tripping over itself. “Then why should you?” he asked in a low voice. She returned her gaze to the snowy square, avoiding his eye. “I suspect you already know the answer—my unfortunate reputation. Besides, my parents approve of Broadmore and are eager to see us married. In their eyes, he will make the perfect husband.” His hand came to her arm and gently turned her to face him. “Amelia, no true friend would think less of you for ending your previous engagements. They were simply mistakes you learned from.” “I’ve been called a heartless jilt by more than one person, you know,” she said, trying to make a joke of a label that had wounded her deeply. “They were wrong,” he said, looking stern. “But tell me why your parents are so eager for you to marry Broadmore. We both know he’s an unrepentant ass.” His blunt speech surprised a laugh out of her. “True, but an ass with a title and several magnificent estates. Papa is determined that I marry as well as possible.” She grimaced. “He says a girl of my looks and fortune deserves the very best.” Nigel smiled. “Your father is correct, but not for those reasons. You do have a very pretty face and your fortune is enviable, but those are not the best part of you.” She had to force the words from her tight throat. “What is?” He took her hand, intertwining their fingers. The breath whooshed out of her lungs and she clutched his hand in a convulsive grip. “It’s your heart, Amelia. Your lovely, kind heart,” he said with a smile that melted her from the inside out. “And now that you’ve told me what you don’t want for Christmas, tell me what you do want.” When Amelia thought of all the obstacles facing them, her courage almost failed. But it was Christmas, the time for wishes and dreams to come true. “I want to marry a kind, loving man who will be a good husband and father. A man who will see me as I truly am, and not as a decorative knick-knack and a means for plumping up his bank account.” Nigel gently cupped her chin with his free hand. “My sweet girl that is only what you deserve.” She stared at him, mesmerized. “And what do you want for Christmas, Mr. Dash?” she finally whispered. His lips parted in a devastatingly tender smile. “A kiss, Amelia. One kiss for Christmas.” She felt her mouth curl up in a silly grin. “Only one?” He let out a husky laugh. “To start.” Then he bent and gently, carefully—as if he didn’t want to frighten her—brushed a kiss across her lips.

cannot deal with people who lie. Like, lose my shit cannot deal with. My inability to tell a lie myself, even the tiny white variety, kills me too. Why couldn't my parents choose a different virtue to name me after? Hope, Faith, Grace? I'd take anything but the name meaning truth, because I'm sure this cursed me to lose friends due to my blunt truthful nature. Took me years to realise when girls say "be honest" that this is code for "don’t tell somebody their ass does in fact look big in that.

She is owned by no one,” Leo said with care. “Good. Then I’ll—” “She is under my protection, however.” Latimer arched a brow, amused. “What am I to infer from that?” Leo was deadly serious. “That you are to go nowhere near her. That she’ll never have to endure the sound of your voice or the insult of your presence ever again.” “I’m afraid I can’t oblige you.” “I’m afraid you’ll have to.” A coarse laugh erupted. “Surely you’re not threatening me.” Leo smiled coldly. “Much as I always tried to ignore your inebriated ravings, Latimer, a few things did stick in my memory. Some of your confessions of misconduct would make more than a few people unhappy. I know enough of your secrets to land you in Marshalsea prison without so much as a chum ticket. And if that’s not enough, I would be more than willing to resort to bashing your skull in with a blunt object. In fact, I’m becoming quite enthused about the idea.” Seeing the astonishment in the other man’s eyes, Leo smiled without humor. “I see you grasp my sincerity. That’s good. It might save us both some inconvenience.” He paused to give his next statement greater impact. “And now I’m going to instruct my servants to escort you off my estate. You’re not welcome.” The older man’s face went livid. “You’ll regret having made an enemy of me, Ramsay.” “Not nearly as much as I’ve regretted having once made a friend of you.

It is important not to latch onto some strategic fad to justify radical cuts in the U.S. Army or Marine Corps. For two decades, since Operation Desert Storm, some have favored “stand-off” warfare, featuring long-range strike from planes and ships as the American military’s main approach to future combat. But it is not possible to address many of the world’s key security challenges that way including scenarios in places like Korea and South Asia, discussed further below, that could in fact imperil American security. In the 1990s, advocates of military revolution often argued for such an approach to war, but the subsequent decade proved that for all the progress in sensors and munitions and other military capabilities, the United States still needed forces on the ground to deal with complex insurgencies and other threats. A military emphasis on stand-off warfare is some- times linked with a broader grand strategy of “offshore balancing” by which the distant United States would step in with limited amounts of power to shape overseas events, particularly in Eurasia, rather than getting involved directly with its own soldiers and Marines. But offshore balancing is too clever by half. In fact, overseas developments are not so easily nudged in favorable directions through modest outside interventions. One of the reasons is that off- shore balancing can suggest, in the minds of friends and foes alike, a lack of real American commitment. That can embolden adversaries. It can also worry allies to the point where, among other things, they may feel obliged to build up their own nuclear arsenals as the likes of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia might well do absent strong security ties with America. Put bluntly, offshore balancing greatly exaggerates American power by assuming that belated and limited uses of U.S. force can swing overseas events in acceptable directions.

David was one of nine children, and Sydney was one of four. Their respective siblings produced, between 1910 and 1927, twenty-one children with the surnames Mitford, Farrer, Kearsey, Bowyer, Bowles and Bailey, and many of these first cousins were to play major parts in the lives of the Mitford children as they grew up and visited each other’s homes. But the network of kinsmen who were to people the lives of the Mitford children were rooted further back in the family tree. Both of David’s parents – ‘Bertie’ Mitford (Bertram, 1st Lord Redesdale) and Lady Clementine Ogilvy – came from large families, and he remained close to many of them and to their numerous offspring.* ---- In addressing this question, one of Clementine Churchill’s daughters stated that her mother never learned the identity of her natural father though she knew he was not Henry Hozier.14 Bertie Mitford is the most likely suspect, even though the poet and writer Wilfred Scawen Blunt claimed that Natty confessed to him that her two elder daughters were fathered by Captain George ‘Bay’ Middleton, known by his foxhunting contemporaries as ‘the bravest of the brave’, and to history as the dashing lover of the sporting Empress, Elizabeth of Austria.15 This, however, must be set against the fact that Natty told a close friend, just before the birth of Clementine, that the child she was carrying was ‘Lord Redesdale’s’.

Ally tells me that you’ve been good friends.” I say with a forced smile. It’s a statement more than a question. I want him to know that I trust what she tells me but that I am questioning his intentions. He clears his throat before speaking.   “Yeah. She’s great. We’ve, uh, been friends for about a year.” He smiles uncomfortably at Ally after he answers.   “She hasn’t told me how you met though, Joshua. Care to share?” Ally reaches for my thigh, pinching the skin lightly but it just makes me smile as I keep my eyes on the boy.   “It’s just Josh.” He swallows. “We met at a Halloween party last year, she helped me clean up after I tipped a table over with a bunch of pumpkin desserts all over it... that’s why she calls me ‘Pumpkin’.” They both laugh at that. I clench my teeth at their adorable inside joke but keep the smile on my face.   “And why do you call her ‘Sweetheart’?” They laugh again. I hate him. “Well, obviously because she’s a sweetheart.” He says it like I’m stupid for questioning that, like I don’t know exactly how sweet she is. Fucker.   “Do you want to fuck my girl, Joshua?” I ask bluntly. Done playing games.   “Alexander!” Ally gasps. I can see Molly and Zeke staring open mouthed in my peripheral but I keep my eyes on Joshua as he gaps at me like a fish…

Such children are chronically ignored by their peers. This is because they are not fun to play with. Adults tend to manifest the same attitude (although they will deny it desperately when pressed). When I worked in daycare centres, early in my career, the comparatively neglected children would come to me desperately, in their fumbling, half-formed manner, with no sense of proper distance and no attentive playfulness. They would flop, nearby—or directly on my lap, no matter what I was doing—driven inexorably by the powerful desire for adult attention, the necessary catalyst for further development. It was very difficult not to react with annoyance, even disgust, to such children and their too-prolonged infantilism—difficult not to literally push them aside—even though I felt very badly for them, and understood their predicament well. I believe that response, harsh and terrible though it may be, was an almost universally-experienced internal warning signal indicating the comparative danger of establishing a relationship with a poorly socialized child: the likelihood of immediate and inappropriate dependence (which should have been the responsibility of the parent) and the tremendous demand of time and resources that accepting such dependence would necessitate. Confronted with such a situation, potentially friendly peers and interested adults are much more likely to turn their attention to interacting with other children whose cost/benefit ratio, to speak bluntly, would be much lower.

Trucker and I did quite a bit of busking together on our guitars, doing the rounds at various Bristol hot spots. This included the local old people’s home, where I remember innocently singing the lyrics to “American Pie.” The song culminates with the spectacularly inappropriate claim that this would be the day that I’d die. A long, awkward pause followed, as we both realized our predicament. The home wasn’t a long-standing gig after that. We also played together with another friend of ours called Blunty, who went on to become a worldwide singing sensation after he left the army, under his real name of James Blunt. I am not sure Blunty will consider those jamming sessions as very formative for him, but they make for fun memories now all the same. Good on him, though. He always had an amazingly cool singing voice.

You might also be wondering, But what about my friends? Let me be blunt with you for a minute. If your friends are constantly trying to pull you off your path, there’s a very good chance that those friends are losers and want you to be too. The life of a champion is not a life without friendship, but it is a life that requires you to decide who your friends are going to be. You’re not going to choose people who distract you from finishing first with pointless pursuits, such as bar hopping and hanging out until all hours of the night. No true champion has the time or energy for that. You’re too busy, too focused.

In their well-intentioned effort to protect what they see as a targeted minority, Western liberals unwittingly find themselves fighting to guard and protect the same backward values that their counterparts in Muslim-majority countries are fighting against. My friend Faisal Saeed Al-Mutar, an Iraqi refugee, writer, and human rights activist, puts it best: “Many [Western liberals] have betrayed us liberals in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, and sided with the Islamists against us.”3 As blunt as it sounds, this is a common sentiment among liberals in the Arab and Muslim world, and understandably so.

Do not love half lovers Do not entertain half friends Do not indulge in works of the half talented Do not live half a life and do not die a half death If you choose silence, then be silent When you speak, do so until you are finished Do not silence yourself to say something And do not speak to be silent If you accept, then express it bluntly Do not mask it If you refuse then be clear about it for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance Do not accept half a solution Do not believe half truths Do not dream half a dream Do not fantasize about half hopes Half a drink will not quench your thirst Half a meal will not satiate your hunger Half the way will get you no where Half an idea will bear you no results Your other half is not the one you love It is you in another time yet in the same space It is you when you are not Half a life is a life you didn't live, A word you have not said A smile you postponed A love you have not had A friendship you did not know To reach and not arrive Work and not work Attend only to be absent What makes you a stranger to them closest to you and they strangers to you The half is a mere moment of inability but you are able for you are not half a being You are a whole that exists to live a life not half a life

You haven’t thought about me in the last five years? You haven’t wanted to see me again?” “No,” I blurt out immediately, because it’s the truth. Most of it, anyhow. I’ve tried not to think about her because I’m still ashamed I took advantage of her when she was weak. I haven’t allowed myself to think about her, because it felt wrong. The brightness in her eyes fades and a look of hurt comes over her face. She pulls her hand from my arm. “Oh. Well…I thought about you. Constantly.” “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay. I should have guessed we wouldn’t be on the same page⁠—” “No,” I continue, the words rushing out of me. “I’m sorry for what happened five years ago. I touched you when I shouldn’t have.” Her brows furrow and she gives me an odd look. “What are you talking about?” I can feel the intense gaze of the custodian down the street. No doubt he’s watching me closely to ensure that I’m not bothering the locals. “You and I,” I murmur. “You and I shouldn’t have happened.” To my surprise, Melody rolls her eyes. She shakes her head slowly and takes my hand in hers, lifting my big fist toward her face. “Listen carefully, Brux. I was so happy in that moment that I was thrilled to have sex with you. I felt seen. I felt listened to. I felt understood. Someone had seen my misery and fixed it. I wanted to have sex with you. You didn’t force me to do anything.” “Pity sex—” I begin, frowning. “Not pity sex,” she corrects. “And for the record, I’ve had sex with men for less than what I felt for you, which was bone-deep gratitude. Happiness and gratitude are perfectly good reasons to have voluntary sex. And let me say again. It was very, very voluntary.” And she presses a kiss to my knuckles, then smiles up at me. “And if—when—we have sex again, it will be voluntary then, too.” Heat creeps up my neck, and my tail won’t stop flicking about. “You didn’t come,” I point out, keeping my voice low. “Back then.” “I know.” She shrugs. “I was just happy to touch and be touched. For me it wasn’t about an orgasm. But if it’ll make you feel better, I promise that I won’t rest until you make me come this time.”  And Melody flutters her lashes at me. “So…you want sex again? From me?” Maybe this is a fetish. If so, that explains a lot. “At some point, yeah.” She shrugs and then gives my knuckles another kiss, glancing up at me as she does. “But I’d like to get to know you outside of bed, too. I want us to be friends. More than friends. Is it so weird that I’m attracted to you?” “Yes,” I admit bluntly.