Blunt Honest Quotes

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.

There is nothing more pure and beautiful than a person who always speaks truthfully with a childlike heart.

Rose," Alberta said, leaning toward me. "I'm going to be blunt with you. I'm not going to give you lectures or demand any explanations. Honestly, since you aren't my student anymore, I don't have the right to ask or tell you anything." "You can lecture," I told her. "I've always respected you and want to hear what you have to say." The ghost of a smile flashed on her face. "All right, here it is. You screwed up." "Wow. You weren't kidding about bluntness." "The reasons don't matter. You shouldn't have left. You shouldn't have dropped out. Your education and training are too valuable—no matter how much you think you know—and you are too talented to risk throwing away your future." I almost laughed. "To tell you the truth? I'm not sure what my future is anymore." "Which is why you need to graduate." "But I dropped out." She snorted. "Then drop back in!" "I—what? How?" "With paperwork. Just like everything else in the world.

[M]any believe that by being honest and open they are winning people’s hearts and showing their good nature.They are greatly deluded. Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts. Your honesty is likely to offend people; it is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they want to hear rather than the coarse and ugly truth of what you feel or think. More important, by being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions.

Being the soothsayer of the tribe is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Why did Nicky call me the Baby Killer?" Kiara sniffled. "Because she is a bitch," Leontes said. Jaeger gave him a chastising look. "She's dead." "Dying did not make her any less of a bitch," Leontes replied.

Some people confuse being blunt with being honest.

I’m just an honest person, but if I’m truly being honest, sometimes blunt is just mean. Honesty can be an excuse for bullying.

You will always face difficulties in prayer. Just accept it.

There's a darkness in each of us, afraid to show itself, wrestling with such blunt tools as words and deeds to make itself known to the darkness in another person similarly hidden behind walls of camouflage, disguise, interpretation. Honesty is a knife that we can use to pare away those layers, but one slip, go too deep, and who knows what injuries might be inflicted … The wounds an honest tongue can open sometimes take a lifetime to heal.

Second, many believe that by being honest and open they are winning people’s hearts and showing their good nature. They are greatly deluded. Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts. Your honesty is likely to offend people; it is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they want to hear rather than the coarse and ugly truth of what you feel or think. More important, by being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions. If

When you're way too real, fake people be like: "You're a trip. I want somebody with real game (lies).

That was one of the good things about having a partner who was so brutally honest and blunt. When he said something good, Zane knew he meant it.

Being the dutiful soldier he was, he didn’t waste energy on trivial matters. If something needed to be done, he did it. If something needed to be said, he said it. Honestly, bluntly and finally. And he loved her. Just because. No explanation necessary. Consequences be damned.

Rose,” she said, leaning toward me. “I’m going to be blunt with you. I’m not going to give you lectures or demand any explanations. Honestly, since you aren’t my student anymore, I don’t have the right to ask or tell you anything.” It was like what Adrian had said. “You can lecture,” I told her. “I’ve always respected you and want to hear what you have to say.” The ghost of a smile flashed on her face. “All right, here it is. You screwed up.” “Wow. You weren’t kidding about bluntness.

We fear clear, honest, blunt dialogue, but what we ought to fear are stupid and dangerous ideas, because while blunt and honest dialogue might be offensive to some, stupid and dangerous ideas can be fatal to all of us.” —Matt Thornton, community activist

Still, at least she could be honest with them: “As to my health,” she wrote bluntly, “I am still a cripple.”24

Not everything is about you, Texas. In fact, very few things are. It’s a blessing and a curse, really. Knowing the world doesn’t revolve around your sassy little ass. Sometimes a guy just wants a steak

There's only you, Violence. Is that what you needed to hear?' I nod. 'Even when I'm not with you, there's only you. Next time just ask. You've never had a problem being bluntly honest with me.' Wind blows around us, but he's as immovable as the parapet itself. 'As I remember, you've even thrown daggers at my head, which I greatly prefer over watching you get tangled up in your thoughts. If you're going to do this, then we have to trust each other.' 'And you want to do this?' I hold my breath. He sighs, long and hard, then admits, 'Yes.' His hands slides up and caresses my cheek with his thumb. 'I can't make you any promises, Violence. But I'm tired of fighting it.' 'Yes.' One word has never meant so much to me.

Jonathon stretched his arms, like he was reading himself for exercise. He leaned back and asked, "Why are you doing this?" Robin was a bit surprised by the blunt question. "Doing what? Laying here, strapped to this table? I'll be honest, I've asked myself the same question.

Often I would hear other people ask, “When will I be normal again?” What you don’t often hear is a blunt truth: things will never be normal again. Not the “old" normal at least. You have to invent the new normal. I knew that I needed to take an honest appraisal of my life. Were my problems really bigger than me? Of course not. That’s why I remained in constant motion. Resistance to life’s changes meant death. No matter how depressing and bleak my past looked, I knew that I needed to keep moving and adapting in order to survive.

Sometimes I’m not great at admitting what I need, regardless of how blunt and honest I can be. But I’m thankful to have these people know me so well.

I never wanted you to not be around.

You’re betraying your whole life if you don’t say what you think—and you don’t say it honestly and bluntly.

I see them walking hand in hand at sunset to get a few minutes away—after they put the kids to bed, of course. I see her looking up from her typewriter to watch him walk by, knowing if she gets her work done for the day, he’ll be waiting. I see them laughing, and living, and fighting—always passionate but fair. They’re careful with each other because they know what they have, they know how rare it is, how lucky they were to survive it all with that love intact. They’re still magnetic, still make love like they’ll never get enough, still open, bluntly honest, yet tender.” His

I think about the people I know with the absolutely largest hearts, people with a stunning capacity for endurance and grace and kindness against the most screaming terrors and pains. My Mom and Dad, for example, enduring the death of their first child at six months old, the boy the brother I never met, dying quietly in his stroller on the porch in the moment that my mother stepped back inside to get a pair of gloves because the crisp brilliant April wind was filled with a whistling cutting wind.... Fifty years later after five more children and two miscarriages she is standing in the kitchen with her usual eternal endless cup of tea and I ask her: How do you get over the death of your child? And she says, in her blunt honest direct terse kind way, You don't. Her face harrowed like a hawk for a moment in the swirling steam of the tea. p112-13

Not a big fan of funerals, to be honest,” he said. He looked away. “Reminds me of my dad. It was years ago, but it’s still hard, you know?” I nodded; that made sense. Time only blunts the pain of loss. It doesn’t erase it.

Leo had asked gently. “Let’s look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You’re a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he’s … Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else.” Win had been shocked out of her tears by his bluntness. “Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting—” “Lord Ramsay now, thank you,” he had teased. “Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen are carnal in nature?” “They’re certainly not intellectual,” Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

Miss Bennet, I shall be completely blunt and honest and beg your pardon if I cross a line in some manner; however, I sense you are requesting a candid response.” He paused, awaiting her favour until she nodded. “I feel drawn to you in a way I do not totally understand, yet there it is. I have never felt so inclined towards another. What this connection bodes for the future, I do not know. You are pretty, intelligent, honest, proper, and many other fine qualities I believe I could list without hesitation. I think it entirely probable you and I would be perfect for each other. It is my intention to discover if this is possible. I do not wish to trifle with your emotions, nor do I wish to have my own sensibilities manipulated; therefore, if you cannot imagine even the remotest chance of returning affection, tell me now and I shall abide by your pleasure. On the other hand, if you sense, even vaguely, a returned interest in me, then let us proceed with willing minds and hearts.

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.

In October 2013, Caroline Glick, managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, spoke as bluntly as an Israeli editor can about an American president: “US President Barack Obama views lies as legitimate political tools. He uses lies strategically to accomplish through mendacity what he could never achieve through honest means.

in respect to the new philosophers who are appearing, they must still more be closed windows and bolted doors. Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the levellers, these wrongly named “free spirits”—as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of the democratic taste and its “modern ideas” all of them men without solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom neither courage nor honorable conduct ought to be denied, only, they are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost all human misery and failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed—a notion which happily inverts the truth entirely!

Let us take a man - a very ordinary man. A man with no idea of murder in his heart. There is in him somewhere a strain of weakness - deep down. It has so far never been called into play... But let us suppose that something occurs... He may stumble by accident on a secret - a secret involving life or death to someone. And his first impulse will be to speak out - to do his duty as an honest citizen. And then the strain of weakness tells... That is the beginning... He is not the same man he was - say, a year ago. His moral fibre is blunted. He is desperate. He is fighting a losing battle, and he is prepared to take any means that come to his hand, for exposure means ruin to him. And so - the dagger strikes... Afterwards, the dagger removed, he will be himself again, normal, kindly. But if the need again arises, then once more he will strike.

Before she could don her wide-brimmed hat and leave the sanctuary of their willow bower, Val did wrap his arms around her again, this time positioning his body behind hers. “I will come back after dark,” he whispered, “if you’ll allow it.” She went still, and he knew a moment’s panic. “Talk to me, Ellen.” He kissed her cheek. “Just be honest.” “My… tonight might not be a good time.” “Sweetheart…” Val let her go and turned her to face him. “I will not force myself on you, I just want… I want to see you.” To make sure she was all right, whatever that meant in the odd, new context in which he was trying to define the term. She must have sensed his bewilderment, because she turned away and spoke to him from over her shoulder. “My courses are due.” Val cocked his head. “So you become unfit company? Do you have the megrims and cramps and melancholy? Eat chocolates by the tin? Take to your bed?” “Sometimes.” Ellen peered at him, her expression guarded. “Then I will comfort you. I’ll cuddle you up and bring you tisanes and rub your back and your feet. I’ll read to you and beat you at cards and bring you hot-water bottles for your aches.” Ellen’s brows knit. “I truly am poor company at such times and usually before such times, as well.” “You are poor company for people who expect you to play on without missing a note, perhaps,” Val replied, holding her gaze. “May we sit a moment?” She nodded but had gone too shy even to meet his eyes. “My Uncle Tony’s wife,” Val said, wrapping an arm around Ellen’s shoulders, “is blunt to a fault. She told me relations with Tony were the best way to ease her cramps.” “Valentine!

You can't write an honest novel about race in this country. If you write about how people are really affected by race, it'll be too obvious. Black writers who do literary fiction in this country, all three of them, not the ten thousand who write those bullshit ghetto books with the bright covers, have two choices: they can do precious or they can do pretentious. When you do neither, nobody knows what to do with you. So if you're going to write about race, you have to make sure it's so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn't read between the lines won't even know it's about race. You know, a Proustian meditation, all watery and fuzzy, that at the end just leaves you feeling watery and fuzzy." "Or just find a white writer. White writers can be blunt about race and get all activist because their anger isn't threatening.

Under his clothes, it is well known, More wears a jerkin of horsehair. He beats himself with a small scourge, of the type used by some religious orders. What lodges in his mind, Thomas Cromwell's, is that somebody makes these instruments of daily torture. Someone combs the horsehair into coarse tufts, knots them and chops the blunt ends, knowing that their purpose is to snap off under the skin and irritate it into weeping sores. Is it monks who make them, knotting and snipping in a fury of righteousness, chuckling at the thought of the pain they will cause to persons unknown? Are simple villagers paid – how, by the dozen? – for making flails with waxed knots? Does it keep farm workers busy during the slow winter months? When the money for their honest labour is put into their hands, do the makers think of the hands that will pick up the product?

It had simply revealed to her once more the real point of view of the people he and she lived among, had shown her that, in spite of the superficial difference, he felt as they felt, judged as they judged, was blind as they were-and as she would be expected to be, should she once again become one of them. What was the use of being placed by fortune above such shifts and compromises, if in one's heart one still condoned them? And she would have to--she would catch the general note, grow blunted as those other people were blunted, and gradually come to wonder at her own revolt, as Strefford now honestly wondered at it. She felt as though she were on the point of losing some new-found treasure, a treasure precious only to herself, but beside which all he offered her was nothing, the triumph of her wounded pride nothing, the security of her future nothing.

When other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian.( Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then — that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and — bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human being — some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness — I find myself beginning with the letters gl when I try to imitate it — expressive of a mind which has reached the gelatinous, mildewy stage in the mortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far woods in a strain made really melodious by distance — Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter. I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the double spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.

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.

It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-whoo of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then—that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and—bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods.

If you’re suddenly as curious as I am to find out if it was as good between us as it now seems in retrospect, then say so.” His own suggestion startled Ian, although having made it, he saw no great harm in exchanging a few kisses if that was what she wanted. To Elizabeth, his statement that it had been “good between us” defused her ire and confused her at the same time. She stared at him in dazed wonder while his hands tightened imperceptibly on her arms. Self-conscious, she let her gaze drop to his finely molded lips, watching as a faint smile, a challenging smile lifted them at the corners, and inch by inch, the hands on her arms were drawing her closer. “Afraid to find out?” he asked, and it was the trace of huskiness in his voice that she remembered, that worked its strange spell on her again, as it had so long ago. His hands shifted to the curve of her waist. “Make up your mind,” he whispered, and in her confused state of loneliness and longing, she made no protest when he bent his head. A shock jolted through her as his lips touched hers, warm, inviting-brushing slowly back and forth. Paralyzed, she waited for that shattering passion he’d shown her before, without realizing that her participation had done much to trigger it. Standing still and tense, she waited to experience that forbidden burst of exquisite delight…wanted to experience it, just once, just for a moment. Instead his kiss was feather-light, softly stroking…teasing! She stiffened, pulling back an inch, and his gaze lifted lazily from her lips to her eyes. Dryly, he said, “That’s not quit the way I remembered it.” “Nor I,” Elizabeth admitted, unaware that he was referring to her lack of participation. “Care to try it again?” Ian invited, still willing to indulge in a few pleasurable minutes of shared ardor, so long as there was no pretense that it was anything but that, and no loss of control on his part. The bland amusement in his tone finally made her suspect he was treating this as some sort of diverting game or perhaps a challenge, and she looked at him in shock, “Is this a-a contest?” “Do you want to make it into one?” Elizabeth shook her head and abruptly surrendered her secret memories of tenderness and stormy passion. Like all her other former illusions about him, that too had evidently been false. With a mixture of exasperation and sadness, she looked at him and said, “I don’t think so.” “Why not?” “You’re playing a game,” she told him honestly, mentally throwing her hands up in weary despair, “and I don’t understand the rules.” “They haven’t changed,” he informed her. “It’s the same game we played before-I kiss you, and,” he emphasized meaningfully, “you kiss me.” His blunt criticism of her lack of participation left her caught between acute embarrassment and the urge to kick him in the shin, but his arm was tightening around her waist while his other hand was sliding slowly up her back, sensuously stroking her nape. “How do you remember it?” he teased as his lips came closer. “Show me.

So,” John said, “I’ll meet you at your place at eight, and we can walk over together?” “What? For what?” “The vigil.” “I’m not going to that.” I tried to ignore his surprise, his dogged faith. “Of course you are.” “I don’t know this person.” John continued to stand there, arms hanging down. The knife skidded so much I lost my grip and had to pick it up again. “It could’ve been you,” he said finally. “No,” I said, chopping bluntly, breaking more than slicing the lettuce, “it couldn’t. I’ve worked my whole life so that it couldn’t be me.” White flash of a face. Where did they go, those boys, after they left us behind? “Last night,” John began. He paused, still looking wounded. “You were so happy.” I gathered the lettuce into a bin and held it against my stomach like a barrier. “If it had been me, it would’ve been your fault.” John reeled as though I’d struck him. “You’re a coward,” he said. “You’ve worked your whole life because you’re a coward.” “What do you know? What do you know about anything?” His family moved for him. The hormones. The surgery he was allowed to accept or reject. I waved my arm around the kitchen, at the stunned cooks watching us. “Nobody has to know about you! You can blend in whenever you want!” “You honestly believe that? You think my life’s been easy?” “Yes, I think it’s been fucking easy!” I screamed. “They don’t know! I didn’t know! I wish I still didn’t know!” I tried to shove past him. He touched my back. I remembered Humphrey Bogart’s hand, I remembered dancing, I remembered the gown twirling, I remembered the boy who complimented my ass, I remembered being told I was beautiful. I remembered the woman staring back at me in the Métro windows, her wink. I tried to pull away. John embraced me with my arms pinned to my sides, the lettuce bin between us, its raw, wet smell pushed toward our faces. In full view of the entire kitchen, he kissed me. A kiss that made me think of the woefully few people I had kissed in my life. A kiss that reminded me I had never been loved. A kiss that said I could not be John unless I risked being Dana.   My

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?

Need to Be Honest about My Issues Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (PSALM 139:23 – 24) Thought for the Day: Avoiding reality never changes reality. Mostly I’m a good person with good motives, but not always. Not when I just want life to be a little more about me or about making sure I look good. That’s when my motives get corrupted. The Bible is pretty blunt in naming the real issue here: evil desires. Yikes. I don’t like that term at all. And it seems a bit severe to call my unglued issues evil desires, doesn’t it? But in the depths of my heart I know the truth. Avoiding reality never changes reality. Sigh. I think I should say that again: Avoiding reality never changes reality. And change is what I really want. So upon the table I now place my honesty: I have evil desires. I do. Maybe not the kind that will land me on a 48 Hours Mystery episode, but the kind that pull me away from the woman I want to be. One with a calm spirit and divine nature. I want it to be evident that I know Jesus, love Jesus, and spend time with Jesus each day. So why do other things bubble to the surface when my life gets stressful and my relationships get strained? Things like … Selfishness: I want things my way. Pride: I see things only from my vantage point. Impatience: I rush things without proper consideration. Anger: I let simmering frustrations erupt. Bitterness: I swallow eruptions and let them fester. It’s easier to avoid these realities than to deal with them. I’d much rather tidy my closet than tidy my heart. I’d much rather run to the mall and get a new shirt than run to God and get a new attitude. I’d much rather dig into a brownie than dig into my heart. I’d much rather point the finger at other people’s issues than take a peek at my own. Plus, it’s just a whole lot easier to tidy my closet, run to the store, eat a brownie, and look at other people’s issues. A whole lot easier. I rationalize that I don’t have time to get all psychological and examine my selfishness, pride, impatience, anger, and bitterness. And honestly, I’m tired of knowing I have issues but having no clue how to practically rein them in on a given day. I need something simple. A quick reality check I can remember in the midst of the everyday messies. And I think the following prayer is just the thing: God, even when I choose to ignore what my heart is saying to me, You know my heart. I bring to You this [and here I name whatever feeling or thoughts I have been reluctant to acknowledge]. Forgive me. Soften my heart. Make it pure. Might that quick prayer help you as well? If so, stop what you are doing —just for five minutes — and pray these or similar words. When I’ve prayed for the Lord to interrupt my feelings and soften my heart, it’s amazing how this changes me. Dear Lord, help me to remember to actually bring my emotions and reactions to You. I want my heart reaction to be godly. Thank You for grace and for always forgiving me. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Could you be anything but bluntly honest with a wide-awake human being?

The military band did not make things easier. Having detected a larger than usual turnout of British travelers, and waiting with some infernal clairvoyance until Cyprian thought he had a grip on himself, just as he turned to bid Yashmeen a breezy arrivederci, they began to play an arrangement for brass of ‘Nimrod’ – what else? – from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Teutonic bluntness notwithstanding, at the first major-seventh chord, an uncertainty of pitch among the trumpets contributing its touch of unsought innocence, Cyprian felt the tap opening decisively. It was difficult to tell what Yashmeen was thinking as she offered her lips. He was concentrating on not getting her vestee wet. The music took them for an instant in its autumnal envelope, shutting out the tourist chatter, the steam horns and quayside traffic, in as honest an expression of friendship and farewell as the Victorian heart had ever managed to come up with, until finally, the band moved mercifully on to ‘La Gazza Ladra.’ It wasn’t till Yashmeen nodded and released him that Cyprian realized they had been holding each other.

Don’t you think it’s possible your attachment to Merripen was a result of proximity as much as anything else?” Leo had asked gently. “Let’s look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You’re a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he’s … Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else.” Win had been shocked out of her tears by his bluntness. “Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting—” “Lord Ramsay now, thank you,” he had teased. “Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen are carnal in nature?” “They’re certainly not intellectual,” Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

He smiled – a real smile. Damn. It was easier to deal with him when he was being thoroughly vile. "Look, I’m sorry for being so rude earlier today. Your presence came as something of a shock and I reacted badly." "Oh." Geared for battle, his apology took me utterly by surprise. I gaped. "Aunt Arabella spoke very highly of you," he added, heaping coals of fire on my head. "She was impressed by your work on the Purple Gentian." "Why all this sudden amiability?" I asked suspiciously, crossing my arms across my chest. "Are you always this blunt?" "I’m too tired to be tactful," I said honestly. "Fair enough." Stretching, Colin detached himself from the wall. "Can I make you some hot chocolate as a token of peace? I was just about to have some myself," he added. Suiting action to words, he loped over to the counter beside the sink and checked the level of water in a battered brown plastic electric kettle. Satisfied, he plugged it into the wall, flipping the red switch on the side. I followed him over to the counter, the linen folds of the nightgown trailing after me across the linoleum. "As long as you promise not to slip any arsenic in it." Colin rooted around in a cupboard above the sink for the cocoa tin and held it out to me to sniff. "See? Arsenic free." I leant back against the counter, my elbows behind me on the marble work surface. "I don’t think arsenic is supposed to have a smell, is it?" "Damn, foiled again." Colin spooned Cadbury’s instant hot chocolate into two mugs, one decorated with large purple flowers, and the other with a quotation that I thought might be Jane Austen, but the author’s name was hidden around the other side of the mug. "Look, if it makes you feel better, I promise to do a very bad job hiding your body." "In that case, carry on," I yawned.

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.

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.

Depending on what your biological family was like, church-as-family may intimidate or inspire you. It’s easy to import our own baggage or expectations into the church, but it’s also important to be aware of the baggage. Creating some space to talk about these issues with one another can be very fruitful. But in our society, meeting with relative strangers for two-and-a-half hours a week, sharing a meal, giving and receiving grace from people very different from us, isn’t ordinary. We are used to being dependent on ourselves and, if we are honest, our highest obligation is to self—doing, saying, and feeling whatever we want. In an interesting twist, self-love is the paradigm for true love. Jesus tells us to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:19; see Lev. 19:18). Disciples of Jesus should do, say, and try to feel what is best for others, not just for themselves. To put it bluntly, disciples of Jesus should regularly sacrifice privacy, convenience, and comfort in order to love and serve one another.

You’re betraying your whole life if you don’t say what you think—and you don’t say it honestly and bluntly.” —Charles Krauthammer

Most people are open books. They say what they feel, blurt out their opinions at every opportunity, and constantly reveal their plans and intentions. They do this for several reasons. First, it is easy and natural to always want to talk about one’s feelings and plans for the future. It takes effort to control your tongue and monitor what you reveal. Second, many believe that by being honest and open they are winning people’s hearts and showing their good nature. They are greatly deluded. Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts. Your honesty is likely to offend people; it is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they want to hear rather than the coarse and ugly truth of what you feel or think. More important, by being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions. If you yearn for power, quickly lay honesty aside, and train yourself in the art of concealing your intentions. Master the art and you will always have the upper hand.

There’s only you, Violence. Is that what you needed to hear?” I nod. “Even when I’m not with you, there’s only you. Next time, just ask. You’ve never had a problem being bluntly honest with 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.

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.

Probably not.” He sighs. “There’s only you, Violence. Is that what you needed to hear?” I nod. “Even when I’m not with you, there’s only you. Next time, just ask. You’ve never had a problem being bluntly honest with me.” Wind blows around us, but he’s as immovable as the parapet itself. “As I remember, you’ve even thrown daggers at my head, which I greatly prefer over watching you get tangled up in your thoughts. If we’re going to do this, then we have to trust each other.” “And you want to do this?” I hold my breath. He sighs, long and hard, then admits, “Yes.” His hand slides up, and he caresses my cheek with his thumb. “I can’t make you any promises, Violence. But I’m tired of fighting it.” “Yes.” One word has never meant so much to me.

He slid his chair back, stood and gave Rikke his best formal bow. “Please allow me to say that I do not blame you for this in the least. Terrible manners to just drop in. Entirely my own fault. I’m actually…” He gave a disbelieving grin as he realised it was true. “I’m actually rather glad we had this time together.” Rikke winced again, even harder, as Glaward walked over with a set of heavy manacles. “Believe it or not, so am I.” “An unlikely romance, this,” sneered Brock, pale lip curled with evident disgust. Or was it jealousy? Rikke’s glance towards him was satisfyingly furious. “We’re even,” she forced through gritted teeth. Brock’s nostrils flared. The Young Lion might have had fewer limbs than in his glory days, but he yet possessed a full set of heroic nostrils. “Take him somewhere he won’t bloody escape from,” he snapped at Jurand. “And the Lady Regent won’t find out about. Not until it’s time.” He looked back to Rikke. “We’re even. But we’ll be keeping our swords well sharpened, just in case.” “The Master Maker forged mine,” said Caul Shivers, in that broken whisper of his. “It never gets blunt.” He made no effort to be threatening. The one advantage of a giant scar and a metal eye, perhaps, is that being threatening takes no effort whatsoever. “Huh.” And Brock’s mechanical leg squeaked faintly as he limped for the door. The bracelets snapped shut around Orso’s wrists. One could almost hear the discomfort in Glaward’s voice. “Hope that’s not too tight, Your…” “No, no,” said Orso. “Most comfortable fetters I’ve worn, and I’ve tried on quite a few lately.” He took one last look at Rikke, sitting there in the sunlight, at the head of the table. He would have liked more time with her. But he supposed it had never been very realistic. “Peace between the North and the Union.” He gave a little chuckle. “Honestly, it’s a far better legacy than anyone expected from me.” And he strolled jauntily out into the hall. Well, as jauntily as you can in chains. Which isn’t very.

(By the way, I always found the winner to be a nice person. I suppose she was a little more honest and blunt than the rest of the contestants, hence the “bitch” label that people like to throw onto assertive women.)

John sums up the matter bluntly. “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars” (1 John 4:20). To truly love God includes loving others with the same love God has for us and the same love God has for them. This is part of what it means to be a participant in the divine nature. It is, in fact, what it means to be Christian (Christ-like). “Whoever does not love,” John wrote, “does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). Our capacity to love—to fulfill the greatest two commandments—is the definitive evidence that we are in fact abiding in Christ and participating in the perfect love of the triune God. Christians sometimes try to assess how they or others are doing on the basis of such things as how successfully they conquer a particular sin, how much prayer and Bible study they do, how regularly they attend and give to church, and so forth. But rarely do we honestly ask the question that Scripture places at the center of everything: Are we growing in our capacity to love all people? Do we have an increasing love for our sisters and brothers in Christ as well as for those for whom Christ died who are yet outside the church? Are we increasing in our capacity to ascribe unsurpassable worth to people whom society judges to have no worth? If there is any distinguishing mark of the true disciple from a biblical perspective, this is it!

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.

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

In India nearly everybody spoke metaphorically except the English who spoke bluntly and could make their most transparent lies look honest as a consequence; whereas any truth contained in these metaphorical rigmaroles was so deviously presented that it looked devious itself.

The more ethical and honest your business is, the harder it is to make money. And you have to understand this going in: when you start a business, being good and moral and ethical and, you know, legal… means you will make less money than someone who simply does not give a fuck. If you’re wondering where all this is going, the point to all this is to hammer into your skull the blunt reality that you and your new business are indistinguishable from the worst examples of the industry, and nobody cares.

see them laughing, and living, and fighting—always passionate but fair. They’re careful with each other because they know what they have, they know how rare it is, how lucky they were to survive it all with that love intact. They’re still magnetic, still make love like they’ll never get enough, still open, bluntly honest, yet tender.

Another method to identify misogyny is to picture a well-known politician as belonging to the opposite sex and see where that takes you. For instance, imagine Donald Trump as a woman. Let's call her Donna. During the 2016 presidential election, Donna Trump said the exact same things as her male twin, Donald, did in real life. Orange-faced, sporting a fantastically cantilevered helmet of yellow hair, she hid her weight under baggy, navy-blue pantsuits. Bellowing from the podium, she was angry, boastful. Only SHE could save the country. She called people nasty names, made fun of handicapped reporters and Gold Star Families, and refused to turn over her income tax returns. She lied and/or exaggerated on a daily basis. She had been married three times and cheated on all three husbands. She bragged about grabbing unsuspecting men's penises. Would Donna Trump have been viewed as blunt, honest, and refreshing? Would SHE have won the election?

To be completely honest, after discovering this problem, she had wanted to find . someone to acknowledge that there were indeed deities in this world, but to her dismay she barely met more than a handful of people in a month. Her character had always been happy-go-lucky: to put it nicely would be that she was adaptable to her circumstances, but to put it bluntly would be that she did not strive for progress and was a totally lazy shut-in. Her life was truly lacking of any pursuits.

Eventually Win had accepted that the feelings she had for Merripen were not reciprocated. She had even cried on Leo's shoulder. Her brother had pointed out that she had seen very little of the world and knew next to nothing about men. "Don't you think it's possible your attachment to Merripen was a result of proximity as much as anything else?" Leo had asked gently. "Let's look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You're a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he's… Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else." Win had been shocked out of her tears by his blunt-ness. "Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting-" "Lord Ramsay now, thank you," he had teased. "Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen arc carnal in nature?" "They're certainly not intellectual," Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

I see them laughing, and living, and fighting—always passionate but fair. They’re careful with each other because they know what they have, they know how rare it is, how lucky they were to survive it all with that love intact. They’re still magnetic, still make love like they’ll never get enough, still open, bluntly honest, yet tender.

They were often too honest, the words they chose too blunt. Their worlds were big and bold and colorful but they were not yet able to distinguish that colors had values, that words had nuance. They described the people around them as old or young, ugly or beautiful, fat or thin, never recognizing that there were kinder, gentler, more forgiving words that lay in between.

You can be terrifyingly honest with your pals: if they ask your opinion, they should be prepared to handle the answer. Some may be offended by your bluntness, but it’s your authenticity that also makes your opinion so sought after. You find flattery quite suspicious, and will put your feelers out for ulterior motives, so you wouldn’t dream of being the bearer of empty compliments.

When expectation ends suddenly the person becomes blunt and truthful with everyone as there is no fear of anyone leaving them. When I started this experiment instead of people leaving from life, I had better and honest conversations with people which was not possible earlier.

Master Hsing Yun now uses a wheelchair to get around, but his mind remains clear and sharp. Partway through our meal, he turned to me with a blunt question. “Kai-Fu, have you ever thought about what your goal is in life?” Without thinking, I reflexively gave him the answer I had given to myself and others for decades: “To maximize my impact and change the world.” Speaking those words, I felt the burning embarrassment that comes when we expose our naked ambitions to others. The feeling was magnified by the silence emanating from the monk across the table. But my answer was an honest one. This quest to maximize my impact was like a tumor that had always lived inside of me, ever tenacious and always growing. I had read widely in philosophy and religious texts, but for decades had never critically examined or doubted this core motivating belief within me.

The same rationale applies to worship services. You want guests to have a positive experience. You want them to return. You desire for them to hear the gospel and to connect with believers. Ask an outsider, someone who has never been to your church, to attend a worship service. Ask them to observe and take notes if possible. Ask them to be honest and blunt. You want to learn. You want to improve.

Never be too afraid to be an asshole!

No. I’m blunt and honest and I’ll never change.

They see me as an exotic animal, a rebellious phase. I’m not a pony they can ride in turns,

where Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist most famous for having designed the “shock therapy” reforms applied to the former Soviet Union, had a live-on-video-link session in which he startled everyone by presenting what careful journalists might describe as an “unusually candid” assessment of those in charge of America’s financial institutions. Sachs’s testimony is especially valuable because, as he kept emphasizing, many of these people were quite up front with him because they assumed (not entirely without reason) that he was on their side: Look, I meet a lot of these people on Wall Street on a regular basis right now . . . I know them. These are the people I have lunch with. And I am going to put it very bluntly: I regard the moral environment as pathological. [These people] have no responsibility to pay taxes; they have no responsibility to their clients; they have no responsibility to counterparties in transactions. They are tough, greedy, aggressive, and feel absolutely out of control in a quite literal sense, and they have gamed the system to a remarkable extent. They genuinely believe they have a God-given right to take as much money as they possibly can in any way that they can get it, legal or otherwise. If you look at the campaign contributions, which I happened to do yesterday for another purpose, the financial markets are the number one campaign contributors in the US system now. We have a corrupt politics to the core . . . both parties are up to their necks in this. But what it’s led to is this sense of impunity that is really stunning, and you feel it on the individual level right now. And it’s very, very unhealthy, I have waited for four years . . . five years now to see one figure on Wall Street speak in a moral language. And I’ve have not seen it once.20 So there you have it. If Sachs was right—and honestly, who is in a better position to know?—then at the commanding heights of the financial system, we’re not actually talking about bullshit jobs. We’re not even talking about people who have come to believe their own propagandists. Really we’re just talking about a bunch of crooks.

I suppose she was a little more honest and blunt than the rest of the contestants, hence the “bitch” label that people like to throw onto assertive women.)

Don't you think it's possible your attachment to Merripen was a result of proximity as much as anything else?" Leo had asked gently. "Let's look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You're a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he's... Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else." Win had been shocked out of her tears by his bluntness. "Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting-" "Lord Ramsay now, thank you," he had teased. "Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen are carnal in nature?" "They're certainly not intellectual," Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

What is wrong with looking muscular? Muscles are beautiful. Strength is beautiful. Muscle tissue is beautiful. It is metabolically, medically, and philosophically beautiful. Muscles retreat when they’re not used, but they will always come back if you give them good reason. No matter how old you get, your muscles never lose hope. Few cells of the body are as capable as muscle cells are of change and reformation, of achievement and transcendence… Women need muscle, as much as they can muster. They need muscle to shield their light bones, and they need muscle to weather illness. And being strong in a blunt way, a muscleheaded way, is easier than being skilled at a sport. It is a democratic option, open to the klutzes and the latecomers, and women should seize the chance to become cheaply, fowzily strong, because the chance exists, and let’s be honest, we don’t have many. Being strong won’t make you happy or fulfilled, but it’s better to be sullen and strong than sullen and weak

There were larger reasons for Walter Whitman’s travails. He was a blunt-spoken worker accustomed to honest self-sufficiency in a time when the market was calling for new traits: slickness and self-promotion, with more than a dash of craft. He might love cattle, children, and living under his own roof, but what he needed in the new environment was an eye for the deal.

They were running out of things to say to each other. That was ghastly, but it was true. His family members were all preparing to meet their maker in two or three or four weeks. The government had been handing out free euthanasia pills to anyone who wanted them; thousands had already swallowed them and bodies overflowed the morgues. Mass graves were being dug with end loaders. Meanwhile, Doob was preparing for—to be blunt, to be honest—the greatest adventure of his life. He wished, at some level, that they were already dead.

Be direct.

I'm sorry." "Sorry? For what?" He straightened and moved a bit closer, sounding honestly puzzled. "I am not much of a conversationalist, I'm afraid. I am not used to - to any of this. You must find this terribly..." "Terribly what?" "Boring." She faced him squarely then, for she refused to shy away from difficulties. He let out a short bark of laughter. "Boring? My dear Miss Bainbridge, boring is definitely something you are not." "I don't know how you can say that," she retorted somewhat crossly. "There is really no need for you to be polite. I haven't said any of the things I should. I have been blunt and no doubt impolite. I have never danced before with any man I haven't known since I could toddle. And now I cannot even come up with the most commonplace remark." His chuckle was low and warm [...]. "Oh, you know what I mean." Really the man was maddening. "You shouldn't laugh at someone who is admitting their grievous social ineptitude." "What else should I do?" His teeth glinted in the darkness. "Let me assure you that I have danced with a great many girls whom I have not known since childhood. And I have heard a great many commonplace remarks. It is, quite frankly, a relief to enjoy the quiet and cool of the garden without hearing that the weather is quite nice this evening or that the breeze is most refreshing or that the party is so enjoyable.

Don’t just take my word for it, here are the folks who wrote the book on it. Each year, the Heritage Foundation publishes its Index of U.S. Military Strength. Think of it as a 650-page report card for every branch of the U.S. military. Its 2024 report is blunt, “as currently postured, the U.S. military is at significant risk of not being able to defend America’s vital national interests.” For the second year in a row, our military is rated as “weak” relative to the force needed to defend national interests. Weak . . . two years in a row. The authors of this exhaustive report are patriots. Most are former military. They love our troops. And they are brutally honest. Things must change, and quickly—for the sake of our country and our warfighters.

They’re careful with each other because they know what they have, they know how rare it is, how lucky they were to survive it all with that love intact. They’re still magnetic, still make love like they’ll never get enough, still open, bluntly honest, yet tender.

Langley raised an eyebrow. “What changed, Miss Fleming?” he asked. “I’ve had a chance to discuss it with my brother, and we decided that if you’re generous enough to forgive our family’s debt, we should not be ashamed to accept.” “Miss Fleming, I think you owe me the courtesy of an honest answer.” She looked down at her shoes before raising her eyes to meet the earl’s. “William lost heavily at cards two days ago,” she said bluntly.

Next time, just ask. You’ve never had a problem being bluntly honest with me.

I can be a bit too blunt, and excuse it by saying I’m just an honest person, but if I’m truly being honest, sometimes blunt is just mean. Honesty can be an excuse for bullying.

I love that there are no games between us. No carefully chosen words. No unspoken thoughts. Just honest, blunt enthusiasm for what's to come. It’s freeing to not have to pretend.