Bonds Together Quotes

I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Then Day reaches out and touches my hand with his. He encloses it in a handshake. And just like that, I am linked with him again, I feel the pulse of our bond and his- tory and love through our hands, like a wave of magic, the return of a long-lost friend. Of something meant to be. The feeling brings tears to my eyes. Perhaps we can take a step forward together. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Daniel.” “Hi,” I reply. “I’m June.

Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey. At other times, it is allowing another to take yours.

It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.

Ayame: "Yuki, let's deepen the bond between us brothers!" Yuki: "Before you can do that I'll drown you in the deepest part of that lake." Ayame: "As long as we spend time together." Yuki: "On second thought, go drown yourself.

You remember the word we said when we pressed our hands together, right?" I nodded. Forem. But what does it mean?" "Forever,” he said his breath shaky. "It means we're bonded together forever.

love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

He had killed his way across the world; he had gone to war and back more times than he cared to remember. And despite it all, despite the rage and despair and ice he’d wrapped around his heart, he’d still found Aelin. Every horizon he’d gazed toward, unable and unwilling to rest during those centuries, every mountain and ocean he’d seen and wondered what lay beyond … It had been her. It had been Aelin, the silent call of the mating bond driving him, even when he could not feel it. They’d walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not let the road end here.

[Friendship] is a relationship that has no formal shape, there are no rules or obligations or bonds as in marriage or the family, it is held together by neither law nor property nor blood, there is no glue in it but mutual liking. It is therefore rare.

Even if they end up together, which I highly doubt, given the strength of that particular bond-...-but even if Schuyler still loves him, or thinks she does, it doesn't matter. Because Jack is going to leave her one day. i know he will. He's too much for Schuyler. They're wrong for each other. Anyone can see that. And when he leaves her, I'll be there. However long it takes, I'll still be there for her. Waiting.

They would place their hands together inside the circle so that they could walk in each other's dreams. It forged a bond that could not be broken. The circle represents love in eternity. For there is no beginning and no end.

When rain and tears are making a trip together, emotions can be coming under pressure. But the fluid bond between the power of nature and the frailty of the soul may also smash the weight of the burden and create a liberating mental flow opening new insights. (“Rainman”)

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

I feel the pulse of our bond and history and love through our hands, like a wave of magic, the return of a long-lost friend. Of something meant to be. The feeling brings tears to my eyes. Perhaps we can take a step forward together. 'Hi,' he says. 'I'm Daniel.' 'Hi,' I reply. 'I'm June.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Together we shared a bond not even death would violate.

Most marriages don't add two people together. They subtract one from the other.

Relationships may become wrecked by a quirky syndrome: the “Ain't broke, don't fix”-syndrome. When there is no interaction in the neural network and no breakthrough into the mind but only a shallow skin experience, living together might be very torturous. If a heartfelt bond has not been molded, nothing can be broken and thus nothing needs to be fixed. (“I wonder what went wrong.”)

The glue of mutual need that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away. Dark patches, not light, show in the spaces between us.

You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore...But let there be spaces in your togetherness...Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not of the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

She’d learned early that it was quicker to bond with another person over what you didn’t like than what you did, and that the easiest way to feel close to someone was to do something transgressive together. That’s why smokers always made friends.

He was losing her incrementally...As a web is no more than holes woven together, they were bonded by what was no longer there.

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is thread, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.

How can you lose me? You’ve owned me from the first moment I saw you.

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.

Bond is stronger than blood. The family grows stronger by bond.

So what if you burned a few books? Those librarians deserve it. When we're older, maybe we'll burn it to the ground together." She knew he meant it. He'd burn the library, the city, or the whole world to ashes if she asked him. It was their bond, marked by blood and scent and something else she couldn't place. A tether as strong as the one that bound her to her parents, stronger in some ways.

What intrigued me more than anything else was finding out the way in which everything, all of creation - all of it! - was held together by invisible chemical bonds, and I found a strange, inexplicable comfort in knowing that somewhere, even though we couldn't see it in our own world, there was a real stability.

Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman... whether it was by throwing stones or by mean gossip. It was the only kind of loyalty they seemed to have. Men were different. They might hate each other but they stuck together against the world and against any woman who would ensnare one of them.

For two young women, bound together by blood and circumstance, but divided by religion, politics, and social class, the consequences were much more personal.

We share a bond. We do everything together. We have a piece of strong, invisible thread connecting us. It’s indestructible – it can never be broken. The thread is the key item that links us together. We understand each other.

Some of us are born sensitive. And if, on top of that, we are pulled about in different directions (both emotionally and physically), we might just end up becoming writers. No, we don't become writers in schools of creative writing. We become writers before we learn to write. The rest is simply learning how to put it all together.

There are no bonds so strong as those which are formed by suffering together.

You’re a friend of Ev’s and Lauren’s. We talked. I tackled you. We rolled around on the floor together. It was a real bonding experience.

It was her last breakfast with Bapi, her last morning in Greece. In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she’d scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launchtime. He looked up at her briefly and smiled, and she realized something important. This was how they both liked it. Though most people felt bonded by conversation, Lena and Bapi were two of a kind who didn’t. They bonded by the routine of just eating cereal together. She promptly forgot her script and went back to her cereal. At one point, when she was down to just milk, Bapi reached over and put his hand on hers. ‘You’re my girl,’ he said. And Lena knew she was.

It's funny," she said, with a strange hitch in her voice, "but I never wanted to be tied to anyone. Never wanted to be owned or to belong to another person. But now I realize that belonging with someone is completely different. I belong with you, Con." "And I with you." He kissed her, sealing them together with a bond she didn't mind, and one that would never be broken.

We had come from lecture halls, school desks and factory workbenches, and over the brief weeks of training, we had bonded together into one large and enthusiastic group. Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war.

You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. "Huh," "hun," and "hi!" in their various modulations, together with "sure," "guess so," "that so?" and "nuts!" will meet almost any contingency.

We should not expect individuals to produce good, open-minded, truth-seeking reasoning, particularly when self-interest or reputational concerns are in play. But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it's so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or a community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisory board).

Few words are more chilling when put together than make friends. The command to pair bond sent ice water through Stevie’s veins. She wanted falling rocks. But she knew what would happen if she didn’t do the talking—her parents would. And if her parents started, anything could happen.

I will tell you what we shall do: if ever you need to rescue Catherine, or you Berkley, Maximus, I will help you, and you will do as much for me. Then we do not need to worry, I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we can escape

Commitment. That's what it's all about. Taking that convenant together. Bonding yourselves for all eternity. Isn't that what we are all looking for? Maybe Alexander wasn't ready to do that with me, but it's obvious he isn't ready to do that with you, either.

There is no use being here unless we're together. There is no me without you.

There is no medicine that can ignite the bond of love. Friendship is compulsory, love comes around when friendship ripes, and sex is a matter of choice.

I dont think any kind of love is without some kind of hurt along the way. It's how we get to know each other better, how we decide what's for real...what's the eternal stuff, what is going to push us closer together and seal the bond between us.

That’s the thing about great love. It elevates everything around it. You walk through a forest together and it becomes a great temple. You eat a meal together and you sit at God’s banquet table. You merge your bodies and all heaven breaks loose. That’s why we can’t stop singing about love. Every verse is a cry for wholeness.

Every corner and room of a house will carry memories, make these the most pleasurable times you shared with your family.

We expect and demand people to maintain bonds with family. It doesn’t matter whether you love or hate your relatives, even ones you’ve legally divorced. As long as there are children involved, you stick together.

Zhi yin. Jem had told her once that it meant understanding music, and also a bond that went deeper than friendship. Jem played, and he played the years of Will's life as he had seen them. He played two little boys in the training room, one showing the other how to throw knives, and he played the ritual of parabatai: the fire and the vows and burning runes. He played two young men running through the streets of London in the dark, stopping to lean up against a wall and laugh together. He played the day in the library when he and Will had jested with Tessa about ducks, and he played the train to Yorkshire on which Jem had said that parabatai were meant to love each other as they loved their own souls. He played that love, and he played their love for Tessa, and hers for them, and he played Will saying, In your eyes I have always found grace. He played the too few times he had seen them since he had joined the Brotherhood- the brief meetings at the Institute; the time when Will had been bitten by a Shax demon and nearly died, and Jem had come from the Silent City and sat with him all night, risking discovery and punishment. And he played the birth of their first son, and the protection ceremony that had been carried out on the child in the Silent City. Will would have no other Silent Brother but Jem perform it. And Jem played the way he had covered his scarred face with his hands and turned away when he'd found out the child's name was James. He played of love and loss and years of silence, words unsaid and vows unspoken, and all the spaces between his heart and theirs; and when he was done, and he'd set the violin back in its box, Will's eyes were closed, but Tessa's were full of tears. Jem set down his bow, and came toward the bed, drawing back his hood, so she could see his closed eyes and his scarred face. And he had sat down beside them on the bed, and taken Will's hand, the one that Tessa was not holding, and both Will and Tessa heard Jem's voice in their minds. I take your hand, brother, so that you may go in peace. Will had opened the blue eyes that had never lost their color over all the passing years, and looked at Jem and then Tessa, and smiled, and died, with Tessa's head on his shoulder and his hand in Jem's.

That's the tricky thing about being bonded to someone for life. Blake and his dad are bonded like I'm bonded with Erin. We're irrevocably tied together by history, a history that can never be erased. Even if you want to deny it, even it you want to pretend it never existed, it will always be a part of you. It will always, in some way, define who you are.

Tactus claps his hands together in laughter and draws Sevro in for an obnoxious hug. They are two very peculiar people. But I suppose snuggling in horse corpses gives a bond—makes twins of a morbid sort.

I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that I’m middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, it’s a shallow love. You want proof?” Cagney didn’t wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay. “Soon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I don’t think so. And at the end, when he thinks she’s dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal. “Those of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the ‘lean abhorred monster’ endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a ‘no.’” Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair. “No,” he repeated. “His alleged love is so superficial and selfish that he seeks to escape the pain of loss by taking his own life. That’s not love, but obsessive infatuation. Had they wed—Juliet bearing many children, bonding, growing together, the masks of the star-struck teens they once were long ago cast away, basking in the comforting campfire of a love born of a lifetime together, not devoured by the raging forest fire of youth that consumes everything and leaves behind nothing—and she died of natural causes, would Romeo have been so moved to take his own life, or would he have grieved properly, for her loss and not just his own?

There's no district 12 to escape from now, no Peacekeepers to trick, no hungry mouths to feed. The Capitol took away all of that, and I'm on the verge of losing Gale as well. The glue of mutual needs that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away.

We are bonded now. We will face it together. Your destiny is mine as well. We shall live or die together.

It felt as if we'd been to war together. Deep in a jungle, alone, I had relied on them, these strangers. They'd held me up in ways only people could. When it was over, an ending never felt like an ending, only an exhausted draw, we went our separate ways. Be we were bonded forever by the history of it, the simple fact they'd seen the raw side of me and me of them, a side no one, not even closest friends or family had ever seen before, or probably ever would.

There was no way to undo it. No amount of coin or power could turn time back to that night in Tempest Snare, or the day Isolde showed up, asking for a place on Saint’s crew. It was one long series of tragically beautiful knots that bound us together.

I closed my eyes. “Seth—” "And when I was there and Erik sent me wherever he did, I felt…well, it was beyond anything I’d experienced. At first, I was so confused and disoriented. I didn’t get what they were saying about finding you. It seemed surreal. Then, it was the easiest thing in the world. I just looked for you, and there you were. In all that space and all that chaos, reaching you was like looking into myself. We were so close…it defied physics and every rule of nature I knew. It didn’t seem real that I could be together with anyone like that. And when it was over, it’s like I said—I wasn’t sure what I’d just been a part of. But I knew that I had never experienced any bond like that with any other woman. Maybe you’re the only one, maybe there’s another…but regardless, I didn’t have it with Maddie. She’s amazing. I do love her. But in that situation again? I would never find her. And I knew it wasn’t fair to lead her into a life without that connection. You and I…I don’t understand what’s between us, but I’d rather spend my life alone than with someone who isn’t you.

Perhaps you are not trying to whip a crowd into a frenzy; you just want to bring people over to your side. Choose your strategy and words carefully. You might think it is better to reason with people, explain your ideas. But it is hard for an audience to decide whether an argument is reasonable as they listen to you talk. They have to concentrate and listen closely, which requires great effort. People are easily distracted by other stimuli, and if they miss a part of your argument, they will feel confused, intellectually inferior, and vaguely insecure. It is more persuasive to appeal to people’s hearts than their heads. Everyone shares emotions, and no one feels inferior to a speaker who stirs up their feelings. The crowd bonds together, everyone contagiously experiencing the same emotions.

Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange, unknown world, but our own.

If any of us had heard the word "feminist" we would have thought it meant a girl who wore too much makeup, but we were, without knowing it, feminists ourselves, bound together by the freemasonry that exists among intelligent women who know they are intelligent. It is the only kind of female bonding that works, which is why most men do not like intelligent women. They don't mind one female brain if they can enjoy it privately; it's the idea of two or more on the loose that upsets them. The girls in the college-bound group might not have been friends in every case--Sharon Cohen and I gave each other willies--but our instincts told us that we had the same enemies.

Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples - while judging ourselves by our best intentions. And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose. But Americans, I think, have a great advantage. To renew our unity, we only need to remember our values. We have never been held together by blood or background. We are bound by things of the spirit – by shared commitments to common ideals.

Now of all the bonds between homosexual friends, none was greater than that between friends who danced together. The friend you danced with, when you had no lover, was the most important person in your life; and for people who went without lovers for years, that was all they had.

When we got to the marina we saw this beautiful boat named Tara waiting for us. Fredo, Carin, Ryan, Dan, Kenny, Allison, my mom, and me were all together to enjoy that extraordinary day. As the boat pulled away from the city, its skyline vanished into the horizon. The captain took us to this area where we sailed through caves and lush hilly landscapes. All of a sudden, the captain pushed the throttle all the way down and we started bombing across the water like we were in a James Bond movie. Everyone's hair was blowing all over the place, especially the girls'. Of course, mine was perfect (ha,ha), but theirs ended up looking like the worst case of bed head I've seen! It was so funny.

Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized societies. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other—by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others.

I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness.

It was a confirmation of a connection that already existed. And it was a bond that extended far beyond the borders of a shared living space. We would have stayed together even without a marriage certificate . . . but I believed in the permanence it represented. It was a piece of paper you could build a life on.

My bond is writhing in my chest with joy, my skin tingling, and every last one of their scents is mingling together in an orgy of perfection. Literally, it’s as though they’re all lying around naked in my bed and I’m about to dive into that, my bond is practically orgasming with joy.

Like racism and all forms of prejudice, bigotry against transgendered people is a deadly carcinogen. We are pitted against each other in order to keep us from seeing each other as allies. Genuine bonds of solidarity can be forged between people who respect each other's differences and are willing to fight their enemy together. We are the class that does the work of the world, and can revolutionize it. We can win true liberation.

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what it means. I've never heard of bonds sharing languages either, and yet...' I pull her even closer, feeling an explosion of heat rush between us as I whisper, 'I think it means we were meant to be together." 'If you two start making out I will fling you out of the wind bubble,' Gus warns. I can't help laughing.

We had faith,” he says quietly. “That you’d know how to get us all out safely.” “And if I didn’t?” We look at each other for a long moment, then to Sel, and back to each other. When he finally speaks, Nick’s voice is warm enough to wrap the three of us together, a bond of its own. “Then the world would be broken in more ways than one.

Everything you do is connected to who you are as a person and, in turn, creates the person you are becoming. Everything you do affects those you love. All of life is covenant. Imbedded in the idea of prayer is a richly textured view of the world where all of life is organized around invisible bonds or covenants that knit us together. Instead of a fixed world, we live in our Father's world, a world built for divine relationships between people where, because of the Good News, tragedies become comedies and hope is born.

My vision of the gathered church that had come to me... had been replaced by a vision of the gathered community. What I saw now was the community imperfect and irresolute but held together by the frayed and always fraying, incomplete and yet ever-holding bonds of the various sorts of affection. There had maybe never been anybody who had not been loved by somebody, who had been loved by somebody else, and so on and on... It was a community always disappointed in itself, disappointing its members, always trying to contain its divisions and gentle its meanness, always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill. I knew that, in the midst of all the ignorance and error, this was a membership; it was the membership of Port William and of no other place on earth. My vision gathered the community as it never has been and never will be gathered in this world of time, for the community must always be marred by members who are indifferent to it or against it, who are nonetheless its members and maybe nonetheless essential to it. And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, beyond time, by one another's love, compassion, and forgiveness, as it is said we may be perfected by grace.

The bond between us was like fire- it burned and consumed, almost painful in its intensity. Almost unbearable in its pleasure. We clung to each other, mouths pressed against skin, body against body. All I could feel was Stark. All I could hear was the pounding of our hearts beating in time together. I couldn't tell where I ended and he began. I couldn't tell which pleasure was mine, and which was his. Afterward while I lay in his arms, our legs twined together, our bodies slick with sweat, I sent a silent prayer to my Goddess: Nyx, thank you for giving Stark to me. Thank you for letting him love me.

All of a sudden I found I was hoping against hope that the penguin would survive, because, as of that instant, he had a name and his name was Juan Salvador Pinguino and with his name came a surge of hope and the beginning of a bond that would last a lifetime. That was the moment at which he became my penguin, and whatever the future held, we'd face it together.

We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities. We establish a divine bond with each other as we approach God together through family prayer, gospel study, and Sunday worship.

Tearing through the room like an F5 tornado of hyperactive joy was Taylor Hawkins, my brother from another mother, my best friend, a man for whom I would take a bullet. Upon first meeting, our bond was immediate, and we grew closer with every day, every song, every note that we ever played together. I am not afraid to say that our chance meeting was a kind of love at first sight, igniting a musical “twin flame” that still burns to this day. Together, we have become an unstoppable duo, onstage and off, in pursuit of any and all adventure we can find. We are absolutely meant to be, and I am grateful that we found each other in this lifetime.

Looking back at those early days in the band house, we can all see how important they were in helping us bond as a band. It could have gone so wrong. Danny and I had picked Harry and Dougie after, literally, two days of knowing them. We could have all hated each other. We could have found that we had nothing in common, or that we resented the time we spent with each other. In fact, we had such a lot of fun. We weren’t yet famous or successful, but already we were having the time of our lives. Even when we hit the big time, we didn’t want to go out to clubs or celebrity haunts. Not our scene. For us, the best thing about being in a band was being in a band, doing band stuff - not all the trappings that went with it. We liked working on our music, and we liked hanging out together. All this meant we gelled more than most bands ever have the opportunity or inclination to do. Within a couple of months of moving into the band house, I had three new best friends. Their names were Danny, Harry and Dougie. No matter what the future held for us, our friendship was something we now know we could always rely on.

Somehow the promise we had made on that piece of paper gave me more freedom than I’d ever known before. It allowed both of us to argue, to laugh, to risk, to trust—without fear. It was a confirmation of a connection that already existed. And it was a bond that extended far beyond the borders of a shared living space. We would have stayed together even without a marriage certificate . . . but I believed in the permanence it represented. It was a piece of paper you could build a life on.

How men feared women! she thought, walking among the late-flowering roses. Not as individuals, but women when they talked together, worked together, spoke up for one another - then men saw plots, cabals, constraints, traps being laid. Of course they were right. Women were likely, as women, to take the next generations part, not this one's; they wove the links men saw as chains, the bonds men saw as bondage.

Women are often meticulous and safe drivers, but they are very seldom first-class. In general, Bond regarded them as a mild hazard and he always gave them plenty of road and was ready for the unpredictable. Four women in a car he regarded as the highest potential danger, and two women nearly as lethal. Women together cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each other’s faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other person’s expression, perhaps to read behind the others’ words or analyze the reaction to their own. So two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract each other’s attention from the road ahead and four women are more than doubly dangerous for the driver not only has to hear and see, what her companion is saying but also, for women are like that, what the two behind are talking about.

When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so. [...] But I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. And what is the result? An abominable religion has settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter's dog that suddenly goes mad and turns on his master. I fear for you; I fear for the clan.

Daughter of Merrow, leave your sleep, The ways of childhood no more to keep. The dream will die, a nightmare rise, Sleep no more, child, open your eyes... Daughter of Merrow, chosen one, The end begins, your time has come. The sands run out, our spell unwinds, Inch by inch, our chant unbinds... Daughter of Merrow, find the five Brave enough to keep hope alive. One whose heart will hold the light, One possessed of a prophet’s sight. One who does not yet believe, Thus has no choice but to deceive. One with spirit sure and strong, One who sings all creatures’ songs. Together find the talismans Belonging to the six who ruled, Hidden under treacherous waters After light and darkness dueled. These pieces must not be united, Not in anger, greed, or rage. They were scattered by brave Merrow, Lest they unlock destruction’s cage. Come to us from seas and rivers, Become one mind, one heart, one bond. Before the waters, and all creatures in them, Are laid to waste by Abbadon!

We've been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy - we, too young to know about it, couldn't handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty and ugliness, but if only you'll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, what ever comes, together. I want you to make the decision after you're completely better, so take your time thinking about it. In the mean time, though, don't disappear on me.

For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly affection, we must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities for the supply of others' necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor, and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as His own people and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness, and truth then formerly we have been acquainted with.

V grabbed him by the lapels and yanked him up against his body. The brother was trembling from head to foot, his eyes glowing like crystals in the night. "You are not my enemy." Instantly pissed off, Butch gripped V's shoulders, bunching up the leather jacket in his fists. "How do we know for sure." V bared his fangs and hissed, his black eyebrows cranking down hard. Butch gave the aggression right back, hoping, praying, ready for them to start clocking each other. He was jonesing to hit and get hit back; he wanted blood all over the both of them. For long moments, they stayed locked together, muscles straining, sweat blooming, right on the edge. Then Vishous's voice came out into space between their faces, the cracked tone riding a panting, desperate breath and getting bucked off. "You are my only friend. Never my enemy." No telling who embraced who first, but the urge to beat the living shit out of the other guy bled from their bodies, leaving only the bond between them. They wound up tight together and stood for a time in the cold wind. When they stepped back, it was awkwardly and with embarrassment.

Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as “a place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?)

Hear this now. Nothing, not even death, will keep me from loving you. Though this body may wither and become a dry shell, my spirit will pursue you until the end of time. We will never be apart.” He covered her mouth with his and tasted her blood. Trailing tender kisses across her cheek and jawline, he nestled against her neck. “Eternally yours,” he whispered. She clutched his head and offered her throat. “Together forever,” she responded. Broderick hesitated, her erratic pulse beating against his tongue. “Give me peace,” she whispered in a tortured breath. “Do this for me.” “I will love you forever, Davina.” His fangs pierced her cool skin and Broderick drank the life from his wife, granting her wish…and tormenting his already damned soul.

The bond between husband and wife is a strong one. Suppose the man had hunted her out and brought her back. The memory of her acts would still be there, and inevitably, sooner or later, it would be cause for rancor. When there are crises, incidents, a woman should try to overlook them, for better or for worse, and make the bond into something durable. The wounds will remain, with the woman and with the man, when there are crises such as I have described. It is very foolish for a woman to let a little dalliance upset her so much that she shows her resentment openly. He has his adventures--but if he has fond memories of their early days together, his and hers, she may be sure that she matters. A commotion means the end of everything. She should be quiet and generous, and when something comes up that quite properly arouses her resentment she should make it known by delicate hints. The man will feel guilty and with tactful guidance he will mend his ways. Too much lenience can make a woman seem charmingly docile and trusting, but it can also make her seem somewhat wanting in substance. We have had instances enough of boats abandoned to the winds and waves. It may be difficult when someone you are especially fond of, someone beautiful and charming, has been guilty of an indiscretion, but magnanimity produces wonders. They may not always work, but generosity and reasonableness and patience do on the whole seem best.

I have noticed a curious bifurcation in outcome in the way romances are written by women et written by men - Love Story, The Bridges of Madison County, every James Bond tale ever penned, even the film named above - end with the woman either lost or dead. And the man free to love, or at least to have sex, again. Romances (in the modern genre sense) written by women end with the couple alive, together, and in a committed and at least potentially fertile relationship, ready to turn to the work of their world. In other words, men's romances are about love and death; women's romances are about love and life.

Individual heart cells beat at their own rate when separated from one another, a phenomenon easily observed beneath a microscope. It has long been known that when they are pushed together, they will synchronize their pulses. Recent studies have shown, however, that heart cells begin to synchronize slightly before they touch. It is not known how they signal across this distance. Some scientists speculate that this method of communication may be able to cross great distances and may explain how social animals bond, or how pets seem to sense when their masters are coming home, or even how people fall in love, one heart calling to another.

Family. It was just a word…Could see its letters all strung together. But it was a symbol, too. And people thought they knew what it meant…It was a thing everyone had an opinion about—that it was all you had when you didn’t have anything else, that family was there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of these words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and get away with it. Family wasn’t more reliable than marriages or friendships…maybe less…The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family.

The spiritual life (adhyatma-jivana), the religious life (dharma-jivana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance. The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine, but as yet without knowledge and led by the dogmatic tenets and rules of some sect or creed which claims to have found the way out of the bonds of the earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true self and from God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds one's true being and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.

I don’t think there’s a less elitist thing on earth to do than to try and reach out and connect with another human being . . . And that’s what the best writing does, that’s what art does. It looks a reader in the eye, and it proceeds honestly with that reader, and nakedly. There is a compact there, a bond, a relationship, a union, a symbiosis . . . It’s not about you. Whether you’re a genius or an idiot savant. It’s about the work. The work is more important than you. So it’s not about back-claps and plaudits and “isn’t that author smart.” It’s about, “this book really connected with me. And even though you, my friend, are very different from me, I’m lending it to you, because I think it will connect with you as well.” Community. Across the eras. Between people who have never met, who will never meet, who are nonetheless bound in something together, in different ways.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss. Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together. For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us. We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers. And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it." There's a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." Thank you.

There is no ready vocabulary to describe the ways in which artists become artists, no recognition that artists must learn to be who they are (even as they cannot help being who they are.) We have a language that reflects how we learn to paint, but not how we learn to paint our paintings. How do you describe the [reader to place words here] that changes when craft swells to art? "Artists come together with the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share. The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but of the similarities. Today these similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity -- audience, critics, economics, trivia -- in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art. The rest may be necessary, but it's not art. Your job is to draw a line from your art to your life that is straight and clear.

All these women. And Trina. Trina,” she repeated, with considerable passion as she gripped his shirt. “And gooey dessert and body things and chick-vids. All night. Slumber party. Do you know what that means?” “I’ve had many dreams of them. Will there be pillow fights?” She spun him around so his back hit the door. “Don’t. Leave. Me.” “Darling.” He kissed her brow. “I must. I must.” “No. You can bring Vegas here. Because . . . you’re you. You can do that. We’ll have Vegas here, and that’ll be good. I’ll buy you a lap dance.” “That’s so sweet. But I’m going. I’ll be back tomorrow, and lay a cool cloth on your fevered brow.” “Tomorrow?” She actually went light-headed. “You’re not coming back tonight?” “You wouldn’t be in this state now if you paid attention. I’m taking a shuttle full of men to Las Vegas late this afternoon. There will be ribaldry, and a possible need to post bond. I’ve made arrangements. I’ll bring back this same shuttle full of men—hopefully—tomorrow afternoon.” “Let me come with you.” “Let me see your penis.” “Oh, God! Can’t I just use yours?” “At any other time. Now pull yourself together, and remember that when all this is over, you’ll very likely arrest a killer who’s also a dirty cop. It’s like a twofer.” “That doesn’t make me feel better.” “Best I have.

I knew it all, the whole drab compass of marital disillusion; we had been through it together, the Army and I, from the first importunate courtship until now, when nothing remained to us except the chill bonds of law and duty and custom. I had played every scene in the domestic tragedy, had found the early tiffs become more frequent, the tears less affecting, the reconciliations less sweet, till they engendered a mood of aloofness and cool criticism, and the growing conviction that it was not myself but the loved one who was at fault. I caught the false notes in her voice and learned to listen for them apprehensively; I recognized the blank, resentful stare of incomprehension in her eyes, and the selfish, hard set of the corners of her mouth. I learned her, as one must learn a woman one has kept house with, day in, day out, for three and a half years; I learned her slatternly ways, the routine and mechanism of her charm, her jealousy and self-seeking, and her nervous trick with the fingers when she was lying. She was stripped of all enchantment now and I knew her for an uncongenial stranger to whom I had bound myself indissolubly in a moment of folly.

The sense of respiration is an example of our natural sense relationship with the atmospheric matrix. Remember, respiration means to re-spire, to re-spirit ourselves by breathing. It, too, is a consensus of many senses. We may always bring the natural relationships of our senses and the matrix into consciousness by becoming aware of our tensions and relaxations while breathing. The respiration process is guided by our natural attraction to connect with fresh air and by our attraction to nurture nature by feeding it carbon dioxide and water, the foods for Earth that we grow within us during respiration. When we hold our breath, our story to do so makes our senses feel the suffocation discomfort of being separated from Earth's atmosphere. It draws our attention to follow our attraction to air, so we inspire and gain comfort. Then the attraction to feed Earth comes into play so we exhale food for it to eat and we again gain comfort. This process feels good, it is inspiring. Together, we and Earth conspire (breathe together) so that neither of us will expire. The vital nature of this process is brought to consciousness when we recognize that the word for air, spire, also means spirit and that psyche is another name for air/spirit/soul.

What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. He is young Leopold, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clambrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother's thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas, a thing now of the past!), and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile but more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address brought home at duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, to a tiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever remember the night, first night, the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer and the willed, and in an instant (fiat!) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath 'twas done but - hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold! Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength was taken from thee and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There is none to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph.