Brent Best Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Brent Best. Here they are! All 49 of them:

Home was truly the best place he could possibly be, but, alas, was not an available option.
Kenneth Eade (Unreasonable Force (Brent Marks Legal Thrillers #4))
You’re the best there is. No one can replace you.” Unexpectedly, the White chuckled. “Words every megalomaniac longs to hear. But true only of the truly bad and the monumentally great. I am neither,
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
Desperate men fight best.
Brent Weeks (Beyond the Shadows (Night Angel, #3))
I don’t really care, this is what I want to do. And if I try my best and fail, well, I tried my best.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
...Many shadows hide behind light, and the best lies are those seasoned liberally with truth: salt covering the flavor of rotten meat.
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
It’s not about how fast you do something, it’s about doing your level best.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
This is what it is to grow up. It is to live beyond the blind rush of passion, or hate, or green luxin, or battle juice. It is to see what must be done, and to do it, without feeling a great desire or a great hatred or a great love. It is to confront fear, naked. No armor of bombast or machismo. Just duty, and love for one’s fellows. Not love felt, not the love that compelled action without thought, but love chosen deliberately. I am the best person to do this thing, it said, though I may die doing it.
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
EJ cries, "We've been best friends since kindergarten. You can't become a babe slayer and leave me in the dust! I don't have an older sister. I'm disadvantaged. All I got is Emmy, who can only drop preschool wisdom like, 'No pull Barbie's hair!'" "That's probably some early girl wisdom. Nobody likes to get their hair pulled," I say. "Except this one chick in my porno; I think she's into it. I cant really tell, though. I wish they would slow down.
Brent Crawford (Carter Finally Gets It (Carter Finally Gets It, #1))
They were intent, utterly focused, fearful of letting the commander down, but not fearful. He had them heart and soul and strength, not because he gave them a respect they didn't deserve, but because he expected them to deliver the best they were able to deliver, always, and he thought their best was better than they thought it was. This was a great man in action. It was a quiet greatness.
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
These are lines from my asteroid-impact novel, Regolith: Just because there are no laws against stupidity doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be punished. I haven’t faced rejection this brutal since I was single. He smelled trouble like a fart in the shower. If this was a kiss of gratitude, then she must have been very grateful. Not since Bush and Cheney have so few spent so much so fast for so long for so little. As a nympho for mind-fucks, Lisa took to politics like a pig to mud. She began paying men compliments as if she expected a receipt. Like the Aerosmith song, his get-up-and-go just got-up-and-went. “You couldn’t beat the crap out of a dirty diaper!” He embraced his only daughter as if she was deploying to Iraq. She was hotter than a Class 4 solar flare! If sex was a weapon, then Monique possessed WMD I haven’t felt this alive since I lost my virginity. He once read that 95% of women fake organism, and the rest are gay. Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but ugly is universal. Why do wives fart, but not girlfriends? Adultery is sex that is wrong, but not necessarily bad. The dinosaurs stayed drugged out, drooling like Jonas Brothers fans. Silence filled the room like tear gas. The told him a fraction of the truth and hoped it would take just a fraction of the time. Happiness is the best cosmetic, He was a whale of a catch, and there were a lot of fish in the sea eager to nibble on his bait. Cheap hookers are less buck for the bang, Men cannot fall in love with women they don’t find attractive, and women cannot fall in love with men they do not respect. During sex, men want feedback while women expect mind-reading. Cooper looked like a cow about to be tipped over. His father warned him to never do anything he couldn’t justify on Oprah. The poor are not free -- they’re just not enslaved. Only those with money are free. Sperm wasn’t something he would choose on a menu, but it still tasted better than asparagus. The crater looked alive, like Godzilla was about to leap out and mess up Tokyo. Bush follows the Bible until it gets to Jesus. When Bush talks to God, it’s prayer; when God talks to Bush, it’s policy. Cheney called the new Miss America a traitor – apparently she wished for world peace. Cheney was so unpopular that Bush almost replaced him when running for re-election, changing his campaign slogan to, ‘Ain’t Got Dick.’ Bush fought a war on poverty – and the poor lost. Bush thinks we should strengthen the dollar by making it two-ply. Hurricane Katrina got rid of so many Democratic voters that Republicans have started calling her Kathleen Harris. America and Iraq fought a war and Iran won. Bush hasn’t choked this much since his last pretzel. Some wars are unpopular; the rest are victorious. So many conservatives hate the GOP that they are thinking of changing their name to the Dixie Chicks. If Saddam had any WMD, he would have used them when we invaded. If Bush had any brains, he would have used them when we invaded. It’s hard for Bush to win hearts and minds since he has neither. In Iraq, you are a coward if you leave and a fool if you stay. Bush believes it’s not a sin to kill Muslims since they are going to Hell anyway. And, with Bush’s help, soon. In Iraq, those who make their constitution subservient to their religion are called Muslims. In America they’re called Republicans. With great power comes great responsibility – unless you’re Republican.
Brent Reilly
Remember that you cannot always please everyone and sometimes the very best thing you can do is to stand up, straighten your back, hold your head up high, and meet your own needs. This principle is all about standing up to the world to follow your heart, to be yourself, to “march to the beat of your own drum,” to be who and what you want to be, and to fully express who you are despite others’ potential attempt to suppress you.
Brent N. Hunter (The Rainbow Bridge: Bridge to Inner Peace and to World Peace)
The law is logical and is based on common sense. The trick was to argue the law in favor of your particular point of view without sounding biased. It was kind of like a magic trick: the best illusionist being the one who can best manipulate the logic to his or her advantage, all the while giving the illusion of impartiality.
Kenneth Eade (A Patriot's Act (Brent Marks Legal Thrillers #1))
Emotions are reserved for juries and, in that case, a good lawyer can really lay them on when the time is right, better than the best Academy Award winning actor
Kenneth Eade (Predatory Kill (Brent Marks Legal Thrillers #2))
You’re the best there is. No one can replace you.” Unexpectedly, the White chuckled. “Words every megalomaniac longs to hear. But true only of the truly bad and the
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
We are all of us frauds. We are all of us frauds, and we are all of us doing the best we can to hold up a tower of illusions and ill-placed hopes.
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
Choosing to spend energy on your relationships will be much more fulfilling than wasting it on unnecessary clutter and accumulating "things" that in the long run don't really matter anyway. Most of us will not be canonized in history books nor have monuments built in our honor because of what we owned or the things we accomplished at work. Our legacy will be found in the lives and endeavors that were enriched while we were passing through this life.
Brent Bost (The Hurried Woman Syndrome)
Please tell him that my words will make no difference when his balls are in his stomach from being so cold. Men don’t get many chances to show their grit! You need to pray for bad weather! Pray for the coldest water! Pray for a broken fucking body! You should want the worst-case scenario for everything you do in Hell Week! Pray for it to be so hard that only your fucking boat crew makes it all the way through! They succeed because you lead those motherfuckers through the worst Hell Week ever! You have to become the devil to get through Hell! This shit is about your fucking mindset! If you are hoping for the fucking best-case scenario in Hell Week, you are not ready! Know that no motherfucker can endure what you can. Not because you believe in yourself. But because you have trained harder than any motherfucker alive!
Brent Gleeson (Embrace the Suck: The Navy SEAL Way to an Extraordinary Life)
Collins, echoing Ed Catmull, “What separates people is the return on luck, what you do with it when you get it. What matters is how you play the hand you’re dealt.” He continues, “You don’t leave the game, until it’s not your choice. Steve Jobs had great luck at arriving at the birth of an industry. Then he had bad luck in getting booted out. But Steve played whatever hand he was dealt to the best of his ability. Sometimes you create the hand, by giving yourself challenges that will make you stronger, where you don’t even know what’s next. That’s the beauty of the story. Steve’s almost like the Tom Hanks character in Castaway—just keep breathing because you don’t know what the tide will bring in tomorrow.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
I love you, Vicki!” Kennedy slurs. “I love you, Ken-ken!” Vicki returns. Then Vicki pokes my shoulder. “And you! You take good care of my Kenny! Don’t make me hafta kick (poke) yer (poke) ass (double poke)!” I give her a nod. “The ass-kicking days are behind us now.” “Good! Then there’s somethin’ you should know.” Vicki’s expression sobers, and she gestures me closer before ruining the effect by whispering loudly, “Kennedy hasn’t had an orgamsum . . . orgamsam . . . Kennedy hasn’t come in a loooong time. Like, years. At least, not with a guy.” “Shhhhhhh!” Kennedy swats her best friend like a fly. “Tha’s a secret!” “Maybe Brent can help you wif it?” I give Vicki the thumbs-up—and it’s not the only thing that’s up, that’s for sure.
Emma Chase (Appealed (The Legal Briefs, #3))
Now,” Samite continued, “after Essel has just spent time warning you about generalities and how they often don’t apply, I’m going to use some. Because some generalities are true often enough that we have to worry about them. So here’s one: men will physically fight for status. Women, generally, are more clever. The why of it doesn’t matter: learned, innate, cultural, who cares? You see the chest-bumping, the name-calling, performing for their fellows, what they’re really doing is getting the juices flowing. That interval isn’t always long, but it’s long enough for men to trigger the battle juice. That’s the terror or excitation that leads people to fight or run. It can be useful in small doses or debilitating in large ones. Any of you have brothers, or boys you’ve fought with?” Six of the ten raised their hands. “Have you ever had a fight with them—verbal or physical—and then they leave and come back a little later, and they’re completely done fighting and you’re just fully getting into it? They look like they’ve been ambushed, because they’ve come completely off the mountain already, and you’ve just gotten to the top?” “Think of it like lovemaking,” Essel said. She was a bawdy one. “Breathe in a man’s ear and tell him to take his trousers off, and he’s ready to go before you draw your next breath. A woman’s body takes longer.” Some of the girls giggled nervously. “Men can switch on very, very fast. They also switch off from that battle readiness very, very fast. Sure, they’ll be left trembling, sometimes puking from it, but it’s on and then it’s off. Women don’t do that. We peak slower. Now, maybe there are exceptions, maybe. But as fighters, we tend to think that everyone reacts the way we do, because our own experience is all we have. In this case, it’s not true for us. Men will be ready to fight, then finished, within heartbeats. This is good and bad. “A man, deeply surprised, will have only his first instinctive response be as controlled and crisp as it is when he trains. Then that torrent of emotion is on him. We spend thousands of hours training that first instinctive response, and further, we train to control the torrent of emotion so that it raises us to a heightened level of awareness without making us stupid.” “So the positive, for us Archers: surprise me, and my first reaction will be the same as my male counterpart’s. I can still, of course, get terrified, or locked into a loop of indecision. But if I’m not, my second, third, and tenth moves will also be controlled. My hands will not shake. I will be able to make precision movements that a man cannot. But I won’t have the heightened strength or sensations until perhaps a minute later—often too late. “Where a man needs to train to control that rush, we need to train to make it closer. If we have to climb a mountain more slowly to get to the same height to get all the positives, we need to start climbing sooner. That is, when I go into a situation that I know may be hazardous, I need to prepare myself. I need to start climbing. The men may joke to break the tension. Let them. I don’t join in. Maybe they think I’m humorless because I don’t. Fine. That’s a trade I’m willing to make.” Teia and the rest of the girls walked away from training that day somewhat dazed, definitely overwhelmed. What Teia realized was that the women were deeply appealing because they were honest and powerful. And those two things were wed inextricably together. They said, I am the best in the world at what I do, and I cannot do everything. Those two statements, held together, gave them the security to face any challenge. If her own strengths couldn’t surmount an obstacle, her team’s strengths could—and she was unembarrassed about asking for help where she needed it because she knew that what she brought to the team would be equally valuable in some other situation.
Brent Weeks (The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer, #2))
Drafting green from a thousand trees shining on each bank of the river in the noonday sun, he threw down steps and made a little platform to stand on. "We", he declared, "are damaged but not dismayed, oppressed but no overwhelmed. We are the Broken, for when our oaths were tested, we broke them ourselves. We were despised: Here are my best friends. This world sees a bastard, an orphan, a hostage, a cripple, an idiot. I call them the Mighty. We - you - are outcasts all, the homeless driven from the lands where our mothers were buried. They have taken the light from our lives. Killed our loved ones, our friends. Taken our homes. Left us to wander as ghosts and feral dogs." [...] [...]"They have taken the light from us. Yes. But now they expect us to cower like dogs beaten and fade like shades forgotten. But I don't see dogs and shades here. Do they not know what they've begun? I see wolves. I see ghosts..." He looked around them as if they had forgotten who they were, and he was here to hold up a mirror for them that they might remember. "Have you forgotten? Have they made you, for this brief houyr, forget? Ghosts and Wolves hunt at night. They thin we cower, waiting for the light? Alone we are broken, bereaved, afraid. together we will hunt. In the darkness, we will usher them into the final darkness. Alone we were weak and frightened. That time is past. Together, today, we are the Nightbringers.
Brent Weeks (The Blood Mirror (Lightbringer, #4))
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
were always risking failure. “This Apple thing is that way for me. I don’t want to fail, of course. When I was going in I didn’t know how bad it really was, but I still had a lot to think about. I had to consider the implications for Pixar, and for my family, and for my reputation, and all sorts of things. And I finally decided, I don’t really care, this is what I want to do. And if I try my best and fail, well, I tried my best.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
Steve was always hell-bent on hiring the very best people in the world, especially engineers. “In most businesses, the difference between average and good is at best 2 to 1,” Steve once told me. “Like, if you go to New York and you get the best cabdriver in the city, you might get there thirty percent faster than with an average taxicab driver. A 2 to 1 gain would be pretty big. In software, it’s at least 25 to 1. The difference between the average programmer and a great one is at least that. We have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world. And when you’re in a field where the dynamic range is 25 to 1, boy, does it pay off.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
What sets the best suppliers apart is not the quality of their products, but the value of their insight.
Matthew Dixon
Like, if you go to New York and you get the best cabdriver in the city, you might get there thirty percent faster than with an average taxicab driver. A 2 to 1 gain would be pretty big. In software, it’s at least 25 to 1. The difference between the average programmer and a great one is at least that. We have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world. And when you’re in a field where the dynamic range is 25 to 1, boy, does it pay off.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
Steve was innately comfortable trusting his gut; it’s a characteristic of the best entrepreneurs, a necessity for anyone who wants to make a living developing things no one has ever quite imagined before. Of course, Steve’s gut could also betray him, as it did when he fell in love with Apple’s first corporate logo. It was a pen-and-ink drawing, detailed in the way of an etching, of Isaac Newton sitting beneath an apple tree.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
Steve was the best delegator I ever met,” Johnson said at Stanford. “He was so clear about what he wanted that it gave you great freedom.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
and they followed it as it wended its way downward. ‘Where do you suppose the light is coming from?’ asked Eric. ‘That’s actually a really good question.’ ‘There’s not much of it, granted, but we can see, so …’ ‘You’re right. It must be coming from somewhere.’ ‘Yes, but maybe …’ Eric tailed off, drawing a deep breath. ‘Maybe what?’ ‘Maybe it’s like this because it’s waiting to be filled by the you-know-what,’ said Eric, tapping Max on the shoulder and then pointing to the darkness far above them. ‘You could be right. Just as long as it stays all the way up there.’ They walked on, descending on a slight incline for the best part of an hour. During their walk they discussed the possibility of the path not having an end, and just continuing down and down into the earth. The hungrier and thirstier they grew, the more terrifying this possibility seemed, so both were relieved when Eric spotted a change in the rock on their left. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Up there, there’s a gap in the wall.’ They stopped walking and Max peered up at it. ‘I reckon you’re right,’ said Max, as Eric squeezed past him. ‘Look,’ continued Eric. ‘There’s another gap further down, and this one’s lower.’ They stood below this second gap in the stone, which was approximately three metres above them. As Max attempted to get a foothold in the rock, Eric walked on around a corner. ‘Max!’ he whispered urgently. ‘Come here! You’ll definitely want to see this!’ Max stepped back down to the ground and hurried around the bend. Eric was staring through a brick-sized gap in the wall, his mouth hanging
Boyd Brent (The Scratchling Trinity: a magical adventure for children ages 9-15)
Alice glanced at her wristwatch and noted, with surprise, that it had just gone two. No wonder she was hungry. She laced her fingers and stretched her arms forward. She stood up. Frustrating to lose an entire morning to the rigors of pushing Diggory Brent from A to B, but there was nothing to be done about it now. Half a century as a professional writer had taught her there were some days when the best thing to do was to walk away.
Kate Morton (The Lake House)
He had them heart and soul and strength, not because he gave them a respect they didn’t deserve, but because he expected them to deliver the best they were able to deliver, always, and he thought their best was better than they thought it was. This
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
You could have all the money in the world, but bad days were free.
Amy Brent (My Best Friend's Dad (Forbidden Love #5))
The best time to...learn about the Time Value of Money was twenty years ago. The second best time is now!
Brent Pritchard (Would Your Boomerang Return?: What Birds, Hurdlers, and Boomerangs Can Teach Us About the Time Value of Money)
Lorenzo knew he needed to get back to Maricopa Wells. It was his best shot at survival, but it was also the only hope of a possible rescue of his sisters. He followed the wagon tracks from the days prior, descended the hill, and began retracing his own steps.
Brent Schulte (Olive Oatman: Explore The Mysterious Story of Captivity and Tragedy from Beginning to End)
Talk to the very large number of people who not only worked at Apple, but worked at Apple for a very long time, and they all say the same things: “I did the best work of my life at Apple. My work had the biggest impact. I built products there that are so much better than anything else I’ve ever done. I learned the most. And it wasn’t just me; I was surrounded by the best people.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
I take a shower, and then I head downstairs. Mom, Dad, and Bhai are in the living room drinking tea and laughing. My stomach flips, and I'm tempted to just forget about the whole thing and go to bed. But somehow I summon up the courage to keep going. "Hey, can I come in?" I hesitate in the entryway. "Of course." Dad pats the sofa next to him. "What is it, Rahul?" Somehow, this feels scarier than standing up to Brent on the football field. I take a deep breath as I settle into the sofa between Mom and Dad. "I want to tell you something," I say. "Okay," Mom says. "You can tell us anything." Bhai nods at me, and his eyes are bright. Encouraging. I nod back. "What is it, Rahul?" Mom gently rubs my back. Even though I want to keep my eyes fixed on my lap, I force myself to lift my head up. My eyes water, but the words come out of my mouth so simply. "I think I'm gay," I say. I look up at Mom, and I see her whole face soften. Like she's proud of me. She leans in and hugs me. "Thank you for telling us, Rahul." I hold her for a long time.
Maulik Pancholy (The Best at It)
Later that day, after he’d returned to the Apple campus, Johnson went to see Steve. “You know,” Steve told him, “you reminded me of something I learned at Pixar. On almost every film they make, something turns out to be not quite right. And they have an amazing willingness to turn around and do it again, till they do get it right. They have always had a willingness to not be governed by the release date. It’s not about how fast you do something, it’s about doing your level best.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
It paid off in two immediate ways. First, Think Different started a process of bringing pride back to Apple’s employees. Billboards and posters went up across the Cupertino campus. Steve’s narrated version was featured in a video promoting the whole campaign inside the company, and later, after Apple won the Emmy Award for the best television ad campaign for 1998, the company gave a fifty-page commemorative book to all its employees. “Our audience was the employees as much as anyone else,” says Clow. Inspiring them was challenging, especially when Steve was shuttering divisions of the company and laying off thousands of workers. But Think Different gave the surviving employees a sense that they might see better days ahead, for the first time in years.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
You know,” Steve told him, “you reminded me of something I learned at Pixar. On almost every film they make, something turns out to be not quite right. And they have an amazing willingness to turn around and do it again, till they do get it right. They have always had a willingness to not be governed by the release date. It’s not about how fast you do something, it’s about doing your level best.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
Steve was innately comfortable trusting his gut; it’s a characteristic of the best entrepreneurs, a necessity for anyone who wants to make a living developing things no one has ever quite imagined before.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The evolution of a reckless upstart into a visionary leader)
there were also intellectual reasons to investigate and try to understand his cancer. Steve’s particular kind of tumor is a rare one. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), only about one thousand cases a year are discovered in the United States. As a result, research on pancreatic islet cell neuroendocrine carcinomas is not buttressed by the kind of massive database available to doctors studying breast or lung cancer, to cite two more common forms, or even other forms of cancer of the pancreas. (His own oncologist/surgeon admitted to me privately that not enough was known at that time to determine statistically what the best treatment should be—surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, something else, or a combination of treatments.) So Steve’s indecision about what to do was not completely off-base.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
Here’s the rub. None of that matters if you feel inferior—to others in your industry, to the You of yesteryear, to your client. When a prospect calls, you must boldly answer the phone. You must open your mouth, even in the face of overwhelming fear. You must speak your mind. You must offer considerate advice one human being to another. The best business strategies in this universe won’t amount to a nickel of revenue if you let the fear of feeling less than your best, less than your potential, less than your client expects (all in your head, mind you) get in the way. For many new coaches, the fear of feeling inferior is wide spread.
Brent O'Bannon (Selling Strengths: A Little Book for Executive and Life Coaches About Using Your Strengths to Get Paying Clients)
Steve may have chewed people apart in a meeting, but afterward they almost always had two things to say: One is, he was right. What they’ll tell you next is that they learned “good enough” isn’t good enough. And the next time they came back to meet with Steve, they came in with something great. It’s like anything in life. There are standards. The standards have to be enforced. If the standards aren’t enforced, then the standards slip. This is the role of the CEO in any company. Some care and some don’t. Great CEOs care a lot. Steve cared a lot. “Nice” CEOs who don’t hold the line on standards do not build great places to work. They may build a nice place to work, but they will not build a great place to work. Then the great people will leave, and then the company will degenerate into mediocrity. Steve built Apple into the best place to work.
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
It made the breath catch in my throat and some heavy, unfamiliar emotion fill my chest until my whole body ached with it. There was need, the desire that always seemed to be there when it came to Alice, but there was something more there now. I didn't want to just lose myself in her. I wanted to wring every ounce of pleasure from her body that I could. I wanted to make her scream my name as she came over and over again. I wanted to see the flush stain her body a rosy peach and her eyes glaze with lust for me--just for me, no one else. I wanted to claim her, every part of her. Not just her body. I needed to imprint myself on her mind, her heart, on her soul so that she'd always have a piece of me, so that she'd never forget what it felt like to have me buried so deep inside her that we become one.
Amy Brent (My Best Friend's Ex)
It is easy to enter every moment of a day so burdened down as we try to carry all of our hopes and fears for that day, that we miss the good in every moment. Every moment is worth investing a full moment in. How we approach every moment matters. Shakespeare said in Antony and Cleopatra, “Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me.” Our innermost longing is not merely to survive, but to thrive, and we share that longing with everyone else. Connection comes most intimately from looking for that innermost longing in others and ourselves. Love says, as Jordan Peterson wrote, “I want the best, for what wants the best in you.” We ought to love ourselves and want the best for what wants the best in us. There is a longing inside to love without reserve or limits and allow ourselves to be loved with ultimate vulnerability. We are more than what we can hide behind a mask, and there is no reason we should try to hide it. We are not the chemical mess we feel like at times, we are amazing—we defy the law of the universe that says all things trend towards chaos and emptiness. Walt Whitman said, “I am not contained between my hat and my boots.” We are not contained between our fears and our past experiences either. We are born with awareness, imagination and will-power, and combined with any other awareness, imagination and will-power both will be increased; that is the value of connecting. What we are born with is all we have or need to give. You were born worthy of connection, don’t ever second guess it! Yes, it may be dangerous to open up and let people into our life, but it is fatal to attempt to keep people out. Choose love, choose to see the goodness in life unbiasedly wherever it may be, and choose to make life better for yourself and everyone, whether or not anyone else wants to help. It is very normal and understandable to want to feel heard, seen and appreciated; at some point however, we have to make the decision to say what most merits hearing, do what is most worth seeing, and give what is most worth appreciating, whether or not anyone sees, hears or appreciates it. There is a saying that “integrity is how you act when you think no one is looking.” I say that character is what we do despite all that would sway us otherwise, whether that be potential for fame or fear of insignificance. "No positive effort is so small that good things won’t come from it, so do it!
Michael Brent Jones (Conflict and Connection: Anatomy of Mind and Emotion)
Emotions are a communication from our intuition to our intellect, but all too often we use emotions to project them on others—this is opposite of what they are for, and it’s no wonder that out of the seven emotions, the English language doesn’t even have positive words to describe them. Five out of seven emotions have negative connotations although all seven are neutral. Our emotions are not trying to create chaos in our life, they are suggesting a general way to approach a situation based on what aspect of value is perceived to be most important. Our intuition perceives value, then suggests a general approach to the intellect which is communicated via an emotion. Then the intellect which perceives logic, identifies the risks, and lastly our will-power formulates and employs a plan. Whether or not our intuition assesses well enough what aspect of value is most pivotal in a situation, ignoring it won’t help it get any better. It is best to at least consider how the general approach the emotion was suggesting would play out. What the intuition is basing the general approach on are assumptions, and as our intellect sets logical expectations on those assumptions, they can be challenged and refined. When we try to hold onto our expectations despite reality proving them wrong as the expectations fail, it causes intellectual pain. Trying to guard assumptions from being challenged causes emotional pain.
Michael Brent Jones (Conflict and Connection: Anatomy of Mind and Emotion)
Your call. You’d really enjoy the chopping up though. It’s the best bit.
Katy Brent (How to Kill Men and Get Away With It)