Bullseye Quotes

Wishes don’t just come true. They’re only the target you paint around what you want. You still have to hit the bull’s-eye yourself.

You’re not doing well and finally I don’t have to pretend to be so interested in your on going tragedy, but I’ll rob the bank that gave you the impression that money is more fruitful than words, and I’ll cut holes in the ozone if it means you have one less day of rain. I’ll walk you to the hospital, I’ll wait in a white room that reeks of hand sanitizer and latex for the results from the MRI scan that tries to locate the malady that keeps your mind guessing, and I want to write you a poem every day until my hand breaks and assure you that you’ll find your place, it’s just the world has a funny way of hiding spots fertile enough for bodies like yours to grow roots. and I miss you like a dart hits the iris of a bullseye, or a train ticket screams 4:30 at 4:47, I wanted to tell you that it’s my birthday on Thursday and I would have wanted you to give me the gift of your guts on the floor, one last time, to see if you still had it in you. I hope our ghosts aren’t eating you alive. If I’m to speak for myself, I’ll tell you that the universe is twice as big as we think it is and you’re the only one that made that idea less devastating.

Politics is a moving target with no bullseye of truth, breaking up more families than uniting them.

I’ve never had two sisters. . . . ” he begins with a suggestive arched brow. Oh. My. God. “And you never will. Not these two sisters, anyway.” He shrugs. “Not at the same time, maybe.” “Don’t worry. When my baby sister gets laid for the first time, it won’t be with you.” “Do you know what you just did?” “Painted a big virginal bull’s-eye on your back?” Kacey confirms with a scrunched-up face.

What else can it predict?” Now the other jocks encircled her like a bullseye. “Any event with data,” Holly said and really felt the need to leave. This was a set-up. Big Bob grinned. “Like when I’ll get a date?” Holly’s smile slid across her face. “Low probability events are hard to forecast.” “Huh?” Josh punched his shoulder. “She means, you are not likely to get a date.

If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate

Through millions of klicks of vacuum to hit a bull's-eye smaller than a mosquito's asshole.

Things you don't need in your life targets you the most.

When the bullseye becomes as big as an elephant in your mind, you won’t be able to miss it.

You only get one shot at your kids, so you need to hit the bull’s-eye.

She was wearing her T-shirt with the bull’s-eye printed over her heart, the one that says, GO AHEAD AND TRY IT, BUFFY.

Wishes don't justcome true. They're only the target you paint around what you want. You still have to hit the bulls-eye yourself.

And I suppose all the wishes come true,” Minya said, sarcastic. “Of course not, silly girl,” Suheyla retorted. She had not grown up in an era of optimism, but that didn’t mean they’d lived without dreams. “Wishes don’t just come true. They’re only the target you paint around what you want. You still have to hit the bull’s-eye yourself.

Wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me they stick you out here where there are no Daimons and you don’t have a weak spot? What kind of shit is that? I live in Daimon Central with one hell of an Achilles’ heel that no one ever bothered to mention, and you live where there’s no danger to you and yet you don’t have one? What’s not fair with this picture? And then Ash asks me to come up here to save your ass and here we are dropping like flies while you’re Teflon. No, I have a problem with this. I love you, man, but dayam. This just ain’t right. I’m up here freezing my balls off, and you, you don’t need protection. Meanwhile I have a bull’s-eye on my arm that says, ‘Hey, Daimon on steroids, kill me right here.’ Do you realize, I put my keys in my mouth to pull out my wallet to pay for gas and they froze there? The last thing I want to do is die up here in this godforsaken place at the hands of some freaked-out something no one has ever heard of before except for Guido the Killer Squire from Jersey? I swear I want someone’s ass for this. (Jess)

Richie saw the empty street where nothing moved and suddenly burst into tears. Bill looked at him for a moment and then put his arms around Richie and hugged him. Richie clutched at Bill’s neck and hugged him back. He wanted to say something clever, something about how Bill should have tried the Bullseye on the Werewolf, but nothing would come out. Nothing except sobs. “D-Don’t, R-Richie,” Bill said, “duh-duh-duh-h-h—” Then he burst into tears himself and they only hugged each other on their knees in the street beside Bill’s spilled bike, and their tears made clean streaks down their cheeks, which were sooted with coaldust.

Who the *&^$* is "Paolo"?

They don’t ask, How do we stop bullies? Instead those assholes say, How can we get these stupid kids to stop painting bull’s-eyes on their foreheads? They put the blame on the victims, not the victimizers.

You’ll find out when my fangs are buried in your neck,” she said. “Why not right now?” Cain breathed. “Come on—hit me. Hit me with all that rage you feel every time you force yourself to miss the bull’s-eye, or when you slow yourself down so you don’t scale walls as fast as me. Hit me, Lillian,” he whispered so only she could hear, “and let’s see what that year in Endovier really taught you.” Celaena’s heart leapt into a gallop. He knew. He knew who she was, and what she was doing.

There’s a simple reason for this. The more shots you get at the target, the more likely you’ll eventually score a bull’s-eye, but the more misses you’ll accrue as well. The bull’s-eyes end up in museums and on library shelves, not the misses. Which, when you think about it, is a shame. It feeds the myth that geniuses get it right the first time, that they don’t make mistakes, when, in fact, they make more mistakes than the rest of us. What

I think I’m getting a notion of how to do this. O.K., a carnival works because people pay to feel amazed and scared. They can nibble around a midway getting amazed here and scared there, or both. And do you know what else? Hope. Hope they’ll win a prize, break the jackpot, meet a girl, hit a bull’s-eye in front of their buddies. In a carnival you call it luck or chance, but it’s the same as hope. Now hope is a good feeling that needs risk to work. How good it is depends on how big the risk is if what you hope doesn’t happen. You hope your old auntie croaks and leaves you a carload of shekels, but she might leave them to her cat. You might not hit the target or win the stuffed dog, you might lose your money and look like a fool. You don’t get the surge without the risk. Well. Religion works the same way. The only difference is that it’s more amazing than even Chick or the twins. And it’s a whole lot scarier than the Roll-a-plane or the Screamer, or any simp twister. This scare stuff laps over into the hope department too. The hope you get from religion is a three-ring, all-star hope because the risk is outrageous. Bad! Well, I’m working on it. I’ve got the amazing part down. And the scary bits are a snap. But I’ve got to come up with a hope.

The bull’s-eyes end up in museums and on library shelves, not the misses. Which, when you think about it, is a shame. It feeds the myth that geniuses get it right the first time, that they don’t make mistakes, when, in fact, they make more mistakes than the rest of us.

One hemisphere was a giant bull’s-eye, a series of concentric rings where solid rock had once flowed in kilometer-high ripples under some ancient hammer blow from space.

She’d missed the entire point and hit the bullseye.

I love what you’ve done with your hair. No doubt the whole bullseye on top of your head is fun for birds when you’re outside.

Wishes don't just come true. They're only the target you paint around what you want. You still have to hit the bulls-eye yourself.

Practicing archery is like practicing to be a Gentleman. When you miss the bulls-eye, you look for the error in yourself.

Bullseye. Well, almost. The cleaver misses his ear by a mere inch. He stops short, but he doesn’t turn around. Instead he squares his shoulders then resumes his stroll out the door.

When an archer misses the mark he turns and looks for the fault within himself. Failure to hit the bull’s-eye is never the fault of the target. To improve your aim, improve yourself.

It was such a hard thing, this virtue, it seemed to me. Keeping it was like having to grip the knife by the blade and defend yourself with the hilt. Ever since I’d been old enough to know about virtue in a woman, it had seemed like a bull’s-eye painted on my head in rouge. I was sure, as I was led away, I would be better off without it. It was better to be done with it and be gone.

Prophets are focused and like praying the plans and purposes of God. Prophets don’t want to just pray about anything and everything. Prophets want to “zero in” on what God wants to do. They want to hit the “bull’s-eye.” Prophets are focused on the will of God in a situation. If you want to hit the target, ask a prophet to pray.

If you've never shot a gun, You can’t understand how it feels in your hands. Cool to the touch, all its venom coiled inside, deadly, like a steel-scaled serpent. Awaiting your bidding. You select it’s prey… paper, tin, or flesh. You lie in wait, learn that patience is the killer’s most trustworthy accomplice. You choose the moment. What. Where. When. Decided. But the how is everything. You lift your weapon, ease it into place, cock it, to load it, knowing the satisfying snitch means a bullet is yours to command. Now, make or break, it’s all up to you. You aim knowing a hair either way means bull’s-eye or miss. Success or failure. Life or death. You have to relax, convince your muscles not to be tense, not to betray you. Sight again. Adjust. Don’t become distracted by the heat of the hunt. Instincts take over. You shoot and adrenaline screams as your target shreds or the flesh drops. And for one indescribable moment you are God.

Bullseye. The problem wasn’t Gerald, or the chair, or what the Rescue Services guys might think when they got down here and saw the situation. It wasn’t even the question of the telephone. The problem was the space cowboy; her old friend Dr. Doom.

Our eyes are always pointing at things we are interested in approaching, or investigating, or looking for, or having. We must see, but to see, we must aim, so we are always aiming. Our minds are built on the hunting-and-gathering platforms of our bodies. To hunt is to specify a target, track it, and throw at it. To gather is to specify and to grasp. We fling stones, and spears, and boomerangs. We toss balls through hoops, and hit pucks into nets, and curl carved granite rocks down the ice onto horizontal bull’s-eyes. We launch projectiles at targets with bows, guns, rifles and rockets. We hurl insults, launch plans, and pitch ideas. We succeed when we score a goal or hit a target. We fail, or sin, when we do not (as the word sin means to miss the mark70). We cannot navigate, without something to aim at and, while we are in this world, we must always navigate.

Everyone in the world needs two, three jobs,” I said, without hesitation. “One job isn’t enough, just as one life isn’t enough. I want to have a dozen of both.” “Bull’s-eye. Doctors should dig ditches. Ditchdiggers ought to run kindergartens one day a week. Philosophers should wash dishes in a greasy spoon two nights out of ten. Mathematicians should blow whistles at high school gyms. Poets should drive trucks for a change of menu and police detectives—” “Should own and operate the Garden of Eden,” I said, quietly.

Once she was finished with her inspection, Nova raised the gun, gripping it in both hands, and fired. It was so fast Adrian wondered if she’d even bothered to take aim at anything, but a glance at the targets showed her dart dead center in a distant bull’s-eye. On

Sera loaded the new ammunition and held up the gun. “I bet I can hit closer to the bulls-eye than you can.” Her victory came to him on a flash, right down to the cute little dance he was sure was last popular in the nineties. “Sucker bet, sunshine. Never wager with a precog.” “So cheat.” She grinned. “You haven’t even hear the terms yet. If you win, I’ll let you buy me a pretty dress and take me out for a fancy dinner.” “And if I lose?” “I get a cheap bar, beer, and hot wings, and dirty sex in the bathroom.” Julio cleared his throat, took the gun from her and winked. “Like I said, sucker bet.” “Uh-huh.” As she stepped behind him, she trailed her fingers up his arm. “I’m bad news, mister. I hope you can handle me.” “I’ll try.” He lined up a shot, squeezed the trigger and snorted when the bullet went wide. “I told you I suck at this.” She laughed and retrieved the gun to line up her shot with adorable concentration that furrowed her brows. Her shot wasn’t perfect, but it winged the target, and her victory dance was just as cute as it had been in his vision.

Pistols, please,” she said, once they’d all returned. She traded her bow and arrow for a single-barreled weapon. Each lady in line lifted a similar firearm and held it in braced, outstretched arms, staring down her respective bull’s-eye. When Susanna cocked her pistol, the others followed suit. The chorus of clicks raced down Bram’s spine. “I find this scene wildly arousing,” Colin murmured, echoing Bram’s own thoughts. “Is that wrong?” “If it is, I can promise you company in hell.” His cousin made an amused sound. “And you thought we have nothing in common.” Susanna leveled her pistol and took aim. “One... Two...” Crack.

The only scorecard that ever gets tallied in the real world is how many times you walk away from the fight and leave your opponent dead in the dust. I can shoot damn straight when the occasion calls for it, but I’m not a bulls-eye expert. The difference is, I can hit a man on the other side of the street while I'm running, ducking, and dodging automatic weapons fire. Sacrificing pinpoint accuracy for shooting fast and on the move may mean you burn a little more ammo, but in the end, it's going to keep you alive a lot longer. Gunfighting isn't a biathlon. It's an ugly business that rewards dirty tricks and being faster and meaner and more ruthless than the other guy. It's the only way you're going to win.

Although the mind may be part of your target, the heart is the bull’s-eye.

Beauty puts a fine point on grief, shoots bull’s-eye into the heart.

on the

Although I regularly convince myself otherwise, because I aim at something doesn’t necessarily mean I have a target.

The problem with absolutely perfect summer days was that they were bright bull’s-eye targets for something to go outright wrong.

Come on,” said Adrian, raising his gun again. “I’ll buy you a pizza if you hit a bull’s-eye before I do.” Ten seconds later, he owed Oscar a pizza.

THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD" "Or ever the knightly years were gone      With the old world to the grave, I was a king in Babylon      And you were a Christian slave,"         —W.E. Henley. His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bullseyes." Charlie explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his mother.

Soldiers were not trained to hit moving targets. Marksmanship in the U.S. Army was taught on a known-distance (KD) range—fixed target, big bull’s-eye, plenty of time. It didn’t make a lot of sense.

Someone called, Why are you not reading from Governor Davis’s state journal? The Captain folded his newspapers. He said, Sir, you know very well why. He leaned forward over the podium. His white hair shone, his gold-rim glasses winked in the bull’s-eye lantern beam. He was the image of elderly wisdom and reason. Because there would be a fistfight here within moments, if not shooting. Men have lost the ability to discuss any political event in Texas in a reasonable manner. There is no debate, only force. In point of fact, regard the soldiers beyond the door. He slapped his newspapers into the portfolio. He

wisdom isn’t about sticking to a set of rules or hitting some imaginary bull’s-eye representing “God’s will.” Wisdom is a way of life, a journey of humility and faithfulness we take together, one step at a time.

In serial crimes, geographic profilers analyze attack locations in an attempt to home in on the buffer zone, the ring around the bull’s-eye where the criminal lives, because offenders, like everyone, move in predictable and routine ways.

There was an Indian head, the head of an Indian, the drawing of the head of a headdressed, long-haired Indian depicted, drawn by an unknown artist in 1939, broadcast until the late 1970s to American TVs everywhere after all the shows ran out. It’s called the Indian Head test pattern. If you left the TV on, you’d hear a tone at 440 hertz—the tone used to tune instruments—and you’d see that Indian, surrounded by circles that looked like sights through riflescopes. There was what looked like a bull’s-eye in the middle of the screen, with numbers like coordinates. The Indian’s head was just above the bull’s-eye, like all you’d need to do was nod up in agreement to set the sights on the target. This was just a test.

Color-coded rank hats? Those are worse than wearing a bull’s-eye on your chest! If you want your commanders to survive a week, you want no difference in uniform visible from more than a few meters away. Marking them out like this is madness!

Soweto was designed to be bombed—that’s how forward-thinking the architects of apartheid were. The township was a city unto itself, with a population of nearly one million. There were only two roads in and out. That was so the military could lock us in, quell any rebellion. And if the monkeys ever went crazy and tried to break out of their cage, the air force could fly over and bomb the shit out of everyone. Growing up, I never knew that my grandmother lived in the center of a bull’s-eye. In

I was going to use this as a way to beg you not to go to New York,” his wife said, “but that would be useless. In fact, selfish. Our country needs you to go. The world does. Putin is a wolf. It’s time he learns what a sheepdog is all about. Somebody has to do it, and it’s you.

Nox was quiet for a moment before he said: “The next time we pair off for lessons, find me, will you?” “Why?” She reached for another dagger, but found she’d depleted her stock again. Nox threw another dagger, and it hit the bull’s-eye this time. “Because my gold’s on you winning this whole damn thing.

He smelled like black coffee and menthols; the leather of his jacket was worn, much like his eyes. His hands were cracked glass, full of red riverbeds, and his pupils were like bullseyes anticipating arrows – as though he’d been battling sleep and himself for some time, but couldn’t make a conscious effort to win the war. There was a break in conversation, and he stared at me like I could solve the terror and turmoil he felt on the inside – but that wasn’t my job and I sure as hell wasn’t qualified. “The world is a scary place,” I told him. “You can’t run forever.” He bit his peeling bottom lip and spat out a gruff “I can try.” I will not chase after someone who ran of his own accord.

Think about the nature of depression. Life is turned inward. You already have a sense that, for all practical purposes, God is not present. Add to that your relentless condemnation and pervasive self-criticism, which have persuaded you that God doesn’t love you. You couldn’t be a more obvious spiritual target if you painted a bull’s-eye on your chest.

It isn’t that the bull’s-eye, the destination, heaven, home, doesn’t exist. It is only that it doesn’t exist in linear time. It is like a crystal hanging above our entire timeline, refracting partial images of itself onto our world that we recognize as home. That is why the mystics tell us it is always there, closer than close. Nonetheless, our journeys away from home have their purpose. A will stronger than our own sends us on these journeys. If we do not someday leave home, then home will leave us.

Circus tricks ain’t much use when you’re the King’s Champion.” She shifted her gaze to him, but kept positioned toward the target. “You’d be better off on your back, learning tricks useful to a woman. In fact, I can teach you some tonight, if you’d like.” He laughed, and Cain joined with him. Celaena gripped the hilt of a dagger so hard that it hurt. “Don’t listen to them,” Nox murmured. He tossed another dagger, missing the bull’s-eye again. “They wouldn’t know the first thing to do with a woman, even if one walked stark naked into their bedroom.

Good reader, I was exactly the Church Youth Group Girl you think I was. Christian T-shirts and youth choir with a side of sanctimony. It pains me to admit this, but my class voted me “Most Inspirational” my senior year. I was a lot of fun, bless my heart. I grew up immersed in typical Christian culture: heavy emphasis on morality, fairly dogmatic, linear, and authoritative. Because my experience was so homogenous and my skill set included Flying Right, I found wild success within the paradigm. My interpretations were rarely challenged by diversity, suffering, or disparity. Since the bull’s-eye was good behavior (we called it “holiness”), I earned an A.

Homie caught a body Got a naughty shawty Throw her in the trunk of my purple buggati Opps on my tail damn making this a party Firing shots man I think they might’ve got me Bleeding and speeding on the 401 This is hood economics 101 Got that gangsta archetype like Carl Yung Damn making me ask who am I running from? When I know I got balls and a fuckin loaded gun Roll out on the freeway while takin some heat One cop two cop three’s on his feet Yeah bullseye put one his knee Cryin oh please don’t hurt me you know I got family Put him to sleep with nice slick kick As I head to his home to go meet his kids His wife’s crying in the corner as I fire from the hip Yeah there’s heart in this clip I put my all in this shit Leaving their home while unfulfilled Got a taste for killing need more blood to spill God looking down asking me to chill Fire shots in the air tellin him no deal Already dug my grave and wrote my will Therapist tells me just stay home and masturbate man Tell him fuck off you know I’m Patrick Bateman Killers don’t discriminate you know I still kill women Brutally beat them into mush on the pavement Screaming for help with no-one here to save them My life has purpose and I know who I am A cold blooded killer with two glocks in his hands Better run mothafucka you know you stand no chance Cause it takes two to tango and damn I wanna dance

I’ve been researching it. I listed to an interview with an actual astronaut on the radio. He said that when he was young and made up his mind that he wanted to go to space, the first thing he did was to figure out all the small steps he would need to take to get there. Because lots of small steps, if they’re good ones, can take you a long way if you’re heading in the right direction. What most people don’t do, this astronaut said, was to even take that first step – or if they do, they fail to plan the complete route to where they really want to be. Most people, he said, just stagger through life, one random step in one random direction at a time. But I’ve done it. I know what I want and how to get there. Now I just need to do it.

Dear Curses and Blessings, How could there be two in one? I never knew a person could be cursed and blessed. There’s no such thing as having both. There no such thing as taking sides when it comes to blessings and curses—I always thought that a person had to pick one. I would never have made the decision to be cursed. It was given to me. Well... Kace and I apparently have been the chosen ones. We’ve been the main target. When curses shot their arrows, they hit the bullseye faithfully, without fail. Why couldn’t we have been the chosen ones for bountiful blessings? It is a blessing that Kace is alive, but it is a curse that he was in danger. My emotions are a waterfall of never-ending thoughts of what is going to happen next. Kace has so many tubes in him—it is like he is being smothered, dissolving in webs of lies one after another. The same lies that my mother told him—she told me when I was younger. I am sure she told him she would keep him safe. I am more than sure she told the judge she had changed. Kace was coiled in a web of lies. Now he is coiled in wires to survive. Our lives are surrounded by many curses, but I know there must be a couple of blessings to be spared. Please. I am begging you to show us some mercy. I will accept our blessings even if they are thrown at us like breadcrumbs. I will fall to my knees and scramble to pick them up one by one. When will mine and Kace’s lives be gentle as a flowing stream without any worries? Right now, I have to pack my feelings and tears away. Cruses and blessings, please think about what I said.

For a moment, I thought I heard laughter, the click of one croquet ball striking another, a dog barking. I stared at the empty yard, trying hard to see what Great-grandfather saw, but nothing shifted, nothing changed. If the Tylers were playing croquet, they were visible to him and him alone. The only dog in sight was Binky. Running across the lawn to meet him, I took the stick he carried and threw it as hard as I could. It sailed across the sky, and Binky dashed after it. As the dog disappeared into the bushes, I looked up at the attic window and remembered the flash of white I’d seen the day I arrived--my first glimpse of Andrew. Funny to think I’d been scared. Nothing stirred in the attic now. No one watched, no one waited. Deep in my pocket, I touched the red bull’s-eye, warm as blood and twice as lucky. The marbles were mine for keeps. They were safe, and so was Andrew.

The famous Dubner maggid, a gaon, was asked by an admiring student: “How is it that you always have the perfect parable for the topic under discussion?” The gaon smiled. “I’ll answer with a parable.” And he told the following story: A lieutenant of the Tsar’s cavalry, riding through a small shtetl, drew his horse up in astonishment, for on the side of a barn he saw a hundred chalked circles—and in the center of each was a bullet hole! The lieutenant excitedly stopped the first passerby, crying, “Who is the astonishing marksman in this place? Look at all those bull’s-eyes!” The passerby sighed. “That’s Shepsel, the shoemaker’s son, who is a little peculiar.” “I don’t care what he is,” said the lieutenant. “Any man who can shoot that well—” “Ah,” the pedestrian said, “you don’t understand. You see, first Shepsel shoots—then he draws the circle.” The gaon smiled. “That’s the way it is with me. I don’t search for a parable to fit the subject. I introduce the subject for which I have a perfect parable.

Do you know how to play?” I asked. Hannah gave me one of her vexed looks. “Goodness, Andrew, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t know the first thing about marbles. Your brain is a regular sieve these days.” I tapped my forehead to remind her I’d been sick. She looked so contrite I felt guilty. “Will you teach me all over again?” Hannah poured her marbles onto the quilt and sighed. Without raising her eyes, she said, “Girls my age are supposed to be ladies, but sometimes I get mighty tired of trying to be what I’m not.” Cradling an aggie almost as shiny as Andrew’s red bull’s-eye, she cocked her head, studied her targets, and shot. The aggie hit a glass marble and sent it spinning off the bed. Hannah grinned and tried again. When all the marbles except the aggie were scattered on the floor, Hannah seized my chin and tipped my face up to hers. Looking me in the eye, she said, “If you promise not to tell a soul, I’ll give you as many lessons as you want. No matter what Papa thinks, I’d rather play marbles than be a lady, and that’s the truth.” “Ringer,” I said sleepily. “Do you know how to play ringer?” Hannah ruffled my hair. “You must be pulling my leg, Andrew. That’s what we always play. It’s your favorite game.” I yawned. “Starting tomorrow, we’ll practice every day till I get even better than I used to be.” “When I’m finished with you, you’ll be the all-time marble champion of Missouri.

We walked the circuit, passing the food stands frying funnel cakes and burgers, and the game booths, ceilings bristling with giant, multicolored stuffed animals. I paused in front of the crossbow game. Nicholas cocked an eyebrow. “Want me to win you a stuffed bunny?” “Ha.” I rubbed my hands together. “I’ll win my own stuffed bunny, thanks very much.” Nicholas passed the attendant a few dollars to pay for my turn. “I guess it’s nice to see you use your legendary aim for something other than breaking my nose,” he teased. “The night is young,” I snapped back, lifting the plastic crossbow. “This is a pathetic weapon,” I muttered. “I couldn’t stake an undead mouse with this thing.” “It’s supposed to be a game, remember?” he whispered, laughter in his dark voice. I fired my three shots, all crowding into the bull’s-eye. With a triumphantly smug toss of my head, I looked at the openmouthed attendant. “I want the purple bunny.” He tugged it down and passed it over to me. I slipped it into my bag while Nicholas shook his head. “Dump this loser, Lucy, and run away with me. You’ll never have to win your own cross-eyed bunny again.” I grinned up at Nicholas’s brother Quinn, who was smiling his charming smile, his arm draping casually over my shoulder. Hunter rolled her eyes at me from my other side. “No way,” I said. “My aim’s better than yours. Plus, your girlfriend can hurt me.” “Ooh,” Quinn said, winking. “Catfight. Hot.” He grinned. “Ouch,” he added when both Hunter and I smacked him.

We’ve known his family forever. He doesn’t seem to care about the scandal in ours, and he’s an excellent shot-“ “That would certainly be at the top of my list of requirements for a husband,” Minerva broke in, eyes twinkling. “’Must be able to hit a bull’s-eye at fifty paces.’” “Fifty paces? Are you mad? It would have to be a hundred at least.” Her sister burst into laughter. “Forgive me for not knowing what constitutes sufficient marksmanship for your prospective mate.” Her gaze grew calculating. “I heart that Jackson is a very good shot. Gabe said he beat everyone today, even you.” “Don’t remind me,” Celia grumbled. “Gabe also said he won a kiss from you.” “Yes, and he gave me a peck on the forehead,” Celia said, still annoyed by that. “As if I were some…some little girl.” “Perhaps he was just trying to be polite.” Celia sighed. “Probably. I didn’t kiss you “properly” today because I was afraid if I did I might not stop. “The thing is…” Celia bit her lower lip and wondered just how much she should reveal to her sister. But she had to discuss this with someone, and she knew she could trust Minerva. Her sister had never betrayed a confidence. “That wasn’t the first time Jackson kissed me. Nor the last.” Minerva nearly choked on her chocolate. “Good Lord, Celia, don’t say such things when I’m drinking something hot!” Carefully she set her cup on the bedside table. “He kissed you?” She seized Celia’s free hand. “More than once?” Celia nodded. Her sister cast her eyes heavenward. “And yet you’re debating whether to enter into a marriage of convenience with Lyons.” Then she looked alarmed. “You did want the man to kiss you, right?” “Of course I wanted-“ She caught herself. “He didn’t force me, if that’s what you’re asking. But neither has Jackson…I mean, Mr. Pinter…offered me anything important.” “He hasn’t mentioned marriage?” “No.” Concern crossed Minerva’s face. “And love? What of that?” “That neither.” She set her own cup on the table, then dragged a blanket up to her chin. “He’s just kissed me. A lot.” Minerva left the bed to pace in front of the fireplace. “With men, that’s how it starts sometimes. They desire a woman first. Love comes later.” Unless they were drumming up desire for a woman for some other reason, the way Ned had. “Sometimes all they feel for a woman is desire,” Celia pointed out. “Sometimes love never enters into it. Like Papa with his females.” “Mr. Pinter doesn’t strike me as that sort.” “Well, he didn’t strike me as having an ounce of passion until he started kissing me.” Minerva shot her a sly glance. “How is his kissing?” Heat rose in her cheeks. “It’s very…er…inspiring.” Much better than Ned’s, to be sure. “That’s rather important in a husband,” Minerva said dryly. “And what of the duke? Has he kissed you?” “Once. It was…not so inspiring.” She leaned forward. “But he’s offering marriage, and Jackson hasn’t even hinted at it.” “You shouldn’t settle for a marriage of convenience. Especially if you prefer Jackson.” I don’t believe in marriages of convenience. Given your family’s history, I would think that you wouldn’t, either. Celia balled the blanket into a knot. That was easy for Jackson to say-he didn’t have a scheming grandmother breathing down his neck. For that matter, neither did Minerva.

it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If a sermon promises health and wealth to the faithful, it isn’t true, because that theology makes God an absolute monster who only blesses rich westerners and despises Christians in Africa, India, China, South America, Russia, rural Appalachia, inner-city America, and everywhere else a sincere believer remains poor. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If doctrine elevates a woman’s married-with-children status as her highest calling, it isn’t true, because that omits single believers (whose status Paul considered preferable), widows, the childless by choice or fate or loss, the divorced, and the celibate gay. If these folks are second-class citizens in the kingdom because they aren’t married with children, then God just excluded millions of people from gospel work, and I guess they should just eat rocks and die. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. Theology is either true everywhere or it isn’t true anywhere. This helps untangle us from the American God Narrative and sets God free to be God instead of the My-God-in-a-Pocket I carried for so long. It lends restraint when declaring what God does or does not think, because sometimes my portrayal of God’s ways sounds suspiciously like the American Dream and I had better check myself. Because of the Haitian single mom. Maybe I should speak less for God. This brings me to the question at hand, another popular subject I am asked to pontificate on: What is my calling? (See also: How do I know my calling? When did you know your calling? How can I get your calling? Has God told you my calling? Can you get me out of my calling?) Ah yes, “The Calling.” This is certainly a favorite Christian concept over in these parts. Here is the trouble: Scripture barely confirms our elusive calling—the bull’s-eye, life purpose, individual mission every hardworking Protestant wants to discover. I found five scriptures, three of which referred to

It would be nice to help them avoid the typical discouragements. I’d tell them to hit pause, think long and hard about how they want to spend their time, and with whom they want to spend it for the next forty years. I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt. I’d like to warn the best of them, the iconoclasts, the innovators, the rebels, that they will always have a bull’s-eye on their backs. The better they get, the bigger the bull’s-eye. It’s not one man’s opinion; it’s a law of nature. I’d like to remind them that America isn’t the entrepreneurial Shangri-La people think. Free enterprise always irritates the kinds of trolls who live to block, to thwart, to say no, sorry, no. And it’s always been this way. Entrepreneurs have always been outgunned, outnumbered. They’ve always fought uphill, and the hill has never been steeper. America is becoming less entrepreneurial, not more. A Harvard Business School study recently ranked all the countries of the world in terms of their entrepreneurial spirit. America ranked behind Peru. And those who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop. Luck plays a big role. Yes, I’d like to publicly acknowledge the power of luck. Athletes get lucky, poets get lucky, businesses get lucky. Hard work is critical, a good team is essential, brains and determination are invaluable, but luck may decide the outcome. Some people might not call it luck. They might call it Tao, or Logos, or Jñāna, or Dharma. Or Spirit. Or God. Put it this way. The harder you work, the better your Tao. And since no one has ever adequately defined Tao, I now try to go regularly to mass. I would tell them: Have faith in yourself, but also have faith in faith. Not faith as others define it. Faith as you define it. Faith as faith defines itself in your heart.

If he kissed me the way he just had again tonight, I would undoubtedly give in to my baser needs and ride him like Woody rode Bullseye.

even in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull’s-eye of disaster

Part One 1. Mr. B.G. (My Testimony) Mr. B.G. Lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, One of my memories is attending the Mill Creek Baptist Church between the age of 8-10. What I remember most about this church is the way they emphasized working with youth. Occasionally heard preaching before Sunday school. Followed by going downstairs to learn an hour-long Bible Lesson. They invested time with us outside regular church hours; Mr. B.G. And his brother would eat pizza at Sunday school teacher's house. Church even planned an all-night sleepover in the basement one time. Never can forget drinking coffee all night, which caused me to have an energy boost. Followed by overwhelming tiredness the whole evening. Played on tennis tables, among many other events. Thinking back, I did enjoy a church that cared about me at such a young age. Only participated a couple of years then stopped going. Thankful for their kindness to teach me from God's Holy word a way to Jesus for the years attended. John Paul Guras and Mr. B.G. both were blessed to have an excellent Sunday school teacher, Mr. Walt Silman. After making this choice, I could have traveled the remainder of my eternally bound life not seeking a real, living God. Many times, Holy Spirit was trying to speak to me, Ignorantly avoided influences like church, praying, reading the Holy Bible. Lost in the jailhouse of sinful darkness, with no care in the world to allow Jesus to direct my decisions. I wanted to lead the helm of my life the way I thought was best. Choosing our selfish way is like shooting an arrow at a target wholly missing the center of the bulls-eye. Doing what pleases me, me, me, leads us astray. Sin leads us to destruction. Jesus alone can change our inward nature to fulfill the center of the Father's will.

Ben looked at her. She shrugged. ‘As a little girl I could bullseye watermelons at twenty paces. Now I nail ’em at thirty.’ ‘What an enchanting child you must have been.’ ‘Admit it, you’re impressed.

The contextual considerations that frame any activity literally define how it should be trained. All pistol training has sight alignment and trigger press concepts within it, but the conditions under which one has to apply them to win a small bore bulls-eye match are very different than the conditions of a USPSA match. So it is with using a handgun to effectively thwart a criminal assault within a typical criminal assault paradigm.

If your learner’s test-set accuracy disappoints, you need to diagnose the problem. Was it blindness or hallucination? In machine learning, the technical terms for these are bias and variance. A clock that’s always an hour late has high bias but low variance. If instead the clock alternates erratically between fast and slow but on average tells the right time, it has high variance but low bias. Suppose you’re down at the pub with some friends, drinking and playing darts. Unbeknownst to them, you’ve been practicing for years, and you’re a master of the game. All your darts go straight to the bull’s-eye. You have low bias and low variance, which is shown in the bottom left corner of this diagram:

The august international organizations charged with preserving peace and human dignity in the world—the UN, the EU, among others—would have preferred that terrorist atrocities be limited to Israel. However, once the intentional mass murder of innocent civilians was legitimized against Israel, it was legitimized everywhere, constrained by nothing more than the strongly held beliefs of those who would become the mass murderers. Because the Palestinians were encouraged by most of the world to believe that the murder of innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic to advance the Palestinian nationalist cause, the Islamists believe that they may commit mass murder anywhere in the world to advance their holy cause. As a result, we suffer from a plague of Islamic terrorism, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan, from Nairobi to New York, authored and perfected by the Palestinians. Israel and the United States are not separate targets of Islamic terrorism. The whole world is its target. Israel and the United States share the bull’s-eye.

the crew Luis went with could hit the bull’s-eye within a hundred meters. “Good enough to blow old Adolf to atoms,” Luis said. “That’s why we should keep the A-bomb name.” “Atom bomb?” Karl asked. “Adolf bomb.” •  •  • The drop sequence was in good shape, so Luis could turn to getting the shock-wave detectors launched from the following airplane, and the auto-cameras.

Thomas Parker glanced at his watch. Five hours. He laid down his cleaning brush and picked up the scattered parts of his 7.62mm SV-98 sniper rifle, starting to reassemble the gun. It wasn’t his favorite weapon, but it would do the job. Anything of American manufacture was out of the question. He re-mounted the scope, brushing a fine layer of dust off the lens. Sand seemed to permeate everything. The scope wasn’t standard-issue, it had come from an American lens manufacturer whose name had been carefully ground off the side. It gave him magnification up to 10x and night-vision capability. More than he needed, but with it, he had placed bulls-eyes at fifteen hundred yards.

Let’s say for the purpose of this example, your Bullseye Keyword is “potty train puppy.

your Bullseye Keyword must express the process or journey or transformation people will experience as a result of buying your product.

¿Sabes qué hago aquí? Pienso en matar gente obviamente. Pregunta estúpida. Una vez me grabaron mientras mataba. Una periodista imbécil vino a Ryker’s con su estúpido equipo de cámara y me preguntó por qué sonreía. No sólo me gusta. No solo se me da bien. No voy a decirte que es mi idea del arte ni mierdas por el estilo. Cuando mato, me fortalezco. Mi cabeza se aligera. Me quito todo el peso de encima. Mi corazón bombea más deprisa. Y no hay esfuerzo. Todo se vuelve fácil. Soy más fuerte, más rápido. No hay gravedad. Veo más lejos. Lo sé todo. Cada vez que mato, me parezco más a Dios. ¿Puedes imaginártelo? Él crea, yo tomo. Tal vez ese sea el secreto de la religión, ¿no? Tal vez yo soy el nuevo Dios. Puede que matar a la velocidad que él crea me convierta en su único amigo. Qué idea, ¿no?”- Bullseye.

My home is full of targets, and they have been hit. Over and over and over. Meanwhile, the bullseyes sit in penthouses and mansions, unaffected, watching us scramble over the arrows.

You can’t hit a bullseye if you don’t know where the goal is and you can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what problem you are trying to solve. If you are leading a team, child, client or employee, then getting them out of spaghetti thinking is the hidden secret to helping them make better decisions. It will also protect your time and energy so people stop emotionally vomiting on you and wasting your time talking about problems they have no intention of doing anything about. We can still be good listeners, but the ultimate goal is to help develop powerful problem solvers. Confused employees aren’t productive employees. Confused children aren’t children capable of reaching their full success. Confused clients leave bad reviews.

Too often the target is determined by whatever it was that we happened to have hit.

You are the archer, the arrow, the bow, and the bull’s-eye.

It was difficult to point these folks out, to put them on trial. How could one dislike a nice person? They said all the right things. Some people like David even went to the extent of being self-deprecating. It was a strategy of invulnerability. For example, they might apologetically acknowledge they were “talking too much” or sprinkle phrases like “Ah! I’m so self-absorbed” so as to exclude themselves from any claim of narcissism. Or when they achieved things, they perfectly said they were grateful and honored. Though at home, they hungrily harbored self-interest and greed. People praised their humility and, lacking the patience to notice that tiny bullseye of falseness, called those people humble. All it took for the humble people to be humble was to break the fourth wall of ego. To announce there was a snake in the room allowed them to never be suspected of being a serpent. No one saw the serpent. But one detected when it was there. It bothered a listener quietly. Some blockade prevented Andrei’s soul from resting.

In addition to making precise (bull’s-eye) estimates, offer a range around that estimate to express your uncertainty. Do this by including a lower and upper bound that communicate the size of your target.

…my poetry is, I know, an enquiry and a terror of fearful expectation, a discovery and facing of fear. I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in e, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow & upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression. … The poem is, as all poems are, its own question and answer, its own contradiction, its own agreement. I ask only that my poetry be taken literally. The aim of the poem is the mark that the poem itself makes; it's the bullet and the bullseye; the knife, the growth and the patient. A poem moves only toward its own end, which is the last line. Anything further than that is the problematical stuff of poetry, not of the poem.

The quickest way to hit a target is to fire, see where the bullet landed, and then adjust your aim accordingly. If the hit was 2 inches above the target, lower your aim a little. Fire again. See where it is now. Keep firing and keep readjusting. Soon you are hitting the bull’s-eye.

where they’d drink Mountain Dew, play Nerf basketball, and talk for hours, riffing on the film’s numerous bull’s-eyes: masculinity, consumerism, their aggravating elders. “We were sitting around, thinking of all the things we wanted to stick a fork [into],” says Norton, who was especially irked by the recent revival of the Volkswagen Beetle, an icon of the flower-power era that was being targeted to younger drivers. “They just wanted to repackage an authentic baby boomer youth experience to us—they don’t even want us to have our own,” he says, laughing. “They just want us to buy sentiment for the sixties, with a little fucking molded flower that you sit in the dashboard. And they wonder why we’re cynical.

Now, it was Steve’s turn. He focused all his thoughts and remembered all his training in Minecraft world. Mater Kung used to say, focus depends on breathing. “Breathe in” while taking aim and “breathe out” while releasing. He did that and took an aim. Bang! Bullseye!

didn’t offer many hiding places. Franco wasn’t worried. He was worried about that damned light stick fifteen yards farther down the tunnel. Its presence prevented a stealthy advance. Shooting it from here wouldn’t be easy. Throwing it down the mine had been a smart move on his enemy’s part . . . On closer inspection, though, it also afforded him an opportunity. The light stick had ended up on the outside of the left rail, nearly up against it. If he hugged the right side of the wall, he’d be in the shadows when he got closer to the light stick. He considered a balls-out run to the light stick so he could hurl it back toward the entrance. Shoving it in his pocket wasn’t an option because his opponent’s NV would see the light through the fabric. He might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his crotch—not an appealing visual. Because of the light stick up

Titles by their nature imply that the play’s architecture is like a bull’s-eye (and some are) with the point being in the center. Sometimes the point is in the margins, or in the experience of throwing the dart.

Ah yes, “The Calling.” This is certainly a favorite Christian concept over in these parts. Here is the trouble: Scripture barely confirms our elusive calling—the bull’s-eye, life purpose, individual mission every hardworking Protestant wants to discover. I found five scriptures, three of which referred to salvation rather than a job description (Rom. 11:29, 2 Peter 1:10, and Heb. 3:1).

Al-Zarqawi also had a much more promiscuous definition of kuffar (“unbelievers”), which he took to include all the Shia and any fellow Sunnis who did not abide by a strict Salafist covenant. Bin Laden had never drawn a bull’s-eye on these categories before, no doubt for filial reasons: his own mother was a Syrian Alawite, or a member of the offshoot of the Shia sect.

JULY 29 Yes, LORD, we wait for You in the path of Your judgments. Our desire is for Your name and renown. Isaiah 26:8 Time can test almost anything and un-doubtedly anyone. Sometimes when we obey God and go where we believe He is sending us, we’re not altogether certain what we expected, but after a while we ascertain, “This certainly can’t be it.” In fact, obeying God can initially seem to get us into a bigger mess than we left. It can make you think, “I must be an alien here.” But actually, that may be your first indication you’re in the right place. We can be in the bull’s-eye of God’s will for our lives even when things make utterly no sense. Sometimes we just to wait on that ugly, five-letter word: “later.

She wasn’t invisible anymore. She’d stepped dead-bang into the spotlight, and she’d painted a big bull’s-eye on her head.

Why does everything seem to land on my head in this world? (Think: spider AND ocelot.) Do I have a bullseye up there or what?  

Ever since I’d been old enough to know about virtue in a woman, it had seemed like a bull’s-eye painted on my head in rouge.

Desperate to stop an ‘open revival of the Jew v. Arab conflict in Palestine’, Casey and his colleagues came up with a new idea.6 This was to win the Arabs’ acceptance of the Jewish presence by compensating them with an Arab federation, for which the British government had promised its support in 1941. Seemingly oblivious to the growing opposition to Britain’s presence in the Middle East, they believed that such a federation might form the outer of two zones – the Jews would form the inner – that would protect Britain’s position astride the Suez Canal, after the war, like the concentric rings around the bull’s-eye on a target.