Bump In The Road Quotes

Just that dwelling and planning is bullshit, you dwell on the past, you can’t move forward. Spend too much time planning for the future and you just push yourself backwards, or you stay stagnant in the same place all your life. Live in the moment, where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you’ll get wherever it is you’re going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.

It’s not always easy to get over some of those bumps in the road, those disillusionments and disappointments. It’s going to take a strong will. Sometimes, it may take courage. Sometimes nothing but faith in God and say, I refuse to be trapped in the past. I’m not going to let the past destroy my future. I’m pressing on. I’m straining forward, knowing that God has great things in store for me.

I opened a book and in I strode. Now nobody can find me. I've left my chair, my house, my road, My town and my world behind me. I'm wearing the cloak, I've slipped on the ring, I've swallowed the magic potion. I've fought with a dragon, dined with a king And dived in a bottomless ocean. I opened a book and made some friends. I shared their tears and laughter And followed their road with its bumps and bends To the happily ever after. I finished my book and out I came. The cloak can no longer hide me. My chair and my house are just the same, But I have a book inside me.

Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested And have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.

...but I preferred reading the American landscape as we went along. Every bump, rise, and stretch in it mystified my longing.

Bad things happen to good people all the time. It sucks. It's not fair but then much of life isn't fair. It's how you live that matters. It's how you deal with the bumps in the road.

Bike lane: the section of the road that accommodates wide loads and has speed bumps to protect drunk drivers.

But the thing is, my slate will never be swiped clean--this will never fade into the background and become some sort of learning experience or bump in the road. The shit that happened in my life and this book is real. And because I finally woke up to that whole realization much too late--the realization that life really happens and there is always a consequence for your actions--I lost everything in some sense, but in a weird kind of great way, if you flip it all around, I may have gained the most important thing of all: the truth. I can live with that.

Stay confident even when something bad happens. It is just a bump in the road. It will pass.

The Coffee Guy, whose name is Rosie by the way, has moved to El Salvador.' I lied. This was not met with happy noises. 'He's turned his back on coffee and is in the wilds of Central America building houses for the poor. I think we should all take a moment away from our quest for coffee-satisfaction and think about this noble decision. As you clamor for caffeine and curse the hard-working but innocent staff at my store, Rosie is sitting in the bed of a beat-up pickup bumping across roads to make one room homes out of mud for those who have nothing at all

Tragedy is when someone ends up dead. Everything else is just a bump in the road.

I let myself feel good for no reason. I let joy happen right there and then, and it's inside me and around me, it's the lights on the road ahead, the clean black of the night, the cold air coming through the window. It's like hearing a song for the first time and being struck by it, haunted by it, wanting to hunt it down and catch it, because the song sums up something you didn't know you wanted to say, giving you chills and goose bumps. But even as you find out what it's called, and you're thinking you'll download it, you've already lost. Because the feeling was right then and there and it's already fading like a dream. You just have to see those times for what they are: a chance to look down at your life. And when you do, you see it's a skin made up of shiny little moments.

We need the darkness to appreciate the light, and the bumps along the road to stop us falling asleep at the wheel.

Life's a riddle, child," he said lightly, "but if you can feel the bumps on the road, it means you're alive and in the game. And that is a good place to be.

You feel like quitting, like giving up. You can’t understand why the road doesn’t get easier, why God doesn’t remove the stones and straighten the path. If God did that, you might never get to the top, because the bumps are what you can climb on.

I keep expecting to bump into you two on the road, but maybe the universe isn’t yet ready to handle you and me side by side again.

Potholes and bumps? Welcome to the world. Every road gas them. They're there to be navigated, avoided, driven over, or through to the other side. Don't keep driving into the pothole.

It’s funny how life moves in a complete circle sometimes. There might be lots of bumps in the road and maybe even a few cliffs, but it’s a journey, and sometimes it can bring you to the most wonderful places.

what at first had seemed to be no more than a small bump in the road was turned into a full-scale misfortune

The disruptive potential of quantum technology will make the change of the Internet era look like a small bump in the road!

Live in the moment where everything is just right,take your time and limit your bad memories and you’ll get wherever it is you’re going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.”. - Andrew Parrish (The Edge of Never)

The word itself has another color. It’s not a word with any resonance, although the e was once pronounced. There is only the bump now between b and l, the relief at the end, the whew. It hasn’t the sly turn which crimson takes halfway through, yellow’s deceptive jelly, or the rolled-down sound in brown. It hasn’t violet’s rapid sexual shudder or like a rough road the irregularity of ultramarine, the low puddle in mauve like a pancake covered in cream, the disapproving purse to pink, the assertive brevity of red, the whine of green.

Remember: we all get what we tolerate. So stop tolerating excuses within yourself, limiting beliefs of the past, or half-assed or fearful states. Use your body as a tool to snap yourself into a place of sheer will, determination, and commitment. Face your challenges head on with the core belief that problems are just speed bumps on the road to your dreams. And from that place, when you take massive action—with an effective and proven strategy—you will rewrite your history.

It was Cord that reminded me to fight for what I wanted, even when I was scared. To live and love bravely. It takes courage to love. But to have someone to love and to love you back is worth every bump in the road.

You live, learn, and move on, and there are bumps in the road. Sometimes they seem like we're diving off cliffs without wings. But at least if we try to fly, we have a chance that maybe we can.

There is so little life, and it is fraught with chance. We meet, we don't meet, we take the wrong turning, and still bump into each other. We conscientiously choose the 'right road' and it leads nowhere.

Set backs are bumps in the road, they are not the end of the roads.

She’d run over Dankyo in an instant to get to Theo. Be a darn big bump in the road, but she’d do it.

You see," he continued, beginning to feel better, "once there was no time at all, and people found it very inconvenient. They never knew wether they were eating lunch or dinner, and they were always missing trains. So time was invented to help them keep track of the day and get to places where they should. When they began to count all the time that was available, what with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, it seemed as if there was much more than could ever be used. 'If there's so much of it, it couldn't be very valuable,' was the general opinion, and it soon fell into dispute. People wasted it and even gave it away. Then we were giving the job of seeing that no one wasted time again," he said, sitting up proudly. "It's hard work but a noble calling. For you see"- and now he was standing on the seat, one foot on the windshield, shouting with his ams outstretched- "it is our most valuable possession, more precious than diamonds. It marches on, it and tide wait for no man, and-" At that point in the speech the car hit a bump in the road and the watchdog collapsed in a heap on the front seat with his alarm ringing furiously.

Maybe when your big picture is in place, all those bumps in the road along the way get sort of smoothed over.

All these bumps in the road are just there to make you fly. So let's do this, I'm ready to soar!

None of us knows the wisdom of the Lord. We do not know in advance exactly how He would get us from where we are to where we need to be, but He does offer us broad outlines in our patriarchal blessings. We encounter many bumps, bends, and forks in the road of life that leads to the eternities.

I am sure they will make the road to recovery seem clean. They’ll use words to make healing seem pretty and pretend the bandages don’t feel heavy and still cause pain. Your sadness is never going to be near and tidy, and on some days you might even wonder how you’re going to pick up every shattered piece on the floor when burying your soul seems much easier. There will be moments where you have to convince yourself that feeling is better than being numb and that your aching bones are strong enough to carry on. There will be times things feel upside down and you are spinning on an axis that is never balanced. There will be days where you take steps backward and those new steps forward feel very far away. But even in the difficulty you are still taking steps, you are still making progress. And for every bump along the way, just remember you have come this far; might as well keep going.

Sometimes the road to happily ever after isn’t smooth and easy. You have to fight through trials and obstacles to get there. There are dragons and big, bad wolves in disguise to defeat. Riding in a carriage with a prince wouldn’t get you over those bumps and twists. Sometimes the road to your happily ever after is on the back of a bike with a badass knight that would kick the prince’s ass if he came near you.

All I heard were the bumps and crunches of my tires on the dirt road, blending with the dark noises of the forest. But it wasnt the forest that scared me. It was the people who lived and prowled within them.

Usually when you’re steering a boat, it’s like steering a car – you aim yourself in the right direction and move the tiller a little this way or that way on keep on course. Occasionally a stronger puff of wind or a sudden wave pushes you off – like a bump in the road or a car that swings too far into your lane. But you correct. You get back on course. And you start again with the little movements. It’s easy. Anyone can do it.

Cam’s grin was wicked as his hand coasted up my waist to cup my breast. He squeezed it, setting off a weird mixture of painful tenderness and a bolt of lust to my sex. “My eyes!” Cole yelled. Cam and I jerked apart, and I twisted my head to see my brother standing in the doorway in his pyjamas, his hair falling in wet locks across his forehead. His forearm covered his eyes. “I’m fucking blind,” he growled and turned around, bumping into the wall before remembering to drop his arm. After that he stomped out of the flat, the door slamming in his wake. Horrified, I looked up into Cam’s face, my eyes wide. “I think I should let him get away with using the ‘f’ word on this occasion.” Cam snorted, laughter sputtering as he dropped his head to my chest, his whole body shaking with amusement. I felt an irrepressible giggle escape me despite my mortification for myself and Cole. “It’s not funny. We’ve scarred him. I better check on him.” Cam shook his head, his eyes bright with mirth. “You’re the last person he wants to see right now … I’m sure he’s barricaded himself in his room and is doing anything he can to burn the image of me dry-humping his sister out of his mind.

Live in the moment," he says as if making a serious point, "where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you'll get wherever it is you're going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.

The problem with bumps is when you don't see them coming... you inevitably stumble and you usually fall.

But it’s time for both of us to stop padding our lives so we don’t feel bumps in the road anymore. I think we’ll get hurt a lot in this life, but maybe it’s worth it because sometimes we will experience really amazing things, too. Maybe not everything will end in hurt. But we’ll never know if we don’t try.

It's like when you're learning to ride a bike. You're going to fall and you might get hurt, but you get back up on the bike and try again. And even when you get the hang of it there's still going to be bumps in the road, but you just keep riding.

I grew up back and forth between the British Isles: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. I spent short periods of time in France, Italy, and South Africa. This is my first time in the States. I was disappointed by Atlanta at first — I'd wanted to live in New York-but it's grown on me.” Everything about Kaidan was exciting and exotic. This was my first time traveling away from home, and he'd already seen so much. I ate my apple, glad it was crisp and not soft. “Which was your favorite place?” I asked. “I've never been terribly attached to any place. I guess it would have to be...here.” I stopped midchew and examined his face. He wouldn't look at me. He was clenching his jaw, tense. Was he serious or was he teasing me? I swallowed my bite. “The Texas panhandle?” I asked. “No.” He seemed to choose each word with deliberate care. “I mean here in this car. With you.” Covered in goose bumps, I looked away from him and stared straight ahead at the road, letting my hand with the apple fall to my lap. He cleared his throat and tried to explain. “I've not talked like this with anyone, not since I started working, not even to the only four people in the world who I call friends. You have Patti, and even that boyfriend of yours. So this has been a relief of sort. Kind of...nice.” He cleared his throat again. Oh, my gosh. Did we just have a moment? I proceeded with caution, hoping not to ruin it. “It's been nice for me, too,” I said. “I've never told Jay anything. He has no idea. You're the only one I've talked to about it all, except Patti, but it's not the same. She learned the basics from the nun at the convent where I was born.” “You were born in a convent,” he stated. “Yes.” “Naturally.

Never wanted this, never wanna see you hurt. Every little bump in the road I tried to swerve. People are people, and sometimes it doesn't work out. Nothing we say is gonna save us from the fallout. It's two AM. Feelin' like I just lost a friend. Hope you know it's not easy, easy for me. It's two AM. Feelin' like I just lost a friend. Hope you know this ain't easy, easy for me.

If a period is a stop sign, then what kind of traffic flow is created by other marks? The comma is a speed bump; the semicolon is what a driver education teacher calls a “rolling stop”; the parenthetical expression is a detour; the colon is a flashing yellow light that announces something important up ahead; the dash is a tree branch in the road.

The next time you check the box “S” for single, remember this: singleness is no longer a lack of options but a choice—a choice to refuse to let your life be defined by your relationship status and to live every day Happily and let your Ever After work itself out. Whether or not you have someone in the passenger seat, you are still the driver of your own life and can take whatever road you choose. So the next time you hit a speed bump, otherwise known as the age-old question, “Why are you still single?” look ’em in the eye and say, “Because I’m too strong, too smart, and too fabulous to settle.

Living? That will always be the hardest thing you will ever do. It hurts like hell, it’s full of bumps down every road, and you’ll take wrong turns, but it’s a blessing to have the chance to fail in the first place, am I right?

The road called life is long and winding. There are curves. Bumpes along the way. And sometimes... Sometimes you´re speeding through it, missing the signs and by the time you reach the end of it you have thoughts, recollections, and moments where you realize you haven´t really lived. And that´s the thing about life. It goes way too fast. At least mine did.

Life is not always going to be an easy road. There's going to be some bumps. That's what makes a person stronger.

Success is not always a straight road; it has bumps, bends, and hidden beauties.

She was not unlike many governments, in that as soon as she hit a bump in the road, she had a tendency to veer wildly to the right.

Now I happen to possess the bump of locality. It is not a virtue; I make no boast of it. It is merely an animal instinct that I cannot help. That things occasionally get in my way—mountains, precipices, rivers, and such like obstructions—is no fault of mine. My instinct is correct enough; it is the earth that is wrong. I led them by the middle road. That the middle road had not character enough to continue for any quarter of a mile in the same direction; that after three miles up and down hill it ended abruptly in a wasps’ nest, was not a thing that should have been laid to my door. If the middle road had gone in the direction it ought to have done, it would have taken us to where we wanted to go, of that I am convinced.

Each bump or challenge in our intimate connections offers us a perfect opportunity to deepen our level of intimacy, while allowing us to grow and evolve both individually and together.

I had walked over to the window and was looking down at the rails of the Montmartre funicular, the gardens of the Sacré Cœur and, further off, the whole of Paris, with its lights, its roofs, its shadows. Denise Coudreuse and I had met one day in this maze of roads and boulevards. Paths that cross, among those of thousands and thousands of people all over Paris, like countless little balls on a gigantic, electric billiard table, which occasionally bump into each other. And nothing remained of this, not even the luminous trail a firefly leaves behind it.

Having difficult times and grief and brokenness, does not mean that life is over. These are just bumps in the road, obstacles to be overcome and made stepping stones into a long successful life.

There's a time in your life when you have to stop looking back and start looking forward because otherwise you're going to walk down the road one day and bump into a lamppost. But it's not easy.

When it comes to love and romance, you get bumps in the road. Question is, do you let the bump stop you, or do you ride the fuck over it? Only you can decide if the journey and the effort are worth it.

Why is it so important for me to forgive that son-of-a-bitch? I’m not the one at fault here. It shouldn’t be about me. He’s the one that did wrong. Screw his feelings. He should feel like he’s hated for what he did.” Lisa added another used tissue to the growing pile on the table. Lyn warmly smiled. “Forgiving Byron isn’t for his sake, it’s for yours. The block in your life’s road can only be removed if you forgive him for what he did. If you don’t, you’ll just keep bumping into that block again and again. The life you live will be miserable. You’ll never be able to break the chains of the past.” Lisa listened and let the words sink into her subconscious. She realized the only way to get to the end of the road was to take the first step. There was a block preventing her from moving forward in life. She had to find a way past it.

Life is a dance toward God, I began to think. And the dance is not so graceful as we might want. While we glide and swing out practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a difficult dance to learn, because its steps are foreign.

In the real world, there was a consequence to every decision I made. To every choice that I ever took. A perfect world where life happened neatly and ideally didn’t exist. Life was messy and often hard. It did not wait for anybody to be ready or to expect the bumps on the road. You had to grab on to the wheel and steer your way back to your lane. And that was all I had done. That was what had brought me to where I was. For better or for worse.

Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to consider the unexpected. Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to entertain the improbable opportunity that comes looking for you. And never be so faithful to your plan that when you hit a bump in the road -- or when the bumps hit you – you don’t have the fortitude, grace and resiliency to rethink and regroup... Plans or no plans, keep a little space in your heart for the improbable. You won't regret it.

I call it the Margarita Road. It's the course your heart sets when you want to leave the past behind and start over someplace new and warm. Usually the path heads south to blue water and white sand, with any bumps along the way smoothed over by rum and tequila. It's not for everyone. This is a highway traveled mostly by runaways and drifters. I know, becuase I'm one of them.

It’s not supposed to end this way. Whatever else Roland and his ka-tet knows, that’s one thing that they ken for sure. This business ain’t supposed to end, and end bloody, at the base of some godforsaken pile of rock called Jericho Hill. Because John Farson is evil, and they’re good, and good may have its setbacks and bumps along the road, but when the final bell gongs, only good is left to hear its peals. They know that. They just…they know it. This ain’t how it’s gonna end. ‘Cept, deep down…they know it is.

We encounter many bumps, bends, and forks in the road of life that leads to the eternities. There is so much teaching and correction as we travel on that road. . . . President Brigham Young offered the profound insight that at least some of our suffering has a purpose when he said: “All intelligent beings who are crowned with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives must pass through every ordeal appointed for intelligent beings to pass through, to gain their glory and exaltation. . . . Every trial and experience you have passed through is necessary for your salvation.

her grief was like the evening sun behind the trees when you ride your bicycle west: sometimes you get a glimpse between the branches, or you hit a bump in the road, and the sudden blaze of sun in your eyes hurts so much, it blinds you. But mostly you’re just riding quietly along in the dusk. She

President Howard W. Hunter once said, 'God knows what we do not know and sees what we do not see' (in Conference Report, Oct 1987, 71). None of us knows the wisdom of the Lord. We do not know in advance exactly how He would get us from where we are to where we need to be, but He does offer us broad outlines in our patriarchal blessings. We encounter many bumps, bends, and forks in the road of life that leads to the eternities. There is so much teaching and correction as we travel on that road. Said the Lord, 'He that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom' (D&C 136:31). 'For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth' (Hebrews 12:6).

I was talking about time. It`s so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it`s just my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it`s not. [...] What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don`t think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. [...] Someday you be walking down the road and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it`s you thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It`s when you bump into a rememory that belongs to somebody else.

Originality brings more bumps in the road, yet it leaves us with more happiness and a greater sense of meaning.

The road may not always be easy. But then again, it’s the bumps in the road that make us stronger.

Don’t let bumps in the road tear you apart, make them pull you together.

Life was messy and often hard. It did not wait for anybody to be ready or to expect the bumps on the road. You had to grab on to the wheel and steer your way back to your lane.

Life is just what it is - a long road trip that sometimes has bumps and sometimes doesn't. Either way, you just gotta keep rollin' along.

I was in this for the long haul, so it was time to quit brooding over how rough the road was and brace for the bumps while keeping my foot on the gas.

Complications are merely the road bumps of life,” he told her. “In the end, you still reach your final destination.

Live in the moment, where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you’ll get wherever it is you’re going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.

Why would anyone entertain Satan’s questions about God’s goodness when everything is good? But a few bumps in the road, and our knowledge of God seems fragile, and that’s what Satan is counting on.

Finding a taxi, she felt like a child pressing her nose to the window of a candy store as she watched the changing vista pass by while the twilight descended and the capital became bathed in a translucent misty lavender glow. Entering the city from that airport was truly unique. Charles de Gaulle, built nineteen miles north of the bustling metropolis, ensured that the final point of destination was veiled from the eyes of the traveller as they descended. No doubt, the officials scrupulously planned the airport’s location to prevent the incessant air traffic and roaring engines from visibly or audibly polluting the ambience of their beloved capital, and apparently, they succeeded. If one flew over during the summer months, the visitor would be visibly presented with beautifully managed quilt-like fields of alternating gold and green appearing as though they were tilled and clipped with the mathematical precision of a slide rule. The countryside was dotted with quaint villages and towns that were obviously under meticulous planning control. When the aircraft began to descend, this prevailing sense of exactitude and order made the visitor long for an aerial view of the capital city and its famous wonders, hoping they could see as many landmarks as they could before they touched ground, as was the usual case with other major international airports, but from this point of entry, one was denied a glimpse of the city below. Green fields, villages, more fields, the ground grew closer and closer, a runway appeared, a slight bump or two was felt as the craft landed, and they were surrounded by the steel and glass buildings of the airport. Slightly disappointed with this mysterious game of hide-and-seek, the voyager must continue on and collect their baggage, consoled by the reflection that they will see the metropolis as they make their way into town. For those travelling by road, the concrete motorway with its blue road signs, the underpasses and the typical traffic-logged hubbub of industrial areas were the first landmarks to greet the eye, without a doubt, it was a disheartening first impression. Then, the real introduction began. Quietly, and almost imperceptibly, the modern confusion of steel and asphalt was effaced little by little as the exquisite timelessness of Parisian heritage architecture was gradually unveiled. Popping up like mushrooms were cream sandstone edifices filigreed with curled, swirling carvings, gently sloping mansard roofs, elegant ironwork lanterns and wood doors that charmed the eye, until finally, the traveller was completely submerged in the glory of the Second Empire ala Baron Haussmann’s master plan of city design, the iconic grand mansions, tree-lined boulevards and avenues, the quaint gardens, the majestic churches with their towers and spires, the shops and cafés with their colourful awnings, all crowded and nestled together like jewels encrusted on a gold setting.

I don't think there are any wrong roads. I think there are just roads. Not everything's gonna be smooth for me. I'm sure there's gonna be all kinds of bumps ahead to being a stand-up comic. But I kinda think the bumps are what's interesting.

More than likely you’ll do well enough alone by the engines of your own fate until you either hit a few really nasty bumps in the road or grow old enough to realize that there may be a diamond or two in what you thought was your old man’s bucket.

They pulled off a twisting country road and bumped along a rutted gravel driveway. Rocky promontories barred their view until they topped a rise and found a half-are property where the cabin faced south, toward the red clay river that lazed across the horizon.

Jude says it's because that's the way I look at life_ it's so much more exciting when you don't know what's on the other side of the day you're in. you just expect the best, deal with the bumps, and pray that your boat doesn't fall apart under the big waves... (re driftwood) It will remind me of him and life in general. Because if you think about it, every day is full of wrong turns and roads that take us nowhere. But when you stand back and look at it, you can see how beautiful it all turned out and that you're standing where you're supposed to be.

No choice. No coincidence. Pah! We take this train on purpose." Fabbio waved his long arms dismissively. "And what about htis bump in the road?" Fabbio looked out the window. "I see no bump." Pumpkin let out a loud sigh. "'Bump in the road' is an expression." He was wearing a toga he'd found in an abandoned suitcase, tied with a curtain tie. He flounced one tassel around dramatically as he talked, smiling haughtily at Kitty from the corner of his eye. "It doesn't mean a real bump. It means-" Bump "Meay!" Somber Kitty, hissing, bounced against one of the closed windows, then landed on all fours. Pumpkin flew across the table under a cascade of dards; Beatrice and May hurtled off their bench onto the ground; Fabbio tumbled flat against the wall behind him. Scccccccccccccccrrrrrrrrrrrrrrcccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The train came to a dead halt. A bone-chilling stillness followed. The Bogey. Pumpkin whimpered and zipped under the table. Somber Kitty positioned himself between May and the rear car door. And they all readied themselves for whatever might come through it.

Honey, a father never wants to outlive his kids. This”—he took a deep breath—“is the easy part. Living? That will always be the hardest thing you will ever do. It hurts like hell, it’s full of bumps down every road, and you’ll take wrong turns, but it’s a blessing to have the chance to fail in the first place, am I right?

Remember me mentioning I was two nuts short of a full bag? Well, that’s a part of it. Not all of it, of course, but hey, you can’t live for one hundred and eighty years without some bumps in the road. And one of those bumps is the fact I wake up a sweaty, basket case pretty much every night. Visions are a bitch, what can I say?

He realized that his past life, his past lonely life, hadn’t been good but perfect. For every single event in that life had pushed him unwaveringly closer and closer to her. Every failure, every crumbling relationship, every breakup in the cold rain or amidst hot tears—everything had been to place him at that diner two weeks ago. To bring him to the now—sleeping on her bed, this stunning, intelligent woman next to him. All his life, he had dreamt of her, either consciously or subconsciously, and this woman had materialized in the flesh. Looking back, he wondered if the plan had been too perfect for it to be mere coincidence. Fate or whatever could substitute for fate had slowly moved him toward her.

A small container of Rocky Road lands on the counter next to me. “I figured Rocky Road was appropriate to pave the way to brown town,” she says with a laugh. The man in front of me takes his receipt, and the cashier, a younger woman, reaches for our purchases as soon as Banner starts laughing at her own joke. The cashier’s eyes go wide when she comprehends. “Brown Town? Is that up in the foothills, Logan? I’m not sure I’ve heard of it,” a familiar voice says from behind me. Oh, for Christ’s sake. I turn around to face Mrs. Harris, her hands full with a box of tea and a bottle of melatonin, but when I open my mouth to respond, nothing comes out. Banner smiles sweetly and says, “It’s just south of Pussy Ridge. At least, I’m pretty sure it is.” I choke, and the cashier’s face turns red. “Pussy Ridge. I haven’t heard of that either. I’ll have to ask Mr. Harris to get out the Rand McNally so we can take a drive there this weekend. I do love my weekend drives.” I have no idea how Banner is keeping a straight face, but she replies, “I love a good long ride too. Especially when it gets a little rough.” The older woman smiles. “Me too. Emmy has never been a fan, though. She’s always gotten carsick at the littlest bump.” Banner finally grins. “That explains so much about her.” The cashier’s eyes are tearing up as I shove money at her before I bag the ice cream, Doritos, and lube myself. “See you later, Mrs. Harris. You’ll have to let us know how that drive goes.

Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t. Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass. Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.” I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.

Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades, bumps, and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested. Have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect, nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.

You dwell on the past, you can’t move forward. Spend too much time planning for the future and you just push yourself backwards, or you stay stagnant in the same place all your life.” His eyes lock on mine. “Live in the moment,” he says as if making a serious point, “where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you’ll get wherever it is you’re going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.

Having studied art history, as opposed to political history, I tend to incorporate found objects into my books. Just as Pablo Picasso glued a fragment of furniture onto the canvas of Still Life with Chair Caning, I like to use whatever's lying around to paint pictures of the past--traditional pigment like archival documents but also the added texture of whatever bits and bobs I learn from looking out bus windows or chatting up people I bump into on the road.

Although my road to writing seems like it may have come easily, there were a few bumps in that road. I didn’t get a lot of encouragement from friends, although my family were great supporters. I also had many…what you would call “mind-boggling” moments, when I would doubt myself and what I was writing. It has been said that we, ourselves, are our own worst critics. All the hard work had payed off though, and I created a children’s book that I am proud of, and an unforgettable little girl that will touch the hearts of many.”-Nina Jean Slack

We discover the bumps are milpa, small mounds of earth on which complementary crops were planted. Unlike linear plowing, which encourages water runoff and soil erosion, the circular pattern traps rainfall. Each mound is planted with a cluster of the Three Sisters that were the staples of Indian agriculture: corn, beans, and squash. The corn provided a stalk for the beans to climb, while also shading the vulnerable beans. The ground cover from the squash stabilized the soil, and the bean roots kept the soil fertile by providing nitrogen. As a final touch, marigolds and other natural pesticides were planted around each mound to keep harmful insects away. Altogether it was a system so perfect that in some Central American countries too poor to adopt linear plowing with machinery, artificial pesticides, and monocrops of agribusiness, the same milpa have been producing just fine for four thousand years. 19 Not only that, but milpa can be planted in forests without clear-cutting the trees; at most, by removing a few branches to let sunlight through on a mound. This method was a major reason why three-fifths of all food staples in the world were developed in the Americas.

It was at times a long, difficult road. But I'm glad it was long and difficult, because if I hadn't gone through hell to get there, the lesson might not have been as clear. You see, kids, right from the moment I met your mom I knew, I have to love this women as much as I can and as long as I can and I can never stop loving her, not even for a second. I carried that lesson through every stupid fight we ever had, every 5 a.m. Christmas morning, every sleepy Sunday afternoon, every speed bump, every pang of jealousy or boredom or uncertainty that came our way. I carried that lesson with me.

His manner of dealing with explosives also caused her consternation. On one occasion Helen joined Parsons and Forman on one of their recreational skyrocket launching trips in the desert. Sitting in the back seat of the car, she lifted up a rug covering the floor to find it had been hiding sticks and sticks of dynamite, no doubt taken from Halifax by Parsons. Nervously leaning forward to the front seat where Parsons and Forman were sitting, she asked whether the explosives were safe. As the truck bumped heavily along the desert road, Parsons turned to her with an amused grin and told her not to worry: “The detonator’s in the front seat.

With that in mind, I pull the door shut and look for a seat belt to buckle. I find only the frayed end of a seat belt and a broken buckle. “Where did you find this piece of junk?” says Christina. “I stole it from the factionless. They fix them up. It wasn’t easy to get it to start. Better ditch those jackets, girls.” I ball up our jackets and toss them out the half-open window. Marcus shifts the truck into drive, and it groans. I half expect it to stay still when he presses the gas pedal, but it moves. From what I remember, it takes about an hour to drive from the Abnegation sector to Amity headquarters, and the trip requires a skilled driver. Marcus pulls onto one of the main thoroughfares and pushes his foot into the gas pedal. We lurch forward, narrowly avoiding a gaping hole in the road. I grab the dashboard to steady myself. “Relax, Beatrice,” says Marcus. “I’ve driven a car before.” “I’ve done a lot of things before, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at them!” Marcus smiles and jerks the truck to the left so that we don’t hit a fallen stoplight. Christina whoops as we bump over another piece of debris, like she’s having the time of her life. “A different kind of stupid, right?” she says, her voice loud enough to be heard over the rush of wind through the cab. I clutch the seat beneath me and try not to think of what I ate for dinner.

The Never Unfriended Promise I promise I will never unfriend you. Not with the swipe of my finger, not with the roll of my eyes, not with a mean word said behind your back, or a circle too small to pull up one more chair. I choose to like you. I choose to choose you. To include you. To invite you. Even on the days we hit road bumps. I don’t want another friendship break up. I want a friendship that won’t give up. So, I give you my too-loud laughter and my awkward tears. I give you my sofa for the days you just can’t even. And the nights you need a safe place to feel heard without saying a word. Let there be coffee and long conversations. Let there be messy, ordinary Tuesdays where neither of us is embarrassed by our dust bunnies. I won't try to force our friendship into jeans that won't fit. I won't treat you like a quick fix. I will like you just the way you are. Because I believe in guilt-free friendship. And on the days we’re tangled up in our own insecurities let’s agree to give each other the gift of the benefit of the doubt. Wrapped up with the giant bow of believing the best about each other, even when we don’t feel like it. I'm sure I won't always get it right. But I'll keep showing up. With encouragement instead of competition. With Kleenex, big news or sad news on the bad hair days and the Mondays and all the in between days with their ordinary news too. Friendship on purpose. Here's to me and you.

Well, what you ding this kind of work for--against your own people?" "Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner--and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day and it comes every day." "But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?" "Can't think of that. Got to think of my own kids." *** "Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?" "And that reminds me, you better get out soon. I'm going through the dooryard after dinner...I got orders wherever there's a family not moved out--if I have an accident--you know, get too close and cave in the house a little--well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet." "I built this with my hands...It's mine. I built it. You bump it down--I'll be in the window with a rifle..." "It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look--suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you, but not long before you're hung there'll be another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right guy." *** Across the dooryard the tractor cut, and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again; the uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit into the house-corner, crumbled the wall and wrenched the house from its foundation so that it fell sideways,crushed like a bug...The tenant man stared after [the tractor], his rifle in his hand. His wife beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the tractor.

Ove kept exactly to every speed limit, even on that 35 mph road where the recently arrived idiots in suits came tanking along at 55. Among their own houses they put up speed bumps and damnable numbers of signs about “Children Playing,” but when driving past other people’s houses it was apparently less important. Ove had repeated this to his wife every time they drove past over the last ten years. “And it’s getting worse and worse,” he liked to add, just in case by some miracle she hadn’t heard him the first time. Today he’d barely gone a mile before a black Mercedes positioned itself a forearm’s length behind his Saab. Ove signaled with his brake lights three times. The Mercedes flashed its high beams at him in an agitated manner. Ove snorted at his rearview mirror. As if it was his duty to fling himself out of the way as soon as these morons decided speed restrictions didn’t apply to them. Honestly. Ove didn’t move. The Mercedes gave him a burst of its high beams again. Ove slowed down. The Mercedes sounded its horn. Ove lowered his speed to 15 mph. When they reached the top of a hill the Mercedes overtook him with a roar. The driver, a man in his forties in a tie and with white cables trailing from his ears, held up his finger through the window at Ove. p. 28

last sixteen years Aidan’s detected a shift among spirits. He doesn’t know what it means yet, but he’s certain there’s a pattern.” “What kind of pattern?” “Dark spirits and demons are growing stronger.” I bet Nolan could have helped figure out the pattern. I can only imagine how different all of this would be if he had been here with me since the beginning, performing research for Aidan, trying just as hard as Aidan to find answers. Maybe he would have even found some. “Can you sense the demon?” he asks. I nod. Lucio stops dead in his tracks. Despite the flames growing ever higher around us, Lucio and I feel a cool breeze coming from down the road. Lucio starts walking in the direction of the chill, and I follow, placing my feet in the dusty footprints his steps leave behind. Even though he’s not much taller than I am, his feet are bigger than mine, and I feel like a little kid every time I place one of my sneakers in the spot where his dust-covered boot was seconds before. Lucio’s wearing shorts, and instead of looking at where we’re going, I’m watching the muscles in his calves flex and release with each step. He certainly looks strong enough to confront a demon. When he stops, I practically crash into him. “In there,” Lucio whispers, nodding in the direction of a squat stucco building on our left. It’s so small that it can’t possibly have more than one room. An icy breeze blows its splintered wooden door open, bringing a wall of smoke along with it, despite the fact that it’s the only building in sight that isn’t actually on fire. The door bangs against the tiny building with a loud crash as goose bumps rise on my sweaty skin. “Why did the demon choose this town?” I ask. “These people are completely helpless.” “Exactly,” Lucio says. “The same way we gather strength from helping spirits move on, a demon gathers strength from destroying spirits.” Despite the breeze coming from the darkness just a few steps away, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so hot. Somewhere inside

Then Janie’s baby voice rose above the din. “Ma-ma!” My steps halted. So did my heart. The plaintive cry filled every crevice of my being. “Ma-ma!” The caterwauling ceased. I turned. Ollie’s horror-stricken face told me I’d heard right. Gripping the handle of my suitcase and clenching my teeth, I tried to hold in my own keening. Janie dropped to her pudgy knees in the middle of the road. “Ma-ma!” She fell on her face in the dirt and sobbed. My gaze rose past her to Frank, who stood at the top of the steps. His horror seemed to mirror my own. I’d thought by leaving I’d alleviate his suffering, but it seemed I’d only deepened it. He made his way across the yard, his eyes fixed on mine. He passed his frozen children as if they were merely trees in a human forest and stopped in front of me, so close I could smell Ol’ Bob on his shirt. I tilted my head back, looked into his face. My heart bumped against my chest, though I’d felt sure it had stopped beating altogether. His arms reached for me, then fell back to his side. “Please, Rebekah. Please stay. They need you. I told you that.” “I can’t.” My vision blurred as I shook my head. His thumb caught a tear on my cheek, wiped it dry. I glanced at Janie, still lying heartbroken in the dirt. I ached to go to her, but I didn’t want to make things worse. Ollie seemed to read my thoughts. She picked up her sister, but her attention remained on me. I looked back at Frank. “Can’t you see? I’m giving you your life back. Your whole life. Your house. Your family.” I tasted the salt of my tears. He grabbed my shoulders. “But don’t you understand, Rebekah? I can’t have my whole life back. When I left for the war, I knew nothing would ever be the same. And it isn’t. Clara is gone. I have to make a new life now.” He sucked in a deep breath. “And I want to make it with you.” “Me? Are you saying . . . ” I held my breath, holding the words inside me, afraid they’d meet the air and burst like a soap bubble. His lips curled into a smile that chased every trace of gray from his eyes. “Marry me?

It was awful. It was three in the morning. And I finally said, “Chip, I’m not sleeping in this house.” We were broke. We couldn’t go to a hotel. There was no way we were gonna go knock on one of our parents’ doors at that time of night. That’s when I got an idea. We happened to have Chip’s parents’ old RV parked in a vacant lot a few blocks down. We had some of our things in there and had been using it basically as a storage unit until we moved in. “Let’s get in the RV. We’ll go find somewhere to plug it in, and we’ll have AC,” I said. As we stepped outside, the skies opened up. It started pouring rain. When we finally got into the RV, soaking wet, we pulled down the road a ways and Chip said, “I know where we can go.” It was raining so hard we could barely see through the windshield, and all of a sudden Chip turned the RV into a cemetery. “Why are you pulling in to a cemetery?” I asked him. “We’re not going to the cemetery,” Chip said. “It’s just next to a cemetery. There’s an RV park back here.” “Are you kidding me? Could this get any worse?” “Oh, quit it. You’re going to love it once I get this AC fired up.” Chip decided to go flying through the median between the two rows of RV parking, not realizing it was set up like a culvert for drainage and rain runoff. That RV bounced so hard that, had it not been for our seat belts, we would’ve both been catapulted through the roof of that vehicle. “What was that?!” “I don’t know,” Chip said. I tried to put it in reverse, and then forward, and then reverse again, and the thing just wouldn’t move. I hopped out to take a look and couldn’t believe it. There was a movie a few years ago where the main character gets his RV caught on this fulcrum and it’s sitting there teetering with both sets of wheels up in the air. Well, we sort of did the opposite. We went across this valley, and because the RV was so long, the butt end of it got stuck on the little hill behind us, and the front end got stuck on the little hill in front of us, and the wheels were just sort of hanging there in between. I crawled back into the RV soaking wet and gave Jo the bad news. We had no place to go, no place to plug in so we could run the AC; it was pouring rain so we couldn’t really walk anywhere to get help. And at that point I was just done. We wound up toughing it out and spending the first night after our honeymoon in a hot, old RV packed full of our belongings, suspended between two bumps in the road.