“
All you need is a twenty in your pocket and a bus ticket.
All you need is someone on the other end of the map, thinking about the supple
curves of your body, to guide you to a home that stretches out for miles
and miles on end.
”
”
Shinji Moon (The Anatomy of Being)
“
The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell.
”
”
David Nicholls (One Day)
“
Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell .Emma is lost on anything less than 120gsm.
”
”
David Nicholls (One Day)
“
Border patrol,” a uniformed officer announced as he stepped on the bus. “Anything to declare?”
“I declare that this sucks,” Trey said, shuffling past him.
“Hey,” Eric said to the office and pointed at Trey. “I saw that guy shove something up his ass.
”
”
Olivia Cunning (Hot Ticket (Sinners on Tour, #3))
“
Sometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell. Emma is lost on anything less than 120gsm.
”
”
David Nicholls (One Day)
“
Once the process of falsification is set in motion, it won't stop. We're in a country where everything that can be falsified has been falsified: paintings in museums, gold ingots, bus tickets. The counterrevolution and the revolution fight with salvos of falsification: the result is that nobody can be sure what is true and what is false, the political police simulate revolutionary actions and the revolutionaries disguise themselves as policemen."
And who gains by it, in the end?"
It's too soon to say. We have to see who can best exploit the falsifications, their own and those of the others: whether it's the police or our organization."
The taxi driver is pricking up his ears. You motion Corinna to restrain herself from making unwise remarks.
But she says, "Don't be afraid. This is a fake taxi. What really alarms me, though, is that there is another taxi following us."
Fake or real?"
Fake, certainly, but I don't know whether it belongs to the police or to us.
”
”
Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler)
“
He noticed that she threw away the crumbled bus ticket on the street as soon as she got down. He picked it up and put it in his pocket along with his own a memorabilia of their first date together, just like a strand of her hair he would find later on his shirt and the broken pen cap that she would go on to search in the laboratory and so many other such small things which he would collect.
”
”
Faraaz Kazi (Truly, Madly, Deeply)
“
You ever think how the most minor decision can change the entire direction of your life? Like, say you miss your bus one morning, so you buy that second cup of coffee, buy a scratch ticket while you're at it. The scratch ticket hits. Suddenly you don't have to take the bus anymore. You drive to work in a Lincoln. But you get in a car crash and die. All because you missed your bus one day. I'm just saying there are threads, okay? Threads in our lives. You pull one, and everything else gets affected.
”
”
Dennis Lehane (Mystic River)
“
And it’s not over-the-top, in-your-face likeable. It’s subtle. The kind of likeable that lures you in and before you know it you’ve bought the ticket, boarded the bus, and are miles into the pleasant journey before you question where you’re even going in the first place.
”
”
Kim Holden (Bright Side (Bright Side, #1))
“
The price of a bus ticket, of a train ticket. She could be, could be, could be-
Alive.
”
”
Stephen King (Carrie)
“
Summers there are awful! Winters there are awful! Why do you stay? You ought to run away! Hop a train! Stow away on a bus!
What am I saying? You could just buy yourself a ticket.
It would be interesting to talk to you if you did it the other way, though.
We could compare scars and bruises.
It might be fun.
”
”
Wendelin Van Draanen (Runaway)
“
It’s all very well to have your eight suspects parading in their endless ring-around-the-rosebush outside the library. That’s fine. But give some sensible reason why they were there. If you must shower the room with bus tickets, provide a reason for that too. In other words, construct your story. Your present problem is not to explain the villainy of the guilty: it’s to explain the stupidity of the innocent.
”
”
John Dickson Carr (The Door To Doom And Other Detections)
“
I once asked my friends if they'd ever held things that gave them a spooky sense of history. Ancient pots with three-thousand-year-old thumbprints in the clay, said one. Antique keys, another. Clay pipes. Dancing shoes from WWII. Roman coins I found in a field. Old bus tickets in second-hand books. Everyone agreed that what these small things did was strangely intimate; they gave them the sense, as they picked them up and turned them in their fingers, of another person, an unknown person a long time ago, who had held that object in their hands. You don't know anything about them, but you feel the other person's there, one friend told me. It's like all the years between you and them disappear. Like you become them, somehow.
”
”
Helen Macdonald (H is for Hawk)
“
I bought a ticket with the last of my money at the bus station, telling the agent that there certainly seemed to be a long, long road winding to the land of my dreams.
”
”
Jim Harrison (Wolf)
“
And so he suspected the mayor of easing the budget crunch for sheltering the poor by giving them one-way bus tickets to warmer climates. And that was cold.
”
”
Carol O'Connell (It Happens in the Dark (Kathleen Mallory, #11))
“
This morning I was walking through Manhattan, head down, checking directions, when I looked up to see a fruit truck selling lychee, two pounds for five bucks, and I had ten bucks in my pocket! Then while buying my bus ticket for later that evening I witnessed the Transbridge teller’s face soften after she had endured a couple unusually rude interactions in front of me as I kept eye contact and thanked her. She called me honey first (delight), baby second (delight), and almost smiled before I turned away. On my way to the Flatiron building there was an aisle of kousa dogwood—looking parched, but still, the prickly knobs of fruit nestled beneath the leaves. A cup of coffee from a well-shaped cup. A fly, its wings hauling all the light in the room, landing on the porcelain handle as if to say, “Notice the precise flare of this handle, as though designed for the romance between the thumb and index finger that holding a cup can be.” Or the peanut butter salty enough. Or the light blue bike the man pushed through the lobby. Or the topknot of the barista. Or the sweet glance of the man in his stylish short pants (well-lotioned ankles gleaming beneath) walking two little dogs. Or the woman stepping in and out of her shoe, her foot curling up and stretching out and curling up.
”
”
Ross Gay (The Book of Delights: Essays)
“
Since 2019, commuters who use public transport in Rome, Italy, can exchange their used plastic bottles for metro or bus tickets. People can simply insert plastic bottles in the machine to receive the ticket on their smartphones through an app.
”
”
Nayden Kostov (463 Hard to Believe Facts)
“
The afternoon before she died, Nuria came to see me, as she used to do years ago. I remember we used to go and eat in a café on Calle Guardia, where I would take her when she was a child. We always talked about books, about old books. She would sometimes tell me things about her work, trifles, the sort of things one tells a stranger on a bus…. Once she told me she was sorry she’d been a disappointment to me. I asked her where she’d got that ridiculous idea. ‘From your eyes, Father, from your eyes,’ she said. Not once did it occur to me that perhaps I’d been an even greater disappointment to her. Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they’re there to make our most absurd dreams come true.
”
”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1))
“
I bought a first-class ticket,” I told her. “I’m not taking the bus.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Kill Switch (Devil's Night, #3))
“
Reporters of each channel smudging into each other to get that exclusive sound byte. It looked like BEST bus passengers circling the conductor to buy tickets.
”
”
Aditya Magal (How to become a billionaire by selling nothing)
“
She didn't open the envelope until she'd gotten to the bus station and needed to pay for her ticket. He hadn't given her the thousand dollars she'd asked for-he'd given her ten thousand.
”
”
Ann Brashares (Sisterhood Everlasting (Sisterhood, #5))
“
The parking lot was almost empty, except for an old bus from which a load of senior citizens were disembarking. The bus was from the Calvary Baptist Church in someplace like Firecracker, Georgia, or Bareassed, Alabama. The old people were noisy and excited, like schoolchildren, and pushed in front of me at the ticket booth, little realizing that I wouldn't hesitate to give an old person a shove, especially a Baptist. Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America)
“
A snake charmer was travelling in a bus. He asked for 21 tickets from bus conductor. On being asked “why”, he replied, “Whenever I open my basket and bring out the snake, 20 people also come out to see it. So I have 20 people in my basket.”
That should be the mindset of a meditator. Enjoy this world as long as you want but when you want to meditate, you should be able to realize that all the people and things around you are all in your head. You should be able to wrap it all up and put it back in the basket.
”
”
Shunya
“
Forty dollars for one adult nonrefundable ticket. You’re in luck — your bus leaves in a half hour. But there’s no dogs, unless that’s a service animal.”
“Oh, yeah,” Call said, with a quick look down at Havoc. “He’s totally a service dog. He was in the service — the navy, actually.”
The woman’s eyebrows went up.
“He saved a man,” Call said, trying out the story as he counted the cash and pushed it through the slot. “From drowning. And sharks. Well, just the one shark, but it was a pretty big one. He’s got a medal and everything.
”
”
Cassandra Clare
“
The road was wet with rain, black and shiny like oilskin. The reflection of the street lamps wallowed like yellow jelly-fish. A bus was approaching - a bus to Piccadilly, a bus to the never-never land - a bus to death or glory.
I found neither. I found something which haunts me still.
The great bus swayed as it sped. The black street gleamed. Through the window a hundred faces fluttered by as though the leaves of a dark book were being flicked over. And I sat there, with a sixpenny ticket in my hand. What was I doing! Where was I going?
("Same Time, Same Place")
”
”
Mervyn Peake (Weird Shadows From Beyond: An Anthology of Strange Stories)
“
This is like waiting for a train to hell,” she whipered at some point, not to me directly, but up at the chapel ceiling. “I’m exhausted.” Highway to hell. Slow road to hell. Express bus. Taxicab. Rowboat. First-class ticket. Hell was the only destination she ever used in her metaphors.
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
“
Why is it some days everything works out, and some days nothing works out. What I mean is, I've been trying to get on that bus for Bountiful for over five years. Usually Jessie Mae and Ludie find me before I ever get inside the railroad station good. Today, I got inside both the railroad station and the bus station. Bought a ticket, seen Ludie and Jessie Mae before they saw me. Hid out. Met a pretty friend like you. Lost my purse, and now I'm having it found for me. I guess the good Lord isn't with us every day? It would be so nice if he was. Well, maybe then we wouldn't appreciate so much the days when he's on our side. Or maybe he's always on our side and we don't know it. Maybe I had to wait twenty years cooped up in a city before I could appreciate getting back here. (...) I'm a very happy woman.
”
”
Horton Foote (The Trip to Bountiful)
“
Over the years, I have grown to love airports, despite all the travel inconveniences which are getting worse every year. I don’t know why I have this strong desire to depart; to always be somewhere else. Maybe getting displaced and being forced out of my home as a result of war has turned me into a permanent nomad? Since I left Iraq for the first time in 2005, I almost always have a plane, bus, or train ticket to go somewhere. Sometimes I think of the mothers who abandon their unwanted babies at the doors of churches and mosques. I imagine that my mother, too, had left me at the door of an airport with a plane ticket instead of a pacifier in my mouth! And since then, I have been moving everywhere and arriving nowhere. Could it be that disillusion takes place precisely at the moment we arrive at a certain destination?
”
”
Louis Yako
“
Why would intelligent, capable British and French government officials continue to invest in what was clearly a losing proposition for so long? One reason is a very common psychological phenomenon called “sunk-cost bias.” Sunk-cost bias is the tendency to continue to invest time, money, or energy into something we know is a losing proposition simply because we have already incurred, or sunk, a cost that cannot be recouped. But of course this can easily become a vicious cycle: the more we invest, the more determined we become to see it through and see our investment pay off. The more we invest in something, the harder it is to let go. The sunk costs for developing and building the Concorde were around $1 billion. Yet the more money the British and French governments poured into it, the harder it was to walk away.3 Individuals are equally vulnerable to sunk-cost bias. It explains why we’ll continue to sit through a terrible movie because we’ve already paid the price of a ticket. It explains why we continue to pour money into a home renovation that never seems to near completion. It explains why we’ll continue to wait for a bus or a subway train that never comes instead of hailing a cab, and it explains why we invest in toxic relationships even when our efforts only make things worse. Examples
”
”
Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
“
Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that "productivity" and "earnings" keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity—most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it's only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which must sooner or later crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life. Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide . . . though he's amiable enough, keeps cracking jokes back through the loudspeaker . . . on you roll, across a countryside whose light is forever changing--castles, heaps of rock, moons of different shapes and colors come and go. There are stops at odd hours of teh mornings, for reasons that are not announced: you get out to stretch in lime-lit courtyards where the old men sit around the table under enormous eucalyptus trees you can smell in the night, shuffling the ancient decks oily and worn, throwing down swords and cups and trumps major in the tremor of light while behind them the bus is idling, waiting--"passengers will now reclaim their seats" and much as you'd like to stay, right here, learn the game, find your old age around this quiet table, it's no use: he is waiting beside the door of the bus in his pressed uniform, Lord of the Night he is checking your tickets, your ID and travel papers, and it's the wands of enterprise that dominate tonight...as he nods you by, you catch a glimpse of his face, his insane, committed eyes, and you remember then, for a terrible few heartbeats, that of course it will end for you all in blood, in shock, without dignity--but there is meanwhile this trip to be on ... over your own seat, where there ought to be an advertising plaque, is instead a quote from Rilke: "Once, only once..." One of Their favorite slogans. No return, no salvation, no Cycle--that's not what They, nor Their brilliant employee Kekule, have taken the Serpent to mean.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon
“
I was getting my knife sharpened at the cutlery shop in the mall,” he said. It was where he originally bought the knife. The store had a policy of keeping your purchase razor sharp, so he occasionally brought it back in for a free sharpening. “Anyway, it was that day that I met this Asian male. He was alone and really nice looking, so I struck up a conversation with him. Well, I offered him fifty bucks to come home with me and let me take some photos. I told him that there was liquor at my place and indicated that I was sexually attracted to him. He was eager and cooperative so we took the bus to my apartment. Once there, I gave him some money and he posed for several photos. I offered him the rum and Coke Halcion-laced solution and he drank it down quickly. We continued to drink until he passed out, and then I made love to him for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up it was late. I checked on the guy. He was out cold, still breathing heavily from the Halcion. I was out of beer and walked around the corner for another six-pack but after I got to the tavern, I started drinking and before I knew it, it was closing time. I grabbed my six-pack and began walking home. As I neared my apartment, I noted a lot of commotion, people milling about, police officers, and a fire engine. I decided to see what was going on, so I came closer. I was surprised to see they were all standing around the Asian guy from my apartment. He was standing there naked, speaking in some kind of Asian dialect. At first, I panicked and kept walking, but I could see that he was so messed up on the Halcion and booze that he didn’t know who or where he was. “I don’t really know why, Pat, but I strode into the middle of everyone and announced he was my lover. I said that we lived together at Oxford and had been drinking heavily all day, and added that this was not the first time he left the apartment naked while intoxicated. I explained that I had gone out to buy some more beer and showed them the six-pack. I asked them to give him a break and let me take him back home. The firemen seemed to buy the story and drove off, but the police began to ask more questions and insisted that I take them to my apartment to discuss the matter further. I was nervous but felt confident; besides, I had no other choice. One cop took him by the arm and he followed, almost zombie-like. “I led them to my apartment and once inside, I showed them the photos I had taken, and his clothes neatly folded on the arm of my couch. The cops kept trying to question the guy but he was still talking gibberish and could not answer any of their questions, so I told them his name was Chuck Moung and gave them a phony date of birth. I handed them my identification and they wrote everything down in their little notebooks. They seemed perturbed and talked about writing us some tickets for disorderly conduct or something. One of them said they should take us both in for all the trouble we had given them. “As they were discussing what to do, another call came over their radio. It must have been important because they decided to give us a warning and advised me to keep my drunken partner inside. I was relieved. I had fooled the authorities and it gave me a tremendous feeling. I felt powerful, in control, almost invincible. After the officers left, I gave the guy another Halcion-filled drink and he soon passed out. I was still nervous about the narrow escape with the cops, so I strangled him and disposed of his body.
”
”
Patrick Kennedy (GRILLING DAHMER: The Interrogation Of "The Milwaukee Cannibal")
“
A young ticket should never be envied, they queue for the bus the same as us
”
”
Michael Lieber (The War Hero)
“
Molly's having a dreadful day, she quickly gets off the bus and searches for her lottery ticket, as Joe is walking up the street he suddenly sees a paper in the bin and reaches for the paper, "old habits die hard, at that point Molly's lottery ticket flies out of her hand straight into Joe's face, "wow what have we here Patch, "the faithful dog" "I think it is a lottery ticket, "let's see if we have wone, then a whole lot of drama erupts.
”
”
Marilyn Reilly (Joe's Journey: In the Midst of an Inner Circle)
“
Atlantic City"
Well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night
And they blew up his house, too
Down on the boardwalk, they're getting ready for a fight
Gonna see what them racket boys can do
Now there's trouble busing in from out of state
And the D.A. can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade
And the gambling commission's hanging on by the skin of its teeth
Well, now, everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Well, I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew what I had from the Central Trust
And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus
Well, now, everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Now, our luck may have died, and our love may be cold
But with you, forever, I'll stay
We're going out where the sand's turning to gold
So put on your stockings, baby, 'cause the night's getting cold
And everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Now I been looking for a job, but it's hard to find
Down here, it's just winners and losers and "Don't get caught on the wrong side of that line"
Well, I'm tired of coming out on the losing end
So, honey, last night, I met this guy, and I'm gonna do a little favor for him
Well, now, everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska (1982)
”
”
Bruce Springsteen (Nebraska)
“
Buffett’s thinking was simple: He bought the stock because it sold for less than its net cash. Union Street Railway was a tiny company, selling for a $643,000 market capitalization and an enterprise value of negative $327,000. Discussing his rationale, he said: It had a hundred sixteen buses and a little amusement park at one time. I started buying the stock because they had eight hundred thousand dollars in treasury bonds, a couple of hundred thousand in cash, and outstanding bus tickets of ninety-six thousand dollars. Call it a million dollars, about sixty bucks a share. When I started buying it, the stock was selling around thirty or thirty-five bucks a share.128
”
”
Brett Gardner (Buffett's Early Investments: A new investigation into the decades when Warren Buffett earned his best returns)
“
purchase of the long-distance ticket would contribute to the airline’s decision about how many future flights it should run on this route. Unless bus routes are entirely insensitive to passenger demand – which is, one must admit, a possibility – then the same argument applies to
”
”
Tim Harford (Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure)
“
Hello nǐ hǎo knee how. (Think: How’s your knee, i.e., “How are you?”) Goodbye zàijiàn dzeye gee-en Thank you xiè xie syeh syeh (The second “xie” has no tone.) You’re welcome bú kè qi boo kuh chee (The “chee” has no tone.) Good morning zǎoshang hǎo dzow shahng how Please stand in line qǐng páiduì ching pie dway Too expensive taì guì le tie gway luh (Make it) cheaper piányi yìdiǎn pien yee ee dien (I; we) don’t want it búyào boo yow I want this one wǒ yào zhèige waw yow jay guh (Note: “guh” has no tone) How much (does it cost)? duóshǎo qian dwo shao chee-en Where is the bathroom? cèsuǒ zài nǎlǐ tsuh swo dz-eye nah lee Over there nàli nah lee (Note: “lee” has no tone) Please give me qǐng gěi wǒ ching gay waw Fine; OK; good; alright hǎo how Not OK; no good bùhǎo boo how I want to go ____ Wǒ yào qù waw yow chee-you (Show taxi driver the address in Chinese.) (Want) to go to ____ Wǒ yào dào qù ____ waw you dow ____ chee-you (e.g., when buying tickets at train or bus station) Police! jǐngchá! jing chah! (in case of theft or emergency) Help! Help! jiùmìng! jiùmìng! jee-oh ming! jee-oh ming! Faster! kuài yìdiǎn! kweye ee dien! Numbers one through ten: one yī ee two èr ar three sān sahn four sì szih five wǔ woo six liù leo seven qī chee eight bā bah nine jiǔ geo ten shí sure one of something yíge ee guh two of something liǎngge lee-ang guh three of something sānge sahn guh Etc.
”
”
Larry Herzberg (China Survival Guide: How to Avoid Travel Troubles and Mortifying Mishaps)
“
June 2012 Dearest Andy, You haven’t changed much over the years. I’m glad we can continue to relate to each other after such a long absence. Times of change had not vanquished my love for you either. You are always in my heart and I’ll continue to cherish your love wherever I am. You haven’t heard the last of Bernard – at one time, he arrived to visit me at Uncle James. I had no idea he was in London when he showed up one afternoon. I had been out running a couple of errands. As I was unlocking the front door, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Bernard was behind me, looking as handsome as when we parted in Belfast. He had grown taller and more mature during our absence. In Ireland he had worked some odd jobs to earn enough money for a one-way plane ticket to London. The only person he knew in London was me. He knew I would not turn him away if he called. Uncle James was in Hong Kong and I was the only one staying in the house; I took the boy in, making him promise that he would have to leave when I moved in 3 weeks to my new lodgings in Ladbroke Grove. He did as promised and was a splendid house guest. When Uncle James returned a week before my move, he was charmed by the adolescent. Bernard made a good impression on Uncle James. The boy had run away from Belfast and planned a fresh start in London. During the course of the 3 weeks, he successfully secured himself as a newspaper delivery boy in the mornings and also worked part-time in a Deli near the house. To top it off, five evenings a week he was a bus boy in an Italian restaurant. Both Uncle James and I were impressed by his industrious tenacity. James decided to help him obtain an apprenticeship with a professional photographer in Edinburgh, Scotland.
”
”
Young (Unbridled (A Harem Boy's Saga, #2))
“
know whether to blush or get a ticket for a Greyhound bus and high tail it out of town. Jacqueline had clearly taken their casual tryst as something more important than
”
”
Julie A. Richman (Moore to Lose (Needing Moore, #2))
“
Walking out of the office, her nervous fingers made an ear out of the tissue in her pocket – luckily the thin sheets wouldn't hold the shape, and unfurled as she threw it on the pavement. On the journey home, her bus ticket became a tongue.
”
”
Kirsty Logan (The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales)
“
The one-way bus ticket was symbolic of what my parents had been saying to me all my life: All we can do is get you there; after that it's up to you
”
”
Vinh Chung (Where the Wind Leads: A Refugee Family's Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption)
“
Neither the weather nor the bus’s tardiness, however, had done anything to dampen Driggs’s exuberant mood. Not only had he never been to New York City (or any large city, for that matter), but this particular form of transportation was also a first for him.
“I have a bus ticket!” he exclaimed upon boarding.
The driver did not share his enthusiasm. “Yes. You do.”
“Where do we sit?”
“Right here,” Lex said, shoving him into the nearest open seat. “Now shut up before we get stabbed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said through gritted teeth, “that probably half the people on this bus are carrying weapons. So just sit down— no, sit down!” He had gotten up to look inside the overhead storage compartment. She grabbed his shoulders and forcefully pushed him onto the seat. “Sit down, look out the window, and eat your candy.”
Driggs took out a Snickers bar and happily munched away, occasionally pausing to marvel at the appearance of roadkill.
“Flat as a pancake,” he’d say to the window
”
”
Gina Damico (Croak (Croak, #1))
“
Hey I want to go to Heaven how can I get there do you know the way
The man said on the bus well I don’t know how to get there but I think its this way
Driving a long the word I see the trees the cars the ducks in the river the buildings in the town centre I don’t see the sign saying going to heaven
Hey can you let me off I don’t see the sign going to heaven I need to get to go to heaven so I can see Jesus in heaven I understand he is up there and I want to see him so I can see what he really looks like
I get off the bus and I get a train ….I say to the train driver do you know the way to heaven I need to go to heaven as I need to see what heaven is really like my mum has told me my dad has told me but I believe but I want to see for myself so I know they are not lying to me can you take me there
Well the train driver says if you stay on the train that says the holy train this train is definitely going to heaven but there is something you have to do first
What do I need to do Mr train driver well you need to say that Jesus is the way to heaven first then you will get a ticket in return that will take you straight up to heaven…
Oh ok no problem
This train journey is so long I fall asleep wake up and where is heaven I get off the train and I decide to get on a plane well I ask the pilot will you take me to a place call heaven do you know where it is the pilot says hey no problem I can take you to all over heaven I am your pilot Jesus but it not time to go through the gates yet so you have to wait until your name is called but yes I am Jesus I will take you to heaven when I am ready to take you there.
Oh ok well shall I get on a boat then and see well you can if you want to but I think you will be better with me I will let you know when the time is right my clock says not now I have work for you to do first
Ok then Jesus I will do what you say because I want to see heaven and be with you one day…good night Jesus love you thank you for talking to me today it was good chatting to you on your line prayer bells of heaven.
True Inspirations - Happy New year 2015
”
”
True Inspirations
“
For People Starting Out—Say “Yes” When Derek was 18, he was living in Boston, attending the Berklee College of Music. “I’m in this band where the bass player, one day in rehearsal, says, ‘Hey man, my agent just offered me this gig—it’s like $ 75 to play at a pig show in Vermont.’ He rolls his eyes, and he says, ‘I’m not gonna do it, do you want the gig?’ I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah, a paying gig?! Oh, my God! Yes!’ So, I took the gig to go up to Burlington, Vermont. “And, I think it was a $ 58 round-trip bus ticket. I get to this pig show, I strap my acoustic guitar on, and I walked around a pig show playing music. I did that for about 3 hours, and took the bus home, and the next day, the booking agent called me up, and said, ‘Hey, yeah, so you did a really good job at the pig show. . . .’ “So many opportunities, and 10 years of stage experience, came from that one piddly little pig show. . . . When you’re earlier in your career, I think the best strategy is to just say ‘yes’ to everything. Every little gig. You just never know what are the lottery tickets.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
“
The musical and the production embraced cheap bohemianism, and a clever, similarly minded marketing campaign sold cheap tickets to anyone who wanted to camp out on the street outside the run-down Nederlander Theater, which is right up the street from the gritty Port Authority Bus Terminal and was frequently populated by homeless people at the time. An astonishing number of young audience members enthusiastically took up the challenge, often sleeping on the street all night, and often for a remarkable number of repeat visits. According to Elizabeth Wollman, the marketing campaigns for rock musicals often have to be particularly innovative because of the difficulties of selling this kind of musical, and Rent was no exception.8 But the invitation to join the onstage community of Rent—the invitation for the audience to imagine themselves as the offstage counterparts to the characters—was an easy leap. That invitation is built into the story, the lyrics, and the performance style of the songs in the show, which were sung either directly to the audience, at standing microphones set downstage left and right, or into the obvious radio microphones the actors wore on their heads, with the accompaniment of an onstage rock band.
”
”
Raymond Knapp (Media and Performance in the Musical: An Oxford Handbook of the American Musical, Volume 2 (Oxford Handbooks))
“
The leaves of our small lemon tree wilt slowly in the garden as the bus tickets from our past expeditions to the shore get wilted in the pockets of our summer pants.
”
”
Manolis Aligizakis (Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition)
“
Minimize the Single Point of Failure Risk As a sole founder, you are the business. Your customers know you. Your partners know you. Without you, there’s probably no business. That’s a risk you have to deal with. Since I was the only founder of WebMerge (and the only employee for many years), there was a major risk that I could get hit by a bus someday and the business would be destroyed. This was a major concern, so I set up a backup plan just in case something ever happened to me. I put together a lot of documentation around how everything worked behind the scenes. I even had a secret USB drive hidden in my house that someone could use to get all the crucial info to run the company. I also had contact information for people who could help take over the business (developers, businesspeople, etc.). I was confident this backup plan would be good enough to keep the business running without interruption. I worked hard over the years to make the business self-sustaining, so with exception of answering support tickets, the app could pretty much run itself.
”
”
Jeremy Clarke (Bootstrapped to Millions: How I Built a Multi-Million-Dollar Business with No Investors or Employees)
“
After an hour, Richard called again, Robert still hadn’t gotten home. He told Samantha he’d call back. As he killed more time in the bus depot, he noticed plainclothes cops starting to enter the terminal. He had no idea that after getting word from the L.A. sheriffs office that Richard had a brother in Tucson, they were looking for him. He didn’t like all the cops and decided to leave; he thought about continuing to El Paso, but he didn’t have enough money for the fare, so he bought a ticket back to Los Angeles.
”
”
Philip Carlo (The Night Stalker: The Disturbing Life and Chilling Crimes of Richard Ramirez)
“
Instead he began moving slowly toward the people who were waiting in line to buy tickets for the New World. 'New Belgrade?' asked the man at the bus station counter and the commander had to gently but confidently repeat: 'The New World'. 'I don't see much difference there,' said the man...
”
”
David Albahari (Checkpoint)
“
He has never traveled out of Cambridge; all night he’d fretted about the dangers that might lie ahead. Taking the wrong train or turning down the wrong street or boarding the wrong bus, ending up who knows where. A ticket agent demanding: where are your parents? Policemen stopping him, loading him into the back of a patrol car, carting him back to his father—or worse, somewhere else. Strangers, so many of them, scrutinizing him. Measuring him with their eyes, gauging whether he is a threat or to be threatened
”
”
Celeste Ng (Our Missing Hearts)
“
People typically want credit to cover or fulfil (a) Big expenses (maybe to buy a bike) (b) aspiration (I want that iPhone now!) (c) Emergency. But are these pay later products meeting these credit requirements? No, they are not. BNPL companies give small credit lines to users so what exactly are they up to? Their play is different, here is what they are trying to do - Most of our spends are on small tickets e.g., Food order, medicine, utility bill, or bus ticket booking. So, BNPL companies are targeting these use cases (or merchants who are in those businesses) and trying to replace credit cards and/or other payment instruments.
”
”
Aditya Kulkarni (Auth n Capture : Introduction to India’s Digital Payments Ecosystem)
“
I once asked my friends if they’d ever held things that gave them a spooky sense of history. Ancient pots with three-thousand-year-old thumbprints in the clay, said one. Antique keys, another. Clay pipes. Dancing shoes from WWII. Roman coins I found in a field. Old bus tickets in secondhand books. Everyone agreed that what these small things did was strangely intimate; they gave them the sense, as they picked them up and turned them in their fingers, of another person, an unknown person a long time ago, who had held that object in their hands. You don’t know anything about them, but you feel the other person’s there, one friend told me. It’s like all the years between you and them disappear. Like you become them, somehow.
”
”
Helen Macdonald (H is for Hawk)
“
Sestina"
For a week now our bodies have whispered
together, telling each other secrets
you and I would keep. Their language,
harder and more tender than this, wakes
us suddenly in the half dawn, tangled
dragons on their map. They have a plan.
We are stranded travelers who plan
to ditch our bags and walk. The hill wind whispers
danger and rain. We are going different ways. That tangled
thornbush is where the road forks. The secrets
we told on the station bench to keep awake
were lies. I suspect from your choice of language
that you are not speaking your native language.
You will not know about the city plan
tattooed behind my knee. But the skin wakes
up in humming networks, audibly whispers
over the dead wind. Everybody’s secrets
jam the wires. Syllables get tangled
with bus tickets and matchbooks. You tangled
my hair in your fingers and language
split like a black fig. I suck the secrets
off your skin. This isn’t in the plan,
the subcutaneous transmitter whispers.
Be circumspect. What sort of person wakes
up twice in a wrecked car? And we wake
in wary seconds of each other, tangled
damply together. Your cock whispers
inside my thigh that there is language
without memory. Your fingers plan
wet symphonies in my garrulous secret
places. There is nothing secret
in people crying at weddings and singing at wakes;
and when you pack a duffel bag and plan
on the gratuitous, you will still tangle
purpose and habit, more baggage, more language.
It is not accidental what they whisper.
Our bodies whispered under the sheet. Their secret
language will not elude us when we wake
into the tangled light without a plan.
”
”
Marilyn Hacker (Selected Poems 1965-1990)
“
In Rome, the person in charge of equipollenza, or training equivalency, was located at the Foreign Ministry. I got into that mass of marble by depositing my passport at the front desk, and was escorted through dimly-lit halls wearing a temporary ID badge on my lapel and clutching my little pile of documents. The diminutive official took a glance at my grimy Xeroxes and harrumphed a little laugh through his moustache. The colleague at the New York Consulate had unfortunately gotten several things wrong, he said. First a procedural error: the “authenticating” squiggles on the back of the copies were meaningless. They didn’t even vouch for the accuracy of the photocopying, much less prove the validity of the originals. All the documents would have to be sent back and scattered around the USA for proper authentication, by local Italian consulates. For example, the Italian Consul in Boston had to testify that Harvard was a degree-granting university. Second, the Consular list had omitted a crucial document, the Certificate of Existence in Life. No, the mere observation of me stamping my foot and tearing my hair was not, for the Italian government, sufficient proof that I existed. Yes, a nonexistent person was unlikely to be asking for an Italian medical license, but rules were rules. The Consulate’s final error was a bit of misinformation, bred, perhaps, of tenderheartedness. All these documents couldn’t possibly get me an Italian license. They would merely get me a toehold in the University where they might, at best, be alchemized into an Italian medical degree, but an actual license would be another and rather more difficult question. This was my first lesson in Italian bureaucracy. The Consular official in New York clearly hadn’t had the faintest idea what she was doing and no intention of trying to find out, but she had found me too simpatica to disappoint—a sentiment not strong enough to keep her from abandoning my application to gather dust. By this time various shady sources such as Italian medical professors and representatives of international foundations had suggested an alternative to my quest for the holy grail of doctorly legitimacy: just hang out a shingle and to hell with the license. Unfortunately, I’m such a coward that climbing on a bus without a ticket gives me palpitations, so practicing without a license would be a degree of “transgression” (as the Italians call it) far beyond my talents.
”
”
Susan Levenstein (Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome)
“
don’t feel like by purchasing a ticket or riding a bus [and having] to forfeit my constitutional rights and my protections and be subject to search or seizure.
”
”
Jim Marrs (Population Control: How Corporate Owners Are Killing Us)
“
I miss Evan. We’re friends on Facebook now, of course, and before he left he asked me to swap mobile numbers, at a time when no one else was around. We gave him a lift to the station, and he sat next to me and I felt his arm hovering over my back, sinking slowly, cautiously, faux-casually, to avoid startling me or having any of the other girls notice. But it settled eventually, and for the last twenty minutes Evan’s arm lay along my shoulders, warm and heavy, a secret that we were sharing in plain sight.
I liked it. I liked it a lot. It made me feel…secure. Steadied. As we drove through Florence, with all its distractions to look at, he closed his fingers around my shoulder in a gentle clasp that turned the arm around me into something definite and made me shiver a little with pleasure. And when we all said goodbye, hugging him one after the other, I felt his hands tighten around my waist and he kissed me, swiftly but unmistakably, on the side of my head that the other girls couldn’t see.
I was the last: he’d already shaken Catia’s hand and said his polite thank-yous to his hostess. So after the kiss, he bent down, picked up his big rucksack with the guitar slung on the back, and strolled off to find the bus terminal and buy a ticket to Arezzo, where he was meeting his friends at a jazz festival. And as I watched him make his way through the crowds, girls’ heads turning to look at the big, tall, handsome blond boy, I felt a spike of jealousy, the last confirmation, if any were needed, that my feelings for Evan had passed from friendship into maybe, just maybe, the possibility of something stronger.
”
”
Lauren Henderson (Kissing in Italian (Flirting in Italian, #2))
“
But it was his speaking voice that would be famous, first on The Children’s Hour, later as announcer on the Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts. The show was heavily musical, following Cross’s deep interest in classical music and opera. There might be an opening hymn, sung by Audrey Egan; then a poem; then a song from one of the youngest children. “And who is standing here with her ticket ready to pay for a ride on the White Rabbit Bus?” Cross would ask; and a small voice would chirp, “It’s Jeannie Elkins, Mr. Conductor.” Then came another song, and the members of the Peter Pig Club would clamor for a story, which Cross would narrate and the cast act out. Among the notables to emerge from the show were Metropolitan Opera star Rise Stevens and screen actress Ann Blyth. Vivian Smolen, Jackie Kelk, Walter Tetley, and the Halops had distinguished radio careers as adults.
”
”
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
“
Civilisations rise and fall, but the hawks stay the same. This gives falconry birds the ability to feel like relics from the distant past. You take a hawk onto your fist. You imagine the falconer of the past doing the same. It is hard not to feel it is the same hawk. I once asked my friends if they’d ever held things that gave them a spooky sense of history. Ancient pots with three-thousand-year-old thumbprints in the clay, said one. Antique keys, another. Clay pipes. Dancing shoes from WWII. Roman coins I found in a field. Old bus tickets in secondhand books. Everyone agreed that what these small things did was strangely intimate; they gave them the sense, as they picked them up and turned them in their fingers, of another person, an unknown person a long time ago, who had held that object in their hands. You don’t know anything about them, but you feel the other person’s there, one friend told me. It’s like all the years between you and them disappear. Like you become them, somehow.
”
”
Helen Macdonald (H is for Hawk)
“
The bus rumbled and loomed above me like an ocean liner as it idled beside the small Greyhound bus depot next to the Elite Laundry where Mother worked. With door open and the driver standing beside it checking tickets, the bus seemed to me then like Alice's "Looking Glass," which, once I passed through it, would open a whole new world to me—a world so fantastic and removed from Gallup, New Mexico, that I would be transformed into one of the saints or heroes of the books that brought me to this moment of departure. It was the end of August, 1951. I was fourteen years old—a boy about to leave home for a Franciscan seminary 1500 miles away in Cincinnati, Ohio.
”
”
Murray Bodo (The Road to Mount Subasio)
“
I left my phone number with her after confirming that she knew how to reach Dr. Curlin. The next day, Dr. Curlin phoned me, and much to my surprise and confusion, I couldn’t contain my emotions upon hearing his voice. The pain that surfaced from deep inside of me when I heard him speak frightened me. I couldn’t seem to stop crying and the emotion was coming from an unfamiliar place inside of me. I told myself that my reaction must be because he removed me from the terrible conditions in that seclusion room. When I was finally able to speak I told him about the lawsuit and about the abuse I had discovered in my VSH records. I asked him simple, direct questions and his responses immediately disturbed me. “How did you know I was in that seclusion room?” “Being Assistant Superintendent has its advantages.” “Did someone tell you that I was there?” “Brooks and Havas were out of town.” “But how did you know I was there?” “Being Assistant Superintendent has its advantages.” “Did you know Robert Hyde?” “Yes. He was always cleaning horse’s stalls and always wore jodhpurs.” “Was that horse you brought for me to see, yours? What was its name?” “Yes. Her name was Beauty. You need to sit across from me and look into my eyes. Let me buy you a plane ticket to California.” “I don’t like to fly.” “Let me buy you a bus ticket.” “Dr. Curlin, I’m not going to leave Vermont. Why did you leave VSH? When I returned from Baird 6, you were gone.” “I was only there for a year. You don’t remember the Kennedy Assassination do you?” “Yes, I remember the assassination.” “You don’t remember the Kennedy Assassination, do you?” “Yes, I told you that I do.” “You don’t remember the Kennedy Assassination, do you?” “Dr. Curlin, yes I do remember it. I was eleven years old. Did you know that VSH was conducting CIA experiments?” “Call me Doc. I love you Karen,” “Are you CIA, Dr. Curlin?” “Not every good Indian is a dead Indian. I do love you.” I took notes during my conversation with Curlin. His responses were strange and made me feel very uncomfortable. I tried to persuade him to come to Vermont and meet with my lawyer. He flatly refused, saying that he didn’t have good memories about Vermont. He tried to portray himself as having been misused in some unexplained fashion while he was in Vermont. I spoke with Curlin again and I tried to stress to him that he needed to answer my questions. He refused. I was suspicious of his involvement in the experiments I was subjected to and when the phone call ended I had decided to name him as a defendant.
”
”
Karen Wetmore (Suviving Evil: CIA Mind Control Experiments in Vermont)
“
bus ticket, online booking, bus to Singapore, bus to Malaysia, easybook
”
”
malaysiabus
“
Some bratty boys from the neighborhood decide to make a secret clubhouse in my skull. They don't ask me about it, but I have no argument against the plan. So, every afternoon getting home from school they occupy my head. The kids laugh loudly, and crack their chip bags. Sometimes smoke flies out of my ear. I suspect they are experimenting with their first cigarettes. Of course, I was just like them when I was their age, so I'm not going to tell on them; that’s for sure. If only they wouldn’t leave such a mess every time. It can be really awkward, when having a conversation with someone I begin to shake or nod my head and suddenly a crumpled porn magazine falls out from my ear.
Soon, the parents get wind of the secret clubhouse, and they step into my apartment swinging a bone saw. They insist on looking in my skull; telling me they have the right to know what their boys are up to behind their backs.
Now, the kids and I are both punished – they are grounded in their rooms, as for me, the parents won't give back my skullcap. It's quite embarrassing. Going to work in the mornings some cheeky brats on the bus are having a great time pushing spitballs and chewed bubble gum between my brain wrinkles when I'm not looking.
That’s enough, I decide one morning, I have rights too. So I knock on the mother's door, who has my upper head.
She just stands there in the door, smoking, holding my skullcap in her hand, which looks like a half hairy coconut, and she flicks the ash into it. After I’m done with my speech about human rights, she slams the door in my face.
I have no time for a second round I must leave to work. Scratching out a used ticket from my brain wrinkles I catch the next bus. A young couple whispers and chuckles behind me. I quickly get off at the next stop, before they could plan a secret date in my occipital lobe.
”
”
Zoltan Komor (Tumour-Djinn)
“
The same way you wait for a flight, train or bus with the ticket. You should be waiting for opportunities with education, qualifications or skills.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
The Year Of The Cat"
On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat
She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears
By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, "I feel my life
Just like a river running through"
The year of the cat
Why she looks at you so coolly?
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside
The year of the cat
Well morning comes and you're still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you've thrown away your choice you've lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drumbeat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the cat
Year of the cat
”
”
Al Stewart