“
It is my belief...that the talents every child has, regardless of his official 'I.Q,' could stay with him through life, to enrich him and everybody else, if these talents were not regarded as commodities with a value in the success-stakes.
”
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Doris Lessing
“
I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words? Thousands of hours of therapy have yielded a few ideas from the good doctors. They are often feminine, in a Dick and Jane, pink vs. puppy dog tails sort of way. Or they're flat-out negative. Number of synonyms for anxious carved in my skin: eleven. The one thing I know for sure is that at the time, it was crucial to see these letters on me, and not just see them, but feel them. Burning on my left hip: petticoat.
And near it, my first word, slashed on an anxious summer day at age thirteen: wicked. I woke up that morning, hot and bored, worried about the hours ahead. How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. I remember feeling that word, heavy and slightly sticky across my pubic bone. My mother's steak knife. Cutting like a child along red imaginary lines. Cleaning myself. Digging in deeper. Cleaning myself. Pouring bleach over the knife and sneaking through the kitchen to return it. Wicked. Relief. The rest of the day, I spent ministering to my wound. Dig into the curves of W with an alcohol-soaked Q-tip. Pet my cheek until the sting went away. Lotion. Bandage. Repeat.
”
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Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects)
“
Perhaps this was the wisdom with which a child in her position survived: by minimizing her wounds—staying as small as possible, as nearly transparent as possible.
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Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don't want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.
”
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Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
An I Q cannot measure artistic ability. A potential Picasso may be a flop at objective vocabulary or number tests. An I Q does not measure a capacity for love...How do we teach a child - our own, or those in a classroom to have compassion: to allow people to be different; to understand that like is not equal; to experiment; to laugh: to love.
”
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Madeleine L'Engle (A Circle of Quiet (Crosswicks Journals, #1))
“
They band together and reduce us to kids having a tantrum, dismissing our words so we can’t pierce their armor. Part of me wants to kick crazily at the floor and scream until they listen, but of course that’ll only confirm their belief that I’m nothing more than a silly child.
”
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Jesse Q. Sutanto (Dial A For Aunties)
“
It seems to me that an often quiet, but often palpable presiding image here... is the interpretive absorption of the child or adolescent whose sense of personal queerness may or may not (yet?) have resolved... Such a child - if she reads at all - is reading for important news about herself, without knowing what form that news will take; with only the patchiest familiarity with its codes; without, even, more than hungrily hypothesizing to what questions this news may proffer an answer.
”
”
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction (Series Q))
“
The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don't want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can't turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That's what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.
”
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Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
He liked doing research in the library. He liked feeling of accumulating knowledge in his brain. It was something he had enjoyed ever since he was a child.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Yesterday I asked a five-year-old child who Jesus was. You know what he replied? A
statue.
”
”
Luther Blissett (Q)
“
The song reminded her of grief, of emotions that were simpler as a child, more straightforward, that were now taken and turned into something she was hesitant to touch but could not forget.
”
”
Beth Brower (The Q)
“
Who are you trying to protect? This isn’t your world, child. Give any of these kids here a chance and they’ll throw you under the bus, just to make sure this place keeps going, you know what I’m saying?
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (The New Girl)
“
The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Mind Your Language in the Presence of Patriachs
Q. When is rape not rape?
A. When it is your father or stepfather.
”
”
S. Caroline Taylor (Court Licensed Abuse: Patriarchal Lore and the Legal Response to Intrafamilial Sexual Abuse of Children (New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies))
“
A child should learn from early on what kind of activity supported his daily life, and he should appreciate the importance of labor.
”
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Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
This is what always happens when one of my generation dares to talk back to our parents. They band together and reduce us to kids having a tantrum, dismissing our words so we can’t pierce their armor. Part of me wants to kick crazily at the ground and scream until they listen, but of course that’ll only confirm their belief that I’m nothing more than a silly child.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Dial A for Aunties (Aunties, #1))
“
He couldn’t live forever like a frightened child, averting his eyes from the things before him. Only by learning the truth – whatever that truth might be – could people be given the right kind of power.
”
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Haruki Murakami (1Q84 #1-2 (1Q84, #1-2))
“
Vera was a filial child and knew that asking her parents for advice made them feel needed. Well, no matter. Vera is a diligent mother and goes out of her way to give Tilly all the advice he could ever need anyway.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1))
“
American scientist in his prime: He is likely to have been a sickly child or to have lost a parent at an early age. He has a very high I.Q. and in boyhood began to do a great deal of reading. He tended to feel lonely and “different” and to be shy and aloof from his classmates.
”
”
Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition)
“
The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Did you ever experience bullying when you were a child?” Tengo thought back to his childhood. “I don’t think so,” he answered. “Or maybe I just never noticed.” “If you never noticed, it never happened. I mean, the whole point of bullying is to make the person notice it’s being done to him or her. You can’t have bullying without the victim noticing.
”
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Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Whenever the sixth tune on the flip side of the LP, “Atlanta Blues,” began, she would grab one of Tengo’s body parts and praise Bigard’s concise, exquisite solo, which was sandwiched between Armstrong’s song and his trumpet solo. “Listen to that! Amazing—that first, long wail like a little child’s cry! What is it—surprise? Overflowing joy? An appeal for happiness? It turns into a joyful sigh and weaves its way through a beautiful river of sound until it’s smoothly absorbed into some perfect, unknowable place. There! Listen! Nobody else can play such thrilling solos. Jimmy Noone, Sidney Bechet, Pee Wee Russell, Benny Goodman: they’re all great clarinetists, but none of them can create such perfectly sculptured works of art.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Q: What are in your eyes the major defects in the West? A: The West has come to regard the values of freedom, the yardstick of human rights, as something Western. Many of them [westerns] specially in Europe take the values and the institutions on freedom, the institutions on science, curiosity, the individual, i mean, the rule of law and they’ve come to take that all for granted that they are not aware of the threat against it and not aware of the fact that you have to sustain it day by day as with all man made things. I mean, a building for example, the roof will leak, the paint will fall and you have to repaint it, you have to maintain it all the time it seems that people have forgotten that and perhaps part of the reason is because the generation that is now enjoying all the freedoms in the West is not the generations that built it; these are generations that inherited and like companies, family companies, often you’ll see the first generation or the second generation are almost always more passionate about the brand and the family company and name and keeping it all int he family and then the third generation live, use, take the money and they are either overtaken by bigger companies, swallowed up or they go bankrupt and I think there is an analogy there in that the generations after the second world war living today in Europe, United States may be different but I’m here much too short to say anything about it, is that there are people who are so complacent, they’ve always been free, they just no longer know what it is that freedom costs and for me that would be making the big mistake and you can see it. The education system in Europe where history is no longer an obligatory subject, science is no longer an obligatory subject, school systems have become about, look at Holland, our country where they have allowed parents, in the name of freedom, to build their own schools that we now have schools founded on what the child wants so if the child wants to play all day long then that is an individual freedom of the child and so it’s up to the child to decide whether to do math or to clay and now in our country in Holland, in the name of freedom of education, the state pays for these schools and I was raving against muslim schools and i thought about this cuz i was like you know ok in muslin schools at least they learn to count.
”
”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
“
One was the moon that had always been there, and the other was a far smaller, greenish moon, somewhat lopsided in shape, and much less bright. It looked like a poor, ugly, distantly related child that had been foisted on the family by unfortunate events and was welcomed by no one. But it was undeniably there, neither a phantom nor an optical illusion, hanging in space like other heavenly bodies, a solid mass with a clear-cut outline. Not a plane, not a blimp, not an artificial satellite, not a papier-mâché moon that someone made for fun. It was without a doubt a chunk of rock, having quietly, stubbornly settled on a position in the night sky, like a punctuation mark placed only after long deliberation or a mole bestowed by destiny.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
That this exceptionally scholarly man whose judgments, always rich and sensitive, though sometimes austere, should have embarked on an intensely romantic retelling of the old Cornish legend of that famous pair of tragic lovers, Tristan and Queen Iseult, is intriguing in itself. But what makes it even more fascinating is that Daphne du Maurier, asked by “Q” ’s daughter long after her father’s death to finish this novel that he had set aside “near the end of a chapter, halfway through,” did so in such a skillful fashion that it is impossible to guess with any certainty the exact point at which she began to write. She says, in a modest foreword, that she “could not imitate ‘Q’’s style… that would have been robbing the dead,” but she had known him when she was a child, remembered him as a genial host at many a Sunday supper, and “by thinking back to conversations long forgotten” she could recapture something of the man himself and trust herself to “fall into his mood.
”
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Daphne du Maurier (Castle Dor)
“
Subect: Sigh.
Okay. Since we're on the subject...
Q. What is the Tsar of Russia's favorite fish?
A. Tsardines, of course.
Q. What does the son of a Ukranian newscaster and a U.S. congressman eat for Thanksgiving dinner on an island off the coast of Massachusetts?
A.?
-Ella
Subect: TG
A. Republicans.
Nah.I'm sure we'll have all the traditional stuff: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes. I'm hoping for apple pie. Our hosts have a cook who takes requests, but the island is kinda limited as far as shopping goes. The seven of us will probably spend the morning on a boat, then have a civilized chow-down. I predict Pictionary. I will win.
You?
-Alex
Subect: Re. TG
Alex,
I will be having my turkey (there ill be one, but it will be somewhat lost among the pumpkin fettuccine, sausage-stuffed artichokes, garlic with green beans, and at least four lasagnas, not to mention the sweet potato cannoli and chocolate ricotta pie) with at least forty members of my close family, most of whom will spend the entire meal screaming at each other. Some will actually be fighting, probably over football.
I am hoping to be seated with the adults. It's not a sure thing.
What's Martha's Vineyard like? I hear it's gorgeous. I hear it's favored by presidential types, past and present.
-Ella
Subject: Can I Have TG with You?
Please??? There's a 6a.m. flight off the island. I can be back in Philadelphia by noon. I've never had Thanksgiving with more than four or five other people. Only child of two only children. My grandmother usually hosts dinner at the Hunt Club. She doesn't like turkey. Last year we had Scottish salmon. I like salmon,but...
The Vineyard is pretty great. The house we're staying in is in Chilmark, which, if you weren't so woefully ignorant of defunct television, is the birthplace of Fox Mulder. I can see the Menemsha fishing fleet out my window. Ever heard of Menemsha Blues? I should bring you a T-shirt. Everyone has Black Dogs; I prefer a good fish on the chest.
(Q. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A. Fish.)
We went out on a boat this afternoon and actually saw a humpback whale. See pics below. That fuzzy gray lump in the bumpy gray water is a fin. A photographer I am not. Apparently, they're usually gone by now, heading for the Caribbean. It's way too cold to swim, but amazing in the summer. I swear I got bumped by a sea turtle here last July 4, but no one believes me.
Any chance of saving me a cannoli?
-A
”
”
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)
“
They taught him how to milk cows and now they expected him to tame lions. Perhaps they expected him to behave like all good lion tamers. Use a whip and a chair. But what happens to the best lion tamer when he puts down his whip and his chair.
Goddamnit! It was wrong. He felt cheated, he felt almost violated. He felt cheated for himself, and he felt cheated for guys like Joshua Edwards who wanted to teach and who didn’t know how to teach because he’d been pumped full of manure and theoretical hogwash. Why hadn’t anyone told them, in plain, frank English, just what to do? Couldn’t someone, somewhere along the line, have told them? Not one single college instructor? Not someone from the board of Ed, someone to orientate them after they’d passed the emergency exam? Not anyone? Now one sonofabitch somewhere who gave a good goddamn? Not even Stanley? Not even Small? Did they have to figure it out for themselves, sink and swim, kill or be killed?
Rick had never been told how to stop in his class. He’d never been told what to do with a second term student who doesn’t even know how to write down his own goddamn name on a sheet of paper. He didn’t know, he’d never been advised on the proper tactics for dealing with a boy whose I.Q. was 66, a big, fat, round, moronic 66. He hadn’t been taught about kids’ yelling out in class, not one kid, not the occasional “difficult child” the ed courses had loftily philosophized about, not him. But a whole goddamn, shouting, screaming class load of them all yelling their sonofbitching heads off. What do you do with a kid who can’t read even though he’s fifteen years old? Recommend him for special reading classes, sure. And what do you do when those special reading classes are loaded to the asshole, packed because there are kids who can’t read in abundance, and you have to take only those who can’t read the worst, dumping them onto a teacher who’s already overloaded and those who doesn’t want to teach a remedial class to begin with?
And what do you with that poor ignorant jerk? Do you call him on class, knowing damn well he hasn’t read the assignment because he doesn’t know how to read? Or do you ignore him? Or do you ask him to stop by after school, knowing he would prefer playing stickball to learning how to read.
And knowing he considers himself liberated the moment the bell sounds at the end of the eighth period.
What do you do when you’ve explained something patiently and fully, explained it just the way you were taught to explain in your education courses, explained in minute detail, and you look out at your class and see that stretching, vacant wall of blank, blank faces and you know nothing has penetrated, not a goddamn thing has sunk in? What do you do then?
Give them all board erasers to clean.
What do you do when you call on a kid and ask “What did that last passage mean?”and the kid stands there without any idea of what the passage meant , and you know that he’s not alone, you know every other kid in the class hasn’t the faintest idea either? What the hell do you do then? Do you go home and browse through the philosophy of education books the G.I bill generously provided. Do you scratch your ugly head and seek enlightenment from the educational psychology texts? Do you consult Dewey?
And who the hell do you condemn, just who?
Do you condemn elementary schools for sending a kid on to high school without knowing how to read, without knowing how to write his own name on a piece of paper? Do you condemn the masterminds who plot the education systems of a nation, or a state or a city?
”
”
Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle)
“
LEAD PEOPLE TO COMMITMENT We have seen that nonbelievers in worship actually “close with Christ” in two basic ways: some may come to Christ during the service itself (1 Cor 14:24 – 25), while others must be “followed up with” by means of after-service meetings. Let’s take a closer look at both ways of leading people to commitment. It is possible to lead people to a commitment to Christ during the service. One way of inviting people to receive Christ is to make a verbal invitation as the Lord’s Supper is being distributed. At our church, we say it this way: “If you are not in a saving relationship with God through Christ today, do not take the bread and the cup, but as they come around, take Christ. Receive him in your heart as those around you receive the food. Then immediately afterward, come up and tell an officer or a pastor about what you’ve done so we can get you ready to receive the Supper the next time as a child of God.” Another way to invite commitment during the service is to give people a time of silence or a period of musical interlude after the sermon. This affords people time to think and process what they have heard and to offer themselves to God in prayer. In many situations, it is best to invite people to commitment through after-meetings. Acts 2 gives an example. Inverses 12 and 13 we are told that some folks mocked after hearing the apostles praise and preach, but others were disturbed and asked, “What does this mean?” Then, we see that Peter very specifically explained the gospel and, in response to the follow-up question “What shall we do?” (v. 37), he explained how to become a Christian. Historically, many preachers have found it effective to offer such meetings to nonbelievers and seekers immediately after evangelistic worship. Convicted seekers have just come from being in the presence of God and are often the most teachable and open at this time. To seek to “get them into a small group” or even to merely return next Sunday is asking a lot. They may also be “amazed and perplexed” (Acts 2:12), and it is best to strike while the iron is hot. This should not be understood as doubting that God is infallibly drawing people to himself (Acts 13:48; 16:14). Knowing the sovereignty of God helps us to relax as we do evangelism, knowing that conversions are not dependent on our eloquence. But it should not lead us to ignore or minimize the truth that God works through secondary causes. The Westminster Confession (5.2 – 3), for example, tells us that God routinely works through normal social and psychological processes. Therefore, inviting people into a follow-up meeting immediately after the worship service can often be more conducive to conserving the fruit of the Word. After-meetings may take the shape of one or more persons waiting at the front of the auditorium to pray with and talk with seekers who wish to make inquiries right on the spot. Another way is to host a simple Q&A session with the preacher in or near the main auditorium, following the postlude. Or offer one or two classes or small group experiences targeted to specific questions non-Christians ask about the content, relevance, and credibility of the Christian faith. Skilled lay evangelists should be present who can come alongside newcomers, answer spiritual questions, and provide guidance for their next steps.
”
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Timothy J. Keller (Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City)
“
Robert Askins Brings ‘Hand to God’ to Broadway Chad Batka for The New York Times Robert Askins at the Booth Theater, where his play “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday. By MICHAEL PAULSON The conceit is zany: In a church basement, a group of adolescents gathers (mostly at the insistence of their parents) to make puppets that will spread the Christian message, but one of the puppets turns out to be more demonic than divine. The result — a dark comedy with the can-puppets-really-do-that raunchiness of “Avenue Q” and can-people-really-say-that outrageousness of “The Book of Mormon” — is “Hand to God,” a new play that is among the more improbable entrants in the packed competition for Broadway audiences over the next few weeks. Given the irreverence of some of the material — at one point stuffed animals are mutilated in ways that replicate the torments of Catholic martyrs — it is perhaps not a surprise to discover that the play’s author, Robert Askins, was nicknamed “Dirty Rob” as an undergraduate at Baylor, a Baptist-affiliated university where the sexual explicitness and violence of his early scripts raised eyebrows. But Mr. Askins had also been a lone male soloist in the children’s choir at St. John Lutheran of Cypress, Tex. — a child who discovered early that singing was a way to make the stern church ladies smile. His earliest performances were in a deeply religious world, and his writings since then have been a complex reaction to that upbringing. “It’s kind of frustrating in life to be like, ‘I’m a playwright,’ and watch people’s face fall, because they associate plays with phenomenally dull, didactic, poetic grad-schoolery, where everything takes too long and tediously explores the beauty in ourselves,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s not church, even though it feels like church a lot when we go these days.” The journey to Broadway, where “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday at the Booth Theater, still seems unlikely to Mr. Askins, 34, who works as a bartender in Brooklyn and says he can’t afford to see Broadway shows, despite his newfound prominence. He seems simultaneously enthralled by and contemptuous of contemporary theater, the world in which he has chosen to make his life; during a walk from the Cobble Hill coffee shop where he sometimes writes to the Park Slope restaurant where he tends bar, he quoted Nietzsche and Derrida, described himself as “deeply weird,” and swore like, well, a satanic sock-puppet. “If there were no laughs in the show, I’d think there was something wrong with him,” said the actor Steven Boyer, who won raves in earlier “Hand to God” productions as Jason, a grief-stricken adolescent with a meek demeanor and an angry-puppet pal. “But anybody who is able to write about such serious stuff and be as hilarious as it is, I’m not worried about their mental health.” Mr. Askins’s interest in the performing arts began when he was a boy attending rural Texas churches affiliated with the conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod denomination; he recalls the worshipers as “deeply conservative, old farm folks, stone-faced, pride and suffering, and the only time anybody ever really livened up was when the children’s choir would perform.” “My grandmother had a cross-stitch that said, ‘God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing,’ and so I got into that,” he said. “For somebody who enjoys performance, that was the way in.” The church also had a puppet ministry — an effort to teach children about the Bible by use of puppets — and when Mr. Askins’s mother, a nurse, began running the program, he enlisted to help. He would perform shows for other children at preschools and vacation Bible camps. “The shows are wacky, but it was fun,” he said. “They’re badly written attempts to bring children to Jesus.” Not all of his formative encounters with puppets were positive. Particularly scarring: D
”
”
Anonymous
“
I would guess that he’s an only child and that his mother, or more likely his father, has had high expectations for him during his childhood, which has made him feel trapped and caused him to hate the world around him.
”
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Jussi Adler-Olsen (Victim 2117 (Department Q, #8))
“
One day’s experience had been the turning point in Joseph’s life. Its terrible calamity had transformed him from a petted child to a man, thoughtful, courageous, and self-possessed.—
”
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Ellen Gould White (Rebellion and Redemption E. G. White Notes 1Q 2016)
“
g But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are h all brothers. [3] 9 i And call no man your father on earth, for j you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, k the Christ. 11 l The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 m Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 13“But woe n to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you o shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you p neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. [4] 15Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single q proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a r child of s hell [5] as yourselves.
”
”
Anonymous (ESV Gospel Transformation Bible)
“
But then one morning when I’d been on night shift, she miscarried suddenly and severely. The doctor said it seemed as though she had provoked it herself. I found that hard to believe, given how much she’d been looking forward to having the baby. At any rate, there were large blue bruises on her abdomen. But it’s impossible to know about these things. There are a lot of mixed feelings involved when a woman faces raising an unplanned child on her own.
”
”
Jussi Adler-Olsen (The Absent One (Department Q, #2))
“
There are many ways to knock a child’s confidence, and none of them justifiable.
”
”
Jussi Adler-Olsen (The Scarred Woman (Department Q #7))
“
There’s clearly a whole history between Julia Child and Kristofer Kolumbes
”
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Jesse Q. Sutanto (The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties (Aunties, #3))
“
America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, “It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.” It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand—glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. • • • The author of the monograph, a native of Schenectady, New York, was said by some to have had the highest I.Q. of all the war criminals who were made to face a death by hanging. So it goes. Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves. Once this is understood, the disagreeable behavior of American enlisted men in German prisons ceases to be a mystery. • • • Howard W. Campbell, Jr., now discussed the uniform of the American enlisted in World War Two: Every other army in history, prosperous or not, has attempted to clothe even its lowliest soldiers so as to make them impressive to themselves and others as stylish experts in drinking and copulation and looting and sudden death. The American Army, however, sends its enlisted men out to fight and die in a modified business suit quite evidently made for another man, a sterilized but unpressed gift from a nose-holding charity which passes out clothing to drunks in the slums. When a dashingly-clad officer addresses such a frumpishly dressed bum, he scolds him, as an officer in any army must. But the officer’s contempt is not, as in other armies, avuncular theatricality. It is a genuine expression of hatred for the poor, who have no one to blame for their misery but themselves. A prison administrator dealing with captured American enlisted men for the first time should be warned: Expect no brotherly love, even
”
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse-Five)
“
I’ll have a better one with someone else.’” He bursts into tears. “I have never see anyone talk about own child like that. I think, maybe he is just drunk, or angry because he just get punch. But then he tell me how he going to get rich, and that’s why he leaving you, because he don’t want to have to divide the money with you. I say, but you must provide for your wife and child, and he laugh.
”
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Jesse Q. Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1))
“
After dinner, I ask him back here for tea. I beg him not to do this to his wife and child. That is when he turn ugly to me. He say he is not going to be like me, living in this shithole apartment just because I can’t let go of everyone who is pulling me back. He say he is glad when his mom die,
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1))
“
God, that was a terrible thought to have, fantasizing about his dead brother’s wife and child. He clears his throat and asks Julia how the photo editing is going.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1))
“
part of Sana wants to laugh because this is such an Asian mom way of giving a compliment—never give too big of a compliment, always remind the child that there is room for improvement.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1))
“
The Codex of Seeds Serpent_120 Dragon woke up. He did his daily routine, and went out into the city. The quickly growing city of GemFall was where this assassin lived. Of course, no one knew he was an assassin. Except for, ya know, the city's sworn enemies, and his partner in crime, Cyber. Their mission was to just get to know the civilians, maybe make some friends, and maybe just, sneak their way up through the military ranks, and maybe detonate all of the city's explosives so they could steal a high-tech blueprint? But that’s just a maybe of course. He met up with Cyber where every highly trained assassin goes to meet up. It was discreet. It was luxurious. It was MCDONALDS. No, seriously. Surly no one would suspect a person at McDonalds. Dragon quickly took a seat and waited for Cyber to arrive. After a while, Cyber arrived. "Wonderful news," Cyber said "You talk like a child, not a professional." "Wow, going after the way I talk now, that’s so mature. Either way, while you were up there lazing in your high-rise apartment, I have been doing work, and now, I have control over the shed." "Wonderful, so now I will be doing the actual important work and completing this mission," said Dragon Cyber sneered at him, gave him the shed pass, and they left. Dragon walked over to the military district in the city. He found the shed, and was about to walk in the door, when he was stopped. "Heya chump, you don't look like Commander Cyber. You can't go in there." A guard stopped him. "Oh really, I seem to have the shed pass, giving me authorization to come in there. If you refuse my entry, that would put your job in jeopardy, and we wouldn't want that, would we?" Dragon liked to be as condescending as possible. He liked when people hated him. He strolled in, grabbed a couple explosives, and headed back out. Then he began he trek towards the vault. It was very uneventful. Then, he got to the vault. He began planting explosives around, in strategic locations. He, well, obviously, then ran away. And waited. \ / - BOOM - / \ Dragon smiled. He saw the small, scorched piece of paper on the ground. He smiled. He snuck over and picked it up. He then felt a tap on his shoulder. "Hello good friend," Cyber said as he plucked the paper out of Dragon's hand. "I believe this belongs to me now." Cyber smirked. He waltzed away as Dragon stared in shock as the military surrounded him, and took him away... It was a long trek from GemFall to the DarkStalk's secret base. But Cyber could handle it. He was happy knowing that his annoying little "teammate" was locked up somewhere far away. Somewhere where he could never tell Cyber's superiors what happened. The real truth of what happened that afternoon... EGamer7201 As I looked upon the enemy that towered above me, I took a step back. This was the worst enemy I had ever seen, and to be honest, I was scared. I took my Nexus Orbs, 3 of them, and got ready to fight. I put the orbs that I had protected with my life on my belt. I took out my glowing blade, with the mystical rune, quintuple darkness stab. This enemy was called Ending. It had Glowing red eyes, and was pure black, and had white spots. I looked at it, scanned it, and the stats were: HP: 13000001 AP (Attack points) : 9999 DP (Defense points) :2000000 Few, this is gonna be hard. I screamed, "FOR THE NEXUS!!!" and teleported toward Ending. TO BE CONTINUED... (Hopefully!) Q & A Blox Is the series almost over?
”
”
Pixel Ate (The Accidental Minecraft Family: Book 32: Search & Rescue: First Mission)
“
For a child will be born for us,a son will be given to us, kand the government will be on His shoulders. lHe will be namedWonderful Counselor, m Mighty God, nEternal Father, o Prince of Peace. p7 The dominion will be vast,and its prosperity will never end. qHe will reign on the throne of Davidand over his kingdom,to establish and sustain itwith justice and righteousness from now on and forever.The zeal of the Lord of •Hosts will accomplish this.
”
”
Anonymous (HCSB Study Bible)
“
Q. 7. What are the fruits or properties of this love? 'A. St. Paul informs us at large: “Love is longsuffering.” It suffers all the weaknesses of the children of God, all the wickedness of the children of the world; and that not for a little time only, but as long as God pleases. In all, it sees the hand of God, and willingly submits thereto. Meantime, it is “kind.” In all, and after all, it suffers, it is soft, mild, tender, benign. “Love envieth not”; it excludes every kind and degree of envy out of the heart. “Love acteth not rashly,” in a violent, headstrong manner; nor passes any rash or severe judgment. It “doth not behave itself in decently”; is not rude, does not act out of character. “Seeketh not her own” ease, pleasure, honour, or profit. “Is not provoked”; expels all anger from the heart. “Thinketh no evil”; casteth out all jealousy, suspiciousness, and readiness to believe evil. “Rejoiceth not in iniquity”; yea, weeps at the sin or folly of its bitterest enemies. “But rejoiceth in the truth”; in the holiness and happiness of every child of man. “Love covereth all things,” speaks evil of no man; “believeth all things” that tend to the advantage of another’s character. It “hopeth all things,” whatever may extenuate the faults which cannot be denied; and it “endureth all things” which God can permit, or men and devils inflict. This is the “law of Christ, the perfect law, the law of liberty.” ‘And this distinction between the “law of faith” (or love) and “the law of works” is neither a subtle nor an unnecessary distinction. It is plain, easy, and intelligible to any common understanding. And it is absolutely necessary, to prevent a thousand doubts and fears, even in those who do walk in love.
”
”
John Wesley (John Wesley: A Plain Account of Christian Perfection)
“
I want to do a line of toys called ‘The Better Tomorrow Toys.’ They’re going to be designed so that if a child had an IQ below a certain level, they wouldn’t survive the toy. So you weed out the gene pool at a young age. Stupid kids are not nearly as dangerous as stupid adults, so let’s take them out when they’re young. I know it sounds cruel, but it’s a reasonable expectation.”
He laughs and says, “Of course that’s all a joke. Just like the line of toys I want to do for blind kids, called ‘Out of Sight Toys’ …
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk
“
[Context: Discussing the subject of dealing with difficult & stressful situations, such as dealing with a child's tantrum.]
Q. Is it ok that it this way right now?
A. Yes.
Q. Why is it ok? It's crazy, it's stressful, it's chaotic, it's not what my mind wants at all...
A. It's the experience.
Q. What am I experiencing?
A. Life.
Q. Is it ok to experience life in all of its glory, even the tantrums?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it ok for my mind to have a tantrum while the child is too?
A. Yeah.
Q. Why is it ok for my mind to have a tantrum with the child?
A. Because we're learning together.
”
”
Jess Lively
“
*MY LITTLE COLORED CHILD was a well-known lullaby sung by slave families in the 1800’s. Sadly, it was based on the folklore told by plantation white women to black slave children that the stork delivered white babies to the plantation; where as black babies were hatched from a buzzard’s egg.
”
”
Michael Edwin Q. (Tame the Savage Heart)
“
When I was a child I sat an exam.
This test was so simple
There was no way i could fail.
Q1. Describe the taste of the Moon.
It tastes like Creation I wrote,
it has the flavour of starlight.
Q2. What colour is Love?
Love is the colour of the water a man
lost in the desert finds, I wrote.
Q3. Why do snowflakes melt?
I wrote, they melt because they fall
on to the warm tongue of God.
There were other questions.
They were as simple.
I described the grief of Adam
when he was expelled from Eden.
I wrote down the exact weight of
an elephant's dream
Yet today, many years later,
For my living I sweep the streets
or clean out the toilets of the fat
hotels.
Why? Because constantly I failed
my exams.
Why? Well, let me set a test.
Q1. How large is a child's
imagination?
Q2. How shallow is the soul of the
Minister for exams?
”
”
Brian Patten