“
Can’t hear… call back… good luck…”
“Nïx, I know you’re faking the static.” She could picture her sister blowing into her fist directly at the receiver. The static abruptly stopped.
“Why?”
“It seemed less rude than the alternative.”
“What’s that?”
Click.
”
”
Kresley Cole
“
Daemon practically knocked me over to get in one last comment. “Don't forget. There are cooler things out there than fallen angels and dead guys. Just saying.” He winked.
I pictured an entire legion of females swooning. Pushing him aside, I winced and clicked the off button on the webcam page. “You like seeing yourself being recorded.”
He shrugged. “That was fun. When do you do another?
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Onyx (Lux, #2))
“
John Loengard, the picture editor at Life, always used to tell me, ”If you want something to look interesting, don’t light all of it.
”
”
Joe McNally (The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World's Top Shooters)
“
That’s different,” I said. And it was. A portrait is a picture where somebody gets to choose what you look like. How they want to see you. A camera catches whichever you happens to be there when it clicks.
”
”
Carol Rifka Brunt (Tell the Wolves I'm Home)
“
"Nix, I know you're faking the static." She could picture her sister blowing into her fist directly at the receiver. The static abruptly stopped. "Why?"
"It seamed less rude than the alternative."
"What's that?"
Click.
”
”
Kresley Cole (Pleasure of a Dark Prince (Immortals After Dark, #8))
“
I can’t tell you how many pictures I’ve missed, ignored, trampled, or otherwise lost just ‘cause I’ve been so hell bent on getting the shot I think I want.
”
”
Joe McNally (The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World's Top Shooters)
“
There is something strikingly different about the quality of photographs of that time. It has nothing to do with age or colour, or the feel of paper. . . . In modern family photographs the camera pretends to circulate like a friend, clicking its shutters at those moments when its subjects have disarranged themselves to present to it those postures which they would like to think of as informal. But in pictures of that time, the camera is still a public and alien eye, faced with which people feel bound either to challenge the intrusion by striking postures of defiant hilarity, or else to compose their faces, and straighten their shoulders, not always formally, but usually with just that hint of stiffness which suggests a public face.
”
”
Amitav Ghosh (The Shadow Lines)
“
Here, in two dimensions, they looked so happy. But then, didn’t everyone, in pictures? That was almost the point, wasn’t it? To be able to look back and see yourself smiling, even if the camera had shuttered and clicked while you were standing there thinking about all the things that were wrong?
”
”
Emily X.R. Pan (The Astonishing Color of After)
“
The parents are in charge of all the stuff like technology in the house and time on screens and hours on social media, but then their computer goes wrong and they’re like a baby, going, “What happened to my document?” “I can’t get Facebook.” “How do I load a picture? Double-click what? What does that mean?” And we have to sort it out for them.
”
”
Sophie Kinsella (Finding Audrey)
“
Sometimes in life there are these random moments when everything just clicks. When all the fragments of your fractured past fall together, merging in your mind to form a lucid image of your future. Each mistake made becomes a vital piece as it serves whatever purpose necessary to complete the picture as a whole and suddenly everything becomes so clear.
”
”
L.B. Simmons (The Resurrection of Aubrey Miller)
“
You've seen those pictures of couples kissing in front of a Christmas tree, or clasping hands on their wedding day, or holding a newborn baby between them-a snapshot of joy. But what do you really know about them? Just that at the second the shutter clicked, they loved each other. You have no idea what trials came before, or after. You don't know if one of them cheated, if they grew apart, if a divorce loomed on the horizon. You simply see that in one static moment, they were happy.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Off the Page (Between the Lines, #2))
“
A selfie has more face and fewer feelings.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
Ever wondered why front camera of cellphones makes people look better while the rear camera makes them look how they are?
Because when you click picture using front camera, you see yourself on screen, and that's how you should look at yourself, a better version of yourself.
Whereas, the rear camera shows how other's see you. With your flaws and qualities. No added layer to hide or enhance your ownself. This is how you should learn to overcome your flaws and better your qualities.
”
”
Crestless Wave
“
But it was fantasy, and she knew it. It was her fantasy, and the fantasy of everyone else who would look at her and at her pictures; and it would stop being real the moment the man with the camera stopped clicking.
”
”
Umair Naeem (Drowning Shadows)
“
We laughed and something inside me clicked into place. It was as if the mix of colors on the canvas was finally perfect for the picture I wanted so desperately to create.
”
”
Mia Sheridan (Finding Eden)
“
The ragged edge of his voice knocks the wind out of me. I fight the impulse to rein in my shock, and then it all clicks, the bits of Charlie I’ve been collecting like puzzle pieces becoming a full picture. Not the Darcy trope. Not the self-important, dour academic I met for one very unpleasant lunch. A man who craves complete honesty, the realist who doesn’t always understand when he’s not seeing realism. Charlie, who wants to understand the world but has learned not to trust it.
”
”
Emily Henry (Book Lovers)
“
But there is money to be made in being hated this much, and being a source of money means power and protection. Media traffic doesn't care about right or wrong. Every click on a scandalous headline brings profit; every view of a condemning picture generates revenue.
”
”
Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow (Iron Widow, #1))
“
Angel clicked on a few more pictures on the screen, and Alex made small talk about the place. Then he finally walked away. He stopped just before walking out.
“Did Valerie say anything else to Sarah?”
Angel glanced back at him. “About what?”
“You know about that guy she’s seeing.”
Angel turned his attention back to the computer. “No, not really.”
Alex frowned. He wasn’t one of those guys, so he wasn’t about to keep asking. If Angel knew anything, he’d tell him. He’d just have to wait until the rehearsal dinner.
He started back out when Angel spoke up. “I’m not sure, because she didn’t actually tell me, but I overheard Sarah on the phone last night. It sounded like Valerie was telling her about him.”
“Yeah, what did you hear?”
Angel looked up trying to remember. Something seemed to come to him but he hesitated. “I don’t think you wanna hear it, Alex. I know I wouldn’t.”
Alex squeezed the doorway with his hand. What the hell could he have heard? “Tell me.”
Angel shook his head and looked back at the monitor. “Only reason I caught my attentions was because I overheard Sarah ask her something about wearing lingerie.”
Alex felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and his gut tightened. He banged his fist against the doorway. He didn’t need to hear any more. Angel had been right that’s the last thing he needed right now. He charged back out of the office, infuriated with himself. Why the fuck had he asked?
”
”
Elizabeth Reyes (Always Been Mine (The Moreno Brothers, #2))
“
I tried to take a picture of love, didn't think I'd miss her, that much. I tried to fill this new frame, but it's empty.
”
”
The Click Five
“
with the help of the next picture." There was a click of a slide
”
”
Varda Foox (Kidnapped)
“
Jay Maisel always says to bring your camera, ‘cause it’s tough to take a picture without it. Pursuant to the above aforementioned piece of the rule book, subset three, clause A, paragraph four would be…use the camera.
Put it to your eye. You never know. There are lots of reasons, some of them even good, to just leave it on your shoulder or in your bag. Wrong lens. Wrong light. Aaahhh, it’s not that great, what am I gonna do with it anyway? I’ll have to put my coffee down. I’ll just delete it later, why bother? Lots of reasons not to take the dive into the eyepiece and once again try to sort out the world into an effective rectangle.
It’s almost always worth it to take a look.
”
”
Joe McNally (The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World's Top Shooters)
“
As they passed through the exit, Indrani pulled Zarina’s stole over her head, covering half of her face. The two words—not guilty—had changed Zarina’s stature in minutes, from a relentless human rights activist to someone running for cover. They climbed down the stairs and rushed to the parking lot. Zarina’s car was in a pathetic condition—smashed windscreen, deflated tyres, broken rear view mirrors and torn upholstery. An exasperated Zarina raised her hands in utter disgust. Mob fury. Idiots, if they have won the case, let them celebrate their victory; why smash my car? The fighter in her forced Zarina to take out her cell phone and click pictures of her car from different angles.
”
”
Hariharan Iyer (Surpanakha)
“
There may be as many people taking pictures as there are brides and grooms. One of them for every one of us. Clickety-click. The thought makes the couples a little giddy. They feel that space is contagious. They are here but also there, already in albums and slide projectors, filling picture frames with their microcosmic bodies, the minikin selves they are trying to become.
”
”
Don DeLillo
“
It was dawning on the wizards that they were outside the University, at night and without permission, for the first time in decades. A certain suppressed excitement crackled from man to man. Any watch trained in reading body language would have been prepared to bet that, after the click, someone was going to suggest that they might as well go somewhere and have a few drinks, and then someone else would fancy a meal, and then there was always room for a few more drinks, and then it would be 5 a.m. and the city guards would be respectfully knocking on the University gates and asking if the Archchancellor would care to step down to the cells to identify some alleged wizards who were singing an obscene song in six-part harmony, and perhaps he would also care to bring some money to pay for all the damage. Because inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures (Discworld, #10; Industrial Revolution, #1))
“
...yes, I do smile for them. But I smile for
myself too. My memories of them will be gone as I leave; their memories will stay with them forever. Don’t we all smile for the pictures we click even on the worst picnics? That’s all I want to do. I want to smile for their last pictures of me.
”
”
Durjoy Datta (Till The Last Breath)
“
The phone was laid on a desk thousands of miles away. Once more, with that clear familiarity, the footsteps, the pause, and, at last, the raising of the window.
"Listen," whispered the old man to himself.
And he heard a thousand people in another sunlight, and the faint, tinkling music of an organ grinder playing "La Marimba"— oh, a lovely, dancing tune.
With eyes tight, the old man put up his hand as if to click pictures of an old cathedral, and his body was heavier with flesh, younger, and he felt the hot pavement underfoot.
He wanted to say, "You're still there, aren't you? All of: you people in that city in the time of the early siesta, the shops closing, the little boys crying loteria nacional para hoy! to sell lottery tickets. You are all there, the
people in the city. I can't believe I was ever among you. When you are away I: from a city it becomes a fantasy. Any town, New York, Chicago, with its people, becomes improbable with distance. Just as I am improbable here, in Illinois, in a small town by a ' quiet lake. All of us improbable to one another because we are not present to one another. And it is so good to hear the sounds, and know that Mexico City is still there and the people moving and living . . .
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine)
“
I think we should kill her…What? She’s ruined my entire day. Made me fight with my wife and now you tell me she’s a spy sent to put us all under the jail. What part of ‘kill your enemies before they kill you’ did you sleep through? Your dad was an assassin, same as my mom. Don’t puss on me now, boy. You know what they’d do if they were here. Hell, your own mother would tear her up, spit her out in pieces, and not blink. (Sway)
He’s right. None of you have any reason to help me. Why should you care? (She clicked the vid wall and a picture of a teenage girl was there.) That’s my baby sister, Tempest Elanari Gerran. Her birthday was day before yesterday. She turned sixteen in jail with my mother. I may be out of line, but I’ll bet when you guys turned sixteen, you had a celebration for it with presents and friends wishing you well. You won’t just be killing me. You’ll be killing them, too. Tempest is a prime sexual age and a virgin. Any idea what’s the first thing her new owner will do to her when she’s sold? I don’t want her to ever know the horror that was my sixteenth birthday. (Alix)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Ice (The League: Nemesis Rising, #3; The League: Nemesis Legacy, #2))
“
Do you like this? I click on the attachment. It’s a slightly blurry picture, but of what, I’m not sure. A…a tree, maybe, though it doesn’t look so healthy. It looks diseased, moist and soft. There’s a knothole that looks damp and sick. Whatever it is, I can’t imagine why someone would be sending it to Adam. He doesn’t know anything about trees.
”
”
Kristan Higgins (If You Only Knew)
“
Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” “Snap ending.” Mildred nodded. “Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumor of a title to you, Mrs. Montag), whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.” Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued: “Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!” Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say, “What’s this?” and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence. “School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
“
Our brains are built to process pictures, and we think in pictures, so presenting information as pictures is the most efficient way to present information to people.
”
”
Susan M. Weinschenk (Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? (Voices That Matter))
“
Some people click great pictures. Some write well. Some excel in their profession. Some are just genuinely nice. The last set is underrated.
”
”
Nitya Prakash
“
I had a lot of those memories clicking before me like projector slides in the dark. Lots of pictures, smells and sounds flashing in and out.
”
”
Rita Williams-Garcia (One Crazy Summer (Gaither Sisters, #1))
“
I click on it to find a picture of an egg in a tiny hammock. A second message simply says: @PabloEggscobar Oh my God. Pablo has his own Instagram account now.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Play (Briar U, #3))
“
Friendship is something to be achieved over years of deep and intimate connection, not by clicking on a small picture and requesting it.
”
”
Ivo Quartiroli (Facebook Logout - Experiences and Reasons to Leave It)
“
Here’s the thing: I’m ridiculously smart, and I’m pretty sure I have a photographic memory. It’s like I have a camera in my head, and if I see or hear something, I click it, and it stays. I saw a special on PBS once on children who were geniuses. These kids could remember complicated strands of numbers and recall words and pictures in correct sequence and quote long passages of poetry. So can I.
”
”
Sharon M. Draper (Out of My Mind (The Out of My Mind Series))
“
XXIV.
And more than that - a furlong on - why, there!
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,
Or brake, not wheel - that harrow fit to reel
Men's bodies out like silk? With all the air
Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
XXV.
Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood -
Bog, clay and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth.
XXVI.
Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's
Broke into moss, or substances like boils;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
XXVII.
And just as far as ever from the end!
Naught in the distance but the evening, naught
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom friend,
Sailed past, not best his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap - perchance the guide I sought.
XXVIII.
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains - with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me - solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.
XXIX.
Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick
Of mischief happened to me, God knows when -
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts - you're inside the den.
XXX.
Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While to the left a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!
XXXI.
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
XXXII.
Not see? because of night perhaps? - why day
Came back again for that! before it left
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, -
Now stab and end the creature - to the heft!'
XXXIII.
Not hear? When noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers, my peers -
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
XXXIV.
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! In a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.
”
”
Robert Browning
“
Arms and legs lying around?” asked Bean. Gross. But interesting. “Yeah,” said Ivy. “He was a really bad wolf until he met that good guy.” Bean pictured herself patting the wolf’s shaggy head. He was trotting alongside her with his wolf claws clicking on the sidewalk.
”
”
Annie Barrows (Ivy and Bean: Bound to be Bad)
“
After we've been dancing awhile and need a breather, we walk off the dance floor. I whip out my cell and say, "Pose for me."
The first picture I take is of him trying to pose like a cool bad boy. It makes me laugh. I take another one before he can strike a pose this time.
"Let's take one of the both of us," he says, pulling me close. I press my cheek against his while he takes my cell and puts it as far away as he can reach, then freezes this perfect moment with a click. After the picture is taken, he pulls me into his arms and kisses me.
”
”
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
“
My friend Jim Richardson, a National Geographic photojournalist, likes to make the distinction between being a "traveler" and a "sightseer." According to Jim, a traveler seeks engagements with the local people and culture, while the sightseer just clicks off sights in the guidebook, a "been there, done that" mentality. A sightseeing photographer stands apart from the culture and "steals" pictures from a distance, while a travel photographer becomes involved with his or her surroundings and the people, and the resulting pictures become more intimate.
”
”
Bob Krist (Spirit of Place: The Art of the Traveling Photographer)
“
During my first few months of Facebooking, I discovered that my page had fostered a collective nostalgia for specific cultural icons. These started, unsurprisingly, within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. They commonly included a pointy-eared Vulcan from a certain groundbreaking 1960s television show.
Just as often, though, I found myself sharing images of a diminutive, ancient, green and disarmingly wise Jedi Master who speaks in flip-side down English. Or, if feeling more sinister, I’d post pictures of his black-cloaked, dark-sided, heavy-breathing nemesis. As an aside, I initially received from Star Trek fans considerable “push-back,” or at least many raised Spock brows, when I began sharing images of Yoda and Darth Vader. To the purists, this bordered on sacrilege.. But as I like to remind fans, I was the only actor to work within both franchises, having also voiced the part of Lok Durd from the animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
It was the virality of these early posts, shared by thousands of fans without any prodding from me, that got me thinking. Why do we love Spock, Yoda and Darth Vader so much? And what is it about characters like these that causes fans to click “like” and “share” so readily?
One thing was clear: Cultural icons help people define who they are today because they shaped who they were as children. We all “like” Yoda because we all loved The Empire Strikes Back, probably watched it many times, and can recite our favorite lines. Indeed, we all can quote Yoda, and we all have tried out our best impression of him.
When someone posts a meme of Yoda, many immediately share it, not just because they think it is funny (though it usually is — it’s hard to go wrong with the Master), but because it says something about the sharer. It’s shorthand for saying, “This little guy made a huge impact on me, not sure what it is, but for certain a huge impact. Did it make one on you, too? I’m clicking ‘share’ to affirm something you may not know about me. I ‘like’ Yoda.”
And isn’t that what sharing on Facebook is all about? It’s not simply that the sharer wants you to snortle or “LOL” as it were. That’s part of it, but not the core. At its core is a statement about one’s belief system, one that includes the wisdom of Yoda.
Other eminently shareable icons included beloved Tolkien characters, particularly Gandalf (as played by the inimitable Sir Ian McKellan). Gandalf, like Yoda, is somehow always above reproach and unfailingly epic.
Like Yoda, Gandalf has his darker counterpart. Gollum is a fan favorite because he is a fallen figure who could reform with the right guidance. It doesn’t hurt that his every meme is invariably read in his distinctive, blood-curdling rasp.
Then there’s also Batman, who seems to have survived both Adam West and Christian Bale, but whose questionable relationship to the Boy Wonder left plenty of room for hilarious homoerotic undertones. But seriously, there is something about the brooding, misunderstood and “chaotic-good” nature of this superhero that touches all of our hearts.
”
”
George Takei
“
Media traffic doesn’t care about right or wrong. Every click on a scandalous headline brings profit; every view of a condemning picture generates revenue. If you’re a big enough cash cow, the media companies will lobby and bribe every government connection they have to keep from losing you.
”
”
Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow (Iron Widow #1))
“
When people talk about falling in love, often they’ll say things clicked into place. I didn’t have that. It was more like things relaxed. Everything I’d been holding onto was suddenly filled with air, and I didn’t feel quite as crowded as I had before. My thoughts get quieter when I’m in love, I guess.
It’s like when you’re looking at a picture of a busy street, filled with cars and people and all their lives and worries and thoughts, and at first, it’s overwhelming, it’s too busy for you to see anything but the sum of its parts, but once you zoom in, everything gets clearer. Suddenly the blurs you were looking at aren’t blurs, they’re people, and you feel a connection to it. The bigness doesn’t seem so big anymore.
”
”
Ava Bellows (All I Stole From You)
“
Click. Everyone briefly gathered and posed and smiling at their future selves. Beaches and cathedrals, bumper cars and birthday parties, glasses raised around a dining table. Each picture a little pause between events. No tantrums, no illness, no bad news, all the big stuff happening before and after and in between. The true magic happening only when the lesser magic fails, the ghost daughter who moved during the exposure, her face unreadable but more alive than all her frozen family. Double exposures, as if a little strip of time had been folded back on itself. Scratches and sun flares. Photos torn postdivorce, faces scratched out or Biroed over. The camera telling the truth only when something slips through its silver fingers.
”
”
Mark Haddon (The Red House)
“
He hands me a book-
paperback cover
with a picture
of the bay.
I flip through,
find picture
after picture
from my month
in Felicity Bay,
all those
*beep*
*click*
*beep*
times that Daniel
captured,
put in a book -
a baby crab,
mermaid hair,
Froot Loops,
sandy toes,
tree house,
and even
stained glass windows,
and a chalice -
moments of significance,
ordinary things
that turned out to be
extraordinary."
-Bailey
”
”
Shari Green (Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles)
“
Do you hear that?” he says.
“You mean the crashing thunder and pounding rain?”
He shakes his head. I listen closely, trying to filter o
ut the sounds of the storm.
Then I hear it. A whooshing sound with a fast buzzing underne
ath it. It’s so, so familiar
but I can’t quite put my finger on it. A very definite blac
k spot appears among the dark gray
clouds. The spot lengthens horizontally.
The puzzle pieces click into place and I get the full pictur
e: Fighter jet. Headed straight
for us. It could be a coincidence, right? F-22 Raptors fly
low through giant thunderstorms over
major metropolitan areas in the middle of the night a
ll the time. Right.
My illusions of a coincidence are shattered - by a mis
sile flying straight at me. It would
seem this guy has infrared, too. I mean, missiles? Really?
Isn’t that a bit overkill? I start flying
away, but Sani stops me.
“Dive!
”
”
Sarah Nicolas (Dragons Are People, Too)
“
There were absolutely amazing photographs everywhere, on everyone's Facebook page and everyone's iPhone and Instagram, just floating around in cyberspace for eternity. People took hundreds and thousands of digital pictures; one or two, even twenty or a hundred, were bound to be great. All anyone had to do was click through them all and post the ones they liked, deleting the rest. But using film meant you never knew what was going to be a good picture, let alone a great one, until you were standing there looking at a contact sheet with a magnifying glass and deciding which to print.
Maybe nobody cared anymore, but then again, writers probably felt the same way when word processors were invented. Anyone with a story and a keyboard could write their memoir now, write the great American novel, or tweet a 140-character trope that gets retweeted and it read by hundreds of people every hour of every day.
”
”
Nora Raleigh Baskin (Subway Love)
“
This should be easy because I’ve fallen out of love with Facebook. First, I want to be the kind of friend who hears about others’ milestones in person. I hate learning about major life events buried in a timeline between photos of fresh pedicures and pictures of lunch. When someone close to me has a baby or goes through emergency surgery or suffers a loss, they deserve more than a “like.” A click should never take the place of real interaction. Plus, I almost never visit anyone else’s page
”
”
Jen Lancaster (I Regret Nothing: A Memoir)
“
One of the jobs of a good trader is to imagine alternative scenarios. I try to form many different mental pictures of what the world should be like and wait for one of them to be confirmed. You keep trying them on one at a time. Inevitably, most of these pictures will turn out to be wrong—that is, only a few elements of the picture may prove correct. But then, all of a sudden, you will find that in one picture, nine out of ten elements click. That scenario then becomes your image of the world reality.
”
”
Jack D. Schwager (Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders)
“
I wondered as I watched people leaning out to snap digital photographs if the ability to capture the technical reality of a place took away from the feeling of it, and muted the memory forever. A picture in the mind was a picture in the heart, but a picture on paper or on a computer was only relevant when it was taken out or clicked on to view. Another way in which society was distancing itself from living, perhaps. Life could no longer be enjoyed unless we could send it on a phone so friends we rarely thought of and who rarely thought of us could see how much fun we were having.
”
”
Bobby Underwood (The Turquoise Shroud (Seth Halliday #1))
“
So few people today wrote, never mind saved, letters. They took a thousand pictures a month but didn’t bother to print them. They clicked a button and a year’s worth of correspondence over text was deleted forever. But all the anxiety assumed that this was a new problem, when in fact the vast majority of women’s writing—their love letters, their diaries—had always been discarded. Burned by the creator or her children, thrown away, lost. At the Schlesinger, they endeavored to find out what women of the past truly did and thought and felt, while also understanding that you could possess volumes of someone’s autobiography and still not know any of that.
”
”
J. Courtney Sullivan (The Cliffs)
“
Pen, you really shouldn’t use the same password for all your accounts. I’ve headed off three hackers in the last week who would’ve gotten into your PayPal, bank, and electric company accounts.” “What?” Penelope was obviously confused at the change in subject, but Cade merely relaxed back in his seat and kept his eyes on Beth as she fidgeted uncomfortably. “Using PenisGod isn’t a good username for things like Amazon and eBay. And you really need to delete your craigslist account because calling yourself a penis god is only attracting weirdos. You probably don’t even remember you had that old ad up when you were trying to sell your bicycle. Well, it’s one of the most clicked-on ads on the site for San Antonio. I’m not exaggerating either. You had four hundred and sixty-nine messages—and I’m not even going to comment on the sixty-nine thing. But three hundred and fourteen of those contained pictures of men’s dicks. Fifty-seven contained marriage proposals, most from overseas; twenty-seven were from women who were interested in a threesome with you, fifty-five were spam, people trying to get you to click on links or buy some crap product, and the remaining sixteen emails were religious in nature, telling you to repent for your soul.” “I should probably be pissed you got into my account, but I trust you, so I’m not. But it’s not penis god!” Penelope exclaimed huffily. “It’s Pen IS God.” Cade burst out laughing. “Seriously, sis? Penis god? Just wait until the guys hear this!
”
”
Susan Stoker (Shelter for Elizabeth (Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes, #5))
“
The camera was a hand-held auxiliary of wanting-to-know. It had more than information and accuracy to teach me. I learned in the doing how ready I had to be. Life doesn't hold still. A good snapshot stopped a moment from running away. Photography taught me that to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was the greatest need I had. Making pictures of people in all sorts of situations, I learned that every feeling waits upon its gesture, and I had to be prepared to recognize this moment when I saw it. These were things a writer needed to know. And I felt the need to hold transient life in words - there's so much more of life that only words can convey - strongly enough to last me as long as I lived. The direction my mind took was a writer's direction from the start, not a photographer's or a recorder's.
”
”
Eudora Welty (On Writing (Modern Library))
“
The nurse brought out some knitting, and clicked her needles sharply. She turned to me, very bright, very cheerful. “How are you liking Manderley, Mrs. de Winter?” “Very much, thank you,” I said. “It’s a beautiful spot, isn’t it?” she said, the needles jabbing one another. “Of course we don’t get over there now, she’s not up to it. I am sorry, I used to love our days at Manderley.” “You must come over yourself sometime,” I said. “Thank you, I should love to. Mr. de Winter is well, I suppose?” “Yes, very well.” “You spent your honeymoon in Italy, didn’t you? We were so pleased with the picture-postcard Mr. de Winter sent.” I wondered whether she used “we” in the royal sense, or if she meant that Maxim’s grandmother and herself were one. “Did he send one? I can’t remember.” “Oh, yes, it was quite an excitement. We love anything like that. We keep a scrapbook you know, and paste anything to do with the family inside it. Anything pleasant, that is.
”
”
Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca)
“
Every time a human walks out of a room, something with more feet walks in.
For every job a human holds, there is a mouse with the same job and doing it better.
You don't see a cat that shocked every day of the week. Even her whiskers looked scandalized.
Time you saw a bit of the world, if you're to find your place in it, the horse said. Nobody ever learned who he was by staying in the stable.
He was the picture of skepticism. Also pomposity.
He was so noble a figure that I could scarcely look at him full on. Every bit of his bearing was living proof of the grandeur mice can rise to. British mice.
Of course they would be foreign, being bats. Romanian, Transylvanian, Something.
The Belgians followed in a great mob. And hard on their heels the Spanish, their claws clicking like castanets across the marble. Then the Russians in all their barbaric splendor. Romanov rodents in caterpillar-fur caps. Even one of the Gorgonzola princes from Italy, looking very blue-veined.
”
”
Richard Peck (The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail)
“
You travel to a place because you have this picture of it and you want to couple with the whole country. Then you find that you and its natives haven’t a thing in common. You don’t understand the basic signals which you’d always assumed all humanity shared. You decide it was all a mistake, that it was all in your head. Then you dig a bit deeper and you find that, despite your reasonable suspicions, you still desire them all, but you don’t know what it is exactly you want from them, or what they seem to want from you, because they too, it turns out, are all looking at you with what could only be one thing on their mind. But you tell yourself you’re imagining things. And you’re ready to pack up and go back to Rome because all of these touch-and-go signals are driving you mad. But then something suddenly clicks, like a secret underground passageway, and you realize that, just like you, they are desperate and aching for you as well. And the worst thing is that, with all your experience and your sense of irony and your ability to overcome shyness wherever it threatens to crop up, you feel totally stranded. I didn’t know their language, didn’t know the language of their hearts, didn’t even know my own. I saw veils everywhere: what I wanted, what I didn’t know I wanted, what I didn’t want to know I wanted, what I’d always known I wanted. This is either a miracle. Or it is hell.
”
”
André Aciman (Call Me By Your Name (Call Me By Your Name, #1))
“
For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting
differently. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your team.
Picture that person (or people). Each has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side.
You’ve got to reach both. And you’ve also got to clear the way
for them to succeed. In short, you must do three things: → DIRECT the Rider FOLLOW THE BRIGHT SPOTS. Investigate what’s working and clone it. [Jerry Sternin in Vietnam, solutions-focused therapy] SCRIPT THE CRITICAL MOVES. Don’t think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors. [1% milk, four rules at the Brazilian railroad] POINT TO THE DESTINATION. Change is easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it. [“You’ll be third graders soon,” “No dry holes” at BP] → MOTIVATE the Elephant FIND THE FEELING. Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change. Make people feel something. [Piling gloves on the table, the chemotherapy video game, Robyn Waters’s demos at Target] SHRINK THE CHANGE. Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant. [The 5-Minute Room Rescue, procurement reform] GROW YOUR PEOPLE. Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset. [Brasilata’s “inventors,” junior-high math kids’ turnaround] → SHAPE the Path TWEAK THE ENVIRONMENT. When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation. [Throwing out the phone system at Rackspace, 1-Click ordering, simplifying the online time sheet] BUILD HABITS. When behavior is habitual, it’s “free”—it doesn’t tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits. [Setting “action triggers,” eating two bowls of soup while dieting, using checklists] RALLY THE HERD.
”
”
Chip Heath (Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard)
“
Thunk. I jump back in alarm, my heart pounding against my ribs.
And then I hear, “Jemma!” A loud whisper, coming from below. I open up the doors and step outside. Moving quickly to the railing, I lean against it and peer down to find Ryder standing there, staring up at me. He’s dressed in a suit and tie--the same charcoal suit he wore to the gala, with a narrow silver-blue tie.
“What are you doing?” I call down to him.
He drops a handful of pebbles, scattering them into the grass by his feet. “Shh! Can I come up?”
I lower my voice to match his. “What’s wrong with the front door?”
He eyes me with raised brows. “Really?”
I picture my parents downstairs. Imagine what questions they’d ask, what gleeful conclusions they’d leap to at the sight of him here, asking to see me. I shake my head and reach a hand down toward him. “Here, can you climb?”
There’s a vine-covered trellis against the house beside my balcony. If he can just get a foothold, he’s tall enough to swing himself up and over the railing.
Which he does in less than two minutes. Pretty impressive, actually. Once he’s got both feet on the balcony, he casually brushes himself off. Somehow, he manages to look like he just stepped off the cover of GQ.
I tip my head toward the window. “You wanna come in?”
“You think it’s safe?”
“Just let me go lock the door,” I say before hurrying back inside.
And don’t think I’m not amused by the irony. Because unlike normal people, we’re not sneaking around to avoid being caught and punished. Nope. On the contrary, our parents would celebrate if they caught us in my bedroom together. I’m talking music and streamers and champagne toasts.
As quietly as possible, I turn the key in the lock, listening for the click. Sorry, folks. No party tonight.
”
”
Kristi Cook (Magnolia (Magnolia Branch, #1))
“
Are you ready, children?” Father Mikhail walked through the church. “Did I keep you waiting?” He took his place in front of them at the altar. The jeweler and Sofia stood nearby. Tatiana thought they might have already finished that bottle of vodka. Father Mikhail smiled. “Your birthday today,” he said to Tatiana. “Nice birthday present for you, no?” She pressed into Alexander. “Sometimes I feel that my powers are limited by the absence of God in the lives of men during these trying times,” Father Mikhail began. “But God is still present in my church, and I can see He is present in you. I am very glad you came to me, children. Your union is meant by God for your mutual joy, for the help and comfort you give one another in prosperity and adversity and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children. I want to send you righteously on your way through life. Are you ready to commit yourselves to each other?” “We are,” they said. “The bond and the covenant of marriage was established by God in creation. Christ himself adorned this manner of life by his first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. A marriage is a symbol of the mystery of the union between Christ and His Church. Do you understand that those whom God has joined together, no man can put asunder?” “We do,” they said. “Do you have the rings?” “We do.” Father Mikhail continued. “Most gracious God,” he said, holding the cross above their heads, “look with favor upon this man and this woman living in a world for which Your Son gave His life. Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world. Defend this man and this woman from every enemy. Lead them into peace. Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle upon their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads. Bless them in their work and in their friendship, in their sleeping and in their waking, in their joys and their sorrows, in their life and in their death.” Tears trickled down Tatiana’s face. She hoped Alexander wouldn’t notice. Father Mikhail certainly had. Turning to Tatiana and taking her hands, Alexander smiled, beaming at her unrestrained happiness. Outside, on the steps of the church, he lifted her off the ground and swung her around as they kissed ecstatically. The jeweler and Sofia clapped apathetically, already down the steps and on the street. “Don’t hug her so tight. You’ll squeeze that child right out of her,” said Sofia to Alexander as she turned around and lifted her clunky camera. “Oh, wait. Hold on. Let me take a picture of the newlyweds.” She clicked once. Twice. “Come to me next week. Maybe I’ll have some paper by then to develop them.” She waved. “So you still think the registry office judge should have married us?” Alexander grinned. “He with his ‘of sound mind’ philosophy on marriage?” Tatiana shook her head. “You were so right. This was perfect. How did you know this all along?” “Because you and I were brought together by God,” Alexander replied. “This was our way of thanking Him.” Tatiana chuckled. “Do you know it took us less time to get married than to make love the first time?” “Much less,” Alexander said, swinging her around in the air. “Besides, getting married is the easy part. Just like making love. It was the getting you to make love to me that was hard. It was the getting you to marry me…” “I’m sorry. I was so nervous.” “I know,” he said. He still hadn’t put her down. “I thought the chances were twenty-eighty you were actually going to go through with it.” “Twenty against?” “Twenty for.” “Got to have a little more faith, my husband,” said Tatiana, kissing his lips.
”
”
Paullina Simons (The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman, #1))
“
When we left, we were told it would be another month before the winner was announced. Then I felt really discouraged. Friends were telling me that my injuries and my fitness level guaranteed me the cover. I felt the opposite. I didn’t feel I was as fit as the others and I felt like the war was too controversial a topic for the magazine to want to feature a wounded veteran.
I had completely talked myself out of even the slightest possibility of winning by the time I was back on a plane to New York a month later to find out the results. My family didn’t believe that I didn’t know already. They thought I’d been told and kept asking me about it. But I really didn’t know. The winner was being announced live on NBC’s Today show. I had made my peace with not winning and Jamie and I were just excited to go to New York and be on Today. We had a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, and when we landed there I had a voice mail from my friend Billy. His message: “I thought we had to wait to see who won? It’s already out!”
I clicked onto my Facebook app and saw that Billy had posted a picture of him and some of his buddies at a truck stop in Kentucky posing with a Men’s Health magazine--and I was on the cover! I was shocked. But even then I was convinced this wasn’t real. Maybe the editors had decided to give the cover to all three of us and we each had a different region of the country. It felt incredible to see myself on the cover of that magazine but I just wasn’t convinced I was the outright winner.
Jamie and I got to our hotel room late. I called my contact at Men’s Health, Nora, and said, “I’ve already seen the magazine.” There was a beat on the other end of the line before she flatly said, “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” So Jamie and I went to bed. The next morning we met up with Finny and Kavan and headed over to 30 Rockefeller Plaza for the Today show. I didn’t say a word about what I’d seen.
When we arrived, Nora was at the door. I waited for the others to go in before I said to her, “So we’re not going to talk about what we’re not going to talk about?” I was smirking a little but quickly wiped the grin off my face when I saw the look on Nora’s.
“You’re not the only person in this competition, Noah. Not everyone knows.” Roger that. I wouldn’t say another word.
”
”
Noah Galloway (Living with No Excuses: The Remarkable Rebirth of an American Soldier)
“
The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens, a polished
glass dome with a purplish optical coating. Whenever Hiro is using the machine,
this lens emerges and clicks into place, its base flush with the surface of the
computer. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface.
Hiro finds it erotic. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in
several weeks. But there's more to it. Hiro's father, who was stationed in
Japan for many years, was obsessed with cameras. He kept bringing them back
from his stints in the Far East, encased in many protective layers, so that when
he took them out to show Hiro, it was like watching an exquisite striptease as
they emerged from all that black leather and nylon, zippers and straps. And
once the lens was finally exposed, pure geometric equation made real, so
powerful and vulnerable at once, Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling
through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia. . . . It made
him feel naked and weak and brave.
The lens can see half of the universe -- the half that is above the computer,
which includes most of Hiro. In this way, it can generally keep track of where
Hiro is and what direction he's looking in.
Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one, a green one, and a blue
one. They are powerful enough to make a bright light but not powerful enough to
burn through the back of your eyeball and broil your brain, fry your frontals,
lase your lobes. As everyone learned in elementary school, these three colors
of light can be combined, with different intensities, to produce any color that
Hiro's eye is capable of seeing.
In this way, a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the
computer, up through that fisheye lens, in any direction. Through the use of
electronic mirrors inside the computer, this beam is made to sweep back and
forth across the lenses of Hiro's goggles, in much the same way as the electron
beam in a television paints the inner surface of the eponymous Tube. The
resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality.
By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye, the image can be
made three-dimensional. By changing the image seventy-two times a second, it
can be made to move. By drawing the moving three-dimensional image at a
resolution of 2K pixels on a side, it can be as sharp as the eye can perceive,
and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones, the moving 3-D
pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack.
So Hiro's not actually here at all. He's in a computer-generated universe that
his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the
lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of
time in the Metaverse. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
“
A folded triangle of paper landed in the center of his notebook.
Normally he’d unfold it discreetly, but Beamis was so clueless that the note could have hit him in the head and he wouldn’t notice.
Loopy script in purple pen. The paper smelled like her.
What’s your #?
Wow.
Hunter clicked his pen and wrote below her words.
I have a theory about girls who ask for your number before asking for your name.
Then he folded it up and flicked it back.
It took every ounce of self-control to not watch her unfold it.
The paper landed back on his desk in record time.
I have a theory about boys who prefer writing to texting.
He put his pen against the paper.
I have a theory about girls with theories.
Then he waited, not looking, fighting the small smile that wanted to play on his lips.
The paper didn’t reappear.
After a minute, he sighed and went back to his French essay.
When the folded triangle smacked him in the temple, he jumped a mile. His chair scraped the floor, and Beamis paused in his lecture, turning from the board. “Is there a problem?”
“No.” Hunter coughed, covering the note with his hand. “Sorry.”
When the coast was clear, he unfolded the triangle.
It was a new piece of paper.
My name is Kate.
Kate. Hunter almost said the name out loud.
What was wrong with him?
It fit her perfectly, though. Short and blunt and somehow indescribably hot.
Another piece of paper landed on his notebook, a small strip rolled up tiny.
This time, there was only a phone number.
Hunter felt like someone had punched him in the stomach and he couldn’t remember how to breathe.
Then he pulled out his cell phone and typed under the desk.
Come here often?
Her response appeared almost immediately.
First timer.
Beamis was facing the classroom now, so Hunter kept his gaze up until it was safe. When he looked back, Kate had written again.
I bet I could strip na**d and this guy wouldn’t even notice.
Hunter’s pulse jumped. But this was easier, looking at the phone instead of into her eyes.
I would notice.
There was a long pause, during which he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. Then a new text appeared.
I have a theory about boys who picture you na**d before sharing their name.
He smiled.
My name is Hunter. Where you from?
This time, her response appeared immediately.
Just transferred from St. Mary’s in Annapolis.
Now he was imagining her in a little plaid skirt and knee-high socks.
Another text appeared.
Stop imagining me in the outfit.
He grinned.
How did you know?
You’re a boy.
I’m still waiting to hear your theory on piercings.
Right. IMO, you have to be crazy hot to pull off either piercings or tattoos. Otherwise you’re just enhancing the ugly.
Hunter stared at the phone, wondering if she was hitting on him—or insulting him. Before he could figure it out, another message appeared.
What does the tattoo on your arm say?
He slid his fingers across the keys.
It says “ask me about this tattoo.”
Liar.
Mission accomplished, I’d say.
He heard a small sound from her direction and peeked over. She was still staring at her phone, but she had a smile on her face, like she was trying to stifle a giggle.
Mission accomplished, he’d say.
”
”
Brigid Kemmerer (Spirit (Elemental, #3))
“
transition into some examples that put HTML5 in action: A graphing calculator to display algebraic equations on the Canvas A children’s finger-painting application for drawing pictures on the page A geolocated work of fiction customized with details about the reader’s current location An audio-enabled glossary that lets you click to hear the pronunciation of each term Embedded video content within instructional text to supplement a lesson
”
”
Sanders Kleinfeld (HTML5 for Publishers)
“
You don’t need another motivational quote laid over a picture of a mountain. Think about what happens every time you go on a motivational image or video binge. You jump from image to image, releasing a little more dopamine with each click (like an addict). Then you get to a point maybe an hour later and realize that all the motivation did was kill time. Now you’re exhausted and have no energy to do anything else. A much better way to inspire yourself is to take action. Work on your project. Take the first step towards starting a new habit. Write the first paragraph of a blog post. Do something! The only information that stays inspiring in the long-run is the information that we apply. Knowledge is not power, it’s frustration. Applied knowledge is power. When your default is action, inspiration builds on itself.
”
”
Kyle Eschenroeder (The Pocket Guide to Action: 116 Meditations On the Art of Doing)
“
Uh! I hate the sound of rain For all of you who hate the sound of rain, here is the answer to your problem. If you go to the pause menu and click on the following buttons listed here: options>Video settings>particles>click till shown minimal like the picture above. And enjoy the serenity of silence in the midst of the storm. You got to be kidding me? Pink sheep have a 0.001% chance to spawn in the Nether. So...Yeah pink sheep kind of look like a pig’s imposter. Rubber TNT
”
”
slims nexus (100 MineCraft secrets! Mysteries and secrets you would not have known were in MineCraft until now!)
“
He set off down the sloping aisle between the rows of stone seats, the dogs plodding along beside him with their ears flat and their tails between their legs. They waded through something that might once have been carpet; it tore wetly and disintegrated under their feet.
After they'd gone a few yards Gaspode said, "I don't know if you've noticed, but some of-"
"I know," said Victor, grimly.
"-the seats, they're still-"
"I know."
"-occupied."
"I know."
All these people - these things who had been people - sitting in rows. It's as though they were watching a click.
[...]
He looked around at the occasional occupants of the seats and shuddered.
"It looks as though they died watching a click," he said. "Yeah. A comedy," said Gaspode, trotting ahead of him.
"Why do you say that?"
"They're all grinnin'."
"Gaspode!
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures (Discworld, #10; Industrial Revolution, #1))
“
There was an address on the website and she scribbled it on the back of her internet ticket. Then she clicked back to the search page and typed in ‘Chloe Markham’. There were a few links that were obviously irrelevant, but then one came up under lewisandmarchant.com. Going to that, she found a page containing a picture of the girl she had just conjured up in her memory. Yet in this portrait Chloe’s smile wasn’t the natural one she’d had at the restaurant, and she wore a suit jacket with a white shirt underneath as she sat straight-backed and gazed into the camera lens. Julia
”
”
Sara Foster (Come Back to Me)
“
We used to joke that the ideal Amazon site would not show a search box, navigation links, or lists of things you could buy. Instead, it would just display a giant picture of one book, the next book you want to buy. —Greg
”
”
Richard L. Brandt (One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com)
“
Wait,” I say, digging into my camera bag. “I want a picture with all of you. Us. Together.”
Dad takes the camera from me and I stand in the middle of everyone. Nestled under Chiara’s and Matilde’s arms, I find it easier to smile than I expect. I’m surrounded by people who care for me, and who I care for, all because I wanted a chocolate pastry for breakfast in Rome.
The shutter clicks and I pry myself from their embrace. At the door I turn and look at each face once more, knowing that this will likely be the last time I’ll see most of them. Matilde, who welcomed me, an American stranger, into her home, even kicking her own children out of their room. Luca, a quiet boy with a good heart. I have confidence he’ll be ten times the man his brother’s been. Bruno, the gorgeous smooth talker. If my dad had a clue about what’s gone on between us this summer, he’d have him beat up all over again.
Chiara. One of my very best friends who I didn’t even know existed a few months ago. All-knowing, beautiful Chiara.
Throat tight, eyes blurred with tears, I wave to them all one last time and turn to Dad, his hand on the doorknob. “I’m ready. Let’s go home.
”
”
Kristin Rae (Wish You Were Italian (If Only . . . #2))
“
Within several minutes, we’re at the front of the line. I assume we’re going to keep walking, but the young English couple in front of us has me take their picture, and then they offer to take ours. I open my mouth to decline, but Bruno bursts out with a “Grazie!” and unhooks the camera from my neck, handing it to the woman.
He leads me to the bench and we sit, the sides of our legs touching. My stomach clenches. This is the kissing bench. Not a single couple before us has smiled for the camera. They kiss for the camera.
My eyes lock on the lens like a deer in the headlights. I force a smile, a big one, with teeth. My head nearly vibrates with the strain. This is fine. We’re going to break the trend and smile. Absolutely no kissing.
The woman lifts my camera to her face. “One, two--”
On two, Bruno reaches behind me and cups the back of my head in his hand, turning me to face him. His other hand is on my cheek. His lips press onto mine. The camera clicks.
“WOOOOOO!” echoes around us. One person claps. Bruno pulls away but stares into my eyes for a moment before hopping up and getting my camera back for me.
My head is spinning. I’ve been kissed. In Italy. By an Italian!
I remain seated, stupefied, until a couple shoos me away for their turn, and soon we’re walking the next section of the path along with the English couple. Bruno chats with them--heavy accent enforced--but their words turn to garble. All I hear is He kissed me. Bruno I-don’t-even-know-how-to-pronounce-his-last-name kissed me!
And it was short. Too short.
No. Too long. Shouldn’t have happened. Chiara will kill us if she finds out. But she won’t find out. I’ll hide the picture from her. I’ll delete the picture! No, I have to show Morgan. And I want proof for myself. I’ll just make sure Chiara doesn’t see it. It only happened because it’s what you do at the kissing bench when you’re sitting next to the hottest Italian boy you’ve ever seen.
I just have to stay away from that bench.
”
”
Kristin Rae (Wish You Were Italian (If Only . . . #2))
“
The camera was a hand-held auxiliary of wanting-to-know. It had more than information and accuracy to teach me. I learned in the doing how ready I had to be. Life doesn’t hold still. A good snapshot stopped a moment from running away. Photography taught me that to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was the greatest need I had. Making pictures of people in all sorts of situations, I learned that every feeling waits upon its gesture; and I had to be prepared to recognize this moment when I saw it. These were things a story writer needed to know. And I felt the need to hold transient life in words—there’s so much more of life that only words can convey—strongly enough to last me as long as I lived. The direction my mind took was a writer’s direction from the start, not a photographer’s, or a recorder’s.
”
”
Eudora Welty (One Writer's Beginnings)
“
I switched to email and checked to see if there was anything from Farmer. Still nothing. I fired off an email asking for an update and pulled up Facebook to check Ryan’s feed. Above the wedding day pictures there was a new post about the 10K run he was doing with Abbie, and a link to their JustGiving page. I clicked on it. Their fundraising total was up to £4,390, not far off their target, and near the top of the donation listing I could see why – a £1,000 donation from George Fitzgerald a few weeks ago with the message ‘I always said you were amazing, Abbie. Wishing you all the luck in the world. G xxx’. Wow. I knew George was loaded but hadn’t anticipated he would go quite this far. His donation was the biggest single gift by some way, three times more than I had pledged.
”
”
T.M. Logan (The Catch)
“
Most racism is pushed through media houses. Check the heading, wording and pictures they use, even the cartoons.
Infect, I am starting to think. There is no media that likes black people or people of color. They might downplay it and say it is click bait, but how messed up are you . To use racism as click bait, unless you are racists yourself and see nothing wrong about it.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
Automatically, as it had begun to do in these situations, her brain separated itself, like taking a box out of a box, leaving the original in its place and moving the latter over parallel to the original, though slightly askew. Photographer versus wife, picture taker versus the woman who wanted to scream in the street, who wanted to take the rifles these olive boys wore slung so casually over shoulders and narrow hips and turn them on their owners. And so the entire scene, (five minutes in real time, eternity on celluloid) laid itself out for her in freeze frame. Click, Casey cuffed now to the side of the lorry, morning light washing him over rose and silver and gold, half-naked and barefoot in the street; an Irish man in an Irish street in the twentieth century, hard to countenance and yet there for the clicking, there for the taking. Take the shot, take the picture, leave the pain, it interferes with the work, work now, bleed on the weekends, in the nights, in the quiet, that’s what Lucas had taught her.
”
”
Cindy Brandner (Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears)
“
Do not manhandle me. My answer is no. I'm not for sale."
"But you don't have any family left," said Nicolas, raising an eyebrow.
The next few moments blurred together into one messed-up vision. A fist flying into Nicolas's nose. A loud crack. Blood splattering on Camille's dress. Rémi putting his arm around me. Jane, Phillipa, and Marie racing up to see what the commotion was all about. The clicks of cameras. A nightmare.
"This is private property. You're no longer guests of the château. Leave now," said Rémi as Nicolas scrambled up from the ground. "And stay away, far away from my fiancée, or I'll hunt you down."
Jane, Marie, and Phillipa flanked my sides, supporting my shaky body. Phillipa hissed to Nicolas. "You're wrong. Sophie has a family. She has all of us. And her dad."
I couldn't help but smile. What Phillipa said was true. I had everything.
"He broke my nose," said Nicolas, holding his hand up to his face, blood pouring down like a waterfall. "I'm going to press charges against you, all of you, you pieces of merde."
"Go ahead," said Rémi. "We may not be as wealthy as you are, but we're not doing so bad. You can try to destroy us, but if you know Sophie as well as I do, you know she fights back. And hard. Believe me. Nothing, not you, not me, will stand in her way. You're the only one with a reputation to lose---and from what I've read, most people think you're the scum of the earth."
Camille walked up the steps. "I'm out of here." She stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sophie. I should have known. Small dick, small mind."
"I do not have a small dick," screamed Nicolas, his face turning red.
The guests from the Sunday lunch clasped their hands over their mouths. I felt like I was the star of a B movie. Who were these people? Cartoon characters?
"Oh, yes, you have a small penis. The smallest one I've ever seen," said Camille, winking at me. "And you think with it. Now, take me back to Paris so I can get rid of you. That is, unless you want my Instagram to blow up. Don't forget. I have pictures of your cornichon."
Nicolas raced after Camille. "You salope, those pictures are private."
Camille placed her hands on her skinny hips. "For now," she said.
I had to give Camille credit when it was due; she wasn't a brain-dead model, she was fierce.
”
”
Samantha Verant (Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars (Sophie Valroux #2))
“
When you go outdoors, you’re constantly on your phone updating your social media, clicking pictures, navigating roads, replying to an email, tweeting something, meeting deadlines, or listening to music. Without your phone, you feel handicapped. When we experience a major loss, it’s important to go back to the basics. Nature can help you heal in ways you didn’t think you could. It doesn’t have to be the Himalayas or deep in some woods. Even the park next to you or your backyard can make you feel more connected
”
”
Cortez Ranieri (Grief Of A Parent And Loss: Navigating And Coping With Grief After The Death Of A Parent (Grief and Loss Book 3))
“
Aza [Raskin] said: 'For instance, Facebook tomorrow could start batching your notifications, so you only get one push notification a day ... They could do that tomorrow.' ....So instead of getting 'this constant drip of behavioural cocaine,' telling you every few minutes that somebody liked your picture, commented on your post, has a birthday tomorrow, and on and on - you would get one daily update, like a newspaper, summarising it all. You'd be pushed to look once a day, instead of being interrupted several times an hour.
'Here's another one,' he said 'Infinite scroll. ...it's catching your impulses before your brain has a chance to really get involved and make a decision.' Facebook and Instagram and the others could simply turn off infinite scroll - so that when you get to the bottom of the screen, you have to make a conscious decision to carry on scrolling.
Similarly, these sites could simply switch off the things that have been shown to most polarise people politically, stealing our ability to pay collective attention. Since there's evidence YouTube's recommendation engine is radicalising people, Tristan [Harris] told one interviewer: 'Just turn it off. They can turn it off in a heartbeat.' It's not as if, he points out, the day before recommendations were introduced, people were lost and clamouring for somebody to tell them what to watch next.
Once the most obvious forms of mental pollution have been stopped, they said, we can begin to look deeper, at how these sites could be redesigned to make it easier for you to restrain yourself and think about your longer-term goals. ...there could be a button that says 'here are all your friends who are nearby and are indicating they'd like to meet up today.' You click it, you connect, you put down your phone and hang out with them. Instead of being a vacuum sucking up your attention and keeping it away from the outside world, social media would become a trampoline, sending you back into that world as efficiently as possible, matched with the people you want to see.
Similarly, when you set up (say) a Facebook account, it could ask you how much time you want to spend per day or per week on the site. ...then the website could help you to achieve your goal. One way could be that when you hit that limit, the website could radically slow down. In tests, Amazon found that even 100 milliseconds of delay in the pace at which a page loads results in a substantial drop-off in people sticking around to buy the product. Aza said: 'It just gives your brain a chance to catch up to your impulse and [ask] - do I really want to be here? No.'
In addition, Facebook could ask you at regular intervals - what changes do you want to make to your life? ...then match you up with other people nearby... who say they also want to make that change and have indicated they are looking for the equivalent of gym buddies. ...A battery of scientific evidence shows that if you want to succeed in changing something, you should meet up with groups of people doing the same.
At the moment, they said, social media is designed to grab your attention and sell it to the highest bidder, but it could be designed to understand your intentions and to better help you achieve them. Tristan and Aza told me that it's just as easy to design and program this life-affirming Facebook as the life-draining Facebook we currently have. I think that most people, if you stopped them in the street and painted them a vision of these two Facebooks, would say they wanted the one that serves your intentions. So why isn't it happened? It comes back... to the business model.
”
”
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again)
“
The idea that a gun can “save” anyone in any situation has always seemed suspect to me. A gun is a passive instrument; it does what it’s told to do by a human. And humans make mistakes. I picture a home invasion, someone in bed, asleep, who wakes suddenly to find a stranger in the dark perched over the bed. How does the gun get into the homeowner’s hands? How does the safety get turned off? How does the bullet find its way into the target in those sheer seconds? Maybe it’s a quiet house; the homeowner is awakened, reaches under the mattress, silently gets out the gun, silently clicks off the safety, silently tiptoes downstairs. He can hear the thief, but the thief cannot hear him. Silently, he finds the thief holding a flat-screen TV and he shoots. Maybe it’s a movie theater. Guy walks in in the dark, starts shooting. Somewhere in the audience is another gun, a good guy. He shoots, too. Maybe it’s a hotel room. Guy starts shooting. A dozen people in the crowd have guns, but they’re good guys. Good guns. They start shooting back. How do you identify the good from the bad? The intentional from the accidental? Maybe it’s a sniper at a gas station. Someone with a Toyota has a gun. He’s a good guy. He shoots, too. Maybe it’s a kid, and another kid has a gun. A good kid with a gun. A good teacher with a gun. How do you know, how do I know, how does anyone know who is who, and which gun is which, in those panicky milliseconds? Where to run, how to hide? How does a plastic seat with a fabric top stop a bullet anyway? A car door? A locker door? A speaker? A particle board desktop? Doesn’t matter who’s good and who’s not. Bullets have no moral preference.
”
”
Rachel Louise Snyder (No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us)
“
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Paypal Money Adder Software 90812 Ing Pt Esp
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PayPal Money Adder 10K Free Generator: Your Pathway to Financial Gains.
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PayPal Money Adder Software Key Features:
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Paypal Money Adder Software 90812 Ing Pt Esp
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faster but the picture remained entirely static. The stillness of a deserted office descended and held steady as time rushed by. “When do the cleaners come in?” Reacher asked. “Just before midnight,” Froelich said. “That late?” “They’re night workers. This is a round-the-clock operation.” “And there’s nothing else visible before then?” “Nothing at all.” “So spool ahead. We get the picture.” Froelich operated the buttons and shuttled between fast-forward with snow on the screen and regular-speed playback with a picture to check the timecode. At eleven-fifty P.M. she let the tape run. The counter clicked ahead, a second at a time. At eleven fifty-two there was motion at the far end of the corridor. A team of three people emerged from the gloom. There were two women and a man, all of them wearing dark overalls. They looked Hispanic. They were all short and compact, dark-haired, stoic. The man was pushing a cart. It had a black garbage bag locked into a hoop at the front, and trays stacked with cloths and spray bottles on shelves at the rear. One of the women was carrying a vacuum cleaner. It rode on
”
”
Lee Child (Without Fail (Jack Reacher, #6))
“
For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your team. Picture that person (or people). Each has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. You’ve got to reach both. And you’ve also got to clear the way for them to succeed. In short, you must do three things: → DIRECT the Rider FOLLOW THE BRIGHT SPOTS. Investigate what’s working and clone it. [Jerry Sternin in Vietnam, solutions-focused therapy] SCRIPT THE CRITICAL MOVES. Don’t think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors. [1% milk, four rules at the Brazilian railroad] POINT TO THE DESTINATION. Change is easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it. [“You’ll be third graders soon,” “No dry holes” at BP] → MOTIVATE the Elephant FIND THE FEELING. Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change. Make people feel something. [Piling gloves on the table, the chemotherapy video game, Robyn Waters’s demos at Target] SHRINK THE CHANGE. Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant. [The 5-Minute Room Rescue, procurement reform] GROW YOUR PEOPLE. Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset. [Brasilata’s “inventors,” junior-high math kids’ turnaround] → SHAPE the Path TWEAK THE ENVIRONMENT. When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation. [Throwing out the phone system at Rackspace, 1-Click ordering, simplifying the online time sheet] BUILD HABITS. When behavior is habitual, it’s “free”—it doesn’t tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits. [Setting “action triggers,” eating two bowls of soup while dieting, using checklists] RALLY THE HERD. Behavior is contagious. Help it spread. [“Fataki” in Tanzania, “free spaces” in hospitals, seeding the tip jar] ————— OVERCOMING OBSTACLES ————— Here we list twelve common problems that people encounter as they fight for change, along with some advice about overcoming them. (Note
”
”
Chip Heath (Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard)
“
Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed
barn in America. We drove twenty-two miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows
and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE
MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There
were forty cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated
spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto
lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides--pictures of the barn taken from the elevated
spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged
silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.
"No one sees the barn," he said finally.
A long silence followed.
"Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced at once by others.
"We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the
aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies."
There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.
"Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who
were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective
perception. This literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."
Another silence ensued.
"They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.
13
He did not speak for a while. We listened to the incessant clicking of shutter release buttons, the
rustling crank of levers that advanced the film.
"What was the barn like before it was photographed?" he said. "What did it look like, how was it
different from other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can't answer these questions because
we've read the. signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of
the aura. We're here, we're now."
He seemed immensely pleased by this.
”
”
Don DeLillo
“
No matter how many red Xs we write on our hands to end slavery, as long as these same hands are clicking on pornographic websites and scrolling through sexual pictures and videos, we are frauds to the core.
”
”
David Platt (A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture in a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Abortion, Persecution, Orphans and Pornography)
“
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”
”
Minecrafty Family Books (Trapped in Minecraft! (Diary of a Wimpy Steve, #1))
“
Picture Perfect A few evenings into my bath time assignation, I heard clicking sounds from a camera shutter, every few seconds. As curious as I was to know who the photographer was, I was also excited by his voyeurism. It was curiosity versus exhibitionism; I wondered if I should discard my mask or just continue to be mystified and enjoy my lover and the voyeur. As the sounds of clicking magnified within my head, I rose to the occasion, giving a performance to whom-ever was viewing my lover and me through his lens. My overwhelming curiosity was too much. Whispering into my partner's ear I said, "Tell me, who’s taking the photographs." My seducer replied, "A friend who already knows our deepest darkest secrets." "Who and what might those secrets be?” I whispered into his ear in the heat of our passionate caresses. "Someone whom we adore -- you will find out when we return to your room because he is joining us tonight.
”
”
Young (Initiation (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 1))
“
Simply go to Google and click on the Google image tab. Once there, choose various words at random. We might put in “squid” and then look at all the pictures the word squid generates. Print out one or two images generated by the word squid. Then pick another word at random such as “architect.” Pick two images under the architect category and print them out as well. After you go through a series of ten random words and have printed pictures, these are used as a Random Stimulation exercise. Here’s how it would work in a group setting. We would say to the group, “We are currently trying to figure out a way of increasing sales and revenue” (from the bowling ball company example). Now we ask the group to set that problem aside and look at a stack of random images. When looking at the images the group members are only to say what those images remind them of, as a facilitator writes down the phrases and words they mention.
”
”
Steven Rowell (Jumpstart Your Creativity: 10 Jolts To Get Creative And Stay Creative)
“
I clicked on the link, which showed a picture of a reed-thin blond woman with an artfully tousled chignon smiling as she stood
”
”
Jojo Moyes (After You (Me Before You, #2))
“
We expose our most sensitive personal information any time we
Pick up a phone, respond to a text, click on a link, or carelessly provide personal information to someone we don’t know;
Fail to properly secure computers or devices;
Create easy-to-crack passwords;
Discard, rather than shred, documents that contain PII;
Respond to an email that directs us to call a number we can’t independently confirm, or complete an attachment that asks for our PII in an insecure environment;
Save our user ID or password on a website or in an app as a shortcut for future logins;
Use the same user ID or password throughout our financial, social networking, and email universes;
Take [online] quizzes that subtly ask for information we’ve provided as the answers to security questions on various websites.
Snap pictures with our smartphone or digital camera without disabling the geotagging function;
Use our email address as a user name/ID, if we have the option to change it;
Use PINS like 1234 or a birthday;
Go twenty-four hours without reviewing our bank and credit card accounts to make absolutely sure that every transaction we see is familiar;
Fail to enroll in free transactional monitoring programs offered by banks, credit unions, and credit card providers that notify us every time there is any activity in our accounts;
Use a free Wi-Fi network [i.e. cafés or even airports] without confirming it is correctly identified and secure, to check email or access financial services websites that contain our sensitive data.
”
”
Adam Levin (Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers, and Identity Thieves)
“
Spoon smiled and held up a palm. I high-fived him. I clicked the link for student files and then typed in the name: Kent, Ashley. When her photograph came up—the one we’d both taken for student IDs the first day of school—I felt a hand reach into my chest and squeeze my heart. “Man,” Spoon said, “no wonder you want to find her.” If you were creating a graphic dictionary and needed a definition of demure, you would use her expression in this picture. She looked pretty, sure, beautiful even, but what you really felt was that she was quiet and shy and somewhat uncomfortable posing. Something about it—something about her, really—called out to me.
”
”
Harlan Coben (Shelter (Mickey Bolitar, #1))
“
I kiss her softly and watch our baby as she feeds him for the first time. I take a mental picture of it—Click! Click!—but I won’t share it with anyone. This picture is only for me.
”
”
Tammy Falkner (Proving Paul's Promise (The Reed Brothers, #5))
“
I don’t take kindly to any of you shanty boys touching me,” she said. “So unless I give you permission, from now on, you’d best keep your hands off me.” With the last word, she lifted her boot and brought the heel down on Jimmy’s toes. She ground it hard. Like most of the other shanty boys, at the end of a day out in the snow, he’d taken off his wet boots and layers of damp wool socks to let them dry overnight before donning them again for the next day’s work. Jimmy cursed, but before he could move, she brought her boot down on his other foot with a smack that rivaled a gun crack. This time he howled. And with an angry curse, he shoved her hard, sending her sprawling forward. She flailed her arms in a futile effort to steady herself and instead found herself falling against Connell McCormick. His arms encircled her, but the momentum of her body caused him to lose his balance. He stumbled backward. “Whoa! Hold steady!” Her skirt and legs tangled with his, and they careened toward the rows of dirty damp socks hanging in front of the fireplace. The makeshift clotheslines caught them and for a moment slowed their tumble. But against their full weight, the ropes jerked loose from the nails holding them to the beams. In an instant, Lily found herself falling. She twisted and turned among the clotheslines but realized that her thrashing was only lassoing her against Connell. In the downward tumble, Connell slammed into a chair near the fireplace. Amidst the tangle of limbs and ropes, she was helpless to do anything but drop into his lap. With a thud, she landed against him. Several socks hung from his head and covered his face. Dirty socks covered her shoulders and head too. Their stale rotten stench swarmed around her. And for a moment she was conscious only of the fact that she was near to gagging from the odor. She tried to lift a hand to move the sock hanging over one of her eyes but found that her arms were pinned to her sides. She tilted her head and then blew sideways at the crusty, yellowed linen. But it wouldn’t budge. Again she shook her head—this time more emphatically. Still the offending article wouldn’t fall away. Through the wig of socks covering Connell’s head, she could see one of his eyes peeking at her, watching her antics. The corner of his lips twitched with the hint of a smile. She could only imagine what she looked like. If it was anything like him, she must look comical. As he cocked his head and blew at one of his socks, she couldn’t keep from smiling at the picture they both made, helplessly drenched in dirty socks, trying to remove them with nothing but their breath. “Welcome to Harrison.” His grin broke free. “You know how to make a girl feel right at home.” She wanted to laugh. But as he straightened himself in the chair, she became at once conscious of the fact that she was sitting directly in his lap and that the other men in the room were hooting and calling out over her intimate predicament. She scrambled to move off him. But the ropes had tangled them together, and her efforts only caused her to fall against him again. She was not normally a blushing woman, but the growing indecency of her situation was enough to chase away any humor she may have found in the situation and make a chaste woman like herself squirm with embarrassment. “I’d appreciate your help,” she said, struggling again to pull her arms free of the rope. “Or do all you oafs make a sport of manhandling women?” “All you oafs?” His grin widened. “Are you insinuating that I’m an oaf?” “What in the hairy hound is going on here?” She jumped at the boom of Oren’s voice and the slam of the door. The room turned quiet enough to hear the click-click of Oren pulling down the lever of his rifle. She glanced over her shoulder to the older man, to the fierceness of his drawn eyebrows and the deadly anger in his eyes as he took in her predicament.
”
”
Jody Hedlund (Unending Devotion (Michigan Brides, #1))
“
Addison ran up to Jimmy and scooped him up into her arms. "I knew you could do it, Jimmy. Good job." "Thanks," Jimmy said as he smiled and hugged Addison. A reporter clicked his camera. The picture of a little girl hugging her friend, the Champion of Callas County, hangs to this day in the Frog Jumping Hall of Fame next to a small plaque that reads: "Because he never gave up, Jimmy is considered to be the best jumping frog in history." Activities, Ideas and Education 1.Draw pictures of Jimmy doing all the things he does in this story. •As an egg wiggling •As a tadpole swishing his tail •As a tadpole with legs racing around the pond •As a froglet climbing out of the pond •As a grown frog going to the race track •Talking to Addison at the pond •At the starting line ready to jump •Jumping higher than the trees •Landing
”
”
M. Sterling Jones (Jimmy the Racing Frog)
“
A shutter is clicked, a flash goes off and you've stopped time. If just for a blink of an eye. And if these pictures have anything to say to the future generation, it is this 'I was here, I existed, I was young, I was happy and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture.
”
”
S.J. Parris
“
2. Action Following the trigger comes the action: the behavior done in anticipation of a reward. The simple action of clicking on the interesting picture in her newsfeed takes Barbra to a website called Pinterest,
”
”
Nir Eyal (Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products)
“
He clicked through a dozen of them until he found a picture of a dark, curly haired woman, ample, smiling, appearing much younger than sixty, so familiar-looking that he was immediately attracted to her simply because he found familiarity, rare these days, so comforting. He opened her ad and realized he was staring at a picture of his wife,
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Jami Attenberg (The Middlesteins)
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Every now and then, I think my thoughts are fixed on one thing, and in fact they are not. When this happens, they will quite often clear their throat politely to get my attention, and then let me know what I was really thinking. And as I sat there in Dadeland Mall remembering Dear Doris, I heard a soft but very distinct ahem coming from an unused corner of my brain. I politely turned my focus there, expecting to hear a request for one more slice of the awful pizza. But what I found instead was much, much tastier. So much better, in fact, that I had That Feeling again. Once more I picked up my phone, and this time I had only good feelings about the device. In fact, I regretted ever disliking it—what a marvelous piece of equipment it was! It can take pictures, send text messages, access the Internet, become a GPS or a dictating machine or a hundred other things—and even make phone calls! And on top of all that wonderful possibility, it can send e-mails! Working quickly, I began to use a few of those splendid features. I went online and found a site that allows you to book hotel rooms; I booked one at the Galleon in South Miami under the name of Brian Murphy, the name that had been on my brother’s fake credit card. The site allowed me to pick a room and I chose Room 1221 for no particular reason, pressed confirm, and clicked off.
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Jeff Lindsay (Dexter Is Dead (Dexter, #8))
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Doom, meanwhile, had a long-term impact on the world of gaming far exceeding even that of Myst. The latest of a series of experiments with interactive 3D graphics by id programmer John Carmack, Doom shares with Myst only its immersive first-person point of view; in all other respects, this fast-paced, ultraviolent shooter is the polar opposite of the cerebral Myst. Whereas the world of Myst is presented as a collection of static nodes that the player can move among, each represented by a relatively static picture of its own, the world of Doom is contiguous. As the player roams about, Doom must continually recalculate in real time the view of the world that it presents to her on the screen, in effect drawing for her a completely new picture with every frame using a vastly simplified version of the 3D-rendering techniques that Eric Graham began experimenting with on the Amiga back in 1986. First-person viewpoints had certainly existed in games previously, but mostly in the context of flight simulators, of puzzle-oriented adventures such as Myst, or of space-combat games such as Elite. Doom has a special quality that those earlier efforts lack in that the player embodies her avatar as she moves through 3D space in a way that feels shockingly, almost physically real. She does not view the world through a windscreen, is not separated from it by an adventure game’s point-and-click mechanics and static artificiality. Doom marks a revolutionary change in action gaming, the most significant to come about between the videogame’s inception and the present. If the player directs the action in a game such as Menace, Doom makes her feel as if she is in the action, in the game’s world. Given the Amiga platform’s importance as a tool for noninteractive 3D rendering, it is ironic that the Amiga is uniquely unsuited to Doom and the many iterations and clones of it that would follow. Most of the Amiga attributes that we employed in the Menace reconstruction—its scrolling playfields, its copper, its sprites—are of no use to a 3D-engine programmer. Indeed, the Intel-based machines on which Carmack created Doom possess none of these features. Even the Amiga’s bitplane-based playfields, the source of so many useful graphical tricks and hacks when programming a 2D game such as Menace, are an impediment and annoyance in a game such as Doom. Much preferable are the Intel-based machines’ straightforward chunky playfields because these layouts are much easier to work with when every frame of video must be drawn afresh from scratch. What is required most of all for a game such as Doom is sufficient raw processing power to perform the necessary thousands of calculations needed to render each frame quickly enough to support the frenetic action for which the game is known. By 1993, the plebian Intel-based computer, so long derided by Amiga owners for its inefficiencies and lack of design imagination, at last possessed this raw power. The Amiga simply had no answer to the Intel 80486s and Pentiums that powered this new, revolutionary genre of first-person shooters. Throughout
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Jimmy Maher (The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga (Platform Studies))
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The echolocation clicks of sperm whales are very powerful, allowing detection of prey and other things at longer ranges than vision or other senses can manage underwater.9 Sonar can also be very precise. Dolphins and porpoises with their higher frequency echolocation can build detailed pictures of their surroundings. Sonar
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Hal Whitehead (The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins)
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pops her head out of her room, scrubs her eyes, and toddles over to me. She looks up at me, sleepy-eyed. She’s so damn cute in her frilly jammies that it makes my chest ache sometimes just to look at her. I force myself to stop and take mental pictures of her so I won’t forget these moments. I stop time in my head—click!—and try to remember the frame for a while. She won’t be this little forever.
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Tammy Falkner (Proving Paul's Promise (The Reed Brothers, #5))
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I get up and go to check on Friday and Hayley, but I stumble to a stop when I turn the corner into Hayley’s room. They’re both asleep on the bed on their stomachs with an open book in front of them. Friday has changed into her pajamas and it looks as though she was reading to Hayley when they both fell asleep. But what kills me is that their noses are turned toward one another, so close they’re sharing breaths, and my daughter’s hand is tucked into Friday’s. I take a mental picture, because I never, ever want to forget what this feels like. Click! Click! Click! I cement it in my head, because my heart is so happy it’s ready to burst, and I don’t want to let this moment go. I don’t wake them up. Instead, I pick up some of the toys Hayley has left lying around the room. I put her dolls on the top shelf, and her trucks and matchbox cars go in the bucket at the foot of her bed. I laugh when I see they built a big house out of building blocks and they put one of her male actions figures in there with Barbie. I look closer. Are their faces pressed together? It looks almost like they’re kissing. Leave it to Friday… Friday sat and played with my daughter for two hours, and then she read to her and she fell asleep on her bed. I want to see this every night for the rest of my life.
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Tammy Falkner (Proving Paul's Promise (The Reed Brothers, #5))