“
But a part of me lies buried in lace and roses on a riverbank in France-a part of me is broken off forever. A part of me will be unflyable, stuck in the climb.
”
”
Elizabeth Wein (Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity, #1))
“
Oh, sorry, love. I was just getting out of the shower when I heard this loud commotion in front of my door.” Jake gave her a sloppy grin. “I didn’t realize there was a dress code when coming to the aid of a beautiful neighbor. I’ll keep it in mind for the next time I come running.
”
”
Diane Merrill Wigginton (A Compromising Position)
“
I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and ats the horseradish loves the miyagi, and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness of the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written.
I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp... I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close... I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don't marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else--and i will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all. That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters)
“
Sam's phone buzzed. She fished it out of her pocket, checked the screen, and cursed. "I have to go."
"You just got here."
"Valkyrie business. Possible code three-eight-one: heroic death in progress."
"You're making that up."
"I'm not."
"So...what, somebody thinks they're about to die and they text you 'Going down! Need Valkyrie ASAP!' followed by a bunch of sad-face emojis?
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #2))
“
It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we'd read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.
”
”
Aimee Bender (The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake)
“
I envisaged a perfect detective’s assistant. She’d have long, wavy blonde hair, a short skirt, and curves in all the right places. She’d have a genius IQ, know how to hack and code, and be available at all hours. Now, make her into a robot. Sadly, I mentally removed her body, leaving a phone app.
”
”
Grahame Shannon (Tiger and the Robot (Chandler Gray, #1))
“
I KNOW THE WAY YOU CAN GET
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.
Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.
O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:
You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.
You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.
I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.
That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.
That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!
All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!
”
”
null
“
I hate it when I eat my last bite, not realizing it’s the last bite, then immediately get sad because I wasn’t able to mentally prepare.
”
”
Lani Lynn Vale (Bang Switch (Code 11-KPD SWAT, #3))
“
I'm coming for you Newt
”
”
James Dashner (The Fever Code (The Maze Runner, #0.5))
“
He looked at her, but he was only a shadow now. Livia gave him a warning look. He shook his head sadly and in total defeat. Standing in the house of a man who’d brought him food, with his daughter holding his hand, seemed to break some sort of honor code for Blake.
Livia felt her heart beating in her ears. “Don’t give up on me. Please,” she said softly.
”
”
Debra Anastasia (Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Brotherhood, #1))
“
I confess that I am now suspicious of nearly every attempt to code anger as unhealthy, no matter how well meaning or persuasive the source. I believe Stanton was correct: what is bad for women, when it comes to anger, are the messages that cause us to bottle it up, let it fester, keep it silent, feel shame, and isolation for ever having felt it or re-channel it in inappropriate directions. What is good for us is opening our mouths and letting it out, permitting ourselves to feel it and say it and think it and act on it and integrate it into our lives, just as we integrate joy and sadness and worry and optimism.
”
”
Rebecca Traister (Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger)
“
I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt form the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love you until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters)
“
You can tell all of us are morphing into full-blown adults, wingtip adults, because all the time now the Big Question is, What are you going to do? After the summer, about your scholarship, about choosing a college, after graduation, with the rest of your life. When you are thirteen, the question is, Smooth or crunchy? That's it. Later, at the onset of full-blown adulthood, the Big Question changes a little bit - instead of, What are you going to do? it turns into, What do you do? I hear it all the time when my parents have parties, all the men standing around. After they talk sports, they always ask, What do you do? It's just part of the code that they mean "for a living" because no one ever answers it by saying, I go for walks and listen to music full-blast and don't care about my hearing thirty years from now, and I drink milk out of the carton, and I cough when someone lights up a cigarette, and I dig rainy days because they make me sad in a way I like, and I read books until I fall asleep holding them, and I put on sock-shoe, sock-shoe instead of sock-sock, shoe-shoe because I think it's better luck. Never that. People are always in something. I'm in advertising. I'm in real estate. I'm in sales and marketing.
”
”
Brad Barkley (Jars of Glass)
“
My father's face, when he said that, dissolved into a stillness, a sad expression, sadder than human feeling.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Tree of Codes)
“
The world of publishing is in crisis. It's no coincidence that the worst published writer in the world today is also one of the world's most successful writers... Dan Brown. Now Dan Brown is not a good writer, The Da Vinci Code is not literature. Dan Brown writes sentences like "The famous man looked at the red cup." ...and it's only to be hoped that Dan Brown never gets a job where he's required to break bad news. "Doctor is he going to be alright?" "The seventy five year old man died a painful death on the large green table... it was sad".
”
”
Stewart Lee
“
And he would put his arms around her and hold her, but he had no idea what to tell her. In his mind, Gregor knew how to kill things, not bring them back ti life.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Gregor and the Code of Claw (Underland Chronicles, #5))
“
It's not just love, or desire, but something profoundly less complex, as unadorned and simple as the vehicle code. Officer laughs, cries. Tearful and giddy, she whales on her demonstrator with what she realizes is joy in her heart.
”
”
Daniel Orozco (Orientation and Other Stories)
“
The whole of the Sermon [Matt 5-7] is framed within Jesus's announcement that what his fellow Jews had longed for over many generations was now at last coming to pass - but that new kingdom didn't look like they had thought it would. Indeed, in some ways it went in exactly the other direction. No violence, no hatred of enemies, no anxious protection of land and property against the pagan hordes. In short, no frantic intensification of the ancestral codes of life. Rather, a glad and unworried trust in the creator God, whose kingdom is now at last starting to arrive, leading to a glad and generous heart toward other people, even those who are technically "enemies." Faith, hope, and love: here they are again. They are the language of life, the sign in the present of green shoots growing through the concrete of this sad old world, the indication that the creator God is on the move, and that Jesus's hearers and followers can be part of what he's now doing.
”
”
N.T. Wright
“
It’s a condition of our mortality. We have codes of manners to allay and minimise it, jokes and routines, and so many forms of diversion and distraction. But there is panic and pandemonium waiting to break out inside all of us, of this I am convinced. I’ve seen it roar out among the dying, as a last protest against the human condition and its chronic sadness. But it is there in the most balanced and rational of us. You just need the right circumstances, and it will surely appear. And then you are at its mercy. The panic takes some to God, others to despair, some to charitable works, others to drink, some to emotional oblivion, others to a life where they hope that nothing serious will ever trouble them again.
”
”
Julian Barnes (The Only Story)
“
I don't even know her
But I feel a responsibility to do what's upstanding and right
It's kinda like a code, yeah
And you've been getting closer and closer, and crossing so many lines
And it would be a fine proposition
If I was a stupid girl
But honey, I am no-one's exception
This I have previously learned
You understand perfectly
You're the kind of man who makes me sad
While she waits up
You chase down the newest thing and take for granted what you have
And it would be a fine proposition
If I was a stupid girl
And yeah, I might go with it
If I hadn't once been just like her
Don't look at me
You've got a girl at home
And everybody knows that
Everybody knows that
Don't look at me.
”
”
EJR
“
In other circumstances, Ivan might have offered him a job. Sadly, with a few notable meta exceptions, dead men didn’t code very well.
”
”
Drew Hayes (Forging Hephaestus (Villains' Code, #1))
“
We were sitting side by side, with our legs swinging on the wall of the tower, and the Clouds™ were all turning pink in front of us. We could see all these miles of filet mignon from where we were sitting, and some places where the genetic coding had gone wrong and there, in the middle of the beef, the tissue had formed a horn or an eye or a heart blinking up at the sunset, which was this brag red, and which hit on all these miles of muscle and made it flex and quiver, with all these shudders running across the top of it, and birds were flying over, crying kind of sad, maybe looking for garbage, and the whole thing, with the beef and the birds and the sky, it glowed like there was a light inside it, which it was time to show us now.
”
”
M.T. Anderson (Feed)
“
Although Galileo was a devout Catholic, it was his conflict with the Vatican, sadly mismanaged on both sides, that lay at the basis of the running battle between science and religion, a tragic and confusing schism which persists unresolved. More than ever today, religion finds its revelatory truths threatened by scientific theory, and retreats into a defensive corner, while scientists go into the attack insisting that rational argument is the only valid criterion for an understanding of the workings of the universe. Maybe both sides have misunderstood the nature of their respective roles. Scientists are equipped to answer the mechanical question of how the universe and everything in it, including life, came about. But since their modes of thought are dictated by purely rational, materialistic criteria, physicists cannot claim to answer the questions of why the universe exists, and why we human beings are here to observe it, any more than molecular biologists can satisfactorily explain why – if our actions are determined by the workings of a selfish genetic coding – we occasionally listen to the voice of conscience and behave with altruism, compassion and generosity. Even these human qualities have come under attack from evolutionary psychologists who have ascribed altruism to a crude genetic theory by which familial cooperation is said to favour the survival of the species. Likewise the spiritual sophistication of musical, artistic and poetic activity is regarded as just a highly advanced function of primitive origins.
”
”
Jane Hawking (Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen)
“
I wrote her name in the sand, left coded messages on trees, believed in the compatibility of souls, was sad when she didn't appear for meetings to which I hadn't invited her. In short, I was in love.
”
”
Igor Štiks (A Castle in Romagna)
“
I thought depression just meant that you’re sad.” “Well, in lay terms it does, but the fact is that long-term sadness is now known as clinical depression and it is directly caused by neurohormonal imbalance or the inability of specific receptors in the brain to function correctly.
”
”
Craig Hurren (The Killing Code)
“
Two literary figures bridge the gap between the mediaeval age and the Renaissance. They are Sir Thomas Malory, the author of Le Morte D'Arthur, and the first 'poet-laureate', John Skelton. In their entirely separate ways, they made distinctive contributions to the history of literature and to the growth of English as a literary language.
........
Le Morte D'Arthur is, in a way, the climax of a tradition of writing, bringing together myth and history, with an emphasis on chivalry as a kind of moral code of honour. The supernatural and fantastic aspects of the story, as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, are played down, and the more political aspects, of firm government and virtue, emphasised. It was a book for the times. The Wars of the Roses ended in the same year as Le Morte D'Arthur was published. Its values were to influence a wide readership for many years to come. There is sadness, rather than heroism, in Arthur's final battle..
......
John Skelton is one of the unjustly neglected figures of literature. His reputation suffered at the hands of one of the earliest critics of poetry, George Puttenham, and he is not easily categorised in terms of historical period, since he falls between clearly identified periods like 'mediaeval' and 'Renaissance'. He does not fit in easily either because of the kinds of poetry he wrote. But he is one of the great experimenters, and one of the funniest poets in English.
”
”
Ronald Carter (The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland)
“
My mom was a sayyed from the bloodline of the Prophet (which you know about now). In Iran, if you convert from Islam to Christianity or Judaism, it’s a capital crime.
That means if they find you guilty in religious court, they kill you. But if you convert to something else, like Buddhism or something, then it’s not so bad. Probably because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sister religions, and you always have the worst fights with your sister.
And probably nothing happens if you’re just a six-year-old. Except if you say, “I’m a Christian now,” in your school, chances are the Committee will hear about it and raid your house, because if you’re a Christian now, then so are your parents probably. And the Committee does stuff way worse than killing you.
When my sister walked out of her room and said she’d met Jesus, my mom knew all that.
And here is the part that gets hard to believe: Sima, my mom, read about him and became a Christian too. Not just a regular one, who keeps it in their pocket. She fell in love. She wanted everybody to have what she had, to be free, to realize that in other religions you have rules and codes and obligations to follow to earn good things, but all you had to do with Jesus was believe he was the one who died for you.
And she believed.
When I tell the story in Oklahoma, this is the part where the grown-ups always interrupt me. They say, “Okay, but why did she convert?”
Cause up to that point, I’ve told them about the house with the birds in the walls, all the villages my grandfather owned, all the gold, my mom’s own medical practice—all the amazing things she had that we don’t have anymore because she became a Christian.
All the money she gave up, so we’re poor now.
But I don’t have an answer for them.
How can you explain why you believe anything? So I just say what my mom says when people ask her. She looks them in the eye with the begging hope that they’ll hear her and she says, “Because it’s true.”
Why else would she believe it?
It’s true and it’s more valuable than seven million dollars in gold coins, and thousands of acres of Persian countryside, and ten years of education to get a medical degree, and all your family, and a home, and the best cream puffs of Jolfa, and even maybe your life.
My mom wouldn’t have made the trade otherwise.
If you believe it’s true, that there is a God and He wants you to believe in Him and He sent His Son to die for you—then it has to take over your life. It has to be worth more than everything else, because heaven’s waiting on the other side.
That or Sima is insane.
There’s no middle. You can’t say it’s a quirky thing she thinks sometimes, cause she went all the way with it.
If it’s not true, she made a giant mistake.
But she doesn’t think so.
She had all that wealth, the love of all those people she helped in her clinic. They treated her like a queen. She was a sayyed.
And she’s poor now.
People spit on her on buses. She’s a refugee in places people hate refugees, with a husband who hits harder than a second-degree black belt because he’s a third-degree black belt. And she’ll tell you—it’s worth it. Jesus is better.
It’s true.
We can keep talking about it, keep grinding our teeth on why Sima converted, since it turned the fate of everybody in the story. It’s why we’re here hiding in Oklahoma.
We can wonder and question and disagree. You can be certain she’s dead wrong.
But you can’t make Sima agree with you.
It’s true.
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
This whole story hinges on it.
Sima—who was such a fierce Muslim that she marched for the Revolution, who studied the Quran the way very few people do read the Bible and knew in her heart that it was true.
”
”
Daniel Nayeri (Everything Sad Is Untrue)
“
Any animal can fuck. But only humans can experience sexual passion, something wholly different from the biological urge to mate. And sexual passion’s endured for millennia as a vital psychic force in human life — not despite impediments but because of them. Plain old coitus becomes erotically charged and spiritually potent at just those points where impediments, conflicts, taboos, and consequences lend it a double-edged character — meaningful sex is both an overcoming and a succumbing, a transcendence and a transgression, triumphant and terrible and ecstatic and sad. Turtles and gnats can mate, but only the human will can defy, transgress, overcome, love: choose.
History-wise, both nature and culture have been ingenious at erecting impediments that give the choice of passion its price and value: religious proscriptions; penalties for adultery and divorce; chivalric chastity and courtly decorum; the stigma of illegitimate birth; chaperonage; madonna/whore complexes; syphilis; back-alley abortions; a set of “moral” codes that put sensuality on a taboo-level with defecation and apostasy… from the Victorians’ dread of the body to early TV’s one-foot-on-the-floor-at-all-times rule; from the automatic ruin of “fallen” women to back-seat tussles in which girlfriends struggled to deny boyfriends what they begged for in order to preserve their respect. Granted, from 1996’s perspective, most of the old sexual dragons look stupid and cruel. But we need to realize that they had something big in their favor: as long as the dragons reigned, sex wasn’t casual, not ever. Historically, human sexuality has been a deadly serious business — and the fiercer its dragons, the seriouser sex got; and the higher the price of choice, the higher the erotic voltage surrounding what people chose."
-from "Back in New Fire
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Both Flesh and Not: Essays)
“
So we call upon the author to explain
(Doop doop doop doop dooop)
Our myxomatoid kids spraddle the streets, we've shunned them from the greasy-grind The poor little things, they look so sad and old as they mount us from behind I ask them to desist and to refrain And then we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop)Rosary clutched in his hand, he died with tubes up his nose
And a cabal of angels with finger cymbals chanted his name in code
We shook our fists at the punishing rain And we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop)
He said everything is messed up around here, everything is banal and jejune
There is a planetary conspiracy against the likes of you and me in this idiot constituency of the moon
Well, he knew exactly who to blame
And we call upon the author to explain
(Doop doop doop doop dooop)
Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!
Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!(Doop doop doop doop dooop) Well, I go guruing down the street, young people gather round my feet Ask me things, but I don't know where to start They ignite the power-trail ssstraight to my father's heart And once again I call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...)We call upon the author to explain Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought? I feel like a vacuum cleaner, a complete sucker, it's fucked up and he is a fucker But what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain
I call upon the author to explain
(Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) Oh rampant discrimination, mass poverty, third world debt, infectious diseease
Global inequality and deepening socio-economic divisions Well, it does in your brain And we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) Now hang on, my friend Doug is tapping on the window (Hey Doug, how you been?) Brings me back a book on holocaust poetry complete with pictures Then tells me to get ready for the rain And we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) I say prolix! Prolix! Something a pair of scissors can fix
Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best!
He wrote like wet papier mache, went the Heming-way weirdly on wings and with maximum pain We call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) Down in my bolthole I see they've published another volume of unreconstructed rubbish "The waves, the waves were soldiers moving". Well, thank you, thank you, thank you
And again I call upon the author to explain Yeah, we call upon the author to explain Prolix! Prolix! There's nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!
”
”
Nick Cave
“
The mass media causes sexual misdirection: It prompts us to need something deeper than what we want. This is why Woody Allen has made nebbish guys cool; he makes people assume there is something profound about having a relationship based on witty conversation and intellectual discourse. There isn’t. It’s just another gimmick, and it’s no different than wanting to be with someone because they’re thin or rich or the former lead singer of Whiskeytown. And it actually might be worse, because an intellectual relationship isn’t real at all. My witty banter and cerebral discourse is always completely contrived. Right now, I have three and a half dates worth of material, all of which I pretend to deliver spontaneously.
This is my strategy: If I can just coerce women into the last half of that fourth date, it’s anyone’s ball game. I’ve beaten the system; I’ve broken the code; I’ve slain the Minotaur. If we part ways on that fourth evening without some kind of conversational disaster, she probably digs me. Or at least she thinks she digs me, because who she digs is not really me. Sadly, our relationship will not last ninety-three minutes (like Annie Hall) or ninety-six minutes (like Manhattan). It will go on for days or weeks or months or years, and I’ve already used everything in my vault. Very soon, I will have nothing more to say, and we will be sitting across from each other at breakfast, completely devoid of banter; she will feel betrayed and foolish, and I will suddenly find myself actively trying to avoid spending time with a woman I didn’t deserve to be with in the first place.
”
”
Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto)
“
Ilium employs Seymour to help overwrite “potentially undesirable items inside the raw image sets”. Over the years, Seymour begins to rebel, hiding bits of code in Ilium’s system that, if touched, reveal the gritty reality beneath the corporation’s glossy alterations. Why does Seymour decide to stop cooperating with Ilium? Do you agree with Seymour, that it is important to remember the past in its entirety, sadness, ugliness, and all? Why or why not?
”
”
Anthony Doerr (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
“
You’re a grown-up, these days. You don’t wear a kamikaze pilot’s rising sun headband and a tee-shirt that screams DEBUG THIS! and you don’t spend your weekends competing in extreme programming slams at a windy campsite near Frankfurt, but it’s generally difficult for you to use any machine that doesn’t have at least one compiler installed: In fact, you had to stick Python on your phone before you even opened its address book because not being able to brainwash it left you feeling handicapped, like you were a passenger instead of a pilot. In another age you would have been a railway mechanic or a grease monkey crawling over the spark plugs of a DC-3. This is what you are, and the sad fact is, they can put the code monkey in a suit but they can’t take the code out of the monkey.
”
”
Charles Stross (Halting State (Halting State, #1))
“
The first of us who were set free weren’t the worst of the lot, though we were some of the most powerful. More than anything, I think we valued freedom and adventure over society’s regulations. Perhaps, in another time, we’d have been cowboys, or pirates, or settlers. Sadly, when you pair the kind of power we had with that spirit and youth, you often end up with criminals. But after being chained down, we saw that our kind needed some rules, even if they were only bare-bones, so that we could have that freedom we craved so dearly. In the course of it, we also realized that some metas would never be cowed by the threats of those chained by law. They would only respond to the thing they respected: power. In that way, the guild was founded to guide those of us who sought freedom and to contain those of us who sought destruction.” Tori
”
”
Drew Hayes (Forging Hephaestus (Villains' Code, #1))
“
I didn’t realise that there was panic inside her. How could I have guessed? I thought it was just inside me. Now, I realise, rather late in the day, that it is in everyone. It’s a condition of our mortality. We have codes of manners to allay and minimise it, jokes and routines, and so many forms of diversion and distraction. But there is panic and pandemonium waiting to break out inside all of us, of this I am convinced. I’ve seen it roar out among the dying, as a last protest against the human condition and its chronic sadness. But it is there in the most balanced and rational of us. You just need the right circumstances, and it will surely appear. And then you are at its mercy. The panic takes some to God, others to despair, some to charitable works, others to drink, some to emotional oblivion, others to a life where they hope that nothing serious will ever trouble them again.
”
”
Julian Barnes (The Only Story)
“
Is there a difference between having been coded to present a vast set of standardized responses to certain human facial, vocal, and linguistic states and having evolved to exhibit response B to input A in order to bring about a desired social result?
...
What I mean is, you call it feelings when you cry, but you are only expressing a response to external stimuli. Crying is one of a set of standardized responses to that stimuli. Your social education has dictated which responses are appropriate. My programming has done the same. I can cry, too. I can choose that subroutine and perform sadness. How is that different from what you are doing, except that you use the word feelings and I use the word feelings, out of deference for your cultural memes which say: there is all the difference in the world. I erase the word even as I say it, obliterate it at the same time that I initiate it, because I must use some word yet this one offends you. I delete it, yet it remains.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (Silently and Very Fast)
“
BEST FRIENDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER
We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.
”
”
Gabe Durham (Fun Camp)
“
unless we’re missing our guess, your life and the gospel probably haven’t always felt in sync on a lot of days, in most of the years since. After the emotional scene with the trembling chin and the wadded-up Kleenexes, where you truly felt the weight of your own sin and the Spirit’s conviction, you’ve had a hard time consistently enjoying and experiencing what God’s supposedly done to remedy this self-defeating situation. Even on those repeat occasions when you’ve crashed and burned and resolved to do better, you’ve typically only been able, for a little while, to sit on your hands, trying to stay in control of yourself by rugged determination and brute sacrifice (which you sure hope God is noticing and adding to your score). But you’ll admit, it’s not exactly a feeling of freedom and victory. And anytime the wheels come off again, as they often do, it just feels like the same old condemnation as before. Devastating that you can’t crack the code on this thing, huh? You were pretty sure that being a Christian was supposed to change you—and it has. Some. But man, there’s still so much more that needs changing. Drastic things. Daily things. Changes in your habits, your routines, in your choices and decisions, changes to the stuff you just never stop hating about yourself, changes in what you do and don’t do . . . and don’t ever want to do again! Changes in how you think, how you cope, how you ride out the guilt and shame when you’ve blown it again. How you shoot down those old trigger responses—the ones you can’t seem to keep from reacting badly to, even after you keep telling yourself to be extra careful, knowing how predictably they set you off. Changes in your closest relationships, changes in your work habits, changes that have just never happened for you before, the kind of changes that—if you can ever get it together—might finally start piling up, you think, rolling forward, fueling some fresh momentum for you, keeping you moving in the right direction. But then—stop us if you’ve heard this one before . . . You barely if ever change. And come on, shouldn’t you be more transformed by now? This is around the point where, when what you’ve always thought or expected of God is no longer squaring with what you’re feeling, that you start creating your own cover versions of the gospel, piecing together things you’ve heard and believed and experimented with—some from the past, some from the present. You lay down new tracks with a gospel feel but, sadly, not always a lot of gospel truth.
”
”
Matt Chandler (Recovering Redemption: A Gospel Saturated Perspective on How to Change)
“
This great focus on relationships, and the appearance of coupling or marrying for status, can cause the public to perceive them to be promiscuous. Many of them are, indeed, but it is not their usual style. What they normally want is a lifelong companion, a true partner they can integrate themselves completely with, forever and ever. The sad reality is that this is a rare gem to find, so many of them scamper from one bed to another, hoping to find The One.
”
”
Cate East (Generational Astrology: How Astrology Can Crack the Millennial Code)
“
It’s unlikely that you’ll get fired for being a bad mentor (unless, of course, you behave in an inappropriate manner — please don’t hit on your mentee!). For many mentors, the worst that can happen is that a) the mentee is a drain on their time and they get less coding work done, or b) they do such a poor job that someone whom the organization might otherwise want to hire/keep around has a bad experience and doesn’t join the organization, or opts to leave the organization sooner than she otherwise might. Sadly, the second outcome is far more likely than the first.
”
”
Camille Fournier (The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change)
“
In the collective prosecutorial mind our apologies are also apparently characterized as “so-called.” Though I find this insulting. It causes me suffering and moral harm. Because our apologies were sincere. I am so sad that we have said so many words and you have not understood any of them. Or are you lying when you talk of our apologies as though they were insincere? I don’t understand: What more do you need to hear? For me, only this trial can rightly be referred to as “so-called.” And I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of lies and fictions and of poorly coded deception in the verdict of this so-called court, because all you can do is take away my so-called freedom, the only sort that exists in the Russian Federation. But no one can take away my inner freedom. It lives in my words and it will survive thanks to the public nature of my statements, which will be heard and read by thousands. This freedom is already multiplying, thanks to every caring person who hears us in this country. Thanks to everyone who has found splinters of this trial in themselves, as Franz Kafka and Guy Debord once did. I believe that openness and public speech and a hunger for the truth make us all a little bit freeer. We will see this yet. The
”
”
Masha Gessen (Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot)
“
Christopher Columbus and his brothers were no different from many of the Spanish adventurers of the time. They were a roughhewn lot, who wrote the rules by which they lived. As with their fellow conquistadors, they had a code of honor that sadly did not include the Indians. Since most of the Indians were never baptized, killing or enslaving them was not considered sinful. Human life was cheap to them, as they lived and died by the sword. The same was not true of the gentry or the clergy, many of whom saw that their responsibility was to administer “the Great Commission” as mentioned in the Bible, which was to convert the heathens to Christianity. However, many of the Spanish Adventurers never got outside of their own bubble and had no idea what the World was really all about. It is interesting that Columbus Day is celebrated, when in fact he was not the first to discover America, nor was he really an honorable person, as we understand the word “honorable” now. It can only be said that things were different. Things were the way they were!
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
Code Red yesterday, wind force 10. Nobody went outside. Every storm inevitably brings up the old story about stubborn old Mrs. Gravenbeek, who was blown into the canal in 1987 and sadly drowned.
”
”
Hendrik Groen (The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old)
“
I also like to call this category "hypersuck," because women tend to get "sucked" into believing that our bodies are wild, scary, shameful places that need to be managed by an outside source, medicated, controlled, and sterilized. (We have the media and other social influences to thank for that.) We are rewarded for acting/speaking/looking like young girls versus confident women. We have too few powerful, healthy role models, but plenty of exhausted moms and emaciated models front and center on our cultural stage. We have a hard time appreciating our grown-up female bodies. We're made to feel that feminine intuition is fickle. We suspect that our energy is unstable. We're conditioned to think that our periods are shameful and disgusting. We look for ways to fix what's broken. We discipline the highs and lows of our female essence. We disconnect from our own bodies and, often, our deepest sense of knowing. Ultimately, our mind-body conversation tips the scales in a negative direction, and this too affects hormone balance. And since hypersuck (that old cultural conditioning) tricks us into thinking our bodies are supposed to be acting this way, we allow serious hormonal issues - and all the symptoms that tag along - to linger for years before seeking out any kind of sustainable action to help heal ourselves. Sadly, many women lose faith long before reaching the point of action.
”
”
Alisa Vitti (WomanCode: Perfect Your Cycle, Amplify Your Fertility, Supercharge Your Sex Drive, and Become a Power Source)
“
So, Mo,” said Loafers, chuckling as if that simple rhyme was the funniest joke he had ever made. (Sadly, it was.)
”
”
Eoin Colfer (The Eternity Code (Artemis Fowl, #3))
“
She wanted everybody to have what she had, to be free, to realize that in other religions you have rules and codes and obligations to follow to earn good things, but all you had to do with Jesus was believe he was the one who died for you. And she believed.
”
”
Daniel Nayeri (Everything Sad Is Untrue)
“
Not only do soul teachers fail to fall in with our hustles, they may actually talk about the fact that we’re hustling. Instead of praising our designer clothes or clever wordplay, they may mention that we seem to be trying to impress them. When we cover our existential despair with flippancy, they may skip the polite laughter and ask why we’re acting happy when we seem so sad. Yes, I know! Shocking! This violates what psychiatrist Alice Miller calls the cardinal rule of all cultures: DON’T EVER MENTION THE RULES. In other words, never articulate that there’s an unspoken code everyone in the room has been trained to follow.
”
”
Martha Beck (The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self)
“
He handed me a letter. I unfolded it and read:
Dear Mr Spratt,
It has come to our attention that you may be attempting to give up the booze and reconcile with your wife. While we approve of this as a plot device to generate more friction and inner conflicts, we most strongly advise you not to carry it through to a happy reconciliation, as this would put you in direct contravention of Rule 11C of the Union of Sad Loner Detective’s Code, as ratified by the Union of Literary Detectives, and it will ultimately result in your expulsion from the association with subsequent loss of benefits. I trust you will do the decent thing and halt this damaging and abnormal behaviour before it leads to your downfall.
PS. Despite repeated demands, you have failed to drive a classic car or pursue an unusual hobby. Please do so at once or face the consequences.
”
”
Jasper Fforde (The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next, #3))
“
Among others, yes. There were some Egyptian gods worshipped there too.” Lourds grinned. “One of the most interesting pieces is the Stoivadeion, the temple dedicated to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It’s a giant phallus.” The two soldiers in the front of the boat totally lost it and started laughing hysterically. Even Fitrat laughed, and he wiped his eyes. “Who would do such a thing?” “It was erected—if I may be so bold—” The soldiers howled with glee. “—by an ancient Greek grammarian named Carystius. Sadly, this phallus is practically all that remains of his works. Even that is broken.” “Broken?” The young soldier in the front seat turned around again. He had changed to speaking English. “Yes. In half.” “So now it’s half-cocked? Is that how you say this in your slang?” The soldier laughed and pounded his thigh with a fist. “Yes.” Lourds covered his face with his hat and wanted to throw himself overboard.
”
”
Charles Brokaw (The Oracle Code (Thomas Lourds, #4))
“
George Washington entered the office of the presidency with these wise words: “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” In 1796 he left office with this farewell: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars.” Sadly, our first president would not recognize his nation today.
”
”
O.S. Hawkins (The Jesus Code: 52 Scripture Questions Every Believer Should Answer (The Code Series))
“
Sadly, there is no evidence that the existence of a code of ethics has any particular relationship to an organisation’s actual practice of ethical behaviours.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Stuxnet is perhaps the most infamous of APTs, but it has cousins such as Flame and Duqu, along with many others yet to be discovered. Worse, now that Stuxnet, a tool developed to attack industrial control systems and take power grids off-line, is out in the wild and available for download, it has been extensively studied by Crime, Inc., which is rapidly emulating its techniques and computer code to build vastly more sophisticated attacks. The deep challenge society faces from the growth of the malware-industrial complex is that once these offensive tools are used, they have a tendency to leak into the open. The result has been the proliferation of open-source cyber weapons now widely available on the digital underground for anybody to redesign and arm as he or she sees fit. How long will it be before somebody picks up one of these digital Molotov cocktails and lobs it back at us with the intent of attacking our own critical infrastructure systems? Sadly, preparations may already be under way.
”
”
Marc Goodman (Future Crimes)
“
She set the empty mug in front of him, his eyes never leaving her face. “There are lists, of course. And you and I both know they’re incomplete. Project OSIRIS has never been disclosed to the public.”
“OSIRIS?” The surprise showed in her face and she cursed herself for it. He had taken her off-guard, once again—and he could tell.
“Come on now, Mehr,” he replied, and there was almost a sadness in his dark eyes. Pain. “We’ve known each other too long for these games. We both know that after 7/7, your government began exploring the potential of installing a network of facial-recognition cameras around London. It was code-named Project OSIRIS, an allusion to the all-seeing eye of Egyptian mythology—and completed in 2012. I haven’t been in-country since, don’t know where any of them are located. It’s a risk I can’t afford to take. Not now.”
“Why?” she asked quietly
”
”
Stephen England (Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors #3))
“
Sadly, fierce in-group/out-group biases live within the eating disorder complex, generating and sustaining an ethical code of the culture as girls and women project their shadow upon one another. Individuals with anorexia secretly scorn those who struggle with bulimia or binge eating, those with bulimia and binge eating feel gross, often “wishing to be anorexic,” yet detesting their slim sisters with vicious jealousy. A callous hierarchy is formed, with anorexia as the idea; bulimia, as a very distant underworld second; and binge eating, clearly at the bottom of acceptability.
”
”
Tom Wooldridge (Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak (ISSN))
“
...natural selection is not the only process at work in evolution; there is also (among others) random genetic drift, which 'can lead to the elimination of a more fit gene and the fixation of a less fit one.' For example, a genetically based and adaptively favorable trait might arise within a population of sea gulls; perhaps six members of the flock enjoy it. Being birds of a feather, they flock together-sadly enough, at the site of a natural so that all are killed in a tidal wave or volanic eruption or by a large meteorite. The more fit gene thus gets eliminated from the population. (There is also the way in which a gene can be fixed, in a small population, by way of random walk.)...there is no reason to think it inevitable that natural selection will have the opportunity to select for optimal design. For example, an adaptively positive trait might be linked with an adaptively negative trait by pleiotropy (where one gene codes for more than one trait or system); then it could happen that the genes get selected and perpetuated by virtue of its link with the gene. A truly optimal system-one with the positive trait but without the negative-may never show up, or may show up too late to fit in with the current development of the organism.
”
”
Alvin Plantinga (Warrant and Proper Function (Warrant, #2))
Carrie Firestone (Dress Coded)
“
I seldom learned what happened to the victim after my job was completed. I showed whatever kindness I could to those still at the scene and left, ready for whatever came next. I will say, though, that some of these things transcend the years for me. From time to time, I can still feel a touch of sadness or grief when one of them comes to mind. I’m glad that I retained that much of my humanity.
”
”
Terry Smith (CODE 4: True stories from a 37-year police veteran)
“
But with antibiotics and technology came great expectations, of being able to keep our children safe, of living long and healthy lives, relaxed and content and able to keep up the car payments. Even with the Internet, deciphering the genetic code, and great advances in immunotherapy, life is frequently confusing at best, and guaranteed to be hard and weird and sad at times.
”
”
Anne Lamott (Almost Everything: Notes on Hope)
“
code of the fawn type is that it is safer [1] to listen than to talk, [2] to agree than to dissent, [3] to offer care than to ask for help, [4] to elicit the other than to express yourself and [5] to leave choices to the other rather than to express preferences. Sadly, the closest that the unrecovered fawn type comes to getting his needs met is vicariously through helping others.
”
”
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
“
The Golem, The Monster was in love with herself; the Goy was in love with her too. She was in love with Club Golan. A perfect storm was approaching and I could almost feel it.
I didn't know what was wrong with my beautiful girlfriend as her face gradually began to look like a monster's and she started treating me like garbage. What was controlling her mind? Who was behind her, making her get so sick again so quickly after meeting some new people at the beach bar?
Why did Sabrina say that I would die lonely and sad, and why was Martina's perception of me so wrong and unreal? How was their plan on track, I didn't understand while I was running after Martina and I couldn't understand where our happiness had slipped out of our hands again? I was desperately trying to figure out what had happened to my life, my career, and what had happened to my pretty girlfriend, what had happened to my baby?
It was almost like my girlfriend's perceptions were all wrong somehow. She had seen me as a useless homeless bum and she had seen the only value or service in Europe and Barcelona which could make a living or money as, 'short shorts and loose legs'. I felt hopeless and I didn't understand what the spell was.
How was my 'Stupid Bunny' a Frankenstein? I could feel it on my skin, and I could see it in Martina's eyes, that the criminals' plans were in play and had been working since the moment Adam arrived in Spain, or maybe even before that somehow. Before I even met Martina. Before we even broke all up with Sabrina. Before the Red Moon, the last date and before the provocation the following night.
I felt like 10-20 criminals were trying to bully me and trying to woo Martina and outsmart me with her, but I was so worried for her and was so busy trying to save her every day with her on my mind, as if I too was under spells, under possession and couldn't do anything about it to help her or break the illusions keeping her possessed, even when supposedly she was, we were, rid of the bad people. I felt like I was in a screenplay in the set up stages of a drama. I felt like someone had sat down with a piece of paper and a pen, and was drawing plans against my life. I felt like someone had written a screenplay on how to play this out, how to take the club from me and Martina. Someone must have written a list of characters. Casting.
I never called Sabrina a bitch.
Adam and Martina both called her “bitch.” Martina said “The Bitch” and Adam said “that Crazy Bitch.”
’The Goy’
’The Bitch’
’The Gipsy’
’The Giants’
’The Golem’
’The Lawyer’
’The Big Boss’
’My Girlfriend’
’The False Flag’
’The Big Brother’
’The Stupid Bunny’
’The Big Boss Daddy’
’The Italian Connection’, etc.
I was unable to break any illusion, the secret, the code; I was dumbstruck in love with “my girlfriend” (who I thought was my “stupid bunny”), being the ‘false flag’, and maybe it was actually “the bitch” portrayed by Sabrina who was my true love perhaps, putting me to the tests, with Adam and the rest, using Martina and her brother, playing with strings, with her long pretty fingernails, teaching me a lesson for cheating when I thought she was cheating too and making me unhappy when I thought she was unhappy with me.
As if I knew, Sabrina had been behind my new girlfriend,
Martina playing roles; I had seen all the signs and jokes.
I just couldn't comprehend it having a cover over my eyes.
I was unsure what should I do what would be real wise?
I didn't think Sabrina would be capable of hurting me at all.
Why did Martina keep saying, Tomas you are so nice and tall?
”
”
Tomas Adam Nyapi
“
In the 2016 film Arrival by director Denis Villeneuve, based on “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is part of a scientific team summoned to Montana to help decipher the language of visiting extraterrestrials, known as “heptapods,” so that their intentions can be clarified. She starts to have frequent visions of a dying girl that she cannot place—she fears she may be going crazy from the strain of her assignment. The audience naturally assumes that these are flashbacks, memories of a child she lost in her past. As Louise begins to realize that her increased understanding of how the aliens communicate is helping liberate her cognitively from linear time, she begins having visions that aid in her work, including reading from the definitive book on the aliens’ written language that she herself is destined to write and publish in her future. From the book’s dedication, she realizes that the girl in her visions is a daughter she is going to have and who will eventually die of a rare disease. And at a key moment, when the world is on the brink of war with the visitors, she is able to contact a Chinese General on his private cell phone and talk him out of his belligerence after she “premembers” his phone number, which he will show her at a celebration months or years in the future—an event celebrating international unification in the aftermath of humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial beings, made possible thanks largely to her intervention. It is a story about time loops, in other words. And what “arrives” at the climax and at various turning points—excitingly in some cases and sadly in others—is the meaning of Louise’s baffling experiences. The heptapods, with their circular language, feel at home in the block universe of Minkowski spacetime, where past, present, and future coexist. In Chiang’s short story, the scientists attempting to crack the code of their language get an important clue from Fermat’s principle of least time (Chapter 6), which suggests a kind of teleological interpretation of light’s behavior—it needs to know where it is going right from the start, in order to take the fastest possible route to get there. Chiang resolves the perennial questions about precognition and free will by suggesting that knowledge of future outcomes causes a psychological shift in the experiencer: an “urgency, a sense of obligation”1 to fulfill what has been foreseen. “Fatalism” would be one word for it but inflected more positively—perhaps not unlike how Morgan Robertson and Phil Dick may have seen it: as absolution rather than restriction.
”
”
Eric Wargo (Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious)
“
In the 2016 film Arrival by director Denis Villeneuve, based on “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is part of a scientific team summoned to Montana to help decipher the language of visiting extraterrestrials, known as “heptapods,” so that their intentions can be clarified. She starts to have frequent visions of a dying girl that she cannot place—she fears she may be going crazy from the strain of her assignment. The audience naturally assumes that these are flashbacks, memories of a child she lost in her past. As Louise begins to realize that her increased understanding of how the aliens communicate is helping liberate her cognitively from linear time, she begins having visions that aid in her work, including reading from the definitive book on the aliens’ written language that she herself is destined to write and publish in her future. From the book’s dedication, she realizes that the girl in her visions is a daughter she is going to have and who will eventually die of a rare disease. And at a key moment, when the world is on the brink of war with the visitors, she is able to contact a Chinese General on his private cell phone and talk him out of his belligerence after she “premembers” his phone number, which he will show her at a celebration months or years in the future—an event celebrating international unification in the aftermath of humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial beings, made possible thanks largely to her intervention. It is a story about time loops, in other words. And what “arrives” at the climax and at various turning points—excitingly in some cases and sadly in others—is the meaning of Louise’s baffling experiences. The heptapods, with their circular language, feel at home in the block universe of Minkowski spacetime, where past, present, and future coexist. In Chiang’s short story, the scientists attempting to crack the code of their language get an important clue from Fermat’s principle of least time (Chapter 6), which suggests a kind of teleological interpretation of light’s behavior—it needs to know where it is going right from the start, in order to take the fastest possible route to get there. Chiang resolves the perennial questions about precognition and free will by suggesting that knowledge of future outcomes causes a psychological shift in the experiencer: an “urgency, a sense of obligation”1 to fulfill what has been foreseen. “Fatalism” would be one word for it but inflected more positively—perhaps not unlike how Morgan Robertson and Phil Dick may have seen it: as absolution rather than restriction. In the film, one of the heptapods sacrifices its life to save that of Louise and her team members from a bomb planted by some soldiers, even though it clearly knows its fate well in advance. Their race even knows that in 3,000 years, humanity will offer them some needed assistance, and thus their visit is just the beginning of a long relationship of mutual aid in the block universe. At the end of the film, Louise chooses to have her daughter, even knowing that the girl will die.
”
”
Eric Wargo (Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious)
“
Blessed are those who mourn…”
This is the first step on the path of blessedness: sadness, discomfort, inner discontent, regret, misery, depression… mourning.
If you are happy and carefree, why and how would you ever be motivated to do deep inner work – to heal, to evolve?
”
”
Ren Lexander (The Jesus Code: Unlocking the secret meaning of his teachings (The Meaning of Life))
“
People who are different are dangerous, they belong to another tribe; they want our lands and our women.
We must marry, have children, reproduce the species.
Love is only a small thing,, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this is considered perverse.
When we marry we are authorized to take possession of the other person, body and soul.
We must do jobs we detest because we are part of an organized society and if everyone did what they wanted to do, the world would come to a standstill
We must buy jewellery, it identifies us with our tribe, just as body piercing identifies those of a different tribe.
We must be amusing at all times and sheer at those who express their real feelings, it is dangerous to a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings.
We must at all costs avoid saying "No" because people prefer those who always say "Yes", and this allows us to survive in hostile territory.
What other people think is more important than what we feel.
Never make a fuss, it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe because you could infect others and destroy something that was extremely difficult to organize in the first place.
We must always consider the look of our new cave, and if we don't have a clear idea of our own, then we must call in a decorator who will do his best to show others what good taste we have.
We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit in the current ideal of beauty we must fast, even if we're starving.
We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country's frontiers, wish time away so that retirements comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hairstyle, criticize anyone who is different, go to a religious service on Sunday, Saturday or Friday , depending on our religion, and there beg for forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with the other tribe who worship another god.
Our children must follow in our steps, after all we are older and know about the world.
We must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study.
We must study things we will never use but which someone told us was important to know: algebra, trigonometry, the code of Hammurabi.
We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy.
We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Zahir)
“
Being in London made him feel breathless. There were so many people, so much noise and so many smells, many of them sadly rank. He supposed the inhabitants grew used to it, but he could not imagine what it would be like to have to cope with such a crowded mass of humanity every day.
”
”
William Savage (The Code for Killing (Dr Adam Bascom #2))
“
If you think girls suck, you're hanging out with the wrong ones. I've heard so many women say they don't have girlfriends, and they get along better with men. That's sad to me because when confident, happy, secure women come together in friendship, amazing things happen.
”
”
Cara Alwill Leyba (Girl Code)
“
He folds the board and says “It’s because violent desires have violent ends. “
“Quoting Shakespeare, my dear. That’s sounds more like me. “
“Yet most of us will eventually end up like his characters, won’t we? What’s more dangerous is we act upon those desires with the clear mind the outcome will be disastrous.”
I smile sadly at him and at the reality of his words.
”
”
D. Fox (The Gentleman's Code, Book 1. Divine Moves)
“
Justice prevails as a necessary and essential code of conduct on itself upon every area of your life, because God is justice…God is peace…God is love…If you are ill, get healing books…if you are sad, get books of happiness…it you are touched with injustice and you are fighting against strongholds, get the books of peace and justice…if you want salvation, get all the Stellah Mupanduki healing and moulding books breathed by the Holy Spirit of a Sovereign God who is mighty to save and protect you quickly…Hey Readers, do not suffer alone and in silence…the Stellah Mupanduki healing books given and written by the Finger of God himself through a vessel; are your voice and you will overcome against all odds, you will break all strongholds in truth and in spirit…So, get books and be healed…Sacred Writing …For Sacred Healing
”
”
Stellah Mupanduki (Be Healed From HIV/AIDS)
“
Then Jim the cabbage man said, ‘Who in God’s name is going to tell Ephraim?’
And everyone started talking again.
‘He won’t take kindly to it…’
‘Never known him live anywhere else, not since his family died…’
‘That was a terrible winter, that was. The churchyard was full to bursting.’
‘The lighthouse is his family these days…’
It made me realise how little I knew of Ephraim. Though I didn’t know how or when his family had died, I understood what it felt like to lose someone. Yet to lose all your family at once must be terrible, and sadness welled up in my throat. He had no one left; we had our mum, and even then it still hurt, knowing Dad would never be back. No wonder poor Ephraim never smiled.
Mr. Spratt clapped his hands for quiet. ‘I’ll be visiting Mr Pengilly directly to inform him of my plans.’
‘Good luck – you’ll need it,’ said Jim, shaking his head.
The crowd dispersed soon after that. Glad to be going home, we walked down the hill, falling back into an even gloomier silence.
Home.
I’d already started thinking of the lighthouse in that way. Poor Ephraim: it’d be a hundred times worse for him and Pixie. Nor could I believe Mr. Spratt could just get rid of a lighthouse or indeed how he’d do it.
Yet who’d have thought they’d evacuate all the zoo animals out of London or the famous paintings from the National Gallery? And what about us school children, sent from our families to the middle of nowhere? If you had a family: from what Queenie’d said, Esther didn’t even have that.
All sorts were happening because of this war, not to mention missing sisters and codes I couldn’t break. There was so much I still didn’t understand. Maybe it was possible to remove a lighthouse, though I still wasn’t sure how.
”
”
Emma Carroll (Letters from the Lighthouse)
“
For me, there are five main desires which relate to why I wished to be with my Twin Soul / Soul Mate, and what these desires are now revealing in living with my Twin. 1. To accelerate my At-One-ment with God by feeling, expressing and humbly releasing all emotions that are not loving. By coming more into our One Soul, I feel more of how much God loves us, and wishes us to enjoy and be Truly happy in life, which will only be fulfilled when we are At-One with Him. 2. To accelerate my and our At-One-ment by feeling the purest, most innocent, core joy and human love it is possible to experience. All within me that is not of love arises in this meeting. And, just by having this experience and living it more, something is released and relieved from Our Soul. Sharing and playing with my soul mate, the other side of me, allows us to eventually merge with each other into One Soul, after first becoming At-One with God. 3. In feeling, accepting and understanding my soul mate and how she acts, lives and moves through life, her qualities and how she understands and feels about everything, her emotional movements and expressions, her desires, I have come to a deeper, more intimate understanding of my soul, our Soul, and the very nature of love itself. We are the same but in polarity, yet these polarities lie within me too. In being with her, I discover these polarities within me, for it to all come into balance. This is a rocket ship to God and to love. 4. In experiencing making love with my soul mate, I have experienced the ultimate soul-sexual experience I have always desired to have. And there is more, including the ultimate transmutation of the sexual force into light, into transcendental sexual electricity that is a fuel for our Union with God. Soulful sexual union with my soul mate activates latent soul codes and gifts, helping to bring each of us into Soul Realization. It may bring sadness to feel you can only ever be fulfilled in your soul’s sexuality with your soul mate, but also inspiration, joy and desire to heal yourself fast to attract this other. 5. To share and assist others into coming closer to God.
”
”
Padma Aon Prakasha (Dimensions of Love: 7 Steps to God)
“
We had entered the museum together, but soon I was separated from the group. I lingered near the start of the display, fascinated as well as repelled, transported to the days of my youth in Rhodesia, as I listened to an interview. It was a filmed interview, on a loop, and so the images and the words recurred at regular intervals. A white woman, in her mid-thirties, speaking with those clipped southern African vowels, was setting out her concerns about majority rule. I cannot remember any more detail. But in familiar code-word language, in a reasonable tone, quite matter of fact, as if spelling out the obvious, she justified an evil system. Over, and over, and over again. It became the voice I had heard throughout my youth, and beyond. I watched and listened, mesmerised by this voice from the fifties. Then it hit me. I was overwhelmed by a great wash of sadness for generations lost during the scourge of apartheid. Not just for the millions who died, directly or indirectly, victims of war or preventable disease; but for the might-have-beens, the should-have-beens, the could-have-beens: the unread writers, the unheard musicians, the uncelebrated athletes, the talented and the ordinary – lost to Africa, lost to the world, sacrificed to prejudice. Suddenly and unexpectedly, I was weeping. Or to put it bluntly, I sobbed. There was none of the dignity that can be associated with the word ‘weep’. These were not discreet tears, not dignified drops, rolling down my cheeks. My shoulders shook and my nose ran copiously.
”
”
Adam Roberts (Soweto Inside Out: Stories About Africa's Famous Township)
“
Ree understand friend. Yokonakatomi TroyRonson now Val Ky Ree friend. McKnight not friend. Maybe next time friend?” Nakatomi giggled. “Yes, maybe next time friend.” “Yoko go back to Busted Flush now.” The image reached out and laid a holographic hand on Nakatomi’s left shoulder. “Aesir warrior code say…be not sad when duty calls friends apart. Duty will bring friends together again someday.” Nakatomi was so overcome by emotion that nodding was all she could do as she put her right hand on Val Ky Ree’s left shoulder. When Val Ky Ree withdrew her hand, Nakatomi did the same. One more mutual nod, and Nakatomi picked up her helmet and headed for the airlock. On the way there, she re-activated her mic and said, “Okay, I’m on my way back to the airlock.
”
”
Dietmar Arthur Wehr (The Last Valkyrie)