Coffee Inspirational Quotes

She wanted to do things without having to worry what others thought. She simply lived for her freedom.

The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . . . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing.

I don't know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen.

I woke up early and took the first train to take me away from the city. The noise and all its people. I was alone on the train and had no idea where I was going, and that’s why I went there. Two hours later we arrived in a small town, one of those towns with one single coffee shop and where everyone knows each other’s name. I walked for a while until I found the water, the most peaceful place I know. There I sat and stayed the whole day, with nothing and everything on my mind, cleaning my head. Silence, I learned, is some times the most beautiful sound.

You cannot keep something down that is bound to rise.

Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page.

Decision making, like coffee, needs a cooling process.

Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring.

And so taking the long way home through the market I slow my pace down. It doesn't come naturally. My legs are programmed to trot briskly and my arms to pump up and down like pistons, but I force myself to stroll past the stalls and pavement cafes. To enjoy just being somewhere, rather than rushing from somewhere, to somewhere. Inhaling deep lungfuls of air, instead of my usual shallow breaths. I take a moment to just stop and look around me. And smile to myself. For the first time in a long time, I can, quite literally, smell the coffee.

Presently the small of coffee began to fill the room. This was morning’s hallowed moment. In such a fragrance the perversity of the world is forgotten, and the soul is inspired with faith in the future…

The following day I abandoned my pointless searching and planted myself in one of the open air-cafés where I drank coffee and tried to find inspiration for the song I owed the Maer. Ten hours I spent there, and the only act of creation I accomplished was to magically transform nearly a gallon of coffee into marvelous, aromatic piss.

It was a very ordinary day, the day I realised that my becoming is my life and my home and that I don't have to do anything but trust the process, trust my story and enjoy the journey. It doesn't really matter who I've become by the finish line, the important things are the changes from this morning to when I fall asleep again, and how they happened, and who they happened with. An hour watching the stars, a coffee in the morning with someone beautiful, intelligent conversations at 5am while sharing the last cigarette. Taking trains to nowhere, walking hand in hand through foreign cities with someone you love. Oceans and poetry. It was all very ordinary until my identity appeared, until my body and mind became one being. The day I saw the flowers and learned how to turn my daily struggles into the most extraordinary moments. Moments worth writing about. For so long I let my life slip through my fingers, like water. I'm holding on to it now, and I'm not letting go.

I hereby arm myself for today with coffee and the willingness to be wrong.

Some days you live in pajamas, and your hair kind-of has that Albert Einstein look.

some poems froth and foam and rise... out of my morning cup of mist-sweetened coffee.

Life isn't sugarcoated. Why should coffee be?

I'm sure it is," she replied. Her expression turned fierce, making her look far different from the scattered teacher I knew. "But listen to me when I say this. You are exceptional, taleneted, and brilliant young woman. Do not ever let anyone make you feel like you're less. Do not ever let anyone make you feel invisible. Do not let anyone-not even a teacher who constantly sends you for coffee-push you around." She put her glasses back on and began randomly lifting up pieces of papers. At last, she found a pen and grinned triumphantly. "Now, then. What is your brother's name?

Tell your story until it becomes woven into the fabric of our story. Write about the joys and the pain and every event and every artist who inspires you to dream. Tell your story, because if you don't, it could be wiped out. No one tells our stories for us. And one more thing. If you see an elderly person walking down the street, or across from you at a coffee shop, don't look away from them, don't dismiss them, and don't just ask them how they're doing. Ask them where they have been instead. And then listen. Because there's no future without a past.

Sebab kita bersukacita bukan karena memotong padi; kita bersukacita karena memotong padi yang kita tanam sendiri.

Just So You Know You fall in love with every book you touch. You never break the spine or tear the pages. That would be cruel. You have secret favorites but, when asked, you say that you could never choose. But did you know that books fall in love with you, too? They watch you from the shelf while you sleep. Are you dreaming of them, they wonder, in that wistful mood books are prone to at night when they’re bored and there’s nothing else to do but tease the cat. Remember that pale yellow book you read when you were sixteen? It changed your world, that book. It changed your dreams. You carried it around until it was old and thin and sparkles no longer rose from the pages and filled the air when you opened it, like it did when it was new. You should know that it still thinks of you. It would like to get together sometime, maybe over coffee next month, so you can see how much you’ve both changed. And the book about the donkey your father read to you every night when you were three, it’s still around – older, a little worse for wear. But it still remembers the way your laughter made its pages tremble with joy. Then there was that book, just last week, in the bookstore. It caught your eye. You looked away quickly, but it was too late. You felt the rush. You picked it up and stroked your hand over its glassy cover. It knew you were The One. But, for whatever reason, you put it back and walked away. Maybe you were trying to be practical. Maybe you thought there wasn’t room enough, time enough, energy enough. But you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you? You fall in love so easily. But just so you know, they do, too.

Mindful Monday Humans, May your coffee kick in before reality does.

Sometimes I write "Drink Coffee" on my to do list just to feel like I've accomplish something-Status Update

Where do you get inspiration for your books? I tell myself I can't have another cup of coffee till I thought of an idea.

Where do you get the inspiration for your books? I tell myself I can't have another cup of coffee till I've thought of an idea.

Sit down, have a nice cup of coffee read a book in another language - the fountain of youth!

Don't stir all the warmth out of your coffee; drink it.

…he is unlike the other customers. They sense it too, and look at him with hard eyes, eyes like little metal studs pinned into the white faces of young men [...] In the hush his entrance creates, the excessive courtesy the weary woman behind the counter shows him amplifies his strangeness. He orders coffee quietly and studies the rim of the cup to steady the sliding in his stomach. He had thought, he had read, that from shore to shore all America was the same. He wonders, Is it just these people I’m outside or is it all America?

Coffee, my delight of the morning; yoga, my delight of the noon. Then before nightfall, I run along the pleasant paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg. For when air cycles through the lungs, and the body is busy at noble tasks, creativity flows like water in a stream: the artist creates, the writer writes.

7am They said that I’d forget you, and I knew it wasn’t true. But sometimes I wake up now, and my heart’s no longer blue. I press the Keurig button, dancing across the room— Sometimes it’s nearly seven, before I’ve thought of you. And though we sleep together, all night side by side, one day I’ll have my coffee without you in my mind.

Be kind. Be friendly. Be likable. But don't worry if someone doesn't like you. You won't be everyone's cup of tea, and that's okay. You can be someone's cup of coffee instead. And coffee is AWESOME.

There's not enough coffee in the world to fuel all the books I want to write

The Lord must have created coffee to reward humans for those bad times they sometimes have on Earth. Having charged your heart and brain with a cup of coffee, you’re ready to face the challenges of life. A good cup of coffee makes life seem better.

And kid, you’ve got to love yourself. You’ve got wake up at four in the morning, brew black coffee, and stare at the birds drowning in the darkness of the dawn. You’ve got to sit next to the man at the train station who’s reading your favorite book and start a conversation. You’ve got to come home after a bad day and burn your skin from a shower. Then you’ve got to wash all your sheets until they smell of lemon detergent you bought for four dollars at the local grocery store. You’ve got to stop taking everything so goddam personally. You are not the moon kissing the black sky. You’ve got to compliment someones crooked brows at an art fair and tell them that their eyes remind you of green swimming pools in mid July. You’ve got to stop letting yourself get upset about things that won’t matter in two years. Sleep in on Saturday mornings and wake yourself up early on Sunday. You’ve got to stop worrying about what you’re going to tell her when she finds out. You’ve got to stop over thinking why he stopped caring about you over six months ago. You’ve got to stop asking everyone for their opinions. Fuck it. Love yourself, kiddo. You’ve got to love yourself.

Sitting there with Hadden, I realized how uncomplicated real happiness was: a cup of coffee, a light rain, a good friend sitting by your side-that was true happiness.

As you sip your morning coffee...please say a prayer for the people of Tibet and all other children of humanity that are suffering despair & hopelessness throughout our world.

There's two kinds of people in this world when you boil it all down. You got your talkers and you got your doers. Most people are just talkers, all they do is talk. But when it is all said and done, it's the doers that change this world. And when they do that, they change us, and that's why we never forget them. So which one are you? Do you just talk about it, or do you stand up and do something about it? Because believe you me, all the rest of it is just coffee house bullshit.

I don´t think I love very many things but here are the ones I can think of: I love the first sip of coffee in the morning I love reading someone else´s words and finding a connection in them I love the feeling a good song invokes I love wondering I love driving at night with no destination I love the gentle kind of sadness like a reminder that I can feel.

The philosopher Sir James Mackintosh had said that the powers of a man's mind were proportionate to the quantity of coffee he drank, and Voltaire had knocked back fifty cups of it a day, so Ianto reckoned there had to be something in it. And saving Cardiff from the kinds of things that came through the Rift called for quick, inspired thinking, so Ianto took it upon himself to make sure the coffee was good. Ianto Jones, saving the world with a dark roast.

We don't want to eliminate the ego completely. Otherwise we'd be wandering around the house each morning, drinking coffee for hours, saying, 'Who the hell am I?' We need the ego to sustain a sense of identity.

Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out.

My queendom for a coffee!

You know what's just as powerful as a good cup of coffee in the morning? Starting your day with some good, loving thoughts. It can change how your whole day unfolds.

Because the same God who paints a rainbow across the sky after a rainstorm is the same One who can produce joy from our hardships.

When we reach the end of our short lives on earth, Jesus isn’t going to ask us how many followers we had on social media; He’s going to ask us how many of those lives we touched.

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and deal with our own unique adversity. What I am saying is that in all the chaos, remember to breathe, remember to smile, and remember that the only time to panic is when there is truly no tomorrow. Fortunately for the majority of us, tomorrow will always meet us in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh deck of cigarettes, ready to crack it's cocoon and mature into today. So ease the grip on your moralities and be yourself. Fantastic is really just the flaws. Nobody is perfect - not you, not me, not Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, not God. But the great thing is that you do not have to be perfect to be alive, and that is what makes life absolutely perfect.

As I grab my bag, Evelyn takes the coffee out of my hand, carrying it for me. I once read that charisma is “charm that inspires devotion.” And I can’t help but think of that now, when she’s holding my coffee for me. The combination of such a powerful woman and such a small and humble gesture is enchanting, to be sure.

I listened so hard because it felt like, while she was telling me stories, she was massaging my soul, letting me know that I was not alone, that I will never have to be alone, that there are friends and family and churches and coffee shops. I was not going to be cast into space.

I mean, you really can't imagine how awesome coffee tastes, or how awesome it is to hear music, to hear idiots talking... I mean, it hurts. Everything hurts. But everything in the world is so awesome that sometimes I just can't stand it.

Miracles aren't always a grand happening like the kind I learned about in Sunday school. Sometimes they're as small as giving someone a break.

You don't need coffee, you don't need cocaine, you need to breathe into YOUR FUCKING BALLS !

I drank a jar of coffee And I took some of these

Get to know the master within you. Fall at the feet of your Self.

Rain, books and coffee allow us to express ourselves freely.

Why are we inspired by another person's courage? Maybe because it gives us the sweet and genuine surprise of discovering some trace, at least, of the same courage in ourselves.

Before enlightenment, cornflakes and coffee. After enlightenment, cornflakes and coffee.

A good cup of coffee makes life feel better.

I was so absorbed in the things that I couldn't change, I forgot the most important thing. It's always the heart. Situations might not change, but people change.

. . . never seen him inspired by any more dangerous stimulant than strong coffee, of which he was very fond & of which [he] drank freely. MacIntosh says that the measure of a man's brain is the amount of coffee he can drink with impunity. SARAH HELEN WHITMAN (POE'S FIANCÉE) TO JOHN INGRAM DECEMBER 13, 1874

In residency, I studied in a bookstore’s coffee shop, which was where a clutch of women gathered monthly for book club. They would set their library books and blueberry scones on the table. I started eavesdropping and realized that the books they read were just an excuse to talk about their own lives. Every character, every broken heart, every twist of fate inspired a story about an unruly mother-in-law, a philandering father, or the cousin who came out to his unforgiving parents. Sometimes it sounded more like a therapy session than a book discussion. I could never join a book club.

Creativity needs some quiet time. For a few minutes every day, take yourself for long walks, stare out a window, or just curl up on the couch with the cat and a cup of coffee—and let the dreams spin their webs in your head.

We teach our children to study hard, to strive to succeed but do we teach them that it's okay to fail? That life is about accepting yourself? That there is no stigma in seeking help? Our Indian culture is based on worshipping our parents. We grow up listening to words like respect, obedience and tradition. Can we not add the words communication, unconditional love and support to this list? I look at the WHO research. The highest rate of suicide in India is among the age group of 15 to 29. Do we even talk to our teens about this? That evening, I am standing in the balcony, sipping some coffee and looking at the sunset. The children have taken the dogs and gone down to play on the beach. I spot my son. He is standing on the sand, right at the edge of the ocean and is flying a blue kite. The kite goes high and then swings low till it almost seems to fall into the water and all I want to say to him is that soon he will see that life is just like flying a kite. Sometimes you have to leave it loose, sometimes you have to hold on tight, sometimes your kite will fly effortlessly, sometimes you will not be able to control it and even when you are struggling to keep it afloat and the string is cutting into your hand, don't let go. The wind will change in your favour once again, my son. Just don't let go..

When you try to be someone else, you’re not only neglecting your true self; you’re also sacrificing the potential God has planted within you. The potential to rise to your calling, reach others through your gifts, and make a difference.

I once read that charisma is a "charm that inspires devotion". And I can't help but think of that now when she's holding my coffee for me. The combination of such a powerful woman and such a small and humble gesture is enchanting, to be sure.

Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.

we are all trying to get to the same island, whether you swim, fly, surf or skydiving. What matters is when the red light comes on.

Don’t run from your feelings; sooner or later, they’ll catch up and throw you down.

It was one dev, naked in a room with a carton of cigarettes, a thermos full of coffee and bourbon, and all his summoned angels.

Parents are living gods. They do everything to make their children happy and expect nothing in return.

Sometimes, just sit down and have a cup of coffee with yourself. That can be a cool experience - of hanging out with yourself.

Unconditional love is loving someone beyond their limits, and yours!

C is for coffee. Coffee would always be there for her.

Could you imagine a windstorm without the rustling of the leaves? You are made of the same stuff as the leaves–and the wind. You are meant to be rustled and sung.

Today, I walked into a coffee shop but no one was there who looked like they could completely fuck up my life and inspire a mediocre poem and a half so I just left.

Scripture is the ultimate source of truth and contains some of the most valuable wisdom on the planet because it was given to us by the author of life Himself.

Clothes, coffee, books, money, achievements, perfect circumstances . . . none of this can come close to bringing me the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit.

But where we see trash, God sees potential. The Mater Artist, with His tender touch, can rework our suffering into a pattern of good.

When your chair is positioned facing the wall, you see the wall. When it is positioned facing the sea, you see the sea. The same is true for us. Perspective is everything. Align with the divine.

We don’t have to remain in the filth of yesterday. Jesus didn’t die for the spiritually clean; He died for those who reek with sin. What’s the purpose of His blood if not to wash away our yesterday?

I’ve loved you probably from the first moment that I met you and I will love you until my last breath leaves. I fell in love with you the first time you smiled at me and only realized the truth of it the night you danced with me under the street lamp. You are the first person I think of each morning and the last person that I want to see before I close my eyes at night. You smell like donuts and coffee … And you have a smile that takes my breath away. You bowl me over with your sense of humor and your random comments and you inspire me with your bravery in the face of all that you’ve endured.

Solitude makes me feel calm. The rain affects me differently. Books never make me feel lonely. I love hugging trees, and sleeping on grass. Can't help being addicted to coffee and writing. What about you?

People often joke about how they’re unable to make conversation until they’ve had their morning cup of coffee. What if we treated our daily quiet time with the same importance? What if we decided not to speak to anyone until we spend time with our Creator and allow Him to fill us with His Spirit first thing in the morning?

His blood poured out on the cross was to bring about your healing. Every bruise inflicted upon his body was tolerated because of His overwhelming love for you. He knew every sin you’d commit, yet He still chose to bear your punishment.

The set of her shoulders, her fucking fedora--this girl has seen some life and she has set her body and her brain against further damage. She might be walking alone, but she is walking unbowed. She is courage on her way out for coffee.

May the words come easy, the doubt be weak, and the coffee strong enough to eat through steel. (I don't drink coffee...but I understand most authors do, and they like it with a bit of fight in it.) Now, let us boot up, sit down, and accrue those daily page counts!

Perishable, It Said Perishable, it said on the plastic container, And below, in different ink, The date to be used by, the last teaspoon consumed. I found myself looking; Now at the back of each hand, Now inside the knees, Now turning over each foot to look at the sole. Then at the leaves of the young tomato plants, Then at the arguing jays. Under the wooden table and lifted stones, looking. Coffee cups, olives, cheeses, Hunger, sorrow, fears- These too would certainly vanish, without knowing when. How suddenly then The strange happiness took me, Like a man with strong hands and strong mouth, Inside that hour with its perishing perfumes and clashings.

After a long journey with wars, moving, and exile, life has grounded me like coffee beans. My mother used to say that 'coffee beans have less value as whole beans.' They must be painfully grounded to become this delicious, stimulating, and awakening drink called 'coffee'.

I sit quietly with a cup of coffee, and enjoy the silence. I go for a morning run, which relieves stress and is perfect for contemplation. I use the quiet time before my family awakes to write something each morning. And I read, because a good novel is one of my favorite companions.

Celebration is the sparkle in the eye of the one who glows. It is the song that plays in the house of freedom. Celebration is the dance of life, it’s the one dancing to the drumbeat of the heart, it’s your birthday cake, it’s you blowing out the trick candles, it’s you delighting in the fire of life.

The things that people were the most grateful for were the ordinary things in life. The sound of your spouse’s laugh, the smell of morning coffee, the echo of children playing in the yard. The little things. In waiting for the big moments—the vacations, the retirements, the birthdays—we risk missing the experiences of life most worthy of celebrating.

Coffee could just be a delivery system for the words from on high; coffee did come from the Middle East, originally, after all.

It is pride that makes error and discord among men.

The difference between failure and survival is that coping skill you used in between the struggles.

my mother is a good mathematician she was able to divide 3 eggs into 8 mouths equally every day

We have control on every word of the dictionary except for the 2:; "Death" and "Heart

Winning isn't as sweet if you don't see an enemy cry. But remember, losers wail loud no matter what.

In the unpacking process, you’ve got to own it to disown it!

My normal may not be your normal, but HIS normal should be our desire.

The first step to achieving all your goals is getting out of bed. Coffee and toast are optional.

A mathematician,” he liked to say, “is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.

Avery poured a cup of coffee hot and compared it to a political debate—hot enough to boil an egg and filled with artificial flavor.

Inspiration is found in the unknown, what you discover there is up to you.

Nothing beats a glass bottle of Coke and a trusty Moon Pie under the heat of the Alabama sun.

In the dunes of time, nature walks with us.

I once read that charisma is “charm that inspires devotion.” And I can’t help but think of that now, when she’s holding my coffee for me.

Well, for me alone, coffee shops are like refugee camps

Allow for the possibility of greatness.

God transformed the darkest day humankind had ever known into a new sunrise, and He can transform our darkest days into new birth as well.

Just as a couple serves each other when they’re in love, I, too, want my adoration for Jesus to penetrate everything I do.

We don’t have to wait for the sunshine of spring to splash color into our days when our relationship with Jesus illuminates brightness to every day.

The only beauty we’ll give account for in eternity is our godliness.

They told me to wake up and smell the coffee, but I was too busy following the scent of my dreams.

Having charged your brain with a cup of coffee, you’re ready to face some more challenges of life.

The Lord must have created coffee to reward humans for those bad times they sometimes have on Earth.

A good cup of coffee makes life seem better.

Having charged your heart and brain with a cup of coffee, you’re ready to face the challenges of life.

Coffee stains my skirts. Men stain my pride. Both leave hideous marks on what belongs to me.

Your morning coffee deserves your full attention. Sip it slowly, no multitasking. A moment of presence sets the tone for your day.

Sometimes a person is brought into our lives, For reasons that are unknown to us, But it’s not for us to question, Because in that single person, Lies the power, To change our lives

The smell of hot coffee is like a pleasant scent of the first rain on dry earth; It is a product favoring Friendship, Love, Affection, and should always be consumed with someone else.

I hope there are days when your coffee tastes like magic, your playlist makes you dance, strangers make you smile, and the night sky touches your soul. I hope you fall in love with being alive again.

Lilith Wilde is more than just a pseudonym; she’s the embodiment of my romance literary rebirth. Think of her as the writer who guzzles coffee like water, who gets hit by writer’s block like it’s a sport, who eavesdrops on strangers for dialogue inspiration, and who looks to cats for a muse (because why not?). With Lilith Wilde, I go back into romance, but this time, with a flavor that’s as dark as my coffee.

Men may perish, but the world will neither celebrate nor mourn. It will go on.' His smile thinned. 'Would you like to know how?' 'No.' 'Animals will swell to fill the void left by men," he told her. 'And over-swell it, perhaps. There will be other extinctions and other recoveries. The sky will clear, but those who see it will not marvel at its many colors. Those ruins will collapse, burying treasures like this-' He waved at the walls. '-and this-' He picked up the spoon from her coffee tray and tossed it down again with a clatter. '-forever, but the world will go on. Years become centuries so easily when no one is there to count them. Centuries become millennia. The forests will reclaim the lands that Men have razed. Rivers will carve canyons across the scars left by this fallen cities. Mountains will rise up, trapping seas to dry under and uncaring sun and leaving the bones of whales to bleach in the newborn deserts for no one to find, no one to be inspired by thoughts of giants and dragons. And still the worlds will go on, and I will go on with it through ages that can only be measured by the coming and going of glaciers. The stars themselves will shift in the heavens and no one will be there to invent names for their new alignments or remember the stories of the old ones, no one but me. In time, the sun itself will begin to cool. Here on Earth, the world goes on and on as its remaining life passes through its last changes and dies away. It will be quiet. And lonely.' His mouth curved into a bitter line. 'But I'll live.' 'Stop it,' Lan whispered through numb lips. 'I read once that the sun will someday swell and engulf this world before it burns itself out. Perhaps I will finally die with it. Or perhaps I' will continue to endure... my ashes pulled eternally apart through the frozen vacuum of space, and I with no more mouth to scream... still alive.

Think of all the requirements writers imagine for themselves: A cabin in the woods A plain wooden table Absolute silence A favorite pen A favorite ink A favorite blank book A favorite typewriter A favorite laptop A favorite writing program A large advance A yellow pad A wastebasket A shotgun The early light of morning The moon at night A rainy afternoon A thunderstorm with high winds The first snow of winter A cup of coffee in just the right cup A beer A mug of green tea A bourbon Solitude Sooner or later the need for any one of these will prevent you from writing. Anything you think you need in order to write— Or be “inspired” to write or “get in the mood” to write— Becomes a prohibition when it’s lacking. Learn to write anywhere, at any time, in any conditions, With anything, starting from nowhere. All you really need is your head, the one indispensable

Jesus didn’t pay such a huge sacrifice so I could say the prayer of salvation, attend church, and get into heaven. He paid this sacrifice so I could receive the abundant life that comes through knowing Him personally.

Amigo mío, dado el abismo que separa todas tus experiencias de todas las mías, lo más cerca que te puedo situar de ese sabor tan único es decirte que los libros, así, por término medio, saben a lo mismo que huele el café

Espresso The black coffee they serve out of doors among tables and chairs gaudy as insects. Precious distillations filled with the same strength as Yes and No. It’s carried out from the gloomy kitchen and looks into the sun without blinking. In the daylight a dot of beneficent black that quickly flows into a pale customer. It’s like the drops of black profoundness sometimes gathered up by the soul, giving a salutary push: Go! Inspiration to open your eyes.

A nurse and a social worker took fifteen minutes out of their shitty thankless job in the roughest corner of town, sat on a couple of milk crates drinking coffee, flopped their real selves out of the cement and both liked what they saw.

It's a lost and lonely kind of feeling, To wake up wearing a disguise. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I don't know who I am There's little that I can Fully recognize.... But I'm taking small steps, 'Cause I don't know where I'm going. I'm taking small steps And I don't know what to say. Small steps, Trying to pull myself together, And maybe I'll discover A clue along the way.... Just to make it through the day and not to get hurt, Seems about the best that I can hope. Like coffee stains splattered on your sweatshirt There isn't any pattern. Everything's uncertain. It's difficult to cope.... But I'm taking small steps, 'Cause I don't know where I'm going. I'm taking small steps, And I've forgotten how to play. Small steps, Trying to pull myself together, And maybe I'll discover, A clue along the way.... And if someday my small steps bring me near you, Please don't rush to tell me all you feel. You don't have to speak for me to hear you. If I softly sigh, Look me in the eye And let me know I'm real.... Then we'll take small steps, 'Cause we won't know where we're going. We'll take small steps, And we'll have too much to say. Small steps, Hand in hand we'll walk together, And maybe we'll discover A clue along the way.... Small steps, 'Cause I don't know where I'm goin'. Small steps, I just take it day to day. Small steps, Somehow get myself together, Then maybe I'll discover Who I am on the way....

I once read that charisma is “charm that inspires devotion.” And I can’t help but think of that now, when she’s holding my coffee for me. The combination of such a powerful woman and such a small and humble gesture is enchanting, to be sure.

When I first started following writers on social media, I imagined a deluge of profound quotes, writing tips and insights into the plight of wordsmiths. There was some of that. Mostly though, my timeline was taken up with their obsession with coffee: 'I want coffee/I'm having coffee/I've had coffee.' Then came photos of their favourite coffee mug/pot/shop/barista. So, if you've enjoyed a recently-published book, give credit to writers: the vampiric aficionados of the coffee cherry.

Stories hang from the trees, hive under the coffee table, gather like glass on the corners of the road. To pick them up one needs simply to focus one’s eye and keep a steady hand. Writing focuses the eye; writing develops the steadiness of one’s hand.

I like the disaster of the night sky, stars spilling this way and that as if they were upturned from a glass. I like the way good madness feels. I like the way laughter always spills. That's the word for it. It never just comes, it spills. I like the word 'again'. Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. I like the quiet sound a coffee cup makes when it's set down on a wooden table. So hushed. So inviting. Like morning light yawning through the window and stretching out onto the kitchen floor. I like the way girls' lips look like they're stained with berries. I like the way morning light breaks like a prism through the empty wine bottles on our dusty apartment floor. Glasses empty except for the midnight hour. I like the way blueberries stain my fingers during the summer. I like the way light hits your eyes and turns it into a color that doesn't exist anywhere else other than in this moment. I want it all. I want the breeze to call my name as it rushes down my street, looking for me. I want to feel grass underneath my bare feet and I want to feel the sun kiss freckles onto my cheeks. I want to hear you yell hello as you make your way towards me, not goodbye as you have to go. That's just a little bit about me.

What do you think you're here to do?' She paused a moment, gazing out the rattling side window at the distant mountains. 'To help people along the way, ' she said, 'to bring them hot coffee when they're cold and scared to death and hangin' on for dear life.

Walking back across the St-Esprit bridge, to the ghetto I'd instinctively gravitated toward, I mentally erected a more appropriate statue on the square. It would depict an unknown Sephardic Jew, kneeling over a stone tripod covered with crushed cacao beans destined for a cup of chocolate for one of the gentiles of Bayonne. It would be a symbolic piece, executed in smooth, chocolate-hued marble, and dedicated to all the other forgotten heroes--coffee-drinking Sufi dervishes, peyote-eating Native Americans, Mexican hemp-smokers--who, throughout history, have faced the wrath of all the sultans, drug czars, and Vatican clerics who have resorted to any spurious pretext to squelch one of the most venerable and misunderstood of human drives: the desire to escape, however briefly, everyday consciousness.

Charles L. Allen once said, “When you say a person or situation is hopeless, you are slamming a door in the face of God.” Ouch. It is easy to focus on the doors being slammed (rejection, illness, fatigue, failures) and not see things from God’s perspective. He never leaves us.

It is a wonderful morning with the sun shining bright and flowers smiling. There is a sweet breeze kissing my face while a hot cup of coffee warms my heart and awakens my mind. The primordial songs of ocean waves are soothing my soul. I am not on earth; I am in heaven on earth.

I beg to differ on Charles Bukowski, who says nothing can save you, except writing. Sometimes, absolutely nothing will save you, not the nights you end up wasting waiting for something grand to happen, not the mornings where coffee has no taste and you wake up knowing the day will not be a blast, not the plans and schemes you write down on your imaginary flipchart to make the world go round. You end up stuck, alone and in the disparate points of chaos that drag you down, you have to come up with something to save yourself. Then you make six impossible wishes before breakfast, start walking and working and learn to seize what you call paranormal activity when it comes true.

If it was just a matter of travelling back to the past, anyone could do it. But this cafe chooses people ... By its rules ... And some people hear those rules and give up. But those people who are resolved to go back, despite the rules, have a reason for doing so. It doesn't matter what the reason is. If there is someone they must see, or someone they should see ... even if the present reality won't change ... then, that's all that matters.

Irma, she said. But I had started to walk away. I heard her say some more things but by then I had yanked my skirt up and was running down the road away from her and begging the wind to obliterate her voice. She wanted to live with me. She missed me. She wanted me to come back home. She wanted to run away. She was yelling all this stuff and I wanted so badly for her to shut up. She was quiet for a second and I stopped running and turned around once to look at her. She was a thimble-sized girl on the road, a speck of a living thing. Her white-blond hair flew around her head like a small fire and it was all I could see because everything else about her blended in with the countryside. He offered you a what? she yelled. An espresso! I yelled back. It was like yelling at a shorting wire or a burning bush. What is it? she said. Coffee! I yelled. Irma, can I come and live-- I turned around again and began to run.

Many of us attend a few yoga classes and find that we like the glimpse of another way of life that yoga offers. We are delighted by the way we feel after class and we are pleasantly surprised as certain behaviors start to fall away. Perhaps we no longer need coffee in the morning; or staying out late at night becomes less attractive; or we find ourselves calmer and more compassionate. Suddenly we're convinced that we've hit upon a painless way to solve all our problems. Sadly, this is not the case. Practice is not a substitute for the difficult work of renunciation. The postures and breath work that you do in a typical yoga class will change your life. These practices—asana and pranayama—suffuse us with the energy we need to take on the hard choices and to endure the inevitable highs and lows. What yoga practice will not do, however, is take the place of the hard lessons each of us has to learn in order to mature spiritually.

Look around—there are things in your life today that you dreamed about a month or even years ago. Take a moment to spot them & throw yourself a mini party for those wins, big & small. You’re living the dream—literally! Whether it's finally scoring that fancy coffee machine or crushing it at work, celebrate every victory. Those tiny triumphs stack up, turning your life into a highlight reel of awesome. So, give yourself a high-five and maybe even a happy dance—you’ve totally earned it!

Run. Eat. Drink. Eat more. Don't throw up. Instead, take a piss. Then take a crap. Wipe your butt. Make a phone call. Open a door. Rid your bik. Ride in a car. Ride in a subway. Talk. Talk to people. Read. Read maps. Make maps. Make art. Talk about your art. Sell your art. Take a test. Get into a school. Celebrate. HAve a party. Write a thank-you note to someone. Hug your mom. Kiss your dad. Kiss your little sister. Make out with Noelle. Make out with her more. Touch her. HOld her hand. Take her out somewhere. Meet her friends. Run down a street with her. Take her on a picnic. Eat with her. See a movie with her. See a move with Aaron. Heck, see a movie with Nia, once you're cool with her. Get cool with more people.. Drink coffee in little coffee-drinking places. Tell people your story. Volunteer. Go back to Six North. Walk in as a volunteer and say hi to everyone who waited on you as a patient. Help people. Help people like Bobby. Get people books and music that they want when they're in there. Help people like Muqtada. Show them how to draw. Draw more. Try drawing a landscape. Try drawing a person. Try drawing a naked person. Try drawing Noelle naked. Travel. Fly. Swim. Meet. Love. Dance. Win. Smile. Laugh. Hold. Walk. Skip. Okay, it's gay, whatever, skip. Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserved them because you chose them. You could have left the all behind but you chose to stay here. So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live. Live.

To sum up: Figure out what you're good at, and get better at it. Along the way, don't waste your time on people whose decency isn't apparent when you first meet for a cup of coffee. Be an astute judge of character, and learn to judge quickly. Read the news. Pay attention. Always aspire to act in a way that cancels out someone else's cruel or stupid behavior. Never stop worrying. Live each day as if your rent is due tomorrow. And always, always be the one who sleeps near the campfire - the one who would make Darwin proud.

Life of a software engineer sucks big time during project release. Every single team member contribution is very important. At times, we have to skip breakfast, lunch and even dinner, just to make sure the given ‘TASK’ is completed. Worst thing, that’s the time we get to hear wonderful F* words. It can be on conference calls or on emails, still we have to focus and deliver the end product to a client, without any compromise on quality. Actually, every techie should be saluted. We are the reason for the evolution of Information Technology. We innovate. We love artificial intelligence. We create bots and much more. We take you closer to books. Touch and feel it without the need of carrying a paperback. We created eBook and eBook reader app: it’s basically a code of a software engineer that process the file, keeps up-to-date of your reading history, and gives you a smoother reading experience. We are amazing people. We are more than a saint of those days. Next time, when you meet a software engineer, thank him/her for whatever code he/she developed, tested, designed or whatever he/she did!

Walking into a bookshop is a depressing thing. It’s not the pretentious twats, browsing books as part of their desirable lifestyle. It’s not the scrubby members of staff serving at the counter: the pseudo-hippies and fucking misfits. It’s not the stink of coffee wafting out from somewhere in the building, a concession to the cult of the coffee bean. No, it’s the books. I could ignore the other shit, decide that maybe it didn’t matter too much, that when consumerism meets culture, the result is always going to attract wankers and everything that goes with them. But the books, no, they’re what make your stomach sink and that feeling of dark syrup on the brain descend. Look around you, look at the shelves upon shelves of books – for years, the vessels of all knowledge. We’re part of the new world now, but books persist. Cheap biographies, pulp fiction; glossy covers hiding inadequate sentiments. Walk in and you’re surrounded by this shit – to every side a reminder that we don’t want stimulation anymore, we want sedation. Fight your way through the celebrity memoirs, pornographic cook books, and cheap thrills that satisfy most and you get to the second wave of vomit-inducing product: offerings for the inspired and arty. Matte poetry books, classics, the finest culture can provide packaged and wedged into trendy coverings, kidding you that you’re buying a fashion accessory, not a book. But hey, if you can stomach a trip further into the shop, you hit on the meatier stuff – history, science, economics – provided they can stick ‘pop.’ in front of it, they’ll stock it. Pop. psychology, pop. art, pop. life. It’s the new world – we don’t want serious anymore, we want nuggets of almost-useful information. Books are the past, they’re on the out. Information is digital now; bookshops, they’re somewhere between gallery and museum.

The pan dulce was perfect, and it gave Anna an idea. Talking to Lila about her favorite memories of her mother had shaken loose parts of the past she had either forgotten or overlooked. Like the songs her mother would sing as she cooked the one and only thing she ever cooked; like that time they visited the family coffee estate and Mum shot a rampaging wild boar and then they cooked and ate it later that night; like the smell of rain in the forest; like the fat, sour gooseberries they would pick off the trees; like fresh peppercorns straight off the vine; like countless other jumbled memories and smells and tastes and sounds that had been tucked away in some corner of her mind gathering dust for so long. Mum's favorite dish, the one and only thing she ever cooked. I'm going to make it. Anna had never learned how to make it, because she had always arrogantly assumed her mother would be around forever, but she had eaten it so many times that she was sure she could recreate it by memory and taste alone. This is it. Her favorite food. She would have to thank Lila for the inspiration later. This was the connection she had been afraid she would never find. It was a way to hold on to everything she had lost. "Can I borrow your wallet, Dad?" Excited for the first time in what felt like months, Anna rushed out to the neighborhood grocery store and picked out the ingredients she hoped would work. Curry leaves, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, turmeric, ginger, garlic, green chilies, red chilies, limes, honey, and, finally, a fresh shoulder of pork.

I would say to people, “I’m looking for new friends” and people would hear, “I have no friends”,’ Rachel B tells me over the phone from Chicago. ‘I had friends – just none in my current city. We feel desperate or weird reaching out for friendship, but we shouldn’t. It’s important.’ True. Friends listen to you, laugh with you, give you advice, encourage you, inspire you, fill your life with joy. A big source of my loneliness is not having a close friend I can call and meet for coffee at a moment’s notice and share everything that’s been happening in my life. Or a group of friends to go out with. Nothing big. Not too showy. A small coven I could count on to cast spells on my enemies. Brené Brown calls these friends ‘move a body’ friends. You know. The people you call when you accidentally murder someone.

I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper?

Some of the most unrecognized ministries are my favorite kind. Like the ministry of playing video games with awkward adolescent boys. The ministry of bringing takeout food to people whose baby is very sick in the hospital. The ministry of picking up empty chip wrappers at the park. The ministry of sending postcards. The ministry of sitting in silence with someone in the psych ward. The ministry of sending hilarious and inspirational text messages. The ministry of washing dishes without being asked. The ministry of flower gardening. The ministry of not laughing at teenagers when they talk about their relationship crises. The ministry of making an excellent cup of coffee. The ministry of drinking a terrible cup of coffee with a bright smile. The ministry of noticing beauty everywhere - in fabrics, in art, and in the wilderness.

It truly is a team sport, and we have the best team in town. But it’s my relationship with Ilana that I cherish most. We have such a strong partnership and have learned how we work most efficiently: I need coffee, she needs tea. When we’re stressed, I pace around and use a weird neck massager I bought online that everyone makes fun of me for, and she knits. When we’re writing together she types, because she’s faster and better at grammar. We actually FaceTime when we’re not in the same city and are constantly texting each other ideas for jokes or observations to potentially use (I recently texted her from Asheville: girl with flip-flops tucked into one strap of tank top). Looking back now at over ten years of doing comedy and running a business with her I can see how our collaboration has expanded and contracted. But it’s the problem-solving aspect of this industry, the producing, the strategy, the realizing that we could put our heads together and figure out the best solution, that has made our relationship and friendship what it is. Because that spills into everything. We both have individual careers now, but those other projects have only been motivating and inspiring to each other and the show. We bring back what we’ve learned on the other sets, in the other negotiations, in the other writers’ rooms or press situations. I’m very lucky to have jumped into this with Ilana Rose Glazer, the ballsy, curly-haired, openhearted, nineteen-year-old girl that cracked me up that night at the corner of the bar at McManus. So many wonderful things have happened since we began working together, but there are a lot of confusing, life-altering things in there too, and it’s such a relief to have someone who completely understands the good and the bad.

Take an apostle spoon,' Edwin Pettigrew had said, in that calm way that inspired so much confidence, making it all sound so easy.  And certainly one would have thought that a vicarage was the one place where one could be sure of finding plenty of apostle spoons.  Trying to hold Faustina firmly under one arm, Sophia rummaged in the silver drawer but could not find one.  Then she remembered the coffee spoons that had been a wedding present and were kept in a satin-lined case.  Surely those were apostle spoons?  They looked something like them, but then she realized that they were miniature replicas of the coronation anointing spoon – not so unsuitable, really, for with a jerk of her head Faustina sent the spoonful of liquid paraffin running down her face and brindled front so that she had, in a sense, anointed herself with oil. Sophia let out a cry of exasperation as the cat jumped to the ground and stalked away.  Who would ever have thought that a miniature anointing spoon could have contained so much, she asked herself, for her hands and the front of her skirt seemed to be covered with liquid paraffin.

With a sudden strike of inspiration, she blurted, “Why don’t you write a novel? I know you have enough life experiences to fill a whole room with books, and with you as the main character.” She placed the coffee cup back into Havok’s hands before reaching down to grab the bottom of her shirt, pulling it over her head, and balling it up in her hands. Standing naked, she brought the shirt to her nose and closed her eyes. “I can be one of your characters,” she purred, her eyes still closed. “A sexually frustrated homemaker whom you rescue from a boring marriage and ravage anytime you wish.” “I couldn’t tell you the difference between a split infinitive and a sentence fragment. Besides, the protagonists in most novels are supposed to be some sort of good-looking and chivalrous knights in shining armor who, at no time, sleeps with another man’s wife, always knows how to work a toilet seat, cooks the perfect eggs, and never burns the toast.” Havok shrugged his shoulders. “I have a habit of burning toast.” With the shirt still against her nose, June opened her eyes. “Somehow, I think that you make it a habit of burning your toast.

As we stand before this sacred doorway [the doorway to meaning], we realize its response to us is conditional, albeit only in the sense that it’s reflective. If we stand before it arrogant and haughty, indeed the door will remained locked. If we stand before it in doubt, it will disappear. If we knock upon it distracted, our minds somewhere else, we fail to see it open. Anyone in the world can go through it, and there could never be a key. Yet it opens only when we approach it in a certain, truthful way. Otherwise, we may not notice its openness and its infinite offering again and again. To pass into this fertile land of meaning, we must arrive in reverence. We must approach the door in silence, focused upon the primordial pulse of our beings and all of life. We must allow ourselves to open into acceptance, for within acceptance lives our accountability and, therefore, our ability to extract meaning for our growth—and the possibility for things to come to life. We must allow ourselves to be released into the current, the movement of acceptance, otherwise known as surrender, so that we may be taken and discovered unto ourselves. And once we are through, by God, we must celebrate, for what else is there to do?

In his movie The Seventh Continent, Michael Haneke depicts a normal middle-class family who, for no apparent reason, one day quit their jobs, destroy everything in their apartment, including all the cash they have just withdrawn from the bank, and commit suicide. The story, according to Haneke, was inspired by a true story of an Austrian middle-class family who committed collective suicide. As Haneke points out in a subsequent interview, the cliché questions that people are tempted to ask when confronted with such a situation are: “did they have some trouble in their marriage?”, or “were they dissatisfied with their jobs?”. Haneke’s point, however, is to discredit such questions; if he wanted to create a Hollywood-style drama, he would have offered clues indicating some such problems that we superficially seek when trying to explain people’s choices. But his point was precisely that the most profound thoughts about whether life is meaningful occur once we have swept aside all the clichés about the pleasure or lack thereof of “love, work, and play” (Thagard), or of “being whooshed up in sports events and being absorbed in the coffee-making craft” (Dreyfus and Kelly). Psychologically, or psychotherapeutically, these are very useful ways of “finding meaning in one’s life”, but philosophically, they are rather ways of how to avoid raising the question, how to insulate oneself from the likelihood that the question of meaning will be raised to oneself. In my view, then, the particular answer to the second question (what is the meaning of life?) is not that important, because whatever answer one offers, even the nihilist or absurdist answer, is many times good enough if the purpose is to get rid of the state of puzzlement. More importantly, however, what matters is that the question itself was raised, and the question is posterior to the more fundamental one of whether there is any meaning at all in life. It is also intuitive that we could judge someone’s life as meaningless if that person has never wondered whether her life, and life in general, is meaningful or not. At the same time, our proposal is, in my opinion, neither elitist, nor parochial in any way; I find it empirically quite plausible that the vast majority of people have actually asked this question or some version of it at least once during their lives, regardless of their social class, wealth, religion, ethnicity, gender, cultural background, or historical period.

The motor activities we take for granted—getting out of a chair and walking across a room, picking up a cup and drinking coffee,and so on—require integration of all the muscles and sensory organs working smoothly together to produce coordinated movements that we don't even have to think about. No one has ever explained how the simple code of impulses can do all that. Even more troublesome are the higher processes, such as sight—in which somehow we interpret a constantly changing scene made of innumerable bits of visual data—or the speech patterns, symbol recognition, and grammar of our languages.Heading the list of riddles is the "mind-brain problem" of consciousness, with its recognition, "I am real; I think; I am something special." Then there are abstract thought, memory, personality,creativity, and dreams. The story goes that Otto Loewi had wrestled with the problem of the synapse for a long time without result, when one night he had a dream in which the entire frog-heart experiment was revealed to him. When he awoke, he knew he'd had the dream, but he'd forgotten the details. The next night he had the same dream. This time he remembered the procedure, went to his lab in the morning, did the experiment, and solved the problem. The inspiration that seemed to banish neural electricity forever can't be explained by the theory it supported! How do you convert simple digital messages into these complex phenomena? Latter-day mechanists have simply postulated brain circuitry so intricate that we will probably never figure it out, but some scientists have said there must be other factors.

my reworking of that marvellous list. 1. Live as enjoyably as you can within financial reason. 2. If you have a bath, draw an inch or two of cold water and splash about in it. A cold shower will have the same uplifting effect. 3. Never stay up all night watching Netflix Originals about serial killers. 4. DON’T THINK TOO FAR AHEAD. EVENING IS FINE, BUT TOMORROW CAN LOOK AFTER ITSELF. 5. Keep reasonably busy. 6. See as much as you can of the friends who like you, support you and make you laugh. See as little as you can of the friends who judge you, compare you to others and tire you (and don’t pretend you don’t know who they are). 7. Apply the same rules to casual acquaintances. If your instincts tell you they are toxic, walk away and don’t look back. 8. If you are low in the water, do not pretend that you aren’t. It makes it so much worse, and A STIFF UPPER LIP ONLY GIVES YOU A SORE JAW. 9. Good coffee and tea are a genuine help. 10. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OR FOR ANY REASON AT ANY TIME COMPARE YOURSELF TO ANYONE ELSE. 11. Cultivate a gentle, healthy pessimism. It can result in more nice surprises. 12. Avoid drama about what is wrong with the world (unless it is funny), emotionally powerful music, other sad people, and anything likely to make you feel anxious or that you are not doing enough. 13. RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS ARE HUMAN ANTIDEPRESSANTS. 14. Form a close bond with a local tree. 15. Make the room you most like sitting in as much of a comfy nest as you can. 16. Listen to David Attenborough. 17. STOP JUDGING YOURSELF. STOP PUNISHING YOURSELF. IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. 18. Keep warm. 19. Think as much as you can about space, infinity and the beyond. Anything that much bigger than you can be very relaxing. 20. Trust me.

Reasons to keep books: To read them one day! If you hope to read the book one day, definitely keep it. It’s fine to be aspirational; no one else will keep score on what you have actually read. It’s great to dream and hope that one day you do have the time to read all your books. To tell your story. Some people give away every book they’ve read explaining, “What’s the point in keeping a book after I’ve read it if I’m not going to read it again? It’s someone else’s turn to read my copy now.” If that works for you, then only keep books on your shelves that you haven’t read yet. However you can probably understand that the books that you haven’t yet read only tell the story of your future, they don’t say much about where you’ve been and what made you who you are today. To make people think you’ve read the book! This one may be hard or easy for you to admit, but we don’t think there is any shame in it. Sometimes we hold on to books because they represent our aspirational selves, supporting the perception of how well read or intelligent we are. They are certainly the books our ideal selves would read, but in reality—if we had to admit it—we probably never will. We would argue that you should still have these books around. They are part of your story and who you want to be. To inspire someone else in your household to read those books one day. Perhaps it’s your kids or maybe your guests. Keeping books for the benefit of others is thoughtful and generous. At the very least, anyone who comes into your home will know that these are important books and will be exposed to the subjects and authors that you feel are important. Whether they actually read Charles Dickens or just know that he existed and was a prolific writer after seeing your books: mission accomplished! To retain sentimental value. People keep a lot of things that have sentimental value: photographs, concert ticket stubs, travel knickknacks. Books, we would argue, have deeper meaning as sentimental objects. That childhood book of your grandmother's— she may have spent hours and hours with it and perhaps it was instrumental in her education. That is much more impactful than a photograph or a ceramic figurine. You are holding in your hands what she held in her hands. This brings her into the present and into your home, taking up space on your shelves and acknowledging the thread of family and history that unites you. Books can do that in ways that other objects cannot. To prove to someone that you still have it! This may be a book that you are otherwise ready to give away, but because a friend gifted it, you want to make sure you have it on display when they visit. This I’ve found happens a lot with coffee table books. It can be a little frustrating when the biggest books are the ones you want to get rid of the most, yet, you are beholden to keeping them. This dilemma is probably better suited to “Dear Abby” than to our guidance here. You will know if it’s time to part ways with a book if you notice it frequently and agonize over the need to keep it to stay friends with your friend. You should probably donate it to a good organization and then tell your friend you spilled coffee all over it and had to give it away! To make your shelves look good! There is no shame in keeping books just because they look good. It’s great if your books all belong on your shelves for multiple reasons, but if it’s only one reason and that it is that it looks good, that is good enough for us. When you need room for new acquisitions, maybe cull some books that only look good and aren’t serving other purposes.

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Oh, what a pleasure that was! Mollie Katzen's handwritten and illustrated recipes that recalled some glorious time in upstate New York when a girl with an appetite could work at a funky vegetarian restaurant and jot down some tasty favorites between shifts. That one had the Pumpkin Tureen soup that Margo had made so many times when she first got the book. She loved the cheesy onion soup served from a pumpkin with a hot dash of horseradish and rye croutons. And the Cardamom Coffee Cake, full of butter, real vanilla, and rich brown sugar, said to be a favorite at the restaurant, where Margo loved to imagine the patrons picking up extras to take back to their green, grassy, shady farmhouses dotted along winding country roads. Linda's Kitchen by Linda McCartney, Paul's first wife, the vegetarian cookbook that had initially spurred her yearlong attempt at vegetarianism (with cheese and eggs, thank you very much) right after college. Margo used to have to drag Calvin into such phases and had finally lured him in by saying that surely anything Paul would eat was good enough for them. Because of Linda's Kitchen, Margo had dived into the world of textured vegetable protein instead of meat, and tons of soups, including a very good watercress, which she never would have tried without Linda's inspiration. It had also inspired her to get a gorgeous, long marble-topped island for prep work. Sometimes she only cooked for the aesthetic pleasure of the gleaming marble topped with rustic pottery containing bright fresh veggies, chopped to perfection. Then Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells caught her eye, and she took it down. Some pages were stuck together from previous cooking nights, but the one she turned to, the most splattered of all, was the one for Onion Soup au Gratin, the recipe that had taught her the importance of cheese quality. No mozzarella or broken string cheeses with- maybe- a little lacy Swiss thrown on. And definitely none of the "fat-free" cheese that she'd tried in order to give Calvin a rich dish without the cholesterol. No, for this to be great, you needed a good, aged, nutty Gruyère from what you couldn't help but imagine as the green grassy Alps of Switzerland, where the cows grazed lazily under a cheerful children's-book blue sky with puffy white clouds. Good Gruyère was blocked into rind-covered rounds and aged in caves before being shipped fresh to the USA with a whisper of fairy-tale clouds still lingering over it. There was a cheese shop downtown that sold the best she'd ever had. She'd tried it one afternoon when she was avoiding returning home. A spunky girl in a visor and an apron had perked up as she walked by the counter, saying, "Cheese can change your life!" The charm of her youthful innocence would have been enough to be cheered by, but the sample she handed out really did it. The taste was beyond delicious. It was good alone, but it cried out for ham or turkey or a rich beefy broth with deep caramelized onions for soup.

In the early 1680s, at just about the time that Edmond Halley and his friends Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke were settling down in a London coffee house and embarking on the casual wager that would result eventually in Isaac Newton’s Principia, Hemy Cavendish’s weighing of the Earth, and many of the other inspired and commendable undertakings that have occupied us for much of the past four hundred pages, a rather less desirable milestone was being passed on the island of Mauritius, far out in the Indian Ocean some eight hundred miles off the east coast of Madagascar. There, some forgotten sailor or sailor’s pet was harrying to death the last of the dodos, the famously flightless bird whose dim but trusting nature and lack of leggy zip made it a rather irresistible target for bored young tars on shore leave. Millions of years of peaceful isolation had not prepared it for the erratic and deeply unnerving behavior of human beings. We don’t know precisely the circumstances, or even year, attending the last moments of the last dodo, so we don’t know which arrived first a world that contained a Principia or one that had no dodos, but we do know that they happened at more or less the same time. You would be hard pressed, I would submit to find a better pairing of occurrences to illustrate the divine and felonious nature of the human being-a species of organism that is capable of unpicking the deepest secrets of the heavens while at the same time pounding into extinction, for no purpose at all, a creature that never did us any harm and wasn’t even remotely capable of understanding what we were doing to it as we did it. Indeed, dodos were so spectacularly short on insight it is reported, that if you wished to find all the dodos in a vicinity you had only to catch one and set it to squawking, and all the others would waddle along to see what was up. The indignities to the poor dodo didn’t end quite there. In 1755, some seventy years after the last dodo’s death, the director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford decided that the institution’s stuffed dodo was becoming unpleasantly musty and ordered it tossed on a bonfire. This was a surprising decision as it was by this time the only dodo in existence, stuffed or otherwise. A passing employee, aghast tried to rescue the bird but could save only its head and part of one limb. As a result of this and other departures from common sense, we are not now entirely sure what a living dodo was like. We possess much less information than most people suppose-a handful of crude descriptions by "unscientific voyagers, three or four oil paintings, and a few scattered osseous fragments," in the somewhat aggrieved words of the nineteenth century naturalist H. E. Strickland. As Strickland wistfully observed, we have more physical evidence of some ancient sea monsters and lumbering saurapods than we do of a bird that lived into modern times and required nothing of us to survive except our absence. So what is known of the dodo is this: it lived on Mauritius, was plump but not tasty, and was the biggest-ever member of the pigeon family, though by quite what margin is unknown as its weight was never accurately recorded. Extrapolations from Strickland’s "osseous fragments" and the Ashmolean’s modest remains show that it was a little over two and a half feet tall and about the same distance from beak tip to backside. Being flightless, it nested on the ground, leaving its eggs and chicks tragically easy prey for pigs, dogs, and monkeys brought to the island by outsiders. It was probably extinct by 1683 and was most certainly gone by 1693. Beyond that we know almost nothing except of course that we will not see its like again. We know nothing of its reproductive habits and diet, where it ranged, what sounds it made in tranquility or alarm. We don’t possess a single dodo egg. From beginning to end our acquaintance with animate dodos lasted just seventy years.

Coffee: just as good as religious fervor, the mild stimulant effects of watered-down wine, anything else used to bring pen to page.

These three words first: 1) muscle memory 2) bio memory 3) bio energy all your day-to-day habits like morning you wake up and do yoga or sip a cup of coffee and the kind of food you eat - all your behaviours, habits and actions form your muscle memory. your muscles keep the memory of all your actions - good or bad, right or wrong. if you create the right muscle memory, it helps you to manifest a beautiful right life. If you build wrong muscle memory, it makes you manifest bad life.end of the day, your life you are living is just the expressions of muscle memories you built. second is, bio memory. It is all the opinions, ideas, cognitions, powerful conclusions about yourself and your life, god, people, about everything. the conclusions you carry, powerful cognitions you carry is called bio memory. Bio memory is about how you believe yourself, what kind of idea you carry about yourself and how it is impacted by others’ belief about you, how others treat you and how that impacts you. All your opinions, ideas, cognitions, powerful conclusions about you, about others, about guru, about god, about the world, about the universe - all these put together is bio memory.

If you just juice, drink herbs, herbal teas and juices, even herbal coffees, herbs-added hot chocolate... You can drink any of that. Whether your problems are as simple as migraine or knee pain or small back pain or as difficult and complicated as cancers, any level, any problem, any disease - ‘langanam parama aushadam’ is the medicine.

not sleeping, sick. drinking coffee, gastric acid.

My friend and I are simply strength-oriented and stuck in different ways, with no discernable reason to which we can point. Because of this, my advice for getting things done at work won’t help her at all, mostly because it amounts to “Drink a big coffee and just make yourself do it. Then wait around to be inspired about what to do next.

For some music is their morning coffee For me coffee is my morning music

I open my eyes and gaze softly at the room in front of me. Then I close them again. Once I’m anchored in bliss, it doesn’t matter whether my eyes are open or closed. I can maintain this expansive state of awareness either way. My intention is to take this awareness into my workday after meditation. I don’t want to think or act from anywhere else. After a while, I look down again at my body sitting in the chair. I realize I’ve been drifting, one with the light, basking in bliss, for a long time. My heart fills with joy and my eyes fill with tears, as I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. For my life, exactly the way it is. For every detail of what is. For everything that will happen in the future, no matter what it might be. I give thanks for all of it. I connect with everyone who’s meditating at this same time anywhere in the world. I open my eyes and look at the sunlight outside the room I’m meditating in. I’m aware of both time and space again. The forgotten cup of coffee in my hands is completely cold. Tears of gratitude flow down my cheeks. I look at my cup. The words printed on it read: Find Joy in the Journey. After we moved into the new house that replaced the one destroyed by fire, I went on a hunt for mugs printed with inspirational words; those bequeathed by the fire victims’ shelter with captions like Construction Equipment Dealer’s Association and My Dang Dog Also Drinks from My Cup didn’t echo the energy of the meditative state. I feel grateful for everything. My hands, with which I hold the coffee cup. My feet, with which I can walk. My breath, bringing life to my cells. My connection to the universe. The wonderful people in my life. I close my eyes and I am immediately in the light once again. I open them and the light remains. In a trance, I stand up and get a fresh cup of coffee. My wife has woken up and she comes into the room to get her morning cup of coffee. We embrace wordlessly. I bury my face in her hair and am enraptured by its scent. We gaze deeply into each other’s eyes and say nothing as she sits down to meditate too. When I close my eyes again, I’m back in Bliss Brain.

But his father had been right: he needed to stop fixing things that didn't need fixed, punishing himself for sins that had been forgiven.

Shake Shack- The now multinational, publicly traded fast-food chain was inspired by the roadside burger stands from Danny's youth in the Midwest and serves burgers, dogs, and concretes- frozen custard blended with mix-ins, including Mast Brothers chocolate and Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie, depending on the location. Blue Smoke- Another nod to Danny's upbringing in the Midwest, this Murray Hill barbecue joint features all manner of pit from chargrilled oysters to fried chicken to seven-pepper brisket, along with a jazz club in the basement. Maialino- This warm and rustic Roman-style trattoria with its garganelli and braised rabbit and suckling pig with rosemary potatoes is the antidote to the fancy-pants Gramercy Park Hotel, in which it resides. Untitled- When the Whitney Museum moved from the Upper East Side to the Meatpacking District, the in-house coffee shop was reincarnated as a fine dining restaurant, with none other than Chef Michael Anthony running the kitchen, serving the likes of duck liver paté, parsnip and potato chowder, and a triple chocolate chunk cookie served with a shot of milk. Union Square Café- As of late 2016, this New York classic has a new home on Park Avenue South. But it has the same style, soul, and classic menu- Anson Mills polenta, ricotta gnocchi, New York strip steak- as it first did when Danny opened the restaurant back in 1985. The Modern- Overlooking the Miró, Matisse, and Picasso sculptures in MoMA's Sculpture Garden, the dishes here are appropriately refined and artistic. Think cauliflower roasted in crab butter, sautéed foie gras, and crispy Long Island duck.

A quiet afternoon with a warm cup off coffee and a good book are the perfect description of moments that I cherish in this short life.

Gdmng, friends! As part of my mission to keep you present & mindful everyday, today’s reminder hits close to home: Don’t Leave Anything For LATER. We’ve all been there. You say, “I’ll do it later” & suddenly, later turns into never. Later, the coffee gets cold. Later, the day turns into night. Later, weeks turn into months (Wait, it’s already June). Later, you realize you never got around to it. Later, you might find yourself filled with regret (Wishing you’d taken that chance) Darling listen – Later, you might simply run out of “LATERS”. The chance is in your hands. Take action today & watch your “Laters” transform into amazing “DONES”…! Sweetheart, the point is, don’t wait! Remember, you had the chance & you still do! Take a moment today to think about something you’ve been putting off & make it happen! Here’s to a fantastic June filled with action, not “laters”! I wish & hope that you grab life by the horns & make it a day to remember. Happy New Month! Blessings!

A cowboy always carries biscuits and a canteen of coffee.

There are lots of shades of brown. Your eyes, for example, are a rich, coffee color with a swirl of cream in the middle. A girl could get lost in

Meditation # 3 Writing Coffee! Today there are so many cafes to choose from. I’m in NYC now and have a choice of 5 ‘coffee shops’ within a 2-block radius. When I lived here over 20 years ago that would have looked more like 1 cafe in a 12-block radius. Not including Bodegas! Find your way to a cafe—by yourself. You’re allowed a newspaper, book or digital device of your choice but also bring along a pen and paper. Get your favorite hot beverage. Teas are nice, too! And relax. Mindfulness training reminds you to pause. To be observant. To not only look but to see. Try that now—if you are in a cafe. Notice everything! The walls—their color and texture, what’s hanging on them. Is there a theme? I.e. Do you notice photos of bread being made? Flowers in baskets? Coffee beans being harvested? What are the sounds? Do you hear a cappuccino machine frothing fresh milk? People talking? Music being streamed in the background? What are the smells? Are they heavenly? Breads? Dark roasts? What do you feel? Are there people around? Do you feel comfortable? Are you self-conscious? Take out your paper and write your responses down. All of them. Without judgment. You have just been creative!

Look at you, getting coffee, getting groceries, going on trips in an airplane. Pretending that you're as able-bodied as the rest of us! It's all just so inspiring.

Mlle Hiraï sentit son coeur se serrer. Kumi avait donc bien des aspirations, elle aussi. Des choses qu'elle voulait faire dans sa vie. Par égoïsme, Mlle Hiraï l'avait privée d'un rêve auquel elle tenait au point d'en pleurer. Elle lui demanda d'une voix faible : - De quoi rêvais-tu ? Kumi, les yeux rougis, prit une profonde inspiration avant de répondre : - De m'occuper de l'auberge avec toi... A ces mots, son visage déformé par les pleurs s'était illuminé. Mlle Hiraï n'avait jamais vu sa soeur afficher un sourire aussi heureux.

The magazine piece on the urban legend had stated, ‘At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present does not change. So it raises the question: just what is the point of that chair?’ But Kazu still goes on believing that, no matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose".

Remember who you are by remembering who you once were. Don’t ever be afraid to have coffee with the past.

Or maybe I should say a few things that I “like like” In that same way that in the 7th grade I knew That there was a difference between how to like a sandwich And how I like liked Katie Elbin’s pale blonde pigtails. So..I like like Vietnamese Coffee and the long wait for it to drip Drops down into my clear glass coffee mug with penguins on it. I like like that the penguins playfully dance as the black of my coffee Meets the creaminess of condensed milk. I like like the way that Gatsby read when I was twelve And thought that Romanticism and the early twenties Would be as romantic in my early twenties. As if a field of daisies would be the same as the field of Daisy’s. However, I like like the melancholic tone of my chemicals as well When they become overly emotive. Haven’t you heard the news that we’re dead? Wouldn’t it be grand to go exactly as we planned? I like like wondering if wandering is a wanderlust Or just a wanderlust? I think this was address by a Tribe Called Quest But I’ve lost just who it is whom I was promised I could trust. I like like driving with a GPS Not playing it too close to the chest Or relying on all the Redbull and Slim Jim’s Which my passenger-self digests. And I like like a gentle sadness like a reminder I can feel The realizations that this is all just so ever gosh golly really real That my dream board has visions of what I can do And that what absolutely matters is only relatively true.

Remember that life is short and full of surprises. If you wait too long, opportunities fade like setting sun.

Sometimes I utilize a form of bibliomancy, or dictionariomancy, to give me a clue as to what in the foggy blue hell is going to happen next. My method is this: I make myself a pot of Evening in Missoula tea, pretend that I’m in Missoula, where I’ve never been. I light a wand of Nag Champa incense, pretend that I’m uncountable, which is the meaning of Nag Champa. I light whatever candle is handy. I am alone when I do this, not only out of respect for Pollux’s sensibilities. I would be embarrassed for anybody else to know that this is how I make rational decisions. It was a warm winter day, so Hetta and Pollux were out strolling with Jarvis, who was bundled and wrapped like a tiny mummy. The time was now. In an aura of ceremonial gravity, I set the dictionary down on the coffee table. I cleared my mind. I closed my eyes, opened up the dictionary, and let my finger drift until it touched down on a word. Divination n. 1. The art or act of foretelling future events or revealing occult knowledge by means of augury or alleged supernatural agency. 2. An inspired guess or a presentiment. 3. That which has been divined. My source confirmed my instinct and my finger landed on exactly what I was doing. My augur told me that something was coming. But I was annoyed. I thought the dictionary got it wrong because that something, the wraith of Flora, was already here. I was wrong. Something else was definitely on its way.

Inside an H Mart complex, there will be some kind of food court, an appliance shop, and a pharmacy. Usually, there's a beauty counter where you can buy Korean makeup and skin-care products with snail mucin or caviar oil, or a face mask that vaguely boasts "placenta." (Whose placenta? Who knows?) There will usually be a pseudo-French bakery with weak coffee, bubble tea, and an array of glowing pastries that always look much better than they taste. My local H Mart these days is in Elkins Park, a town northeast of Philadelphia. My routine is to drive in for lunch on the weekends, stock up on groceries for the week, and cook something for dinner with whatever fresh bounty inspires me. The H Mart in Elkins Park has two stories; the grocery is on the first floor and the food court is above it. Upstairs, there is an array of stalls serving different kinds of food. One is dedicated to sushi, one is strictly Chinese. Another is for traditional Korean jjigaes, bubbling soups served in traditional earthenware pots called ttukbaegis, which act as mini cauldrons to ensure that your soup is still bubbling a good ten minutes past arrival. There's a stall for Korean street food that serves up Korean ramen (basically just Shin Cup noodles with an egg cracked in); giant steamed dumplings full of pork and glass noodles housed in a thick, cakelike dough; and tteokbokki, chewy, bite-sized cylindrical rice cakes boiled in a stock with fish cakes, red pepper, and gochujang, a sweet-and-spicy paste that's one of the three mother sauces used in pretty much all Korean dishes. Last, there's my personal favorite: Korean-Chinese fusion, which serves tangsuyuk---a glossy, sweet-and-sour orange pork---seafood noodle soup, fried rice, and black bean noodles.

My lola had made a few jars of her specialty, matamis na bao, or coconut jam, to spread on our pandesal and kakanin. The fragrant smell of coconut cream, caramelized sugar, and pandan leaves wafted through the room, the intoxicating aroma of the dark, sticky jam making my mouth water. I scanned the contents of the fridge, waiting for inspiration to strike. Whatever I made had to be small and snack-y, so as to complement but not draw attention from my grandmother's sweet, sticky rice cakes. Maybe some kind of cookie to go with our after-dinner tea and coffee? Coco jam sandwiched between shortbread would be great, but sandwich cookies were a little heavier and more fiddly than what I was looking for. Maybe if they were open-faced? As I thought of a way to make that work, my eyes fell on the pandan extract in the cabinet and everything clicked into place. Pandan thumbprint cookies with a dollop of coconut jam! Pandan and coconut were commonly used together, plus the buttery and lightly floral flavor of the cookies would balance well against the rich, intense sweetness of the jam.

The Nigress From the river Arose the Nigress Magnificent Super naturally tall And full of grand splendor Gracefully poised Elegantly adorned Purposeful Beautiful, coffee black, fair and lovely In her right hand Glitters a golden symbol She signals in words unspoken Beckoning her huge entourage Her majestic gown swept the floor of the earth beneath Her long gold beaded braids sway With each purposeful stride As she moves She looked intently ahead Walking with grace and dignity As if she has walked this path before On feet, covered, by the length Of her long elegant gown Her face one could not see As she walked, never looking back She emerged with a purpose A command that must be done An order that must be fulfilled The Nigress... arose.. From the river...

Sometimes, healing consists of sitting in coffee shops and writing the years from your mind. Sometimes, healing is laughing until you cry; it is kissing your friends’ faces and being moved and inspired by your life. And sometimes, healing is rest; it is hiding from the world, it is having everything inside of you be still and quiet and eerily bare. Sometimes healing feels like nothing at all, like you are a silhouette of hope and hurt at the same time. Do not fight it. Whatever your healing looks like today, whatever it consists of—just allow it to be what it is. Just take care of yourself.

The true success of a coffee lies not just in its taste, but in the connections it fosters and the moments it creates.

المشاعر والمصافحة والقهوة ! ‏لا أحد يحبها باردة !!!

Maybe closure feels akin to the warmth you get when sipping your coffee in a café, silently watching people do their things. You begin to appreciate life knowing you’ve made it through after a long, hard battle with all the negativities the world gave you.

Do you know what color the coffee fruit is?" "Brown... like coffee?" "It's red. They're smooth, like cherries." "At first I thought the fruits were the beans that they sold in jars. But I never knew that those were actually the seeds and that they were white before they were roasted. You never know what something really looks like if you're only looking at it from one direction.

Life is too short for bad vibes and lukewarm coffee. Surround yourself with people who lift you higher and invest in a good coffee maker. After all, why settle for mediocrity when you can have an espresso shot of excellence in every cup? Embrace the bold flavors of life, kick negativity to the curb, and savor the rich aroma of success. Remember, you’re the barista of your own destiny, so brew it strong and make it count!

your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.” - Mahatma Gandhi

You see, at young age I had known how bitter taste like and it all started with a cup of brewed coffee.

But meeting your aunt changed everything. It made me realize I could be so much more. I don’t know how it will happen or if it will. But at least there’s hope.” She pulled her feet onto the seat, tucking her knees to her chest. “Elise said she used to work the graveyard shift at this diner so she could have daytime hours free for photography. She said she’d work a wedding then go waitress right after. She went from champagne and cake to coffee and bacon. Evening gowns to truckers.” She smiled. “The weddings paid well, but the night shift inspired her. Isn’t that amazing? A five thousand dollar dress on a bride couldn’t compete with five thousand miles on a trucker’s face. She said his wrinkles told a better story than silk ever could.

If my life was pulled into the pages of a book, there would be coffee stains and wrinkles along the lines of that narrative. Because all I can wish is that the book of my life would be well read and well loved. Living within words and the sound of writing.

Every Sunday, the Weavers drove their Oldsmobile east toward Waterloo and pulled into the gravel parking lot of the Cedarloo Baptist Church, on a hill between Waterloo and Cedar Falls, took their place in the pews, and listened to the minister. But there seemed to be no fire or passion, no sense of what was really happening in the world. They’d tried other churches and found congregations interested in what God had done 2,000 years ago, but no one paying attention to what God was doing right then. Certainly, churches weren’t addressing the crime in Cedar Falls, the drugs, or the sorry state of schools and government, not to mention the kind of danger that Hal Lindsey described. They would have to find the truth themselves. They began doing their own research, especially Vicki. She had quit work to raise Sara, and later Samuel, who was born in April 1978. When Sara started school, Randy and Vicki couldn’t believe the pagan things she was being taught. They refused to allow her to dress up for Halloween—Satan’s holiday—and decided they had to teach Sara at home. But that was illegal in Iowa. A booster shot of religion came with cable television and The PTL Club, the 700 Club, and Jerry Falwell. The small television in the kitchen was on all the time for a while, but most of Vicki’s free time was spent reading. She’s lose herself in the Cedar Falls public library, reading the science fiction her dad had introduced her to as a kid, the novels and self-help books friends recommended, biblical histories, political tracts, and obscure books that she discovered on her own. Like a painter, she pulled out colors and hues that fit with the philosophy she and Randy were discovering, and everywhere she looked there seemed to be something guiding them toward “the truth,” and, at the same time, pulling them closer together. She spent hours in the library, and when she found something that fit, she passed it along first to Randy, who might read the book himself and then spread it to everyone—the people at work, in the neighborhood, at the coffee shop where he hung out. They read books from fringe organizations and groups, picking through the philosophies, taking what they agreed with and discarding the rest. Yet some of the books that influenced them came from the mainstream, such as Ayn Rand’s classic libertarian novel Atlas Shrugged. Vicki found its struggle between the individual and the state prophetic and its action inspiring. The book shows a government so overbearing and immoral that creative people, led by a self-reliant protagonist, go on strike and move to the mountains. “‘You will win,’” the book’s protagonist cries from his mountain hideout, “‘when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my battle—and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the hearing of the world: “‘I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live my life for the sake of another man, nor ask another to live for mine.

I gave up drinking coffee for you. I swapped pizza for produce and this is what I get in return?

I gave up drinking coffee for you. I swapped pizza for produce, and this is what I get in return?

Many of the one-liners teach volumes. Some summarize excellence in an entire field in one sentence. As Josh Waitzkin (page 577), chess prodigy and the inspiration behind Searching for Bobby Fischer, might put it, these bite-sized learnings are a way to “learn the macro from the micro.” The process of piecing them together was revelatory. If I thought I saw “the Matrix” before, I was mistaken, or I was only seeing 10% of it. Still, even that 10%—“ islands” of notes on individual mentors—had already changed my life and helped me 10x my results. But after revisiting more than a hundred minds as part of the same fabric, things got very interesting very quickly. For the movie nerds among you, it was like the end of The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects: “The red door knob! The fucking Kobayashi coffee cup! How did I not notice that?! It was right in front of me the whole time!” To help you see the same, I’ve done my best to weave patterns together throughout the book, noting where guests have complementary habits, beliefs, and recommendations. The completed jigsaw puzzle is much greater than the sum of its parts.

[…] if you have to choose between your conformism and your passion, I’d choose the passion, no matter how short lived. Between being like dead, and living intensely even for a little, I think the choice is clear. [...] It’s kinda like the coffee preparation you wanted me to choose earlier. Why settle for decaffeinated or umbrella juice, when you can have the full flavor of it?

Percolate Peace

Hipsters are fine with coffee but eye boutiques and banks with suspicion, yuppies are fine with the boutiques and banks but see landscapes radically altered by development as cultural losses, and developers such as Pres Kabacoff are fine with those landscapes as long as they don’t inspire protest.