Coincidence Movie Quotes

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Will Turner: This is either madness... or brilliance. Jack Sparrow: It's remarkable how often those two traits coincide.

You can't ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence. That's all anything ever is. Nothing more than coYou can't ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence. That's all anything ever is. Nothing more than co

IT’S HARDLY a coincidence that “Shipping Out,” Wallace’s most well-known essay, appeared only a month before Infinite Jest, his most well-known novel, was published. Both are about the same thing (amusing ourselves to death), with different governing données (lethally entertaining movie, lethally pampering leisure cruise). In an interview after the novel came out, Wallace, asked what’s so great about writing, said that we’re existentially alone on the planet—I can’t know what you’re thinking and feeling, and you can’t know what I’m thinking and feeling—so writing, at its best, is a bridge constructed across the bridge of human loneliness.

I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state.

In one way, at least, our lives really are like movies. The main cast consists of your family and friends. The supporting cast is made up of neighbors, co-workers, teachers, and daily acquaintances. There are also bit players: the supermarket checkout girl with the pretty smile, the friendly bartender at the local watering hole, the guys you work out with at the gym three days a week. And there are thousands of extras --those people who flow through every life like water through a sieve, seen once and never again. The teenager browsing a graphic novel at Barnes & Noble, the one you had to slip past (murmuring "Excuse me") in order to get to the magazines. The woman in the next lane at a stoplight, taking a moment to freshen her lipstick. The mother wiping ice cream off her toddler's face in a roadside restaurant where you stopped for a quick bite. The vendor who sold you a bag of peanuts at a baseball game. But sometimes a person who fits none of these categories comes into your life. This is the joker who pops out of the deck at odd intervals over the years, often during a moment of crisis. In the movies this sort of character is known as the fifth business, or the chase agent. When he turns up in a film, you know he's there because the screenwriter put him there. But who is screenwriting our lives? Fate or coincidence? I want to believe it's the latter. I want that with all my heart and soul.

It was Valentine's Day and I had spent the day in bed with my life partner, Ketel One. The two of us watched a romance movie marathon on TBS Superstation that made me wonder how people who write romantic comedies can sleep at night. At some point during almost every romantic comedy, the female lead suddenly trips and falls, stumbling helplessly over something ridiculous like a leaf, and then some Matthew McConaughey type either whips around the corner just in the nick of time to save her or is clumsily pulled down along with her. That event predictably leads to the magical moment of their first kiss. Please. I fall all-the-time. You know who comes and gets me? The bouncer. Then, within the two hour time frame of the movie, the couple meet, fall in love, fall out of love, break up, and then just before the end of the movie, they happen to bump into each other by "coincidence" somewhere absolutely absurd, like by the river. This never happens in real life. The last time I bumped into an ex-boyfriend was at three o'clock in the morning at Rite Aid. I was ringing up Gas-X and corn removers.

Must you always speak with so many pop culture references?" "I must, yes, but no one's making pop culture anymore, so I'm starting to feel dated. I haven't seen a new movie in two years. And you know what else I just realized?" The doctor stared at him. "I'm never going to find out what the hell was going on with Lost. I mean, was it just sheer coincidence their plane crashed on the island or was it this Jacob guy pulling the strings all along? And how did most of them end up back in the 1970s with the Dharma people?

Apparently, boredom was not even a concept before the word was invented around 1760, along with the word “interesting.”20 The tide of boredom that has risen ever since coincides with the progress of the Industrial Revolution, hinting at a reason why it has, until recently, been an exclusively Western phenomenon. The reality that the factory system created was a mass-produced reality, a generic reality of standardized products, standardized roles, standardized tasks, and standardized lives. The more we came to live in that artificial reality, the more separate we became from the inherently fascinating realm of nature and community. Today, in a familiar pattern, we apply further technology to relieve the boredom that results from our immersion in a world of technology. We call it entertainment. Have you ever thought about that word? To entertain a guest means to bring him into your house; to entertain a thought means to bring it into your mind. To be entertained means to be brought into the television, the game, the movie. It means to be removed from your self and the real world. When a television show does this successfully, we applaud it as entertaining. Our craving for entertainment points to the impoverishment of our reality.

But sometimes a person who fits none of these categories comes into your life. This is the joker who pops out of the deck at odd intervals over the years, often during a moment of crisis. In the movies this sort of character is known as the fifth business, or the change agent. When he turns up in a film, you know he’s there because the screenwriter put him there. But who is screenwriting our lives? Fate or coincidence?

There are two kinds of directors; those who have the public in mind when they conceive and make their films and those who don't consider the public at all. For the former, cinema is an art of spectacle; for the latter, it is an individual adventure. There is nothing intrinsically better about one or the other; it's simply a matter of different approaches. For Hitchcock as for Renoir, as for that matter almost all American directors, a film has not succeeded unless it is a success, that is, unless it touches the public that one has had in mind right from the moment of choosing the subject matter to the end of production. While Bresson, Tati, Rossellini, Ray make films their own way and then invite the public to join the "game," Renoir, Clouzot, Hitchcock and Hawks make movies for the public, and ask themselves all the questions they think will interest their audience. Alfred Hitchcock, who is a remarkably intelligent man, formed the habit early--right from the start of his career in England--of predicting each aspect of his films. All his life he has worked to make his own tastes coincide with the public', emphasizing humor in his English period and suspense in his American period. This dosage of humor and suspense has made Hitchcock one of the most commercial directors in the world (his films regularly bring in four times what they cost). It is the strict demands he makes on himself and on his art that have made him a great director.

Everyone deserves a little pampering when they're sick. I'm sure you'd do the same." "Of course. I'd bring you mountains of cheese and frozen custard and coffee with too much cream and sugar." "And stacks of eighties teen movies?" "The very best ones." "See? You'd spoil me, too.

SOCIAL/GENERAL ICEBREAKERS 1. What do you think of the movie/restaurant/party? 2. Tell me about the best vacation you’ve ever taken. 3. What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy day? 4. If you could replay any moment in your life, what would it be? 5. What one thing would you really like to own? Why? 6. Tell me about one of your favorite relatives. 7. What was it like in the town where you grew up? 8. What would you like to come back as in your next life? 9. Tell me about your kids. 10. What do you think is the perfect age? Why? 11. What is a typical day like for you? 12. Of all the places you’ve lived, tell me about the one you like the best. 13. What’s your favorite holiday? What do you enjoy about it? 14. What are some of your family traditions that you particularly enjoy? 15. Tell me about the first car you ever bought. 16. How has the Internet affected your life? 17. Who were your idols as a kid? Have they changed? 18. Describe a memorable teacher you had. 19. Tell me about a movie/book you’ve seen or read more than once. 20. What’s your favorite restaurant? Why? 21. Tell me why you were named ______. What is the origin of your last name? 22. Tell me about a place you’ve visited that you hope never to return to. get over your mom’s good intentions. 23. What’s the best surprise you’ve ever received? 24. What’s the neatest surprise you’ve ever planned and pulled off for someone else? 25. Skiing here is always challenging. What are some of your favorite places to ski? 26. Who would star as you in a movie about your life? Why that person? 27. Who is the most famous person you’ve met? 28. Tell me about some of your New Year’s resolutions. 29. What’s the most antiestablishment thing you’ve ever done? 30. Describe a costume that you wore to a party. 31. Tell me about a political position you’d like to hold. 32. What song reminds you of an incident in your life? 33. What’s the most memorable meal you’ve eaten? 34. What’s the most unforgettable coincidence you’ve experienced or heard about? 35. How are you able to tell if that melon is ripe? 36. What motion picture star would you like to interview? Why? 37. Tell me about your family. 38. What aroma brings forth a special memory? 39. Describe the scariest person you ever met. 40. What’s your favorite thing to do alone? 41. Tell me about a childhood friend who used to get you in trouble. 42. Tell me about a time when you had too much to eat or drink. 43. Describe your first away-from-home living quarters or experience. 44. Tell me about a time that you lost a job. 45. Share a memory of one of your grandparents. 46. Describe an embarrassing moment you’ve had. 47. Tell me something most people would never guess about you. 48. What would you do if you won a million dollars? 49. Describe your ideal weather and why. 50. How did you learn to ski/hang drywall/play piano?

I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen—I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Right around that time, I started dating a guy named Jeff. He was a classically handsome, popular guy. But there was something different about him too. He was angrier than most teenage boys, and a little misunderstood. I ignored the signs that he was probably a bit unstable. Signs like when they gave him a fish fillet at McDonald’s instead of a Big Mac, he became so furious that he cried. Truly lost it. Real tears of rage. Like the kind of tears guys are only supposed to get when they watch a movie that touches on their dad issues. (So, most movies.) Isn’t it funny that they say most girls have daddy issues, when really, every dude does? But this dude had daddy, mommy, doggy, and fish fillet issues. I just thought, Well, he can’t help it. But I understand him. I’m here for him. Even though we were both generally well liked, when we were together it was us vs. the world. I’ve only recently broken my pattern of being drawn to the “you’re the only one who gets me” guy. Which is a bad guy to be drawn to, and it’s not a coincidence if everyone—including all your friends and family and your dog—dislikes him. But

How can you say anything other than Ratatouille is Pixar's best movie? Your a chef, for Christ's sake," Sue said. Lou smiled at Sue's accusatory tone. She needed this distraction. Harley rolled his eyes and said, "You're letting your biases show, Sue. Up uses music better- like a character. The opening fifteen minutes is some of the best filmmaking- ever. And who doesn't love a good squirrel joke?" "But Ratatouille brings it all back to food." Sue waved a carrot in the air to emphasize her point. "They made you want to eat food cooked by a rat! I'd eat the food; it looked magnificent. That rat cooked what he loved; what tasted good. Like I've been telling Lou, we should cook food from the heart, not just the cookbook.

Orison Swett Marden, who wrote Character: The Grandest Thing in the World in 1899, produced another popular title in 1921. It was called Masterful Personality. Many of these guides were written for businessmen, but women were also urged to work on a mysterious quality called “fascination.” Coming of age in the 1920s was such a competitive business compared to what their grandmothers had experienced, warned one beauty guide, that they had to be visibly charismatic: “People who pass us on the street can’t know that we’re clever and charming unless we look it.” Such advice—ostensibly meant to improve people’s lives—must have made even reasonably confident people uneasy. Susman counted the words that appeared most frequently in the personality-driven advice manuals of the early twentieth century and compared them to the character guides of the nineteenth century. The earlier guides emphasized attributes that anyone could work on improving, described by words like Citizenship Duty Work Golden deeds Honor Reputation Morals Manners Integrity But the new guides celebrated qualities that were—no matter how easy Dale Carnegie made it sound—trickier to acquire. Either you embodied these qualities or you didn’t: Magnetic Fascinating Stunning Attractive Glowing Dominant Forceful Energetic It was no coincidence that in the 1920s and the 1930s, Americans became obsessed with movie stars. Who better than a matinee idol to model personal magnetism?

Maybe it’s not a coincidence that I’ve always been interested in heroes, starting with my dad, Phil Robertson, and my mom, Miss Kay. My other heroes are my pa and my granny, who taught me how to play cards and dominoes and everything about fishing (which was a lot), and my three older brothers, who teased me, beat me up, and sometimes let me follow them around. Not much has changed in that department. I’ve always loved movies, and when I was about seven or eight years old, I watched Rocky, Sylvester Stallone’s movie about an underdog boxer who used his fists, along with sheer will, determination, and the ability to endure pain, to make a way for himself. He fought hard but played fair and had a soft spot for his friends. I fell in love with Rocky. He was my hero, and I became obsessed. When I decide to do something, I’m all in; so I found a pair of red shorts that looked like Rocky’s boxing trunks and a navy blue bathrobe with two white stripes on the sleeve and no belt. I took off my shirt and ran around bare-chested in my robe and shorts. Most kids I knew went through a superhero phase, but they picked DC Comics guys, like Batman or Superman. Not me. I was Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, and proud of it. Mom let me run around like that for a couple of years, even when we went in to town. Rocky had a girlfriend, Adrian, who was always there, always by his side. When he was beaten and blinded in a bad fight, he called out for her before anybody else. “Yo, Adrian!” he shouted in his Philly-Italian accent. He needed her. Eventually, I grew up, and the red shorts and blue bathrobe didn’t fit anymore, but I always remembered Rocky’s kindness and his courage. And that every Rocky needs an Adrian.

This is a perfect example of how a control drama interferes,” he said. “You were so aloof you didn’t allow an important coincidence to take place.” I must have appeared defensive. “It’s all right,” he said, “everyone plays a drama of one kind or another. At least now you understand how yours works.” “I don’t understand!” I said. “What exactly am I doing?” “Your way of controlling people and situations,” he explained, “in order to get energy coming your way, is to create this drama in your mind during which you withdraw and look mysterious and secretive. You tell yourself that you’re being cautious but what you’re really doing is hoping someone will be pulled into this drama and will try to figure out what’s going on with you. When someone does, you remain vague, forcing them to struggle and dig and try to discern your true feelings. “As they do so, they give you their full attention and that sends their energy to you. The longer you can keep them interested and mystified, the more energy you receive. Unfortunately, when you play aloof, your life tends to evolve very slowly because you’re repeating this same scene over and over again. If you had opened up to Rolando, your life movie would have taken off in a new and meaningful direction.

«It's not easy to believe.» «I» she told him, «I can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.» «Really?» «I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in "War of the Worlds". I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kind of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.»

I can believe that things are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

I," she told him, "can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe." "Really?" "I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in this universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She stopped, out of breath. Shadow almost took his hands off the wheel to applaud.

You got a name?” the ring announcer asked me. I’m sure I had thought of a million ideas, but I was drawing a blank. This was all happening fast, and I had nothing. I totally froze. A wrestler who went by the name Tack turned to Cody, “He’s like the F’n guy from the movie, Varsity Blues, Jonathan Moxley!” In the movie the guy’s name is Jonathan Moxon. So thankfully, he had actually messed it up. Cody gave the OK sign to the ring announcer. I was busy pissing my pants, so I didn’t offer anything. Just like that, I had a name, a name I like to think I’ve defined as my own. The fact that women wearing whipped-cream bikinis are often lurking around every corner ready to accost me is purely a coincidence.

Laws are not drawn up near dumpsters with dirty needles and rats, but in mahogany trimmed board rooms where the marble gleams with the light of noble intentions. Rarely do these coincide with the gun toting men who are charged with the task of enforcing them. They are the offensive linemen of society. Nobody buys their jersey. People just yell at them when they are offsides. But without him everything will collapse! When I was an offensive guard I did whatever I could to block the other guy. So I can empathize with Inspector Harry Callahan and his methods. I love it when Callahan is still chewing his hot dog as he blows away punks who think they can steal from a bank during the middle of the day in San Francisco. Dirty Harry you had me at 'do you feel lucky?' Real cops couldn't catch the Zodiac killer, but Harry blew that scumbag into a pond, then followed up by throwing his badge into the same pond, because he too knows that the rules of 'decent' society are a myth that pretty people in big houses talk about over tea.

I love you.” “Wow. That too on Valentine’s Day!” “That’s just a coincidence.” A perfect love story started to brew as they embarked on a journey of love and romance. The day the world celebrated love was the day they would start their love story too. What a perfect melodrama, even the best of romantic movies might not have such a climax. A perfect love story was just brewing.

Do you ever watch old black-and-white war movies? The weary soldier advances cautiously out of the brush. There's a clearing ahead: are there any land mines, or is it safe to cross? There aren't any indications that it's a minefield—no signs, barbed wire, or craters. The soldier pokes the ground ahead of him with his bayonet and winces, expecting an explosion. There isn't one. So he proceeds painstakingly through the field for a while, prodding and poking as he goes. Eventually, convinced that the field is safe, he straightens up and marches proudly forward, only to be blown to pieces. The soldier's initial probes for mines revealed nothing, but this was merely lucky. He was led to a false conclusion—with disastrous results. As developers, we also work in minefields. There are hundreds of traps just waiting to catch us each day. Remembering the soldier's tale, we should be wary of drawing false conclusions. We should avoid programming by coincidence—relying on luck and accidental successes—in favor of programming deliberately.

He goes up on the roof and finds exactly what he was looking for—a crane with a rope on it! That might seem like a convenient coincidence, but if you put good out into the world, good is what you get back. Keanu can have whatever he wants.

In San Francisco I read a review of John Huston's recent movie, Victory, which described it as "exciting." In the Irish Tribune yesterday I read another review which described it as "dull." Is the excitement or dullness "in" the movie, or was it in the nervous systems of the reviewers?

Last night's harsh phone call seemed to be a distant memory as we spent the day in the snow with my new fake friends, going for one last turn on the mountain while I drank boiled wine at the bottom of the ski lift at the hutte. I honestly told Anette in the ski lift during the day what Sabrina had told me on the phone the night before, but she remained silent and didn't seem surprised for some reason. I didn't think Anette would conspire with Betty to test me or win me. I didn’t think they would conspire with Sabrina but perhaps I didn’t know her well enough to assume what she was capable of when jealous, mad, sad, confused or in love. Perhaps they did not. Everything I don't know. I try to write here all that I know and have managed to figure out, taking a long time. I try to share what I have been through because I am sure that others will find it useful to learn from my mistakes, faults, sins, virtues, and so on. Perhaps only my luck, good or bad, I don't know. I could not have figured out what happened if I had not written down exactly how things unfolded in order to be able to see through it all and comprehend what really happened since I bought that Roberto Saviano book and met Sabrina. Perhaps the women had been conspiring for one reason or another; perhaps they had not. Nonetheless, it was odd. „Water is wet, the sky is blue, women have secrets. Who gives a f..k?” – Joe Hallenbeck Do all men have to be natural-born and supernatural detectives like Bruce Willis in all his movies, or in The Last Boy Scout? I'm not sure how many coincidences can fit so strangely into reality by chance, or is it all manipulation? Is it all because of the story of Eve and the snake and the apple?

Then there’s southern California. Maybe the shadow of Hollywood tints truth and fiction beyond recognition. Maybe crooked executives believe they can do what they please since a continent separates them from Wall Street. Maybe the sunshine triggers a criminal giddiness. Or maybe it’s just coincidence. But a disproportionate number of the financial scandals of the last generation have blossomed in the land of the lotus eaters. The collapse of Lincoln Savings & Loan, Charles Keating’s bank, cost taxpayers $3.4 billion; other California S&L failures cost tens of billions more. Barry Minkow came from the San Fernando Valley to fleece bankers and investors of several million dollars while he was still a teenager. And movie accounting is notoriously corrupt.

Dallas. The scriptwriters have each of the actresses in the soap opera play the death scene in the swimming pool: they do not know which of them is to die, and hence disappear from the series. The 'soap' becomes their destiny. If they should die in reality, a way is devised for writing them out of the script. If they are sacrificed in the script, their stardom inevitably comes to an end in real life too, since they are identified with the characters they play. It is the same as in a ceremony: outside the ritual, you count for nothing, but the ritual is flexible enough to make use of all the chance happenings of life. Dallas 's secret lies in its closeness to tribal and initiatory stereotypes. That is why there is never any laughter in it: no wit, no humour, no comic episodes, no happy coincidences. It is a closed world in which everything leads inevitably to fatality, perfidy, sentimental incest or magical cannibalism. Such is the tribal law, of which J.R. is the emblem, which gives rise to the desperate efforts on the part of the women to escape from this archaic trap. In its artless cruelty, Dallas is superior to any 'intelligent' critique that can be made of it. That is why intellectual snobbery meets its match here. In a dream I saw the face of servitude. It is the face of a woman with heavy lidded, blue, expressionless eyes. The crescent shapes of her breasts are asymmetrical. She always has a smile for the poorest as she crawls off daintily towards infinity. Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis of time. Every instant is dilated and magnified like the pores of the face.

Of course we’re not talking about a Hollywood movie, Sam. We’re talking about your son’s life. But where do you think the three-act structure comes from? And why does it consistently speak to audiences? Because it’s an archetype. A universal pattern that recurs one generation after another. It’s not a coincidence that when the Sphinx poses her riddle to Oedipus, the answer is the three phases of man.

In a well-wrought Hollywood film, what can seem like an effortless shift in the narrative point of view from third to first person, signified by an apparently familiar form of camera movement, may in fact involve far more sophisticated cinematic technique than an uncritical viewer is at first able to appreciate. After the shift is accomplished, the viewer, if asked, may say that the point of view from which he sees the world of the movie perfectly coincides with that of the first-person point of view of a female character in the movie onto that same world. But careful examination will reveal that the viewer's ability to follow the visual narration depends on a form of understanding of what he sees that is considerably more logically sophisticated that he takes it to be. For the viewer actually understands that he sees what happens in that fictional world from a point of view that somehow succeeds in folding her first-person point of view (through whose perceptual consciousness the world of the movie is disclosed to him) into a further first-person perspective (namely his - the viewer's). The manner in which the one is enfolded in the other needs to permit the viewer's point of view fully to subtend her perceptual first-person present point of view onto the world of the movie without his thereby coinciding with hers. The two forms of subjectivity (that of the viewer and that of the character) must manage to be perfectly aligned along one logical dimension, while along another remaining perfectly distinct. An ordinary viewer of an ordinary (so-called) point-of-view shot in a Hollywood movie achieves a remarkably logically complex form of point of view onto the world of the movie - one that requires its own cinematically specific mode of logical alienation.

Destiny Coincidences have never let me live my life;It's really amazing how real life can exceed movies .

It was a complete life review. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it was wonderful. It was so wonderful and memorable that I didn’t want it to end. There were people and experiences featured that I hadn’t thought about for years. Everything about my life was coming back in picture form. And, surprisingly, the first picture – the first movie frame – was of me riding a red tricycle; I was about 3 or 4 years old. Years later, after telling my dad about this life review experience, he disappeared into the attic of the family home only to emerge and descend with an old black and white photo, saying, “Here’s that picture of you on your red tricycle.” Coincidence, perhaps, but I really don’t think so. In addition to that powerful initial movie frame of me on a red tricycle, I remember, in general, additional life review highlights that included

Traditions are conditioned reflexes. Throughout Part 2 of this book, you will find suggestions for establishing family traditions that will trigger happy anticipation and leave lasting, cherished memories. Traditions around major holidays and minor holidays. Bedtime, bath-time, and mealtime traditions; sports and pastime traditions; birthday and anniversary traditions; charitable and educational traditions. If your family’s traditions coincide with others’ observances, such as celebrating Thanksgiving, you will still make those traditions unique to your family because of the personal nuances you add. Volunteering at the food bank on Thanksgiving morning, measuring and marking their heights on the door frame in the basement, Grandpa’s artistic carving of the turkey, and their uncle’s famous gravy are the traditions our kids salivated about when they were younger, and still do on their long plane rides home at the end of November each year. (By the way, our dog Lizzy has confirmed Pavlov’s observations; when the carving knife turns on, cue the saliva, tail wagging, and doggy squealing.) But don’t limit your family’s traditions to the big and obvious events like Thanksgiving. Weekly taco nights, family book club and movie nights, pajama walks, ice cream sundaes on Sundays, backyard football during halftime of TV games, pancakes in Mom and Dad’s bed on weekends, leaf fights in the fall, walks to the sledding hill on the season’s first snow, Chinese food on anniversaries, Indian food for big occasions, and balloons hanging from the ceiling around the breakfast table on birthday mornings. Be creative, even silly. Make a secret family noise together when you’re the only ones in the elevator. When you share a secret that “can’t leave this room,” everybody knows to reach up in the air and grab the imaginary tidbit before it can get away. Have a family comedy night or a talent show on each birthday. Make holiday cards from scratch. Celebrate major family events by writing personalized lyrics to an old song and karaoking your new composition together. There are two keys to establishing family traditions: repetition and anticipation. When you find something that brings out excitement and smiles in your kids, keep doing it. Not so often that it becomes mundane, but on a regular and predictable enough basis that it becomes an ingrained part of the family repertoire. And begin talking about the traditional event days ahead of time so by the time it finally happens, your kids are beside themselves with excitement. Anticipation can be as much fun as the tradition itself.