Cool Prizes Quotes

Nobel Prize winner Arthur Schawlow invented the laser in 1957 and, sure, lasers were used in the lunar landing and they have medical and military purposes, but I think we can all agree that their best application is laser pointers and laser tag.

Whoever invented air conditioning should win the Nobel Prize. I bet they could bring peace to the Middle East if they gave everyone an AC unit and let them cool the freak down once in a while. I should e-mail the UN the suggestion.

Today was the dance contest, the one where Squidward takes over Spongebob's body...During the competition, Squidward gets a cramp and Spongebob's body ends up writhing on the floor in agony. The audience thinks this is pretty cool and gives him First Prize. Quite a metaphor. The person in the most pain wins. Does that mean I get a Blue Ribbon?

It’s cool to use the computer, don’t let the computer use you…. There is a war going on. The battlefield’s in the mind. And the prize is the soul. July 19, 1999

Hey,” Fitz said, leaning closer. “You trust me, don’t you?” Sophie’s traitorous heart still fluttered, despite her current annoyance. She did trust Fitz. Probably more than anyone. But having him keep secrets from her was seriously annoying. She was tempted to use her telepathy to steal the information straight from his head. But she’d broken that rule enough times to know the consequences definitely weren’t worth it. “What is with these clothes?” Biana interrupted, appearing out of thin air next to Keefe. Biana was a Vanisher, like her mother, though she was still getting used to the ability. Only one of her legs reappeared, and she had to hop up and down to get the other to show up. She wore a sweatshirt three sizes too big and faded, baggy jeans. “At least I get to wear my shoes,” she said, hitching up her pants to reveal purple flats with diamond-studded toes. “But why do we only have boy stuff?” “Because I’m a boy,” Fitz reminded her. “Besides, this isn’t a fashion contest.” “And if it was, I’d totally win. Right, Foster?” Keefe asked. Sophie actually would’ve given the prize to Fitz—his blue scarf worked perfectly with his dark hair and teal eyes. And his fitted gray coat made him look taller, with broader shoulders and— “Oh please.” Keefe shoved his way between them. “Fitz’s human clothes are a huge snoozefest. Check out what Dex and I found in Alvar’s closet!” They both unzipped their hoodies, revealing T-shirts with logos underneath. “I have no idea what this means, but it’s crazy awesome, right?” Keefe asked, pointing to the black and yellow oval on his shirt. “It’s from Batman,” Sophie said—then regretted the words. Of course Keefe demanded she explain the awesomeness of the Dark Knight. “I’m wearing this shirt forever, guys,” he decided. “Also, I want a Batmobile! Dex, can you make that happen?” Sophie wouldn’t have been surprised if Dex actually could build one. As a Technopath, he worked miracles with technology. He’d made all kinds of cool gadgets for Sophie, including the lopsided ring she wore—a special panic switch that had saved her life during her fight with one of her kidnappers. “What’s my shirt from?” Dex asked, pointing to the logo with interlocking yellow W’s. Sophie didn’t have the heart to tell him it was the symbol for Wonder Woman.

It’s cool to use the computer, don’t let the computer use you…. There is a war going on. The battlefield’s in the mind. And the prize is the soul.

For three hours without history or thirst Time is my own unpurchased and intimate Republic of the cool wind and blue sea.

I say is someone in there?’ The voice is the young post-New formalist from Pittsburgh who affects Continental and wears an ascot that won’t stay tight, with that hesitant knocking of when you know perfectly well someone’s in there, the bathroom door composed of thirty-six that’s three times a lengthwise twelve recessed two-bevelled squares in a warped rectangle of steam-softened wood, not quite white, the bottom outside corner right here raw wood and mangled from hitting the cabinets’ bottom drawer’s wicked metal knob, through the door and offset ‘Red’ and glowering actors and calendar and very crowded scene and pubic spirals of pale blue smoke from the elephant-colored rubble of ash and little blackened chunks in the foil funnel’s cone, the smoke’s baby-blanket blue that’s sent her sliding down along the wall past knotted washcloth, towel rack, blood-flower wallpaper and intricately grimed electrical outlet, the light sharp bitter tint of a heated sky’s blue that’s left her uprightly fetal with chin on knees in yet another North American bathroom, deveiled, too pretty for words, maybe the Prettiest Girl Of All Time (Prettiest G.O.A.T.), knees to chest, slew-footed by the radiant chill of the claw-footed tub’s porcelain, Molly’s had somebody lacquer the tub in blue, lacquer, she’s holding the bottle, recalling vividly its slogan for the past generation was The Choice of a Nude Generation, when she was of back-pocket height and prettier by far than any of the peach-colored titans they’d gazed up at, his hand in her lap her hand in the box and rooting down past candy for the Prize, more fun way too much fun inside her veil on the counter above her, the stuff in the funnel exhausted though it’s still smoking thinly, its graph reaching its highest spiked prick, peak, the arrow’s best descent, so good she can’t stand it and reaches out for the cold tub’s rim’s cold edge to pull herself up as the white- party-noise reaches, for her, the sort of stereophonic precipice of volume to teeter on just before the speaker’s blow, people barely twitching and conversations strettoing against a ghastly old pre-Carter thing saying ‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’ Joelle’s limbs have been removed to a distance where their acknowledgement of her commands seems like magic, both clogs simply gone, nowhere in sight, and socks oddly wet, pulls her face up to face the unclean medicine-cabinet mirror, twin roses of flame still hanging in the glass’s corner, hair of the flame she’s eaten now trailing like the legs of wasps through the air of the glass she uses to locate the de-faced veil and what’s inside it, loading up the cone again, the ashes from the last load make the world's best filter: this is a fact. Breathes in and out like a savvy diver… –and is knelt vomiting over the lip of the cool blue tub, gouges on the tub’s lip revealing sandy white gritty stuff below the lacquer and porcelain, vomiting muddy juice and blue smoke and dots of mercuric red into the claw-footed trough, and can hear again and seems to see, against the fire of her closed lids’ blood, bladed vessels aloft in the night to monitor flow, searchlit helicopters, fat fingers of blue light from one sky, searching.

They sat for a time listening to the music and then Bond turned to Vesper: ‘It’s wonderful sitting here with you and knowing the job’s finished. It’s a lovely end to the day – the prize-giving.’ He expected her to smile. She said: ‘Yes, isn’t it,’ in a rather brittle voice. She seemed to be listening carefully to the music. One elbow rested on the table and her hand supported her chin, but on the back of her hand and not on the palm, and Bond noticed that her knuckles showed white as if her fist was tightly clenched. Between the thumb and first two fingers of her right hand she held one of Bond’s cigarettes, as an artist holds a crayon, and though she smoked with composure, she tapped the cigarette occasionally into an ashtray when the cigarette had no ash. Bond noticed these small things because he felt intensely aware of her and because he wanted to draw her into his own feeling of warmth and relaxed sensuality. But he accepted her reserve. He thought it came from a desire to protect herself from him, or else it was her reaction to his coolness to her earlier in the evening, his deliberate coolness, which he knew had been taken as a rebuff.

Feelings of a Pimp They think I was a player because I was devoted to the game They thought I worked hard on my offense to break down these women’s defenses just to score They think it’s the body count that made me manipulate them into my arms to get between their legs They think I’m satisfied with a different woman in my bed every night When during the day, even my bed can feel the loneliness They think I love the easy women They think it’s for the cool points that my heart grew cold They think they have me figured out Another dog chasing after every female dog in the streets They think I’m happy with all the texting buddies, but no wife But they don’t know They don’t know how tired I am of this, how tired I am of myself How tired I am of living like this How tired I am of these games, but that’s the only way I can score with a chick They don’t know how after sleeping with these ladies, I wish I had more chemistry with at least one of them to cuddle, to give goodnight kisses and wake up beside They don’t know how loneliness consumes me With a phone filled with women’s numbers, I still feel unwanted and unworthy They don’t know these easy women make it easy for me to feel confident about myself; although it’s the wrong type of confidence I feel validated by them, I feel accomplished, I feel loved although I’m having sex with them, not making love They don’t know how tired I am of chasing fool’s gold Chasing fast women who would sleep with me in a heartbeat Leaving me with the empty feeling I felt before I started the chase The player in me is played out. I just want love, but that’s the only thing I can’t seem to find So, I keep pimping in hope of finding love Her insecurities were beautiful They opened the door for me as an opportunist She was the perfect candidate Oh so sweet, but oh so hurt How smart would I be if I didn’t capitalize? Some fellas get women drunk and have their way with them I was doing nothing wrong but pretending to be prince charming, just to get the same results I became what they needed emotionally I was the shoulder to cry on, the ear to listen to, the one person who understood I was a smooth criminal manipulating the innocent Did not feel an ounce of guilt because I was weak myself I was insecure I couldn’t help preying on vulnerable women In their weakness I found strength I was a coward, a “wannabe” player I was playing the wrong games, winning the wrong prizes The truth is, no strong man takes advantage of a woman’s vulnerability. It is a trait of the weak. Diary of a Weak Man

Kincaid doesn’t want us to see him as a cliché. He also presumably doesn’t want us thinking about—or isn’t himself aware of—the gender dynamics that underpin this cliché. By this I don’t only mean the way that boys and men are socialized to find domination sexy, and girls and women to find subordination sexy; or the way that some male professors blend sexual entitlement with intellectual narcissism, seeing sex with women students as the delayed reward for suffering through an adolescence in which brawn or cool were prized more highly than brains.

On a riverbank in the cool of a summer evening two women struggled under a shower of silvery blue. They never expected to see each other again in this world and at the moment couldn’t care less. But there on a summer night surrounded by bluefern they did something together appropriately and well. A pateroller passing would have sniggered to see two throw-away people, two lawless outlaws—a slave and a barefoot whitewoman with unpinned hair—wrapping a ten-minute-old baby in the rags they wore. But no pateroller came and no preacher. The water sucked and swallowed itself beneath them. There was nothing to disturb them at their work. So they did it appropriately and well.

That I didn’t see the end of me and Maddie coming seems impossible to me now. But at the time I had this notion that even though my own feelings for my girlfriend had begun to cool not long after the spectacular prize of her was attained, to part ways on this basis would be as much an act of infidelity toward myself. It unsettled me that the Amar of a year ago could be so inconsistent with the Amar of today, and I suppose that in my determination to pretend, at least, that nothing had changed—that I was not so fickle and vain as to want a woman only until she had been won—I did not sufficiently entertain the possibility that Maddie herself was capable of changing, too.

There is no sense in refusing honours. That is in fact to do them too much honour. The only strategy is to act so that they never weigh upon you. Your delicious (and malicious) certainty that you are a beautiful woman only subjugates yourself. How is one to approach her to be subjugated oneself? It seems difficult to meet the woman of your life when you have several (lives). In fact, as soon as you have a double life . . . Popular fame is what we should aspire to. Nothing will ever match the distracted gaze of the woman serving in the butcher's who has seen you on television. With their feet caught in the ice like the pink flamingos, they still thought they were God's gift to mankind.

She could sense the approach of land- taste when the waters changed, feel when currents turned cool or warm- but it didn't hurt to keep an eye on the shore now and then, and an ear out for boats. The slap of oars could be heard for leagues. Her father had told tales about armored seafarers in days long past, whose trireme ships had three banks of rowers to ply the waters- you could hear them clear down to Atlantica, he'd say. Any louder and they would disrupt the songs of the half-people- the dolphins and whales who used their voices to navigate the waters. Even before her father had enacted the ban on going to the surface, it was rare that a boat would encounter a mer. If the captain kept to the old ways, he would either carefully steer away or throw her a tribute: fruit of the land, the apples and grapes merfolk treasured more than treasure. In return the mermaid might present him with fruit of the sea- gems, or a comb from her hair. But there was always the chance of an unscrupulous crew, and nets, and the potential prize of a mermaid wife or trophy to present the king. (Considering some of the nets that merfolk had found and freed their underwater brethren from, it was quite understandable that Triton believed humans might eat anything they found in the sea- including merfolk.)

Millions of us daily take advantage of [Skype], delighted to carry the severed heads of family members under our arms as we move from the deck to the cool of inside, or steering them around our new homes, bobbing them like babies on a seasickening tour. Skype can be a wonderful consolation prize in the ongoing tournament of globalization, though typically the first place it transforms us is to ourselves. How often are the initial seconds of a video's call takeoff occupied by two wary, diagonal glances, with a quick muss or flick of the hair, or a more generous tilt of the screen in respect to the chin? Please attend to your own mask first. Yet, despite the obvious cheer of seeing a faraway face, lonesomeness surely persists in the impossibility of eye contact. You can offer up your eyes to the other person, but your own view will be of the webcam's unwarm aperture. ... The problem lies in the fact that we can't bring our silence with us through walls. In phone conversations, while silence can be both awkward and intimate, there is no doubt that each of you inhabits the same darkness, breathing the same dead air. Perversely, a phone silence is a thick rope tying two speakers together in the private void of their suspended conversation. This binding may be unpleasant and to be avoided, but it isn't as estranging as its visual counterpart. When talk runs to ground on Skype, and if the purpose of the call is to chat, I can quickly sense that my silence isn't their silence. For some reason silence can't cross the membrane of the computer screen as it can uncoil down phone lines. While we may be lulled into thinking that a Skype call, being visual, is more akin to a hang-out than a phone conversation, it is in many ways more demanding than its aural predecessor. Not until Skype has it become clear how much companionable quiet has depended on co-inhabiting an atmosphere, with a simple act of sharing the particulars of a place -- the objects in the room, the light through the window -- offering a lovely alternative to talk.

Radiation from the Big Bang may give us a clue to dark matter and dark energy. First of all, the echo, or afterglow, of the Big Bang is easy to detect. Our satellites have been able to detect this radiation to enormous accuracy. Photographs of this microwave background radiation show that it is remarkably smooth, with tiny ripples appearing on its surface. These ripples, in turn, represent tiny quantum fluctuations that existed at the instant of the Big Bang that were then magnified by the explosion. What is controversial, however, is that there appear to be irregularities, or blotches, in the background radiation that we cannot explain. There is some speculation that these strange blotches are the remnants of collisions with other universes. In particular, the CMB (cosmic microwave background) cold spot is an unusually cool mark on the otherwise uniform background radiation that some physicists have speculated might be the remnants of some type of connection or collision between our universe and a parallel universe at the beginning of time. If these strange markings represent our universe interacting with parallel universes, then the multiverse theory might become more plausible to skeptics. Already, there are plans to put detectors in space that can refine all these calculations, using space-based gravity wave detectors. LISA Back in 1916, Einstein showed that gravity could travel in waves. Like throwing a stone in a pond and witnessing the concentric, expanding rings it creates, Einstein predicted that swells of gravity would travel at the speed of light. Unfortunately, these would be so faint that he did not think we would find them anytime soon. He was right. It took until 2016, one hundred years after his original prediction, before gravity waves were observed. Signals from two black holes that collided in space about a billion years ago were captured by huge detectors. These detectors, built in Louisiana and Washington State, each occupy several square miles of real estate. They resemble a large L, with laser beams traveling down each leg of the L. When the two beams meet at the center, they create an interference pattern that is so sensitive to vibrations that they could detect this collision. For their pioneering work, three physicists, Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne, and Barry C. Barish, won the Nobel Prize in 2017. For even greater sensitivity, there are plans to send gravity wave detectors into outer space. The project, known as the laser interferometry space antenna (LISA), might be able to pick up vibrations from the instant of the Big Bang itself. One version of the LISA consists of three separate satellites in space, each connected to the others by a network of laser beams. The triangle is about a million miles on each side.

These Claudines, then…they want to know because they believe they already do know, the way one who loves fruit knows, when offered a mango from the moon, what to expect; and they expect the loyal tender teasing affection of the schoolgirl crush to continue: the close and confiding companionship, the pleasure of the undemanding caress, the cuddle which consummates only closeness; yet in addition they want motherly putting right, fatherly forgiveness and almost papal indulgence; they expect that the sights and sounds, the glorious affairs of the world which their husbands will now bring before them gleaming like bolts of silk, will belong to the same happy activities as catching toads, peeling back tree bark, or powdering the cheeks with dandelions and oranging the nose; that music will ravish the ear the way the trill of the blackbird does; that literature will hold the mind in sweet suspense the way fairy tales once did; that paintings will crowd the eye with the delights of a colorful garden, and the city streets will be filled with the same cool dew-moist country morning air they fed on as children. But they shall not receive what they expect; the tongue will be about other business; one will hear in masterpieces only pride and bitter contention; buildings will have grandeur but no flowerpots or chickens; and these Claudines will exchange the flushed cheek for the swollen vein, and instead of companionship, they will get sex and absurd games composed of pinch, leer, and giggle—that’s what will happen to “let’s pretend.” 'The great male will disappear into the jungle like the back of an elusive ape, and Claudine shall see little of his strength again, his intelligence or industry, his heroics on the Bourse like Horatio at the bridge (didn’t Colette see Henri de Jouvenel, editor and diplomat and duelist and hero of the war, away to work each day, and didn’t he often bring his mistress home with him, as Willy had when he was husband number one?); the great affairs of the world will turn into tawdry liaisons, important meetings into assignations, deals into vulgar dealings, and the en famille hero will be weary and whining and weak, reminding her of all those dumb boys she knew as a child, selfish, full of fat and vanity like patrons waiting to be served and humored, admired and not observed. 'Is the occasional orgasm sufficient compensation? Is it the prize of pure surrender, what’s gained from all that giving up? There’ll be silk stockings and velvet sofas maybe, the customary caviar, tasting at first of frog water but later of money and the secretions of sex, then divine champagne, the supreme soda, and rubber-tired rides through the Bois de Boulogne; perhaps there’ll be rich ugly friends, ritzy at homes, a few young men with whom one may flirt, a homosexual confidant with long fingers, soft skin, and a beautiful cravat, perfumes and powders of an unimaginable subtlety with which to dust and wet the body, many deep baths, bonbons filled with sweet liqueurs, a procession of mildly salacious and sentimental books by Paul de Kock and company—good heavens, what’s the problem?—new uses for the limbs, a tantalizing glimpse of the abyss, the latest sins, envy certainly, a little spite, jealousy like a vaginal itch, and perfect boredom. 'And the mirror, like justice, is your aid but never your friend.' -- From "Three Photos of Colette," The World Within the Word, reprinted from NYRB April 1977

Hugo’s Prizewinning Praline Pumpkin Pie What does it take to turn out a prizewinning pie? Lots of “mouth feel,” as the saying goes. When the pie cracked as it baked, we added a last-minute ring of pecan praline and that convenient coverall, a small mountain of brandy whipped cream, for first prize in the St. Michaels contest, restaurant division. 9-inch deep-dish pie shell FOR THE FILLING 1 15-ounce can pumpkin, unsweetened 1 cup brown sugar, loosely packed 2 teaspoons cinnamon* ¼ teaspoon cloves* 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated ¼ teaspoon salt 2/3 cup whipping cream 2/3 cup milk 4 eggs FOR THE PRALINE 3 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons brown sugar 2 tablespoons butter, softened ¾ cup pecan halves FOR THE CREAM ½ pint whipping cream 1 tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon brandy Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Partly bake the pie shell on the middle oven rack for about 10 minutes until it looks set. In a food processor, blend the pumpkin, sugar, spices, and salt for one minute. In a heavy saucepan, cook this pumpkin mixture at a simmer, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes. Remove pumpkin from the heat and stir in the cream and milk. Whisk eggs to combine whites and yolks and blend thoroughly into the pumpkin mixture. Pour this into the pie shell, adding any extra filling after the pie has baked for about 5 minutes. Bake the pie on the lower oven rack for about 20 minutes and prepare the praline. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and butter and stir in the pecans. Remove the pie from the oven and spoon the pecan mixture in a circle around the edge of the pie, inside the crust, and return it to the oven. Continue baking for about 10 minutes more until the filling is puffed and wiggles very slightly when the pie is gently shaken. Cool on a wire rack. Whip the cream and sugar together until stiff, then stir in the brandy. When the pie is completely cool, mound the cream on top, inside the ring of pecans. Serve right away or refrigerate. Serves 6 to 8. *Freshly ground cinnamon and cloves are best, but spice straight from the jar will do.

Why do some cultures reserve color only for celebratory moments, while others make it a part of the everyday? It would be easy to conclude that it’s a simple matter of preference: certain cultures have developed an appetite for color, while others prefer a grayscale life. But I think the real answer lies in a cultural bias deep in Western society that runs toward sophistication, away from joy. This bias was forcefully expressed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe when he wrote in 1810 that “savage nations, uneducated people, and children have a great predilection for vivid colors,” but that “people of refinement avoid vivid colors in their dress and the objects that are about them, and seem inclined to banish them altogether from their presence.” We may not realize it, but in most of Europe and America, Goethe’s philosophy permeates our lives. We dismiss color and joy as childish and frivolous, prizing neutral hues as a mark of coolness and mature taste.

Pride, anger, spite -- any kind of subjectivity which influences a political course leads only to the defeat and destruction of those who give way to it. You know, in the prize-fighting profession -- "the manly art of self-defense" -- one of the first lessons the young boxer learns from the case-hardened trainer is to keep cool when facing the antagonist in the ring. "Don't ever get mad in the ring. Don't ever lose your head, because if you do you will wake up on the canvas." Boxers have to fight calculatingly, not subjectively. The same thing is doubly true in politics.

Woman, self-centred, would never be absorbed by any relation.” The “excessive devotion” that results when women live “so entirely for men,” when a woman makes marriage “her whole existence”—or, as Sophia Hawthorne had phrased it, her “true destiny”—Margaret argued, has “cooled love, degraded marriage, and prevented either sex from being what it should be to itself or the other.” Woman “must be able to stand alone.” Marriage should be to woman, as it is to man, “only an experience.” While women sometimes wished to be men in order to partake of their freedoms and opportunities, “men never,” Margaret observed, “in any extreme of despair, wished to be women.

Blue Eyes, you will drink?” Loretta waved him away. A long silence settled over them. Then Hunter grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. “Habbe we-ich-ket, seeking death, it is not wisdom.” He wedged the canteen between his knees and caught her hand, placing it on his muscular upper arm. “Ein mah-heepicut, it is yours. No harm will come to you walking in my footsteps. You will trust this Comanche, eh? It is a promise I make for you.” Loretta stared into his indigo eyes, aware of the leashed power beneath her fingertips. For an instant she believed he truly meant it, that he would protect her, always. Then her gaze shifted to the scar on his cheek, to his heathen medallion, to the images carved into the leather of his wristband. Half-breed or no, she couldn’t trust this man. He sighed and released her hand to take a long, slow drink, calculated, she was sure, to make her yearn for one herself. He wiped his mouth and said, “We will see, eh? It is a hard path to walk, going thirsty in the sun. You will yield.” With that, he corked the gourd and set it beside her in the shade so she could help herself if her willpower wavered. Rocking back on his heels, he ran a finger along her cheekbone. “I must protect you from the sun, eh? So you do not burn.” Scooping a handful of dirt, he mixed it with a little water from the canteen to make a mud paste. It felt wonderfully cool when he smoothed it on her face. After he finished he sat back and studied her again, his dark eyes gleaming with that silent laughter that irritated her so. She must look like a blue-eyed bugaboo with her face streaked brown and her hair flying every which way. Well, he was no prize, either.

For Kerouac, the embodiment of American Zen was Gary Snyder, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Buddhist poet and essayist, who he fictionalized as Japhy Ryder in The Dharma Bums. Snyder was a practicing Buddhist and a translator of classic Chinese texts before Kerouac met him. He was the Zen guru of the Beats at the same time that Alan Watts popularized Buddhism for middle-class Americans in best-selling books and magazine articles of the late 1950s. Snyder had studied with Watts for a while but thought him 'square.' 'He was cool in relation to the people around him,' Snyder once said, referring to 'middle class, needy' Americans, but he was 'never actually cool.' Then Snyder added with a wink, '[and] you know what I mean, as the Big Bopper says,' invoking the rock-and-roll classic 'Chantilly Lace' for those hip and in-the-know.

I was trying to apologize,” she said, relief and humor easing into her eyes and curving her lips. “You didn’t answer my question.” He thought he might snap off the end of the pier, he was gripping it so hard. In response, she ducked her hand into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out a folded and now somewhat crumpled piece of paper. “Here. Read for yourself.” He took the paper, realizing he was acting like a complete yobbo, and knew then that perhaps he wasn’t nearly so cool and levelheaded about this whole endeavor as he’d led her to believe. The truth of it being, he only really wanted her to figure out what would make her happy if what made her happy was him. Under her amused stare, he unfolded the paper and read: Dear Hook, I’m trying to be a good and supportive sister and help get Fiona and her ridiculously long veil down the aisle before I strangle her into submission with every hand-beaded, pearl-seeded foot of it. At the moment, sitting here knee-deep in crinolines and enough netting to outfit every member of Downton Abbey, I can’t safely predict a win in that ongoing effort. That said, I’d much rather be spending the time with you, sailing the high seas on our pirate ship. Especially that part where we stayed anchored in one spot for an afternoon and all the plundering was going on aboard our own boat. I’ve been thinking a lot about everything everyone has said and have come to the conclusion that the only thing I’m sure of is that I’m thinking too much. I’ve decided it was better when I was just feeling things and not thinking endlessly about them. I especially liked the things I was feeling on our picnic for two. So this is all to say I’d like to go, um, sailing again. Even if there’s no boat involved this time. I hope you won’t think less of me for the request, but please take seeing a whole lot more of me as a consolation prize if you do. Also? Save me. Or send bail money. Sincerely, Starfish, Queen of the High Seas, Plunderer of Pirates, especially those with a really clever right Hook. He was smiling and shaking his head as he folded the note closed and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “Well?” she said at length. “Apology accepted” was all he said. “And?” He slid a look her way. “And…what?” She’d made him wait three days, and punitive or not, he wasn’t in any hurry to put her out of her misery. Plus, when he did, it was likely to be that much more fun. “You’re going to make me spell it out, aren’t you? Don’t you realize it was hard enough just putting it in writing?” “I accept your lovely invitation,” he said, then added, “I only have one caveat.” Her relief turned to wary suspicion as she eyed him. “Oh? And that would be?” “Will you wear the crinolines?

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Plasma escapes containment to displace great gulps of dirt and air. It turns running men and women into gray puffs of instant cinder, then blows them into dust with howling wind. A thick layer of surface sand ripples into moving sheets of gooey glass that flow stickily down flattened dunes, pooling into molten lakes at the bottom. Rolling sheets engulf craters and ruins, encasing scalded bones of dead armor and bits of wrecked trench works. More liquid glass captures screaming fighters inside hardening silicate globes. a man’s or woman’s last moment of life and pain and final scream trapped in clear, golden glass sarcophagi. They’ll cool later, lying atop the desert like huge, ancient insects locked in Triassic amber. They’ll be the most prized of all Amasian death-glass, illegal but kept anyway in secret private collections.

Perseverance is action derived from a pure belief in your own strength, even in what seems like total defeat. Just like Pat and my father, I struggled with alcohol. I've stepped close to the edge, lured by the deceitful whispers of the devil who promises that ending it all will bring comfort. My redemption has been a powerful self-realization that my identity is not found in my circumstances or in what happens to me. I am strong. I am my own will made manifest in the world. As you grow in self-awareness, your understanding of your strengths becomes more precise. Be intentional. Take the time to explore your passions and figure out which strengths you most want to cultivate. I don't want you to settle for the role of consumer in this world. I urge you to master the necessary skills to contribute in a meaningful fashion, and to use those skills to make a difference in your own life and the lives of others. It's far too easy to fall into the trap of working a job you hate and living for the weekend. Find a way of breaking out of that paradigm. Don't be afraid of trying hard. Don't be afraid of failing or looking like an idiot. There are no prizes for being cool and collected, but achieving nothing of value. Leave your mark on the world.

Was this move to Cambridge wise? Some certainly doubted it. John Wain, one of Lewis’s former pupils, suggested that it was like “leaving an overblown and neglected rose-garden for a horticultural research station on the plains of Siberia.”[646] Wain’s meaning here was ideological, not meteorological. He was not thinking primarily of the icy east winds from the Urals that can make Cambridge so bitterly cold in winter, but of the clinically cool attitude towards literature that dominated the Cambridge English faculty at this time. Lewis was entering a lion’s den—a faculty which prized “critical theory” and treated texts as “objects” for analytical dissection, rather than for intellectual enjoyment and enlargement.

Racing can give me a focus. It can give a direction to and motivation for my daily run. There is, of course, a time for everything. And racing will only ever be a part of my running. But sometimes I need what it is a race can give me – something to absorb my effort, my attention – moments where I am forced to step outside what is comfortable, time after time after time. I’m forced to focus on what I am feeling, on what I am enduring in the here and now, whether that is keeping warm in the cold, keeping cool in the heat, eating, drinking and looking after myself. Despite my physical effort, sometimes during a race I experience the moment where I am resting in stillness; I’ve stopped doing and I’m focused instead on being. And that is when I feel free. But of course the race itself is the smallest part of the story. It is the journey that is important; the everyday, the day in, day out. Start and finish lines are just steps on that journey. The prize is not a position, or a time; instead the getting to know myself, the work and the training must be its own reward.

Ruhn asked, “Why’s your heart racing?” Bryce peered at her chest, half expecting her scar to be glowing. Mercifully, it lay dormant. “Well, apparently Tharion thinks Danika was involved with the rebels.” Ruhn gaped. “Thanks, Bryce,” Tharion muttered. Bryce threw him a saccharine smile and explained Tharion’s investigation to Ruhn. “Well?” Ruhn asked when she’d finished, his face drained of color. “Was Danika a rebel?” “No!” Bryce splayed her arms. “Solas, she was more interested in what junk food we had in our apartment.” “That’s not all she was interested in,” Ruhn corrected. “She stole the Horn and hid it from you. Hid it on you. And all that shit with Briggs and the synth …” “Okay, fine. But the rebel stuff … She never even talked about the war.” “She would have known it’d endanger you,” Tharion suggested. Hunt said to Tharion, “And you’re cool with being press-ganged into working on this shit?” His face remained paler than usual. Tharion just crossed his long, muscular arms. Hunt went on, voice lowering, “It won’t end well, Tharion. Trust me on that. You’re tangling in some dangerous shit.” Bryce avoided looking at the branded-out tattoo on Hunt’s wrist. Tharion’s throat bobbed. “I’m sorry to have even come here. I know how you feel about this stuff, Athalar.” “You really think there’s a chance Sofie is alive?” Ruhn asked. “Yes,” Tharion said. “If she survived the Hind,” Hunt said, “and the Hind hears about it, she’ll come running.” “The Hind might already be headed this way,” Tharion said thickly. “Regardless of Sofie, Emile and his powers remain a prize. Or something to be wiped out once and for all.” He dragged his long fingers through his dark red hair. “I know I’m dropping a bomb on you guys.” He winced at his unfortunate word choice, no doubt remembering what had happened last spring. “But I want to find this kid before anyone else.” “And do what with him?” Bryce asked. “Hand him over to your queen?” “He’d be safe Beneath, Legs. It’d take a damn long while even for the Asteri to find him—and kill him.” “So he’d be used by your queen like some kind of weaponized battery instead? Like Hel am I going to let you do that.

Booooooooo!” the guys and me started booing. “Wait a minute,” said Mr. Klutz. “The wining school will get prizes.” “Oooooh!” everybody ooooohed, because winning prizes is cool. And it would be great to beat those Dirk dorks again. “There will be four prizes,” Mr. Klutz told us. “The first prize is bragging rights, of course.” Bragging rights? Who cares? Grown-ups always say you can win bragging rights. But then when we actually brag about something, the grown-ups tell us that bragging isn’t nice and we should stop doing it. I’m not falling for that again. “Booooooooo!” “The second prize is a year’s supply of Porky’s Pork Sausages,” said Mr. Klutz. I like Porky’s Pork Sausages. But every time there’s a contest, they give away Porky’s Pork Sausages. I bet Mr. Klutz has a secret deal with Peter Porky, the guy who owns the Porky’s Pork Sausage company. “Booooooooo!” “I think you’ll like this,” said Mr. Klutz. “The third prize is . . . a trip to DizzyLand.” “Boo—” Wait. WHAT? Did he just say a trip to DizzyLand?