“
Why does your weak king send a filthy pirate to do his bidding?” sneered the Fjerdan ambassador, his words echoing across the cathedral.
“Privateer,” corrected Sturmhond. “I suppose he thought my good looks would give me the advantage. Not a concern where you’re from, I take it?”
“Preening, ridiculous peacock. You stink of Grisha foulness.”
Sturmhond sniffed the air. “I’m amazed you can detect anything over the reek of ice and inbreeding.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
We need to talk," Dean said.
"Whatever you have to say," Michael drawled, "You can say in front of me."
I gave Michael a look.
"Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of me, unless Cassie wishes to speak to you privately, in which case I completely respect her right to do so," Michael corrected himself.
”
”
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (The Naturals (The Naturals, #1))
“
You're telling me that this teenage girl has not only escaped from your prison and evaded capture by your highly trained military, but has now invaded your palace and the private quarters of the emperor himself, kidnapped him, and again gotten away with it?'
'Precisely correct, Your Majesty.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
Sturmhond has been authorized to negotiate on behalf of the Ravkan throne,” said Genya.
“A pirate?” asked Jesper.
“Privateer,” Sturmhond corrected. “You can’t expect the king to participate in an auction like this himself.”
“Why not?”
“Because he might lose. And it looks very bad when kings lose.”
Jesper couldn’t quite believe he was having a conversation with the Sturmhond. The privateer was a legend. He’d broken countless blockades on behalf of the Ravkans, and there were rumors that… “Do you really have a flying ship?” blurted Jesper.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“I have several.”
“Take me with you.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn't I better end my "Notes" here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I've been writing this story; so it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don't know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, I assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once. I know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries in your underground holes, and don't dare to say all of us-- excuse me, gentlemen, I am not justifying myself with that "all of us." As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men--men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from "Underground."
[The notes of this paradoxalist do not end here, however. He could not
refrain from going on with them, but it seems to us that we may stop
here.]
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead)
“
privateer," corrected Sturmhond. "I suppose he thought my good looks would give me the advantage. not a concern where you're from, I take it?"
"Preening, ridiculous peacock. you stink of Grisha foulness."
Sturmhond sniffed the air. "I'm amazed you can smell anything over the reek of ice and inbreeding." page 433
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
No, I mean private. For instance, I asked you how old you were and you correctly answered that it was private information. It's not a secret; it's just that you didn't know me well enough to tell me.
But a secret is something we keep because there's a chance that if someone knew our secret, they would use it against us or make us feel bad. Secrets usually involve things we're ashamed of.
- Wakely
”
”
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
“
We are modern. We live modern lives. All we demand is that women keep to their allotted areas; a woman is private, while a man is public. The correct mode for a man is speech, while the correct mode for a woman is silence. I’ve spent a long time proving that this isn’t so. I’ve spent a long time insisting that no one else can tell me when to speak and when to remain silent. So much so that it’s hard for me to tell when I want to be quiet.
”
”
Naomi Alderman (Disobedience)
“
We have now reached a level in which many people are not merely unacquainted with the fundamentals of punctuation, but don’t evidently realize that there are fundamentals. Many people—people who make posters for leading publishers, write captions for the BBC, compose letters and advertisements for important institutions—seem to think that capitalization and marks of punctuation are condiments that you sprinkle through any collection of words as if from a salt shaker. Here is a headline, exactly as presented, from a magazine ad for a private school in York: “Ranked by the daily Telegraph the top Northern Co-Educational day and Boarding School for Academic results.” All those capital letters are just random. Does anyone really think that the correct rendering of the newspaper is “the daily Telegraph”? Is it really possible to be that unobservant? Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Not long ago, I received an e-mail from someone at the Department for Children, Schools and Families asking me to take part in a campaign to help raise appreciation for the quality of teaching in Great Britain. Here is the opening line of the message exactly as it was sent to me: “Hi Bill. Hope alls well. Here at the Department of Children Schools and Families…” In the space of one line, fourteen words, the author has made three elemental punctuation errors (two missing commas, one missing apostrophe; I am not telling you more than that) and gotten the name of her own department wrong—this from a person whose job is to promote education. In a similar spirit, I received a letter not long ago from a pediatric surgeon inviting me to speak at a conference. The writer used the word “children’s” twice in her invitation, spelling it two different ways and getting it wrong both times. This was a children’s specialist working in a children’s hospital. How long do you have to be exposed to a word, how central must it be to your working life, to notice how it is spelled?
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island)
“
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources cousist of two joints of marijuana millions of
genitals an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400
miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged
who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred
suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next
to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as
his automobiles more so they're all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your
old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & V anzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell
meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket
a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free
everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers
it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing
the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man
a real mensch Mother Bloor made me cry I once saw
Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them
Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She
wants to take our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers' Digest.
Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy
running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need
big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours
a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television
set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision
parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
”
”
Allen Ginsberg (Howl: And Other Poems)
“
How Should You Listen? Carl Rogers, one of the twentieth century’s great psychotherapists, knew something about listening. He wrote, “The great majority of us cannot listen; we find ourselves compelled to evaluate, because listening is too dangerous. The first requirement is courage, and we do not always have it.”159 He knew that listening could transform people. On that, Rogers commented, “Some of you may be feeling that you listen well to people, and that you have never seen such results. The chances are very great indeed that your listening has not been of the type I have described.” He suggested that his readers conduct a short experiment when they next found themselves in a dispute: “Stop the discussion for a moment, and institute this rule: ‘Each person can speak up for himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker’s satisfaction.’” I have found this technique very useful, in my private life and in my practice. I routinely summarize what people have said to me, and ask them if I have understood properly. Sometimes they accept my summary. Sometimes I am offered a small correction. Now and then I am wrong completely. All of that is good to know.
”
”
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
“
That’s not”—Harry started stuttering—“what I said.” “Correct me if I’m wrong, but a few hours ago, weren’t we talking about trust?” Harry pulled out a barstool and collapsed onto it. A heap of Harry. “You . . . don’t think . . .” His words came out slowly, with long gaps between as the Tourette’s took hold. “This thing . . . you have . . . for order . . . is a little odd?” “I’m a Fitzwilliam. We’re all a little odd.” Felix straightened his spine; his hand had begun to sting. “Yes, I’m a perfectionist. That’s why we have this great life, why I have a well-paid job, why you go to a private school, why your mother could stay home with you, why we have this house. There is nothing wrong with being a perfectionist.
”
”
Barbara Claypole White (The Perfect Son)
“
Harriet probably only means some things are private."
"You mean secret."
"No, I mean private. For instance, I asked you how old you were and you correctly answered that it was private information. It's not secret; it's just that you don't know me well enough to tell me. But a secret is something we keep because there's a chance that if someone knew our secret, they would use it against us or make us feel bad. Secrets usually involve things we're ashamed of."
"Do you keep secrets?"
"Yes," he admitted. "How about you?"
"Me too," she said.
"I'm pretty sure everyone does," he said. "Especially the people who say they don't. There's no way you go through life without being embarrassed or ashamed about something.
”
”
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
“
With its federal government that can supersede state and local law, its dependence on rule by the majority rather than consensus, its bicameral legislature (members of one branch being elected at fixed intervals), and its denial of suffrage to women, slaves, and the unpropertied, the Constitution as originally enacted was sharply different from the Great Law. In addition, the Constitution’s emphasis on protecting private property runs contrary to Haudenosaunee traditions of communal ownership. But in a larger sense, it seems to me, the claim is correct. The Framers of the Constitution, like most North American colonists, lived at a time when Indians were large presences in their lives—ones that naturally influenced their ideas and actions.
”
”
Charles C. Mann (1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus)
“
You were just in South Dakota a couple of weeks ago,” he pointed out. “Why didn’t you get it then?”
“It wasn’t available then.” She brushed back a tiny strand of loose hair. “Don’t cross-examine me, okay? It’s been a long day.”
He ran a hand around the back of his neck, under his braid of hair, and stared at her own hair in the tight bun at her nape as she replaced the errant strand. “I thought you took it down at night.”
“At bedtime,” she corrected.
His eyes narrowed. “Lucky Colby,” he said deliberately.
She wasn’t going to give him any rope to hang her with. She just smiled.
He glared at her. “He won’t change,” he said flatly.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me, Tate, but my private life is my own business, not yours.”
“That’s a hell of a way to talk to me.”
“That works both ways,” she replied, eyes narrowing. “What gives you the right to ask questions about the men I date?”
Her words made him mad. His lips compressed until they made a straight line. He looked like his father when he was angry. He finished his coffee in a tense silence and got to his feet. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go. I just wanted to see how you were.”
“You just wanted to see if Colby was here,” she corrected and smiled mirthlessly when he blinked.
“You know I don’t approve of Colby,” he told her.
“Like I care?” she said.
He took a step toward her. His black eyes glittered with conflicting emotions. She aroused him more lately than any woman he’d ever known. Just looking at her sent him over the edge.
On some level she recognized the tension in him, the need that he was denying. He was upset about Matt Holden pulling him out of the security work, not because of the money, but rather because it seemed nothing more than spite. Actually Holden was saving them both from a political upheaval because he could have been accused of nepotism. But deeper than that was a frustration because he wanted a woman he couldn’t have. Cecily knew that at some level. He was trying to start a fight. She couldn’t let him.
“Colby is a sweet man,” she said gently. “He’s good company and he doesn’t drink around me, ever.”
“He’s an alcoholic,” he said quietly, trying to control the anger.
“I told you before, he’s in therapy,” she said. “He’s trying, Tate.”
“So you expect me not to worry about you? After what my own father put me and my mother through?
”
”
Diana Palmer (Paper Rose (Hutton & Co. #2))
“
I think,” Berta remarked with a proud little smile when she was seated alone in the drawing room beside Elizabeth, “he’s having second thoughts about proposing, milday.”
“I think he was silently contemplating the easiest way to murder me at dinner,” Elizabeth said, chuckling. She was about to say more when the butler interrupted them to announce that Lord Marchman wished to have a private word with Lady Cameron in his study.
Elizabeth prepared for another battle of wits-or witlessness, she thought with an inner smile-and dutifully followed the butler down a dark hall furnished in brown and into a very large study where the earl was seated in a maroon chair at a desk on her right.
“You wished to see-“ she began as she stepped into his study, but something on the wall beside her brushed against her hair. Elizabeth turned her head, expecting to see a portrait hanging there, and instead found herself eye-to-fang with an enormous bear’s head. The little scream that tore from her was very real this time, although it owed to shock, not to fear.
“It’s quite dead,” the earl said in a voice of weary resignation, watching her back away from his most prized hunting trophy with her hand over her mouth.
Elizabeth recovered instantly, her gaze sweeping over the wall of hunting trophies, then she turned around.
“You may take your hand away from your mouth,” he stated. Elizabeth fixed him with another accusing glare, biting her lip to hide her smile. She would have dearly loved to hear how he had stalked that bear or where he had found that monstrous-big boar, but she knew better than to ask. “Please, my lord,” she said instead, “tell me these poor creatures didn’t die at your hands.”
“I’m afraid they did. Or more correctly, at the point of my gun.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.” She regarded him where he lay. “Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.” She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back. “You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him. “The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.” “You would drift off while I’m confiding?” “I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.” “I am unused to this friendly napping.” “You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?” “We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.” But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back. “Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly. “Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day. God
”
”
Grace Burrowes (The Virtuoso (Duke's Obsession, #3; Windham, #3))
“
She would never kill what she desired most- not when she wanted Tamlin as much as I did. But if I killed him... she either knew I couldn't do it, or she was playing a very, very dangerous game.
Conversation after conversation echoed in my memory, until I heard Lucien's words, and everything froze. And that was when I knew.
I couldn't breathe, not as I replayed the memory, not as I recalled the conversation I'd overheard one day. Lucien and Tamlin in the dining room, the door wide open for all to hear- for me to hear.
'For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days.'
I looked at Tamlin, my eyes flicking to his chest as another memory flashed. The Attor in the garden, laughing.
'Though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin,' the Attor said, 'you certainly keep a host of fear inside it.'
Amarantha would never risk me killing him- because she knew I couldn't kill him.
Not if his heart couldn't be pierced by a blade. Not if his heart had been turned to stone.
I scanned his face, searching for any glimmer of truth. There was only that bold rebellion within his gaze.
Perhaps I was wrong- perhaps it was just a faerie turn of phrase. But all those times I'd held Tamlin... I'd never felt his heartbeat. I'd been blind to everything until it came back to smack me in the face, but not this time.
That was how she controlled him and his magic. How she controlled all the High Lords, dominating and leashing them just as she kept Jurian's soul tethered to that eye and bone.
Trust no one, Alis had told me. But I trusted Tamlin- and more than that, I trusted myself. I trusted that I had heard correctly- I trusted that Tamlin had been smarter than Amarantha, I trusted that all I had sacrificed was not in vain.
The entire room was silent, but my attention was upon only Tamlin. The revelation must have been clear on my face, for his breathing became a bit quicker, and he lifted his chin.
I took a step toward him, then another. I was right. I had to be.
I sucked in a breath as I grabbed the dagger off the outstretched pillow. I could be wrong- I could be painfully, tragically wrong.
But there was a faint smile on Tamlin's lips as I stood over him, ash dagger in hand.
There was such a thing as Fate- because Fate had made sure I was there to eavesdrop when they'd spoken in private, because Fate had whispered to Tamlin that the cold, contrary girl he'd dragged to his home would be the one to break his spell, because Fate had kept me alive just to get to this point, just to see if I had been listening.
And there he was- my High Lord, my beloved, kneeling before me.
'I love you,' I said, and stabbed him.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))
“
We’ve organized a setup where we—me, Orren and a few friends—are going to control every industrial property south of the border.” “Whose property?” “Why . . . the people’s. This is not an old-fashioned grab for private profit. It’s a deal with a mission—a worthy, public-spirited mission—to manage the nationalized properties of the various People’s States of South America, to teach their workers our modern techniques of production, to help the underprivileged who’ve never had a chance, to—” He broke off abruptly, though she had merely sat looking at him without shifting her glance. “You know,” he said suddenly, with a cold little chuckle, “if you’re so damn anxious to hide that you came from the slums, you ought to be less indifferent to the philosophy of social welfare. It’s always the poor who lack humanitarian instincts. One has to be born to wealth in order to know the finer feelings of altruism.” “I’ve never tried to hide that I came from the slums,” she said in the simple, impersonal tone of a factual correction. “And I haven’t any sympathy for that welfare philosophy. I’ve seen enough of them to know what makes the kind of poor who want something for nothing.” He did not answer, and she added suddenly, her voice astonished, but firm, as if in final confirmation of a long-standing doubt, “Jim, you don’t care about it either. You don’t care about any of that welfare hogwash.” “Well, if money is all that you’re interested in,” he snapped, “let me tell you that that deal will bring me a fortune. That’s what you’ve always admired, isn’t it, wealth?
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
If you want information,” he said in his low tones, “I am willing to take up my old connections and provide it. You need write to no one or speak to no one. It’s common enough for people to summon their own artisans for special projects.” He patted his satchel. “You are wealthy enough to enable me to sustain the cover.”
“You mean I should order some jewelry made?”
He nodded. “If you please, my lady.”
“Of course--that’s easy enough. But to backtrack a bit, what you said about spies on both sides worries me. What if the Renselaeuses find out you’re here? Will they assume I’m plotting?”
“I have taken great care to avoid their coverts,” he said. “The two who met me face-to-face last year are not in Athanarel. And none of the family has actually seen me.”
Once again I sighed with relief. Then an even more unwelcome thought occurred. “If my movements are known, then other things have been noticed,” I said slowly. “Are there any I ought to know about?”
He gave his nod. “It is known, among those who observe, that you do not attend any private social functions that are also attended by the Marquis of Shevraeth.”
So much for my promise, I thought dismally. Yet Shevraeth hadn’t said anything. “So…this might be why Flauvic granted me that interview?”
“Possibly,” he said.
“I take it servants talk.”
“Some,” he agreed. “Others don’t.”
“I suppose the Merindar ones don’t.”
He smiled. “They are very carefully selected and trained, exceedingly well paid--and if they displease, they have a habit of disappearing.”
“You mean they’re found dead, and no one does anything?”
He shook his head, his mouth now grim. “No. They disappear.”
I shuddered.
“So whatever I find out must be by observation and indirection.”
“Well, if you can evaluate both sides without endangering yourself,” I said, deciding suddenly, “then go ahead. The more I think about it, the less I like being ignorant. If something happens that might require us to act, you can help me choose the correct thing to do and the way to do it.”
He bowed. “Nothing would please me more, my lady,” he promised.
“Good,” I said, rising to fetch my letter from the Marquise. “Here’s her letter. Read it--and as far as I care, destroy it.” I handed it to him, relieved to have it gone. “So, what’s in your bag? I will want something special,” I said, and grinned. “For someone special.
”
”
Sherwood Smith (Court Duel (Crown & Court, #2))
“
Some of these tasks are interesting. Tinkering with machines is fun. Marketing decisions, especially how to manage the Web site and AdWords, are an intellectual challenge. Some are unpleasant but lead to a satisfying conclusion, like nagging customers for past-due payments. (They've always paid me, eventually.) Some are frightening, I can change an employee's life with my decisions about pay rates and whether to hire and fire. And many are just aggravating: the taxes, insurance purchases, legal issues, and some of the employee interactions. Each layer of government, each enormous and indifferent private bureaucracy, requires its own special knowledge: the right form filled out the correct way and filed at the right time. Learning how to complete on type of tax filing tells you nothing whatsoever about how to fill out the next form. One health insurer presents a quote one way, another in an entirely different way, and both require extensive study to determine the best choice. It's like stepping back to an old, old world where every tree, every rock, every stream is inhabited by its own resident spirit, and each needs to be mollified in the correct manner. Or very bad things happen.
I didn't start my company to do any of this. I had no idea, when I decided that I would make furniture in exchange for money, that this was in my future. And the strange universe of administration expands as the company grows.
”
”
Paul Downs
“
Anna,” he began, but he saw his use of her name made her bristle. “Please sit, and I do mean will you please.” She sat, perched like an errant schoolgirl on the very edge of her chair, back straight, eyes front. “You are scolding me without saying a word,” the earl said on a sigh. “It was just a kiss, Anna, and I had the impression you rather enjoyed it, too.” She looked down, while a blush crept up the side of her neck. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said with sudden, happy insight. “You could accept my apology and treat me with cheerful condescension, but you enjoyed our kiss.” “My lord,” she said, addressing the hands she fisted in her lap, “can you not accept that were I to encourage your… mischief, I would be courting my own ruin?” “Ruin?” He said with a snort. “Elise will be enjoying an entire estate for the rest of her days as a token of ruin at my hands—among others—if ruin you believe it to be. I did not take her virginity, either, Mrs. Seaton, and I am not a man who casually discards others.” She was silent then raised her eyes, a mulish expression on her face. “I will not seek another position as a function of what has gone between us so far, but you must stop.” “Stop what, Anna?” “You should not use my name, my lord,” she said, rising. “I have not given you leave to do so.” He rose, as well, as if she were a lady deserving of his manners. “May I ask your permission to use your given name, at least when we are private?” He’d shocked her, he saw with some satisfaction. She’d thought him too autocratic to ask, and he was again reminded of his father’s ways. But she was looking at him now, really looking, and he pressed his advantage. “I find it impossible to think of you as Mrs. Seaton. In this house, there is no other who treats me as you do, Anna. You are kind but honest, and sympathetic without being patronizing. You are the closest thing I have here to an ally, and I would ask this small boon of you.” He watched as she closed her eyes and waged some internal struggle, but in the anguish on her face, he suspected victory in this skirmish was to be his. She’d grant him his request, precisely because he had made it a request, putting a small measure of power exclusively into her hands. She nodded assent but looked miserable over it. “And you,” he said, letting concern—not guilt, surely—show in his gaze, “you must consider me an ally, as well, Anna.” She speared him with a stormy look. “An ally who would compromise my reputation, knowing without it I am but a pauper or worse.” “I do not seek to bring you ruin,” he corrected her. “And I would never force my will on you.” Anna stood, and he thought her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Perhaps, my lord, you just did.” He
”
”
Grace Burrowes (The Heir (Duke's Obsession, #1; Windham, #1))
“
Let me go, Steven.” “Mr. Fairfax,” he corrected, to her utter amazement. “What?” “I told you before,” he said, pulling her back into his arms when she would have fled. “In public, I want to be addressed as Mr. Fairfax. You may call me Steven in private.” It took all Emma’s resolve not to stomp on his instep. “That is both arrogant and old-fashioned!” she hissed. Steven shrugged. “Then I’m old-fashioned. We’ll argue about the arrogant part later.” Emma was shaking her head. “You really mean it, don’t you?” He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Well, I’m not going to do it!” He made a tsk-tsk sound. “Now, Emma, you know better than to challenge me like that. It just won’t get you anywhere.” Emma
”
”
Linda Lael Miller (Emma And The Outlaw (Orphan Train, #2))
“
Miss Hathaway--” Christopher continued to object, but he fell silent, blinking, as she reached out and touched his chest. Her fingertips rested over his heart for the space of one heartbeat.
“Let me try,” she said gently.
Christopher fell back a step, his breath catching. His body responded to her touch with disconcerting swiftness. A lady never put her hand to any area of a man’s torso unless the circumstances were so extreme that…well, he couldn’t even imagine what would justify it. Perhaps if his waistcoat was on fire, and she was trying to put it out. Other than that, he couldn’t think of any defensible reason.
And yet if he were to point out the breach of etiquette, the act of correcting a lady was just as graceless. Troubled and aroused, Christopher gave her a single nod.
The men resumed their seats after Beatrix had left the room.
“Forgive us, Captain Phelan,” Amelia murmured. “I can see that my sister startled you. Really, we’ve tried to learn better manners, but we’re Philistines, all of us. And while Beatrix is out of hearing, I would like to assure you that she doesn’t usually dress so outlandishly. However, every now and then she goes on an undertaking that makes long skirts inadvisable. Replacing a bird in a nest, for example, or training a horse, and so forth.”
“A more conventional solution,” Christopher said carefully, “would be to forbid the activity that necessitated the wearing of men’s garments.”
Rohan grinned. “One of my private rules for dealing with Hathaways,” he said, “is never to forbid them anything. Because that guarantees they’ll keep doing it.”
“Heavens, we’re not as bad as all that,” Amelia protested.
Rohan gave his wife a speaking glance, his smile lingering. “Hathaways require freedom,” he told Christopher, “Beatrix in particular. An ordinary life--being contained in parlors and drawing rooms--would be a prison for her. She relates to the world in a far more vital and natural way than any gadji I’ve ever known.” Seeing Christopher’s incomprehension, he added, “That’s the word the Rom uses for females of your kind.”
“And because of Beatrix,” Amelia said, “we possess a menagerie of creatures no one else wants: a goat with an undershot jaw, a three-legged cat, a portly hedgehog, a mule with an unbalanced build, and so forth.”
“A mule?” Christopher stared at her intently, but before he could ask about it, Beatrix returned with Albert on the leash.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
“
My Teacher Told Me Monsieur Dubois waited for me at his suite to commence our private tutorial. Since his other students Albert and Narnia had their lessons in the morning, they were at The Imperial’s swimming pool frolicking with their respective chaperones, leaving me alone with my professor. The moment I walked in, he said, “Young, you did well at last evening’s TransZendental session.” “I thought I had been summoned by the prince but he wasn’t there,” I commented. “He was! Didn’t you see him?” Alain remarked sarcastically. “He was?” This piece of information piqued my interest. I continued, “By the way, who was the man I was paired with?” “Don’t you recognize him?” my teacher teased. “No, who?” “Couldn’t you identify his touch and smell?” I remarked fondly, “All I could smell was sandalwood and the man’s loving touch. I couldn’t help melting into his gallantry. Who was he?” Just then my Valet came into the room. “Talking about the devil, here he is.” “Andy! It was Andy!” I exclaimed. “Your burka harnesses had worked wonders to revivify the fervent connections you felt for each other. That’s the reason I chose the two of you, to demonstrate to the prince and the sheik how they, too, could open themselves up to one another,” my teacher declared. Surprised by Dubois’ exposition, I questioned, “You mean they are together? I mean, they’re an item?” Alain gave a gratifying laugh before answering, “That’s correct. They are now unofficially a couple.
”
”
Young (Turpitude (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 4))
“
Brisbane said nothing for a long moment. Then he spoke, his voice resolved. “I will tell Morgan the Apiary cannot be. I will keep to private enquiry work. It isn’t much safer but it will keep me closer to home, I suspect. And we will need a bigger house than Mrs. Lawson’s in Half Moon. I will tell her we rescind the offer, and we’ll start looking for lodgings tomorrow.”
“No,” I said firmly.
“No?” One handsome black brow quirked upward.
“No. We must begin as we mean to go on. We are neither of us happy without purposeful work, and we shall have it. There will be those to care for him when we are not there, and he will learn the value of a job well done from both of us. We will move into Half Moon Street as we planned, and you will work with Morgan to form the Vespiary,” I said, stressing the correction. He smiled.
“And what will you do? You will never be happy with teething biscuits and silver spoons.”
“No more than you,” I agreed. “But I will do as I have done. I will organise our household because, let us be frank, my love, I am better at it than you. I will work with you on cases that interest me. I will advise on the Vespiary when you think I can be useful. I will have my photography. And we will have...” I hesitated then said it for the first time and with ringing conviction, “our son.”
He looked down at the sleeping boy. “Our son,” he said, and in his voice was a note of wonder.
”
”
Deanna Raybourn (Twelfth Night (Lady Julia Grey, #5.6))
“
Mr. White is a biology professor at a posh suburban girl’s school. One day during class he says, “Miss Smith, would you name the organ in the human body which, under the appropriate conditions, expands to six times its normal size? And please define the conditions.” “Mr. White,” the student gasps, “I don’t think that is a proper question to ask me. I assure you that my parents will hear of this.” With that, she sits down red faced. Unperturbed, Mr. White asks Miss Jones the same question. With complete composure she replies, “Why, of course, it is the pupil of the eye, which expands in dim light.” “Correct,” says the teacher. “Now, Miss Smith, I have three things to say to you: one, you have not studied your lessons. Two, you have a dirty mind. And three, you will someday be faced with a dreadful disappointment.
”
”
Barry Dougherty (Friars Club Private Joke File: More Than 2,000 Very Naughty Jokes from the Grand Masters of Comedy)
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It is obvious the First Mother favors you overmuch, Gen,” Chertanne observed haughtily. “In matters of being over favored, I will certainly defer to your judgment,” Gen returned. “I certainly judge correctly in this! I am the Savior of the World and her future son-in-law and she has not invited me to a private dinner!” “Considering that during the last meal she took with you, you tried to drag her daughter off to your bed like a common street whore, I think it’s understandable that she needs an ample period of time to invent some good feeling for you before inviting you to dinner.
”
”
Brian Fuller (Ascension (The Trysmoon Saga, #1))
“
I certainly judge correctly in this! I am the Savior of the World and her future son-in-law and she has not invited me to a private dinner!” “Considering that during the last meal she took with you, you tried to drag her daughter off to your bed like a common street whore, I think it’s understandable that she needs an ample period of time to invent some good feeling for you before inviting you to dinner.
”
”
Brian Fuller (Ascension (The Trysmoon Saga, #1))
“
The court had a question. Why had Captain Piller kept Van Meegeren as a kind of private prisoner when he could immediately have turned him over to the Department of Justice? “Because it took me quite a while to find out who at Justice had been correct or incorrect in the years past,” Piller said, in a deliberately unsubtle allusion to Holland’s many collaborators and German sympathizers. “Your Honor, I can assure you, that was not an easy task.” No further questions.
”
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Edward Dolnick (The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century (P.S.))
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Let's consider the facts: Carole is comfortably installed at a research university—dysfunctional, yes; second tier, without question—but we do have a modest reputation here at Payne. Shepardville, on the other hand, is a third-tier private college teetering at the edge of a potato field and is still lightly infused with the tropical flavor of offbeat fundamentalism propagated by its millionaire founder, a white-collar criminal who is currently—correct me if I'm wrong—atoning for multiple financial missteps in the Big House in Texas. You've reinvented yourselves and gone secular, but clearly, in various pockets and odd recesses of the campus, glassy-eyed recidivists and fanatics are still screaming hosannas, denying the basic tenets of science, and using a whetstone to sharpen their teeth.
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Julie Schumacher (Dear Committee Members)
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The world turned upside down,’ the vampire admitted, deadpan. ‘You are talking to me indeed. Perhaps you’d also like to listen to some advice?’ ‘No. No, I wouldn’t. I don’t need to.’ ‘True, I’d forgotten. Advice is superfluous to you, allies are superfluous, you’ll get by without any travelling companions. The goal of your expedition is, after all, personal and private. More than that, the nature of the goal demands that you accomplish it alone, in person. The risks, dangers, hardships and constant struggle with doubt must only burden you. For, after all, they are components of the penance, the expiation of guilt you want to earn. A baptism of fire, I’d say. You’ll pass through fire, which burns, but also purges. And you’ll do it alone. For were someone to support you in this, help you, take on even a scrap of that baptism of fire, that pain, that penance, they would, by the same token, impoverish you. They would deprive you of part of the expiation you desire, which would be owed to them for their involvement. After all, it should be your exclusive expiation. Only you have a debt to pay off, and you don’t want to run up debts with other creditors at the same time. Is my logic correct?
”
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Andrzej Sapkowski (Baptism of Fire (The Witcher, #3))
“
What you believe about climate change doesn’t reflect what you know,” said Dan Kahan, a professor at Yale Law School who studies risk perception. “It expresses who you are."
To illustrate this point, Kahan cited the results of yet another survey by the Pew Research Center. This survey was designed to test basic scientific knowledge and it posed questions like “What is the main function of red blood cells?” When respondents were asked what gas “most scientists believe causes temperatures in the atmosphere to rise,” 58 percent chose the correct answer: “carbon dioxide.” There was little difference in the proportion of Democrats and Republicans who gave the right response; among the former it was 56 percent, among the latter 58 percent. (Among Independents, 63 percent chose correctly.)
But polls that ask Americans about their own beliefs about global warming show a significant partisan divide; in another Pew survey, 66 percent of Democrats said they believed that human activity was the “main cause” of global warming, while only 24 percent of Republicans did. This suggests there are many Democrats who don’t know what’s causing climate change but still believe humans are responsible for it and many Republicans who do know, yet still deny that humans play a role. And what this shows, according to Kahan, is that people’s views on climate change are shaped less by their knowledge of the science than by their sense of group identity. To break the political logjam, he argues, Americans need to find ways of talking about climate change that don’t require members of one group or the other to renounce their cultural identity.
“If you show people there is some way of responding to the problem that’s consistent with who they are, then they’re more likely to see the problem,” Kahan told me.
Kari Marie Norgaard is a sociologist at the University of Oregon who has studied how people talk about climate change. She, too, believes there’s a strong cultural component to Americans’ attitudes, but she sees the problem as reflecting the strategies people use to avoid painful subjects.
Norgaard argues that it’s difficult even for people who are privately worried about climate change to discuss the issue in public because on the one hand they feel guilty about the situation and on the other they feel helpless to change it. “We have a need to think of ourselves as good people,” she told me. Meanwhile, the very lack of discussion about the issue feeds itself: people feel that if it really were a serious problem, others would be dealing with it: “It’s difficult for people to feel that climate change is really happening in part because we’re embedded in a world where no one else around us is talking about it.”
“It becomes a vicious cycle between the political gridlock and the cultural and individual gridlock,” Norgaard went on.
What could possibly break this cycle? Norgaard argues that if the nation’s political leaders would candidly discuss the issue “it could be very powerful. It could free up a lot of the hopelessness people feel and allow them to mobilize.”
“I think there are probably multiple levels at which we could break this cycle,” she went on. And though, after more than thirty years of ignored warnings, the challenge has grown all the more daunting, she said, “I don’t believe we get to give up.
”
”
Elizabeth Kolbert (Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change)
“
First, the HMC dentist illegitimately extracted my solid and correct teeth without asking, and HMC dismissed my complaint. I wanted implants, but the dental surgeon turned them down. I became worried and went to another Haga hospital, where the fact appeared different, and implants remained impossible; the dental surgeon advised me to extract all my healthy teeth and try dentures instead of implants.
Such a medical Mafia continued to cause me to suffer from it; before such victimization, such ones were responsible for spreading cancer in my body that brought me close to death, and this series stayed continued. I consulted a local private dentist and then from Turkey and Pakistan.
As a result, I have professionally beautiful teeth, all with a crown like real ones that were impossible by the Dutch dental Mafia. I cannot understand where such a Mafia gained its license from. Why do the Dutch media and the government keep closing their eyes?
There are several medical means of victimization that I have been dealing with for many years since the diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer, which urologists also ignored deliberately.
I also often question myself when I read this; "While a hemoglobin count slightly below the normal range can cause mild symptoms, it's unlikely to have a fatal outcome. Hemoglobin levels have to be severely low to be life-threatening. According to the NIH, a hemoglobin level below 6.5 g/dL is life-threatening and can cause death." - Dutch doctors did not care for it, while most of the time, I suffered from it, and still suffering from it.
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
I wish to better understand the king. I have never seen him or met him, and I do not wish to enter his chambers in four months without some knowledge of who he is."
Hegai's jaw clenched, and he looked about despite the closed doors and the privacy they shared. "You know what every other virgin knows. I am sure your maids have told you enough."
She studied him. "Is it wrong of me to ask to know more than the gossips say? I know nothing of his character, of his personality. What does he enjoy? Does he laugh easily? Is he a man of quick temper? What goals does he have for the kingdom?"
Hegai smiled, his shoulders relaxing. "Ah, I see. You ask intelligent questions, but I fear I do not know the answers to any of them. These are things the wife of the king might one day ask, and things perhaps his advisors understand, but I daresay that King Xerxes is a private man. He does not share such things with his servants."
"And yet, from what I understand, it was his servants who recognized his sorrow over Vashti and suggested this contest. Is that not correct?" Esther twisted the belt at her waist.
"It is correct." Hegai leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Esther, I like you. I think you hold much potential to please the king.
”
”
Jill Eileen Smith (Star of Persia: (An Inspirational Retelling about Queen Esther))
“
One of my notes says: “Correct Anaïs’ English.” Do you want me to do that, or would Hugo consider that I am encroaching on his private domain?
”
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Anaïs Nin (A Literate Passion: Letters of Anais Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953)
“
But you found a couple of dead men that I have nothing to do with and you have neatly arranged matters so that I must tell the police all my private and personal business in order to protect you from your own incompetence. That’s what I see. If I am wrong, pray correct me.
”
”
Raymond Chandler (The High Window (Philip Marlowe, #3))
“
Oh, you were diagnosed privately, so which diagnosis do you think is correct? – hmm let me think… well it’s tricky but could it be the private hospital which is independent and isn’t influenced or financially bound by the government?
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Morven-May MacCallum (Finding Joy)