“
Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2))
“
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2))
“
Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold?
The tree says to the leaf:
"That’s the cycle of life. You may think you’re going to die, but you live on in me. It’s thanks to you that I’m alive, because I can breathe. It’s also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Manuscript Found in Accra)
“
What do I do?" Blue asked cannily. What have you guys seen me doing?"
"Traveling," Maura replied. "Changing the world."
"Trees in your eyes," Calla added, more gently than usual. "Stars in your heart.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
There is a cycle of love and death that shapes the lives of those who choose to travel in the company of animals. It is a cycle unlike any other. To those who have never lived through its turnings and walked its rocky path, our willingness to give our hearts with full knowledge that they will be broken seems incomprehensible. Only we know how small a price we pay for what we receive; our grief, no matter how powerful it may be, is an insufficient measure of the joy we have been given.
”
”
Suzanne Clothier (Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs)
“
It was this: the future beginning to hang thick in the air, and Henry starting a quiet, drunk conversation about whether or not Blue would like to travel to Venezuela with him. Blue replying softly that she would, she very much would, and Gansey hearing the longing in her voice like he was being undone, like his own feelings were being unbearably mirrored. I can’t come? Gansey asked. Yes, you can meet us there in a fancy plane, Henry said. Don’t be fooled by his nice hair, Blue interjected, Gansey would hike. And warmth filled the empty caverns in Gansey’s heart. He felt known.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Haven't had your fill of interesting events?"
"Never. They are the spice of life." She held up her half-finished hat. "How do you like it?"
"It's nice. The blue is pretty. But what do the runes say?"
"Raxacori-Oh, never mind. It wouldn't mean a thing to you anyway. Safe travels to you and Saphira, Eragon. And remember to watch out for earwigs and wild hamsters. Ferocious things, wild hamsters."
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
“
A floorboard cracked; knuckles tapped once on the open door. Adam looked up to see Niall Lynch standing in the doorway. No, it was Ronan, face lit bright on one side, in stark shadow on the other, looking powerful and at ease with his thumbs tucked in the pockets of his jeans, leather bracelets looped over his wrist, feet bare.
He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it.
“This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss.
“I’m gonna go downstairs,” Ronan said.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
The human life cycle no less than evolves around the box; from the open-topped box called a bassinet, to the pine box we call a coffin, the box is our past and, just as assuredly, our future. It should not surprise us then that the lowly box plays such a significant role in the first Christmas story. For Christmas began in a humble, hay-filled box of splintered wood. The Magi, wise men who had traveled far to see the infant king, laid treasure-filled boxes at the feet of that holy child. And in the end, when He had ransomed our sins with His blood, the Lord of Christmas was laid down in a box of stone. How fitting that each Christmas season brightly wrapped boxes skirt the pine boughs of Christmas trees around the world.
”
”
Richard Paul Evans (The Christmas Box (The Christmas Box, #1))
“
The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2))
“
In older myths, the dark road leads downward into the Underworld, where Persephone is carried off by Hades, much against her will, while Ishtar descends of her own accord to beat at the gates of Hell. This road of darkness lies to the West, according to Native American myth, and each of us must travel it at some point in our lives. The western road is one of trials, ordeals, disasters and abrupt life changes — yet a road to be honored, nevertheless, as the road on which wisdom is gained. James Hillman, whose theory of 'archetypal psychology' draws extensively on Greco–Roman myth, echoes this belief when he argues that darkness is vital at certain periods of life, questioning our modern tendency to equate mental health with happiness. It is in the Underworld, he reminds us, that seeds germinate and prepare for spring. Myths of descent and rebirth connect the soul's cycles to those of nature.
”
”
Terri Windling
“
Once the arrow has left the bowstring, it has no power to come back. The moon's brightness shines, revealing the night traveller.
”
”
Yuanwu Keqin (The Blue Cliff Record)
“
She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2))
“
I should constantly remind myself that the real leap consists in introducing invention into existence.
In the world in which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself. And it is by going beyond the historical, instrumental hypothesis that I will initiate my cycle of freedom.
”
”
Frantz Fanon
“
No one knew what Ganseylike was, even Gansey. Teachers and family friends were always collecting articles and stories that they thought might capture his attention, things they thought were Ganseylike. The well-meaning items always addressed the most obvious parts of him. Welsh kings or old Camaros or other young people who had travelled the world for bizarre reasons no one else understood. No one dug down past that, and he supposed he didn't much encourage it. There was a lot of night in those days behind him, and he preferred to turn his face into the sun. Ganseylike. What was Ganseylike?
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Reincarnation isn't something in which I choose to believe but rather a truth I accept. Most people will never know the meaning of their friendships, passions, choices and even challenges. I embrace them, knowing that there’s always a perfect correlation between everything, including between us and the ones that love us and betray us at the end. That’s how I know I’m almost never traveling somewhere but returning, or not meeting someone but fixing the past, or facing a challenge but ending a karmic cycle. If I was a Buddhist Monk, a Scottish Doctor, a French Monarch, or a Spanish Templar, none of that really matters, not as much as what I experienced and believed during that time, not as much as what I did ten years ago or what I believed during my childhood, not as much as who I am now and what I can do with my life at present time.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire
“
The more we live as 'free individuals' . . . the more we are effectively non-free, caught within the existing frame of possibilities--we have to be impelled or disturbed into freedom. . . . This paradox thoroughly pervades the form of subjectivity that characterizes 'permissive' liberal society. Since permissiveness and free choice are elevated into a supreme value, social control and domination can no longer appear as infringing on subjects' freedom: they have to appear as (and be sustained by) individuals experiencing themselves as free. There is a multitude of forms of this appearing of un-freedom in the guise of its opposite: in being deprived of universal healthcare, we are told that we are being given a new freedom of choice (to choose our healthcare provider); when we can no longer rely on long-term employment and are compelled to search for a new precarious job every couple of years, we are told that we are being given the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and discover our creative potential; when we have to pay for the education of our children, we are told that we are now able to become 'entrepreneurs of the self," acting like a capitalist freely choosing how to invest the resources he possesses (or has borrowed). In education, health, travel . . . we are constantly bombarded by imposed 'free choices'; forced to make decisions for which we are mostly not qualified (or do not possess enough information), we increasingly experience our freedom as a burden that causes unbearable anxiety. Unable to break out of this vicious cycle alone, as isolated individuals--since the more we act freely the more we become enslaved by the system--we need to be 'awakened' from this 'dogmatic slumber' of fake freedom.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek
“
A challenge that tested Tom to his limit but in return gave him more than he could ever have imagined.
”
”
Bear Grylls
“
To artists, a block of clay says possibility. To travelers, a weekend promises adventure. To the nervous, that lack of structure screams anxiety.
”
”
Judson Brewer (Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind)
“
Emotions are physiological cascades that want to complete their cycles, and they will complete those cycles when you allow them to; they want to be travelers, not residents. They want to move on. Let them.
”
”
Emily Nagoski (Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life)
“
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2))
“
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2))
“
Every time I got on my bicycle after a long hiatus it was like riding back to myself, the only way there. The dissipation of life in the city—days of to-do lists, errands, emails, small talk with strangers—generated static in my mind that I didn’t notice was there until I started pedalling and realized it was gone, the way you don’t hear the hum of a refrigerator until it stops. Such is the paradoxical freedom of cycling the Silk Road. In restricting the range of directions you can travel, in charging ordinary movement with momentum, a bike trip offers that rarest, most elusive of things in our frenetic world: clarity of purpose. Your sole responsibility on Earth, as long as your legs last each day, is to breathe, pedal, breathe—and look around.
”
”
Kate Harris (Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road)
“
He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it.
“This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
All the highway is good for is to tell you to keep moving, there's nothing to see. That's for idiots who want to go as fast as possible from one point to another. We're not doing geometry here, we're traveling. Find me. some pretty little roads that show us all there is to see.
”
”
Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran & Oscar and the Lady in Pink (Le Cycle de l'Invisible #2-3))
“
During the eleven-year sunspot cycle, for example, solar flares can send enormous quantities of deadly plasma racing toward Earth. In the past, this phenomenon has forced the astronauts on the space station to seek special protection against the potentially lethal barrage of subatomic particles.
”
”
Michio Kaku (Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel)
“
Only Time is universal; Night and Day are merely quaint local customs found on those planets that tidal forces have not yet robbed of their rotation. But however far they travel from their native world, human beings can never escape the diurnal rhythm, set ages ago by its cycle of light and darkness.
”
”
Arthur C. Clarke (2061: Odyssey Three (Space Odyssey, #3))
“
Emotions are physiological cascades that want to complete their cycles, and they will complete those cycles when you allow them to; they want to be travelers, not residents. They want to move on. Let them. You may tremble or shake or cry or curl up in a ball. You may notice your body doing these things without your volition. Your body knows what to do, and it will do it as long as you sit calmly with it, as you would sit calmly beside a sick or grieving child.
”
”
Emily Nagoski (Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life)
“
It's its own universe somehow, this cycle of reaction, reaction, reaction, him and me, flogger and him, flogger and me, all connected. The best thing, though, is when the falls land...the impact travels all the way from his body to mine, through the leather, then the handle, through my arm and to my heart. We're so...together.
”
”
Alexis Hall (For Real (Spires, #3))
“
So each generation set out to find more of its kind, and within just a few cycles of birth and death, the Club had spread not only through space, but also time, propagating itself forwards into the twentieth century and back into the Middle Ages, the death of each member spreading the word of what it was to the very extremes of the times in which they lived.
”
”
Claire North (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)
“
When one looks at the horizon above any body of water for long enough, they often find self-reflection in the distance.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
What this world needs is for somebody to make the first step and forgive. Love is what’ll change the world. Not more fighting and killing.
”
”
Hank Garner (Mulligan: a tale of time travel and second chances (The Mulligan Cycle Book 1))
“
What have you guys seen me doing?” “Traveling,” Maura replied. “Changing the world.” “Trees in your eyes,” Calla added, more gently than usual. “Stars in your heart.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Having someplace in mind that you were traveling to was different from not having any place.
”
”
Cynthia Voigt (Homecoming (Tillerman Cycle, #1))
“
Hate only keeps traveling round the world, until one person chooses to break the cycle.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat)
“
But a generation that knows only how to travel — can they teach a generation how to arrive?
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (Hainish Cycle, #9))
“
Where do I go from here? What road do I travel down where you are not by my side? What life do I lead where you are not there to guide me?
”
”
Halo Scot (Edge of the Breach (Rift Cycle, #1))
“
It was like looking in a mirror. The same flickering hope in Loo, the same desperate need to be loved, was right here in Marshall's mother. And it was in Principal Gunderson, clutching Lily's waist in that old prom photo. And it was Agnes, pressing her feet into the stirrups, listening for her child's cry. And it was in Hawley, mourning with his scraps of paper in the bathroom. Their hearts were all cycling through the same madness—the discovery, the bliss, the loss, the despair—like planets taking turns in orbit around the sun. Each containing their own unique gravity. Their own force of attraction. Drawing near and holding fast to whatever entered their own atmosphere. Even Loo, penning her thousands of names way out at the edge of the universe, felt better knowing others were traveling this same elliptical course, that they would sometimes cross paths, that they would find love and lose love and recover from love and love again—because, if they were all going in circles, and Loo was Pluto, then every 248 years even she would have the chance to be closer to the sun.
”
”
Hannah Tinti (The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley)
“
Let’s see, you will need a project plan, resource allocation, a timeline, test cycles, a budget, a contingency budget, lots of diagrams, flowcharts, a media release, a strategic vision, a charter, technical specifications, business rules, travel expenses, a development environment, deployment instructions, a user acceptance test, stationary, overtime schedule, a mock-up, prototypes…”
“Tell me,” she said, “did the people who built the pyramids have any of those?”
“Mostly, they had beer. Come to think of it, if there had been such a thing as a Business Analyst in ancient Egypt, then the hieroglyph for it would have been very graphical, if you know what I mean.
”
”
Sorin Suciu (The Scriptlings)
“
So in addition to the Big Freeze and Big Crunch, a third alternative began to emerge from the data, the Big Rip, which is like the Big Freeze on steroids. It is a vastly accelerated time frame for the life cycle of the universe.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny BeyondEarth)
“
Mother Nature had blessed her with the customary rear-end one expects of a Brazilian smokeshow. However, her chest was ornamented by a beautiful set of
bolt-ons, arguably the only thing man has crafted better than the hand of God.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
Eragon was grateful for the new raiment. His own tunic and breeches were sadly travel-worn from their weeks exposed to the rain and sun since Farthen Dûr. Stripping, he donned one of the luxurious tunics, savoring its downy texture.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
“
I call it “pedal magic” and only those who ride know the utter ecstasy of bicycling. Pressing a pedal toward Earth gives flight to my fancy. Every rotation powers my traveling machine toward yet another date with destiny. The breeze clears my senses. The wind blows away my troubles. The sun shines upon my future. Spinning spokes create flashing metal upon an endless path—cycling feels like an infinite spiritual rush. It cleanses my mind. All my troubles fade into joy.
”
”
Frosty Wooldridge
“
In practice, weakness breeds weakness and strength breeds strength. Taking the easy path is of no use, for nothing worth traveling to lies at its end. We may choose the path of least resistance but this too will ultimately be unsatisfying.
”
”
The Velominati (The Rules: The Way of the Cycling Disciple)
“
In all your travels around Alagaësia, with Angela and without, you’ve never found anything that might explain this mystery? Or even just something that might be of use against Galbatorix.”
I found you, didn’t I?
“That’s not funny,” growled Eragon.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
“
According to the Puranas, the Kali Yug is the last age before the world is destroyed by the ‘fire of one thousand suns’, after which the cycle reaches its conclusion and time momentarily stops, before the wheel turns again and a new cycle begins. Rather
”
”
William Dalrymple (The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters)
“
Time for me had always been measured in terms of the rising sun, its setting sister, and the dependable cycle of the moon. but at sea, I learned that time can also be measured in terms of water, in terms of the distance traveled while drifting on it. When measured in this way, nearer and farther are the path of time's movement, not continuously forward along a fast straight line. When measured in this way, time loops and curlicues, and at any given moment it can spiral me away and then bring me rushing home again.
”
”
Monique Truong (The Book of Salt)
“
Why are you telling me?” Maura asked. “Why is your face so red?”
“Because you’re my mother. Because you’re an authority figure. Because you’re supposed to inform people of your travel plans when you’re hiking on dangerous trails. This is what my face always looks like.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
“
But why bother? Why exert all this effort to focus totally on the boring prattlings of a six-year-old?
First, your willingness to do so is the best possible concrete evidence of your esteem you can give your child. If you give your child the same esteem you would give a great lecturer, then the child will know him- or herself to be valued and therefore will feel valuable. There is no better and ultimately no other way to teach your children that they are valuable people than by valuing them.
Second, the more children feel valuable, the more they will begin to say things of value. They will rise to your expectation of them.
Third, the more you listen to your child, the more you will realize that in amongst the pauses, the stutterings, the seemingly innocent chatter, your child does indeed have valuable things to say. The dictum that great wisdom comes from "the mouths of babes" is recognized as an absolute fact by anyone who truly listens to children. Listen to your child enough and you will come to realize that he or she is quite an extraordinary individual. And the more extraordinary you realize your child to be, the more you will be willing to listen. And the more you will learn.
Fourth, the more you know about your child, the more you will be able to teach. Know little about your children, and usually you will be teaching things that either they are not ready to learn or they already know and perhaps understand better than you.
Finally, the more children know that you value them, that you consider them extraordinary people, the more willing they will be to listen to you and afford you the same esteem. And the more appropriate your teaching, based on your knowledge of them, the more eager your children will be to learn from you. And the more they learn, the more extraordinary they will become. If the reader senses the cyclical character of this process, he or she is quite correct and is appreciating the truth of the reciprocity of love. Instead of a vicious downward cycle, it is a creative upward cycle of evolution and growth. Value creates value. Love begets love. Parents and child together spin forward faster and faster in the pas de deux of love.
”
”
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
“
History is cyclical in nature, the evidence shows us. What is today, was before. What was yesterday, will be tomorrow. We need to learn from our mistakes, so that instead of travelling endlessly in a repetitious cycle, we move in an upward spiral toward perfection and utopia.
”
”
David Hatcher Childress (Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients)
“
reasons of his own. After Eragon agrees, Brom gives him the sword Zar’roc, which was once a Rider’s blade, though he refuses to say how he acquired it. Eragon learns much from Brom during their travels, including how to fight with swords and use magic. Eventually, they lose the Ra’zac’s trail and visit the city of Teirm, where Brom believes
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
“
Where the weather is concerned, the Midwest has the worst of both worlds. In the winter the wind is razor sharp. It skims down from the Arctic and slices through you. It howls and swirls and buffets the house. It brings piles of snow and bonecracking cold. From November to March you walk leaning forward at a twenty-degree angle, even indoors, and spend your life waiting for your car to warm up, or digging it out of drifts or scraping futilely at ice that seems to have been applied to the windows with superglue. And then one day spring comes. The snow melts, you stride about in shirtsleeves, you incline your face to the sun. And then, just like that, spring is over and it’s summer. It is as if God has pulled a lever in the great celestial powerhouse. Now the weather rolls in from the opposite direction, from the tropics far to the south, and it hits you like a wall of heat. For six months, the heat pours over you. You sweat oil. Your pores gape. The grass goes brown. Dogs look as if they could die. When you walk downtown you can feel the heat of the pavement rising through the soles of your shoes. Just when you think you might very well go crazy, fall comes and for two or three weeks the air is mild and nature is friendly. And then it’s winter and the cycle starts again. And you think, “As soon as I’m big enough, I’m going to move far, far away from here.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America)
“
His eyes were staring at the lonely sun that was now beginning its descent behind some far off hills. How lonely its existence was, Ranjan mused. Traveling every single day from East to West, with no break, no company; nothing to wait for, nothing to look forward to, just going on and on, in a cycle of existence that did not have a beginning or end.
”
”
Yamini Vijendran (Full Circle)
“
Fishermen don’t play to fold. They will always play the bluff no matter how hard things get. We throw the dice no matter how broke or how leveraged we may be. Like any true gambler, we know the dice will eventually get hot again if we throw them hard enough. It’s just a matter of surviving long enough to throw them enough times to find a winning streak
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
You can spend a lifetime at sea. Your present and past surround you as sure as the salt air. One does not stare out to the horizon and eventually not see themselves staring back. The farther we go out to sea, the deeper we go inside our mind. The spirit of the ocean is a living, breathing thing, as alive as any of the creatures who inhabit her waters above and below.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.
- Le Guin, Ursula K.. The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle Series Book 2) (p. 172). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin
“
for five long years from the time of Partition, Indians and Pakistanis could freely walk into each other’s countries—something so difficult to believe today. When I mentioned this to Damanbir, he said: ‘The atmosphere was pretty relaxed even after 1952. Things really changed only after the 1965 war. Until then army officers from Pakistan would cycle across the border to watch Hindi films.
”
”
Bishwanath Ghosh (Gazing at Neighbours: Travels Along the Line That Partitioned India)
“
Mass production was aimed at new sources of demand in the early twentieth century’s first mass consumers. Ford was clear on this point: “Mass production begins in the perception of a public need.”73 Supply and demand were linked effects of the new “conditions of existence” that defined the lives of my great-grandparents Sophie and Max and other travelers in the first modernity. Ford’s invention deepened the reciprocities between capitalism and these populations. In contrast, Google’s inventions destroyed the reciprocities of its original social contract with users. The role of the behavioral value reinvestment cycle that had once aligned Google with its users changed dramatically. Instead of deepening the unity of supply and demand with its populations, Google chose to reinvent its business around the burgeoning demand of advertisers eager to squeeze and scrape online behavior by any available means in the competition for market advantage. In the new operation, users were no longer ends in themselves but rather became the means to others’ ends. Reinvestment in user services became the method for attracting behavioral surplus, and users became the unwitting suppliers of raw material for a larger cycle of revenue generation.
”
”
Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power)
“
How? Try to travel into the future and look back. In 2023, do you think you’re more likely to say, “Back in 2018, I wish I’d been more aggressive” or “Back in 2018, I wish I’d been more defensive”? And is there anything today about which you’d be likely to say, “In 2018, I missed the chance of a lifetime to buy xyz”? What you think you might say a few years down the road can help you figure out what you should do today.
”
”
Howard Marks (Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side)
“
I had a lot of losing in my life lately, but this would be a loss that I just couldn’t bear. The world is full of women—I had a chance to survive that. But a fish of this caliber was truly something special. I have seen a lot of women in my life, and none of them have ever had me yelling at the top of my lungs in excitement at first glance. Wonder women are rare, wonder fish are twice as rare. This fact was not lost on me.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
If life, by some chance, happens to have originated, and survived, elsewhere in the universe, it will have had time to explore an unfathomable diversity of forms. Those best able to survive the passage of time, adapt to changing environments, and migrate across interstellar distances will become the most widespread. A life form that assumes digital representation, for all or part of its life cycle, will be able to travel at the speed of light.
”
”
George Dyson (Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe)
“
Gentle Tree,
I can hear you speaking
Reminding me with your silence
Of what I all so often fail to see:
That within me
Is a tree
Reaching from seed towards star
Limited only by
How much of me I want to see
And how far I believe I can travel
Before I unravel
And my trunk becomes a branch
Which branches into tiny twigs
Each adorned with wigs
Of flowers nourished by rain showers
And visited by lots of little things
With wings and unique ways to sing.
”
”
Laughing Lion Silly Monkie (Rewilding Hypergraphia)
“
We got to the casino and ordered some drinks. We then walked around, drinking and losing. We had some drinks at the craps table and lost money there. We had some drinks at the slot machines and lost a little more over there. Our drinking and money lasted longer at the blackjack tables, but even there our drinks and winning streak dried up. The more we drank, the flirtier we became. Although I was hemorrhaging money like crazy, I was the luckiest guy in the casino.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
The sea may be your lover, but she is not your friend. You cannot safely turn your back to her. Her loyalty is that of an ex- wife, her characteristics more of a new mistress; she will bring you to your highest peaks, but beware for on the other side of the high ground lie valleys of unspeakable misery. Her mind games are second to none. She will lead you down darker alleys of your mind than you ever knew existed within. She will make you question all that you are.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
I followed all the advice my mind could compute and digested it to the best of my ability. I’d run, work out, eat healthy, and then swallow a fifth of whiskey. The man cave below my home began to look like a recycling center for Crown Royal and Jack Daniels distilleries. I discovered that empty whiskey bottles made an eerily satisfying thud when stacked up like cordwood. The sturdy glass was much thicker and stronger than my own skin, and I admired their resilience to outside forces.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
Paint thinner is the boatyard’s morning dew. The stringent smell awakens the mind of a sailor as spring flowers awaken the mind of a poet.
The boatyard, a reflection of your life, reminds us that the least desirable jobs often prove to be the most important and fulfilling. The harder the task, the more one feels rewarded when accomplishing it. Paint erratically splatters on skin in the same fashion that the stars come to fill up the night sky, the constellations on your forearms telling of the most recent project.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
Neurotransmitters are chemical-like substances that travel between nerve cells across a synapse and determine whether a nerve signal keeps going or halts. Levels of two of these neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, decrease during adolescence. The decrease in dopamine results in mood changes and problems with emotional control. The decrease in serotonin results in decreased impulse control. A third neurotransmitter, melatonin, increases in adolescence. Melatonin is responsible for circadian rhythms and the sleep–wake cycle. Its increase results in a need for greater sleep.
”
”
Richard Guare (Smart but Scattered Teens: The "Executive Skills" Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential)
“
By planting rye I am creating carbon sinks in my backyard, expanding my role in the carbon cycle, launching my own backyard campaign to offset global warming. My emissions, after all, reflect a rural but very comfortable life in which I enjoy goods that travel great distances - clementines from Spain, wine from California - and on the occasional holiday I fly south, seeking warmer places. Will planting rye in the shoulder seasons be enough to make a difference? Certainly not, but it is a gesture, a way to frame the question and provide a benchmark to judge the extent of my complicity.
”
”
Amy Seidl (Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World)
“
Chikako and Ben's lives are inexorably linked linked to an ever-expanding list of seasonal tasks. In summer, they work through the garden bounty, drying and pickling the fruits and vegetables at peak ripeness. Fall brings chestnuts to pick, chili paste to make, mushrooms to hunt. Come winter, Noto's seas are flush with the finest sea creatures, which means pickling fish for hinezushi and salting squid guts for ishiri. In the spring, after picking mountain vegetables and harvesting seaweed, they plant the garden and begin the cycle that will feed them, their family, and their guests in the year ahead.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
“
She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free. What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveller may never reach the end of it.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2))
“
From his corner office on the ground floor of the St. Cyril station house, Inspector Dick has a fine view of the parking lot. Six Dumpsters plated and hooped like iron maidens against bears. Beyond the Dumpsters a subalpine meadow, and then the snow¬ capped ghetto wall that keeps the Jews at bay. Dick is slouched against the back of his two-thirds-scale desk chair, arms crossed, chin sunk to his chest, star¬ing out the casement window. Not at the mountains or the meadow, grayish green in the late light, tufted with wisps of fog, or even at the armored Dumpsters. His gaze travels no farther than the parking lot—no farther than his 1961 Royal Enfield Crusader. Lands¬man recognizes the expression on Dick's face. It's the expression that goes with the feeling Landsman gets when he looks at his Chevelle Super Sport, or at the face of Bina Gelbfish. The face of a man who feels he was born into the wrong world. A mistake has been made; he is not where he belongs. Every so often he feels his heart catch, like a kite on a telephone wire, on something that seems to promise him a home in the world or a means of getting there. An American car manufactured in his far-off boyhood, say, or a motor¬cycle that once belonged to the future king of England, or the face of a woman worthier than himself of being loved.
”
”
Michael Chabon (The Yiddish Policemen's Union)
“
This isn’t the first time I’ve been told that meth is worse than most other drugs. To learn why, I continue my research, traveling to meet with more researchers who study meth. They explain that drug users often binge and increase their dosages in an attempt to recreate the initial high, but for meth addicts, with the depletion of as much as 90 percent of the brain’s dopamine, it’s no longer possible. As with many drugs, the dopamine deficiency causes depression and anxiety, but it’s often far more severe with meth. This compels the user to take more of the drug, causing more nerve damage, which increases the compulsion to use—a cycle that leads to both addiction and relapse.
”
”
David Sheff (Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction)
“
Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain traveling across the vast dry field toward him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding on the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn't know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew that he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan's first kiss.
"I'm gonna go downstairs," Ronan said.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Throughout history whole societies have committed ecological suicide using the very same tactics we employ today: namely, a highly productive agriculture based on short-term profits, a dependence on hierarchical systems for essential resources, and an arrogant disregard for environmental stewardship. The current trends of depleted groundwater, climate change, and destruction of the aquatic environment (so necessary to renew the water cycle) tell us that we too travel down the very same road of ancient civilizations before us, toward extinction. But first—and soon—will come the day when clean water is still available, though only to the elite few who can pay the price. One out of twenty people relies on privately owned water
”
”
Heather Flores (Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community)
“
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the planet of Golgafrincham: it is a planet with an ancient and mysterious history, rich in legend, red, and occasionally green with the blood of those who sought in times gone by to conquer her; a land of parched and barren landscapes, of sweet and sultry air heady with the scent of the perfumed springs that trickle over its hot and dusty rocks and nourish the dark and musky lichens beneath; a land of fevered brows and intoxicated imaginings, particularly among those who taste the lichens; a land also of cool and shaded thoughts among those who have learned to forswear the lichens and find a tree to sit beneath; a land also of steel and blood and heroism; a land of the body and of the spirit.
This was its history. And in all this ancient and mysterious history, the most mysterious figures of all were without doubt those of the Great Circling poets of Arium. These Circling Poets used to live in remote mountain passes where they would lie in wait for small bands of unwary travelers, circle around them, and throw rocks at them. And when the travelers cried out, saying why didn’t they go away and get on with writing some poems instead of pestering people with all this rock-throwing business, they would suddenly stop, and then break into one of the seven hundred and ninety-four great Song Cycles of Vassillian. These songs were all of extraordinary beauty, and even more extraordinary length, and all fell into exactly the same pattern.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2))
“
Sheryl once explained the cycle of wealth to me as she saw it. I was complaining that someone I really admired had retired from Facebook at a very young age. I couldn’t understand why they’d do that. What would they do instead that would be so interesting? She said matter-of-factly that they would probably follow the cycle of wealth she’d observed at Google and Facebook: exotic travel for a year or more before becoming bored of that, then transitioning to getting very fit or some other personal goal. After achieving that goal, buying a boat or some other extravagant hobby purchase, and then finally getting divorced or going through some other personal crisis. If they come back from that, maybe they attempt their own start-up or fund or, most likely, philanthropy.
”
”
Sarah Wynn-Williams (Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism)
“
What happens when those of us living at the pace of fashion try to insert an awareness of these much larger cycles into our everyday activity?
In other words, what's it like to envision the ten-thousand-year impact of tossing that plastic bottle into the trash bin, all in the single second it takes to actually toss it? Or the ten-thousand-year history of the fossil fuel being burned to drive to work or iron a shirt? It may be environmentally progressive, but it's not altogether pleasant. Unless we're living in utter harmony with nature, thinking in ten-thousand-year spans is an invitation to a nightmarish obsession. It's a potentially burdensome, even paralyzing, state of mind. Each present action becomes a black hole of possibilities and unintended consequences. We must walk through life as if we had traveled in to the past, aware that any change we make—even moving an ashtray two inches to the left—could ripple through time and alter the course of history. It's less of a Long Now than a Short Forever.
This weight on every action—this highly leveraged sense of the moment—hints at another form of present shock that is operating in more ways and places than we may suspect. We'll call this temporal compression overwinding—the effort to squish really big timescales into much smaller or nonexistent ones. It's the effort to make the "now" responsible for the sorts of effects that actually take real time to occur—just like overwinding a watch in the hope that it will gather up more potential energy and run longer than it can.
”
”
Douglas Rushkoff (Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now)
“
And why did Garzhvog call you Uluthrek?”
“It is the title the Urgals gave me long, long ago, when I traveled among them.”
“What does it mean?”
“Mooneater.”
“Mooneater? What a strange name. How did you come by it?”
“I ate the moon, of course. How else?”
Eragon frowned and concentrated on petting the werecat for a minute. Then: “Why did Garzhvog give you that stone?”
“Because I told him a story. I thought that was obvious.”
“But what is it?”
“A piece of rock. Didn’t you notice?” She clucked with disapproval. “Really, you ought to pay better attention to what’s going on around you. Otherwise, someone’s liable to stick a knife in you when you’re not looking. And then whom would I exchange cryptic remarks with?” She tossed her hair. “Go on, ask me another question. I’m rather enjoying this game.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
“
Blue didn’t quite know how to say it; she didn’t know quite what it was. “It … just feels like such a waste. Falling in love with all of them.” All of them really meant all of them: 300 Fox Way, the boys, Jesse Dittley. For a sensible person, Blue thought that maybe she had a problem with love. In a dangerous voice, she added, “Don’t say ‘it’s good life experience.’ Do not.”
“I wasn’t going to say good life experience. I was going to say that leaving helps, sometimes. And it’s not always a for ever goodbye. There’s leaving and coming back.”
“What do I do?” Blue asked cannily. “What have you guys seen me doing?”
“Travelling,” Maura replied. “Changing the world.”
“Trees in your eyes,” Calla added, more gently than usual. “Stars in your heart.”
“I just want you to look at your future as a world where anything is possible.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Of all the plants, trees have the largest surface area covered in leaves. For every square yard of forest, 27 square yards of leaves and needles blanket the crowns. Part of every rainfall is intercepted in the canopy and immediately evaporates again. In addition, each summer, trees use up to 8,500 cubic yards of water per square mile, which they release into the air through transpiration. This water vapor creates new clouds that travel farther inland to release their rain. As the cycle continues, water reaches even the most remote areas. This water pump works so well that the downpours in some large areas of the world, such as the Amazon basin, are almost as heavy thousands of miles inland as they are on the coast.
There are a few requirements for the pump to work: from the ocean to the farthest corner, there must be forest. And, most importantly, the coastal forests are the foundations for this system. If they do not exist, the system falls apart. Scientists credit Anastassia Makarieva from Saint Petersburg in Russia for the discovery of these unbelievably important connections. They studied different forests around the world and everywhere the results were the same. It didn't matter if they were studying a rain forest or the Siberian taiga, it was always the trees that were transferring life-giving moisture into land-locked interiors. Researchers also discovered that the whole process breaks down if coastal forests are cleared. It's a bit like if you were using an electrical pump to distribute water and you pulled the intake pipe out of the pond. The fallout is already apparent in Brazil, where the Amazonian rain forest is steadily drying out. Central Europe is within the 400-mile zone and, therefore, close enough to the intake area. Thankfully, there are still forests here, even if they are greatly diminished.
”
”
Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World)
“
At night, fishermen are paid for their hard work with one of the Pacific’s greatest views—the gates to the heavens above. Hawaii’s remoteness to the rest of the world leaves the skies unpolluted by man’s industrial byproducts and artificial light known on the mainland. A man can actually look back in time when he gets far enough away from the shores of Hawaii and leaves modern society behind. He will find a sky above him before the hustle and bustle of mankind, a place where a stunning display of rhythmically twinkling stars are the norm and planets lay boldly pronounced. Shooting stars are commonplace and so is the humbling feeling a man gets when looking at this masterpiece before him. The boat churns up neon-green phosphoresce that glows in the water below like fireflies. When the ocean is calm enough and the moon dark enough, it is completely impossible to tell where the earth ends and where the heavens begin.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
James Clerk Maxwell helped to enshrine this wave theory when he successfully conjectured a connection between light, electricity, and magnetism. He came up with equations that described the behavior of electric and magnetic fields, and when they were combined they predicted electromagnetic waves. Maxwell found that these electromagnetic waves had to travel at a certain speed: approximately 186,000 miles per second.* That was the speed that scientists had already measured for light, and it was obviously not a mere coincidence.4 It became clear that light was the visible manifestation of a whole spectrum of electromagnetic waves. This includes what we now call AM radio signals (with a wavelength of 300 yards), FM radio signals (3 yards), and microwaves (3 inches). As the wavelengths get shorter (and the frequency of the wave cycles thus increases), they produce the spectrum of visible light, ranging from red (25 millionths of an inch) to violet (14 millionths of an inch). Even shorter wavelengths produce ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays. When we speak of “light” and the “speed of light,” we mean all electromagnetic waves, not just the ones that are visible to our eyes.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Einstein: His Life and Universe)
“
Listen to your child enough and you will come to realize that he or she is quite an extraordinary individual. And the more extraordinary you realize your child to be, the more you will be willing to listen. And the more you will learn. Fourth, the more you know about your child, the more you will be able to teach. Know little about your children, and usually you will be teaching things that either they are not ready to learn or they already know and perhaps understand better than you. Finally, the more children know that you value them, that you consider them extraordinary people, the more willing they will be to listen to you and afford you the same esteem. And the more appropriate your teaching, based on your knowledge of them, the more eager your children will be to learn from you. And the more they learn, the more extraordinary they will become. If the reader senses the cyclical character of this process, he or she is quite correct and is appreciating the truth of the reciprocity of love. Instead of a vicious downward cycle, it is a creative upward cycle of evolution and growth. Value creates value. Love begets love. Parents and child together spin forward faster and faster in the pas de deux of love.
”
”
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
“
Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that "productivity" and "earnings" keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity—most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it's only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which must sooner or later crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life. Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide . . . though he's amiable enough, keeps cracking jokes back through the loudspeaker . . . on you roll, across a countryside whose light is forever changing--castles, heaps of rock, moons of different shapes and colors come and go. There are stops at odd hours of teh mornings, for reasons that are not announced: you get out to stretch in lime-lit courtyards where the old men sit around the table under enormous eucalyptus trees you can smell in the night, shuffling the ancient decks oily and worn, throwing down swords and cups and trumps major in the tremor of light while behind them the bus is idling, waiting--"passengers will now reclaim their seats" and much as you'd like to stay, right here, learn the game, find your old age around this quiet table, it's no use: he is waiting beside the door of the bus in his pressed uniform, Lord of the Night he is checking your tickets, your ID and travel papers, and it's the wands of enterprise that dominate tonight...as he nods you by, you catch a glimpse of his face, his insane, committed eyes, and you remember then, for a terrible few heartbeats, that of course it will end for you all in blood, in shock, without dignity--but there is meanwhile this trip to be on ... over your own seat, where there ought to be an advertising plaque, is instead a quote from Rilke: "Once, only once..." One of Their favorite slogans. No return, no salvation, no Cycle--that's not what They, nor Their brilliant employee Kekule, have taken the Serpent to mean.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon
“
gratified her; it was only right that her food should fear her. If ever she should fear it, she would know it was her time to die. A league farther upstream, the Varden were packed against the Jiet River like a herd of red deer against the edge of a cliff. The Varden had arrived at the crossing yesterday, and since then, perhaps a third of the men-who-were-friends and the Urgals-who-were-friends and the horses-she-must-not-eat had forded the river. The army moved so slowly, she sometimes wondered how humans ever had time to do anything other than travel, considering how short their lives were. It would be much more convenient if they could fly, she thought, and wondered why they did not choose to. Flying was so easy, it never ceased to puzzle her why any creature would remain earthbound. Even Eragon retained his attachment to the soft-hard-ground, when she knew he could join her in the sky at any time merely by uttering a few words in the ancient language. But then, she did not always understand the actions of those who tottered about on two legs, whether they had round ears, pointed ears, or horns or were so short she could squash them under her feet. A flicker of movement to the northeast caught her attention, and she angled toward it, curious. She saw a line of five-and-forty weary horses trudging toward the Varden. Most of the horses were rider-less; therefore, it did not occur to her until another half hour had elapsed and she could make out the faces of the men in the saddles that the group might be Roran’s returning from their raid. She wondered what had happened to so
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Brisingr (The Inheritance Cycle, #3))
“
In all your travels around Alagaësia, with Angela and without, you’ve never found anything that might explain this mystery? Or even just something that might be of use against Galbatorix.”
I found you, didn’t I?
“That’s not funny,” growled Eragon. “Blast it, you have to know something more.”
I do not.
“Think, then! If I can’t find some sort of help against Galbatorix, we’ll lose, Solembum. We’ll lose, and most of the Varden, including the werecats, will die.”
Solembum hissed again. What do you expect of me, Eragon? I cannot invent help where none exists. Read the book.
“We’ll be at Urû’baen before I can finish it. The book might as well not exist.”
Solembum’s ears flattened again. That is not my fault.
“I don’t care if it is. I just want a way to keep us from ending up dead or enslaved. Think! You have to know something else!”
Solembum uttered a low, warbling growl. I do not. And--
“You have to, or we’re doomed!”
Even as Eragon uttered the words, he saw a change come over the werecat. Solembum’s ears swiveled until they were upright, his whiskers relaxed, and his gaze softened, losing its hard-edged brilliance. At the same time, the werecat’s mind grew unusually empty, as if his consciousness had been stilled or removed.
Eragon froze, uncertain.
Then he felt Solembum say, with thoughts that were as flat and colorless as a pool of water beneath a wintry, cloud-ridden sky: Chapter forty-seven. Page three. Start with the second passage thereon.
Solembum’s gaze sharpened, and his ears returned to their previous position. What? he said with obvious irritation. Why are you gaping at me like that?
“What did you just say?”
I said that I do not know anything else. And that--
“No, no, the other thing, about the chapter and page.”
Do not toy with me. I said no such thing.
“You did.”
Solembum studied him for several seconds. Then, with thoughts that were overly calm, he said, Tell me exactly what you heard, Dragon Rider.
So, Eragon repeated the words as closely as he could. When he finished, the werecat was silent for a while. I have no memory of that, he said.
“What do you think it means?”
It means that we should look and see what’s on page three of chapter forty-seven.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
“
Go on, ask me another question. I’m rather enjoying this game.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her and, although he was certain it was pointless, he said, “Cheep cheep?”
The herbalist brayed with laughter, and some of the werecats opened their mouths in what appeared to be toothy smiles. However, Shadowhunter seemed displeased, for she dug her claws into Eragon’s legs, making him wince.
“Well,” said Angela, still laughing, “if you must have answers, that’s as good a story as any. Let’s see…Several years ago, when I was traveling along the edge of Du Weldenvarden, way out to the west, miles and miles from any city, town, or village, I happened upon Grimrr. At the time, he was only the leader of a small tribe of werecats, and he still had full use of both his paws. Anyway, I found him toying with a fledgling robin that had fallen out of its nest in a nearby tree. I wouldn’t have minded if he had just killed the bird and eaten it--that’s what cats are supposed to do, after all--but he was torturing the poor thing: pulling on its wings; nibbling its tail; letting it hop away, then knocking it over.” Angela wrinkled her nose with distaste. “I told him that he ought to stop, but he only growled and ignored me.” She fixed Eragon with a stern gaze. “I don’t like it when people ignore me. So, I took the bird away from him, and I wiggled my fingers and cast a spell, and for the next week, whenever he opened his mouth, he chirped like a songbird.”
“He chirped?”
Angela nodded, beaming with suppressed mirth. “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. None of the other werecats would go anywhere near him for the whole week.”
“No wonder he hates you.”
“What of it? If you don’t make a few enemies every now and then, you’re a coward--or worse. Besides, it was worth it to see his reaction. Oh, he was angry!”
Shadowhunter uttered a soft warning growl and tightened her claws again.
Grimacing, Eragon said, “Maybe it would be best to change the subject?”
“Mmm.”
Before he could suggest a new topic, a loud scream rang out from somewhere in the middle of the camp. The cry echoed three times over the rows of tents before fading into silence.
Eragon looked at Angela, and she at him, and then they both began to laugh.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
“
Declan had been told a long time ago that he had to know what he wanted, or he'd never get it. Not by his father, because his father would never have delivered such pragmatic advice in such a pragmatic way. No, even if Niall Lynch believed in the sentiment, he would have wrapped it up in a long story filled with metaphor and magic and nonsense riddles. Only years after the storytelling would Declan be sitting somewhere and realize that all along Niall had been trying to teach him to balance his checkbook, or whatever the tale had really been about. Niall could never just say the thing.
No, this piece of advice--You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it--was given to Declan by a senator from Nevada he'd met during a DC field trip back in eighth grade. The other children had been bored by the pale stone restraint of the city and the sameness of the law and government offices they toured. Declan, however, had been fascinated. He'd asked the senator what advice he had for those looking to get into politics.
"Come from money," the senator had said first, and then when all the eighth graders and their teachers had stared without laughing, he added, "You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it. Make goals."
Declan made goals. The goal was DC. The goal was politics. The goal was structure, and more structure, and yet more structure. He took AP classes on political science and policy. When he traveled with his father to black markets, he wrote papers. When he took calls from gangsters and shady antique auction houses, he arranged drop-offs near DC and wrangled meetings with HR people. Aglionby Academy made calls and pulled strings; he got names, numbers, internships. All was going according to plan. His father's will conveniently left him a townhouse adjacent to DC. Declan pressed on. He kept his brothers alive; he graduated; he moved to DC.
He made the goal, he went towards the goal.
When he took his first lunch meeting with his new boss, he found himself filled with the same anticipation he'd had as an eighth grader. This was the place, he thought, where things happened. Just across the road was the Mexican embassy. Behind him was the IMF. GW Law School was a block away. The White House, the USPS, the Red Cross, all within a stone's throw.
This was before he understood there was no making it for him. He came from money, yeah, but the wrong kind of money. Niall Lynch's clout was not relevant in this daylight world; he only had status in the night. And one could not rise above that while remaining invisible to protect one's dangerous brother.
On that first day of work, Declan walked into the Renwick Gallery and stood inside an installation that had taken over the second floor around the grand staircase. Tens of thousands of black threads had been installed at points all along the ceiling, tangling around the Villareal LED sculpture that normally lit the room, snarling the railing over the stairs, blocking out the light from the tall arches that bordered the walls, turning the walkways into dark, confusing rabbit tunnels. Museumgoers had to pick their way through with caution lest they be snared and bring the entire world down with them.
He had, bizarrely, felt tears burning the corners of his eyes.
Before that, he hadn't understood that his goals and what he wanted might not be the same thing.
This was where he'd found art.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy, #2))
“
Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain traveling across the vast dry field toward him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding on the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felts as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn't know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew that he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan's first kiss.
"I'm gonna go downstairs," Ronan said.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, #4))
“
Is it a primitive fundamental reproductive desire, a want to fuck the Earth to become a part of that great reproductive cycle, the mightiest source of sexual power anywhere?
”
”
Gordon Roddick
“
The Sixteen Conclusions of Reverend Kirk
In the last half of the seventeenth century, a Scottish scholar gathered all the accounts he could find about the Sleagh Maith and, in 1691, wrote an amazing manuscript entitled The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies. It was the first systematic attempt to describe the methods and organization of the strange creatures that plagued the farmers of Scotland. The author, Reverend Kirk, of Aberfoyle, studied theology at St. Andrews and took his degree of professor at Edinburgh. Later he served as minister for the parishes of Balquedder and Aberfoyle and died in 1692.
Kirk invented the name "the Secret Commonwealth" to describe the organization of the elves. It is impossible to quote the entire text of his treatise, but we can summarize his findings about elves and other aerial creatures in the following way:
1. They have a nature that is intermediate between man and the angels.
2. Physically, they have very light and fluid bodies, which are comparable to a condensed cloud. They are particularly visible at dusk. They can appear and vanish at will.
3. Intellectually, they are intelligent and curious.
4. They have the power to carry away anything they like.
5. They live inside the earth in caves, which they can reach through any crevice or opening where air passes.
6. When men did not inhabit most of the world, the creatures used to live there and had their own agriculture. Their civilization has left traces on the high mountains; it was flourishing at a time when the whole countryside was nothing but woods and forests.
7. At the beginning of each three-month period, they change quarters because they are unable to stay in one place. Besides, they like to travel. It is then that men have terrible encounters with them, even on the great highways.
8. Their chameleon-like bodies allow them to swim through the air with all their household.
9. They are divided into tribes. Like us, they have children, nurses, marriages, burials, etc., unless they just do this to mock our own customsor to predict terrestrial events.
10. Their houses are said to be wonderfully large and beautiful, but under most circumstances they are invisible to human eyes. Kirk compares them to enchanted islands. The houses are equipped with lamps that burn forever and fires that need no fuel.
11. They speak very little. When they do talk among themselves, their language is a kind of whistling sound.
12. Their habits and their language when they talk to humans are similar to those of local people.
13. Their philosophical system is based on the following ideas: nothing dies; all things evolve cyclically in such a way that at every cycle they are renewed and improved. Motion is the universal law.
14. They are said to have a hierarchy of leaders, but they have no visible devotion to God, no religion.
15. They have many pleasant and light books, but also serious and complex books dealing with abstract matters.
16. They can be made to appear at will before us through magic.
The similarities between these observations and the story related by Facius Cardan, which antedates Kirk's manuscript by exactly two hundred years, are clear. Both Cardan and Paracelsus write, like Kirk, that a pact can be made with these creatures and that they can be made to appear and answer questions at will. Paracelsus did not care to reveal what that pact was "because of the ills that might befall those who would try it." Kirk is equally discreet on this point. And, of course, to go deeper into this matter would open the whole field of witchcraft and ceremonial magic, which is beyond my purpose in the present book.
”
”
Jacques F. Vallée (Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact)
“
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
”
”
Neil M. Hanson (Pilgrim Spokes: Cycling East Across America (Cycling Reflections Book 2))
“
A masterful cyclist, marginalized though she or he may be, travels with ease through the modern motorized city. With ease.
”
”
Robert Hurst (The Art of Cycling: A Guide to Bicycling in 21st-Century America)
“
In the opening paragraphs of the first chapter, the narrator is speaking casually to Mirdath the Beautiful, a maiden of the gentry of the English rural countryside. A more comfortable and bucolic setting cannot be imagined. Then, when he says, 'It is an elf night; the Towers of Sleep rise' she answers by speaking of the Moon-Garden, the City of Twilight, and the Tree with the Great Painted Head. By that word she reveals that she is like him: a soul that is more than mortal, that has lived other lives in other cycles of reincarnation, dimly half-forgotten. She and he are both travelers from moon-lit elfin lands or empires of cloudy nightmare, and they hail from places far beyond the little fields we know, older than human history: they have seen the light of other suns, other days. They dance to music we cannot hear. No one of their own time will understand them.
”
”
John C. Wright (Awake in the Night Land)
“
A lifetime of hard work developed a deceptive amount of strength and power in her. She clearly had hidden muscles. Her dock lines creaked and moaned like that of the reins of a horse trying to sprint but forced to trot. She anxiously chomped upon them, growing ever more restless with the change in the tide. She could see the open pasture from the fuel dock and feel the ocean pulsing through her as the south swell churned the harbor
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
The reality is that nightclubs are nothing more than a sea of lost souls searching for something that cannot possibly be found within their confines. We go to these places for we lack other direction, momentarily appeased by distracting sounds, flashing lights, and the prospect of pleasures of the flesh. Again and again, we confuse these stimulants for something worthy of our time. We drink in these places to pretend like we aren’t individually awkward, an irony we all share.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
The sea can gauge your mood better than a thermometer can gauge your temperature. The sea is a teacher and a doctor. She gives you what she believes you deserve in dosages, prescribed by her liking. What you believe you need for your ailment may be exactly the opposite of what she believes you need. You may believe a slam job trip will fix your problems, yet she may believe a broker is more important to the lesson you are supposed to learn. You’ll find no better therapy when both the patient and doctor are on the same page. I was hopeful we both agreed that a slammer was in order.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
At sea, the darker the night the closer you will get to your past. The music you decide to play is the radio dial of your history. Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately” played as I stared at the setting moon. This is a song that always transports me to a New Hampshire backroad of my youth. Her name was Katie. She was tall, blond, and wore the girl next door look like an angel. She was smart, funny, and kind. She infatuated me from the moment I met her at Wentworth Marina. She was the daughter of two well-to-do doctors from upstate New York. It was her plan to sail around the world, and she wanted me to join her. “Just to mate” she would always say with a wink.
She told me, “Pull over, pull over. I love this song. We have to dance.” So I found myself with goosebumps despite dancing in
the warmth of the summer air. The sky around us filled with the flashing luminance of fireflies, and it seemed like we were dancing in the heavens above. You could almost touch the music as it drifted out of my truck windows. I will never forget the look in those crystal-blue eyes as we danced to that song alongside my Dodge Ram pickup. Little did I know it would be the last night I would ever get to look into them again.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)
“
Unbelievably, the whales continued to circle me. Eventually, I was even able to run my hands down Mama’s back several times. Her black skin felt much tougher and tired. Remnants of barnacles made her skin rough in patches. She seemed more hesitant of this human. Perhaps she had firsthand evidence of man’s horrible actions and treachery. I didn’t blame her for her concerns. I had come to trust fewer and fewer humans myself. Her giant eyes possessed wisdom only found in the passage of time and miles traveled on long journeys.
”
”
Kenton Geer (Vicious Cycle: Whiskey, Women, and Water)