“
When you read my texts, you saw a curt, miserable git. And you told me so. Maybe you're right. But you know what I saw when I read yours? - Sam
No. And I don't want to know. - Poppy
I saw a girl who races to help others but doesn't help herself. And right now you need to help yourself. No one should walk up the aisle feeling inferior or in a different league or trying to be something they're not. - Sam
”
”
Sophie Kinsella (I've Got Your Number)
“
Oppression Olympics is what smart liberal Americans say to make you feel stupid and to make you shut up. But there IS an oppression olympics going on. American racial minorities - blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Jews - all get shit from white folks, different kinds of shit but shit still. Each secretly believes that it gets the worst shit. So, no, there is no United League of the Oppressed. However, all the others think they're better than blacks because, well, they're not black.
”
”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah)
“
Dad… I… I don’t know. I don’t even know what to think about all of it. We’re in completely different leagues. I’m me; he’s him. It would never work.”
He nodded, seriously. “I know. You’re too good for him, but I’ve taught you better than to be so conceited.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Kulti)
“
Where I come from, family's defined as those who don't screw you over a paycheck. Blood makes no difference. If you can trust them with your life and know that they'll be there come whatever hell rains down, then they're your family.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Shadows (The League, #4))
“
He was curious to know more about her. So he did something extremely rare. He sent her a note. Even more shocking, he suggested they meet. In person. Two people from different kingdoms - who are engaged to be married. Crazy, I know.
”
”
Christopher Healy (The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (The League of Princes, #1))
“
Well, sitting prettily certainly doesn't seem to make a difference at all. If it did, why do we still turn into property the day a man puts his ring on our finger? I say let us try making noise for a change.
”
”
Evie Dunmore (Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women, #1))
“
There is a long league's worth of difference between willful and stupid. - Tywin Lannister
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
What's the difference between Darling Cruel, the wind, and a vacuum? A vacuum only sucks. The wind only blows. But Darling sucks, blows, and swallows.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Silence (The League, #5))
“
The image of a wood has appeared often enough in English verse. It has indeed appeared so often that it has gathered a good deal of verse into itself; so that it has become a great forest where, with long leagues of changing green between them, strange episodes of poetry have taken place. Thus in one part there are lovers of a midsummer night, or by day a duke and his followers, and in another men behind branches so that the wood seems moving, and in another a girl separated from her two lordly young brothers, and in another a poet listening to a nightingale but rather dreaming richly of the grand art than there exploring it, and there are other inhabitants, belonging even more closely to the wood, dryads, fairies, an enchanter's rout. The forest itself has different names in different tongues- Westermain, Arden, Birnam, Broceliande; and in places there are separate trees named, such as that on the outskirts against which a young Northern poet saw a spectral wanderer leaning, or, in the unexplored centre of which only rumours reach even poetry, Igdrasil of one myth, or the Trees of Knowledge and Life of another. So that indeed the whole earth seems to become this one enormous forest, and our longest and most stable civilizations are only clearings in the midst of it.
”
”
Charles Williams (The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante)
“
Why are you being such a baby over this? I’m the one who was kept cloistered. (Livia)
Because my mother and sister are sacred beings, unsullied by the hands of a man, and if you tell me differently, especially where Zarina is concerned, I swear to God, I’m donning my assassin’s uniform and gutting whatever bastard touched her. (Adron)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (In Other Worlds (The League: Nemesis Rising, #3.5; Were-Hunter, #0.5; The League: Nemesis Legacy, #2))
“
Dad… I… I don’t know. I don’t even know what to think about all of it. We’re in completely different leagues. I’m me; he’s him. It would never work.” He nodded, seriously. “I know. You’re too good for him, but I’ve taught you better than to be so conceited.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (Kulti)
“
These composers," Captain Nemo answered me, "are the contemporaries of Orpheus, because in the annals of the dead, all chronological differences fade; and
”
”
Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea)
“
And holy shit, if I thought his fingers were weapons of mass pleasure, his mouth is in an entirely different league.
”
”
Rina Kent (Empire of Desire (Empire, #1))
“
We don’t want revenge, Malcolm.” She looked at him like he was the densest bastard to ever walk the earth. “We want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, just like any damned fool in these United States is entitled to so long as he isn’t Black or Red. So you can keep your outrage. All I can do is try to make a difference.
”
”
Alyssa Cole (An Extraordinary Union (The Loyal League #1))
“
Nonetheless, the fact remains; he had hope in a better world he could not yet see that overwhelmed the cries of "you can't" or "you won't" or "why bother." More than anything else, mastering that faith, on cue, is what separated him from his peers, and distinguishes him from so many people in these literal, sophisticated times. It has made all the difference.
”
”
Suskind (A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League)
“
You’ve been downgraded from a thrill-kill to a simple bill-kill. (Nykyrian)
Bill-kill? (Kiara)
Kill you any way possible and send the bill in for payment. (Nykyrian)
I can’t believe that someone’s life can be bartered and sold so easily. That it’s so common that there are even names for the different ways to take a person’s life. For torturing them? My God, what is wrong with you people? (Kiara)
We’re not the ones who are sick, mu Tara. With us –the predators– you know what we’ll do and why we do it. What we’re capable of. We make no bones about it and we wear the uniform so that you can see us coming. The ones who are sickening are the cowards who masquerade as sheep. The ones who lull you into trusting them and smile at your face while they plot your downfall behind your back for any number of psychotic reasons. The friends who turn on you out of jealousy or greed. Who try to ruin you for no reason at all. They are the ones who should be put down. And they’re the ones who are truly sickening. (Nykyrian)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of the Night (The League, #1))
“
You need to calm down and remember that everyone grieves differently. Doesn't mean they don't care. You don't judge people in pain, and you damn sure don't lash out at them when they've lost what Syn has!
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Betrayal (The League: Nemesis Rising, #8))
“
We were hockey gypsies, heading down another gravel road every weekend, plowing into the heart of that magnificent northern landscape. We never gave a thought to being deprived as we travelled, to being shut out of the regular league system. We never gave a thought to being Indian. Different. We only thought of the game and the brotherhood that bound us together off the ice, in the van, on the plank floors of reservation houses, in the truck stop diners where if we'd won we had a little to splurge on a burger and soup before we hit the road again. Small joys. All of them tied together, entwined to form an experience we would not have traded for any other. We were a league of nomads, mad for the game, mad for the road, mad for ice and snow, an Arctic wind on our faces and a frozen puck on the blade of our sticks.
”
”
Richard Wagamese (Indian Horse)
“
Engaging the arguments of those who hold differing opinions is always a worthy use of one’s time. It’s how we strengthen our rhetorical skills and broaden our knowledge.
”
”
Alyssa Cole (A Hope Divided (The Loyal League #2))
“
They take what they want because nothing is denied to them, Marlie. But taking is different from loving. Problem is, it feels a lot like loving ’til you find out otherwise.
”
”
Alyssa Cole (A Hope Divided (The Loyal League #2))
“
There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us, you blinked.
”
”
Batman, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
“
Daniel’s in a different league entirely.
”
”
Lilia Moon (Desire: Gabby & Daniel (Fettered, #3))
“
The Premier League is a timeless tale of boom and bust, no different from all those other bubbles they warn you about in business-school textbooks. Except, that is, in one crucial respect. In football, the bubble never burst.
”
”
Joshua Robinson (The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports)
“
Peter, when Lara Jean’s gone, will you still come visit me sometimes ?”
“Course I will.”
“Even if you guys break up ?”
There’s a pause. “We’re not breaking up.”
“But if you do ?” she presses.
“We won’t.”
She ignores this. “Because we never see Josh anymore, and he said he’d visit too.”
Peter scoffs. “Are you kidding me ? You think I’m the same as Sanderson ? Me ? I’m a completely different league than him. I’m insulted you would even compare us.”
Kitty lets out a relieved kind of laugh, the kind that sounds more like a sigh. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Trust me, kid. You and I have our own thing.”
I love him so much for that I could cry. He’ll look after Kitty for me, I know he will.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
The realms of dating, marriage, and sex are all marketplaces, and we are the products. Some may bristle at the idea of people as products on a marketplace, but this is an incredibly prevalent dynamic. Consider the labor marketplace, where people are also the product. Just as in the labor marketplace, one party makes an offer to another, and based on the terms of this offer, the other person can choose to accept it or walk. What makes the dating market so interesting is that the products we are marketing, selling, buying, and exchanging are essentially our identities and lives.
As with all marketplaces, every item in stock has a value, and that value is determined by its desirability. However, the desirability of a product isn’t a fixed thing—the desirability of umbrellas increases in areas where it is currently raining while the desirability of a specific drug may increase to a specific individual if it can cure an illness their child has, even if its wider desirability on the market has not changed.
In the world of dating, the two types of desirability we care about most are:
- Aggregate Desirability: What the average demand within an open marketplace would be for a relationship with a particular person.
- Individual Desirability: What the desirability of a relationship with an individual is from the perspective of a specific other individual.
Imagine you are at a fish market and deciding whether or not to buy a specific fish:
- Aggregate desirability = The fish’s market price that day
- Individual desirability = What you are willing to pay for the fish
Aggregate desirability is something our society enthusiastically emphasizes, with concepts like “leagues.” Whether these are revealed through crude statements like, “that guy's an 8,” or more politically correct comments such as, “I believe she may be out of your league,” there is a tacit acknowledgment by society that every individual has an aggregate value on the public dating market, and that value can be judged at a glance. When what we have to trade on the dating market is often ourselves, that means that on average, we are going to end up in relationships with people with an aggregate value roughly equal to our own (i.e., individuals “within our league”). Statistically speaking, leagues are a real phenomenon that affects dating patterns. Using data from dating websites, the University of Michigan found that when you sort online daters by desirability, they seem to know “their place.” People on online dating sites almost never send a message to someone less desirable than them, and on average they reach out to prospects only 25% more desirable than themselves.
The great thing about these markets is how often the average desirability of a person to others is wildly different than their desirability to you. This gives you the opportunity to play arbitrage with traits that other people don’t like, but you either like or don’t mind. For example, while society may prefer women who are not overweight, a specific individual within the marketplace may prefer obese women, or even more interestingly may have no preference. If a guy doesn’t care whether his partner is slim or obese, then he should specifically target obese women, as obesity lowers desirability on the open marketplace, but not from his perspective, giving him access to women who are of higher value to him than those he could secure within an open market.
”
”
Malcolm Collins (The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships)
“
The country was passing through turbulent times. British Raj was on its last legs. The World War had sucked the juice out of the British economy. Britain neither had the resources nor the will to hold on to a country the size of India. Sensing the British weakness and lack of resources to rule, different leagues of Indians sniffed different destinies in the air following the imminent exit of the British: a long stretch of Nehru Raj, Hindu Raj extending from Kashmir to Kerala not seen since Emperor Ashoka in third-century BCE before the emperor himself renounced Hinduism and turned a non-violent Buddhist, a Muslim-majority state carved out of two shoulders of India with a necklace-like corridor running through her bosom along Grand Trunk Road, balkanisation of the country with princes ruling the roost, and total chaos.
From August 1946 onwards, chaos appeared to be the most likely destiny as it spurted in Bengal, Bihar, and United Provinces, ending in the carnage of minority communities at every place.
The predicament of British government was how to cut their losses and run without many British casualties before the inevitable chaos spread to the whole country.
The predicament of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, was how to achieve his dream of Muslim-majority Pakistan carved out of India before his imminent demise from tuberculosis he suffered from, about which—apart from his doctor—only a handful of his closest relations and friends knew about.
The predicament of Jawaharlal Nehru, the heir apparent of the Congress Party anointed by Gandhiji, was how to attain independence of the country followed by Nehru Raj while Gandhiji, a frail 77-year-old at the time, was still alive, for God only knew who would be the leader of the party once Gandhiji’s soul and his moral authority were dispatched to heaven, and Nehru couldn’t possibly leave the crucial decision in the hands of a God he didn’t particularly believe in.
Time was of the essence to all the three.
”
”
Manjit Sachdeva (Lost Generations)
“
don't remember when Berkshire started growing to a point at which he was in a different league," said Emilie. "I think my parents were really private. They didn't want publicity. My dad was a creature of habit so everything was exactly the same. We never had a feeling we were growing up in some rich household.
”
”
Janet Lowe (Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger)
“
She was unsurprised to see that the war had resulted in an unprecedented drawing together of humanity. Even the Zarians had put aside their differences with the League in order to join forces against their shared enemies. What was the point of arguing amongst yourselves if the monsters in the dark were attacking?
”
”
Christopher Paolini (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars)
“
Peter, when Lara Jean's gone, will you still come visit me sometimes?"
"Course I will."
"Even if you guys break up?"
There's a pause. "We're not breaking up"
"But if you do?" she presses
"We won't."
She ignores this. "Because we never see Josh anymore, and he said he'd visit too."
Peter scoffs. "Are yo kidding me? You think I'm the same as Sanderson? Me? I'm a completely different league than him. I'm insulted you would even compare us."
Kitty lets out a relieved kind of laugh, the kind that sounds more like a sigh . "Yeah, you're right."
"Trust me, kid. You and I have our own thing."
I love him so much for that I could cry. He'll look after Kitty for me, I know he will.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
There is a long league’s worth of difference between willful and stupid.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
Do you know the difference between a hero and a martyr?” Quentin shook his head. “A hero is alive,” Father Harry said. “A martyr is not.
”
”
Scott Sigler (The Starter (Galactic Football League #2))
“
So far being a slut had returned mixed results, and I suspected that, like swimmers with small feet or curvy ballerinas, I was not built for the championship leagues.
”
”
Sarah Thankam Mathews (All This Could Be Different)
“
...[I]n the memory of the dead all chronological differences are effaced...
”
”
Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
“
Things that rock: all the different stories people come up with - Kindle text to speech while driving - kind hearted people - oh, and the Manly Sea Eagles (Aussie rugby league)!!
”
”
G.S. Bailey
“
Knuckleballers don't keep secrets. It's as if we have a greater mission beyond our own fortunes. And that mission is to pass it on, to keep the pitch alive. Maybe that's because we are so different, and the pitch is do different, but I think it has more to do with the fact that this is a pitch that almost all of us turn to in desperation. It is what enables us to keep pitching stay in the big leagues, when everything else has failed. So we feel gratitude toward the pitch. It becomes way more than just a means to get and out.
It becomes a way of life.
”
”
R.A. Dickey (Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball)
“
Moonshots force you to reason from first principles. If your goal is 1 percent improvement, you can work within the status quo. But if your goal is to improve tenfold, the status quo has to go. Pursuing a moonshot puts you in a different league—and often an entirely different game—from that of your competitors, making the established plays and routines largely irrelevant.
”
”
Ozan Varol (Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life)
“
It’s one thing to win a game with a base hit, or to save a game by pitching a scoreless ninth ... it’s something altogether different to save our National Pastime by day in and day out showing up with the joy and passion of a kid playing Little League and the determined attitude and work ethic of a consummate professional bent on doing one thing and one thing only: his job.
”
”
Tucker Elliot (Baltimore Orioles IQ: The Ultimate Test of True Fandom)
“
The ship’s officers shared the views of their leader. They could be heard chatting, discussing, arguing, calculating the different chances of an encounter, and observing the vast expanse of the ocean.
”
”
Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
“
Try this way of picturing a human lifespan. The National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys’ stadium holds 105,000 people. Now, imagine that you’re watching life go by down on the field, and every day you watch that life go by from a different seat. You don’t even get a third of the way around. Before you’ve settled into a third of the seats, you’d be dead. And, that’s if you had a good run, eighty-two-plus years. Yikes!
”
”
Bill Nye (Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation)
“
if we still will adhere to the design of a national government, or, which is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the direction of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic difference between a league and a government; we must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens,—the only proper objects of government.
”
”
Alexander Hamilton (The Federalist Papers)
“
Human sacrifice was common in the pagan world. It was cruel but had a logic and rationale. The first child was often believed to be the offspring of a god, who had impregnated the mother in an act of droit de seigneur. In begetting the child, the god’s energy had been depleted, so to replenish this and to ensure the circulation of all the available mana, the firstborn was returned to its divine parent. The case of Isaac was quite different, however. Isaac had been a gift of God but not his natural son. There was no reason for the sacrifice, no need to replenish the divine energy. Indeed, the sacrifice would make nonsense of Abraham’s entire life, which had been based on the promise that he would be the father of a great nation. This god was already beginning to be conceived differently from most other deities in the ancient world. He did not share the human predicament; he did not require an input of energy from men and women. He was in a different league and could make whatever demands he chose.
”
”
Karen Armstrong (A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
“
This past soccer season, the league in which my son and daughter were playing had to make up two games due to rain (the price of living in Houston). The consensus in the league was that Sunday was the only available day, so the makeup games were scheduled for Sunday afternoon. My family and I sat down to discuss the matter, but no discussion was really necessary. There was no way we were going to participate. Sunday is the Lord's Day, and playing youth soccer games on Sunday makes a definite statement about the priorities in a community. Interestingly, the most flak from our decision came not from the irreligious people involved but from Christians! “You can go to church, then run home and change for the game,” one man said. One of my children's coaches added, “I'd be glad to pick them up if there is somewhere you have to be.” Nobody seemed to get it. We weren't making a decision based on the hectic nature of our Sunday schedule, nor was it a question of our adhering to a legalistic requirement handed down from our denomination. It was a matter of principle. Sunday is more than just another day. Youth sports leagues are great, but they are not sacred; Sunday is! Again, I do not believe that there is a legalistic requirement not to play games on a Sunday. Nor do I believe that the policeman, fireman, or airline mechanic who goes in to work on Sunday is out of the will of God. I do, however, think that there is a huge difference between someone whose job requires working on Sunday and a soccer league that just doesn't care.
”
”
Voddie T. Baucham Jr. (The Ever-Loving Truth: Can Faith Thrive in a Post-Christian Culture?)
“
Anyway,” the agent said abruptly. “I just . . . wanted you to know that I’m sorry for everything. I want to help you and the rest of the Order in any way I can, so if there is anything you need, you know where I am.”
“Chase,” Dante said as the male turned to leave the room. “Apology accepted, man. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. I haven’t been fair to you either. Despite our differences, know that I respect you. The Agency lost a good one the day they cut you loose.”
Chase’s smile was crooked as he acknowledged the praise with a short nod.
Dante cleared his throat. “And about that offer of help . . .”
“Name it.”
“Tess was walking a dog when the Rogues attacked her tonight. Ugly little mutt, not good for much more than a foot-warmer, but it’s special to her. Actually, it was a gift from me, more or less. Anyway, the dog was running loose on its leash when I saw it a block or so away from Ben Sullivan’s place.”
“You want me to go retrieve a wayward canine, is that where this is heading?”
“Well, you did say anything, didn’t you?”
“So I did.” Chase chuckled. “All right. I will.”
Dante dug his keys to his Porsche out of his pocket and tossed them to the other vampire. As Chase turned to be on his way again, Dante added, “The little beast answers to the name Harvard, by the way.”
“Harvard,” Chase drawled, shaking his head and throwing a smirk in Dante’s direction. “I don’t suppose that’s a coincidence.”
Dante shrugged. “Good to see that Ivy League pedigree of yours comes in handy for something.”
“Jesus Christ, warrior. You really were busting my ass since the minute I came on board, weren’t you?”
“Hey, by all comparisons, I was kind. Do yourself a favor and don’t look too closely at Niko’s shooting target, unless you’re very secure about your manhood.”
“Assholes,” Chase muttered, but there was only humor in his tone. “Sit tight, and I’ll be back in a few with your mutt. Anything else you’re gonna hit me up for now that I opened my big yap about wanting to get square with you?”
“Actually, there might be something else,” Dante replied, his thoughts going sober when he considered Tess and any kind of future that might be deserving of her. “But we can talk about that when you get back, yeah?”
Chase nodded, catching on to the turn in mood. “Yeah. Sure we can.
”
”
Lara Adrian (Kiss of Crimson (Midnight Breed, #2))
“
Oh shit, this is taking a turn. I can feel it—we both feel it. This isn’t puck bunny energy. In all those exchanges, I’m the one taking the lead. I pick the bunny; the bunny never picks me. This is totally different. This girl is different. It feels crazy to say it when I don’t even know her, but she’s way out of my league.
”
”
Emily Rath (That One Night (Jacksonville Rays, #0.5))
“
True, there
are those in our league who take even less time. But they don't do any research. They do a
handful of the more well-known spots, cruise through without eating a thing, write brief
comments. It's their business, not mine. If I may be perfectly frank, I doubt that many writers
take as many pains as I do at this level of reportage. It's the kind of work that can break you if
you're too serious about it, or you can kick back and do almost nothing. The worst of it is,
whether you're earnest or you loaf, the difference will hardly show in the finished piece. On the
surface. Only in the finer points can you find any hint of the distinction
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Dance Dance Dance)
“
As you know, male and female players have separate leagues. The thinking is that they play at different levels. And no woman has become a true professional player. As if we can't play as well as men!
But I won't let that stop me. I'm going to do it... and battle like my grandfather before me! Never give up on your ambitions.
”
”
Tomohito Oda (Komi Can't Communicate, Vol. 8)
“
Of course there is no denying that all these primordial dreams appear, in the opinion of nonmathematicians, to have been suddenly realized in a form quite different from the original fantasy. Baron Munchhausen’s post horn was more beautiful than our canned music, the Seven-League boots more beautiful than a car, Oberon’s kingdom lovelier than a railway tunnel, the magic root of the mandrake better than a telegraphed image, eating of one’s mother’s heart and then understanding birds more beautiful than an ethologic study of a bird’s vocalizing. We have gained reality and lost dream. No more lounging under a tree and peering at the sky between one’s big and second toes; there’s work to be done. To be efficient, one cannot be hungry and dreamy but must eat steak and keep moving. It is exactly as though the old, inefficient breed of humanity had fallen asleep on an anthill and found, when the new breed awoke, that the ants had crept into its bloodstream, making it move frantically ever since, unable to shake off that rotten feeling of antlike industry.
”
”
Robert Musil
“
God is a different league of person from us, but God is a person like us, not an abstract force or a principle. So despite the huge difference, Genesis says we are made in God’s image. Human beings are the kind of entity God would be if God were earthly. God could hardly have become a horse; horses were not made in God’s image. Human beings were made God-like, so it was not so unnatural for God to become a human being. It is this fact that makes it possible for God sometimes to appear in human form in the Old Testament, and it eventually makes possible, even makes natural, God’s incarnation in Christ. In this sense it was not logically difficult for God to become a human being although it involved some sacrifice.
”
”
John E. Goldingay (Genesis for Everyone: Part 1 Chapters 1-16 (The Old Testament for Everyone))
“
Have you found it different having girls in the house?”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
“Nope.”
I looked up from my writing. “If you don’t elaborate, it’s going to be a very short article.”
“Look, I’ve already gotten into it once tonight--”
“Are you implying I’m hard to live with? Is that why you won’t comment further? Because you think I’ll be offended? I won’t be.”
“No further comment.”
I sighed, tempted to toss the recorder at him.
“Okay, then, we’ll move on. What’s been the most difficult aspect of living with us?”
There was silence, but it was the kind where you can sense someone wants to speak but doesn’t. Jason was so incredibly still, as though he was weighing consequences.
“Not kissing you,” he finally said, quietly.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
Obviously, he didn’t think I understood the whole ritual scene, and in truth, I didn’t.
I mean, sure, when I played softball, I always chewed cinnamon-flavored gum during the game, and I never started chewing until after the national anthem. But that was different. If I didn’t do that, I missed way more balls than I caught.
But home runs? There was nothing that guaranteed home runs.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
we discussed this dire problem with education and illusions of academic contribution, with Ivy League universities becoming in the eyes of the new Asian and U.S. upper class a status luxury good. Harvard is like a Vuitton bag or a Cartier watch. It is a huge drag on the middle-class parents who have been plowing an increased share of their savings into these institutions, transferring their money to administrators, real estate developers, professors, and other agents. In the United States, we have a buildup of student loans that automatically transfer to these rent extractors. In a way it is no different from racketeering: one needs a decent university “name” to get ahead in life; but we know that collectively society doesn’t appear to advance with organized education.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder)
“
I believe that sometimes a man sees something he wants and covets it, whether it be property or a woman or prestige. Some men don’t see a difference among the three. They do anything they can to get them. A means to an end—is that the saying? For something that helps you get what you want?” She glanced at him and he nodded. “I think maybe I was the means and had confused myself for the end.
”
”
Alyssa Cole (An Unconditional Freedom (The Loyal League, #3))
“
There are a number of subjective and objective criteria that I use as a way to rank players. The subjective ones include their ability with both feet; their sense of balance; the disciplined fashion in which they take care of their fitness; their attitude towards training; the consistency between games and over multiple seasons; their demonstrated mastery in several different positions; and the way they add flair to any team for which they play. The objective ones that are impossible to dispute are: the number of goals they have scored; the games they have played for several of the best club teams in the world; the number of League championship and cup medals they have won, and their appearances in World Cups. When you employ this sort of measurement approach, it becomes far easier to define the very highest levels of performance. The people who are least confused about this are other players.
”
”
Alex Ferguson (Leading: Lessons in leadership from the legendary Manchester United manager)
“
But as I realized that in this new world I was the culture alien, I began to think seriously about questions that had nagged at me since I was a teenager: Why has on one else from my high school made it to the Ivy League? Why are people like me so poorly represented in America's elite institutions? Why is domestic so common in families like mine? Why did I think that places like Yale and Harvard were so unreachable? Why did successful people feel so different?
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
Now, it is a verifiable actuality that any two men can talk politely and even become friends, given the chance; but put them in different uniforms, or train them in the use of different tools or philosophies or shaving soap, and you will have two men who are sure that the other lives primarily to contradict him. I did know a fellow once who insisted that reasonable men can disagree, but somebody knocked him cold with a cast-iron frying pan just then and I never did hear the remainder of his hypothesis.
”
”
Van Reid (Cordelia Underwood: Or, The Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League)
“
Have a Caesar, and Keep Your Passage Honeymoon Fresh’ was emblazoned across a large billboard advertising Caesarean births. Many people arriving in Los Angeles in 1972 would have thought no more about it; they might not have even realised what was being advertised. For R.D. Laing, in the midst of a grueling lecture tour, it was a perfect example of the crazy world we live in. It was worse than the five-star hotel with plastic grass, in a different league from the plastic Buddha converted into a lampshade, more horrible than de-homogenised milk, more threatening than an armed policeman. Such matters affected Ronnie to the core. He cried over less. He was painfully sensitive, and had an empathy with the bewildered and downtrodden; an intellectual awareness that set him apart from others. But Ronnie’s distinguishing feature was his heartfelt desire to do something about what he perceived to be the injustices of the world. Despite his many faults Ronnie maintained his defiant personality until his last breath.
”
”
Jill Foulston (R.D. Laing: A Life)
“
The eccentric passion of Shankly was underlined for me by my England team-mate Roger Hunt's version of the classic tale of the Liverpool manager's pre-game talk before playing Manchester United. The story has probably been told a thousand times in and out of football, and each time you hear it there are different details, but when Roger told it the occasion was still fresh in his mind and I've always believed it to be the definitive account. It was later on the same day, as Roger and I travelled together to report for England duty, after we had played our bruising match at Anfield. Ian St John had scored the winner, then squared up to Denis Law, with Nobby finally sealing the mood of the afternoon by giving the Kop the 'V' sign. After settling down in our railway carriage, Roger said, 'You may have lost today, but you would have been pleased with yourself before the game. Shanks mentioned you in the team talk. When he says anything positive about the opposition, normally he never singles out players.' According to Roger, Shankly burst into the dressing room in his usual aggressive style and said, 'We're playing Manchester United this afternoon, and really it's an insult that we have to let them on to our field because we are superior to them in every department, but they are in the league so I suppose we have to play them. In goal Dunne is hopeless- he never knows where he is going. At right back Brennan is a straw- any wind will blow him over. Foulkes the centre half kicks the ball anywhere. On the left Tony Dunne is fast but he only has one foot. Crerand couldn't beat a tortoise. It's true David Herd has got a fantastic shot, but if Ronnie Yeats can point him in the right direction he's likely to score for us. So there you are, Manchester United, useless...'
Apparently it was at this point the Liverpool winger Ian Callaghan, who was never known to whisper a single word on such occasions, asked, 'What about Best, Law and Charlton, boss?'
Shankly paused, narrowed his eyes, and said, 'What are you saying to me, Callaghan? I hope you're not saying we cannot play three men.
”
”
Bobby Charlton (My Manchester United Years: The autobiography of a footballing legend and hero)
“
The Beatles were particularly prominent examples, and Dylan’s central position in rock history is rooted in that brief period when he and the Beatles were running neck and neck. He released Bringing It All Back Home in the spring of 1965, Highway 61 Revisited that summer, and Blonde on Blonde a year later. Rubber Soul, the first Beatles album conceived as a cohesive artistic statement, was released in December 1965, followed by Revolver seven months later. In commercial terms the Beatles were in a different league: on the American market, they released four LPs of new material in 1965 and two in 1966, and each spent more than five weeks at number one on Billboard’s album chart, while Dylan would not have a number one album until the mid-1970s. But they were evolving from teen-pop hit-makers into mature, thoughtful artists, with Dylan as their acknowledged model. McCartney recalled playing him a tape of their new songs when he came through London in the spring of 1966: “He said, ‘O I get it, you don’t want to be cute anymore!’ That summed it up. . . . The cute period had ended. It started to be art.
”
”
Elijah Wald (Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties)
“
How has my industry raised prices at this rate without improving the product? At a few elite institutions, including NYU, we’ve leveraged scarcity. More than a business strategy, it’s become a fetish—believing you are a luxury brand instead of a public servant. Ivy Leagues have acceptance rates of 4–10%. A university president bragging about rejecting 90% of applicants is tantamount to a homeless shelter taking pride in turning away 90% of the needy that arrive each night. And this is not about standards or brand dilution. In an essay explaining his decision to stop conducting application interviews for his alma mater, Princeton, journalist Bryan Walsh observed, “The secret of elite college admissions is that far more students deserve to attend these colleges than are admitted, and there is virtually no discernible difference between those who make it and the many more who just miss out.” In support, he offered this statement from Princeton’s own dean of admissions: “We could have admitted five or six classes to Princeton from the [applicant] pool.”4 So, with a $26 billion endowment, the question becomes, Why wouldn’t you?
”
”
Scott Galloway (Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity)
“
During the seventh inning stretch, we stood up and sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Jason and I swayed together. I couldn’t have been happier.
The Rangers won.
“See how it makes a difference when rituals are honored?” Jason said, his arm around my waist keeping me anchored against his side.
“I’m too happy to argue,” I said.
We stopped off in the gift shop, and he bought me a Texas Rangers cap.
“Maybe you can start decorating a wall with caps from the games we go to,” he said.
I grinned broadly, because I knew what he was really saying: Tonight was just the beginning for us.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
The Revolution and the Founders’ Constitution chose unity over justice, but the Civil War and Reconstruction put justice ahead of unity. The heroes and villains are different. The Founding reveres paramilitary organizations like the Sons of Liberty. The army of the national government is viewed suspiciously—the Founders did not want a standing army. In Reconstruction, US Army troops, including many Black soldiers, are the heroes, and paramilitary organizations like the Klan and the White League are the villains. The presence of a standing army within a civilian population, dreaded by the Revolutionaries, is what protects the freedpeople
”
”
Kermit Roosevelt III (The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story)
“
He plucked another glass from a passing tray. “Unlike other cultures, Phrixians aren’t born with their surnames. We earn them. Zemen means ‘strength through adversity.’ Jari is ‘honor in battle.’ ” Ah… She hadn’t caught the different nomenclature earlier because she hadn’t realized when they were introduced that Safir was Maris’s brother. “And Sulle?” He gave her a twisted grin. “ ‘Invincible.’ ” Her eyes widened at that. “I really was a soldier, Zarya,” he said simply. Then he held his hands wide to show her his body. “Underneath all this fashionable, sexy attire is a bitch who knows how to kick ass and smack people around with the best of them.” She
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Silence (The League #5))
“
Have you found it different having girls in the house?”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
“Nope.”
I looked up from my writing. “If you don’t elaborate, it’s going to be a very short article.”
“Look, I’ve already gotten into it once tonight--”
“Are you implying I’m hard to live with? Is that why you won’t comment further? Because you think I’ll be offended? I won’t be.”
“No further comment.”
I sighed, tempted to toss the recorder at him.
“Okay, then, we’ll move on. What’s been the most difficult aspect of living with us?”
There was silence, but it was the kind where you can sense someone wants to speak but doesn’t. Jason was so incredibly still, as though he was weighing consequences.
“Not kissing you,” he finally said, quietly.
My heart did this little stutter. I just stared at him as the recorder continued to run, searching for sound. My hand was shaking when I reached over and turned it off.
“But you did kiss me, and you said it was a mistake.”
“Because getting involved with you is a bad idea, on so many levels.”
“Care to share one of those levels?”
“I’m living in your house. Your parents are giving me a roof over my head. Your mom brings home extra takeout. I’m here only for the summer. Then I’m back at school.” He reached up, removed the ice pack from around his shoulder, and set it on the table. “And Mac? After we went to Dave and Bubba’s, he comes out to the mound and tells me he thinks you’re hot. And I know you like him, so I was willing to bunt.”
“Bunt?”
“Willing to sacrifice my happiness.”
“You thought you’d be happy being with me?”
“Are you kidding? You’re cute, easy to talk to. You love baseball. You make me smile, make me laugh. And we won’t even mention how much I liked kissing you.”
Only he had mentioned it. And now I was thinking about it when I really shouldn’t be.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
The dragon's blood had changed him, he realized. Not in a magical way, like in one of Shem Horsegroom's old stones - he couldn't understand the speech of animals, or see a hundred leagues. Well, that was not quite true. When the snow had stopped for a moment today, the white valleys of the Waste had leaped into clarity, seeming as near as the folds ma blanket, but stretching all the way to the dark blur of faraway Aldheorte Forest. For a moment, standing quiet as a statue despite the wind biting his neck and face, he had felt as though he did possess magical vision. As in the days when he climbed Green Angel Tower to see all Erkynland spread below him like a carpet, he had felt as if he could reach out a hand and so change the world
But moments like that were not what the dragon had brought him. Pondering as he waited for his damp gloves to dry, he looked to Binabik and Sisqi, saw the way they touched even when they did not touch, the long conversations that passed between the two of them in the shortest of glances. Simon realized that he felt and saw things differently than he had before Urmsheim. People and events seemed more clearly connected, each part of a much larger puzzle - just as Binabik and Sisqi were. They cared deeply for each other, but at the same time their world of two interlocked with many other worlds; with Simon's own, with their people's, with Prince Josua's, and Geloe's... It was really quite startling, Simon thought, how everything was part of something else! But though the world was vast beyond comprehension, still every mote of life in it fought for its own continued existence. And each mote mattered.
That was what the dragon's blood had taught him, in some way. He was not great; he was, in fact, very small. At the same moment, though, he was important, just as any point of light in a dark sky might be the star that led a mariner to safety, or the star watched by a lonely child during a sleepless night
”
”
Tad Williams
“
A 2011 study done by Alan Krueger, a Princeton economics professor who served for two years as the chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Stacy Dale, an analyst with Mathematica Policy Research, tried to adjust for that sort of thing. Krueger and Dale examined sets of students who had started college in 1976 and in 1989; that way, they could get a sense of incomes both earlier and later in careers. And they determined that the graduates of more selective colleges could expect earnings 7 percent greater than graduates of less selective colleges, even if the graduates in that latter group had SAT scores and high school GPAs identical to those of their peers at more exclusive institutions. But then Krueger and Dale made their adjustment. They looked specifically at graduates of less selective colleges who had applied to more exclusive ones even though they hadn’t gone there. And they discovered that the difference in earnings pretty much disappeared. Someone with a given SAT score who had gone to Penn State but had also applied to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school with a much lower acceptance rate, generally made the same amount of money later on as someone with an equivalent SAT score who was an alumnus of UPenn. It was a fascinating conclusion, suggesting that at a certain level of intelligence and competence, what drives earnings isn’t the luster of the diploma but the type of person in possession of it. If he or she came from a background and a mindset that made an elite institution seem desirable and within reach, then he or she was more likely to have the tools and temperament for a high income down the road, whether an elite institution ultimately came into play or not. This was powerfully reflected in a related determination that Krueger and Dale made in their 2011 study: “The average SAT score of schools that rejected a student is more than twice as strong a predictor of the student’s subsequent earnings as the average SAT score of the school the student attended.
”
”
Frank Bruni (Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania)
“
I may add as a fourth reason, which diminishes the authority of prodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this the better understood, let us consider, that, in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and that it is impossible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China should, all of them, be established on any solid foundation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these religions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is attributed; so has it the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that system was established; so that all the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other. According to this method of reasoning, when we believe any miracle of Mahomet or his successors, we have for our warrant the testimony of a few barbarous Arabians: And on the other hand, we are to regard the authority of Titus Livius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and, in short, of all the authors and witnesses, Grecian, Chinese, and Roman Catholic, who have related any miracle in their particular religion; I say, we are to regard their testimony in the same light as if they had mentioned that Mahometan miracle, and had in express terms contradicted it, with the same certainty as they have for the miracle they relate. This argument may appear over subtle and refined; but is not in reality different from the reasoning of a judge, who supposes, that the credit of two witnesses, maintaining a crime against any one, is destroyed by the testimony of two others, who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues distant, at the same instant when the crime is said to have been committed.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
“
The policy debate about sanctions has been repeated almost every decade since the [League of Nations] was created in the wake of World War I. At its core has been the perennial question: do economic sanctions work? While the success rate differs depending on the objective, the historical record is relatively clear: most economic sanctions have not worked. In the twentieth century, only one in three uses of sanctions was “at least partially successful.” More modest goals have better chances of success. But from the available data it is clear that the history of sanctions is largely a history of disappointment.
What is striking is that this limited utility has not affected frequency of use. To the contrary: sanctions use doubled in the 1990s and 2000s compared to the period from 1950 to 1985; by the 2010s it had doubled again. Yet while in the 1985–1995 period, at a moment of great relative Western power, the chances of sanctions success were still around 35–40 percent, by 2016 this had fallen below 20 percent. In other words, while the use of sanctions has surged, their odds of success have plummeted.
”
”
Nicholas Mulder (The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War)
“
Vague assertions as to the equality of the sexes and the similarity of their duties are only empty words; they are no answer to my argument. It is a poor sort of logic to quote isolated exceptions against laws so firmly established. Women, you say, are not always bearing children.
Granted; yet that is their proper business. Because there are a hundred or so of large towns in the world where women live licentiously and have few children, will you maintain that it is their business to have few children? And what would become of your towns if the remote country districts, with their simpler and purer women, did not make up for the barrenness of your fine ladies? There are plenty of country places where women with only four or five children are reckoned unfruitful. In conclusion, although here and there a woman may have few children, what difference does it make? Is it any the less a woman's business to be a mother? And do not the general laws of nature and morality make provision for this state of things?
Even if there were these long intervals, which you assume, between the periods of pregnancy, can a woman suddenly change her way of life without danger? Can she be a nursing mother to-day and a soldier tomorrow? Will she change her tastes and her feelings as a chameleon changes his color? Will she pass at once from the privacy of household duties and indoor occupations to the buffeting of the winds, the toils, the labors, the perils of war? Will she be now timid, now brave, now fragile, now robust? If the young men of Paris find a soldier's life too hard for them, how would a woman put up with it, a woman who has hardly ventured out of doors without a parasol and who has scarcely put a foot to the ground? Will she make a good soldier at an age when even men are retiring from
this arduous business?
There are countries, I grant you, where women bear and rear children with little or no difficulty, but in those lands the men go half-naked in all weathers, they strike down the wild beasts, they carry a canoe as easily as a knapsack, they pursue the chase for 700 or 800 leagues, they sleep in the open on the bare ground, they bear incredible fatigues and go many days without food. When women become strong, men become still stronger; when men become soft, women become softer; change both the terms and the ratio remains unaltered.
”
”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Emile, or On Education)
“
were good friends. They’d maintained their friendship after Ted was out of the game. Both of them were avid fishermen, but they both had different ideas about it. They would hassle on technique, and neither would give in to the other.” Wallace Lawrimore vividly remembered the April 6, 1939, game in Florence between the Red Sox and the Reds. “Daddy carried two carloads of family to the game. We all went up to the dugout to tell Cronin we wanted some passes to get in. I got a program from that day, with all the players’ autographs.” The one ball field Florence had was deemed unsuitable for a major-league game because the fences were too short, so it was decided to build a field from scratch at the local fairgrounds. They laid down a coating of dirt for the infield and put up some circus-style bleachers for the 2,285 spectators who showed up, but when it came time for the game, gale-force winds blowing out toward left field drove the dirt everywhere, and conditions made the game virtually unplayable. It was called in the ninth inning, with the score tied 18–18, because they ran out of baseballs. Ted went 1–2 before leaving the game in the third inning after complaining of chills and a fever. Several days later, Gerry Moore of the Globe summed up spring training
”
”
Ben Bradlee Jr. (The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams)
“
The framers were wise in their generation and wanted to do the very best possible to secure their own liberty and independence, and that also of their descendants to the latest days. It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies. At the time of the framing of our constitution the only physical forces that had been subdued and made to serve man and do his labor, were the currents in the streams and in the air we breathe. Rude machinery, propelled by water power, had been invested sails to propel ships upon the waters and been set to catch the passing breeze – but the application of steam to propel vessels against both wind and current, and machinery to do all manner of work had not been thought of. The instantaneous transmission of messages around the world by means of electricity would probably that day have been attribute to witchcraft or a league with the Devil. Immaterial circumstances had changed as greatly as material ones. We could not and ought not to be rigidly bound by the rules laid down under circumstances so different for emergencies so utterly unanticipated. The fathers themselves would have been the first to declare that their prerogatives were not irrevocable.
”
”
Ulysses S. Grant (Memoirs and Selected Letters)
“
In any case, there are all of those chores that most of us can’t avoid: cleaning, straightening, raking leaves, shopping for groceries, driving the children to various activities, preparing food, washing dishes, washing the car, commuting, performing the routine, repetitive aspects of our jobs. This is the “in-between time,” the stuff we have to take care of before getting on to the things that count. But if you stop to think about it, most of life is “in between.” When goal orientation comes to dominate our thoughts, little that seems to really count is left. During the usual nonplayoff year, the actual playing time for a National Football League team is sixteen hours. For the players, does this mean that the other 8,744 hours of the year are “in between”? Does all time take its significance only in terms of the product, the bottom line? And if winning, as the saying goes, is the only thing, does that mean that even the climactic hours achieve their worth merely through victory? There’s another way of thinking about it. Zen practice is ostensibly organized around periods of sitting in meditation and chanting. Yet every Zen master will tell you that building a stone wall or washing dishes is essentially no different from formal meditation. The quality of a Zen student’s practice is defined just as much by how he or she sweeps
”
”
George Leonard (Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment)
“
For almost all astronomical objects, gravitation dominates, and they have the same unexpected behavior. Gravitation reverses the usual relation between energy and temperature. In the domain of astronomy, when heat flows from hotter to cooler objects, the hot objects get hotter and the cool objects get cooler. As a result, temperature differences in the astronomical universe tend to increase rather than decrease as time goes on. There is no final state of uniform temperature, and there is no heat death. Gravitation gives us a universe hospitable to life. Information and order can continue to grow for billions of years in the future, as they have evidently grown in the past. The vision of the future as an infinite playground, with an unending sequence of mysteries to be understood by an unending sequence of players exploring an unending supply of information, is a glorious vision for scientists. Scientists find the vision attractive, since it gives them a purpose for their existence and an unending supply of jobs. The vision is less attractive to artists and writers and ordinary people. Ordinary people are more interested in friends and family than in science. Ordinary people may not welcome a future spent swimming in an unending flood of information. A darker view of the information-dominated universe was described in the famous story “The Library of Babel,” written by Jorge Luis Borges in 1941.§ Borges imagined his library, with an infinite array of books and shelves and mirrors, as a metaphor for the universe. Gleick’s book has an epilogue entitled “The Return of Meaning,” expressing the concerns of people who feel alienated from the prevailing scientific culture. The enormous success of information theory came from Shannon’s decision to separate information from meaning. His central dogma, “Meaning is irrelevant,” declared that information could be handled with greater freedom if it was treated as a mathematical abstraction independent of meaning. The consequence of this freedom is the flood of information in which we are drowning. The immense size of modern databases gives us a feeling of meaninglessness. Information in such quantities reminds us of Borges’s library extending infinitely in all directions. It is our task as humans to bring meaning back into this wasteland. As finite creatures who think and feel, we can create islands of meaning in the sea of information. Gleick ends his book with Borges’s image of the human condition: We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and of the future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.
”
”
Freeman Dyson (Dreams of Earth and Sky)
“
There is a third premise of the recovery movement that I do endorse enthusiastically: The patterns of problems in childhood that recur into adulthood are significant. They can be found by exploring your past, by looking into the corners of your childhood. Coming to grips with your childhood will not yield insight into how you became the adult you are: The causal links between childhood events and what you have now become are simply too weak. Coming to grips with your childhood will not make your adult problems go away: Working through the past does not seem to be any sort of cure for troubles. Coming to grips with your childhood will not make you feel any better for long, nor will it raise your self-esteem.
Coming to grips with childhood is a different and special voyage. The sages urged us to know ourselves, and Plato warned us that the unexamined life is not worth living. Knowledge acquired on this voyage is about patterns, about the tapestry that we have woven. It is not knowledge about causes. Are there consistent mistakes we have made and still make? In the flush of victory, do I forget my friends—in the Little League and when I got that last big raise? (People have always told me I'm a good loser but a bad winner.) Do I usually succeed in one domain but fail in another? (I wish I could get along with the people I really love as well as I do with my employers.) Does a surprising emotion arise again and again? (I always pick fights with people I love right before they have to go away.) Does my body often betray me? (I get a lot of colds when big projects are due.)
You probably want to know why you are a bad winner, why you get colds when others expect a lot of you, and why you react to abandonment with anger. You will not find out. As important and magnetic as the “why” questions are, they are questions that psychology cannot now answer. One of the two clearest findings of one hundred years of therapy is that satisfactory answers to the great “why” questions are not easily found; maybe in fifty years things will be different; maybe never. When purveyors of the evils of “toxic shame” tell you that they know it comes from parental abuse, don't believe them. No one knows any such thing. Be skeptical even of your own “Aha!” experiences: When you unearth the fury you felt that first kindergarten day, do not assume that you have found the source of your lifelong terror of abandonment. The causal links may be illusions, and humility is in order here. The other clearest finding of the whole therapeutic endeavor, however, is that change is within our grasp, almost routine, throughout adult life. So even if why we are what we are is a mystery, how to change ourselves is not.
Mind the pattern. A pattern of mistakes is a call to change your life. The rest of the tapestry is not determined by what has been woven before. The weaver herself, blessed with knowledge and with freedom, can change—if not the material she must work with—the design of what comes next.
”
”
Martin E.P. Seligman (What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement)
“
Israel is one of the most multiracial and multicultural countries in the world. More than a hundred different countries are represented in its population of 6 million. Consider how the Israeli government spent tens of millions of dollars airlifting more than forty thousand black Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1984 and 1991. Since 2001 Israel has reached out to help others, taking in non-Jewish refugees from Lebanon, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, Liberia, and Congo, and even Bosnian Muslims. How many such refugees have the twenty-two states in the Arab League taken in? The Arab world won’t even give Palestinian refugees citizenship in their host countries. Remember, Jews can’t live in the neighboring Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan or in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But Arabs are living as citizens in Israel. What does that tell you about their respect for other cultures? Over 1 million Arabs are full Israeli citizens. An Arab sits on the Supreme Court of Israel. There are Arab political parties expressing views inimical to the State of Israel sitting in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Women are equal partners in Israel and have complete human rights, as do gays and minorities. Show me an Arab nation with a Jew in its government. Show me an Arab country with half as many Jewish citizens as Israel has Arab citizens. Show me freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and human rights in any Arabic country in the Middle East the way they exist and are practiced in Israel. It is those same freedoms that the Muslims resent as a threat to Islam and that they are fighting against, be it in Israel, Europe, or the United States.
”
”
Brigitte Gabriel (Because They Hate)
“
I was lucky to receive it. Most rogue interns never get a second chance. And here it’s worth mentioning that I benefited from what was known in 2009 as being fortunate, and is now more commonly called privilege. It’s not like I flashed an Ivy League gang sign and was handed a career. If I had stood on a street corner yelling, “I’m white and male, and the world owes me something!” it’s unlikely doors would have opened. What I did receive, however, was a string of conveniences, do-overs, and encouragements. My parents could help me pay rent for a few months out of school. I went to a university lousy with successful D.C. alumni. No less significantly, I avoided the barriers that would have loomed had I belonged to a different gender or race. Put another way, I had access to a network whether I was bullshit or not. A friend’s older brother worked as a speechwriter for John Kerry. When my Crisis Hut term expired, he helped me find an internship at West Wing Writers, a firm founded by former speechwriters for Bill Clinton and Al Gore. In the summer of 2009, my new bosses upgraded me to full-time employee. Without meaning to, I had stumbled upon the chance to learn a skill. The firm’s partners were four of the best writers in Washington, and each taught me something different. Vinca LaFleur helped me understand the benefits of subtle but well-timed alliteration. Paul Orzulak showed me how to coax speakers into revealing the main idea they hope to express. From Jeff Shesol, I learned that while speechwriting is as much art as craft, and no two sets of remarks are alike, there’s a reason most speechwriters punctuate long, flowy sentences with short, punchy ones. It works.
”
”
David Litt (Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years)
“
Good game,” someone said, patting my shoulder.
“Thanks,” I said, laughing.
Then I felt arms come around me and pull me close.
“Hey,” Jason said, kissing my neck before parking his chin on my shoulder.
Smiling brightly, I turned around in his arms. “Great game.”
“Thanks.”
“You hit a home run,” I said, like maybe he hadn’t realized it.
“I know it seems odd, considering how long I’ve played baseball, but I’ve never hit one before,” he said. “But I knew, I knew as soon as I felt the bat make contact with the ball, that it was going to go out of the park. I don’t know if it sounded different or felt different, but I just knew.”
“You did look stunned out there.”
“I was. Like I said, I’d never done that before. I mean, hitting has never been my strength.”
“It was tonight.” I reached up and kissed his chin.
“I need to figure out what it was I did that made me hit the home run.”
“You connected the bat to the ball.”
“No, it was more than that. Something I did before the game, maybe--”
“No, no, no,” I said, lifting myself up onto my toes so I could look directly into his eyes. “There was no thing you did other than keeping your eye on the ball and hitting at the precise moment when the impact would send the ball over the fence.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Okay, you want to know what it was? It was having me for a girlfriend--”
He put his hand behind my head and kissed me to shut me up. Obviously, he didn’t think I understood the whole ritual scene, and in truth, I didn’t.
I mean, sure, when I played softball, I always chewed cinnamon-flavored gum during the game, and I never started chewing until after the national anthem. But that was different. If I didn’t do that, I missed way more balls than I caught.
But home runs? There was nothing that guaranteed home runs.
Jason drew back. “Maybe it is having you for a girlfriend.”
“I was kidding.”
“I’m not.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
Tommy, Ewoks suck. They’ve always sucked and they always will suck. Four has Peter Cushing in it. If in doubt, always go with a film that has Peter Cushing in it.” Petra appeared to be very smug in her victory. Tommy looked mortified. “But six has Jedi Luke and that awesome bit with the Emperor at the end.” “And Ewoks,” I said. “Who, I’m pretty sure I pointed out, suck.” “And to think I was going to get you your own lightsaber,” Tommy said in mock outrage. Petra’s face lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning. “You have your own lightsaber?” Tommy nodded. “Two of them.” “Why?” Kurt asked. “Why do you need a lightsaber? What can you possibly use it for?” “I think the question is,” Tommy said, “why wouldn’t I need a lightsaber? And as for what I can use it for, I use it to look awesome. Really, really awesome.” “You just don’t understand, my dear,” Petra told Kurt. Kurt didn’t appear to want or need to understand anytime soon. “So, you got beat up by some humans and a witch,” Tommy said, barely containing his laughter. “Do you have CCTV?” he asked Petra, who chuckled. “Are you both done?” I asked. They nodded in unison. “This witch used a huge amount of magic on me,” I informed them both. “To use runes to drain my magic is one thing, but an effete curse is a whole other league of power. That’s a decade of her life, right there.” “I don’t understand why anyone would ever use a blood magic curse,” Tommy said. “It’s not like it’s fun for the person casting it either.” “What do you mean?” Petra asked. “There are several different blood magic curses you can cast on another person, and a few you can cast on yourself,” I explained. “All of the curses do various things to the person they’re cast upon, but the caster has to take some of the curse back onto him- or herself. So, in this case, Sarah cast the effete spell, making me exhausted and utterly useless, but a small portion of that will bounce back onto her. How long was I out?” “Six hours,” Kurt said. “If I’d cast that spell, I could have expected maybe three or four hours of exhaustion. Witches are basically human, so she’s going to be about as much use as a chocolate teapot, for the best part of a day. It was a huge decision for her to make.
”
”
Steve McHugh (Prison of Hope (Hellequin Chronicles, #4))
“
How do you decide what video game to choose in the vast ocean of online gaming nonsense? There are 100s if not thousands of options permeating the internet. They range from honestly free, pay to win, and all the way up to an actual subscription based model. One of the first decisions you need to make is quite simply, what kind of game do I enjoy?
Are you more of a first person shooter type person? If so you will most likely want to ignore role playing games or real time strategies. conversely if you are more of a role playing or real time strategy fan perhaps first person shooters are not for you. Once you have the type of game you are looking for nailed down games the next step: do you want to pay money?
This is a big one and a tricky one. So many games out there present themselves as 'free'. I assure you, they are most certainly not free. Think a simple little game like Candy Crush is free? Next time you are in the Google Play or iTunes store Improve WoW PvP check on top grossing apps. You will very quickly change your mind on that. On a more relevant note some games are both free and pay, but maintain a respectful balance. By this I mean you do not HAVE to fork out hard earned cash in order to compete. League of Legends is an amazing example of this. A player cannot obtain any upgrade which will make their character better through monetary expenditures. What you can do; however, is purchase cosmetic items or other no stat gain frill. On the other end of the spectrum you have a game such as the behemoth World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft has managed to maintain a subscription based model for 10 years now. Multiple 'WoW Killers' have risen up since the inception of World of Warcraft using the subscription base as well. Damn near every one of them is now free to play. Rift and Star Wars are the two that really stick out. Leading up to their release forums Wow XP Off PvP Stream across the internet proclaimed them the almighty killer of World of Warcraft. Instead Warcraft kept on trucking and both of those games changed style to f2p not long after their release.
These are just a few different games and styles of games for you to choose from. Remember, you get what you pay for in almost every case. (LoL being the exception that proves the rule)
”
”
Phil Janelle
“
Yet, however noticeable physical differences may often be, race has never been a serious factor in Italian history: there is no Italian race and there never has been one. The arguments of those who claim otherwise, usually fascists or extreme nationalists, are ludicrous. So is the more recent boast by a leader of the Venetian League that, while Lombards are upstarts descended from the Gauls, his own people have a pure ethnic pedigree. 13 The truth was recognized long ago by the Risorgimento liberal Cesare Balbo, who observed that Italy was ‘a multiracial community composed of successive waves of immigrants’;
”
”
David Gilmour (The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples)
“
She mentions orphans at every opportunity. Part of the Miss Teen Ragland competition involves answering a question about how you’d change the world or make a difference or improve yourself. For Tiffany, it doesn’t matter what question she’s asked, she always manages to explain how she’d help orphans. Maybe her generous heart and not her generous, uh, chest, helped her win the past three competitions.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
Now I know I use the term “revolution” cavalierly and I do not mean to diminish true revolutions like the American, Cuban, or Chinese revolutions. After all our leaders were Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and Wavy Gravy, not exactly in the same league as George Washington, Che Guevara and Mao Tse Tung. Our revolution was not against oppression and poverty but rather for paradise. Also to ask a revolutionary to put everything at risk and fight, perhaps to their death, for freedom is quite different than the sacrifices we were asked to make. We were asked to drop out of the work world, travel around unfettered, take consciousness-altering drugs, and make love to a lot of people. This was not a hard revolution to join.
”
”
Robert Roskind (Memoirs of an Ex-Hippie: Seven Years in the Counterculture)
“
You were wrong," he murmured ruefully, resting his cheek on top of Amy’s head. "You weren’t safe with me."
"I feel like Psyche kissing Cupid in the dark," Amy said dreamily.
Richard drew Amy’s arms around his back under his cloak.
"Feel. No wings."
Amy could hear the smile in the Gentian’s voice. "Does that mean if I unmask you, you won’t fly away?"
Richard tightened his grip on Amy’s arms. "Don’t even consider it."
"You could give me three trials, like Psyche."
"With what as the prize at the end? Me, or membership in the League?"
Amy managed the difficult feat of looking at him askance with her nose only inches from his. "It would be much easier for me to answer that question if I knew who you were."
"What’s in a name? A Gentian by any other name would—"
"Be an entirely different flower," interjected Amy, swatting him on the arm. "I refuse to be fobbed off with poor imitations of Shakespeare."
"If you don’t like Romeo and Juliet, how about a sonnet?" Richard suggested. "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art—"
"Not that easily deterred."
Amy extricated herself from Richard’s arms – and his cloak, which had tangled around her knees – and hopped off the window seat.
"Damnation," muttered Richard.
"I’ll ignore that,"offered Amy generously. "And we can go straight to the crucial question of how I’m going to help you restore the monarchy
”
”
Lauren Willig (The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Pink Carnation, #1))
“
The period of John Adams’s presidency declined into a time of political savagery with few parallels in American history, a season of paranoia in which the two parties surrendered all trust in each other. Like other Federalists infected with war fever, Hamilton increasingly mistook dissent for treason and engaged in hyperbole. In one newspaper piece, he blasted the Jeffersonians as “more Frenchmen than Americans” and declared that to slake their ambition and thirst for revenge they stood ready “to immolate the independence and welfare of their country at the shrine of France.” 1 Republicans behaved no better, interpreting policies they disliked as the treacherous deeds of men in league with England and bent on bringing back George III. The indiscriminate use of pejorative labels—“Jacobins” for Republicans, “Anglomen” for Federalists—reflected the rancorously unfair emotions. During this melancholy time, the founding fathers appeared as all-too-fallible mortals. An episode at Congress Hall in January 1798 symbolized the acrimonious mood. Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont, a die-hard Republican, began to mock the aristocratic sympathies of Roger Griswold, a Federalist from Connecticut. When Griswold then taunted Lyon for alleged cowardice during the Revolution, Lyon spat right in his face. Griswold got a hickory cane and proceeded to thrash Lyon, who retaliated by taking up fire tongs and attacking Griswold. The two members of Congress ended up fighting on the floor like common ruffians. “Party animosities have raised a wall of separation between those who differ in political sentiments,” Jefferson wrote sadly to Angelica Church.
”
”
Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
“
If you care about animal suffering, you should certainly alter your diet, either by cutting out the most harmful products (at least eggs, chicken, and pork), or by becoming vegetarian or vegan. However, there’s no reason to stop there. In terms of making a difference to the lives of animals, the impact you can have through your donations seems even greater than the impact you can have by changing your own behavior. According to Animal Charity Evaluators (a research charity I helped to set up), by donating to charities like Mercy For Animals or the Humane League, which distribute leaflets on vegetarianism, it costs about one hundred dollars to convince one person to stop eating meat for one year. If you can donate more than that to animal advocacy charities per year, then your decision about how much to donate to animal advocacy is even more important, in terms of impact, than the decision about whether to become vegetarian yourself.
”
”
William MacAskill (Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference)
“
Oh, I love astronomy. I’m a Pisces. What sign are you?”
Which had made Mac laugh again, and he started to explain the difference between astronomy and astrology. Tiffany was apparently absolutely fascinated…and fascinating. His gaze--and Jason’s--was riveted on her.
I gave another little shrug, feeling a need to defend my sister, who might be in need of a trip down the yellow brick road to ask the wizard for some brains.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
You don’t like all the makeup?”
“I just don’t think you need it. I mean, you look pretty without it.”
Oh, really? That was totally unexpected.
He started tapping the steering wheel like he was listening to a rock concert, or suddenly embarrassed, maybe wishing someone would shut him up. “Sorry I don’t have a towel in the car.”
Subject change. He was embarrassed. How cute was that?
“That’s okay. We should probably get home, anyway, and we have plenty of towels there.”
“Right.”
He shifted into reverse and did that thing guys do where they twist their whole bodies and put their arm across the back of the seat. Only his car had bucket seats, and his fingers grazed my cheek and then jerked as though they’d been stung, before he grabbed the back of the headrest.
He was staring at me, really staring at me, and I wondered if he wanted his fingers to touch my cheek again, because I wanted them to. I wanted to feel that spark again, that little spark I felt every time he gave me the slightest accidental touch.
“Do you like Mac?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said really quickly, too quickly.
He nodded, looked over his shoulder, and backed out of the parking spot.
As we drove home, a heavy silence filled the car. I began to wonder if maybe he hadn’t really been asking if I liked Mac.
If maybe he’d been asking something completely different. Maybe he’d been asking if I liked him.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
A different kind of list entirely is Colleges That Change Lives, a short list bearing the names of only forty very small schools utterly focused on building the kind of living and learning communities in which undergraduates engage in rigorous work done in close contact with faculty and with one another, and emerge well prepared for the world of work, and to be an engaged citizen of the world.15 The list was originally compiled by Loren Pope, a former education editor at the New York Times who became one of the nation’s first experts on college admission with the publication in 1990 of his best-selling book Looking Beyond the Ivy League: Finding the College That’s Right for You,
”
”
Julie Lythcott-Haims (How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success)
“
How does she do that?” Bird asked.
I didn’t have to ask who the she was. I knew it was Tiffany. Nor did I have to ask what Bird was referring to. Jason and Mac were leaning toward Tiffany, listening to whatever it was she was saying, like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
“Does she wear, like, turn-’em-stupid perfume or something?” Bird asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe guys like thinking they’re way smarter than girls.”
“It’s gotta be an act. No one is that brainless.” She grimaced. “I don’t mean to dis your sister, but really, does anyone think the moon actually turns blue?”
Yeah, Tiffany had asked, “So when does the moon turn blue?”
Mac had laughed and explained that a blue moon was the second full moon in a month, that a full moon appeared every twenty-nine nights, and so it was truly rare to have two full moons in any given month. He’d said he’d taken a class in astronomy.
“Oh, I love astronomy. I’m a Pisces. What sign are you?”
Which had made Mac laugh again, and he started to explain the difference between astronomy and astrology. Tiffany was apparently absolutely fascinated…and fascinating. His gaze--and Jason’s--was riveted on her.
I gave another little shrug, feeling a need to defend my sister, who might be in need of a trip down the yellow brick road to ask the wizard for some brains. “I wasn’t exactly sure what a blue moon was, either.”
“But you know the difference between astronomy and astrology.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
She was so far out of my league that we were practically on different continents. And yet I’d never longed for anything as much as I longed for her. I wanted to be good enough for her; I wanted her to want me.
”
”
Kirsty Moseley (Fighting to Be Free (Fighting To Be Free, #1))
“
I can’t believe that someone’s life can be bartered and sold so easily. That it’s so common that there are even names for the different ways to take a person’s life. For torturing them? My God, what is wrong with you people?” “We’re not the ones who are sick, mu Tara. With us—the predators—you know what we’ll do and why we do it. What we’re capable of. We make no bones about it and we wear the uniform so that you can see us coming. The ones who are sickening are the cowards who masquerade as sheep. The ones who lull you into trusting them and smile at your face while they plot your downfall behind your back for any number of psychotic reasons. The friends who turn on you out of jealousy or greed. Who try to ruin you for no reason at all. They are the ones who should be put down.” For once, she heard the hatred underlying those words. “And they’re the ones who are truly sickening.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Night (The League, #1))
“
Now, there is a great deal of difference between a person who requires assistance or looks to be served, and one who is needy. The average person meets his or her fellow on more or less equal ground; needy individuals imagine their demands to be broadcast from a position of height, when in fact anyone coming to their aid usually views them as lacking in either intelligence or ambition—possibly both. The needy person, becoming a needy customer, is often the first to be waited upon and probably the first to be despised. Grace habitually emanated such weary neediness; she would ask the price of an object without first scrutinizing the tag hanging from it. “I
”
”
Van Reid (Cordelia Underwood: or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League)
“
Kiara went cold as she realized Syn’s hands were covered in blood. “How’d you reopen the damn thing?” he barked at Nykyrian. “I told you to be careful, you idiot. You’re lucky you haven’t bled out.” “Stand down, asshole. You keep making commentary like an old woman and I’ll put your rank ass in a dress.” Syn glared up at him. “You better take a different tone, too, dick. Remember, I’m the one about to have my hands on that wound. You snap at me and I’ll have you crying on the floor like a little girl.” “And I’ll have you lying dead at my feet.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Night (The League, #1))
“
The madness of faith is a very different thing from the madness of Enlightenment Reason.
”
”
Adam Roberts (Twenty Trillion Leagues Under The Sea)
“
Careful, human,” Hauk warned, showing Darling his fangs. “I might get hungry one of these nights and decide we no longer need a weaptech.” Nykyrian shook his head at their bluster, knowing they were good friends. However, they continually harassed one another about their racial differences. Darling was from Caron, a human system. Hauk was Andarion—an advanced predatorial race that sometimes fed on humans. A hybrid of the two races, Nykyrian didn’t really like listening to their bullshit.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Night (The League, #1))
“
You led Shenzhen Football / You saved Shenzhen Football. "
Chinese pro football soccer league (second division) Shenzhen FC recently announced a number of poems like this one. It seems like a tribute to Sven Jerran Eriksson (69, photo), a world-renowned manager who has been assigned to the club this season. But looking back, the story was different. The club said, 'We call the legend again. Let's go on a new trip together. "
믿고 주문해주세요~저희는 제품판매를 고객님들과 신용과신뢰의 거래로 하고있습니다.
24시간 문의상담과 서울 경기지방은 퀵으로도 가능합니다
믿고 주문하시면좋은인연으로 vip고객님으로 모시겠습니다.
원하시는제품있으시면 추천상으로 구입문의 도와드릴수있습니다
깔끔한거래,안전거래,총알배송,고객님정보보호,100%정품,편한상담,신용신뢰의 거래,후불거래등 고객님들의 편의를 기본으로 운영하고있는 온라인 판매업체입니다
The poem was a clearing for Eriksson. He was tortured in the club with one side on the 14th. The poem 'You' was not his, but the former director of Wang Baoshan. The Shenzhen team first announced the city verses through its homepage, and then the local media asked whether it was a change of director.
◀경영항목▶텔레【KC98K】카톡【ACD5】라인【SPR331】
엑스터시,신의눈물,lsd,아이스,캔디,대마초,마리화나,프로포폴,에토미데이트,해피벌륜 등많은제품판매하고있습니다
Sweden coach Eriksson is one of the best players in the World Cup finals. In 2001, he became the first foreign coach in England's history. He led Beckham, Owen and others to advance to the quarter-finals in the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup and the 2006 Germany World Cup. At the 2010 South African tournament he was promoted to coach Ivory Coast. Benfica, AS Roma and Manchester City also led the pros.
It was in June 2013 that Eriksson, who became a world class soccer player, started his career in Chinese football. He was appointed to the first division of Guangzhou Puri in China with an annual salary of about 3.5 billion won. It was a bad condition for him to spend the last years of his life as a leader. After failing to sign a new contract, he became a manager of the Shanghai Sanggang, subject to an annual salary of 6 billion won by the end of 2014. After two years of hardship, he moved to China 2nd Division League Shenzhen FC. But here, the duration of the bust was shorter. Eriksson's lead has been in fourth place in the league since he lost five consecutive wins in the league in eight consecutive wins (five and three losses). The club, aiming at promoting the first division, has been pushing out Eriksson in six months because of the atmosphere.
Early exits such as Eriksson can be found easily in Chinese football world that pours a lot of money into directing shopping. Only Lee Jang Soo (Changchun), Choi Yong Soo (Jangsu) and Hong Myung Bo (Hangzhou) have left the team during the season due to poor performance.
”
”
Soccer manager, Eriksson, I do not like last year.
“
There are two types of coaches. There’s coaches like me who weigh up the opposition and ask the team to adjust. Fergie was similar. José [Mourinho] is similar. Then there’s Arsène, who won’t adjust. There’s Brendan [Rodgers], who looks like he won’t adjust. There’s Manuel Pellegrini, who looks like he won’t adjust … their philosophy is different to ours. Ours is more about who are we playing against. Their philosophy is more, “We always play this way,” and they won’t change, they carry on doing the same thing. That’s why you can beat them.
”
”
Michael Cox (The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines)
“
Full Disclosure: when Dan DiDio approached me about doing one, I was wary to say the least. Nowadays events often mean character deaths or reboots or company-wide publishing initiatives and so on. But the run Greg Capullo and I had on BATMAN was, for better or for worse, idiosyncratic - about our own hopes, our fears, our interests. It was just... very much ours.
Even so, I told Dan that I *did* have a story, one I'd been working on for a few years, a big one, in the back of my brain. It was about a detective case that stretched back to the beginnings of humanity, a mystery about the nature of the DC Universe that Batman would try to uncover, and which would lead him and the Justice League to discover that their own cosmology was much larger, scarier and more wondrous than they'd known. But I wasn't sure it would make a good "event".
Dan, to his credit, said, "Work it up and let's see."
So I did. But in the course of working it up, I reread all the events I could think of. Just for reference. Not only recent ones, but events from years ago, from when I was a kid. And what I discovered, or rediscovered, was that at their core, events are joyous things. They're these great big stories, ridiculous tales about alien invasions or cosmic gems or zombie-space-cop attacks that have the highest stakes possible - stories where the whole universe hangs in the balance and nothing will ever be the same again! They were *about* things, and - what I also realized while doing my homework - when I was a kid, they were THE stories that brought me and my friends together. We'd split our money and buy different parts of an event, just to be able to argue about it. We'd meet after school and go on for hours about who should win, who should lose...
Because even the grimmest events are celebratory. They're about pushing the limits of an already ludicrous form to a breaking point. So that's what I came back with. I remember standing in my kitchen and getting ready to pitch DARK NIGHTS: METAL to Greg, having prepared a whole presentation, a whole argument as to why, crazy as it was, it was us, it was *our* event. I said "It's called METAL," and Greg said, "I'm in," before I could even tell him the story. And even though Dan thought it was crazy, he went with it, and for that I'm very grateful.
In the end, METAL is a lot of things - it's about those moments when you find yourself face to face with the worst versions of yourself, moments when all looks like doom - but at it's heart it's a love letter to comic storytelling at its most lunatic, and a tribute to the kinds of stories, events that got me thought hard times as a kid and as an adult. It's about using friendship as a foundation to go further than you thought you could go, and that means it's about me and Greg, and you as well. Because we tried something different with it, something ours, hoping you'd show up, and you did.
So thank you, sincerely, from all of us on the team. Because when they work, events are about coming together and rocking out over our love of this crazy art form.
And you're all in the band, now and always.
”
”
Scott Snyder (Dark Nights: Metal)
“
The disruption of those social ties disproportionately affects girls and women.11 What happens when you feel less connected to your neighborhood, less trusting of the people who live next door or down the street? If you’re a guy, then maybe you just stay home and spend a few extra hours playing your video games or put some extra time into your fantasy football league. Girls and women seem to need that network of human connection more, so they miss it more when it’s not there. Professor Twenge examined the correlation between 16 different indicators and the likelihood that a woman is feeling anxious. She found that lack of social trust is the highest predictor of anxiety—higher than the divorce rate, higher than the unemployment rate, and more important than economic conditions generally.12
”
”
Leonard Sax (Girls on the Edge: The Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls-Sexual Identity, the Cyberbubble, Obsessions, Envi)
“
The goal of fighting, Wilson told the Senate in January 1917, must be “peace without victory,” because “victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished.” As Wilson saw it, “only a peace between equals can last,” meaning that “the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak.” In place of one mighty empire acting as globocop, Wilson proposed a league of nations, “a single and overwhelming powerful group of nations who shall be the trustee of peace in the world.
”
”
Ian Morris (War: What is it good for?: The role of conflict in civilisation, from primates to robots)
“
The downward trend for women in the postwar years also appears for PHD and law degrees, with a greater proportion of women earning degrees in the 1930s than in the 1950s (see Figure 2.3). The percentage of medical degrees granted to women was about the same in the 1930s and the 1950s, possibly because medical schools limited entering classes to 5% women no matter how many qualified women applied, in an informal but systematic program of discrimination. (The Women’s Equity Action League eventually sued U.S. medical schools for sex discrimination in the 1970s.) Law was even more limited: A scant 3% of graduating lawyers were women in the 1950s and early 1960s, and many had trouble finding jobs. Despite graduating at the top of their law school classes, future Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O’Connor (b. 1930) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (b. 1933) both struggled to land jobs when they graduated in the 1950s.
”
”
Jean M. Twenge (Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future)