Don T Depend On Anyone Quotes

Don’t depend too much on anyone in this world because even your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness.

Haven't I? - he thought. Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven't I thought of nothing else for two years? ...He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her ...Since the first time I saw you ...Nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way your eyes would look at me, if ...Through every sentence I ever said to you, through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of all the issues we discussed ...You trusted me, didn't you? To recognize your greatness? To think of you as you deserved - as if you were a man? ...Don't you suppose I know how much I've betrayed? The only bright encounter of my life - the only person I respected - the best business man I know - my ally - my partner in a desperate battle ...The lowest of all desires - as my answer to the highest I've met ...Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need, which would never touch you, I have never wanted anyone but you ...I hadn't known what it was like, to want it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought : Not I, I couldn't be broken by it ...Since then ...For two years ...With not a moments respite ...Do you know what it's like, to want it? Would you wish to hear what I thought when I looked at you ...When I lay awake at night ...When I hear your voice over a telephone wire ...When I worked, but could not drive it away? ...To bring you down to things you cant conceive - and to know that it's I who have done it. To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal's pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent on the upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength - then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which I'll preform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which you'll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation ...I want you - and may I be damned for it!

I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet. Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, 'Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.' I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on? I wish I had made things for life to depend on.

We are kissing like crazy. Like our lives depend on it. His tongue slips inside my mouth, gentle but demanding, and it’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced, and I suddenly understand why people describe kissing as melting because every square inch of my body dissolves into his. My fingers grip his hair, pulling him closer. My veins throb and my heart explodes. I have never wanted anyone like this before. Ever. He pushes me backward and we’re lying down, making out in front of the children with their red balloons and the old men with their chess sets and the tourists with their laminated maps and I don’t care, I don’t care about any of that. All I want is Étienne. The weight of his body on top of mine is extraordinary. I feel him—all of him—pressed against me, and I inhale his shaving cream, his shampoo, and that extra scent that’s just . . . him. The most delicious smell I could ever imagine. I want to breathe him, lick him, eat him, drink him. His lips taste like honey. His face has the slightest bit of stubble and it rubs my skin but I don’t care, I don’t care at all. He feels wonderful. His hands are everywhere, and it doesn’t matter that his mouth is already on top of mine, I want him closer closer closer.

When someone rejects you, for whatever reason, that rejection reflects their wants, not your limitations. you are in no way defined by the rejection, or the acceptance, of anyone else. your worth depends on no one. and as hard as it can be to see it as such, there is just as big a gift in not connecting with those who don’t see your value, as there is in uniting with those who do.

Sometimes it’s faith that people hold on to. Sometimes, if you’re lucky enough, you can confide in someone else and trust them to pull you out of the pain before you dwell in it for too long. Pain is one of those hideous places that, once visited, you have to fight your way out, and even when you think you have escaped it, you find that it has permanently marked you. If you’re like me, you don’t have anyone to depend on, no one to take your hand and assure you that you’ll make it through this hell. Instead, you have to lace up your boots, grab your own hand, and pull yourself out.

Don't depend on anyone too much. Even your shadow leaves when it's dark.

She shook her head. 'Look. We both know life is short, Macy. Too short to waste a single second with anyone who doesn't appreciate and value you.' 'You said the other day life was long,' I shot back. 'Which is it?' ' It's both,' she said, shrugging. 'IT all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.' 'Nothing can be two opposite things at once,' I said. 'It's impossible.' 'No,' she replied, squeezing my hand,' what's impossible is that we actually think it could be anything other than that. Look, when I was in the hosptal, right after the accident, they thought I was going to die. I was really fucked up, big time.' 'Uh-huh,' Monica said, looking at her sister. 'Then,' Kristy continued, nodding at her, 'life was very short, literally. but now that I'm better it seems so long I have to squint to see even the edges of it. It's all in the view, Macy. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You can never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count.' Monica, lighting another cigarette, nodded. 'Mmm-hmm,' she said. 'What you have to decide,' Kristy said to me, leaning foreward, 'is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you'd want to have spent it? It seemed like it was a choice I had already made. I'd spent the last year and a half with Jason, shaping my life to fit his, doing what I had to in order to make sure I had a plae in his perfect world, where things made sense. But it hadn't worked. 'Listen,' Kristy said,' the truth is, nohing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody.' She looed at me hard, making sure I knew what she meant. I did. 'So don't be afraid. Be alive.' But then, I couldn't imagine, after everything that had happened, how you could live and not constantly be worrying about the dangers all around you. Especially when you'd already gotten teh scare of your life. 'It's the same thing,' I told her. 'What is?' 'Being afraid and being alive.' 'No,' she said slowly, and now it was as if she was speaking a language she knew at first I wouldn't understand, the very words, not to mention the concept, being foreign to me. 'Macy, no. It's not.

Don't depend on anyone else to toot your horn. I mean, do you really want their lips on it, anyway?

His version of 'real' love isn't sufficient for me, I don't think anyone should settle for so little. It wasn't love - not in the true sense. On my part, it was neediness, insecurity, dependence, habit - desperate to feel loved by a man who was often ambivalent towards me. 

What it comes down to is how much heart you have, and how you will give this your all, not because anyone will give you accolades, but on the contrary, because no one ever has, and you don't depend on that for your success. Those guys out there who have been coddled constantly, and cheered for their whole lives, they'll be the first ones to quit when they don't have anyone to depend on but themselves. But not you–because you've never known any different. And that sucks. But in this case, it's your strength. It's your ace in the hole. I'd bet on you, Carson Stinger.

Don't trust the natives, Olivia has told me, but I was already a step ahead of her. I didn't trust anyone. Not for directions, not for rides, and not for advice either. Sure it sucked to be lost, but I’d long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened – good bad or anywhere in between – it was always, if nothing else, all your own.

Those guys out there who have been coddled constantly, and cheered for their whole lives, they'll be the first ones to quit when they don't have anyone to depend on but themselves. But not you - because you've never known any different. And that sucks. But in this case, it's your strength. It's your ace in the hole. I'd bet on you, Carson Stinger.

I don't need anyone, I said. Then you came I need I need! I NEED YOU. I needed you. What did you teach me? Not to need you. NOT TO NEED.

Don't depend too much on anyone in this world because even your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness.' ✋

Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not depends on the individual, man’s survival requires that those who think be free of the interference of those who don’t. Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind. A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone’s opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or “welfare.” Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument. (An example and symbol of this attitude is Galileo.) It is from the work and the inviolate integrity of such minds—from the intransigent innovators—that all of mankind’s knowledge and achievements have come. (See The Fountainhead.) It is to such minds that mankind owes its survival. (See Atlas Shrugged.)

Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.

Don’t depend too much on anyone in this world, because even your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness.

We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don't know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and inner peace come from the giving of ourselves to others. A happy life is a life for others. That truth, however, is usually discovered when we are confronted with our brokenness.

One of the issues about the whole ‘being alone’ stance is not having anyone to share the world’s problems with. A person’s been scooped out of your life and so you speak into a pit of nothingness. Or you don’t speak at all, depending on your tendency towards soliloquy.

I have a very simple morality: not to do good or evil to anyone. Not to do evil, because it seems only fair that others enjoy the same right I demand for myself – not to be disturbed – and also because I think that the world doesn’t need more than the natural evils it already has. All of us in this world are living on board a ship that is sailing from one unknown port to another, and we should treat each other with a traveller’s cordiality. Not to do good, because I don’t know what good is, nor even if I do it when I think I do. How do I know what evils I generate if I give a beggar money? How do I know what evils I produce if I teach or instruct? Not knowing, I refrain. And besides, I think that to help or clarify is, in a certain way, to commit the evil of interfering in the lives of others. Kindness depends on a whim of our mood, and we have no right to make others the victims of our whims, however humane or kind-hearted they may be. Good deeds are impositions; that’s why I categorically abhor them.

I embrace the rain like no one else and I call for storms because I live for the moments when I get through to the other side with all my organs intact. I change with the seasons and the seasons live in me, depending on the weather as if it's something to be trusted. I don't feel safe unless I'm far below or high above, near the ocean, or climbing the mountain. Where I can't be reached or seen by anyone or anything and not even myself, because it seems to me that these voices in my head get louder just to kill the noise from the outside, and so I need to go away from time to time. You will never see me surrender, never see me cry, but you will often see me walk away. Turn around and just leave, without looking back.

I don’t think anyone can survive on their own. What’s important is picking the right people to depend on and giving back as much as they give. Being taken care of isn’t a weakness when you take care of each other. It has a name. It’s called family

The all-powerful Zahir seemed to be born with every human being and to gain full strength in childhood, imposing rules that would thereafter always be respected: People who are different are dangerous; they belong to another tribe; they want our lands and our women. We must marry, have children, reproduce the species. Love is only a small thing, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this may seem perverse. When we are married we are authorised to take possession of the other person, body and soul. We must do jobs we detest because we are part of an organised society, and if everyone did what they wanted to do, the world would come to a standstill. We must buy jewelry; it identifies us with our tribe. We must be amusing at all times and sneer at those who express their real feelings; it's dangerous for a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings. We must at all costs avoid saying no because people prefer those who always say yes, and this allows us to survive in hostile territory. What other people think is more important than what we feel. Never make a fuss--it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe. If you behave differently you will be expelled from the tribe because you could infect others and destroy something that was extremely difficult to organise in the first place. We must always consider the look of our new cave, and if we don't have a clear idea of our own, then we must call a decorator who will do his best to show others what good taste we have. We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit the current ideal of beauty we must fast, even if we're starving. We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country, wish time away so that retirement comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hair-style, criticise anyone who is different, go to a religious service on Sunday, Saturday or Friday, depending on our religion, and there beg forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with pride because we know the truth and despise he other tribe, who worship false gods. Our children must follow in our footsteps; after all we are older and know more about the world. We must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study. We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy. We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private, because I am the all-powerful Zahir, who lays down the rules and determines the meaning of success, the best way to love, the importance of rewards.

I was born like everyone else, and a man must not live in dependence on anyone except God;

When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don’t have an audience; I have a set of standards. But when I think of my work out in the world, written and published, I like to imagine it’s being read by some stranger somewhere who doesn’t have anyone around him to talk to about books and writing—maybe a would-be writer, maybe a little lonely, who depends on a certain kind of writing to make him feel more comfortable in the world.

Faking depends on a measure of complicity between the perpetrator and the victim, who together conspire to believe what they don’t believe and to feel what they are incapable of feeling. There are fake beliefs, fake opinions, fake kinds of expertise. There is also fake emotion, which comes about when people debase the forms and the language in which true feeling can take root, so that they are no longer fully aware of the difference between the true and the false. Kitsch is one very important example of this. The kitsch work of art is not a response to the real world, but a fabrication designed to replace it. Yet both producer and consumer conspire to persuade each other that what they feel in and through the kitsch work of art is something deep, important and real. Anyone can lie. One need only have the requisite intention — in other words, to say something with the intention to deceive. Faking, by contrast, is an achievement. To fake things you have to take people in, yourself included. In an important sense, therefore, faking is not something that can be intended, even though it comes about through intentional actions. The liar can pretend to be shocked when his lies are exposed, but his pretence is merely a continuation of his lying strategy. The fake really is shocked when he is exposed, since he had created around himself a community of trust, of which he himself was a member. Understanding this phenomenon is, it seems to me, integral to understanding how a high culture works, and how it can become corrupted.

I don’t think there is anyone who needs God’s help and grace as much as I do. Sometimes I feel so helpless and weak. I think that is why God uses me. Because I cannot depend on my own strength, I rely on Him twenty-four hours a day. If the day had even more hours, then I would need His help and grace during those hours as well.1 —MOTHER TERESA

Wait, wait,' he began, interrupting Oblonsky. 'Aristocratism, you say. But allow me to ask, what makes up this aristocratism of Vronsky or whoever else it may be - such aristocratism that I can be scorned? You consider Vronsky an aristocrat, but I don't. A man whose father crept out of nothing by wiliness, whose mother, God knows who she didn't have liaisons with... No, excuse me, but I consider myself an aristocrat and people like myself, who can point to three or four honest generations in their families' past, who had a high degree of education (talent and intelligence are another thing), and who never lowered themselves before anyone, never depended on anyone, as my father lived, and my grandfather. And I know many like that. You find it mean that I count the trees in the forest, while you give away thirty thousand to Ryabinin; but you'll have rent coming in and I don't know what else, while I won't, and so I value what I've inherited and worked for... We're the aristocrats, and not someone who can only exist on hand-outs from the mighty of this world and can be bought for twenty kopecks. 'But who are you attacking? I agree with you,' said Stepan Arkadyich sincerely and cheerfully, though he felt Levin included him among those who could be bought for twenty kopecks.

Everything you do or say interests me." "Really," she said skeptically. "What about Lord Westcliff's claim that I'm shallow and self-absorbed?" As she faced him, Simon braced one hand on the wall near her head and leaned over her protectively. His voice was very soft. "He doesn't know you." "And you do?" "Yes, I know you." He reached out to finger a tendril of damp hair that clung to her neck. "You guard yourself carefully. You don't like to depend on anyone. You're determined and strong-willed, and you're decided in your opinions. Not to mention stubborn. But never self-absorbed. And anyone with your intelligence could never be called shallow.

This was something new. Or something old. I didn’t think of what it might be until after I had let Aubrey go back to the clinic to bed down next to her child. Bankole had given him something to help him sleep. He did the same for her, so I won’t be able to ask her anything more until she wakes up later this morning. I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether these people, with their crosses, had some connection with my current least favorite presidential candidate, Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret. It sounds like the sort of thing his people might do—a revival of something nasty out of the past. Did the Ku Klux Klan wear crosses—as well as burn them? The Nazis wore the swastika, which is a kind of cross, but I don’t think they wore it on their chests. There were crosses all over the place during the Inquisition and before that, during the Crusades. So now we have another group that uses crosses and slaughters people. Jarret’s people could be behind it. Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.

Tell me what to do." His warm breath tickled my ear. "Relax." "Please, Noah, I don't want to do this wrong. Tell me how to make you feel good." He shifted so that his body rested beside mine, his leg and arm still draped over me. I felt small under his warmth and strength. His chocolate-brown eyes softened. "Being with you feels good. Touching you-"he tucked a curl behind my ear"-feels good. I have never wanted anyone like I want you. There's nothing you can do wrong when just breathing makes everything right." His hand framed my face and his tone was edget with husky authority. "I want you, but only if you want me." I kissed him back, allowing my arms to wrap around him. His fingers gently massaged my neck, releasing the tension, erasing my unease. The kiss became a drug and i craved more with every touch. Our bodies twined so tightly to one another, i had no idea where i began and he ended. Noah felt strong and warm and muscular and safe and he smelled, oh, God, delicious. I couldn't stop kissing him if my life depend it upon it: his lips, his neck, his chest, and Noah seemed as hungry as me. We rolled and we touched and we shed unwanted clothes. I moaned and he moaned and my mind and soul and body stood on the edge of pure ecstasy. And i waited. I waited for that moment of pausing for protection and the burning pain my friends described, but Noah never stopped and the pain never came, not even when i whispered his name and praise God several times in a row. Both of us gasped for air while kissing each other softly and i struggled to comprehend i was still a virgin. He shifted off of me and tugged me close to him. My entire body became lazily warm, happy and sated. I listened to his heartbeat and closed my eyes, enjoying the relaxing pull of his hand in my hair. "Noah," i whispered. "I thought..." we were going to make love. He tipped my chin, forcing me to look at him. "We have forever to work up to that, Echo. Let's enjoy every step of the way." My mind drifted this way and that. Mostly between focusing on his heart, his touch and the sweetest word i had ever heard: forever. One clear thought forced my eyes open. "You 're putting me to sleep." "So?" he asked a little too innocently. I swallowed. "I'll have nightmares." "Then we 'll have an excuse to do this again.

Don't depend on anyone too much in this world because even your shadow leaves behind in darkness...

Meg, and altogether too much of a weathercock just now for anyone to depend on. Don’t make plans, Jo,

It's not a bit strange,' I tell her. 'Davey's thinking of taking up shooting as a hobby, so he wants to go check out the rifle range and he asked me if I'd like to go with him.' Kayla snorts. 'Are you kidding me? He should be checking you out - not the rifle range! No way is that a date.' I go to the one person I know I can depend on. 'It is a date, isn't it, Reggie?' 'S'pose it all depends on how it goes,' he says. 'If you have a good time, come home happy, then it's a date.' 'Okay.' 'But if he shoots yer, it wasn't a date - it was an ambush.' 'Reggie! That's mean!' 'You know I'm only kiddin', Tiffy. He puts his arms out and I gladly fall into them. 'Don't worry about what anyone says, luv. It's a date.

I know it must seem completely idiotic to you," Maddie said, hoping to coax at least a grunt from her, "hiring a date to your only sister's wedding and all." Louise slowly nodded. "I mean, who does such things nowadays, right? Women don't need men for anything. Well, they do need them for one thing. But that's all—and, really, debatable depending on your sexual orientation.

The following brief points are like magic moccasins. They guarantee safe guidance through the forest of people. To walk safely, wear them! 1. The most persuasive power you have toward others is a mature self. 2. The mark of greatness is to be superior without feeling superior. 3. "The consciousness of being loved softens the keenest pang." (Joseph Addison) 4. The turning point in all your exterior relations comes when you start changing your inner self. 5. Strong people attract the weak. 6. Possessiveness and dependency are not states of love. 7. Your own level of being attracts the kind of people who enter your life. 8. "He is happy as well as great who needs neither to obey nor command in order to be something." (Goethe) 9. Your True Self cannot be afraid of anyone. 10. You break the cord of painful thought toward another person by snipping the connection within your own mind. 11. It is very painful to pretend to be someone. 12. Any sincere effort at bettering your human relations returns a reward. 13. Don't drain your energy by thinking negatively toward people who harm you. 14. You get along with others to the exact degree that you get along with yourself. 15. A real person stands out like a human being among statues.

we're looking for a planeet on the strength of a song. it's crazy I know, but its the only chance we have to do something useful." ...Evan Wilson said gravely "I think you're as crazy as Heinrich Schliemann - and you know what happened to him!" "What" ... "you don't know what happened to him?" she asked her blue eyes widening in astonishment."Ever read Homer's Iliad, Captain?" ... "I don't know what translation you read Doctor, but there was no Heinrich Schliemann in mine - or in the Odyssey." "That depends on how you look at it." smiling she settled back into her chair and went on,"Heinrich Schliemann was from Earth, pre-federation days, and he read Homer too. No, not just read him, believed him. So he set out at his own expense-mind you, I doubt he could have found anyone else to fund such a crazy endeavor - to find Troy, a city that most of the educated people of his time considered pure invention on Homer's part." "And?" "And he found it. Next time you're on earth, stop by the Troy Museum. the artifacts are magnificent, and every one of them was found on the strength of a song.

If you could design a new structure for Camp Half-Blood what would it be? Annabeth: I’m glad you asked. We seriously need a temple. Here we are, children of the Greek gods, and we don’t even have a monument to our parents. I’d put it on the hill just south of Half-Blood Hill, and I’d design it so that every morning the rising sun would shine through its windows and make a different god’s emblem on the floor: like one day an eagle, the next an owl. It would have statues for all the gods, of course, and golden braziers for burnt offerings. I’d design it with perfect acoustics, like Carnegie Hall, so we could have lyre and reed pipe concerts there. I could go on and on, but you probably get the idea. Chiron says we’d have to sell four million truckloads of strawberries to pay for a project like that, but I think it would be worth it. Aside from your mom, who do you think is the wisest god or goddess on the Olympian Council? Annabeth: Wow, let me think . . . um. The thing is, the Olympians aren’t exactly known for wisdom, and I mean that with the greatest possible respect. Zeus is wise in his own way. I mean he’s kept the family together for four thousand years, and that’s not easy. Hermes is clever. He even fooled Apollo once by stealing his cattle, and Apollo is no slouch. I’ve always admired Artemis, too. She doesn’t compromise her beliefs. She just does her own thing and doesn’t spend a lot of time arguing with the other gods on the council. She spends more time in the mortal world than most gods, too, so she understands what’s going on. She doesn’t understand guys, though. I guess nobody’s perfect. Of all your Camp Half-Blood friends, who would you most like to have with you in battle? Annabeth: Oh, Percy. No contest. I mean, sure he can be annoying, but he’s dependable. He’s brave and he’s a good fighter. Normally, as long as I’m telling him what to do, he wins in a fight. You’ve been known to call Percy “Seaweed Brain” from time to time. What’s his most annoying quality? Annabeth: Well, I don’t call him that because he’s so bright, do I? I mean he’s not dumb. He’s actually pretty intelligent, but he acts so dumb sometimes. I wonder if he does it just to annoy me. The guy has a lot going for him. He’s courageous. He’s got a sense of humor. He’s good-looking, but don’t you dare tell him I said that. Where was I? Oh yeah, so he’s got a lot going for him, but he’s so . . . obtuse. That’s the word. I mean he doesn’t see really obvious stuff, like the way people feel, even when you’re giving him hints, and being totally blatant. What? No, I’m not talking about anyone or anything in particular! I’m just making a general statement. Why does everyone always think . . . agh! Forget it. Interview with GROVER UNDERWOOD, Satyr What’s your favorite song to play on the reed pipes?

I can see that your thoughts are deeper than you yourself are able to express. But since this is so, you know, don't you, that you've never lived what you are thinking and that isn't good. Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value. You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world and you tried to suppress the second half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think." This went straight to my heart. "But there are forbidden and ugly things in the world!" I almost shouted. "You can't deny that. And they are forbidden, and we must renounce them. Of course I know that murder and all kinds of vices exist in the world but should I become a criminal just because they exist?" "We won't be able to find all the answers today," Max soothed me. "Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached the point where you can understand the actual meaning of 'permitted' and 'forbidden.' You've only sensed part of the truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had to struggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered 'forbidden.' The Greeks and many other peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts. What is forbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon as he's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. That is why each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden -forbidden for him. It's possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.

I'll fix things up with George soon as she gets here," Anthony mumbled. "You may depend upon it." "Oh,I know you will, but you'll have to hie yourself back to London to do so, since she ain't coming here. Didn't want to inflict her dour mood on the festivities, so decided it ould be best to absent herself." Anthony looked appalled now and complained, "You didn't say she was that mad." "Didn't I? Think you're wearing that black eye just because she's a mite annoyed?" "That will do," Jason said sternly. "This entire situation is intolerable.And frankly, I find it beyond amazing that you have both utterly lost your finesse in dealing ith women since you married." That,of course, hit quite below the belt where these two ex[rakes were concerned. "Ouch," James muttered, then in his own defense, "American women are an exception to any known rule, and bloody stubbron besides." "So are Scots,for that matter," Anthony added. "They just don't behave like normal Enlgishwomen,Jason,indeed they don't." "Regardless.You know my feelings on the entire family gathering here for Christmas.This is not the time for anyone in the family to be harboring any ill will of any sort.You both should have patched this up before the holidays began. See that you do so immediately, if you both have to return to London to do so." Having said his peace, Jason headed for the door to leave his brothers to mull over their conduct,or rather, misconduct, but added before he left, "You both look like bloody panda bears.D'you have any idea what kind of example that sets for the children?" "Panda bears indeed," Anthony snorted as soon as the door closed. James looked up to reply drolly, "Least the roof is still intact.

Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.

We all know many people who come from hard-working families, where they had to grow up with a bare minimum and become self-sufficient and independent at a very young age. We look at them now and see responsible citizens, self-reliant adults, successful members of the business community, outstanding performers, and just happy people. Yes, they’re happy, because they know the meaning of labor, they appreciate the pleasure of leisure, they value relationships with others, and they respect themselves. In contrast, there are people who come from wealthy families, had nannies to do everything for them, went to private schools where they were surrounded with special attention, never did their own laundry, never learned how to cook an omelet for themselves, never even gained the essential skills of unwinding on their own before bedtime, and of course, never did anything for anyone else either. You look at their adult life and see how dependent they are on others and how unhappy they are because of that. They need someone to constantly take care of them. They may see no meaning in their life as little things don’t satisfy them, because they were spoiled at a very young age. They may suffer a variety of eating disorders, use drugs, alcohol and other extremes in search of satisfaction and comfort. And, above all, in search of themselves.

While I do not want anyone to miss out on possibly living forever with God, I have come to realize that the Christian life is a marathon. People grow in their faith at different paces depending on their own circumstances in life. The key is to share, love, and encourage people to put their faith in Christ, and when they don’t respond, we simply offer a place of forgiveness to come back to if or when their heart changes. We do not judge or police those who choose not to accept Christ, but we wish them the best of luck. They’re going to need it.

What happens when you hit your daughter. First, she will bond to you out of fear, mistakenly thinking she has done something wrong, and if she can just manage to not do it again or somehow please you, you might not hit her or anyone else anymore. She will even think you will love her properly if she can earn your approval. She won't realize this is impossible. Then she will either do that with every man she comes within 100 feet of for the rest of her life or until she learns not to - this will take much doing - or she will despise them with such vehemence that she can barely stomach one around. Sometimes she will do a combination of both of those things, working herself into a pattern of push and pull - I love you, I hate you, I need you, I don't need anyone - that will drive her a little crazy. She won't understand at first, if ever, why she only attracts other masochists. Whatever numbing agent she's picked for herself - she will probably try drugs, drink too much alcohol, starve herself or binge and purge, maybe cut herself, act out sexually - in fact, she may do all of those things - that continues to help kill her spirit and dulls her enough to keep her participating in living like a maniac will be consumed to varying degrees depending on need. She will be more likely to commit suicide than if you hadn't abused her. She will give herself away and will mistake admiration and infatuation and sometimes even abuse for love.

I don't want to need anyone. I want to stand on my own two feet. I want control of my own life and my own emotions. I don't want to be a branch in someone else's life anymore–I want to be the tree on my own. I want all the strength to come from me. I don't want to depend on anyone for anything ever again.

Hi, Commander. On the anniversary of what you did, I just wanted to say thank you. This is my daughter, Dalycia. I don’t know if you remember me or not, but I’m the woman you saved from that psycho, and this is the daughter I had six weeks later. Say hi, Dalycia. (Woman) Hi, Commander. Thank you for saving my mommy and me. I drew this for you to say thank you. See, it’s you saving us, and we’re all happy ‘cause we’re alive and the bad man isn’t. (Dalycia) (All of a sudden, he snarled in outrage and threw the frame against the wall, shattering it into a thousand pieces.) Adron! (Livia) What? Did you think showing me that shit would make all of this okay? Did you think I’d look at them, then cry and say how grateful I am they live while I’m trapped like this? What about the children I wanted to have, Livia? I can’t even have sex without spending a month in the hospital, or dying from it. All I want is five fucking seconds where I’m not trying to breathe through absolute agony. Five seconds where I can move and not ache to the marrow of my bones. I’m only thirty-five years old, and all I have to look forward to is a future where I’ll slowly, painfully disintegrate into an invalid who can’t even wipe his own ass. Do you really think I’m okay with being dependent on you or anyone else? I was an assassin, and now I have less mobility than a withered-up hundred-year-old man. I’m nothing but a worthless piece of shit who should have died that night. And them telling me how grateful they are doesn’t make this okay with me. It never will. (Adron)

7. Character is built in the course of your inner confrontation. Character is a set of dispositions, desires, and habits that are slowly engraved during the struggle against your own weakness. You become more disciplined, considerate, and loving through a thousand small acts of self-control, sharing, service, friendship, and refined enjoyment. If you make disciplined, caring choices, you are slowly engraving certain tendencies into your mind. You are making it more likely that you will desire the right things and execute the right actions. If you make selfish, cruel, or disorganized choices, then you are slowly turning this core thing inside yourself into something that is degraded, inconstant, or fragmented. You can do harm to this core thing with nothing more than ignoble thoughts, even if you are not harming anyone else. You can elevate this core thing with an act of restraint nobody sees. If you don’t develop a coherent character in this way, life will fall to pieces sooner or later. You will become a slave to your passions. But if you do behave with habitual self-discipline, you will become constant and dependable. 8. The things that lead us astray are short term—lust, fear, vanity, gluttony. The things we call character endure over the long term—courage, honesty, humility. People with character are capable of a long obedience in the same direction, of staying attached to people and causes and callings consistently through thick and thin. People with character also have scope. They are not infinitely flexible, free-floating, and solitary. They are anchored by permanent attachments to important things. In the realm of the intellect, they have a set of permanent convictions about fundamental truths. In the realm of emotion, they are enmeshed in a web of unconditional loves. In the realm of action, they have a permanent commitment to tasks that cannot be completed in a single lifetime.

Equally disagreeable is the man who, when leaving in the middle of the night, takes care to fasten the cord of his headdress. This is quite unnecessary; he could perfectly well put it gently on his head without tying the cord. And why must he spend time adjusting his cloak or hunting costume? Does he really think that someone may see him at this time of night and criticize him for not being impeccably dressed? A good lover will behave as elegantly at dawn as at any other time. He drags himself out of bed with a look of dismay on his face. The lady urges him on: “Come, my friend, it’s getting light. You don’t want anyone to find you here.” He gives a deep sigh, as if to say that the night has not been nearly long enough and that it is agony to leave. Once up, he does not instantly pull on his trousers. Instead, he comes close to the lady and whispers whatever was left unsaid during the night. Even when he is dressed, he still lingers, vaguely pretending to be fastening his sash. Presently he raises the lattice, and the two lovers stand together by the side door while he tells her how he dreads the coming day, which will keep them apart; then he slips away. The lady watches him go, and this moment of parting will remain among her most charming memories. Indeed, one’s attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking. When he jumps out of bed, scurries about the room, tightly fastens his trouser-sash, rolls up the sleeves of his Court cloak, over-robe, or hunting costume, stuffs his belongings into the breast of his robe and then briskly secures the outer sash—one really begins to hate him.

Entrepreneurs are everywhere. You don’t have to work in a garage to be in a startup. The concept of entrepreneurship includes anyone who works within my definition of a startup: a human institution designed to create new products and services under conditions of extreme uncertainty. That means entrepreneurs are everywhere and the Lean Startup approach can work in any size company, even a very large enterprise, in any sector or industry. 2. Entrepreneurship is management. A startup is an institution, not just a product, and so it requires a new kind of management specifically geared to its context of extreme uncertainty. In fact, as I will argue later, I believe “entrepreneur” should be considered a job title in all modern companies that depend on innovation for their future growth. 3. Validated learning. Startups exist not just to make stuff, make money, or even serve customers. They exist to learn how to build a sustainable business. This learning can be validated scientifically by running frequent experiments that allow entrepreneurs to test each element of their vision. 4. Build-Measure-Learn. The fundamental activity of a startup is to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere. All successful startup processes should be geared to accelerate that feedback loop. 5. Innovation accounting. To improve entrepreneurial outcomes and hold innovators accountable, we need to focus on the boring stuff: how to measure progress, how to set up milestones, and how to prioritize work. This requires a new kind of accounting designed for startups—and the people who hold them accountable.

I hate your kind." "Because someone like me made you?" He laughs again. "I'm surprised you aren't more pleased to meet me. You're as close as anyone ever comes to meeting God. Come now, don't you have any questions for God?" Emiko scowls at him, nods at the cheshires. "If you were my God, you would have made New People first." The old gaijin laughs. "That would have been exciting." "We would have beaten you. Just like the cheshires." "You may yet." He shrugs. "You do not fear cibiscosis or blister rust." "No." Emiko shakes her head. "We cannot breed. We depend on you for that." She moves her hand. Telltale stutter-stop motion. "I am marked. Always, we are marked. As obvious as a ten-hands or a megodont." He waves a hand dismissively. "The windup movement is not a required trait. There is no reason it couldn't be removed. Sterility. . ." He shrugs. "Limitations can be stripped away. The safeties are there because of lessons learned, but they are not required; some of them even make it more difficult to create you. Nothing about you is inevitable." He smiles. "Someday, perhaps, all people will be New People and you will look back on us as we now look back at the poor Neanderthals." Emiko falls silent. The fire crackles. Finally she says, "You know how to do this? Can make me breed true, like the cheshires?" The old man exchanges a glance with his ladyboy. "Can you do it?" Emiko presses. He sighs. "I cannot change the mechanics of what you already are. Your ovaries are non-existent. You cannot be made fertile any more than the pores of your skin supplemented." Emiko slumps. The man laughs. "Don't look so glum! I was never much enamored with a woman's eggs as a source of genetic material anyway." He smiles. "A strand of your hair would do. You cannot be changed, but your children—in genetic terms, if not physical ones—they can be made fertile, a part of the natural world." Emiko feels her heart pounding. "You can do this, truly?" "Oh yes. I can do that for you." The man's eyes are far away, considering. A smile flickers across his lips. "I can do that for you, and much, much more.

I put on my sunglasses and start to sing “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” from The Sound of Music. “You need someone older and wiser, telling you what to do.” I tap him on the nose for emphasis. “Hey, I’m older than you,” he objects. I run my hand along Peter’s cheek and sing, “I am seventeen going on eighteen, I-I-I’ll take care of you.” “Promise?” he says. “Sing it just once for me,” I prompt. Peter gives me a look. “Please? I love it when you sing. Your voice is so clean.” He can’t help but smile. Peter never met a compliment he didn’t smile at. “I don’t know the words,” he protests. “Yes you do.” I pretend to wave a wand in his face. “Imperio! Wait--do you know what that means?” “It’s…an unforgivable curse?” “Yes. Very impressive, Peter K. And what does it do?” “It makes you do things you don’t want to do.” “Very good, young wizard. There’s hope for you yet. Now sing!” “You little witch.” He looks around to see if anyone is listening, and then he softly sings, “I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do…You are seventeen going on eighteen…I’ll depend on you.” I clap my hands in delight. Is there anything more intoxicating than making a boy bend to your will? I roll closer to him and throw my arms around his neck. “Now you’re the one making PDAs!” he says.

What do we know about our parents, and what do they know about us? And if we don't even know the individuals who have accompanied us since birth - we not them and they not us - then what do we know about anyone at all?Don't I have to imagine, from that perspective, that anyone is capable of anything, even the most heinous crime? On what or whom, on which truths, can one ultimately depend? Are there individuals I can trust unconditionally? Can there ever be such a person?

Who cheats? Well, just about anyone, if the stakes are right. You might say to yourself, I don’t cheat, regardless of the stakes. And then you might remember the time you cheated on, say, a board game. Last week. Or the golf ball you nudged out of its bad lie. Or the time you really wanted a bagel in the office break room but couldn’t come up with the dollar you were supposed to drop in the coffee can. And then took the bagel anyway. And told yourself you’d pay double the next time. And didn’t. For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it. Cheating may or may not be human nature, but it is certainly a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less. So it isn’t just the boldface names — inside-trading CEOs and pill-popping ballplayers and perkabusing politicians — who cheat. It is the waitress who pockets her tips instead of pooling them. It is the Wal-Mart payroll manager who goes into the computer and shaves his employees’ hours to make his own performance look better. It is the third grader who, worried about not making it to the fourth grade, copies test answers from the kid sitting next to him. Some cheating leaves barely a shadow of evidence. In other cases, the evidence is massive. Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of April 15, and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing the name of each dependent child, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number. Suddenly, seven million children — children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year’s 1040 forms — vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States.

If I just ask for a volunteer, my students sit on their hands and look away. You’ve been there. You can almost feel your back muscles tense as you think, Oh please, don’t call on me. So I don’t ask. Instead, I say, “In case you’re worried about volunteering to role-play with me in front of the class, I want to tell you in advance … it’s going to be horrible.” After the laughter dies down, I then say, “And those of you who do volunteer will probably get more out of this than anyone else.” I always end up with more volunteers than I need.

Then we’re kissing right there in front of everyone. And nothing else seems to matter. Certainly not etiquette, or what anyone else thinks. It’s only his lips on mine, the pressure gentle. It’s only us. And I can’t stop— Which is when Derrick arrives out of thin air and careens into my shoulder in a mess of wings and limbs. “Hellooooo! Don’t mind me, I’m just interrupting your brazen cuddle to steal the lady for a few minutes.” Oh, damnation, not now. I’m really regretting not giving Derrick that extra five minutes. “Derrick,” I say through clenched teeth. I step back from Kiaran and try to control the pixie’s wriggling body in my hair. “Not—” “My god.” Derrick collapses on my shoulder. “I am full of pie. I can barely even move my wings. I—” He squints over at Kiaran and smiles in delight. “Oh, hulloooooo, villainous wastrel!” Kiaran is clearly not impressed. “You’ve a bit of pastry on your jacket.” Derrick swipes at the morsel, snatches it, and eats it. “Was just saving a wee snack for later.” He giggles. For god’s sake. I look pleadingly at Kiaran. “Just . . . save that thought. Don’t go anywhere.” I’d like to resume the kissing. “I’ll be right back—” “Kiaraaaaaaaaaan.” Derrick giggles. “Or would you prefer I keep villainous wastrel? I never asked.” Kiaran arches an eyebrow. “I suppose that depends. Would you prefer pain in my arse?” Derrick bursts into laughter. “Arse! Aileana. He said arse.” “Hell,” I mutter. “Will you excuse me for a moment?” I don’t wait for Kiaran’s response. I take Derrick with me to the lift and don’t say anything until I reach the fourth floor. “Let me just say, if someone gave you honey, I’ll—” “No, no, no,” Derrick says, gliding off my shoulder. He now looks suspiciously lucid. “You said to save you after twenty-five minutes. So I did.” “I said to save me if I was around Daniel and in obvious distress.” Not when I’m kissing someone in obvious delight. “Firstly, I was the one in distress watching you kiss Kiaran because ughhhh.” Derrick wags a finger at me. “And secondly, you never said anything about distress, you said—” “Forget what I said.” I narrow my eyes. “Are you telling me that down there was all an act?” He grins. “I would have been perfect in the theater, wouldn’t you say?” “Good heavens,” I murmur. At least I don’t have to deal with a drunk pixie. “Let’s just check the wards, all right

But there’s never been anyone? Really?” Sarah shrugs. “Penny and I were tutored at home when we were young . . . but in year ten, there was this one boy.” I rub my hands together. “Here we go—tell me everything. I want all the sick, lurid details. Was he a footballer? Big and strong, captain of the team, the most popular boy in school?” I could see it. Sarah’s delicate, long and lithe, but dainty, beautiful—any young man would’ve been desperate to have her on his arm. In his lap. In his bed, on the hood of his car, riding his face . . . all of the above. “He was captain of the chess team.” I cover my eyes with my hand. “His name was Davey. He wore these adorable tweed jackets and bow ties, he had blond hair, and was a bit pale because of the asthma. He had the same glasses as I and he had a different pair of argyle socks for every day of the year.” “You’re messing with me, right?” She shakes her head. “Argyle socks, Sarah? I am so disappointed in you right now.” “He was nice,” she chides. “You leave my Davey alone.” Then she laughs again—delighted and free. My cock reacts hard and fast, emphasis on hard. It’s like sodding granite. “So what happened to old Davey boy?” “I was alone in the library one day and he came up and started to ask me to the spring social. And I was so excited and nervous I could barely breathe.” I picture how she must’ve looked then. But in my mind’s eyes she’s really not any different than she is right now. Innocent, sweet, and so real she couldn’t deceive someone if her life depended on it. “And then before he could finish the question, I . . .” I don’t realize I’m leaning toward her until she stops talking and I almost fall over. “You . . . what?” Sarah hides behind her hands. “I threw up on him.” And I try not to laugh. I swear I try . . . but I’m only human. So I end up laughing so hard the car shakes and I can’t speak for several minutes. “Christ almighty.” “And I’d had fish and chips for lunch.” Sarah’s laughing too. “It was awful.” “Oh you poor thing.” I shake my head, still chuckling. “And poor Davey.” “Yes.” She wipes under her eyes with her finger. “Poor Davey. He never came near me again after that.” “Coward—he didn’t deserve you. I would’ve swam through a whole lake of puke to take a girl like you to the social.” She smiles so brightly at me, her cheeks maroon and round like two shiny apples. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” I wiggle my eyebrows. “I’m all about the compliments.

Like anyone would fall in love that fast. It’s the whole clichéd love-at-first-sight bit, right?” Vince said. “So, you don’t believe in love at first sight?” I asked him. “What, you do?” Shawn piped up. I tapped my pen for a second. On the spot again. I could tell him my opinion on the matter was irrelevant, but I decided to pursue the question. “I suppose that depends on a number of factors, not the least of which is knowing yourself well enough to understand what type of person you’re looking for,” I said. “If you know which qualities you admire most in someone, you’re more likely to recognize that person when you meet her…or him. I prefer to call it recognition at first sight.” I avoided looking at Aubrey, but I had to meet her eyes as she posed another question. “In your opinion, what are the other factors contributing to this recognition at first sight, Daniel?” she asked casually. All eyes were on me. “Frame of mind, I suppose. There are times when you simply couldn’t fall in love if you tried because you’re not in the right place in your life. The conditions surrounding the actual meeting might also hold some sway. Certain circumstances seem to set the scene for emotional vulnerability, and you get swept away in the moment.

They will eat him alive. On his current course, Henry will fail spectacularly.” My chest constricts so tight it feels like my bones may crack. Because she’s right. “He won’t.” “You don’t know that,” she swipes back. “I damn well do! I never would have abdicated otherwise.” “What?” “Don’t mistake me—I wouldn’t have married anyone but Olivia, and I would’ve waited a lifetime if I had to, until the laws were changed. But I didn’t because I knew in my heart and soul that Henry will not just be a good king, he will be better than I ever could’ve been.” For a moment I don’t breathe. I can’t. The shock of my brother’s words has knocked the air right out of my lungs. Granny’s too, if her whisper is any indication. “You truly believe that?” “Absolutely. And, frankly, I’m disheartened that you don’t.” “Henry has never been one to rise to the occasion,” she states plainly. “He’s never needed to,” my brother insists. “He’s never been asked—not once in his whole life. Until now. And he will not only rise to the occasion . . . he will soar beyond it.” The Queen’s voice is hushed, like she’s in prayer. “I want to believe that. More than I can say. Lend me a bit of your faith, Nicholas. Why are you so certain?” Nicholas’s voice is rough, tight with emotion. “Because . . . he’s just like Mum.” My eyes close when the words reach my ears. Burning and wet. There’s no greater compliment—not to me—not ever. But, Christ, look at me . . . it’s not even close to true. “He’s exactly like her. That way she had of knowing just what a person needed—whether it was strength or guidance, kindness or comfort or joy—and effortlessly giving it to them. The way people used to gravitate to her . . . at parties, the whole room would shift when she walked in . . . because everyone wanted to be nearer to her. She had a light, a talent, a gift—it doesn’t matter what it’s called—all that matters is that Henry has it too. He doesn’t see it in himself, but I do. I always have.” There’s a moment of quiet and I imagine Nicholas leaning in closer to the Queen. “The people would have followed me or Dad for the same reason they follow you—because we are dependable, solid. They trust our judgment; they know we would never let them down. But they will follow Henry because they love him. They’ll see in him their son, brother, best friend, and even if he mucks it up now, they will stick with him because they will want him to succeed. I would have been respected and admired, but Grandmother . . . he will be beloved. And if I have learned anything since the day Olivia came into my life, it’s that more than reasoning or duty, honor or tradition . . . love is stronger.

No, pardon me, I consider myself and people like me aristocrats: people who can point back to three or four honourable generations of their family, all with a high standard of education (talent and intelligence are a different matter), who have never cringed before anyone, never depended on anyone, but have lived as my father and my grandfather did. I know many such. You consider it mean for me to count the trees in my wood while you give Ryabinin thirty thousand roubles; but you will receive a Goernment grant and I don't know what other award, and I shan't, so I value what is mine by birth and labour... We - and not those who only manage to exist by the bounty of the mighty of this world, and who can be bought for a piece of silver - are the aristocrats. -Levin

To lovers out there …. Some people think being single means purity. It means you are a good , innocent person. It means that you are doing better in life, and everything is good. It means you are a strong person. You can manage everything that you don’t need anyone in your life. Having someone it doesn’t mean you are incapable, weak, vulnerable and you are dependent. Being in a relationship with the right person. It is life changing. It is the best thing that everyone should hope for. Two is always better than one. It is twice of everything good, with less effort, strength and time. Being single and alone should not be by choice, but should be circumstantial . Love it is a powerful and beautiful thing . You can benefit a lot from it and it can do lot of things for you.

When I was eighteen I started to photograph. I became social and started drinking and wanted to remember the details of what happened. For years, I thought I was obsessed with the record-keeping of my day-to-day life. But recently, I've realized my motivation has deeper roots: I don't really remember my sister. In the process of leaving my family, in recreating myself, I lost the real memory of my sister. I remember my version of her, of the things she said, of the things she meant to me. But I don't remember the tangible sense of who she was, her presence, what her eyes looked like, what her voice sounded like. I don't ever want to be susceptible to anyone else's version of my history. I don't ever want to lose the real memory of anyone again. This book is dedicated to the real memory of my sister, Barbara Holly Goldin.

• I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me. (Measure of the secure attachment style) • I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being. (Measure of the avoidant attachment style) • I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person and this desire sometimes scares people away. (Measure of the anxious attachment style)

GET BEYOND THE ONE-MAN SHOW Great organizations are never one-man operations. There are 22 million licensed small businesses in America that have no employees. Forbes suggests 75 percent of all businesses operate with one person. And the average income of those companies is a sad $44,000. That’s not a business—that’s torture. That is a prison where you are both the warden and the prisoner. What makes a person start a business and then be the only person who works there? Are they committed to staying small? Or maybe an entrepreneur decides that because the talent pool is so poor, they can’t hire anyone who can do it as well as them, and they give up. My guess is the latter: Most people have just given up and said, “It’s easier if I just do it myself.” I know, because that’s what I did—and it was suicidal. Because my business was totally dependent on me and only me, I was barely able to survive, much less grow, for the first ten years. Instead I contracted another company to promote my seminars. When I hired just one person to assist me out of my home office, I thought I was so smart: Keep it small. Keep expenses low. Run a tight ship. Bigger isn’t always better. These were the things I told myself to justify not growing my business. I did this for years and even bragged about how well I was doing on my own. Then I started a second company with a partner, a consulting business that ran parallel to my seminar business. This consulting business quickly grew bigger than my first business because my partner hired people to work for us. But even then I resisted bringing other people into the company because I had this idea that I didn’t want the headaches and costs that come with managing people. My margins were monster when I had no employees, but I could never grow my revenue line without killing myself, and I have since learned that is where all my attention and effort should have gone. But with the efforts of one person and one contracted marketing company, I could expand only so much. I know that a lot of speakers and business gurus run their companies as one-man shows. Which means that while they are giving advice to others about how to grow a business, they may have never grown one themselves! Their one-man show is simply a guy or gal going out, collecting a fee, selling time and a few books. And when they are out speaking, the business terminates all activity. I started studying other people and companies that had made it big and discovered they all had lots of employees. The reality is you cannot have a great business if it’s just you. You need to add other people. If you don’t believe me, try to name one truly great business that is successful, ongoing, viable, and growing that doesn’t have many people making it happen. Good luck. Businesses are made of people, not just machines, automations, and technology. You need people around you to implement programs, to add passion to the technology, to serve customers, and ultimately to get you where you want to go. Consider the behemoth online company Amazon: It has more than 220,000 employees. Apple has more than 100,000; Microsoft has around the same number. Ernst & Young has more than 200,000 people. Apple calls the employees working in its stores “Geniuses.” Don’t you want to hire employees deserving of that title too? Think of how powerful they could make your business.

Why is this place called Laitlum?’ asked Melvin suddenly. ‘It means where the hills are set free,’ answered Grace. ‘Yes, but why? Don’t you Khasis have a story for everything?’ ‘I’m sure there is, something about a cruel giant, or evil serpent, or some person caught by spirits and water fairies. But who cares?’ she said, ‘Folk stories are rubbish.’ Chris sipped the rum. ‘Why?’ ‘Because they have nothing to do with the world we live in, they’re not real.’ ‘They might not be real to you, but…’ ‘Look at what’s going on,’ she interrupted. ‘Is there time for folk tales when people are shooting each other across their own town roads?’ ‘Perhaps that’s when they need them most.’ My sister shook her head. ‘Maybe once they taught people something about life, and how to live it but not any more. Now you figure things out for yourself, you can’t depend on anyone else to get you out of shit.

I've read every letter that you've sent me these past two years. In return, I've sent you many form letters, with the hope of one day being able to give you the proper response you deserve. But the more letters you wrote to me, and the more of yourself you gave, the more daunting my task became. I'm sitting beneath a pear tree as I dictate this to you, overlooking the orchards of a friend's estate. I've spent the past few days here, recovering from some medical treatment that has left me physically and emotionally depleted. As I moped about this morning, feeling sorry for myself, it occurred to me, like a simple solution to an impossible problem: today is the day I've been waiting for. You asked me in your first letter if you could be my protege. I don't know about that, but I would be happy to have you join me in Cambridge for a few days. I could introduce you to my colleagues, treat you to the best curry outside India, and show you just how boring the life of an astrophysicist can be. You can have a bright future in the sciences, Oskar. I would be happy to do anything possible to facilitate such a path. It's wonderful to think what would happen if you put your imagination toward scientific ends. But Oskar, intelligent people write to me all the time. In your fifth letter you asked, "What if I never stop inventing?" That question has stuck with me. I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers.But I wish I were a poet. Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, "Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open." I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on? I wish I had made things for life to depend on. What if you never stop inventing? Maybe you're not inventing at all. I'm being called in for breakfast, so I'll have to end this letter here. There's more I want to tell you, and more I want to hear from you. It's a shame we live on different continents. One shame of many. It's so beautiful at this hour. The sun is low, the shadows are long, the air is cold and clean. You won't be awake for another five hours, but I can't help feeling that we're sharing this clear and beautiful morning. Your friend, Stephen Hawking

Solitude is the worst of punishments. It’s like waiting in the Death Row for your last supper and the final blow, the chair or gas or whatever. The utter act of capital punishment, except it’s lasting an eternity. You'd say being alone, single, can have an array of possibilities, positive sides. You'd argue when being approached with such a statement! You'd mention how good it feels to be independent, to have a free choice, not depending on anyone else's opinion. The space in your life, the remote in your hand that is not wrestled for, the cookies, still present in the jar, waiting for you to eat them. The wide bed and the covers just for your own pleasure and usage. I can see you throwing your arguments at me, fighting passionately since you strongly believe that what you say, is the truth. And then, the night falls, devouring your clearly visible assumptions and postulates, making some room for doubt and fright. You hear the silence that grows around you, feel it possessing you from the inside and you don't have time to brace yourself for what's coming. The horrid feeling of incompletion and senseless existence catch you with overpowering force, making your throat shrink and your mind tight. You're scared so much that all seems so dark and eerie. Then, you ask yourself whether it was really you who chose this, who decided upon this unbearable state of utter loneliness. The answer is usually the same. It is always you, always me. Not consciously, but by our choices, we become the pariahs of our own pitiful life. The untouchables. We are the hater and the hated, the victim and the perpetrator in one body, lying to ourselves, blaming everybody else but us for each second of this unthinkable hell, praying in silence to be saved, to be spared from pain and suffering. In the end, you’d rather go barefoot through glowing coals than admit that you’re too scared to ask for love.

Tell me, could you love me?' he asks, seemingly out of nowhere. 'Of course.' I laugh, not sure of the answer I am supposed to give. But the question is so oddly phrased that I can hardly deny him. I love my parents' murderer; I suppose I could love anyone. I'd like to love him. 'I wonder,' he says. 'What would you do for me?' 'I don't know what you mean.' This riddling figure with flinty eyes isn't the Locke who stood on the rooftop of his estate and spoke so gently to me or who chased me, laughing, through its halls. I am not quite sure who this Locke is, but he has put me entirely off balance. 'Would you forswear a promise for me?' He is smiling at me as though he's teasing. 'What promise?' He sweeps me around him, my leather slippers pirouetting over the packed earth. In the distance, a piper begins to play. 'Any promise,' he says lightly, although it is no light thing he is asking. 'I guess it depends,' I say, because the real answer, a flat no, isn't what anyone wants to hear. 'Do you love me enough to give me up?' I am sure my expression is stricken. He leans closer. 'Isn't that a test of love?' 'I- I don't know,' I say. All this must be leading up to some declaration on his part, either of affection or of a lack of it. 'Do you love me enough to weep over me?' The words are spoken against my neck. I can feel his breath, making the tiny hairs stand up, making me shudder with an odd combination of desire and discomfort. 'You mean if you were hurt?' 'I mean if I hurt you.' My skin prickles. I don't like this. But at least I know what to say. 'If you hurt me, I wouldn't cry. I would hurt you back.' His step falters as we sweep over the floor. 'I'm sure you'd-' And then he breaks off speaking, looking behind him. I can barely think. My face is hot. I dread what he will say next. 'Time to change partners,' a voice says, and I look to see that it's the worst possible person: Cardan. 'Oh,' he says to Locke. 'Did I steal your line?

I'll give you a hand with the feeding." "I don't need it." "I'll give you one anyway." Keeley moved out of the box, rested a hand on the door. Best,she decided, to deal with this clean and simple. "Brian, you're working for my family, in a vital and essential role, so I think I should be straight with you." "By all means." The serious tone didn't match the glint in his eyes as she leaned back. "You bother me," she told him. "On some level,you just bother me. It's probably because I just don't care for cocky, intense men who smirk at me, but that's neither here nor there." "No,that's here and it's there. What kind do you care for?" "You see-that's just the sort of thing that annoys me." "I know.It's interesting, isn't it, that I find myself compelled to do just the thing that gets a rise out of you? You bother me as well. Perhaps it's that I don't care for regal, cool-eyed women who look down their lovely noses at me. But here wwe are, so we should try getting on as best we can." "I don't look down my nose at you, or anyone." "Depends on your point of view, doesn't it?

The only way to undo it would be for me to find some way to travel back in time to the moment you first looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. The first time anyone had told me they loved me. The first time someone showed me they loved me. Fuck, Ryan, you were the first person who ever told me they loved a piece of shit like me. Do you know what that does to a person? It changes them. It becomes a part of them. It starts to define who they are and the choices they make. You changed me forever the moment you said those three words to me, and it’s because of those words I’m the man I am today, standing in front of you. I’m who I am because you loved me. So don’t try to tell me you’re not going to hurt me again by letting me get close to you or fall in love with you again. Because I’ve been close to you for the past fourteen years of my life, even when I never saw your face for half of those years. I’ve been in love with you those same fourteen years, and I will die still being in love with you, Ryan Hale. So don’t treat me like my love’s some kind of light switch I can switch on or off depending on my mood. Because my love’s like the goddamned sun. It never goes out.

He kisses me even though I try to raise my hand to stop him. And then I don’t stop him. His lips mold against mine like they’re perfectly shaped for each other. He tastes like mint and smells like himself. I want him to hold me forever. I want him to make everything better. And then I realize this is all wrong. Because the truth is, I’m not really mad at Jamie. I mean, I’m mad that he lied, but I’m not really mad at him. I’m mad because I need him. I need him to be perfect and strong and to protect me from everything in the world that’s terrifying. I need him to hold my hand as I walk through life because it’s so much easier than doing it alone. And needing him is a mistake. I don’t want to need anyone. I want to stand on my own two feet. I want control of my own life and my own emotions. I don’t want to be a branch in someone else’s life anymore—I want to be the tree on my own. I want all the strength to come from me. I don’t want to depend on anyone for anything ever again. I pull my face away from Jamie and it literally hurts so much I have to grip the desk to keep from falling over. I can’t hide from the truth anymore. I let Jamie become my crutch. I let him fill all the voids in my life—family, friendship, love—and it hurts so much to know what I need to do now. Panic is in his eyes. He senses what I’m going to say next. Because even when we’re hurt, we still know each other. We know each other without words.

Rockton is no more Oliver than Churchgrove is Lord Kirkwood,” Lady Minerva said stoutly. “Then why did you steal my name for him?” Oliver asked. “It’s not quite your name, old chap,” Lord Gabriel said. “And you know perfectly well that Minerva likes to tweak your nose from time to time.” “Stop calling me ‘old,’ blast it,” Oliver grumbled. “I’m not some doddering fool.” “How old are you, anyway?” Maria asked him, amused by his vanity. “Thirty-five.” Mrs. Plumtree had said little until now, but apparently the conversation had piqued her interest. “That’s long past the age when a man should marry, don’t you think, Miss Butterfield?” Aware of Oliver’s gaze on her, Maria chose her words carefully. “I suppose it depends on the man. Papa didn’t marry until he was nearly that age. He was too busy fighting in the Revolutionary War to court anyone.” When the blood drained from Mrs. Plumtree’s face, Oliver’s eyes held a glint of triumph. “Ah, yes, the Revolutionary War. Did I forget to mention, Gran, that Mr. Butterfield was a soldier in the Continental Marines?” The table got very quiet. Lady Minerva focused on eating her soup. Lady Celia took several sips of wine, one after another, and Lord Jarret stared into his soup bowl as if it contained the secret to life. The only real sound punctuating the silence was Lord Gabriel’s muttered “bloody hell.” Clearly, there was some undercurrent here that Maria didn’t understand. Oliver was watching his grandmother again like a wolf about to pounce, and Mrs. Plumtree was clearly contemplating which weapon would best hold the wolf at bay. “Uncle Adam was a hero,” Freddy put in, oblivious as usual to undercurrents of any kind. “At the Battle of Princeton, he held off ten of the British until help could arrive. It was just him and his bayonet, slashing and stabbing-“ “Freddy,” Maria chided under her breath, “our hosts are British, remember?

Many of those who have experienced trauma in early childhood grow up to become adults with dysfunctional lives and dysfunctional relationships, never being able to solve such issues within themselves, not even with the help of the best therapists in the world, because the root cause of it has been removed by the institutions in control of mental health training programs, mainstream media and public opinion. And the root cause of all evil, including self-inflicted evil, lays on the capacity to differentiate good from evil, which has helped us survive as a society and as individuals throughout the entirety of human history and up to this day. Once you remove this natural ability from anyone's awareness, no theory, despite the amount of logic and common sense in it, will ever work. As a matter of fact, not many people know what serves their best interest, because they don't even know what is good or evil. They relativize their ignorance to justify their stupidity. And this constitutes a thicker layer on top of their innate capacity to perceive reality. Many problems, including those related to self-esteem, could easily be solved, if one was able of properly differentiating what promotes survival from what leads to death. Whenever a large group of people lacks such capacity, they are promoting a dysfunctional society by default, and in doing so, replicating the same traumas that made them themselves dysfunctional as humans. And that’s how an overall mindset rooted on victimization and justification promotes the power of those in control. One cannot ever be free unless he rebels against his own status quo and towards a higher level of individualization, risking that which he depends the most upon — the respect and acceptance of friends and family. The battle of ego and social validation against ethics, has made many souls captive to a world created to weaken them and blind them. Indeed, it is interesting to see how humanity replicates the tortures of medieval times with more sophisticated weapons, and how wars developed towards a higher degree of abstraction, in order to nullify any resistance, or the mere level of awareness justifying it.

Inflation is not caused by increasing the fiduciary circulation. It begins on the day when the purchaser is obliged to pay, for the same goods, a higher sum than that asked the day before. At that point, one must intervene. Even to Schacht, I had to begin by explaining this elementary truth: that the essential cause of the stability of our currency was to be sought for in our concentration camps. The currency remains stable when the speculators are put under lock and key. I also had to make Schacht understand that excess profits must be removed from economic circulation. I do not entertain the illusion that I can pay for everything out of my available funds. Simply, I've read a lot, and I've known how to profit by the experience of events in the past. Frederick the Great, already, had gradually withdrawn his devaluated thalers from circulation, and had thus re established the value of his currency. All these things are simple and natural. The only thing is, one mustn't let the Jew stick his nose in. The basis of Jewish commercial policy is to make matters incomprehensible for a normal brain. People go into ecstasies of confidence before the science of the great economists. Anyone who doesn't understand is taxed with ignorance! At bottom, the only object of all these notions is to throw everything into confusion. The very simple ideas that happen to be mine have nowadays penetrated into the flesh and blood of millions. Only the professors don't understand that the value of money depends on the goods behind that money. One day I received some workers in the great hall at Obersalzberg, to give them an informal lecture on money. The good chaps understood me very well, and rewarded me with a storm of applause. To give people money is solely a problem of making paper. The whole question is to know whether the workers are producing goods to match the paper that's made. If work does not increase, so that production remains at the same level, the extra money they get won't enable them to buy more things than they bought before with less money. Obviously, that theory couldn't have provided the material for a learned dissertation. For a distinguished economist, the thing is, no matter what you're talking about, to pour out ideas in complicated meanderings and to use terms of Sibylline incomprehensibility.

There are pieces to the puzzle missing,' Camas said. He was tugging his hair; his eyes glowed eerily in the red light from a stained-glass lamp. 'And pieces that don't yet fit. What, for instance, precipitates the shift from city to shadow city? Is it sorcery? Has it to do with the precarious state of affairs in the House of Greve? The powerless heir, the bastard who cannot act? What secrets are hidden within the secret palace? What is there to gain by anticipating and surviving the shift? Domina Pearl believes that it is possible, if one can remain aware during the transformation, to amass enormous knowledge and power. To rule the shadow city when it emerges, since no one else will remember the previous city, and who ruled then. All will be accepted as it is revealed. All of which is why I am so eager to speak with you. You live in Ombria's past, its ghosts and memories. How far back do you remember? Were you alive before the previous shift? How many transformations have there been? Many? One? None at all? How old are you?' The illusion of Faey inclined her head gracefully; Camas continued without listening for answers. Faey spoke then, her voice sliding within, beneath his words. 'What do you expect to gain form what you call the transformation?' Camas interrupted his own sentence with a word. 'Enlightenment. And the power that comes with an unbroken memory of the history of the city. Domina Pearl's knowledge of sorcery may not survive the transformation if she herself is not aware of the shift. I want to stay alive, be aware of the shift form city to shadow, and I will ally myself and my abilities to anyone powerful enough to maintain the integrity of existence, knowledge, memory and experience through the transformation.' 'Such as Domina Pearl?' the sorceress suggested. She kept her voice light, careless, but her eyes were very dark. 'Domina Pearl,' Camas agreed. 'Or you. Or perhaps even Ducon. He is another puzzle piece, I think. He is drawn to the hidden palace, and to the odd, unnoticed places in Ombria where the boundaries are visible between the city and its shadow. He draws them constantly.' 'So you would pledge your loyalty to him or betray him, depending on the moment?' 'Or her. Or you,' Camas answered, nodding briskly. Mag stared at him with wonder. 'Exactly. Depending on the moment.

Why should he treat Elizabeth as if he harbored any feelings for her, including anger? Elizabeth sensed that he was wavering a little, and she pressed home her advantage, using calm reason: “Surely nothing that happened between us should make us behave badly to each other now. I mean, when you think on it, it was noting to us but a harmless weekend flirtation, wasn’t it?” “Obviously.” “Neither of us was hurt, were we?” “No.” “Well then, there’s no reason why we should not be cordial to each other now, is there?” she demanded with a bright, beguiling smile. “Good heavens, if every flirtation ended in enmity, no one in the ton would be speaking to anyone else!” She had neatly managed to put him in the position of either agreeing with her or else, by disagreeing, admitting that she had been something more to him than a flirtation, and Ian realized it. He’d guessed where her calm arguments were leading, but even so, he was reluctantly impressed with how skillfully she was maneuvering him into having to agree with her. “Flirtations,” he reminded her smoothly, “don’t normally end in duels.” “I know, and I am sorry my brother shot you.” Ian was simply not proof against the appeal in those huge green eyes of hers. “Forget it,” he said with an irritated sigh, capitulating to all she was asking. “Stay the seven days.” Suppressing the urge to twirl around with relief, she smiled into his eyes. “Then could we have a truce for the time I’m here?” “That depends.” “On what?” His brows lifted in mocking challenge. “On whether or not you can make a decent breakfast.” “Let’s go in the house and see what we have.” With Ian standing beside her Elizabeth surveyed the eggs and cheese and bread, and then the stove. “I shall fix something right up,” she promised with a smile that concealed her uncertainty. “Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?” Ian asked, but she seemed so eager, and her smile was so disarming, that he almost believed she knew how to cook. “I shall prevail, you’ll see,” she told him brightly, reaching for a wide cloth and tying it around her narrow waist. Her glance was so jaunty that Ian turned around to keep himself from grinning at her. She was obviously determined to attack the project with vigor and determination, and he was equally determined not to discourage her efforts. “You do that,” he said, and he left her alone at the stove.

She lay quiet, looking at the ceiling. 'I wish the peace to come back,' she said. 'He himself is the peace. He comes if we invite him, and stays, if we ask. It's ourselves who wander away.' 'Why do we wander away?' 'Its the old free-will business—we're charmed by the self, by our own pointless self-seeking.' 'What does he want from us?' 'He wants us to ask him into our lives, to give everything over to him, once and for all.' 'I can't imagine.' 'I couldn't either. I heard it preached and talked about all my life. I exegeted Romans and memorized vast amounts of scripture before I was twelve years old, but somehow it went in one ear and out the other—I got the bone, but not the marrow. Long after becoming a priest, I remained terrified of surrendering anything, much less everything. And then one day I did.' 'Why?' 'Because I could no longer bear the separation from him.' She licked her dry lips. 'You said there would be nothing to lose.' 'And everything to gain.' 'I don't wish to be humiliated.' 'By God?' He took the lid from the balm and moistened the swab. 'By anyone, and especially God.' 'God does not humiliate the righteous. He may fire us in the kiln to make us vessels, crush us like grapes so we become wine—but he never humiliates. That is the game of little people.' 'I have always depended on my own resources.' 'God gives us everything, including resources. But without him in our lives, even our resources fail.' He applied the balm. 'Tell me again why the peace comes—and then goes away.' 'His job is to stick with us, no matter what, and it's our job to stay close to him. Draw nigh to me, he says, and I will draw nigh to you. When we wander away, all we need to do is cry out to him, and he draws us back—into his peace, his love, his grace. He doesn't wander, we do.' 'Why must it come to this? Why must our lives be shackled to some so-called being who can't even be seen?' 'But he can be seen. We see him in each other every day. I see him in you.' She closed her eyes, A long breath from her, as if she'd been holding it back. 'I've hurt many people,' she said 'Despair can be passed like a wafer to everyone around us, especially to those close to us. Into the bloodstream it goes, and down along the family line . . . .' 'Such an emptiness,' she said. 'Blaise Pascal . . . said, There's a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can't be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made know through Jesus Christ.' 'I don't wish to go on . . . without the peace . . . .' It was his own surrender he saw in her.

Children who have a wider range of instant heart response have a more efficient feedback system, and this increased efficiency helps them regulate their emotion state: their heart speed up more when they are excited, and slow down more when they are calm Conscious contemplation takes at least half a second, so anyone who even tries to think about how to return a serve will end up endlessly watching the ball fly by. Their goal is not necessarily to be first but to be just right. An unwanted message might lead us to make a decision too quickly, even if we do not realize it. The greatest comedians are masters of delay most of us could become better communicators without changing a word we say - just by saying some of those words a little bit faster The two most important elements of a relationship are chemistry and compatibility, and a photo won't help you with either Time-based theory of conflict, derived from Sun Tzu, in which the crucial insights for a fighter come in stages: first, observe the rapidly changing environment; second, orient yourself based on these observations, process the disorder, and understand when and how your opponent might become confused; third, decide what to do; and finally, act quickly at just the right moment, when your opponent is most vulnerable. active procrastination is smart: it simply means managing delay, putting of projects that really don't need to be done right away passive procrastination is dumb, equivalent to laziness. This group says proscrastination might be a good or bad, depending on how much effort we put into it.

Everyone on this estate is struggling to survive- and we're all depending on your brother, who's trying to solve problems that he had no hand in creating. But instead of doing something to help, you've chosen to drink yourself silly and totter around like a selfish lumping idiot-" Her throat worked around an angry sob, and she swallowed it down before continuing quietly. "Go back to London. You're of no use to anyone here. Blame me if you like. Tell Lord Trenear that I was too much of a bitch to tolerate. He'll have no difficulty accepting that." Turning, she walked away from him, throwing a few last words over her shoulder. "Perhaps someday you'll find someone who can save you from excesses. Personally, I don't believe you're worth the effort.

The classic chutneys are coriander, mint, and chili. Everyone makes those chutneys, and oh yes, let's not forget the tamarind chutney that every Indian restaurant will serve in watery portions. But I don't want to make or eat classic chutneys. I was lucky Mama had dried apricot in that pantry of hers. My God, but she has stuff in there. She even has a small bottle of red caviar. Mama would never eat caviar ("Raw fish eggs? Why would anyone want to eat that?"), but it's there nevertheless along with the now indispensable bottle of chipotle chili peppers. Soaking the apricots in water seemed a good way to make them mushy but soaking them in sugar water seemed like an even better idea. It would make the chutney sweet. Surveying the fridge, my eye caught the ginger. Mama buys big chunks of ginger. Lots of garlic and ginger in her food. Maybe not garlic in the chutney, but definitely ginger. Lots of ginger for a sharp tangy taste. What else? I saw the mint. Mama's prized little herb pot. Tearing away the mint, ah, now that was a special treat. Anything else? Of course, the chipotle chili peppers to give the chutney a smoky flavor. Take the apricot, ginger, garlic, peppers, and salt (I added the apricot syrup in small quantities as well, depending upon how liquid I wanted the chutney to be, not too liquid) and blend it to a pulp. The chutney is best savored when licked from a plate!

A Piece of Advice « At all times and in all situations, examine your mindstream moment by moment: are thoughts positive or negative? When you recognize a thought to have negative content, be aware of its potential for harm and lay it aside. This is crucial. Otherwise, when craving or other negative thoughts start to take shape, if you let them take hold, who knows where you’ll wind up in the end? You may not care about becoming a great scholar, but at least do your best to generate goodwill toward others and steadfast devotion to the Three Jewels. Your future rebirths stretch out ahead much farther than this one life. The circumstances of those lifetimes will depend on your current aspirations, positive or negative. Don’t jeopardize your future lives by seeking fame and status in this life. The rest of this life will depend on how stable your virtuous aspirations are. See if you can transform your mindstream through the teachings. You have come to a fork in the road: one path goes up, the other down. If you wait till you’re on your deathbed to make your choice, you’ll be out of luck. Whether others have good or bad qualities is hard to know. Whether others applaud you or criticize you, you need to turn away from both craving praise and avoiding blame. Though you may not accomplish great acts of merit, at least avoid evil actions, great or small. Stop thinking badly of other beings. Don’t speak ill of anyone, because you never know when the person you malign might be a sublime being. In terms of food, clothes, and other material things, be content with what you’ve got and just stay put. Otherwise, one day you’ll end up a nuisance in everyone’s eyes, a show-off in robes who just rambles on from one valley to the next, sniffing around like a stray dog. Don’t do that! — Written by Patrul. May it bring virtue!

RETURN BAD FRUIT Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Matthew 7:20 This Scripture applies to politicians as well as anyone. What really amazes me, though, is how little this wisdom ever gets applied. Liberal policies in this country can be linked directly to an almost unbelievable breakdown of the traditional family, to a corruption of our culture to the point that it’s often unwise to leave a child at home with the television remote control (that wasn’t a problem when I was a kid), to a national debt of astronomical proportions that will burden Americans for generations to come, to a heightening of racial division and racial politics, to rising crime and attacks on police, to welfare dependency, to bureaucrats who snip away at our freedom, to attempts to weaken our military . . . really, the list of evils that can legitimately be linked to liberal policies is endless. And yet liberals keep pushing the same snake oil of big government, high taxes, foreign policy weakness, an apparently endless sexual revolution, and cowardly political correctness, and all too often they get elected. Part of that is because too many people like us don’t pay enough attention. We don’t look at the fruits of feel-good, sound-good policies. And a lot of the time we don’t even vote. The Left wants to fundamentally transform America—that means to take us away from our Christian and constitutional principles. I don’t know about you, but I like the fruits of our Founding Fathers’ ideals that are based on time-tested truths and have proved to be infinitely better than the fruits of modern liberalism. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, resolve to vote elected representatives bearing bad fruit out of office. That’s your right!

PARTIES, CONFERENCES AND NETWORKING EVENTS. You’ve got to be honest with yourself; this was the actual lesson you’ve been dreading, only if you are a natural extrovert, there are some things that are more stressful than going to parties and other networking activities. Today is going to be a bit tough, so you are going to have to be tougher. This is where all the lessons you’ve learnt so far will pay off. When you’re in a party, a conference or networking event, you are likely to hold one of four possible roles. How you react to the event will depend on this role. The possibilities include: Host/Greeter. Guest. Networker. Support. People will definitely come to you if you’re in the first category, making introduction moderately easy and opportunities for small talk plentiful. You may be in charge of giving a presentation or attending to a table at a convention or any similar event. Make sure to create eye contact and smile at strangers to acknowledge them, someone will approach you in no time. Topics that may outstand may include how successful the turnout was or other positive factors that craved out of the event. If you happen to be a guest or a visitor, the challenge is on you to approach and kick start conversations. The golden rule for breaking ice at events and starting small talks ate networking arena are remarkably the same. You have to keep one thing in mind; everyone attends a party with the intention of meeting a new person and talking with them. So, if you find out that your introduction is not so much an imposition as making it up to meet new people, you will find it much compelling and easy. Your best topics in this case are basically probing enquires about what brings your other party to the event and if you have mutual acquaintances. Your own work as a networker is a little bit different from being a host or guest. As a networker, you have to join groups, or even groups of groups in a cohesive way. You may need to go in to many conversations in the middle. The best way to go about this is to smile or enthusiastically go with something that was just said. When this is done, be careful not to shoehorn your conversation topics in to small talks, but try to carefully merge in to each of them as if you’re approaching from a highway on- ramp. Support is the final role, and the sad part about this is that you might find yourself at the end catering an event or working as a neutral staff. Even with that, you may still create opportunities for personal networking or even very revealing small talks during the course of the event. Conversation with other staff, special guests or even the host can turn out to invaluable connections that you can make use of later. With this at the back of your mind, always prepare for short conversations when you’re working an event just as seriously as if you were attending the event as a special guest. Maybe you’re not that kind of person that can withstand large crowd, take a break to regain who you are and review the topical assessments you prepared in the previous lessons. Don’t forget to excuse yourself so you can move around in the event centre on a regular basis, perhaps going for another role you think you’re capable of. This particular aspect does not have any other way to go about it. In fact, it might take the next 5 days before you put the whole concept together, and you may need to combine the zeal with tomorrow’s lesson. Now, you should go for a party or be the host to one yourself so you can utilize all these principles you learnt today. There’s no way to wave this, you have to learn it and be perfect. Bring your partner who has been your support all this while along to tackle the four roles and many more within the time frame. Until then, maintain the free flow with ease.

This was a media beat-up at its very worst. All those officials reacting to what the media labeled “The Baby Bob Incident” failed to understand the Irwin family. This is what we did--teach our children about wildlife, from a very early age. It wasn’t unnatural and it wasn’t a stunt. It was, on the contrary, an old and valued family tradition, and one that I embraced wholeheartedly. It was who we were. To have the press fasten on the practice as irresponsible made us feel that our very ability as parents was being attacked. It didn’t make any sense. This is why Steve never publicly apologized. For him to say “I’m sorry” would mean that he was sorry that Bob and Lyn raised him the way they did, and that was simply impossible. The best he could do was to sincerely apologize if he had worried anyone. The reality was that he would have been remiss as a parent if he didn’t teach his kids how to coexist with wildlife. After all, his kids didn’t just have busy roads and hot stoves to contend with. They literally had to learn how to live with crocodiles and venomous snakes in their backyard. Through it all, the plight of the Tibetan nuns was completely and totally ignored. The world media had not a word to spare about a dry well that hundreds of people depended on. For months, any time Steve encountered the press, Tibetan nuns were about the furthest thing from the reporter’s mind. The questions would always be the same: “Hey, Stevo, what about the Baby Bob Incident?” “If I could relive Friday, mate, I’d go surfing,” Steve said on a hugely publicized national television appearance in the United States. “I can’t go back to Friday, but you know what, mate? Don’t think for one second I would ever endanger my children, mate, because they’re the most important thing in my life, just like I was with my mum and dad.” Steve and I struggled to get back to a point where we felt normal again. Sponsors spoke about terminating contracts. Members of our own documentary crew sought to distance themselves from us, and our relationship with Discovery was on shaky ground. But gradually we were able to tune out the static and hear what people were saying. Not the press, but the people. We read the e-mails that had been pouring in, as well as faxes, letters, and phone messages. Real people helped to get us back on track. Their kids were growing up with them on cattle ranches and could already drive tractors, or lived on horse farms and helped handle skittish stallions. Other children were learning to be gymnasts, a sport which was physically rigorous and held out the chance of injury. The parents had sent us messages of support. “Don’t feel bad, Steve,” wrote one eleven-year-old from Sydney. “It’s not the wildlife that’s dangerous.” A mother wrote us, “I have a new little baby, and if you want to take him in on the croc show it is okay with me.” So many parents employed the same phrase: “I’d trust my kids with Steve any day.

How to Get on Google Maps- The process We all know that marketing trends keep on changing and the new wave is pointing towards the Google maps marketing. Everyone is able to see the importance of this strategy and they are pretty impressed with the results too. However, the next big question is how to get on the Google Maps? What process do they need to follow? Do they have to hire someone for the deed? Here you can get the answer for all these questions. Initially you don’t have to hire anyone to do the deed but eventually maybe you have to. The initial process of getting on the maps is quite easy and is divided into few steps only. Here is the list of steps one needs to follow in order to get on the Google maps and start their journey of Google Maps marketing. How to Get on Google Maps • Business Listing: The very first step to start the process is through getting yourself listed on the Google Maps. Fill the details of your business accurately on Google My Business listing. Mention all the details asked there without skipping any field. Claim your listing first, this step will be the stepping stone to mark your company’s presence on Google Maps. • Address: Here we are talking about Maps so hopefully you understand that it is very important to share the exact address of the business to get a right one on the maps. Before completing the listing, make sure that the address is 100% correct without any discrepancies, be it on Goggle or other platforms. • Verification of the listing: The last step is to verify your listing which can be done through several ways. Some people believe that postcard submissions are the most dependable ones. This step can take few days or weeks to complete. In this step every option will offer you a 4- digit PIN which you have to submit at Google’s site.

There is no evidence from anywhere in the world that harm reduction measures encourage drug use. Denying addicts humane assistance multiplies their miseries without bringing them one inch closer to recovery. There is also no contradiction between harm reduction and abstinence. The two objectives are incompatible only if we imagine that we can set the agenda for someone else’s life regardless of what he or she may choose. We cannot. Short of extreme coercion there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to induce another to give up addiction, except to provide the island of relief where contemplation and self-respect can, perhaps, take root. Those ready to choose abstinence should receive every possible support — much more support than we currently provide. But what of those who don’t choose that path? The impossibility of changing other people is not restricted to addictions. Try as we may to motivate another person to be different or to do this or not to do that, our attempts founder on a basic human trait: the drive for autonomy. “And one may choose what is contrary to one’s own interests and sometimes one positively ought,” wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground. “What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.” The issue is not whether the addict would be better off without his habit — of course he would — but whether we are going to abandon him if he is unable to give it up. Are we willing to care for human beings who suffer because of their own persistent behaviours, mindful that these behaviours stem from early life misfortunes they had no hand in creating? The harm reduction approach accepts that some people — many people — are too deeply enmeshed in substance dependence for any realistic “cure” under present circumstances. There is, for now, too much pain in their lives and too few internal and external resources available to them. In practising harm reduction we do not give up on abstinence — on the contrary, we may hope to encourage that possibility by helping people feel better, bringing them into therapeutic relationships with caregivers, offering them a sense of trust, removing judgment from our interactions with them and giving them a sense of acceptance. At the same time, we do not hold out abstinence as the Holy Grail and we do not make our valuation of addicts as worthwhile human beings dependent on their making choices that please us. Harm reduction is as much an attitude and way of being as it is a set of policies and methods.

Your life is not dependent upon anyone else’s. You don’t know what the future holds—none of us do, but I believe it holds more than what we are experiencing now. Hold on, dear. Just hold on. Please.

[The Death of Ivan Ilych is] possibly the best short story ever written, depending on whether or not you consider The Leopard [Giuseppe di Lampedusa] to be a short story, but it is only about 50 pages or so. It describes how easy it is to go through life, in the same way as Eliot describes in ‘Prufrock’, trying to please everyone and to be a good person, to conform, without really having any authentic intimacy with anyone. And the great importance really of waking up and smelling the coffee and seeing that the superficial things in life really are superficial and that what actually matters is how you conduct yourself in your relationships with your intimates. Well [Tolstoy]... was [bad at that], yes. And, er, that’s true, of course, of many authors. They can be extraordinarily adept at writing stories about the things that they are unable to do themselves. [Defining authentic intimacy...] ...that’s a whole subject but sincerity is that you feel passionately that something is real and important, as opposed to authenticity where you divine internal truth, your true feeling and also external truth, the true feeling of other people. It’s not about being Tony Blair who is sincere but inauthentic; it’s about being… well, who? It’s very difficult to know, though, because these people are so good at presenting themselves. Somebody who is authentic in the public eye… well, very few people. Most high achievers are not very authentic. Unless you know people very well it’s hard to judge. [I suppose the point of superficiality is that it’s a defence against vulnerability. Being authentic makes you terribly vulnerable.] I don’t think it’s the same thing as telling the truth. My mother, in her later years after my father died, was a good example of someone who became very wise when she got older. If she watched me doing something stupid, she wouldn’t say: ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid,’ but she’d ask a question: ‘I wonder if you’ve thought about this or that?’ If I didn’t want to hear any more she would let it go. She didn’t try to impose her version on me but at the same time she tried to signal what she felt was true. She certainly didn’t tell lies. An authentic person in an inauthentic environment, like a corporate headquarters or a television company, might need to construct quite an elaborate persona and it might entail… well, keeping your mouth shut a lot.

My message to you is this: Pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important; what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has. And yet I know that, because free will is an illusion, it’s all predetermined who will descend into akinetic mutism and who won’t. There’s nothing anyone can do about it; you can’t choose the effect the Predictor has on you. Some of you will succumb and some of you won’t, and my sending this warning won’t alter those proportions. So why did I do it? Because I had no choice.

When children grow up with parents who don’t express much emotion and don’t allow them to express their feelings, they can feel as if they can’t depend on anyone, and that increases their risk for becoming adults with narcissistic traits.

Any movement toward wholeness begins with the acknowledgment of our own suffering, and of the suffering in the world. This doesn’t mean getting caught in a never-ending vortex of pain, melancholy, and, especially, victimhood; a new and rigid identity founded on “trauma”—or, for that matter, “healing”—can be its own kind of trap. True healing simply means opening ourselves to the truth of our lives, past and present, as plainly and objectively as we can. We acknowledge where we were wounded and, as we are able, perform an honest audit of the impacts of those injuries as they have touched both our own lives and those of others around us. This can be exceptionally difficult, for myriad understandable reasons. No matter what degree of discomfort our illusions cover over, the truth hurts, and we don’t like hurting if we can help it—even if we sense that something better could lie on the far side of the pain. As Nadezhda Mandelstam wrote in her searing memoir of life under Stalinism, Hope Against Hope, “It is very difficult to look life in the face.” Many of us will be ready to seek the truth only once we have concluded that the cost of not doing so is too high, or once we become sufficiently acquainted with our own ache of longing for the real. The Greek playwright Aeschylus was exquisitely on point when he had his chorus declare: Zeus has led us on to know the Helmsman lays it down as law that we must suffer, suffer into truth.[1] There are exceptions, but I myself have never encountered anyone who was not spurred along their path of growth and change by some setback or loss, some illness, anguish, or alienation. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how we choose to see it—life has a way of delivering the requisite suffering right to our doorstep.

It’s not that I don’t want to tell her, I just can’t. I don’t know how. I don’t want to see that look of pity in her eyes. I don’t want anyone to pity me but especially not her. I’m supposed to be the one she leans on, not the opposite way around. I’ll never depend on someone in the way she wants me to. I’ll never depend on someone other than myself because often, people let me down. They always have and they always will.

And that’s another reason I detest Mogshack, by the way. I never knew him to try and wean a patient away from dependence on guns. Yet he has two, three thousand a year of the population of New York State through his hands. By this time, if he’d done his job properly, he’d have created a glut of second-hand weaponry and cooled the temperature in this city past the flashpoint.” “Two or three thousand out of how many many million?” Flamen snapped. “Out of how many who are unstable enough to lose their marbles and start shooting at random into the street?” Conroy countered. “You don’t start riots, I don’t start riots, the politically educated leaders of the X Patriots don’t start riots. Paranoids start riots and other people are tipped over the edge by contagious hysteria. Your typical insurrectionary sniper isn’t a revolutionary or a fanatic—he’s someone who’s so devoid of empathy he can treat the human beings below his window as moving targets conveniently offered for his skill. And by clever exploitation of the public’s insecurity the Gottschalks have managed to put over a gang of lies equating gunmanship with masculine potency, which do even more damage than Mogshack’s pernicious dogmas. Damn it, man: anyone who can treat another human being as an object for target practice is stuck even further back in the infantile stage than somebody who’s frightened to move on from the masturbation phase and go to bed with a girl! Do you own a gun?

A few rules to remember, girl,' she said, and we both stared at the cave mouth. The darkness reeked from its maw to poison the fresh night air. 'Don't drink the wine- it's not like what we had at the Solstice, and will do more harm than good. Don't make deals with anyone unless your life depends on it- and even then, consider whether it's worth it. And most of all: don't trust a soul in there- not even your Tamlin. Your senses are your greatest enemies; they will be waiting to betray you.

{The Death of Ivan Ilych is} possibly the best short story ever written, depending on whether or not you consider The Leopard [Giuseppe di Lampedusa] to be a short story, but it is only about 50 pages or so. It describes how easy it is to go through life, in the same way as Eliot describes in ‘Prufrock’, trying to please everyone and to be a good person, to conform, without really having any authentic intimacy with anyone. And the great importance really of waking up and smelling the coffee and seeing that the superficial things in life really are superficial and that what actually matters is how you conduct yourself in your relationships with your intimates. Well [Tolstoy]... was [bad at that], yes. And, er, that’s true, of course, of many authors. They can be extraordinarily adept at writing stories about the things that they are unable to do themselves. [Defining authentic intimacy...] ...that’s a whole subject but sincerity is that you feel passionately that something is real and important, as opposed to authenticity where you divine internal truth, your true feeling and also external truth, the true feeling of other people. It’s not about being Tony Blair who is sincere but inauthentic; it’s about being… well, who? It’s very difficult to know, though, because these people are so good at presenting themselves. Somebody who is authentic in the public eye… well, very few people. Most high achievers are not very authentic. Unless you know people very well it’s hard to judge. [I suppose the point of superficiality is that it’s a defence against vulnerability. Being authentic makes you terribly vulnerable.] I don’t think it’s the same thing as telling the truth. My mother, in her later years after my father died, was a good example of someone who became very wise when she got older. If she watched me doing something stupid, she wouldn’t say: ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid,’ but she’d ask a question: ‘I wonder if you’ve thought about this or that?’ If I didn’t want to hear any more she would let it go. She didn’t try to impose her version on me but at the same time she tried to signal what she felt was true. She certainly didn’t tell lies. An authentic person in an inauthentic environment, like a corporate headquarters or a television company, might need to construct quite an elaborate persona and it might entail… well, keeping your mouth shut a lot.

I realized it's impossible to compete against American brands when I am blocked from using the same apps and markets. And yet I did have many American users buying from me. I was simply within a huge disadvantage when compared to American users. That's why I write that this idea of "you can do whatever you want" that many motivational speakers promote is a big lie. It really depends on your geographic location. You will not see anyone else saying the same, because either they don't know or they lie to you. But the people who want to believe the lies, choose to lie to themselves, and these too are many. They watch YouTube videos and Instagram influencers living luxurious lives and never question themselves about these things or why they are American and Chinese. In many cases they don't even know the so-called models going to Dubai are high class prostitutes.

When we pack too well, we are telling the world that it isn’t good enough on its own, that it makes us uncomfortable and scared. We don’t know if we can depend on anything or anyone, and we’ve decided it’s better not to take the chance. —Stefany Anne Goldberg, “You Can Take It with You” (2012)

I wish I could give you more,” he said softly. “More than a name. More than a few scraps of paper.” “Why?” I choked out. “Why did you do this?” I knew. In my heart, I already knew. “Because you deserve so much more than what this world has given you. And I know—I know I was a part of that. I took away your ability to get those answers. This isn’t enough. I know it isn’t. But… There’s something else.” “What—” I started. “Gold,” he said. “The material matters more than the currency. Anyone in any of the human nations will accept it. It’s enough to last you. I was going to send more if you ever needed it, but—” “I don’t—” “Just let me fucking talk, Oraya.” Then, more softly, “Just… please. Please let me say this to you. At the mouth of Lituro, near the outskirts of the human districts, a man is waiting for you right now. He has a boat. He’ll take you to the trading islands off the coast. There, you can get on a ship going anywhere in the world.” My lips parted. It had all been prepared. A man waiting for me. The money. This notebook, wrapped and ready, waiting for me. Raihn had never intended to make my freedom dependent upon the support of the House of Shadow. He was always going to let me go.

What will she do now, wonders Judy, if the Hewitts lose the camp? If the Van Laars cut them out entirely, as they’ll no doubt do, snapping the thin thread that has stretched for decades between the Hewitts and Peter the First? And she answers her question herself: They’ll be fine. The Hewitts—like Judy, like Louise Donnadieu, like Denny Hayes, even—don’t need to rely on anyone but themselves. It’s the Van Laars, and families like them, who have always depended on others.

We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don't know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and inner peace come from the giving of ourselves to others.