Doubt Movie Quotes

When I brought my eyes back to his, I knew without a doubt that if we were anywhere else—alone—he would kiss me. He swallowed, and my eyes tracked down to his throat before slowly climbing back up by way of his strong chin, nose, and dark-as-night brown eyes. He raised one eyebrow, an unspoken question, and I realized at that moment that I wanted it. I wanted Wes. Michael had been my endgame, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about that anymore. I wouldn’t run through a train station for Michael. But I would do it for Wes. Holy shit.

When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness - and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.

Seeing the mud around a lotus is pessimism, seeing a lotus in the mud is optimism.

She knew with suddeness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hand's reach of memory. She doubted if they all sensed it - they had seen the world - but even George was silent for a minute as they looked, and the scene, the smell, even the sound of the band playing a faintly recognisable movie theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace.

I’ll put this in words you can understand: humans are hideous, pain-guzzling, pollution-spouting space monsters who might threaten our way of life. Now, how does that usually pan out in the movies, kitten? At least we let you try to convince us we’re wrong. I doubt you asked the dodo birds what they thought about it before you blasted the last one in the face with a blunderbuss.

How do we do this? Do I have to bite you?" I ask, squirming uncomfortably at the thought of doing so. "Why, do you want to? If so, by all means go right ahead. I doubt I'd mind much," he laughs. "No, no biting. You watch too many movies.

So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right? [Will nods] Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

He looks pretty broken up about the fact he won't see me tonight." "Absolutely crushed," Sarah agreed with a nod. "We were supposed to rent a movie together, you know." Sarah shrugged. "It must be terrible to be forgotten so easily." Miles laughed. He was smitten about her, no doubt about it.

He dropped my fingers and planted his palms on the counter, one on either side of me. He kept them close enough that his arms were brushing my ribs as he hovered over me. His blue eyes locked on mine, the serious gaze deepening. “I want to know if you want to. Will you go to the movies with me?

Stop trying to heal yourself, fix yourself, even awaken yourself. Let go of letting go. Stop trying to fast-forward the movie of your life, chasing futures that never seem to arrive. Instead, bow deeply to yourself as you actually are. Your pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your deepest longing, your fearful thoughts...are not mistakes, and they aren't asking to be healing. They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly, in the loving arms of present awareness.

I doubt she likes the idea of seeing him put back in a cage.” “Maybe not,” he said. “But she knows that the Authority are the only people who might be able to help him.” “Or kill him,” I said. “That too. What is life without risk?” “Long?” Terric laughed, a sort of high whooping that made me—and Zayvion, much to my surprise—smile. Contagious. For all he had a serious exterior, Terric was the guy you’d want to sit next to at a funny movie, just to hear him laugh.

We got passes, till midnight after the parade. I met Muriel at the Biltmore at seven. Two drinks, two drugstore tuna-fish sandwiches, then a movie she wanted to see, something with Greer Garson in it. I looked at her several times in the dark when Greer Garson’s son’s plane was missing in action. Her mouth was opened. Absorbed, worried. The identification with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer tragedy complete. I felt awe and happiness. How I love and need her undiscriminating heart. She looked over at me when the children in the picture brought in the kitten to show to their mother. M. loved the kitten and wanted me to love it. Even in the dark, I could sense that she felt the usual estrangement from me when I don’t automatically love what she loves. Later, when we were having a drink at the station, she asked me if I didn’t think that kitten was ‘rather nice.’ She doesn’t use the word ‘cute’ any more. When did I ever frighten her out of her normal vocabulary? Bore that I am, I mentioned R. H. Blyth’s definition of sentimentality: that we are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it. I said (sententiously?) that God undoubtedly loves kittens, but not, in all probability, with Technicolor bootees on their paws. He leaves that creative touch to script writers. M. thought this over, seemed to agree with me, but the ‘knowledge’ wasn’t too very welcome. She sat stirring her drink and feeling unclose to me. She worries over the way her love for me comes and goes, appears and disappears. She doubts its reality simply because it isn’t as steadily pleasurable as a kitten. God knows it is sad. The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on earth.

My mind repeats all the mistakes I’ve made, like a bad movie reminding me of all the things that cause me so much doubt. There are things that go wrong in my life, like a roller coaster that twists and bends. People say that this is just how life goes. But too often I am wondering if maybe it’s just me. Too often I am thinking about how often my doubt shows.

Every superhero, every Chosen One, goes through a painful and difficult process of Becoming. On this, all the relevant literature is in agreement. Ask any comic book aficionado, any movie buff. The heroes doubt themselves, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence. They've spent their whole lives listening to weak and powerless people who hate and fear anything that is different, who say that superhuman abilities simply don't exist, and they believe it.

Anyone who's ever flown London to Sydney, seated next to or anywhere in the proximity of a fussy baby, you'll no doubt fall right into the swing of things in Hell. What with the strangers and crowding and seemingly endless hours of waiting for nothing to happen, for you Hell will feel like one long, nostalgic hit a deja vu. Especially if your in-flight movie was The English Patient. In Hell, whenever the demons announce they're going to treat everyone to a big-name Hollywood movie, don't get too excited because it's always The English Patient, or, unfortunately, The Piano. It's never The Breakfast Club.

So how about this,” he said, focusing on the pan. “The next time we get the chance, you and I can go see a movie.

When in doubt, watch Die Hard.

But though there are frequent misunderstandings between the Europeans and the Americans, at least we’ve had decades of shared movies and TV to help us get used to each other. Outside those bounds you can’t make any assumptions at all. In China, for instance, the poet James Fenton was once stopped for having a light on his bicycle. “How would it be,” the police officer asked him severely, “if everybody did that?

Father Brendan Flynn: "A woman was gossiping with her friend about a man whom they hardly knew - I know none of you have ever done this. That night, she had a dream: a great hand appeared over her and pointed down on her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O' Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. 'Is gossiping a sin?' she asked the old man. 'Was that God All Mighty's hand pointing down at me? Should I ask for your absolution? Father, have I done something wrong?' 'Yes,' Father O' Rourke answered her. 'Yes, you ignorant, badly-brought-up female. You have blamed false witness on your neighbor. You played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed.' So, the woman said she was sorry, and asked for forgiveness. 'Not so fast,' says O' Rourke. 'I want you to go home, take a pillow upon your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me.' So, the woman went home: took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed. 'Did you gut the pillow with a knife?' he says. 'Yes, Father.' 'And what were the results?' 'Feathers,' she said. 'Feathers?' he repeated. 'Feathers; everywhere, Father.' 'Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out onto the wind,' 'Well,' she said, 'it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over.' 'And that,' said Father O' Rourke, 'is gossip!

Most courtroom movies feel it necessary to end with a clear-cut verdict. But 12 Angry Men never states whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. It is about whether the jury has a reasonable doubt about his guilt.

Earlier in the day, while killing some hours by circling in blue ballpoint ink every uppercase M in the front section of a month-old New York Times, Chip had concluded that he was behaving like a depressed person. Now, as his telephone began to ring, it occurred to him that a depressed person ought to continue staring at the TV and ignore the ringing — ought to light another cigarette and, with no trace of emotional affect, watch another cartoon while his machine took whoever’s message. That his impulse, instead, was to jump to his feet and answer the phone — that he could so casually betray the arduous wasting of a day — cast doubt on the authenticity of his suffering. He felt as if he lacked the ability to lose all volition and connection with reality the way depressed people did in books and movies. It seemed to him, as he silenced the TV and hurried into his kitchen, that he was failing even at the miserable task of falling properly apart.

Confession time: I doubt I would ever have picked up one of Marjorie’s books, had I not met her in person. The reason is they’re categorized as Romances, which is where they are shelved in bookstores. Though I have no justification for avoiding it, the romance section is an area in bookstores I seldom wander into. Her novels also have traditional-looking romance book covers, which are occasionally a bit off-putting to us mighty manly men. Then again, who knows? I don’t carry many biases where good storytelling is concerned. I’m willing to find it anywhere, as too many of my friends will attest, when I try to drag them to wonderful movies that they aren’t eager to go to, simply because they fall under the chick-flick rubric. So, in any case, I’m glad I did meet Marjorie Liu in person, because it would have been a shame to miss out on the work of an author this talented due to whatever degree of cultural prejudices I might still possess. I trust you who read this won’t make the same mistake.

The song “Dream a Little Dream of Me” comes on Tariq’s playlist, which makes Harry think of the movie Beautiful Thing, as Tariq no doubt knew it would. Harry can feel Craig smile under his lips, and knows he must be sharing the same thought. As confirmation, Harry feels Craig’s finger on his back, tracing the letter B, then T. They start to shuffle and slow-dance. It feels good to move their legs.

There is no doubt that to the ancients of circa 100 A.S., games implied bloodshed; but gladiators' hand-to-hand combats to the death featured in Hollywood movies are overdone, since gladiators were splendid physical specimens who took a long time to be selected and trained and were not easily dispensable.

No doubt you've experienced something similar in books, movies, novels–whatever you use as an excuse to get away, to suspend reality. Literary characters, like these projections, draw you in and cultivate feelings of friendship on your part. Although, no matter how much you learn about them, how much time you spend with them–how far you can see into their thoughts and words, how they interact with others, their looks, what they wear–they will never, ever know you.

No doubt, you’ve heard this story before. Marcus wrote a bestselling book about it, Lone Survivor, which became a hit movie starring Mark Wahlberg.

Fear of failure is fiction, face this fact and fear will fall.

Inexplicably, few prayers feel as heard as my doubting ones. None are more genuinely offered.

When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness--and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.

I need to talk with Skippy about it first.” As I organized my thoughts, doubt crept in to tickle my mind. More like doubt hit me on the head with a hammer. What’s that saying from the movie ‘Dune’? Something like ‘Fear is the mind-killer’?

The movie Bull Durham was written by a man who grew up in the faith and was disillusioned by the church. It begins with the female lead saying, “I believe in the church of baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones … and the only church that truly feeds the soul is baseball.” Later in the movie the Kevin Costner character recites his creed: “I believe in the soul … the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch … I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in long, slow, deep, soft kisses that last three days.”4 My wife liked that one. A little too much. My wife is a Kevin Costner fundamentalist. Kevin said it; she believes it; that settles it.

Look in it,' he said, smiling slightly, as you do when you have given someone a present which you know will please him and he is unwrapping it before your eyes. I opened it. In the folder I found four 8×10 glossy photos, obviously professionally done; they looked like the kind of stills that the publicity departments of movie studios put out. The photos showed a Greek vase, on it a painting of a male figure who we recognized as Hermes. Twined around the vase the double helix confronted us, done in red glaze against a black background. The DNA molecule. There could be no mistake. 'Twenty-three or -four hundred years ago,' Fat said. 'Not the picture but the krater, the pottery.' 'A pot,' I said. 'I saw it in a museum in Athens. It's authentic. Thats not a matter of my own opinion; I'm not qualified to judge such matters; it's authenticity has been established by the museum authorities. I talked with one of them. He hadn't realized what the design shows; he was very interested when I discussed it with him. This form of vase, the krater, was the shape later used as the baptismal font. That was one of the Greek words that came into my head in March 1974, the word “krater”. I heard it connected with another Greek word: “poros”. The words “poros krater” essentially mean “limestone font”. ' There could be no doubt; the design, predating Christianity, was Crick and Watson's double helix model at which they had arrived after so many wrong guesses, so much trial-and-error work. Here it was, faithfully reproduced. 'Well?' I said. 'The so-called intertwined snakes of the caduceus. Originally the caduceus, which is still the symbol of medicine was the staff of- not Hermes-but-' Fat paused, his eyes bright. 'Of Asklepios. It has a very specific meaning, besides that of wisdom, which the snakes allude to; it shows that the bearer is a sacred person and not to be molested...which is why Hermes the messenger of the gods, carried it.' None of us said anything for a time. Kevin started to utter something sarcastic, something in his dry, witty way, but he did not; he only sat without speaking. Examining the 8×10 glossies, Ginger said, 'How lovely!' 'The greatest physician in all human history,' Fat said to her. 'Asklepios, the founder of Greek medicine. The Roman Emperor Julian-known to us as Julian the Apostate because he renounced Christianity-conside​red Asklepios as God or a god; Julian worshipped him. If that worship had continued, the entire history of the Western world would have basically changed

It doesn't matter if you're seventeen or fifty-seven, if you come from a poor background or a rich one, if you went to the best schools or the worst. It. Doesn't. Matter. What matters is listening to the small voice at the back of your head that says *This is what gives me joy.* It's about fighting naysayers and self-doubt when you feel you can't fight for even one more second. It's about standing up when all you want to do is lie down until life stops hitting you. It's not easy. It was never *meant* to be easy. But it can be done if we *choose* to do it.

Standing in the corner, leaning aginst the wall, is a fifth man. If Grange is a Hummer, this guy's an 18-wheel Mack truck, thinks Roddy. Parked, with its engine idling. He reminds Roddy of Ivan Drago from that Rocky movie. The guy must stand six five and tip the scales at 270. Pure, rock-hard muscle. His crew-cut blond hair is slickly gelled; his face--especially those cheekbones and that lantern jaw--could be carved from granite. He, no doubt, spends counteless hours at some muscle emporium. Pure muscle, but probably clumsy; he would go down fast if Roddy drove a flurry of punches into his gut and face. A gold earring pierces the guy's left earlobe. The drape of the jacket on his Schwarzenegger shoulders shows a bulge on the left side. The guy's packing some serious hardware. Mack Truck stares blankly and stands rock-still, hands clasped in front of his gargantuan body.

Today, as I sit looking at the tarnished old brass morning-glory horn of May’s gramophone—as brassy as May herself—I wonder whether she ever saw any of the three motion pictures inspired by this small but significant part of her life. In a way it is painful to imagine her sitting in a movie theater, watching as a private hurt of hers was laid bare, even in fictionalized, literally “whitewashed” form … and with a happy ending that likely never graced her real life. But somehow I doubt she ever saw the movie, or was aware of the revenge Maugham had taken on her. Because if she had seen it, I can’t help but envision her sitting in the theater in a righteous lather, as the lights come up and the last frame of film fades from the screen. “Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle!” I hear her cry out, indignantly. “So where the hell is my piece of the take?” The “Sadie Thompson” I knew would have sued—and won.

California during the 1940s had Hollywood and the bright lights of Los Angeles, but on the other coast was Florida, land of sunshine and glamour, Miami and Miami Beach. If you weren't already near California's Pacific Coast you headed for Florida during the winter. One of the things which made Miami such a mix of glitter and sunshine was the plethora of movie stars who flocked there to play, rubbing shoulders with tycoons and gangsters. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the latter two. Miami and everything that surrounded it hadn't happened by accident. Carl Fisher had set out to make Miami Beach a playground destination during the 1930s and had succeeded far beyond his dreams. The promenade behind the Roney Plaza Hotel was a block-long lovers' lane of palm trees and promise that began rather than ended in the blue waters of the Atlantic. Florida was more than simply Miami and Miami Beach, however. When George Merrick opened the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables papers across the country couldn't wait to gush about the growing aura of Florida. They tore down Collins Bridge in the Gables and replaced it with the beautiful Venetian Causeway. You could plop down a fiver if you had one and take your best girl — or the girl you wanted to score with — for a gondola ride there before the depression, or so I'd been told. You see, I'd never actually been to Florida before the war, much less Miami. I was a newspaper reporter from Chicago before the war and had never even seen the ocean until I was flying over the Pacific for the Air Corp. There wasn't much time for admiring the waves when Japanese Zeroes were trying to shoot you out of the sky and bury you at the bottom of that deep blue sea. It was because of my friend Pete that I knew so much about Miami. Florida was his home, so when we both got leave in '42 I followed him to the warm waters of Miami to see what all the fuss was about. It would be easy to say that I skipped Chicago for Miami after the war ended because Pete and I were such good pals and I'd had such a great time there on leave. But in truth I decided to stay on in Miami because of Veronica Lake. I'd better explain that. Veronica Lake never knew she was the reason I came back with Pete to Miami after the war. But she had been there in '42 while Pete and I were enjoying the sand, sun, and the sweet kisses of more than a few love-starved girls desperate to remember what it felt like to have a man's arm around them — not to mention a few other sensations. Lake had been there promoting war bonds on Florida's first radio station, WQAM. It was a big outdoor event and Pete and I were among those listening with relish to Lake's sultry voice as she urged everyone to pitch-in for our boys overseas. We were in those dark early days of the war at the time, and the outcome was very much in question. Lake's appearance at the event was a morale booster for civilians and servicemen alike. She was standing behind a microphone that sat on a table draped in the American flag. I'd never seen a Hollywood star up-close and though I liked the movies as much as any other guy, I had always attributed most of what I saw on-screen to smoke and mirrors. I doubted I'd be impressed seeing a star off-screen. A girl was a girl, after all, and there were loads of real dolls in Miami, as I'd already discovered. Boy, was I wrong." - Where Flamingos Fly

The Celebrated Ending-a-Sentence-with-a-Preposition Story Two women are seated side by side at a posh dinner party, one a matron of the sort played in the old Marx Brothers movies by Margaret Dumont, except frostier, the other an easygoing southern gal, let’s say, for the sake of the visuals, wearing a very pink and very ruffled evening gown. Southern Gal, amiably, to Frosty Matron: So where y’all from? Frosty Matron, no doubt giving Southern Gal a once-over through a lorgnette: I’m from a place where people don’t end their sentences with prepositions. Southern Gal, sweetly, after a moment’s consideration: OK. So where y’all from, bitch?

PAUL IS SOMEBODY WHO DOES THINGS WITH ENTHUSIASM, which makes people feel appalled and insulted at things he chooses to do. If you’re under thirty, you have never heard of a song called “Spies Like Us,” and I am a horrible person for being the one to tell you. It was the theme for a big-budget Hollywood spy comedy starring Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. Nobody saw the movie, but Paul’s theme was worse than the movie could have been. MTV played it constantly during the 1985 holiday season, though radio wouldn’t touch it. Paul does a rap that goes something like, “Oooh oooh, no one can dance like you.” In the video he plays multiple roles as members of a studio band, mugging and biting his lower lip. The drumming is where his cheeky-chappy act gets profoundly upsetting. You see this video, you’re going to be depressed for at least ten minutes about the existential condition of Paul-dom. His enthusiasm makes you doubt the sincerity of his other public displays. It makes you doubt yourself. You might think it’s a cheap laugh but it will cost you something.

...watch out, work’s a bad thing, he told me. You have to get up early, you have to listen to the boss all the time. If there’s no work you don’t eat, if there is work you have to work hard. Work is never good. Work seems good to you because it will let you to go out for pizza, go dancing, go to the movies. But when you have a family you won’t be going out for pizza, you won’t be going dancing. You’ll have to feed your family and then you’ll see how tough work is. This is why you have to think hard about it. I’m not telling you to go to school or to get a job. I’m only telling you one thing: work is bad, so try to avoid it. I send you to school because I think that’s one way to avoid work. I felt this explanation, that work was a horrible thing, made more sense than what my mother had told me, that I was better. And I began to think that what my friends who’d gone to work in the building sites understood wasn’t true, either: that money equals work, and that therefore work equals happiness. I began to have doubts about my discovery that happiness meant going to work on a building site.

I seriously doubt that Agnès Varda ever followed in anyone else’s footsteps, in any corner of her life or her art…which were one in the same. She charted and walked her own path each step of the way, she and her camera. Every single one of her remarkable handmade pictures, so beautifully balanced between documentary and fiction, is like no one else’s—every image, every cut… What a body of work she left behind: movies big and small, playful and tough, generous and solitary, lyrical and unflinching…and alive. I saw her for the last time a couple of months ago. She knew that she didn’t have much longer, and she made every second count: she didn’t want to miss a thing. I feel so lucky to have known her. And to all young filmmakers: you need to watch Agnès Varda’s pictures.

It was around the time of the divorce that all traces of decency vanished, and his dream of being the next great Southern writer was replaced by his desire to be the next published writer. So he started writing these novels set in Small Town Georgia about folks with Good American Values who Fall in Love and then contract Life-Threatening Diseases and Die. I'm serious. And it totally depresses me, but the ladies eat it up. They love my father's books and they love his cable-knit sweaters and they love his bleachy smile and orangey tan. And they have turned him into a bestseller and a total dick. Two of his books have been made into movies and three more are in production, which is where his real money comes from. Hollywood. And, somehow, this extra cash and pseudo-prestige have warped his brain into thinking that I should live in France. For a year.Alone.I don't understand why he couldn't send me to Australia or Ireland or anywhere else where English is the native language.The only French word I know is oui, which means "yes," and only recently did I learn it's spelled o-u-i and not w-e-e. At least the people in my new school speak English.It was founded for pretentious Americans who don't like the company of their own children. I mean, really. Who sends their kid to boarding school? It's so Hogwarts. Only mine doesn't have cute boy wizards or magic candy or flying lessons. Instead,I'm stuck with ninety-nine other students. There are twenty-five people in my entire senior class, as opposed to the six hundred I had back in Atlanta. And I'm studying the same things I studied at Clairemont High except now I'm registered in beginning French. Oh,yeah.Beginning French. No doubt with the freshman.I totally rock.

Sometimes difficulty clarifies things. And sometimes realizing that the road you’ve chosen is a demanding one gives you the courage to stay on that road. It reveals the nature of our relationship with God. It sounds cute and comforting to say “God is in control,” and people who say that may imagine sitting on their daddy’s lap behind the wheel of the family car, going “Vroom vroomy vroom!” while Daddy does the steering. In reality, when God is in control, it feels more like one of those movies where some amateur has to step up and land the airplane or steer the ship to safety through a crashing storm, with an expert giving them instructions remotely through a headset. In theory, following the expert’s instructions will help us get in safely; but our fear, panic, self-doubt, and lack of skill are not exactly comforting. Yes, God is in control, but we’re the ones who are in for a rough ride.

In a sea of a thousand faces God’s eyes are always locked on us (like the slow-motion scenes of eyes locking in a crowd in the movie The Passion of the Christ). We all tie for first place in His heart and His gaze is firmly set on each of us. Not to put us down when we’re wrong or off, but because He’s enamoured by us. There’s no kinder heart, no kinder eyes and no kinder love than that of God. His words of affirmation over me have always filled my hunger.

There is a scene in one of the Rocky movies where after the match Apollo Creed and Rocky are waiting for the scoring of their brawl all beat up and battered, obviously both fighters gave all they had to win, and Apollo Creed says to Rocky - "Your not getting a rematch" and Rocky says "I don't want one". I love that scene. That's when you know that you left no doubt - that your opponent, win or lose, never wants to compete against you ever again. That's fighting.

Through meditation or reflection or whatever, find out how to go to that place in yourself that can observe without judging. If you feel jealous, or depressed, or guilty – just try to pay attention to how your body feels. Where does the physical feeling start? Does a tightness go up or down your stomach for instance. If you notice that you’re being critical of yourself – then try to observe yourself doing this without judging it as good or bad. This observer self is the deepest part of you – deeper than your fearful self, guilty self, emotional self, or intellectual self. By observing what’s happening to your body when you go into these head states, you can learn little tricks to alter your body & mood. Like if you catch it early, try countering the negative physical feeling or emotion by doing something nurturing for yourself (exercise or pleasant bath, calling a friend, going to a movie, or whatever). Anyway, this is something I started doing at a time in my life when I was wracked by jealousy, loneliness, self-doubt, excessive self-criticism. And overall it worked.

As far as I could tell, this movie was about parents who had two cute children they were determined to spend as little time with as possible. And so they hire a woman who constantly gaslights the kids and makes them doubt their own sanity; she takes them on fantastical trips, then says they never happened. She gives them the powers of flight and time travel, encourages them to surrender to the magic and enjoy themselves, then acts all affronted and accuses them of lying when they mention how fun the adventure was. The whole movie seemed to be introducing the concept of what a nanny was and, at the same time, arguing against ever employing one.

I have spoken of reinventing marriage, of marriages achieving their rebirth in the middle age of the partners. This phenomenon has been called the 'comedy of remarriage' by Stanley Cavell, whose Pursuits of Happiness, a film book, is perhaps the best marriage manual ever published. One must, however, translate his formulation from the language of Hollywood, in which he developed it, into the language of middle age: less glamour, less supple youth, less fantasyland. Cavell writes specifically of Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s in which couples -- one partner is often the dazzling Cary Grant -- learn to value each other, to educate themselves in equality, to remarry. Cavell recognizes that the actresses in these movie -- often the dazzling Katherine Hepburn -- are what made them possible. If read not as an account of beautiful people in hilarious situations, but as a deeply philosophical discussion of marriage, his book contains what are almost aphorisms of marital achievement. For example: ....'[The romance of remarriage] poses a structure in which we are permanently in doubt who the hero is, that is, whether it is the male or female who is the active partner, which of them is in quest, who is following whom.' Cary grant & Katherine Hepburn "Above all, despite the sexual attractiveness of the actors in the movies he discusses, Cavell knows that sexuality is not the ultimate secret in these marriage: 'in God's intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage. Here is the reason that these relationships strike us as having the quality of friendship, a further factor in their exhilaration for us.' "He is wise enough, moreover, to emphasize 'the mystery of marriage by finding that neither law nor sexuality (nor, by implication, progeny) is sufficient to ensure true marriage and suggesting that what provides legitimacy is the mutual willingness for remarriage, for a sort of continuous affirmation. Remarriage, hence marriage, is, whatever else it is, an intellectual undertaking.

One night, when Violet’s parents had gone out, he teased her about it, whispering against her throat, “I should probably be dating girls my own age now that you’ll be over-the-hill.” Jay was stretched out on Violet’s bed as she curled against him. Violet laughed, rising to the bait. “Fine,” she challenged, pulling away and leaning up on her elbow. “I’m sure there are plenty of men my own age who would be willing to finish what you’ve started.” Jay stiffened, and Violet realized that she’d struck a nerve. “What is it?” He shook his head, and Violet thought he might say, “Nothing,” so when he answered, his words caught her off guard. “Is there someone else, Vi?” Violet frowned, baffled by the unfamiliar jealousy she saw on his face. She wondered what in the world he meant as she reached down and smoothed a strand of hair from his forehead. “What are you talking about, Jay?” His eyes met hers. “I saw you with that guy at the movies, Vi. Who was he?” Violet closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t want to tell him about the FBI, about Sara and Rafe or what she’d learned about Mike’s mother. She wondered briefly if he knew about Mike’s mom-if his friend had ever confided in him. But somehow she doubted it. Jay wasn’t like her; he didn’t keep secrets. “It’s not like that,” she explained, hoping that would be enough. Jay got up and went to the window, pushing the curtain aside. Every muscle in his body was rigid. “Like what, Vi? What’s going on? Something’s been bothering you lately. Why can’t you tell me?” He was right. She owed it to him to at least try. “I don’t know how to explain, but I just feel like everything’s changed between us-“ “Of course it’s changed, Violet, what’d you expect?” Violet tried to ignore the bitterness in his voice, telling herself she had no right to be hurt. “It used to be that I would never keep secrets from you. You were my best friend. But now that we’re dating, it’s just…different. I feel like I have to watc what I say, or you get all worried. Sometimes I just want you to be the old Jay again, so I can talk to you.” Violet crept up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his back.

nine-hour flight to California aboard a TWA Super Constellation, with room for no fewer than sixty-four passengers. Next we see the simple funfair of the original Disneyland. At the hotel, the Barstows are jubilant that the chic swimming pool is open to them. Yes, the days when such luxury was reserved for the stylish elite are over. The family deals with its budgetary constraints by not eating in restaurants but picnicking outdoors. There is no hint of any doubt or cynicism. Every minute of the movie is filled with sun, innocence and boundless enthusiasm. It’s true, Barstow says at the end, Walt Disney is right: Disneyland is ‘the happiest place on earth’. The entire family is ‘forever grateful to Scotch brand cellophane tape’ for the experience. The closing chorus of this charming cantata

Let’s take a look at one couple. Carol and Jim have a long-running quarrel over his being late to engagements. In a session in my office, Carol carps at Jim over his latest transgression: he didn’t show up on time for their scheduled movie night. “How come you are always late?” she challenges. “Doesn’t it matter to you that we have a date, that I am waiting, that you always let me down?” Jim reacts coolly: “I got held up. But if you are going to start off nagging again, maybe we should just go home and forget the date.” Carol retaliates by listing all the other times Jim has been late. Jim starts to dispute her “list,” then breaks off and retreats into stony silence. In this never-ending dispute, Jim and Carol are caught up in the content of their fights. When was the last time Jim was late? Was it only last week or was it months ago? They careen down the two dead ends of “what really happened”—whose story is more “accurate” and who is most “at fault.” They are convinced that the problem has to be either his irresponsibility or her nagging. In truth, though, it doesn’t matter what they’re fighting about. In another session in my office, Carol and Jim begin to bicker about Jim’s reluctance to talk about their relationship. “Talking about this stuff just gets us into fights,” Jim declares. “What’s the point of that? We go round and round. It just gets frustrating. And anyway, it’s all about my ‘flaws’ in the end. I feel closer when we make love.” Carol shakes her head. “I don’t want sex when we are not even talking!” What’s happened here? Carol and Jim’s attack-withdraw way of dealing with the “lateness” issue has spilled over into two more issues: “we don’t talk” and “we don’t have sex.” They’re caught in a terrible loop, their responses generating more negative responses and emotions in each other. The more Carol blames Jim, the more he withdraws. And the more he withdraws, the more frantic and cutting become her attacks. Eventually, the what of any fight won’t matter at all. When couples reach this point, their entire relationship becomes marked by resentment, caution, and distance. They will see every difference, every disagreement, through a negative filter. They will listen to idle words and hear a threat. They will see an ambiguous action and assume the worst. They will be consumed by catastrophic fears and doubts, be constantly on guard and defensive. Even if they want to come close, they can’t. Jim’s experience is defined perfectly by the title of a Notorious Cherry Bombs song, “It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night that Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long.

We recently saw parading through our streets a line of young women who, under other skies, might very well have been crowned with garlands of flowers in the Panathenaea. They were angry young starlets, demanding an end to the need to sleep with the producer to gain recognition. 'Talent, not tits and bums!' It is somewhat troubling to see such a problem carried out into the streets. It is well known that the publicity around such things repeatedly turns against the victims and merely compounds the initial violation with a further violation by the media. Here too, it will no doubt be said that these young women in search of theatre parts are already in a state of advanced prostitution. The fact that they come and offer themselves up to the lechery of the public eye, after having been offered up, against their wills, to the lechery of producers, at least bears witness to their candour, if not to their innocence.

But without Emily, Greg would feel—paradoxically for such a social creature—alone. Before they met, most of Greg’s girlfriends were extroverts. He says he enjoyed those relationships, but never got to know his girlfriends well, because they were always “plotting how to be with groups of people.” He speaks of Emily with a kind of awe, as if she has access to a deeper state of being. He also describes her as “the anchor” around which his world revolves. Emily, for her part, treasures Greg’s ebullient nature; he makes her feel happy and alive. She has always been attracted to extroverts, who she says “do all the work of making conversation. For them, it’s not work at all.” The trouble is that for most of the five years they’ve been together, Greg and Emily have been having one version or another of the same fight. Greg, a music promoter with a large circle of friends, wants to host dinner parties every Friday—casual, animated get-togethers with heaping bowls of pasta and flowing bottles of wine. He’s been giving Friday-night dinners since he was a senior in college, and they’ve become a highlight of his week and a treasured piece of his identity. Emily has come to dread these weekly events. A hardworking staff attorney for an art museum and a very private person, the last thing she wants to do when she gets home from work is entertain. Her idea of a perfect start to the weekend is a quiet evening at the movies, just her and Greg. It seems an irreconcilable difference: Greg wants fifty-two dinner parties a year, Emily wants zero. Greg says that Emily should make more of an effort. He accuses her of being antisocial. “I am social,” she says. “I love you, I love my family, I love my close friends. I just don’t love dinner parties. People don’t really relate at those parties—they just socialize. You’re lucky because I devote all my energy to you. You spread yours around to everyone.” But Emily soon backs off, partly because she hates fighting, but also because she doubts herself. Maybe I am antisocial, she

As I approach a new project, my process always begins with the question: what is it about? Here’s one answer that might apply to a Star Trek movie... I want it to be about the most horrible, treacherous aliens ever known to man who are about to destroy life as we know it, leading to the most spectacular thrill ride of an adventure with fantastic space battles and huge explosions and great special effects -- a white knuckle ride for the movie audience. Yeah, but what’s it about? I can write space battles with the best of them, but what makes that space battle interesting to me is: why are they fighting? What are the stakes? What does the hero lose if he loses? And what does he win if he wins? Why should we care? I'm talking about the second level of story-telling. The level that examines what's going on inside the characters — their moral and ethical dilemmas, their doubts, fears, inner conflicts, how they change as the story progresses. These are the things that make us, as members of an audience, get emotionally involved.

Streamline Your Focus Instead of Jumping From Unfinished Project to Unfinished Project Although it seems contradictory, anxiety-related perfectionism can cause people to persist too long on some tasks and leave other projects unfinished. Perfectionists who are intolerant of uncertainty often jump from project to project. They might start multiple business plans, grant proposals, job applications, movie scripts, stand-up routines, craft projects, or novels, and not finish any of them. They may sour quickly on an idea when their self-doubt starts to creep in rather than stay with the idea long enough to realistically judge it’s potential. If you bounce from idea to idea, it could very well be because it’s hard for you to tolerate your uncertainty about whether the idea you’re working on is going to pan out. If you have a habit of not finishing things, you’re likely to be better off sticking with a project and finishing it, instead of jumping to another project when you start to feel unsure. To help you be less tempted to jump around, reduce your exposure to excessive information and alternatives.

Bob was clearly a confused character, and it was thought that he might benefit from some professional attention. “My mother and sister,” said Mitchum, “doubting my sanity, implored the cooperation of my wife in suggesting a visit to a psychiatrist.” Mitchum agreed to their suggestion—”What could I do? It was the family consensus”—and submitted himself to the leather couch in the Beverly Hills office of Dr. Frederick Hacker. “Mr. Mitchum, do you know why you have come here?” asked the doctor, described by the patient as a dead ringer for Walter Slezak. “Because my family thinks I’m crazy.” “Very interesting,” said Dr. Hacker. He saw the shrink a few more times. They “kicked things around” and Mitchum regaled the doc with stories of his life in Hollywood and the characters he knew there. “Mr. Mitchum, you suffer from a state of over-amiability,” Hacker concluded, “in which failure to please everyone creates a condition of self-reproach. You are addicted to nothing but the good will of people, and I suggest that you risk their displeasure by learning to say ‘No’ and following your own judgement.” Mitchum translated this into layman’s terms when he got home: “He said I should tell you all to go shit in your hats.

The myth that morality and fidelity are old-fashioned and trite can imprison more than just one individual as generations are affected by the choices perpetuated by this lie. The myth that withholding judgment or having charity means that all values are relative and should be given equal importance or loyalty creates a heavy chain that eventually traps a person in doubt and disaffection, leaving him or her to be constantly "driven with the wind and tossed" (see James 1:6). However, confidence that Christ honors those who honor him (see 1 Samuel 2:30) provides an anchor to our souls (see Ether 12:4) whereby we are capable of giving affirmative answers to those who question the "reason of the hope that is in [us]" (1 Peter 3:15). I remember one of my saddest moments as a faculty member at BYU. One of my students came to me in emotional tatters. She had come to BYU looking for a supportive community that shared her values, something she had not enjoyed being the only Mormon in her high school. Instead her peers at BYU teased, sneered at, and demeaned her because she was not willing to watch an R-rated movie. How proud I was of her! Despite the hurt of rejection "by her own," her faith carried her through the social prison created by her peers. To "stand in holy places, and be not moved" (D&C 87:8) in today's world requires faith, courage, poise, and patience.

Bannon thrived on the chaos he created and did everything he could to make it spread. When he finally made his way through the crowd to the back of the town house, he put on a headset to join the broadcast of the Breitbart radio show already in progress. It was his way of bringing tens of thousands of listeners into the inner sanctum of the “Breitbart Embassy,” as the town house was ironically known, and thereby conscripting them into a larger project. Bannon was inordinately proud of the movement he saw growing around him, boasting constantly of its egalitarian nature. What to an outsider could look like a cast of extras from the Island of Misfit Toys was, in Bannon’s eyes, a proudly populist and “unclubbable” plebiscite rising up in defiant protest against the “globalists” and “gatekeepers” who had taken control of both parties. Just how Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty figured into a plan to overthrow the global power structure wasn’t clear, even to many of Bannon’s friends. But, then, Bannon derived a visceral thrill anytime he could deliver a fuck-you to the establishment. The thousands of frustrated listeners calling in to his radio show, and the millions more who flocked to Breitbart News, had left him no doubt that an army of the angry and dispossessed was eager to join him in lobbing a bomb at the country’s leaders. As guests left the party, a doorman handed out a gift that Bannon had chosen for the occasion: a silver hip flask with “Breitbart” imprinted above an image of a honey badger, the Breitbart mascot. — Bannon’s cult-leader magnetism was a powerful draw for oddballs and freaks, and the attraction ran both ways. As he moved further from the cosmopolitan orbits of Goldman Sachs and Hollywood, there was no longer any need for him to suppress his right-wing impulses. Giving full vent to his views on subjects like immigration and Islam isolated him among a radical fringe that most of political Washington regarded as teeming with racist conspiracy theorists. But far from being bothered, Bannon welcomed their disdain, taking it as proof of his authentic conviction. It fed his grandiose sense of purpose to imagine that he was amassing an army of ragged, pitchfork-wielding outsiders to storm the barricades and, in Andrew Breitbart’s favorite formulation, “take back the country.” If Bannon was bothered by the incendiary views held by some of those lining up with him, he didn’t show it. His habit always was to welcome all comers. To all outward appearances, Bannon, wild-eyed and scruffy, a Falstaff in flip-flops, was someone whom the political world could safely ignore. But his appearance, and the company he kept, masked an analytic capability that was undiminished and as applicable to politics as it had been to the finances of corrupt Hollywood movie studios. Somehow, Bannon, who would happily fall into league with the most agitated conservative zealot, was able to see clearly that conservatives had failed to stop Bill Clinton in the 1990s because they had indulged this very zealotry to a point where their credibility with the media and mainstream voters was shot. Trapped in their own bubble, speaking only to one another, they had believed that they were winning, when in reality they had already lost.

It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store. Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches. I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet. "Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?" We. There is no we. I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise. The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more. Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN. And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce. "Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!" I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?" I gape.Surely he's joking. "Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return. Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life. Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna." Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.

Give the Audience Something to Cheer For Austin Madison is an animator and story artist for such Pixar movies as Ratatouille, WALL-E, Toy Story 3, Brave, and others. In a revealing presentation Madison outlined the 7-step process that all Pixar movies follow. 1. Once there was a ___. 3 [A protagonist/ hero with a goal is the most important element of a story.] 2. Every day he ___. [The hero’s world must be in balance in the first act.] 3. Until one day ___. [A compelling story introduces conflict. The hero’s goal faces a challenge.] 4. Because of that ___. [This step is critical and separates a blockbuster from an average story. A compelling story isn’t made up of random scenes that are loosely tied together. Each scene has one nugget of information that compels the next scene.] 5. Because of that ___. 6. Until finally ____. [The climax reveals the triumph of good over evil.] 7. Ever since then ___. [The moral of the story.] The steps are meant to immerse an audience into a hero’s journey and give the audience someone to cheer for. This process is used in all forms of storytelling: journalism, screenplays, books, presentations, speeches. Madison uses a classic hero/ villain movie to show how the process plays out—Star Wars. Here’s the story of Luke Skywalker. Once there was a farm boy who wanted to be a pilot. Every day he helped on the farm. Until one day his family is killed. Because of that he joins legendary Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi. Because of that he hires the smuggler Han Solo to take him to Alderaan. Until finally Luke reaches his goal and becomes a starfighter pilot and saves the day. Ever since then Luke’s been on the path to be a Jedi knight. Like millions of others, I was impressed with Malala’s Nobel Peace prize–winning acceptance speech. While I appreciated the beauty and power of her words, it wasn’t until I did the research for this book that I fully understood why Malala’s words inspired me. Malala’s speech perfectly follows Pixar’s 7-step storytelling process. I doubt that she did this intentionally, but it demonstrates once again the theme in this book—there’s a difference between a story, a good story, and a story that sparks movements.

One question.” I managed to gather the two words as his struggling breath entangled in my hair. “This isn’t fair. There is so much I want to know.” He laced his fingers into mine as he dipped his head down to my ear. “I want to know how you like your coffee, and what your favorite song is. I want to know what annoys you, and the worst thing you’ve ever done. I want to know your greatest fear, and whether or not you talk in your sleep. If you prefer chocolate over vanilla, and if you cried watching The Notebook … if you’ve ever seen The Notebook, or like movies at all. What gives you the greatest high, and what can take all the pain away …” Ollie drew in a deep breath, and at the same time, my heart skipped in my chest. “But what I need to know is … are you willing to open yourself up to me so I can find out?” “Is that your question?” I stammered, lost in all his words. “Yes.” He exhaled. “That’s my final question.” Turning to face him, his eyes filled with hope and wonder, but his absent smile expected the inescapable truth. We both knew there wasn’t anything inside me to open up, an empty shell. So, what exactly did I have to lose? And, so, it was there, in the middle of the romance section of the maze-like library at Dolor University outside of Guildford in the United Kingdom where I decided I was willing to show him I was nothing more than a hollow soul. “I will only disappoint you.” “I doubt it.” “And I’m difficult,” I warned. “Good.” Ollie grinned. “I wasn’t expecting anything less, Mia. I’m only asking you to knock down a wall. Not even a wall—fuck, carve me out a door. I only want to know you.” He grabbed my hand, and a calmness washed over me. I didn’t have the tools to destroy a wall, let alone carve out a door. The barriers had endured ten years. Tough and sturdy and placed for a reason. Each one had a purpose, and even though I’d forgotten why they stood there in the first place, I was scared what would happen if I started carving out holes. The walls became my friends—they were safe. But I nodded, anyway, because the small glimmer of hope in his eyes spread like an infection. “And to clarify, no, I’ve never seen The Notebook, and I don’t plan on it, either.” Ollie threw his head back and a raspy laugh echoed in our maze. A laugh I had quickly grown to adore.

I’d been reflecting on this--the drastic turn my life and my outlook on love had taken--more and more on the evenings Marlboro Man and I spent together, the nights we sat on his quiet porch, with no visible city lights or traffic sounds anywhere. Usually we’d have shared a dinner, done the dishes, watched a movie. But we’d almost always wind up on his porch, sitting or standing, overlooking nothing but dark, open countryside illuminated by the clear, unpolluted moonlight. If we weren’t wrapping in each other’s arms, I imagined, the quiet, rural darkness might be a terribly lonely place. But Marlboro Man never gave me a chance to find out. It was on this very porch that Marlboro Man had first told me he loved me, not two weeks after our first date. It had been a half-whisper, a mere thought that had left his mouth in a primal, noncalculated release. And it had both surprised and melted me all at once; the honesty of it, the spontaneity, the unbridled emotion. But though everything in my gut told me I was feeling exactly the same way, in all the time since I still hadn’t found the courage to repeat those words to him. I was guarded, despite the affection Marlboro Man heaped upon me. I was jaded; my old relationship had done that to me, and watching the crumbling of my parents’ thirty-year marriage hadn’t exactly helped. There was just something about saying the words “I love you” that was difficult for me, even though I knew, without a doubt, that I did love him. Oh, I did. But I was hanging on to them for dear life--afraid of what my saying them would mean, afraid of what might come of it. I’d already eaten beef--something I never could have predicted I’d do when I was living the vegetarian lifestyle. I’d gotten up before 4:00 A.M. to work cattle. And I’d put my Chicago plans on hold. At least, that’s what I’d told myself all that time. I put my plans on hold. That was enough, wasn’t it? Putting my life’s plans on hold for him? Marlboro Man had to know I loved him, didn’t he? He was so confident when we were together, so open, so honest, so transparent and sure. There was no such thing as “give-and-take” with him. He gave freely, poured out his heart willingly, and either he didn’t particularly care what my true feelings were for him, or, more likely, he already knew. Despite my silence, despite my fear of totally losing my grip on my former self, on the independent girl that I’d wanted to believe I was for so long…he knew. And he had all the patience he needed to wait for me to say it.

Twenty years? No kidding: twenty years? It’s hard to believe. Twenty years ago, I was—well, I was much younger. My parents were still alive. Two of my grandchildren had not yet been born, and another one, now in college, was an infant. Twenty years ago I didn’t own a cell phone. I didn’t know what quinoa was and I doubt if I had ever tasted kale. There had recently been a war. Now we refer to that one as the First Gulf War, but back then, mercifully, we didn’t know there would be another. Maybe a lot of us weren’t even thinking about the future then. But I was. And I’m a writer. I wrote The Giver on a big machine that had recently taken the place of my much-loved typewriter, and after I printed the pages, very noisily, I had to tear them apart, one by one, at the perforated edges. (When I referred to it as my computer, someone more knowledgeable pointed out that my machine was not a computer. It was a dedicated word processor. “Oh, okay then,” I said, as if I understood the difference.) As I carefully separated those two hundred or so pages, I glanced again at the words on them. I could see that I had written a complete book. It had all the elements of the seventeen or so books I had written before, the same things students of writing list on school quizzes: characters, plot, setting, tension, climax. (Though I didn’t reply as he had hoped to a student who emailed me some years later with the request “Please list all the similes and metaphors in The Giver,” I’m sure it contained those as well.) I had typed THE END after the intentionally ambiguous final paragraphs. But I was aware that this book was different from the many I had already written. My editor, when I gave him the manuscript, realized the same thing. If I had drawn a cartoon of him reading those pages, it would have had a text balloon over his head. The text would have said, simply: Gulp. But that was twenty years ago. If I had written The Giver this year, there would have been no gulp. Maybe a yawn, at most. Ho-hum. In so many recent dystopian novels (and there are exactly that: so many), societies battle and characters die hideously and whole civilizations crumble. None of that in The Giver. It was introspective. Quiet. Short on action. “Introspective, quiet, and short on action” translates to “tough to film.” Katniss Everdeen gets to kill off countless adolescent competitors in various ways during The Hunger Games; that’s exciting movie fare. It sells popcorn. Jonas, riding a bike and musing about his future? Not so much. Although the film rights to The Giver were snapped up early on, it moved forward in spurts and stops for years, as screenplay after screenplay—none of them by me—was

The Ten Ways to Evaluate a Market provide a back-of-the-napkin method you can use to identify the attractiveness of any potential market. Rate each of the ten factors below on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is terrible and 10 fantastic. When in doubt, be conservative in your estimate: Urgency. How badly do people want or need this right now? (Renting an old movie is low urgency; seeing the first showing of a new movie on opening night is high urgency, since it only happens once.) Market Size. How many people are purchasing things like this? (The market for underwater basket-weaving courses is very small; the market for cancer cures is massive.) Pricing Potential. What is the highest price a typical purchaser would be willing to spend for a solution? (Lollipops sell for $0.05; aircraft carriers sell for billions.) Cost of Customer Acquisition. How easy is it to acquire a new customer? On average, how much will it cost to generate a sale, in both money and effort? (Restaurants built on high-traffic interstate highways spend little to bring in new customers. Government contractors can spend millions landing major procurement deals.) Cost of Value Delivery. How much will it cost to create and deliver the value offered, in both money and effort? (Delivering files via the internet is almost free; inventing a product and building a factory costs millions.) Uniqueness of Offer. How unique is your offer versus competing offerings in the market, and how easy is it for potential competitors to copy you? (There are many hair salons but very few companies that offer private space travel.) Speed to Market. How soon can you create something to sell? (You can offer to mow a neighbor’s lawn in minutes; opening a bank can take years.) Up-front Investment. How much will you have to invest before you’re ready to sell? (To be a housekeeper, all you need is a set of inexpensive cleaning products. To mine for gold, you need millions to purchase land and excavating equipment.) Upsell Potential. Are there related secondary offers that you could also present to purchasing customers? (Customers who purchase razors need shaving cream and extra blades as well; buy a Frisbee and you won’t need another unless you lose it.) Evergreen Potential. Once the initial offer has been created, how much additional work will you have to put in in order to continue selling? (Business consulting requires ongoing work to get paid; a book can be produced once and then sold over and over as is.) When you’re done with your assessment, add up the score. If the score is 50 or below, move on to another idea—there are better places to invest your energy and resources. If the score is 75 or above, you have a very promising idea—full speed ahead. Anything between 50 and 75 has the potential to pay the bills but won’t be a home run without a huge investment of energy and resources.

Madison’s enthralled from the very first moment. I’m sitting on the blanket, my legs stretched out, while Kennedy lays down, her head in my lap. I cringe my way through the movie, absently stroking Kennedy’s hair. I glance down at her after a while, realizing she’s not watching the screen, her attention fixed on me. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” she says. “It’s just strange.” I caress her flushed cheek. “Being here with me?” “Yes,” she says. “Just when I was starting to doubt I’d ever see you again.” “You didn’t think I’d keep popping up every so often?” “Oh, sure, but that’s not you,” she says. “I knew that guy would keep coming back. I thought I’d be dealing with him for the rest of my life. Drunk, high, out of his mind… but I never thought I’d see you again, real you, yet you’re here. I thought it would always be him.” I know what she means as she motions toward the screen. I can tell I was strung out. It’s painful. “I’m here,” I say, “and I’m not going anywhere.” “I want to believe that.” “You can.” She smiles, and I don’t know if she believes it yet, but she looks content in the moment. I brush my thumb along her lips as they part, and I want to kiss her so fucking bad right now, but I know I’ll catch hell from my daughter if I try. “Ohhhh, Daddy!” Madison says, grabbing my attention, catching me off guard as she launches herself my way. Laughing, Kennedy sits up, moving out of the line of fire as Madison damn near tackles me, leaping on my back and trying to cover my face with her hands from behind. “You’re not supposed to do that!” “What?” I laugh. “I didn’t do anything!” “You’re kissing her!” she says as I pull her hands away from my mouth when she tries to cover it. I playfully pretend to bite her, making her squeal. “Stop, Daddy!” She flings herself on me, falling into my lap, as I glance up at the screen, realizing Breezeo is kissing Maryanne. I scowl, tickling Madison. “It’s just a movie. It’s not real.” She giggles, slapping my hands away. “You didn’t really kiss her?” “Well, yeah, but it doesn’t count.” “Why not?” “Because it’s Breezeo, not me.” “It’s still yucky,” she says, making a face. “You think kissing me is yucky?” I tickle her again, and she struggles, laughing, trying to get away, but I’m not going to let it go that easy. Grabbing ahold of her, pinning her to me, I nuzzle against her cheek as she shoves my face. “Help, Mommy!” “Oh, no, you’re on your own there,” Kennedy says. “You got yourself into that one.” “Ugh, no fair!” Madison says, slapping her hands over my mouth. “No kissing ‘till the end!” “Fine.” I let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “You win.” She sticks her tongue out at me. The girl seriously sticks her tongue out, gloating, as she leaps at her mother and kisses on her—planting big, sloppy kisses right on Kennedy, making sure I see it. She’s gone again then, right back to her movie now that the love scene is over. “Unbelievable.” I shake my head. “I get no love.” Grinning, Kennedy lays back down with her head in my lap. She stares at me, reaching up, her fingertips brushing across my lips. “You be good, and I’ll make it worth it for you later.” I cock an eyebrow at her. “Is that right?

He moved well. He looked good. He was tall. He worked on his body and this work was extremely successful. He had a lot of thick, messy black hair. And he had a face that was movie star handsome in a way that, without a doubt, launched a million wedding fantasies, even from women who just caught a glimpse of him walking down the street.

Carnegie: And who are you? Eli: Nobody. Carnegie: Oh, I doubt that. The men you killed in my bar, now they were nobody.

Sometimes I doubted the reliability of my head. Maybe she was an image leftover from my life before Branch. A girl I saw in a movie. A character I read about in a book.

No doubt a Cretan or Calabrian peasant might find it ironic that New York socialites and Hollywood movie stars—indeed, nearly all the wealthy peoples on the planet—are now trying to replicate the diet of an impoverished post-war population desperate to improve its lot.

One day I realized something obvious: In all these movies, there was a similar plot. The hero is always weak at the beginning and strong at the end, or a jerk at the beginning and kind at the end, or cowardly at the beginning and brave at the end. In other words, heroes are almost always screwups. But it hardly mattered. All the hero has to do to make the story great is struggle with doubt, face their demons, and muster enough strength to destroy the Death Star. That said, I noticed another thing. The strongest character in a story isn’t the hero, it’s the guide. Yoda. Haymitch. It’s the guide who gets the hero back on track. The guide gives the hero a plan and enough confidence to enter the fight. The guide has walked the path of the hero and has the advice and wisdom to get the hero through their troubles so they can beat the resistance. The more I studied story, the more I realized I needed a guide.

I also had the distinct impression that, when he’d leaned into my space, he’d tried to smell me, and he’d managed to do it without coming across as a creepy creeper. Admittedly, if he were less epically good-looking, he might have come across as a creepy creeper. But, as he had the body of a gladiator and the face of a movie star, I felt flustered, flattered, and turned on. The fact that I felt flattered made me feel like an idiot. I hated this about myself. I hated that, even though I knew better, good looks negated odd behavior. His odd behavior being that he was attempting to use all five of his senses to experience me while trapping us in an elevator; I didn’t doubt that, if I’d given him any indication that I was in favor of his advances, he would have tried to taste me as well. I shivered at the thought, a wave of warmth spreading from my chest to the pit of my stomach, stinging and sudden, like a hot flash.

Do you fancy catching a movie at the Sturbridge Theater tonight? That new Robert Pattinson movie is showing,” I ask her, the phone cradled against my chest. “Definitely sign me up for that!” Ari replies, chuckling as I mock scowl. Her easy laugh warms my soul. “We’re in,” I tell Gil, arranging to meet him and his date in the diner later. “So, who is it this time?” Ari asks, resting her chin in her hands. “Anyone we know?” Considering I can count the girls on one hand who have enjoyed more than one date with Gil, I doubt it’ll be someone familiar. “I didn’t ask; guess we’ll find out soon enough.” “Five bucks says it’s a blonde,” Ari quips. “That’s one bet I’m not taking,” I admit, twirling a lock of her hair around my finger. “Gil’s penchant for blondes is world-renowned.

Those who have been swept within the criminal justice system know that the way the system actually works bears little resemblance to what happens on television or in movies. Full-blown trials of guilt or innocence rarely occur; many people never even meet with an attorney; witnesses are routinely paid and coerced by the government; police regularly stop and search people for no reason whatsoever; penalties for many crimes are so severe that innocent people plead guilty, accepting plea bargains to avoid harsh mandatory sentences; and children, even as young as fourteen, are sent to adult prisons. Rules of law and procedure, such as “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” or “probable cause” or “reasonable suspicion,” can easily be found in court cases and law-school textbooks but are much harder to find in real life.

People say things move more slowly in situations like this, and they’re right. My mind watched the action in the microseconds that followed as if it were watching a movie in slow motion. The instant I saw the pilot chute, my arms flew to my sides and I straightened my body into a head dive, bending ever so slightly at the hips. The verticality gave me increased speed, and the bend allowed my body to add first a little, then a blast of horizontal motion as my body became an efficient wing, sending me zipping past Chuck just in front of his colorful blossoming Para-Commander parachute. I passed him going at over 150 miles per hour, or 220 feet per second. Given that speed, I doubt he saw the expression on my face. But if he had, he would have seen a look of sheer astonishment. Somehow I had reacted in microseconds to a situation that, had I actually had time to think about it, would have been much too complex for me to deal with. And yet . . . I had dealt with it, and we both landed safely. It was as if, presented with a situation that required more than its usual ability to respond, my brain had become, for a moment, superpowered. How had I done it? Over the course of my twenty-plus-year career in academic neurosurgery—of studying the brain, observing how it works, and operating on it—I have had plenty of opportunities to ponder this very question. I finally chalked it up to the fact that the brain is truly an extraordinary device: more extraordinary than we can even guess. I realize now that the real answer to that question is much more profound. But I had to go through a complete metamorphosis of my life and worldview to glimpse that answer. This book is about the events that changed my mind on the matter. They convinced me that, as marvelous a mechanism as the brain is, it was not my brain that saved my life that day at all. What sprang into action the second Chuck’s chute started to open was another, much deeper part of me. A part that could move so fast because it was not stuck in time at all, the way the brain and body are.

It felt as though I had died and was starting over with a new life. I mentally reviewed my years as a child growing up in Oregon, as an adult running my own business, then meeting Steve, becoming his wife and the mother of our children. Now, at age forty-two, I was starting again. I kept going over and over what had happened. I wanted to talk to everyone who had been there with Steve on the day of his accident. But I thought it more important to focus on our life together instead. Often, while we were on an adventure, it struck me as almost surreal for us to be in a tropical rain forest, for example, or on a South Pacific island, visiting the Galapagos, or trekking in snow-capped wilderness in America. I felt like I had been living in a movie. I lay there while the clock ticked on. Here is another minute I have survived without Steve. I consoled myself with the thought that the clock was ticking for all of us. None of us could know when it was going to be our time. I resolved that I would celebrate the people who were still here and apply myself to the work that still had to be done. My resolution was all well and good, but what really sustained me during those dark, lonely hours of the night was another deeper, more persistent thought. With every tick of the clock, I was one moment closer to being with Steve again. As strong as Steve was in this life, I knew without a doubt he would be a force to be reckoned with in the next.

She painted in the mornings and felt that artist instinct begin to yawn again inside her. In the afternoons she rehearsed with Mr. Nobley in the library, pacing outside under the apple trees (she didn’t see Martin), or in the north drawing room with the others, wrapping themselves in fabric that was meant to suggest Roman togas. And Mr. Nobley watched her. He had always watched her, of course. That was part of his character. But did she fancy that he did so even more now? And that in his side glances and half-smiles gleamed a touch of slipped-character, a break, a sliver of the man himself? Jane’s thoughts: Oh, stop it. Jane’s other thoughts: But then again, movie actors fall in love with each other on the set all the time. Is it so outlandish to suppose it might happen to me? Jane answered Jane’s other thoughts: Yes, it is. Stay focused. Have fun. And, miraculously, she did! She bantered and laughed and smiled coyly over one shoulder. Her mornings painting imbued her with a fresh energy that made her feel pretty, and in the afternoons and evenings with Mr. Nobley, she felt relaxed. In the past, Jane would be so beset by stumbling doubts she’d lose the capacity to enjoy his eyes on her. But now, she looked at him right back. Here there was no anxiety, no what-ifs. Just good clean flirting. One night as she snuggled into her sheets, giggling at herself and remembering all the delicious moments from that day, she decided that she was able to go for broke because she wasn’t really Jane here--not obsessive, crazy Jane. Fairy-tale land was a safe place to roll around in, get into trouble, figure yourself out, and come out unscathed.

military no doubt have a pretty good idea. One thing the American defense establishment has traditionally understood very well is that countries don’t win wars just by being braver than the other side, or freer, or slightly preferred by God. The winners are usually the guys who get 5% fewer of their planes shot down, or use 5% less fuel, or get 5% more nutrition into their infantry at 95% of the cost. That’s not the stuff war movies are made of, but it’s the stuff wars are made of. And there’s math every step of the way.

As the country’s most powerful creator of mass culture, Hollywood was considered an especially potent threat by Wheeler and other isolationist leaders. There was little doubt about the influence of movies: more than half of the American people saw at least one movie a week in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Hollywood is the single most dangerous force in the history of class struggle.” Or so Osip argued, until he discovered the genre of American movies that would come to be known as film noir. With rapt attention he watched the likes of This Gun for Hire, Shadow of a Doubt, and Double Indemnity. “What is this?” he would ask of no one in particular. “Who is making these movies? Under what auspices?” From one to the next, they seemed to depict an America in which corruption and cruelty lounged on the couch; in which justice was a beggar and kindness a fool; in which loyalties were fashioned from paper, and self-interest was fashioned from steel. In other words, they provided an unflinching portrayal of Capitalism as it actually was. “How did this happen, Alexander? Why do they allow these movies to be made? Do they not realize they are hammering a wedge beneath their own foundation stones?

I took off my top because I didn’t know if I could.” “Mmm,” Eric said, nodding. “I’d never done a nude scene and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to do it. So I did it in real life and then I realized I could do it in the movie. I just, you know, forgot that other people could see me.” “That’s understandable. It must be difficult to shift back and forth between reality and fiction, especially with such an intense role. We can come back to that or leave it alone. For now, how about some Skee-Ball?” Annie nodded. “Annie,” she told herself, “shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up.” When the pictures hit the Internet, fuzzy and low-resolution but without a doubt her, Annie’s parents sent her an e-mail that read: It’s about time you started playing with the idea of celebrity and the female form as viewed object. Her brother did not say or write a single word, seemed to disappear; perhaps that’s what happens when a sibling sees you naked. Her on-and-off boyfriend, currently off, called her and, when she answered the phone, said, “Is this a Fang thing? I mean, is it just inescapable that you’ll do weird shit?

BILL OF RIGHTS Respect means I give myself and others the right to: Space and privacy (e.g., knocking on doors before entering, not opening one another’s mail, respecting each other’s needs for quiet and space); Be different (e.g., allowing preferences for food, movies, volume of music, and how we spend our time); Disagree (e.g., making room for each person to think and see life differently); Be heard (e.g., listening to each other’s desires, opinions, thoughts, feelings, etc.); Be taken seriously (e.g., listening and being present to one another); Be given the benefit of the doubt (e.g., checking out assumptions rather than judging one another when misunderstandings arise); Be told the truth (e.g., counting on the truth when asking each other for information—from “Did you study for the test that you failed?” to “Why were you late coming home?”); Be consulted (e.g., checking and asking when decisions will affect others); Be imperfect and make mistakes (e.g., leaving “room” for breaking things, forgetting things, letting each other down unintentionally, failing tests when we have studied, etc.); Courteous and honorable treatment (e.g., using words that don’t hurt, asking before using, consulting when appropriate, treating each other as I-Thou’s); and Be respected (e.g., taking one another’s feelings into account)

I don’t guess you can outrun an explosion, right?” Sam asked doubtfully. Jack rolled his eyes and sighed his condescending geek sigh. “Seriously? Brianna runs in miles per hour. Explosions happen in feet per second. Don’t believe what you see in movies.” “Yeah, Sam,” Dekka said. “In the old days I always had Astrid around to humiliate me when I asked a stupid question,” Sam said. “It’s good to have Jack to take over that job.” He’d said it lightheartedly, but the mention of Astrid left an awkward hole in the conversation. Brianna said, “I can’t outrun an explosion, but I’ll tie the string around the wire.” She zipped over to the wire and zipped back holding the loose end. “Who gets to yank the string?” “She who ties the string pulls it,” Sam said. “But first—” BOOOOM! The containers, the sand, pieces of driftwood, bushes on the bluff all erupted in a fireball. Sam felt a blast of heat on his face. His ears rang. His eyes scrunched on sand. Debris seemed to take a long time to fall back down to earth. In the eventual silence Sam said, “I was going to say first we should all lie flat so we didn’t get blown up. But I guess that was good, too, Breeze.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a café in Paris overlooking the Luxembourg Garden, just off of Rue Saint-Jacques. Rue Saint-Jacques is likely the oldest road in Paris, and it has a rich literary history. Victor Hugo lived a few blocks from where I’m sitting. Gertrude Stein drank coffee and F. Scott Fitzgerald socialized within a stone’s throw. Hemingway wandered up and down the sidewalks, his books percolating in his mind, wine no doubt percolating in his blood. I came to France to take a break from everything. No social media, no email, no social commitments, no set plans . . . except one project. The month had been set aside to review all of the lessons I’d learned from nearly 200 world-class performers I’d interviewed on The Tim Ferriss Show, which recently passed 100,000,000 downloads. The guests included chess prodigies, movie stars, four-star generals, pro athletes, and hedge fund managers. It was a motley crew. More than a handful of them had since become collaborators in business and creative projects, spanning from investments to indie film. As a result, I’d absorbed a lot of their wisdom outside of our recordings, whether over workouts, wine-infused jam sessions, text message exchanges, dinners, or late-night phone calls. In every case, I’d gotten to know them well beyond the superficial headlines in the media. My life had already improved in every area as a result of the lessons I could remember. But that was the tip of the iceberg. The majority of the gems were still lodged in thousands of pages of transcripts and hand-scribbled notes. More than anything, I longed for the chance to distill everything into a playbook. So, I’d set aside an entire month for review (and, if I’m being honest, pain au chocolat), to put together the ultimate CliffsNotes for myself. It would be the notebook to end all notebooks. Something that could help me in minutes but be read for a lifetime.

Ever seen a cow milked by hand in the movies?” he asked. “Certainly,” said Ferdy. “Then I guess you know all you need to,” said Ben with a wink at the other cubs. “Go on, son. Git!” Ferdy sat down on the little stool behind Old Bess and placed the bucket under her bulging udder. He grasped two nipples and pulled gently. Nothing happened. “Better pull a little harder, son,” Ben advised. Ferdy tugged harder. But all that happened was that Old Bess looked back at Ferdy. “Uh-oh,” said Lizzy, who had a way with animals. “She looks mad.” Just then Old Bess lifted a hind leg and kicked the stool right out from under Ferdy. Ferdy fell forward and landed with his head in the bucket. “You’re sure havin’ your problems with buckets this morning, son,” said Farmer Ben. “I doubt it was my fault,” said Ferdy icily. “Old Bess seems to be working no better than her milking machine.” “We’ll see about that,” said Farmer Ben. He took a seat on the stool and reached for Old Bess’s udder. Within minutes he had a full pail of fresh milk. “I’ll bet Ferdy’s had enough for one day, cubs,” said Farmer Ben. “We should all thank him for being such a good sport. And a good teacher. You can learn a lot by seeing how not to do things, you know.

Those who have been swept within the criminal justice system know that the way the system actually works bears little resemblance to what happens on television or in the movies. Full-blow trials of guilt or innocence rarely occur; many people never even meet with an attorney; witnesses are routinely paid and coerced by the government; police regularly stop and search people for no reason whatsoever; penalties for many crimes are so severe that innocent people plead guilty, accepting plea bargains to avoid harsh mandatory sentences; and children, even as young as fourteen, are sent to adult prisons. Rules of law and procedure, such as 'guilt beyond a reasonable doubt' or 'probable cause' or 'reasonable suspicion,' can easily be found in court cases and law-school textbooks but are much harder to find in real life.

I found my fantasy in movies and she found it in mermaids, but we both knew you needed something. The smarter you were, the more you saw the world for what it was, people for who they truly were, those inside-out people, and if that was all you saw... you'd be in therapy 24/7. You needed to make your own reality because the real version could make you doubt humanity.

The two teenagers snuck around to the side of the building. Parked next to the edge of the mountain was a giant iridescent vehicle that looked like a military tank from some big budget sci-fi movie—the kind Cooper was always making her watch. This one was real, though. The tip of the gun barrel glowed orange before slowly fading to cherry red. Katie seized Cooper’s hand in a tight grip. “How do we stop this? We have to stop it before it goes off again.” “I don’t know. It’s not like I have a bomb or a missile or anything. That’s an armored vehicle. I doubt any weapon from our time could put a scratch on it.” “Think, Cooper, think. You’re the biggest movie nerd I’ve ever seen. You must have seen something in some movie that can help us.” “Okay, okay. Just let me think for a minute.

She later described a fear so complete that it replaced every feeling in her body. Like an animal hiding inside her, it opened to its full size and stood up using the muscles in her legs. “I had nothing to do with it,” she explained. “I was a passenger moving down that hallway.” What she experienced was real fear, not like when we are startled, not like the fear we feel at a movie, or the fear of public speaking. This fear is the powerful ally that says, “Do what I tell you to do.” Sometimes, it tells a person to play dead, or to stop breathing, or to run or scream or fight, but to Kelly it said, “Just be quiet and don’t doubt me and I’ll get you out of here.” Kelly told me she felt new confidence in herself, knowing she had acted on that signal, knowing she had saved her own life.

Suppose that in our Western culture movies, radios, television, sports events and newspapers ceased to function for only four weeks. With these main avenues of escape closed, what would be the consequences for people thrown back upon their own resources? I have no doubt that even in this short time thousands of nervous breakdowns would occur, and many more thousands of people would be thrown into a state of acute anxiety, not different from the picture which is diagnosed clinically as “neurosis.”7 If the opiate against the socially patterned defect were withdrawn, the manifest illness would make its appearance.

Were the average man suddenly called upon to assemble all the women in his town who looked like Mary Pickford, he might find himself at a loss as to how to commence. In fact, he might even doubt that there were sufficient persons answering this description to warrant such a campaign.

Three additional properties hold for any conscious experience. They cannot be doubted. First, any experience is highly informative, distinct because of the way it is. Each experience is informationally rich, containing a great deal of detail, a composition of specific phenomenal distinctions, bound together in specific ways. Every frame of every movie I ever saw or will see in the future is a distinct experience, each one a wealth of phenomenology of colors, shapes, lines, and textures at locations throughout the field of view. And then there are auditory, olfactory, tactile, sexual, and other bodily experiences—each one distinct in its own way. There cannot be a generic experience. Even the experience of vaguely seeing something in a dense fog, without being clear what I am seeing, is a specific experience.

Tolerances of the Human Face in Crash Impacts. Travers took the glass of whisky from Karen Novotny. ‘Who is Koester? - the crash on the motorway was a decoy. Half the time we’re moving about in other people’s games.’ He followed her on to the balcony. The evening traffic turned along the outer circle of the park. The past few days had formed a pleasant no-man’s land, a dead zone on the clock. As she took his arm in a domestic gesture he looked at her for the first time in half an hour. This strange young woman, moving in a complex of undefined roles, the gun moll of intellectual hoodlums with her art critical jargon and bizarre magazine subscriptions. He had met her in the demonstration cinema during the interval, immediately aware that she would form the perfect subject for the re-enactment he had conceived. What were she and her fey crowd doing at a conference on facial surgery? No doubt the lectures were listed in the diary pages of Vogue , with the professors of tropical diseases as popular with their claques as fashionable hairdressers. ‘What about you, Karen? - wouldn’t you like to be in the movies?’ With a stiff forefinger she explored the knuckle of his wrist. ‘We’re all in the movies.

Because they have zero price, these services are virtually invisible in the official statistics. They add value to the economy, but not dollars to GDP. And because our productivity data are, in turn, based on GDP metrics, the burgeoning availability of free goods does not move the productivity dial. There’s little doubt, however, that they have real value. When a girl clicks on a YouTube video instead of going to the movies, she’s saying that she gets more net value from YouTube than traditional cinema. When her brother downloads a free gaming app on his iPad instead of buying a new video game, he’s making a similar statement.

She knew with suddenness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hand's reach of memory. She doubted if they all sensed it - they had seen the world - but even George was silent for a minute as the looked, and the scene, the smell, even the sound of the band playing a faintly recognizable movie theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace.

The first American serial killer of the twentieth century was a strangler—Earle Leonard Nelson, aka the “Gorilla Murderer,” a Bible-quoting psycho who traveled from coast to coast, choking women to death before raping their corpses (Alfred Hitchcock also made a movie loosely inspired by this notorious case: his 1943 masterpiece, Shadow of a Doubt).

So there I was, deep in dreamland, fighting for my family's honor against a battalion of past lovers. The battle lasted for days, and in the dream I woke up and shared the dream with friends, not realizing I was still in it. I tried to write it down, certain it would make a great movie plot, but when I looked at the pen I discovered it was full of... ew, semen? No doubt a reminder from the subconscious of the potency of my literary potential.

It’s only when people believe that their beliefs are above questioning, that their beliefs alone are beyond all doubt, that they can be as truly horrible as we all know they can be.

Republican Arizona congressman Paul Gosar sent Meadows several texts between November and December 2020 warning about “dead voters” and Dominion, the voting machines destined to become a lightning rod in the months to come. (It was a line of inquiry that even Meadows repeatedly indicated he doubted in emails to other associates.) One of Gosar’s texts included a link to a movie about “cyber warfare” and voting machines from an anti-vaccine conspiracy blog called Some Bitch Told Me. Republicans in Washington mined briefings from very dubious sources.

As I said, a warrior. It might look different from whatever silly, preconceived notion you may have gotten from popular movies and books. They are but a shadow, a childish fantasy meant to entertain. Being a warrior is not what you look like or what others think of you. It is what you do, every moment of every day. It is the truth you stand for and the good you fight to protect. I have seen you conquer every challenge you have faced so far, and have no doubt you will conquer this one as well, one way or another.

Children in our culture are familiar with transformation of identity from comics, movies, television, and books. Who has not watched a child zooming around on the sidewalk or in the backyard, pretending to be a superhero or some other figure? Who can doubt the child's intensity of imaginative involvement in this transformation? I think it is reasonable to say that the normal child partly believes in this transformation on a transient basis. It is not necessary to wonder where the MPD child gets the idea of creating someone else inside to cope with the abuse. The strategy of transformation of identity to gain strength, coping power, even and vulnerability is readily available in the child's environment.

Kids Riding Tornados The Wizard of Oz is a famous movie that was made in 1939. Dorothy is the girl who is the main character and in the story, she is picked up by a tornado and carried off to the fictional land of Oz. A few years later, in 1955, a 9-year-old really did go for a ride in a tornado! But first she rode a horse. There’s not a whole lot around Bowdle, South Dakota. It’s a very rural part of the state. Sharon Weron was 9 years old and riding a horse home from a neighbor’s house. Her mom was following in her car and saw everything. Just as Sharon and her horse reached their house, the tornado was on them. They had very little warning. Sharon’s mom saw the tornado pick up her daughter (and horse), spin them around wildly, and carry them away. Sharon was wearing a blue shirt so her mom was looking for that in the tornado and could see her spinning. The tornado carried them around 1,000 feet, over several fences, and dumped Sharon in a ditch. She was wearing a leather jacket and pulled that up around her head during her flight. There was hail and all kinds of debris flying around inside the tornado with her. Sharon’s hands were badly bruised from being hit by the hail and who knows what else. She remembered hitting the ground and grabbing the grass so that she wouldn’t get sucked up again. As she looked around, she found her horse. He was just standing there not far from her. Both were a little beaten up but okay. That’s crazy, right? Their story got picked up by newspapers and spread all over the world. Reporters had no reason to doubt the story. As unbelievable as it seems, it still holds up as credible. Sharon’s ride was also witnessed by neighbors. The Guinness book of world records listed Sharon’s ride as the furthest anyone had ever ridden in a tornado until 2006. It’s remarkable that both Sharon and her horse lived through such a terrifying experience. That has to be the craziest horse story in the history of the world!