Excuses Fitness Quotes

Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you dont matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon-fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar-stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything,but you can't stop trying to do it all. All I know is that I have no idea where I am right now. I feel like I am in training for something, making progress with every step I take. I fear standing still. It is my greatest weakness. I talk big, but often don't follow through. That's my biggest problem. I don't even know what to think right now. It's about time I start to take a jump. Fuck starting to take. Just jump-over everything. Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it, but not with the intention of sparking controversy or picking a germane fight. Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.

The girls can have the bed," Gazzy said. "Iggy and I can sleep on the floor." Excuse me, sexist piglet?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "How about the two smallest people share the bed 'cause they'll fit. That would be you and Angel." Yeah," said Nudge "Like, I'm too much of a cream puff to sleep on the floor?

I’m not fit to occupy space. Excuse me for living.

Resilience is not a commodity you are born with, waiting silently on tap. It is self-manufactured painstakingly over time by working through your problems and never giving up, even in the face of difficulty or failure.

Find something you love and go for it with all your heart. No excuses, no plan B. Never settle for anything less than you know you can do. It will be hard, but I promise it will be worth it.

Tweet others the way you want to be tweeted.

Freedom of Speech doesn't justify online bullying. Words have power, be careful how you use them.

Your success is your responsibility. Take the initiative, do the work, and persist to the end.

Keep an open mind and know that you can always learn more.

A man who seeks only the light, while shirking his responsibilities, will never find illumination. And one who keep his eyes fixed upon the sun ends up blind..." "It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case. So, relax. Let the universe move about. Discover the joy of surprising yourself." "The master says: “Make use of every blessing that God gave you today. A blessing cannot be saved. There is no bank where we can deposit blessings received, to use them when we see fit. If you do not use them, they will be irretrievably lost. God knows that we are creative artists when it comes to our lives. On one day, he gives us clay for sculpting, on another, brushes and canvas, or a pen. But we can never use clay on our canvas, nor pens in sculpture. Each day has its own miracle. Accept the blessings, work, and create your minor works of art today. Tomorrow you will receive others.” “You are together because a forest is always stronger than a solitary tree,” the master answered. "The forest conserves humidity, resists the hurricane and helps the soil to be fertile. But what makes a tree strong is its roots. And the roots of a plant cannot help another plant to grow. To be joined together in the same purpose is to allow each person to grow in his own fashion, and that is the path of those who wish to commune with God.” “If you must cry, cry like a child. You were once a child, and one of the first things you learned in life was to cry, because crying is a part of life. Never forget that you are free, and that to show your emotions is not shameful. Scream, sob loudly, make as much noise as you like. Because that is how children cry, and they know the fastest way to put their hearts at ease. Have you ever noticed how children stop crying? They stop because something distracts them. Something calls them to the next adventure. Children stop crying very quickly. And that's how it will be for you. But only if you can cry as children do.” “If you are traveling the road of your dreams, be committed to it. Do not leave an open door to be used as an excuse such as, 'Well, this isn't exactly what I wanted. ' Therein are contained the seeds of defeat. “Walk your path. Even if your steps have to be uncertain, even if you know that you could be doing it better. If you accept your possibilities in the present, there is no doubt that you will improve in the future. But if you deny that you have limitations, you will never be rid of them. “Confront your path with courage, and don't be afraid of the criticism of others. And, above all, don't allow yourself to become paralyzed by self-criticism. “God will be with you on your sleepless nights, and will dry your tears with His love. God is for the valiant.” "Certain things in life simply have to be experienced -and never explained. Love is such a thing." "There is a moment in every day when it is difficult to see clearly: evening time. Light and darkness blend, and nothing is completely clear nor completely dark." "But it's not important what we think, or what we do or what we believe in: each of us will die one day. Better to do as the old Yaqui Indians did: regard death as an advisor. Always ask: 'Since I'm going to die, what should I be doing now?'” "When we follow our dreams, we may give the impression to others that we are miserable and unhappy. But what others think is not important. What is important is the joy in our heart.” “There is a work of art each of us was destined to create. That is the central point of our life, and -no matter how we try to deceive ourselves -we know how important it is to our happiness. Usually, that work of art is covered by years of fears, guilt and indecision. But, if we decide to remove those things that do not belong, if we have no doubt as to our capability, we are capable of going forward with the mission that is our destiny. That is the only way to live with honor.

True sportsmanship is… Knowing that you need your opponent because without him or her, there is no game. Acknowledging that your opponent holds the same deep-rooted aspirations and expectations as you. Knowing that, win or lose, you will walk off the course with pride. Always taking the high road. And always, always, always being a good sport.

Once your excuses are gone, you will simply have to settle for being awesome!

Matt laughed. "Close. That was last year. This year it's Obsessive Deovtion to Fourier Analysis Theory and Applications. And my personal favorite, Quantum Physics II: Romantic Entanglements of Energy and Matter." Julie turned her head to Matt. "You're a double major? Physics and math? Jesus..." "I know. Nerdy." He shrugged. "No, I'm impressed. I'm just surprised your brains fit in your head." "I was fitted with a specially desinged compression filter that allows excessive information to lie dormant until I need to access it. It's only the Beta version, so excuse any kinks that may appear. I really can't be held responsible.

Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pagodas and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule-drivers, mules and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by hunch-backed makers of clogs; gather speed up the stoned-in Nakashima River and fly beneath the arches of its bridges, glimpsed form kitchen doors, watched by farmers walking high, stony ridges. Gulls fly through clouds of steam from laundries' vats; over kites unthreading corpses of cats; over scholars glimpsing truth in fragile patterns; over bath-house adulterers, heartbroken slatterns; fishwives dismembering lobsters and crabs; their husbands gutting mackerel on slabs; woodcutters' sons sharpening axes; candle-makers, rolling waxes; flint-eyed officials milking taxes; etiolated lacquerers; mottle-skinned dyers; imprecise soothsayers; unblinking liars; weavers of mats; cutters of rushes; ink-lipped calligraphers dipping brushes; booksellers ruined by unsold books; ladies-in-waiting; tasters; dressers; filching page-boys; runny-nosed cooks; sunless attic nooks where seamstresses prick calloused fingers; limping malingerers; swineherds; swindlers; lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and ageing rakes by other men's wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; statues of Jizo anointed with posies; syphilitics sneezing through rotted-off noses; potters; barbers; hawkers of oil; tanners; cutlers; carters of night-soil; gate-keepers; bee-keepers; blacksmiths and drapers; torturers; wet-nurses; perjurers; cut-purses; the newborn; the growing; the strong-willed and pliant; the ailing; the dying; the weak and defiant; over the roof of a painter withdrawn first from the world, then his family, and down into a masterpiece that has, in the end, withdrawn from its creator; and around again, where their flight began, over the balcony of the Room of Last Chrysanthemum, where a puddle from last night's rain is evaporating; a puddle in which Magistrate Shiroyama observes the blurred reflections of gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight. This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.

Believe that your hard work, dedication and persistence will pay off; improve through continual learning and believe in your future.

Think proactively and dynamically. Be realistic, but set your sights high.

Life’s best coaches are those who believe in you and your potential, sometimes even before you do.

Explore, experience, evolve, and exceed your expectations! - No Excuses!

Treat yourself like a fat person with aches and pains and a suitcase full of excuses, and good luck--you'll stay exactly where you are. Train like an athlete and, though you may not look like one now, you will become one.

Put some action on your good intentions!

You become limitless when you overcome what holds you back.

Think in terms of opportunities and solutions instead of problems, disappointment, and failure.

Core passions and aspirations should be consistent and in sync.

Excuses fall silent behind self-control, focus, and direction.

True sportsmanship is excellence in motion!

How can you possibly do everything you want to do in life if you start doing a bunch of things twice?

People aspire, learn, and grow when they are ready to commit to the process.

Keep a positive mind. Remember, a failed attempt doesn’t make you a failure—giving up does.

Tell yourself often: I am going to tackle my aspirations head on with the passion and dedication necessary to exceed even my expectations.

It’s not the win that matters so much as recognizing and respecting its value.

Excuses don’t kill the fat, exercises do.

This is about me being ready to succeed. When I win in my mind, I truly win. Anything worthwhile deserves some time. I will do it this time! No excuses!

Let your passion in life be as conspicuous as the devilish grin on your face.

Push hard and expect rapid results.

Winners in life visualize their success and look forward to reaping and enjoying the rewards of their accomplishments. They revel in their hard-earned victory, and that reinforces their superior level of self-confidence.

Nobody wants to die! So why do people let themselves go? Why kill yourself off? Stop and think, get fit and strong! Even a good shag will burn the calories off and pump your heart! There is no excuse - you know it!

If you are going to become limitless, you must summon the explorer within you.

Value the effort you put forward. Be determined, committed, and involved.

Don't make excuses for why you're not doing what you have already deemed critical to your success.

Live in the present, but live for the future.

When aspirations are perceived to be achievable, ambition and drive can erase excuses.

You must be grounded to take flight.

Push today for what you want tomorrow!

Go BIG or go BIG...there is nothing else!

Aspire to high standards, expect strong results, offer self praise, and stack your confidence.

If you wanted to be average, you would not be reading this book.

A show of confidence raises the bar.

Struggle strengthens the human bond and lightens the burden of the human condition.

When there is no distraction, there is clarity.

Haphazard actions don’t bring results!

You only live once. But if you live your life right, once can mean everything!

Our bodies are more than just a vehicle for our minds. They are the inspiration!

Excellence prospers in the absence of excuses.

I think fairy tales might be more like cautionary tales than anything else. And fate is just an excuse for people to be inactive participants in their own lives.

An aspirational diet will have you dreaming of success; but it’s the attachment of expectations and tangible goals that feeds the desire, persistence, and fortitude required to make the win.

When you begin to expect that there is always room for improvement, you put yourself in the driver’s seat. Why wait for someone else to figure it out or do it? Expect that you are the one. Expect great outcomes. Expect that you are the best candidate and that you will achieve your goals.

The BIG push means being able to develop and sustain momentum toward your goal; it is the process of actively replacing excuses with winning habits, the ultimate excuses blockers. Moreover, it is being willing to go to the wall for what you want or believe in, to push beyond your previous mental and physical limits, no matter what it takes.

At that point where you have decided to upgrade from aspiration to expectation and have begun to visualize an outcome, something incredibly important has happened, you have committed to the process of change.

Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn't I better end my "Notes" here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I've been writing this story; so it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don't know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, I assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once. I know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries in your underground holes, and don't dare to say all of us-- excuse me, gentlemen, I am not justifying myself with that "all of us." As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men--men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from "Underground." [The notes of this paradoxalist do not end here, however. He could not refrain from going on with them, but it seems to us that we may stop here.]

Men dressed in an embroidery of excuses are not fit to enter the colorful chamber of champions

Becoming limitless involves mental agility; the ability to quickly grasp and incorporate new ideas and concepts with confidence.

Extend beyond your preconceived limits!

If you are afraid to fail, your successes will be few, common, and unmemorable.

People rise to the occasion without hesitation when they feel inspired and challenged.

Managing excuses means not excusing yourself from the responsibility you need to take with your thought, words, and actions.

From within the mind we look out and envision, contemplating and interpreting each new challenge and the action we will take.

Visualization engages the mind and encourages the body.

For every forward action, there is an equally important forward reaction.

If you give up, you reward failure.

Set aside your repertoire of objections and own 100 percent of your focus.

Don’t expect to be perfect, but work hard nonetheless.

Successful continual learning means maintaining a balance and variety of success-oriented attributes, the most prominent being awareness, confidence, persistence, determination, courage, and focus. But curiosity, ingenuity, and creativity may be even more important as it is these traits that fuel the desire to continue to question and challenge the status quo.

I am adrift. At 21, penniless in a world of plausible excuses, I am alone with my goals. These are difficult years, and if anything loving lay ahead I was already paying a large enough price. At my lowest in these years of signing on, I do not fit in anywhere with the family philosophy, and these days set the tempo of the times- even for the days when the sun re-enters the room. Travestied or not, you must just get through it.

When we watch pro golfers, we expect them to play well, to make the shots we know we can’t, and to be entertaining. Their expectation, however, is very different. They expect to succeed!

I do love a hotel room: adore it. What's not to love about everything you need in one room? Would you have a kettle on a tea tray with biscuits in a packet in your bedroom at home? No, you very likely wouldn't. And – please excuse me, MDRC, I'm getting a little giddy here – the kettle. The little tiny kettle on a little tiny stand! Admittedly it's hard to fill as it never quite fits under the basin taps, but that's all just part of the fun.

In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been "kwork." Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark." Since "quark" (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with "Mark," as well as "bark" and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as "kwork." But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the "portmanteau words" in Through the Looking Glass. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry "Three quarks for Muster Mark" might be "Three quarts for Mister Mark," in which case the pronunciation "kwork" would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.

I have been thinking about the idea of excuses for some time now. They are like menacing demons that creep into our lives without us knowing. They are roadblocks, white lies to ourselves, a reason to set the bar lower, and self-justification for achieving less than our full potential.

In one way, at least, our lives really are like movies. The main cast consists of your family and friends. The supporting cast is made up of neighbors, co-workers, teachers, and daily acquaintances. There are also bit players: the supermarket checkout girl with the pretty smile, the friendly bartender at the local watering hole, the guys you work out with at the gym three days a week. And there are thousands of extras --those people who flow through every life like water through a sieve, seen once and never again. The teenager browsing a graphic novel at Barnes & Noble, the one you had to slip past (murmuring "Excuse me") in order to get to the magazines. The woman in the next lane at a stoplight, taking a moment to freshen her lipstick. The mother wiping ice cream off her toddler's face in a roadside restaurant where you stopped for a quick bite. The vendor who sold you a bag of peanuts at a baseball game. But sometimes a person who fits none of these categories comes into your life. This is the joker who pops out of the deck at odd intervals over the years, often during a moment of crisis. In the movies this sort of character is known as the fifth business, or the chase agent. When he turns up in a film, you know he's there because the screenwriter put him there. But who is screenwriting our lives? Fate or coincidence? I want to believe it's the latter. I want that with all my heart and soul.

How it must pain God when He frees us from slavery, whether it be to food, alcohol, overspending, smoking, binging, purging . . . whatever our stronghold is, only to find us returning to it once again, hoping to find tranquility—excusing the struggle we have with our weakness so we can worship and cling to the calf once again.

Most of us are continually engaged in some form of pursuit. We are seeking excellence within one or more areas in our lives, and that is the basis of our motivation. It is human nature to have a need to get ahead, need a little something more—it’s in our DNA. Although we may not be certain of what we need at any given moment, we know there’s something. It’s a competitive itch and desire to improve that never goes away.

The promise of aspiration is that it is evolutionary. The human condition is such that we are always aspiring to be something more, something better, something nobler. It starts as a thought, a want, a need, or a desire and then grows and evolves with intention and direction, upward with lust and hunger. The continued drive feeds the rise.

The limitless mind lets us dream and examine and explore. It opens us up to opportunity. We come up with a desire, a clear, fresh perspective, and a potential goal to observe from afar. And we wonder, is this it, the right choice, the best choice to follow?

When I think of excellence in motion, I think of the big picture. Because of the magnitude of this concept, I look at it from an aerial perspective. It is a mindset that challenges the boundaries of self-induced limits—that point where you aspire to exceed your expectations, where the mind-body-achievement connection resides and wins time and time again.

The two men sat silent for a little, and then Lord Peter said: "D'you like your job?" The detective considered the question, and replied: "Yes—yes, I do. I know it to be useful, and I am fitted to it. I do it quite well—not with inspiration, perhaps, but sufficiently well to take a pride in it. It is full of variety and it forces one to keep up to the mark and not get slack. And there's a future to it. Yes, I like it. Why?" "Oh, nothing," said Peter. "It's a hobby to me, you see. I took it up when the bottom of things was rather knocked out for me, because it was so damned exciting, and the worst of it is, I enjoy it—up to a point. If it was all on paper I'd enjoy every bit of it. I love the beginning of a job—when one doesn't know any of the people and it's just exciting and amusing. But if it comes to really running down a live person and getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor devil, there don't seem as if there was any excuse for me buttin' in, since I don't have to make my livin' by it. And I feel as if I oughtn't ever to find it amusin'. But I do.

Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant. It can change your relationships, your working environment, your level of physical fitness, your income, and your emotional states. It can determine whether you’re happy or sad, whether you’re frustrated or excited, enslaved by circumstances, or expressing your freedom. It’s the source of change within an individual, a family, a community, a society, our world.

Lack of fairness is not an excuse for bad behavior; it is simply information. If you are required to jump five hurdles to everyone else's three, and if you are unable to remove the extra ones, you are left with two options. You can remain at the starting line, ranting and raving in a fit of unproductive indignation. Or you can jump over those hurdles. Either way, the race will end when it ends. Where you're standing when it does, however, is completely up to you.

Uncouth, clannish, lumbering about the confines of Space and Time with a puzzled expression on his face and a handful of things scavenged on the way from gutters, interglacial littorals, sacked settlements and broken relationships, the Earth-human has no use for thinking except in the service of acquisition. He stands at every gate with one hand held out and the other behind his back, inventing reasons why he should be let in. From the first bunch of bananas, his every sluggish fit or dull fleabite of mental activity has prompted more, more; and his time has been spent for thousands of years in the construction and sophistication of systems of ideas that will enable him to excuse, rationalize, and moralize the grasping hand. His dreams, those priceless comic visions he has of himself as a being with concerns beyond the material, are no more than furtive cannibals stumbling round in an uncomfortable murk of emotion, trying to eat each other. Politics, religion, ideology — desperate, edgy attempts to shift the onus of responsibility for his own actions: abdications. His hands have the largest neural representation in the somesthetic cortex, his head the smallest; but he's always trying to hide the one behind the other.

It seems like I've only shut my eyes for a few minutes, but when I open them, I flinch at the sight of Haymitch sitting a couple of feet from my bed. Waiting. Possibly for several hours if the clck is right. I think about hollering for a witness, but I'm going to have to face him sooner or later. Haymitch leans forward and dangles something on a thin white wire in front of my nose. It's hard to focus on, but I'm pretty sur what it is. He drops it in to the sheets. "That is your earpiece. I will give you exactly one more chance to wear it. If you remove it from your ear again, I'll have you fitted with this." He holds up some sort of metal headgear that I instantly name the head shackle. "It's alternative audio unit that locks around your skull and under your chin until it's opened with a key. And I'll have the only key. If for some reason you're clever enough to disable it" ---- Haymitch dumps the head shackle on the bed and whips out a tiny silver chip--- "I'll authorize them to surgically implant this transmitter into your ear so that I may speak to you twenty-four hours a day." Haymitch in my head full-time. Horrifying. "I'll keep the earpiece in," I mutter "Excuse me?" He says "I'll keep the earpiece in!" I say loud enough to wake half the hospital. "You sure? Because I'm equally happy with any of the three options," he tells me "I'm sure," I say. I scrunch up the earpiece protectivley in my fist and fling the head shakle back in his face with my free hand, but he catches it easily. Probably was expecting me to throw it. "Anything else?" Haymitch rises to go. "While I was waiting. . . I ate your lunch." My eyes take in the empty stew bowl and tray on my bed table. "I'm going to report you," I mumble into my pillow. "You do that sweetheart." He goes out, safe in the knowledge that I'm not the reporting kind.

Your current situation fits every one of the criteria for this disorder:   Exposure to a traumatic event. Yes, relationship abuse from someone you love is traumatic and life-altering. Persistent re-experiencing. Yes, through the mean and sweet cycle, you were repeatedly subjected to their abuse. Persistent avoidance and emotional numbing. Yes, this is the coping mechanism you adopted to excuse their behavior. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal not present before. Yes, you begin to feel these during the delayed emotions stage, ultimately manifesting as anxiety and fear. Duration of symptoms for more than 1 month. Yes, most survivors will require anywhere from 12-24 months of recovery before they begin to trust & love again. Significant impairment. You tell me—how do you feel right about now? I’d say impaired is an understatement.

The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?

Even they would think you a monster were you to orchestrate a divorce right after my confinement.” “How long do you recommend I wait, then?” “A long time. I know what happens when a divorce is granted: The woman never gets anything. And I will not be parted from my child.” “So you will contest the divorce?” “To my last penny. And then I’ll borrow from Fitz and Millie.” “So we’ll be married ’til the end of time?” “The sooner you accept it, the sooner we are all better off.” His ancestors would have appreciated her hauteur: a fit wife for a de Montfort. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must have enough rest.” He gazed at her retreating back. Foolish woman, did she not realize that he’d already accepted it from the moment he’d said “I do”?

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you don't matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon—fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar—stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything, but you can't stop trying to do it all. . . . Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it. . . . Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.

It is possible in a city street neighborhood to know all kinds of people without unwelcome entanglements, without boredom, necessity for excuses, explanations, fears of giving offense, embarrassments respecting impositions or commitments, and all such paraphernalia of obligations which can accompany less limited relationships. It is possible to be on excellent sidewalk terms with people who are very different from oneself, and even, as time passes, on familiar public terms with them. Such relationships can, and do, endure for many years, for decades; they could never have formed without that line, much less endured. The form precisely because they are by-the-way to people’s normal public sorties. ‘Togetherness’ is a fittingly nauseating name for an old ideal in planning theory. This ideal is that if anything is shared among people, much should be shared. ‘Togetherness,’ apparently a spiritual resource of the new suburbs, works destructively in cities. The requirement that much shall be shared drives city people apart. When an area of a city lacks a sidewalk life, the people of the place must enlarge their private lives is they are to have anything approaching equivalent contact with their neighbors. They must settle for some form of ‘togetherness,’ in which more is shared with one another than in the life of the sidewalks, or else they must settle for lack of contact. Inevitably the outcome is one or the other; it has to be, and either has distressing results. In the case of the first outcome, where people do share much, they become exceedingly choosy as to who their neighbors are, or with whom they associate at all. They have to become so.

He lived much among people, but very little with them. They interested him, but he did not in the least care to have them be interested in him; for he felt the force that should have driven him to do his part with the others or against them slowly ebbing out of him. He could wait, he told himself, even if he had to wait till it was too late. Whoever has faith is in no hurry--that was his excuse to himself. For he believed that, when he came down to the bedrock of his own nature, he did have faith strong enough to move mountains--the trouble was that he never managed to set his shoulder to them. Once in a while, the impulse to create welled up in him, and he longed to see a part of himself freed in work that should be his very own. For days he would be excited with the happy, titanic effort of carting the clay for his Adam, but he never formed it in his own image. The will power necessary to persistent self-concentration was not in him. Weeks would pass before he could make up his mind to abandon the work, but he did abandon it, asking himself, in a fit of irritation, why he should continue. What more had he to gain? He had tasted the rapture of conception; there remained the toil of rearing, cherishing, nourishing, carrying to perfection--Why? For whom?

Of course the theologians fought the facts found by the geologists, the scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred Scriptures. They mistook the bones of the mastodon for those of human beings, and by them proudly proved that "there were giants in those days." They accounted for the fossils by saying that God had made them to try our faith, or that the Devil had imitated the works of the Creator. They answered the geologists by saying that the "days" in Genesis were long periods of time, and that after all the flood might have been local. They told the astronomers that the sun and moon were not actually, but only apparently, stopped. And that the appearance was produced by the reflection and refraction of light. They excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder upheld in the Old Testament by saying that the people were so degraded that Jehovah was compelled to pander to their ignorance and prejudice. In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to preserve the creed. At first they flatly denied the facts -- then they belittled them -- then they harmonized them -- then they denied that they had denied them. Then they changed the meaning of the "inspired" book to fit the facts. At first they said that if the facts, as claimed, were true, the Bible was false and Christianity itself a superstition. Afterward they said the facts, as claimed, were true and that they established beyond all doubt the inspiration of the Bible and the divine origin of orthodox religion. Anything they could not dodge, they swallowed and anything they could not swallow, they dodged. I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles, its contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believe in the existence of devils -- talked and made bargains with them. expelled them from people and animals. This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do not exist -- that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane.

Well, anyhow, the practical outcome of all these damn democratic ideas, is that men of our quality -- yes, damn it! we have a quality -- excuse themselves from the hard and thankless service they owe -- not to the crowd, Dick, but to the race. (Much good it will do is to shirk like that in the long run.) We will not presume, we say, no. We shrug our shoulders and leave the geese, the hungry sheep, the born followers, call them what you will, to the leaders who haven't our scruples. The poor muts swallow those dead old religions no longer fit for human consumption, and we say 'let 'em.' They devour their silly newspapers. They let themselves be distracted from public affairs by games, by gambling, by shows and coronations and every soft of mass stupidity, while the stars in their courses plot against them. We say nothing. Nothing audible. We mustn't destroy the simple faith that is marching them to disaster. We mustn't question their decisions. That wouldn't be democratic. And then we sit here and say privately that the poor riff-raff are failing to adapt themselves to those terrible new conditions -- as if they had had half a chance of knowing how things stand with them. They are shoved about by patriotisms, by obsolete religious prejudices, by racial delusions, by incomprehensible economic forces. Amid a growth of frightful machinery...

Taking the ring from her, Sebastian slid it onto his own hand. His hands were so much larger that the circlet would only fit the tip of his smallest finger. Grasping her chin in an intractable hold, he glared into her eyes. “I’ll take your bet,” he said grimly. “I’m going to win it. And in three months, I’m going to put this back on your finger, and take you to bed, and do things to you that are outlawed in the civilized world.” Evie’s resolve did not shield her from the heart-thumping alarm that any rational woman would feel upon hearing such an ominous statement. Nor did it prevent her knees from turning to jelly as he jerked her against his body and fitted his mouth to hers. Her hands, suspended in mid-air, went to his head in a trembling butterfly descent. The texture of his hair, the locks so cool and thick on the surface, so warm and damp at the roots, was too alluring to resist. She slid her fingers into the gleaming golden layers and pulled him even closer, helplessly reveling in the urgent pressure of his mouth. Their tongues mated, slid, stroked, and with each slippery-sweet caress inside the joined cavern of their mouths, she felt a hot coiling deep in her belly… no, deeper than that… in the tightening, liquefying core where she had once taken his invading flesh. It shocked her to realize how much she wanted him there again. She whimpered as he pulled away from her, while frustration washed over them both. “You didn’t say that I couldn’t kiss you,” Sebastian said, his eyes bright with devil-fire. “I’m going to kiss you as long and as often as I like, and you’re not to utter a word of protest. That’s the concession you’ll give in return for my celibacy. Damn you.” Giving her no time either to agree or to object, he released her and strode to the door. “And now, if you’ll excuse me… I’m going to go kill Joss Bullard.

Reading his autobiography many years later, I was astonished to find that Edward since boyhood had—not unlike Isaiah Berlin—often felt himself ungainly and ill-favored and awkward in bearing. He had always seemed to me quite the reverse: a touch dandyish perhaps but—as the saying goes—perfectly secure in his masculinity. On one occasion, after lunch in Georgetown, he took me with him to a renowned local tobacconist and asked to do something I had never witnessed before: 'try on' a pipe. In case you ever wish to do this, here is the form: a solemn assistant produces a plastic envelope and fits it over the amber or ivory mouthpiece. You then clamp your teeth down to feel if the 'fit' and weight are easy to your jaw. If not, then repeat with various stems until your browsing is complete. In those days I could have inhaled ten cigarettes and drunk three Tanqueray martinis in the time spent on such flaneur flippancy, but I admired the commitment to smoking nonetheless. Taking coffee with him once in a shopping mall in Stanford, I saw him suddenly register something over my shoulder. It was a ladies' dress shop. He excused himself and dashed in, to emerge soon after with some fashionable and costly looking bags. 'Mariam,' he said as if by way of explanation, 'has never worn anything that I have not bought for her.' On another occasion in Manhattan, after acting as a magnificent, encyclopedic guide around the gorgeous Andalusia (Al-Andalus) exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, he was giving lunch to Carol and to me when she noticed that her purse had been lost or stolen. At once, he was at her service, not only suggesting shops in the vicinity where a replacement might be found, but also offering to be her guide and advisor until she had selected a suitable new sac à main. I could no more have proposed myself for such an expedition than suggested myself as a cosmonaut, so what this says about my own heterosexual confidence I leave to others.

All faults or defects, from the slightest misconduct to the most flagitious crime, Pantocyclus attributed to some deviation from perfect Regularity in the bodily figure, caused perhaps (if not congenital) by some collision in a crowd; by neglect to take exercise, or by taking too much of it; or even by a sudden change of temperature, resulting in a shrinkage or expansion in some too susceptible part of the frame. Therefore, concluded that illustrious Philosopher, neither good conduct nor bad conduct is a fit subject, in any sober estimation, for either praise or blame. For why should you praise, for example, the integrity of a Square who faithfully defends the interests of his client, when you ought in reality rather to admire the exact precision of his right angles? Or again, why blame a lying, thievish Isosceles when you ought rather to deplore the incurable inequality of his sides? Theoretically, this doctrine is unquestionable; but it has practical drawbacks. In dealing with an Isosceles, if a rascal pleads that he cannot help stealing because of his unevenness, you reply that for that very reason, because he cannot help being a nuisance to his neighbours, you, the Magistrate, cannot help sentencing him to be consumed - and there's an end of the matter. But in little domestic difficulties, where the penalty of consumption, or death, is out of the question, this theory of Configuration sometimes comes in awkwardly; and I must confess that occasionally when one of my own Hexagonal Grandsons pleads as an excuse for his disobedience that a sudden change of the temperature has been too much for his perimeter, and that I ought to lay the blame not on him but on his Configuration, which can only be strengthened by abundance of the choicest sweetmeats, I neither see my way logically to reject, nor practically to accept, his conclusions. For my own part, I find it best to assume that a good sound scolding or castigation has some latent and strengthening influence on my Grandson's Configuration; though I own that I have no grounds for thinking so. At all events I am not alone in my way of extricating myself from this dilemma; for I find that many of the highest Circles, sitting as Judges in law courts, use praise and blame towards Regular and Irregular Figures; and in their homes I know by experience that, when scolding their children, they speak about "right" or "wrong" as vehemently and passionately as if they believed that these names represented real existences, and that a human Figure is really capable of choosing between them.