Expect Nothing In Return Quotes

Kindness is not a business. True kindness expects nothing in return and should never act with conditions.

A gift is pure when it is given from the heart to the right person at the right time and at the right place, and when we expect nothing in return

I admire those who do good and expect nothing in return.

Sometimes you want to say, “I love you, but…” Yet the “but” takes away the ‘I love you’. In love their are no ‘buts’ or ‘if’s’ or ‘when’. It’s just there, and always. No beginning, no end. It’s the condition-less state of the heart. Not a feeling that comes and goes at the whim of the emotions. It is there in our heart, a part of our heart…eventually grafting itself into each limb and cell of our bodies. Love changes our brain, the way we move and talk. Love lives in our spirit and graces us with its presence each day, until death. To say “I love you, but….” is to say, “I did not love you at all”. I say this to you now: I love you, with no beginning, no end. I love you as you have become an extra necessary organ in my body. I love you as only a girl could love a boy. Without fear. Without expectations. Wanting nothing in return, except that you allow me to keep you here in my heart, that I may always know your strength, your eyes, and your spirit that gave me freedom and let me fly.

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving.

I try not to speak about all the charities and people I help, because I believe we can only be truly generous when we expect nothing in return.

When you give everything and expect nothing in return, only then will you be in a position to gain anything. When you love loving, you give because giving is getting. Giving is a gift unto itself, and when you realize this you understand that you can’t network if you can’t love.

I like storms. Thunder torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.

They adore you beacause they think you offer up your friendship and ask for nothing in return. But that's not true-' He took a deep breath. 'You do ask for something. You ask that we never expect you to need us.

His love for her was a gift he gave her daily, expecting nothing in return. He walked at her side, his love for her a torch to guide her footsteps along the dark path she walked.

To love is simply to allow another to be, live, grow, expand, become. An appreciation that demands and expects nothing in return.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion — put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men. Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields. Lie down in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be. Disappointment’ s cousin is Frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.

If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the "un" and "non", they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, "God shows no favoritism." So we don't either.

On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox... Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.

One day it may feel as if energy and enthusiasm are quenched, feelings dried up and emotions scorched, love and affection tangled in a harsh and uninviting setting. Nothing seems to grow anymore. No seed. No flowers. No foreseeable hope. No conceivable prospects. Any blossom of expectation seems to have become an illusion and life appears to have come to a standstill. If no seed of loving care is sown in the untilled, abandoned land, no bud can come into flower. Singer Amy Winehouse felt like lying fallow in the ground of a wasteland "with tears dry, dying a hundred times, going back to black" and leaving eventually for a place of ultimate sorrow and heartbreak, for a point of no return. ( “Amour en friche” )

Closing The Cycle One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill. None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else. Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important. Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

A word of wisdom to you, akribos, you need to learn to accept gifts. (Catera) There’s no such thing as a gift. If I were to take that from you, sooner or later you would ask a favor from me in return. Nothing in life is ever truly given without expectation. (Acheron)

We don’t have to do anything at all to die. We can hide in a cupboard under the stairs our whole life and it’ll still find us. Death will show up wearing an invisible cloak and it will wave a magic wand and whisk us away when we least expect it. It will erase every trace of our existence on this earth and it will do all this work for free. It will ask for nothing in return. It will take a bow at our funeral and accept the accolades for a job well done and then it will disappear. Living is a little more complex. There’s one thing we always have to do. Breathe. In and out, every single day in every hour minute and moment we must inhale whether we like it or not. Even as we plan to asphyxiate our hopes and dreams still we breathe. Even as we wither away and sell our dignity to the man on the corner we breathe. We breathe when we’re wrong, we breathe when we’re right, we breathe even as we slip off the ledge toward an early grave. It cannot be undone. So I breathe. I count all the steps I’ve climbed toward the noose hanging from the ceiling of my existence and I count out the number of times I’ve been stupid and I run out of numbers.

Take Back Your Power Greet the world with no expectation. Love as though you have never been hurt or betrayed. Let go of the ones who take so much from you yet offer nothing in return. This is how you take back your power.

I think," Obi-Wan said carefully, "that abstractions like peace don't mean much to him. He's loyal to people, not to principles. And he expects loyalty in return. He will stop at nothing to save me, for example, because he thinks I would do the same for him." Mace and Yoda gazed at him steadily, and Obi-Wan had to lower his head. "Because," he admitted reluctantly, "he knows I would do the same for him.

What have you been doing during my absence?' 'Nothing particular; teaching Adele as usual.' 'And getting a good deal paler than you were - as I saw at first sight. What is the matter?' 'Nothing at all, sir.' 'Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?' 'Not the least.' 'Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.' 'I am tired, sir.' He looked at me for a minute. 'And a little depressed,' he said. 'What about? Tell me.' 'Nothing - nothing, sir. I am not depressed.' 'But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes - indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my..' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me. (Jane and Mr Rochester)

When we show kindness to others, we shouldn’t be expecting anything in return. Kindness is all about giving, and it has nothing to do with getting.

My hope is not in the absence of suffering and comfort returned. My hope is in the presence of the One who promises never to leave or forsake, the One who declares nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:39). Nothing.

No one had ever bought me lunch before. It was a very pleasant feeling, to have someone incur expenditure on my behalf, voluntarily, expecting nothing in return.

Remember, your mission is to love, expecting nothing in return.

I don't care what they say, we are only to love those who deserve our love and love them to the degree that they deserve it! You see, we are not God. Only God can love people undeserving without spoiling them. Us, on the other hand, can love someone so undeserving, and actually turn the person into someone so vile who is convinced that they were always entitled to every bit of it! Mamma mia! And what about giving? Yes, they all want us to give and expect nothing in return, they all have many scriptures to lay on our tables when it is they who are at the receiving end! But when the tables are turned and we are the ones at the receiving end, suddenly all the scriptures mean something else! And all the times they were on our end and we gave to them- suddenly are all forgotten!

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love...

I'm not talking about loving someone in expectation of anything in return. I'm talking about loving someone because of who they are. Because of the way they talk, they smile, they fight; because of what they say and what they believe; because of all the wonderful, annoying, beautiful, frustrating, stupid, lovely, embarrassing things they do and they are. Because they are the one person in all the world who makes you finally understand how perfectly, intricately amazing a human being can be. And if they do not love me it changes nothing, because I will not love them so they love me, I will love them because I have no other choice.

Because that was what parents did, wasn't it? They wanted to protect their children. They wanted the best lives possible for them. And they expected nothing in return for that.

I’ve learned that to love means giving everything, body and soul, and expecting nothing in return. The beautiful thing is that if you’re loved in return, it will all come back to you ten-fold.

Right now, you and me here, put together entirely from atoms that have been part of millions of other organisms before they became us, sitting on this round rock with a core of liquid iron held down by this force that so troubles you called gravity, all the while spinning around the sun at 67 thousand miles an hour and whizzing through the Milky Way at 600 thousand miles an hour in a universe that very well may be chasing its own tail at the speed of light... and amidst all this frantic activity, fully cognizant of our own imminent demise, which is a very pretty way of saying we all know we're going to die, we reach out, to one another, sometimes for the sake of vanity, sometimes for reasons you're not old enough to understand yet, but a lot of the time we just reach out... and expect nothing in return. Isn't that strange? Isn't that weird? ... Isn't that... weird... enough?

Parents are living gods. They do everything to make their children happy and expect nothing in return.

(Golden Globe acceptance speech in the style of Jane Austen's letters): "Four A.M. Having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding, was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintances. Miss Lindsay Doran, of Mirage, wherever that might be, who is largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly apppeared to understand me better than I undersand myself. Mr. James Schamus, a copiously erudite gentleman, and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and a Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has lernt to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Canton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a vast deal of money. Miss Lisa Henson -- a lovely girl, and Mr. Gareth Wigan -- a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activitiy until eleven P.M. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due therefore not to the dance, but to the waiting, in a long line for horseless vehicles of unconscionable size. The modern world has clearly done nothing for transport. P.S. Managed to avoid the hoyden Emily Tomkins who has purloined my creation and added things of her own. Nefarious creature." "With gratitude and apologies to Miss Austen, thank you.

- Might it console you to know that I expect nothing but torture from her return? That I regard you as a bird of paradise? She shook her head. - That my admiration for you is painfully strong? - I want Van – she cried – and not intangible admiration. - Intangible? You goose. You my gauge it, you may brush it once very lightly with the knuckles of you gloved hand. I said knuckles. I said once. That will do. I can't kiss you. Not even your burning face. Good-bye, pet. Tell Edmond to take a nap after he returns. I shall need him at two in the morning.

There may be human joy in doing good with definite purpose, but they who do good expecting nothing in return know a joy that is divine.

Giving in the spirit of love, expecting nothing in return is how God gives and so should we, as we are a piece of our creator.

But when a person loves you so much that he asks for nothing in return, it's only to be expected that that's about what he gets. It's like a Law of Nature.

A few times in my life, I have been manipulated by the sexual power of a woman. "Could you help with my assignment?" I'll do it for you. "I don't know why they've given me middle seat." Take mine. "I thought the trains would still be running." Let me drive your home. No promises, no offers, nothing expected in return.

She hated the love she had been given because it had asked for nothing in return, which was absurd, unreal, against the laws of nature. The love asking for nothing in return had managed to fill her with guilt, with a desire to fulfill another's expectations even if that meant giving up everything she had dreamed of for herself.

We don’t have to do anything at all to die. We can hide in a cupboard under the stairs our whole life and it’ll still find us. Death will show up wearing an invisible cloak and it will wave a magic wand and whisk us away when we least expect it. It will erase every trace of our existence on this earth and it will do all this work for free. It will ask for nothing in return. It will take a bow at our funeral and accept the accolades for a job well done and then it will disappear. Living is a little more complex.

Perhaps the greatest adventure of all is intimacy: the willingness to strip away one layer of reticence after another, and on certain occasions to live entirely in the moment, revealing everything and expecting nothing in return.

War crimes, you say? No matter how many policies you put on paper, in reality, there are no rights and wrongs in war. War itself is a crime. War cannot be justified. I believe, the only people, in this world, whose opinions matter, are the ones who go the extra mile to help other people expecting nothing in return. Soldiers who fight fiercely for their country, the doctors in Sri Lanka's public hospitals attending to hundreds of patients at a time for no extra pay , the nuns who voluntarily teach English and math to children of refugee camps in the north, the monks who collect food to feed entire villages during crises, they are the people worth listening to, their opinion matters. So find me one of them who will say: they wish the war didn't end in 2009, that they wish Sri Lanka was divided into two parts. Find me one of them who agrees with the international war crime allegations against Sri Lanka, and I will listen. But I will not listen to the opinions of those who are paid to find faults in a war they were never a part of, a war they never experienced themselves. I will not listen to the opinions of those who watched the war on tv or read about it on the internet or were moved by a documentary on Al Jazeera. The war is over. The damage is done. Let Sri Lanka move on. So our children will never have to see what we've seen.

I participate in BDSM, but I wasn't abused as a child. I don't hate women, or particularly enjoy hurting women. Sometimes I make them feel pain, but it's consensual, it serves a purpose—to get them off—and they can indicate that they wish me to stop at any time. I do like the power I get from total submission, and the trust that my partner puts in me to give me everything, from her mind to her body, while expecting nothing in return—except the understanding that I won't violate that trust.

Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down. I do not choose to admit weakness. I accept the challenge of responsibility. Life, as it is, does not frighten me, since I have made my peace with the universe as I find it, and bow to its laws. The ever-sleepless sea in its bed, crying out “how long?” to Time; million-formed and never motionless flame; the contemplation of these two aspects alone, affords me sufficient food for ten spans of my expected lifetime. It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such. However, I would not, by word or deed, attempt to deprive another of the consolation it affords. It is simply not for me. Somebody else may have my rapturous glance at the archangels. The springing of the yellow line of morning out of the misty deep of dawn, is glory enough for me. I know that nothing is destructible; things merely change forms. When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world. I was a part before the sun rolled into shape and burst forth in the glory of change. I was, when the earth was hurled out from its fiery rim. I shall return with the earth to Father Sun, and still exist in substance when the sun has lost its fire, and disintegrated into infinity to perhaps become a part of the whirling rubble of space. Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.

Did you pick that out?“ I asked Dimitri. Honestly, I would have expected him to bend a piece of steel it his bare hands and present her with that. “He did,” said Rose, her normal good humor returning. “He kept telling me that once I turned twenty, it was just a matter of time before he proposed. I told him if he did, he better make it a rock star ring – nothing subtle.” “That’s pretty rock star,” said Eddie. “How long ago did this happen?” “About a month,” said Dimitri. “I got her to war it but can’t get her to set a date.” She grinned. “All in good time, comrade. Maybe when I’m thirty. There’s no hurry. Besides, surely Christian’s going to propose to Liss one of these days. We don’t want to overshadow them.” Dimitri shook his head in exasperation, but he kept smiling. “You’ve always got an excuse, Roza. One of these days…” “One of these days,” she agreed.

Giving in its purest form is done with a heart that says I wish it were more, and I expect nothing in return.

It took eight months, but then we found you. In Caswell. There was a wolf who said he’d seen you in the compound. He was visiting, and he recognized you from your picture. He said he tried to talk to you, tried dropping a couple of hints, but there was nothing.” I couldn’t think of who this had been. “And it hurt,” Kelly continued, “because he said you seemed happy. And I almost convinced myself that maybe what we’d thought was right, that you had betrayed us. But then I remembered something, and I knew it couldn’t be true.” “What did you remember?” “The way you loved me.” It was a punch to the stomach. “You loved me,” Kelly said softly, “without reservation. Without expecting anything in return. You loved me, and I knew that you wouldn’t stop, not unless you were forced to. And I knew then that I wouldn’t stop, no matter what it took.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150. lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150. lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected. But to return again to our subject.

Are you okay? Are you hurt? I—” Ash’s words were cut off by Cael’s mouth on his. It took Ash a moment to react, and it wasn’t how Dex had expected. Closing his eyes, Ash returned Cael’s kiss. At Ash’s response, Cael threw his arms around Ash’s neck, and the two kissed like nothing else in the world existed. Out

Social progress, I realize, happens not just through the sort of revolutionary actions that generate Oscar-baiting biopics but through the underestimated power of conversation—through small exchanges of generosity and goodwill, through questions asked in good faith, through love expressed with no preconditions or expectations of return. I have spent a week doing nothing but talk to people. But talking is far from nothing. Words are the literal stuff of change.

It is not worthiness the Narcissist feels when he or she communicates “I deserve.” Narcissistic entitlement has nothing to do with genuine self-esteem, which comes from real accomplishment and being true to one’s own ideals. Individuals who feel entitled to respect without giving it in return, or who expect rewards without effort, or a life free of discomfort, are forfeiting any power they might have to shape their own destiny. They assume an essentially passive role and count on outside forces to make them happy. When what they expect doesn’t happen, they feel impotent. By claiming entitlement, they demand to live in the fantasy world of the one-year-old child. No wonder they’re enraged. Entitlement and the rage that comes with it are tip-offs to the arrest in healthy development that is narcissism.

It was the apology that rattled her the most, that made her wonder if she’d never had him figured out at all. She had called him arrogant the day they met, but an arrogant man apologized to obtain absolution. A good man admitted his errors and expected nothing in return. Now Mercy had a burning desire to find out whether or not Hart Ralston was a good man.

The Accounting of Love and Hospitality - Sermon on the Account Do enough for others that it's impossible For them to keep accounts Of what they owe you Or what you've done. Lose the account yourself, Expect nothing in return. Make a habit of giving things away. Pay for other people's meal, Friends and strangers. Keep no accounts on that either. Take what is offered to you, But expect or demand nothing. Tell the people in your life That you appreciate them As often as you can. There may be a day when you can't. Tell your kids and spouse that you love them, Often and every night. Remind yourself What it is you love about them. Look for ways to be kind and helpful, There are plenty to find. Do things without telling others You've done them. Don't even remind yourself. Do acts of kindness, then let them go. Live a life without clinging to expectations About who you should be. Your friends and family will change, Everything does, you will. Life has a lot of additions and subtraction; Change is inevitable. Spend time mindfully changing yourself Towards kindness and patience. At the end of your life, Which could be any moment, Let the ones that knew you Have lived a better life because you were there. Let your accounts be settled And forgive other people's.

The energies that make us act out of anger,fear,insecurity and doubt are extremely familiar. They are like an old,dark house we return to whenever things get too hard to handle.It feels risky to leave this house and see what's outside,yet we have to leave if we expect to be loved. So we take the risk.We walk out into the light and offer ourselves to the beloved.This feels wonderful;it's like nothing we have imagined in our old,dark house.But when things get tough,we run back inside,we choose familiarity to fear and lovelessness over the vulnerability of love, until finally we feel safe enough to go back and try love again. This is essentially the rhythm of every intimate relationship-risk and retreat. Over and over we repeat this rhythm,accepting love and pushing it away until finally something miraculous happiness. The old,dark house isn't necessary anymore.We look around, and we have a new house, a house of light. Where did it come from?How did we build it? It was built from the love of the heart.It has silently been weaving our higher and lower natures,blending fear,anger,survival and protection into the energies of devotion,trust,compassion and acceptance.

Some hoped, watching Desiree hold the hand of the little dark girl, that the two wouldn't even stay that long. They weren't used to having a dark child amongst them and were surprised by how much it upset them. Each time that girl passed by, no hat or nothing, they were as galled as when Thomas Richard returned from the war, half a leg lighter, and walked around town with one pant leg pinned back so that everyone could see his loss. If nothing could be done about ugliness, you ought to at least look like you were trying to hide it.

No, my world wasn’t like that at all. “What about when someone does something nice and expects nothing in return?” “You’re stupid if you think they don’t expect something in return. No one gives something for nothing.” “Yeah? So what does someone get for covering up a murder?

When you travel you become invisible if you want. I do want. I like to be the observer. What makes these people who they are Could I feel at home here No one expects you to have the stack of papers back by Tuesday or to check messages or to fertilize the geraniums or to sit full of dread in the waiting room at the protologist’s office. When travelling you have the delectable possibility of not understanding a word of what is said to you. Language becomes simply a musical background for watching bicycles zoom along a canal calling for nothing from you. Even better if you speak the language you catch nuances and make more contact with people. Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full of choice free to visit the stately pleasure domes make love in the morning sketch a bell tower read a history of Byzantium stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna dei fusi. You open as in childhood and – for a time – receive this world. There’s the visceral aspect too – the huntress who is free. Free to go Free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth.

A feeling struck me one fine day that people call ‘love’, Before that my life was empty, all I had was loneliness and sorrow… I loved the way it felt being with him, for I felt up above, Now everything was complete and nothing remained hollow… That person who cupid made me fall for, was a God descended from heavens, I loved him with all I had, a true heart and a pure soul… I thought I achieved the meaning of life, never did I felt so glad, But when he left me amidst a chaos, I had no one with me to console… I cried, it hurt, I wept and screamed, everyone called me ‘mad’, And still I wonder if in my life, that actually was his role… But a string still binds me to my past of untold vow, Some unsaid promises that linger between us even now, Although I don’t know where he went after that fateful day… I still try to convince myself every day, I know how, Each moment has been tough, each day a new challenge… Each hour passed as if it was my heart that always allowed, One more day to live without him, one more day to cherish… One more day to spend without the love of my life somehow, But he doesn’t know that one day, the girl herself would perish… Who loved him and lived each day of her life in his wait, For the man who never returned, for the man who wasn’t in her fate…

your family, not family they always seem to return when all the hard work is finished they add nothing to the journey but bumps and bruises and yet they wait for you at the finish line with their hands open expecting to be greeted with kindness even when they've spent most of their energy being unkind toward you. taking credit for what you've done alone. taking credit for your joy when all they've ever done was hurt you

This kid, this little fucking kid who didn't know him at all, had just given him his first gift, nothing expected in return, no favors, no stipulations, no nothing. He'd been wrong. There was something sweeter than seeing fear in his old man's eyes. Eva Fox was far sweeter. if he ever had a kid, he wanted a kid like this one. "Thanks darlin'," He said hoarsely. "Will I ever see you again?" She cocked her head to the side, wide eyed, waiting for his response. He stared into her eyes, too big for her face. Big and smoky gray like a thunderstorm. Fucking beautiful. He smiled. "Hope so sweetheart.

Her partner now drew near, and said, "That gentleman would have put me out of patience, had he stayed with you half a minute longer. He has no business to withdraw the attention of my partner from me. We have entered into a contract of mutual agreeableness for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness belongs solely to each other for that time. Nobody can fasten themselves on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the other. I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours." But they are such very different things!" -- That you think they cannot be compared together." To be sure not. People that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together. People that dance only stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour." And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light certainly, their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow, that in both, man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both, it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each to endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbours, or fancying that they should have been better off with anyone else. You will allow all this?" Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well; but still they are so very different. I cannot look upon them at all in the same light, nor think the same duties belong to them." In one respect, there certainly is a difference. In marriage, the man is supposed to provide for the support of the woman, the woman to make the home agreeable to the man; he is to purvey, and she is to smile. But in dancing, their duties are exactly changed; the agreeableness, the compliance are expected from him, while she furnishes the fan and the lavender water. That, I suppose, was the difference of duties which struck you, as rendering the conditions incapable of comparison." No, indeed, I never thought of that." Then I am quite at a loss. One thing, however, I must observe. This disposition on your side is rather alarming. You totally disallow any similarity in the obligations; and may I not thence infer that your notions of the duties of the dancing state are not so strict as your partner might wish? Have I not reason to fear that if the gentleman who spoke to you just now were to return, or if any other gentleman were to address you, there would be nothing to restrain you from conversing with him as long as you chose?" Mr. Thorpe is such a very particular friend of my brother's, that if he talks to me, I must talk to him again; but there are hardly three young men in the room besides him that I have any acquaintance with." And is that to be my only security? Alas, alas!" Nay, I am sure you cannot have a better; for if I do not know anybody, it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I do not want to talk to anybody." Now you have given me a security worth having; and I shall proceed with courage.

Every act of unconditional love for one’s neighbor is an immortal act; it is the true health of the soul; it exists only on the love of God. At the end of this life, such a soul will have as much spiritual health as it loved with the love of God, a selfless love that gives all, expecting nothing in return.

The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colors until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone… His fear infected Harry too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder, wondering what it was that Snape was waiting for — Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air. Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand. “Don’t kill me!” “That was not my intention.” Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand. “Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?” “No — no message — I’m here on my own account!” Snape was wringing his hands. He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him. “I — I come with a warning — no, a request — please —” Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snape faced each other. “What request could a Death Eater make of me?” “The — the prophecy… the prediction… Trelawney…” “Ah, yes,” said Dumbledore. “How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?” “Everything — everything I heard!” said Snape. “That is why — it is for that reason — he thinks it means Lily Evans!” “The prophecy did not refer to a woman,” said Dumbledore. “It spoke of a boy born at the end of July —” “You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down — kill them all —” “If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore, “surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?” “I have — I have asked him —” “You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little, “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?” Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore. “Hide them all, then,” he croaked. “Keep her — them — safe. Please.” “And what will you give me in return, Severus?” “In — in return?” Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, “Anything.

The body receives gratuity. The world gives graciously, disinterestedly, asking for nothing back, expecting nothing in return; it has no scales, no balance sheet. Our senses cede nothing in return for it, can give nothing back to the source of given beauties. What could the eye give back to the sun, or the palate to the vines of Yquem?

To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Uncommon Prostitues I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Christmas Dinner MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama. P.S. I hope your mom is doing better. I'm so sorry you have to spend today in a hospital. I really do wish I could send you both a plate of turkey. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Re: Christmas Dinner YOU feel sorry for ME? I am not the one who has never tasted bread pudding. The hospital was the same. I won't bore you with the details. Though I had to wait an hour to catch the bus back,and it started raining.Now that I'm at the flat, my father has left for the hospital. We're each making stellar work of pretending the other doesn't exist. P.S. Mum says to tell you "Merry Christmas." So Merry Christmas from my mum, but Happy Christmas from me. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: SAVE ME Worst.Dinner.Ever.It took less than five minutes for things to explode. My dad tried to force Seany to eat the green bean casserole, and when he wouldn't, Dad accused Mom of not feeding my brother enough vegetables. So she threw down her fork,and said that Dad had no right to tell her how to raise her children. And then he brought out the "I'm their father" crap, and she brought out the "You abandoned them" crap,and meanwhile, the WHOLE TIME my half-dead Nanna is shouting, "WHERE'S THE SALT! I CAN'T TASTE THE CASSEROLE! PASS THE SALT!" And then Granddad complained that Mom's turkey was "a wee dry," and she lost it. I mean,Mom just started screaming. And it freaked Seany out,and he ran to his room crying, and when I checked on him, he was UNWRAPPING A CANDY CANE!! I have no idea where it came from. He knows he can't eat Red Dye #40! So I grabbed it from him,and he cried harder, and Mom ran in and yelled at ME, like I'd given him the stupid thing. Not, "Thank you for saving my only son's life,Anna." And then Dad came in and the fighting resumed,and they didn't even notice that Seany was still sobbing. So I took him outside and fed him cookies,and now he's running aruond in circles,and my grandparents are still at the table, as if we're all going to sit back down and finish our meal. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY? And now Dad is knocking on my door. Great. Can this stupid holiday get any worse??

When you give something to a man and expect nothing — do not even expect the man to be grateful — his ingratitude will not tell upon you, because you never expected anything, never thought you had any right to anything in the way of a return. You gave him what he deserved; his own Karma got it for him; your Karma made you the carrier thereof.

It is difficult to persuade me that the story of the Prodigal Son is not the legend of one who didn't want to be loved. When he was a child everyone in the house loved him. He grew up knowing nothing different and, being a child, he grew accustomed to their tenderness of heart. But once he became a youth he wanted to cast all that aside. He wouldn't have been able to say it, but even when he spent the whole day wandering around outdoors he didn't want the dogs with him ever again because they loved him as well; because looking in their eyes he could read watchfulness, sympathy, expectation, and concern; because when they were with him there was nothing he could do that didn't either delight them or hurt their feelings. But what he was aiming for at the time was that indifference of heart which early in the morning out in the fields sometimes seized him inwardly and with such purity that he would start to run in order to leave himself no time or breath to be more than a weightless moment in the morning's returning consciousness.

How much time, after this realization sank in and spread among consumers (mostly via phone, interestingly), would any micro-econometrist expect to need to pass before high-tech visual videophony was mostly abandoned, then, a return to good old telephoning not only dictated by common consumer sense but actually after a while culturally approved as a kind of chic integrity, not Ludditism but a kind of retrograde transcendence of sci-fi-ish high-tech for its own sake, a transcendence of the vanity and the slavery to high-tech fashion that people view as so unattractive in one another. In other words a return to aural-only telephony became, at the closed curve’s end, a kind of status-symbol of anti-vanity, such that only callers utterly lacking in self-awareness continued to use videophony and Tableaux, to say nothing of masks, and these tacky facsimile-using people became ironic cultural symbols of tacky vain slavery to corporate PR and high-tech novelty, became the Subsidized Era’s tacky equivalents of people with leisure suits, black velvet paintings, sweater-vests for their poodles, electric zirconium jewelry, NoCoat Lin-guaScrapers, and c.

Children teach us that love is, in its purest form, a kind of service. The word has grown freighted with negative connotations. An individualistic, self-gratifying culture cannot easily equate contentment with being at someone else’s call. We are used to loving others in return for what they can do for us, for their capacity to entertain, charm or soothe us. Yet babies can do precisely nothing. There is, as slightly older children sometimes conclude with a sense of serious discomfort, no ‘point’ to them; that is their point. They teach us to give without expecting anything in return, simply because they need help badly – and we are in a position to provide it. We are inducted into a love based not on an admiration for strength, but on a compassion for weakness, a vulnerability common to every member of the species and one which has been and will eventually again be our own. Because it is always tempting to overemphasize autonomy and independence, these helpless creatures are here to remind us that no one is, in the end, ‘self-made’; we are all heavily in someone’s debt. We realize that life depends – quite literally – on the capacity for love.

Hatred always involves a painful sense of separation from love, which may be idealized. A person you feel strongly against at any given time upsets you because he or she does not live up to your expectations. The higher your expectations the greater any divergence from them seems. If you hate a parent it is precisely because you expect such love. A person from whom you expect nothing will never earn your bitterness. In a strange manner, hatred is a means of returning to love; and left alone and expressed it is meant to communicate a separation that exists in relation to what is expected. Love, therefore, can contain hate very nicely. Hatred can contain love and be driven by it, particularly an idealized love. You "hate" something that separates you from a loved object. It is precisely because the object is so loved that it is so disliked if expectations are not met. You may love a parent, and if the parent does not seem to return the love and denies your expectations, then you may "hate" the same parent because of the love that leads you to expect more. The hatred is meant to get your love back. It is supposed to lead to a communication from you, stating your feelings - clearing the air, so to speak, and bringing you closer to the love object. Hatred is not the denial of love, then, but an attempt to regain it, and a painful recognition of circumstances that separate you from it. --

What Caul liked most about Tom was his kindness. Kindness was not valued back in Grimsby, where the older boys were encouraged to torment the younger ones, who would grow up to torment another batch of youngsters in their turn. “Good practice for life,” Uncle said. “Hard knocks, that’s all the world’s about!” But maybe Uncle had never met anyone like Tom, who was kind to other people and seemed to expect nothing more than kindness in return.

True happiness can only be found when you stop worrying about yourself and try to look out for those around you.Helping people can give your life meaning and joy. Don't expect anything in return spread happiness and get peace, there is nothing more valuable than peace..

When I close my eyes to see, to hear, to smell, to touch a country I have known, I feel my body shake and fill with joy as if a beloved person had come near me. A rabbi was once asked the following question: ‘When you say that the Jews should return to Palestine, you mean, surely, the heavenly, the immaterial, the spiritual Palestine, our true homeland?’ The rabbi jabbed his staff into the ground in wrath and shouted, ‘No! I want the Palestine down here, the one you can touch with your hands, with its stones, its thorns and its mud!’ Neither am I nourished by fleshless, abstract memories. If I expected my mind to distill from a turbid host of bodily joys and bitternesses an immaterial, crystal-clear thought, I would die of hunger. When I close my eyes in order to enjoy a country again, my five senses, the five mouth-filled tentacles of my body, pounce upon it and bring it to me. Colors, fruits, women. The smells of orchards, of filthy narrow alleys, of armpits. Endless snows with blue, glittering reflections. Scorching, wavy deserts of sand shimmering under the hot sun. Tears, cries, songs, distant bells of mules, camels or troikas. The acrid, nauseating stench of some Mongolian cities will never leave my nostrils. And I will eternally hold in my hands – eternally, that is, until my hands rot – the melons of Bukhara, the watermelons of the Volga, the cool, dainty hand of a Japanese girl… For a time, in my early youth, I struggled to nourish my famished soul by feeding it with abstract concepts. I said that my body was a slave and that its duty was to gather raw material and bring it to the orchard of the mind to flower and bear fruit and become ideas. The more fleshless, odorless, soundless the world was that filtered into me, the more I felt I was ascending the highest peak of human endeavor. And I rejoiced. And Buddha came to be my greatest god, whom I loved and revered as an example. Deny your five senses. Empty your guts. Love nothing, hate nothing, desire nothing, hope for nothing. Breathe out and the world will be extinguished. But one night I had a dream. A hunger, a thirst, the influence of a barbarous race that had not yet become tired of the world had been secretly working within me. My mind pretended to be tired. You felt it had known everything, had become satiated, and was now smiling ironically at the cries of my peasant heart. But my guts – praised be God! – were full of blood and mud and craving. And one night I had a dream. I saw two lips without a face – large, scimitar-shaped woman’s lips. They moved. I heard a voice ask, ‘Who if your God?’ Unhesitatingly I answered, ‘Buddha!’ But the lips moved again and said: ‘No, Epaphus.’ I sprang up out of my sleep. Suddenly a great sense of joy and certainty flooded my heart. What I had been unable to find in the noisy, temptation-filled, confused world of wakefulness I had found now in the primeval, motherly embrace of the night. Since that night I have not strayed. I follow my own path and try to make up for the years of my youth that were lost in the worship of fleshless gods, alien to me and my race. Now I transubstantiate the abstract concepts into flesh and am nourished. I have learned that Epaphus, the god of touch, is my god. All the countries I have known since then I have known with my sense of touch. I feel my memories tingling, not in my head but in my fingertips and my whole skin. And as I bring back Japan to my mind, my hands tremble as if they were touching the breast of a beloved woman.

We don’t have to do anything at all to die. We can hide in a cupboard under the stairs our whole life and it’ll still find us. Death will show up wearing an invisible cloak and it will wave a magic wand and whisk us away when we least expect it. It will erase every trace of our existence on this earth and it will do all this work for free. It will ask for nothing in return. It will take a bow at our funeral and accept the accolades for a job well done and then it will disappear. Living is a little more complex. There’s one thing we always have to do. Breathe.

I’ve come to recognize this as something of a local custom—to express enthusiasm and agreement without real interest. A kind of polite but unyielding distance that saturates so many interactions. But now, their raised eyebrows and tight-lipped smiles fill me with a new sadness, clarifying where I stand in their eyes. Theirs isn’t the gaze of a mentor upon a student but a fixed asymmetry. They look at me as though I am a child whom they can tolerate at the table as long as I know my place. For years, I’ve sensed this violent but hidden truth—that beyond the welcome smiles of this country lies a vast and impenetrable wall: a national self-regard that insists on a mythic goodness. This is a nation that gives and gives to the less fortunate and asks nothing in return. Nothing, that is, but our grateful acquiescence to their silent expectations.

It may sound silly, but the woman who stood up to the army today really inspired me to fight my own battles. I haven't stopped thinking about her . . . she's someone who chose courage in a time of fear . . . someone who showed strength when many were weak . . . someone who fought for others even when others wouldn't fight for her . . . someone who risked her life for the greater good and expected nothing in return . . . someone who possesses such bravery, such determination, and such compassion . . .well, criminal or not, we should all aspire to be someone like that.

I still stared at Daemon, completely aware that everyone else except him was watching me. Closely. But why wouldn’t he look at me? A razor-sharp panic clawed at my insides. No. This couldn’t be happening. No way.
 My body was moving before I even knew what I was doing. From the corner of my eye, I saw Dee shake her head and one of the Luxen males step forward, but I was propelled by an inherent need to prove that my worst fears were not coming true. After all, he’d healed me, but then I thought of what Dee had said, of how Dee had behaved with me. What if Daemon was like her? Turned into something so foreign and cold? He would’ve healed me just to make sure he was okay. I still didn’t stop.
 Please, I thought over and over again. Please. Please. Please. On shaky legs, I crossed the long room, and even though Daemon hadn’t seemed to even acknowledge my existence, I walked right up to him, my hands trembling as I placed them on his chest. “Daemon?” I whispered, voice thick. His head whipped around, and he was suddenly staring down at me. Our gazes collided once more, and for a second I saw something so raw, so painful in those beautiful eyes. And then his large hands wrapped around my upper arms. The contact seared through the shirt I wore, branding my skin, and I thought—I expected—that he would pull me against him, that he would embrace me, and even though nothing would be all right, it would be better. Daemon’s hands spasmed around my arms, and I sucked in an unsteady breath. His eyes flashed an intense green as he physically lifted me away from him, setting me back down a good foot back. I stared at him, something deep in my chest cracking. “Daemon?” He said nothing as he let go, one finger at a time, it seemed, and his hands slid off my arms. He stepped back, returning his attention to the man behind the desk. “So . . . awkward,” murmured the redhead, smirking. I was rooted to the spot in which I stood, the sting of rejection burning through my skin, shredding my insides like I was nothing more than papier-mâché. “I think someone was expecting more of a reunion,” the Luxen male behind the desk said, his voice ringing with amusement. “What do you think, Daemon?” One shoulder rose in a negligent shrug. “I don’t think anything.” My mouth opened, but there were no words. His voice, his tone, wasn’t like his sister’s, but like it had been when we first met. He used to speak to me with barely leashed annoyance, where a thin veil of tolerance dripped from every word. The rift in my chest deepened.
For the hundredth time since the Luxen arrived, Sergeant Dasher’s warning came back to me. What side would Daemon and his family stand on? A shudder worked its way down my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself, unable to truly process what had just happened. “And you?" the man asked. When no one answered, he tried again. “Katy?” I was forced to look at him, and I wanted to shrink back from his stare. “What?” I was beyond caring that my voice broke on that one word. The man smiled as he walked around the desk. My gaze flickered over to Daemon as he shifted, drawing the attention of the beautiful redhead. “Were you expecting a more personal greeting?” he asked. “Perhaps something more intimate?” I had no idea how to answer. I felt like I’d fallen into the rabbit hole, and warnings were firing off left and right. Something primal inside me recognized that I was surrounded by predators. Completely.

We live in a world today that lacks loving-kindness and compassion for our fellow man and woman. As Gandhi so eloquently stated, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." We need to strive to be better, to be the image of selflessness. Love and give to those in need--expecting nothing in return. Give out of sincerity and from the depths of our hearts. Have compassion for every man, woman and child, no matter what ethnicity or background they come from. Love is blind. Love is unconditional. Love has the power to heal and redeem, and that is what Humanity should strive for.

My love, why did you leave me on Lexington Avenue in the Ford that had no brakes? It stalled in the traffic and broke down outside her window. She was writing a letter: I love you very much: Careful Now in capitals. That was a different letter. Yes, but I get confused. One day she saw a golden oriel in the orchard. One day she said, Then have your orgy with Blondie, work out your passion on her. I see it all, the poop of burnished gold. If I got angry and made a scene? But No. No. No, I believe you, of course, I believe you for didn't you say I was the one? Yes, you said, Take care of this girl for she is what makes my blood circulate and all the stars revolve and the seasons return. This was my dream, and why I had circles under my eyes this morning at breakfast. Everyone noticed it, and I think one of them sniggered. You don't take much interest in politics, do you? You never read the newspapers? I drank my coffee, but I had a slight feeling of nausea. It's to be expected, I don't mind it at all, it's nothing. My love, are you feeling better? He can't talk, he can only mutter. O my dear, O my dear, drink a little milk, lie down and rest a little. I will comfort you. I can carry love like Saint Christopher. It is heavy, but I can carry it. It's the stones of suspicion I stumble on. Did I say suspicion? No. No. No. It's nothing. I love you. A slight feeling of nausea, that's all. After a while I got out into the open air, and his face was the moon hanging in the snowy branches.

THE COUNCIL WAS NOTHING LIKE Jason imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage. Jason looked around the room and tried to remember everyone’s name. Thankfully, Leo and Piper were sitting next to him—it was their first meeting as senior counselors. Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis’s nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist. The counselor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen something-or-other, was playing “got-your-nose” with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda’s nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back. Jason had hoped Thalia would show. She’d promised, after all—but she was nowhere to be seen. Chiron had told him not to worry about it. Thalia often got sidetracked fighting monsters or running quests for Artemis, and she would probably arrive soon. But still, Jason worried. Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at Jason. Annabeth didn’t look so relaxed. She wore armor over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. As soon as Jason walked in, she fixed him with an expectant look, as if she were trying to extract information out of him by sheer willpower. “Let’s come to order,” Chiron said. “Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back. Travis, if you’d kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Jason, Piper, and Leo have returned successfully…more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in.” Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story. Piper and Leo chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot. It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Jason knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera’s visit right before the meeting.

They stopped at one of these half-tank houses ... where they were greeted by a young girl, who herself seemed like no more than a child. - We have come to enquire after Absalom ... Have you heard nothing from him? Nothing, she said. When will he return? he asked. I do not know, she said. Will he ever return? he asked, indifferently, carelessly. I do not know she said. She said it tonelessly, hopelessly, as one who is used to waiting, to desertion. She said it as one who expects nothing from her seventy years upon the earth. No rebellion will come out of her, no demands, no fierceness. Nothing will come out of her at all save the children of men who will use her, leave her, forget her.

Duroy, who felt light hearted that evening, said with a smile: "You are gloomy to-day, dear master." The poet replied: "I am always so, young man, so will you be in a few years. Life is a hill. As long as one is climbing up one looks towards the summit and is happy, but when one reaches the top one suddenly perceives the descent before one, and its bottom, which is death. One climbs up slowly, but one goes down quickly. At your age a man is happy. He hopes for many things, which, by the way, never come to pass. At mine, one no longer expects anything - but death." Duroy began to laugh: "You make me shudder all over." Norbert de Varenne went on: "No, you do not understand me now, but later on you will remember what I am saying to you at this moment. A day comes, and it comes early for many, when there is an end to mirth, for behind everything one looks at one sees death. You do not even understand the word. At your age it means nothing; at mine it is terrible. Yes, one understands it all at once, one does not know how or why, and then everything in life changes its aspect. For fifteen years I have felt death assail me as if I bore within me some gnawing beast. I have felt myself decaying little by little, month by month, hour by hour, like a house crumbling to ruin. Death has disfigured me so completely that I do not recognize myself. I have no longer anything about me of myself - of the fresh, strong man I was at thirty. I have seen death whiten my black hairs, and with what skillful and spiteful slowness. Death has taken my firm skin, my muscles, my teeth, my whole body of old, only leaving me a despairing soul, soon to be taken too. Every step brings me nearer to death, every movemebt, every breath hastens his odious work. To breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work, dream, everything we do is to die. To live, in short, is to die. Oh, you will realize this. If you stop and think for a moment you will understand. What do you expect? Love? A few more kisses and you will be impotent. Then money? For what? Women? Much fun that will be! In order to eat a lot and grow fat and lie awake at night suffering from gout? And after that? Glory? What use is that when it does not take the form of love? And after that? Death is always the end. I now see death so near that I often want to stretch my arms to push it back. It covers the earth and fills the universe. I see it everywhere. The insects crushed on the path, the falling leaves, the white hair in a friend's head, rend my heart and cry to me, 'Behold it!' It spoils for me all I do, all I see, all that I eat and drink, all that I love; the bright moonlight, the sunrise, the broad ocean, the noble rivers, and the soft summer evening air so sweet to breath." He walked on slowly, dreaming aloud, almost forgetting that he had a listener: "And no one ever returns - never. The model of a statue may be preserved, but my body, my face, my thoughts, my desires will never reappear again. And yet millions of beings will be born with a nose, eyes, forehead, cheeks, and mouth like me, and also a soul like me, without my ever returning, without even anything recognizable of me appearing in these countless different beings. What can we cling to? What can we believe in? All religions are stupid, with their puerile morality and their egotistical promises, monstrously absurd. Death alone is certain." "Think of that, young man. Think of it for days, and months and years, and life will seem different to you. Try to get away from all the things that shut you in. Make a superhuman effort to emerge alive from your own body, from your own interests, from your thoughts, from humanity in general, so that your eyes may be turned in the opposite direction. Then you understand how unimportant is the quarrel between Romanticism and Realism, or the Budget debates.

Azrael raised his finger to a face that filled the sky, lit by the faint glow of dying galaxies. There are a billion Deaths, but they are all aspects of the one Death: Azrael, the Great Attractor, the Death of Universes, the beginning and end of time. Most of the universe is made up of dark matter, and only Azrael knows who it is. Eyes so big that a supernova would be a mere suggestion of a gleam on the iris turned slowly and focused on the tiny figure on the immense whorled plains of his fingertips. Beside Azrael the big Clock hung in the center of the entire web of the dimensions, and ticked onward. Stars glittered in Azrael's eyes. The Death of the Discworld stood up. LORD I ASK FOR - Three of the servants of oblivion slid into existence alongside him. One said, Do not listen. He stands accused of meddling. One said, And morticide. One said, And pride. And living with intent to survive. One said, And siding with chaos against good order. Azrael raised an eyebrow. The servants drifted away from Death, expectantly. LORD, WE KNOW THERE IS NO GOOD ORDER EXCEPT THAT WHICH WE CREATE.... Azrael's expression did not change. THERE IS NO HOPE BUT US. THERE IS NO MERCY BUT US. THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US. The dark, sad face filled the sky. ALL THINGS THAT ARE ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS. Death took a step backwards. It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features. Death glanced sideways at the servants. LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN? He waited. LORD? said Death. In the time it took to answer, several galaxies unfolded, whirled around Azrael like paper streamers, impacted, then were gone. Then Azrael said: Yes.

Sitti knows that modern-day wars are fought over simple things, like the length and fit of a shirt—the shorter the sleeve, the greater the misfortune. Many times she wants to ask the one-hundred-year-old fig tree in the village center what it is like to be born from nothing and grow into something. She wants to know what it is like to bear fruit every year and not expect anything in return. She wants to know what it is like to be respected for what she could give—no more and no less.

The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this world, are dead young mothers, returned to see how their children fare. There is no other inducement great enough to bring the departed back. They glide into the acquainted room when day and night, their jailers, are in the grip, and whisper, "How is it with you, my child?" but always, lest a strange face should frighten him, they whisper it so low that he may not hear. They bend over him to see that he sleeps peacefully, and replace his sweet arm beneath the coverlet, and they open the drawers to count how many little vests he has. They love to do these things. What is saddest about ghosts is that they may not know their child. They expect him to be just as he was when they left him, and they are easily bewildered, and search for him from room to room, and hate the unknown boy he has become. Poor, passionate souls, they may even do him an injury. These are the ghosts that go wailing about old houses, and foolish wild stories are invented to explain what is all so pathetic and simple. I know of a man who, after wandering far, returned to his early home to pass the evening of his days in it, and sometimes from his chair by the fire he saw the door open softly and a woman's face appear. She always looked at him very vindictively, and then vanished. Strange things happened in this house. Windows were opened in the night. The curtains of his bed were set fire to. A step on the stair was loosened. The covering of an old well in a corridor where he walked was cunningly removed. And when he fell ill the wrong potion was put in the glass by his bedside, and he died. How could the pretty young mother know that this grizzled interloper was the child of whom she was in search? All our notions about ghosts are wrong. It is nothing so petty as lost wills or deeds of violence that brings them back, and we are not nearly so afraid of them as they are of us.

We have to recognize that we’re nothing, the Pastor says. In the surface world, when they returned from the mine and showered and entered their homes, they were princes, kings, spoiled sons, well-fed fathers, Romeos. They believed their private worlds of home and family spun thanks to their labor, and that as workingmen and breadwinners they had every right to expect their world to revolve around their needs. Now the heart of the mountain has collapsed on top of them, and they are trapped by a block of stone, an object whose newness and perfection suggest, to some, a divine judgment.

What did we talk about? I don't remember. We talked so hard and sat so still that I got cramps in my knee. We had too many cups of tea and then didn't want to leave the table to go to the bathroom because we didn't want to stop talking. You will think we talked of revolution but we didn't. Nor did we talk of our own souls. Nor of sewing. Nor of babies. Nor of departmental intrigue. It was political if by politics you mean the laboratory talk that characters in bad movies are perpetually trying to convey (unsuccessfully) when they Wrinkle Their Wee Brows and say (valiantly--dutifully--after all, they didn't write it) "But, Doctor, doesn't that violate Finagle's Constant?" I staggered to the bathroom, released floods of tea, and returned to the kitchen to talk. It was professional talk. It left my grey-faced and with such concentration that I began to develop a headache. We talked about Mary Ann Evans' loss of faith, about Emily Brontë's isolation, about Charlotte Brontë's blinding cloud, about the split in Virginia Woolf's head and the split in her economic condition. We talked about Lady Murasaki, who wrote in a form that no respectable man would touch, Hroswit, a little name whose plays "may perhaps amuse myself," Miss Austen, who had no more expression in society than a firescreen or a poker. They did not all write letters, write memoirs, or go on the stage. Sappho--only an ambiguous, somewhat disagreeable name. Corinna? The teacher of Pindar. Olive Schriener, growing up on the veldt, wrote on book, married happily, and ever wrote another. Kate Chopin wrote a scandalous book and never wrote another. (Jean has written nothing.). There was M-ry Sh-ll-y who wrote you know what and Ch-rl-tt- P-rk-ns G-lm-an, who wrote one superb horror study and lots of sludge (was it sludge?) and Ph-ll-s Wh--tl-y who was black and wrote eighteenth century odes (but it was the eighteenth century) and Mrs. -nn R-dcl-ff- S-thw-rth and Mrs. G--rg- Sh-ld-n and (Miss?) G--rg-tt- H-y-r and B-rb-r- C-rtl-nd and the legion of those, who writing, write not, like the dead Miss B--l-y of the poem who was seduced into bad practices (fudging her endings) and hanged herself in her garter. The sun was going down. I was blind and stiff. It's at this point that the computer (which has run amok and eaten Los Angeles) is defeated by some scientifically transcendent version of pulling the plug; the furniture stood around unknowing (though we had just pulled out the plug) and Lady, who got restless when people talked at suck length because she couldn't understand it, stuck her head out from under the couch, looking for things to herd. We had talked for six hours, from one in the afternoon until seven; I had at that moment an impression of our act of creation so strong, so sharp, so extraordinarily vivid, that I could not believe all our talking hadn't led to something more tangible--mightn't you expect at least a little blue pyramid sitting in the middle of the floor?

Part of what kept him standing in the restive group of men awaiting authorization to enter the airport was a kind of paralysis that resulted from Sylvanshine’s reflecting on the logistics of getting to the Peoria 047 REC—the issue of whether the REC sent a van for transfers or whether Sylvanshine would have to take a cab from the little airport had not been conclusively resolved—and then how to arrive and check in and where to store his three bags while he checked in and filled out his arrival and Post-code payroll and withholding forms and orientational materials then somehow get directions and proceed to the apartment that Systems had rented for him at government rates and get there in time to find someplace to eat that was either in walking distance or would require getting another cab—except the telephone in the alleged apartment wasn’t connected yet and he considered the prospects of being able to hail a cab from outside an apartment complex were at best iffy, and if he told the original cab he’d taken to the apartment to wait for him, there would be difficulties because how exactly would he reassure the cabbie that he really was coming right back out after dropping his bags and doing a quick spot check of the apartment’s condition and suitability instead of it being a ruse designed to defraud the driver of his fare, Sylvanshine ducking out the back of the Angler’s Cove apartment complex or even conceivably barricading himself in the apartment and not responding to the driver’s knock, or his ring if the apartment had a doorbell, which his and Reynolds’s current apartment in Martinsburg most assuredly did not, or the driver’s queries/threats through the apartment door, a scam that resided in Claude Sylvanshine’s awareness only because a number of independent Philadelphia commercial carriage operators had proposed heavy Schedule C losses under the proviso ‘Losses Through Theft of Service’ and detailed this type of scam as prevalent on the poorly typed or sometimes even handwritten attachments required to explain unusual or specific C-deductions like this, whereas were Sylvanshine to pay the fare and the tip and perhaps even a certain amount in advance on account so as to help assure the driver of his honorable intentions re the second leg of the sojourn there was no tangible guarantee that the average taxi driver—a cynical and ethically marginal species, hustlers, as even their smudged returns’ very low tip-income-vs.-number-of-fares-in-an-average-shift ratios in Philly had indicated—wouldn’t simply speed away with Sylvanshine’s money, creating enormous hassles in terms of filling out the internal forms for getting a percentage of his travel per diem reimbursed and also leaving Sylvanshine alone, famished (he was unable to eat before travel), phoneless, devoid of Reynolds’s counsel and logistical savvy in the sterile new unfurnished apartment, his stomach roiling in on itself in such a way that it would be all Sylvanshine could do to unpack in any kind of half-organized fashion and get to sleep on the nylon travel pallet on the unfinished floor in the possible presence of exotic Midwest bugs, to say nothing of putting in the hour of CPA exam review he’d promised himself this morning when he’d overslept slightly and then encountered last-minute packing problems that had canceled out the firmly scheduled hour of morning CPA review before one of the unmarked Systems vans arrived to take him and his bags out through Harpers Ferry and Ball’s Bluff to the airport, to say even less about any kind of systematic organization and mastery of the voluminous Post, Duty, Personnel, and Systems Protocols materials he should be receiving promptly after check-in and forms processing at the Post, which any reasonable Personnel Director would expect a new examiner to have thoroughly internalized before reporting for the first actual day interacting with REC examiners, and which there was no way in any real world that Sylvanshine could expect

It is not a war, it is a lesson of life (the second part) ......... We believed, in our ignorance and arrogance, that we can be invincible, that we are superior to any other living being on the face of the earth. Is it nature? I broke it down and raped her, in the name of the god of money, convinced that Mother Earth did not suffer the blow, to exploit it forever. I took, stole, with outstretched hands, torn, cut, shattered, breaking down everything that appeared in our path. We have sickened the Earth and now its screams of pain are resounding in the global reach of a pandemic that, for us, people have the taste of catastrophe. And now we find ourselves stopped, beaten by a life lesson that we did not expect, we consider ourselves unjust, we consider ourselves at war. Existence is like this, first it launches small signals like bells, signals that we have always ignored and then finds a way to be heard with its increasingly loud sirens. She tells us that, at any price, she will be able to convince you that good and evil are not the case, that the time has come to realize that, as a living species, we are close to self-destruction. The time has come to realize that the countdown has begun, the safety is almost completely consumed, and this is the last call. For you, for me, for all the creatures that populate the Earth. And for this tormented planet, whose very life depends on our survival. .. New forms of subjectivity must be promoted if we are to aspire to social and epochal changes. It must be understood that freedom is not the choice of car color, that a hug is never ensured, (a doctor told me a phrase that "stuck" in my mind during the senior specialization in a certain medical field. He told me, "You see, there are people coming to us and they wouldn't need three pills a day, but three hugs a day." and distances are not measured in kilometers. We are removed even when we are close in this society where we talk without listening, we eat without tasting, we make love without feeling, we walk without seeing, a society in which we breathe sniffing, darkened by our blind beliefs. Nature has its rules and follows an unknown and sometimes violent design. The world continues and we, the ordinary mortals, have only the power to try to understand, to change our approach, our beliefs, our system. Although it is difficult, very difficult, but we have no other option. The truth, dear gentlemen, is that nothing will be the same as before unless we learn the lesson, otherwise everything will return exactly as before, with our bad ancestral practices and with the awareness that, again, humanity will miss an opportunity to to improve.

Go back. Open the bedroom door and send young Aster down the stairs. Place the groom on his feet and draw him away from the bed. Wipe the sheet clean of the bride’s blood. Shake it straight and flatten its wrinkles. Slide off that necklace and return it to the girl as she races to her mother. Fix what has been broken in her, mend it shut again. Clothe him in his wedding finery. Let there be no light. Allow only shadows into this kingdom of man’s making. See him alone in the room. See him free of a father’s attention. See him step beyond the reach of elders and all who advise growing boys on the perils of weakness. Here is Kidane, shaking loose of unseen bindings. Here he is, gifting himself the freedom to tremble. All advice has been taken back and he is no longer the groom instructed to break flesh and draw blood and bring a girl to earthy cries. See this man in the tender moment before he takes his wife. See him wrestle with the first blooms of untapped emotion. Let the minutes stretch. Remove the expectations of a father. Remove the admonishments to stand tall and stay strong. Eliminate the birthright, the privilege of nobility, the weight of ancestors and blood. Erase his father’s name and that of his grandfather’s father and that of the long line of men before them. Let him stand in the middle of that empty bedroom in his wedding tunic and trousers, in his gilded cape and gold ring, and then disappear his name, too. Make of him nothing and see what emerges willingly, without taint of duty or fear.

When it passes us, the driver tips his cap our way, eying us as if he thinks we're up to no good-the kind of no good he might call the cops on. I wave to him and smile, wondering if I look as guilty as I feel. Better make this the quickest lesson in driving history. It's not like she needs to pass the state exam. If she can keep the car straight for ten seconds in a row, I've upheld my end of the deal. I turn off the ignition and look at her. "So, how are you and Toraf doing?" She cocks her head at me. "What does that have to do with driving?" Aside from delaying it? "Nothing," I say, shrugging. "Just wondering." She pulls down the visor and flips open the mirror. Using her index finger, she unsmudges the mascara Rachel put on her. "Not that it's your business, but we're fine. We were always fine." "He didn't seem to think so." She shoots me a look. "He can be oversensitive sometimes. I explained that to him." Oversensitive? No way. She's not getting off that easy. "He's a good kisser," I tell her, bracing myself. She turns in her seat, eyes narrowed to slits. "You might as well forget about that kiss, Emma. He's mine, and if you put your nasty Half-Breed lips on him again-" "Now who's being oversensitive?" I say, grinning. She does love him. "Switch places with me," she snarls. But I'm too happy for Toraf to return the animosity. Once she's in the driver's seat, her attitude changes. She bounces up and down like she's mattress shopping, getting so much air that she'd puncture the top if I hadn't put it down already. She reaches for the keys in the ignition. I grab her hand. "Nope. Buckle up first." It's almost cliché for her to roll her eyes now, but she does. When she's finished dramatizing the act of buckling her seat belt-complete with tugging on it to make sure it won't unclick-she turns to me in pouty expectation. I nod. She wrenches the key and the engine fires up. The distant look in her eyes makes me nervous. Or maybe it's the guilt swirling around in my stomach. Galen might not like this car, but it still feels like sacrilege to put the fate of a BMW in Rayna's novice hands. As she grips the gear stick so hard her knuckles turn white, I thank God this is an automatic. "D is for drive, right?" she says. "Yes. The right pedal is to go. The left pedal is to stop. You have to step on the left one to change into drive." "I know. I saw you do it." She mashes down on the brake, then throws us into drive. But we don't move. "Okay, now you'll want to step on the right pedal, which is the gas-" The tires start spinning-and so do we. Rayna stares at me wide-eyed and mouth ajar, which isn't a good thing since her hands are on the wheel. It occurs to me that she's screaming, but I can't hear her over my own screeching. The dust wall we've created whirls around us, blocking our view of the trees and the road and life as we knew it. "Take your foot off the right one!" I yell. We stop so hard my teeth feel rattled. "Are you trying to get us killed?" she howls, holding her hand to her cheek as if I've slapped her. Her eyes are wild and glassy; she just might cry. "Are you freaking kidding me? You're the one driving!

He passed the open library door, then stopped, returned. He pushed the door wider to see Kestrel more fully. A fire burned in the grate. The room was warm, and Kestrel was browsing the shelves as if this were her home, which Arin wanted it to be. Her back to him, she slid a book from its row, a finger on top of its spine. She seemed to sense his presence. She slid the book back and turned. The graze on her cheek had scabbed over. Her blackened eye had sealed shut. The other eye studied him, almond-shaped, amber, perfect. The sight of her rattled Arin even more than he had expected. “Don’t tell people why you killed Cheat,” she said. “It won’t win you any favors.” “I don’t care what they think of me. They need to know what happened.” “It’s not your story to tell.” A charred log shifted on the fire. Its crackle and sift was loud. “You’re right,” Arin said slowly, “but I can’t lie about this.” “Then say nothing.” “I’ll be questioned. I’ll be held accountable by our new leader, though I’m not sure who will take Cheat’s place--” “You. Obviously.” He shook his head. Kestrel lifted one shoulder in a shrug. She turned back to the books. “Kestrel, I didn’t come in here to talk politics.” Her hand trembled slightly, then swept along the titles to hide it. Arin didn’t know how much last night had changed things between them, or in what way. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Cheat should never have been a threat to you. You shouldn’t even be in this house. You’re in this position because I put you there. Here. Forgive me, please.” Her fingers paused: thin, strong, and still. Arin dared to reach for her hand, and Kestrel did not pull away.

Where are we going?” Arin stared out the carriage window at the trees of the Garden District, their bare branches slim and violet in the dusk. Kestrel fidgeted with her skirts. “Arin. You know that we are going to Irex’s party.” “Yes,” he said shortly, but didn’t tear his gaze away from the passing trees. Better he look at them than at her. The velvet dress was a deep red, the skirts deliberately crushed in a pattern highlighted by golden embroidered leaves that twined up toward the bodice, where they interlaced and would catch the light. Conspicuous. The dress made her conspicuous. Kestrel sank into her corner of the carriage, feeling her dagger dig into her side. This evening at Irex’s wouldn’t be easy. Arin seemed to think the same. He held himself so rigidly on the carriage seat across from her that he looked wooden. Tension seeped into the air between them. When torches lit the darkness outside the windows and the driver lined up behind other carriage waiting to access the pathway to Irex’s villa, Kestrel said, “Perhaps we should return home.” “No,” said Arin. “I want to see the house.” He opened the door. They were silent as they walked up the path to the villa. Though not as large as Kestrel’s, it was also a former Herrani home: elegant, prettily designed. Arin fell behind Kestrel, as was expected of slaves, but this made her uneasy. It was unsettling to feel him close and not see his face. They entered the house with the other guests and made their way into the receiving room, which was lined with Valorian weapons. “They don’t belong there,” she heard Arin say. She turned to see him staring in shock at the walls. “Irex is an exceptional fighter,” said Kestrel. “And not very modest.” Arin said nothing, so neither did Kestrel.

Since we’ve ruled out another man as the explanation for all this, I can only assume something has gone wrong at Havenhurst. Is that it?” Elizabeth seized on that excuse as if it were manna from heaven. “Yes,” she whispered, nodding vigorously. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on her forehead and said teasingly, “Let me guess-you discovered the mill overcharged you?” Elizabeth thought she would die of the sweet torment when he continued tenderly teasing her about being thrifty. “Not the mill? Then it was the baker, and he refused to give you a better price for buying two loaves instead of one.” Tears swelled behind her eyes, treacherously close to the surface, and Ian saw them. “That bad?” he joked, looking at the suspicious sheen in her eyes. “Then it must be that you’ve overspent your allowance.” When she didn’t respond to his light probing, Ian smiled reassuringly and said, “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out together tomorrow.” It sounded as though he planned to stay, and that shook Elizabeth out of her mute misery enough to say chokingly, “No-it’s the-the masons. They’re costing much more than I-I expected. I’ve spent part of my personal allowance on them besides the loan you made me for Havenhurst.” “Oh, so it’s the masons,” he grinned, chuckling. “You have to keep your eye on them, to be sure. They’ll put you in the poorhouse if you don’t keep an eye on the mortar they charge you for. I’ll have to talk with them in the morning.” “No!” she burst out, fabricating wildly. “That’s just what has me so upset. I didn’t want you to have to intercede. I wanted to do it all myself. I have it all settled now, but it’s been exhausting. And so I went to the doctor to see why I felt so tired. He-he said there’s nothing in the world wrong with me. I’ll come home to Montmayne the day after tomorrow. Don’t wait here for me. I know how busy you are right now. Please,” she implored desperately, “let me do this, I beg you!” Ian straightened and shook his head in baffled disbelief, “I’d give you my life for the price of your smile, Elizabeth. You don’t have to beg me for anything. I do not want you spending your personal allowance on this place, however. If you do,” he lied teasingly, “I may be forced to cut it off.” Then, more seriously, he said, “If you need more money for Havenhurst, just tell me, but your allowance is to be spent exclusively on yourself. Finish your brandy,” he ordered gently, and when she had, he pressed another kiss on her forehead. “Stay here as long as you must. I have business in Devon that I’ve been putting off because I didn’t want to leave you. I’ll go there and return to London on Tuesday. Would you like to join me there instead of at Montmayne?” Elizabeth nodded. “There’s just one thing more,” he finished, studying her pale face and strained features. “Will you give me your word the doctor didn’t find anything at all to be alarmed about?” “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I give you my word.” She watched him walk back into his own bed chamber. The moment his door clicked into its latch Elizabeth turned over and buried her face in the pillows. She wept until she thought there couldn’t possibly be any more tears left in her, and then she wept harder. Across the room the door leading out into the hall was opened a crack, and Berta peeked in, then quickly closed it. Turning to Bentner-who’d sought her counsel when Ian slammed the door in his face and ripped into Elizabeth-Berta said miserably, “She’s crying like her heart will break, but he’s not in there anymore.” “He ought to be shot!” Bentner said with blazing contempt. Berta nodded timidly and clutched her dressing robe closer about her. “He’s a frightening man, to be sure, Mr. Bentner.

Arjuna, I will now enumerate the marks of the devotee I most dearly love. I love the one who harbors no ill will toward any living being, who returns love for hatred, who is friendly and compassionate toward all. I love the devotee who is beyond ‘I’ and ‘mine,’ unperturbed by pain and not elated by pleasure, who possesses firm faith, is forgiving, ever contented and ever meditating on Me. “I love the peaceful devotee who is neither a source of agitation in the world nor agitated by the world. I love those who are free of fear, envy, and other annoyances that the world brings, who accept the knocks that come their way as blessings in disguise. “I love those who do their worldly duties unconcerned and untroubled by life. I love those who expect absolutely nothing. Those who are pure both internally and externally are also very dear to Me. I love the devotees who are ready to be My instrument, meet any demands I make on them, and yet ask nothing of Me. “I love those who do not rejoice or feel revulsion, who do not grieve, do not yearn for possessions, are not affected by the bad or good things that happen to and around them and yet are full of devotion to Me. They are dear to Me because they live in the Self (Atma), not in the commotion of the world. “I love devotees whose attitudes are the same toward friend or foe, who are indifferent to honor or ignominy, heat or cold, praise or criticism—who not only control their talking but are silent within. Also very dear to Me are those generally content with life and unattached to things of the world, even to home. I love those whose sole concern in life is to love Me. Indeed, these and all the others I mentioned are very, very dear to Me. “Hold Me as your highest goal. Live your life in accordance with the immortal wisdom I have taught you here, and practice this wisdom with great faith and deep devotion. Surrender your mind and heart completely to Me. Then I will love you dearly, and you will go beyond death to immortality.

Angels! Halt and listen to me! I am the witch Ruta Skadi, and I want to talk to you!” They turned. Their great wings beat inward, slowing them, and their bodies swung downward till they were standing upright in the air, holding their position by the beating of their wings. They surrounded her, five huge forms glowing in the dark air, lit by an invisible sun. She looked around, sitting on her pine branch proud and unafraid, though her heart was beating with the strangeness of it, and her dæmon fluttered to sit close to the warmth of her body. Each angel-being was distinctly an individual, and yet they had more in common with one another than with any human she had seen. What they shared was a shimmering, darting play of intelligence and feeling that seemed to sweep over them all simultaneously. They were naked, but she felt naked in front of their glance, it was so piercing and went so deep. Still, she was unashamed of what she was, and she returned their gaze with head held high. “So you are angels,” she said, “or Watchers, or bene elim. Where are you going?” “We are following a call,” said one. She was not sure which one had spoken. It might have been any or all of them at once. “Whose call?” she said. “A man’s.” “Lord Asriel’s?” “It may be.” “Why are you following his call?” “Because we are willing to,” came the reply. “Then wherever he is, you can guide me to him as well,” she ordered them. Ruta Skadi was four hundred and sixteen years old, with all the pride and knowledge of an adult witch queen. She was wiser by far than any short-lived human, but she had not the slightest idea of how like a child she seemed beside these ancient beings. Nor did she know how far their awareness spread out beyond her like filamentary tentacles to the remotest corners of universes she had never dreamed of; nor that she saw them as human-formed only because her eyes expected to. If she were to perceive their true form, they would seem more like architecture than organism, like huge structures composed of intelligence and feeling. But they expected nothing else: she was very young.

Love Your Enemies 27“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic [2] either. 30Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 32“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

He just wanted a walk- and a few books. It had been an age since he'd even had free time to read, let alone do so for pleasure. But there she was. His mate. She was nothing like Jesminda. Jesminda had been all laughter and mischief, too wild and free to be contained by the country life that she'd been born into. She had teased him, taunted him- seduced him so thoroughly that he hadn't wanted anything but her. She'd seen him not as a High Lord's seventh son, but as a male. Had loved him without question, without hesitation. She had chosen him. Elain had been... thrown at him. He glanced toward the tea service spread on a low-lying table nearby. 'I'm going to assume that one of those cups belongs to your sister.' Indeed, there was a discarded book in the viper's usual chair. Cauldron help the male who wound up shackled to her. 'Do you mind if I held myself to the other?' He tried to sound casual- comfortable. Even as his heart raced and raced, so swift he thought he might vomit on the very expensive, very old carpet. From Sangravah, if the patterns and rich dyes were any indication. Rhysand was many things, but he certainly had good taste. The entire place had been decorated with thought and elegance, with a penchant for comfort over stuffiness. He didn't want to admit he liked it. Didn't want to admit he found the city beautiful. That the circle of people who now claimed to be Feyre's new family... It was what, long ago, he'd once thought life at Tamlin's court would be. An ache like a blow to the chest went through him, but he crossed the rug. Forced his hands to be steady while he poured himself a cup of tea and sat in the chair opposite Nesta's vacated one. 'There's a plate of biscuits. Would you like one?' He didn't expect her to answer, and he gave himself all of one more minute before he'd rise from this chair and leave, hopefully avoiding Nesta's return. But sunlight on gold caught his eye- and Elain slowly turned from her vigil at the window. He had not seen her entire face since that day in Hybern. Then, it had been drawn and terrified, then utterly blank and numb, her hair plastered to her head, her lips blue with cold and shock. Looking at her now... She was pale, yes. The vacancy still glazing her features. But he couldn't breathe as she faced him fully. She was the most beautiful female he'd ever seen. Betrayal, queasy and oily, slid through his veins. He'd said the same to Jesminda once. But even as shame washed through him, the words, the sense chanted, Mine. You are mine, and I am yours. Mate.

Let me return from history and draw my conclusion. What all this means to us at the present time is this: Our system has already passed its flowering. Some time ago it reached that summit of blessedness which the mysterious game of world history sometimes allows to things beautiful and desirable in themselves. We are on the downward slope. Our course may possible stretch out for a very long time, but in any case nothing finer, ore beautiful, and more desirable than what we have already had can henceforth be expected. The road leads downhill. Historically we are, I believe, ripe for dismantling. And there is no doubt that such will be our fate, not today or tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow. I do not draw this conclusion from any excessively moralistic estimate of our accomplishments and our abilities: I draw it far more from the movements which I see already on the way in the outside world. Critical times are approaching; the omens can be sensed everywhere; the world is once again about to shift its center of gravity. Displacements of power are in the offing. They will not take place without war and violence. From the Far East comes a threat not only to peace, but to life and liberty. Even if our country remains politically neutral, even if our whole nation unanimously abides by tradition (which is not the case) and attempts to remain faithful to Castalian ideals, that will be in vain. Some of our representatives in Parliament are already saying that Castalia is a rather expensive luxury for our country. The country may very soon be forced into a serious rearmament - armaments for defensive purposes only, of course - and great economies will be necessary. In spite of the government's benevolent disposition towards us, much of the economizing will strike us directly. We are proud that our Order and the cultural continuity it provides have cost the country as little as they have. In comparison with other ages, especially the early period of the Feuilletonistic Age with its lavishly endowed universities, its innumerable consultants and opulent institutes, this toll is really not large. It is infinitesimal compared with the sums consumed for war and armaments during the Century of Wars. But before too long this kind of armament may once again be the supreme necessity; the generals will again dominate Parliament; and if the people are confronted with the choice of sacrificing Castalia or exposing themselves to the danger of war and destruction, we know how they will choose. Undoubtedly a bellicose ideology will burgeon. The rash of propaganda will affect youth in particular. Then scholars and scholarship, Latin and mathematics, education and culture, will be considered worth their salt only to the extent that they can serve the ends of war.