“
Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You've got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. It's like boats. You keep your motor on so you can steer with the current. And when you hear the sound of the waterfall coming nearer and nearer, tidy up the boat, put on your best tie and hat, and smoke a cigar right up till the moment you go over. That's a triumph.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Farewell Summer)
“
What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I have about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day. I wish so much that I'd had one last look at him in the lifeboat, that I'd provoked him a little, so that I was on his mind. I wish I had said to him then - yes, I know, to a tiger, but still - I wish I had said, "Richard Parker, it's over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express I couldn't have done it without you. I would like to say it formally: Richard Parker, thank you. Thank you for saving my life. And now go where you must. You have known the confined freedom of a zoo most of your life; now you will know the free confinement of a jungle. I wish you all the best with it. Watch out for Man. He is not your friend. But I hope you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you , that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. What is that hiss? Ah, our boat has touched sand. So farewell, Richard Parker, farewell. God be with you.
”
”
Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
“
Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
Katherine: In his tongue.
Petruchio: Whose tongue?
Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.
”
”
William Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew)
“
Farewell,' she said. 'I hope you hear many more songs' - which was the best way she could think of to say good-bye to a butterfly.
”
”
Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1))
“
Yet I know that good is coming to me—that good is always coming; though few have at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it. What we call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good. And so, FAREWELL.
”
”
George MacDonald (Phantastes)
“
After a pause, he asked, 'What do you think of Nasuada's plans?'
'Mmm...she's doomed! You're doomed! They're all doomed!'She cackled, doubling over, then straightened abruptly. 'notice I didn't specify what kind of doom, so no matter what happens, I predicted it. How very wise of me.' She lifted the basket again, setting it on one hip. 'I supposed I won't see you for a while, so farewell, best of luck, avoid roasted cabbage, don't eat earwax, and look on the bright side of life!' And with a cheery wink, she strolled off, leaving Eragon blinking and nonplussed.
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
“
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all.
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
“
I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3:
ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever.
And then comes literature's most famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear." All well and good, but here's the way I would handle it:
BERTIE: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves?
JEEVES: No, Sir.
BERTIE: Then why is your tummy rumbling?
JEEVES: Pardon me, Sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us.
BERTIE: Animal? What animal?
JEEVES: A bear, Sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner.
BERTIE (as narrator): I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak and it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult for me to find a formula. "Advise me, Jeeves," I yipped. "What do I do for the best?"
JEEVES: I fancy it might be judicious if you were to make an exit, Sir.
BERTIE (narrator): No sooner s. than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed across country by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off Roger Bannister's mile.
Who can say which method is superior?"
(As reproduced in
Plum, Shakespeare and the Cat Chap
)
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Over Seventy: An Autobiography with Digressions)
“
Farewell - though it sounds very tragic - is sometimes the best exit from the hell of unhappiness!
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. ... The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.
”
”
George Washington (George Washington's Farewell Address (Books of American Wisdom))
“
I prithee send me back my heart,
Since I cannot have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?
Yet now I think on't, let it lie,
To find it were in vain;
For thou hast a thief in either eye
Would steal it back again.
Why should two hearts in one breast lie,
And yet not lodge together?
O Love! where is thy sympathy,
If thus our breasts thou sever?
But love is such a mystery,
I cannot find it out;
For when I think I'm best resolved,
I then am in most doubt.
Then farewell care, and farewell woe;
I will no longer pine;
For I'll believe I have her heart,
As much as she hath mine.
”
”
John Suckling (The Poems of Sir John Suckling)
“
Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat
That we must change for heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so since he
Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid
What shall be right. Farthest from him is best Whom reason hath equaled force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell happy fields
Where joy forever dwells. Hail horrors Hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell
Receive thy new possessor, one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time
The mind is its own place and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
What matter where if I be still the same
And what I should be--All but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater. Here at least
We shall be free. Th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy will not drive us hence.
Here we may reign supreme, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.
Better to reign in hell than serve in Heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th'associates and co-partners of our loss
Lie thus astonished on th' oblivious pool.
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion? Or, once more,
With rallying arms, to try what may be yet
Regained in heav'n or what more lost in hell!
”
”
John Milton
“
I suppose I won’t see you for a while, so farewell, best of luck, avoid roasted cabbage, don’t eat earwax, and look on the bright side of life!
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
“
So? If I die, then I die! The loss to the world won’t be great. Yes, and I’m fairly bored with myself already. I am like a man who is yawning at a ball, whose reason for not going home to bed is only that his carriage hasn’t arrived yet. But the carriage is ready . . . farewell!
I run through the memory of my past in its entirety and can’t help asking myself: Why have I lived? For what purpose was I born? . . .
There probably was one once, and I probably did have a lofty calling, because I feel a boundless strength in my soul . . .
But I didn’t divine this calling. I was carried away with the baits of passion, empty and unrewarding. I came out of their crucible as hard and cold as iron, but I had lost forever the ardor for noble aspirations, the best flower of life.
Since then, how many times have I played the role of the ax in the hands of fate! Like an instrument of execution, I fell on the head of doomed martyrs, often without malice, always without regret . . .
My love never brought anyone happiness, because I never sacrificed anything for those I loved: I loved for myself, for my personal pleasure.
I was simply satisfying a strange need of the heart, with greediness, swallowing their feelings, their joys, their suffering—and was never sated. Just as a man, tormented by hunger, goes to sleep in exhaustion and dreams of sumptuous dishes and sparkling wine before him. He devours the airy gifts of his imagination with rapture, and he feels easier. But as soon as he wakes: the dream disappears . . . and all that remains is hunger and despair redoubled!
And, maybe, I will die tomorrow! . . . And not one being on this earth will have ever understood me totally. Some thought of me as worse, some as better, than I actually am . . . Some will say “he was a good fellow,” others will say I was a swine. Both one and the other would be wrong.
Given this, does it seem worth the effort to live? And yet, you live, out of curiosity, always wanting something new . . . Amusing and vexing!
”
”
Mikhail Lermontov (A Hero of Our Time)
“
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!
”
”
William Shakespeare
“
The best stage name is already taken . . . I have to come up with something else. . . . I guess you begin with what resonates, what sounds like who you want to be.
”
”
Lily Burana (Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America)
“
Afterwards I thought it best to spare you any more farewells, which are upon human lips, of all words, the most natural, and of all the most painful.
”
”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“
Any truth, I maintain, is my own property. And I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another, and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property. Farewell.
”
”
Seneca (Letters From A Stoic: Epistulae Morales AD Lucilium (Illustrated. Newly revised text. Includes Image Gallery + Audio): All Three Volumes)
“
I took [Kate's] hand in mine, and felt her fingers squeeze back. And I thought: home. It took me completely by surprise. But I suppose that once you bid farewell to your first home, you're always looking for another—that place where you can feel happy and strong and at your best. For three years I'd called the Aurora home. But now that I lived in Paris, it was not the city itself that was home. It was Kate.
”
”
Kenneth Oppel (Skybreaker (Matt Cruse, #2))
“
I.
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the workings of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
II.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare.
III.
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed, neither pride
Now hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness that some end might be.
IV.
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out through years, my hope
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring,
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
My heart made, finding failure in its scope.
V.
As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
And hears one bit the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside, ('since all is o'er,' he saith
And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;')
VI.
When some discuss if near the other graves
be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and staves
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.
VII.
Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among 'The Band' to wit,
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed
Their steps - that just to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now - should I be fit?
VIII.
So, quiet as despair I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.
IX.
For mark! No sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backwards a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round;
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on, naught else remained to do.
X.
So on I went. I think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers - as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind with none to awe,
You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.
XI.
No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. 'See
Or shut your eyes,' said Nature peevishly,
It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
Tis the Last Judgement's fire must cure this place
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.
”
”
Robert Browning
“
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
“
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all. The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom's door.
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
“
Now, I will make better use of my body and be useful by increasing food production just a little, then I will bid farewell to this world. It would be good to lighten the burden on this country. That is my path to best serve my country as a useless invalid. I want to die soon.
”
”
Osamu Dazai (パンドラの匣)
“
Farewell, Horse. Our beloved. You were more innocent than Pearl on the day we were born. You were better than the best parts of us. You were who I wished the world could be.
”
”
Affinity Konar (Mischling)
“
He’s going to give me a farewell kiss, but what good is it to me now when he never did it before. I would have preferred kisses that began something, not kisses that end things.
”
”
Alejandro Jodorowsky (Where the Bird Sings Best)
“
I suppose I won’t see you for a while, so farewell, best of luck, avoid roasted cabbage, don’t eat earwax, and look
”
”
Christopher Paolini (Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle, #2))
“
I know you are leaving, and we may never meet again but rest assured, you will always remain in my heart. I will never let go of the memories that connect me to you who gave me the best moments of my life. These are my precious treasures
”
”
Shahid Hussain Raja
“
... my aunt Neva was the guardian and gardener of the metaphors that became me. She saw to it that I was fed all the best fairy tales, poetry, cinema, and theater, so that I was continually in a fever about life and eager to write it all down.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Farewell Summer)
“
Perspective - Use It or Lose It. If you turned to this page, you're forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality. Think about that.
Remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created the mess you got yourself into in the first place.
You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.
Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, and teachers.
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a false messiah.
Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.
The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change.
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.
Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect.
Then be sure of one thing:
The Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have.
The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.
A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion....this is the place to go now.
But the sky knows the reason and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.
You are never given a wish without being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.
Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.
If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.
The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums.
It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.
Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.
The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, "I've got responsibilities."
The truth you speak has no past and no future. It is, and that's all it needs to be.
Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
You're going to die a horrible death, remember. It's all good training, and you'll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind.
Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution it not generally understood by less advanced lifeforms, and they'll call you crazy.
Everything above may be wrong!
”
”
Richard Bach
“
And yet, the last time Julien slammed his car door and said to me, “Be seeing you,” just as if bidding me farewell, I did nothing to keep him. I smiled and replied, confidently, “Yes, safe journey,” just as if I were saying to him, “It’s for the best.
”
”
Valérie Perrin (Fresh Water for Flowers)
“
All we know, Midnight. The best of all we know. For Chestry Valley and its master we loved. For Nana. For Sugarloaf and Brimstone Farm. For Pop and Mom and Tom. For the foals to come. For yesterday and for all tomorrows, we dance the best we know. For good-by.
”
”
Kate Seredy (The Chestry Oak)
“
Much of Chinese society still expected its women to hold themselves in a sedate manner, lower their eyelids in response to men's stares, and restrict their smile to a faint curve of the lips which did not expose their teeth. They were not meant to use hand gestures at all. If they contravened any of these canons of behavior they would be considered 'flirtatious." Under Mao, flirting with./bre/gners was an unspeakable crime.
I was furious at the innuendo against me. It had been my Communist parents who had given me a liberal upbringing.
They had regarded the restrictions on women as precisely the sort of thing a Communist revolution should put an end to. But now oppression of women joined hands with political repression, and served resentment and petty jealousy.
One day, a Pakistani ship arrived. The Pakistani military attache came down from Peking. Long ordered us all to spring-clean the club from top to bottom, and laid on a banquet, for which he asked me to be his interpreter, which made some of the other students extremely envious. A few days later the Pakistanis gave a farewell dinner on their ship, and I was invited. The military attache had been to Sichuan, and they had prepared a special Sichuan dish for me. Long was delighted by the invitation, as was I. But despite a personal appeal from the captain and even a threat from Long to bar future students, my teachers said that no one was allowed on board a foreign ship.
"Who would take the responsibility if someone sailed away on the ship?" they asked. I was told to say I was busy that evening.
As far as I knew, I was turning down the only chance I would ever have of a trip out to sea, a foreign meal, a proper conversation in English, and an experience of the outside world.
Even so, I could not silence the whispers. Ming asked pointedly, "Why do foreigners like her so much?" as though there was something suspicious in that. The report filed on me at the end of the trip said my behavior was 'politically dubious."
In this lovely port, with its sunshine, sea breezes, and coconut trees, every occasion that should have been joyous was turned into misery. I had a good friend in the group who tried to cheer me up by putting my distress into perspective. Of course, what I encountered was no more than minor unpleasantness compared with what victims of jealousy suffered in the earlier years of the Cultural Revolution. But the thought that this was what my life at its best would be like depressed me even more.
This friend was the son of a colleague of my father's.
The other students from cities were also friendly to me. It was easy to distinguish them from the students of peasant backgrounds, who provided most of the student officials.
”
”
Jung Chang (Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China)
“
Best of men. Best of the Myrmidons.” She places her fingers to my lips, stopping my objection. “It is truth,” she says. “Let it stand, for once.” Then she leads me to the side of her tent, helps me slip beneath the canvas. The last thing I feel is her hand, squeezing mine in farewell.
”
”
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
“
Lord Christ! when I think back
Upon my youth, and on my gaiety,
It tickles me to the bottom of my heart. . . .
That I have had my day in my time.
But age, alas! that poisons everything,
Has robbed me of my beauty and my vigor;
Let it go, farewell, the devil go with it!
The flour is gone, there is no more to say,
The chaff, as best I can, I must sell now;
But still I will attempt to be right merry.
”
”
Geoffrey Chaucer
“
The day before I stepped down as secretary, I sent a message to every man and woman wearing the American military uniform because I knew I could not speak to or about them at my farewell ceremony without breaking down. I repeated my now-familiar words: “Your countrymen owe you their freedom and their security. They sleep safely at night and pursue their dreams during the day because you stand the watch and protect them.… You are the best America has to offer. My admiration and affection for you is without limit, and I will think about you and your families and pray for you every day for the rest of my life. God bless you.” I am eligible to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. I have asked to be buried in Section 60, where so many of the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan have been laid to rest. The greatest honor possible would be to rest among my heroes for all eternity.
”
”
Robert M. Gates (Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War)
“
Any soul who’d
go to their own burial is in need of a therapeutic kick to the angsty ectoplasm of their pity-party ass.” Cora
considered a funeral from the deceased’s point of view. The tears, the mourning, the sweetly dishonest words of
praise making the best of a life and its ending. While you the guest-of-honor stood by, unable to partake in
comfort and farewell, only giving embraces not felt, whispering words not heard. God, it’d be torment to surpass
the flames of hell.
”
”
Raymond St. Elmo (To Awaken in Elysium)
“
Alhambra
Welcome, the water’s voice
To one whom black sand overwhelmed,
Welcome, to the curved hand
The smooth column of the marble,
Welcome, slender labyrinths of water
Between the lemon trees,
Welcome the melodious zéjel,
Welcome is love, welcome the prayer
Offered to a God who is One,
Welcome the jasmine.
Vain the scimitar
Against the long lances of the host,
Vain to be the best.
Good to know, foreknow, grieving king,
That your courtesies are farewells,
That the key will be denied you,
The infidels’ cross eclipse the moon,
The afternoon you gaze on prove your last.
Granada, 1976.
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges
“
I perceived how foolish I had been in consenting to take my turn with you in praising love, and saying that I too was a master of the art, when I really had no conception how anything ought to be praised. For in my simplicity I imagined that the topics of praise should be true, and that this being presupposed, out of the true the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the best manner. And I felt quite proud, thinking that I knew the nature of true praise, and should speak well. Whereas I now see that the intention was to attribute to Love every species of greatness and glory, whether really belonging to him or not, without regard to truth or falsehood—that was no matter; for the original proposal seems to have been not that each of you should really praise Love, but only that you should appear to praise him. And so you attribute to Love every imaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere; and you say that 'he is all this,' and 'the cause of all that,' making him appear the fairest and best of all to those who know him not, for you cannot impose upon those who know him. And a noble and solemn hymn of praise have you rehearsed. But as I misunderstood the nature of the praise when I said that I would take my turn, I must beg to be absolved from the promise which I made in ignorance, and which (as Euripides would say (Eurip. Hyppolytus)) was a promise of the lips and not of the mind. Farewell then to such a strain: for I do not praise in that way; no, indeed, I cannot. But if you like to hear the truth about love, I am ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you. Say then, Phaedrus, whether you would like to have the truth about love, spoken in any words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time. Will that be agreeable to you? Aristodemus
”
”
Plato (Symposium)
“
God bless you, my dear master! I said. God keep you from harm and wrong--direct you--solace you--reward you well for your past kindness to me."
"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered; "without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love: yes--nobly, generously."
Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at once quitted the room.
"Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, "Farewell for ever!"
...immeasurable distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart--"my daughter, flee temptation."
"Mother, I will.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë
“
The troops also edged toward that timeless state common to veteran armies in which the men trusted no one less wretched than themselves. Still they did not hate. But each time they had to bundle up unopened mail for the dead and return it to the rear, their blood rose. An officer noticed that American artillery barrages now elicited raucous cheers. “Lay it on them!” the men yelled. “Give it to the bastards!” And the poignancy of young men dying young intruded every hour of every day. This farewell note was found in a dead pilot’s sunglasses case: Mother, please do not grieve but rather console yourself in the fact that I am happy. Try to enjoy the remainder of your life as best you can and have no regrets, for you have been a wonderful mother and I love you. Jim. It was enough to incite a man to murder.
”
”
Rick Atkinson (An Army at Dawn: The War in Africa, 1942-1943)
“
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me. Kath. Asses are made to bear, and so are you. Pet. Women are made to bear, and so are you. Kath. No such jade as bear you, if me you mean.202 Pet. Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee; For, knowing thee to be but young and light,— Kath. Too light for such a swain as you to catch, And yet as heavy as my weight should be. Pet. Should be! should buz! Kath. Well ta’en, and like a buzzard. Pet. O slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?208 Kath. Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard. Pet. Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith you are too angry. Kath. If I be waspish, best beware my sting. Pet. My remedy is, then, to pluck it out.212 Kath. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies. Pet. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. Kath. In his tongue. Pet. Whose tongue? Kath. Yours, if you talk of tails; and so farewell.216 Pet. What! with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again.
”
”
William Shakespeare (The Complete Works of William Shakespeare)
“
Lilly was Rosa’s best friend. She had a brilliant career behind her. She had been what is the unattainable ambition of every little prostitute, a hotel woman. A hotel woman does not walk the streets—she lives in the hotel and makes her acquaintances there. Very few reach those heights—they have not enough clothes or enough money to be able to wait long for a suitor. True, Lily had only been in a provincial hotel; but in the course of the years she had saved almost four thousand marks. Now she meant to get married. Her future husband had a small plumbing business. He knew all about her but he did not mind. And he would not have to worry for the future; when one of these girls does marry, she is to be trusted. They know the rough-and-tumble and have had enough of it. Lilly was to be married on Monday. To-day Rosa was giving her a farewell coffee-party. They had all turned up to be with Lilly once more. Once married she would not be able to come here again.
”
”
Erich Maria Remarque (Three Comrades)
“
O! Time is a faerie-maid, dark is her dairy laid:
Larders of mem'ry and amethyst lore.
But one kiss from her lips
On your lips as she slips
One cold hand in your pocket will finish the chore.
For her kiss it is sweet
It is death, it is meat
It is sharp as a bone-frost and light as a wheat
In her bed, poppy-reds
glimmer bright as she shreds
All your best years of life into raggedy threads.
O! She picks every purse with a laugh and a curse
but a beggar she stays till the end of no end.
For her girtle is trim
From the breast to the hem;
She must ever stay hungry to eat what you lend.
Never thanks, never smile,
Such small coinage is vile
In pay for the life-years snipped off of a man.
But a kiss for the road
- Age and Slumber your load -
And a red-lipped farewell where your trouble began.
O! Time is a faerie-maid, dark is her dairy laid:
Larders of mem'ry and amethyst lore
But one kiss from her lips
On your lips as she slips
One cold hand in your pocket will finish the chore.
”
”
Rachel Heffington
“
Nowadays, enormous importance is given to individual deaths, people make such a drama out of each person who dies, especially if they die a violent death or are murdered; although the subsequent grief or curse doesn't last very long: no one wears mourning any more and there's a reason for that, we're quick to weep but quicker still to forget. I'm talking about our countries, of course, it's not like that in other parts of the world, but what else can they do in a place where death is an everyday occurrence. Here, though, it's a big deal, at least at the moment it happens. So-and-so has died, how dreadful; such-and-such a number of people have been killed in a crash or blown to pieces, how terrible, how vile. The politicians have to rush around attending funerals and burials, taking care not to miss any-intense grief, or is it pride, requires them as ornaments, because they give no consolation nor can they, it's all to do with show, fuss, vanity and rank. The rank of the self-important, super-sensitive living. And yet, when you think about it, what right do we have, what is the point of complaining and making a tragedy out of something that happens to every living creature in order for it to become a dead creature? What is so terrible about something so supremely natural and ordinary? It happens in the best families, as you know, and has for centuries, and in the worst too, of course, at far more frequent intervals. What's more, it happens all the time and we know that perfectly well, even though we pretend to be surprised and frightened: count the dead who are mentioned on any TV news report, read the birth and death announcements in any newspaper, in a single city, Madrid, London, each list is a long one every day of the year; look at the obituaries, and although you'll find far fewer of them, because an infinitesimal minority are deemed to merit one, they're nevertheless there every morning. How many people die every weekend on the roads and how many have died in the innumerable battles that have been waged? The losses haven't always been published throughout history, in fact, almost never. People were more familiar with and more accepting of death, they accepted chance and luck, be it good or bad, they knew they were vulnerable to it at every moment; people came into the world and sometimes disappeared at once, that was normal, the infant mortality rate was extraordinarily high until eighty or even seventy years ago, as was death in childbirth, a woman might bid farewell to her child as soon as she saw its face, always assuming she had the will or the time to do so. Plagues were common and almost any illness could kill, illnesses we know nothing about now and whose names are unfamiliar; there were famines, endless wars, real wars that involved daily fighting, not sporadic engagements like now, and the generals didn't care about the losses, soldiers fell and that was that, they were only individuals to themselves, not even to their families, no family was spared the premature death of at least some of its members, that was the norm; those in power would look grim-faced, then carry out another levy, recruit more troops and send them to the front to continue dying in battle, and almost no one complained. People expected death, Jack, there wasn't so much panic about it, it was neither an insuperable calamity nor a terrible injustice; it was something that could happen and often did. We've become very soft, very thin-skinned, we think we should last forever. We ought to be accustomed to the temporary nature of things, but we're not. We insist on not being temporary, which is why it's so easy to frighten us, as you've seen, all one has to do is unsheathe a sword. And we're bound to be cowed when confronted by those who still see death, their own or other people's, as part and parcel of their job, as all in a day's work. When confronted by terrorists, for example, or by drug barons or multinational mafia men.
”
”
Javier Marías (Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear / Dance and Dream / Poison, Shadow, and Farewell (Your face tomorrow, #1-3))
“
In the chapter entitled “You Can’t Pray a Lie” in Twain’s beloved novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn has helped hide Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim. But Huck thought he was committing a sin in helping a runaway slave. Huck had learned in Sunday school “that people that acts as I’d been acting … goes to everlasting fire.” So in an act of repentance in order to save his soul, Huck wrote a note to Miss Watson and told her where she could find her runaway slave. Now Huck was ready to pray his “sinner’s prayer” and “get saved.” I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world and the only he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see the paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.1 Huck Finn had been shaped by the Christianity he’d found in his Missouri Sunday school—a Christianity focused on heaven in the afterlife while preserving the status quo of the here and now. Huck thought that helping Jim escape from slavery was a sin, because that’s what he had been taught. He knew he couldn’t ask God to forgive him until he was ready to “repent” and betray Jim. Huck didn’t want to go to hell; he wanted to be saved. But Huck loved his friend more, so he was willing to go to hell in order to save his friend from slavery.
”
”
Brian Zahnd (A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace)
“
I: ... Rather, a most remarkable and strange fact has occurred: after the opposites had been united, quite unexpectedly and incomprehensibly nothing further happened. Everything remained in place, peacefully and yet completely motionless, and life turned into a complete standstill.
Satan: Yes, you fools, you certainly have made a pretty mess of things.
I: Well, your mockery is unnecessary. Our intentions were serious.
Satan: Your seriousness leads us to suffer. The ordering of the beyond is shaken to its foundations.
[...]
I: ... So - just what do you advise?
Satan: The best advice I can give you is: revoke your completely harmful innovation as soon as possible.
I: What would be gained by that? We'd have to start from scratch again and would infallibly reach the same conclusion a second time. What one has grasped once, one cannot intentionally not know again and undo. Your counsel is no counsel.
Satan: But could you exist without divisiveness and disunity? You have to get worked up about something, represent a party, overcome opposites, if you want to live.
I: That does not help. We also see each other in the opposite. We have grown tired of this game.
Satan: And so with life.
I: It seems to me that it depends on what you call life. Your notion of life has to do with climbing up and tearing down, with assertion and doubt, with impatient dragging around, with hasty desire. You lack the absolute and its forbearing patience.
Satan: Quite right. My life bubbles and foams and stirs up turbulent waves, it consists of seizing and throwing away, ardent wishing and restlessness. That is life, isn't it?
I: But the absolute also lives.
Satan: That is no life. It is a standstill or as good as a standstill, or rather: it lives interminably slowly and wastes thousands of years, just like the miserable condition that you have created.
I: You enlighten me. You are personal life, but the apparent standstill is the forbearing life of eternity, the life of divinity! This time you have counselled me well. I will let you go. Farewell!
”
”
C.G. Jung (The Red Book: Liber Novus)
“
The captain?
Sophia stood staring numbly after him. Had he just said he’d introduce her to the captain? Of someone else was the captain, then who on earth was this man?
One thing was clear. Whoever he was, he had her trunks.
And he was walking away.
Cursing under her breath, Sophia picked up her skirts and trotted after him, dodging boatmen and barrels and coils of tarred rope as she pursued him down the quay. A forest of tall masts loomed overhead, striping the dock with shadow.
Breathless, she regained his side just as he neared the dock’s edge. “But…aren’t you Captain Grayson?”
“I,” he said, pitching her smaller trunk into a waiting rowboat, “am Mr. Grayson, owner of the Aphrodite and principle investor in her cargo.”
The owner. Well, that was some relief. The tavern-keeper must have been confused.
The porter deposited her larger truck alongside the first, and Mr. Grayson dismissed him with a word and a coin. He plunked one polished Hessian on the rowboat’s seat and shifted his weight to it, straddling the gap between boat and dock. Hand outstretched, he beckoned her with an impatient twitch of his fingers. “Miss Turner?”
Sophia inched closer to the dock’s edge and reached one gloved hand toward his, considering how best to board the bobbing craft without losing her dignity overboard.
The moment her fingers grazed his palm, his grin tightened over her hand. He pulled swiftly, wrenching her feet from the dock and a gasp from her throat. A moment of weightlessness-and then she was aboard. Somehow his arm had whipped around her waist, binding her to his solid chest. He released her just as quickly, but a lilt of the rowboat pitched Sophia back into his arms.
“Steady there,” he murmured through a small smile. “I have you.”
A sudden gust of wind absconded with his hat. He took no notice, but Sophia did. She noticed everything. Never in her life had she felt so acutely aware. Her nerves were draw taut as harp strings, and her senses hummed.
The man radiated heat. From exertion, most likely. Or perhaps from a sheer surplus of simmering male vigor. The air around them was cold, but he was hot. And as he held her tight against his chest, Sophia felt that delicious, enticing heat burn through every layer of her clothing-cloak, gown, stays, chemise, petticoat, stockings, drawers-igniting desire in her belly.
And sparking a flare of alarm. This was a precarious position indeed. The further her torso melted into his, the more certainly he would detect her secret: the cold, hard bundle of notes and coin lashed beneath her stays.
She pushed away from him, dropping onto the seat and crossing her arms over her chest. Behind him, the breeze dropped his hat into a foamy eddy. He still hadn’t noticed its loss.
What he noticed was her gesture of modesty, and he gave her a patronizing smile. “Don’t concern yourself, Miss Turner. You’ve nothing in there I haven’t seen before.”
Just for that, she would not tell him. Farewell, hat.
”
”
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
“
Experience has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures the best calculated for their own good without the intervention of a coercive power.' A strong central government led by an effective executive was needed, as Washington had warned.
”
”
John P. Avlon (Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations)
“
Aggression is the best way, to say, never again, ever.
”
”
Petra Hermans
“
He let me be me, even when he worried that being me wasn’t necessarily the best thing for me.
”
”
Kathi Daley (Farewell to Felines (Whales and Tails #15))
“
I could tell Jeung was skeptical about my line of questioning from the get-go. There was a long pause, after which I could hear him puzzling hesitantly on how best to respond. “I don’t know if silence is necessarily secret-keeping,” he said slowly. “I’m sure parents don’t talk about their kids about a lot of things. They don’t talk about their sex lives. I don’t know that it’s necessarily a Taoist approach. There are probably things they’d just rather forget. And there is a Chinese popular religion thing where people don’t talk about negative things. It’s why people don’t talk about cancer. You know The Farewell?” he asked, citing Lulu Wang’s Golden Globe- and BAFTA-winning film about her family’s decision to hide her grandmother’s lung cancer diagnosis from her. Her grandmother was supposed to live only six months, but her family thought she would fare better and live longer if they told her she was just fine. The approach may have worked. At the time I am writing this, eight years after her diagnosis, Lulu’s grandmother is still alive.
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
“
Blood drips from my fingertip
Like the blood that fell from your lips
Best intentions better left dead
I’m laying low and your holding ground
I’ve walked this road a thousand times
I get so close I think I feel, and then so swiftly I forget it all
I’m scratching my fingers through the dirt
I’m digging up secrets you wish you’d never heard
Saying out loud what you’ve never said
Telling the truths you’ve locked away inside your head
I’m licking my lips and wishing you hell
I’m holding your hands and whispering farewell
”
”
Renee Ruin (Wounds Volume 2)
“
You’re my reason,” I whispered. “All of you are my reason. You were my reason then, and you’re my reason now, and I know you’re my reason tomorrow and every other day that follows. You are my best friends. My protectors. My defenders. My champions.
”
”
Heather Long (Farewells and Forever (Untouchable, #12))
“
I promise to give you all of me. To always talk to you and to listen. To be kind and honest and trust you all no matter what. You are my best friend, my soulmate, my other half—you are the sunshine I never knew I needed, and now I can’t live without you.
”
”
Heather Long (Farewells and Forever (Untouchable, #12))
“
I chose you the day I met you. I saw you sitting there in class, and all I could think was, will she look at me with the smile she had when she walked in? Every single day you’ve shared that smile with me has been the best. I choose you now, who you are inside and out. “I promise to laugh with you in good times and in bad. I will endure with you when the road gets hard. I will always respect you as Frankie, my heart, my best friend, my muse. I promise to love you always. And I will always have their backs, my brother boyfriends, as Mom decided to dub them and then the name stuck.
”
”
Heather Long (Farewells and Forever (Untouchable, #12))
“
I promise you that I will always care, always fight to connect, to be there to comfort you and celebrate you. No matter what life brings, we will cherish the time together and I will support you—all of you—through everything that entails. “Frankie, I am so lucky to have found someone who embraces all that I am, and enriches me by pushing and challenging me to be better. I can’t wait to continue this adventure with you. To build our dreams and chase our goals. I am so excited for this future we’re making. “Baby Girl, you’re my best friend, my lover, my partner, and my heart. Everything I am, everything I will be—it’s yours and theirs. I promise to always defend you and this family. Period.
”
”
Heather Long (Farewells and Forever (Untouchable, #12))
“
I’m marrying the girl I promised to marry when we were five years old, and she said yes between the swings and the slide. Frankie, you’re my best friend, my lover, my champion, and my heart. Everything I am, is yours, Beautiful. Well, except for the part that keeps these knuckleheads in touch with their deeper feelings.
”
”
Heather Long (Farewells and Forever (Untouchable, #12))
“
Today, I’m marrying my best friend. I’m marrying the girl who was never afraid to pop life right in the nose when it dared to take her on. I’m marrying the girl who defended me on the playground and later kicked me in the ass when I needed it.
”
”
Heather Long (Farewells and Forever (Untouchable, #12))
“
the best education came from living our lives to the best of our capabilities.
”
”
Heather Long (Farewells and Forever (Untouchable, #12))
“
I step out onto my porch, pull up my granny rocker, and sit in the dusky silence of a day bidding itself farewell. And I do that because contemplating the blessings of a day passing best prepares me for the challenges of a day coming.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
I applaud your efficiency. Farewell, and may the gods welcome Blythe in their eternal kingdoms.” Mar fakes her best smile and inclines her head again before turning on her high heels.
”
”
Alexi Blake (Tall Dark & Evil (Seven Kingdoms, #1))
“
Alexander insisted at our farewell dinner that I was making a great move. The best decisions he has made in his life, he said, were completely unexpected, the ones that cut against convention. Then he went even further. He said that every decision he has forced himself to make because it was unexpected has been a good one. It was refreshing to hear a case for unpredictability in this age of careful career planning. It would be nice if it were true.
”
”
Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker)
“
The kettlebell swing is one of the best deadlift assistance exercises one can do. It develops a hard driving lockout and bulletproofs the back. Donnie Thompson, RKC was undoubtedly the first elite powerlifter using the swing for this purpose. He credited kettlebells with taking his pull from 766 to 832—and saying farewell to his persistent back problems.
”
”
Andy Bolton (Deadlift Dynamite: How To Master The King of All Strength Exercises)
“
Toddlers need the opportunity to say good-bye to their friends. Some may wish to present their friend with a special farewell gift, or they may want to take something with them as a remembrance of their friend. Photos can be used to remember a friend in a Lifebook, and post-placement visits and letters can assist a child who is grieving the loss of a special peer relationship.
”
”
Mary Hopkins-Best (Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft Revised Edition)
“
well-armed and fierce-faced, threatening despite their small stature. Simon stared at the trolls. The trolls stared at Simon. “They’ve all heard of ye, Simon,” Haestan boomed; the three riders looked up, startled by his loud voice, “—but no one’s hardly seen ye yet.” The trolls looked the tall guardsman up and down in alarm, then clucked at their mounts and rode on hurriedly, disappearing around the mountain face. “Gave them some gossip,” Haestan chuckled. “Binabik told me about his home,” Simon said, “but it was hard to understand what he was saying. Things are never quite what you think they’re going to be, are they?” “Only th’ good Lord Usires knows all answers,” Haestan nodded. “Now, if y’would see y’r small friend, we’d best move on. Walk careful now—and not so close t’edge, there.” • • • They made their way slowly down the looping path, which alternately narrowed and widened as it traversed the mountainside. The sun was high overhead, but hidden in a nest of soot-colored clouds, and a biting wind swooped along Mintahoq’s face. The mountaintop above was white-blanketed in ice, like the high peaks across the valley, but at this lower height the snow had fallen more patchily. Some wide drifts lay across the path, and others nestled among
”
”
Tad Williams (The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #2))
“
Nigel Havers
One of Britain’s leading stage and television actors, Nigel Havers has also appeared in many outstanding film productions, including Chariots of Fire, A Passage to India, Empire of the Sun, The Whistle Blower, Farewell to the King, Quiet Days in Clichy, and The Private War of Lucinda Smith. He has recently completed his autobiography, Playing with Fire, published by Headline.
One afternoon, when I was filming a series called The Good Guys and Polly was away in Spain, all the crew were all a bit beady-eyed with me.
“What on earth is going on, guys?” I asked. But they kept looking at me in a strange way.
It transpired that on the front of the Evening Standard was the first transcript of the Diana tapes--the Squidgy tapes--and no one knew who the man calling Diana Squidgy was and the headline on the front page said it was me! As everyone was hiding the paper from me, I went and grabbed it.
“My God, it’s not me. It’s not me, I know,” I said.
It wasn’t me, of course. But when you read something and your name is in banner headlines, there is a split second where you almost believe it. I called Diana at once (she had given me her private mobile number), and she laughed like a drain when I told her how panicked I was. She literally couldn’t stop laughing.
I was a bit jumpy around her because I fancied her so much, but I really just felt sad for her. When she came to tea with me, she would be wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She just walked out of Kensington Palace and up Kensington High Street to my flat. She told me that no one would turn around, and as they weren’t expecting to see her strolling down the street, she was never recognized.
”
”
Larry King (The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best)
“
Patrick Jephson
As the first and only private secretary to Diana during her life, Patrick Jephson was one of the closest people to the Princess throughout her international charity and diplomatic career. He is also a notable broadcaster and journalist and has contributed to many major British newspapers, including the Times, the Observer, and the Daily Mail. His writing credits include Shadows of a Princess and Portraits of a Princess: Travels with Diana, and several of his books have been international bestsellers.
As a nation, the British like to remember things, especially things that make them feel special. Trying to forget Diana is a tall order--and not just for those of us who knew her well. What happened to her during those sixteen years was drama on a Shakespearean scale--just think of love, betrayal, sacrifice, beauty, and death. The curtain may have come down on the tragedy ten years ago. But our farewell to Diana is not yet complete. It probably never will be.
It’s a memory that is renewed each time we see a photograph of her sons. William in particular carries the blessing (or the burden) of Diana’s camera-friendly looks. Her DNA in our future heads of state is now an ineradicable biological fact. Time may fade that reality. But nobody can deny it.
”
”
Larry King (The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best)
“
I set my elbows on the table, rested my chin on my clasped hands, and watched. Frank tipped his head, his question as clear as if he’d spoken. “What?” his gesture said. “Why are you looking at us like that?” I shrugged my answer, hoping the truth wasn’t apparent in my eyes. He picked up his coffee, washed down his eggs, and cleared his throat. “I thought we’d make a trip into Terrell today.” “All of us?” Ollie nearly shouted. “That’s right, honey. All of us.” Ollie’s head whipped in my direction. “Terrell, Rebekah.” Her wide eyes told me this was a pleasure she’d experienced before, one she longed for again. “How does that sound, Rebekah?” Frank’s words turned all eyes in my direction. “Think you can get us ready?” I laid down my fork, breakfast suddenly a rock in my stomach. Did he mean this as my farewell party? Maybe he’d tell the children that two weeks from today I’d board the train and ride back out of their lives. Frank grinned at me and pushed his plate away. I let out a long breath and managed an answering smile. “I’ll have us ready. Ollie will help.” “Me, too!” The boys’ words tangled with each other. Frank slapped his hands on his legs and stood. “I best get my chores done, then.
”
”
Anne Mateer (Wings of a Dream)
“
Once upon a time, there lived a man who had a terrible passion for baked beans. He loved them, but they always had an embarrassing and somewhat lively reaction on him. One day he met a girl and fell in love. When it was apparent that they would marry, he thought to himself 'She'll never go for me carrying on like that,' so he made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans, and shortly after that they got married. A few months later, on the way home from work, his car broke down and since they lived in the country, he called his wife and told her he would be late because he had to walk. On his way home, he passed a small cafe and the wonderful aroma of baked beans overwhelmed him. Since he still had several miles to walk he figured he could walk off any ill affects before he got home. So he went in and ordered, and before leaving had three extra-large helpings of baked beans. All the way home he farted. He 'putted' down one hill and 'putt-putted' up the next. By the time he arrived home he felt reasonably safe. His wife met him at the door and seemed somewhat excited. She exclaimed, 'Darling, I have the most wonderful surprise for you for dinner tonight!' She put a blindfold on him, and led him to his chair at the head of the table and made him promise not to peek. At this point he was beginning to feel another one coming on. Just as she was about to remove the blindfold, the telephone rang. She again made him promise not to peek until she returned, and she went to answer the phone. While she was gone, he seized the opportunity. He shifted his weight to one leg and let go. It was not only loud, but *ripe* as a rotten egg. He had a hard time breathing, so he felt for his napkin and fanned the air about him. He had just started to feel better, when another urge came on. He raised his leg and 'rrriiiipppp!' It sounded like a diesel engine revving, and smelled worse. To keep from gagging, he tried fanning his arms a while, hoping the smell would dissipate. Things had just about returned to normal when he felt another urge coming. He shifted his weight to his other leg and let go. This was a real blue ribbon winner; the windows rattled, the dishes on the table shook and a minute later the flowers on the table were dead. While keeping an ear tuned in on the conversation in the hallway, and keeping his promise of staying blindfolded, he carried on like this for the next ten minutes, farting and fanning them each time with his napkin. When he heard the 'phone farewells' (indicating the end of his loneliness and freedom) he neatly laid his napkin on his lap and folded his hands on top of it. Smiling contentedly, he was the picture of innocence when his wife walked in. Apologizing for taking so long, she asked if he had peeked at the dinner. After assuring her he had not, she removed the blindfold and yelled, 'Surprise!' To his shock and horror, there were twelve dinner guests seated around the table for his surprise birthday party.
”
”
E. King (Best Adult Jokes Ever)
“
Ten blondes and a brunette were hanging onto a rope that was tied to an airplane. They knew that one of them needed to let go because the weight of all eleven of them would tear the rope and they would all die. So, they argued back and forth about who was to let go. This went on for a few minutes, until the brunette finally said, "Ok, I'll let go!" The brunette gave a little speech about why she would go and said her farewells. All of the blondes were so touched, they started clapping. Problem solved.
”
”
E. King (Best Adult Jokes Ever)
“
Friends and Fellow Citizens, The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant . . . your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust. . . . In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization of the government the very best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. —George Washington1 In his Farewell Address to the People of the United States in September 1796, George Washington emphasized that a public office is a public trust. He recognized that no person is expected to be infallible; indeed, to suppose that anyone can be infallible in the conduct of public or private life is arrogant and dangerous. The public trust, rather, calls for “good intentions” and the “very best exertions.” Public servants must intend and resolve to put the public good above private advantage for anyone—self, family, friends, political allies, factions, or interest groups. They are obliged to identify the public good and to serve it; this is the sort of “exertion” that public office demands. John Adams wrote that such devotion to the well-being of the public interest “must be Superior to all private Passions. Men must . . . be happy to sacrifice their private Friendships and dearest Connections, when they stand in Competition with the Rights of Society.”2
”
”
Edwin J. Delattre (Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing)
“
But even during an event as exceptional as the world famous troubadour's just concluded performance, the travelers kept to themselves remaining in clearly delineated groups. Elves stayed with elves. Dwarvish craftsman gathered with their kin who would often hide to protect their merchant caravans and were armed to the teeth. The groups tolerated at best the gnome miners and halfling farmers who camped beside them. All non-humans were uniformly distant towards humans. The humans re-payed in kind but were not seem to mix amongst themselves either. Nobility looked down on the merchants and traveling salesman with open scorn. While soldiers and mercenaries, distanced themselves from shepherds and their reeking sheepskins. The few wizards and their disciples, kept themselves entirely apart from the others and bestowed their arrogance on everyone in equal parts. A tied knit, dark and silent group of peasants lurked in the background resembling a forest with their rakes, pitchforks and flails, poking above their heads. They were ignored by all. The exception, as ever was the children. Freed from the constraints of silence which have been enforced during the bards performance, the children dashed into the woods with wild cries and enthusiastically immersed themselves in a game whose rules were incomprehensible to all those who have bidden farewell to the happy years of childhood. Children of elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half elves, quarter elves and toddlers of mysterious provenance, neither knew or recognized racial or social divisions. At least, not yet.
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher Boxed Set (The Witcher, #1-3))
“
I’m sorry for taking so long.” Tori straightened her shoulders as if readying herself for battle, then traipsed down the steps to the street. “I had a few last-minute details to see to.” Ben hurried around the back of the wagon to meet her and had opened his mouth to offer assurances that the delay was no problem when Lewis popped his head up. “About time! Sheesh, Ma. You took for-ev-er.” Ben cast a warning glance at the boy. “I’m sure whatever your ma was doing was important.” He turned back to Tori and gave her his most charming grin. “She’s worth waiting on.” Her lips tightened at that, but into a shape that looked more like disapproval than appreciation of a compliment. So much for his charm. “Yes, well . . . I suggest we delay no longer.” Tori lengthened her stride, giving him no chance to assist her into the wagon. She scrambled up the wheel spokes and onto the bench before he could even think about fitting his hands to her waist and hoisting her up. Unfortunate, that. Ben shrugged off his disappointment and moved forward to give his team a final check before climbing into the driver’s seat. Emma handed a large basket up to Tori and wished her farewell while Grace Mallory waved from behind the store railing. As he clucked to his Shires and set the wagon in motion, Ben grinned to himself. One of the best parts of this plan to call on area homesteaders was the sheer number of times they’d be required to enter and exit the wagon. Tori might have escaped him this time, but he’d have a couple dozen more chances to wrap his fingers around her slender waist.
”
”
Karen Witemeyer (Worth the Wait (Ladies of Harper’s Station, #1.5))
“
Truman’s farewell address on January 15, 1953, delivered five days before he left the renovated White House, is to this day one of the best speeches of the Cold War, containing insightful analysis and a prediction of how, decades later, it would end. “I suppose that history will remember my term in office as the years when the ‘Cold War’ began to overshadow our lives,” he told the American people, speaking late at night from the Oval Office. Winning the Cold War wouldn’t be easy—or fast—but the United States, he firmly believed, would win simply by holding the line.
”
”
Garrett M. Graff (Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die)
“
Although we were not destined to be together, I still pray for you because you were the best and final chapter in my life story. Your impact will always stay with me, even as we go our separate ways.
”
”
Shahid Hussain Raja
“
All of us have to make the best of a bad job - which is what life is really all about.
”
”
Noel Barber (A Farewell to France)
“
She bid farewell and picked up her sole suitcase, believing fresh starts were best initiated with limited baggage.
”
”
J.L. Michael (Missteps Perfecting the Shutterbug Strut)
“
The wind howled and moaned pitifully. The rain beat ever louder against the old boat, and the waves outside hissed, whilst we, lying still in a close embrace, shivered still from the cold. This was indeed stern reality. I felt convinced that no dream, however monstrous, however unbearable, could ever have vied in oppressiveness with this crushing actuality. Natasha continued to talk softly, soothingly, kindly, as none but a woman can do.
Her simple gentle words caused warm feelings to creep into my heart, and I felt it melting within me.
A flood of tears poured down my cheeks, washing away the anger, the grief, the self-conceit, the evil that had accumulated in my heart in the course of that terrible night. Once more Natasha endeavoured to comfort me.
“Do, not weep like that dear. Do stop crying. Please God, something will turn up. You will find another place. You will be all right soon”. Kisses, hot, caressing, and soothing mingled with her words.
They were the very first kisses I had ever received from a woman; and they were the best. All those I received later were bought at much too high a price.
“Come, come! Stop that noise; what a strange fellow you are. Tomorrow I will try and find you some work, if that’s what’s the matter.”
The low, soft, persuasive whispers came wafted to me as though through a dream. Thus we remained in each other’s arms till daybreak. As soon as dawn appeared we crawled out from under the boat, and made our way towards the town. There we bid each other a warm farewell, and parted - never to meet, again; though for more than six months I searched for that sweet girl through all the slums of the town—the girl with whom I had spent an autumn night.
If she is dead—the best thing that could have happened to her—may her soul rest in peace. If she is still alive, God grant her a quiet mind, and may she never realise her fall; for that would be only a cruel and futile suffering, and would serve no useful purpose in this world.
”
”
Maxim Gorky (One Autumn Night)
“
Russian roulette with their lives. The corporate state has cast many aside, but especially the young. It has thwarted their dreams and condemned them to a life where the best many can hope for is a low-wage, mind-numbing job in the service industry. It has left them financially unable to access the counselors and therapists who could help them deal with child, sexual, and domestic abuse, as well as bullying and the emotional wounds that often plague families in economic distress. The despair, the stress, the sense of failure and loss of self-esteem, the constant anxiety of being laid off, the pressure of debt repayment, often from medical bills, is amplified in a society that has splintered and atomized to render real relationships and community difficult and often impossible. Many people, especially young people, sit far too long in front of screens seeking friendship, romance, affirmation, hope, and emotional support. This futile attempt to achieve a human connection electronically, a connection vital to our emotional and psychological well-being, especially in a society that condemns so many to the margins, exacerbates the alienation, loneliness, and despair that make opioids attractive.
”
”
Chris Hedges (America: The Farewell Tour)
“
As for myself, I cannot forget the hedgehog’s last farewell, coupled with Quixote’s hint about the animals and Milton’s subterranean dream. It is little more than a theory, but perhaps the inhabitants of Bodmin will look at their tumulus, and, if it is like an enormous mole-hill with a dark opening in its side, particularly if there are some badger tracks in the vicinity, we can draw our own conclusions. For I am inclined to believe that my beloved Arthur of the future is sitting at this very moment among his learned friends, in the Combination Room of the College of Life, and that they are thinking away in there for all they are worth, about the best means to help our curious species:
”
”
T.H. White (The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King)
“
As Gregory Clark noted in A Farewell to Alms, “the biggest beneficiary of the Industrial Revolution has so far been the unskilled. There have been benefits aplenty for the typically wealthy owners of land or capital and for the educated. But industrialized economies saved their best gifts for the poorest.”35 Other eminent historians concur.36
”
”
Marian L. Tupy (Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet)
“
Illusions of a lover!
Illusions have neither a past nor any present,
They always seem to hang in the moments of the future,
For when experienced one never knows what they mean or represent,
But they always arise from the person’s conscience and the stature,
As for those who are in love everything is an illusion,
When with her even real appears more real,
When not with her even real seems unreal, a sort of hallucination,
A dawn of new reality where everything is surreal,
Only her smiles, her charms, her kisses, and her deep eyes exist,
And the heart seeks its indulgences in them,
And ah how much like a wanton kid it does persist,
To only chase her, and seek her as if she were the most precious gem,
The sun peeps in from the still and motionless curtains,
And the weary eyes open hoping its rays will bring her along,
But then everything drowns in the loud calls of martins,
Until every sound resembles her voice and her beautiful song,
Then nothing exists, neither the Sun, nor the curtains, and not even martins,
Only your song and your endless memories,
And the heart dutifully warbles to mind these emotional bulletins,
So, I rest my head on a pile of your feelings and bid farewell to all my worries!
And now it is me and your feelings spread all over,
The heart stops beating, the mind stops to think,
For now Irma, begins the journey called forever,
Where moments do not pass as eyes blink,
Because the heart does not beat and the mind does not think,
Making time irrelevant and unnecessary,
And as in this moment called forever we sink,
We now only seek what is necessary,
You, your memories, your charms and your smiles,
As this restful state extends into eternity,
It marks an end of life’s tribulations and trials,
Because now your feelings envelope me to create a new feeling of serenity!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
Beautiful ways
Memories with deep feelings,
Are like always retracting emotions,
They drop like sticky cob web hanging from the ceilings,
And retrieve many moments filled with deep sensations,
Sometimes they lead to poignancy,
And sometimes they bring flashes of her sweet memories,
And then the heart struggles to find its buoyancy,
Because the mind willingly all these moments carries,
Poor heart’s every perversion,
Fails to convince the mind to consider the heart’s requests, the heart that keeps it alive,
Alas the mind is a slave to her memories and her beautiful sensation,
And without bearing her feelings in no other thinking avenues it wishes to dive,
So the heart beats with a sense of precariousness,
While the mind seeks her sensations, her feelings and enters a state of meditation,
Where it only ponders on her feelings and her loveliness,
And the poor heart becomes the victim of its own creation,
Of loving, of feeling, of emoting, of beating just for her,
And as the mind becomes unresponsive,
I neither think of my anguished heart, my inactive mind, but just about her, and only about her,
And wait and hope that the reality becomes a little bit sensitive and a bit more submissive,
But destiny that turns the wheels of time and everything,
Has its own plans to execute and fulfil,
To it love, lovers, feelings do not mean anything,
Because it obeys someone else’s heart’s will,
For destiny is true to her emotions and her love affair,
And I too then proclaim I am devoted to my memories and their every sensation,
And loving her is by all means sensible and fair,
For if destiny can do what it pleases, my heart and mind too shall seek their destiny in their most loving destination,
So let destiny play its game and cast the heart and mind in time’s bottomless well,
But let it know, that we all- my heart, my mind and I, shall fill it too with her sensation,
And then time may bid to every other life’s pursuit its final farewell,
And then mine shall be the destiny and I shall live with her in the world that will be her beauty’s creation,
So, let my heart love her enough,
Let my mind think of her always,
For time and destiny maybe tough,
But love and facts always find their new and beautiful ways!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
WE WENT TO Paul Simon’s farewell concert at Madison Square Garden. He was seventy-seven; I never thought someone could retire from rock and roll. Paul’s music triumphed over his stiff personality, and the show went right onto my all-time-best list.
”
”
Jann S. Wenner (Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir)
“
The Son of a vacuum
Among the tall trees he sat lost, broken, alone again, among a number of illegal immigrants, he raised his head to him without fear, as nothing in this world is worth attention.
-He said: I am not a hero; I am nothing but a child looking for Eid.
The Turkmen of Iraq, are the descendants of Turkish immigrants to Mesopotamia through successive eras of history. Before and after the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, countries crossed from here, and empires that were born and disappeared, and still, preserve their Turkish identity. Although, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the division of the Arab world, they now live in one of its countries.
Kirkuk, one of the heavens of God on earth, is one of the northern governorates of Iraq in which they live. The Kurdish race is shared with them, a race out of many in Iraq.
Two children of two different ethnicities, playing in a village square in Kirkuk province when the news came from Baghdad, of a new military coup.
Without delay, Saddam Hussein took over the reins of power, and faster than that, Iraq was plunged into successive wars that began in 1980 with its neighbor Iran, a war that lasted eight years. Iraq barely rested for two years, and in the third, a new war in Kuwait, which did not end in the best condition as the leader had hoped, as he was expelled from it after the establishment of an international coalition to liberate it, led by the United States of America. Iraq entered a new phase of suffering, a siege that lasted more than ten years, and ended up with the removal of Saddam Hussein from his power followed by the US occupation of it in 2003.
As the father goes, he returns from this road, there is no way back but from it. As the date approaches, the son stands on the back of that hill waiting for him to return. From far away he waved a longing, with a bag of dreams in his hands, a bag of candy in his pocket, and a poem of longing by a Turkmen poet who absorb Arabic, whose words danced on his lips, in his heart.
-When will you come back, dad?
-On the Eid, wait for me on the hill, you will see me coming from the road, waving, carrying your gifts.
The father bid his son farewell to the Arab Shiite city of Basra, on the border with Iran, after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, as the homeland is calling its men, or perhaps the leader is calling his subjects. In Iraq, as in many countries of the Arab world, the homeland is the leader, and the leader is the homeland.
Months passed, the child eagerly anticipating the coming of the feast, but the father hurried to return without an appointment, loaded on the shoulders, the passion reached its extent in the martyr’s chest, with a sheet of paper in his pocket on which he wrote:
Every morning takes me nostalgic for you,
to the jasmine flower,
oh, melody in the heart, oh balm I sip every while,
To you, I extend a hand and a fire that ignites in the soul a buried love,
night shakes me with tears in my eyes,
my longing for you has shaped me into dreams,
stretching footsteps to the left and to the right, gleam,
calling out for me, you scream,
waking me up to the glimpse of the light of life in your face,
a thousand sparkles, in your eyes, a meaning of survival, a smile, and a glace,
Eid comes to you as a companion, without, life yet has no trace,
for roses, necklaces of love, so that you amaze.
-Where is Ruslan?
On the morning of the feast day, at the door of his house, the kids asked his mother,
-with tears in her eyes: He went to meet his father.
A moment of silence fell over the children,
-Raman, with a little gut: Aunt, do you mean he went to the cemetery?
-Mother: He went to meet him at those hills.
”
”
Ahmad I. AlKhalel (Zero Moment: Do not be afraid, this is only a passing novel and will end (Son of Chaos Book 1))
“
Another favorite of hers was talking about what dogs were capable of. As in, “Even a dog can make a bunch of puppies, but a real man raises his kids.” She made dozens of those observations. She aimed them at me constantly and I did my best to be the real man she had in mind. But she never told me anything about saying good-bye, because as far as she was concerned, real men didn’t have any need for farewells because real men stay.
”
”
Tayari Jones (An American Marriage)
“
UNION AND CHANGE
The third article was union. To those who were small and few against the wilderness, the success of liberty demanded the strength of union. Two centuries of change have made this true again.
No longer need capitalist and worker, farmer and clerk, city and countryside, struggle to divide our bounty. By working shoulder to shoulder, together we can increase the bounty of all. We have discovered that every child who learns, every man who finds work, every sick body that is made whole--like a candle added to an altar--brightens the hope of all the faithful.
So let us reject any among us who seek to reopen old wounds and to rekindle old hatreds. They stand in the way of a seeking nation.
Let us now join reason to faith and action to experience, to transform our unity of interest into a unity of purpose. For the hour and the day and the time are here to achieve progress without strife, to achieve change without hatred--not without difference of opinion, but without the deep and abiding divisions which scar the union for generations.
THE AMERICAN BELIEF
Under this covenant of justice, liberty, and union we have become a nation--prosperous, great, and mighty. And we have kept our freedom. But we have no promise from God that our greatness will endure. We have been allowed by Him to seek greatness with the sweat of our hands and the strength of our spirit.
I do not believe that the Great Society is the ordered, changeless, and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the excitement of becoming--always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying again--but always trying and always gaining.
In each generation, with toil and tears, we have had to earn our heritage again.
If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.
If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but, rather because of what we believe.
For we are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of building and the rush of our day's pursuits, we are believers in justice and liberty and union, and in our own Union. We believe that every man must someday be free. And we believe in ourselves.
Our enemies have always made the same mistake. In my lifetime--in depression and in war--they have awaited our defeat. Each time, from the secret places of the American heart, came forth the faith they could not see or that they could not even imagine. It brought us victory. And it will again.
For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say "Farewell." Is a new world coming? We welcome it--and we will bend it to the hopes of man.
To these trusted public servants and to my family and those close friends of mine who have followed me down a long, winding road, and to all the people of this Union and the world, I will repeat today what I said on that sorrowful day in November 1963: "I will lead and I will do the best I can."
But you must look within your own hearts to the old promises and to the old dream. They will lead you best of all.
For myself, I ask only, in the words of an ancient leader: "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?
”
”
Lyndon B. Johnson
“
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”
”
Fern Fabric
“
I intend to marry her,” he said, without turning around.
“Not if I have any say in it.”
“What makes you think she will listen to you? You have nothing to offer her. I have enough funds to provide for a wife and family. I could take her to Italy, to Venice. She could perform with the best musicians in the world.”
“You are not marrying her.”
“How are you going to stop me?”
“You will have to walk over my corpse.
--Farewell My Life, Buona Notte Vita Mia
”
”
Cynthia Sally Haggard (Farewell My Life: Buona Notte Vita Mia)
“
You think language honest?” Ouster laughed for longer than was polite. “You haven’t dipped your quill yet, obviously, with that fresh outlook. Anyone who exchanges the simplest of pleasantries is a disciple of Wael. Who knows what’s really being said when words are used. A well met and farewell could start a war with what lies beneath their surface.” Ouster grunted, staring at the floor. Into memory, the boy corrected. “Best riddle ever made, stuffing our minds with feelings and wants, and then giving us the paltry fare of words with which to speak it. Though... lies have power, too. And if you repeat the words of a lie often enough...” The wry smile returned.
”
”
Chris Avellone (The House of Wael)
“
Amidst the many and varied emotions that we as humans endure the human imagination fuses with the realities of outer space for a new born planet to emergence that catapults a message of dire warnings to us, a cataclysmic finale for the planet earth that has fallen prey to human arrogance and greed.
The events of this story play themselves out in NASA when its spacecraft disappear, one after the other, and in the moments of hopelessness and expectation and the glances of disappear from the eyes of the world, and the feelings of the families. It is here that three of the best of the best that NASA has to offer, hero astronauts, are deployed to solve the riddle.
David, a pompous man if ever there was one, a man who has never been able to hold onto a woman in a serious relationship, least of all the last two women he was involved with.
Jack, the consummate womaniser who can’t get enough of his relationships with woman, while his dutiful wife Suzie remains at home, seething with pain for his many treacheries.
Finally there is Tony, the kind of heart, and his angelic wife Angela and their tragic infant son Cody, the apple of their eye, a handsome boy and smart suffering from an incurable disease that is on the verge of killing him. With all of that they love and support him and find time to do good deeds for all, garnering the respect and love of all.
As the astronauts arrive in the designated spot in space where the previous missions disappeared, they almost collide with a semi-invisible planet from legend, dragging them towards it with all their attempts to flee. They see within it things that go beyond the wildest dreams of mortal man till they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. Then they realise that this planet is besotted with many dark and ancient secrets relating to the Pharaohs, as they also learn that the planets responds only to human emotion.
Upon their return to earth the great surprise involving Cody takes place, and in the moment of farewell this mysterious planet sends a definite and resounding message to earth and all who reside on it.
The surprises don’t end there, till we return a second time to this planet to discover even more of its secrets… The only remaining question then is, will the inhabitants of this world reveal them?
”
”
Hany Rasha
“
FROM GENERAL N. BEDFORD FORREST'S FAREWELL TO HIS COMMAND, MAY 9, 1865, GAINESVILLE, ALABAMA. The cause for which you have so long and so manfully struggled, and for which you have braved dangers, endured privations and sufferings, and made so many sacrifices, is today hopeless.... Civil war, such as you have passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and, as far as in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings toward those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed.... ... In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the merits of the cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, have elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command, whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my success in arms. I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers; you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous. N.
”
”
Andre Norton (Ride Proud, Rebel! (Serapis Classics))
“
Everything that happens is for the best, so that life is happier and more interesting. Just live without looking around or thinking.
”
”
Valentin Rasputin (Farewell to Matyora (European Classics))