Fewer Friends Quotes

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Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.
Colette
I finally faced the fact that it isn`t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.
Whitney Houston
I’ve fought in three campaigns,” he began. “In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. I’ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I’ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I’ve known little else. I’ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that’s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper. “I’ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. I’ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I’ve run away myself more than once. I’ve pissed myself with fear. I’ve begged for my life. I’ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.” He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. “There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.
Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1))
Cammie!" I'll never forget the tone of Macey's voice in that moment. "Cam," she said slowly, moving toward me, "I know how it feels to be watched every second of every day. I know what it's like to trust fewer and fewer people until it seems like you are completely alone in the world. I know you think the only things that are left in your life are the bad things. I know what you're feeling, Cam." Her hands were on my shoulders. Her blue eyes were staring into mine. "I know.
Ally Carter (Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls, #4))
Let me begin by telling you that I was in love. An ordinary statement, to be sure, but not an ordinary fact, for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportian suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lovers's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favourite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.
Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1))
My son has few friends and even fewer who know him for what he is. So long as you protect him, you live. Sumerian or not. But if you prove false in anything you’ve said here today, I will bring a wrath down on you so sever that you will spend eternity trying to dig out your own brains to alleviate the pain of it. (Apollymi)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Devil May Cry (Dark-Hunter, #11))
What struck me—with her and with many other female American friends I have—is how invested they are in being “liked.” How they have been raised to believe that their being likable is very important and that this “likable” trait is a specific thing. And that specific thing does not include showing anger or being aggressive or disagreeing too loudly. We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don’t teach boys to care about being likable. We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (We Should All Be Feminists)
Close friendships with girls come early in life. After thirty it becomes harder to make new friends — there are fewer hopes, dreams or anticipations to share.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
In different degrees, in every part of the town, men and women had been yearning for a reunion, not of the same kind for all, but for all alike ruled out. Most of them had longed intensely for an absent one, for the warmth of a body, for love, or merely a life that habit had endeared. Some, often without knowing it, suffered from being deprived of the company of friends and from their inability to get in touch with them through the usual channels of friendship—letters, trains, and boats. Others, fewer these... had desired a reunion with something they couldn’t have defined, but which seemed to them the only desirable thing on earth. For want of a better name, they sometimes called it peace.
Albert Camus
THE MISCHIEVOUS DOG There was once a Dog who used to snap at people and bite them without any provocation, and who was a great nuisance to every one who came to his master's house. So his master fastened a bell round his neck to warn people of his presence. The Dog was very proud of the bell, and strutted about tinkling it with immense satisfaction. But an old dog came up to him and said, "The fewer airs you give yourself the better, my friend. You don't think, do you, that your bell was given you as a reward of merit? On the contrary, it is a badge of disgrace." Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.
Aesop (Aesop's Fables)
Do you know about the spoons? Because you should. The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That’s a spoon. You take a shower. That’s a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that’s lots of damn spoons … but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning. But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don’t have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won’t have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won’t have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, “I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it’s exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.” And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, “No. I can’t have sex with you today because there aren’t enough spoons,” and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won’t get mad but you don’t have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: “I SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,” and he says, “What the … You can’t pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?” Now you’re mad because this is his fault too but you’re too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn’t go well because you’re too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you’re too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else’s just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives. Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don’t see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he’s fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he’s dead. So technically I’m better than Galileo because all I’ve done is take a shower and already I’ve accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I’d have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I’m not gloating because Galileo can’t control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn’t figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it’s pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine. I’ve learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
They always blamed my reading, you know, for my having fewer friends than my brother and for my weak eyes, never thinking that because I had weak eyes and because I was shy, having a book at the ready rescued me.
Matthew Pearl (The Last Bookaneer)
LUKE Friends, rebels, starfighters, lend me your ears. Wish not we had a single fighter more, If we are mark’d to die, we are enough To make our planets proud. But should we win, We fewer rebels share the greater fame. We all have sacrific’d unto this cause.
Ian Doescher (Verily, a New Hope (William Shakespeare's Star Wars, #4))
After a stressful event, we often crave comfort food. Our body is calling for more glucose and simple carbohydrates and fat... And in modern life, people tend to have fewer friends and less support, because there's no tribe. Being alone is not good for the brain.
John J. Ratey (Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain)
A selfie has more face and fewer feelings.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
I am on a path of understanding more and more about myself every day and shifting my perspective just like my father did. I’m becoming more conscious about what I’m ignoring or denying, and my learning process has become faster, my struggles fewer and less intense.
Shannon Lee (Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee)
Some, often without knowing it, suffered from being deprived of the company of friends and from their inability to get in touch with them through the usual channels of friendship, letters, trains, and boats. Others, fewer these, Tarrou may have been one of them, had desired reunion with something they couldn't have defined, but which seemed to them the only desirable thing on earth. For want of a better name, they sometimes called it peace.
Albert Camus
My acquaintances are many, my friends are few; those who really know me fewer still.
Truman Capote (In Cold Blood)
Close friendships with girls come early in life. After thirty it becomes harder to make new friends —there are fewer hopes, dreams or anticipations to share.
Jacqueline Susann (Valley of the Dolls)
Now that I am older, I am rounder and softer, which isn’t always a bad thing. I remember fewer names so I try to focus on someone’s eyes instead. Sex is better and I’m better at it. I don’t miss the frustration of youth, the anticipation of love and pain, the paralysis of choices still ahead. The pressure of “What are you going to do?” makes everybody feel like they haven’t done anything yet. Young people can remind us to take chances and be angry and stop our patterns. Old people can remind us to laugh more and get focused and make friends with our patterns. Young and old need to relax in the moment and live where they are. Be Here Now,
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
The mathematics of networks means that most people will have fewer friends than average, while a small number of people will have far more than average.
William Davies (The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being)
I see you are in a dilemma, and one of a peculiar and difficult nature. Two paths lie before you; you conscientiously wish to choose the right one, even though it be the most steep, straight, and rugged; but you do not know which is the right one; you cannot decide whether duty and religion command you to go out into the cold and friendless world, and there to earn your living by governess drudgery, or whether they enjoin your continued stay with your aged mother, neglecting, for the present, every prospect of independency for yourself, and putting up with the daily inconvenience, sometimes even with privations. I can well imagine, that it is next to impossible for you to decide for yourself in this matter, so I will decide it for you. At least, I will tell you what is my earnest conviction on the subject; I will show you candidly how the question strikes me. The right path is that which necessitates the greatest sacrifice of self-interest -- which implies the greatest good to others; and this path, steadily followed, will lead, I believe, in time, to prosperity and to happiness; though it may seem, at the outset, to tend quite in a contrary direction. Your mother is both old and infirm; old and infirm people have but few resources of happiness -- fewer almost than the comparatively young and healthy can conceive; to deprive them of one of these is cruel. If your mother is more composed when you are with her, stay with her. If she would be unhappy in case you left her, stay with her. It will not apparently, as far as short-sighted humanity can see, be for your advantage to remain at XXX, nor will you be praised and admired for remaining at home to comfort your mother; yet, probably, your own conscience will approve, and if it does, stay with her. I recommend you to do what I am trying to do myself. [Quoted from a letter to a friend, referenced in the last chapter of Vol 1. "The Life of Charlotte Bronte" by Elizabeth Gaskell ]
Charlotte Brontë
Seneca actually explicitly says in his thirty-third letter to his friend Lucilius: Will I not walk in the footsteps of my predecessors? I will indeed use the ancient road—but if I find another route that is more direct and has fewer ups and downs, I will stake out that one. Those who advanced these doctrines before us are not our masters but our guides. The truth lies open to all; it has not yet been taken over. Much is left also for those yet to come.
Massimo Pigliucci (A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living)
Welcome to war, Evi,” Dalinar said, heading toward the door. “There are no unequivocal wins. Just victories that leave fewer of your friends dead than others.
Brandon Sanderson (Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3))
Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell. At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with. This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks.
Mark Haddon
We read a good novel not in order to know more people, but in order to know fewer. Instead of the humming swarm of human beings, relatives, customers, servants, postmen, afternoon callers, tradesmen, strangers who tell us the time, strangers who remark on the weather, beggars, waiters, and telegraph-boys--instead of this bewildering human swarm which passes us every day, fiction asks us to follow one figure (say the postman) consistently through his ecstasies and agonies. That is what makes one impatient with that type of pessimistic rebel who is always complaining of the narrowness of his life and demanding a larger sphere. Life is too large for us as it is: we have all too many things to attend to. All true romance is an attempt to simplify it, to cut it down to plainer and more pictorial proportions. What dullness there is in our life arises mostly from its rapidity; people pass us too quickly to show us their interesting side. By the end of the week we have talked to a hundred bores; whereas, if we had stuck to one of them, we might have found ourselves talking to a new friend, or a humorist, or a murderer, or a man who had seen a ghost.
G.K. Chesterton (The Glass Walking Stick)
It was funny, what friendship meant in Rebecca’s world. It mainly meant lunch, twice a year, and the occasional dinner party, except for Dorothea, who was an old school friend, a genuine friend. Rebecca had realized, ruefully, that she should have made more friends in school; they seemed to be the only ones women really talked to honestly because the shared history meant fewer lies were available to them. With the others shared meals had become a substitute for intimacy, but not the kind of substitute that allowed for dark nights of the soul, calls at 1:00 A.M., tears and drinking and despair in pajamas.
Anna Quindlen (Still Life with Bread Crumbs)
When my experiences with dogs and other animals—and people—were fewer, I used to think it silly for people to speak of dogs as “family” or other animals as “friends.” Now I feel it’s silly not to. I’d overestimated the loyalty and staying power of humans and underestimated the intelligence and sensitivity of other animals. I think I understand both better. Their gifts overlap, though they are different gifts.
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
Studies find that as people grow older they interact with fewer people and concentrate more on spending time with family and established friends. They focus on being rather than doing and on the present more than the future. Understanding
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
Simplify. Streamline everything. Become a purist. Less really is more. Concentrate on just a few work projects so you make them amazing versus diluting your attention on too many. And socially, have fewer friends but go deep with them so the relationship is rich. Accept fewer invitations, major in fewer leisure activities and study, then master, a smaller number of books versus skimming many. An intense concentration only on what matters most is how the pros realize victory. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.
Robin Sharma (The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life)
I have more CDs than 99 percent of America, but fewer CDs than 40 percent of my friends; if an acquaintance has more CDs than me, I feel intimidated and emasculated. I think about my CDs a lot. I find it oddly reassuring to look at them when I'm intoxicated.
Chuck Klosterman (Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story)
Worse were the disaster tourists: those whom I didn’t know well but who came out of the woodwork, showing up unannounced at my hospital room door with an overzealous desire to help or to bear witness to the medical carnival that my life had become. They would gape at my bald head, all misty-eyed, and I’d find myself having to console them. Or they’d bombard me with unsolicited medical advice, telling me about a great doctor they knew or a friend of a friend who’d cured their own cancer with things like essential oils, apricot kernels, coffee enemas, or a juice cleanse. I knew that most meant well and were doing the best they knew how, so I smiled and nodded, but I was silently fuming. As I got sicker, fewer and fewer came—and when they did, I began pretending to be asleep.
Suleika Jaouad (Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted)
Rape and sexual assault are unusual, if not quite unique, in that often, the only real evidence of a crime is the victim's testimony. Physical evidence might demonstrate that a sexual encounter took place between two people, but even cuts and bruises can't definitively prove lack of consent on one person's part. Especially if the accused is the alleged victim's friend, lover or spouse, or someone with whom they freely chose to leave a party. Ultimately, in the absence of photographic or video evidence, it comes down to one person's word against another's. The most obvious tragic result of this fact is that nearly half of rapes are never reported, fewer are prosecuted, and even fewer lead to a felony conviction. Victims wonder what the point of reporting uncorroborated sexual violence is, and they're not wrong.
Kate Harding (Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It)
I had known him for fewer than four years, but friendship with Roger did not seem to follow the normal laws of time. 'I want all my friends to come up like weeds,' he had once written in a notebook, 'and I want to be a weed myself, spontaneous and unstoppable. I don't want the kind of friends one has to cultivate.' That caught it exactly. Spontaneous and unstoppable. Roger had not just loved the wild, he had been the wild. Not in the austere and chastening sense I had once understood the wild to be, but natural, vigorous, like a tree or a river.
Robert Macfarlane (The Wild Places)
I wish," said the old lady, "for her own sake, for the sake of her family, and for the sake of her reputation, that my lady Delacour had fewer admirers, and more friends." "Women, who have met with so many admirers, seldom meet with many friends," said lady Anne. "No," said Mrs. Delacour, "for they seldom are wise enough to know their value." "We learn the value of all things, but especially of friends, by experience," said lady Anne, "and it is no wonder, therefore, that those who have little experience of the pleasures of friendship should not be wise enough to know their value.
Maria Edgeworth (Belinda)
What the data show: the fewer social relationships a person has, the shorter his or her life expectancy, and the worse the impact of various infectious diseases. Relationships that are medically protective can take the form of marriage, contact with friends and extended family, church membership, or other group affiliations.
Robert M. Sapolsky (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping)
...,for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilac opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. A nostalgic list, but then, of course, where could one find a more nostalgic subject?
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
This is the history of governments, - one man does something which is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with me, taxes me; looking from afar at me, ordains that a part of my labour shall go to this or that whimsical end, not as I, but as he happens to fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts, men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money's worth, except for these. Hence, the less government we have, the better, - the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man, of whom the existing government, is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation. That which all things tend to educe, which freedom, cultivation, intercourse, revolutions, go to form and deliver, is character; that is the end of nature, to reach unto this coronation of her king. To educate the wise man, the State exists; and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of character makes the State unnecessary. The wise man is the State. He needs no army, fort, or navy, - he loves men too well; no bribe, or feast, or palace, to draw friends to him; no vantage ground, no favourable circumstance. He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is a prophet; no statute book, for he has the lawgiver; no money, for he is value; no road, for he is at home where he is; no experience, for the life of the creator shoots through him, and looks from his eyes. He has no personal friends, for he who has the spell to draw the prayer and piety of all men unto him, needs not husband and educate a few, to share with him a select and poetic life. His relation to men is angelic; his memory is myrrh to them; his presence, frankincense and flowers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
That’s why time-friendly people tend to make fewer emotional commitments than my friend Bernard does. They have a profound understanding of how much time it takes to be there for someone, so they think, deliberate, and pray long and hard before they decide to invest in a relationship. You might think they’re aloof or uncaring. They’re not. They are, instead, unwilling to write bad checks, emotionally speaking. Another friend, Pamela, recently passed the time test with flying colors. We’ve known each other a long time, and I needed her input on a big decision I was making. I knew she was busy, but I called her anyway, asking, “Can we do lunch?” Pamela lives quite a drive away, but she checked her calendar (another trait of safe people!), and we made an appointment. A few days later, we met, and I told her how much it meant to me for her to take the time out for me. She was genuinely surprised. “Well, I told you I’d be here, didn’t I?” Tears came to my eyes. For Pamela, a relationship means that you’re there for good. End of conversation. Look for people who are “anchored” over time. Don’t go for flashy, intense, addictive types. A Ford that will be there tomorrow is a lot better than a Maserati that might be gone. There are stable Maseratis. But it’s best to drive them awhile, that is, test out the relationship over time, to make sure.
Henry Cloud (Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't)
He ran his hands along my shoulders, the ridges of my collarbones. His fingers sank into the tense muscles of my upper back, massaging in deep, sensual circles that caused a moan to escape my mouth. "You deserve to be taken care of," he said, and then his hand was on my hip, directing me. "Here. Let me do this properly." I turned around, scooting back until I was nestled in between his thighs, and he resumed his slow ministrations, his thumbs digging into the space between my shoulder blades. "Tell me if I'm too rough," he said quietly into my ear, but I could only shake my head. It felt amazing. He ran his nails down my back, the sensation sending a delicious crackle down my spine, before calming the activated nerve endings with a rub all the way down to my lower back. His fingers hooked in the waistband of my leggings, my underwear, before tugging at the stretchy material of the leggings. "Now these," he said. "Only these." I had to stand up to comply with that command, rolling the leggings down from my hips and stepping out of them. It gave me a chance to see Sam's face, his eyes hooded, watching me. Any questions I may have had about whether this was only about my pleasure were answered in that look, and further by the hard ridge of his jeans against my ass when I took my place back between his thighs. I half expected him to touch me in a more explicit way than a massage of the shoulders, but he simply returned to the slow kneading of my back, no more improper than what you might ask a friend to do, albeit with fewer clothes. It made my body scream to be touched---- I wanted his hands everywhere, on my breasts and in my mouth and in between my legs. I ground my ass against his erection through his jeans, trying to send him a message. "Shh," Sam said against my ear, less a command to be quiet and more a soft sound of indulgence. "We have time. We have all night.
Alicia Thompson (Love in the Time of Serial Killers)
Robert Putnam, Harvard professor and author of Bowling Alone, has spent years studying the effects of ethnic diversity on a community’s well-being. It turns out diversity is a train wreck. Contrary to his expectation—and desire!—Putnam’s study showed that the greater the ethnic diversity, the less people trusted their neighbors, their local leaders, and even the news. People in diverse communities gave less to charity, voted less, had fewer friends, were more unhappy, and were more likely to describe television as “my most important form of entertainment.” It was not, Putnam said, that people in diverse communities trusted people of their own ethnicity more, and other races less. They didn’t trust anyone.28 The difference in neighborliness between an ethnically homogeneous town, such as Bismarck, North Dakota, and a diverse one, such as Los Angeles, Putnam says, is “roughly the same as” the difference in a town with a 7 percent poverty rate compared with a 23 percent poverty rate.29
Ann Coulter (¡Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole)
Weak ties feel too different or, in some cases, literally too far away to be close friends. But that’s the point. Because they’re not just figures in an already ingrown cluster, weak ties give us access to something fresh. They know things and people that we don’t know. Information and opportunity spread farther and faster through weak ties than through close friends because weak ties have fewer overlapping contacts. Weak ties are like bridges you cannot see all the way across, so there is no telling where they might lead.
Meg Jay (The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now)
Weak ties feel too different or, in some cases, literally too far away to be close friends. But that's the point. Because they're not just figures in an already ingrown cluster, weak ties gives us access to something fresh. They know things and people that we don't know. Information and opportunity spread farther and faster through weak ties than through close friends because weak ties have fewer overlapping contacts. Weak ties are like bridges you cannot see all the way across, so there is no telling where they might lead.
Meg Jay (The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now)
The seven fall still. Smiles fading from their faces. They look at each other, sharing the silent memories, the loss and the pain. Kady Grant squeezes Masons hand. Asha hugs her cousin close. Malikov wraps his arm around Donnelly's shoulder and pulls her in tight, kisses her brow. They have all come so far. And there are fewer now than they started with. It's Ella Malikova who breaks the silence. Holding aloft a can of Mount Russshmore Energy Drink in a toast. "To absent friends." "Absent friends," comes the universal reply.
Amie Kaufman (Obsidio (The Illuminae Files, #3))
As the school year progressed, my learning window would get smaller, and smaller, and by the year’s end, it would be closed tight by morning break, if it opened at all. This had always been the case, but in primary school I had a chance of keeping up because there were significantly fewer variables in my day. High school in comparison was a cluster-fuck of environmental shapeshifting, with no day ever looking the same as the one before, and as you’ve probably picked up by now, change was not my friend anymore than my classmates were
Hannah Gadsby (Ten Steps to Nanette)
Today, we share no fewer than 300 diseases with domesticated animals. For example, humans get 45 diseases from cattle, including tuberculosis; 46 from sheep and goats; 42 from pigs; 35 from horses, including the common cold; and 26 from poultry. Rats and mice carry 33 diseases to humans, including bubonic plague. Sixty-five diseases, including measles, originated in man’s best friend, the dog. We can still get parasitic worms from pet dogs and cats. That is why it is not a good idea to kiss a pet on the mouth or sleep with it in bed.4
Albert Marrin (Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918)
For what it is worth, Celaena,” he rasped, “I believe you were the closest thing to a friend Ansel has ever allowed herself to have. And I think she sent you away because she truly cared for you.” She hated her mouth for wobbling. “That doesn’t make it hurt any less.” “I didn’t think it would. But I think you will leave a lasting imprint on Ansel’s heart. You spared her life, and returned her father’s sword. She will not soon forget that. And maybe when she makes her next move to reclaim her title, she will remember the assassin from the North and the kindness you showed her, and try to leave fewer bodies in her wake.
Sarah J. Maas (The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass, #0.1-0.5))
There’s a reason for the mainstream bipartisan consensus around community policing: it maintains and expands the status quo. As advocates call for fewer police and less policing and criminalization, community policing becomes a way to reshape the narrative to position police as friendly beat cops who know everyone’s name. But community policing doesn’t make policing more effective, less hostile, or more accountable to the communities they serve in. Instead it allows police to further entrench their presence in neighborhoods, justify increases in their numbers, and even mobilize community members to participate in policing by surveilling our neighbors.
Maya Schenwar (Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms)
True friendship at the apex of power is notoriously difficult to maintain, and as time went on and death in battle claimed his four closest friends, there were fewer and fewer people who were close enough to Napoleon to tell him what he did not want to hear. Bausset, though a courtier rather than a friend, spent more time near Napoleon than almost anyone else outside his family, and served him loyally until April 1814, accompanying him on almost all his tours and campaigns. If anyone can be said to have known him intimately, it was Bausset, whose memoirs were published six years after Napoleon’s death, when pro-Bonapartist books were severely discouraged.
Andrew Roberts (Napoleon: A Life)
,...for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilac opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. A nostalgic list, but then, of course, where could one find a more nostalgic subject?
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
Specialisation, accompanied by exchange, is the source of economic prosperity. Here, in my own words, is what a modern version of Smithism claims. First, the spontaneous and voluntary exchange of goods and services leads to a division of labour in which people specialise in what they are good at doing. Second, this in turn leads to gains from trade for each party to a transaction, because everybody is doing what he is most productive at and has the chance to learn, practise and even mechanise his chosen task. Individuals can thus use and improve their own tacit and local knowledge in a way that no expert or ruler could. Third, gains from trade encourage more specialisation, which encourages more trade, in a virtuous circle. The greater the specialisation among producers, the greater is the diversification of consumption: in moving away from self-sufficiency people get to produce fewer things, but to consume more. Fourth, specialisation inevitably incentivises innovation, which is also a collaborative process driven by the exchange and combination of ideas. Indeed, most innovation comes about through the recombination of existing ideas for how to make or organise things. The more people trade and the more they divide labour, the more they are working for each other. The more they work for each other, the higher their living standards. The consequence of the division of labour is an immense web of cooperation among strangers: it turns potential enemies into honorary friends. A woollen coat, worn by a day labourer, was (said Smith) ‘the produce of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser . . .’ In parting with money to buy a coat, the labourer was not reducing his wealth. Gains from trade are mutual; if they were not, people would not voluntarily engage in trade. The more open and free the market, the less opportunity there is for exploitation and predation, because the easier it is for consumers to boycott the predators and for competitors to whittle away their excess profits. In its ideal form, therefore, the free market is a device for creating networks of collaboration among people to raise each other’s living standards, a device for coordinating production and a device for communicating information about needs through the price mechanism. Also a device for encouraging innovation. It is the very opposite of the rampant and selfish individualism that so many churchmen and others seem to think it is. The market is a system of mass cooperation. You compete with rival producers, sure, but you cooperate with your customers, your suppliers and your colleagues. Commerce both needs and breeds trust.
Matt Ridley (The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge)
Like her friends, Biana was assigned a bodyguard when the Black Swan increased their security. But while most of the other bodyguard-protectee relationships have grown into unique friendships, it’s doubtful that Biana’s goblin bodyguard (Woltzer) feels any affection for her, the reason being that Biana has a bad habit of using her ability as a Vanisher to ditch poor Woltzer whenever she wants to do something he wouldn’t approve of—which also gets him in trouble with his supervisor (Sandor). To be fair, this has also meant that Woltzer has suffered far fewer injuries than the goblins guarding Biana’s friends—but that’s likely not why Biana sneaks away, so she probably doesn’t deserve credit for
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
Let me begin by telling you that I was in love. An ordinary statement, to be sure, but not an ordinary fact, for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes lilac opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. — Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms (Vintage International, 2012)
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
I have suggested that women look at men this way: if they took away their own network of intimate friends, those with whom they share their personal journey, removed their sense of instinctual guidance, concluded that they were almost wholly alone in the world, and understood that they would be defined only by standards of productivity external to them, they would then know the inner state of the average man. They are horrified at this notion. Having confused the wielding of outer power roles with identity and freedom, women assume that men have a better life. Certainly, they seem to have more outer choices. But most women do not recognize that men have fewer inner choices. And it is with the inner choices that we most define our lives, as almost all women know.
James Hollis (Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up)
Let me begin by telling you that I was in love. An ordinary statement, to be sure, but not an ordinary fact, for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilac opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. A nostalgic list, but then, of course, where could one find a more nostalgic subject?
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait. “But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. “And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jew swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
Milton Sanford Mayer (They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45)
The case of a patient with dissociative identity disorder follows: Cindy, a 24-year-old woman, was transferred to the psychiatry service to facilitate community placement. Over the years, she had received many different diagnoses, including schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder. Dissociative identity disorder was her current diagnosis. Cindy had been well until 3 years before admission, when she developed depression, "voices," multiple somatic complaints, periods of amnesia, and wrist cutting. Her family and friends considered her a pathological liar because she would do or say things that she would later deny. Chronic depression and recurrent suicidal behavior led to frequent hospitalizations. Cindy had trials of antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and anxiolytics, all without benefit. Her condition continued to worsen. Cindy was a petite, neatly groomed woman who cooperated well with the treatment team. She reported having nine distinct alters that ranged in age from 2 to 48 years; two were masculine. Cindy’s main concern was her inability to control the switches among her alters, which made her feel out of control. She reported having been sexually abused by her father as a child and described visual hallucinations of him threatening her with a knife. We were unable to confirm the history of sexual abuse but thought it likely, based on what we knew of her chaotic early home life. Nursing staff observed several episodes in which Cindy switched to a troublesome alter. Her voice would change in inflection and tone, becoming childlike as ]oy, an 8-year-old alter, took control. Arrangements were made for individual psychotherapy and Cindy was discharged. At a follow-up 3 years later, Cindy still had many alters but was functioning better, had fewer switches, and lived independently. She continued to see a therapist weekly and hoped to one day integrate her many alters.
Donald W. Black (Introductory Textbook of Psychiatry, Fourth Edition)
People with mental illnesses are then made to believe that they are somehow inferior to everyone else around them. They feel shame, embarrassment, isolation, and discrimination. Creating these kinds of feelings only begins a downward spiral. These feelings of shame and embarrassment can prevent individuals with mental illness from admitting their symptoms and problems. This can hinder them from getting the treatment that they need to have. Additionally, family and friends can have a stigma associated with them that even makes them ashamed or embarrassed. All of this shame causes individuals and their families to conceal or hide the mental illness. This secrecy acts as a barrier or an obstacle to the treatment of the disorders. Discrimination will result in negative effects for the person who is being discriminated against. Some of the harmful effects of stigma on mental illness include bullying, violence, lack of understanding, fewer work and school opportunities, a reluctance to find treatment, and a personal belief that they will never be able to improve their life or situation. These effects can be very destructive to someone who is already struggling with an illness.
Carol Franklin (Mental Health: Personalities: Personality Disorders, Mental Disorders & Psychotic Disorders (Bipolar, Mood Disorders, Mental Illness, Mental Disorders, Narcissist, Histrionic, Borderline Personality))
Knowledgeable observers report that dating has nearly disappeared from college campuses and among young adults generally. It has been replaced by something called “hanging out.” You young people apparently know what this is, but I will describe it for the benefit of those of us who are middle-aged or older and otherwise uninformed. Hanging out consists of numbers of young men and young women joining together in some group activity. It is very different from dating. For the benefit of some of you who are not middle-aged or older, I also may need to describe what dating is. Unlike hanging out, dating is not a team sport. Dating is pairing off to experience the kind of one-on-one association and temporary commitment that can lead to marriage in some rare and treasured cases. . . . All of this made dating more difficult. And the more elaborate and expensive the date, the fewer the dates. As dates become fewer and more elaborate, this seems to create an expectation that a date implies seriousness or continuing commitment. That expectation discourages dating even more. . . . Simple and more frequent dates allow both men and women to “shop around” in a way that allows extensive evaluation of the prospects. The old-fashioned date was a wonderful way to get acquainted with a member of the opposite sex. It encouraged conversation. It allowed you to see how you treat others and how you are treated in a one-on-one situation. It gave opportunities to learn how to initiate and sustain a mature relationship. None of that happens in hanging out. My single brothers and sisters, follow the simple dating pattern and you don’t need to do your looking through Internet chat rooms or dating services—two alternatives that can be very dangerous or at least unnecessary or ineffective. . . . Men, if you have returned from your mission and you are still following the boy-girl patterns you were counseled to follow when you were 15, it is time for you to grow up. Gather your courage and look for someone to pair off with. Start with a variety of dates with a variety of young women, and when that phase yields a good prospect, proceed to courtship. It’s marriage time. That is what the Lord intends for His young adult sons and daughters. Men have the initiative, and you men should get on with it. If you don’t know what a date is, perhaps this definition will help. I heard it from my 18-year-old granddaughter. A “date” must pass the test of three p’s: (1) planned ahead, (2) paid for, and (3) paired off. Young women, resist too much hanging out, and encourage dates that are simple, inexpensive, and frequent. Don’t make it easy for young men to hang out in a setting where you women provide the food. Don’t subsidize freeloaders. An occasional group activity is OK, but when you see men who make hanging out their primary interaction with the opposite sex, I think you should lock the pantry and bolt the front door. If you do this, you should also hang up a sign, “Will open for individual dates,” or something like that. And, young women, please make it easier for these shy males to ask for a simple, inexpensive date. Part of making it easier is to avoid implying that a date is something very serious. If we are to persuade young men to ask for dates more frequently, we must establish a mutual expectation that to go on a date is not to imply a continuing commitment. Finally, young women, if you turn down a date, be kind. Otherwise you may crush a nervous and shy questioner and destroy him as a potential dater, and that could hurt some other sister. My single young friends, we counsel you to channel your associations with the opposite sex into dating patterns that have the potential to mature into marriage, not hanging-out patterns that only have the prospect to mature into team sports like touch football. Marriage is not a group activity—at least, not until the children come along in goodly numbers.
Dallin H. Oaks
It had been a quiet few days for Hungry Paul since his Yahtzee conversation with Leonard, quiet days not being uncommon in his schedule. This had given him the opportunity to ponder the expansion and contraction of the universe as observed in localised form in the life of his best friend. Edwin Hubble, had he looked inside Leonard with his telescope, would have recorded that everything was just as the universe would ordain it. The thing is, for Hungry Paul the world was a complicated place, with people themselves being both the primary cause and chief victims of its complexity. He saw society as a sort of chemistry set, full of potentially explosive ingredients which, if handled correctly could be fascinating and educational, but which was otherwise best kept out of reach of those who did not know what they were doing. Though his life had been largely quiet and uneventful, his choices had turned out to be wise ones: he had already lived longer than Alexander the Great, and had fewer enemies, too. But he had now become awakened by the thought that, no matter how insignificant he was when compared to the night sky, he remained subject to the same elemental forces of expansion. The universe, it seemed, would eventually come knocking. And so it was that over a mid-morning scone he read a short article in the local freesheet with a sense of cosmic destiny.
Ronan Hession (Leonard and Hungry Paul)
And, in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the once genial earth produces, in every successive generation, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding ones. Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened era,—on the contrary, they never before were nearly so abundant,—but that mankind are getting so far beyond the childhood of their race that they scorn to be happy any longer. A simple and joyous character can find no place for itself among the sage and sombre figures that would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to shame. The entire system of man's affairs, as at present established, is built up purposely to exclude the careless and happy soul. The very children would upbraid the wretched individual who should endeavor to take life and the world as w what we might naturally suppose them meant for—a place and opportunity for enjoyment. It is the iron rule in our day to require an object and a purpose in life. It makes us all parts of a complicated scheme of progress, which can only result in our arrival at a colder and drearier region than we were born in. It insists upon everybody's adding somewhat—a mite, perhaps, but earned by incessant effort—to an accumulated pile of usefulness, of which the only use will be, to burden our posterity with even heavier thoughts and more inordinate labor than our own. No life now wanders like an unfettered stream; there is a mill-wheel for the tiniest rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too strenuous a resolution to go all right.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Marble Faun)
The median age in Gaza is very young. Earlier you spoke of asking your father for stories about your grandfather, and how important that was for you. But there are fewer and fewer people who have memories of life outside of Gaza. I’m wondering if you can say something about this. Unfortunately, it’s not only about memories of our grandparents, but it’s also their memories that are being lost, those are what we need to hear and memorize and then transmit to our children and grandchildren. But I’m also so saddened to think about my generation, our memories, being required or expected to tell our own stories of what happened to us in Gaza. I mean, for example, in 2021, 2014, 2009, or 2008. All the massacres and attacks on Gaza. Maybe our grandchildren will not ask us about Jaffa and Acre and Haifa. No, they will ask us about the 2014 war. What happened to you? What did you eat, which of your friends was wounded, did you leave your home, where did you go? This is a prolonged state of exile and estrangement and expulsion and ethnic cleansing. Our grandparents were driven from their homes and their cities, and any trace of them has been erased and replaced by something else, which is now called Israel. But we, their descendants, were also robbed of our right to dream and think about those places—no, instead, we are forced to live in the nightmares of our own current life. And they are creating more misery for us, wounding us again and again, so that we forget those earlier wounds in the face of the fresher wounds. The more the Israelis attack us, the more they are trying to erase the older memories. So it also becomes a matter of exhaustion.
Mosab Abu Toha (Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza)
what makes life worth living when we are old and frail and unable to care for ourselves? In 1943, the psychologist Abraham Maslow published his hugely influential paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” which famously described people as having a hierarchy of needs. It is often depicted as a pyramid. At the bottom are our basic needs—the essentials of physiological survival (such as food, water, and air) and of safety (such as law, order, and stability). Up one level are the need for love and for belonging. Above that is our desire for growth—the opportunity to attain personal goals, to master knowledge and skills, and to be recognized and rewarded for our achievements. Finally, at the top is the desire for what Maslow termed “self-actualization”—self-fulfillment through pursuit of moral ideals and creativity for their own sake. Maslow argued that safety and survival remain our primary and foundational goals in life, not least when our options and capacities become limited. If true, the fact that public policy and concern about old age homes focus on health and safety is just a recognition and manifestation of those goals. They are assumed to be everyone’s first priorities. Reality is more complex, though. People readily demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice their safety and survival for the sake of something beyond themselves, such as family, country, or justice. And this is regardless of age. What’s more, our driving motivations in life, instead of remaining constant, change hugely over time and in ways that don’t quite fit Maslow’s classic hierarchy. In young adulthood, people seek a life of growth and self-fulfillment, just as Maslow suggested. Growing up involves opening outward. We search out new experiences, wider social connections, and ways of putting our stamp on the world. When people reach the latter half of adulthood, however, their priorities change markedly. Most reduce the amount of time and effort they spend pursuing achievement and social networks. They narrow in. Given the choice, young people prefer meeting new people to spending time with, say, a sibling; old people prefer the opposite. Studies find that as people grow older they interact with fewer people and concentrate more on spending time with family and established friends. They focus on being rather than doing and on the present more than the future.
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
The wedding rehearsal itself was uneventful until Father Johnson decided it was time to show Marlboro Man and me the proper way to walk to the marriage altar. Evidently, all of Father Johnson’s theological studies and work was destined to culminate in whether or not Marlboro Man and I approached the altar in the perfectly correct and proper way, because he was intent on driving the point home. “At this point,” Father Johnson instructed, “you’ll start to turn and Ree will take your arm.” He lightly pushed Marlboro Man in the proper direction, and the two of us began walking forward. “Nope, nope, nope,” Father Johnson said authoritatively. “Come back, come back.” Marlboro Man’s college friends snickered. “Oh…what did we do wrong?” I asked Father Johnson humbly. Maybe he’d discovered the truth about the collages. He showed us again. Marlboro Man was to turn and begin walking, then wait for me briefly. Then, as I took his arm, he was to lead me to the altar. Wait. Wasn’t that what we just did? We tried again, and Father Johnson corrected us…again. “Nope, nope, nope,” he said, pulling us both by the arm until we were back in our starting position. Marlboro Man’s friends chuckled. My stomach growled. And Marlboro Man kept quietly restrained, despite the fact that he was being repeatedly corrected by his fiancée’s interim minister for something that arguably wasn’t all that relevant to the commitment we were making to spend the rest of our lives together. We went through no fewer than seven more takes, and with each redo I began to realize that this was Father Johnson’s final test for us. Forget the collage assignment--that was small potatoes. Whether we could keep our cool and take instruction when a nice steak dinner and drinks awaited us at the country club was Father Johnson’s real decider of whether or not Marlboro Man and I were mature, composed, and levelheaded enough to proceed with the wedding. And while I knew Marlboro Man would grit his teeth and bear it, I wasn’t entirely sure I could. But I didn’t have to. On the beginning of the eighth run, just after Father Johnson gave us another “Nope. You’re not getting it right, kids…” Mike’s loud voice echoed throughout the wood-and-marble sanctuary. “Oh, c-c-c-c-come on, Father Johnson!” The chuckles turned into laughter. And out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony giving Mike a subtle high five. Thank goodness for Mike. He was hungry. He wanted to get on to the party.
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
- I’m a normal kid, I was raised by television. The secret to great barbeque: only Oscar knows it. Life should be so simple as enjoying ribs, farting, crapping, pissing, fucking and drinking, and maybe smoking too, but anything other than that is too complicated, life should be simple. It is not. - Work? You would go to work even if there’s a chance your job’s imaginary? Imaginary or not, the questions Max poses remain as relevant for Frank, Sam, and Oscar as they are for us. A slight hangover won’t be best friends with any kind of daylight and while this one wasn’t particularly hazardous, they wouldn’t be having any of it. "...the lunatic is on the grass." Surely if you see a bunch of people having a picnic in a park that would turn your head wouldn’t it? How normal a picnic really is? When was the last time you saw one happening? Not in a movie, in real life. If a man’s hat falls to the ground, said man is expected to pick it up. That’s the premise. I’m not some pissy little kid who stopped believing in God because some priests rape kids. I don’t believe in God because I can’t be sure of its existence. I’m not some pissy little kid who stopped believing in God because the church raped kids. I don’t believe in God because I can’t be sure of its existence. Nothing is wrong. You don’t take another man’s hat, another man’s ride, or another man’s woman. Those are universal laws. - You do not take another man’s hat, another man’s ride, or another man's woman. Universal laws, Rosa. - Jesus, no. That won’t be necessary Mr. Coyote. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through the course of my life is this: loaded guns make pretty compelling arguments, and it’s not like I was the star in the debate team in high school. A lot of dinners are joined by assholes, people that don’t matter, and good friends too, but breakfast are kind of elite. You have breakfast with fewer people in your life and most of the time those people you have breakfast with are the good ones. - That’s the thing: I don’t know. I’m aware of the fact that guns might not be the ultimate protection when what we’re facing is the truth, we’re coming to terms with our reality, but we don’t know what we might find out there and if by god there’s an imaginary monster or something waiting there for us, I’d rather have ammo than luck No gun will ever protect a man as he prepares to meet his maker. Personally, I think half a burger is something you can have regardless of how hungry you are. Air conditioning is a marvel of modern science, how could we have lived without it? In the end, there was no greener grass than Texas.
Santiago Rodriguez (An Imaginary Dog Needs to Find Out Whether Or Not His Master's Real)
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Markus Zusak
Consider growing an eco-friendly lawn, instead of the conventional, perfect lawn, to keep your hens and soil their healthiest. Ecological seed mixes, which you can get at your local retail nursery or feed store, contain a variety of plant types, many of which might be considered weeds to a gardener who prefers a perfect monocrop of grass blades, but are an excellent, diverse source of greens for chickens to forage. An eco-lawn requires less maintenance such as mowing, and requires fewer resources like water and fertilizers. Clover, one of the most important plants found in eco-seed mixes, fixes nitrogen naturally in the soil and eliminates the need for fertilizers.
Jessi Bloom (Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard)
What is the proper length of time for grieving? Whenever I think of Anna I tear up. I tear up at the most inopportune times, often embarrassing me a senior a seemingly mature citizen. I admit to being lonely. I feel ashamed of myself for desiring the presence and companionship of a caring female. But with no children, almost no friends and fewer and fewer remaining my living area is deserted with no sign of life other than the television, the cat and the occasional telephone call reminding me that my car’s warranty had expired or that I need life insurance or a security system." — an excerpt from Alex Gall's tribute to his late wife, Anna
Alexander Gall
Another study compared fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who had close friendships to those who were popular, with larger friend groups but fewer close relationships—so the cheerleaders and partiers on the A-list. The study found that at age twenty-five, those who had fewer but closer friends had higher feelings of self-worth and less social anxiety and depression than the cool kids. 174 The lesson here is you should never peak in high school.
Jen Lancaster (Welcome to the United States of Anxiety: Observations from a Reforming Neurotic)
1.​Early in the book, when introducing her important idea of “empathy walls,” Arlie Russell Hochschild mentions that in 1960 fewer than 5 percent of Americans would have been disturbed if their child married a member of the opposite political party, while in 2010 over 30 percent would find it troubling. Clearly this speaks to our ever-increasing political divide. Have you yourself experienced or observed this phenomenon in your community? (p. 6) 2.​Hochschild argues that our political split has widened because “the right has moved right—not because the left has moved left.” Do you agree or disagree? Is her evidence persuasive? What are the implications for our democracy? (p. 7) 3.​What does Hochschild consider “the Great Paradox” and why is Louisiana an extreme example? (p. 8) 4.​Early on as well as later in the book, Hochschild mentions the friendship of Sally Cappel and Shirley Slack and says she believes “their friendship models what our country needs to forge: the capacity to connect across difference.” Do you agree? Do you have friends from across the political divide? What challenges do these “across-the-divide” friendships present? (pp. 13, 240)
Arlie Russell Hochschild (Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right)
Many girls still learn the bare biological facts from friends, movies and the Internet. Parents, schools and legislators fear that once children know about sex they will become sexually active. Yet  several  studies  from the USA show that making ‘virginity pledges’, for example, makes no difference to the extent of sexual activity among young people and that, contrary to fears, comprehensive education about sexuality leads to delay and less engagement in sex, with fewer partners, as well as greater use of contraceptives.
Deepa Narayan (Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women)
Loneliness thus leads to meanness. As the saying goes, pain that is not transformed gets transmitted. The data I just cited about social isolation and sadness is, no surprise, accompanied by other sorts of data about rising hostility and callousness. In 2021, hate-crime reports surged to their highest levels in twelve years. In 2000, roughly two-thirds of Americans gave to charity; by 2021, fewer than half did. One restaurant owner recently told me that he has to ban somebody from his place for rude behavior almost every week these days. That didn’t use to happen. A friend of mine who is a nurse says her number one problem is retaining staff. Her nurses want to quit because the patients have become so abusive, even violent. As the columnist Peggy Noonan put it, “People are proud of their bitterness now.
David Brooks (How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen)
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Maple Ridge COncrete and Paving
Children are intrinsically antifragile, which is why overprotected children are more likely to become adolescents who are stuck in defend mode. In defend mode, they’re likely to learn less, have fewer close friends, be more anxious, and experience more pain from ordinary conversations and conflicts.
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
We see this process play out when an individual is impacted by trauma or grief; often their family, friends, and coworkers begin to orbit a little further out, afraid of the powerful gravitational pull of traumatic pain. As the “check-ins” get fewer, conversations get more superficial, interactions get briefer, and other people “move on” with their lives, the grieving or traumatized person feels increasingly isolated and alone.
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
Yet the moonlight sonatas of the world don't simply discharge our emotions; they elevate them. Also, it's only sad music that elicits exalted states of communion and awe. Music conveying other negative emotions, such as fear and anger, produces no such effect. Even happy music produces fewer psychological rewards than sad music, concluded Sachs, Damasio, and Habibi. Upbeat tunes make us want to dance around our kitchens and invite friends for dinner. But it's sad music that makes us want to touch the sky.
Susan Cain (Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole)
someone older who has been “living with family and friends,” as living with family and friends usually means something else is going on.
Brandon Turner (The Book on Managing Rental Properties: Find, Screen, and Manage Tenants With Fewer Headaches and Maximum Profits)
offer everyone the opportunity to apply (even if you have already told them they don’t meet your minimum standards—if they know they won’t qualify, they usually won’t apply; it’s the invitation that matters), and keep notes of each interaction. Also, as we talked about already in this book, be sure to avoid discriminating language, such as: • “No kids” • “Family-friendly” •  “How many kids do you have?” • “Are you married?” • “What country are you from?” • “When is your baby due?
Brandon Turner (The Book on Managing Rental Properties: Find, Screen, and Manage Tenants With Fewer Headaches and Maximum Profits)
Refine the gift list, shopping and buying for fewer people. * Email friends ahead of time and suggest not exchanging gifts. Plan an ornament exchange or a lunch instead.
Mary Davis (Every Day Spirit: A Daybook of Wisdom, Joy and Peace)
I was always a dumb, careless teenager. But at that moment, never before in my life had I given fewer f*cks.
Sarah Esterly (Stalker Sarah & Trophy Tommy's Crazy Country Summer: An Insane 90s Teen Romance, F**ked Up Woman's Survival Story, and Letter to a Long-Lost Friend)
It's funny: As a kid, I had no idea how to interact with other kids. But as an adult, I find kids so much easier to understand. They say how they feel, and they show it too. There are fewer ulterior motives and unwritten rules. Silences aren't unbearably awkward, and abrupt segues to different subjects are the norm. If you want to be friends with someone, you just ask, and if they don't want to, they'll probably just tell you.
Emily Henry (Funny Story)
I imagine even fewer can count on their assistants to become something like a friend to them over time without realizing it.” Christian looked up, not sure how to feel about such a platonic title. “Something like a friend.” General Winter turned around, holding two plates in his hand and a mysterious smile. “Something.
Romeo Alexander (At My General’s Command (Men of Fort Dale #4))
Gen Z is the first generation to have gone through puberty hunched over smartphones and tablets, having fewer face-to-face conversations and shoulder-to-shoulder adventures with their friends.
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
I think of what wild animals are in our imaginations. And how they are disappearing – not just from the wild, but from people’s everyday lives, replaced by images of themselves in print and on screen. The rarer they get, the fewer meanings animals can have. Eventually rarity is all they are made of. The condor is an icon of extinction. There’s little else to it now but being the last of its kind. And in this lies the diminution of the world. How can you love something, how can you fight to protect it, if all it means is loss? There is a vast difference between my visceral, bloody life with Mabel and the reserved, distanced view of modern nature-appreciation. I know that some of my friends see my keeping a hawk as morally suspect, but I couldn’t love or understand hawks as much as I do if I’d only ever seen them on screens. I’ve made a hawk part of a human life, and a human life part of a hawk’s, and it has made the hawk a million times more complicated and full of wonder to me. I think of my chastened surprise when Mabel played with a paper telescope. She is real. She can resist the meanings humans give her. But the condor? The condor has no resistance to us at all. I stare at the attenuated, drifting image on the gallery screen. It is a shadow, a figure of loss and hope; it is hardly a bird at all.
Helen Macdonald (H is for Hawk)
Psychologists have shown, for example, that priming people with settling down in a city vs. visiting it briefly immediately evokes different preferences: settling down causes people to facultatively value loyal friends, while shorter visits spark more egalitarian motivations. Meanwhile, research also points to developmental effects: young adults who moved geographically as children make less of a distinction between friends and strangers. Overall, greater residential mobility and more relational freedom (i.e., fewer constraints on new relationships) lead individuals to form larger social networks, favor new experiences, prefer novelty, and perhaps even think more creatively (see Appendix C).23
Joseph Henrich (The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous)
That was one of the downsides of fame that no one talked about—the more success you gained, the fewer friends you had.
Ana Huang (The Striker (Gods of the Game, #1))
Around the world, people who studied parenting usually divided the various styles into four basic categories: Authoritarian parents were strict disciplinarians, the “because I said so” parents. Permissive parents tended to be indulgent and averse to conflict. They acted more like friends than parents. In some studies, permissive parents tended to be wealthier and more educated than other parents. Neglectful parents were just how they sounded: emotionally distant and often absent. They were also more likely to live in poverty. Then there was the fourth option: Authoritative. The word was like a mash up of authoritarian and permissive. These parents inhabited the sweet spot between the two: they were warm, responsive, and close to their kids, but, as their children got older, they gave them freedom to explore and to fail and to make their own choices. Throughout their kids’ upbringing, authoritative parents also had clear, bright limits, rules they did not negotiate. “We’re socialized to believe that warmth and strictness are opposites,” Doug Lemov writes in his book Teach Like a Champion. “The fact is, the degree to which you are warm has no bearing on the degree to which you are strict, and vice versa.” Parents and teachers who manage to be both warm and strict seem to strike a resonance with children, gaining their trust along with their respect. When researcher Jelani Mandara at Northwestern University studied 4,754 U.S. teenagers and their parents, he found that kids with authoritative parents had higher academic achievement levels, fewer symptoms of depression, and fewer problems with aggression, disobedience, and other antisocial behaviors. Other studies have found similar benefits. Authoritative parents trained their kids to be resilient, and it seemed to work.
Anonymous
We’re all adolescents now,” writes Thomas Bergler. “When are we going to grow up?”17 Bergler explains that churches and parachurch organizations first began to provide youth-oriented programs — mainly to help at-risk kids in the cities (e.g., the YMCA). Then the “teenager” was invented as a unique demographic in society. As a result, the youth group was created, offering adolescent-friendly versions of church. “In the second stage, a new adulthood emerged that looked a lot like the old adolescence. Fewer and fewer people outgrew the adolescent Christian spiritualities they had learned in youth groups; instead, churches began to cater to them.” Eventually, churches became them.
Michael Scott Horton (Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World)
Comprehensive reform of bankruptcy laws—from the treatment of derivatives to underwater homes and to student loans. Bankruptcy law offers another example of how the basic rules of the game that determine how markets work have strong distributional consequences, as well as effects on efficiency. As in many other areas, the rules have increasingly favored those at the top. Every loan is a contract between a willing borrower and a willing lender, but one side is supposed to understand the market far better than the other; there is a massive asymmetry in information and bargaining power. Accordingly, the lender should bear the brunt of the consequences of a mistake, not the borrower. Making bankruptcy law more debtor-friendly would give banks an incentive to be more careful in lending. We would have fewer credit bubbles and fewer Americans deeply in debt. One of the most egregious examples of bad lending, as we’ve noted, is the student loan programs; and bad lending there has been encouraged by the nondischargeability of the debt. In
Joseph E. Stiglitz (The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future)
Fewer people want to lose themselves in another, whether that be a revolutionary, political or spiritual leader, the one they love, a friend, a literary figure, a film star or pop idol. One can only welcome the type of parent who raises their children to be immune to idolatry, who rather than teaching their children to bow their heads to leaders, encourages them to become leaders of their own lives.
Karmak Bagisbayev (The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer)
I won’t deny that you have suffered, Elentiya, but there are thousands more who have also suffered—and suffered more. And they do not sell themselves to the king to get what they, too, deserve. With each person you kill, I am finding fewer and fewer excuses for remaining your friend.
Sarah J. Maas (Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2))
As Benjamin Franklin said, ‘Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.’ All of the above make friends.
Jean-Pierre Alaux (Red-Handed in Romanée-Conti (Winemaker Detective Mysteries #12))
I don’t understand her. I treat her kindly, yet she still shakes with fear at the thought of being one with me. I try to make her happy and make her angry instead.” Many Horses lifted an eyebrow. “Fear is not like a layer of dust on a tree leaf that washes away in a gentle rain. Give her time. Be her good friend, first--then become her lover. As for making a woman happy, you succeed sometimes, you fail sometimes. That is the way of it.” Hunter took a deep breath and let it out on a weary sigh. “It’s not that I have another woman in mind to take as wife. It’s just--” “That you are bullheaded?” Hunter smothered an outraged laugh. “A little bit, yes?” Many Horses shrugged. “One unto the other is not a bad thing for a man. I am sure enough glad I have only one tug rope coming into my lodge. Can you imagine how exhausting three or four wives would be?” “My mother has been enough for you, but she is a special woman.” Many Horses grinned. “She is a jealous woman. And I’m not a stupid man. I didn’t want to live in a wasp’s nest all my life.” He shrugged. “I like things as they are. Fewer sharp tongues nagging me. Fewer mouths to feed. And only one woman to try to understand. I brought her slaves to help her with the work.” “My yellow-hair does not believe in having slaves.” “Neither does she believe in many wives. Give her a choice, slaves or wives. See which she chooses.” Many Horses waved his hand before him to clear the air of ash. “You must also remember the yellow-hair may give you many more children than a Comanche woman. Take care or you could father more children than you can feed. I’ve never seen a white woman yet who wasn’t a good breeder.” A slow grin spread across Hunter’s mouth. “You will tell her this, yes? So far she isn’t showing the proper enthusiasm.
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
Ironically, the so-called social media may also be adding their own pressures. Although they have far more connections than ever online, many young people feel they have fewer real friends they can turn to for actual company and comfort when they need it.
Ken Robinson (Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life)
and Medicaid, which would help expand coverage and bring down costs. The other thing we should be honest about is how hard it’s going to be, no matter what we do, to create significant economic opportunity in every remote area of our vast nation. In some places, the old jobs aren’t coming back, and the infrastructure and workforce needed to support big new industries aren’t there. As hard as it is, people may have to leave their hometowns and look for work elsewhere in America. We know this can have a transformative effect. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration experimented with a program called Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing, which gave poor families in public housing vouchers to move to safer, middle-income neighborhoods where their children were surrounded every day by evidence that life can be better. Twenty years later, the children of those families have grown up to earn higher incomes and attend college at higher rates than their peers who stayed behind. And the younger the kids were when they moved, the bigger boost they received. Previous generations of Americans actually moved around the country much more than we do today. Millions of black families migrated from the rural South to the urban North. Large numbers of poor whites left Appalachia to take jobs in Midwestern factories. My own father hopped a freight train from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Chicago in 1935, looking for work. Yet today, despite all our advances, fewer Americans are moving than ever before. One of the laid-off steelworkers I met in Kentucky told me he found a good job in Columbus, Ohio, but he was doing the 120-mile commute every week because he didn’t want to move. “People from Kentucky, they want to be in Kentucky,” another said to me. “That’s something that’s just in our DNA.” I understand that feeling. People’s identities and their support systems—extended family, friends, church congregations, and so on—are rooted in where they come from. This is painful, gut-wrenching stuff. And no politician wants to be the one to say it. I believe that after we do everything we can to help create new jobs in distressed small towns and rural areas, we also have to give people the skills and tools they need to seek opportunities beyond their hometowns—and provide a strong safety net both for those who leave and those who stay. Whether it’s updating policies to meet the changing conditions of America’s workers, or encouraging greater mobility, the bottom line is the same: we can’t spend all our time staving off decline. We need to create new opportunities, not just slow down the loss of old ones. Rather than keep trying to re-create the economy of the past, we should focus on making the jobs people actually have better and figure out how to create the good jobs of the future in fields such as clean energy, health care, construction, computer coding, and advanced manufacturing. Republicans will always be better at defending yesterday. Democrats have to be in the future business. The good news is we have
Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
Happiness and relationships One of the strongest predictors (and not only correlates!) of happiness is social relationships. In fact, to be happy we need to spend six to seven hours a day in social settings, and up to nine if our jobs are stressful (Rath & Harter, 2010). This applies regardless of whether we are extraverted or introverted (Froh et al., 2007). In their study of exceptionally happy people (10 per cent of 222 college students), Diener and Seligman (2002) found only one main difference between the happiest and the rest of the students. The very happy people had a rich and fulfilling social life. They spent the least time alone, had good relationships with friends and had a current romantic partner. They did not have fewer negative and more positive events, nor differed on amount of sleep, TV watching, exercise, smoking, drinking, etc. Perhaps not surprisingly, frequency of sexual intercourse is strongly associated with happiness. Marriage usually leads to a rapid increase in SWB, which, unfortunately, comes down after a while. However, it does not return to the starting point, but stays at a higher level than before marriage. So marriage changes the set point of SWB, although this change is not large. However, if your relationship is on the rocks, you are likely to be less happy than people who are unmarried or divorced.
Ilona Boniwell (Positive Psychology in a Nutshell: the Science of Happiness (UK Higher Education OUP Psychology Psychology))
Domains of Human Concerns: Common Types of Possibilities For Action 1. BODY: exercise, medical checkups, traveling to an appointment. 2. PLAY or AESTHETICS: taking a vacation, going to the movies, going to an art museum, painting, putting a puzzle together. 3. SOCIABILITY: inviting a new person into a conversation, meeting an old friend, declaring a person trustworthy or untrustworthy. 4. FAMILY: getting married, sending children to college. 5. WORK: finishing a report, writing a letter. 6. EDUCATION: enrolling in a class, reading a book. 7. CAREER: choosing a major in college, getting a new job. 8. MONEY or PRUDENCE: investing money, bargaining for a new salary, buying health insurance. 9. MEMBERSHIP: joining a professional organization, becoming a citizen of a new country, founding a new club. 10. WORLD: working in a political campaign, visiting another country or culture.        11. DIGNITY: declaring pride in your work, declaring that your work is significant or insignificant, declaring standards of action for yourself to live up to.        12. SITUATION: declaring that your future is good or not good, declaring that you have more possibilities than you have been seeing, declaring that you have fewer possibilities in life than you supposed, discussing your possibilities with other persons. 13. SPIRITUALITY: reflecting on the facticity of life, going to church, philosophical discussions with others.
Fernando Flores (Conversations For Action and Collected Essays: Instilling a Culture of Commitment in Working Relationships)
2012 the Pentagon said it wanted to buy fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighter planes than had been planned—the single-engine fighter has been plagued by cost overruns and technical glitches—but the contractors and their friends on Capitol Hill vowed to fight the decision.
Robert B. Reich (Beyond Outrage (Expanded Edition): What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix it)
Harvard professor Robert Putnam’s ground-breaking book Bowling Alone stirred the conscience of America in 2001, when he showed that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, socialize with friends less frequently, and even get together with our families less often. 6 Latchkey kids return to empty homes each day from school, and our electronic culture entertains us without meaningful social interaction. These experiences, among others, contribute to the growing alienation that we sense.
David Timms (Living the Lord's Prayer)