“
Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.
”
”
Colette Gauthier-Villars
“
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)
“
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
“
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)
“
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
“
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)
“
My acquaintances are many, my friends are few; those who really know me fewer still.
”
”
Truman Capote (In Cold Blood)
“
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
“
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
“
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)
“
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)
“
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 S. 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)
“
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)
“
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
“
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)
“
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)
“
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)
“
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)
“
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)
“
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)
“
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)
“
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)
“
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The company has also used its object recognition technology to analyze the characteristics of 160,000 people in the US who posted photos of cats or dogs. The public study found that “cat people” are more likely to enjoy sci-fi films, less likely to be in a relationship and have 26 fewer friends on average than “dog people”.
”
”
Ben Samuel (Merge | The closing gap between technology and us)
“
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)
“
1 = often 2 = occasionally 3 = rarely 1. My family communicated and listened. _____ 2. My family affirmed and supported its members. _____ 3. My family taught respect for others. _____ 4. My family developed in me a sense of trust. _____ 5. My family had time for play and humor. _____ 6. My family exhibited a sense of shared responsibility. _____ 7. My family taught me right and wrong. _____ 8. My family observed rituals and traditions. _____ 9. My family had an equal balance of interaction among its members. _____ 10. My family shared a sense of values. _____ 11. My family respected privacy. _____ 12. My family valued service to others. _____ 13. My family fostered honest conversation. _____ 14. My family shared leisure time. _____ 15. My family admitted problems and sought help. _____ 16. My family appreciated children. _____ 17. My family had many outside friends. _____ 18. My parents liked each other. _____ Now add up your score. The higher your score, the more that was missing. The more that was missing from your family, the more likely it was dysfunctional. You might come from a dysfunctional family, but you may have still have experienced some of the healthy behaviors above. Just as healthy families are not healthy all the time, dysfunctional families are not dysfunctional all the time. Families are dysfunctional by degree. Also, the more dysfunctional the family, the fewer of the child’s needs are met. Behaviors necessary for a healthy childhood are missing in a dysfunctional family. In fact, in most dysfunctional families, childhood is missing.
”
”
Robert J. Ackerman (Silent Sons: A Book for and About Men)
“
What these results mean is that when price is not a part of the exchange, we become less selfish maximizers and start caring more about the welfare of others. We saw this demonstrated by the fact that when the price decreased to zero, customers restrained themselves and took far fewer units. So while the product (candy, in our case) was more attractive to more people, it also made people think more about others, care about them, and sacrifice their own desires for the benefit of others. As it turns out, we are caring social animals, but when the rules of the game involve money, this tendency is muted.
THE RESULTS FROM our experiment also help explain one of the great mysteries in life: why, when we are dining out with friends, taking the last olive feels like such a big deal.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
As participants aged, there was a decline in the number of peripheral partners . . . but great stability in the number of close social partners into late life,” English and Carstensen found. However, the outer and middle circle friends didn’t quietly creep offstage in act three. “They were actively eliminated,” the researchers say. Older people have fewer total friends not because of circumstance but because they’ve begun a process of “active pruning, that is, removing peripheral partners with whom interactions are less emotionally meaningful.
”
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Daniel H. Pink (When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing)
“
Along came Aldo Leopold. He was a U.S. Forest Service ranger who initially supported Pinchot’s use-oriented management of forests. A seasoned hunter, he had long believed that good game management required killing predators that preyed on deer. Then one afternoon, hunting with a friend on a mountain in New Mexico, he spied a mother wolf and her cubs, took aim, and shot them. “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes,” Leopold wrote. “There was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch. I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean a hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the fierce green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” The wolf’s fierce green fire inspired Leopold to extend ethics beyond the boundaries of the human family to include the larger community of animals, plants, and even soil and water. He enshrined this natural code of conduct in his famous land ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Carol inscribed Leopold’s land ethic in her journal when she was a teenager and has steadfastly followed it throughout her life. She believes that it changes our role from conqueror of the earth to plain member and citizen of it. Leopold led the effort to create the first federally protected wilderness area: a half million acres of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico was designated as wilderness in 1924. Leopold had laid the groundwork for a national wilderness system, interconnected oases of biodiversity permanently protected from human development.
”
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Will Harlan (Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island)
“
In this day, when uncommitted relationships are epidemic, where fewer and fewer Christian men seek to be a husband and provider, especially the older and more accustomed they become to single life, Best Friend Habits have gone off the charts. If it’s not already called a disorder it probably should be.
”
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Susan Rohrer (Is God saying He's the One?: Hearing from Heaven about That Man in Your Life)
“
The world is a nasty, complicated place full of riddles and shadows. Chaos lives up to its name. It's wreaked havoc on my life. It's made everything miserable. There's no defense against pure chaos. There's nothing for it, except to slowly turn up the light on its shadows. Facts are few, friends are fewer... And rarely worth the effort.
”
”
Nathan Edmondson (Black Widow #12)
“
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))
“
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))
“
A RECIPE FOR BADASS CONFIDENCE
-I will always be able to get a job if I need one.
-Billions of people are living far less expensive lives than mine, and yet many millions of these people are surely happier than me. What is their secret?
-While I don’t control the entire world, I am in control of my response to everything I experience. And my response is the part that determines my happiness.
-I am in control of my cost of living. Everything I do is a decision, and it’s made by me, not the world around me.
-I can always learn new things. With proper dedication, I can gain any skill that I want or need. This means when I depend on other people, it’s just a positive choice we are both making. When others depend on me, they are acknowledging my strength and I will choose to pass some of it on to them.
-My kids will be just fine. Just by giving them my love and support and being honest with them. They don’t need prestige and they don’t need the support of multimillionaire parents to prosper in life. Nobody does.
-Exotic Travel (just like any other luxury) is not a necessity for a happy life. At a moment’s notice, I could choose to spend the rest of my life within driving distance of this spot, and still lead a completely blissful existence forever.
-But on the other side of that same coin, I can always move. My current location is a mixture of chance and choice, but people move all the time and their lives are usually better for it.
-I can always make friends. No matter where you drop me in the world, I could build up a loving support network of warm and caring relationships. Because people are the same everywhere – we all just want to be valued and given some warm attention.
-I know that my real goal in life is happiness, and I will always have the right tools available to me to maximize my happiness. They’re everywhere, and they are free.
-Millions of others have achieved this before me, with fewer advantages and in harder times. I have more than enough personal power to get this shit done, in spades.
”
”
Pete Adeney (Mr. Money Mustache)
“
I feel, enjoy and prefer the genuine click on things for the Like by the real friends, and fans even the fewer than the purchasing thousands, likes
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Ehsan Sehgal
“
Righteous man has no friends and needs fewer.
”
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Clayton Lindemuth (The Mundane Work of Vengeance (Baer Creighton, #2))
“
An African American student with a 4.0 has, on average, 1.5 fewer friends of the same ethnicity than a white student with the same GPA. A Latino student with a 4.0 GPA is the least popular of all Latino students. In contrast, the higher the white students’ grades, the more popular they are, especially in public schools.17
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Leslie S. Kaplan (Culture Re-Boot: Reinvigorating School Culture to Improve Student Outcomes)
“
manipulations of those who control the pipes, and their track record for enlightened despotism isn’t good. We’re anxious, overstressed, and hunched over our laptops. Friendship is dwindling—people report fewer close friends than they did thirty years ago, and 15% of men and 10% of women have no close friends at all.
”
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Scott Galloway (Adrift: America in 100 Charts)
“
Studies find that as people grow older they interact with fewer people and concentrate more on spending time with family and established friends
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Atul Gawande)
“
I’ve been in enough battles to know when I’ve found one I can’t win.”
“So you flee?” Evi said. “Like a coward?”
“The coward,” Dalinar said, gathering his maps, “is the man who delays a necessary retreat for fear of being mocked. We’ll go back to Kholinar after I deal with the rebellion at the Rift. I’ll promise you at least a year there.”
“Really?” Evi said, standing up.
“Yes. You’ve won this fight.”
“I … don’t feel like I’ve won.…”
“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.
”
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Brandon Sanderson (Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3))
“
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?
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Brandon Turner (The Book on Managing Rental Properties: Find, Screen, and Manage Tenants With Fewer Headaches and Maximum Profits)
“
One way to find out if the person you are speaking with is really a landlord is by first calling and asking, “Do you have any vacancies?” If it’s a friend, they will quickly be thrown off, whereas a landlord will simply answer your question.
”
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Brandon Turner (The Book on Managing Rental Properties: Find, Screen, and Manage Tenants With Fewer Headaches and Maximum Profits)
“
Wealth only has meaning if it is either enjoyed or invested,” she returned. “A miser is merely a pauper with fewer friends.
”
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Anthony Ryan (The Waking Fire (The Draconis Memoria, #1))
“
But as you get older, and realize who you are and what you like, you have fewer friends and those friendships are more meaningful. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a friend that I connected with as much as I did with Holly.
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Freida McFadden (Baby City)
“
Since then I've shared this insight
with those whose paths I've crossed:
When we unite and help each other,
fewer suffer loss.
Farewell, farewell,
my travel friend, whether great or small.
Remember always these five words:
We matter one and all.
”
”
Kirsten L. Marie (Rhyme of the Aged Hummingbird (Nature's Li'l Samaritans, Book Two))
“
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.
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Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
“
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
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Joseph Henrich (The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous)
“
Taking this class is a very significant act, and it’s not just about you. You’re
also learning physical anthropology for all those friends, coworkers, family members, children, and partners who don’t have this opportunity. For two reasons,
your education here is vitally important for others. First, as part of anthropology,
physical anthropology will help you learn more about who you are as a biological being—as an animal, a vertebrate, a mammal, a primate, and as a human being, just for starters. Second, physical anthropology is a science. As citizens of our
contemporary world, we are absolutely dependent upon science and technology
for our survival, and yet, the rate of scientific literacy is appallingly low. Said
another way, many people lack a true understanding of the most basic scientific
concepts and methods. Still fewer could talk about evolution, natural selection,
and adaptation with any degree of accuracy. Your presence in a physical anthropology class can help change that.
”
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Mary K. Sandford (Classic and Contemporary Readings in Physical Anthropology)
“
Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood.
”
”
Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1))
“
You’ve seen a lot of death, then?”
Logen winced. In his youth, he would have loved to answer that very question. He could have bragged, and boasted, and listed the actions he’d been in, the Named Men he’d killed. He couldn’t say now when the pride had dried up. It had happened slowly. As the wars became bloodier, as the causes became excuses, as the friends went back to the mud, one by one. Logen rubbed at his ear, felt the big notch that Tul Duru’s sword had made, long ago. He could have stayed silent. But for some reason, he felt the need to be honest.
“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.”
And that was all. Logen breathed a deep, ragged sigh and stared out at the lake. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the man beside him, didn’t want to see the expression on his face. Who wants to learn he’s keeping company with the Bloody-Nine? A man who’s wrought more death than the plague, and with less regret. They could never be friends now, not with all those corpses between them.
Then he felt Quai’s hand clap him on the shoulder. “Well, there it is,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, “but you saved me, and I’m right grateful for it!”
“I’ve saved a man this year, and only killed four. I’m born again.” And they both laughed for a while, and it felt good.
”
”
Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1))
“
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.18
”
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Michael Scott Horton (Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World)
“
The 49-year-old Bryant, who resembles a cereal box character himself with his wide eyes, toothy smile, and elongated chin, blames Kellogg's financial woes on the changing tastes of fickle breakfast eaters. The company flourished in the Baby Boom era, when fathers went off to work and mothers stayed behind to tend to three or four children. For these women, cereal must have been heaven-sent. They could pour everybody a bowl of Corn Flakes, leave a milk carton out, and be done with breakfast, except for the dishes. Now Americans have fewer children. Both parents often work and no longer have time to linger over a serving of Apple Jacks and the local newspaper. Many people grab something on the way to work and devour it in their cars or at their desks while checking e-mail. “For a while, breakfast cereal was convenience food,” says Abigail Carroll, author of Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal. “But convenience is relative. It's more convenient to grab a breakfast bar, yogurt, a piece of fruit, or a breakfast sandwich at some fast-food place than to eat a bowl of breakfast cereal.” People who still eat breakfast at home favor more laborintensive breakfasts, according to a recent Nielsen survey. They spend more time at the stove, preparing oatmeal (sales were up 3.5 percent in the first half of 2014) and eggs (up 7 percent last year). They're putting their toasters to work, heating up frozen waffles, French toast, and pancakes (sales of these foods were up 4.5 percent in the last five years). This last inclination should be helping Kellogg: It owns Eggo frozen waffles. But Eggo sales weren't enough to offset its slumping U.S. cereal numbers. “There has just been a massive fragmentation of the breakfast occasion,” says Julian Mellentin, director of food analysis at research firm New Nutrition Business. And Kellogg faces a more ominous trend at the table. As Americans become more healthconscious, they're shying away from the kind of processed food baked in Kellogg's four U.S. cereal factories. They tend to be averse to carbohydrates, which is a problem for a company selling cereal derived from corn, oats, and rice. “They basically have a carb-heavy portfolio,” says Robert Dickerson, senior packagedfood analyst at Consumer Edge. If such discerning shoppers still eat cereal, they prefer the gluten-free kind, sales of which are up 22 percent, according to Nielsen. There's also growing suspicion of packagedfood companies that fill their products with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). For these breakfast eaters, Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam may seem less like friendly childhood avatars and more like malevolent sugar traffickers.
”
”
Anonymous
“
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)
“
The longer a person attends church, the fewer evangelistic discussions they engage in with family members and friends. Fewer presentations of the life-changing plan of salvation are given, and fewer invitations to events that attractively present the message of Christ are offered, mostly because Christ-followers have fewer friends outside the faith to whom to offer them.
”
”
Bill Hybels (Just Walk Across the Room: Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith)
“
Thus, one of the awful things I can admit about myself is that the two years I spent with Jennifer live in my mind mostly as a series of frantic, breathy memories. Clawing hands tugging off clothes, heartbeat thumping in my ears, fingernails digging down my back. salty tastes lingering in my mouth. It's biology. It's hormones. As time passes I can recall fewer and fewer of our conversations and I couldn't give you the details of our five most-fun dates (though I have a fairly graphic vision of how each of them ended).
If upon hearing this you pump your fist and wink knowingly, you can kiss my ass. She was a good friend to me. She put up with my bullshit and at times not even I can put up with my bullshit. But all that is gone and what is left is a big, black hole where the sex used to be.
”
”
David Wong (John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1))
“
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)