“
I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don't read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent solider is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
“
In whatever kind of a “race” life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
“
Columbine had one of the best academic reputations in the state; 80 percent of graduates headed on to degree programs. College dominated the conversation now: big fat acceptance packets and paper-thin rejection envelopes; last-minute campus visits to narrow down the finalists. It was time to commit to a university, write the deposit check, and start selecting first-semester classes. High school was essentially over.
”
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Dave Cullen (Columbine)
“
A man who is a man goes on until he can go no further—and then goes twice as far.
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”
Steve Sheinkin (Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Newbery Honor Book & National Book Award Finalist))
“
So, as the old woman held the new baby tenderly, she rained tears of sorrow and joy upon it, and the baby’s first bath was the unusual mixture of love and loss. For
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”
Grace Lin (When the Sea Turned to Silver (National Book Award Finalist))
“
Greenness hangs, drips and sways from every branch and twig and frond in the surging luxuriance of July.
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Anita Desai (Fasting, Feasting: A Novel by the Booker Prize Finalist Author of Rosarita)
“
I looked like a finalist in a competition to find Britain’s least convincing flower child.
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”
Elton John (Me)
“
Most exciting email I have received!
"Congratulations! You are a finalist in the 2020 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. We will be announcing the winner, runners-up, and honorable mentions very soon, but first I am reaching out to each finalist to applaud your work and clarify details with regard to publication rights."
Stay tuned!
”
”
Caroline Walken
“
A tearful queen was being led
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”
Grace Lin (When the Sea Turned to Silver (National Book Award Finalist))
“
As they rode, the empty sky and snow melted into each other, making Pinmei feel as if they were sailing on a vast white sea. When
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”
Grace Lin (When the Sea Turned to Silver (National Book Award Finalist))
“
At some time, every Negro in the armed services asks himself what he is getting for the supreme sacrifice he is called upon to make.” —Pittsburgh Courier, November 9, 1944
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Steve Sheinkin (The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights (National Book Award Finalist))
“
Rachel Hauck is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author. She is a RITA and Christy Award finalist. The Wedding Dress was named Inspirational Novel of the Year by Romantic Times. Rachel lives in central Florida with her husband and two pets and writes from her ivory
”
”
Rachel Hauck (The Wedding Dress (The Wedding Collection))
“
Of course I still love my grandma even after all the awful stuff she did to me, which is scary that you can love someone who is not nice. I guess that is what getting better will do to a person: make you forgive people who have been mean to you.
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Jack Gantos (Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key: (National Book Award Finalist))
“
The fact that these men were wearing the uniform of the United States Navy made no difference.
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Steve Sheinkin (The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights (National Book Award Finalist))
“
Proud to announce that Esfir Is Alive has been selected as a 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Finalist in Young Adult Fiction.
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Andrea Simon
“
RITA finalist Colleen Coble is the author of several bestselling romantic suspense series, including the Mercy Falls series, the Lonestar
”
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Colleen Coble (Safe in His Arms (Under Texas Stars, #2))
“
The finalists were Andrew Thomas and Jadran Petrovich, neither one of whom would set a record by winning. We live in a world where exceptional women have to
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”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Carrie Soto Is Back)
“
When I was in the sixth grade I was a finalist in our school spelling bee. It was me against Raj Patel. I misspelled, in front of the entire school, the word “failure.
”
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Rainn Wilson (The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy)
“
My father had died, and very swiftly too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was seventy-nine. I am sixty-one. In whatever kind of 'race' life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.
”
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Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
“
The finalists were Andrew Thomas and Jadran Petrovich, neither one of whom would set a record by winning. We live in a world where exceptional women have to sit around waiting for mediocre men.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Carrie Soto Is Back)
“
CONGRATULATIONS DL Havlin! Your entry, "There are No Lights in Naples", an unpublished short fiction - flash fiction genre category, is a finalist for the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards competition!
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”
Jeanelle Cooley
“
There is an undeniably daffy aspect to Sherman. Calling him a motormouth understates the case: he was a veritable volcano of verbiage, as borne out by a mountain of letters, memoranda, and other official papers, not to mention the uniformly gabby impression he left among contemporaries. If there were a contest for who spoke the most words in a lifetime, Sherman would have been a finalist—he lived a long time and slept very little; otherwise he was talking. He said exactly what was on his mind at that instant, until his quicksilver brain turned to an entirely different matter, then to a third, and perhaps to a fourth, then back to the first—unceasing—spewing orders, analysis, advice, and anecdotes in a random pattern that often left listeners stunned and amazed. One prominent Civil War historian, Gary Gallagher, described Sherman as lacking cognitive filters. It all came out. And this is a real problem in trying to resurrect the man’s nature.
”
”
Robert L. O'Connell (Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman)
“
Translation means that a translator has picked one word above all the others: one winner, with all the finalists gone from the page forever. Translation always calls upon the translator to make a judgement call, and what the reader hears, then, is a judgement
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Aviya Kushner (The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible)
“
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, by Matt Ridley The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker, Harvard Professor and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Abundance: The Future is Better Than you Think, by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
”
”
Douglas E. Richards (Seeker)
Grace Lin (When the Sea Turned to Silver (National Book Award Finalist))
Grace Lin (When the Sea Turned to Silver (National Book Award Finalist))
“
Not a beast. Not an immortal. Only a human.
”
”
Grace Lin (When the Sea Turned to Silver (National Book Award Finalist))
“
pooped all over the carpet, eaten the slippers, and attacked the mailman, and was now being sent to obedience school.
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”
Jack Gantos (Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key: (National Book Award Finalist))
Grace Lin (When the Sea Turned to Silver (National Book Award Finalist))
“
Time is not a ladder one ascends into the future but a ladder one descends into the past
”
”
Anita Desai (The Zigzag Way)
“
Sam: There's no collisions out there, Hally. Nobody trips or stumbles or bumps into anybody else. That's what that moment is all about. To be one of those finalists on that dance floor is like... like being in a dream about a world in which accidents don't happen.
Hally: [Genuinely moved by Sam's image.] Jesus, Sam! That's beautiful!
Willie: [Can endure waiting no longer.] I'm starting! [Willie dances while Sam talks.]
Sam: Of course it is. That's what I've been trying to say to you all afternoon. And it's beautiful because that is what we want life to be like. But instead, like you said, Hally, we're bumping into each other all the time. Look at the three of us this afternoon. I've bumped into Willie, the two of us have bumped into you, you've bumped into your mother, she bumping into your Dad... None of us knows the steps and there's no music playing. And it doesn't stop with us. The whole world is doing it all the time. Open a newspaper and what do you read? America has bumped into Russia, England is bumping into India, rich man bumps into poor man. Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right? ... Learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it?
Hally: [Deep and sincere admiration of the man.] You've got a vision, Sam!
Sam: Not just me. What I'm saying to you is that everybody's got it. That's why there's only standing room left for the Centenery Hall in two weeks' time. For as long as the music lasts, we are going to see six couples get it right, the way we want life to be.
Hally: But is that the best we can do, Sam... watch six finalists dreaming about the way it should be?
Sam: I don't know. But it starts with that. Without the dream we won't know what we're going for. And anyway I reckon there are a few people who have got past just dreaming about it and are trying for something real.
”
”
Athol Fugard (Master Harold...and the Boys)
“
Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.
”
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Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (National Book Award Finalist))
“
Now, according to Business Week, 94 percent of U.S. corporations ask for electronic resumes. They use software to sift through them, picking out a selection of "finalists" for human managers to consider. What does the software look for? That's what we have to figure out. Some pick out certain words-MBA, Harvard, Excel, fluent Mandarin. Others look for more sophisticated combinations. Plenty of consultants are on call to sell us inside tips. The point is that when we want to be found, whether we're looking for money or love, we must make ourselves intelligible to machines. We need good page rank. We must fit ourselves to algorithms.
”
”
Stephen Baker (The Numerati)
“
Where one might expect to find the greatest equality— among children born to the same parents and raised in the same home— there are nevertheless striking inequalities, not only in the United States but also in countries on the other side of the Atlantic, as shown by studies going back as far as the nineteenth century.2 A specific example of a general pattern was shown by a study of National Merit Scholarship finalists. More than half the finalists were the first-born child in their family, whether in two child, three-child, four-child or five-child families. Even in five-child families, the first-born was the National Merit Scholarship finalist more often than the four other siblings combined.3
”
”
Thomas Sowell (Charter Schools and Their Enemies)
“
These nigilistki, the nihilist women of the 1860s, were deadly serious about living their convictions. They wore their hair short and their dresses dark and plain because they didn’t want to be decorative objects. They studied and developed their minds and personalities and demanded respect from their male peers—often successfully. Preaching total freedom in love and sex, they wed their radical brethren in sham marriages to escape their parents’ control.12
”
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Julia Ioffe (Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy – A National Book Award Finalist: Women's Stories of Idealism, War, and Sacrifice)
“
It’s more an affliction than the expression of any high-minded ideals. I watch Mark Bittman enjoy a perfectly and authentically prepared Spanish paella on TV, after which he demonstrates how his viewers can do it at home—in an aluminum saucepot—and I want to shove my head through the glass of my TV screen and take a giant bite out of his skull, scoop the soft, slurry-like material inside into my paw, and then throw it right back into his smug, fireplug face. The notion that anyone would believe Catherine Zeta-Jones as an obsessively perfectionist chef (particularly given the ridiculously clumsy, 1980s-looking food) in the wretched film No Reservations made me want to vomit blood, hunt down the producers, and kick them slowly to death. (Worse was the fact that the damn thing was a remake of the unusually excellent German chef flick Mostly Martha.) On Hell’s Kitchen, when Gordon Ramsay pretends that the criminally inept, desperately unhealthy gland case in front of him could ever stand a chance in hell of surviving even three minutes as “executive chef of the new Gordon Ramsay restaurant” (the putative grand prize for the finalist), I’m inexplicably actually angry on Gordon’s behalf. And he’s the one making a quarter-million dollars an episode—very contentedly, too, from all reports. The eye-searing “Kwanzaa Cake” clip on YouTube, of Sandra Lee doing things with store-bought angel food cake, canned frosting, and corn nuts, instead of being simply the unintentionally hilarious viral video it should be, makes me mad for all humanity. I. Just. Can’t. Help it. I wish, really, that I was so far up my own ass that I could somehow believe myself to be some kind of standard-bearer for good eating—or ombudsman, or even the deliverer of thoughtful critique. But that wouldn’t be true, would it? I’m just a cranky old fuck with what, I guess, could charitably be called “issues.” And I’m still angry. But eat the fucking fish on Monday already. Okay? I wrote those immortal words about not going for the Monday fish, the ones that’ll haunt me long after I’m crumbs in a can, knowing nothing other than New York City. And times, to be fair, have changed. Okay, I still would advise against the fish special at T.G.I. McSweenigan’s, “A Place for Beer,” on a Monday. Fresh fish, I’d guess, is probably not the main thrust of their business. But things are different now for chefs and cooks. The odds are better than ever that the guy slinging fish and chips back there in the kitchen actually gives a shit about what he’s doing. And even if he doesn’t, these days he has to figure that you might actually know the difference. Back when I wrote the book that changed my life, I was angriest—like a lot of chefs and cooks of my middling abilities—at my customers. They’ve changed. I’ve changed. About them, I’m not angry anymore.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook)
“
So this is what a black pepper pork bun really tastes like!"
The bun is flaky, and crispy, like a piecrust!
The juicy pork filling is seasoned with just enough black pepper to give it a good bite! All the minced green onion mixed in with it makes it even better!
The whole thing is overflowing with the mellow and meaty umami goodness of ground pork!
"IT'S SOOO GOOD!"
"Look! There it is! That's Soma Yukihira's booth!"
"Really? Interesting! Wasn't he one of the finalists in this year's Classic?"
"Hmm. This meat filling is way too weak as is. Juiciness, richness, umami... it's way short on all of those.
The bun itself is probably good enough. Maybe I should up the ratio of rib meat..."
"Yo. How're the test recipes going?
There are a whole lot of other exclusively Chinese seasonings you can try, y'know. Oyster sauce, Xo spicy seafood sauce and a whole mountain of spices.
I did a Dongpo Pork Bowl for the Classic, so I know all too well how deep that particular subject gets."
"Oh, right! Now I see it. Chinese "Ma-La" flavor is just another combination of spices!
Everything I learned about spices from my curry dish for the Prelims...
... I should be able to use in this too!
Thanks, Nikumi!"
"H-hey! Don't grab my hand like that!"
How about this?
Fresh-ground black pepper...
... and some mellow, fragrant sesame oil!
When you're making anything Chinese, you can't forget the five-spice powder. I'll also knead in some star anise to enhance the flavor of the pork!
Then add sliced green onions and finish by wrapping the mixture in the dough
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 15 [Shokugeki no Souma 15] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #15))
“
About a month before the handover of sovereignty, Joshua Paul, a young CPA staffer, typed up a joke on his computer and sent it to a few friends in the palace. The recipients forwarded it to their friends, who did the same thing. In less than a week, almost everyone in the Green Zone had seen it. QUESTION: Why did the Iraqi chicken cross the road? CPA: The fact that the chicken crossed the road shows that decision-making authority has switched to the chicken in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on, the chicken is responsible for its own decisions. HALLIBURTON: We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost $326,004. SHIITE CLERIC MOQTADA AL-SADR: The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed. U.S. ARMY MILITARY POLICE: We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken-rights violations. PESHMERGA: The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in the future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill. AL-JAZEERA: The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens. CIA: We cannot confirm or deny any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident. TRANSLATORS: Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.
”
”
Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (National Book Award Finalist))
“
Sandeep Jauhar is the bestselling author of three acclaimed books, Intern, Doctored, and Heart: A History, which was named a best book of 2018 by Science Friday, The Mail on Sunday, and the Los Angeles Public Library, and was a PBS NewsHour / New York Times book club pick; it was also a finalist for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize. A practicing physician, Jauhar writes regularly for the opinion section of The New York Times. His TED Talk on the emotional heart was one of the ten most watched of 2019. To learn more about his work, follow him on Twitter: @sjauhar. You can sign up for email updates here.
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”
Sandeep Jauhar (My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's)
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Her novel The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks was a Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, a finalist for the National Book Award, and winner of a Cybils Award for Best Young Adult Novel.
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E. Lockhart (We Were Liars)
“
Most agents and editors, if they are speaking off the cuff, will admit that literary writing is defined as the kind that does not sell. The finalists for the National Book Award each year routinely sell between 2000 − 5000 copies, and that's it.
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James Scott Bell (How to Make a Living As a Writer)
“
Good call dropping the mystery-ingredient round." She caught Sylvie's questioning glance. "Finalist last year with an unknown allergy to turmeric. Violent gastro effects. Ever seen the pie scene in Stand By Me?"
Sylvie winced.
"We had to reshoot the whole day. I was scrubbing neon yellow out of my ears for a week." Mariana smoothed back a strand of salt-and-pepper hair. "We looked like we'd banded together to massacre Big Bird."
Only this woman could make that anecdote sound almost classy.
”
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Lucy Parker (Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1))
“
So long as there is a finalistic conception of life and death, the soul, the afterlife and immortality are given, like the world, and there is no cause to believe in them. Do you believe in reality [le réel]? No, of course not: it exists but we do not believe in it. It is like God. Do you believe in God? No, of course not: God exists, but I don't believe in him. To wager that God exists and to believe in him - or that he doesn't exist and not to believe in him - is of such banality as almost to make us doubt the question, while the two propositions 'God exists, but I don't believe in him' and 'God doesn't exist, but I believe in him' both, paradoxically, suggest that, if God exists, there is no need to believe in him, but that if he does not exist, there is every need to believe in him. If something does not exist, you have to believe in it. Belief is not the reflection of existence, it is there for existence, just as language is not the reflection of meaning, it is there in place of meaning.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (The Illusion of the End)
“
author of the national bestseller Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes, which won the 2013 Toronto Book Award and was a finalist for the CBC’s Canada Reads and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-fiction. His second book, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (to Everyone), was hailed as “essential reading” by the Globe and Mail and “brilliant” by The Walrus. A finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction as well as the Trillium Book Award, Brown won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Al-Solaylee, a two-time finalist for a National Magazine Award, won a gold medal for his column in Sharp in 2019.
”
”
Kamal Al-Solaylee (Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From)
“
The first book of David’s Sci-Fi Fantasy series Tales of Nevaeh. Born to Magic, is an international Amazon genre Best Seller, and a Kindle Review of Books finalist for Fantasy Book of the year. 75,000 copies have been download to date.
”
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David Wind (Born to Magic (Tales of Nevaeh, #1))
“
The first upside of feeling like an impostor is that it can motivate us to work harder. It’s probably not helpful when we’re deciding whether to start a race, but once we’ve stepped up to the starting line, it gives us the drive to keep running to the end so that we can earn our place among the finalists.
”
”
Adam M. Grant (Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know)
“
Let’s assume the match doesn’t happen. Fischer is disqualified. Who will be the challenger in his place?”
Krogius understood.
“Petrosian. The second finalist of the Candidates Matches.”
“Do you think I want to play with Petrosian for the third time, in Moscow, for a few thousand rubles? I’m not just talking about the prize. Who will care about this match?”
Spassky cared not just about the money. He wanted to go down in history. Krogius believed it was a risky game.
“Fischer will realize how much you want this match. Euwe isn’t dumb either. They will think they can get away with a lot with you.”
“And Fischer doesn’t want that money? Not to mention the title of world champion. And Edmondson? Do you think he doesn’t dream of Fischer winning the crown for America? And Max Euwe? This match is a gold mine for FIDE and personally for him. They will push the boundaries, but they won’t cross them because everyone will lose in that case.”
“Only our authorities would be pleased if Fischer didn’t play the match.”
Finally, Krogius understood what the game was about.
”
”
Dariusz Radziejewski (Game of Chess Thrones: A Tale of Great Masters and the Greatest Game Invented by Humanity)
“
The attitude of the black camp’s commander, Lieutenant Commander Daniel Armstrong, was typical of the times. He had his men decorate the base with murals of black naval heroes throughout history, from Dorie Miller all the way back to black sailors who served with Revolutionary captain John Paul Jones. The murals were Armstrong’s way of honoring black sailors. But this same officer wouldn’t allow black recruits at Great Lakes to compete with whites for spots in special schools that trained sailors to be electricians, radiomen, and mechanics. He didn’t think they were smart enough, so he didn’t even let them try.
”
”
Steve Sheinkin (The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights (National Book Award Finalist))