Finesse Quotes

You have no finesse,” a gambler at the Silver Garter once said to him. “No technique.” “Sure I do,” Kaz had responded. “I practice the art of ‘pull his shirt over his head and punch till you see blood.

There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley

And when it comes to questioning people, I have a lot more finesse than High King Let’s Beat The Shit Out Of Them Until They Answer Us. The nonviolent art of interrogating someone is totally lost on Kip. (Syn)

And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.

I do so think well of a man who dies with finesse.

You just pounded yourself into me with all the finesse of a sweaty celibate breaking fast with a rented sex droid.

I thought you specialised in dishonest finesse?" "I also do a brisk trade in putting knives to peoples' throats and shouting at them," said Locke.

Generally with women, I have the finesse and mental fortitude of a rhinoceros charging through a watering hole.

Getting money from my dad is a finesse job. Luckily, I have finesse coming out of my arse. I barged into his study without knocking, marched across to his desk, and held out my hand. “Give me twenty pounds,” I snapped. “I need twenty pounds. Give it to me. Now!

Lack finesse? I’m going to lack his finesse all over the fucking squad room. I covered my mouth even though I hadn’t sworn out loud. They might have a point.

One must reach out and try to grasp this astonishing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated.

...ending a book with a sequel in such a way that the reader still has faith in the characters and in the writer. That's finesse.

I have motherfucking finesse. Just because I speak my mind means I'm not tactful?

I've been hit on plenty of times, mostly by men with little finesse who thought what was between their legs made up for what they lacked between their ears.

The statesmen leaving the Berlin Congress smugly convinced themselves that the people of Bosnia would benefit from the diplomatic finesse of having the Western Austro-Hungarians replace the Eastern Ottomans. What they had actually done, however, was quite the opposite, sowing seeds of resentment that would eventually destroy the status quo of the entire Western world.

Finesse, mas ass. I'm a warrior, not your child bride.

I'd sneer and tell him he's got the cerebral finesse of an amoeba and delight in his squint of confusion.

She was simple, not being able to adorn herself, but she was unhappy, as one out of her class; for women belong to no caste, no race, their grace, their beauty and their charm serving them in place of birth and family. Their inborn finesse, their instinctive elegance, their suppleness of wit, are their only aristocracy, making some daughters of the people the equal of great ladies.

I confide in everyone. I have no restricted private self, reserved specifically for certain trusted special people. I trust and mistrust anyone. I have traveled a full circle. But this time, on returning to zero again, I am able to act out the mistake more adeptly. I am on my way to becoming a very skilled loser. A specialist, a loser to end all losers. A flair for failing. I do it with style and finesse.

He likes to use his wit and verbal finesse to confuse others and win arguments. Although he can argue successfully that white is black and straight is crooked, you walk away with the feeling that he's won the argument not because he is correct but because you can't outwit him.

la finesse du paysan l'emporta sur la finesse de l'homme riche, qui n'en a pas besoin pour vivre (partie 1, ch. 5)

You’re a modern Romeo and Juliet…if Romeo had political finesse and fangs and Juliet was capable of snapping someone’s head off.

frankly, understandable, but what are you going to do with it? Where is the finesse, hon? The clear understanding that you are handling a masterpiece?! You’ve got this far. Appreciate it.

Yes...how else could Demandred explain the skill of the enemy general? Only a man with the experience of an ancient was so masterly at the dance of battlefields. At their core, many battle tactics were simple. Avoid being flanked, meet heavy force with pikes, infantry with a well-trained line, channelers with other channelers. And yet, the finesse of it...the little details...these took centuries to master. No man from this Age had lived long enough to learn the details with such care.

People, nearly all of them, don’t know how to worry about others without being presumptuous, with finesse, with modesty. They think they know. My sister thought she knew. Knew the human race. . . . Knowledge doesn’t know. But that’s something few understand.

They made comments about the women's legs, but, as they were not witty, their remarks had no finesse. Since their emotion was not torn by any point, they quite naturally skidded along on a stagnent ground of poetry.

So, can I eat the redheaded goddess now? (Simi) No, Simi. (Acheron) I want to eat her, akri, She a mean person. (Simi) Most gods are. (Acheron) No they’re not. Some, true, but I rather like the Atlanteans. They were very nice. Most of them. You never met Archon, did you? (Simi) No. (Acheron) Now, he could be mean. He was blond, like you, tall like you, well, taller than you, and good-looking like you, but not quite as good-looking as you. I don’t think anyone is as good-looking as you are. Not even them gods. You are definitely one of a kind when it comes to looks…Oh. Well, you’re not really one of a kind, are you? But you cuter than that other one. He a bad copy of you. He only wishes he was as cute as you are. Now where was I going with that? Oh, I remember now. Archon didn’t like a lot of people, unlike you. You know that thing you do whenever you get really, really mad? The one where you can blow stuff up and make it all fiery and chunky and messy and all? He could do that too only not with as much finesse as you. You got a lot of finesse, akri. More than most. But I digress, Archon liked me. He said, ‘Simi, you a quality demon.’ Have you ever seen a non-quality demon, though? That’s what I wanna know. (Simi)

Should anyone here in Rome lack finesse at love-making, Let him Try me - read my book, and the results are guaranteed! Technique is the secret. Charioteer, sailor, oarsman, All need it. Technique can control Love himself.

One dream is never enough, and your dream can be molded and finessed along the way to become relevant and successful.

I told her how I thought you could always revise your life, how you could work and work on it, finesse the details, see if what you're saying is what you wanted to be saying.

I’m just me – half a family, no awareness whatsoever about style, or what’s in and what’s out. I’m not like the lizards. I don’t really even know how I’m supposed to be with a guy that I’m attracted to. I’ve never been a game player. I don’t know how to be coy… or sexy… or whatever. I have no finesse.

The first time they’d met, in this very pub, he’d hit on her using so little finesse, she’d been forced to ask if he was kidding. Granted, they’d both had a few too many drinks that night, but nothing excused the line, “I’m not drunk, I’m just intoxicated by you.” Nothing.

Finesse, my ass. I'm a warrior, not your child bride.

There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution.

Of Woman and Chocolate   "Chocolate shares both the bitter and the sweet. Chocolate melts away all cares, coating the heart while smothering every last ache.   Chocolate brings a smile to the lips on contact, leaving a dark kiss behind.   Chocolate is amiable, complimenting any pairing; berries, peanut butter, pretzels, mint, pastries, drinks...everything goes with chocolate.   The very thought of chocolate awakens taste buds, sparking memories of candy-coated happiness.   Chocolate will go nuts with you, no questions asked.   Chocolate craves your lips, melts at your touch, and savors the moment.   Chocolate is that dark and beautiful knight who charges in on his gallant steed ready to slay dragons when needed.   Chocolate never disappoints; it leaves its lover wanting more.   Chocolate is the ultimate satisfaction, synonymous with perfection.   Chocolate is rich, smooth pleasure.   Chocolate has finesse - the charm to seduce and indulge at any time, day or night.   Chocolate is a true friend, a trusted confidant, and faithful lover. Chocolate warms and comforts and sympathizes.   Chocolate holds power over depression, victory over disappointment.   Chocolate savvies the needs of a woman and owns her.   Simply put, chocolate is paradise.

He quickly earned a reputation for being willing to take any job a man needed done, and the name Dirtyhands soon followed. He was an unskilled fighter, but a tenacious one. “You have no finesse,” a gambler at the Silver Garter once said to him. “No technique.” “Sure I do,” Kaz had responded. “I practice the art of ‘pull his shirt over his head and punch till you see blood.’” He

I have to admit that Christina is good - though I don't like giving credit to Candor smart-mouths - and so is Peter - though I don't like giving credit to future psychopaths. Al, however, is just a walking, talking sledgehammer, all power and no finesse.

Droessen knew the properties of every kind of wood and paint and lacquer; he could finesse the gears of a clock until the spun with silent precision. And yet, though he could smile readily, charm easily, and play the part of a gentleman, he had never truly understood people or the workings of their steady-running but inconstant hearts.

If I ever stood a chance of resisting her, it evaporates the instant she leans into me. So does every last ounce of finesse that I’m normally capable of. The kiss that should’ve started out slow starts out like a forest fire. The first taste of her tongue consumes me. And I’m lost. And I’m lost. My hands are in her hair and my mouth is devouring hers. I give no thought to where I am or the girlfriend whose father I work for. I can’t think past how badly I want to be inside the tight, hot body of the girl in my arms. But why? Why do I want her so bad?

The greatest fool is not the person who has been fooled by the lies of others, despite how crafty and ingenious those lies might have been. Rather, it is the fool who has lied with such amazing dexterity and subtle finesse that he himself has come to believe his own lies. And this is the most forlorn and yet the most dangerous person that I can imagine.

Must be I find you tough and lusty as the life, all toil and tempo, finesse and plain fight, with values so old they startle me. Must be I think of you as I do the rugged flowers that prove themselves over and over in the spring, that elsewhere might perish, but here master the earth, bloom into gangly lives of high color, and inhale the sun, knowing the land better than the land does. Hardy, savvy, they will outlive us all.

These kinds of events, though seemingly glamorous and sophisticated from the outside, are often organized with the finesse of a kindergarten nativity play, and one whose teachers are all lapsed members of Narcotics Anonymous.

You know, Naruto’s kind of a brat, but he wasn’t trying to be mean or hateful... he just... lacks finesse... Mr Tazuna told us about what happened to your father. Naruto grew up without a father, same as you. ...Actually without any parents. He doesn’t remember either one of them. Or have a single friend. His whole life is one big painful memory. And in all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him cry, or use his troubles as an excuse to sulk or be a coward, not once. He always... tries his hardest, hoping someone will notice and give him a kind word or a pat on the back. That’s his dream, and he’s risked his life for it. I think one day he must have just gotten fed up with crying. He understands what it means to be strong. He knows what it costs and what it’s worth... just as your father did.

The problem I was going to have is that the way murderbots fight is we throw ourselves at the target and try to kill the shit out of it, knowing that 90 percent of our bodies can be regrown or replaced in a cubicle. So, finesse is not required.

Nous savions que si l'intelligence du texte est une rude et solitaire conquête de l'esprit, la blague stupide établit, elle, une connivence reposante qui ne se partage qu'entre amis de confiance. C'est avec nos intimes que nous échangeons les histoires les plus bêtes, façon de rendre un hommage implicite à la finesse de leur esprit. Avec les autres, on fait les malins, on déballe son savoir, on en installe, on séduit.

They’re like little boys, men. Sometimes of course they’re rather naughty and you have to pretend to be angry with them. They attach so much importance to such entirely unimportant things that it’s really touching. And they’re so helpless. Have you never nursed a man when he’s ill? It wrings your heart. It’s just like a dog or a horse. They haven’t got the sense to come in out of the rain, poor darlings. They have all the charming qualities that accompany general incompetence. They’re sweet and good and silly, and tiresome and selfish. You can’t help liking them, they’re so ingenuous, and so simple. They have no complexity or finesse. I think they’re sweet, but it’s absurd to take them seriously.

Thought can be lofty without being elegant, but to the extent it lacks elegance it will have less effect on others. Force without finesse is mere mass.

You looked like a half-literate moron in that letter, like an anti-intellectual jackanapes trying to stampede his way into power with all the finesse of a lovestruck buffalo.

You can choose to fight your journey every step of the way or you can embrace it, recognizing each stumble or setback as a opportunity to strengthen your character, finesse your craft, and deepen your passion. Oh this journey can be beautiful if you allow yourself to enjoy the rain!

Opening night is in a week. Already announced to the papers, already sent out in the newsletter in fancy, glossy, full-color glory. Which means I have two days, max, to finish the framing—easily a week’s worth of work—and then four days for drilling the star maps I’ve already marked on the plywood, painting, wiring, installing, and finessing.Leaving me only one day—the day of the evening gala—to clean and get the actual exhibits set up. It’s impossible. I will make it happen or die trying. I don’t realize I’ve said that last part aloud until I notice Michelle’s horrified face.

This wasn’t to say that Julie had perfected only the major, most obvious dating milestones, however. She also knew how to finesse the subtler moments—those key moments where the breath caught and you thought, Yes, this. Julie could explain every single nuance, from the toe-curling euphoria when his hand brushed yours to the tingle when eyes held for just a beat too long. And then there was her personal favorite moment: the bone-deep satisfaction when you made him laugh for the first time—a real laugh.

She gulped the air, suddenly starving for it. He wasn't built like Hercules. Instead, his muscles were chiseled as if by a master sculptor with a finesse that left her reaching for the door frame to steady herself.

Boss, she's a _Dragon_. They don't _believe_ in assassination. They consider it a _crime_. If you go up to her and--" "Kragar," I interrupted, "I never said that I was going to go up to her and say, 'Aliera, I'm trying to assassinate this guy, how would you like to help set him up?' Give me credit for a little finesse, all right?

So we would get together at some ungodly hour, I would be secretly and inexpressibly grateful, and he somehow would have finessed it so that I didn't feel like I was too huge a burden to him. It was a rare gift of friendship.

Their lips met with more urgency than finesse, and Phillip didn’t care because he had gone too many years with too few kisses, and he had gone his whole life without Ben, and now he had kisses and Ben and he had never felt better.

The motives behind scientism are culturally significant. They have been mixed, as usual: genuine curiosity in search of truth; the rage for certainty and for unity; and the snobbish desire to earn the label scientist when that became a high social and intellectual rank. But these efforts, even though vain, have not been without harm, to the inventors and to the world at large. The "findings" have inspired policies affecting daily life that were enforced with the same absolute assurance as earlier ones based on religion. At the same time, the workers in the realm of intuition, the gifted finessers - artists, moralists, philosophers, historians, political theorists, and theologians - were either diverted from their proper task, while others were looking on them with disdain as dabblers in the suburbs of Truth.

Yes, yes,” the Premier interrupted. “You harness the atom. Crudely and without finesse. So far you’ve managed to blow yourselves up.” He paused. “Several times. After you accomplish worldwide peace, deep space travel, stop poisoning your own air, bodies, and repair your ozone, planet 2276549, known to its native inhabitants as Earth will be considered for membership.

Van Eck keeps the seal in a safe?” said Jesper with a laugh. “It’s almost like hewants us to take it. Kaz is better at making friends with combination locks than with people.” “You’ve never seen a safe like this,” Wylan said. “He had it installed after the DeKappel was stolen. It has a seven-digit combination that he resets every day, and the locks are built with false tumblers to confuse safecrackers.” Kaz shrugged. “Then we go around it. I’ll take expediency over finesse.” Wylan shook his head. “The safe walls are made of a unique alloy reinforced with Grisha steel.” “An explosion?” suggested Jesper. Kaz raised a brow. “I suspect Van Eck will notice that.” “A very small explosion?” Nina snorted. “You just want to blow something up.” “Actually…” said Wylan. He cocked his head to one side, as if he were listening to a distant song. “Come morning, there would be no hiding we’d been there, but if we can get the refugees out of the harbor before my father discovers the theft … I’m not exactly sure where I can get the materials, but it just might work.…” “Inej,” Jesper whispered. She leaned forward, peering at Wylan. “Is that scheming face?” “Possibly.” Wylan seemed to snap back to reality. “It is not. But … but I do think I have an idea.

Sans souffrance, comment connaître la joie?  (Un point de vue que j'avais toujours trouvé d'une stupidité et d un manque de finesse inouïs. Pour le démontrer, il suffisait de dire que, même si le brocoli existait, ça n'empêchait pas le chocolat d'être bon.)

She slid a slim volume of poetry off the shelf and returned to her chair, swishing her rather unnattractive skirts before she sat down. Benedict frowned. He'd never really noticed before how ugly her dress was. Not as bad as the one Mrs. Cabtree had lent her, but certainly not anything designed to bring out the best in a woman. He ought to buy her a new dress. She would never accept it,of course, but maybe if her current garments were accidentally burned... "Mr. Bridgerton?" But how could he manage to burn her dress? She'd have to not be wearing it, and that posed a certain challenge in and of itself... "Are you even listening to me?" Sophie demanded. "Hmmm?" "You're not listening to me." "Sorry," he admitted. "My apologies. My mind got away from me. Please continue." She began anew, and in his attempt to show how much attention he was paying her, he focused his eyes on her lips, which proved to be a big mistake. Because suddenly those lips were all he could see, and he couldn't stop thinking about kissing her, and he knew- absolutely knew-that if one of them didn't leave the room in the next thirty seconds, he was going to do something for which he'd owe her a thousand apologies. Not that he didn't plan to seduce her. Just that he'd rather do it with a bit more finesse. "Oh, dear," he blurted out. Sophie gave him an odd look. He didn't blame her. He sounded like a complete idiot. He didn't think he'd uttered the phrase, "Oh,dear," in years. If ever. Hell,he sounded like his mother. "Is something wrong?" Sophie asked. "I just remembered something," he said, rather stupidly, in his opinion. She raised her brows in question. "Something that I'd forgotten," Benedict said. "The things one remembers," she said, looking exceedingly amused, "are most often things one had forgotten.

She lowered her work and began unknitting an entire row of stitches one at a time, erasing their tangled existence with much more finesse than she'd created them. (She had a lot of practice unknitting things. She could unknit entire wardrobes. You'd imagine that lots of practice unknitting would mean lost of practice - and improvement - knitting, but your imagination forgot to account for Jane.)

Essentially, he taught that it doesn’t make sense to upset ourselves about what is beyond our control. We don’t get a choice about what hand we are dealt in this life. The only choice we have is our attitude about the cards we hold and the finesse with which we play our hand.

Des jugements, des appréciations de la vie, pour ou contre, ne peuvent, en dernière instance, jamais être vrais : ils n’ont d’autre valeur que celle d’être des symptômes — en soi de tels jugements sont des stupidités. Il faut donc étendre les doigts pour tâcher de saisir cette finesse extraordinaire que la valeur de la vie ne peut pas être appréciée. Ni par un vivant, parce qu’il est partie, même objet de litige, et non pas juge : ni par un mort, pour une autre raison. — De la part d’un philosophe, voir un problème dans la valeur de la vie, demeure même une objection contre lui, un point d’interrogation envers sa sagesse, un manque de sagesse.

the way, when I showed this to Leslie, I used real cards, not a bridge diagram. If you find it difficult to follow the diagrams, try using a real deck. For the first hand, you can also try dealing East the king of spades instead of West, and you will see why the finesse won't work. A finesse is a cool play that allows you to win two tricks with the ace and queen of a suit, even though one of your opponents holds the king. It has a 50 percent chance of success, depending on which one of your opponents holds that king.

There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chooses, and that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution.

I am saving my energy, I am older and I like my torture to have a little more finesse. But each to their own, this is a party, after all.

...love is as much an art as painting or living; it requires practice, finesse, determination, humility, energy and delicacy.

love is as much an art as painting or living; it requires practice, finesse, determination, humility, energy and delicacy.

I don’t have the finesse you seem to think I have.

Judgements, judgements of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgements are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one’s fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated.

When you write letters to me, try not to be sophomoric and moribund about your criticisms of Jean et son weltanschauung [and his worldview.] A little more finesse, please, or if possible, a dash of humor.

Her professors were astonished by her leaps of thought, by the finesse and elegance of her insights. She arrived at hypotheses by sheer intuition and with what eventually one of her mentors described as an almost alarming speed; she was like a dancer, he said, out in the cosmos springing weightlessly from star to star. Drones, merely brilliant, crawled along behind with laborious proofs that supported her assertions.

Lorsque j’ai commencé à voyager en Gwendalavir aux côtés d'Ewìlan et de Salim, je savais que, au fil de mon écriture, ma route croiserait celle d'une multitude de personnages. Personnages attachants ou irritants, discrets ou hauts en couleurs, pertinents ou impertinents, sympathiques ou maléfiques... Je savais cela et je m'en réjouissais. Rien, en revanche, ne m'avait préparé à une rencontre qui allait bouleverser ma vie. Rien ne m'avait préparé à Ellana. Elle est arrivée dans la Quête à sa manière, tout en finesse tonitruante, en délicatesse remarquable, en discrétion étincelante. Elle est arrivée à un moment clef, elle qui se moque des serrures, à un moment charnière, elle qui se rit des portes, au sein d’un groupe constitué, elle pourtant pétrie d’indépendance, son caractère forgé au feu de la solitude. Elle est arrivée, s'est glissée dans la confiance d'Ewilan avec l'aisance d'un songe, a capté le regard d’Edwin et son respect, a séduit Salim, conquis maître Duom... Je l’ai regardée agir, admiratif ; sans me douter un instant de la toile que sa présence, son charisme, sa beauté tissaient autour de moi. Aucun calcul de sa part. Ellana vit, elle ne calcule pas. Elle s'est contentée d'être et, ce faisant, elle a tranquillement troqué son statut de personnage secondaire pour celui de figure emblématique d'une double trilogie qui ne portait pourtant pas son nom. Convaincue du pouvoir de l'ombre, elle n'a pas cherché la lumière, a épaulé Ewilan dans sa quête d'identité puis dans sa recherche d'une parade au danger qui menaçait l'Empire. Sans elle, Ewilan n'aurait pas retrouvé ses parents, sans elle, l'Empire aurait succombé à la soif de pouvoir des Valinguites, mais elle n’en a tiré aucune gloire, trop équilibrée pour ignorer que la victoire s'appuyait sur les épaules d'un groupe de compagnons soudés par une indéfectible amitié. Lorsque j'ai posé le dernier mot du dernier tome de la saga d'Ewilan, je pensais que chacun de ses compagnons avait mérité le repos. Que chacun d'eux allait suivre son chemin, chercher son bonheur, vivre sa vie de personnage libéré par l'auteur après une éprouvante aventure littéraire. Chacun ? Pas Ellana. Impossible de la quitter. Elle hante mes rêves, se promène dans mon quotidien, fluide et insaisissable, transforme ma vision des choses et ma perception des autres, crochète mes pensées intimes, escalade mes désirs secrets... Un auteur peut-il tomber amoureux de l'un de ses personnages ? Est-ce moi qui ai créé Ellana ou n'ai-je vraiment commencé à exister que le jour où elle est apparue ? Nos routes sont-elles liées à jamais ? — Il y a deux réponses à ces questions, souffle le vent à mon oreille. Comme à toutes les questions. Celle du savant et celle du poète. — Celle du savant ? Celle du poète ? Qu'est-ce que... — Chut... Écris.

De quelque sens que pût se présenter une affaire, il trouvait facilement, et en peu d'instants, les moyens fort bien fondés en droit d'arriver à une condamnation ou à un acquittement ; il était surtout le roi des finesses de procureur.

I'll fix things up with George soon as she gets here," Anthony mumbled. "You may depend upon it." "Oh,I know you will, but you'll have to hie yourself back to London to do so, since she ain't coming here. Didn't want to inflict her dour mood on the festivities, so decided it ould be best to absent herself." Anthony looked appalled now and complained, "You didn't say she was that mad." "Didn't I? Think you're wearing that black eye just because she's a mite annoyed?" "That will do," Jason said sternly. "This entire situation is intolerable.And frankly, I find it beyond amazing that you have both utterly lost your finesse in dealing ith women since you married." That,of course, hit quite below the belt where these two ex[rakes were concerned. "Ouch," James muttered, then in his own defense, "American women are an exception to any known rule, and bloody stubbron besides." "So are Scots,for that matter," Anthony added. "They just don't behave like normal Enlgishwomen,Jason,indeed they don't." "Regardless.You know my feelings on the entire family gathering here for Christmas.This is not the time for anyone in the family to be harboring any ill will of any sort.You both should have patched this up before the holidays began. See that you do so immediately, if you both have to return to London to do so." Having said his peace, Jason headed for the door to leave his brothers to mull over their conduct,or rather, misconduct, but added before he left, "You both look like bloody panda bears.D'you have any idea what kind of example that sets for the children?" "Panda bears indeed," Anthony snorted as soon as the door closed. James looked up to reply drolly, "Least the roof is still intact.

the left had been finessing labels for years: racial preferences to affirmative action to diversity; abortion rights to pro-choice to reproductive rights; global warming to climate change; gay marriage to marriage equality; liberal to progressive.

President Trump displays less finesse than a bull in a china shop. Just as Prime Minister May managed - after many months of bitter wrangling - to reach a degree of consensus on what Britain's future relationship with the EU should look like, in comes the marauding beast upending all the finely balanced Wedgwood. Britain may well need some form of future trade deal with the US but it certainly isn't one that should be struck with the co-author of a lame business book more appropriately named 'Art of the Steal'.

The dotcoms as a whole were little more than a publicly supported pyramid scheme built on the long-true presumption that an even dumber investor was just down the road. With more finesse Kleiner Perkins', John Doerr called the process, "The largest legal creation of wealth, in the history of the planet.

Grab your pen, unleash your creativity, and start writing your own masterpiece,

Bill Clinton has perhaps been the most amazing practitioner of truth management in public life. He’s had to be. Beset by enemies willing to use any tool to do him in, he let the truth out like a fly fisherman plays out a line, delicately, artfully, with infinite finesse, never emitting more truth than necessary, struggling mightily to tell us what he could without admitting defeat.

Do you want people to think you're a brute?" He stopped mid-step, eyebrow twitching in an expression that I now had come to know meant, Oraya said something amusing, probably unintentionally. "A brute?" I didn't know what was funny about my word choice. "Yes. Even when you used it in the feast hall that time, it was all power, no finesse." "You think I have finesse? That's flattering.

... neither the metaphor of ‘melting pot’ nor of ‘salad bowl’ can accurately explain Indian culture. My preferred metaphor is that of the Rain Forest. The ‘tropical rain forest’ characteristically has a number of layers, each with a variety of flora and fauna adapted for life in that particular layer. The layers include the uppermost ‘emergent’ layer that rises above to form the canopy of the forest, the ‘under-story’ and finally the ‘forest floor’, the foundational core. This emergent layer has its roots in the forest floor that is full of shrubs, vines and fungi... A ‘bird’s-eye view’ cannot reveal this rootedness, the underlying substratum, the under-stories and the forest floor. If the metaphor of ‘tropical rain forest’ is applied to the Indus Valley Civilization, the citadels, the rulers, and the rich merchants with their maritime wealth, the urban structure and its finesse are comparable with the ‘emergent canopy’. Yet the bulk of the demography was at the root – the substratum, from which the mature urban cities emerged... The nature of its religion, the cultural practices, cockfights and bull-vaulting visually represent the ‘under-story’ of the IVC.

He raked his hands through his hair and blew out a long breath. Damn it, he’d known lust before, but this…this aching desire for her this intense passion she inspired, was unlike anything he’d ever experience. He’d always considered himself a man of control, finesse, and patience. But Victoria somehow stripped him of all three. He didn’t want to kiss her, he wanted to devour her. He didn’t want to strip her gown from her shoulders, she wanted to tear it from her body. With his teeth. He didn’t want to slowly seduce her, he wanted to push her against the nearest wall and simply bury himself in her. Make hot, sweaty, mindless, searing love to her. Then turn her over and start again. If she knew even half the things he wanted to do to her, with her, she’d most likely never recover from shock.

When Pat gave her ‘criminal-hero’ Tom Ripley a charmed and parentless life, a wealthy, socially poised Alter Ego (Dickie Greenleaf), and a guilt-free modus operandi (after he kills Dickie, Tom murders only when necessary), she was doing just what her fellow comic book artists were doing with their Superheroes: allowing her fictional character to finesse situations she herself could only approach in wish fulfillment. And when she reimagined her own psychological split in Ripley’s character — endowing him with both her weakest traits (paralyzing self-consciousness and hero-worship) and her wildest dreams (murder and money) — she was turning the material of the ‘comic book’ upside down and making it into something very like a ‘tragic book.’ 'It is always so easy for me to see the world upside down,’ Pat wrote in her diary– and everywhere else.

Strong women are the architects of their destinies, the CEOs of their lives, and the superheroes of their own stories. They don't just break glass ceilings; they shatter them with style. Their sass is their superpower, and their laughter is their battle cry. From juggling responsibilities to sparkling kindness like glitter, they do it all with flair and finesse. So, here's to the strong women; you make the world a better place!

My idea is not to try and charm you with subtle psychological observations. I have no desire to draw applause from you with my finesse and my humour. There are some authors who employ their talent in the delicate description of varying states of soul, character traits, etc. I shall not be counted among these. All that accumulation of realistic detail, with clearly differentiated characters hogging the limelight, has always seemed pure bullshit to me, I’m sorry to say. Daniel who is Hervé’s friend, but who feels a certain reticence about Gérard. Paul’s fantasy as embodied in Virginie, my cousin’s trip to Venice … One could spend hours on this. Might as well watch lobsters marching up the side of an aquarium (it suffices, for that, to go to a fish restaurant). Added to which, I associate very little with other human beings. To reach the otherwise philosophical

At first I found it inexplicable that boys used such violent words in reference to sex. Why would you be proud of being a lousy lover? If they were truly talking about sex in those situations, they might bring up pleasure, connection, finesse: they wouldn't weaponize it. But the whole point of "locker room banter" is that it's not actually about sex, and that, I think, is why guys were more ashamed to discuss it as openly with me as topics that were equally explicit. Those exaggerated stories are in truth about power: about asserting masculinity through control of women's bodies. And that requires- demands- a denial of girls' humanity... Dismissing that as locker room talk denies the ways that language can desensitize and abrade boys' ability to see girls as people deserving of respect and dignity. And, in fact, by the time they are in college, athletes are three times more likely than other students to be accused of sexual misconduct or intimate partner violence.

She looked into the pleading brown eyes and she saw none of the beauty of a shy boy's first love, of the adoration of an ideal come true or the wild happiness and tenderness that were sweeping through him like a flame. Scarlett was used to men asking her to marry them, men much more attractive than Charles Hamilton, and men who had more finesse than to propose at a barbecue when she had more important matters on her mind. She only saw a boy of twenty, red as a beet and looking very silly. She wished that she could tell him how silly he looked. But automatically, the words Ellen had taught her to say in such emergencies rose to her lips and casting down her eyes, from force of habit, she murmured: "Mr. Hamilton, I am not unaware of the honor you have bestowed on me in wanting me to become your wife, but this is all so sudden that I do not know what to say." That was a neat way of smoothing a man's vanity and yet keeping him n the string, and Charles rose to it as though such bait were new and he the first to swallow it.

I did say that to deny the existence of evil spirits, or to deny the existence of the devil, is to deny the truth of the New Testament; and that to deny the existence of these imps of darkness is to contradict the words of Jesus Christ. I did say that if we give up the belief in devils we must give up the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, and we must give up the divinity of Christ. Upon that declaration I stand, because if devils do not exist, then Jesus Christ was mistaken, or we have not in the New Testament a true account of what he said and of what he pretended to do. If the New Testament gives a true account of his words and pretended actions, then he did claim to cast out devils. That was his principal business. That was his certificate of divinity, casting out devils. That authenticated his mission and proved that he was superior to the hosts of darkness. Now, take the devil out of the New Testament, and you also take the veracity of Christ; with that veracity you take the divinity; with that divinity you take the atonement, and when you take the atonement, the great fabric known as Christianity becomes a shapeless ruin. The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth… Think of it! The devil – the prince of sharpers – the king of cunning – the master of finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God! Casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more grossly absurd than this? These devils, according to the Bible, were of various kinds – some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. All could not be cast out in the same way. The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ. The boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control. “Jesus said unto the spirit: ‘Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.’” Whereupon, the deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and immediately vacated the premises. The ease with which Christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To whom he replied: “This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting.” Is there a Christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if found in any other book? The trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and then open their Bible.

I had, I'll admit, effected a certain style - a method, if you will - of cupcake eating. To begin, you remove the cupcake liner carefully so as not to unnecessarily crumble the cake, and set it aside. You then turn the cupcake slowly in your hand, taking bites along the line where cake meets icing, your mouth filling with a perfect combination of both components. Once you've come full circle, you gently twist off the bottom half inch of cake, a move that takes considerable finesse and leaves a delicate sliver of cake - the ideal size for lying flat on your tongue and allowing it to slowly dissolve, building anticipation for that final bite. To finish, you are left with the center cylinder of cake and icing, the cupcake's very heart, sometimes filled with a surprising burst of custard or jam or mousse, sometimes not, but always, always, the most moist, flavorful bite of the entire cupcake. Take a breath before diving into that final, perfect bite; it is to be savored for as long as possible. Finally, of course, you scavenge the crumbs from the cupcake liner you set aside during step one, then ball the liner into your fist and overhand it into the nearest receptacle. Make the shot? You get another cupcake.

The hot crown of his cock notched against my sex, and we both stopped, our gazes clashing. "Em." I knew what he meant. This felt different. This felt more like than sex. He didn't look away as he slowly pushed into me, all that hot girth making itself at home. I moaned and spread my legs wider, working with him. He was big. And there. And it felt so good I could barely breathe through it all. Lucian dipped his head, trembling with effort to go slow. "God. God. You feel..." He broke off with a tortured groan and a hard thrust, filling me completely. I closed my eyes, my hands smoothing over his damp back. "So good, Lucian. So good." That was all he needed. Moving like liquid, he rocked into me, kissing my mouth, whispering how much he wanted me. I grew incandescent with it, heat licking through me in waves. Lucian fucked like he did most everything, with perfect finesse and fierce determination. With swagger. Soon we were both panting, moving faster, reaching for that peak yet wanting to prolong it. "I don't want it to end," he said against my mouth. But then he canted his hips, hitting that spot that lit me up and made me scream. There was no more finesse, no more drawing it out. Just basic rutting, fucking each other like we might die and not get another chance. And when he came, I stared up at him, at those muscles straining, his wintergreen eyes gleaming in lust and surprise, as though he couldn't quite believe how good it was. Neither could I. Because it had never been like this.

These educated parents subjected the poor five-year old girl to every possible torture. They beat her, flogged her, kicked her, not knowing why themselves, until her whole body was nothing but bruises; finally they attained the height of finesse: in the freezing cold, they locked her all night in the outhouse, because she wouldn't ask to get up and go in the middle of the night (as if a five-year-old child sleeping its sound angelic sleep could have learned to ask by that age)--for that they smeared her face with her excrement and made her eat the excrement, and it was her mother, her mother who made her! And this mother could sleep while her poor little child was moaning all night in that vile place! Can you understand that a small creature, who cannot even comprehend what is being done to her, in a vile place, in the dark and the cold, beats herself on her strained little chest with her tiny fist and weeps with her anguished, gentle, meek tears for 'dear God' to protect her--can you understand such nonsense, my friend and my brother, my godly and humble novice, can you understand why this nonsense is needed and created? Without it, they say, man could not even have lived on earth, for he would not have known good and evil. Who wants to know this damned good and evil at such a price? The whole world of knowledge is not worth the tears of that little child to 'dear God.' I'm not talking about the suffering of grown-ups, they ate the apple and to hell with them, let the devil take them all, but these little ones!

And what could Billy know of man except of man as a mere sailor? And the old-fashioned sailor, the veritable man before the mast, the sailor from boyhood up, he, though indeed of the same species as a landsman, is in some respects singularly distinct from him. The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate games of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it. Yes, as a class, sailors are in character a juvenile race. Even their deviations are marked by juvenility, this more especially holding true with the sailors of Billy’s time. Then too, certain things which apply to all sailors do more pointedly operate here and there upon the junior one. Every sailor, too, is accustomed to obey orders without debating them; his life afloat is externally ruled for him; he is not brought into that promiscuous commerce with mankind where unobstructed free agency on equal terms—equal superficially, at least—soon teaches one that unless upon occasion he exercise a distrust keen in proportion to the fairness of the appearance, some foul turn may be served him. A ruled undemonstrative distrustfulness is so habitual, not with businessmen so much as with men who know their kind in less shallow relations than business, namely, certain men of the world, that they come at last to employ it all but unconsciously; and some of them would very likely feel real surprise at being charged with it as one of their general characteristics. 17

Il passa contre nous, ne s'interrompit pas de parler à sa voisine et nous fit du coin de son œil bleu un petit signe en quelque sorte intérieur aux paupières et qui, n'intéressant pas les muscles de son vidage, put passer parfaitement inaperçu de son interlocutrice ; mais, cherchant à compenser par l'intensité du sentiment le champ un peu étroit où il en circonscrivait l'expression, dans ce coin d'azur qui nous était affecté il fit pétiller tout l'entrain de la bonne grâce qui dépassa l'enjouement, frisa la malice ; il subtilisa les finesses de l'amabilité jusqu'aux clignements de la connivence, aux demi-mots, aux sous-entendus, aux mystères de la complicité ; et finalement exalta les assurances d'amitié jusqu'aux protestations de tendresse, jusqu'à la déclaration d'amour, illuminant alors pour nous seuls d'une langueur secrète et invisible à la châtelaine, une prunelle énamourée dans un visage de glace.

The thing that separates two people the most is a difference in their sense and degree of cleanliness. All the good behavior, mutual utility, and goodwill in the world will not help: what matters, in the end, is that they “can’t stand the smell of each other!” The highest instinct of cleanliness puts someone afflicted with it into the strangest and most dangerous solitude, in the form of a holy saint: because this is what holiness is – the highest spiritualization of this instinct. Some sort of shared knowledge of an indescribable abundance of joy in bathing, some sort of lust and craving constantly drives the soul out of the night and into the morning, out of dullness and gloom into light, radiance, profundity, finesse. However much a tendency like this characterizes somebody (it is a noble tendency), it separates him out as well. The pity of the saint is a pity for the filth of the human, all-too-human. And there are degrees and heights where he feels even pity as a form of pollution, as filth.

He whirled,almost violently,and stared at her accusingly. "Damn it, Gennie, I've had my head lopped off." It was her turn to stare.Her fingers went numb against the stoneware. Her pulse seemed to stop long enough to make her head swim before it began to race. The color drained from her face until it was like porcelain against the glowing green of her eyes.On another oath, Grant dragged a hand through his hair. "You're spilling the coffee," he muttered, then stuck his hands in his pockets. "Oh." Gennie looked down foolishly at the tiny twin puddles that were forming on the floor,then set down the mugs. "I'll-I'll wipe it up." "Leave it." Grant grabbed her arm before she could reach for a towel. "Listen,I feel like someone's just given me a solid right straight to the gut-the kind that doubles you over and makes your head ring at the same time.I feel that way too often when I look at you." When she said nothing, he took her other arm and shook. "In the first place I never asked to have you walk into my life and mess up my head. The last thing I wanted was for you to get in my way,but you did.So now I'm in love with you, and I can tell you,I'm not crazy about the idea." Gennie found her voice, though she wasn't quite certain what to do with it. "Well," she managed after a moment, "that certainly puts me in my place." "Oh,she wants to make jokes." Disgusted, Grant released her to storm over to the coffee. Lifting a mug, he drained half the contents, perversely pleased that it scalded his throat. "Well, laugh this off," he suggested as he slammed the mug down again and glared. "You're not going anywhere until I figure out what the hell I'm going to do about you." Struggling against conflicting emotions of amusement,annoyance,and simple wonder, she put her hands on her hips. The movement shifted the too-big robe so that it threatened to slip off one shoulder. "Oh,really? So you're going to figure out what to do about me, like I was an inconvenient head cold." "Damned inconvenient," he muttered. "You may not have noticed, but I'm a grown woman with a mind of my own, accustomed to making my own decisions. You're not going to do anything about me," she told him as her temper began to overtake everything else. She jabbed a finger at him,and the gap in the robe widened. "If you're in love with me, that's your problem. I have one of my own because I'm in love with you." "Terrific!" he shouted at her. "That's just terrific.We'd both have been better off if you'd waited out that storm in a ditch instead of coming here." "You're not telling me anything I don't already know," Gennie retorted, then spun around to leave the room. "Just a minute." Grant had her arm again and backed her into the wall. "You're not going anywhere until this is settled." "It's settled!" Tossing her hair out of her face, she glared at him. "We're in love with each other and I wish you'd go jump off that cliff.If you had any finesse-" "I don't." "Any sensitivty," she continued, "you wouldn't announce that you were in love with someone in the same tone you'd use to frighten small children.

That Thanksgiving has evolved over hundreds of years into a national holiday of eating is rather ironic given the quality of Thanksgiving food. Stuffing and roasting a twenty-pound turkey is, without a doubt, the worst possible way to enjoy a game bird. The whole notion of eating a game bird is to savor those subtleties of flavor that elude the domesticated hen. Partridge, pheasant, quail are all birds that can be prepared in various ways to delight the senses; but a corn-fed turkey that’s big enough to serve a gathering of ten or more is virtually impossible to cook with finesse. The breasts will inevitably become as dry as sawdust by the time the rest of the bird has finished cooking. Stuffing only exacerbates this problem by insulating the inner meat from the effects of heat, thus prolonging the damage. The intrinsic challenge of roasting a turkey has led to all manner of culinary abominations. Cooking the bird upside down, a preparation in which the skin becomes a pale, soggy mess. Spatchcocking, in which the bird is drawn and quartered like a heretic. Deep frying! (Heaven help us.) Give me an unstuffed four-pound chicken any day. Toss a slice of lemon, a sprig of rosemary, and a clove of garlic into the empty cavity, roast it at 425° for sixty minutes or until golden brown, and you will have a perfect dinner time and again. The limitations of choosing a twenty-pound turkey as the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal have only been compounded by the inexplicable tradition of having every member of the family contribute a dish. Relatives who should never be allowed to set foot in a kitchen are suddenly walking through your door with some sort of vegetable casserole in which the “secret ingredient” is mayonnaise. And when cousin Betsy arrives with such a mishap in hand, one can take no comfort from thoughts of the future, for once a single person politely compliments the dish, its presence at Thanksgiving will be deemed sacrosanct. Then not even the death of cousin Betsy can save you from it, because as soon as she’s in the grave, her daughter will proudly pick up the baton. Served at an inconvenient hour, prepared by such an army of chefs that half the dishes are overcooked, half are undercooked,

longs & enfin avec un de vingt-quatre pouces, & trouva toujours les mêmes effets. Au lieu de bois M. Gray se servit dans la suite d'un fil de fer, puis d'un fil de laiton, & eut encore le même succès; mais comme les vibrations de ces fils de fer, & de laiton, causées par le frottement du tube, étoient incommodes, surtout lorsque les fils étoient longs de deux ou trois pieds, il imagina de suspendre la boule à l'extrémité d'une ficelle nouée au tube par son autre extrémité; étant sur un balcon élevé de trente-six pieds, il laissa pendre la boule ainsi attachée au tube par le moyen d'une ficelle de cette longueur; le tube étant frotté, la boule attira & repoussa du cuivre en feuilles qui étoit au-dessous d'elle. M. Gray essaya ensuite de transmettre en ligne horizontale l'électricité à de bien plus grandes distances; il y réussit d'abord en se servant pour cela d'une ficelle soutenuë horizontalement à quelque distance de terre sur des fils de soye, & transmit l'électricité à cent quarante pieds; mais comme il vouloit pousser plus loin son expérience, les fils de soye s'étant rompus, il leur substitua des fils-d'archal de la même finesse; car il s'imaginoit que le succès de l'expérience dépendoit de la finesse de ces fils, qu'il croyoit trop minces pour pouvoir intercepter une partie sensible de la force électrique communiquée par le tube à la ficelle & à la boule. Quand il vint à frotter le tube, l'électricité ne fut point transmise à l'extrémité de la ficelle. Il reconnut de là que le succès de la première expérience ne venoit pas de la finesse des fils

After having taken a long and hard look at the echelonment of the various appendices of the sexual function, the moment appears to have arrived to expound the central theorem of my apocritique. Unless you were to put a halt to the implacable unfolding of my reasoning with the objection that, good prince, I will permit you to formulate: "You take all your examples from adolescence, which is indeed an important period in life, but when all is said and done it only occupies an exceedingly brief fraction of this. Are you not afraid, then, that your conclusions, the finesse and rigour of which we admire, may ultimately turn out to be both partial and limited?" To this amiable adversary I will reply that adolescence is not only an important period in life, but that it is the only period where one may speak of life in the full sense of the word. The attractile drives are unleashed around the age of thirteen, after which they gradually diminish, or rather they are resolved in models of behaviour which are, after all, only constrained forces. The violence of the initial explosion means that the outcome of the conflict may remain uncertain for years; this is what is called a transitory regime in electrodynamics. But little by little the oscillations become slower, to the point of resolving themselves in mild and melancholic long waves; from this moment on all is decided, and life is nothing more than a preparation for death. This can be expressed in a more brutal and less exact way by saying that man is a diminished adolescent. 'After having taken a long and hard look at the echelonment of the various appendices of the sexual function, the moment seems to me to have come to expound the central theorem of my apocritique. For this I will utilize the lever of a condensed but adequate formulation, to wit: Sexuality is a system of social hierarchy

All the many successes and extraordinary accomplishments of the Gemini still left NASA’s leadership in a quandary. The question voiced in various expressions cut to the heart of the problem: “How can we send men to the moon, no matter how well they fly their ships, if they’re pretty helpless when they get there? We’ve racked up rendezvous, docking, double-teaming the spacecraft, starting, stopping, and restarting engines; we’ve done all that. But these guys simply cannot work outside their ships without exhausting themselves and risking both their lives and their mission. We’ve got to come up with a solution, and quick!” One manned Gemini mission remained on the flight schedule. Veteran Jim Lovell would command the Gemini 12, and his space-walking pilot would be Buzz Aldrin, who built on the experience of the others to address all problems with incredible depth and finesse. He took along with him on his mission special devices like a wrist tether and a tether constructed in the same fashion as one that window washers use to keep from falling off ledges. The ruby slippers of Dorothy of Oz couldn’t compare with the “golden slippers” Aldrin wore in space—foot restraints, resembling wooden Dutch shoes, that he could bolt to a work station in the Gemini equipment bay. One of his neatest tricks was to bring along portable handholds he could slap onto either the Gemini or the Agena to keep his body under control. A variety of space tools went into his pressure suit to go along with him once he exited the cabin. On November 11, 1966, the Gemini 12, the last of its breed, left earth and captured its Agena quarry. Then Buzz Aldrin, once and for all, banished the gremlins of spacewalking. He proved so much a master at it that he seemed more to be taking a leisurely stroll through space than attacking the problems that had frustrated, endangered, and maddened three previous astronauts and brought grave doubts to NASA leadership about the possible success of the manned lunar program. Aldrin moved down the nose of the Gemini to the Agena like a weightless swimmer, working his way almost effortlessly along a six-foot rail he had locked into place once he was outside. Next came looping the end of a hundred-foot line from the Agena to the Gemini for a later experiment, the job that had left Dick Gordon in a sweatbox of exhaustion. Aldrin didn’t show even a hint of heavy breathing, perspiration, or an increased heartbeat. When he spoke, his voice was crisp, sharp, clear. What he did seemed incredibly easy, but it was the direct result of his incisive study of the problems and the equipment he’d brought from earth. He also made sure to move in carefully timed periods, resting between major tasks, and keeping his physical exertion to a minimum. When he reached the workstation in the rear of the Gemini, he mounted his feet and secured his body to the ship with the waist tether. He hooked different equipment to the ship, dismounted other equipment, shifted them about, and reattached them. He used a unique “space wrench” to loosen and tighten bolts with effortless skill. He snipped wires, reconnected wires, and connected a series of tubes. Mission Control hung on every word exchanged between the two astronauts high above earth. “Buzz, how do those slippers work?” Aldrin’s enthusiastic voice came back like music. “They’re great. Great! I don’t have any trouble positioning my body at all.” And so it went, a monumental achievement right at the end of the Gemini program. Project planners had reached all the way to the last inch with one crucial problem still unsolved, and the man named Aldrin had whipped it in spectacular fashion on the final flight. Project Gemini was