Fred Again Quotes

Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days." "Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred. "That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the face. "It was nothing personal!" "It was," Fred whispered to Harry as they got up from the table. "We sent it.

When he straightened up again, there were six Harry Potters gasping and panting in front of him. Fred and George turned to each other and said together, "Wow—we're identical!

You are a very special person. There is only one like you in the whole world. There's never been anyone exactly like you before, and there will never be again. Only you. And people can like you exactly as you are.

Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on.

I worked it out sitting here. Maybe that’s the thing we need to understand, Alice. That some things are a gift, even if you don’t get to keep them.” There was a silence before he spoke again. “Maybe just to know that something this beautiful exists is all we can really ask for.

Angelina, Alicia, and Katie suddenly giggled. "What?" said Wood, frowning at this lighthearted behavior. "He's that tall, good-looking one, isn't he?" said Angelina. "Strong and silent," said Katie, and they started to giggle again. "He's only silent because he's too thick to string two words together," said Fred impatiently.

I'm glad you escaped, Kyra," Fred said, looking serious again. "And that I found you." "Me too," Kyra said, glancing up at him. "It wouldn't have been much of a life trying to live in the dumbwaiter." Fred leaned down and kissed Kyra full on the lips. Kyra pulled away. "How do you know I'm interested in you? Just because you've decided I'm worth hanging around for doesn't mean I feel the same way." Fred cocked his head at her. "Really?" "Oh, okay," Kyra said. Then she kissed him back.

I began to write again. I wrote just for the fuck of it.

Toward the end of his life, Fred Terman wrote that he had no regrets: “If I had my life to live over again, I would play the same record.

How was she supposed to bear the prospect of never seeing him again? Never seeing his face light up simply because she had walked into the room? Never catching his eye in a crowd, feeling the subtle heat that came with standing alongside a man she knew wanted her more than any other?

It isn't only famous movie stars who want to be alone. Whenever I hear someone speak of privacy, I find myself thinking once again how real and deep the need for such times is for all human beings . . . at all ages.

Malfoy,” said Ron, sitting down on George’s other side and glaring over at the Slytherin table. George looked up in time to see Malfoy pretending to faint with terror again. “That little git,” he said calmly. “He wasn’t so cocky last night when the dementors were down at our end of the train. Came running into our compartment, didn’t he, Fred?” “Nearly wet himself,” said Fred, with a contemptuous glance at Malfoy.

Don't blame me, Pongo,' said Lord Ickenham, 'if Lady Constance takes her lorgnette to you. God bless my soul, though, you can't compare the lorgnettes of to-day with the ones I used to know as a boy. I remember walking one day in Grosvenor Square with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky, and a policeman came up and said the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle. My aunt made no verbal reply. She merely whipped her lorgnette from its holster and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp and fell back against the railings, without a mark on him but with an awful look of horror in his staring eyes, as if he had seen some dreadful sight. A doctor was sent for, and they managed to bring him round, but he was never the same again. He had to leave the Force, and eventually drifted into the grocery business. And that is how Sir Thomas Lipton got his start.

Each day, Fred reminded me that a loving, adventurous, and rewarding life was possible if I could continue to choose to be optimistic, even in the face of great calamity or despair. I knew I had rescued Fred once, but Fred continued to rescue me time and time again.

isn't he in the wrong?" (I don't know,) Fred said again. (How am I supposed to judge? But you're wizards, you should know how terrible a power belief is, especially in the wrong hands—and how do you tell which hands are wrong? Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing. Once you've changed, other things start to follow. Isn't that the way it works?)

He came into my life in February 1932 and never left it again. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, more than nine thousand days, desultory and tedious, hollow with the sense of effort or work without hope- days and years, many of them as dead as dry leaves on a dead tree. I can remember the day and the hour when I first set eyes on this boy who was to be the source of my greatest happiness and of my greatest despair.

Merry Christmas," said George. "Don't go downstairs for a bit." "Why not?" said Ron. "Mum's crying again," said Fred heavily. "Percy sent back his Christmas jumper." [I guess that's a sweater, though my jury is still out on it until I get a future confirmation.] "Without a not," added George. "Hasn't asked how Dad is or visit him [in the hospital] or anything..." "We tried to comfort her," said Fred, moving around the bed to look at Harry's portrait. "Told her Percy's nothing but a humongous pile of rat droppings--" "--didn't work," said George, helping himself to a Chocolate Frog. "So Lupin took over. Best let him cheer her up before we go down for breakfast, I reckon.

You don’t make money by trading, you make it by sitting.” It takes patience to wait for the trade to develop, for the opportunity to present itself. Let the market come to you, instead of chasing the market. Chart patterns are very accurate. They have proven their accuracy and predictability time and time again, but you have to wait for them to develop.

Were you locked in your room?" enquired Sir Richard. "Oh no! I daresay I should have been if Aunt had guessed what I meant to do, but she would never think of such a thing." "Then--forgive my curiosity!--why did you climb out of the window?" asked Sir Richard. "Oh, that was on account of Pug!" replied Pen sunnily. "Pug?" "Yes, a horrid little creature! He sleeps in a basket in the hall, and he always yaps if he thinks one is going out. That would have awakened Aunt Almeria. There was nothing else I could do." Sir Richard regarded her with a lurking smile. "Naturally not. Do you know, Pen, I owe you a debt of gratitude?" "Oh!" she said again. "Do you mean that I don't behave as a delicately bred femaile should?" "That is one way of putting it, certainly." "It is the way Aunt Almeria puts it." "She would, of course." "I am afraid," confessed Pen, "that I am not very well-behaved. Aunt says that I had a lamentable upbringing, because my father treated me as though I had been a boy. I ought to have been, you understand." "I cannot agree with you," said Sir Richard. "As a boy you would have been in no way remarkable; as a female, believe me, you are unique." She flushed to the roots of her hair. "I think that is a compliment." "It is," Sir Richard said, amused. "Well, I wasn't sure, because I am not out yet, and I do not know any men except my uncle and Fred, and they don't pay compliments. That is to say, not like that.

Letting our children go” is a lifelong process for parents, one that we wrestle with again and again, and each parent has to wrestle with it in his or her own way.

ADAMSBERG WAS NOT A MAN WHO WENT IN FOR EMOTION: he skirted around strong feelings with caution, like swifts who only brush past windows with their wings, never going in, because they know it will be difficult to get out. He had often found dead birds in the village houses back home, imprudent visitors who had ventured inside and never again found their way back to the open air. Adamsberg considered that when it came to love, humans were no wiser than birds.

We’ve got to trust each other. I trust all of you, I don’t think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort.” More silence followed his words. They were all looking at him; Harry felt a little hot again, and drank some more firewhisky for something to do. As he drank, he thought of Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye had always been scathing about Dumbledore’s willingness to trust people. “Well said, Harry,” said Fred unexpectedly. “Yeah, ’ear, ’ear,” said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose mouth twitched.

Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?” said Fred. “That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!” said Percy, going very red in the face. “It was nothing personal!” “It was,” Fred whispered to Harry as they got up from the table. “We sent it.

Again he picked up a stone and kept rolling it in his hands. His hands were damp with mounting excitement. What was it that everyone in the world knew but he? There was something grave and black being kept from him, and he could feel how important it was, how imminent, and he was desperate to know.

Later on, he brought that same sense of hard work and inner discipline to his work. Whether he was working on a script for the Neighborhood programs or on a speech, he fretted over the words, attempting to make the content meaningful. I can remember his saying over and over again, as he worked at the fourth or fifth draft of whatever he happened to be writing, “Simple is better.

Announcements are always difficult to hear. Nobody pays attention to announcements. The announcements about the church’s life put in the bulletin midweek, printed on the back of the worship bulletin on Sunday, read to you as though you couldn’t read by the worship leader or minister. And then included in the benediction, “Lord help the people to remember the fellowship dinner Wednesday night.” And then somebody at the door asked the minister, “Are we going to have the fellowship dinner?” I know it’s hard to listen to announcements. One reason is we hear them over and over and over again. If I wanted to make someone deaf, I would do it by repetition.

The only sound to break the silence was that of Hagrid hiccupping from behind his handkerchief. Harry glanced at Hagrid, who had just risked his own life to save Harry’s—Hagrid, whom he loved, whom he trusted, who had once been tricked into giving Voldemort crucial information in exchange for a dragon’s egg. . . . “No,” Harry said aloud, and they all looked at him, surprised: The firewhisky seemed to have amplified his voice. “I mean . . . if somebody made a mistake,” Harry went on, “and let something slip, I know they didn’t mean to do it. It’s not their fault,” he repeated, again a little louder than he would usually have spoken. “We’ve got to trust each other. I trust all of you, I don’t think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort.” More silence followed his words. They were all looking at him; Harry felt a little hot again, and drank some more firewhisky for something to do. As he drank, he thought of Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye had always been scathing about Dumbledore’s willingness to trust people. “Well said, Harry,” said Fred unexpectedly. “Yeah, ’ear, ’ear,” said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose mouth twitched. Lupin was wearing an odd expression as he looked at Harry. It was close to pitying. “You think I’m a fool?” demanded Harry. “No, I think you’re like James,” said Lupin, “who would have regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends.

Yes, it was,’ said Ginny. ‘It was appalling. Angelina was nearly in tears by the end of it.’ Ron and Ginny went off for baths after dinner; Harry and Hermione returned to the busy Gryffindor common room and their usual pile of homework. Harry had been struggling with a new star-chart for Astronomy for half an hour when Fred and George turned up. ‘Ron and Ginny not here?’ asked Fred, looking around as he pulled up a chair, and when Harry shook his head, he said, ‘Good. We were watching their practice. They’re going to be slaughtered. They’re complete rubbish without us.’ ‘Come on, Ginny’s not bad,’ said George fairly, sitting down next to Fred. ‘Actually, I dunno how she got so good, seeing how we never let her play with us.’ ‘She’s been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since the age of six and taking each of your brooms out in turn when you weren’t looking,’ said Hermione from behind her tottering pile of Ancient Rune books. ‘Oh,’ said George, looking mildly impressed. ‘Well – that’d explain it.’ ‘Has Ron saved a goal yet?’ asked Hermione, peering over the top of Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms. ‘Well, he can do it if he doesn’t think anyone’s watching him,’ said Fred, rolling his eyes. ‘So all we have to do is ask the crowd to turn their backs and talk among themselves every time the Quaffle goes up his end on Saturday.’ He got up again and moved restlessly to the window, staring out across the dark grounds.

Fred gets married and on his wedding night he calls his Father for some tips on what to do, since he has never been with a woman before. "So what do I do first?"? His father replied, "Take her clothes off and lay her on the bed." 5 minutes later Fred’s on the phone again. "She’s naked and in bed, what do I do now??? His father can’t believe what he is hearing, "Take your damn clothes off and get into bed with her." After another 5 minutes poor Fred is on the phone again. "Dad, I’m naked and in bed with her, what do I do now?" His dad’s patience is now running thin so he says, "Shit son! Do I have to spell everything out for you? Just put the hardest thing on your body where she pees. Goodnight!!!" Just when the old man starts snoring, his son is on the phone once again. "Ok Dad, I have my head in the toilet bowl what do I do next" "DROWN YOURSELF, YOU F**KING IDIOT!!

The light was grainy, dusty; it looked like the Milky Way had spread from the top of the sky all down the west, and the tented shapes of the mountains were huge and satin black against it, and the ridgeline trees made a filigree of onyx. The wind had increased but not cooled; the promise of full summer was in it. And when Dr. Barcroft turned from the west to look again at the house, he was hardly surprised to see that it had begun to turn like a wheel upon a vertical axle as the silhouettes of the dancers raced past window after window. It was as if their dancing, the female slide and shuffle, the masculine drum and thunder, propelled the house behind them; it had become a merry-go-round, turning steadily and stately as the music went just a little bit faster, just a little more, and he could tell there were furies in it, whirlwinds and cyclones and hurricanes that Quigley's fiddle barely held in check, that his calling could barely control.

New Rule: Conservatives have to stop complaining about Hollywood values. It's Oscar time again, which means two things: (1) I've got to get waxed, and (2) talk-radio hosts and conservative columnists will trot out their annual complaints about Hollywood: We're too liberal; we're out of touch with the Heartland; our facial muscles have been deadened with chicken botulism; and we make them feel fat. To these people, I say: Shut up and eat your popcorn. And stop bitching about one of the few American products--movies---that people all over the world still want to buy. Last year, Hollywood set a new box-office record: $16 billion worldwide. Not bad for a bunch of socialists. You never see Hollywood begging Washington for a handout, like corn farmers, or the auto industry, or the entire state of Alaska. What makes it even more inappropriate for conservatives to slam Hollywood is that they more than anybody lose their shit over any D-lister who leans right to the point that they actually run them for office. Sony Bono? Fred Thompson? And let'snot forget that the modern conservative messiah is a guy who costarred with a chimp. That's right, Dick Cheney. I'm not trying to say that when celebrities are conservative they're almost always lame, but if Stephen Baldwin killed himself and Bo Derrick with a car bomb, the headline the next day would be "Two Die in Car Bombing." The truth is that the vast majority of Hollywood talent is liberal, because most stars adhere to an ideology that jibes with their core principles of taking drugs and getting laid. The liebral stars that the right is always demonizing--Sean Penn and Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins, and all the other members of my biweekly cocaine orgy--they're just people with opinions. None of them hold elective office, and liberals aren't begging them to run. Because we live in the real world, where actors do acting, and politicians do...nothing. We progressives love our stars, but we know better than to elect them. We make the movies here, so we know a well-kept trade secret: The people on that screen are only pretending to be geniuses, astronauts, and cowboys. So please don't hat eon us. And please don't ruin the Oscars. Because honestly, we're just like you: We work hard all year long, and the Oscars are really just our prom night. The tuxedos are scratchy, the limousines are rented, and we go home with eighteen-year-old girls.

Let’s assume for a moment that we are starting to write a novel using Fred’s goal of wanting desperately to be first to climb the mountain. The reader now forms his story question. But the story has to start someplace, and it has to show dynamic forward movement. Let’s further assume, then, that Fred comes up with a game plan for his quest. He decides that his first step must be to borrow sufficient money to equip his expedition. So he walks into the Ninth District Bank of Cincinnati, sits down with Mr. Greenback, the loan officer, and boldly states his goal, thus: “Mr. Greenback, I want to be first to climb the mountain. But I must have capital to fund my expedition. Therefore I am here to convince you that you should lend me $75,000.” At this point, the reader sees clearly that this short-term goal relates importantly to the long-term story goal and the story question. So just as he formed a story question, the reader now forms a scene question, which again is a rewording of the goal statement: “Will Fred get the loan?” Here is a note so important that I want to set it off typographically: The scene question cannot be some vague, philosophical one such as, “Are bankers nice?” or “What motivates people like Fred?” The question is specific, relates to a definite, immediate goal, and can be answered with a simple yes or no.

The fight spilled out into the press. Allen blasted the censors. “They are a bit of executive fungus that forms on a desk that has been exposed to conference. Their conferences are meetings of men who can do nothing but collectively agree that nothing can be done.” The thin-skinned network reacted again, cutting Allen off in the middle of a barb. Now other comics joined the fray. That week Red Skelton said on his show that he’d have to be careful not to ad-lib something that might wound the dignity of some NBC vice president. “Did you hear they cut Fred Allen off on Sunday?” That’s as far as he got—the network cut him off. But Skelton went right on talking, for the studio audience. “You know what NBC means, don’t you? Nothing but cuts. Nothing but confusion. Nobody certain.” When the network put him back on the air, Skelton said, “Well, we have now joined the parade of stars.” Bob Hope, on his program, was cut off the air for this joke: “Vegas is the only town in the world where you can get tanned and faded at the same time. Of course, Fred Allen can be faded anytime.” Allen told the press that NBC had a vice president who was in charge of “program ends.” When a show ran overtime, this individual wrote down the time he had saved by cutting it off: eventually he amassed enough time for a two-week vacation. Dennis Day took the last shot. “I’m listening to the radio,” he said to his girlfriend Mildred on his Wednesday night NBC sitcom. “I don’t hear anything,” said Mildred. “I know,” said Dennis: “Fred Allen’s on.” On that note, the network gave up the fight, announcing that its comedians were free to say whatever they wanted. It didn’t matter, said Radio Life: “They all were anyway.” Allen took a major ratings dive in 1948. Some

You can learn to live, love, and have purpose again.

I finally saw that Fred Hampton was fearless. Literally, without fear. And as we listened to the speeches again and again, it became apparent he had accommodated death. He knew he was going to die. It was OK And so he had set aside the ultimate fear, the one that stopped all of us in our tracks, no matter how courageous, the net fear upon which we base all our other fears, the one that keeps us all in line. Hampton had simply set that fear to rest. He was free. Thus he was able to speak clean simple truths that hit you like a thunderbolt.

Sometimes, all it takes is one kind word to nourish another person. Think of the ripple effect that can be created when we nourish someone. One kind empathetic word has a wonderful way of turning into many.” ~Mister (Fred) Rogers “I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” ~Ettiene De Grellet

Will, I might’ve been skeptical at first, but five minutes after I met you, I knew you were it for my girl. I’ve not had one minute of doubt on her behalf since then. I hope you will always be as happy as you are today. I love you both. To Will and Cameron.” As everyone raised their glasses once again, a disturbance at the entrance to the tent had a few people screaming and everyone else on their feet to see what was going on. “Oh. My. God.” Cameron couldn’t believe it when Fred the Moose strolled into the tent like he’d been invited to the wedding. “No way,” Will said, equally stunned. And then Hannah was on her feet and moving swiftly toward the moose, who stopped in his tracks at Hannah’s command.

Fred Rogers was not just a compassionate human being; he was a practicing Christian who firmly believed that human compassion has its ultimate source in a God whose love for all of creation never ends. For Rogers, we can and should be compassionate because God is compassionate toward us—always and everywhere. Again, context matters here, and when we place Rogers’s spiritual beliefs in their historical perspective—a time when Billy Graham’s judgmental God was wildly popular—we can clearly see just how prophetic Rogers’s compassion was. But it’s not enough even to say that he was a Christian prophet. Perhaps most of all, Fred Rogers was a Christian peacemaker. The compassion he expressed toward victims of violence and injustice was not for its own sake; it was ultimately for the sake of the peaceable reign of God. Rogers opposed all U.S. wars in his lifetime, as well as various barriers to individual and social peace, because he believed that the Prince of Peace beckons us to establish the peaceful reign of God here on earth—in our hearts, communities, and societies.

Don’t go downstairs for a bit.” “Why not?” said Ron. “Mum’s crying again,” said Fred heavily. “Percy sent back his Christmas jumper.” “Without a note,” added George. “Hasn’t asked how

Evangelicals may have some dysfunctional, subjectivistic ways of expressing this truth, and we may cultivate the experience in shortsighted ways, even using it as a prop for our anti-intellectualism. But we are fundamentally right. This book is a channel through which God himself will meet us again and again in personal encounter. The voice of God in Scripture is the breath of the Spirit carrying the word of the Father. Scorgie

troubled, Alfred Allsworth (Fred) Thorp, Sheriff of Okanogan County approached the Lute Morris Saloon in Conconully Monday morning, November 9, 1909. Inside, a hard-looking stranger of medium height, with black hair and a mustache, who gave his name as Frank LeRoy, was playing cards at a table. Sheriff Thorp intended to question LeRoy regarding a safe blown in the A.C. Gillespie & Son store in Brewster a few days earlier and two residential burglaries in Brewster. A mild mannered Iowa farmer, Thorp came to the Okanogan in 1900, carried mail between Chesaw and Loomis, ran for sheriff. Armed with a six-shooter, Thorp feared only that some day, he might have to kill someone, which would compel him to resign, and this might be the day. LeRoy sat very still, watching the frontier sheriff approach the card table. “I’ll have to take you in, partner.” said Thorp. There must have been an unearthly silence in the saloon as LeRoy rose. Thorp drew his revolver, “I’m going to search you.” LeRoy turned as if to throw off his coat, and then jerked a pistol from a shoulder holster. The two opened fire simultaneously LeRoy dancing about to present an elusive target. LeRoy got off four shots. Thorp emptied his revolver, striking LeRoy’s right hand, causing him to drop his gun, and hitting the suspect in the shoulder as he bolted out a rear door. LeRoy staggered a few yards up Salmon Creek before hiding in some brush. “Look out, he’s got another gun” someone yelled from across the creek. Having borrowed a second revolver, the sheriff pounced, kicking LeRoy’s gun from his hand. LeRoy was rolled onto a piece of barn board and carried into the Elliot Hotel. There his wounds, including a punctured lung were treated. In LeRoy’s hotel room Thorp found two more guns, wedges and drills, and a supply of nitroglycerine. Two days later, LeRoy broke out of the county jail. Wearing only his nightshirt, a blanket for trousers, shoes and an old mackinaw taken from an elderly trusty who served as jailer, the desperado flew through chilling weather to Okanogan. Three days later, Thorp caught up with him in a fleld of sagebrush below Malott. LeRoy came out with his hands up commenting mildly he wished he had a gun so the two could shoot it out again. In January, 1910, at Conconully LeRoy was convicted of burglarizing the William Plemmon’s home at Brewster. Since this was his third burglary conviction, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary at Walla Walla as a habitual criminal. After serving nine years, LeRoy, in ill health, was released in 1919. He once met Fred Thorp on a street in Spokane. They chatted for a few minutes. While there were, in pioneer times, numerous other confrontations between armed men, the Thorp-LeRoy gun flght probably was the closest Okanogan County ever came to a HIGH NOON shootout.

Once again “leaders” come forth to drive fear and sow chaos and gain political power for their own ends. And even the United States, that bastion of freedom, that last chance for hope for many in the world, has descended into the same maelstrom.

casually at the dishes in the sink, which began to clean themselves, clinking gently in the background. “It was cloudy, Mum!” said Fred. “You keep your mouth closed while you’re eating!” Mrs. Weasley snapped. “They were starving him, Mum!” said George. “And you!” said Mrs. Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him. At that moment there was a diversion in the form of a small, redheaded figure in a long nightdress, who appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal, and ran out again. “Ginny,” said Ron in an undertone to Harry. “My sister. She’s been talking about you all summer.

Again the idea that he has fallen into a Henry James novel occurs to Fred; but now he casts Rosemary in a different role, as one of James' beautiful, corrupt, worldly European villainesses.

No matter how difficult the past has been, you can start over again.

Newspapers had different sections you didn’t want to read, like sport or overseas news, and stuff you did, like the word “jumble” and Fred Basset. You “scrolled” to the bit you wanted by putting the bits you didn’t want in the bin, which is bad for the planet. Luckily now we can get exactly the parts of a newspaper that we want delivered straight to our phone, though it has made painting a shelf harder because you can’t put the Daily Mail Sidebar Of Shame underneath to stop your table getting painty like you could with the family supplement. And it’s impossible to start a fire using the Guardian app. Which is good for the planet too. Some of the most famous newspapers such as The Times and TV Quick started in coffee shops in the 1800th century and by Victorian times they could be seen everywhere. Holding that day’s newspaper was a sign that you were keeping up with events. Either that or you were helping your kidnapper prove to the police that you weren’t dead yet. Newspapers made ordinary people feel part of big events, whether it was the sinking of the Titanic, men pretending to land on the Moon, the death of Lady Diana or Kinga off Big Brother sticking a wine bottle up her growler. Without newspapers we would never have heard of Piers Morgan, Rupert Murdoch or Jeremy Clarkson, so it’s understandable that in the 21st century the average person no longer buys a daily paper, in an attempt to stop it happening again.

Alright Fritz, yow can come with me,’ Fred said, before leading the German prisoner across the field, the man smiling with gratitude. Jack moved to one side as Reg slipped into the trench. ‘What a bastard,’ Reg said, his voice fuming as he stared to where Kelly was walking towards the trees. ‘You should have taken your shooting iron with you.’ ‘I forgot, besides, Jerry’s supposed to be miles away, I didn’t think I’d need it,’ Reg said, before wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘How’d I know that bastard was lurking in the bush. God, but I’d just squatted down when this face appeared beneath me. I nearly died there and then.’ Jack choked back his laughter. ‘He’s lucky he didn’t poke his head out a second later,’ Jack replied. Reg cursed, before breaking into a laugh. ‘Fuck me, but I’ll never go for a shit on my own again.

STANDING ON FRED WIXEY’S front porch, I read the three laminated signs above the doorbell: NO SOLICITORS BEWARE OF DOG TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ~ SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN

Anyway, I wanted to tell you this story, since it just rolled into my gourd while I was into that 1950 Lighthouse shot. I never told you about the Legend of the Gigantic Fart, did I?” “Put the beer in a paper bag. Let’s get it on the road.” “No, man, this story became a legend and is still told in the high schools around the county. You see, it was at the junior prom, a very big deal with hoop dresses and everybody drinking sloe gin and R.C. Cola outside in the cars. Now, this is strictly a class occasion if you live in a shitkicker town. Anyway, we’d been slopping down the beer all afternoon and eating pinto-bean salad and these greasy fried fish before we got to the dance. So it was the third number, and I took Betty Hoggenback out on the floor and was doing wonderful, tilting her back like Fred Astaire doing Ginger Rogers. Then I felt this wet fart start to grow inside me. It was like a brown rat trying to get outside. I tried to leak it off one shot at a time and keep dancing away from it, but I must have left a cloud behind that would take the varnish off the gym floor. Then one guy says, ‘Man, I don’t believe it!’ People were walking off the floor, holding their noses and saying, ‘Pew, who cut it?’ Then the saxophone player on the bandstand threw up into the piano. Later, guys were shaking my hand and buying me drinks, and a guy on the varsity came up and said that was the greatest fart he’d ever seen. It destroyed the whole prom. The saxophone player had urp all over his summer tux, and they must have had to burn the smell out of that piano with a blowtorch.” Buddy was laughing so hard at his own story that tears ran down his cheeks. He caught his breath, drank out of the beer glass, then started laughing again. The woman behind the bar was looking at him as though a lunatic had just walked into the normalcy of her life.

Grandpa Joe sat up in the recliner, lowering the leg rest, and jumping to his feet in one motion.  Grandma Pearl sat her cake down before she pretended to faint.  Grandpa tried to get Pearlie Jean off the floor while at the same time, grabbing at his heart, Fred Sanford style, bellowing, “we are being invaded by the Japanese again, Pearlie Jean!” The

We can no longer be complacent watching cops die, making the same mistakes time and time again. These mistakes are fixable! It’s time to call to arms and to wake-up every law enforcement officer to the mindset of survival in the context of where we are now, in a current environment of multiple and chronic threat.  It is time to take the mindset that each of us must be one of the 10% who diligently and continually try to improve themselves, optimize our own chances for effective response and survival from threats of all kinds.  That warrior mindset, that approach of the knight guarding the kingdom, needs to be the goal of our profession and obligation to serve.

Are you sure this idea of yours is entirely safe?” I asked, looking nervously down at the living room floor from atop the lofty fireplace mantel. “What if they come back early, Fred? What if we don’t find the right hiding spot? Fiddlesticks warned us—” “Of course we’re safe, my dear mouse,” Fred interrupted. “I’m sure they won’t be back for a while yet. We’ll blend into these incredible works of art, these…what are they called again?” “They’re mouse Hummels: little statues or figurines,” I replied, inching carefully between two of the delicate figures. “Well, this new owner has excellent taste, that’s fer sure. Very lifelike they are. Shame we have to knock some sense into this poor chap.” He extended a curious paw to examine a figurine’s tail when suddenly it turned and knocked his paw aside, exclaiming, “Excusez moi, s’il vous plaît!

She wanted to confess and be forgiven. She wanted her soul to be clean, but it was impossible. To be forgiven, she would have to repent. Repent, as in resolve not to sin again. Fred prayed every day that God would give her strength to want to repent, but she never felt like she’d received that strength.

I left the court feeling sure that Rose West would never walk free again. That thought made me happy.

Fred shook his head again, this time giving Holden the vaguely frightened look of a man who wanted to back slowly out of the room.

A Typical Description of an NDE (Near Death Experience) I asked Ring to describe for me a typical NDE. He told me: The first thing is a tremendous feeling of peace, like nothing else you have experienced. Most people say like never before and never again. People say [that it is] the peace that passes all understanding. Then there is the sense of bodily separation and sometimes the sense of actually being out of the body. There are studies that show that people can sometimes report veridically what is in their physical environment, e.g., the lint on the light fixtures above themselves. They could see in a three-hundred-sixty-degree panoramic vision. They had extraordinary acuity. Often when they went further into the experience, they went to a dark place that is sometimes described as a tunnel, but not always. They usually feel that there is a sense of motion; that they are moving through something that is vast almost beyond imagination. And yet they feel they don't have the freedom to go anywhere. They feel as if they were being propelled. The extreme sense of motion often seems to be one of acceleration. Some describe that they have felt as if they were moving a the speed of light or faster. One NDEr described this as superluminal-moving beyond the speed of light with tremendous accelerated motion through a kind of cylindrical vortex, and then, in the distance, the person describes a dot of light that suddenly grows larger, more brilliant, and all encompassing. Ring continued: At this stage of the experience there is an encounter with light. It seems to be a living light exuding pure love, complete acceptance, and total understanding. The individual feels that he is made of that light, that he has always been there, and that he has stepped out of time and stepped into eternity. This feeling is accompanied by a sense of absolute perfection. Being out of time introduces another aspect of the experience: a sense of destiny. Ring explained: Then there is a panoramic light review in which you see everything that has ever happened to you in your life. Not [only] just what you have done but the effects of your actions on others, the effects of your thoughts on others. The whole thing is laid out for you without being judged but with a complete understanding of why things were the way they were in your life. The best metaphor I can suggest for this is: as if you were the character in someone else's novel. There would be one moment outside of time where you would have the perspective of the author of that novel, and you have a sense of omniscience about that character. Why he did the things that he did, why he had affected others, and so on. It is a profound moment outside of time when this realization occurs. You see the whole raison d'etre of your life. You may also see scenes or fragments of scenes of your life if you choose to go back to your body. In other words, it is not only that you have flashbacks but you also seem to have flash-forwards of events that will occur almost at though there is a kind of blueprint for your life. And it is up to you at that moment. You have free choice because it is often left to you whether to go back to your life or to leave it behind. The people we talk with of course always make the choice to go back or sometimes are sent back.

When Angelina had scored, Harry had done a couple of loop-the-loops to let off his feelings. Now he was back to staring around for the Snitch. Once he caught sight of a flash of gold, but it was just a reflection from one of the Weasleys’ wristwatches, and once a Bludger decided to come pelting his way, more like a cannonball than anything, but Harry dodged it and Fred Weasley came chasing after it. “All right there, Harry?” he had time to yell, as he beat the Bludger furiously toward Marcus Flint. “Slytherin in possession,” Lee Jordan was saying, “Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the — wait a moment — was that the Snitch?” A murmur ran through the crowd as Adrian Pucey dropped the Quaffle, too busy looking over his shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed his left ear. Harry saw it. In a great rush of excitement he dived downward after the streak of gold. Slytherin Seeker Terence Higgs had seen it, too. Neck and neck they hurtled toward the Snitch — all the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in midair to watch. Harry was faster than Higgs — he could see the little round ball, wings fluttering, darting up ahead — he put on an extra spurt of speed — WHAM! A roar of rage echoed from the Gryffindors below — Marcus Flint had blocked Harry on purpose, and Harry’s broom spun off course, Harry holding on for dear life. “Foul!” screamed the Gryffindors. Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and then ordered a free shot at the goalposts for Gryffindor. But in all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again. Down

I wasn’t going to hurt him,” she told the man, earning a huff of clear disbelief from Mr. Victor in the process. “You broke my nose,” Mr. Victor snapped. “Which really does beg the question of why you’ve been allowed in the same room with me.” He narrowed an eye on her that was rapidly turning an interesting shade of black. “It is never permissible for a lady to punch a gentleman, not proper in the least. Although . . . given that you seem to be acquainted with Miss Plum as well, you’re obviously not a proper sort of lady.” “I’ve never claimed to be a proper lady, Mr. Victor. In fact, I’m just the nanny.” “You are a proper lady,” Everett said as he reached up and pulled the rag off his face, sporting not one but two black eyes. “And you’re not just the nanny.” Warmth began traveling up Millie’s neck to settle on her face, but before she could so much as get a word of appreciation out of her mouth, Mr. Victor let out another grunt. “Do not tell me, Mr. Mulberry, that this woman, the one who recently broke my nose, has been hired to watch Fred’s children? Surely you must realize that putting those precious scamps in the direct vicinity of a woman prone to violence is hardly in their best interest.” He mopped at his nose again. “She hit me in a manner that suggests she’s spends quite a bit of time pummeling people. That clearly proves she’s unstable—and proves you’re not fit to see to the children’s basic needs, since you hired her as a nanny in the first place.” “I’ve hardly spent my life pummeling people, sir,” Millie said before Everett could reply. “Well, there was this one boy at the orphanage, Freddy Franklin, but . . . I digest from the topic at hand.” “Digress,” Everett said right before he laughed. “I hate to point this out, Millie, but it might benefit you to go back through all the D words, since they seem to be giving you trouble today.” Millie’s lips twitched. “And that explains why I was so dismayed—another D word that I know means upset—about not having my sensible clothing available. My aprons come in remarkably handy for holding my dictionaries.” Additional warmth spread over her when Everett smiled. Hoping

According to the article, Douglass responds, “No, no, … I am Marshal Douglass in Washington; here let me be Fred Douglass again.”41 Was Douglass in some odd way asking to be a slave again or to be treated as a kind of boy, as some of his critics at the time suggested?

Aikido," my teacher had said again and again, "is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you're already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.

Her most unusual assignation was a quick visit with Fred Darsey, a young man recently escaped from Milledgeville State Hospital, where he was committed by his parents during a troubled adolescence. Darsey first caught her interest with a blind letter, in March, from the mental institution, revealing his passion for bird-watching. She was startled when her reply was returned and the envelope marked “eloped.” She sympathized, when Darsey wrote her again from New York City, “When you have a friend there you feel as if you are there yourself, so you see I feel as if I have escaped too.” Carver helped arrange the date, which Flannery kept secret from Regina, in Bryant Park, at the rear of the New York Public Library, with the pen pal she had never met. “I just love to sit and look at the people in New York, or anywhere,” she told him, “even in Milledgeville.” Flannery wound up her trip north spending the

again. Fred

She was just as much to blame as Fred’s bitch ass was. I felt like if I brought Bria around Sharice, I was basically saying fuck my daughter and fuck what happened and I’d never say that so I didn’t see Sharice ever seeing Bria again.

Lindsay strode to the door and picked up his overcoat from the back of the couch, where he'd tossed it when they came in. She wheeled around to hand him his coat; once again, as expected, Fred was standing right behind her. But this time he wasn't looking at her. He was looking up. At the mistletoe, directly over their heads. He met her eyes with a look that glimmered with promise. Then he took the overcoat from her hand and tossed it, lightly, onto the back of the sofa once again. Everything seemed to slow. His intentions were clear, and she had plenty of time to step back. Yet Lindsay did nothing to stop him when he took her chin in his hand, tipped it upward, and brought his lips down to hers, as purposefully as if he'd meant to do it all along. Lindsay could have sworn she heard bells.... Still dazed, she followed his eyes upward. "And what's the penalty for ignoring mistletoe?" "Struck by lightning, I think.

Rubin and those on down had the additional frustration of watching Jobs, in their view, wrongly take credit for innovations that were not his or Apple’s. Jobs was an amazing innovator who had an unparalleled sense for when to release a product, how to design the hardware and the software, and how to make consumers lust after it. No one else comes close to his record of doing this again and again. It was genius. But he didn’t invent most of the technology in the iPhone. What made Jobs so successful is that he never wanted to be first at anything. Business and technology history is littered with inventors who never made a dime off their inventions. Jobs understood that a multiyear gap always exists between when something is discovered and when it becomes viable as a consumer product.

Fred, who was probably gay, didn’t bother to hide himself and didn’t care if you looked. Then again, he never hinted at wanting to fool around and I suspected he might be asexual, but really, I think he was very comfortable with his sexuality. Simon was a lot of fun to be around because he was gay and totally trusted our inner circle with his secret. Simon, Declan, Cody, and I generally shared an unspoken bond of knowing about each other while in seminary—we didn’t have to tell each other we were family.

Gothic is the genre of fear. Our fascination with it is almost always revived during times of instability and panic. In the wake of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Sade described the rise of the genre as 'the inevitable product of the revolutionary shock with which the whole of Europe resounded,' and literary critics in the late eighteenth century mocked the work of early gothic writers Anne Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis by referring to it as 'the terrorist school' of writing. As Fred Botting writes in Gothic, his lucid introduction to the genre, it expresses our unresolved feelings about 'the nature of power, law, society, family and sexuality' and yet is extremely concerned with issues of social disintegration and collapse. It's preoccupied with all that is immoral, fantastic, suspenseful, and sensational and yet prone to promoting middle-class values. It's interested in transgression, but it's ultimately more interested in restitution; it alludes to the past yet is carefully attuned to the present; it's designed to evoke excessive emotion, yet it's thoroughly ambivalent; it's the product of revolution and upheaval, yet it endeavors to contain their forces; it's terrifying, but pretty funny. And, importantly, the gothic always reflects the anxieties of its age in an appropriate package, so that by the nineteenth century, familiar tropes representing external threats like crumbling castles, aristocratic villains, and pesky ghosts had been swallowed and interiorized. In the nineteenth century, gothic horrors were more concerned with madness, disease, moral depravity, and decay than with evil aristocrats and depraved monks. Darwin's theories, the changing roles of women in society, and ethical issues raised by advances in science and technology haunted the Victorian gothic, and the repression of these fears returned again and again in the form of guilt, anxiety, and despair. 'Doubles, alter egos, mirrors, and animated representations of the disturbing parts of human identity became the stock devices,' Botting writes, 'signifying the alienation of the human subject from the culture and language in which s/he is located.' In the transition from modernity to post-modernity, the very idea of culture as something stable and real is challenged, and so postmodern gothic freaks itself out by dismantling modernist grand narratives and playing games. In the twentieth century, 'Gothic [was] everywhere and nowhere,' and 'narrative forms and devices spill[ed] over from worlds of fantasy and fiction into real and social spheres.

Harry hurtled around a corner and found Fred and a small knot of students, including Lee Jordan and Hannah Abbott, standing beside another empty plinth, whose statue had concealed a secret passageway. Their wands were drawn and they were listening at the concealed hole. “Nice night for it!” Fred shouted as the castle quaked again, and Harry sprinted by, elated and terrified in equal measure.

Ham raised his hand. 'What is it?' 'I don't understand.' 'What don't yow understand?' Fred asked, his voice impatient. 'You need me to help you get over the wall?' 'Well I can't bloody sprout wings and fly over, can I?' 'How are you going to get back out again?' Ham asked, as he scratched his chin. 'I'll be on this side of the wall, you see.' 'He's got a point,' Jack said, his face ducking down as a truck drove out from the farm, followed by a second. 'I can't be expected to work everything out, can I?' Fred asked, his face annoyed. 'We'll just bloody wing it, alright?' 'What a great idea,' Donald said,

Hard to say. We'll just have to get used to foot slogging again,' Fred replied. 'At least I ain't got the radio to worry about anymore,' Reg said. 'It was the happiest day of my life when it accidentally fell off that cliff.

You are a very special person. There is only one person like you in the whole world. There has never been anyone exactly like you before, and there will never be again. And people can like you just because you're you.

Ron dropped several boxes, swore, and made a rude hand gesture at Fred that was unfortunately spotted by Mrs. Weasley, who had chosen that moment to appear. “If I see you do that again I’ll jinx your fingers together,” she said sharply.

What did the captain want with you?' Ed asked. Fred said nothing as he sat down. His face wearing a puzzled expression as he pushed a cigarette between his lips and lit a match. 'Well, what's the matter with you man?' Jones asked. 'Nothing,' Fred replied, staring at the cigarette burning between his fingers. 'What are they charging you with?' Williams asked. 'Nothing,' Fred said again, his voice monotone. 'What is up with you then?' 'The captain has made me a corporal,' Fred said. 'You,' Williams shouted, stepping several paces back as if struck by a heavy hammer. 'I'm in charge of the Lewis gun section, when they arrive that is,' Fred said, his words drawn out with disbelief. 'There must be some bloody mistake,' Williams said, staring at Fred with a look of horror in his eyes.

was really a lot to do with, once again, fucking around with the tunings. I found these chords, especially doing it on a twelve-string to start with, which gave the song this character and sound. There’s a certain forlornness that can come out of a twelve-string. I started off, I think, on a regular six-string open E, and it sounded very nice, but sometimes you just get these ideas. What if I open tuned a twelve-string? All it meant was translate what Mississippi Fred McDowell was doing—twelve-string slide—into five-string mode, which meant a ten-string guitar. I now have a couple custom built for that. It was one of those magical moments when things come together. It’s like “Satisfaction.” You just dream it, and suddenly it’s all in your hands. Once you’ve got the vision in your mind of wild horses, I mean, what’s the next phrase you’re going to use? It’s got to be “couldn’t drag me away.” That’s one of the great things about songwriting; it’s not an intellectual experience.

city—its streets, its schools, its citizens, wandering free. As we’re herded toward the nearest buildings, I wonder if we’ll ever be allowed to wander again. Between Mom and me, my younger brother, Fred, fidgets and tugs at our hands. At nine years old, he’s small for his age, with a cowlick at the back of his head that won’t stay flat, no matter how much you comb it. Mom likes to say it’s as unruly as he is. I pull him closer. Ahead, the crowd splits. Men are shuffling into one building; women, into another. Medical examinations, someone says. They want to make sure we’re not diseased. Bowing,

Did I really want or need to know? What difference would it make if he were dead or alive, since dead or alive I should never see him again? But could I be certain? Was it completely and utterly out of the question for the door to open and for him to walk in? And wasn't I even now listening for his footstep?

The door creaked open a tiny bit to reveal a nitwit villager peeking through. Kate’s hopes soared when she thought they might actually get to talk to someone. They crashed down when the door slammed shut. “Hmph. Like funny stuff,” the nitwit said. “Hey buddy, what’s your name?” Jack asked through the door again. “You tell me joke, I tell you name.” Jack smirked, looking at Kate, who looked utterly defeated. He lifted his hand and knocked twice. “Who’s dere?” “Spell.” “Spell who?” Jack snorted. “W.H.O.” The nitwit paused for a long moment, then suddenly laughed. “Oh dat good one! So smart! My name Fred.

I was walking down the street with a friend the other day and a guy with a gun jumps out of an alley and says “Stick ’em up.” As I pull out my wallet, I figure, “Shouldn’t be a total loss.” So I pull out some money, turn to my friend and say, “Hey, Fred, here’s that fifty bucks I owe you.” The robber was so offended he took out a thousand dollars of his own money, forced Fred to lend it to me at gunpoint, and then took it back again.

I lost my family too because of our kindness. I can’t let this happen ever again not this time. You don’t know the secrets that I know so you don’t have any option except accepting this.

The Dementors won’t turn up again, Oliver, Dumbledore’d do his nut,’ said Fred confidently.

George’s Patronus After his twin, Fred, died in the battle of Hogwarts, George was never able to cast the Patronus charm again. That’s just too sad to handle!

setting out for St. Mungo’s now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum.” George looked around the table. “Still alive . . .” he said slowly. “But that makes it sound . . .” He did not need to finish the sentence. It sounded to Harry too as though Mr. Weasley was hovering somewhere between life and death. Still exceptionally pale, Ron stared at the back of his mother’s letter as though it might speak words of comfort to him. Fred pulled the parchment out of George’s hands and read it for himself, then looked up at Harry, who felt his hand shaking on his butterbeer bottle again and clenched it more tightly to stop the trembling. If Harry had ever sat through a longer night than this one he could not remember it. Sirius suggested once that they all go to bed, but without any real conviction, and the Weasleys’ looks of disgust were answer enough. They mostly sat in silence around the table, watching the candle wick sinking lower and lower into liquid wax, now and then raising bottles to

For the love of God,' Harry said, struggling up. He looked down at his mud encrusted feet and filthy puttees and cursed. 'Three bloody days and look at me, I'm covered in shit again.' 'Not as much as Fred,' Williams said, laughing. Harry smiled, the previous night Fred had slipped into a shell hole that the company in front had been using as a latrine. He'd sworn so loud that the whole line had been lit up by flares and it had been ten whole minutes before the guns had stopped probing the dark.

Wesley Mouch glanced at the ceiling. “Don’t ask me to talk to him again,” he said, and shuddered. “I’ve tried. One can’t talk to that man.” “I . . . I can’t, Mr. Thompson!” cried Chick Morrison, in answer to the stop of Mr. Thompson’s roving glance. “I’ll resign, if you want me to! I can’t talk to him again! Don’t make me!” “Nobody can talk to him,” said Dr. Floyd Ferris. “It’s a waste of time. He doesn’t hear a word you say.” Fred Kinnan chuckled. “You mean, he hears too much, don’t you? And what’s worse, he answers it.” “Well, why don’t you try it again?” snapped Mouch. “You seem to have enjoyed it. Why don’t you try to persuade him?” “I know better,” said Kinnan. “Don’t fool yourself, brother. Nobody’s going to persuade him, I won’t try it twice. . . . Enjoyed it?” he added, with a look of astonishment. “Yeah . . . yeah, I guess I did.

Again. This was the year in which a million people crowded into Atlanta—still alive despite the ashes to which David Selznick had reduced it—for the ceremonial opening of Gone With the Wind. Confederate flags flew everywhere, and hawkers peddled Rhett caramels and Melanie molasses and Tara pecans, and when Vivien Leigh heard a military school band bleating “Dixie,” she said, “Oh, they’re playing the song from our picture.” There was a grand unreality about all the festivity, this celebration of defeat in a war long finished, as though nobody could understand that a much larger struggle had already begun. That September, a group of Selznick’s technicians had been carrying out one of their last tasks, filming the title itself—Gone With the Wind—pulling the camera along on a dolly so that each word could be framed separately, when Fred Williams, the head grip, turned on his radio and heard that Britain had declared war on Nazi

Well, you’re doing great too. I mean look at this egg!” I pointed to a shining yellow egg. He looks confused for a second and then starts admiring his work. “You really think it’s an egg!?” Archie asked as I looked at it again. “What is it, then?” I asked. He sighed, “it’s a shining sun.

Say that again, Fresa Blossom, and I swear to hell I’m gonna kiss you right in front of this whole stupid class again and I don’t care about the school detention or being grounded by Andrew.

On Memorial Day 1927, a march of some 1,000 Klansmen through the New York City borough of Queens turned into a brawl with the police. Several people wearing Klan hoods were arrested, one of them a young real estate developer named Fred Trump. Ninety years later, his son, with similar feelings about people of color, would enter the White House. During Donald Trump’s presidency, the forces that had blighted the America of a century earlier would be dramatically visible yet again: rage against immigrants and refugees, racism, Red-baiting, fear of subversive ideas in schools, and much more. And, of course, behind all of them is the appeal of simple solutions: deport aliens, forbid critical journalism, lock people up, blame everything on those of a different color or religion. All those impulses have long been with us. Other presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have made dog-whistle appeals on the issue of race. The anti-Communist witch-hunting of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his imitators would prove far more influential in American political life than the country’s minuscule Communist Party, putting people in prison, wrecking careers, and causing thousands to leave the country. The American tendency to blame things on sinister conspiracies has found new targets; instead of the villains being the pope or the Bolsheviks, in recent times they have included Sharia law, George Soros, Satanist pedophile rings, and more.

Some lesson, though, eh?’ said Ron to Harry, as they set off for the Great Hall. ‘Fred and George were right, weren’t they? He really knows his stuff, Moody, doesn’t he? When he did Avada Kedavra, the way that spider just died, just snuffed it right –’ But Ron fell suddenly silent at the look on Harry’s face, and didn’t speak again until they reached the Great Hall,

The careful writer of fiction wants the disaster which grows out of the goal to put considerable additional pressure on the character very soon. If you allow Fred, for example, to pick a scene goal of convincing the Smithsonian Institution to fund his expedition, it could well lead to a “disaster” in which some Washington official says “Yes, but” such requests have to be formally approved by a board which meets only twice a year – thus meaning that the result of this disaster is a waiting period of several months. Or – and this is a much more common mistake – you might err by failing to have Fred note at the outset, in stating his goal, that he needs a decision or declaration right away; in such cases, disasters have a tendency to look more like indefinite delays – and again the story bogs down because the goal was not set up or stated in such a way that a fairly immediate result could be forthcoming.

Now: We’ve opened a potential scene. We have a character, we have a goal that relates to the story goal, and this short-term scene goal has been stated in no uncertain terms. What next? It must be conflict. Why? Not just because readers like conflict, but – again – because a prompt, satisfactory answer ends the scene at once and relaxes all tension in the reader. Let’s imagine Mr. Greenback says, “I love mountain climbers, Fred, and I like you! Sure, you can have $75,000! But are you sure that will be enough? Are you sure you wouldn’t like to borrow more?” If you let this happen, the “scene” collapsed before it could get under way. Furthermore, Fred leaves happy and relaxed. The reader relaxes, too – and so loses interest in the story.

It seems clear why this should be so. If a character enters a scene, has a big struggle, and comes out with exactly what he went in for, then he is happy as a lark. Again – just as if there had been no fight at all – Fred is happy, the reader is happy – and all story tension just went down the drain. This is why the scene, if it is to work as a building block in your novel, must end not well, but badly. Fred cannot be allowed to attain his scene goal. He must encounter a new setback. He must leave in worse shape than he was when he went in. Any time you can build a scene which leaves your character in worse shape, you have probably “made progress” in terms of your story’s development!

Oh for heaven’s sake,” she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the potatoes. “Those two!” she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a cupboard, and Harry knew she meant Fred and George. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to them, I really don’t. No ambition, unless you count making as much trouble as they possibly can. . . .” Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand-tip as she stirred. “It’s not as though they haven’t got brains,” she continued irritably, taking the saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of her wand, “but they’re wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they’ll be in real trouble. I’ve had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put together. If they carry on the way they’re going, they’ll end up in front of the Improper Use of Magic Office.” Mrs. Weasley jabbed her wand at the cutlery drawer, which shot open. Harry and Ron both jumped out of the way as several knives soared out of it, flew across the kitchen, and began chopping the potatoes, which had just been tipped back into the sink by the dustpan. “I don’t know where we went wrong with them,” said Mrs. Weasley, putting down her wand and starting to pull out still more saucepans. “It’s been the same for years, one thing after another, and they won’t listen to — OH NOT AGAIN!” She had picked up her wand from the table, and it had emitted a loud squeak and turned into a giant rubber mouse. “One of their fake wands again!” she shouted. “How many times have I told them not to leave them lying around?” She grabbed her real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove was smoking. “C’mon,” Ron said hurriedly to Harry, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open drawer, “let’s go and help Bill and Charlie.” They left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard. They had only gone a few paces when Hermione’s bandy-legged ginger cat, Crookshanks, came pelting out of the garden, bottlebrush tail held high in the air, chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs. Harry recognized it instantly as a gnome. Barely ten inches

Agriculture, too, will have to see a revival in planning if we are to address the triple crisis of soil erosion, extreme weather, and dependence on fossil fuel inputs. Wes Jackson, the visionary founder of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, has been calling for “a fifty-year farm bill.” That’s the length of time he and his collaborators Wendell Berry and Fred Kirschenmann estimate it will take to conduct the research and develop the infrastructure to replace many soil-depleting annual grain crops (grown in monocultures) with perennial crops (grown in polycultures). Because perennials don’t need to be replanted every year, their long roots do a much better job of storing scarce water, holding soil in place and sequestering carbon. Polycultures are also less vulnerable to pests and to being wiped out by the extreme weather that is already locked in. Another bonus: this type of farming is much more labor intensive than industrial agriculture, which means that farming can once again be a substantial source of employment in long neglected rural communities.

Yes, Miss," expounded the groom. "'Gated' means 'shown the gate.' Some judges thins out a class that way, by sending the poorest dogs out of the ring first. Then again, some judges—" "Oh, I'm glad I wore this dress!" sighed the girl. "It goes so well with Morven's color. Perhaps the judge—" "Excuse me, Miss," put in the groom, trying not to laugh, "but the collie judge to-day is Fred Leightonhe bred the great Howgill Rival, you know—and when Leighton is in the ring, he hasn't got eyes for anything but the dogs themselves. Begging your pardon, he wouldn't notice if you was to wear a horse blanket. At that, Leighton's the squarest and the best—

What’s he brought all those cauldrons for?” “Probably looking for a safe place to keep them,” said Harry. “Isn’t that what he was doing the night he was supposed to be tailing me? Picking up dodgy cauldrons?” “Yeah, you’re right!” said Fred, as the front door opened; Mundungus heaved his cauldrons through it and disappeared from view. “Blimey, Mum won’t like that . . .” He and George crossed to the door and stood beside it, listening intently. Mrs. Black’s screaming had stopped again. “Mundungus is talking to Sirius and Kingsley,” Fred muttered, frowning with concentration. “Can’t hear properly . . . d’you reckon we can risk the Extendable Ears?” “Might be worth it,” said George. “I could sneak upstairs and get a pair —” But at that precise moment there was an explosion of sound from downstairs that rendered Extendable Ears quite unnecessary. All of them could hear exactly what Mrs. Weasley was shouting at the top of her voice. “WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT

Tuesday didn’t know what to do. At all. Every day she woke up (again), and every day she went to school (again), and every day she turned in homework (again), and every day she took notes (again), and every day she went to her locker (again), and every day Abby wasn’t there (again and again and again), and it never, ever made sense. Tuesday hadn’t expected to have a best friend. “Best friends” occupied the same imaginary territory as fairies or leprechauns, mythical things kids (girls especially) were told they should be looking for. She certainly didn’t need one—between Ollie and her parents and the other honors arty kids at school (the ones who weren’t freaked out by all her black clothes), she wasn’t lonely, she had people to talk to, to sit with at lunch. But Abby and her dad Fred moved next door when Tuesday was twelve, and from the very beginning it was just there.

Right,” began Trey as he picked Taryn up, wrapping her legs around his waist, “then we’ll see you guys later, because we have some celebratory sex to do.” “Okay, but, Taryn,” said Dominic, “if it doesn’t work out with him, well…I’m no Fred Flintstone, but I sure can make your bed rock.” He chuckled at everyone’s groans. Trey, of course, growled and then strode out of the living area with wide, determined steps. “We’ve just done the deed twice outside!” she reminded him. “You know I’m always good to go again when it comes to you, baby.

Sullivan was quoted as saying. “We took the fight to them and it’s over.” It certainly felt over, Rye thought as he stared into the fire. There was no mention of Gig in the news story, and he wondered if Lem Brand had lied about getting his brother out of jail. He slept uneasily again, repeating over and over in his mind what he’d say to Early if he came back (Look, I don’t want any trouble for Gig and me . . . ). In the morning, another skiff of snow had fallen, like sugar onto a biscuit. After breakfast, Rye swept Mrs. Ricci’s steps and walked downtown along the old hobo highway. It was rare to walk the trail and see no one, but with so many men in jail or wintered up, Rye felt alone in the world. He emerged in the fuel and freight yards east of downtown, then walked the tenderloin into the center of downtown and eventually to the building where Fred Moore had a small office on the second floor, and where Rye took off his bowler and asked to see his old lawyer. Fred came out of his office in shirtsleeves. He clapped Rye on the shoulder

So I didn’t like it, and I either had to lump it or bow out. I tossed a coin: heads I stick, tails I quit. It landed tails, but I had to veto it because I had already talked to Orrie Cather and he was coming at noon, and I had left messages for Fred Durkin and Saul Panzer. I tossed again, tails again. I tossed once more and it was heads, which settled it. I had to stick.