Halo Sayings And Quotes

What is it with you today?” says Christina on the way to breakfast. Her eyes are still swollen from sleep and her tangled hair forms a fuzzy halo around her face. “Oh, you know,” I say. “Sun shining. Birds chirping.” She raises an eyebrow at me, as if reminding me that we are in an underground tunnel.

Molly: So how do you think of Bryce Hamilton crowd so far? Boys hot enough for you? Bethany: I wouldn't say hot. Most of them seem to have a normal body temperature.

Some say we can't choose who we fall in love with; love chooses us. Sometimes people fall for the complete antithesis of everything they believe they're looking for.

for the fifth time this month you say you’re going to leave him he calls you a cunt over the phone then walks the three miles to your house and kisses your mouth until the word is just a place on your body. i don’t know what brings broken people together maybe damage seeks out damage the way stains on a mattress halo into one another the way stains on a mattress bleed into each other.

The things that the novel does not say are necessarily more numerous than those it does say and only a special halo around what is written can give the illusion that you are reading also what is not written.

I wanted to fathom her secrets; I wanted her to come to me and say: "I love you," and if not that, if that was senseless insanity, then...well, what was there to care about? Did I know what I wanted? I was like one demented: all I wanted was to be near her, in the halo of her glory, in her radiance, always, for ever, all my life. I knew nothing more!

And because people are stupid and use their noses only for blowing, but believe absolutely anything they see with their eyes, they will say it is because this is a girl with beauty and grace and charm.

This was a few weeks ago," Annabeth said. "Percy told me a crazy story about meeting a boy our near Moriches Bay. Apparently this kid used hieroglyphs to cast spells. He helped Percy battle a crocodile monsters." "The Sob of Sobek!" Sadie blurted. "But my brother battled that monster. He didn't say anything about-" "Is your brother's name Carter?" Annabeth asked. An angry golden aura flickered around Sadie's head-a halo of hieroglyphs that resembled frowns, fists, and dead stick men. "As of this moment," Sadie growled, "My brother's name is Punching Bag.

Some say we can't choose who we fall in love with; love chooses us.

But there are people who take salt with their coffee. They say it gives a tang, a savour, which is peculiar and fascinating. In the same way there are certain places, surrounded by a halo of romance, to which the inevitable disillusionment you experience on seeing them gives a singular spice. You had expected something wholly beautiful and you get an impression which is infinitely more complicated than any that beauty can give you. It is the weakness in the character of a great man which may make him less admirable but certainly more interesting. Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu...

I started getting Mal's texts just before lunch. Mal: Awake Anne: Morning Mal: Going for a run with Jim Anne: Have fun! Mal: Back from run having lunch ... Mal:Your taste in music sucks Anne: Thanks Mal: Seriously, we need to talk it's that bad. Everything apart from Stage Dive needs to go. Anne: Wait. What are you doing? Mal:Fixing it. Anne: Mal, WTH are you doing? Mal: Making you new playlist wih decent shit. Relay Anne: K Thanks Mal: Bored again Mal: Ben's coming over to play Halo Anne: Great! But you don't have to tell me everything you do, Mal Mal: Davie says communication's important Mal: When are you on the rag? Davie said to find out if you want cupcakes or ice cream Anne: I want to not talk about this ever Mal: Bored. Ben's late Mal: Let's get a dog Anne: Apartment has no pets rule Mal: Nice green lace bra Anne: Get out of my drawers, Mal. Mal: Matching panties? Anne: GET OUT NOW. Mal: :) Mal: sext me Mal: Some on it'll be funny Mal: Plz? Mal: High level of unhealthy codependency traits exhibited by both parties relationship possibly bordeing on toxic Anne: WTF? Mal: Did magazine quiz. We need help- Especially you Anne:... Mal: Booking us couples counseling. Tues 4:15 alright? Anne: We are not going to counseling. Mal: What's wrong? Don't you love me anymore? Anne: Turning phone off now.

There must be a glowing light above such houses. The joy they contain must escape in light through the stones of the walls and shine dimly into the darkness. It is impossible that this sacred festival of destiny should not send a celestial radiation to the infinite. Love is the sublime crucible in which is consummated the fusion of man and woman; the one being, the triple being, the final being-- the human trinity springs from it. This birth of two souls into one space must be an emotion for space. The lover is priest; the apprehensive maiden submits. Something of this joy goes to God. Where there really is marriage, that is to say, where there is love, the ideal is mingled with it. A nuptial bed makes a halo in the darkness. Were it given to the eye of the flesh to perceive the fearful and enchanting sights of the superior life, it is likely that we should see the forms of night, the winged stranger, the blue travelers of the invisible, bending, a throng of shadowy heads, over the luminous house, pleased, blessing, showing to one another the sweetly startled maiden bride and wearing the reflection of the human felicity on their divine countenances. If at that supreme hour, the wedded pair, bewildered with pleasure, and believing themselves alone, were to listen, they would hear in their room a rustling of confused wings. Perfect happiness implies the solidarity of the angels. That obscure little alcove has for its ceiling the whole heavens. When two mouths, made sacred by love, draw near to each other to create, it is impossible, that above that ineffable kiss there should not be a thrill in the immense mystery of the stars.

Men are hateful, contrary creatures who say they want goddesses to put on pedestals. Once they have them up there, they rip off the halo, tear off the gown, slice off the wings so they can’t fly and then kick the pedestal away so the woman falls at his feet and he can scream out as he kicks her, tramp!—or worse.

That night, having wriggled down into my futon all alone, I found myself in the grips of a wrenching sadness. I was only a child, but I knew the feeling that came when you parted with something, and I felt that pain. I lay gazing up at the ceiling , feeling the sleek stiffness of the well-starched sheets against my skin. My distress was a seed that would grow into an understanding of what it meant to say goodbye. In contrast to the heavy ache I would come to know later on in life, this was tiny and fresh – a green bud of pain with a bright halo of light rimming its edges.

Pick,” Emma tells her. Tira’s lip trembles. She tries to back out of sight, but someone pushes her forward. “Pick…Pick what?” Emma motions to the halo of predators above them, around them, everywhere. “Pick two. Any two you want, and I will have them divide Jagen’s body evenly.” “No!” Jagen screams, his face contorted in terror. Emma cocks her head at him. “Jagen, make up your mind. Didn’t you just say you don’t believe I have the Gift? So then why should you care if she points to some harmless sharks?” He clamps his mouth shut, but the look of panic stays. Tira says, “I couldn’t do that, Highness.” Highness! Someone called Emma “Highness!” It’s one of the many names she calls Galen when she’s mad at him. The irony is not lost on Emma. Her death glare cuts off his snickers. She turns back to Tira. “Of course you can. There’s nothing to worry about because Paca has the Gift, remember? Isn’t that what you all believe? She would never let any harm come to her own father, would she? I know I wouldn’t. So go ahead and pick. Paca will save Jagen.” Clever little angelfish. Galen smirks at Jagen, who won’t meet his eyes. Nalia and Grom make their way to the edge of the center. Grom grins at Emma like she’s his own daughter. Which is very weird for Galen.

The sun is at the horizon now, and the sky streaks with reds and golds. The whole world seems to be wearing a halo, and for a second I let myself savor it. I let myself believe. Alexei's arm is warm around my shoulder and a cool breeze blows in off the sea. Between us, we speak seven different languages, but not a one of us says a word. We sit in silence as the sun sets, marking the end of this day. Marking the beginning of everything else.

They have to say SOMETHING. Maria Bartiromo can't exactly look into the camera and say that the Dow is down half a percent today because of random Brownian motion.

It wasn't up to you when they put this on you. You wearing this is something they did to you. If you put it back on, they're winning, okay? And you're letting hem. You say this is your choice, Kit, and you're right. I'm begging you not to choose this. Choose something else. Choose the possibility that there could be something else worth feeling all the bad stuff for. Choose me.

Disasterology The Badger is the thirteenth astrological sign. My sign. The one the other signs evicted: unanimously. So what? ! Think I want to read about my future in the newspaper next to the comics? My third grade teacher told me I had no future. I run through snow and turn around just to make sure I’ve got a past. My life’s a chandelier dropped from an airplane. I graduated first in my class from alibi school. There ought to be a healthy family cage at the zoo, or an open field, where I can lose my mother as many times as I need. When I get bored, I call the cops, tell them there’s a pervert peeking in my window! then I slip on a flimsy nightgown, go outside, press my face against the glass and wait… This makes me proud to be an American where drunk drivers ought to wear necklaces made from the spines of children they’ve run over. I remember my face being invented through a windshield. All the wounds stitched with horsehair So the scars galloped across my forehead. I remember the hymns cherubs sang in my bloodstream. The way even my shadow ached when the chubby infants stopped. I remember wishing I could be boiled like water and made pure again. Desire so real it could be outlined in chalk. My eyes were the color of palm trees in a hurricane. I’d wake up and my id would start the day without me. Somewhere a junkie fixes the hole in his arm and a racing car zips around my halo. A good God is hard to find. Each morning I look in the mirror and say promise me something don’t do the things I’ve done.

Kiss me again,” he challenged, only half joking. It was so weird to hear him say that, to hear those words out loud. They had kissed. More than once. More than a lot. They had passed the point of being “just friends” by a long shot. She leaned down and gave him a dry, sisterly little peck. And then she leaned back up again and smiled at him innocently. She wished she could a halo appear above her head for effect. Jay made a sound at her that was like a growl, and then he pulled her down . . . hard. He flipped her over so that she was lying on her back and he was poised above her, and taking full advantage of his upper hand, he moved his lips over hers with a feather-light touch, in a way that was anything but innocent. Until she parted her lips and let him kiss her again . . . completely . . . thoroughly. She heard herself moan, and she could feel the throbbing of her own pulse flickering hotly through her veins. He lifted his head and stared down at her, rubbing his thumb across her lower lip. “That’s what I was talking about. A real kiss.

the more interesting their conversation, the more cultured they are, the more they will be trapped into thinking that they are effective at what they are doing in real business (something psychologists call the halo effect, the mistake of thinking that skills in, say, skiing translate unfailingly into skills in managing a pottery workshop or a bank department, or that a good chess player would be a good strategist in real life).

When In The Soul Of The Serene Disciple When in the soul of the serene disciple With no more Fathers to imitate Poverty is a success, It is a small thing to say the roof is gone: He has not even a house. Stars, as well as friends, Are angry with the noble ruin. Saints depart in several directions. Be still: There is no longer any need of comment. It was a lucky wind That blew away his halo with his cares, A lucky sea that drowned his reputation. Here you will find Neither a proverb nor a memorandum. There are no ways, No methods to admire Where poverty is no achievement. His God lives in his emptiness like an affliction. What choice remains? Well, to be ordinary is not a choice: It is the usual freedom Of men without visions.

Fifteen years ago, the cultural critic Greil Marcus wrote of Jimi's performance of our national anthem as "his great NO to the war, to racism, to whatever you or he might think of and want gone. But then that discord shattered, and for more than four and a half long, complex minutes Hendrix pursued each invisible crack in a vessel that had once been whole, feeling out and exploring and testing himself and his music against anguish, rage, fear, hate, love offered, and love refused. When he finished, he had created an anthem that could never be summed up and that would never come to rest. In the end it was a great YES, both a threat and a beckoning, an invitation to America to match its danger, glamour, and freedom." ... In late 1969, Jimi Hendrix wrote a poem celebrating Woodstock, saying with words what his music had in August: "500,000 halos outshined the mud and history. We washed and drank in God's tears of joy. And for once, and for everyone, the truth was not still a mystery.

After a long and happy life, I find myself at the pearly gates (a sight of great joy; the word for “pearl” in Greek is, by the way, margarita). Standing there is St. Peter. This truly is heaven, for finally my academic questions will receive answers. I immediately begin the questions that have been plaguing me for half a century: “Can you speak Greek? Where did you go when you wandered off in the middle of Acts? How was the incident between you and Paul in Antioch resolved? What happened to your wife?” Peter looks at me with some bemusement and states, “Look, lady, I’ve got a whole line of saved people to process. Pick up your harp and slippers here, and get the wings and halo at the next table. We’ll talk after dinner.” As I float off, I hear, behind me, a man trying to gain Peter’s attention. He has located a “red letter Bible,” which is a text in which the words of Jesus are printed in red letters. This is heaven, and all sorts of sacred art and Scriptures, from the Bhagavad Gita to the Qur’an, are easily available (missing, however, was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version). The fellow has his Bible open to John 14, and he is frenetically pointing at v. 6: “Jesus says here, in red letters, that he is the way. I’ve seen this woman on television (actually, she’s thinner in person). She’s not Christian; she’s not baptized - she shouldn’t be here!” “Oy,” says Peter, “another one - wait here.” He returns a few minutes later with a man about five foot three with dark hair and eyes. I notice immediately that he has holes in his wrists, for when the empire executes an individual, the circumstances of that death cannot be forgotten. “What is it, my son?” he asks. The man, obviously nonplussed, sputters, “I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you say that no one comes to the Father except through you?” “Well,” responds Jesus, “John does have me saying this.” (Waiting in line, a few other biblical scholars who overhear this conversation sigh at Jesus’s phrasing; a number of them remain convinced that Jesus said no such thing. They’ll have to make the inquiry on their own time.) “But if you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew, which does come first in the canon, you’ll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison . . . ” Becoming almost apoplectic, the man interrupts, “But, but, that’s works righteousness. You’re saying she’s earned her way into heaven?” “No,” replies Jesus, “I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John’s Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue?” The last thing I recall seeing, before picking up my heavenly accessories, is Jesus handing the poor man a Kleenex to help get the log out of his eye.

walks away, back into the halo of light. “I’m not trying to be mean,” Casamir says. “Intent doesn’t always matter,” I say.

I sigh. He’s a curious one. You know what they say about curiosity. It killed the cat and everyone else. Wait, that’s me.

When I say the words, you’ll want them coming from a man who is whole. A man who knows who he is and what he wants. I’m trying to get there.

My eyelids drooped, but I didn’t want to miss any of it—the way his fingertips were tracing the outline of my lips, the way his beautifully proportioned body felt against mine, the flecks of harvest gold in his sky-blue eyes. “Remember this.” He brushed the hair off my neck and breathed a kiss there. “When you’re curled up with your books on a rainy afternoon in England, remember how you painted my world with your colors. Remember your rainbow halo.” “I will.” A hot ache grew in my throat. He was already saying goodbye. “I’ll remember. For the rest of my life.

You know what they say about angels?" she asked. "That they have wings and a halo?" "No, that they are just wild women who've had the hell screwed out of them," she said with another giggle.

You need to give me some answers. Like, now. I'm done with this bullshit excuse that nothing is different about you." "Swearing isn't ladylike." He responds drily, like that's the only thing I just said. I roll my eyes at his old ways and say just to annoy him, "Bullshit. I'm not a lady which you should know by now, dumbass." I can't believe it, but he actually lifts a corner of his mouth in an almost smile.

Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them a gate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says. A girl says, “But what’s through there?” “Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.” “And what’s behind that?” “A third locked door, smaller yet.” “What’s behind that?” “A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.” The children lean forward. “And then?” “Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.” Puzzlement. Fidgeting. “Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?” The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision. The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?” They nod. He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.” “Stabbed in the heart?” “Is this true?” A boy says, “Hush.” “The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone. “The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.” “Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl. “Hush,” says the boy. “The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east. "The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.

The monsters don’t run the gulags and the death camps and the reeducation centers. Regular people do. If they all had the balls to say no, the likes of Halsey, Zhou, or Stalin could never do it all on their own. Could they?

Don’t judge women by what you see in paintings and statues. Judge them only by what you yourself know about the women in your life. The day any man understands any woman will be the day the world comes to an end. Men are hateful, contrary creatures who say they want goddesses to put on pedestals. Once they have them up there, they rip off the halo, tear off the gown, slice off the wings so they can’t fly and then kick the pedestal away so the woman falls at his feet and he can scream out as he kicks her, tramp!—or worse.

She has no evidence for saying that the firm is badly managed. All she knows is that its stock has gone down. This is an outcome bias, part hindsight and part halo effect.” “Let’s not fall for the outcome bias. This was a stupid decision even though it worked out well.

I’m in love with an angel. And not the kind with wings and a halo. A human with a heart bigger than a football field. An angel with talent that knows no bounds, who doesn’t conform to societal norms, because those are for suckers. Who believes in aliens and cryptids… Conspiracy theories? My angel knows them all, and will tell you just how misguided your truths are. I’m in love with an angel who is gorgeous and sexy, and has a body that’ll make you weep… And funnily enough, it’s made up almost entirely of sugar. I’m in love with an angel who uses Twizzlers as straws and gives gummy bears names. Oh, hello, Bob. Nice to eat you today. I’m in love with an angel who never stopped believing in me… Even after every bad thing I ever did to him. An angel I used to say hurtful things to, but who still spoke words of encouragement to me when I needed it… Who was there for me when no one else was. An angel who told me it’s not over until it’s over. Because it’s not. I promise, it’s not. My angel was the last person I thought I could love… But I came back to him, over and over, because my heart wanted him when I didn’t understand why. And now I do understand it. It’s as clear as the crystalline grayish blue in his eyes. My angel saved me. He rescued me from hiding. He held me when I needed him, and he loved me when I didn’t. He’s selfless, real… just a brilliant, beautiful fucking weirdo. I’m in love with an angel… And his name is Avi.

Monet Refuses the Operation" Doctor, you say that there are no halos around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don’t see, to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Rouen cathedral is built of parallel shafts of sun, and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed notions of top and bottom, the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria separate from the bridge it covers. What can I say to convince you the Houses of Parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames? I will not return to a universe of objects that don’t know each other, as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent. The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and changes our bones, skin, clothes to gases. Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

I'll lean over your crib, lift your squalling form out, and sit in the rocking chair to nurse you. The word 'infant' is derived from the Latin word for 'unable to speak,' but you'll be perfectly capable of saying one thing: 'I suffer.,' and you'll do it tirelessly and without hesitation. I have to admire your utter commitment to that statement; when you cry, you'll become outrage incarnate, every fiber of your being employed in expressing that emotion. It's funny: when you're tranquil, you will seem to radiate light, and if someone were to paint a portrait of you like that, I'd insist they include the halo. But when you're unhappy, you will become a klaxon, built for radiating sound; a portrait of you then could simply be a fire alarm bell. At that stage of your life, there'll be no past or future for you; until I give you my breast, you'll have no memory of contentment in the past nor expectation of relief in the future. Once you begin nursing, everything will reverse, and all will be right with the world. NOW is the only moment you'll perceive; you'll live in the present tense. In many ways, it's an enviable state.

He shrugged and glanced at her hair. “Rough night?” Her brows drew together. “What makes you say that?” “Your bun is askew.” Audrey’s fingers flew to her hair. Sure enough, it was lopsided and puffy on one side. “Damn it.” Reese set down the spoon and turned to her, reaching for her hair. “Here, I’ll fix it for you.” She frowned but stood still, dropping her hands. “That’s very domestic of you.” “Nah. I mostly wanted to see what this looks like when it’s not in a grandma style.” And he reached forward and snipped the band with a pair of scissors. She yelped, pulling away even as he ran his fingers through her hair, making it puff out into a halo around her head. “You a**hole!” “Look at that! All that loose, untamed hair!” He teased, even as he tried to run his fingers through it again. “It’s like you’re a wild woman. What will people think?

I'm so confused," Prudencia says. I'm realizing she's the only celestial in a room with Halo Nights and phoenix specters talking about past lives. "How do Halo Nights even know about a phoenix's process of retrocycling? I take it a phoenix didn't come back from the past and tell you about their vacation." Wyatt shakes the book in the air. "My moment has come!" He opens to the page he bookmarked earlier. "Storytime, gentlepeople.

Why, all our art treasures of to-day are only the dug-up commonplaces of three or four hundred years ago. I wonder if there is real intrinsic beauty in the old soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers that we prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes. The “old blue” that we hang about our walls as ornaments were the common every-day household utensils of a few centuries ago; and the pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that we hand round now for all our friends to gush over, and pretend they understand, were the unvalued mantel-ornaments that the mother of the eighteenth century would have given the baby to suck when he cried. Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? That china dog that ornaments the bedroom of my furnished lodgings. It is a white dog. Its eyes blue. Its nose is a delicate red, with spots. Its head is painfully erect, its expression is amiability carried to verge of imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Considered as a work of art, I may say it irritates me. Thoughtless friends jeer at it, and even my landlady herself has no admiration for it, and excuses its presence by the circumstance that her aunt gave it to her. But in 200 years’ time it is more than probable that that dog will be dug up from somewhere or other, minus its legs, and with its tail broken, and will be sold for old china, and put in a glass cabinet. And people will pass it round, and admire it. They will be struck by the wonderful depth of the colour on the nose, and speculate as to how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was. We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar with it. It is like the sunset and the stars: we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common to our eyes. So it is with that china dog. In 2288 people will gush over it. The making of such dogs will have become a lost art. Our descendants will wonder how we did it, and say how clever we were. We shall be referred to lovingly as “those grand old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century, and produced those china dogs.” The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous" i Tell me it was for the hunger & nothing less. For hunger is to give the body what it knows it cannot keep. That this amber light whittled down by another war is all that pins my hand to your chest. i You, drowning                         between my arms — stay. You, pushing your body                          into the river only to be left                          with yourself — stay. i I’ll tell you how we’re wrong enough to be forgiven. How one night, after backhanding mother, then taking a chainsaw to the kitchen table, my father went to kneel in the bathroom until we heard his muffled cries through the walls. And so I learned that a man, in climax, was the closest thing to surrender. i Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade.                    Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn. Say autumn despite the green                    in your eyes. Beauty despite daylight. Say you’d kill for it. Unbreakable dawn                    mounting in your throat. My thrashing beneath you                    like a sparrow stunned with falling. i Dusk: a blade of honey between our shadows, draining. i I wanted to disappear — so I opened the door to a stranger’s car. He was divorced. He was still alive. He was sobbing into his hands (hands that tasted like rust). The pink breast cancer ribbon on his keychain swayed in the ignition. Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once. The moon, distant & flickering, trapped itself in beads of sweat on my neck. I let the fog spill through the cracked window & cover my fangs. When I left, the Buick kept sitting there, a dumb bull in pasture, its eyes searing my shadow onto the side of suburban houses. At home, I threw myself on the bed like a torch & watched the flames gnaw through my mother’s house until the sky appeared, bloodshot & massive. How I wanted to be that sky — to hold every flying & falling at once. i Say amen. Say amend. Say yes. Say yes anyway. i In the shower, sweating under cold water, I scrubbed & scrubbed. i In the life before this one, you could tell two people were in love because when they drove the pickup over the bridge, their wings would grow back just in time. Some days I am still inside the pickup. Some days I keep waiting. i It’s not too late. Our heads haloed             with gnats & summer too early to leave any marks.             Your hand under my shirt as static intensifies on the radio.             Your other hand pointing your daddy’s revolver             to the sky. Stars falling one by one in the cross hairs.             This means I won’t be afraid if we’re already             here. Already more than skin can hold. That a body             beside a body must ma

That seemed to relax him a little, that simple nothing of a reassurance, as though there was ever a doubt that she wasn't exactly where she wanted to be at this very moment. As if there was even the slightest chance that she would rather be with Grady than Jay. He squeezed her hand, still holding it, and pulled her down so that she was leaning over his chest. "Kiss me again," he challenged, only half joking. It was so weird to hear him say that, to hear those words out loud. They had kissed. More than once. More than a lot. They had passed the point of being "just friends" by a long shot. She leaned down and gave him a dry, sisterly little peck. And then she leaned back up again and smiled at him innocently. She wished she could make a halo appear above her head for effort. Jay made a sound at her that was like a growl, and then he pulled her down...hard. He flipped her over so that she was lying on her back and he was poised above her, and taking full advantage of his upper hand, he moved his lips over hers with a feather-light touch, in a way that was anything but innocent. Until she parted his lips and let him kiss her again...completely...thoroughly. She heard herself moan, and she could feel the throbbing of her own pulse flickering hotly through her veins. He lifted his head and started down at her, rubbing his thumb across her lower lip. "That's what I was talking about. A real kiss." She thought that he was probably trying to gloat, but she was more than a little pleased with herself that he sounded as shaky as she felt after the kiss.

The god of the prosperity gospelists is a pathetic doormat, a genie. The god of the cutesy coffee mugs and Joel Osteen tweets is a milquetoast doofus like the guys in the Austen novels you hope the girls don’t end up with, holding their hats limply in hand and minding their manners to follow your lead like a butler—or the doormat he stands on. The god of the American Dream is Santa Claus. The god of the open theists is not sovereignly omniscient, declaring the end from the beginning, but just a really good guesser playing the odds. The god of our therapeutic culture is ourselves, we, the “forgivers” of ourselves, navel-haloed morons with “baggage” but not sin. None of these pathetic gods could provoke fear and trembling. But the God of the Scriptures is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). He stirs up the oceans with the tip of his finger, and they sizzle rolling clouds of steam into the sky. He shoots lightning from his fists. This is the God who leads his children by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. This is the God who makes war, sends plagues, and sits enthroned in majesty and glory in his heavens, doing what he pleases. This is the God who, in the flesh, turned tables over in the temple as if he owned the place. This Lord God Jesus Christ was pushed to the edge of the cliff and declared, “This is not happening today,” and walked right back through the crowd like a boss. This Lord says, “No one takes my life; I give it willingly,” as if to say, “You couldn’t kill me unless I let you.” This Lord calms the storms, casts out demons, binds and looses, and has the authority to grant us the ability to do the same. The Devil is this God’s lapdog. And it is this God who has summoned us, apprehended us, saved us. It is this God who has come humbly, meekly, lowly, pouring out his blood in infinite conquest to set the captives free, cancel the record of debt against us, conquer sin and Satan, and swallow up death forever. Let us, then, advance the gospel of the kingdom out into the perimeter of our hearts and lives with affectionate meekness and humble submission. Let us repent of our nonchalance. Let us embrace the wonder of Christ.

During those periods in which our bitterness of spirit, though steadily diminishing, still persists, a distinction must be drawn between the bitterness which comes to us from our constantly thinking of the person herself and that which is revived by certain memories, some cutting speech, some word in a letter that we have had from her. The various forms which that bitterness can assume we shall examine when we come to deal with another and later love affair; for the present it must suffice to say that, of these two kinds, the former is infinitely the less cruel. That is because our conception of the person, since it dwells always within ourselves, is there adorned with the halo with which we are bound before long to invest her, and bears the marks if not of the frequent solace of hope, at any rate of the tranquillity of a permanent sorrow. (It must also be observed that the image of a person who makes us suffer counts for little if anything in those complications which aggravate the unhappiness of love, prolong it and prevent our recovery, just as in certain maladies the cause is insignificant beyond comparison with the fever which follows it and the time that must elapse before our convalescence.)

Along the shores of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean I went through fishing ports where the elegant poverty of the fishermen wounded my own. Without their seeing me, I would brush against men and women standing in a patch of shade, against boys plying on a square. The love that human beings seem to feel for one another tortured me at the time. If two men exchanged a greeting or a smile in passing, I would retreat to the farthest edges of the world. The glances exchanged by the two friends—and sometimes their words—were the subtlest emanation of a ray of love from the heart of each. A ray of very soft light, delicately coiled: a spun ray of love. I was amazed that such delicacy, so fine a thread and of so precious, and so chaste, a substance as love could be fashioned in so dark a smithy as the muscular bodies of those males, though they themselves always emitted that gentle ray in which there sometimes sparkled the droplets of a mysterious dew. I would fancy hearing the elder say to the other, who was no longer I, speaking of that part of the body which he must have loved dearly: "I'm going to dent your halo for you again tonight!" I could not take lightly the idea that people made love without me.

Christopher . . . are these from you?” she asked at lunch, careful to make her tone light as she placed the two picture-poems on the table. Christopher’s eyes fell to them, and he smiled. “Yes.” He didn’t ask if she liked them, and he didn’t seem embarrassed. Sarah was flustered, and somewhat surprised by Christopher’s easy confidence. Even so, her natural suspicion surfaced. “Why?” “Because,” he answered seriously, “you make a good subject. Your hair, for one, is like a shimmering waterfall. It’s so fair that it catches the light. It makes you seem like you have a halo about you. And your eyes—they’re such a pure color, not washed out at all, deep as the ocean. And your expression . . . intense and yet somehow detached, as if you see more of the world than the rest of us.” Flustered, she could think of no way to respond. Did he just say this stuff from the top of his head? Only her strict Vida control kept her from blushing. Meanwhile Nissa entered the cafeteria. She started to sit, then glanced from the pictures, to Christopher, to Sarah. “Should I go somewhere else?” Christopher nodded to a chair, answering easily, “Sit down. We aren’t exchanging dark secrets—yet.” Nissa flashed a teasing look to her brother as she took a seat. “As his sister, I feel the need to inform you, Sarah, that Christopher has been talking about you incessantly.” Christopher smiled, unembarrassed. “I suppose I might have been.’ “Especially your eyes—he never shuts up about your eyes,” Nissa confided, and this time Christopher shrugged. “They’re beautiful,” he said casually. “Beauty should be looked at, not ignored. I try to capture it on paper, but that’s really impossible with eyes, because they have a life no still portrait can capture.” Sarah’s voice was tied up so tightly she thought she might be able to speak again sometime next year. No one had ever talked about her—or to her—with such admiration.

To the man standing on the corner holding the sign that said “God hates gays.” I’ve never seen, exactly who it is that you paperclip your knees, meld your hands together and pray to But I think I know what he looks like: I bet your God is about 5’10”. I bet he weighs 185. Probably stands the way a high school diploma does when it’s next to a GED. I bet your god has a mullet. I bet he wears flannel shirts with no sleeves, a fanny pack and says words like “getrdun.” I bet your god—I bet your god—I bet your god watches FOX news, Dog the Bounty Hunter, voted for John McCain, and loves Bill O’Reilly. I bet your god lives in Arizona. I bet his high school served racism in the cafeteria and offered “hate speech” as a second language. I bet he has a swastika inside of his throat, and racial slurs tattooed to his tongue just to make intolerance more comfortable in his mouth. I bet he has a burning cross as a middle finger and Jim Crow underneath his nails. Your god is a confederate flags wet dream conceived on a day when the sky decided to slice her own wrists, I bet your god has a drinking problem. I bet he sees the bottom of the shot glass more often than his own children. I bet he pours whiskey on his dreams until they taste like good ideas, Probably cusses like an electric guitar with Tourette’s plugged into an ocean. I bet he yells like a schizophrenic nail gun, damaging all things that care about him enough to get close. I bet there are angels in Heaven with black eyes and broken halos who claimed they fell down the stairs. I bet your god would’ve made Eve without a mouth and taught her how to spread her legs like a magazine that she will never ever ever be pretty enough to be in. Sooner or later you will realize that you are praying to your own shadow, that you are standing in front of mirrors and are worshipping your own reflection. Your God stole my god’s identity and I bet he’s buying pieces of heaven on eBay. So next time you bend your knees, next time you bow your head I want you to tell your god— that my god is looking for him.

And while I was writing this review, I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her better I called her after the heroine of a famous poem, The Angel in the House. It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her. You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her — you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it — in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all — I need not say it —-she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty — her blushes, her great grace. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: “My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure.” And she made as if to guide my pen. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defence. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing. For, as I found, directly I put pen to paper, you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex. And all these questions, according to the Angel of the House, cannot be dealt with freely and openly by women; they must charm, they must conciliate, they must — to put it bluntly — tell lies if they are to succeed. Thus, whenever I felt the shadow of her wing or the radiance of her halo upon my page, I took up the inkpot and flung it at her. She died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. But it was a real experience; it was an experience that was bound to befall all women writers at that time. Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.

In his rambling rhetoric, Hitler sought to undermine the very legitimacy of the charge against him. “High treason is the only crime that is punishable only if it fails,” he noted, stating a truism as though it somehow annulled the law. In a self-conscious display of manly courage, Hitler took “sole responsibility” for the putsch—thus emphasizing his role as the soul of the enterprise—but at the same time he denied the commission of a crime. Flatly rejecting his accomplice Colonel Kriebel’s right to take any responsibility for events, Hitler hogged the self-sacrifice halo for himself, saying, in a typical twist of logic, “I confess to the deed but not to high treason, because there’s no charge of high treason against the traitors of 1918.” With

The neon orange orb sat low in the sky, slowly breaking free of the horizon like the waking memory of a dream. The salty air smelled faintly of fish, and was thick with humidity and hung like a cloak over my body. The lavender sky at the horizon faded into cerulean above and behind me. The soft breeze whispered past my face, teasing my hair on its way to tickle the sawgrass that swayed in gratitude as if laughing like a child.
 I sat on the top plank of the boardwalk rail, the wood heavy with atmosphere and was damp and cool under my left palm. The surprising warmth of the winter air and the cool of the wood reminded me that yes, I am alive! Yes, I am grateful for this morning! And yes, I am glad to be here!
 The paper in my notebook as I wrote this began to feel sticky and moist within a few minutes. The ink from my pen seemed to grip the paper faster and firmer as if to say, I’m here, I’m happy, and I don’t want to lose this moment. Like my ink, I too wanted to cling to this morning.
 The sky started turning a peachy orange at the bottom and the ocean was sea foam green. The waves were breaking quietly, as if to give my thoughts amplitude so I could record and rejoice in the sea’s majesty. 
 The sand was gray and silky like a freshly pressed pair of slacks. The smooth beach seemed paved with sunlight. A jogger ran by, his knees probably grateful for the even stride the flat surface provided. 
 Chunks of sea foam lay strewn on the beach like remnants of Poseidon’s nightly bubble bath. A seagull circled low in the air, gliding in the sky with its streamlined body as the sun lit its white wings up like an angel’s halo.

If he says, “I'm dropping a pearl,” or “A pearl slipped,” he means that he has farted in a certain way, very softly, that the fart has flowed out very quietly. Let us wonder at the fact that it does suggest a pearl of dull sheen: the flowing, the muted leak, seems to us as milky as the paleness of a pearl, that is, slightly cloudy. It makes Darling seem to us a kind of precious gigolo, a Hindu, a princess, a drinker of pearls. The odor he has silently spread in the prison has the dullness of the pearl, coils about him, haloes him from head to foot, isolates him, but isolates him much less than does the remark that his beauty does not fear to utter. “I'm dropping a pearl” means that the fart is noiseless. If it rumbles, then it is coarse, and if it's some jerk who drops it, Darling says, “My cock's house is falling down!

Thoreau writes, ‘The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.’ Think of what a beautiful metaphor this is for not mistaking the husk—the outer accoutrements of productivity like busyness, or a full calendar, or a clever auto-responder—not mistaking those for the kernel, the core and substance of the actual work produced. And he then says, ‘Those who work much, do not work hard.’ I love that.” “Ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that symbolizes work ethic, or toughness, or some other virtue—but really, it’s a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect.

Month on month, week on week, day by day, hour by hour, it becomes ever more impossible to give expression to the inexpressible nature of this world. The circle of lies that the miscreants draw around their crimes paralyses the word and the writers who employ it. Yet a common obligation makes you persist to the last moment: that is to say to the last drop of ink; it impels you to seize the word, in the truest sense, to take possession of the word threatened with paralysis. One must give apology today when one writes... and yet one must write on... One must write, even when one realises that the printed word can no longer improve anything. To the optimists, it might seem an easy thing to write. To the sceptics - not to say: the hopeless - it’s more difficult, and this is why their word weighs so much heavier. These are, so to speak, voices coming from the beyond, haloed by the radiance of futility. (For even futility has its radiance!)

Daniel.” Luce gripped his shoulder. “What about the library you took me to? Remember?” She closed her eyes. She wasn’t thinking so much as feeling her way through a memory buried shallowly in her brain. “We came to Vienna for the weekend…I don’t remember when, but we went to see Mozart conduct The Magic Flute…at the Theater an der Wien? You wanted to see this friend of yours who worked at some old library, his name was-“ She broke off, because when she opened her eyes, the others were staring at her, incredulous. No one, least of all Luce, had expected her to be the one to know where they would find the desideratum. Daniel recovered first. He flashed her a funny smile Luce knew was full of pride. But Arriane, Roland, and Annabelle continued to gape at her as if they’d suddenly learned she spoke Chinese. Which, come to think of it, she did. Arriane wiggled a finger around inside her ear. “Do I need to ease up on the psychedelics, did LP just recall one of her past lives unprompted at the most crucial juncture ever?” “You’re a genius,” Daniel said, leaning forward and kissing her deeply. Luce blushed and leaned in to extend the kiss a little longer, but then heard a cough. “Seriously, you two,” Annabelle said. “There will be time enough for snogs if we pull this off.” “I’d say ‘get a room’ but I’m afraid we’d never see you again,” Arriane added, which caused them all to laugh. When Luce opened her eyes, Daniel had spread his wings wide. The tips brushed away broken bits of plaster and blocked the Scale angels from view. Slung over his shoulder was the black leather satchel with the halo. The Outcasts gathered the scattered starshots back into their silver sheaths. “Wingspeed, Daniel Grigori.” “To you as well.” Daniel nodded at Phil. He spun Luce around so her back was pressed to his chest and his arms fit snugly around her waist. They clasped hands over her heart. “The Foundation Library,” Daniel said to the other angels. “Follow me, I know exactly where it is.

As he approached the swire at the head of the dell – that little delightful verge from which in one moment the eastern limits and shores of the Lothian arise on the view, - as he approached it, I say, and a little space from the height, he beheld, to his astonishment, a bright halo in the cloud of haze, that rose in a semi-circle over his head like a pale rainbow. He was struck motionless at the view of the lovely vision; for it so chanced that he had never seen the same appearance before, though common at early morn. But he soon perceived the cause of the phenomenon, and that it proceeded from the rays of the sun from a pure unclouded morning sky striking upon this dense vapour which refracted them. But the better all the works of nature are understood, the more they will be ever admired. That was a scene that would have entranced the man of science with delight, but which the uninitiated and sordid man would have regarded less than the mole rearing up his hill in silence and in darkness.

This is about my crucifixion watch,” Dr. Lecter said. “They won’t give me a patent, but they advise me to copyright the face. Look here.” He put a drawing the size of a dinner napkin in the carrier and Starling pulled it through. “You may have noticed that in most crucifixions the hands point to, say, a quarter to three, or ten till two at the earliest, while the feet are at six. On this watch face, Jesus is on the cross, as you see there, and the arms revolve to indicate the time, just like the arms on the popular Disney watches. The feet remain at six and at the top a small second hand revolves in the halo. What do you think?” The quality of the anatomical sketching was very good. The head was hers. “You’ll lose a lot of detail when it’s reduced to watch size,” Starling said. “True, unfortunately, but think of the clocks. Do you think this is safe without a patent?” “You’d be buying quartz watch movements—wouldn’t you?—and they’re already under patent. I’m not sure, but I think patents only apply to unique mechanical devices and copyright applies to design.

You’re going to be walking along on the street one of these days, and suddenly there’s going to be a light over there. You’re going to look across the street, and on the corner over there, God is going to be standing right there, and you’re going to know it’s God because he’s going to have huge curly hair that sticks through his halo like Jesus, and he’s got little slitty eyes like Buddha, and he’s got a lot of swords in his belt like Mohammed. And he’s saying, “Come to me. Oh, come to me. I will have muses say in your ear that you will be the greatest writer ever, you will be better than Shakespeare. Come to me, they will have melon breasts and little blackberry nipples. Come to me, all you have to do is sing my praises.” Your job is to say, “Fuck you, God! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” Because nobody else is going to say it. Our politicians aren’t going to say it. Nobody but the writer is going to say it. There’s a time in history when it’s time to praise God, but now is not the time. Now is the time to say, “Fuck you, God, and the Old Testament you rode in on. I don’t care who your daddy was. Fuck you!

Picture a group where people express their views vigorously and passionately, even arguing with one another. If the group performs well, participants might reasonably look back and say that open and forthright expressions of opinion were a key reason for success. They’ll say: We were honest, we didn’t hold back—and that’s why we did so well! We had a good process! But what if the group’s performance turned out to be poor? Now people might recall things differently. We argued and fought. We were dysfunctional. Next time we should follow a respectful and disciplined process. But now imagine a group where people are calm, polite, and respectful of one another. They speak quietly and in turn. If the group does well, participants might look back and credit their courteous and cooperative nature. We respected one another. We didn’t fight. We had a good process! But if the same group’s performance was poor, people might say: We were too polite. We censored ourselves. Next time, we should be more direct and open, not so concerned about one another’s feelings. The fact is, a wide variety of behaviors can lead to good decisions. There’s no precise way to engineer an “optimal” discussion process. We may try to avoid extremes, sure, but between those extremes is a wide range of behavior that might be conducive to success. And because we really don’t know what makes an optimal decision process, we tend to make attributions based on other things that are relevant and seemingly objective—namely, what we’re told about performance outcomes.

Suppose that you need to hire a sales representative for your firm. If you are serious about hiring the best possible person for the job, this is what you should do. First, select a few traits that are prerequisites for success in this position (technical proficiency, engaging personality, reliability, and so on). Don’t overdo it—six dimensions is a good number. The traits you choose should be as independent as possible from each other, and you should feel that you can assess them reliably by asking a few factual questions. Next, make a list of those questions for each trait and think about how you will score it, say on a 1–5 scale. You should have an idea of what you will call “very weak” or “very strong.” These preparations should take you half an hour or so, a small investment that can make a significant difference in the quality of the people you hire. To avoid halo effects, you must collect the information on one trait at a time, scoring each before you move on to the next one. Do not skip around. To evaluate each candidate, add up the six scores. Because you are in charge of the final decision, you should not do a “close your eyes.” Firmly resolve that you will hire the candidate whose final score is the highest, even if there is another one whom you like better—try to resist your wish to invent broken legs to change the ranking. A vast amount of research offers a promise: you are much more likely to find the best candidate if you use this procedure than if you do what people normally do in such situations, which is to go into the interview unprepared and to make choices by an overall intuitive judgment such as “I looked into his eyes and liked what I saw.

But then, as I’m leaving school, I see John parked out front. He’s standing in front of his car; he hasn’t seen me yet. In this bright afternoon light, the sun warms John’s blond head like a halo, and suddenly I’m struck with the visceral memory of loving him from afar, studiously, ardently. I so admired his slender hands, the slope of his cheekbones. Once upon a time I knew his face by heart. I had him memorized. My steps quicken. “Hi!” I say, waving. “How are you here right now? Don’t you have school today?” “I left early,” he says. “You? John Ambrose McClaren cut school?” He laughs. “I brought you something.” John pulls a box out of his coat pocket and thrusts it at me. “Here.” I take it from him, it’s heavy and substantial in my palm. “Should I…should I open it right now?” “If you want.” I can feel his eyes on me as I rip off the paper, open the white box. He’s anxious. I ready a smile on my face so he’ll know I like it, no matter what it is. Just the fact that he thought to buy me a present is so…dear. Nestled in white tissue paper is a snow globe the size of an orange, with a brass bottom. A boy and girl are ice-skating inside. She’s wearing a red sweater; she has on earmuffs. She’s making a figure eight, and he’s admiring her. It’s a moment caught in amber. One perfect moment, preserved under glass. Just like that night it snowed in April. “I love it,” I say, and I do, so much. Only a person who really knew me could give me this gift. To feel so known, so understood. It’s such a wonderful feeling, I could cry. It’s something I’ll keep forever. This moment, and this snow globe. I get on my tiptoes and hug him, and he wraps his arms around me tight and then tighter. “Happy birthday, Lara Jean.

This is life seen by life. I may not have meaning but it is the same lack of meaning that the pulsing vein has. I want to write to you like someone learning. I deepen the words as if I were painting, more than an object, its shadow. I don’t want to ask why, you can always ask why and always get no answer—could I manage to surrender to the expectant silence that follows a question without an answer? Though I sense that some place or time the great answer for me does exist. And then I shall know how to paint and write, after the strange but intimate answer. Listen to me, listen to the silence. What I say to you is never what I say to you but something else instead. It captures the thing that escapes me and yet I live from it and am above a shining darkness. One instant athematic theme unfurls without a plan but geometric like the successive shapes in a kaleidoscope. I slowly enter my gift to myself, splendor ripped open by the final song that seems to be the first. I enter the writing slowly as I once entered painting. It is a world tangled up in creepers, syllables, woodbine, colors and words—threshold of an ancestral cavern that is the womb of the world and from it I shall be born. And if I often paint caves that is because they are my plunge into the earth, dark but haloed with brightness, and I, blood of nature— extravagant and dangerous caves, talisman of the Earth, where stalactites, fossils and rocks come together, and where the animals mad by their own malign nature seek refuge. The caves are my hell. Forever dreaming cave with its fogs, memory or longing? eerie, eerie, esoteric greenish with the slime of time. All is weighted with sleep when I paint a cave or write to you about it—from outside it comes the clatter of dozens of wild horses stamping with dry hoofs the darkness, and from the friction of the hoofs the rejoicing is freed in sparks: here I am, I and the cave, in the very time that will rot us. I want to put into words but without description the existence of the cave that some time ago I painted—and I don’t know how. Only by repeating its sweet horror, cavern of terror and wonders, place of afflicted souls, winter and hell, unpredictable substratum of the evil that is inside an earth that is not fertile. I call the cave by its name and it begins to live with its miasma. I then fear myself who knows how to paint the horror, I, creature of echoing caverns that I am, and I suffocate because I am word and also its echo.

The funny thing: I’d worried, if anything, that Boris was the one who was a little too affectionate, if affectionate is the right word. The first time he’d turned in bed and draped an arm over my waist, I lay there half-asleep for a moment, not knowing what to do: staring at my old socks on the floor, empty beer bottles, my paperbacked copy of The Red Badge of Courage. At last—embarrassed—I faked a yawn and tried to roll away, but instead he sighed and pulled me closer, with a sleepy, snuggling motion. Ssh, Potter, he whispered, into the back of my neck. Is only me. It was weird. Was it weird? It was; and it wasn’t. I’d fallen back to sleep shortly after, lulled by his bitter, beery unwashed smell and his breath easy in my ear. I was aware I couldn’t explain it without making it sound like more than it was. On nights when I woke strangled with fear there he was, catching me when I started up terrified from the bed, pulling me back down in the covers beside him, muttering in nonsense Polish, his voice throaty and strange with sleep. We’d drowse off in each other’s arms, listening to music from my iPod (Thelonious Monk, the Velvet Underground, music my mother had liked) and sometimes wake clutching each other like castaways or much younger children. And yet (this was the murky part, this was what bothered me) there had also been other, way more confusing and fucked-up nights, grappling around half-dressed, weak light sliding in from the bathroom and everything haloed and unstable without my glasses: hands on each other, rough and fast, kicked-over beers foaming on the carpet—fun and not that big of a deal when it was actually happening, more than worth it for the sharp gasp when my eyes rolled back and I forgot about everything; but when we woke the next morning stomach-down and groaning on opposite sides of the bed it receded into an incoherence of backlit flickers, choppy and poorly lit like some experimental film, the unfamiliar twist of Boris’s features fading from memory already and none of it with any more bearing on our actual lives than a dream. We never spoke of it; it wasn’t quite real; getting ready for school we threw shoes, splashed water at each other, chewed aspirin for our hangovers, laughed and joked around all the way to the bus stop. I knew people would think the wrong thing if they knew, I didn’t want anyone to find out and I knew Boris didn’t either, but all the same he seemed so completely untroubled by it that I was fairly sure it was just a laugh, nothing to take too seriously or get worked up about. And yet, more than once, I had wondered if I should step up my nerve and say something: draw some kind of line, make things clear, just to make absolutely sure he didn’t have the wrong idea. But the moment had never come. Now there was no point in speaking up and being awkward about the whole thing, though I scarcely took comfort in the fact.

I tipped my head back to squeeze out my dripping hair and saw the moon haloed by a cloud. Emily and Stephanie would be asleep by now. I felt linked through the years to Baba by this moon, which had witnessed it all. Had he stood here too, under its gaze, thinking of his sleeping children? I longed to say to him: Baba, I understand.

the more cultured they are, the more they will be trapped into thinking that they are effective at what they are doing in real business (something psychologists call the halo effect, the mistake of thinking that skills in, say, skiing translate unfailingly into skills in managing a pottery workshop or a bank department, or that a good chess player would be a good strategist in real life).2

Thoreau writes, ‘The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.’ Think of what a beautiful metaphor this is for not mistaking the husk—the outer accoutrements of productivity like busyness, or a full calendar, or a clever auto-responder—not mistaking those for the kernel, the core and substance of the actual work produced. And he then says, ‘Those who work much, do not work hard.’ I love that.

Naked glitter parties fix all problems, just saying.

Chief I believe I can honestly say that although you're an honest-to-Buddha one-man deathsquad and that if you were to ask nicely I would give up my lucrative career in the Corps and start pumping out your babies as fast as you can put them in me, there is no way I'm gonna run across fifty goddamn meters of open terrain covered by 3 jackal snipers that I can SEE just to jump into an open vehicle.

I could read it so you don’t have to?” she offers, but I’m already halfway through. I start to read aloud. “ ‘I had this vision for creating a platform that would help people to connect and coalesce around the things that mattered most to them. It was a natural extension of what I’d been doing for years. People used to call me a humanist spirit guide—I guess that’s what I’m bringing to WAI now, just on a larger stage.’ “He doesn’t even mention us. Doesn’t say anything about how Jules and I dragged him kicking and screaming into this. I wanted to create a platform. Cyrus just wanted to baptize cats.” “To be fair, the Cat Baptism is one of the most shared rituals,” Destiny says, trying to lighten the tone. “Eight hundred thousand videos and counting.” I keep going. “ ‘I’m attracted to the solitary life, Jones says. You can imagine him in a monastery, although he’d have to cut off that halo around his head. In addition to creating a social network that millions of people are turning to for meaning and community, he is also taking care of his employees—he has just kicked off a mentorship program to give the women on his team the support they need to thrive in their roles.’ ” Destiny tells me to stop reading. “It’s just bullshit.” I take a shaky deep breath. “That’s my mentorship program,” I whisper. “Cyrus is telling them what he wants to hear. You and I both know that.” I’m stammering now, but I keep going. “ ‘He’s otherworldly but handsome in an almost comical way. His sentences are long, and when you’re in the middle of one, you wonder, where is this going? But he always manages to bring whatever he’s saying to a satisfying conclusion. Everything he says is mysterious and somehow obvious at the same time.’ ” At least this one is funny. I allow Destiny to laugh briefly. I get to the last line. “ ‘I have to say, I’m developing something of a crush.’ ” “Oh, for God’s sake, another woman in love with Cyrus. Take a number, sister.” Destiny leans over, reads the byline. “George Milos. Guess Cyrus appeals to all genders.” As we get up to leave, she says, “I don’t think Cyrus is a bad person. He’s just basking in a sea of adoration, and it makes him think more of himself than he should.” “Where does that leave me?” “You have a tough gig. No one wants to be married to the guy everyone thinks is going to save the world.

Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don’t see,

Hannah do you even know the meaning of evening silences? Watching the ebb, the halo hanging upon your eyes? Hannah do we even know the love we twined in those pines? We walked with veils like of virgin shyness? Those constellation, those stars that gleam and thrill, those seamless touches, those eyes, shyness and sheen, those Hannah, those nights painted by Vincent Van Gogh, those nights I took you in my arms and held you like an eg

But—” “There are lots of things I can’t tell you. It’s only fair you have some of your own.” She zipped out the door before I could say another word. I considered going after her, but between her and the Spartan, I didn’t see how that could go well. I turned back to Jun. “It appears you now have my undivided attention.” “I’ll try to be brief.” Jun resettled himself to face me. “You’re familiar with the Spartans.” “I’ve encountered my fair share.” He gave me a nod of acknowledgment. “You served with the 11th Shock Troops Battalion on Reach.” “That I did. Spartan-B312 helped me out of a pinch in New Alexandria.” Jun bowed his head. “Noble Six was a good man.” I gave him a moment to collect himself. He still had eyes as dry as a glassed desert. “You have an exemplary combat record, Sergeant Buck. You’re a fantastic leader. One of the finest soldiers in the ODST.” “You’re making me blush.” “Just because the Covenant War is over doesn’t mean there aren’t battles to be fought.” “Is this some kind of recruiting drive? Because I still have a good while left on my current tour.” “Recruiting? In a way.” He sized me up. “How would you like to become a Spartan?” That caught me so off guard I actually laughed out loud. “It’s not a joke,” Jun said.

Men are hateful contrary creatures who say they want goddesses to put on pedestals. Once they have them up there, they rip off the halo, tear off the gown, slice off the wings so they can’t fly and then kick the pedestal away so the woman falls at his feet and he can scream out as he kicks her.

About a half hour later, there was a knock on my door and I stiffened, my heart hammering. Who could want to see me?” “Come in!” Narian slipped through the door, closing it quietly behind him, and I laughed at myself. I was not used to him entering my room in a conventional fashion. “I never knew your home--all of Cokyri--was so beautiful,” I confessed when he was sitting beside me. “We’re not told about these things when we learn about history.” “It is beautiful,” he agreed, almost wistfully, and I wondered what he was thinking. “You really grew up here, in this temple?” He was nodding, absentmindedly rubbing his wrist, and I simply watched him for a moment. “And you love it,” I surmised. “I suppose I do. It feels like home. But I don’t miss it when I’m with you.” He kissed me, then leaned back against the pillows, pulling me along with him. “Narian,” I murmured, lifting my head to look at him. He was so handsome, so perfect with his halo of golden hair and his intense blue eyes that I ached for him to kiss me and touch me. But there were things I wanted to ask him. “What was causing the friction between you and the High Priestess?” An ironic smile lit his features. “Call it a familial disagreement. She doesn’t understand my change of heart--that I don’t care anymore if she sees us together. Ever since the Overlord’s death, she’s been trying to win me back, you might say. She knows I’m not happy with her. But she doesn’t realize that she’s already lost me--this place may feel like home to me forever, but it will never again be home. This part of my life is over. My loyalty has turned.” “You’ve never said that before,” I pointed out, feeling like there was something important he was not telling me. “That your loyalty is to Hytanica.” “I only recently came to realize it myself. But that is where my loyalty lies.” He was resolute, decided--and he was making me uneasy. What had the High Priestess said at dinner? The Grand Provost wouldn’t leave her province in unrest. I hadn’t had I? “Narian--” I started, sitting up, but he interrupted me. “Your loyalty has always been to Hytanica, and I don’t want there to be anything standing between us. So I’ve made up my mind, Alera. It’s a good thing.” I nodded, trying to shrug off my disquiet, for he was, of course, right. I stood up and tugged on his arm, trying to get him to move. He laughed. “I told you I was tired, remember?” “Yes, but as long as we’re here, I’d like you to show me something.” “What might that be?” He came to his feet, and I dragged him toward the door. “I want to see where Miranna was confined.” I clutched nervously at my blouse, unsure how he would react, for I had not been able to think of a tactful way to raise the topic. He stopped, forcing me to face him. “Alera, do you really want to see that?” “You told me she was well cared for here,” I bristled, my tone slightly accusatory. “If that’s true, then you have nothing to hide from me.” Narian released me. “I didn’t lie to you. The High Priestess made certain Miranna was well accommodated. But she was still a prisoner. I just want to be sure that you are ready to see this.” “I’m ready.

The fact is,” Cara continues, “the data network exists, and that is ethically questionable, but I believe it can work to our advantage here. Just as the computers can access data from other factions, they can send data to other factions. If we sent the data you wished to rescue to every other faction, destroying it all would be impossible.” “When you say ‘we,’” I say, “are you implying that--” “That we would be going with you?” she says. “Obviously not all of us would go, but some of us must. How do you expect to navigate Erudite headquarters on your own?” “You do realize that if you come with us, you might get shot,” says Christina. She smiles. “And no hiding behind us because you don’t want to break your glasses, or whatever.” Cara removes her glasses and snaps them in half at the bridge. “We risked our lives by defecting from our faction,” says Cara, “and we will risk them again to save our faction from itself.” “Also,” pipes up a small voice behind Cara. A girl no older than ten or eleven peers around Cara’s elbow. Her black hair is short, like mine, and a halo of frizz surrounds her head. “We have useful gadgets.” Christina and I exchange a look. I say, “What kinds of gadgets?” “They’re just prototypes,” Fernando says, “so there’s no need to scrutinize them.” “Scrutiny’s not really our thing,” says Christina. “Then how do you make things better?” the little girl asks. “We don’t, really,” Christina says, sighing. “They kind of just keep getting worse.” The little girl nods. “Entropy.” “What?” “Entropy,” she chirps. “It’s the theory that all matter in the universe is gradually moving toward the same temperature. Also known as ‘heat death.’” “Elia,” Cara says, “that is a gross oversimplification.” Elia sticks out her tongue at Cara. I can’t help but laugh. I have never seen one of the Erudite stick out her tongue before. But then again, I haven’t interacted with many young Erudite. Only Jeanine and the people who work for her. Including my brother.

This doesn’t make any sense. I’ve been working here for six years, and I’ve never, ever been accused of doing anything wrong. I’ve trained most of the other techs, and they respect me. I’m just not the type of person who would do something like that. Why would I risk my job for some damn oxycodone?” Jan wants to persuade you that you’re barking up the wrong tree, and her game plan is to accomplish that by painting herself with a halo. Everything she said was either true—she did indeed train most of the other techs, and they do indeed respect her—or irrefutable—whether or not she’s the type of person who would do something like that is yet to be determined. Those convincing statements are powerful because they’re so, well, convincing. You can even imagine yourself saying something like that if you were falsely accused of the theft. The difference is that in all likelihood, while you might find yourself making one of these statements during the exchange, your focus would be on making the point that you didn’t do it, rather than on coming up with a raft of convincing statements as a means of painting that halo. So when you hear those statements from Jan, you need to recognize them for what they are, and sap their power by neutralizing them. The way to do that is to simply agree with them: “Jan, listen, you’re exactly right—everyone in the store knows how hard you work. I’m always hearing the other techs say how helpful you are, and you’ve certainly been very helpful to me over the years.”   USING AGREEMENT TO NEUTRALIZE CONVINCING STATEMENTS •    By agreeing with Jan, you’ve conveyed that you have, without question,

It’s out there,” Bitterness says. “Your monster. Mendicant Bias. Can’t you feel it?

You smell bad,” Riser observed. “I want to piss my pants,” I said. “Me, too,” Riser said. “Let’s not and say we did.

What in bloody hell had gotten into his Malina? And was it possible she looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her? How could that be, since she hadn’t slept and had been beaten by Hamish yesterday? He’d hardly noticed her swollen eye for the perfect pout of her rosebud mouth, the silvery-blonde halo of her wind-tossed hair and—Christ—the lush pillows of her breasts that he longed to fill his hands with. It was going to kill him, being so near to her when she looked so bonny and insisted on saying things to make him feel like more of a man than any lass had yet made him feel. If only he weren’t such a large man, if only he could be the husband she deserved, mayhap she would stay with him.

BB didn’t say a word. Maybe integrating into Naomi’s systems had shut him up for once. Mal decided to keep a watchful eye on the relationship. Everyone was getting on fine: better than fine, in fact, a really close-knit and easy-going team. The last thing they needed was a Spartan saddled with an AI she didn’t want. But that wasn’t a problem he could solve, given that they were the two most advanced and expensive pieces of defense technology the UNSC had ever produced. They were stuck with each other.

But after all, there was no alternative. I just had to make the best of it, and lie here like a lox until I was discovered—which seemed to me to be a long-overdue event. I had been sprawled here in direct sunlight for at least half an hour: Can a corpse get a sunburn? I was certain dead people avoided tanning booths—even in zombie movies—but here in the midday sun, was it possible for dead skin to tan? It didn’t seem right; we all like to think of cadavers as pale and ghostly, and a healthy sun-kissed epidermis would certainly spoil the effect. But now I hear a rising chorus of fuss and bother nearby: A metallic door thumps shut, hushed voices murmur urgently, and finally I hear the sound for which I have been yearning: the hurried clatter of approaching footsteps. They stutter to a stop beside me and a woman gasps and cries out, “Nooo!” At last: some real concern for my tragic condition. A trifle melodramatic, perhaps, but it’s touching, and would even be heartwarming, if only Dexter had a heart to warm. The woman bends over me, and in the bright halo of sunlight surrounding her head, I can’t make out her features. But there is no mistaking the shape of the gun that appears in her right hand. A woman with a gun—could this be Dexter’s dear sister, Sergeant Deborah Morgan, stumbling across her beloved brother’s tragically murdered self? Who else could possibly put on such a rare display of well-armed grief for me? And there is real tenderness in her left hand as it drops to my neck to feel for a pulse: in vain, alas, or whatever it is we say instead of “vain” nowadays. Her left hand drops away from my neck and she raises her head to the heavens and says through a tightly clenched jaw, “I’ll get the bastards who did this. I swear it.…” It is a sentiment I approve completely—and actually, it does sound a little bit like Deborah, but not quite enough. There is a hesitant, musical fluctuation in the voice that my sister would never permit. No,

Kiss me again,” he challenged, only half joking. It was so weird to hear him say that, to hear those words out loud. They had kissed. More than once. More than a lot. They had passed the point of being “just friends” by a long shot. She leaned down and gave him a dry, sisterly little peck. And then she leaned back up again and smiled at him innocently. She wished she could a halo appear above her head for effect. Jay made a sound at her that was like a growl, and then he pulled her down . . . hard. He flipped her over so that she was lying on her back and he was poised above her, and taking full advantage of his upper hand, he moved his lips over hers with a feather-light touch, in a way that was anything but innocent. Until she parted her lips and let him kiss her again . . . completely . . . thoroughly. She heard herself moan, and she could feel the throbbing of her own pulse flickering hotly through her veins. He lifted his head and stared down at her, rubbing his thumb across her lower lip. “That’s what I was talking about. A real kiss.” ― Kimberly Derting, The Body Finder

You’re very clever, aren’t you, Mr. Neyt Nash?” she said. “I came here to cry on your shoulder, to tell you about my mission against you, to tell you I helped you.” “I am grateful for all that,” said Nate, not wanting to show how scandalously relieved he was. Dominika could see it in his face nonetheless. “But you’re not asking me to work with you to avenge Marta, nor to get back at my uncle, or Volontov, or the rest of them, nor to try to reform my beloved country.” “I don’t have to tell you any of that,” he said. “Of course you don’t,” she said. “You’re too careful for that.” Nate looked at her without saying anything. “All you do is ask me what I want to do.” “That’s right,” said Nate. “Instead, suppose you tell me what you want me to do.” “I think we should begin working together. Stealing secrets,” Nate said immediately, his heart in his mouth. “For revenge, for Marta, for Rodina, for—” “No, none of those,” interrupted Nate. Gable’s words came into his head. Dominika looked at him. His purple halo had spread like the rays of a rising sun. “Because you need it, Dominika Egorova, because it helps you feed that temper of yours, because it’ll be something you own, for once in your life.

She should, of course, feel scandalized, or at the very least, shocked. Yet whenever she allowed herself to recall all that had happened, sweet pleasure washed through her, leaving her skin tingling and her breasts deliciously warm. Her "shock" was exciting, thrilling, an enticing reaction, not one of revulsion. She should feel guilty, yet whatever guilt she possessed was swamped beneath a compulsion to know, to experience, and an intense recollection of how much she'd enjoyed that particular experience. Lips firming, she set a stitch. Curiosity- it was her curse, her bane, the cross she had to bear. She knew it. Unfortunately, knowing didn't quell the impulse. This time, curiosity was prompting her to waltz with a wolf- a dangerous enterprise. For the last two days, she'd watched him, waiting for the pounce she'd convinced herself would come, but he'd behaved like a lamb- a ridiculously strong, impossibly arrogant, not to say masterful lamb, but with a guileless newborn innocence, as if a halo had settled over his burnished locks.

Maggie’s tastes and interests were broad: she was fascinated by the whole world and everything in it. She had no snobbish hang-ups about what constituted culture: Maggie could lose herself gazing at a reproduction of a Manet print in an art book one moment, then switch on the television and get agitated about the latest goings-on in Coronation Street. She was the same with people. ‘I take them as I find them,’ she was fond of saying.

The Prince of the East stares at me, eyes narrowed in curious study. Nothing lies beyond him, only a scarlet halo of swirling shadows. The carved corners of his mouth turn in a deep scowl. “Hello, Keeper,” he says. “I see you.” I jerk awake, heart racing, and blink away the sight of him. Gods, that felt so real. His voice was so clear. But it was just a dream. Wasn’t it? I swallow hard, remembering something faint. Something distant. The prince called me Keeper after I cut him open. Surely dreaming of him is only my mind conjuring that same moment, reshaping it into a new torture.

Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.” Gage lights up like the city of Las Vegas at night, a gigantic, gum-showing smile pushing back his cheeks, dotting dimples, and forming complementary eye crinkles. He pumps his fist into the air. “You said yes! Oh my God. I can’t believe…” He stops himself after he notices the absolute bewilderment on my face, and then he clears his throat and lowers his arm. “I mean, I knew you were going to say yes.” “You’re an idiot,” I laugh, but the excitement in his voice is like a soothing balm on the scars of my heart. He’s the one shining halo of sunlight breaking through an everlasting tempest, allowing me a circle of dryness amongst an unrelenting downpour. “Yeah, but I’m your idiot now,” he emphasizes. “Hear that, everyone? Gage Arlington is officially off the market! And he’s in love with Calista Cadwell!

- [ ] Men are hateful contrary creatures who say they want goddesses to put on pedestals. Once they have them up there, they rip off the halo, tear off the gown, slice off the wings so they can’t fly and then kick the pedestal away so the woman falls at his feet and he can scream out as he kicks her. Men are hateful contrary creatures who say they want goddesses to put on pedestals. Once they have them up there, they rip off the halo, tear off the gown, slice off the wings so they can’t fly and then kick the pedestal away so the woman falls at his feet and he can scream out as he kicks her.

That’s what I’m supposed to say. Even if something costs me everything, gods forbid I show the true price of struggle.

the more interesting their conversation, the more cultured they are, the more they will be trapped into thinking that they are effective at what they are doing in real business (something psychologists call the halo effect, the mistake of thinking that skills in, say, skiing translate unfailingly into skills in managing a pottery workshop or a bank department, or that a good chess player would be a good strategist in real life)

I sigh. He's a curious one. You know what they say about curiosity. It killed the cat and everyone else. Wait, that’s me.

What’s that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention? More like the mother of survival. Because if there’s anything I can do, it’s what is necessary, and if there’s anything I know, it’s how to survive. Told you it’d come full circle.

prod his halo back in place. It was composed of stiffened wire supposedly holding up a circlet covered with spangles and brilliants. In his case, the wire wasn’t doing its job, and the damned thing listed to the side like a sailor whose pecker wasn’t up to shore leave.

I present to you ube chocolate chip cookies two ways: one with semisweet chips and the other with white chocolate chips. Tell me which you prefer. I'm honestly a little torn." They took turns sampling my offering, giving each cookie their undivided attention. Elena said, "If you're going to serve the cookies as is, I'd say the semisweet gets my vote. It plays well with the earthiness of the ube, but is still a chocolate chip cookie. The white chocolate is a bit too sweet for me." Adeena, whose capacity for sugar was probably some kind of Guinness World Record, said, "I disagree about the white chocolate being too sweet. It's so good! But it lacks oomph, you know? If you're playing with the classics, why not add macadamia nuts? Then it could be your take on white chocolate macadamia cookies. Which are my favorite cookies, FYI," she said to Elena.

Painting is a movement, a movement that sprouts within the appearance, which is dictated by it, by no means a movement inspired by the intellect...So why is painting so different from appearances? Precisely because it is Nature...natura naturans...because it provides what nature wants to say but has not said: the 'generative principle' that makes things and the world be, 'first Cause,' 'brain or heart of creation,' 'absolute knowledge,' is the principle older than God himself (Schelling), raw being--the indelible-indestructible (Michaux)--And its intelligibility to itself: a center 'far from centers'...Transcendence...(before or after the world, not correlated with the world). The 'prototype,' that is to say the self-evident world placed in a halo of possibilities of which it is only an 'example.' One deforms precisely in order to seize upon the form in its birth. Thus painting is a kind of philosophy: seizing upon the genesis of philosophy in action.

Your conscience is what you do, not what you think or say you think. It’s also something you do when it has to be done, not as an afterthought when you’re forced to face up to your wrongdoing. Remorse is cheap and easy. It’s an insult. My awareness obliged me to act, but I did nothing: I cooperated, and my compliance enabled something monstrous. I didn’t slaughter millions, but there’s no sliding scale in atrocities, even if the robotic imagination of the law requires fixed thresholds. Each death, each act of suffering, is a complete and qualifying act of evil in itself. Humans instinctively norm. We behave like others around us, because compliance is our survival strategy. No matter how intelligent, sensible, or kind, 99 percent of human beings will carry out the most appalling acts if the rest of their tribe is doing the same. And most of our conscious acts are simply postscript rationalizations of our hard-wired unconscious decisions.

Humans have a wonderful saying for everything and then proceed to ignore the wisdom in all of them.

don’t waste time worrying about what others think or say about you. You’re clearly intelligent and driven. Haters are insignificant and whether you win here or make your own way, your success will show them how little they matter.

What if you have a pen and you can sketch a dream of another's? Sounds beautiful, right? It is even more wonderfully beautiful when you actually do it, for dreams are connected like all of our souls. Dreams are like little stars of our soul, and when you paint one with the stardust of your soul, be it yours or another's, the sky of your soul would always sparkle with the light of a tranquil smile. There is nothing more valuable than holding a hand and telling that person that you believe in that soul and that nothing is truly impossible, after all each and every soul is a reflection of this infinite Universe. There is no treasure richer than a smile of a heart, and when you sprinkle your goodness around and embrace all with the bliss of your own soul, with the love of your heart and the light of your mind, your door of happiness would always be unlocked where you can walk in anytime, and no matter how dark this cave of reality might be, the sky inside that door is always the brightest with a thousand sunshine of an infinite halo of dreams. I know and I have seen that when you are good while most of the people around would embrace you, get inspired and try to walk with you, there would also be a few who would doubt you and even try to pull you down by demotivating or derogatory words but do not let them win over your stardust, rather shine so bright that even their darkness is eaten up by your light. Let your good heart be your strength and walk with courage that God is the ultimate witness and the judge of all. Don't even halt for a second to think if you would help another, no matter how distant that person might be, in fact even if that person hasn't been good to you, or scarred you, you stay true to your path and treat everyone with compassion and love and know that in the book of Life every chapter finds a beginning and an ending, you paint that ending with a smile on the heart of every person you meet, knowing that smiles are the brightest sunshine of this Universe. The world might try to distract you and your mind might try to tell you that it doesn't matter, but then stay focused on this journey of Love and listen to your heart who knows that everything matters at the end of the day, after all nothing goes in waste ever. Help everyone even if that costs you something, because your help might just bring the most needed smile in a heart and every smile shines with a thousand radiance. Go an extra mile, and stay connected with every soul you have met in this voyage of Life because everyone you have come across has shaped your soul and your destination bit by bit. Value friends and family and say thank you and sorry often, not as a formality but as a reminder that every action or thought counts, knowing that relationships bloom like a watered plant. Resonate love and light and stay kind, no matter what falls on your path, because eventually all it takes is an iota of love to declutter a cloud of darkness. Let the goodness of your heart be your guide and keep holding that pen to sketch a dream of another's, because every dream is a painting of a soul in the Infinite canvas of this beautiful Universe. So, I decide to hold the pen and sketch a dream of another's. Do you?

Collin heard the garage door open and saw the halo glare of the white lights and kept pumping his hips while saying, “Just shut up, Tommy, and fucking come!” Being the gentleman that he was, he nailed Tommy’s prostate and gave him a reach-around. Tommy squealed and came all over his hand, and Collin grunted and poured himself into Tommy.

Before John could say anything, she straightened herself and said, "The Spartans are my greatest achievement." Her eyes were moist. "Do you understand that?