Hawks Good Quotes

Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky." "She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me. "Moderately," Holly confessed....Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.

Holding Hawke’s gaze in a way that not many men could, Walker said, “You will be good to her.” Not a statement, but an order. Hawke’s wolf stirred. “Do you think I’d be otherwise?” “If I did, you’d be dead.

He's not-" Daniel started to say. He watched a red-tailed hawk land in an oak tree over their heads. "He's not good enough for you." Luce had heard people say that line a thousand times before. It was what everyone always said. Not good enough. But when the words passed Daniel's lips, they sounded important, even somehow true and relevant, not vague and dismissive the way the phrase had always sounded to her in the past. "Well, then," she said in a quiet voice, "who is?" Daniel put his hands on his hips. He laughed to himself for a long time. "I don't know," he said finally. "That's a terrific question." Not exactly the answer Luce was looking for. "It's not like it's that hard," she said, stuffing her hands into her pockets because she wanted to reach out for him. "To be good enough for me." Daniel's eyes looked like they were falling, all the violet that had been in them a moment before turned a deep, dark gray. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it is.

The human race does not have a very good record of intelligent behaviour.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 32. I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussiong their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth. 52. The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

If privacy had a gravestone it might read: 'Don't Worry. This Was for Your Own Good.

When you are learning how to do something, you do not have to worry about whether or not you are good at it. But when you have done something, have learned how to do it, you are not safe any more. Being an expert opens you up to judgement.

Like a good academic, I thought books were for answers.

It’s always been you. I’m incapable of loving anyone else. It’s you or no one. I would be so good to you, babe. Please, just give me a shot at making you happy.

Anyway. I’m not allowed to watch TV, although I am allowed to rent documentaries that are approved for me, and I can read anything I want. My favorite book is A Brief History of Time, even though I haven’t actually finished it, because the math is incredibly hard and Mom isn’t good at helping me. One of my favorite parts is the beginning of the first chapter, where Stephen Hawking tells about a famous scientist who was giving a lecture about how the earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the solar system, and whatever. Then a woman in the back of the room raised her hand and said, “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” So the scientist asked her what the tortoise was standing on. And she said, “But it’s turtles all the way down!” I love that story, because it shows how ignorant people can be. And also because I love tortoises.

It is easy to blame your lot in life on some outside force, to stop trying because you believe fate is against you. It is easy to think that where you were raised, how your parents treated you, or what school you went to is all that determines your future. Nothing could be further from the truth. The common people and the great men and women are all defined by how they deal with life’s unfairness: Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Malala Yousafzai, and—Moki Martin. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, no matter how good you are, you still end up as a sugar cookie. Don’t complain. Don’t blame it on your misfortune. Stand tall, look to the future, and drive on!

Butterfly?" Will said. "Why Butterfly?" "I believe it's a term of great respect," Selethen said gravely. He was very obviously not laughing. Too obviously, Will thought. "It's all right for you," he said. "They called you 'Hawk.' Hawk is an excellent name. It's warlike and noble. But....Butterfly? Selethen nodded. "I agree that Hawk is an entirely suitable name. I assume it had to do with my courage and nobility of heart. Halt coughed and the Arridi lord looked at him, eyebrows raised. "I think it referred less to your heart and more to another part of your body," Halt said mildly. He tapped his finger meaningfully along the side of his nose. It was a gesture he'd always wanted an opportunity to use, and this one was to good to miss. Selethen sniffed and turned away, affecting not to notice.

As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built. Scarlett thought she had never seen such a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look as was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted. She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face. It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, and high forehead and the wide-set eyes.

I take pleasure in the little things. Double cheeseburgers, those are good, the sky ten minutes before it rains,the moment your laugh turns into a cackle. And I sit here, and smoke my Camel straights, and I ride my own melt.

A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

Dear Max - You looked so beautiful today. I'm going to remember what you looked like forever. ... And I hope you remember me the same way - clean, ha-ha. I'm glad our last time together was happy. But I'm leaving tonight, leaving the flock, and this time it's for good. I don't know if I'll ever see any of you again. The thing is, Max, that everyone is a little bit right. Added up all together, it makes this one big right. Dylan's a little bit right about how my being here might be putting the rest of you in danger. The threat might have been just about Dr. Hans, but we don't know that for sure. Angel is a little bit right about how splitting up the flock will help all of us survive. And the rest of the flock is a little bit right about how when you and I are together, we're focused on each other - we can't help it. The thing is, Maximum, I love you. I can't help but be focused on you when we're together. If you're in the room, I want to be next to you. If you're gone, I think about you. You're the one who I want to talk to. In a fight, I want you at my back. When we're together, the sun is shining. When we're apart, everything is in shades of gray. I hope you'll forgive me someday for turning our worlds into shades of gray - at least for a while. ... You're not at your best when you're focused on me. I mean, you're at your best Maxness, but not your best leaderness. I mostly need Maxness. The flock mostly needs leaderness. And Angel, if you're listening to this, it ain't you, sweetie. Not yet. ... At least for a couple more years, the flock needs a leader to survive, no matter how capable everyone thinks he or she is. The truth is that they do need a leader, and the truth is that you are the best leader. It's one of the things I love about you. But the more I thought about it, the more sure I got that this is the right thing to do. Maybe not for you, or for me, but for all of us together, our flock. Please don't try to find me. This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, besides wearing that suit today, and seeing you again will only make it harder. You'd ask me to come back, and I would, because I can't say no to you. But all the same problems would still be there, and I'd end up leaving again, and then we'd have to go through this all over again. Please make us only go through this once. ... I love you. I love your smile, your snarl, your grin, your face when you're sleeping. I love your hair streaming out behind you as we fly, with the sunlight making it shine, if it doesn't have too much mud or blood in it. I love seeing your wings spreading out, white and brown and tan and speckled, and the tiny, downy feathers right at the top of your shoulders. I love your eyes, whether they're cold or calculating or suspicious or laughing or warm, like when you look at me. ... You're the best warrior I know, the best leader. You're the most comforting mom we've ever had. You're the biggest goofball, the worst driver, and a truly lousy cook. You've kept us safe and provided for us, in good times and bad. You're my best friend, my first and only love, and the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, with wings or without. ... Tell you what, sweetie: If in twenty years we haven't expired yet, and the world is still more or less in one piece, I'll meet you at the top of that cliff where we first met the hawks and learned to fly with them. You know the one. Twenty years from today, if I'm alive, I'll be there, waiting for you. You can bet on it. Good-bye, my love. Fang P.S. Tell everyone I sure will miss them

He was a good storyteller. It was obvious he liked the sound and play of words released into the air.

The common people and the great men and women are all defined by how they deal with life’s unfairness: Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Malala Yousafzai, and—Moki Martin. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, no matter how good you are, you still end up as a sugar cookie. Don’t complain. Don’t blame it on your misfortune. Stand tall, look to the future, and drive on!

I have no respect to merchants and preachers; as far as I’m concerned, their only talent is coming up with the right word at the right time. What is a professional preacher, really? He is a kind of middleman who for the wrong reasons tries to make people buy his goods. The more he sells, the more his stock rises. The louder he hawks his wares, the larger his business grows.

There's a sick joke that the reason we have not been contacted by an alien civilization is that civilizations tend to destroy themselves when they reach our stage. But I have sufficient faith in the good sense of public to believe that we might prove this wrong.

Excited. In a good way. I've been training my whole life for this.

No idea sounded like a good idea when you had only one shot left.

The first thing any charlatan needs is nomenclature. A special language. Trappings. That's the true genesis of psychobabble terms such as 'disclosure' and 'in denial.' Every good con man needs plausibility. . .

Being a novice is safe. When you are learning how to do something, you do not have to worry about whether or not you are good at it. But when you have done something, have learned how to do it, you are not safe any more. Being an expert opens you up to judgement.

She can. But I don’t care what she thinks, she’s not back to full strength yet.” Hawke raised an eyebrow. “Want a piece of advice, one male to another?” Judd waited. “Wolf females get really, really, really pissed off when their males don’t support them against others in public.” A flashing smile. “You’re going to have to grovel to get back in her good graces.” “Loyalty. I understand that.” And he did. Hawke angled his head. “One of the scouts is returning.

He wasn’t good. He was a goddamn cruel bastard.

Kit leaned forward. “But if you’re up to something, know that I’m ready. The days of Kit the Clueless are over. I’m watching you guys like a . . . like a . . . like a really good watcher of things.” He cocked his head. “An owl, maybe?” “Up to something?” I flapped a breezy hand. “Pshh. Relax.” “Kit’s not so good with similes,” I said, wiping down a steel counter. “I would’ve gone with a hawk, or maybe the Hubble telescope. I guess owl works.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. If a writer can make people live there may be no great characters in his book, but it is possible that his book will remain as a whole; as an entity; as a novel. If the people the writer is making talk of old masters; of music; of modern painting; of letters; or of science then they should talk of those subjects in the novel. If they do not talk of these subjects and the writer makes them talk of them he is a faker, and if he talks about them himself to show how much he knows then he is showing off. No matter how good a phrase or a simile he may have if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary and irreplaceable he is spoiling his work for egotism. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over. For a writer to put his own intellectual musings, which he might sell for a low price as essays, into the mouths of artificially constructed characters which are more remunerative when issued as people in a novel is good economics, perhaps, but does not make literature. People in a novel, not skillfully constructed characters, must be projected from the writer’s assimilated experience, from his knowledge, from his head, from his heart and from all there is of him. If he ever has luck as well as seriousness and gets them out entire they will have more than one dimension and they will last a long time. A good writer should know as near everything as possible. Naturally he will not. A great enough writer seems to be born with knowledge. But he really is not; he has only been born with the ability to learn in a quicker ratio to the passage of time than other men and without conscious application, and with an intelligence to accept or reject what is already presented as knowledge. There are some things which cannot be learned quickly and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave. Every novel which is truly written contributes to the total of knowledge which is there at the disposal of the next writer who comes, but the next writer must pay, always, a certain nominal percentage in experience to be able to understand and assimilate what is available as his birthright and what he must, in turn, take his departure from. If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay. And this too remember; a serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

I swear to use my scientific knowledge for the good of Humanity. I promise never to harm any person in my search for enlightenment. I shall be courageous and careful in my quest for greater knowledge about the mysteries that surround us. I shall not use scientific knowledge for my own personal gain or give it to those who seek to destroy the wonderful planet on which we live. If I break this oath, may the beauty and wonder of the Universe forever remain hidden from me.

It is generally recognized that women are better than men at languages, personal relations and multitasking, but less good at map-reading and spatial awareness. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that women might be less good at mathematics and physics. It is not politically correct to say such things....But it cannot be denied that there are differences between men and women. Of course, these are differences between the averages only. There are wide variations about the mean.

She infested his mind, thoughts of worshipping her in dark ways, her laugh would be his reward, her screams his payment for a man worthy of being in her fucking presence and not dying of overexposure to all that goodness.

Doll face, even if I'm a guy, I'm 100 percent gay. My hot dog won't even get hard over staring at your bun. It's all good. I know what I'm doing. Low, come and hold her hand.

The good news was, she probably hadn't brought him here to gut him. If she wanted him dead, she'd be sensible about it and stab him in the street. She was complex, not perverse.

Zelda was very beautiful and was tanned a lovely gold colour and her hair was a beautiful dark gold and she was very friendly. Her hawk's eyes were clear and calm. I knew everything was all right and was going to turn out well in the end when she leaned forward and said to me, telling me her great secret, 'Ernest, don't you think Al Jolson is greater than Jesus?' Nobody thought anything of it at the time. It was only Zelda's secret that she shared with me, as a hawk might share something with a man. But hawks do not share. Scott did not write anything any more that was good until after he knew that she was insane.

He began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. In the Creation of Ea, which is the oldest song, it is said, 'Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.

Hope starts as a promise made to yourself, the first drop of rain in a parched land, the first step onto dry earth for a shipwreck survivor. It is a listening crowd for a lonely heart. What we hope in must be greater than us; therefore, we will always need something greater than man to believe in. Good and evil may be a necessity to perceive our world, but hope is a prerequisite for life.

Good,” said Creed. “I always like it when a captain has a plan; makes getting killed a lot less random.

a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation.

Farid, you are keeping a hawk; don't expect her to lay eggs like a chicken.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.

theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

As long ago as 340 B.C. the Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his book On the Heavens, was able to put forward two good arguments for believing that the earth was a round sphere rather than a flat plate.

If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.

In short, the advent of super-intelligent AI would be either the best or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity. The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence. A super-intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours we’re in trouble.

He cupped both my cheeks and released my lips to gaze at me intensely. "I love you, Emma." He croaked as though his throat was also tight. His head shook, "I can't hide it or run from it anymore." His face creased, "It's fuckin' crushing me and I feel like I'm gonna break." My breath whooshed out of me and my heart stopped. "It's always been you. I’m incapable of loving anyone else. It's you or no one." He brought his body into contact with mine, "I would be so good to you, babe. Please, just give me a shot at making you happy.

(...) I wanted to drink a decent glass of wine in the evening with good friends." "Sounds like a modest goal." "Yes, but even a small wish like that has implications. It means a community with free time, a group with enough income to buy the Merlot, and a general desire to enjoy the small pleasures of life. (...) In this context, a glass of wine becomes a revolutionary statement.

Life is finding people you love and then losing them, sometimes after sixty years, sometimes after a few months or even a week, all the loss meant to keep you humble and remind you that your life is likewise stamped with an expiration date, so that you’ll use your days to the best of your ability, in the service of what is good.

The argument that Hawking has offered may be conveyed by question-and-answer, as in the Catholic catechism.   A Catechism of Quantum Cosmology Q: From what did our universe evolve? A: Our universe evolved from a much smaller, much emptier mini-universe. You may think of it as an egg. Q: What was the smaller, emptier universe like? A: It was a four-dimensional sphere with nothing much inside it. You may think of that as weird. Q: How can a sphere have four dimensions? A: A sphere may have four dimensions if it has one more dimension than a three-dimensional sphere. You may think of that as obvious. Q: Does the smaller, emptier universe have a name? A: The smaller, emptier universe is called a de Sitter universe. You may think of that as about time someone paid attention to de Sitter. Q: Is there anything else I should know about the smaller, emptier universe? A: Yes. It represents a solution to Einstein’s field equations. You may think of that as a good thing. Q: Where was that smaller, emptier universe or egg? A: It was in the place where space as we know it did not exist. You may think of it as a sac. Q: When was it there? A: It was there at the time when time as we know it did not exist. You may think of it as a mystery. Q: Where did the egg come from? A: The egg did not actually come from anywhere. You may think of this as astonishing. Q: If the egg did not come from anywhere, how did it get there? A: The egg got there because the wave function of the universe said it was probable. You may think of this as a done deal. Q: How did our universe evolve from the egg? A: It evolved by inflating itself up from its sac to become the universe in which we now find ourselves. You may think of that as just one of those things. This catechism, I should add, is not a parody of quantum cosmology. It is quantum cosmology.

I know how to do this, I thought. I am good, at least, at this. I know all the steps to this dance

It is no good getting furious if you get stuck

I wanted to tell you about it because science is really important. Without it, we don’t understand anything, so how can we get anything right or make any good decisions? Some people think science is boring, some people think it’s dangerous—and if we don’t get interested in science and learn about it and use it properly, then maybe it is those things. But if you try and understand it, it’s fascinating, and it matters to us and to the future of our planet.

The toiling masses,' and all that. This country has no toiling masses, we have Dan at the diner and Verne in the mine and Jerry in the steel mill and Burdette at the filling station and so on. They don't toil, for Christ's sake, they do a day's work and then they go home and have a beer. You can't get them into a mass for anything. If there's a good ball game on TV they won't come out to see the president ride by.

In the world outside this glass room, songbirds are feeding and resting in the trees. Some will take off tonight and not land until they reach Venezuela. Sandpipers, plovers, and broad-winged hawks have already left for Patagonia and Panama. Bats are headed for caves in Kentucky and Tennessee. Out in the Atlantic, humpback whales pass by on their way to the Caribbean. Even now, Canada geese are honking toward us from Quebec. It is a good day for the beginnings of journeys. Every time I look at you, I think, Now I cannot die.

Someone is pounding on a door within you and hoping for an answer. They want to tell us the secret tale of ourselves. The stories we’ve never told. Some African tribes believe if you were to tell someone your entire story the audience would actually become you. From then on, the only life the teller would have would be in and through the listener. Some believe this is the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. How I wished for my story to be blemish free. How I wished to be a good-natured soul giving back to the world, regardless of how broken I was. In the end, it’s those things we are willing to die to change that sculpt our story. Some people open the floodgates of their minds and hearts so memories burst forth like water through a breached dam. Pieces of our lives can be found among the floating wreckage, and somewhere, the presence of God hovers over the surface of the deep. Inside, I am treading, biding my time, waiting for the magic I thought I owned as a child. Many seek this enchantment. I sought my wife, daughter and the power to conjure hope.

The earth is an orbiting speck in incomprehensible vastness. The histories of our civilizations, our accomplishments and secrets, great good and evil—these are no more significant than the single twinkle of a star. Perhaps, this is why we try to outshine the heavens with our cities and make theatrical events of our simple lives.

It was an ancient policy with her to be on good terms with anything that outweighed her and had so many teeth, so she broke the bacon in two and gave him the smaller piece. He was a dog. He would not realize he had been slighted.

Dogs in general, not just good Dixie, sometimes regarded their humans with an expression of loving concern colored with tender pity, as if they knew not merely people’s most private fears and hopes, but also the very truth of life and the fate of all things, as though they wished that they could speak in order to give comfort by sharing what they knew.

The wealth of America isn’t an inventory of goods; it’s an organic, living entity, a fragile, pulsing fabric of ideas, expectations, loyalties, moral commitments, visions, and people. To slice it up like an apple pie and redistribute it would destroy it just as surely as trying to share Stephen Hawking’s intellect by sharing slices of his brain would surely kill him.

At night, we used to see stars. You could see by starlight back then, after the sun went down. Hundreds of headlights chained together in the sky, good enough to eat, good enough to write legends about, good enough to launch men at. ... Does any part of you still look at the sky and hurt? .... We used to hear the stars, too. When people stopped talking, there was silence. Now you could shut every mouth on the planet and there’d still be a hum. Air-conditioning groaning from the vent beside you. Semi trucks hissing on a highway miles away. A plane complaining ten thousand feet above you. Silence is an extinct word.

a touchstone by which they both could test their commitment to what was good and true in a world of darkness and lies. But a touchstone had value only if they acted with reason, from a sense of duty, rather than because sentimentality overtook them.

(Somalia) was a watershed," said one State Department official, "The idea used to be that terrible countries were terrible because good, decent, innocent people were being oppressed by evil, thuggish leaders. Somalia changed that. Here you have a country where just about everybody is caught up in hatred and fighting. You stop an old lady on the street and ask her if she wants peace, and she’ll say, yes, of course, I pray for it daily. All the things you’d expect her to say. Then ask her if she would be willing for her clan to share power with another in order to have that peace, and she’ll say, 'With those murderers and thieves? I’d die first.' People in these countries - Bosnia is a more recent example - don’t want peace. They want victory. They want power. Men, women, old and young. Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and the killing continues because they want it to. Or because they don’t want peace enough to stop it." (pg 334-335)

You could send in your bleeding-heart do-gooders, you could hold hands and pray and sing hootenanny songs and invoke the great gods CNN and BBC, but the only way to finally open the roads to the big-eyed babies was to show up with more guns. And in this real world, nobody had more or better guns than America. If the good-hearted ideals of humankind were to prevail, then they needed men who could make it happen.

Aw, true love.” Howler lands on the boat, rocking it. “It makes me want to puke. Doesn’t it make you want to gag too, Hawk?” “I never thought it was a good idea in the first place,” says Hawk as he lands beside Howler. “Eternal damnation is what I get for listening to you lot.” “How’s the flesh wound, boss?” Howler shows off his forearm that glistens with his raw, skinless muscles. “Want to compare and see who gets bragging rights?

Everywhere you are a stranger.’ Finished Iskra with seeming carelessness, and quickly and unceremoniously placed a beret with turkey feathers on her head. ‘An Outsider everywhere and always different. How shall we call you, little hawk?’ Ciri looked into her eyes. ‘Gvalch’ca.’ The elf laughed. ‘Once you start to speak, you speak in multiple languages, little hawk! Very good. You will carry the name from the Elder People, a name that you yourself have chosen. You will be called Falka.

t is generally recognized that women are better than men at languages, personal relations and multitasking, but less good at map-reading and spatial awareness. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that women might be less good at mathematics and physics. It is not politically correct to say such things....But it cannot be denied that there are differences between men and women. Of course, these are differences between the averages only. There are wide variations about the mean.

What should you do when you find you have made a mistake like that? Some people never admit that they are wrong and continue to find new, and often mutually inconsistent, arguments to support their case—as Eddington did in opposing black hole theory. Others claim to have never really supported the incorrect view in the first place or, if they did, it was only to show that it was inconsistent. It seems to me much better and less confusing if you admit in print that you were wrong. A good example of this was Einstein, who called the cosmological constant, which he introduced when he was trying to make a static model of the universe, the biggest mistake of his life.

So, you are now talking to birds?” Hanlon glanced back from looking up at the tree the crow sat in and said, “Not all birds, just crows, oh, and hawks and eagles, sometimes ospreys, but never vultures.” She laughed at his attempt at humor, “Why don’t you talk to vultures?” “Well, Sassy, because vultures aren’t very good conversationalists. Doug Hiser -Montana Mist coming soon 2010

The man towered over her five-foot-four-inch frame by a good ten inches. He was big, dark and deadly-looking, with piercing ebony eyes and long, silky black hair secured in a ponytail. Dressed all in black—leather jacket, cotton shirt and jeans—he blended into the night like a prince of darkness. Rorie shuddered at the thought. Whoever or whatever this man was, he was danger personified.

You have no fucking idea, little bit of a thing, so old are you that you know everything? So worldly with the round eyes and the way you see the good in everything, even me. Forget everything you fucking think you know. The second I was inside you people would know, you’d be different, they’d treat you differently, tarred with my fucking ruined brush, all the rumors flying around, people who had once been your friends because they’d know I had hands all over you. I don’t fuck like a gentleman, little bit, I fuck like an animal, that stains a little girl like you. You want pretty-fucking-romance, to show off a man to your friends, to go to parties with him on your arm, so fucking meek and boring, that’s not me, will never be me. I’m not normal, the wiring is not right in my head, and I’m not for you, walk away before I’ve had my mouth on that pussy and drank down your honey, because if you don’t and I taste you, I feel how it is to shove my cock as deep and as hard as I can inside you, it’s all over, you get me? You hearing what I’m telling you? Game over, ‘cause I don’t play by anyone's rules but my own and my rules are nasty, my rules are fucking filthy.

the statement “All uranium-235 spheres are less than a mile in diameter” could be thought of as a law of nature because, according to what we know about nuclear physics, once a sphere of uranium-235 grew to a diameter greater than about six inches, it would demolish itself in a nuclear explosion. Hence we can be sure that such spheres do not exist. (Nor would it be a good idea to try to make one!)

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. As philosopher of science Karl Popper has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation.

Good to know, even after a family drama, Gwen’s still hard at work on that great ass,” he noted. “Gus!” Maria shouted. I laughed. So did Hawk. I didn’t hear it, but I felt it up against me. It felt really nice. Hawk’s laughter faded. I missed it when it was gone until Maria muttered, “She might be dazzled but she’s not afraid of using a cleaver. I see good things,” and I got Hawk’s laughter back again.

You do not need to be depressed about getting a divorce, cowboy. You may feel like you are dying, but let me tell you, you were dead! But the thing is, dead people don’t know they’re dead. You’re crying ’cause you are getting pushed through some kind of rebirth canal. Wake up and serve those children. Get the best custody deal you can—I don’t care if it’s one stinkin’ day a year—it will be one stinkin’ day a year they get to have a grown man for a father. You are a good man—go find a good woman—and have a good life. ‘Nice’ is not a bad word. Nice partner equals nice life. Crazy partner equals crazy life—you get it?

It’s no secret that we all live within a damning illusion called denial. We are doomed by our own far-reaching imaginations and beliefs that extend into a glorified version of eternity. How are we to live sanely on the earth, with our heads in the clouds, when we are so far from being giants? How are we to claim higher ideals, when God is absent from the conversations in our minds? There can be no going back, once we’ve believed in perfection. We are slain by the stories we were taught as children, stories about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and a God who cares. We pass these heirlooms to our children with the same fervor with which they were delivered, never allowing ourselves to doubt their authenticity or value. I wondered what the view held outside the proverbial slaughterhouse. For a spiritually awakened person, a good God seems the only reasonable answer. If there’s no eternal good, then what would be the use of life? Man lays the tracks of good and evil before the train of his evolution, moving onward into places he barely understands

Poison! Poison gasses, you idiot! Defend yourself! Eat the celery! I thrust a numbing hand into an inside coat pocket, pulled out the piece of celery, and chewed on it. I always keep a piece handy, pre-prepared with all kinds of useful substances, for just such occasions as this. It tasted bitter as I chewed, but it cleared my head rapidly. It’s an old trick but a good one, taught me long ago by a Travelling Doctor I met at the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grill.

Summer days, and the flat water meadows and the blue hills in the distance, and the willows up the backwater and the pools underneath like a kind of deep green glass. Summer evenings, the fish breaking the water, the nightjars hawking round your head, the smell of nightstocks and latakia. Don’t mistake what I’m talking about. It’s not that I’m trying to put across any of that poetry of childhood stuff. I know that’s all baloney. Old Porteous (a friend of mine, a retired schoolmaster, I’ll tell you about him later) is great on the poetry of childhood. Sometimes he reads me stuff about it out of books. Wordsworth. Lucy Gray. There was a time when meadow, grove, and all that. Needless to say he’s got no kids of his own. The truth is that kids aren’t in any way poetic, they’re merely savage little animals, except that no animal is a quarter as selfish. A boy isn’t interested in meadows, groves, and so forth. He never looks at a landscape, doesn’tgive a damn for flowers, and unless they affect him in some way, such as being good to eat, he doesn’t know one plant from another. Killing things - that’s about as near to poetry as a boy gets. And yet all the while there’s that peculiar intensity, the power of longing for things as you can’t long when you’re grown up, and the feeling that time stretches out and out in front of you and that whatever you’re doing you could go on for ever.

Ignorance of nature’s ways led people in ancient times to invent gods to lord it over every aspect of human life. There were gods of love and war; of the sun, earth, and sky; of the oceans and rivers; of rain and thunderstorms; even of earthquakes and volcanoes. When the gods were pleased, mankind was treated to good weather, peace, and freedom from natural disaster and disease. When they were displeased, there came drought, war, pestilence, and epidemics. Since the connection of cause and effect in nature was invisible to their eyes, these gods appeared inscrutable, and people at their mercy. But with Thales of Miletus (ca. 624 BC–ca. 546 BC) about 2,600 years ago, that began to change. The idea arose that nature follows consistent principles that could be deciphered. And so began the long process of replacing the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed by laws of nature, and created according to a blueprint we could someday learn to read.

We Don’t Do Fair, We Do Individual Needs” I see so many families set a goal of being “fair” as a method of attempting to decrease conflict, but in fact, making things fair is one of the biggest propellants of conflict. The more we work for fairness, the more we create opportunities for competition. When we make things fair, we increase a child’s hypervigilance; we essentially say, “Continue to watch your sibling like a hawk. Make sure you keep track of everything your sibling has, because that’s how you can figure out what you need in this family.” And there’s a longer-term reason why we don’t want to aim for “fairness” in our families: we want to help our kids orient inward to figure out their needs, not orient outward. When my kids are adults, I don’t want them to think, “What do my friends have? What are their jobs, their homes, their cars? I need what they have.” Talk about a life of anxiety and emptiness. It leads to a life with no interiority—no sense of who you are on the inside, only a sense of how you stack up to other people on the outside.

She smiled and he abruptly looked away. Was it really necessary for her to smile? It was bad enough that she wore the tightest black button down dress she could find. It hugged every sensuous curve, sheathing her like a second skin. It pulled tight over her breasts each time she stretched her arms. She just had to wear that dress today of all days. The day they had to work late. The day he was alone with her in the office. It was the middle of autumn for goodness sakes. She could have at least worn something longer, something less revealing?

What followed was a great treat for me. This was Irish traditional music as I had hoped to see and hear it, spontaneous and from the heart, and not produced for the sake of the tourist industry. As I sat there with my pint in my hand, enjoying the jigs and the reels, I watched the joy in the player’s faces and in those around them who tapped their feet and applauded enthusiastically. Music the joybringer. No question of being paid, or any requirement to perform for a certain amount of time. Just play for as long as it makes you feel good. This was self expression, not performance. Someone would begin playing a tune and the fellow musicians would listen to it once through, hear how it went and join in when they felt comfortable, until, on its last run through, it was being played with gusto by the entire ensemble. This process provided each piece with the dynamic of a natural crescendo which could almost have been orchestrated.

The Hawk of Essex looked out toward the sea and thought for a moment that he had stepped back in time. As it had more than two years before, a Viking war fleet was bearing down on his shore. He called to his wife, who was, after all, Norse and whom he knew had a good grasp of things. "Would you agree that Wolf and Dragon are reasonable men?" Krysta lifted their son from the basin in which she had been bathing him, grinned at the baby's eager kicks, and wrapped him snugly in a blanket before joining Hawk at the window. "Eminently reasonable." He looked again over the sea. "Something has stirred them." Buckling on his sword,he went to find out what it was.

Introductory paragraph incorporating the thesis: After a challenging childhood marked by adversity, Adam Parrish has become a successful freshman at Harvard University. In the past, he had spent his time doubting himself, fearing he would become like his father, obsessing that others could see his trailer-park roots, and idealizing wealth, but now he has built a new future where no one has to know where he's come from. Before becoming a self-actualized young man at Harvard, Adam had been deeply fascinated by the concept of the ley lines and also supernaturally entangled with one of the uncanny forests located along one, but he has now focused on the real world, using only the ghost of magic to fleece other students with parlor trick tarot card readings. He hasn't felt like himself for months, but he is going to be just fine. Followed by three paragraphs with information that supports the thesis. First: Adam understands that suffering is often transient, even when it feels permanent. This too shall pass, etc. Although college seems like a lifetime, it is only four years. Four years is only a lifetime if one is a guinea pig. Second paragraph, building on the first point: Magic has not always been good for Adam. During high school, he frequently immersed himself in it as a form of avoidance. Deep down, he fears that he is prone to it as his father is prone to abuse, and that it will eventually make him unsuitable for society. By depriving himself of magic, he forces himself to become someone valuable to the unmagic world, i.e. the Crying Club. Third paragraph, with the most persuasive point: Harvard is a place Ronan Lynch cannot be, because he cannot survive there, either physically or socially. Without such hard barriers, Adam will surely continue to return to Ronan Lynch again and again, and thus fall back in with bad habits. He will never achieve the life of financial security and recognition he planned. Thesis restated, bringing together all the information to prove it: Although life is unbearable now, and Adam Parrish seems to have lost everything important to him in the present by pursuing the things important to him in the past, he will be fine. Concluding paragraph describing what the reader just learned and why it is important for them to have learned it: He will be fine. He will be fine. He will be fine. He will be fine.

Why may you not kiss me?” she had demanded. “Am I a corpse?” “Of course not.” “Do you find me less attractive now that weather and wind have scoured the bloom from my cheeks?” “Skaytha, it’s nothing like that. If anything you are more beautiful now than when we lived on Skyrl. Often enough I have no breath when I look at you. You rob me of any other thoughts.” “So you’re afraid my kisses will take what little brain you have left?” “I’m afraid the angels will do something I don’t want them to do if I fly in the face of their commands, commands I can only assume are divine as well as angelic.” “Did you ever think to ask them the reasons behind their demands?” “When it is an angel I just want to get out of the conversation alive or at least without being struck dumb. So I don’t prolong the chat.” “You might have wanted my kisses more than that. If you had any romance in you you’d have told them you were ready to fight ten legions of angels for my love.” Hawk had reached out to hold her. “If I’d told them that they might have taken me up on it. Angels are not just useful for gallant flourishes the moment you declare your intention to battle all comers for the woman you love. Angels burn like fire and blaze like a hundred suns – they strike fear in my heart.” She had pulled away from his embrace and jumped to her feet. “Oh, no, you don’t. If I’m not good enough to kiss I’m not good enough to take in your arms either. It’s angels or me. Make up your mind whom you fear more. Or love more.” “I don’t love the angels.” “Clearly you don’t love me either.” They had been in a tipi. She’d gone to the opening, lifted the flap, bent, and stalked away, passing by warriors of the tribe with her head as high as a goddess and her back as straight as the shaft of the spear. The chief had poked his head in. “All is well, Hawk?’ he had asked. Hawk had learned their tongue. “It couldn’t be better,” Hawk had responded. “Only being slain in battle would be greater than this.” The chief had thought this over and laughed. "That would bring you great honor." "I am in short supply of honor right now and such short supply never pleases a woman like her. Better to die at the end of a spear and have it for a few moments and win her back." The chief had nodded. "Sound wisdom. Would you like to join a raiding party against our enemy tonight?" "I couldn't be happier." (from The Name of the Hawk, Book 2)

A rustle of wings and a hawk feather drifts down to me. Snatching it from the air, I look up into the trees, but nothing’s there. So I tuck the feather into my hair. “What are you doing?” My stomach leaps into my throat, and I jump up, stumbling backward, and fall on my butt in the middle of the path. In the tree above me, a teenage boy perches on a branch. He’s dressed in traditional deerskin breeches, a talon necklace around his neck, but rather than moccasins, his feet are bare. He is shirtless, and lean muscles cord his body. His intense eyes capture my attention. They’re like golden fathomless pools. I could get lost in them. “Don’t your feet get hurt, walking barefoot on the forest floor?” I ask. “I rarely walk.” He drops down in front of me. His face is so close that I take a step back and thump into a tree. He leans toward me and sniffs. “You smell different. What are you?” “I’m a girl.” I can’t take my gaze from his. “No, humans stink. You smell…” He sniffs my hair and grins. “You smell good.” “Is there a reason that you’re invading my space? I have somewhere to be.” My voice cracks. He tugs one of my braids and winks at me. My pulse quickens, and my breath catches in my throat. His eyes study me with intensity, and he leans closer. Is he going to kiss me?

Galen picking you up for school?" "No, I'm driving myself." Vinegar turns to acid. Sure, it's irritating to take a lukewarm shower when you intended to scald the flesh from your body. But not being able to see Galen today is more disappointing than not having hot water all winter. And I hate it. Spending all of yesterday with him slaughtered my intention of keeping him at a distance. Even if he weren't worthy of his own billboard underwear ad, he's just too likeable. Except for his habit of almost-kissing me. But his obsession with trying to order me around is too cute. Especially the way his mouth gets all pouty when I don't listen. "You two fighting already?" She's fishing, but for what I don't know. Shrugging seems safe until I can figure out what she wants to hear. "Do you fight often?" Shrugging again, I ladle enough oatmeal into my mouth to make talking impossible for at least a minute, which is more than enough time for her to drop it. It doesn't work. After the exaggerated minute, I reach for my glass of milk. "You know, if he ever hit you-" The glass in mid-tilt, I swallow before the milk can escape through my nose. "Mom, he would never hit me!" "I didn't say he would." "Good, because he wouldn't. Ever. What's with you? Do you have to interrogate me about Galen every time you see me?" This time she shrugs. "Seems like the right thing to do. When you have children, you'll understand." "I'm not stupid. If Galen acts up, I'll either dump him or kill him. You have my word." Mom laughs and butters my muffin. "I guess I can't ask for more than that." Accepting the muffin-and the truce-I say, "Nope. Anything more would be unreasonable." "Just remember, I'm watching you like a hawk. Except for right now, because I'm going to bed.

This novel humbled me in a number of ways. I was reading manuscripts for a magazine called Accent, and had in front of my prose-bleary eyes a piece called “A Horse in a London Flat.” And I was in a doze. More dreariness. More pretension. When will it all end? How shall I phrase my polite rejection? Something, I don’t remember what it was now, but something ten pages along woke me up, as if I had nearly fallen asleep and toppled from my chair. Perhaps it was the startle of an image or the rasp of a line. I went back to the beginning, and soon realized that I had let my eyes slide over paragraphs of astonishing prose without responding to them or recognizing their quality. That was my first humiliation. I then carried the manuscript to my fellow editors, as if I were bringing the original “good news,” only to learn that they were perfectly familiar with the work of John Hawkes and admired it extravagantly. Hadn’t I read The Cannibal, or The Goose on the Grave? Where had I been! What a dummy! (Though my humiliation would have been worse if I had written that rejection.) A number of years had to erode my embarrassment before I could confess that I had not spotted him at once (as I initially pretended). What a dummy indeed. The Lime Twig is a beautiful and brutal book, and when it comes to the engravement of the sentence, no one now writing can match him.

There is no other way," she insisted. "Nothing else but to use you as bait? Madness!" "Don't make me say it." "Say what?" Wolf asked. He was leaning against a pillar, Cymbra close by, observing his brother with the air of a man torn between sympathy and amusement. Gritting his teeth,Dragon said, "That I used her as such to lure out Magnus. It almost got her killed." "Me? What about you?" Rycca demanded, momentarily forgetting her purpose. That night of terror still lived too vividly in her memory. "It almost got you killed. You're the one who had to fight him, naked, unarmed, and him having your Moorish sword." Hawk and Wolf exchanged a look. "That's how Magnus died?" Wolf asked. He grinned. "Pretty damn good,brother." The women looked to the ceiling and sighed in exasperation. It was left to Hawk to break the deadlock. "I hate to say this, but Rycca has a point. Unless Wolscroft is lured out,this can't be resolved." "So you would use my wife-" Dragon challenged. "Fully protected," Hawk hastened to add, "surrounded by all our might. There is only one road and the forest on both sides is very thick.We could hide a hundred men within a few feet of that road and no one could detect them." Dragon was silent for a moment. He gave every appearance of waging a battle within himself. Finally,he said, "A hundred men isn't enough." Rycca's heart leaped,for she recognized that as just the tiniest concession to the plan they were discussing. "Don't forget Krysta's friends," she said quickly. "They will help too." Her husband scowled. "What friends?" "It's a little complicated," Hawk replied. "Let's just say my wife has friends in high places...and low ones. Wolscroft won't be able to belch without our knowing it." "I still don't like it..." Rycca took her husband's hand in hers. She looked up into his eyes. Gently, with all the confidence and courage she coud muster,she said, "We will never be free until this is over.

In the medium term, AI may automate our jobs, to bring both great prosperity and equality. Looking further ahead, there are no fundamental limits to what can be achieved. There is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains. An explosive transition is possible, although it may play out differently than in the movies. As mathematician Irving Good realised in 1965, machines with superhuman intelligence could repeatedly improve their design even further, in what science-fiction writer Vernor Vinge called a technological singularity. One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders and potentially subduing us with weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.

the philosopher John W. Carroll compared the statement “All gold spheres are less than a mile in diameter” to a statement like “All uranium-235 spheres are less than a mile in diameter.” Our observations of the world tell us that there are no gold spheres larger than a mile wide, and we can be pretty confident there never will be. Still, we have no reason to believe that there couldn’t be one, and so the statement is not considered a law. On the other hand, the statement “All uranium-235 spheres are less than a mile in diameter” could be thought of as a law of nature because, according to what we know about nuclear physics, once a sphere of uranium-235 grew to a diameter greater than about six inches, it would demolish itself in a nuclear explosion. Hence we can be sure that such spheres do not exist. (Nor would it be a good idea to try to make one!) This distinction matters because it illustrates that not all generalizations we observe can be thought of as laws of nature, and that most laws of nature exist as part of a larger, interconnected system of laws.

Well now, what’s the problem?” Hawk asked after a long swallow to banish the dust of the training field. Dragon hesitated but, to his credit, not for long. “I brought a girl with me. Krysta is seeing to her now. She’s Lady Rycca of Wolscroft.” Hawk’s brows rose slightly. “Your betrothed.” “My errant betrothed. I met her a few days ago, apparently after she donned boy’s garb and fled from her home rather than come here and be married to me.” Hawk cleared his throat, decided this was a good time for more ale, and emptied the horn. He finished up with a deep breath before attempting a response. “I see . . . well, I don’t actually. She was dressed as a boy, you met several days ago, but you didn’t bring her until now?” “I didn’t know who she was. She wouldn’t tell me her name so I—” His mouth thinned sardonically. “I decided not to tell her mine. Clever, don’t you think?” “Why do I have the distinct impression that it was anything but?” “Not knowing who I was—” Dragon broke off. His gaze sought a distant corner of the hall. Quietly, he said, “Not knowing who I was, she lay with me.

Declan Lynch was a liar. He'd been a liar his entire life. Lies came to him fluidly, easily, instinctively. What does your father do for a living? He sells high-end sports cars in the summer, life insurance in the winter. He's an anesthesiologist. He does financial consulting for divorcees. He does advertising work for international companies in English-speaking markets. He's in the FBI. Where did he meet your mother? They were on yearbook together in high school. They were set up by friends. She took his picture at the county fair, said she wanted to keep his smile forever. Why can't Ronan come to a sleepover? He sleepwalks. Once he walked out to the road and my father had to convince a trucker who'd stopped before hitting him he was really his son. How did your mother die? Brain bleed. Rare. Genetic. Passes from mother to daughter, which is the only good thing, 'cause she only had sons. How are you doing? Fine. Good. Great. At a certain point, the truth felt worse. Truth was a closed-casket funeral attended by its estranged living relatives, Lies, Safety, Secrets. He lied to everyone. He lied to his lovers, his friends, his brothers. Well. More often he simply didn't tell his brothers the truth.

We crossed the street and turned left into one of the side streets, which was only slightly less wide. Here the traffic was lighter. To the left and slightly in front of us, two men walked shoulder to shoulder. The first wore leather pants, a white shirt with wide sleeves, and a leather vest over it. A wide leather bracer enclosed his left forearm. His hair, a rare blond shade, almost gold, hung in a ponytail down his back. He moved with a casual aristocratic elegance, perfectly balanced. Watching him, you had a feeling that if the road suddenly became a tightrope, he would just keep on walking without breaking a stride. My father moved like that. I sped up a little. We drew even and I saw a slender sword on his waist. That's what I thought. An expert swordsman. I glanced at his face and blinked. He was remarkably handsome. The man to his left was larger, his shoulders broader, his body emanating contained aggression. He didn't walk, he stalked, and you could tell by the way he moved that he would be very strong. His auburn hair looked like he'd rolled out of bed, dragged his hand through it, and gone on about his day. He wore dark pants and a black leather jacket that was more doublet than motorcycle. A ragged scar crossed his left cheek and when he turned his head, his eyes shone with yellow. Interesting. "It's always work with you," the russet-haired man said. "Some of us have to mind the safety of the realm," the blond said. A narrow smile curled his lips. "I've given the realm eight years of my life. It can bite me," his stocky companion retorted. "How far is it?" The slim man raised his left arm. A hawk dropped out of the sky and landed on his bracer. "We're almost there. Two blocks left." "Good. Let's get this crap and go home." They turned into the side street. "That bird smelled dead," Sean said.

It was during the 1970s that statisticians decided it would be a good idea to measure banks’ “productivity” in terms of their risk-taking behavior. The more risk, the bigger their slice of the GDP.14 Hardly any wonder, then, that banks have continually upped their lending, egged on by politicians who have been convinced that the financial sector’s slice is every bit as valuable as the whole manufacturing industry. “If banking had been subtracted from the GDP, rather than added to it,” the Financial Times recently reported, “it is plausible to speculate that the financial crisis would never have happened.”15 The CEO who recklessly hawks mortgages and derivatives to lap up millions in bonuses currently contributes more to the GDP than a school packed with teachers or a factory full of car mechanics. We live in a world where the going rule seems to be that the more vital your occupation (cleaning, nursing, teaching), the lower you rate in the GDP. As the Nobel laureate James Tobin said back in 1984, “We are throwing more and more of our resources, including the cream of our youth, into financial activities remote from the production of goods and services, into activities that generate high private rewards disproportionate to their social productivity.”16

A startlingly clear memory jolted through Ronan, as fresh as the moment he'd lived it. It was the day Ronan had first come to Harvard to surprise Adam, back when he still thought he was moving to Cambridge. He'd been so full of anticipation for how the reveal would go and then, in the end, they'd walked right past each other. At the time, Ronan had thought it was because Adam looked so different after his time away. He was dressed differently. He held himself differently. He'd even lost his accent. And he'd assumed it had felt the same to Adam; Ronan had gotten older, lonelier, sharper. But now they were in this strange sea, and neither of them looked anything like the Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch the other had known. Adam was a collection of thoughts barely masquerading as a human form. Ronan Lynch was raw dark energy, alien and enormous. And yet when Adam's consciousness touched his, Ronan recognized him. It was Adam's footsteps on the stairs. His surprised whoop as he catapulted into the pond they'd dug. The irritation in his voice; the impatience of his kiss; his ruthless, dry sense of humor; his biting pride; his ferocious loyalty. It was all caught up in this essential form that had nothing to do with how his physical body looked. The difference between this reunion and the one at Harvard was that there in Cambridge they had been false. They'd both been wearing masks upon masks, hiding the truth of themselves from everyone, including themselves. Here, there was no way to hide. They were only their thoughts. Only the truth. "Ronan, Ronan, it is you. I did it. I found you. With just a sweetmetal, I found you." Ronan didn't know if Adam had thought it or said it, but it didn't matter. The joy was unmistakable. "Tamquam," said Ronan, and Adam said, "Alter idem." Cicero had written the phrase about Atticus, his dearest friend. Qui est tamquam alter idem. Like a second self. Ronan and Adam could not hug, because they had no real arms, but it didn't matter. Their energy darted and mingled and circled, the brilliant bright of the sweetmetals and the absolute dark of the Lace. They didn't speak, but they didn't have to. Audible words were redundant when their thoughts were tangled together as one. Without any of the clumsiness of language, they shared their euphoria and their lurking fears. They rehashed what they had done to each other and apologized. They showed everything they had done and that had been done to them in the time since they'd last seen each other--the good and the bad, the horrid and the wonderful. Everything had felt so murky for so long, but when they were like this, all that was left was clarity. Again and again they spiraled around and through one another, not Ronan-and-Adam but rather one entity that held both of them. They were happy and sad, angry and forgiven, they were wanted, they were wanted, they were wanted.

About two years ago," Cymbra went on, "Wolf conceived the idea of an alliance between Norse and Saxon to stand against the Danes.He thought such an alliance would be best confirmed by a marriage between himself and me.This did he propose in a letter to my brother. With the help of a traitorous house priest, Father Elbert, Daria intercepted that letter and stole Hawk's seal as well. She sent back to Wolf a refusal in Hawk's name and mine that not merely rejected the alliance but also insulted him deeply. His repsonse was all too predictable, although it is certain Daria herself never thought of it." "What did he do?" Rycca asked,trying very hard not to sound breathless. Cymbra smiled in fond memory. "Wolf came to Essex and took me by stealth. We were married as I told you and only then did he send word to Hawk as to where I could be found. Naturally, my brother was very angry and concerned. He came to Sciringesheal, where I did my utmost to convince him that I was happily wed,which certainly was true but unfortunately he did not believe. So are men ever stubborn. One thing led to another and Hawk spirited me back to Essex. Winter set in and it was months before Wolf could follow.During that time, Hawk realized his mistake. Once Wolf arrived, all was settled amicably, which was a good thing because this little one"-she smiled at her drowsy son-"had just been norn and I was in no mood to put up with any more foolishness on the part of bull-headed men. It was while we were at Hawkforte, waiting as I regained strength to return home, that Wolf suggested Hawk and Dragon should also make marriages for the alliance." "Such suggestion I am sure they both heartily welcomed," Rycca said sardonically. Cymbra laughed. "About as much as they would being boiled in oil.Hawk was especially bad. He had been married years ago when he was very young and had no good memories of the experience. But I must say, Krysta brought him round in far shorter time than I would have thought possible." "Do you have any idea how she did it?" Rycca ventured,hoping not to sound too desperately curious. "Oh,I know exactly how." Cymbra looked at her new sister-in-law and smiled. "She loved him." "Loved him? That was all it took?" "Well,to be fair,I think she also maddened, irked, frustrated, and bewildered him. All that certainly helped.But I will leave Krysta to tell her own story,as I am sure she will when opportunity arises.

You, my dear, do not know how to have fun." "I do, too!" "You do not. You are as bad as Lucien. And do you know something? I think it's time someone showed you how to have fun. Namely, me. You can worry all you like about our situation tomorrow, but tonight ... tonight I'm going to make you laugh so hard that you'll forget all about how afraid of me you are." "I am not afraid of you!" "You are." And with that, he pushed his chair back, stalked around the table, and in a single easy movement, swept her right out of her chair and into his arms. "Gareth!  Put me down!" He only laughed, easily carrying her toward the bed. "Gareth, I am a grown woman!" "You are a grown woman who behaves in a manner far too old for her years," he countered, still striding toward the bed. "As the wife of a Den member, that just will not do." "Gareth, I don't want — I mean, I'm not ready for that!" "That? Who said anything about that?"  He tossed her lightly onto the bed. "Oh, no, my dear Juliet. I'm not going to do that —" She tried to scoot away. "Then what are you going to do?" "Why, I'm going to wipe that sadness out of your eyes if only for tonight. I'm going to make you forget your troubles, forget your fears, forget everything but me. And you know how I'm going to do that, O dearest wife?"  He grabbed a fistful of her petticoats as she tried to escape. "I'm going to tickle you until you giggle ... until you laugh ... until you're hooting so loudly that all of London hears you!" He fell upon the bed like a swooping hawk, and Juliet let out a helpless shriek as his fingers found her ribs and began tickling her madly. "Stop!  We just ate!  You'll make me sick!" "What's this? Your husband makes you sick?" "No, it's just that — aaaoooooo!" He tickled her harder. She flailed and giggled and cried out, embarrassed about each loud shriek but helpless to prevent them. He was laughing as hard as she. Catching one thrashing leg, he unlaced her boot and deftly removed it. She yelped as his fingers found the sensitive instep, and she kicked out reflexively. He neatly ducked just in time to avoid having his nose broken, catching her by the ankle and tickling her toes, her soles, her arch through her stockings. "Stop, Gareth!"  She was laughing so hard, tears were streaming from her eyes. "Stop it, damn it!" Thank goodness Charlotte, worn out by her earlier tantrum, was such a sound sleeper! The tickling continued. Juliet kicked and fought, her struggles tossing the heavy, ruffled petticoats and skirts of her lovely blue gown halfway up her thigh to reveal a long, slender calf sheathed in silk. She saw his gaze taking it all in, even as he made a grab for her other foot. "No!  Gareth, I shall lose my supper if you keep this up, I swear it I will — oooahhhhh!" He seized her other ankle, yanked off the remaining boot, and began torturing that foot as well, until Juliet was writhing and shrieking on the bed in a fit of laughter. The tears streamed down her cheeks, and her stomach ached with the force of her mirth. And when, at last, he let up and she lay exhausted across the bed in a twisted tangle of skirts, petticoats, and chemise, her chest heaving and her hair in a hopeless tumbled-down flood of silken mahogany beneath her head, she looked up to see him grinning down at her, his own hair hanging over his brow in tousled, seductive disarray.

You are the third bride wed for peace," Cymbra said with a smile. "And to be frank, it has not been an easy road for the two of us who went before. Yet knowing what we do now, neither Krysta nor I would ever have chosen a different path." "How much choice did you have?" To Rycca's surprise, Cymbra laughed. "In my case, none." She sighed in mocking languor. "I still remember Wolf's deeply romantic proposal. He told me that if I did not wed him, he would kill my brother." "He what?" "Oh,don't worry, he's gotten much better." She laughed again, fondly. "Much, much better.Besides, Dragon is the one who was always good with women." Rycca could not dispute that but neither could she ignore what she had just been told.Shocked, she asked, "What did you do?" "Do? Why,I punched him,of course. What else could I do? He went to our wedding worried that the blow still showed." "You...punched him?" The ethereal beauty beside her had struck the fierce Wolf? "Rycca,dear sister, something you must learn at once.Wolf and Dragon are both wonderful men but they are also overwhelming. It is part of their charm. Nontheless,with them it is always best to be firm. For that matter, the same can be said of my brother, as Krysta learned readily enough." "She and Lord Hawk seem devoted to each other." "As are Wold and I. That doesn't mean one should be a meek little woman rubbing feet." "What a horrible notion! However did you think of it?" "Oh,didn't you know? That's the kind of wife Dragon always said he wanted." Too many more shocks of this sort and she was going to turn to stone right where she stood. "He said that? Whatever could he have been thinking? Any such woman would drive him mad." "Which is more or less what Wolf told him, only he said she would kill him with boredom. No, Dragon needs someone who can match his spirit, which I am now reassured you can do. Come, let us seek out Magda, who will serve us cool milk and cakes and give us a snug place to talk while the men amuse themselves." "Dragon has a sword for his brother." "The Moorish sword? Perfect, they will be occupied for hours.We won't see them again until they are satisfied neither is stronger or more agile than the other.

The very first dram Ronan had ever been truly proud of, truly euphoric over, had been a copy. It had been in high school. Ronan wasn't good at surviving high school and he wasn't good at surviving friendship, and so while his friend Gansey's back was turned, he'd stolen Gansey's car. It was a beautiful car. A 1973 bright orange Camaro with stripes right up its hood and straight down its ass. Ronan had wanted to drive it for months, despite Gansey forbidding it. Maybe because of him forbidding it. Within hours of stealing it, Ronan had totaled it. Gansey hadn't wanted him to drive it because he thought he'd grind the clutch, or curb it, or burn out the tires, or maybe, maybe blow the engine. And here Ronan had totaled it. Ronan had loved Richard C. Gansey III far more than he loved himself at that point, and he hadn't known how he was ever going to face him when he returned from out of town. And then, Joseph Kavinsky had taught him to dream a copy. Before that, all of Ronan's dreams--that he knew about, Matthew didn't count--had been accidents and knickknacks, the bizarre and the useless. When he'd successfully copied a car, an entire car, he'd been out of his mind with glee. The dreamt car had been perfect down to the last detail. Exactly like the original. The pinnacle of dreaming. Now a copy was the least impressive thing to him. He could copy anything he put his mind to. That just made him a very ethereal photocopier. A one-man 3-D printer. The dreams he was proud of now were the dreams that were originals. Dreams that couldn't exist in any other way. Dreams that took full advantage of the impossibility of dreamspace in a way that was cunning or lovely or effective or all of the above. The sundogs. Lindenmere. Dreams that had to be dreams. In the past, all his good dreams like this were gifts from Lindenmere or accidents rather than things he had consciously constructed. He was beginning to realize, after listening to Bryde, that this was because he'd been thinking too small. His consciousness was slowly becoming the shape of the concrete, waking world, and it was shrinking all his dreams to the probable. He needed to start realizing that possible and impossible didn't mean the same thing for him as they did for other people. He needed to break himself of the habit of rules, of doubts, of physics. His "what if" had grown so tame. "You are made of dreams and this world is not for you." He would not let the nightwash take him and Matthew. He would not let this world kill him slowly. He deserved a place here, too. He woke.

Ronan's trying to wake up the world. I'm trying to think of how to talk him out of it, but what he's talking about is a world where she never fell asleep. A world where Matthew's just a kid. A world where it doesn't matter what Hennessy does, if something happens to her. A level playing field. I don't think it's a good idea, but it's not like I can't see the appeal, because now I'm biased, I'm too biased to be clear." Declan shook his head a little. "I said I would never become my father, anything like him. And now look at me. At us." Ah, there it was. It took no effort to remember the way he'd looked at her the first moment he realized she was a dream. "I'm a dream," Jordan said. "I'm not your dream." Declan put his chin in his hand and looked back out the window; that, too, would be a good portrait. Perhaps it was just because she liked looking at him that she thought each pose would make a good one. A series. What a future that idea promised, nights upon nights like this, him sitting there, her standing here. "By the time we're married," Declan said eventually, "I want you to have applied for a different studio in this place because this man's paintings are very ugly." Her pulse gently skipped two beats before continuing on as before. "I don't have a social security number of my own, Pozzi." "I'll buy you one," Declan said. "You can wear it in place of a ring." The two of them looked at each other past the canvas on her easel. Finally, he said, voice soft, "I should see the painting now." "Are you sure?" "It's time, Jordan." Putting his jacket to the side, he stood. He waited. He would not come around to look without an invite. It's time, Jordan. Jordan had never been truly honest with anyone who didn't wear Hennessy's face. Showing him this painting, this original, felt like being more honest than she had ever been in her life. She stepped back to give him room. Declan took it in. His eyes flickered to and from the likeness, from the jacket on Portrait Declan's leg to the real jacket he'd left behind on the chair. She watched his gaze follow the line edge she had taken such care to paint, that subtle electricity of complementary colors at the edge of his form. "It's very good," Declan muttered. "Jordan, it's very good." "I thought it might be." "I don't know if it's a sweetmetal. But you're very good." "I thought I might be." "The next one will be even better." "I think it might be." "And in ten years your scandalous masterpiece will get you thrown out of France, too," he said. "And later you can triumphantly sell it to the Met. Children will write papers about you. People like me will tell stories about you to their dates at museums to make them think they're interesting." She kissed him. He kissed her. And this kiss, too, got all wrapped up in the art-making of the portrait sitting on the easel beside them, getting all mixed in with all the other sights and sounds and feelings that had become part of the process. It was very good.

The government has a great need to restore its credibility, to make people forget its history and rewrite it. The intelligentsia have to a remarkable degree undertaken this task. It is also necessary to establish the "lessons" that have to be drawn from the war, to ensure that these are conceived on the narrowest grounds, in terms of such socially neutral categories as "stupidity" or "error" or "ignorance" or perhaps "cost." Why? Because soon it will be necessary to justify other confrontations, perhaps other U.S. interventions in the world, other Vietnams. But this time, these will have to be successful intervention, which don't slip out of control. Chile, for example. It is even possible for the press to criticize successful interventions - the Dominican Republic, Chile, etc. - as long as these criticisms don't exceed "civilized limits," that is to say, as long as they don't serve to arouse popular movements capable of hindering these enterprises, and are not accompanied by any rational analysis of the motives of U.S. imperialism, something which is complete anathema, intolerable to liberal ideology. How is the liberal press proceeding with regard to Vietnam, that sector which supported the "doves"? By stressing the "stupidity" of the U.S. intervention; that's a politically neutral term. It would have been sufficient to find an "intelligent" policy. The war was thus a tragic error in which good intentions were transmuted into bad policies, because of a generation of incompetent and arrogant officials. The war's savagery is also denounced, but that too, is used as a neutral category...Presumably the goals were legitimate - it would have been all right to do the same thing, but more humanely... The "responsible" doves were opposed to the war - on a pragmatic basis. Now it is necessary to reconstruct the system of beliefs according to which the United States is the benefactor of humanity, historically committed to freedom, self-determination, and human rights. With regard to this doctrine, the "responsible" doves share the same presuppositions as the hawks. They do not question the right of the United States to intervene in other countries. Their criticism is actually very convenient for the state, which is quite willing to be chided for its errors, as long as the fundamental right of forceful intervention is not brought into question. ... The resources of imperialist ideology are quite vast. It tolerates - indeed, encourages - a variety of forms of opposition, such as those I have just illustrated. It is permissible to criticize the lapses of the intellectuals and of government advisers, and even to accuse them of an abstract desire for "domination," again a socially neutral category not linked in any way to concrete social and economic structures. But to relate that abstract "desire for domination" to the employment of force by the United States government in order to preserve a certain system of world order, specifically, to ensure that the countries of the world remain open insofar as possible to exploitation by U.S.-based corporations - that is extremely impolite, that is to argue in an unacceptable way.