I A Richards Famous Quotes

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son, This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, Like to a tenement or pelting farm: England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds: That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death!

I'm no one important or famous, no matter. It is better to be loved by one person who knows your soul than millions who don't even know your phone number. I have loved and been loved as deeply as a man can hope for. Which makes me a lucky man. It also means that I have suffered. Life has taught me that to fly, you must first accept the possibility of falling.

You know who we been living with for the past week? We been living with the only man in history who ever took a piece in the ladies’ can of a Boston & Maine train. When the conductor caught him in there with his Winter Carnival date she screamed, ‘He trapped me!’ and that’s how he got his name. This is the famous Trapper John. God, Trapper, I speak for the Duke as well as myself when I say it’s an honor to have you with us. Have a martini, Trapper.

Richard II’s famous lament: “I live with bread like you, feel want, / Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, / How can you say to me, I am a king?”18

famous saying among policy analysts is “let me pick your options, and I will make the decision for you,” which illustrates the importance of keeping an eye out for a better option.

What I do know is that a famous dead guy once said, “Life is a bucket of shit with a barbed-wire handle.

Plenty of times I've seen writers, famous novelists and essayists, even poets, with names you'd recognize and whose work I admire, drift through these offices on one high-priced assignment or other. I have seen the anxious, weaselly lonely looks in their eyes, seen them sit at the desk we give them in a far cubicle, put their feet up and start at once to talk in loud, jokey, bluff, inviting voices, trying like everything to feel like members of the staff, holding court, acting like good guys, ready to give advice or offer opinions on anything anybody wants to know. In other words, having the time of their lives. And who could blame them? Writers — all writers — need to belong. Only for real writers, unfortunately, their club is a club with just one member.

Some of my most outrageous nights I can only believe actually happened because of corroborating evidence. No wonder I’m famous for partying! The ultimate party, if it’s any good, you can’t remember it.

That moment, that moment was the pinnacle of my life, these famous and distinguished people on their feet, my camarades de cuisine, all showing me such respect. And I remember thinking: Hmmm. Rather like this. Could get used to it.

With his ship faced with the danger of sinking, the Richard’s chief gunner screamed to the Serapis, “Quarter! quarter! for God’s sake!” Jones hurled a pistol at the man, felling him. But the cry had been heard by Pearson, the Serapis’ commander, who called, “Do you ask for quarter?” Through the clash of battle, gunshot and crackle of fire the famous reply came faintly back to him: “I have not yet begun to fight!” Making good his boast, Jones sprang to a 9-pounder whose gun crew were killed or wounded, loaded and fired it himself, aiming at the Serapis’ mainmast, then loaded and fired again. As the mast toppled, Pearson, surrounded by dead, with rigging on fire, hauled down his red ensign in token of surrender. Escorted to Richard’s quarterdeck, he handed over his sword to Jones just as the Serapis’ mainmast crashed over the side and its sail, nevermore to carry the wind, collapsed in a dying billow into the sea.

I had a burning desire in me to win and started to get him on the back foot. I was looking for that one special shot when I put him down with the famous Horsley Muckspreader right hand… an unstoppable force. Incredibly, he got up and took the count and the ref waved us to continue.

Even the orbit of Pluto, however, is nothing like as eccentric as that of a comet. The most famous one, Halley’s Comet, becomes visible to us only near perihelion, when it is closest to the sun and reflects the sun’s light. Its elliptical orbit takes it far, far away, and it returns to our neighbourhood only every 75 to 76 years. I saw it in 1986 and showed it to my baby daughter Juliet. I whispered in her ear (of course she couldn’t understand what I was saying, but I obstinately whispered it anyway) that I would never see it again, but that she would have another chance when it returned in 2061.

At twenty-one, Richard Wright was not the world-famous author he would eventually be. But poor and black, he decided he would read and no one could stop him. Did he storm the library and make a scene? No, not in the Jim Crow South he didn’t. Instead, he forged a note that said, “Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by HL Mencken?” (because no one would write that about themselves, right?), and checked them out with a stolen library card, pretending they were for someone else. With the stakes this high, you better be willing to bend the rules or do something desperate or crazy. To thumb your nose at the authorities and say: What? This is not a bridge. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Or, in some cases, giving the middle finger to the people trying to hold you down and blowing right through their evil, disgusting rules. Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility.

Peter Drucker was famous for saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In a similar way, I believe that culture eats religion for lunch. By that, I mean our beliefs are determined much more by our dominant ways of life and our surrounding cultural influences than by what we say we believe religiously.

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired And thus expiring do foretell of him: His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder: Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry, Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son, This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, Like to a tenement or pelting farm: England, bound in with the triumphant sea Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds: That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death!

I have known tolerably well, a good many “successful” men—“ big” financially—men famous during the last half-century, and a less interesting crowd I do not care to encounter. Not one that I have ever known would I care to meet again, either in this world or the next; nor is one of them associated in my mind with the idea of humor, thought or refinement. A set of mere money-getters and traders, they were essentially unattractive and uninteresting.

he said anybody who voted for his bitter enemy Richard Nixon “ought to go to hell.” John Kennedy was asked about the comment in one of his famous televised debates with Nixon. “Well,” he said, “I must say that Mr. Truman has his methods of expressing things…. I really don’t think there’s anything I can say to President Truman that’s going to cause him at the age of seventy-six to change his particular speaking manner. Maybe Mrs. Truman can, but I don’t think I can.

Behavioural economics is an odd term. As Warren Buffett’s business partner Charlie Munger once said, ‘If economics isn’t behavioural, I don’t know what the hell is.’ It’s true: in a more sensible world, economics would be a subdiscipline of psychology.* Adam Smith was as much a behavioural economist as an economist – The Wealth of Nations (1776) doesn’t contain a single equation. But, strange though it may seem, the study of economics has long been detached from how people behave in the real world, preferring to concern itself with a parallel universe in which people behave as economists think they should. It is to correct this circular logic that behavioural economics – made famous by experts such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Dan Ariely and Richard Thaler – has come to prominence. In many areas of policy and business there is much more value to be found in understanding how people behave in reality than how they should behave in theory.

Well before she became famous — or infamous, depending on where you cast your vote — Loftus's findings on memory distortion were clearly commodifiable. In the 1970s and 1980s she provided assistance to defense attorneys eager to prove to juries that eyewitness accounts are not the same as camcorders. "I've helped a lot of people," she says. Some of those people: the Hillside Strangler, the Menendez brothers, Oliver North, Ted Bundy. "Ted Bundy?" I ask, when she tells this to me. Loftus laughs. "This was before we knew he was Bundy. He hadn't been accused of murder yet." "How can you be so confident the people you're representing are really innocent?" I ask. She doesn't directly answer. She says, "In court, I go by the evidence.... Outside of court, I'm human and entitled to my human feelings. "What, I wonder are her human feelings about the letter from a child-abuse survivor who wrote, "Let me tell you what false memory syndrome does to people like me, as if you care. It makes us into liars. False memory syndrome is so much more chic than child abuse.... But there are children who tonight while you sleep are being raped, and beaten. These children may never tell because 'no one will believe them.'" "Plenty of "Plenty of people will believe them," says Loftus. Pshaw! She has a raucous laugh and a voice with a bit of wheedle in it. She is strange, I think, a little loose inside. She veers between the professional and the personal with an alarming alacrity," she could easily have been talking about herself.

In a famous series of lectures on the character of physical law delivered at Cornell University in 1964, the great physicist Richard Feynman put it this way: I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, “But how can it be like that?” because you will go “down the drain” into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. This chimes, as we have seen, with J. B. S. Haldane’s famous assertion that “the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose but queerer than we can suppose.

They thought, or Peter at any rate thought, that she enjoyed imposing herself; liked to have famous people about her; great names; was simply a snob in short. Well, Peter might think so. Richard merely thought it foolish of her to like excitement when she knew it was bad for her heart. It was childish, he thought. And both were quite wrong. What she liked was simply life. “That's what I do it for," she said, speaking aloud, to life. ... But suppose Peter said to her, "Yes, yes, but your parties—what's the sense of your parties?" all she could say was (and nobody could be expected to understand): They're an offering; which sounded horribly vague. ... And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom?

Everything and Nothing* There was no one inside him; behind his face (which even in the bad paintings of the time resembles no other) and his words (which were multitudinous, and of a fantastical and agitated turn) there was no more than a slight chill, a dream someone had failed to dream. At first he thought that everyone was like him, but the surprise and bewilderment of an acquaintance to whom he began to describe that hollowness showed him his error, and also let him know, forever after, that an individual ought not to differ from its species. He thought at one point that books might hold some remedy for his condition, and so he learned the "little Latin and less Greek" that a contemporary would later mention. Then he reflected that what he was looking for might be found in the performance of an elemental ritual of humanity, and so he allowed himself to be initiated by Anne Hathaway one long evening in June. At twenty-something he went off to London. Instinctively, he had already trained himself to the habit of feigning that he was somebody, so that his "nobodiness" might not be discovered. In London he found the calling he had been predestined to; he became an actor, that person who stands upon a stage and plays at being another person, for an audience of people who play at taking him for that person. The work of a thespian held out a remarkable happiness to him—the first, perhaps, he had ever known; but when the last line was delivered and the last dead man applauded off the stage, the hated taste of unreality would assail him. He would cease being Ferrex or Tamerlane and return to being nobody. Haunted, hounded, he began imagining other heroes, other tragic fables. Thus while his body, in whorehouses and taverns around London, lived its life as body, the soul that lived inside it would be Cassar, who ignores the admonition of the sibyl, and Juliet, who hates the lark, and Macbeth, who speaks on the moor with the witches who are also the Fates, the Three Weird Sisters. No one was as many men as that man—that man whose repertoire, like that of the Egyptian Proteus, was all the appearances of being. From time to time he would leave a confession in one corner or another of the work, certain that it would not be deciphered; Richard says that inside himself, he plays the part of many, and Iago says, with curious words, I am not what I am. The fundamental identity of living, dreaming, and performing inspired him to famous passages. For twenty years he inhabited that guided and directed hallucination, but one morning he was overwhelmed with the surfeit and horror of being so many kings that die by the sword and so many unrequited lovers who come together, separate, and melodiously expire. That very day, he decided to sell his theater. Within a week he had returned to his birthplace, where he recovered the trees and the river of his childhood and did not associate them with those others, fabled with mythological allusion and Latin words, that his muse had celebrated. He had to be somebody; he became a retired businessman who'd made a fortune and had an interest in loans, lawsuits, and petty usury. It was in that role that he dictated the arid last will and testament that we know today, from which he deliberately banished every trace of sentiment or literature. Friends from London would visit his re-treat, and he would once again play the role of poet for them. History adds that before or after he died, he discovered himself standing before God, and said to Him: I , who have been so many men in vain, wish to be one, to be myself. God's voice answered him out of a whirlwind: I, too, am not I; I dreamed the world as you, Shakespeare, dreamed your own work, and among the forms of my dream are you, who like me, are many, yet no one.

In about 1980, he says, at a time when he was still struggling to articulate his own vision of a dynamic, evolving economy, he happened to read a book by the geneticist Richard Lewontin. And he was struck by a passage in which Lewontin said that scientists come in two types. Scientists of the first type see the world as being basically in equilibrium. And if untidy forces sometimes push a system slightly out of equilibrium, then they feel the whole trick is to push it back again. Lewontin called these scientists "Platonists," after the renowned Athenian philosopher who declared that the messy, imperfect objects we see around us are merely the reflections of perfect "archetypes." Scientists of the second type, however, see the world as a process of flow and change, with the same material constantly going around and around in endless combinations. Lewontin called these scientists "Heraclitans," after the Ionian philosopher who passionately and poetically argued that the world is in a constant state of flux. Heraclitus, who lived nearly a century before Plato, is famous for observing that "Upon those who step into the same rivers flow other and yet other waters," a statement that Plato himself paraphrased as "You can never step into the same river twice." "When I read what Lewontin said," says Arthur, "it was a moment of revelation. That's when it finally became clear to me what was going on. I thought to myself, "Yes! We're finally beginning to recover from Newton.

Death and life are two sides of the same coin; you cannot have one without the other. Each time you surrender, each time you trust the dying, your faith is led to a deeper level and you discover a Larger Self underneath. You decide not to push yourself to the front of the line, and something much better happens in the back of the line. You let go of your narcissistic anger, and you find that you start feeling much happier. You surrender your need to control your partner, and finally the relationship blossoms or ends. Yet each time it is a choice—and each time it is a kind of dying. It seems we only know what life is when we know what death is. The mystics and great saints were those who had learned to trust and allow this pattern, and often said in effect, “What did I ever lose by dying?” Or try Paul’s famous one-liner: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Now even scientific studies, including those of near-death experiences, reveal the same universal pattern. Things change and grow by dying to their present state, but each time it is a risk. We always wonder, “Will it work this time?” So many academic disciplines are coming together, each in their own way, to say that there’s a constant movement of loss and renewal at work in this world at every level. It seems to be the pattern of all growth and evolution. To be alive means to surrender to this inevitable flow. It’s the same pattern in every atom, in every human relationship, and in every galaxy. Indigenous peoples, Hindu gurus, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus all saw it clearly in human history and named it as a kind of “necessary dying.” If this pattern is true, it has been true all the time and everywhere. Such seeing did not just start two thousand years ago. All of us have to eventually learn to let go of something smaller so something bigger can happen. But that’s not a religion—it’s highly visible truth. It is the Way Reality Works. Yes, I am saying that the way things work and Christ are one and the same. This is not a religion to be either fervently joined or angrily rejected. It is a train ride already in motion. The tracks are visible everywhere. You can be a willing and happy traveler. Or not.

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect works of art. They had in their collection works ranging from Picasso to Raphael and Rembrandt. When the Vietnam War broke out, the son was drafted and sent to fight in ’Nam. He was very courageous and died in battle. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son. About a month later, a young lad appeared at the door to his house and said, “Sir, you don’t know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life that fateful day. He was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart. He died instantly. He used to often talk about you and your love for art. Here’s something for you,” he added, holding out a package. “It is something that I drew. I know I am not much of an artist, but I wanted you to have this from me as a small measure of memory and thanks.” It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. It captured the personality of his son. The father’s eyes welled up with tears as he thanked the young man for the painting. He offered to pay for the picture, but the man replied, “Oh! No, sir. I could never repay what your son did for me. It is my gift to you.” The father hung the portrait over his mantel and showed it proudly to all his visitors along with all of the great works of art he possessed. Some time later, the old man died. As decreed in his will, his paintings were all to be auctioned. Many influential and rich people gathered together, excited over the prospect of owning one of the masterpieces. On a platform nearby also sat the painting of his son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. “Let’s start the bidding with the picture of his son. Who will bid for this picture?” There was silence. A voice shouted from the back, “Let’s skip this one. We want the famous masters.” But the auctioneer persisted. “Ten dollars, twenty dollars, what do I hear?” Another voice came back angrily, “We didn’t come here for this. Let’s have the Picassos, the Matisses, the van Goghs.” Still the auctioneer persisted. “The son. Anyone for the son? Who’ll take the son?” Finally a quavering voice came from the back. It was the longtime gardener of the house. “I’ll take the son for ten dollars. I am sorry, but that’s all I have.” “Ten dollars once, ten dollars twice, anybody for twenty dollars? Sold for ten dollars.” “Now let’s get on with the auction,” said a wealthy art aficionado sitting in the front row. The auctioneer laid down his gavel and spoke. “I am sorry, but the auction is over.” “But what about the other paintings? The masters?” “The auction is over,” said the auctioneer. “I was asked to conduct the auction with a stipulation, a secret stipulation that said that only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, paintings and all. The one who took the son gets everything.

I’m a short, fat Jewish guy,” Shapiro had famously remarked on any number of occasions. “If scores of other short, fat Jewish guys flew planes into buildings, shot up malls, and chanted death to America, I’d expect to get closer scrutiny by the TSA. To fail to notice this pattern and keep a closer eye on me, you’d have to have your head in the sand. But I wouldn’t blame the TSA agents for this scrutiny. I’d blame all the fricking short, fat Jewish guys trying to destroy civilization, who are making me look suspicious. Radicalized Muslims are the least tolerant people on Earth—especially when it comes to women, other religions, and other cultures—yet they cry the loudest at any perceived intolerance on the part of the West. And we’re stupid enough to let them put us on the defensive.

As Thomas Jefferson famously put it, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Let the Devil kill you,” he famously told Richard. “I won’t be the one to do it.

In his famous novel Émile (1762), Rousseau tries to show that boys should be brought up as close to nature as possible, learning by experience. Girls do not need to be educated rationally: their role in life is to please men. Accordingly, Thomas abstracted two girls from orphanages and named them Sabrina and Lucretia. He took them to France to educate them according to Rousseau’s precepts so that one girl could become the perfect wife (one was a spare). He taught them to read and write, and tried to instil in them a hatred of fripperies like fashion, fine titles and luxuries. While the girls were growing up, Day became enamoured of several genteel women, none of whom were prepared to conform to his ideas of wifely perfection. Meanwhile, Lucretia did not cope well with Day’s training programme and he was forced to abandon the experiment. He gave her some money and she later married a shopkeeper. However, Thomas became more and more attached to Sabrina, and their friends expected them to marry. According to Richard Lovell Edgeworth in his Memoirs, Day was ‘never more loved by any woman… nor do I believe, that any woman was to him ever personally more agreeable.’ But Sabrina ‘was too young and artless, to feel the extent of that importance, which my friend [Day] annexed to trifling concessions or resistance to fashion, particularly with respect to female dress.’ Day left Sabrina at a friend’s house, along with some strict instructions on her mode of dress. Then disaster struck over a ‘trifling circumstance… She did, or did not, wear certain long sleeves, and some handkerchief, which had been the object of his dislike, or of his liking.’ Unfortunately Day equated her obedience to his wishes with proof of her attachment; disobedience proved ‘her want of strength of mind.’ So Thomas ‘quitted her for ever!’ He later married a Yorkshire heiress; Sabrina married a barrister.

Garlock, you might have thought, had taken the Christian opposition to Rock as far as anyone could: “Bringing racism into his attack, Garlock noted that rock had its roots in the music of Africa, South America, and India, places he said where voodoo, sex orgies, human sacrifices, and devil worship abounded. Garlock linked some rock performers with Satan.”17 Yet, even further excesses of abuse on the theme of Rock-as-Satanic have followed as the years have passed. Possibly the craziest is Jacob Aranza’s claims that “75 percent of the rock and roll today (top 10 stuff!) deals with sex, evil, drugs, and the occult.” And that this is all part of a decades’ long, four step plan, “Satan’s Agenda”, to “pronounce rock stars as messiahs”.18 Jeff Godwin took this even further: “The Lord has also revealed to some Christians that incarnate demons from the netherworld actually are members of some of the most popular bands.”19 Converts are famous for their zeal, and as early as 1957 one celebrated rock’n’roller turned on the music that had propelled him to fame when he found religion. Richard Wayne Penniman, better known as Little Richard, stopped playing rock’n’roll and began to preach against it: “I was in the eighth grade at San Diego Adventist Elementary School, his conversion touched my life. Little Richard arrived at our school with an entourage of about three black limousines and a staff of personal assistants in black suits. He spoke in chapel, then preached Sabbath morning in a local church (probably San Diego 31st Street), then spoke and sang in the afternoon for a standing-room-only Associated MV (AY) meeting at the old San Diego Broadway church.

You’re a Dick?’ ‘Ha, you’re quick. No, I’m Richard.’ ‘Dick,’ said Imogen, choosing to ignore him. ‘There’s quite a few famous dicks. Dick Turpin… Dick Emery… Dick for Brains,’ she said. ‘Actually, I couldn’t care less what your name is. You shouldn’t park here. You’re causing an obstruction.

She remembered reading a quote from a famous scientist, who was speculating about intelligent life in the universe, that was particularly apt to this situation: Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering

I would give my kids a copy of Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces and Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein’s Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time. Richard Feynman is a famous physicist. I love both his demeanor as well as his understanding of physics.

Chris Tarrent, OBE British radio broadcaster and television presenter Chris Tarrant is perhaps best known for his role as host on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? A hugely successful entertainment personality, Chris Tarrant is also active in many charitable causes, including homelessness and disadvantaged children. He was honored with an OBE in 2004 for his extensive work in these areas. The first time I met her I was terribly nervous. I was working on the breakfast show at Capital Radio in London in those days, and I’d been seated next to her at a charity lunch. She’d become the patron of Capital’s charity for needy children in London, and her appearance at our big lunch of the year made it a guaranteed sellout. She was already probably the most famous person in the world, and I was terrified about what on earth I was going to say to her. I needn’t have worried--she immediately put me at ease with an incredibly rude joke about Kermit the Frog. Because she was our patron, we saw a lot of her over the next few years. She was great fun, and brilliant with the kids. She used to listen to my show in the mornings while she was swimming or in the gym, and she’d often say things like “Who on earth was that loopy woman that you had on the phone this morning?” There was a restaurant in Kensington that had a series of alcoves where she’d often go to hide, perhaps with just a detective for company. I remember chatting to her one lunchtime while I was waiting for my boss to join me at my table, and she disappeared round the corner. “Hello, Richard,” I said, when he turned up. “I’ve just been chatting with Lady Di.” “Yes, of course you have,” said Richard. “And there goes a flying pig!” When she reappeared a few moments later and just said, “Good-bye,” on her way out, this big, tough, hard-nosed media executive was absolutely incapable of speech.

Richard Kay Richard Kay became friends with Diana, Princess of Wales, through his job as royal correspondent for London’s Daily Mail. After her separation in 1992, he used his knowledge to give a penetrating and unique insight into Diana’s troubled life, and they remained friends until the end. Richard is now diary editor or the Daily Mail and lives in London with his wife and three children. Over the years, I saw her at her happiest and in her darkest moments. There were moments of confusion and despair when I believed Diana was being driven by the incredible pressures made on her almost to the point of destruction. She talked of being strengthened by events, and anyone could see how the bride of twenty had grown into a mature woman, but I never found her strong. She was as unsure of herself at her death as when I first talked to her on that airplane, and she wanted reassurance about the role she was creating for herself. In private, she was a completely different person form the manicured clotheshorse that the public’s insatiable demand for icons had created. She was natural and witty and did a wonderful impression of the Queen. This was the person, she told me, that she would have been all the time if she hadn’t married into the world’s most famous family. What she hated most of all was being called “manipulative” and privately railed against those who used the word to describe her. “They don’t even know me,” she would say bitterly, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment in Kensington Palace and pouring tea from a china pot. It was this blindness, as she saw it, to what she really was that led her seriously to consider living in another country where she hoped she would be understood. The idea first emerged in her mind about three years before her death. “I’ve got to find a place where I can have peace of mind,” she said to me. She considered France, because I was near enough to stay in close touch with William and Harry. She thought of America because she--naively, it must be said--saw it as a country so brimming over with glittery people and celebrities that she would be able to “disappear.” She also thought of South Africa, where her brother, Charles, made a home, and even Australia, because it was the farthest place she could think of from the seat of her unhappiness. But that would have separated her form her sons. Everyone said she would go anywhere, do anything, to have her picture taken, but in my view the truth was completely different. A good day for her was one where her picture was not taken and the paparazzi photographers did not pursue her and clamber over her car. “Why are they so obsessed with me?” she would ask me. I would try to explain, but I never felt she fully understood. Millions of women dreamed of changing places with her, but the Princess that I knew yearned for the ordinary humdrum routine of their lives. “They don’t know how lucky they are,” she would say. On Saturday, just before she was joined by Dodi Al Fayed for their last fateful dinner at the Ritz in Pairs, she told me how fed up she was being compared with Camilla. “It’s all so meaningless,” she said. She didn’t say--she never said--whether she thought Charles and Camilla should marry. Then, knowing that as a journalist I often work at weekends, she said to me, “Unplug your phone and get a good night’s sleep.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been sick and grumpy, but I’ve noticed the huge spate of atheist meetings, both past and upcoming, and it’s seemed to me that there are just too many. I know this is a sign of a successful and burgeoning movement of disbelief throughout the world, and I recognize that they give us greater visibility, and I understand that they serve as a useful venue for people to make connections as well as listen to their atheist “heroes.” But to me the speakers and talks have often seemed repetitive: the same crew of jet-set skeptics giving the same talks. And how much is there to say about a movement whose members are united, after all, by only one thing: disbelief in divine beings and a respect for reason and evidence. What more is there to say? [...] Still, a few things bothered me, most notably the air of self-congratulation (which I excused on the grounds of enthusiastic people finding like-minded folks for the first time), the “fanboyness” directed at some of the famous atheists (they hardly let poor Richard alone, and I’m not sure he liked that!), and the lameness of quite a few of the talks. Again, how much new can you say about atheism? And though I had a great time, this conference sated my appetite for a long while, and I’ve refused several invitations since. (I will, however, be at the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s meeting this October). [Are there too many atheist meetings?]

At the end of June, we had to move from our flat. Exxon had extended my husband’s assignment for another six months and the landlord wanted a huge rent increase that the company would not cover. At the beginning of July, we moved to 11 Eaton Mews South, a small carriage house I had found. The house was owned by an American expatriate, Jud James, who had installed new appliances and cleaned all the curtains and carpets for us--a considerable improvement over the flat. Jud was proud of the fact that earlier on he had leased his house for a while to Richard Leakey, the famous anthropologist. I wonder how Jud felt when the young nanny in his house became engaged to the Prince of Wales.

If you go through the biography of any famous personality you idolize you are sure to see the how the words ‘I can’ and ‘I believe’ played a very vital role in their fame.

give Death a look. “You had to wait till now to bring this up. You just took a massive shit all over our feel-good moment.” “I know,” says Death. “I’m somewhat famous for that.

Traditionally, reaching the state of illumination symbolized by the center bestows a different fate from that of the ordinary person who accepts salvation. For the latter, life after death will persist in many different planes of being — higher ones, no doubt, where existence is less painful and burdensome and where spiritual aspiration faces less resistance. But those who attain gnosis are freed from this spiral entirely. They can choose to return to manifestation for a special purpose or can dwell in absorption into God — known in the Christian tradition as the “beatific vision.” They are, to use T. S. Eliot’s famous words in Four Quartets, “at the still point of the turning world.” In the Gospels, one name for this still point is “the eye of the needle.” As Christ says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). This means that the “I” has to be very fine and subtle to reach this still center of being. A “rich man” — one who is encumbered not only with property but with the heavy baggage of a pompous self-image — is too big to make it through. Obviously, this is an inner condition and so does not necessarily refer to all rich people, though in practice it probably applies to most. Francis de Sales, a Catholic spiritual teacher of the early seventeenth century, observes: A man is rich in spirit if his mind is filled with riches or set on riches. The kingfisher shapes its nests like an apple, leaving only a little opening at the top, builds it on the seashore, and makes it so solid and tight that although waves sweep over it the water cannot get inside. Keeping always on top of the waves, they remain surrounded by the sea and are on the sea, and yet are masters of it. Your heart . . . must in like manner be open to heaven alone and impervious to riches and all other transitory things. Money — “mammon,” as Christ called it — is only one of the forms the force of the world takes. There are people for whom money holds no allure but who are beguiled by sex, pleasure, or power. And for those who are indifferent even to these temptations, there is always the trap of apathy (accidie or acedia, derived from a Greek word meaning “not caring,” are names sometimes used in the tradition). There are many variations, which will take on slightly different forms in everyone. Freeing oneself from the world requires overcoming these drives in oneself, however they appear.

All right, as a gambler I liked the idea of Betfair, because it offered better odds than the bookmakers and, if it was successful, it would be a thorn in their side. Every punter loves to hate the bookies. But, then again, I am not a follower of Victor Kiam, who famously bought Remington because he liked shaving with its razor. I never buy into a company because I like its product. For the first couple of years that I was a part-owner and director of Betfair, I didn’t register as a user. To be honest, I’m not very good with technology and I didn’t know how to go online and bet. I remember being ridiculed by some of my fellow Betfair directors when I remarked, nearly three years after making my investment, that I had just started using the site and found it impressive. How could anyone invest in their baby without giving it an extensive road-test first, without understanding how to use it? Wilful ignorance is one of my best investment tools. I don’t want to know too much before making an investment. I don’t want to cloud my judgement, or make the decision difficult. I don’t want to know about all the risks or understand them. I just want to be reasonably sure that it’s a star business. That makes life simple and fun. And profitable.

So anyway, we took our seats, and I can’t remember how far we’d got through the meal when we became aware of a kerfuffle at the door and turned to see that His Royal Highness Sir Richard Branson was arriving. And he was very, very drunk. Now, by this time we’d already had our fill of Sir Richard, because earlier in the day he’d arrived at the circuit with all the pomp and ceremony of a returning hero. With a bevy of flag-bearing dolly birds in his wake, he’d marched up and down the paddock, waving, grinning and giving the thumbs up to his adoring public, who were, in fact, wondering what he was doing there in the first place. The reason, of course, was that he had a couple of stickers on our car. A million bucks’ worth of sponsorship, which is a lot of money but in F1 sponsorship terms, chicken feed. And yet he was behaving as though he had bank-rolled the whole thing. I can’t say he’d won a lot of admirers with that stunt, but at the end of the day he’s national treasure Sir Richard Branson, famous publicity seeker, so you cut him some slack. It’d be like hating a dog for barking at the telly. They can’t help it. It’s just what they do. What he did in the restaurant was less excusable. However, before I go on, it’s only right and proper for me to point out that he apologised for what happened that night, and even said that he gave up drinking for months afterwards. Not only that, but the press had a field day at the time and no Branson blush was spared. With all that penance paid you might think that he’s done his time and by rights I should leave out this story.

But to say that charity is a virtue doesn't get us far enough; it doesn't help us to see it clearly as distinct from other virtues. Of its particular qualities, the theologian J. I. Packer offers a magnificent summary. [...] * First, it has as its purpose doing good to others, and so in some sense making the others great. Agapē Godward [that is, directed toward God], triggered by gratitude for grace, makes God great by exalting him in praise, thanksgiving, and obedience. Agapē [humanward], neighbor love as Scripture calls it, makes fellow humans great by serving not their professed wants, but their observed real needs. Thus, marital agapē seeks fulfillment for the spouse and parental agapē seeks maturity for the children. * Second, agapē is measured not by sweetness of talk or strength of feeling, but by what it does, and more specifically by what of its own it gives, for the fulfilling of its purpose. * Third, agapē does not wait to be courted, nor does it limit itself to those who at once appreciate it, but it takes the initiative in giving help where help is required, and finds its joy in bringing others benefit. The question of who deserves to be helped is not raised; agapē means doing good to the needy, not to the meritorious, and to the needy however undeserving they might be. * Fourth, agapē is precise about its object. The famous Peanuts quote, 'I love the human race - it's people I can't stand,' is precisely not agapē. Agapē focuses on particular people with particular needs, and prays and works to deliver them from evil. Packer concludes the passage with one last overarching observation, which we believe warrants its own bullet point: * In all of this {agapē] is directly modeled on the love of God revealed in the gospel.

played across her face. “It’s like that famous quote, ‘If I would have had more time, I’d have written you a shorter letter.

I’m afraid the whole matter is a bit embarrassing,” Richard said. “For you or the client?” I asked, trying to inject some humor into what was obviously an uncomfortable state of affairs. He responded with a chuckle, “Well, for us both, it seems.” I was relieved he had a sense of humor. A bit of levity goes far in dealing with the intensity of the work.

We’ve all heard Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote by now,” said Hoyer. “It’s become so common, I think they’re printing it on fortune cookies. But it’s also true.” “You mean, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’?” said Reed.

International. Facing it from Kalakaua, I looked at the totem poles on my left, garishly painted, contorted faces carved upon them. Farther left, and extending from the Avenue into the grounds, was Don the Beachcomber’s Bora Bora Lounge, in which — according to a sign outside it — was the famous Dagger Bar. On my right was the first of many little stores and shops. This one was Polynesian, crammed with idols, wood-carvings, jewelry in glass cases, a model outrigger canoe in the front window. Beyond it, all around and in the Market Place,

By Higginson's report, Emily Dickinson famously remarked, 'If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that it is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that it is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?' She should, in that remark, have shamed forever the facile, the decorative, the easily consoling, the tame. She names, after all, responses that suggest violent transformation, the overturning of complacency by peril. In practice, this has meant that poets quote Dickinson and proceed to write poems from which will and caution and hunger to accommodate present taste have drained all authenticity and unnerving originality. Richard Siken, with the best poets of his impressive generation, has chosen to take Dickinson at her word. I had her reaction.

The complex Japanese aircraft designation systems proved confusing during and after the war. Several forms of nomenclature applied to Imperial Navy aircraft, but just two are important. The first system (“short form”) comprised a letter, number, letter (e.g., A5M). The first letter identified mission (A = carrier fighter, B = carrier bomber, G = land-based bomber, etc.). This was followed by a numeral indicating the numerical sequence of that model for the mission (5 = fifth carrier fighter). The second letter designated the manufacturer (the most important were A = Aichi, K = Kawanishi, M = Mitsubishi, N = Nakajima). The second major system was the type number from the year of service introduction under the Japanese calendar. By the Japanese calendar, 1936 was Year 2596, from which “96” was taken as the year of introduction. The year 1940 was Year 2600, hence the famous designation of the Mitsubishi A6M Carrier Fighter as the Type “0” or “Zero.” Imperial Army aircraft bore a Kitai (airframe) number (e.g., Ki-27), a type number/mission designator based on the Japanese calendar (Army Type 97 fighter had a 1937 year of introduction), and sometimes a name. The Imperial Navy resisted the use of names before capitulating to this system in 1943. To unify and simplify the identification of Japanese aircraft, the United States adopted a system by 1943 of providing male (fighters) and female (bombers) names for Japanese aircraft. Hence, the A6M “Zero” became officially the “Zeke” (although the Zero alone of Japanese aircraft continued to be widely known by that designation), while the “Nell” stood for the G3M and “Betty” for the G4M. This system has become so entrenched in decades of literature about the Pacific War that it will be used here for purposes of clarity.

The famous day when Andrew locked us in a kitchen up in Willesden and said, “Come out with a song”—that did happen. Why Andrew put Mick and me together as songwriters and not Mick and Brian, or me and Brian, I don’t know. It turned out that Brian couldn’t write songs, but Andrew didn’t know that then. I guess it’s because Mick and I were hanging out together at the time.

Even the governor of Texas when I was growing up, Ann Richards, who had a quick tongue and a beehive hairdo, said so: “If we rest, we rust,” she’d famously quipped. It was advice I’d taken to heart.

Humbled by the divine Presence, he nevertheless sought to understand why God would let him go through such terrible struggles: “Why didn’t you appear in the beginning, so that you could stop my distresses?” The response he heard spoke not only to his present situation but also to his future ministry. “And a voice came to him: ‘I was here, Antonius, but I waited to watch your struggle. And now, since you persevered and were not defeated, I will be your helper forever, and I will make you famous everywhere.’”3

In fact, an analogy began to form in my mind from my years as a newspaper reporter. I recalled being part of a crowd of journalists that once cornered the famous Chicago political patriarch, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, to pepper him with questions about a scandal that was brewing in the police department. He made some remarks before escaping to his limousine. Even though I was an eyewitness to what had taken place, I immediately went to a radio reporter who had been closer to Daley, and asked him to play back his tape of what Daley had just said. This way, I could make sure I had his words correctly written down. That, I mused, was apparently what Matthew did with Mark—although Matthew had his own recollections as a disciple, his quest for accuracy prompted him to rely on some material that came directly from Peter in Jesus’ inner circle.

These exiles are what Freud famously called the Id, and he mistakenly assumed they were merely primitive impulses. As I discussed earlier, that negative take just added to Western culture’s detrimental view of human nature and was highly influential in psychotherapy’s disinterest in getting to know those parts of us. Once you have a lot of exiles, you feel far more delicate and the world seems more dangerous because there are so many things and people and situations that could trigger them. And when an exile gets triggered and bursts out of whatever container we keep it in, it can feel like we’re about to die, because it was exactly that scary or humiliating when the originating event happened. Or maybe, as Bly notes, we’re terrified because the exiles have become so extreme.

A famous poem I had quoted in a novel came to mind: “And how can a man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods?” How, indeed?

I have always thought of objectivity and impartiality as complex, messy concepts, tending to agree with BBC journalist Nick Robinsons view that impartiality is something to believe in and strive for but which you must accept you will almost certainly never quite achieve.

In a representative democracy, the media is in a unique position to shine a light on those with power and how they wield it. Without a free press we likely would not have learned about the crimes of Watergate or the flawed decision-making central to the Vietnam War. As Thomas Jefferson famously put it, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Lt. Richard Todd of the 5th Parachute Brigade, who had parachuted in during the night and joined the Ox and Bucks just before dawn (and who later became a famous British actor; he played John Howard in the movie The Longest Day) said that “for sheer bravado and bravery” the march-past of Gale, Kindersley, and Poett “was one of the most memorable sights I’ve ever seen.

We scraped the data of a hundred thousand users, analyzed it, and sold it to a political consulting firm, who used it in a hyper-savvy campaign of digital targeting to put their man in office. When news of that broke, it caused a flurry of hypocritical breast-beating around the world. I was called to testify before Congress, and for four hours I was the most famous CEO in the country. But the legislators were too benighted by the whole rise of social media to stay on course or to grasp what was happening. Once we established the legality of our end-user agreements and our use of the data, they hardly knew how to proceed.

It’s working,” he said, and ran his tongue over his filthy teeth. “The sugar bowl is so close I can taste it!” Klaus took his commonplace book from his pocket, and read his notes intently for a moment. Then he turned to Justice Strauss. “Give me that book, please,” he said, pointing to Jerome Squalor’s book. “The third phrase is the famous unfathomable question in the best-known novel by Richard Wright. Richard Wright was an American novelist of the realist school whose writings illuminated the disparities in race relations. It is likely his work is quoted in a comprehensive history of injustice.” “You can’t read that entire book!” Count Olaf said. “The crowd will find us before you finish the first chapter!” “I’ll look in the index,” Klaus said, “just like I did at Aunt Josephine’s, when we decoded her note and found her hiding place.” “I always wondered how you did that,” Olaf said, sounding almost as if he admired the middle Baudelaire’s research skills. Klaus paged to the back of the book, where the index can usually be found. An index, as I’m sure you know, is a list of everything a book contains, and where each item can be found.

Famous dropouts like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk were often celebrated in the press. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, took a leave of absence from their PhDs at Stanford and never returned. What was different about my case? The ironic stigma of being a dropout hung in my mind, but more important, the legacies of so many people who made this choice possible permeated my thoughts. What did I owe the past? What did I owe the future? What did I owe myself? Dr. Sweeney was now paving the road for me again, reminding me of what was at stake if I chose to drop out. August had been lovely, short, and full of sleep. But I had decisions to make, and September promises to keep.

At a retreat I gave on the Scottish island of Iona, which was the center point for the diffusion of Celtic Christianity, attendees remarked how often the Celtic knot was found on crosses and gravestones, in manuscripts, and on jewelry. It was apparently the Celts’ artistic way of saying that all is connected, everything belongs, and all is one in God. They knew about ecosystems long before we did, but in an even larger way. All was held together inside of the divine knot. T.S. Eliot ends his famous Four Quartets by quoting Dame Julian and saying the same: And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire.48