I Got Proposed Quotes

Marry me, Kiara,” he blurts out in front of everyone. “Why?” she asks, challenging him. “Because I love you,” he says, walking up to her and bending down on one knee while he takes her hand in his, “and I want to go to sleep with you every night and wake up seein’ your face every mornin’, I want you to be the mother of my children, I want to fix cars with you and eat your crappy tofu tacos that you think are Mexican. I want to climb mountains with you and be challenged by you, I want to argue with you just so we can have crazy hot makeup sex. Marry me, because without you I’d be six feet under … and because I love your family like they’re my own … and because you’re my best friend and I want to grow old with you.” He starts tearing up, and it’s shocking because I’ve never seen him cry. “Marry me, Kiara Westford, because when I got shot the only thing I was thinkin’ about was comin’ back here and makin’ you my wife. Say yes, chica.

Don't ever think Noah's in the way. He will always be the string that ties us together. He's our love growing inside you. He may not be the reason why I fell in love with you, but he's the reason why I got another chance at life. You saved me, Emma.

Marry me." I said. She lowered her teacup, shaking slightly, to the saucer. "Aren't you going to get down on one knee?" I got down on one knee and took her hand. "Will you marry me, Kate?" You can't propose properly without a ring." She said. I reached into my pocket and took out James Sanderson's ring, which I'd picked up off the floor of the Starclimber when we'd crash landed. "That's a nice looking ring." said Kate with a grin. "Cost a fortune." I said. "And now, for the third time. Kate de Vries, will you marry me?" She leaned forward and took my face in her hands and kissed me. "Yes," "Yes, and yes and yes. But it will probably be terrible." "Probably," I agreed. "Honestly," she sighed, "I don't know what kind of life we'll have together, with me always flying off in one direction and you in the other." I smiled. "It's a good thing the world's round," I said.

I pulled out the small velvet box I had kept in my pocket all day and got down on one knee. And then she did the craziest thing. She fell down to her knees in front of me. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be on my knees here. You’re ruining the moment

I told Mama and Savannah about Ruben's proposal. That got us to talking about marriage and we laughed and cried some, and missed Papa, and it felt good to belong to each other. I don't feel as lonely today as I have in months. At least I know there are other women around me.

There are growing domestic social and economic problems, in fact, maybe catastrophes. Nobody in power has any intention of doing anything about them. If you look at the domestic programs of the administrations of the past ten years-I include here the Democratic opposition-there's really no serious proposal about what to do about the severe problems of health, education, homelessness, joblessness, crime, soaring criminal populations, jails, deterioration in the inner cities - the whole raft of problems... In such circumstances you've got to divert the bewildered herd, because if they start noticing this they may not like it, since they're the ones suffering from it. Just having them watch the Superbowl and the sitcoms may not be enough. You have to whip them up into fear of enemies. In the 1930s Hitler whipped them into fear of the Jews and gypsies. You had to crush them to defend yourselves. We have our ways, too. Over the last ten years, every year ot two, some major monster is constructed that we have to defend ourselves against.

Emma's eyelids flew open, and her expectant gaze honed in on the mirror, peering in wonder at Noah's tiny head. "Aw, Em, it looks like he's got strawberry blonde hair!" Casey commented. Aidan grinned. "Nah, I think it's redder, and he's more of a Ginger." She gritted her teeth at him. "Don't you dare call our son a Ginger!

Alex: OK, that sounds like a challenge! Well firstly, I would have brought you to a hotel along the coast so that your suite would have the best sea view in the hotel. You could fall asleep listening to the waves crashing against the rocks, I would sprinkle the bed with red rose petals and have candles lit all around the room, I would have your favorite CD playing quietly in the background. But I wouldn’t propose to you there. I would bring you to where there was a huge crowd of people so they could all gasp when I got down on one knee and proposed. Or something like that. Note I have italicized all important buzz words. Rosie: Oh. Alex: Oh? That’s all you can say? One word for the most important night of our lives?

Women who know how to fight hold themselves differently. I’ve seen that in the women who’ve taught me, in the women who’ve taken my classes, and especially in myself. You walk into any situation with an attitude that you’ve got this, you can defend yourself, you are strong.

Uncle Aidan?” Percy began. “Yeah?” “Don’t you think you ought to marry Emma?” Aidan jerked his head up, slamming it against the trunk lid. “FUCK!” he shouted as he saw stars before his eyes. A few more expletives escaped his lips as pain raged through his skull. “Nice mouth you got there,” John chided. Gritting his teeth, Aidan rubbed his aching head. “You mention that one to your mom, and I’ll tell her about your ball-sack comment.” John’s eyes widened. “Dude, that is so not cool!” “Yeah, well, deal with it.” Aidan started to resume gathering up the bags when he noticed Percy staring expectantly at him for an answer. Aidan sighed. “Perce—” His blonde brows knitted together. “Don’t you love her?” “Oh Christ,” Aidan muttered, raking his hand through his hair. He winced as pain once again shot through his head. “Did your mom put you up to this or something?” “No. When I asked her the same question, she just said that you were a cad.” Percy shrugged. “I don’t even know what that means.” “I’m pretty sure it’s a dude who acts like a douchebag to women,” John said. Aidan glared over at John. “I am not a cad!

Of course they lived at 14 [their house number on their street], and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner. The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.

And I might propose to you soon. I stared at my phone, reading this line again, and again. “Okay,” I whispered. So give me a heads-up if you won’t say yes, because I’m mildly terrified. I leaned back on his shoulder and he dropped his phone into his lap, wrapping his shaking hand around mine. “Don’t be,” I whispered. “We’ve totally got this.

Amy turned to Nellie. "Can you create a diversion to draw the clerk outside?" The au pair was wary. "What kind of diversion?" "You could pretend to be lost," Dan proposed. "The guy comes out to give you directions, and we slip inside." "That's the most sexist idea I've ever heard," Nellie said harshly. "I'm female, so I have to be clueless. He's male, so he's got a great sense of direction." "Maybe you're from out of town," Dan suggested. "Wait–you are from out of town." Nellie stashed their bags under a bench and set Saladin on the seat with a stern "You're the watchcat. Anybody touches those bags, unleash your inner tiger." The Egyptian Mau surveyed the street uncertainly. "Mrrp." Nellie sighed. "Lucky for us there's no one around. Okay, I'm going in there. Be ready." The clerk said something to her–probably May I help you? She smiled apologetically. "I don't speak Italian." "Ah–you are American." His accent was heavy, but he seemed eager to please. "I will assist you." He took in her black nail polish and nose ring. "Punk, perhaps, is your enjoyment?" "More like a punk/reggae fusion," Nellie replied thoughtfully. "With a country feel. And operatic vocals." The clerk stared in perplexity. Nellie began to tour the aisles, pulling out CDs left and right. "Ah–Artic Monkeys–that's what I'm talking about. And some Bad Brains–from the eighties. Foo Fighters–I'll need a couple from those guys. And don't forget Linkin Park..." He watched in awe as she stacked up an enormous armload of music. "There," she finished, slapping Frank Zappa's Greatest Hits on top of the pile. "That should do for a start." "You are a music lover," said the wide-eyed cashier. "No, I'm a kleptomaniac." And she dashed out the door.

Nick stopped on the sidewalk, pulled a ring from his pocket, and handed it to Kate. "Your wedding ring." It was a platinum band inlaid with diamonds. Simple but elegant. Kate put the ring on her finger. "That's got to be the least romantic proposal in history. Where did you steal this?" "I bought it," he said. "That must have been a new experience for you." "It was. Cost me ten grand." He slipped a matching platinum band onto his finger. "I want that ring back when this marriage is over." "No way," she said. "You can keep the dishes.

I have a proposition for you,” I said. “No.” She didn’t look up from her screen. “I propose we form a mutually beneficial arrangement,” I continued, ignoring her flat rejection. “As much as it pains me to admit, you weren’t terrible in bed, and I know I’m not terrible in bed. We’re both too busy to date or deal with the online dating scene. Therefore, we should enter a friends with benefits agreement. Minus the friends part.” It was genius, if I did say so myself. The physical chemistry was there, and neither of us had to worry about the other catching feelings. We could just fuck until we got tired of it.

Young Tchitcherine was the one who brought up political narcotics. Opiates of the people. Wimpe smiled back. An old, old smile to chill even the living fire in Earth’s core. "Marxist dialectics? That’s not an opiate, eh?" "It’s the antidote." "No." It can go either way. The dope salesman may know everything that’s ever going to happen to Tchitcherine, and decide it’s no use—or, out of the moment’s velleity, lay it right out for the young fool. "The basic problem," he proposes, "has always been getting other people to die for you. What’s worth enough for a man to give up his life? That’s where religion had the edge, for centuries. Religion was always about death. It was used not as an opiate so much as a technique—it got people to die for one particular set of beliefs about death. Perverse, natürlich, but who are you to judge? It was a good pitch while it worked. But ever since it became impossible to die for death, we have had a secular version—yours. Die to help History grow to its predestined shape. Die knowing your act will bring will bring a good end a bit closer. Revolutionary suicide, fine. But look: if History’s changes are inevitable, why not not die? Vaslav? If it’s going to happen anyway, what does it matter?" "But you haven’t ever had the choice to make, have you." "If I ever did, you can be sure—" "You don’t know. Not till you’re there, Wimpe. You can’t say." "That doesn’t sound very dialectical." "I don’t know what it is." "Then, right up to the point of decision," Wimpe curious but careful, "a man could still be perfectly pure . . ." "He could be anything. I don’t care. But he’s only real at the points of decision. The time between doesn’t matter." "Real to a Marxist." "No. Real to himself." Wimpe looks doubtful. "I've been there. You haven't.

I believe the way to solve this dilemma is if you marry me, so I’ll always be close by.” Love swelled up in her heart. “I think I can manage that.” “Good, ’cause the way I’ve got it figured, it’s the only way I can stay somewhere in the same vicinity as my balls.” ~Dryer and Charlotte

I had to have company -- I was made for it, I think -- so I made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose.

When did you get this?" He looked down at the tattoo, and then sheepishly back at me. "About seven years ago, It's a bit faded now—" "It's a lemon flower." "Yes," he replied, looking up into my eyes, searching them. He'd gotten a lemon flower tattooed over his heart. "What do you tell people, when they ask about it?" His shyness melted into a smile, warm and gooey like chocolate. "I tell them about a girl I fell in love with at the right place but the wrong time." A knot lodged in my throat. "And what are you going to tell them now?" "That we finally got the timing right." "A matter of time," I whispered. "A matter of timing," he proposed.

The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.

Did you pick that out?“ I asked Dimitri. Honestly, I would have expected him to bend a piece of steel it his bare hands and present her with that. “He did,” said Rose, her normal good humor returning. “He kept telling me that once I turned twenty, it was just a matter of time before he proposed. I told him if he did, he better make it a rock star ring – nothing subtle.” “That’s pretty rock star,” said Eddie. “How long ago did this happen?” “About a month,” said Dimitri. “I got her to war it but can’t get her to set a date.” She grinned. “All in good time, comrade. Maybe when I’m thirty. There’s no hurry. Besides, surely Christian’s going to propose to Liss one of these days. We don’t want to overshadow them.” Dimitri shook his head in exasperation, but he kept smiling. “You’ve always got an excuse, Roza. One of these days…” “One of these days,” she agreed.

That part of the press release about me asking your father’s permission to marry you was true—well, partly true, anyway. I didn’t ask permission—I knew you wouldn’t like that, it’s sexist. You’re not your father’s property. But I did see him before we left, to tell him I was going to propose to you this weekend, and ask for his blessing.” I was stunned. “Wait . . . is this what you meant when you said before we left that you’d talked to my parents?” “Yes. I spoke to your mother, too, because she played an even bigger role in raising you. I thought it was the right thing to do. How do you think you got out of doing all those events—and birthday Cirque du Soleil with your grandmother—so easily?

ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

I HEADED FOR the cottage, where I had left the car. By the time I got there I should have done three miles of foot-slogging and I proposed to give the leg muscles a bit of time off, and if E. Jimpson Murgatroyd didn’t like it, let him eat cake.

was going to say anyway. And he got to talk first because he had won the coin toss—heads—a victory over Maura. But at the moment he was wishing he had called tails. As Greg began going over his opening statement for the ninth time, the chairperson of the School Committee said, “For the next item under New Business, we have a proposal about . . . a comic-book club at Ashworth School. Who’s speaking on this?” Greg bounced to his feet and managed to say, “I . . . I am.” The chairperson pointed. “Please come up to the table and talk into the microphone.” Maura thought Greg looked very nice tonight in his blazer and his gray slacks. His black eye was almost gone, and she was pretty sure he had even tried to brush his hair. As Greg went down the center aisle, he got a good look at Mrs. Davenport sitting in the second row with the other principals. She wasn’t smiling.

Let’s say you’re playing chess against someone who’s got more pieces on the board and decades more experience than we do. How do you win?” “You don’t,” Rose said. “Unless you cheat.” “We already tried cheating,” I said. “Getting him in trouble, risking his job. He’s apparently planning a response tonight.” “Change the game, then,” Rose said. “Again, we tried that. There’s no winning. Not really. So what I’m proposing is pretty simple.” “Do tell,” Rose said. “Also, you do know that we’re being followed?” “We’re surrounded,” I said. “But she wants to deal badly enough that she’ll hear us out before she murders us. Nevermind that. Our analogy here. I’m proposing the pigeon strategy. Knock over all of the pieces, shit on the board, and then strut around like we’re the victors.

Damn, Josie. Are you trying to kill me?” She glanced back my way. “Not particularly right now. Why?” I didn’t even try to stop staring. It would have been a wasted effort. “Because that dress is enough to give a man a heart attack if you come any closer, or break a man’s heart if you walk away.” “Now lines like that help me understand why you’ve got a reputation for being such a ladies man.” “That wasn’t even my best one.” (…) That kind of dress could bring a man to his knee to propose, even if that had been the furthest thing from his mind when he woke up that morning. Hell, it was bringing me close to a proposal, and I was dead set against anything marriage related.

As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. Mr. Darwin's theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill. Perhaps your friend has got a surer clue to guide him than I have, who have never studied the question, and I do not [see] that 'the accidental evolution of organic beings' is inconsistent with divine design—It is accidental to us, not to God.

My marriage sapped me of a lot of my strength, and what made it worse were the constant messages I got from society that women are weak, women should be afraid, women should settle for whatever they can get. And I want the women who walk into this gym to know that women have power and agency and deserve great things in life.

Oh, all right. Tell me what you heard and have done. I haven't got all night." "I daresay you haven't. It's nearly five in the morning.

Madmen, criminals, and rapists! Isn’t it fantastic? All the romantic proposals I’ve ever got from anybody. Somebody up there has an extremely dark sense of humour.

I would propose that to worry people are desensitized is to assume the jurors, and most people, were ever sensitive to Black pain to begin with.

So . . . ,” she says, following him to the chalkboard. “You got a Visiting. An actual Visiting—Natasha Grimm-Pitch was here.” Baz glances back over his shoulder. “You sound impressed, Bunce.” “I am,” Penelope says. “Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history.” Baz is looking at Penny like they’ve never met. “And,” Penny goes on, “she defended your father in three duels before he accepted her proposal.” “That sounds barbaric,” I say. “It was traditional,” Baz says. “It was brilliant,” Penny says. “I’ve read the minutes.” “Where?” Baz asks her. “We have them in our library at home,” she says. “My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions.” “That’s lovely,” Baz says, and I’m terrified because I think he means it. “I’m going to make time stop when I propose to Micah,” she says. “The little American? With the thick glasses?” “Not so little anymore.” “Interesting.” Baz rubs his chin. “My mother hung the moon.” “She was a legend,” Penelope beams. “I thought your parents hated the Pitches,” I say. They both look at me like I’ve just stuck my hand in the soup bowl. “That’s politics,” Penelope says. “We’re talking about magic.” “Obviously,” I say. “What was I thinking.” “Obviously,” Baz says. “You weren’t.” “What’s happening right now?” I say. “What are we even doing?” Penelope folds her arms and squints at the chalkboard. “We,” she declares, “are finding out who killed Natasha Grimm-Pitch.” “The legend,” Baz says. Penelope gives him a soft look, the kind she usually saves for me. “So she can rest in peace.

His friend proposed to me. He'd been in love with me long ago, back when we were in school. Then he married my friend, and then they got divorced. "You'll live like a queen." He owns a store, has a huge apartment in the city, he had a dacha. I thought and thought about it. Then one day he came in drunk: "You're not going to forget your hero, is that it?" He went to Chernobyl, and I refused. I'm alive, and he's a memorial.

I remember once when I was young, and I was coming back from some place, a movie or something. I was on the subway and there was a girl sitting across from me and she was wearing this dress that was bottoned queer up right to here, she was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And I was shy then, so when she would look at me I would look away, then afterwards when I would look back she would look away. Then I got to where I was gonna get off, and got off, the doors closed, and as the train was pulling away she looked right at me and gave me the most incredible smile. It was awful, I wanted to tear the doors open. And I went back every night, same time, for two weeks, but she never showed up. That was 30 years ago and I don't think that theres a day that goes by that I don't think about her, I don't want that to happen again. Just one dance ?.

NIMBYism is so entrenched and rooted in nostalgia that you could propose new apartments on an abandoned lot and still have someone protest the building on the grounds that the abandoned lot “was the first place I got fingerbanged.

May I offer some refreshment?" Miss Pink asked, mincingly. "A cup of tea?" Lady Lydiard shook her head. "A glass of water?" Lady Lydiard declined the last hospitable proposal with an exclamation of disgust. "Have you got any beer?" she inquired. "I beg your Ladyship's pardon," said Miss Pink, doubting the evidence of her own ears. "Did you say - beer?" Lady Lydiard gesticulated vehemently with her fan. "Yes, to be sure! Beer! beer!" Miss Pink rose, with a countenance expressive of genteel disgust, and rang the bell. "I think you have beer downstairs, Susan?" she said, when the maid appeared at the door. "Yes, Miss." "A glass of beer for Lady Lydiard," said Miss Pink, under protest. "Bring it in a jug," shouted her Ladyship, as the maid left the room.

But afterward he had grown to find her cheerful, tender hearted, and, finally, even pretty. He appreciated her cheerfulness particularly. His own sardonic view of life needed the antidote. But Jessie never seemed to mind his long grave face. "Oh, goodness," she said, "what if you do look like an awful lemon? I know you're not really, and I guess if you were always grinning away like clockwork, the way I do, we'd just explode when we got together. You stay the way you are Lije, and keep me from floating." And she kept Lije Baley from sinking down. He applied for a small Couples apartment and got a contingent admission pending marriage. He showed it to her and said, "Will you fix it so I can get out of Bachelor's, Jessie? I don't like it there." Maybe it wasn't the most romantic proposal in the world, but Jessie liked it.

I felt a warm hand touch mine. “Are you okay?” “If you mean am I injured, then the answer is no. If you mean am I ‘okay’ as in am-I-confident-I’m-still-sane, the answer is still no.” Ren frowned. “We have to find a way to get across the chasm.” “You’re certainly welcome to give it a try.” I waved him off and went back to drinking my water. He moved to the edge and peered across, looking speculatively at the distance. Changing back to a tiger, he trotted a few paces back in the direction we had come from, turned, and ran at full speed toward the hole. “Ren, no!” I screamed. He leapt, clearing the hole easily, and landed lightly on his front paws. Then he trotted a short distance away and did the same thing to come back. He landed at my feet and changed back to human form. “Kells, I have an idea.” “Oh, this I’ve got to hear. I just hope you don’t plan on including me in this scheme of yours. Ah. Let me guess. I know. You want to tie a rope to your tail, leap across, tie it off, and then have me pull my body across the rope, right?” He cocked his head as if considering it, and then shook his head. “No, you don’t have the strength to do something like that. Plus, we have no rope and nothing to tie a rope to.” “Right. So what’s the plan?” He held my hands and explained. “What I’m proposing will be much easier. Do you trust me?” I was going to be sick. “I trust you. It’s just-“ I looked into his concerned blue eyes and sighed. “Okay, what do I have to do?” “You saw that I was able to clear the gap pretty well as a tiger, right? So what I need you to do is to stand right at the edge and wait for me. I’ll run to the end of the tunnel, build up speed, and leap as a tiger. At the same time, I want you to jump up and grab me around my neck. I’ll change to a man in midair so that I can hold onto you, and we’ll fall together to the other side.” I snorted noisily and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” He ignored my skepticism. “We’ll have to time it precisely, and you’ll have to jump too, in the same direction, because if you don’t, I’ll just hit you full power and drive us both over the edge.” “You’re serious? You seriously want me to do this?” “Yes, I’m serious. Now stand here while I make a few practice runs.” “Can’t we just find another corridor or something?” “There aren’t any. This is the right way.” Reluctantly, I stood near the edge and watched him leap back and forth a few times. Observing the rhythm of his running and jumping, I began to grasp the idea of what he wanted me to do. All too quickly Ren was back in front of me again. “I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this. Are you sure?” I asked. “Yes, I’m sure. Are you ready?” “No! Give me a minute to mentally write a last will and testament.” “Kells, it’ll be fine.” “Sure it will. Alright, let me take in my surroundings. I want to make sure I can record every minute of this experience in my journal. Of course, that’s probably a moot point because I’m assuming that I’m going to die in the jump anyway.” Ren put his hand on my cheek, looked in my eyes, and said fiercely, “Kelsey, trust me. I will not let you fall.

A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against their will, instead of by fraud and against the will of all the rest of us, as now... ...that the names of all the men eligible in each assembly district be put into a hat (or, if no hat can be found that is large enough, into a bathtub), and that a blind moron, preferably of tender years, be delegated to draw out one... The advantages that this system would offer are so vast and obvious that I hesitate to venture into the banality of rehearsing them. It would in the first place, save the commonwealth the present excessive cost of elections, and make political campaigns unnecessary. It would in the second place, get rid of all the heart-burnings that now flow out of every contest at the polls, and block the reprisals and charges of fraud that now issue from the heart-burnings. It would, in the third place, fill all the State Legislatures with men of a peculiar and unprecedented cast of mind – men actually convinced that public service is a public burden, and not merely a private snap. And it would, in the fourth and most important place, completely dispose of the present degrading knee-bending and trading in votes, for nine-tenths of the legislators, having got into office unwillingly, would be eager only to finish their duties and go home, and even those who acquired a taste for the life would be unable to increase the probability, even by one chance in a million, of their reelection. The disadvantages of the plan are very few, and most of them, I believe, yield readily to analysis. Do I hear argument that a miscellaneous gang of tin-roofers, delicatessen dealers and retired bookkeepers, chosen by hazard, would lack the vast knowledge of public affairs needed by makers of laws? Then I can only answer (a) that no such knowledge is actually necessary, and (b) that few, if any, of the existing legislators possess it... Would that be a disservice to the state? Certainly not. On the contrary, it would be a service of the first magnitude, for the worst curse of democracy, as we suffer under it today, is that it makes public office a monopoly of a palpably inferior and ignoble group of men. They have to abase themselves to get it, and they have to keep on abasing themselves in order to hold it. The fact reflects in their general character, which is obviously low. They are men congenitally capable of cringing and dishonorable acts, else they would not have got into public life at all. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule among them, but how many? What I contend is simply that the number of such exceptions is bound to be smaller in the class of professional job-seekers than it is in any other class, or in the population in general. What I contend, second, is that choosing legislators from that populations, by chance, would reduce immensely the proportion of such slimy men in the halls of legislation, and that the effects would be instantly visible in a great improvement in the justice and reasonableness of the laws.

school and a year into remission. You had to be pretty sick for the Genies to hook you up with a Wish. “I got it in exchange for the leg,” he explained. There was all this light on his face; he had to squint to look at me, which made his nose crinkle adorably. “Now, I’m not going to give you my Wish or anything. But I also have an interest in meeting Peter Van Houten, and it wouldn’t make sense to meet him without the girl who introduced me to his book.” “It definitely wouldn’t,” I said. “So I talked to the Genies, and they are in total agreement. They said Amsterdam is lovely in the beginning of May. They proposed

Okay, I won’t. But if you don’t feel like talking, at least entertain me in other ways.” She plants her hands on her hips. “I propose we make out.” 3 Fitz Once again, I choke mid-sip. Oh, sweet Jesus. Did she seriously just say that? I glance over, and she’s got one perfect eyebrow arched, awaiting my response. Yup. She said it.

I laugh triumphantly. “I’ve still got it. This beach is not cursed. We are free to have life changing conversations on here whenever we want without the fear that I’ll turn witless. Life is good. I am once again the Lord of Words.” He smiles pityingly at me. “Walk don’t run babe. You did use the words gigantic twat in your wedding proposal.” “Well, shit!

I am a Roman,' he said to the king; 'my name is Gaius Mucius. I came here to kill you - my enemy. I have as much courage to die as to kill. It is our Roman way to do and to suffer bravely. Nor am I alone in my resolve against your life; behind me is a long line of men eager for the same honor. Brace yourself, if you will, for the struggle - a struggle for your life from hour to hour, with an armed enemy always at your door. That is the war we declare against you: you need fear no action in the battlefield, army against army; it will be fought against you alone, by one of us at a time.' Porsena in rage and alarm ordered the prisoner to be burnt alive unless he at once divulged the plot thus obscurely hinted at, whereupon Mucius, crying: 'See how cheap men hold their bodies when they care only for honor!' thrust his right hand into the fire which had been kindled for a sacrifice, and let it burn there as if he were unconscious of the pain. Porsena was so astonished by the young man's almost superhuman endurance that he leapt to his feet and ordered his guards to drag him from the altar. 'Go free,' he said; 'you have dared to be a worse enemy to yourself than to me. I should bless your courage, if it lay with my country to dispose of it. But, as that cannot be, I, as an honorable enemy, grant you pardon, life, and liberty.' 'Since you respect courage,' Mucius replied, as if he were thanking him for his generosity, 'I will tell you in gratitude what you could not force from me by threats. There are three hundred of us in Rome, all young like myself, and all of noble blood, who have sworn an attempt upon your life in this fashion. It was I who drew the first lot; the rest will follow, each in his turn and time, until fortune favor us and we have got you.' The release of Mucius (who was afterwards known as Scaevola, or the Left-Handed Man, from the loss of his right hand) was quickly followed by the arrival in Rome of envoys from Porsena. The first attempt upon his life, foiled only by a lucky mistake, and the prospect of having to face the same thing again from every one of the remaining conspirators, had so shaken the king that he was coming forward with proposals for peace.

I wrote a letter to her and proposed. Somebody who’s wise could have told me that was dangerous: When you’re away and you’ve got nothing but paper, and you’re feeling lonely, you remember all the good things and you can’t remember the reasons you had the arguments. And it didn’t work out. The arguments started again right away, and the marriage lasted for only two years. There

In his apartment, he finds Maya by herself. Her eyes look moist. "I threw up, Daddy." "I'm sorry." A.J. locates the lighter in his drawer. He slams the drawer shut. "Where's Amelia?" "Are you going to propose?" Maya asks. "No, darling. Not at this particular moment. I've got to deliver a lighter to an alcoholic." She considers this information. "Can I come with you?" she asks.

I believe there’s something you’ll need, Sentinel.” Ethan slid from his chair, dropped to one knee on the carpet. My mind had to race to keep up, but my heart pounded madly. Ethan looked up at me, grinned. “That thing, of course, is this.” He held up a small dessert fork. “You dropped your fork, Sentinel.” My blood pounded in my ears. I stood up, swatted his arms with slaps. “You are a jerk.” He roared with laughter. “Ah, Sentinel. The look on your face.” He doubled over with laughter. “Such terror.” I kept swatting. “At the thought of marrying you, you pretentious ass.” He roared again, then picked me up and carried me to the bed. “My pretentions are well earned, Sentinel.” “You have got to stop doing that.” “I can’t. It’s hilarious.” Only a man would think fake proposals were so funny.

Look here, Duff, I said, you think your life is hard, well, lots of other folks’ lives are hard too. Some of them are even harder than yours! So you quit feeling so sorry for yourself like you’ve got it so bad. You’re alive, aren’t you? You’re healthy and strong, aren’t you? You don’t have it nearly so bad as you think. No matter what you’ve been through, life can be a pretty good thing if you’ll let it.

I licked my dry lips, glancing around at everyone staring at us. Finally I looked up into Cole’s handsome face. “I’m here because I love you, and I need to ask you something.” I took a deep breath. It was time to go big. I lowered myself to one knee. Cole’s eyes grew round and I heard a few female gasps behind him. “Shannon, what—” “Cole Walker, I once told you in fear that you were nothing, but there has never been a day of your life that that was true and there has never been a day I’ve ever really thought that. You’ve been extraordinary to me since we were fifteen.” I smiled shakily, feeling vulnerable and frightened but hopeful too as he stared down at me with growing tenderness in his expression. “Apart from Logan I’ve never had a real family. The kind you can count on through everything. The kind that gives you second, third, fourth chances because the other option is no option at all. Because they love you and they’re there for you. Unconditionally. Logan was the only one who ever gave me that. Until you. You’re my family, Cole. I want you to be my family forever.” I laughed hoarsely. “I don’t have a ring or anything. I just have me. And I know I’m not perfect and I know you deserve perfect . . . but I love you more than anyone else in this world and I promise you I’ll never let you forget that again.” My heart slowed its rapid beating as a sense of calm came over me. A sense of rightness. It was as if I’d found the balance I’d been missing ever since I got in that car and left Cole behind on that stoop on Scotland Street all those years ago. “It’s always been you, and I always want it to be . . . Marry me, Cole.

When I took it off, I glanced in the mirror behind the dresser, and I nearly screamed when I saw the reflection. Finn was sitting behind me on the bed. His eyes, dark as night, met mine in the mirror, and I could hardly breathe. "Finn!" I gasped and whirled around to look at him. "What are you doing here?" "I missed your birthday," he said, as if that answered my question. He lowered his eyes, looking at a small box he had in his hands. "I got you something." "You got me something?" I leaned back on the dresser behind me, gripping it. "Yeah." He nodded, still staring down at the box. "I picked it up outside of Portland two weeks ago. I meant to get back in time to give it to you on your birthday." He chewed the inside of his cheek. "But now that I'm here, I'm not sure I should give it to you at all." "What are you talking about?" I asked. "It doesn't feel right." Finn rubbed his face. "I don't even know what I'm doing here." "Neither do I," I said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see you. I just...I don't understand." "I know." He sighed. "It's a ring. What I got you." His gaze moved from me to the engagement ring sitting on the dresser beside me. "And you already have one." "Why did you get me a ring?" I asked tentatively, and my heart beat erratically in my chest. I didn't know what Finn was saying or doing. "I'm not proposing to you, if that's what you're asking." He shook his head. "I saw it and thought of you. But now it seems like poor taste. And here I am, the night before your wedding sneaking in to give you a ring." "Why did you sneak in?" I asked. "I don't know." He looked away and laughed darkly. "That's a lie. I know exactly what I'm doing, but I have no idea why I'm doing it." "What are you doing?" I asked quietly. "I..." Finn stared off for a moment, then turned back to me and stood up. "Finn, I-" I began, but he held up his hand, stopping me. "No, I know you're marrying Tove," he said. "You need to do this. We both know that. It's what's best for you, and it's what I want for you." He paused. "But I want you for myself too." All I'd ever wanted from Finn was for him to admit how he felt about me, and he'd waited until the day before my wedding. It was too late to change anything, to take anything back. Not that I could have, even if I wanted to. "Why are you telling me this?" I asked with tears swimming in my eyes. "Because." Finn stepped toward me, stopping right in front of me. He looked down at me, his eyes mesmerizing me the way they always did. He reached up, brushing back a tear from my cheek. "Why?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I needed you to know," he said, as if he didn't truly understand it himself. He set the box on the dresser beside me, and his hand went to my waist, pulling me to him. I let go of the dresser and let him. My breath came out shallow as I stared up at him. "Tomorrow you will belong to someone else," Finn said. "But tonight, you're with me.

He's still got my face in his palms when the words burst free. "Marry me." His expression softens in shock, and my mouth goes dry in panic. "What?" he asks. "Or not, I don't know. I just—" "You can't take it back!" he says defensively. He starts pecking kisses all over my face. "Haven't you ever proposed before?" "I'm"—peck—"out of"—peck—"practice." "You have to give the other person time to adequately freak out," he informs me.

So far as he could prevent it, Dickens never permitted a day of his life to be ordinary. There was always some prank, some impetuous proposal, some practical joke, some sudden hospitality, some sudden disappearance. It is related of him (I give one anecdote out of a hundred) that in his last visit to America, when he was already reeling as it were under the blow that was to be mortal, he remarked quite casually to his companions that a row of painted cottages looked exactly like the painted shops in a pantomime. No sooner had the suggestion passed his lips than he leapt at the nearest doorway and in exact imitation of the clown in the harlequinade, beat conscientiously with his fist, not on the door (for that would have burst the canvas scenery of course), but on the side of the doorpost. Having done this he lay down ceremoniously across the doorstep for the owner to fall over him if he should come rushing out. He then got up gravely and went on his way. His whole life was full of such unexpected energies, precisely like those of the pantomime clown.

Nick stopped on the sidewalk, pulled a ring from his pocket, and handed it to Kate. “Your wedding ring.” It was a platinum band inlaid with diamonds. Simple but elegant. Kate put the ring on her finger. “That’s got to be the least romantic proposal in history. Where did you steal this?” “I bought it,” he said. “That must have been a new experience for you.” “It was. Cost me ten grand.” He slipped a matching platinum band onto his finger. “I want that ring back when this marriage is over.” “No way,” she said. “You can keep the dishes.

An emotional man with bushy eyebrows tells us that if the proposed mosque is built in Bendigo 'the foundation of Australia will be lost forever'. His first example: Muslims sometimes pray on the street outside the mosque. 'They block off the entire street!' he shouts. 'And I ask you today, if you've got a child at home with an egg or nut allergy and they go into anaphylactic shock, how is the ambulance care going to get to that child?' The dastardly Muslims–peanut allergy connection! You really can reverse-park anything into your belief system.

In every potential sponsor’s eyes, I was a nobody. And soon I had notched up more rejection letters than is healthy for any one man to receive. I tried to think of an entrepreneur and adventurer that I admired, and I kept coming back to Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin. I wrote to him once, then I wrote once more. In all, I sent twenty-three letters. No response. Right, I thought, I’ll find out where he lives and take my proposal there myself. So I did precisely that, and at 8:00 P.M. one cold evening, I rang his very large doorbell. A voice answered the intercom, and I mumbled my pitch into the speakerphone. A housekeeper’s voice told me to leave the proposal--and get lost. It’s not clear quite what happened next: I assume that whoever had answered the intercom meant just to switch it off, but instead they pressed the switch that opened the front door. The buzzing sound seemed to last forever--but it was probably only a second or two. In that time I didn’t have time to think, I just reacted…and instinctively nudged the door open. Suddenly I found myself standing in the middle of Sir Richard Branson’s substantial, marble-floored entrance hall. “Uh, hello!” I hollered into the empty hall. “Sorry, but you seem to have buzzed the door open,” I apologized to the emptiness. The next thing I knew, the housekeeper came flying down the stairs, shouting at me to leave. I duly dropped the proposal and scarpered. The next day, I sent around some flowers, apologizing for the intrusion and asking the great man to take a look at my proposal. I added that I was sure, in his own early days, he would probably have done the same thing. I never got a reply to that one, either.

You think we ought to break up this life, just start and let fly?” he asked. “This life. Yes, I do. We’ve got to bust it completely, or shrivel inside it, as in a tight skin. For it won’t expand any more.” There was a queer little smile in Gerald’s eyes, a look of amusement, calm and curious. “And how do you propose to begin? I suppose you mean, reform the whole order of society?” he asked. Birkin had a slight, tense frown between the brows. He too was impatient of the conversation. “I don’t propose at all,” he replied. “When we really want to go for something better, we shall smash the old.

As I turn the corner, I hear Peter calling out, “Wait! Wait! Sir!” He’s following a security guard who is approaching a red backpack on the floor. The security guard bends down and picks it up. “Is this yours?” he demands. “Uh, yeah--” “Why did you leave it on the ground?” He unzips the backpack and pulls out a teddy bear. Peter’s eyes dart around. “Can you put that back inside? It’s for a promposal for my girlfriend. It’s supposed to be a surprise.” The security guard is shaking his head. He mutters to himself and starts looking in the backpack again. “Sir, please just squeeze the bear.” “I’m not squeezing the bear,” the security guard tells him. Peter reaches out and squeezes the teddy bear and the bear squeaks out, “Will you go to prom with me, Lara Jean?” I clap my hands to my mouth in delight. Sternly the security guard says, “You’re in New York City, kid. You can’t just leave a backpack on the ground for your proposal.” “It’s actually called a promposal,” Peter corrects, and the security guard gives him a look. “Sorry. Can I just have the bear back?” He spots me then. “Tell him Sleepless in Seattle is your favorite movie, Lara Jean!” I rush over. “Sir, it’s my favorite movie. Please don’t kick him out.” The security guard is trying not to smile. “I wasn’t going to kick him out,” he says to me. To Peter he says, “Just be more aware next time. In New York, we’re vigilant. If we see something, we say something, do you feel me? This is not whatever little country town you guys are from. This is New York City. We do not play around here.” Both Peter and I nod, and the security guard walks away. As soon as he’s gone, Peter and I look at each other and break out into giddy laughter. “Somebody reported my book bag!” he says. “My promposal got fucked.” I take the teddy bear out of his bag and hug it to my chest. I’m so happy I don’t even tell him not to cuss. “I love it.

Instead the only place I got into was the local community college, where I live in a suite in what's not-so-jokingly referred to as the Virgin Vault, with a practicing witch, a klepto, and a girl whose family's religion doesn't allow her to speak to men outside of their faith. I keep assuring Mom it's cool. Another one of our suite mates came out last semester as a lesbian (to the surprise of none of us but herself), and a fifth is sleeping with a guy who's in an actual motorcycle gang. "See, Mom?" I'd told her. "Way better than Harvard. There's so much more diversity!" Like so much of my jokes, she didn't find that one funny.

Pen, you really shouldn’t use the same password for all your accounts. I’ve headed off three hackers in the last week who would’ve gotten into your PayPal, bank, and electric company accounts.” “What?” Penelope was obviously confused at the change in subject, but Cade merely relaxed back in his seat and kept his eyes on Beth as she fidgeted uncomfortably. “Using PenisGod isn’t a good username for things like Amazon and eBay. And you really need to delete your craigslist account because calling yourself a penis god is only attracting weirdos. You probably don’t even remember you had that old ad up when you were trying to sell your bicycle. Well, it’s one of the most clicked-on ads on the site for San Antonio. I’m not exaggerating either. You had four hundred and sixty-nine messages—and I’m not even going to comment on the sixty-nine thing. But three hundred and fourteen of those contained pictures of men’s dicks. Fifty-seven contained marriage proposals, most from overseas; twenty-seven were from women who were interested in a threesome with you, fifty-five were spam, people trying to get you to click on links or buy some crap product, and the remaining sixteen emails were religious in nature, telling you to repent for your soul.” “I should probably be pissed you got into my account, but I trust you, so I’m not. But it’s not penis god!” Penelope exclaimed huffily. “It’s Pen IS God.” Cade burst out laughing. “Seriously, sis? Penis god? Just wait until the guys hear this!

I mean that certain fictions, chiefly Conan Doyle, Stevenson, but many others also, laid out a template that was more powerful than any local documentary account - the presences that they created, or "figures" if you prefer it, like Rabbi Loew's Golem, became too much and too fast to be contained within the conventional limits of that fiction. They got out into the stream of time, the ether; they escaped into the labyrinth. They achieved an independent existence. The writers were mediums; they articulated, they gave a shape to some pattern of energy that was already present. They got in on the curve of time, so that by writing, by holding off the inhibiting reflex of the rational mind, they were able to propose a text that was prophetic.

Now, where will I come by a book on etiquette? You wouldn't know if his lordship's got on win the library, would you, love?' Her colour somewhat heightened, she disengaged herself from his embrace, saying: 'No, but I shouldn't think so. He has one about ranks and dignitaries and orders of precedency: is that what you mean?' 'Nay, that's no use to me! I want one that'll tell me how to behave correctly.' 'I am well aware that you are trying to roast me,' said Anthea, resigned to this fate, 'and also that you don't stand in any need of a book on etiquette - though one of *propriety* wouldn't come amiss!' 'I'm not trying to roast you!' declared Hugo. 'I want to know how long you must be acquainted with a lass before it's polite to propose to her!

When text messaging first came about, it was still a one-to-one negotiation: I propose an idea or something to you, you exchange back to me. When you get to 2010/2011, this new model of communication that exists is that you put something out there into the world and then you wait for a reaction. Now, if you look at the depression rates amongst young men, the correlation between these two things is very measurably concise, and amongst young women it’s insane. I’m not necessarily an empiricist, I believe in nuance and subtext and context, but I think that if there’s evidence like that, I mean — I’m sure we could really map depression on to the sale of avocados, too — but I do feel like that’s got something to do with it and it kind of freaks me out.

ministers were at Waterloo Station, already in the train for Southampton, the news came through that Reynaud had resigned. The French government had rejected the proposed union, and the war was decided. Pétain had been appointed premier. ‘It’s all over,’ de Gaulle told Monnet on the phone. ‘There is no sense in pressing further. I am coming back.’ Churchill got off the train and went home. On that same night, 120 German bombers attacked England for the first time. Nine British civilians were killed, the first. Paul Reynaud could have been the same kind of leader as Churchill. He regarded Hitler as the Genghis Khan of the modern age, he demanded total dedication and promised that his government would ‘summon together and lead all the forces of France’ in continuing the

If it helps you, I would like to be a partner to you, Daedalus said. I know I am an imperfect substitute for whoever you have lost, but we are both alone and I think we could help each other. Sorrows can be shared as easily as games of Go. She reached for Emily’s hand and she got down on one knee. I would like to propose to you, leave the Fog Lands, come to Verdant Valley. Do you mean marriage? It doesn’t have to have a name Daedalus said it can have a name if you want it to have a name. What would it mean then? It means a very long game of Go played without stops. In the past, Emily had many reasons for not wishing to marry. Among them her belief that marriage was conventional and a trap for women. She had rejected 2 engagements in her previous life. But at this juncture she could see the facility of embarking on a different course.

I saw the power this respect holds in traditional cultures on our family sabbatical to Thailand and Bali. My daughter Caroline studied Balinese dance for two months with a wonderful teacher, and he proposed to stage a farewell recital for her at his school, which is also his home. When we arrived, they set up the stage, got the music ready, and then started to dress Caroline. They took a very long time dressing a six-year-old whose average attention span is about five minutes. First they draped her in a silk sarong, with a beautiful chain around her waist. Then they wrapped embroidered silk fifteen times around her chest. They put on gold armbands and bracelets. They arranged her hair and put golden flowers in it. They put on more makeup than a six-year-old could dream of. Meanwhile, I sat there getting impatient, the proud father eager to take pictures. It was getting dark. “When are they going to finish dressing her and get on with the recital?” Thirty minutes, forty-five minutes. Finally the teacher’s wife came out and took off her own golden necklace and put it around my daughter’s neck. Caroline was thrilled. When I let go of my impatience, I realized what a wonderful thing was happening. In Bali, whether a dancer is six or twenty-six, she is equally honored and respected. She is an artist who performs not for the audience but for the gods. The level of respect that Caroline was given as an artist allowed her to dance beautifully. Imagine how you would feel if you were given that respect as a child. We need to learn respect for ourselves, for one another, to value our children through valuing their bodies, their feelings, their minds. Children may be limited in what they can do, but their spirit isn’t limited.

Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great.

HOW DO THEY RECEIVE ME? They call me “little girl,” “dear daughter,” “dear child.” Probably if I was of their generation they would behave differently with me. Calmly and as equals. Without joy and amazement, which are the gifts of the meeting between youth and age. It is a very important point, that then they were young and now, as they remember, they are old. They remember across their life—across forty years. They open their world to me cautiously, to spare me: “I got married right after the war. I hid behind my husband. Behind the humdrum, behind baby diapers. I wanted to hide. My mother also begged: ‘Be quiet! Be quiet! Don’t tell.’ I fulfilled my duty to the Motherland, but it makes me sad that I was there. That I know about it…And you are very young. I feel sorry for you…” I often see how they sit and listen to themselves. To the sound of their own soul. They check it against the words. After long years a person understands that this was life, but now it’s time to resign yourself and get ready to go. You don’t want to, and it’s too bad to vanish just like that. Casually. In passing. And when you look back you feel a wish not only to tell about your life, but also to fathom the mystery of life itself. To answer your own question: Why did all this happen to me? You gaze at everything with a parting and slightly sorrowful look…Almost from the other side…No longer any need to deceive anyone or yourself. It’s already clear to you that without the thought of death it is impossible to make out anything in a human being. Its mystery hangs over everything. War is an all too intimate experience. And as boundless as human life… Once a woman (a pilot) refused to meet with me. She explained on the phone: “I can’t…I don’t want to remember. I spent three years at war…And for three years I didn’t feel myself a woman. My organism was dead. I had no periods, almost no woman’s desires. And I was beautiful…When my future husband proposed to me…that was already in Berlin, by the Reichstag…He said: ‘The war’s over. We’re still alive. We’re lucky. Let’s get married.’ I wanted to cry. To shout. To hit him! What do you mean, married? Now? In the midst of all this—married? In the midst of black soot and black bricks…Look at me…Look how I am! Begin by making me a woman: give me flowers, court me, say beautiful words. I want it so much! I wait for it! I almost hit him…I was about to…He had one cheek burned, purple, and I see: he understood everything, tears are running down that cheek. On the still-fresh scars…And I myself can’t believe I’m saying to him: ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ “Forgive me…I can’t…” I understood her.

And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtain'd a charter, the company being increased to one hundred: this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges.

I am absolutely positive they’re wrong.” “Why?” “Because you belong to me, that’s why.” She swept out her free hand. “We’re perfect for each other. I love you. Why do you need arcanematch.com? What’s that woman they claim they found for you got that I don’t have?” The dangerous energy that had swirled around him shifted with disconcerting abruptness into sensual hunger. “Interesting question,” he said. “The answer is nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. She’s got absolutely nothing that I don’t have. Don’t bother to set up a date with her because there will be three of us there and I don’t think she’s going to feel real comfortable chatting with me, do you?” “Don’t know,” he said. “It would certainly make for an unusual first date.” “Skip the snappy repartee. I am dead serious, Jake Salter Jones.” His mouth tweaked up at the corners. Heat burned in his eyes. “About me?” “About you. And me. We’re a match. Can’t you see that?” “Yes.” “What’s more, there’s no frickin’ way those arcanematch.com people could have found anyone who will love you more than I do.

I WASN’T AWARE THE LADIES got a turn at the proposing. I thought it was up to us stalwart lads to risk rejection and to do the actual asking.” “We can take first crack,” the earl said, his finger tracing the rim of his glass, “but I took first through fifth, and that means it’s her turn.” “I’m sure you’ll explain this mystery to me, as I hope at some point to put an end to my dreary bachelor existence,” Dev murmured, taking a long swallow of his drink. The earl smiled almost tenderly. “With Anna, I proposed, explaining to her she should marry me because I am titled and wealthy and so on.” “That would be persuasive to most any lady I know, except the lady you want.” “Precisely. So I went on to demonstrate she should marry me because I am, though the term will make you blush, lusty enough to bring her a great deal of pleasure.” “I’d marry you for that reason,” Dev rejoined, “or I would if, well… It’s a good argument.” “It is, if you are a man, but on Anna, the brilliance of my logic was lost. So I proposed again and suggested I could make her troubles disappear, then failed utterly to make good on my word.” “Bad luck, that.

Then I got to the point: “I don’t think any other retail company in the world could do what I’m going to propose to you. It’s simple. It won’t cost us anything. And I believe it would just work magic, absolute magic on our customers, and our sales would escalate, and I think we’d just shoot past our Kmart friends in a year or two and probably Sears as well. I want you to take a pledge with me. I want you to promise that whenever you come within ten feet of a customer, you will look him in the eye, greet him, and ask him if you can help him. Now I know some of you are just naturally shy, and maybe don’t want to bother folks. But if you’ll go along with me on this, it would, I’m sure, help you become a leader. It would help your personality develop, you would become more outgoing, and in time you might become manager of that store, you might become a department manager, you might become a district manager, or whatever you choose to be in the company. It will do wonders for you. I guarantee it. Now, I want you to raise your right hand—and remember what we say at Wal-Mart, that a promise we make is a promise we keep—and I want you to repeat after me: From this day forward, I solemnly promise and declare that every time a customer comes within ten feet of me, I will smile, look him in the eye, and greet him. So help me Sam.

During his time working for the head of strategy at the bank in the early 1990s, Musk had been asked to take a look at the company’s third-world debt portfolio. This pool of money went by the depressing name of “less-developed country debt,” and Bank of Nova Scotia had billions of dollars of it. Countries throughout South America and elsewhere had defaulted in the years prior, forcing the bank to write down some of its debt value. Musk’s boss wanted him to dig into the bank’s holdings as a learning experiment and try to determine how much the debt was actually worth. While pursuing this project, Musk stumbled upon what seemed like an obvious business opportunity. The United States had tried to help reduce the debt burden of a number of developing countries through so-called Brady bonds, in which the U.S. government basically backstopped the debt of countries like Brazil and Argentina. Musk noticed an arbitrage play. “I calculated the backstop value, and it was something like fifty cents on the dollar, while the actual debt was trading at twenty-five cents,” Musk said. “This was like the biggest opportunity ever, and nobody seemed to realize it.” Musk tried to remain cool and calm as he rang Goldman Sachs, one of the main traders in this market, and probed around about what he had seen. He inquired as to how much Brazilian debt might be available at the 25-cents price. “The guy said, ‘How much do you want?’ and I came up with some ridiculous number like ten billion dollars,” Musk said. When the trader confirmed that was doable, Musk hung up the phone. “I was thinking that they had to be fucking crazy because you could double your money. Everything was backed by Uncle Sam. It was a no-brainer.” Musk had spent the summer earning about fourteen dollars an hour and getting chewed out for using the executive coffee machine, among other status infractions, and figured his moment to shine and make a big bonus had arrived. He sprinted up to his boss’s office and pitched the opportunity of a lifetime. “You can make billions of dollars for free,” he said. His boss told Musk to write up a report, which soon got passed up to the bank’s CEO, who promptly rejected the proposal, saying the bank had been burned on Brazilian and Argentinian debt before and didn’t want to mess with it again. “I tried to tell them that’s not the point,” Musk said. “The point is that it’s fucking backed by Uncle Sam. It doesn’t matter what the South Americans do. You cannot lose unless you think the U.S. Treasury is going to default. But they still didn’t do it, and I was stunned. Later in life, as I competed against the banks, I would think back to this moment, and it gave me confidence. All the bankers did was copy what everyone else did. If everyone else ran off a bloody cliff, they’d run right off a cliff with them. If there was a giant pile of gold sitting in the middle of the room and nobody was picking it up, they wouldn’t pick it up, either.” In

At a time when moguls vied to impress people with their possessions, Rockefeller preferred comfort to refinement. His house was bare of hunting trophies, shelves of richly bound but unread books, or other signs of conspicuous consumption. Rockefeller molded his house for his own use, not to awe strangers. As he wrote of the Forest Hill fireplaces in 1877: “I have seen a good many fireplaces here [and] don’t think the character of our rooms will warrant going into the expenditures for fancy tiling and all that sort of thing that we find in some of the extravagant houses here. What we want is a sensible, plain arrangement in keeping with our rooms.”3 It took time for the family to adjust to Forest Hill. The house had been built as a hotel, and it showed: It had an office to the left of the front door, a dining room with small tables straight ahead, upstairs corridors lined with cubicle-sized rooms, and porches wrapped around each floor. The verandas, also decorated in resort style, were cluttered with bamboo furniture. It was perhaps this arrangement that tempted John and Cettie to run Forest Hill as a paying club for friends, and they got a dozen to come and stay during the summer of 1877. This venture proved no less of a debacle than the proposed sanatorium. As “club guests,” many visitors expected Cettie to function as their unlikely hostess. Some didn’t know they were in a commercial establishment and were shocked upon returning home to receive bills for their stay.

One of the commonly accepted narratives of the Internet is that it was built to survive a nuclear attack. This enrages many of its architects, including Bob Taylor and Larry Roberts, who insistently and repeatedly debunked this origin myth. However, like many of the innovations of the digital age, there were multiple causes and origins. Different players have different perspectives. Some who were higher in the chain of command than Taylor and Roberts, and who have more knowledge of why funding decisions were actually made, have begun to debunk the debunking. Let’s try to peel away the layers. There is no doubt that when Paul Baran proposed a packet-switched network in his RAND reports, nuclear survivability was one of his rationales. “It was necessary to have a strategic system that could withstand a first attack and then be able to return the favor in kind,” he explained. “The problem was that we didn’t have a survivable communications system, and so Soviet missiles aimed at U.S. missiles would take out the entire telephone-communication system.”76 That led to an unstable hair-trigger situation; a nation was more likely to launch a preemptive strike if it feared that its communications and ability to respond would not survive an attack. “The origin of packet switching is very much Cold War,” he said. “I got very interested in the subject of how the hell you build a reliable command and control system.”77 So in 1960 Baran set about devising “a communication network which will allow several hundred major communications stations to talk with one another after an enemy attack.”78

Marry me.” A statement. Not a question. It came again. “Marry. Me.” His eyes burned into mine. I breathed in, my ears ringing. My pulse sped up, my heart raced, I was trying to remember exactly what breathing meant. I was wet, and I was gasping. “I want you. I want that, what they had today. I want it all, and I want it with you. I want you, want you to be my wife. I’ve got a ring, I’ll give it to you right now if you’ll say yes.” With every word, his hands tightened on my hips, desperate, crazy, longing. “I had this all planned out, so much smoother and romantic and everything you deserve. But my head’s been spinning since yesterday, when I saw my best friend steal a van to go meet his new family. And all I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is exactly that. Exactly you. And when I walked up those stairs, and heard the shower go on, and knew you were in here all naked and wet and waiting for me, I knew I couldn’t wait another day, another hour, another minute, without asking you to be my wife. So. Marry. Me.” He knelt. Christ on a crutch, he knelt on the shower floor, where he had knelt countless times before . . . ahem . . . took my hand, and repeated those words again. Finally, with a question mark at the end. “Marry me?” And in that moment, I realized all the worrying, all the hand wringing and wonder ponder, all the thoughts about who says what’s right for a couple, and when is it too soon, and when is it the right time, and if it ain’t broke don’t blah blah blah. Fuck all that noise. It wasn’t about what was right for other couples, it was about what was right for us. Simon and me. Because when Wallbanger kneels down and asks you to be his wife, it’s not really something you need to think too long on. Funny thing about getting proposed to in a shower. You can’t tell which is water and which is tears.

He began, “There is absolutely no doubt in the mind of a very overwhelming number of Americans, that the best immediate defense of the United States is the success of Britain in defending itself. “Now, what I am trying to do is eliminate the dollar sign. That is something brand new in the thoughts of everybody in this room, I think—get rid of the silly, foolish, old dollar sign. “Well, let me give you an illustration,” he said, and then deployed an analogy that distilled his idea into something both familiar and easy to grasp, something that would resonate with the quotidian experience of countless Americans. “Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have got a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away: but, my Heaven, if he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him put out the fire. Now, what do I do? I don’t say to him before that operation, ‘Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have got to pay me $15 for it.’ What is the transaction that goes on? I don’t want $15—I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. All right. If it goes through the fire all right, intact, without any damage to it, he gives it back to me and thanks me very much for the use of it. But suppose it gets smashed up—holes in it—during the fire; we don’t have to have too much formality about it, but I say to him, ‘I was glad to lend you that hose; I see I can’t use it any more, it’s all smashed up.’ “He says ‘How many feet of it were there?’ “I tell him, ‘There were 150 feet of it.’ “He says, ‘All right, I will replace it.’ ” That became the kernel of an act introduced in Congress soon afterward, numbered H.R. 1776 and titled “A Bill Further to Promote the Defense of the United States, and for Other Purposes,” soon to receive its lasting byname, the Lend-Lease Act. Central to the proposal was the idea that it was in the best interests of the United States to provide Britain, or any ally, with all the aid it needed, whether it could pay or not.

As soon as one considers a system abstractly and theoretically, one puts himself, in effect, on the plane of the universal, thus, of the infinite. That is why reading the Hegelian system is so comforting. I remember having experienced a great feeling of calm on reading Hegel in the impersonal framework of the Bibliotheque Nationale in August 1940. But once I got into the street again, into my life, out of the system, beneath a real sky, the system was no longer of any use to me: what it had offered me, under a show of the infinite, was the consolations of death; and I again wanted to live in the midst of living men. I think that, inversely, existentialism does not offer to the reader the consolations of an abstract evasion: existentialism proposes no evasion. On the contrary, its ethics is experienced in the truth of life, and it then appears as the only proposition of salvation which one can address to men. Taking on its own account Descartes' revolt against the evil genius, the pride of the thinking reed in the face of the universe which crushes him, it asserts that, despite his limits, through them, it is up to each one to fulfill his existence as an absolute. Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive. There is a very old saying which goes: "Do what you must, come what may." That amounts to saying in a different way that the result is not external to the good will which fulfills itself in aiming at it. If it came to be that each man did what he must, existence would be saved in each one without there being any need of dreaming of a paradise where all would be reconciled in death.

entire project would be kicked back, and he would need to start the submission process again. The proposal had to be perfect this time. If not, he was sure his competitors would swoop in on this opportunity to launch their own devices. He had spent the last two years on this project, and he was so close—only twenty-seven days left to make all the necessary corrections. He could not afford distractions now. Too much was riding on this; his name was riding on this. He remembered what his father always told him: “No one remembers the name of the person who came in second.” These words motivated him all through high school to earn a full scholarship to Boston University, where he earned his BA and master’s degrees in computer science, and then his PhD in robotics engineering at MIT. Those degrees had driven him to start his own business, Vinchi Medical Engineering, and at age thirty-four, he still lived by those words to keep the company on top. The intercom buzzed. “Your conference call is ready on line one, Mr. Vinchi.” “What the hell were you guys thinking?” Jon barked as soon as he got on the line. Not waiting for them to answer, Jon continued, “Whose bright idea was it to submit my name to participate at this event—or any event, for that matter? This type of thing has your name written all over it, Drew. Is this your doing?” As always, Trent said it the way it was. “If you had attended the last meeting, Jon, you would have been brought up to date for this and would have had the chance to voice any opposition to your participation.” It was a moot point, Jon knew he’d missed their last meeting—actually, their last few meetings—due to his own business needs. But this stunt wasn’t solely about the meeting, and he knew it. “Trent, I have always supported the decisions you guys have made in the past, but I am not supporting this one. What makes you think I will even show? I don’t have time for this nonsense.” “Time is valuable to all of us, Jon. We all have our own companies to run besides supporting what is needed for Takes One. Either you’re fully invested in this, or you’re not. There are times when it takes more than

It takes me nearly a half hour to make what should be a ten-minute trip, and by the time I pull up in front of my house, my hands are cramped from my death grip on the steering wheel. It’s not until I step out of the car, my legs feeling like they’re made of Jell-O, that I notice Ryder’s Durango parked in front of me. “Where the hell have you been?” he calls out from the front porch, just as I make a mad dash to join him there. His face is red, his brow furrowed over stormy eyes. “They let us out an hour ago!” I am really not in the mood for his crap. “Yeah, so?” “So I was worried sick. A tornado touched down over by the Roberts’ place.” “I know! I mean, I didn’t know it touched down, but I was still at school when the sirens went off.” I drop my ridiculously heavy backpack and shake the rain from my hair. “Is everyone okay over there?” He runs a visibly trembling hand through his hair. “Yeah, it just tore up their fence or something. Jesus, Jemma!” “What is wrong with you? Why are you even here?” “I’m supposed to stay over here, remember?” “What…now?” I look past him and notice an army-green duffel bag by the front door. He’s got a key--he could’ve just let himself in. “I figured now’s as good a time as any. We need to put sandbags in front of the back door before it gets any worst out, and then we’ve got to do something about the barn. It’s awful close to the creek, and the water’s rising fast.” “Well, what do you propose we do?” “Don’t you keep your guns out there? We should move them inside. And your dad has some expensive tools in his workshop--we should get those, too.” I let out a sigh. He’s got a point. “Can I at least go inside first? Put my stuff away?” “Sure?” He moves to the edge of the porch and gazes up at the sky. “It looks like we might get a break in a few minutes, once this band moves through. Might as well wait for it.” I dig out my keys and unlock the door. I can hear the dogs howling their heads off the minute I step inside. “I’ve gotta let Beau and Sadie out,” I say over my shoulder as I head toward the kitchen. “Take your stuff to the guest room and get settled, why don’t you?” That’s my attempt at reestablishing the fact that I’m in charge here, not him. This is my house. My stuff. My life.

Is power like the vis viva and the quantite d’avancement? That is, is it conserved by the universe, or is it like shares of a stock, which may have great value one day, and be worthless the next? If power is like stock shares, then it follows that the immense sum thereof lately lost by B[olingbroke] has vanished like shadows in sunlight. For no matter how much wealth is lost in stock crashes, it never seems to turn up, but if power is conserved, then B’s must have gone somewhere. Where is it? Some say ‘twas scooped up by my Lord R, who hid it under a rock, lest my Lord M come from across the sea and snatch it away. My friends among the Whigs say that any power lost by a Tory is infallibly and insensibly distributed among all the people, but no matter how assiduously I search the lower rooms of the clink for B’s lost power, I cannot seem to find any there, which explodes that argument, for there are assuredly very many people in those dark salons. I propose a novel theory of power, which is inspired by . . . the engine for raising water by fire. As a mill makes flour, a loom makes cloth and a forge makes steel, so we are assured this engine shall make power. If the backers of this device speak truly, and I have no reason to deprecate their honesty, it proves that power is not a conserved quantity, for of such quantities, it is never possible to make more. The amount of power in the world, it follows, is ever increasing, and the rate of increase grows ever faster as more of these engines are built. A man who hordes power is therefore like a miser who sits on a heap of coins in a realm where the currency is being continually debased by the production of more coins than the market can bear. So that what was a great fortune, when first he raked it together, insensibly becomes a slag heap, and is found to be devoid of value. When at last he takes it to the marketplace to be spent. Thus my Lord B and his vaunted power hoard what is true of him is likely to be true of his lackeys, particularly his most base and slavish followers such as Mr. Charles White. This varmint has asserted that he owns me. He fancies that to own a man is to have power, yet he has got nothing by claiming to own me, while I who was supposed to be rendered powerless, am now writing for a Grub Street newspaper that is being perused by you, esteemed reader.

You mean you’re not going to kiss my wrist again,” I said. “But that’s all right, because I am going to kiss you.” And I did. If I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars. I was the soaring spaces between the spires of the cathedral, the solemn breath of chimneys, a whispered prayer upon the winter wind. I was silence, and I was music, one clear transcendent chord rising toward Heaven. I believed, then, that I would have risen bodily into the sky but for the anchor of his hand in my hair and his round soft perfect mouth. No Heaven but this! I thought, and I knew that it was true to a standard even St. Clare could not have argued. Then it was done, and he was holding both my hands between his and saying, “In some ballad or Porphyrian romance, we would run off together.” I looked quickly at his face, trying to discern whether he was proposing we do just that. The resolve written in his eyes said no, but I could see exactly where I would have to push, and how hard, to break that resolve. It would be shockingly easy, but I found I did not wish it. My Kiggs could not behave so shabbily and still remain my Kiggs. Some other part of him would break, along with his resolve, and I did not see a way to make it whole again. The jagged edge of it would stab at him all his life. If we were to go forward from here, we would proceed not rashly, not thoughtlessly, but Kiggs-and-Phina fashion. That was the only way it could work. “I think I’ve heard that ballad,” I said. “It’s beautiful but it ends sadly.” He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. “Is it less sad that I’m going to ask you not to kiss me again?” “Yes. Because it’s just for now. The day will come.” “I want to believe that.” “Believe it.” He took a shaky breath. “I’ve got to go.” “I know.” I let him go inside first; my presence was not appropriate for tonight’s ritual. I leaned against the parapet, watching my breath puff gray against the blackening sky as if I were a dragon whispering smoke into the wind. The conceit made me smile, and then an idea caught me. Cautiously, avoiding ice, I hauled myself up onto the parapet. It had a wide balustrade, adequate for sitting, but I did not intend merely to sit. With comical slowness, like Comonot attempting stealth, I drew my feet up onto the railing. I removed my shoes, wanting to feel the stone beneath my feet.

Already uneasy over the foundations of their subject, mathematicians got a solid dose of ridicule from a clergyman, Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753). Bishop Berkeley, in his caustic essay 'The Analyst, or a Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician,' derided those mathematicians who were ever ready to criticize theology as being based upon unsubstantiated faith, yet who embraced the calculus in spite of its foundational weaknesses. Berkeley could not resist letting them have it: 'All these points [of mathematics], I say, are supposed and believed by certain rigorous exactors of evidence in religion, men who pretend to believe no further than they can see... But he who can digest a second or third fluxion, a second or third differential, need not, methinks, be squeamish about any point in divinity.' As if that were not devastating enough, Berkeley added the wonderfully barbed comment: 'And what are these fluxions? The velocities of evanescent increments. And what are these same evanescent increments? They are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, not yet nothing. May we not call them the ghosts of departed quantities...?' Sadly, the foundations of the calculus had come to this - to 'ghosts of departed quantities.' One imagines hundreds of mathematicians squirming restlessly under this sarcastic phrase. Gradually the mathematical community had to address this vexing problem. Throughout much of the eighteenth century, they had simply been having too much success - and too much fun - in exploiting the calculus to stop and examine its underlying principles. But growing internal concerns, along with Berkeley's external sniping, left them little choice. The matter had to be resolved. Thus we find a string of gifted mathematicians working on the foundational questions. The process of refining the idea of 'limit' was an excruciating one, for the concept is inherently quite deep, requiring a precision of thought and an appreciation of the nature of the real number system that is by no means easy to come by. Gradually, though, mathematicians chipped away at this idea. By 1821, the Frenchman Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789-1857) had proposed this definition: 'When the values successively attributed to a particular variable approach indefinitely a fixed value, so as to end by differing from it by as little as one wishes, this latter is called the limit of all the others.

Not all monotheisms are exactly the same at the moment. They're all based on the same illusion. They're all plagiarisms of each other, but there is one in particular that at the moment is proposing a serious menace not just to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but to quite a lot of other freedoms too. And this is the religion that exhibits the horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness, and self-pity. I am talking about militant Islam. Globally, it's a gigantic power. It controls an enormous amount of oil wealth, several large countries and states, and with an enormous fortune it's pumping the ideologies of Wahhabism and Salafism around the world, poisoning societies where it goes, ruining the minds of children, stultifying the young in its madrassas, training people in violence, making a cult of death and suicide and murder. That's what it does globally. It's quite strong. In our societies it poses as a cringing minority, whose faith you might offend, who deserves all the protection that a small and vulnerable group might need. Now, it makes quite large claims for itself, doesn't it? It says it's the Final Revelation. It says that God spoke to one illiterate businessman in the Arabian Peninsula three times through an archangel, and that the resultant material—which as you can see as you read it is largely plagiarized ineptly from the Old and The New Testament—is to be accepted as the Final Revelation and as the final and unalterable one, and that those who do not accept this revelation are fit to be treated as cattle infidels, potential chattel, slaves and victims. Well, I tell you what, I don't think Muhammad ever heard those voices. I don't believe it. And the likelihood that I am right—as opposed to the likelihood that a businessman who couldn't read had bits of the Old and The New Testament re-dictated to him by an archangel—I think puts me much more near the position of being objectively correct. But who is the one under threat? The person who promulgates this and says I'd better listen because if I don't I'm in danger, or me who says, "No, I think this is so silly you can even publish a cartoon about it"? And up go the placards and the yells and the howls and the screams—this is in London, this is in Toronto, this is in New York, it's right in our midst now—"Behead those who cartoon Islam." Do they get arrested for hate speech? No. Might I get in trouble for saying what I just said about the prophet Muhammad? Yes, I might. Where are your priorities, ladies and gentlemen? You're giving away what is most precious in your own society, and you're giving it away without a fight, and you're even praising the people who want to deny you the right to resist it. Shame on you while you do this. Make the best use of the time you've got left.

Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great. A few days later, she asked me if I’d asked her dad for his blessing. I was not familiar with this custom or tradition, which led to a pretty heated argument about people who are raised in a barn or down on a riverbank. She finally convinced me that it was a formality that was a prerequisite for our marriage, so I decided to go along with it. I arrived one night at her dad’s house and asked if I could talk with him. I told him about the potted plant and the proposal to his daughter, and he pretty much had the same bewildered look on his face that she’d had. He answered quite politely by saying no. “I think you should wait a bit, like maybe a couple of years,” he said. I wasn’t prepared for that response. I didn’t handle it well. I don’t remember all the details of what was said next because I was uncomfortable and angry. I do remember saying, “Well, you are a preacher so I am going to give you some scripture.” I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:9, which says: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” That didn’t go over very well. I informed him that I’d treated his daughter with respect and he still wouldn’t budge. I then told him we were going to get married with him or without him, and I left in a huff. Over the next few days, I did a lot of soul-searching and Missy did a lot of crying. I finally decided that it was time for me to become a man. Genesis 2:24 says: “For this reason [creation of a woman] a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” God is the architect of marriage, and I’d decided that my family would have God as its foundation. It was time for me to leave and cleave, as they say. My dad told me once that my mom would cuddle us when we were in his nest, but there would be a day when it would be his job to kick me out. He didn’t have to kick me out, nor did he have to ask me, “Who’s a man?” Through prayer and patience, Missy’s parents eventually came around, and we were more than ready to make our own nest.

Taking hold of the ladder, she began to climb, stopping when she got to eye level with him. That, however, turned out to be a mistake, because the moment her eyes met his, she forgot everything—even the lines she’d just committed to memory—because nothing else mattered to her except . . . him. “You wrote a scene with a strong heroine in it, and one where the hero gets dangled by his feet.” “I did.” “Why?” “Because I couldn’t figure out a better way to let you know I love you, the real you, without dangling from my feet and letting you cut me down.” Lucetta’s eyes immediately took to turning a little misty. “You . . . love me?” “I do, but before we continue this, I have to admit that hanging upside down is far less pleasant than I imagined, so if you’d be so kind, I really do need you to get me down from here.” Realizing he was completely serious, but also realizing if she cut him down he’d go plummeting to the hard floor and most likely suffer a horrible injury—which certainly wouldn’t have the night turning out well at all—Lucetta looked to the side of the stage and caught Mr. Skukman’s eye. As he, along with a good number of backstage hands, walked across the boards, whispers began circulating around the theater, growing louder after Bram got released and rose to his feet. Smiling ever so charmingly at the audience, he presented them with a small bow right before he took center stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I must beg your indulgence for just a few more minutes because you see . . . I am . . . Mr. Grimstone.” The whispers ceased immediately. Bram smiled. “I’m Mr. Grimstone, alias Mr. Bram Haverstein, and I’ve come here tonight, with all of you as my witnesses, to proclaim my love for Miss Lucetta Plum, and . . .” He dropped to one knee. “Ask her to do me the very great honor of becoming my wife.” He reached out and took hold of Lucetta’s hand. “Miss Lucetta Plum, I am completely and irrevocably in love with you, and just so we’re clear, I’m in love with the real you, not the person you turn into when you take to the stage. I love the idea that you’re completely oblivious to your unusual beauty, can outrun a goat, and . . . you fascinate me as no one ever has. I’m asking you, in front of all of these people who will probably never buy another one of my books again if you turn me down . . .” He stopped talking and turned his head to the audience. “And just to remind everyone, I will have another novel releasing soon, although I haven’t decided on a title just yet, something about a strong-willed lady, no doubt, or . . .” “You’re getting distracted,” Lucetta interrupted. Bram immediately returned his gaze to hers. “Quite right, but . . . I’ve lost my train of thought.” “You were just about to the part where you were going to ask her to marry you,” a voice called out, a voice that sounded remarkably like Abigail’s. “Thank you, Grandmother,” he called back. “You’re welcome, darling. And just to remind you, I’m not getting any younger, so you might want to hurry this proposal business along.” Grinning, Bram shook his head, brought Lucetta’s fingers to his lips, and then sobered as he held her gaze. “I love you, Lucetta, more than I ever imagined I could, and I would be so incredibly honored if you’d agree to be my wife.” For a second, Lucetta was unable to answer him because her heart had taken to rising in her throat, but after drawing in a deep breath, she managed to nod, ignoring the tears that had filled her eyes and were blurring her vision. “I would be honored to become your wife, especially since—I’m not sure when this happened, but—I’m in love with you as well.” Bram’s hold on her hand tightened for just a second, and then he was sliding a ring on her finger she hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Before she could take even a second to admire what felt like an enormous rock on her hand, he was standing instead of kneeling, looking intently into her eyes, before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. The

This was not real life – it was agonizing torment. He didn’t have the strength of will to reject me, much less to find a way out of our painful predicament. His tenderness toward me remained constant; at our meetings he was just as affectionate and loving, but I realized how impotent and exhausted he was, even though he assured me of the opposite and often asserted, as if to comfort himself and me, “It can’t get any worse!” We both were aware of how much fate and other people threatened us: he had given in to them, and I could resist no further. We were both weary, he more than I. He didn’t talk about what was happening at home; but from his gloomy look, I could conclude that he was being subjected to persecution or entreaties. Subsequently, I learned that both were applied and tormented him equally. I didn’t want to wrest a confession from him. My own situation became more painful and difficult by the day; I felt, even though I didn’t admit it to myself, that the support I got from his presence was growing noticeably weaker every day and gradually disappearing. Once I even proposed that we end our relationship and give in completely to the people who were trying to keep us apart. This suggestion, made so abruptly and firmly, distressed him and aroused him from the moral lethargy into which he had sunk. All of a sudden he rebelled heatedly, reproached me for my weakness and loss of hope, reminded me of all our promises and oaths, and mercilessly accused me of not loving him any more. This fiery burst of passion totally disarmed me; I was ashamed of my lack of faith, reproached only myself, begged him to forgive me, and swore never to doubt him again.

Get down here and put your head on my shoulder. I'd be real pissed if you got yourself killed at this point in my proposal, and especially after all I went through to get here before the month was up.

The Department of Basic Education wants to take on more responsibilities with Grade R, despite their poor performance. This seems irrational at first, but it makes sense when you look at their proposed budget. DBE would get an additional 20 billion to implement and staff the venture. Just like the education system and the government as a whole, it is clear that taxpayers will shoulder the burden, while parents and children will be the ones who suffer the most. Only politicians, government officials, and their associates will benefit, as they shamelessly drain the country's resources for their personal gain.

You know Jules loves you. If you have to propose, then propose. Just buy a ring that looks nothing like the ones you got for Bonnie or Mel Honeycook—” “Oh my fucking god!” “—and take her on a helicopter ride.” “Julia’s afraid of heights.” “—or maybe a hot air balloon ride.” “What did I just say?

you haven’t managed to catch so much as a goldfish since we got here! Even if I were to believe that you have seen a mermaid — which, frankly, I don’t — how in heaven do you propose to catch the thing?” Dad pulls at his net. “I haven’t got the whole plan figured out yet, have I? I’ve only just seen them. A group of them. Swimming in the deep water. One of them had gold stars shining in her tail. There was a merman too, with long black hair and a shiny silver tail. A merman! For God’s sake, Maureen!” He grips her arm again. “I’m telling the truth! You’ll see I am.” Mom pulls away and turns to me. “Come on, Mandy. Help me get some dinner. I’ve had enough of your father and his daydreams for one afternoon.” I follow Mom as we pick our way through undergrowth, scavenging for food like vagrants.

senator decided that he didn’t want to be the bad guy in the story. He spent Saturday huddling with West, sketching out a fresh offer for a climate bill, assembling a compromise he deemed worthy. When West passed along the document to Petrella and Deese, he told them that some fine-tuning might be required, but he thought it was a fair deal that Schumer and the White House could accept. As Petrella scanned the offer, he braced himself for the worst. But as he read, he absorbed the reality that Manchin had confounded his expectations. The plan was actually ambitious, not that far from the substance of their negotiations. Manchin had his demands, to be sure. They had covered most of this ground before. He wanted approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would transport natural gas from wells in north-central West Virginia, turning his state into a major player in that energy market. He asked for the Democratic leadership’s support for a separate bill reforming the process for permitting new energy infrastructure so that it could be built without having to surmount so many bureaucratic impediments. And he needed hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for deficit reduction, to assuage his centrist conscience. But that was just horse trading. The only thing that truly mattered was his proposing more than $300 billion in tax credits that would incentivize the nation to rapidly embrace clean energy. If Congress passed his proposal, carbon emissions would fall by 40 percent of the 2005 levels by 2030. Petrella, who felt at once elated and frustrated by Manchin’s wild swings, told West, “Lance, I’ve been sticking my neck out, defending you guys, saying that you were going to fucking do something here, for a year. I’m willing to do it one more time, but it’s got to be before the August recess, and this has got to be it. This is the deal. We’re locking arms.” West told Petrella that the document in his hands was the “flight plan.” They were going to finally land the plane. —

Hunt lifted his chin with a bravado he didn’t feel. “So let’s hear it. Your proposal for how we should ally with you to overthrow the Asteri and set you up as our new masters.” “Is that what you think will happen?” “Aidas already gave us a history lesson. Spare me.” The darkness rumbled with distant thunder. “You are foolish and arrogant.” “Takes one to know one, I suppose.” The darkness paused. “You are impertinent as well. Do you not know where I come from? My father was the Void, the Being That Existed Before. Chaos was his bride and my dam. It is to them that we shall all one day return, and their mighty powers that run in my blood.” “Fancy.” But Apollion said, “You’re wasting the gifts that were given to you.” Hunt drawled, “Oh, I think I’ve put them to good use.” “You don’t know a fraction of what you might do. You and the Starborn girl.” “Again, Quinlan got the whole ‘master your powers’ talk from Aidas today, and that was boring enough, so let’s not repeat it.” “Both of you would benefit from training. Your powers are more similar than you realize. Conduits, both of you. You have no idea how valuable you and the others like you are.” Hunt arched a brow. “Oh yeah?” The darkness rippled with displeasure. “If you are so dismissive of my assistance, perhaps I should send some … appetizers to test you and yours.” Hunt flared his wings slightly. “Why summon me? Just to give me this shove?” Apollion’s unholy essence whispered around him again. “The Northern Rift is groaning once more. I can smell war on the wind. I do not plan to lose this time.” “Well, I don’t plan to have a demon prince for my ruler, so find a new five-year goal.” A soft laugh. “You do amuse, Orion.” Hunt snarled, and his lightning sizzled in answer. “I take it we’re done here—” The seething darkness and those leathery wings vanished.

My future husband. "I want you to know I'd suffer through ten more public proposals if it meant I got to marry you.

I'm going to talk to you about whether you want to get married or not. To me." She laughs a lot... "Oh, I'm sorry. But two days ago you were in love with that woman who interviewed you for the local paper, weren't you? ... I'm just curious about how one goes from making tapes for one person to marriage proposals to another in two days..." "Fair enough... I'm just sick of thinking about it [love and marriage] all the time... I want to think about something else." "... That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard. I do. I will [marry you]" "Shut up. I'm only trying to explain... I've always been afraid of marriage because of, you know, ball and chain, I want my freedom, all that. But when I was thinking about that stupid girl I suddenly saw it was the opposite that if you got married to someone you know you love, and you sort yourself out, it frees you up for other things... I do know how I feel about you. I know I want to stay with you and I keep pretending otherwise, to myself and you, and we just limp on and on. It's like we sign a new contract every few weeks or so, and I don't want that anymore. And I know that if we got married I'd take it seriously, and I wouldn't want to mess about." "And you can make a decision about it just like that, can you? ... I'm not sure that it works like that. " "But it does, you see. Just because it's a relationship, and it's based on soppy stuff, it doesn't mean you can't make intellectual decisions about it. Sometimes you just have to, otherwise you'll never get anywhere. That's where I've been going wrong. I've been letting the weather and my stomach muscles and a great chord change in a Pretenders single make up my mind for me, wnd I want to do it for myself." ... "Maybe you're right. But that doesn't help me... Were you really expecting me to say yes?" "Dunno. Didn't think about it, really. It was the asking that was the important thing." "Well, you've asked... Thank you.

Yet another genius decided to soak the room with the shower and there was the usual surfeit of girls, booze, and drugs. Somehow we got bored with this and the notion of a puking contest was suggested. This apparently, was an entertaining idea and a bunch of us sat around the waste paper basket. After a couple of rounds of retching and gagging (I think there were some rules but they were never written down!), all that had slopped into the bin was about an inch of bile. To make things more interesting it was proposed that, for a sum of money, someone should drink the colon cocktail we had regurgitated. We all dug deep in our pockets and began to throw pfennigs and marks on the table. On seeing the pile of cash, our ‘Bastard Roadie Number One’ took up the challenge. We all moved close to the broken sink and he lifted the bin to his lips. He put it down again. “Several times he raised it to his lips and balked. Finally he got the rim on his bottom lip and began to tip the bin. As the slime slid towards his mouth someone – it might have been me – said, ‘And you have to gargle’. He didn’t stop; he opened up, threw back his head and gargled the stomach contents of about half a dozen punks. He didn’t throw up, but he might have screamed and jumped around a lot. Victorious, he grabbed the money… which when converted back to sterling came to about two quid. It wasn’t a very successful tour!

Amy, we got married for all the wrong reasons and in secret, but we fell in love anyway. I can’t imagine my life without you in it, so what I’m proposing is a redo. Will you marry me—the right way this time—knowing the full scope of what marriage to a man like me looks like?

We don’t need sperm to get pregnant! This is news to me,” Aïda said, with a sharp laugh. Moira went on coolly. “There is a process known as parthenogenesis, literally virgin birth, by which a uniparental embryo can be created out of a normal egg. It’s been done with animals. The only reason no one ever did it with humans is because it seemed ethically dodgy, as well as completely unnecessary given the willingness of men to impregnate women every chance they got.” (...) “There is another problem with this version of parthenogenesis, which is, again, that all offspring are the same. Exact copies. To get some genetic diversity, we need to use something called automictic parthenogenesis. Look, it’s a long story, but the point is that in normal sexual reproduction there is crossing over of chromosomes during meiosis. It’s a form of natural recombination of DNA. It’s what causes your children to look sort of like you, but not exactly like you. In the form of parthenogenesis that I am proposing to use, there would be that crossing over. An element of randomness.

during a theological conference in the mid-1990s, which Peter Kreeft recalled in 1998 as “the most memorable moment of the most memorable conference I ever attended.” Attending the meeting, says Kreeft, were “dozens of high-octane Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Evangelicals,” who, despite their noted theological differences, converged near the end of the conference in a crescendo of agreement. Kreeft continues: In the concluding session Father Fessio got up and proposed [tongue in cheek] that we issue a joint statement of theological agreement among all the historic, orthodox branches of Christendom saying that what united us was Scripture, the Apostles’ Creed, the first six ecumenical councils and the collected works of C. S. Lewis. The proposal was universally cheered.

Her head came off his shoulder. Her arm slipped from around him and she stepped away from him. “Maybe you and I should think about doing something like that?” she repeated, her voice rising with each word. “Is that your idea of a proposal?” “Well . . . I ... er . . . ,” Will began. But he had no idea where to go, what to say. In any event, Alyss gave him no chance to continue. “Because if it is, you’re going to have to do a whole lot better!” She turned away and strode off down the deck, taking long, angry paces. Will made an ineffectual gesture after her, then stopped. He sensed he’d got that wrong. Really

Looking up at the stars fills me with happiness, remembering how Sebastian proposed to me. He made the proposal feel special and intentional, not at all like he was forced into it by my father. I don’t understand how I got so lucky, meeting him. I’ve never felt lucky in my life. Quite the opposite. It’s unbelievable to me that something my father orchestrated with such ill intent could turn out in my favor.