Incredibly Sad Quotes

Why do beautiful songs make you sad?' 'Because they aren't true.' 'Never?' 'Nothing is beautiful and true.

Songs are as sad as the listener.

Oh, I wouldn't say Love always makes you happy. Sometimes it makes you incredibly sad.

I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor to his sadness.

I wanted to cry but I didn't, I probably should have cried, I should have drowned us there in the room ending our suffering.

She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.

We were quiet on the car ride home. I turned on the radio and found a station playing "Hey Jude." It was true, I didn't want to make it bad. I wanted to take the sad song and make it better. It's just that I didn't know how.

I know that you’re sad right now. Grieve, but don’t hold onto it. Grief smothers out life. Let it go. Remember me and be happy. You have an incredible life ahead of you. Make the most of every minute. Starting right now.

Will-" "I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and when you're this close to me, I forget who you are. I forget you're Jem's. I'd have to be the worst sort of person to think what I'm thinking right now. But I am thinking it.

Braiiinnnnssss," we said in unison. "It's both sad and incredibly impressive that you were all ready with that one.

He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink. "Yes," I said. "She did it for you, you know." "What?" "Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were." I could not look at him. "I know." He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..." I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I was, how cowardly, that I blew the best chance I would ever have. But his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing harsher than cherry smoke came out of his mouth.

I sat thinking how terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as incredible as living. One day we suddenly take the fact that we exist for granted - and then, yes, then we don’t think about it anymore until we are about to leave the world again.

Albums that remind me of my childhood happiness make me incredibly sad now.

But I knew the truth and that's why I was so sad. Every moment before this one depends on this one. Everything in the history of the world can be proven wrong in one moment.

99% of all addicts are liars and thieves. This might sound unfair and even close-minded, but it's the truth. There are some exceptions to the rules, but they are incredibly rare. Most people are no match for their addictions. They will be driven to do things they would normally never have considered all in the name of getting high. Sad, but true. So if you're thinking of trying drugs, keep in mind that all the people you will be dealing with are likely to steal from you and lie to you at your own expense.

..I find it incredible impossible not to cry when I hear Stevie Nicks's "Landslide," especially the lyric: "I've been afraid of changing, because I've built my life around you." I think a good test to see if a human is actually a robot/android/cylon is to have them listen to this song lyric and study their reaction. If they don't cry, you should stab them through the heart. You will find a fusebox.

She says things that genuinely move me. She lets her soul slip through her lips, and it’s always raw and incredibly sad.

Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those "we'll go there next time" deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no "next time" because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.

There’s a saying, “Sadness and gladness follow each other.” As I see it, people who experience equal amounts of sadness and happiness in their lives must be incredibly blessed.

For the first time, Cupid's gaze seemed sympathetic. "Oh, I wouldn't say Love always makes you happy." His voice sounded smaller, much more human. "Sometimes it makes you incredible sad. But at least you've faced it now. That's the only way to conquer me.

I smiled sweetly at his embarressment, beginning to walk again, kicking up golden leaves. I heard him scuffling leaves behind me. "And what was the point of this again?" Forget it!" Sam said. "Do you you like this place or not?" I stoped in my tracks, spinning to face him. "Hey." I pointed at him; he raised his eyebrows and stopped in his tracks. "You didn't think Jack would be here at all, did you?" His thick black eyebrows went up even farther. Did you evan intend to look for him at all?" He held his hands up as if a surrender. "What do you want me to say?" You were trying to see if I would reconize it, wern't you?" I took anouther step, colsing the distance between us. I could feel the heat of his body, even without touching him, in the increasing cold of the day. "YOU told me about this wood somehow. How did you show it to me?" I keep trying to tell you. You wont listen. Because you're stubbon. It's how we speek- it's the only words we have. Just pictures. Just simple little picters. You HAVE changed Grace. Just not your skin. I want you to believe me." His hands were still raise, but he was starting to grin at me in the failing light. So you brought me here to see this." I stepped forward again, and he stepped back. Do you like it?" Under false pretence." Anouther step forward; anouther back. The grine widened So do you like it?" When you knew we wouldn't come across anybody else." His teeth flashed in his grin. "Do you like it?" I punched my hands into his chest. "You know I love it. You knew I would." I went to punch him, and he grabed my wrists. For a moment we stood there like that, him looking down at me with a grin half-caught on his face, and me lookingup at him: Still Life with Boy and Girl. It would've been the perfect moment to kiss me, but he didn't. He just looked at me and looked at me, and by the time I relizeed I could just as easily kiss him, I noticed that his grin was slipping away. Sam slowly lowered my wrists and relesed them. "I'm glad." he said very quietly. My arms still hung by my sides, right where Sam had put them. I frowned at him. "You were supposed to kiss me." I thought about it." I just kept looking at the soft, sad shape of his lips, looking just like his voice sounded. I was probably staring, but I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted him to kiss me and how stupide it was to want it so badly. "Why don't you?" He leaned over and gave mr the lightest of kisses. His lips, cool and dry, ever so polite and incredibly maddening. "I have to get inside soon," he whispered "It's getting cold

It’s a rule that we never listen to sad music, we made that rule early on, songs are as sad as the listener, we hardly ever listen to music.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

You could've at least let me know you weren't dead by the way. I was actually kind of sad about that." "That's a pretty incredible sentiment, coming from you.

I might be falling in love with you," I whisper, finding it hard to focus on his face. "Kate," he says, almost sadly. "what? You might be falling in love with me too?" My voice is hopeful, pathetically hopeful. He shakes his head. "You aren't falling in love with me?" He doesn't respond. I touch his face carefully with the tips of my fingers. His skin is incredibly soft above the line of hard jawbone. I touch his silky black hair. His eyes close and i want to kiss his eyes, but I'm afraid. Afraid of all this. This could destroy me. He opens his eyes. "Kate, I'm already in love with you.

I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

It makes me really sad that women have been ejected from the seat of their power in this society in terms of what happens around childbirth. In other parts of the world, there are places where women can't drive a car, but they're still in charge of childbirth... The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It's so incredible what women do. I find it metaphorically resonant that a pregnant woman looks like she's just sitting on a couch, but she's actually exhausting herself constructing a human being. The laborious process of growing a human is analogous to how 'women's work' is seen.

And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you’re a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.

You don;t believe me?" He sound wounded, like the thought of me not believing him makes him incredibly sad. "No." "Then come with me," he says. He unfolds his long legs and stands up. "To Cooley's. You'll see they just posted the schedule. If I'm lying, I'll buy you a chocolate shake." "And If you're not?" "Then I'll still buy you a chocolate shake." He grins at me.

There is something about a mass-market Luxury Cruise that's unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things, it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes and simple in its effect: on board the Nadir—especially at night—I felt despair. The wor's overused and banalified now, despair, but it's a serious word, and I'm using it seriously.

So if this were a normal book about a girl with leukemia, I would probably talk a shitload about all the meaningful things Rachel had to say as she got sicker and sicker, and also probably we would fall in love and have some incredibly fulfilling romantic thing and she would die in my arms. But I don't feel like lying to you. She didn't have meaningful things to say, and we definitely didn't fall in love. She seemed less pissed with me after my stupid outburst, but she basically just went from irritable to quiet.

Fuck You!' [Oskar said] 'Exuse me!' [His mom said] 'Sorry. I mean, screw you.' 'You need a time-out!' 'I need a mausoleum!

I think God pays attention to our hearts and enjoys when people want to get close to Him. He knows our sadness and the brokenness we want to hide from Him, and He sends people to look for us.

Dear Josh, Thank you for giving me the most amazing memories. My life growing up was so full because you were in it. Having your love and loving you was always just right. It made sense. You were my home. When I was with you I knew everything would be okay. You dried my tears for me when I was sad. You held my hand when we buried my mother. You made me laugh when the world seemed like it was falling apart. You were every special memory a girl could have. That first kiss will forever be embedded in my brain. It was as funny as it was sweet. Our life together molded me into the woman I’ve become. I understand what it feels like to be loved and cherished because I had that with you. I never doubted my worth because you taught me I was worthy. When you said that one day I would heal I didn’t believe that was possible. Life couldn’t go one without my best friend. There was no room for another guy in my heart. It turns out you were right. You always were. I found him. He is incredible. He is nothing at all like I would have planned. He doesn’t fit into a perfect package. He managed to wiggle into my heart and take over before I knew what was happening. I found that happiness you told me would come along. I’m going to go live that life. I’m sure it will be a wilder ride than I ever imagined and I can’t wait to live it. He’s my home now. I’ll always love you. I’ll never forget you. But this is my goodbye. I wasn’t ready before to let you go. Now, I can move on. Your memory will live on in my heart always. Love, Your Eva Blue

Thanks for staying with me last night,” I said, stroking Toto’s soft fur. “You didn’t have to sleep on the bathroom floor.” “Last night was one of the best nights of my life.” I turned to see his expression. When I saw that he was serious, I shot him a dubious look. “Sleeping in between the toilet and the tub on a cold, hard tile floor with a vomiting idiot was one of your best nights? That’s sad, Trav.” “No, sitting up with you when you’re sick, and you falling asleep in my lap was one of my best nights. It wasn’t comfortable, I didn’t sleep worth a shit, but I brought in your nineteenth birthday with you, and you’re actually pretty sweet when you’re drunk.” “I’m sure between the heaving and purging I was very charming.” He pulled me close, patting Toto who was snuggled up to my neck. “You’re the only woman I know that still looks incredible with your head in the toilet. That’s saying something.

I wouldn't say love always makes you happy, sometimes it makes you incredibly sad.

I was so incredibly nostalgic for a life I knew I'd never, ever have again.

You promised to be on your best behavior,” I reminded him, breathless. “You kissed me,” he growled. His voice had gone very deep. “Well, but you started it by kissing my neck.” “True. I hadn't planned that.” His sultry voice, paired with those blazing eyes, told me I needed to get away from him. I hurried to the end of the bed, where I jumped off and began to pace back and forth, yanking out my loose hairband and pulling my hair back into a tight ponytail. I tried hard not to think about the taste of his lips. I'd had my first kiss, and I'd never be the same. “Why did you stop?” he asked. “Because you were moving on to other things.” He scratched his chin and cheek. “Hmm, moved too quickly. Rookie mistake.” I crossed my arms again, watching him speculate internally like a coach outlining a play that had gone wrong. Incredible. Then he sized me up in his sights again. “But I can see you still want me.” I gave him my meanest stare, but it was hard to look at him. Gosh, he was hot! And a total player. The kiss meant nothing to him. “Oh,” he said with mock sadness, “there it goes. Mad instead? Well, sort of. You can't seem to muster a really good anger—” “Stop it!” “Sorry, was I saying that out loud?” “I can read people, too, you know. Well, not you, but at least I have the decency to try not to notice, to give them some sort of emotional privacy!” “Yes, how very decent of you.” He hadn't moved from his languid position on my bed. I leaned forward, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at him. “Pillow fight?” He raised an eyebrow. “Get off my bed. Please. I'm ready to go to sleep.

He talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness.

Your life is a vapor. You’re here for two seconds. What do you want your life to be at the end, when you’re on your deathbed? Do you want it to be, “Oh, I got to satisfy all those urges and got the things I wanted”? It’s so sad to me because you’re literally giving up your birthright for a single meal. Do you understand what you are doing?

But after a couple of weeks of listing things I was grateful for, I came to see that the little things were everything. The little things were what I held on to at the end of the day. Single jokes that gave me the giggles. A beautiful flower arrangement, viewed through the window of a café. The fact that my cat came to cuddle me when she saw I was sad. These things gave me hope, pleasure, solace. Together, they added up to a fulfilling life. If a simple flower arrangement could make this world just a little more bearable, then perhaps my own small actions meant more than I was giving them credit for. Maybe when I made dinner, or listened to a friend rant, or complimented a woman on her incredible garden, I was helping make this world survivable for others. Perhaps that evening, when tallying up their own wins and losses for the day, someone would think of something I’d done and smile.

Now listen:  You are made of good things. You are capable of incredible things. You are a song the universe sings itself, in every color it can imagine. Some parts are sad. Some parts are happy. Every part of the song, is a part of you.   Listen. Listen to the sound of the universe.

As I see it, people who experience equal amounts of sadness and happiness in their lives must be incredibly blessed. Some people lead a painful life full of nothing but sorrow. I should know.

It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life,” he began, “that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such a fine new friend.

Suddenly I realized this was a heart I was watching. How incredibly sad. Not because the heart was beating and couldn’t escape, it wasn’t that. The point was that the heart should not be seen, it should be allowed to beat in secret, hidden from our sight, it was obvious, you understood that when you saw it, a little animal without eyes, it should pound and throb inside your chest unseen.

All of that sounds incredibly sad and also hopeful. I mean, that if your mother did love Malec, she was still able to find love again. To open herself like that once more. I don’t know…” I held the journal close to my chest. “I don’t know if I could do that.” “I would never give you a reason to, Poppy.

Hazel then attempted to break the doll’s head open on the nightstand like a piggy bank, but Diane’s exterior proved to be almost indestructible. This made Hazel realize Diane’s makers had designed her to be able to withstand incredible beatings, which made Hazel sad for humanity.

Don't you ever get in trouble for things like that at the school for the Incredibly gifted?" Jane asked. "No," Merissa said sadly. "Our talent is mischief, so whenever we do something bad they just encourage us to try harder.

Life wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t meant to be. If you didn’t go through the bad times, the sad times, you wouldn’t appreciate how incredible the good times were.

Trying to live in the past didn't work for me, and it's only now that I fully realize I'm incredibly lucky it didn't. Because it would have been all too sad to miss out on right now. That would have turned the past into a fraud. It would have meant all my happy memories were a lie. It would have meant all that time and all that love was a waste, leading up to a wasted future. It would have been the ultimate betrayal of everything I thought my whole life was about and everyone I cared about. All the people who loved me, in all the times and places of my life—all the people who made a lover out of me—they would have all been wrong about me. And it could have happened easily, just like that. It's scary to think of how I could have gotten stuck pining for the past. I was lucky to get a second chance. I thought I was too late, but it turns out I was just in time.

I asked her, "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" She looked at her watch and said, "I'm optimistic." "Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each others as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon." "Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true." She smiled, but in a way that wasn't just happy, and said, "You sound just like Dad.

Having DID is, for many people, a very lonely thing. If this book reaches some people whose experiences resonate with mine and gives them a sense that they aren't alone, that there is hope, then I will have achieved one of my goals. A sad fact is that people with DID spend an average of almost seven years in the mental health system before being properly diagnosed and receiving the specific help they need. During that repeatedly misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated, simply because clinicians fail to recognize the symptoms. If this book provides practicing and future clinicians certain insight into DID, then I will have accomplished another goal. Clinicians, and all others whose lives are touched by DID, need to grasp the fundamentally illusive nature of memory, because memory, or the lack of it, is an integral component of this condition. Our minds are stock pots which are continuously fed ingredients from many cooks: parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, teachers, schoolmates, strangers, acquaintances, radio, television, movies, and books. These are the fixings of learning and memory, which are stirred with a spoon that changes form over time as it is shaped by our experiences. In this incredibly amorphous neurological stew, it is impossible for all memories to be exact. But even as we accept the complex of impressionistic nature of memory, it is equally essential to recognize that people who experience persistent and intrusive memories that disrupt their sense of well-being and ability to function, have some real basis distress, regardless of the degree of clarity or feasibility of their recollections. We must understand that those who experience abuse as children, and particularly those who experience incest, almost invariably suffer from a profound sense of guilt and shame that is not meliorated merely by unearthing memories or focusing on the content of traumatic material. It is not enough to just remember. Nor is achieving a sense of wholeness and peace necessarily accomplished by either placing blame on others or by forgiving those we perceive as having wronged us. It is achieved through understanding, acceptance, and reinvention of the self.

I started toward the barn and was grateful that the wind was still. About halfway up the drive, my heart began to beat an irregular rhythm as I caught sight of Cricket coming toward me. My breath caught in my throat. This girl. This tiny little girl had such incredible power over me with her big, blue, round, sad eyes. Her unusual face, her unusually striking face. Her pert nose. The faint laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. And I didn’t know her, didn’t really even know if she and I were anything alike but that didn’t stop me from wishing we shared a future...even if she did belong to someone else.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness. Foer, Jonathan Safran (2006-04-04). Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel (Kindle Locations 1882-1883). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

His words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness.

Even though it was an incredibly sad day, she looked so, so beautiful. I kept trying t figure out a way to tell her that, but all of the ways I thought of were weird and wrong.

Yes, she told me she loved me and has loved me as i've loved her. While it made me incredibly happy, i was sad because we should have been together all this time and pissed.

The version of me who read the book felt incredibly sad for the version of me who wrote it.

I turned on the radio and found a station playing “Hey Jude.” It was true, I didn’t want to make it bad. I wanted to take the sad song and make it better. It’s just that I didn’t know how. After

The next morning I told Mom I couldn't go to school again. She asked what was wrong. I told her, “The same thing that’s always wrong.” “You’re sick?” “I'm sad.” “About Dad?” “About everything.” She sat down on the bed next to me, even though I knew she was in a hurry. “What's everything?” I started counting on my fingers: “The meat and dairy products in our refrigerator, fistfights, car accidents, Larry–” “Who's Larry?” “The homeless guy in front of the Museum of Natural History who always says ‘I promise it’s for food’ after he asks for money.” She turned around and I zipped her dress while I kept counting. “How you don’t know who Larry is, even though you probably see him all the time, how Buckminster just sleeps and eats and goes to the bathroom and has no ‘raison d’etre’, the short ugly guy with no neck who takes tickets at the IMAX theater, how the sun is going to explode one day, how every birthday I always get at least one thing I already have, poor people who get fat because they eat junk food because it’s cheaper…” That was when I ran out of fingers, but my list was just getting started, and I wanted it to be long, because I knew she wouldn't leave while I was still going. “…domesticated animals, how I have a domesticated animal, nightmares, Microsoft Windows, old people who sit around all day because no one remembers to spend time with them and they’re embarrassed to ask people to spend time with them, secrets, dial phones, how Chinese waitresses smile even when there’s nothing funny or happy, and also how Chinese people own Mexican restaurants but Mexican people never own Chinese restaurants, mirrors, tape decks, my unpopularity in school, Grandma’s coupons, storage facilities, people who don’t know what the Internet is, bad handwriting, beautiful songs, how there won’t be humans in fifty years–” “Who said there won't be humans in fifty years?” I asked her, “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” She looked at her watch and said, “I'm optimistic.” “Then I have some bed news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.” “Why do beautiful songs make you sad?” “Because they aren't true.” “Never?” “Nothing is beautiful and true.

I spent my life learning how to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

The words were incredibly sad, and, for an atheist like myself, entirely without hope or comfort, but still; it was our duty to sing them to the best of our ability, and to sing proudly, in honor of Sammy.

The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are faith, hope and charity. Now… the first evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, such as justice and temperance, are the sad virtues, and that the mystical virtues of faith, hope, and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues. And the second evident fact, which is even more evident, is the fact that the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and that the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity are in their essence as unreasonable as they can be…charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all.

If love was only for the perfect, what a sad and lonely world it would it be. We are the culmination of every good and bad choice we’ve ever made. Your mistakes have made you into an incredibly fierce and loving woman; one I am

I’m really sorry, Lila.” “I know you are Bryon. That’s what makes you such a good guy.” “Well, that’s the general consensus among women.” He smiles at her. “I hope you can start working on your confidence soon. It makes me sad to see you so down on yourself.” “Mmm. True story. I don’t tell myself how incredibly handsome, smart, and funny I am nearly enough.” “You are smart, but I don’t know about the incredibly handsome part.” “And funny. Don’t forget the funny.” “Funny looking.

I felt ignorant, self-deprived, incredibly isolated, deeply and profoundly lonely and missing people, absolutely starved for affection, physically weary from alcohol, very depressed about my physical appearance, my weak muscles. Hurt and angry and sad

I was really in Italy. Not Maya Angelou, the person of pretensions and ambitions, but me, Marguerite Johnson, who had read about Verona and the sad lovers while growing up in a dusty Southern village poorer and more tragic than the historic town in which I now stood. I was so excited at the incredible turn of events which had brought me from a past of rejection, of slammed doors and blind alleys, of dead-end streets and culs-de-sac, into the bright sun of Italy, into a town made famous by one of the world’s greatest writers. I

It was sometimes incredible to him how much he cared about someone who refused to tell him any of the things friends shared with each other - how he had lived before they met, what he feared, what he craved, who he was attracted to, the mortifications and sadnesses of daily life.

I was absolutely thunderstruck by the extraordinary reality of the man I found in the Gospels. I discovered a man who was almost continuously frustrated. His frustration leaps out of virtually every page: "What do I have to say to you? How many times do I have to say it? What do I have to do to get through to you?" I also discovered a man who was frequently sad, and sometimes depressed, frequently anxious and scared ... A man who was terribly, terribly lonely, yet often desperately needed to be alone. I discovered a man so incredibly real that no one could have made Him up.

It’s true I’ve got a cold streak. I recognize that. But if they—my father and mother—had loved me a little more, I would have been able to feel more—to feel real sadness, for example.” “Do you think you weren’t loved enough?” She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod. “Somewhere between ‘not enough’ and ‘not at all.’ I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it—to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once. If I tried to cuddle up and beg for something, they’d just shove me away and yell at me. ‘No! That costs too much!’ It’s all I ever heard. So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I was still in elementary school at the time—fifth or sixth grade—but I made up my mind once and for all.” “Wow,” I said. “And did your search pay off?” “That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” “Waiting for the perfect love?” “No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” “I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. “It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are times in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” “Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” “Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. ‘Now I see, Midori. What a fool I’ve been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?’” “So then what?” “So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” “Sounds crazy to me.” “Well, to me, that’s what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though.” Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. “For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn’t begin at all.” “I’ve never met a girl who thinks like you.

This is catharsis. The act taps in, meets them where they are. It’s confusing, hollow. So incredibly sad. And so we’ll stay inside it a while. Not picking it apart. Not interrogating the hungry pain body, but just confirming. Yes. This place feels exactly this way. This is where you are. I get it.

A lot of negative feelings could follow on from that: sadness, low self-esteem, anger at yourself and the other person, despair. People probably have lost their minds over less, and gone actually crazy from the misery. And yet, at the same time, it seems incredibly possible now, tantalisingly possible, that he might once again hear her voice murmuring his name in a low pleasurable satisfied tone while he makes love to her. And for this, he thinks, whatever: despair, heartbreak, even losing his mind and going insane later on, anything. Literally, anything, any price. Yeah, he says. I think it’s a good idea. I do.

It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So, I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such fine new friends(s).

It's an incredible sadness," he said. He was quiet for a few moments before he spoke again. "It's an incredible sadness," he repeated, "but it wasn't for nothing.

He knows our sadness and the brokenness we want to hide from Him, and He sends people to look for us

Las cosas sufren mucho cuando no se las pone a dormir en su puesto.

At this point tears begin to fall from my eyes, not because I am sad or angry, but because I have never had these dueling aspects of my personality mirrored back to me in such a matter-of-fact way. I have, at so many times in my life, felt unknowable, but here I am having me explained to me as it feels to be me. One three-hour test and I finally have objective words to demystify a tumultuous and ambivalent life experience. “We will leave it here, but I have one last thing I would like to say. The Rorschach and image testing reveal evidence of trauma associated with very early childhood development. I see a preoccupation with blood, morbidity, dismissal, and power struggles. There is a way in which you present as very sturdy to the world, yet inside you are carrying an incredibly heavy weight. There is a you inside who feels invisible to those looking at you from the outside. I feel an incredible amount of compassion for how hard each day feels for you.” “Thank you,” I say, my voice quiet and quivering with emotion. “I really appreciate this.” “Yes,” he says, “I believe you really do.

If you can be with a loved one when they die, you should. Her hands getting cold as the circulation shuts down, her breathing getting heavy, the death rattle. Bearing witness to a death is an incredibly intimate thing. You should be there, not because it’s easy – it isn’t – but because one day you’ll want someone to hold your hand. One day your mum put you down and never picked you up again.

I started to berate myself for having the audacity to be sad when I knew other people were having it worse. Which is an absolutely batshit mental way to try to process emotions. It’s very common, though. I bet you do it, too, you fucking idiot. “Well, I’m having a hard time at the moment, but it’s not as bad as so-and-so who is going through all this PLUS these extra things.” Ah yes, turning emotions into a competition. How incredibly healthy. I can’t see how this could ever go wrong.

Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals. Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae. Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock. And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food. Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers. And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey. The snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly. The lovely, colored world is glassed over. Hermit crabs like frantic children scamper on the bottom sand. And now one, finding an empty snail shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft body to the enemy for a moment, and then pops into the new shell. A wave breaks over the barrier, and churns the glassy water for a moment and mixes bubbles into the pool, and then it clears and is tranquil and lovely and murderous again. Here a crab tears a leg from his brother. The anemones expand like soft and brilliant flowers, inviting any tired and perplexed animal to lie for a moment in their arms, and when some small crab or little tide-pool Johnnie accepts the green and purple invitation, the petals whip in, the stinging cells shoot tiny narcotic needles into the prey and it grows weak and perhaps sleepy while the searing caustic digestive acids melt its body down. Then the creeping murderer, the octopus, steals out, slowly, softly, moving like a gray mist, pretending now to be a bit of weed, now a rock, now a lump of decaying meat while its evil goat eyes watch coldly. It oozes and flows toward a feeding crab, and as it comes close its yellow eyes burn and its body turns rosy with the pulsing color of anticipation and rage. Then suddenly it runs lightly on the tips of its arms, as ferociously as a charging cat. It leaps savagely on the crab, there is a puff of black fluid, and the struggling mass is obscured in the sepia cloud while the octopus murders the crab. On the exposed rocks out of water, the barnacles bubble behind their closed doors and the limpets dry out. And down to the rocks come the black flies to eat anything they can find. The sharp smell of iodine from the algae, and the lime smell of calcareous bodies and the smell of powerful protean, smell of sperm and ova fill the air. On the exposed rocks the starfish emit semen and eggs from between their rays. The smells of life and richness, of death and digestion, of decay and birth, burden the air. And salt spray blows in from the barrier where the ocean waits for its rising-tide strength to permit it back into the Great Tide Pool again. And on the reef the whistling buoy bellows like a sad and patient bull.

But I do know that there is incredible value in pain and suffering, if you allow yourself to experience it, to cry, to feel sorrow and grief, to hurt. Walk through the fire and you will emerge on the other end, whole and stronger. I promise. You will ultimately find truth and beauty and wisdom and peace. You will understand that nothing lasts forever, not pain, or joy. You will understand that joy cannot exist without sadness. Relief cannot exist without pain. Compassion cannot exist without cruelty. Courage cannot exist without fear. Hope cannot exist without despair. Wisdom cannot exist without suffering. Gratitude cannot exist without deprivation. Paradoxes abound in this life. Living is an exercise in navigating within them.

One of the most prevalent rape myths is the idea that rape is rare in our society and perpetrated by deviant defendants who jump out of bushes. The myth is perpetuated by the media and pop culture. This idea that rape happens only in dark alleys and involves the use of weapons is incredibly inaccurate and misleading. The sad truth is that rape is pervasive in our society. In fact, one in six women and one in thirty-three men will experience sexual assault or rape in their lifetime. And 80.5 percent of perpetrators are known to victims.

This woman Koharu could undo their coats and take the money from inside the purse. A technique called ‘nakanuki.’ What’s more, the story goes that after she emptied the purse she’d close it again and button up their coat. Incredible skill.” “Really?” “Surrounded by misery, those people laughed at the whole world.

Be big enough to offer the truth to people and if it short circuits them I think that's tragic. I think that's sad but, I will not strike no unholy bargains to self erase. I wont do it. I don't care how many people fucked up their lives. I don't care how many bad choices people have made. I don't care how much pettiness they've consumed and spat out. I don't care how much viciousness , rage, abuse, spanking they've dealt out. I am gonna tell the truth as I see it and I'm going to be who I fucking am and if that causes the world to shift in it's orbit and half the evil people get thrown off the planet and up into space well, you shouldn't of been standing in evil to begin with because, there is gravity in goodness. So, sorry; I have to be who I am. Everyone ells is taken. There is no other place I can go than in my own head. I can't jump from skull to skull until I find one that suits bad people around me better. I don't have that choice. So, be your fucking self. Speak your truth and if there are people around you who tempt you with nonexistence , blast through that and give them the full glory of who you are. Do not withhold yourself from the world. Do not piss on the incandescent gift of your existence. Don't drown yourself in the petty fog and dustiness of other peoples ancient superstitions, beliefs, aggressions, culture, and crap. No, be a flare. We're all born self expressive. We are all born perfectly comfortable with being incredibly inconvenient to our parents. We shit, piss, wake up at night, throw up on their shoulders, scream, and cry. We are in our essence, in our humanity, perfectly comfortable with inconveniencing others. That's how we are born. That's how we grow. That's how we develop. Well, I choose to retain the ability to inconvenience the irrational. You know I had a cancer in me last year and I'm very glad that the surgeons knife and the related medicines that I took proved extremely inconvenient to my cancer and I bet you my cancer was like "Aw shit. I hate this stuff man." Good. I'm only alive because medicine and surgery was highly inconvenient to the cancer within me. That's the only reason I'm alive. So, be who you are. If that's inconvenient to other people that's their goddamn business, not yours. Do not kill yourself because other people are dead. Do not follow people into the grave. Do not atomize yourself because, others have shredded themselves into dust for the sake of their fears and their desire to conform with the history of the dead.

Sometimes, in prison, when he’d been lying awake at night staring at the bunk over his head, Johnny had thought that he missed Wolf most of all. Wasn’t that a damned sad commentary on his life? The dog whined again. Knowing he was being ridiculous, that he was liable to lose the hand at the wrist when the animal charged, Johnny nonetheless took a step forward,holding out his fingers for sniffing. “Wolf? Come here, boy.” Incredibly, the huge animal sank to its belly and slunk forward, behaving as if it wanted to believe but feared a cruel trick. Johnny dropped to his knees to greet it, his hands reaching out, burrowing in the coarse hide, stroking and scratching as the dog whined and licked and pawed him and butted him with its head. “Ah, Wolf,” he said as he accepted the truth at last, that this one thing that he had loved had been spared in order to greet him. Then, as the big head snuggled into his lap, he wrapped his arms around the dog’s thick neck and buried his face against the animal’s side. For the first time in eleven years, he wept.

I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language. But how was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy? Hunger—thirst—fear—transport—selection—fire—chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else. Writing in my mother tongue—at that point close to extinction—I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was "it"? "It" was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. Was there a way to describe the last journey in sealed cattle cars, the last voyage toward the unknown? Or the discovery of a demented and glacial universe where to be inhuman was human, where disciplined, educated men in uniform came to kill, and innocent children and weary old men came to die? Or the countless separations on a single fiery night, the tear- ing apart of entire families, entire communities? Or, incredibly, the vanishing of a beautiful, well-behaved little Jewish girl with golden hair and a sad smile, murdered with her mother the very night of their arrival? How was one to speak of them without trembling and a heart broken for all eternity?

Two days later, I started my job. My job involved typing friendly letters full of happy lies to dying children. I wasn't allowed to touch my computer keyboard. I had to press the keys with a pair of Q-tips held by tweezers -- one pair of tweezers in each hand. I’m sorry -- that was a metaphor. My job involved using one of those photo booths to take strips of four photographs of myself. The idea was to take one picture good enough to put on a driver’s license, and to be completely satisfied with it, knowing I had infinite retries and all the time in the world, and that I was getting paid for it. I’d take the photos and show them to the boss, and he would help me think of reasons the photos weren't good enough. I’d fill out detailed reports between retakes. We weren't permitted to recycle the outtakes, so I had to scan them, put them on eBay, arrange a sale, and then ship them out to the buyer via FedEx. FedEx came once every three days, at either ten minutes till noon or five minutes after six. I’m sorry -- that was a metaphor, too. My job involved blowing ping-pong balls across long, narrow tables using three-foot-long bendy straws. At the far end of the table was a little wastebasket. My job was to get the ping-pong ball into that wastebasket, using only the bendy straw and my lungs. Touching the straw to the ping-pong ball was grounds for a talking-to. If the ping-pong ball fell off the side of the table, or if it missed the wastebasket, I had to get on my computer and send a formal request to commit suicide to Buddha himself. I would then wait patiently for his reply, which was invariably typed while very stoned, and incredibly forgiving. Every Friday, an hour before Quitting Time, I'd put on a radiation suit. I'd lift the wastebaskets full of ping-pong balls, one at a time, and deposit them into drawstring garbage bags. I'd tie the bags up, stack them all on a pallet, take them down to the incinerator in the basement, and watch them all burn. Then I'd fill out, by hand, a one-page form re: how the flames made me feel. "Sad" was an acceptable response; "Very Sad" was not.

I climb into the incredible sadness of silence. Wrap its slowness around my shoulders, conceal its shame within the folds of my sari. Make it a vow, as if my life hinged upon it, as if I was not a wife in Mangalore but a nun elsewhere, cloistered and clinging to her silence to make sense of the world. To stay silent it to censor all conversation. To stay silent is to erase individuality. To stay silent is an act of self-flagellation because this is when the words visit me, flooding me with their presence, kissing my lips, refusing to dislodge themselves from my tongue.

In fact, I didn’t know how much Chris had done in Fallujah until he came home. We were at a car wash place one day when someone overheard his name called and went up to him. “Are you Chris Kyle?” asked the man. His haircut and build made it clear he was military. “Yes.” “I was in Fallujah,” said the young man, who turned out to be a Marine. “You saved my life.” “Y’all saved my ass plenty of times, too,” said Chris, referring to Marines. Others came over, including the father of one of the Marines. He had tears in his eyes when he shook Chris’s hand. “Your husband saved my son’s life,” he said to me. “Thank you.” What an incredibly small world it is, I thought. For all of these people to have been together so far away, and now just meet by chance in the oddest place. Or was it part of a cosmic plan? A way of showing Chris that he was appreciated? I felt proud of him, but I also felt sadness--I imagined being the parent of one of these young men, worried about their welfare and yet unable to do anything to protect them. It was an impotence with few parallels. Chris just took it all in stride, smiling and waving as he left to get the car.

I loved all the Hardy Boy books. Once I collected my paperboy money each Friday I'd walk into town, make the rounds of all the local thrift shops (where you could buy a used hardback for a quarter.) I'd always get excited swinging open the front cover of a newly discovered book in the series. Let's solve a mystery! And investigate the long-abandoned water tower north of town. They were a lot of fun. And science fiction, although these were paperbacks. I stopped going to church when I was about ten. I'd get dressed and go out the front door telling my mom I was going to church, but I'd have a science fiction paperback jammed in the back pocket of my trousers. Once I got near the church (St. Mary's on Greenwich Avenue), I'd veer down a side street, pull out my book, and stumble along the sidewalks for an hour, visiting another planet, sometimes another galaxy. My mother eventually found out about my deception - a friend told her she had spotted me walking, reading, when I was supposed to be at mass. I explained to my mother I didn't want to attend church anymore, and she accepted that. If it made her sad, she never showed me. She was actually an incredibly good mother, which I realize more and more as I age.

Junk is fragile. I ruined tons of stuff, never on purpose. The thought of antiques still makes me sick, but that was our bread and butter. The scrapings of time are sad. . . lousy, sickening. We sold the stuff over the customer's dead body. We'd wear him down. We'd drown his wits in floods of hokum. . . incredible bargains. . . we were merciless. . . He couldn't win. . . If he had any wits to begin with, we demolished them. . . He'd walk out stunned with the Louis XIII cup in his pocket, the openwork fan with cat and shepherdess wrapped in tissue paper. You can't imagine how they revolted me, grown-ups taking such crap home with them.

A new field of science called neurocardiology, which studies the human heart, has discovered that our hearts emit a measurable electromagnetic signal that extends up to 10 to 15 feet from the body. Furthermore, the wavelengths of this heart signal vary according to the emotional state of an individual: if a person is appreciative and happy, one signal is emitted; discontent and sad, a different signal is sent. Incredibly, these electromagnetic signals automatically link up with and affect others in our proximity. Thus, when a man or woman enters a room upset, joyful, happy, or sad, other individuals nearby register his or her emotional state and are instantly affected. •

Despite the complexity and variety of the universe, it turns out that to make one you need just three ingredients. Let’s imagine that we could list them in some kind of cosmic cookbook. So what are the three ingredients we need to cook up a universe? The first is matter—stuff that has mass. Matter is all around us, in the ground beneath our feet and out in space. Dust, rock, ice, liquids. Vast clouds of gas, massive spirals of stars, each containing billions of suns, stretching away for incredible distances. The second thing you need is energy. Even if you’ve never thought about it, we all know what energy is. Something we encounter every day. Look up at the Sun and you can feel it on your face: energy produced by a star ninety-three million miles away. Energy permeates the universe, driving the processes that keep it a dynamic, endlessly changing place. So we have matter and we have energy. The third thing we need to build a universe is space. Lots of space. You can call the universe many things—awesome, beautiful, violent—but one thing you can’t call it is cramped. Wherever we look we see space, more space and even more space. Stretching in all directions. It’s enough to make your head spin. So where could all this matter, energy and space come from? We had no idea until the twentieth century. The answer came from the insights of one man, probably the most remarkable scientist who has ever lived. His name was Albert Einstein. Sadly I never got to meet him, since I was only thirteen when he died. Einstein realised something quite extraordinary: that two of the main ingredients needed to make a universe—mass and energy—are basically the same thing, two sides of the same coin if you like. His famous equation E = mc2 simply means that mass can be thought of as a kind of energy, and vice versa. So instead of three ingredients, we can now say that the universe has just two: energy and space. So where did all this energy and space come from? The answer was found after decades of work by scientists: space and energy were spontaneously invented in an event we now call the Big Bang.

Have you ever just laid down on the grass and watch as the day slowly transitions to evening? The sky flows through hues of orange and slowly fades to greys, the incredible palette of dusk. This is where the magic begins to happen. First the planets reveal themselves as bright pinpoints of light against the bleak canvas, and for a few moments they are the only thing you can focus on - they’re so bright that they draw away from anything else. When you stare at only one, when there is so much distance between it and anything else, it almost seems to be dancing back and forth in space, playing mind tricks on you. However, as you emerge from its hypnotic trance, you begin to see the less significant stars awaken from what seems like nowhere. They too earn your attention, but in a different way. You can’t look at them directly because otherwise you won’t see their beauty. You have to glance at them from the side, from the corner of your eye to really see them in their fullness. The sky is not yet completely in darkness and the universe is already showing off. Distant stars even further light years away and planets orbiting from afar being to emerge and before you know it you almost don’t know where to look, there are little grains of sand lighting up the sky from everywhere. This happens every night - a spectacular natural light show but so many people miss it. It’s sad to think that, but it makes viewing it that much more special when you get to experience it. Just you and the universe, watching itself through your own very eyes.

But I dealt with it. I handled it the same way I handled every wave of dread. I stayed at work until midnight on Friday and went in at seven a.m. on Sunday. I went to work on Christmas and on New Year’s Day. I sometimes worked with tears running down my cheeks, blurring the computer screen. I downed Diet Coke after Diet Coke and ran down to the Korean deli for kimbap and ate two rolls over the course of a day, and then I worked some more. I checked my email and cut my tape or logged my music, and then I texted everyone I knew asking where the next party was. I told myself that everything was fine, that my life was incredible and I wasn’t sad and I’d just send more emails and swig whiskey in order to fall asleep at two a.m. every night, empty bottles lining the foot of my bed.

I remember that a Korak once brought to me an old tattered fashion-plate from "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper," containing three or four full-length figures of imaginary ladies, in the widest expansion of crinoline which fashion at that time prescribed. The poor Korak said he had often wondered what those curious objects could be; and now, as I was an American, perhaps I could tell him. He evidently had not the most remote suspicion that they were intended to represent human beings. I told him that those curious objects, as he called them, were American women. He burst out into a "tyee-e-e-e" of amazement, and asked with a wondering look, "Are all the women in your country as big as that at the bottom?" It was a severe reflection upon our ladies' dress, and I did not venture to tell him that the bigness was artificial, but merely replied sadly that they were.

If you ask a thousand people who don’t want anything to do with religion why that is, they’ll tell you all the reasons they don’t like it, but I doubt they’d be describing the real stuff. They’ll describe a guy or a gal on a television show who told them if they gave money, they’d get rich. They’ll talk about the big hairdo or outrageous makeup of some televangelist and the absurd things they said and did. They’ll talk about someone who was religious but broke their hearts or their promise, or lied and got caught or went to jail, or who cried a lot on camera but it looked like they were faking it. Or they’ll talk about someone who told them that God hated who they were or how they acted or who they married or couldn’t forgive what they’d done. It’s a sad situation, honestly. The only way they can keep from being head-faked anymore is for somebody to give them a taste of the real thing.

father wants, above all, to keep his children safe. But that is the one thing that no father can do.” Ben’s eyes met Anna’s for a long, lingering moment, and he found solace in the steady, answering gaze of her liquid brown eyes. “One day, God willing, I will be a father, and no doubt I will forget this lesson and have to relearn it. Max Hartman was a philanthropist—in the root sense of the word, he loved people—and yet he was not an easy man to love. Every day, his children would ask themselves whether they made him proud or ashamed. Now I see that he was burdened by this question, too: would he make us, his children, proud or ashamed? “Peter, above all else, I wish you were here with me at this very moment, to listen and to talk.” Now his eyes welled. “But, Peter, this you’ve got to file under ‘strange but true,’ as you used to say. Dad lived in fear of our judgment.” Ben bowed his head for a moment. “I say my father lived in fear that I would judge him—and yet it seems incredible. He feared that a child bred of luxury and indolence would judge a man who had to endure the annihilation of everything he held dear.” Ben squared his shoulders, and, his voice hoarse and thickened with sadness, spoke a little louder. “He lived in fear that I would judge him. And I do. I judge him mortal. I judge him imperfect. I judge him a man who was mulish and complicated and hard to love and forever scarred by a history that left its mark on everything it touched. “And I judge him a hero. “I judge him a good man. “And because he was hard to love, I loved him all the harder…” Ben broke off, the words strangled in his throat. He could say no more, and perhaps there was nothing more that needed to be said. He looked at Anna’s face, saw her cheeks glistening with tears, saw her weeping for them both, and he slowly walked away from the rostrum, and toward the back of the hall.

When we came out of the cookhouse, we found the boy's father, the Indian man who had been grazing the horses in the pasture, waiting for us. He wanted someone to tell his troubles to. He looked about guardedly, afraid that the Señora might overhear him. 'Take a look at me' he said. I don't even know how old I am. When I was young, the Señor brought me here. He promised to pay me and give me a plot of my own. 'Look at my clothes' he said, pointing to the patches covering his body. 'I can't remember how many years I've been wearing them. I have no others. I live in a mud hut with my wife and sons. They all work for the Señor like me. They don't go to school. They don't know how to read or write; they don't even speak Spanish. We work for the master, raise his cattle and work his fields. We only get rice and plantains to eat. Nobody takes care of us when we are sick. The women here have their babies in these filthy huts.' 'Why don't you eat meat or at least milk the cows?' I asked. 'We aren't allowed to slaughter a cow. And the milk goes to the calves. We can't even have chicken or pork - only if an animal gets sick and dies. Once I raised a pig in my yard' he went on. 'She had a litter of three. When the Señor came back he told the foreman to shoot them. That's the only time we ever had good meat.' 'I don't mind working for the Señor but I want him to keep his promise. I want a piece of land of my own so I can grow rice and yucca and raise a few chickens and pigs. That's all.' 'Doesn't he pay you anything?' Kevin asked. 'He says he pays us but he uses our money to buy our food. We never get any cash. Kind sirs, maybe you can help me to persuade the master . Just one little plot is all I want. The master has land, much land.' We were shocked by his tale. Marcus took out a notebook and pen. 'What's his name?'. He wrote down the name. The man didn't know the address. He only knew that the Señor lived in La Paz. Marcus was infuriated. 'When I find the owner of the ranch, I'll spit right in his eye. What a lousy bastard! I mean, it's really incredible'. 'That's just the way things are,' Karl said. 'It's sad but there's nothing we can do about it.

The last cake in his hand, he turned to her. “Alexandra.” Placing the candle on the side table, she knelt to retrieve the cloth. “We missed you at the last few meals. But you could have asked if you wanted more.” She straightened, setting the cloth on the table, too. “I’d have sent them to you in the workshop.” He tilted his head, giving her a look so calculatedly innocent—his smile vague, his eyes deliberately blank—that she laughed again. “I’m going to tell everyone you’re a sweet thief.” The cake fell from his fingers and landed with a little plop on the carpet. “Alexandra,” he repeated and reached for her, dragging her into his arms. Though stunned, she went willingly. With their faces just a hair’s breadth apart, he hesitated, making her shiver with anticipation. Then their lips met—she couldn’t tell who closed the gap—and her heart rolled over in her chest. The way they were pressed together from shoulder down to navel seemed incredibly intimate and thrilling—and very different from the friendly or sisterly sort of embrace she was used to. She could feel the searing heat of his skin through the fine fabric of his dressing gown. He wrapped his arms around her back. She buried her hands in his soft hair. He tasted of sugar and chocolate and Tris, a deliciously sweet combination. No, make that dangerously sweet. It took a herculean effort to retreat the barest inch. “We cannot,” she whispered. The look he gave her was so odd and intense, it seemed to go right through her. “I—I need to go back to my room,” she stammered, removing herself from his arms. When he didn’t reply, she added, “I’m sorry,” even though she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. He nodded, his lips curving in a sad almost-smile. “We should both go back to our rooms,” she said more firmly. “Good night.” “’Night,” he echoed and turned to exit the far end of the room. Almost against her will, she followed him to the doorway and watched him slowly traverse the long length of the torchlit great hall, standing there until he disappeared into the dark corridor that led to the guest chambers. He didn’t look back. She released a long, shuddering breath before retrieving her candle

There was certainly a time when I wondered why we were supposed to praise God so much. Was the Lord eternally fishing for compliments, like a once-beautiful woman now past her prime? So egotistical that he needed us telling him how wonderful he was every single day? Would he be offended if we didn’t remember to commend him for his goodness on a regular basis? I knew that God couldn’t really be like that, but figured this was one of those mysteries, like the Trinity, that we would only understand completely in heaven. Fortunately, it’s not so great a mystery that we can’t understand it pretty well right now. Simply put, God does not demand our praise because he needs it, but because we need it. It is for our benefit, not his. If the whole world neglected to ever utter a single word of praise to God, he would not be hurt or diminished in any way. But we, the non-praisers, would be sadly crippled. Praise — call it admiration or appreciation — is the most natural response in the world to beauty, truth, and goodness. You are not in the least worried about offending a beautiful sunset by not praising it. On the contrary, you just can’t help it. Your heart leaps, and words such as, “Wow! That’s incredible!” come to your lips.

1. Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist. For endless eons there was no you. Before you know it, you will cease to be again. And in between you have this wonderful opportunity to see and feel and think and do. Whatever else you do with your life,nothing will remotely compare with the incredible accomplishment of having managed to get yourself born. Congratulations. Well done. You really are special. 2. But not that special. There are five billion other people on this planet, every one of them just as important, just as central to the great scheme of things, as you are. Don't ever make the horrible, unworthy mistake of thinking yourself more vital and significant than anyone else. Nearly all the people you encounter in life merit your consideration. Many of them will be there to help you-to deliver your pizza, bag your groceries, clean up the motel room you have made such a lavish mess of. If you are not in the habit of being extremely nice to these people, then get in the habit now. Millions more people, most of whom you will never meet or even see, won't help you, indeed can't help you, may not even be able to help themselves. They deserve your compassion. We live in a sadly heartless age, when we seem to have less and less space in our consciences and our pocketbooks for the poor and lame and dispossessed, particularly those in far-off lands.

The next morning I told Mom I couldn’t go to school again. She asked what was wrong. I told her, “The same thing that’s always wrong.” “You’re sick?” “I’m sad.” “About Dad?” “About everything.” She sat down on the bed next to me, even though I knew she was in a hurry. “What’s everything?” I started counting on my fingers: “The meat and dairy products in our refrigerator, fistfights, car accidents, Larry—” “Who’s Larry?” “The homeless guy in front of the Museum of Natural History who always says ‘I promise it’s for food’ after he asks for money.” She turned around and I zipped her dress while I kept counting. “How you don’t know who Larry is, even though you probably see him all the time, how Buckminster just sleeps and eats and goes to the bathroom and has no raison d’être, the short ugly guy with no neck who takes tickets at the IMAX theater, how the sun is going to explode one day, how every birthday I always get at least one thing I already have, poor people who get fat because they eat junk food because it’s cheaper . . . ” That was when I ran out of fingers, but my list was just getting started, and I wanted it to be long, because I knew she wouldn’t leave while I was still going. “ . . . domesticated animals, how I have a domesticated animal, nightmares, Microsoft Windows, old people who sit around all day because no one remembers to spend time with them and they’re embarrassed to ask people to spend time with them, secrets, dial phones, how Chinese waitresses smile even when there’s nothing funny or happy, and also how Chinese people own Mexican restaurants but Mexican people never own Chinese restaurants, mirrors, tape decks, my unpopularity at school, Grandma’s coupons, storage facilities, people who don’t know what the Internet is, bad handwriting, beautiful songs, how there won’t be humans in fifty years—

And all I can think about is that it's not over and I'm tired and I'm ready to go but I'm still here. And I have to do it again and again and again." He leaned back in his chair. "You think about that before you tell me I've got it easy." I stayed silent a while before speaking. "So why don't you end it?" "Suicide?" "If your life is such a hell," I asked, "why bother? Why go through it again and again and all those times?" "Because of..." He stopped and looked at the ceiling. After a moment he shrugged. "Because of children," he said, "because of smiles and sunshine and ice cream." "You've got to be kidding." "You don't like ice cream?" Elijah shook his head, "It's the best. Imagine how excited I was when someone finally invented it. " "Sunshine and smiles don't make all that other stuff go away." I said, "This isn't a fairy land." "No," he said. "It's the real world. And the real world is the most amazing thing any of us will ever experience. Have you ever climbed a mountain? Walked through a garden? Played with a child? This isn't exactly a revelation John. People have been praising the simple pleasures since even before I was born, and that's a very long time." "You don't do any of those things." "But I have my memories," Said Elijah. "And I have even simpler things. Music. Food. Everybody likes bacon." "I'm a vegetarian." "Asparagus then," said Elijah, "roasted in pan. A little olive oil and a little salt - you the get the most incredible flavor - almost like a nut. But deep and rich and the textures just perfect..." "I've tried it." "The world is more than sadness," said Elijah, "i have a hundred thousand memories in my head. I can't remember all of them, or maybe even most of them, but they are so much happier than sad. For every dead mother or brother or child there are a hundred breezes, a hundred sunsets, a hundred memories of falling in love. Have you ever kissed anyone, John?" "I don't see how that's any of your business." "A first kiss is important. Most people only get one. But I can remember a hundred thousand of them. How could I give that up?" he shook his dead, smiling for the first time. "The world never gets old, John.

There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and, on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my brother’s bedroom, and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! ‘What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying... Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes... Everything is quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition... And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree—and all goes well.

Matt takes some time to settle himself before he speaks. When he does, he shares an anecdote about how Julie had written a book for him to have after she was gone, and she titled it, The Shortest Longest Romance: An Epic Love and Loss Story. He loses it here, then slowly composes himself and keeps going. He explains that in the book, he was surprised to find that near the end of the story—their story—Julie had included a chapter on how she hoped Matt would always have love in his life. She encouraged him to be honest and kind to what she called his “grief girlfriends”—the rebound girlfriends, the women he’ll date as he heals. Don’t mislead them, she wrote. Maybe you can get something from each other. She followed this with a charming and hilarious dating profile that Matt could use to find his grief girlfriends, and then she got more serious. She wrote the most achingly beautiful love letter in the form of another dating profile that Matt could use to find the person he’d end up with for good. She talked about his quirks, his devotion, their steamy sex life, the incredible family she inherited (and that, presumably, this new woman would inherit), and what an amazing father he’d be. She knew this, she wrote, because they got to be parents together—though in utero and for only a matter of months. The people in the crowd are simultaneously crying and laughing by the time Matt finishes reading. Everyone should have at least one epic love story in their lives, Julie concluded. Ours was that for me. If we’re lucky, we might get two. I wish you another epic love story. We all think it ends there, but then Matt says that he feels it’s only fair that Julie have love wherever she is too. So in that spirit, he says, he’s written her a dating profile for heaven. There are a few chuckles, although they’re hesitant at first. Is this too morbid? But no, it’s exactly what Julie would have wanted, I think. It’s out-there and uncomfortable and funny and sad, and soon everyone is laugh-sobbing with abandon. She hates mushrooms, Matt has written to her heavenly beau, don’t serve her anything with mushrooms. And If there’s a Trader Joe’s, and she says that she wants to work there, be supportive. You’ll also get great discounts. He goes on to talk about how Julie rebelled against death in many ways, but primarily by what Matt liked to call “doing kindnesses” for others, leaving the world a better place than she found it. He doesn’t enumerate them, but I know what they are—and the recipients of her kindnesses all speak about them anyway.

And thank you all for being here as we take historic action to deliver a future of safety and security for Americans of every race, religion, color, and creed. We’re joined today by law enforcement professionals and community leaders. Though we may all come from different places and different backgrounds, we’re united by our desire to ensure peace and dignity and equality for all Americans. I’ve just concluded a meeting with incredible families — just incredible families that have been through so much. The families of Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Jemel Roberson, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Dean, Darius Tarver, Cameron Lamb, and Everett Palmer. These are incredible people. Incredible people. And it’s so sad. Many of these families lost their loved ones in deadly interactions with police. To all of the hurting families, I want you to know that all Americans mourn by your side. Your loved ones will not have died in vain. We are one nation. We grieve together, and we heal together. I can never imagine your pain or the depth of your anguish, but I can promise to fight for justice for all of our people. And I gave a commitment to all of those families today with Senator Tim Scott and Attorney General Bill Barr. We are going to pursue what we said. We will be pursuing it, and we will be pursuing it strongly, Tim. -Remarks by President Trump at Signing of an Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities

We’re joined today by law enforcement professionals and community leaders. Though we may all come from different places and different backgrounds, we’re united by our desire to ensure peace and dignity and equality for all Americans. I’ve just concluded a meeting with incredible families — just incredible families that have been through so much. The families of Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Jemel Roberson, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Dean, Darius Tarver, Cameron Lamb, and Everett Palmer. These are incredible people. Incredible people. And it’s so sad. Many of these families lost their loved ones in deadly interactions with police. To all of the hurting families, I want you to know that all Americans mourn by your side. Your loved ones will not have died in vain. We are one nation. We grieve together, and we heal together. I can never imagine your pain or the depth of your anguish, but I can promise to fight for justice for all of our people.

Jean-Rose is powerful among the women she knows because of her link to Ted, but if Ted is this cruel, and if this has happened before, and she endures this cruelty to hold on to her social standing, then she may be the weakest person I know. It’s incredibly sad, and I judge her for staying, but I also understand. Maybe she’s scared? The cynic in me believes she puts up with it because Ted makes her feel strong on the outside, even if he’s shattering her on the inside.

When he’s feeling uncertain, Peter does not like to eat treats. Sadly, he tends to feel uncertain whenever a stranger gives him a treat. I think this is very sweet, and that it shows an incredible survival instinct, and I’m proud of him for it, but it makes for some awkward encounters, as he is very cute, and, you see, people with treats are generally excited to give him one. He isn’t rude to them. He allows them the pleasure of placing a treat in his mouth, accepts it gingerly, and delicately places it on the ground in front of him. Very polite. Thank you, but no thank you; I do not know you and furthermore I prefer to take all treats in my treat spot at home, which is the couch.

Baseball was Expos' play-by-play man Dave Van Horne's livelihood, and he had to press on. He got back to work when play resumed, though he did stage a kind of silent protest. Van Horne carefully wrote the names of the entire 25-man roster on a little index card, then placed that card in his wallet, where it would sit through the harsh winter that followed the '94 disaster, into 1995 and onward. Ask him about it today and Van Horne will pull out that card, read through the names, and flash a sad smile. Twenty years after baseball sabotaged the best team in Expos history, he remembers what might have been. That card-that incredible roll call-will sit in his pocket for as long as he lives, a reminder of a dream destroyed.

I started to berate myself for having the audacity to be sad when I knew other people were having it worse. Which is an absolutely batshit mental way to try to process emotions. It's very common, though. I bet you do it, too, you fucking idiot. "Well, I'm having a hard time at the moment, but it's not as bad as so-and-so who is going through all this PLUS these extra things." Ah yes, turning emotions into a competition. How incredibly healthy. I can't see how this could ever go wrong.

I was a determined and ambitious little drama queen; I suppose I still am. Little divas tend to be very sensitive, though, and for me that led to anxiety, something I still contend with today. I was an old soul, with complicated emotions that sometimes overwhelmed me. After a hard day at elementary school, I would sit on the couch in front of the TV, feeling incredibly guilty that I wasn’t out working, earning my keep, doing more to help my family. I was a feeler and an overthinker, and my mind often went to some very grown-up places for such a young kid. Sometimes I would get upset over minor things that had nothing to do with me—if I saw an older person eating by themselves, for example, the sadness would be crushing. I would assume they were all alone in the world, with nobody who loved them enough to eat with them.

It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life," he began, "that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such a fine new friend.

Wow, that would be confusing.” “He really said that? I’d be angry too!” “Ah, that is so sad.” “I totally get why you feel that way; I’ve been in a similar situation before and it was rough.” “You have every right to be proud; that was a major accomplishment!” “I’m so happy for you! You’ve worked incredibly hard on this. It must feel amazing.

Life is about to get tough. You're allowed to be angry. You're allowed to be sad. You're allowed to be hurt. And it may never seem like it, but this pain is a gift. Because when you are ready, you'll turn all of that pain into something incredible. It will become light to the world. Promise.

There’s a saying, “Sadness and gladness follow each other.” As I see it, people who experience equal amounts of sadness and happiness in their lives must be incredibly blessed. Some people lead a painful life full of nothing but sorrow. I should know.

I am incredibly proud of you for everything you have done in your relatively short life. I will be watching over you every day to see what new and exciting things you will accomplish—regardless of what occupations(s) you pursue over your lifetime. Do your best to support Dad and your siblings, especially during this first year as it will be the hardest for everyone. I remember that from when my father died. Time will certainly help, but it takes a long time to focus on the happy memories while the sad thoughts are more immediate and closer at hand. I had many fantastic years on earth, more than a lot of people, hence, I have no complaints. I survived a melanoma, car accident in the mountains of West Virginia with Uncle Jerry, car accident in Durham. So I have already lived many lives and I was extremely grateful for each and every moment.

Her momma finds her stray hair still left in the bathroom sink. Where she combed out her ratty do for what seemed like forever. Staring at herself in the mirror and pulling and teasing and shaping all that her stingy god would give her and nothing ever more. She’d contemplate her face there. Her flat wide nose and dark eyes and the combinations. She’d test her looks to see how she looked when she kissed. She'd extend her tongue as far out of her mouth as she could to check out how long it was and if she had anything extra special to offer. And what she'd have to do to serve it up. Momma grabs a kleenex and cleans around the deep rust stains in the sink. Does she throw away the old dry hairs crumbled in her hand under the tissue or keep such sad memories. Does she store them in a drawer or is she just being silly. Should she cherish this precious angel manna or try and just fucking get over it. Not give into it. Could she even possibly throw them away into the garbage without bawling uncontrollably. Can she possibly change the urge over from utter despair. When she sees her child getting brutally raped and hammered into, her baby's baby fingers digging into the rocks and dirt she can pass by daily. A dilapidated pit that crumbles in the middle of all their continuing lives and remains standing out of sheer old bull-headed promise and well organized planning. The forefathers of this neighborhood didn't count on the incredibly heavy weight of the public’s filthy laziness. My poor baby. My poor baby. She has to seek help. This nameless faceless mother. She can’t deal with this all alone. She can’t quit these imaginings from her old yellowed eyes and ears and off her cleaning washing working fingertips and the very constant edges of her smaller brain. The sickness that slipped thick repetitive blobs of useless male sperm and thin streams of rust washed metal stripping toxins bleeding down her daughter’s black throat may or may not be only one in a great number of difficult dreams and attempts but she just can’t find a polite perspective anymore. She can’t live like this any longer. She should have offered her child more than a dirty smudged mirror in a peeling and running bathroom when she got home from a dirty hot school every damn day. Where were the cops? And the doctors who were supposed to save her? And the fucking psychiatrists who could have done some trepanning into that evil dog's motherfucking bursting crack head before he was let out on the streets with his glass dick and his screaming pussy hunting cock. Dogs don't need help. They need to be put down.

I told myself that everything was fine, that my life was incredible and I wasn’t sad and I’d just send more emails and swig whiskey in order to fall asleep at two a.m. every night, empty bottles lining the foot of my bed. I wrung my body out like a towel, twisting both ends with red fists and sinking my teeth into it, gritting out, “It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine,” until one day, I woke up and there would be a new accolade on my shelf, a new accomplishment I could never have dreamed of, and then—finally—it would be fine. It’d be perfect. For that day. Or an hour. And then tendrils of the dread started peeking into the corners of my vision. And I had to start all over again.

I told myself that everything was fine, that my life was incredible and I wasn’t sad and I’d just send more emails and swig whiskey in order to fall asleep at two a.m. every night, empty bottles lining the foot of my bed. I wrung my body out like a towel, twisting both ends with red fists and sinking my teeth into it, gritting out, “It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine,” until one day, I woke up and there would be a new accolade on my shelf, a new accomplishment I could never have dreamed of, and then—finally—it would be fine. It’d be perfect. For that day. Or an hour. And then tendrils of the dread started peeking into the corners of my vision. And I had to start all over again.

So what the stroke gave me was this new introduction to the depth of these emotions. However, my sadness, my grief… Grief is a whole body, whole envelopment and it takes you to your knees, and it takes you to the floor, and it just floods with this incredible emotion, and “Wow, I feel this because I loved, this is the beauty of being alive!” But it’s not designed to be a lifestyle, it’s designed to be information that I can then learn from and hold onto, and find meaning in my world. The emotions, the power of the emotions, are so beautiful, so rich, so everything that without them we would be one plus one equals two, and who really cares?

Jacob fights back tears. Queenie gazes up at him, her beautiful face full of distress. Tina and Newt, too, look incredibly sad.

how we calibrate our internal compasses to set ourselves in the right direction. Answer with honesty If your kids ask a question, give them an honest answer. Of course, your answer has to be age appropriate and commensurate with their level of understanding. Being sincere in your responses is important in all aspects of life, even the difficult ones. By not being authentic, you undermine your child’s ability to sense what is true and false. Kids are incredible lie detectors, and they can feel unstable if you are being fake. Use examples from your own childhood Whether it’s the doctor’s office or a difficult situation or just a fun time, kids like to hear about your experiences and how you felt when you were little, particularly when it’s true and heartfelt. This gives them a better understanding of who you are and lets them know that their situation is normal even if they are scared, happy, or sad. Teach honesty Talk with your children about how important honesty is in your family. Make it a value. Let them know

You’ve never told me how he died.” “What?” “Josh. I knew he was dead, but you never told me what happened to him.” “Oh.” I swallow. Put my head back down on his shoulder since it seems safer that way. “I thought I had.” “You haven’t. I figured it was too raw and hard for you, so I never asked directly. You don’t have to tell me now if you don’t want.” “No. It’s okay. After Impact… After Impact, he got worse. A lot of people did. All the fear and the stress and the struggle to even survive. He eventually started to hit me. He’d do it once and then act all sorry and promise to never do it again. He’d be good for a while, but then he’d do it again. In the old world, I think him hitting me would have been a hard line for me. I really think I would have left after the first time. But after everything fell apart… I felt trapped. I was trapped. How the hell was I going to survive on my own in that world right after Impact. Everything was chaos. And so incredibly dangerous.” “So what happened?” he murmurs gently. “It went on like that for about six months. Then one day he hit me in the face. I tried to cover the bruise with the makeup I had left, but an older lady in town noticed and asked about it. I… I told her. The truth. That he was hitting me and it had been going on for a while. Nothing I did would make him stop.” Mack is silent. His hand is still now as it rests on my back. “Then… Then the next day…” I take a ragged breath. “Maybe it was just a coincidence. I never knew for sure. But the timing… Anyway, the next day he went off into the woods with a hunting party like normal. He never came back.” “Fuck,” Mack breathes out. “They said it was an accident. Someone else was shooting in the area and must have mistaken him for a deer or something. But he was wearing orange, so… I don’t know. But he was dead, and I was…” “You were what?” “I was so relieved. Not sad at all. Just relieved.” “Of course you were. Anyone would have been.” “And it was then I decided I was going to make the best of my freedom and new start. Even though we were going through an apocalypse, why shouldn’t I finally try to learn how to be strong?” “You did.” “Yeah. I think I did okay. I did get stronger, and maybe I’ve also finally figured out that real strength isn’t what I used to assume it was.

America grows increasingly desperate and violent. Politicians will guarantee to protect you every January 6th from nebulous, rampaging, red-hatted mobs that vow to Make America Great Again. Many Americans are willing to sacrifice their own family’s needs for those of their politicians and their families. With a defensive budget of almost 817 billion dollars, they were defeated by a mob that was led by a guy with a Water Buffalo hat. I want my money back. The same politicians, who couldn’t protect themselves from the Buffalo-hatted shaman, now need my support. They are the same politicians giving out gobs of my money, on television, like it’s Halloween and they’ve forgotten to buy a couple trillion fun-sized Snickers bars in case those nice Ukrainian children show up once more. It would be funny if it wasn’t so incredibly sad, and pathetic.

Do you have any idea how much I love you?” “I do,” she said, smiling. “Well, I’d give my life for you, that’s how much. I’ve never been happier than these past few weeks. But I was just telling Matt—I’d give it all up and live alone and miserable and jealous till the end of time if I could get him back. He was the most amazing man, the most incredible friend. It would probably kill me, but I’d give this up if it meant he could live.” Vanni put a hand along his cheek. “He knows that already, Paul. He always knew that.” “You have to be real sad sometimes, honey. Even now. You don’t ever have to hide that from me. I’ll hold you through the tears now, just like I did before—and I won’t feel cheated. Not by a long shot.” “Paul, I wouldn’t hide anything from you,” she said sweetly. “Not long after Matt and I met, I lost my mom—and she was the best friend I ever had. And then I lost my husband to a war. Do you have any idea what a gift I have in you? It was like being rescued. I didn’t know I could feel like this. I thought every day would hurt forever. It’s probably not really stronger than what I felt for Matt, but coming after all that loss and pain, it sure feels like a miracle to me. Oh—I’ll always miss him, too. I can’t help that. But I’m so grateful to have you in my life. I’m not giving you up.” “I just wish there was a way I could know—I wish I knew he was okay with this—you and me.” “Remember, I told you,” she said, smiling. “I ran it by him already. A few times. Before you ever let me know how you felt.” “I wish I could know he forgives me for—for wanting you all those years you belonged to him…” She laughed softly, sweetly. “I think you’re being silly now. You showed him such incredible respect, never letting anyone know. Paul, there’s nothing to forgive.” “The night Mattie came, I was out here talking to him. Jack came and got me—he said Matt had moved on. He said we each have our destiny and Matt’s took him somewhere else.” “Yeah—wherever he is, he’s tearing the place up, making people laugh, feel good. Paul, this would make Matt happy. You know how much you love him? He loved you that much or more. I can’t think of anyone he’d rather have raise his son.” “I’ll do the best I can with that, honey. I’d sure like to make Matt proud. I’ll try to be as good a husband as Matt was….” She shook her head and smiled at him. “You’re not going to have to try. As far as I can tell, you’re a natural.” *

Are you familiar with Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man? Jesus told the man to sell all of his possessions, give to the poor, and then follow him. The man then turned away from Jesus because he had great wealth. There are two incredibly significant details in this account that we may overlook. First, Jesus looked at the man and loved him. Second, the man walked away from Jesus feeling sad. Not judged. Not ticked off. Sad. He walked away in the tension of paradox—enslaved by his affluence, yet sensing that by walking away from Jesus he might be forfeiting an even greater, more life-giving form of wealth.

You took issue with him because he paid too much attention to you?” “I did because it was a deliberate attention, although I didn’t realize that at the time. But then, when he ended his courtship of me because he needed to marry a woman of fortune, well . . . everything became crystal clear. In all honesty, I was somewhat relieved to have him out of my life, but then he went and started the most dreadful rumors about me, implying there was something wrong with me. That right there is what set society against me and saw me banished to the wallflower section.” “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Edgar began before he suddenly took to cracking his knuckles. “But tell me, where is Mr. Holland now?” With her spirits lifting the moment she heard him crack his knuckles, Wilhelmina pulled her attention away from the yellow flower and smiled. “It’s very sweet of you to adopt such a protective attitude on my behalf, Edgar. But sad as I am to tell you this, I’m afraid Mr. Holland is no longer in the city. He’s sailing about the world on a yacht his new wife bought for him, a wife who had quite the impressive fortune, and a fortune she was apparently all too willing to share with Mr. Holland if he agreed to marry her.” She shook her head somewhat sadly. “I’m afraid the current Mrs. Holland was under the impression Mr. Holland was a bit of a prize.” “Perhaps by now, she’d appreciate me teaching Mr. Holland some manners then.” “Since she’s not sailing on that yacht around the world with him, Edgar, you probably have a most excellent point, but again, he’s not in New York.” Edgar cracked his knuckles one more time. “Very well, I won’t be able to deal with him just yet. But mark my words, Mr. Holland will be made to pay for his abuse of you. It’s simply a question of when.” Unable to help but wonder how in the world she’d been so ridiculous back in the day to let this very honorable, and incredibly sweet, gentleman get away from her, Wilhelmina forced a smile. “Goodness, Edgar, there’s no need for you to turn all threatening on my behalf. That nasty business with Mr. Holland happened ages ago, and I assure you, I’m quite over it.” “If you were quite over the embarrassment of Mr. Holland’s abandonment, and then your subsequent tumble down the society ladder, you wouldn’t have bothered to try and hide from me earlier.” Not

Aurora Rose looked back and forth among the three women, gladly distracted from the sad events by the puzzle before her. The fairies in real life had their own personalities, of course, despite their superficial similarities as ageless, chatty, loving aunt figures. Flora tended to try to lead and make decisions for them. Merryweather seemed to understand the basic workings of the world better, although she rarely acted on this knowledge and instead chose to comment snarkily on it. Sometimes she got sneaky and went behind Flora's back. Fauna was the one who hugged the princess the most and often acted as an intermediary between the other two. The green one, "Fauna," seemed more concerned with how Aurora Rose was feeling- how 'everyone' was feeling. She was the one who had been waiting outside the cottage for the prince and princess. Like she was the one who 'cared.' And the blue one- "Merryweather"- seemed 'incredibly' quick-minded and brilliant. And even snarkier. "Flora" was brave and powerful and ready to plunge into any physical combat. And not for nothing, she was built like a gladiator. They were 'all' acting like extreme versions of their real selves.

Today, I understand envy as the incredible sadness that overwhelmed me when others were successful. I was hypercritical and insanely jealous of the “greats,” never once looking at the time, energy, and work they put into their success. I simply resented their “good luck,” “connections,” or “secret

Brian is a deeply compassionate man who was sad to learn that his work colleague, Tom, had lost his 17-year-old daughter to a drug overdose. When Tom returned to work weeks later, Brian approached him and said, “Man, I am so sorry. There are no words to express my condolences. “Brian reached out to hug Tom. At first, he was rigid and on guard, but with Brian’s genuine embrace, he felt Tom release into his safety. Tom had been so incredibly strong for his wife and family that Brian’s powerful hug allowed him to surrender into another man’s strength. It was a memorable and powerful step towards healing. Sometimes a hug at the right time, even if spontaneous, can be the kindest thing you can do for another human being.

I shouldn’t have been allowed to come see you at all, but that was another thing Kash arranged.” Taking my hand, he pulled me close and looked at me for a long moment before speaking again. “Rachel, he’s giving you the choice to go with me.” My brow furrowed, and I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t—like Kash and me go with you?” When Trent shook his head slowly, I grasped what he was saying . . . and my chest tore open. “Just me,” I stated. It was no longer a question. Some small part of me hated that Kash was still questioning my feelings. My mind kept screaming, He just said last night he wouldn’t let me go for anything! But, if I was being honest with myself, I knew that wasn’t what this was . . . he was making sure I knew what I wanted . . . and giving me the option to have that. I loved him. I loved how selfless he was. “Trent, I will never forget you, and I will never forget everything you did for me. I owe you everything. I know how you feel for me; to be honest, I’ve had an idea since before I got out of that house. And I’m so sorry if I ever led you to believe anything different, but I love Kash. I’ll always love Kash.” Trent cleared his throat, and looked away quickly when his dark eyes filled with pain. “I hate that after finally knowing you’re safe from those men, you’re going to be leaving me. But I’ve only ever viewed you as a friend, and protector. I’m sorry.” “I know. I knew even when I kissed you that your heart belonged to him. I’ve never loved anyone until I met you, Rachel, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over you.” “You’ll find someone, I know you will. You have so much to give to someone, and whoever she ends up being, she will be incredibly lucky to have you.” He watched me for a few seconds with a sad smile as he cupped one side of my face. “I’ll never forget you.” More tears fell down my cheeks as I admitted, “I’ll never forget you either, Trent Cruz.” With a kiss to my forehead, he released me and took a few steps back and looked over at the dark SUV. A few seconds later, it started up and pulled into the driveway, and soon Kash and Mason were joining us. Turning

This is the part of film acting that I was only too happy to leave behind, the part that became more agonizing as time went on. Yet you have to go through those terrifying times if you are ever to have the magic ones, the times when it all works—and to be truthful, those I have missed. There were perhaps only eight or nine of them out of forty-five films, but they were the times when I stepped into my light and my muse was with me, all my channels were open, the creative flow coursed through my body, and I became. Whether the scene was sad or funny, tragic or triumphant, never mattered. When it worked it was like being enveloped in love and light, as I danced the intricate dance between technique and emotion, fully inside the scene while simultaneously a separate part of me observed and enjoyed the unfolding. Ah, but just because it has happened once doesn’t mean it will again! Each time is starting new, raw; it’s a crapshoot—you just never know. Which is why this profession is so great for the heart—and so hard on the nerves. I always assumed that the more you did something the easier it would get, but in the case of my career I found the opposite to be true. Every year the work seemed to get harder and my fear more paralyzing. Once, on the set of Old Gringo, I watched Gregory Peck late in his career doing a long, very difficult scene over and over again all day long. I saw that he too was scared. I went up to him afterward and hugged him and told him how beautiful and transparent he had been. “But, Greg,” I asked, “why do we do this to ourselves? Especially you. You’ve had a long and incredible career. You could easily retire. Why are you still willing to be scared?” Greg sat for a moment, rubbing his chin. Then he said, “Well, Jane, maybe it’s like my friend Walter Matthau says. His biggest thrill in life is to be gambling and losing a bit more than he can afford and then have one chance to win it all back. That’s what you live for—that moment. The crapshoot. If it’s easy, what’s the point?

No one. I'm not seeing anyone," Robert said, sitting back on the chair, still holding Kane's hand. Having two gay fathers had made his own coming out incredibly easy. His grip tightened when he considered how accepted he'd always been in his life compared to many of his gay friends who still struggled to this day.  "There are lots of single professional men in this town, Son," Kane started, his voice raspy and low. "I know, Daddy. I'm not settling for just anyone, not until I find what you and Dad had," Robert said, stopping himself as sadness crossed his father's face. His eyes returned to that hollow look again. Damn, why had he said that?

All human development, according to Silvan Tompkins, is rooted in affect (feeling) dynamics because affects (feelings) are the primary innate biological motivator of human life. Our anger is the energy that gives us strength. The Incredible Hulk becomes the huge, powerful hulk when he needs the energy and power to take care of others. Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. As we discharge the energy over the losses relating to our basic needs, we can integrate the shock of those losses and adapt to reality. Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the “healing feeling.” Fear releases an energy that warns us of danger to our basic needs. Fear is an energy leading to our discernment and wisdom.

Todd the manager was at her cubicle the moment her chair squeaked. “How you doin’, Jane?” he asked in his oft-affected pseudo-Sopranos accent. “Fine.” She stared. He had a new haircut. His white blond hair was now spiked with an incredible amount of pomade that smelled of raspberries, a do that could only be carried off with true success by a fifteen-year-old boy wielding an impressive and permanent glare. Todd was grinning. And forty-three. Jane wondered if politeness required her to offer a compliment on something glaringly obvious. “Uh…you, your hair is different.” “Hey, girls always notice the hair. Right? Isn’t that basically right?” “I guess I just proved it,” she said sadly. “Super. Hey, listen,” he sat on the edge of her desk, “we’ve got a last-minute addition that needs special attention. It may seem like your basic stock photo array, but don’t be fooled! This is for the all-important page sixteen layout. I’d give this one to your basic interns, but I’m choosing you because I think you’d do a super job. What d’you say?” “Sure thing, Todd.” “Su-per.” He gave her two thumbs-up and held them there, smiling, his eyes unblinking. After a few moments, Jane cringed. What did he want her to do? Was she supposed to high-five his thumbs? Touch thumb-pad to thumb-pad? Or did he just leave them there so long for emphasis? The silence quivered. At last Jane opted for raising her own thumbs in a mirror of the Todd salute. “All right, my lady Jane.” He nodded, still with the thumbs up, and kept them up as he walked away. At least he hadn’t asked her out again. Why was it that when she was aching for a man, everyone was married, but when she was giving them up, so many men were so awkwardly single?

The heavenly principalities and powers cannot touch you. But the earthly humans over which we rule can.” Though they had no authority to touch Yahweh’s anointed, they might do so through their human vessels. Jesus trembled with the weight of responsibility that now overwhelmed him. But the pain was lessened when he heard the familiar sound of his favorite angel echo in his mind. Jesus, be strong and courageous. “Jesus, be strong and courageous.” It wasn’t in his mind, it was being spoken to him from behind. “Sound familiar?” Jesus turned. He looked up into the smiling face of Uriel the smallest of three angels now standing before him. Uriel finished his thought, “The words you spoke to Joshua at the threshold of the Promised Land. Funny how it all comes full circle.” Gabriel, the second angel, and Uriel’s constant bickering companion, responded, “Uriel, I think your humor is once again in incredibly poor taste considering his suffering. Where is your compassion?” “Nonsense,” said Uriel. “Jesus has done it. Victory is a cause for celebration, not sadness. He made it forty days without food, which is more than I can say for you, chubby.” Uriel patted Gabriel’s stomach. Gabriel moved away annoyed at the jab. Sure, he was heavier than the lightweight Uriel, but he certainly didn’t see himself as “chubby.” Mikael, the largest and best groomed of the three, was the guardian prince of Israel, and tended to be protective of his ward. He offered a wineskin to Jesus, who took it and gulped with gratitude. After a moment of silence, Jesus wiped his beard of the wine and said, “You need a better sense of humor, Gabriel.” Gabriel pouted with frustration at being ganged up on. Uriel, his perpetual nemesis was one thing. But being teased by the Master was quite another. Jesus said, “And Uriel, you had better deliver on that bread you promised.” Uriel smiled again and held out a loaf of Mary’s best bread. “Baked two hours ago by your mother.” Jesus grabbed it. Mikael said, “Remember, do not eat too quickly. It is bad for your digestion after fasting.” “Thank you for your ministering spirits,” said Jesus, and took a big hungry bite out of the loaf. Uriel muttered, “Your mother should open a bakery. Can I have a bite?” Mikael was not so lighthearted. He knew that the challenge had been declared. The road to war had begun.

What the hell is your problem?!” Carter looked a little sheepish, “I’m just looking out for you Blaze.” “You’re being an asshole!” “Well!” His arms shot out to the side, “I don’t think he’s good for you.” I was getting freaking tired of people telling me who is and isn’t good for me. I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing I would have put my shirt back on. “And why is that Jason?” His eye flashed with hurt, he knew I only used his first name when I was mad at him, “Because of what he does. You heard him, he fights for a living Blaze. And he was having a hell of a time trying not to hit me and I just met him.” “Because you were being incredibly rude! And you’re right, you two had just met. If you would have given him five seconds you would have seen how amazing he is. Instead, you continued to push every button you could find, and why did you have to keep calling me your girl. I’m not your anything and you know that.” “You’re my best friend Blaze.” He said softly. “And I thought you were mine, but my best friend wouldn’t have treated anyone the way you just did, especially my boyfriend.” I turned to walk away but he grabbed my arm. “Blaze I’m sorry. Please don’t walk away from me, I’ll make this up to you I swear.” Yanking my arm from his loose hold, I stepped closer to his body, even though I was much shorter than him, he still backed up, “Do you have any idea how much you’ve embarrassed me?” I put my hands on his chest and shoved him back, “When I told them about you, all I did was gush over how awesome you were and how much I missed you. Then you show up and treat them this way?” I looked down trying to get ahold of my emotions that were all over the place. I was embarrassed, angry and sad for the loss of the Carter I knew. Huffing sadly, I glanced back up at him, “Go back to base Carter and please don’t call me anymore. You shouldn’t have come to California.” He grabbed my hand when I turned away and pulled me back to his chest, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m so sorry Harper. I was being stupid, I just – I don’t know. I guess I felt threatened by them, you’re my best friend, and they were all looking at me like they wanted to protect you from me. It pissed me off, and I shouldn’t have let it. I’m really sorry.” I sighed and put my arms around his waist, “Because they would protect me in a second. It’s just the same as it was on base, Carter. These guys are really protective of me and Bree. That’s why I’m so comfortable with them, it’s like I went from one family of a bunch of brothers, to another.” “But you barely know them.” “Carter,” I laughed lightly, “how long had I known you before you knocked out a guy from a different unit that said something about my chest?” He shifted his weight not wanting to answer, so I continued, “About two hours. It’s the same.” “It’s not Blaze. I want to be the one to protect you. I don’t want anyone else to do my job.” “Oh my God. What is it with you guys? I don’t need anyone protecting me and I’m not your responsibility.” “I know you don’t,” he pulled back a bit and looked at my face, “there’s just something about you that makes guys go crazy wanting to take care of you.” I

At some point I must have fallen asleep on the couch I’d been sharing with Chase because an explosion on the TV jerked me awake. “It’s just the movie,” he whispered in my direction and ran his fingers over my cheek, “don’t move yet Princess.” “Don’t move? Why?” “I’m almost done, give me another minute or two.” I heard his hand moving back and forth across the paper slowly and waited until he kneeled down in front of the couch so his face was directly in front of mine. My breath caught and his electric blue eyes glanced down to my barely parted lips. His tongue absently wetted his lips and his teeth lightly bit down on his bottom one as his gaze roamed my face. “Why couldn’t I move?” I managed to ask when he started closing the distance between us. He abruptly stopped and blinked a few times, “Oh, um. Well … here. Just don’t freak out, okay? I wasn’t trying to be creepy.” “You’re not supposed to tell someone not to freak out, those words alone cause them to freak out.” Chase smirked, “Okay, well then don’t hit me or use your pressure point training on me again.” Before I could roll my eyes at him, he brought his sketch pad up in front of me and my jaw dropped. I felt my cheeks burn and he took that the wrong way. Snatching the pad of paper back up, he cursed softly. “I knew it was creepy.” “Chase,” I breathed and shook my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts, “that wasn’t creepy. Can I see it again?” When he didn’t make an attempt to move I reached my arm toward the book, “Please.” He handed it over with a sigh and looked at me with a sad smile, “I’m sorry, but you looked too perfect. I couldn’t let that opportunity pass.” My stupid blush came back with force when he said that and I focused at his drawing. It was amazing, somewhat embarrassing, but remarkable none the less. With the shading and the detail he’d captured of my upper body and face, it almost looked like a black and white photo. It was perfect. From my chest, throat and slightly open mouth to the way my hair fell around my face and my eyelashes rested against my cheeks, it was one hundred percent me. He even had my hand clutching the pillow under my head that was resting on his leg, as well as the blanket that had been pulled up to the swell of my breasts. Goose bumps covered my body as I realized he’d spent however long staring at, and replicating, every part of me while I’d been completely unaware. He was wrong, it wasn’t creepy, it was beautiful and strangely intimate. “Chase, it–” I cleared my throat and tried again, “It’s incredible.” Incredible didn’t cover it. “Yeah?” I looked up into his eyes and smiled, “Yeah.” We stayed there staring at each other, my mind and heart completely torn in two. One half desperately wanted to act on the feelings his drawing had stirred up in me, and the other was screaming at me to sit up and scoot away from him. Before I could try to make a decision, another series of explosions came from the TV and we both jolted away from each other. My

I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit.

I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights or privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded.

:It's a sad but unavoidable fact of life," he began, "that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such a fine new friend.

It's a sad but unavoidable fact of life," he began, "that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such a fine new friend.

A good place to raise kids. The truth is he just couldn’t stand it anymore. The incredible freakin’ boredom. Couldn’t stand coming back from busts, the stakeouts, the roofs, the alleys, the chases to what, Hylan Plaza, Pathmark, Toys “R” Us, GameStop. He’d come home from a tour jacked up from speed, adrenaline, fear, anger, sadness, rage, and then go to someone’s cookie-cutter house to play Mexican Train or Monopoly or nickel poker. And they were nice people and he’d feel guilty sitting there sipping their wine coolers and making small talk when what he really wanted was to be back on the street in hot, smelly, noisy, dangerous, fun, interesting, stimulating, infuriating Harlem

He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink. "Yes", I said. "She did it or you, you know." "What?" "Gave up herself for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were.

Each year brings us nearer to the Wiedersehen [reunion with the dead], though it is sad to think how one's glass is running out and how little good goes with it, compared to the numberless blessings we receive. Time goes incredibly fast. [Princess Alice, letter to her mother Queen Victoria, 30 December 1865]

When they’re moving her in, Boy meets a Girl. Runs right into her really. And she is—“ he coughs, his arm tightening over my shoulder. “She’s incredible. Smart, funny, beautiful as all hell. But she’s sad too. So he buys her a beer and a grilled cheese and after that—well, after that he keeps bumping into her. Buys her some more grilled cheese. And that’s that.

All I could do was laugh, but it wasn’t funny. I find it incredibly sad to be tickled by an orphan.

I did this partially because Matthew is the kind of person for whom the internet is simply a utility: a font of information and nothing more. He has the supernatural ability to look at his phone only when he needs to, and the idea of posting something about his life on the internet in a way that strangers can view is a concept he cannot grasp. So yes, I was partially trying to respect his privacy, but I was mostly trying to protect myself. From the judgment of others, which was primarily just a projection of my own self-judgment. There was a version of me that thought loving another person would somehow diminish the love I still felt for Aaron. A version of me that thought that if I was happy, I must not be sad anymore, and if I wasn’t sad anymore, then I guess I didn’t love Aaron as much as I said I did. Or maybe that my new happiness was ill-gotten, a well-made fake, something I swiped off the back of a truck when nobody was looking. This is what life looks like when you water the seeds of joy with guilt and shame. It feels as good as it sounds. When bad things happen to you—a death, an illness, a divorce, a job loss—you quickly go from being a person to being just a sad story. I know from experience that nobody wants to be a sad story, and that no matter what you’ve been through, your story is always so much more than just sad. And your happy stories are more than just happy. Obviously, everything is more complicated than it appears on Instagram. But it is incredibly difficult to live with complicated. It is even more difficult for other people to deal with complicated.

Sadly, memories of World War II, the Holocaust, and the gulags fade by the day. New-right leaders promise a return to the strong welfare state of the past, but with the caveat that it be ethnically and racially bound. They spew forth a range of patriarchal, racist, and homophobic ideas, each made more palatable by wrapping those concepts in racial purity and national honor. And they are winning elections. Even more important, they are framing issues. And the old wisdom is correct. He who frames an issue, wins that issue more often than not. Sadly, what Hitler said so long ago still rings true today. The masses have little time to think. And how incredible is the willingness of modern man to believe.

Sadly, I often miss the incredible moments all around me. Without a sense of purpose and mission, I fail to appreciate what’s right in front of me. I fail to value the infinite worth of my current life, simply because I’m disconnected. Viktor Frankl suggests we imagine this moment has passed, forced to deal with the negative consequences of not being more conscious of what we were doing.

Few people know this, but the four Gospels of the New Testament were written anonymously and only later came to be called by the names of their reputed authors. I often hear people these days bemoaning what they see as the decline of Christianity into liberalism, by which they mean beliefs they see as unorthodox, not matching their own. Yet, if anything, the faith is becoming narrower. The diversity of early Christianity is staggering when compared with today. “What is more, the early Church knew far more Gospels than those that eventually came to be included in the New Testament. Sadly, most have not survived the centuries. But they have turned up in this part of the world with incredible regularity, particularly in the period following World War II.

What is more, the early Church knew far more Gospels than those that eventually came to be included in the New Testament. Sadly, most have not survived the centuries. But they have turned up in this part of the world with incredible regularity, particularly in the period following World War II. The Dead Sea Scrolls themselves were found around that time, as was the so-called Gospel of Thomas.

The entire problem is this victim mentality. When did that start? Life’s not turning out the way they said it would when you were in first grade. You’re not the president or a movie star or playing center field for the Yankees. Guess what? They lied! Move on! You come from incredible stock! Immigrants who chewed through it all and spit it out with thanks: Ellis Island, Manifest Destiny, the dust bowls, Normandy, and for what? For a society that now encourages everyone to choose up excuse teams: My attention span’s a little off, sometimes I’m nervous, sometimes I’m tired, insults make me sad, I was unfairly labeled slow in school when I really just didn’t want to do any work, a diet of super-size French fries turned me into a human zeppelin, your honor, so I need to be given a lot of money….

You seem awfully concerned about this guy,” Jeoff stated. “More than a disobedient lone wolf merits. Has he hurt someone in the pride?” “In a sense. He threatens my mate.” That was one way to stun an opponent. “You? Mated? You have my condolences.” Arik frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “It’s always sad when a man gets shackled to a ball and chain. Next thing you know, you’ll be taking ballroom fucking dancing, calling everything ‘ours’, losing your closet to shoes, and having to watch romantic comedies instead of going to the bar with the boys.” “I’ll also be having incredible sex multiple times a day.” “You could have had that without having her shackle you.” “I’m the one who claimed her.” “Why? Why would you do that?” Jeoff shook his head. “Don’t come crying to me when she makes you wear an ugly sweater at Christmas.” “I won’t cry because I’ll make sure you and I have matching ones, given to you publicly, so you can’t refuse. I’ll have Hayder take a picture, and I’ll post it on every social media site I find.” “You’re an evil king, Arik.” “Thank you.” He couldn’t help a smug smile.

Our anger is the energy that gives us strength. The Incredible Hulk becomes the huge, powerful hulk when he needs the energy and power to take care of others. Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. As we discharge the energy over the losses relating to our basic needs, we can integrate the shock of those losses and adapt to reality. Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the “healing feeling.” Fear releases an energy that warns us of danger to our basic needs. Fear is an energy leading to our discernment and wisdom. Guilt is our morality shame and guards our conscience. It tells us we have transgressed our values. It moves us to take action and change. Shame warns us not to try to be more or less than human. Shame signals our essential limitations. Shame limits our desire for pleasure and our interest and curiosity. We could not really be free without our shame. There is an anonymous saying, “Of all the masks of freedom, discipline (limits) is the hardest to understand.” We cannot be truly free without having limits. Joy is the exhilarating energy that emerges when all our needs are being met. We want to sing, run and jump with joy. The energy of joy signals that all is well. Dissmell is the affect that monitors our drive for hunger. It was primarily developed as a survival mechanism. As we’ve become more complex, its use has extended interpersonally. Prejudice and rage against strangers (the ones who are not like us) have terrible consequences. Dissmell is a major sexuality factor. Disgust follows the same pattern as dissmell. Originally a hunger drive auxiliary, it has been extended to interpersonal relations. Divorces are often dominated by disgust. Victims of abuse carry various degrees of anger and disgust. Rapists who kill operate on disgust, anger and sex fused together.

This was no longer the Sarah who was unable to stop herself from making phone calls and then not saying a word, who was hurt so much by her memories that she ended up crying. This was the levelheaded Sarah I knew. “Well, take care. I've got to go back to the room,” Sarah said. “Okay. . . . Good-bye then,” I replied. I was now totally awake. The patch of sky visible through the window was a strange wash of subtle gradations of cloud and blue, and the interior of the room was very bright. Some-how that brightness felt terribly sad. What strange weather, I thought. “Sarah, I hope you'll be happy—I really hope you'll be happy!” “Thanks, Shi-ba-mi,” Sarah said. And then the line went dead. I settled into a strange mood—it felt as if I'd seen something through to its conclusion, but at the same time I felt overwhelmingly sad. It occurred to me once again how incredible Mari was. To think she'd figured out that Sarah was back in Japan just from listening to a silent phone call! There hadn't been the slightest hint of uncertainty in her eyes when she told me it was Sarah. She had known. Yes . . . perhaps Mari, wandering in the interval between dream and reality as she was, perhaps she could sense that much, figure out who was calling almost before she knew it, feel it as clearly as something she held cupped in her hand.

She nuzzled my stubble and guzled my neglected coffee while I soliloquized on the Incredibly Motivated kid. 'That's so sad." She shook her head, sirry fir the boy in an uncomplicated way that I could only envy.

Even though the largest percentage of bullying today takes place in the workplace, no one ever wants to talk about it. It’s the big secret corporations don’t want revealed. The number of workers bullied on the job is staggering. The incredibly sad part is: no one seems to want to do anything to address this crisis.

It was the first time I’d seen him in over a week. We both froze. His presence was a physical caress, like a gust of warm air. My eyes pored over him. He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and he wore the shirt he’d won at trivia night—he wore the shit out of it too. It was amazing how anything he had on looked sexy on him. The man could wear a burlap sack and look incredible. I knew just looking at it what it would smell like, and I wished I could put my nose to the blue cotton. He’d lost weight. His muscles were more defined. His dimples didn’t show, because he didn’t smile. He looked good—but he looked sad. He’d get over it soon enough. A few babies from now and he wouldn’t even remember me. He didn’t make any move to get out of my path. I looked away and walked past him, and he stood like a statue, eyes on me. Then suddenly a hand shot out and touched my arm. It trailed lightly down my forearm as I walked on, across the top of my hand, over my fingers, and then it was gone. I didn’t jerk away because that would have been acknowledging that he was even there. But the few seconds of contact moved through my whole body. I felt it the rest of the day.

Museums are a great cultural experience, and by that I mean a great opportunity for you to repeatedly tell your children not to touch things. I find museums incredibly exhausting, and by that I mean acting like you're interested in some of those exhibits. "So this is a painting by another European painter of another unattractive European from the 1700s? Fascinating." It seems like they were only painting the sad, ugly people back then. "Hey, you're hard on the eyes, why don't I paint your portrait?

Today DARK TIMES received a nice review from Literary Titan: “In Dark Times Michael Gerhartz explores the delicate yet sadly relevant organ trade problem. In this fascinating novel readers get a glance into the complicated and cruel organ trade business. The narrative is constantly changing its perspective, from the lucky recipient to the doomed donor while following the incredible adventures of the engrossing main character, Natascha. Michael Gerhartz creates a globe-trotting and energetic crime drama that is full of unexpected twists and deadly turns...I can confidently say that I had a great time reading Dark Times by Michael Gerhartz. The story is perfect for readers who like to follow clues to solve intriguing mysteries. Dark Times reminds me of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan where agents embark on clandestine and deadly missions to overcome a terror menacing the world. Perfect for readers who embrace a bit of romance in their action adventure stories.” Reviewed by Literary Titan

Douglas agreed somehow to have these seven debates with Lincoln, and this is what made Lincoln a national figure. Debates in those days—when you think about it today, how incredible it must have been—were the biggest sporting event of the times. Before we had a lot of professional sports, people would go to debates by the thousands. The first guy would speak for an hour and a half, the second guy would speak for an hour and a half, then there’d be a rebuttal for an hour, and another rebuttal for an hour. They’re sitting there for six hours. There are marching bands. There’s music. And the audience is yelling, “Hit ’im again! Hit ’im again! Harder!” It’s an extraordinary thing, these debates. Lincoln did great in the debates. They published them afterwards. People saw what an extraordinary debater and character he was in terms of understanding the issue of slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. But in those days, there weren’t really national newspapers yet, so the way you got your news, much like today, was by reading your own partisan paper. You would subscribe to the Republican paper or the Whig paper or the Democratic paper. So when the papers would describe the debates, if it’s the Democratic paper, they would say, “Douglas was so amazing that he was carried out on the arms of the people in great, great triumph! And Lincoln, sadly, was so terrible that he fell on the floor and his people had to carry him out just to get him away from the humiliation.” So we had a certain partisan press in those days.

The accordion player now began to play a jaunty little melody reminiscent of an English carol. Taking this as his signal, the Count indicated that he would like to make a toast. “It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life,” he began, “that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such a fine new friend.

There’s a saying, “Sadness and gladness follow each other.” As I see it, people who experience equal amounts of sadness and happiness in their lives must be incredibly blessed. Some people lead a painful life full of nothing but sorrow.

It was sad to think we could not take our two last dogs with us, but we should probably have no further use for them, and it would not have done to take them with us on the decks of our kayaks. We were sorry to part with them; we had become very fond of these two survivors. Faithful and enduring, they had followed us the whole journey through; and, now that better times had come, they must say farewell to life. Destroy them in the same way as the others we could not; we sacrificed a cartridge on each of them. I shot Johansen's, and he shot mine.

The Man without Time The little Buddha was absolutely fascinated by the town. Not that he would have wanted to live there forever, but it was incredible how much there was to see and explore. And he was especially taken by the people. There were so many different kinds of people. Big, small, fat, thin, pretty, ugly, rich, poor, friendly, nasty, happy, sad, clever, crazy and

inches (right ear) and 13.5 inches (left ear). Sadly, Tigger passed away in 2009, but during his lifetime,

liked movies like that. It was a sad story in the end, Scarlett and Ange would find that out soon, but it was also incredibly empowering. The kind of story that inspires and motivates and touches people long after all the characters move on. The kind of story that makes you feel like you’re better off after watching it than you were before.

This is incredibly frustrating for those who have creative ideas which may positively impact the status quo, especially when their ideas are immediately shot down or the approval process is dragged out indefinitely. It is a sad scenario - as companies grow larger and more bureaucratic, they become less agile, less adaptive to changing business conditions. As a result, younger and more nimble companies adapt to changing business models more swiftly than their cumbersome counterparts and quickly take advantage of new opportunities. All too often many great companies from the past century eventually fall into extinction.

I am as insignificant as a fart on the wind. For a moment everyone knows it's there but then it's forgotten again and it doesn't even matter if it existed or not." "I don't know if that's incredibly deep, incredibly sad or incredibly terrifying." "It's none of those things. That's the point.

I think of James’ approach to Juno’s sadness, and I see something that stirs within me a secondhand embarrassment. A constant asking of questions, a somewhat annoyance when Juno doesn’t answer them entirely—I cringe at it. However, it makes sense. They are twins; they live together, go home together, eat together … they are constantly around one another. For James, living with this observation that your twin sister is clearly not okay and not receiving much of an explanation for any of it must feel draining. It must be annoying; he must be fed up with the confusion it all causes. I agree—I hate the confusion caused by an absence of understanding or explanation of an issue that you’re incredibly concerned about, although the issues at hand are different: one dealing with a sibling’s depression and the other dealing with someone’s own recollection of their past.

Emotions are contagious for a reason,” the new therapist had said. “How can we experience sympathy and empathy, if they aren’t? We’d be locked up in our own heads, stewing in our own feelings, looking out into a world that recognised none of them. That would be incredibly lonely. The wellness gurus today tend to treat negative emotions like a pathology, like a disease. There is no life without anger, sadness, or pain.

Pam described how everyone in the office had felt like this event was both retraumatizing because of the reckoning at work and how much care and concern they had for the students—they were all acutely aware of how dangerous these years were for young women—but also poignant in a solemn way, as if the pain of these things’ being brought to light was a necessary part of everyone’s healing. She said she found the woman’s testimony incredibly moving, and she found the woman herself to be incredibly brave. “I mean, I can’t imagine having to be in a room with someone who had done something like that to you, it’s disgusting, and it’s disgusting to think of him sitting next to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, too, of all people—I mean it all makes me sick, and I’m so angry on her behalf but also so grateful for her testimony and her strength and for what this will do in terms of moving the conversation forward. But, yeah, it was just a hard day overall,” she said, smiling sadly and breathing out in a way that Moddie found slightly theatrical. Moddie had very much wanted to have a nice time at this dinner, and to look forward, not back, but the way that Pam was speechifying was beginning to get under her skin, was beginning to seem self-satisfied, and was beginning to seem like dangling bait. Moddie had liked it when Craig said she seemed to be holding it together, and she wanted to keep her shit together, but each borrowed and obvious statement from Pam was like a turn of the crank on an emotional vise, until it seemed as if she had no choice but to abandon this fleeting idea of herself as a calm, strong, and proud presence, because hearing Pam describe these as desirable attributes in the abstract—strength, bravery, etc.—made Moddie want to take a hammer to the stupid mental statue Pam was constructing, this sort of benevolent, martyred, middlebrow Venus, and smash it until it was dust.

I'm not asking you to change," she whispers. "That's the last thing I want. I feel really sad for you that you think so little of yourself. That all these years, you've missed out on the incredible person you are, the person we all know and love. The only thing I'm waiting for, Jaxon, is for you to realize what we all already know, which is that you're enough. Kind, passionate, loyal, patient, funny, sarcastic, and so damn thoughtful." She sniffles, swiping at the tears streaming down her face, even though they just keep falling. "You're enough, Jaxon, exactly as you stand here today. That's what I'm waiting for you to realize.

his parents were often told their child wasn’t normal. They believed that, sadly, which is why they missed out on the incredible joy of having a child who was special.

Planet Earth is an incredibly sad place to live. After all, everyone has a problem or two.

We walked in silence. Yellow blooms had appeared on a cactus, and for some reason that made me incredibly sad. The purple of the mountains flowed like watercolour.

After waiting a moment, Carter went on deck. The sky, the sea, the brig itself had disappeared in a darkness that had become impenetrable, palpable, and stifling. An immense cloud had come up running over the heavens, as if looking for the little craft, and now hung over it, arrested. To the south there was a livid trembling gleam, faint and sad, like a vanishing memory of destroyed starlight. To the north, as if to prove the impossible, an incredibly blacker patch outlined on the tremendous blackness of the sky the heart of the coming squall. The glimmers in the water had gone out and the invisible sea all around lay mute and still as if it had died suddenly of fright.

Yeah… that was about something far more petty than a kiss.” “Never had you down as the possessive type.” There’s nothing hurt or sad in her tone. “It’s always the ones you least suspect.” “You get that way when you know how fucking special someone is. How they have no goddamn idea how much brighter they make everything. You’re like sunlight, Rory. I want to bask in everything you have. And I absolutely don’t want to share that with Clay. Not even for a minute.” “I’m not those things.” I hate that she doesn’t see it. “You are.” “I don’t want to be sunlight, Russ. If you stand in the sun for too long, you get burned. I don’t want to be another person who burns you. Let me be moonlight.” The look of vulnerability on her face steals my breath away. “What if we get caught in the rain? You don’t get rainbows at night.” “You don’t need rainbows when you have the northern lights,” she says softly. “And last time we got caught in the rain we did just fine. Incredible, in fact.

What makes me incredibly sad is that if she had gone to the doctor right away, she might still be alive. Instead, she let that tumor grow for two years.

-his parents were often told their child wasn't normal. They believed that, sadly, which is why they missed out on the incredible joy of having a child who was special.

-his parents were often told that their child wasn’t normal. They believed that, sadly, which is why they missed out on the incredible joy of having a child who was special.

During the long summers in New Hampshire when this book was being written I would often get up early in the morning and go out on my patio where the valley, stretching off to the mountain ranges in the north and east, was silver with predawn mist. The birds, eloquent voices in an otherwise silent world, had already begun their hallelujah chorus to welcome in the new day. The song sparrow sings with an enthusiasm which rocks him almost off his perch atop the apple tree, and the goldfinch chimes in with his obbligato. The thrush in the woods is so full of song he can't contain himself. The woodpecker beats on the hollow beech tree. The loons over on the lake erupt with their plaintive and tormented daemonic laughter, to save the whole thing from being too sweet. Then the sun comes up over the mountain range revealing an incredibly green New Hampshire overflowing through the whole long valley with a richness that is almost too abundant. The trees seem to have grown several inches overnight, and the meadow is bursting with a million brown-eyed Susans. I feel again the everlasting going and coming, the eternal return, the growing and mating and dying and growing again. And I know that human beings are part of this eternal going and returning, part of its sadness as well as its song. But man, the seeker, is called by his consciousness to transcend the eternal return. I am no different from anyone else except in the choice of areas for the quest. My own conviction has always been to seek the inner reality, with the belief that the fruits of future values will be able to grow only after they are sown by the values of our history. In this transitional twentieth century, when the full results of our bankruptcy of inner values is brought home to us, I believe it is especially important that we seek the source of love and will.

No. Let me continue," he says, his eyes flashing. "You are incredible. You see the world like an artist. You notice every color in the sky, you stop and marvel at the sight of a sparrow flying by or a ripple in the lake or an autumn leaf in the sun. You're always the first person to sense of someone else is having a bad day, and you can't watcha a sad movie without crying, and you always skip the ending if you know it's going to be tragic, you can make up something better in your head. Once, you teared up after your elderly neighbor asked you to read the expiration date on a loaf of bread for him because his eyesight was fading. You also tear up every time you watch that cereal commercial about the border collie who runs away from home. When we found a dead bird in the forest, you insisted on building a grave for it out of twigs and wildflowers. You hate small spaces, but you still came to sit with me in the attic for hours when my father was mad at me. You're sarcastic, but never in a mean way. You're dramatic, and you can make anything sound like poetry. You're sensitive, and maybe that means you feel pain and fear and humiliation more sharply, but you also feel joy more beautifully and completely than anyone I know. You make me feel the same joy just by looking at you.