Intriguing Image Quotes

David, you have been so kind to me and this gift will always be treasured. I have one last request. Could you show me some of the secret ways in and out of the castle?” As he spoke the words, the image of the spark of red light appearing from the depths of the castle sprang to his mind again, together with the whispered words, “I am here, Audun.” He knew that one day he would have to return to Aldene and learn the secret of what lay in the deep dungeon below the castle

Being a disciple of Jesus means that we are being transformed into His image. God wants to change us so much that it intrigues others.

The carved images on the early Minoan sealstones are tantalising, inscrutable. The Nature Goddess is yanked from the soil like a snake or a sheaf of barley; the Mistress of the Animals suckles goats and gazelles. There are male Adorants certainly - up on tiptoe, their outstretched arms hoisted in a kind of heil, their bodies arched suggestively, pelvis forward, before the Goddess - but there are no masculine deities, not a single one in sight. No woman worth her salt, one might think, could fail to be intrigued.

I am intrigued with scriptural mythology that tells us that God created a divine feminine presence to dwell amongst humanity. This concept has had a constant influence on the work. I have imagined her as ubiquitous, watchful, and often in motion. This work is, in effect, the photographic image of the invisible.

Pretending that there isn’t a cost to maintaining what is good only results in matters getting worse.

In the end—as in the beginning—it is the authentic performance of the Beatles’ peculiar, elaborate, unfettered art that matters. It is the performance that makes the text possible in the first place, that imbues it with the heartbreaking reality of our transitory existence. It is the impermanence of the moment—rendered seemingly permanent by magnetic tape and celluloid—that is so vexing in its realness that it somehow seems immutable. Take the rooftop concert, with London’s blustery, wintry winds swirling up from the streetscape as John, Paul, George, and Ringo make one last play for greatness after a month of soul-destroying misery. They climbed the stairs above 3 Savile Row and willed a final, breathtaking performance for the ages. It is the primal image of the Beatles having become lost in the pure joy of their sound, just as they had done so many years before in the Cavern and not so very long ago in Studio Two. Everything else—the gossip, the intrigue, the emotional collapse—suddenly becomes moot, irrelevant even, as Ringo keeps the backbeat strong and true on his Ludwigs, while George furrows his brow as he drives his Rosewood Telecaster home. And John and Paul, smiling at each other across the staves of memory, play their hearts out one more time. The rest is silence.

I learned to read at the age of five, in Brother Justiniano's class at the De la Salle Academy in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space and allowing me to travel with Captain Nemo twenty thousand leagues under the sea, fight with d'Artagnan, Athos, Portos, and Aramis against the intrigues threatening the Queen in the days of the secretive Richelieu, or stumble through the sewers of Paris, transformed into Jean Valjean carrying Marius's inert body on my back.

Katika maisha watu wengi hawataki kukuona ukiendelea kwa sababu ukiendelea unakuwa kioo kwao. Ghafla wataanza kukutazama. Wanajua wana akili kama wewe, wamesoma kama wewe, au wana akili kuliko wewe, au wamesoma kuliko wewe, na labda wanazijua sifa zako za udhaifu na sifa zako za ushupavu toka utotoni kwako. Lakini ghafla unakuwa kioo, na wanapojitazama katika hicho kioo, wanajiona taswira zao isipokuwa sasa hawapo mahali ambapo wewe upo. Katika maisha watu watakushauri, watakufitini, watakurubuni na watakukatisha tamaa. Sema hapana kwa ndiyo nyingi kwa sababu hawaoni unachokiona, hawajui unachokifanya na hawajui unapoelekea. Unachokiona ni takdiri ya maisha yako, unachokifanya ni kupanda mbegu na kuzimwagilia kwa imani, na unapoelekea ni kileleni. Hivyo, songa mbele, kuwa wewe daima, wape muda, wape nafasi.

FOREWORD Not all who would be are Narcissus. Many who lean over the water see only a vague human figure. Genet sees himself everywhere; the dullest surfaces reflect his image; even in others he perceives himself, thereby bringing to light their deepest secrets. The disturbing theme of the double, the image, the counterpart, the enemy brother, is found in all his works. Each of them has the strange property of being both itself and the reflection of itself. Genet brings before us a dense and teeming throng which intrigues us, transports us and changes into Genet beneath Genet's gaze.

Instinctively I had followed Mama’s caution against strangers, but she had also taught me to treat everyone the same no matter what or how different they were or what race they were. “These are only visible images,” Mama said, “like the colors and shapes of a painting. You need to look deeper to discover what the painting is about or how it affects you. It’s the same with people.”  

It remains to be asked why today it is the image of the woman of the "Golden Age" [the Abbasid dynasty] - a "slave" who intrigues in the corridors of power when she loses hope of seducing - who symbolizes the Muslim eternal female, while the memory of Umm Salama, A'isha, and Sukayna awakens no response and seems strangely distant and unreal. The answer without doubt is to be found in the time-mirror wherein the Muslim looks at himself to foresee his future. The image of "his" woman will change when he feels the pressing need to root his future in a liberating memory. Perhaps the woman should help him do this through daily pressure for equality, thereby bringing him into a fabulous present. And the present is always fabulous, because there everything is possible - even the end of always looking to the past and the beginning of confidence, of enjoying in harmony the moment that we have.

Something staticky and paranormally ventilated about the air, which drifted through a half-open window, late one afternoon, caused a delicately waking Paul, clutching a pillow and drooling a little, to believe he was a small child in Florida, in a medium-size house, on or near winter break. He felt dimly excited, anticipating a hyperactive movement of his body into a standing position, then was mostly unconscious for a vague amount of time until becoming aware of what seemed to be a baffling non sequitur—and, briefly, in its mysterious approach from some eerie distance, like someone else’s consciousness—before resolving plainly as a memory, of having already left Florida, at some point, to attend New York University. After a deadpan pause, during which the new information was accepted by default as recent, he casually believed it was autumn and he was in college, and as he felt that period’s particular gloominess he sensed a concurrent assembling, at a specific distance inside himself, of dozens of once-intimate images, people, places, situations. With a sensation of easily and entirely abandoning a prior context, of having no memory, he focused, as an intrigued observer, on this assembling and was surprised by an urge, which he immediately knew he hadn’t felt in months, or maybe years, to physically involve himself—by going outside and living each day patiently—in the ongoing, concrete occurrence of what he was passively, slowly remembering. But the emotion dispersed to a kind of nothingness—and its associated memories, like organs in a lifeless body, became rapidly indiscernible, dissembling by the metaphysical equivalent, if there was one, of entropy—as he realized, with some confusion and an oddly instinctual reluctance, blinking and discerning his new room, which after two months could still seem unfamiliar, that he was somewhere else, as a different person, in a much later year.

Once the writer was at the deathbed of a fellow writer. What interested his dying colleague more than anything else was what was being said in the cultural section of the newspapers. Did these battles of opinion take his mind off his illness by infuriating him or making him laugh? Did they put him in mind of an eternal repetition, preferable after all to what was in store for him? There was more to it than that. Even in his hopeless situation, far-removed as he was from the editorial offices, he was their prisoner; more than his nearest and dearest, the critics and editors were the object of his dreams; and in the intervals when he was free from pain, he would ask, since by then he was incapable of reading, what one publication or another had said about some new book. The intrigues, and the almost pleasurable fury they aroused in the sufferer - who saw through them - brought a kind of world, a certain permanence into the sickroom, and the man at his bedside understood his vituperating or silently nodding friend as well as if it had been his own self lying there. But later, when the end was near and the dying man still insisted on having opinions read out to him from the latest batch of newspapers, the witness vowed that he would never let things come to such a pass with him as they had with his image and likeness. Never again would he involve himself in this circuit of classifications and judgments, the substance of which was almost exclusively the playing off of one writer or school against another. Over the years since then, he had derived pride and satisfaction from staying on the outside and carrying on by his own strength rather than at the expense of rivals. The mere thought of returning to the circuit or to any of the persistently warring cliques made him feel physically ill. Of course, he would never get entirely away from them, for even today, so long after his vow, he suddenly caught sight of a word that he at first mistook for his name. But today at least he was glad - as he would not have been years ago - to have been mistaken. Lulled in security, he leafed through the local section and succeeded in giving his mind to every single news item.

I got your flowers. They’re beautiful, thank you.” A gorgeous riot of Gerber daisies and lilies in a rainbow of reds, pinks, yellows and oranges. “Welcome. Bet Duncan loved sending one of his guys out to pick them up for me.” She could hear the smile in his voice, imagined the devilish twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, he did. Said it’s probably the first time in the history of WITSEC that a U.S. Marshal delivered flowers to one of their witnesses.” A low chuckle. “Well, this was a special circumstance, so they helped me out.” “I loved the card you sent with them the best though.” Proud of you. Give ‘em hell tomorrow. He’d signed it Nathan rather than Nate, which had made her smile. “I had no idea you were romantic,” she continued. “All these interesting things I’m learning about you.” She hadn’t been able to wipe the silly smile off her face after one of the security team members had knocked on her door and handed them to her with a goofy smile and a, “special delivery”. “Baby, you haven’t seen anything yet. When the trial’s done you’re gonna get all the romance you can handle, and then some.” “Really?” Now that was something for a girl to look forward to, and it sure as hell did the trick in taking her mind off her worries. “Well I’m all intrigued, because it’s been forever since I was romanced. What do you have in mind? Candlelit dinners? Going to the movies? Long walks? Lazy afternoon picnics?” “Not gonna give away my hand this early on, but I’ll take those into consideration.” “And what’s the key to your heart, by the way? I mean, other than the thing I did to you this morning.” “What thing is that? Refresh my memory,” he said, a teasing note in his voice. She smiled, enjoying the light banter. It felt good to let her worry about tomorrow go and focus on what she had to look forward to when this was all done. Being with him again, seeing her family, getting back to her life. A life that would hopefully include Nathan in a romantic capacity. “Waking you up with my mouth.” He gave a low groan. “I loved every second of it. But think simpler.” Simpler than sex? For a guy like him? “Food, then. I bet you’re a sucker for a home-cooked meal. Am I right?” He chuckled. “That works too, but it’s still not the key.” “Then what?” “You.” She blinked, her heart squeezing at the conviction behind his answer. “Me?” “Yeah, just you. And maybe bacon,” he added, a smile in his voice. He was so freaking adorable. “So you’re saying if I made and served you a BLT, you’d be putty in my hands?” Seemed hard to imagine, but okay. A masculine rumble filled her ears. “God, yeah.” She couldn’t help the sappy smile that spread across her face. “Wow, you are easy. And I can definitely arrange that.” “I can hardly wait. Will you serve it to me naked? Or maybe wearing just a frilly little apron and heels?” She smothered a laugh, but a clear image of her doing just that popped into her head, serving him the sandwich in that sexy outfit while watching his eyes go all heated. “Depends on how good you are.” “Oh, baby, I’ll be so good to you, you have no idea.

sobered, nodded awkwardly, and acted like he wanted to speak, but didn’t. He turned to a laptop, gave it a command. The screens on the wall displayed what looked at first glance like a collage of images. At center was a photograph Acadia had recently taken of Alex Cross’s house from across Fifth Street. Dotted lines traveled from various windows in the house out to pictures of Dr. Alex, his wife, his grandmother, his daughter, and his younger son. Set off to one side was a framed picture of Damon, Alex Cross’s older son, seventeen and a student at a prep school in western Massachusetts. Digital lines went out from each portrait, linked to images of schools, police stations, churches, grocery stores, and various friends. There were also lines connecting each member of Cross’s family to calendar and clock icons. “He uses mind-mapping software and an Xbox 360 with Kinect to make it work,” Acadia explained. “It’s interactive, Marcus. Just stand in front of the camera and point to what you want.” Intrigued now, Sunday stepped in front of the screens and the Kinect camera. He pointed at the photograph of Cross. The screen instantly jumped to a virtual diary of the detective’s recent life, everything from photographs of Bree Stone, to his kids, to his white Chevy sedan and his best friend, John Sampson, and Sampson’s wife, Billie. Sunday pointed at the calendar, and the screens showed a chronological account of everything he had seen Cross do in the prior month.

discreetly cocked his head in the direction of the crush of dancing figures. "I wondered if you would care to engage in a small wager to add piquancy to this dull evening?" "What kind of wager?" "A matter of a successful seduction, Cousin." Simon grimaced at his cousin's expectant grin. No doubt the cad waited for a lecture. But today he would be surprised. An hour before, Simon had adjusted his cravat in the curved looking-glass in the foyer of his parents' town house and promised himself that he would do everything in his power to destroy the image of fairness and propriety that had given those who knew him cause to call him Saint Simon. And a good start to accomplish this aim would be to wager with his cousin. For Grimthorpe was a worse gossip than any of the bored dowagers seated about the room. He lifted his shoulders as if mildly intrigued with the idea. "My ring if you succeed." Grimthorpe's eyes narrowed in shock; then he eyed the large ruby and silver ring on Simon's left little

a land that does not live by its laws will not long endure. It may change those laws, but to flout them will destroy it far more quickly than following bad laws.

My lady—” Lock began but Kat held up a hand. “Okay, I just have to say this. Before we go any farther, could both of you please stop calling me ‘my lady?’ It’s getting really old. We’re not at the freaking Renaissance Fair, you know. I mean, what’s next? Are you going to offer to buy me a tankard of mead and joust for my honor?” Both the brothers looked thoroughly confused. “Buy you what?” Deep said. “What’s a joust?” Lock asked. Kat blew out a breath in frustration. “Never mind. The point is, I want you to stop calling me ‘my lady.’ All right?” Lock frowned. “But it’s the only proper term of address for an elite female.” Kat had a feeling she was getting in deeper and deeper, but she couldn’t help asking. “What’s an elite female?” Lock’s dark brown eyes were suddenly as hot as his brother’s had been earlier when he’d scented her. “One with a shape like yours, my lady.” His big hands described a generous hourglass in the air. “Most of the females on Twin Moons are lean and tough—our lifestyle and diet make them that way.” “But there are a few,” Deep went on, taking up where his brother had left off. “A lucky few whom the Mother has marked with curving hips and ripe breasts, full to overflowing.” His black eyes flickered hungrily over her body as he spoke and Kat had to fight the urge to cover herself. She suddenly felt naked under the blue silk gown. “They are blessed by the Mother—goddesses who walk among us. We call them the elite,” Lock continued, still eyeing her. “And naturally we thought you were an Earth elite. Were we wrong?” Kat stared at them, unbelieving. “Uh, I guess so. But on Earth we call it ‘plus sized.’” “Plus sized?” Deep raised an eyebrow at her. “You know—more to love? Pleasingly plump? Big beautiful woman?” His eyes gleamed. “Most intriguing. I like all those descriptions.” “I do, too.” Lock gave her a ravenous look. Kat felt the sudden urge to pinch herself. Are they seriously saying they come from a planet of skinny-minnies but they think plus sized girls are hotter? Did somebody slip me some crazy pills? She shook her head, trying to clear away the mental images the brothers’ words brought to mind. “Look,” she said sternly. “It’s great you’re so into women with curves, but we are getting way, way, way off point here. One, I’d prefer if you just called me Kat. And two, we need to do this…whatever it is we’re going to do and try to locate Sophie and Sylvan. They’ve been missing for hours now.” “Very

What is the meaning of this?” Sylvan sighed and stood up from the lumpy, uncomfortable grey couch in the far corner of the HKR building. He’d been hoping that Sophia would be in a better mood the next time he saw her but from the way her cheeks were flushed and her big green eyes were flashing with anger, it looked like his hopes were about to be dashed. “What is the meaning of what?” he asked, nodding at her courteously as she stormed up to him. “This.” Sophia reached into a large pink shopping bag she was carrying and pulled out a strange looking contraption that seemed to be made of black lacy straps. Sylvan looked at in confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t even know what that is.” “It’s a bra!” She shook it in his face in an accusing manner and Sylvan saw that there were two pocket-like cups attached to the straps that were joined in the middle. Still, it made no sense. “A what?” He attempted to take it from her but she snatched it back. “A bra—you know, to cover your, uh, chest?” Seeing that he was still clueless, Sophia put down the shopping back with an exasperated sound and held the black lace contraption up to her own chest. “Look—like this.” Today she was wearing a dark green blouse that buttoned down the front and brought out the color of her eyes. It was open enough for Sylvan to see her creamy throat and just a hint of cleavage. When she held it up, the black lace cups of the thing she’d called a bra framed her full breasts and he had a sudden mental image of her wearing it…and nothing else. Gods! His fangs sharpened and he was suddenly almost painfully hard. “I see,” he murmured, reaching out to trace the edge of the black lace where it framed the top of her breast. “It’s most…intriguing. I didn’t know human women wore such tantalizing undergarments.” Sophia’s cheeks got even redder and she shoved the bra back into the large pink shopping bag.

The Hillary enigma is very different than the Obama enigma. The enigma of Obama was: Who is this guy? In 2008, Obama came out of nowhere. Very little was known about his past. What little was known was mostly camouflage. So there was an understandable appetite to learn about him. Moreover, Obama was intriguing; his story generated obvious interest. As an immigrant, I was fascinated by Obama’s background, his charisma, his objectives. I wrote two books, The Roots of Obama’s Rage and Obama’s America, trying to explain Obama and predict what he would do. I predicted he was an anti-colonialist, in his father’s image, and that he would seek to “remake America” by reducing its wealth and power. Many people, even many conservatives, were initially baffled by my interpretation of this strange man. Only now—eight years later—do most people see that I was largely correct.

Filling the well involves the active pursuit of images to refresh our artistic reservoirs. Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details (for instance, the excruciatingly beautiful curve of a lost lover’s neck). Art may seem to involve broad strokes, grand schemes, great plans. But it is the attention to detail that stays with us; the singular image is what haunts us and becomes art. Even in the midst of pain, this singular image brings delight. The artist who tells you different is lying. In order to function in the language of art, we must learn to live in it comfortably. The language of art is image, symbol. It is a wordless language even when our very art is to chase it with words. The artist’s language is a sensual one, a language of felt experience. When we work at our art, we dip into the well of our experience and scoop out images. Because we do this, we need to learn how to put images back. How do we fill the well? ...In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do - spiritual sit ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery. A mystery draws us in, leads us on, lures us. 

I have long been intrigued by the fact that the concept of a particular section of hell as reserved for the punishment of sinners did not enter the Hebrew scriptures until after Israel had experienced the trauma of exile in Babylon. Before that time, the word “sheol” had conveyed the general abode of all the dead, as did images of the abyss or the pit. This tells me that how human beings treat one another has everything to do with our concept of hell. People who have endured the pain of exile and enslavement are likely to take refuge in the thought that there is punishment for their tormentors, if not in this world then in the next.

(Describing a stop at a village cafe in Italy while filming Taming of the Shrew) It was a perfect choice, the kind of place where chickens brood under the table, though there were none here There was the usual arbour of vines. Two men there intrigued Elizabeth. One was a distinguished oldish man, well dressed, who sat alone at a terraced table and neither ate nor drank nor moved. The other looked like a mendicant monk of some obscure order. He read from a parchment and ate bread. He didn't look up at all. He had a large beard. At seven-thirty just at dusk a Mass began at the church on the hill the other side of the road The Church of the Madonna of the Divine Love. The voices of the choir drifted on the air like an invisible mist, like unseen tumbleweed, like a dream. we stopped eating our fave (raw kidney beans) and rough cheese and we stopped drinking the vin de pays to listen. It was one of those moments which are nostalgic before they're over. The two men had gone, the tramp monk maybe to the Mass and the other who knows where. we drove home feeling holy and clean while the moon bright as I've ever seen her and with a wisp of chiffon cloud around her throat (E's image not mine) shone on us from the cloudless night.

Images of white, semi clad women in colour would be very conspicuous in an otherwise unintelligible newspaper to Nanaki. It was somewhat incongruous to see little pictures, sourced from foreign news agencies, of white women in bikinis, sun tanning on a beach in Zakynthos or a procession of revellers in Sao Paulo complete with exotic costume regalia: trailing pheasant feathers for tails, operatic masks tantalisingly revealing pouty red lips, breasts protruding out of sequinned two pieces, women’s toned derrieres jutting out of glitzy g-strings vibrating animalistically to the samba, shapely legs fitting snugly into gold stilettos. Others showed women walking down the ramp in skimpy lingerie at a Missoni fashion show in Milan. At times these sights would intrigue Nanaki. For her, Urdu was unintelligible, just black marks on paper. Who reads this newspaper? And who are these pictures for? Whose reality is this?

Thirdly, in other parts, where they have a written language, as in the East-Indies, China, Japan, &c. they know nothing of the gospel. The jesuits indeed once made many converts to popery among the Chinese; but their highest aim seemed to be to obtain their good opinion; for though the converts professed themselves Christians, yet they were allowed to honour the image of Confucius their great law-giver; and at length their ambitious intrigues brought upon them the displeasure of government, which terminated in the suppression of the mission, and almost, if not entirely, of the Christian name.

The first intimation of a new romance for a woman of the court was the arrival at her door of a messenger bearing a five-line poem in an unfamiliar hand. If the woman found the poem sufficiently intriguing, the paper it was written on suitable for its contents and mood, and the calligraphy acceptably graceful, her encouraging reply—itself in the form of a poem—would set in motion a clandestine, late-night visit from her suitor. The first night together was, according to established etiquette, sleepless; lovemaking and talk were expected to continue without pause until the man, protesting the night’s brevity, departed in the first light of the predawn. Even then he was not free to turn his thoughts to the day’s official duties: a morning-after poem had to be written and sent off by means of an ever-present messenger page, who would return with the woman’s reply. Only after this exchange had been completed could the night’s success be fully judged by whether the poems were equally ardent and accomplished, referring in image and nuance to the themes of the night just passed. Subsequent visits were made on the same clandestine basis and under the same circumstances, until the relationship was either made official by a private ceremony of marriage or ended. Once she had given her heart, a woman was left to await her lover’s letters and appearances at her door at nightfall. Should he fail to arrive, there might be many explanations—the darkness of the night, inclement weather, inauspicious omens preventing travel, or other interests. Many sleepless nights were spent in hope and speculation, and, as evidenced by the poems in this book, in poetic activity. Throughout the course of a relationship, the exchange of poems served to reassure, remind, rekindle or cool interest, and, in general, to keep the other person aware of a lover’s state of mind. At the same time, poetry was a means of expressing solely for oneself the uncertainties, hopes, and doubts which inevitably accompanied such a system of courtship, as well as a way of exploring other personal concerns.

So designing spreadable value units is a crucial step toward virality. A spreadable value unit may be one that helps to start an interaction on an external network, the way Instagram photos create conversations on Facebook among users intrigued by the images they’ve seen. Or it may create the opportunity to complete an incomplete interaction, the way an unanswered question on Quora demands social feedback in the form of an answer, or a fresh survey on Survey-Monkey invites responses. Making it easy for users to create and disseminate spreadable value units helps you build a platform that has high growth as well as high engagement.

J’aurais voulu vivre la destinée de l’univers. S'il m’arrivait de rentrer un soir à la maison pour trouver qu’il n’y avait rien à manger, pas même pour la gosse, je faisais aussitôt demi-tour pour me mettre en quête. Mais, et c’est un trait de moi qui m’intrigue toujours, à peine me retrouvais-je dans la rue, galopant à la recherche de la croûte, je retombais en pleine Weltanschauung. Loin de penser exclusivement à notre bouffe, je pensais à la bouffe en général, à tous ses stades et dans le monde entier à l’heure qu’il était : comment on se la procurait, la préparait, ce que faisaient les gens qui n’avaient rien à se mettre sous la dent, et peut-être y avait-il moyen d’arranger les choses en sorte que tout le monde eût son contentement et qu’on ne gâchât plus de temps à résoudre un problème aussi simple et idiot. J’étais navré pour ma femme et ma gosse, bien sûr, mais je l’étais tout autant pour les Hottentots et les Bochimans d’Australie, sans oublier les Belges qui mouraient de faim, les Turcs et les Arméniens. J’étais navré pour toute la race humaine, pour la stupidité de l’homme et son manque d’imagination. Ne pas avoir de quoi manger à un repas n’était pas si terrible en soi – c’était le vide effroyable de la rue qui me bouleversait. Toutes ces putains de maisons, absolument identiques, plus vides et tristes les unes que les autres. Pavé fin sous le pied, coulée d’asphalte au centre de la rue, perrons en pierre brune, magnifiquement hideux d’élégance – ce qui n’empêche qu’un type peut passer sa journée, nuit comprise, à se balader sur ce matériau coûteux en quête d’une croûte de pain. Et cela me dépassait. Penser à l’incongruité d’un tel état de chose. Si seulement on pouvait se ruer dehors, brandissant une cloche à sonner les repas et hurlant – « Oyez, oyez, braves gens, vous avez devant vous un type qui la saute. Où y a-t-il des chaussures à cirer ? Des ordures à sortir ? Des tuyaux à déboucher ? » Si seulement on pouvait descendre dans la rue et s’expliquer avec les gens. Mais non, on n’ose pas l’ouvrir. Abordez le premier venu dans la rue, dites-lui que vous avez faim, la peur lui flanquera la chiasse et lui donnera des ailes. Cela aussi m’a toujours dépassé. C'est tellement simple pourtant – il suffit de dire Oui quand on s’approche de vous. Si vous ne pouvez dire Oui, qui vous empêche de prendre le type par le bras et de demander à un autre zigue de vous aider à le tirer d’affaire. Pourquoi a-t-on besoin de revêtir un uniforme pour aller tuer des gens qu’on ne connaît pas et se procurer de quoi croûter – c’est pour moi un mystère. Voilà ce qui me trotte par la tête, bien plus que l’image de la gueule qui dévore la croûte et que le prix de cette dernière.

Three of the leading opponents of behavioral genetics collaborated on a book that set out to deconstruct the new science and reverse the biological tide. The book was Not in Our Genes, and the authors were three of the most vigilant critics of the genetic view: Richard Lewontin, a population geneticist at Harvard; the indefatigable Leon Kamin, who was then at Princeton’s psychology department; and Steven Rose, a neurobiologist at England’s Open University. Although the book had slight impact, it is worth examining as a compendium of the arguments and methods of the opponents of behavioral genetics, arguments that these critics, and their shrinking band of allies, continue to make despite repeated refutations. Throughout the text the authors, with admirable candor, proclaim their Marxist perspective and their “commitment to … a more socially just—a socialist—society.” Few pages go by without references to “dialectics,” “bourgeois society,” and “capitalist values.” The authors’ apparently feel their clean breast about their politics permitted wholesale assumptions about those of their opponents. We are leftists is their implicit claim; but you on the other side of the scientific fence are reactionaries. Liberals, they appeared to be saying, can have only one scientific view, theirs; any other must be right-wing and antiliberal. “Biological determinist ideas,” they say, “are part of the attempt to preserve the inequalities of our society and to shape human nature in its own image.” It must surely have come as unpleasant news to Sandra Scarr, Jerome Kagan, and other liberal psychologists to learn that they were striving to preserve society’s inequalities. In addition, the authors’ nasty assumptions of their opponents’ motives must have been an eye-opener to the hundreds of microbiologists, lab technicians, DNA scanners, rat-runners, statistical analysts, and all the others engaged in behavioral genetics research who learned from the book that they were going to work each day “to preserve the interests of the dominant class, gender, and race.” But the falsity of the authors’ premise goes well beyond slandering a few individuals. Throughout the text, the writers deny the possibility that scientists could exist who place their curiosity about the world ahead of their political agendas. Lewontin, Kamin, and Rose deny as well the possibility of any man or woman, including themselves, separating science from politics. (“Science is not and cannot be above ‘mere’ politics.”) They leave no room for the scientist who is so intrigued by new information, in this case gene-behavior discoveries, that he or she is oblivious to alleged political consequences. For the authors, all scientists who seek out biological influences on behavior, from Darwin to Robert Plomin, are willing servants of the status quo, if not promoters of a return to feudalism.

Out here, I am half scientist, half disciple. I’ve left the laboratory far behind and, with it, the need to quantify and contain. In its place, I’ve reconnected with the simple act of observation. Watch. Listen. Learn. These were the tenets of the earliest naturalists, the instincts of indigenous people around the globe whose survival depended on knowledge gained from the land. My passion for birds and the natural world also emerged from these basic principles. I fell in love with the image of the sky blocked by kittiwakes flying in perfect synchrony, became intrigued by a chickadee whose beak promised to foretell something about our environment, tuned my ears to the nuances of a warbler’s song. What drew me to research was not the rigor of statistics or the mystery of what lies within an organism’s genetic code. It was the birds themselves.

I’m always more interested in the people around me,” Mrs. Mantle said. “All the details that tell me about a person. For example, I have some ideas about you.” “As in?” I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Most people didn’t notice me at all. “Your love of art. The glimmer of intelligence in your eyes. Your simple dark skirt and white blouse hinted that you’d been at work, although I’d guessed a secretary, not a bakery. You mentioned a father but no mother, which leads me to believe your mother has passed away some time ago. You’re in obvious distress, given the tears. I’m guessing a man has broken your heart.” My brows shot up in surprise. “How did you know?” “As I said, I watch people carefully. The way you brushed away the tears with such ferocity, as if you wanted to punish yourself for crying. Tell me about him. What happened?” I thought for a moment. Did I want to tell my pitiful story to a stranger? It was surely one she’d heard before. Left for a woman’s best friend. An image of Lionel’s face danced before me. His soft brown eyes and a mouth too pink for a man, yet perfect. The pitying way he’d looked at me while saying the words, “I love her. We’re going to marry. I’m sorry, Faith. Truly, I am. But you deserve a man who loves you, and I’m not him.

To be clear, 83 per cent of images in the porn image section of Usenet were pornographic. That means 17 per cent of the images in the porn groups were not pornographic, and I’m sorry, that is far more intriguing. What were they? Cats? Birthday cakes?

I asked Xavier what his story was, feeling my intrigue and inquisitiveness had built an image of him that was way out of proportion. “My story?” He laughed, "I can’t imagine our stories are much different, school, childhood, adolescence, friends and girlfriends, all this bullshit. I went to university, took a job, then quit after three weeks because it was really, I mean really, boring. Then I came to the airport and I am waiting here. Just like you.

The Yo! MTV Raps platform was tailor-made for the West Coast rappers who already understood quite well that breakout success in the expanding, fractured, and increasingly competitive field of hip-hop did not come from music alone. Neither was it a simple product of radio adds or music video airings. Those things mattered, to be sure—but market demand hinged, more than ever before, on image and intrigue.

In human manufacturing, use of interchangeable parts was a revolutionary innovation, and hard work to achieve. How did Nature achieve it? How could uniformity, if achieved by careful adjustment, stand up to the ravages of time? And if the building blocks are supremely stable, and resistant to change, how did they arise in the first place? Maxwell was alert to , and intrigued by, this issue, seeing in it evidence of benevolent Creation. As he put it: 'Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all the dimensions of the earth and the whole solar system. But though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built-the foundation stones of the material universe-remain unbroken and unworn. They continue this day as they were created-perfect in number and measure and weight, and form the innefaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials which heaven and earth consist.

We bait each other with half-truths about the best parts of ourselves, always selecting exactly what to show and how to show it, only revealing what might entice or intrigue each other. Dating today also tends to center the whole world around me—​my interests, my friends, my preferences. Many of us think we’re pursing marriage as we chat and flirt with one another, but we’re really just pursuing ourselves—​our own image and self-esteem, our own selfish desires, and our own ego. We’re always projecting and positioning ourselves to get the attention and affirmation we crave but without ever risking or giving up too much in the process.

Or quel est le résultat de cette conduite, si rapidement résumée ? Le voici, indubitablement. L’homme, simple et confiant tout d’abord, n’est pas éternellement dupe. Les sophismes, dont il fut le crédule approbateur, les erreurs dont ensuite il fut la facile victime, lui font de l’expérience, et lui inspirent, avec la réflexion, une défiance salutaire. Ainsi, ce sont ceux-là mêmes, qui le trompèrent, qui lui apprennent à ne plus se tromper. Donc, l’homme qui a compris qu’il avait été abusé de lui, pour le conduire dans une voie qui n’était pas celle de l’humanité, mais celle seulement de quelques individus ou de quelques groupes, retire sa confiance et son estime à ceux qui l’ont guidé, et prend le ferme propos de se guider lui-même ou de se faire guider par d’autres. Mais, comme il n’arrive à cette clairvoyance et à cette résolution qu’au moment où ceux qui l’ont abusé sont devenus ses maîtres, il n’a de recours que dans l’intrigue, la révolte, la révolution ; et, malgré l’éducation qui lui fit une fausse nature, la première nature réclame à la fin si impérieusement, qu’il se résigne à user de violence ou de ruse pour récupérer sa normalité. Et ainsi, combattant son vainqueur avec ses propres armes, il forme de nouveaux groupes occultes, à l’image des premiers, mais qui ne valent pas davantage pour le but auquel il tend, et n’atteindra vraisemblablement jamais. Là est la cause, le secret et le mécanisme de la maladive instabilité ethnique, économique et politique de l’Occident. Le résultat obtenu par les sociétés secrètes orientales est tout contraire. Eclairé constamment, sans avoir été contraint à une obligation réciproque quelconque, sur sa voie et l’intérêt général et continu qu’il a à s’y conformer, l’homme de race jaune, par l’action de la société secrète, qui est la quintessence ethnique de cette race, atteint à la fois la connaissance de son avantage et le pouvoir de se le procurer. Non pas par gratitude, mais par la conviction qu’il se sert lui-même, il est porté à appeler à côté de lui les groupes grâce auxquels il occupe une si solide et bénéfique situation ; et tout naturellement, il provoque et utilise, dans. la tranquillité de la paix et de la puissance, les conseils de ceux qui lui ont fait obtenir la paix et la puissance. Ce que les sociétés secrètes n’ont point cherché, elles le trouvent dès lors avec d’autant plus de certitude que précisément elles ne l’ont pas cherché : l’« influence », ou l’exercice du pouvoir sans le titre, c’est-à-dire sans les inconvénients attachés au pouvoir, l’envie, l’inquiétude et l’ambition. Et, dans cet état social, il n’y a point de mécontents, parce que chacun est suffisamment heureux suivant sa condition ; et chacun est heureux parce que tout le monde est à sa place, dans l’État comme dans l’univers.

Zen is an especially intriguing school of Buddhism because it brings to mind paradoxical images of monks happily living quiet lives, meditating on mountaintops, as well as powerful martial artists.

All life is solving problems that create other problems requiring yet other solutions.

This generation grew up constantly reminded that they lived in the greatest country in the world, the land of the free, with liberty and justice for all its citizens. Yet, as they matured, members of this generation found a disturbing disparity between this popular American self-image and actual reality. They found that many people in this land—women and certain racial minorities—were, by law and custom, definitely not free. By the sixties the new generation was inspecting closely, and many were finding other disturbing aspects of the United States’ self-image—for instance, a blind patriotism that expected young people to go into a foreign land to fight a political war that had no clearly expressed purpose and no prospect of victory. Just as disturbing was the culture’s spiritual practice. The materialism of the previous four hundred years had pushed the mystery of life, and death, far into the background. Many found the churches and synagogues full of pompous and meaningless ritual. Attendance seemed more social than spiritual, and the members too restricted by a sense of how they might be perceived and judged by their onlooking peers. As the vision progressed, I could tell that the new generation’s tendency to analyze and judge arose from a deep-seated intuition that there was more to life than the old material reality took into account. The new generation sensed new spiritual meaning just beyond the horizon, and they began to explore other, lesser known religions and spiritual points of view. For the first time the Eastern religions were understood in great numbers, serving to validate the mass intuition that spiritual perception was an inner experience, a shift in awareness that changed forever one’s sense of identity and purpose. Similarly the Jewish Cabalist writings and the Western Christian mystics, such as Meister Eckehart and Teilhard de Chardin, provided other intriguing descriptions of a deeper spirituality. At the same time, information was surfacing from the human sciences—sociology, psychiatry, psychology, and anthropology—as well as from modern physics, that cast new light on the nature of human consciousness and creativity. This cumulation of thought, together with the perspective provided by the East, gradually began to crystallize into what was later called the Human Potential Movement, the emerging belief that human beings were presently actualizing only a small portion of their vast physical, psychological, and spiritual potential I watched as, over the course of several decades, this information and the spiritual experience it spawned grew into a critical mass of awareness, a leap in consciousness from which we began to formulate a new view of what living a human life was all about,

There were brain-imaging studies that suggested there was overactivity in the anterior cingulate gyrus in patients who had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). There was a SPECT study in 1991 reporting that Prozac decreased activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus in OCD patients. I saw hyperactivity in the anterior cingulate gyrus in many patients who did not have OCD. But I noticed a common thread with OCD. Patients had trouble shifting attention. Researcher Alan Mirsky wrote a book chapter highlighting the anterior cingulate area of the brain as being involved with shifting attention. In Robbin, Kaitlyn, and many of my patients who had too much activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus I saw this problem of shifting attention: there was a certain cognitive inflexibility that was evident in many of their symptoms. Could it be possible that oppositional children had a similar underlying brain mechanism found in OCD? I was intrigued. Over time the finding proved to be true. When there is increased activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus a certain cognitive inflexibility is present. This can present as many different symptoms, but the underlying mechanism, trouble shifting attention, remains. The symptom list at the beginning of the chapter is a compilation of what we have seen in these patients. The anterior cingulate area of the brain is heavily innervated with serotonin neurons. We have also found that serotonergic medications seem to be the most helpful in this disorder. The Anterior Cingulate Gyrus