Lee Evans Quotes

That's the thing with life; whenever there's a real proper decision to be made, there's never anybody around but you.

Books Can Fuel Your Dreams!

Rent 'em, Tape 'em, F**k 'em.

Writing is like putting your own mind on paper. What you like, dislike, believe, and who you are.

Evans believes that designers can create effects that seem magical by pushing against the same natural laws that magicians play with. For example, when the Japanese company Seibu asked architect Kazuyo Sejima to design a new express train, she imagined an invisible train speeding through the countryside.

The biggest lie was about time – it can wait, we’ll sort it out when life slows down a bit. But life doesn’t slow down, ever. Life is a chunk of iron hurtling through space at ten times the speed of sound, accelerating as it encounters a gravitational pull and accelerating still more until it hits the atmosphere and burns away to nothing. Or slams into the skin of the planet, erupting in a torrent of dust that clouds the atmosphere and kills off all the damned dinosaurs. It was too humid and Evan was too tired to fall down a rabbit hole of doubt and self-recrimination.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Often the question of which books were used for research in the Merry series is asked. So, here is a list (in no particular order). While not comprehensive, it contains the major sources. An Encyclopedia of Faeries by Katharine Briggs Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend by Miranda J. Green Celtic Goddesses by Miranda J. Green Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by Peter Berresford Ellis Goddesses in World Mythology by Martha Ann and Dorothy Myers Imel A Witches’ Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz Pagan Celtic Britain by Anne Ross The Ancient British Goddesses by Kathy Jones Fairy Tradition in Britain by Lewis Spense One Hundred Old Roses for the American Garden by Clair G. Martin Taylor’s Guide to Roses Pendragon by Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd Kings and Queens from Collins Gem Butterflies of Europe: A Princeton Guide by Tom Tolman and Richard Lewington Butterflies and Moths of Missouri by J. Richard and Joan E. Heitzman Dorling Kindersly Handbook: Butterflies and Moths by David Carter The Natural World of Bugs and Insects by Ken and Rod Preston Mafham Big Cats: Kingdom of Might by Tom Brakefield Just Cats by Karen Anderson Wild Cats of the World by Art Wolfe and Barbara Sleeper Beauty and the Beast translated by Jack Zipes The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm translated by Jack Zipes Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old by Ralph Manheim Complete Guide to Cats by the ASPCA Field Guide to Insects and Spiders from the National Audubon Society Mammals of Europe by David W. MacDonald Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham Northern Mysteries and Magick by Freya Aswym Cabbages and Kings by Jonathan Roberts Gaelic: A Complete Guide for Beginners The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley Holland The Penguin Companion to Food by Alan Davidson

Reggie hired James Lee, an up-and-coming partner at Lee Tran & Liang, as his lawyer in the case. Lee had begun his career as an LAPD detective; when he started studying at Stanford Law School, the Palo Alto campus was so quiet it gave him insomnia. Evan and Bobby still retained Cooley LLP, who responded to Reggie’s letter in May 2012, as their lawyers for Snapchat. The ensuing discovery and depositions cost Snapchat significant time and money, but perhaps most importantly it weighed heavily on Evan at a pivotal point for the company. On April 5, Evan, Bobby, and their attorneys from Cooley, along with Reggie and his attorneys from Lee Tran & Liang, filed into a conference room in Cooley’s offices in downtown Santa Monica. Outside, tourists strolled up and down Santa Monica Boulevard, stopping in the trendy neighborhood’s upscale shops, restaurants, and bars; they might walk down the palm-tree-lined street to the beach or the famous pier. Inside the conference room the temperature was more frigid. Cooley’s Mike Rhodes began deposing Reggie, attempting to establish that Reggie had accomplished little since graduation: “What is your current employment, if any?” “Well, currently I’m working in the South Carolina attorney general’s office.” “And how long have you worked there?” “I guess about a month at this point.” “And what is your position?” “It’s basically an intern/ clerk position.” “Is that a nonpaying position?” “Yes, it is.” “And again, what was your approximate start date?” “A few weeks ago. Probably about a month.” “So early March?” “Yes.” “And what were you doing, if anything, for employment prior to that date?” “Well, I was applying to law school.” “Were you working?” “No.” Reggie became distracted midway through answering a question about which lawyers he had spoken with. A naked man had chosen the sidewalk across from the Cooley office as his performance stage for the day and was gesturing at Reggie through the window. The lawyers hastily closed the blinds and continued the deposition much less eventfully.

James Lee asked Bobby if he had ever referred to Reggie Brown as an employer at Picaboo. Bobby said he hadn’t. Lee showed him an automated email from Facebook, reading “Bobby Murphy tagged you in Picaboo under Employers.” Bobby’s eyes darted, his head tilted down, and he twitched his mouth nervously. Glancing up at Lee, he sheepishly replied “Uh … Well it looks like here that I did something to that effect,” Murphy said. “I don’t have a specific recollection of this happening … although I would say that it would have been unclear to me what … tagging someone as an ‘employer’ under Facebook would mean.” The following Monday, it was Evan’s turn in front of the deposition camera. Like Bobby, Evan got tripped up a few times. After getting Evan on the record that Reggie had not been building an application with Evan and Bobby, Lee showed Evan an email he sent to Nicole James, the blogger who wrote about Snapchat, in which he wrote, “I just built an app with two friends of mine (certified bros.)” Evan reluctantly admitted that the two people he was referring to were Bobby and Reggie. The deposition continued: “Did you come up with the idea for deleting picture messages?” “No.” “Did Bobby come up with the idea?” “No, he did not.” “Who came up with the idea?” “Reggie did.” “Do you think Reggie deserves anything for the contributions he made on the project?” Evan paused for seven seconds. The room was dead silent. “Reggie may deserve something for some of his contributions.” “Do you have any regrets?” Evan sat still for thirty seconds. Again, the room was noiseless. Evan searched for the right words. “That’s a really hard question for me because it’s pretty clear that I lost a good friend.

Evan looked tired and miserable, his shoulders slumped in the chair, his eyes sullen and searching for the ground. “I regret inviting him to my house. I regret spending that time with him at my house. I regret giving him so many chances. He exploited my attempts at generosity … the generosity was giving Reggie an opportunity to work on something like this … for experience that he didn’t have.” “Do you regret Reggie sharing his idea with you?” There was no pause this time. “No.” These depositions did significant damage to Snapchat, both in the case and in the court of public opinion. Someone leaked videos of the depositions to Business Insider, making Evan and Bobby look bad for cutting Reggie out of the company and initially lying in response to deposition questions about Reggie’s level of involvement. After these disastrous depositions, Evan and Bobby replaced Cooley with David Quinn and the team at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, the same firm where Lee and his partners got their start. It was also the firm that represented the Winklevoss twins in their infamous suit against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. David Quinn was tenacious in and out of the courtroom, running Ironman triathlons in his free time. Evan and Bobby were convinced Quinn Emanuel could use their experience from the most infamous startup lawsuit of all time to help them defeat Reggie. Quinn Emmanuel was much more aggressive than Cooley had been. They filed a sea of requests for documents, depositions, and subpoenas. They tried to dismiss the case and remove it to federal court, and they sought contempt sanctions and a restraining order against Reggie and Lee Tran & Liang.

Lee Tran & Liang tried to have Quinn Emmanuel thrown off the case, as Reggie had tried to get another Quinn Emmanuel lawyer to take his side of the case before he went to Lee Tran & Liang. Ultimately, the judge ruled against Reggie and said the waiver Reggie had signed and the ethical wall Quinn Emmanuel erected were sufficient for them to continue representing Evan, Bobby, and Snapchat. Lee Tran & Liang also tried to sue all of Snapchat’s investors, claiming their shares were diluting Reggie’s one-third stake. They even lined up a tell-all interview for Reggie with GQ magazine, but he backed out at the last minute. At one point, Lee’s partner Luan Tran took a copy of Forbes magazine with Evan on the cover, scrawled red devil horns over his head, and pinned it to the wall in his office. The combative trial would wage for months, and each side had plenty more cards to play. Reggie claimed he owned one-third of Snapchat’s intellectual property since he filed the original patent (which, again, was never approved). He also claimed that they had entered into an oral partnership agreement when he and Evan initially agreed to split everything 50/ 50 (before they brought Bobby in). Evan and Bobby claimed Reggie was merely working with them on a project, and they never agreed to an equity split; because they used the Limited Liability Company (LLC) structure that Evan and Bobby had set up for Future Freshman rather than a whole new one, they claimed Reggie should know he had no equity in the venture.

The lawsuit was also a major distraction to Evan, Bobby, and Snapchat, during a time when they needed to focus more than ever. Finally, they reached a settlement. Reggie would receive $ 157.5 million and sign a gag order to never speak about Snapchat, the founding, or the lawsuit. Snapchat would acknowledge Reggie’s contributions to the company. Like Facebook’s multiple lawsuits with the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin, it’s difficult to neatly arrange the characters into winner and loser columns. Reggie Brown likely could not have built Snapchat into the multibillion-dollar company it is today. But he did not simply toss an idea out there for anyone to take—he recruited Evan, the best person he knew for the task, to join him and start the company. So what is fair for each side to receive? Snapchat’s valuation soared so high and so quickly during the lawsuit that it was hard for each side to wrap their heads around it, let alone arbitrate what each side deserved. This question isn’t going away. The Social Network, featuring courtroom scene after courtroom scene of friends hurling accusations at each other through expensive lawyers, spurred scores of young college students to pursue startups. Evan’s massive success with Snapchat has only increased the startup fervor on Stanford’s campus. And Reggie’s lawyers’ firm, Lee Tran & Liang, has become the hot law firm for ousted startup cofounders to sue young tech companies.

I always preferred Harpo to Groucho Marx.

Glory to the Red Blood.

Evan made a mental note to not run out here some Friday night to check it out.

Healing Wounds, Diane Carlson Evans, with Bob Welch, Permuted Press, 2020; American Daughter Gone to War, Winnie Smith, William Morrow, 1992; Home Before Morning, Lynda Van Devanter, University of Massachusetts Press, 2001 (originally published 1983); Women in Vietnam: The Oral History, Ron Steinman, TV Books, 2000; A Piece of My Heart, Keith Walker, Presidio Press, 1986. See also: After the Hero’s Welcome, Dorothy H. McDaniel, WND Books, 2014; The League of Wives, Heath Hardage Lee, St. Martin’s Press, 2019; In Love and War, Jim and Sybil Stockdale, Naval Institute Press, 1990; and The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Andrew E. Hunt, New York University Press, 1999.