Love Me Correctly Quotes

Us," Peter corrects. "I did it for us." He links our fingers together. "It's you and me, kid.

But you... You helped me find my way and take the correct path, Naruto... I always chased after you...wanting to catch up...wanting to walk together with you forever... I want to be at your side, always... You changed me, Naruto! Your smiling face saved me! And that's way I'm not afraid to die, defending you! Because... I love you...

You love me, and-' 'Loved,' I correct him, sidestepping so I can get some fucking space and then taking it. 'Love!' he shouts, stopping me in my tracks and earning us a glance from every rider within hearing distance. 'You love me.

The truth was I'd given up waiting long ago. The moment had passed, the door between the lives we could have led and the lives we led had shut in our faces. Or better to say, in my face. Grammar of my life: as a rule of thumb, wherever there appears a plural, correct for singular. Should I ever let slip a royal We put me out of my misery with a swift blow to the head.

I realized right then and there, in that hallway, that I wanted no other... I became the man she needed me to be because she had sense enough to have requirements-standards that she needed in her relationship in order to make the relationship work for her. She knew she wanted a monogamous relationship-a partnership with a man who wanted to be a dedicated husband and father. She also knew this man had to be faithful, love God, and be willing to do what it took to keep this family together. On a smaller scale she also made it clear that she expected to be treated like a lady at every turn-I'm talking opening car doors for her, pulling out her seat when she's ready to sit at the table, coming correct on anniversary, Mother's Day, and birthday gifts, keeping the foul talk to a minimum. These requirements are important to her because they lay out a virtual map of what I need to do to make sure she gets what she needs and wants. After all, it's universal knowledge that when mama is happy, everybody is happy. And it is my sole mission in life to make sure Marjorie is happy.

I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, Eyes; I wonder if It weighs like Mine, Or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long, Or did it just begin? I could not tell the Date of Mine, It feels so old a pain. I wonder if it hurts to live, And if They have to try, And whether, could They choose between, It would not be, to die. I note that Some -- gone patient long -- At length, renew their smile. An imitation of a Light That has so little Oil. I wonder if when Years have piled, Some Thousands -- on the Harm Of early hurt -- if such a lapse Could give them any Balm; Or would they go on aching still Through Centuries above, Enlightened to a larger Pain By Contrast with the Love. The Grieved are many, I am told; The reason deeper lies, -- Death is but one and comes but once, And only nails the eyes. There's Grief of Want and Grief of Cold, -- A sort they call "Despair"; There's Banishment from native Eyes, In sight of Native Air. And though I may not guess the kind Correctly, yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary, To note the fashions of the Cross, And how they're mostly worn, Still fascinated to presume That Some are like My Own.

I’m all about that shit.” Mom shoots me the Disapproving-Mom-Subtle-Lip-Frown. “I’m all about that poop,” I correct delicately.

Where there is great love there are always miracles,' he said at length. 'One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

That we’re dysfunctional and toxic!” “We were dysfunctional and toxic,” I correct her.

So they gave me love in form of poison and tiny little pills, programming my emotions, teaching me how to feel. To act correct and talk correct and answer without knowing the question, because that, my dear, is how you get love. Yes that, dear youth, is how you'll be loved. I tried to medicate my own fucked up little mind with chemicals and adrenaline, tasting sweeter every night, shaking louder every time. Sitting wide awake in bed until the world disappears, writing poetry to concentrate on something real while waiting for the love to arrive. I've been looking for it night after night, waiting patiently for it to show up, maybe somewhere in between the state of awake and asleep, alive and not so alive, sober and not so sober. (I lost track of the difference somewhere in between.)

Ego Tripping I was born in the congo I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every one hundred years falls into the center giving divine perfect light I am bad I sat on the throne drinking nectar with allah I got hot and sent an ice age to europe to cool my thirst My oldest daughter is nefertiti the tears from my birth pains created the nile I am a beautiful woman I gazed on the forest and burned out the sahara desert with a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes I crossed it in two hours I am a gazelle so swift so swift you can't catch me For a birthday present when he was three I gave my son hannibal an elephant He gave me rome for mother's day My strength flows ever on My son noah built new/ark and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer day I turned myself into myself and was jesus men intone my loving name All praises All praises I am the one who would save I sowed diamonds in my back yard My bowels deliver uranium the filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels On a trip north I caught a cold and blew My nose giving oil to the arab world I am so hip even my errors are correct I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continents I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission I mean...I...can fly like a bird in the sky...

... as a rule of thumb, whenever there appears a plural, correct for a singular. Should I ever let slip a royal WE, put me out of my misery with a swift blow to the head.

The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people’s hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely. During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one’s face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one’s lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn’t go round with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they’d understood correctly. Sometimes these misunderstandings were even desirable, since they gave people a reason to say, Forgive me, I was only scratching my nose. Of course I know I’ve always been right to love you. Because of the frequency of these mistakes, over time the gesture for asking forgiveness evolved into the simplest form. Just to open your palm was to say: Forgive me." "If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. It’s not that we’ve forgotten the language of gestures entirely. The habit of moving our hands while we speak is left over from it. Clapping, pointing, giving the thumbs-up, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together. And at night, when it’s too dark to see, we find it necessary to gesture on each other’s bodies to make ourselves understood.

I have loved ye since I saw you, Sassenach,” he said very quietly, holding my eyes with his own, bloodshot and lined with tiredness but very blue. “I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army—well, no,” he corrected himself, “it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.

Can I borrow your phone?" she asked. I frowned, unsure what she would do. "Sure." I pulled my phone from my pocket, handing it to her. She fingered the buttons for a moment, and then dialed, closing her eyes as she waited. "I'm sorry for calling you so early," she stammered, "but this couldn't wait. I . . . can't go to dinner with you on Wednesday." She had called Parker. My hands trembled with apprehension, wondering if she was going to ask him to pick her up - to save her - or something else. She continue, "I can't see you at all, actually. I'm . . . pretty sure I'm in love with Travis." My whole world stopped. I tried to replay her words over. Had I heard them correctly? Did she really just say what I thought she had, or was it just wishful thinking? Abby handed the phone back to me, and then reluctantly peered up into my eyes. "He hung up," she said with a frown. "You love me?" "It's the tattoos," she said, flippant and shrugging, as if she hadn't just said the one thing I'd ever wanted to hear. Pigeon loved me.

Except for when I was very little and thought that being an "engineer" meant he drove a train. Then I imagined him in the seat of an engine car the color of coal, a string of shiny passenger cars trailing behind. One day my father laughed and corrected me. Everything snapped into focus. It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.

If you are my food, how am I supposed to feel pity towards you? That would mean starvation for me. “A hungry leopard told a fallen, panting, imploring gazelle

Correction—I love her, and she loves me. When our loved ones die, the love stays alive in the present.

One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me not to rest so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

I gained everything. Or at least I'll think so," he growled, suddenly impatient, anxious, "when you give me a bloody answer to my bloody question. How many times are you going to make me ask you? Will you marry me, Gabrielle O'Callaghan? Yes or yes? And in case you're still managing to miss the point, the correct answer is 'yes.' And, by the way, anytime you'd like to tell me you love me, I wouldn't mind hearing it.

I gave her a love letter and she returned it back to me by correcting spelling and punctuation.

You love me, and—' 'Loved,' I correct him, sidestepping so I can get some fucking space and then taking it. 'Love!' he shouts, stopping me in my tracks and earning us a glance from every rider within hearing distance. 'You love me.

Woolsey quirked an eyebrow. “You are a funny thing,” he said. “I would say I could see what those boys see in you, but …” He shrugged. His yellow dressing gown had a long, bloody tear in it now. “Women are not something I have ever understood.” “What about them do you find mysterious, sir?” “The point of them, mainly.” “Well, you must have had a mother,” said Tessa. “Someone whelped me, yes,” said Woolsey without much enthusiasm. “I remember her little.” “Perhaps, but you would not exist without a woman, would you? However little use you may find us, we are cleverer and more determined and more patient than men. Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.” “Is that what you are doing? Enduring? Surely an engaged woman should be happier.” His light eyes raked her. “A heart divided against itself cannot stand, as they say. You love them both, and it tears you apart.” “House,” said Tessa. He raised an eyebrow. “What was that?” “A house divided against itself cannot stand. Not a heart. Perhaps you should not attempt quotations if you cannot get them correct.

My shoulders sagged. Really, is it too much to ask that I be able to come home from a long day of work and relax? Oh, no. I have to come home and read a bunch of letters written to the love of my life by his fiancée, who, if I am correct, had him killed a hundred and fifty years ago. Then, as if that is not bad enough, he wants me to explain the Vietnam War.

You're so nice and so hot and so fun and funny, and you smell really good, and the brownies you made for last night were amazing." "And you love me," he says softly. "So much," I agree, "I feel like, why would anyone who can't date you even bother dating? And somehow, you like me." "Love," he corrects. "Somehow you love me." "I do," I tell him. I do. I am. Right now. Every muscle in my body is busy loving him.

You're not moving your body the correct way, Here, just let me show you." Though it was the oldest and most shameless trick in the book, he reached over her and put his hand on top of the one that gripped the cure. He then positioned the fingers of her other hand on the wood before lightly gripping her wrist. To Dorian's dismay, his face became warm. His eyes shifted to her, and, to his relief, he found that she was as red as he, if not more so.

Hey, Red.” I greeted her with a cocky grin. “Can’t stay away from me, huh? Don’t blame you.” I gestured at myself. “Look at all this.” I was still shirtless from the shower, and I didn’t want to brag or anything, but my abs were a fucking work of art. “If I knew you had company, I would’ve waited,” she said dryly. She was carrying a large portfolio bag, which was strange, since she didn’t draw. Maybe she went shopping earlier. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt your weekly lovefest with your ego.” “Daily,” I corrected. “Self-love is critical to maintaining one’s self-esteem. But you’re hot, so you’re allowed to interrupt.

The only thing that comes close to defining me correctly is my love.

I need you to scry for Lousha," he said. "You told me once that you could." "Yeah, I can get you in her vicinity." Garreth had taken Lucia's scent into him and could find her from miles away. "That'll work." Witches could come in handy, he supposed. "But I don't do gratis." Garreth bluidy hated witches! "Charge me what you will! Just give me the fucking coordinates." In the background, he heard Bowen say, "Mari, never let it be said that I doona support your extortion--" "Entrepreneurial-ness," she corrected. "But a family discount, love, would no' be amiss." "The whole family? Fine," she said. "I'm scrying." While Garreth waited, she groused about how extended the "MacRieve pack" was.

Michael figured correctly that I hadn’t finished reading the six-hundred-page book in the two weeks since he had recommended it to me

The word itself—dyslexia—is ironically very hard for dyslexic people to spell correctly

Of course you get a say,' Libby corrected him. 'You can say, 'Libby, I love you and I support you,' or you can say something else.' She swallowed before adding, 'But believe me, Ezra, there are only two answers here. If you don't say one, you're saying the other.

I'll do anything you want". Anything. It is true. The last two years have taught me that. Anything. It is a heavy word when used correctly. It is a word that can hold unknown possibilities

She put her hands on you," Mam repeated angrily. "She pushed you. She threatened you. She lashed out at you in anger. That might fly in her household, Jonathon, but it sure as hell doesn’t in mine." I arched a brow. "Says the woman always clipping me around the ear." "Those are clips of love," Mam corrected. "And you're missing the point.

If my feelings for you haven’t changed after reading that Bella and Alice alphaverse fan fiction, I’m pretty sure we’re golden.” “It’s called omegaverse—and you said it was good!” “I said it was hot,” he corrects me. The blue slice darkens. “Actually, you should read it to me again. Now.

My Mother - Amma Her touch was my solace, Her smile did encourage, Her love was my strength, Her stare, I fully decant, Her care was my power, Her joy was my shower, Her anger corrected my path, Her laughter filled my heart, Her silence made me ponder, Her glare was my reminder, Her scorn corrected my track, Her embrace I never did lack.

We really want the undoing of our earliest wounds and sometimes, in our attempts to correct the errors of our childhoods, we choose the exact thing we hope to avoid. We recognize a chance for love's redemption and run toward it. We hope for a different ending.

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself . . . . And it is not only the faculty of love which is thus sterilized, forced back on itself, but also the faculty of imagination. The true exercise of imagination, in my view, is (a) To help us to understand other people (b) To respond to, and, some of us, to produce, art. But it has also a bad use: to provide for us, in shadowy form, a substitute for virtues, successes, distinctions etc. which ought to be sought outside in the real world—e.g. picturing all I’d do if I were rich instead of earning and saving. Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which I think bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres. After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

My shoulders sagged. Really, is it too much to ask that I be able to come home from a long day of work and relax? Oh, no. I have to come home and read a bunch of letters written to the love of my life by his fiancée, who, if I am correct, had him killed a hundred and fifty years ago. Then, as if that is not bad enough, he wants me to explain the Vietnam War.

You love me, and-" 'Loved," I correct him, sidestepping so I can get some fucking space and then taking it. "Love!" he shouts, stopping me in my tracks and earning us a glance from every rider within hearing distance. "You love me."

Maybe I was just flattering myself, thinking I'd be worth some sort of risk. Not that I'd wish that on anyone!" he clarified. "I don't mean that. It just...I don't know. Don't you all see everything I'm risking?" "Umm, no. You're here with your family to give you advice, and we all live around your schedule. Everything about your life stays the same, and ours changed overnight. What in the world could you possibly be risking?" Maxon looked shocked. "America, I might have my family, but imagine how embarrassing it is to have your parents watch as you attempt to date for the first time. And not just your parents-the whole country! Worse than that, it's not even a normal style of dating. "And living around my schedule? When I'm not with you all, I'm organizing troops, making laws, perfecting budgets...and all on my own these days, while my father watches me stumble in my own stupidity because I have none of his experience. And then, when I inevitably do things in a way he wouldn't, he goes and corrects my mistakes. And while I'm trying to do all this work, you-the girls, I mean-are all I can think about. I'm excited and terrified by the lot of you!" He was using his hands more than I'd ever seen, whipping them in the air and running them through his hair. "And you think my life isn't changing? What do you think my chances might be of finding a soul mate in the group of you? I'll be lucky if I can just find someone who'll be able to stand me for the rest of our lives. What if I've already sent her home because I was relying on some sort of spark I didn't feel? What if she's waiting to leave me at the first sign of adversity? What if I don't find anyone at all? What do I do then, America?" His speech had started out angered and impassioned, but by the end his questions weren't rhetorical anymore. He really wanted to know: What was he going to do if no one here was even close to being someone he could love? Though that didn't even seem to be his main concern; he was more worried that no one would love him. "Actually, Maxon, I think you will find your soul mate here. Honestly." "Really?" His voice charged with hope at my prediction. "Absolutely." I put a hand on his shoulder. He seemed to be comforted by that touch alone. I wondered how often people simply touched him. "If your life is as upside down as you say it is, then she has to be here somewhere. In my experience, true love is usually the most inconvenient kind.

It doesn't matter what the manifest problem was in our childhood family. In a home where a child is emotionally deprived for one reason or another that child will take some personal emotional confusion into his or her adult life. We may spin our spiritual wheels in trying to make up for childhood's personal losses, looking for compensation in the wrong places and despairing that we can find it. But the significance of spiritual rebirth through Jesus Christ is that we can mature spiritually under His parenting and receive healing compensation for these childhood deprivations. Three emotions that often grow all out of proportion in the emotionally deprived child are fear, guilt, and anger. The fear grows out of the child's awareness of the uncontrollable nature of her fearful environment, of overwhelming negative forces around her. Her guilt, her profound feelings of inadequacy, intensify when she is unable to put right what is wrong, either in the environment or in another person, no matter how hard she tries to be good. If only she could try harder or be better, she could correct what is wrong, she thinks. She may carry this guilt all her life, not knowing where it comes from, but just always feeling guilty. She often feels too sorry for something she has done that was really not all that serious. Her anger comes from her frustration, perceived deprivation, and the resultant self-pity. She has picked up an anger habit and doesn't know how much trouble it is causing her. A fourth problem often follows in the wake of the big three: the need to control others and manipulate events in order to feel secure in her own world, to hold her world together- to make happen what she wants to happen. She thinks she has to run everything. She may enter adulthood with an illusion of power and a sense of authority to put other people right, though she has had little success with it. She thinks that all she has to do is try harder, be worthier, and then she can change, perfect, and save other people. But she is in the dark about what really needs changing."I thought I would drown in guilt and wanted to fix all the people that I had affected so negatively. But I learned that I had to focus on getting well and leave off trying to cure anyone around me." Many of those around - might indeed get better too, since we seldom see how much we are a key part of a negative relationship pattern. I have learned it is a true principle that I need to fix myself before I can begin to be truly helpful to anyone else. I used to think that if I were worthy enough and worked hard enough, and exercised enough anxiety (which is not the same thing as faith), I could change anything. My power and my control are illusions. To survive emotionally, I have to turn my life over to the care of that tender Heavenly Father who was really in charge. It is my own spiritual superficiality that makes me sick, and that only profound repentance, that real change of heart, would ultimately heal me. My Savior is much closer than I imagine and is willing to take over the direction of my life: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me, ye can do nothing." (John 15:5). As old foundations crumble, we feel terribly vulnerable. Humility, prayer and flexibility are the keys to passing through this corridor of healthy change while we experiment with truer ways of dealing with life. Godly knowledge, lovingly imparted, begins deep healing, gives tools to live by and new ways to understand the gospel.

Red: "I could tell he was grinning, when he said, 'I have nothing but time, my little love. I have been waiting patiently for you to come for me again.' 'You mean come to you,' I corrected. -Kate SeRine

McG: 11:39 PM: Tease. A: Bushy prehistoric looking veggies frighten me. Lilliana: 11:41 PM: WTH are we talking about here? McG: 11:42 PM: Fucking auto correct. VAGINAS! Bushy vaginas put the fear of God in me. Seriously, Lilly, if you’ve got one, groom that shit unless you want to see a grown alpha male curl into the fetal position and cry. It won’t be pretty. Just sayin

Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn't I better end my "Notes" here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I've been writing this story; so it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don't know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, I assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once. I know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries in your underground holes, and don't dare to say all of us-- excuse me, gentlemen, I am not justifying myself with that "all of us." As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men--men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from "Underground." [The notes of this paradoxalist do not end here, however. He could not refrain from going on with them, but it seems to us that we may stop here.]

The Bible looks the way it does because “God lets his children tell the story,” so to speak. Children see the world from their limited gaze. A second grader might give a class presentation on what mom does all day. She will talk about her mom from her point of view, rooted in love and devotion. She’ll filter—unconsciously and in an age-appropriate manner—her mother’s day through how she perceives her family and her role in the family. She’ll get some things more or less correct, but she will also misunderstand other things, and get still other things plain wrong.

Don't correct me, you don't have any rights over me." "What kind of life is this? So I sit at home , entirely dependent on this man, and then it turns out his heart was never with me. How is it possible to force someone to love me?

The only path I am asked to monitor is my own. I resist all temptation today to judge how I think others should behave. I cannot know the deeper forces at work within anyone’s heart. My deliverance comes from accepting all people, not judging or controlling them. I pray that when I am tempted to speak or act without charity, that God’s spirit will correct my thoughts. I pray to be an instrument of love by which people are reminded of their innocence, not an instrument of blame that reminds them of their guilt. I do this for my own sake, that I too might be released from feelings of guilt that would otherwise bind me. It is not my job to monitor anyone’s journey, to know what’s right or wrong for others, or to try to control their behavior. My salvation lies in deep acceptance of people exactly as they are, that I might know the inner peace that such acceptance brings. Amen.

Know that...there's plenty of food and of course popcorn on the dining-room table. Just...help yourself. If that runs out just let me know. Don't panic. And there's coffee, both caff and decaf, and soft drinks and juice in the kitchen, and plenty of ice in the freezer so...let me know if you have any questions with that.' And lastly, since I have you all here in one place, I have something to share with you. Along the garden ways just now...I too heard the flowers speak. They told me that our family garden has all but turned to sand. I want you to know I've watered and nurtured this square of earth for nearly twenty years, and waited on my knees each spring for these gentle bulbs to rise, reborn. But want does not bring such breath to life. Only love does. The plain, old-fashioned kind. In our family garden my husband is of the genus Narcissus , which includes daffodils and jonquils and a host of other ornamental flowers. There is, in such a genus of man, a pervasive and well-known pattern of grandiosity and egocentrism that feeds off this very kind of evening, this type of glitzy generosity. People of this ilk are very exciting to be around. I have never met anyone with as many friends as my husband. He made two last night at Carvel. I'm not kidding. Where are you two? Hi. Hi, again. Welcome. My husband is a good man, isn't he? He is. But in keeping with his genus, he is also absurdly preoccupied with his own importance, and in staying loyal to this, he can be boastful and unkind and condescending and has an insatiable hunger to be seen as infallible. Underlying all of the constant campaigning needed to uphold this position is a profound vulnerability that lies at the very core of his psyche. Such is the narcissist who must mask his fears of inadequacy by ensuring that he is perceived to be a unique and brilliant stone. In his offspring he finds the grave limits he cannot admit in himself. And he will stop at nothing to make certain that his child continually tries to correct these flaws. In actuality, the child may be exceedingly intelligent, but has so fully developed feelings of ineptitude that he is incapable of believing in his own possibilities. The child's innate sense of self is in great jeopardy when this level of false labeling is accepted. In the end the narcissist must compensate for this core vulnerability he carries and as a result an overestimation of his own importance arises. So it feeds itself, cyclically. And, when in the course of life they realize that their views are not shared or thier expectations are not met, the most common reaction is to become enraged. The rage covers the fear associated with the vulnerable self, but it is nearly impossible for others to see this, and as a result, the very recognition they so crave is most often out of reach. It's been eighteen years that I've lived in service to this mindset. And it's been devastating for me to realize that my efforts to rise to these standards and demands and preposterous requests for perfection have ultimately done nothing but disappoint my husband. Put a person like this with four developing children and you're gonna need more than love poems and ice sculpture to stay afloat. Trust me. So. So, we're done here.

You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying.

But there’s another way to look at it. Consider this: the pain doesn’t come from losing your soul mate, but from the disappointment that this guy wasn’t your soul mate. It’s sad, but it’s not catastrophic. And if you look at it this way—that in some regard, he failed to live up to your values and standards, so how could he have been your soul mate?—the pain is likely to be less severe. I don’t mean to minimize the amount it hurts. I’ve been there, believe me. But by grieving only for your disappointment and dashed expectations, you allow yourself to remain open to the next guy who comes along. It’s a much more manageable type of pain. We can now say more easily, “Although I’m hurt right now, this person wasn’t right for me. Now I can allow myself to find the right person.” This might sound like a small difference, but just allowing ourselves to take on this more correct understanding of what has happened can free us to move forward.

She came quickly over to me and held out her hand. I looked at her full of distrust. Was she doing this freely, with a light heart? Or was she doing it just to get rid of me? She put her arm around my neck, tears in her eyes. I just stood and looked at her. She offered me her mouth but I couldn't believe her, it was bound to be a sacrifice on her part, a means of getting it over with. She said something, it sounded to me like "I love you anyway!" She said it very softly and indistinctly, I may not have heard it correctly, perhaps she didn't say exactly those words. But she threw herself passionately on my neck, held both arms around my neck a little while, even raised herself on tiptoe to reach well up, and stood thus. Afraid that she was forcing herself to show me this tenderness, I merely said "How beautiful you are now!" That was all I said. I stepped back, bumped against the door and walked out backward. She was left standing inside.

You loved her," Isobel said. "Worshipped," Scrimshaw corrected. "But more ludicrous than that, let us not forget, she loved me." He gave a short ironic laugh. "Not just him-the poet. But me as well. I, the epitome of our own penchant for self-destruction. Do you know how difficult...how impossible such a feat must have been?

No, Celia, tell the truth.” His grip tightened on her. One hand rose, sinking into her loose hair. “You spoke correctly the first time. You’re afraid. I tell you over and over again that I want you, but you generate excuses for me. I tell you that I refuse to worship my father’s image of respectability, but you make it a matter of safety. I will love you if I please. I will make you my altar, I’ll put you above everything else in this world, I’ll revel in every morsel you are made of. It’s simple—just tell me you don’t feel the same, and I’ll let you go. But I won’t accept anything else. I won’t accept your refusal on the make-believe grounds of our work.

(Devon) “Cam—you’re killing me,” she quavered, pressing her head back into the pillow and praying for patience. Her heart was pounding. “I’m loving you,” he corrected in a hot whisper, then took her nipple deep into his mouth as his palm brushed over the damp lace covering her core.

Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge. To those who love the place, both are good, since both are part of its essential nature. And it is to know its essential nature that I am seeking here. To know, that is, with the knowledge that is a process of living. This is not done easily nor in an hour. It is a tale too slow for the impatience of our age, not of immediate enough import for its desperate problems. Yet it has its own rare value. It is, for one thing, a corrective of glib assessment: one never quite knows the mountain, nor oneself in relation to it. However often I walk on them, these hills hold astonishment for me. There is no getting accustomed to them.

meander, v. "...because when it all comes down to it, there's no such thing as a two-hit wonder. So it's better just to have that one song that everyone knows, instead of diluting it with a follow-up that only half succeeds. I mean, who really cares what Soft Cell's next single was, as long as we have 'Tainted Love'?" I stop. You're still listening. "Wait," I say. "What was I talking about? How did we get to 'Tainted Love'?" "Let's see," you say, "I believe we started roughly at the Democratic gains in the South, then jumped back to the election of 1948, dipping briefly into northern constructions of the South, vis-a-vis Steel Magnolias, Birth of a Nation, Johnny Cash, and Fried Green Tomatoes. Which landed you on To Kill a Mockingbird, and how it is both Southern and universal, which -- correct me if I'm wrong -- got us to Harper Lee and her lack of a follow-up novel, intersected with the theory, probably wrong, that Truman Capote wrote the novel, then hopping over to literary one-hit wonders, and using musical one-hit wonders to make a point about their special place in our culture. I think." "Thank you," I say. "That's wonderful.

What are you doing?” she whispered against his lips. He gave her a lopsided grin, as one of his fingers slid inside. “Making you feel really, really good?” She moaned, which pleased him. If she’d managed intelligible speech he would have known he wasn’t doing his job correctly. -Kate & Anthony

When I saw you on the stairs before, I’d forgotten how beautiful you are,’ he whispered against her skin. ‘Spotty, not beautiful,’ she corrected gently, running her finger along his crooked nose. ‘Now you, you’re beautiful.’ ‘I even missed your inferiority complex.’ Max smiled and shifted against her. ‘Not being inferior. It’s a point of fact. I’m covered in zits,’ Neve said and she didn’t know why she felt the need to share that with Max but then she was glad that she had because he was kissing each one of the angry red bumps along her forehead and chin and cheeks, even though a few of them were starting to suppurate. ‘Don’t do that, it’s completely unhygienic. Kiss my mouth instead.

When I look into the future, I am frightened, but why plunge into the future? Only the present moment is precious to me, as the future may never enter my soul at all. It is no longer in my power, to change, correct or add to the past; For neither sages nor prophets could do that. And so, what the past has embraced I must entrust to God. O present moment, you belong to me, whole and entire. I desire to use you as best I can. And although I am weak and small, You grant me the grace of Your omnipotence. And so, trusting in Your mercy, I walk through life like a little child, offering You each day this heart burning with love for Your greater glory. King of Mercy, guide my soul.

Four brothers,” Daphne said, shoving the wicket into the ground, “provide quite a marvelous education.” “The things you must have learned,” Kate said, quite impressed. “Can you give a man a black eye? Knock him to the ground?” Daphne grinned wickedly. “Ask my husband.” “Ask me what?” the duke called out from where he and Colin were placing a wicket on a tree root on the opposite side of the tree. “Nothing,” the duchess called out innocently. “I’ve also learned,” she whispered to Kate, “when it’s best just to keep one’s mouth shut. Men are much easier to manage once you understand a few basic facts about their nature.” “Which are?” Kate prompted. Daphne leaned forward and whispered behind her cupped hand, “They’re not as smart as we are, they’re not as intuitive as we are, and they certainly don’t need to know about fifty percent of what we do.” She looked around. “He didn’t hear that, did he?” Simon stepped out from behind the tree. “Every word.” Kate choked on a laugh as Daphne jumped a foot. “But it’s true,” Daphne said archly. Simon crossed his arms. “I’ll let you think so.” He turned to Kate. “I’ve learned a thing or two about women over the years.” “Really?” Kate asked, fascinated. He nodded and leaned in, as if imparting a grave state secret. “They’re much easier to manage if one allows them to believe that they are smarter and more intuitive than men. And,” he added with a superior glance at his wife, “our lives are much more peaceful if we pretend that we’re only aware of about fifty percent of what they do.” Colin approached, swinging a mallet in a low arc. “Are they having a spat?” he asked Kate. “A discussion,” Daphne corrected. “God save me from such discussions,” Colin muttered.

The women I love are like a life raft I didn’t know I was looking for before I got on it. But my friendships are not just about being nice. My people push me to do better. They listen, but not in a quiet, passive way. They’re always on point for correcting me when I put myself down or fall into the trap of thinking things are my fault when they aren’t. My friends are brilliant, funny, fearless, wise, and generous. We champion each other in e-mails, in texts, in congratulatory flowers, or simply by saying how much we trust each other.

God, I want Your truth to be the loudest voice in my life. Correct me. Comfort me. Come closer still. And I will trust. God, You are good at being God.

I loved GrandMary and I know that she loved me. Correction--I love her, and she loves me. When our loved ones die, the love always stays alive in the present.

Judging me is good. but you don't correct me then you don't love me.

Bianca, Since you keep running away from me at school, and, if I remember correctly, the sound of my voice causes you to have suicidal thoughts, I decided a letter might be the best way to tell you how I feel. Just hear me out. I’m not going to deny that you were right. Everything you said the other day was true. But my fear of being alone is not the reason I’m pursuing you. I know how cynical you are, and you’re probably going to come up with some snarky reply when you read this, but the truth is, I’m chasing you because I really think I am falling in love with you. You are the first girl who has ever seen right through me. You’re the only girl who has ever called me on my bullshit. You put me in my place, but, at the same time, you understand me better than anyone ever has. You are the only person brave enough to criticize me. Maybe the only person who looks close enough to find my faults—and, clearly, you’ve found many. I called my parents. They’re coming home this weekend to talk to Amy and me. I was afraid to do this at first, but you inspired me. Without you, I never could have done that. I think about you much more than any self-respecting man would like to admit, and I’m insanely jealous of Tucker—something I never thought I’d say. Moving on after you is impossible. No other girl can keep me on my toes the way you can. No one else makes me WANT to embarrass myself by writing sappy letters like this one. Only you. But I know that I’m right, too. I know you’re in love with me, even if you are dating Tucker. You can lie to yourself if you want, but reality is going to catch up with you. I’ll be waiting when it does… whether you like it or not. Love, Wesley p.s.: I know you’re rolling your eyes right now, but I don’t care. Honestly, it’s always been kind of a turn-on.

My father hadn’t ruined me. It was impossible to ruin a person who had never been formed correctly to begin with, but I had ruined a few people of my own over the past several months.

1. I told you that I was a roadway of potholes, not safe to cross. You said nothing, showed up in my driveway wearing roller-skates. 2. The first time I asked you on a date, after you hung up, I held the air between our phones against my ear and whispered, “You will fall in love with me. Then, just months later, you will fall out. I will pretend the entire time that I don’t know it’s coming.” 3. Once, I got naked and danced around your bedroom, awkward and safe. You did the same. We held each other without hesitation and flailed lovely. This was vulnerability foreplay. 4. The last eight times I told you I loved you, they sounded like apologies. 5. You recorded me a CD of you repeating, “You are beautiful.” I listened to it until I no longer thought in my own voice. 6. Into the half-empty phone line, I whispered, “We will wake up believing the worst in each other. We will spit shrapnel at each other’s hearts. The bruises will lodge somewhere we don’t know how to look for and I will still pretend I don’t know its coming.” 7. You photographed my eyebrow shapes and turned them into flashcards: mood on one side, correct response on the other. You studied them until you knew when to stay silent. 8. I bought you an entire bakery so that we could eat nothing but breakfast for a week. Breakfast, untainted by the day ahead, was when we still smiled at each other as if we meant it. 9. I whispered, “I will latch on like a deadbolt to a door and tell you it is only because I want to protect you. Really, I’m afraid that without you I mean nothing.” 10. I gave you a bouquet of plane tickets so I could practice the feeling of watching you leave. 11. I picked you up from the airport limping. In your absence, I’d forgotten how to walk. When I collapsed at your feet, you refused to look at me until I learned to stand up without your help. 12. Too scared to move, I stared while you set fire to your apartment – its walls decaying beyond repair, roaches invading the corpse of your bedroom. You tossed all the faulty appliances through the smoke out your window, screaming that you couldn’t handle choking on one more thing that wouldn’t just fix himself. 13. I whispered, “We will each weed through the last year and try to spot the moment we began breaking. We will repel sprint away from each other. Your voice will take months to drain out from my ears. You will throw away your notebook of tally marks from each time you wondered if I was worth the work. The invisible bruises will finally surface and I will still pretend that I didn’t know it was coming.” 14. The entire time, I was only pretending that I knew it was coming.

How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy - If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well. But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just fritted away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me? Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

Kusha, settling into the driver’s seat of the truck, gazes vacantly in the air. Is it safe to go now? (a) Yes (b) No: she wonders and soon finds the answer with her intuition-like alarm. It’s easy to pick the right one when the options are only two. “Yes. It’s safe.” “I love your intuition!” Taha says. “It’s unfair you don’t tell me the war hero action-figure winning numbers.” She makes a sad face. She saw how Kusha correctly guessed the High Auction’s ticket number one digit at a time. If you have a lottery-guessing sister, it’s hard not to feel excited.

So…” I start. “I… You wanted me to stop by?” Just so we’re clear, he’s still melting my insides with a single look, and I’m still a babbling idiot who can’t form a sentence. Xavier moves closer to me, a single whiff of his cologne enough to make my knees buckle. “No,” he shocks me by saying. My jaw hangs limply. “I wanted you to come and stay,” he corrects, and a herd of murderous butterflies assault my stomach. “Stay tonight?” He moves closer again. “Forever,” he says unapologetically. I avoid his gaze. “Xav, I—” “Don’t fucking go, Vee.” He cuts to the chase, cupping my face in his hands without a single thought as to the possibility of people seeing us. “I know this is shitty, and complicated, and it’d be easier for you to get on that plane, but… I don’t want easy—fuck easy. I want you. I love you, Vee,” he croaks, pressing his forehead flush to mine. “Just… stay.

The popular belief that the rate of divorce is the same inside and outside the church is based on a deeply entrenched misunderstanding about the results of several George Barna surveys over the past decades. A misunderstanding that, Mr. Barna told me, he would love to correct in the public’s mind.

Once we're safely out of earshot, I crouch down and tilt his head up to mine. "Tim, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to confuse you like that." He looks down at his boots. "It's okay." "We should have told you right away that we're just friends." "I still would've been confused." He pauses. Says confused a second time, correcting the lisp that tends to sneak back in when he's not concentrating. "Why?" He gazes up at me with those pale green eyes, a mysterious blend of innocent and wise. "Because Colin loves you.

She blinked and kissed me abruptly, somewhere between mouth and cheek. It was an inaccuracy I didn't try to correct either way. I turned away before I could see if there were going to be any tears and started for the doors at the far end of the hall. I looked back once, as I was mounting the steps. Ortega was still standing there, arms wrapped around herself, watching me leave. In the stormlight, it was too far away to see her face clearly. For a moment something ached in me, something so deep-rooted that I knew to tear it out would be to undo the essence of what held me together. The feeling rose and splashed like the rain behind my eyes, swelling as the drumming on the roof panels grew and the glass ran with water.

If you wind up falling in love with me.” A grin softens his face as he dusts his lips against mine. “Let me correct that. When you fall in love with me.” “’When’?” My question comes out breathlessly, my eyes nearly fluttering closed as he continues, brushing his lips along my jaw. “Yeah, when,” he murmurs, curling his fingers into my hair. “Because even though you think you won’t, you will. I’ll make it impossible for you not to, but I have a feeling you’re gonna do the same fucking thing to me. So we’ll be even. Good?

US,' Peter corrects. 'I did it for us.' He links our fingers together. 'It's you and me, kid.' -Peter So I take Peter's hand; I put it on my heart. I tell him, 'You have to take good care of this, because it's yours.' -Lara Jean

Sophie raised her head. Light filtering through the trees dappled her face. “Hawk.” Charlotte looked up as well. A bird of prey soared above the treetops, circling around them. “It’s dead,” Sophie said. “George is guiding it. He is very powerful.”The realization washed over Charlotte in a cold gush of embarrassment. “Is George spying on Richard and me?” “Always,” Sophie said. “All those perfect manners are a sham. He spies on everyone and everything. Declan hasn’t been able to conduct a single business meeting in the past year without George’s knowing all the details. He does let go when you make love. He is a prude.” “‘Prude’ is a coarse word. He has a sense of tact,” Charlotte corrected before she caught herself. “A sense of tact,” Sophie repeated, tasting the words. “Thank you. The other one is somewhere around here, too.” “The other one?” Sophie surveyed the woods. “I can smell you, Jack!” “No, you can’t,” a distant voice answered

You realize that running is something I only do on the treadmill while wearing my sneaks and running gear, correct?” She trots next to me, trying to keep up on feet that are clad in expensive suede boots with a heel as tall as my hand. I walk even faster. “Can’t hear you. Embarrassment is short-circuiting my nervous system.” “If embarrassment is causing your malfunction now, I’d love to know what it was that caused you to run across the quad.” As if she doesn’t know. Before I can respond, though, Tucker shows up on my right. “Where’s the fire?” he drawls. Hope grinds to a halt. “Thank God you caught up with us.” She runs a hand across her forehead in an exaggerated motion. “I’m not cut out for outdoor exertions.

This wasn’t just about Kathy: it was about my father, and my childhood feelings of abandonment; my grief for everything I never had and, in my heart, still believed I never would have. Ruth was saying that was why I chose Kathy. What better way for me to prove that my father was correct—that I’m worthless and unlovable—than by pursuing someone who will never love me? I buried my head in my hands. “So all this was inevitable? That’s what you’re saying—I set myself up for this? It’s fucking hopeless?

Before we can provide corrective emotional experiences for each other, we must learn how to tend to our own immature parts, to our own reactivity, to our avoidance, our long-suffering frustration. We must master the art of relational mindfulness and retake the reins.

One of my favorite prayers is God, how can I love on you today? As I sit in silence of those words, sometimes I'll feel compelled to sing or read a passage of Scripture, or I'll be reminded of someone with a need I can meet; but on some of the most meaningful days, God simply says, just be with me. I sit in the silence and enjoy stillness with God. No agenda. No words. No words. No challenge. No correction or instruction. Just being together. In those moments, I'm reminded that the heart of faith is simply being with God. I sense God's love. Some of my best friendships reach a level at which we can sit together without having to say anything and still enjoy each other's presence. The same is true for God, and I love to experience that depth of love in my relationship with Christ." -Hungry for God

I keeled over sideways. The world turned fluffy, bleached of all color. Nothing hurt anymore. I was dimly aware of Diana’s face hovering over me, Meg and Hazel peering over the goddess’s shoulders. “He’s almost gone,” Diana said. Then I was gone. My mind slipped into a pool of cold, slimy darkness. “Oh, no, you don’t.” My sister’s voice woke me rudely. I’d been so comfortable, so nonexistent. Life surged back into me—cold, sharp, and unfairly painful. Diana’s face came into focus. She looked annoyed, which seemed on-brand for her. As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The pain in my gut was gone. My muscles didn’t burn. I could breathe without difficulty. I must have slept for decades. “H-how long was I out?” I croaked. “Roughly three seconds,” she said. “Now, get up, drama queen.” She helped me to my feet. I felt a bit unsteady, but I was delighted to find that my legs had any strength at all. My skin was no longer gray. The lines of infection were gone. The Arrow of Dodona was still in my hand, though he had gone silent, perhaps in awe of the goddess’s presence. Or perhaps he was still trying to get the taste of “Sweet Caroline” out of his imaginary mouth. I beamed at my sister. It was so good to see her disapproving I-can’t-believe-you’re-my-brother frown again. “I love you,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion. She blinked, clearly unsure what to do with this information. “You really have changed.” “I missed you!” “Y-yes, well. I’m here now. Even Dad couldn’t argue with a Sibylline invocation from Temple Hill.” “It worked, then!” I grinned at Hazel and Meg. “It worked!” “Yeah,” Meg said wearily. “Hi, Artemis.” “Diana,” my sister corrected. “But hello, Meg.” For her, my sister had a smile. “You’ve done well, young warrior.” Meg blushed. She kicked at the scattered zombie dust on the floor and shrugged. “Eh.” I checked my stomach, which was easy, since my shirt was in tatters. The bandages had vanished, along with the festering wound. Only a thin white scar remained. “So…I’m healed?” My flab told me she hadn’t restored me to my godly self. Nah, that would have been too much to expect. Diana raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not the goddess of healing, but I’m still a goddess. I think I can take care of my little brother’s boo-boos.” “Little brother?” She smirked.

You’re my hero, Mickey Catalan,” Lydia says into my ear, over the roar of the crowd. “Heroine,” I correct her. “Hoo—fucking—ray!” Bella Right screams at me when I get into the dugout. Everyone is yelling my name. Right now, everyone loves me. Right now, I even love myself.

But what is the love life of newts, if you boil it right down? Didn't you tell me once that they just waggled their tails at one another in the mating season?' 'Quite correct.' I shrugged my shoulders. 'Well all right, if they like it. But it's not my idea of molten passion.

No, there’d been another time yet. In my sleep, when he came into my bedroom and lay on top of me, and I pretended to be asleep. Correction there again: in my sleep I’d heaved ever so slightly, just enough to tell him, Don’t leave, you’re welcome to go on, just don’t say I knew.

the first riddle of the universe: asking, when is a man not a man?: telling them take their time, yungfries, and wait till the tide stops (for from the first his day was a fortnight) and offering the prize of a bittersweet crab, a little present from the past, for their copper age was yet un-minted, to the winner. One said when the heavens are quakers, a second said when Bohemeand lips, a third said when he, no, when hold hard a jiffy, when he is a gnawstick and detarmined to, the next one said when the angel of death kicks the bucket of life, still another said when the wine's at witsends, and still another when lovely wooman stoops to conk him, one of the littliest said me, me, Sem, when pappa papared the harbour, one of the wittiest said, when he yeat ye abblokooken and he zmear he zelf zo zhooken, still one said when you are old I'm grey fall full wi sleep, and still another when wee deader walkner, and another when he is just only after having being semisized, another when yea, he hath no mananas, and one when dose pigs they begin now that they will flies up intil the looft. All were wrong, so Shem himself, the doctator, took the cake, the correct solution being — all give it up? — when he is a — yours till the rending of the rocks, — Sham.

What about UNC? Are you even planning on transferring to UVA anymore? When it was William and Mary, it was a given, and now it doesn’t seem like it.” I wet my lips. My heart is pounding out of control. “I’m not sure. Maybe? But maybe not. UNC feels different to me.” “Yeah, I know. It’s obvious.” “Don’t make it sound like a bad thing! Would you rather I go somewhere and be unhappy?” “Temporarily unhappy,” he corrects. “Peter!

What do you mean 'warn me'?" Why did they both think I was going to claw her eyes out? The old me must've been psychotic." "I told you she has a soft spot for me." "Yeah, and I have a soft spot for tater tots, but that doesn't require me to warn people." "I think I can safely say she doesn't feel about me like you feel about tater tots," Cheney said, unsuccessfully trying to suppress his amusement. "I don't know, I really like tater tots," I mumbled. Cheney's laughter filled the room. "I stand corrected. Apparently your love for fried potato nuggets is much deeper that I gave credit.

Funny thing is, my parents tell me they are proud of me all the time. They say they love me and support me, that they are proud of me and proud to be my parents, but it never feels real amid the constant tide of correction and shaming and belittling. I guess actions really do speak louder than words.

I think about Rilke, who said that it's the questions that move us, not the answers. As a writer I believe it is our task, our responsibility, to hold the mirror up to social injustices that we see and to create a prayer of beauty. The questions serve us in that capacity. Pico Iyer describes his writing as "intimate letters to a stranger," and I think that is what the writing process is. It begins with a question, and then you follow this path of exploration. ... I write out of my questions. Hopefully, if we write out of our humanity, our vulnerable nature, then some chord is struck with a reader and we touch on the page. I know that is why I read, to find those parts of myself in a story that I cannot turn away from. The writers who move me are the ones who create beauty and truth out of their sufferings, their yearnings, their discoveries. It is what I call the patience of words born out of the search. ... Perhaps as writers we are really storytellers, finding that golden thread that connects us to the past, present, and future at once. I love language and landscape. For me, writing is the correspondence between these two passions. It is difficult to ever see yourself. I don't know how I've developed or grown as a writer. I hope I am continuing to take risks on the page. I hope I am continuing to ask the hard questions of myself. If we are attentive to the world and to those around us, I believe we will be attentive on the page. Writing is about presence. I want to be fully present wherever I am, alive to the pulse just beneath the skin. I want to dare to speak "the language women speak when there's no one around to correct them".

But the doors stop swinging, and theres a loud clink, a latching sound that seems better suited for a correctional facitily, as they lock me and the other unauthorized people away from the people we love. From the people we need. So that they can try to save them. So that we're not there when they can't

Of course, in my mind, violence would have been better, but since that wasn’t an option, I decided to play along. “It’s okay, handsome. I’ve only been here a few minutes. I’d like to introduce you to Dick.” “No, it’s…” Richard tried to correct me only to be interrupted by Drew. “Nice to meet you, Dick,” Drew retorted.

Uh… didn’t we just pretty much share we care deeply for each other not five minutes ago?” I asked cautiously. “No, we didn’t pretty much do anything and we sure as fuck didn’t pretty much share we care deeply for each other. We tod each other we’re in love,” he corrected me and my belly compressed as my heart skipped a beat. “No,” I contradicted stupidly but correctly, my heart, now racing, messing with my ability to think. “I think it was you telling me we’re in love.” His brows shot together and that was hot too. “Do you disagree?” he fired back. “Uh… no,” I replied. His brows then shot up and damn, that was hot too. “Your point?

You’ve come to your senses, that’s what. Although stubbornness may be a quality some admire, I find your overabundance of it quite distasteful. You take an enormous amount of leading to reach the correct conclusions.” “You know what I love? I love being manipulated! It makes me so happy and so willing to do whatever I’m being manipulated into!” His mouth curved into a puzzled frown. “It’s called sarcasm, you stupid faerie nitwit.” I picked up the nearest object, a froofy pillow with gold thread in intricate swirling patterns, and chucked it at his head. He stared at me, aghast, and I was pleased to see I’d managed to muss his perfect golden hair.

Where there is great love there are always miracles,” he said at length. “One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

Do you dislike Children? I ask, entertained at the little one’s cleverness in dodging capture attempts. “I don’t dislike them, nor do I like them. I’ve never understood why one must love children simply because they are children. I don’t love people because they are people; in fact, I rarely like any people at all. If a child is somehow deserving of admiration, I certainly won’t deny it, but why hand it out like candy on Queen’s Day?” I laugh, surprising him. “Do you think me terribly cruel, then?” “Actually, I agree. It is another great fault of mine my mother endeavored to correct. Children in general I’ve never cared for, though individual children I love very much.

I is telling you once before,' he said quietly, 'that I is never having a chance to go to school. I is full of mistakes. They is not my fault. I do my best. You is a lovely little girl, but please remember that you is not exactly Miss Knoweverything yourself.' 'I'm sorry,' Sophie said. 'I really am. It is very rude of me to keep correcting you.

Josie’s message,’ Rick went on, ‘was something like this. She says that no matter what happens now, never mind how it plays out, she loves you and will always love you. She’s very grateful you’re her mother and she never even once wished for any other. That’s what she said. And there was more. On this question of being lifted. She wants you to know she wouldn’t wish it any other way. If she had the power to do it again, and this time it was up to her, she says she’d do exactly what you did and you’ll always be the best mother she could have. That’s about it. As I say, she didn’t want me to pass it on until the correct time. So I’m hoping I’ve judged this right, Mrs Arthur, telling you now.

Emma laughed, and replied: "But I had the assistance of all your endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether my own sense would have corrected me without it." "Do you?—I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:—Miss Taylor gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what right has he to lecture me?—and I am afraid very natural for you to feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors, have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least. [...] "How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your saucy looks—'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I may, or I have Miss Taylor's leave'—something which, you knew, I did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad feelings instead of one." "What an amiable creature I was!—No wonder you should hold my speeches in such affectionate remembrance.

I grieve to think that closeness requires some measure of distance as its preserver, if only as a safety measure, because it certainly seems as if connection, in a deeper sense, introduces a specter of estrangement; for to come into contact with someone is to change her—there is that certainty; it reminds me of a game that Robin told me about told me about one day after school, as we were walking down Annatta Road certainly twenty years ago: find a word, a familiar word, on a page, and then stare at it for a while, just let your eyes linger upon it; and soon enough, sometimes after no more than a few seconds, the word comes to look misspelled, or badly transcribed, or as if there are other things wrong with it; so I tried it once, with the most familiar word there is: love, first verb in the Latin primer, the word known to all men; and after no more than five seconds I could swear that it wasn't the same word I had always known: it looked odd, misshapen, and as if it had all kinds of different pronunciations, except the one I had always believed was correct, and had always used; and so there was dissonance...

Children inherit the qualities of the parents, no less than their physical features. Environment does play an important part, but the original capital on which a child starts in life is inherited from its ancestors. I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul. Polak and I had often very heated discussions about the desirability or otherwise of giving the children an English education. It has always been my conviction that Indian parents who train their children to think and talk in English from their infancy betray their children and their country. They deprive them of the spiritual and social heritage of the nation, and render them to that extent unfit for the service of the country. Having these convictions, I made a point of always talking to my children in Gujarati. Polak never liked this. He thought I was spoiling their future. He contended, with all the vigour and love at his command, that, if children were to learn a universal language like English from their infancy, they would easily gain considerable advantage over others in the race of life. He failed to convince me. I do not now remember whether I convinced him of the correctness of my attitude, or whether he gave me up as too obstinate. This happened about twenty years ago, and my convictions have only deepened with experience. Though my sons have suffered for want of full literary education, the knowledge of the mother-tongue that they naturally acquired has been all to their and the country’s good, inasmuch as they do not appear the foreigners they would otherwise have appeared. They naturally became bilingual, speaking and writing English with fair ease, because of daily contact with a large circle of English friends, and because of their stay in a country where English was the chief language spoken.

It would kill me to lose you too, Stassia…you’re…you’re all I have left.” “Me?” I squeak. “You have your parents and your siblings, I’m not all…” “You’re all I have left of her,” he corrects.

Ms. Lessing points to a current dogma: political correctness. "It's a continuation of the old Communist Party. It is! The same words, the same attitudes... 'the Communist Party has made a decision and this is the line." At first, she says, political correctness had a good beginning; she remembers saying that the language that we use is sexist, racist and so on. But then, "that became a dogma. Because we love a dogma,you know, we really do. We can never just let things develop easily from an idea, it seems to me there's always a group of fanatics who grasp it and make it a dogma.

This should’ve been the best, most exciting time of my life. It was my senior year, and my dream program had accepted me. Instead of celebrating, I was moping like a…well, a heartbroken teenager. And even though that was half correct, I was sick of it. Sick of letting men who didn’t give two shits about me have this hold over me. Sick of being the object of pitying looks and worried whispers.

Do you think, little flower, that there will ever come a day when you regret meeting me?” he asked quietly. “Yes,” she said simply. “I see,” he said tightly. “Would you like a specific date?” “You are teasing me,” he realized suddenly. “No, I’m dead serious. I have an exact date in mind.” Jacob pulled back to see her eyes, looking utterly perplexed as her pupils sparkled with mischief. “What date is that? And why are you thinking of pink elephants?” “The date is September 8, because, according to Gideon, that’s possibly the day I will go into labor. I say ‘possibly,’ because combining all this human/Druid and Demon DNA ‘may make for a longer period of gestation than usual for a human,’ as the Ancient medic recently quoted. Now, as I understand it, women always regret ever letting a man touch them on that day.” Jacob lurched to his feet, dropping her onto her toes, grabbing her by the arms, and holding her still as he raked a wild, inspecting gaze over her body. “You are pregnant?” he demanded, shaking her a little. “How long have you known? You went into battle with that monster while you are carrying my child?” “Our child,” she corrected indignantly, her fists landing firmly on her hips, “and Gideon only just told me, like, five seconds ago, so I didn’t know I was pregnant when I was fighting that thing!” “But . . . he healed you just a few days ago! Why not tell you then?” “Because I wasn’t pregnant then, Jacob. If you recall, we did make love between then and now.” “Oh . . . oh Bella . . .” he said, his breath rushing from him all of a sudden. He looked as if he needed to sit down and put a paper bag over his head. She reached to steady him as he sat back awkwardly on the altar. He leaned his forearms on his thighs, bending over them as he tried to catch his breath. Bella had the strangest urge to giggle, but she bit her lower lip to repress to impulse. So much for the calm, cool, collected Enforcer who struck terror into the hearts of Demons everywhere. “That is not funny,” he grumbled indignantly. “Yeah? You should see what you look like from over here,” she teased. “If you laugh at me I swear I am going to take you over my knee.” “Promises, promises,” she laughed, hugging him with delight. Finally, Jacob laughed as well, his arm snaking out to circle her waist and draw her back into his lap. “Did you ask . . . I mean, does he know what it is?” “It’s a baby. I told him I didn’t want to know what it is. And don’t you dare find out, because you know the minute you do I’ll know, and if you spoil the surprise I’ll murder you.” “Damn . . . she kills a couple of Demons and suddenly thinks she can order all of us around,” he taunted, pulling her close until he was nuzzling her neck, wondering if it was possible for such an underused heart as his to contain so much happiness.

I was one of only two native English speakers in the company, so other departments would send me English texts for correction. That lasted two weeks, until they noticed I had no idea how the English language worked. I sent their creations back with more mistakes than they’d had when I received them. They began sending the texts to the Scandinavian team instead. They spoke such lovely English, after all.

Wanting his mind on other matters, she deliiberately challenged his statement. "You don't know so much about me. There was a man once. He was crazy about me." She tried to look wordly. "Absolutely crazy for me." His answering laughter was warm against her neck, her throat. His lips touched the skin over her pulse and skimmed lightly up to her ear. "Are you, by any chance, referring to that foppish boy with the orange hair and spiked collar? Dragon something?" Savannah gasped and pulled away to glare at im. "How could you possibly know about him? I dated him last year." Gregori nuzzled her neck, inhaling her fragrance, his hand sliding over her shoulder, moving gently over her satin skin to take possession of her breast. "He wore boots and rode a Harley." His breath came out in a rush as his palm cupped the soft weight, his thumb brushing her nipple into a hard peak. The feel of his large hand-so strong, so warm and possessive on her-sent heat curling through her body. Desire rose sharply. He was seducing her with tenderness. Savannah didn't want it to happen. Her body felt better, but the soreness was there to remind her where this could all lead. Her hand caught at his wrist. "How did you find out about Dragon?" she asked, desperate to distract him, to distract herself. How could he make her body burn for his when she was so afraid of him, of having sex with him? "Making love," he corrected, his voice husky, caressing, betraying the ease with which his mind moved like a shadow through hers."And to answer your question, I live in you, can touch you whenever I wish.I knew about all of them. Every damn one." He growled the worrds, and her breath caught in her throat. "He was the only one you thought of kissing." His mouth touched hers. Gently. Lightly. Returned for more. Coaxing, teasing, until she opened to him. He stole her breath, her reason, whirling her into a world of feeling.Bright colors and white-hot heat, the room falling away until there was only his broad shoulders,strong arms, hard body, and perfect,perfect mouth. When he lifted his head, Savannah nearly pulled him back to her.He watched her face,her eyes cloudy with desire, her lips so beautiful, bereft of his. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Savannah? There is such beauty in your soul,I can see it shining in your eyes." She touched his face, her palm molding his strong jaw. Why couldn't she resist his hungry eyes? "I think you're casting a spell over me. I can't remember what we were talking about." Gregori smiled. "Kissing." His teeth nibbled gently at her chin. "Specifically,your wanting to kiss that orange-bearded imbecile." "I wanted to kiss every one of them," she lied indignantly. "No,you did not.You were hoping that silly fop would wipe my taste from your mouth for all eternity." His hand stroked back the fall of hair around her face.He feathered kisses along the delicate line of her jaw. "It would not have worked,you know.As I recall,he seemed to have a problem getting close to you." Her eyes smoldered dangerously. "Did you have anything to do with his allergies?" She had wanted someone, anyone,to wipe Gregori's taste from her mouth,her soul. He raised his voice an octave. "Oh, Savannah, I just have to taste your lips," he mimicked. Then he went into a sneezing fit. "You haven't ridden until you've ridden on a Harley,baby." He sneezed, coughed, and gagged in perfect imitation. Savannah pushed his arm, forgetting for a moment her bruised fist. When it hurt, she yelped and glared accusingly at him. "It was you doing all that to him! That poor man-you damaged his ego for life. Each time he touched me, he had a sneezing fit." Gregori raised an eyebrow, completely unrepentant. "Technically,he did not lay a hand on you.He sneezed before he could get that close.

I felt disoriented. Didn't I already know my gift? I had my super-self-control that had allowed me to skip right over the horrifying newborn year. Vampires only had one extra ability at most, right? Or had Edward been correct in the beginning? Before Carlisle had suggested that my self-control could be something beyond the natural, Edward had thought my restraint was just a product of good preparation- focus and attitude, he'd declared. Which one had been right? Was there more I could do? A name and a category for what I was?" "Can you project?" Kate asked interestedly. "Project?" I asked. "Push it out from yourself," Kate explained. "Shield someone besides yourself." ... I wished fervently that I might be good at this projecting thing, too, like I was somehow mysteriously good at all the other aspects of being a vampire. My human life had not prepared me for things that came naturally, and I couldn't make myself trust this aptitude to last. It felt like I had never wanted anything so badly before this: to be able to protect what I loved.

He turns his head and looks at me, studying my eyes, my face. “You don’t regret it, do you, Lara Jean?” I shake my head. “No, I don’t.” He smiles at me so sweetly I can’t help but smile back. “Thanks for getting them to take the video down for me.” “Us,” Peter corrects. “I did it for us.” He links our fingers together. “It’s you and me, kid.” I tighten my fingers around his. If we just hold on tight enough, it will all be okay.

you can correct me if I am wrong, is that for the accomplishment of what was intended, God is required to have a patience not otherwise imaginable by human beings, except vaguely by the word unearthly. My understanding is He sees and knows, and foresaw and foreknew, all our errors, all our wrong turns and catastrophes, and still loved us. And still loved us. Not because but despite. He has already seen that child and seen to it that she was brought to this house, and seen to it that my daughter would love her. He has already read this story, and knows how it goes, because he knows there are humans in it. And that’s where His patience has to come in. Because. Because in some part of Him, in some part of Him He remembers that He made us with the intention of love. And that no matter how many times, no matter how many ways we find to defeat that intention, it is still there. Still there. And beats any regulation, ruling, decree or code, is beyond all jurisdiction or legislation made by man, because it pre-dates all, didn’t even need to be commanded. Love. That’s my understanding. And that’s what’s in that kitchen. That’s what came to this house the day of the fair. And that’s what I am going to try and keep alive. You can go ahead now and tell me where I’ve gone wrong. Father.

Ruth said, “Even if there were a lot of other things I wanted you to tell them and you remembered all of it correctly, it could still turn out something was the wrong thing for me to say. That’s the problem with being someone’s mother. You try to be helpful but it may turn out you were saying the wrong thing in the wrong way at the wrong time, most of the time. I don’t want to make it harder. This is going to be so hard on them.

I realized that I had been lost, and how I had become lost. I had strayed not so much because my ideas had been incorrect as because I had lived foolishly. I realized that I had been blinded from the truth not so much through mistaken thoughts as through my life itself, which had been spent in satisfying desire and in exclusive conditions of epicureanism. I realized that my questions as to what my life is, and the answer that it is an evil, was quite correct. The only mistake was that I had extended an answer that related only to myself to life as a whole. I had asked myself what my life was and had received the answer that it is evil and meaningless. And this was quite true, for my life of indulgent pursuits was meaningless and evil, but that answer applied only to my life and not to human life in general. I understood a truism that I subsequently found in the gospels: that people often preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil. For he who acts maliciously hates light and avoids it so as not to throw light on his deeds. I understood that in order to understand life it is first of all necessary that life is not evil and meaningless, and then one may use reason in order to elucidate it. I realized why I had for so long been treading so close to such an obvious truth without seeing it, and that in order to think and speak about human life one must think and speak about human life and not about the lives of a few parasites. The truth has always been the truth, just as 2 x 2 = 4, but I had not admitted it, because in acknowledging that 2 x 2 = 4 I would have to admit that I was a bad man. And it was more important and necessary for me to feel that I was good than to admit that 2 x 2 = 4. I came to love good people and to loathe myself, and I acknowledged the truth. And then it all became clear to me.

My cheeks are hot when he stalks right up to me, eyes narrowed. Pinched between his bloody fingers is a piece of scrap metal laced with seilgflùr from the blunderbuss—a shot that would have killed any other faery. “Really?” he says. “You were traipsing around in a low-visibility field while enemy fae are afoot,” I say defensively, hoping he can’t tell I’m blushing. “What is wrong with you?” Aithinne snickers and Kiaran casts her a sharp glance. “It’s not funny.” His sister tries to hold back a laugh, but doesn’t quite succeed. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But you just . . . I’ve never seen you look like such a complete mess.” Kiaran studies her with a narrowed gaze. “And both of you look like you’ve gone three rounds with a roving band of feral cats. I’d say we’re even.” “Even? Oh, please.” Aithinne ticks off each finger. “Thus far the Falconer and I escaped through a forest of spiked trees, fought off the mara, fled from Lonnrach’s soldiers, and defeated two mortair. You were shot by accident with some weapon composed of a wooden stick with a barrel on the end—” “A blunderbuss,” I correct helpfully. Kiaran gives me a pointed look that says, Whose side are you on? “—so I’d say I win this round.” She finishes with the sort of arrogant grin that makes it very clear that this must be an ongoing competition. Sibling rivalry, it seems, is not just for humans. If Kiaran’s glare is any indication, he’s contemplating about fifty different ways of killing his own sister. “Just remember,” I whisper to him, “murder is frowned upon in most societies.” “Not mine,” Kiaran says shortly. “She’s lucky I love her.

No, I have made sure of that over the past few weeks, hell, over the past few years. But I want to correct that. I…” He hesitated. “I love you, Mariah.” Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him. She was dreaming. Except when she pinched herself, she remained just where she was, only with a sore spot tingling her arm. “I do want a wife,” he continued. “To protect me as much as I protect her. To be a partner. A friend. A lover. That wife is you. It could only ever be you.

Lucian attempted a wan smile, although he did not open his eyes. “You are the miracle my brother has named you in his thoughts.” “Has he named me a miracle?” Even her voice was soothing and tranquil to Gabriel’s ears. He wanted to touch her, bask forever in her beauty, in her serenity. After the chaos of a bleak, gray world filled with violence, she was a miracle. “Yes, and for once, he was right.” There was an edge of weariness to the beautiful pitch of Lucian’s voice and it alarmed Gabriel. He had never heard his invincible twin sound so utterly drained of strength. “I am right at all times,” Gabriel corrected, moving at once to his brother’s side. “It is a peculiar phenomenon Lucian finds difficult to live with, but all the same . . .” Lucian opened his eyes to regard his brother with an icy stare clearly meant to intimidate. “Francesca, my dear sister, you have tied yourself to one who has a much inflated opinion of himself. I do not remember a time when he was right about anything.” Gabriel moved to the couch, seating himself beside his brother. “Do not listen to him, my love, he practices his intimidating stare in the mirror on a daily basis. He thinks to silence me with his glare.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of an opinion must be in want of a correction. Well, actually, no it isn't, but who doesn't love riffing on Jane Austen and her famous opening sentence? The answer is: lots of people, because we're all different and some of us haven't even read Pride and Prejudice dozens of times, but the main point is that I've been performing interesting experiments in proffering my opinions and finding that some of the people out there, particularly men, respond on the grounds that my opinion is wrong, while theirs is right because they are convinced that their opinion is a fact, while mine is a delusion. Sometimes they also seem to think that they are in charge, of me as well as facts.

When you make a decision you believe in but you know will upset your child, you might say as much to your kid: “Two things are true, sweetie. First, I have decided that you cannot watch that movie. Second, you’re upset and mad at me. Like, really mad. I hear that. I even understand it. You’re allowed to be mad.” You don’t have to choose between firm decisions and loving validation. There’s no trade-off between doing what feels right to you and acknowledging the very real experience of your child. Both can be true.

Maybe we can say I want to make a case for joining Team Fancypants—” “Team Valiant,” Sophie corrected. He smirked. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m never gonna call it that. Just like I’m pretty sure you’re gonna have to get used to me calling you the Lovely Lady F.

But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me? Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

Evelyn, we haven't even seen each other in years." "I know you were able to forget me,” I said. "I know you were with Joan. I'm sure you were with others." I waited, hoping she would cor.rect me, hoping she would tell me there had been no one else. But she didn't. And so I continued. "But can you honestly say that you stopped loving me?" "Of course not." "And I can't say that, either. I have loved you every single day.” "You married someone else." “I married him because he helped me forget you,” I said. Not because I stopped loving you.

Speak for yourself,’ said Danny Hislop. ‘I’m held together by intellectual curiosity. So are we all. We were wonderfully specious at Novgorod—Best will remember—about our reasons for staying in Russia. No one gave the correct one. You can hate a man and stay in his company because of his sheer, God-given, irresistible powers to stimulate. We all liked fighting, and we liked talking about fighting. With Lymond you don’t talk about fighting; you discuss the art of warfare, and then its philosophy, and then ten dozen other subjects all through the night, or for as long as he has patience to stay with you. I thought, God help me, that you were all trailing through Europe because you were enamoured of him. It wasn’t that in the least.’ ‘We loved his mind,’ said Adam Blacklock, with sudden terrible bitterness.

I've always been his favorite." "Is that so?" Lazily Shelby folded her arms behind her head. She could picture him as a boy,seeing beyond what other boys saw and storing it. "Why?" "If I weren't modest,I'd confess that I was always a well-mannered, even-tempered child who never gave my parents a moment's trouble." "Liar," she said easily. "How'd you get the broken nose?" The grin became rueful. "Rena punched me." "Your sister broke your nose?" Shelby burst out with delighted and unsympathetic laughter. "The blackjack dealer, right? Oh,I love it!" Alan caught Shelby's nose between two fingers and gave it a quick twist. "It was rather painful at the time." "I imagine." She kept right on laughing as he shifted to her side. "Did she make a habit of beating you up?" "She didn't beat me up," he corrected with some dignity. "She was trying to beat Caine up because he'd teased her about making calf's eyes at one of his friends." "Typical brotherly intimidation." "In any event," Alan put in mildly, "I went to drag her off him,she took another swing,missed him, and hit me. A full-power roundhouse,as I remember. That's when," he continued as Shelby gave another peal of laughter, "I decided against being a diplomat. It's always the neutral party that gets punched in the face." "I'm sure..." Shelby dropped her head on his shoulder. "I'm sure she was sorry." "Initially.But as I recall, after I'd stopped bleeding and threatening to kill both her and Caine, her reaction as a great deal like yours." "Insensitive." Shelby ran apologetic kisses over his face. "Poor baby. Tell you what, I'll do penance and see about fixing you breakfast.

And do not try to be so brave. I am your lifemate.You cannot hide from me something as powerful as fear." "Trepidation," she corrected, nibbling at the pad of his thumb. "Is there a difference?" His pale eyes had warmed to molten mercury. Just that fast, her body ent liquid in answer. "You know very well there is." She laughed again, and the sound traveled down from his heart to pool in his groin, a heavy,familiar ache. "Slight, perhaps, but very important." "I will try to make you happy, Savannah," he promised gravely. Her fingers went up to brush at the thick mane of hair falling around his face. "You are my lifemate, Gregori. I have no doubt you will make me happy." He had to look away,out the window into the night. She was so good, with so much beauty in her, while he was so dark, his goodness drained into the ground with the blood of all the lives he had taken while he waited for her. But now,faced with the reality of her, Gregori could not bear her to witness the blackness within him, the hideous stain across his soul. For beyond his killing and law-breaking, he had committed the gravest crime of all. And he deserved the ultimate penalty, the forfeit of his life. He had deliberately tempered with nature.He knew he was powerful enough, knew his knowledge exeeded the boundaries of Carpathian law. He had taken Savannah's free will, manipulated the chemistry between them so that she would believe he was her true lifemate. And so she was with him-less than a quarter of a century of innocence pitted against his thousand years of hard study.Perhaps that was his punishment, he mused-being sentenced to an eternity of knowing Savannah could never really love him, never really accept his black soul.That she would be ever near yet so far away. If she ever found out the extent of his manipulation, she would despise him. Yet he could never,ever, allow her to leave him. Not if mortals and immortals alike were to be safe. His jaw hardened, and he stared out the window, turning slightly away from her. His mind firmly left hers, not wanting to alert her to the grave crime he had committed.He could bear torture and centuries of isolation, he could bear his own great sins, but he could not endure her loathing him. Unconsciously, he took her hand in his and tightened his grip until it threatened to crush her fragile bones. Savannah glanced at him, let out a breath slowly to keep from wincing, and kept her hand passively in his.He thought his mind closed to her.Didn't believe she was his true lifemate. He truly believed he had manipulated the outcome of their joining unfairly and that somewhere another Carpathian male with the chemistry to match hers might be waiting.Though he had offered her free access to his mind, had himself given her the power,to meld her mind with his,both as her wolf and as her healer before she was born,he likely didn't think a woman,a fledging, and one who was not his true lifemate, could possibly have the skill to read his innermost secrets.But Savannah could. And completing the ancient ritual of lifemates had only strengthened the bond.

The Government set the stage economically by informing everyone that we were in a depression period, with very pointed allusions to the 1930s. The period just prior to our last 'good' war. ... Boiled down, our objective was to make killing and military life seem like adventurous fun, so for our inspiration we went back to the Thirties as well. It was pure serendipity. Inside one of the Scripter offices there was an old copy of Doc Smith's first LENSMAN space opera. It turned out that audiences in the 1970s were more receptive to the sort of things they scoffed at as juvenilia in the 1930s. Our drugs conditioned them to repeat viewings, simultaneously serving the ends of profit and positive reinforcement. The movie we came up with stroked all the correct psychological triggers. The fact that it grossed more money than any film in history at the time proved how on target our approach was.' 'Oh my God... said Jonathan, his mouth stalling the open position. 'Six months afterward we ripped ourselves off and got secondary reinforcement onto television. We pulled a 40 share. The year after that we phased in the video games, experimenting with non-narcotic hypnosis, using electrical pulses, body capacitance, and keying the pleasure centers of the brain with low voltage shocks. Jesus, Jonathan, can you *see* what we've accomplished? In something under half a decade we've programmed an entire generation of warm bodies to go to war for us and love it. They buy what we tell them to buy. Music, movies, whole lifestyles. And they hate who we tell them to. ... It's simple to make our audiences slaver for blood; that past hasn't changed since the days of the Colosseum. We've conditioned a whole population to live on the rim of Apocalypse and love it. They want to kill the enemy, tear his heart out, go to war so their gas bills will go down! They're all primed for just that sort of denouemment, ti satisfy their need for linear storytelling in the fictions that have become their lives! The system perpetuates itself. Our own guinea pigs pay us money to keep the mechanisms grinding away. If you don't believe that, just check out last year's big hit movies... then try to tell me the target demographic audience isn't waiting for marching orders. ("Incident On A Rainy Night In Beverly Hills")

Do you know why the lotus is one of my favorite flowers?" I cocked my head to one side so I could see his expression. He shook his head. "This beautiful flower lives in the most vile, muddy water of swamps and bogs," I said and rubbed the smooth metal of the pendant between my fingers. He frowned. "No, seriously... the grosser the environment, the better," I said. "So let me get this straight. You like a flower that lives in disgusting places?" One of his eyebrows rose. "That ain't right." "No, I love this flower," I corrected. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, "Seriously?" "What?" You don't believe me?" "Sure, I believe you. It's just weird." "I'll tell you why, but only if you promise not to laugh," I said. He nodded. Taking a cleansing breath, I rested my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and took that scary first step. "This flower stays in the mud and muck all night long." I peeked at him without moving my head. His face had become set in the smooth lines of one who listens intently. "Then, at sunrise, it climbs toward the light and opens into a pristine bloom. After the sun goes down, the bloom sinks into the mire. Even though it spends the whole night underwater, the flower emerges every morning as beautiful as the day before." Smiling, I swiveled in my seat to face him. "I love this flower because it reminds me that we get second chances every day, no matter what muck life drags us through.

We would ideally remain able to laugh, in the gentlest way, when we are made the special target of a sulker’s fury. We would recognise the touching paradox. The sulker may be six foot one and holding down adult employment, but the real message is poignantly retrogressive: ‘Deep inside, I remain an infant, and right now I need you to be my parent. I need you correctly to guess what is truly ailing me, as people did when I was a baby, when my ideas of love were first formed.’ We do our sulking lovers the greatest possible favour when we are able to regard their tantrums as we would those of an infant. We are so alive to the idea that it’s patronising to be thought of as younger than we are, we forget that it is also, at times, the greatest privilege for someone to look beyond our adult self in order to engage with – and forgive – the disappointed, furious, inarticulate child within.

Welcome to your very first lesson," she was happy to announce. "Before we begin, I have one question to ask you. Can anyone tell me what the difference is between a wound and a scar? Between weakness and strength? And between hatred and love?" Emerelda raised her hand. "Is it time?" she asked. "Correct!" Madame Weatherberry cheered. "How did you know that?" Tangerina asked. "She's an hour late and she's dressed in clocks," Emerelda said. "I figured it was a safe bet." "Time is the most complex device in the universe," Madame Weatherberry went on. "It is both the problem and the solution to most of life's dilemmas. It heals all wounds, but in the end, it takes us all. Unfortunately, time is rarely in anyone's favor. We have too little or too much but never the time we want or need. Sometimes we're born into a time that doesn't value us, and too often, we let those times determine how we value ourselves. So for your first assignment, you are going to get rid of any unfavorable opinions, insecurities, or self-hatred that the times have instilled within you. If we are going to successfully change the world's perspective of us, we must start by hanging our perspective of ourselves.

Many things as we have constructed them can be redefined and are neither correct nor incorrect. I love making love to a woman. I love her every quiver, her every movement, her every moan, her every breath. I love the journey my hands make over her every soft curve, the smell of her skin, and I revel in the feminine beauty, unmatched by anything else on this earth. But the core connection is what matters most and, while I don’t know what draws me to the essence of women rather than men or both, I wanted to be swallowed up by exactly that – the mystery of why we don’t want to be without each other.

Throughout His ministry Jesus gave commandments. And He taught, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15; see also verses 21, 23). He affirmed that keeping His commandments would require His followers to leave what He called “that which is highly esteemed among men” (Luke 16:15) and “the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8; see also verse 13). He also warned, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). As the Apostle Peter later declared, the followers of Jesus were to be “a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9). Latter-day Saints understand that we should not be “of the world” or bound to “the tradition of men,” but like other followers of Christ, we sometimes find it difficult to separate ourselves from the world and its traditions. Some model themselves after worldly ways because, as Jesus said of some whom He taught, “they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:43). These failures to follow Christ are too numerous and too sensitive to list here. They range all the way from worldly practices like political correctness and extremes in dress and grooming to deviations from basic values like the eternal nature and function of the family. Jesus’s teachings were not meant to be theoretical. . . . Following Christ is not a casual or occasional practice but a continuous commitment and way of life that applies at all times and in all places.

Don't fall into the habit of bringing work home, Rick. It indicates a lack of planning, and you would eventually find yourself stuck indoors every night. Teaching is like having a bank account. You can happily draw on it while it is well supplied with new funds; otherwise you're in difficulties. Every teacher should have a fund of ready information on which to draw; he should keep that fund supplied regularly by new experiences, new thoughts and discoveries, by reading and moving around among people from whom he can acquire such things." "Not much chance of social movement for me, I'm afraid." "Nonsense, Rick, you're settled in a job now, so there's no need to worry about that; but you must get out and meet more people. I'm sure you'll find lots of nice people about who are not foolishly concerned with prejudice." "That's all right, Dad; I'm quite happy to stay at home with you and Mom." "Nice to hear you say that, but we're old and getting a bit stuffy. You need the company of younger people like yourself. It's even time he had a girl, don't you think, Jess?" Mom smiled across at me. "Ah, leave him alone, Bob, there's plenty of time for that." We went on to chat about other things, but I never forgot what Dad Belmont had said, and never again did I take notebooks home for marking. I would check the work in progress by moving about the class, helping here, correcting there; and I very soon discovered that in this way errors were pin-pointed while they were still fresh in the child's mind.

When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,' Papa would say, 'she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing. "Spread your lips, sweet Lil," they'd cluck, "and show us your choppers!"' This same Crystal Lil, our star-haired mama, sitting snug on the built-in sofa that was Arty's bed at night, would chuckle at the sewing in her lap and shake her head. 'Don't piffle to the children, Al. Those hens ran like whiteheads.' Nights on the road this would be, between shows and towns in some campground or pull-off, with the other vans and trucks and trailers of Binewski's Carnival Fabulon ranged up around us, safe in our portable village. After supper, sitting with full bellies in the lamp glow, we Binewskis were supposed to read and study. But if it rained the story mood would sneak up on Papa. The hiss and tick on the metal of our big living van distracted him from his papers. Rain on a show night was catastrophe. Rain on the road meant talk, which, for Papa, was pure pleasure. 'It's a shame and a pity, Lil,' he'd say, 'that these offspring of yours should only know the slumming summer geeks from Yale.' 'Princeton, dear,' Mama would correct him mildly. 'Randall will be a sophomore this fall. I believe he's our first Princeton boy.' We children would sense our story slipping away to trivia. Arty would nudge me and I'd pipe up with, 'Tell about the time when Mama was the geek!' and Arty and Elly and Iphy and Chick would all slide into line with me on the floor between Papa's chair and Mama. Mama would pretend to be fascinated by her sewing and Papa would tweak his swooping mustache and vibrate his tangled eyebrows, pretending reluctance. 'WellIll . . .' he'd begin, 'it was a long time ago . . .' 'Before we were born!' 'Before . . .' he'd proclaim, waving an arm in his grandest ringmaster style, 'before I even dreamed you, my dreamlets!' 'I was still Lillian Hinchcliff in those days,' mused Mama. 'And when your father spoke to me, which was seldom and reluctantly, he called me "Miss." ' 'Miss!' we would giggle. Papa would whisper to us loudly, as though Mama couldn't hear, 'Terrified! I was so smitten I'd stutter when I tried to talk to her. "M-M-M-Miss . . ." I'd say.' We'd giggle helplessly at the idea of Papa, the GREAT TALKER, so flummoxed. 'I, of course, addressed your father as Mister Binewski.

I believe that the key to success lies in knowing how to both strive for a lot and fail well. By failing well, I mean being able to experience painful failures that provide big learnings without failing badly enough to get knocked out of the game. This way of learning and improving has been best for me because of what I’m like and because of what I do. I’ve always had a bad rote memory and didn’t like following other people’s instructions, but I loved figuring out how things work for myself. I hated school because of my bad memory but when I was twelve I fell in love with trading the markets. To make money in the markets, one needs to be an independent thinker who bets against the consensus and is right. That’s because the consensus view is baked into the price. One is inevitably going to be painfully wrong a lot, so knowing how to do that well is critical to one’s success. To be a successful entrepreneur, the same is true: One also has to be an independent thinker who correctly bets against the consensus, which means being painfully wrong a fair amount. Since I was both an investor and an entrepreneur, I developed a healthy fear of being wrong and figured out an approach to decision making that would maximize my odds of being right.

What's your name?" I ask again. We hover over the device, then a word pops up on the screen, a digitized voice announcing it for us. "Little." Hayden squints, jaw hanging slack, trying to find some hidden meaning. "Little. Oh my God, there's a little girl that's reported to haunt this hotel." "Bitch," the device snaps. His gaze lifts to mine, then back at the Ovilus, and then back at me. "Did that ghost call me a bitch?" I scratch my head. "It might've been talking about me. It did say little. You're kinda large." Hayden frowns at the device. "That's derogatory. It's not nice to call a woman a bitch." "Ass," it corrects.

The first time I truly saw the stars In front of me was in the eyes of someone That truly cared for & about me. They were so big, I saw my reflection And everything behind me. Before that moment they were always So far away. Astronomers definitely got it wrong As far as being anatomically correct. They were so round & perfect, At that moment it feels like I could Have drawn them. There isn’t a street light Or a city in existence that could compare. She kissed me & gave me a memory That I’ll always remember. Compared to her everything else Seemed small. Until this day it still does. I continue to search the sky for her Again & again

Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?’ Amos 3:3 ‘Does This Person Belong in your Life?’ A toxic relationship is like a limb with gangrene: unless you amputate it the infection can spread and kill you. Without the courage to cut off what refuses to heal, you’ll end up losing a lot more. Your personal growth - and in some cases your healing - will only be expedited by establishing relationships with the right people. Maybe you’ve heard the story about the scorpion who asked the frog to carry him across the river because he couldn’t swim. ‘I’m afraid you’ll sting me,’ replied the frog. The scorpion smiled reassuringly and said, ‘Of course I won’t. If I did that we’d both drown!’ So the frog agreed, and the scorpion hopped on his back. Wouldn’t you know it: halfway across the river the scorpion stung him! As they began to sink the frog lamented, ‘You promised you wouldn’t sting me. Why’d you do it?’ The scorpion replied, ‘I can’t help it. It’s my nature!’ Until God changes the other person’s nature, they have the power to affect and infect you. For example, when you feel passionately about something but others don’t, it’s like trying to dance a foxtrot with someone who only knows how to waltz. You picked the wrong dance partner! Don’t get tied up with someone who doesn’t share your values and God-given goals. Some issues can be corrected through counselling, prayer, teaching, and leadership. But you can’t teach someone to care; if they don’t care they’ll pollute your environment, kill your productivity, and break your rhythm with constant complaints. That’s why it’s important to pray and ask God, ‘Does this person belong in my life?

Hemorrhoids Go big or go home! That was my mental response to childbirth. You want me to push? Okay, awesome. I’m going to push so hard that I not only eject this baby from me, but I’m also going to turn my butthole inside out. When I explained the issue to my OB, she insisted hemorrhoids were totally normal, and if they didn’t go away, I could get a quick surgery to correct them, a suggestion that I met with a resounding “Nope!” I had already spent a month in elementary school sitting on a blowup pillow, and I’m not pulling my pants down as an adult to have surgery in my butt. So, here I am, five years out from my last birth and sitting in my chair a quarter of an inch taller.

I must quote from Dr. Faustus, with which the tragedy ends: "Often he talked of eternal grace, the poor man, and I don't know if it will be enough. But an understanding heart, believe me, is enough for everything." Let us understand these words correctly. They are not proud or arrogant; on the contrary they are desperately modest. We really do not know any longer whether grace is enough, precisely because we are as we are and are beginning to see ourselves as we are. But at a time of overwhelming crisis, the questionable nature of grace, or rather our knowledge that we are unworthy of grace, compels us to understand and love mankind, the fallible mankind that we ourselves are. Behind this abysmal crisis, the archetype of the Eternal Feminine as earth and as Sophia would seem to be discernible; it is no accident that these words are spoken by Frau Schweigestill, the mother. That is to say, it is precisely in chaos, in hell, that the New makes its appearance. Did not Kwanyin descend into hell rather than spend her time with the serene music makers in heaven?

This wasn’t just about Kathy: it was about my father, and my childhood feelings of abandonment; my grief for everything I never had and, in my heart, still believed I never would have. Ruth was saying that was why I chose Kathy. What better way for me to prove that my father was correct—that I’m worthless and unlovable—than by pursuing someone who will never love me?

Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I have neither words nor measure, and for the other, I have no strength in measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken. I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love of any thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou canst love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favours, they do always reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love? speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

Hey, Red.” I greeted her with a cocky grin. “Can't stay away from me, huh? Don't blame you.” I gestured to myself. “Look at all this.” [...] “If I knew you had company, I would've waited,” she said dryly. “Wouldn't want to interrupt your weekly lovefest with your ego.” “Daily,” I corrected. “Self-love is critical to maintaining one's self-esteem. But you're hot, so you're allowed to interrupt.

Don’t allow yourself to waste that chance. Don’t succumb to any…distractions.” I could only imagine my expression. Miss Swanston lowered her candy-red lashes and glanced back at Armand. “Oh,” I said, swallowing. “No. Definitely not.” “Forgive me. He seems quite taken with you.” The bite of roll lodged in my throat; I coughed. “He isn’t, I assure you.” “Eleanore, it grieves me to correct you, but he is staring at you even now. He hasn’t been able to tear his eyes from you since we arrived.” I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t say anything like, Armand doesn’t count. Armand’s not even in the game. I’m in love with a boy made of stars, and we’re going to live together ever after on gold and smoke and moonlight, and that’s my happy future, no matter what any of you think. I scowled down at my plate. “He’s simply…” “Yes?” she prompted, very mild. I searched for the right word. “I don’t know what he is,” I admitted finally, frustrated. “Bored, I suppose.” “Yes,” she said again, just as mild. “I’m glad you’ve realized it, too.” “But I’m not dense. He’s nobility. I know-I know what I am. I know what to avoid.” “Good,” Miss Swanston said once more, and gave me her wistful smile.

Look at me, Elizabeth,” he commanded. His voice dark and deep. “Lizzie,” I corrected without thought, completely out of habit. My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe I had just corrected him. Instinctively I felt that was something people just didn’t do around this man. If he said the sky were purple with pink spots, I’m pretty sure everyone would agree wholeheartedly… and worse, actually believe it. He just seemed to exude that kind of authoritative power. The kind that could make you believe just about anything he said. He gave my hair a painful tug with both hands. “Elizabeth,” he stated emphatically, as if he were a god or a king commanding it be so. “I left a package in your dressing room. It’s a dress. I want you to wear it tonight.” Tonight was the cast party. It was taking place right after our final curtain call. I had no idea he was even attending. Wait, a dress? “The party is at The Brewery next door. I don’t think the cast party is that formal,” I offered, still trying to process why this man would buy me a dress. Realizing quickly that I might sound ungrateful, I stammered, “Not that I don’t appreciate it… I mean I’m sure it’s lovely and—” “Elizabeth.” The sharp command of his voice stopped my rambling. “Yes, sir?” “Wear the dress,” he ordered, not expecting a refusal and not getting one. “Yes, sir,” I whispered. Releasing my hair, he stroked the back of his knuckles down my cheek. “Good girl.” The moment I heard the Hall door close on his retreating back, I sank to my knees in the middle of the stage, feeling shaken and more than a little alarmed. What the hell had just happened?

You’re different,” is all I come up with to say. He leans closer, bumping his shoulder against mine. “So are you.” “Probably a good thing, eh?” I tease, bumping him back. “Didn’t like me much when we were kids, if I remember correctly.” His lips lift in a smug smile, gaze still latched to the fire he built with his daughter. Then he turns and looks me dead in the eye. “You’re not remembering correctly, Rosie.

I never went to college. I don’t believe in college for writers. I think too many professors are too opinionated and too snobbish and too intellectual. And the intellect is a great danger to creativity because you begin to rationalize and make up reasons for things instead of staying with your own basic truth--- who you are, what you are, what you wanna be. I’ve had a sign over my typewriter for twenty-five years now which reads, “Don’t think.” You must never think at the typewriter--- you must feel, and your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. You collect up a lot of data, you do a lot of thinking away from the typewriter, but at the typewriter you should be living. It should be a living experience. The worst thing you do when you think is lie — you can make up reasons that are not true for the things that you did, and what you’re trying to do as a creative person is surprise yourself — find out who you really are, and try not to lie, try to tell the truth all the time. And the only way to do this is by being very active and very emotional, and get it out of yourself — making things that you hate and things that you love, you write about these then, intensely. When it’s over, then you can think about it; then you can look, it works or it doesn’t work, something is missing here. And, if something is missing, then you go back and reemotionalize that part, so it’s all of a piece. But thinking is to be a corrective in our life. It’s not supposed to be a center of our life. Living is supposed to be the center of our life, being is supposed to be the center, with correctives around, which hold us like the skin holds our blood and our flesh in. But our skin is not a way of life. The way of living is the blood pumping through our veins, the ability to sense and to feel and to know, and the intellect doesn’t help you very much there. You should get on with the business of living. Everything of mine is intuitive. All the poetry I’ve written, I couldn’t possibly tell you how I did it. I don’t know anything about the rhythms or the schemes or the inner rhymes or any of these sorts of thing. It comes from 40 years of reading poetry and having heroes that I loved. I love Shakespeare, I don’t Intellectualize about him. I love Gerard Manley Hopkins, I don’t intellectualize about him. I love Dylan Thomas, I don’t know what the hell he’s writing about half the time, but he sounds good, he rings well. Let me give you an example on this sort of thing: I walked into my living room twenty years ago, when one of my daughters was about four years old, and a Dylan Thomas record was on the set. I thought that my wife had put the record on; come to find out my four-year-old had put on his record. I came into the room, she pointed to the record and said, ‘He knows what he’s doing.’ Now, that’s great. See, that’s not intellectualizing, it’s an emotional reaction. If there is no feeling, there cannot be great art.” 

I offer the wisdom of Eric Fromm, in his classic book The Art of Loving.1 He says that the healthiest people he has known, and those who very often grow up in the most natural way, are those who, between their two parents and early authority figures, experienced a combination of unconditional love along with very conditional and demanding love! This seems to be true of so many effective and influential people, like St. Francis, John Muir, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mother Teresa, and you can add your own. I know my siblings and I received conditional love from our mother and unconditional love from our father. We all admit now that she served us very well later in life, although we sure fought Mom when we were young. And we were glad Daddy was there to balance her out. I know this is not the current version of what is psychologically “correct,” because we all seem to think we need nothing but unconditional love. Any law, correction, rule, or limitation is another word for conditional love. It is interesting to me that very clear passages describing both God's conditional love and also God's unconditional love are found in the same Scriptures, like Deuteronomy and John's Gospel. The only real biblical promise is that unconditional love will have the last word!

I fell in love with my country because of the stories my grandfather told me and because of our travels together through the south. He taught me history and geography, showed me maps, made me read Chilean writers, corrected my grammar and handwriting. As a teacher, he was short on patience but long on severity; my errors made him red with anger, but if he was content with my work he would reward me with a wedge of Camembert cheese,

Everyone's here except for St. Clair." Meredith cranes her neck around the cafeteria. "He's usually running late." "Always," Josh corrects. "Always running late." I clear my throat. "I think I met him last night. In the hallway." "Good hair and an English accent?" Meredith asks. "Um.Yeah.I guess." I try to keep my voice casual. Josh smirks. "Everyone's in luuurve with St. Clair." "Oh,shut up," Meredith says. "I'm not." Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend. He lets go of her hand and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Well,I am. I'm asking him to prom. This is our year, I just know it." "This school has a prom?" I ask. "God no," Rashmi says. "Yeah,Josh. You and St. Clair would look really cute in matching tuxes." "Tails." The English accent makes Meredith and me jump in our seats. Hallway boy. Beautiful boy. His hair is damp from the rain. "I insist the tuxes have tails, or I'm giving your corsage to Steve Carver instead." "St. Clair!" Josh springs from his seat, and they give each other the classic two-thumps-on-the-back guy hug. "No kiss? I'm crushed,mate." "Thought it might miff the ol' ball and chain. She doesn't know about us yet." "Whatever," Rashi says,but she's smiling now. It's a good look for her. She should utilize the corners of her mouth more often. Beautiful Hallway Boy (Am I supposed to call him Etienne or St. Clair?) drops his bag and slides into the remaining seat between Rashmi and me. "Anna." He's surprised to see me,and I'm startled,too. He remembers me. "Nice umbrella.Could've used that this morning." He shakes a hand through his hair, and a drop lands on my bare arm. Words fail me. Unfortunately, my stomach speaks for itself. His eyes pop at the rumble,and I'm alarmed by how big and brown they are. As if he needed any further weapons against the female race. Josh must be right. Every girl in school must be in love with him. "Sounds terrible.You ought to feed that thing. Unless..." He pretends to examine me, then comes in close with a whisper. "Unless you're one of those girls who never eats. Can't tolerate that, I'm afraid. Have to give you a lifetime table ban." I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence. "I'm not sure how to order." "Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want.Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood." "I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says. "Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe." "I meant the menu,thank you very much." I gesture to the chalkboard above one of the chefs. An exquisite cursive hand has written out the morning's menu in pink and yellow and white.In French. "Not exactly my first language." "You don't speak French?" Meredith asks. "I've taken Spanish for three years. It's not like I ever thought I'd be moving to Paris." "It's okay," Meredith says quickly. "A lot of people here don't speak French." "But most of them do," Josh adds. "But most of them not very well." Rashmi looks pointedly at him. "You'll learn the lanaguage of food first. The language of love." Josh rubs his belly like a shiny Buddha. "Oeuf. Egg. Pomme. Apple. Lapin. Rabbit." "Not funny." Rashmi punches him in the arm. "No wonder Isis bites you. Jerk." I glance at the chalkboard again. It's still in French. "And, um, until then?" "Right." Beautiful Hallway Boy pushes back his chair. "Come along, then. I haven't eaten either." I can't help but notice several girls gaping at him as we wind our way through the crowd.

Relax!” “Don’t go to so much trouble!” “Why don’t you use plastic glasses?” “Take off your jacket!” “Why don’t you use paper napkins?” “Don’t be so formal!” “Sit down!” “Why don’t you use paper plates?” “You don’t have to impress us!” Guests who make such remarks to their hosts must fondly imagine the effect they produce: “Whew,” the host must think. “I don’t have to strain myself pretending to be something I’m not. These people love me just as I am, without all this fancy stuff.” Or maybe not. Miss Manners is afraid that the effect might be more like this: “Try and do something nice for people, and look what you get. They come into my house, call me pretentious to my face, criticize my stuff, complain about the way I do things, bark orders at me and try to foist their own slobby standards on me. How would they like it if I came to their houses and suggested that they try a little harder?” Yet

Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he unaccustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it. The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter’s Logic: ‘Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,’ had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but it certainly didn’t apply to himself. That Caius - man in the abstract - was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite separate from all others. He had been little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with toys, a coachman and a nanny, afterwards with Katenka and with all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother’s hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle for Caius? Had he noted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at session as he did? Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but as for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it’s altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible. Such was his feeling.

Jed, it can be hard to tell the difference between an outcast and a pioneer. What if you’re meant to be the example you needed? What if God gave you your personality, your unique skill set, to equip you to walk into the wilderness and show that it can be done?” I stared at him while the question expanded in my chest. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. “And trust me,” he continued, “those examples are out there, just maybe not in your community. So look hard, read everything, pray, and move in the direction of what’s right. God will correct your steps, but you must first start walking. That’s what ‘walk in faith’ means.” My mentor didn’t say it just like that. It was years ago and I’m sure my memory has embellished it. But that conversation changed my life. Just because you don’t have a road map doesn’t mean you aren’t meant to walk in the direction of your convictions. Look at your gifts, your skills. You may be a pioneer.

I am very often asked why, at the age of eighty-five, I continue to practice. Tip number eighty-five (sheer coincidence that I am now eighty-five years old) begins with a simple declaration: my work with patients enriches my life in that it provides meaning in life. Rarely do I hear therapists complain of a lack of meaning. We live lives of service in which we fix our gaze on the needs of others. We take pleasure not only in helping our patients change, but also in hoping their changes will ripple beyond them toward others. We are also privileged by our role as cradlers of secrets. Every day patients grace us with their secrets, often never before shared. The secrets provide a backstage view of the human condition without social frills, role-playing, bravado, or stage posturing. Being entrusted with such secrets is a privilege given to very few. Sometimes the secrets scorch me and I go home and hold my wife and count my blessings. Moreover, our work provides the opportunity to transcend ourselves and to envision the true and tragic knowledge of the human condition. But we are offered even more. We become explorers immersed in the grandest of pursuits—the development and maintenance of the human mind. Hand in hand with patients, we savor the pleasure of discovery—the “aha” experience when disparate ideational fragments suddenly slide smoothly together into a coherent whole. Sometimes I feel like a guide escorting others through the rooms of their own house. What a treat it is to watch them open doors to rooms never before entered, discover unopened wings of their house containing beautiful and creative pieces of identity. Recently I attended a Christmas service at the Stanford Chapel to hear a sermon by Rev. Jane Shaw that underscored the vital importance of love and compassion. I was moved by her call to put such sentiments into practice whenever we can. Acts of caring and generosity can enrich any environment in which we find ourselves. Her words motivated me to reconsider the role of love in my own profession. I became aware that I have never, not once, used the word love or compassion in my discussions of the practice of psychotherapy. It is a huge omission, which I wish now to correct, for I know that I regularly experience love and compassion in my work as a therapist and do all I can to help patients liberate their love and generosity toward others. If I do not experience these feelings for a particular patient, then it is unlikely I will be of much help. Hence I try to remain alert to my loving feelings or absence of such feelings for my patients.

How are you enjoying Thorne Abbey?" Cal took a long sip of orange juice before replying. "It's great." I don't think it was possible for Cal to sound less enthusiastic, but either Lara didn't pick up on it, or she didn't care, because she sounded awfully perky as she said, "Well, I'm sure the two of you are welcoming the chance to spend some time together." Cal and I both stared at her. I tried to will her to stop talking, but apparently that power wasn't in my repertoire. Lara flashed us a conspiratorial grin. "Nothing makes me happier than seeing an arrangement that's a real love match." All the awkwardness that had vanished between me and Cal yesterday seemed to swoop back into the room with an audible whoosh. I dared a quick look in his direction, but Cal, as usual, was doing his whole Stoic Man thing. His expression didn't even waver. But then I noticed his hand tightening around his glass. "Cal and I aren't...we don't...there's not any, um, love," I finally said. "We're friends." Lara frowned, confused. "Oh. I'm sorry." She turned to Cal, eyebrows raised. "I just assumed that was the reason you turned down the position with the Council." Cal shook his head,and I think he was about to say something, but I beat him to it. "What position with the Council?" "It was nothing," he said. Lara gave a delicate snort before saying to me, "After his term at Hecate ended, Mr. Callahan was offered a position as the Council's chief bodyguard. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you initially accept the assignment?" she asked Cal. It was the closest I'd ever seen Cal to angry. Of course, on him, that meant that his brow furrowed a little. "I did, but-" he started to say. "But then you heard Sophie was coming to Hecate, and you decided to stay," Lara finished, and her lips twisted in the triumphant smile I'd seen on Mrs. Casnoff's face dozens of times. I stood there, frozen in place, as she turned back to me and said, "Mr. Callahan gave up a chance to travel the world with the council so that he could be little more than a janitor on Graymalkin Island. For you.

I'm talking about your lovely long arms and your perfectly shaped legs... I find I am quite jealous of those stockings for knowing the feel of you, the warmth of you." She shifted, unable to keep still beneath the onslaught of his words. "I'm talking about that corset that hugs you where you are lovely and soft... is it uncomfortable?" She hesitated. "Not usually." "And now?" She heard the knowledge in the question. She nodded once. "It's rather- constricting." He tutted once, and she opened her eyes, instantly meeting his, hot and focused on her. "Poor Pippa. Tell me, with your knowledge of the human body, why do you think that is?" She swallowed, tried for a deep breath. Failed. "It's because my heart is threatening to beat out of my chest." The smile again. "Have you overexerted yourself?" She shook her head. "No." "What, then?" She was not a fool. He was pushing her. Attempting to see how far she would go. She told the truth. "I think it is you." He closed his eyes then, hands fisting again, and pressed his head back against the side of the desk, exposing the long column of his neck and his tightly clenched jaw. Her mouth went dry at the movement, at the way the tendons there bunched and rippled, and she was quite desperate to touch him. When he returned his gaze to hers, there was something wild in those pewter depths... something she was at once consumed and terrified by. "You shouldn't be so quick with the truth," he said. "Why?" "It gives me too much control." "I trust you." "You shouldn't." He leaned forward, bracing his arm against his raised knee. "You are not safe with me." She had never once felt unsafe with him. "I don't think that's correct." He laughed, low and dark, and the sound rippled through her, a wave of pleasure and temptation. "You have no idea what I could do to you, Philippa Marbury. The ways I could touch you. The wonders I could show you. I could ruin you without thought, sink with you into the depths of sin and not once regret it. I could lead you right into temptation and never ever look back." The words stole her breath. She wanted it. Every bit of it.

Oh, now, life, life! I lifted up my hands and called upon eternal truth, not with words, but with tears; ecstasy, immeasurable ecstasy flooded my soul. Yes, life and spreading the good tidings! Oh, I at that moment resolved to spread the tidings, and resolved it, of course, for my whole life. I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings — of what? Of the truth, for I have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes, have seen it in all its glory. And since then I have been preaching! Moreover I love all those who laugh at me more than any of the rest. Why that is so I do not know and cannot explain, but so be it. I am told that I am vague and confused, and if I am vague and confused now, what shall I be later on? It is true indeed: I am vague and confused, and perhaps as time goes on I shall be more so. And of course I shall make many blunders before I find out how to preach, that is, find out what words to say, what things to do, for it is a very difficult task. I see all that as clear as daylight, but, listen, who does not make mistakes? An yet, you know, all are making for the same goal, all are striving in the same direction anyway, from the sage to the lowest robber, only by different roads. It is an old truth, but this is what is new: I cannot go far wrong. For I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth — it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years!

Correct me if I’m wrong. I’d love to be wrong. Ages ago, Loki had an affair with a giantess. They had three monstrous kids.’ ‘I was not one of them,’ Sam muttered. ‘I’ve heard all the jokes.’ Hearthstone winced, like he’d been wondering about that. ‘One,’ I said, ‘was a huge snake.’ ‘Jormungand,’ Sam said. ‘The World Serpent, which Odin threw into the sea.’ ‘The second was Hel,’ I continued. ‘She became, like, the goddess of the dishonourable dead.’ ‘And the third,’ Blitzen said, ‘was Fenris Wolf.’ His tone was bitter, full of pain. ‘Blitz,’ I said, ‘you sound like you know him.’ ‘Every dwarf knows of Fenris. That was the first time the Aesir came to us for help. Fenris grew so savage he would’ve devoured the gods. They tried to tie him up, but he broke every chain.’ ‘I remember,’ I said. ‘Finally the dwarves made a rope strong enough to hold him.’ ‘Ever since,’ Blitzen said, ‘the children of Fenris have been enemies of the dwarves.’ He looked up, his dark shades reflecting my face. ‘You’re not the only one who’s lost family to wolves, kid.’ I had a strange urge to hug him.

How did you even get in here?” I asked him. “Would you believe they leave the door open all night?” Gus asked. “Um, no,” I said. “As well you shouldn’t.” Gus smiled. “Anyway, I know it’s a bit self-aggrandizing.” “Hey, you’re stealing my eulogy,” Isaac said. “My first bit is about how you were a self-aggrandizing bastard.” I laughed. “Okay, okay,” Gus said. “At your leisure.” Isaac cleared his throat. “Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should have gotten more.” “Seventeen,” Gus corrected. “I’m assuming you’ve got some time, you interrupting bastard. “I’m telling you,” Isaac continued, “Augustus Waters talked so much that he’d interrupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness. “But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.” I was kind of crying by then. “And then, having made my rhetorical point, I will put my robot eyes on, because I mean, with robot eyes you can probably see through girls’ shirts and stuff. Augustus, my friend, Godspeed.” Augustus nodded for a while, his lips pursed, and then gave Isaac a thumbs-up. After he’d recovered his composure, he added, “I would cut the bit about seeing through girls’ shirts.” Isaac was still clinging to the lectern. He started to cry. He pressed his forehead down to the podium and I watched his shoulders shake, and then finally, he said, “Goddamn it, Augustus, editing your own eulogy.” “Don’t swear in the Literal Heart of Jesus,” Gus said. “Goddamn it,” Isaac said again. He raised his head and swallowed. “Hazel, can I get a hand here?” I’d forgotten he couldn’t make his own way back to the circle. I got up, placed his hand on my arm, and walked him slowly back to the chair next to Gus where I’d been sitting. Then I walked up to the podium and unfolded the piece of paper on which I’d printed my eulogy. “My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should. I’d hoped that he’d be eulogizing me, because there’s no one I’d rather have…” I started crying. “Okay, how not to cry. How am I—okay. Okay.” I took a few breaths and went back to the page. “I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set.

Sometimes I wonder how much of our suffering we allow or impose on ourselves simply in search of our worthiness to accept our own respect and appreciation. I’d written before some years ago that we often cause suffering in another so that we can then love them, as in, “You have suffered for me, so I can love you now.” The eventual shock of realizing the sacrifice made for you destroys the walls of self-righteousness and protection. The suffering sacrifice of another creates the willingness and capacity to do the same. Finally, love and respect (respect is part of the body of love) come from the recognition of something else already given up for them. Within the individual, you or me, a similar process takes place toward oneself. It is as if we know some- where that we are not worthy of our own love or respect until we have earned the right to it, and that is mainly through some kind of suffering. That suffering may be generic, as in a life lived in which tragedy after tragedy accumulate, or it may be specific, as in the constant sacrifice of other easier things for a being or vision. Or, perhaps more correctly, it is either consciously chosen or not.

Who is Mr. Jasper?" Rosa turned aside her head in answering: "Eddy's uncle, and my music-master." "You do not love him?" "Ugh!" She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or horror. "You know that he loves you?" "O, don't, don't, don't!" cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and clinging to her new resource. "Don't tell me of it! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall when he is spoken of." She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her. "Try to tell me more about it, darling." "Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the while, and stay with me afterwards." "My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark way." "He has never spoken to me about - that. Never." "What has he done?" "He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than ever." "What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is threatened?" "I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is." "And was this all, to-night?" "This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me - who am so much afraid of him - courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself.

I come from a loving family. We may not have always liked each other but we always loved each other. We hug and kiss and wrestle and fight. We don't hold a grudge. I come from a long line of rule breakers, outlaw libertarians who vote red down the line because they believe it'll keep pure outlaws from trespassing on their territory. I come from a family of disciplinarians where you better follow the rules until you're man enough to break them, where you did what mom and dad said ‘because I said so,’ and if you didn't, you didn't get grounded, you got the belt or a backhand because it gets your attention quicker and doesn't take away your most precious resource: time. I come from a family who took you across town to your favorite cheeseburger and milkshake joint to celebrate your lesson learned immediately following your corporal correction.I come from a family that might penalize you for breaking the rules but definitely punish you for getting caught. We know that what tickles us often bruises others because we deal or deny it. We're the last to cry uncle to bad luck. It's a philosophy that has made me a hustler in both senses of the word. I work hard and I like to grift. It's a philosophy that's also led to some great stories.

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

What happened?” Dallas asked immediately, his hand reaching out toward Louie. I didn’t miss how Lou took his hand instantly. “She called me a brat,” Louie blurted out, his other little hand coming up to meet with the one already clutching our neighbor’s. I blinked and told myself I was not going to look at Christy until I had the full story. “Why?” Dallas was the one who asked. “He spilled some of his hot chocolate on her purse,” it was Josh who explained. “He said sorry, but she called him a brat. I told her not to talk to my brother like that, and she told me I should have learned to respect my elders.” For the second time around this woman, I went to ten. Straight through ten, past Go, and collected two hundred dollars. “I tried to wipe it up,” Louie offered, those big blue eyes going back and forth between Dallas and me for support. “You should teach these boys to watch where they’re going,” Christy piped up, taking a step back. Be an adult. Be a role model, I tried telling myself. “It was an accident,” I choked out. “He said he was sorry… and your purse is leather and black, and it’ll be fine,” I managed to grind out like this whole thirty-second conversation was jabbing me in the kidneys with sharp knives. “I’d like an apology,” the woman, who had gotten me suspended and made me cry, added quickly. I stared at her long face. “For what?” “From Josh, for being so rude.” My hand started moving around the outside of my purse, trying to find the inner compartment when Louie suddenly yelled, “Mr. Dallas, don’t let her get her pepper spray!” The fuck? Oh my God. I glared at Louie. “I was looking for a baby wipe to offer her one, Lou. I wasn’t getting my pepper spray.” “Nuh-uh,” he argued, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christy take a step back. “I heard you on the phone with Vanny. You said, you said if she made you mad again you were gonna pepper spray her and her mom and her mom’s mom in the—” “Holy sh—oot, Louie!” My face went red, and I opened my mouth to argue that he hadn’t heard me correctly. But… I had said those words. They had been a joke, but I’d said them. I glanced at Dallas, the serious, easygoing man who happened to look in that instant like he was holding back a fart but was hopefully just a laugh, and finally peeked at the woman who I’d like to think brought this upon herself. “Christy, I would never do that—” ... I cleared my throat and popped my lips. “Well, that was awkward.” “I’m not a brat.” Louie was still hung up and outraged. I pointed my finger at him. “You’re a tattletale, that’s what you are. Nosey Rosie. What did I tell you about snitches?” “You love them?

What do you see?” my professor asked as he projected a picture of a small black dot in the middle of a very big white screen. I was sitting in Psychology 101 during my years at Sydney University. We all responded immediately: “A black dot.” I was excited, thinking, If all of the questions are as easy as this one, this course is going to be easy! The prof looked out over the class and paused for several seconds before he asked again, “What do you see?” Thinking he must not have heard us properly the first time, we repeated even more loudly: “A black dot!” Again he paused . . . and then asked the same question a third time. Now he had my attention. And when still, on the third try, none of us provided the correct answer, he explained — and gave me a lesson I will never forget. “You were all so focused on the little black dot in the center of the screen that none of you noticed the dominant image on the screen: the large white space covering the screen top to bottom, left to right.” I couldn’t believe I had missed it. Suddenly it was obvious. There was far more white space than black dot. Whatever I chose to focus on had my attention. There is always much more white space than there is space covered by little black dots — we simply need to recognize and focus on it. In class, that idea seemed like an easy notion — easier than it has proven to be in life. Because the harsh reality is that the black dots of our lives — the trials, challenges, disappointments, obstacles, and hurdles we face as we run — will naturally draw and consume our attention. Our enemy would love to get us to focus on those black dots and convince us they define and shape our lives and determine our destiny. But in the divine relay, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus. He is the “white space” of God’s power at work in the universe, and the trials we face are but a tiny speck, a black dot, in comparison. As we learn to focus on the vastness of God’s eternal, amazing work on this planet, those black dots will cease to blemish our lives.

Christ, I’m tired. I need sleep. I need peace. I need for my balls to not be so blue they’re practically purple. As purple as Sarah Von Titebottum’s— My mind comes to a screeching halt with the unexpected thought. And the image that accompanies it—the odd, blushing lass with her glasses and her books and very tight bottom. Sarah’s not a contestant on the show, so I’m willing to bet both my indigo balls that there’s not a camera in her room. And, I can’t believe I’m fucking thinking this, but, even better—none of the other girls will know where to find me—including Elizabeth. I let the cameras noisily track me to the lavatory, but then, like an elite operative of the Secret Intelligence Service, I plaster myself to the wall beneath their range and slide my way out the door. Less than five minutes later, I’m in my sleeping pants and a white T-shirt, barefoot with my guitar in hand, knocking on Sarah’s bedroom door. I checked the map Vanessa gave me earlier. Her room is on the third floor, in the corner of the east wing, removed from the main part of the castle. The door opens just a crack and dark brown eyes peer out. “Sanctuary,” I plead. Her brow crinkles and the door opens just a bit wider. “I beg your pardon?” “I haven’t slept in almost forty-eight hours. My best friend’s girlfriend is trying to praying-mantis me and the sound of the cameras following me around my room is literally driving me mad. I’m asking you to take me in.” And she blushes. Great. “You want to sleep in here? With me?” I scoff. “No, not with you—just in your room, love.” I don’t think about how callous the words sound—insulting—until they’re out of my mouth. Could I be any more of a dick? Thankfully, Sarah doesn’t look offended. “Why here?” she asks. “Back in the day, the religious orders used to give sanctuary to anyone who asked. And since you dress like a nun, it seemed like the logical choice.” I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Somebody just fucking shoot me and be done with it. Sarah’s lips tighten, her head tilts, and her eyes take on a dangerous glint. I think Scooby-Doo put it best when he said, Ruh-roh. “Let me make sure I’ve got this right—you need my help?” “Correct.” “You need shelter, protection, sanctuary that only I can give?” “Yes.” “And you think teasing me about my clothes is a wise strategy?” I hold up my palms. “I never said I was wise. Exhausted, defenseless, and desperate.” I pout . . . but in a manly kind of way. “Pity me.” A smile tugs at her lips. And that’s when I know she’s done for. With a sigh, she opens the door wide. “Well, it is your castle. Come in.” Huh. She’s right—it is my castle. I really need to start remembering that

Why?' says the boy. 'Why? Because staying alive is more important than anything else.' 'Why is staying alive more important than anything?' He is about to answer, about to produce the correct, patient, educative words, when something wells up inside him. Anger? No. Irritation? No: more than that. Despair? Perhaps: despair in one of its minor forms. Why? Because he would like to believe he is guiding the child through the maze of the moral life when, correctly, patiently, he answers his unceasing 'Why' questions. But where is there any evidence that the child absorbs his guidance or even hears what he says? He stops where he is on the busy sidewalk. Inés and the boy stop too, and stare at him in puzzlement. 'Think of it in this way,' he says. 'We are tramping through the desert, you and Inés and I. You tell me you are thirsty and I offer you a glass of water. Instead of drinking the water you pour it out in the sand. You say you thirst for answers: 'Why this? Why that?' I, because I am patient, because I love you, offer you an answer each time, which you pour away in the sand. Today, at last, I am tired of offering you water. 'Why is staying alive important?' If life does not seem important to you, so be it.' Inés raises a hand to her mouth in dismay. As for the boy, his face sets in a frown. 'You say you love me but you don't love me,' he says. 'You just pretend.

He studied, fretted, complained. He never should have taken the job; it was impossible. The next day he would be flying: he never should have taken the job; it was too simple to be worth his labors. Joy to despair, joy to despair, day to day, hour to hour. Sometimes Inigo would wake to find him weeping: “What is it, Father?” “It is that I cannot do it. I cannot make the sword. I cannot make my hands obey me. I would kill myself except what would you do then?” “Go to sleep, Father.” “No, I don’t need sleep. Failures don’t need sleep. Anyway, I slept yesterday.” “Please, Father, a little nap.” “All right; a few minutes; to keep you from nagging.” Some nights Inigo would awake to see him dancing. “What is it, Father?” “It is that I have found my mistakes, corrected my misjudgments.” “Then it will be done soon, Father?” “It will be done tomorrow and it will be a miracle.” “You are wonderful, Father.” “I’m more wonderful than wonderful, how dare you insult me.” But the next night, more tears. “What is it now, Father?” “The sword, the sword, I cannot make the sword.” “But last night, Father, you said you had found your mistakes.” “I was mistaken; tonight I found new ones, worse ones. I am the most wretched of creatures. Say you wouldn’t mind it if I killed myself so I could end this existence.” “But I would mind, Father. I love you and I would die if you stopped breathing.” “You don’t really love me; you’re only speaking pity.” “Who could pity the greatest sword maker in the history of the world?” “Thank you, Inigo.” “You’re welcome, Father.” “I love you back, Inigo.” “Sleep, Father.” “Yes. Sleep.” A whole year of that. A year of the handle being right, but the balance being wrong, of the balance being right, but the cutting edge too dull, of the cutting edge sharpened, but that threw the balance off again, of the balance returning, but now the point was fat, of the point regaining sharpness, only now the entire blade was too short and it all had to go, all had to be thrown out, all had to be done again. Again. Again. Domingo’s health began to leave him. He was fevered always now, but he forced his frail shell on, because this had to be the finest since Excalibur. Domingo was battling legend, and it was destroying him. Such a year.

I hope they understand, my sons, both now and in the future just materializing in the dark, that all these hours their mother has been walking so swiftly away from them I have not been gone, that my spirit, hours ago, slipped back into the house and crept into the room where their early-rising father had already fallen asleep, usually before eight p.m., and that I touched this gentle man whom I love so desperately and somehow fear so much, touched him on the pulse in his temple and felt his dreams, which are too distant for the likes of me; and I climbed the creaking old stairs and at the top split in two, and heading into the boys’ separate rooms, I slid through the crack under the doors and curled myself on the pillows to breathe into me the breath that my children breathed out. Every pause between the end of one breath and the beginning of the next is long; then again, nothing is not always in transition. Soon, tomorrow, the boys will be men, then the men will leave the house, and my husband and I will look at each other crouching under the weight of all that we wouldn’t or couldn’t yell, as well as all those hours outside walking together, my body, my shadow, and the moon. It is terribly true, even if the truth does not comfort, that if you look at the moon for long enough night after night, as I have, you will see that the old cartoons are correct, that the moon is, in fact, laughing. But it is not laughing at us, we lonely humans, who are far too small and our lives far too fleeting for it to give us any notice at all.

Doctrine is well enough for the wise, Jean; but the miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love.” Father Vaillant began pacing restlessly up and down as he spoke, and the Bishop watched him, musing. It was just this in his friend that was dear to him. “Where there is great love there are always miracles,” he said at length. “One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

We have some great museums. You'd love the lake." "I don't know that I can enjoy any kind of water anymore." "Why not?" I already knew. "After that little girl, little Ann Nash, was left in the creek to drown." She paused to take a sip of her iced tea. "I knew her, you know." Amma whined and began fidgeting in her seat. "She wasn't drowned though," I said, knowing my correction would annoy her. "She was strangled. She just ended up in the creek." "And then the Keene girl. I was fond of both of them. Very fond." She stared away wistfully, and Alan put his hand over hers. Amma stood up, released a little scream the way an excited puppy might suddenly bark, and ran upstairs. "Poor thing," my mother said. "She's having nearly as hard a time as I am." "She actually saw the girls every day, so I'm sure she is," I said peevishly in spite of myself. "How did you know them?" "Wind Gap, I need not remind you, is a small town. They were sweet, beautiful little girls. Just beautiful." "But you didn't really know them." "I did know them. I knew them well." "How?" "Camille, please try not to do this. I've just told you that I am upset and unnerved, and instead of being comforting, you attack me." "So. You've sworn off all bodies of water in the future, then?" My mother emitted a quick, creaky sound. "You need to shut up now, Camille." She folded the napkin around the remains of her pear like a swaddling and left the room. Alan followed her with his manic whistling, like an old-time piano player lending drama to a silent movie.

The Sultan tapped his tented fingers, staring into the distance. Suddenly, he lunged toward me, took hold of my wrist, and pulled me roughly down to sit on the cushion beside him. “This . . . mermaid,” he said through clenched teeth, leaning in so close to me that I could smell the mint on his breath. “The one who sang to the king at night.” His voice was fierce, but quiet. I couldn’t tell if anyone but me could hear. “How . . .” he began. “How did she think of the king . . . in her heart?” I glanced quickly up at his face and saw there a look that took me by surprise. An oddly soft, vulnerable, hurting look. The look of a man who might cry out in his sleep at night, like a child. But then the stony mask slid back. “Did she despise him,” the Sultan asked, “for making her sing for her life each night? Did she only pretend affection to save her own skin? Did she . . . loathe him for what he had done before, to his other wives? For his . . . sins?” “No, my lord,” I said softly. “She loved him.” “Do you swear it?” He gripped my wrist harder, until it hurt. “Yes, my lord. She told me—” I stopped, corrected myself. “She told the mermaid with the broken fin. She said the king—the merman king, my lord—she said that he had a deep hurting inside him. She said that she wanted to soothe him. And when the mermaid with the broken fin . . . questioned how the queen could love him—because of the things you just said, my lord—the queen said, ‘I’m not ashamed of loving him. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. It’s hating—that’s what’s wrong.

Nick,' he corrected quietly. 'As to your emotions, they show in your face, in those amazing eyes. One day soon those eyes will change colour and glow for me.' 'They already have done,' Joanna snapped, rage surfacing. 'I never liked you, Mr Martella, and now I can only think I hate you. If I should ever know that you're coming here again I'll make quite sure I'm a long way off!' He took one menacing step towards her and Joanna backed away, her expression of loathing making his face harden frighteningly. 'I will not touch you,' he grated angrily. 'I will merely tell you this: J leave for America tomorrow. I shall be there for two months. When I return I intend to come for you.' The thought of people in the house left Joanna's head entirely. Her hands clenched at her sides and her considerable temper surfaced over grief, fear and utter bewilderment. 'If you were the last man in the universe I wouldn't consent to be near you!' she shouted. 'You've taken away everything I've ever wanted. You've even sneaked up and taken my father. Now I can never go to Santa Marta again!' 'I know you love the island,' he said with surprising quiet. 'Your father told me. We will live there and you will see your father whenever you care to walk down the beach to his house.' 'I'll see him when he comes over to England,' Joanna corrected bitterly. 'One thing is for sure, though: after today I'll never see you again! Forget the mad idea about me, Mr Martella, because I'd rather die!' 'You will not die, Joanna,' he said silkily, 'unless it is the small death that lovers die in each other's arms. And I intend to be your lover. In two months I will be back.

The Portal Potion Success! After weeks and weeks of trying, I’ve finally discovered the correct ingredients for the potion I’d hoped to create for my son! With just a few drops, the potion turns any written work into a portal to the world it describes. Even with my ability to create portals to and from the Otherworld, I never thought it would be possible to create a substance that allowed me passage to any world I wished. My son will get to see the places and meet the characters he’s spent his whole childhood dreaming about! And best of all, I’ll get to watch his happiness soar as it happens! The ingredients are much simpler than I imagined, but difficult to obtain. Their purposes are more metaphysical than practical, so it took some imagination to get the concoction right. The first requirement is a branch from the oldest tree in the woods. To bring the pages to life, I figured the potion would need the very thing that brought the paper to life in the first place. And what else has more life than an ancient tree? The second ingredient is a feather from the finest pheasant in the sky. This will guarantee your potion has no limits, like a bird in flight. It will ensure you can travel to lands far and wide, beyond your imagination. The third component is a liquefied lock and key that belonged to a true love. Just as this person unlocked your heart to a life of love, it will open the door of the literary dimensions your heart desires to experience. The fourth ingredient is two weeks of moonlight. Just as the moon causes waves in the ocean, the moonlight will stir your potion to life. Last, but most important, give the potion a spark of magic to activate all the ingredients. Send it a beam of joy straight from your heart. The potion does not work on any biographies or history books, but purely on works that have been imagined. Now, I must warn about the dangers of entering a fictional world: 1. Time only exists as long as the story continues. Be sure to leave the book before the story ends, or you may disappear as the story concludes. 2. Each world is made of only what the author describes. Do not expect the characters to have any knowledge of our world or the Otherworld. 3. Beware of the story’s villains. Unlike people in our world or the Otherworld, most literary villains are created to be heartless and stripped of all morals, so do not expect any mercy should you cross paths with one. 4. The book you choose to enter will act as your entrance and exit. Be certain nothing happens to it; it is your only way out. The

Anyway, there is an essential difference in gender that isn't politically correct to mention these days. Women are the ones to bear the children after all. They are the ones to nurse. They are the ones, traditionally, who care for the infants. That takes a huge amount of time.' He smiled, waiting for the applause, but something had gone wrong. There was a cold silence from the crowd... 'Did you just say that women aren't creative geniuses because they have babies?' 'No," he said, 'No. Not because. I wouldn't say that. I love women, and not all women have babies. My wife, for one, at least not yet. But listen, we're all given a finite amount of creativity, just like we;re given a finite amount of life, and if a woman continues to spend hers creating actual life and not imaginary life, that's a glorious choice. When a woman has a baby, she's creating so much more than just a world on the page, she's creating life itself, not just a simulacrum. No matter what Shakespeare did, it's so much less than your average illiterate woman of his age who had babies. Those babies were our ancestors, necessary to make everyone here today, and no one could seriously argue that any play is worth a single human wife. I mean the history of the stage supports me here. If women have historically demonstrated less creative genius than men, it's because they're making their creations internal, spending the energies on life itself. It's a kind of bodily genius. You can't tell me that isn't at least as worthy as genius of imagination. I think we can all agree that women are just as good as men, better in many ways. But the reason for the disparity in creation, is because women have turned their creative energies inward not outward.

I’m going to have to start booking you guys a month in advance.” “Or you could invite Ms. Rothschild over,” Kitty suggests. “Her weekends are pretty lonely too.” He gives her a funny look. “I’m sure she has plenty she’d rather do than watch The Sound of Music with her neighbor.” Brightly I say, “Don’t forget the tacos al pastor! Those are a draw, too. And you, of course. You’re a draw.” “You’re definitely a draw,” Kitty pipes up. “Guys,” Daddy begins. “Wait,” I say. “Let me just say one thing. You should be going on some dates, Daddy.” “I go on dates!” “You’ve gone on, like, two dates ever,” I say, and he falls silent. “Why not ask Ms. Rothschild out? She’s cute, she has a good job, Kitty loves her. And she lives really close by.” “See, that’s exactly why I shouldn’t ask her out,” Daddy says. “You should never date a neighbor or a coworker, because then you’ll have to keep seeing them if things don’t work out.” Kitty asks, “You mean like that quote ‘Don’t shit where you eat’?” When Daddy frowns, Kitty quickly corrects herself. “I mean ‘Don’t poop where you eat.’ That’s what you mean, right, Daddy?” “Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean, but Kitty, I don’t like you using cuss words.” Contritely she says, “I’m sorry. But I still think you should give Ms. Rothschild a chance. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.” “Well, I’d hate to see you get your hopes up,” Daddy says. “That’s life,” Kitty says. “Things don’t always work out. Look at Lara Jean and Peter.” I give her a dirty look. “Gee, thanks a lot.” “I’m just trying to make a point,” she says. Kitty goes over to Daddy and puts her arms around his waist. This kid is really pulling out all the stops. “Just think about it, Daddy. Tacos. Nuns. Nazis. And Ms. Rothschild.

I think,” Berta remarked with a proud little smile when she was seated alone in the drawing room beside Elizabeth, “he’s having second thoughts about proposing, milday.” “I think he was silently contemplating the easiest way to murder me at dinner,” Elizabeth said, chuckling. She was about to say more when the butler interrupted them to announce that Lord Marchman wished to have a private word with Lady Cameron in his study. Elizabeth prepared for another battle of wits-or witlessness, she thought with an inner smile-and dutifully followed the butler down a dark hall furnished in brown and into a very large study where the earl was seated in a maroon chair at a desk on her right. “You wished to see-“ she began as she stepped into his study, but something on the wall beside her brushed against her hair. Elizabeth turned her head, expecting to see a portrait hanging there, and instead found herself eye-to-fang with an enormous bear’s head. The little scream that tore from her was very real this time, although it owed to shock, not to fear. “It’s quite dead,” the earl said in a voice of weary resignation, watching her back away from his most prized hunting trophy with her hand over her mouth. Elizabeth recovered instantly, her gaze sweeping over the wall of hunting trophies, then she turned around. “You may take your hand away from your mouth,” he stated. Elizabeth fixed him with another accusing glare, biting her lip to hide her smile. She would have dearly loved to hear how he had stalked that bear or where he had found that monstrous-big boar, but she knew better than to ask. “Please, my lord,” she said instead, “tell me these poor creatures didn’t die at your hands.” “I’m afraid they did. Or more correctly, at the point of my gun.

Wrapped up in all of this talk of acceptance and tolerance is the matter of judgment. The worst thing in the world, we are told, is to judge. We must never judge, never be judgmental. We are constantly reminded that Jesus said, “Do not judge” (Matthew 7:1). And those three words have become the most popular words ever uttered by Our Lord. We like to pretend that everything else He said is summarized by this one phrase. We treat “Do not judge” as the distillation of His life and ministry. There are over seven hundred thousand words in the Bible (yes, I counted), and we have come to believe that they all can be condensed down into those three. We’re wrong. Yes, He does tell us not to judge. But to understand what “Do not judge” actually means, and how it ought to apply to our lives, we have to look at those words in the context of Christ’s teachings. We don’t even have to look very hard, because He makes the point clear in the very same chapter of the Bible. Here is the full verse from the seventh chapter of Matthew: Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. The point here is that we must judge rightly and fairly, as Jesus says specifically in John 7:24: “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” The whole Bible is chock-full of judgments we are told to make about ourselves, about others, about actions and things and situations. Of course Jesus is not warning against judgment per se. He is warning, instead, against hypocritical and self-serving judgments. He says we must attend to the plank in our own eyes rather than focusing on the dust in our brother’s eye. But He does not recommend that we just leave our brother there to deal with the dust on his own. He tells us to take the plank out of our own eyes first and then help with the dust. This is both a practical and moral prescription. Moral because ignoring your plank would be self-righteous and dishonest. Practical because you cannot see well enough to handle the dust problem if you’ve got a big plank sticking in your eye. Judgment is good. We are commanded to judge. But our judgments themselves must be good, and made out of love and concern for our brother.

And yes, many of us became fathers to fully understand what it means to be a father. Albert Einstein once said: "Every man is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will spend the rest of its life believing that its stupid." To the men who never let other people’s metrics of success become the yardstick with which they measure theirs. It is no coincidence that we are diagrammatically represented by a circle with an arrow on the edge that points out. To all of us who may not always be "there" so that we can always "be there", To every hunter, every fighter, every missionary, To every planter and tiller of a garden of eden, To every warrior, conqueror of territories, every man always going out so he can bring something home. To every provider and protector of his family. Every defender of his domain and representative of God in the lives of his dependants. To every man that choose character over caliber, Every Major General, Lord of the Rings, Lion of the Tribe of his house. To every correcter with a shout, Every tough and tender 9-ribbed carrier of his cross. For every skill, strength, qualification and effort that we put into building meaningful relationships with our women, bonds with our children, and shield through tough times. For every ‘crave’ for success without substituting values. For the unconditional love, unflinching sacrifice, and diehard determination to go places our parents never imagined for themselves. To those who happily lead, as though money, fame and power didn’t exist. To those who stand tall and sit straight, Who understand that it doesn't take a 6-figure to be a Father figure. Happy Father's Day to every man who understands the responsibility and deserves the title. *Happy Father's Day to You and Me.*

I also suspect that he loves you." Trying to suppress the anguished hope that flared in her heart, Lauren turned her face to the stained-glass window near their table. "What makes you think so?" "To begin with, he isn't treating you the way he normally treats the women in his life." "I know that. He's nice to the others," Lauren said bitterly. "Exactly!" Mary agreed. "He's always treated his women with an attitude of amused indulgence...of tolerant indifference. While an affair lasts he's attentive and charming. When a woman begins to bore him he courteously but firmly dismisses her from his life. Not once to my knowledge has any woman touched an emotion in him deeper than affection or desire. I've seen them try in the most inventive ways to make him jealous,yet he has reacted with nothing stronger than amusement, or occasionally exasperation. Which brings us to you." Lauren blushed at being correctly categorized with the other woen Nick had taken to bed,but she knew it was useless to deny it. "You," Mary continued quietly, "have evoked genuine anger in him.He is furious with you and with himself. Yet he doesn't dismiss you fro his life; he doesn't even send you downstairs. Doesn't it seem odd to you that he won't let you work for Jim,and simply have you come upstairs to act as translator when Rossi's call finally comes through?" "I think he's keeping me up there for revenge," Lauren said grimly. "i think he is too.Perhaps he's trying to get back at you for what you're making him feel.Or possibly he's trying to find fault with you,so that he won't feel the way he does any longer. I don't know. Nick is a complex man. Jim, Ericka and I are all very close to him, and yet he keeps each one of us at a slight distance. There's a part of himself that he will not share with others, not even us.

…There is some firm place in me which knows that what happened to Wally, whatever it was, whatever it is that death is as it transliterates us, moving us out of this life into what we can’t know, is kind. I shock myself, writing that. I know that many deaths are anything but gentle. I know people suffer terribly…I know many die abandoned, unseen, their stories unheard, their dignity violated, their human worth ignored. I suspect that the ease of Wally’s death, the rightness of it, the loving recognition which surrounded him, all made it possible for me to see clearly, to witness what other circumstances might obscure. I know, as surely as I know anything, that he’s all right now. And yet. And yet he’s gone, an absence so forceful it is itself a daily hourly presence. My experience of being with Wally… brought me to another sort of perception, but I can’t stay in that place, can’t sustain that way of seeing. The experience of knowing, somehow, that he’s all right, lifted in some kind process that turns at the heart of the world, gives way, as it must, to the plain aching fact that he’s gone. And doubt. And the fact that we can’t understand, that it’s our condition to not know. Is that our work in the world, to learn to dwell in such not-knowing? We need our doubt so as to not settle for easy answers. Not-knowing pushes us to struggle after meaning for ourselves…Doubt’s lesson seems to be that whatever we conclude must be provisional, open to revision, subject to correction by forces of change. Leave room, doubt says, for the unknowable, for what it will never quite be your share to see. Stanley Kunitz says somewhere that if poetry teaches us anything, it is that we can believe two completely contradictory things at once. And so I can believe that death is utter, unbearable rupture, just as I know that death is kind.

One more serious word . . . my conscience won't allow me to pass as a Plotinian: I loved the work . . . but I was never convinced by the philosophy or the ethic of it: I'm a secularist agnostic: I don't know anything about the Soul or the Divine or Immortality or anything of that order, and I do believe in this life: I hate those who hate the world: had I children I'd try to lead them to love beauty, nobility, even what I vaguely call Spirituality; but I'd want them to get and give all the good of the world, and the honourable or not dishonourable pleasure of it-of course I'd want them to think and work out what is the real pleasure, what is the false, deceptive-but to them, to themselves, not by any law of Moses or Plotinus or Daddy Stephen MacKenna. Plotinus and all the Mystics and Gospels of all the creeds are to my mind valuable as corrective, as poetry, as suggestion, as windows opening on to vistas of the possible: as law, as dogma, wicked.

The therapist Terry Real described our well-worn behaviors as “our internalized family of origin. It’s our repertoire of relational themes.” People don’t have to tell you their stories with words because they always act them out for you. Often they project negative expectations onto the therapist, but if the therapist doesn’t meet those negative expectations, this “corrective emotional experience” with a reliable and benevolent person changes the patients; the world, they learn, turns out not to be their family of origin. If Charlotte works through her complicated feelings toward her parents with me, she’ll find herself increasingly attracted to a different type, one that might give her the unfamiliar experience she’s seeking with a compassionate, reliable, and mature partner. Until then, every time she meets an available guy who might love her back, her unconscious rejects his stability as “not interesting.” She still equates feeling loved not with peace or joy but with anxiety.

Sailboat Table (table by Quint Hankle) The Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barrett Complete Stories, by Clarice Lispector Boy Kings of Texas, by Domingo Martinez The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James There There, by Tommy Orange Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine Underland, by Robert Macfarlane The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Deacon King Kong, by James McBride The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett Will and Testament, by Vigdis Hjorth Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada The Door, by Magda Svabo The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff The Overstory, by Richard Power Night Train, by Lise Erdrich Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore Mongrels, by Stephen Graham Jones The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans Tenth of December, by George Saunders Murder on the Red River, by Marcie R. Rendon Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong The Unwomanly Face of War, by Svetlana Alexievich Standard Deviation, by Katherine Heiny All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen Mean Spirit, by Linda Hogan NW, by Zadie Smith Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley Erasure, by Percival Everett Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami Books for Banned Love Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje Euphoria, by Lily King The Red and the Black, by Stendahl Luster, by Raven Leilani Asymmetry, by Lisa Halliday All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides The Vixen, by Francine Prose Legends of the Fall, by Jim Harrison The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason

Ever since he’d set eyes on Elizabeth Cameron he’d been blind-no, he corrected himself with furious self-disgust, in England he’d recognized instinctively what she was-gentle and proud, brave and innocent and…rare. He’d known damned well she wasn’t a promiscuous little flirt, yet he’d later convinced himself she was, and then he’d treated her like one here-and she had endured it the entire time she’d been here! She had let him say those things to her and then tried to excuse his behavior by blaming herself for behaving like “a shameless wanton” in England! Bile rose up in his throat, suffocating him, and he closed his eyes. She was so damned sweet, and so forgiving, that she even did that for him. Duncan hadn’t moved; in taut silence he watched his nephew standing at the window, his eyes clenched shut, his stance like that of a man who was being stretched on the rack. Finally Ian spoke, and his voice was rough with emotion, as if the words were being gouged out of him: “Did the woman say that, or was that your own opinion?” “About what?” Drawing a ragged breath, he asked, “Did she tell you that Elizabeth was in love with me two years ago, or was that your opinion?” The answer to that obviously meant so much to Ian that Duncan almost smiled. At the moment, however, the vicar was more concerned with the two things he wanted above all else: He wanted Ian to wed Elizabeth and rectify the damage he’d done to her, and he wanted Ian to reconcile with his grandfather. In order to do the former, Ian would have to do the latter, for Elizabeth’s uncle was evidently determined that her husband should have a title if possible. So badly did Duncan want those two things to happen that he almost lied to help the cause, but the precepts of his conscience forbade it. “It was Miss Throckmorton-Jones’s opinion when she was under the influence of laudanum. It is also my opinion, based on everything I saw in Elizabeth’s character and behavior to you.” He waited through another long moment of awful suspense, knowing exactly where Ian’s thoughts would have to turn next, and then he plunged in, ready to press home his advantage with hard, systematic logic. “You have no choice except to rescue her from that repugnant marriage.

... If I am correct... ... the secret to this sauce is honey and balsamic vinegar ." "Got it one, sir! Both ingredients have a mild sweetness that adds a layer of richness to the dish. The tartness of the vinegar ties it all together, ensuring the sweetness isn't too cloying and giving the overall dish a clean, pure aftertaste. The guide told me that Hokkaido bears really love their honey... ... so I tried all kinds of methods to add it to my recipe!" "Is that how he gave his sauce a rich, clean flavor powerful enough to cause the Gifting? Unbelievable! That's our Master Yukihira!" Something doesn't add up. A little honey and vinegar can't be enough to create that level of aftertaste. There has to be something else to it. But what? "...?! I got it! I know what you did! You caramelized the honey!" CARAMELIZATION Sugars oxidize when heated, giving them a golden brown color and a nutty flavor. Any food that contains sugar can be caramelized, making caramelization an important technique in everything from French cooking to dessert making. "I started out by heating the honey until it was good and caramelized. Then I added some balsamic vinegar to stretch it and give it a little thickness. Once that was done, I poured it over some diced onions and garlic that I'd sautéed in another pan, added some schisandra berries and then let it simmer. After it had reduced, I poured bear stock over it and seasoned it with a little salt... The result was a deep, rich sauce perfect for emphasizing the natural punch of my Bear-Meat Menchi Katsu!" "Oho! You musta come up with that idea while I was relaxing with my cup o' chai! Not bad, Yukihira-chin! Not bad at all! Don'tcha think?" "Y-yes, sir..." Plus, there is no debating how well honey pairs well with bear meat. The Chinese have long considered bear paws a great delicacy... ... because of the common belief that the mellow sweetness of the honey soaks into a bear's paw as it sticks it into beehives and licks the honey off of it. What a splendid idea pairing honey with bear meat, each accentuating the other... ... then using caramelization and balsamic vinegar to mellow it to just the right level. It's a masterful example of using both flavor subtraction and enhancement in the same dish!

Elizabeth automatically started forward three steps, then halted, mesmerized. An acre of thick Aubusson carpet stretched across the book-lined room, and at the far end of it, seated behind a massive baronial desk with his shirtsleeves folded up on tanned forearms, was the man who had lied in the little cottage in Scotland and shot at a tree limb with her. Oblivious to the other three men in the room who were politely coming to their feet, Elizabeth watched Ian arise with that same natural grace that seemed so much a part of him. With a growing sense of unreality she heard him excuse himself to his visitors, saw him move away from behind his desk, and watched him start toward her with long, purposeful strides. He grew larger as he neared, his broad shoulders blocking her view of the room, his amber eyes searching her face, his smile one of amusement and uncertainty. “Elizabeth?” he said. Her eyes wide with embarrassed admiration, Elizabeth allowed him to lift her hand to his lips before she said softly, “I could kill you.” He grinned at the contrast between her words and her voice. “I know.” “You might have told me.” “I hoped to surprise you.” More correctly, he had hoped she didn’t know, and now he had his proof: Just as he had thought, Elizabeth had agreed to marry him without knowing anything of his personal wealth. That expression of dazed disbelief on her face had been real. He’d needed to see it for himself, which was why he’d instructed his butler to bring her to him as soon as she arrived. Ian had his proof, and with it came the knowledge that no matter how much she refused to admit it to him or to herself, she loved him. She could insist for now and all time that all she wanted from marriage was independence, and now Ian could endure it with equanimity. Because she loved him. Elizabeth watched the expressions play across his face. Thinking he was waiting for her to say more about his splendid house, she gave him a jaunty smile and teasingly said, “’Twill be a sacrifice, to be sure, but I shall contrive to endure the hardship of living in such a place as this. How many rooms are there?” she asked. His brows rose in mockery. “One hundred and eighty-two.” “A small place of modest proportions,” she countered lightly. “I suppose we’ll just have to make do.” Ian thought they were going to do very well.

Suggested Reading Atkinson, Kate. Behind the Scenes at the Museum; Binchy, Maeve. Tara Road, The Copper Beech, and Evening Class; Bloom, Amy. Come to Me; Edwards, Kim. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter; Ferris, Joshua. The Unnamed; Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl; Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections; Ganesan, Indira. Inheritance; Hanilton, Jane. Disobedience; Jonasson, Jonas. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared; Joyce, Rachel. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry; Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees; Mapson, Jo-Ann, The Owl & Moon Cafe; McEwan, Ian. Atonement; Miller, Arthur. All My Sons; Morrison, Toni. Love; O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night; Pekkanen, Sarah. The Opposite of Me; Porter, Andrew. In Between Days; Quindlen, Anna. Blessings and One True Thing; Rosenfeld, Lucinda. The Pretty One; Sittenfeld, Curtis. Sisterland; Smith, Ali. There But For The; Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club; Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant; White, Karen. The Time Between; Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway; Yates, Richard. The Easter Parade.

I’ve experienced all kinds of discrimination,” Oshima says. “Only people who’ve been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I’m as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to. Like that lovely pair we just met.” He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. “Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas—none of them bother me. I don’t care what banner they raise. But what I can’t stand are hollow people. When I’m with them I just can’t bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn’t. With those women—I should’ve just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can’t do that. I say things I shouldn’t, do things I shouldn’t do. I can’t control myself. That’s one of my weak points. Do you know why that’s a weak point of mine?” “’Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there’s no end to it,” I say. “That’s it,” Oshima says. He taps his temple lightly with the eraser end of the pencil. “But there’s one thing I want you to remember, Kafka. Those are exactly the kind of people who murdered Miss Saeki’s childhood sweetheart. Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it’s important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. They’re a lost cause, and I don’t want anyone like that coming in here.” Oshima points at the stacks with the tip of his pencil. What he means, of course, is the entire library. “I wish I could just laugh off people like that, but I can’t.

Xuan pulled out his phone and searched Google. He had to ask for the correct spelling of the drug. He wanted more real information about how much of a financial burden he would be to his parents. Money was a big concern. Possibly a deal breaker. “Several sites—it’s around five hundred dollars a day! That’s fifteen thousand a month! How could I let my parents pay that much for me?” Fifteen thousand dollars. I gasped, appalled. I staggered to the chair and collapsed into it. He’ll never agree to that. Xuan opened his mouth and closed it again, in shock. The atmosphere in the room plunged from friendly and informative to frigid with mathematical figures and calculations. I sat with my elbows on my knees, my face buried in my hands. Saints, I knew cancer treatment was expensive, but I never imagined it was that expensive. That was too much. Ironically, I didn’t know if I could live with myself, knowing my parents were working day and night to keep me alive. That would be a huge financial responsibility. I just couldn’t imagine allowing it, month after month. Sadly, I wondered how many people died every year because of the cost of medication in the United States. In a way, it seemed like pharmaceutical companies were getting away with murder.

This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.” She regarded him where he lay. “Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.” She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back. “You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him. “The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.” “You would drift off while I’m confiding?” “I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.” “I am unused to this friendly napping.” “You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?” “We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.” But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back. “Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly. “Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day. God

Your grandfather should not be allowed on social media,” Caroline went on. “He just did a quick and dirty post asking if anyone wanted to go owling with him, and never noticed that autocorrect changed ‘owling’ to ‘bowling.’ And before I noticed it and posted a correction, several dozen people signed up.” “Good grief,” I muttered. “And once I corrected it, we started hearing from any number of people saying how deeply disappointed they were about our canceling the bowling—as if you could cancel something that wasn’t even scheduled in the first place. So he told me to go ahead and organize some kind of bowling event. Open to anyone in the Brigade, no cost, but donation to one of the Blake Foundation’s environmental projects suggested. Brigade members love events like that. We’re sure to get way more donations than it costs to rent a few bowling lanes. Now I just need to figure out how to deal with his other typo, which won’t be quite as easy.” “Why?” I asked. “What was the other typo?” “He intended to say that we’d wrap up the event by singing around a campfire,” Caroline said. “I have no idea why autocorrect changed ‘campfire’ to ‘vampire.’ Or why anyone would suppose he’d be planning to serenade one. Am I really expected to provide a vampire on top of the bowling?

Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

He: "I mean, are you happy and are you fully alive?" I laughed: ''As you can see, you wove witty jokes into the lecture to please your listeners. You heaped up learned expressions to impress them. You were restless and hasty, as if still compelled to snatch up all knowledge. You are not in yourself" Although these words at first seemed laughable to me, they still made an impression on me, and reluctantly I had to / credit the old man, since he was right. Then he said: "Dear Ammonius, I have delightful tidings for you: God has become flesh in his son and has brought us all salvation." ""What are you saying," I called, "you probably mean Osiris, who shall appear in the mortal body?" "No," he replied, "this man lived in Judea and was born from a virgin." I laughed and answered: "I already know about this; a Jewish trader has brought tidings of our virgin queen to Judea, whose image appears on the walls of one of our temples, and reported it as a fairy tale." "No," the old man insisted, "he was the Son of God." "Then you mean Horus the son of Osiris, don't you?" I answered. "No,hewasnotHorus,butarealman,andhewashung from a cross." "Oh, but this must be Seth, surely; whose punishments our old ones have often described." But the old man stood by his conviction and said: "He died and rose up on the third day." "Well, then he must be Osiris," I replied impatiently. "No," he cried, "he is called Jesus the anointed one." ''Ah, you really mean this Jewish God, whom the poor honor at the harbor, and whose unclean mysteries they celebrate in cellars." "He was a man and yet the Son of God," said the old man staring at me intently. "That's nonsense, dear old man," I said, and showed him to the door. But like an echo from distant rock faces the words returned to me: a man and yet the Son of God. It seemed significant to me, and this phrase was what brought me to Christianity. I: "But don't you think that Christianity could ultimately be a transformation ofyour Egyptian teachings?" A: "If you say that our old teachings were less adequate expressions of Christianity, then I'm more likely to agree with you." I: "Yes, but do you then assume that the history of religions is aimed at a final goal?" A: "My father once bought a black slave at the market from the region of the source of the Nile. He came from a country that had heard ofneither Osiris nor the other Gods; he told me many things in a more simple language that said the same as we believed about Osiris and the other Gods. I learned to understand that those uneducated Negroes unknowingly already possessed most of what the religions of the cultured peoples had developed into complete doctrines. Those able to read that language correctly could thus recognize in it not only the pagan doctrines but also the doctrine of Jesus. And it's with this that I now occupy myself I read the gospels and seek their meaning which is yet to come.We know their meaning as it lies before us, but not their hidden meaning which points to the future. It's erroneous to believe that religions differ in their innermost essence. Strictly speaking, it's always one and the same religion. Every subsequent form of religion is the meaning of the antecedent." I: "Have you found out the meaning which is yet to come?" A: "No, not yet; it's very difficult, but I hope I'll succeed. Sometimes it seems to me that I need the stimulation of others, but I realize that those are temptations of Satan." I: "Don't you believe that you'd succeed ifyou were nearer men?" A: "maybeyoureright." He looks at me suddenly as if doubtful and suspicious. "But, I love the desert, do you understand? This yellow, sun-glowing desert. Here you can see the countenance of the sun every day; you are alone, you can see glorious Helios-no, that is - pagan-what's wrong with me? I'm confused-you are Satan- I recognize you-give way; adversary!" He jumps up incensed and wants to lunge at me. But I am far away in the twentieth century.

She would never kill what she desired most- not when she wanted Tamlin as much as I did. But if I killed him... she either knew I couldn't do it, or she was playing a very, very dangerous game. Conversation after conversation echoed in my memory, until I heard Lucien's words, and everything froze. And that was when I knew. I couldn't breathe, not as I replayed the memory, not as I recalled the conversation I'd overheard one day. Lucien and Tamlin in the dining room, the door wide open for all to hear- for me to hear. 'For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days.' I looked at Tamlin, my eyes flicking to his chest as another memory flashed. The Attor in the garden, laughing. 'Though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin,' the Attor said, 'you certainly keep a host of fear inside it.' Amarantha would never risk me killing him- because she knew I couldn't kill him. Not if his heart couldn't be pierced by a blade. Not if his heart had been turned to stone. I scanned his face, searching for any glimmer of truth. There was only that bold rebellion within his gaze. Perhaps I was wrong- perhaps it was just a faerie turn of phrase. But all those times I'd held Tamlin... I'd never felt his heartbeat. I'd been blind to everything until it came back to smack me in the face, but not this time. That was how she controlled him and his magic. How she controlled all the High Lords, dominating and leashing them just as she kept Jurian's soul tethered to that eye and bone. Trust no one, Alis had told me. But I trusted Tamlin- and more than that, I trusted myself. I trusted that I had heard correctly- I trusted that Tamlin had been smarter than Amarantha, I trusted that all I had sacrificed was not in vain. The entire room was silent, but my attention was upon only Tamlin. The revelation must have been clear on my face, for his breathing became a bit quicker, and he lifted his chin. I took a step toward him, then another. I was right. I had to be. I sucked in a breath as I grabbed the dagger off the outstretched pillow. I could be wrong- I could be painfully, tragically wrong. But there was a faint smile on Tamlin's lips as I stood over him, ash dagger in hand. There was such a thing as Fate- because Fate had made sure I was there to eavesdrop when they'd spoken in private, because Fate had whispered to Tamlin that the cold, contrary girl he'd dragged to his home would be the one to break his spell, because Fate had kept me alive just to get to this point, just to see if I had been listening. And there he was- my High Lord, my beloved, kneeling before me. 'I love you,' I said, and stabbed him.

The path of what was to come was awful. It was the enormous dying, a sea of blood. From it the new sun arose, awful and a reversal of that which we call day. We have seized the darkness and its sun will shine above us, bloody and burning like a great downfall. When I comprehended my darkness, a truly magnificent night came over me and my dream plunged me into the depths of the millennia, and from it my phoenix ascended. But what happened to my day? Torches were kindled, bloody anger and disputes erupted. As darkness seized the world, the terrible war arose and the darkness destroyed the light of the world, since it was incomprehensible to the darkness and good for nothing anymore. And so we had to taste Hell. I saw which vices the virtues of this time changed into, how your mildness became hard, your goodness became brutality; your love became hate, and your understanding became madness. Why did you want to comprehend the darkness! But you had to or else it would have seized you. Happy the man who anticipates this grasp. Did you ever think of the evil in you? Oh, you spoke of it, you mentioned it, and you confessed it smilingly; as a generally human vice, or a recurring misunderstanding. But did you know 1 what evil is, and that it stands precisely right behind your virtues, that it is also your virtues themselves, as their inevitable substance?7! You locked Satan in the abyss for a millennium, and when the millennium had passed, you laughed at him, since he had become a children's fairy tale.72 But if the dreadful great one raises his head, the world winces. The most extreme coldness draws near. With horror you see that you are defenseless, and that the army of your vices falls powerless to its knees. With the power of daimons, you seize the evil, and your virtues cross over to him. You are completely alone in this struggle, since your Gods have become deaf You do not know which devils are greater, your vices, or your virtues. But ofone thing you are certain, that virtues and vices are brothers. 73We need the coldness of death to see clearly. Life wants to live and to die, to begin and to end.74 You are not forced to live eternally; but you can also die, since there is a will in you for both. Life and death must strike a balance in your existence.75 Today's men need a large slice of death, since too much incorrectness lives in them, and too much correctness died in them. What stays in balance is correct, what disturbs balance is incorrect. But if balance has been attained, then that which preserves it is incorrect and that which disturbs it is correct. Balance is at once life and death. For the completion of life a balance with death is fitting. If I accept death, then my tree greens, since dying increases life. If I plunge into the death encompassing the world, then my buds break open. How much our life needs death!

So? When do you want to be turned?” “I didn’t agree to turn,” Valerie squawked with amazement. “You haven’t, but you will,” he said with a shrug. “What makes you think that?” she asked warily. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to have to wipe your memories and have you returned to your life and neither of us wants that,” he said simply. “Anders said I could have time to decide,” Valerie protested, and then frowned and added, “And what do you mean, neither of us wants that? Why would you care?” “You saved my wife and children, Valerie. And Leigh adores you. You’re family now.” “Oh.” She stared at him nonplussed, wondering if he meant that. “I mean it,” he said firmly. “Leigh has decided it’s so, so it’s so. She’d be disappointed if you didn’t become one of us and I won’t have her disappointed.” Valerie scowled slightly. The last part sounded like a threat. “As for Anders saying you could have time to decide,” Lucian continued. “What do you need time for? The nanos have paired you, you’re meant to be together.” “You make it sound so simple,” she said wearily. “It is simple. Don’t make it hard.” “Great, the nanos paired us. But what about love?” she asked. Lucian shifted impatiently. “Do you like him?” “Yes,” she admitted. “Respect him?” She nodded. “Trust him?” “Of course,” she said without hesitation. Lucian nodded and said dryly, “I don’t need to ask if you want him sexually.” Valerie flushed and raised her chin. “All those things combined make up love,” Lucian assured her. “Whether you realize it or not, you already do love him.” Valerie swallowed, knowing in her heart he was right. She bit her lip, and then blurted, “But does he love me?” “Ah.” Lucian nodded. “So that’s the holdup, is it? He hasn’t said it yet.” Valerie sighed and looked away, muttering, “When he asked me to be his life mate he went on about finding peace and being able to relax and be at peace. It was all peace, peace, peace,” she added with frustration and glanced to Lucian, eyes narrowing when she caught his lips twitching. If he laughed at her, she would— “Don’t you feel at peace with him?” he asked, and then added, “When you’re not hot and bothered, I mean.” “Well, yeah, but—” “But you want to hear that he loves you,” Lucian said and shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to ask him then.” “Ask him if he loves me?” she asked with dismay. Lucian sighed with exasperation. “You took on Igor and staked him, saving yourself and six other women in the process—” “Four,” she corrected unhappily. “Two died, remember.” “And then,” he continued heavily, ignoring her interruption. “You took on Ambrose and saved my wife and unborn twins by crashing the van you were all in and repeatedly bashing the man over the head until help got there. You are not a coward, Valerie, so stop acting like one. Ask him. And when he says yes he loves you, I will personally oversee the turning and pay for the wedding.

Haydée became pale, and lifting her transparent hands to heaven, exclaimed in a voice stifled with tears, “Then you leave me, my lord?” “Haydée, Haydée, you are young and beautiful; forget even my name, and be happy.” “It is well,” said Haydée; “your order shall be executed, my lord; I will forget even your name, and be happy.” And she stepped back to retire. “Oh, heavens,” exclaimed Valentine, who was supporting the head of Morrel on her shoulder, “do you not see how pale she is? Do you not see how she suffers?” Haydée answered with a heartrending expression, “Why should he understand this, my sister? He is my master, and I am his slave; he has the right to notice nothing.” The count shuddered at the tones of a voice which penetrated the inmost recesses of his heart; his eyes met those of the young girl and he could not bear their brilliancy. “Oh, heavens,” exclaimed Monte Cristo, “can my suspicions be correct? Haydée, would it please you not to leave me?” “I am young,” gently replied Haydée; “I love the life you have made so sweet to me, and I should be sorry to die.” “You mean, then, that if I leave you, Haydée——” “I should die; yes, my lord.” “Do you then love me?” “Oh, Valentine, he asks if I love him. Valentine, tell him if you love Maximilian.” The count felt his heart dilate and throb; he opened his arms, and Haydée, uttering a cry, sprang into them. “Oh, yes,” she cried, “I do love you! I love you as one loves a father, brother, husband! I love you as my life, for you are the best, the noblest of created beings!

DAVE HEBERT HAS ADDED SHANE LINDLEY TO THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. SHANE: Thanks for the add! SHANE: Like we discussed in the meeting earlier, I think the Valentine’s Day party should DEFINITELY include a secret Valentine exchange. Also, my little sis is pretty crafty, so she can help out with any decorations, cards, etc etc. VERONIKA: I love secrets :D DIANA DIXON HAS REMOVED SHANE LINDLEY FROM THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. BRENDA KOWALSKY HAS ADDED SHANE LINDLEY TO THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. SHANE: Glad to be back in the chat! Thanks, B. DIANA: Sorry, guys. Brenda accidentally added Red Birch resident 2B. She’s asked me to correct the error. DIANA DIXON HAS REMOVED SHANE LINDLEY FROM THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. RALPH ROBARDS HAS ADDED SHANE LINDLEY TO THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. RALPH: Shane, not sure why you got removed before? Diana, not sure what the error was? Anyway, re-adding you. SHANE: Ralph, my man! Appreciate the add. RALPH ROBARDS HAS BEEN REMOVED AS AN ADMIN OF THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. DIANA DIXON HAS REMOVED SHANE LINDLEY FROM THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. DIEGO GOMEZ HAS ADDED SHANE LINDLEY TO THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. SHANE: Regarding the spring barbecue, Gustav says he’s able to offer a deal if we go to him for all our sausage needs. VERONIKA: Yum! You really know how to whet a girl’s appetite :D CELESTE: How tasty! DIANA DIXON HAS REMOVED SHANE LINDLEY FROM THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. NIALL GENTRY HAS ADDED SHANE LINDLEY TO THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. DIANA: Niall, did Shane tell you about the drum set he just bought?? NIALL GENTRY HAS REMOVED SHANE LINDLEY FROM THE GROUP NEIGHBORS. THE END

It was dusk when Ian returned, and the house seemed unnaturally quiet. His uncle was sitting near the fire, watching him with an odd expression on his face that was half anger, half speculation. Against his will Ian glanced about the room, expecting to see Elizabeth’s shiny golden hair and entrancing face. When he didn’t, he put his gun back on the rack above the fireplace and casually asked, “Where is everyone?” “If you mean Jake,” the vicar said, angered yet more by the way Ian deliberately avoided asking about Elizabeth, “he took a bottle of ale with him to the stable and said he was planning to drink it until the last two days were washed from his memory.” “They’re back, then?” “Jake is back,” the vicar corrected as Ian walked over to the table and poured some Madeira into a glass. “The servingwomen will arrive in the morn. Elizabeth and Miss Throckmorton-Jones are gone, however.” Thinking Duncan meant they’d gone for a walk, Ian flicked a glance toward the front door. “Where have they gone at this hour?” “Back to England.” The glass in Ian’s hand froze halfway to his lips. “Why?” he snapped. “Because Miss Cameron’s uncle has accepted an offer for her hand.” The vicar watched in angry satisfaction as Ian tossed down half the contents of his glass as if he wanted to wash away the bitterness of the news. When he spoke his voice was laced with cold sarcasm. “Who’s the lucky bridegroom?” “Sir Francis Belhaven, I believe.” Ian’s lips twisted with excruciating distaste. “You don’t admire him, I gather?” Ian shrugged. “Belhaven is an old lecher whose sexual tastes reportedly run to the bizarre. He’s also three times her age.” “That’s a pity,” the vicar said, trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice blank as he leaned back in his chair and propped his long legs upon the footstool in front of him. “Because that beautiful, innocent child will have no choice but to wed that old…lecher. If she doesn’t, her uncle will withdraw his financial support, and she’ll lose that home she loves so much. He’s perfectly satisfied with Belhaven, since he possesses the prerequisites of title and wealth, which I gather are his only prerequisites. That lovely girl will have to wed that old man; she has no way to avoid it.” “That’s absurd,” Ian snapped, draining his glass. “Elizabeth Cameron was considered the biggest success of her season two years ago. It was pubic knowledge she’d had more than a dozen offers. If that’s all he cares about, he can choose from dozens of others.” Duncan’s voice was laced with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “That was before she encountered you at some party or other. Since then it’s been public knowledge that she’s used goods.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “You tell me, Ian,” the vicar bit out. “I only have the story in two parts from Miss Throckmorton-Jones. The first time she spoke she was under the influence of laudanum. Today she was under the influence of what I can only describe as the most formidable temper I’ve ever seen. However, while I may not have the complete story, I certainly have the gist of it, and if half what I’ve heard is true, then it’s obvious that you are completely without either a heart or a conscience! My own heart breaks when I imagine Elizabeth enduring what she has for nearly two years. When I think of how forgiving of you she has been-“ “What did the woman tell you?” Ian interrupted shortly, turning and walking over to the window.

The front door is locked—what’s up with that?” “Logan fixed the lock,” I tell her. Her bright red, heart-shaped mouth smiles. “Good job, Kevin Costner. You should staple the key to Ellie’s forehead, though, or she’ll lose it.” She has names for the other guys too and when her favorite guard, Tommy Sullivan, walks in a few minutes later, Marlow uses his. “Hello, Delicious.” She twirls her honey-colored, bouncy hair around her finger, cocking her hip and tilting her head like a vintage pinup girl. Tommy, the fun-loving super-flirt, winks. “Hello, pretty, underage lass.” Then he nods to Logan and smiles at me. “Lo . . . Good morning, Miss Ellie.” “Hey, Tommy.” Marlow struts forward. “Three months, Tommy. Three months until I’m a legal adult—then I’m going to use you, abuse you and throw you away.” The dark-haired devil grins. “That’s my idea of a good date.” Then he gestures toward the back door. “Now, are we ready for a fun day of learning?” One of the security guys has been walking me to school ever since the public and press lost their minds over Nicholas and Olivia’s still-technically-unconfirmed relationship. They make sure no one messes with me and they drive me in the tinted, bulletproof SUV when it rains—it’s a pretty sweet deal. I grab my ten-thousand-pound messenger bag from the corner. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. Elle—you should have a huge banger here tonight!” says Marlow. Tommy and Logan couldn’t have synced up better if they’d practiced: “No fucking way.” Marlow holds up her hands, palms out. “Did I say banger?” “Huge banger,” Tommy corrects. “No—no fucking way. I meant, we should have a few friends over to . . . hang out. Very few. Very mature. Like . . . almost a study group.” I toy with my necklace and say, “That actually sounds like a good idea.” Throwing a party when your parents are away is a rite-of-high-school passage. And after this summer, Liv will most likely never be away again. It’s now or never. “It’s a terrible idea.” Logan scowls. He looks kinda scary when he scowls. But still hot. Possibly, hotter. Marlow steps forward, her brass balls hanging out and proud. “You can’t stop her—that’s not your job. It’s like when the Bush twins got busted in that bar with fake IDs or Malia was snapped smoking pot at Coachella. Secret Service couldn’t stop them; they just had to make sure they didn’t get killed.” Tommy slips his hands in his pockets, laid back even when he’s being a hardass. “We could call her sister. Even from an ocean away, I’d bet she’d stop her.” “No!” I jump a little. “No, don’t bother Liv. I don’t want her worrying.” “We could board up the fucking doors and windows,” Logan suggests. ’Cause that’s not overkill or anything. I move in front of the two security guards and plead my case. “I get why you’re concerned, okay? But I have this thing—it’s like my motto. I want to suck the lemon.” Tommy’s eyes bulge. “Suck what?” I laugh, shaking my head. Boys are stupid. “You know that saying, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’?—well, I want to suck the lemon dry.” Neither of them seems particularly impressed. “I want to live every bit of life, experience everything it has to offer, good and bad.” I lift my jeans to show my ankle—and the little lemon I’ve drawn there. “See? When I’m eighteen, I’m going to get this tattooed on for real. As a reminder to live as much and as hard and as awesome as I can—to not take anything for granted. And having my friends over tonight is part of that.” I look back and forth between them. Tommy’s weakening—I can feel it. Logan’s still a brick wall. “It’ll be small. And quiet—I swear. Totally controlled. And besides, you guys will be here with me. What could go wrong?” Everything. Everything goes fucking wrong.

Having studied workplace leadership styles since the 1970s, Kets de Vries confirmed that language is a critical clue when determining if a company has become too cultish for comfort. Red flags should rise when there are too many pep talks, slogans, singsongs, code words, and too much meaningless corporate jargon, he said. Most of us have encountered some dialect of hollow workplace gibberish. Corporate BS generators are easy to find on the web (and fun to play with), churning out phrases like “rapidiously orchestrating market-driven deliverables” and “progressively cloudifying world-class human capital.” At my old fashion magazine job, employees were always throwing around woo-woo metaphors like “synergy” (the state of being on the same page), “move the needle” (make noticeable progress), and “mindshare” (something having to do with a brand’s popularity? I’m still not sure). My old boss especially loved when everyone needlessly transformed nouns into transitive verbs and vice versa—“whiteboard” to “whiteboarding,” “sunset” to “sunsetting,” the verb “ask” to the noun “ask.” People did it even when it was obvious they didn’t know quite what they were saying or why. Naturally, I was always creeped out by this conformism and enjoyed parodying it in my free time. In her memoir Uncanny Valley, tech reporter Anna Wiener christened all forms of corporate vernacular “garbage language.” Garbage language has been around since long before Silicon Valley, though its themes have changed with the times. In the 1980s, it reeked of the stock exchange: “buy-in,” “leverage,” “volatility.” The ’90s brought computer imagery: “bandwidth,” “ping me,” “let’s take this offline.” In the twenty-first century, with start-up culture and the dissolution of work-life separation (the Google ball pits and in-office massage therapists) in combination with movements toward “transparency” and “inclusion,” we got mystical, politically correct, self-empowerment language: “holistic,” “actualize,” “alignment.

Here are two examples of just how strange and unique humans can be when they go about harming one another and caring for one another. The first example involves, well, my wife. So we’re in the minivan, our kids in the back, my wife driving. And this complete jerk cuts us off, almost causing an accident, and in a way that makes it clear that it wasn’t distractedness on his part, just sheer selfishness. My wife honks at him, and he flips us off. We’re livid, incensed. Asshole-where’s-the-cops-when-you-need-them, etc. And suddenly my wife announces that we’re going to follow him, make him a little nervous. I’m still furious, but this doesn’t strike me as the most prudent thing in the world. Nonetheless, my wife starts trailing him, right on his rear. After a few minutes the guy’s driving evasively, but my wife’s on him. Finally both cars stop at a red light, one that we know is a long one. Another car is stopped in front of the villain. He’s not going anywhere. Suddenly my wife grabs something from the front seat divider, opens her door, and says, “Now he’s going to be sorry.” I rouse myself feebly—“Uh, honey, do you really think this is such a goo—” But she’s out of the car, starts pounding on his window. I hurry over just in time to hear my wife say, “If you could do something that mean to another person, you probably need this,” in a venomous voice. She then flings something in the window. She returns to the car triumphant, just glorious. “What did you throw in there!?” She’s not talking yet. The light turns green, there’s no one behind us, and we just sit there. The thug’s car starts to blink a very sensible turn indicator, makes a slow turn, and heads down a side street into the dark at, like, five miles an hour. If it’s possible for a car to look ashamed, this car was doing it. “Honey, what did you throw in there, tell me?” She allows herself a small, malicious grin. “A grape lollipop.” I was awed by her savage passive-aggressiveness—“You’re such a mean, awful human that something must have gone really wrong in your childhood, and maybe this lollipop will help correct that just a little.” That guy was going to think twice before screwing with us again. I swelled with pride and love.