Macmillan Quotes

A girl who would fall in love so easily or want a man to love her so easily would probably get over it just as quickly, very little the worse for wear. On the contrary, a girl who would take love seriously would probably be a good while finding herself in love and would require something beyond mere friendly attentions from a man before she would think of him in that light.

In the eyes of others, we’re often not who we imagine ourselves to be.

[...] I grew up out of that strange, dreamy childhood of mine and went into the world of reality. I met with experiences that bruised my spirit - but they never harmed my ideal world. That was always mine to retreat into at will. I learned that that world and the real world clashed hopelessly and irreconcilably; and I learned to keep them apart so that the former might remain for me unspoiled. I learned to meet other people on their own ground since there seemed to be no meeting place on mine. I learned to hide the thoughts and dreams and fancies that had no place in the strife and clash of the market place. I found that it was useless to look for kindred souls in the multitude; one might stumble on such here and there, but as a rule it seemed to me that the majority of people lived for the things of time and sense alone and could not understand my other life. So I piped and danced to other people's piping - and held fast to my own soul as best I could.

We can learn from history, but we can also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do.

But here's the thing; none of us deserve anything. That's an illusion we all exist under

They should have remembered that famous saying of Bismarck: “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.

One word can change your life forever. I love you I hate you Think about it

Anyway, members of the Inquisitorial Squad do have the power to dock points so, Granger, I'll have five from you for being rude about our new Headmistress. Macmillan, five for contradicting me. Five because I don't like you, Potter. Weasley, your shirt's untucked, so I'll have another five for that. Oh yeah, I forgot, you're a Mudblood, Granger, so ten off for that.

What may seem like a reasonable way of protecting oneself can look very different from the other side of the border.

I am quite likely to re-act to the opposite extreme - to feel rapturously that the world is beautiful and mere existence something to thank God for. I suppose our 'blues' are the price we have to pay for our temperament. 'The gods don't allow us to be in their debt.' They give us sensitiveness to beauty in all its forms but the shadow of the gift goes with it.

This is what a total breakdown must be, I though. You find yourself standing somewhere you should't be, doing something so out of character that you wonder if you've become someone else entirely. You've lost the plot, taken a wrong turning, jumped into a train whose destination is total lunacy

Trust is like that. Once you lose it, you begin to adjust your attitudes toward people, you put up guards, and filter the information you want them to know.

Sometimes it's hard not to let other people's misery seep into your own bones.

In the eyes of others, we're often not who we imagine ourselves to be.

Today, as a result of the policy of Macmillan's Government, Great Britain presents in the United Nations the face of Pecksniff and in Katanga the face of Gradgrind.

If you live a long life and get to the end of it without ever once having felt crushingly depressed, then you probably haven’t been paying attention.

Seize the day - be brave - be independent - be thoughtful - don't be scared to make mistakes - keep learning - all those things, all the time

You are still just a human. Just a small thing that has to find its way like everyone else in this enormous world. It will not be simple, Grace Porter, and it will not be easy. You may have to make a lot of noise, and the universe's silence can be oppressive and thick. But you want them to hear you, and they will. So do not, not even for one second, stop making noise." "And if they don't listen?" Professor MacMillan Shrugs. "Don't given them that choice.

None of us deserve anything. That's an illusion we all exist under.

I'd like that translated if I may. British Prime Minster Harold Macmillan on Nikita Khruschev's shoe banging at the UN General Assembly on 29th September 1960

Only a week away!” said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. “I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I’ll go and tell him. . . .” “Cedric?” said Ron blankly as Ernie hurried off. “Diggory,” said Harry. “He must be entering the tournament.” “That idiot, Hogwarts champion?” said Ron as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase. “He’s not an idiot. You just don’t like him because he beat Gryffindor at Quidditch,” said Hermione. “I’ve heard he’s a really good student — and he’s a prefect.” She spoke as though this settled the matter. “You only like him because he’s handsome,” said Ron scathingly. “Excuse me, I don’t like people just because they’re handsome!” said Hermione indignantly. Ron gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like “Lockhart!

The delegates to the peace conference after World War I "tried to impose a rational order on an irrational world.

He who made you bitter made you wise.

The glories of the past compensated for the imperfections of the present.

I believe that if you are lucky enough to have a child, then you should love them, whether or not society labels them as flawed, whether or not you label them as flawed. “You

What might happen if writing were a shared endeavor, meant t connect people instead of being hoarded as a tool of power and privilege.

Wilson agreed reluctantly to their attempts: “I don’t much like to make a compromise with people who aren’t reasonable. They will always believe that, by persisting in their claims, they will be able to obtain more.

As the American historian John Lewis Gaddis put it, it is like looking in a rearview mirror: if you only look back, you will land in the ditch, but it helps to know where you have come from and who else is on the road.

Theodore Rex. Roosevelt was driven by ambition, idealism and vanity. As his daughter famously remarked: “My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening.

In a secular world, which is what most of us in Europe and North America live in, history takes on the role of showing us good and evil, virtues and vices. Religion no longer plays as important a part as it once did in setting moral standards and transmitting values. . . .History with a capital H is being called in to fill the void. It restores a sense not necessarily of a divine being but of something above and beyond human beings. It is our authority: it can vindicate us and judge us, and damn those who oppose us.

Don Juan: I feel like God is punishing me and I don't know what for. Nurse 2: God's not punishing you. Life is Hell for all of us. You're not special.

IF YOU BELIEVE THE DOCTORS,” Salisbury once remarked, “nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.

Really, I’ve never understood why we haven’t thought of an English word for Schadenfreude.

I marveled at how the mundane activities that life demanded still needed to be done, even while the worst was happening.

I miss her every day. I miss the months we haven’t had together and I miss the future I thought we were going to have, because without her it feels pointless, it feels, just, totally flat. Fuck! This

His older compatriot Friedrich Nietzsche had entertained no such hopes: “For long now our entire European culture has been moving with a tormenting tension that grows greater from decade to decade, as if towards a catastrophe: restless, violent, precipitate, like a river that wants to reach its end.”23

If you talk too openly about terrible things people shrink from you.

If someone lies to you habitually, you can't ever trust them. It erodes relationships.

Grace has such simple needs. Wake, give love, receive love, refuel, expend energy, sleep. I love that about her.

There are some events and uncertainties that you take to the grave, and they threaten to tumble you every single step of the way. If

McGrath, Rita Gunther, and Ian C. MacMillan. The

You know, you should never catch a spy. Discover him and then control him, but never catch him. A spy causes far more trouble when he’s caught. Harold Macmillan

To be alive at all involves some risk. Harold Macmillan

I'll have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years. [Said to two governors regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to then-Air Force One steward Robert MacMillan]

Poincaré, unusually for his time and class, was a feminist and a strong supporter of animal rights, refusing, for example, to join the customary hunting parties at the presidential country estate.

Harold Macmillan, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, told Ambassador Robert Murphy, a Dulles emissary, that, if Great Britain did not confront Nasser now, “Britain would become another Netherlands.

reminder of how life shuffles on past any event, however traumatic, and you need to try to hold on to its coattails and keep moving with it, even if you feel as if that’s the last thing you want to do.

Do you really mean they like it? You wouldn’t fox an old friend, would you?' – in response to Lois Cole’s telegram announcing that Macmillan liked the book that would become known as Gone With the Wind.

long odds don’t always make any difference at all. Somebody always makes up that small percentage of people to whom unlikely or desperate things happen, and there’s actually nothing to say it can’t be you.

The news is a 24/7 monster. it devours all information and we feed it with our opinions, so we can't be shy of expressing ourselves even is we don't like the language other people use. It's called free speech

simply have been grateful for what I had. I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness, and all, and not forensically examined its faults. Those faults were largely in the eyes of a critical and sharp-edged society anyhow, and I had learned to recognize them by osmosis, by following the herd.

I wish now that I'd valued more the words that tumbled freely out of him before he was taken. I wish I'd collected them and kept them safely in packages that I wrapped up carefully, secured with a ribbon, and stored in a safe place for the future. I wish I hadn't been too distracted to listen to every word he said.

We should not be impressed when our leaders say firmly, "History teaches us" or "History will show that we were right." They can oversimplify and force inexact comparisons just as much as any of us can. Even the clever and the powerful (and the two are not necessarily the same) go confidently off down the wrong paths. It is useful, too, to be reminded, as a citizen, that those in positions of authority do not always know better.

If we're not who we imagine we are, then is anybody else? If there's so much potential for others to judge us wrongly, then how can we be sure that our assessment of them in any way resembles the real person that lies underneath?

I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say: Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay, He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

I even felt resentful towards my body, towards it's demands for sleep. for food, for drink, for bodily functions. I thought that life should stop until Ben was found. Clocks should no longer tick, oxygen should no longer be exchanged for carbon dioxide in our lungs, and our hearts should not pump. Only when he was back should normal service resume

We have engrossed to ourselves, in a time when other powerful nations were paralysed by barbarism or internal war, an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us.

Part of Nietzsche’s appeal was that it was easy to read a great deal into his work, and people including socialists, vegetarians, feminists, conservatives and, later, the Nazis did. Sadly, Nietzsche was not available to explain himself; he went mad in 1889 and died in 1900, the year of the Paris Exposition.

Like MacMillan and the clique of teachers and the coaches who all went to the same church and barbecued at one another's houses, much of the country's small-bore civil servants were itching to do some repressing of their own. Millions of Dick Cheney wannabes swelling the ranks, enjoying their little authoritarian fiefdoms.

life. I’ve thought about this a lot since my son, Ben, went missing, and every time I think about it, it also begs the question: if we’re not who we imagine we are, then is anybody else? If there’s so much potential for others to judge us wrongly, then how can we be sure that our assessment of them in any way resembles the real person that

I find reality pretty difficult. I find the business of getting out of bed and getting on with the day really hard. I find picking up my phone to be a mammoth fucking struggle. The number on my inbox. The friends who won’t see me anymore. The food pictures and porn videos, the bombings and beheadings, the moral ambivalence you have to have to just be able to carry on with your day. I find the knowledge that we’re all just atoms and one day we’ll stop and be dirt in the ground, I find that overwhelmingly disappointing.

Words flow for me when I’m writing, but they can stick in my throat like a hairball when I have to speak up for myself.

disarmament was an idea just of Jews, Socialists, and hysterical women

Nationalist movements often overlapped with economic and class issues: Rumanian and Ruthenian peasants, for example, challenged their Hungarian and Polish landlords.

Deberíamos usar el pasado como trampolín y no como sofá.

But the superiority of the British is that it is a matter of complete indifference to them if they appear to be stupid.

Manage your expectations!

Anyone who falls into your hands falls to your sword!

Our friendship didn’t survive. Some things are too big for other people to bear.

The way she said his name, the tenderness in those two words, the loss, told me that it was Charlie who she mourned above all.

Instead, I count my blessings every day for my blemished, damaged family, which is full of love, and that is fine, and that is all we need and all Ben needs to know.

all knew that other people were at work elsewhere, spreading the message far more effectively,

I’m not sure now whether we ever loved each other very deeply, or if it wasn’t more that we were two lost souls when we met, huddling together for comfort. What

Astor, who hated children pretending to be animals and was frequently off sick with stress.

distress that dispersed into the room. “You will find him, won’t you, Inspector?” “We’ll do our best,” I said. The headmaster’s office was cramped.

it’s to do with not being able to let go of what Richard and I had, the perfect idea of us, even though our reality has fallen so far from that.

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day. —F. Scott Fitzgerald

laugh. How is it that manners are so strong that they pervade all situations?

bitten, twice shy.

a cocktail of characteristics that I found addictive,

perhaps in that basement, flinching as a laptop shatters

Seize the day—be brave—be independent—be thoughtful—don’t be scared to make mistakes—keep learning—all of those things, all the time. And

British would use every means from persuasion to bribery in Morocco and when those failed the wives of British diplomats knew what they had to do to further Britain’s interests.

In ten months you can get used to some of the mechanics of being alone, but it takes longer for the hurt to heal.

Solid team relationships (trust, respect, acceptance, courtesy, and mutual accountability) are the glue that holds the team together.

I haven't bled enough to make me buoyant.

How the night deepens. A ribbon of the whitest frost is stretched across the bridge of magpie wings the lovers will cross.

Serial Australian True Crime Someone Knows Something A Killing On the Cape Missing & Murdered

I sigh that kiss you, For I must own That I shall miss you When you have grown.

The contempt for what the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus called Bürokretinismus served further to undermine public confidence in their government.

the only life is a shadowy turbulence at the periphery of my vision, a fox perhaps,

and dangerous depths of the labyrinth that was her depression. It had prevented her from slipping

I marveled at how the mundane activities that life demanded still needed to be done, even while the worst was happening. I

Jesus College “Forward it to me please, Jim,” she said once she’d read it. “There’s

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day. —F.

When we first meet someone, we can put our best foot forward, and give the very best account of ourselves, but still get it horribly wrong.

Jammie Dodgers

inside the house, a silence deeper than any I'd ever experienced before. A void where everything that I'd ever lived for should have been.

Leaves gusted around me like decomposing confetti as the wind began to build, and great masses of foliage shuddered and bent as it whipped through the canopy above.

lunch with parents, school secretary at cinema with a friend, TA shagging his girlfriend, headmaster

don’t want to hurt anybody, but I’m desperate to distract Dad and Becky, to stop the thing that’s happening.

proclivity for drink. It’s an open secret in the family. His question gets Maria

unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.  James

made some references to these sources within this book, What She Knew is entirely a work of fiction and all quotes and references are used fictitiously.

ONE YEAR

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness, and all, and not forensically examined its faults.

There are some events and uncertainties that you take to the grave, and they threaten to tumble you every single step of the way. If closure is a

But here’s the thing: none of us deserve anything. That’s an illusion we all exist under.

I didn’t realize that your mind could fall sick without your even noticing: incrementally, darkly, irrevocably.

They saw me as a freak show. I frightened people because I was someone to whom the worst was happening, and they turned on me like a pack of dogs. I’ve

down, they tidied him up, adjusted his cannula, and checked that he was properly connected

paint on brick. “John!” I screamed. I ran to the door. Glass crunched underfoot. From

be whispered more now, only spoken of in hushed terms, because Lucas Grantham might

Crises will come and go in all countries, more often in some than in others; at these moments, someone has to lead, has to make sure that while the crisis is addressed, it doesn’t overwhelm the pre-existing agenda for change. Allow that, and failure beckons. Hence Harold Macmillan’s famous lament about why he had not achieved more: ‘Events, dear boy! Events.

My insomnia makes a desperate, restless soul of me. There is no creativity, only hopelessness and frustration.

Louvain was a dull place, said a guidebook in 1910, but when the time came it made a spectacular fire.

The biggest problem with communication is the assumption that it has taken place.

In the fluid world of 1919, it was possible to dream of great change, or have nightmares about the collapse of order.

And you need to be alert to

at least. At 10 am we got a call to say the parents had been

My insomnia makes a desperate, restless soul of me. There is no creativity, only hopelessness and frustration. Each

He told conductors how to conduct and painters how to paint. As Edward said unkindly, he was “the most brilliant failure in history.”33

I had mixed feelings about it: a queasy combination of flattery and discomfort, but sometimes mixed feelings are the hardest to resist indulging in. They can make us feel alive again.

At home, in the empty flat, I wish more than anything that I had somebody who would come home to me tonight, somebody I could tell, somebody who would be with me through it to the end.

The anarchist who finished his meal in a Paris café and then calmly murdered a fellow diner said merely, “I shall not be striking an innocent if I strike the first bourgeois that I meet.

Trust is like that. Once you lose it, you begin to adjust your attitudes toward people, you put up guards, and filter the information you want them to know. I wasn’t prepared to actively

The failure of the talks between Chamberlain and the German ambassador in London, the public and private outbursts of the Kaiser, the well-reported anti-British and pro-Boer sentiment among the German public, even the silly controversy over whether Chamberlain had insulted the Prussian army, all left their residue of mistrust and resentments in Britain as well as in Germany.

back in the cells. “Jesus,” said Fraser. “That’s a result of sorts anyway.” The next item was the blog. If things had been bad for Rachel Jenner up to now, then it turned out that they were about

It's virtually impossible to build a team-based organization without the necessary levels of trust, acceptance, and respect among co-workers that will allow them to be open to interdependent relationships.

I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness and all, and not forensically examined its faults. Those faults were largely in the eyes of a critical and sharp-edged society anyhow, and I had learned to recognize them by osmosis, by following the herd. I had not yet learned to use my intelligence, or to trust in my instincts. I see more clearly now, and I shall never make that mistake again.

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; “This for my soul and this other for my body”?

Think for a moment of your life as a path that you’re moving forward on, not a place you’re stuck in. You can deal with this appropriately, and respectfully, and if you do that it will be possible to put it behind you.

The Italian Futurist artist Giacomo Balla later called his daughters Luce and Elettricità in memory of what he saw at the Paris Exposition. (A third daughter was Elica—Propellor—after the modern machinery he also admired.)

Mati took in my expression, and a moment later I was in his arms. His kisses washed over me like floodwater over parched earth. I clutched him helplessly, tears falling down my face and mingling with his as he whispered my name.

I’m tempted to walk away from this city and this life and this relationship that’s brought me the greatest feelings of joy but also the most profound feelings of guilt. I’m tempted to nurse my sorrows elsewhere, to rethink my life.

Faced with a decision about what to tell her, and how to tell her, I bottled. Trust is like that. Once you lose it, you begin to adjust your attitudes toward people, you put up guards, and filter the information you want them to know. I

High performance teams have six characteristics that allow them to consistently achieve exceptional levels of results: Common Purpose Crystal Clear Roles Accepted Leadership Effective Processes Solid Relationships Excellent Communication

. People have rejected me all my life. Sometimes it's death or desertion. infidelity, betrayal. You name it. I've experienced every form of emotional treachery there is. Well, big deal. Everybody's suffered something in life and so what? I'm not sitting around feeling sorry for myself, but I'd have to be a fool to lay myself open to that shit again.” Excerpt From: Grafton, Sue. “M Is for Malice.” Macmillan, 1996-04-15T17:29:10+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

Not so long ago a psychiatrist told me that one of the marks of an adult who has never properly grown up is an inability to wait, and a whole therapeutic movement has been built on that one insight alone. Because music takes or demands our time and depends on carefully timed relations between notes, it cannot be rushed. It schools us in the art of patience. Certainly we can play or sing a piece of music faster. But we can do this only to a very limited degree before the piece becomes incoherent. Given today’s technology we can cut and paste, we can hop from track to track on the MP3 player, flip from one song to another, and download highlights of a three-hour opera. But few would claim they hear a piece of music in its integrity that way. Music says to us: “There are things you will learn only by passing through this process, by being caught up in this series of relations and transformations.”34 Music requires my time, my flesh, and my blood for its performance and enjoyment, and this means going at its speed. Simone Weil described music as “time that one wants neither to arrest nor hasten.”35 In an interview, speaking of the tendency of our culture to think that music is there simply to “wash over” us, the composer James MacMillan remarked: “[Music] needs us to sacrifice something of ourselves to meet it, and it’s very difficult sometimes to do that, especially [in] the whole culture we’re in. Sacrifice and self-sacrifice—certainly sacrificing your time—is not valued any more.”36

After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this: A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.” Excerpt From: Sloan, Robin. “Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore.” Macmillan, 2012-10-01T22:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

limit my answer because my trust in others has been eroded by what happened; of course it has. Within many of my relationships doubt remains like slivers of broken glass, impossible to see and liable to draw blood even after you think you’ve swept them all away.

I asked her if she was happy with it, she said yes. I thought she'd cope fine. I didn't have a crystal ball, boss'. 'You're not going to have any fucking balls if you carry on like this. I'll chop them off personally and use them as Christmas decorations for the girls' lavvy.

Were they being kind by not contacting me? Was that a thoughtful response? Or had they backed off now that I was tainted by misfortune, now that I was the person to whom the worst had happened, the one at the sharp end of the statistical wedge, where nobody else wants to be. I

Nor dread nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all; Many times he died, Many times rose again. A great man in his pride Confronting murderous men Casts derision upon Supersession of breath; He knows death to the bone – Man has created death.

I asked her if she was happy with it, and she said yes. I thought she’d cope fine. I didn’t have a crystal ball, boss.” “You’re not going to have any fucking balls if you carry on like this. I’ll chop them off personally and use them as Christmas decorations for the girls’ lavvy.

The French would do whatever it took to get Britain to commit itself. In 1909 they produced a carefully faked document, said to have been discovered when a French commercial traveler picked up the wrong bag on a train, which purported to show Germany’s invasion plans for Britain.

Thanks,’ I managed. ‘If there’s anything I can do.’ ‘OK. Thanks.’ ‘John’s asked me to go back home, in case he turns up there.’ ‘OK. Good idea.’ It was awkward and strange. There’s no protocol for meeting your ex-husband’s new wife at the site where your son’s gone missing. ‘Well,

Carpe diem was the lesson to be learned. It’s what I had been trying to teach Ben when I let him run ahead in the woods. Seize the day—be brave—be independent—be thoughtful—don’t be scared to make mistakes—keep learning—all of those things, all the time. And somebody had taken him. More fool me. Ruth’s

Those homes were like holding pens, where residents waited for death with little more status than corpses. Loneliness, confusion, pain, and the smell of urine and boiled food seemed to be their only companions as the light faded on their lives. Those places had made me shudder, and sometimes weep. Carpe

But here’s the thing: none of us deserve anything. That’s an illusion we all exist under. What I know now is that even after the divorce I should simply have been grateful for what I had. I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness, and all, and not forensically examined its faults.

And then last, but oh, so utterly first, came George Eliot. It was in the days when her cult was at its height—thank heaven I never left her shrine!—and we used to wait outside Macmillan’s shop to seize the new instalments of Daniel Deronda. She came for a few minutes to my room, and I was almost senseless with excitement. I had just repapered my room with the newest thing in dolorous Morris papers. Some one must have called her attention to it, for I remember that she said in her shy, impressive way, “Your paper makes a beautiful background for your face.” The ecstasy was too much, and I knew no more.

The wrangling between Britain and the Free French throughout the war years had a further, far-reaching consequence when de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. As president of France it was he who infamously vetoed Harold Macmillan’s application to join the Common Market. In tracing exactly why de Gaulle said Non, it is, surprisingly, to the hot and noisy cities of Beirut and Damascus that we should look. The general’s experience of British machinations in both places profoundly shaped his reluctance to allow his wartime rivals to join his European club. It is a tale from which neither country emerges with much credit.

Further, we often make the mistake of treating listening as merely waiting for our turn to talk. While other team members are making their points, we're preparing our rebuttal. It takes practice and discipline to withhold the urge to jump in with our opinion and really concentrate on what the other person is saying.

She can do that for ages, and tonight it makes me feel super tense because I feel like the time we have left before Lucas and Chris get home is on one of those kitchen timers that click madly like a bomb that’s going to detonate until they make a screechy buzz that Lucas says sounds like a small bird being strangled.

John couldn’t stand the waiting. He wanted to do something, so he spent most of the night driving around, circling the woods, following the routes back into Bristol, just in case. Each time he returned, he sat in my car and asked me to go over what had happened. ‘I’ve told you,’ I said, when he asked for the third time.

Malcolm Muggeridge, once a keen British social and cultural critic who in his old age became something of a religious fanatic. While working on his own documentary on Mother Teresa for the BBC, aired in 1969, he felt he had experienced an authentic miracle: After filming footage in a dark residence called the House of the Dying, Muggeridge was astounded to discover, when later viewing the footage, that the images were in fact clearly visible. Muggeridge himself exclaimed: "It's divine light! It's Mother Teresa. You'll find that it's divine light, old boy" (MT 27). (I like that "old boy" remark-so distinctively British.) Unfortunately, Muggeridge's cameraman, Ken Macmillan, calmly pointed out that the effect was the result of a new kind of film created by Kodak. But Muggeridge's "miracle" had by this time already spread and is still being talked about. To Hitchens, however, the significance of the episode is very different: "It is the first unarguable refutation of a claimed miracle to come not merely from another supposed witness to said miracle but from its actual real-time author. As such, it deserves to be more widely known than it is" (MT 27). But, alas, the average person is far more inclined to believe in "miracles," however fake, than in the debunking of miracles, however real.

Lovegood had got out The Quibbler again. Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table Ernie Macmillan was one of the few still staring at Professor Umbridge, but he was glassy-eyed and Harry was sure he was only pretending to listen in an attempt to live up to the new prefect’s badge gleaming on his chest. Professor Umbridge did not seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. Harry had the impression that a full-scale riot could have broken out under her nose and she would have ploughed on with her speech. The teachers, however, were still listening very attentively, and Hermione seemed to be drinking in every word Umbridge spoke, though, judging by her

What interests me now is that it might have been the betrayal of convention I felt most keenly, because in some way I felt I was owed the life we had together, and that I didn’t deserve the public humiliation of him leaving me for another woman. But here’s the thing: none of us deserve anything. That’s an illusion we all exist under.

ambiguous grief.” It can be a life sentence. It’s a kind of unresolved grief. You might feel it if you have a child or another family member who is mentally impaired. You might mourn the person you think they could have been if things had turned out differently. That person is physically present but psychologically absent. Conversely,

No team can communicate successfully without highly developed listening skills among team members. Most experts would agree that listening is the most overlooked and underused component of communication. Although listening comprises about 45 percent of the communication process, we have little or no formal training in this important skill.

myself by blurting out things that sounded fine in my head. I don’t flounder, and then sink. This is a fantasy that can occupy long minutes of my time. The outcome is always the same: the imaginary interview goes really well, brilliantly, in fact, and the best thing about it is that the interviewer doesn’t ask me the question that I hate most of all.

Perhaps it was no accident that it was a Viennese, Sigmund Freud, who was to come up with the notion of the narcissism of small differences. As he wrote in Civilization and Its Discontents, ‘it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and in ridiculing each other

Groupthink stifles the possibility of suspending one's assumptions. In fact, its whole purpose is to elevate and protect those assumptions from any assault by logic. Creative and synergistic communication is doomed within groups infected with the symptoms of groupthink. Any new or unusual notions quickly fall victim to the group's terminal sense of certainty.

family too much to cope with sometimes? YES! Did I take Ben? NO, I DID NOT! Am I a monster? NO, I AM NOT! Do I love my husband, my daughters, my sister, and my nephew? YES, I DO! Is that it? Is that all your questions answered?” It was the way she said it, hand slamming down on the table as she made each point, as if her very existence depended on my understanding

What I know now is that even after the divorce I should simply have been grateful for what I had. I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness, and all, and not forensically examined its faults. Those faults were largely in the eyes of a critical and sharp-edged society anyhow, and I had learned to recognize them by osmosis, by following the herd.

Carpe diem era la lezione che avevo imparato, ed era proprio quello che volevo insegnare a Ben quando lo avevo lasciato correre nel bosco. Cogli l’attimo si coraggioso, sii indipendente, apri il tuo cuore, non aver paura di fare errori, non smettere mai di imparare e così via. Invece qualcuno lo aveva portato via. Qualcuno che a quanto pareva era ancora più folle di me.

A big blow came in June 1962, when Churchill slipped and fell in his suite at the Hôtel de Paris. While drifting in and out of consciousness, Churchill told Montague Brown that he wanted to die in England. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dispatched an RAF Comet to bring the Great Man home. The press expected the worst. Montague Browne believed he would have to instruct the Duke of Norfolk to set Operation Hope Not—Churchill’s state funeral—in motion. On the flight to London, Churchill, heavily sedated, awoke, and muttered to Montague Browne: “I don’t think I’ll go back to that place, it’s unlucky. First Toby, and then this.” Montague Browne had forgotten Toby, the budgerigar, but Churchill had not. The body was frail, but not the wit.

A year ago, just after Ben’s disappearance, I was involved in a press conference, which was televised. My role was to appeal for help in finding him. The police gave me a script to read. I assumed people watching it would automatically understand who I was, that they would see I was a mother whose child was missing, and who cared about nothing apart from getting him back. Many

Philby now went in for the kill. Elliott had tipped him off that he would be cleared by Macmillan, but mere exoneration was not enough: he needed Lipton to retract his allegations, publicly, humiliatingly, and quickly. After a telephone consultation with Elliott, he instructed his mother to inform all callers that he would be holding a press conference in Dora’s Drayton Gardens flat the next morning. When Philby opened the door a few minutes before 11:00 a.m. on November 8, he was greeted with gratifying proof of his new celebrity. The stairwell was packed with journalists from the world’s press. “Jesus Christ!” he said. “Do come in.” Philby had prepared carefully. Freshly shaved and neatly barbered, he wore a well-cut pinstriped suit, a sober and authoritative tie, and his most charming smile. The journalists trooped into his mother’s sitting room, where they packed themselves around the walls. Camera flashes popped. In a conspicuous (and calculated) act of old-world gallantry, Philby asked a journalist sitting in an armchair if he would mind giving up his seat to a lady journalist forced to stand in the doorway. The man leaped to his feet. The television cameras rolled. What followed was a dramatic tour de force, a display of cool public dishonesty that few politicians or lawyers could match. There was no trace of a stammer, no hint of nerves or embarrassment. Philby looked the world in the eye with a steady gaze and lied his head off. Footage of Philby’s famous press conference is still used as a training tool by MI6, a master class in mendacity.

For the sultan Wilhelm II had brought the latest German rifle, but when he tried to present it Abdul Hamid at first shrank away in terror thinking he was about to be assassinated. The heir to Suleiman the Magnificent who had made Europe tremble nearly four centuries earlier was a miserable despot so fearful of plots that he kept a eunuch near him whose sole duty was to take the first puff on each of his cigarettes.

Even the gentle composer Richard Strauss was carried away by anti-French feeling. He told Kessler in the summer of 1912 that he would go along when war broke out. What did he think he could do, his wife asked. Perhaps, Strauss said uncertainly, he could be a nurse. “Oh, you, Richard!” snapped his wife. “You can’t stand the sight of blood!” Strauss looked embarrassed but insisted: “I would do my best. But if the French get a thrashing, I want to be there.”24

Your printers have made but one blunder, Correct it instanter, and then for the thunder! We'll see in a jiffy if this Mr S[pencer] Has the ghost of a claim to be thought a good fencer. To my vision his merits have still seemed to dwindle, Since I have found him allied with the great Dr T[yndall] While I have, for my part, grown cockier and cockier, Since I found an ally in yourself, Mr L[ockyer] And am always, in consequence, thoroughly willin', To perform in the pages of Nature's M[acmillan].

while civil servants were expected, for example, to work five to six hours a day, few did even that. In the Foreign Office, a new recruit said he rarely received more than three or four files a day to deal with and no one minded if he came in late and left early. In 1903 the British embassy had to wait for ten months to get an answer about the duty on Canadian whisky. ‘The dilatoriness of this country, if continued in progressive ratio, will soon rival that of Turkey,’ a British diplomat complained to London.

There’s a term we use for it: “ambiguous grief.” It can be a life sentence. It’s a kind of unresolved grief. You might feel it if you have a child or another family member who is mentally impaired. You might mourn the person you think they could have been if things had turned out differently. That person is physically present but psychologically absent. Conversely, and this is what happens in cases of abduction, or more commonly in divorce, the child or the person is psychologically present but physically absent.

told the Reichstag that the age of “Cabinet” wars, that is wars determined by rulers for limited ends, was over: “All we have now is people’s war, and any prudent government will hesitate to bring about a war of this nature, with all its incalculable consequences.” The great powers, he went on, will find it difficult to bring such wars to an end or admit defeat: “Gentlemen, it may be a war of seven years’ or of thirty years’ duration—and woe to him who sets Europe alight, who puts the first fuse to the powder keg!”89

He has such musicality, darling. There were mistakes, he must find discipline, but the musicality, this is a gift.” And my heart lurched because when I’m able to see through the blackness this is what I hope for. It’s that, in spite of his problems, Ben might be learning to live again, and that he might still have that capacity to find things that can drive him onward: that the beauty of music, or of a painting in the Bristol Museum, or of his connection with his baby sister, or of any damn thing he likes, can occasionally eradicate the blackness, and make it a life worth living.

Nicholas of Montenegro was not so easily swayed, however. He had bribed one of the defenders, an Albanian officer in the Ottoman army, to deliver the city to him. Essad Pasha Toptani, almost as much of a rogue as Nicholas himself, had first murdered the garrison’s commander and then set his price at £80,000 by sending out a message that he had lost a suitcase containing that amount and asking that it be returned.91 On April 23, Essad duly surrendered Scutari to the Montenegrins. In Montenegro’s capital, Cetinje, there were wild celebrations with drunken revelers firing their guns in all directions.

Outside, I take in the fact that the night is deeply dusky and warm, and that feels like a balm after the cold air inside. I notice a strong smell from the glowing white roses that hang over the churchyard gate and the dark fluttering of bats that swarm from a high corner of the church tower. Around us, as we walk in the tired grass, gravestones whose cadaverous foundations have failed them lean against one another for support. I see a Celtic cross, the contours of lichen covered stone mounds, writing everywhere, words of remembrance, and, above us, the dark, pointed leaves of the yew tree greedily sucking away the last of the light.

La historia es una forma de hacer valer la comunidad imaginada. Los nacionalistas, por poner un ejemplo, aseguran que la nación siempre ha existido en esa zona convenientemente vaga de la "niebla del tiempo"(...)En realidad, examinando cualquier grupo vemos que su identidad es un proceso y no algo fijo. Los grupos se definen y redefinen a sí mismos a lo largo del tiempo y como respueta a procesos internos, un despertar religios quizá, o a presiones externas. Si uno está oprimido y victimizado(...) esa situación se convierte en parte de la imagen que uno tiene de sí mismo. Y a veces incluso conduce a una competencia bastante indecorosa por el victimismo.

When you get a good, honest exchange with an officer in this situation, normally it restores your faith in your profession, boosts you up for the daily grind of criminality, because that well-behaved, professional exchange between you both feels like an honorable thing; it pushes away the thoughts of the shysters and the ambulance chasers, the doughnut munchers and the baton wielders. You become two men, in a room, upholding the law, and there’s a purity to that, a kind of distinction, which is a very rare thing on a day-to-day basis. In Zoe’s case, it made things only slightly more bearable, because the facts of her arrest were so unremittingly grim. “She’d

A menudo se usa la historia como una serie de cuentos morales para aumentar la solidaridad de grupo o, cosa más defendible, según mi punto de vista, para explicar el desarrollo de instituciones importantes como los parlamentos y conceptos como la democracia y de ese modo la enseñanza del pasado se ha convertido en algo fundamental a la hora de debatir la forma de inculcar y trasmitir valores. El peligro es que ese objetivo, que puede ser admirable, acabe por distorsionar la historia, ya sea convirtiéndola en un relato simplista en el cual sólo hay blanco y negro, o bien representándola como si todo tendiese hacia una sola dirección, ya sea el progreso humano o el triunfo de un grupo en particular. La historia explicada de este modo aplana la complejidad de la experiencia humana y no deja espacio para las distintas interpretaciones del pasado.

Baron, Baroness Originally, the term baron signified a person who owned land as a direct gift from the monarchy or as a descendant of a baron. Now it is an honorary title. The wife of a baron is a baroness. Duke, Duchess, Duchy, Dukedom Originally, a man could become a duke in one of two ways. He could be recognized for owning a lot of land. Or he could be a victorious military commander. Now a man can become a duke simply by being appointed by a monarch. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her husband Philip the Duke of Edinburgh and her son Charles the Duke of Wales. A duchess is the wife or widow of a duke. The territory ruled by a duke is a duchy or a dukedom. Earl, Earldom Earl is the oldest title in the English nobility. It originally signified a chieftan or leader of a tribe. Each earl is identified with a certain area called an earldom. Today the monarchy sometimes confers an earldom on a retiring prime minister. For example, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is the Earl of Stockton. King A king is a ruling monarch. He inherits this position and retains it until he abdicates or dies. Formerly, a king was an absolute ruler. Today the role of King of England is largely symbolic. The wife of a king is a queen. Knight Originally a knight was a man who performed devoted military service. The title is not hereditary. A king or queen may award a citizen with knighthood. The criterion for the award is devoted service to the country. Lady One may use Lady to refer to the wife of a knight, baron, count, or viscount. It may also be used for the daughter of a duke, marquis, or earl. Marquis, also spelled Marquess. A marquis ranks above an earl and below a duke. Originally marquis signified military men who stood guard on the border of a territory. Now it is a hereditary title. Lord Lord is a general term denoting nobility. It may be used to address any peer (see below) except a duke. The House of Lords is the upper house of the British Parliament. It is a nonelective body with limited powers. The presiding officer for the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor or Lord High Chancellor. Sometimes a mayor is called lord, such as the Lord Mayor of London. The term lord may also be used informally to show respect. Peer, Peerage A peer is a titled member of the British nobility who may sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. Peers are ranked in order of their importance. A duke is most important; the others follow in this order: marquis, earl, viscount, baron. A group of peers is called a peerage. Prince, Princess Princes and princesses are sons and daughters of a reigning king and queen. The first-born son of a royal family is first in line for the throne, the second born son is second in line. A princess may become a queen if there is no prince at the time of abdication or death of a king. The wife of a prince is also called a princess. Queen A queen may be the ruler of a monarchy, the wife—or widow—of a king. Viscount, Viscountess The title Viscount originally meant deputy to a count. It has been used most recently to honor British soldiers in World War II. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was named a viscount. The title may also be hereditary. The wife of a viscount is a viscountess. (In pronunciation the initial s is silent.) House of Windsor The British royal family has been called the House of Windsor since 1917. Before then, the royal family name was Wettin, a German name derived from Queen Victoria’s husband. In 1917, England was at war with Germany. King George V announced that the royal family name would become the House of Windsor, a name derived from Windsor Castle, a royal residence. The House of Windsor has included Kings George V, Edward VII, George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.

What have I earned for all that work,’ I said, ‘For all that I have done at my own charge? The daily spite of this unmannerly town, Where who has served the most is most defamed, The reputation of his lifetime lost Between the night and morning. I might have lived, And you know well how great the longing has been, Where every day my footfall should have lit In the green shadow of Ferrara wall; Or climbed among the images of the past – The unperturbed and courtly images – Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino To where the Duchess and her people talked The stately midnight through until they stood In their great window looking at the dawn; I might have had no friend that could not mix Courtesy and passion into one like those That saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn; I might have used the one substantial right My trade allows: chosen my company, And chosen what scenery had pleased me best.’ Thereon my phoenix answered in reproof, ‘The drunkards, pilferers of public funds, All the dishonest crowd I had driven away, When my luck changed and they dared meet my face, Crawled from obscurity, and set upon me Those I had served and some that I had fed; Yet never have I, now nor any time, Complained of the people.’ All I could reply Was: ‘You, that have not lived in thought but deed, Can have the purity of a natural force, But I, whose virtues are the definitions Of the analytic mind, can neither close The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.’ And yet, because my heart leaped at her words, I was abashed, and now they come to mind After nine years, I sink my head abashed.

She thinks of her mother's love as a soft rain. It drenches gently, and when it's warm, it's the most gorgeous feeling in the world. When it's cold, not so much.

How do you hide feelings that are so strong they threaten to destroy your rationality and make a mockery of your loyalties? When I look at her, I can't help seeing the future that we could have had. It's painful and tempting, and I wonder how you can hate somebody and desire them so very much.

Did the yoga studio find out you’re not a student anymore?” Rae guessed. They’d given their expired college emails to receive the student discount and were waiting to be discovered.

She felt like she’d been stuck in a calamitous scene from someone else’s memoir, only to turn the page and find out it was her own story, but someone else had written it for her.

The landlord didn’t allow nails, and her closet didn’t fit anything beyond her black work pants and white collared shirts. In an attempt to mitigate the sexism rampant in investment banking, she dressed identically to the men. She thought the strategy might be working, though perhaps that was only because modern sexism was often too subtle for anyone—including her—to notice.

I have a first date tomorrow with Sean.” She showed Rae the profile of a thirty-year-old who worked as a corporate-grade bond investor. “We’re the same age, once you adjust for gender,” Ellen explained. “Since women’s brains are three years more mature than their actual age and men’s brains are three years less mature.” Rae was intrigued by this numbers-based way to compare compatibility. “So you’re twenty-four but have the maturity of a twenty-seven-year-old? And he’s thirty but actually twenty-seven?” “Exactly,” Ellen said, looking pleased with her contribution to the science of modern love. “So stay away from anyone under twenty-eight. They’re still children.

Reminding herself that she had more important things to focus on than meeting guys, she tried to push back against the angst, but the angst pushed back with a mind of its own, like it was staging a coup on her own brain, a coup it had been planning for a long time now and had chosen tonight to execute, knowing how vulnerable she’d be to a quarter-life crisis.

I know,” Rae said, wondering what she should wear to Thanksgiving with Tim’s family next year. Perhaps a sundress with a light jacket, but she’d pack layers to be safe. “He’s perfect.

Low expectations, high standards, Rae kept telling herself. It was one of the Scramblettes’ go-to mottos, but she was already conjuring up next Christmas with Dustin coming to Indiana with her to meet her mom and grandpa.

But did he say, ‘This is Rae’ or ‘This is Rae’?” Mina clarified. “Or ‘This is Rae’?” Ellen added, unable to keep from jumping in on the analysis. Rae racked her brain. “Just ‘This is Rae,’ I think.” “Oh,” Mina and Sarah said in unison.

This is a Rockaway Parkway–bound L train,” the automated voice announced as the urine-and-pickle-scented subway train jolted to a violent stop, as if on a mission to send as many passengers careening into the walls as possible. Rae managed to avoid toppling over only because she was sitting down and wedged tightly in a man-sprawler sandwich.

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!

Breathtaking was the word that popped into Rae’s head as they walked onto the rooftop, rectangular and empty. Breathgiving, she corrected, earmarking the word for some future use.

I spent most of last year living with my parents in Connecticut,” he said, speaking as evenly as ever. “Which is why I hadn’t seen a lot of my friends in a while until the Christmas party.” It was a departure from the linear narrative she’d crafted. “Why?” “I was getting treatment.” Rae’s stomach scrunched as her heart was punched with regret about every assumption she’d made. When she finally found her voice and ditched her pride, she gritted out, “Not cancer?” Two women shoved their way onto the stools next to them, and the baristas shouted about macchiatos and matcha and oat milk. Manhattan was intruding, like it did best.

She just wanted to sit on the couch with someone and eat pizza and talk about poetry and deep shit and be held through the night.

She hated the text, but more than she hated it, she loved it, and even more than she loved it, she hated that she loved it.