“
When a man can listen to a woman's feelings without getting angry and frustrated, he gives her a wonderful gift.
He makes it safe for her to express herself.
The more she is able to express herself, the more she feels heard and understood, and the more she is able to give a man the loving trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, and encouragement that he needs.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
“
Beauty is power and elegance, right action, form fitting function, intelligence, and reasonability. And very often expressed in curves.
”
”
Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1))
“
the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
What said those two souls communicating through the language of the eyes, more perfect than that of the lips, the language given to the soul in order that sound may not mar the ecstasy of feeling? In such moments, when the thoughts of two happy beings penetrate into each other’s souls through the eyes, the spoken word is halting, rude, and weak—it is as the harsh, slow roar of the thunder compared with the rapidity of the dazzling lightning flash, expressing feelings already recognized, ideas already understood, and if words are made use of it is only because the heart’s desire, dominating all the being and flooding it with happiness, wills that the whole human organism with all its physical and psychical powers give expression to the song of joy that rolls through the soul. To the questioning glance of love, as it flashes out and then conceals itself, speech has no reply; the smile, the kiss, the sigh answer.
”
”
José Rizal (Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not))
“
Oh, sorry, am I being difficult?” Rich asked. “I’m not good with people. Sometimes I’m difficult. I wish people would just tell me. Anyway, the Taiyang Shen is critical. In fact, my idea won’t work without it. But a Mars probe? Pfft. C’mon.” “All right,” Venkat said. “What’s your idea?” Rich snatched a paper from the desk. “Here it is!” He handed it to Venkat with a childlike smile. Venkat took the summary and skimmed it. The more he read, the wider his eyes got. “Are you sure about this?” “Absolutely!” Rich beamed. “Have you told anyone else?” “Who would I tell?” “I don’t know,” Venkat said. “Friends?” “I don’t have any of those.” “Okay, keep it under your hat.” “I don’t wear a hat.” “It’s just an expression.” “Really?” Rich said. “It’s a stupid expression.” “Rich, you’re being difficult.” “Ah. Thanks.
”
”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
“
In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon - for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
“
Look at us. Running around, always rushed, always late. I guess that's why they call it the human race. What we crave most in this world is connection. For some people it happens at first site. It's when you know, you know. It's fate working its magic. And that's great for them. They get to live in a pop song; ride the express train. But that's not the way it really works. For the rest of us it's a bit less romantic. It's complicated and it's messy. It's about horrible timing and fumbled opportunities. And not being able to say what you need to say when you need to say it. At least, that's the way it was for me.
”
”
The Switch
“
I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get ride of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it is forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
“
To fully express their feelings, women assume poetic license and use various superlatives, metaphors, and generalizations. Men mistakenly take these expressions literally. Because they misunderstand the intended meaning, they commonly react in an unsupportive manner.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
A man unknowingly hurts his partner by speaking in an uncaring manner and then goes on to explain why she should not be upset. He mistakenly assumes she is resisting the content of his point of view, when really his unloving delivery is what upsets her. Because he does not understand her reaction, he focuses more on explaining the merit of what he is saying instead of correcting the way he is saying it. He has no idea that he is starting an argument; he thinks she is arguing with him. He defends his point of view while she defends herself from his sharpened expressions, which are hurtful to her.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
...for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach beauty.
”
”
Kakuzō Okakura
“
Maybe that was why another part of me--a very small part--had wanted to kiss Wallace then. Both sides of his mouth, between his brows, and every other place those stupid worry lines marred his expression. That part of me had wanted to hold him tight and give him the comfort I knew he couldn’t ask for.
But that part terrified me the most.
”
”
Carrie Butler (Strength (Mark of Nexus, #1))
“
The differences and disagreements don’t hurt as much as the ways in which we communicate them. Ideally an argument does not have to be hurtful; instead it can simply be an engaging conversation that expresses our differences and disagreements. (Inevitably all couples will have differences and disagree at times.) But practically speaking most couples start out arguing about one thing and, within five minutes, are arguing about the way they are arguing. Unknowingly they begin hurting each other; what could have been an innocent argument, easily resolved with mutual understanding and an acceptance of differences, escalates into a battle. They refuse to accept or understand the content of their partner’s point of view because of the way they are being approached. Resolving an argument requires extending or stretching our point of view to include and integrate another point of view. To make this stretch we need to feel appreciated and respected. If our partner’s attitude is unloving, our self-esteem can actually be wounded by taking on their point of view.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
We need to embrace our anger. By that I mean, we want to recognize the sacredness of anger. Many deities from all around the world depict 'anger' in a sacred way. Kali, The Morrigan, Hades, Set, Mars, Minerva, Lugh, Thor, Vulcan, Odin, and Fion Mac Cumhail are all deities that express a divine kind of anger. They are the avengers, hunters, protectors, and warriors; Gods and Goddesses of death and slaughter.
”
”
Laurence Galian (Beyond Duality: The Art of Transcendence)
“
I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream - I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal - to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals.
”
”
Oscar Wilde
“
The tea-masters held that real appreciation of art is only possible to those who make of it a living influence. Thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard of refinement which obtained in the tea-room. In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach beauty. Thus the tea-master strove to be something more than the artist,—art itself.
”
”
Kakuzō Okakura (The Book of Tea)
“
Sometimes “inner work” requires an act of loyalty rather than an effort at transformation. Knowing what makes us happy (Venus), expressing this to others (Mercury), and standing firm in the face of opposition (Mars) may seem very petty against the more profound concerns of the outer world. Yet in their own way, these things are equally profound, for it is these small acts of self-affirmation that define the ego and ultimately the capacity to mediate the heavy planets with their destructive and transformative potentials.
”
”
Liz Greene (The Inner Planets: Building Blocks of Personal Reality (Seminars in Psychological Astrology Book 4))
“
Buildings express values, they have a sort of grammar, and rooms are the sentences.
”
”
Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1))
“
The death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord has given the world a new ultimate reality—love for God expressed as love for neighbor and enemy.
”
”
Brian Zahnd (A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace)
“
The spiritual experience of expressing a shared hostility can even be confused for the Holy Spirit … because of how it feels.
”
”
Brian Zahnd (A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace)
“
A woman under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
For the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
The human machine is the only medium by which the soul and the mind connect with the material world, and this marvelous mechanism, this temple Beautiful, should be kept in the superbest condition, for whatever mars it mars the soul's expression. M In our present system of education we are taught nearly everything except the very thing that we ought to know most about—the art of living. The schools and colleges teach scores of things that we never use directly in practical life,
”
”
Orison Swett Marden (The Joys of Living)
“
The prisoners had also turned to look at Mars. Those doing push-ups and pull-ups stopped. They wiped off their hands and moved back against the wall. And waited. Their expressions were clear. Thank God it’s not me. The news had spread fast. Mars might be getting out after nearly being put to death.
”
”
David Baldacci (The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2))
“
He couldn’t read her expression. He was afraid he’d finally done something so weird that she’d never want to be around him again. Frank Zhang: lumbering klutz, child of Mars, part-time pachyderm. Then she kissed him—a real kiss on the lips, much better than the kind of kiss she’d given Percy on the airplane.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
“
Making some of these changes may at first feel awkward or even manipulative. Many people have the idea that love means “saying it like it is.” This overly direct approach, however, does not take into account the listener’s feelings. One can still be honest and direct about feelings but express them in a way that doesn’t offend or hurt.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
The next time you worry about things like rules, relationships, and what people think about you, remember that some people are traveling to the moon and looking down at Earth like it's a marble. And soon we'll be on Mars. And this is just one planetary system out of billions of planetary systems in our one galaxy. There are trillions of galaxies. Nothing matters. Do as you wish and live freely.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
For the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d really chosen. We weren’t in each other’s lives because of any obligation to the past or convenience of the present. We had no shared history and we had no reason to spend all our time to gether. But we did. Our friendship intensified as all our friends had children – she, like me, was unconvinced about having kids. And she, like me, found herself in a relationship in her early thirties where they weren’t specifically working towards starting a family.
By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Every time there was another pregnancy announcement from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And another one!’ and she’d know what I meant.
She became the person I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, because she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink without planning it a month in advance. Our friendship made me feel liberated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sympathy or concern for her. If I could admire her decision to remain child-free, I felt encouraged to admire my own. She made me feel normal. As long as I had our friendship, I wasn’t alone and I had reason to believe I was on the right track.
We arranged to meet for dinner in Soho after work on a Friday. The waiter took our drinks order and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Martinis.
‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling water, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her uncharacteristic abstinence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m pregnant.’
I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imagine the expression on my face was particularly enthusiastic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an unwarranted but intense sense of betrayal. In a delayed reaction, I stood up and went to her side of the table to hug her, unable to find words of congratulations. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in vagaries about it ‘just being the right time’ and wouldn’t elaborate any further and give me an answer. And I needed an answer. I needed an answer more than anything that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a realization that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it.
When I woke up the next day, I realized the feeling I was experiencing was not anger or jealousy or bitterness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t really gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had disappeared and there was nothing they could do to change that. Unless I joined them in their spaces, on their schedules, with their families, I would barely see them.
And I started dreaming of another life, one completely removed from all of it. No more children’s birthday parties, no more christenings, no more barbecues in the suburbs. A life I hadn’t ever seriously contemplated before. I started dreaming of what it would be like to start all over again. Because as long as I was here in the only London I knew – middle-class London, corporate London, mid-thirties London, married London – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Good Material)
“
to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion - these are the two things that govern us. And yet, I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream - I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediævalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal - to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world takes place also. You, yourself, have had passions that made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame -
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
“
Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end.
”
”
H.G. Wells (The War of the Worlds)
“
With the intercom they could wander far apart from each other and still converse, and no one could know they were talking, while each voice hung in the other's ear. So they talked and talked. Everyone has had conversations that have been crucial in their lives: clarity of expression, quickness of feeling, attentiveness to the other's words, a belief in the reality of the other's world - of these and other elements are such conversations made, and at the same time the words themselves can be concerned with the simplest, most ordinary things:
"Look at that rock.
”
”
Kim Stanley Robinson (The Martians (Mars Trilogy, #3.5))
“
So all that took place at the hotel,” he said, “consisted of a—”
“The association,” Rachael said, “wanted to reach the bounty hunters here and in the Soviet Union. This [having sex] seemed to work…for reasons which we do not fully understand. Our limitation again, I guess.”
“I doubt if it works as often or as well as you say,” he said thickly.
“But it has with you.”
“We’ll see.”
“I already know,” Rachael said. “When I saw that expression on your face, that grief. I look for that.”
“How many times have you done this?”
“I don’t remember. Seven, eight. No, I believe it’s nine.” She—or rather it—nodded. “Yes, nine times.”
“The idea is old-fashioned,” Rick said.
Startled, Rachael said, “W-What?”
Pushing the steering wheel away from him, he put the car into a gliding decline. “Or anyhow that’s how it strikes me. I’m going to kill you,” he said. “And go on to Roy and Irmgard Baty and Pris Stratton alone.”
“That’s why you’re landing?” Apprehensively, she said, “There’s a fine; I’m the property, the legal property, of the association. I’m not an escaped android who fled here from Mars; I’m not in the same class as the others.”
“But,” he said, “if I can kill you then I can kill them.”
Her hands dived for her bulging, overstuffed, kipple-filled purse; she searched frantically, then gave up. “Goddamn this purse,” she said with ferocity. “I never can lay my hands on anything in it. Will you kill me in a way that won’t hurt? I mean, do it carefully. If I don’t fight; okay? I promise not to fight. Do you agree?”
Rick said, “I understand now why Phil Resch said what he said. He wasn’t being cynical; he had just learned too much. Going through this—I can’t blame him. It warped him.”
“But the wrong way.” She seemed more externally composed now. But still fundamentally frantic and tense. Yet, the dark fire waned; the life force oozed out of her, as he had so often witnessed before with other androids. The classic resignation. Mechanical, intellectual acceptance of that which a genuine organism—with two billion years of the pressure to live and evolve hagriding it—could never have reconciled itself to.
“I can’t stand the way you androids give up,” he said savagely.
”
”
Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
“
consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
“
I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediævalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
“
As I was completing this book, I saw news reports quoting NASA chief Charles Bolden announcing that from now on the primary mission of America’s space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Come again? Bolden said he got the word directly from the president. “He wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering.” Bolden added that the International Space Station was a kind of model for NASA’s future, since it was not just a U.S. operation but included the Russians and the Chinese. Bolden, who made these remarks in an interview with Al-Jazeera, timed them to coincide with the one-year anniversary of Obama’s own Cairo address to the Muslim world.3 Bolden’s remarks provoked consternation not only among conservatives but also among famous former astronauts Neil Armstrong and John Glenn and others involved in America’s space programs. No surprise: most people think of NASA’s job as one of landing on the moon and Mars and exploring other faraway destinations. Even some of Obama’s supporters expressed puzzlement. Sure, we are all for Islamic self-esteem, and seven or eight hundred years ago the Muslims did make a couple of important discoveries, but what on earth was Obama up to here?
”
”
Dinesh D'Souza (The Roots of Obama's Rage)
“
Dorian, like a good boy," said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. "And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame-
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
“
I had to drive through a very poor and largely Hispanic section of Miami to get to the apartment complex where Casey Martin had died. There were a lot of beautiful women on the sidewalks and at the outdoor cafés, a lot of tough guys and a lot of guys who weren’t tough but trying to look like they were. The streets were alive with what criminally passed for music nowadays, and there were smells of cooking in the air that suggested savory tastes. Small, hole-in-the-wall shops marked one end, and some more upscale stores the other. The dividing line between the two was discernible not just by the stores, but the women.
The women and even younger girls at the lower income end seemed softer, friendlier, quicker with a genuine smile. The ones walking into the trendy places were just as pretty, more expensively dressed, but more apt to express scorn than produce a spontaneous smile. The upscale women appeared to be from a different planet. For them, everything was sexist, everything a slight. They were eternal victims, even though the entire world was in their favor. The women at the poor end fell in love, watched out for their men, while the more affluent were stand-offish and demanding, making certain any man “lucky” enough to be with them lived in the right zip code, had the right amount of bling to give them, and above all, had been properly neutered. The balls of their boyfriends and husbands — sometimes they had both — were always in their handbag, somewhere between the trendy lip liner and eye shadow. A kiss from one of the poor girls was a sweet gift, filled with passion and tenderness, even if it could only last a night. A kiss from an uptown girl meant you’d checked off all her right boxes, and she needed to fulfill her duty. Girls without money were from Venus, girls with money were from Mars.
”
”
Bobby Underwood (Eight Blonde Dolls (Seth Halliday #3))
“
Mike continued to walk unhurriedly toward the crowd until he loomed up in the stereo tank in life size, as if he were in the room with his water brothers. He stopped on the grass verge in front of the hotel, a few feet from the crowd. "You called me?"
He was answered with a growl.
The sky held scattered clouds; at that instant the sun came out from behind one and a shaft of golden light hit him.
His clothes vanished. He stood before them, a golden youth, clothed only in his own beauty, beauty that made Jubal's heart ache, thinking that Michelangelo in his ancient years would have climbed down from his high scaffolding to record it for generations unborn. Mike said gently, "Look at me. I am a son of man." . . . .
"God damn you!" A half brick caught Mike in the ribs. He turned his face slightly toward his assailant. "But you yourself are God. You can damn only yourself and you can never escape yourself."
"Blasphemer!" A rock caught him just over his left eye and blood welled forth.
Mike said calmly, "In fighting me, you fight yourself... for Thou art God and I am God * . . and all that groks is God-there is no other."
More rocks hit him, from various directions; he began to bleed in several places. "Hear the Truth. You need not hate, you need not fight, you need not fear. I offer you the water of life-" Suddenly his hand held a tumbler of water, sparkling in the sunlight. "-and you may share it whenever you so will . . . and walk in peace and love and happiness together."
A rock caught the glass and shattered it. Another struck him in the mouth.
Through bruised and bleeding lips he smiled at them, looking straight into the camera with an expression of yearning tenderness on his face. Some trick of sunlight and stereo formed a golden halo back of his head. "Oh my brothers, I love you so! Drink deep. Share and grow closer without end. Thou art God."
Jubal whispered it back to him. . . .
"Lynch him! Give the bastard a nigger necktie!" A heavy-gauge shotgun blasted at close range and Mike's right arm was struck off at the elbow and fell. It floated gently down, then came to rest on the cool grasses, its hand curved open in invitation.
"Give him the other barrel, Shortie-and aim closer!" The crowd laughed and applauded. A brick smashed Mike's nose and more rocks gave him a crown of blood. "The Truth is simple but the Way of Man is hard. First you must learn to control yourself. The rest follows. Blessed is he who knows himself and commands himself, for the world is his and love and happiness and peace walk with him wherever he goes." Another shotgun blast was followed by two more shots. One shot, a forty-five slug, hit
Mike over the heart, shattering the sixth rib near the sternum and making a large wound; the buckshot and the other slug sheered through his left tibia five inches below the patella and left the fibula sticking out at an angle, broken and white against the yellow and red of the wound. Mike staggered slightly and laughed, went on talking, his words clear and unhurried. "Thou art God. Know that and the Way is opened."
"God damn it-let's stop this taking the Name of the Lord in vain!"- "Come on, men! Let's finish him!" The mob surged forward, led by one bold with a club; they were on him with rocks and fists, and then with feet as he went down. He went on talking while they kicked his ribs in and smashed his golden body, broke his bones and tore an ear loose. At last someone called out, "Back away a little so we can get the gasoline on him!"
The mob opened up a little at that waning and the camera zoomed to pick up his face and shoulders. The Man from Mars smiled at his brothers, said once more, softly and clearly, "I love you." An incautious grasshopper came whirring to a landing on the grass a few inches from his face; Mike turned his head, looked at it as it stared back at him. "Thou art God," he said happily and discorporated.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein
“
There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr Gray. All influence is immoral — immoral from the scientific point of view.'
'Why?'
'Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly — that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion — these are the two things that govern us. And yet —'
'Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy,' said the painter, deep in his work, and conscious only that a look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.
'And yet,' continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that always was so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, 'I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream — I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediævalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal — to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame—
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
“
ever. Amen. Thank God for self-help books. No wonder the business is booming. It reminds me of junior high school, where everybody was afraid of the really cool kids because they knew the latest, most potent putdowns, and were not afraid to use them. Dah! But there must be another reason that one of the best-selling books in the history of the world is Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray. Could it be that our culture is oh so eager for a quick fix? What a relief it must be for some people to think “Oh, that’s why we fight like cats and dogs, it is because he’s from Mars and I am from Venus. I thought it was just because we’re messed up in the head.” Can you imagine Calvin Consumer’s excitement and relief to get the video on “The Secret to her Sexual Satisfaction” with Dr. GraySpot, a picture chart, a big pointer, and an X marking the spot. Could that “G” be for “giggle” rather than Dr. “Graffenberg?” Perhaps we are always looking for the secret, the gold mine, the G-spot because we are afraid of the real G-word: Growth—and the energy it requires of us. I am worried that just becoming more educated or well-read is chopping at the leaves of ignorance but is not cutting at the roots. Take my own example: I used to be a lowly busboy at 12 East Restaurant in Florida. One Christmas Eve the manager fired me for eating on the job. As I slunk away I muttered under my breath, “Scrooge!” Years later, after obtaining a Masters Degree in Psychology and getting a California license to practice psychotherapy, I was fired by the clinical director of a psychiatric institute for being unorthodox. This time I knew just what to say. This time I was much more assertive and articulate. As I left I told the director “You obviously have a narcissistic pseudo-neurotic paranoia of anything that does not fit your myopic Procrustean paradigm.” Thank God for higher education. No wonder colleges are packed. What if there was a language designed not to put down or control each other, but nurture and release each other to grow? What if you could develop a consciousness of expressing your feelings and needs fully and completely without having any intention of blaming, attacking, intimidating, begging, punishing, coercing or disrespecting the other person? What if there was a language that kept us focused in the present, and prevented us from speaking like moralistic mini-gods? There is: The name of one such language is Nonviolent Communication. Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication provides a wealth of simple principles and effective techniques to maintain a laser focus on the human heart and innocent child within the other person, even when they have lost contact with that part of themselves. You know how it is when you are hurt or scared: suddenly you become cold and critical, or aloof and analytical. Would it not be wonderful if someone could see through the mask, and warmly meet your need for understanding or reassurance? What I am presenting are some tools for staying locked onto the other person’s humanness, even when they have become an alien monster. Remember that episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk was turned into a Klingon, and Bones was freaking out? (I felt sorry for Bones because I’ve had friends turn into Cling-ons too.) But then Spock, in his cool, Vulcan way, performed a mind meld to determine that James T. Kirk was trapped inside the alien form. And finally Scotty was able to put some dilithium crystals into his phaser and destroy the alien cloaking device, freeing the captain from his Klingon form. Oh, how I wish that, in my youth or childhood,
”
”
Kelly Bryson (Don't Be Nice, Be Real)
“
When confronted with a problem, a man wants to solve it while a woman often wants to talk about it first. For women, talking and then feeling heard and understood stimulates oxytocin, which allows her estrogen levels to rise and her stress to decrease. Through expressing her feelings, she is able to return to her female side, which balances her hormones and lowers her stress levels. In this way she is better able to cope with life’s inevitable external stresses.
”
”
John Gray (Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills for Today's Complex World)
“
his large, expressive hands hovering over the tiny circle of blood marring her fluffy cardigan, as though like a magician he could remove the wound and restore the woman. But he could not. That wasn’t his gift. Fortunately for Gamache he had others.
”
”
Louise Penny (Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1))
“
If we examine Lee first upon the art at which he surpassed, we find a curiously dispassionate understanding not just of the technique, but of the place of war in the life of civilized man. Napoleon too was a philosopher of battle, but his utterances are marred by cynicism. Those of Lee have always the saving grace of affirmation. Let us mount with the general the heights above Fredericksburg and hear from him one of the most searching observations ever made. It is contained in a brief remark, so innocent-seeming, yet so disturbing, expressed as he gazed upon the field of slain on that December day. "It is well this is terrible; otherwise we should grow fond of it."
What is the meaning? It is richer than a Delphic saying. Here is a poignant confession of mankind’s historic ambivalence toward the institution of war, its moral revulsion against the immense destructiveness, accompanied by a fascination with the “greatest of all games.” As long as people relish the idea of domination, there will be those who love this game. It is fatuous to say, as is being said now, that all men want peace. Men want peace part of the time, and part of the time they want war. Or, if we may shift to the single individual, part of him wants peace and another part wants war, and it is upon the resolution of this inner struggle that our prospect of general peace depends, as MacArthur so wisely observed upon the decks of the Missouri. The cliches of modern thought have virtually obscured this commonplace of human psychology, and world peace programs take into account everything but this tragic flaw in the natural man—the temptation to appeal to physical superiority. There is no political structure which knaves cannot defeat, and subtle analyses of the psyche may prove of more avail than schemes for world parliament. In contrast with the empty formulations of propagandists, Lee’s saying suggests the concrete wisdom of a parable.
”
”
Richard M. Weaver (The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver)
“
Some emotional abuse is nearly universal. I believe that everyone has been shamed to some degree by emotional abuse. The poisonous pedagogy is quite clear about the fact that emotions are weak. We are to be rational and logical and not allow ourselves to be marred by emotions. All emotions must be controlled, but anger and sexual feelings are especially to be repressed. I can't imagine many people in modern American life who were affirmed and nurtured in expressing their sexual and/or angry feelings.
”
”
John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
“
As a basic guideline: never argue. Instead discuss the pros and cons of something. Negotiate for what you want but don’t argue. It is possible to be honest, open, and even express negative feelings without arguing or fighting. Some couples fight all the time, and gradually their love dies. On the other extreme, some couples suppress their honest feelings in order to avoid conflict and not argue. As a result of suppressing their true feelings they lose touch with their loving feelings as well. One couple is having a war while the other is having a cold war. It is best for a couple to find a balance between these two extremes. By remembering we are from different planets and thus developing good communication skills, it is possible to avoid arguments without suppressing negative feelings and conflicting ideas and desires.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Sunday Times Bestsellar and definitive relationship guide (181 POCHE))
“
What are you up to now?" "I've got detention," he said with a pitiful expression. "Apparently it's not cool of me to hide nitter critters in the toilets and record people’s screams when their asses get bit. Especially when those people include Coach Mars.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Warrior Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, #5))
“
I am love,' said the King very clearly. 'If you want to see the pattern of true love, look at me, for I am the expression of the law of love on which the universe is founded. And the very first characteristic of true love, as I have manifested it, is willingness to accept all other human beings, just as they are, however blemished and marred by sin they may be, and to acknowledge oneness with them in their sin and need. To acknowledge also that every human heart needs both to love and be loved, and that herein lies the very root of the oneness of mankind. For unless you sons and daughters of men are loved and also love all others besides yourselves, you cannot become what you are destined to be, the sons and daughters of the God who is love.
”
”
Hannah Hurnard (Mountains of Spices)
“
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”
”
Jana Ann Couture Bridal
“
Perhaps the best way, then, to read the tough language in Matthew that all sin and all sinners will be burned up in the fire of God’s judgment is to understand it as a graphic expression of what is ultimately a glad, confident, and hopeful promise that nothing that mars God’s goodness will endure. There is no cancer, no killing virus, no Alzheimer’s, no plague, no child abuse, no tyranny, no cruelty, no oppression, no lynching, no placing of children in cages, no homelessness, no tragic tears, no suffocating loneliness, no torture, no death in the kingdom of heaven. God and God’s kingdom will be revealed to be all that truly exists, all-consuming, and nothing outside of it will have any reality at all. All that has destroyed and maimed and oppressed and polluted creation and the human prospect will be burned away like straw.
”
”
Thomas G. Long (Proclaiming the Parables: Preaching and Teaching the Kingdom of God)
“
Then you’ll remember the motto of John Carter of Mars: ‘I still live.’ Those three simple words express the essence of man, don’t you think? With those three words, Burroughs expressed the human condition, because as long as life exists—there is hope.
”
”
David Archer (Hit For Hire (Noah Wolf #4))
“
Lilith with Mars wants the taboo desires to be expressed immediately.
”
”
Mitta Xinindlu
“
unlike the opposition to Apollo which focused on government spending, the leftwing pushback concerned a private citizen who was using his own money to achieve a dream of settling Mars. The reaction by Sanders and Reich proved, if nothing else, that there is nothing democratic in “democratic socialism.” The sentiments expressed by the senator and the academic were very authoritarian.
”
”
Mark Whittington (Why is America Going Back to the Moon (How America went to the moon, stopped, and is returning again))
“
A woman expresses her upset feelings about “XYZ.” 2. A man explains why she shouldn’t be upset about “XYZ.” 3. She feels invalidated and becomes more upset. (She is now more upset about being invalidated than about “XYZ.”) 4. He feels her disapproval and becomes upset. He blames her for upsetting him and expects an apology before making up. 5. She apologizes and wonders what happened, or she becomes more upset and the argument escalates into a battle.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
The expression on her face should have been my first clue to just shut the hell up – but I’m Josh – master of disaster… I was making it worse by the minute but I felt that I had to explain – I had to let her know that I wasn’t a great person without her – that I had never been a nice guy. I’d always been pretty damned awful without her actually…
Josh... Kallie's Secret... White Water Series #3
”
”
Heather Mar-Gerrison
“
How many times, she reflected ruefully, she had sought to understand a wounded wild creature. But it was another matter entirely to penetrate the mystery of a human being.
Reaching Christopher’s door, she knocked softly. When there came no response, she let herself inside.
To her surprise, the room brimmed with daylight, the late August sun illuminating tiny floating dust motes by the window. The air smelled like liquor and smoke and bath soap. A portable bath occupied one corner of the room, sodden footprints tracking across the carpet.
Christopher reclined on the unmade bed, half propped on a haphazard stack of pillows, a bottle of brandy clasped negligently in his fingers. His incurious gaze moved to Beatri and held, his eyes becoming alert.
He was clad in a pair of fawn-colored trousers, only partially fastened, and…nothing more. His body was a long golden arc on the bed, lean and complexly muscled. Scars marred the sun-browned skin in places…there was a ragged triangular shape where a bayonet had pierced his shoulder, a liberal scattering of marks from shrapnel, a small circular depression on his side that must have been caused by a bullet.
Slowly Christopher levered himself upward and placed the bottle on the bedside table. Half leaning on the edge of the mattress, his bare feet braced on the floor, he regarded Beatrix without expression. The locks of his hair were still damp, darkened to antique gold. How broad his shoulders were, their sturdy slopes flowing into the powerful lines of his arms.
“Why are you here?” His voice sounded rusty from disuse.
Somehow Beatrix managed to drag her mesmerized gaze away from the glinting fleece on his chest.
“I came to return Albert,” she said. “He appeared at Ramsay House today. He says you’ve been neglecting him. And that you haven’t taken him on any walks lately.”
“Has he? I had no idea he was so loose-tongued.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
“
Pour votre question concernant la vie du Prophète, la conception la plus orthodoxe est que l’impeccabilité appartient réellement à tous les prophètes, de sorte que, si même il se trouve dans leurs actions quelque chose qui peut sembler choquant, cela même doit s’expliquer par des raisons qui dépassent le point de vue de l’humanité ordinaire (à un degré moindre, cela s’applique aussi aux actions de tous ceux qui ont atteint un certain degré d’initiation). D’un autre côté, la mission d’un rasûl, par là même qu’elle s’adresse à tous les hommes indistinctement, implique une façon d’agir où n’apparaissent pas les réalisations d’ordre ésotérique (ce qui constitue d’ailleurs une sorte de sacrifice pour celui qui est revêtu de cette mission). C’est pourquoi certains disent aussi que ce qui serait le plus intéressant au point de vue initiatique, s’il était possible de le connaître exactement, c’est la période de la vie de Mohammed antérieure à la risâlah (et ceci s’applique également à la « vie cachée » du Christ par rapport à sa « vie publique » : ces deux expressions, en elles-mêmes, s’accordent du reste tout à fait avec ce que je viens de dire et l’indiquent presque explicitement). II est d’ailleurs bien entendu que les considérations historiques n’ont pas d’intérêt en elles-mêmes, mais seulement par ce qu’elles traduisent de certaines vérités doctrinales. Enfin, on ne peut pas négliger, dans une tradition qui forme nécessairement un tout, ce qui ne concerne pas directement la réalisation métaphysique (et il y a de tels éléments dans la tradition hindoue comme dans les autres, puisqu’elle implique aussi, par exemple, une législation) ; il faut plutôt s’efforcer de le comprendre par rapport à cette réalisation, ce qui revient en somme à en rechercher le « sens intérieur ».
Lettre de René Guénon à Louis Caudron d’Amiens, Le Caire, 22 mars 1936.
”
”
René Guénon
“
Your wooden walls are far away, Yellow Hair. If you try to slip away, this Comanche will find you.”
Until that moment, the thought of swimming off hadn’t occurred to her. She shot a glance over her shoulder at the swift current. If only she had clothes…
“You do not make like a fish so good. Save this Comanche much trouble, eh?”
She thought she detected laughter in his voice, but when she looked back at him, his gaze, blue-black and piercing, was as unreadable as ever. He studied her for several endless seconds. She wondered what he was thinking and decided, from the gleam in his eye, that she didn’t want to find out.
“Your eyes say I lie when I call you my woman. This is not good. It is our bargain, eh?” He plucked a wisp of grass and ran it slowly between his fingers, watching her in a way that suggested he would soon touch her--just as slowly. “It was a promise you made for me, and now you make a lie of it? This is the way of your people, to say empty words. Penende taquoip, honey talk, eh? But it is not the way of the Comanche. If you make a lie, I will carve out your tongue and feed it to the crows.”
The breeze caught his hair, draping strands of it across his chiseled features. For an instant, the knife slash that marred his cheek was hidden, and he seemed less formidable. Her attention was drawn to his lips, full and sharply defined, yet somehow hard, perhaps because of the rigid expression he always wore. Deep crevices bracketed his mouth--laugh lines, surely. Ah, yes, she could imagine him cutting out her tongue and smiling while he did it.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
Your eyes say I lie when I call you my woman. This is not good. It is our bargain, eh?” He plucked a wisp of grass and ran it slowly between his fingers, watching her in a way that suggested he would soon touch her--just as slowly. “It was a promise you made for me, and now you make a lie of it? This is the way of your people, to say empty words. Penende taquoip, honey talk, eh? But it is not the way of the Comanche. If you make a lie, I will carve out your tongue and feed it to the crows.”
The breeze caught his hair, draping strands of it across his chiseled features. For an instant, the knife slash that marred his cheek was hidden, and he seemed less formidable. Her attention was drawn to his lips, full and sharply defined, yet somehow hard, perhaps because of the rigid expression he always wore. Deep crevices bracketed his mouth--laugh lines, surely. Ah, yes, she could imagine him cutting out her tongue and smiling while he did it.
“You do not like me too good. This is a sad thing, eh?” With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the world around them. “The sky is up, the earth is down. The sun shows its face, only to be chased away by Mother Moon. These things are for always, eh? Just as you are my woman. The song was sung long ago, and the song must come to pass. You must accept, Blue Eyes.”
Loretta yearned to break eye contact but found she couldn’t. The silken threads of his deep voice wove a spell around her. She must accept? Already he was planning to give her away to his horrible cousin. She sank lower in the water, keeping her arms crossed to hide her breasts. Could he see through the ripples?
Still studying her with the same unnerving intensity, he said, “When the wind blows, the sapling bends, the flowers lie low against the earth, the grass is flattened.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I am your wind, Blue Eyes. Bend or break.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
Heimdallr, from Norse Mythology, is present on the ancient Egyptian circular zodiac and is represented by the Ram; as the watcher and the guardian of the bridge between heaven and earth. His head measures the crossroads of the ecliptic and the vernal equinox as also expressed on the zodiac. Heimdallr was born and raised by the blood of a sacrificial boar which is portrayed on the zodiac at the exact position and right before the bridge (i.e., entrance to Asgard). The Marsian stride starts at the front leg of Capricon marking the nine realms of Asgard thereby - which are unified by the world tree: Yggdrasil. He was born by nine goddesses who turn the mill and was identified as Mars, the hopping one. He is Vindler, the turner, who is the personification of fire who twists and turns the mill.
”
”
Ibrahim Ibrahim (The Calendar of Ancient Egypt: The Temporal Mechanics of the Giza Plateau)
“
La gêne que me donnait ce manque de lien entre mon corps et la nature s'exprimait par une pudeur exagérée. Non seulement les expressions franchement dégoûtantes ne passaient pas mes lèvres mais les réalités du corps les plus anodines m'inspiraient de la honte et du dégoût. Même des mots comme "poitrine", "nu", "parties", j'avais du mal à les prononcer ; avec la pruderie victorienne héritée de mon milieu, j'évitais même de parler de "jambe" et de "pantalon". Même le mot "corps" était tabou ; même le mot désignant l'ensemble de ce qui m'épouvantait ne devait pas être prononcé. Mais la plus grande honte, je l'éprouvais devant ma propre nudité. (p. 85)
”
”
Fritz Zorn (Mars)
“
I'll go further and say she was one of the best cooks in the world! The compimentary expression, "This food will make you slap yo' Aint Emma" was apt in her case.
”
”
Mars Hill (The Moaner's Bench: A Novel)
“
the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
”
”
Anonymous
“
There is some talk in science and popular culture about colonizing other planets, such as Mars or the moon. Part of this is just human nature: we are curious, exploring creatures. The idea of taming a new frontier has a compelling, even romantic, pull, like that of the moon itself. But the idea also provides rationalization for destruction, an expression of our hope that we’ll find a way to save ourselves if we trash our planet. To this speculation, we would respond: If you want the Mars experience, go to Chile and live in a typical copper mine. There are no animals, the landscape is hostile to humans, and it would be a tremendous challenge. Or, for a moonlike effect, go to the nickel mines of Ontario. Seriously,
”
”
William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things)
“
Thus when Hiroko came up and said, “Nadia, this crescent wrench is absolutely frozen in this position,” Nadia sang to her, “That’s the only thing I’m thinking of— baby!” and took the crescent wrench and slammed it against a table like a hammer, and twiddled the dial to show Hiroko it was unstuck, and laughed at her expression. “The engineer’s solution,” she explained, and went humming into the lock, thinking how funny Hiroko was, a woman who held their whole ecosystem in her head, but couldn’t hammer a nail straight.
”
”
Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1))
“
Martians are more solution oriented. If something is working, their motto is don't change it. Their instinct is to leave it alone if it is working. "Don't fix it unless it is broken" is a common expression.
When a woman tries to improve a man, he feels she is trying to fix him. He receives the message that he is broken. She doesn't realize her caring attempts to help him may humiliate him. She mistakenly thinks she is just helping him grow.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
“
The secret to fulfilling a man lies in learning to express love through your feelings, not necessarily through your actions.
”
”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
“
Building on the Pentagon’s anthrax simulation (1999) and the intelligence agency’s “Dark Winter” (2001), Atlantic Storm (2003, 2005), Global Mercury (2003), Schwartz’s “Lockstep” Scenario Document (2010), and MARS (2017), the Gates-funded SPARS scenario war-gamed a bioterrorist attack that precipitated a global coronavirus epidemic lasting from 2025 to 2028, culminating in coercive mass vaccination of the global population. And, as Gates had promised, the preparations were analogous to “preparing for war.”191 Under the code name “SPARS Pandemic,” Gates presided over a sinister summer school for globalists, spooks, and technocrats in Baltimore. The panelists role-played strategies for co-opting the world’s most influential political institutions, subverting democratic governance, and positioning themselves as unelected rulers of the emerging authoritarian regime. They practiced techniques for ruthlessly controlling dissent, expression, and movement, and degrading civil rights, autonomy, and sovereignty. The Gates simulation focused on deploying the usual psyops retinue of propaganda, surveillance, censorship, isolation, and political and social control to manage the pandemic. The official eighty-nine-page summary is a miracle of fortune-telling—an uncannily precise month-by-month prediction of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as it actually unfolded.192 Looked at another way, when it erupted five years later, the 2020 COVID-19 contagion faithfully followed the SPARS blueprint. Practically the only thing Gates and his planners got wrong was the year. Gates’s simulation instructs public health officials and other collaborators in the global vaccine cartel exactly what to expect and how to behave during the upcoming plague. Reading through the eighty-nine pages, it’s difficult not to interpret this stunningly prescient document as a planning, signaling, and training exercise for replacing democracy with a new regimen of militarized global medical tyranny. The scenario directs participants to deploy fear-driven propaganda narratives to induce mass psychosis and to direct the public toward unquestioning obedience to the emerging social and economic order. According to the scenario narrative, a so-called “SPARS” coronavirus ignites in the United States in January 2025 (the COVID-19 pandemic began in January 2020). As the WHO declares a global emergency, the federal government contracts a fictional firm that resembles Moderna. Consistent with Gates’s seeming preference for diabolical cognomens, the firm is dubbed “CynBio” (Sin-Bio) to develop an innovative vaccine using new “plug-and-play” technology. In the scenario, and now in real life, Federal health officials invoke the PREP Act to provide vaccine makers liability protection.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
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Given the opportunity to prove his potential, a man expresses his best self. Only when he feels he cannot succeed does he regress back to his old selfish ways.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
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Wanting to improve someone feels like love but it is not. Changing ourselves to do what works instead of trying to change our partner, letting go of judgment, and finding forgiveness are the true expressions of love.
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John Gray (Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills for Today's Complex World)
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Remarkable as Mar-A-Lago was, the estate had created strains in Marjorie's marriage, which, coupled with her plea to buy the Birdseye company, were leading E.F. to disapprove of his wife's spending habits.
When acquaintances expressed their their fascination with his new Palm Beach home, the stockbroker often shrugged cynically. 'You know Marjorie said she was going to built a little cottage by the sea. Look what we got!" t h
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Nancy Rubin Stuart (American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post)
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When acquaintances expressed their fascination with his new Palm Beach home {Mar-A-Lago} , the stockbroker often shrugged cynically. 'You know Marjorie said she as going to build a little cottage by the sea. Look what we got!
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Nancy Rubin Stuart (American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post)
“
Missions to Mars are basically sandbox play to these life-forms. And wouldn’t you know, they came here with the express purpose of neutralizing a barbaric species before more harmful space exploration practices could be established. Pretty much the Space Age equivalent of “Hey kid, step away from the hot stove before you burn your mitts off!
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Gemma Voss (The Alien's Handler (Virgin Warriors of Kar’Kal #1))
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They do not wear uniforms like the Martians (to reveal their competence). On the contrary, they enjoy wearing a different outfit every day, according to how they are feeling. Personal expression, especially of their feelings, is very important. They may even change outfits several times a day as their mood changes.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief she is gorgeous. Because you’re a woman, people will force their thinking, boundaries on you. They’ll tell you how to dress, how to behave, who you can meet and where you can go; don’t live in the shadows of people’s judgment. Make your own choices in the light of your wisdom.
The way you dress is an expression of your personality; there’s no need to wear like everyone else. It’s much more fun to create your look!
While a wedding on the beach may sound like a unique concept, it has been happening on various beaches of the world. A lot of brides are opting for exotic beach locations for their weddings instead of a traditional church wedding. To pick the right bridal attire for a particular wedding, you will need to consider many different elements. This can depend on the location, season and local practices or customs, as well as the type of beach itself, can be an important factor when selecting beach wedding dresses.
Choosing from all the different beach wedding dresses can be one of the most fun things to choose from. Do you want to have an elegant and formal wedding, a casual and simple wedding, or a semi-formal or semi-casual wedding? Whichever you prefer, you can find the right style of dress for it.
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Jana Ann Bridal Couture San Diego Wedding Dress Styles
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The moralistic critic thinks that the most important thing about literature is its moral or political message or impact. The aesthetist thinks that the moral or political content of a work of literature or of art has little or nothing to do with either the value of the work or the pleasure to be derived from it. The aesthetist's slogan is Wilde's dictum, in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, that 'there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all'. In other words, immersion in literature doesn't make us better citizens or better people... conversely, a work of literature is not maimed or even marred by expressing odious moral views, and by the same token a mediocre work of literature is not redeemed by expressing moral views of which we approve.
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Richard Posner
“
the white tents.
17. Two views of The Wild West in Paris, igo5.
Colonel Cody, a Hawkeye by birth, is personally lionized by the Parisians, and his unique exhibition, so full of historical and dramatic interest, made a wonderful impression upon the susceptible French public.
The twenty lessons I took in French, at the Berlitz School of Languages, London, only gave me a faint idea of what the language was like, but as I was required to make my lectures and announcements in French, I had my speeches translated, and was coached in their delivery by Monsieur Corthesy, editeur, le journal de Londres. Well, I got along pretty fair, considering that I did not know the meaning of half the words I was saying. Anyway it amused them, so I was satisfied. I honestly believe that more people came in the side show in Paris to hear and laugh at my "rotten" French than anything else, and when I found that a certain word or expression excited their risibilities, I never changed it. I can look back now and see where some of my own literal translations were very funny.
Colonel Cody's exhibition is unique in many ways, and might justly be termed a polyglot school, no less than twelve distinct languages being spoken in the camp, viz.: Japanese, Russian, French, Arabic, Greek, Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish, Holland, Flemish, Chinese, Sioux and English. Being in such close contact every day, we were bound to get some idea of each other's tongue, and all acquire a fair idea of English. Colonel Cody is, therefore, entitled to considerable credit for disseminating English, and thus preserving the entente cordiale between nations.
18. Entrance to the Wild West, Champs de Mars, Paris, Igo5.
The first place of public interest that we visited in Paris was the Jardin des Plantes (botanical and zoological garden) and le Musee d'Histoire Naturelle. The zoological collection would suffer in comparison with several in America I might mention, but the Natural History Museum is very complete, and is, to my notion, the most artistically arranged of any museum I have visited.
Le Palais du Trocadero, which was in sight of our grounds and facing the
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Charles Eldridge Griffin (Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill)
“
Similarly, when a man is in love he is motivated to be the best he can be in order to serve others. When his heart is open, he feels so confident in himself that he is capable of making major changes. Given the opportunity to prove his potential, he expresses his best self.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
So it was with the various eccentrics she discovered in the next years. Some she went home with, some she didn't; some she photographed, others she just talked to, but everyone impressed her. Like the irate lady who appeared to Diane one night pulling a kiddy's red express wagon trimmed with bells and filled with cats in fancy hats and dresses. Like the man in Brooklyn who called himself the Mystic Barber who teleported himself to Mars and said he was dead and wore a copper band around his forehead with antennae on it to receive instructions from the Martians. Or the lady in the Bronx who trained herself to eat and sleep underwater or the black who carried a rose and noose around with him at all times, or the person who invented a noiseless soup spoon, or the man from New Jersey who'd collected string for twenty years, winding it into a ball that was now five feet in diameter, sitting monstrous and splendid in his living room.
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Patricia Bosworth (Diane Arbus: A Biography)
“
Oh no, they are very well supported empirically, they are very precise, very accurate.” “Both precise and accurate?” “Well, what, they’re the same, no?” “No. In estimates of a value, accuracy means how far away you are from the true value. Precision refers to the window size of the estimate. A hundred plus or minus fifty isn’t very precise. But if your estimate is a hundred plus or minus fifty, and the true value is a hundred and one, it’s quite accurate, while still being not very precise. Often true values aren’t really determinable, of course.” Michel had a curious expression on his face. “You’re a very accurate person, Sax.” “It’s just statistics,” Sax said defensively. “Every once in a while language allows you to say things precisely.
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Kim Stanley Robinson (Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy, #3))
“
Yes. More about that later. Just let me make it clear that an interest in physics doesn’t make me a physicist. Even if I were, I couldn’t explain quantum mechanics in an hour or a year. Some say quantum theory is so weird that no one can fully understand all its implications. Some things proven in quantum experiments seem to defy common sense, and I’ll lay out a few for you, just to give you the flavor. First, on the subatomic level, effect sometimes comes before cause. In other words, an event can happen before the reason for it ever occurs. Equally odd…in an experiment with a human observer, subatomic particles behave differently from the way they behave when the experiment is unobserved while in progress and the results are examined only after the fact—which might suggest that human will, even subconsciously expressed, shapes reality.” He was simplifying and combining concepts, but he knew no other way to quickly give them a feel for the wonder, the enigma, the sheer spookiness of the world revealed by quantum mechanics. “And how about this,” he continued. “Every point in the universe is directly connected to every other point, regardless of distance, so any point on Mars is, in some mysterious way, as close to me as is any of you. Which means it’s possible for information—and objects, even people—to move instantly between here and London without wires or microwave transmission. In fact, between here and a distant star, instantly. We just haven’t figured out how to make it happen. Indeed, on a deep structural level, every point in the universe is the same point. This interconnectedness is so complete that a great flock of birds taking flight in Tokyo, disturbing the air with their wings, contributes to weather changes in Chicago.
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Dean Koontz (From the Corner of His Eye)
“
The four magic words to support a man are “It’s not your fault.” When a woman is expressing her upset feelings she can support a man by pausing occasionally to encourage him by saying “I really appreciate your listening, and if this sounds as if I’m saying it’s your fault, that’s not what I mean. It’s not your fault.
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John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
“
Rava approached Steldor and removed a dagger from a sheath at her hip. With her left hand, she smoothed the collar of his white shirt, then yanked the fabric away from his chest, slicing through it in a single motion. Spying the silver wolf’s head talisman that he always wore, she seized it, ripping it free of his neck.
“Whether for good luck or good fortune, you’ll have no need of this,” she sneered, dropping the pendant into a pouch that hung from her belt.
“I’m sorry it’s not strong enough to cover your stench,” he icily replied, for the mixture inside the talisman was the source of his rich, masculine scent.
Rava stared at Steldor, then stalked around him to tear the remnants of his shirt from his back, trying without success to strip him of his pride. She perused his muscular torso, and when she faced him once more, her eyes came to rest on the scar beneath his rib cage--the one that marked the life-threatening wound given to him by a Cokyrian blade--and placed the tip of the dagger she still held against it.
“Only slightly marred.” She traced the knife’s point along the jagged white line, leaving a trail of red. “I’ll see what I can do to change that.”
She tucked the weapon back into its sheath and gave a nod to the soldiers who had brought Steldor out of the Bastion. As they tied his wrists with rope, she went to the woman who had brought the box and lifted its lid. With a satisfied chuckle, she removed a whip more fearsome than any I had ever seen, cradling it like a mother would an infant, and the gathered throng fell silent. It was indeed rawhide, but uncoiled it reached four feet in length before meeting a silver ring, on the other end of which another two feet of metal-studded leather waited to strike. I looked to Narian and Cannan, and knew by both of their expressions that this was not what they had expected. Indeed, Rava purposefully made eye contact with Narian, her demeanor haughty, before returning her attention to her prey.
“On your knees,” Rava growled, dangling the whip in front of Steldor. He obeyed, his eyes never leaving her face, continuing to radiate strength and insolence.
“How can a flag be of consequence in a dead kingdom?” she taunted. “It is cloth. It is meaningless. And it can be burned.”
She ticked a finger for one of the many soldiers around us to come forward, and I recognized Saadi. He extended our rolled Hytanican flag, and Rava took it, letting it unfurl until the end touched the ground. She held out her other hand and Saadi passed her a lit torch, which she touched to the banner of my homeland, letting flames consume it. The courtyard’s white stone walkway would now and forever be scorched.
Steldor’s upper lip lifted away from his teeth, but aside from this snarl, he showed no reaction.
“Tell me, does it seem worth it to you to suffer this punishment for a rag?”
“Without question,” Steldor forcefully answered, and cheers rolled like thunder through the Hytanicans who had gathered to watch, sending chills down my spine.
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Cayla Kluver (Sacrifice (Legacy, #3))
“
dam·i·an·a n. a small shrub native to Mexico whose leaves are used in herbal medicine and in the production of a liqueur. It is reputed to possess aphrodisiac qualities. Turnera diffusa, family Turneraceae. American Spanish. Dam·i·et·ta the eastern branch of the Nile delta. Arabic name DUMYAT. a port at the mouth of this delta; pop. 113,000. Linked entries: DUMYAT da·min·o·zide n. a growth retardant sprayed on vegetables and fruit, esp. apples, to enhance the quality of the crop. In the U.S., the application of daminozide is now restricted to ornamental plants due to the potential health risks of consuming the chemical. Chem. formula: C6H12N2O3. dam·mar (also dam·ar) n. resin obtained from any of a number of tropical and mainly Indo-Malaysian trees, used to make varnish. The resin is obtained from trees in the families Araucariaceae (genus Agathis), Dipterocarpaceae (genera Hopea, Shorea, and Vatica), and Burseraceae (genus Canarium). late 17th cent.: from Malay damar 'resin'. dam·mit exclam. used to express anger and frustration. mid 19th cent.: alteration of damn it. damn v. [trans.] (in Christian belief) (of God) condemn (a person) to suffer eternal punishment in hell:
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Oxford University Press (The New Oxford American Dictionary)
“
Half the ideas in this book are probably wrong. The history of human science is not encouraging. Galton's eugenics, Freud's unconscious, Durkheim's sociology, Mead's culture-driven anthropology, Skinner’s behaviorism, Piaget's early learning, and Wilson’s sociobiology all appear in retrospect to be riddled with errors and false perspectives. No doubt the Red Queen's approach is just another chapter in this marred tale. No doubt its politicization and the vested interests ranged against it will do as much damage as was done to previous attempts to understand human nature. The Western cultural revolution that calls itself political correctness will no doubt stifle inquiries it does not like, such as those into the mental differences between men and women. I sometimes feel that we are fated never to understand ourselves because part of our nature is to turn every inquiry into an expression of our own nature: ambitious, illogical, manipulative, and religious. "Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the Press," said David Hume.
But then I remember how much progress we have made since Hume and how much nearer to the goal of a complete understanding of human nature we are than ever before. We will never quite reach that goal, and it would perhaps be better if we never did. But as long as we can keep asking why, we have a noble purpose.
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Matt Ridley (The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature)
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in certain senses the transnationals were expressions of these nations—extensions of their power into the rest of the world, in a way that reminded Sax of what little he knew of the imperial and colonial systems that had preceded them. Frank had said something like that: colonialism had never died, he used to declare, it just changed names and hired local cops. We’re all colonies of the transnats.
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Kim Stanley Robinson (Green Mars (Mars Trilogy, #2))
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I was actually just looking for a place to get a little rest.” For a second, the smile dropped from his face, and an expression passed across it that Cass couldn’t identify.
“Sleep in a graveyard?” Cass frowned. “You can’t be serious.” Again Cass felt certain he was lying to her. Could he have had something to do with the body stashed in the contessa’s family tomb? Cass didn’t think so. He was a bit too relaxed for having just killed a woman. Behind him, in the darkness, Cass again thought she saw movement. Her breath caught in her throat, but it was just one of the stray cats, darting out in front of a crypt.
If Falco noticed her look of alarm, he didn’t comment on it. “Why not? Normally it’s quiet,” he said, grinning at Cass. “No wild women running about. My roommate and I were drinking at Il Mar e la Spada and got into a fight as usual. Tonight I decided to avoid the inevitable thrashing.” He coughed. “His, not mine.”
Il Mar e la Spada. San Domenico’s finest--and only--taverna. Cass had never been inside the decrepit old place.
“Come on,” Falco said. “I’ll see you safely home to your fancy sheets. I’d say you need your beauty sleep, but it looks like you’ve been getting plenty.” He took Cass’s hand in one of his own, his warm touch like a bolt of lightning, causing her to jump.
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Fiona Paul (Venom (Secrets of the Eternal Rose, #1))
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There were hours built in where you had to hear someone express feelings about something that didn’t seem important, and you nodded and pretended that it was. You had to mask your own ambivalence and pretend to be in love one hundred percent of the time, and he’d rather swim in a lake of hellfire.
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Rachel Kushner (The Mars Room)
“
The catastrophe of church as vassal to the state would find its most grotesque expression in the medieval crusades when, under the banner of the cross, Christians killed in the name of Christ. The crusades are perhaps the most egregious example of how distorted Christianity can become when we separate Christ from his ideas. Yet we continue to do this—we worship Jesus as Savior while dismissing his ideas about peace. For seventeen centuries Christianity has offered a gospel where we can accept Jesus as our personal Savior while largely ignoring his ideas about peace, violence, and human society. We have embraced a privatized, postmortem gospel that stresses Jesus dying for our sins but at the same time ignores his political ideas. This leaves us free to run the world the way it has always been run: by the power of the sword.
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Brian Zahnd (A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace)
“
Under pressure from the ideology of empire, concepts like freedom and truth gain radically different meanings than those intended by Christ. Freedom becomes a euphemism for vanquishing (instead of loving) enemies; truth finds its ultimate form in the will to power (expressed in the willingness to kill). This is a long way from the ideas of peace, love, and forgiveness set forth by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
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Brian Zahnd (A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace)
“
He occasionally missed Simone, but every time, right after feeling a desire to see her again, he was always relieved not to have to deal with her. If she could just appear at certain exact moments - when he was horny, or needed someone to talk to - that would have worked out fine, but people were not like that. There were hours built in where you had to hear someone express feelings about something that didn't seem important, and you nodded and pretended that it was. You had to mask your own ambivalence and pretend to be in love one hundred percent of the time, and he'd rather swim in a lake of hellfire.
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Rachel Kushner (The Mars Room)
“
Emma had always considered herself to be possessed of a few fortunate qualities, offset by the same number of drawbacks. She was brave, but when someone raised a threatening hand to her, that calm, faintly contemptuous expression on her face usually made the punishment far worse. She was strong, which made her able to withstand greater pain, both physical and emotional, whereas a weaker soul might dissolve into tears that would stop the torment. She considered herself to be passably pretty, though not quite in the common style, since she was built on large lines, but her height and her quiet life kept overeager swains at bay. Her face was lovely enough, yet her pale skin was marred by an unfortunate arrangement of freckles, and her brown eyes, pretty though they were, were alarmingly nearsighted. And there was the problem of her most unfortunate shade of hair. She would have given anything to have hair a plain, mousy brown, rather than the flame red she'd been born with. Miriam called her hair devil's silk.
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Anne Stuart (To Love a Dark Lord)
“
Heheh. The old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. It's ALWAYS funny." The kid gave a confused giggle as Sans tucked his hand back into his pocket. "Anyways, you're a human, right? That's hilarious. I'm Sans. Sans the Skeleton. I'm actually supposed to be on watch for humans right now. But…y'know…" Sans shrugged, "I don't really care about capturing anybody. Now my brother, Papyrus, he's a human-hunting FANATIC." Motion over the kid's head drew Sans's attention briefly and his face lit up. He'd know that silhouette anywhere, even from this distance through the light fog. "Hey, actually, I think that's him over there." He focused back on the kid, catching the tail end of their rotation to see what he was looking at. "I have an idea." The kid looked back at him. "Go through this gate thingy." The kid glanced at the gate, worry marring their expression. Sans nodded. "Yeah, go right through. My bro made the bars too wide to stop anyone." It was a breath, a moment that allowed Sans to watch as the kid's worry turned into determination, before the kid turned right around and walked through the massive structure's posts. Sans kept pace with them, following them through to the other side and then some. Surprisingly enough, the oddly-shaped lamp that had always been next to his station was suddenly conveniently-shaped and very useful, especially with his brother heading their way. "Quick, behind that conveniently-shaped lamp.
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Sammy Sabu (Undertale Novel: Othertale)
“
Look, it’s not like I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with my bro, but—” “Oh ho ho ho! You are quite the joker, Alice. My love for Alexander is pure and innocent. Yes, as one who is known as the Queen of Purity, the love that I have for your brother can only be pure in return. Please do not mistake it for something as vile as obsession. Such terms more aptly describe my brother.” “Well, I can’t deny you on that point.” Jameson de Truante was unpleasant at best, an obsessive-compulsive freak at worst, and a narcissistic loser with an ego the size of Mars. Nobody liked him. Not really anyway. People just treated him nicely because he was rich. “Back to my original topic,” Jasmine started. Alice wanted to facepalm, but that would require effort. “Could we please change the subject? Listening to how my best friend wants to bang my older brother is troublesome.” “W-wha—I do not want to ‘bang’ Alexander! I thought I told you, my love for him is—” “Pure. Yes, yes. I know. Your love is so pure. Is that why you have a naked body pillow of my brother at home?” Jasmine nearly fell out of her seat. Her horrified expression was a sight to behold. “H-how did you know about that?” “I didn’t,” Alice said, feeling a jolt course through her. Knowing that her friend really did have a body pillow with her brother on it creeped her out.
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Brandon Varnell (A Most Unlikely Hero, Vol. 2 (A Most Unlikely Hero, #2))
“
Indeed, the media continually asks the question, "Can men and women really be just friends?" In the end, we have this situation consisting of men who don’t feel they can express emotion outside of a sexual setting, and women who understand that you can. Therefore we set men up to believe that any form of emotion or display of friendship is automatically sexual. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and this generally results in a stranger paying to be inside my Uranus. That was a terrible joke. You’re welcome.
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Rayne Constantine (Pizza, Pincushions and Playing it Straight)
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The slanting rays of the autumn sun,
the coldness of spring water,
the towering trees,
the birds,
the aquatic creatures,
the reptiles, and the flow of life!
In a moment,
I surrendered myself
to the icy water that burned to the bone!
I loved the cold, but feared it at the same time.
When the air is cold,
when your being is frozen,
you will experience a kind of coma that enforces justice.
When in life,
pleasure has been withheld from you,
the cold also takes away the joy of expressing your pain.
I looked at the sky,
my wandering mind and free spirit
fled to the Arctic and Antarctic!
It’s cold and frozen there too.
Always cold, and sometimes dark for long periods!
I wanted to surrender my whole being to the frost,
to let complete suppression and endless cold
dominate me!
I was overwhelmed.
If awareness is a match,
then doctrines, religions, every group, sect, country, and ideology,
are other matches to ignite hell for you!
Awareness, spirituality, humanity, or simply put, absolute perfection and beauty,
I imagine as being seven layers deep in hell,
while compounded ignorance feels like a clear and moderate sky.
The middle ground wasn’t for me,
so I found the only solution
was to seal hell and bury it
under thousands upon thousands of icy stones!
At that moment, as my body shivered in the spring water,
my soul hovered around the Arctic and Antarctic.
Ah, another spark,
another thought of winter creeping into my mind!
My mind said, the Arctic and Antarctic, over time,
through the sun’s rays or human filth, will eventually fall and melt,
what if someone arrives with unconditional love
and pulls you back to that same hell?
I was tired of empty words and impossible thoughts, but my mind was right!
I remembered the sky,
the sky always holds an answer!
Mars!
That was it,
Mars!
Mars,
which billions of years ago was a cradle of life!
What did it do?
It lost its atmosphere due to its cold core,
and the sun’s kindness wiped life away into space.
The remaining water froze somewhere inside it,
and never flowed again.
Oh, my Mars,
you are my role model.
First, I must destroy awareness and render it useless,
then I’ll seek out love to cleanse what remains of my emotions and let it go.
But Mars,
what should I do with the flowing waters of love
that will freeze inside me?
What if one day a madman from nowhere comes and gets the idea
to revive me, seeking refuge in me?
#Arash_Ghadir #ArashGhadir
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”
Arash_Ghadir
“
Soul," ey muses, "...an intriguing illusion created largely by the unconscious and unintentional behaviors of terran animals including humans, of posture, facial expressions, and voice inflection reinforced by physiological effects like pupil dilation and eye activity, healthy skin color, breathing and so on.
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Russell Klyford (Emergent Mars)
“
When the Martians and Venusians first got together, they encountered many of the problems with relationships we have today. Because they recognized that they were different, they were able to solve these problems. One of the secrets of their success was good communication. Ironically, they communicated well because they spoke different languages. When they had problems, they would just go to a translator for assistance. Everyone knew that people from Mars and people from Venus spoke different languages, so when there was a conflict they didn’t start judging or fighting but instead pulled out their phrase dictionaries to understand each other more fully. If that didn’t work they went to a translator for help. The Martian and Venusian languages had the same words, but the way they were used gave different meanings. You see, the Martian and Venusian languages had the same words, but the way they were used gave different meanings. Their expressions were similar, but they had different connotations or emotional emphasis. Misinterpreting each other was very easy. So when communication problems emerged, they assumed it was just one of those expected misunderstandings and that with a little assistance they would surely understand each other. They experienced a trust and acceptance that we rarely experience today.
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”
John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex)
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Suffering is something that we all face at one point or another. It may be worse for some than others, but all of us will experience suffering of some kind in our lives. “God is not exempt either. There is no better example of suffering than Christ’s passion. When we consider what He went through, we must acknowledge that God understands what it is to suffer. “The suffering that Christ endured was more terrible than words can describe. After an endless night of mock trials, with beatings and merciless scourging, ‘His visage was so marred, more than any man, that many were astonished,’ as we read in Isaiah 52:14. The suffering that Jesus endured was so severe that even Heaven’s angels and God the Father looked away. “No other moment at Calvary was so full of agony as that in which his cry rent the air - ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ At that moment, physical pain was united with a spiritual agony that surpassed all expression. No man or woman can enter into the full meaning of those words. Sometimes, we think we could cry, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ Sometimes clouds and sorrow eclipse the brightness of our Father’s smile, yet we remember that God never does really forsake us. But in Christ’s case, it was a real forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father’s love, but the real turning away of God’s face from his Son, when even the sun refused to give its light, who can calculate how deep was the agony that it caused him? “It was unfathomable Suffering... “Yet, scripture tells us that He endured it ‘For the Joy set before Him.’ His terrible pain was not pointless. He endured the cross, despising its shame, for the joy set before Him.1’ “The natural question is, what joy could be worth that much suffering? The answer is more incredible than mankind could have dared to imagine. “It was in Christ’s sacrifice that all of Creation received a second chance. In His atoning death, Jesus became the ‘author and perfecter of our faith.’ In His agony, untold millions found the fountainhead of joy. By that one defining act, all of eternity was forever changed. “As terrible as that day was, it was nonetheless good. It was the day that accomplished the redemption of mankind, the end of sin’s terrible power, and, in His resurrection three days later, the defeat of death!
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D. I. Hennessey (AN UNEXPECTED HOUR: Within & Without Time Book 7)