Nap Time Quotes

I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.

But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few months of one's life, is it so awful to travel through time with no greater ambition than to find the next lovely meal? Or to learn how to speak a language for no higher purpose than that it pleases your ear to hear it? Or to nap in a garden, in a patch of sunlight, in the middle of the day, right next to your favourite fountain? And then to do it again the next day?

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger. - T-SHIRT

What do you think they're going to do to us when they find us guilty?" she says after a few minutes of silence have passed. "Honestly?" "Does now seem like the time for honesty?" I look at her from the corner of my eye. "I think they're going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.

Thank God. Now maybe he'll stop acting like a cranky toddler that skipped nap time.

I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond! I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive. Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. I’m on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I’ve got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial! I’ve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up. You can’t dumb me down because I’m tireless and I’m wireless, I’m an alpha male on beta-blockers. I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! I’m a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I’ve got a love-child that sends me hate mail. But, I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant. I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the “F” word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore--no soft porn. I bought a microwave at a mini-mall; I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. I’m toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. I’ve been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and, I have an unlimited broadband capacity. I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal. Lean and mean! Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. I’ve got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. I’m hangin in, there ain’t no doubt and I’m hangin tough, over and out!

I only date college guys.” “You don’t know any college guys,” Kami pointed out. Angela’s gaze went to Kami, and she smiled. “Which leaves me with more time for napping.

I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.

Temperament, you'll find, is highly dependent on time of day, weather, frequency of naps, and whether one has had enough to eat.

When you can't figure out what to do, it's time for a nap.

You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you’d given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn’t know the outcome for a long time.

I’m gonna take a nap, Heaven,” he said, wanting away from her to clear his head. He didn’t like feeling uncomfortable in his house. “Haven,” she corrected him as he started to walk away. “I know,” he said. “I kinda like Heaven though.” She turned to him, and their eyes met for the first time since he’d walked into the room. “Me, too.

Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary. They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house. They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels and savour it to the full until a butterfly or falling leaf diverts their attention. They don't waste energy counting the number of calories they've consumed or the hours they've frittered away sunbathing. Cats don't beat themselves up about not working hard enough. They don't get up and go, they sit down and stay. For them, lethargy is an art form. From their vantage points on top of fences and window ledges, they see the treadmills of human obligations for what they are - a meaningless waste of nap time.

The War Has Been Declared. Your Ally Been Ensnared. It Is Now Or It Is Never. Break The Code Or Die Forever. Time Is Running Out Running Out Running Out To the Warrior Give My Blade By His Hand Your Fate Is Made But Do Not Forget the Ticking Or the Clicking, Clicking, Clicking While a Rat's Tongue May Be Flicking With Its Feet It Does the Tricking For the Paw and Not the Jaw Makes the Code of Claw Time Is Standing Still Standing Still Standing Still Since the Princess Is the Key To Unlock the Treachery She Cannot Avoid the Matching or the Scratching, Scratching, Scratching When a Secret Plot is Hatching In the Naming Is the Catching What She Saw, It Is the Flaw Of the Code of Claw Time is Turning Back Turning Back Turning Back When the Monster's Blood Is Spilled When the Warrior Has Been Killed You Must Not Ingore the Rapping Or the Tapping, Tapping, Tapping If the Gnawers Find you Napping You Will Rot While They Are Mapping Out the Law of Those Who Gnaw In the Code of Claw

Once upon a time, Sleeping Beauty decided to take a nap from which she would never wake up.

Because death is fucking predictable... but life has science experiments and free time and surprise naps and who knows what comes next?

coffee-then-nap combination known as the “nappuccino.

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

I used to love being alone. Lying in my bed as I read or daydreamed, taking walks, listening to music on the bus or subway, napping, all of these were my favourite times of the day. But for the past two weeks I've felt inundated by a strange feeling called 'boredom'.

I didn't know love could leave the lights on all the time. Do you know what I mean?" "Not exactly." "I thought it took more naps. Or blinked. I didn't know it could just go on and on and like this without falling off an edge. Like pi." "What kind of pie?" "No, pi..." "Lincoln... "Lincoln? Are you asleep? "I didn't know someone could love me like this," she said. "Could love me and love me and love without...needing space." "There's no air in space.

When you’re late in a fairy tale, people wind up dead. And not true-love’s-kiss, glass-coffin-nap-time dead. Really dead, the kind of dead you don’t recover from.

Dear teenagers, complaining about life is like a toddler complaining about nap time. You’ve only seen the tip of the monster’s dick. Just fucking wait!

Mealtime "A mousie squealing in a trap Woke me from my morning nap. Wasn't he so very sweet To tell me it was time to eat?" (From A CAT'S GARDEN OF VERSES)

This imaginary gift is a journey for your imagination. I send you... A luxury train ride. On this train are all the inspiring people you've ever wanted to meet or talk to. You glide from car to car, sitting or lying down on velvet lounge chairs, listening and asking questions. There is also a voluminous library on the train, with every book you've ever wanted to read or look at. Kind people bring you delicious tidbits to eat and nourishing liquids to drink. If you take a nap, time stands still until you return so you never miss anything. You receive a large journal filled with photographs, drawings and descriptions of your journey to take with you when you leave. You realize that you can board this train at any time.

There is always time for a nap.

I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

I don't feel old. I don't feel anything till noon. That's when it's time for my nap.

Every time I opened my mouth, flame licked up my throat. I could have razed vil­lages, kid­napped princesses.

coffee, followed by a nap of ten to twenty minutes, is the ideal technique

One of those times," he said, "I think I'd take a nap.

Time with a friend was as refreshing as a nap.

Ça va. Nap time is over.

Suddenly I realized she was asleep. Exhausted by her flight she had fallen asleep against my shoulder as so many times, in taxis, in buses, on a park-seat. I sat still and let her be. There was nothing to disturb her in the dark church. The candles napped around the virgin, and there was nobody else there. The slowly growing pain in my upper arm where her weight lay was the greatest pleasure I had ever known.

On a perfect day in your perfect little world (and it's always perfect) there is breakfast time, playtime, lunchtime, nap time, snack time, dinnertime, bath time, story time, and bedtime. There is time for everything when you are the timekeeper.

Consciousness is that annoying time between naps.

Do I love him? Yes. Is he perfect? No. Am I? No. Will I leave him? No. Okay, that’s resolved. Time for a nap.

This best time to Nap is ... after the one before.

Picture yourself when you were five. in fact, dig out a photo of little you at that time and tape it to your mirror. How would you treat her, love her, feed her? How would you nurture her if you were the mother of little you? I bet you would protect her fiercely while giving her space to spread her itty-bitty wings. she’d get naps, healthy food, imagination time, and adventures into the wild. If playground bullies hurt her feelings, you’d hug her tears away and give her perspective. When tantrums or meltdowns turned her into a poltergeist, you’d demand a loving time-out in the naughty chair. From this day forward I want you to extend that same compassion to your adult self.

Listen my hatchling, for now you shall hear Of the only seven slayers a dragon must fear. First beware Pride, lest belief in one’s might Has you discount the foeman who is braving your sight. Never Envy other dragons their wealth, power, or home For dark plots and plans will bring death to your own. Your Wrath shouldn’t win, when spears strike your scale Anger kills cunning, which you will need to prevail. A dragon must rest, but Sloth you should dread Else long years of napping let assassins to your bed. ‘Greed is good,’ or so foolish dragons will say Until piles of treasure bring killing thieves where they lay. Hungry is your body, and at times you must feed But Gluttony makes fat dragons, who can’t fly at their need. A hot Lust for glory, gems, gold, or mates Leads reckless young drakes to the blackest of fates. So take heed of this wisdom, precious hatchling of mine, And the long years of dragonhood are sure to be thine.

Like all fairy tales, the Story of Sleeping Beauty begins with 'Once upon a time,' and continues with a foolish young princess who makes a witch very angry, and then takes a nap until her boyfriend wakes her up with a kiss and insists on getting married, at which point the story ends with the phrase 'happily ever after,

Napping is divine, but I no longer have all the time in the world.

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flied in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by night fall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, noting to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.

Maddox held Ashlyn for several hours as she napped, hopefully reviving body and soul. Time was his enemy, midnight fast sneaking up on him, but he didn't wake her

You veriest varlet.” Ashbury lowered his mangled face to within an inch of Chase’s nose. “This. Is. Nap. Time.” Chase was nonplussed. “What?” The duke rolled aside, resting on his elbow as he worked for breath. “My infant son is currently upstairs, sleeping for the first time in nineteen hours. The only thing keeping me from disemboweling you here in the entrance hall, you cream-faced rooting hog, is that you’d probably wake him with all your sniveling and sobbing for mercy.” “Oh.” Somewhere upstairs, a thin wail pierced the silence. Ashbury closed his eyes. “I hate you.

Your personal history of pain, by the time you reached the age of forty, was supposedto have been folded thoroughly into the batter of the self, so that you barely needed to acknowledge it anymore.

Some people are good at being in love. Some people are good at love. Two very different things, I think. Being in love is the romantic part—sex all the time, midday naps in the sheets, the jokes, the laughs, the fun, long conversations with no pauses, overwhelming separation anxiety … Just the best sides of both people, you know? But love begins when the excitement of being in love starts to fade: the stress of life sets in, the butterflies disappear, the sex becomes a chore, the tears, the sadness, the arguments, the cattiness … The worst parts of both people. But if you still want that person by your side through all of those things … that’s when you know—that’s when you know you’re good at love.

He lifted the slice of cake and bit into it and turned the page. The old musty album with its foxed and crumbling paper seemed to breathe a reek of the vault, turning up one by one these dead faces with their wan and loveless gaze out toward the spinning world, masks of incertitude before the cold glass eye of the camera or recoiling before this celluloid immortality or faces simply staggered into gaga by the sheer velocity of time. Old distaff kin coughed up out of the vortex, thin and cracked and macled and a bit redundant. The landscapes, old backdrops, redundant too, recurring unchanged as if they inhabited another medium than the dry pilgrims shored up on them. Blind moil in the earth's nap cast up in an eyeblink between becoming and done. I am, I am. An artifact of prior races.

When you’re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out—this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it’s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break. Zig Ziglar taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don’t allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, “hey, maybe I should check my e-mail for a while, or you know, I could use a nap.” If you do that, the lizard brain will soon be trained to use that escape hatch again and again.

You don't 'waste time' by reading, you add value to it. You clock in. If you really had time to kill, you'd be napping during the eclipse.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy "To go outside, and there perchance to stay Or to remain within: that is the question: Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather That Nature rains on those who roam abroad, Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet, And so by dozing melt the solid hours That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state A wish to venture forth without delay, Then when the portal's opened up, to stand As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep; To choose not knowing when we may once more Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball; For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob, Or work a lock or slip a window-catch, And going out and coming in were made As simple as the breaking of a bowl, What cat would bear the houselhold's petty plagues, The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom, The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears, The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks That fur is heir to, when, of his own will, He might his exodus or entrance make With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear, Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard, But that the dread of our unheeded cries And scraches at a barricaded door No claw can open up, dispels our nerve And makes us rather bear our humans' faults Than run away to unguessed miseries? Thus caution doth make house cats of us all; And thus the bristling hair of resolution Is softened up with the pale brush of thought, And since our choices hinge on weighty things, We pause upon the threshold of decision.

I miss my old paycheck and the sense of pride, power, and worth that it gave me. I make a lot less money now. A lot less. But what I’ve lost in dollars, I’ve gained in time. I have time in the afternoons now to help Charlie and Lucy with their homework, to play Wii with them, to watch Charlie’s soccer games, to take a nap with Linus. I can’t wait to spend afternoons snowboarding. I have time to paint a portrait of Lucy (my only child who will sit still long enough) or the apples we picked at the local orchard. I have time to read novels, to meditate, to watch the deer walk across the backyard, to have dinner every night with my family. Less money, more time. So far, the trade-off has been worth every penny.

Once you start spending time together, you'll learn things about her that no one else could have told you. Things that you never would have suspected. Like the fact that she snores and has cold feet." He folded his arms and I caught his smile in my peripheral vision. Why was he smiling at me? Hey, was he referring to our nap on the cot? "Maybe you'll learn that she'd make a great doctor or that she has the capacity to care about people she barely knows." He took a dramatic pause, leaning against the wall. "Maybe you'll learn that she's not the spoiled princess you thought she was." Maybe you'll learn that she'd rather have someone speak directly to her than about her," I said, folding my arms and leaning against the wall.

Oh. maybe little kids are trouble, sometimes, but only for a good reason: They are tired. They are hungry. They are afraid. He supposes a great many ills of adults might be cured by a nap or a good meal or a bit of timely reassurance. But adults complicate everything. They are by nature complicators. They learned to make things harder than they need to be and they learned to talk way too much.

The night is quiet. Like a camp before battle. The city beset by a thing unknown and will it come from forest or sea? The murengers have walled the pale, the gates are shut, but lo the thing's inside and can you guess his shape? Where he's kept or what's the counter of his face? Is he a weaver, bloody shuttle shot through a time warp, a carder of souls from the world's nap? Or a hunter with hounds or do bone horses draw his dead cart through the streets and does he call his trade to each? Dear friend he is not to be dwelt upon for it is by just such wise that he's invited in

I always think fondly of my years inside Detention Center LC/766B. The women and the children I met had all lost people they loved, but they never wallowed in despair. Dying is one of the few experiences we'll eventually all enjoy firsthand, and like most shit that's commonplace, it's boring to dwell on. My fellow inmates/classmates (and really, what's the difference?) showed me it was more interesting to concentrate on the living. Because death is fucking predictable... ...but life has science experiments and free time and surprise naps and who knows what comes next?

But I was not especially skilled at minding children for long spells; I grew bored, perhaps like my own mother. After I spent too much time playing their games, my mind grew peckish and longed to lose itself in some book I had in my backpack. I was ever hopeful of early bedtimes and long naps.

You're not used to early mornings, are you?" He shook his head. "Early mornings were invented by the system to keep the people occupied. But not me. I'm on to them. They're not gonna catch me napping. Metaphorically, like. Obviously, they can catch me physically napping like, four or five times a day, but, metaphorically, I am so far beyond their reach.

And that old “If you need anything, let me know,” is also a total crock. You hear people say it all the time, but then you never see anyone actually call up the person who said it and say, “Hey, remember when you said to let you know if I needed anything? Well, I’m feeling really overwhelmed. Could you please come clean my kitchen, because if I could have a clean kitchen, I’d feel like I had a bit of a head start.” You’ll never hear someone say that, because then the person asking the other person to clean their kitchen is seen as a helpless, incompetent dick. What would be so much better would be for the person who spouted the useless “if you need anything just ask” platitude to fucking go over to the person’s house and clean their goddamn kitchen without being asked. Go over and say, “Hey, you go take care of your kid or your work, or go take a fucking nap. And when you get done, you’ll have a clean kitchen. And, no, you don’t owe me a goddamn thing. Someday the shoe will be on the other foot, okay?

There’s never enough time for all the naps you want.

Have you ever accidentally swallowed a piece of celery without chewing? The feeling of its weight lodged in your throat, scraping its way down. You think you’re gonna choke, but your throat takes over and digests it, and it takes all the wind out of you. You need to lie down, catch your breath, maybe even take a nap. That’s how it feels to come out each time.

The Indians franchise is more than a century old. It’s been called the Blues, the Bronchos, and the Naps. It’s also been called a lot worse during hard times when the team wasn’t winning.

The more connection I got, the more I wanted. You know, like when you take a nap, but when you wake up you’re somehow sleepier than you were before? That was me, all the time—with humanity.

There’s lots to do; we have a very busy schedule—— “At 8 o’clock we get up, and then we spend “From 8 to 9 daydreaming. “From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap. “From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay. “From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap. “From 11:30 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch. “From 1:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter. “From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap. “From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today. “From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap. “From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner. “From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally. “From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time. “As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we’d never get nothing done.

We are both scientists, Eilish, we belong to a tradition but tradition is nothing more than what everyone can agree on – the scientists, the teachers, the institutions, if you change ownership of the institutions then you can change ownership of the facts, you can alter the structure of belief, what is agreed upon, that is what they are doing, Eilish, it is really quite simple, the NAP is trying to change what you and I call reality, they want to muddy it like water, if you say one thing is another thing and you say it enough times, then it must be so, and if you keep saying it over and over people accept it as true – this is an old idea, of course, it really is nothing new, but you’re watching it happen in your own time and not in a book.

After we became a couple, she composed our time together. She planned days as if they were artistic events. One afternoon we went to Tybee Island for a picnic; we ate blueberries and drank champagne tinted with curacao and listened to Miles Davis, and when I asked the name of her perfume, she said it was L'Heure Bleue. She talked about 'perfect moments.' One such moment happened that afternoon; she'd been napping; I lay next to her, reading. She said, 'I'll always remember the sounds of the sea and of pages turning, and the smell of L'Heure Bleue. For me they signify love.

My kids love going to movies, and I enjoy taking naps during those movies. Sure, I’m not thrilled to pay twelve dollars to take a nap, yet it always seems worth it. I’m not even concerned that I’m missing the film, because I know I’ll have another dozen times to see it at home when my kids watch it on Netflix or force me to buy it on iTunes for a thousand dollars.

Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities.

Being Anna’s boyfriend was like training to be a Navy SEAL while working full-time in an Amazon fulfillment center in the Oklahoma Panhandle in tornado season. Something was going on every moment of every day. My 2:30 naps were a thing of the past.

And although I said it affects everyone,” he continued, “it’s an especially dangerous time for the homemaker. Because unlike a fourth grader who can put off her homework, or a businessman who can pretend to be listening, the homemaker must force herself to keep going. She has to get the kids down for a nap because if she doesn’t, the evening will be hell. She has to mop the floor because if she doesn’t, someone could slip on the spilled milk. She has to run to the store because if she doesn’t, there will be nothing to eat. By the way,” he said, pausing, “have you ever noticed how women always say they need to run to the store? Not walk, not go, not stop by. Run. That’s what I mean. The homemaker is operating at an insane level of hyperproductivity. And even though she’s in way over her head, she still has to make dinner. It’s not sustainable,

When the bald associate had mentioned a sleeping beauty, he was referring to a fairy tale that you have probably heard one thousand times. Like all fairy tales, the story of Sleeping Beauty begins with 'Once upon a time,' and continues with a foolish young princess who makes a witch very angry, and then takes a nap until her boyfriend wakes her up with a kiss and insists on getting married, at which point the story ends with the phrase 'happily ever after.' The story is usually illustrated with fancy drawings of the napping princess, who always looks very glamorous and elegant, with her hair neatly combed and a long silk gown keeping her comfortable as she snores away for years and years.

Until about ten years ago, we admired those who could survive on only four hours of sleep and those stalwarts who worked through the night. They were heroes, people whose fierce devotion and commitment revealed everyone else’s fecklessness and frailty. Then, as sleep science reached the mainstream, we began to change our attitude. That sleepless guy wasn’t a hero. He was a fool. He was likely doing subpar work and maybe hurting the rest of us because of his poor choices. Breaks are now where sleep was then. Skipping lunch was once a badge of honor and taking a nap a mark of shame. No more. The science of timing now affirms what the Old World already understood: We should give ourselves a break.

Growing economies are built by billions of actors behaving according to their own interests, coordinated through institutions that no one in particular created. Realizing this requires humility, a trait that is in short supply among would-be dictators, politicians, and bureaucrats, which is precisely why these groups are the proven enemies of prosperity in all times and places.

Because all these people have, you see, by this time already killed themselves, where it really counts. By the time these people swallow entire medicine cabinets or take naps in the garage or whatever, they’ve already been killing themselves for ever so long. When they ‘commit suicide’, they’re just being orderly.

Why did you stop?” “I’m just wondering if you plan to stand there gawking at me all night?” “If you’re suggesting I take a nap instead, I’ll gladly comply.” “Or perhaps you could…help?” “How?” He circled his fingers around his temple, like her presence was giving him a headache. Then he whirled his hand in her direction and proclaimed, in a ridiculously staunch voice, “I do beseech you, oh fair one, would you please assist me with this most tedious of tasks by gathering the straw and bringing it within my reach, so that our progress might be hastened and you don’t get your head chopped off at dawn?” Serilda pressed her lips together. He was mocking her, but…at least this time he did say please. “With pleasure,” she snapped.

Lord Cut-Glass, in his kitchen full of time, squats down alone to a dogdish, marked Fido, of peppery fish-scraps and listens to the voices of his sixty-six clocks, one for each year of his loony age, and watches, with love, their black-and-white moony loudlipped faces tocking the earth away: slow clocks, quick clocks, pendulumed heart-knocks, china, alarm, grandfather, cuckoo; clocks shaped like Noah's whirring Ark, clocks that bicker in marble ships, clocks in the wombs of glass women, hourglass chimers, tu-wit-tuwoo clocks, clocks that pluck tunes, Vesuvius clocks all black bells and lava, Niagara clocks that cataract their ticks, old time weeping clocks with ebony beards, clocks with no hands for ever drumming out time without ever knowing what time it is. His sixty-six singers are all set at different hours. Lord Cut-Glass lives in a house and a life at siege. Any minute or dark day now, the unknown enemy will loot and savage downhill, but they will not catch him napping. Sixty-six different times in his fish-slimy kitchen ping, strike, tick, chime, and tock.

Once I got over feeling sick in the morning, I’ve been feeling good,” Levela said. “Vigorous and strong. Although, lately, I get tired easily. I want to sleep late and take naps in the day, and sometimes if I stand for a long time, my back hurts.” “Sounds about right, wouldn’t you say,” Velima said, smiling at her daughter. “Just the way you are supposed to feel.

I will not service your sister,” he told her flatly, unable to think of anything else to say. Elina laughed. “She does not want servicing. At least not from you.” “But when I came into your room earlier—” “It gets cold on Steppes. We share beds. We share food. We do not share cocks. There is no cock sharing among the Daughters of the Steppes. That is disgusting.” “So then earlier . . .” “She was inviting you to nap with us, like our brothers and cousins sometimes do. But not fuck.” “Oh.” “You sound disappointed.” “No. Just depressingly relieved.” “What?” “Beautiful sisters invite me to bed—I usually dive in headfirst. A little time away with you and suddenly I’m . . . my father.” “I like your father. Now he is charming. You are dolt with ineffective travel-cow and cousin that keeps trying to dress me like doll.” “Is that where you got that eye patch from?” “Yes.” “It’s a nice color on you.

On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate. I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know. You are dead souls. If that God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, every bullet in my wife’s body will have been a wound in his heart. So, no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. That is what you want, but to respond to your hate with anger would be to yield to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to see my fellow citizens through suspicious eyes, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have failed. I will not change. I saw her this morning. At last, after days and nights of waiting. She was as beautiful as when she went out on Friday evening, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than twelve years ago. Of course I’m devastated by grief, I grant you that small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will see each other in the paradise of free souls to which you will never have access. There are only two of us – my son and myself – but we are stronger than all the armies of the world. Anyway, I don’t have any more time to waste on you, as I must go to see Melvil, who is waking up from his nap. He is only seventeen months old. He will eat his snack as he does every day, then we will play as we do every day, and all his life this little boy will defy you by being happy and free. Because you will not have his hate either.

Count Ayakura’s abstraction persisted. He believed that only a vulgar mentality was willing to acknowledge the possibility of catastrophe. He felt that taking naps was much more beneficial than confronting catastrophes. However precipitous the future might seem, he learned from the game of kemari that the ball must always come down. There was no call for consternation. Grief and rage, along with other outbursts of passion, were mistakes easily committed by a mind lacking in refinement. And the Count was certainly not a man who lacked refinement. Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakura’s version of political theory.

If we slowed our lives down enough to allow for naps, wouldn’t we all have more enjoyable days, more productive days? Why do our work ethics tells us to work more? Work harder? Work longer? Anything less than eight hours—unacceptable. Towards the end of our workday, how productive are we, really? Are we actually working at that point, or just staring at a computer screen, staring at the clock? Passing the time?

So things remained until one day, many years later, I happened upon a line in a poem by Heine: “Death is the cooling night.” That childhood memory, lost for so long, suddenly restored itself to my quivering heart, returning freshly washed, in limpid clarity, never again to leave me. If literature truly possesses a mysterious power, I think perhaps it is precisely this: that one can read a book by a writer of a different time, a different country, a different race, a different language, and a different culture and there encounter a sensation that is one’s very own. Heine put into words the feeling I had as a child when I lay napping in the morgue. And that, I tell myself, is literature.

Not that parents are alone in their extreme behavior. That have more than enough company among school boards and high-ranking politicians who think if you "fix the schools, they'll fix the kids." So, in Gadsden, Alabama, school officials eliminated kindergarten nap time in 2003 so the children would have more test-prep time. Two hours away in Atlanta, school officials figured that if you eliminated recess, the kids will study more. And just in case those shifty teachers try to sneak it in, Atlanta started building schools without playgrounds. "We are intent on improving academic performance," said the superintendent. "You don't do that by having kids hanging on the monkey bars." Meanwhile, Georgia's governor wanted the state to give Mozart CDs to newborns because research showed Mozart improved babies' IQs (which later proved to be mythical research). Right behind him is Lincoln, Rhode Island, where they canceled the district spelling bee because only one child would win, leaving all others behind, thus violating the intent of No Child Left Behind--or, as they might say in Lincoln, no child gets ahead.

...all the ways she's ineffectually mothered Todd crowd into her mind. Feeding him too much so he slept more, upending the bottle while watching daytime television, bored, no eye contact. That time she shouted in frustration when he wouldn't nap. How early she went back to work because her father put pressure on her; enrolling Todd in nursery so young, too young. Has she planted these seeds here? Was she a shit mother, or just a human?

Perhaps we should explore some other options before swanning off to Ireland,” Dad said, pushing his glasses up. “After all, Sophie, you’ve been through quite the ordeal.” “I’ll nap on the plane. Look, we are dealing with the possibility of an army of demons. I don’t know about you guys, but those words are right up there with ‘root canal’ and ‘school on Saturdays’ in terms of things that terrify me. Were already three weeks behind. We don’t have time to just sit here and explore options or read more books or listen to more half-assed prophecies from this jerk,” I said, pointing to Torin. He made a gesture that I think was the old-timey version of flipping me off. “So, yeah,” I continued. “Maybe this is a totally stupid idea. But if there’s even a chance one of us can get into the underworld, then we have to take it.” “Okay, I do like you,” Finley said, flashing me a grin.

Butterflies prove that God gives second chances. Because a butterfly spends most of its life as a caterpillar, scooting along on the ground, barely getting by. When a caterpillar sees a butterfly he thinks how wonderful it would be to fly. And then one day he gets tired. Very tired. He builds a little room, curls up inside, and takes a nap. Deep in his heart he wonders if maybe that's all. Maybe life is over. But one day the caterpillar wakes up, and God has done an amazing thing. The caterpillar hakes off the little room and feels something on his back. This time when he goes a bit down the tree branch he doesn't scoot like before. He flies!

Visit cultures that are untouched by electricity and you often see something rather different. Hunter-gatherer tribes, such as the Gabra in northern Kenya or the San people in the Kalahari Desert, whose way of life has changed little over the past thousands of years, sleep in a biphasic pattern. Both these groups take a similarly longer sleep period at night (seven to eight hours of time in bed, achieving about seven hours of sleep), followed by a thirty- to sixty-minute nap in the afternoon.

When I argue with devout statists, sometimes other voluntaryists tell me that I'm wasting my time, opining that a particular statist is never going to "get it." I often respond by saying that that's rarely my intention. Most of the time, when I argue with statists, the goal is for ME to learn more about the mentality and psychology of authoritarian indoctrination, and to hopefully help any SPECTATORS--whether statist or anarchist--learn something from the exchange. (Both of those goals can be achieved even if the statist continues to be a lunk-headed dupe.) Earlier today, a funny but possibly profound analogy came to mind about this: When I argue with "true believer" devout statists, I'm not being a doctor trying to heal an ailing patient; I'm being a coroner, doing an AUTOPSY on a patient who is already beyond any hope of saving, in the hopes that I, and anyone observing, may learn more about the "disease" of statism, in order to better understand the nature of it, and possibly prevent others from experiencing a similar fate.

All the time, of course, Laura or Mary was minding Baby Carrie, except when she had her afternoon nap. Then they sat and soaked in the sunshine and the wind until Laura forgot that the baby was sleeping. She jumped up and ran and shouted till Ma came to the door and said, “Dear me, Laura, must you yell like an Indian? I declare,” Ma said, “if you girls aren’t getting to look like Indians! Can I never teach you to keep your sunbonnets on?” Pa was up on the house wall beginning the roof. He looked down at them and laughed. “One little Indian, two little Indians, three little Indians,” he sang, softly. “No, only two.” “You make three,” Mary said to him. “You’re brown, too.” “But you aren’t little, Pa,” said Laura.

I glanced at Annabeth and Grover. We'd been through so much together. I imagined Annabeth with silver hair and wrinkles, chuckling as she called me Seaweed Brain for the fourth millionth time in our lives. I imagined Grover with tufts of white hair coming out of his ears, his back hunched as he leaned on a cane, bleating as he complained about his aching hooves, then maybe taking a nap on a bench in our beachside garden while I sat next to him, resting my aching bones as I watched the waves and smelled the sea air. Aching bones weren't hard for me to imagine. Actually, the rest wasn't hard to imagine, either. Gary expected me to wrestle him. And unless I died young, I couldn't beat Old Age. But what if I embraced him?

Umm, Ren? We have something important we need to discuss. Meet me on the veranda at sundown, okay?” He froze with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. “A secret rendezvous? On the veranda? At sundown?” He arched an eyebrow at me. “Why, Kelsey, are you trying to seduce me?” “Hardly,” I dryly muttered. He laughed. “Well, I’m all yours. But be gentle with me tonight, fair maiden. I’m new at this whole being human business.” Exasperated, I threw out, “I am not your fair maiden.” He ignored my comment and went back to devouring his lunch. He also took the other half of my discarded peanut butter sandwich and ate that too, commenting, “Hey! This stuff’s pretty good.” Finished, I walked over to the kitchen island and began clearing away Ren’s mess. When he was done eating, he stood to help me. We worked well together. It was almost like we knew what the other person was going to do before he or she did it. The kitchen was spotless in no time. Ren took off his apron and threw it into the laundry basket. Then, he came up behind me while I was putting away some glasses and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me up against him. He smelled my hair, kissed my neck, and murmured softly in my ear, “Mmm, definitely peaches and cream, but with a hint of spice. I’ll go be a tiger for a while and take a nap, and then I can save all my hours for you this evening.” I grimaced He was probably expecting a make-out session, and I was planning to break up with him. He wanted to spend time with a girlfriend, and my intention was to explain to him how we weren’t meant to be together. Not that we were ever officially together. Still, it felt like a break-up. Why does this have to be so hard? Ren rocked me and whispered, “’How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night, Like soft music to attending ears.’” I turned around in his arms, shocked. “How did you remember that? That’s Romeo and Juliet!” He shrugged. “I paid attention when you were reading it to me. I liked it.” He gently kissed my cheek. “See you tonight, iadala,” and left me standing there. The rest of the afternoon, I couldn’t focus on anything. Nothing held my attention for more than a few minutes. I rehearsed some sentences in front of the mirror, but they all sounded pretty lame to me: “It’s not you, it’s me,” “There are plenty of other fish in the sea,” “I need to find myself,” “Our differences are too big,” “I’m not the one,” “There’s someone else.” Heck, I even tried “I’m allergic to cats.

More than almost anything else, the experience of parenthood exposes the gulf between our experiencing and remembering selves. Our experiencing selves tell researchers that we prefer doing the dishes -- or napping, or shopping, or answering emails -- to spending time with our kids. (I am very specifically referring here to Kahneman's study of 909 Texas women.) But our remembering selves tell researchers that no one -- and nothing -- provides us with so much joy as our children. It may not be the happiness we live day to day, but it's the happiness we think about, the happiness we summon and remember, the stuff that makes up our life-tales.

The room drew breath together—or at least, all the necromancers did, alongside a goodly proportion of their cavaliers. Harrow’s knuckles whitened. Gideon wished that she could flop into a seat or take a sly nap. Everybody was poised in readiness for the outlined syllabus, and scholarship made her want to die. There would be some litany of how breakfast would take place every morning at this time, and then there’d be study with the priests for an hour, and then Skeleton Analysis, and History of Some Blood, and Tomb Studies, and, like, lunchtime, and finally Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone. The most she could hope for was Swords, Swords II, and maybe Swords III.

Unhappily, Chase ended on the bottom of the tussle. Ashbury’s knee sank into his gut. “God Almighty, man,” Chase said. “What the devil’s wrong with you? Besides all the obvious things.” “You veriest varlet.” Ashbury lowered his mangled face to within an inch of Chase’s nose. “This. Is. Nap. Time.” Chase was nonplussed. “What?” The duke rolled aside, resting on his elbow as he worked for breath. “My infant son is currently upstairs, sleeping for the first time in nineteen hours. The only thing keeping me from disemboweling you here in the entrance hall, you cream-faced rooting hog, is that you’d probably wake him with all your sniveling and sobbing for mercy.” “Oh.

I was pretty sure I’d get sick of my new routine within a week — but it only took a day. Every day after that was as mind-numbing as the one before, ad infinitum. In theory, I could watch TV, use the computer, read a book, bake like I used to when I was single — but it seemed like everything cost money. I had to spend money to pass the time. People say housewives get free room and board and even time to nap, but the truth is napping was the most economical way to make it through the day. The hours moved slowly, but the days passed with staggering speed. Soon I lost all sense of time. I didn’t have any appointments or deadlines. The days were slipping through my fingers.

I sat this afternoon to read during the boys’ nap. I was going through the botanical theory book, and while I was reading I remembered something Blue Horse said to me back before Gilbert was born. He said wisdom is not a path, it is a tree. At the time I was too busy to give it much thought, so I nodded politely but didn’t pay much attention. Now I see that he was surely right. I have been sad almost a whole year, thinking that taking that test was somehow the end of my learning and that not having that as a possibility in my future left a big empty spot in my life that the children and the ranch didn’t fill. But my life is not like that, it is a tree, and I can stay in one place and spread out in all directions, and I can do more learning shading this brood of mine than if I was all alone. I declare, it is like some other part of me made up some rules about happiness and I just went along with them without thinking. My heart is lightened so much that I am amazed at how sad I felt for so long.

I am constantly mystified by what John ends up remembering… I just don’t understand why he’s able to hang on to information like that, while so many other more important memories evaporate. Then again, I suppose so much of what stays with us is often insignificant. The memories we take to the ends of our lives have no real rhyme or reason, especially when you think of the endless things that you do over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. All the cups of coffee, hand-washings, changes of clothes, lunches, goings to the bathroom, headaches, naps, walks to school, trips to the grocery store, conversations about the weather—all the things so unimportant they should be immediately forgotten. Yet they aren’t. I often think of the Chinese red bathrobe I had when I was twenty-seven years old; the sound of our first cat Charlie’s feet on the linoleum of our old house; the hot rarefied air around aluminum pot the moment before the kernels of popcorn burst open. I think of these things as often as I think about getting married or giving birth or the end of the Second World War. What is truly amazing is that before you know it, sixty years go by and you can remember maybe eight or nine important events, along with a thousand meaningless ones. How can that be? You want to think there’s a pattern to it all because it makes you feel better, gives you some sense of a reason why we’re here, but there really isn’t any. People look for God in these patterns, these reasons, but only because they don’t know where else to look. Things happen to us: some of it important, most of it not, and a little of it stays with us till the end. What stays after that? I’ll be damned if I know. (pp.174-175)

At the end of the vacation, I took a steamer alone from Wuhan back up through the Yangtze Gorges. The journey took three days. One morning, as I was leaning over the side, a gust of wind blew my hair loose and my hairpin fell into the river. A passenger with whom I had been chatting pointed to a tributary which joined the Yangtze just where we were passing, and told me a story.In 33 B.C., the emperor of China, in an attempt to appease the country's powerful northern neighbors, the Huns, decided to send a woman to marry the barbarian king. He made his selection from the portraits of the 3,000 concubines in his court, many of whom he had never seen. As she was for a barbarian, he selected the ugliest portrait, but on the day of her departure he discovered that the woman was in fact extremely beautiful. Her portrait was ugly because she had refused to bribe the court painter. The emperor ordered the artist to be executed, while the lady wept, sitting by a river, at having to leave her country to live among the barbarians. The wind carried away her hairpin and dropped it into the river as though it wanted to keep something of hers in her homeland. Later on, she killed herself. Legend had it that where her hairpin dropped, the river turned crystal clear, and became known as the Crystal River. My fellow passenger told me this was the tributary we were passing. With a grin, he declared: "Ah, bad omen! You might end up living in a foreign land and marrying a barbarian!" I smiled faintly at the traditional Chinese obsession about other races being 'barbarians," and wondered whether this lady of antiquity might not actually have been better off marrying the 'barbarian' king. She would at least be in daily contact with the grassland, the horses, and nature. With the Chinese emperor, she was living in a luxurious prison, without even a proper tree, which might enable the concubines to climb a wall and escape. I thought how we were like the frogs at the bottom of the well in the Chinese legend, who claimed that the sky was only as big as the round opening at the top of their well. I felt an intense and urgent desire to see the world. At the time I had never spoken with a foreigner, even though I was twenty-three, and had been an English language student for nearly two years. The only foreigners I had ever even set eyes on had been in Peking in 1972. A foreigner, one of the few 'friends of China," had come to my university once. It was a hot summer day and I was having a nap when a fellow student burst into our room and woke us all by shrieking: "A foreigner is here! Let's go and look at the foreigner!" Some of the others went, but I decided to stay and continue my snooze. I found the whole idea of gazing, zombie like rather ridiculous. Anyway, what was the point of staring if we were forbidden to open our mouths to him, even though he was a 'friend of China'? I had never even heard a foreigner speaking, except on one single Linguaphone record. When I started learning the language, I had borrowed the record and a phonograph, and listened to it at home in Meteorite Street. Some neighbors gathered in the courtyard, and said with their eyes wide open and their heads shaking, "What funny sounds!" They asked me to play the record over and over again.

Where is everybody?” “Hiding,” she said. “Except for Doolittle. He was excused from the chewing-out due to having been kidnapped. He’s napping now like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I got to hear all sorts of interesting stuff through the door.” “Give.” She shot me a sly smile. “First, I got to listen to Jim’s ‘it’s all my fault; I did it all by myself’ speech. Then I got to listen to Derek’s ‘it’s all my fault and I did it all by myself’ speech. Then Curran promised that the next person who wanted to be a martyr would get to be one. Then Raphael made a very growling speech about how he was here for a blood debt. It was his right to have restitution for the injury caused to the friend of the boudas; it was in the damn clan charter on such and such page. And if Curran wanted to have an issue with it, they could take it outside. It was terribly dramatic and ridiculous. I loved it.” I could actually picture Curran sitting there, his hand on his forehead above his closed eyes, growling quietly in his throat. “Then Dali told him that she was sick and tired of being treated like she was made out of glass and she wanted blood and to kick ass.” That would do him in. “So what did he say?” “He didn’t say anything for about a minute and then he chewed them out. He told Derek that he’d been irresponsible with Livie’s life, and that if he was going to rescue somebody, the least he could do is to have a workable plan, instead of a poorly thought-out mess that backfired and broke just about every Pack law and got his face smashed in. He told Dali that if she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to accept responsibility for her own actions instead of pretending to be weak and helpless every time she got in trouble and that this was definitely not the venue to prove one’s toughness. Apparently he didn’t think her behavior was cute when she was fifteen and he’s not inclined to tolerate it now that she’s twenty-eight.” I was cracking up. “He told Raphael that the blood debt overrode Pack law only in cases of murder or life-threatening injury and quoted the page of the clan charter and the section number where that could be found. He said that frivolous challenges to the alpha also violated Pack law and were punishable by isolation. It was an awesome smackdown. They had no asses left when he was done.” Andrea began snapping the gun parts together. “Then he sentenced the three of them and himself to eight weeks of hard labor, building the north wing addition to the Keep, and dismissed them. They ran out of there like their hair was on fire.” “He sentenced himself?” “He’s broken Pack law by participating in our silliness, apparently.” That’s Beast Lord for you. “And Jim?” “Oh, he got a special chewing-out after everybody else was dismissed. It was a very quiet and angry conversation, and I didn’t hear most of it. I heard the end, though—he got three months of Keep building. Also, when he opened the door to leave, Curran told him very casually that if Jim wanted to pick fights with his future mate, he was welcome to do so, but he should keep in mind that Curran wouldn’t come and rescue him when you beat his ass. You should’ve seen Jim’s face.” “His what?” “His mate. M-A-T-E.” I cursed. Andrea grinned. “I thought that would make your day. And now you’re stuck with him in here for three days and you get to fight together in the Arena. It’s so romantic. Like a honeymoon.” Once again my mental conditioning came in handy. I didn’t strangle her on the spot.

As the third evening approached, Gabriel looked up blearily as two people entered the room. His parents. The sight of them infused him with relief. At the same time, their presence unlatched all the wretched emotion he'd kept battened down until this moment. Disciplining his breathing, he stood awkwardly, his limbs stiff from spending hours on the hard chair. His father came to him first, pulling him close for a crushing hug and ruffling his hair before going to the bedside. His mother was next, embracing him with her familiar tenderness and strength. She was the one he'd always gone to first whenever he'd done something wrong, knowing she would never condemn or criticize, even when he deserved it. She was a source of endless kindness, the one to whom he could entrust his worst thoughts and fears. "I promised nothing would ever harm her," Gabriel said against her hair, his voice cracking. Evie's gentle hands patted his back. "I took my eyes off her when I shouldn't have," he went on. "Mrs. Black approached her after the play- I pulled the bitch aside, and I was too distracted to notice-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat harshly, trying not to choke on emotion. Evie waited until he calmed himself before saying quietly, "You remember when I told you about the time your f-father was badly injured because of me?" "That wasn't because of you," Sebastian said irritably from the bedside. "Evie, have you harbored that absurd idea for all these years?" "It's the most terrible feeling in the world," Evie murmured to Gabriel. "But it's not your fault, and trying not to make it so won't help either of you. Dearest boy, are you listening to me?" Keeping his face pressed against her hair, Gabriel shook his head. "Pandora won't blame you for what happened," Evie told him, "any more than your father blamed me." "Neither of you are to blame for anything," his father said, "except for annoying me with this nonsense. Obviously the only person to blame for this poor girl's injury is the woman who attempted to skewer her like a pinioned duck." He straightened the covers over Pandora, bent to kiss her forehead gently, and sat in the bedside chair. "My son... guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious." Stretching out his long legs, he crossed them negligently. "There's no reason to tear yourself to pieces worrying about Pandora. She's going to make a full recovery." "You're a doctor now?" Gabriel asked sardonically, although some of the weight of grief and worry lifted at his father's confident pronouncement. "I daresay I've seen enough illness and injuries in my time, stabbings included, to predict the outcome accurately. Besides, I know the spirit of this girl. She'll recover." "I agree," Evie said firmly. Letting out a shuddering sigh, Gabriel tightened his arms around her. After a long moment, he heard his mother say ruefully, "Sometimes I miss the days when I could solve any of my children's problems with a nap and a biscuit." "A nap and a biscuit wouldn't hurt this one at the moment," Sebastian commented dryly. "Gabriel, go find a proper bed and rest for a few hours. We'll watch over your little fox cub.