“
I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, “Why?”
Why did I cause so much pain?
Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?
Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love?
I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong.
We are not special.
We are not crap or trash, either.
We just are.
We just are, and what happens just happens.
And God says, “No, that’s not right.”
Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
The note, which had been written on one of the pads I kept around for grocery lists, said, "My lover, I came in too close to dawn to wake you, though I was tempted. Your house is full of strange men. A fairy upstairs and a little child downstairs- but as long as there's not one in my lady's chamber, I can stand it".
”
”
Charlaine Harris (Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse, #10))
“
I'm so excited. I just bought a new file cabinet, some manila folders, some sticky note pads, and a few highlighters, and I think I'm finally ready to enter into organized crime.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (It Occurred to Me)
“
It had become a chimney poking from a vertical universe of bookshelves.
There was motion below her. There were people on the shelves.
They clung to the edges of the cases and moved across them in expert scuttles. They wore ropes and hooks and carried picks on which they sometimes hung. Dangling from straps they carried notebooks, pens, magnifying glasses, ink pads, and stamps.
The men and women took books from the shelves as they went, checked their details, leaning against their ropes, replaced them, pulled out little pads and made notes, sometimes carried the books with them to another place and reshelved it there.
...
I'm Margarita Staples." She bowed in her harness. 'Extreme librarian. Bookaneer.
”
”
China Miéville
“
One of our professors described a lecture as 'a mystical process by which the notes on the pad of the lecturer pass on to the pad of the student, without passing through the mind of either'.
”
”
John Cleese
“
Get your little sticky note pad and get a new note, Kace. Write this on it. I’m coming, Kace. I’m coming for your heart,
”
”
Scott Hildreth (Undefeated (Fighter Erotic Romance, #1))
“
Side note: What is that crotch pad for? Is it to protect the vagina from the impact of a big wave? Or maybe to have a stronger barrier between vagina and sand? I can imagine how uncomfortable a sandy vagina is. Almost as uncomfortable as when sand would get in my loose under-boob skin. See, women, I relate to you.
”
”
Shane Dawson (I Hate Myselfie: A Collection of Essays by Shane Dawson)
“
One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit’s short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.
”
”
Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1))
“
We've been watching your kind, noting it all down, putting it in our order pads while you snort in your trough. It may be fragmented, it may not be prettified, it may not be in the Grand Tradition, but let me tell you--it's ours and we're ready to publish!
”
”
Will Self (Grey Area and Other Stories)
“
You are a fingerprint. When you open your eyes on the last day of your life, you see your own thumb. In the jaundiced prison light, the lines on the pad of your thumb look like a dried-out riverbed, like sand washed into twirling patterns by water, once there and now gone.
”
”
Danya Kukafka (Notes on an Execution)
“
I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong.
We are not special.
We are not crap or trash, either.
We just are.
We just are, and what happens just happens.
And God says, "no, that's not right."
Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
It should be noted that before phones had every letter displayed on their touch screens, you had to press the number-pad buttons. To text, you had to use a system called T9 texting--with the letters being evenly divided among all the numbers. I would explain the process in more depth, but those were dark times and I'd rather not go down that rabbit hole, even mentally.
”
”
Tyler Oakley
“
There's something oddly comforting about talking to a legal guy once the billable hours clock has started running; you have passed the magical point at which a lawyer becomes your lawyer. Your lawyer is warm, your lawyer is sympathetic, your lawyer makes notes on a yellow pad and nods in all the right places. Most of the questions your lawyer asks are questions you can answer. And if you can't your lawyer will help you find a way to do so, by God. Your lawyer is always on your side. Your enemies are his enemies. To him you are never shit but always Shinola.
”
”
Stephen King (Bag of Bones)
“
Me"
( Notice Me)
I was sent here on a journey that has no end.
I hear you joke of going nowhere fast.
Well, maybe life’s a joke and I’m the fool
That dreams of being first but ends up last.
Life’s a trial—a sentence I can’t escape.
Confusion and desperation tear me down and turn to hate.
There’s so much more to figure out,
But it’s growing way too late.
If I could answer half the questions in my mind,
If I could find the place where I belong,
If words were near as strong and deep as the wall of emotions I climb
Then sorrow wouldn’t be so wrong.
There’s no way to make you understand.
An entire symphony could not play the broken notes in one child’s soul.
That child screams and no one hears her,
Until the tears have dried and now she’s just too old.
I don’t want to hear the philosophies, the opinions,
The remarks, the horrible reasonings.
Words are to pad the mind and fight with the solitude of the heart.
Still, silence chills to the bone and tears the soul apart.
She never means to hurt or harm, only to belong.
To find the truth ‘mid mortal lies, to sing her only song.
But someday this race will end, and if she comes in last,
I pray the first will look deeper than the others, smile, and then pass.
"Copyright 1985
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich
“
He always carried a pad of paper, and occasionally made notes while we talked. That used to make me nervous, but he offered to let me see his notes anytime I asked. He never wrote things like "what a freak," or "this kid is insane," just simple notes to help him remember what we talked about. I'm sure he had a "what a freak" book somewhere, but he kept it hidden.
And if he didn't have one yet, he was going to make one after this.
"I think," I said, watching his face for a reaction, "that fate wants me to become a serial killer."
He raised an eyebrow, nothing more. I told you he was calm.
”
”
Dan Wells (I Am Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver, #1))
“
Dr. R scratches out a note on his pad.
"Losing you both was only the practice pain, wasn't it? For my mum and dad..."
He puts his finger on his lips, his elbow at his chest, not racked with cancer. "Yes."
"And when that happens, this will seem like nothing."
He nods.
"When it happens," he asks me, "what will get you through?"
"Friends who love me."
"And if your friends weren't there?"
"Music through headphones."
"And if the music stopped?"
"A sermon by Rabbi Wolpe."
"If there was no religion?"
"The mountains and the sky."
"If you leave California?"
"Numbered streets to keep me walking."
"If New York falls into the ocean?"
Your voice in my head.
”
”
Emma Forrest
“
Yes, I am with someone,” Lincoln mumbled, a nervous smile lifted one side of his lips. “What’s her name?” Lauren pushed. “Aaron,” Lincoln answered. “Is she Erin with an E?” Lauren asked as she busily wrote notes into a pad she held. “No, it’s Aaron with a dick.
”
”
Ann Lister (Beyond The Music (The Rock Gods #7))
“
I have made no attempt at chronology. My writing hasn’t changed much over the years. That’s because I haven’t changed. I am still the impractical dreamer that I was sixty years ago, when I decided that writing would be my vocation and my profession. I do not suffer from writer’s block. I have only to sit down at my desk for the words to come tumbling on to my writing pad. And if an ant moves across my desk, I shall record its transit.
”
”
Ruskin Bond (Notes From A Small Room: Signed As Essays From A Small Room)
“
There’s a post-it note stuck on one of the padded arms. I snatch it up and skim Wes’s familiar chicken-scratch scrawl. Dude at the store said this one will be better for our backs. Ten different massage settings. We should use it on our balls and see if it doubles as a sex toy. Fingers crossed.
”
”
Sarina Bowen (Us (Him, #2))
“
I looked at this first sheet, words scribbled confidently on a lined pad. My attempt at making contact the spirit of Llandor. Disaster. I couldn’t do the language or locate the period. The pad of paper, with its grey-mauve rules, was all wrong. It was intended for meaningful work, figures, calculations, notes.
”
”
Iain Sinclair (Landor's Tower: or, Imaginary Conversations)
“
Marko pressed the creased paper flat against the note stand, rested the pads of his fingers lightly over the top of the keys and began to play. I watched him at first, my eyes drinking in the gorgeous sight that was Marko lost inside his head, but then the music—at first soft, like drops of dew, then rippling and rolling like a shower of rain—swept me away.
”
”
Vanessa Garden (Captivate (Submerged Sun, #1))
“
As for describing the smell of a spaniel mixed with the smell of torches, laurels, incense, banners, wax candles and a garland of rose leaves crushed by a satin heel that has been laid up in camphor, perhaps Shakespeare, had he paused in the middle of writing Antony and Cleopatra — But Shakespeare did not pause. Confessing our inadequacy, then, we can but note that to Flush Italy, in these the fullest, the freest, the happiest years of his life, meant mainly a succession of smells. Love, it must be supposed, was gradually losing its appeal. Smell remained. Now that they were established in Casa Guidi again, all had their avocations. Mr. Browning wrote regularly in one room; Mrs. Browning wrote regularly in another. The baby played in the nursery. But Flush wandered off into the streets of Florence to enjoy the rapture of smell. He threaded his path through main streets and back streets, through squares and alleys, by smell. He nosed his way from smell to smell; the rough, the smooth, the dark, the golden. He went in and out, up and down, where they beat brass, where they bake bread, where the women sit combing their hair, where the bird-cages are piled high on the causeway, where the wine spills itself in dark red stains on the pavement, where leather smells and harness and garlic, where cloth is beaten, where vine leaves tremble, where men sit and drink and spit and dice — he ran in and out, always with his nose to the ground, drinking in the essence; or with his nose in the air vibrating with the aroma. He slept in this hot patch of sun — how sun made the stone reek! he sought that tunnel of shade — how acid shade made the stone smell! He devoured whole bunches of ripe grapes largely because of their purple smell; he chewed and spat out whatever tough relic of goat or macaroni the Italian housewife had thrown from the balcony — goat and macaroni were raucous smells, crimson smells. He followed the swooning sweetness of incense into the violet intricacies of dark cathedrals; and, sniffing, tried to lap the gold on the window- stained tomb. Nor was his sense of touch much less acute. He knew Florence in its marmoreal smoothness and in its gritty and cobbled roughness. Hoary folds of drapery, smooth fingers and feet of stone received the lick of his tongue, the quiver of his shivering snout. Upon the infinitely sensitive pads of his feet he took the clear stamp of proud Latin inscriptions. In short, he knew Florence as no human being has ever known it; as Ruskin never knew it or George Eliot either.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Flush)
“
Why did I cause so much pain? Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
Famously, the trick to good writing is bleeding onto the page. I picture the male writer who coined this phrase, sitting at his typewriter, the blank sheet before him. What kind of blood did he imagine? Blood from a vein in his arm? Or a leg? Perhaps a head wound? Presumably it was not blood from a cervix. I have so much of this blood, this period blood, this pregnancy blood, this miscarriage blood, this not-pregnant-again blood, this perimenopausal blood. It just keeps coming and I just keep soaking it up. Stuffing bleached cotton into my vagina to stem the flow, padding my underwear, sticking on the night pads ‘with wings’, hoping not to leak on some man’s sheets, or rip off too much pubic hair with the extra-secure adhesive strips. Covering up with ‘period pants’, those unloved dingy underwear choices pulled out from the bank of the drawer every month. And all along, I was wrong. I should have been sitting down at my desk and spilling it across the page, a shocking red to fill the white.
”
”
Emilie Pine (Notes To Self)
“
These partygoers hadn’t been the cool kids growing up. They’d spent their adolescence buried in art books, scrawling poems into steno pads during recess, living full stories in their heads. Distracted by their artistic micro-obsessions, many forgot to learn how to engage with the world. They were too busy studying life, storing up their notes to use later in a novel, a song, a script, a painting. They were observers, not joiners.
”
”
Tia Williams (Seven Days in June)
“
Tears ran down my mother’s cheeks and dripped loudly onto the leather purse she held in her lap. The woman next to her patted her hand. I slipped my notepad from my jacket pocket and began scribbling notes to one side until my mother slapped her hand on mine and hissed, “You are being disrespectful and embarrassing. Stop or I will make you leave.” I quit writing but kept the pad out, feeling stabbingly defiant. But still blushing.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects)
“
One time, I noticed that the little waxy strips you peel off the maxi pad adhesive were printed, over and over, with a slogan: 'Kotex Understands.' In the worst moments, when my period felt like a death - the death of innocence, the death of safety, the harbinger of a world where I was too fat, too weird, too childish, too ungainly - I'd sit hunched over on the toilet and stare at that slogan, and I'd cry. Kotex understands. Somebody, somewhere, understands.
”
”
Lindy West (Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman)
“
Everything ends up on paper in an investigation. Detectives knew that, lawyers—especially former prosecutors—knew that, too. There were printouts, records, memos, date books. You make lists, you make notes in interviews—at the very least, you’ve got names and phone numbers on a piece of paper, so you know who to talk to. A five-month investigation, six suspicious deaths, and a unit’s worth of nurses, and the guy came out without so much as a doodle on a legal pad?
”
”
Charles Graeber (The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder)
“
Case 2:13-cv-45524-PAD Document 4 Filed 16/01/20 Page 152 of 285
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT – EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
Annotation for Exhibit D: Please note the date of this chapter. By this time the death of the victim had already taken place.
”
”
Lauren James (An Unauthorized Fan Treatise (Gottie Writes, #0))
“
Feeding (more on this in chapter 8) Breast pump Breast pads Breast cream (Lansinoh) Breast milk containers Twin nursing pillow Boppy Formula Baby bottles (8-oz. wide neck; 16–20 bottles if you’re doing formula exclusively) Dishwasher baskets Bottle brush High chairs Booster seat Food processor or immersion blender Bottle warmer Bottle drying rack Bowls and spoons Baby food storage containers Keepsakes Baby books Thank-you notes/stationery Newspaper from birthday CD player/dock for music Twin photo albums/frames
”
”
Natalie Díaz (What to Do When You're Having Two: The Twins Survival Guide from Pregnancy Through the First Year)
“
Ignoring the unwelcome flicker of her self-consciousness. "Do you like what you see?" "Always," said Tor. Wren bit back her smile. "You're doing magic again." There was a note of caution in his voice as he drifted into the orchard, his wolf padding softly at his side. "Show me." "Say please.
”
”
Catherine Doyle (Twin Crowns (Twin Crowns, #1))
“
I slipped my notepad from my jacket pocket and began scribbling notes to one side until my mother slapped her hand on mine and hissed, “You are being disrespectful and embarrassing. Stop or I will make you leave.” I quit writing but kept the pad out, feeling stabbingly defiant. But still blushing.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects)
“
Graham excuses himself for a moment to go over to his laptop and look up what he had written in his notes after their interview. When he returns, he reports that he had written the following: “Insanely energetic founders. Fund for the new idea.” So Graham is not going to be the one who encourages them to pursue
”
”
Randall E. Stross (The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator)
“
Funnel
The family story tells, and it was told true,
of my great-grandfather who begat eight
genius children and bought twelve almost-new
grand pianos. He left a considerable estate
when he died. The children honored their
separate arts; two became moderately famous,
three married and fattened their delicate share
of wealth and brilliance. The sixth one was
a concert pianist. She had a notable career
and wore cropped hair and walked like a man,
or so I heard when prying a childhood car
into the hushed talk of the straight Maine clan.
One died a pinafore child, she stays her five
years forever. And here is one that wrote-
I sort his odd books and wonder his once alive
words and scratch out my short marginal notes
and finger my accounts.
back from that great-grandfather I have come
to tidy a country graveyard for his sake,
to chat with the custodian under a yearly sun
and touch a ghost sound where it lies awake.
I like best to think of that Bunyan man
slapping his thighs and trading the yankee sale
for one dozen grand pianos. it fit his plan
of culture to do it big. On this same scale
he built seven arking houses and they still stand.
One, five stories up, straight up like a square
box, still dominates its coastal edge of land.
It is rented cheap in the summer musted air
to sneaker-footed families who pad through
its rooms and sometimes finger the yellow keys
of an old piano that wheezes bells of mildew.
Like a shoe factory amid the spruce trees
it squats; flat roof and rows of windows spying
through the mist. Where those eight children danced
their starfished summers, the thirty-six pines sighing,
that bearded man walked giant steps and chanced
his gifts in numbers.
Back from that great-grandfather I have come
to puzzle a bending gravestone for his sake,
to question this diminishing and feed a minimum
of children their careful slice of suburban cake.
”
”
Anne Sexton
“
When he gets back, she's curled on the couch, flipping through a cookbook called Roast Chicken and Other Stories, watching America's Next Top Model. The only thing more disturbing than when she does this is when she watches the Food Network with a legal pad on her lap, taking notes for decadent meals he knows she'll never make.
”
”
Mona Awad (13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl)
“
Adjectives are used as nouns (“greats,” “notables”). Nouns are used as verbs (“to host”), or they are chopped off to form verbs (“enthuse,” “emote”), or they are padded to form verbs (“beef up,” “put teeth into”). This is a world where eminent people are “famed” and their associates are “staffers,” where the future is always “upcoming” and someone is forever “firing off” a note. Nobody in America has sent a note or a memo or a telegram in years. Famed diplomat Condoleezza Rice, who hosts foreign notables to beef up the morale of top State Department staffers, sits down and fires off a lot of notes. Notes that are fired off are always fired in anger and from a sitting position. What the weapon is I’ve never found out.
”
”
William Zinsser (On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction)
“
As he returned to the bed, he could see Vallant eyeing him warily, but he ignored this, sat on the opposite end and braced the pad on his knee.
You think after all that, I will leave? What sort of monster do you take me for? You think I could be that callous? No better than the piece of filth who used you, nor the soulless fiend who sold you?
He ripped off the page and handed it over, but he began a second note even before Vallant had taken the first from his hand.
Is this bastard still alive? I assume not, that Rodger had him strangled? He had to pause, forcing his grip on the pencil to lighten before he went on. I want his name, if he isn't already dispatched. I'm not without resources or influence. And I'm very difficult to prosecute.
”
”
Heidi Cullinan (A Private Gentleman)
“
I hope you haven’t packed those ratty flannel pajamas of yours,” she said. “You probably won’t need anything to sleep in, anyhow.”
Elle stood up, picked up a pad of Post-it notes from the desk, and threw it.
“He’s broken all to bits. Give it up. He’s an invalid!”
Carlie laughed as the note pad bounced off the door frame.
“He’s a cowboy, honey. Nothin’ ever keeps them down for long.
”
”
Genell Dellin (Montana Gold)
“
So I was forced to go to school wearing a menstrual pad belt that had been in our first aid drawer since approximately 1961. If you've never seen one of these things, because you haven't been to the antiquities museum, it is a literal belt that goes around your waist, with two straps that dangle down in your front and back cracks, ice cold metal clips holding a small throw pillow in place over your shame canyon.
”
”
Lindy West (Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman)
“
Most couples are willing to spend an hour a week talking about their relationship. I suggest that emotional attunement can take place (at a minimum) in that weekly “state of the union” meeting. That means that at least an hour a week is devoted to the relationship and the processing of negative emotions. Couples can count on this as a time to attune. Later, after the skill of attunement is mastered, they can process negative emotions more quickly and efficiently as they occur. If the couple is willing, they take turns as speaker and listener. They get two clipboards, yellow pads, and pens for jotting down their ideas when they become a speaker, and for taking notes when they become a listener. It’s not a very high-tech solution, but the process of taking notes also helps people stay out of the flooded state. I suggest that at the start of the state of the union meeting, before beginning processing a negative event, each person talks about what is going right in the relationship, followed by giving at least five appreciations for positive things their partner has done that week. The meeting then continues by each partner talking about an issue in the relationship. If there is an issue they can use attunement to fully process the issue.
”
”
John M. Gottman (The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples)
“
The whips and the instruments of torture, the dust or salts from the jug of “Materia”, the two lekythoi from the “Custodes” shelf, the robes, the formulae on the walls, the notes on the pad, the hints from letters and legends, and the thousand glimpses, doubts, and suppositions which had come to torment the friends and parents of Charles Ward—all these engulfed the doctor in a tidal wave of horror as he looked at that dry greenish powder outspread in the pedestalled leaden kylix on the floor.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft
“
Decker blinked awake and sat up in his bed. He looked around, for a few moments unsure of where he was. Virginia. Quantico. The FBI gig. Right. He got up and padded to the bathroom. After that he walked into the kitchen and looked out the window. It was still well dark. He slid out the coffeepot with the intent to make and drink a pot while he went over case notes. Then he looked down at his massive gut and the slight wheezing apparently caused by merely getting out of bed and taking a leak, and sighed. “Shit,” he muttered.
”
”
David Baldacci (The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2))
“
Clearly she’d figured out a way to hook him, captivate him with some high-level question about group dynamics or a detail mined from his own papers that served as the magic key to Open Sesame the close connection, the meeting of like minds. When they finally emerged, Beloroda—an elfin man with a turned-up nose and an overmanicured inky beard like a Rorschach test—was beaming at Martha (now hauling a pile of textbooks he’d given her, as well as a legal pad covered with notes), bewitched by the sudden appearance of such an engaging new student.
”
”
Marisha Pessl (Neverworld Wake)
“
You were only creased. You did write me that note and put it under my door when I was sleeping. You walked to the truck stop up the road even though the truck stop was back in New York and you went on from there. Are going on. Did you know that could happen? Did you know that you could sit in front of a screen or a pad of paper and change the world? It doesn’t last, the world always comes back, but before it does, it’s awesome. It’s everything. Because you can have things the way you want and I want you to still be alive and in the story you are and always will be.
”
”
Stephen King (Billy Summers)
“
Dick pulled out his yellow pads, filling line after line with notes and reminders, intent on leaving nothing to chance: Set up budget…office furniture…need for paid workers…call on newspapers, former candidates, leaders…arrange church and lodge and veterans meetings…set up lists for mailings…billboards…bumper stickers…Nixon clubs each town (now)…study V. voting record. This was his hour; his chance to be someone. To excise the hurt. To stake his claim. He needed to win, and his plans revealed his hunger, and an incipient susceptibility to intrigue. Set up…spies in V. camp, he wrote.
”
”
John A. Farrell (Richard Nixon: The Life)
“
There was a little sketch pad with a pink paper cover, a packet of handwritten notes in what looked like my grandmother's handwriting, a silk scarf of water lilies on a blue background, a black fountain pen with an ornate silver hand on it, a book of poems by American poets with a number of pages dog-eared (I made a mental note to see if "Mending Wall" was in there), a magnifying glass with a carved wooden handle, a book called 'Native Flowers of New England' with a ragged cloth binding, another clothbound book called the 'Berry Farmer's Companion', and a stack of twenty faded black-and-white photographs.
”
”
Mary Simses (The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe)
“
I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?” Why did I cause so much pain? Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that’s not right.” Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything. God asks me what I remember. I remember everything.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
Martin Silenus had been writing notes on a pad but now he stood and paced the length of the room. “Jesus Christ, people. Look at us. We’re not six fucking pilgrims, we’re a mob. Hoyt there with his cruciform carrying the ghost of Paul Duré. Our ‘semisentient’ erg in the box there. Colonel Kassad with his memory of Moneta. M. Brawne there, if we are to believe her tale, carrying not only an unborn child but a dead Romantic poet. Our scholar with the child his daughter used to be. Me with my muse. The Consul with whatever fucking baggage he’s brought to this insane trek. My God, people, we should have received a fucking group rate for this trip.
”
”
Dan Simmons (Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1))
“
At nights, he craved that list, sometimes more than he craved her; he could picture it in his mind, the funny up-and-down capitalizations she inserted into a single word, the mechanical pencil she always used, the yellow legal pads, left over from her years as a lawyer, on which she made her notes. Sometimes the letters solidified into words, and in the dream life he'd feel triumphant; ah, he'd think, of course! Of course that's what I need! Of course Ana would know! But in the mornings, he could never remember what those things were. In those moments he wished, perversely, that he had never met her, that it was surely worse to have had her for so brief a period than to never have had her at all.
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
I pulled Slayer from its sheath and pushed the door open with my fingertips. It swung soundlessly on well-greased hinges. Through the hallway, I saw the living room lamp glowing with soothing yellow light. I smelled coffee.
Who breaks into a house, turns on the lights, and makes coffee?
I padded into the living room on soft feet, Slayer ready.
“Loud and clumsy, like a baby rhino,” said a familiar voice.
I stepped into the living room. Curran sat on my couch, reading my favorite paperback. His hair was back to its normal short length. His face was clean shaven. He looked nothing like the dark, demonic figure who shook a would-be god’s head on a field a month ago.
I thought he had forgotten about me. I had been quite happy to stay forgotten.
“The Princess Bride?” he said, flipping the book over.
“What are you doing in my house?” Let himself in, had he? Made himself comfortable, as if he owned the place.
“Did everything go well with Julie?”
“Yes. She didn’t want to stay, but she’ll make friends quickly, and the staff seems sensible.”
I watched him, not quite sure where we stood.
“I meant to tell you but haven’t gotten a chance. Sorry about Bran. I didn’t like him, but he died well.”
“Yes, he did. I’m sorry about your people. Many losses?”
A shadow darkened his face. “A third.”
He had taken a hundred with him. At least thirty people had never come back. The weight of their deaths pressed on both of us.
Curran turned the book over in his hands. “You own words of power.”
He knew what a word of power was. Lovely. I shrugged. “Picked up a couple here and there. What happened in the Gap was a one shot deal. I won’t be that powerful again.” At least not until the next flare.
“You’re an interesting woman,” he said.
“Your interest has been duly noted.” I pointed to the door.
He put the book down. “As you wish.” He rose and walked past me. I lowered my sword, expecting him to pass, but suddenly he stepped in dangerously close. “Welcome home. I’m glad you made it. There is coffee in the kitchen for you.”
My mouth gaped open.
He inhaled my scent, bent close, about to kiss me . . .
I just stood there like an idiot.
Curran smirked and whispered in my ear instead. “Psych.”
And just like that, he was out the door and gone.
Oh boy.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, #2))
“
products.” The Global Positioning System (GPS) uses spread spectrum. So does the U.S. military’s $41 billion MILSATCOM satellite communications network. Wireless local area networks (wLANs) use spread spectrum, as do wireless cash registers, bar-code readers, restaurant menu pads, and home control systems. So does Qualcomm’s Omni-TRACS mobile information system for commercial trucking fleets. So do unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), electronic automotive subsystems, aerial and maritime mobile broadband, wireless access points, digital watermarking, and much more. A study done for Microsoft in 2009 estimated the minimum economic value of spread-spectrum Wi-Fi in homes and hospitals and RFID tags in clothing retail outlets in the U.S. as $16–$37 billion per year. These uses, the study notes, “only account for 15% of the total projected market for unlicensed [spectrum] chipsets in 2014, and therefore significantly underestimates the total value being generated in unlicensed usage over this time period.” A market of which 15 percent is $25 billion would be a $166 billion market.
”
”
Richard Rhodes (Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World)
“
No one was more curious and excited about other cultures and peoples than Caroline. She sometimes still remembered facts about cultures, ancient secrets and rituals, sites of ruins that excited her when she talked about them. But her knowledge was partial where it had once been whole, her frequency of recall erratic and often fuzzy, like a station she couldn’t quite get tuned in on the dial so that it was clear.
The drugs that had been given her on the night she was gang-raped in Cozumel had scrambled her memories permanently, and sent her knowledge into dark scattered corners where she could no longer access them at will. Most of the time, she couldn’t access them at all. When she did remember, she wrote it down on little notes she kept in her pockets. She had an I-Phone now, and sometimes she would transfer some of the notes to there, and to an I-Pad we kept around Sweet Caroline for that purpose. But Caroline still kept her paper notes, not trusting technology any more than I did. She took no chances, except the chance she’d taken on me, trusting me, letting me love her. From the outside, it might have appeared as though she needed me more than I needed her, but only to those who didn’t know I’d crossed a moral line from which I might never have returned had it not been for the strength and spirit of Caroline.
”
”
Bobby Underwood (Eight Blonde Dolls (Seth Halliday #3))
“
Lifting a goblet of wine to her lips, Evie glanced at him over the rim as she drank. “What is in that ledger?”
“A lesson in creative record keeping. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that Egan has been draining the club’s accounts. He shaves away increments here and there, in small enough quantities that the thefts have gone unnoticed. But over time, it totals up to a considerable sum. God knows how many years he’s been doing it. So far, every account book I’ve looked at contains deliberate inaccuracies.”
“How can you be certain that they’re deliberate?”
“There is a clear pattern.” He flipped open a ledger and nudged it over to her. “The club made a profit of approximately twenty thousand pounds last Tuesday. If you cross-check the numbers with the record of loans, bank deposits, and cash outlays, you’ll see the discrepancies.”
Evie followed the trail of his finger as he ran it along the notes he had made in the margin. “You see?” he murmured. “These are what the proper amounts should be. He’s padded the expenses liberally. The cost of ivory dice, for example. Even allowing for the fact that the dice are only used for one night and then never again, the annual charge should be no more than two thousand pounds, according to Rohan.” The practice of using fresh dice every night was standard for any gaming club, to ward off any question that they might be loaded.
“But here it says that almost three thousand pounds was spent on dice,” Evie murmured.
“Exactly.” Sebastian leaned back in his chair and smiled lazily. “I deceived my father the same way in my depraved youth, when he paid my monthly upkeep and I had need of more ready coin than he was willing to provide.”
“What did you need it for?” Evie could not resist asking.
The smile tarried on his lips. “I’m afraid the explanation would require a host of words to which you would take strong exception.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))
“
Look around on your next plane trip. The iPad is the new pacifier for babies and toddlers… Parents and other passengers read on Kindles… Unbeknownst to most of us, an invisible, game-changing transformation links everyone in this picture: the neuronal circuit that underlies the brain’s ability to read is subtly, rapidly changing…
As work in neurosciences indicates, the acquisition of literacy necessitated a new circuit in our species’ brain more than 6,000 years ago… My research depicts how the present reading brain enables the development of some of our most important intellectual and affective processes: internalized knowledge, analogical reasoning, and inference; perspective-taking and empathy; critical analysis and the generation of insight. Research surfacing in many parts of the world now cautions that each of these essential “deep reading” processes may be under threat as we move into digital-based modes of reading…
Increasing reports from educators and from researchers in psychology and the humanities bear this out. English literature scholar and teacher Mark Edmundson describes how many college students actively avoid the classic literature of the 19thand 20th centuries because they no longer have the patience to read longer, denser, more difficult texts. We should be less concerned with students’ “cognitive impatience,” however, than by what may underlie it: the potential inability of large numbers of students to read with a level of critical analysis sufficient to comprehend the complexity of thought and argument found in more demanding texts…
Karin Littau and Andrew Piper have noted another dimension: physicality. Piper, Littau and Anne Mangen’s group emphasize that the sense of touch in print reading adds an important redundancy to information – a kind of “geometry” to words, and a spatial “thereness” for text. As Piper notes, human beings need a knowledge of where they are in time and space that allows them to return to things and learn from re-examination – what he calls the “technology of recurrence”. The importance of recurrence for both young and older readers involves the ability to go back, to check and evaluate one’s understanding of a text. The question, then, is what happens to comprehension when our youth skim on a screen whose lack of spatial thereness discourages “looking back.
”
”
Maryanne Wolf
“
Ionic is the ‘opposites attract’ chemical bond,” Elizabeth explained as she emerged from behind the counter and began to sketch on an easel. “For instance, let’s say you wrote your PhD thesis on free market economics, but your husband rotates tires for a living. You love each other, but he’s probably not interested in hearing about the invisible hand. And who can blame him, because you know the invisible hand is libertarian garbage.” She looked out at the audience as various people scribbled notes, several of which read “Invisible hand: libertarian garbage.” “The point is, you and your husband are completely different and yet you still have a strong connection. That’s fine. It’s also ionic.” She paused, lifting the sheet of paper over the top of the easel to reveal a fresh page of newsprint. “Or perhaps your marriage is more of a covalent bond,” she said, sketching a new structural formula. “And if so, lucky you, because that means you both have strengths that, when combined, create something even better. For example, when hydrogen and oxygen combine, what do we get? Water—or H2O as it’s more commonly known. In many respects, the covalent bond is not unlike a party—one that’s made better thanks to the pie you made and the wine he brought. Unless you don’t like parties—I don’t—in which case you could also think of the covalent bond as a small European country, say Switzerland. Alps, she quickly wrote on the easel, + a Strong Economy = Everybody Wants to Live There. In a living room in La Jolla, California, three children fought over a toy dump truck, its broken axle lying directly adjacent to a skyscraper of ironing that threatened to topple a small woman, her hair in curlers, a small pad of paper in her hands. Switzerland, she wrote. Move. “That brings us to the third bond,” Elizabeth said, pointing at another set of molecules, “the hydrogen bond—the most fragile, delicate bond of all. I call this the ‘love at first sight’ bond because both parties are drawn to each other based solely on visual information: you like his smile, he likes your hair. But then you talk and discover he’s a closet Nazi and thinks women complain too much. Poof. Just like that the delicate bond is broken. That’s the hydrogen bond for you, ladies—a chemical reminder that if things seem too good to be true, they probably are.” She walked
”
”
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
“
Chicago, Illinois 1896
Opening Night
Wearing her Brünnhilda costume, complete with padding, breastplate, helm, and false blond braids, and holding a spear as if it were a staff, Sophia Maxwell waited in the wings of the Canfield-Pendegast theatre. The bright stage lighting made it difficult to see the audience filling the seats for opening night of Die Walküre, but she could feel their anticipation build as the time drew near for the appearance of the Songbird of Chicago.
She took slow deep breaths, inhaling the smell of the greasepaint she wore on her face. Part of her listened to the music for her cue, and the other part immersed herself in the role of the god Wotan’s favorite daughter. From long practice, Sophia tried to ignore quivers of nervousness. Never before had stage fright made her feel ill. Usually she couldn’t wait to make her appearance. Now, however, nausea churned in her stomach, timpani banged pain-throbs through her head, her muscles ached, and heat made beads of persperation break out on her brow. I feel more like a plucked chicken than a songbird, but I will not let my audience down.
Annoyed with herself, Sophia reached for a towel held by her dresser, Nan, standing at her side. She lifted the helm and blotted her forehead, careful not to streak the greasepaint.
Nan tisked and pulled out a small brush and a tin of powder from one of the caprious pockets of her apron. She dipped the brush into the powder and wisked it across Sophia’s forehead. “You’re too pale. You need more rouge.”
“No time.”
A rhythmic sword motif sounded the prelude to Act ll. Sophia pivoted away from Nan and moved to the edge of the wing, looking out to the scene of a rocky mountain pass. Soon the warrior-maiden Brünnhilda would make an appearance with her famous battle cry.
She allowed the anticpaptory energy of the audience to fill her body. The trills of the high strings and upward rushing passes in the woodwinds introduced Brünnhilda. Right on cue, Sophia made her entrance and struck a pose. She took a deep breath, preparing to hit the opening notes of her battle call.
But as she opened her mouth to sing, nothing came out. Caught off guard, Sophia cleared her throat and tried again. Nothing. Horrified, she glanced around, as if seeking help, her body hot and shaky with shame.
Across the stage in the wings, Sophia could see Judith Deal, her understudy and rival, watching.
The other singer was clad in a similar costume to Sophia’s for her role as the valkerie Gerhilde. A triumphant expression crossed her face.
Warwick Canfield-Pendegast, owner of the theatre, stood next to Judith, his face contorted in fury. He clenched his chubby hands.
A wave of dizziness swept through Sophia. The stage lights dimmed. Her knees buckled. As she crumpled to the ground, one final thought followed her into the darkness. I’ve just lost my position as prima dona of the Canfield-Pendegast Opera Company.
”
”
Debra Holland (Singing Montana Sky (Montana Sky, #7))
“
The final option to have your book completed is to hire a ghost writer. The challenge with this option is that it is important to note that your voice IS an integral part of your branding. When you hire someone else, what your readers will ultimately get is their voice. When they see you later at your website or on your social media, your voice will not be the same. This will trigger a feeling of inconsistency when relationships need to be built upon trust and authenticity. Your audience will eventually come to think you are not the “real deal” and will find another to replace you. Finally, your book is a springboard and launching pad to greater things such as speaking, interviews, a product line, etc. Will your ghost writer be available for all of that as well? How will you be able to “ghost write” your way through an interview? Hence the reason I stress speaking in your own voice. You may think you are not perfect, but your authenticity will speak in volumes to your followers and they will be customers for life if they see your true being.
”
”
Kytka Hilmar-Jezek (Book Power: A Platform for Writing, Branding, Positioning & Publishing)
“
As Gage reached for the last bite of cinnamon roll, Roo stuffed it quickly into her mouth. Etienne just as quickly snatched the cappuccino from her other hand.
Giving Etienne a shove, Roo gestured knowingly in Miranda’s direction. “I told you she’d forget.”
“I didn’t forget,” Miranda defended herself for the second time.
“I told you she’d be late.”
“Okay,” Miranda grumbled. “I’ll give you that one.”
Roo looked smugly pleased. She took back her cappuccino.
“I think we should get started.” Ashley, as usual, seized command of the situation. “Did y’all come up with any good ideas? I brought stuff for us to take notes with.”
Parker grudgingly accepted the pad and pen she handed him. “Wow. Just what I always wanted.”
“You’ll thank me when you get an A on the project.”
“I can think of other things I’d rather thank you for.”
A memo pad came down on his head. Wincing, he rubbed his scalp and shot Ashley an injured look.
”
”
Richie Tankersley Cusick (Walk of the Spirits (Walk, #1))
“
A pencil holder and a brightly colored pad of sticky notes should flank every phone in your home. These pads are not just for message taking; they are reminder notes conveniently located so you can catch your thoughts as they occur, and then quickly stick them to the surface (computer screen, exit to home, paper calendar) that will remind you to attend to that task or bring along that item when you leave the house.
”
”
Susan C. Pinsky (Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD, 2nd Edition-Revised and Updated: Tips and Tools to Help You Take Charge of Your Life and Get Organized)
“
Students relished times when Reacting games careened into absurdity, such as when a young woman, as a Ming scholar, delivered a persuasive speech on why women should not speak in public, or when a disciple of Gandhi denounced modernity while referring to notes on his iPad.
”
”
Mark C. Carnes (Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College)
“
He pulled a spiral-bound pad labeled “Conference Notes, 2013” off the shelf. He flipped through the scribbled pages. “European rat snake! Also known colloquially as the ‘Aesculapian snake,’” he read aloud, “and widely believed to be the serpent traditionally identified with Asclepius.” “Who?” “He’s a Greek god of medicine and healing. The Romans called him Aesculapius,” he said absently, his mind beginning to turn. “Carries around a staff with a snake twirled around it.” “You mean like the FTD guy in the florist windows?” “The FTD guy—Hermes? That’s a caduceus. With two snakes. You’re breaking my heart. Have you listened to anything I’ve said in the last ten years?
”
”
Jordanna Max Brodsky (The Immortals (Olympus Bound #1))
“
He made notes on a yellow legal pad, something Harry had never seen him do before.
”
”
Claire Evans (The Fourteenth Letter)
“
At that point in time, Gokul Rajaram was a legendary éminence grise in the ad-tech world. The so-called godfather of AdSense, Google’s secondary gold mine after AdWords, Gokul was a constant presence on the conference circuit, and an omnipresent adviser or investor in just about every advertising technology company worth talking about. He too had come to Facebook via a small acqui-hire, though really that had been just a career breather between his time at Google and his hiring at Facebook. University at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), followed by an American MBA, he was your standard-issue Indian techie, and probably that country’s most valuable export after steel and Tata Motors. “What’s the first thing you would change about Facebook Ads if we hired you?” There was about as much polish and prologue to Gokul as that of a North Korean diplomat. “I’d build a conversion-tracking system. It’s unbelievable you don’t have one yet.” A conversion-tracking system is software that tells you if an advertisement has worked in driving a conversion (or “sale” in marketing-speak), and lets you retweak your marketing campaigns based on performance. An ads system without conversion tracking is like a car without rearview mirrors; nay, it’s like a car without even rear or side windows. All you can see is forward, merrily driving along, not even understanding what’s behind you or what you just ran over. It’s a danger to yourself and others, and it was a sign of just how out-of-touch Facebook Ads management was that this somehow never got prioritized. From Gokul’s smile the conclusion was clearly . . . right answer! And so the conversation went, traversing various potential aspects of the Facebook Ads system, and what the company needed to build. It was a giddy Gokul—I’d soon learn he was almost always giddy—who escorted me out the door. The boys and I had arrived separately, assuming we’d get out at different times, and separately did we go back to the GrokPad. There, we compared notes. MRM and Argyris weren’t exactly rousing in their reviews of the experience. In fact, it was clear that the fascist vibe the company gave off had very much rubbed them the wrong way. They had never really liked Facebook, as either product or company, going back to our visits to their developer events. The daylong hazing had done nothing to charm them.
”
”
Antonio García Martínez (Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley)
“
7 Outstanding Tips for Banner Printing
Choosing to produce a printed banner is a fantastic way to maximize your promotional requirements, it helps you to give maximum stand out and showcase your brand. There are a range of options from large PVC banners to simple roller banner solutions to suit all purposes of banner printing. Let’s look at some important points that can help you to make the most out of your printed banner.
1. Use High resolution images
While going for banner printing, having good quality images is imperative. If you carry your own camera, then your camera should be able to take decent quality images, but be careful with images from the internet. Not only could you infringe copyright law but the quality is usually quite poor.
2. Clever use of color
Your banner printing should be such that maximizes the use of color. Imagine the environment, where will your banner be positioned? What does your competition look like? Then, you can use color to ensure that you stand out from the crowd. If you are an established business, be sure to use your brand colors and clearly position your logo towards the top of the banner, this will make sure you develop a consistent brand identity throughout your marketing material.
3. Count your words
Using a large amount of written text can look busy, messy and be off putting to your audience. Try to work out on your key message or brand values and make the banner big and bold. A short & striking message or a graphic will work a hundred times better than a hundred words. The banner printing is meant to grab attention of the viewer, not bore them.
4. Reveal your benefit
Succinctly convey your key benefit in your banner headline. Do you have the best price? The best service? The best quality product? Whatever it is, make your banner printing known, specific to your audience and make it centralized.
5. Include an offer
Make a time – limited offer to motivate customers to respond quickly. Your offer might even be included in your headline to simplify your banner.
6. Create a memorable call to action
Make it clear what customers should do next in order to take advantage of your special offer. Your call to action should be succinct as well as memorable, such as an easy-to-remember URL or phone number. Remember that potential customers will only have a few seconds to digest your banner, so they must be able to retain the action step at a glance.
7. Less is more
It is a simple rule but one that makes all the difference. It is very tempting to use a banner to get across every possible message and cram it full of content and images, however from an end user perspective big, bold and simple messaging and graphics is the most effective way to grab attention as well as looking professional and confident.
”
”
printfast
“
After a beer to take the edge off his hangover, Vova sat at his desk and made some notes on a pad of paper: Find out what day Yevgeny usually goes to visit Luda Find out Luda’s address Find a quiet way… Silencer?
”
”
Thomas Blanks (The Shade)
“
Good old Cat Poop tapped his pencil against the pad. “You’re telling me
that you hurt yourself because you want to be a ballerina,” he said. “Is that
right?
”
”
Michael Thomas Ford (Suicide Notes)
“
…spoken words are just as powerful, as undeniable, as written ones. Perhaps more so, even, because they don’t have a landing pad like their written counterparts. There is no thrice-folded-up note or bathroom stall on which to be scribbled. Instead, the spoken words -the hurtful ones- float around in you, without a substance on which to anchor. The hurt shifts like water, sloshing around in your insides, rising up when you tilt certain ways, sometimes unexpectedly so. Just to remind you it is still there.
”
”
Winn, Karen
“
He sat in his father’s cracked brown leather swivel chair. The Judge used to sit here night after night, law books open before him, and his big fountain pen in his hand. He scribbled notes in yellow legal pads.
”
”
Campbell Armstrong (Butcher (The Glasgow Novels))
“
He put the note back then, on a whim, found the blank pad and wrote a note of his own. Keep smiling, beautiful.
”
”
Lana Pecherczyk (Envy (The Deadly Seven, #1))
“
The gallinule's candy-corn bill--- yellow at the tip, orange toward the eye---points at the waterline, and the blue and green of the feathers glint in the sunlight. I sketch the light blue cap and the oval body, hinting at its iridescence. The bird pokes her head sharply into the water, swallows, and beings to meander. She walks across floating lilies, pad to pad, and then into the reeds until I can't see her anymore, no matter how I steer the canoe. When she's gone, I look at my drawing. "Hee-hee!" I say aloud, sketching a few more quick studies to indicate her motion and the intensity of her stare, with notes on the deep iris blue of the head and breast, the aqua of the back and wings graduating to olive at the tips, and underneath an inky black.
”
”
Virginia Hartman (The Marsh Queen)
“
Jesus said that the meeting place of his people ought to be a “house of prayer”(Mt. 21:13; Is. 56:7), not a lecture hall. The heavenly hosts are not seated as armies of students armed with note pads and pencils around the throne of the Lamb in Revelation 4 and 5. Rather, we see them “fall down before him who sits on the throne” (Rev. 4:10) and hear them “singing a new song” (Rev. 5:9). If this heavenly scene models for us earthly Christian worship, then the corporate acts of kneeling, antiphonal responses, and singing are fundamental to worship.
”
”
Jeffrey J. Meyers (The Lord's Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship)
“
The sketch hunter has delightful days of drifting about among people, in and out of the city, going anywhere, everywhere, stopping as long as he likes — no need to reach any point, moving in any direction following the call of interests. He
moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook, a box of oils with a few small panels, the fit of his pocket, or on his drawing pad. Like any hunter he hits or misses. He is looking for what he loves, he tries to capture it. It’s found anywhere, everywhere. Those who are not hunters do not see these things. The hunter is learning to see and to understand—to enjoy.
There are memories of days of this sort, of wonderful driftings in and out of the crowd, of seeing and thinking. Where are the sketches that were made? Some of them are in dusty piles, some turned out to be so good they got frames, some
became motives for big pictures, which were either better or worse than the sketches, but they, or rather the states of being and understandings we had at the time of doing them all, are sifting through and leaving their impress on our whole work and life.
”
”
Robert Henri (The Art Spirit)
“
I approach the desk and lift the yellow pad of sticky notes. There’s a doodle on the top piece. A dreadfully done stickman holding the handle of a protest sign in his hand. World’s shittiest employer. I can’t suppress my laugh. Peeling away the note, I take out my wallet and slide the new doodle next to the earlier sketch she made.
”
”
Neva Altaj (Beautiful Beast (Perfectly Imperfect: Mafia Legacy, #1))
“
I draw the shape of a man sitting on a chair. Okay, it’s a stick figure, wearing pants, but the idea is the same. I add a jacket and a vest underneath, which ends up looking like an apron. Then, a big wide mouth full of sharp teeth. To finish, I draw a speech bubble. Fix your mess, Miss Petrova! A smile pulls at my lips as I tear the sticky note from the pad and attach it to the top right corner of the laptop screen.
”
”
Neva Altaj (Beautiful Beast (Perfectly Imperfect: Mafia Legacy, #1))
“
Keep a “few minutes at a time” stash in your purse or day planner. Include a pen, pad, stamps, note cards, and reading material. Pull it out at times when you are forced to wait; then you can brainstorm, write notes, make lists, or read.
”
”
Beth Beutler (52 Ways to Be More Organized)
“
A throat cleared. “Earth to Arik. Come in, boss.”
With brows drawn, Arik glared at his beta. “What?”
“I was asking what had your boxers in a knot.”
“You know I go commando.”
“Usually, but something obviously has your panties in a twist. Spill.”
Oh, he spilled all right. Arik yanked off the hat and flung it against the wall and then swiveled his chair to get it over with.
Indrawn breath. A snicker. A full-on guffaw.
Arik swirled again and tossed deadly visual daggers at his second. “I fail to see the humor in my butchered mane.”
“Dude. Have you seen it? It is bad. What did you do to piss Dominic off? Seduce one of his daughters?”
“Actually one of his granddaughters did this to me!”
He couldn’t help the incredulous note. The effrontery of the act still got to him.
A thump and a shake of the wall as Hayder hit it, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “A girl did that to you?” His beta convulsed with mirth, not at all daunted by Arik’s glower and tapping fingers.
“This is not amusing.”
“Oh, come on, dude. Of all the people to have a hair mishap, you are the worst.”
“I look like an idiot.”
“Only because you didn’t let her finish hacking the rest off.”
His fingers froze as he took his gaze off the screen for a moment to address the travesty. “Cut off my mane?” Was his beta delusional?
“Well, yeah. You know, to even it out so it doesn’t show.”
A growl rumbled forth, more beast than man, his lion not at all on board with any more trimming.
“Okay, if you’re not keen on that, then what about a hair weave? Maybe we could get you a platinum one, or pink for contrast since you’re being such a prissy princess about it.”
That did it.
A lion could take only so much.
Arik dove over his desk and tackled his beta. Over they went with a thump and a tangle of limbs.
As he was slamming Hayder’s head off the floor, snarling, “Take it back!” to his beta’s chortled, “We’ll get your nails done while they’re weaving,” Leo strode in.
A giant of a man, he didn’t even have to strain as he grabbed them each by a shoulder and yanked them apart.
But he didn’t stop there.
He slammed their heads together before shoving them down.
Arik and Hayder sat on the carpeted floor, nursing robin’s eggs, united in their glare for the pride’s omega, also known as the peacemaker.
Of course, Leo’s version of peace wasn’t always gentle, which was why he was perfect for the pride.
The behemoth with the mellow outlook on life took a seat in a chair, which groaned ominously.
“You do know that the staff two floors down can hear the pair of you acting like ill-behaved cubs.”
“He started it!” Arik stabbed a finger at his beta.
He had no problem assigning blame. Delegation was something an alpha did well.
Hayder didn’t even deny his guilt. “I did. But can you blame me? He was pissing and moaning about this precious mane. All I did was offer a solution, and he took offense.”
“I assume we’re talking about the missing chunk of hair on our esteemed leader’s head?” Leo shook his neatly trimmed dark crown. “I keep telling you that vanity is your weakness.”
“And chocolate chip ice cream is yours. We all have our vices,” Arik grumbled as he heaved himself off the floor and into his leather-padded seat— with built-in heating pad and massager because a man in his position did enjoy his luxuries.
“My vice is beautiful women,” Hayder announced with a grin, adopting a lounging pose on the floor.
Felines were king when it came to acting as if embarrassing positions weren’t accidental at all.
“Don’t talk to me about women right now. I’m still angry at the one who did this.”
“I think I’m missing a key point,” Leo stated.
It didn’t take long to bring Leo up to speed. To his credit, the pride omega didn’t laugh— long.
”
”
Eve Langlais (When an Alpha Purrs (A Lion's Pride, #1))
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Tree was lonesome, and the adjustment to campus life was not proving to be an easy one for her. She missed the intimacy of her neighborhood back in Columbia, where she knew everyone she passed on the street. She had the typical freshman sensation of being overwhelmed. The lectures were hard to follow, a lot of the terms and subjects were new to her, and she struggled to take notes at the collegiate pace. She tried to keep up as best she could, but it seemed like she was always behind. She studied for two weeks for her first biology test. She was afraid of failing. Semeka Randall, in the next bed, heard Tree weeping. Semeka slid out of bed and padded back to Tamika and Ace’s room—she was about to cry herself. She said, “Tree’s crying and it’s her birthday. We have to do something.” The three of them spent all afternoon planning a surprise. They bought a vanilla cake with white icing; they blew up eighteen balloons and decorated the back bedroom with them; they strung crepe paper, and ordered pizzas. Word got back to me that Tree was having a hard day. In the afternoon, I called the freshmen suite. I sang “Happy Birthday” to Tree, in my voice that was hoarse from yelling at her. That cheered her up some. That evening, Ace, Semeka, and Tamika acted like it was just another night in their dorm room. They talked about going out, and decided against it. Semeka said, “Let’s just eat pizzas.” Tree thought, “There goes my birthday.” When the pizza arrived, Tamika told Tree to stay in the front room. After a minute, they called Tree into the back. She walked into a room darkened except for a flaming birthday cake. It was the final icebreaker. Tree beamed. The three freshmen circled Tree, and began to sing. Semeka started first. But she didn’t sing “Happy Birthday.” She sang their favorite song from the film Waiting to Exhale. As Semeka sang a verse, the others joined in. “Count on Me,” they sang. Tree, touched, started crying again.
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Pat Summitt (Raise the Roof: The Inspiring Inside Story of the Tennessee Lady Vols' Groundbreaking Season in Women's College Basketball)
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Behind me somebody said, “Fuck!” and I realized that my sister had returned. I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough, Deborah was glaring into the now-silent room. I wasn’t sure if we were speaking to each other, since I had disobeyed her direct order and failed to go fuck myself, so I just turned back around and watched the peep show. There was really very little to see: Chapin’s brand-new attorney leaned in toward him and spoke rapidly for a few minutes. He looked up at her with growing interest, and eventually he talked back. She pulled out a legal pad and took a few notes, and then asked him a few questions, which he answered with increasing animation. After
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Jeff Lindsay (Dexter is Delicious (Dexter, #5))
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Wait,” Lacey calls. I turn back, filled with hope. Does she want me to stay? We could kick everyone out and go back to what we were doing. I could kiss the girl that I want more than anything or anyone. I could make her mine. I could pour my heart out to her. I could tell her that I love her and always will. “What?” I ask quietly. “Are you coming to my booth?” she asks. “For the results of the contest?” And watch another man kiss her? I don’t think so. “I have a lot of laundry to do,” I say. She inhales quickly and blinks even faster. “Are you going to meet us for dinner after?” she asks, her voice quivering. “Where are you going?” If I go, I’ll have to see her with her lipstick sucked off her face, and I really don’t want to. She picks up a sticky pad and writes something down. I take it from her hand, which is shaking ever so slightly. “Are you all right?” She nods, looking everywhere but at me. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she says. I shove the note into my pocket, not even bothering to look at it. I
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Tammy Falkner (Just Jelly Beans and Jealousy (The Reed Brothers, #3.4))
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The Miplorisians gather up all the suitcases and sacks and bags of sorrow and carefully make a note of them in little pads. They scrupulously catalogue every kind of sadness and pining. Things are kept in very good order in Miploris; they have an extensive system of rules and impeccably clear areas of responsibility for all kinds of sorrows,
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Fredrik Blackman
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A Role Model for Managers of Managers Gordon runs a technical group with seven managers reporting to him at a major telecommunications company. Now in his late thirties, Gordon was intensely interested in “getting ahead” early in his career but now is more interested in stability and doing meaningful work. It’s worth noting that Gordon has received some of the most positive 360 degree feedback reports from supervisors, direct reports, and peers that we’ve ever seen. This is not because Gordon is a “soft touch” or because he’s easy to work for. In fact, Gordon is extraordinarily demanding and sets high standards both for his team and for individual performance. His people, however, believe Gordon’s demands are fair and that he communicates what he wants clearly and quickly. Gordon is also very clear about the major responsibility of his job: to grow and develop managers. To do so, he provides honest feedback when people do well or poorly. In the latter instance, however, he provides feedback that is specific and constructive. Though his comments may sting at first, he doesn’t turn negative feedback into a personal attack. Gordon knows his people well and tailors his interactions with them to their particular needs and sensitivities. When Gordon talks about his people, you hear the pride in his words and tone of voice. He believes that one of his most significant accomplishments is that a number of his direct reports have been promoted and done well in their new jobs. In fact, people in other parts of the organization want to work for Gordon because he excels in producing future high-level managers and leaders. Gordon also delegates well, providing people with objectives and allowing them the freedom to achieve the objectives in their own ways. He’s also skilled at selection and spends a great deal of time on this issue. For personal reasons (he doesn’t want to relocate his family), Gordon may not advance much further in the organization. At the same time, he’s fulfilling his manager-of-managers role to the hilt, serving as a launching pad for the careers of first-time managers.
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Ram Charan (The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company (Jossey-Bass Leadership Series Book 391))
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What happened to the troubled young reporter who almost brought this magazine down The last time I talked to Stephen Glass, he was pleading with me on the phone to protect him from Charles Lane. Chuck, as we called him, was the editor of The New Republic and Steve was my colleague and very good friend, maybe something like a little brother, though we are only two years apart in age. Steve had a way of inspiring loyalty, not jealousy, in his fellow young writers, which was remarkable given how spectacularly successful he’d been in such a short time. While the rest of us were still scratching our way out of the intern pit, he was becoming a franchise, turning out bizarre and amazing stories week after week for The New Republic, Harper’s, and Rolling Stone— each one a home run. I didn’t know when he called me that he’d made up nearly all of the bizarre and amazing stories, that he was the perpetrator of probably the most elaborate fraud in journalistic history, that he would soon become famous on a whole new scale. I didn’t even know he had a dark side. It was the spring of 1998 and he was still just my hapless friend Steve, who padded into my office ten times a day in white socks and was more interested in alphabetizing beer than drinking it. When he called, I was in New York and I said I would come back to D.C. right away. I probably said something about Chuck like: “Fuck him. He can’t fire you. He can’t possibly think you would do that.” I was wrong, and Chuck, ever-resistant to Steve’s charms, was as right as he’d been in his life. The story was front-page news all over the world. The staff (me included) spent several weeks re-reporting all of Steve’s articles. It turned out that Steve had been making up characters, scenes, events, whole stories from first word to last. He made up some funny stuff—a convention of Monica Lewinsky memorabilia—and also some really awful stuff: racist cab drivers, sexist Republicans, desperate poor people calling in to a psychic hotline, career-damaging quotes about politicians. In fact, we eventually figured out that very few of his stories were completely true. Not only that, but he went to extreme lengths to hide his fabrications, filling notebooks with fake interview notes and creating fake business cards and fake voicemails. (Remember, this was before most people used Google. Plus, Steve had been the head of The New Republic ’s fact-checking department.) Once we knew what he’d done, I tried to call Steve, but he never called back. He just went missing, like the kids on the milk cartons. It was weird. People often ask me if I felt “betrayed,” but really I was deeply unsettled, like I’d woken up in the wrong room. I wondered whether Steve had lied to me about personal things, too. I wondered how, even after he’d been caught, he could bring himself to recruit me to defend him, knowing I’d be risking my job to do so. I wondered how I could spend more time with a person during the week than I spent with my husband and not suspect a thing. (And I didn’t. It came as a total surprise). And I wondered what else I didn’t know about people. Could my brother be a drug addict? Did my best friend actually hate me? Jon Chait, now a political writer for New York and back then the smart young wonk in our trio, was in Paris when the scandal broke. Overnight, Steve went from “being one of my best friends to someone I read about in The International Herald Tribune, ” Chait recalled. The transition was so abrupt that, for months, Jon dreamed that he’d run into him or that Steve wanted to talk to him. Then, after a while, the dreams stopped. The Monica Lewinsky scandal petered out, George W. Bush became president, we all got cell phones, laptops, spouses, children. Over the years, Steve Glass got mixed up in our minds with the fictionalized Stephen Glass from his own 2003 roman à clef, The Fabulist, or Steve Glass as played by Hayden Christiansen in the 2003
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Anonymous
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found a registered two-thousand-pound prize Seminole bull with a note that said, “Here’s that calf I owe you.” Faron took the bull out to pasture, where he and his partner Jimmy C. Newman, a star of the Grand Ole Opry, used it for breeding for years. Tootsie’s was the launching pad for all kinds of grand connections. One night I spotted Charlie Dick. He was Patsy Cline’s husband and manager. I had with me a copy of “Night Life” that I’d cut with Paul Buskirk in
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Willie Nelson (It's a Long Story: My Life)
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my eyes bent to my pad of paper where I kept my notes as to what I ordered. I learned about two hours into my shift that this was a perfect way of avoiding eye contact and pretending he didn’t exist at all. If I tried hard enough, I could almost believe my drinks appeared by magic.
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Kristen Ashley (Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain, #2))
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It’s just a job interview after all.” She reached for a little day planner and flipped a few pages over. “Are you Sean?” “Yes.” “For eleven?” “Yes.” She marked something on the note pad and pressed a button on the phone next to her. A buzz sounded in some nearby room. “Not very talkative are you?” “Not usually.” He tried to look around to various doors for the source of the buzz. That would tell him where he was going, and Sean liked to know where he
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Opal Mellon (To Be with You (Sunset, #1))
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the yellow pad on which he's scribbled his notes. "Type this and come up. And notify Brian and the rest of the group that the Storm Industries team is here.
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Magda Alexander (Storm Damages (Storm Damages, #1))
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eed a gift box? Cover shoe boxes with wrapping paper. Fill them with stationery, a glue stick, small scissors, paper clips, marking pens, memo pads, and thank you notes. You can even add stamps. Any mom, dad, grandparent, or teacher would love such a gift.
y motto is "Always be ready for a party." When party supplies go on sale, I stock up. Colored plates, napkins, streamers, little gifts, even party hats.
And here's a tip. When you buy candles to use later, store them in your freezer. It helps them burn longer and cleaner.
Keep a roll of cookie dough in your freezer, some scone mix in the pantry, and some of those great instant coffees so you'll be ready at any party opportunity. There's nothing like a spontaneous celebration to warm hearts. When you're ready, a party can happen in just a few minutes. You'll be creating memories you and your family and friends will cherish forever.
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Emilie Barnes (365 Things Every Woman Should Know)
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Implementing Cisco IP Routing online learning,,
The course content has been adjusted to Cisco IOS Software Release 15 and actually refreshed. The objective of the course is to expand upon the information and abilities from CCNA Routing and Switching and enable you to extend capabilities to plan, execute, and screen a versatile steering system.
Note: Students enrolling for this course will get their course pack in an advanced organization. To have the capacity to see your advanced pack you should bring a portable PC and additionally a perfect iPad or Android tablet. The prescribed framework prerequisites and directions to get to the course unit substance can be found at the accompanying connection: Digital Course Kit Requirements and Instructions.
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Microtek learning
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Things remained in a type of stasis for the next couple of days, but I was bored. I wished I had a favorite Bukowski with me to read, either Women or Notes of a Dirty Old Man, which he’d been cool enough to sign for me once when I’d been over at his pad in San Pedro. I missed him. Still couldn’t believe he was gone.
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Scott C. Holstad
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At school, Pablo found it hard to concentrate. Rather than completing classwork, he filled the margins of his notebook with pencil sketches of animals, birds, and people. His teacher grew exasperated with his lack of attention. She wrote a note to his mother saying: “Pablo should stop drawing in class and pay attention to his lessons.” It was clear that Pablo hated rules, and he took every opportunity to disobey them. When adults told him what to do, he did the opposite. He once got in trouble for coloring the sky a bright red instead of the “normal” blue. Pablo was often banished to the “calaboose,” a bare cell with white walls and a bench, which served as a holding pen for unruly students. “I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly,” Pablo later said. “I could have stayed there forever drawing without stopping.” He even began misbehaving on purpose so that he would be sentenced to detention and sent to the calaboose. The one person who understood that Pablo wasn’t acting out for no reason was his father. One day when Pablo’s mother caught him drawing on the wall with a nail, Don José took him to the beach to blow off steam. As Don José stretched out to take a nap, Pablo sat beside him and drew a dolphin in the wet sand. When Don José awoke, he was astonished by the beauty of his son’s drawing. “Could it be Pablo who drew this?” he wondered. That afternoon, Don José took a closer look at the image Pablo had drawn on their living room wall. What at first looked like random scratches soon took shape. Don José recognized a reindeer and a bison running away from a group of men on horseback who were armed with bows and arrows. At that moment, Don José knew what to do to get Pablo to stop misbehaving. He decided to take him into his studio and teach his son how to paint. From that day onward, Pablo and his father were inseparable art partners. In search of new subjects to portray, they began going to the bullfights. Pablo was mesmerized by the sight of the brave picadors as they charged ferocious bulls. He saw El Lagartijo—“The Lizard”—one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain, and he met Cara Ancha,
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David Stabler (Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors)
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walked in with my investigator and a yellow pad as if I expected to take notes, and immediately found myself in the presence of pure, apoplectic grief. I think until that very moment, I had failed to truly appreciate the role of a prosecutor. I had been hoping for the big case and the big win. But seeing Erin’s face, I realized how much I still had to learn, and how small the competitive dreams of a young prosecutor really were, in the big picture. This, I realized, was the enormity of the prosecutor’s true responsibility.
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Matt Murphy (The Book of Murder: A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death)
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around,” she answered. “Good idea,” Dink said. He grabbed a pad and scribbled a note to his uncle. “Okay, let’s go.” He and Josh followed
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Ron Roy (The Orange Outlaw (A to Z Mysteries, #15))
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label maker plus extra cartridge tape and batteries pad of lined paper, pad of graph paper pens, pencils, felt-tip pens, Sharpies®, and highlighters office necessities like a stapler, tape, paper clips, scissors, labels, calculator, sticky notes, etc. box cutter, letter opener zip ties, cable ties, or cable clips tape measure and small tools (hammer, screw driver, level) assortment of nails and picture-hanging supplies Moving
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Sara Pedersen (Learn to Organize: A Professional Organizer’s Tell-All Guide to Home Organizing)
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Alexander may or may not have peeked out of the kitchen office to make sure Eden actually ate the rest of her Asian fusion abomination. Her delicious Asian fusion abomination.
As much as it bothers him to admit, Alexander has never tasted anything so amazing before. The sauce was tangy, notes of lime coming to the forefront without being overpowering.
The mini pita shells she'd used had been warmed on the skillet, offering a lovely crunchy texture to offset the softness of the Pad Thai.
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Katrina Kwan (Knives, Seasoning, & A Dash of Love)
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It’s not a matter of having enough raw talent. Talent needs to be channeled and developed in order to become something more than a momentary spark. Actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, arguably the most influential comedian of his generation, wrote in his book Is This Anything?: Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old-school accordion folders . . . A lot of people I’ve talked to seemed surprised that I’ve kept all these notes. I don’t understand why they think that. I don’t understand why I’ve kept anything else. What could possibly be of more value?
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Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential)
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Over the years, she’d come to think of them the way a perfumer described the notes of a scent. Some were simple, others more complex—subtle layers of emotion combined to create the whole. Top, heart, and base. With Regretting Belle, the echoes were complex, heavy, and slow to lift. Against her better judgment, she placed a hand on its cover. It was bitterness that came through first, hot and sharp against the pads of her fingers. That was the top note, the initial impression. Next came the deeper and rounder heart note, betrayal, which carved a hollow place beneath her ribs. And finally, there was the base note, the most resonant of all the layers—grief. But whose grief?
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Barbara Davis (The Echo of Old Books)
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As for the care packages from my own mother, I’d learned to wait until I got back to the dorm to open them. Once she had sent three shiny pink cartons of maxi pads, accompanied by a note that said, in its entirety, Kroger was having a sale. Miss you. Love, Mom.)
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Curtis Sittenfeld (Prep)
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YESTERDAY I FOUND a note I had written to myself, in the piles of outlines and narrative maps that are a writer’s building blocks. “Let Her Die,” I had written at the top of a legal pad, a shorthand reminder to get to that part of the story. Then I saw it the next day and half gasped; for a moment it was as though someone else had given me this instruction. Let her die: a three-word definition of the arc of grief if ever I heard one, and it takes a long time.
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Gail Caldwell (Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship)
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We might go in your umbrella
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A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh Luxury Gift Set Address Book, Note Book, Note pad & pencil)
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Browning plopped onto the ground, breathing hard and covered in... winter clothes? Alistair’s jaw fell open as he finally noted the warm jacket wrapped around the toad like he was a child, the mittens on all four of his feet, and the hat shaped like a lily pad that had been tied around his thick neck.
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Emma Hamm (These Bitter Blooms)