Nothing Stays Permanent Quotes

Religious discipline is nothing but a permanent psychic shelter. You stay inside it, and you’re less vulnerable to whatever horrors happen in life.

we all make vows, Jimmy. And there is something very beautiful and touching and noble about wanting good impulses to be permanent and true forever," she said. "Most of us stand up and vow to love, honor and cherish someone. And we truly mean it, at the time. But two or twelve or twenty years down the road, the lawyers are negotiating the property settlement." "You and George didn't go back on your promises." She laughed. "Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men." She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, "They've all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole lot different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt. Oh, there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly and - well, the rest is none of your business." "But people change," he said quietly. "Precisely. People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall. Shit. Geology changes! Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we've had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people." She flopped back against her chair. "Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever. Okay. Okay! I'm figuring something out now." She sat up straight, eyes focused somewhere outside the room, and Jimmy realized that even Anne didn't have all the answers and that was either the most comforting thing he'd learned in a long time or the most discouraging. "Maybe because so few of us would be able to give up something so fundamental for something so abstract, we protect ourselves from the nobility of a priest's vows by jeering at him when he can't live up to them, always and forever." She shivered and slumped suddenly, "But, Jimmy! What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren't human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever.

Nothing is permanent, I tell myself over and over. Especially not a horse.

I agree,” Skyler replied. “There’s nothing funny about it.” He pointed to the cottage. “The house is unoccupied; we have permanent residents looking for a place to stay.” He held up both hands. “What’s the problem?” “The problem?” Ella asked, with a raised eyebrow. “I think the problem is six-foot tall, has black hair, green eyes and the ability to kick your ass across Salvador.

it’s a terrible feeling when you first fall in love. your mind gets completely taken over, you can’t function properly anymore. the world turns into a dream place, nothing seems real. you forget your keys, no one seems to be talking English and even if they are you don’t care as you can’t hear what they’re saying anyway, and it doesn’t matter since your not really there. things you cared about before don’t seem to matter anymore and things you didn’t think you cared about suddenly do. I must become a brilliant cook, I don’t want to waste time seeing my friends when I could be with him, I feel no sympathy for all those people in India killed by an earthquake last night; what is the matter with me? It’s a kind of hell, but you feel like your in heaven. even your body goes out of control, you can’t eat, you don’t sleep properly, your legs turn to jelly as your not sure where the floor is anymore. you have butterflies permanently, not only in your tummy but all over your body - your hands, your shoulders, your chest, your eyes everything’s just a jangling mess of nerve endings tingling with fire. it makes you feel so alive. and yet its like being suffocated, you don’t seem to be able to see or hear anything real anymore, its like people are speaking to you through treacle, and so you stay in your cosy place with him, the place that only you two understand. occasionally your forced to come up for air by your biggest enemy, Real Life, so you do the minimum then head back down under your love blanket for more, knowing it’s uncomfortable but compulsory. and then, once you think you’ve got him, the panic sets in. what if he goes off me? what if I blow it, say the wrong thing? what if he meets someone better than me? Prettier, thinner, funnier, more like him? who doesn’t bite there nails? perhaps he doesn’t feel the same, maybe this is all in my head and this is just a quick fling for him. why did I tell him that stupid story about not owning up that I knew who spilt the ink on the teachers bag and so everyone was punished for it? does he think I'm a liar? what if I'm not very good at that blow job thing and he’s just being patient with me? he says he loves me; yes, well, we can all say words, can’t we? perhaps he’s just being polite. of course you do your best to keep all this to yourself, you don’t want him to think you're a neurotic nutcase, but now when he’s away doing Real Life it’s agony, your mind won’t leave you alone, it tortures you and examines your every moment spent together, pointing out how stupid you’ve been to allow yourself to get this carried away, how insane you are to imagine someone would feel like that about you. dad did his best to reassure me, but nothing he said made a difference - it was like I wanted to see Simon, but didn’t want him to see me.

In reality nobody can grasp anything permanently in life. Absolutely nothing. Somethings may stay in memory for a while but eventually that too fades away.

For victims of some crimes, real and horrible crimes, permission to stay in American territory is probably insufficient recompense. But it's better than nothing. It's certainly better than the right to a mass grave in Tamaulipas or Veracruz, for instance - the most common "permanent residence" granted to Central American migrants who travel across Mexico.

I began to consider, upon the thought of "permanently" relocating, everything New York had made me. When I arrived, I was like a half-carved sculpture, my personality still and undefined image. But the city wears you down, chisels away at everything you don't need, streamlines your emotions and character until you are hard cut, fully defined, and perfect like a Rodin sculpture. That is something truly wonderful, the kind of self-crystallyzation not available in any other city. But then, if you stay too long, it keeps on wearing you down, chipping away at traits you cherish, character that you've earned. Stay forever, and it will grind you down to nothing.

In the context of novel writing, this means you should lower the bar from “best-seller” to “would not make someone vomit.” Exuberant imperfection encourages you to write uncritically, to experiment, to break your time-honored rules of writing just to see what happens. In a first draft, nothing is permanent, and everything is fixable. So stay loose and flexible, and keep your expectations very, very low.

Nothing permanent starts that way. It’s something you invite to stay.

I agree,” Skyler replied. “There’s nothing funny about it.” He pointed to the cottage. “The house is unoccupied; we have permanent residents looking for a place to stay.” He held up both hands. “What’s the problem?” “The problem?” Ella asked, with a raised eyebrow. “I think the problem is six-foot tall, has black hair, green eyes and the ability to kick your ass across Salvador.

Nothing in the world is permanent, including hard times. Hang in there, be kind to yourself, stay connected to your spiritual source, and you will emerge with unexpected gifts. That’s a promise.

Professional Answer from Tom Wheelwright Taxes are a part of life. The simple question is whether you are going to use the tax law to make them a smaller part of your life, or do nothing and let them stay a huge expense. With a sound education on how the tax laws work coupled with better tax planning from a competent tax advisor who understands the laws, most entrepreneurs and investors can permanently reduce their taxes by 10 percent to 40 percent. And the money you save in taxes can be used to invest and build your wealth. So don’t wait. Take action now and learn how you can reduce your taxes.

You know what, life is so small to leave. So, stay busy in your life. Live every second of your life with enthusiasm. Do what you love to do. Nothing is permanent. After all everything was a matter, is a matter and will be a matter

So you make a deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.'… "'No, it's not like that. It's not making a deal, bad things can still happen, but you want to try not to CAUSE them to happen. It has to do with keeping things in balance…. Really, it's like the spirits have made a deal with US…. We're on our own. The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.'… "'Like a note you'd send somebody after you stayed in their house?' "'Exactly like that. "Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. I took some beer out of the refrigerator, and I broke a coffee cup. Sorry, I hope it wasn't your favorite one."'… "It's a good idea,' I said. 'Especially since we're still here sleeping on God's couch. We're permanent houseguests.' "'Yep, we are. Better remember how to put everything back how we found it.' It was a new angle on religion, for me. I felt a little embarrassed for my blunt interrogation. And the more I thought about it, even more embarrassed for my bluntly utilitarian culture. 'The way they tell it to us Anglos, God put the earth here for us to use, westward-ho. Like a special little playground.' "Loyd said, 'Well, that explains a lot.'… "'But where do you go when you've pissed in every corner of your playground?'... "To people who think of themselves as God's houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today. Assuming the land could also forget what had been done to it.

The secret of village togetherness and happiness had always been the generosity of its people, but the secret to that generosity was village inefficiency and decay. The House of the World, like our village huts and our human bodies, no matter how magnificent, is not built to last very long. Because of this, all life must be regularly renewed... If a house is built too well, so efficiently that it is permanent and refuses to fall apart, then people have no reason to come together. Though the house stays together, the people fall apart, and nothing gets renewed

You aren’t useless. You have your mind, you have your determination. You can still probably wield a sword better than half of Cress’s army, I’d bet, depth perception or no. Stay and fight and show her that she didn’t ruin you.” Erik swallows. For a moment, he says nothing, but eventually he nods his head. “I don’t suppose you could heal me, Heron?” he asks, though he sounds like he already knows the answer. “I can’t make you a new eye,” Heron says, his voice pained. “But I can try to help with healing your other one.” “What about you, Artemisia?” Erik asks. “Any illusion you could cast to hide it?” “Nothing permanent. I’m sorry,” she says. “And nothing that would give you back your vision.” “Ah well,” Erik says, his voice still quavering. “I had a few good years of being handsome. It’s more than most get.” It’s an attempt at a joke, but no one laughs. “You’re still handsome,” Heron says quietly. Erik laughs, the sound hard. “I’m monstrous,” he says. “You’re brave,” Heron says, louder this time. “And steadfast. And you fight for your people—for what you know is right no matter what it costs you. You are, without a doubt, the handsomest man I’ve ever seen, and if you try to say otherwise one last time, I will break your nose as well, you vain ass.

7. Character is built in the course of your inner confrontation. Character is a set of dispositions, desires, and habits that are slowly engraved during the struggle against your own weakness. You become more disciplined, considerate, and loving through a thousand small acts of self-control, sharing, service, friendship, and refined enjoyment. If you make disciplined, caring choices, you are slowly engraving certain tendencies into your mind. You are making it more likely that you will desire the right things and execute the right actions. If you make selfish, cruel, or disorganized choices, then you are slowly turning this core thing inside yourself into something that is degraded, inconstant, or fragmented. You can do harm to this core thing with nothing more than ignoble thoughts, even if you are not harming anyone else. You can elevate this core thing with an act of restraint nobody sees. If you don’t develop a coherent character in this way, life will fall to pieces sooner or later. You will become a slave to your passions. But if you do behave with habitual self-discipline, you will become constant and dependable. 8. The things that lead us astray are short term—lust, fear, vanity, gluttony. The things we call character endure over the long term—courage, honesty, humility. People with character are capable of a long obedience in the same direction, of staying attached to people and causes and callings consistently through thick and thin. People with character also have scope. They are not infinitely flexible, free-floating, and solitary. They are anchored by permanent attachments to important things. In the realm of the intellect, they have a set of permanent convictions about fundamental truths. In the realm of emotion, they are enmeshed in a web of unconditional loves. In the realm of action, they have a permanent commitment to tasks that cannot be completed in a single lifetime.

Her mother, an unshapely, chubby-cheeked creature from the rural gentry of Styria, permanently lost her hair at the age of forty after being treated for influenza by her husband, and prematurely withdrew from society. She and her husband were able to live in the Gentzgasse thanks to her mother's fortune, which derived from the family estates in Styria and then devolved upon her. She provided for everything, since her husband earned nothing as a doctor. He was a socialite, what is known as a beau, who went to all the big Viennese balls during the carnival season and throughout his life was able to conceal his stupidity behind a pleasingly slim exterior. Throughout her life Auersberger's mother-in-law had a raw deal from her husband, but was content to accept her modest social station, not that of a member of the nobility, but one that was thoroughly petit bourgeois. Her son-in-law, as I suddenly recalled, sitting in the wing chair, made a point of hiding her wig from time to time--whenever the mood took him--both in the Gentzgasse and at the Maria Zaal in Styria, so that the poor woman was unable to leave the house. It used to amuse him, after he had hidden her wig, to drive his mother-in-law up the wall, as they say. Even when he was going on forty he used to hide her wigs--by that time she has provided herself with several--which was a symptom of his sickness and infantility. I often witnessed this game of hide-and-seek at Maria Zaal and in the Gentzgasse, and I honestly have to say that I was amused by it and did not feel in the least bit ashamed of myself. His mother-in-law would be forced to stay at home because her son-in-law had hidden her wigs, and this was especially likely to happen on public holidays. In the end he would throw the wig in her face. He needed his mother-in-law's humiliation, I reflected, sitting in the wing chair and observing him in the background of the music room, just as he needed the triumph that this diabolical behavior brought him.

In that moment, he looks like a da Vinci portrait; his plump, white face, his soft-looking ginger hair, his gentle-looking eyes. In da Vinci's portraits of people pointing to heaven, his models, no matter their age, always look almost cherub-like. Ben stays pointing for a while, and then the illusion is broken. "Yeah, thanks," I say. Ben grins, and his eyes turn into little slits with crow's-feet on either side that haven't yet become permanent folds in his face; I can tell they will, though. Over several years, Ben's skin will form wrinkles that will act like physical reminders of his personality and nature. Meanwhile, I'll remain looking the same; my face will give no clue to the kind of person I am. "That man looks kind," people will say when they see Ben's face when he is old. When the same people see me, they'll say nothing.

He complained that his new job took him away from his ranch too much. His wife complained even more, but the truth of the matter was that nothing much had happened in a criminal way since Horace had been deputy. He had seen himself making a name for himself and running for sheriff. The sheriff was an important officer. His job was less flighty than that of district attorney, almost as permanent and dignified as superior court judge. Horace didn’t want to stay on the ranch all his life, and his wife had an urge to live in Salinas where she had relatives.

He looked up at Dana. Tears streamed down her face. No sounds escaped. The silence wrung his heart. He almost preferred sobs to this stoic display and that said something since a woman’s tears normally sent him scrambling to the closest exit. Jon sat with his back propped against a tree, pulled her close, and wrapped his arms around her. “What if they . . .” His arms tightened. “We’ll deal with it together.” “We?” “You aren’t alone anymore, baby. Never again. I’ll walk through every step of this with you. As long as you’ll allow me, we’re a team.” Dana pressed her head against his shoulder, her face against his neck. “I’m guessing you know about my history with Ross. That’s in the past, before you knew me. If Grace’s thugs assaulted me, would it . . .?” She lapsed into silence. “Affect how I feel about you?” he asked. She nodded. “Whatever they did shames them, Dana. You aren’t to blame for anything they might have done to you. People in this line of work are masters at their trade. Nothing will affect how much you mean to me or the role I hope you’ll play in my life from now on.” She sat up to look into his eyes. “What role?” Hope shined from her gaze. “A permanent one. When you’re safe and on U.S. soil, we’ll talk. I meant what I said. We’ll get through this together. I’ll stay beside you all the way.

In the elements themselves, of which all sub-elementary things are composed, there is no acquiescence, but a vicissitudinary transmutation into one another: air condensed becomes water, a more solid body, and air rarefied becomes fire, a body more disputable and inapparent. It is so in the condition of men, too: a merchant condensed, kneaded and packed up in a great estate, becomes a lord; and a merchant rarefied, blown up by a perfidious factor, or by a riotous son, evaporates into air, into nothing, and is not seen. And if there were anything permanent and durable in this world, yet we got nothing by it, because howsoever that it might last in itself, yet we could not last to enjoy it; if our goods were not amongst moveables, yet we ourselves are; if they could stay with us, yet we cannot stay with them.

What are you so worried about? What makes you think if we got together that we’d even stay together? We wouldn’t, most likely. Nothing is permanent, especially in this town. Everything is just another set, waiting to be dismantled and hauled to the dumpster. We’d hook up, have some fun for a few weeks, a few laughs, nothing wrong with that. And then we’d go out separate ways. It would end the way most things end. I’d think about you for a while. Maybe you’d think about me. I’d ache for you a little bit, the way one does when things are over, even things that aren’t meant to be. I’d get busy with my life. You’d get busy with yours. We’d say we’d keep in touch. But we never would. And when people asked, we’d say we had a thing once, you and me. One minute it was, and the next it wasn’t. It didn’t mean it wasn’t real. It just wasn’t forever. And years later maybe we’d run into each other on the street somewhere, and you’d barely remember my name. And I’d barely remember yours. I’d say to you, hey, remember how you once loved me? And you’d say sorry, not really. And I’d say yeah, me neither.

I wanted to go home, to Velaris, but I had to stay, to make sure things were set in motion, that you were all right. So I waited as long as I could, then I sent a tug through the bond. Then you came to find me. 'I almost told you then, but... You were so sad. And tired. And for once, you looked at me like... like I was worth something. So I promised myself that the next time I saw you, I'd free you of the bargain. Because I was selfish, and knew that if I let go right then, he'd lock you up and I'd never get to see you again. When I went to leave you... I think transforming you into Fae made the bond lock into place permanently. I'd known it existed, but it hit me then- hit me so strong that I panicked. I knew if I stayed a second longer, I'd damn the consequences and take you with me. And you'd hate me forever. 'I landed at the Night Court, right as Mor was waiting for me, and I was so frantic, so... unhinged, that I told her everything. I hadn't seen her in fifty years, and my first words to her were, "She's my mate." And for three months... for three months I tried to convince myself that you were better off without me. I tried to convince myself that everything I'd done had made you hate me. But I felt you through the bond, through your open mental shields. I felt your pain, and sadness, and loneliness. I felt you struggling to escape the darkness of Amarantha the same way I was. I heard you were going to marry him, and I told myself you were happy. I should you let you be happy, even if it killed me. Even if you were my mate, you'd earned that happiness. 'The day of your wedding, I'd planned to get rip-roaring drunk with Cassian, who had no idea why, but... But then I felt you again, I felt your panic, and despair, and heard you beg someone- anyone- to save you. I lost it. I winnowed to the wedding, and barely remembered who I was supposed to be, the part I was supposed to play. All I could see was you, in your stupid wedding dress- so thin. So, so thin, and pale. And I wanted to kill him for it, but I had to get you out. Had to call in that bargain, just once, to get you away, to see if you were all right.' Rhys looked at me, eyes desolate. 'It killed me, Feyre, to send you back. To see you waste away, month by month. It killed me to know he was sharing your bed. Not just because you were my mate, but because I...' He glanced down, then up at me again. 'I knew... I knew I was in love with you that moment I picked up the knife to kill Amarantha.' 'When you finally came here... I decided I wouldn't tell you. Any of it. I wouldn't let you out of the bargain, because your hatred was better than facing the two alternatives: that you felt nothing for me, or that you... you might feel something similar, and if I let myself love you, you would be taken from me. The way my family was- the way my friends were. So I didn't tell you. I watched as you faded away. Until that day... that day he locked you up. 'I would have killed him if he'd been there. But I broke some very, very fundamental rules in taking you away. Amren said if I got you to admit that we were mates, it would keep any trouble from our door, but... I couldn't force the bond on you. I couldn't try to seduce you into accepting the bond, either. Even if it gave Tamlin license to wage war on me. You had been through so much already. I didn't want you to think that everything I did was to win you, just to keep my lands safe. But I couldn't... I couldn't stop being around you, and loving you, and wanting you. I still can't stay away.' He leaned back, loosing a long breath.

The following falsifications to be deleted from the proposed language: The IS of identity. You are an animal. You are a body. Now whatever you may be you are not an “animal,” you are not a “body,” because these are verbal labels. The IS of iden­tity always carries the implication of that and nothing else, and it also carries the assignment of permanent condition. To stay that way. All name calling presupposes the IS of identity. This concept is unnecessary in a hieroglyphic language like ancient Egyptian and in fact frequently omitted. No need to say the sun IS in the sky, sun in sky suffices. The verb to be can easily be omitted from any language and the followers of Count Korgybski have done this, eliminating the verb to be in English. However, it is difficult to tidy up the English language by arbitrary exclusion of concepts which remain in force so long as the unchanged language is spoken. The definite article THE. THE contains the implication of one and only: THE God, THE universe, THE way, THE right, THE wrong. If there is another, then THAT universe, THAT way is no longer THE universe, THE way. The defi­ nite article THE will be deleted and the indefinite article A will take its place. The whole concept of EITHER/OR. Right or wrong, physical or mental, true or false, the whole concept of OR will be deleted from the language and replaced by juxtaposi­tion, by AND.

Seriously? You told him that?” Sophie bit her lip. “He sort of…pried it out of me. And then he wanted to go after Burke. I made him promise to stay away—well, not to kill him, but Sylvan went after him anyway.” “Really?” Olivia stared at her. “You mean he tracked down Burke after all these years and beat him up? That doesn’t sound like Sylvan to me.” “It’s not like him. At least, not as far as I can tell.” Sophie sighed unhappily. “I saw everything he did—he didn’t just beat Burke up—he broke his arm. A bad break. I could see the…the bones coming out of his skin all jagged and bloody…” The memory made her sick to her stomach and she shook her head, unable to continue. “A compound fracture, huh?” Olivia nodded thoughtfully. “That is bad.” “But that’s not all,” Sophie went on. “He also, uh, castrated him.” “He what?” Liv and Kat said together. “He did.” Sophie nodded. “With this little silver thingy. It was really small—it fit in the palm of his hand. But it burned Burke’s, uh, equipment right off. There was nothing left but a…but a scar.” She swallowed hard, willing her stomach to be steady. Considering the fact that she hadn’t eaten in well over twenty-four hours, she felt remarkably un-hungry. “I think I know what you’re talking about,” Liv said. “It’s mostly used for dermatological cases—when somebody needs a wart burned off or something. I never thought of burning off anything, uh, bigger.” “Well I guess Burke’s out of business.” There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Kat’s tone. “Permanently from the sound of it.” Liv laughed. “Good for Sylvan! I wish I could have seen it.” “I

The questing, anxious, exacting way that we have of looking at the person we love, our eagerness for the word which shall give us or take from us the hope of an appointment for the morrow, and, until that word is uttered, our alternative if not simultaneous imaginings of joy and of despair, all these make our observation, in the beloved object’s presence, too tremulous to be able to carry away a clear impression of her. Perhaps, also, that activity of all the senses at once which endeavours to learn from the visible aspect alone what lies behind it is over-indulgent to the thousand forms, to the changing fragrance, to the movements of the living person whom as a rule, when we are not in love, we regard as fixed in one permanent position. Whereas the beloved model does not stay still; and our mental photographs of her are always blurred. I did not rightly know how Gilberte’s features were composed, save in the heavenly moments when she disclosed them to me; I could remember nothing but her smile. And not being able to see again that beloved face, despite every effort that I might make to recapture it, I would be disgusted to find, outlined in my memory with a maddening precision of detail, the meaningless, emphatic faces of the man with the wooden horses and of the barley-sugar woman; just as those who have lost a dear friend whom they never see even while they are asleep, are exasperated at meeting incessantly in their dreams any number of insupportable creatures whom it is quite enough to have known in the waking world. In their inability to form any image of the object of their grief they are almost led to assert that they feel no grief.

She stayed with buses after that, getting off only now and then to walk so she'd keep awake. What fragments of dreams came had to do with the post horn. Later, possibly, she would have trouble sorting the night into real and dreamed. At some indefinite passage in night's sonorous score, it also came to her that she would be safe, that something, perhaps only her linearly fading drunkenness, would protect her. The city was hers, as, made up and sleeked so with the customary words and images (cosmopolitan, culture, cable cars) it had not been before: she had safe-passage tonight to its far blood's branchings, be they capillaries too small for more than peering into, or vessels mashed together in shameless municipal hickeys, out on the skin for all but tourists to see. Nothing of the night's could touch her; nothing did. The repetition of symbols was to be enough, without trauma as well perhaps to attenuate it or even jar it altogether loose from her memory. She was meant to remember. She faced that possibility as she might the toy street from a high balcony, roller-coaster ride, feeding-time among the beasts in a zoo-any death-wish that can be consummated by some minimum gesture. She touched the edge of its voluptuous field, knowing it would be lovely beyond dreams simply to submit to it; that not gravity's pull, laws of ballistics, feral ravening, promised more delight. She tested it, shivering: I am meant to remember. Each clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity, its fine chances for permanence. But then she wondered if the gemlike "clues" were only some kind of compensation. To make up for her having lost the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night. In Golden Gate Park she came on a circle of children in their nightclothes, who told her they were dreaming the gathering. But that the dream was really no different from being awake, because in the mornings when they got up they felt tired, as if they'd been up most of the night. When their mothers thought they were out playing they were really curled in cupboards of neighbors' houses, in platforms up in trees, in secretly-hollowed nests inside hedges, sleeping, making up for these hours. The night was empty of all terror for them, they had inside their circle an imaginary fire, and needed nothing but their own unpenetrated sense of community. They knew about the post horn, but nothing of the chalked game Oedipa had seen on the sidewalk. You used only one image and it was a jump-rope game, a little girl explained: you stepped alternately in the loop, the bell, and the mute, while your girlfriend sang: Tristoe, Tristoe, one, two, three, Turning taxi from across the sea… "Thurn and Taxis, you mean?" They'd never heard it that way. Went on warming their hands at an invisible fire. Oedipa, to retaliate, stopped believing in them.

It’s not all about hitting. There’s an art to it. A talent. You need power but also smarts. When to hit and where. You have to outthink your opponent. It’s not all about size. Determination and experience play a part.” “Like in business,” she said. “The skill set translates.” She wrinkled her nose. “Doesn’t it hurt when you get hit?” “Some. But boxing is what I knew. Without it, I would have just been some kid on the streets.” “You’re saying hitting people kept you from being bad?” “Something like that. Put down your glass.” She set it on the desk. He did the same, then stepped in front of her. “Hit me,” he said. She tucked both hands behind her back. “I couldn’t.” The amusement was back. “Do you actually think you can hurt me?” She eyed his broad chest. “Probably not. And I might hurt myself.” He shrugged out of his suit jacket, then unfastened his tie. In one of those easy, sexy gestures, he pulled it free of his collar and tossed it over a chair. “Raise your hands and make a fist,” he said. “Thumbs out.” Feeling a little foolish, she did as he requested. He stood in front of her again, this time angled, his left side toward her. “Hit me,” he said. “Put your weight behind it. You can’t hurt me.” “Are you challenging me?” He grinned. “Think you can take me?” Not on her best day, but she was willing to make the effort. She punched him in the arm. Not hard, but not lightly. He frowned. “Anytime now.” “Funny.” “Try again. This time hit me like you mean it or I’ll call you a girl.” “I am a girl.” She punched harder this time and felt the impact back to her shoulder. Duncan didn’t even blink. “Maybe I’d do better at tennis,” she murmured. “It’s all about knowing what to do.” He moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “You want to bend your knees and keep your chin down. As you start the punch, think about a corkscrew.” He demonstrated in slow motion. “That will give you power,” he said. “It’s a jab. A good jab can make a boxer’s career. Lean into the punch.” She was sure his words were making sense, but it was difficult to think with him standing so close. She was aware of his body just inches from hers, of the strength and heat he radiated. The need to simply relax into his arms was powerful. Still, she did her best to pay attention, and when he stepped in front of her again so she could demonstrate, she did her best to remember what he’d said. This time, she felt the impact all the way up her arm. There was a jarring sensation, but also the knowledge that she’d hit a lot harder. “Did I bruise you?” she asked, almost hoping he would say yes, or at least rub his arm. “No, but that was better. Did you feel the difference?” “Yes, but I still wouldn’t want to be a boxer.” “Probably for the best. You’d get your nose broken.” She dropped her arms to her sides. “I wouldn’t want that.” She leaned closer. “Have you had your nose broken?” “A couple of times.” She peered at his handsome face. “I can’t tell.” “I was lucky.” She put her hand on his chin to turn his head. He looked away, giving her a view of his profile. There was a small bump on his nose. Nothing she would have noticed. “You couldn’t just play tennis?” she asked. He laughed, then captured her hand in his and faced her. They were standing close together, his fingers rubbing hers. She shivered slightly, but not from cold. His eyes darkened as he seemed to loom over her. His gaze dropped to her mouth. He swallowed. “Annie.” The word was more breath than sound. She heard the wanting in his voice and felt an answering hunger burning inside her. There were a thousand reasons she should run and not a single reason to stay. She knew that she was the one at risk, knew that he wasn’t looking for anything permanent. But the temptation was too great. Being around Duncan was the best part of her day.

Kala, this is what’s called drama. This is what we live for, baby girl.” Ian tipped his beer back. “Way better than TV.” Jake frowned and looked down at his identically dressed infant. “How do you know which one is which?” “A father always knows,” Big Tag said. “Also, I marked this one with a Sharpie. See, it looks like a tiny mole right behind her ear. That’s Kala.” Serena gasped. “Ian Taggart, that’s horrible.” He shrugged. “Nah, what’s horrible is I’m trying to figure out a way to make it permanent. Is it illegal to tattoo a baby?” “Yes,” Serena and Ally managed to say at the same time. Big Tag shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s not like I’m putting a skull and crossbones on her. It’s a miniscule dot so neither one of these girls can pull one over on the old man.” He pointed to the baby in Jake’s arms. “Yeah, I’m looking at you, Kenz. I see how you roll over and try to pretend to be Kala. I’m not blind. Daddy sees everything. Including how you look at that Tristan kid. Stay away from him.” “Ian, she’s eight weeks old,” Serena pointed out. “Tristan recently turned one. I hardly think they’re planning to date.

You’ve always been a fixer, Jack. But sometimes you have to let things go. Let them be. Maybe they get broken. Maybe they don’t. But you don’t have to worry, because nothing stays broken forever. Nothing’s permanently lost.

Every loss is a lesson in learning to stay detached. So, when you lose someone, or something, examine your grief. Yet, don't resist it; let it flow…grieve, shed a tear, but quickly wipe it away, move on, don't cling on to your sorrows! Go beyond the smokescreen of permanence. Remember: nothing is permanent, not even your own Life!

Throwing some money on the counter, he heads out into the night, trying to stay calm, but he’s reeling. There are so few things in our existence we can count on to give us the sense of permanence, of the ground beneath our feet. People fail us. Our bodies fail us. We fail ourselves. He’s experienced all of that. But what do you cling to, moment to moment, if memories can simply change. What, then, is real? And if the answer is nothing, where does that leave us?

Everything has shifted. Life taught me not to get attached to a single fucking thing, because nothing in this world is permanent. Everything is temporary. I no longer accept that when it comes to her. She’s mine. She’s staying mine. Even my black heart couldn’t handle losing her. I will keep her safe with my very last breath, if necessary.

You can’t stay in today forever. Whether it is good or bad. Whether you want to or not. Nothing is permanent. It is beautiful and tragic all at once.

In a world where possibility is endless, the possibilities for pain and loss and permanent separation are also endless. So fear breeds imagination, and vice versa, on and on and on, until there is nothing left to do except go mad.

Daniel rested his hip on the counter, arms crossed, saying and offering nothing. “What? Are you thinking about sticking me with Luc permanently?” I laughed, the sound anxious. I waited for Daniel to laugh, too, at the sheer insanity of the idea. To reassure me he would never do something so cruel. But he stayed silent, something he was getting very good at. “You know something? Trying to have a discussion with you would work a lot better if you’d actually talk.” It was like riding on a merry-go-round, only without the merry. “You promised to stop keeping secrets from me, remember?

Ruxs felt Green’s ass clench around his finger while his cock emptied onto his stomach. “Coming so damn hard for you.” Green grunted, rubbing his cock against the dark hairs covering Ruxs’ abs. His body jerked several more times while his orgasm had its way with him. Ruxs sucked on Green’s collarbone, burying his nose in his neck, breathing in his delicious scent of arousal and sweat. He protested when Green went to roll off of him. “Stay.” “We’re gonna end up stuck together permanently, if we don’t get up and wash.” Green chuckled, brushing his own kisses along his jaw. Ruxs moaned, stroking his big hand up and down Green’s side. “Permanently sounds good.” Green lifted his head so he could look into his eyes. Ruxs stared back. He didn’t see regret, only the kindness and handsomeness that was his best friend. “This

Time is a funny thing. You can go through it and meddle with it, but nothing can stay permanent. So even if everything so far had not happened, time would still have managed to find a way to make all this happen.

* There is nothing permanent except change. - Heraclitus Nature always stays permanent in all of its dimensions; whereas, the change is an optional process in various ways, forms, and sizes. - Ehsan Sehgal

Letting him off the hook was pretty much a reflex at this point. The divorce had left her with a permanently guilty conscience that made it almost impossible for her to stay mad at her son or hold him accountable for his actions. The poor kid had been the victim of an elaborate bait and switch perpetrated by his own parents, who, for eleven years, had built a life for that felt solid and permanent and good, and then—just kidding!—had ripped it out of his hands and replaced it with an inferior substitute, a smaller, flimsier version in which love had an expiration date and nothing could be trusted. Was it any wonder that he didn’t always treat other people with the kindness and consideration they deserved?

She spoke wearily, her eyes rimmed a permanent shade of red. “They say we need to take him off of life support. That his body is deteriorating.” The wail of Brandon’s mom came down the hallway. It had become a sound we knew all too well. She broke down at random. Everyone did. Well, everyone except for me. I was void of emotion while my predator and I shared space. Instead of feeling pain at Sloan’s suffering, I spiraled further into my OCD. I slept less. I moved more. I dove deeper into my rituals. And nothing helped. Sloan didn’t react to the sound of grief down the hall. “His brain isn’t making hormones anymore or controlling any of his bodily functions. The medications he’s on to maintain his blood pressure and body temperature are damaging his organs. They said if we want to donate them, we have to do it soon.” “Okay,” I said, pulling tissues from a box and shoving them into her hands. “When are they doing it?” She spoke to the room, to someplace behind me. She didn’t look at me. “They’re not.” I stared at her. “What do you mean they’re not?” She blinked, her eyelids closing mechanically. “His parents don’t want to take him off life support. They’re praying for a miracle. They’re really religious. They think he rebounded once and he’ll rebound again.” Her eyes focused on me, tears welled, threatening to fall. “It’s going to all be for nothing, Kristen. He’s an organ donor. He’d want that. He’s going to rot in that room and he’s going to die for nothing and I have no say in any of it.” The tears spilled down her face, but she didn’t sob. They just streamed, like water from a leaky hose. I gaped at her. “But…but why? Didn’t he have a will? What the fuck?” She shook her head. “We talked about it, but the wedding was so close we just decided to wait. I have no say. At all.” The reality suddenly rolled out before me. It wouldn’t just be this. It would be everything. His life insurance policy, his benefits, his portion of the house, his belongings—not hers. She would get nothing. Not even a vote. She went on in her daze. “I don’t know how to convince them. The insurance won’t cover his stay much longer, so they’ll be forced to make a decision at some point. But it will cover it long enough for his organs to fail.” My brain grasped at a solution. “Claudia. She might be able to convince them.” She hadn’t been able to make the meeting. And she would side with Sloan—I knew she would. She had influence on her parents. “Maybe Josh too,” I continued. “They like him. They might listen to him.” I stood. She looked up at me, a tear dripping off her chin and landing on her thigh. “Where are you going?” “To find Josh.

We only have red wolves here at Sandy Ridge now,” Ryan says. “Summer is our slow season. But by fall, this place will be packed with wolves and coyotes.” “Why do you hold coyotes here?” I ask. “If we know one is holding a territory, we trap it, sterilize it and put a radio collar on it,” Ryan explains. “They stay here at Sandy Ridge while they recover, and then we release them back to their territory.” By sterilizing coyotes that set up territories in the red wolf recovery area and then tracking them, the red wolf biologists protect the red wolf’s unique genome from hybridization with coyotes. But a sterile coyote doesn’t solve the red wolf’s propensity for running with and mating with coyotes. It only prevents conception. It is an elaborate birth-control scheme to ensure the survival of an endangered species. One of the quirks of the genus Canis is that the various species within it can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Historically, hybridization of the last wild red wolves with coyotes was the single biggest threat that prompted the FWS to begin capturing the last wolves for breeding in captivity. When the first red wolves were reintroduced to Alligator River in 1987, the nearest coyotes were 500 miles west. Experts thought it would take them eight to ten years to pad their way to the coast - plenty of time, they thought, for red wolves to build up a big population and keep the invading coyotes at bay. But coyotes soon infiltrated the red wolf’s recovery area in the early 1990s. Suddenly, the Red Wolf Recovery Program had a problem on its hands: red wolves were once again hybridizing with coyotes. “Why don’t you just trap all the coyotes out of the recovery area?” I ask. “Even if we could remove them all, then more coyotes would likely just come in and take their territories,” Ryan replies. Plus, the team simply doesn’t have the manpower to trap all of the coyotes off the peninsula, though they put significant effort into patrolling certain areas to keep coyotes out. Coyotes are too adaptive and elusive for a large-scale trapping program to work permanently. In one of their biological quirks, coyotes are known to have more offspring survive to adulthood when their population is persecuted through lethal control efforts. The rascals can live on practically nothing, and they are prolific breeders to boot.

* There is nothing permanent except change. - Heraclitus Nature always stays permanent in all of its dimensions; whereas, the change is an optional process in various ways, forms, and sizes. - Ehsan Sehgal

because nothing could ever stay in stasis. Nothing ever stopped. Nothing was permanent. Art lived and breathed, like love, like friendship. Life—like works of art—was transformative. It persisted.