Nowhere Near Perfect Quotes

The perfect metaphor," he said, "looming up suddenly out of nowhere in the middle of your maiden voyage, unseen until it is nearly upon you, unavoidable even when you try to swerve, unexpected even though there have been warnings all along. [...]

He made a noise that sounded like a strangled laugh, and then said: Ah, I like your style. I’ll give you that. You’re not easy to get the upper hand on, are you? Obviously I’m not going to manage it. It’s funny, because you carry on like you’d let me walk all over you, answering my texts at two in the morning, and then telling me you’re in love with me, blah blah blah. But that’s all your way of saying, just try and catch me, because you won’t. And I can see I won’t. You’re not going to let me have it for a minute. Nine times out of ten you’d have someone fooled with the way you go on. They’d be delighted with themselves, thinking they were really the boss of you. Yeah, yeah, but I’m not an idiot. You’re only letting me act badly because it puts you above me, and that’s where you like to be. Above, above. And I don’t take it personally, by the way, I don’t think you’d let anyone near you. Actually, I respect it. You’re looking out for yourself, and I’m sure you have your reasons. I’m sorry I was so harsh on you with what I said, because you were right, I was just trying to hurt you. And I probably did hurt you, big deal. Anyone can hurt anyone if they go out of their way. But then instead of getting mad with me, you go saying I’m welcome to stay over and you still love me and all this. Because you have to be perfect, don’t you? No, you really have a way about you, I must say. And I’m sorry, alright? I won’t be trying to take a jab at you again. Lesson learned. But from now on you don’t need to act like you’re under my thumb, when we both know I’m nowhere near you. Alright? Another long silence fell. Their faces were invisible in darkness. Eventually, in a high and strained voice, straining perhaps for an evenness or lightness it did not attain, she replied: Alright. If I ever do get a hold of you, you won’t need to tell me, he said. I’ll know. But I’m not going to chase too much. I’ll just stay where I am and see if you come to me. Yes, that’s what hunters do with deer, she said. Before they kill them.

Eh, we’re nowhere near perfect, and you’re aware of that because she tells you everything.” He fixed me with a knowing look, hands tucked behind his head. “I screw up weekly, and living with your best friend, the love of my life, is not always a picnic, but that’s normal. People are imperfect, so relationships will always have flaws.

the one and only safety in the universe, is the perfect nearness of the Living One! God is being; death is nowhere!

But even as he reached out to cup he face he heard an angry buzzing, and a huge black bee dive-bombed him from out of nowhere. With an oath, Thomas jumped back, swatting ineffectually at the persistent insect. As his left foot came down he turned his ankle and nearly fell. Alexandria’s hand covered her mouth in horror. Aidan, stop it right now! I cannot imagine what you are accusing me of, Aidan returned innocently from the living room. But I have not done anything. He smiled and moved slowly toward her. Yet. “Marie!” In a panic, Alexandria called out as loudly as she could. Aidan laughed as the housekeeper hurried in. Little coward, run while you can. Though they were half a room apart and Marie was squarely between them, Alexandria felt the brush of his fingers on her skin, her face, her throat. They trailed lower, feather-light, to touch the aching swell of her breast before the sensation was gone. “What is it, Alexandria?” Marie asked, her hands on her hips, glaring at Aidan. He held up a placating hand, laughing. “I am innocent. I was a perfect gentleman to her visitor.” “He spilled Thomas’s coffee, made him sneeze, smeared whipped cream over him, and chased him with a bee,” Alexandria accused. While Marie struggled to keep a straight face, Alexandria delivered a final outrage. “And he was going to wither my flowers.” “Aidan!” Marie reprimanded sharply, but there was laughter in her eyes.

I opened myself up to the kiss and kissed him back with enthusiasm. Putting all my secret emotions and tender feelings into the embrace, I wound my arms around his neck and slid my hands into his hair. Pulling his body that much closer to mine, I embraced him with all the warmth and affection that I wouldn’t allow myself to express verbally. He paused, shocked for a brief instant, and then quickly adjusted his approach, escalating into a passionate frenzy. I shocked myself by matching his energy. I ran my hands up his powerful arms and shoulders and then down his chest. My senses were in turmoil. I felt wild. Eager. I clutched at his shirt. I couldn’t get close enough to him. He even smelled delicious. You’d think that several days of being chased by strange creatures and hiking through a mysterious kingdom would make him smell bad. In fact, I wanted him to smell bad. I’m sure I did. I mean, how can you expect a girl to be fresh as a daisy while traipsing through the jungle and getting chased by monkeys. It’s just not possible. I desperately wanted him to have some fault. Some weakness. Some…imperfection. But Ren smelled amazing-like waterfalls, a warm summer day, and sandalwood trees all wrapped up in a sizzling, hot guy. How could a girl defend herself from a perfect onslaught delivered by a pefect person? I gave up and let Mr. Wonderful take control of my senses. My blood burned, my heart thundered, my need for him quickened, and I lost all track of time in his arms. All I was aware of was Ren. His lips. His body. His soul. I wanted all of him. Eventually, he put his hands on my shoulders and gently separated us. I was surprised that he had the strength of will to stop because I was nowhere near being able to. I blinked my eyes open in a daze. We were both breathing hard. “That was…enlightening,” he breathed. “Thank you, Kelsey.” I blinked. The passion that had dulled my mind dissipated in an instant, and my mind sharply focused on a new feeling. Irritation. “Thank you? Thank you! Of all the-“ I slammed up the steps angrily and then spun around to look down at him. “No! Thank you, Ren!” My hands slashed at the air. “Now you got what you wanted, so leave me alone!” I ran up the stairs quickly to put some distance between us. Enlightening? What was that about? Was he testing me? Giving me a one-to-ten score on my kissing ability? Of all the nerve? I was glad that I was mad. I could shove all the other emotions into the back of my mind and just focus on the anger, the indignation. He leapt up the stairs two at a time. “That’s not all I want, Kelsey. That’s for sure.” “Well, I no longer care about what you want!” He shot me a knowing look and raised an eyebrow. Then, he lifted his foot out of the opening, placed it on the dirt, and instantly changed back into a tiger. I laughed mockingly. “Ha!” I tripped over a stone but quickly found my footing. “Serves you right!” I shouted angrily and stumbled blindly along the dim path. After figuring out where to go, I marched off in a huff. “Come on, Fanindra. Let’s go find Mr. Kadam.

We’re nowhere near young enough for the present war, but when the world war comes—we’ll be just right to fight it. We are, after all, a superb physical specimen. Our feet aren’t flat. Our vision is clear. We’re not clubfooted or Marxist or nuts. We have no conscientious objections or anything of that kind. We’re perfect.

Finally I say a prayer of thanks to God for taking a broken man and making him whole, for being my Redeemer, graciously giving me a second chance as a pitcher, as a husband and father, and as a Christian man. I know my journey is nowhere near complete. The point isn’t to arrive. The point is to seek, to walk humbly with God, to keep walking and keep believing even though you know there will be times when you make mistakes and feel lost. You keep seeking the path, and He will show you the way.

Most of us didn’t feel too enthusiastic about making a collapsar jump, either. We’d been assured that we wouldn’t even feel it happen, just free fall all the way. I wasn’t convinced. As a physics student, I’d had the usual courses in general relativity and theories of gravitation. We only had a little direct data at that time — Stargate was discovered when I was in grade school — but the mathematical model seemed clear enough. The collapsar Stargate was a perfect sphere about three kilometers in radius. It was suspended forever in a state of gravitational collapse that should have meant its surface was dropping toward its center at nearly the speed of light. Relativity propped it up, at least gave it the illusion of being there … the way all reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted. At any rate, there would be a theoretical point in space-time when one end of our ship was just above the surface of the collapsar, and the other end was a kilometer away (in our frame of reference). In any sane universe, this would set up tidal stresses and tear the ship apart, and we would be just another million kilograms of degenerate matter on the theoretical surface, rushing headlong to nowhere for the rest of eternity or dropping to the center in the next trillionth of a second. You pays your money and you takes your frame of reference. But they were right. We blasted away from Stargate 1, made a few course corrections and then just dropped, for about an hour.

ultimately, most of us would choose a rich and meaningful life over an empty, happy one, if such a thing is even possible. “Misery serves a purpose,” says psychologist David Myers. He’s right. Misery alerts us to dangers. It’s what spurs our imagination. As Iceland proves, misery has its own tasty appeal. A headline on the BBC’s website caught my eye the other day. It read: “Dirt Exposure Boosts Happiness.” Researchers at Bristol University in Britain treated lung-cancer patients with “friendly” bacteria found in soil, otherwise known as dirt. The patients reported feeling happier and had an improved quality of life. The research, while far from conclusive, points to an essential truth: We thrive on messiness. “The good life . . . cannot be mere indulgence. It must contain a measure of grit and truth,” observed geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. Tuan is the great unheralded geographer of our time and a man whose writing has accompanied me throughout my journeys. He called one chapter of his autobiography “Salvation by Geography.” The title is tongue-in-cheek, but only slightly, for geography can be our salvation. We are shaped by our environment and, if you take this Taoist belief one step further, you might say we are our environment. Out there. In here. No difference. Viewed that way, life seems a lot less lonely. The word “utopia” has two meanings. It means both “good place” and “nowhere.” That’s the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn’t want to live in the perfect place, either. “A lifetime of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on Earth,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman. Ruut Veenhoven, keeper of the database, got it right when he said: “Happiness requires livable conditions, but not paradise.” We humans are imminently adaptable. We survived an Ice Age. We can survive anything. We find happiness in a variety of places and, as the residents of frumpy Slough demonstrated, places can change. Any atlas of bliss must be etched in pencil. My passport is tucked into my desk drawer again. I am relearning the pleasures of home. The simple joys of waking up in the same bed each morning. The pleasant realization that familiarity breeds contentment and not only contempt. Every now and then, though, my travels resurface and in unexpected ways. My iPod crashed the other day. I lost my entire music collection, nearly two thousand songs. In the past, I would have gone through the roof with rage. This time, though, my anger dissipated like a summer thunderstorm and, to my surprise, I found the Thai words mai pen lai on my lips. Never mind. Let it go. I am more aware of the corrosive nature of envy and try my best to squelch it before it grows. I don’t take my failures quite so hard anymore. I see beauty in a dark winter sky. I can recognize a genuine smile from twenty yards. I have a newfound appreciation for fresh fruits and vegetables. Of all the places I visited, of all the people I met, one keeps coming back to me again and again: Karma Ura,

You really don’t believe that anything can have a value of its own beyond what function it serves for human beings?” Resaint said. “Value to who?” Resaint asked Halyard to imagine a planet in some remote galaxy—a lush, seething, glittering planet covered with stratospheric waterfalls, great land-sponges bouncing through the valleys, corals budding in perfect niveous hexagons, humming lichens glued to pink crystals, prismatic jellyfish breaching from the rivers, titanic lilies relying on tornadoes to spread their pollen—a planet full of complex, interconnected life but devoid of consciousness. “Are you telling me that, if an asteroid smashed into this planet and reduced every inch of its surface to dust, nothing would be lost? Because nobody in particular would miss it?” “But the universe is bloody huge—stuff like that must happen every minute. You can’t go on strike over it. Honestly it sounds to me to like your real enemy isn’t climate change or habitat loss, it’s entropy. You don’t like the idea that everything eventually crumbles. Well, it does. If you’re this worried about species extinction, wait until you hear about the heat death of the universe.” “I would be upset about the heat death of the universe too if human beings were accelerating the rate of it by a hundred times or more.” “And if a species’ position with respect to us doesn’t matter— you know, those amoebae they found that live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, if they’re just as important as Chiu Chiu or my parents’ dog, even though nobody ever gets anywhere near them—if distance in space doesn’t matter, why should distance in time? If we don’t care about whether their lives overlap with our lives, why even worry about whether they exist simultaneously with us? Your favorite wasp—Adelo-midgy-midgy—” “Adelognathus marginatum—” “It did exist. It always will have existed. Extinction can’t take that away. It went through its nasty little routine over and over again for millions and millions of years. The show was a big success. So why is it important that it’s still running at the same time you are? Isn’t that centering the whole thing on human beings, which is exactly what we’re not supposed to be doing? I mean, for that matter—reality is all just numbers anyway, right? I mean underneath? That’s what people say now. So why are you so down on the scans? Hacks aside. Why is it so crucial that these animals exist right now in an ostensibly meat-based format, just because we do? My point is you talk about extinction as if you’re taking this enlightened post-human View from Nowhere but if we really get down to it you’re definitely taking a View from Karin Resaint two arms two legs one head born Basel Switzerland year of our lord two-thousand-and-when-ever.” But Resaint wasn’t listening anymore.

Growth ain't for weenies, but it's nowhere near as painful as living the life you're living right now if you're not really going for it. If you want to take control of your life and turn it into something as spectacularly "you" as have the people I described above, stop at nothing. Have faith. Trust that your new life is already here and is far better than the old. Hang tight if the Big Snooze pitches a fit. Whatever happens, stay the course, because there's nothing cooler than watching your entire reality shift into one that is the perfect expression of you.

Unwashed and undernourished, having spent over four days on five different trains and four military jeeps, Alexander got off at Molotov on Friday, June 19, 1942. He arrived at noon and then sat on a wooden bench near the station. Alexander couldn’t bring himself to walk to Lazarevo. He could not bear the thought of her dying in Kobona, getting out of the collapsed city and then dying so close to salvation. He could not face it. And worse—he knew that he could not face himself if he found out that she did not make it. He could not face returning—returning to what? Alexander actually thought of getting on the next train and going back immediately. The courage to move forward was much more than the courage he needed to stand behind a Katyusha rocket launcher or a Zenith antiaircraft gun on Lake Ladoga and know that any of the Luftwaffe planes flying overhead could instantly bring about his death. He was not afraid of his own death. He was afraid of hers. The specter of her death took away his courage. If Tatiana was dead, it meant God was dead, and Alexander knew he could not survive an instant during war in a universe governed by chaos, not purpose. He would not live any longer than poor, hapless Grinkov, who had been cut down by a stray bullet as he headed back to the rear. War was the ultimate chaos, a pounding, soul-destroying snarl, ending in blown-apart men lying unburied on the cold earth. There was nothing more cosmically chaotic than war. But Tatiana was order. She was finite matter in infinite space. Tatiana was the standard-bearer for the flag of grace and valor that she carried forward with bounty and perfection in herself, the flag Alexander had followed sixteen hundred kilometers east to the Kama River, to the Ural Mountains, to Lazarevo. For two hours Alexander sat on the bench in unpaved, provincial, oak-lined Molotov. To go back was impossible. To go forward was unthinkable. Yet he had nowhere else to go. He crossed himself and stood up, gathering his belongings. When Alexander finally walked in the direction of Lazarevo, not knowing whether Tatiana was alive or dead, he felt he was a man walking to his own execution.

For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by the industry and engineering skill of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys of the Guadelquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names only, still commemorate the vanished glories of their past. Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. Students flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the cities of the Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia were in the van of science: women were encouraged to devote themselves to serious study, and the lady doctor was not unknown among the people of Cordova. Mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the scientific methods of irrigation, the arts of fortification and shipbuilding, the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the graver and the hammer, the potter's wheel and the mason's trowel, were brought to perfection by the Spanish Moors. In the practice of war no less than in the arts of peace they long stood supreme.

Over the next two hours, we sampled from cheese plates, charcuterie platters, salads, roasted vegetables, tarts, and two risottos. I knew we were nowhere near done, but I was glad I'd worn a stretchy, forgiving dress. Next came the pastas, spring vegetables tossed with prawns and cavatappi, a beautiful macaroni and cheese, and a lasagna with duck ragù. It didn't end there---Chloé began to bring out the meats---a beautiful pork loin in a hazelnut cream sauce, a charming piece of bone-in chicken breast coated in cornflakes, a peppery filet mignon, and a generous slice of meat loaf with a tangy glaze. My favorite was the duck in marionberry sauce---the skin had been rubbed with an intoxicating blend of spices, the meat finished with a sweet, tangy sauce. It tasted like summer and Oregon all at once. We planned to open in mid-August, so the duck with fresh berries would be a perfect item for the opening menu. While I took measured bites from most of the plates, I kept the duck near and continued to enjoy the complex flavors offered by the spices and berry. Next came the desserts, which Clementine brought out herself. She presented miniatures of her pastry offerings---a two-bite strawberry shortcake with rose liqueur-spiked whipped cream, a peach-and-brown-sugar bread pudding served on the end of a spoon, a dark chocolate torte with a hint of cinnamon, and a trio of melon ball-sized scoops of gelato.

Well, I saved you today, didn’t I? Just like I saved you before. You walked out of the Bastion free, without a scratch, and if any Cokyrian but me had caught you with that dagger, you might be drawn and quartered by now.” “You didn’t save me from that butcher,” I said irritably. “But you’re right. About today, I mean.” I could sense his satisfaction, which irritated me all the more. “So accept my thanks, but stay away from me. We’re not friends, you know.” I was nearing my neighborhood and didn’t want anyone to see me with him. He stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop. “We’re not friends yet. But you’ve thought about it. And you just thanked me.” “Are you delusional?” “No. You just said thank you to the faceless Cokyrian soldier who arrested you.” “Don’t you ever stop?” I demanded, trying in vain to move around him. “I haven’t even started.” “What does that mean?” There was silence as Saadi glanced up and down the street. “I want to know where you got that dagger. Or at least what story you told.” “Why don’t you ask Commander Narian? The two of you seemed fairly close.” “Quit making jokes.” “I haven’t made a single one.” “Well?” “It was my father’s,” I said, clinging to the lie Queen Alera had provided, whether by mistake or not. “Oh.” This seemed to take Saadi aback. “And now, because of you, I don’t have it anymore.” I knew I was pressing my luck, but I wanted to make him feel bad. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, seeming sincere enough. Thinking I had maybe, finally, succeeded in getting him to leave me alone, I stepped around him. “Shaselle?” I stopped again, without the slightest idea why. “Your father--what was he like?” The question shocked me; I also wasn’t sure I could answer it without crying. But Saadi appeared so genuinely interested that I couldn’t disregard him. “You have no right to ask me that,” I answered out of principle. “But for your information, he was the strongest, bravest, kindest and best-humored man I ever knew. And none of it was because he took what was handed to him.” For the second time, I attempted a dramatic departure. “Shaselle?” “What now?” I incredulously exclaimed. “Do you have plans tomorrow?” “What?” “I have a day off duty. We could--” “No!” I shouted. “What is this? You expect me to spend a day with you, a Cokyrian--a Cokyrian I can’t stand?” “Yes,” he affirmed, despite my outburst. I laughed in disbelief. “I won’t. This is ridiculous. You’re ridiculous. Enjoy your time off duty with your own kind.” Turning, I sprinted down the street, and though he called after me yet again, I ignored him. As I neared my house, I glanced behind once or twice to assure myself he wasn’t following. He was nowhere in sight. I reached the security of my home just in time for dinner, and just in time to cut off Mother’s growing displeasure--the first step in her progression to anger. I smiled at her, hurried to wash, and was a perfect lady throughout the meal. Afterward I retired to my room, picking a book from my shelf to occupy me until my eyes drooped. Instead of words on pages, however, I kept seeing Saadi’s face--his clear blue eyes, that irritating hair, those freckles across his nose that made me lose willpower. What if I had offended him earlier? He had only asked to spend time with me, and I had mocked him. But he was Cokyrian. It was ludicrous for him to be pursuing my company. It was dangerous for me to be in his. And that, I suddenly realized, was part of the reason I very much wanted to be with him. Saadi aggravated me, confused me, scared me, and yet I could no longer deny that he intrigued me in a way no one else ever had.

Geraldine nodded and headed for Mrs. Armstrong's lawn. I felt sorry for her in her carrot pajamas, having no idea what was really going on. I followed the other girls and stood behind the shrubs. Mrs. Armstrong's house was ginormous. Her house was even bigger than Aunt Jeanie's. There was one light on upstairs. I figured that was the bedroom. The rest of the house was dark. Geraldine went to the far end of the yard and removed a can of spray paint from the bag. She shook it and began to spray. "She's such an idiot," Ava said, taking out her phone to record Geraldine's act of vandalism. "You guys are going to get her into so much trouble," I said. "So what?" Hannah replied. "She got us in trouble at the soup kitchen, it's not like she's ever going to become a Silver Rose anyway. She's totally wasting her time." Geraldine slowly made her way up and down the huge yard carefully spraying the grass. It would take her forever to complete it and there wasn't nearly enough spray paint. "Hey, guys!" Geraldine yelled from across the lawn. "How about I spray a rose in the grass? That would be cool, right?" I cringed. The light on upstairs meant the Armstrongs were still awake. Geraldine was about to get us all caught. "O-M-G," Hannah moaned. "Shhhh," Summer hissed, but Geraldine kept screaming at the top of her lungs. "Well, what do you guys think?" My heart dropped into my stomach as a light from downstairs clicked on. We ducked behind the hedges and froze. "Who's out there?" called a man's voice. I couldn't see him and I couldn't see Geraldine. I heard the door close and I peeked over the hedges. "He went back inside," I whispered, ducking back down. At that moment something went shk-shk-shk and Geraldine screamed. We all stood to see what was happening. Someone had turned the sprinklers on and Geraldine was getting soaked. The door flew open and I heard Mrs. Armstrong's voice followed by a dog's vicious barking. "Get 'em, Killer!" "Killer!" Ava screamed and we all took off running down the street with a soggy Geraldine trailing behind us. I was faster than all the other girls. I had no intentions of being gobbled up by a dog named Killer. We stopped running when we got to Ava's street and Killer was nowhere in sight. We walked back to the house at a normal pace. "So, did I prove myself to the sisterhood?" Geraldine asked. Hannah turned to her. "Are you kidding me? Your yelling woke them up, you moron. We got chased down the street by a dog because of you." Geraldine frowned and looked down at the ground. Hopefully what I had told her before about the girls not being her friends was starting to settle in. Inside all the other girls wanted to know what had happened. Ava was giving them the gory details when a knock on the door interrupted her. It was Mrs. Armstrong. She had on a black bathrobe and her hair was in curlers. I chuckled to myself because I was used to seeing her look absolutely perfect. We all sat on our sleeping bags looking as innocent as possible except for Geraldine who still stood awkwardly by the door, dripping wet. Mrs. Armstrong cleared her throat. "Someone has just vandalized my lawn with spray paint. Silver spray paint. Since I know it's a tradition for the Silver Roses to pull a prank on me on the night of the retreat, I'm going to assume it was one of you. More specifically, the one who's soaking wet right now." All eyes went to Geraldine. She looked at the ground and said nothing. What could she possibly say to defend herself? She even had silver spray paint on her fingers. Mrs. Armstrong looked her up and down. "Young lady, this is your second strike and that's two strikes too many. Your bid to become a Junior Silver Rose is for the second time hereby revoked." Geraldine's shoulders drooped, but most of the girls were smirking. This had been their plan all along and they had accomplished it.

What’s sacred to me? thought Fate. The vague pain I feel at the passing of my mother? An understanding of what can’t be fixed? Or the kind of pang in the stomach I feel when I look at this woman? And why do I feel a pang, if that’s what it is, when she looks at me and not when her friend looks at me? Because her friend is nowhere near as beautiful, thought Fate. Which seems to suggest that what’s sacred to me is beauty, a pretty girl with perfect features. And what if all of a sudden the most beautiful actress in Hollywood appeared in the middle of this big, repulsive restaurant, would I still feel a pang each time my eyes surreptitiously met this girl’s or would the sudden appearance of a superior beauty, a beauty enhanced by recognition, relieve the pang, diminish her beauty to ordinary levels, the beauty of a slightly odd girl out to have a good time on a weekend night with three slightly peculiar men and a woman who basically seems like a hooker? And who am I to think that Rosita Méndez seems like a hooker? thought Fate. Do I really know enough about Mexican hookers to be able to recognize them at a glance? Do I know anything about innocence or pain? Do I know anything about women? I like to watch videos, thought Fate. I also like to go to the movies. I like to sleep with women. Right now I don’t have a steady girlfriend, but I know what it’s like to have one. Do I see the sacred anywhere? All I register is practical experiences, thought Fate. An emptiness to be filled, a hunger to be satisfied, people to talk to so I can finish my article and get paid. And why do I think the men Rosa Amalfitano is out with are peculiar? What’s peculiar about them? And why am I so sure that if a Hollywood actress appeared all of a sudden Rosa Amalfitano’s beauty would fade? What if it didn’t? What if it sped up? And what if everything began to accelerate from the instant a Hollywood actress crossed the threshold of El Rey del Taco?

St Barbara’s itself has a set of frescoes, badly damaged (and thereby, of course, much enhanced) of miners at work, not in any immediate way sacred or even self-aggrandizing. The pictures simply show miners as they were, underground, in their special clothing, the heroic point of their own story, but protected by their church and their saint. To come face to face with these frescoes naturally gets you nowhere near the experience of mining, but it does make apparent something quite difficult about the Middle Ages: that there was a level of day-to-day, sophisticated expertise entirely comparable to our own, that technology always operates in perfect synchronization with its users, and that these silver miners were just as capable, just as aware of their world and its dangers and limitations as we are. Medieval miners were a closed-off little planet, as specialized as their close cousins (also protected by St Barbara) who worked siege engines or made explosives, but in a world of little movement they could define entire communities, set a pace and a range of values and self-sufficiency which deeply marked their towns.

That is the most perfect ass I’ve ever seen. I want to bite it,” I said, savoring the sound of Tatum’s laughter. “Didn’t you get enough to eat at dinner?” “Nowhere near. You’re dessert, and baby, I have a sweet tooth.

Without an alternative world against which he can measure, compare and contrast his own, without an example of what natural perfection would actually look like, sound like, smell and taste like, the thinking man—the inquisitive risen ape—is rendered fundamentally incapable of ever faithfully auditing the cell he calls his garden, and with that disability entrenched, his blindness is near complete. The world is as it is. Things are the way they are. You make do with what you have, lust for the things you do not, cut off your arm—if you must—to save your life , and strive for some future you desire, or at the very least believe possible, because in the final analysis, “I don’t want to be here,” means very, very little if there is nowhere else to be.

On the eve of her fortieth birthday, Dot began to fear death. Up until then everything had been PERFECT. She had a perfect husband, perfect children (or WOULD, if she'd ever had any), a perfect home, perfect body, ... a PERFECT LIFE!... Ah, but near-perfection's better! The haphazard, the untried. There's no FUTURE in perfection, nowhere left to go. There's no LIFE in it. You stop loving, stop trying, when everything is perfect. There is pleasure in decay, in the awkward and the fumbling...in states of disrepair, disuse, the doomed, degenerate, unconnected, out-of-place, the miserable, malodorous, uncorrected and uncontained. There is deep pleasure to be had in old cement and gravel, cemeteries and the overgrown gardens of people who don't care. In lakes the color of anti-freeze, in which bacteria bloom. In rotting refuse and its attendant gulls, old army bases, abandoned runways, brickwork as it crumbles. INDUSTRIAL WASTELAND, the last real wilderness on offer! Stare at the cracks in which green things grow.

Let us start from a hypothesis, Herr Cabal,’ said Mr Bose, with wheedling enthusiasm. ‘And let that hypothesis start from a question. Is the human creature as perfect in function as it might be?’ ‘Meaningless,’ replied Cabal, ‘with no definition as to what that function might conceivably be. We are good communicators, passable runners, middling swimmers, and poor at flying.’ ‘Just so. But even there, we are capable of communications of great subtlety over very long distances, we build locomotives that can outrun the fastest animal, steam launches that can give even dolphins a good run for their money, and aeroships that have formed our conquest of the skies. You see my point, of course. But do you take my greater meaning?’ ‘Natürlich. You are suggesting that the function of the human creature, to use your phrase, is to adapt itself to its environment or even to adapt its environment to itself by virtue of its intelligence. Then my answer is no. Humanity is nowhere near perfection even with regard only to its intellect. Have you ever looked at your fellow man? It is not edifying. I have hopes that time and evolutionary forces may improve matters or, failing that, eliminate us and give something else a chance. I think the insects deserve a turn.’ ‘But in the shorter term, how may we improve ourselves?’ Cabal shrugged. ‘Eugenics. Kill the lawyers. Vitamins. There have been all manner of suggestions.

I was keenly aware that I had nowhere near the challenges facing millions of people around the globe. That I was well aware of this only made me feel worse. To feel immobilized when perfectly aware of your privilege made death by inconsequential traffic incident seem even more desirable.

Our story is nowhere near perfect. We had bumps and bruises along the way that took ages to heal. But the imperfections make it ours. And to me, it’s the best love story that’s ever been told.

Dear God, I know that I'm nowhere near perfect. I know I don't pray every night. I know I lose my temper sometimes. But Thank You for loving me in every way and letting me see another beautiful day.

It’s about Fia. Everything always is, even when she is nowhere near, even when she left all of us. We still orbit the brilliant, chaotic burning of her star.

RYLAN!" The yell comes out of nowhere and nearly gives me a heart attack. Tearing my eyes away, I watch as Babette comes crashing through the undergrowth. With no regard that I might be severely injured, she bounds over and grabs me in a bear hug. "Rylan! Oh my God, Rylan," Babette whimpers. She gently rocks me like I'm five years old again. There are some more footsteps, and Aidan and Nadia soon appear. Relief fills both their faces, with Nadia crying happily on Aidan's shoulder. Just as I think she's going to crush me, Babette finally pulls back, her face shiny with tears. "Rylan, I thought I'd lost you. I thought I was never going to see you again. I—" I hold up a hand. "Babette, it's okay. I'm alive. Not perfect, but I'm alive." I gesture to my leg. "Holy crap!" the twins say together, staring at my leg in horror and disgust. It only takes one glance for Nadia to really start sobbing. "Nadia! Nadia...don't cry," I murmur in an attempt to comfort her. Since she's such a happy person most of the time it hurts to see her like this. "It'll heal up. It's fine." "B-but it-it's horrible! You near-nearly drowned an-and now you're hurt!" Aidan pulls her into an awkward hug, trying to calm her down.

Instead, the thing that had captured my attention was this big metal column topped by…absolutely nothing. It was doing this in the parking lot of what I had to figure was the main supplier of off-campus food: a retro-fifties fast-food joint. Maybe it’s supposed to be some kind of art, I thought as I stared at the column. I was living in the big city now, after all. Public art happened. Not only that, it didn’t have to make sense. In fact, having it not make sense was probably a requirement. “They took it down for repairs,” a voice beside my suddenly said. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but the truth is, I jumped about a mile. I’d been so mesmerized by the sight of that column extending upward into space, supporting empty air, that I’d totally lost track of all my soon-to-be-fellow students rushing by me. To this day, I can’t quite explain the fascination. But I’ve promised to tell you the 100 percent truth, which means I’ve got to include even the parts which make me appear less than impressive. “Huh?” Yes, all right, I know. Nowhere even near the list of incredibly clever replies. “They took it down for repairs,” the voice said again. “Took it down,” I echoed. By this time, I knew I was well on my way to breaking my own blending-in rule, big time. Sounding like a total idiot can generally be considered a foolproof method of getting yourself noticed. “The car that’s usually up there.” The guy--it was a guy; I’d calmed down enough to realize that--said. I snuck a quick glance at him out of the corner of my eye. First fleeting impression: tall and blond. The kind of muscular-yet-lanky build I’ve always been a sucker for. Faded jeans. Letterman jacket with just about every sport there was represented on it. Gotcha! I thought. BMOC. Big Man on Campus. This made me feel a little better for a couple of reasons. The first was that it showed my skills hadn’t abandoned me completely after all. I could still identify the players pretty much on sight. The second was that in my vast, though admittedly from-a-distance, experience of them, BMOCs have short attention spans for anyone less BOC than they are. Disconcerting and intense as it was at the moment, I could nevertheless take comfort in the fact that this guy’s unexpected and unnatural interest in me was also unlikely to last very long. “An old Chevy, I think,” he was going on now. “It’s supposed to be back soon, though. Not really the same without it, is it?” He actually sounded genuinely mournful. I was surprised to find myself battling back a quick, involuntary smile. He did seem to be more interesting than your average, run-of-the-mill BMOC. I had to give him that. Get a grip, O’Connor, I chastised myself. “Absolutely not,” I said, giving my head a semi-vigorous nod. That ought to move him along, I thought. You may not be aware of this fact, but agreeing with people is often an excellent way of getting them to forget all about you. After basking in the glow of agreement, most people are then perfectly content to go about their business, remembering only the fact that someone agreed and allowing the identity of the person who did the actual agreeing to fade into the background. This technique almost always works. In fact, I’d never known it not to. There was a moment of silence. A silence in which I could feel the BMOC’s eyes upon me. I kept my own eyes fixed on the top of the carless column. But the longer the silence went on, the more strained it became. At least it did on my side. This guy was simply not abiding by the rules. He was supposed to have basked and moved on by now.

Beyond, he could glimpse high, tumescent hills of unnaturally perfect smoothness, each crowned with an ivory-coloured column of stone. Between the hills ran valleys dense with pallid vegetation. Bank upon bank of cloud hung frozen in a still, pale sky. Though his vantage point commanded great distance, some curious distortion of perspective rendered everything - near and far - equally sharp to the eye. And nowhere could he see a shadow. It was as if he had stepped over the border of a wonderful and subtly disturbing illustration in some long-forgotten, childhood book. The land lay before him like a vast and awful glyph, waiting to be read, and he knew at once that he must go on, just a little further, or regret it all the days of his life. "The White Road

If I could have scripted the perfect experience for my first solo hundred-mile run, this would have been it. ***

I am Love I am flawed and nowhere near perfect. I am not rich and I can't offer you lots of material things. I can only offer you my heart and soul. I will love you with all that I have. I don't play with love or someone's feelings, because I am love.