“
My birthday began with the water -
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name.
”
”
Dylan Thomas
“
What could be more exciting than an October day? It's your birthday, Fourth of July and Christmas all rolled into one.
”
”
Peggy Toney Horton
“
Christmas Amnesty. You can fall out of contact with a friend, fail to return calls, ignore e-mails, avoid eye contact at the Thrifty-Mart, forget birthdays, anniversaries, and reunions, and if you show up at their house during the holidays (with a gift) they are socially bound to forgive you—act like nothing happened. Decorum dictates that the friendship move forward from that point, without guilt or recrimination. If you started a chess game ten years ago in October, you need only remember whose move it is—or why you sold the chessboard and bought an Xbox in the interim. (Look, Christmas Amnesty is a wonderful thing, but it’s not a dimensional shift. The laws of time and space continue to apply, even if you have been avoiding your friends. But don’t try using the expansion of the universe an as excuse—like you kept meaning to stop by, but their house kept getting farther away. That crap won’t wash. Just say, “Sorry I haven’t called. Merry Christmas” Then show the present. Christmas Amnesty protocol dictates that your friend say, “That’s okay,” and let you in without further comment. This is the way it has always been done.)
”
”
Christopher Moore (The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Pine Cove, #3))
“
If someone had asked him, “Ben, are you lonely? , ” he would have looked at that someone with real surprise. The question had never even occurred to him. He had no friends, but he had his books and his dreams; he had his Revell models; he had a gigantic set of Lincoln Logs and built all sorts of stuff with them. His mother had exclaimed more than once that Ben’s Lincoln Logs houses looked better than some real ones that came from blueprints. He had a pretty good Erector Set, too. He was hoping for the Super Set when his birthday came around in October. With that one you could build a clock that really told time and a car with real gears in it. Lonely? he might have asked in return, honestly foozled. Huh? What? A child blind from birth doesn’t even know he’s blind until someone tells him. Even then he has only the most academic idea of what blindness is; only the formerly sighted have a real grip on the thing. Ben Hanscom had no sense of being lonely because he had never been anything but. If the condition had been new, or more localized, he might have understood, but loneliness both encompassed his life and overreached it. It simply was, like his double-jointed thumb or the funny little jag inside one of his front teeth, the little jag his tongue began running over whenever he was nervous.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
How late is it? How long have we been sitting here? I look at my watch – three thirty and the
day is almost ending. It’s October. All those kids recently returned to classrooms with new bags and
pencil cases will be looking forward to half term already. How quickly it goes. Halloween soon, then
firework night. Christmas. Spring. Easter. Then there’s my birthday in May. I’ll be seventeen.
How long can I stave it off? I don’t know. All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped in
blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.
”
”
Jenny Downham (Before I Die)
“
these years later and from stirring it up I started having dreams again about the combat, only the dreams were all mixed in with things I started doing for certain people after the war. I was discharged on October 24, 1945, a day before my twenty-fifth birthday, but only according to the calendar.
”
”
Charles Brandt ("I Heard You Paint Houses", Updated Edition: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa)
“
THE GUEST LIST for her birthday party, set for October 8, her actual birth date, included a
”
”
Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin)
“
The second simultaneous thing Reacher was doing was playing around with a little mental arithmetic. He was multiplying big numbers in his head. He was thirty-seven years and eight months old, just about to the day. Thirty-seven multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five was thirteen thousand five hundred and five. Plus twelve days for twelve leap years was thirteen thousand five hundred and seventeen. Eight months counting from his birthday in October forward to this date in June was two hundred and forty-three days. Total of thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty days since he was born. Thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty days, thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty nights. He was trying to place this particular night somewhere on that endless scale. In terms of how bad it was. Truth was, it wasn’t the best night he had ever passed, but it was a long way from being the worst. A very long way.
”
”
Lee Child (Die Trying (Jack Reacher, #2))
“
October 22, 2002 Yesterday, Alma, when at last we could meet to celebrate our birthdays, I could see you were in a bad mood. You said that all of a sudden, without us realizing it, we have turned seventy. You are afraid our bodies will fail us, and of what you call the ugliness of age, even though you are more beautiful now than you were at twenty-three. We’re not old because we are seventy. We start to grow old as soon as we are born, we change every day, life is a continuous state of flux. We evolve. The only difference is that now we are a little closer to death. What’s so bad about that? Love and friendship do not age. Ichi
”
”
Isabel Allende (The Japanese Lover)
“
The effect of the weather on the inhabitants of Provence is immediate and obvious. They expect every day to be sunny, and their disposition suffers when it isn't. Rain they take as a personal affront, shaking their heads and commiserating with each other in the cafes, looking with profound suspicion at the sky as though a plague of locusts is about to descend, and picking their way with distaste through the puddles on the pavement. If anything worse than a rainy day should come along, such as this sub-zero snap, the result is startling: most the population disappears... But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt. Had they all gone on holiday?...It was a puzzle, until we realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September or October, and then a possible but unverifiable answer suggested itself: they were busy indoors making babies. There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared to ask.
”
”
Peter Mayle
“
My birthday is October 10. I like my birthday: 10/10. It would've been great if I'd been born at exactly 10:10 in the morning or at night, but I wasn't. I was born just after midnight. But I still thinking my birthday is cool.
”
”
R.J. Palacio
“
We were married at All Saints on a sun-shocked Wednesday in October, two weeks before my seventeenth birthday. The legal marrying age was eighteen then, but my father thought I was old enough, and that seemed good enough for me.
”
”
Paula McLain (Circling the Sun)
“
For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceans
burned. The sugary smoke settled in my hair as I slept, the scent like a cloud left on my pillow as I rose. Even so, the moment my mattress started to burn, I bolted awake. The sharp, chemical smell was nothing like the hazy syrup of my dreams; the two were as different as Carolina and Indian jasmine, separation and attachment. They could not be confused.
Standing in the middle of the room, I located the source of the fire. A neat row of wooden matches lined the foot of the bed. They ignited, one after the next, a glowing picket fence across the piped edging. Watching them light, I felt a terror unequal to the size of the flickering flames, and for a paralyzing moment I was ten years old again, desperate and hopeful in a way I had never been before and never would be again.
But the bare synthetic mattress did not ignite like the thistle had in late October. It smoldered, and then the fire went out.
It was my eighteenth birthday.
”
”
Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The Language of Flowers)
“
Poem in October"
It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.
My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.
A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.
It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels
And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.
And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.
”
”
Dylan Thomas (Collected Poems)
“
If not for 02 October being the national holiday, would any notice Gandhi’s birthday coming and going; I bet none remembers in which year he was born, save those readying themselves for the quiz competitions; yet, we come to lay store on our children’s birthdays when they wouldn’t be knowing what was going on around them.
”
”
B.S. Murthy (Glaring Shadow - A Stream of Consciousness Novel)
“
Dreamed of maman again. She was telling me—O cruelty!—that I didn’t really love her. But I took it calmly, because I was so sure it wasn’t true.
The idea that death would be a kind of sleep. But it would be horrible if we had to dream eternally.
(And this morning, her birthday. I always gave her a rose. Bought two at the little market of Mers Sultan and put them on my desk)
”
”
Roland Barthes (Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979)
“
My son Matthew did not look like a winner. He was rather uncoordinated and wore braces from the age of thirteen until the day he died. However, in his all too brief life he proved that he was a winner. On October sixth, 1998 my son tried to show the world that he could win again. On October twelfth, 1998 my first born son and my hero, lost. On October twelfth, 1998 my first born son and my hero, died, fifty days before his twenty-second birthday.
Matt officially died in a hospital in Ft. Collins, Colorado. He actually died on the outskirts of Laramie, tied to a fence.
”
”
Moisés Kaufman (The Laramie Project)
“
She went around reading everything- the directions on the grits bag, Tate's notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pretended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom: There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters:
Master Jeremy Andrew Clark, January 2, 1939. "Jeremy," she said out loud. "Jodie, I sure never thought a' you as Master Jeremy."
Miss Amanda Margaret Clark, May 17, 1937. Kya touched the name with her fingers. Repeated it several times.
She read on. Master Napier Murphy Clark, April 14, 1936. Kya spoke softly, "Murph, ya name was Napier."
At the top, the oldest, Miss Mary Helen Clark, September 19, 1934. She rubbed her fingers over the names again, which brought faces before her eyes. They blurred, but she could see them all squeezed around the table eating stew, passing cornbread, even laughing some. She was ashamed that she had forgotten their names, but now that she'd found them, she would never let them go again.
Above the list of children she read: Mister Jackson Henry Clark married Miss Julienne Maria Jacques, June 12, 1933. Not until that moment had she known her parents' proper names.
She sat there for a few minutes with the Bible open on the table. Her family before her.
Time ensures children never know their parents young. Kya would never see the handsome Jake swagger into an Asheville soda fountain in early 1930, where he spotted Maria Jacques, a beauty with black curls and red lips, visiting from New Orleans.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt. Had they all gone on holiday? No, surely not. These were not the kind of gentlemen farmers who spent their winters on the ski slopes or yachting in the Caribbean. Holidays here were taken at home during August, eating too much, enjoying siestas and resting up before the long days of the vendange. It was a puzzle, until we realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September or October, and then a possible but unverifiable answer suggested itself: they were busy indoors making babies. There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared ask.
”
”
Peter Mayle (A Year in Provence (Provence, #1))
“
The most poignant lesson, which proved to be the last, was held a few days before the wedding. Diana’s thoughts were on the profound changes ahead. Miss Snipp noted: “Lady Diana rather tired--too many late nights. I delivered silver salt-cellars--present from West Heath school--very beautiful and much admired. Lady Diana counting how many days of freedom are left to her. Rather sad. Masses of people outside of Palace. We hope to resume lessons in October. Lady Diana said: “In 12 days time I shall no longer be me.’”
Even as she spoke those words Diana must have known that she had left behind her bachelor persona as soon as she had entered the Palace portals. In the weeks following the engagement she had grown in confidence and self-assurance, her sense of humour frequently bubbling to the surface. Lucinda Craig Harvey saw her former cleaning lady on several occasions during her engagement, once at the 30th birthday party of her brother-in-law, Neil McCorquodale. “She had a distance to her and everyone was in awe of her,” she recalls. It was a quality also noticed by James Gilbey. “She has always been seen as a typical Sloane Ranger. That’s not true. She was always removed, always had a determination about her and was very matter-of-fact, almost dogmatic. That quality has now developed into a tremendous presence.”
While she was in awe of Prince Charles, deferring to his every decision, she didn’t appear to be overcome by her surroundings. Inwardly she may have been nervous, outwardly she appeared calm, relaxed and ready to have fun. At Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party which was held at Windsor Castle she was at her ease among friends. When her future brother-in-law asked where he could find the Duchess of Westminster, the wife of Britain’s richest aristocrat, she joked: “Oh Andrew, do stop name dropping.” Her ready repartee, cutting but not vicious, was reminiscent of her eldest sister Sarah when she was the queen bee of the Society circuit.
“Don’t look so serious it’s not working,” joked Diana as she introduced Adam Russell to the Queen, Prince Charles and other members of the royal family in the receiving line at the ball held at Buckingham Palace two days before her wedding. Once again she seemed good humoured and relaxed in her grand surroundings. There wasn’t the slightest sign that a few hours earlier she had collapsed in paroxysms of tears and seriously considered calling the whole thing off.
”
”
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
“
Locally, you should be able to find decent Medjool dates in Middle Eastern grocery stores and many natural foods markets, but for the too-moist-to-be-sold-commercially varieties, you’ll probably have to shop online. I have tried dates from most of the major online retailers and always go back to ordering from the Date People, a small farm in California. I am averse to commercial endorsements, but I’ve never tasted consistently better dates from any other source (although Black Sphinx dates from Phoenix come close!). Date People’s annual harvest comes in around my birthday in October, and I always splurge as a present to myself and get a big box to put in our freezer.
”
”
Michael Greger (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
“
Botox"
In a friendly exchange with a shopper in a grocery story line, she joyfully declared:
“Today is my 50th birthday!”
I said, “It looks like the hands of Time have touched your face gently. Happy birthday!”
“The hands of Time weren’t gentle on me, my dear. What you see are the wonders of botox,” she said.
“They say it freezes face features and expressions. Is that true?” I inquired half-jokingly.
“At this stage of my life, it makes no difference. I no longer need any expressions. There is nothing worth smiling for or frowning upon. I spent decades expressing in every physical and verbal way possible, all in vain,” she said. Her words were followed by a hopeless giggle that reminded me of the philosopher who wrote that as we advance in age, our fears are replaced with giggles.
She then continued, “There is a time when you discover that all verbal and physical expressions are futile. In everyone’s life, there’s one defining event that freezes everything in their lives. Anything that happens after that event is no more than desperate and hopeless attempts to pretend that we are okay.”
Before I managed to find the appropriate words, the cashier called on her. The timing was ideal as words froze on my tongue just like the botox freezes features and expression in a world in which words and expressions are of no use anymore.
[Original text published in Arabic on October 14, 2024 at ahewar.org]
”
”
Louis Yako
“
For as long as I could remember, I’d felt like an imposter. I looked like Sofia Genovese, and everyone believed I was her, but only I knew that Sofia had died many years ago. Perhaps that was a little dramatic. A part of the old Sofia was still present—she showed herself in every conversation I had with my parents—but she didn’t feel real. She was the mask I wore to cover up everything else I hid inside. But with each passing day, every birthday and milestone, she made fewer and fewer appearances. As I stepped out of The October Company art gallery where I would be working at my first real job, I could envision the day when I might be free to be myself around the people who were supposed to be closest to me—my family.
”
”
Jill Ramsower (Never Truth (The Five Families, #2))
“
On June 12, 1775 the Rhode Island Assembly commissioned armed ships to fight the British Navy. That Fall on October 13, 1775 the Second Continual Congress established the United States Navy marking this date as the Navy’s official birthday.
The first United States naval vessel was the USS Ganges, built in Philadelphia as a merchant vessel. She was bought by the US Navy, fitted out with 24 guns for a crew of 220 men, and commissioned on 24 May 1798. Following this, John Paul Jones was appointed Commander of the French ship Duc de Duras, which had been in service as a merchant ship between France and the Orient. Her design was such that she could easily be converted to a man of war, which she was, when fitted out with 50 guns and an extra six 6-pounder and renamed the Bonhomme Richard. On September 23, 1779 the Bonhomme Richard fought in the Battle of Flamborough Head, off the coast of Yorkshire,England where, although winning the battle, caught fire from the bombardment and sank 36 hours later. John Paul Jones commandeered a British ship named the HMS Serapis and sailed the captured ship to Holland for repairs. The Serapis was transferred her to the French as a prize of war, who then converted her into a privateer. In 1781, she sank off Madagascar to an accidental fire that reached the powder locker, blowing her stern off.
Following the Revolutionary War the Continental Navy was disbanded, however George Washington responded to threats to American shipping by Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean with the Naval Act of 1794, which created a permanent U.S. Navy. As a part of this Act, the first ships that were commissioned were six frigates, which included the USS Constitution and the USS Constellation.
”
”
Hank Bracker (Suppressed I Rise)
“
Some people will never ever know
what my Birthday means to God.
Religion of Blue Circle
Religious Leader Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
October 3, 2016
”
”
Petra Hermans
“
My grand baby is growing so fast, I can't believe she's already celebrating her first birthday in this month of October 2016. Happy Birthday Norah Grace, grandma loves you.
”
”
Euginia Herlihy
“
Recoiling backwards from the horror, his flight catapulted him headlong over the rail of the balcony. His piercing scream drowned out the uproarious Happy Birthday greeting from his wife, friends, and neighbors flooding into the hallway and the living room to begin the celebration. In midair, when someone turned on the lights in the dining room, Gary saw the monster from the master bedroom pulling off her rubber mask and looking down at him from the railing with sad eyes. It was Janine, his next-door neighbor. In the seconds before Gary lost consciousness after breaking his neck on the ceramic tile floor, he saw the entire room fill with balloons and confetti. Gwen looked ravishing in her favorite cocktail dress blowing a noisemaker and tossing a streamer into the air. A huge banner with the words, “Happy Halloween, Gary on Your 40th Birthday… A Night To Remember” was the last thing he saw before the grim reaper gobbled him up. Gwen had done it again. She had planned a truly memorable party that no one in attendance would ever forget. Gary died on the same day he was born, October 31.
”
”
Billy Wells (Don't Look Behind You)
“
I know that many people including our President insist that it be called the Christmas Season. I’ll be the first in line to say that it works for me however that’s not what it is. We hint at its coming on Halloween when the little tykes take over wandering the neighborhood begging for candy and coins. In this day and age the idea of children wandering the streets threatening people with “Trick or Treat!” just isn’t a good idea. In most cases parents go with them encouraging their offspring’s to politely ask “Anything for Halloween.” An added layer of security occurs when the children are herded into one room to party with friends. It’s all good, safe fun and usually there is enough candy for all of their teeth to rot before they have a chance to grow new ones. Forgotten is the concept that it is a three day observance of those that have passed before us and are considered saints or martyrs.
Next we celebrate Thanksgiving, a national holiday (holly day) formally observed in Canada, Liberia, Germany Japan, some countries in the Caribbean and the United States. Most of these countries observe days other than the fourth Thursday of November and think of it as a secular way of celebrating the harvest and abundance of food. Without a hiccup we slide into Black Friday raiding stores for the loot being sold at discounted prices. The same holds true for Cyber Monday when we burn up the internet looking for bargains that will arrive at our doorsteps, brought by the jolly delivery men and women, of FedEx, UPS and USPS.
Of course the big days are Chanukah when the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire, regained control of Jerusalem. It is a time to gather the family and talk of history and tell stories. Christmas Eve is a time when my family goes to church, mostly to sing carols and distribute gifts, although this usually continued on Christmas day. This is when the term “Merry Christmas” is justified and correct although it is thought that the actual birthday of Christ is in October. The English squeezed another day out of the season, called Boxing Day, which is when the servants got some scraps from the dinner the day before and received a small gift or a dash of money. I do agree that “Xmas” is inappropriate but that’s just me and I don’t go crazy over it. After all, Christmas is for everyone.
On the evening of the last day of the year we celebrate New Year’s Evening followed by New Year’s Day which many people sleep through after New Year’s Eve. The last and final day of the Holiday Season is January 6th which Is Epiphany or Three Kings Day. In Tarpon Springs, the Greek Orthodox Priest starts the celebration with the sanctification of the waters followed by the immersion of the cross. It becomes a scramble when local teenage boys dive for the cross thrown into the Spring Bayou as a remembrance of the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River. This tradition is now over a century old and was first celebrated by the Episcopal Church by early settlers in 1903.
”
”
Hank Bracker (Seawater One: Going to Sea! (Seawater Series))
“
On 2 October 1947, Gandhi turned seventy-eight. From the morning a stream of visitors came to wish him. They included his close lieutenants Nehru and Patel, now prime minister and home minister respectively in the Government of India.
Gandhi was not displeased to see his old friends and comrades. But his overall frame of mind was bleak. ‘What sin have I committed,’ he told Patel in Gujarati, 'that He should have kept me alive to witness all these horrors?’ As he told the audience at that evening’s prayer meeting: ‘I am surprised and also ashamed that I am still alive. I am the same person whose word was honoured by the millions of the country. But today nobody listens to me. You want only the Hindus to remain in India and say that none else should be left behind. You may kill the Muslims today; but what will you do tomorrow? What will happen to the Parsis and the Christians and then to the British? After all, they are also Christians.’
Ever since his release from jail in 1944, Gandhi had spoken often of wanting to live for 125 years. Now, in the face of the barbarism around him, he had givenup that ambition. ‘In such a situation,’ he asked, ‘what place do I have in India and what is the point of my being alive?’ Gandhi told the crowd who had gathered to wish him at Birla House that ‘if you really want to celebrate my birthday, it is your duty not to let anyone be possessed by madness and if there is any anger in your hearts you must remove it’.
”
”
Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi 1915-1948: The Years That Changed the World)
“
She approved of the new title he’d suggested, “The Elm Speaks,” and sent him a new batch of poems on October 12: “A Birthday Present,” “The Detective,” “The Courage of Quietness” (retitled “The Courage of Shutting-Up”), “For a Fatherless Son,” “The Applicant,” “Daddy,” and her five bee poems. Moss would reject them all.
”
”
Heather Clark (Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath)
“
However, it was not until the sixteenth century that due notice was taken of this fact by Pope Gregory, whose experts had determined that the accumulated error of the Julian calendar amounted by that time to about ten days. Consequently, in 1582, Gregory decreed that the day which followed October 4, 1582, would not be October 5 but rather October 15.
”
”
NOT A BOOK (The Secret Language of Birthdays)
“
Happy Birthday, Me! That’s right. Today’s my birthday. October 31st, Halloween.
”
”
Zack Zombie (Zombie's Birthday Apocalypse (Diary of a Minecraft Zombie, #9))
“
In a letter dated October 10, 1934, to Kaminskii (then the commissar of health) - a letter that was a response to the commissar's birthday congratulations to Pavlov on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday - Pavlov wrote about his attitude toward the October Revolution, which was 'almost directly opposite' Kaminskii's, for whom the revolution 'imbues the motherland's wonderful movement forward with courage.' On the contrary, Pavlov saw 'its enormous truly negative aspects' in the 'long-standing terror and unchecked willfulness of power,' which transformed 'our nature, which was besides rather Asiatic, into a shameful-slavish one ... And can you do much good with slaves?' Pavlov answered his own question thus '[For] pyramids, yes; but not for common genuine human happiness.
”
”
Evgeny Dobrenko (Late Stalinism: The Aesthetics of Politics)
“
Thelonious Monk had much to celebrate on October 10, 1957. It was his fortieth birthday, and after more than two decades of scuffling his career was on an upswing.
”
”
Robin D.G. Kelley (Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original)
“
HETTA’S BIRTHDAY. In accordance with my custom, I went to All Souls Church to give thanks for the daughter they told me would never come. I say I am giving thanks. But deep down, I wonder. Am I praising God or serving a penance? For each time I step into the church there is a nagging guilt at the core of me. When I pray, there are two voices inside my head, gabbling over one another. One cries thank you; the other forgive me. Today I felt, more powerful than ever, the weight of God’s disapproval pressing down on me as I slipped into the deserted church and took a pew. A force loving but sad, intolerably heavy. Saints gazed upon me from the old stained-glass windows left from Queen Mary’s reign. They seemed to shake their heads. I clasped my hands tighter. And as I closed my eyes, the words came to me in a torrent: How dare you? My eyelids snapped open. I felt suddenly very small. But even as I dropped to my knees, the voice came again. How dare you? My gaze flew to the front of the church, to the cross, soaring up before the altar. Who are you to create a life where I have refused it? I knew then that it was an answer to my prayers, to the nights I have spent on my knees asking why our family has suffered such humiliation: it was my fault. And I see it now. God has a plan for each and every one of us He creates. His plan for Josiah was a brilliant one, set at the centre of court. But that plan did not account for one factor: Hetta. Hetta befriended the gypsy and I, weak again, gave in to her demands. My sin looms so large that it has changed the path of my life. This idea haunted me all the way home. As I walked through the swirling leaves, as I tasted the musk of late October on the air, I kept asking myself why I had done it. I had three boys. Three! My mother would have given her right arm for only one. But I had wanted a girl. Another Mary to sit with me and walk with me, a mirror of my own childhood springing up at my feet. And wrong as it may be, I want her still.
”
”
Laura Purcell (The Silent Companions)
“
The first time it happened was at midnight on Saturday, October 7th, Georgiana’s sixteenth birthday.
”
”
Moira Daly (A Full Moon's Night (The Five, #1))
“
On Friday, October 7, 2016, Vladimir Putin received a massive bouquet of four hundred fifty roses—a gift for his sixty-fourth birthday, one rose from each member of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.
”
”
Jonathan Karl (Front Row at the Trump Show)
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ON OCTOBER 28, 2003, a jury of the state supreme court in Manhattan watched a homemade video of the fortieth birthday party that L. Dennis Kozlowski threw for his second wife, Karen. The party, held on the island of Sardinia off the Italian coast, cost more than $2.1 million—or $28,000 per guest. Assistant District Attorney Ken Chalifoux introduced the video into evidence as part of one of the biggest corporate scandal cases ever. Kozlowski, the former CEO of the conglomerate Tyco International, and Mark Swartz, Tyco’s former CFO, were accused of grand larceny and enterprise corruption for allegedly stealing some $600 million from Tyco.1 The birthday celebration included nearly a week’s worth of activities, highlighted by the final poolside bash at the Cala di Volpe hotel.
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Charles W. Colson (The Good Life)
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He almost fainted when he realized that this was in October, and when 13th of October is reversed as 13 = 31, it becomes 31st of October; apparently, the devil’s birthday. Dad is so superstitious
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Atharv Shinde (Saving Olympus)