Officers Mess Quotes

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Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends. Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was. Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill. Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia. Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He’s an old man on a factory line. You wouldn’t recognise him. Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor. And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance.
Iain S. Thomas
Ryodan doesn’t like Mac. He never has. She got between him and his best boy-bud. I give him a look. “I’ll tell you a secret, Ryodan. You mess with her, Barrons’ll kill you.” I drag a finger across my neck. “Just like that. You aren’t all that. Barrons’ll stomp your ass, hand’s down.” He smiles faintly. “I’ll be damned. You have a crush on Barrons.” “I do not have a crush—“ “You do, too. It’s all over your face. Anybody could see it.” “Sometimes, boss, you’re just wrong.” “I’m never wrong. You might as well take out a billboard. ‘Dani O’Malley thinks Jericho Barrons is hot.’ My offer to teach you is still open. Save you from future embarrassment. If I can see it on your face, he can, too. ” “He never figured it out before,” I grumble then realize I just admitted it. Ryodan has a tricky way of wording things that makes you say things you didn’t mean to say. “Maybe I’ll ask Barrons to teach me,” I mutter and turn away from the stairs, heading for his office. I run smack into his chest. “Dude, move. Trying to get somewhere here.” “No one but me is ever going to teach you, Dani.” He touches me before I see it coming, has his hand under my chin, turning my face up. My shiver is instant and uncontrollable. “That’s non-negotiable. You signed a contract with me that grants exclusivity. You won’t like it if you try to break it.
Karen Marie Moning (Iced (Fever, #6))
I used to be unusable because I was a mess," Tennal said. "Now I've spent time as a ranker and time as an officer, and you know what? Now I'm unusable by choice.
Everina Maxwell (Ocean's Echo (Winter's Orbit, #2))
Scully liked neatness and order. This office was her notion of a nightmare. She had no idea how Mulder ever found anything he wanted. But he always seemed to.
Les Martin (Darkness Falls (The X-Files: Middle Grade, #2))
Some made the long drop from the apartment or the office window; some took it quietly in two-car garages with the motor running; some used the native tradition of the Colt or Smith and Wesson; those well-constructed implements that end insomnia, terminate remorse, cure cancer, avoid bankruptcy, and blast an exit from intolerable positions by the pressure of a finger; those admirable American instruments so easily carried, so sure of effect, so well designed to end the American dream when it becomes a nightmare, their only drawback the mess they leave for relatives to clean up.
Ernest Hemingway (To Have and Have Not)
People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh? And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country. So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods (Discworld, #13))
Dear Mr. Kulti, You are my favorite player. I play soccer 2 butt I'm not good like you are. Not yet. I practice all the time so 1 day I can be just like you or beter. I watch all of ur games so don't mess up. Ur #1 fan, Sal <3<3<3 P.S. Do u have a girl friend? P.P.S. Why don't u cut ur hair? "I was nineteen when that showed up to the club's offices. It was my third fan letter ever and the other two were topless pictures. That letter stayed in every locker I used for the nest ten years. It was the first thing I looked at before my games, and the first thing I saw after I played. I framed it and put it in my house in Meissen once it started to wear out. It's still there on the wall of my bedroom.
Mariana Zapata (Kulti)
Milo had been earning many distinctions for himself. He had flown fearlessly into danger and criticism by selling petroleum and ball bearings to Germany at good prices in order to make a good profit and help maintain a balance of power between the contending forces. His nerve under fire was graceful and infinite. With a devotion to purpose above and beyond the line of duty, he had then raised the price of food in his mess halls so high that all officers and enlisted men had to turn over all their pay to him in order to eat. Their alternative - there was an alternative, of course, since Milo detested coercion and was a vocal champion of freedom of choice - was to starve.
Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
Right from the start, what I liked best about the analyst was that his office was a mess.
David Foster Wallace (Oblivion)
The Americans called theirs the Officers Club but the Canadians called ours the Officers Mess. The American term was the more honest; ours the more accurate. Drunken officers at play are messy.
R.J. Childerhose (Wild Blue)
Close above him the window was a square of palest aquamarine in the dusky gold of the lamplit wall, and on the dark roof-ridge of the officers' mess opposite was a sleeping pigeon, so clearly and exquisitely outlined against the morning sky that it seemed to Marcus as though he could make out the tip of every fluffed-out feather.
Rosemary Sutcliff
I fly to New York to see my shrink. I walk into her office and burst into tears. I tell her what my husband has done to me. I tell her my heart is broken. I tell her I’m a total mess and I will never be the same. I can’t stop crying. She looks at me and says, “You have to understand something: You were going to leave him eventually.
Nora Ephron (I Feel Bad About My Neck)
His sudden and utterly overwhelming panic was over almost before it began; but not quickly enough. In the midst of his brief yet total terror, the King of Pontus shat himself. It went everywhere, solid faeces mixed with what seemed an incredible amount of more liquid bowel contents, a stinking brown mess all over the gold-encrusted purple cloth of his cushion, trickling down the legs of his throne, running down his own legs into the manes of the golden lions upon the flaps of his boots, pooling and plopping on the deck around his feet when he jumped up. And there was nowhere to go! He could not conceal it from the amazed eyes of his attendants and officers, he could not conceal it from the sailors below amidships who had looked up instinctively to make sure their King was safe.
Colleen McCullough (The Grass Crown (Masters of Rome, #2))
Milo carefully said nothing when Major de Coverley stepped into the mess hall with his fierce and austere dignity the day he returned and found his way blocked by a wall of officers waiting in line to sign loyalty oaths. At the far end of the food counter, a group of men who had arrived earlier were pledging allegiance to the flag, with trays of food balanced in one hand, in order to be allowed to take seats at the table. Already at the tables, a group that had arrived still earlier was singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' in order that they might use the salt and pepper and ketchup there.
Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
have you heard the sex party rumor?” She winced and said, “It actually does sound familiar.” I had the impulse to shake my head, but I didn’t want to mess up Veronica’s handiwork. I said, “You know when true equality will be achieved? When a woman with these kinds of skeletons in her closet has the nerve to run for office.” 2004
Curtis Sittenfeld (Rodham)
On the raptors kept for falconry: "They talk every night, deep into the darkness. They say about how they were taken, about what they can remember about their homes, about their lineage and the great deeds of their ancestors, about their training and what they've learned and will learn. It is military conversation, really, like what you might have in the mess of a crack cavalry regiment: tactics, small arms, maintenance, betting, famous hunts, wine, women, and song. Another subject they have is food. It is a depressing thought," he continued, "but of course they are mainly trained by hunger. They are a hungry lot, poor chaps, thinking of the best restaurants where they used to go, and how they had champagne and caviar and gypsy music. Of course, they all come from noble blood." "What a shame that they should be kept prisoners and hungry." "Well, they do not really understand that they are prisoners any more than the cavalry officers do. They look on themselves as being 'dedicated to their profession,' like an order of knighthood or something of that sort. You see, the member of the Muse [where Raptors are kept for falconry] is restricted to the Raptors, and that does help a lot. They know that none of the lower classes can get in. Their screened perches do not carry Blackbirds or such trash as that. And then, as for the hungry part, they're far from starving or that kind of hunger: they're in training, you know! And like everybody in strict training, they think about food.
T.H. White (The Sword in the Stone (Once and Future King, #1))
I kind of was beginning to feel like I was being underutilized [as Teen Ambassador to the UN]. I mean, there were a lot more important issues out there for teens that I could have been bringing international attention to than what kids see out their windows. I mean, instead of sitting in the White House press office for three hours after school every Wednesday, or attending International Festival of the Child concerts, I could have been out there alerting the public to the fact that in some countries, it is still perfectly legal for men to take teen brides -- even multiple teen brides! What was that all about? And what about places like Sierra Leone, where teens and even younger kids routinely get their limbs chopped off as "warnings" against messing with the warring gangs that run groups of diamond traffickers? And hello, what about all those kids in countries with unexploded land mines buried in the fields where they'd like to play soccer, but can't because it's too dangerous? And how about a problem a little closer to home? How about all the teenagers right here in America who are taking guns to school and blowing people away? Where are they getting these guns, and how come they think shooting people is a viable solution to their problems? And why isn't anybody doing anything to alleviate some of the pressures that might lead someone to think bringing a gun to school is a good thing? How come nobody is teaching people like Kris Parks to be more tolerant of others, to stop torturing kids whose mothers make them wear long skirts to school?
Meg Cabot (All-American Girl (All-American Girl, #1))
You are, inarguably, one of the finest officers who has ever worn the uniform. You eat the impossible for breakfast. You seek out challenges most would never contemplate, holding yourself to ridiculously high standards, and you do it with a ready smile, keen wit, formidable intelligence, and a compassionate heart. You are a bloody beacon in the darkness, an inspiration to anyone dedicating their lives to Starfleet. To a man, those who have served with you in the past would walk naked through fire with you, but right now, I wouldn't follow you to the mess hall." (Hugh Cambridge to Kathryn Janeway).
Kirsten Beyer (Protectors (Star Trek: Voyager))
THE TRUTH IS BORN IN STRANGE PLACES Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends. Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was. Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill. Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia. Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He’s an old man on a factory line. You wouldn’t recognise him. Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor. And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance.
pleasefindthis (I Wrote This For You)
I fought to stay awake and keep the car on the road. And I thought back to texts I had read from the British Army in India, during the Raj, at the height of their empire. Young subalterns trapped in junior ranks had their own mess. They would dine together in splendid dress uniforms and talk about their chances of promotion. But they had none, unless a superior officer died. Dead men's shoes was the rule. So they would raise their crystal glasses of fine French wine and toast "bloody wars and dread diseases" because a casualty further up the chain of command was their only way to get ahead. Brutal, but that's how it's always been, in the military.
Lee Child (Persuader (Jack Reacher, #7))
Wine was flowing and the drunker everyone got the more the offices were trashed, with some junior staffers even deliberately pouring wine all over the floor and some of the furniture, commenting that it was Turnbull’s mess to clean up now.
Peter van Onselen (Battleground)
I encourage everyone to visit the exhibits and then walk up the ramp and go aboard Nautilus. Check out the torpedo room, wardroom, officer quarters, attack center, galley, and crew’s mess and quarters. I think you will find her as grand and accommodating as ever. Looking
William R. Anderson (The Ice Diaries: The Untold Story of the USS Nautilus and the Cold War's Most Daring Mission)
Wow.You two seem to be right as rain again," Cole said from behind us. I could hear the undercurrent of rage beneath his voice. "I hate to interrupt this sudden case of the touchy-feelies, but with the three of us standing here, it almost feels like that spring day so long ago.Almost as if Jack hand't left for camp.Almost as if Jack had nothing to do with you going under,Nik." Jack winced, but he kept his eyes on me. "You should've seen her.Did you know that when she left your dorm that night, she came straight to me? Begged to go with me. Barely able to breathe for the pain." He enunciated each word. I studied Jack's face and shook my head. Jack dropped his arm from my shoulders. "You never let me explain. I ran to you,but you drove off.You didn't trust me." There was silence for a few long moments. "Would either of you care to know my opinion?" Cole said. "Shut up," we replied at the same time. Cole shrugged. "You know where to find me." He turned and walked across the parking lot to the sidewalk that led around the corner of the post office. I watched him until he disappeared, than I faced Jack again. Jack rougly ran both of his hands through his hair. "This is a mess." It sounded like he was talking to himself, not to me. "I know how it looked, but you should've let me explain. I hated you for leaving." He looked up at the sky. "I hated you." Jack took a step backward, away from me, and as he did,a voice called out to us. "Don't let him drive you apart!" We both turned toward the sound. Mary was sitting on a bench under the shelter of the bus stop. I hadn t noticed her before.She'd been watching us. She stood and came over. "That's what he wants. He's scared of anchors. I told you I have a theory about anchors.
Brodi Ashton (Everneath (Everneath, #1))
A French count, as a volunteer officer with the Federal regiment, Gardes Lafayette, admired the delicious salad served in the headquarters mess. "What meat is this?" he asked the cook one day. "I must take the recipe to France, It will be a sensation." "Blacksnake," was the reply. The count paled, lost interest, and disappeared from the coterie of salad fanciers.
Burke Davis (The Civil War: Strange & Fascinating Facts)
When the speech concluded it was very late. One of Congressman Bachus’s aides took me back to the office to get Colston. We opened the door and those interns looked whooped. Ties were off, hair was all messed up, and my son was running around the room energetically asking to play another game. He was bouncing off the walls and his babysitters looked like they’d been hit by a truck.
Noah Galloway (Living with No Excuses: The Remarkable Rebirth of an American Soldier)
Why are you so mad at me?" Norris shouted back. The neighbors could definitely hear them now. His throat dry, but he didn't care. "I'm sorry if I interrupted one of your dates, or whatever, but I DID NOT DO ANYTHING! Ground me for leaving prom, ground me for drinking, but I didn't drive, I didn't have unprotected sex, I didn't even get high! You know that! You're supposed to be on my side here, Mom!" "NO!" she hurled back. "Not on this, Norris" I can't be!" "Why the hell not?!" "You know damn well! Trayvon Martin," she began. "Tamir Rice, Cameron Tillman, so many others that I can't remember all their names anymore!" Norris knew too well. It was almost a ritual, even back in Canada. They would sit as a family and watch quietly. "Be smart out there," Felix used to say. "You're not a handsome blue-eyed little Ken doll who's going to get a slap on the wrist every time he messes up. That, tonight?" she said, pointing to the door. "Do you know what that was? Do you?!" "I-" "That was a fucking coin flip, Norris. That was the coin landing heads." Her finger dug into his chest, punctuating every other word she was saying, spittle flying at his face. "Heads. A good one. Officer Miller, who has four sons, and luckily, mercifully, thank Jesus saw someone else's kid back-talking him tonight." She exhaled, her breath Thai-food hot against his face. "Tails." Her voice broke. "Tails, and I would be at the morgue right now identifying you! With some man lecturing me about our blood alcohol level and belligerent language and how you had it coming.
Ben Philippe (The Field Guide to the North American Teenager)
Even though only 37 percent of the prisoner population was white, whites held 74 percent of the jobs in Attica’s power house, 67 percent of the coveted clerk positions, and 62 percent of the staff jobs in the officers’ mess hall. By contrast, 76 percent of the men in the dreaded and low-paid metal shop, and 80 percent in the grueling grading companies, were African American or Puerto Rican.
Heather Ann Thompson (Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy)
But then a revelation came crashing down on me. The harshness of it was so fierce I was the one trembling instead of Melanie. My memory flashed back to her Monday night in the parking lot with her messed up hair and smeared makeup. They weren’t willingly hitting it in his office. He hadn’t turned me away that night because he had been with someone. Oh, no, it was much worse than that. I stared at her in disbelief. He had screwed her—the panties were proof of that. But it wasn’t by her consent…he had truly raped her. I gasped. “Oh my God!” My mind shattered with the thoughts of what he had done. To his star…to his son’s girlfriend. It was too much. I slammed back against the sink and shook my head. “He raped you, didn’t he?” Her eyes widened in horror. “NO!” she screamed.
Katie Ashley (Nets and Lies)
An officers’ mess is one of the surest barometers of military success. So long as the officers continue to pig it with the men, there is danger of defeat. But once the officers’ mess appears — raised almost on the bodies of the foe, contrived of sticks and pieces of canvas or perhaps only an imaginary line like a taboo — once this appears, and caste is restored. we know that victory is ours.
Robert Leckie (Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific)
To be human is to be scared of our own innate ridiculousness, so we do anything to reduce that ridicule. We clothe our bodies, we procreate behind closed doors, we hide every bodily function, we don’t cry in the post office, or sing in the street, and we try to keep our own ideas in line with what we are told we should think. But life is mess and confusion and full of awkward, shameful realities.
Matt Haig (The Life Impossible)
relented, but it left Hertzfeld with a bad taste. When his leave was coming to an end, Hertzfeld made an appointment to have dinner with Jobs, and they walked from his office to an Italian restaurant a few blocks away. “I really want to return,” he told Jobs. “But things seem really messed up right now.” Jobs was vaguely annoyed and distracted, but Hertzfeld plunged ahead. “The software team is completely
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
Dear Mr. Chance and Ms. Brattle. Sorry about the mess. Great bed. Loved it. As a matter of fact, loved the whole house. Actually, I tried to kill your kids when I found them here. Yeah, funny story. Maybe not funny, hah hah.’” Astrid heard nervous laughter from the media people, or maybe just from the hotel staff who were hovering around the edges grabbing a glimpse of the Hollywood royalty. “‘Anyway, I missed and they got away. I don’t know what will happen to Sanjit and that stick-up-his butt Choo and the rest, but whatever happens next, it’s not on me. However . . .’” Astrid took a dramatic pause. “‘However, the rest of what happened was on me. Me, Caine Soren. You’ll probably be hearing a lot of crazy stories from kids. But what they didn’t know was that it was all me. Me. Me me. See, I had a power I never told anyone about. I had the power to make people do bad things. Crimes and whatnot. Especially Diana, who never did anything wrong on her own, by her own will, I mean. She—and the rest of them—were under my control. The responsibility is on me. I confess. Haul me away, officers.’” Astrid suddenly felt her throat tightening, although she’d read the letter many times already, and knew what it said. Rotten son of a . . . And then this. Redemption. Not a bad concept. Well, partial redemption. “It’s signed Caine Soren. And below that, ‘King of the FAYZ.’” It was a full confession. A lie: a blatant, not-very-convincing lie. But it would be just enough to make prosecutions very difficult. Caine’s role in the FAYZ, and the reality that strange powers had actually existed in that space, were widely known and accepted. Of course Caine had enjoyed writing it. It was his penultimate act of control. He was manipulating from beyond the grave.
Michael Grant (Light (Gone, #6))
The office was different. That was the first thing Dick noticed. Not that he’d spent enough time in the Oval Office for it to feel like home. The sunburst rug was the same, and so were the paired cream colored couches, but the heavy draperies that had covered the windows were gone. The Remington bronzes of cowboys on pitching horses had been replaced by white china containers with subdued ivy topiaries. And the desk was different. It was a mess.
Jo Graham (Homecoming (Stargate Atlantis, #16))
You're ambitious, Achille. You've become the chief of detectives in record time, and there's talk you'll be the prefect someday, or even a cabinet minister. You'll have all the temptations of high office--honors, titles, bribes. As for your 'improvements,' see what people think of them when you try to change the world at their expense. You can make your own cross and climb your Calvary; in the end you'll die and the world will go on as messed up as it was before.
Gary Inbinder (The Man Upon the Stair: A Mystery in Fin de Siecle Paris (Achille Lefebvre Mysteries #3))
I was on duty when our submarine went into port in Nassau and tied up at the Prince George Wharf, and I was the officer who accepted an invitation from the governor-general of the Bahamas for our officers and crewmen to attend an official ball to honor the U.S. Navy. There was a more private comment that a number of young ladies would be present with their chaperones. All of us were pleased and excited, and Captain Andrews responded affirmatively. We received a notice the next day that, of course, the nonwhite crewmen would not be included. When I brought this message to the captain, he had the crew assemble in the mess hall and asked for their guidance in drafting a response. After multiple expletives were censored from the message, we unanimously declined to participate. The decision by the crew of the K-1 was an indication of how equal racial treatment had been accepted—and relished. I was very proud of my ship. On leave
Jimmy Carter (A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety)
One camera recorded only the flattened grass through a cracked lens. The other, moving closer to the girl, showed her dupatta fly toward it, a close-up of the tiny embroidered flowers on the white cloth, and then a battering darkness. For a few moments there was only a howling noise, the wind raging, and then a hand plucked away the white cloth and the howl was the girl, a dust mask on her face, her dark hair a cascade of mud, her fingers interlaced over the face of her brother. A howl deeper than a girl, a howl that came out of the earth and through her and into the office of the home secretary, who took a step back. As if that were the only thing the entire spectacle had been designed to achieve, the wind dropped as suddenly as buildings collapse in 3-D models, and the girl stopped her noise, unlaced her fingers. The cameras panned, then zoomed. In the whole apocalyptic mess of the park the only thing that remained unburied was the face of the dead boy. “Impressive,” said the home secretary.
Kamila Shamsie (Home Fire)
When one person got involved, it took everybody else along. I went to jail first, but my entire family soon joined the Movement. One time, Faith & I ended up at home w all the babies from 2 households, because the mamas & the other older sisters were in jail. In the morning we had to plait everybody's hair & feed them--it was a mess! We had all the babies except Peaches Gaines, who was in jail with her mother & my mother. Peaches was jailed because she had not obeyed an officer. She was about 2. Her bond was set at, I believe, $125.00. --Joann Christian Mants
Faith S. Holsaert (Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC)
I thought about every mundane moment that makes up that gray area of a person’s life. It’s the hour or two a day that you clean your kitchen or watch TV or do the laundry. All my gray moments with Mia were colored in: chasing her around the Laundromat, spraying water on her from the kitchen sink, or messing around with her on the couch while we spent whole days watching reruns of The Office. I looked forward to the rest of my life, even if the rest of my life only consisted of the humdrum day-in, day-out bullshit, it didn’t matter because Mia turned the most unremarkable moments into moments I cherished.
Renee Carlino (Sweet Little Thing (Sweet Thing, #1.5))
Together with an elderly artist (I regret that I don't remember his name) he occupied a separate room in the barracks. And there Yuri painted for nothing schmaltzy pictures such as Nero's Feast and the Chorus of Elves and the like for the German officers on the commandant's staff. In return, he was given food. The slops for which the POW officers stood in line with their mess tins from 6 a.m. on, while the Ordners beat them with sticks and the cooks with ladles, were not enough to sustain life. At evening, Yuri could see from the windows of their room the one and only picture for which his artistic talent had been given him: the evening mist hovering above a swampy meadow encircled by barbed wire; a multitude of bonfires; and, around the bonfires, beings who had once been Russian officers but had now become beastlike creatures who gnawed the bones of dead horses, who baked patties from potato rinds, who smoked manure and were all swarming with lice. Not all those two-legged creatures had died as yet. Not all of them had yet lost the capacity for intelligible speech, and one could see in the crimson reflections of the bonfires how a belated understanding was dawning on those faces which were descending to the Neanderthal.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago)
I respect the men who joined your army, I do. But I’ve been taking orders all my life, and now I’m giving them. I good as run this place, Mr. Scott. And I get paid to do it.” He saw the surprised look on Scott’s face. “Mr. Alexander commenced to pay us wages right after the president’s proclamation. What makes you think I’d give that up to take orders from some White officer, a stranger, who don’t care if I live or if I die? Just another massa, is all I see. We suffered enough on account of slavery already. I don’t plan on laying my life down to end it. You folk who made this mess, I reckon you owe us to clean it up.
Geraldine Brooks (Horse)
One of the most essential elements of the mantra to do no harm is the avoidance of sitting in judgment of anyone. The simple fact is that no good can come from being judgmental of a person in an interrogation situation—in fact, it can severely harm the process. When you’re judging someone, you’re necessarily displaying a bias, and bias can only have a negative impact on your ability to get the truth. Of course, we’re all human, and sometimes we have a natural inclination to judge people who mess up. One of the best ways we’ve found to fight that inclination is to remember a fundamental verity in life: Sometimes good people do stupid things.
Philip Houston (Get the Truth: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Persuade Anyone to Tell All)
He staggers through the forest. The burning forest. Bits of brush smoldering. A stormtrooper helmet nearby, charred and half melted. A small fire burns nearby. In the distance, the skeleton of an AT-AT walker. Its top blown open in the blast, peeled open like a metal flower. That burns, too. Bodies all around. Some of them are faceless, nameless. To him, at least. But others, he knows. Or knew. There—the fresh-faced officer, Cerk Lormin. Good kid. Eager to please. Joined the Empire because it’s what you did. Not a true believer, not by a long stretch. Not far from him: Captain Blevins. Definitely a true believer. A froth-mouthed braggart and bully, too. His face is a mask of blood. Sinjir is glad that one is dead. Nearby, a young woman: He knows her face from the mess, but not her name, and the insignia rank on her chest has been covered in blood. Whoever she was, she’s nobody now. Mulch for the forest. Food for the native Ewoks. Just stardust and nothing. We’re all stardust and nothing, he thinks. An absurd thought. But no less absurd than the one that follows: We did this to ourselves. He should blame them. The rebels. Even now he can hear them applauding. Firing blasters into the air. Hicks and yokels. Farm boy warriors and pipe-fitter pilots. Good for them. They deserve their celebration. Just as we deserve our graves.
Chuck Wendig (Aftermath (Star Wars: Aftermath, #1))
Some made the long drop from the apartment or the office window; some took it quietly in two-car garages with the motor running; some used the native tradition of the Colt or Smith and Wesson; those well-constructed implements that end insomnia, terminate remorse, cure cancer, avoid bankruptcy, and blast an exit from intolerable positions by the pressure of a finger; those admirable American instruments so easily carried, so sure of effect, so well designed to end the American dream when it becomes a nightmare, their only drawback the mess they leave for relatives to clean up. The men he broke made all these various exits but that never worried him. Somebody had to lose and only suckers worried.
Ernest Hemingway (To Have and Have Not)
They spent the afternoon restraining recalcitrant cats and dogs and parrots and all sorts of other animals while Jim Keene treated them. There were bandages to be laid out, medicines to be retrieved from the cabinets, instruments to be washed and sterilized, fees to be collected and receipts written. Some pets, afflicted with vomiting and diarrhea, left messes to be cleaned up, but Travis and Nora tended to those unpleasantnesses as uncomplainingly and unhesitatingly as they performed other tasks. ——— The patient load was far greater than usual, Keene said, and they were not able to close the office until after six o'clock. Weariness-and the labor they shared-generated a warm feeling of camaraderie.
Dean Koontz (Watchers)
clothes off, cept for the big chef’s hat I was wearin at the time. An it blowed stew all over us, so’s we looked like—well, I don’t know what we looked like—but man, it was strange. Incredibly, it didn’t do nothin to all them guys settin out there in the mess hall neither. Jus lef em settin at they tables, covered with stew, actin kinda shell-shocked or somethin—but it sure did shut their asses up about when they food is gonna be ready. Suddenly the company commander come runnin into the buildin. “What was that!” he shouted. “What happen?” He look at the two of us, an then holler, “Sergeant Kranz, is that you?” “Gump—Boiler—Stew!” the sergeant say, an then he kind of git holt of hissef an grapped a meat cleaver off the wall. “Gump—Boiler—Stew!” he scream, an come after me with the cleaver. I done run out the door, an he be chasin me all over the parade grounds, an even thru the Officer’s Club an the Motorpool. I outrunned him tho, cause that is my specialty, but let me say this: they ain’t no question in my mind that I am up the creek for sure. One night, the next fall, the phone rung in the barracks an it was Bubba. He say they done dropped his atheletic scholarship cause his foot broke worst than they thought, an so he’s leavin school too. But he axed if I can git off to come up to Birmingham to watch the University play them geeks from Mississippi. But I am confined to quarters that Saturday, as I have been ever weekend since the stew
Winston Groom (Forrest Gump)
I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper?
Sumangali Morhall (Auspicious Good Fortune: One woman's inspirational journey from Western disillusionment to Eastern spiritual fulfilment)
Troops caught nibbling their emergency D- ration chocolate bars were dubbed Chocolate Soldiers and punished by forfeiting two meals. This was a happy penance. The galleys served so much fatty mutton that derisive bleating could be heard throughout the convoy and the 13th Armored Regiment proposed a new battle cry: 'Baaa!' Crunchy raisins in the bread proved to be weevils; soldiers learned to hold up slices to the light, as if candling eggs. The 1st Infantry Division on Reine de Pacifico organized troop details to sift flour through mesh screens in a search for insects. Wormy meat aboard the Keren so provoked 34th Division soldiers that officers were dispatched to keep order in the mess hall. When soldiers aboard Letitia challenged the culinary honor of one French cook, he 'became quite wild and threatened to jump overboard.
Rick Atkinson (An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (World War II Liberation Trilogy, #1))
McCullough points out that early treatment does not just prevent hospitalization; it quickly starves pandemics to death by stopping their spread. “Early treatment reduces the infectivity period from 14 days to about four days,” he explains. “It also allows someone to stay in the home so they don’t contaminate people outside the home. And then it has this remarkable effect in reducing the intensity and duration of symptoms so patients don’t get so short of breath, they don’t get into this panic where they feel they have to break containment and go to the hospital.” McCullough says that those hospital trips are tinder for pandemics, especially since, at that point, the patient is at the height of infectivity, with teeming viral loads. “Every hospitalization in America—and there’s been millions of them—has been a super-spreader event. Sick patients contaminate their loved ones, paramedics, Uber drivers, people in the clinic and offices. It becomes a total mess.” McCullough says that by treating COVID-19 at home, doctors actually can extinguish the pandemic.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
Men should not sleep on beds; they shall sleep wherever their tired knees gave up. We are stars! And stars produce heat! Let that never translate to a boring life. There is one object in the universe that eats up more light than any other design and that is a mattress that loves you too much. Things can kill without being crafty. The bedsheets are warm and kind and yet their comfort has killed more man than any murderous hand in history. A star that knows it is a star looks like a person who is always in transformation, figuring things out, exploring identities, and making a mess. They brush their hair back and rub their eyes. A heart in debate. A tongue that agreed on humor. Tired feet. A juggled mind. He might be a police officer turned trapeze artist turned pilot. A father who is also a volunteer, a brother, a warrior, a companion, a neighbor, a rival, and a student. We can see sweat leave our pores and so grow discouraged that we cannot see the progress of internal efforts. But do not be disheartened. Our souls do sweat. It just looks a lot like mundane life incidents that break us, such as the first step of the morning or simply walking home again.
Kristian Ventura (The Goodbye Song)
I had always thought that having a flashback meant fully hallucinating your past. In the movies, soldiers would be transported back to Afghanistan—they’d see desert sand and automatic rifles in a waking nightmare. But even when I remembered moments of abuse, I knew where I was. I knew I was on the couch. I knew I was not going to die. But I soon learned that in trauma lingo, people often aren’t talking about the movie version of flashbacks. They’re talking about emotional flashbacks. For example, before I quit my job, my boss often came into my office to tell me I’d made some minor mistake. If my body and brain were totally in the present, I would have felt embarrassed for messing up but would recognize that it wasn’t a huge deal, acknowledge my faults, and get back to it. Instead, after my boss left, I always felt guilt and anxiety and shame and terror. I’d run downstairs to have a cigarette, text a friend about how I was a moron, and spend half an hour freaking out about how nobody respected me and I’d probably end up fired. Even though consciously I was completely in the present, my emotions were back in 1997, back when I was a little kid and making a mistake on a spelling test could literally be a matter of life and death. This return was an emotional flashback.
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
My time at Eton did develop in me a character trait that is essentially, I guess, very English: the notion that it is best to be the sort of person who messes about and plays the fool but who, when it really matters, is tough to the core. I think it goes back to the English Scarlet Pimpernel mentality: the nobility of aspiring to be the hidden hero. (In fact, I am sure it is no coincidence that over the years, so many senior SAS officers have also been Old Etonians. Now explain that one, when the SAS really is the ultimate meritocracy? No school tie can earn you a place there. That comes only with sweat and hard work. But the SAS also attracts a certain personality and attitude. It favors the individual, the maverick, and the quietly talented. That was Eton for you, too.) This is essentially a very English ethos: work hard, play hard; be modest; do your job to your utmost, laugh at yourself; and sometimes, if you have to, cuff it. I found that these qualities were ones that I loved in others, and they were qualities that subconsciously I was aspiring to in myself--whether I knew it or not. One truth never changed for me at Eton: however much I threw myself into life there, the bare fact was that I still really lived for the holidays--to be back at home with my mum and dad, and Lara, in the Isle of Wight. It was always where my heart really was.
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
Madam, you can’t be more desperate than I.” He wound his arms around her and grunted. “The evidence is drooling on your stomach. I have not lost this erection for five days. Doral looks at me and winces. You have obliterated my dignity in front of my staff. I have become a laughingstock, a by-word for ‘pussy-whipped male’. Every time I walk into a room, the conversation dies. I entered the mess hall, yesterday—530 officers and enlisted men. Silence, Fleur. Dead silence.” She sniffed. By the gods, this must be a unique experience for him. I’m certain he has never been the butt of the joke before. “I don’t think you appreciate the torture and humiliation you inflict. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to ride a horse when I’m like this? Do you know how disconcerting it is to discuss cavalry deployment with Major Truillo while I’m sporting a cockstand to rival a stud horse? I couldn't get the man to look me in the face. Worse, he thought I reacted to him.” She nuzzled her face into Ari’s chest and tried to contain her amusement. Her imagination supplied the picture of the very handsome, very homosexual, very short Major Truillo standing with covetous eyes riveted to Ari’s substantial erection, all the while discussing the dry topic of cavalry placement. “For half an hour all I saw was the top of his head.” He paused for a moment then threw out, “He has a bald spot.
Patricia A. Knight (Hers to Command (Verdantia, #1))
During his time working for the head of strategy at the bank in the early 1990s, Musk had been asked to take a look at the company’s third-world debt portfolio. This pool of money went by the depressing name of “less-developed country debt,” and Bank of Nova Scotia had billions of dollars of it. Countries throughout South America and elsewhere had defaulted in the years prior, forcing the bank to write down some of its debt value. Musk’s boss wanted him to dig into the bank’s holdings as a learning experiment and try to determine how much the debt was actually worth. While pursuing this project, Musk stumbled upon what seemed like an obvious business opportunity. The United States had tried to help reduce the debt burden of a number of developing countries through so-called Brady bonds, in which the U.S. government basically backstopped the debt of countries like Brazil and Argentina. Musk noticed an arbitrage play. “I calculated the backstop value, and it was something like fifty cents on the dollar, while the actual debt was trading at twenty-five cents,” Musk said. “This was like the biggest opportunity ever, and nobody seemed to realize it.” Musk tried to remain cool and calm as he rang Goldman Sachs, one of the main traders in this market, and probed around about what he had seen. He inquired as to how much Brazilian debt might be available at the 25-cents price. “The guy said, ‘How much do you want?’ and I came up with some ridiculous number like ten billion dollars,” Musk said. When the trader confirmed that was doable, Musk hung up the phone. “I was thinking that they had to be fucking crazy because you could double your money. Everything was backed by Uncle Sam. It was a no-brainer.” Musk had spent the summer earning about fourteen dollars an hour and getting chewed out for using the executive coffee machine, among other status infractions, and figured his moment to shine and make a big bonus had arrived. He sprinted up to his boss’s office and pitched the opportunity of a lifetime. “You can make billions of dollars for free,” he said. His boss told Musk to write up a report, which soon got passed up to the bank’s CEO, who promptly rejected the proposal, saying the bank had been burned on Brazilian and Argentinian debt before and didn’t want to mess with it again. “I tried to tell them that’s not the point,” Musk said. “The point is that it’s fucking backed by Uncle Sam. It doesn’t matter what the South Americans do. You cannot lose unless you think the U.S. Treasury is going to default. But they still didn’t do it, and I was stunned. Later in life, as I competed against the banks, I would think back to this moment, and it gave me confidence. All the bankers did was copy what everyone else did. If everyone else ran off a bloody cliff, they’d run right off a cliff with them. If there was a giant pile of gold sitting in the middle of the room and nobody was picking it up, they wouldn’t pick it up, either.” In
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
So Christiana went to speak to Dicky about taking us out and about, but when she found him in the office, the idiot was dead." Daniel bit his lip at her vexed tone. There was absolutely no grief in her voice at all, just irritation with the inconvenience of it all. But then George had never been one to inspire the finer feelings in those he encountered. Clearing his throat, he asked, "Did he fall and strike his head, or-" "No.He was simply sitting in his chair dead," she said with exasperation, and then added with disgust, "He was obviously a victim of his own excess. We suspected his heart gave out. Certainly the glass and decanter of whiskey next to him suggested he didn't take the best care of himself. I ask you,who drinks hard liquor first thing in the morning?" Daniel shook his head, finding it difficult to speak. She was just so annoyed as she spoke of the man's death, as if he'd deliberately done it to mess up her plans. After a moment, he asked, "Are you sure he is dead?" Suzette gave him another one of those adorable "Don't be ridiculous" looks. "Well, obviously he isn't. He is here now," she pointed out, and then shook her head and added almost under her breath, "Though I could have sworn...The man didn't even stir when he fell off the chair and slammed his head on the floor. Nor when I dropped him and his head crashed to the hardwood floor again, or when we rolled him in the carpet and dragged him upstairs, or when we dropped him in the hall and he rolled out of the carpet, or-" "Er," Daniel interrupted, and then coughed into his hand to hide a laugh, before asking, "Why exactly were you carting him about in a carpet?" "Well,don't be dense," she said with exasperation. "We couldn't let anyone know he was dead, could we?" "Couldn't you?" he asked uncertainly. Suzette clucked with irritation. "Of course not.We would have had to go into mourning then.How would I find a husband if we were forced to abstain from polite society to observe mourning?
Lynsay Sands (The Heiress (Madison Sisters, #2))
The Reign of Terror: A Story of Crime and Punishment told of two brothers, a career criminal and a small-time crook, in prison together and in love with the same girl. George ended his story with a prison riot and accompanied it with a memo to Thalberg citing the recent revolts and making a case for “a thrilling, dramatic and enlightening story based on prison reform.” --- Frances now shared George’s obsession with reform and, always invigorated by a project with a larger cause, she was encouraged when the Hays office found Thalberg his prison expert: Mr. P. W. Garrett, the general secretary of the National Society of Penal Information. Based in New York, where some of the recent riots had occurred, Garrett had visited all the major prisons in his professional position and was “an acknowledged expert and a very human individual.” He agreed to come to California to work with Frances for several weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a total of kr 4,470.62 plus expenses. Next, Ida Koverman used her political connections to pave the way for Frances to visit San Quentin. Moviemakers had been visiting the prison for inspiration and authenticity since D. W. Griffith, Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown walked though the halls before making Intolerance, but for a woman alone to be ushered through the cell blocks was unusual and upon meeting the warden, Frances noticed “his smile at my discomfort.” Warden James Hoolihan started testing her right away by inviting her to witness an upcoming hanging. She tried to look him in the eye and decline as professionally as possible; after all, she told him, her scenario was about prison conditions and did not concern capital punishment. Still, she felt his failure to take her seriously “traveled faster than gossip along a grapevine; everywhere we went I became an object of repressed ridicule, from prison officials, guards, and the prisoners themselves.” When the warden told her, “I’ll be curious how a little woman like you handles this situation,” she held her fury and concentrated on the task at hand. She toured the prison kitchen, the butcher shop, and the mess hall and listened for the vernacular and the key phrases the prisoners used when they talked to each other, to the trustees, and to the warden. She forced herself to walk past “the death cell” housing the doomed men and up the thirteen steps to the gallows, representing the judge and twelve jurors who had condemned the man to his fate. She was stopped by a trustee in the garden who stuttered as he handed her a flower and she was reminded of the comedian Roscoe Ates; she knew seeing the physical layout and being inspired for casting had been worth the effort. --- Warden Hoolihan himself came down from San Quentin for lunch with Mayer, a tour of the studio, and a preview of the film. Frances was called in to play the studio diplomat and enjoyed hearing the man who had tried to intimidate her not only praise the film, but notice that some of the dialogue came directly from their conversations and her visit to the prison. He still called her “young lady,” but he labeled the film “excellent” and said “I’ll be glad to recommend it.” ---- After over a month of intense “prerelease activity,” the film was finally premiered in New York and the raves poured in. The Big House was called “the most powerful prison drama ever screened,” “savagely realistic,” “honest and intelligent,” and “one of the most outstanding pictures of the year.
Cari Beauchamp (Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood)
Dear, What’s the Point of it All? What is the point of being nice? When you do not know what you are going to get from it? Knowing eventually sooner rather than later someone and maybe that person you are being nice to will turn their back on you. I always have to stay grounded and focused. When I am there for people, I feel like I am always punished for it. I am always treated as if I committed a crime. I was there for my mom; however, she was killing me slowly but surely. Like my mom, I noticed that when people get themselves in some shit, they get stuck in their own mess. They are confident that they do not have to deal with the consequences—because they know the ‘kind’ person will bail them out. What’s the point of being kind? Like my mom and the officer, there are so many people in the world who are judgmental and tainted because of their selfish needs. What’s the point of my life? Here I am in a library filled with many books. I can read them and go anywhere I want to in my mind, but after I close the book, I will have to snap out of my fantasy world and welcome the cruel cold world, which is reality. If I was a book, I would be better off left on the shelf. There is no excitement in my life—only struggles. What’s the point of living and loving life when the only thing I do is read between the lines and tread carefully? Come to think about it, I am a book that nobody can understand or read. They think they know what is best for me, but if they only take the time to listen, I would be so happy to tell them about me and my needs and wants. My actions scream for attention, but time after time, I am ignored. Sadly, without a care, they were quick to rip out the pages. Yet, once again, nobody noticed me. What’s the point of it all when I never had an opportunity to make a mistake? If I did one thing wrong, they would give up on me and send me to one home after another. I’ve always been fully exposed and had to walk in a line filled with sharp curves from disappointment to disappointment. Sorrow is my aura, and sadness hugs me tightly. It is hard to cry when my eyes are closed shut by the barbed wire fence of my eyelashes as they prohibit tears from falling. What’s the point of complicating my life? I am always back to where I started, and then ... I relive the same patterns, but on a more difficult journey. I believe when you put yourself in your own mess that you should clean it up and start over. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. However, when someone else puts you in their mess, you do not know how to clean up the mess they’ve made. You do not know how to start over because you do not know where to begin. I look at it this way; it is like telling a dead person he/she can start over. How so, when that person’s life no longer exists? I know my life isn’t over. However, I am lost in a maze my mom set up for herself—and she too is lost in her own maze. When a person gets lost in their own maze, they are really fucked up. However, this maze shouldn’t be left for me to figure out. Unfortunately, I am in it, and I have to find my way out one way or another. What’s the point of taking Kace from me? He was safe and in good hands. Now he is worse off with people who are abusing him. He didn’t ask for this—I didn’t either. He deserves so much better. Again, what is the point of it all? What’s the point of making me suffer? Do you get a kick out of it? What are you trying to accomplish? I am trying to understand; what is the point of it all? What is the point? I don’t know why I am here.
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
I was getting my knife sharpened at the cutlery shop in the mall,” he said. It was where he originally bought the knife. The store had a policy of keeping your purchase razor sharp, so he occasionally brought it back in for a free sharpening. “Anyway, it was that day that I met this Asian male. He was alone and really nice looking, so I struck up a conversation with him. Well, I offered him fifty bucks to come home with me and let me take some photos. I told him that there was liquor at my place and indicated that I was sexually attracted to him. He was eager and cooperative so we took the bus to my apartment. Once there, I gave him some money and he posed for several photos. I offered him the rum and Coke Halcion-laced solution and he drank it down quickly. We continued to drink until he passed out, and then I made love to him for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up it was late. I checked on the guy. He was out cold, still breathing heavily from the Halcion. I was out of beer and walked around the corner for another six-pack but after I got to the tavern, I started drinking and before I knew it, it was closing time. I grabbed my six-pack and began walking home. As I neared my apartment, I noted a lot of commotion, people milling about, police officers, and a fire engine. I decided to see what was going on, so I came closer. I was surprised to see they were all standing around the Asian guy from my apartment. He was standing there naked, speaking in some kind of Asian dialect. At first, I panicked and kept walking, but I could see that he was so messed up on the Halcion and booze that he didn’t know who or where he was. “I don’t really know why, Pat, but I strode into the middle of everyone and announced he was my lover. I said that we lived together at Oxford and had been drinking heavily all day, and added that this was not the first time he left the apartment naked while intoxicated. I explained that I had gone out to buy some more beer and showed them the six-pack. I asked them to give him a break and let me take him back home. The firemen seemed to buy the story and drove off, but the police began to ask more questions and insisted that I take them to my apartment to discuss the matter further. I was nervous but felt confident; besides, I had no other choice. One cop took him by the arm and he followed, almost zombie-like. “I led them to my apartment and once inside, I showed them the photos I had taken, and his clothes neatly folded on the arm of my couch. The cops kept trying to question the guy but he was still talking gibberish and could not answer any of their questions, so I told them his name was Chuck Moung and gave them a phony date of birth. I handed them my identification and they wrote everything down in their little notebooks. They seemed perturbed and talked about writing us some tickets for disorderly conduct or something. One of them said they should take us both in for all the trouble we had given them. “As they were discussing what to do, another call came over their radio. It must have been important because they decided to give us a warning and advised me to keep my drunken partner inside. I was relieved. I had fooled the authorities and it gave me a tremendous feeling. I felt powerful, in control, almost invincible. After the officers left, I gave the guy another Halcion-filled drink and he soon passed out. I was still nervous about the narrow escape with the cops, so I strangled him and disposed of his body.
Patrick Kennedy (GRILLING DAHMER: The Interrogation Of "The Milwaukee Cannibal")
Mike Kelleher from Obama’s Senate office was the person who stepped up to tackle the mess… He built the staff, drew up a ten-page strategic plan for the mail-room, wrote algorithms for a mail coding system, set up a casework decision tree, assembled a library of policy-response letters, and developed quality-control manuals.
Jeanne Marie Laskas (To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope)
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me a site visit in Seattle. Barry remembers the visit. “The committee were Hans Strupp, from Vanderbilt, who was one of the premier researchers from the psychoanalytic point of view, and Maria Kovacs, a child behavior therapist at University of Pittsburgh, very prominent.” These visitations can be quite intimidating, especially with scholars of that caliber. And for me, this was a big one. I was so nervous that I dropped a pot of coffee in my office. It went everywhere, a terrible mess. Did they want me to make another pot? I asked sheepishly. No, they did not! It was “Let’s get on with business here.” They discussed whether
Marsha M. Linehan (Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir)
The seventies were crazy everywhere, but crazier in Los Angeles. It was the era of freewheeling drugs and sex, the rag end of the sixties. I refer to sprees, to strange couplings and triplings, to nights that started with beer and wine and ended with cocaine and capsules, to debaucheries too various to chronicle. In a sense, we were all Robert Mitchum, smoking rope in bed with two girls while the sun was still noon high. We thought it was normal. You would walk into a house for a pool party, and there, on the cocktail table in the center of the living room, as if it were nuts or cooked shrimp, would be a platter of cocaine. We did it because we were stupid, because we did not know the danger. When I talk about my drug years, I am talking about twenty-four months in the middle of the seventies. I was in the rock and roll world, which meant I was around the stuff all the time. Of course, it was more than mere proximity. I was fun when I was high, talkative and all-encompassing. I could go forever, never be done talking. To some extent, I was really self-medicating, using the drugs to skate over issues in my own life. The fact is, money and success had come so fast, while I was away doing something else, not paying attention, that, when I finally realized where I was and just what I had, I could not understand it. There was this voice in my head, saying, Who do you think you are? What do you think you did? You are a fraud! You don’t deserve any of this! I tortured myself, and let the anxiety well up, then beat back the anxiety with the drugs, on and on, until one day, I stood up and said, “Screw it. That’s over. I’m done.” No rehab, no counseling, nothing like that. Just a moment of clarity, in which I saw myself from the outside, the mess I was making, the waste. I was slipping, not working as hard as I used to. I started leaving the office early on Fridays, then skipping Fridays altogether. Then I started leaving early on Thursdays, then arriving late on Mondays. I was letting myself go. Then one day, I just decided, It has to stop. I threw away the pills and bottles, took a cold shower, had a barbershop shave, and stepped into the cool of Sunset Boulevard, and began fresh. Maybe it had to do with my family situation. I was a father again.
Jerry Weintraub (When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man)
Doris Miller, a huge mess attendant on the West Virginia, was one of the regulars faced with this problem of reconciling the old with the new. Every morning he had the colossal job of waking up Ensign Edmond Jacoby, a young reservist from the University of Wichita. At first Miller used to yank at Jacoby, much like a Pullman porter arousing a passenger. This was fine with Jacoby, but an Annapolis man reminded Miller that an enlisted man must never touch an officer. Faced with the problem of upholding an ensign’s dignity and still getting Jacoby up, Miller appeared the following morning with a brilliant solution. Standing three inches from Jacoby’s ear, he yelled, “Hey, Jake!” and fled the room.
Walter Lord (Day of Infamy)
Then, Japanese pilots found the range, and five bombs struck the ship. Three hit forward of Turret No. 1 and left the bow a mangled mess. One of these ignited a gasoline storage tank and started a blaze that might have proven as catastrophic as that on the Arizona but for the fact that as part of a regular ammunition rotation, the Nevada’s crew had yet to reload twenty-eight hundred bags of powder into its main magazines. The other two bombs exploded at the base of the main mast and smokestack, damaging the director stations on the foremast. Rather than risk the ship sinking and blocking the entrance channel, the senior officer afloat ordered the Nevada to beach near floating Dry Dock No. 2, adjacent to Hospital Point.
Walter R. Borneman (Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona)
In the harbor beyond Kimmel’s window, a flotilla of motor launches and small boats spread out across the water like frenzied water spiders. They carried the wounded first to the hospital ship Solace and then, after its hastily enlarged trauma space overflowed, to the main medical facilities on Hospital Point and a triage area set up on 1010 Dock adjacent to the Argonne. Some of the wounded were carried aboard the Argonne, where the warrant officers’ mess was converted into an emergency operating room. By midmorning, personnel from the Argonne and other ships had also set up a field hospital at the nearby Officers’ Club. On Hospital Point, Naval Hospital Pearl Harbor was a state-of-the-art facility with about 250 beds, but the carnage quickly taxed it well beyond anything its staff had ever imagined. The first casualties arrived even as the second wave of attackers still pounded the harbor. As more poured in, ambulatory patients on the wards with far less critical conditions were discharged or evacuated to vacant outbuildings and hastily erected tents behind the hospital. Within three hours, the hospital received 546 casualties and 313 dead.
Walter R. Borneman (Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona)
Yeah, I should have probably reported his ass long ago, but up until last night he’d never taken the harassment that far. Besides, I never wanted to be that girl. You know, the one the entire office ostracizes because she can’t take a joke. Or can’t tell the difference between what’s said in seriousness and what’s said just for fun. Corporations may be required by law to educate us about sexual harassment, and encourage us to report it, but actually reporting it can open a whole messed up can of social worms.
Izzy Sweet (Propositioning Love)
US Navy into which young men enlisted during the late 1930s and early 1940s was decidedly white. This had not always been the case. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, African Americans served in a largely integrated American Navy and made up about 25 percent of its enlisted strength. Some thirty thousand African Americans manned Union vessels during the Civil War, with little discrimination as to duties. After segregation was legalized in 1896, African American enlistments declined and black men were increasingly relegated to the galley or engine room. After World War I, African American enlisted personnel declined further as the Navy recruited Filipino stewards for mess duties. By June 1940, African Americans accounted for only 2.3 percent of the Navy’s 170,000 total manpower. The fleet had mostly converted from coal to oil, and the vast majority of African Americans performed mess duties. Black reenlistments in technical specialties were never barred, however, and a few African American gunner’s mates, torpedo men, and machinist mates continued to serve. Amendments to the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 guaranteed the right to enlist regardless of race or color, but in practice, “separate but equal” prejudices consigned most blacks to the Steward’s Branch. Its personnel held ratings up to chief petty officer, but members wore different uniforms and insignia, and even chief stewards never exercised command over rated grades outside the Steward’s Branch. The only measure of equality came when, just as with everyone else aboard ship, African American and Filipino stewards were assigned battle stations. Only then could they stand shoulder to shoulder with their white brothers in arms.13
Walter R. Borneman (Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona)
ON WOMEN DOMINATING INFLUENCER MARKETING AND INSTAGRAM CREATING UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS . . . I think women are social creatures and form strong relationships and connections much easier than men, so it’s natural that we dominate social media. I definitely think Instagram can create unrealistic expectations. I have had comments and DMs from followers telling me how my content makes them feel depressed or inadequate. So you know what I do now? I post lots of Insta stories and Facebook posts, usually unedited, about what really goes on in my life. This way, they see the prep that goes into that other Instagram post they saw, including the giant mess that is my office, the team that helps me out, and the 3 A.M. late nights.
Brittany Hennessy (Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media)
Don't be a grudge collector. Too many people spend too much time every day thinking of past hurts, suffered-through office politics, messed-up relationships and, in general, the evils of the world. Don't waste your energy in this way. Apply your excellent mind to forgiving and forgetting.
Denis Waitley
man raised from the ranks to the officers’ mess becomes adept at hiding his ignorance.
Bernard Cornwell (Sharpe 3 Book Collection #3 (Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles))
Closer to home, the 1999 film Office Space, which deadpanned the meaningless rituals and bureaucracy of a fictional technology company, became a cult hit because it was instantly recognizable. In the movie, programmer Peter Gibbons describes his job to a hypnotherapist: Peter: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life. Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life? Peter: Yeah. Dr. Swanson: Wow, that’s messed up.14
Laszlo Bock (Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead)
The league, on the other hand, couldn’t afford the same. The legal mess surrounding the dispute turned into a black hole that threatened to suck up the entire league. There, of course, were still all of the league’s other problems, but the legal battle between Borislow and the WPS front office added strain the league couldn’t withstand. On January 30, 2012, Women’s Professional Soccer announced that the 2012 season was canceled while they figured out how to deal with the escalating fight with Borislow.
Caitlin Murray (The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women who Changed Soccer)
By far the predominant physical feature of Base Camp is the great Khumbu Icefall, which begins just a quarter mile away and stretches up the mountain for two miles and almost two thousand vertical feet. The Icefall is the midsection of the Khumbu Glacier. It starts above Base Camp at a declivity where the glacier pushes itself out over a precipice, creating giant blocks of ice that tumble downward with an ear-splitting roar. These so-called seracs are the size of small office buildings. They can weigh hundreds of tons. Once inside the Icefall, they continue to groan and thunder along. The whole dangerous mess moves downhill at about four feet a day in the summertime.
Beck Weathers (Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest)
Renarda’s voice came through my office voicemail as I laid on the couch in my office. I was in heaven while Adina sucked me senseless and Latoria rode my face. This threesome was bliss and I was not about to stop what was happening to answer the phone. I was so out of breath that Renarda would’ve known something was going on. To avoid answering questions that I knew would mess my life up. I let her talk to the machine.
Octavia Grant (The Manual)
But Pelosi had every reason to be furious. The House had already passed a budget resolution authorizing $3.5 trillion in spending. And Pelosi was driving House committees to furiously finish the donkey work required to create a fully realized bill. But Schumer knew that all that work was futile, and he hadn’t bothered telling her. They were producing language for a bill that Joe Manchin was never going to support. Why hadn’t he bothered telling Pelosi about that? The best Schumer could muster was that his agreement with Manchin wasn’t binding. In truth, Schumer was engaged in the very same process as Pelosi. He just wanted to press forward. When Manchin arrived in his office with the “contract,” Schumer agreed to sign it because it was the path of least resistance. Schumer needed Manchin’s support for a procedural vote advancing Build Back Better—and this contract was the condition of his support. If Manchin voted against the procedural vote, the whole bill would be stalled, if not effectively dead. So rather than attempting to negotiate with Manchin, he did what it took to move forward, even if it left him with a future mess. He could deal with the mess when the moment arrived. In the meantime, he just signed the damn thing. But he also handwrote an addendum onto the document that supplied him with cover. It read, “Will try to dissuade Joe on many of these.
Franklin Foer (The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future)
They fucked me at the same time,” I whisper, rubbing my lips up his neck, making his whole-body shudder. “In the pussy.” He jerks his head back, grey eyes darkening. “They were in your pussy at the same time?” I nod, and he groans, “Fuck. Were you a good girl for them?”  “She made a mess of my office,” Holden says proudly, tuning into our conversation.  Ryder snorts. “Understatement. We’re going to have to buy him a new fucking couch.
Ames Mills (Riches To Riches: Part One)
Mess With A Scientist (The Sonnet) Mess with a police officer, You may end up in prison. And you may end up dead, If you mess with a politician. Mess with a bureaucrat, You may end up exploited. Mess with a programmer, You may end up humiliated. If you offend a teacher, Your children might suffer. If you offend a preacher, You'll be deemed a blasphemer. But mess with a scientist, that’s your ticket to hell. Neither dead nor alive, you'll dangle in the middle.
Abhijit Naskar (Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers)
Every hospitalization in America—and there’s been millions of them—has been a super-spreader event. Sick patients contaminate their loved ones, paramedics, Uber drivers, people in the clinic and offices. It becomes a total mess.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
One of the authors, then a department head, found that this worked when a colleague was trying to manipulate and bully him (about office space); looking right at the colleague and loudly saying, “Don't mess with me, Jack. I teach negotiations!” made him back off. Jack was much nicer from then on, because he assumed his ploys wouldn't work.
Allan R. Cohen (Influence Without Authority)
Speaking of money, I can pay rent. I talked to the housing office yesterday, and they said I can use the funds allocated for the football house to pay you. I just need you to fill out a form.” I expect her to be happy about the news, but she frowns. “Maybe just give me half of that money and keep the rest.” “Why would I do that?” “Because like Billy said, this place is a mess, and you’re not getting any of the amenities you had at the football house.” Fucking Billy. “Think of it as both of us investing our money in something for the twins.” She thinks about that a moment. “Really?” “Yes, really.” Before I forget, I grab a notepad off the counter. “I’m going to get groceries later. Why don’t you jot down whatever you want me to get?” “I don’t need anything.” This woman is going to kill me. “What do you plan on eating this week?” She shrugs. “Ham and cheese on crackers. Some soup. Why?” “You need more than that. You’re gestating two babies, Magnolia. You can’t treat yourself like a starving college student.” “I just… I can’t pay you back right away.” Did I not just offer to pay her rent and she was trying to return half of it? She’s making me insane. “I don’t expect you to pay me anything. I want to get us groceries because we need them. I’m in training and burn a shit ton of calories. You’re pregnant and need to eat more than a damn Triscuit.” “Why are you raising your voice at me? I’m doing the best I can. Half the time I can’t eat anything because it comes right back up, so what’s the point? I’ll try to eat something later, okay?” She storms off and slams her bedroom door.
Lex Martin (The Baby Blitz (Varsity Dads #3))
It turns out we could get into a lot of trouble. I seem to have started a prank war among the Vipers, but these criminals don’t fill water balloons with flour or hide fake snakes somewhere. No, they play it for fucking real. It’s crazy, and I can’t help but laugh as we mess with Kenzo’s car. We decided to spray paint it, which I’m betting is worth millions. I draw dicks on it, because why not, and so does Diesel. Garrett helps, and we all giggle like kids as we do it. For Ryder, we head to his office which is below the apartment. Diesel suggests a grenade under his chair, but we luckily manage to veto that idea. I really want to ask where he got the grenade, but honestly, it doesn’t even surprise me. Instead, we do something equally as crazy. We buy a brothel in his name.
K.A. Knight (Den of Vipers)
I learned that female professors and departmental secretaries are the natural enemies of the academic world, as I was privileged to overhear discussions of my sexual orientation and probable childhood traumas from ten to ten-thirty each morning through the paper-thin walls of the break room located adjacent to my office. By these means I learned that although I was in desperate need of a girdle, I was better off than one of the other female professors, who would never lose all that baby weight by working all of the time. As hard as I worked, I just couldn’t get ahead. Showers became a biweekly ritual. My breakfast and lunch were reduced to a couple of cans of Ensure from the cases that I kept under my desk, and in desperation, I once threw one of Reba’s Milk-Bones in my purse so that I could gum it during a seminar, trying to keep peoples’ attention off of what I knew would be my growling stomach. The acne that I had never wrestled with as a teenager decided to make up for lost time with a magnificent debut, and I passed the workday biting my nails with ferocity. My brief forays into romance had convinced me that I would be relegated to love’s bargain bin; none of the single guys that I met could understand why I worked all of the time, and nobody wanted to listen to me talk about plants for hours, anyway. Everything about my life looked pretty well messed up compared with how adulthood had always been advertised to me.
Hope Jahren (Lab Girl)
You have been talking to Seth,” I say. “I’m going to have to have a chat with him about privacy.” Matt stills. “Sorry. I was just teasing. I won’t do it anymore. Seth very offhandedly told me about your breakup. He wasn’t ratting you out or anything.” “That’s good to know.” “You’re mad at me.” “Embarrassed that you have intimate knowledge of my sex life.” I finish off my pickle and dust my hands together. “I do have to get back to work,” I say. “Fuck, I messed it up,” he says, tossing his napkin onto his plate. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. He peels off enough cash to cover the bill and a generous tip and leaves it on the table. “Let me pay for half,” I protest. “I invited. I pay.” His hand lands at the small of my back again. “So if I invite you, I get to pay?” “Nope,” he says. “I’m the guy. I pay.” Phillip watches us closely as we walk by him toward the door. We walk quietly toward my office building. Matt doesn’t reach for my hand, and he doesn’t say anything. I turn to him when we get to the steps of my office. “Thank you for lunch,” I say. “I’m sorry I ruined it.” “You didn’t ruin it. I’m just not comfortable talking about it. Not now.” “I crossed the line. Forgive me. Please?” He’s not touching me, and I can feel the divide between us. “Nothing to forgive.” I step onto my tiptoes, and he leans down toward me. I kiss his cheek, and he straightens up and smiles at me. “Thanks,” he says. “Thank you. I mean it.
Tammy Falkner (Maybe Matt's Miracle (The Reed Brothers, #4))
It’s almost time for dinner mess. Shouldn’t you be heading in that direction?” “Yes, sar, I was just waiting to see if you’d fall down when you let go of the ladder rail, sar. It’s not often you get to see an officer fall over from ‘a little disagreement’ and I thought it might be instructive, sar.
Nathan Lowell (Double Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #4))
Try something for me, Genevieve.” “We need to find some toys,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “The boys will be here directly, and if we don’t entertain them, they’ll entertain themselves.” Dreadful thought. “This won’t take but a moment. I want you to curse.” Not only were her arms crossed, but she’d drawn herself up, aligned herself with some invisible, invincible posture board such as Helen of Troy might have relied upon to get all those ships launched in a single day. “I beg your pardon?” “Curse. Call him your blasted, damned cat.” Her brows knitted, making her look like one of Kesmore’s daughters. “I love Timothy.” “Of course you do.” Lucky cat. “But you do not love having to rely on his good offices for your candlelit sketches.” He prowled closer. “You do not love being shuffled about from family member to family member.” Another step, so he was almost nose to nose with her. “I daresay you do not love baking.” “I rather don’t.” He unwrapped her arms and kept her hands in his. “Genevieve.” “I do not enjoy baking in the least.” He waited, certain if he were patient, she’d rise to the challenge. The corners of her mouth quivered. “I perishing hate all the mess and heat.” “Of course you do.” “It’s a dashed nuisance, and one gets sticky.” A smile started, turning up her lips, lighting her eyes. “How sticky? “Blasted, damned sticky.” “Say it again.” She beamed at him. “Perishing, blasted, damned, damned sticky.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Well done. You must curse for me more often, Genevieve. It makes your eyes dance.” And her cursing made him happy too. As she hugged him back, it occurred to Elijah that Christmas was touted as the season for giving, though in recent years, the occasion hadn’t arisen for him to do much of that. He’d give to her. He’d give her a safe place to curse, a place to draw as she pleased, and some kisses. If he counted his approval of the mistletoe tradition, that was two holiday sentiments in one morning. Elijah
Grace Burrowes (Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (The Duke's Daughters, #5; Windham, #8))
suburban normalness—there, at least, made me stand out. I walked to work. I always walked to work; I got my best ideas that way. I stopped at the Korean market across the street from the office before I went inside. I picked up the Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer and bought a cup of coffee. I crossed the street, and when I got to the front door, I had to set the papers down on the sidewalk at my feet so I could fish around in my bag for my keys. Just as I was about to open the door I heard a church bell ring, which made me look at my watch, which happened to be on the wrist of the hand that was holding the coffee, and I ended up spilling coffee all over the newspapers I’d put on the ground. I made a quick hop to the left and managed to avoid most of the mess; still, the whole thing almost started me crying all over
Sarah Dunn (The Big Love)
A naval officer in a crisp blue uniform gave us a speech about the traditions of the sea, and how we were to uphold them throughout our upcoming careers. It all sounded glorious, but to us it seemed to drag on forever. There were others who added to these sentiments, also in glowing terms. In contrast to us, the officers all looked very professional and sharp in their dress uniforms. It made me very aware that I still didn’t even have my working boots, a belt or a white gob hat, but never mind, most of us were still out of uniform. I guess that’s why we were called muggs! Now with my right hand up, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me, which was just about everybody. Flash bulbs went off and suddenly, I was in the Navy! Wow! I was now a Midshipman in the U.S. Naval Reserve and did I ever feel proud. Unfortunately there wasn’t much time to bask in this solitary ray of light. The swearing in ceremony was hardly over and already I was late for lunch. I had to run double time between buildings, squaring all the corners along the way. So, doing my best to observe all of these new rules, I ran as fast as I could to the mess hall. Getting there just before they slammed the windows shut, I got the last two pre-made, soggy sandwiches. The sandwiches were wet and crushed, and I could swear they had greasy fingerprints on them. This sad excuse for food only looked appetizing because of my extreme hunger. With no time to waste, I washed lunch down with a glass of warm “jungle juice” reminiscent of Camp Wawayanda, before scurrying off to my next appointment, which was at the barbershop, also in the basement of Richardson Hall.
Hank Bracker
Can we attest to moments of blowing it? I'm not a very good cook. One day, while my husband and I worked upstairs in our home offices, I heard a loud pop. The pop sounded like a gun. We both jumped up and ran downstairs. I turned toward the kitchen and found our lab looking up at the stove, tail wagging as if to say, "Up there!" Upon further investigation, I realized I forgot that I had put eggs in a pot to boil My forgetfulness created an unfolding of events that ultimately led to eggs exploding. Fragments of egg were everywhere! In my attempt to fix the situation, I grabbed the scalding pot and thrust it under cold water. My husband yelled, "No!" You guessed it. When the water hit the eggs, those that hadn't already burst exploded at that very moment. Shrapnel of egg hit me square in the face speckled my hair, and splattered my clothes. I stood dumbfounded--frozen as if I really were hit by shrapnel. I expected my husband to do what I felt Jesus would have done--grab a towel and help clean me up. Instead, he stood there, lips curled and eyebrows raised, and said, "You have egg on your face." Isn't that what we often do when the men in our life mess up? Sometimes our messes lead to those moments; sometimes they leave us broken and weeping--or at the very least, with egg on our faces.
Tina Samples (Messed Up Men of the Bible)
There’s Tom,” Becky says. He’s been tromping around the city half the day, but I don’t see a speck of mud on him. Though he dresses plain, it always seems he rolls out of bed in the morning with his hair and clothes as neat and ordered as his arguments. We walk over to join him, and he acknowledges us with a slight, perfectly controlled nod. He’s one of the college men, three confirmed bachelors who left Illinois College to join our wagon train west. Compared to the other two, Tom Bigler is a bit of a closed book—one of those big books with tiny print you use as a doorstop or for smashing bugs. And he’s been closing up tighter and tighter since we blew up Uncle Hiram’s gold mine, when Tom negotiated with James Henry Hardwick to get us out of that mess. “How goes the hunt for an office?” I ask. “Not good,” Tom says. “I found one place—only one place—and it’s a cellar halfway up the side of one those mountains.” Being from Illinois, which I gather is flat as a griddle, Tom still thinks anything taller than a tree is a mountain. “Maybe eight foot square, no windows and a dirt floor, and they want a thousand dollars a month for it.” “Is it the cost or the lack of windows that bothers you?” He pauses. Sighs. “Believe it or not, that’s a reasonable price. Everything else I’ve found is worse—five thousand a month for the basement of the Ward Hotel, ten thousand a month for a whole house. The land here is more valuable than anything on it, even gold. I’ve never seen so many people trying to cram themselves into such a small area.” “So it’s the lack of windows.” He gives me a side-eyed glance. “I came to California to make a fortune, but it appears a fortune is required just to get started. I may have to take up employment with an existing firm, like this one.” Peering at us more closely, he says, “I thought you were going to acquire the Joyner house? I mean, I’m glad to see you, but it seems things have gone poorly?” “They’ve gone terribly,” Becky says. “They haven’t gone at all,” I add. “They’ll only release it to Mr. Joyner,” Becky says. Tom’s eyebrows rise slightly. “I did mention that this could be a problem, remember?” “Only a slight one,” I say with more hope than conviction. “Without Mr. Joyner’s signature,” Becky explains, “they’ll sell my wedding cottage at auction. Our options are to buy back what’s ours, which I don’t want to do, or sue to recover it, which is why I’ve come to find you.” If I didn’t know Tom so well, I might miss the slight frown turning his lips. He says, “There’s no legal standing to sue. Andrew Junior is of insufficient age, and both his and Mr. Joyner’s closest male relative would be the family patriarch back in Tennessee. You see, it’s a matter of cov—” “Coverture!” says Becky fiercely. “I know. So what can I do?” “There’s always robbery.” I’m glad I’m not drinking anything, because I’m pretty sure I’d spit it over everyone in range. “Tom!” Becky says. “Are you seriously suggesting—?” “I’m merely outlining your full range of options. You don’t want to buy it back. You have no legal standing to sue for it. That leaves stealing it or letting it go.” This is the Tom we’ve started to see recently. A little angry, maybe a little dangerous. I haven’t made up my mind if I like the change or not. “I’m not letting it go,” Becky says. “Just because a bunch of men pass laws so other men who look just like them can legally steal? Doesn’t mean they should get away with it.” We’ve been noticed; some of the men in the office are eyeing us curiously. “How would you go about stealing it back, Tom?” I ask in a low voice, partly to needle him and partly to find out what he really thinks. He glances around, brows knitting. “I suppose I would get a bunch of men who look like me to pass some laws in my favor and then take it back through legal means.” I laugh in spite of myself. “You’re no help at all,” Becky says.
Rae Carson (Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy, #3))
It wasn’t until the ship returned to Castine that my infraction came up as an issue to be dealt with. Once again, I sought out the council of my friendly advisor, Commander Jameson, who surprisingly had a few choice words to say and then advised that I write a statement blaming this mess on my youth and immaturity. I personally didn’t like the idea but followed his advice, along with a plea for clemency. Two long weeks later, I found myself in front of RearAdmiral William W. Warlick USN Ret. I really didn’t know what to expect. The two midshipmen that preceded me into his office were both expelled, for what seemed a minor infraction. I guess that when my turn came, he just gave up on being a hardnosed admiral. Looking me in the eye, he asked if I had learned my lesson. When I said, “Yes sir,” he waved me off with a “Don’t let me see you again.” I later learned that Jameson had talked to him, paving the way for me….
Hank Bracker
In his four months in England, wrote Corwin, “I did not once interview a high government official. The main objective of the series was to establish the character of the British people and not disseminate the handouts of the Ministry of Information. The people were soldiers, sailors, workers, miners, the theater manager, the elevator man, Police Officer Gilbert, the Everingtons, the Westerbys, Betty Hardy the actress, Henry Blogg the lifesaver, Mary Seaton the newspaperwoman, the RAF officer who handed me a dish in the mess and explained, ‘This sausage is made of two ingredients—paper and sawdust’; the navigator, just returned from Wilhelmshaven, who said wistfully, ‘Somehow we’re always first in over the target’; the woman in Swansea who went to the Guildhall one morning following a severe blitz and turned in two suits of clothes, both nearly new, saying she had bought them for her two boys, killed in the raid.
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
I vowed never again to leave the Reece U Grants Office without my Ruger LCP .380.   The thing was barely bigger than a cell phone, but it had a heckuva ring tone.  Shoot first.  Ask questions later, right?   As we say in Houston, “Don’t mess with Texas.”  We’re armed.
Julia Lednicky (TAKE BACK TEXAS: GO BIG (A Unity Lockhart Mystery - Book 1))
But we gotta stop by the office real quick. I need my new knife and God wants you to have your earpiece.” Tech messing with his ear again. Steele hid his smile behind his fist. His morning was looking better and better.
A.E. Via (Nothing Special V (Nothing Special, #5))
Alan Beaumont stepped through the automatic door of his office building and down the broad steps to the pavement. The sky above DC was a monochrome of grey cloud. A light rain fell, but a few drops of water were not going to bother him. Damp clothes? Whatever. Messed-up hair? He had no hair to ruin. That was long gone. Nothing had helped retain those once-magnificent curls. Not pills. Not potions. Nada. He used a thumb and middle finger to snap open his Zippo lighter and lit the cigarette perched between his lips. Smoking was perhaps the only real pleasure he had. He watched the downtown traffic and the pedestrians pass by, all miserable. Good. He didn’t like anyone to be happy but himself. It wasn’t pure selfishness. Joy was a zero sum game. There just wasn’t enough to go around.
Tom Wood (The Darkest Day (Victor the Assassin, #5))
I slowly, deliberately began to work the blade into his throat. He squirmed and kicked and fought agains tme, but in his current state, I was stronger. His will to live was pathetic, just like he was. Eventually he stopped kicking. I kept cutting. When I was finally done, I was covered in sweat and only a few drops of blood on my shoes and pants. They'd come out in a good wash. I put his head into the garbage and pulled the bag out, making a knot at the end. I hoped it wouldn't leak through. Then I looked around the office. It was a mess before I came in, piles of paper and empty beer bottles scattered around. The addition of his blood and a headless corpse was barely noticeable.
Karina Halle (Dirty Angels (Dirty Angels, #1))
God’s house is now in the people of God wherever they are, whether it’s in the parking lot, in a bowling alley, or in an office cubicle.
Dan Kimball (Adventures in Churchland: Finding Jesus in the Mess of Organized Religion)
So my time really isn’t done. I’ll lay down my sword and now I’ve picked up my pen because I was there with the Clintons. I could not keep silent then, and I can’t keep silent now. You and I have to do our jobs and take the heat when we mess up. If I so much as accidentally use my government credit card on a personal purchase, I immediately take the hit. Why do we expect any less from our leadership? From Clinton Inc.?
Gary J. Byrne (Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate)
As they walked into his office, Lori immediately took in the mess on his desk and the floor where the papers and stapler had fallen that morning, along with the fact that the desk was now sitting at a strange angle in the room. It couldn’t have been more clear what he and Valentina had been up to. “First woman you’ve ever really cared about, and the best you can do is drag her in here to have a quickie on your desk?” Lori shook her head in disgust. “No wonder she’s still way up on the fence about you.” Damn it, he hated that he had to agree with his sister’s annoying analysis of the situation.
Bella Andre (Come A Little Bit Closer (San Francisco Sullivans, #7; The Sullivans, #7))
and since that altercation at my office last month, I have even started back messing with Trish on the low.
Jessica M. (A No Good Love Affair)
In Colonel Montgomery’s hands these up-river raids reached the dignity of a fine art. His conceptions of foraging were rather more Western and liberal than mine, and on these excursions he fully indemnified himself for any undue abstinence demanded of him when in camp. I remember being on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. Live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck’s wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck-trousers. The naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and taking high views of one’s duties in a conquered country, looked at me reproachfully, as who should say, “Shall these things be?” In a moment or two the returning foragers had landed. “Captain——,” said Montgomery, courteously, “would you allow me to send a remarkably fine turkey for your use on board ship?” “Lieutenant——,” said Major Corwin, “may I ask your acceptance of a pair of ducks for your mess?” Never did I behold more cordial relations between army and navy than sprang into existence at those sentences. So true it is, as Charles Lamb7 says, that a single present of game may diffuse kindly sentiments through a whole community.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Army Life in a Black Regiment: and Other Writings)
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