Oldest Friends Quotes

I think I fell in love with her, a little bit. Isn't that dumb? But it was like I knew her. Like she was my oldest, dearest friend. The kind of person you can tell anything to, no matter how bad, and they'll still love you, because they know you. I wanted to go with her. I wanted her to notice me. And then she stopped walking. Under the moon, she stopped. And looked at us. She looked at me. Maybe she was trying to tell me something; I don't know. She probably didn't even know I was there. But I'll always love her. All my life.

He was the strangest of strangers in that he was also her oldest friend.

Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?” And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. “You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. “You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. “You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. “You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. “You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.

Who am I? Who am I?” “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.” "And who are you?" "I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go.

Why do you keep coming?" she asked. "Because," he said. Click on this word, he thought, and you will find links to everything it means. Because you are my oldest friend. Because, once, when I was at my lowest, you saved me. Because I might have died without you or ended up in a children's psychiatric hospital. Because I owe you. Because, selfishly, I see a future where we make fantastic games together, if you can manage to get out of bed. "Because," he repeated.

Friar Hugo, old friend, brace yourself. I am the bearer of tragic news!" Alarm spread across Hugo's pudgy features. "Tell me, Jess. What dreadful thing has happened?" Jess spoke haltingly in a broken voice. "I fear that Cluny has tore up one of your oldest and most venerable dishrags. Alas, Redwall will never see it wipe another plate.

You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends.

What it looks like is that you’re having sex with one of my oldest friends in the linen closet of our reception hall. Unless, of course, she’s lost something in her vagina and you were gallant enough to try and fish it out for her. With your penis. If that’s the case, I suggest using a larger lure.

It seems to me that your oldest friends can offer a glimpse of who you were from a time before you had a sense of yourself.

Unfortunately, I couldn't reply. Because, if I do, then... ...Then you would end up becoming a mere character of the story. Because you definitely couldn't become a mere character [Kim Dokja had learned how to live from this man.] This man was my father, my older brother and my oldest friend I couldn't kill this guy. Nor could I beg for his forgiveness either -Kim Dokja

I do not think there is a demonstrative proof (like Euclid) of Christianity, nor of the existence of matter, nor of the good will and honesty of my best and oldest friends. I think all three are (except perhaps the second) far more probable than the alternatives. The case for Christianity in general is well given by Chesterton…As to why God doesn't make it demonstratively clear; are we sure that He is even interested in the kind of Theism which would be a compelled logical assent to a conclusive argument? Are we interested in it in personal matters? I demand from my friend trust in my good faith which is certain without demonstrative proof. It wouldn't be confidence at all if he waited for rigorous proof. Hang it all, the very fairy-tales embody the truth. Othello believed in Desdemona's innocence when it was proved: but that was too late. Lear believed in Cordelia's love when it was proved: but that was too late. 'His praise is lost who stays till all commend.' The magnanimity, the generosity which will trust on a reasonable probability, is required of us. But supposing one believed and was wrong after all? Why, then you would have paid the universe a compliment it doesn't deserve. Your error would even so be more interesting and important than the reality. And yet how could that be? How could an idiotic universe have produced creatures whose mere dreams are so much stronger, better, subtler than itself?

Tessa!” Magnus said again, marveling. “Aren’t you unexpected. And uninvited.” Tessa sat and sipped her tea, looking perfectly composed. Since she was one of Magnus’s dearest and oldest friends, he felt it would be nice if she looked even slightly apologetic. She did not. “You told me once that you would not forgive me if I didn’t drop by whenever I found myself in the same city as you.” “I would have forgiven you,” Magnus said with conviction. “I would have thanked you.” Tessa glanced Alec’s way. Alec was blushing. The ends of Tessa’s lips curled up, but she was kind and hid her smile behind her teacup. “Call it even,” said Tessa. “You once walked in on me in an embarrassing situation with a gentleman in a mountain fortress, after all.” Her half-concealed smile flickered. She looked again at Alec, who had inherited his coloring from Shadowhunters long gone. Shadowhunters Tessa had loved. “You should let that go,” Magnus advised. Tessa was a warlock like Magnus, and like Magnus, she was used to overcoming the memory of what had been loved and lost. They were in the longtime habit of comforting each other. She took another sip of tea, her smile restored as if it had never been gone. “I certainly have let it go,” she replied. “Now.

I have a good friend in the East, who comes to my shows and says, you sing a lot about the past, you can't live in the past, you know. I say to him, I can go outside and pick up a rock that's older than the oldest song you know, and bring it back in here and drop it on your foot. Now the past didn't go anywhere, did it? It's right here, right now. I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn't live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it it would get them serious trouble. No, that 50s, 60s, 70s, 90s stuff, that whole idea of decade packaging, things don't happen that way. The Vietnam War heated up in 1965 and ended in 1975-- what's that got to do with decades? No, that packaging of time is a journalist convenience that they use to trivialize and to dismiss important events and important ideas. I defy that.

You’re so fucking hot, you know that?” Kelly whispered. “I bet you tell that to all your oldest friends as you’re jacking them off.” Kelly snickered and arched his back, seeking contact. “No, just you.

Our friendship had been a long-distance one since we went off to college. But I never met another woman who meant to me what she did. No one else could make me laugh like she could. So my oldest friend remained my best friend, despite however many miles kept us apart, and it was for that reason that I made her my maid of honor.

The Oldest Thirst There Is Give us gladness that connects with the Friend, a taste of the quick, you that makes a cypress strong and jasmine jasmine. Give us the inner listening that is a way in itself and the oldest thirst there is. Don't measure it out with a cup. I am a fish. You are the moon. You cannot touch me, but your light can fill the ocean where I live.

Xander is my Match and my oldest friend and one of the best people I know. When I kissed him, it was sweet. I'm drawn to him and tied to him with the cords of a thousand different memories

Kyle is my best friend. Why would I risk screwing that up?" "Mackenzie Catherine Dobson, have you learned nothing from romantic comedies? Do I need to make a trip to the video store?" Tess set her fork down and sighed. "'We're just friends' is the oldest plot device in the book. All it really means is that you're just friends until one of you get the balls to do something about all the unresolved tension.

There was a silence and then Alice, the oldest person in the room, cleared her throat. Alice has watery eyes and fluffy white hair and favors sweatpants and sweatshirts with glittery stars and flowers. Alice lost her mother when she was ten. That is a whole lifetime without a mother, to get used to not having a mother, and yet here she is. All these years later. Still grieving. Alice said, “Write me a letter telling me how to live for the rest of my life without you.” She paused. “That was sixty-four years ago, and I still would like to know.” I’m writing this down because someday I will be Alice, with a whole lifetime spent without a mother, a lifetime of walking around with a Grand Canyon of grief in my heart, and people should know what that feels like.

For all those landscapes, those flowers and those plowed fields, the oldest of lands, show you every spring that there are things you cannot choke in blood.

Bring wine,” he mutters. “She’s an old friend.” Standing in his bedroom, he notices the subtle change of expression—a frown, almost—on Maroc’s face after hearing the old-friend part.

Dear Daniel, How do you break up with your boyfriend in a way that tells him, "I don't want to sleep with you on a regular basis anymore, but please be available for late night booty calls if I run out of other options"? Lily Charlotte, NC Dear Lily, The story's so old you can't tell it anymore without everyone groaning, even your oldest friends with the last of their drinks shivering around the ice in their dirty glasses. The music playing is the same album everyone has. Those shoes, everybody has the same shoes on. It looked a little like rain so on person brought an umbrella, useless now in the starstruck clouded sky, forgotten on the way home, which is how the umbrella ended up in her place anyway. Everyone gets older on nights like this. And still it's a fresh slap in the face of everything you had going, that precarious shelf in the shallow closet that will certainly, certainly fall someday. Photographs slipping into a crack to be found by the next tenant, that one squinter third from the left laughing at something your roommate said, the coaster from that place in the city you used to live in, gone now. A letter that seemed important for reasons you can't remember, throw it out, the entry in the address book you won't erase but won't keep when you get a new phone, let it pass and don't worry about it. You don't think about them; "I haven't thought about them in forever," you would say if anybody brought it up, and nobody does." You think about them all the time. Close the book but forget to turn off the light, just sit staring in bed until you blink and you're out of it, some noise on the other side of the wall reminding you you're still here. That's it, that's everything. There's no statue in the town square with an inscription with words to live by. The actor got slapped this morning by someone she loved, slapped right across the face, but there's no trace of it on any channel no matter how late you watch. How many people--really, count them up--know where you are? How many will look after you when you don't show up? The churches and train stations are creaky and the street signs, the menus, the writing on the wall, it all feels like the wrong language. Nobody, nobody knows what you're thinking of when you lean your head against the wall. Put a sweater on when you get cold. Remind yourself, this is the night, because it is. You're free to sing what you want as you walk there, the trees rustling spookily and certainly and quietly and inimitably. Whatever shoes you want, fuck it, you're comfortable. Don't trust anyone's directions. Write what you might forget on the back of your hand, and slam down the cheap stuff and never mind the bad music from the window three floors up or what the boys shouted from the car nine years ago that keeps rattling around in your head, because you're here, you are, for the warmth of someone's wrists where the sleeve stops and the glove doesn't quite begin, and the slant of the voice on the punch line of the joke and the reflection of the moon in the water on the street as you stand still for a moment and gather your courage and take a breath before stealing away through the door. Look at it there. Take a good look. It looks like rain. Love, Daniel Handler

Friendship is a difficult thing to define. Oscar here is my oldest friend. How would you define friendship, Oscar?" Oscar grunts slightly, as though the answer is obvious. "Friendship is about choice and chemistry. It cannot be defined." "But surely there's something more to it than that." "It is a willingness to overlook faults and to accept them. I would let a friend hurt me without striking back," he says, smiling. "But only once." De Souza laughs. "Bravo, Oscar, I can always rely on you to distill an argument down to its purest form. What do you think, Dayel?" The Indian rocks his head from side to side, proud that he has been asked to speak next. "Friendship is different for each person and it changes throughout our lives. At age six it is about holding hands with your best friend. At sixteen it is about the adventure ahead. At sixty it is about reminiscing." He holds up a finger. "You cannot define it with any one word, although honesty is perhaps the closest word-" "No, not honesty," Farhad interrupts. "On the contrary, we often have to protect our friends from what we truly think. It is like an unspoken agreement. We ignore each other's faults and keep our confidences. Friendship isn't about being honest. The truth is too sharp a weapon to wield around someone we trust and respect. Friendship is about self-awareness. We see ourselves through the eyes of our friends. They are like a mirror that allows us to judge how we are traveling." De Souza clears his throat now. I wonder if he is aware of the awe that he inspires in others. I suspect he is too intelligent and too human to do otherwise. "Friendship cannot be defined," he says sternly. "The moment we begin to give reasons for being friends with someone we begin to undermine the magic of the relationship. Nobody wants to know that they are loved for their money or their generosity or their beauty or their wit. Choose one motive and it allows a person to say, 'is that the only reason?'" The others laugh. De Souza joins in with them. This is a performance. He continues: "Trying to explain why we form particular friendships is like trying to tell someone why we like a certain kind of music or a particular food. We just do.

For thirty years now I have been studying my fellow-men. I do not know very much about them. I should certainly hesitate to engage a servant on his face, and yet I suppose it is on the face that for the most part we judge the persons we meet. We draw our conclusions from the shape of the jaw, the look in the eyes, the contour of the mouth. I wonder if we are more often right than wrong. Why novels and plays are so often untrue to life is because their authors, perhaps of necessity, make their characters all of a piece. They cannot afford to make them self-contradictory, for then they become incomprehensible, and yet self-contradictory is what most of us are. We are a haphazard bundle of inconsistent qualities. In books on logic they will tell you that it is absurd to say that yellow is tubular or gratitude heavier than air; but in that mixture of incongruities that makes up the self yellow may very well be a horse and cart and gratitude the middle of the week. I shrug my shoulders when people tell me that their first impressions of a person are always right. I think they must have small insight or great vanity. For my own part I find that the longer I know people the more they puzzled me: my oldest friends are just these of whom I can say that I don't know the first thing about them.

...in the eyes of her oldest friends and colleagues and extended family, she wasn't a painfully thin seventy-five-year-old gray haired woman dying of cancer- she was a grade school class president, the young friend you gossiped with, a date or double date, someone to share a tent with in Darfur, a fellow election monitor in Bosnia, a mentor, a teacher you'd laughed within a classroom or a faculty lounge, or the board member you'd groaned with after a contentious meeting

The good things in life-happiness, purpose, contentment, companionship, beauty, and love-have been there all along. We don't need to earn them. Good food, friends, art, warmth, worth-these are the things we have already. We just need to choose them as our lives.

Fred coughed, which caused Sam and Ellie to look over at her. “Hey, Ellie. Watch this.” Mentally apologizing to her oldest friend, Fred seized Jonas by the shirt collar and heaved him out of his chair and through the (fortunately open) sliding door. Jonas was densely built (“Deliciously so,” Dr. Barb might have said over the sound of Fred’s retching), but no match for Fred’s hybrid strength, and the air velocity he achieved was really quite something. Fred ignored his wail (“My sundaeeee!”), which became easier to do the fainter it got.

There are several diseases of the memory. Forgetfulness of nouns, for instance, or of numbers. Or there are more complex amnesias. With one, you can lose your entire past; you start afresh, learning how to tie your shoelaces, how to eat with a fork, how to read and sing. You are introduced to your relatives, your oldest friends, as if you’ve never met them before; you get a second chance with them, better than forgiveness because you can begin innocent. With another form, you keep the distant past but lose the present. You can’t remember what happened five minutes ago. When someone you’ve known all your life goes out of the room and then comes back in, you greet them as if they’ve been gone for twenty years; you weep and weep, with joy and relief, as if at a reunion with the dead. I sometimes wonder which of these will afflict me, later; because I know one of them will. For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.

I had given Holmes this wedding as a gift-only to have him turn around and hand it back to me tenfold. And now his two oldest friends in all the world had conspired against our plans, casually rendering our feeble attempts at a gift into solid gold.

Preparing the manor means removing the disc-lift section, installing railings at a few places. Don’t forget the baby-friendly stairs, even though the newborn won’t use it for another year. Rashad has finished the carpet replacement and floor disinfecting, not that the baby will be crawling anytime soon. Other tasks include removing Meera’s books and crafts, also the sharp objects from up to a height.

. . . you know who Polworth is?" "Your best mate," said Robin. "He's my oldest mate," Strike corrected her. "My best mate . . . " For a split second he wondered whether he was going to say it, but the whisky had lifted the guard he usually kept upon himself: why not say it, why not let go? " . . . is you." Robin was so amazed, she couldn't speak. Never, in four years, had Strike come close to telling her what she was to him. Fondness had had to be deduced from offhand comments, small kindnesses, awkward silences or gestures forced from him under stress. She'd only once before felt as she did now, and the unexpected gift that had engendered the feeling had been a sapphire and diamond ring, which she'd left behind when she walked out on the man who'd given it to her. She wanted to make some kind of return, but for a moment or two, her throat felt too constricted. "I . . . well, the feeling's mutual," she said, trying not to sound too happy.

I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend, who is Czech and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmalzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ'. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music.

Young girl, don't cry I'll be right here when your world starts to fall Young girl, it's alright Your tears will dry, you'll soon be free to fly When you're safe inside your room, you tend to dream Of a place where nothing's harder than it seems No one ever wants or bothers to explain Of the heartache life can bring and what it means When there's no one else, look inside yourself Like your oldest friend, just trust the voice within Then you'll find the strength that will guide your way You'll learn to begin to trust the voice within Young girl, don't hide You'll never change if you just run away Young girl, just hold tight Soon you're gonna see your brighter day Now in a world where innocence is quickly claimed It's so hard to stand your ground when you're so afraid No one reaches out a hand for you to hold When you look outside, look inside to your soul When there's no one else, look inside yourself Like your oldest friend, just trust the voice within Then you'll find the strength that will guide your way If you will learn to begin to trust the voice within Life is a journey It can take you anywhere you choose to go As long as you're learning You'll find all you'll ever need to know Be strong You'll break it Hold on You'll make it Be strong Just don't forsake it because Hold on No one can tell you what you can't do No one can stop you, you know that I'm talking to you When there's no one else, look inside yourself Like your oldest friend, just trust the voice within Then you'll find the strength that will guide your way You'll learn to begin to trust the voice within Young girl, don't cry, I'll be right here When your world starts to fall

He wants to dream like a young man with the wisdom of a old man, he wants his home and securities, he wants to live like a sailor at sea. Beautiful loser..where you gonna fall? When you realize you just can't have it all, you just dont need it all. He is your oldest and your best friend, when you need him he'll be there again, he is always willing to be second best, a perfect lodger; a perfect guest." ~ Beautiful Loser

After all, almost everyone I know, even my very oldest friends, remain, in important ways, a mystery to me.

So cry me a river about your brother's single vivisection. Also, understand me: I can trash-talk Nix - she's my oldest friend - but no one else had better do so in my presence.

The vampire had humiliated her and her oldest friend, but she still missed him to an aching degree.

Graystripe comes with me,” Firestar put in, with a glance at his oldest friend.

So that’s what you’re thinking now?” I shrug. “Katniss, as your oldest friend, believe me when I say he’s not seeing you as you really are.

Was this what we wanted from our oldest friends? Reassurance that the world we remember so fondly still exists? That it hasn’t been replaced by a reality we’re less fully committed to?

At around that time, our neighbor—one of Mamaw and Papaw’s oldest friends—registered the house next to ours for Section 8. Section 8 is a government program that offers low-income residents a

Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?” And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. “You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. “You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. “You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. “You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. “You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.” ― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

Anyone who manages to experience the history of humanity as a whole as his own history will feel in an enormously generalized way all the grief of an invalid who thinks of health, of an old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of a lover deprived of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is perishing, of the hero on the evening after a battle that has decided nothing but brought him wounds and the loss of his friend. But if one endured, if one could endure this immense sum of grief of all kinds while yet being the hero who, as the second day of battle breaks, welcomes the dawn and his fortune, being a person whose horizon encompasses thousands of years, past and future, being the heir of all the nobility of all past spirit - an heir with a sense of obligation, the most aristocratic of old nobles and at the same time the first of a new nobility - the like of which no age has yet seen or dreamed of; if one could burden one’s soul with all of this - the oldest, the newest, losses, hopes, conquests, and the victories of humanity; if one could finally contain all this in one soul and crowd it into a single feeling - this would surely have to result in a happiness that humanity has not known so far: the happiness of a god full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness that, like the sun in the evening, continually bestows its inexhaustible riches, pouring them into the sea, feeling richest, as the sun does, only when even the poorest fishermen is still rowing with golden oars! This godlike feeling would then be called - humaneness.

The flow of consciousness is one thing; the recollection of its course is another, yet you usually see them as the same. This is one of the oldest concepts in psychology and philosophy—phenomenology.

I watched my oldest friend, the friends I’d recently made, the people who knew me before I knew myself. Yesterday’s Bookshop belonged to them as much as it did to me, but Prospero Books was Billy’s. Evelyn’s. We were giving the store a chance to survive. I needed to give myself a chance, too. It’s what Prospero had wanted for his Miranda, not to be burdened by the past but to know it farther, to prepare for the future.

And you never fall behind?” “Of course I do. But I always feel guilty when that happens. After all, my journal is the oldest and most loyal friend I have. And it never interrupts me when I’m speaking,” he added, with a boyish grin.

You really know how to stir up the hornets’ nest with the women, do you not? Mikhail demanded, even though he understood Gregori completely and felt him justified. Gregori did not look at him but stared out into the storm. The child she carries if my lifemate. It is female and belongs to me. There was an unmistakable warning note, an actual threat. In all their centuries together, such a thing had never happened. In all their centuries together, such a thing had never happened. Mikhail immediately closed his mind to Raven. She could never hope to understand how Gregori felt. Without a lifemate, the healer had no choice but to eventually destroy himself or become the very epitome of evil. The vampire. The walking dead. Gregori had spent endless centuries waiting for his lifemate, holding on when those younger than he had given in. Gregori had defended their people, living a solitary existence so that he might keep race safe. He was far more alone than the others of his kind, and far more susceptible to the call of power as he had to hunt and kill often. Mikhail could not blame his oldest friend for his possessive, protective streak toward the unborn child. He spoke calmly and firmly, hoping to avoid a confrontation. Gregori had held on for so long, this promise of a lifemate could send him careening over the edge into the dark madness if he felt there was a danger to the female child. Raven is not like Carpathian women. You have always known and accepted that. She will not remain in seclusion during this time. She would wither and die. Gregori actually snarled, a menacing rumble that froze Shea in place, put Jacques into a crouch, and had Mikhail shifting position for a better defense.

My friend Dick Bass (now in his 70s) has travelled far and wide and had many adventures. His achievements include being the first person to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents, as well as being the oldest person (by five years) to climb Mount Everest (at the age of 55.) He once told me a story of a plane ride, on which he sat next to a nice man who listened to him go on about the treacherous peaks of Everest and McKinley, the time he almost died in the Himalayas, and his upcoming plan to reclimb Everest. Just before the plane landed, Bass turned to the man sitting next to him and said, ‘After all this, I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. My name is Dick Bass.’ The man shook his hand, and responded, ‘Hi, I’m Neil Armstrong.

Fear is not to be overcome, or dreaded, or avoided, or expelled from our life; neither is it to be our dwelling, obsession or constant companion. But it should be respected, recognized, and humbly listened to for its singular solemn advice. Indeed, it's wise and cautionary warnings should always be heeded. Fear was designed to function as a familiar adviser, an overly critical, cautious, conservative friend - not our foe. When it is accepted, and appreciated for what it is, fear is a sage, a warning system, and one of our oldest, most experienced guides. When it holds itself at bay as necessary, it is like the security detail that waits at some serious attention in the back of the room, ever watchful, ever ready, benign, non-threatening - until circumstances require its sensitive, timely services.

It was the oldest friends who mattered most. With each passing year, Paulette realized this more deeply. She thought of her borther Roy, retired to Arizona, to golf with other men who were also - she loathed the expression - senior citizens. Roy had arrived in Phoenix with an entire life behind him, a career, a marriage; to his new friends he'd always be old.

Click on this word, he thought, and you will find links to everything it means. Because you are my oldest friend. Because once, when I was at my lowest, you saved me. Because I might have died without you or ended up in a children’s psychiatric hospital. Because I owe you. Because, selfishly, I see a future where we make fantastic games together, if you can manage to get out of bed.

In the corner of the room, the triumvirate of my top aides sits in observation: the chief of staff, Carolyn Brock; Danny Akers, my oldest friend and White House counsel; and Jenny Brickman, my deputy chief of staff and senior political adviser. All of them stoic, stone-faced, worried. Not one of them wanted me to do this. It was their unanimous conclusion that I was making the biggest mistake of my presidency.

I loved this-living as part of a community...Short of living on a commune, how could I import the feeling of belonging somewhere back into my own life? Quite simply, I could move back to California, where my family and oldest friends were. If I loved the city life but didn't fancy living across the country from everyone I loved, why not San Francisco? I wanted a life, and I no longer really equated life with work.

Hey,’ she said, shutting the door behind her, and making herself comfortable in the large padded chair facing his desk, without being asked. She had no need to stand on ceremony with Mel, who was one of her oldest friends. ‘How’s Janine?’ A few months ago, he’d married DS Janine Tyler, who’d been working on Hillary’s team for three years. Now, with the marriage, Janine had moved to Witney nick, and Hillary had a new DS.

To most people today, the name Snow White evokes visions of dwarfs whistling as they work, and a wide–eyed, fluttery princess singing, "Some day my prince will come." (A friend of mine claims this song is responsible for the problems of a whole generation of American women.) Yet the Snow White theme is one of the darkest and strangest to be found in the fairy tale canon — a chilling tale of murderous rivalry, adolescent sexual ripening, poisoned gifts, blood on snow, witchcraft, and ritual cannibalism. . .in short, not a tale originally intended for children's tender ears. Disney's well–known film version of the story, released in 1937, was ostensibly based on the German tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm. Originally titled "Snow–drop" and published in Kinder–und Hausmarchen in 1812, the Grimms' "Snow White" is a darker, chillier story than the musical Disney cartoon, yet it too had been cleaned up for publication, edited to emphasize the good Protestant values held by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (...) Variants of Snow White were popular around the world long before the Grimms claimed it for Germany, but their version of the story (along with Walt Disney's) is the one that most people know today. Elements from the story can be traced back to the oldest oral tales of antiquity, but the earliest known written version was published in Italy in 1634.

If asked about Carlos, Less always calls him “one of my oldest friends.” The date of their first encounter can be pinpointed precisely: Memorial Day, 1987. Less can even remember what each of them wore: he, a green Speedo, Carlos, the same in bright banana. Each with a white-wine spritzer in hand, like a pistol, eyeing the other from across the deck. A song was playing, Whitney Houston wanting to dance with somebody. Shadow of a sequoia falling between them. With somebody who loved her. Oh, to have a time machine and a video camera! To capture thin pink-gold Arthur Less and brawny nut-brown Carlos Pelu in their youth, when your narrator was only a child! But who needs a camera? Surely, for each of them, that scene replays itself whenever the other’s name is mentioned. Memorial Day, spritzer, sequoia, somebody. And each smiles and says the other is “one of my oldest friends.” When of course they hated each other on sight.

Be careful what you say about my friend, little boy. You may think you are safe here because it is customary to respect the Elders, but do not forget that my sire is the oldest of all. And while I may bow to his wishes at times…” She dropped Lorenzo a few feet before grabbing him again. “… in general, I am a very disrespectful daughter.” Hunter, Elizabeth (2013-12-31). The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (Kindle Locations 11951-11953). E. Hunter. Kindle Edition.

Clark had thought he was meeting his oldest friend for dinner, but Arthur wasn’t having dinner with a friend, Clark realized, so much as having dinner with an audience. He felt sick with disgust. When he left a short time later he found himself wandering, even though by now he’d oriented himself and knew how to get back to the Tube station. Cold rain, the sidewalk shining, the shhh of car tires on the wet street. Thinking about the terrible gulf of years between eighteen and fifty.

Richard Campbell Gansey III, Ronan's oldest friend, was in the country for the wedding, and so was Blue Sargent. They had just graduated from the same sociology program with two very different concentrations. Both of them were very excited to talk about what they had studied to anyone who would listen, but no one except for each other was very excited to hear about it. Some something trenches something something artifacts something something secret doors something something trees something something primary sources.

The further you go in writing the more alone you are. Most of your best and oldest friends die. Others move away. You do not see them except rarely, but you write and have much the same contact with them as though you were together at the café in the old days. You exchange comic, cheerfully obscene and irresponsible letters, and it is almost as good as talking. But you are more alone because that is how you must work and the time to work is shorter all the time and if you waste it you feel you have committed a sin for which there is no forgiveness.

It was a relief to see his father, who'd always been an unfailing source of reassurance and comfort. They clasped hands in a firm shake, and used their free arms to pull close for a moment. Such demonstrations of affection weren't common among fathers and sons of their rank, but then, they'd never been a conventional family. After a few hearty thumps on the back, Sebastian drew back and glanced over him with the attentive concern that hearkened to Gabriel's earliest memories. Not missing the traces of weariness on his face, his father lightly tousled his hair the way he had when he was a boy. "You haven't been sleeping." "I went carousing with friends for most of last night," Gabriel admitted. "It ended when we were all too drunk to see a hole through a ladder." Sebastian grinned and removed his coat, tossing the exquisitely tailored garment to a nearby chair. "Reveling in the waning days of bachelorhood, are we?" "It would be more accurate to say I'm thrashing like a drowning rat." "Same thing." Sebastian unfastened his cuffs and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. An active life at Heron's Point, the family estate in Sussex, had kept him as fit and limber as a man half his age. Frequent exposure to the sunlight had gilded his hair and darkened his complexion, making his pale blue eyes startling in their brightness. While other men of his generation had become staid and settled, the duke was more vigorous than ever, in part because his youngest son was still only eleven. The duchess, Evie, had conceived unexpectedly long after she had assumed her childbearing years were past. As a result there were eight years between the baby's birth and that of the next oldest sibling, Seraphina. Evie had been more than a little embarrassed to find herself with child at her age, especially in the face of her husband's teasing claims that she was a walking advertisement of his potency. And indeed, there have been a hint of extra swagger in Sebastian's step all through his wife's last pregnancy. Their fifth child was a handsome boy with hair the deep auburn red of an Irish setter. He'd been christened Michael Ivo, but somehow the pugnacious middle name suited him more than his given name. Now a lively, cheerful lad, Ivo accompanied his father nearly everywhere.

The next time I took notice of you, you were sobbing all over the snow. Well, I thought, finally she's being sensible. Then I realized that you were sobbing because you'd stabbed yourself in the arm, and not out of concern for my imminent demise. I noticed that your tears were freezing as they hit the icy ground and collecting into the shape of a sword. Well, that almost killed me. I mean that---I froze for a full second, during which our yeti friend nearly skewered me through. I dodged, barely, my head whirling. One day I would like for you to explain to me how you heard of the story of Deirdre and her faerie husband, a long-ago king, which is one of the oldest tales in my realm. Do mortals tell it as we do? When the king's murderous sons schemed to steal his kingdom by starving it into torpor with endless winter, Deirdre collected the tears of his dying people and froze them into a sword, with which he was finally able to slay his children. It is a tale many of my own people have forgotten---I know it only because that poor, witless king is my ancestor. I felt the story in my blood and let my magic flow into the sword you were fashioning.

Corky is the oldest whale at SeaWorld (as well as the oldest orca in captivity in the world) but the name first belonged to an orca from the early days of the marine park, one that died in 1970. Corky would not get to SeaWorld till 1987, along with her companion, friend and sometime mate Orky.

I've only met Reed twice," I said. Kind of sad, but that made him my oldest friend. "And I have no idea who this new guy is. Just for the record, I'm calling him 'Full Metal Jackass' because he's a sucker-punching douchebag, and I hop you'll join me in that by putting it on his official file or threat designator or whatever you use to keep track of metas that cross you." "Duly noted. We have concerns." She folded her hands again. "So do I," I agreed. "Most of them involve your fashion sense, with a few left to spare for the armor-clad whackjob that b**** slapped me around a parking lot this morning.

That had been two days earlier, and now the remaining Penderwicks—four sisters named Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty—were about to tear apart even more. Early the next morning, three of them would leave for Maine with the sisters’ favorite relative, Aunt Claire, while the fourth headed to New Jersey with her best friend. The girls had never been apart for an entire two weeks, and though all of them were nervous about it, the one going off on her own was the most nervous. This was the oldest, thirteen-year-old Rosalind, and she was having a terrible time accepting that her sisters could survive without her. Right

And who might this delicate flower be?" Rhett teases, beaming up at Maren as we descend the final few stairs together. "His name is Nicholas," Maren quips, stepping away from me. I have no choice but to let go of her hand. "Be careful though - he's not a delicate flower. More like a Venus flytrap if you ask me." Rhett barks out a laugh. "I like you. You're Maren, aren't you? You have to be." "Yes. And you are...?" "Rhett," I answer for him. "My oldest friend, who surely won't forget where his loyalties lie." Rhett extends his elbow to Maren so he can pick up where I left off. "Do you hear something, Maren? An annoying gnat?" "Nothing at all.

The media squabble over Shchepotin’s final day at the Cancer Institute, and the doubts it raised over the motivation of all concerned, were appropriate, because the most corrosive aspect of corruption is the way that it undermines trust. When corruption is widespread, it becomes impossible to know whom to believe, since the money infects every aspect of state and society. Every newspaper article can be criticized as paid for, every politician can be called corrupt, every court decision can be called into question. Charities are set up by oligarchs to lobby for their interests, and those then provoke doubts about every other non-governmental organization. If even doctors are on the take, can you trust their diagnoses? Are they claiming a patient needs treatment only because that would be to their profit? If policemen are crooked, and courts are paid for, are criminals really criminals? Or are they honest people who interfered in criminals’ business? Not knowing whom to believe, you retreat into trusting only those closest to you—your oldest friends, and your relatives—and that reinforces the divisions in society that corruption thrives on. It is impossible to build a thriving economy, or a healthy democracy, without a society whose members fundamentally trust each other. If you take that away, you are left with something far darker and more mercenary.

Phoebe was relieved to discover she would be accompanied by Westcliff's oldest son, Lord Foxhall, whom she had known her entire life. He was a big, boldly handsome man in his twenties, an avid sportsman like his father. As the earl's heir, he had been accorded a viscountcy, but he and Phoebe were far too familiar to stand on ceremony. "Fox," she exclaimed, a wide smile crossing her face. "Cousin Phoebe." He leaned down to kiss her cheek, his dark eyes snapping with lively humor. "It seems I'm your escort. Bad luck for you." "To me it's good luck- how could it be otherwise?" "With all the eligible men present, you should be with one who doesn't remember you as a little girl in pigtails, sliding down one of the banisters at Stony Cross Manor.

Sometimes when I see people from high school I feel trapped in a persona I maintained then,' she says. 'Ten years have gone by, a dive changed a tremendous amount - both emotionally and in circumstance. So while my oldest relationships are incredibly dear, and it's true that they know me intimately, it can be freeing to have relationships built on exactly who you are at this moment.

I am indebted to the following colleagues for their advice, assistance, or support: Dr. Alfred Lerner, Dori Vakis, Robin Heck, Dr. Todd Dray, Dr. Robert Tull, and Dr. Sandy Chun. Thanks also to Lynette Parker of East San Jose Community Law Center for her advice about adoption procedures, and to Mr. Daoud Wahab for sharing his experiences in Afghanistan with me. I am grateful to my dear friend Tamim Ansary for his guidance and support and to the gang at the San Francisco Writers Workshop for their feedback and encouragement. I want to thank my father, my oldest friend and the inspiration for all that is noble in Baba; my mother who prayed for me and did nazr at every stage of this book’s writing; my aunt for buying me books when I was young. Thanks go out to Ali, Sandy, Daoud

When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend, the two oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support, at least. Believing that they could not begin too early to cultivate energy, industry, and independence, their parents consented, and both fell to work with the hearty good-will which in spite of all obstacles, is sure to succeed at last.

In one sense, the dialogue between Job and his friends serves as one of the greatest worship examples in the Bible. Though the five men differed in their understanding of God and his ways, each stayed with the conversation, wrestling with his beliefs, and meanwhile repeatedly extolling God for his greatness, majesty, justice, and mercy. Each man revered him as Creator and ultimate Authority over all creation.

And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. “You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. “You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. “You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. “You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. “You were treated horribly. You came out on

Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can't even remember who he is. 'Where am I?' he asks, desperate, and then, 'Who am I? Who am I?' And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem's whispered incantation. 'You're Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You're the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You're the friend of Malcolm Irvine, Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You're a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You're a swimmer. You're a baker. You're a cook. You're a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You're an excellent pianist. You're an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I'm away. You're patient. You're generous. You're the best listener I know. You're the smartest person I know, in every way. You're the bravest person I know, in every way. You're a lawyer. You're the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job, you work hard at it. You're a mathematician. You're a logician. You've tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you. On and on Willem talks, chanting him back to himself, and in the daytime - sometimes days later - he remembers pieces of what Willem has said and holds them close to him, as much as for what he said as for what he didn't, for how he hadn't defined him. But in the nighttime he is too terrified, he is too lost to recognize this. His panic is too real, too consuming. 'And who are you?' he asks, looking at the man who is holding him, who is describing someone he doesn't recognize, someone who seems to have so much, someone who seems like such an enviable, beloved person. 'Who are you?' The man has an answer to this question as well. 'I'm Willem Ragnarsson,' he says. 'And I will never let you go.

And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. “You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. “You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. “You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. “You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. “You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.

Canada is now the oldest continuous democratic federation in the world, in good part because most of our leaders, and certainly the best ones, have respected most of these written and unwritten rules. Other countries – almost all our allies and friends – have suffered civil wars, coups, dictatorships, sharp breaks, because they could not maintain the flexibility and respect for the Other that these rules, in particular the unwritten rules, create.

My sister’s friend lived in a small duplex with her mother (a welfare queen if one ever existed). She had seven siblings, most of them from the same father—which was, unfortunately, a rarity. Her mother had never held a job and seemed interested “only in breeding,” as Mamaw put it. Her kids never had a chance. One ended up in an abusive relationship that produced a child before the mom was old enough to purchase cigarettes. The oldest overdosed on drugs and was arrested

A descendent of Basque ranchers, the mayor came from the small circle of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century European immigrants who had been his father's oldest customers and friends. Perhaps Malburg told Jim the story of how Vernon got its start in 1905, when John Baptiste Leonis, a French Basque hog rancher, persuaded the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads to extend tracks to his city to attract new factories, their preferred freight-hauling customers.

REINHOLD JOBS. Wisconsin-born Coast Guard seaman who, with his wife, Clara, adopted Steve in 1955. REED JOBS. Oldest child of Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell. RON JOHNSON. Hired by Jobs in 2000 to develop Apple’s stores. JEFFREY KATZENBERG. Head of Disney Studios, clashed with Eisner and resigned in 1994 to cofound DreamWorks SKG. ALAN KAY. Creative and colorful computer pioneer who envisioned early personal computers, helped arrange Jobs’s Xerox PARC visit and his purchase of Pixar. DANIEL KOTTKE. Jobs’s closest friend at Reed, fellow pilgrim to India, early Apple employee. JOHN LASSETER. Cofounder and creative force at Pixar. DAN’L LEWIN. Marketing exec with Jobs at Apple and then NeXT. MIKE MARKKULA. First big Apple investor and chairman, a father figure to Jobs. REGIS MCKENNA. Publicity whiz who guided Jobs early on and remained a trusted advisor. MIKE MURRAY. Early Macintosh marketing director. PAUL OTELLINI. CEO of Intel who helped switch the Macintosh to Intel chips but did not get the iPhone business. LAURENE POWELL. Savvy and good-humored Penn graduate, went to Goldman Sachs and then Stanford Business School, married Steve Jobs in 1991. GEORGE RILEY. Jobs’s Memphis-born friend and lawyer. ARTHUR ROCK. Legendary tech investor, early Apple board member, Jobs’s father figure. JONATHAN “RUBY” RUBINSTEIN. Worked with Jobs at NeXT, became chief hardware engineer at Apple in 1997. MIKE SCOTT. Brought in by Markkula to be Apple’s president in 1977 to try to manage Jobs.

I walked the halls that day, seeing life in a new scary light. My world, which had seemed so solid and comfortable, felt as if it had been hit by an earthquake. My emotions flipped from sadness to fear to despair as I realized that, if someone as wonderful as Amelia could be taken from us this way, so could anyone. At any moment. And for no reason. When the last bell had finally rung, and I’d said good-bye to Logan and Kristy and my other friends, I trudged home feeling like the oldest person on the planet.

From the moment he stepped in the shell that afternoon, he felt at home. He liked the boys.He didn't know Gordy Adam and Don Hume well, but both made a point of welcoming him. His oldest most reliable shell house friend, Roger Morris, sitting up front in the bow, gave a wave and a shout, Hey Joe I see you finally found the right boat!" His buddies from Grand Coulee Chuck Day and Johnie White were sitting up front too. As he strapped in his shoes and began to lace up, Stub McMillin, his face alight said, This boat is going to fly now boys." Shorty Hunt slapped him on the back and whispered, I got your back Joe!

Winnie woke early next morning. The sun was only just opening its own eye on the eastern horizon and the cottage was full of silence. But she realized that sometime during the night she had made up her mind: she would not run away today. “Where would I go, anyway?” she asked herself. “There’s nowhere else I really want to be.” But in another part of her head, the dark part where her oldest fears were housed, she knew there was another sort of reason for staying at home: she was afraid to go away alone. It was one thing to talk about being by yourself, doing important things, but quite another when the opportunity arose. The characters in the stories she read always seemed to go off without a thought or care, but in real life--well, the world was a dangerous place. People were always telling her so. And she would not be able to manage without protection. They were always telling her that, too. No one ever said precisely what it was that she would not be able to manage. But she did not need to ask. Her own imagination supplied the horrors. Still, it was galling, this having to admit she was afraid. And when she remembered the toad, she felt even more disheartened. What if the toad should be out by the fence again today? What if he should laugh at her secretly and think she was a coward? Well, anyway, she could at least slip out, right now, she decided, and go into the wood. To see if she could discover what had really made the music the night before. That would be something, anyway. She did not allow herself to consider the idea that making a difference in the world might require a bolder venture. She merely told herself consolingly, “Of course, while I’m in the wood, if I decide never to come back, well then, that will be that.” She was able to believe in this because she needed to; and, believing, was her own true, promising friend once more.

Daisy and I need an aristocratic sponsor,” Lillian said with a sigh. “Not to mention some etiquette lessons. And unfortunately, Annabelle, since you’ve married a commoner, you’ve got no real social influence, and we’re no farther along than when we started.” Hastily she added, “No offense meant, dear.” “None taken,” Annabelle replied mildly. “However, Simon does have some friends in the peerage— Lord Westcliff in particular.” “Oh, no,” Lillian said firmly. “I want nothing to do with him.” “Why not?” Lillian raised her brows as if surprised by the need to explain. “Because he’s the most insufferable man I’ve ever encountered?” “But Westcliff is very highly placed,” Annabelle wheedled. “And he is Simon’s best friend. I have no great liking for him myself, but he could be a useful ally. They say that Westcliff’s title is the oldest one in England. Blood doesn’t get any bluer than his.” “And well he knows it,” Lillian said sourly. “Despite all his populist talk, one can see that he’s inwardly thrilled to be a peer with lots of minions he can order about.” “I wonder why Westcliff hasn’t married yet,” Daisy mused. “Despite his flaws, one has to admit that he is a whale-sized catch.” “I’ll be thrilled when someone harpoons him,” Lillian muttered, making the other two laugh.

was my first indication that the policies of Mamaw’s “party of the working man”—the Democrats—weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Political scientists have spent millions of words trying to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democratic to staunchly Republican in less than a generation. Some blame race relations and the Democratic Party’s embrace of the civil rights movement. Others cite religious faith and the hold that social conservatism has on evangelicals in that region. A big part of the explanation lies in the fact that many in the white working class saw precisely what I did, working at Dillman’s. As far back as the 1970s, the white working class began to turn to Richard Nixon because of a perception that, as one man put it, government was “payin’ people who are on welfare today doin’ nothin’! They’re laughin’ at our society! And we’re all hardworkin’ people and we’re gettin’ laughed at for workin’ every day!”20 At around that time, our neighbor—one of Mamaw and Papaw’s oldest friends—registered the house next to ours for Section 8. Section 8 is a government program that offers low-income residents a voucher to rent housing. Mamaw’s friend had little luck renting his property, but when he qualified his house for the Section 8 voucher, he virtually assured that would change. Mamaw saw it as a betrayal, ensuring that “bad” people would move into the neighborhood and drive down property values. Despite our efforts to draw bright lines between the working and nonworking poor, Mamaw and I recognized that we shared a lot in common with those whom we thought gave our people a bad name. Those Section 8 recipients looked a lot like us. The matriarch of the first family to move in next door was born in Kentucky but moved north at a young age as her parents sought a better life. She’d gotten involved with a couple of men, each of whom had left her with a child but no support. She was nice, and so were her kids. But the drugs and the late-night fighting revealed troubles that too many hillbilly transplants knew too well. Confronted with such a realization of her own family’s struggle, Mamaw grew frustrated and angry. From that anger sprang Bonnie Vance the social policy expert: “She’s a lazy whore, but she wouldn’t be if she was forced to get a job”; “I hate those fuckers for giving these people the money to move into our neighborhood.” She’d rant against the people we’d see in the grocery store: “I can’t understand why people who’ve worked all their lives scrape by while these deadbeats buy liquor and cell phone coverage with our tax money.

The Grosse Pointe that he was raised in was an isolated place of provincial splendor. It is unlikely that in pre-World War II America there was another community quite so sheltered and quite so rich. There was neither economic nor social diversity. Catholics were viewed with suspicion and, on occasion, hatred. (When Henry as a young man married a Catholic and converted, it sent shivers throughout the community; his oldest friends regarded it as at least partly a declaration of independence from his past.) Jews too were unwelcome, and there was a great deal of dinner-party discussion as to whether Walter Chrysler was actually, despite what he claimed, Jewish. Neither World War II nor the coming of modern communications and transportation, which so changed and expanded people’s lives, had yet occurred. It was a secure, comfortable, insular place, largely untouched by the modern world. If Grosse Pointers traveled to New York, they traveled by train, on The Detroiter, where they knew the porter and he knew them; if they traveled to Europe they traveled with each other. The assumption was that Grosse Pointe was the center of the universe; once, announcing the engagement of a Grosse Pointe girl to a young man from Cincinnati, the Detroit Free Press used the headline “Local Girl to Marry Eastern Man.

In my body were many bloods, some dark blood, all blended in the fire of six or more generations. I was, then, either a new type of man or the very oldest. In any case I was inescapably myself. . . . If I achieved greatness of human stature, then just to the degree that I did I would justify all the blood in me. If I proved worthless, then I would betray all. In my own mind I could not see the dark blood as something quite different and apart. But if people wanted to say this dark blood was Negro blood and if they then wanted to call me a Negro - this was up to them. Fourteen years of my life I had lived in the white group, four years I had lived in the colored group. In my experience there had been no main difference between the two. But if people wanted to isolate and fasten on those four years and to say that therefore I was colored, this too was up to them. . . .I determined what I would do. To my real friends of both groups, I would, at the right time, voluntarily define my position. As for people at large, naturally I would go my way and say nothing unless the question was raised. If raised, I would meet it squarely, going into as much detail as seemed desirable for the occasion. Or again, if it was not the person's business I would either tell him nothing or the first nonsense that came into my head.

Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can't even remember who he is. 'Where am I?' he asks, desperate, and then, 'Who am I? Who am I?' "And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem's whispered incantation. 'You're Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You're the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You're the friend of Malcolm Irvine, Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. "You're a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. "You're a swimmer. You're a baker. You're a cook. You're a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You're an excellent pianist. You're an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I'm away. You're patient. You're generous. You're the best listener I know. You're the smartest person I know, in every way. You're the bravest person I know, in every way. "You're a lawyer. You're the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job, you work hard at it. "You're a mathematician. You're a logician. You've tried to teach me, again and again. "You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you. "On and on Willem talks, chanting him back to himself, and in the daytime - sometimes days later - he remembers pieces of what Willem has said and holds them close to him, as much as for what he said as for what he didn't, for how he hadn't defined him. "But in the nighttime he is too terrified, he is too lost to recognize this. His panic is too real, too consuming. 'And who are you?' he asks, looking at the man who is holding him, who is describing someone he doesn't recognize, someone who seems to have so much, someone who seems like such an enviable, beloved person. 'Who are you?' "The man has an answer to this question as well. 'I'm Willem Ragnarsson,' he says. 'And I will never let you go.

Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?” And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. “You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. “You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. “You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. “You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. “You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.

At about eight-thirty or nine the friends make a halt, already in sight of Moranchel. Moranchel is on the left of the Cifuentes road, at some two hundred paces from the highway. It is a gloomy, dark town that seems to have no business being surrounded by green fields. The old man sits down in the ditch and the traveler lies on his back and looks up at some little clouds, graceful as doves, which are floating in the sky. A stork flies past, not very high, with a snake in its beak. Some partridge fly up from a bed of thyme. An adolescent goatherd and a member of his flock are sinning one of the oldest of sins in the shade of a hawthorn tree blooming with tiny sweet-smelling flowers, white as orange blossoms. ― Camilo José Cela, Journey to the Alcarria: Travels Through the Spanish Countryside

Pham Nuwen spent years learning to program/explore. Programming went back to the beginning of time. It was a little like the midden out back of his father’s castle. Where the creek had worn that away, ten meters down, there were the crumpled hulks of machines—flying machines, the peasants said—from the great days of Canberra’s original colonial era. But the castle midden was clean and fresh compared to what lay within the Reprise’s local net. There were programs here that had been written five thousand years ago, before Humankind ever left Earth. The wonder of it—the horror of it, Sura said—was that unlike the useless wrecks of Canberra’s past, these programs still worked! And via a million million circuitous threads of inheritance, many of the oldest programs still ran in the bowels of the Qeng Ho system. Take the Traders’ method of timekeeping. The frame corrections were incredibly complex—and down at the very bottom of it was a little program that ran a counter. Second by second, the Qeng Ho counted from the instant that a human had first set foot on Old Earth’s moon. But if you looked at it still more closely. . .the starting instant was actually some hundred million seconds later, the 0-second of one of Humankind’s first computer operating systems. So behind all the top-level interfaces was layer under layer of support. Some of that software had been designed for wildly different situations. Every so often, the inconsistencies caused fatal accidents. Despite the romance of spaceflight, the most common accidents were simply caused by ancient, misused programs finally getting their revenge. “We should rewrite it all,” said Pham. “It’s been done,” said Sura, not looking up. She was preparing to go off-Watch, and had spent the last four days trying to root a problem out of the coldsleep automation. “It’s been tried,” corrected Bret, just back from the freezers. “But even the top levels of fleet system code are enormous. You and a thousand of your friends would have to work for a century or so to reproduce it.” Trinli grinned evilly. “And guess what—even if you did, by the time you finished, you’d have your own set of inconsistencies. And you still wouldn’t be consistent with all the applications that might be needed now and then.” Sura gave up on her debugging for the moment. “The word for all this is ‘mature programming environment.’ Basically, when hardware performance has been pushed to its final limit, and programmers have had several centuries to code, you reach a point where there is far more signicant code than can be rationalized. The best you can do is understand the overall layering, and know how to search for the oddball tool that may come in handy—take the situation I have here.” She waved at the dependency chart she had been working on. “We are low on working fluid for the coffins. Like a million other things, there was none for sale on dear old Canberra. Well, the obvious thing is to move the coffins near the aft hull, and cool by direct radiation. We don’t have the proper equipment to support this—so lately, I’ve been doing my share of archeology. It seems that five hundred years ago, a similar thing happened after an in-system war at Torma. They hacked together a temperature maintenance package that is precisely what we need.” “Almost precisely.

What I failed to see was that, by ending my life, I would cause interminable pain to my family and friends. I could not understand the heartbreak it would cause those around me. Nor did I consider that my brother, Joseph, might live the rest of his life in continual rage, or that my sister, Libby, might shut herself off from the world and fall into perpetual depression, silence, and sadness mistakenly blaming themselves for my death as many family members do when they lose someone they love to suicide. I certainly held no understanding of the enormous pain my mother and father would suffer because they lost their oldest son in such a terrifying and devastating way. They would not have a chance to watch me mature, marry, and perhaps have children. Instead, all of their hopes, aspirations, and dreams for me would be destroyed with my decision to end my life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Korie: Jase lives right across the street from us, and he and his wife, Missy, have three kids: Reed, Cole, and Mia. Jase and Missy like to joke that our oldest son, John Luke, is like Kramer from Seinfeld. On nights when we’re not cooking at our house, John Luke busts through their front door as soon as he sees the dining room light go on to join them for dinner. He seems to know exactly when Missy pulls the rolls out of the oven. Our baby girl, Bella, and their daughter, Mia, are great friends. We say Mia is like the ghost of our house. She appears in our house at all times. You’ll turn around in your recliner, and she’ll be standing there. As soon as we pull in the driveway, she’s in our house, waiting to play with Bella. Our entire neighborhood is actually family. My parents are next door, along with four aunts and uncles and two grandparents. That’s the absolute best thing about where we live. It’s all about family.

She's my mother. How do you say no to family?" Marie gets a dark look on her face. "There's a difference between relatives and family. You can be related to someone; that is an accident of genetics. Relatives are pure biology. But family is action. Family is attitude. That woman..." Marie's voice drips with venom. "Is NOT your family. WE are your family. That woman is just your relative." Hedy's mouth drops, and Caroline's eyes fly open so wide I think they might get stuck. "Don't hold back there, Marie," Hedy says, finding her voice. "I'm sorry, but..." Marie's eyes fill with tears. "Oh no!" Caroline leans over and takes Marie's hand. Marie shakes it off. "I hate her. I hate that she had the best daughter on the planet and never appreciated her and wasn't ever there for her and never once did anything for her. You guys don't know. She was the most self-absorbed narcissistic cold person..." "She gave me Joe." "But..." she says. I raise my hand. "She. Gave. Me. JOE. Whatever other bullshit happened, the most important thing in my life growing up was Joe. He made me who I am, he helped me find my calling, he was a gift, and everything else is just beyond my ability to get upset about." "You could get a little upset," Caroline says. "It takes nothing away from Joe, and how important he was to you, to acknowledge that your mother failed you in almost every way," Hedy says. "I think you should tell her to go fuck herself," Marie says, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms like a petulant child. I don't know that I've ever seen her so furious. "You guys don't get it, I was THERE. I MET HER. Wanna know how she screws in a lightbulb? Holds it up in the air and lets the universe just revolve around her." This makes the three of us bust out laughing. "Oh, Marie, I love you. Thank you for being so on my side." It does mean the world to me that my oldest friend is so protective.

Suffering people all have a horrible willingness and capacity for inventing pretexts for painful emotional feelings. They enjoy even their suspicions, their brooding over bad actions and apparent damage. They ransack the entrails of their past and present, looking for dark, dubious stories, in which they are free to feast on an agonizing suspicion and to get intoxicated on the poison of their own anger — they rip open the oldest wounds, they bleed themselves to death from long-healed scars, they turn friends, wives, children, and anyone else who is closest to them into criminals. “I am suffering. Someone or other must be to blame for that” — that’s how every sick sheep thinks. But his shepherd, the ascetic priest, says to him: “That’s right, my sheep! Someone must be to blame for that. But you yourself are this very person. You yourself are the only one to blame — you alone are to blame for yourself!” ... That is bold enough, and false enough. But one thing at least is attained by that, as I have said, the direction of ressentiment has been — changed.

You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. “You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. “You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. “You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. “You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. “You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.

Until that moment Vetch had watched him with an anxious dread, for he was not sure what had happened there in the dark land. He did not know if this was Ged in the boat with him, and his hand had been for hours ready to the anchor, to stave in the boat's planking and sink her there in midsea, rather than carry back to the harbors of Earthsea the evil thing that he feared might have taken Ged's look and form. Now when he saw his friend and heard him speak, his doubt vanished. And he began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. In the Creation of Ea, which is the oldest song, it is said, "Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky." That song Vetch sang aloud now as he held the boat westward, going before the cold wind of the winter night that blew at their backs from the vastness of the Open Sea.

All that was left was the recollection of having had a good idea, a recurrent experience of having had a good, an excellent, a most important idea, a truly fundamental idea, but one never remembered itself the idea from one moment to the next, memory was something you simply couldn’t depend on, a man’s memory set him traps he’d walk into and find himself hopelessly lost in, Konrad said, a man’s memory lured him into a trap and then deserted him; it happened over and over again that a man’s memory lured him into a trap, or several traps, thousands of traps, and then deserted him, left him all alone, alone in limitless despair because he felt drain of all thought; Konrad had come to observe this geriatric phenomenon and had begun to be more and more terrified of it, he was in fact prepared to state that a man’s youthful memory was capable of turning into an old man’s memory from one moment to the next, with no warning whatsoever, suddenly you found yourself with an old man’s memory, unprepared by such warning signals as a failure , from time to time, in trifling matters, brief lapses of omissions, the way a mental footbridge or gangplank might give a bit as one passed over it; no, old age set in from one moment to the next, many a man made this abrupt passage from youth to age quite early in life, a sudden shift from being the youngest to the oldest of men, a characteristic of so-called brain workers, who tended, basically, not to have a so-called extended youth, no gradual transitions from youth to age, with them the change occurred momentarily, without warning, suddenly, mortally, you found yourself in old age. (…) An old man needs a crutch, he needs crutches, every old man carries invisible crutches, Konrad said, all those millions and billions of old people on crutches, millions, billions, trillions of invisible crutches, my friend, no one else may see them but I see them, I am one of those who cannot help seeing those invisible billions, trillions of crutches, there’s not a moment, Konrad said, in which I do not see those billions, those trillions of crutches. Those millions of ideas, he said, that I had and lost, that I forgot from one moment to the next. Why I could populate a vast metropolis of thought with all those lost ideas of mine, I could keep it afloat, a whole world, a whole history of mankind could have lived on all the ideas that I lost. How untrustworthy my memory has become!

Gervex's painting had a lurid and well-known literary source: it was based on Alfred de Musset's poem "Rolla," published in 1833 and 1840. The poem, a paradigm of July Monarchy romanticism, chronicles the disgrace that befalls Jacques Rolla, a son of the bourgeoisie, in the big city. The narrative of his decline — he squandered his fortune and committed suicide — is interleaved with lamentations over the moral and spiritual decadence of contemporary life. Thenineteen-year-old Rolla becomes the "most debauched man" in Paris, "where vice is the cheapest, the oldest and the most fertile in the world." The poem tells a second story as well, that of Marie (or Maria or Marion), a pure young girl who becomes a degraded urban prostitute. Her story amplifies the poet's theme — a world in moral disarray - and provides the instrument of, and a sympathetic companion for, Rolla's climactic self-destruction. Musset is clear about his young prostitute's status: she was forced into a prostitution de la misère by economic circumstances ("what had debased her was, alas, poverty /And not love of gold"), and he frequently distinguishes her situation from that of the venal women of the courtesan rank ("Your loves are golden, lively and poetic; . . . you are not for sale at all"). He is also insistent about the tawdry circumstances in which the young woman had to practice her miserable profession ("the shameful curtains of that foul retreat," "in a hovel," "the walls of this gloomy and ramshackle room"). The segments of the poem from which Gervex drew his story — and which were published in press reviews of the painting — are these: With a melancholy eye Rolla gazed on The beautiful Marion asleep in her wide bed; In spite of himself, an unnameable and diabolical horror Made him tremble to the bone. Marion had cost dearly. — To pay for his night He had spent his last coins. His friends knew it. And he, on arriving, Had taken their hand and given his word that In the morning no one would see him alive. When Rolla saw the sun appear on the roofs, He went and leaned out the window. Rolla turned to look at Marie. She felt exhausted, and had fallen asleep. And thus both fled the cruelties of fate, The child in sleep, and the man in death! It was a moment of inaction, then, that Gervex chose to paint - that of weary repose for her and melancholic contemplation for Rolla, following the night of paid sex and just prior to his suicide.

The next morning I showed up at dad’s house at eight, with a hangover. All my brothers’ trucks were parked in front. What are they all doing here? When I opened the front door, Dad, Alan, Jase, and Willie looked at me. They were sitting around the living room, waiting. No one smiled, and the air felt really heavy. I looked to my left, where Mom was usually working in the kitchen, but this time she was still, leaning over the counter and looking at me too. Dad spoke first. “Son, are you ready to change?” Everything else seemed to go silent and fade away, and all I heard was my dad’s voice. “I just want you to know we’ve come to a decision as a family. You’ve got two choices. You keep doing what you’re doing--maybe you’ll live through it--but we don’t want nothin’ to do with you. Somebody can drop you off at the highway, and then you’ll be on your own. You can go live your life; we’ll pray for you and hope that you come back one day. And good luck to you in this world.” He paused for a second then went on, a little quieter. “Your other choice is that you can join this family and follow God. You know what we stand for. We’re not going to let you visit our home while you’re carrying on like this. You give it all up, give up all those friends, and those drugs, and come home. Those are your two choices.” I struggled to breathe, my head down and my chest tight. No matter what happened, I knew I would never forget this moment. My breath left me in a rush, and I fell to my knees in front of them all and started crying. “Dad, what took y’all so long?” I burst out. I felt broken, and I began to tell them about the sorry and dangerous road I’d been traveling down. I could see my brothers’ eyes starting to fill with tears too. I didn’t dare look at my mom’s face although I could feel her presence behind me. I knew she’d already been through the hell of addiction with her own mother, with my dad, with her brother-in-law Si, and with my oldest brother, Alan. And now me, her baby. I remembered the letters she’d been writing to me over the last few months, reaching out with words of love from her heart and from the heart of the Lord. Suddenly, I felt guilty. “Dad, I don’t deserve to come back. I’ve been horrible. Let me tell you some more.” “No, son,” he answered. “You’ve told me enough.” I’ve seen my dad cry maybe three times, and that was one of them. To see my dad that upset hit me right in the gut. He took me by my shoulders and said, “I want you to know that God loves you, and we love you, but you just can’t live like that anymore.” “I know. I want to come back home,” I said. I realized my dad understood. He’d been down this road before and come back home. He, too, had been lost and then found. By this time my brothers were crying, and they got around me, and we were on our knees, crying. I prayed out loud to God, “Thank You for getting me out of this because I am done living the way I’ve been living.” “My prodigal son has returned,” Dad said, with tears of joy streaming down his face. It was the best day of my life. I could finally look over at my mom, and she was hanging on to the counter for dear life, crying, and shaking with happiness. A little later I felt I had to go use the bathroom. My stomach was a mess from the stress and the emotions. But when I was in the bathroom with the door shut, my dad thought I might be in there doing one last hit of something or drinking one last drop, so he got up, came over, and started banging on the bathroom door. Before I could do anything, he kicked in the door. All he saw was me sitting on the pot and looking up at him while I about had a heart attack. It was not our finest moment. That afternoon after my brothers had left, we went into town and packed up and moved my stuff out of my apartment. “Hey bro,” I said to my roommate. “I’m changing my life. I’ll see ya later.” I meant it.

Chaworth," the dark-haired man beside him intervened quietly, "if I may speak." The speaker was ruggedly attractive, with boldly hewn features and the sun-browned complexion of an avid outdoorsman. Although he was not young- his black locks were liberally shot with steel, and time had deepened the laugh-lines around his eyes and the brackets between his nose and mouth- he certainly couldn't have been called old. Not with that air of robust health, and the presence of a man with considerable authority. "I've known the lad since the day he was born," he continued, voice deep and a bit gravelly. "As you know, his father is a close friend. I'll vouch for his character, and his word. For the girl's sake, I suggest that we hold our silence and handle the matter with discretion." "I am also acquainted with his father," Lord Chaworth snapped, "who plucked many a fair flower in his day. Obviously the son is following in his footsteps. No, Westcliff, I will not remain silent- he must be held accountable for his actions." Westcliff? Pandora glanced at him with alert interest. She had heard of the Earl of Westcliff, who, after the Duke of Norfolk, held the oldest and most respectable peerage title in England. His vast Hampshire estate, Stony Cross Park, was famed for its fishing, hunting, and shooting.

When I look at this age with the eye of a distant future, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of the present day as his peculiar virtue and sickness called "the historical sense." It is a tendency to something quite new and foreign in history: if this embryo were given several centuries and more, there might finally evolve out of it a marvellous plant, with a smell equally marvellous, on account of which our old earth might be more pleasant to live in than it has been hitherto. We moderns are just beginning to form the chain of a very powerful, future sentiment, link by link, we hardly know what we are doing. It almost seems to us as if it were not the question of a new sentiment, but of the decline of all old sentiments: the historical sense is still something so poor and cold, and many are attacked by it as by a frost, and are made poorer and colder by it. To others it appears as the indication of stealthily approaching age, and our planet is regarded by them as a melancholy invalid, who, in order to forget his present condition, writes the history of his youth. In fact, this is one aspect of the new sentiment He who knows how to regard the history of man in its entirety as his own history, feels in the immense generalisation all the grief of the invalid who thinks of health, of the old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of the lover who is robbed of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is destroyed, of the hero on the evening of the indecisive battle which has brought him wounds and the loss of a friend. But to bear this immense sum of grief of all kinds, to be able to bear it, and yet still be the hero who at the commencement of a second day of battle greets the dawn and his happiness, as one who has an horizon of centuries before and behind him, as the heir of all nobility, of all past intellect, and the obligatory heir (as the noblest) of all the old nobles; while at the same time the first of a new nobility, the equal of which has never been seen nor even dreamt of: to take all this upon his soul, the oldest, the newest, the losses, hopes, conquests, and victories of mankind: to have all this at last in one soul, and to comprise it in one feeling: this would necessarily furnish a happiness which man has not hitherto known, a God's happiness, full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness which, like the sun in the evening, continually gives of its inexhaustible riches and empties into the sea, and like the sun, too, feels itself richest when even the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars! This divine feeling might then be called humanity!

We end up at an outdoor paintball course in Jersey. A woodsy, rural kind of place that’s probably brimming with mosquitos and Lyme disease. When I find out Logan has never played paintball before, I sign us both up. There’s really no other option. And our timing is perfect—they’re just about to start a new battle. The worker gathers all the players in a field and divides us into two teams, handing out thin blue and yellow vests to distinguish friend from foe. Since Logan and I are the oldest players, we both become the team captains. The wide-eyed little faces of Logan’s squad follow him as he marches back and forth in front of them, lecturing like a hot, modern-day Winston Churchill. “We’ll fight them from the hills, we’ll fight them in the trees. We’ll hunker down in the river and take them out, sniper-style. Save your ammo—fire only when you see the whites of their eyes. Use your heads.” I turn to my own ragtag crew. “Use your hearts. We’ll give them everything we’ve got—leave it all on the field. You know what wins battles? Desire! Guts! Today, we’ll all be frigging Rudy!” A blond boy whispers to his friend, “Who’s Rudy?” The kid shrugs. And another raises his hand. “Can we start now? It’s my birthday and I really want to have cake.” “It’s my birthday too.” I give him a high-five. “Twinning!” I raise my gun. “And yes, birthday cake will be our spoils of war! Here’s how it’s gonna go.” I point to the giant on the other side of the field. “You see him, the big guy? We converge on him first. Work together to take him down. Cut off the head,” I slice my finger across my neck like I’m beheading myself, “and the old dog dies.” A skinny kid in glasses makes a grossed-out face. “Why would you kill a dog? Why would you cut its head off?” And a little girl in braids squeaks, “Mommy! Mommy, I don’t want to play anymore.” “No,” I try, “that’s not what I—” But she’s already running into her mom’s arms. The woman picks her up—glaring at me like I’m a demon—and carries her away. “Darn.” Then a soft voice whispers right against my ear. “They’re already going AWOL on you, lass? You’re fucked.” I turn to face the bold, tough Wessconian . . . and he’s so close, I can feel the heat from his hard body, see the small sprigs of stubble on that perfect, gorgeous jaw. My brain stutters, but I find the resolve to tease him. “Dear God, Logan, are you smiling? Careful—you might pull a muscle in your face.” And then Logan does something that melts my insides and turns my knees to quivery goo. He laughs. And it’s beautiful. It’s a crime he doesn’t do it more often. Or maybe a blessing. Because Logan St. James is a sexy, stunning man on any given day. But when he laughs? He’s heart-stopping. He swaggers confidently back to his side and I sneer at his retreating form. The uniformed paintball worker blows a whistle and explains the rules. We get seven minutes to hide first. I cock my paintball shotgun with one hand—like Charlize Theron in Fury fucking Road—and lead my team into the wilderness. “Come on, children. Let’s go be heroes.” It was a massacre. We never stood a chance. In the end, we tried to rush them—overpower them—but we just ended up running into a hail of balls, getting our hearts and guts splattered with blue paint. But we tried—I think Rudy and Charlize would be proud

Missy and I were married on August 10, 1990. To say our marriage got off to a rocky start would be an understatement. My brothers and closest friends took me frog-hunting the night before my wedding for my bachelor party. As we were searching for frogs, my oldest brother, Alan, gave me a lot of advice on marriage in general as we motored along the bayou. The main thing he reminded me of is that God is the architect of marriage. Having a great relationship with our Creator is the best thing you can do for your marriage relationship. Alan gave me an illustration of a triangle with the husband and wife on the bottom corners and God at the top corner. His point was that as each person moves closer to God, they also move closer to each other. I never forgot that and he was right. I was mainly the motorman that night and was filled with anxiety and anticipation of the wedding. As we moved along, we saw two big frogs mating on the riverbank. “Whoa, there you go!” Al shouted. It kind of broke the ice for a conversation about intimacy and sex. Missy and I had not seen each other much in the previous couple of months because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Many times we had to remind each other of our commitment to stay pure and had had many prayers together. We were not perfect, but one of us would always stop things from getting too heated. Eventually, we decided to have only a long-distance relationship via telephone and our face-to-face encounters became limited to church and public gatherings. As our wedding was approaching, Missy and I were both a little bit nervous about having sex for the first time. I think that’s the way it is when you’re both virgins. We were both excited because we’d decided to save ourselves for marriage and our big night was finally here!

Family is not the only thing that matters. There are other things: Pachelbel’s Canon in D matters, and fresh-picked corn on the cob, and true friends, and the sound of the ocean, and the poems of William Carlos Williams, and the constellations in the sky, and random acts of kindness, and a garden on the day when all its flowers are at their peak. Fluffy pancakes matter and crisp clean sheets and the guitar riff in “Layla,” and the way clouds look when you are above them in an airplane. Preserving the coral reef matters, and the thirty-four paintings of Johannes Vermeer matter, and kissing matters. Whether or not you register for china, crystal, and silver does not matter. Whether or not you have a full set of Tiffany dessert forks on Thanksgiving does not matter. If you want to register for these things, by all means, go ahead. My Waterford pattern is Lismore, one of the oldest. I do remember one time when I had a harrowing day at the hospital, and Nick had a Rube Goldberg project due and needed my help, and Kevin was playing Quiet Riot at top decibel in his bedroom, and Margot was tying up the house phone, and you had been plunked by the babysitter in front of the TV for five hours, and I came home and took one of my Lismore goblets out of the cabinet. I wanted to smash it against the wall. But instead I filled it with cold white wine and for ten or so minutes I sat in the quiet of the formal living room all by myself and I drank the cold wine out of that beautiful glass crafted by some lovely Irishman, and I felt better. It was probably the wine, not the glass, but you get my meaning. I will remember the impressive heft of the glass in my hand, and the way the cut of the crystal caught the day’s last rays of sunlight, but I will not miss that glass the way I will miss the sound of the ocean, or the taste of fresh-picked corn.

Over the course of two years, from June 2004 to June 2006, two separate deaths did nothing to ease my overall anxiety. Steve’s beloved Staffordshire bull terrier Sui died of cancer in June 2004. He had set up his swag and slept beside her all night, talking to her, recalling old times in the bush catching crocodiles, and comforting her. Losing Sui brought up memories of losing Chilli a decade and a half earlier. “I am not getting another dog,” Steve said. “It is just too painful.” Wes, the most loyal friend anyone could have, was there for Steve while Sui passed from this life to the next. Wes shared in Steve’s grief. They had known Sui longer than Steve and I had been together. Two years after Sui’s death, in June 2006, we lost Harriet. At 175, Harriet was the oldest living creature on earth. She had met Charles Darwin and sailed on the Beagle. She was our link to the past at the zoo, and beyond that, our link to the great scientist himself. She was a living museum and an icon of our zoo. The kids and I were headed to Fraser Island, along the southern coast of Queensland, with Joy, Steve’s sister, and her husband, Frank, our zoo manager, when I heard the news. An ultrasound had confirmed that Harriet had suffered a massive heart attack. Steve called me. “I think you’d better come home.” “I should talk to the kids about this,” I said. Bindi was horrified. “How long is Harriet going to live?” she asked. “Maybe hours, maybe days, but not long.” “I don’t want to see Harriet die,” she said resolutely. She wanted to remember her as the healthy, happy tortoise with whom she’d grown up. From the time Bindi was a tiny baby, she would enter Harriet’s enclosure, put her arms around the tortoise’s massive shell, and rest her face against her carapace, which was always warm from the sun. Harriet’s favorite food was hibiscus flowers, and Bindi would collect them by the dozen to feed her dear friend. I was worried about Steve but told him that Bindi couldn’t bear to see Harriet dying. “It’s okay,” he said. “Wes is here with me.” Once again, it fell to Wes to share his best mate’s grief.

Sidney, is that what you girls go for these days?” Kathleen asked, pointing toward her oldest son. “All this scruffy whatnot?” Well, nothing like putting her on the spot here. Personally, Sidney thought that the dark hint of scruff along Vaughn’s angular jaw looked fine. Better than fine, actually. She would, however, rather be trapped for the next thirty-six hours in a car with the crazy pregnant lady before admitting that in front of him. “I generally prefer clean-shaven men.” She shrugged—sorry—when Vaughn gave her the side-eye as he began setting the table. “See? If you don’t believe me, at least listen to her,” Kathleen said, while peeling a carrot over a bowl at the island. “If you want to find a woman of quality, you can’t be running around looking like you just rolled out of bed.” “I’ll keep that in mind. But for now, the ‘scruffy whatnot’ stays. I need it for an undercover role,” Vaughn said. Surprised to hear that, Sidney looked over as she dumped the tomatoes into a large salad bowl filled with lettuce. “You’re working undercover now?” “Well, I’m not in the other identity right this second,” Vaughn said. “I’m kind of guessing my mother would be able to ID me.” Thank you, yes, she got that. “I meant, how does that work?” Sidney asked him. “You just walk around like normal, being yourself, when you’re not . . . the other you?” “That’s exactly how it works. At least, when we’re talking about a case that involves only part-time undercover work.” “But what if I were to run into the other you somewhere? Say . . . at a coffee shop.” A little inside reference there. “If I called you ‘Vaughn’ without realizing that you were working, wouldn’t that blow your cover?” “First of all, like all agents who regularly do undercover work, I tell my friends and family not to approach me if they happen to run into me somewhere—for that very reason. Second of all, in this case, the ‘other me’ doesn’t hang out at coffee shops.” “Where does the other you hang out?” Sidney asked. Not to contribute to his already healthy ego, but this was pretty interesting stuff. “In dark, sketchy alleys doing dark, sketchy things,” Vaughn said as he set the table with salad bowls. “So the other you is a bad guy, then.” Sidney paused, realizing something. “Is what you’re doing dangerous?” “The joke around my office is that the agents on the white-collar crime squad never do anything dangerous.” Sidney noticed that wasn’t an actual answer to her question

talking about the death threats and trolling that inevitably, and depressingly, attach themselves to a migrant Muslim woman who has become the voice of Britain’s conscience since she took on the position of Director at Britain’s oldest civil liberties organisation a decade ago.

In his rapid rise, talent, opportunity, and fortune converged improbably—to many, it seemed, providentially. Patton—who earlier in the year had told Eisenhower, “You are my oldest friend”—privately claimed the initials “D.D.” stood for “Divine Destiny.” Thirty months earlier, Eisenhower had been a lieutenant colonel who had never commanded even a platoon in combat. Young Ike, the third son of a failed Midwestern merchant turned creamery worker, had chosen a military career because West Point provided a free education. After an indifferent cadetship he embarked on an ordinary career as a staff officer, stalled at the middling rank of major for sixteen years. Even his first venture into the rarefied circles he would inhabit for two decades was inauspicious: the White House usher’s log for February 9, 1942, recorded the initial visit to the Oval Office of one “P. D. Eisenhauer.

The most trusted and loyal friendships in your life, will always be your oldest and longest friendships.

Dear Ellie, I’m writing as one of your oldest friends to tell you that you’ve really been acting different lately, and I hope you snap out of it. I don’t blame you. I blame it on the evil Ximena Chin, who is negatively influencing you! First she twisted Savanna’s brain, and now she’s turning you into a pretty zombie just like she is. I hope you stop being friends with her and remember all the good times we used to have. Remember Mr. Browne’s November precept: “Have no friends not equal to yourself!” Can we please be friends again? Your former really good friend,

Serena van der Woodsen, Blair’s oldest and newest best friend, shook her pale blond head in response.

Baines told his son that children always got in the way of a marriage. Finding a state boarding school in England for Roland was good for everyone ‘all round’. Rosalind Baines, neé Morley, army wife, child of her times, did not chafe or rage against her powerlessness or sulk about it. She and Robert had left school at fourteen. He became a butcher’s boy in Glasgow, she was a chambermaid in a middle-class house near Farnham. A clean and ordered home remained her passion. Robert and Rosalind wanted for Roland the education they had been denied. This was the story she told herself. That he might have attended a day school and stayed with her was an idea she must have dutifully banished. She was a small nervous woman, a worrier, very pretty, everyone agreed. Easily intimidated, fearful of Robert when he drank, which was every day. She was at her best, her most relaxed, in a long heart-to-heart with a close friend. Then she told stories and laughed easily, a light and liquid sound that Captain Baines himself rarely heard. Roland was one of her close friends. In the holidays, when they did the housework together, she told stories of her childhood in the village of Ash, near the garrison town of Aldershot. She and her brothers and sisters used to brush their teeth with twigs. Her employer gave her her first toothbrush. Like so many of her generation she lost all her teeth in her early twenties. In newspaper cartoons people in bed were often shown with their false teeth in a glass of water on the bedside table. She was the oldest of five and spent much of her childhood minding her sisters and brothers. She was closest to her sister Joy who still lived near Ash. Where was their mother when Rosalind was minding the children? Her reply was always the same, a child’s view unrevised in adulthood: your granny would take the bus to Aldershot and spend the day window-shopping. Rosalind’s mother fiercely disapproved of make-up. In her teens, on rare nights out, Rosalind would meet her friend Sybil and together they

Thirteen help anyone who kills a Bondsmage, purposely or otherwise.’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s the oldest rule of their guild, a rule without exceptions. Kill a Bondsmage, and the whole guild drops whatever it’s doing to come after you. They seek you out by any means they need to use. They kill your friends, your family, your associates. They burn your home. They destroy everything you’ve ever built. Before they finally let you die, they make sure you know that your line has been wiped from the earth, root and branch.

The night Nehemia had died, he hadn’t intended to stop Celaena’s wrist in midair. He’d just known that the woman he’d loved was about to kill his oldest friend over a misunderstanding. He’d

The night Nehemia had died, he hadn’t intended to stop Celaena’s wrist in midair. He’d just known that the woman he’d loved was about to kill his oldest friend over a misunderstanding.

Because ye willna accept me for who I am! I can only be the Duchess of Nottingham now, not permitted to wear wool or speak with a burr or believe what I have spent my whole life believing. I canna turn around without your oldest friend lecturing me on superstition or you calling me daft for believing in curses " His usually gut reaction beckoned--- spin away, refuse to engage in what he deemed a ridiculous argument. But a quiet Stay resonated within him, and this time he didn't think he was misunderstanding. He shoved his hands in his pockets to anchor himself. " I love to hear you speak. I care very little what you wear, so long as you have what you need and are happy in it." She snorted. " Your society disagrees " "Yes, they do. And you can either conform to their expectations or defy them. Whatever your choice, I will stand beside you. But it is the other that really bothers you, and that is my fault. My failing. Your opinions and beliefs are worth no less than mine.

The forest from the first day of creation. But it turns out Gilgamesh and his punk friend Enkidu have already been through and trashed the place. Oldest story in the world.

I wonder if maybe when Max meets the sea, he will understand that it's his oldest friend. He'll think, oh, I know you, and he'll feel like he belongs.

And while he was looking forward to lunch—and while he took pleasure in examining his new book—he could not rid himself of the question he had been asking himself for weeks, as well as that entire morning: How on God’s green earth was he supposed to ask one of his oldest friends, Lady Jane Grey, to be his wife?

That afternoon, Neal DosSantos, a young architect who worked at a firm in Manhattan, was strolling back to his office after eating lunch in Gramercy Park when he spotted Adam heading briskly uptown on the sidewalk and talking animatedly into his phone. WeWork’s CEO was walking past Pete’s Tavern, one of New York’s oldest bars, wearing a gray T-shirt, black pants—and no shoes. DosSantos recognized Adam by sight. He had friends at WeWork and had considered applying for a job there over the years. Given all he had heard about the founder, the moment seemed to sum everything up: Neumann was moving quickly and talking fast, the only CEO who would casually walk the streets of New York barefoot during the most trying week of his life. (One of Adam’s publicists at the time explained away the incident to me by arguing that this was simply who he was: “Adam grew up on a kibbutz and likes to walk barefoot. He is a kibbutznik. Should we ask him to stop?”)

The Lowcountry is a two-hundred-mile stretch of land that spans the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, along with the Sea Islands.9 It is believed that over half of the 388,000 Africans brought to the lands that became the United States first arrived in the Lowcountry.10 According to the International African American Museum, 80 percent of African Americans can trace an ancestor who set foot onto a Charleston dock first.11 Despite this rich history, I had heard of Gullah people only twice in my life—on Nickelodeon’s 1990s children’s television show Gullah Gullah Island and from a close friend whose late grandmother was Gullah. The Gullah Geechee people are the oldest sub-ethnic group of African Americans.

Among many of the people interviewed for this book, the scapegoated children were either the oldest, more successful, had more friends, or were more intelligent than their siblings (or posed some other threat to the ego of the parent). The parent may even have felt competitive with the child.

In the end, I abandoned my new life, along with the people who had helped me to put it together, and I returned to the world of strange games and secret systems they had saved me from. The summer after I left the cult, everyone was initially pleased with my progress in adjusting to everyday living: I was set up in a flat in town with my oldest friend, working part-time doing data entry in a bank and all set to go back to Trinity in October and repeat the year I had lost. But I had never really taken to the temping which had controlled the days since my rescue, and in my idle moments I let my mind turn back to the dangerous questions and mysteries, to the vanished actors and intrigues that I had promised to forget for good.

45. Remember that advanced placement doesn’t necessarily have to mean early graduation. Our two older children were talented in math and science, and easily completed more than the required number of secondary credits in sciences and humanities well before their peers. We drove our oldest son two hours away to live in a dorm at a state university the week before his 18th birthday, and our second-born graduated from high school when she was 15. Her college adviser mapped a plan where she could have finished her PhD in nursing by the time she was 21! Academically, they were fine. But socially and emotionally, it was tough to transition to the rigors of full-time college life (even junior college) one or two years before their traditionally-schooled friends. Because of that, their younger brother, a scholar in his own right, was not given the option to graduate early. Although he was frustrated with this limitation, it has alleviated a lot of pressure the other kids were forced to deal with before they had reached appropriate emotional maturity.

Our oldest friends, their faces, never really change, as we both travel at the same speed of life. Parents and children are different. They help us measure our existence, like the clock on the wall or the watch on our wrist. But old friends carry with them a braided constant, part and whole, all the days in the calendar contained in a glance.

STUART SCOTT: I can’t be that concerned with how I’m perceived. I care about how my mother and father think about me and how my friends and how my loved ones think about me. I care about how my ex-wife thinks about me; she and I are still good friends and we do a good job raising our kids. It matters to me. But it doesn’t matter to me what people who are writing a blog on the Internet think. I can’t think about that. Being a father. That’s it. That’s the answer. That’s my answer. I’m convinced of that. I remember there was a day—my oldest daughter, who is fourteen now, but when she was about two or three, there was a show called Gullah Gullah Island, a Disney show, that was her favorite TV show. I was doing the late-night SportsCenter that aired all morning long. So there was one morning and I’d done the show the night before, and I got up and I said, “Taylor, do you want to watch Daddy on TV?” And she said—and it’s not just what she said but how she said it—“No, I want to watch Gullah Gullah Island.” And I remembered thinking that day, if it’s not a big deal to her, and she was my life, then it can’t be that big of a deal.

CHAPTER ONE Rheia Bradley paced back and forth in front of the large picture window in her family room. Last night's dream had spooked her so badly that she'd asked Radek Carson, one of her oldest friends, to swing by the house. He had taken over as Sheriff when her father retired, he always knew how to cheer her up and ease her fears. She breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw headlights flood her driveway. She walked over to the door and waited, knowing if she simply swung it open without checking to see who it was, Radek would never let

Consider the power of love. I remember a mother I met once as I made a professional house call. This woman was confined in an iron lung. The ravages of polio had effectively destroyed all the breathing muscles so that her life was completely dependent upon the large metal tank and the electrical motor that powered its noisy bellows. While there, I watched her three children as they related to their mother. The oldest interrupted our work to ask permission to go to a friend's house for an hour. Later the second child asked her mother for help with arithmetic. Finally the youngest child, so small that she couldn't see her mother's face directly, looked up at the mother's image in a mirror that had been placed over her head and asked, "Mommy, may I have a cookie?" I've never forgotten that lesson on the power of love. This woman, virtually disabled and certainly incapable of any degree of physical enforcement of parental authority, sweetly influenced that home solely with the power to love.

Ed Amies, one of my oldest and closest friends, told my simply that: “So often, God’s callings have a birth, a death, and then a resurrection.” I had had the birth, and had got stuck into Selection; I had had the death, at that fateful dam in the Welsh mountains--now was a logical time for the resurrection. If my faith stood for anything it was this: miracles really can happen.

Ed Amies, one of my oldest and closest friends, told my simply that: “So often, God’s callings have a birth, a death, and then a resurrection.” I had had the birth, and had got stuck into Selection; I had had the death, at that fateful dam in the Welsh mountains--now was a logical time for the resurrection. If my faith stood for anything it was this: miracles really can happen. So I made the decision to try again. This time, though, I would be doing this alone. I knew that support from my family and friends would be much less forthcoming, especially from Mum, who could see the physical toll that just four months had taken. But I felt deadly serious about passing this properly now and I somehow knew that it was my last chance to do it. And no one was going to do it for me. Some two weeks later I listened to a mumbled message on my answering machine from Trucker. He’d got lost on the final part of a march. After hours of wandering aimlessly in the dark, and out of time, he had finally been found by a DS in a Land Rover, out to look for stray recruits. Trucker was dejected and tired. He, too, had failed the course. He went through the same struggle over the next few weeks that I had, and like me, he was invited by the squadron to try again. We were the only two guys to have been asked back. With greater resolve than ever, we both threw ourselves into training with an intensity that we had never done before. This time we meant business. We both moved into an old, secluded, rented farm cottage some six miles out of Bristol. And, Rocky-style, we started to train. The next Selection course (of which two are run annually) was just about to start. And just like in Groundhog Day, we found ourselves back in that old dusty gymnasium at the squadron barracks, being run ragged by the DS.

The habit of their intimacy was of too long standing and, besides, old Colin was so useful, so bottomlessly reliable. So Judd remained for him the Oldest Friend whom one definitely dislikes; while for Judd, he was the Oldest Friend whom one adores and at the same time hates for not adoring back, the Oldest Friend whom one never sees enough of, but whom, when he is there, one finds insufferably exasperating, the Oldest Friend whom, in spite of all one's efforts, one is always getting on the nerves of.

I was at a pool party with some of my oldest, most-favorite friends. I've known them since high school, so at this point they feel more like sisters. Anyone who knew you as an adolescent and still wants to spend time with you is a true friend, and really, their opportunity to blackmail you with stories of who you kissed and photos of you in overalls is enough reason to keep them around. We don't see each other nearly often enough, but when we do, we fall right back into familiar rhythm, like a song we've been singing all our lives.

Running a business murders your ability to be the kind of friend people expect or deserve. Days and weeks go by and there can be no keeping up. Her best friends were her oldest friends, who did not expect constant contact. Everyone else was disappointed.

Some months earlier one of his oldest friends, Junto charter member Hugh Roberts, had written with news of the club and how the political quarreling in Philadelphia had continued to divide the membership. Franklin expressed hope that the squabbles would not keep Roberts from the meetings. “’tis now perhaps one of the oldest clubs, as I think it was formerly one of the best, in the King’s dominions; it wants but about two years of forty since it was established.” Few men were so lucky as to belong to such a group. “We loved and still love one another; we are grown grey together and yet it is too early to part. Let us sit till the evening of life is spent; the last hours were always the most joyous. When we can stay no longer ’tis time enough then to bid each other good night, separate, and go quietly to bed.” And

She'd discreetly asked a few of her customers today and found out, much to her dismay, that everyone was under the impression Jack was back, and not just for a visit. She let her head fall back and sighed heavily. Damn him. Damn him and my sister both. She knew it wasn't fair to be mad at Jack just for coming home, but she couldn't help it. After everything she'd sacrificed to keep Amanda's secret, it was ready to be blown to bits by his arrival. She was going to drive herself crazy if she didn't stop dwelling on it. Cassie picked up her phone and slid her finger across the screen. With a couple taps on the glass, it was ringing. Time to call in the reinforcements. "Hey girl, what's shaking?" came the sound of Lissa's voice. "Hey." She sat there, unsure what to say to her best friend, just knowing she needed her support. "Uh oh. What's going on?" "Jack came in my shop this morning." "I'll be right there." The line went dead. Cassie smiled. Of course she would. She closed her eyes and rested while she waited. She and Melissa Winters had been through everything side by side, so why should this be any different? Lissa was the only person in the world besides Cassie that knew the secret about Sarah. She had helped her adjust to a new baby, teaching her everything she had learned from growing up the oldest sister of five. It was always in times like those that Cassie wished she had her mother around, but Lissa had stepped up. Caroline Powell would have loved helping with Sarah, but as it was, she often didn't even remember who Sarah was when Cassie would take her for visits to the full-time care facility she lived at in The city. Footsteps on the porch stairs shook her out of her reverie, and she opened her eyes to see Lissa walking up, Chinese takeout bags in hand. "General Tso to the rescue," she proclaimed, dropping into the rocker next to Cassie. "And some sweet and sour chicken for Miss Priss, of course." "Of course," Cassie smiled. "You're the best." They sat in silence for a few moments, Cassie turning her glass round and round in her hands until Lissa couldn't take it any longer. "Okay, spill. You can't drop a bomb on me like that and then just sit there in silence," Lissa chided. "I just don't know what to say. I'm terrified, Liss." "Let's think rationally. There is no reason for him to suspect anything." "He seemed really confused about Sarah. Surprised. He kept asking about her.

Angry tears stung her eyes. Tension built and boiled inside her. Her cheeks grew hot with suppressed anger, her movements became jerky and abrupt. She shoved an errant strand of hair out of her face, stormed to the washstand — And collided with her husband. He had been coming toward her with a piece of wet linen and a bowl half-filled with water. As he and Juliet bounced off each other, some of the water spilled onto the carpet, the rest down the front of his waistcoat. Ignoring it, Gareth held out the damp rag like a truce offering. "Here." "What's that for?" "She needs washing, doesn't she?" "What do you know about babies?" "Come now, Juliet. I am not entirely lacking in common sense." "I wonder," she muttered, spitefully. He summoned a polite though confused smile — and that only stoked Juliet's temper all the more. She did not want him to be such a gentleman, damn it!  She wanted a good, out-and-out row with him. She wanted to tell him just what she thought of him, of his reckless spending, of his carefree attitude toward serious matters. Oh, why hadn't she married someone like Charles — someone capable, competent, and mature? "What is wrong, Juliet?" "Everything!" she fumed. She plunged the linen in the bowl of water and began swabbing Charlotte's bottom. "I think Perry was right. We should go straight back to your brother, the duke." "You should not listen to Perry." "Why not? He's got more sense than you and the rest of your friends combined. We haven't even been married a day, and already it's obvious that you're hopelessly out of your element. You have no idea what to do with a wife and daughter. You have no idea where to go, how to support us — nothing. Yet you had to come charging after us, the noble rescuer who just had to save the day. I'll bet you didn't give any thought at all to what to do with us afterward, did you? Oh!  Do you always act before thinking? Do you?" He looked at her for a moment, brows raised, stunned by the force of her attack. Then he said dryly, "My dear, if you'll recall, that particular character defect saved your life. Not to mention the lives of the other people on that stagecoach." "So it did, but it's not going to feed us or find us a place to live!"  She lifted Charlotte's bottom, pinned a clean napkin around the baby's hips, and soaped and rinsed her hands. "I still cannot believe how much money you tossed away on a marriage license, no, a bribe, this morning, nor how annoyed you still seem to be that we didn't waste God-knows-how-much on a hotel tonight. You seem to have no concept of money's value, and at the rate you're going, we're going to have to throw ourselves on the mercy of the local parish or go begging in the street just to put food in our bellies!" "Don't be ridiculous. That would never happen." "Why wouldn't it?" "Juliet, my brother is the Duke of Blackheath. My family is one of the oldest and richest in all of England. We are not going to starve, I can assure you." "What do you plan to do, then, work for a living? Get those pampered, lily-white hands of yours dirty and calloused?

You’re in love with him,” Sandra said in a delighted whisper. Lily thought of her half-section of land, of the corn crops and fruit trees that would one day grow there. She forced herself to remember that Caleb wanted to keep her, not marry her. And, of course, there was the fact that he was a soldier. “No!” she protested, guarding her dreams. Sandra folded her hands in her lap. Her amethyst eyes sparkled with mischief. “I don’t believe you.” “I don’t care,” Lily snapped, out of patience. Sandra laughed. “You needn’t be so testy about it. Caleb never loved me, Lily—I’m no worry to you.” “If he didn’t love you, why did the two of you get married?” Lily asked reasonably. Sandra’s slender shoulders moved in a pretty shrug. “My aunt and uncle are among Caleb’s oldest friends. I suppose we were sort of thrown together.” Lily found the courage to ask, “Did you love him?” Sandra thought carefully. “I don’t think I knew what love was until it was too late and I’d lost him.” A terrible sadness swept through Lily. “But you love him now?” “Yes,” Sandra said with a small, resigned sigh. “For all the good it does me. I had hoped Caleb might see things differently if I came back, but I was too late. You’re here.” Lily was sitting on the very edge of her chair. Not since her years with the Sommers family had she felt like such an intruder. “I’ll go back to Tylerville,” she promised. “If only the stage hasn’t left.” Sandra reached out and closed her hand over Lily’s. “You mustn’t go—you belong here, with Caleb.” “You seem to think this is much more serious than it is,” Lily hastened to explain. “I hardly know Caleb. We sat together in church, and he came to supper one night, but—” “His eyes glowed when he told me about the picnic,” Sandra interrupted. Lily wondered if he’d mentioned kissing her. “He—he told you?” “We talk about everything,” Sandra said. “Caleb regards me as a friend.” These

Polly's embarrassment revealed her regret that she should have given in to the age-old temptation of saying something disagreeable even to her oldest and most useful friend. But she had committed herself now. "I relate it," she replied in a bolder tone, "to my apprehension that you are using your perfectly proper wish to do great and noble things with Eric's money to disguise your equally natural desire to keep it out of the greedy hands of his family.

Only years later did I realize that I had a choice. I didn’t have to sacrifice myself; there was no point waiting for someone to change who had no intention of changing because he had never questioned his own opinions.Today I enjoy being able to really talk with people, my husband, Mark, above all, and some good friends. Unfortunately, the divorce was not the end of the story of my marriage. It repeated itself in my relationship with my oldest daughter Carla.With her I kept on relapsing into that old childhood pattern, those constant feelings of inadequacy, guilt, helplessness. Luckily I have managed to establish an affectionate relationship with my two younger daughters.With them I feel relatively free. And I know of many cases where very close contact with the children has been possible despite divorce.

Hannah was my oldest, no-bullshit-between-us friend. You know the kind? She was the one who could tell me just about anything, the one who saw things in me that I didn’t even know about myself. The one who saw through everything I said. She was tough. Straight-talking. A powerhouse. Kind to those she cared about. To the rest of the world, she was pretty terrifying.

Then this is the exception that proves the rule. Julius Agricola is my oldest friend. For Jupiter’s sake, we grew up together. Julius would be the last man in the world to betray me.

I know exactly what Clarissa is talking about. We have all been concerned about Brenda for a few weeks now. Most days she’s fine, but on the odd occasion, she’s behaving totally out of character. “I’m going to go now, I will leave you in peace,” she says about to hang up. “Clarissa?” I ask, making sure she’s still on the line. “I’m still here,” she says confirming. “It’s best to be honest with people, right?” I know that if my dear friend, one of my oldest friends is to offer me advice when I need it, then I should listen to what she has to say. I know that by asking her opinion, she will always tell me the truth. She will always steer me in the right direction and she would never lie to me. “Always,” she simply replies. “Goodnight sweetheart, see you in the morning.

Gregori did not look at him but stared out into the storm. The child she carries is my lifemate. It is female and belongs to me. There was an unmistakable warning note, an actual threat. In all their centuries together, such a thing had never happened. Mikhail immediately closed his mind to Raven. She could never hope to understand how Gregori felt. Without a lifemate, the healer had no choice but to eventually destroy himself or become the very epitome of evil. The vampire. The walking dead. Gregori had spent endless centuries waiting for his lifemate, holding on when those younger than he had given in. Gregori had defended their people, lived a solitary existence so that he might keep their race safe. He was far more alone than the others of his kind, and far more susceptible to the call of power as he had to hunt and kill often. Mikhail could not blame his oldest friend for his possessive, protective streak toward the unborn child. He spoke calmly and firmly, hoping to avoid a confrontation. Gregori had held on for so long, this promise of a lifemate could send him careening over the edge into the dark madness if he felt there was a danger to the female child. Raven is not like Carpathian woman. You have always known and accepted that. She will not remain in seclusion during this time. She would wither and die. Gregori actually snarled, a menacing rumble that froze Shea in place, put Jacques into a crouch, and had Mikhail shifting position for a better defense. Raven pushed past Mikhail’s strong body and fearlessly laid a hand on the healer’s arm. Everyone else might think Gregori could turn at any moment, but he had held on for centuries, and she believed implicitly that he would no more hurt her than he would her child. “Gregori, don’t be angry with Mikhail.” Her voice was soft and gentle. “His first duty to me is to see to my happiness.” “It is to see to your protection.” Gregori’s voice was a blend of heat and light. “In a way it’s the same thing. Don’t blame him for having to make adjustments for what you consider my shortcomings. It hasn’t been easy for him, or for me, for that matter. We could have waited to conceive until I’d had time to become more familiar with Carpathian ways, but that would have taken more time than you have. You’re far more than a close friend to us— you’re family, a part of our hearts. We weren’t willing to risk losing you. So we both pray this child is a female and that she grows to love and cherish you as we do, that this is the one who will be your other half.” Gregori stirred as if to say something. Do not say anything! Mikhail hissed in the healer’s head. She believes the child will have a choice. Gregori bowed his head mentally to Mikhail. If Mikhail chose to allow his wife the comforting if false thought that the female child would have a choice in such a matter, then so be it.

Suze us my oldest, dearest friend, and being with her used to feel like the easiest thing in the world. But now it feels like I'm in a stage play and I've forgotten my lines and she's not about to help me out.

BREAD Riddle Type: Literal clues. Breaking a loaf apart with your hands is the oldest way of eating bread. "Breaking bread" is also a popular idiom which means "sharing a meal with friends".

Iam and man in Holy Communion again.” We talked through the night and I could tell that he weighed my words very heavily.  Bless Apollos, he has planted the seed of truth in Abimelech and now it is beginning to grow. At dawn we parted company and I never saw my friend again. As was my commission, I watched over the house of Abraham with Isaac, his two sons Esau and Yakob. Esau married two Hittite women who caused Isaac endless grief. Yakob married two kinswomen; Leah and Rachel, between them and two servants Yakob had twelve sons. Now Rachel was Yakob’s favorite wife and her oldest son Yosef was his favorite son. When the second son was born, Rachel passed soon after childbirth.

And, really, she did like Chandler, too. She did. What woman wouldn’t? He was handsome and successful, a member of one of Nashville’s oldest and most prominent families. But she’d never felt anything more than a friendly sort of affection for him, and even that usually only came about after she’d consumed a good, dry Manhattan. Preferably during a two- for- one happy hour. At any rate, she’d never experienced for Chandler the kind of feeling a woman should have for a man she thought about marrying, that breathless kind of wanting, that aching sort of yearning, that endless, ferocious passion, that insistent, frenzied, needy demand, that hot, sweaty, wanton arousal that made a woman just want to rip off her clothes and wrap her naked body around a man and feed herself to him whole, that...that… Ah, where was she? Oh, yes. At any rate, she’d never experienced that sort of, um, feeling for Chandler that a woman should have for a man with whom she intended to spend the rest of her life.

When his mind was once more clear and calm, Mikhail trotted back to the blackened ruins, changing back into his own muscular form, complete with clothes, as he strode toward his brother. He was well aware that all of nature, everything he was so much a part of, could feel his ice-cold rage. It was buried deep, seething below the surface, disturbing the harmony in the air, in the forest. His enemies would not escape. Jacques straightened slowly, as if he had been waiting for hours. His hand went to the nape of his neck, rubbing at a kink. Mikhail and Jacques stared at one another, dark sorrow in their eyes. Jacques stepped forward and reached for Mikhail in an uncharacteristic show of affection. It was brief and hard, two stiff oak trees exchanging a hug. Mikhail knew Raven would have laughed at the two of them. Gregori remained hunkered down, low to the ground, his solid bulk rivaling the broad tree trunks. He was totally motionless, his shadowed face expressionless. His eyes were a slash of silver, of mercury forever moving restlessly in the granite mask. Gregori rose slowly, fluid power and raw danger. “Thank you for coming,” Mikhail said simply. Gregori. His oldest friend. His right hand. Their greatest healer, the relentless hunter of the undead.

These are your new friends, Laurel. Cornelius, over there by the piano, is the oldest. ‘Con’ we call him for short. And Dane comes next. ‘Great Dane’ they call him at school. But I call him little Dane. And the little boy in your father’s lap is Frederick. ‘Rick’ is his nickname. He’s the baby—five years old now. We haven’t any little girl for you, Laurel,” she sighed. How lucky! No girls! Boys weren’t half as cruel.

If your lifemate is so enthralled with you that he would allow you such foolishness,” Gregori replied softly, menacingly, “then I can do no other than protect you myself.” “Don’t you talk about Mikhail like that!” Raven was furious. You really know how to stir up the hornets’ nest with the women, do you not? Mikhail demanded, even though he understood Gregori completely and felt him justified. Gregori did not look at him but stared out into the storm. The child she carries is my lifemate. It is female and belongs to me. There was an unmistakable warning note, an actual threat. In all their centuries together, such a thing had never happened. Mikhail immediately closed his mind to Raven. She could never hope to understand how Gregori felt. Without a lifemate, the healer had no choice but to eventually destroy himself or become the very epitome of evil. The vampire. The walking dead. Gregori had spent endless centuries waiting for his lifemate, holding on when those younger than he had given in. Gregori had defended their people, lived a solitary existence so that he might keep their race safe. He was far more alone than the others of his kind, and far more susceptible to the call of power as he had to hunt and kill often. Mikhail could not blame his oldest friend for his possessive, protective streak toward the unborn child. He spoke calmly and firmly, hoping to avoid a confrontation. Gregori had held on for so long, this promise of a lifemate could send him careening over the edge into the dark madness if he felt there was a danger to the female child. Raven is not like Carpathian woman. You have always known and accepted that. she will not remain in seclusion during this time. She would wither and die. Gregori actually snarled, a menacing rumble that froze Shea in place, put Jacques into a crouch, and had Mikhail shifting position for a better defense. Raven pushed past Mikhail’s strong body and fearlessly laid a hand on the healer’s arm. Everyone else might think Gregori could turn at any moment, but he had held on for centuries, and she believed implicitly that he would no more hurt her than he would her child. “Gregori, don’t be angry with Mikhail.” Her voice was soft and gentle. “His first duty to me is to see to my happiness.” “It is to see to your protection.” Gregori’s voice was a blend of heat and light.

Drinking Alone by Moonlight,” in which Li transforms a taboo—drinking alone—into a celebration: A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend is near. Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon, For he, with my shadow, will make three men. The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine; Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side. Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave I must make merry before the Spring is spent. To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams; In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks. While we were sober, three shared the fun; Now we are drunk, each goes his way. May we long share our odd, inanimate feast, And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the Sky.

I stared at him. He loomed before me in the junk-cluttered alley with the grace of a prince but the mystery of a mythological being. He was neither quite here nor there. A creature who flashed his full glory for an instant in dreaming, but upon waking, left me questioning what I had seen. I had come here believing that at last I would know if the oldest vampyre in Maya’s line was friend or foe. I still didn’t know, but I did know it was a risk I wanted to take.

The oldest boy of eleven children, Charles Dodgson, who wrote under the name Lewis Carroll, was born in 1832 in Daresbury, England. While he was working at Oxford University, he became good friends with the Liddell family, and made up stories for the girls, Lorina, Alice, and Edith. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland grew out of one of those stories, which he first told to Alice and her sisters on a boat trip. It was published in 1865, and a sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found

Out in the camp she had kept up the appearance of firm efficiency, but here, with only her oldest friend to see, she could let herself relax. She beckoned Graystripe with a tilt of her head and waited to speak until he had settled down beside her. “Graystripe, I know you were once deputy, and I’d value your advice,” Squirrelflight began. “I believe that we’ll be able to get Bramblestar and StarClan back in the end, but as you’ve just seen, for now I’m struggling with a seriously divided Clan.

Kern was the classic oldest son of a strong, iron-willed father, secretly afraid that he couldn’t live up to the model, and thus quite skittish and sensitive to criticism. Even his appearance suggested vulnerability. He had feathery auburn hair with red highlights, broad cheeks and trusting brown eyes that opened wide with disappointment when he was hurt. He mostly excelled at things that required a lot of solitude and a minimum of social contact, math and science, and his best friend was a science nerd and ham-radio freak who lived in the village nearby, Louie DeChiaro.

Saul of Tarsus was the sort of Pharisee that Ezra normally avoided. Stiff-necked and bullish in his opinions, every pronouncement was made in the stubborn certainty that he alone knew what was right. Ezra and Gamaliel had been schooled under a very different philosophy. Their rabbi had insisted that only God could say what was truly the correct viewpoint, and such edicts were delivered through his prophets. This bred a certain flexibility in scriptural study, where the rabbi would present two different views of the same passage and order his students to find the truth in both commentaries. But such recollections only brought another piercing regret over this schism between Ezra and his oldest friend.

The oldest among Kashmiris often claim that their is nothing new about their condition, that they they have been slaves of foreign rulers since the sixteenth century, when the Moghul emperor Akbar annexed Kashmir and appointed a local governer to rule the state. In the chaos of post-Moghul India, the old empire rapidly disintegrating, Afghani and Sikh invaders plundered Kashmir at will. The peasantry was taxed and taxed into utter wretchedness; the cultural and intellectual life, which under indigenous rulers had produced some of the greatest poetry, music, and philosophy in the subcontinent, dried up. Barbaric rules were imposed in the early nineteenth century, a Sikh who killed a native of Kashmir was fined nothing more than two rupees. Victor Jacquemont, a botanist and friend of Stendahl's who came to the valley in 1831, thought that "nowhere else in India were the masses as poor and denuded as they were in Kashmir.

housekeeper. She’s like the absentminded professor in that old movie. Then there are Jessi Ramsey and Mallory Pike, junior officers in the club. Jessi and Mal are best friends. They’re also sixth-graders, while the rest of us are eighth-graders. We all go to Stoneybrook Middle School. Mal and Jessi are both the oldest kids in their families, both love horses, both love to read, both think their parents treat them like infants — even though recently they were allowed to get their ears pierced (just one hole in each ear, of course) — and neither one of them has ever had a boyfriend. But the similarities end there. Mal comes from a huge family (she has seven younger brothers and sisters), while Jessi comes from an average-sized family — one younger sister and a baby brother. Mal wants to be an author

She herself replied to one of her oldest friends who had written asking how to address her: “I really don’t know! It might be anything—you might try ‘All Hail Duchess,’ that is an Alice in Wonderland sort of Duchess, or just ‘Greetings’ or ‘What Ho, Duchess’ or ‘Say, Dutch’—in fact you can please yourself.”28

Hulking piece of rust,” she grumbled, then gave it a little pat on the wheel well as she scooted out between her truck and Hannah’s car. “Can’t let the car gods hear you dis their minions,” she said when she caught Cooper’s amused look. “They’ll strand you in the desert as sure as look at you. Besides, she might be a hulking piece of rusted metal but she’s my hulking piece.” She stopped when she reached her sister and gave her a one-armed hug. “And to what do I owe this pleasure? Cross-examining my afternoon date, are we?” “Maybe,” Hannah said, hugging her back. “Oh, good.” Kerry grinned, rubbing her hands together. “What did you learn?” “Hey, now,” Cooper said, chuckling. “What makes you think I’d give anything up?” “Oh, she’s good,” Kerry told him. “She once talked a tribal chief in Papua New Guinea, out of marrying me to his youngest son.” Cooper looked at Hannah, who just raised an arched brow but didn’t refute the statement. “Well, then, I suppose I’m even more in your debt,” he told Kerry’s oldest sister. “Unless of course the tribe believes in polygamy.” Kerry looked affronted. “You’d share me? Well, well, good to know.” She folded her arms. “So glad we’re having this little chat.” “Oh, no, Starfish, no such luck. You’d be stuck making do with only me. You see, I know a guy who could fly us out of there on his helicopter, and I’m guessing your erstwhile tribal spouse wouldn’t go anywhere near one of those flying birds. I’d spirit you off and--” “And leave my poor first husband brokenhearted and alone? Do I get a say in this?” She looked to her sister. “You’re drawing up my pre-nup, right?” Cooper brightened and clapped his hands together, which earned him an arched brow from Kerry. “Well, while I’m not too thrilled about your attachment to Number One, speaking as Number Two, I will say I’m happy to hear we’re in the negotiation phase.” “Husband Number One is a lot younger,” she said consideringly. “And while he doesn’t have as many head of cattle as you do, he does come with an entire village, and if something happens to his other six brothers, he’ll be chief one day.” She smiled sweetly. “Just saying.” Cooper flashed her a smile that might have been a little too private with her sister standing right there, but what the hell. “Keep in mind, Number Twos traditionally try harder. So I have that going for me.” Hannah looked from Cooper to Kerry, then at both of them, before finally looking at Kerry. “Seriously, marry him before he wises up.” “Hey,” Kerry replied, mock wounded. “And why do you say that?” “You speak the same language.” “Says the woman who communicates with her husband using old movie quotes that nobody gets but the two of you.” Hannah smiled, really smiled, and it transformed her often more serious expression into something truly radiant. “Yes, that’s exactly who’s saying that.” She looked at Cooper. “I have a feeling you and Calder will become fast friends.” “Thank you,” Cooper said, “for both sentiments.

Known as “Leni,” Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl was born on August 22, 1902. During the Third Reich she was known throughout Germany as a close friend and confidant of the Adolf Hitler. Recognized as a strong swimmer and talented artist, she studied dancing as a child and performed across Europe until an injury ended her dancing career. During the 1920’s Riefenstahl was inspired to become an actress and starred in five motion pictures produced in Germany. By 1932 she directed her own film “Das Blaue Licht.” With the advent of the Hitler era she directed “Triumph des Willens” anf “Olympia” which became recognized as the most innovative and effective propaganda films ever made. Many people who knew of her relationship with Hitler insisted that they had an affair, although she persistently denied this. However, her relationship with Adolf Hitler tarnished her reputation and haunted her after the war. She was arrested and charged with being a Nazi sympathizer, but it was never proven that she was involved with any war crimes. Convinced that she had been infatuated and involved with the Führer, her reputation and career became totally destroyed. Her former friends shunned her and her brother, who was her last remaining relative, was killed in action on the “Eastern Front.” Seeing a bleak future “Leni” Riefenstahl left Germany, to live amongst the Nuba people in Africa. During this time Riefenstahl met and began a close friendship with Horst Kettner, who assisted her with her acknowledged brilliant photography. They became an item from the time she was 60 years old and he was 20. Together they wrote and produced photo books about the Nuba tribes and later filmed marine life. At that time she was one of the world's oldest scuba divers and underwater photographer. Leni Riefenstahl died of cancer on September 8, 2003 at her home in Pöcking, Germany and was laid to rest at the Munich Waldfriedhof.

The first and oldest of these traditions is tribe-like politics. I use the term “tribe-like” to refer to a pre-modern form of political interaction characterized by a harsh, survivalist quality and an adherence to certain intense primordial or kin-group forms of allegiance. Sometimes the tribe-like group that is in power in the Middle East, or is seeking power, is an actual tribe, sometimes it is a clan, members of a religious sect, a village group, a regional group; sometimes it is friends from a certain neighborhood, an army unit, and sometimes it is a combination of these groups. What all these associations have in common is the fact that their members are all bound together by a tribe-like spirit of solidarity, a total obligation to one another, and a mutual loyalty that takes precedence over allegiances to the wider national community or nation-state. The

There were also many families of hobbits in the Bree-land; and they claimed to be the oldest settlement of Hobbits in the world, one that was founded long before even the Brandywine was crossed and the Shire colonized. They lived mostly in Staddle though there were some in Bree itself, especially on the higher slopes of the hill, above the houses of the Men. The Big Folk and the Little Folk (as they called one another) were on friendly terms, minding their own affairs in their own ways, but both rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk. Nowhere else in the world was this peculiar (but excellent) arrangement to be found.

Pericles’ speech is not only a programme. It is also a defence, and perhaps even an attack. It reads, as I have already hinted, like a direct attack on Plato. I do not doubt that it was directed, not only against the arrested tribalism of Sparta, but also against the totalitarian ring or ‘link’ at home; against the movement for the paternal state, the Athenian ‘Society of the Friends of Laconia’ (as Th. Gomperz called them in 190232). The speech is the earliest33 and at the same time perhaps the strongest statement ever made in opposition to this kind of movement. Its importance was felt by Plato, who caricatured Pericles’ oration half a century later in the passages of the Republic34 in which he attacks democracy, as well as in that undisguised parody, the dialogue called Menexenus or the Funeral Oration35. But the Friends of Laconia whom Pericles attacked retaliated long before Plato. Only five or six years after Pericles’ oration, a pamphlet on the Constitution of Athens36 was published by an unknown author (possibly Critias), now usually called the ‘Old Oligarch’. This ingenious pamphlet, the oldest extant treatise on political theory, is, at the same time, perhaps the oldest monument of the desertion of mankind by its intellectual leaders. It is a ruthless attack upon Athens, written no doubt by one of her best brains. Its central idea, an idea which became an article of faith with Thucydides and Plato, is the close connection between naval imperialism and democracy. And it tries to show that there can be no compromise in a conflict between two worlds37, the worlds of democracy and of oligarchy; that only the use of ruthless violence, of total measures, including the intervention of allies from outside (the Spartans), can put an end to the unholy rule of freedom. This remarkable pamphlet was to become the first of a practically infinite sequence of works on political philosophy which were to repeat more or less, openly or covertly, the same theme down to our own day. Unwilling and unable to help mankind along their difficult path into an unknown future which they have to create for themselves, some of the ‘educated’ tried to make them turn back into the past. Incapable of leading a new way, they could only make themselves leaders of the perennial revolt against freedom. It became the more necessary for them to assert their superiority by fighting against equality as they were (using Socratic language) misanthropists and misologists—incapable of that simple and ordinary generosity which inspires faith in men, and faith in human reason and freedom. Harsh as this judgement may sound, it is just, I fear, if it is applied to those intellectual leaders of the revolt against freedom who came after the Great Generation, and especially after Socrates. We can now try to see them against the background of our historical interpretation.

Only his oldest friends in Rockland—guys he’d grown up with in the 1980s, when his hometown had been a tough fishing port struggling with boarded-up stores on Main Street, and motorcycle gangs and their dogs running amok in the bars—knew about his daughter. The bottom line was he wanted to protect her from his world and show her only the good things.

When John’s wife died in 1792, he had entrusted his eleven children to his oldest daughter, seventeen-year-old Kitty, unconcerned that they wore bright clothes, were rude to neighbours or joined hands across the road to hold up the Norwich coach. While the boys went away to school the girls studied at home at Earlham Hall, reading Rousseau, Voltaire and Paine, and sketching with the Norwich artist John Crome. Clever and forceful, they drank in the radical ideas of the Norwich Unitarian James Alderson and his daughter Amelia, who was a friend of Thomas Holcroft, John Horne Tooke and the Godwin circle, and would marry the painter John Opie in 1798. The Gurneys were well-known figures, not least because of their support for reform. But their political opinions made no difference to their careful, clever banking. One of the Gurneys’ regular East Anglian clients was James Oakes of Bury St Edmunds.

Bodie was no stranger to loneliness; in some ways he embraced it. Loneliness was one of his oldest friends, a place in which he could dwell and not fear. But prison was not lonely. It was a zoo, replete with all manner of animals, most of them looking for the best way to kill you.

What are you doing here?” she hissed. He straightened his tie. “Attending church services. I go every Sunday.” “But you don’t go here.” He faced Walt and tugged on the lapel of his suit jacket. “I may now.” Good grief. She didn’t need this. She glanced in the sanctuary and caught Mrs. Reuff watching her. “I’m leaving you both this instant. Don’t either of you dare sit by me.” Lincoln held up his hands in mock surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” She faced her oldest friend. “Walt?” “But we sit together every Sunday.” “Walt.” Her voice was firm. “Do you want me to lose my position?” “No.” He gave Lincoln a cold look. “But I don’t want to lose mine either.” She rolled her eyes and walked away. Men. She’d never understand them.

For you are my oldest and dearest friend, Andy. I cannot imagine my life without you. You are an essential gear within my clockwork jewels and without you I am stopped.

Looking incredibly dashing as he bent his head toward the oh-so-fashionable Miss Kasson was none other than Mr. Edgar Wanamaker—her best friend from childhood, and . . . the very first gentleman to ever offer her a proposal of marriage. She and Edgar had met when they’d been little more than infants, that circumstance brought about because their parents owned adjacent summer cottages on Long Island. Wilhelmina had spent every childhood summer with Edgar by her side, enjoying the sandy beaches and chilly water of the Atlantic from the moment the sun rose in the morning until it set in the evening. Even when Edgar had been away at school, being a few years older than Wilhelmina, they’d spent every possible minute they could with each other during the holidays. He’d even made certain to be in the city the night of her debut ball, waiting for her at the bottom of her family’s Park Avenue mansion as she’d descended the grand staircase on her father’s arm. As she’d stepped to the highly polished parquet floor, she’d caught his gaze, the intensity of that gaze causing her heart to fill with fondness for her oldest and dearest friend. That fondness, however, had disappeared a few hours later when Edgar had gone and ruined everything by asking her to marry him. She’d been all of seventeen years old the night of her debut—seventeen years old with the world spread out at her feet. Add in the notion that the whispers stirring around the ballroom were claiming she was destined to be a diamond of the first water, and the last thing she’d wanted that particular evening was a marriage proposal extended to her from her very best friend. Edgar, no matter the affection she held for him, was only a second son. Paired with the pesky fact he’d had no idea as to what he’d wanted to do with the rest of his life—except, evidently, to marry her—and she’d been less than impressed by his offer. What

To the unicorn he spoke without grooming or ordering his thoughts, without concern as to what such a creature might think of him--as though, in fact, to the oldest of old friends.

certain friends and family members who just brought me down—I let them go and didn’t miss them.

Someone or other must be to blame that I feel ill’ – this kind of conclusion is peculiar to all sick people, and in fact becomes more insistent, the more they remain in ignorance of the true reason, the phys- iological one, why they feel ill (this can, perhaps, be a disease of the nervus sympaticus, or lie in an excessive secretion of bile, or in a deficiency of potassium sulphate and phosphate in the blood, or in abdominal stricture interrupting the blood circulation, or in degeneration of the ovaries and such like). The sufferers, one and all, are frighteningly willing and inven- tive in their pretexts for painful emotions; they even enjoy being mis- trustful and dwelling on wrongs and imagined slights: they rummage through the bowels of their past and present for obscure, questionable stories that will allow them to wallow in tortured suspicion, and intoxi- cate themselves with their own poisonous wickedness – they rip open the oldest wounds and make themselves bleed to death from scars long-since healed, they make evil-doers out of friend, wife, child and anyone else near to them. ‘I suffer: someone or other must be guilty’ – and every sick sheep thinks the same. But his shepherd, the ascetic priest, says to him, ‘Quite right, my sheep! Somebody must be to blame: but you yourself are this somebody, you yourself alone are to blame for it, you yourself alone are to blame for yourself’ . . . That is bold enough, wrong enough: but at least one thing has been achieved by it, the direction of ressentiment is, as I said – changed.

Remember when you said the dark is your oldest friend?” He rested his fingers on my wrist. “Only because you can depend on the light to come.

Ah, sweet self-delusion. My oldest and dearest friend.

The reason you’re here,” he said, turning to his oldest and best friend, “is that someone has invented a device capable of destroying a planet.” “Fuck me with a blunt spoon.” “Exactly.

Shadow continues his search outside for a door to the mortal realm. I have faith in him, my oldest, most loyal friend---if there is a way out, he will find it.

Maybe I was already too late, but there were only a handful of people in the world I’d run into a burning building for. Angelo was one of them. Billie and Angelo were my oldest friends, my fucking family, and sure, we’d fought for near half our friendship, but that didn’t mean the love had ever died.

for the rest of the night. Other than to refuel with holiday leftovers. “Would you still love me if I told you I didn’t know what tasted better, Christmas leftovers or you?” Jana cocked her eyebrow with a sexy smile on her face. Damn, she was beautiful. “No but I will be mad unless you do some very thorough research and come up with a satisfying answer…” I grinned. This Christmas was unlike any of the others Jana and I had spent together. This time we had two little boys, a bigger family and we’d faced our biggest threat yet and come out on top. “If it’s for the sake of research, consider me in babe.” And I spent the rest of the night doing science. Between the gorgeous legs of my beautiful wife. I was pretty sure in that moment, life for the Reckless Bastard’s couldn’t get any better. Merry friggin’ Christmas to us! * * * * If you think the Reckless Bastards are spicy bad boys, they’re nothing compared to the steam in my next series Reckless MC Opey, TX Chapter where Gunnar and Maisie move to Texas! There’s also a sneak peek on the next page.   Don’t wait — grab your copy today!  Copyright © 2019 KB Winters and BookBoyfriends Publishing Inc Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing Inc Chapter One Gunnar “We’re gonna be cowboys!” Maisie had been singing that song since we got on the interstate and left Nevada and the only family we’d had in the world behind. For good. Cross was my oldest friend, and I’d miss him the most, even though I knew we’d never lose touch. I’d miss Jag too, even Golden Boy and Max. The prospects were cool, but I had no attachment to them. Though I gave him a lot of shit, I knew I’d even miss Stitch. A little. It didn’t matter that the last year had been filled with more shit than gold, or that I was leaving Vegas in the dust, we were all closer for the hell we’d been through. But still, I was leaving. Maisie and I’d been on the road for a couple of days. Traveling with a small child took a long damn time. Between bathroom breaks and snack times we’d be lucky to make it to Opey by the end of the month. Lucky for me, Maisie had her mind set on us becoming cowboys, complete with ten gallon hats, spurs and chaps, so she hadn’t shed one tear, yet. It wasn’t something I’d been hoping for but I was waiting patiently for reality to sink in and the uncontrollable sobs that had a way of breaking a grown man’s heart. “You’re not a boy,” I told her and smiled through the rear view mirror. “Hard to be a cowboy if you’re not even a boy.” Maisie grinned, a full row of bright white baby teeth shining back at me right along with sapphire blue eyes and hair so black it looked to be painted on with ink. “I’m gonna be a cowgirl then! A cowgirl!” She went on and on for what felt like forever, in only the way that a four year old could, about all the cool cowgirl stuff she’d have. “Boots and a pony too!” “A pony? You can’t even tie your shoes or clean up your toys and you want a pony?” She nodded in that exaggerated way little kids did. “I’ll learn,” she said with the certainty of a know it all teenager, a thought that terrified the hell out of me. “You’ll help me, Gunny!” Her words brought a smile to my face even though I hated that fucking nickname she’d picked up from a woman I refused to think about ever again. I’d help Maisie because that’s what family did. Hell, she was the reason I’d uprooted my entire fucking life and headed to the great unknown wilds of Texas. To give Maisie a normal life or as close to normal as I was capable of giving her. “I’ll always help you, Squirt.” “I know. Love you Gunny!” “Love you too, Cowgirl.” I winked in the mirror and her face lit up with happiness. It was the pure joy on her face, putting a bloom in her cheeks that convinced me this was the right thing to do. I didn’t want to move to Texas, and I didn’t want to live on a goddamn ranch, but that was my future. The property was already bought and paid for with my name

Heston, our oldest, is suddenly saying he’s stupid and has no friends, and whenever we try to talk to him about it he says we don’t understand and slams his bedroom door. Izzy, our four-year-old, is hysterical every morning when we drop her at preschool. It’s so draining and such an awful way to start the day. PLEASE HELP!

Arthur was tired out. He had been broken by the two battles which he had fought already, the one at Dover, the other at Barbara Down. His wife was a prisoner. His oldest friend was banished. His son was trying to kill him. Gawaine was buried. His Table was dispersed. His country was at war. Yet he could have breasted all these things in some way, if the central tenet of his heart had not been ravaged. Long ago, when his mind had been a nimble boy's called Wart—long ago he had been taught by an aged benevolence, wagging a white beard. He had been taught by Merlyn to believe that man was perfectible: that he was on the whole more decent than beastly: that good was worth trying: that there was no such thing as original sin. He had been forged as a weapon for the aid of man, on the assumption that men were good. He had been forged, by that deluded old teacher, into a sort of Pasteur or Curie or patient discoverer of insulin. The service for which he had been destined had been against Force, the mental illness of humanity. His Table, his idea of Chivalry, his Holy Grail, his devotion to Justice: these had been progressive steps in the effort for which he had been bred He was like a scientist who had pursued the root of cancer all his life. Might—to have ended it— to have made men happier. But the whole structure depended on the first premise: that man was decent. Looking back at his life, it seemed to him that he had been struggling all the time to dam a flood, which, whenever he had checked it, had broken through at a new place, setting him his work to do again. It was the flood of Force Majeur. During the earliest days before his marriage he had tried to match its strength with strength—in his battles against the Gaelic confederation—only to find that two wrongs did not make a right. But he had crushed the feudal dream of war successfully. Then, with his Round Table, he had tried to harness Tyranny in lesser forms, so that its power might be used for useful ends. He had sent out the men of might to rescue the oppressed and to straighten evil —to put down the individual might of barons, just as he had put down the might of kings. They had done so—until, in the course of time, the ends had been achieved, but the force had remained upon his hands unchastened. So he had sought for a new channel, had sent them out on God's business, searching for the Holy Grail. That too had been a failure, because those who had achieved the Quest had become perfect and been lost to the world, while those who had failed in it had soon returned no better. At last he had sought to make a map of force, as it were, to bind it down by laws. He had tried to codify the evil uses of might by individuals, so that he might set bounds to them by the impersonal justice of the state. He had been prepared to sacrifice his wife and his best friend, to the impersonality of Justice. And then, even as the might of the individual seemed to have been curbed, the Principle of Might had sprung up behind him in another shape—in the shape of collective might, of banded ferocity, of numerous armies insusceptible to individual laws. He had bound the might of units, only to find that it was assumed by pluralities. He had conquered murder, to be faced with war. There were no Laws for that.

She was lonely, that was the truth, really lonely. Her working hours were so long she’d given up on the idea of having a family—she couldn’t even hold down a relationship—and when she went on an expedition, she was set apart from her male colleagues by problems they didn’t have to think about. Not only periods, or where to pee safely, not even the endless jokes about her physical strength. But the sense she was never really going to get what she wanted. More than a few times a colleague had reached out a hand when she didn’t need help, and squeezed too hard. She’d been talked down and talked over. She’d missed a couple of promotions she should have got. And yet, deep down, she knew she couldn’t really blame anyone else. Out of some strange mad desire not to upset the status quo, she’d become complicit. She had laughed when she should have been angry, or said nothing when she should have said a lot. She’d belittled her own achievements, calling them small or unformed or even lucky when they were none of those things. And it wasn’t simply opportunities at work she’d lost out on: she had—and, again, this was her own choice—missed the weddings of her closest friends, just as she’d missed their children’s christenings. Only a month ago her oldest friend had written, inviting her to Scotland for her godson’s birthday, “But I guess it will be difficult for you to get away.” And it was true. Some nights Freya worked so late, she took her sleeping bag out of her locker and slept on the floor under her desk. She actually kept a toothbrush there and a set of spare clothes.

Jackie whispered to me, pointing to the gentleman seated on Ethel’s right: “That is one of Bobby’s oldest friends, and he’s the one selling drugs to David.

To Naomi, my oldest daughter, who loved to hear my story ideas and encouraged me to write them down and then in typical teenager fashion rolled her eyes and said I’d probably not even mention her in the acknowledgments—I showed you, you salty bitch.

Coorie camping is about leaving your expensive devices at home and feeling like a wildling for the weekend. It's about taking turns to fetch water, boiling it and doling out cups of tea. What feels like a chore at home becomes fun on a camping trip. Decorate your tent with forest treasures until it looks like a woodland grotto and share memory games played in childhood with adult friends. There is also the chance to get really good at making campfires. Fire is our oldest and most ensuring form of heat and energy. Is it any wonder it's so important to our coorie experience?

December 20th FEAR THE FEAR OF DEATH “Do you then ponder how the supreme of human evils, the surest mark of the base and cowardly, is not death, but the fear of death? I urge you to discipline yourself against such fear, direct all your thinking, exercises, and reading this way—and you will know the only path to human freedom.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.26.38–39 To steel himself before he committed suicide rather than submit to Julius Caesar’s destruction of the Roman Republic, the great Stoic philosopher Cato read a bit of Plato’s Phaedo. In it, Plato writes, “It is the child within us that trembles before death.” Death is scary because it is such an unknown. No one can come back and tell us what it is like. We are in the dark about it. As childlike and ultimately ignorant as we are about death, there are plenty of wise men and women who can at least provide some guidance. There’s a reason that the world’s oldest people never seem to be afraid of death: they’ve had more time to think about it than we have (and they realized how pointless worrying was). There are other wonderful resources: Florida Scott-Maxwell’s Stoic diary during her terminal illness, The Measure of My Days, is one. Seneca’s famous words to his family and friends, who had broken down and begged with his executioners, is another. “Where,” Seneca gently chided them, “are your maxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years’ study against evils to come?” Throughout philosophy there are inspiring, brave words from brave men and women who can help us face this fear. There is another helpful consideration about death from the Stoics. If death is truly the end, then what is there exactly to fear? For everything from your fears to your pain receptors to your worries and your remaining wishes, they will perish with you. As frightening as death might seem, remember: it contains within it the end of fear.

Long ago there was a little land, over which ruled a regulus or kinglet, who was called King Peter, though his kingdom was but little. He had four sons whose names were Blaise, Hugh, Gregory and Ralph: of these Ralph was the youngest, whereas he was but of twenty winters and one; and Blaise was the oldest and had seen thirty winters. Now it came to this at last, that to these young men the kingdom of their father seemed strait; and they longed to see the ways of other men, and to strive for life. For though they were king's sons, they had but little world's wealth; save and except good meat and drink, and enough or too much thereof; house-room of the best; friends to be merry with, and maidens to kiss, and these also as good as might be; freedom withal to come and go as they would; the heavens above them, the earth to bear them up, and the meadows and acres, the woods and fair streams, and the little hills of Upmeads, for that was the name of their country and the kingdom of King Peter.

One day, Elva visited, as she often did from Brooklyn. Lily and Normon were chasing one another, tripping over their younger brother and all falling into a heap onto the floor. Chun grabbed the two by the arms and gave both a swift rap to the head with a sharp knuckle. Lily swiftly burst into tears. Normon bit his lip, nostrils flaring, refusing to cry. Chun flew into a rage—the eldest needed to model good behavior for the youngest children, and here was the toddler Johnny on the floor, bawling. If Normon was going to be so hard-necked obstinate, then both Lily and Normon, as the oldest children in the pecking order, needed to be punished. With a harder rap to the head, they were soon both crying—Normon’s face breaking open like a floodgate. Before she knew it, at the sight of them, Chun was herself in tears. It’s unclear if Elva put her hand on Chun’s shoulder or cleared her throat and said, Okay, enough, but once she’d ushered the children into their bedroom, she returned to find Chun sitting on a chair. They hate me, Chun said. They love you—they’re just being children. Not them, Chun said. The women—in this building. Why? They know that I am different, Chun said, attempting to explain, but knowing it was no use. For Elva, they were all Chinese at 37 Mott, but Chun was distinctly aware of the divisions. It was embarrassing to talk about such things to her aunt, her only true friend aside from Doshim, and a lofan. Elva was truly puzzled. “Shouldn’t that no longer matter here? You’re in a new country! This is America, after all.” Chun’s natural inclination to try to please Elva, to pretend that things were fine even when things were so bad that mo’ paa, mo’ waa—you can’t crawl, can’t scratch—made Elva’s misunderstanding feel like an anvil pressing down on her chest. “Don’t give up,” Elva finally said, her hand on Chun’s small shoulders, so bony like a little bird, now shaking as the tears began to flow. “I know it seems impossible, but there is always a way.” • • •

She's my oldest friend, and just like relationships, friendships are never perfect. Putting pressure on them to be perfect only ensures they won't survive. It's not easy being an adult and seeing someone you love and respect make opposite choices from you. It doesn't mean either of us is wrong - it just requires not comparing. Which sometimes we're better at than other times" -Mom

He’s also my oldest friend, who became my brother-in-law when I did him a favor by marrying his terminally ill sister.

He’s also my oldest friend, who became my brother-in-law when I did him a favor by marrying his terminally ill sister. I might not have loved Anja, but I cared for her as a friend. She loved me, though, and it was the only wish she had – to become my wife.

He has no friends that I know of, and his few neighbours consider him a bit of a weirdo, but I like to think of him as my friend as he will sometimes leave buckets of compost outside my house, as a gift for my garden. The oldest tree on my property is a lemon, a sprawling mass of twigs with a heavy bow. The night gardener once asked me if I knew how citrus trees died: when they reach old age, if they are not cut down and they manage to survive drought, disease and innumerable attacks of pests, fungi and plagues, they succumb from overabundance. When they come to the end of their life cycle, they put out a final, massive crop of lemons. In their last spring their flowers bud and blossom in enormous bunches and fill the air with a smell so sweet that it stings your nostrils from two blocks away; then their fruits ripen all at once, whole limbs break off due to their excessive weight, and after a few weeks the ground is covered with rotting lemons. It is a strange sight, he said, to see such exuberance before death. One can picture it in animal species, those million salmon mating and spawning before dropping dead, or the billions of herrings that turn the seawater white with their sperm and eggs and cover the coasts of the northeast Pacific for hundreds of miles. But trees are very different organisms, and such displays of overripening feel out of character for a plant and more akin to our own species, with its uncontrolled, devastating growth. I asked him how long my own citrus had to live. He told me that there was no way to know, at least not without cutting it down and looking inside its trunk. But, really, who would want to do that?

Mrs. Vandeleur, one of his aunt’s oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book.

Madam, my best, my oldest friend has just divorced you, so will you have dinner with me?