“
And when there are enough outsiders together in one place, a mystic osmosis takes place and you're inside.
”
”
Stephen King (The Stand)
“
I'm not going to try and change your mind."
"If you're here, you accept it's my choice. This is the first thing I've been in control of since the accident."
"I know."
And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to do. Do you know how hard it is to say nothing ? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak...
”
”
Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
“
And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to do. Do you know how hard it is to say nothing ? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak...
”
”
Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
“
I wonder briefly if I could somehow broker a deal with God whereby if I put both my arms around Chris, his suffering would be transferred to me via skin-to-skin osmosis at a rate inversely proportionate to how much I love him.
”
”
Laura Buzo (Good Oil)
“
Did you see their rings? Will you give me something nice one day?” Killian sounded giddy, riding on the emotional overflow he had picked up by osmosis apparently.
“I fucking gave you a gun didn’t I?
”
”
Quil Carter (The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (Fallocaust, #2))
“
I was trying to seduce him just by being physically near him. Like, seduction by osmosis. It works in movies constantly.
”
”
Katie Heaney (Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date)
“
If you need a geography lesson in order to know where Africa is – if, by age seventeen, you have somehow failed to imbibe such knowledge by osmosis or simple curiosity – you surely don’t have the sort of mind that would benefit from a university education.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science)
“
He was pressing himself against the wall as though trying to get through it by osmosis.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander, #2))
“
I've skimmed through it a dozen times, the book glued to my side the past few days, like maybe the information will sink in through osmosis.
”
”
J.M. Darhower (Monster in His Eyes (Monster in His Eyes, #1))
“
Dove tried to take her mind away from his man meat, but it was like her brain was paralyzed by dick osmosis. Johnson’s feet were big, which meant…
He has a monster cock.
”
”
Debra Anastasia (Fire Down Below (Gynazule #1))
“
the truth is that grammar is always interesting, always useful. Mastering the logic of grammar contributes, in a mysterious way that again evokes some process of osmosis, to the logic of thought.
”
”
Francine Prose (Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them)
“
I had spent dozens of hours studying the photographs as though if I stared at them long enough and longingly enough I would, by some sort of osmosis, be transported into their clear, pure silence.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
I noticed that the [drawing] teacher didn't tell people much... Instead, he tried to inspire us to experiment with new approaches. I thought of how we teach physics: We have so many techniques - so many mathematical methods - that we never stop telling the students how to do things. On the other hand, the drawing teacher is afraid to tell you anything. If your lines are very heavy, the teacher can't say, "Your lines are too heavy." because *some* artist has figured out a way of making great pictures using heavy lines. The teacher doesn't want to push you in some particular direction. So the drawing teacher has this problem of communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character)
“
Stuff Happens.’ That’s the G-rated version. That’s a bumper sticker that
only a straight white upper middle class male could have made. Because anyone who
isn’t straight, anyone who isn’t male, anyone who isn’t white, anyone who isn’t upper middle class knows that stuff doesn’t just happen. Stuff gets done by people to people. Nothing is a coincidence. Nothing is random. This isn’t osmosis. And so we act as if it’s this passive thing, but yet that’s not the case.
”
”
Tim Wise
“
I am, to my core, Canadian, so, by osmosis, everything I write reflects that upbringing.
”
”
Elinor Florence (Bird's Eye View)
“
Confidence was everything. But in order to possess that confidence, you had to test yourself and put yourself on the line. It doesn’t come from osmosis, out of the air. It comes from consistently going over the visualization in your mind to help you develop the confidence that you want to possess.
”
”
Mike Tyson (Undisputed Truth: My Autobiography)
“
You have that look on your face,” she whispered mockingly, “that Beast-just-gave-Beauty-a-whole-frickin’-library look and now she’s going to spin around like she can read them all at once through osmosis.
”
”
Victoria Kahler (Luisa Across the Bay)
“
I had a serious library at my disposal, because my Popo believed that culture entered by osmosis and it was better to start early, but my favorite books were fairy tales.
”
”
Isabel Allende (Maya's Notebook)
“
Living in L.A., you couldn't help picking up tidbits of the surf culture, almost through osmosis... it was in the air, like vitamin D and the odd Brad Pitt sighting.
”
”
Ophelia London (Making Waves (Perfect Kisses, #3.5))
“
We feel the things we need to know instead of say them. With my chest pressed to his back, forgiveness, love, understanding, and tenderness transfer noiselessly between the layers of our clothes, an emotional osmosis through blood and bone, through hurt and fear.
”
”
Kennedy Ryan (Still (Grip, #2))
“
Now I realized that life supplies us with everything we need for the journey. Everything I had acquired either actively or passively, everything I had learned either voluntarily or by osmosis, was coming back to me as the real riches of my life, even though I had lost everything.
”
”
Ingrid Betancourt (Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle)
“
At some point, she didn't know when or for how long, she found herself lost, lost in a song. Her eyes had been closed, and against her will, the music had seeped into her, as if by osmosis, fusing with her soul.
”
”
James Morris (Melophobia)
“
Ah, marriage. The kind of union we have affects our children infinitely more than the schools we put them in, the activities we sign them up for, or the church we take them to. Our kids are learning relational habits by osmosis, and statistics say they’ll likely imitate what they witness at home.
”
”
Jen Hatmaker (Out of the Spin Cycle: Devotions to Lighten Your Mother Load)
“
The deal with dating conceited men like him was that she'd hoped some of his excess self-esteem would rub off. Women always secretly hoped this: that dating a narcissist would give them confidence by osmosis. It never worked.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (The Invention of Sound)
“
[T]here is an osmosis from fiction to reality, a constant contamination which distorts the truth behind both and fuzzes the telling distinctions in life itself, categorizing real situations and feelings by a set of rules largely culled from the most hoary fictional clichés, the most familiar and received nonsense.
”
”
Iain M. Banks (The State of the Art (Culture, #4))
“
By fall, they can read. It happened by osmosis, the way it ought to: after they have spent several months on Daddy's lap, following his spoken words with their eyes and pretending to read, their comes a day when they no longer have to pretend.
”
”
Ann-Marie MacDonald (Fall on Your Knees)
“
Between Sylvia and me there existed as between my own mother and me - a sort of psychic osmosis which, at times, was very wonderful and comforting; at other times an unwelcome invasion of privacy (words from Aurelia Plath from the Introduction)
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Letters Home)
“
Unlike Christopher Columbus or Isaac Newton, Humboldt did not discover a continent or a new law of physics. Humboldt was not know for a single fact or a discovery but for his worldview. His vision of nature has passed into our consciousness as if by osmosis. It is almost as though his ideas have become so manisfest that the man behind them has disappeared.
”
”
Andrea Wulf (The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World)
“
By immersing yourself in nature, you can experience a form of enlightenment. This is when the soul is free of fear and absorbs, almost by osmosis, the energy of life.
”
”
Jennifer Skiff (Rescuing Ladybugs: Inspirational Encounters with Animals That Changed the World)
“
Everything in the universe is connected
Everything is osmosis
You cannot separate any part from the whole
Interdependence rules the cosmic order.
”
”
Taisen Deshimaru (The Way of True Zen)
“
Comprendía, entonces, que la vida nos da montones de provisiones para nuestras travesías por el desierto. Todo lo que había adquirido de manera activa o pasiva, todo lo que había aprendido voluntariamente o por osmosis, volvía a mí como las verdaderas riquezas de mi existencia, cuando lo había perdido todo.
”
”
Ingrid Betancourt (Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle)
“
simply have been grateful for what I had. I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness, and all, and not forensically examined its faults. Those faults were largely in the eyes of a critical and sharp-edged society anyhow, and I had learned to recognize them by osmosis, by following the herd.
”
”
Gilly Macmillan (What She Knew)
“
So the drawing teacher has this problem of communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman (Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character)
“
More and more the world resembles an entomologist's dream. The earth is moving out of its orbit, the axis has shifted; from the north the snow blows down in huge knife-blue drifts. A new ice age is setting in, the transverse sutures are closing up and everywhere throughout the corn belt the fetal world is dying, turning to dead mastoid. Inch by inch the deltas are drying out and the river beds are smooth as glass. A new day is dawning, a metallurgical day, when the earth shall clink with showers of bright yellow ore. As the thermometer drops, the form of the world grows blurred; osmosis there still is, and here and there articulation, but at the periphery the veins are all varicose, at the periphery the light waves bend and the sun bleeds like a broken rectum.
”
”
Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1))
“
What I really devoured . . . was the truculence of my hosts' language: the syntax may have been brutally sloppy, but it was oh so warm in its juvenile authenticity. I feasted on their words, yes, the words flowing at that get-together of country brothers, the sort of words that, at times, delight one much more than the pleasures of the flesh. Words: repositories for singular realities which they transform into moments in an anthology, magicians that change the face of reality by adorning it with the right to become memorable, to be placed in a library of memories. Life exists only by virtue of the osmosis of words and facts, where the former encase the latter in ceremonial dress.
”
”
Muriel Barbery (Gourmet Rhapsody)
“
Axiom: that illness isn’t productive. In itself, it generates no commodities and therefore no money. Although it’s an excuse for a lot of activity, all it really does moneywise is cause wealth to flow from the sick to the well. From patients to doctors, from clients to cure-peddlers. Money osmosis, you might call it.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1))
“
I'm not going to try and change you mind."
"If you're here, you accept it's my choice. This is the first thing I've been in control of since the accident."
"I know."
And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to do. Do you know how hard it is to say nothing ? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak...
”
”
Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
“
I guess you probably won't be drinking the Johnnie Walker Black Label I brought for you," Corinna remarked.
"I honor your gesture, but I only drink reverse-osmosis water these days, " Bernard said.
"I honor your gesture?" My God, look what happens to Hong Kong men when they move to California, Corinna thought in horror.
”
”
Kevin Kwan (China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians, #2))
“
But this long history of learning how to not fool ourselves—of having utter scientific integrity—is, I’m sorry to say, something that we haven’t specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you’ve caught on by osmosis. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character)
“
Hold him tight, take away all his pain, diffuse them inside your body by osmosis, beg him to squeeze you hard, pray God not to let the moment end. and Prolong it till eternity.
”
”
Mariyam Hasnain (The Wedding Singer)
“
Through a kind of osmosis, I absorbed her youthful exuberance, her unself-consciousness and joy.
”
”
Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient)
“
Stress is absorbed through osmosis around here.
”
”
Karole Cozzo (How to Say I Love You Out Loud)
“
Just like osmosis, the goodness in you will always attract evil.
”
”
G.P. Ching (The Soulkeepers (The Soulkeepers, #1))
“
Doesn't matter. You'll pick up what you need to know--cultural osmosis.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (InterWorld (InterWorld, #1))
“
Calmness through osmosis. It can be achieved by petting a cat, and your body absorbs the purring and integrates that healing frequency.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can't)
“
Turns out you can't learn Italian through osmosis, no matter how many times you fall asleep with Italian for Dummies propped open on your face.
”
”
Jenna Evans Welch (Love & Gelato (Love & Gelato, #1))
“
Words: repositories for singular realities which they then transform into moments in an anthology, magicians that change the face of reality by adorning it with the right to become memorable, to be placed in a library of memories. Life exists only by virtue of the osmosis of words and facts, where the former encase the latter in ceremonial dress. Thus, the words of my chance acquaintances, crowning the meal with an unprecedented grace, had almost formed the substance of my feast in spite of myself, and what I had enjoyed so merrily was the verb, not the meat.
”
”
Muriel Barbery (Gourmet Rhapsody)
“
THERE ARE ENORMOUS HOLES IN MY EDUCATION. I left college in March of my freshman year and never went back. I’ve never read Moby-Dick and it’s probably too late now. I know nothing about the history of music or the history of art except what I’ve learned through osmosis. But Outsider Art is its own context. I don’t have to know all about the Impressionists or the Abstract Expressionists. I don’t have to be able to fit this art into any historic chronology. I don’t feel like an ignoramus. Irony of ironies, I don’t feel like an outsider—to fall in love I only need eyes.
”
”
Abigail Thomas (A Three Dog Life: A Memoir)
“
I don’t want to be infected with somebody’s photosynthesis as my osmosis is advancing from metamorphosis to trypanosomiasis which is a crisis – so said the analysis of the diagnosis conducted by Francis.
”
”
Vincent Okay Nwachukwu (Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1)
“
I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness and all, and not forensically examined its faults. Those faults were largely in the eyes of a critical and sharp-edged society anyhow, and I had learned to recognize them by osmosis, by following the herd. I had not yet learned to use my intelligence, or to trust in my instincts. I see more clearly now, and I shall never make that mistake again.
”
”
Gilly Macmillan (What She Knew (Jim Clemo, #1))
“
I wish all the lesson I've learned could be transferred to you through osmosis. Unfortunately, you'll have to learn them on your own, since no one ever learns from anyone else's experience. That's why history always repeats itself.
”
”
Dana Czapnik (The Falconer)
“
But this long history of learning how to not fool ourselves—of having utter scientific integrity—is, I’m sorry to say, something that we haven’t specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you’ve caught on by osmosis.
”
”
Richard P. Feynman (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character)
“
He continued, slowly, by a process of osmosis and white knowledge (which is like white noise, only more useful), to comprehend the city, a process that accelerated when he realized that the actual City of London itself was no bigger than a square mile.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
“
The really important aspect of tacit learning, as any apprentice will tell you, is that it’s almost a process of osmosis. You gain more insight from simply being around someone, and sharing experiences with them, than you would do by explicit instruction.
”
”
David Price (Open: How We’ll Work, Live and Learn In The Future)
“
there is an osmosis from fiction to reality, a constant contamination which distorts the truth behind both and fuzzes the telling distinctions in life itself, categorizing real situations and feelings by a set of rules largely culled from the most hoary fictional clichés, the most familiar and received nonsense. Hence the soap operas, and those who try to live their lives as soap operas, while believing the stories to be true; hence the quizzes where the ideal is to think as close to the mean as possible, and the one who conforms utterly is the one who stands above the rest; the Winner . . .
”
”
Iain M. Banks (The State of the Art (Culture, #4))
“
Currently the majority of the world’s seven thousand desalination plants rely on thermal desalination (often called “multistage flash”) or reverse osmosis. The former means to boil water and condense the vapor; the latter feeds water through semipermeable membranes. Neither is the solution we need.
”
”
Peter H. Diamandis (Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think)
“
But now every time I heard Kathy’s contagious giggle, a wave of excitement ran through me. Through a kind of osmosis, I absorbed her youthful exuberance, her unself-consciousness and joy. I said yes to her every suggestion and every whim. I didn’t recognize myself. I liked this new person, this unafraid man Kathy inspired me to be.
”
”
Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient)
“
They don’t barrel into a room with guns blazing as most children of seven and ten do. As I have said, they were somewhat damaged by their dear old biological dad, and one consequence is that you never see them come and go: they enter the room by osmosis. One moment they are nowhere to be seen and the next they are standing quietly beside you, waiting to be noticed.
”
”
Jeff Lindsay (Dexter in the Dark (Dexter, #3))
“
What I know now is that even after the divorce I should simply have been grateful for what I had. I should have celebrated my life as it was, imperfections, sadness, and all, and not forensically examined its faults. Those faults were largely in the eyes of a critical and sharp-edged society anyhow, and I had learned to recognize them by osmosis, by following the herd.
”
”
Gilly Macmillan (What She Knew)
“
Managers who don’t have a plan to talk to everyone on their team regularly are deluded. They believe they are going to learn what is going on in their group through some magical organizational osmosis and they won’t. Ideas will not be discovered, talent will be ignored, and the team will slowly begin to believe what they think does not matter, and the team is the company.
”
”
Michael Lopp (Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager)
“
Through osmosis, they then begin to inherit a way of being that’s similar to our own. They soak in our presence and imitate our ability to relate to ourselves and our life. In this way, simply by embodying our essence in our daily interactions, we help our children find their way back to a sense of fullness, which enables them to identify the abundance in every situation.
”
”
Shefali Tsabary (The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children)
“
When a wild elephant is to be tamed and trained, the best way to begin is by yoking it to one that has already been through the process...
"When shall we come to recognize that health is as contagious as disease, virtue as contagious as vice, cheerfulness as contagious as moroseness?" One of the three things for which we should give thanks every day, according to Shankara, is the company of the holy; for as bees cannot make honey unless together, human beings cannot make progress on the Way [Buddhism] unless they are supported by a field of confidence and concern that Truthwinners generate. The Buddha agrees. We should associate with Truthwinners, converse with them, serve them, observe their ways, and imbibe by osmosis their spirit of love and compassion. p105
”
”
Huston Smith (The World's Religions)
“
Little bits of Norwegian came to me by a kind of aural osmosis. The most surprising linguistic fact I learned was the impoverishment of that language in swear words. In fact, there is only one- 'farn'- which merely means something like 'devil take it!', but is considered very rude by a well brought-up Viking. It has to pass muster for most of the everyday tragedies that beset an expedition. If a finger is hammered, you jump up and down and cry 'farn'; if you drop an outstanding fossil irretrievably into the sea, you splutter for a while and then mutter 'farn' under your breath. If all your provisions were carried away by a hurricane and death were guaranteed, all the poor Norwegian could do would be to stand on the shingle and cry 'farn' into the wind. Somehow this does not seem adequate for the occasion.
”
”
Richard Fortey (Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution)
“
The distribution of salt throughout food can be explained by osmosis and diffusion, two chemical processes powered by nature’s tendency to seek equilibrium, or the balanced concentration of solutes such as minerals and sugars on either side of a semipermeable membrane (or holey cell wall). In food, the movement of water across a cell wall from the saltier side to the less salty side is called osmosis. Diffusion, on the other hand, is the often slower process of salt moving from a
”
”
Samin Nosrat (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking)
“
Many families hope to protect their children from radical ideas by walling off the secular world—supervising what books they read, what movies they see, what music they listen to. But secular worldviews do not come neatly labeled so we can easily recognize them. Instead they mutate into forms that we hardly recognize, becoming part of the very air we breathe. The most powerful worldviews are the ones we absorb without knowing it. They are the ideas nobody talks about—the assumptions we pick up almost by osmosis.
”
”
Nancy R. Pearcey (Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality)
“
The strict deliberate practice school describes useful training as focused consciously on error correction. But the most comprehensive examination of development in improvisational forms, by Duke University professor Paul Berliner, described the childhoods of professionals as “one of osmosis,” not formal instruction. “Most explored the band room’s diverse options as a prelude to selecting an instrument of specialization,” he wrote. “It was not uncommon for youngsters to develop skills on a variety of instruments.
”
”
David Epstein (Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World)
“
All is not lost, of course. There is still time if we judge teachers, students, and parents, hold them accountable on the same scale, if we truly test teachers, students, and parents, if we make everyone responsible for quality, if we insure that by the end of its sixth year every child in every country can live in libraries to learn almost by osmosis, then our drug, street-gang, rape, and murder scores will suffer themselves near zero. But the Fire Chief, in mid-novel, says it all, predicting the one-minute TV commercial with three images per second and no respite from the bombardment. Listen to him, know what he says, then go sit with your child, open a book, and turn the page.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
“
Some of these arrangements involve an exhibitionist Narcissist and a partner who is “in the closet.” The closet Narcissist is an unassuming type who has her feelers out for someone she can idealize. She needs to put the love object on a pedestal in order to hold herself together, because if her partner is wonderful and she can have him, then all the insecurities inside her will go away. In the Narcissist-closet Narcissist couple, it is actually the latter who is in control, feeding the grandiosity of the love object in order to inflate herself via osmosis. These relationships can be quite successful, as long as the idealizations and illusions can be sustained. But when unpleasant reality intrudes, love implodes.
”
”
Sandy Hotchkiss
“
If you have to wear a hazmat suit to raise crops, why would you ever eat them? If you’re afraid of getting that crap on your skin, how much more insane would it be to put it in your mouth! Seriously? I often wonder, and I wish someone would research it if they haven’t already, whether the CEOs of Monsanto, Dupont, etc., eat GMO products and feed them to their families, or if they send out their ‘personal shoppers’ to the local farmer’s market to bring home fresh, organic produce every week? I suspect the latter. I’m quite sure they all have reverse osmosis water systems in their mansions. Let me put it bluntly, if I haven’t been clear so far. The day the CEO of Monsanto guzzles a gallon of Roundup, is the day I’ll consider buying their products, maybe.
”
”
Steve Bivans (Be a Hobbit, Save the Earth: the Guide to Sustainable Shire Living)
“
I had Sophie in my arms when Eric came in. He went straight to Delia and kissed her on the mouth, then bent his forehead against hers for a moment, as if whatever he was thinking may be transferred by osmosis. Then Eric turned, his eyes locking on his daughter. "You can hold her," Delia prompted.
But Eric didn't make any move to take Sophie from me. I took a step toward him, and saw what Delia must have overlooked--Eric's hands were shaking so hard that he had buried him in his coat pockets.
I pushed the baby against his chest, so that he'd have no choice but to grab hold. "It's okay," I said under my breath-To Eric? To Sophie? To myself?-and as I transferred this tiny prize to Eric's arms, I held long longer than I had to. I made damn sure he was steady, before I let go.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Vanishing Acts)
“
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN most interested in the question of what makes a house a home. What are the elements that move a house beyond its physical structure and provide the warmth that we all crave? In my fifteen years as a designer, I’ve come to understand that the answer is simple: It is about surrounding ourselves with things we love.
(...) And in this case, the beauty comes from the owners’ love of books.
Books are beautiful objects in their own right—their bindings and covers—and the space they fill on shelves or stacked on coffee tables in colorful piles add balance and texture to any room. And just like any other part of a home, books require maintenance: They need to be dusted, categorized, rearranged, and maintained. Our relationship with them is dynamic and ever changing.
But our connection to them goes beyond the material. In each house we visited, the libraries were the heart of the home, meaningful to the collectors’ lives. In this book, we tried to capture what they brought to the home—the life and spirit books added. Some subjects have working libraries they constantly reference; others fill their shelves with the potential pleasures of the unread. When we visited the homes, many people could find favorite books almost by osmosis, using systems known only to themselves.
(...) As we found repeatedly, surrounding yourself with books you love tells the story of your life, your interests, your passions, your values. Your past and your future. Books allow us to escape, and our personal libraries allow us to invent the story of ourselves—and the legacy that we will leave behind.
There’s a famous quote attributed to Cicero: “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” If I suspected this before, I know it now. I hope you’ll find as much pleasure in discovering these worlds as we did.
”
”
Nina Freudenberger (Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home with Books)
“
I see an actress smoking a cigarette in an old Fred McMurray movie. She’s clever and beautiful and manipulative. I feel envy. I suddenly wish I smoked cigarettes and was as clever and beautiful and manipulative as she. I want to be that way at the restaurants I visit, as I’m walking to my car, with certain friends who might understand.
The actress has played her part well; she’s made me want to emulate her base desires if only for a while. Does that make me impressionable, a fool, or someone who will recognize the deepest secrets of her heart?
I fight hard to stay young—to keep the lines from further etching my face and hands and breasts, presumably to trick the world into believing I am young.
I’m an actress playing a part. I’m afraid to tell the truth. I fear losing those younger or becoming those older. In the presence of youth, a sort of unseen age-osmosis occurs within me. The years drop away and I don’t want to leave. It’s utterly selfish but I don’t care. After all, I’m no older than they—I’ve just been so longer. I was nineteen only yesterday and they don’t retire nineteen-year-old actresses.
”
”
Chila Woychik (On Being a Rat and Other Observations)
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There is no fault that can’t be corrected [in natural wine] with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pigskins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood nuggets toasted for flavor), “tank planks” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (““Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality. . . . You’re dressing it up,” a sales rep explained.)
Wine too thin? Build fullness in the mouth with gum arabic (an ingredient also found in frosting and watercolor paint). Too frothy? Add a few drops of antifoaming agent (food-grade silicone oil). Cut acidity with potassium carbonate (a white salt) or calcium carbonate (chalk). Crank it up again with a bag of tartaric acid (aka cream of tartar). Increase alcohol by mixing the pressed grape must with sugary grape concentrate, or just add sugar. Decrease alcohol with ConeTech’s spinning cone, or Vinovation’s reverse-osmosis machine, or water. Fake an aged Bordeaux with Lesaffre’s yeast and yeast derivative. Boost “fresh butter” and “honey” aromas by ordering the CY3079 designer yeast from a catalog, or go for “cherry-cola” with the Rhône 2226. Or just ask the “Yeast Whisperer,” a man with thick sideburns at the Lallemand stand, for the best yeast to meet your “stylistic goals.” (For a Sauvignon Blanc with citrus aromas, use the Uvaferm SVG. For pear and melon, do Lalvin Ba11. For passion fruit, add Vitilevure Elixir.) Kill off microbes with Velcorin (just be careful, because it’s toxic). And preserve the whole thing with sulfur dioxide.
When it’s all over, if you still don’t like the wine, just add a few drops of Mega Purple—thick grape-juice concentrate that’s been called a “magical potion.” It can plump up a wine, make it sweeter on the finish, add richer color, cover up greenness, mask the horsey stink of Brett, and make fruit flavors pop. No one will admit to using it, but it ends up in an estimated 25 million bottles of red each year. “Virtually everyone is using it,” the president of a Monterey County winery confided to Wines and Vines magazine. “In just about every wine up to $20 a bottle anyway, but maybe not as much over that.
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Bianca Bosker (Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste)
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Module,” Za said, sprawling out over the seat and looking thoughtful, “I’d like a double standard measure of staol and chilled Shungusteriaung warp-wing liver wine bottoming a mouth of white Eflyre-Spin cruchen-spirit in a slush of medium cascalo, topped with roasted weirdberries and served in a number three strength Tipprawlic osmosis-bowl, or your best approximation thereof.” “Male or female warp-wing?” the module said. “In this place?” Za laughed. “Hell; both.” “It will take some minutes.” “That is perfectly all right.
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Iain M. Banks (The Player of Games (Culture, #2))
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Well, that’s quite a taxonomy we’ve assembled: the extremist, the enabler, the dinner party, and the clueless antisemite. Sometimes the categories blend into one another. We’ve also seen that sometimes the most harm can be done, not by the violent, in-your-face, self-professed Jew-hater, but by ordinary people who have acquired these views almost through cultural osmosis.
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Deborah E. Lipstadt (Antisemitism: Here and Now)
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Module,” Za said, sprawling out over the seat and looking thoughtful, “I’d like a double standard measure of staol and chilled Shungusteriaung warp-wing liver wine bottoming a mouth of white Eflyre-Spin cruchen-spirit in a slush of medium cascalo, topped with roasted weirdberries and served in a number three strength Tipprawlic osmosis-bowl, or your best approximation thereof.
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Iain M. Banks (The Player of Games (Culture, #2))
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To write well you have to punch above your weight, reading authors far more skilled than you will ever be.
Quality will out and I hope by osmosis some of it will seep through into my own prose.
If I ever stop reading for pleasure, escape or instruction, that will be the time to quit writing too.
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Leah Fleming
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But since the work of man's mind is not automatic, his values, like all his premises, are product either of his thinking or of his evasions: man chooses his values by a conscious process of thought–or accepts them by default, by subconscious associations, on faith, on someone's authority, by some form of social osmosis or blind imitation. Emotions are produced by man's premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.
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Ayn Rand (The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism)
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Fighting over who paid the check was a time-honored Asian tradition, and akin to two MMA fighters in a no-holds-barred death match. It could get loud, physical, and potentially violent. There was a whole list of stratagems one learned through osmosis to employ to ensure you got to the check first. Like pretending you had to use the restroom halfway through the meal, but instead you sneak over to the waitress and hand over your credit card.
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Lisa Lin (The Year of Cecily (From Sunset Park, With Love, #1))
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Use the positive side of this emotional osmosis to advantage. If, for example, you are miserly by nature, you will never go beyond a certain limit; only generous souls attain greatness. Associate with the generous, then, and they will infect you, opening up everything that is tight and restricted in you. If you are gloomy, gravitate to the cheerful. If you are prone to isolation, force yourself to befriend the gregarious. Never associate with those who share your defects—they will reinforce everything that holds you back.
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Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
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The pilgrim process of self-discovery proves more uncomfortable with each increasing gradation of ambition, as such distinctions become volatile and given to osmosis when one is creating in a vacuum, there being a porous, though sometimes impenetrable wall between what we learn from others and how we fail to communicate what they teach us.
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Zachary Tanner (Oskar Submerges)
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Quit the contraction, start the construction,
Set out as sailors in the course of unity.
Quit the paralysis, start the osmosis,
Disinfect the world with your fearless electricity.
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Abhijit Naskar (Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown)
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Like he could impregnate a woman through osmosis
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J.T. Geissinger (Cruel Paradise (Beautifully Cruel, #2))
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As fertile as the two of you are, I'm afraid to even let a man open the door for me. I might end up pregnant by osmosis or something.
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Cee Bowerman (Grunt (Texas Kings MC, #4))
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I type that. I type the whole chapter and the one after that and the one after that. Do I have a plan? Am I taking notes? I’m working mindlessly, like a chimpanzee. I want Hemingway’s stuff to sink into me by osmosis.
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Steven Pressfield (Govt Cheese: A Memoir)
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And Honey, that boy will be so impressed, his Mama and Daddy will be singing hallelujah by osmosis.
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Camilla Stevens (Tease)
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The battle within Colditz was now a two-sided conflict between the British and the Germans. There was no longer a danger that an escape plan secretly mounted by one nation might trip up another. Colditz became a British prison: the hierarchy of rank was more pronounced, as was the control exerted by the escape committee, and the opportunity for one-man ventures was reduced. The Dutch Hawaiian band, the French cuisine, and the Polish choir were gone. The informal cultural osmosis between nationalities was over, as was the fruitful Anglo-Dutch partnership and the daily babble of diverse languages in the inner courtyard. Padre Platt noticed that as an all-Anglo prison, the place seemed more cliquey, with “small friendship groups, complete in themselves and almost exclusive.
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Ben Macintyre (Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison)
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Gill loved you,” he argues. “Because of osmosis,” I say. “Because you were there. I love talking to people I already know, but when I meet someone new, half the time my mind goes blank, and the other half of the time, I make a joke that absolutely no one realizes is a joke, or I ask something way too personal.
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Emily Henry (Funny Story)
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That every civilization emerges out of interactions with others, but nevertheless creates its own miracle, was not yet recognized by either European or Indian historians. The notion of the osmosis of cultures shaping histories was still to come.
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Romila Thapar (The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300)
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The relational nature of training means that the best training will often occur by osmosis rather than formal instruction.
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Colin Marshall (The Trellis and the Vine)
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High standards can be contagious. But it doesn’t necessarily happen through osmosis. Sometimes you have to budge people into doing the right thing—either by example or in a more obvious way.
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Nannie Helen Burroughs (Twelve Things The Negro Must Do: With Special Commentary By Karen Hunter)
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God, how I hate the fact that I know this stuff. It only proves that it is possible to learn by osmosis.
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Natalie Blitt
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I learned much from Crispin, though a lot of the things he went on about passed over my head. But he was one of those teachers who, by a kind of osmosis, helped you discover the quantity of areas in your life in which you are still so ignorant as not to have even considered forming a wrong opinion.
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Miguel Syjuco (Ilustrado)
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Acceptance of climate change is assumed to be transferred, as though through osmosis, by reading a book or watching a documentary. When it is acquired, it is assumed, like the data that it is based on, to be solid and unshakeable. Because there is no recognition of climate change conviction, there is no language of climate change doubt, no one is offering to give us encouragement or to help us to “walk though that together.” There is no defense against backsliding and denial, and there is no mechanism for coping with grief.
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George Marshall (Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change)
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I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, but the only hope I have of doing well on these tests is that somehow the knowledge on the page will seep into my body through osmosis, since I'm definitely not reading it.
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Alyssa B. Sheinmel (The Lucky Kind)
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Io sono convinto, senza essere affiliato a nessuna setta spiritica, che la sola presenza fisica dei libri, in una biblioteca, agisca su chi li possiede. Si legge anche per osmosi” (Pontiggia, “Leggere”, in “L'isola volante”, p. 71)
“L'isola volante” è un piccolo scrigno da tenere ben custodito in biblioteca, perché destinato a tornare a essere più volte aperto, a distanza di anni. Ogni volta regalerà pensieri nuovi e fertili, spunti di lettura e d'approfondimento, occasioni per confrontarsi felicemente con l'artista. È uno zibaldone di prose brevi, saggi, recensioni, schede e confidenze private; non può essere sintetizzato diversamente che così, perché davvero non sembra avere né principio né fine: scorre, come un fiume. Ma è un fiume meraviglioso, dà vita a pesci che non ci si stanca di pescare, e sa emozionare semplicemente lasciandosi contemplare. Pontiggia è un maestro della scrittura, una penna elegante, chiara, pulita. Un vero gioiello.
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Giuseppe Pontiggia (L'isola Volante)
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The Christian who is not diligently involved in a serious study of Scripture is simply inadequate as a disciple of Christ. To be an adequate Christian and competent in the things of God we must do more than attend “sharing sessions” and “bless me parties.” We cannot learn competency by osmosis. Biblically illiterate Christians are not only inadequate but unequipped. In fact, they are inadequate because they are not equipped.
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R.C. Sproul
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Success cannot come like osmosis ; hardwork , commitment and faithfulness are the common ingredients .
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Osunsakin Adewale
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Contusiones, rasguños y quemaduras que se encuentran congestionadas y reblandecidas, retienen sangre feral y líquido intersticial desorganizado. La carne de nopal contiene una gel mucopolisacárida altamente hidrófila e hipertónica, que hace que parte de los fluidos exudados por la herida sean absorbidos por osmosis desde la piel al cactus. Mientras esto ocurre, la gel suaviza la piel, disminuye la tensión de la lesión, y aminora el dolor. Esta, es la misma forma en la que actúa el aloe vera.
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Ran Knishinsky (Usos médicos del nopal: Tratamientos para la diabetes, el colesterol y el sistema inmunológico (Spanish Edition))
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have the power to change it. To me, learning is adventurous and enjoyable and must be never-ending. Be intellectually curious always. Learn by osmosis. Learn by doing as well as by studying, by yourself and with other people. Learn how to learn. Ask intelligent questions. Your thoughts are essentially internal conversations or a series of questions and answers by your inner voice. How can you ask good questions and be able to come up with sound answers if you haven’t learned? Leaders are readers and listeners. Read good books, especially nonfiction ones to help nourish your mind, heart, and soul. Listening to audiobooks (which is a huge growing trend) is often just as effective as
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Jason L. Ma (Young Leaders 3.0: Stories, Insights, and Tips for Next-Generation Achievers)