Pals For Life Quotes

So,” Jesper said, adding sugar to his coffee. “Other than Inej making a new pal, what the hell happened out there?” “Let’s see,” said Nina. “Inej fell twenty stories.” “We put a serious hole in my father’s dining room ceiling,” Wylan offered. “Nina can raise the dead,” said Inej. Matthias’ cup clattered against his saucer. It looked ridiculous in his huge hand. “I can’t raise them. I mean, they get up, but it’s not like they come back to life. I don’t think. I’m not totally sure.

In real life, shouldn't a wedding be an awesome party you throw with your great pal, in the presence of a bunch of your other friends? A great day, for sure, but not the beginning and certainly not the end of your friendship with a person you can't wait to talk about gardening with the for the next forty years.

Whenever I'd been sad or upset before, the relevant people in my life would simply call my social worker and I'd be moved somewhere else. Raymond hadn't phoned anyone or asked an outside agency to intervene. He'd elected to look after me himself. I'd been pondering this, and concluded that there must be some people for whom difficult behavior wasn't a reason to end their relationship with you. If they liked you -- and, I remembered, Raymond and I had agreed that we were pals now -- then, it seemed, they were prepared to maintain contact, even if you were sad, or upset, or behaving in very challenging ways. This was something of a revelation.

You don't know what it's like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams. When my first pen pal, Tomoko, stopped writing me after three letters she was the one who laughed: You think someone's going to lose life writing to you? Of course I cried; I was eight and I had already planned that Tomoko and her family would adopt me. My mother of course saw clean into the marrow of those dreams, and laughed. I wouldn't write to you either, she said. She was that kind of mother: who makes you doubt yourself, who would wipe you out if you let her. But I'm not going to pretend either. For a long time I let her say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her.

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.

Gussie and I, as I say, had rather lost touch, but all the same I was exercised about the poor fish, as I am about all my pals, close or distant, who find themselves treading upon Life's banana skins.

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.” Enough. I was stunned by the simple eloquence of that word—stunned for two reasons: first, because I have been given so much in my own life and, second, because Joseph Heller couldn’t have been more accurate. For a critical element of our society, including many of the wealthiest and most powerful among us, there seems to be no limit today on what enough entails.

Adventure should be part of everyone's life. It is the whole difference between being fully alive and just existing.

In the Shakespearean comedies, the wedding is the end, and there isn't much indication of what happily ever after will look like day to day. In real life, shouldn't a wedding be an awesome party you throw with your great pal, in the presence of a bunch of your other friends? A great day, for sure, but not the beginning and certainly not the end of your friendship with a person you can't wait to talk about gardening with for the next forty years.

Change is the nature of life, Cassidy. Some of it's good, like new babies being born and children growing up and leaving home and all the new adventures that both of those things bring. And sometimes change is more difficult - like when your dad died. But it's nothing to fear. Good or bad, when we rise up to meet it, change can make us stronger. It's what moved us farther along down the road ahead.

It’s incredible how many different people one body can hold. We all walk around with a thousand strangers inside us, slumbering quietly until someone else wakes them up. Like the jolt of electricity that reanimated Frankenstein’s monster, all it takes for our sleeping giants to jump to life is a single spark.

I was exercised about the poor fish, as I am about all my pals, close or distant, who find themselves treading upon Life's banana skins.

It can't be done, old thing. Sorry, but it's out of the question. I couldn't go through all that again." "Not for me?" "Not for a dozen more like you." "I never thought," said Bingo sorrowfully, "to hear those words from Bertie Wooster!" "Well, you've heard them now," I said. "Paste them in your hat." "Bertie, we were at school together." "It wasn't my fault." "We've been pals for fifteen years." "I know. It's going to take me the rest of my life to live it down.

....get a move on, pal, life goes on happening while you're hiding....

He gave Dancer one last pat. 'You're luckier than you know, pal. Living without a set of balls makes life a lot less complicated.

So, tell me, Love,” Dad asked as I stared at my new friend with beady eyes. “What kind of person do you want to be in life? A butterfly?” He paused. “Or a caterpillar?

...friendship stands as a small affront to the total control of all things by mass entertainment and mass media and mass education and mass politics. For wherever such friendships persist, there persists the possibility of imaginative leaps that threaten the comfort of the banal. For you look at the friend and you remember the past, and treasure it. You love the friend, and suddenly you understand that this life of ours cannot fully be described by the motion of particulate matter in empty space. You see instantly that politics fades into unimportance, with all its noisy glamour and empty promises. You feel that others before you have known what it is to have the true friend, the one before whom you can, as Cicero put it, think out loud. You feel that, and it is like an earnest of eternity, of being grounded in a a love and beauty and goodness that is at the heart of all ages, and that transcends them all. Pals we may have, in the flatlands of contemporary life. Political allies, sure. Coworkers, aplenty. But not friends.

Difficulty cannot be handled by being scared of how high the peak is. It can be tackled by drawing a path to the peak, and when you toil in the process of scaling that height, you learn and grow.

He went to the Palo Alto public library to read about rocket engineering and started calling experts, asking to borrow their old engine manuals. At a gathering of PayPal alumni in Las Vegas, he sat in a cabana by the pool reading a tattered manual for a Russian rocket engine. When one of the alums, Mark Woolway, asked him what he planned to do next, Musk answered, “I’m going to colonize Mars. My mission in life is to make mankind a multiplanetary civilization.” Woolway’s reaction was unsurprising. “Dude, you’re bananas.

Hippos are the very definition of Disney cute. There is no way you could look at a big, fat, squishy, huggable hippo and not think, "Id she could talk like a human, she would sound just like Jada Pinkett Smith and be oh so sassy." You would totally name her Sassy-baskets, and she would be your tutu-wearing, ballet-dancing, strut-walking pal for life. Just you and Sassy-baskets against the world!

Still here?” he drawls when he notices me. “Still a presumptuous asshole?” I snap back. I expect him to double down on the nasty replies, to crush me with spite, so you can imagine my surprise when he clamps his mouth shut, the corners of his lips twitching into a small smile. His pale eyes rake over my face for a second too long, and I squirm under his undivided attention. Why, oh why, does he have to look like that? Low blow, Life, low blow.

Friends are one of life’s richest blessings.

Living for self is the nature I wanna live for you This bond will increase every day I have this belief for you

You gotta be prepared for something, pal. No matter how much you think you're doing the right thing, life can still take a wrong turn on you.

In the East they taught us that all suffering comes from desire, and that rough beast would stalk me through my life, but on that afternoon, and for a time after, I touched grace.

You are not just a chapter rather the book of my life

You know what I think? I think everyone should be able, just once, to make an inanimate object come to life and be his pal. Like an orange. Or a hammer.

If there’s one thing I like, it’s a quiet life. I’m not one of those fellows who get all restless and depressed if things aren’t happening to them all the time. You can’t make it too placid for me. Give me regular meals, a good show with decent music every now and then, and one or two pals to totter round with, and I ask no more.

Let me explain before another word is written: I have never once asked a cat, "So tell me what's up, Charlie?" and Charlie says, "Jeez Jackson, thanks for asking. A little annoyed by the fluorescent lights, and will you please check out this tiny piece-of-junk pan I have to crap in but, hey, I still got my legs, you know? Can't complain, pal.

Did I ever tell you that my mother and father started out as pen pals? They wrote these long, unabashedly affectionate love letters to one another, peppered with clichés and pie-in-the-sky proclamations of eternal devotion. Despite my father’s eventual dishonesty and unfaithfulness, I have to believe he meant every word he wrote at that time, and it was admittedly romantic, uncovering my parents’ yellowed letters, all soft, crumbling corners and black ink stains, one rainy afternoon. Because how can anyone scrawl lies, really, in their own handwriting, the evidence of your own betrayal right in front of you? I sat cross-legged on the floor, holding my breath as I unfolded each letter, fragile and expectant, like a little girl opening her presents on Christmas morning. I sat there and soaked up my parents’ love for each other, and then I wondered where all those feelings had escaped to. I wondered where love went when it was lost—did it travel far, across miles and oceans and forests and deserts, or did it linger somewhere nearby, just waiting for a chance to be summoned again? Wherever it was, I could only hope it had ended up settling somewhere quieter, safer.

I'm a serious sort of fella. But don't tell me your pal up in the sky exists, and mine does not. Then, my middle finger gets offended! For, my buddy up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, too insists without proof, that he is. Same as your god. Is Mr. NOT nuts? If he is, are you not?

The last words of Finny's usual nighttime monologue were, 'I hope you're having a pretty good time here. I know I kind of dragged you away at the point of a gun, but after all you can't come to the shore with just anybody and you can't come by yourself, and at this teen-age period in life the proper person is your best pal.' He hesitated and then added, 'which is what you are,' and there was silence on his dune. It was a courageous thing to say. Exposing a sincere emotion nakedly like that at the Devon School was the next thing to suicide. I should have told him then that he was my best friend also and rounded off what he said. I started to; I nearly did. But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by the level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.

I will not die for a long time." Joseph tugged at his gray beard. "My beard goes white, but there's a lot of life in me yet." "Don't be so sure, Abba," Joshua said. Joseph dropped the bowl he was working on and stared into his hands. "Run away and play, you two," he said, his voice little more than a whisper. Joshua stood and walked away. I wanted to throw my arms around the old man, for I had never seen a grown man afraid before and it frightened me too. "Can I help?" I said, pointing to the half-finished bowl that lay in Joseph's lap. "You go with Joshua. He needs a friend to teach him to be human. Then I can teach him to be a man.

When I could look beyond the external beauty.....I found immense ental love in the world

Life is not easy my friends But you need to actually decide What u want to leave as it is And what u want to hold tight

I think it's the curse of being creative , sadness is always your pal.

Those voices mean more than my life, more than mothering and fear, they are the strongest and most protective thing that there is; they are the voices of my pals.

Like I’ve been living in a dark cave my whole fucking life, and I just stumbled out into the sunlight.

She is both, hellfire and holy water. The flavor you taste depends on how you treat her.

Thank you,” said Lee’s voice. “And now we turn to regular contributor Royal, for an update on how the new Wizarding order is affecting the Muggle world.” “Thanks, River,” said an unmistakable voice, deep, measured, reassuring. “Kingsley!” burst out Ron. “We know!” said Hermione, hushing him. “Muggles remain ignorant of the source of their suffering as they continue to sustain heavy casualties,” said Kingsley. “However, we continue to hear truly inspirational stories of wizards and witches risking their own safety to protect Muggle friends and neighbors, often without the Muggles’ knowledge. I’d like to appeal to all our listeners to emulate their example, perhaps by casting a protective charm over any Muggle dwellings in your street. Many lives could be saved if such simple measures are taken.” “And what would you say, Royal, to those listeners who reply that in these dangerous times, it should be ‘Wizards first’?” asked Lee. “I’d say that it’s one short step from ‘Wizards first’ to ‘Purebloods first,’ and then to ‘Death Eaters,’” replied Kingsley. “We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.” “Excellently put, Royal, and you’ve got my vote for Minister of Magic if ever we get out of this mess,” said Lee. “And now, over to Romulus for our popular feature ‘Pals of Potter.’” “Thanks, River,” said another very familiar voice; Ron started to speak, but Hermione forestalled him in a whisper. “We know it’s Lupin!

I wish I would have known that there was no need to wait. I went to college. I went to law school. I worked in law and banking, though not for terribly long. But not until I started PayPal did I fully realize that you don’t have to wait to start something. So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months? Sometimes, you have to actually go through the complex, 10-year trajectory. But it’s at least worth asking whether that’s the story you’re telling yourself, or whether that’s the reality.

And you call yourself a pal of mine!" "Yes, I know; but there are limits." "Bertie," said Bingo reproachfully, "I saved your life once." "When?" "Didn't I? It must have been some other fellow then. Well, anyway, we were boys together and all that. You can't let me down." "Oh, all right," I said. "But, when you say you haven't nerve enough for any dashed thing in the world, you misjudge yourself.

Billy's native arrogance might well have been a gift of miffed genes, then come to splendid definition through the tests to which a street like Broadway puts a young man on the make: tests designed to refine a breed, enforce a code, exclude all simps and gumps, and deliver into the city's life a man worthy of functioning in this age of nocturnal supremacy. Men like Billy Phelan, forged in the brass of Broadway, send, in the time of their splendor, telegraphic statements of mission: I, you bums, am a winner. And that message, however devoid of Christ-like other-cheekery, dooms the faint-hearted Scottys of the night, who must sludge along, never knowing how it feels to spill over with the small change of sassiness, how it feels to leave the spillover on the floor, more where that came from, pal. Leave it for the sweeper.

Our fine Governor called me here to ask me to talk to you--said you didn't seem too happy here. He knows we're pals. He wanted me to just--I don't know, make sure you weren't going to cause any trouble or something.

PayPal cofounder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel—really the only significant Silicon Valley voice to support Trump—was warned by another billionaire and longtime Trump friend that Trump would, in an explosion of flattery, offer Thiel his undying friendship. Everybody says you’re great, you and I are going to have an amazing working relationship, anything you want, call me and we’ll get it done! Thiel was advised not to take Trump’s offer too seriously. But Thiel, who gave a speech supporting Trump at the Republican Convention in Cleveland, reported back that, even having been forewarned, he absolutely was certain of Trump’s sincerity when he said they’d be friends for life—only never to basically hear from him again or have his calls returned.

Chewie hugs him and purrs. “I’ll be back. We’re not done, you and I. We’ll see each other again. I’m gonna be a father and no way my kid won’t have you in his life.” One more bark and yip as Chewie pets his head. “Yeah, pal. I know.” He sighs. “I love you, too.

Only other backpackers will understand what it's like to leave home to follow your dreams. Those pals back home will nod along, listening to your travel tales, but for them it's just words and pretty pictures. For you, everything has changed and you look around feeling like an alien in the most foreign place you have visited: home. That's why it's called a travel bug - you literally get bitten with this desire to keep moving and keep exploring, as the life you had back home isn't enough any more and may not ever be enough again.

Dear Forrest, I am sorry there was no time for us to speech other before I left. The doctors made their decision quickly, and before I knew it, I was being taken away, but I asked if I could stop long enough to write you this note, because you have been so kind to me whileI was here. I sense, Forrest, that you are on the verge of something very significant in your life, some change, or event that will move you in a different direction, and you must seize the moment, and not let it pass. When I think back on it now, there is something in your eyes, some tiny flash of fire that comes now and then, mostly when you smile, and , on those infrequent occasions, I believe what I saw was almost a Genesis of our ability as humans to think, to create, to be. This war is to for you, old pal - nor me - and I am well out of it as I'm sure you will be in time. The crucial question is, what will you do? I don't think you're an idiot at all. Perhaps by the measure of tests or the judgement of fools, you might fall into some category or other, but deep down, Forrest, I have seen that glowing sparkle of curiosity burning deep in your mind. Take the tide, my friend, and as you are carried along, make it work for you, fight the shallows and the snags and never give up. You are a good fellow, forrest, and you have a big heart. Your pal, Dan

The lines between need and want are continually and intentionally blurred. Years ago, a pal of mine had bought a new video camera. It was the best of the best and he was filming every moment of his young son’s life. In a burst of enthusiasm he said: “You know, Jim, you just can’t raise a child properly without one of these!” Ah, no. Actually you can. In fact, billions of children have been raised over the course of human history without ever having been videotaped. And horrific as it may sound, many still are today. Including my own.

Now that I've declared my religion, namely, NUTTISM; I anoint myself, Mr. NUTS, as its MESSIAH. And you damn well bow to our god, Mr. NOT. He reveals that your pal up there too is naught! Dare not criticize the messiah - me! Or you'll be kicked in the nuts by my pal Mr. NOT.

I wish I would have known that there was no need to wait. I went to college. I went to law school. I worked in law and banking, though not for terribly long. But not until I started PayPal did I fully realize that you don’t have to wait to start something. So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months? Sometimes, you have to actually go through the complex, 10-year trajectory. But it’s at least worth asking whether that’s the story you’re telling yourself, or whether that’s the reality.

Each of us hides our own private Delaware lost in the gray jungle-tangle of our brains. No one else can know its depths and byways. No one else can know the height of its towers, the secrets of its tides and pools. There will always be lost lagoons to find there, and ruins almost hidden by the sand. There will always be monsters of great beauty and good men with ugly frowns. The forests are dark but lights bob among the branches. You are at home there, more at home than anyplace else, and yet you will never go there in your life. Their legends are yours. The pirates sale around the cape, a crew of skeletons in the rigging. Milkmaids run down mountain passes, dragging kites behind them. Wizards crack their backs after long days of chalk and incantation while above the crowded bazaars, over the golden temples, against the setting sun, around the ruddy minarets, the pterodactyls call out a long farewell.

Got a one-way ticket to the blues, woo, woo, . . . IF you want to sing it, sing it. These days people caught in the clutches of the one-way ticket never sing it like that. The soles of those who have only a one-way ticket are so thin that they scream when they step on a pebble. They have had their fill of walking. "The Round-Trip Ticket Blues" is what they want to sing. A one-way ticket is a disjointed life that misses the links between yesterday and today, today and tomorrow. Only the man who obstinately hangs on to a round-trip ticket can hum with real sorrow a song of a one-way ticket. For this very reason he grows desperate lest the return half of his ticket be lost or stolen; he buys stocks, signs up for life insurance, and talks out of different sides of his mouth to his union pals and his superiors. He hums "The One-Way Ticket Blues" with all his might and, choosing a channel at random, turns the television up to full volume in an attempt to drown out the peevish voices of those who have only a one-way ticket and who keep asking for help, voices that come up through the bathtub drain or the toilet hole. It would not be strange at all if "The Round-Trip Ticket Blues" were the song of mankind imprisoned.

Showing up is what turns the people you know into your people. It’s at the core of creating and maintaining strong, meaningful bonds with friends, family, coworkers, and internet pals. Showing up is the act of bearing witness to people’s joy, pain, and true selves; validating their experiences; easing their load; and communicating that they are not alone in this life.

You’re spending the night.” I blink in surprise. “Are you a mind reader or something?” “No. Why?” “Um. No reason.” “Bullshit.” “Okay, fine. I was just wondering if I should go home now.” “I just told you that you’re spending the night. You can leave in the morning and have the rest of your life to worry that this was a mistake, but for tonight, you’re staying right here.

This isn't a courtroom, pal," I said to Nelson, "this is the gutter. No fancy robes, no platitudes engraved in marble, no brass railing dividing the sides. This is the streets and the alleys. this is the Chicago we really live in. Here justice isn't dispensed with a wooden gavel, it's taken with your bare hands. It may be Tubby's world, a part of it, but it's also August Jansen's world, and my world, and yours. Darrow's a great man but this work comes after the fact, after the real battles of life are fought. Lawyers and judges pick up the pieces after the dust settles. Their job is to make sense of what's happened, not make it happen. That occurs in the gutter where blood and bone and horse manure and coal dust and sweat and fear blend and roil. In the end you either have hope or sewage. It can go either way, but it goes on.

People who think that queer life consists of sex without intimacy are usually seeing only a tiny part of the picture, and seeing it through homophobic stereotype. The most fleeting sexual encounter is, in its way intimate. And in the way many gay men and lesbians live, quite casual sexual relations can develop into powerful and enduring friendships. Friendships, in turn, can cross into sexual relations and back. Because gay social life is not as ritualized and institutionalized as straight life, each relation is an adventure in nearly un-charted territory—whether it is between two gay men, or two lesbians, or a gay man and a lesbian, or among three or more queers, or between gay men and the straight women whose commitment to queer culture brings them the punishment of the "fag hag" label. There are almost as many kinds of relationship as there are people in combination. Where there are -patterns, we learn them from other queers, not from our-parents or schools or the state. Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends' tricks and tricks' bar friends and gal pals and companions "in the life," queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. Most have no labels. Most receive no public recognition. Many of these relations are difficult because the rules have to be invented as we go along. Often desire and unease add to their intensity, and their unpredictability. They can be complex and bewildering, in a way that arouses fear among many gay people, and tremendous resistance and resentment from many straight people. Who among us would give them up? Try standing at a party of queer friends and charting all the histories, sexual and nonsexual, among the people in the room. (In some circles this is a common party sport already.) You will realize that only a fine and rapidly shifting line separates sexual culture from many other relations of durability and care. The impoverished vocabulary of straight culture tells us that people should be either husbands and wives or (nonsexual) friends. Marriage marks that line. It is not the way many queers live. If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations. Straight culture has much to learn from it, and in many ways has already begun to learn from it. Queers should be insisting on teaching these lessons. Instead, the marriage issue, as currently framed, seems to be a way of denying recognition to these relations, of streamlining queer relations into the much less troubling division of couples from friends.

An Oath for the Youth by Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam I will have a goal and work hard to achieve that goal. I realize that small aim is a crime. I will work with integrity and succeed with integrity. I will be a good member of my family, society, the nation and the world. I will always try to save or better someone’s life, without any discrimination of caste, creed, language, religion or state. Wherever I am, a thought will always come to my mind. That is, what can I give?

...And indeed it did take me a long time for me to find someone I wanted to marry. But I'm so glad I waited. What I know about Pete and me is that the flame will never go out. I do not look up from tossing the salad and think, Oh, God, how the hell did I ever get here? I do not look a the back of his head and think, I don't know you at all. I wake up with my pal, and go to sleep with my lover. He still thrills me, not only sexually but because of the way he regards the life that unfolds around him. I am interested in what he says about me and the children and our respective jobs, but I am also interested in what he says about the Middle East and the migratory patterns of monarchs and the amount of nutmeg that should be grated into the mashed potatoes and the impact that being a thwarted artist had on the life of Hitler. I believe he is a truly honest and awake and kind individual. If we live more than once, I want to find him again.

I wish I had asked myself when I was younger. My path was so tracked that in my 8th-grade yearbook, one of my friends predicted— accurately— that four years later I would enter Stanford as a sophomore. And after a conventionally successful undergraduate career, I enrolled at Stanford Law School, where I competed even harder for the standard badges of success. The highest prize in a law student’s world is unambiguous: out of tens of thousands of graduates each year, only a few dozen get a Supreme Court clerkship. After clerking on a federal appeals court for a year, I was invited to interview for clerkships with Justices Kennedy and Scalia. My meetings with the Justices went well. I was so close to winning this last competition. If only I got the clerkship, I thought, I would be set for life. But I didn’t. At the time, I was devastated. In 2004, after I had built and sold PayPal, I ran into an old friend from law school who had helped me prepare my failed clerkship applications. We hadn’t spoken in nearly a decade. His first question wasn’t “How are you doing?” or “Can you believe it’s been so long?” Instead, he grinned and asked: “So, Peter, aren’t you glad you didn’t get that clerkship?” With the benefit of hindsight, we both knew that winning that ultimate competition would have changed my life for the worse. Had I actually clerked on the Supreme Court, I probably would have spent my entire career taking depositions or drafting other people’s business deals instead of creating anything new. It’s hard to say how much would be different, but the opportunity costs were enormous. All Rhodes Scholars had a great future in their past. the best paths are new and untried. will this business still be around a decade from now? business is like chess. Grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca put it well: to succeed, “you must study the endgame before everything else. The few who knew what might be learned, Foolish enough to put their whole heart on show, And reveal their feelings to the crowd below, Mankind has always crucified and burned. Above all, don’t overestimate your own power as an individual. Founders are important not because they are the only ones whose work has value, but rather because a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company. That we need individual founders in all their peculiarity does not mean that we are called to worship Ayn Randian “prime movers” who claim to be independent of everybody around them. In this respect, Rand was a merely half-great writer: her villains were real, but her heroes were fake. There is no Galt’s Gulch. There is no secession from society. To believe yourself invested with divine self-sufficiency is not the mark of a strong individual, but of a person who has mistaken the crowd’s worship—or jeering—for the truth. The single greatest danger for a founder is to become so certain of his own myth that he loses his mind. But an equally insidious danger for every business is to lose all sense of myth and mistake disenchantment for wisdom.

Interestingly, a point that never emerged in the press but that Tim Donovan revealed to the police was that Annie had specifically "asked him to trust her" for that night's doss money. This "he declined to do." Had this incident become common knowledge, it's likely that Donovan would have faced an even worse public backlash for his role in Annie's demise. "You can find money for your beer, and you can't find money for your bed." the deputy keeper is said to have spoken in response to her request. Annie, not quite willing to admit defeat, or perhaps in a show of pride, responded with a sigh: "Keep my bed for me. I shan't be long." Ill and drunk, she went downstairs and "stood in the door for two or three minutes," considering her options. Like the impecunious lodger described by Goldsmith, she too would have been contemplating from whom among her "pals" it might have been "possible to borrow the halfpence necessary to complete {her} doss money." More likely, Annie was mentally preparing "to spend the night with only the sky for a canopy." She then set off down Brushfield Street, toward Christ Church, Spitalfields, where the homeless regularly bedded down. Her thoughts as she stepped out onto Dorest Street, as the light from Crossingham's dimmed at her back, can never be known. What route she wove through the black streets and to whom she spoke along the will never be confirmed. All that is certain is her final destination. Of the many tragedies that befell Annie Chapman in the final years of her life, perhaps one of the most poignant was that she needn't have been on the streets on that night, or on any other. Ill and feverish, she needn't have searched the squalid corners for a spot to sleep. Instead, she might have lain in a bed in her mother's house or in her sisters' care, on the other side of London. She might have been treated for tuberculosis; she might have been comforted by the embraces of her children or the loving assurances of her family. Annie needn't have suffered. At every turn there had been a hand reaching to pull her from the abyss, but the counter-tug of addiction was more forceful, and the grip of shame was just as strong. It was this that pulled her under, that had extinguished her hope and then her life many years earlier. What her murderer claimed on that night was simply all that remained of what drink had left behind.

I married him—despite all the very good reasons that no one should ever partner up for a third time—because early on, he reminded me of the best father figure of my life, my ninth-grade English teacher. When that man died, his friends (eighty-year-old poker buddies, pals from his teaching days, devoted former students of all ages and types) wept. He was old, fat, diabetic, and often brusque. Women desired him and my children loved him and most men liked his company a great deal. He was loyal, imperious, needy, charming, bighearted, and just about the most selfish, lovable, and foolishly fearless person I had ever known. And then I met Brian and found another.

Tommy, Kate and Jesse emerged from the cab, and were hit instantly by the smell of New Jersey. The scent was like something caught between the Fulton Fish Market on a hot summer day and mildewed newspaper. Their thick-bearded driver had followed Jesse’s explicit directions without fault, but he was still a little tentative behind the wheel. After four other cabbies on Broadway said, “I no go Jersey,” (and after Tommy subsequently responded with, “I don’t blame you pal”), they finally found a driver who reluctantly agreed to take them to the once-familiar warehouse. The three of them were so calm and stiff along the way; the only signs of life in the taxi seemed to be the empty coffee cups and candy wrappers sliding back and forth across the dashboard.

I’m about to head out the door to meet Hannah for coffee. Laura has texted asking if I want to take another improv course with her next month, and I’ve said yes. I’m reading the next book for our book club. Paul and his girlfriend are coming over for dinner next week. Sam and I are going to make Thanksgiving at ours an annual tradition. Claude and I are email pen pals now, and he always signs off, ‘I hope that you are well and that you do nice things,’ which I like very much. Lily and Vivian are trying to persuade me to perform comedy again. Probably I’ll just go along to their gigs and cheer them on. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I have a tiny little social life. A new way to experience the world when I want to. I really like my comfort zone, but I also know I’ll be OK if I leap into the unknown or the scary for a little while.

Put your glasses on mate ….. Come down from there, you’re gonna kill yourself …. Well, what does your Method Statement say? …. Right, let’s get you re-inducted. You need a reminder of site rules ….. Where are your outriggers, mate? ….. Put your glasses on ….. Put your glasses on …. Put your glasses on …. Oh, they steam up, do they? I’ve never heard that one before …. Where’s your mask? If you breathe this shit in you’re going to kill yourself. Silicosis is incurable ….. Right STOP! Do not reverse another inch without a banksman ….. Don’t put your glasses on just because you see me walk around the corner. They won’t protect MY eyes …. Hook yourself on, what’s the matter with you? Are all you scaffolders superhuman or something? ….. Put your glasses on ….. Oi! What stops me walking right in there? Where’s your barriers and signage? ….. Oi! I’m getting showered in fucking sparks here. And so is that can of petrol ….. Put your glasses on …. Where’s the flashback arrestor on this bottle of propane? ….. Hey, pal, stop welding until you’ve sheeted up ….. What are you doing climbing up there? Where’s your supervisor? What did he say about access in this morning’s Safe Start briefing? Nothing? Right, he can sit through another induction tomorrow ….. Where are the retaining pins to the joint clamps in this concrete pump line? SEAMUS! Fucking deal with this, will you? ….Put your glasses on …. Hey! Hey! Come here! Why have you got a nail instead of an ‘R’ clip to the quick-hitch system on your excavator bucket? NO! IT WON’T DO! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? If that bucket falls on someone they’re not going to get up again. And you trust a fucking nail to hold it in position! Take this machine out of service immediately until you’ve got the proper ‘R’ clip! ….. Put your glasses on …. Where’s the edge protection. Who removed the edge protection? Right, let me phone for a scaffolder ….. Put your glasses on ….. Oi! Get out from under there! Never, ever stand underneath a suspended load. Even if all the equipment’s been inspected, which it obviously has, you can never trust the crane driver. He can be taken ill suddenly ….. Come here, mate, let’s have a little chat. Why are you working on Fall Arrest? You’re supposed to be working on Fall Restraint (FR ‘restrains’ you going near the perimeter edge of the building, FA ‘arrests’ your fall if, well, if you fall. If you’re hanging off a building we’ve got less than ten minutes to reach you before you start going into toxic shock brought on by suspension trauma. In other words, we need a Rescue Plan, which is why we’d prefer people work on Fall Restraint)

Muggles remain ignorant of the source of their suffering as they continue to sustain heavy casualties,” said Kingsley. “However, we continue to hear truly inspirational stories of wizards and witches risking their own safety to protect Muggle friends and neighbors, often without the Muggles’ knowledge. I’d like to appeal to all our listeners to emulate their example, perhaps by casting a protective charm over any Muggle dwellings in your street. Many lives could be saved if such simple measures are taken.” “And what would you say, Royal, to those listeners who reply that in these dangerous times, it should be ‘Wizards first’?” asked Lee. “I’d say that it’s one short step from ‘Wizards first’ to ‘Purebloods first,’ and then to ‘Death Eaters,’” replied Kingsley. “We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.” “Excellently put, Royal, and you’ve got my vote for Minister of Magic if ever we get out of this mess,” said Lee. “And now, over to Romulus for our popular feature ‘Pals of Potter.

But this is something you need to know: when you find a place that suits you, where you decide to go back to often, to meet your pals there, if you want to feel at home and not discover some snag at the wrong moment, sit yourself in a corner, write letters, read, try and eat there, and watch what goes on for a whole day. At least twice during the day, and three times if the place is open at night, there’s that moment of “temporal void”. It happens every day, at the very same hour, at the very same minute, but it varies from place to place. People are talking, letting their hair down, having a drink together, and all of a sudden, the moment of silence: everyone turns stock still, with their glasses in the air, their eyes fixed. Immediately afterwards the hubbub resumes. But that moment when nothing’s happening - it can last five, ten minutes. And during that time, outside and everywhere else, for other people life goes on, faster, much faster, like an avalanche. If you’re prepared for it, and take advantage of that moment not to be fazed and to have your say, you’re certain to be heard, and if necessary even obeyed. Try it. You’ll see.

Thanks again, sir.” Jules shook his hand again. “You’re welcome again,” the captain said, his smile warm. “I’ll be back aboard the ship myself at around nineteen hundred. If it’s okay with you, I’ll, uh, stop in, see how you’re doing.” Son of a bitch. Was Jules getting hit on? Max looked at Webster again. He looked like a Marine. Muscles, meticulous uniform, well-groomed hair. That didn’t make him gay. And he’d smiled warmly at Max, too. The man was friendly, personable. And yet . . . Jules was flustered. “Thanks,” he said. “That would be . . . That’d be nice. Would you excuse me, though, for a sec? I’ve got to speak to Max, before I, uh . . . But I’ll head over to the ship right away.” Webster shook Max’s hand. “It was an honor meeting you, sir.” He smiled again at Jules. Okay, he hadn’t smiled at Max like that. Max waited until the captain and the medic both were out of earshot. “Is he—” “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Jules said. “But, oh my God.” “He seems nice,” Max said. “Yes,” Jules said. “Yes, he does.” “So. The White House?” “Yeah. About that . . .” Jules took a deep breath. “I need to let you know that you might be getting a call from President Bryant.” “Might be,” Max repeated. “Yes,” Jules said. “In a very definite way.” He spoke quickly, trying to run his words together: “I had a very interesting conversation with him in which I kind of let slip that you’d resigned again and he was unhappy about that so I told him I might be able to persuade you to come back to work if he’d order three choppers filled with Marines to Meda Island as soon as possible.” “You called the President of the United States,” Max said. “During a time of international crisis, and basically blackmailed him into sending Marines.” Jules thought about that. “Yeah. Yup. Although it was a pretty weird phone call, because I was talking via radio to some grunt in the CIA office. I had him put the call to the President for me, and we did this kind of relay thing.” “You called the President,” Max repeated. “And you got through . . .?” “Yeah, see, I had your cell phone. I’d accidently switched them, and . . . The President’s direct line was in your address book, so . . .” Max nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That’s it?” Jules said. “Just, okay, you’ll come back? Can I call Alan to tell him? We’re on a first-name basis now, me and the Pres.” “No,” Max said. “There’s more. When you call your pal Alan, tell him I’m interested, but I’m looking to make a deal for a former Special Forces NCO.” “Grady Morant,” Jules said. “He’s got info on Heru Nusantra that the president will find interesting. In return, we want a full pardon and a new identity.” Jules nodded. “I think I could set that up.” He started for the helicopter, but then turned back. “What’s Webster’s first name? Do you know?” “Ben,” Max told him. “Have a nice vacation.” “Recovering from a gunshot wound is not a vacation. You need to write that, like, on your hand or something. Jeez.” Max laughed. “Hey, Jules?” He turned back again. “Yes, sir?” “Thanks for being such a good friend.” Jules’s smile was beautiful. “You’re welcome, Max.” But that smile faded far too quickly. “Uh-oh, heads up—crying girlfriend on your six.” Ah, God, no . . . Max turned to see Gina, running toward him. Please God, let those be tears of joy. “What’s the verdict?” he asked her. Gina said the word he’d been praying for. “Benign.” Max took her in his arms, this woman who was the love of his life, and kissed her. Right in front of the Marines.

Vivien (spelled the same way as Vivien Leigh, lucky thing) was quite possibly the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen. She had a heart-shaped face, deep brown hair that gleamed in its Victory roll, and full curled lips painted scarlet. Her eyes were wide set and framed by dramatic arched brows just like Rita Hayworth's or Gene Tierney's, but it was more than that which made her beautiful. It wasn't the fine skirts and blouses she wore, it was the way she wore them, easily, casually; it was the strings of pearls strung airily around her neck, the brown Bentley she used to drive before it was handed over like a pair of boots to the Ambulance Service. It was the tragic history Dolly had learned in dribs and drabs- orphaned as a child, raised by an uncle, married to a handsome, wealthy author named Henry Jenkins, who held an important position with the Ministry of Information. "Dorothy? Come and put my sheets to rights and fetch my sleep mask." Ordinarily, Dolly might've been a bit envious to have a woman of that description living at such close quarters, but with Vivien it was different. All her life, Dolly had longed for a friend like her. Someone who really understood her (not like dull old Caitlin or silly frivolous Kitty), someone with whom she could stroll arm in arm down Bond Street, elegant and buoyant, as people turned to look at them, gossiping behind their hands about the dark leggy beauties, their careless charm. And now, finally, she'd found Vivien. From the very first time they'd passed each other walking up the Grove, when their eyes had met and they'd exchanged that smile- secretive, knowing, complicit- it had been clear to both of them that they were two of a kind and destined to be the very best of friends.

Like,” he repeats with distaste. “How about I tell you what I don’t like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires. I rarely stock debuts, chick lit, poetry, or translations. I would prefer not to stock series, but the demands of my pocketbook require me to. For your part, you needn’t tell me about the ‘next big series’ until it is ensconced on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Above all, Ms. Loman, I find slim literary memoirs about little old men whose little old wives have died from cancer to be absolutely intolerable. No matter how well written the sales rep claims they are. No matter how many copies you promise I’ll sell on Mother’s Day.” Amelia blushes, though she is angry more than embarrassed. She agrees with some of what A.J. has said, but his manner is unnecessarily insulting. Knightley Press doesn’t even sell half of that stuff anyway. She studies him. He is older than Amelia but not by much, not by more than ten years. He is too young to like so little. “What do you like?” she asks. “Everything else,” he says. “I will also admit to an occasional weakness for short-story collections. Customers never want to buy them though.” There is only one short-story collection on Amelia’s list, a debut. Amelia hasn’t read the whole thing, and time dictates that she probably won’t, but she liked the first story. An American sixth-grade class and an Indian sixth-grade class participate in an international pen pal program. The narrator is an Indian kid in the American class who keeps feeding comical misinformation about Indian culture to the Americans. She clears her throat, which is still terribly dry. “The Year Bombay Became Mumbai. I think it will have special int—” “No,” he says. “I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet.” “Just no.” “But why?” “If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit that you’re only telling me about it because I’m partially Indian and you think this will be my special interest. Am I right?” Amelia imagines smashing the ancient computer over his head. “I’m telling you about this because you said you liked short stories! And it’s the only one on my list. And for the record”—here, she lies—“it’s completely wonderful from start to finish. Even if it is a debut. “And do you know what else? I love debuts. I love discovering something new. It’s part of the whole reason I do this job.” Amelia rises. Her head is pounding. Maybe she does drink too much? Her head is pounding and her heart is, too. “Do you want my opinion?” “Not particularly,” he says. “What are you, twenty-five?” “Mr. Fikry, this is a lovely store, but if you continue in this this this”—as a child, she stuttered and it occasionally returns when she is upset; she clears her throat—“this backward way of thinking, there won’t be an Island Books before too long.

Robert Askins Brings ‘Hand to God’ to Broadway Chad Batka for The New York Times Robert Askins at the Booth Theater, where his play “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday. By MICHAEL PAULSON The conceit is zany: In a church basement, a group of adolescents gathers (mostly at the insistence of their parents) to make puppets that will spread the Christian message, but one of the puppets turns out to be more demonic than divine. The result — a dark comedy with the can-puppets-really-do-that raunchiness of “Avenue Q” and can-people-really-say-that outrageousness of “The Book of Mormon” — is “Hand to God,” a new play that is among the more improbable entrants in the packed competition for Broadway audiences over the next few weeks. Given the irreverence of some of the material — at one point stuffed animals are mutilated in ways that replicate the torments of Catholic martyrs — it is perhaps not a surprise to discover that the play’s author, Robert Askins, was nicknamed “Dirty Rob” as an undergraduate at Baylor, a Baptist-affiliated university where the sexual explicitness and violence of his early scripts raised eyebrows. But Mr. Askins had also been a lone male soloist in the children’s choir at St. John Lutheran of Cypress, Tex. — a child who discovered early that singing was a way to make the stern church ladies smile. His earliest performances were in a deeply religious world, and his writings since then have been a complex reaction to that upbringing. “It’s kind of frustrating in life to be like, ‘I’m a playwright,’ and watch people’s face fall, because they associate plays with phenomenally dull, didactic, poetic grad-schoolery, where everything takes too long and tediously explores the beauty in ourselves,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s not church, even though it feels like church a lot when we go these days.” The journey to Broadway, where “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday at the Booth Theater, still seems unlikely to Mr. Askins, 34, who works as a bartender in Brooklyn and says he can’t afford to see Broadway shows, despite his newfound prominence. He seems simultaneously enthralled by and contemptuous of contemporary theater, the world in which he has chosen to make his life; during a walk from the Cobble Hill coffee shop where he sometimes writes to the Park Slope restaurant where he tends bar, he quoted Nietzsche and Derrida, described himself as “deeply weird,” and swore like, well, a satanic sock-puppet. “If there were no laughs in the show, I’d think there was something wrong with him,” said the actor Steven Boyer, who won raves in earlier “Hand to God” productions as Jason, a grief-stricken adolescent with a meek demeanor and an angry-puppet pal. “But anybody who is able to write about such serious stuff and be as hilarious as it is, I’m not worried about their mental health.” Mr. Askins’s interest in the performing arts began when he was a boy attending rural Texas churches affiliated with the conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod denomination; he recalls the worshipers as “deeply conservative, old farm folks, stone-faced, pride and suffering, and the only time anybody ever really livened up was when the children’s choir would perform.” “My grandmother had a cross-stitch that said, ‘God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing,’ and so I got into that,” he said. “For somebody who enjoys performance, that was the way in.” The church also had a puppet ministry — an effort to teach children about the Bible by use of puppets — and when Mr. Askins’s mother, a nurse, began running the program, he enlisted to help. He would perform shows for other children at preschools and vacation Bible camps. “The shows are wacky, but it was fun,” he said. “They’re badly written attempts to bring children to Jesus.” Not all of his formative encounters with puppets were positive. Particularly scarring: D

Girls About Town, another Paramount film, again directed by George Cukor, gave Kay the opportunity to work with her good friend, the irrepressible Lilyan Tashman, who'd previously appeared with Kay in The Marriage Playground. Kay and Lil got to run around in lingerie and play characters who could only be high-priced call girls. "Kay Francis shows off her figure in undies while explaining she's through with the gold-digger racket and intends going straight because she's found love with a rich rube. The undie pose and that bit about going straight all in one has its own satirical kick."43 Andy Lawler, who would become one of Kay's best pals, also appeared in the film as Kay's no-good husband.

At your happiest and best, you’re a free spirit, a cheerful wanderer, an honest and intelligent companion, and a philosopher who likes to ponder the big questions — preferably with a few pals and a plentiful supply of snacks. You see life as an ongoing quest for experience and wisdom, not as a search for security.

She thought about all the baking therapy she and Char had done together during that time. Usually in the wee, wee hours. Those sessions never had anything to do with their respective jobs. And everything to do with salvation. Their worlds might be uncontrolled chaos, but baking always made sense. Flour, butter, and sugar were as integral a part of her as breathing. Lani had long since lost count of the number of nights she and Charlotte had crammed themselves into her tiny kitchen, or Charlotte's even tinier one, whipping up this creation or that, all the while hashing and rehashing whatever the problems du jour happened to be. It was the one thing she truly missed about being in New York. No one on Sugarberry understood how baking helped take the edge off. Some folks liked a dry martini. Lani and Char, on the other hand, had routinely talked themselves down from the emotional ledge with rich vanilla queen cake and some black velvet frosting. It might take a little longer to assemble than the perfect adult beverage... but it was the very solace found in the dependable process of measuring and leavening that had made it their own personal martini. Not to mention the payoff was way, way better. Those nights hadn't been about culinary experience, either. The more basic, the more elemental the recipe, the better. Maybe Lani should have seen it all along. Her destiny wasn't to be found in New York, or even Paris, or Prague, making the richest, most intricate cakes, or the most delicate French pastries. No, culinary fulfillment- for her, the same as life fulfillment- was going to be experienced on a tiny spit of land off the coast of Georgia, where she could happily populate the world with gloriously unpretentious, rustic, and rudimentary little cupcakes.

My god, Mr. NOT, would like to kiss your inherited fancy, the only God. Could you forward the address of your pal up there? If you do not, then, my personal fancy says it is my fundamental religious duty to religiously kick yours, and his ass!

Really, you're not to blame. It is such a shame that your imaginary pal, your god is but a hateful, intolerant, misogynistic sod, akin the vilest of humans. So, per se it is not your fault. You're just a simple fellow following a distasteful simpleton. You're just being Him.

10/10/10 provides distance by forcing us to consider future emotions as much as present ones. • A 10/10/10 analysis tipped Annie toward saying “I love you” first to Karl. 4. Our decisions are often altered by two subtle short-term emotions: (1) mere exposure: we like what’s familiar to us; and (2) loss aversion: losses are more painful than gains are pleasant.     •  How many of our organizational truths are ideas that we like merely because they’ve been repeated a lot?     •  Students given a mug won’t sell it for less than $7.12, even though five minutes earlier they wouldn’t have paid more than $2.87! 5. Loss aversion + mere exposure = status-quo bias. • PayPal: Ditching the PalmPilot product was a no-brainer—but it didn’t feel that way. 6. We can attain distance by looking at our situation from an observer’s perspective. • Andy Grove asked, “What would our successors do?”     •  Adding distance highlights what is most important; it allows us to see the forest, not the trees. 7. Perhaps the most powerful question for resolving personal decisions is “What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?

I will bow to your pal up in the sky if you too to my god, Mr. Not, say hi.

This is what happened when I cofounded LinkedIn. The key business model innovations for LinkedIn, including the two-way nature of the relationships and filling professionals’ need for a business-oriented online identity, didn’t just happen organically. They were the result of much thought and reflection, and I drew on the experiences I had when founding SocialNet, one of the first online social networks, nearly a decade before the creation of LinkedIn. But life isn’t always so neat. Many companies, even famous and successful ones, have to develop their business model innovation after they have already commenced operations. PayPal didn’t have a business model when it began operations (I was a key member of the PayPal executive team). We were growing exponentially, at 5 percent per day, and we were losing money on every single transaction we processed. The funny thing is that some of our critics called us insane for paying customers bonuses to refer their friends. Those referral bonuses were actually brilliant, because their cost was so much lower than the standard cost of acquiring new financial services customers via advertising. (We’ll discuss the power and importance of this kind of viral marketing later on.) The insanity, in fact, was that we were allowing our users to accept credit card payments, sticking PayPal with the cost of paying 3 percent of each transaction to the credit card processors, while charging our users nothing. I remember once telling my old college friend and PayPal cofounder/ CEO Peter Thiel, “Peter, if you and I were standing on the roof of our office and throwing stacks of hundred-dollar bills off the edge as fast as our arms could go, we still wouldn’t be losing money as quickly as we are right now.” We ended up solving the problem by charging businesses to accept payments, much as the credit card processors did, but funding those payments using automated clearinghouse (ACH) bank transactions, which cost a fraction of the charges associated with the credit card networks. But if we had waited until we had solved this problem before blitzscaling, I suspect we wouldn’t have become the market leader.

I concede your god is the only god, except for one - my pal up there nowhere, Mr. NOT.

My pal up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, is really pissed with you. How dare you worship false gods, and not the one and only Mr. NOT?

A real selfish love like yours old pal Is something I shall never know again And I must always be a better man Because you loved me greatly, Rin Tin Tin.

Story of my life I have a story, story of my life, Once a small boy, whose problems was rife, Of those long days, of those short nights, Fighting with my pals, studying in candle lights, Of that vunerable kid, whose life wasn't stable, who always believed in magic, and life is a fable, Of those small boy, who refused to weep, Even when it hurts, the pain was deep, Of those little eyes, of those big ears, Who hide behind his smile, his desires and his fears, Of those forgotten games, and lost toys, That once was his treasure, reason for rejoice, Of that empty corridoors and broken walls, That once was filled with stories and footfalls, Of that small boy, who now understands, Whatever happened was good, and with tides of time he withstands.

Know! I am the new age prophet of my pal up there, Mr. NOT. If you do not draw my picture my Mr. NOT shall butt-kick you nuts, as too your fancied bot up there nowhere, that silly naught!

My pal up there, Mr. NOT, has anointed me as the latest messiah. Yeah, just like that! So, don't you dare utter a word against your newest boss, or I'm gonna whup your fat ass.

But not until I started PayPal did I fully realize that you don’t have to wait to start something. So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?

Going from PayPal, I thought: ‘Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?' Not from the perspective, ‘What's the best way to make money?

One very simple way to compare the workloads of farmers, hunter-gatherers, and modern postindustrial people is to measure physical activity levels (PALs). A PAL score measures the number of calories spent per day (total energy expenditure) divided by the minimum number of calories necessary for the body to function (the basal metabolic rate, BMR). In practical terms, a PAL is the ratio of how much energy one spends relative to how much one would need to sleep all day at a comfortable temperature of about 25 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit). Your PAL is probably about 1.6 if you are a sedentary office worker, but it could be as a low as 1.2 if you spent the day in a hospital on bed rest, and it could be 2.5 or higher if you were training for a marathon or the Tour de France. Various studies have found that PAL scores for subsistence farmers from Africa, Asia, and South America average 2.1 for males and 1.9 for females (range: 1.6 to 2.4), which is just slightly higher than PAL scores for most hunter-gatherers, which average 1.9 for males and 1.8 for females (range: 1.6 to 2.2).38 These averages don’t reflect the considerable variation—daily, seasonal, and annual—within and between groups, but they underscore that most subsistence farmers work as hard if not a little harder than hunter-gatherers and that both ways of life require what people today would consider a moderate workload.

You’re right. I don’t have a right to ask.” But I sat there on the bar stool, staring at him, willing him to give me what I needed. Risk your life for me old buddy ol’ pal, I’d do the same for you. Riiight. “If you could swear you wouldn’t use the info to kill him, I could tell you,” Luther said. “It’d be a lie.” “You got a warrant to kill him?” he asked. “Not active, but I could get one.” “Would you wait for it?” “It’s illegal to kill a vampire without a court order of execution,” I said. He stared at me. “That ain’t the question. Would you jump the gun to make sure of the kill?” “Might.” He shook his head. “You gonna be up on charges one of these days, girl. Murder is a serious rap.” I shrugged. “Beats getting your throat torn out.” He

I will always protect and enhance the dignity of every human life without any bias. I will always remember the importance of time. My motto will be ‘Let not my winged days be spent in vain’. I will always work for a clean planet and clean energy. As a youth of my nation, I will work with courage to achieve success in all my tasks and enjoy the success of others. I am as young as my faith and as old as my doubts. Hence, I will light the lamp of faith in my heart. My national flag flies in my heart and I will bring glory to my nation.

To laugh often and love much; To win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; To earn the approval of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends ; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To give off one's self without the slightest thought of return; To have accomplished a task, whether by a healthy child, a rescued soul, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To have played and laughed with Enthusiasm and sung with exaltation; To know that even one life has breathed easierbecause you have lived; This is to have succeeded.

I don’t know if now, having lived and died the life of a man, I can write about little-boy love, but remembering it now, it seems the cleanest pain I’ve known. Love without desire, or conditions, or limits—a pure and radiant glow in the heart that could make me giddy and sad and glorious all at once. Where does it go? Why, in all their experiments, did the Magi never try to capture that purity in a bottle? Perhaps they couldn’t. Perhaps it is lost to us when we become sexual creatures, and no magic can bring it back.

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.” Enough. I was stunned by the simple eloquence of that word—stunned for two reasons: first, because I have been given so much in my own life and, second, because Joseph Heller couldn’t have been more accurate.

It was friendly. That was a friend thing." He seemed anxious for Gansey to believe that his motives were pure, so Gansey said quickly, "I know that. Just--I don't meet many people who make friends like I do. So--fast." Henry flipped crazy devil horns at him. "Jeong, bro." "What's that mean?" "Who knows," Henry said. "It means being Henry. It means being Richardman. Jeong. You never say the word, but you live it anyway. I will be honest, I did not expect to find it in a guy such as yourself. It's like we've met each other before. No, not really. We are friends are once, we would instantly do what friends would do for each other. Not just pals. Friends. Blood brothers. You just feel it. We instead of you and me. That's jeong." Gansey was aware on a certain level that the description was melodramatic, heightened, illogical. But on a deeper level, it felt, true, familiar, and like it explained much of Gansey's life. It was how he felt about Ronan and Adam and Noah and Blue. With each of them, it had felt instantly right: relieving. Finally, he'd thought, he'd found them. We instead of you and me.

What's the first commandment - a fundamentalist preacher once yelled at me with utter condescension! I replied quite instinctively - love thy neighbor. He laughed in ridicule and said - if you had actually studied the bible, you'd know, the first commandment is, love thy God - love thy neighbor is the second. I smiled and responded - and if you had paid any attention to my pal JC, you'd know - love comes first, nothing before that.

Life is like a sandwich, either way you flip it, the bread comes first

Dick’s own Jung-inflected mythologizing framed “2-3-74” as a “metanoia,” a transcendence that results in a greater integration of the personality and thus healing. Biographer Arnold argues persuasively that it was nothing of the sort. His “intoxicating taste of radical wholeness and connectedness to the world” gradually slipped from his grasp, leaving him with the same sufferings and problems as well as a brand-new emptiness, a brand-new abandonment to add to his list. Over the following eight years until his death, Dick wrote thousands of pages of analysis to try and understand what had happened to him, and it does not lessen the value or genius of this text, the Exegesis, to say that it was the product of a nervous breakdown. “The Exegesis is the embodiment of Dick’s psychospiritual nostalgia,” Arnold writes.28 It may be that many of the world’s greatest spiritual texts have been produced in such a state of crisis. Fortunately for later students of precognition, this period in Dick’s life also produced some striking precognitive experiences that the writer recorded in fascinating and compelling detail thanks to a new pen pal—and muse—that entered his life just a month after his “2-3-74” visions and dreams began.

FAO scientists decided to measure people’s energy expenditures using the simplest metric possible, the physical activity level, or PAL.20 Your PAL is calculated as the ratio of how much energy you spend in a twenty-four-hour period divided by the amount of energy you would use to sustain your body if you never left your bed. This ratio has the advantage of being unbiased by differences in body size. Theoretically, a big person who is very physically active will have the same PAL as a small person who does the same activities. Ever since the PAL metric was conceived, scientists have measured the PALs of thousands of people from every walk of life and every corner of the globe. If you are a sedentary office worker who gets no exercise apart from generally shuffling about, your PAL is probably between 1.4 and 1.6. If you are moderately active and exercise an hour a day or have a physically demanding job like being a construction worker, your PAL is likely between 1.7 and 2.0. If your PAL is above 2.0, you are vigorously active for several hours a day. Although there is much variation, PALs of hunter-gatherers average 1.9 for men and 1.8 for women, slightly below PAL scores for subsistence farmers, which average 2.1 for men and 1.9 for women.21 To put these values into context, hunter-gatherer PALs are about the same as those of factory workers and farmers in the developed world (1.8), and about 15 percent higher than PALs of people with desk jobs in developed countries (1.6). In other words, typical hunter-gatherers are about as physically active as Americans or Europeans who include about an hour of exercise in their daily routine. In case you are wondering, most mammals in the wild have PALs of 3.3 or more, nearly twice as high as hunter-gatherers.22 Thus, comparatively speaking, humans who must hunt and gather all the food they eat and make everything they own by hand are substantially less active than average free-ranging mammals.

CAMPBELL CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE FROM that of a holding room where you wait to meet Christ later to a living room in which to commune with Christ’s consciousness here and now. It’s not just the personal-relationship “Buddy Jesus” I was taught in Sunday school, the Divine Pal we keep in our pockets, sticking His head out of our handbags like a purse dog, ready to offer help finding parking or protection from the flu that’s been going around. It’s an invitation you extend for His essence to pass through you. Active and empowering, not just “please protect me,” but transform me. Merge with me. Help me kill this overactive, critical, limiting brain of mine. Help me escape the dungeons of cultural expectation, familial expectation, all the I shoulds and I shouldn’ts, I cans and I can’ts. Help me take the small person inside me and kick his ass, leave him for dead, and resurrect to my full, connected, light-filled potential. The story is you being reborn, you getting saved from your basic, boring, limited, mundane, same-story-at-every-party, same-vacation-every-year, same-restaurant-every-birthday, same-river-of-negative-thoughts self-loathing and cruel humanity and awakening to who you really are. Go and do likewise.

The Lottery by Stewart Stafford It was New York, 1984, The AIDS tsunami roared in, Friends, old overnight, no more, Breathless, I went for a check-up. A freezing winter's dawn, A solitary figure before me, What we called a drag queen, White heels trembled in the cold. "Hi, are you here to get tested?" Gum chewed, brown eyes stared. This was not my type of person, I turned heel and walked away. At month's end, a crippling flu, The grey testing centre called, Two hundred people ahead of me; A waking nightmare all too real. I gave up and turned to leave, But a familiar voice called out: "Hey, you there, come back!" I stopped and turned around. The drag queen stood there in furs, But sicker, I didn't recognise them, "Stand with me in the line, honey." "Nah, I'm fine, I'll come back again." "Support an old broad before she faints?" A voice no longer frail but pin-sharp. I got in line to impatient murmurs: "If anyone has a problem, see me!" Sylvester on boombox, graveyard choir. My pal's stage name was Carol DaRaunch, (After the Ted Bundy female survivor) Their real name was Ernesto Rodriguez. After seeing the doctor, Carol hugged me, Writing down their number on some paper, With their alias not their real name on it: "Is this the number of where you work?" "THAT is my home number to call me on. THAT'S my autograph, for when I'm famous!" "I was wrong about you, Carol," I said. "Baby, it takes time to get to know me!" A hug, shimmy, the threadbare blonde left. A silent chorus of shuffling dead men walking, Spartan results, a young man's death sentence. Real words faded rehearsal, my eyes watered. Two weeks on, I cautiously phoned up Carol. The receiver was picked up, dragging sounds, Like furniture being moved: "Is Carol there?" "That person is dead." They hung up on me. All my life's harsh judgements, dumped on Carol, Who was I to win life's lottery over a guardian angel? I still keep that old phone number forty years on, Crumpled, faded, portable guilt lives on in my wallet. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.