“
That’s right. And for the record…” I tapped my phone screen. “You need followers with better taste if they’re choosing a unicorn over me. I’m wearing Brioni, for fuck’s sake.
”
”
Ana Huang (Twisted Lies (Twisted, #4))
“
This phone," he says finally. "I want this phone."
She laughs. "No. S'mine."
Janie, I don't think you understand. I want it."
Sorry."
It's got photo caller ID; Internet; video, camera, and digital recorder?! Holy Hannah... It's making me warm all over."
Oh yeah?" Janie says in a sexy voice. "Wanna play with my phone, baby?"
Hell yes, I do.
”
”
Lisa McMann (Fade (Wake, #2))
“
She's like a sister. People say we're such opposites, but that's what makes us such good friends. She's incredibly blunt. I love that about her. If some guy has said or done something to me she doesn't like, she'll grab my cell phone and say, 'I'm deleting his number.
”
”
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift Songbook: Guitar Recorded Versions)
“
Every morning the maple leaves.
Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts
from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big
and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out
You will be alone always and then you will die.
So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog
of non-definitive acts,
something other than the desperation.
Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party.
Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party
and seduced you
and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.
You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?
A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.
Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.
What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.
Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly
flames everywhere.
I can tell already you think I’m the dragon,
that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon.
I’m not the princess either.
Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down.
I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,
I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow
glass, but that comes later.
Let me do it right for once,
for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,
you know the story, simply heaven.
Inside your head you hear a phone ringing
and when you open your eyes
only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.
Inside your head the sound of glass,
a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.
Hello darling, sorry about that.
Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we
lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell
and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.
Especially that, but I should have known.
Inside your head you hear
a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up
in a stranger’s bathroom,
standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away
from the dirtiest thing you know.
All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly
darkness,
suddenly only darkness.
In the living room, in the broken yard,
in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport
bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of
unnatural light,
my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.
I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,
smiling in a way
that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,
up the stairs of the building
to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,
I looked out the window and said
This doesn’t look that much different from home,
because it didn’t,
but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.
We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,
smiling and crying in a way that made me
even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I
just couldn’t say it out loud.
Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s
terrifying. No one
will ever want to sleep with you.
Okay, if you’re so great, you do it—
here’s the pencil, make it work …
If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window
is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing
river water.
Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently
we have had our difficulties and there are many things
I want to ask you.
I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,
years later, in the chlorinated pool.
I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have
these luxuries.
I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together.
I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.
Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.
Quit milling around the yard and come inside.
”
”
Richard Siken
“
In our modern age, cell phone technology permits us to record the constant brutality that occurs all around us; we experience not an uptick in violence but a new kind of witnessing.
”
”
Colson Whitehead (The Nickel Boys)
“
This was before voice mail, recorded phone messages you can't escape. Life was easier then. You just didn't pick up the phone.
”
”
Joyce Carol Oates (Beasts)
“
Michael takes his seat and swipes his fingers across his phone, setting it in the middle of the table to record the minutes. “Alright, considering our agenda, let’s first tackle the—”
“I want to kill your father,” I say, cutting him off.
Damon chokes on his vodka rocks.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Conclave (Devil's Night, #3.5))
“
I never saw anything like it. He was like the bit in the movie where Tom Cruise is a lawyer and he's decided he's really going to win this case, for the sake of justice and the American way, and that? And it's suddenly like bang-bang-bang—grabbing files off shelves and slamming them down on the desk and punching numbers in the telephone and shaking out the phone cord dramatically , and you know, snapping out instructions to all the assistants around the desk, like: "Get me all the phone records of the President of the United States for the last fifty years," and "Get me the names of every client who ever ate a banana," and "Let's get some Chinese take-out up here, on the double!
”
”
Jaclyn Moriarty (Feeling Sorry for Celia (Ashbury/Brookfield, #1))
“
Seen runes like these before, Barrons?" Ryodan said.
"No. You?" Barrons said.
"New to me. Could be useful."
I heard the sound of a phone taking pictures.
Then I heard the sound of a phone being crushed against rock.
"Are you out of your mind?" Ryodan said disbelievingly. "That was my phone."
"Possibly," Jo said. "But no one records anything here."
"Crush something of mine again, I'll crush your skill."
"I weary of you," Jo said.
"I weary of your ass, too, sidhe-seer," Ryodan growled.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Shadowfever (Fever, #5))
“
There is, simply, no way, to ignore privacy. Because a citizenry’s freedoms are interdependent, to surrender your own privacy is really to surrender everyone’s. You might choose to give it up out of convenience, or under the popular pretext that privacy is only required by those who have something to hide. But saying that you don’t need or want privacy because you have nothing to hide is to assume that no one should have, or could have to hide anything – including their immigration status, unemployment history, financial history, and health records. You’re assuming that no one, including yourself, might object to revealing to anyone information about their religious beliefs, political affiliations and sexual activities, as casually as some choose to reveal their movie and music tastes and reading preferences. Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. Or that you don’t care about freedom of the press because you don’t like to read. Or that you don’t care about freedom of religion because you don’t believe in God. Or that you don’t care about the freedom to peaceably assemble because you’re a lazy, antisocial agoraphobe. Just because this or that freedom might not have meaning to you today doesn’t mean that that it doesn’t or won’t have meaning tomorrow, to you, or to your neighbor – or to the crowds of principled dissidents I was following on my phone who were protesting halfway across the planet, hoping to gain just a fraction of the freedom that my country was busily dismantling.
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
A field trip. You interested in doing something dangerous, and possibly illegal?"
Does it involve underage girls, broken curfews and soorte4d fruit toppings?"
I dropped the empty can into the recycling bin and leaned against the kitchen peninsula, grinning like an idiot. "Two of the three. And I could probably scrounge up some strawberry jam, if you're desperate."
"I'm never desperate," Tod said, only his voice hadn't come from my phone. I whirled around to see the reaper standing behind me, still holding his cell. "But for the record, I prefer apricot."
"Yuck. Nobody likes apricot jam.
”
”
Rachel Vincent
“
He likes to know things. He checks out book and record collections when he visits people, looks in medicine cabinets, takes inventory in refrigerators. He eaves drops on conversations at public phone booths. He reads murder victims' mail.
”
”
John Sayles (Los Gusanos)
“
These people go on to tell us that mobile phones will cook our children’s ears, that long-haul flights will fill our legs with thrombosis and that meat is murder. They want an end to all deaths – and it doesn’t stop there. They don’t even see why anyone should have to suffer from a spot of light bruising.
Every week, as we filmed my television chat show, food would be spilt on the floor, and every week the recording would have to be stopped so it could be swept away. ‘What would happen,’ said the man from health and safety, ‘if a cameraman were to slip over?’ ‘Well,’ I would reply, ‘he’d probably have to stand up again.
”
”
Jeremy Clarkson (The World According to Clarkson (World According to Clarkson, #1))
“
Borderline means you’re one of those girls…
…who walk around wearing long sleeves in the summer because you’ve carved up your forearms over your boyfriend. You make pathetic suicidal gestures and write bad poetry about them, listen to Ani DiFranco albums on endless repeat, end up in the emergency room for overdoses, scare off boyfriends by insisting they tell you that they love you five hundred times a day and hacking into their email to make sure they’re not lying, have a police record for shoplifting, and your tooth enamel is eroded from purging. You’ve had five addresses and eight jobs in three years, your friends are avoiding your phone calls, you’re questioning your sexuality, and the credit card companies are after you. It took a lot of years to admit that I was exactly that girl, and that the diagnostic criteria for the disorder were essentially an outline of my life.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
There was some sort of commotion going on outside, and I decided I’d had enough. I went to the door and stuck my head out. Marco was gasping for breath on the sofa, and two of the guards were bent over a cell phone.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Trying to record this,” the smart-ass from the shopping trip told me. “Nobody is going to believe us otherwise.”
“Well, cut it out. It isn’t funny!”
“On what planet?”
I glared at him, which did no good,because he simply went back to to tinkering with the phone. So I looked at Marco. “Can’t you do anything with them?”
Marco flopped a hand at me, tears streaming down his reddened cheeks, and tried to say something. But all that came out for several moments were asthmatic wheezes. I bent over his prone form, starting to worry about him, and he put a hand on my neck and pulled me down.
” It…is…funny,” he gasped.
”
”
Karen Chance (Hunt the Moon (Cassandra Palmer, #5))
“
Now there’s something you don’t see everyday. Gah, I hope there’s no human roaming around with a video recorder or cell phone. Be a bitch to explain that. Easier to just kill them.” – Sasha
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Retribution (Dark-Hunter, #19))
“
I could kidnap your mother,” he offered. “If you need the phone records explained.
”
”
C.E. Murphy (House of Cards (Negotiator Trilogy/Old Races Universe, #2))
“
We repeatedly found that one text can change the whole dynamic of a budding relationship. ... When I spoke with Sherry Turkle about this, she said that texting, unlike an in-person conversation, is not a forgiving medium for mistakes. In a face-to-face conversation, people can read each other’s body language, facial expressions, and tones of voice. If you say something wrong, you have the cues to sense it and you have a moment to recover or rephrase before it makes a lasting impact. Even on the phone you can hear a change in someone’s voice or a pause to let you know how they are interpreting what you’ve said. In text, your mistake just sits there marinating on the other person’s screen, leaving a lasting record of your ineptitude and bozoness.
”
”
Aziz Ansari (Modern Romance)
“
I can appreciate that,” says Henry. He’s adding to the list. I look over his shoulder. Sex Pistols, the Clash, Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, Dead Kennedys, X, the Mekons, the Raincoats, the Dead Boys, New Order, the Smiths, Lora Logic, the Au Pairs, Big Black, Pil, the Pixies, the Breeders, Sonic Youth…
Henry, they’re not going to be able to get any of that up here.” He nods, and jots the phone number and address for Vintage Vinyl at the bottom of the sheet. “You do have a record player, right?”
My parents have one,” Bobby says. Henry winces.
What do you really like?” I ask Jodie. I feel as though she’s fallen out of the conversation during the male bonding ritual Henry and Bobby are conducting.
Prince,” she admits. Henry and I let out a big Whoo! And I start singing “1999” as loud as I can, and Henry jumps up and we’re doing a bump and grind across the kitchen. Laura hears us and runs off to put the actual record on and just like that, it’s a dance party.
”
”
Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)
“
They watch through cameras, listen to phone calls, read e-mail, record conversations; they don’t even need a court order to do it and then they do it under the guise of patriotism.
”
”
Volker G. Fremuth
“
There are no coincidences, only mysteries that haven't been solved, clues that haven't been placed. Most are blind to the language of the bird overhead, the leaf in our path, the phonographic record stuck in a groove, the unknown caller on the phone. They don't see the omens. They don't know the signs.
”
”
Sara Gran (Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #1))
“
Sometimes a radio station will get ONE phone call from ONE person who screams that he is going to complain to the FCC. Instead of the guy at the stating thinking about how many listeners love the song, want to hear it again, and will support the station for playing it, usually the guy panics -- and takes my records off the air. I object that.
It has never mattered to me that thirty million people might think 'I'm wrong.' The number of people who thought Hitler was 'right' did not make him 'right.' The same principle should be applied to anyone who has an individualistic attitude. Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?
”
”
Frank Zappa
“
...all the dutiful grandchildren and great-grandchildren lingering over deathbeds with digital recorders, or else mechanically pursuing their ancestors through the online genealogy sites at three in the morning, so very eager to reconstitute the lives and thoughts of dead and soon-to-dead men, though they may regularly screen the phone calls of their own mothers. I am of that generation. I will do anything for my family except see them.
”
”
Zadie Smith
“
Humanity was heaved back to the paper age in half a second. Life-support systems spat out bolts of energy and died. Precious manuscripts were lost. Banks collapsed as all financial records for the past fifty years were completely wiped out. Planes fell from the sky, the Graum II space station drifted off into space, and defense satellites that were not supposed to exist stopped existing. People took to the streets, shouting into their dead cell phones as if volume could reactivate them. Looting spread across countries like a computer virus while actual computer viruses died with their hosts, and credit cards became mere rectangles of plastic. Parliaments were stormed worldwide as citizens blamed their governments for this series of inexplicable catastrophes. Gouts of fire and foul blurts of actual brimstone emerged from cracks in the earth. These were mostly from ruptured pipes, but people took up a cry of Armageddon. Chaos reigned, and the survivalists eagerly unwrapped the kidskin from their crossbows.
”
”
Eoin Colfer (The Last Guardian (Artemis Fowl, #8))
“
Lately she can read a novel in two hours. She has always been an avid reader, but these days she can read much faster. The colors, the conversations, everything is much more vibrant and inclusive, as if opening a book releases genies trapped inside. The scenes and people between their covers sometimes seem more vivid than real life, with their sunny, pearl-toothed characters, the witty conversation, the handsome stranger squeezed into a subway car or knocking about on the street. Sometimes, when she finishes a book at record speed, Dana feels a slight letdown, as if a good friend has hung up the phone in the middle of a conversation.
”
”
Susan H. Crawford (The Pocket Wife)
“
You never saw people anymore, everything was self-service, everybody behind glass windows. And you could not get a real person on the phone. Everywhere you called, a recorded message connected you to another recorded message and then hung up on you.
”
”
Fannie Flagg (Standing in the Rainbow (Elmwood Springs, #2))
“
I have a file in my phone that I’m always adding things to. People accuse me of texting too much but nine times out of ten, I’m not texting anyone. I’m recording ideas.
”
”
Alistair Cross
“
One day, when Kushner accused Walsh of leaking about him, she challenged him back: “My phone records versus yours, my email versus yours.
”
”
Michael Wolff (Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House)
“
1.
I told you that I was a roadway of potholes, not safe to cross. You said nothing, showed up in my driveway wearing roller-skates.
2.
The first time I asked you on a date, after you hung up, I held the air between our phones against my ear and whispered, “You will fall in love with me. Then, just months later, you will fall out. I will pretend the entire time that I don’t know it’s coming.”
3.
Once, I got naked and danced around your bedroom, awkward and safe. You did the same. We held each other without hesitation and flailed lovely. This was vulnerability foreplay.
4.
The last eight times I told you I loved you, they sounded like apologies.
5.
You recorded me a CD of you repeating, “You are beautiful.” I listened to it until I no longer thought in my own voice.
6.
Into the half-empty phone line, I whispered, “We will wake up believing the worst in each other. We will spit shrapnel at each other’s hearts. The bruises will lodge somewhere we don’t know how to look for and I will still pretend I don’t know its coming.”
7.
You photographed my eyebrow shapes and turned them into flashcards: mood on one side, correct response on the other. You studied them until you knew when to stay silent.
8.
I bought you an entire bakery so that we could eat nothing but breakfast for a week. Breakfast, untainted by the day ahead, was when we still smiled at each other as if we meant it.
9.
I whispered, “I will latch on like a deadbolt to a door and tell you it is only because I want to protect you. Really, I’m afraid that without you I mean nothing.”
10.
I gave you a bouquet of plane tickets so I could practice the feeling of watching you leave.
11.
I picked you up from the airport limping. In your absence, I’d forgotten how to walk. When I collapsed at your feet, you refused to look at me until I learned to stand up without your help.
12.
Too scared to move, I stared while you set fire to your apartment – its walls decaying beyond repair, roaches invading the corpse of your bedroom. You tossed all the faulty appliances through the smoke out your window, screaming that you couldn’t handle choking on one more thing that wouldn’t just fix himself.
13.
I whispered, “We will each weed through the last year and try to spot the moment we began breaking. We will repel sprint away from each other. Your voice will take months to drain out from my ears. You will throw away your notebook of tally marks from each time you wondered if I was worth the work. The invisible bruises will finally surface and I will still pretend that I didn’t know it was coming.”
14.
The entire time, I was only pretending that I knew it was coming.
”
”
Miles Walser
“
Bullshit is everywhere.” (...) Then there’s the more pernicious bullshit… It comes in three flavors: Making bad things sound good… “Patriot Act.” Because “Are You Scared Enough to Let Me Look at All Your Phone Records Act” doesn’t sell… Number two: hiding bad things under mountains of bullshit. “Hey, a handful of billionaires can’t buy our elections, right?” “Of course not. They can only pour unlimited, anonymous cash into a 501( c)( 4) if 50 percent is devoted to ‘issue education’”… And finally, my favorite: the bullshit of infinite possibility… “We cannot take action on climate change until everyone in the world agrees gay marriage vaccines won’t cause our children to marry goats who are coming for our guns. Until then, I say we teach the controversy.”
So I say to you, friends: The best defense against bullshit is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something.
~Jon Stewart
”
”
Chris Smith (The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests)
“
No camera, no recording device, no laptop, none of this palm pilot nonsense or a cell phone. Paper and pencil, a book, maybe a bilingual dictionary. Anything beyond that (a) can be stolen, and (b) intimidates people you encounter. The more double-A batteries you carry, the more you distance yourself from the people you're writing about.
”
”
Tom Miller
“
Quite a few people still listen to vinyl records, use film cameras to take photographs, and look up phone numbers in the printed Yellow Pages. But the old technologies lose their economic and cultural force. They become progress’s dead ends. It’s the new technologies that govern production and consumption, that guide people’s behavior and shape their perceptions. That’s why the future of knowledge and culture no longer lies in books or newspapers or TV shows or radio programs or records or CDs. It lies in digital files shot through our universal medium at the speed of light.
”
”
Nicholas Carr (What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains)
“
You have not had any privacy since the first day you owned your first cell phone. They can track everything. They can hear recordings of anything you have ever said on your cell. And read everything you ever read, and everything you ever typed. And see every location you've ever been to. That's just how cells work. Your privacy is a willful illusion.
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (American Fascism: A German Writer's Urgent Warning To America)
“
Most people, even today, tend to think of mass surveillance in terms of content - the actual words they use when they make a phone call or write an email. The unfortunate truth, however, is that the content of our communications is rarely as revealing as its other elements - the unwritten, unspoken information that can expose the broader context and patterns of behavior.
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
Here's a list of the things you'll need. I jotted it down in the parking lot."
Keri unfolded the paper and read the list twice, trying to get a sense of what she was in for.
BRING: Bug spray; jeans;T-shirts; several sweatshirts,at least one with a hood; one flannel shirt(mandatory); pajamas(optional); underwear(also optional); bathing suit(preferably skimpy); more bug spray; sneakers; waterproof boots; good socks; sunscreen; two rolls of quarters.
DO NOT BRING: Cell phone; blackberry; laptop; camera,either still or video; alarm clock; voice recorder, or any other kind of electronic anything.
She had no clue what it meant, other than Joe wanting her half naked and unable to text for help.
”
”
Shannon Stacey (Exclusively Yours (Kowalski Family, #1))
“
History offers us not a single recorded cell phone conversation between Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan in which His Most Christian Majesty wishes he were a tampon, or photos of Nell Gwynn sunbathing topless in her walled garden near Whitehall Palace. It is most certainly our loss.
”
”
Eleanor Herman (Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge)
“
I know I miss a lot of life by being on my phone all the time (that’s the point). But out here in nature, I feel bad about not paying attention. I decide that for the rest of the hike, I will not use the Internet or text with anyone. I’m only allowed to use my phone as a notepad to record what I see around me. I am going to notice things.
”
”
Melissa Broder (Death Valley)
“
The proportion of Americans who read books for pleasure is now at its lowest level ever recorded. The American Time Use Survey--which studies a representative sample of 26,000 Americans--found that between 2004 and 2017, the proportion of men reading for pleasure had fallen by 40 percent, while for women, it was down by 29 percent. The opinion-poll company Gallup found that the proportion of Americans who never read a book in any given year tripled between 1978 and 2014. Some 57 percent of Americans now do not read a single book in a typical year. This has escalated to the point that by 2017, the average American spent seventeen minutes a day reading books and 5.4 hours on their phone.
”
”
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again)
“
Some spyware programs have ambient listening features. They can turn on the microphone of your phone without you knowing it and without leaving any record.
”
”
Brian Freeman (The Night Bird (Frost Easton, #1))
“
Sometimes, when she finishes a book at record speed, Dana feels a slight letdown, as if a good friend has hung up the phone in the middle of a conversation.
”
”
Susan Crawford
“
Whenever I feel sad, I just take out my phone and listen to her laughter recorded in my online messenger.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
There seemed to be a limitless number of objects in the world that had no practical use but that people wanted to preserve: cell phones with their delicate buttons, iPads, Tyler’s Nintendo console, a selection of laptops. There were a number of impractical shoes, stilettos mostly, beautiful and strange. There were three car engines in a row, cleaned and polished, a motorcycle composed mostly of gleaming chrome. Traders brought things for Clark sometimes, objects of no real value that they knew he would like: magazines and newspapers, a stamp collection, coins. There were the passports or the driver’s licenses or sometimes the credit cards of people who had lived at the airport and then died. Clark kept impeccable records.
”
”
Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven)
“
The idea of freedom is complex and it is all-encompassing. It’s the idea that the economy must remain free of government persuasion. It’s the idea that the press must operate without government intrusion. And it’s the idea that the emails and phone records of Americans should remain free from government search and seizure. It’s the idea that parents must be the decision makers in regards to their children's education — not some government bureaucrat.
But most importantly, it is the idea that the individual must be free to pursue his or her own happiness free from government dependence and free from government control. Because to be truly free is to be reliant on no one other than the author of our destiny. These are the ideas at the core of the Republican Party, and it is why I am a Republican. So my brothers and sisters of the American community, please join with me today in abandoning the government plantation and the Party of disappointment. So that we may all echo the words of one Republican leader who famously said, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.
”
”
Elbert Guillory
“
You look like you’re deflowering the ice, and there’s no way you don’t know that. There’s no way you don’t see all those phones recording you during that particular part of the warm up.
”
”
Kandi Steiner (Learn Your Lesson (Kings of the Ice, #3))
“
I was once asked to pick a couple of records for an interview I was doing on Radio 2. I picked one by Will Oldham and one by Joanna Newsom. Someone on the production phoned me to say that I couldn't have either record because they were 'too alternative' and I could just pick two from their playlist. Now, personally, I think that Radio 2's listeners would dig both Joanna Newsom and Will Oldham if they heard their records, and that the fact they don't get to hear them contributes to the cultural wasteland we live in. I told them that I'd been to see Joanna Newsom in the Albert Hall a couple of weeks before and it had been sold out. How could she be 'too alternative'?
'Alternative' and 'mainstream' aren't strictly to do with whether things are popular or minority interest. They are ideological labels. Someone like Joe Pasquale would be called 'mainstream' and regularly pops up on TV, but would play the smaller end of the touring-theatre circuit. If Joanna Newsom can sell out Albert Hall, why can't she get played on Radio 2? I would agree that it's because her work is too layered, challenging and interesting. Think about that. What you get to hear about is filtered, and not filtered to get rid of useless cunts like Joe Pasquale, but of things that might enrich your life.
”
”
Frankie Boyle (Work! Consume! Die!)
“
Nick’s job is super dull. He mostly takes care of answering the phone and doing filing, and stapling things. Sometimes the things don’t even need stapling, but Nick does it anyway. He makes shiny little railroad tracks along the tops of documents. His record is thirty-eight staples on one thing. Then he picked thirty-seven of them out again because he remembered he was supposed to be professional.
Adulting is hard.
The struggle is real.
”
”
Lisa Henry (Adulting 101)
“
There are no coincidences", Silette wrote. "Only mysteries that haven't been solved, clues that haven't been placed. Most are blind to the language of the bird overheard, the leaf in our path, the phonographic record stuck in a groove, the unknown caller on the phone. They don't see the omens. They don't know how to read the signs.
To them life is like a book with blank pages. But to the detective, it is an illuminated manuscript of mysteries.
”
”
Sara Gran (Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #1))
“
In a city of twenty million like New York, there might be one or two terrorists. Maybe ten of them at the outside. 10/20,000,000 = 0.00005 percent. One twenty-thousandth of a percent. That’s pretty rare all right. Now, say you’ve got some software that can sift through all the bank records, or toll pass records, or public transit records, or phone call records in the city and catch terrorists 99 percent of the time. In a pool of twenty million people, a 99 percent accurate test will identify two hundred thousand people as being terrorists. But only ten of them are terrorists. To catch ten bad guys, you have to haul in and investigate two hundred thousand innocent people.
”
”
Cory Doctorow (Little Brother (Little Brother, #1))
“
But when Kate returned home he was gone. Back to the video camera that had recorded her. Back to his unexplainable office. Back to his secret phone, his unfamiliar contacts, his fifty million stolen euros. Back to his other life.
”
”
Chris Pavone (The Expats (Kate Moore, #1))
“
Everything is 'smart' now. The library cataloging system is smart, classification and indexing information entered into a uniform online database. People wept and lamented the loss of the old cards, then forgot them. They pretty much forget everything they weep over and lament. Clop-clop of hooves on the street. The humble art of carrying a block of ice up the stairs, pincered by a pair of tongs. Rotary phones and 33 rpm records. Stamp-pad ink and poster paint.
”
”
Christopher Sorrentino (The Fugitives)
“
Everything ends up on paper in an investigation. Detectives knew that, lawyers—especially former prosecutors—knew that, too. There were printouts, records, memos, date books. You make lists, you make notes in interviews—at the very least, you’ve got names and phone numbers on a piece of paper, so you know who to talk to. A five-month investigation, six suspicious deaths, and a unit’s worth of nurses, and the guy came out without so much as a doodle on a legal pad?
”
”
Charles Graeber (The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder)
“
Cell phones have made people reachable virtually everywhere at anytime. Cheap digital storage, WiFi, and smartphones equipped with digital cameras and recorders mean that people can broadcast as much of their lives as they want in real time.
”
”
Phil Simon (The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business)
“
Procession
He used to ask me all the time if I was okay. As though he never knew for sure. He would ask me when he was tired or frustrated or when he felt helpless. He would ask me when he was afraid.
He asked me that same question, long after we stopped being lovers—when we became something less yet somehow more. Are you okay? He would whisper on the phone late at night, when his girlfriend was asleep or had gone to her mother’s for the weekend. Are you okay?
He hasn’t asked me in years, but I know he still thinks it. I know the question still reverberates in his mind like a broken record and he will keep looking for answers long after there is nothing left to appease him.
It was always the same question, over and over again. Like the start of a procession. And it took me years to recognize the unsaid words that marched silently behind.
Are you okay; because I love you.
Are you okay; because I need you.
Are you okay; because I don’t know how to live without you.
”
”
Lang Leav (The Universe of Us (Volume 4) (Lang Leav))
“
You tell me why the government needs this information on every Verizon customer but they don’t need to know who’s coming across our border? They don’t need to know where the 15,000 foreign nationals are that skipped out on their visa, just didn’t show up to school but they’re here in the United States. You tell me why they need my grandmother’s phone records but they don’t need to know where the Saudi nationals are. Why they don’t need — why they need to know who’s calling who inside the United States of America. They need to know who’s calling who, how long the phone conversations were lasting, the GPS locators for all of the cellphones, when those phones, when that phone call was made. Why do they need all of that for domestic terror but they can’t seem to get it right with the Boston bombers? They don’t know where that guy was. You tell me why they need all of this information. Why do you need to go for the AP? You don’t need to go for the AP and target the reporters.
”
”
Glenn Beck
“
The phone she left behind in its foggy balloon is just recording the empty aluminum canoe now, and one blurry corner of the little cooler. But it’s listening in its muted way. What it hears is the front part of Lotte’s scream. She doesn’t get to finish it.
”
”
Stephen Graham Jones (My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #1))
“
I often surprise people with the simple fact that your cell phone today has more computer power than all of NASA when it put two men on the moon in 1969. Computers are now powerful enough to record the electrical signals emanating from the brain and partially decode them into a familiar digital language. This makes it possible for the brain to directly interface with computers to control any object around it. The fast-growing field is called BMI (brain-machine interface), and the key technology is the computer.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind)
“
Sometimes sexy women like to act stupid because it helps them get exactly what they want. Theresa Boudreaux was one of those types: a bodacious waffle-house waitress with a devilish streak. Unfortunately for a certain high-ranking elected leader, she had the wits to go to RadioShack and buy herself a nine-dollar phone-recording device. She then used it to tape her dirty phone calls with US Congressman Huey Hartley, a powerful, sanctimonious, married-for-thirty-years politician from the solidly red state of Mississippi.
”
”
Holly Peterson
“
It’s much the same dilemma that a future historian would face if he had to depict the social world of twenty-first-century teenagers solely on the basis of their surviving snail mail – since no records will remain of their phone conversations, emails, blogs and text messages
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
When you are facing the possibility of imminent death, people treat you differently: Their gaze lingers, recording each mole, tracing the shape of your lips, noting the exact shade of your eyes, as if they are painting a portrait of you to hang in memory's gallery. They take dozens of pictures and videos of you on their phones, trying to freeze-frame time, to bottle the sound of your laugh, to immortalize meaningful moments that can later be revisited in a memory cloud. All of this attention can feel like you are being memorialized while you are still alive.
”
”
Suleika Jaouad (Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted)
“
We live in the era of the “bottom line” mentality, with TED talks, sound bites, and news summaries. There is so much information to digest, we can only hope to grasp the world with compact and seemingly complete stories. We don’t want to be left dangling.
We are all suckers for this information diet, and we all have come to depend on it, just like we have all succumbed to the instant gratification of texting and cell phones. And yet what separates the dilettante from the sophisticate is the appreciation that everything is not simple. The trick seems to be able to talk clearly while remaining fully aware of the underlying complexity of any story. For me it is the overwhelming realization that when trying to figure out how the brain does its masterful trick of
enabling minds, we are barely at the starting line. Dig as deep as you want into human history: As long as there is a written record of thought, there is a record of humans wondering about the nature of life. It becomes obvious that all of us are just hopping into an ongoing conversation, not structuring one with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Humans may have discovered some of the constraints on the thought processes, but we have not yet been able to tell the full story.
”
”
Michael S. Gazzaniga (Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience)
“
Self-disclosure is intrinsically rewarding and extrinsically valuable. It can lighten our burden, make abstract negative emotions more concrete, and build affiliation. So, to begin to harness your regrets to improve in the future, try any of the following: Write about your regret for fifteen minutes for three consecutive days. Talk about your regret into a voice recorder for fifteen minutes for three consecutive days. Tell someone else about the regret in person or by phone. Include sufficient detail about what happened, but establish a time limit (perhaps a half hour) to avoid the possibilities of repetition and brooding.
”
”
Daniel H. Pink (The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward)
“
He was truly a loner; in fact, phone company records showed that during the entire time he lived at the Oxford Apartments address, not a single phone call was placed to his residence. The more time I spent with him chronicling the facts around his activities, the more I felt sorry for him. He was a pathetically lonely and inept human being. He was unable to make a real connection with anyone and was totally self-absorbed. His lifestyle was a continuous hedonistic pursuit of pleasure. All his time, effort, energy, and money went to his overwhelming desire for a warm, compliant human body, with alcohol fueling his every move.
”
”
Patrick Kennedy (GRILLING DAHMER: The Interrogation Of "The Milwaukee Cannibal")
“
At any point, for all perpetuity, any new administration—any future rogue head of the NSA—could just show up to work and, as easily as flicking a switch, instantly track everybody with a phone or a computer, know who they were, where they were, what they were doing with whom, and what they had ever done in the past.
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
the security system before they cut the power. ‘Now, I want the usual drill: a door-to-door on Laurel Road and the surrounding streets. Uniform has already made progress with this, but I want everyone who lives on that street, or who was in the area, interviewed. Pull all records on Gregory Munro: bank, phone, emails, social
”
”
Robert Bryndza (The Night Stalker (DCI Erika Foster, #2))
“
They had found out.
Before I could panic, I made myself stretch my fingers wide and take a calming breath. You already knew this was bound to happen. At least that’s what I told myself.
The more I thought about it, the more I should have been appreciative that the people at the chapel in Las Vegas hadn’t recognized him. Or that people on the street had been oblivious and hadn’t seen us going in and out of there. Or that the receptionist at the acupuncturist hadn’t snapped a picture on her phone and posted it online.
Because I might not understand all people, much less most of them, but I understood nosey folks. And nosey folks would do something like that without a second thought. Yet, I reminded myself that there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
It would be fine. So, one gossip site posted about us getting married. Whoop-de-do. There was probably a thousand sites just like it.
I briefly thought about Diana hearing about it, but I’d deal with that later. There was no use in getting scared now. She was the only one whose reaction I cared about. My mom and sisters’ opinions and feelings weren’t exactly registering at the top of my list now… or ever. I made myself shove them to the back of my thoughts. I was tired of being mad and upset; it affected my work. Plus, they’d made me sad and mad enough times in my life. I wasn’t going to let them ruin another day.
Picking my phone up again, I quickly texted Aiden back, swallowing my nausea at the same time.
Me: Who told you?
Not even two minutes passed before my phone dinged with a response.
Miranda: Trevor’s blowing up my phone.
Eww. Trevor.
Me: We knew it was going to happen eventually, right? Good luck with Trev. I’m glad he doesn’t have my number.
And I was even gladder there wasn’t a home phone; otherwise, I’m positive he would have been blowing it up too.
I managed to get back to looking at images on the screen for a few more minutes—a bit more distracted than usual—when the phone beeped again.
It was Aiden/Miranda. I should really change his contact name.
Miranda: Good luck? I’m not answering his calls.
What?
Me: That psycho will come visit if you don’t.
Was that me being selfish? Yes. Did I care? No.
Aiden: I know.
Uh.
Me: You’re always at practice…
Aiden: Have fun.
This asshole! I almost laughed, but before I could, he sent me another message.
Aiden: I’ll get back to him in a couple days. Don’t worry.
Snorting, I texted back.
Me: I’m not worried. If he drops by, I’ll set him up in your room.
Aiden: You genuinely scare me.
Me: You don’t know how many times you barely made it through the day alive, for the record.
He didn’t text me back after that
”
”
Mariana Zapata (The Wall of Winnipeg and Me)
“
You must have six boxes of cat food in that cupboard."
"Moshe gets cranky if I don't keep a variety."
After tasking his breakfast, Alan found it better than he had expected. "I have a hard time understanding anyone as strong-willed as you being intimidated by a temperamental cat."
Shelby lifted her shoulders and continued to eat. "We all have our weaknesses.Besides,as roommates go, he's perfect.He doesn't listen in on my phone calls or borrow my clothes."
"Are those your prerequisites?"
"They're certainly in the top ten."
Watching her,Alan nodded. She'd plowed hre way through the toast in record time. "If I promised to restrain myself from doing either of those things, would you marry me?
”
”
Nora Roberts (The MacGregors: Alan & Grant (The MacGregors, #3-4))
“
In the centuries since the original Constitution Day, our clouds, computers, and phones have become our homes, just as personal and intimate as our actual houses nowadays. If you don’t agree, then answer me this: Would you rather let your coworkers hang out at your home alone for an hour, or let them spend even just ten minutes alone with your unlocked phone?
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
Accordingly, the word “Facebook” appeared in a full one-third of divorce filings in 2011. All of this provides excellent fodder for the 81 percent of divorce attorneys who admit searching social media sites for evidence that can be used against their clients’ spouses. For instance, all the data shared on Facebook and Twitter and all the cell-phone call records and GPS locational data that neatly recorded whose cell phone was next to whose and when become fair game in the battle royal that can be divorce proceedings. The pictures innocently taken of you at all those parties over the years, blurry-eyed with drink in hand, now become evidence of unfit parenting, a nugget of gold for opposing counsel during cross-examination.
”
”
Marc Goodman (Future Crimes)
“
He wanted Jordan so badly, his fantasies consumed him. Whenever he reached out to touch something, paper, the phone, his steering wheel, there was a brief moment when he expected his hand to come in contact with the smooth silk of Jordan’s skin. When he ate, his tongue instinctively sought the taste of Jordan. Whenever he picked up the phone, he expected to hear Jordan’s voice.
”
”
Matthew Haldeman-Time (Off the Record)
“
The panopticon is an architecture of social control. Think of how you act when a police car is driving next to you, or how an entire country acts when state agents are listening to phone calls. When we know everything is being recorded, we are less likely to speak freely and act individually. When we are constantly under the threat of judgment, criticism, and correction for our actions, we become fearful that—either now or in the uncertain future—data we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has then become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. In response, we do nothing out of the ordinary. We lose our individuality, and society stagnates. We don’t question or challenge power. We become obedient and submissive. We’re less free.
”
”
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
“
Dell pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialed a number, and put the phone on speaker. A woman answered with a professionally irritated tone: “What do you need now?”
“Jade,” Dell said.
“Nope, it’s the Easter Bunny. And your keys are on your desk.”
Dell shook his head. “Now darlin’, I don’t always call you just because I’ve lost my keys.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. You wallet’s on your desk, too. As for your little black book, you’re on your own with that one, Dr. Flirt. I’m at lunch.”
Dell sighed. “What did we say about you and the whole power-play thing?”
“That it’s good for your ego to have at least one woman in your life that you can’t flash a smile at and have them drop their panties?”
Dell grinned. “I really like it when you say ‘panties.’ And for the record, I knew where my keys and wallet were.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Okay, I didn’t, but that’s not why I’m calling. Can you bring burgers and fries for me and Brady? Oh, and Adam, too, or he’ll bitch like a little girl.”
“You mean ‘Jade, will you pretty please bring us burgers and fries?’”
“Yes,” Dell said, nodding. “That. And Cokes.” He looked at Brady, who nodded. “And don’t forget the ketchup.”
“You forgot the nice words.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dell said. “You look fantastic today, I especially love the attitude and sarcasm you’re wearing.”
Jade’s voice went saccharine sweet. “So some low-fat chicken salads, no dressing, and ice water to go, then?”
“Fine,” Dell said, and sighed. “Can we please have burgers and fries?"
“You forgot the ‘Thank you, Goddess Jade,’ but we’ll work on that. Later, boss.
”
”
Jill Shalvis (Animal Magnetism (Animal Magnetism, #1))
“
Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. Or that you don’t care about freedom of the press because you don’t like to read. Or that you don’t care about freedom of religion because you don’t believe in God. Or that you don’t care about the freedom to peaceably assemble because you’re a lazy, antisocial agoraphobe. Just because this or that freedom might not have meaning to you today doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or won’t have meaning tomorrow, to you, or to your neighbor—or to the crowds of principled dissidents I was following on my phone who were protesting halfway across the planet, hoping to gain just a fraction of the freedoms that my country was busily dismantling.
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
The Confederate Air Force planes carried gear that when flown close to a cell phone tower allowed those on board to log in passively and see a real-time record of every phone making a call. Task force personnel could then search for numbers in which they were interested, and the database would tell them if those phones were in use, and if so, where. “We’d pinpoint the location, we’d go hit the target,” said an operator. The cell phone tower info might guide the task force to a particular city block. At that point, the operators would use an “electronic divining rod,” a handheld paddlelike sensor that could be programmed to detect a specific phone and would beep increasingly loudly as it got closer to the device.22 The divining rod could even detect a phone that had been turned off, although not one with the battery and SIM card removed.
”
”
Sean Naylor (Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command)
“
My eyes drift back to Peter, and he looks up and sees me looking at him, and raises his eyebrows questioningly. I just smile and shake my head.
“So don’t get bangs?”
My phone buzzes in my purse. It’s Peter.
Do you want to go?
No.
Then why were you staring at me?
Because I felt like it.
Lucas is reading over my shoulder. I push him away, and he shakes his head and says, “Are you guys really texting each other when you’re only twenty feet away?”
Pammy crinkles up her nose and says, “So adorable.”
I’m about to answer them when I look up and see Peter sweeping across the room toward me with purpose. “Time to get my girl home,” he says.
“What time is it?” I say. “Is it that late already?” Peter’s hoisting me off the couch and helping me into my jacket. Then he pulls me by the hand and leads me through Gabe’s living room. Looking over my shoulder, I wave and call out, “Bye, Lucas! Bye, Pammy! For the record, I think you would look great with bangs!”
“Why are you walking so fast?” I ask as Peter marches me through the front yard to the curb where his car is parked.
He stops in front of the car, pulls me toward him, and kisses me, all in one fast motion. “I can’t concentrate on my cards when you stare at me like that, Covey.”
“Sorry,” I start to say, but he is kissing me again, his hands firm on my back.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
People can go on telling themselves things like “Think before you speak!” or “You don’t believe that yourself” or “Forget it!” But they can also say, “Oh, what lovely flowers!” or “Are you a phone freak or something?” or “Suit yourself,” or “This record makes me feel so happy!’ Wonderful! Words are delightful little gifts we exchange like the Easter eggs we paint and hide for others to find and enjoy. I’d forgotten that, but you reminded me of it.
”
”
Thomas Brussig
“
And he carefully stored what he considered the most vital piece of equipment: a satellite phone with solar-powered batteries, which would allow the men not only to record short audio dispatches but also to check in every day with an ALE operator and report their coordinates and medical condition. If the team failed to communicate for two consecutive days, ALE would dispatch a search-and-rescue plane—what Worsley called “the most expensive taxi ride in the world.
”
”
David Grann (The White Darkness)
“
In addition, like many companies, Sony worried about cannibalization. If it built a music player and service that made it easy for people to share digital songs, that might hurt sales of its record division. One of Jobs’s business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will,”he said. So even though an iPhone might cannibalize sales of an iPod, or an iPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
Warning: “Good Intentions” contains violence, explicit sex, nudity, inappropriate use of church property, portrayals of beings divine and demonic bearing little or no resemblance to established religion or mythology, trespassing, bad language, sacrilege, blasphemy, attempted murder, arguable murder, divinely mandated murder, justifiable murder, filthy murder, sexual promiscuity, kidnapping, attempted rape, arson, dead animals, desecrated graves, gang activity, theft, assault and battery, panties, misuse of the 911 system, fantasy depictions of sorcery and witchcraft, multiple references to various matters of fandom, questionable interrogation tactics, cell phone abuse, reckless driving, consistent abuse of vampires (because they deserve it), even more explicit sex, illegal use of firearms within city limits, polyamory, abuse of authority, hit and run driving, destruction of private property, underage drinking, disturbances of the peace, disorderly conduct, internet harassment, bearers of false witness, mayhem, dismemberment, falsification of records, tax evasion, an uncomfortably sexy mother, bad study habits, and a very silly white guy inappropriately calling another white guy “nigga” (for which he will surely suffer). All characters depicted herein are over the age of 18, with the exception of one little girl who merely needs to get her cat out of a tree. Don’t worry, nothing bad happens to her. She makes it through the story just fine.
”
”
Elliott Kay (Good Intentions (Good Intentions, #1))
“
Elizabeth actively despises the landline’s inefficiency in regard to their everyday lives. The only calls the phone receives are credit card offers, scam vacation prizes, charities and fringe political groups looking for money, and the occasional mass recorded message from the town of Ames broadcasting the closing of school during snowstorms. When the kids were little, Elizabeth wanted to keep the landline so that they’d be able to dial 911 should “anything bad happen.” That was the phrase
”
”
Paul Tremblay (Disappearance at Devil's Rock)
“
All these processes are helped along by another friend of the earth, dematerialization. Progress in technology allows us to do more with less. An aluminum soda can used to weight three ounces; today it weighs less than half an ounce. Mobile phones don't need miles of telephone poles and wires. The digital revolution, by replacing atoms with bits, is dematerializing the world in front of our eyes. The cubic yards of vinyl that used to be my music collection gave way to cubic inches of compact disks and then to the nothingness of MP3s. The river of newsprint flowing through my apartment has been stanched by an iPad. With a terabyte of storage on my laptop I no longer buy paper by the ten-ream box. And just think of all the plastic, metal, and paper that no longer go into the forty-odd consumer products that can be replaced by a single smartphone, including a telephone, answering machine, phone book, camera, camcorder, tape recorder, radio, alarm clock, calculator, dictionary, Rolodex, calendar, street maps, flashlight, fax, and compass--even a metronome, outdoor thermometer, and spirit level.
”
”
Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress)
“
Messner sighed and handed him the phone. “One minute.” “I swear it,” Simon said. He was already dialing the number. The phone rang five times and then the answering machine picked up the line. It was his own voice, saying first in Spanish and then again in French that they were out, saying they would return the call. Why hadn’t Edith recorded the message? What had he been thinking of? He put his hand over his eyes and began to cry. The sound of his own voice was almost unbearable to him. When it stopped there was a long, dull tone. “Je t’adore,” he said. “Je t’aime, Je t’adore.
”
”
Ann Patchett (Bel Canto)
“
Listen, Google,’ I will say, ‘both John and Paul are courting me. I like both of them, but in a different way, and it’s so hard to make up my mind. Given everything you know, what do you advise me to do?’
And Google will answer: ‘Well, I know you from the day you were born. I have read all your emails, recorded all your phone calls, and know your favourite films, your DNA and the entire history of your heart. I have exact data about each date you went on, and if you want, I can show you second-by-second graphs of your heart rate, blood pressure and sugar levels whenever you went on a date with John or Paul. If necessary, I can even provide you with accurate mathematical ranking of every sexual encounter you had with either of them. And naturally enough, I know them as well as I know you. Based on all this information, on my superb algorithms, and on decades’ worth of statistics about millions of relationships – I advise you to go with John, with an 87 per cent probability of being more satisfied with him in the long run.
Indeed, I know you so well that I also know you don’t like this answer. Paul is much more handsome than John, and because you give external appearances too much weight, you secretly wanted me to say “Paul”. Looks matter, of course; but not as much as you think. Your biochemical algorithms – which evolved tens of thousands of years ago in the African savannah – give looks a weight of 35 per cent in their overall rating of potential mates. My algorithms – which are based on the most up-to-date studies and statistics – say that looks have only a 14 per cent impact on the long-term success of romantic relationships. So, even though I took Paul’s looks into account, I still tell you that you would be better off with John.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
“
Who will braid my hair when I’m at college?” I muse.
“I will,” Peter says, all confidence.
“You don’t know how,” I scoff.
“The kid will teach me. Won’t you, kid?”
“For a price,” Kitty says.
They negotiate back and forth before finally settling on Peter taking Kitty and her friends to the movies one Saturday afternoon. Which is how I come to be sitting cross-legged on the floor while Peter and Kitty sit on the couch above me, Kitty demonstrating a French braid and Peter recording it on his phone.
“Now you try it,” she says.
He keeps losing a piece and getting frustrated. “You have a lot of hair, Lara Jean.”
“If you can’t get the French, I’ll teach you something more basic,” Kitty says, and there is no mistaking the contempt in her voice.
Peter hears it too. “No, I’m gonna get it. Just give me a second. I’m gonna master it just like I mastered the other kind of French.” He winks at me.
Kitty and I both scream at him for that. “Don’t talk like that in front of my sister!” I yell, shoving him in the chest.
“I was kidding!”
“Also, you’re not that good at French kissing.” Even though, yeah, he is.
Peter gives me a Who are you kidding? look, and I shrug, because who am I kidding?
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
It was awfully quiet. Chicago only gets this quiet when it snows, he thought. And then he flipped open the phone, pressed the voice button, and said “Katherine.” He said it softly, reverently.
Five rings and then her voice mail. Hey, it’s Katherine, he heard, and in the background cars rushed by. They’d been walking home together from the RadioShack when she recorded the message. I’m not, uh. And she uhed, he remembered, because he’d goosed her butt as she tried to talk. Uh, at my cell phone, I guess. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back. And he remembered everything about it, and also everything about everything else, and why couldn’t he forget and beep.
“Hey, it’s Col. I’m standing in a soybean field outside of Gutshot, Tennessee, which is a long story, and it’s hot. K. I’m standing here sweating like I had hyperhidrosis, that disease where you sweat a lot. Crap. That’s not interesting. But anyway, it’s hot, and so I’m thinking about cold to stay cool. And I was remembering walking through the snow coming back from the ridiculous movie. Do you remember that, K? We were on Giddings, and the snow made it so quiet, I couldn’t hear a thing in the world but you. And it was so cold then, and so silent, and I loved you so much. Now it’s hot, and dead quiet again, and I love you still.”
Five minutes later, he was trudging back when his phone began vibrating. He raced back to the spot with good reception and, breathless answered.
“Did you listen to the message?” he asked immediately.
“I don’t think I need to,” she answered. “I’m sorry, Colin. But I think we made a really good decision.” And he didn’t even care to point out that they hadn’t made a decision, because the sound of her voice felt so good –well not good exactly. It felt like the mysterium tremedum et fascinans, the fear and the fascination. The great and terrible awe.
”
”
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
“
In almost every thriller, a point is reached when someone, usually calling from a phone booth, telephones with a vital piece of information, which he cannot divulge by phone. By the time the hero arrives at the place where they had arranged to meet, the caller is dead, or too near death to tell. There is never an explanation for the reluctance of the caller to impart his message in the first place. Certainly, the convention existed well before the age of the tape recorder and the wiretap. Not on the phone, in a spy or mystery story, has always been, in and of itself, sufficient to hold up the resolution of the case for a long, long time.
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”
Renata Adler (Speedboat)
“
To my children, I was just Mom. That was all. And before that, I had been Charles’s wife, the bereaved mother of the slain child. That was all. But before that, I had been a pilot. An adventurer. I had broken records—but I had forgotten about them. I had steered aircraft—but I didn’t think I would know how to, anymore. I had soared across the sky, every bit as daring as Lucky Lindy himself, the one person in the world who could keep up with him. Yet motherhood had brought me down to earth with a thud, and kept me there with tentacles made of diapers and tears and lullabies and phone calls and car pools and the sticky residue of hair spray and Barbasol all over the bathroom counter. Would I ever be able to soar again? Would I ever have the courage? Did any woman? Or did we exist only as others saw us?
”
”
Melanie Benjamin (The Aviator's Wife)
“
Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. Or that you don’t care about freedom of the press because you don’t like to read. Or that you don’t care about freedom of religion because you don’t believe in God. Or that you don’t care about the freedom to peaceably assemble because you’re a lazy, antisocial agoraphobe. Just because this or that freedom might not have meaning to you today doesn’t mean that that it doesn’t or won’t have meaning tomorrow, to you, or to your neighbor – or to the crowds of principled dissidents I was following on my phone who were protesting halfway across the planet, hoping to gain just a fraction of the freedom that my country was busily dismantling.
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
To experience how noise and bias contribute to error, we invite you to play a game that will take you less than one minute. If you have a smartphone with a stopwatch, it probably has a lap function, which enables you to measure consecutive time intervals without stopping the stopwatch or even looking at the display. Your goal is to produce five consecutive laps of exactly ten seconds without looking at the phone. You may want to observe a ten-second interval a few times before you begin. Go. Now look at the lap durations recorded on your phone. (The phone itself was not free from noise, but there was very little of it.) You will see that the laps are not all exactly ten seconds and that they vary over a substantial range. You tried to reproduce the same timing exactly, but you were unable to do so. The variability you could not control is an instance of noise.
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Daniel Kahneman (Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment)
“
Snowden called the NSA ‘self-certifying’. In the debate over who ruled the internet, the NSA provided a dismaying answer: ‘We do.’ The slides, given to Poitras and published by Der Spiegel magazine, show that the NSA had developed techniques to hack into iPhones. The agency assigned specialised teams to work on other smartphones too, such as Android. It targeted BlackBerry, previously regarded as the impregnable device of choice for White House aides. The NSA can hoover up photos and voicemail. It can hack Facebook, Google Earth and Yahoo Messenger. Particularly useful is geo-data, which locates where a target has been and when. The agency collects billions of records a day showing the location of mobile phone users across the world. It sifts them – using powerful analytics – to discover ‘co-travellers’. These are previously unknown associates of a target. Another
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”
Luke Harding (The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man)
“
Matthew watched my eyes, as if he knew exactly what was going on in my muddled thoughts.
I’d believed she would be better off going with Domīnija before I’d lost everything. Now I knew . . . if I truly loved my girl, I’d let her go.
She would never be Evangeline Deveaux. We’d never see the bayou come back to life. It wouldn’t always be Evie and Jack. My eyes blurred, but nothing was wrong with my vision.
I loved that fille more than my own life; this just proved it.
“I’m not goan to kill you right now, no,” I told Matthew, my voice thick. “But only ’cause you’re goan to swear never to tell her I survived.” I swallowed. “As far as Evie’s concerned, I’m buried under that rock.”
Coo-yôn nodded, then reached into his pack, pulling out . . . that cell phone and the tape player! Evie’s pictures, her voice. How’d he get those . . . ? Didn’t matter. The kid was giving me another crutch, right when I needed it most.
God, peekôn. Noble, for the record, cuts like a blade to the heart. . . .
”
”
Kresley Cole (Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles, #4))
“
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Buy Verified Chime Accounts
“
told me more about what happened the other night?” she asked, deciding to air her worst fears. “Am I under suspicion or something?” “Everyone is.” “Especially ex-wives who are publicly humiliated on the day of the murder, right?” Something in Montoya’s expression changed. Hardened. “I’ll be back,” he promised, “and I’ll bring another detective with me, then we’ll interview you and you can ask all the questions you like.” “And you’ll answer them?” He offered a hint of a smile. “That I can’t promise. Just that I won’t lie to you.” “I wouldn’t expect you to, Detective.” He gave a quick nod. “In the meantime if you suddenly remember, or think of anything, give me a call.” “I will,” she promised, irritated, watching as he hurried down the two steps of the porch to his car. He was younger than she was by a couple of years, she guessed, though she couldn’t be certain, and there was something about him that exuded a natural brooding sexuality, as if he knew he was attractive to women, almost expected it to be so. Great. Just what she needed, a sexy-as-hell cop who probably had her pinned to the top of his murder suspect list. She whistled for the dog and Hershey bounded inside, dragging some mud and leaves with her. “Sit!” Abby commanded and the Lab dropped her rear end onto the floor just inside the door. Abby opened the door to the closet and found a towel hanging on a peg she kept for just such occasions, then, while Hershey whined in protest, she cleaned all four of her damp paws. “You’re gonna be a problem, aren’t you?” she teased, then dropped the towel over the dog’s head. Hershey shook herself, tossed off the towel, then bit at it, snagging one end in her mouth and pulling backward in a quick game of tug of war. Abby laughed as she played with the dog, the first real joy she’d felt since hearing the news about her ex-husband. The phone rang and she left the dog growling and shaking the tattered piece of terry cloth. “Hello?” she said, still chuckling at Hershey’s antics as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Abby Chastain?” “Yes.” “Beth Ann Wright with the New Orleans Sentinel.” Abby’s heart plummeted. The press. Just what she needed. “You were Luke Gierman’s wife, right?” “What’s this about?” Abby asked warily as Hershey padded into the kitchen and looked expectantly at the back door leading to her studio. “In a second,” she mouthed to the Lab. Hershey slowly wagged her tail. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Beth Ann said, sounding sincerely rueful. “I should have explained. The paper’s running a series of articles on Luke, as he was a local celebrity, and I’d like to interview you for the piece. I was thinking we could meet tomorrow morning?” “Luke and I were divorced.” “Yes, I know, but I would like to give some insight to the man behind the mike, you know. He had a certain public persona, but I’m sure my readers would like to know more about him, his history, his hopes, his dreams, you know, the human-interest angle.” “It’s kind of late for that,” Abby said, not bothering to keep the ice out of her voice. “But you knew him intimately. I thought you could come up with some anecdotes, let people see the real Luke Gierman.” “I don’t think so.” “I realize you and he had some unresolved issues.” “Pardon me?” “I caught his program the other day.” Abby tensed, her fingers holding the phone in a death grip. “So this is probably harder for you than most, but I still would like to ask you some questions.” “Maybe another time,” she hedged and Beth Ann didn’t miss a beat. “Anytime you’d like. You’re a native Louisianan, aren’t you?” Abby’s neck muscles tightened. “Born and raised, but you met Luke in Seattle when he was working for a radio station . . . what’s the call sign, I know I’ve got it somewhere.” “KCTY.” It was a matter of public record. “Oh, that’s right. Country in the City. But you grew up here and went to local schools, right? Your
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”
Lisa Jackson (Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Malice & Devious (A Bentz/Montoya Novel))
“
Have you ever been swept away by a toxic lover who sucked you dry? I have. Bad men used to light me up like a Christmas tree. If I had a choice between the rebel without a cause and a nice guy in a sweater and outdoorsy shoes, you can imagine who got my phone number. Rebels and rogues are smooth (and somewhat untamed); they know the headwaiters at the best steak houses, ride fast European motorcycles, and start bar fights in your honor. In short, the rebel makes you feel really alive! It’s all fun and games until he screws your best friend or embezzles your life’s savings. You may be asking yourself how my pathetic dating track record relates to your diet. Simple. The acid—alkaline balance, which relates to the chemistry of your body’s fluids and tissues as measured by pH. The rebel/rogue = acid. The nice solid guy = alkaline. The solid guy gives you energy; he’s reliable and trustworthy. The solid guy calls you back when he says he will. He helps you clean your garage and does yoga with you. He’s even polite to your family no matter how whacked they are, and has the sexual stamina to rock your world. While the rebel can help you let your hair down, too much rebel will sap your energy. In time, a steady rebellious diet burns you out. But when we’re addicted to bad boys (junk food, fat, sugar, and booze), nice men (veggies and whole grains) seem boring. Give them a chance!
”
”
Kris Carr (Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, And Live Like You Mean It!)
“
You know the logics setup. You got a logic in your house. It looks like a vision receiver used to, only it's got keys instead of dials and you punch the keys for what you wanna get. It's hooked in to the tank, which has the Carson Circuit all fixed up with relays. Say you punch "Station SNAFU" on your logic. Relays in the tank take over an' whatever vision-program SNAFU is telecastin' comes on your logic's screen. Or you punch "Sally Hancock's Phone" an' the screen blinks an' sputters an' you're hooked up with the logic in her house an' if somebody answers you got a vision-phone connection. But besides that, if you punch for the weather forecast or who won today's race at Hialeah or who was mistress of the White House durin' Garfield's administration or what is PDQ and R sellin' for today, that comes on the screen too. The relays in the tank do it. The tank is a big buildin' full of all the facts in creation an' all the recorded telecasts that ever was made—an' it's hooked in with all the other tanks all over the country—an' everything you wanna know or see or hear, you punch for it an' you get it. Very convenient. Also it does math for you, an' keeps books, an' acts as consultin' chemist, physicist, astronomer, an' tea-leaf reader, with a "Advice to the Lovelorn" thrown in. The only thing it won't do is tell you exactly what your wife meant when she said, "Oh, you think so, do you?" in that peculiar kinda voice. Logics don't work good on women. Only on things that make sense. (1949)
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Murray Leinster (A Logic Named Joe)
“
For all the bachelors out there tonight, yeah for anybody who's never whistled this song.
Maybe you whistled it but you lost the sheet music.
Um...this is um...well actually I don't mind going to weddings or anything,
as long as there not my own I show up.
But I've always kinda been partial to calling myself up on the phone and asking myself out, you know?
Oh yeah, you call yourself up too huh? Yeah, well one thing about it, your always around.
Yeah I know, yeah you ask yourself out, you know, some class joint somewhere.
The Buretto King or something, you know. Well I ain't cheap you know.
Take yourself out for a couple of drinks maybe.
Then there'd be some provocative conversation on the way home.
Park in front of the house you know.
Oh yeah, you smoothly put a little nice music on,
maybe you put on like uh, you know, like shopping music,
something thats not too interruptive you know and then uh slide over real nice and say
'Oh I think you have something in your eye'.
Well maybe it's not that romantic with you but Christ I don't know, you know I get into it you know.
Take myself up to the porch, take myself inside or maybe uh,
or may get a little something, a brandy snifter or something.
'Would like you like to listen to some of my back records?
I got something here' Uh Well usually about 2.30 in the morning you've ended up taking advantage of yourself.
There ain't no way around that you know. Yeah, making a scene with a magazine, there ain't no way around.
I'll confess you know, I'm no different you know. I'm not weird about it or anything, I don't tie myself up first.
I just kinda spend a little time with myself
”
”
Tom Waits
“
There is, simply, no way to ignore privacy. Because a citizenry’s freedoms are interdependent, to surrender your own privacy is really to surrender everyone’s. You might choose to give it up out of convenience, or under the popular pretext that privacy is only required by those who have something to hide. But saying that you don’t need or want privacy because you have nothing to hide is to assume that no one should have, or could have, to hide anything—including their immigration status, unemployment history, financial history, and health records. You’re assuming that no one, including yourself, might object to revealing to anyone information about their religious beliefs, political affiliations, and sexual activities, as casually as some choose to reveal their movie and music tastes and reading preferences. Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. Or that you don’t care about freedom of the press because you don’t like to read. Or that you don’t care about freedom of religion because you don’t believe in God. Or that you don’t care about the freedom to peaceably assemble because you’re a lazy, antisocial agoraphobe. Just because this or that freedom might not have meaning to you today doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or won’t have meaning tomorrow, to you, or to your neighbor—or to the crowds of principled dissidents I was following on my phone who were protesting halfway across the planet, hoping to gain just a fraction of the freedoms that my country was busily dismantling. I wanted to help, but I
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
Geraldine nodded and headed for Mrs. Armstrong's lawn. I felt sorry for her in her carrot pajamas, having no idea what was really going on. I followed the other girls and stood behind the shrubs. Mrs. Armstrong's house was ginormous. Her house was even bigger than Aunt Jeanie's. There was one light on upstairs. I figured that was the bedroom. The rest of the house was dark. Geraldine went to the far end of the yard and removed a can of spray paint from the bag. She shook it and began to spray. "She's such an idiot," Ava said, taking out her phone to record Geraldine's act of vandalism. "You guys are going to get her into so much trouble," I said. "So what?" Hannah replied. "She got us in trouble at the soup kitchen, it's not like she's ever going to become a Silver Rose anyway. She's totally wasting her time." Geraldine slowly made her way up and down the huge yard carefully spraying the grass. It would take her forever to complete it and there wasn't nearly enough spray paint. "Hey, guys!" Geraldine yelled from across the lawn. "How about I spray a rose in the grass? That would be cool, right?" I cringed. The light on upstairs meant the Armstrongs were still awake. Geraldine was about to get us all caught. "O-M-G," Hannah moaned. "Shhhh," Summer hissed, but Geraldine kept screaming at the top of her lungs. "Well, what do you guys think?" My heart dropped into my stomach as a light from downstairs clicked on. We ducked behind the hedges and froze. "Who's out there?" called a man's voice. I couldn't see him and I couldn't see Geraldine. I heard the door close and I peeked over the hedges. "He went back inside," I whispered, ducking back down. At that moment something went shk-shk-shk and Geraldine screamed. We all stood to see what was happening. Someone had turned the sprinklers on and Geraldine was getting soaked. The door flew open and I heard Mrs. Armstrong's voice followed by a dog's vicious barking. "Get 'em, Killer!" "Killer!" Ava screamed and we all took off running down the street with a soggy Geraldine trailing behind us. I was faster than all the other girls. I had no intentions of being gobbled up by a dog named Killer. We stopped running when we got to Ava's street and Killer was nowhere in sight. We walked back to the house at a normal pace. "So, did I prove myself to the sisterhood?" Geraldine asked. Hannah turned to her. "Are you kidding me? Your yelling woke them up, you moron. We got chased down the street by a dog because of you." Geraldine frowned and looked down at the ground. Hopefully what I had told her before about the girls not being her friends was starting to settle in. Inside all the other girls wanted to know what had happened. Ava was giving them the gory details when a knock on the door interrupted her. It was Mrs. Armstrong. She had on a black bathrobe and her hair was in curlers. I chuckled to myself because I was used to seeing her look absolutely perfect. We all sat on our sleeping bags looking as innocent as possible except for Geraldine who still stood awkwardly by the door, dripping wet. Mrs. Armstrong cleared her throat. "Someone has just vandalized my lawn with spray paint. Silver spray paint. Since I know it's a tradition for the Silver Roses to pull a prank on me on the night of the retreat, I'm going to assume it was one of you. More specifically, the one who's soaking wet right now." All eyes went to Geraldine. She looked at the ground and said nothing. What could she possibly say to defend herself? She even had silver spray paint on her fingers. Mrs. Armstrong looked her up and down. "Young lady, this is your second strike and that's two strikes too many. Your bid to become a Junior Silver Rose is for the second time hereby revoked." Geraldine's shoulders drooped, but most of the girls were smirking. This had been their plan all along and they had accomplished it.
”
”
Tiffany Nicole Smith (Bex Carter 1: Aunt Jeanie's Revenge (The Bex Carter Series))
“
Starting a little over a decade ago, Target began building a vast data warehouse that assigned every shopper an identification code—known internally as the “Guest ID number”—that kept tabs on how each person shopped. When a customer used a Target-issued credit card, handed over a frequent-buyer tag at the register, redeemed a coupon that was mailed to their house, filled out a survey, mailed in a refund, phoned the customer help line, opened an email from Target, visited Target.com, or purchased anything online, the company’s computers took note. A record of each purchase was linked to that shopper’s Guest ID number along with information on everything else they’d ever bought.
Also linked to that Guest ID number was demographic information that Target collected or purchased from other firms, including the shopper’s age, whether they were married and had kids, which part of town they lived in, how long it took them to drive to the store, an estimate of how much money they earned, if they’d moved recently, which websites they visited, the credit cards they carried in their wallet, and their home and mobile phone numbers. Target can purchase data that indicates a shopper’s ethnicity, their job history, what magazines they read, if they have ever declared bankruptcy, the year they bought (or lost) their house, where they went to college or graduate school, and whether they prefer certain brands of coffee, toilet paper, cereal, or applesauce.
There are data peddlers such as InfiniGraph that “listen” to shoppers’ online conversations on message boards and Internet forums, and track which products people mention favorably. A firm named Rapleaf sells information on shoppers’ political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving, the number of cars they own, and whether they prefer religious news or deals on cigarettes. Other companies analyze photos that consumers post online, cataloging if they are obese or skinny, short or tall, hairy or bald, and what kinds of products they might want to buy as a result.
”
”
Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business)
“
When I hung up the phone that night I had a wet face and a broken heart. The lack of compassion I witnessed every day had finally exhausted me. I looked around my crowded office, at the stacks of records and papers, each pile filled with tragic stories, and I suddenly didn’t want to be surrounded by all this anguish and misery. As I sat there, I thought myself a fool for having tried to fix situations that were so fatally broken. It’s time to stop. I can’t do this anymore.
For the first time I realized my life was just full of brokenness. I worked in a broken system of justice. My clients were broken by mental illness, poverty, and racism. They were torn apart by disease, drugs and alcohol, pride, fear, and anger. I thought of Joe Sullivan and of Trina, Antonio, Ian, and dozens of other broken children we worked with, struggling to survive in prison. I thought of people broken by war, like Herbert Richardson; people broken by poverty, like Marsha Colbey; people broken by disability, like Avery Jenkins. In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice.
I looked at my computer and at the calendar on the wall. I looked again around my office at the stacks of files. I saw the list of our staff, which had grown to nearly forty people. And before I knew it, I was talking to myself aloud: “I can just leave. Why am I doing this?”
It took me a while to sort it out, but I realized something sitting there while Jimmy Dill was being killed at Holman prison. After working for more than twenty-five years, I understood that I don’t do what I do because it’s required or necessary or important. I don’t do it because I have no choice.
I do what I do because I’m broken, too.
My years of struggling against inequality, abusive power, poverty, oppression, and injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself. Being close to suffering, death, executions, and cruel punishments didn’t just illuminate the brokenness of others; in a moment of anguish and heartbreak, it also exposed my own brokenness. You can’t effectively fight abusive power, poverty, inequality, illness, oppression, or injustice and not be broken by it.
We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. I desperately wanted mercy for Jimmy Dill and would have done anything to create justice for him, but I couldn’t pretend that his struggle was disconnected from my own. The ways in which I have been hurt––and have hurt others––are different from the ways Jimmy Dill suffered and caused suffering. But our shared brokenness connected us.
Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who has spent his life trying to cure the world’s sickest and poorest people, once quoted me something that the writer Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.
We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.
”
”
Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy)
“
A school bus is many things.
A school bus is a substitute for a limousine. More class. A school bus is a classroom with a substitute teacher. A school bus is the students' version of a teachers' lounge. A school bus is the principal's desk. A school bus is the nurse's cot. A school bus is an office with all the phones ringing. A school bus is a command center. A school bus is a pillow fort that rolls. A school bus is a tank reshaped- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a science lab- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a safe zone. A school bus is a war zone. A school bus is a concert hall. A school bus is a food court. A school bus is a court of law, all judges, all jury. A school bus is a magic show full of disappearing acts. Saw someone in half. Pick a card, any card. Pass it on to the person next to you. He like you. She like you. K-i-s-s-i . . . s-s-i-p-p-i is only funny on a school bus. A school bus is a stage. A school bus is a stage play. A school bus is a spelling bee. A speaking bee. A get your hand out of my face bee. A your breath smell like sour turnips bee. A you don't even know what a turnip bee is. A maybe not, but I know what a turn up is and your breath smell all the way turnt up bee. A school bus is a bumblebee, buzzing around with a bunch of stingers on the inside of it. Windows for wings that flutter up and down like the windows inside Chinese restaurants and post offices in neighborhoods where school bus is a book of stamps. Passing mail through windows. Notes in the form of candy wrappers telling the street something sweet came by. Notes in the form of sneaky middle fingers. Notes in the form of fingers pointing at the world zooming by. A school bus is a paintbrush painting the world a blurry brushstroke. A school bus is also wet paint. Good for adding an extra coat, but it will dirty you if you lean against it, if you get too comfortable. A school bus is a reclining chair. In the kitchen. Nothing cool about it but makes perfect sense. A school bus is a dirty fridge. A school bus is cheese. A school bus is a ketchup packet with a tiny hole in it. Left on the seat. A plastic fork-knife-spoon. A paper tube around a straw. That straw will puncture the lid on things, make the world drink something with some fizz and fight. Something delightful and uncomfortable. Something that will stain. And cause gas. A school bus is a fast food joint with extra value and no food. Order taken. Take a number. Send a text to the person sitting next to you. There is so much trouble to get into. Have you ever thought about opening the back door? My mother not home till five thirty. I can't. I got dance practice at four. A school bus is a talent show. I got dance practice right now. On this bus. A school bus is a microphone. A beat machine. A recording booth. A school bus is a horn section. A rhythm section. An orchestra pit. A balcony to shot paper ball three-pointers from. A school bus is a basketball court. A football stadium. A soccer field. Sometimes a boxing ring. A school bus is a movie set. Actors, directors, producers, script. Scenes. Settings. Motivations. Action! Cut. Your fake tears look real. These are real tears. But I thought we were making a comedy. A school bus is a misunderstanding. A school bus is a masterpiece that everyone pretends to understand. A school bus is the mountain range behind Mona Lisa. The Sphinx's nose. An unknown wonder of the world. An unknown wonder to Canton Post, who heard bus riders talk about their journeys to and from school. But to Canton, a school bus is also a cannonball. A thing that almost destroyed him. Almost made him motherless.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks)