Pleasure Meeting Quotes

Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or--such is the pleasure they experience--they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.

That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.

Of course, we can't visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we'd feel in any life is still available. We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don't have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don't have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the Glowing Hours with Flying feet.

You on your way out?" Jace nodded. "Dont want to overstay our welcome." "What welcome?" Magnus asked. "I'd say is was a pleasure to meet you, but it wasn't. Not that you aren't all fairly charming, and as for you-" He dropped a glittery wink at Alec, who looked astounded. "Call me?" -Magnus & Jace, pg.243-

What welcome?” Magnus asked. “I’d say it was a pleasure to meet you, but it wasn’t. Not that you aren’t all fairly charming, and as for you—” He dropped a glittery wink at Alec, who looked astounded. “Call me?” Alec blushed and stuttered and probably would have stood there all night if Jace hadn’t grasped his elbow and hauled him toward the door, Isabelle at their heels.

I'm going to give you pleasure so good you'll forget your name... You're going to think my name is Yes, God Yes, or Fuck Yes.

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.

Welcome home, Rachel mariana Morgan, he said, his goat-slitted eyes holding a new, dangerous light. It's a pleasure to finally meet you.

Well," Peter Van Houten said, extending his hand to me. "It is at any rate a pleasure to meet such ontologically improbable creatures." I shook his swollen hand, and then he shook hands with Augustus. I was wondering what ontologically meant. Regardless, I liked it. Augustus and I were together in the Improbable Creatures Club: us and duck-billed platypuses.

A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think.

[The Old Astronomer to His Pupil] Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then to now. Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete, Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet, And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true, And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you. But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn, You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn, What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles; What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles. You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late, But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate. Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight; You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night. I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known. You 'have none but me,' you murmur, and I 'leave you quite alone'? Well then, kiss me, -- since my mother left her blessing on my brow, There has been a something wanting in my nature until now; I can dimly comprehend it, -- that I might have been more kind, Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind. I 'have never failed in kindness'? No, we lived too high for strife,-- Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life; But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still To the service of our science: you will further it? you will! There are certain calculations I should like to make with you, To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true; And remember, 'Patience, Patience,' is the watchword of a sage, Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age. I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap; But if none should do my reaping, 'twill disturb me in my sleep So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name; See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame. I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak; Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak: It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,-- God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars.

Pleased to meet you." Sage said, offering his hand. "The pleasure is all mine," Rayna Purred. "Unless ofcourse, it's all Clea's which is even better." Sage smiled and might have even blushed a bit, which was highly entertaining.

Could she learn to like this guy? "“It's nice to meet you." Kylie plastered a warm expression on her face. But she worried he could tell it was a sham. "The pleasure is all mine," he said. Kylie just smiled. He was completely right about that.

The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.

Cindy extended her hand. I got up, faced her, and shook her hand. A strong handshake. This was definitely a no-nonsense young woman. “I recognize you from your pictures, Mr. Ludefance.” “Pleasure to meet you, Cindy. And you can call me Jack. I’m afraid you have the advantage. You probably did a Google search on me and have all my background information?” She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” “I don’t.

I see that you’ve had the non-pleasure of meeting my sister.Jordo, this is Rylann Pierce.” Jordan raised an eyebrow pointedly at Kyle. He glared. An entire dialogue seemed to pass between them

     ‘The onboard computer just wants to say a few words before we leave.’      The speakers in the cabin crackled into life. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you on-board the presidential shuttle for tonight’s illicit flight, Alfa Bravo Charlie. I would just like to say it’s a pleasure to meet you all and thank you so much for coming here tonight to steal me. To be honest I don’t get out much these days so this is something of a special occasion.’      ‘It will be for us too if we get caught,’ Semilla said sardonically.

I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no dis-advantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with out friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

A precious, mouldering pleasure ’tis To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old

The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows: 1- Do not feel absolutely certain of anything. 2- Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light. 3- Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed. 4- When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory. 5- Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found. 6- Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you. 7- Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. 8- Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter. 9- Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it. 10- Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

Mr. Hooks?” “Mr. Ludefance? Pleasure to meet you and thank you for coming in.” As he extended his hand to me, I noticed the girl at the desk staring at my face. Hooks looked back at her staring and must have given her a look of some kind. “Mr. Ludefance, this is my secretary, Cholia.” She stood up and continued to stare at my scar. Black hair, cute face, maybe five-foot-four at the most, and a little on the plump side with rosy cheeks. Young. Very young. Looked like a teenager to me. Or was I just getting ‘older?

Are you going to change yet again, shift your position according to the questions that are put to you, and say that the objections are not really directed at the place from which you are speaking? Are you going to declare yet again that you have never been what you have been reproached with being? Are you already preparing the way out that will enable you in your next book to spring up somewhere else and declare as you're now doing: no, no, I'm not where you are lying in wait for me, but over here, laughing at you?' 'What, do you imagine that I would take so much trouble and so much pleasure in writing, do you think that I would keep so persistently to my task, if I were not preparing – with a rather shaky hand – a labyrinth into which I can venture, into which I can move my discourse... in which I can lose myself and appear at last to eyes that I will never have to meet again. I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write.

Passing stranger! You do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me, I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my back, breast, hands, in return, I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone, I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

To go to bed and to wake up again day afte day besides a woman, to lie in bed with our arms around each other and drift in and out of sleep, to be with each other not as a quick stolen pleasure, nor as a wild treat but like sunlight, day after day in the regualr course of our lives. I was discovering all the ways that love creeps into life when two selves exist closely, when two women meet.

At the podium Faith said, "Whenever I give a talk at colleges I meet young women who say, 'I'm not a feminist, but...' By which they mean, 'I don't call myself a feminist, but I want equal pay, and I want to have equal relationships with men, and of course I want to have an equal right to sexual pleasure. I want to have a fair and good life. I don't want to be held back because I'm a woman.

And so, from the first, we separated our pleasure. She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamors for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.

I could try composing wonderful musical works, or day-long entertainment epics, but what would that do? Give people pleasure? My wiping this table gives me pleasure. And people come to a clean table, which gives them pleasure. And anyway" - the man laughed - "people die; stars die; universes die. What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? Of course, if all I did was wipe tables, then of course it would seem a mean and despicable waste of my huge intellectual potential. But because I choose to do it, it gives me pleasure. And," the man said with a smile, "it's a good way of meeting people. So where are you from, anyway?

The joy of meeting and the sorrow of separation … we should welcome these gifts … with our whole soul, and experience to the full, and with the same gratitude, all the sweetness or bitterness as the case may be. Meeting and separation are two forms of friendship that contain the same good, in the one case through pleasure and in the other through sorrow… Soon there will be distance between us. Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other are not separated.

I just make the best book that I can and try to not worry about audience or if it will sell. The odds are against you, so why abuse your talent for the sake of a chimera? The only real pleasure for me in writing comes from pleasing myself. What readers think is interesting and illuminating (and it may even be correct), but that is nothing compared to the excitement of seeing a world develop. Besides, even though I like most individuals I meet, I have a pretty low opinion of people in general. So if I were to write for people in general, I would have to drastically lower my estimation of the intelligence of my reader. Rather than doing that, I write the way it seems the book has to appear. I don’t think that’s egotistic. There are often things I would like to include in my books—things about me personally and other materials—that I feel I have to leave out because they aren’t relevant to the book. I’m fairly ruthless along those lines, because I try to let nothing come in the way of what’s best for the book. If that means that the book won’t sell or that a publisher won’t buy it, then that’s my problem. I’ll suffer for that, but I won’t let the book suffer for it.

It's nice to meet you." Kylie plastered a warm expression on her face. But she worried he could tell it was a sham. "The pleasure is all mine," he said. Kylie just smiled. He was completely right about that.

I quickly realized that friendships without tomorrows, and the little anguishes of parting, were part of the pleasures of traveling. I resolutely avoided bores, saw only those who amused me. We spent afternoons taking long walks, nights drinking and talking, and then we would leave each other, never to meet again, and there were no regrets. How simple life was. No regrets, no obligations, my acts and gestures counted for nothing, no one asked my advice, and I knew no other rule but my whims.

Are you enjoying your company so far?" "Yes! It's been a pleasure getting to know these ladies." "Are they all the sweet, gentle ladies they appear to be?" Gavril asked. Before Maxon replied, the answer brought a smile to my face. Because I knew that it was yes...sort of. "Umm..." Maxon looked past Gavril at me. "Almost." "Almost?" Gavril asked, surprised. He turned to us. "Is someone over there being naughty?" Mercifully, all the girls let out light giggles, so I blended in. The little traitor! "What exactly did these girls do that isn't so sweet?" Gavril asked Maxon. "Oh, well, let me tell you." Maxon crossed his legs and got very comfortable in his chair. It was probably the most relaxed I'd ever seen him, sitting there poking fun at me. I liked this side of him. I wished it would come out more often. "One of them had the nerve to yell at me rather forcefully the first time we met. I was given a very severe scolding." Above Maxon's head, the king and queen exchanged a glance. It seemed they were hearing this story for the first time, too. Beside me the girls were looking at one another, confused. I didn't get it until Marlee said something. "I don't remember anyone yelling at him in the Great Room. Do you?" Maxon seemed to have forgotten that our first meeting was meant to be a secret. "I think he's talking it up to make it funnier. I did say some serious things to him. I think he might mean me." "A scolding, you say? Whatever for?" Gavril continued. "Honestly, I wasn't really sure. I think it was a bout of homesickness. Which is why I forgave her, of course." Maxon was loose and easy now, talking to Gavril as if he were the only person in the room. I'd have to tell him later how wonderful he did. "So she's still with us, then?" Gavril looked over at the collection of girls, grinning widely, and then returned to face his prince. "Oh, yes. She's still here," Maxon said, not letting his eyes wander from Gavril's face. "And I plan on keeping her here for quite a while.

When basic human needs are ignored, rejected, or invalidated by those in roles and positions to appropriately meet them; when the means by which these needs have been previously met are no longer available: and when prior abuse has already left one vulnerable for being exploited further, the stage is set for the possibility these needs will be prostituted. This situation places a survivor who has unmet needs in an incredible dilemma. She can either do without or seek the satisfaction of mobilized needs through some "illegitimate" source that leaves her increasingly divided from herself and ostracized from others. While meeting needs in this way resolves the immediate existential experience of deprivation and abandonment. it produces numerous other difficulties. These include experiencing oneself as “bad” or "weak" for having such strong needs; experiencing shame and guilt for relying on “illegitimate” sources of satisfaction: experiencing a loss of self-respect for indulging in activities contrary to personal moral standards of conduct; risking the displeasure and misunderstanding of others important to her; and opening oneself to the continued abuse and victimization of perpetrators who are all too willing to selfishly use others for their own pleasure and purposes under the guise of being 'helpful.

The hands of those I meet are dumbly eloquent to me. The touch of some hands is an impertinence. I have met people so empty of joy, that when I clasped their frosty finger-tips, it seemed as if I were shaking hands with a northeast storm. Others there are whose hands have sunbeams in them, so that their grasp warms my heart. It may be only the clinging touch of a child's hand; but there is as much potential sunshine in it for me as there is in a loving glance for others. A hearty handshake or a friendly letter gives me genuine pleasure.

When Steampunk meets adventure and adventure meets comedy and comedy meets ingenuity and ingenuity meets charm and charm meets wonder and wonder meets pleasure the result is a Triumph. Dr Grordbort is the future. And the past. Which makes an ideal present.

A precious mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind. The literature of old; What interested scholars most, What competitions ran When Plato was a certainty, And Sophocles a man; When Sappho was a living girl, And Beatrice wore The gown that Dante deified. Facts, centuries before, He traverses familiar, As one should come to town And tell you all your dreams were true: He lived where dreams were born. His presence is enchantment, You beg him not to go; Old volumes shake their vellum heads And tantalize just so.

What’s the good of these great fragile fits of enthusiasm, these jaded jumps of joys? We know nothing anymore, but the dead stars; we gaze at their faces; and we gasp with pleasure. Our mouths are dry as the lost beaches, and our eyes turn aimlessly and without hope. Now all that remain are these cafés where we meet to drink these cool drinks, these diluted spirits, and the tables are stickier than the pavements where our shadows of the day before have fallen.

How could I persuade the in-laws I was the right one for their daughter when, instead of focusing on small talk, all I could think about was not to kill them? I could only imagine what I'd say to the prospective in-laws, "Hello, it's a pleasure to eat, I mean, meet you.

I write - and read - for the sake of the story... My basic test for any story is: 'Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end itself?

Hard fun is, of course, the idea that we take pleasure in accomplishing something difficult: the joy in meeting and mastering a challenge. As a result, when someone is doing something that is hard fun, moment by moment it looks more like "work" than "fun," but the net effect is pleasurable overall.

A sore pain troubles me day and night, and I cannot sleep; I long for the meeting with my Beloved, and my father's house gives me pleasure no more. The gates of the sky are opened, the temple is revealed: I meet my husband, and leave at His feet the offering of my body and my mind.

Is it odd, my love, that I envy others who have not met you for the intoxication they have yet to experience? Is it odd that I wish to witness you with new eyes so I may have the pleasure of falling for you all over again? I am grateful, so grateful, for knowing the meaning of your various sighs. For being the cause of your ecstatic cries. But, if only for a moment, I wish to let you fall out of my hands so that I may catch you again. You, my love, are the oddity. You are my exception.

I had fallen into a profound dream-like reverie in which I heard him speaking as at a distance. 'And yet there is no one who communes with only one god,' he was saying, 'and the more a man lives in imagination and in a refined understanding, the more gods does he meet with and talk with, and the more does he come under the power of Roland, who sounded in the Valley of Roncesvalles the last trumpet of the body's will and pleasure; and of Hamlet, who saw them perishing away, and sighed; and of Faust, who looked for them up and down the world and could not find them; and under the power of all those countless divinities who have taken upon themselves spiritual bodies in the minds of the modern poets and romance writers, and under the power of the old divinities, who since the Renaissance have won everything of their ancient worship except the sacrifice of birds and fishes, the fragrance of garlands and the smoke of incense. The many think humanity made these divinities, and that it can unmake them again; but we who have seen them pass in rattling harness, and in soft robes, and heard them speak with articulate voices while we lay in deathlike trance, know that they are always making and unmaking humanity, which is indeed but the trembling of their lips.

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.

A man who can reason over trifles will become conceited, and will take pleasure in being described as 'odd'. He will start boasting that he was born with a personality that doesn't fit well with contemporary society, and be convinced that nobody else is above him. He will surely meet with divine retribution. Regardless of what abilities a man may possess, he will be of little use if rejected by others. People don't slight those who are eager to help and serve well, and who readily exhibit humility to their associates.

Lady Placida smiled. “History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title.” “Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.” Lady Placida laughed. “True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change.” She offered her hands. “It is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder.

Christ [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is congregation or meeting-place of all waters in the world: so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. . . .

If a mother cannot meet her baby’s impulses and needs, [quoting Donald Winnicott] ‘the baby learns to become the mother’s idea of what the baby is.’ Having to discount its inner sensations, and trying to adjust it its caregiver’s needs, means the child perceives that ‘something is wrong’ with the way it is. Children who lack physical attunement are vulnerable to shutting down the direct feedback from their bodies, the seat of pleasure, purpose, and direction.

Why shouldn't we kill you?" he asked the black-garbed male who came forward to meet him. "We have no quarrel with you." The man's eyes were flat, his voice toneless. "We ask permission to enter your territory to hunt a Psy fugitive." "Permission denied." Lucas folded his arms. "I don't make a habit of allowing enemies into my territory." "This fugitive may be dangerous to you and your people." Lucas smiled and it was nothing friendly. "Then the fugitive will die." "We would prefer to capture this one alive." "Didn't your mother ever tell you - you don't always get what you want?

We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends--- those whom we obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties, --- even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice, --- even they have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its tress--- a mute friend, judge, and inspirer. Say what you like, to get its joy, to breathe its peace, to face its truth, one must return with a clear conscience. All this may seem to you sheer sentimentalism; and indeed very few of us have the will or capacity to look consciously under the surface of familiar emotions. There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp.

She did not know how long she fell with them. But then there was a rushing, roaring below—a frozen river. Whispers and foggy light were rising to meet them. No, not rising—this was the bottom. An end to the abyss. And an end to her, perhaps, at last. She didn't know if the Valg princes' hissing was from anger or pleasure as they slammed into that frozen river at the bottom of her soul.

Oh! my dearest love, why are our pleasures so short and so interrupted? How long is this to last? Know you, my best Mary, that I feel myself, in your absence, almost degraded to the level of the vulgar and impure. I feel their vacant, stiff eyeballs fixed upon me, until I seem to have been infected with their loathsome meaning--to inhale a sickness that subdues me to languor. Oh! those redeeming eyes of Mary, that they might beam upon me before I sleep! Praise my forbearance--oh! beloved one--that I do not rashly fly to you, and at least secure a moment's bliss. Wherefore should I delay; do you not long to meet me? All that is exalted and buoyant in my nature urges me towards you, reproaches me with the cold delay, laughs at all fear and spurns to dream of prudence. Why am I not with you?

You are rich if you have enough money to satisfy all your desires. So there are two ways to be rich: You earn, inherit, borrow, beg, or steal enough money to meet all your desires; or, you cultivate a simple lifestyle of few desires; that way you always have enough money. “A peaceful warrior has the insight and discipline to choose the simple way — to know the difference between needs and wants. We have few basic needs but endless wants. Full attention to every moment is my pleasure. Attention costs no money; your only investment is training. That’s another advantage of being a warrior, Dan — it’s cheaper! The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” I

The more beautiful world my heart knows is possible is a world with a lot more pleasure: a lot more touch, a lot more lovemaking, a lot more hugging, a lot more deep gazing into each other’s eyes, a lot more fresh-ground tortillas and just-harvested tomatoes still warm from the sun, a lot more singing, a lot more dancing, a lot more timelessness, a lot more beauty in the built environment, a lot more pristine views, a lot more water fresh from the spring. Have you ever tasted real water, springing from the earth after a twenty-year journey through the mountain? None of these pleasures is very far away. None requires any new inventions, nor the subservience of the many to the few. Yet our society is destitute of them all. Our wealth, so-called, is a veil for our poverty, a substitute for what is missing. Because it cannot meet most of our true needs, it is an addictive substitute. No amount can ever be enough. Many of us already see through the superficial substitute pleasures we are offered. They are boring to us, or even revolting. We needn’t sacrifice pleasure to reject them. We need only sacrifice the habit, deeply ingrained, of choosing a lesser pleasure over a greater. Where does this habit come from? It is an essential strand of the world of separation, because most of the tasks that we must do to keep the world-devouring machine operating do not feel very good at all. To keep doing them, we must be trained to deny pleasure.

But just exactly what is the “good” to which we aspire through doing and eating things that are supposed to be good for us? This question is strictly taboo, for if it were seriously investigated the whole economy and social order would fall apart and have to be reorganized. It would be like the donkey finding out that the carrot dangled before him, to make him run, is hitched by a stick to his own collar. For the good to which we aspire exists only and always in the future. Because we cannot relate to the sensuous and material present we are most happy when good things are expected to happen, not when they are happening. We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come. We are therefore a civilization which suffers from chronic disappointment—a formidable swarm of spoiled children smashing their toys.

Nor have the lives of great men been exciting except at a few great moments. Socrates could enjoy a banquet now and again, and must have derived considerable satisfaction from his conversations while the hemlock was taking effect, but most of his life he lived quietly with Xanthippe, taking a constitutional in the afternoon, and perhaps meeting a few friends by the way. Kant is said never to have been more than ten miles from from konigsberg in all his life. Darwin, after going round the world, spent the whole of the rest of his life in his own house. Marx, after stirring up a few revolutions, decided to spend the remainder of his days in the British Museum. Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men, and that their pleasures have not been of the sort that would look exciting to the outward eye.

He had always believed that his father had not been able to save a penny from the business, at least his father had never told him anything to the contrary, and Gregor, for his part, had never asked him any questions. In those days Gregor's sole concern had been to do everything in his power to make the family forget as quickly as possible the business disaster which had plunged everyone into a state of total despair. And so he had begun to work with special ardor and had risen almost overnight from stock clerk to traveling salesman, which of course had opened up very different money-making possibilities, and in no time his successes on the job were transformed, by means of commissions, into hard cash that could be plunked down on the table at home in front of his astonished and delighted family. Those had been the wonderful times, and they had never returned, at least not with the same glory, although later on Gregor earned enough money to meet the expenses of the entire family and actually did so. They had just gotten used to it, the family as well as Gregor, the money was received with thanks and given with pleasure, but no special feeling of warmth went with it any more.

Listen, you machine,” he said, “you claim you can synthesize any drink in existence, so why do you keep giving me the same undrinkable stuff?” “Nutrition and pleasurable sense data,” burbled the machine. “Share and Enjoy.” “It tastes filthy!” “If you have enjoyed the experience of this drink,” continued the machine, “why not share it with your friends?” “Because,” said Arthur tartly, “I want to keep them. Will you try to comprehend what I’m telling you? That drink …” “That drink,” said the machine sweetly, “was individually tailored to meet your personal requirements for nutrition and pleasure.” “Ah,” said Arthur, “so I’m a masochist on a diet am I?” “Share and Enjoy.” “Oh, shut up.

As you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that your journey be a long one, filled with adventure, filled with discovery. Laestrygonians and Cyclopes, the angry Poseidon--do not fear them: you'll never find such things on your way unless your sight is set high, unless a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. The Laestrygonians and Cyclopes, the savage Poseidon--you won't meet them so long as you do not admit them to your soul, as long as your soul does not set them before you. Pray that your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when with what pleasure, with what joy, you enter harbors never seen before. May you stop at Phoenician stations of trade to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, and voluptuous perfumes of every kind-- buy as many voluptuous perfumes as you can. And may you go to many Egyptian cities to learn and learn from those who know. Always keep Ithaca in your mind. You are destined to arrive there. But don't hurry your journey at all. Far better if it takes many years, and if you are old when you anchor at the island, rich with all you have gained on the way, not expecting that Ithaca will give you wealth. Ithaca has given you a beautiful journey. Without her you would never have set out. She has no more left to give you. And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not mocked you. As wise as you have become, so filled with experience, you will have understood what these Ithacas signify.

I liked him, there was no doubt about that. But I wasn't sure if he was good for me or not. I didn't always stick to things that were good for me - positively railed against it sometimes - but he was a different type of not good for me. He did things to my mind and body that I hadn't ever experienced before. But it wasn't as if I could get him out of my head either: every moment I had free would suddenly be crammed with thoughts of him. His soft lips, the gentle urgency with which they'd kissed me. The intoxicating smell of his skin. His moss-green eyes that would follow everything I said, then would meet my eyes so we could share a smile. It was driving me slowly and pleasurably insane.

To look back upon the past year, and see how little we have striven and to what small purpose: and how often we have been cowardly and hung back, or temerarious and rushed unwisely in; and how every day and all day long we have transgressed the law of kindness; -it may seem a paradox, but in the bitterness of these discoveries, a certain consolation resides. Life is not designed to minister to a man's vanity. He goes upon his long business most of the time with a hanging head, and all the time like a blind child. Full of rewards and pleasures as it is - so that to see the day break or the moon rise, or to meet a friend, or to hear the dinner-call when he is hungry, fills him with surprising joys - this world is yet for him no abiding city. Friendships fall through, health fails, weariness assails him; year after year, he must thumb the hardly varying record of his own weakness and folly. It is a friendly process of detachment. When the time comes that he should go, there need be few illusions left about himself. Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much: -surely that may be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed.

His vulnerability allowed me to let my guard down, and gently and methodically, he tore apart my well-constructed dam. Waves of tender feelings were lapping over the top and slipping through the cracks. The feelings flooded through and spilled into me. It was frightening opening myself up to feel love for someone again. My heart pounded hard and thudded audibly in my chest. I was sure he could hear it. Ren’s expression changed as he watched my face. His look of sadness was replaced by one of concern for me. What was the next step? What should I do? What do I say? How do I share what I’m feeling? I remembered watching romance movies with my mom, and our favorite saying was “shut up and kiss her already!” We’d both get frustrated when the hero or heroine wouldn’t do what was so obvious to the two of us, and as soon as a tense, romantic moment occurred, we’d both repeat our mantra. I could hear my mom’s humor-filled voice in my mind giving me the same advice: “Kells, shut up and kiss him already!” So, I got a grip on myself, and before I changed my mind, I leaned over and kissed him. He froze. He didn’t kiss me back. He didn’t push me away. He just stopped…moving. I pulled back, saw the shock on his face, and instantly regretted my boldness. I stood up and walked away, embarrassed. I wanted to put some distance between us as I frantically tried to rebuild the walls around my heart. I heard him move. He slid his hand under my elbow and turned me around. I couldn’t look at him. I just stared at his bare feet. He put a finger under my chin and tried to nudge my head up, but I still refused to meet his gaze. “Kelsey. Look at me.” Lifting my eyes, they traveled from his feet to a white button in the middle of his shirt. “Look at me.” My eyes continued their journey. They drifted past the golden-bronze skin of his chest, his throat, and then settled on his beautiful face. His cobalt blue eyes searched mine, questioning. He took a step closer. My breath hitched in my throat. Reaching out a hand, he slid it around my waist slowly. His other hand cupped my chin. Still watching my face, he placed his palm lightly on my cheek and traced the arch of my cheekbone with his thumb. The touch was sweet, hesitant, and careful, the way you might try to touch a frightened doe. His face was full of wonder and awareness. I quivered. He paused just a moment more, then smiled tenderly, dipped is head, and brushed his lips lightly against mine. He kissed me softly, tentatively, just a mere whisper of a kiss. His other hand slid down to my waist too. I timidly touched his arms with my fingertips. He was warm, and his skin was smooth. He gently pulled me closer and pressed me lightly against his chest. I gripped his arms. He sighed with pleasure, and deepened the kiss. I melted into him. How was I breathing? His summery sandalwood scent surrounded me. Everywhere he touched me, I felt tingly and alive. I clutched his arms fervently. His lips never leaving mine, Ren took both of my arms and wrapped them, one by one, around his neck. Then he trailed one of his hands down my bare arm to my waist while the other slid into my hair. Before I realized what he was planning to do, he picked me up with one arm and crushed me to his chest. I have no idea how long we kissed. It felt like a mere second, and it also felt like forever. My bare feet were dangling several inches from the floor. He was holding all my body weight easily with one arm. I buried my fingers into his hair and felt a rumble in his chest. It was similar to the purring sound he made as a tiger. After that, all coherent thought fled and time stopped.

Whom, then, do I call educated, since I exclude the arts and sciences and specialties? First, those who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day, and who possess a judgement which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise and rarely misses the expedient course of action; next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all with whom they associate, tolerating easily and good-naturedly what is unpleasant or offensive in others and being themselves as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as it is possible to be; furthermore, those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not unduly overcome by their misfortunes, bearing up under them bravely and in a manner worthy of our common nature; finally, and most important of all, those who are not spoiled by successes and do not desert their true selves and become arrogant, but hold their ground steadfastly as intelligent men, not rejoicing in the good things which have come to them through chance rather than in those which through their own nature and intelligence are theirs from their birth. Those who have a character which is in accord, not with one of these things, but with all of them—these, I contend, are wise and complete men, possessed of all the virtues.

He describes three types of happiness: pleasure, passion, and higher purpose.1            1.    Pleasure: This type of happiness is about always chasing the next high. It is the rock-star type of happiness because it is very hard to maintain unless you are living the lifestyle of a rock star.            2.    Passion: Also known as “flow,” where peak performance meets peak engagement, and time flies by.            3.    Higher Purpose: This is about being part of something bigger than yourself that has meaning to you.

What are we going to tell the Intergalactic Council of Ministers the first time one of our teenage mothers threw her newborn baby into a dumpster, huh? How're we gonna explain that to the space people? How are we gonna let them know that our ambassador was only late for the meeting because his breakfast was cold and he had to spend half an hour punching his wife around the kitchen? What are they gonna think when they find out that it's just a local custom that over 80 million women in the Third World have had their clitorises forcibly removed in order to reduce their sexual pleasures so they won't cheat on their husbands? Can't you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up? Can't you see them out there?

There is also a keen pleasure (and after all, what else should the pursuit of science produce?) in meeting the riddle of the initial blossoming of man's mind by postulating a voluptuous pause in the growth of the rest of nature, a lolling and loafing which allowed first of all the formation of Homo poeticus-- without which sapiens could not have been evolved. "Struggle for life" indeed! The curse of battle and toil leads man back to the boar, to the grunting beast's crazy obsession with the search for food. You and I have frequently remarked upon that maniacal glint in a housewife's scheming eye as it roves over food in a grocery or about the morgue of a butcher's shop. Toilers of the world, disband! Old books are wrong. The world was made on a Sunday.

When I had lived in this world for twenty years, I understood that it was a world worth living in. At twenty-five I realized that light and dark are sides of the same coin; that wherever the sun shines, shadows too must fall. Now, at thirty, here is what I think: where joy grows deep, sorrow must deepen; the greater one's pleasures, the greater the pain. If you try to sever the two, life falls apart. Try to control them, and you will meet with failure. Money is essential, but with the increase of what is essential to you, anxieties will invade you even in sleep. Love is a happy thing, but as this happy love swells and grows heavy, you will yearn instead for the happy days before love came into your life. Splendid though he is, a cabinet minister must bear a million people on his shoulders; the weight of the whole nation rests heavy upon his back. If something is delicious, it goes hard not to eat it, yet if you eat a little you only desire more, and if you gorge yourself on it, it leaves you unpleasantly bloated.

Lacing their fingers together, Kai lifted the back of her hand to his mouth. "Was there any reason in particular you wanted to show me this?" "I'm not sure. I figured you know all about my biological family and the world I was born into, and you've of course had the great pleasure of meeting my adoptive family on numerous occasions, so this was the last piece of the puzzle." She waved her free arm around the room. "The missing link to my past." Kai looked around one more time. "It's pretty creepy, actually." "I know." After another moment of reverent silence, Kai said, "I'm surprised Thorne hasn't asked if he can start leading guided tours down here. I bet you could charge a hefty admission fee." Cinder snorted. "Please don't plant that idea in his head." "Scarlet would never allow it anyway.

I learned that we may meet a true love and that our lives may be transformed by such an encounter even when it does not lead to sexual pleasure, committed bonding, or even sustained contact. The myth of true love-that fairy-tale vision of two souls who meet, join, and live happily ever thereafter-is the stuff of childhood fantasy. Yet many of us, female and male, carry these fantasies into adulthood and are unable to cope with the reality of what it means to either have an intense life-altering connection that will not lead to an ongoing relationship or to be in a relationship. True love does not always lead to happily ever after, and even when it does sustaining love still takes work.

and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel–writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding — joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine–hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens — there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel–reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imagine that I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best–chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.

Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual– to me– a perfectly new character, I suspected was yours; I desired to search it deeper, and know it better. You entered the room with a look and air at once shy and independent; you were quaintly dress– much as you are now. I made you talk; ere long I found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet, when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor’s face; there was penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me – I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquilized your manner; snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure, at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw; I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely, I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance; besides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fade – the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you – but you did not; you kept in the school-room as still as your own desk and easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, fro you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me– or if you ever thought of me; to find this out, I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed; I saw you had a social heart; it was the silent school-room– it was the tedium of your life that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon; your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful, happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time; there was a curious hesitation in your manner; you glanced at me with a slight trouble– a hovering doubt; you did not know what my caprice might be– whether I was going to play the master, and be stern– or the friend, and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often to stimulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom, and light, and bliss, rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart.

NOW this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back — For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep; And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep. The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown, Remember the Wolf is a Hunter — go forth and get food of thine own. Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle — the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear. And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his lair. When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken — it may be fair words shall prevail. When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and afar, Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished by war. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home, Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it too plain, The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it again. If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with your bay, Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop, and your brothers go empty away. Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can; But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man! If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride; Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide. The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it lies; And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies. The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will; But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that Kill. Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same. Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same. Cave-Right is the right of the Father — to hunt by himself for his own: He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the Council alone. Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe and his paw, In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of your Head Wolf is Law. Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is — Obey!

Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process. The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents—will you learn how to focus and move past the boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction? Much as with physical exercise, you can even get a kind of perverse pleasure out of this pain, knowing the benefits it will bring you. In any event, you must meet any boredom head-on and not try to avoid or repress it. Throughout your life you will encounter tedious situations, and you must cultivate the ability to handle them with discipline.

But farm workers kill animals because they can support their families by doing so, whereas we order the killing for reasons that have never been more frivolous, now that meat is no longer considered necessary for one's health, and soy products can replicate to an uncanny degree the experience of eating it. I know, "It's just not the same" — but as with the child molester, who probably thinks those very words when he rolls off his wife, the nonviolent pleasure is surely close enough to the violent one to make an insistence on the latter even more monstrous. Has any generation in history ever been so ready to cause so much suffering for such a trivial advantage? We deaden our consciences to enjoy—for a few minutes a day—the taste of blood, the feel of our teeth meeting through muscle. It's enough, as Balzac would say, to disgust a sow.

Among all the methods by which love is brought into being, among all the agents which disseminate that blessed bane, there are few so efficacious as the great gust of agitation which, now and then, sweeps over the human spirit. For then the creature in whose company we are seeking amusement at the moment, her lot is cast, her fate and ours decided, that is the creature whom we shall henceforward love. It is not necessary that she should have pleased us, up till then, any more, or even as much as others. All that is necessary is that our taste for her should become exclusive. And that condition is fulfilled so soon as - in the moment when she has failed to meet us - for the pleasure which we were on the point of enjoying in her charming company is abruptly substituted an anxious torturing desire, whose object is the creature herself, an irrational, absurd desire, which the laws of civilised society make it impossible to satisfy and difficult to assuage - the insensate, agonising desire to possess her.

For the author as for God, standing outwith his creation, all times are one; all times are now. In mine own country, we accept as due and right – as very meet, right, and our bounden duty – the downs and their orchids and butterflies, the woods and coppices, ash, beech, oak, and field maple, rowan, wild cherry, holly, and hazel, bluebells in their season and willow, alder, and poplar in the wetter ground. We accept as proper and unremarkable the badger and the squirrel, the roe deer and the rabbit, the fox and the pheasant, as the companions of our walks and days. We remark with pleasure, yet take as granted, the hedgerow and the garden, the riot of snowdrops, primroses, and cowslips, the bright flash of kingfishers, the dart of swallows and the peaceful homeliness of house martins, the soft nocturnal glimmer of glow worm and the silent nocturnal swoop of owl.

What could prompt parents to give up sleep, sex, friends, personal time and virtually every other pleasure in life to meet the demands of a small, often irritatingly noisy, incontinent, needy being? The secret is that caring for children is, in many ways, indescribably pleasurable. Our brains reward us for interacting with our children, especially infants: their scent, the cooing sounds they make when they are calm, their smooth skin and especially, their faces are designed to fill us with joy. What we call “cuteness” is actually an evolutionary adaptation that helps ensure that parents will care for their children, that babies will get their needs met, and parents will take on this seemingly thankless task with pleasure.

As long as the ego runs your life, most of your thoughts, emotions, and actions arise from desire and fear. In relationships you then either want or fear something from the other person. What you want from them may be pleasure or material gain, recognition, praise or attention, or a strengthening of your sense of self through comparison and through establishing that you are, have, or know more than they. What you fear is that the opposite may be the case, and they may diminish your sense of self in some way. When you make the present moment the focal point of your attention — instead of using it as a means to an end — you go beyond the ego and beyond the unconscious compulsion to use people as a means to an end, the end being self-enhancement at the cost of others. When you give your fullest attention to whoever you are interacting with, you take past and future out of the relationship, except for practical matters. When you are fully present with everyone you meet, you relinquish the conceptual identity you made for them — your interpretation of who they are and what they did in the past — and are able to interact without the egoic movements of desire and fear. Attention, which is alert stillness, is the key. How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything.

It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we’d worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga. It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do and the people we didn’t marry and the children we didn’t have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out. But it is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy. We can’t tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on. Of course, we can’t visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we’d feel in any life is still available. We don’t have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don’t have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don’t have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum. We only need to be one person. We only need to feel one existence. We don’t have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility. So let’s be kind to the people in our own existence. Let’s occasionally look up from the spot in which we are because, wherever we happen to be standing, the sky above goes on for ever. Yesterday I knew I had no future, and that it was impossible for me to accept my life as it is now. And yet today, that same messy life seems full of hope. Potential. The impossible, I suppose, happens via living. Will my life be miraculously free from pain, despair, grief, heartbreak, hardship, loneliness, depression? No. But do I want to live? Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes.

I'll buy you a blow-up doll. I'm sure my mate won't mind when I explain how hard up you are." She didn't bother to punch him this time, just glared with promise of future retaliation. "Very funny. You wouldn't be laughing if you knew how sexually frustrated I am right now." [...] "The last time was when that SilverBlade sentinel was in town for a communications meeting." All amusement left Dorian's face. "You serious? That was months ago." A very long time to go without intimate touch. "Merce, that could get dangerous." "I know. Do you think I don't know?" She thrust her hands through her hair. "Damn it Dorian! It's getting to the point where I'm starting to wonder if some of the wolves would be good in bed. [...] "Cat and wolf isn't a ... um ... normal combination." "And Psy and cat is?" She made a face at him. "Yeah, yeah I know. Cat and wolf is strange." [...] "How about one of the Rats?" Dorian's eyes gleamed.

Where I come from, nobody reads novels unless they're like my mother-- fetishizing the artistic media of a bygone era, probably because it was the last time she was happy. But regular people don't read books there. That quasi- telepathic pact between author and reader held little interest for a general audience. Because the dominant storytelling medium of my world involved the seamless integration of an individual's subconscious wiring into the narrative, evoking deep personal wonder and terror, familiarity and delight, yearning and fury, and a triggering catharsis so spellbinding and essential that the idea of sitting down to page through a novel that's not even intended to be about the secret box inside your mind-- why would anyone want to do that for, like, fun? Unless, of course, you were constitutionally inclined to sublimate yourself to a stronger personality, in which case reading a book where every word is fixed in place by the deliberate choices of a controlling vision, surrendering agency over your own imagination to a stranger you'll likely never meet, is some sort of masochistic pleasure.

But there is an unbounded pleasure to be had in the possession of a young, newly blossoming soul! It is like a flower, from which the best aroma evaporates when meeting the first ray of the sun; you must pluck it at that minute, breathing it in until you’re satisfied, and then throw it onto the road: perhaps someone will pick it up! I feel this insatiable greed, which swallows everything it meets on its way. I look at the suffering and joy of others only in their relation to me, as though it is food that supports the strength of my soul. I myself am not capable of going mad under the influence of passion. My ambition is stifled by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in another way, for ambition is nothing other than a thirst for power, and my best pleasure is to subject everyone around me to my will, to arouse feelings of love, devotion and fear of me—is this not the first sign and the greatest triumph of power? Being someone’s reason for suffering while not being in any position to claim the right—isn’t this the sweetest nourishment for our pride? And what is happiness? Sated pride. If I considered myself to be better, more powerful than everyone in the world, I would be happy. If everyone loved me, I would find endless sources of love within myself. Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others. An evil idea cannot enter a person’s head without his wanting to bring it into reality: ideas are organic creations, someone once said. Their birth gives them form immediately, and this form is an action. The person in whom most ideas are born is the person who acts most. Hence a genius, riveted to his office desk, must die or lose his mind, just as a man with a powerful build who has a sedentary life and modest behavior will die from an apoplectic fit. Passions are nothing other than the first developments of an idea: they are a characteristic of the heart’s youth, and whoever thinks to worry about them his whole life long is a fool: many calm rivers begin with a noisy waterfall, but not one of them jumps and froths until the very sea. And this calm is often the sign of great, though hidden, strength. The fullness and depth of both feeling and thought will not tolerate violent upsurges. The soul, suffering and taking pleasure, takes strict account of everything and is always convinced that this is how things should be. It knows that without storms, the constant sultriness of the sun would wither it. It is infused with its own life—it fosters and punishes itself, like a child. And it is only in this higher state of self-knowledge that a person can estimate the value of divine justice.

Amedeo loved thick tomes, and in tackling them he felt the physical pleasure of undertaking a great task. Weighing them in his hand, thick, closely printed, squat, he would consider with some apprehension the number of pages, the length of the chapters, then venture into them, a bit reluctant at the beginning, without any desire to perform the initial chore of remembering the names, catching the drift of the story; then he would entrust himself to it, running along the lines, crossing the grid of the uniform page, and beyond the leaden print the flame and fire of battle appeared, the cannonball that, whistling through the sky, fell at the feet of Prince Andrei, and the shop filled with engravings and statues where Frederic Moreau, his heart in his mouth, was to meet the Arnoux family. Beyond the surface of the page you entered a world where life was more alive than here on this side…

I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.” “A true Janian reply!  Good angels be my guard!  She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming!  If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh.  Truant! truant!” he added, when he had paused an instant.  “Absent from me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I’ll be sworn!” I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially.  His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. 

Self-care is an attitude toward ourselves and our lives that says, I am responsible for myself. I am responsible for leading or not living my life. I am responsible for tending to my spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial well-being. I am responsible for identifying and meeting my needs. I am responsible for solving my problems or learning to live with those I cannot solve. I am responsible for my choices. I am responsible for what I give and receive. I am also responsible for setting and achieving my goals. I am responsible for how much I enjoy life, for how much pleasure I find in daily activities. I am responsible for whom I love and how I choose to express this love. I am responsible for what I do to others and for what I allow others to do to me. I am responsible for my wants and desires. All of me, every aspect of my being, is important. I count for something. I matter. My feelings can be trusted. My thinking is appropriate. I value my wants and needs. I do not deserve and will not tolerate abuse or constant mistreatment. I have rights, and it is my responsibility to assert these rights. The decisions I make and the way I conduct myself will reflect my high self-esteem. My decisions will take into account my responsibilities to myself.

Where are you going?” “Uh,” said Kami, eyeballing her wildly. “I’m going to buy some drugs.” Lillian stared. “I beg your pardon?” “This is a really stressful time for everyone,” said Kami. “So I thought maybe I could buy a little weed, take the edge off. I might be a while. This is a very clean-living town, apart from all the murders, so I don’t actually know any drug dealers. I realize Jared kind of looks like one, but he’s not, which is a shame because I think the drug dealer’s girlfriend gets her drugs free.” “I realize you are attempting to be humorous,” said Lillian, after a pause during which she stared some more. “I don’t understand it.” “Hey, you’re not the only family with a legacy. ‘Glass’ rhymes with ‘sass.’ Have you met my dad?” “I have had that dubious pleasure,” said Lillian. “He is, in fact, meant to be meeting me in order to, and I quote, ‘teach me to integrate better with society, display leadership skills, win over the populace, and stop acting like a robot princess from space.’ I admit that the humor in his humor escapes me as well.” She paused and suddenly looked determined. “I’m going to start without him.

The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable and at the same time dreaded to be just from the pain of obligation were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true He had followed them purposely to town he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise and where he was reduced to meet frequently meet reason with persuade and finally bribe the man whom he always most wished to avoid and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient when required to depend on his affection for her—for a woman who had already refused him—as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law of Wickham Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had to be sure done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for his interference which asked no extraordinary stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong he had liberality and he had the means of exercising it and though she would not place herself as his principal inducement she could perhaps believe that remaining partiality for her might assist his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially concerned. It was painful exceedingly painful to know that they were under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They owed the restoration of Lydia her character every thing to him. Oh how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever encouraged every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For herself she was humbled but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause of compassion and honour he had been able to get the better of himself. She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It was hardly enough but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some pleasure though mixed with regret on finding how steadfastly both she and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted between Mr. Darcy and herself.

At a lunchtime reception for the diplomatic corps in Washington, given the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, I was approached by a good-looking man who extended his hand. 'We once met many years ago,' he said. 'And you knew and befriended my father.' My mind emptied, as so often happens on such occasions. I had to inform him that he had the advantage of me. 'My name is Hector Timerman. I am the ambassador of Argentina.' In my above album of things that seem to make life pointful and worthwhile, and that even occasionally suggest, in Dr. King’s phrase as often cited by President Obama, that there could be a long arc in the moral universe that slowly, eventually bends toward justice, this would constitute an exceptional entry. It was also something more than a nudge to my memory. There was a time when the name of Jacobo Timerman, the kidnapped and tortured editor of the newspaper La Opinion in Buenos Aires, was a talismanic one. The mere mention of it was enough to elicit moans of obscene pleasure from every fascist south of the Rio Grande: finally in Argentina there was a strict ‘New Order’ that would stamp hard upon the international Communist-Jewish collusion. A little later, the mention of Timerman’s case was enough to derail the nomination of Ronald Reagan’s first nominee as undersecretary for human rights; a man who didn’t seem to have grasped the point that neo-Nazism was a problem for American values. And Timerman’s memoir, Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number, was the book above all that clothed in living, hurting flesh the necessarily abstract idea of the desaparecido: the disappeared one or, to invest it with the more sinister and grisly past participle with which it came into the world, the one who has been ‘disappeared.’ In the nuances of that past participle, many, many people vanished into a void that is still unimaginable. It became one of the keywords, along with escuadrone de la muerte or ‘death squads,’ of another arc, this time of radical evil, that spanned a whole subcontinent. Do you know why General Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina was eventually sentenced? Well, do you? Because he sold the children of the tortured rape victims who were held in his private prison. I could italicize every second word in that last sentence without making it any more heart-stopping. And this subhuman character was boasted of, as a personal friend and genial host, even after he had been removed from the office he had defiled, by none other than Henry Kissinger. So there was an almost hygienic effect in meeting, in a new Washington, as an envoy of an elected government, the son of the brave man who had both survived and exposed the Videla tyranny.

I know it was personally right, it was divinely right, for those apostles to hear what Jesus said and to tarry for the Holy Spirit; however, it is not right now to tarry for the Holy Spirit. Then why do we not all receive the Holy Spirit, you ask? Because our bodies are not ready for it; our temples are not cleansed. When our temples are purified and our minds are put in order so that carnalities and fleshly desires and everything contrary to the Spirit have gone, then the Holy Spirit can take full charge. The Holy Spirit is not a manifestation of carnality. There are any number of people who never read the Word of God who could not be led away by the powers of Satan. But the power of the Holy Spirit is most lovely, divine in all its construction. It is a great refiner. It is full of life, but it is always divine—never natural. If you deal in the flesh after you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you cease to go on. Beloved, I want to speak about something greater; something to lift your minds, elevate your thoughts, and bring you into divine ways; something that elevates you out of yourself and into God, out of the world and into a place where you know you have rest for your feet, where you cease from your own works (Heb. 4:10), and where God works in you mightily “to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). When I think about a river—a pure, holy, divine river—I say, “What can stand against its inrush?” Wherever it is—in a railway coach, in the street, or in a meeting—its power and flow will always be felt; it will always do its work. Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit that was to be given. I want you to think about how God gave it, how its coming was manifested, and its reception and its outflow after it had come.

It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

Poem: Roses And Rue (To L. L.) Could we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love's song, We are parted too long. Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead, Could we live it all over again, Were it worth the pain! I remember we used to meet By an ivied seat, And you warbled each pretty word With the air of a bird; And your voice had a quaver in it, Just like a linnet, And shook, as the blackbird's throat With its last big note; And your eyes, they were green and grey Like an April day, But lit into amethyst When I stooped and kissed; And your mouth, it would never smile For a long, long while, Then it rippled all over with laughter Five minutes after. You were always afraid of a shower, Just like a flower: I remember you started and ran When the rain began. I remember I never could catch you, For no one could match you, You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, Little wings to your feet. I remember your hair - did I tie it? For it always ran riot - Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: These things are old. I remember so well the room, And the lilac bloom That beat at the dripping pane In the warm June rain; And the colour of your gown, It was amber-brown, And two yellow satin bows From your shoulders rose. And the handkerchief of French lace Which you held to your face - Had a small tear left a stain? Or was it the rain? On your hand as it waved adieu There were veins of blue; In your voice as it said good-bye Was a petulant cry, 'You have only wasted your life.' (Ah, that was the knife!) When I rushed through the garden gate It was all too late. Could we live it over again, Were it worth the pain, Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead! Well, if my heart must break, Dear love, for your sake, It will break in music, I know, Poets' hearts break so. But strange that I was not told That the brain can hold In a tiny ivory cell God's heaven and hell.

That reminded him of how thrifty she was, and he promptly decided-at least for the moment-that her thriftiness was one of her most endearingly amusing qualities. “What are you thinking about?” she asked. He tipped his chin down so that he could better see her and brushed a stray lock of golden hair off her cheek. “I was thinking how wise I must be to have known within minutes of meeting you that you were wonderful.” She chuckled, thinking his words were teasing flattery. “How soon did my qualities become apparent?” “I’d say,” he thoughtfully replied, “I knew it when you took sympathy on Galileo.” She’d expected him to say something about her looks, not her conversation or her mind. “Truly?” she asked with unhidden pleasure. He nodded, but he was studying her reaction with curiosity. “What did you think I was going to say?” Her slim shoulders lifted in an embarrassed shrug. “I thought you would say it was my face you noticed first. People have the most extraordinary reaction to my face,” she explained with a disgusted sigh. “I can’t imagine why,” he said, grinning down at what was, in his opinion-in anyone’s opinion-a heartbreakingly beautiful face belonging to a young woman who was sprawled across his chest looking like an innocent golden goddess. “I think it’s my eyes. They’re an odd color.” “I see that now,” he teased, then he said more solemnly, “but as it happens it was not your face which I found so beguiling when we met in the garden, because,” he added when she looked unconvinced, “I couldn’t see it.” “Of course you could. I could see yours well enough, even though night had fallen.” “Yes, but I was standing near a torch lamp, while you perversely remained in the shadows. I could tell that yours was a very nice face, with the requisite features in the right places, and I could also tell that your other-feminine assets-were definitely in all the right places, but that was all I could see. And then later that night I looked up and saw you walking down the staircase. I was so surprised, it took a considerable amount of will to keep from dropping the glass I was holding.” Her happy laughter drifted around the room and reminded him of music. “Elizabeth,” he said dryly, “I am not such a fool that I would have let a beautiful face alone drive me to madness, or to asking you to marry me, or even to extremes of sexual desire.” She saw that he was perfectly serious, and she sobered, “Thank you,” she said quietly. “That is the nicest compliment you could have paid me, my lord.” “Don’t call me ‘my lord,’” he told her with a mixture of gentleness and gravity, “unless you mean it. I dislike having you address me that way if it’s merely a reference to my title.” Elizabeth snuggled her cheek against his hard chest and quietly replied, “As you wish. My lord.” Ian couldn’t help it. He rolled her onto her back and devoured her with his mouth, claimed her with his hands and then his body.

DEAR MAMA, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I’m not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be O.K., if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child. I have friends who think I’m foolish to write this letter. I hope they’re wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who loved and trusted them less than mine do. I hope especially that you’ll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you. I wouldn’t have written, I guess, if you hadn’t told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant. I’m sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief—rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes. No, Mama, I wasn’t “recruited.” No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, “You’re all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You’re not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends—all kinds of friends—who don’t give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it.” But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don’t consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being. These aren’t radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it’s all right for you to like me too. I know what you must be thinking now. You’re asking yourself: What did we do wrong? How did we let this happen? Which one of us made him that way? I can’t answer that, Mama. In the long run, I guess I really don’t care. All I know is this: If you and Papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it’s the light and the joy of my life. I know I can’t tell you what it is to be gay. But I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity. It’s not fearing your body, or the pleasures that God made for it. It’s not judging your neighbor, except when he’s crass or unkind. Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me the limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength. It has brought me into the family of man, Mama, and I like it here. I like it. There’s not much else I can say, except that I’m the same Michael you’ve always known. You just know me better now. I have never consciously done anything to hurt you. I never will. Please don’t feel you have to answer this right away. It’s enough for me to know that I no longer have to lie to the people who taught me to value the truth. Mary Ann sends her love. Everything is fine at 28 Barbary Lane. Your loving son, MICHAEL

Suppose for a moment that you were allowed to enter heaven without holiness. What would you do? What possible enjoyment could you feel there? To which of all the saints would you join yourself, and by whose side would you sit down? Their pleasures are not your pleasures, their tastes not your tastes, their character not your character. How could you possibly be happy, if you had not been holy on earth? Now perhaps you love the company of the light and the careless, the worldly-minded and the covetous, the reveller and the pleasure-seeker, the ungodly and the profane. There will be none such in heaven. Now perhaps you think the saints of God too strict and particular, and serious. You rather avoid them. You have no delight in their society. There will be no other company in heaven. Now perhaps you think praying, and Scripture-reading, and hymn singing, dull and melancholy, and stupid work—a thing to be tolerated now and then, but not enjoyed. You reckon the Sabbath a burden and a weariness; you could not possibly spend more than a small part of it in worshipping God. But remember, heaven is a never-ending Sabbath. The inhabitants thereof rest not day or night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty” and singing the praise of the Lamb. How could an unholy man find pleasure in occupation such as this? Think you that such an one would delight to meet David, and Paul, and John, after a life spent in doing the very things they spoke against? Would he take sweet counsel with them, and find that he and they had much in common?—Think you, above all, that he would rejoice to meet Jesus, the Crucified One, face to face, after cleaving to the sins for which He died, after loving His enemies and despising His friends? Would he stand before Him with confidence, and join in the cry, “This is our God; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation”? (Isa. xxv. 9.) Think you not rather that the tongue of an unholy man would cleave to the roof of his mouth with shame, and his only desire would be to be cast out! He would feel a stranger in a land he knew not, a black sheep amidst Christ’s holy flock. The voice of Cherubim and Seraphim, the song of Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven, would be a language he could not understand. The very air would seem an air he could not breathe. I know not what others may think, but to me it does seem clear that heaven would be a miserable place to an unholy man. It cannot be otherwise. People may say, in a vague way, “they hope to go to heaven;” but they do not consider what they say. There must be a certain “meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light.” Our hearts must be somewhat in tune. To reach the holiday of glory, we must pass through the training school of grace. We must be heavenly-minded, and have heavenly tastes, in the life that now is, or else we shall never find ourselves in heaven, in the life to come.

I think one of the reasons that I feel empty after watching a lot of TV, and one of the things that makes TV seductive, is that it gives the illusion of relationships with people. It's a way to have people in the room talking and being entertaining, but it doesn't require anything of me. I mean, I can see them, they can't see me. And, and, they're there for me, and I can, I can receive from the TV, I can receive entertainment and stimulation. Without having to give anything back but the most tangential kind of attention. And that is very seductive. The problem is it's also very empty. Because one of the differences about having a real person there is that number one, I've gotta do some work. Like, he pays attention to me, I gotta pay attention to him. You know: I watch him, he watches me. The stress level goes up. But there's also, there's something nourishing about it, because I think like as creatures, we've all got to figure out how to be together in the same room. And so TV is like candy in that it's more pleasurable and easier than the real food. But it also doesn't have any of the nourishment of real food. And the thing, what the book is supposed to be about is, What has happened to us, that I'm now willing--and I do this too--that I'm willing to derive enormous amounts of my sense of community and awareness of other people, from television? But I'm not willing to undergo the stress and awkwardness and potential shit of dealing with real people. And that as the Internet grows, and as our ability to be linked up, like--I mean, you and I coulda done this through e-mail, and I never woulda had to meet you, and that woulda been easier for me. Right? Like, at a certain point, we're gonna have to build some machinery, inside our guts, to help us deal with this. Because the technology is just gonna get better and better and better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. Which is all right. In low doses, right? But if that's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die. In a meaningful way, you're going to die.

Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, “What are you thinking about?” you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones—the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you’d be ashamed to be caught thinking. Someone like that—someone who refuses to put off joining the elect—is a kind of priest, a servant of the gods, in touch with what is within him and what keeps a person undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens. With what leaves us dyed indelibly by justice, welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes—whatever we’re assigned—not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think. He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us—and it carries us. He keeps in mind that all rational things are related, and that to care for all human beings is part of being human. Which doesn’t mean we have to share their opinions. We should listen only to those whose lives conform to nature. And the others? He bears in mind what sort of people they are—both at home and abroad, by night as well as day—and who they spend their time with. And he cares nothing for their praise—men who can’t even meet their own standards.

I give in,” she gasped. “What has turned your evening into such a dreadful affair?” “What or whom?” “‘ Whom’?” she echoed, tilting her head as she looked at him. “This grows even more interesting.” “I can think of any number of adjectives to describe all of the ‘whoms’ I have had the pleasure of meeting this evening, but ‘interesting’ is not one of them.” “Now, now,” she chided, “don’t be rude. I did see you chatting with my brothers, after all.” He nodded gallantly, tightening his hand slightly at her waist as they swung around in a graceful arc. “My apologies. The Bridgertons are, of course, excluded from my insults.” “We are all relieved, I’m sure.” Simon cracked a smile at her deadpan wit. “I live to make Bridgertons happy.” “Now that is a statement that may come back to haunt you,” she chided. “But in all seriousness, what has you in such a dither? If your evening has gone that far downhill since our interlude with Nigel, you’re in sad straits, indeed.” “How shall I put this,” he mused, “so that I do not completely offend you?” “Oh, go right ahead,” she said blithely. “I promise not to be offended.” Simon grinned wickedly. “A statement that may come back to haunt you.” She blushed slightly. The color was barely noticeable in the shadowy candlelight, but Simon had been watching her closely. She didn’t say anything, however, so he added, “Very well, if you must know, I have been introduced to every single unmarried lady in the ballroom.” A strange snorting sound came from the vicinity of her mouth. Simon had the sneaking suspicion that she was laughing at him. “I have also,” he continued, “been introduced to all of their mothers.” She gurgled. She actually gurgled. “Bad show,” he scolded. “Laughing at your dance partner.” “I’m sorry,” she said, her lips tight from trying not to smile. “No, you’re not.” “All right,” she admitted, “I’m not. But only because I have had to suffer the same torture for two years. It’s difficult to summon too much pity for a mere evening’s worth.

I BELIEVE THAT we know much more about God than we admit that we know, than perhaps we altogether know that we know. God speaks to us, I would say, much more often than we realize or than we choose to realize. Before the sun sets every evening, he speaks to each of us in an intensely personal and unmistakable way. His message is not written out in starlight, which in the long run would make no difference; rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference. Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us. Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself, especially no one of our age, which has been variously termed the age of anxiety, the lost generation, the beat generation, the lonely crowd. Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him. But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge? Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still. Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it all adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.